Knicks Draft Kevin Knox #9: My Least Favorite Thing to See in a Draft Profile

So I’ll admit I’m not a big college sports junkie. If I have a friend over who really has to watch a college game or one of my friend’s favorite teams has a big game, I’ll turn it on. Beyond that, I like watching a championship game here and there. But that’s as far as I go.

So of course when a draft comes around, I’ll admit I’m at a disadvantage. In the end, I rely on draft profiles and stats to guide me on an opinion on a player. Even if I did watch college sports, I’d probably trust this information over my own bias anyway. For the NBA, there are a few things I like to check out. Shooting efficiency especially individual percentages (2p%, 3p%, ft%, ts%), and rsb (rebounds, steals, blocks) are usually at the top of my list.

From my perspective, Knox doesn’t do particularly well statistically. Neither his scoring nor his “athletic” stats indicate that he dominated players at his current level. Honestly from that perspective alone I’d rather have the guy drafted after Knox. Mikal Bridges is 2 inches shorter, but had more blocks and steals and the same amount of rebounds. Bridges is superior with regards to scoring efficiency as well.

For the non-stats part, I first like to read about what they say about defense. From one report to the next Knox’s defense varies. Although nearly every report said his defense improved as the season went on and he has the wingspan and the tools to be a good defender.

Then I got to his weaknesses, and the thing I dreaded most leaped up at me. Knox’s effort level is inconsistent, and he seems to vanish during games. This wasn’t just one scout’s opinion — it’s in every report I read.

NBADRAFT.NET

Motor can run hot and cold, when engaged he is very good, but when not fully engaged he can disappear completely

SI

Knox’s motor also came into question throughout the season. Some of it may have been confidence-based. He’s still learning to play the game, which leaves a variety of outcomes

DraftExpress

Motor is very up and down. Looks uninterested on the floor. Doesn’t always sit down and defend. Floats on the perimeter offensively. Needs to play with a high motor, defend, rebound and fly around to be considered a legitimate first-round caliber NBA prospect.

A few years back my boss was a big Buckeyes fan. Being that we were both Jets fans he was thrilled when Gang Green drafted Vernon Gholston. He had all the physical tools to be a great NFL player, but there was one knock against him: he took plays off.

I’m sure you know where I’m going with this. Sure maybe Knox’s scoring efficiency increases, and his defense could improve. However given his questionable desire to play the game, I’m not filled with optimism on his development.

157 replies on “Knicks Draft Kevin Knox #9: My Least Favorite Thing to See in a Draft Profile”

Ok – deep breath…

I am not a college hoops expert or a stats expert. I do know a bit about decision theory and therefore I know not to fall into the trap of confusing the merits of a decision when it is made with judging the decision on the basis of the outcome. On the face of it, the decision process behind Knox looks troubling and is weighing down the balance sheet for Perry and Mills, which overall doesn’t look great. Even if he turns out great down the road, that won’t make it a ‘good’ decision so much as a forunate one.

But – now the positives. Knox has graded out well by many scout-based reports, including some stats-heavy sites. There’s a near-consensus view that at least some of his statistical weaknesses were system-led. And some stats-only models rate him well (538s still has him at 7 without the scouting component, for example).

Bigger picture, we enter the season with young affordable potential building blocks in Frank, Knox, Dotson, Robinson, Williams, Burke and Trier, plus the d-league guys from last year (kornet, hicks) to go with KP. Some of those will amount to nothing but some probably won’t and with Fiz, I find it to be a rootable team overall.

We still have some badly mistimed contracts – Noah, THj – and anyone who doubts the opportunity cost argument only needs to look at the teams who have been trying to attach picks to shed salary this week to see it made flesh. But they’re starting to approach their ends/matter less

The huge x-factor for me is the rotation this year. Do we get big minutes of young line-ups with Frank playing lots of pg? Or are Burke, Timmy and Kanter our minutes leaders while we ‘bring guys along slowly’? My willingness to be optimistic in the face of negativity will dissipate fast if we spend the tail end of 2018 trying to ‘develop a winning culture’ over trying to ‘develop the actual young guys we have’.

Agree on feeling pretty lukewarm about Knox. Statistically he does not seem to bring a lot to the table. One can only hope that Fizdale and co. can really coach him up. I guess he was a good rebounder in EYBL at least?

Re: Mikal Bridges and the eventual unbelievably lopsided trade Philly made — I wonder whether PHX called the Knicks up and offered that same trade for #9. Going 9->16 would’ve been a big leap of faith especially if they loved Knox and knew he was not going to be there at 16. I question a little bit how great that Miami pick is going to be, if only because I have a fair amount of faith that Riley and Spoelstra will never let Miami really be that bad (especially if they don’t have their own pick), but it certainly is possible that 2021 draft could be absolutely loaded.

One thing for sure – we are going to suck this year, but at least it could be sucking with a purpose.
We really need to move on from Courtney Lee and get something for him, even if for just an expiring + a 2nd round pick at the trade deadline. For instance – I would happily do Lee for Jerryd Bayless ($9MM in 2018-19 then over) and a 2nd round pick, and in fact I think that would be a great trade for both teams after the FA period is over. Philly can chase the big fish with their existing cap room, then do a 1:1 trade that puts more money on their cap but only after they use up their space.

Lance could be a very valuable trade chip at the deadline given his defense and minimally guaranteed contract in 19-20. Need to move on from him too.

Inconsistent motor isn’t my favorite thing, either, but it’s one of the instances where I’m more inclined to look at age and situation as possible excuses. He’s super young, and by even Calipari’s own account, he was utilized badly. I can buy an 18-year-old drifting in that circumstance, and that same player’s effort level increasing as he ages, has a coach with a rep as a great motivator, plays a role more suited to his skills, etc.

No, I’m not happy. But I think there are bigger concerns than motor.

Nice summary on Knox.
While this thread will focus on Knox and the FO’s decision to select him, as it should, there’s something else to be concerned about.
The FO’s inability to make deals. They came up empty with the logjam at center, even going backwards with the Willy trade. Lee is still here. THJ was overpaid.
The real winners this week in NY were the Nets. Zhaire Smith and another 1st rounder – that’s a deal I can get excited about. Plus, picking up D. Howard, with an expiring contract offers more options.

I wonder just how active the front office has been in exploring opportunities. For example, could NYK have picked up the Memphis #32 pick by offering to swap Noah for Parsons and throw in $5m? That would have been a net of about 15m to the Grizz in the next 2 years. Would any owner prefer Jevon Carter to 15m? I find that hard to believe. We might have emerged from the draft with Knox, Melton and Robinson. If we’re planning to stretch/waive Noah, I don’t think Parson’s extra 10m would be that big of a deal and just letting Parsons (or Noah) contract expire and targeting 2020 is probably the better strategy anyway. And there might have been other options like Noah/Courtney/5m for Parsons/McLemore/#32.

I hoped for other, safer picks, but looking at a the mock drafts roundup on “the other blog” I’m not surprised with the Knox pick.

7 mocks out of the 18 checked had Knox as the pick (Tankhaton, The Athletic, Bleacher Report, DraftNet, ESPN, Sporting News, Uproxx), 4 had Mikal Bridges (Basketball Insiders between them) and his “the kid’s already old” bias, 3 apiece went for Wendell Carter and Colin Sexton , only The Ringer had Trae Young (the last players already gone when we select).

Speaking of Mikal, I’ve learned that Mikal’s mother work for the Sixers, so they pick her kid and then gave him away: cold blooded killers Hinkie’s style uh? 🙂

Going through some “pundits podcasts and roundtables” (Dunc’d, Hoop Collective, The Ringer, Woj…) many seems to think that Knox has potential and that he’s very young, so he could be a bust or a home run (TBD in 3 years maybe).

As for Robinson, he’s an even bigger lottery ticket, he went toe to toe with lottery picks in the EYBL but Mike Schmitz said that “he really needs coaching and mentoring from veterans” because he come from a “tough upbringing” and Givony wrote that “Background intel about him is concerning”.
Tons of potential between the kids, but we really need to step up our development department for them to blossom.

At the end I’m on the fence, but a bit more optimistic that many around here (and Trier could be a decent get as an UFA/2WP).

Aside from Porter (is he really fucked up or does Denver have the steal of the century?) I’m surpresed by:
• The raise of Donte Di Vincenzo and Kevin Huerter, the white guys really took advantage of the Draft Combine and the workouts, less than a month ago they were top to middle second rounders.
• The fall of Robert Williams (Celtics’ luck?)
• The rumors that Atlanta fell in love with Young because… he aced his workout! 😀

And for the trade possibilities… I never believed them, we have few desiderable assets and we need them (but Zanzibar’s last proposal is a good one).

… and the Nets are buying Dwight “Locker room cancer” Howard out…

Yeah Knox’s motor is the most worrisome thing because his poor stats might flow from his variable energy. That’s why I say he shows some Mudiayesque personality traits in terms of energy, focus and work ethic. It’s bizarre because Schmitz said he was a very active and tenacious defender in high school. At first I figured all of this might be related to Kentucky being an overwhelming situation for an 18yo but his EYBL performance matched Kentucky stats. There could some mental issue (bipolar, depression) and that might be difficult to detect in an interview.

Agree with your assessment of the low motor concerns. This pick is likely a bust in the end. For a site revolving around statistics and ananlytics, it is disheartening to hear so many use the eye test and non-quantifiable measrures to justify this choice. Also anyone stating that we should just put our faith in this FO is laughable. The same front office that gave us THJR, Mudiay and Baker! Miserable franchise.

As much as the Jets parallel the Knicks in futility, I really could get behind their draft this year, where they took chances and gave up picks to move up and grab “their guy”.

Drafting Knox just feels like adding a mediocre piece to a bad team. This is the result of not committing to tanking. Two years in a row of drafting players that won’t ever move the needle.

All of the negative posts about Knox have made me suspect he will prove to be a bad decision, and that’s in addition to my preference for two way players, and he’s not that. But I relistened to the Dunc’d On podcast discussing him and I can see why some would like him. So I am not as down on the pick as I many of you. This is a 6’10” guy who was the best shooter on the team that had two good bigs so they played him at the two. He can do alley oops, has a nice floater, and has good three point shooting percentages. He can post up a little. I think he has the potential to be a monster offensively. You need a really good defender to stop someone who can do all that stuff. And he’s only 18. The work out apparently convinced the Knicks that he had already improved since college. So I am really curious to see his scoring in Summer league. We could be very pleasantly surprised. That said, he apparently has a lot to learn about team play. Whether he learns that depends on his character and smarts and we have no information on that. But the Knicks might have that sort of information. If so, I hope it was good and that was a factor in selecting him.

By the way, I haven’t heard it mentioned, but had we drafted Mikal Bridges, odds are we could have ended up with Zairhe Smith and Miami’s 2021 first round pick.

I don’t even know what Knox’s ceiling looks like because, at least as of now, he’s not really good at anything. Maybe something like Jabari Parker without the injuries? A medium-to-high volume scorer with above average efficiency who you have to hide on defense sounds about right. Needless to say that’s not exactly what you want to project as the ceiling for your lottery pick.

To give credit where it’s due I think there’s a decent chance Robinson is one of the better players selected in the second round, and Trier is at least a worthwhile UDFA. I would’ve preferred Clark and/or Pinson, and I don’t know why we didn’t buy one of the many picks that were thrown around to select Melton (a Frank-Melton backcourt might score 10 total points in a given game, but the other team’s guards would score 6), but I can’t complain too much about our approach here.

All in all, it looks like our front office weighs a bunch of intangible factors when making important decisions. Sometimes that will accidentally lead to smart choices (Robinson, Williams, Burke to varying degrees), but most of the time we wind up with guys who are pretty typically overrated by sucker front offices.

Fizdale continually emphasizes the importance of toughness and doggedness.
Knox?

By the way, I haven’t heard it mentioned, but had we drafted Mikal Bridges, odds are we could have ended up with Zairhe Smith and Miami’s 2021 first round pick.

I was apoplectic about this on the draft thread. Especially considering Smith is a legitimate high-risk/high-reward prospect, which seems to be what we were aiming for anyway.

I wonder whether PHX called the Knicks up and offered that same trade for #9.

I wondered that as well but arrived at the conclusion they didn’t. First I believe they were hoping Mikal would drop to where they could offer a team less (e.g., put protections on the pick). And also they let Mikal do all of these interviews gushing about playing in his hometown. They wouldn’t have permitted that if they had a deal before Philadelphia picked Mikal. So it looks like 76ers made pick and then Phoenix approached them about the deal.

By the way, I haven’t heard it mentioned, but had we drafted Mikal Bridges, odds are we could have ended up with Zairhe Smith and Miami’s 2021 first round pick.

That deal was probably made before the pick, which is even more of a blemish for the knicks FO.

I see Gary Clark signed with the Rockets. The rich get richer. Also Theo Pinson likely to sign with the Nets.

Life must be wonderful when you have a competent FO.

We want upside. We want swinging for the fences. And we supposedly trust the scouts in our organization. And we supposedly trust the scouts in our organization.

I hope I’m wrong, but I think the next GM will trade Knox for a bag of peanuts before 2021

Mills and Perry will be here for, I’d guess, a minimum of 6-8 more years. Internal hires don’t get canned easily at MSG. It’s the outside, big-money guys like Phil, Donnie, Larry Brown who don’t last.

Stratomatic "Porzingis, Ntilikina, and Knox are going to lead us to the promised land"says:

After having the night to process the information I feel the same as last night.

1. I like the Robinson pick. I haven’t been able to find many details on what happened out of high school, but based on what I’ve seen and read he’s talented. It would not shock me if he’s our starting C in 4 years and it would not shock me if he’s such a huge flake he’s working at McDonald’s in 4 years. That’s the kind of gamble worth taking in the second round.

2. I would have selected Mikal Bridges because he’s clearly better right now, has a higher floor, and he would have given us a strong defensive core. On the flip side, I’m not convinced he’s ever going to be much more than a rich man’s Damyean Dotson (who might turn out to be almost the same player).

3. I feel confident that Fisdale knows that players like Mikal Bridges and Miles Bridges were more productive than Knox in college. I think he also knows what he wants to do and sees Knox as a very good long term fit that fills a need.

4. I feel confident that Knox at 18 years of age is likely to improve more than either Mikal or Miles.

5. Since I’m not an expert on Xs and Os and didn’t see Knox play much, I have to defer to opinions I respect. I’m going to accept that Knox was not used optimally in college and there may be a little more in the tank than we know about.

When I weigh it all out, I still come down on the side of Mikal, but I think it’s a closer call than consensus.

The Knicks front office has the secret information that actually makes this pick, and all of their other god awful moves, genius. That’s why we’ve been a powerhouse forever—the unbridled wisdom of our decision makers.

Obviously they’re playing 4d chess. Make a bunch of wrong moves for 20 years, lull the league into thinking they’re the dumbest FO in world, and then they use their secret statistical formula** to assemble the GREATEST TEAM EVER!

** Knicks Player Rating = PPG x (coaches’ ratings during a private workout (on a 100 point scale) + how many nerds from the stat department advise you not to acquire that player)

If you want to look for positives, I can find a few:

1. Knox is so far away that it does show that we really are committed to a long rebuild. The Porzingis injury was probably a departure point from the foolish philosophy that led to us signing Tim Hardaway.

2. We’re going to terrible next year. And I don’t want to hear about how next year’s draft isn’t going to be good. We have no idea how it’s going to be. We should have a top 3 pick, and top 3 picks are usually pretty darn good.

3. It’s kinda fun to watch kids play and develop, and we’ve got some talented ones. Granted, we expected more from the 9th pick. But we’ve got Frank and Knox at 19 y/o each. Dotson and Robinson are intriguing prospects. Timmy and Trey are surprisingly veteran leaders. It’s not exactly the Baby Bombers, but it’s better than business as usual around here. Just because of their age alone, this could be the 2nd or 3rd best team we’ve gotten to watch since Ewing left.

Knox is going to be an NBA player for a very long time. His floor, to me, is Wilson Chandler, and his ceiling is pretty boundless if our staff can develop him. He was on ESPN’s morning show maybe two days ago and he spoke about a defensive lapse he had on tape. He seems to be a high IQ player when you hear him speak about the game, and basically he knows that those issues boiled down to miscommunication. That makes a lot of sense to me considering he played for a Kentucky team that is littered with one-and-done players every year, so their goal is to get drafted as high as possible and not really to play with each other as a cohesive unit.

I think Knox will thrive as an excellent three point shooter first and that the rest of his offensive game will round out after that. And for all intents and purposes, I don’t think he’ll be a liability when teams switch him into smaller guards as he had actual success guarding those players in college (and I’m very certain Mikal Bridges will get torched by guards, so there’s that).

The rebounding is an issue and it has to do with a guy’s motor. I don’t think he’s a better rebounder than 7 boards per 36, but I don’t think he needs to be much better than 7 boards per 36 if Mitchell Robinson and Kristaps Porzingis are the team’s frontcourt of the future.

I do know that I really wish we had Denver’s draft. Knox and Robinson is a decent draft, but Porter Jr and Jarred Vanderbilt are the two guys who if healthy compliment Porzingis’ game the best.

There were three players in this draft that looked like that had superstar potential – JJJ, Doncic, Young. None of those where available at 9. Draft is a crap shoot. Knox was as good a prospect as anything we could have had. The only reason people get excited about the draft is because every year there is someone who drastically outperforms expectations, but no team CONSISTENTLY picks stars in the draft. That’s because the draft is more about luck, than skill. The only team, in my mind, that drafts better than anyone else is the Spurs. And even the Spurs, it is unclear if its their draft skills or their development skills. As much as this seems unfair, so much in basketball, as in life, is about luck, not skill or hard work. Hey, Knox on Knicks and fox in socks. At least, we got that going for us.

Yes I feel bad for Mikal’s Mom. Maybe there’s a job for her in PHO. I’d be looking if I was her. It shows how the athletes really don’t know what’s going on a lot of the time.

I guess I’m ok with Knox as long as you put him in the lineup and get him consistent rotation minutes. Additionally, we need now to put Frank or Trey out there as a starter and give them consistent 30 plus minutes a night. The other should back up or be traded. I don’t think Frank is a two. I think he’s a one or someone else’s problem, hopefully. But he really wasn’t ever given a chance to play full games in a consistent role last year.

I’d also like to see Dotson, Kornet, and our couple of 2nd rounders be the major part of the rotation. I’d like to move the vets out and would hunt one year deals, clearly.

So, whatever we have let’s see it. If Frank jumps in his second year, if Knox isn’t catatonic, bully! If they’re busts, we go into next year’s draft in better position and hopefully with Steve Mills safely out of the war room.

Of course this will not happen. Chances are Kanter, O’Quinn, Lee, and Tim are gonna lead the team in minutes. We’re gonna try to “tread water” til KP comes back, probably too soon…

Knox’s floor is him being the player he was in college and washing out of the NBA.

His “floor” as it relates to value to the Knicks is 20+ PPG with a 52% TS and a max contract. Try to tell me that doesn’t feel like destiny…

This draft seemed to continue our recent tradition of making intelligent smaller moves (Robinson & Trier) and overpaying for their big move. If they wanted to draft a project they really should have traded down. Maybe you miss on Knox, maybe not, but there’s someone equal to Knox you can draft (SGA, Zhaire Smith, Troy Brown, Robert Williams) and you get another asset. If you’re looking for raw talent to develop the more the merrier.

Maybe they read that 538 projection yesterday that had Knox as 7th best (8th cause no Doncic). And the DX guys were high on him? I dunno. I don’t love it but both Bridges seem like roleplayers and we need more than that. I wish we’d traded down, everyone left at 9 could have been picked 12 or 13 or wherever, they’re all close your eyes and hope.

Again if anyone thinks the Knicks FO are looking at statistical models at all, they’re sorely mistaken. Proof’s in the Mudiay.

Stratomatic "Porzingis, Ntilikina, and Knox are going to lead us to the promised land"says:

@22

What are you talking about? Knox is already better.

🙂

I see the same boxscore stats that everyone else sees. I just think a fair evaluation is more complex than a player’s stats in a snapshot in time, on a specific team, with a specific role, in a specific system. I don’t have good enough data to make a quality projection on Mikal at 21 vs. Knox at 18. I don’t know exactly how to best use Knox. But I think that’s a part of how you should evaluate players. I think long term it’s closer than it looks in the stats right now. Right or wrong, for now, I am trusting that Fisdale’s input on how to use him is going to make a difference and he’s going to improve at a faster rate than Mikal or Miles. I don’t have a choice.

so the optimistic scenarios are something like: barnes.. jeff green… trey lyles… th2… booker… lavine… wiggins… marcus morris… they had somewhat poor defensive and/or rebounding numbers for sg/sf’s in college who kind of sort of panned out in the sense that they are key rotation guys in the nba…

pessimistic scenarios include: dekker… james young.. doug mcdermott… rodney hood… shabazz Muhammad… tony snell… derrick williams… luke babbit… joe alexander…

so in all .. even the optimistic scenarios don’t really share a good picture… I don’t think there is a good starter out of the bunch… and it doesn’t exactly get better if you go back another 10 years… so we’re probably looking at an inefficient scorer who will probably be too weak in the secondary areas to make a larger impact…

one person I haven’t mentioned is actually the one beacon of hope… and that’s demar derozan… but the only reason he was able to catapult himself was because he was THE only one who developed a secondary skill… and that was passing… he also greatly increased his ftr on top of it….

just like with frank… next year is gonna be key to see if he’s in the optimistic or pessimistic camp…. and the key thing to look at will be his rebounding and defensive stats… if there’s deterioration then he will probably bust… 2p fg% is also something to keep an eye on as he was also barely above water there as well….

but all in all …. it’s cause for alarm…. and I’m pretty sure it has close to no chance of working out as perry, mills and fizdale envision it…. the best we could hope for is that he’s some sort of spare rotation piece…

2. We’re going to terrible next year. And I don’t want to hear about how next year’s draft isn’t going to be good. We have no idea how it’s going to be. We should have a top 3 pick, and top 3 picks are usually pretty darn good.

it is impossible to rationally expect this under the new lottery rules. the worst team in the NBA is now an underdog to get a top 3 pick at ~40%.

We could know about Knox after next season, but it could easily take two or three years to learn what he will be. He’said very young.

I think if you’re wishcasting for Knox he’s like the 22/23 year old Harry Barnes except he keeps getting better instead of getting worse. He’s an adequate somewhat switchy defender and a good offensive player.

Lance could be a very valuable trade chip at the deadline

Which Lance? are you talking about our Lance?

Philly played us. I wouldn’t be surprised if they worked out Knox in order to scare us away from cutting the same deal they made with Phoenix. It was basically a signal that they’d take our crush if we traded back. We should’ve called their bluff.

and by even Calipari’s own account, he was utilized badly.

yeah but take it with a grain of salt. Cal isn’t going to trash a former player, is he? I mean if you were thinking of goink to Kentucky, and Cal said “Knox isn’t going to be a great pro – low motor and poor steals/blocks” you’d reconsider wouldn’t you?

On the flip side, I’m not convinced he’s ever going to be much more than a rich man’s Damyean Dotson (who might turn out to be almost the same player).

it’s possible, but evidence is strongly against this. Here the career shooting numbers (for Dotson NBA and G League included):
FT% 3P%
Dotson 78.5% 37.6%
Bridges 84.5% 40.0%

one looks better than the other. it’s possible that will change…in either direction. here are the steal and block rates per 36

STL BLK
Doston 0.95 0.18
Bridges 1.71 1.15

people seem to think Dotson has potential as a good defender. i don’t really see this aside from him having good physical characteristics, but maybe it’s true. still, the number of excellent wing defenders with those kinds of anemic steal and block rates are miniscule. and those stats tend to peak very early; almost nobody becomes a good defensive playmaker over time; when improvement does happen it is usually good playmakers getting modestly more aware and doing fewer dumb things.

these difference are not small. if they are noisy they might turn out to be small, or even larger than they are now. but the evidence is not saying that it’s a good bet that these two will be almost the same player.

Doston is 24 and Bridges will turn 22 in August.

Just read an article that said Frank Ntilikina has grown to 6’7″. Summer league really can’t get here any sooner.

I’m not sure what to think about the sixers thing, and if we should have been able to pull the same deal off. Miami clearly wanted Bridges; I wonder if they were calling around at about pick 6? Teams had to have a clue they would deal for him. But maybe Philly wasn’t OK w/ the trade until they saw that Smith would be avail at 16? I agree it was cruel what they did w/ his mom, that tells me they likely didn’t have the deal in place until after they picked him. Maybe all the pieces just fell together just right?

At any rate I can’t be pissed at us unless I knew that we could have decided to swap 9 for 16 and that future 1, and opted to take Knox instead.

Stratomatic "Porzingis, Ntilikina, and Knox are going to lead us to the promised land"says:

@38

I don’t think it’s fair to compare college stats to NBA or even G League stats. I would compare Dotson’s last year in college to Mikal’s last year in college and make some kind of adjustment for age and quality of competition in their final year (Dotson played against weaker and was a little older at that stage).

The 3 point shot is something Dotson worked really hard on in college. So I’m giving him some benefit of the doubt on his steady improvement (I’ve also watched him shoot in pre games and he’s incredible at times). Pro defenses and the pro line are a different ball game for both players.

By that standard, Mikal obviously looks better overall but Dotson looks like a better rebounder (which we are going to need). I’d give Mikal the clear edge. But they are similar enough for me to call Mikal a rich man’s Dotson. I’m still pretty high on Dotson even though he’s 24. I think he’s going to be a solid rotation player.

Just ran a similar sports-reference search to what someone did a few days ago. It really IS ugly for Knox. Even being charitable to Knox (ie. wider ranges on the stats than he deserves) by putting in freshmen with an AST%<10, TRB<10%, STL%<1.5, BLK%<1.2, I literally can't find another drafted player in the last 10 years that meets those criteria.

Just to demonstrate what a total crap shoot the draft is, here’s a list of some of the 2017 draft grades by nbadraft.net:

Boston – Tatum, Ojeleye B
Charlotte – Monk, Bacon A
Chicago – Markkanen F
Orlando – Isaac A
Philly – Fultz B+
Phoenix – Jackson A
Toronto — Anunoby C-

Obviously, the jury is still out on guys like Jackson and Isaac, but every year people get crazy about who their team picked and then when it all shakes out, guys like Tatum and Mitchell turn out to be the cream of the crop. I remember in 2015 when “experts” like Stephen A. were screaming about us passing on Justus Winslow to take KP. And no one was criticizing Denver for drafting Mudiay or the Magic taking Hezonga.

You just don’t know.

wow – twitter is telling me that the Celtics’ presser for Robert Williams has been cancelled because they can’t get in touch with him. that is weird.

I was really down on Knox in comparison to Mikal Bridges, but one piece of analysis I heard last week on a Ringer podcast did make me question it. The argument was that he was playing out of position for a lot of the year. They had a glut of bigs and he’s unusually mobile and good off the dribble for his size, so they were using him more like a guard, which forced him take tougher shots and diminished his efficiency.

The Knicks, by contrast, would have a much different and more limited offensive role for him: His ideal job would be as a stretch 4 on offense who can chase other stretch 4’s out to the three point line on defense and switch on smaller wings, which helps KP roam around the basket more easily where he can do the most damage. This is probably our biggest single need long term, whether or not Knox is the guy who can do it. Supposedly, Knox looked a lot better when he was playing as a 4 in more limited minutes. If it translates, I’d be psyched.

We were criticizing the Magic for Hezonga and Denver for Mudiay. We knew.

We knew Monk was a bad call last year. We knew Anunoby was a good call. We knew.

Yes, there are always surprises (with my Melo PTSD, I didn’t like Tatum)…but with a stats oriented approach – a very unsophisticated and ill-informed stats oriented approach – WE STILL KNEW.

So, I’m not going to try to convince myself that Knox was a good pick. Sure, he could always surprise…but the heavy odds are that he won’t.

Mikal would have been a solid pick, even if we didn’t know we could trade him for Smith and a future pick. Fck.

I’m less mad about the Knicks not making that specific trade than I am about just how telling it is when it comes to how the rest of the league views Mikal vs Knox.

I don’t know if we had the opportunity to make the trade and didn’t take it. I feel pretty good about speculating that our phone wasn’t exactly ringing off the hook after we took Knox.

wow – twitter is telling me that the Celtics’ presser for Robert Williams has been cancelled because they can’t get in touch with him. that is weird.

Might be a reason why he dropped.

I literally can’t find another drafted player in the last 10 years that meets those criteria.

We got a unique talent!

538 seems to think Knox is a better prospect than we do. We talked about CARMELO yesterday (it ranked him 7th on a list that excluded Porter and Doncic). And there’s this quote today:

Some Knicks fans booed Kevin Knox after he was picked at No. 9 overall, particularly with the more exciting Porter still available, but Knox is far from a bad prospect. He had solid college and AAU stats, plus very impressive measurements at the NBA draft combine — with under 5 percent body fat and a 9-foot standing reach.

We were criticizing the Magic for Hezonga and Denver for Mudiay. We knew.

We knew Monk was a bad call last year. We knew Anunoby was a good call. We knew.

Not sure who “we” is? Knickerblogger posters? No one thought Mudiay was going to be so bad. Most people thought Monk was a decent pick at 11. EVERYONE thought Justus Winslow was a complete heist by Miami at #9.

knox was not playing out of position…. uk actually had a collection of pretty low quality bigs .. probably the worst it’s been in a long long time…

they did have him coming off of screens throughout the year but later in the year he was able to showcase his dribble drive more but it wasn’t actually that great…. his assist/to was horrible and he had issues getting all the way to the hoop which is why his highlight reels are mostly just awkward looking floaters….

I love surprises. As I said last night, it’s going to be awesome when Knox turns into an All-Star.

But it’s really annoying that the Sixers are so much better at us at playing the asset game.

Boomer made a good point this AM…..Knox said all the right things and kept his cool after being booed last night. Good composure for an 18 year old kid.

I’m less mad about the Knicks not making that specific trade than I am about just how telling it is when it comes to how the rest of the league views Mikal vs Knox.

Just because Phoenix made a stupid trade doesn’t mean the whole league though Mikal was better than Knox. I don’t think there was a consensus around the league, but it seems like we definitely weren’t alone thinking Knox is a better prospect.

And Phoenix really made a terribly dumb trade. An unprotected 2021 pick has a lot more value than moving up from 16 to 10. What a horrible waste of value.

I am disappointed that Knox is our reward for this terrible season. But I’m still more disappointed that we were picking 9th, not that we picked the wrong guy. He’s an ok prospect for picking 9th in what was probably a 7 player draft.

wow – twitter is telling me that the Celtics’ presser for Robert Williams has been cancelled because they can’t get in touch with him. that is weird.

I’m definitely not going to make an obvious Len Bias joke.

@53 no, they didn’t. I don’t worship at the altar of Nate Silver by any means, but it is mildly encouraging that stats-based projection systems have Knox rated precisely at the point we took him.

if the draft was a sure thing, teams would lose on purpose to get better picks.

Like others have mentioned, what I’m just as if not more concerned about regarding our FO besides their strange obsession with limited edition variants of Tim Hardaway Jr. is their total inability to make any kind of deal. They did the Melo deal because it was crisis mode at that point, and they did the Mudiay deal. But they totally missed out on trading OQ, trading Lee, trading Lance, taking cap dumps, drafting Mikal Bridges and trading him for the PHX package, literally anything.

By the way, we also would’ve had the 39th and 43rd picks in this draft if we didn’t 1. use picks to dump Travis Outlaw (low key one of the worst moves I’ve ever seen despite its being at the margins) and 2. trade for Mudiay. We could’ve had Isaac Bonga, Deanthony Melton, and Mitchell Robinson, all in the 2nd round! Instead, we just have one. Amazing.

Boomer made a good point this AM…..Knox said all the right things and kept his cool after being booed last night. Good composure for an 18 year old kid.

I saw a segment with him and Jalen Rose breaking down tape and he kept calling him sir.

Obviously likeability is not a good predictor of success, but he does seem like a great kid to root for.

A LOT of pressure is going to be on Fizdale to develop him. We better see a change in priorities next year. I want Frank and Knox starting and finishing games next year, not some veterans. Let the kids learn.

I don’t worship at the altar of Nate Silver by any means, but it is mildly encouraging that stats-based projection systems have Knox rated precisely at the point we took him.

Well, Nate used stats based projections predicting Hillary, but I just used the eye test and feel to know she was the better choice.

i’m not sure what goes in to the Carmelo ratings but i have the sense it heavily relies on efficiency or ts… which in my estimates isn’t all that great… it’s not necessarily a good thing to be shooting a lot of 3s and ftr can be volatile from college to pros… and I also get a sense that he hasn’t changed his projections for year to year nba than college to pros at all…

it’s very good when you have datasets for the pro’s as the win estimates are usually spot on… but his draft models have performed less stellar…

There are two factors that take the Knox pick from disastrous to merely bad.

1. Some knowledgeable scouts actually do like him, as has been pointed out on this board. We’re not left to lean on the homer trope of “Our internal guys liked him a lot, so he must be good!”

2. There were no obvious candidates that we passed on. Porter obviously had a scary medical report since 12 teams passed on him, including Jerry West twice. Mikal is old and a role player. Miles has a lower ceiling. SGA isn’t a good fit. Those were really the only realistic alternatives. While there’s a good chance that Knox is worse than all of them, none of them will likely turn into stars.

@60

That’s a good point. When people defend the front office moves I tend to agree that nothing they did is 100% crippling or absolutely terrible, so we should give them time to work. But it’s so frustrating to see other front offices making the little moves to get more value, winning trades and furthering their positions while the Knicks don’t do anything and seem incapable to understand their own position relative to the rest of the league.

It’s annoying because it really does feel we’re stuck in the middle every time, it’s nice that we’re not Charlotte and Atlanta but we’re also not doing anything impressive.

I really don’t see much happening outside of the expected, Fizdale will play the vets heavy minutes to “hold the fort” while KP recovers, then they’ll make a push for the 10th seed while talking about building character, tough attitude and winning culture and wasting another damn year on nothing.

The one good thing is that at least we can hope eventually Ntilikina and Knox develop and there’s a chance down the line we could have parts to put together a decent core, but mediocrity feels inevitable once again and it’s the worse feeling.

By the way, we also would’ve had the 39th and 43rd picks in this draft if we didn’t 1. use picks to dump Travis Outlaw (low key one of the worst moves I’ve ever seen despite its being at the margins) and 2. trade for Mudiay. We could’ve had Isaac Bonga, Deanthony Melton, and Mitchell Robinson, all in the 2nd round! Instead, we just have one. Amazing.

We would have had one pick, not both.

We gave Philadelphia the right to swap 2nd round picks in 2018 with the Clippers pick that they owned. Philadelphia exercised this, moving up from 43 (LA’s position) to 39 (our position). Then the 43rd pick went to Denver as part of Mudiay trade (which was a terrible mistake; there were better PGs than Mudiay available last night at 43).

You’re right, though, that the Travis Outlaw trade was a travesty. Philadelphia has our 2019 2nd round pick as a result of it. That pick is going to be VERY valuable.

I feel about Knox’s rookie year like I did about Frank’s — I just want to see flashes. He doesn’t need to be good. He can have stupid turnovers or be often out of position defensively. But he needs to show moments of excellence every other game to prove that great play is at least possible.

@66

Ok, thanks for the correction. Yeah, two high-highish second rounders to clear like 5m in cap, thanks Phil!

i’m not sure what goes in to the Carmelo ratings but i have the sense it heavily relies on efficiency or ts

I think age is a bigger factor than efficiency. It had Knox rated much higher than Bridges. Bridges is extremely efficient.

@29 – Spot on. This decision was purely based on one workout. We lucked out with KP cause we didn’t pick 2nd or 3rd, I can say this with 100% certainty that Phil would have picked Okafor. Maybe we luck out again.

With Trae gone, I’m convinced Magic would have swapped with us from #6 to #9 and a reasonably protected first next year. But that required doing their HW like verifying background and medical records and actually doing a workout with him…not just have a lip service meeting only to leak it to Ian Begley as soon as its over. Bamba and everyone else learned a valuable lesson about Perry’s shenanigans and character. Same as when they hired Fizdale, wasted everyone’s time inviting them to interviews when they had no shot at the job.

GMs are super competitive just like actual players on the court. That tweeter BS was not the real reason Colangelo was let go in Philly. Danny Ainge is. Perry was afraid to bet his job on Bamba or Trae. Cost of a $50M 2yr contract and/or another future pick is anemic when you a get a 20yr old HOF type player in return.

Lets call it what it is, we have a phony and gutless front office who think they’re smartest people in the room and will slowly outfox all other GMs. All we can do is now hope lady luck helps us out again.

Phil Jackson was asked why he thought LA passed on Jahlil Okafor and he said, sarcastic as ever, “I don’t know, maybe they measured him?” There’s no indication Okafor would have been a Knick.

@70, you’re right, someone must warn our FO (and every other NBA FO) that all the “ smartest people in the room” are keyboarding in this blog, there’s no one left to do the job the right way.

Because “we knew”…

🙂

It does seem like they didn’t know about the Phoenix trade. For a front office that’s put on such a show about exploring every possibility, that’s a strike. They interviewed 100 coaching candidates and every draft pick from 3-30 in an effort to make it look like they’re so thorough, that they do their homework. And then that happens right under their nose because they weren’t exploring the one thing they should have been exploring the most: gathering more assets..

Another strike is their player profile. They haven’t shown that they value production and seem to be mesmerized by points and athletic ability.

I don’t hold not moving up in this draft against them, though. I would not have given up a future draft pick. And I don’t think they have enough assets to make a meaningful deal yet. We are stuck in the mud, and they’re exercising patience. For now, at least.

Knox : low motor
KP : anemia or something that saps his energy after 25 games

What could go wrong with that front court?

Agree on the lack of creativity to explore trades from the Front office. They’ve had some assets that could have been flipped for something (Lance, Lee, Willy, etc..) but instead went the acquiring Mudiay route and sat on their hands leading up to and on draft day. Disappointing.

It does seem like they didn’t know about the Phoenix trade. For a front office that’s put on such a show about exploring every possibility, that’s a strike. They interviewed 100 coaching candidates and every draft pick from 3-30 in an effort to make it look like they’re so thorough, that they do their homework. And then that happens right under their nose because they weren’t exploring the one thing they should have been exploring the most: gathering more assets..

I’m not sure this is fair. My guess is #16 came up and then PHX called Philly and asked about a deal for Mikal, they haggled a bit, and then Philly said ok pick Zhaire Smith for us. I can’t imagine that Philly picked Mikal on the off chance that a guy they liked at #16 might be there for this trade — Philly wouldve been very happy holding onto Mikal if that trade didn’t materialize. For the Knicks it would’ve been a complete leap of faith — choosing a guy you didn’t really want (Mikal) on the possibility that a prospect you DO like is still there at 16.

I must say — this team is shaping up as a fun team to watch (even if they’re overall terrible as we expect them to be). I think we’re going to run a TON more with athletes like THJ, Troy Williams, Knox, Robinson (if he isn’t up in Westchester).

Our summer team starting five of Dotson, Williams, Knox, and Robinson with Allonzo Trier off the bench (or possibly the starting 2) is going to be very fun to watch. I really don’t understand how an athlete like Trier goes unstaffed when he put up excellent scoring stats, but I digress. He may end up playing in Spain, but he can shoot, handle, and he’s athletic.

well, time to move forward (i’m not sure if it’s possible for us to head further back)…from a “rooting for your team” perspective – for the most part i appreciate the type of people the front office has been bringing in the last few years…

looking forward to the nba summer league kicking off in a couple of weeks…

no doubt there is going to be a ton of pressure on our coaching staff not so much to win games – but, to develop our young roster…

i don’t know about knox as a pick…poor stats, possible passion for the game issue…we’ll see…the spotlight shines bright for knick players – no doubt, any and all flaws will be revealed and highlighted under the constant scrutiny he’ll receive…

my faith in our front office is pretty thin – here’s to hoping fizdale and his staff can have a really positive impact on the team…

The timing of the trade relative to Mikal’s press conference — he was still talking to the press about how excited he was to stay in Philly for several minutes after the trade had gone through — suggests it came together very late, as opposed to something where the two front offices had been in contact for an hour or more.

On a brighter note they will be terrible next year so the 2019 tank is officially on

The other semi-encouraging factor is that we very clearly picked projects this draft. I think that means that we’re not going to be clawing for the 8th seed – that we really are going to build the right way this time. FO has said they’re not giving out multi-year contracts. We drafted two 19 year olds. We’re finally going to play/develop the kids. With KP out this year, we really could be in the running for a top 5 pick. It may not be a great draft but my feeling is RJ Barrett, Reddish, Nasir Little, that French guy, or Deandre Hunter will be worth their draft slot. Also, someone always comes out of nowhere to go in the early lottery like Trae Young.

So – going forward, I’d say that we don’t give out any FA contracts this year unless there is a value that is too good to pass up.

Let KOQ go in FA.

Play Kanter, Kornet, and Robinson as the centers.
Knox, Lance, whoever as PFs.
Give the majority of the wing minutes to Dotson, THJ, and Troy Williams, give Courtney Lee fewer minutes.
Frank should get the majority of the PG minutes, followed by Trey, Baker, then Mudiay.

I’d send Mudiay to the G-league and see if he can eat some humble pie and develop.

That should lead to a 22-60 seasons and a top 5 pick easy.

Our summer team starting five of Dotson, Williams, Knox, and Robinson with Allonzo Trier off the bench (or possibly the starting 2) is going to be very fun to watch. I really don’t understand how an athlete like Trier goes unstaffed when he put up excellent scoring stats, but I digress. He may end up playing in Spain, but he can shoot, handle, and he’s athletic.

Don’t forget Ntilikina!

That interview was pretty brutal Nicos, but he was probably so excited to get drafted that the cat got his tongue.

I’d wager one of the few positive things we can glean from the drafting of Knox is that the Knicks might still see Frank as a 1, rather than a 2. Which can only be good for his development, imo. Though I will riot if Mudiay or Burke is the starting PG this year.

Heard Robinson is a really shy guy who’s not too social etc. This interview seems to confirm that. I don’t think he’s a head case necessarily, or at least we don’t have good evidence for that yet (lol.)

Our Summer League team must be very fun and it’s only a couple of weeks away!

Re: Robinson
I’m laughing citing myself, but don’t forget that
“Mike Schmitz said that “he really needs coaching and mentoring from veterans” because he come from a “tough upbringing” and Givony wrote that “Background intel about him is concerning”.

Wendell Carter has the score for Harvard, maybe this is not the case but Robinson looks like a shy and cute big kid.
I hope they’ll create the right environment for him, NY could be scary.

Frank (and Al), you’re both right… I’m just saying the fact that Phoenix made the trade is all the proof you need to know that there was interest.

It’s likely that, if they had done their homework and explored options with the teams drafting behind them, they would have found some interest before Phoenix made that trade. And then it could have factored into their decision.

Maybe they did, and Phoenix just hid it really well. That seems unlikely considering the cost they paid. If they really wanted Mikal so bad, and we made the 9 available to them, something probably could have been worked out.

I don’t think we were considering trading down, though. That’s what I fault them for.

Not thrilled at all with drafting Knox but I saw a video where Mills, Perry and Fiz called Knox to welcome him to the team and Knox was crying on the phone which reminded me that he’s a 19yo kid who has just fulfilled his dream. I’ll be rooting for the kid and wish him the best.

I’m still super intrigued by Robinson, he had the best rebounding and shot blocking numbers in the history of the EYBL.

Stratomatic "Porzingis, Ntilikina, and Knox are going to lead us to the promised land"says:

I’m less mad about the Knicks not making that specific trade than I am about just how telling it is when it comes to how the rest of the league views Mikal vs Knox.

I don’t know if we had the opportunity to make the trade and didn’t take it. I feel pretty good about speculating that our phone wasn’t exactly ringing off the hook after we took Knox.

For better or worse I don’t think that trade opportunity ever entered their mind. They determined that Knox was a better long term prospect that Bridges (or anyone else beneath him) and fit exactly what they wanted to do. They took him and starting focusing on the 2nd round.

“@70, you’re right, someone must warn our FO (and every other NBA FO) that all the “ smartest people in the room” are keyboarding in this blog, there’s no one left to do the job the right way.

Because “we knew””

Well, we have been able to predict the Knicks would suck for the last 5 years and we knew it every time. The collective average for wins predicted last season was 28 if I recall correctly.

So yeah, we probably are better than the Knicks front office that builds these piles of crap and expects to be competitive.

Front offices are very often ran by people who have little to no idea of what they’re doing. They’re not much different from your average nba obsessive fan. They’re probably even worse because they do have all the technological tools at their disposal and the ability to hire multiple professionals to do the work and still make terrible decisions.

Enes may opt out now that he sees where we’re heading.

If he opts in, he should be able to land us an asset next year. If he opts out, I’d call Morey and offer to absorb Ryan Anderson for Melton and a 2020 first.

I’m fine with Burke starting, he’s our best penetrator and best guard on offense – and he’s only 25. He’s a real asset. There will be plenty of minutes at pg for Frank, unless he’s terrible. My hot take on the starters:

Kanter, Knox, TH2, Frank, Burke

Although TH2 could get bumped if he doesn’t give a crap on D. And there’s no rim protection with that lineup. Also Kornet could get minutes at pf and hopefully Troy is for real.

Kanter, Knox, TH2, Frank, Burke

Mmm, 20 wins. I can already taste the #4 pick, which will be used on one of Kentucky’s “intriguing” bench players.

Enes Kanter will not land us an asset. He’s a major negative value at $19m. We’d have to pay to unload him.

As soon as he opts in, we should engage him in buyout talks.

For better or worse I don’t think that trade opportunity ever entered their mind. They determined that Knox was a better long term prospect that Bridges (or anyone else beneath him) and fit exactly what they wanted to do. They took him and starting focusing on the 2nd round.

Based on what they’re saying at the presser about being locked in on Knox for a while, this sounds about right. The NY Giants FO (regardless of who the GM is) can be the same way in terms of getting tunnel vision about a prospect and not looking into possibilities at trading up or down. Which is both not ideal when you’re in a division with two teams that are always thinking about asset collection, and means that they had better be right about the guy they had tunnel vision for.

If he opts in, he should be able to land us an asset next year.

You think there’ll be a midseason trade market for Kanter? Or just for his expiring contract?

You think there’ll be a midseason trade market for Kanter? Or just for his expiring contract?

He played extremely well for half a year last year. I think you can flip him for the same money, extra year, and pick up a mid-to-late 1st.

For instance, Kanter ($17mm/year, exp in 2019) for Evan Turner ($17mm/year, exp in 2020) and future 1st could make sense. I don’t think we’re going on a spending spree in 2019. At least, I hope we don’t, because we’re gonna be very far from good.

Stratomatic "Porzingis, Ntilikina, and Knox are going to lead us to the promised land"says:

I like O’Quinn (I think he’ll be back), Knox (if he wins the job), Dotson, Hardaway and Frank. That’s a good balance of offense and defense with mostly young guys.

When KP is back in January or so: O’Quinn, KP, Knox, Hardaway and Frank with a switch to KP, Knox, Dotson, Hardaway and Frank when we use KP at C and go smaller.

Enes Kanter will not land us an asset. He’s a major negative value at $19m. We’d have to pay to unload him.

What do you call the opposite of the endowment effect??

Enes Kanter was very good last year. There are a lot of shitty contracts on teams’ books. It wouldn’t be hard to find one around the same amount that expires in 2019 or 2020 and make a deal

Stratomatic "Porzingis, Ntilikina, and Knox are going to lead us to the promised land"says:

When KP comes back I think the Knicks are going to be better than people think down the stretch and then going into 2019/2020 they are going to try to upgrade with a star player in free agency.

Stratomatic "Porzingis, Ntilikina, and Knox are going to lead us to the promised land"says:

If I put the over/under for defensive rating of that lineup at 120, would anyone take the under?

Frank might ask for a trade. lol

Why would Morey and the Rockets want Enes Kanter? It wouldn’t really help them in their pursuit of FA’s this offseason

Why would Morey and the Rockets want Enes Kanter?

They wouldn’t. But if Kanter opts out, we’d have cap space. That’s why I said:

If Kanter opts out, I’d call Morey and offer to absorb Ryan Anderson for Melton and a 2020 first.

This…

When KP comes back I think the Knicks are going to be better than people think down the stretch and then going into 2019/2020 they are going to try to upgrade with a star player in free agency.

… is what I don’t want. If we intended to go on a spending spree in 2019, we should have taken Mikal Bridges.

Let’s spend the next two years a) developing young, cheap, good basketball players, b) drafting more young, cheap, good basketball players, and c) using our cap space to acquire more young, cheap, good basketball players attached to shitty contracts instead of using it on expensive free agents. And then see where we are in 2020.

For once, let’s just take our fucking medicine and do this right.

He was on ESPN’s morning show maybe two days ago and he spoke about a defensive lapse he had on tape. He seems to be a high IQ player when you hear him speak about the game, and basically he knows that those issues boiled down to miscommunication.

Well that settles it. Shall we pencil him in for DPOY?

I mean did anyone expect him to say “Well I don’t really like playing defense, and that’s why I have lapses” the day before the draft?

My 9 year old keeps forgetting to put away his dishes after eating. The other day we had a talk about it, and I’m sure it’ll never happen again.

The rebounding is an issue and it has to do with a guy’s motor. I don’t think he’s a better rebounder than 7 boards per 36, but I don’t think he needs to be much better than 7 boards per 36 if Mitchell Robinson and Kristaps Porzingis are the team’s frontcourt of the future.

So our second rounder that has never played above the high school level will become a rotation player and strong rebounder so we can already take guys that are deficient in that category. There’s only one problem with this logic: won’t he have to fight Slavko Vranes for minutes?

He played extremely well for half a year last year. I think you can flip him for the same money, extra year, and pick up a mid-to-late 1st.

For instance, Kanter ($17mm/year, exp in 2019) for Evan Turner ($17mm/year, exp in 2020) and future 1st could make sense.

Sure, we could get an asset for him if we’re wiling to take back a horrible contract like Turner. But you can say that of any of our players. Noah could net us a small asset if we offered him to Memphis for Parsons. Baker, THJ, Lance… all of them can get us something if we take back worse money.

On his own, Kanter has negative value, so no one will give us an asset in a straight-up trade. I disagree that he played extremely well for half of last season. He put up stats and was awful defensively all season. The only difference was that in the first half, Zingis was covering up his mistakes and the Knicks were a .500 team. In the second half, Kanter stayed extremely consistent, but his situation changed and his warts were revealed.

#105

When have we ever done it right. But yeah, that sounds like a plan….

As much as I love the idea of waiting until 2020, I think it seems far more likely (assuming the kids progress) that we try to make our splash in the summer of 2019. This Kyrie smoke is likely going to be flames by this time next year.

Kanter might be an asset in a trade but for no other reason than his cap number might make trades easier for a star player — ie. Kanter to make the $ match up + other cheap assets for disgruntled superstar X at the deadline. Like for instance, Kanter (expiring) + 2019 1st + Ntilikina + Dotson for Kawhi or something like that (this is not a real trade offer, just an example of using Kanter in a trade). Or, of course to trade our bad salary for other longer bad salary (like Evan Turner or Ryan Anderson or Luol Deng or whoever) + a pick. And I would certainly aim for a much better 1st round pick than Houston’s 1st, which will probably be #28-30.

On his own, Kanter has negative value, so no one will give us an asset in a straight-up trade

Seriously, is there a name for the opposite of the endowment effect? We seem to think everyone we have is trash. Enes Kanter had the best year of his career last year. He had a 2.1 VORP, .630 TS%, 23.6 TRB%. He’s on an expiring contract. Detroit just gave up the 12th pick in the draft for less production and one of the worst contracts in the league. Eric Bledsoe and Nicola Mirotic netted the 16th and 22nd picks of the draft this year on a multiyear deal. This guy can bring back an asset.

538 thought hillary was a lock too

Fake news! They did not say she was a lock. 538 was one of the major sites that dropped her odds right before the election to something like 65% or so. In the end the election was a toss up, where just a few hundred thousand key votes shifted the election. Sometimes when the odds are 2 in 3, they don’t turn out. That’s how statistic works.

And this is exactly what’s wrong with the Knicks FO. Knox might turn out to be a good player, defender, shooter, rebounder, etc. But the ODDS are against it. The Knicks eschewing stats/logic/trends is like hitting on 17. Getting a 4 doesn’t mean they were right and that from now on you hit on 17.

My 9 year old keeps forgetting to put away his dishes after eating. The other day we had a talk about it, and I’m sure it’ll never happen again.

oh no…mike’s in rare form today 🙂

It’s not even like the Knox pick in a vacuum is really that bad, although it kind of is. He offers almost nothing outside of pointzz, doesn’t stuff a boxscore and doesn’t have great intangibles. He seems to have been drafted based on the eye test. But whatever. He probably would have been decent value at like #15 and we took him at #9 but really who gives a shit.

The problem isn’t Knox, the problem is that the team has no long-term plans, and that the team doesn’t realize how destructive it is to pick up meaningless marginal wins by playing mediocre veterans instead of committing to a real tank. We gave 2300 minutes to Courtney Lee, 1600 minutes to Michael Beasley, 1500 minutes to Jarrett Jack and 1300 minutes to Kyle O’Quinn. None of those guys is part of the long-term future, none of those guys had any trade value to pump up, and their minutes should have gone to young, unproven players. That’s why we have Kevin Knox instead of Luka Doncic or JJJ or Bamba or Trae Young or whatever legit prospect we could have had.

This team consciously chooses mediocrity over and over again. They’ll probably do it again this season. The front office doesn’t get it, and they never will.

Fake news! They did not say she was a lock. 538 was one of the major sites that dropped her odds right before the election to something like 65% or so.

Not only did they drop her odds, but they correctly identified that she was at a disadvantage in the Electoral College, and that it was a very real possibility she would win the popular vote but lose the EC. They took a lot of heat of this, and there were lots of “Nate Silver has jumped the shark because he’s giving Trump a substantial chance to win” comments in the days before the election.

@SBondyNYDN
David Fizdale says he has no problem starting Kevin Knox and he would’ve had no problem starting Frank Ntilikina last year. He asked who else could start at SF for the Knicks and, when Courtney Lee and Hardaway were brought up — the coach indicated they’re too small.

Not only did they drop her odds, but they correctly identified that she was at a disadvantage in the Electoral College, and that it was a very real possibility she would win the popular vote but lose the EC. They took a lot of heat of this, and there were lots of “Nate Silver has jumped the shark because he’s giving Trump a substantial chance to win” comments in the days before the election.

To be fair, they put her odds back to 75% right before the Election. But yes, Silver got SO much shit for making allegedly “Click bait” articles about how Trump might actually win.

I like Silver’s bit about what the reactions to him were like. “25% chance of an earthquake? Stop fear-mongering to get hits!” Earthquake hits. “How did you miss out on the earthquake happening?!?”

@SBondyNYDN
David Fizdale says he has no problem starting Kevin Knox and he would’ve had no problem starting Frank Ntilikina last year. He asked who else could start at SF for the Knicks and, when Courtney Lee and Hardaway were brought up — the coach indicated they’re too small.

Everyone, all together on 3. 1…2…3…

THE EAST IS BIG, MANNNNNN.

Weird but totally worthless stat — virtually everyone drafted by the Knicks in the last 10-12 years was born in late July/early August. Knox, KP, Frank, Gallo, Hill, Mardy Collins, Balkman, Thanasis, and Papanikolaus all have birthdays within 3 weeks of each other. Ewing is right in the middle at August 2. As I said — worthless information but I thought that it was interesting.

So we draft players similar to THJR and born in July.

It seems like they are developing of a very complex advanced stat.

Haven’t had a chance to post til now, but I’m glad to see that the initial anger on the site for the Knicks drafting mitchell robinson over de’anthony melton has mostly subsided. as others have said, robinson is super talented and has legitimate upside. i do worry about his decision making and maturity, but this is exactly the kind of pick the knicks should be making in round 2.

As for melton, great defender that really needs to develop his shot. He could become a good pro in houston, but I would bet that wouldn’t have happened if he was a knick. Why? it’s what i will call “the anthony curse” – the crushing disappointment that has followed knicks named anthony in recent years. I humbly submit as evidence:
(1) Anthony Randolph
(2) Melo
(3) Cleanthony Early

Maybe our scouts are big on astrology.

Makes sense since we sign a lot of Cancers.

He wasn’t drafted by the Knicks but Anthony Randolph’s birthday is July 15.

From Mark Vermin of the NYP:

Though Fizdale never saw any college games this season…

So there, Fizdale is not using the eye-test!”

“… the new coach pushed hard for Knox after his 3-on-3 workout nearly two weeks ago in which he got the better of Miles Bridges. Knicks president Steve Mills reiterated that Knox’s willingness to do a 3-on-3 group workout showed his confidence…. “He really responded well to the physicality,’’ Fizdale said of the workout that contributed to his rising on the Knicks’ board. “That was the best workout of all the workouts we had. Talk about physical guys hitting the floor. No one was giving an inch in that workout. The fact he shined in that workout says a lot.’’

Maybe Fiz and Mills thought it was the Big3 Draft…

Injured KP, Frank Ntilikina, Kevin Knox and a bunch of second round lottery ticket types is a pretty shitty young core if you ask me

Makes sense since we sign a lot of Cancers.

Stings because it’s so true. +1

Seriously, is there a name for the opposite of the endowment effect? We seem to think everyone we have is trash. Enes Kanter had the best year of his career last year. He had a 2.1 VORP, .630 TS%, 23.6 TRB%. He’s on an expiring contract. Detroit just gave up the 12th pick in the draft for less production and one of the worst contracts in the league. Eric Bledsoe and Nicola Mirotic netted the 16th and 22nd picks of the draft this year on a multiyear deal. This guy can bring back an asset.

Players with good stats: Kanter, Chandler, O’Quinn, Fields.

Each one of them has been roasted by a certain set of Knickerbloggers for being overrated, too limited to be effective, one-dimensional to the point of being role players at best.

Players with shitty stats: Rose, Mudiay, Bargnani, Ntilikina (rookie, so I give a pass).

Each one of them has been praised by the same set of Knickerbloggers for being underrated players who just need some good coaching to develop the foundational skills they lack: Rose’s terrible efficiency, Mudiay’s terrible everything, Bargnani’s W.O.A.T. defense/rebounding, Ntilikina’s handle and shot.

This board is not of a uniform opinion, but it’s the same people who make the same evaluative mistakes on each side of the value continuum.

It’s kind of hard to accuse the board’s realists as having a reverse endowment effect, since they call the team terrible and then it limps to 37, 17, 32, 31, 29 wins. When the 2012-13 Knicks were assembled, virtually everyone on the board was bullish and with good reason; even the asshole known as THCJ predicted 54 wins.

Remember when there used to be such a thing as “Team Optimism” and “Team Realism”?

Sadly the Realists won. I think pretty much everybody is on Team Realist at this point.

It’s not even like the Knox pick in a vacuum is really that bad, although it kind of is. He offers almost nothing outside of pointzz, doesn’t stuff a boxscore and doesn’t have great intangibles

I generally agree with this, but to be somewhat optimistic Knox offers the chance of points. He was reasonably efficient, shot the three well for a forward, shot like 67% at the rim, shot FTs well. His seeming lack of secondary skills is a likely a cap on his developing into an all star, but a guy who can score efficiently is at least useful.

Everyone’s jaw dropped when the buffoon won the election . . . including the buffoon. Let’s not make believe it was expected. Or even “almost” expected.

The problem isn’t Knox, the problem is that the team has no long-term plans, and that the team doesn’t realize how destructive it is to pick up meaningless marginal wins by playing mediocre veterans instead of committing to a real tank. We gave 2300 minutes to Courtney Lee, 1600 minutes to Michael Beasley, 1500 minutes to Jarrett Jack and 1300 minutes to Kyle O’Quinn. None of those guys is part of the long-term future, none of those guys had any trade value to pump up, and their minutes should have gone to young, unproven players. That’s why we have Kevin Knox instead of Luka Doncic or JJJ or Bamba or Trae Young or whatever legit prospect we could have had.

JK, I have to push back a little here. The Knicks were 6-23 after KP went down, so it wasn’t like those vets you refer to were doing much to win games. I didn’t want them to play either, but the reason we drafted #9 instead of maybe 4 or 5 were all those wins in November and December before KP turned into a pumpkin.

Perry said that he liked Knox more than Porter, not even considering his injury. That goes against everything reported about Porter.
The knicks FO put enormous weight on the 3 on 3 workout, and especially the interview. They came away believing knox had great upside and a hardcore dedication to put in the effort to fulfill his potential. Obviously, stats were not part of the equation.

We won early season games bc of KP.

I mean I guess we should want an ideal world where KP goes off like he did but we lose every game by one point in a super competitive fashion but that’s not how it actually works. Jarret Jack and Courtney Lee were not why we were winning games.

And damn folks. Cheer up. The team is clearly going for youth, length, athleticism and high ceiling prospects. We now have A LOT of young players on this team! This time next year we’re most likely picking in the top 10 again or in the top 5. We’ve got cap space coming off the books in the next 1 to 3 years that should allow us to sign free agents. We’re in a nice spot right now and we gotta a coach and front office that WANTS to develop young players. Its ok to be an optimistic Knicks fan right now. I get having reservations and waiting to see but I’m personally excited to see these young players get at it.

We won early season games bc of KP.

You also lost a ton of games because of KP.

If you simply sort his game log by ORtg in ascending order, you get a win against the Celtics (in which he went 0-11 with 2 TO) and then twelve losses. If your volume scorer is inefficient, you lose basketball games.

You can also see clusters of wins when he scores efficiently. The team lives and dies by Porzingis because, duh, he uses more offensive possession than anyone else. That’s why it’s imperative that he improve his TS% above league-average, a feat he has yet to accomplish in three NBA seasons.

And this is exactly what’s wrong with the Knicks FO. Knox might turn out to be a good player, defender, shooter, rebounder, etc. But the ODDS are against it. The Knicks eschewing stats/logic/trends is like hitting on 17. Getting a 4 doesn’t mean they were right and that from now on you hit on 17.

Actually, Mike, surprisingly 538 is saying the odds are not against it. They said that he’s the right pick at that spot.

I keep saying this… it’s the position we picked that’s making people so upset, not the player we selected. At 9, we were destined to get someone in a different tier from the top 7.

I like Mikal Bridges but it’s not like Stat-based projection systems make him stand out ahead of Knox.

Carmelo rookie projections are weird.
They look for comps based on stats adjusted by age, strength of schedule and pace, with and without scout rankings, and then project WAR based on position. So bigs are heavily underrated cause bigs are currently cheap (replacement level is determined by performance by guys getting the league minimum at that position).

Knox’s closest comps without scouting were James Young, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, Kevon Looney. With the scout’s rankings it’s Tobias Harris, Thaddeus Young, Julius Randle. Not so good, but still good enough for 7th on their board. Doesn’t seem like it likes this draft class all that much.

ESPN’s draft analytics model had Knox at 12, behind Mikal and Zhaire. Which, not a huge reach, though Zhaire and the Miami first is obviously much better. I have no idea how their model works.

So I dunno. Seems like it’s a stretch to assume they completely ignored any models. I guess they ignored raw stats but NCAA competition is so wildly varied I don’t really give a shit. Some of those teams are really good. Some of them would struggle in a rec league at the Y.

Everyone’s jaw dropped when the buffoon won the election . . . including the buffoon. Let’s not make believe it was expected. Or even “almost” expected.

All of the aggregate polling had his rival’s lead within the statistical margin for error, which meant that the electoral college was in play. I think people have confused the Democratic establishment’s surprise as the typical response but people had warned Hillary’s camp and her myopic supporters that her campaign wasn’t the slam dunk they believed it would be. Even some Democratic pollsters saw the handwriting on the wall.

I preferred Zhaire, but he’s not a position of need per se.

But yes, the real issue was that we were drafting too low to get an impact player. You need a top 3-5 for that. We need to tank better and/or win the lottery.

It’s funny: we’re going to have the same comparative dynamic with Knox/Porter this year that we had with Frank/Dennis Smith last year, but people are really going to lose it if Porter breaks out.

I would have hated a Porter pick more. I wouldn’t have touched him till the second round.

I preferred Zhaire, but he’s not a position of need per se.

I usually give not a fuck about “fit,” but the Knicks currently have Lee and Hardaway owed $78M through the end of 2021, so Smith would be up for his extension just as Hardaway came off the books.

When a team sucks as badly as the Knicks do, you draft BPA. Zhaire Smith is definitely a pick based on “fit” for the Sixers. They have two MVP candidates who demand and deserve touches, and a #1 overall pick who is probably going to be given the green light over 2000 MP as the primary ball-handler off the bench. There is no need for another player who needs the ball to be effective.

Injured KP, Frank Ntilikina, Kevin Knox and a bunch of second round lottery ticket types is a pretty shitty young core if you ask me

It really is sad that this is what we have to show for years upon years of shitty, mundane basketball.

JK, I have to push back a little here. The Knicks were 6-23 after KP went down, so it wasn’t like those vets you refer to were doing much to win games. I didn’t want them to play either, but the reason we drafted #9 instead of maybe 4 or 5 were all those wins in November and December before KP turned into a pumpkin.

But why did those veterans get such big minutes? Had we replaced them all with second round/UDFA flyers we could’ve achieved two things: 1) more losses 2) found a diamond or two in the rough a la Covington and McConnell. None of this is hindsight, people were screaming at the time that it made no sense at all for a team in the Knicks’ position to be playing veterans who obviously had no long-term future with the team.

I was pretty surprised that the Sixers traded the perfect guy for them in Mikal for Zhaire. His shot needs a ton of work and his offense consists of put backs and parking himself in the paint for post ups.

He is younger but the Sixers can actually say they want to win now.

I was pretty surprised that the Sixers traded the perfect guy for them in Mikal for Zhaire. His shot needs a ton of work and his offense consists of put backs and parking himself in the paint for post ups.

I think Zhaire is perfect for them. His highlight reel is transition and backdoor dunks and lots of putbacks. They don’t need more ball handlers, especially if they expect Fultz to be a 20% usage player (which they should, because he was a #1 overall pick). They can expect to face any of the following guards in the playoffs next year: Curry, Harden, Paul, Irving, Lowry, Wall, Walker, Oladipo and Giannis. That’s a lot of aggressive, attacking PGs who need bodies on them.

He’s not a blue-chip prospect, but that’s not what the Sixers needed. They need role players, and good ones. If they somehow land LeBron, they need defensive players and perimeter shooters more than anything.

I wouldn’t pick Smith over Bridges in a vacuum, but with an extra 1st rounder, the deal is heavily in PHI’s favor. The whole bit about Bridges’ mom being VP of HR for the Sixers is downright cold, though.

Nice to hear Fizdale say that they’ve had 7 guys in the gym every day working out together. I’d guess that’s Frank, Dotson, Williams, Kornet, Mudiay, Kanter and Baker(?). Add in Knox, Robinson and Trier and you could be running 5 on 5 scrimmages throughout the summer once Baker is cleared for contact. Let’s hope Fizdale is the development guru he’s made out to be.

It’s definitely Isaiah Hicks and not Kanter, who’s going to opt out and sign a big deal in Brooklyn.

One thing I’m really excited about is that we’re for sure going to have a very young team this year. Fizdale sounds like he’s planning for a young team, and Perry said the Knicks will not be active this free agency period. Without Jarrett Jack and Kristaps Porzingis in the way of the tank, we’re going to struggle to win 20 games next season. I’m looking forward to the RJ Barrett introductory press conference in 12 months.

I really think we should move Courtney Lee to the Sixers for DJ Augustin and a 2nd round pick. Augustin expires a year sooner and Lee fits the Sixers perfectly now especially since they just traded Bridges for as raw a draft pick as there is. That’ll open $13MM in cap space for us next summer too.

Lee doesn’t want to be part of this rebuild especially since he’ll be fighting for backup minutes most likely. We do this trade and we’ll be looking at >$50MM cap space next summer even if we give KP a max extension.

The problem is that non of those guys really project to be “starter level” much less decent backups. Knox could probably be a 4th option starter on a good team in like 3-4 years. Frank, I hate to say, is probably a borderline starter, like Marcus Smart. The rest vary somewhere between “average bench piece” and “shouldn’t be in the league”.

The problem is that non of those guys really project to be “starter level” much less decent backups. Knox could probably be a 4th option starter on a good team in like 3-4 years. Frank, I hate to say, is probably a borderline starter, like Marcus Smart. The rest vary somewhere between “average bench piece” and “shouldn’t be in the league”.

I think Knox’s ceiling is a more efficient Tobias Harris which would be a nice result at nine and certainly better than a 4th option. I’m not sold on Frank as a point guard at all but as long as he can hit threes at a decent rate he should be a solid three and d wing who can add a bit of playmaking. Robinson has the physical tools to be at least a Biyombo-type defense, rebound, rim-running center. We’ve seen Frank’s floor (it’s low) and Knox and Robinson’s floors are probably lower (Robinson may well never play a minute outside of G-League) since at least we know Frank can defend at an NBA level but I think all three have a chance to be better than borderline starters. The team is going to be awful next year no matter what but Fizdale was brought here because of his rep as a play development guy and I think he’s got some pieces that could prove useful in getting the team to turn the corner.

I really think we should move Courtney Lee to the Sixers for DJ Augustin and a 2nd round pick

I want to get our 2nd pick in 2019 back. I would trade Lee for that

I want to get our 2nd pick in 2019 back. I would trade Lee for that

I would trade Lee for a corn dog.

Isn’t DJ Augustin still with the Magic or am I crazy? Did he get traded?

I’m not sure anyone wants Lee. Anyway, the future timeline is so uncertain at this point I’d rather hold onto cap space we can use to absorb contracts where we’re paid in first rounders instead of seconds.

I just love the fact that one year ago Miles Bridges was the most Knicksy scenario we could have envisioned but this year he would have been the second best (and we really went for the worst).

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