Knicks reportedly monitoring the free-agent market for a veteran big

The New York Knicks are not into big-time business with the first wave of free agency gone, but they keep scouting the market in the event opportunities emerge out of nowhere.

Yesterday, a report from Jake Fisher of Yahoo talked about the interest of the Knicks in facilitating a larger multi-team trade by throwing veteran Evan Fournier into it.

Late on Thursday, Stefan Bondy of the New York Daily News brought another interesting nugget to the conversation, referring to a “a source” feeding him information about the Knicks plan for the remainder of the off-season.

According to said source and Bondy’s intel, New York is “monitoring the free-agent market for a veteran big.” As Bondy himself pointed out, although without making it clear if the two individuals are actually being pursued by the Knicks, “available players include Gorgui Dieng and Derrick Jones Jr.“

Bondy brought this piece of information when discussing the addition of former Golden State Warriors bench-guard Donte DiVincenzo to the Knicks a few days ago. The reporter was not wrong in writing DDV “represents NYK’s big addition” of the summer, as the Knicks didn’t have a draft pick this year nor made any other free-agency-related moves.

By trading Obi Toppin to the Indiana Pacers in return of two future second-round picks the Knicks also got rid of their men reserve power forward, leaving a glaring hole in the rotation that, as of now, is expected to be filled by RJ Barrett, Josh Hart, and lesser players such as Isaiah Roby and Jericho Sims.

As Bondy put it, the Knicks “have a glut of guards and only one power forward.” Of course, the main consequence of not making any further change to the current roster would be to have DDV slotting into (one assumes) a larger role as RJ and JH would have to move up the positional/size ladder, opening room for him to get more minutes at the guard positions.

With Tom Thibodeau known to prefer a nine-man rotation, though, odds are the Knicks end up making another trade instead of forcing Thibs into using a 10-man rotation that, simply put, he will most probably refuse to go with.

The nine-man rotation would include Randle, Brunson, Barrett, Robinson, Hart, Hartenstein, DiVincenzo, Quickley, and Grimes without a doubt. Jericho Sims could be the ninth man. Fournier and Miles McBride would already slot in the 10th/11th spot in the rotation, so trading one or both of them, along with another player might entice New York.

Adding any free agent to bolster the rotation and mostly the power forward position would go through removing someone from the active roster, though, and that feels like something New York will try to do before they go ahead and add any more warm bodies to Thibs’ main rotation.