Knicks Morning News (2018.07.23)

The fact that we’re all still discussing this shows just how much this approach of never tanking really killed the Knicks since the Chandler / Kidd team disintegrated.

Nobody is debating this, it is pretty much stipulated. However, the reality is that current management is not going to embrace the 100% tank either. That’s just the way it is. You and others can whine about it all you want, but it’s not going to change. What has changed is that there is a much greater commitment to acquiring and developing young players than there has been in decades. Maybe it’s not good enough for the curmudgeons here but it is a vast improvement. I’ll take it.

We are not only stuck overpaying bad veterans but we probably have the least to be hopeful about in terms of young talent of all the crap teams expect what, Memphis and Atlanta, in year 1 of their rebuilds and Brooklyn which shouldn’t really count?I guess if Porzingis comes back 100%…The Kings, Magic and the Suns have multiple blue chip prospects to develop and we’re discussing Tim Hardaway Jr.

Really?? Porzingis, Knox, Robinson, Ntilikina and Burke aren’t as hopeful as what Sacramento, or Phoenix, or Orlando have?? And they aren’t overpaying veterans that suck or don’t fit in with future plans? Biyombo, Fornier, Vucevic, Randolph, Shumpert, Koufos ring a bell?

I just agree with JK47 and THCJ, if something good is going to happen in the next few years it will be a combination of Porzingis, Knox, Ntilikina and Robinson. Focus on them. Everybody else can be waived tomorrow for all I care.

That would be as dumb of a management move as ever was made. It would be like throwing last year’s inventory into the trash instead of having a clearance sale.

If this team manages to take a half season without KP and still manage to not get a top 5 lottery pick it will be an unmitigated disaster.

Yeah, just like this years draft. What a disaster!

I also wonder why guys like Mudiay, Hezonja, Dotson, Trier, and Baker are not seen as potential roster pieces going forward. Mudiay most likely sucks, but he is only 22 and could figure out how to shoot and defend better and not turn the ball over. Hezonja showed signs of improving last year. Dotson has 3-and-D potential as an athletic wing, and Trier is a good undrafted flier. Baker could be a good minimum deal player going forward. All long shots to be significant rotation players on a good team to differing degrees, but all with at least some potential.

Just read the last thread. I can’t believe this discussion is happening again. But at least a new level of dumb has been reached by someone saying Philly’s tanking strategy hasn’t been a success.

“Mudiay most likely sucks, but he is only 22 and could figure out how to shoot and defend better and not turn the ball over.”

Lmao I love it!!

He’s here all week. Don’t forget to tip your waitress!

Melo will sign with Houston once he’s released.

Want to be a fly on the wall for the first Melo/Pringles conversation about his role

Don’t forget to tip your waitress!

The politically correct term is server.

#metoo

@1

Yeah, cause we really know we won the draft before Knox and Robinson have played a single minute because analysts love Knox!

Come on Z-man, I know at this point it’s probably a personal mission of yours to say everything I write is dumb, but you can be better than this, probably. I’m worried about your back with how much you’re reaching with these arguments.

As to PHI, the thing they did right, which we did not, is they avoided high priced role players. We might have had a good team around Melo but for Bargs, Noah, Rose, etc. and missing the assets we lost based on those moves. They now have Reddick at the perfect time now. A few years ago, with Embiid and Simmons out, that would have been a losing move. It would not have made them appreciably better and hurt their draft prospects.

The part we can’t necessarily replicate is having the multiple medical red shirts, enabling them to draft two and perhaps three all nba talents…

Hezonja could keep up his improving and be a good long-term player in this league, but it probably won’t be in NY. His one-year deal means that if he plays well this year he’ll get good offers from other teams and the Knicks are, it seems, still obsessed with maxing out other teams’ players.

Brian can correct me if I’m wrong, but I can’t really see any scenario where he’s back in NY next year. Maybe if he plays just mediocre enough to get ignored by the league while building a positive relationship with the coaching staff while all the top free agents sign elsewhere? (But even then, his cap gold will have to be renounced to even make offers to 2 free agents, right?)

And why did we miss out on Curry by 1 draft slot? Because of everything the smart people in yesterday’s thread were saying that keeps getting brushed off by the other crowd.

I would like to just eliminate the corner 3 and make the 3pt distance uniform; it seems silly to me that a 22 foot shot has the same value as a 23.75 ft shot.
I would not move the line back or make the court bigger because of possible unintended consequences.

And why did we miss out on Curry by 1 draft slot? Because of everything the smart people in yesterday’s thread were saying that keeps getting brushed off by the other crowd.

But if we were two or three draft slots higher (as you would have liked to have done), you and those others would have taken Rubio. GSW got great draft results w/o tanking. Minny tanked and got screwed for years. Cleveland tanked into Irving, but also Bennett, Waiters and Wiggins. San Antonio has never tanked since getting lucky with Duncan (Toronto got Tracy McGrady @ #9 that year, maybe if they had #2 they would have drafted Keith Van Horn).

And why did we miss out on Curry by 1 draft slot? Because of everything the smart people in yesterday’s thread were saying that keeps getting brushed off by the other crowd.

I agree with Z-Man on this(!)

Tanking a single season only worked once: when the Spurs tanked and got Duncan.

Tanking for multiple years like Philly did requires patience that Hinkie learned the hard way teams simply don’t have.

We were all alive and posting in 2008-2010 when the Knicks missed Curry by one spot. If we rewind in our minds, we’d see that the goal wasn’t to rebuild via the draft but to make the Knicks look like a viable destination to LeBron James. James, obviously, decided it wasn’t, but in 2008, with James available in 18 months and asking to be courted, the Knicks made a strategic effort to clear cap space while winning and many games as possible. It wasn’t for vanity, or because Chris Duhon was a conpetitor who couldn’t stomach losing. It was to show LeBron James the culture in New York was about building a winning team and he was the “missing piece”.

That’s the reason we missed out on Curry by one spot. It’s not the same as what the “smart people” were saying yesterday because there is a HUGE gap between 2010 LeBron James and 2019 Kyrie Irving.

We all know that the Knicks would have traded Curry once his ankles became an issue. And that would be WAY more painful than missing him by 1 draft position.

Charlotte is Charlotte because they suck at drafting. If Houston can find Capela in the 20s, Donovan Mitchell can be found at 13, Dame Lillard and Bradley Beal at 3 and 6 in a draft where Charlotte picked second, Giannis went 15th, Jimmy Butler #30 overall, Paul George at 10, Klay at 11, Draymond at 35, Jokic at like 41 or something, and the list could go on forever. I don’t believe that where you draft matters. The best teams find value everywhere in the draft except maybe the last 15 or so picks. Phoenix had three top 5 picks in a row to put next to Devin Booker, and they probably got better value from Booker at 13 than they got from Josh Jackson and Dragan Bender (the book is out on Ayton but I like his chances to develop into an all star). I know it’s better to draft higher than lower and it obviously improves your chances of getting awesome talent, but it’s not necessary to pick in the top 5 to build a winning program.

Building a championship team is about knowing your market and adjusting your team building plan accordingly. Cap space literally means nothing in Sacramento, but it means a whole lot in Los Angeles. A team like LAL can be a 35 win team and attract LeBron James while OKC can win 55 and never be in the discussion. Every team should aspire to draft well and make prudent salary decisions, but tanking doesn’t have to be every team’s strategy. Is tanking the best way to rebuild? Yes, but it comes with caveats like “is your scouting department good” and “can you actually develop talent?” It’s not as easy as draft high, ????, profit.

@30 the feeling is mutual. You far too often come across as a self-righteous, thin-skinned humorless whiner with no sense of humility. You rarely display an ability to admit when you are abjectly wrong or to laugh at yourself. Anyone that challenges your narrow beliefs (particularly me) sends you into a tizzy. Jowles and I go back and forth all the time without it devolving to this level. Much of what you said yesterday and today is dumb and I called you out for it. I will continue to go after you when you post what I think is stupid shit. If you don’t like my sarcasm, feel free to ignore my posts. I will certainly not ignore yours. If you don’t like it, as you said, fuck off.

@25, Nah I was on the Curry bandwagon. I remember watching that draft begging every team to pass on Curry, and once he got to GS I thought they wouldn’t take him because they already had Monta Ellis.

I’m not saying that no one thought he would be good, or even an All-Star. I’m saying no one knew he would revolutionize the NBA offense. The game in 2018 is practically unrecognizable compared to the game ten years ago. The Dubs weren’t the first motion team, but they certainly were the first to make “long, contested 35-footer” an integral part of their league-leading offense.

The reason “missing Curry by one spot” is a thing is because the front office identified Curry as the player they were targeting with the 8th pick. It’s not because the Knicks would have had the opportunity to have drafted him. It’s because they would have drafted him. And that would have significantly changed the course of the franchise over the past decade ;assuming he wasn’t thrown into the McGrady or Anthony deals).

@36

I’m pretty chill, I just won’t argue with someone who doesn’t give the basic respect to anything I write in the first place. I know better than to try to convince someone who has such a set opinion of me from messages on a Knicks messageboard.

I’ll always go back to Oscar Wilde on this one, cause personally I have a great admiration for stupidity.

I wanted Curry because he reminded me of a bigger Mahmoud Abdul Rauf. Yes, I got lucky he turned out to be the greatest shooter of all time.

The NBA Draft isn’t as simple as “he put up the best numbers for a player his age” though. Mike Beasley probably had the best season ever for a freshman in D1 ball and he’s been a rotation player. Marvin Bagley had a season as a freshman (he led the ACC in ppg, rpg, and FG%)at Duke that noboby in any class had accomplished since Tim Duncan and people have a bunch of legit questions about how he will fit in the NBA. You have to study the numbers but film review, workouts, and the interview process is very important. Also, Steph Curry was a career .322 WS/40 at Davidson and took a team of nobodies to the Elite 8. The numbers were unprecedented for both players.

Seems like the dog days are upon us….

And yes, Beasley is the representative example of a player who was incredible in college and a bust in the NBA.

Hasheem Thabeet had great college stats. He was drafted ahead of Curry. Johnny Flynn had bad college stats. He was drafted ahead of Curry. Both players were epic busts.

The point is, you don’t know until the end of their careers where the player should be drafted, but they are, inconveniently, drafted at the beginning of their careers, thus making draft-jockeying a rather silly endeavor.

Don’t trade your draft picks. Trade aging vets for future picks. Try to win the games you play. Hope for some luck. That is, really, the only logical way to build a franchise.

Contrary to what most people claim here, the Philly experiment is not finished and has not been a success or a failure. Yet.

They have ton of talent, a ton of injuries, a ton of un-answered questions in exchange for a ton of pain during 5 years. To me, only a ring would justify the ugliness, the cheating (tanking is cheating, but it seems very acceptable here!), the empty arena.

As a fan not interested in cheating, I prefer a more balanced approach to team building. Do the best you can on and off the floor. Better Golden State or Boston than Philly. So far, the results clearly favor the honest approach – but there is time for Philly!

I largely agree with DW in @47 but don’t really care whether we go all-in on a full-blown tank or take a less extreme approach like we seem to be right now. The reality is that Mills and Perry are not going to do the former. So why keep regurgitating the merits of a strategy that has zero chance of being implemented? Why not discuss decision-making as it pertains to current reality? Like whether to start Frank or not is a reasonable argument to have, and there’s no sure-thing right answer, only different opinions. When people start saying things like Hardaway is a “bad” player and that “nobody wanted him” in making an argument that he should be benched or jettisoned, there’s nowhere for the argument to go but downhill.

But if we were two or three draft slots higher (as you would have liked to have done), you and those others would have taken Rubio.

Z-Man @25 After Curry’s workout Donnie Walsh was covinced Curry is going to be a star. He was crushed when GS got him. Most likely he would have taken him higher too.

I just don’t get why people who think tanking is cheating are mad at the teams tanking instead of the NBA. The NBA instituted a system that rewards teams for losing, then teams figured out how to take advantage of that. It can be dishonorable or against the “spirit of the sport” or anything like that if that’s what you care about, but it can’t be cheating if there’s no rule being broken. There’s no rule in the NBA that says teams are obligated to put their best players on the court and sign the best available players whenever there’s a chance.

I still can’t believe we’re discussing this Knicks team and yet Philly’s roster is not indicative of success.

That leaves us with some promise but a gummed up cap sheet and still a huge distance to travel.

Vorkunov for The Athletic on how the Knicks are loading up on “second draft” players like Burke, Hezonja, Mudiay, etc. Sometimes, it works (Burke’s a find, Beasley would have been an excellent pickup for the price if he didn’t cost us ping pong balls), and sometimes it does not (the allegedy fixable Mudiay).

I don’t think of tanking as cheating, only that it requires a level of patience from ownership that either it has or it doesn’t. With Dolan, tanking was never a realistic option for any GM or coach looking to keep his job. It probably still isn’t, although more likely it is now than it has been at any time under his horrendous organizational leadership.

Coaches and GMs are highly vulnerable when owners are not completely bought in, and are therefore unlikely to promote overt losing on purpose for years. So the best hope for the Knicks has been accidentanking into middle of the lottery, picking as well as possible, and avoiding trading future 1st round draft picks or cap space for win-now players.

The biggest downside to systematic tanking is what happens to good teams down the stretch. Say, MIA and MIL are fighting it out for a playoff spot or a higher seed. On the last week of the season, one has ORL, ATL, and NYK. The other has LAL, SAS, and LAC. You can say, “well, team 2 had those same teams earlier in the season”, but that wasn’t the same team as the one that is now going full tank, essentially trying to lose, after losing all hope.

I said that the Knicks should try to tank, not chase “meaningless wins”, and develop young players at the potential expense of wins. I didn’t say the NBA didn’t have a real problem…

I don’t think of tanking as cheating,

When you don’t play your best players with the express purpose of maximizing your losing chances, you are cheating. When you make coaching decisions designed to maximize your losing chances, you are cheating.

Tanking is about losing on purpose.

Guys on this site want the Knicks to lose as much as possible. They hope their team cheats into a very high drafting position. No way to spin this one.

Being eliminated in the 2nd round of a very weak eastern conference is not success when you consider the heavy price paid for a single playoff series win. So, no, the experiment is not successful yet. It might be in the future *if* Philly becomes a perennial title contender or if they win a ring soon.

This has to be performance art.

Because tanking *is* cheating, illegal.

Did you even read the article you linked?

“We have been careful to distinguish between efforts teams may make to rebuild their rosters, including through personnel changes over the course of several seasons, and circumstances in which players or coaches on the floor take steps to lose games,” Silver wrote in the memo, obtained by USA Today Sports.

“The former can be a legitimate strategy to construct a successful team within the confines of league rules; the latter — which we have not found and hope never to see in the NBA — has no place in our game. If we ever received evidence that players or coaches were attempting to lose or otherwise taking steps to cause any game to result otherwise than on its competitive merits, that conduct would be met with the swiftest and harshest response possible from the league office.”

It’s no surprise that your all-or-nothing attitude about Philly’s success mirrors your black-and-white perspective on tanking, that somehow playing young, low-production players is “intentionally” losing, and therefore cheating. Wrong. Objectively wrong.

I’m sure you were also a guy saying that Billy Beane’s 100+ win season were meaningless because they didn’t result in a championship. Also stupid, also wrong.

When you don’t play your best players with the express purpose of maximizing your losing chances, you are cheating.

Project, you act as though there’s even consensus on who the “best players” on a team are. Was it Melo, or Tyson Chandler? A lot of people here would say Chandler, but 90% of the league would say Melo. When there is that much uncertainty around who exactly provides the wins, what’s your freaking point?

I think everyone here would agree that sitting a healthy LeBron, for example, so you can rack up Ls would be cheating. But playing a bunch of young players who aren’t as good as the vets, but who are the future of the team, isn’t cheating, it’s just good strategy. Some of those players may actually provide more wins than the vets – we could debate the net value Kanter provides. If that’s the case, so it goes. But to eke out an extra couple of wins off Courtney Lee’s back is just utter stupidity and foolishness and you should be fired for it because it isn’t in the best interest of the team.

NBA teams don’t get extra revenue for doing what’s best for the league. The incentives are perverse and anti-competitive. The incentives should change. Asking 30 loosely-affiliated billion-dollar franchises to follow the same unwritten ethical standards is downright absurd.

NBA teams don’t get extra revenue for doing what’s best for the league. The incentives are perverse and anti-competitive. The incentives should change. Asking 30 loosely-affiliated billion-dollar franchises to follow the same unwritten ethical standards is downright absurd.

So your argument amounts to “the league creates conditions that force teams to cheat in order to succeed”. Ok, that’s progress: tanking *is* cheating, indeed.

That’s all I wanted to hear.

Whether the league forces teams to cheat or not is material for a different, interesting convo.

When you don’t do your best to win (by tampering with lineups and/or coaching decisions), you are cheating. Tanking is cheating and everyone knows it.

So let’s start fining teams that remove their starters during garbage time. Hell, let’s start fining teams who refuse to play their starters 48 minutes. I would argue that a tired Steph Curry is still better than a well-rested Ian Clark, so the Warriors refusing to play their best players for the whole game is evidence that they’re tampering with lineups in a way that does leads to sub-optimal winning chances.

So your argument amounts to “the league creates conditions that force teams to cheat in order to succeed”. Ok, that’s progress: tanking *is* cheating, indeed.

You’re bringing me back to my college teaching days. I haven’t had someone with this mix of stubbornness and fundamental comprehension failure in quite some time.

I really hope the FO is smarter than this.

I don’t think there’s a single executive in the NBA that would honestly agree with ProjectKnicks, here. Including Vlade.

And considering that I think there are morons running at least 2/3 of the teams, you can imagine how I feel about this line of reasoning.

If the front office decides to go all-in on youth playing all of the minutes, and get rid of older players who win them games in order to play the youth, and also maximize chances of a better draft, how is this cheating?

As Silver said, “We have been careful to distinguish between efforts teams may make to rebuild their rosters, including through personnel changes over the course of several seasons, and circumstances in which players or coaches on the floor take steps to lose games.” The latter is cheating. No one is advocating for that here. If you think the former is cheating too, then you have higher standards than Adam Silver.

I think you should let it rest. I hope you agree with the above, if you don’t then you’re on your own here.

Z-man: “The dress is white and gold, dummy!”

Bruno: “The dress is blue and black, you ninny!”

ProjectKnicks: “The dress is a fedora, and you’re unscrupulous to think otherwise!”

Is it cheating in poker to fold with a 2-7 offsuit? Asking for a friend.

No amount of pedantic drivel

That’s the second time today that I’ve saw someone use the word “pedantic”. Just sayin’

Back on point, I agree that the Sixers got lucky having year-ending injuries to top picks and even then screwed up because they could have taken KP over Okafor. So now they have 2 overall #1 picks and one #3. Their tank was quite unusual.

I hate seeing folks go at each other here. We should all be sitting around in group therapy circle.

Getting back to what we should be doing, I’m fine with our top rookies playing much of the season in the G-League. Of course, the NYC media will call them busts rather than stashes, but that’s life in the Big Apple. And I wouldn’t call it tanking because the word now has a stigma attached to it.

After watching summer league, and knowing Dolan, and knowing our media, I don’t think we’re losing 80 games this season. I think the Knicks will be OK once KP returns. I just hope that our next lottery pick is gold.

85 wins the thread. Turn off the lights. Don’t forget to tip your server.

I hate getting old. When I grew up, cheating meant doing something outside the rules in order to WIN a game or do better on a test or something.

Apparently now, trying to lose is cheating? Or at least, trading away “good” vet players to play “not as good” young guys, which almost certainly results in more losses in the short term, is cheating. The world keeps changing.

So, the Mets just traded their best reliever, Jeurys Familia, for two alleged prospects and salary relief. Are they cheaters, b/c though already bad, they’re now even worse and will likely lose even more games, much to the benefit of the Nationals, Braves, and Phillies?

“For crying out loud, man. I just want this stupid ass team to stop winning 30 games every year and drafting ninth. Is that too much to ask?”

Apparently it is too much to ask..

The same could be said about the Yankees, having dumped everyone and starting some kid name Judge who couldn’t hit a lick in 2016 as well as starting guys like Chase Headly, and Chris Carter and kids like Jordan Montgomery in the rotation with scrubs like Michael Pineda. Sometimes you step in poop.

The point I quibble with you guys on is, we are not in a position to tank. English is right, the Garnett deal will never happen again. If we tank next year, we will move up from 6th to 2nd and thats it.

Philly started the tank by trading their 23 year old all star, Jrue Holiday, for the pick that got them Noel and NO’s pick the next year. That pick became Elfrid Payton, who was picked 10th; they traded him and his hair to Orlando for Saric, who was picked 12th, a future protected 1 and a future 2. The future 1 was kinda a wash to a protected pick philly had sent Orlando…..they basically got their pick back. The future 2 they traded to the Knicks for 2 future 2nd round picks. The Knicks selected Willy H with it. And later traded him for 2nds. So, basically, its like Willy never happened.

My point is, Philly had something to deal, at a time when teams would trade picks. We don’t, and that’s not now.

Jowles: “The dress is whatever color Berri says it is!”

Funny thing is, I don’t even have to put words in your mouth to make you look like a fool.

2013-14:

http://knickerblogger.net/2014-preseason-roundtable-whats-changed-really/#comments

Looking through the schedule methodically and trying to predict W’s and L’s, I kept hovering around a 2:1 ratio, maybe slightly less, so 53-29 seems like a fair number. I’ll admit that my tendency to be optimistic makes Vegas’s 49 1/2 number pretty reasonable, as any significant injury to Melo, Chandler, or a couple of rotation players could set us back. To hit the higher end of expectations would require Bargnani to be a significant positive factor, or some other nice surprise (STAT staying healthy and averaging 20+ mpg, Shump playing like an all-star on offense, going .500+ vs.Heat, Bulls, Nets and Pacers, etc.) I’ll stick with 53 wins, Atlantic Division champs and #3 seed.

Wrong. Off by 16 wins.

2014-15:

http://knickerblogger.net/2015-season-preview-optimist-vs-pessimist/#comments

@1 as Z’s optimistic bizarro-brother, I am finding myself drifting to the darker side about this season. Our lack of 2-way players will kill us vs. good teams and lack of overall athleticism will kill us vs the young, up-and-coming teams, e.g. Milwaukee, Detroit, Utah. I’m thinking that unless all the current question marks break in our favor, we’re a 35-37 win team. To make the playoffs, guys like Shump, TH2, JR and Jason (and/or maybe Cole? Larkin? Acy? Cle? Wear? Not happening.) will have to step up big time, or some unanticipated trade/FA signing will have to come out of the blue.

Wrong. Off by 18 wins.

(cont.)

Brian can correct me if I’m wrong, but I can’t really see any scenario where he’s back in NY next year. Maybe if he plays just mediocre enough to get ignored by the league while building a positive relationship with the coaching staff while all the top free agents sign elsewhere? (But even then, his cap gold will have to be renounced to even make offers to 2 free agents, right?)

If they whiff on all the big names, I guess I could see them re-signing him with their cap space if he’s any good.

But yes, the contract was inherently designed so that it would likely be a one-year stint.

Tanking—the means of willfully placing a competitor in a situation that increases the chance of losing—is a game within the game that, when a fan base buys in, denatures the fabric of basketball itself.

https://www.theringer.com/nba/2018/3/8/17093374/tank-wars-chicago-bulls

Fun reading.

https://www.google.com/search?ei=51xWW4SEJJqT0PEPhc-ZyA8&q=why+do+poops+float

And we’re done here, pals!

That’s not me, but I do go record each and every year. You can complain all you want but I correctly picked the Knicks’ record two years in a row and was way closer than the KB mean last year.

Of course, I have no independent research to back that up, but this is a fucking fan’s blog and I really don’t give a fuck either way.

38-44. I’m on the record!

Enjoy the season!

This was Jowles on the eve of the season we won 17 games (and I predicted 35-37 wins! What an unbridled optimist!)

If teams tanking, erm “cheating” was the problem, then the NBA would have fined the hell out of those teams and kept the rules as they were.

The fact that they changed the rules on how the lottery works alone should prove that even the NBA, as oblivious as they generally are, understood that the issue was a system that rewarded losing consistently and over years and completely destroyed the middle of the pack 15 or so teams. They didn’t punish a single team for tanking ever, except that stupid fine to Cuban because he “admitted” to tanking (while the Suns and Bulls were starting mid-level g-leaguers). The closest we’ve had to punishment for tanking was Hinkie’s removal from Philly orchestrated by Silver, and even that pretty much only happened because the process actually started working and his buddy Colangelo needed a gig.

I’ve seen people attempt to take the moral ground on discussions pretty intently here over the years, but this one is just too much.

I didn’t read all the tanking comments, but I look at our situation and tanking: I’d rather have our young guys out there making mistakes but also running the break, flying high and dunking, posterizing people, and making stupid as fuck errors, because if my team is going to be a boring as hell 34 win team I’d rather have an exciting 22 win shitshow I can at least have some entertainment value watching while I’m sipping a Laphroaig Select during the winter. If you want to call my entertainment cheating, so be it. 🙂

The 20 year is amazing. Select is my favorite lower end one. My other favorite is the Balvenie Caribbean Cask which is the complete opposite of Laphroaig. I call it a dessert scotch.

I just made a California liquor run and picked up a Laphroig 10y, Hakushu 12y, Balvenie 12y and Laphroig Triple Wood. Lady Jowles and I are the world’s slowest drinkers so those four bottles should last us for the final eight or nine years of the Knicks Tankathon. Excited to try the Triple, but I’m saving it for the cool months.

That’s about a 2 month’s supply for me these days, although my budget doesn’t allow for having that much good stuff on hand at the same time, more like a once-a-couple-of-months splurge. I have been drinking single malts for a long time, and have gravitated from the sweeter ones (Macallan, Balvenie) to the extra-peaty ones (Laphroaig, Lagavulin). Lagavulin 16 is my favorite among the readily available and somewhat affordable brands. My friends and I like to think back to when we thought that Dewar’s was the good stuff!

While I was in grad school, my mom received a bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue from a rich student she homeschooled while he was recovering from an illness. She’s a Margaritaville Blender Drink kind of gal (extra syrup, easy on the tequila) so she gave it to me to share (she didn’t want to sell it, out of respect for the gesture). Those were the days when I’d drink the $2 PBR special and a PB&J at the bar between my tutoring appointments and class, so getting a bottle like this was pretty special.

My friends and I got together for a taste test, and confirmed that yeah, it’s pretty damn good (although, I came to find, ridiculously overpriced, since there are better scotches out there for $50). The next night, I’m eagerly showing it off to my then-girlfriend. As I’m moving it from the counter to the table, the bottom panel of the box gives way (cheap glue job) and the bottle falls to the floor. Top pops off and $250-a-bottle whiskey starts spewing from the lip. I remember it well, since I was so broke at the time — every second it glugged was like watching a $10-dollar-bill catch on fire.

I gave the rest to Sister Jowles and never spoke of it again.

lol, yes Blue is overrated but good (I’d probably like it more now than I did when I had it during my 10+ year Macallan phase.) Nowadays my wife hates when I drink Laphroaig because it makes the whole house stink like Scotch, but glad she hates it (lasts longer!) Lagavulin 16 is like Laphroaig but smoother. Try it on your next run, it’s usually around $80-90 a bottle. Lots of bars with good scotch selections carry it as well.

I love Lagavulin 16. At Lady Jowles’s company’s holiday party, they had an open bar, but tried to hide it by sending servers around with platters of glasses of Carlo Rossi and bottles of whatever IPA-du-jour the locals were brewing.

We were not fooled. Asked the bartender for the scotch lineup, found the Lagavulin 16 and Macallan 18, and got Don-Draper-drunk while the sun was still up.

Two years from now, it will be:
Hang onto our young players? We can add another max contract free agent to play alongside Kyrie Irving RIGHT NOW. What could possibly go wrong?

If we keep our young guys with another top lottery pick in tow this year, add Kyrie this summer and can then add another the summer after Lee, Noah and maybe THJ come off the books that would probably be a good thing.

Don Draper Drunk may be my favorite cock-ism ever.

I don’t think that tanking is cheating, but I do think it’s against the spirit of the game. But I also think that rebuilding with eyes on the future not the present is not tanking. What I don’t like is losing games on purpose. Nobody wants to pay to see teams lose on purpose.

It’s similar to the hack-a-D’Andre strategy of a few years ago. It wasn’t illegal, but it should go without saying that absolutely nobody on earth is paying money to watch D’Andre Jordan try to shoot free throws. It wasn’t cheating to make him shoot 25 freethrows a game, but it shouldn’t have needed a rules change to fix. Just the common understanding that it was a lame, unwatchable tactic that was completely against the spirit of what basketball is.

@127

But then comes another problem: GMs, coaches and players are not paid to withhold the moral standards of the game, they are paid to win basketball games right? That’s why intentionally losing is bad, because the objective should be to always try to win.

So as a player or a coach in Hack a DeAndre case, wouldn’t you simply do it? It gives you a better chance of winning, which is what you’re there to do. Would the fans be happy if a team lost a playoff series because they refused to continuously foul the 35% ft shooter because it was dishonorable to exploit that opening?

That’s why I’m fine with arguments against tanking that question if it really works or under what circumstances it works, but not the morally charged argument of cheating or dishonor. GMs are paid to build the best basketball team they can, not to withhold moral standards (obviously as long as they keep under what’s “legal”), and if tanking is seen as the ideal strategy to exploit a league opening, why not?

Nobody will remember in a couple of years how Philadelphia disgraced the beautiful moral standards of proper roster building, they’ll remember the stars that they acquired via that strategy. Nobody will give props to the Knicks either for keeping the moral standards when they complete 20 years with the cumulative worst record of the league and end up with 3 prospects to show for it.

The only thing inherently wrong with what Philly did was that they put out a product that was terrible to watch for a few years. So not really different to what New York has done the last 18 years.

Franchisees?

NBA PAYOUTS: Win a championship, and the NBA hands over a juicy bonus.

The league this season will distribute $13 million in bonuses to teams that excel in the two-month postseason..

Already, the Heat have racked up more than $1.5 million in bonuses: $374,947 for the best record in the NBA, $328,078 for the best record in its conference, $194,016 for being in the first round of the playoffs, $230,853 for the conference semifinals and $381,482 for the conference finals.

The NBA also will shell out $2.3 million to the team that wins the Finals and $1.5 million to its rival. Last year, the Heat pocketed that $2.3 million — plus the coveted trophy and championship rings.

And that’s just a start.

TICKET SALES: Winning big dramatically boosts demand for game tickets.

The Heat sold about 18 percent more tickets for home games this season compared to the year before it won the 2012 title, according to ticket re-seller Stubhub.com. Average ticket prices are up, too.

Demand is so strong that the Heat are the only NBA team now offering a three-year renewal package for season-ticket holders at every price point. The package means the team brings in more predictable income and cut the team’s costs to manage sales to season ticket-holders.

TEAM VALUE: Champs see a boost in the overall value of their franchise.

Forbes magazine calculated the Heat’s team value at $625 million in January 2013, up from $427 million a year earlier. That 37 percent gain is more than the NBA average gain of 30 percent.

That’s nearly a $200 million increase in value in just one season.

Nein.

What isn’t okay is asking players to not play hard when they are on the court. I don’t know if this has ever actually happened. But if the league finds out that coaches or front offices are asking their players to lose on purpose, I’d hope they get the full anti-tampering treatment because that is bogus and is absolutely tampering with the integrity of the league.

See, this I agree with, at least when the games are still meaningful.

I think the 82-game season is antiquated and impractical, but the owners won’t give up a dime of gate revenue until concomitantly higher TV ratings (i.e. for a smaller, more competitive season) makes up for it. I don’t see that happening to the NBA. If GMs get shadow-fired for rocking the analytics/roster management boat, there’s no way that they’re going to listen to some actuaries, even if they’ve got proof that an amended season would be a ratings hit — say, 50-game reg. season, group stages/tournament for lesser playoff seeds, a “loser’s tournament” NIT-style for the lottery teams, and then a traditional playoffs with 8 teams.