The New York Knicks' biggest offseason move was easily their coaching change, with Mike Brown taking the helm of the reigning Eastern Conference Champions. While the team's best playoff run in 25 years was certainly impressive, the team moved on from head coach Tom Thibodeau to pursue its singular goal of winning a championship, which they seem to think Brown can help them do. His biggest test will be the playoffs, and how his regular season experiments pay off throughout them. With the deadline in the rear-view mirror, he knows exactly what the Knicks' roster will look like for it.
Brown has rest of season to figure out playoff rotation
The first step of approaching the rest of the Knicks' season is simple for Brown. He needs to figure out his playoff rotation. That won't be possible to executive with exact accuracy given that Deuce McBride recently underwent surgery and will be sidelined until the NBA Playoffs. However, the trade deadline addition of Jose Alvarado – and buyout market signing of Jeremy Sochan – put all the pieces in place for Brown and company for the rest of the season.
Brown has consistently referred to a top-eight in his rotation, consisting of starters Jalen Brunson, Mikal Bridges, Josh Hart, OG Anunoby, and Karl-Anthony Towns. The other three are Mitchell Robinson, Landry Shamet, and McBride, who have all started several games this season. Rookie Mohamed Diawara has also factored into the team's plans throughout the regular season thus far, perhaps more than anyone expected before the season.
With Alvarado and Sochan in the mix, that leaves Brown with 11 Knicks players that he could presumably give some playoff minutes. He'll have the rest of the regular season to figure out exactly how he wants to deploy his group.
Alvarado, Sochan give Knicks coaching staff tough choices to make
Diawara is certainly relatively inexperienced at the NBA level, but gives the Knicks something they don't have much else of with regard to his combination of length, defensive instincts, on-ball aggression, and play-making chops.
One could argue that since neither Sochan nor Diawara can shoot, only one should be included in the team's rotational plans. The choice can be dependent on the matchup, but might be one that Brown and staff have to make.
Whether he utilizes a ten-man rotation, shortens it to eight or nine, or even one of his signature nine-and-a-half man units remains to be seen. But Brown has several months worth of games to figure it out, and he knows exactly what puzzle pieces are on the table.
But at this point in the season, all of the puzzle pieces are going to be part of the final product: whatever that looks like. The Knicks can't afford for there to be any more pieces on their roster that belong in other sets.