TARRYTOWN, N.Y. — When New York Knicks big man Isaiah Hartenstein studies film, he notices more than what happens on the court.
As Hartenstein reviewed each defensive stop he made on Anthony Davis in the Knicks’ 112-108 win over the Los Angeles Lakers last Sunday, he recognized the first guy off the bench. It was Mitchell Robinson, the team’s starting center and the man Hartenstein was replacing in the Knicks’ closing lineup, cheering enthusiastically each time.
“I’ve been on certain teams where some guys do good and (other guys) are just out of it,” Hartenstein said. “But if you really watched the Lakers game, you might see every time I got a stop on A.D., he was the first one to get up.”
Robinson and Hartenstein have formed a bond during their first season as teammates. Their lockers are often next to each other on the road. They, along with Jericho Sims, are buddy-buddy-buddy. Walk into the locker room before tipoff, and you often find the trio of centers huddled together and goofing regarding some silly pregame matter. Just the other day, Hartenstein and Robinson jeered Sims regarding participating in the Slam Dunk Contest at All-Star Weekend, suggesting that made him too flashy to hang out with the rugged, defensive-first center group.
“He’s a power forward now,” Hartenstein deadpanned. He may as well have called Sims a leper.
Moments like these make Robinson’s comments following Tuesday’s game, a win over the Portland Trail Blazers that Hartenstein also closed, all the more confounding.
Shortly following the conclusion of the game, Robinson griped regarding his role in a Snapchat post. “Tired (as f—) of just being out there for cardio fam like I want to play basketball to really just wasting my time and energy,” he wrote.
Mitchell Robinson on Snapchat:
“Tired asf of just being out there for cardio fam like I want to play basketball to really just wasting my time and energy ????????♂️”
“Disappearing for a while” pic.twitter.com/1PiWUiyYcp— New York Basketball (@NBA_NewYork) March 15, 2023
Beat reporters requested to speak with Robinson following Friday’s practice, the first time the Knicks held a media availability since the Snapchat post, but the team would not make Robinson available. Robinson briefly followed up on Instagram on Friday, posting that he “should’ve handled it differently” and “didn’t want no bad blood just gotta find myself.”
Mitchell Robinson hit our IG to shed some light on his controversial Snapchat post. What’s your take?#knicks pic.twitter.com/QSthVTixLr
— Knicks Fan TV ???????????????? (@KnicksFanTv) March 17, 2023
Hartenstein sees Robinson’s actions, both on the court and the bench. He’s not holding his teammate’s words once morest him.
“It’s not like he’s coming into practice b—-ing,” Hartenstein said. “He’s always there. He’s always interactive. He’s always been a good teammate.”
Yet posts like this one from Robinson are becoming tradition. And the timing of the complaint makes it stand out more than usual.
The Knicks’ vibes are flowing. They’ve won two in a row and have survived without their floor general, Jalen Brunson, going 3-3 since he went down with a bone bruise in his left foot. They’re 11-3 since Josh Hart joined the group following the trade deadline. They’re fifth in the Eastern Conference and 11 games over .500. They have an outside chance to win 50 games for the first time in a decade. Young up-and-comers are throttling to the top to win games, even with Brunson out. First, it was Immanuel Quickley’s best-ever performance in a double-overtime nail-biter in Boston. Then, it was Miles McBride’s energy-infusing, career-high 18 points in Portland.
The mood in the locker room was light. After McBride stepped up last game, Quickley shared stories regarding how excited he was for the second-year guard. Third-year forward Obi Toppin reeled off one-on-one interview following one-on-one interview in front of his locker just so he might brag regarding his buddy’s display.
It was in character for the way the Knicks have operated lately. Quickley scores 38 to down the team with the best record in the East? His teammates celebrate him. McBride jumps from outside the rotation to playing more minutes than Toppin? Toppin responds by talking any nearby person’s ear off regarding how happy he is for the guy while also throwing playful jabs along the way. Toppin revealed that he calls McBride, whose nickname is Deuce, “Dookie” because … well, you get the pun. He also took credit for McBride’s success by claiming he “gave him that confidence because I be busting his behind talking s— to him.” Hartenstein steps up? Robinson is the first guy rooting him on.
And then comes Robinson’s ambiguous Snapchat post.
It’s not the first time he has groused regarding his role. Heck, Robinson practically plagiarized himself; he posted on Instagram last season that “one thing learned following every game” is that he’s “literally running for cardio.”
I’m begging y’all to take this man’s cellular device @nyknicks pic.twitter.com/eeFQapF994
— The Strickland (@TheStrickland) December 15, 2021
He’s referenced a desire to touch the ball more in harmless ways, too. Whenever he pulls off an in-game crossover or an unexpected drive to the rim, like he did in Boston last week, he lets jokes fly regarding how the world doesn’t know what it’s missing. When he tries something fancy and fails to pull it off, he follows with self-deprecation.
Though Robinson communicates through humor, every once in a while, he’ll get real. Earlier this season, the Knicks had a few-game stretch when they began each first quarter with a Robinson post-up. The strategy of opening games with post-ups for defensive-slanted big men whose arsenals don’t include one-on-one scoring in any other context is old school, but some modern teams, like the early-2010s LA Clippers and Oklahoma City Thunder, did the same for DeAndre Jordan and Kendrick Perkins, respectively.
“When I feel like I’m involved, then I’m helping you on the other end,” Robinson said in January. “I don’t want to be out there running around for no reason.”
Could we see the Knicks do that once more?
“I gotta be the guy who sets the table for everybody, and I gotta do a great job of kind of being able to get myself going but at the same time get my teammates going,” Brunson said. “But it’s the NBA. Guys are gonna be frustrated night in and night out, but it’s all regarding how we handle it internally and where we go from there.”
GO DEEPER
A refined Mitchell Robinson is dominating the boards for Knicks: ‘I’m a dangerous man’
Robinson took only two shots once morest Portland over 21 minutes, but he also grabbed only two offensive rebounds, which is how he creates much of his scoring. For most of this season, he’s realized that. The Knicks are rolling in part because each player all the way down the roster has a deep understanding of his own role.
Heck, only a few weeks ago, Robinson detailed how much pride he takes in his rim-diving, shot-blocking, signal-calling identity. The two of us were chatting at his locker following a game, and I asked him why he ran so hard in transition on one particular play. I thought his response would be something along the lines of, “To get a fast-break dunk.” Instead, he veered in an unexpected direction.
“Draw people in,” he said. “(It’s) transition 3s, really,”
That’s a level beyond embracing a role. It’s applying it to every little nuance inside the sport. It’s understanding that sprinting down the court isn’t just cardio, as he Snaps or IGs, and actually has a greater purpose to help his teammates — even if it’s not so flashy. It comes from the same place as jokingly advocating to rescind Sims’ membership to the center club because the dunk contest was too impossibly posh for a trio whose identity was all-grit, no-glory.
For a moment, it appears Robinson forgot the reason why he’s in the midst of his best season ever. He is the Knicks’ most-important defender. His offensive rebounding saves their scoring attack. No one would knock his season-long effort on the court.
We don’t know why Robinson posted this. We don’t know if it was a moment of weakness, something that was building up for a while or something that set him off. Clearly, it’s not the first time he’s had this type of thought, considering he’s put it out there for the public more than once. The Knicks not making him available to reporters means the story will live on at least another day.
To Robinson’s credit, it doesn’t seem like blood vessels are popping. Both Brunson and head coach Tom Thibodeau said they spoke with him privately. And it mightn’t hurt for him to remember that he doesn’t need to score in double-digits to be one of the top players on this team.
“I think you just get frustrated as a human being,” Hartenstein said. “But he’s one of the most supportive of me. As a human being and a player, I can’t say enough good things.”
(Photo: Rocky Widner / NBAE via Getty Images)
