Knicks forward/center Precious Achiuwa has strained his left hamstring and will be sidelined for at least the next two-to-four weeks, New York has announced (Twitter link). At that point, the 6’8″ big man will have the injury reevalauted.
It’s a big blow for New York’s frontcourt depth, compounding the health issues the team was already facing in that department to kick off its 2024/25 season. New York is already expecting to be without center Mitchell Robinson until at least January.
Losing Robinson and now Achiuwa means the Knicks will have to lean on deeper-bench options behind All-Star big man Karl-Anthony Towns, with Jericho Sims seemingly the likeliest player to benefit from a major minutes uptick. Seven-foot rookie center Ariel Hukporti, the No. 58 pick in this year’s draft, could conceivably even get a look. Forwards such as OG Anunoby could also see action at the five in smaller lineups.
As James L. Edwards of The Athletic notes (via Twitter), the Knicks’ bench will be exceedingly green to start the year. Only three of the team’s healthy reserves have prior NBA playing experience.
New York first acquired Achiuwa as part of its trade for Anunoby midway through 2023/24. He proved his mettle as a talented two-way presence in the paint for a 50-win Knicks squad. Across his 49 contests with the team (18 starts), Achiuwa posted solid averages of 7.6 PPG, 7.2 RPG, 1.1 APG, 1.1 BPG and 0.6 SPG.
The Memphis alum earned a one-year, $6MM deal to stick with New York as a free agent this summer.
New York’s starting unit of Towns, Anunoby, All-NBA point guard Jalen Brunson, three-and-D shooting guard Josh Hart, and newly acquired All-Defensive forward Mikal Bridges is shaping up to be one of the most fearsome in the entire league. With health-related challenges emerging early on, it remains to be seen how head coach Tom Thibodeau will balance a desire to lean heavily on his starters for early wins with the team’s bigger postseason aspirations.
4th place in east at best
Dont ever make another prediction
MORE minutes for KAT
KAT trade immediately destroyed NYKs chances
It was kinda the Bridges trade, before signing a backup / (pseudo-starter?) big, before being hard-capped at the 2nd apron.
They could have thrown $5M at Drummond, then trade Bogi & Shake Milton to the Nets and take on the hard-cap. Maybe they don’t feel compelled to trade for KAT at the expense of losing two rotation players, one of which being their best move-3pt shooter last year in Donte.
Also, what’s up with Bridges’ jumpshot? That thing was fugly in the preseason.
I like the clear two paths taken by the Knicks and the Warriors this offseason. The Warriors decided to not go super hard at the “superstar” this offseason and instead just fill the roster as deep as possible with guys who arent necessarily stars, but who are good enough to start on many, if not all teams, so now the Warriors look like a juggernaut. The Knicks went after KAT so they could have the “big 3” but they were and are be a better team with Randle and Donte, and currently look not great.
Warriors need size. They ar an aged good team. A true big helps Dre and Wiggins. And anchors the D. They should have signed Wiseman.
IMO Duren is the perfect guy for this team. He makes them a contender.
Al , I’m with you on Wiseman, Warriors should have stuck with him. But the organization has long had deep, systemic problems with player development.
The defense for 10 years of poor player development results is that young players must first learn a difficult system, that standards are high, and it’s always “win-now”.
The history of strained relationships between Kerr and young players (Wiseman, Poole, Kuminga, and Moody most recently, but others came before) has created frustration and resentment in the young players and their camps. Poole, at least, got paid before the collapse in relations. But the relationships with Moody, Kuminga, and Wiseman were troubled by the middle of their 3rd seasons.
True or not, we’ve heard recently on the Gil Arena and Jeff Teague podcasts that the Warriors are the worst destination in the league for a young player. Draymond’s and KD’s public comments haven’t helped. Our coach has a rep for being aloof, perhaps disingenuous.
I believe the Warriors org knows it has to improve, and that they want not only to sign Moody and Kuminga, but establish a positive long-term relationship with them.
Crap, Precious was an iron man last year. Hopefully he’s ready sometime in November. I doubt we make any deals, it’s time for Sims and Hukporti to show out.
After this season, we’ll all look back and say that the mistake was to not retain Hartenstein, even If that meant letting go of Devincenzo and/or Hart to squeeze Hartenstein in under the cap.
This lineup is superior to any they’ll have in 2024-25:
Hartenstein + Randle + OG + Bridges + Brunson
Sorry but your take is outdated and plain wrong and I’m tired of people still saying this so long after. Did IHart leaving pave the way for many of the other moves and changes, yes. He fit perfectly and everyone wanted him to come back. But NYK was limited to offering IHart around 17 mil/year per cba rules. It didn’t matter what other money they could have freed up, they offered him the max they could and he walked for the much bigger bag + great team. Sucks, but time to move on.
The mistake with Hartenstein was not giving him an extension before the 2023-24 season. The Knicks let him play out the last year of his deal and that ended with him having an early bird-rights max number at like $72.5m total for a new contract from the Knicks, no matter what. So him having to fill in for Mitch, plus the way Thibs loves to use his bigs, got Hartenstein extra looks around the league – in a year where the Knicks were capped at $72.5m for him.
So in steps another team offering more, and the Knicks can’t match.
Yeah that could be true, but only with hindsight. He hadn’t really shown enough the season before to make the Knicks consider that. He also signed his short, very reasonable contract to get the chance he got. The Mitch injury helped IHart show out and get his first big payday. I hate that he left but can’t blame him for the decision.
I don’t blame him at all. But if I was in the Knicks FO, I woulda been advocating for offering IHart a 3 for $45M (or maybe slightly less) extension instead of letting him play on his QO year. He prob takes that deal for all of the reasons you just explained, and the Knicks have security behind Mitch (before knowing they desperately need it — which they should have…cuz Mitch is often banged up)
@4Q – LOL. Thank God you’re nowhere near the Knick FO. I-Hart wasn’t extension eligible last year, so your signing of him to that extension would only have resulted in a vitiated extension and a forefeiture of up to 5 1st round picks. Good work!
Prior to last season, Hartenstein had started a total of 14 games in his career, and was on his 5th team. Very few people could have seen what he was going to produce that year, and those people should be in a front office and not commenting on here.
It sucks for Knicks fans that he’s gone, but re-writing the narrative doesn’t work.
Let go of Josh Hart? The day they acquired him the engine began to rev up. He IS the motor than runs the team. Move Hart and you lose heart.
Agree, but losing Dante may take the heart out of NY’s three point shooting.
I guess making up the CBA rules is a lot more fun than learning them.
– Even if the NYK completely stripped their roster other than Brunson, Bridges, OG and Randle (and that means trading not just Hart and DiV, but also Mitch, McBride, Sims and their 1st round picks as well, all without taking back salary), they’d still only have been able to offer I-Hart the same amount they could with Early Bird Rights.
– The NYK had no ability to extend I-Hart before last season. The entire Early Bird Rights scheme wouldn’t have much meaning if they could.
Big blow here. And you can’t bring him back too soon. Cause then a hammy can hurt you all season. I would sign a PF.
I’ve said Sims and Hukporti will have to play well. Now they really have to. I can see them keeping Warren now. I’d still like to see them sign a 4.
Warren and Toppin are only players here with some size and experience.
Knicks still have a move to make. They can use McBride n Mitch to bring in two bigs. But I wait before I do this …..,
Still this sucks …….
I said it from the draft. To watch Hukporti. Cause he at 22yrs old and playing in Europe. Can help us at backup C. Now he can play with Towns some.
Thibs magic coming ……
Knicks still have picks they can trade for a big. Center or PF. Or use in a bigger trade. Not panicking yet. But I don’t like having my starters playing big mins to start the season.
I personally don’t think they should consider trading Deuce. His contract is great and the bench will need him. No panic moves, just stay on course and see how things develop with the different core group we have now. There’s already been a lot of roster turnover. Let’s see what Sims + whoever else can do until Precious and Mitch come back. It’s all about the playoffs, better to have these injuries now.
Kolek makes possible a McBride trade. McBride has value. He and Mitch brings back good value.
I’m not the biggest fan of the KAT trade, but this news, while not good, actually makes that trade look a little better.
We at least have a starting C to start the season. The KAT trade didn’t cause Mitch to be unavailable, nor did it invoke the CBA rules that prevented us from making a competitive offer for I-Hart (who, btw, won’t be available for OKC for about the same period as Mitch won’t be for us). The KAT trade did eliminate almost all flexibility the NYK might have had to go get another C, but based on what was available, that might have been a blessing in disguise. I’d rather have KAT/Sims than the combination of Randle/Sims and what they might have found.
Don’t forget Hukporti. He is looking good.
Yep.
The Knicks will be fine, from the tone of this comment section you’d think the headline said Jalen Brunson was out for the season with an ACL injury instead of the third string big man being evaluated in 2-4 weeks
Maybe because he’s not 3rd string with Mitch not coming back til well after Precious’ “reevaluation”.
He is though. Sims is the backup C and Hart and Bridges are the backup PF.