Stephen A. Smith is very clear about a lot of things, including his love of the New York Knicks.
Smith is a diehard Knicks fan, and after suffering through almost two full decades of losing, he’s understandably fired up about the franchise after three trips to the playoffs in four seasons and back-to-back years winning a postseason series. For the first time in a quarter-century, the Knicks enter the season as legit title contenders on paper after adding Mikal Bridges and Karl-Anthony Towns to their core of Jalen Brunson, Josh Hart, OG Anunoby and Mitchell Robinson.
It will be a while before we see Robinson play with this revamped roster though. The veteran center had ankle surgery during last season, reinjured the ankle during New York’s first round playoff series against the Philadelphia 76ers and had another procedure in the offseason.
In fact, Robinson’s projected absence to begin the 2024-25 campaign necessitated the Knicks’ trade for Towns, who will begin the year as the starting center. On First Take Thursday, Shams Charania, ESPN’s new NBA insider broke some unfortunate news about Robinson, reporting that he’ll be out at least through the rest of the calendar year.
That’s a little bit longer than the original timeline for Robinson, and Smith did not take the news well.
“I knew you’d bring me bad news, Shams! I knew you’d bring me…How long you been here? Three minutes and you’re bringing me bad news already?” he said.
.@ShamsCharania revealed that Mitchell Robinson will miss the remainder of the calendar year while recovering from foot surgery.@stephenasmith couldn’t believe it 😠pic.twitter.com/Mvy7ZpG7hf
— First Take (@FirstTake) October 10, 2024
Robinson, 26, missed 51 regular season games last year, so it’s understandable that the Knicks want to take a cautious approach with the 7-footer, who is known for his defensive versatility.
Interestingly, Charania reported that the Knicks and Minnesota Timberwolves have had conversations involving Towns going back as far the NBA Draft in June. In New York’s initial offer, Robinson was included with Julius Randle, but Minnesota balked at the proposal.
Eventually, the two sides settled on Randle, Donte DiVincenzo and a first-round pick in exchange for Towns, a sharpshooting All-Star big man who is a New Jersey native. Â
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