NY Knicks: Loss to Hawks highlights Mitchell Robinson’s value

NY Knicks: Mitchell Robinson is part of the young core

If this was any other team with a ton of space – The idea of re-signing a homegrown accending 23-year-old prospect, who other teams are in love with, is a no-brainer.

However, this is the New York Knicks, so the re-signing of Mitchell Robinson has to lead to conversations such as “What about the Luka Doncic, Damian Lillard, Kawhi big-3”?

“What about Donovan Mitchell or Devin Booker?”

“What about x-superstar player who plays on a team that’s actually better than the NY Knicks right now?”

I’m all for optimism and faith in the new front office setting the stage for New York to be an attractive destination, but let’s just tone it down for a second.

Looking at realistic centers that will be available today, I don’t know who would bring the same impact as Mitchell Robinson, both today and years from now.

It’s hard to find an advanced metric that doesn’t support Mitchell Robinson growing into a terrific defensive anchor/Pick-and-roll rim runner/dominant rebounder center. His career trajectory to this point is strikingly similar to the top players of that mold – the Clint Capelas, Hassan Whitesides, DeAndre Jordans of the world.

I’ve been pounding the drum for a while now about how Robinsons’s year-by-year improvement, positive development from an incredibly raw rookie, and growth into a really good player has, well, been right in front of us.

You’ll have to look beyond traditional box scores to see how good he has been. No, he doesn’t shoot 3s or make plays out of the post. That’s ok.

He’s a still-evolving young player, on a young team, that shattered their expectations this season.

Hopefully, the NY Knicks re-sign him, and he continues his growth into a great center in New York.

Otherwise, they’ll just be watching him blossom somewhere else.