Knicks center Enes Kanter plans to save his opt-out decision for Friday’s deadline, but he tells Marc Berman of The New York Post “there could be four, five teams” ready to contact him if he chooses free agency.
Kanter has three more days to determine whether to give up an $18.6MM salary for next season and try to better that figure on the open market. He put up solid numbers in his first year in New York, averaging a double-double for the second time in his career with 14.1 points and 11.0 rebounds per night. However, there are only a handful of teams with enough cap room to offer him a significant raise, and the demand is uncertain for a traditional center.
“My thing is, if I can, I’d just want to stay with the Knicks,” Kanter said. “I played here last year and I loved it, loved the people here. It’s not just about the money. It’s about the whole organization. But that’s the decision I’m going to make the last day. It’s not 100 percent. I just keeping talking to my agent. There’s a lot of teams out there if I opt out, they’re already interested in me. That’s why I’m taking my time.”
Kanter adds that his interest in remaining with the Knicks increased when David Fizdale was hired as the new head coach. Fizdale held a two-hour meeting with Kanter at the draft combine last month and encouraged him to work on his 3-point shot. Kanter has gotten help from former Knicks developmental coach Chris Brickley and has posted videos of his long-range shot.
“With Coach Fizdale, I want to stay more,’’ Kanter added. “I know his mentality, I know how much freedom he gives to his players. It’s going to help my decision for sure. I think he’s going to change a lot of things. He seems like a relationship with him is like a friendship relationship. It’s not a player-coach relationship. I talked to him for two hours and it gives you so much confidence.’’
Knicks should resign him for like 3/39 or 4/44.
No way. That’s way to much for someone who is unplayable in the playoffs. Also KP is a 5 long term.
A non-playoff contending team is probably the right place for a guy who is unplayable in the playoffs.
my thoughts exactly
So because the Knicks are a bad a team they should give big money to bad players. That’s a terrible philosophy.
KP isn’t a 5.
No. He needs to go away.
Bucks would love him!
Dudes thinking of Turing down 19 mill.. his stats say he’s better than he is. No defense and no 3 point jumper making him useless on a winning team
Yeah, if you play the Golden State style of offense, but not if you play a different offense. It’s all cyclical. The team that beats Golden State will NOT be playing their style of basketball. It wasn’t THAT long ago that the league was dominated by interior big men like Shaq and Zo and Ewing and Hakeem. This is not the NFL. Teams need to stop being followers and experiment with different styles of ball because every style has a weakness.
The rule changes over the past 15 years has more to do with the change in style than anything else. Things are only cyclical if there are no outside factors affecting them.
Knicks need to sign him to a 3 year contract
But can they write it off as charity?
Rofl 4-5 teams in China? Hed better be careful though. They play super fast in that league
Agree with hiflew, can everybody stop thinking about the other team, you do what you do & see if GSW can stop you, I have no doubt that if Shaq was in his prime right now, like when he (not Kobe, but Shaq) won the 3 titles back to back (which GSW haven’t done yet) he wouldn’t be kept in the bench because he can’t match with the Warriors, he would be on the floor 40+ MPG, dominating & destroying the Warriors, they would have nothing to stop him, so I actually think the 5 is the only (or best) way to beat small ball, if you play small ball against them you will always loose, so to beat them you have to play any other system, & I cannot see one that would hurt them more than a big 5.
By the way why isn’t Kanter playable in the playoffs, centers are very important in playoffs, look at Philly, Embiid was the focal point, also Horford was by far the best Celtic in the playoffs, AD was unstoppable too, Capella didn’t do bad neither.
Lol obviously Shaq would dominate. Nobody is saying he wouldn’t, especially b/c he could defend pick and roll and protect the rim, and dominate in the post, and also knowing how to playmake out of the post, which very few guys can do efficiently now. And Kanter is arguably the worst defender I’ve ever seen. He improved last year after he lost 40 pounds, but he is still bad