Knicks Morning News (2018.12.11)

  • [Hoops Rumors] Knicks’ Allonzo Trier To Get New Deal This Week?
    (Monday, December 10, 2018 12:37:15 PM)

    The Knicks are expected to convert Allonzo Trier‘s two-way contract into a standard NBA contract at some point this week, a source tells Adam Zagoria of ZagsBlog.com. Trier is set to hit the 45-day NBA limit on his two-way deal soon, so New York would have to give him a spot on the 15-man roster […]

  • [NYPost] Youth movement is taking over New York sports — and it’s great
    (Monday, December 10, 2018 8:49:38 PM)

    We are forever looking for signs, because that’s what we’ve been reduced to. We could sit around and X off the calendar until pitchers and catchers report to Yankees camp — that would be 64 days, as of Tuesday — when our next sure thing rises again, or we can look around Everywhere Else, looking,…

  • [NYPost] The ‘fast track’ behind Kevin Knox’s huge Knicks breakout
    (Monday, December 10, 2018 9:08:27 AM)

    Two players in NBA history have scored at least 25 points and grabbed at least 15 rebounds in one game before their 20th birthdays. One is LeBron James, among the greatest players of all time. The other is Kevin Knox, who is nowhere close to being spoken about in those terms, but who accomplished that…

  • [NYTimes] Stephen Curry Doubts Moon Landings. NASA Offers to Show Him the Rocks.
    (Tuesday, December 11, 2018 6:14:51 AM)

    The space agency invited the Golden State star to visit the Johnson Space Center, “perhaps the next time the Warriors are in town to play the Rockets.”

  • [NYTimes] On Pro Basketball: If Jim Boylen Doesn’t Soften on Bulls, Expect Another Change in Chicago
    (Tuesday, December 11, 2018 5:16:07 AM)

    Boylen who replaced the fired Fred Hoiberg, has taken an old-school, hard-edge approach to coaching the young Bulls. It isn’t working.

  • 106 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2018.12.11)”

    Trade season unofficially begins Saturday when this year’s free agent signees are eligible to be moved. Very curious to see what Perry does.

    Very afraid to see what Perry does.

    There, I fixed it for you 🙂

    Seriously, I don’t think the Knicks are going to be active. Maybe they could be involved in a fringe deal as a third team, dunno.

    Yeah, I’m not expecting them to get anything done until around the trade deadline (and hopefully they will get a Lee deal by then). Then hopefully Kanter gets cut. Let Kanter get some shine in the playoffs.

    I hope I’m wrong but I see no way we’re dumping Lee without sweetener attached. Everyone on the planet knows we want to have max space available and the only alternative is to have two stretched contracts on the books. This is why holding out for the pipe dream of a first rounder until the bitter end was a bad idea.

    I’m fairly certain you can stretch as many contracts as you want, it’s just…not ideal.

    Hopefully Lee shows enough over the next few weeks that we can just swap him for Wilson Chandler or something.

    Thanks, Phil!

    Roughly 40% of our salary cap for next year is wasted on Lance Thomas, Courtney Lee, Tim Hardaway, Frank Ntilikina and Kevin Knox.

    Total misery.

    you can stretch multiple guys as long as the combined stretch charges in any future year don’t exceed 15% of the current cap. this provision was put in place to protect swiftandabundant’s sanity in the event that the knicks’ entire salary cap in a future year was composed of previously waived players and some on knickerblogger interpreted this negatively.

    Actually Lee could be valuable to Houston, they need 3-and-D guys badly.

    Houston needs players who can contribute. Lee is not good enough for the Knicks. Why would he be good enough for Houston?

    ProjectKnicks, I’m not sure if you answered this before, but what do you think about the future of Mitchell Robinson?

    this provision was put in place to protect swiftandabundant’s sanity in the event that the knicks’ entire salary cap in a future year was composed of previously waived players and some on knickerblogger interpreted this negatively.

    I’m weak.

    Lee is not good enough for the Knicks.

    Lee is the same player he always was, he just needs to shake off the rust. Since Houston’s doldrums are mostly on the defensive end, he’d be a better piece than, say, Gerald Green. I bet that before New Year’s Eve Houston will have got one between Lee, Chandler, Caldwell Pope, Ariza.

    There are definitely teams who could theoretically use Lee, but I don’t think anyone really wants to pay him nearly $13m for his age 34 season. Also he might be cooked for all we know at this point.

    @8

    Lance Thomas’ contract is only partially guaranteed next season, I think for only $1M. So you should at least be able to take him off your list, I can’t imagine a situation where we actually pick up his deal next season.

    Ptmilo is a national treasure.

    I don’t think they’ll make any moves, I think they’ll explore trading Lee and find out the market is not there, and then stand pat waiting for next summer. Maybe a small deal like trading Burke or Lance or a new contract for Trier. I think the focus is 100% on next summer and free agency, and then I’m scared that the desperation will hit.

    Actually Lee could be valuable to Houston, they need 3-and-D guys badly.

    You know, when we got Lee he had a reputation as a good defender, but I don’t think I ever saw any strong evidence of that.

    So I guess we can call him a 3 and ___ guy.

    @9

    But don’t you think there’s value in seeing a stretched contract every day in practice, day in and day out? Stretching just gives you more time to assess the player who’s no longer on the roster.

    Rama, was that a Soul Coughing quote? I like it.

    I would be upset if we stretched Lee bc Lee doesn’t deserve to be stretched. He’s a “good” player and a professional who has done everything this organization has asked of him with no complaining. He might be taking up a roster spot that a younger player could use but that’s not really his fault. Also, I can live with a little bit of dead salary cap space for the Noah mistake but Noah and Lee stretched would be A LOT of dead cap space over the next few years.

    Noah attacked our last coach and was hurt about 70 percent of the time he was here and is completely washed up.

    A dishonorable mention of how bad our team has been to this point, I pulled from Bondy’s hit piece today about Lebron and Wade saying “it was either here or the Garden” (which really sounded like “it” referred to their last game, but ok). What got to me in the piece were two things-

    1- Wade, about 2010: “They just wasn’t prepared. They wasn’t ready to take on what we wanted to do,” Wade said on a Yahoo podcast recently. “The city? Yeah, the city was ready. The market? The market was there. It’s New York. But (from) an organization standpoint, we didn’t feel like they could handle it.”

    2- “the Knicks hold two dubious distinctions since 2001: having the worst record in the NBA and paying the most luxury tax. “ didn’t know that.

    Please, do not discuss, it’s just tabloid stuff (that’s usually true) that pisses us off.

    All the sudden Houston’s situation looks very scary. Pushing more chips in when you’re below .500 is generally a bad idea, but they’re already extremely pot committed. It definitely seems like they need to make some kind of move for a wing. I just think given their defensive strategy (i.e. switch everything) and the fact that Harden and Paul are going to be playing huge minutes come playoff time they need big wings much more than small ones. Consequently, I think Lee isn’t quite what they would be looking for since he tends to guard 1 and 2 much more readily than 3 and 4. Also I agree with those saying Lee is still going to have to prove he still can actually play before he becomes tradeable. 33 year-olds returning from injury don’t get the benefit of the doubt.

    Lee is the same player he always was, he just needs to shake off the rust.

    Nearly useless to a team with elite aspirations.

    Since Houston’s doldrums are mostly on the defensive end, he’d be a better piece than, say, Gerald Green. I bet that before New Year’s Eve Houston will have got one between Lee, Chandler, Caldwell Pope, Ariza.

    Seriously doubt Houston (or any other team) will think of Lee’s salary, age and meaningless play as some sort of improvement.

    @22

    Yes it was. Figured at least a few people would get it here…

    Everyone is tradable; it’s just a question of what each party needs to accept as part of the trade. We’ve done well with second-rounders, but I’d still ditch one or maybe even two to get rid of Lee – who seems like a decent guy and is an OK player, but at this point, just taking up space.

    Using sweetener to dump Lee would be such a gut punch. I already get angry every time I think about the fact that we could’ve had Melton with the freakin’ Mudiay pick. Is there an argument to be made that it would be better to stretch him? It would put around $4.2m on the books for three years and would open up a max slot this offseason.

    Obviously both scenarios suck ass. I’m not sure which one I’d prefer, but boy, we sure have a come a long way since the days of The Great Courtney Lee Contract.

    At this point it makes no difference stretching Lee now or after the season, so there’s really no point. The team has to keep offering him to everyone and see if someone wants him eventually, or if nobody does just keep him and see what happens in free agency. If a top max player wants to come then stretch Lee.

    Soul Coughing was amazing and I wish we could talk about them more vs this shitty basketball team.

    I don’t see any expiring deals that Houston has that would make a deal possible. I really don’t see any expiring deals in Lee’s range that make sense except wilson chandler and maybe austin rivers or alex burks?

    Yeah I definitely wouldn’t stretch Lee until after the deadline, but if the only deals available involve us attaching sweetener I just might prefer that route. I don’t think it’s out of the question that we’re able to dump him for expirings but that would require him looking much better than he has to this point.

    Allonzo Trier (strained left hamstring) has begun rehab and will continue his rehab with the team this week on the roadtrip. He will be re-evaluated next week.

    Useful for two reasons: 1)Forces Fizdale to play Frank more, and more at guard, to see if he can maintain this recent aggressive play, and 2)Puts Trier’s 45-day clock on hold (I think?) while they negotiate his contract and/or dump a player from the roster’s fringes for him.

    this is what makes it especially weird for Courtney to decide to miss a game trying to get burn in the G league. with trier and presumably Burke out, he may never have less competition for minutes than tomorrow. What’s the point of getting your rhythm back if you rejoin a more crowded team and go back to playing sporadically? the only reasonable verdict is that there is a traffic warrant for Courtney Lee in the state of Ohio.

    I think it’s just him wanting to play 30+ minutes in a lower level to see where he is physically, Fizdale probbaly told him he’s not going to be a huge part of the rotation in the moment and he wants the burn. For all we know Lee is a guy who wants to stay ready etc and it’s probably just that.

    I think the best opportunity for deals is going to come in those 3 way possibilities with veterans involved, like the potential Ariza deal. The Knicks should be looking to be the 3rd team in those types of deals, and maybe they can flip Mudiay or Kanter for something more interesting.

    Cap question–Lee for Tyler Lydon (or any other low salary Denver scrub) doesn’t work on the trade machine, but it seems like Denver has trade exceptions from Chandler and Faried that should cover it. Not sure if the trade machine takes those into account. Does that work?

    I imagine they’d have some interest seeing as how they just signed Nick Young.

    I know you can’t combine multiple trade exceptions. Can you combine a trade exception with a player? I’d be happy to just send Lee into someone’s exception, since Sacramento is the only team with enough outright cap space.

    Their Faried exception alone is over $13M, so my understanding is that should cover it.

    So Willy is averaging 20/13/2.3/1.2/1.4 per 36 (along with 2.5 turnovers per 36) on 64 TS% and shooting 58% from 3 on three attempts per game. He’s also posting a 3.2 BPM and a .223 WS/48.

    Nice trade!

    nuggets could do it but never would bc the whole point of ditching faried and chandler was to avoid the tax

    the five percent nation of nipple clamps.

    oh yeah, super bon bon, super bon bon…

    just listened to casiotone nation…that was nice…thanks rama 🙂

    nuggets could do it but never would bc the whole point of ditching faried and chandler was to avoid the tax

    Ideally this would change now that they seem to be legit contenders but you’re likely right.

    @39

    I really, really still can’t undertand why he doesn’t get more minutes. Cody Zeller is pretty good and he gets most of the minutes, but Willy is certainly better than Kaminsky as the backup.

    So Willy is averaging 20/13/2.3/1.2/1.4 per 36 (along with 2.5 turnovers per 36) on 64 TS% and shooting 58% from 3 on three attempts per game. He’s also posting a 3.2 BPM and a .223 WS/48.

    Nice trade!

    Yet Barrego has played him a total of 21 minutes in his last 10 games, including extreme mop-up duty vs. the Knicks. What a freakin moron, doesn’t he know that he has a legit superstar riding his bench?!Isn’t there some stathead GM out there that would offer a first for him? Geez.

    @44

    He should be getting every minute that has gone to Kaminsky (i.e., plus 200 minutes). And yes Borrego is a moron if he refuses to glue Kaminsky to the bench/refuses to play Hernangomez more minutes for the likes of a washed Marvin Williams. Notice how I didn’t say he was a star, or that he would maintain those numbers–that was all you. But clearly he should be the starting center or PF on this team given his production to date. Just like how KOQ should’ve been a starter on the Knicks for 2-3 years.

    Also, the reports of his defense being atrocious (like another player with a similar body type in Jokic) are greatly exaggerated–he isn’t considered a negative on any defensive metric (DBPM, DRPM) other than PIPM (with a barely-under-break-even -.03 DPIPM). The snark is making you look silly, considering what the stats say. Any argument to the contrary is more eye test “coaches know better than anyone else” nonsense.

    The trade was horrible, and it was from the moment we traded him. He’s a far better version of Kanter for one fifteenth of the price.

    @45

    It was obvious you were going to answer with the same argument as ever, coach is doing this therefore coach is right, but it’s completely different from the Novak situation. Hernangomez is losing minutes to Cody Zeller and Frank Kaminsky, who are players with similar skill sets and shortcomings. Novak was never replaced with other one dimensional shooters, but with players who could do what he couldn’t.

    Hernangomez so far this season has been a better rebounder, shot blocker and shooter than both Zeller and Kaminsky, and while Zeller is a passable defender, Kaminsky is terrible at that end too. So he’s essentially giving more minutes to similar players who have worse production than the guy sitting on the bench. How is that not stupid? Nobody is saying Hernangomez is a superstar, so there’s no need for the strawman here, just that comparably to the other options in the Hornets roster he is probably better while being a bit younger.

    Just a friendly reminder that we could have had Willy and not Mudiay. I know that would have resulted in a potential logjam in the front court, but would have we been worse if Mudiay’s and Mario’s minutes went to Baker and Willy? And if so, wouldn’t that have helped the tank?

    He’s a far better version of Kanter for one fifteenth of the price.

    Dingdingdingding!

    We’ve all discussed how Kanter on a good deal wouldn’t be a bad bench player. And we had the equivalent of Kanter on a good deal. Probably BETTER than Kanter, given his D isn’t as bad.

    But he was a Phil guy, and we had KOQ, who was better, and Noah, so there was no place for Willy…because they’re both going to be contributing to this team for years to come…

    I like Willy and I think he’s a fine player.

    However, he is definitely a bad defender. You gotta look at his numbers in a context.

    He’s 56th of 61 centers in DRPM and 44 of 58 in DBPM. He also doesn’t pass the eye test.

    That’s probably why his coaches doesn’t seem to like him enough.

    man willy had a pretty impressive hair game going on…maybe borrego is jealous of his hair…i am…

    Swift I want to take you seriously but I just can’t if you’re going to say we should get over Willy but provide tender love and care to Emmanuel Mudiay and his enormous cap hold.

    Anyway I’m sure James Borrego, whose team is already 3 games under its Pythagorean record less than a third of the way through the season, is doing everything perfectly.

    OMG get over Willy! He’s a back up big at best and replacing that type of player ain’t hard at all. This is Cole Aldrich all over again.

    The most detailed and in depth discussion on this blog has traditionally been reserved for end of bench/fringe guys (see. Cole, Copeland, Randle, Murry to name a few). I think that’s probably more of a reflection of not having a great deal to get excited about at the pointy end of the roster for a while.

    If Charlotte won’t play Willy, maybe we should offer a single second round pick for him?! They get to cut their losses…

    Win win for us!

    I get the statistical arguments, but I can’t get worked up over Willy Hernangomez. It’s not like we drafted him then signed Kanter as a free agent to his current deal. I thought he had potential, but not gonna lose sleep. Also, even though we didn’t trade Willy for Mudiay, there seems to be an argument that the team punted on Willy but is giving a longer look at Mudiay. Being that lead guard has/had been much more a position for need for us (and center a bit of a glut), I don’t mind giving Mudiay a longer look – though as it stands right now, I don’t think he deserves said look past this season.

    OMG get over Willy! He’s a back up big at best and replacing that type of player ain’t hard at all. This is Cole Aldrich all over again.

    Your ability to be wrong on every Knicks FO move is truly impressive.

    I AM over it – in the sense I’m no longer angry when I think about it. But in the sense of “we’ve been right about 90% of what we’ve complained about,” I’m not. It is a reminder that, when we’re embroiled in a debate about whether Mudiay or Hezonja should be playing, we are probably right there, too. And when we said we should trade KOQ for anything, a second round pick, whatever, if we weren’t going to re-sign him. And when we wanted to trade Lee when he had more value than now. And so on.

    Willy is likely the player the numbers said he was: a productive big who isn’t great on defense. At Kanter’s salary, that isn’t valuable. At Willy’s, it is.

    The Willy situation is an interesting one. Obviously the PT was an issue, but not long after he was traded KP went down, so there would have been minutes eventually. Once he asked for a trade that was probably the end of it, but the FO messed up because I don’t think it would have been difficult to just hang on to him. I think enough has already been said about cost controlled assets. Willy shot himself in the foot a bit as well, as he ultimately ended up on a team with an even bigger big man glut than the Knicks.

    If we’re re-litigating the Willy trade on a slow news day, I’d argue it wasn’t a great move but not a brutal one, either. Yes, he’s a younger and cheaper Kanter who’s not as bad on defense but also not quite as good on offense. But Kanter was going to be on the team another year and a half at the time of the trade, so there wasn’t a path to a ton of PT for him for the majority of that rookie contract. And he’s the kind of center from whom the game is evolving away, and thus not someone for whom there would be big demand. Ideally, you hold onto the second-round pick that hits rather than flipping him for another pick that might not (which is why I’m mostly opposed to trading Dotson), but based on leaguewide trends, where we are in the success cycle, the funky makeup of our roster, and Willy demanding the trade himself… I don’t know that we could have done significantly better. And since one of the few things this team has been consistently good at throughout all these terrible administrations is finding marginal value in the second round and with UDFA types like Trier and Galloway, I’m hopeful the pick they have left turns out to be useful.

    point is, it just wasn’t a particularly smart trade. In itself, not a big deal, but as something that points to what the FO values, not encouraging. Beyond that, concerning because we have little margin for error – unless we miraculously get a top pick and take Zion or another Luka type, we have to get everything right to have a prayer of contending any time in the near future.

    I have hope, but the Willy and Mudiay trades give me serious pause.

    talking about botched moves…was watching the grizzlies play the other night…while he was moving around kind of reactionary and mechanical like – newsflash: noah definitely did not look “done”…

    The Willy trade at least netted a decent return. We got two 2nds in 2020 & 2021 from a perpetually bad team. I can see us being very happy about that in hindsight.

    The inclusion of a 2nd round pick in the Mudiay deal was indefensible.

    So he’s essentially giving more minutes to similar players who have worse production than the guy sitting on the bench. How is that not stupid?

    I guess DBPM and DRPM posted by MSA don’t mean much to you. Right or wrong, some coaches prefer guys that don’t look totally bewildered every time they have to make a quick defensive decision, especially in space.

    Nobody is saying Hernangomez is a superstar, so there’s no need for the strawman here, just that comparably to the other options in the Hornets roster he is probably better while being a bit younger.

    Well, the stats Silky posted scream “superstar,” don’t they? Especially since they are similar to last year’s? Isn’t there some GM somewhere that would make a reasonable offer for that kind of production? What do you think a 24yo WS48 superstar at a near minimum salary locked up on a team friendly deal for the next 2 years could bring back on the open market right now? If you were a GM somewhere, would you offer a non-lottery first rounder for him? Would the Hornets take that offer?

    Or would he essentially bring back no more than we gave up for him, and probably less?

    Are the Hornets purposely trying to depress his value? Do they think of him as a secret weapon? A Eurostash that they’re stashing on their own bench?

    Would he be any more valuable to us right now than Noah Vonleh? Who do you think is worth more right now? Keeping in mind, of course, that we found Vonleh in the picked over clearance bin.

    Of course, you are smart enough to know the real answer. Willy has absolutely no value right now beyond what we got for him because he is a demonstrably god-awful defender. If he were still on the team, he’d likely be sitting behind Kanter, Mitch, and Vonleh.

    @65 I totally agree on the Mudiay deal, crazy dumb. But dumping a whiny scrub playing a buyer’s market role for two 2nds is hardly something to criticize.

    Noah shouldn’t have been stretched, but there was absolutely no point in keeping him. He was never, ever going to be traded without major sweetener. Good riddance.

    Every time I think this board is among the smartest collections of basketball minds out there, we get a thread like this one, where we get arguments like, “Stop crying! He’s a dime-a-dozen player!” and “Don’t you think that he’d be getting PT if he were good?” as though centers who post a >.200 WS48 are easy to find (#5 out of 40 qualifying centers >230 MP) and NBA decision makers are smart enough to recognize talent when they see it (this is a league where Matthew Dellavedova got $28M over 3, Miles Plumlee got $50M over 4, Mosgov got $64M over 4, Deng and Noah got $72M over 4, and Zach LaVine and Wiggins are max players, but, haha, okay, yeah, you right).

    talking about botched moves…was watching the grizzlies play the other night…while he was moving around kind of reactionary and mechanical like – newsflash: noah definitely did not look “done”…

    He’s done.

    WS48 -0.010, -5.0 BPM, .509TS%, -0.70 RPM

    Can we wait until he’s played more than an hour’s worth of basketball before claiming Joakim Noah is back? Not to mention, his advanced stats are fucking atrocious.

    Jowles, the genius Spurs are desperate for talent. so are the Rockets (Stats-geek Morey was willing to give up 4 1st rounders for Butler, can’t they offer just one for Willy? You’re telling me that every GM in the league is so dumb that they won’t offer a crap shoot draft pick for a proven commodity like WHG?

    Serious question: do you think that WHG is a better (or more valuable) player than Vonleh right now?

    i hate all of you and your stupid numbers…

    fuck it – i watched him for about 10 minutes, and, he didn’t look turrible…so sayeth i…

    Vonleh has been very good this year, but yes, Willy is better. Please tell me more about how bad he is on defense, as if you watched all 235 minutes he’s played this year. Foolishness.

    I think Vonleh has been better, but that’s because my preferred stats (PIPM, RPM) say that. If you don’t like those stats at all, it’s not at all unreasonable to say that Willy has been better than Vonleh, given that he outperforms him on BPM and WS/48.

    The funny thing about the eye test is that you can make it prove whatever you want.

    I feel like whenever someone says “wow I thought this board was smart but then I read this comment” that comment is almost always mine!

    I mean, sure, keeping wIlly would have been nice. I’m all about younger players with upside and I was excited about him. But like, he is a back up big and that is replaceable. Finding a future starting PG is a much more difficult task. So yeah, Mudiay’s cap hold sucks and maybe that means he can’t stay here past this year cause it won’t be worth it, but the developing Mudiay potentially has so much more upside than developing Willy. A developed Willy (gross) is still a back up big. And even if Mudiay just develops into a decent back up PG, that is still more valuable in my book bc of the position he plays. Just my two cents. But then again, I’m the resident moron on this site, so what do I know.

    I agree completely with the Willy is good camp. But it’s not like we used him to acquire Mudiay. Those two seconds are valuable and given that we’re bereft of seconds (Thanks, Phil!) was it really a bad trade?

    Willy is cost controlled this year and next year, then you have to pay him. We’re going to suck this year and next year, so we’re not in position to benefit from his low-salaried seasons. Whereas those two seconds could really help us when we do need to acquire cheap help.

    Willy is good but I think we made a decent trade and when you weight it by timeline we probably are better off.

    Again, you miss the point Z-Man. I ignored the defensive stats argument by MSA you know why? Because one of the 5 or so Centers with a lower DBPM than Willy is precisely Frank Kaminsky. So the advanced stats argument really only favors my argument, which is that he deserves minutes over Frank motherf’ing Kaminsky because he’s a better player in every aspect of the game.

    Every time an argument like this comes along you go to these absurd lengths to ridicule it. Silky never once said the words superstar, nobody said teams should trade firsts for him, etc.

    You know very well it’s not that simple, yet when it fits your narrative you oversimplify stuff so that it fits your perception of the player. I don’t have any idea nor could I possibly have on if any other team is interested in him, and I don’t work with the Hornets so I have even less of an idea on why Kaminsky is playing over him.

    You could, as many did at the time of the trade, argue that Hernangomez is not a good fit for the style most teams seem to favor nowadays, and that’s a fair argument. But you have decided he’s simply garbage and we all know there’s literally zero chance of you budging even a little bit on this, so why bother discussing with you?

    I don’t know who’s “better,” but if Charlotte rang up the Knicks and offered to trade Willy straight up for Vonleh, I’d hope the Knicks would make the deal.

    And I rather like Vonleh if he’s willing to resign for Willy type money, but he might want more.

    Serious question: do you think that WHG is a better (or more valuable) player than Vonleh right now?

    The two players’ situations aren’t comparable and keeping one wouldn’t have precluded adding the other. I’d say Vonleh is a bit better, but they don’t play the same position, nor do they play the same role – other than getting rebounds, which happens to be very valuable in a lineup with Kristaps Porzingis. In that sense Vonleh is a better fit… Though when, exactly, will it matter? Oh yeah, next year. When we don’t have any rights to him.

    Mild complaint aside, I’m fine with the Vonleh deal, and would totally bring him back if we could get a KOQ-type contract. I just think having Willy would be better than two future seconds. Though I can acknowledge we’ve done really really well with second round picks (including Willy).

    But Kanter was going to be on the team another year and a half at the time of the trade, so there wasn’t a path to a ton of PT for him for the majority of that rookie contract.

    Enes Kanter meant absolutely nothing to this team at any point during his tenure. His contract rendered him useless as a trade asset and we knew we’d renounce him as a free agent the second we acquired him.

    I actually like the guy more than most, but to prioritize his playing time over that of a fully cost controlled asset was moronic from the jump. Don’t get me started about citing defense as the reason to do it…

    Would he be any more valuable to us right now than Noah Vonleh? Who do you think is worth more right now? Keeping in mind, of course, that we found Vonleh in the picked over clearance bin.

    He would be much more valuable to us than Vonleh, because he’s signed for another year and then becomes an RFA. Who’s a better player at this very moment is a fine question (I’ll take Willy due to track record), but overall value has a lot more to it than that.

    Willy is good but I think we made a decent trade and when you weight it by timeline we probably are better off.

    I think there’s an argument for this, but you’d view it differently if the Knicks didn’t arbitrarily decide that PT for Kanter was a priority. Willy’s cap hold is tiny in 2020, and by that point we’ll probably have exhausted all of our actual cap space anyway between KP’s extension and free agency. So the decision about whether or not to pay him would be unlikely to have implications for our win curve.

    You could, as many did at the time of the trade, argue that Hernangomez is not a good fit for the style most teams seem to favor nowadays, and that’s a fair argument.

    This is definitely true, but it’s worth noting that plenty of good teams still have guys like this in their rotation. I don’t think the Raptors bemoan the fact that Valanciunas isn’t the ideal modern NBA center when he’s helping them rack up wins. Zaza Pachulia got 1,200+ minutes on a very recent championship team. Cheap production is always valuable!

    Swiftandabundant, just so you know, I agree with you, so at least one person on this board does.

    I really don’t get all the hand-wringing about Willy. We need good players to be a good team, not just cost controlled ones. If we had a team of cost controlled players like Willy, we would have a terrible team, and then, when we actually got a good draft pick, and hopefully did well with it, we would still have to find better players than Willy to fill out the roster with. I also can’t imagine why people would rather have him than Vonleh. Vonleh does so much more stuff on the court. Last game he had 9 assists. He also gets blocks occasionally and he can hit threes. Vonleh might actually turn into a really good player as he develops. Willy is much more limited.

    I really don’t get all the hand-wringing about Willy.

    That’s because you fail to see that Willy is a good player and has been for three years now.

    This is a guy who has averaged 20 PTS and 13 TRB per 36 on .584 TS% in 2000+ NBA minutes on two different teams. His net rating is +7. He put up .123, .174 and .224 WS48 over his three NBA seasons.

    Here are the top 20 players who have played >200 MP this season, in descending order of WS48:

    Boban
    Noel
    Curry
    Giannis
    AD
    Gobert
    Valanciunas
    Jokic
    Sabonis
    Harrell
    Powell
    Leonard
    Durant
    Hernangomez
    Lillard
    LeBron
    Kyrie
    Capela
    Siakam
    Adams

    How many of those players would you not take on the Knicks right now at $1.5M? Why is it that the Knicks’ box score stuffers (David Lee, Kyle O’Quinn, Tyson Chandler, et al.) are always the ones that the advanced metrics get wrong?

    @87 how many of those players would you have trouble trading for anything more than 2 second round picks?

    And sure, Willy is better this year than Vonleh. Right. I’m sure that 11-19 from 3 is sustainable too. Right.

    @87

    Because when Melo was a terrible defender it was Jose Calderon’s fault, but when it’s Hernangomez, who has a career positive DBPM and DWS for whatever that’s worth, playing on a team that was 26th in the league in defensive rating, it means he’s garbage and unplayable.

    Willy’s coaches obviously don’t think as much of him as the statistics you quote. I don’t know why that is, but I think there is a reason, and I suspect it’s a good one. I think there is a good chance he can beat out Kaminsky as a backup player, but being a starting quality center? He doesn’t do any of the things teams want out of their starting centers these days (defense, rim protection, and threes). You can make a case he could be a decent backup, but on the Knicks he basically couldn’t even beat out Kornet. Getting two second round picks for him was very reasonable.

    And no one knows how the Willy trade talks went too. Hornacek benched him, he went on a public spat with him and got buried in the bench forever, then the Knicks traded him at his lowest possible value and got the 2 2nds, all that so Hornacek could play Michael Beasley. Even Isiah Hicks played more minutes than Willy.

    @90

    He’s had three coaches in the NBA: one was so bad he got fired and is still unemployed, the second also got fired and hired by the Orlando Magic of all teams, and the third is a rookie head coach. There might be a reason, but I’m not very confident these guys are the pinnacle of NBA decision making.

    Willy’s coaches obviously don’t think as much of him as the statistics you quote.

    Didn’t cgreene just post that he ran into James Jones (VP of basketball ops/interim GM for the Suns) and asked what stats he liked, and he said none, all eyetest?

    Yeah, tell me more about how NBA decision makers know what they’re talking about.

    So you guys don’t see him in practice, you don’t know what he’s being asked to do on the court and whether he is doing it, but you know more than the coaches do? And you still haven’t addressed the issue that he doesn’t do what centers in the modern game are supposed to do.

    I’m sure Vonleh’s 3 point percentage is totally sustainable too, right? Jumping 15% in a season (50 total 3’s btw) is typical, right? I mean, it’s clear that both will come back down to earth, but if they do, Willy has a much better track record than Vonleh on offense. I will admit, Willy sucks at defense and I would probably choose Vonleh with a gun to my head, but him not playing for Charlotte (behind Kaminsky) is inexcusable.

    I agree that Vonleh will not sustain 44% from 3, but I think that Vonleh’s value mainly comes from his ability to guard multiple positions both in space and in the post. His athleticism is truly freakish. He might have the largest hands and wingspan relative to his height in the NBA. He runs like a deer and is built like a brick shithouse. He fouls too much and makes some dumb plays, but overall he’s been legit. He’s also a full year younger than Willy. The contract is a serious problem when it comes to re-signing him, but if he keeps it up, maybe some magic happens.

    I’m sure Vonleh’s three point average will come down. Nobody shoots 57% over the long term. But it could come down aot and still be a useful shot. I can’t explain Kaminsky getting minutes over Willy though.

    We can only really speculate on what goes on behind closed doors at an organisation. The numbers however paint a picture of a productive young center on a very friendly, cost controlled deal. On that basis (being the only one we can properly analyse) it was potentially the wrong move.

    @94

    Well, unless you work for the Knicks or Hornets you haven’t seen him in practice either. You simply chose to believe Hornacek, Clifford and Borrego know what they’re doing in this case without any information other than the evidence that he doesn’t play much. I choose to believe that I know two of those coaches are not good, with the evidence that they got fired, and the third one is a rookie head coach who might or might not know what he’s doing. We’re kinda in the same boat, except the stats tell us that it’s likely those coaches are wrong in this case, while the eye test probably says the opposite. I’ll stay comfortably with the stats.

    Tnfh also already answered your question. Guys like Jonas Valanciunas for example have been a part of playoff team’s rotations with success, even Kanter himself was a rotation piece for OKC when they made a very deep run in the playoffs. Is he an ideal center in the modern NBA? Hell no. Does that mean he’s worse than Frank Kaminsky?

    Willy is better than Frank the Tank. And there are some guys coaches just don’t like. Willy is clearly improving, but was also petulant. We had four centers, he was probably the only tradeable one. It was a bad and dumb trade, but understandable and with a decent return.

    I liked Cole better.

    So you guys don’t see him in practice, you don’t know what he’s being asked to do on the court and whether he is doing it, but you know more than the coaches do?

    I bet if we saw Knox’s 3-on-3 practices, we’d see what Mills and Fizdale saw in him, too. So far, hasn’t shown up on the court. And I don’t care about practice if you’re as productive Willy has been over 2000 NBA minutes. You act like this is JV basketball, where failing to hustle during suicides will get you a permanent seat on the bench. This is the NBA, dawg.

    And you still haven’t addressed the issue that he doesn’t do what centers in the modern game are supposed to do.

    And yet he’s still an efficient scorer and excellent rebounder. I agree that he’s not a “modern” center, a la Capela/Gobert, but in his rookie year, nearly 10% of his shots were dunks. The next year, it was up to 12%. Yes, I too wish that 31% of his shots came from dunks like Tyson Chandler, but acting like he’s some kind of 90s holdover is totally silly. He’s a medium-volume scorer on above-average efficiency with a knack for rebounding. And again, $6M over four years.

    It’s not the difference between a championship and a 2nd-round exit, but it’s still an incremental loss. Do that four or five times and you go from a mid-playoff team to the lottery. And that’s what the “who carez” squad doesn’t understand: the Knicks can either be bailed out by one A+ move (like if AD suddenly decided to become a Knick) or grow from a whole bunch of B moves. This franchise seems to stumble into the B moves (blows a lottery pick on Knox and then picks up the best values in the draft in Robinson and Trier), but they’re especially good at undoing them.

    Charlie Ward’s extension: never forget.

    the emergence of Siakam is just crazy. one day he’s the guy who is forgotten because they drafted OG, now he’s a bordeline unicorn. not too many players have ever had a profile like him. He’s shooting 73pct at the rim, can stand semi credibly behind the 3 point line, plays good defense at multiple positions, and never turns it over despite being an okay passer and scoring 17 per 36. when Lowry isn’t shooting 1-10 the raptors are just nasty.

    I think we should forget Burke and Mudiay and sign 32 year old teodisic next year to a short cheap deal. it would be so fun watching an elite passer throw lobs to Mitch and KP and surely good for their development. Probably wouldn’t hurt Knox either. And frank can hope for osmosis from an offensive master with euro-roots, play some with him, and play 20 mpg as the primary when he sits. the prigs experiment was a raging success let’s re-up it. I’m sure he’d love to live in nyc and get some actual playing time.

    I really wanted Teodosic when he came over, it’s sad that he came to the NBA so far removed from his physical prime because he was so fantastic to watch in his prime. He’s still pretty decent tho.

    While we’re discussing modern players, Siakam is kinda the embodiment of it. Maybe his 3 point improvement isn’t sustainable too, but he’s already extremely valuable for everything else he does.

    the emergence of Siakam is just crazy. one day he’s the guy who is forgotten because they drafted OG, now he’s a bordeline unicorn. not too many players have ever had a profile like him. He’s shooting 73pct at the rim, can stand semi credibly behind the 3 point line, plays good defense at multiple positions, and never turns it over despite being an okay passer and scoring 17 per 36. when Lowry isn’t shooting 1-10 the raptors are just nasty.

    The NBA is just so unforgiving. The Raptors are all coming together in a brilliant fashion and suddenly their biggest problem…is their star point guard, who seems to be hitting the age wall hard.

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