{"id":351381,"date":"2025-12-17T15:56:17","date_gmt":"2025-12-17T15:56:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/351381\/"},"modified":"2025-12-17T15:56:17","modified_gmt":"2025-12-17T15:56:17","slug":"the-bounce-the-knicks-won-a-title-plus-nba-owners-check-their-emails","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/351381\/","title":{"rendered":"The Bounce: The Knicks won a title! Plus, NBA owners check their emails"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Bounce Newsletter\u00a0\":basketball:\"\u00a0| This is The Athletic\u2019s daily NBA newsletter.\u00a0Sign up here<\/a>\u00a0to receive The Bounce directly in your inbox.<\/p>\n

On this date in 2004, Vince Carter was traded by the Toronto Raptors to the New Jersey Nets. He joined Jason Kidd to form one of the most fun backcourts we\u2019ve ever seen. The deal saw Alonzo Mourning, Aaron Williams, Eric Williams and two first-round picks going to Toronto. The picks ended up being Joey Graham and Renaldo Balkman (sent to the Knicks). Mourning never played for the Raptors. That\u2019s a brutal return.<\/p>\n

Final NBA Cupdate<\/p>\n

Knicks take home the \ud83c\udfc6 and the \ud83d\udcb0<\/p>\n

The New York Knicks haven\u2019t won a championship since 1973. But they have won an NBA Cup<\/a> in the last 24 hours. A massive 35-19 fourth quarter fueled by their bench made the difference in this game, denying Victor Wembanyama and the Spurs\u2019 young team of destiny<\/a>. I think we\u2019re about to find out just how big of a next step this is for the Knicks under Mike Brown.<\/p>\n

There was great small stuff in the fourth quarter. Jordan Clarkson had eight points in the fourth. Mitchell Robinson had six offensive rebounds in the final period. Tyler Kolek had the same amount of points (six) as Jalen Brunson and OG Anunoby in the final frame. And the Knicks just had an extra gear in Las Vegas which the Spurs couldn\u2019t find. Or maybe New York just stymied it, the same way San Antonio did to OKC in the semifinals.<\/p>\n

The NBA Cup means cash for the winning players and a banner that people will be confused about at the winning team\u2019s arena. The Lakers won the first Cup in 2023 and finished with 47 wins, a Play-In Tournament victory and a first-round loss to the Nuggets in five games. The Bucks won it last year and ended up with 48 wins and a first-round exit at the hands of the Pacers in five games.<\/p>\n

The Knicks are in a different position. They\u2019re on pace for 59 wins and at least the No. 2 seed in the Eastern Conference. If healthy, they should be the favorite to win it. They have an undeniable star, great role players and a coach taking them to the next level. It\u2019s all there for them.<\/p>\n

So what will this Cup mean on the way to the goal of competing for an NBA title? We\u2019re not sure yet. We know they were too much for the Spurs. We know what they said they\u2019ll do with the $530,000 prize money<\/a>. We know that Josh Hart decided to have a celebration that Brunson didn\u2019t seem to love<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And we know the Cup is here to stay. Despite mixed reviews, it\u2019s gaining momentum, and the commissioner loves it. One of these years, a Cup winner will also win an NBA championship. Maybe that\u2019s happening this season \u2014 or maybe it\u2019s just a random event before Christmas.<\/p>\n

The last 24<\/p>\n

Is NBA expansion finally happening?\u00a0<\/p>\n

\ud83d\udce9 Decision coming. Adam Silver said the league will make the call in 2026 about expansion. For Las Vegas and Seattle, this can\u2019t be a tease again<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\ud83c\udfc0 Trade SZN. Will Giannis or Jonathan Kuminga be moved before the deadline? John Hollinger has answers<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\ud83c\udfc0 Ready for more. The Spurs are looking like they can make a leap. Ethical basketball is working<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\ud83d\udcb0 Not allowed? Terry Rozier paying for his friend\u2019s lawyer in gambling case? That\u2019s a conflict of interest<\/a>. Meanwhile, the Heat remain in limbo on the question of whether Rozier can be traded<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Stream the NBA on Fubo (try it for free!<\/a>)\u00a0and catch out-of-market games on\u00a0League Pass<\/a>.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ve Got Mail<\/p>\n

You, too, can get an email from the Warriors owner<\/p>\n

Fans often want to voice their displeasure with a sports team they love when things aren\u2019t going well. That can happen on sports radio. It can happen on podcasts or in comment sections. We will see fans boo at games when they\u2019re especially fed up. Apparently, you can just email the owner of the team and get an immediate, genuine response. Not one of those automated messages back.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s what 27-year-old Warriors fan Justin Dutari did with Golden State owner Joe Lacob<\/a>. He figured out what his email might be, thanks to some deductive reasoning. And then he decided to let Lacob know why he\u2019s frustrated with a Warriors team that is just 13-14 on the season.<\/p>\n

\u201cPlease do something about this team,\u201d Dutari wrote in his email. \u201cWhat [does] Steph need to do to win every night? Drop 50 points? \u2026[Jimmy Butler\u2019s] tools are being underutilized because he is playing as a power forward due to the small position players. We have no true center.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am so frustrated.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a pretty fair email and way tamer than I thought it might be. The biggest surprise isn\u2019t that he found the email or sent it. It\u2019s that Lacob responded to him. In two minutes! And his answer was interesting.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t be as frustrated as me,\u201d Lacob wrote. \u201cI am working on it. It\u2019s complicated. Style of play. Coaches desires regarding players. League trends. Jimmy is not the problem.\u201d<\/p>\n

This kind of feels like he\u2019s throwing Steve Kerr under the bus. Maybe he never thought this fan would post the reply on Reddit and have it go viral. But it\u2019s pretty easy to assume that Kerr\u2019s unwillingness to trust Jonathan Kuminga is one of the things Lacob is talking about here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Bounce Newsletter\u00a0\u00a0| This is The Athletic\u2019s daily NBA newsletter.\u00a0Sign up here\u00a0to receive The Bounce directly in your…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":351382,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,48,8217,459,2901,2696,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-351381","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-golden-state-warriors","11":"tag-nba","12":"tag-new-york-knicks","13":"tag-san-antonio-spurs","14":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=351381"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351381\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/351382"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=351381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=351381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=351381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}