Knicks Center Expected to Headline Toughest Offseason Questions

If anyone is sensitive to how he's being valued in-house, it's Robinson, who's been known to go on the occasional Facebook rant whenever he feels like he's being minimized or underappreciated within New York's plan of attack.

That hasn't been the case this year, though, as head coach Mike Brown has attempted to prioritize Robinson all throughout his short, ongoing stint with the Knicks. He attempted to force the longest-tenured Knick into his starting lineup alongside Karl-Anthony Towns, but quickly realized that they're not only functionally productive apart from one another, but also that Robinson also shouldn't be ridden too hard during the long slog of the regular season.

The New-and-Improved Robinson

In settling into a sub-20-minute per game role that Brown's laid out for him, Robinson's appeared in 39 games already this season, already good enough for the highest such number he's hit in three years. And now that he's making those minutes count as much as he ever has, finishing close to 70% of his field goal attempts while looking like one of the NBA's most impressive offensive rebounders and switching bigs in any given matchup, he's continuing to place mounting pressure on New York's financial decision-makers.

He's currently playing on the final year of the four-year, $60 million deal he inked following the expiration of his rookie contract, leaving the Knicks with one of two options; should they continue to pass up chances to give him more money during the remainder of this season, he'll enter unrestricted free agency to test the water himself.

The latter would be a major risk for the Knicks, who've leaned on Robinson's versatile defense and tough rebounding especially hard during big games and across various playoff runs. Towns is a better shooter and scorer than Robinson can ever dream of being, but players with Robinson's hustle and raw size aren't easy to stumble upon.

Luckily for the Knicks, they'll only have margin moves to focus on, barring a disastrously early postseason exit. The unusually healthy Robinson is the lone member of their trusted rotation under any threat to walk while a few other contributors continually await extensions of their own, but as SNY's Ian Begley previously reported, the Knicks' love of Robinson knows no league-wide peers, fueling optimism that the two sides can reach another agreement before it's too late.