A few months without Mitchell Robinson was daunting enough.
It was concerning, alarming and created a major problem.
The rest of the season is a completely different matter.
It’s flat-out frightening.
But, that’s the scary situation the Knicks now find themselves in, with the news that broke Wednesday night that the backbone of their defense, the sport’s premier offensive rebounder, is expected to miss the remainder of the season.
“I just don’t get it… I do everything I’m asked when it comes to my body and this s–t still happens like wtf,” the oft-injured Robinson, two seasons into a four-year, $60 million contract, wrote on Snapchat on Thursday. “Another year another disappointment.”
Robinson, 25, suffered a stress fracture to his left ankle in a loss to the Celtics on Dec. 8.
At the time, the Knicks said he would be re-evaluated in eight to 10 weeks.
But after Wednesday’s win over the Nets, The Athletic reported that the team had applied to the NBA for a Disabled Player Exception worth $7.8 million for salary-cap purposes and didn’t believe he would be back this season.
The Knicks (16-11) have gone 4-2 without Robinson so far, as Isaiah Hartenstein has picked up a bulk of his minutes.
They picked up Taj Gibson as center insurance on Dec. 15, insurance that is now needed with Jericho Sims out with a sprained right ankle.
However, there is no replacing Robinson.
The dominant 7-footer was averaging 6.2 points, a career-high 10.3 rebounds and 1.3 blocks in 29.2 minutes per game.
The Knicks were outscoring the opposition by 2.9 points per 100 possessions when Robinson was on the floor and his 5.3 offensive rebounds per game leads the NBA.
He’s also tied for 14th in the entire league in overall rebounds per game.
Last season, Robinson was second among Knicks rotation players in NET rating at plus-7.3 and his offensive rebounding percentage of 16.4 was fifth in the league.
Perhaps most importantly, Robinson has proven he can perform when the bright lights are on.
He destroyed the Cavaliers in the Knicks’ first playoff series in a decade, averaging 8.0 points, 9.8 rebounds, 2.2 blocks and 1.2 steals in the five games, with a through-the-roof 18.1 offensive rebounding percentage.
Now the Knicks won’t have him this postseason, which could put them at a major disadvantage against a number of Eastern Conference contenders with dangerous big men such as the Bucks (Giannis Antetokounmpo), Celtics (Al Horford/Kristaps Porzingis), Heat (Bam Adebayo) and 76ers (Joel Embiid).
In the six games that Robinson has missed, the Knicks are 17th in defensive rating at 119.9.
Their offensive rebounding percentage (30.4) ranks 13th and their defensive rebounding percentage (68.5) ranks 24th.
All were significantly higher with Robinson — the Knicks actually led the league in offensive rebounding percentage and defensive rebounding percentage before the injury, and were ninth in defensive rating (115.5), although there had been some slippage.
Interestingly, their offensive rating has increased, up to eighth in the NBA at 123.5.
With Robinson, they were ninth at 115.5.
“It’s hard when you lose a player like Mitch, but you don’t replace him with one guy,” coach Tom Thibodeau said recently. “You replace him with everybody. That’s the way we’re approaching it. We feel strongly that we have more than enough. … We’re capable of playing great team defense. We’ve been an outstanding rebounding team the entire year. We just have to do it more as a group, and that’s going to be our challenge.”
At the time of those comments, Thibodeau was talking like a coach who thought he would be getting his star center back at some point.
That is no longer the case.
The Knicks’ new reality is a scary one that very well could limit this team’s ceiling.