The Ringers’ Howard Beck Talks Knicks, Wemby, Giannis, LeBron

Howard Beck came on with Suzy Shuster and laid out the entire NBA landscape, starting with a closeout in Cleveland that looked very different depending on the lens. Through the Knicks' prism, it was dominant, efficient, and devastating, the work of a team that has been clicking for weeks. Through the Cavaliers' prism, it was humiliating, a 64-win team not long ago, one that traded for James Harden at midseason, looking like it did not want to be there. In fairness, Beck noted, the Knicks have made plenty of opponents look unfit for the moment, from Atlanta to the Philadelphia sweep to this one. Maybe it is just the Knicks.

The conversation could not avoid the analytics, because Suzy would not let it. Down 0-3, Kenny Atkinson had answered a question about his confidence with a breakdown of shot quality. Beck, who has known Atkinson since his days as a Mike D'Antoni assistant and Jeremy Lin's development coach before Linsanity, did not want to make excuses, but he understood the point: the looks were open and should have fallen. The problem was the phrasing in a world that instantly clips and aggregates everything. As for Atkinson's job, Beck declined to speculate, while noting that losing this badly can take a coach down on optics alone, the way it did when Philadelphia fired Daryl Morey. Game one, where Cleveland blew a 22-point fourth-quarter lead, will haunt the whole franchise.

On the Knicks' long layoff before the Finals, Beck reached back to a series he and Suzy covered firsthand, the 2001 Lakers, who had 11 days off before losing game one to Allen Iverson and then steamrolling the Sixers. Rust can creep in, he allowed, but this Knicks group strikes him as consummate professionals who never lose character, and eight days is not eleven. Brunson, knock on wood, is having his healthiest run in New York, and Mike Brown will find ways to keep them sharp.

Then the West, which Beck called phenomenal and wished were healthier. He lamented the Thunder missing Jalen Williams and AJ Mitchell and the Spurs sweating the status of De'Aaron Fox and Dylan Harper, because these are two of the most fascinating young teams in years. He has a story up on The Ringer pushing back on the people already cowering at how good both could be for years. Game five in a tied series tends to decide it, he noted, and the Spurs have momentum and better health, plus a method for bottling up SGA.

Asked to place Victor Wembanyama among the great centers, Beck said the honest answer is that he is nothing like anyone before him, combining the dominance of Shaq, Ewing, Hakeem, Wilt, and Kareem while resembling none of them. At 7'4" or 7'5", he is unguardable and unrepeatable, and the best a defense can do is throw bodies and seven-footers at him, the way teams once fouled Shaq. Isaiah Hartenstein has yanked and bumped, and Wembanyama just pops back up without complaint. Beck admitted he cringed when people called an 18-year-old an all-time great, but a 12-block playoff round, logo threes, and total ownership of the paint at age 22 make him shriek from his couch every time.

The part that gave Beck chills was Gregg Popovich. He described Pop's in-and-out presence through retirement, showing up like an episode of Succession, and Fox recounting how Pop told the team after a loss, "This is not how Spurs play ball." The league rarely gets legends who stay attached this way, Beck said. His favorite moment was Wembanyama putting his arm around Mitch Johnson during stoppages before the broadcast cut to Duncan and Pop in a suite, generations aligned. Pop, still very much in charge from the background, is the one who put Johnson in position, with Duncan, David Robinson, Bruce Bowen, and Sean Elliott all still around as resources.

Finally, the summer. On Giannis, Beck expects movement by the draft, a deal that could take three to five teams in the second-apron era, with a verdict perhaps four weeks away. On LeBron, he sees a player who still wants to play and proved this spring he can carry a team, but a Lakers front office, Rob Pelinka, Jeanie Buss, and Mark Walter, facing its first real summer to build around Luka Dončić, may have to decide that James at 41, soon 42, no longer fits the cap math.