The Champs Have a Center Problem: Knicks Wrap Summer League Still Shopping for Size

The New York Knicks spent the middle of June ending a 53-year championship drought, so nobody in the organization is going to lose sleep over a rough July in Las Vegas. Still, the latest New York Knicks news cuts two ways this week: the summer league squad limped to a 1-4 record while unearthing a genuinely useful shooter in second-round pick Tyler Nickel, and the front office keeps striking out on its one obvious offseason problem — finding enough center depth behind Karl-Anthony Towns. The banner is real. The roster behind it is nearly set. That last five percent, though, is proving stubborn.

The champs, four weeks later

A quick refresher on how we got here, because it still reads like fan fiction. The Knicks went 53-29, took the third seed in the East, and then went scorched-earth through the playoffs: Atlanta in six (including a clincher they led by 47 at halftime), a sweep of Philadelphia, a sweep of Cleveland, and a plus-271 point differential through 14 games entering the Finals — the largest scoring margin by any team reaching that round in league history. In the Finals they beat Victor Wembanyama's San Antonio Spurs in five, closing it out 94-90 behind 45 points from Jalen Brunson, the first Knick ever to score 40 in a Finals game. Brunson took Finals MVP. Game 4 featured a 29-point comeback capped by an OG Anunoby game-winner. It was the most-watched Finals since 1998, and it came in Mike Brown's first season on the bench. Add the 2025 NBA Cup title — also won against San Antonio — and New York beat the same franchise for two trophies in seven months.

An offseason built on keeping the band together

Front office boss Leon Rose has run a disciplined, slightly unglamorous offseason, and most of it was locked in before this week. The guard depth got secured early: Jose Alvarado declined his player option and re-upped on a three-year, $13 million deal, and Landry Shamet — who reportedly turned down bigger money elsewhere — signed a four-year, $24 million contract that preserves the team's flexibility. Young French forward Mohamed Diawara got a four-year deal worth about $11.2 million. On draft night, Rose traded down and came away with combo guard Jack Kayil at No. 39 and Nickel at No. 47, plus a small pile of future second-rounders from Sacramento (via Houston), Phoenix and Dallas.

The logic threading all of it together is simple: pay the middle of the roster before the market does. Alvarado and Shamet were exactly the kind of trusted second-unit pieces that contenders lose in the champagne haze of a title summer, and New York kept both at numbers that won't hurt later. It's the least dramatic way to defend a championship, which is probably why it works.

The losses are where it stings. Mitchell Robinson, the longest-tenured Knick and the club's best rim protector, took a three-year offer from the Boston Celtics. Backup big Ariel Hukporti didn't receive a qualifying offer and walked as an unrestricted free agent. In one summer, the center room went from crowded to echoing.

The week's business: still shopping for size

New York moved fast on a partial fix, signing Andre Drummond — a two-time All-Star, now 32 — to a one-year, $3.9 million deal in the first week of July. Drummond averaged 6.4 points and 8.4 rebounds last season and, unlike Robinson, can actually make free throws, which matters in April. But the Knicks clearly wanted more than one body behind Towns, and the past ten days have been a series of near-misses. Kevon Looney, who had reported mutual interest with New York on July 1, signed with the Lakers on July 13 instead. A reported pursuit of young big man Moussa Cisse also fizzled this week, per Posting and Toasting, leaving the team scanning the veteran-minimum bin with one roster spot to play with.

The constraint is familiar: ownership has drawn a hard line at the second luxury-tax apron, and a championship payroll leaves no real tools beyond minimum deals. That's how you win a title and still spend late July arguing about fourth centers.

Summer league: a Nickel worth keeping

The Vegas trip itself was mostly forgettable — a 1-4 record under summer coach T.J. Saint, opening with a 91-65 flattening by the Nets and salvaging only a grind-it-out win over the Pistons. But the individual returns were more interesting than the scores.

• Tyler Nickel was the story. The No. 47 pick averaged 12.2 points across five games and hit 41.3 percent from three, going 19-of-46 from deep — the most attempts of anyone in the event and the second-most summer makes ever by a Knick. Just as encouraging: the Vanderbilt product competed on defense, rotating hard and chasing loose balls. He has openly modeled his game on the Duncan Robinson/Max Strus archetype of undrafted-shooter-makes-good, and on this evidence the comparison isn't delusional.
• Jack Kayil, the German guard taken at 39, was more uneven: 8.8 points, 3.5 assists and 34 percent shooting over four games, with flashes of three-level scoring and real playmaking feel. He's made it clear he wants to stay stateside rather than be stashed overseas. That call belongs to the front office.
• Mohamed Diawara had a summer to forget, opening 1-of-14 from the field over his first two games right after signing his new contract. He admitted afterward he has significant work to do.
• Pacome Dadiet, whose trade value was a stated storyline entering Vegas, didn't move the needle much either way.

For context on the company they were keeping: Golden State beat Memphis 94-90 on July 19 for the summer league title. Nobody hangs a banner for July basketball, but the Nickel question is a live one — with the second apron looming over every dollar, a second-round pick who can genuinely shoot is one of the few ways this front office can add rotation talent at all. Whether that means a standard deal or a two-way slot is the debate the next few weeks will settle.

Where the roster stands in the East

The core that won it all returns intact: Brunson, Towns, Anunoby, Mikal Bridges, Josh Hart and midseason addition Jeremy Sochan, with Alvarado, Shamet, Drummond and the kids filling out the rotation. The East around them got louder — Miami traded for Giannis Antetokounmpo in June, Detroit is coming off a No. 1 seed, and Cleveland isn't going anywhere — but no Eastern roster obviously outclasses this one. The honest concern list is short: Towns's backup minutes, Robinson's departed rim protection, and the historical weirdness of title hangovers. That's a good place to be in July.

Key dates ahead

• Mid-August: full 2026-27 schedule release expected, including the ring-night opener at Madison Square Garden.
• Late September: training camp opens, with media day kicking off the title defense.
• On or around October 20: opening night, where the champions traditionally raise the banner at home.

So the week's New York Knicks news amounts to this: a champion doing champion things — shopping the bargain aisle, developing second-rounders, and quietly annoyed it couldn't land a third center. Nickel gave the front office a real decision to make on the last roster spot, and the Looney and Cisse misses guarantee the big-man search runs into August. None of it threatens the larger picture. The Knicks enter the 2026-27 season as the team everyone else has to solve, and for the first time since the Nixon administration, that sentence is not a setup for a punchline.