The Knicks are still around 8 million shy of the salary floor and have about 18.4 million in cap space after the additions. They also could use a vet PG, although the Fiz love for Allen may mean they're confident riding with DSJ/Allen and Frank or Zo as an emergency third stringer. I prefer that because then we have the cap space to eat a contract and gain another asset (I'd point to the Iguodala trade to Memphis as something we could try to mimic).
Overall thoughts, compared to KD or Kyrie or anyone else this is underwhelming of course but on it's own merits, these aren't bad moves. No long term money commitment and the key additions are all slight overpays but reasonable (you always pay more to trim the years so it's fair).
- Gibson 10 per seems a bit high but you're paying for his presence.
- Randle with the option year is a good risk to take. Commit to the third year and I'm less of a fan as you all know. But when you couple Randle's addition with us adding two bigs that can hit jumpers, it works a bit better for me. The key to maximizing his game is to get him to care on defense...idk how that'll go. A non-guaranteed contract from a player entering his prime with production that Randle has will be a really good asset after this coming season.
- Portis is a bit of a head scratcher after Randle. But he has the size to combine with Taj and give us a big tandem off the bench that really opens the floor. I think NY will embrace his style of play, combo of grit and shooting. Honestly, we could have done without this one after Randle. I'd rather have used the additional space for asset accumulation but he locks up our four big man rotation and is an upgrade to Luke Kornet who was a good shot blocker but abysmal in pick and roll d (plus Taj is still a positive sum defensive player though not what he used to be so we always have one good defensive big on the floor).
Randle/Taj
Mitch/Portis
Good defense/offense balance and when you need space you'll have shooters that can fill each role. Do I love it? Nah. Do I hate it? Nah. We have to hit the salary floor and I could see Portis and Randle being movable. Plus we're injecting a lot more toughness to the line-up. So toughness + shooting are nice and needed additions.
- Bullock fills a need too. He's a 3-D guy, good motor and another one that won't play soft. He matches some of the other guys in that he's paid a fair value for his game too. I think his play style like Portis will grow on us (hope?). We need the shooting anyway.
Are we a playoff team? Probably not. I'm cool with an improved team where we can have better complimenting pieces and my assumption is that all the talk about people accepting their roles came into play during contract negotiations too. Gimme a lottery slot with these new odds and a year to see how everyone develops. If young guys surprise us and develop faster or Barrett is special out of the gate, our trajectory changes quickly but if not we should be moving in the right direction regardless with another lottery player to add to the mix and a platoon of expiring players that still have value. If you're not stressing other teams, this is staying the course done decent. I'd have preferred one less big man and using that cap space for assets. But we can still sell off some cap for another asset like I mentioned above. Not bad at all.
Why the fukk do we need Randle, Portis AND Taj 
