Knicks head to summer league still searching for backup center
Knicks center Jericho Sims. Credit: Brad Penner
LAS VEGAS — As the Las Vegas Summer League starts on Friday, the focus on the court will be the players trying to earn a spot on the Knicks' roster. But in the stands, hallways, meeting rooms and dinners, the front office will face a more important and timely task.
The Knicks have completed their major jobs this summer — trading for Mikal Bridges and re-signing OG Anunoby to a five-year contract. But there is still work to be done with the rotation, namely securing a capable center to provide insurance in the wake of the departure of Isaiah Hartenstein.
Right now, Jericho Sims is the lone backup center and even he — 6-10 and 250 pounds, but more of a mobile big man —hardly has the size and strength that Tom Thibodeau seeks from the position. So do the Knicks go out and pay for one, trade for one or get creative with some sort of makeshift small-ball lineup?
The free-agent market has nearly dried up by now with few accomplished centers who fit Thibodeau’s wish list for a big man: defense at the rim, rebounding prowess and toughness. JaVale McGee, at 36 years old, is available, as is Tristan Thompson, back from a 25-game suspension last season for performance-enhancing drugs. Beyond that it is break-glass-in-case-of-emergency types: Bismack Biyombo, Omer Yurtseven or Damian Jones.
The trade market is perilous, too, with few big men available and the ones that could be pried loose likely coming with a high price tag. The most mentioned possibility is Walker Kessler, who has fallen out of favor in Utah and is reportedly being shopped. But the Knicks learned the risks of trying to deal with Danny Ainge and the Jazz two years ago when they pursued Donovan Mitchell only to see the price grow until they couldn’t stomach it. So is it worth a backup center if the cost is a key rotation piece like Deuce McBride and the few remaining draft assets?
So, do the Knicks fall back and bring in their own free agent, Precious Achiuwa, who they did not put a qualifying offer on the table to retain? He is not a true center, but with a half-season in the system he certainly has already shown that he can be a solid contributor — particularly in case of the worst-case scenario, another Mitchell Robinson injury.
Achiuwa will tell you he is not a center, but at 6-9, mobile and athletic, he offers a different type of player than Robinson or Hartenstein. Offensively gifted, he did have 14 double-digit rebounding games last season (12 after joining the Knicks in the Anunoby trade from Toronto) and he does offer at least a marginal three-point threat. He was just 13-for-50 beyond the arc for the Knicks, but he connected on 35.9% while launching 156 attempts during the 2021-22 season.
But Achiuwa, while providing insurance, would not provide much more size — and maybe less defense — than the Knicks could get by opting for a lineup that Thibodeau has resisted, putting the 6-8 Julius Randle at center.
It wasn’t just Thibodeau who didn’t love the idea. Randle, during the season, was asked about it and said, “Offensively, my role is a little different as a five. Usually I’m [matched up] against fours, [job is] to space the floor. I’m in a lot more screen-and-roll actions, rolling to the basket, putting pressure on the rim that way. A little bit more responsibility offensively when it comes to that as far as setting screens and stuff like that.”
Randle would flourish offensively at the center spot against a less mobile defender, and Anunoby would help make up for any defensive deficiencies. Anunoby's long-armed defense has allowed him to match up not just with any wing in the league but shift onto anyone from a speedy point guard to the likes of Joel Embiid and Nikola Jokic.
“I do think they can,” an Eastern Conference scout said about the Knicks playing Randle at center. “I don't think it'll work, necessarily, against the elite, so I don't know how much I love that. The argument for it working is, yes, it should work when OG is playing, because he's so versatile and defending all over the place. And there should be somewhere that you can put Randle . . . The issue you're going to run into is like we saw OG guarding Embiid in that Philly series, and he was very effective, right? So he was super effective, but that was also against a somewhat physically limited Embiid. What is it like when it's against an elite healthy guy, you know, Embiid, Jokic, how does that go?”
The counter to that would be, what 7-footer has had much success against a healthy Embiid or Jokic? At least the Knicks can head into these conversations with the assurance that a backup center is a slight problem compared to what they may have faced in years before this.
Steve Popper covers the Knicks for Newsday. He has spent nearly three decades covering the Knicks and the NBA, along with just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.
