Lakers battling Bucks for Ayton
2) Lack of cap space. The Brooklyn Nets have a lot of cap space, and then it takes a lot of finagling and massaging of the cap to clear space with other teams. A few teams, such as Portland and maybe Utah, could make trades to get themselves under the cap, but we're just looking at Brooklyn, depending on what the Nets do with their free agents. Why don't any teams have cap space? Well…
3) Everybody is looking toward 2026. The hope for a lot of teams is probably that Luka Dončić won't be impressed by what the Lakers are doing and decline to sign the extension that will likely be available to him on Aug. 2. From there, he'll at least test the waters of free agency in 2026, and then they can pounce with their pitches. I'm assuming a lot of them will include how bad Nico Harrison is and how they'd never be like him. Have to play to your audience! Anyway, teams have positioned themselves to have flexibility in 2026. Trae Young could also be a free agent then, if he wants, as can a lot of other top or significant players in the league.
4) Trades are kind of the wave for change now. The Paul George situation from 2024 was kind of fluky. As we've seen already this summer, trades are the big way of making changes to your roster. Kevin Durant to Houston. Kristaps Porziņģis to Atlanta. Desmond Bane to Orlando. And a lot more deals reshaping rosters. That's the way, at least this summer, to make things happen.
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New York Times
34 minutes ago
- New York Times
Mike Brown has faced pressure before, but this time might be different. Welcome to the Knicks
Mike Brown is familiar with pressure. He coached LeBron James to his first MVP and NBA Finals appearance. He was the Los Angeles Lakers coach tasked with steering the final years of Kobe Bryant's greatness in the right direction. He was right next to Steve Kerr and Stephen Curry as they orchestrated the league's latest dynasty. Advertisement He's been to the finals as a head coach. He's won four NBA titles as an assistant/associate coach with the San Antonio Spurs and Golden State Warriors. He made a dysfunctional franchise respectable as a head coach. He's been fired after one year as a head coach. He's been fired in the middle of seasons. The New York Knicks wanted experience when looking for Tom Thibodeau's replacement, per league sources, and that's why Brown is now their guy. On Wednesday, multiple league sources confirmed to The Athletic that Brown and the Knicks are working on finalizing a contract to make him the franchise's next head coach. The hiring comes weeks after New York fired Thibodeau following the team's first Eastern Conference finals appearance in 25 years. But there's pressure, and then there's New York. Brown's about to learn what it's like to be a Knick. The 55-year-old coach isn't just walking into one of the NBA's most followed and starved franchises. That's pressure in itself. But he's now the head coach of the team that made it very clear that doing something it hadn't done in a quarter century still wasn't good enough. The Knicks, per league sources, are singularly focused on winning a championship. They believe Brown gives them the best chance to do that. Whether Brown will be an upgrade over Thibodeau for this iteration of New York basketball is yet to be seen. We're months away from learning that. What we do know, though, is that everything that comes with being in New York, Brown has gone through something similar. LeBron. Kobe. The lights don't get much brighter than when standing next to those two. The two-time NBA Coach of the Year was the only candidate the Knicks ended up bringing back for a second interview, per league sources. It was a patient search that featured multiple twists and turns. New York's front office led by Leon Rose reached out to employed head coaches (like Houstons' Ime Udoka and Dallas' Jason Kidd), assistant coaches (like Minnesota's Micah Nori, Dallas' Sean Sweeney and New Orleans' James Borrego), recently fired head coaches (like Brown and Taylor Jenkins) and even held a conversation with South Carolina women's basketball coach Dawn Staley. Rose and Co., per league sources, didn't feel rushed to make a hire since the Knicks were the only team in the NBA with a vacancy. Advertisement New York went into the initial stages of the hiring process with Brown's name circled. Per league sources, the Knicks liked Brown's extensive résumé and the fact that he's worn many hats in the NBA. New York, led by stars Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns, liked that Brown has worked with James, Bryant and Curry. The Knicks liked that Brown came up under Popovich, worked alongside Kerr and won championships with both. New York was impressed at how Brown turned the Sacramento Kings around and helped them win 45-plus games in back-to-back seasons for the first time in the lowly franchise's history since 2006. Before he was fired by Sacramento after 31 games last season, Brown helped turn De'Aaron Fox into an All-Star. In 2022-23, Brown and the Kings had the best offensive efficiency since tracking began in 1996. Now, Brown is tasked with pushing the Knicks to the next level, into a tier of champions. The Knicks' offense, while it finished the regular season with the fifth-best rating in the NBA, was a bit deceiving. Things started hot for New York on that end of the floor until around the top of the calendar year, when teams started regularly guarding Towns with smaller, athletic wings and putting their centers on Josh Hart. The Knicks' offense, despite all of its firepower in the starting lineup, ranked just 16th from Jan. 1 until the end of the regular season (Brunson missed a month due to injury in March). In the postseason, veteran-laden New York struggled with the up-and-coming, injured Detroit Pistons in the first round of the playoffs. In the second round against the Boston Celtics, the Knicks found themselves down by 20 points late in both Games 1 and 2 before pulling off miraculous comeback wins that helped them eventually take down the defending champions. Ultimately, New York ended up in the Eastern Conference finals. That's an achievement worth celebrating. However, even with that success, it's also easy to understand how the franchise's decision-makers looked at how the Knicks got to that point and came to the conclusion that this team needed a shake-up in order to get to the next level. *Enter Mike Brown* Advertisement The Knicks are positioned as well as any team in the Eastern Conference to make the leap next season. On paper, New York should be one of the conference's last two teams standing. Yet, there's so much more that goes into winning a championship than names on a sheet. There's talent. There's luck. There's health. The Knicks aren't promised another trip back to the conference finals, but they're expecting one. Brown comes into a situation that he can only come out of as a superhero if he takes New York to the NBA Finals or beyond. That's it. Anything less will be considered a failure, unfair or not. New York's decision-makers put those expectations on their new head coach. The fans didn't. The media didn't. The pressure is tremendous. The Knicks feel like they got the right person to end a 50-plus year title drought. And maybe they do. We won't know that answer, though, for quite some time. What we do know right now is that of all the coaches available to the Knicks, no one was more familiar with the gravity of the situation than Brown. That's at least a good start.
USA Today
35 minutes ago
- USA Today
How bad is the Boston Celtics' talent drain?
The Boston Celtics have endured a significant talent drain since the end of the 2024-25 season. Team president Brad Stevens has traded away veterans Jrue Holiday and Kristaps Porzingis, while backup big man Luke Kornet has left in free agency, and veteran forward Al Horford's future remains unclear. Stevens has added Anfernee Simons, Josh Minott and Luka Garza to help balance the roster. However, it's clear that as things stand, the talent level within Boston's rotation has taken a dip. The Celtics are suddenly incredibly thin at the power forward and center positions. There's limited depth and a lack of proven NBA talent. Minott and Garza are both big swings from the front office, with the hope that they can develop and impress with larger roles than they've been afforded since entering the NBA. In a recent episode of the "Taylor Talks Celtics" podcast, hosts Adam Taylor and Billy Calabrese discuss the talent drain the Celtics are facing and what that could mean for the upcoming season. They discuss the upside of being a rebuilding or re-tooling team, along with how Boston's season could look from a wins and losses standpoint. You can watch the full podcast episode by clicking on the embedded video above. Watch the "Taylor Talks Celtics" podcast on: YouTube: Website:
Fox News
38 minutes ago
- Fox News
Knicks pick Mike Brown as franchise's next head coach after Tom Thibodeau's shocking dismissal: report
The New York Knicks hadn't advanced to the Eastern Conference finals since 2000 before doing so in May. New York ultimately lost to the Indiana Pacers in six games. Shortly after New York's playoff exit, the Knicks announced the organization would be moving on from coach Tom Thibodeau. A wide-ranging coaching search ensued, which included multiple interview request denials. On Wednesday, the search reportedly culminated with the selection of Mike Brown. According to ESPN, the Knicks are expected to name Brown as the franchise's next head coach. A contract for Brown has yet to be finalized, but both sides appear to be making progress on a formal agreement. Brown's pending arrival in New York City comes nearly one month after Thibodeau's exit. Brown spent the past three NBA seasons coaching the Sacramento Kings. He also had two stints as the Cleveland Cavaliers' head coach and led the Los Angeles Lakers from 2011-12. He was named the Golden State Warriors' associate head coach in 2016. Brown coached several notable NBA greats, including LeBron James, Stephen Curry, the late Kobe Bryant and others in his career. Brown also spent multiple seasons learning under five-time NBA Finals-winning coach Gregg Popovich during the early portion of his career. Brown has led a team to the NBA Finals just one time in his coaching career. Popovich and the Spurs swept Brown and Cavaliers in the 2007 finals. Follow Fox News Digital's sports coverage on X, and subscribe to the Fox News Sports Huddle newsletter.
