The Whiteboard: Pulse check for Knicks, Wizards, Grizzlies after elimination

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Well that was fast.

Seriously, did anyone outside of the most optimistic of Atlanta Hawks fans imagine this first-round series ending in five quick games, with the New York Knicks losing two out of three at home? It was a startling conclusion to an otherwise upbeat season, encapsulated perfectly by a moment late in Game 5 when Madison Square Garden’s standing ovation to support their soon-to-be eliminated team got shattered by a vicious Trae Young 3-pointer and subsequent bow to the crowd.

In other words, as fun as this year was, the playoffs proved three things: 1) Tom Thibodeau was incapable of making the tactical adjustments he needed to on the offensive end to draw Clint Capela out, 2) Julius Randle might not be suited to be an Option A and 3) The Knicks have some very tricky decisions to make this summer with a number of impending free agents.

For No. 1, there’s not a lot you can do about that aside from improve the roster to the point it won’t matter. Youngsters like RJ Barrett, Immanuel Quickley and Obi Toppin will learn from their playoff shortcomings and be better for it in the long run, so internal growth will help here too. But Nos. 1 and 2 on the list are something the front office will have to address with outside help (which is where No. 3 comes into play as well, but we’ll get to that).

Randle was the no-brainer choice for the NBA’s Most Improved Player award, but if the playoffs had a Most Regressive Player award, it’d also go to him. After averaging 24.1 points, 10.2 rebounds and 6.0 assists per game on 41.1 percent shooting from deep — all career highs — during the regular season, the 26-year-old All-Star saw his numbers nosedive to 18.0 points, 11.6 rebounds and 4.0 assists a night on dismal .298/.333/.852 shooting splits in the postseason. The Hawks bottled him up, and the Knicks had no answer when that happened.

It was always pretty evident that a team with Julius Randle as its best player wasn’t going to be a legitimate force in the East, but this gentleman’s sweep really drove home the point that New York still has yet to land its biggest fish.

The question is how the Knicks will get there, given that Randle’s coming up on the final, non-guaranteed year of his $19.8 million salary, while Derrick Rose, Alec Burks, Nerlens Noel, Reggie Bullock, Taj Gibson and Elfrid Payton are all unrestricted free agents this summer (not to mention Frank Ntilikina being a restricted free agent). New York could create cap room, but it’s not a great free agency market, and the Knicks will have a ton of roster spots to fill without much space to do so if they plan to re-sign some of their own guys, since that would mean keeping their cap holds on the books. Ultimately, Randle’s fun year and subsequent playoff failures became a microcosm of this Knicks team: a pleasant surprise, served with a stark reminder that there’s still work to do.

Don’t sleep on the Memphis Grizzlies

Unlike the Knicks, the Memphis Grizzlies got as far as they did this season mostly on the backs of their younger players. Also unlike the Knicks, the Grizz have almost all of their key contributors under contract for next year and the foreseeable future.

Ja Morant, Dillon Brooks, De’Anthony Melton, Desmond Bane, Xavier Tillman Jr. and Brandon Clarke are all under team control through at least 2022-23. Jaren Jackson Jr. and Grayson Allen both have another year on their deals before becoming restricted free agents, as do Kyle Anderson, Tyus Jones and the indispensable veteran Jonas Valanciunas before they all hit unrestricted free agency.

To sum up: The Grizzlies have their current core intact for at least one more year, and hopefully with a healthy Jaren Jackson, they’ll be able to make some real headway trying to climb up that Western Conference ladder. Morant already proved in his first playoff experience that he’s ready for the moment, Bane had a quietly terrific rookie year, JV was arguably Memphis’ best player and this draft-savvy team is only going to keep unearthing gems to pad its depth.

It may not feel like it in the wake of a Game 5 throttling at the hands of the top-seeded Utah Jazz, and there’s no question the Grizz have a long way to go to contention, but this unexpected crashing of the Golden State Warriors’ play-in hopes and even that stunning Game 1 victory just reinforced the notion that Beale Street is now home to one of the NBA’s most promising cores for the future … which may not be as far away as we thought just a few months ago.

The Washington Wizards don’t have much room to improve their roster

A glance at the Washington Wizards‘ cap sheet shows a real problem for a team that’s running out of time to convince Bradley Beal he can win in D.C. Between Beal, Russell Westbrook, Davis Bertans, Thomas Bryant, Rui Hachimura and Deni Avdija, the Wizards already have $112.2 million committed to six players for next season.

That doesn’t leave them a lot of breathing room to fill out their roster, let alone get Beal the help he needs to be more than a first-round exit. That’s especially problematic with only one year remaining on his contract before he can opt out of a $36.4 million player option for the 2022-23 campaign, and you can be guaranteed this top-scoring 27-year-old will make the money up on the open market no matter where he goes.

At this point, the Wizards aren’t giving him much reason to stay. Scott Brooks has become a lame-duck coach, and if his only redeeming quality is being a “Russell Westbrook whisperer,” he needs to start whispering a hell of a lot faster, because it took Russ half a season to make a positive impact, much like his last season with the Houston Rockets. The Wiz closed their season strong, but they still barely squeaked in as the 8-seed and got gentleman’s swept out of the first round.

The problem is, freeing up enough cap space to do anything requires trading Westbrook and his gaping $44.2 million salary. People appreciated Russ a lot more once he turned it on, but it still took him half a season to do so, and even when he did, it only raised Washington’s ceiling so high. Good luck convincing anyone to trade for that contract, even as he approaches a $47 million player option in 2022.

The wiggle room is virtually non-existent after that. Bertans’ $16 million salary would be easily movable, but he’s actually a good piece and floor-spacer for the Wizards. Thomas Bryant’s $8 million salary could also be moved, but it’d be minimal cap space at the cost of a decent young player, and for what? Some extra breathing room to re-sign Robin Lopez, Ish Smith and Alex Len, who should all bolt if they even get an inkling of a somewhat attractive offer elsewhere?

The outlook is bleak, and unless the Wizards have some legitimate magic up their sleeves, we’re creeping closer and closer to that Beal desperation trade at next year’s deadline once as he gets fed up and lets everyone know he won’t be re-upping in 2022.

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For more on the Grizzlies, The Ringer’s Seerat Sohi writes about how Grit and Grind is ready to evolve.

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