By Eddie Castro
For our beloved New York teams, the 2024-25 NBA season has come to an end. The NBA Draft has come and gone. The Nets elected to keep all their five first-round picks they selected. Unfortunately for the Knicks, they did not have a first-round pick and traded away their 50th overall pick in the second round.
Both teams will now shift their attention to NBA free agency which officially begins on July 6th at noon. Negotiations with free agents are allowed to begin on June 30.
For the Brooklyn Nets, the team is in the middle of a rebuild. Many people were surprised that General Manager Sean Marks decided to keep all of his picks instead of dealing a few of the picks in hopes of landing a superstar player.
The priority for Brooklyn’s rebuild is to develop their home-grown players. That doesn’t necessarily mean they are out as far as making a splash in free agency.
The Nets have more cap room than any team in the league this summer, so it is expected the team will be in conversations when it comes to the coveted free agents on the market. Nets fans can expect players such as Jonathan Kuminga and Quentin Grimes to be in the mix for Brooklyn. Although Kuminga missed some time during the season due to injury, when he is healthy, he is simply instant offense.
Still at just 22-years old, Kuminga can finally receive a fresh start and a opportunity to prove himself. Perhaps that place can be Brooklyn. Grimes is a familiar name to New Yorkers as he spent some time with the New York Knicks. After a short stint with Dallas, Grimes was traded to the Philadelphia 76ers in which he had a career season. In 28 games played, he averaged 21.9 points per game.
Aside from Cam Johnson and Cam Thomas, it would not hurt Brooklyn to acquire a player who can shoot the ball. Shooting is one of the many team needs and both players can fulfill that. Speaking of Cam Thomas, Brooklyn would like to retain him as well.
Thomas is a restricted free agent which means any team that attempts to sign him, Brooklyn has the right to match any offer. Thomas has arguably been the team’s best player the past two seasons.
As far as the Knicks go. unfortunately they are not as cap-savvy as Brooklyn is. The team traded away their lone pick in this year’s draft which had Spike Lee pulling his hair out once again. There was some noise about Kevin Durant, but we all seen what transpired with that.
It was quite the Blockbuster when we heard the news that Karl Anthony-Towns was traded to the Knicks just before the beginning of this past season.
Maybe General Manager Leon Rose has another move up his sleeve? As I reported on the most recent episode of Talk Sports with Eddie, the Knicks had many issues as far as why they eventually fell to the Indiana Pacers.
One was defense, two was the lack of another consistent scoring option to compliment Jalen Brunson and three was lack of depth. I would not expect the Knicks to go after a high-level free agent but, they could use some shooting.
One player that can check that box off for them is Gary Trent Jr. Trent Jr can be quite the fit in New York whether you start him or have him come off the bench. He’s an elite shooter at 39% for his career. He is less of a liability on defense and he’s just 26-years old.
Al Hortford and Malcolm Brogdon can also be other options the Knicks can look at. It should be a very exciting summer for both teams. Will be see our New York teams in the middle of the free agent madness? We shall see.
Sports Notes: Talk sports with Eddie will return with a All-New episode on Thursday July 10th. In the meantime, please continue to watch previous episodes on the Our Time Press YouTube channel. Please like and subscribe to the page and most importantly thank you!