Knicks Morning News (2019.07.19)

  • [NBA] Preseason Matchup: New York Knicks vs. New Orleans Pelicans (10/18/19)
    (Thursday, July 18, 2019 7:38:36 AM)

    New York Knicks vs.

  • [NBA] Preseason Matchup: New York Knicks vs. Atlanta Hawks (10/16/19)
    (Thursday, July 18, 2019 7:35:07 AM)

    New York Knicks vs.

  • [NBA] Preseason Matchup: New York Knicks vs. Washington Wizards (10/11/19)
    (Thursday, July 18, 2019 7:36:38 AM)

    New York Knicks vs.

  • [NBA] New York Knicks Announce Preseason Schedule
    (Thursday, July 18, 2019 6:57:17 AM)

    NEW YORK, NY (July 18, 2019) – The New York Knicks today announced its 2019-2020 preseason schedule.

  • [NBA] Preseason Matchup: New York Knicks @ Washington Wizards (10/7/19)
    (Thursday, July 18, 2019 7:35:51 AM)

    New York Knicks @ Washington Wizards

  • [SNY Knicks] High school coach on Knicks’ Ignas Brazdeikis, who has ‘all the intangibles’
    (Thursday, July 18, 2019 1:45:29 PM)

    Ignas Brazdeikis was the 47th pick in the NBA Draft, so the casual fan may have been surprised to see him knocking down threes, executing spin moves and finishing around the rim in the Summer League.

  • [SNY Knicks] Here’s when Zion Williamson will make MSG debut against Knicks
    (Thursday, July 18, 2019 9:51:25 AM)

    Look out Madison Square Garden: Zion Williamson will be on the court to face the Knicks very soon.

  • 69 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2019.07.19)”

    I wonder who put the Pelicans on our pre-season schedule. Someone must have liked the buzz the summer league game generated.

    I don’t know about you all, but I feel almost irrationally anxious to see what DSJ does this season. The last player we had with that kinda burst and athleticism that got regular minutes was..maybe Nate Robinson? If his back is ok and he does indeed take a step forward we will have our best PG prospect since Strickland, and our most productive since Marbury- younger than The Vaseline Gobbler when we got him too, so he can actually grow up a Knick.

    Am I being irrational? LOL

    I’m not expecting much different out of DSjr because I think his issues are between the ears and I doubt that he completely fixes his broken shot.

    I am far more optimistic about Payton for this year. Any guy who can put up 5 consecutive triple-doubles is pretty intriguing. The shooting isn’t great and the defense is suspect, but the kid can play.

    I wonder though- is Kadeem Allen even gonna make the roster this season? If bother Payton and DSJ are healthy, we could easily roll with 2 PG’s. And then we also have Barrett and Ntilikina who can play PG in a pinch with Amir Hinton who will probably land in Westchester for seasoning. Like I said a couple days ago, Ntilikina looks bigger and stronger with a tighter handle, and that might make him hard to give up on. I saw a pic of he and Dot in Vegas, and he looked taller than Dot and just as big. Preseason can’t get here soon enough for me

    The DSJ/Payton competition will be awesome to watch. I’m rooting for DSJ because he’s a longer term solution but I think Peyton will emerge. As for Kadeem, and also Wooten, that’s what bothers me about the Knick free agency. I wish we signed two fewer players so that players like them had a chance to break with the team. I’m enthralled with Wooten.

    With the Bullock signing, all 15 of our roster spots are full. So Allen certainly isn’t breaking camp with the big club. But we have him on a 2-way contract, which means that if there are injuries, he can come down from Westchester without us having to make another roster move. But since our other 2-way contract went to Kris Wilkes (who was sick and missed summer league), we’d have to cut or trade someone before Wooten could get promoted. (Assuming some other team doesn’t steal him out from under us.)

    But I’d also suggest that the odds are still 50/50 that Frank is even on the roster when the season begins — depending on what happens in FIBA — so we might have an open spot, anyway.

    I don’t think Allen makes the roster unless Ntilikina is not on the team. So it might depend on what happens in France.

    My irrational hankering is to see whether Iggy is the real deal. Mitch is a given. Barrett doesn’t excite me for now, didn’t like much of anything I saw in summer league except perhaps for an improved right hand. Knox will probably suck less but still suck. I have high hopes for Trier but don’t expect a radical change in his game, just all-around better/smarter play. Frank is pretty much a lost cause, but I’d love to be pleasantly surprised by a French Correction.

    Yeah, as an NBA fan and a KB addict, these are the dog days. I guess training camp opens in the first week of October.

    Yeah, over two months of almost no basketball news. I guess we have FIBA to watch in August

    I’m with Z-man re: minimal expectations for DSJ improvement. Someone here posted the video of his “fixed” jumper, and tho the highly edited video showed him making shots, his jumper is still ugly! It has a hitch in it, looks slow, and I have no faith it will lead to improvements. If that’s all he’s working on this summer I’m not at all excited for him.

    I would hope that if Wooton shows any promise, Allen will be cut and Wooton will get a two-way deal….or someone like Frank will be waived. But at this time, Wooton is pretty much a pogo stick without any semblance of an offensive game. Those guys are a dime a dozen.

    My guess is that this season is going to be about winning as many games as possible until the wheels fall off…then developing the kids will become more important. In the unlikely event that we play well and stay in the playoff hunt, expect the rotation to be:

    Starters:
    Payton, Barrett, Morris, Randle, Mitch

    Bench:
    DSjr, Trier, Dot , Knox, Ellington, Portis, Taj

    Scrubs:
    Frank, Iggy

    Injured:
    Bullock

    I have a feeling Dotson is going to emerge as a solid rotation player, but obviously that’s a guess, he could also start the year out of the rotation. It’s possible that Fiz goes with either Ellington as the starting 2, or maybe even Trier if he smartens up and plays better D in preseason. It’s also possible that Fiz starts Portis if he looks good in preseason, although that would be stupid.

    The guy I am least certain about is Barrett. It seems that he will initially be given every opportunity to start on the basis of being drafted at #3. A lot will depend on how he plays in preseason. Problem is that if he doesn’t shoot better he’s not a winning player and you can’t have him in the starting lineup if you want to win. The way they handle Barrett is going to be very telling because he will almost certainly suck at first and probably for the entire year.

    I don’t think the hitch is the problem…it’s hand-eye coordination. Lots of guys with weird shooting form still put it in the hole. Lots of guys with perfect form shoot poorly. I just think that DSjr is a bad shooter and is not heady enough to work around it, e.g. like Jason Kidd did.

    Fascinating to see Dan Le Betard make such an impassioned defense against racism. It was well done, but, well, I mean, we all remember his Ewing comments back in the day, right? Basically called him a gorilla…repeatedly. So it’s a bit of cognitive dissonance for me at the moment.

    I dint see Mitch starting. Still too foul prone. And Randle and Mitch don’t seem like a match spacing wise.

    Mitch, Portis, Iggy, trier, dsjr makes for a good unit

    Fascinating to see Dan Le Betard make such an impassioned defense against racism. It was well done, but, well, I mean, we all remember his Ewing comments back in the day, right? Basically called him a gorilla…repeatedly. So it’s a bit of cognitive dissonance for me at the moment.

    I’d rather he be moving in this direction than the other one

    RE: RJ Barrett

    Remember when the NBA was saying mostly the same thing about DeRozan? Of course he wasn’t the playmaker Barrett is at that age, but no one would argue that he isn’t a good player on offense. I guess I’m less concerned with RJ’s actual shot than I am with his shot selection. But..if Knox is gonna be our SF of the future as opposed to RJ, then one of RJ and DSJ has to be able to keep defenses honest. Maybe he learns to take better shots in the preseason and his percentages go up. But, if DSJ can maintain 35% from 3 or so, it will open things up for RJ. Problem is- both of those guys have bad shot selection, so something has to give

    Taj Gibson and Bobby Portis are much more problematic than Julius Randle’s presence on this roster. Those are vets who will be upset when they get Kantered, and Portis is young enough to be really upset about not getting 20 minutes. You essentially have 48 minutes to split between Robinson, Randle, and Gibson. If you give Mitch 28 minutes, Randle 12 minutes, and Gibson 8 minutes you may end up satisfying those three. At power forward, you’re looking at Portis, Randle, and Morris. Morris should get 16 of those minutes, Randle should get 20, and then you have 12 minutes for Bobby Portis. Your front court rotation would look like:

    Randle (20), Morris (16), Portis (12)
    Robinson (28), Randle (12), Gibson (8)

    Portis and Gibson should not be Knicks.

    Fascinating to see Dan Le Betard make such an impassioned defense against racism. It was well done, but, well, I mean, we all remember his Ewing comments back in the day, right? Basically called him a gorilla…repeatedly. So it’s a bit of cognitive dissonance for me at the moment.

    As a culture, we gotta be OK with people getting better (See: Louis CK). Also, some kind of statute of limitations (see: Kevin Hart)

    i’m anticipating a decent year from dsj… guys who get to the rim as well as he does always manage to make some kind of career for themselves and generally something significant…

    @17
    I think they really are all in on “positionless basketball” and we are going to see some crazy lineups. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Mitch, Randle and Portis on the court together, and switch everything defense will be the go to.
    If we’re going to be bad, at least make it fun. Let’s see a lineup of Barrett, Morris/Knox, Randle, Portis, Mitch

    I think they really are all in on “positionless basketball” and we are going to see some crazy lineups. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Mitch, Randle and Portis on the court together, and switch everything defense will be the go to.

    “Positionless basketball” tends to mean playing smaller player at bigger position, but if we want to Make The East Big Again… why the hell not?

    I see there’s something on ESPN now called “the tournament”…I’ve checked it out before in the past, but, it never really held my interest…

    looking forward to the fiba stuff in about a month…should be some really good competition…

    still not sure I understand why the NBA summer league consists of so few games…

    There is nothing in Taj Gibson’s career to suggest he’ll have a Kanter like Diva meltdown if he comes off the bench. He isn’t exactly young anymore. Kanter was brought here in a trade and started for a full season before being demoted to the bench. Taj is coming in as a role player and most likely will not complain about backing up people on the bench.

    Portis will get plenty of PT and he should.

    I’m sure summer league is short because of injury concerns. Look how fast Zion was pulled.

    Since people don’t seem clear whether we have Elfrid Payton or Peyton Manning on the team, I vote for calling him Elfrid. Also, with that name, I vote for calling him Sir Elfrid…if he plays well enough to merit it.

    I’m sticking with Skynet for Mitch. Assuming he plays at all.

    If Iggy makes it, Iggy is probably a good enough nickname, but with “deik” in his last name and his well-rounded offensive game, Deke seems like a good one. (For the non-US folk on the board, that’s slang here for faking someone out with an offensive move. Also, juke, another favorite of mine.)

    Quiet months of summer, so just goofing around…

    Also, kudos to Z-man for the French Correction. I love that the board turned on Frank so hard that Z-man is now kind of defending him! I continue to be of the completely irrational and unsubstantiated position that Frank will become a good player in this league, here or elsewhere, and is worth our patience.

    I’m sure summer league is short because of injury concerns. Look how fast Zion was pulled.

    that makes total sense…it just seems like there’s a whole lot of available bodies for teams to throw out there…

    i was thinking something similar to how the ncaa has all those tournaments at the beginning of their season…

    DSJ and Payton will be the best PG rotation the Knicks have had in quite some time.
    Let that sink in

    it just seems like there’s a whole lot of available bodies for teams to throw out there…

    I think you can bring a bunch of those bodies to pre-season, when there is more time, more coaching, and more games. (Albeit with a slightly different mission: to prepare the “real” team for the actual season…)

    My irrational hankering is to see whether Iggy is the real deal.

    Me too but.. Friend of mine is a huge Mich St fan and his advice was “don’t get excited.”

    Deke is reserved for Mutombo.

    I think we’ll be calling our new pg El Frio after he a few 2 for 13s.

    The idea of “positionless basketball” is that you have a lot of guys who can both shoot from the perimeter and also guard multiple positions. So that places a priority on hybrid 2/3 and 3/4 and 4/5 guys who have versatility. We don’t have those kinds of players. We have some big-booty traditional 4’s (Randle, Gibson), a stretch big who doesn’t defend any position well (Portis) a 3 who seems too slow to guard 2’s (Barrett), and some generic 2’s who will be too small to guard many 3’s (Ellington/Bullock).

    You need versatile players to do the positonless thing, and we mostly have specialists. Mitch, Marcus Morris and Frank are all switchable defenders that can guard multiple positions, but Frank has no position on offense and is probably not going to get lots of burn.

    You can put together a good defensive lineup with this bunch, say: Payton, Ntilikina, Morris, Gibson, Robinson. But that’s a brutal offensive team. The best two-way lineup is probably: Payton, Ellington, Morris, Randle, Robinson.

    Iggy and Trier seem kind of redundant. They’re both guys who have some scoring punch and potential as Lou Williams/Jamal Crawford type bench scorers, but it’s kind of like you only need one or the other. I guess it’s better to have two of them than none.

    If Iggy makes it, Iggy is probably a good enough nickname, but with “deik” in his last name and his well-rounded offensive game, Deke seems like a good one. (For the non-US folk on the board, that’s slang here for faking someone out with an offensive move. Also, juke, another favorite of mine.)

    It doesn’t seem right that someone named Iggy would get a nickname.

    The idea of “positionless basketball” is that you have a lot of guys who can both shoot from the perimeter and also guard multiple positions.

    Exactly. You can see that the front office has an intriguing design for the team, but the execution is questionable, at best. They load up with a bunch of tall, long guys who have some perimeter offense, like Portis, Randle, Morris, Knox (in theory), Barrett (in theory) and giving lip service to getting Mitch to develop a jumper. The problem is that Portis, Randle, Knox and Barrett, while tall and fairly athletic are horrible defenders. Maybe they hope with a simple defensive system of switching everything, their length and athleticism will play better. I find it highly unlikely this will be the case, but I guess you never know, until you know.

    Am I the only one on this blog excited about RJ?

    It seems like the blog is down on him because of his shooting/inefficiency. But I see a very skilled player. I’m excited about his passing and floor vision/awareness.

    I’m reasonably excited about RJ. He is probably going to miss a lot of shots as a rookie but he has some foundational skills that are kind of undeniable. He can put the ball on the deck, eat up some space, draw defenders and make the right pass, and he can rebound. Those are good things to build on.

    The red flags in his statistical profile are for real though: poor FT shooting and low steal/block numbers are not a good sign. He will have to work hard on his game to fix his shooting and defense issues. But he has a better base of skills than any young players we’ve had in recent years other than KP and Mitch.

    I am very excited about RJ. I think his all around offensive game will make him a star on that end of the court. I think he will have better box score stats than Luca did last year other than 3%/TS%. I do think he will be over.500 TS.

    Put Me on the list of the excited ones bout Rj !
    I truly believe his drives will open us the road to dignity and effective paintball.
    His SL baby-eurosteps were pretty intriguing too.
    Can’t wait for the season to start to watch his game in NBA environment.

    I’m reasonably excited about RJ. He is probably going to miss a lot of shots as a rookie but he has some foundational skills that are kind of undeniable. He can put the ball on the deck, eat up some space, draw defenders and make the right pass, and he can rebound. Those are good things to build on.

    The red flags in his statistical profile are for real though: poor FT shooting and low steal/block numbers are not a good sign. He will have to work hard on his game to fix his shooting and defense issues. But he has a better base of skills than any young players we’ve had in recent years other than KP and Mitch.

    Yeah, the guy clearly has the talent where you can at least reasonably wishcast him into becoming a star. It’s one of the main benefits of picking in the top three. There’s usually someone you can actually wishcast about without it being foolhardy.

    One of the things I liked most about RJ in Summer League was his ability to get the ball to Mitch in the right spots. Beyond the nice assist totals he racked up in the last few games, there were a bunch of times he fed the ball to Mitch in great low post position and Mitch’s man had no choice but to foul him.

    I agree that he’ll probably have a fairly inefficient season shooting-wise, but putting aside Tatum’s absurd (and unsustainable) 3 point % his rookie season, how many first year players score efficiently?

    I’m pretty optimistic about RJ overall.

    My problem with RJ for the coming year is that he just doesn’t seem anywhere near ready for the speed, length and skill level of the NBA game. In SL he clearly demonstrated the following assets at an NBA level:

    Physical strength
    Footwork
    Court Vision
    IQ/situational awareness
    Length (for a 2, not for a 3)
    Rebounding
    Toughness/durability

    He also demonstrated the following liabilities:
    Speed
    Agility
    Explosiveness/Wiggle
    Handle
    Shooting form
    Ability to drive right (improved, but you can bet that teams will be forcing him right)
    Defensive motor

    My fear with him for next year is that his weaknesses will be exposed on both ends until he patches them up. On offense, he will be forced to either take 3-pointers or to drive right, which will lead to missed shots and turnovers aplenty. On defense, he will be PnR’ed to death.

    So as with Ntilikina and Knox, he is pretty far from NBA-ready right now, and it will come down to whether he improves or not. I’d say his chances are better than either of those two because he seems to have some undeniable strengths and has shown already that he can adapt and improve game to game. I’d be shocked if he puts up even average stats his rookie year, and am expecting a WS48 down around the .000 mark. Hopefully he will get better as the year goes on and will end the year on a good note.

    Another thing I will say positively about RJ is that he seems very mature for his age. Knox is polite and grounded, but come across as a teenage kid in the man’s world of the NBA. Frank comes across as a bit shy and doesn’t seem to have much of a voice on the court. RJ seems like a leader who will fit right in with the vets. Just guesswork on my part, but that’s what I have seen so far.

    Friend of mine is a huge Mich St fan and his advice was “don’t get excited.”

    But Iggy went to Michigan, not Michigan State.

    You think RJ is just as NBA not ready as Knox and Frank? That seems like hyperbole.

    Why? I certainly didn’t intend for it to be.

    If you ignore the hype and look at RJ as if he was a nobody drafted in the 2nd round, what about his play was so great, i.e. any greater than what you saw out of Knox in SL last year?

    Being 19 and NOT Nba ready seems natural.
    Being 19 and NOT Work your ass off to compete in this league and get paid Big Bucks seems weak.
    The main Q for me about our youngsters has to do with Desire, not talent.
    (If you made it to the roster of an nba team you’re definitely talented)
    And Desire has to do with Hard Work.

    How Bad You Want to Succeed ?
    That is the Q.

    From 2018…did Knox seem NBA ready?:
    ?
    @NY_KnicksPR
    Kevin Knox was named to the All-NBA Summer League First Team after averaging 21.3 points, 6.5 rebounds and 2.3 assists over four games.

    505
    6:33 PM – Jul 17, 2018

    Knox seemed Nba-Get Ready for deathride-drives !
    Needs tons of work but don’t seem like wasted youth yet.
    If i were SMills I’d pay GrandMaster Scottie Pippen the money they gave to Bullock to teach Knox the secrets of PointForward, handling, driving, passing and acting like a True Pro.
    If i were a FOman….

    Knox scored points last summer league. It was great but to me, that’s not so impressive in summer league. Its pick up ball with barely any defense.

    Barrett, especially in the last game, showed that he can take over a game and not just with scoring. His court vision and passing is impressive. He can get to the line and get into the teeth of the defense pretty easily. He rebounds like a beast.

    Knox needs to improve in a lot of different areas (and rather significantly) in order to be a good NBA player. I believe he can do it because of his age but its a much longer road for him. RJ basically needs to improve his shooting, his efficiency (which is partly tied into shooting) and his defense (which pretty much all young NBA players need to do). But I see superstar potential in RJ because of his ability to control and take over a game.

    But Iggy went to Michigan, not Michigan State.

    He really hates Michigan so he watched all their games.

    I’m usually in the pessimist/cynical camp but I am very pro RJ due to the skills he’s shown plus his upbringing and basketball IQ… even more so after seeing him improve and adjust in every SL game. He also gives a shit, is aggressive and crashes the boards. This is the kind of kid I want on my team and want to root for.

    RJ Barrett will be the 2nd best player in New York City (to Mitchell Robinson, of course) by the time we have to offer him the max contract extension. The jumper is reworked and now resembles Kawhi Leonard’s shooting form, and the first thing he said when asked what he has to work on? Free throws. He just gets it and has the athleticism/basketball IQ combination that a wing needs to be ultra successful in the league. He’s probably the best passer on the team already; when they were trapping him on ball screens he didn’t panic. He used his height to see over the defense and found the roll man. I am very excited for him and legitimately believe he has a chance to one day be the best true wing in the NBA. He has a L-O-N-G way to go before he’s an All-NBA level player, but that’s his ceiling to me.

    For all the talk about his underachieving season at Duke, he actually broke ACC scoring records and posted a season as a freshman that only Trae Young, Michael Beasley, and Kevin Durant posted. In high school he had an undefeated season and won both the Gatorade and Naismith National Player of the Year awards, which sounds like a whole bunch of smoke but the last person to win both awards was LeBron James in 2002. The kid is legit and has been legit for a long time, and losing out on Zion for RJ Barrett might end up looking very different in a decade.

    Needless to say, I’m clearly his biggest fan on KnickerBlogger.

    I agree with all the positives on Barrett. He was productive as a freshman and definitely has some verifiable skills.

    However, the fact that he just finished a collegiate season in which he took 5 more shots per game than Zion Williamson while being 25% less efficient and then announced himself as the Maple Mamba on draft night, well, it does have the tendency to give this battle-scarred Knicks fan some major pause.

    I really hope he works out.

    Yeah he definitely has some Meloitis/MambaMentality. But he also looks like he’s the only guy currently on the roster who understands it’s a really good idea to throw the basketball to Mitchell Robinson when he’s near the rim. If he winds up a high usage moderate efficiency scorer but who also is a plus rebounder/plus passer that would still be a very good player. Maybe not a top 10 guy in the league, but top 20 and that would be a great return for the 3 pick.

    It’s going to take some work though. RJ really, really has to get better at shooting FTs and 3 pointers.

    I would love to be optimistic on Barrett as well. However, the weaknesses in his game are far more troubling than the strengths in his game are exciting. He’s all rep right now.

    It’s hyperbole like this that gets me:
    “the first thing he said when asked what he has to work on? Free throws”

    He’d have to be a moron not to say that. Why anyone would give him credit for saying it is beyond me. It’s a glaring weakness.

    The problem is, it’s not the only one. He’s got all kinds of things he needs to work on.

    When your house is on fire first thing you do is take care of the fire and not washing the dishes.
    When you suck at free throws making it a priority to stop throwing away easy points shows common sense and responsibility.
    After all its a game where most points win.

    Some interesting tidbits about the various Knick contracts. Bullock, Gibson, Ellington and Payton all have $1 million payouts if their second year is not picked up and Randle has a $4 million payout if his third year is not picked up. Portis, on the other hand, is a straight-up $15.7 team option. That’s interesting. As we have mentioned a few times, you can’t deal a dude on a team option after the season. You have to pick it up before you trade him after the season. Marcus Morris has no partial guarantee for next year. He’s a flat out one-year deal.

    To clarify, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with what RJ said…only that it shouldn’t be used as an example of how smart and mature he is.

    So you can’t trade a guy with a team option and pass the team option on to the next team?

    It just seems weird…you can pass along a non-guarantee but not a team option?

    To clarify, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with what RJ said…only that it shouldn’t be used as an example of how smart and mature he is.

    Agreed. Guy was blindsided his first two summer league games. I’m more hopeful than I was when we drafted him but there’s a fuckload of caveats. He’s not as good as he thinks he is. I suspect he’ll work on it. His vision is real, I don’t think his passing ability matches it yet. And he’s sub par at everything else. It’s reasonable to have hope, it’s ridiculous to think he’ll turn out great.

    So you can’t trade a guy with a team option and pass the team option on to the next team?

    Sorry, I misspoke, you have to guarantee the money if you trade him before free agency begins next year (so a draft night trade, etc.). You can trade a guy with a non-guaranteed contract during that moratorium period, but not a guy on a team option, since you can’t trade a guy who is about to be a free agent (non-guaranteed contracts are technically not free agents, because they are nominally under contract).

    So Portis can be traded during the season (and his team option passed along), just not once the season ends (unless they guarantee the contract). Again, though, you can see why non-guaranteed contracts give teams a lot more freedom (also, team options can’t be for less money than the previous season, hence Portis’ team option being a little bit higher than his first year).

    Again, though, you can see why non-guaranteed contracts give teams a lot more freedom

    Well, not really, if the non-guarantee costs cap space the following year. Isnt that the deal with Lance? Does he cost us cap space this year? It doesn’t show up on earlybirdrights.com

    Lance actually does not cost them anything. I was surprised by that, as well. He had an unusual partially guaranteed contract where the million only kicked in if they didn’t waive him before free agency started. What an odd contract. I can’t imagine what they thought the benefit of that would have been.

    Comments are closed.