After being floated for weeks as a potential third-big option for the New York Knicks, Nick Richards instead ended up joining the Miami Heat. Leon Rose, his entire front office, and frankly, every single Knicks fan should be glad that he did.
Yes, New York needs another backup center before it can officially close the book on this offseason. Andre Drummond might be fit to spell Karl-Anthony Towns for much of the regular season, but the team is just one big-man injury away from disaster.
Equally important, Drummond takes too many options off the table as the primary backup. Though the three-point shooting and rebounding are cool, he has seldom graded out as a net-positive rim protector, isn’t nearly as mobile as Robinson or even Towns on defense, and doesn’t allow the Knicks to bust out dual-center lineups when they deem it worthwhile or necessary.
Any big man New York adds next needs to check at least one of the aforementioned boxes. To that end, now feels like a good time to mention that Richards satisfies exactly none of the requirements.
Nicks Richards is a better option in theory than in practice
As someone standing nearly seven-feet tall who contests a bunch of shots at the rim and is a reasonable rebounder, Richards could’ve easily appealed to New York—particularly when you consider he signed for the minimum.
Still, his reputation as a serviceable center has always outstripped reality.
Richards has not ranked higher than the 49th percentile of rim points saved per 100 possessions since 2023. That’s a red flag when he doesn’t spend much time guarding on the perimeter.
Much like Drummond, Richards also isn’t someone the Knicks can play alongside Towns. KAT-and-Mitch lineups were never a staple the past two years, but it was at least something New York could keep in its backpocket.
Sure, just being generally huge is valuable by itself on the less-glamorous end. But there isn’t a lot of evidence to suggest that Richards can positively impact winning. Just look at where he’s ranked in defensive regularized adjusted plus-minus over the past five years:
- 2026: 511th
- 2025: 555th
- 2024: 495th
- 2023: 456th
- 2022: 526th
This is, er, not great.
The Heat did the Knicks a favor
In their rush to fill out the roster and bag a backup big who wasn’t Bobby Portis Jr. or Nikola Jovic, the Heat probably, at the very least, undermined one of the Knicks’ contingency plans.
Good.
Maybe by never seemingly entering the Richards sweepstakes New York confirmed that it always planned to acquire another big via trade. But even if he was strictly an emergency option, removing it from the table ensures the Knicks can make a more ambitious swing.
If that takes the form of a training-camp battle between mystery-box options rather than a trade, then so be it. Going that route is still more likely to yield a more intriguing third big than if the Knicks had signed Richards.
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