The Athletic’s John Hollinger on LeBron’s Decision & Knicks’ Title Blueprint

There is no magic bullet. That is the lesson John Hollinger of The Athletic kept circling back to when asked how the New York Knicks built a champion, and why the rest of the league is now studying the blueprint.

The temptation, Hollinger said, is to chase a single trick. Tank and win the lottery. Stack three max contracts. The Knicks did neither. They simply, in his words, stacked "about 15 straight really smart moves on top of each other."

He pointed to the connective tissue most fans forget. The draft pick they eventually moved in the Anunoby trade. The Donte DiVincenzo signing that became a piece of the Towns deal. None of those names were on the championship roster, but the moves were the scaffolding that made the bigger swings possible.

"They had to build to the point that they could make those moves for Towns and Anunoby," Hollinger said, "and they successfully did that even though those guys weren't part of the championship team."

What struck him most was how the Knicks won without a single MVP vote on the roster. Jalen Brunson was excellent in the playoffs, Hollinger noted, but the real edge was depth. New York was "so solid one through five in that starting lineup," top to bottom, that they could win it all on balance alone.

So if a front office walks into a meeting and asks the obvious question, Hollinger framed the answer with a shrug of admiration. "What if we just make a bunch of really smart moves and bring in good players? Like can we try that, you know?" Easier said than done. Hats off, he said. They earned it.

The conversation then turned to the story that always heats up once summer league arrives: LeBron James. It is quiet now, but Hollinger laid out the keys to watch.

The first domino is the Lakers' cap space. James, if he re-signs near market value, would eat a big chunk of it. The second is whether he has any interest in the Golden State Warriors, which Hollinger called the other plausible spot where James could get close to his market value.

Cleveland, he said, would be the sentimental choice, but the Cavs' cap situation means they could realistically only offer a minimum deal, and Hollinger is not sure James is willing to settle for that. His read: it comes down to Lakers or Warriors.

And it has to resolve quickly, because the Lakers have other business. They have cap room to spend, and Hollinger said they want a rim-running big man for Luka Doncic, which will not come cheap.

Then he got, by his own admission, nerdy. The Lakers can use cap space on outside players first because Austin Reaves and Jackson Hayes carry very low cap holds, letting the team re-sign both afterward. That sequencing is what gives Los Angeles a real chance to build a stronger roster than a year ago.