The Knicks are hoping Lithuanian small forward Mindaugas Kuzminskas can help fill the void left by losing Derrick Williams to Miami, writes Marc Berman of The New York Post. Kuzminskas signed with New York Saturday, choosing the Knicks over the Lakers and Hawks. The 6’9″ small forward played in the Spanish League this season and has been compared with Danilo Gallinari. “We felt like we needed an agile, mobile 3 that had some ability to shoot distance and spread the court,’’ said team president Phil Jackson. “It may take him an adjustment to NBA play — we understand. It gives us another opportunity to play smaller, quicker with a wide extension of spacing.” The Knicks gave Kuzminskas a two-year deal, using almost all of their $2.9MM room exception for 2016/17. A source told Berman that Jackson hopes to add shooting guard Sasha Vujacic to the roster, along with a “cheap” veteran big man.
There’s more from the Atlantic Division:
- Reuniting with former mentor and current Nets coach Kenny Atkinson and getting a chance to be the leader of a rebuilding franchise led Jeremy Lin to Brooklyn, Brian Lewis of the New York Post details.
- Sergio Rodriguez will miss Tuesday’s game with his Spanish team to finalize a deal with the Sixers, according to Orazio Cauchi of Sportando. He agreed to a one-year, $8MM contract with Philadelphia last week.
- Considering the Celtics added Al Horford, it’s best for Jared Sullinger that the power forward is now an unrestricted free agent because of an expected lack of playing time in Boston, A. Sherrod Blakely of CSNNE.com writes. It wouldn’t be surprising to see Sullinger land a one or two-year deal worth $6MM per season, Blakely adds.
lol at the knicks replacing Galloway with Vujacic. Also, how many bigs do they need to sign? Clearly, they dont want to play Porzingis at the 5 this year for some reason, even though its clearly his best position and gives them the most matchup advantages. For that matter, its also looking like they’re still staying away from Melo at the 4, which is just dumb, but thats been beaten over the last few years at this point…
They’ve had a good offseason, but the 2 moves that are more than questionable, if not downright bad, are 4 years on Noah, and letting Galloway go, when they could have kept him cheaply with early bird rights…Hopefully for them, the Gallinari dude is also capable defensively
No, they replaced Galloway with Jennings.
They could have had both. Jennings doesnt take anything away from Galloway. Galloway is a 2 way combo guard. Vujacic is a combo guard. Regardless, I’d still take Galloway over Jennings for that team. Either way, its bad
Well good thing you’re not running the team. Galloway was good the first two months after that he was TERRIBLE. Also Porzingis is definitely not ready to play at the 5. This team needs a low post scorer and KP’s body isn’t developed yet so he’s not the answer.
link to twitter.com
I can’t click this link since I’m on a phone and I’m too lazy to go to the website and check it out, but Porzingis does need to add a bit more weight. He can play there if they need him to, but he probably needs at least one more year of developing/bulking up before he should be expected to bang down low with other bigs on a night-to-night basis over the course of a full season.
I’m not saying he needs to be at the 5 full time. I’m just saying that he should see minutes there.
The link was about how Galloway was 15th in the NBA in DBPM at the 2 spot, and also mentioned his 3 point shooting. Pretty much backing up what I said
Lol Galloway averaged 28% from 3, 33% from the field, and 68% from the free throw line in the second half. He’s a decent defender but that’s it. No way he’s better than Jennings.
The second unit backcourt is just fine with Jennings and Holiday. Jennings will bring scoring and passing off of the bench which is what we need. Galloway was expendable. Also Galloway wouldn’t be playing point guard since it was reported that Phil considered him playing the 1 a failed experiment.
Jared is always overweight and lacks discipline.. Not needed in Boston with the arrival of Al Horford.
Imagine how fat Sullinger is going to get with a long term contract. Oliver Miller 2.0