The New York Knicks had to say goodbye to their beloved center that got them through all the adversity last season, as Isaiah Hartenstein signed a three-year, $87 million contract with the Oklahoma City Thunder on Monday. Despite losing a valuable piece, Knicks’ shooting guard Donte DiVincenzo is not worried about the state of the team heading into next season.
“Whatever team we have, I think we’re going to be very good,” DiVincenzo said (h/t The New York Post’s Stefan Bondy). “No matter what happens the rest of the offseason, I think overall everybody is going to come back and get better. I think with [Tom Thibodeau] there’s always a foundation, it doesn’t matter who is on the court. No matter who is on the team, I think we got a sense and we got a taste of what we can do and how we can take that next step.”
The Knicks have a star-studded team heading into next season despite losing Hartenstein
The Knicks made a summer splash a few days before the start of free agency, as they agreed on a trade with the Brooklyn Nets that would send two-way guard Mikal Bridges to New York. The trade can’t be made official until July 6, but once it does, the Knicks will have themselves an elite team that can compete with the reigning champion Boston Celtics for the Eastern Conference crown.
The unfortunate sacrifice was that the trade almost guaranteed Hartenstein’s inevitable departure, and the Knicks were hard-capped on what they could offer him thanks to his early Bird rights in his original contract. Ultimately, Hartenstein chose not to take such a massive pay cut while still having the chance to compete for a title elsewhere, something that SNY’s Ian Begley highlighted as a primary factor in his decision…