(Monday, December 31, 2018 11:41:37 PM)
DENVER — The Nuggets haven’t made the playoffs for five straight years. Now Denver has the best record in the Western Conference at 23-11. It has built mostly through the draft, with one decent free-agent signing in power forward Paul Millsap and keeping with a solid head coach in native New Yorker/ex-Knicks assistant Mike Malone….
(Monday, December 31, 2018 8:18:07 PM)
Fifty years ago this morning, New Yorkers nursing their New Year’s Eve hangovers snapped open their morning papers and were greeted by a couple of interesting things. In all of the dailies, Diners Fugazy Travel — with 13 branches conveniently located all across New York, New Jersey and Connecticut — ran an advertisement shouting: “SUPER…
(Monday, December 31, 2018 7:49:27 PM)
Look, we are realists here at The Post, same as you are. We do not suffer fools gladly, and we do not merrily accept our present lot in life, which is to look at the current sporting scene and want to invent a cocktail of Alka-Seltzer and Pepto-Bismol. Yes, that’s pretty gross but, then, we…
(Monday, December 31, 2018 1:27:48 PM)
DENVER — The snow fell hard in this Rocky Mountain city on New Year’s Eve and an Enes Kanter avalanche could be coming in the New Year. Before Monday’s film session, Knicks coach David Fizdale addressed the team about understanding their playing-time frustrations, but asked them to try to refrain from expressing it publicly. Following…
[NYTimes] Kristi Toliver, an N.B.A. Assistant Who’s Paid Like an Intern (Monday, December 31, 2018 10:51:10 PM)
A rule limiting how much W.N.B.A. teams can pay their players in the off-season has the Mystics star making just $10,000 to be an assistant coach for the Wizards.
(Monday, December 31, 2018 10:52:41 AM)
With David Fizdale giving his younger players more of a look, veteran Enes Kanter is quickly growing tired of his new role.
29 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2019.01.01)”
Happy New Year, everyone! Let’s hope that 2019 is the first time since Ewing that the Knicks have Lottery luck!
Happy New Year!!!
Zion Zion!
Happy New Year to all. Yes the Knicks are due some lottery luck for the first time in 34 years,
The odd thing about Frank is that the narrative leading up to the draft was he had been playing professionally with success as a teen ager for several years with grown men. Yet he still needs so much work on his shooting, handle, and passing even after a year and a third in the NBA. He was supposed to have a leg up on other rookies due to this experience but his serious limitations still show up game after game when he plays. He needs to become a reliable 3 point shooter and overall more confident and decisive player on offense. That’s the challenge for Fizdale and his staff. If it’s just more of the same, he will be back playing in Europe within a few years.
If we luck out an are able to draft Zion, how does he fit with KP & Knox? Who switches positions? Zion starts day 1, but Knox is getting better and most of us believe KP should be our Center. But…KP at C won’t work because we have a MitchRob. Soooo…I guess the question is, if given the slot to draft Zion- do we go BPA or draft whichever elite talent is a better fit at a different position? Or..if we land in a position to draft Zion, should we look to package Knox with THJ for a rotation piece and a 1st later in the draft?
Just spitballing
Almost every european player who comes to the US needs a year to adjust to the longer three point distance. Based on his form, I think Ntilikina can adjust too, at least on open shots. The passing seems to me more difficult in the NBA than in other leagues. Passes that wouldn’t get picked off in Europe get picked off here. Ntilikina seems to be adjusting slowly, so we are all worried about him, but I think he’s handicapped by being asked to play different positions, and maybe by his youth too. My fingers are crossed.
We draft Zion. As it stands Mitch Rob, Knox, and even KP to some extent have to show they belong in the league, let alone be worth drafting around.
I’m done crossing my finger for Frank. I mean, I still wish him the best, but there are things you should improve significantly in a year (your dribble, mainly) if you are to be a serviceable NBA player.
My mind keeps going back to the last preseason game where he looked more confident in the paint, a sort of Andre Miller in the making. I wonder where that guy went, things like those shouldn’t be just a fluke.
Mitchell Robinson is averaging nearly 7 fouls/36 minutes. Until he gets that under control he’s a bench player. Also, this team is fucking terrible, possibly the least talented team in the league. There is absolutely no reason for us to be drafting for fit/need.
If you can draft Zion, you draft him and worry about positions later as they sort themselves out over the next few years. After that it gets more complex. From what I gather, after Zion there are quite a few players that are a coin flip as to who the best player and prospect is. If you can separate them by the time of the draft, you take the best one. If you can’t, you take the PG or SF because we aren’t really settled at those positions.
Frank desperately needs to be sent down to the G-League. I don’t know if he’s ever going to develop into an NBA player but it definitely won’t happen with Fizdale randomly yanking him in and out of the lineup and playing the single worst offensive “system” I’ve ever seen. Send him down and get him regular minutes in a structured offense.
Yeah, I hate talking about “flashes,” but he has had games where his outside shooting looked great. Flashes where he was posting and showing off a turnaround jumper on smaller guards. Flashes of dribbling, penetrating, dunking. But he keeps regressing to shit. So if I HAD to answer on Franks potential, I’d say shit. But there’s something in there, and I think he’s a systems player with value when he knows what to do, I don’t think we’re the organization to let the potential out.
He would be perfect for San Antonio
I guess your opinion on Frank depends on your expectations. If you were expecting him to be a two-way star in the making by now you probably had unrealistic expectations. If you were expecting him to continue playing solid defense and start knock down open 3s, I think that’s still a reasonable expectation for this year before it’s all over.
3 point shooting
October 38.7%
November 15.4%
December 37%
Home 37% (13 games)
Away 21.6% (20 games)
Last year he had a bit of slump in November also, but most other months he shot in the mid 30% range.
He’s been terrible from the corner this year, but last year he was good.
I still think there’s a LOT of noise in his 3 point shooting so far this year. Before it’s all over I think he’s going to wind up with a better 3p% than last year.
I also think his assists are down because he’s playing off the ball more and we have a few black hole players on the team that minimize ball movement.
It’s disappointing and frustrating at times, but he’s a project. So it’s going to take time.
The more worrisome thing is the position he’s going to play. IMO, he can be a PG on some teams, but he’s not the kind of PG the Knicks seem to be looking for. He’s also not big and strong enough to play SF every night against every matchup (at least yet). That puts him squarely into the glut at SG as a 3&D type.
I still like him despite the frustration, but he’d probably have a better career on a team with good management and a good system coach.
I agree that we should draft Zion- he looks like the most talented, and risky player in college. I see alot of LJ in him. He doesn’t rebound as well, but I’d love to see how he’d fare as an NBA 4 with the way the league is trending. I’d hate to give up on Knox, but if the opportunity is there and it helps us move THJ, we should do a package deal without blinking- provided we are in position to draft Zion.
As for KP, is he ever gonna be able to bulk up and get strong enough to play the 5? He would destroy defenses consistently from there. I had hoped that his injury would help him prepare for such a move, but it seems like he is intent on being a giant wing
Frank Ntilikina doesn’t actually have problems dribbling the ball. He has problems shooting the ball and being confident enough to attack the rim. If he wasn’t a great dribbler but was shooting 40% from 3, nobody would really care. He needs to play more sets as the point guard so he can spend the rest of the season initiating the offense and driving into the paint.
I pray with all my heart that on the the night of Tuesday May 14th we’re debating whether we should draft Zion or “best fit”.
The answer is obvious, but that will be the happiest argument this board has had in years.
I don’t think Frank has terrible handle or good shooting form. His handle looks terrible because he has a high center of gravity so his weight shifts look more like a weeble wobble than a mogul skier. this leaves the ball constantly exposed and keeps defenders off their heels and in his grill. it’s really hard to make up for this as a point guard unless you have some crazy offsetting traits like size and/or explosion.
his shooting form has some nice features but lacks the most important feature which is low rhythmic variability. sometimes he gets really low and releases with fluid foot to finger coordination but more often he stutters slightly at the wrist cock and shoots off rhythm. to me this is why he seems to miss badly more often that most really good shooters (not sure if this is actually true, just seems like it). i think people tend to use things that are easier to see (straight elbow, wrist snap, guide hand) but less important and end up thinking that Kevin Martin or Courtney Lee have bad form when they are good at what matters most. Most great shooters have both but the thing you really need is consistent fluidity. maybe frank grows into it but I think it’s not an easy fix. people like Kidd who lack frank’s wrist and arm flexibility but have low rhythm variability sometimes have an better chance of improving even though they’ll always look kind of ugly.
Totes
Who is giving up a top position for Knox and tmmys contract?
That is not happening
Happy New Years!
Frank can’t break down a defender, no matter who the defender is, so he can’t create any offense. Which is why he’s not a point guard. I saw 50-year old Vince Carter lock him up one on one.
If you can’t beat any defender off the dribble, that really puts a damper on your value as a guard. If you’re a young guard and you have a guy who was in the NBA in 1998 guarding you, your eyes should light up and you should be attacking, not dumping the ball to whoever happens to be standing nearby.
Frank played point pretty much all of his minutes in December and his numbers were still horrible: 12.6 ppg, 4.2 assists, 2.8 turnovers, 4.2 rebounds (that’s pretty good for him), .76 steals, .38 blocks, and a whopping 4.6 fouls per 36. He shot 37% from three and still had a TS% of .444. What’s really concerning to me is his defense- I think he’s still probably a slight plus on that end but he doesn’t look like the same guy as last year. His DFG% allowed last year was 41.4, this year it’s 47.2. He still fouls a ton without generating much in the way of steals or even deflections. To be anything more than a bench player his defense needs to be game-changing; that seemed like a possibility last year, this year not so much. Maybe it’s his shoulders, maybe he just needs a change of scenery. If it’s the former then let him get healthy. Unfortunately if it’s the latter I’m not sure he has any trade value at the moment. Of course there’s a third option- he’s just not very good at basketball and at the moment that seems most likely. Still, he’s 20 and the team stinks anyway so just roll him out there until you know for sure one way or another.
I haven’t seen what you are talking about, but as a pool player I can tell you it’s extremely likely that any “occasional” stutter like that is usually “nerves, lack of confidence, choking” or whatever else you want to call it.
It’s VERY hard to fix because bad motions become habit forming. What tends to happen is that if you work very hard at it, you can correct it for a period of time. But eventually as you are put under extreme pressure your mechanics start to break down again. If he does have a “nerve” related quirk like that, he better fix it soon or it’s going to be troublesome under pressure later.
Melo developed some nerve related quirks later in his career that weren’t there earlier. His form would change under pressure. That’s also not unusual. If you do anything under pressure a lot, it can slowly fray your nervous system over the years.
1. I’m young, inexperienced, fear failing in front of my peers and fans and my nerves are a problem.
2. I’m gaining experience, had some successes, my confidence is growing, and my nerves are less of a problem unless the pressure is extreme.
3. I’ve been through years of demanding high pressure performances, my nervous system is becoming frayed, and performing under pressure is becoming a problem again.
I never heard this phrase, it’s grand but also a risk to almost anyone’s low variability.
Zion a risky pick? Nah. He’s a sure thing. He is the surest of things. He’s a Doncic-level sure thing. Michael Beasleys aren’t very common: players with all-time best seasons who are utter flops in the pros. It just doesn’t happen very often, and I think we know well why, at least to some degree, Beasley flamed out. Injuries are the only thing to worry about. I have no expectation that he’ll be a good outside shooter but it doesn’t matter. He’s going to eat some fuckin’ lunches.
If the Knicks draft anything but BPA, we know that the staff is convinced that they can polish turds. And if that means passing on Zion because they see him as a Knox duplicate, I truly am done with this team.
Happy New Year everyone!
Haven’t been following the Knicks the last fortnight, but good to see we are withing grasp of the worst record in the league.
https://www.northjersey.com/story/sports/nba/knicks/2019/01/01/new-york-knicks-courtney-lee-staying-positive-despite-limited-minutes/2457259002/
“Courtney has been an incredible pro,” Fizdale said. “I mean, he’s been like a big brother to all of these guys. They love him. They love being around him. He doesn’t do things like, you see times when veterans aren’t playing they take young guys down in certain ways. Courtney’s been the guy that’s like, no, go, play. And like he tells me every day, ‘Coach you need me, I’m here. I’m ready.’”
“… you can get traded at any moment so you gotta make sure you’re taking care of yourself as far as being in shape, keeping your rhythm, keeping a positive outlook on everything. I believe in karma, man. Not going to come in here and be negative. Not going to pout.”
@17, when I say 1st round pick, I don’t expect anything higher than say..15. Hopefully with Trier and Lee’s presence, Fiz will be able to rest THJ enough that his plantar fasciitis doesn’t drag him down any further. He was playing well at one point. It’s not likely that such a deal could be made, but I think it’s possible
@24,
I only consider Zion risky because of his size on the wing. Hoping for Lebron’s health and effectiveness is alot to ask for. Of course, I hope Zion can pull it off. But his size on the wing scares me. In college it’s fine, but NBA wings? I certainly hope he can hold up
I’m still trying to give them the benefit of the doubt on Knox over Mikal Bridges. Given the age difference you had to project some level of greater development for Knox (and still do). It’s a matter of how much the data says is appropriate. However, Knox did not show a lot in college and imo despite the versatile scoring ability, he’s been terrible so far as a pro. I’d way rather have Mikal as a 3&D player at this point. All that said, no one in their right mind would pass on Zion because they already have Knox. Not even these guys are that crazy.
Yea..I wasn’t sold on Knox when we drafted him. But I understood the pick so I couldn’t argue with it. What I like about him now, is he seems to be developing faster than anticipated. And maybe..just maybe he develops enough by season’s end to be a legit building block. If he ever learns defense, a frontcourt of MitchRob/KP/Knox would be fun to watch and would stymie offenses with all that length and athleticism