New York Knicks: Playing keep or discard with team options

The New York Knicks are going to have their hands full this summer, as a huge portion of their roster is under team control during the upcoming offseason.

If you’re a New York Knicks fan, you are probably filled with countless unpleasant flashbacks in recent memory. The most vivid one that comes to mind, of course, being the 2019 offseason fiasco.

After failing to sign a single big-name free agent, the Knicks rightfully opted for a different pathway, signing numerous veteran role players on short-term contracts with team-control in each one of them.

The plan was easy to follow even for the most clueless fans when it comes to management. Sign quality veterans, trade them away later on in exchange for draft picks and/or young players, resulting in a ton of financial flexibility moving forward.

In a move that surprised no one, the New York Knicks did not follow this simple/designed to succeed-plan of theirs and kept their veterans past the trade deadline day, even with the team falling short in terms of making the playoffs.

To be fair, the Knicks traded away their best player out of these new signings, Marcus Morris, for a first-round pick, though this doesn’t change the fact that more work should have been done.

As the eighth seed appears to be even further out of reach as each day goes by, the Knicks have to think about the future. With a bunch of dead weight around, the big question is, who stays, and who goes?