Knicks Morning News (2018.07.17)

While I’m all-in for the tank, if we win games with guys like Ntilikina, Robinson, Knox, Herzonja and Mudiay playing prominent roles, then I’m OK. Progression by the kids means we’re establishing a strong core that eventually can compete. The kids are all raw and in desperate need of solid coaching. Now it’s in Fizdale’s hands. Let’s see if he can mold these kids.

I don’t think Robinson needs to worry about his contract at all. If he’s as hood as we hope he is he’ll be a NY star and make tons of money from sponsors.

awesome typo @4!

Top 5 prospects in the 2018 #nbadraft class in PER @nbasummerleague (min. 3 GP / 20+ MPG)
1. Mitchell Robinson (35.0) @nyknicks
2. Wendell Carter (26.8) @chicagobulls
3. Svi Mykhailiuk (26.6) @Lakers
4. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (25.7) @LAClippers
5. Jaren Jackson (23.2) @memgrizz

PIPM Summer League Ranking

OUCH. Look who’s #2. We’re gonna fix you Mudiay Perry. Fizdale’s now the de facto GM and Perry’s negotiating the contracts which is fine for the time being. I would have cut Lance instead of Troy, but Fiz knows Troy from a previous team and probably looked at him as a low IQ guy who couldn’t hit 3’s and showed no improvement.

Well Kanter is gonna play a lot, no doubt about it. Not so sure about Lee. But those two, along with Burke and of course Timmy can win you games all by themselves. So if Mitch is for real (and I am uncomfortably confident that he is a Camby-like X-factor from day 1) and 2-3 other young’uns step up a notch, The Fiz Kids will be the talk of the league. That would bring us back to the days of The Bomb Squad…I still might have that poster in a closet somewhere!

Sorry for the OCD posting, I’m in a bagel place in Canton NY on a recruiting visit at SLU for my kid.

I think Ayton will disappoint, not as bad as Okafor but along those lines. He’s not gonna Physically dominate NBA bigs in the post, is not a reliable perimeter shooter and doesn’t protect the rim. His ceiling is Amare, which is awesome, but there’s not much margin for error.

Carter is really impressive. He seems in better shape and was moving very well in SL and the skills are obviously there.

Who knows with Doncic?

I’m still thinking that Bamba has unlimited upside. He is still so underdeveloped physically that it’s hard to tell what he will morph into.

Knicks should feature a spread PnR offense right out of the chute using Mitch at the 5. All Mitch has to do is dive to the rim just like Tyson used to do. The PnR could be initiated by Frank/Timmy/Burke/Knox or even Dotson (I saw a couple of nice Dot-Mitch PnRs in summer league). The spread PnR should be a staple even when KP returns and plays the 4 since he’s able to shoot the 3 ball. The offense will be much more diverse when KP returns (e.g., PnPoP, KP ISO, KP off screens) but it’s better team get used to spread PnR rather than plays built around Enes’ skills since he’ll be gone next summer.

Enes could help Mitch a lot in practice in terms of Robinson having to box him out and keep him off the boards. Also defending him in the post.

@16 agree on all fronts. Does anyone worry that if the Knicks don’t have takers in July2019 FA market that they might re-sign Enes to a 4-year/$72 Mill deal?

I’m not so sure about KP’s b-ball IQ. He does a lot of stupid shit out there. I think he fancies himself to be Kevin Durant rather than Dirk. He loves dribbling way too much and seems resistant to developing a single unstoppable bread-and-butter move e.g. the Kareem Sky Hook, The Dirk One-legged Fadeaway, the Hakeem Dream Shake. He is not, nor will ever be, a Kevin Durant that has a dozen killer high-efficiency ways to score. Fiz needs to employ the same philosophy he espoused with Mitch…first, do the things you are already great at, then add on to those as you perfect new things. KP has become a Jack-of-all-trades, master of none on O. That’s not as smart as KP’s media savvy would suggest, he has an answer for everything but it’s all bs.

KP’s got a mediocre Bball IQ and poor work ethic. I worry that Fiz took the wrong lesson from the Gasol situation. Marc’s a 30+yo established star and Fiz’s personality and pushing him to expand his game grated on him. KP is 22yo and we need Fiz to challenge and push KP not coddle him.

Enes Kanter will probably be a Brooklyn Net in July. With KP, Robinson, and Knox all needing front court minutes I doubt there’s any room for Kanter long term.

While I love Robinson already, the Knicks, if they play everybody by merit, are a 23 win team at best. Kanter and Mudiay are an unstoppable tank on defense, and if Knox has a Beasley-esque season this year (and I doubt he’ll be as efficient offensively but he could be better defensively), you’re talking about the worst defense in the NBA over 82 games. We also have a single 40% 3 point shooter on the roster, and he’s likely to come off the bench this season and unlikely to lead the team in 3PA. That honor will go to Tim Hardaway Jr and his career 35% mark. This is the making of a terrible defense and below average offense unless Frank Ntilikina and Mitchell Robinson get a lot of time. Those two are probably the 22nd best defense in the NBA by themselves, but their limited offense will keep them off the floor.

Maybe Mario Hezonja has a breakout season, maybe TH2 has a career year at 27, maybe Kanter improves defensively, maybe Fizdale turns water into wine on defense, and maybe Trey Burke is the real deal. But it’s more likely that we suck, and I’m embracing that. There is no Kristaps Porzingis to save our defense this year, and that means a lot of losing.

There’s no need to worry about accidentally winning too many games this season, our defense is going to be god awful. The summer league Knicks made guys like Ojeleye on the Celtics look like LeBron, there will be many more instances of scrubs “elevating” their games against our awful perimeter defense.

Speaking of Boston, in typical Ainge fashion he moves Isaiah Thomas after his best season ever, gets Kyrie Irving back and Thomas proceeds to become an injury ravaged mess who just signed with Denver for $2 MM. Every player Ainge trades becomes a worse player on his new team, just uncanny (and I don’t want to hear about the Brad Stevens effect)

We cut Troy

@27 I know it’s annoying but it’s hard to cut players who you have more cache invested in, or who have bigger contracts, or at positions you are thin at. Lance is probably a better player than Troy right now and might have value as an expiring (considering he is only guaranteed a Mill in 2019-20). Mudiay is still very young and might develop somewaht and is at a very thin position. But yeah, it’s annoying.

@31 as I just pointed out, Lance is only guaranteed for a million next year.

I don’t know if Noah is anything but a washed-up big-mouthed, lying, PED-using, malcontent albatross at this point. Let him mentor someone in China at this point.

The contract detail that Z-Man keeps pointing out makes Lance one of our most valuable assets. Next summer, he can be traded for any player making up to $12mm, and the team acquiring can waive him for $1mm and save $11mm. A savings of $11mm to a team in the luxury tax or looking for cap space is worth at least a first round pick, probably more. Waiving him now would be a terrible mistake.

I really think we should just Marbury Noah and leave him away. He already made it clear last season he’s not healthy and not in the mood to be helpful, why should we care?

If he shows up to camp healthy use him as a backup for a couple of spot minutes here and there, just so he won’t make another shitstorm, our coaches should be mentoring the development of Robinson and the other guys, not him. Then stretch him next year if something amazing comes up or just let him expire.

Thanks Phil!

If guarding Enes in practice makes you a better defensive player, then why did Billy H look so lost on D last year everytime he got in a game?

@41
I’ve never felt that the Lee or LT contracts were that bad. LT is basically an expiring, now. Noah, of course, was atrocious.

I too hope that the FO waits until 2020 before spending any big money. I wonder, though, how bad Timmy would have to be for Mills to face up to that bad deal and stretch him?

The contract detail that Z-Man keeps pointing out makes Lance one of our most valuable assets. Next summer, he can be traded for any player making up to $12mm, and the team acquiring can waive him for $1mm and save $11mm. A savings of $11mm to a team in the luxury tax or looking for cap space is worth at least a first round pick, probably more. Waiving him now would be a terrible mistake.

Unfortunately this is not longer the case. Under the new CBA, the non-guaranteed portion of contracts is not counted in trades. So Lance only counts as $1m if he were traded next summer.

Lance signed in ‘15
Coach on the floor gets six large
Old cap rules apply

We probably wouldn’t need to stretch Timmy – year four is a player option and he may well opt out to seek a multi-year deal.

I think the Lakers model is the right one. Get to 2019 knowing how we would create space if a top tier FA we’re willing to commit. If not, roll it over by adding short deals. For example, we can add one more year of Hezonja if he’s any good then we’d have his early bird rights.

Cap is slated to be $120m in 2020 and if we haven’t stretched Noah and if THj opts out we have a LOT of space. I think nearer $70m depending on where we pick in 19 and 20.

So Lance only counts as $1m if he were traded next summer.

So, there may be a silver lining in there? But I’d guess Mills and co. just want the cap space.

I’ve used the “mentoring” angle a lot to justify bad contracts but more and more I think this idea of mentoring is really overblown. I do think a young team should have a few vets on the team to keep the young guys in line and teach them what life in the NBA is about, but our young players should be developed by the coaches, not by other players. If Noah were in his prime and still a badass on defense then that would be a different story but I don’t think an over the hill player who used to be good can really mentor or teach a young player how to be good on defense. At least, not more than a coach would.

we’ve collected a lot of guys who can’t really handle the ball or create for others… no knox is not that guy either and will most likely be exacerbating that problem… it’s gonna be a lot of catch and shoot off screens or a heavy reliance on burke and frank which probably won’t end well…

If Noah were in his prime and still a badass on defense then that would be a different story but I don’t think an over the hill player who used to be good can really mentor or teach a young player how to be good on defense. At least, not more than a coach would.

Plus Noah’s relationship with the franchise is not so bueno right now. If Mills asked him to come back as the 3rd center, play 8 mpg, and spend most of his time grooming a rookie to take his place, I don’t think he’d be the most enthusiastic mentor.

If we’re going to bring him back, we should give him some minutes and see if he has anything left to contribute. Otherwise just tell him to stay home.

we’ve collected a lot of guys who can’t really handle the ball or create for others… no knox is not that guy either and will most likely be exacerbating that problem…

Yeah this is not a good passing team. There is probably goin to be a lot of Knox iso, a lot of THJ iso and so on. The addition of Knox gives the team another guy who can run the floor, so they will probably get more easy transition buckets than Knicks teams of recent vintage, but this still seems like an offense that is going to struggle with eFG% and FT/FGA.

Someone reporting NYK and Thibs have entered prelim negotiations on a Butler trade.

I know the negatives on Butler, and he makes little sense for a team in the Knicks’ position, and the Knicks have made dumb trades for veterans too many times to even count over the past 20 years, but Jimmy Butler would be the best basketball player to wear a Knicks Jersey since Ewing. He’s probably the best player in the league at his position, is in his prime (should have been in the top 3 of MVP voting when he got injured last year), and seems like a dynamic enough personality to entertain in New York. It would be exciting to have him in NY, especially if it didn’t include moving any young players or picks.

The Knicks could even trade Noah and Thomas for Dieng in the trade and save Minnesota money while also preserving their own cap situation in 2019 and 2020.

Here’s how the #’s look: LINK.

If Jimmy declined his player option, his hold would be 30m. Knicks would have to trade Courtney to free up about 31m to sign Kyrie and then go over cap to sign Jimmy, KP, Burke. Our roster:
1: Kyrie/Burke/Frank
2: Butler/Frank/Dot
3: Knox/Dot
4: KP/Knox/2019 Pick
5: Mitch/Room Exception

We really need to stop assuming we’re going to be able to tank our way into RJ Barrett. With the flattened odds the worst team in the league now only has a 14% chance at the #1 pick. If you’re the worst team in the league you only get a 42% chance to make it into the top 3. It’s very easy to be a truly terrible team and still pick 5th or 6th now.

Even if you don’t get RJ Barrett and you don’t like any of the other players, you can flip the #2 pick, Kevin Knox, Mitchell Robinson, and Courtney Lee for Anthony Davis. The point still stands.

Even if you don’t get RJ Barrett and you don’t like any of the other players, you can flip the #2 pick, Kevin Knox, Mitchell Robinson, and Courtney Lee for Anthony Davis. The point still stands.

You’re writing a script in your head that has no bearing on reality.

Even if you don’t get RJ Barrett and you don’t like any of the other players, you can flip the #2 pick, Kevin Knox, Mitchell Robinson, and Courtney Lee for Anthony Davis. The point still stands.

Yeah, but even the worst team in the league gets only a 28% chance of a top 2 pick. If you’re like the fourth worst team in the league or something, you could very easily end up picking 7th or something like that with the new system. And the #7 overall pick is not that valuable.

You have to tank REALLY hard just to get to a guaranteed #4 pick, and there is always stiff competition in the tankathon.

If the Wolves are seriously selling low on Butler, then Thibs is a worse GM than I think and I think he’s a really dumb GM.

That said, I doubt he’s actually that much worse than I think, so the odds are that the Knicks don’t have what it takes to get Butler (or, if they do, it will be too much to give up).

I don’t know how hard the Knicks have to tank if our rotation is:

Burke/Mudiay
Hardaway Jr/Ntilikina
Hezonja/Lee
Knox/Thomas
Kanter/Robinson

Our best offensive player is Kanter and he’s guaranteed to sink our defense. This honestly looks like a 23 win team next season, which is probably good enough for 3rd worst. The lottery odds are flattened, but it’s still an asset you can use in a trade or worse comes to worst we’re stuck picking in the lottery. Losing as many games as you can is still a more sound strategy than trading the farm (because that’s what it will take) for Jimmy Butler.

@64 word

THJ/1st round pick swap option/two 2nd round picks

If Thibs lets Butler walk, Wolves will still be over the cap in summer of 2019. THJ + pick swap + 2 2nd round picks is probably better than nothing.

Some trade heists involve getting a superstar (Gasol, Garnett, Chris Paul) for a bunch of trash and some lottery tickets. Sometimes the shafted team gets lucky (Marc Gasol, Lou Williams) but mostly they’re just shafted.

Some other trade heists involve giving up a garbage player (Bargnani, Curry, Bennett, Wiggins) for literally anything of value. If the Raptors traded Bargnani for a ham sandwich, they’d still have come out ahead on the deal.

Trading chaff for Butler is in a weird, no-man’s-land of NBA trade value: he’s undeniably good, a rare gem at a weak position league-wide, he’s still in his prime, he plays hard every night, and he’s reasonably healthy, historically. That said, he’d improve the Knicks by enough wins to make them irrelevant in the lottery, and either walk next offseason OR sign what will almost certainly be an overpay, especially in years 3-4 of his contract. Pass.

It’s all about the win curve, and Butler is the wrong guy for this stage of a rebuild. He’d be better off going to LAL or SAS. Hell, why not ask for a trade to Philly if he’s going to be traded for scraps? They have the cap space and a glaring need for a 2-guard who can shoot and guard.

@79 – In other words we should stop talking about acquiring Jimmy Butler right now.

Tanking = better odds at a top pick. Not guaranteed but better, sign me up

I have no problem with trading for Butler as long as we don’t give up a core young piece, but it does open to the door to signing him back for another long contract after this one is over. That might be a bit dangerous. He’s 28. He probably has 3-4 more really productive years left. If you have him for that long and let him walk or trade him that’s fine. If you have him around for longer, the tail end could be an issue just when some of the younger players are peaking.

Yeah, I have to agree that Butler wouldn’t really be right for our win curve. Even if we can’t tank all the way to #1, we should be looking to add another high pick next year, even if it’s a mid-lottery pick because we couldn’t win the Tankathon and then get bad lotto ball luck. I don’t think next year’s draft is as weak as people are saying, there are already some pretty intriguing names in it.

I love Butler but the only reason I’d want to trade for him is to immediately repackage him to the Sixers. So yeah, what THCJ said.

He’s a great player, no doubt. Why the hell would he want to come here though?

I’m for signing Kyrie and against trading for Butler (unless they’re dumb enough to take Timmy)

At some point, don’t we need a real pg if we’re ever going to develop into a real team? Clyde is not walking through that door. Either trade for Ball or sign Kyrie next off-season. Stand pat and tank this season.

Knox made 1st team All Summer League. Ptz

JJJr was All 2nd team. Tells you all you need to know about experts

@93

The issue with this line of reasoning is that it worked for the Mavs because Dirk was a top 5 player, MVP candidate, in contention for best power forward ever kinda guy. They had the most important piece locked up, no one is going to be mad about building a win now team around prime Dirk Nowitzki. No one is telling the Bucks to go young and rebuild because they have Giannis.

So no, not every player needs to be young. But if the player in question sucks, I.e Lance Thomas or Tim Hardaway Jr for example, I would much rather have 20 year olds that suck but have some potential to get better. And, the most important part, you need at least one established superstar to do it, or at least the ways to find one (young players who could develop, assets for trades, first round picks).

I don’t know if the Knicks are capable of executing a plan that requires two years of patience, though.

^ that was me 6 hours ago. Now I’m afraid we don’t have the patience to get through the summer of 2018!

I like Jimmy Butler but we would be much better served having the worst record in the league. There is *always* going to be an unhappy player available and we should wait until we are in the right stage of our development to acquire one.

When were the Knicks last good for an extended period? When they got Ewing with the #1 pick. This team will be no better than the 12-13 house of cards until it gets another foundational piece. That may take a while because even a top pick doesn’t guarantee a Pat Ewing. But there are other upsides to keeping first round picks and avoiding veteran FA’s/ trades. Right away, like this year, you have some kids who have some intriguing upside, haven’t had injuries, and, as a fan, you feel like they’re members of your team in the truest sense (the endowment effect, LOL) If you have a confluence of that type of player over a decade and you might actually build a decent core. Maybe then you swing a value trade like IND did and have a nice little playoff team, if not a juggernaut.

What I’m saying is, trading a #1 for Jimmy Butler is the wrong strategy. They can have all of Lee, TH2, Noah, Thomas and a 2nd rounder if Thibs is dumb enough but some win now move that includes a first rounder would be so freakin’ moronic.

The problem is, our roster looks SO thin right now, I’m just not sure I can trust that they wanna go to war with that. They look like they’re in prime position to do something dumb.

Do they think KP=Ewing and they just need one more star? Not a good idea at this point…

Its impossible to build a team that is elite for a decade straight. If we sign Kyrie or Butler or other older players who are still in their prime, when they are done with their contracts, we would still have KP, Knox, Frank in their primes. Are we gonna then turn around and say, oh Frank is 27, we should trade him because he doesn’t fit the timelime.

The point is that you develop a core through losing games for draft position, stockpiling picks and winning trades and then you sign the star. There’s no point in taking a 20-win core to a 35-win core by trading for Kyrie or Butler. By trading for them now, you demand that the team’s window is right this instant, and when it doesn’t pan out (because, again, 35 wins, at beast), what do you do? Shrug, say, “How could we have known?” and punt again?

But if you can reasonably assume that a player you are getting will be productive and live up to their contract for the entire time of their contract, then why does it matter if they are 22, 24 or 28? As long as you aren’t signing them when they’re 32 or 34 and/or aren’t overpaying them then you’re good to go.

It depends on whether you’re giving up assets for them. If you trade away future picks for Kyrie Irving, you’re making a bet that he will outperform the $200M contract he’s due to receive from his next team. If he doesn’t, your rebuild is dead in the water, and you have a guard already halfway through his athletic prime who’s owed way too much money.

The Knicks have made so many bad decisions over the last twenty years that it’s easy to forget why they made them: because they thought they had found the “final piece” to a winning club. They didn’t give up the farm for Curry or Carmelo because they were looking for a marginal improvement; they were going for broke. I’m glad that this time, we’re talking about legitimate stars (for once), but it’s still bad timing. Be patient.

Just to check, is there any evidence we’re even trying to trade for butler or is this a totally hypothetical discussion based on a liked tweet and years of knicks-induced PTSD?

@103

Yeah, this is definitely the point.

Of course you can get lucky and have veterans outperforming their contracts, it could theoretically happen, but why put yourself in this position when the downside is 4 years of being fucking terrible and the odds are obviously low? Specially when the downside for the rookie contracts strategy is much smaller and much, much easier to recover from? It’s literally going for the 20% chance of success with 80% chance of crippling destruction to the franchise instead of 20% chance of success with 80% chance of being in the same place you were 1 season ago.

That said, I do feel Butler and Irving are very, very good players who are top 10-15 candidates when they are healthy, and i don’t think it’s entirely like giving Melo and Amare max contracts, it has a much better chance of working out eventually, but it’s still too risky. That’s why I said I’d be up for getting them both as free agents only under many conditions, such as KP shows improvement, one or more of the young guys looks like a stud and we don’t give up real assets.

You’re missing the most important thing: the rookie-scale contract.

This isn’t as true anymore.

When you draft 18-19 year old players, you typically don’t get much if any positive production for a couple of years. For example, I think highly of Frank long term, but he’s not worth what we are paying him now. The same will probably be true of Knox for a couple of years. If we are lucky and they finally start coming into their own in 2 years, we won’t get great value for long because we’ll have to extend them with very generous contracts before we even know what their top is. You could also draft a series of duds and be overpaying all of them for years while limiting your options.

The market is reasonably efficient everywhere.

You can outsmart it by drafting really well (possibly Robinson for us). But you can also outsmart it with relatively young players, veterans, and even aging veterans. There is no formula for success other than finding good value and eventually rolling it up into enough quality to contend.

Of course, I don’t think for a second that thibs is considering any such thing and the minute he says the words ‘unprotected’, ‘pick’, ‘knox’, ‘frank’ or ‘robinson’ I’m hanging up.

Yeah, agreed. If Thibs is willing to take a deal that there’s no way that he would take, then I’d be down with it, as well. As you note, since he isn’t, then I’m not.

Trading for an impending free agent who allegedly wants to come here in the offseason anyway is a song we’ve sung before around here. That said, I agree with a few points expressed above:

1)It would increase the odds of us attracting a second top FA (the rumored Kyrie/Butler combo) in the offseason, and as the Paul George/Lakers situation showed us, assuming the impending free agent will automatically come to your team doesn’t always work out;

2)Butler, even with the mileage on him, is a different and better caliber of player than Melo or Amare, and the combination of him, Frank, Robinson, and a healthy KP would give us the kind of defense we’ve been craving forever; and

3)Even considering everything from #1 & #2, I would still only do it if Thibs is just so inept/crazy/pressured that he does it for stuff we’d want to get rid of anyway.

I like Jimmy Butler but we would be much better served having the worst record in the league.

Did you know that the Knicks have the worst record in the league over the past 17 years? The worst. The worst record. The worst record in the league.

And this is all they have to Show for it.

The Knicks are so far behind the good teams in the league, and they are so far behind the curve of the rebuilding teams, that their prospects of winning a championship in the next ten years are remarkably poor.

Having the worst record in the league, to add to the twenty-year masterpiece they’ve been painting, isn’t really going to help anything.

If the Knicks decide to trade for Jimmy Butler, that’s not a bad thing. He’s a great offensive player and a great defensive player—the kind of Top Tier Talent the team has failed to provide for their fans to watch play for way too long now.

Did you know that the Knicks have the worst record in the league over the past 17 years? The worst. The worst record. The worst record in the league.

It just shows how inept they are that only twice in that 17-year time frame were they in the bottom five of the draft in any given year! Forget worse record, they haven’t even been top five more than twice! And one of those years, they didn’t own their own draft pick (one other time they were tied for the fifth worst record and, of course, lost the lottery and picked #6 and thus missed out on Kevin Love, who was drafted #5 overall)

Yeah, exactly. Butler would totally be worth a lot of good assets for a lot of teams. Just not here, not now.

But sure, if the Timberwolves want the Knicks’ dregs for some weird reason, go for it.

The market is reasonably efficient everywhere.

Money owed from 2017 onward, assuming these players opt-in to their final years:

Andrew Wiggins, $136M
Blake Griffin, $160M
Mike Conley, $113M
Bradley Beal, $105M
Jrue Holiday, $104M
Aaron Gordon, $89M
Gary Harris, $76M
Chandler Parson, $72M
Nic Batum, $99M
Serge Ibaka, $65M
Danilo Gallinari, $64M
Gorgui Dieng, $62M
Dennis Schroder, $62M
Ryan Anderson, $61M
Paul Millsap, $61M
Cody Zeller, $56M
Joakim Noah, $55M
Luol Deng, $54M
Evan Turner, $53M
Tristan Thompson, $52M
Chris Bosh, $52M
Tim Hardaway, $72M
Reggie Jackson, $51M
Honey Nut Cheerios Anthony, $53M
Evan Fucking Fournier, $68M
TJ Warren, $50M
Hassan Whiteside, $76M
Dion Fucking Waiters, $47M
Harrison Barnes, $73M

Does that look like an efficient market to you? That looks like a ton of average-to-bad players with horrendous contracts.

And it really shows this stupid approach of never rebuilding properly, chasing stars and win now moves and winning cultures is garbage. There’s been like what, at least 6 of those seasons I remember where bottoming out for more losses and a true rebuild would have made a big difference in terms of the lottery, 2003, 2005, 2008, 2009, 2016 and 2017, not even counting 2002 because the draft was so laughably weak in the top 5 outside of Yao.

Ay-yep. This team has never tried a sustained rebuild since Dolan bought the team. They might finally be on the way to one, but, well, we shall see. 😉

What sucks is that the one time he definitely would have allowed it, Phil, well, you know.

There is no way that the Wolves are ever taking a protected pick back in a Butler trade. Same with a pick swap (as the sole pick, that is. I could see them asking for a pick swap on top of an unprotected first rounder, but not instead of an unprotected first rounder). Hell, you’d be really hard pressed to get them to even accept an unprotected first from 2020 instead of 2019.

Other good teams can and will make respectable offers if Butler is seriously available. Heck, what about the Lakers? Butler would cost a lot less than Kawhi.

Anthony Davis will be available in a year.

I’m sure there’s a good reason for being so certain about this, like you’re his Live Psychic Friend or something, but predicting player movement in the NBA one whole year out is like predicting where and when earthquakes are going to happen.

Davis is signed until 2021.

And if he’s made available in the summer of 2019 for some reason, like you said, Boston, and other teams, are so rich in assets that they can beat the Knicks if they want to, so building a strategy completely around acquiring him is more bunk than just clearing space for actual free agents.

I can’t believe I’m actually writing this, because the whole idea is so crazy; but Butler and Dieng for Noah and Hardaway and Burke actually works in the trade machine. Thibs probably thinks Noah is useful (and he is probably more useful than Dieng) and he gets youth in return for Butler. I’d rather give up Burke than a first round pick, although their value is roughly equivalent. It seems a fair deal to me, but will never happen.

Brian, remember that Paul George was traded under similar circumstances and the Pacers got two players back and no first round picks. And I believe he was younger at the time than Butler is now. We can debate what might be a good deal for us, but don’t assume we have to give up a pick