Re: Around the NBA:2025-6
Posted: Fri Jun 12, 2026 9:40 am
My bad on Hart. But there’s no question the Knicks have made significant and good use of their bench and that their bench has been an important element of their success. So I think my point stands. Depth is an important ingredient to winning a championship (or at least making the finals) and the Knicks are an example of the important role of team depth even though they don’t have depth on par with OKC or the Spurs. I agree with you that a big part of “depth” is a coach’s willingness to use their bench and that’s where I continue to have a problem with Finch.Q-is-here wrote: ↑Fri Jun 12, 2026 7:33 amLip, Hart starts for the Knicks! The Knicks bench is an assortment of hard-working, but very mediocre players.Lipoli390 wrote: ↑Thu Jun 11, 2026 11:58 pmQ-is-here wrote: ↑Thu Jun 11, 2026 11:14 am
Lip, I disagree on two out of three points.
On #1 - I agree that your top two guys probably need to be 33 or less, but after that, all bets are off (and even then we have a couple of fairly recent exceptions in Steph Curry and LeBron James both being 34 and 35 respectively when they won their last titles as the #1 guy). There have been plenty of really critical rotation guys well into their 30s on title teams.
On #3 - Are the Knicks deep? No so sure...you're deep until you're not I guess. Shamet and McBride have been awful in this series. The Knicks have no one like Alex Caruso or Dylan Harper coming off their bench. Both those guys are game-changers in different ways. I don't even think they have someone as good as Naz Reid was for us in this year's playoffs.
Regarding #1, Steph and LeBron, like MJ before them, are unique. But more importantly, I didn’t say you can’t win with a rotation player in his mid 30s. But when we look at the final four playoff teams this year and look at teams that have been making it to finals recently, their key rotation players, especially their two or three best players, have been predominantly in their 20s with maybe one or two in their early 30s - more the former than latter. That shouldn’t be surprising. Players are generally in their prime peak in their late 20s, sometimes extending into their early 30s. So we should expect teams with rotations largely in that age range to be more successful. There are always exceptions but those exceptions don’t change the general rule.
Regarding #3, I agree the Spurs have better depth than the Knicks. But I think the Knicks have very good depth. Yes, they might not have a bench player as good as Naz, but I think their talent runs pretty deep with Hart, Robinson and Shamet among others coming off the bench. I wouldn’t say the team with the most depth wins. If that were true, then OKC would be in the finals. My point is that all these top team have good depth, suggesting that depth is important to contending for a championship. I don’t think lack of depth was the Wolves main problem last season, but I’d still like to see the Wolves enter next season with a stronger bench - which might happen just through the development of TSJ, Beringer and Rocco. But we’ll also be hurting from the absence of Donte.
So I’ll stand by my points 1 and 3.
I do think part of "depth" may simply be a coach's willingness to play more guys. That is one big change Mike Brown made and it appears to have paid off with a healthy starting 5 that can execute down the stretch. Thibs smh.....
I’d sum up my three lessons applied to the Wolves this summer as follows:
1. Stay with Ant, Jaden, Naz and Ayo (re-sign him). They are just now entering the primes of their respective careers, which is typically the age range of the top two or three players on teams that win championships. SGA was 26 LEBron 27, MJ 28, Shaq 28, Curry 27 etc when they won their first championships. Yes, there are some exceptions on the younger side with Kobe winning his first at age 21 and Magic at age 20. But patience is the watch word for me with the Wolves top three or four players (counting Ayo) right now. ‘
2. Don’t go chasing 34+ year old former stars to be one of your top three players. Looking back I could only find a handful of championship teams in the last 30 years whose best or second best player was 34 or older. The Bulls who won when MJ was 34 and 35 (note Pippen was 30, 32, and 33 those seasons). The Lakers won when LeBron was 35. The Warriors won when Curry was 34. Miami won when Shaq was 34 (Wade was 24). The Spurs won when David Robinson was 37 (Duncan was 26). Mavs won when Kidd was 37 (Dirk was 32, Marion was 32). Spurs won when Duncan was 38 (Parker was 31). That’s only 8 out of 30 championship teams whose #1 or #2 player was 34 or older and those players were all freakishly great stars who were incredibly durable through their careers. But even LeBron, MJ, Shaq, and Curry never won a title or even made the finals after age 35. None of this means it doesn’t make sense to bring in a mid-30s role player like Horford who was a key contributor to the Celtics last championship (Holiday was 33 that year while White was 28, Tatum 26, Brown 27, Pritchard 26, Kornet 28); however, it does suggest that looking for a guy in their mid-30s (Kyrie, Durant, etc.) to be one of your your top three players is a fools errand and that’s before you consider who or what you’d have to give up to get him or their particular durability track record.
3. We need to make sure we have quality depth behind our starters - going at least 8 deep and preferably deeper. The Wolves depth is particularly challenged with the injury to Donte. Therefore, depth has to be a key consideration in TC’s off-season maneuvering. Further, Finch has to start making more and better use of his bench and if he won’t TC has to replace him with a head coach who will.