Knicks Morning News (2019.01.20)

  • [YahooSports] Rumor: Suns, Magic have inquired about Knicks’ Frank Ntilikina
    (Saturday, January 19, 2019 10:00:22 PM)

    Where do the Knicks stand on Frank Ntilikina, the No. 8 overall pick in the 2017 NBA draft (taken ahead of Dennis Smith Jr. Zach Collins, and Donovan Mitchell)? This should tell you all you need to know: The Denver Nuggets decided to cast Emmanuel Mudiay aside and the Knicks traded for him and instantly Mudiay jumped Ntilikina on the depth chart. Ntilikina has played good defense but unimpressive offense for the Knicks this season and there is a thought from other teams around the league they may try to trade the young European.

  • [TheRinger] Rumor: Suns, Magic have inquired about Knicks’ Frank Ntilikina
    (Saturday, January 19, 2019 10:00:22 PM)

    Where do the Knicks stand on Frank Ntilikina, the No. 8 overall pick in the 2017 NBA draft (taken ahead of Dennis Smith Jr. Zach Collins, and Donovan Mitchell)? This should tell you all you need to know: The Denver Nuggets decided to cast Emmanuel Mudiay aside and the Knicks traded for him and instantly Mudiay jumped Ntilikina on the depth chart. Ntilikina has played good defense but unimpressive offense for the Knicks this season and there is a thought from other teams around the league they may try to trade the young European.

  • [NYPost] Zion Williamson and the other four top Knicks lottery prospects
    (Saturday, January 19, 2019 7:01:37 PM)

    Here’s a look at the top five players that will be available for the 2019 NBA draft: 1. Zion Williamson, PF/C, Duke He’s a 6-foot-8 potential smallball center, a 285-pounder who powers to the rim for vicious dunks. He rebounds, block shots with ferocity and owns a motor coaches dream about. Though he’s almost assured…

  • [NYPost] Knicks’ youth goal putting them in razor-tight tanking battle
    (Saturday, January 19, 2019 12:46:19 PM)

    Knicks coach David Fizdale gave European journalists a tanking course during the Knicks’ trip to London. There’s no such thing in British soccer’s renowned Premier League, where a club with the worst record faces threats of being “relegated’’ to a lower division. NBA commissioner Adam Silver won his lottery reform for 2019, but it has…

  • [SNY Knicks] Two teams have shown interest in trading for Knicks’ Frank Ntilikina
    (Saturday, January 19, 2019 5:08:19 PM)

    The 20-year-old Ntilikina has been jerked around by the Knicks this season, with him being benched for games at a time on multiple ocassions.

  • [SNY Knicks] Knicks’ Enes Kanter won’t back down after Turkish government labels him ‘terrorist’
    (Saturday, January 19, 2019 1:33:35 PM)

    Enes Kanter continues to be a target of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, but the Knicks center is not staying silent.

  • [SNY Knicks] Why Nets waiving Kenneth Faried may impact Carmelo Anthony
    (Saturday, January 19, 2019 10:18:45 AM)

    Faried will sign with the Rockets, who may trade Carmelo Anthony to open up roster spot for the center.

  • 52 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2019.01.20)”

    I think we should trade Frank for a roster slot. Or maybe a tomato. How about that? A tomato for Frank?

    For the record I wouldn’t trade him for anything less than the 20th pick. His boxscore is obviously awful but the eye test says he’s still in school, both mentally and in terms of his skill learning curve.

    Most of all he takes minutes from Mudiay, who is the most unwatchable guard I have ever seen in the NBA. Even when he scores or makes another good play it looks totally dumb and unsustainable.

    Regardless of what you feel about feel about Frank, trading him and investing in Mudiay would really suck.

    Is it better to get a pick back or to use as a sweetner, say Jabari for Timmy and frank?

    And yet those plays continue. Definition of sustainable.

    Still small sample size, of below average play, on a 10:34 team. I would not call it sustainable, when the full sentence is “sustainable good play” and the actual goal is “sustainable good play on a winning team”.

    Lucky dog. I have family property up in Lake Luzerne but I haven’t heard the accumulation yet.

    BTW it’s about 42.0 degrees and smoky in Portland.

    Mudiay sucks too, no doubt, but we’re comparing dogshit to catshit. The likelihood of either of them being valuable players is low.

    I’m still in the camp that Frank is too young and needs another season with a healthy KP.

    If we do move frank to one of phx or Chicago I would to get the right to swap firsts as well but I think he should stay out another season. Next year at this time his value can only go up.

    I was about to go on an endless rant about how I don’t understand why people love so much chuckers without any regard for their efficiency, but then I remembered that the whole artistic/entertainment world works this way (see: Bay, Michael or, I don’t know, Imagine Dragons).

    Real quality is not necessarily en vogue. A pretense of grandeur is much more marketable on a large scale. That’s what Mudiay is.

    Catching up on yesterday’s thread, it’s worth mentioning that Frank’s cap hold in the summer of 2021 is $18M. Does anyone think that’s not going to be renounced ASAP, regardless of what team he’s on by then?

    So we really only have him controlled for the next two seasons. That’s still more than we have on Mudiay/Burke so I support playing him more than those guys as long as he’s here, but it’ll be hard to gin up any anger if he’s traded for two second rounders. In fact, I think we’d come out on top in such a deal.

    Imagine Dragons

    Having once been a hired gun for a pop singer who, like Imagine Dragons, was clearly writing, producing and marketing his (extremely lucrative) music to tweens, I am not without blame, but my god there is nothing at all redeeming about this kind of pap. The one major difference is that no one is watching Knicks games and going, “Oh, this is pleasurable and good.” I think even the most optimistic Knicks fans wish they could sedate themselves into 2021.

    Stratomatic "I'm tired of the Knicks paying lip service to DEFENSE. Get defenders & two-way players. Then play them!says:

    I see don’t see “control” as much of an asset unless the player’s contract is for less than he’s worth. That’s often not the case with these young players.

    I don’t know the current market value of Mudiay, Burke, or Vonleh right now, but my guess is that Vonleh could get us a couple of 2nd rounders. If more, that would be great. I’m just pretty sure on average we aren’t going to find another Vonleh with two 2nd rounders. That’s why I’m in favor of trying to keep him. I’m not going to worry about the low probability event of Durant coming here and losing him for nothing. I’ll have DURANT. I’m more worried about having an even worse core team next other than the return of KP, whoever we add in 1st round of the draft, and whatever improvement we get. We have so few good players.

    I don’t mind either Burke or Mudiay being a permanent backup on some minimum deal, what bothers me is that we are probably going to pay Mudiay too much and both are killing the development of Frank.

    Stratomatic "I'm tired of the Knicks paying lip service to DEFENSE. Get defenders & two-way players. Then play them!says:

    Does anyone really look at Mudiay and see aesthetic value?

    He improved, but the starting point was so low he’s still a negative on both sides of the ball and huge negative overall.

    I like mudiay s handle and occasionally he breaks out for a big game, he seems to get to the rim at will and shows clutch offensive prowess at times. I could see a team wanting him for a playoff push as a backup.
    For us he is not the future guard. But I wouldn’t be surprised to eat an offer, maybe a second rounder.

    I love Ntilikina and am willing to be patient until he finds his footing, but that rumored trade of him & THJ to the Mavs for DSJ & Matthews? I’d do that without blinking. Only because of the cap room it clears. DSJ is good enough of an offensive prospect, that I can live without Ntilikina’s defensive potential- as long as it means Perry is prepared to go hard after Kawhi. Next year’s starting 5 could be DSJ-Kawhi-Knox-KP-MitchRob! Holy fuckin hell Batman! Such a move would also lead to us easily retaining Vonleh while adding better role players around those guys.

    Yes, please

    Player is good because:

    -scores a bunch of points every so often
    -shows “clutch”-ness
    -“gets to the rim at will”

    The most mase post ever, right there.

    I was recently at a social gathering where for complex social and emotional reasons I had to sit quietly by as someone talked about what a great band Imagine Dragons is.

    Afterwards I purified myself in the flames….

    The odds of Mudiay ever playing a minute in the NBA playoffs are about as low as Frank getting a second contract after 2020-21.

    Jowles, I don’t necessarily agree, but that’s only contingent on the fact that in his 30s he might be the third PG on a fringe playoff team and injuries happen.

    I think that GMs usually are stupid enough to keep lottery picks in the league as long as they average 10+ PPG. When a player is in the league for eight years, there will be a few coaches stupid enough to vie for sucky veteran players out of laziness. So, it has nothing to do with being good.

    Frank is gonna get a second contract. Even if you think he’s a bust some team will want to gamble on his defensive potential.

    I believe they should not trade Vonleh as the return will be minimal as are the chances that return brings back a player even as good as he’s shown this year. It’s worth it to try and bring him back on some sort of reasonable deal to see how he fits next to KP. That seems like a good fit and as stated the Knicks have such few decent players and Vonleh is one of them.

    @11 good analogy. which player is dogshit and which is catshit, people need to know.

    Rarely in the history of basketball has so much been written with such deep analysis on a player who’s shown so little and is likely never to amount to much as Frank Ntilikina.

    I’m down on Frank – I’ve always been down on Frank. That said, he’s on a rookie scale contract through 2021 including his team option. Keep him until then.

    It’s too early to trade frank. He’s too young and still adjusting to America. Don’t trade him. That’s my vote

    Being on a rookie contract as the 8th pick isn’t exactly playing for peanuts, especially as you start entering the final couple of years of the contract.

    Just read this nugget from Bondy’s article about Fiz criticizing the Knicks selfishness:

    They have one player in the NBA’s 150 in assist percentage (Frank Ntilikina at 86th), which is a remarkably ugly statistic.

    Yet Fiz keeps empowering THJ and Mudiay to shoot, while the GM looks to dump Frank. These guys should at least get on the same page. I guess they just don’t want to admit to the tank.

    Just read this nugget from Bondy’s article about Fiz criticizing the Knicks selfishness:

    They have one player in the NBA’s 150 in assist percentage (Frank Ntilikina at 86th), which is a remarkably ugly statistic.

    Yet Fiz keeps empowering THJ and Mudiay to shoot, while the GM looks to dump Frank. These guys should at least get on the same page. I guess they just don’t want to admit to the tank.

    According to B-R, Mudiay and Burke both have a higher AST%.

    Fiz is definitely failing to get them to pass, but based on his constant comments bemoaning the fact that the Knicks don’t share the ball it’s not for lack of trying. It might be lack of player ability, might be a coaching failure, but we do know that our players are terrible.

    Funny how I’ve evolved from the original voice of doom on Frank to a relative optimist….

    Looks like that article was using assist ratio, not percentage. And apparently weve fucled up even worse cause Ron Baker is top 20 in assist ratio.

    After the Knicks waived Ron Baker he signed with the Wizards and played 45 mins with them before being waived again. In those 45 mins he scored 0 pts on 0 for 4 shooting (all 3pters) and had 2 asts with 2 tos. The Knicks didn’t fuck up waiving Baker, they fucked up signing him to that insane contract.

    Ron Baker went from being undrafted to being paid like a high lottery pick for 2 years. Not Mills at his finest.

    I’m totally cool with people being hopeful about Kevin Knox’s future. Heck, I’m hopeful about Kevin Knox’s future, but for fuck’s sake, how do you have Knox now on your first team All-Rookie team?

    Kevin Knox, New York Knicks

    So far, Kevin Knox’s initial foray into the NBA has been forged from some incredible highs, not every-night consistencies. Knox has tallied below his season average of 12.5 points on 17 separate occasions — and failed to reach double-digits scoring in 13 of those — but the Knicks’ newcomer looks like a keeper nonetheless. In a couple of inspired efforts, Knox dropped 31 points and seven rebounds in a slim loss to the 76ers; then, last month, the former Wildcat recorded 26 points and 15 rebounds in stat-stuffing fashion. And although he’s had his fair share of rough performances, Knox has also knocked down two or more three-pointers in 20 games already. Useful in spots all over the floor, Knox just needs to improve his efficiencies before he becomes a household name in the demanding New York market.

    There are plenty of reasons to be optimistic as the Knicks also tout Mitchell Robinson, Allonzo Trier and another incoming top-five draftee headed their way, plus the possibility of a max contract free agent. But whether or not the Knicks land a Kevin Durant-level player or add a blue-chipper like Zion Williamson seems less important by the game — Knox might be that good. Those in New York keep checking the horizon for their franchise savior but, the thing is, they may already have him in blue and orange.

    That’s a bad take.

    Can you imagine watching Kevin Knox play and thinking, “Why do we even need Zion? We have Knox!” And seriously, I don’t mean that as a shot at Knox.

    Can you imagine watching Kevin Knox play and thinking, “Why do we even need Zion? We have Knox!” .

    I don’t know how Ben Nadeau sleeps at night writing this stuff….

    😉

    Can you imagine watching Kevin Knox play and thinking, “Why do we even need Zion? We have Knox!”

    This is my nightmare and I think there’s a non-zero chance that our front office might believe it.

    The Knicks didn’t fuck up waiving Baker, they fucked up signing him to that insane contract.

    I thought the joke about the usefulness of assist ratio as a stat was obvious. Alas, I was undone by my typos.

    So Kevin Knox has played 37 games and scored below his season average number of points in seventeen games, or roughly in half of them? What an astounding result and what deep analysis.

    I mean what else would you actually expect to happen?

    So Kevin Knox has played 37 games and scored below his season average number of points in seventeen games, or roughly in half of them? What an astounding result and what deep analysis.

    Yeah, even the slight criticism of Knox in the middle of the absurdly over-the-top praise of Knox was ill-informed, as well. Just a really bad take from a professional sports writer.

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