NY Post: Derrick Rose, Immanuel Quickley struggle as Knicks fall to Magic

From Marc Berman:

The Knicks’ magic ran out against the reeling Magic.

A third quarter from hell doomed the Knicks as their Fantasyland three-game winning streak got snapped by an injury-wracked Orlando squad, 107-89, before 4,000 fans at Amway Center on Wednesday night.

Looking like anything but a playoff contender, the Knicks (14-16) missed 15 straight shots in the second half to ruin their chance of moving to a .500 record. They scored just 33 points in the second half.

Derrick Rose and rookie Immanuel Quickley, the new electric point-guard/bench combo, were disastrous, combining to shoot 2-for-22.

Quickley, who was a minus-19, said it was just an off-shooting night, but other elements reeked.

“Our energy probably wasn’t up to where Orlando’s was,’’ Quickley said. “Things like energy, defense, togetherness, toughness, those are things that you can control on a night to night basis. That was a couple of the things that I feel we didn’t do as a group.’’

The 32-year-old Rose killed the Knicks with his second straight off-night (1-for-10, four points), without the spark and shotmaking of his earlier Knicks games. He was a minus-15 and Tom Thibodeau held him to 16 minutes.

Simply put, you’re never as good as you look in your best game and you’re never as bad as you look in your worst game. Coming into the game, the Knicks had the 8th best SRS in the Eastern Conference, but it was just barely positive and it’s possible that it will be back in the negative zone after this game. So far this year, they’ve played about as well as the 8th best team in the conference and that’s roughly where they are in the conference. Since the 7, 8, 9 and 10 seeds all get into the play-in tournament, that’s a good sign that the Knicks will be there come springtime. However, they are unlikely to be able to avoid the play-in tournament if they’re in the playoffs.

Or maybe they’ll get hot again. They luckily now avoid a back-to-back this weekend after Saturday’s game against the Spurs was postponed due to COVID restrictions, meaning they get the Timberwolves after a nice stretch of time off to practice. However, it is interesting to see how much better the Timberwolves played last night now that KAT is back. It is striking just how central star players are to their teams nowadays. The Wizards looked worse than a G-League team without Bradley Beal, but now with Beal back, they’ve won three straight! So who knows?

Speaking of “you’re never as good as you look in your best game and you’re never as bad as you look in your worst game,” that likely goes for Derrick Rose, as well. As Early Bird pointed out in the comments, a lot of Rose’s numbers this year are scary (he’s no longer going to the basket and when he does, he can’t convert at all) and there’s a good argument that his hot hand from the midrange as a Knick has now led to his worst impulses (taking stupid shots and missing a lot of them), but at the same time, it’s evident that he’s still better than Austin freakin’ Rivers, ya know? So he definitely has value out there (enough for it to be worth trading for him? Perhaps, perhaps not). That said, we should likely try to avoid, like, mythologizing the guy after a week here, like some of the newspaper articles talking about him like an assistant coach or whatever. Back in his last stint with the Knicks, his agent noted that Rose was not the mentoring type, explaining, “You’re a mentor when you no longer can play. This league you get paid to perform. You don’t get paid to be a mentor.” Obviously, years later, Rose is more willing to be a mentor, but we might not want to confuse Rose’s “better than Austin Rivers” skills (and his willingness to at least consider passing the pall to Obi Toppin) as some preternatural “coaching” he’s doing out there. At the same time, his goddawful game shouldn’t be evidence that he’s trash, either. You’re never as good as you look in your best game and you’re never as bad as you look in your worst game.

But for the Knicks, for a change, not being as good as their best game is still pretty darn decent, which is pretty freakin’ awesome to root for this season.

317 replies on “NY Post: Derrick Rose, Immanuel Quickley struggle as Knicks fall to Magic”

derrick rose the “mentor” reminds me a bit of when I showed up at my first duty station after finishing school and then basic…

my first day the first sergeant turned me over to sergeant keeter who was gonna show me the “ropes”…coming from new york and having grown up in the family I had, plus be pretty burnt out already from getting high so much as a kid I was already fairly well seasoned as a young person…

and sure enough within about 30 minutes of hooking up with sergeant “crash” keeter dude was telling me his life’s story and all his many life’s fuckups…

thinking about RJ, obi and quik I can only imagine having derrick rose as a mentor is quite an interesting experience…

above all else, derrick rose has and will always be dumb as a fucking rock to me…he excelled at basketball due to insane athletic ability and an extremely competitive nature…

he may be an okay backup point guard, but mentor, assistant coach, yeah, not so much…

Yeah, DRose the assistant coach might be the worst take on the Knicks this season! 😀

geo:
derrick rose the “mentor” reminds me a bit of when I showed up at my first duty station after finishing school and then basic…

my first day the first sergeant turned me over to sergeant keeter who was gonna show me the “ropes”…coming from new york and having grown up in the family I had, plus be pretty burnt out already from getting high so much as a kid I was already fairly well seasoned as a young person…

and sure enough within about 30 minutes of hooking up with sergeant “crash” keeter dude was telling me his life’s story and all his many life’s fuckups…

thinking about RJ, obi and quik I can only imagine having derrick rose as a mentor is quite an interesting experience…

above all else, derrick rose has and will always be dumb as a fucking rock to me…he excelled at basketball due to insane athletic ability and an extremely competitive nature…

he may be an okay backup point guard, but mentor, assistant coach, yeah, not so much…

Great post.

Let me be sarcastic, Minnesota is playing better because DAR is not playing as much as because KAT is doing it.

Funny thing, Anthony Edwards shot 3-15 yesterday, two were dunks and were in the game video recap on NBA.com, with the comment “This kid IS fire (sic)”…
Sunday versus the Raptors he had only one three in the game, it went in the game video recap.
So stupid.

Our beloved boys are being kicked in the ass every time they feel entitled to win and yesterday was no different.

They need to play hard, grind, defend, sweat and they did not, plus Steve Clifford is able to draw blood from stones, the Magic deserved their win.

Derrick Rose…
I get the teasing from people who don’t approve the Rose’s trade (I’m one of them, but I’m not teasing),
especially after the pro-trade guys’ taunting enthusiasm after his first three games.
He’s probably better than Rivers (don’t forget that Rivers had his moments too, at the beginning of the year and in Utah, and he’s been streaky his whole career), he played well for some games, now he’s in a slump,
I think the truth is in the middle, sometimes he’ll be useful, sometimes he’ll be trash. I hope his reversing to bad habits is temporary.
Either way I’ll judge him at the end of the season and we’ll see if it was worth the pick.

Around the league:
Is it the last year in Boston for the Wonder Boy?
Dame Lillard for MVP? (yes, yes, yes!)
Who’ll stop Zion?
Miami in a painful western trip.
Denver, WTF?

We have glaring holes that all of us have already pointed out and in nights like yesterday they’re much more visible, but this is a process so let’s keep it up and try to get better step by step.
About the game, yeah it was a reality check, but as like any other team we’ll have off nights, and that doesn’t make the team the worst in the league, so “nothing to see here” and on to the next.

Max:
I have a comment in moderation and I will never understand why it happens… 🙂

Me too, Max. Yours was an optimistic take? If yes, maybe the blog thinks “Knicks? Optimism? This must be a troll!!” 😀

cybersoze: Me too, Max. Yours was an optimistic take? If yes, maybe the blog thinks “Knicks? Optimism? This must be a troll!!” 😀

LOL

Now I’m disappointed the Spurs game got postponed, because we have to stew on this loss for even longer than we normally would have.

Rose can’t finish at the rim anymore, which was plain as day to anyone looking at the numbers. He’s either hurt or he’s cooked. He had a bit of a quick adrenaline shot when he got here — not surprising — now it looks like it’s worn off.

The RJ minute reduction for no reason is extremely troubling. It coincides pretty much with the Rose arrival. Very bad development and again makes any fan with any medium or long term vision really wonder about Thibs.

Wasserman includes both Knox and Frank in a list of young players who could use a change of scenery at the trade deadline. (A few others include Mo Bamba, Jarrett Culver, and Mfiondu Kabengele.) I guess we’ll see if there remains any NBA interest in Frank, and also how much our Kentucky East management still cares about getting something out of Knox as a player.

A completely genuine thought I had while watching Rose chuck away last night: “why doesn’t Thibs put Elfrid Payton back in?” It was like a micro version of the way Phil Jackson made us long for Steve Mills, etc. I do not think we’ll look back fondly at the idea of trading someone we’d theoretically have signed for 4 years for peanuts for this guy.

I have to concur with E that last night illustrated the downside of employing a coach who isn’t particularly interested in development. I understand some people like the idea of all players being forced to earn minutes purely on merit and I’m not necessarily opposed to making merit a consideration, but there’s a strong argument to be made that RJ should’ve been in on merit alone last night, so when you combine that with the fact that we absolutely want him in closing lineups from a developmental perspective it really should’ve been a no-brainer.

Max:

Our beloved boys are being kicked in the ass every time they feel entitled to win and yesterday was no different.

They need to play hard, grind, defend, sweat and they did not, plus Steve Clifford is able to draw blood from stones, the Magic deserved their win.

1 after the fast start there was a cascade of awfulness that wound up washing over Randle in the second half.
Also Thib’s rigidity in subbing reared its ugly head last night. Payton was way more effective than Rose, who seemed to be forcing up shots and should not have been in there.
Don’t know what Mo Bamba’s issues are ( I have read that there may have been lingering effects of Covid-19), but it would seem to be worth giving him a flyer for the balance of the season to see if K Payne can coach him up. I wonder if Orlando would take Knox and/or Frank.

Danny Leroux in The Athletic has a piece on which East teams might be sellers, and what that might look like if they did. Unsurprisingly, he does not think we will sell.

What would selling look like for them?

It is significantly less clear than it was a year ago with Marcus Morris Sr. on the roster. Leon Rose could move on from one-year signings Nerlens Noel and Alec Burks but the Knicks’ trade partner would only have weak non-Bird rights to retain them and Burks was involved in a similar deal last year that only netted the Warriors some lower-end second-round picks. If that is the return, Rose should keep both Noel and Burks. It may be possible to see a move with someone like Reggie Bullock or Austin Rivers but that would not fundamentally transform the Knicks’ rotation, especially after acquiring Derrick Rose. Leon Rose may listen to offers on Julius Randle after his impressive start but New York can keep him at a $19.8 million salary next year and he has a clear role on the team so a move would be surprising without a significant return. It is also worth noting that Elfrid Payton can reject any trade since the new team would get weaker Bird rights, so Rose would have to convince Payton he will be marginalized after the deadline and Tom Thibodeau has kept Payton in the starting lineup so that feels unlikely.

thenoblefacehumper:
A completely genuine thought I had while watching Rose chuck away last night: “why doesn’t Thibs put Elfrid Payton back in?” It was like a micro version of the way Phil Jackson made us long for Steve Mills, etc. I do not think we’ll look back fondly at the idea of trading someone we’d theoretically have signed for 4 years for peanuts for this guy.

I have to concur with E that last night illustrated the downside of employing a coach who isn’t particularly interested in development. I understand some people like the idea of all players being forced to earn minutes purely on merit and I’m not necessarily opposed to making merit a consideration, but there’s a strong argument to be made that RJ should’ve been in on merit alone last night, so when you combine that with the fact that we absolutely want him in closing lineups from a developmental perspective it really should’ve been a no-brainer.

Yesterday, on pure merit, Payton and Barrett had to be in the closing lineup, Rose and IQ were godawful.
It’s not the first time that I can’t understand Thibs’ rotations, my fault probably…

It was one game, a few players shot poorly most likely for random reasons that have nothing to do with anything, and we lost a game that would have been nice to win given the playoff battle ahead. We didn’t learn damn thing other than that last night. On to the next game.

Alan: “Leon Rose could move on from one-year signings Nerlens Noel and Alec Burks

My offseason take saying that Burks was a huge signing because he would bring us a 1st RP at the trade deadline definitely didn’t age well. Some more games and we can’t even get a pack of gums back.

Alan: Wasserman includes both Knox and Frank in a list of young players who could use a change of scenery at the trade deadline.

I’ve been preaching this all season… let’s trade our draft busts for someone else’s draft busts.

Huh, I don’t see any unapproved comments in this thread. Are people still seeing their posts moderated?

Brian Cronin:
Huh, I don’t see any unapproved comments in this thread. Are people still seeing their posts moderated?

No, mine was freed. Thanks Brian.

Yesterday looked like the typical loss for a team like ours after a hot stretch. You could see it coming…telltale signs:
-ORL desperate for a win and got Fournier back…he’s important for them
-Ross was hot from the start….he’s an elite scorer when he gets going, almost unstoppable
-Julius started off en fuego but then cooled off, still getting the same looks but missing, meaning other guys had to step up and not be spectators
-Someone needed to take on the scoring load…Rose and IQ started to do too much and the shots they have been hitting were not falling
-Other Magic players fed off of Ross and things just snowballed
-Once the momentum shifted, it was over. I agree that RJ and Elfrid should have played more, but don’t think the outcome would have been any different no matter who we put in. ORL was jacked by then and was not going to be caught, not with Ross percolating like that.

I also think that ORL will continue to improve as they get players back. There’s some illusory stuff going on in the East, making us look better than we actually are. The Celts, Heat, Raptors and probably the Magic are all better than their current records. Cavs will get Love back shortly. Washington was hit hard by COVID and might play better. Even DET has had a couple of nice wins lately.

I still think we struggle to get much over 30 wins when all is said and done. I could see us going 18-24 to finish 32-40. Teams are going to have better game plans for us now that we’ve stabilized and there’s ample film out there about our tendencies. Still, that would be an enormously positive outcome…like 10 or so games above the Vegas preseason line, and without any major transactions.

Now if shit happens before the trade deadline, all bets are off…but for now, I think this is a pretty accurate assessment, /- 4 wins.

No, mine was freed. Thanks Brian.

I think sometimes the system briefly holds comments before approving them. It’s quite odd.

Z-man: , /- 4 wins.

  

+/- 4 wins. That said, if you put the over/under at 32 wins right now, I probably bet the under with the team we have right now. Would love to be wrong, though!

I also think that ORL will continue to improve as they get players back. There’s some illusory stuff going on in the East, making us look better than we actually are. The Celts, Heat, Raptors and probably the Magic are all better than their current records. Cavs will get Love back shortly. Washington was hit hard by COVID and might play better. Even DET has had a couple of nice wins lately.

While I agree, the issue is that in weird seasons like this one, the illusory stuff sometimes lasts the whole season. Like the 1999 Pistons going from a .451 winning percentage in 1998 to .580 in 1999 (then back to .512 the following season). Or the Hornets going from .622 to .520 (and missing the playoffs barely. They then drafted Baron Davis, so I won’t bother comparing the 2000 team, as it was obviously different, same with the Hawks, who traded a bunch of players after the 1999 season, which would explain for their changed record).

+/- 4 wins. That said, if you put the over/under at 32 wins right now, I probably bet the under with the team we have right now. Would love to be wrong, though!

I predicted 31, so a little piece of me wants that to be right. 😉 But seriously, I’d be thrilled if they just play so well that they make the playoffs outright. Backing into the play-in tournament probably would have a bit less excitement around it.

As an aside, let me give a shout out to the hot shit team presidents (which might include Leon Rose) who have been able to turn their teams around in, like, one season. Daryl Morey has completely reinvigorated the Sixers and Arturas Karnisovas has seemed to give the Bulls a whole new identity in just a season (before he has even really had a chance to remake the roster as much as he would like). Heck, even Troy Weaver seems to be setting up some things in Detroit. I think Leon Rose might very well be included with those guys, as well, but I want to wait a little bit and see just how much of it Thibs’ ability to squeeze blood from a stone.

In general, though, I just love the team president talent out there, the new Masais, as it were. It’s fun to watch as an NBA fan.

Last night sucked but Orlando is better than their record and our offense, even after adding Rose, is still very much a work in progress. Randle is really the only consistent option.

Quickley is a rookie. He has games like this. Rose ain’t Rose from 10 years ago. RJ is not a good shooter, neither is Elf. And Bullock/Burks are guys who will hit some 3’s some nights but they’re gonna struggle when the other guys are struggling. Obi is a rookie, doesn’t play that many minutes and can’t really create for himself yet. And then you got Noel (mitch) and Taj, who are just defensive presences for the most part.

We’re a good defensive team with one reliable option, Randle. We’re an upgrade at starting PG away from being a good team and an upgrade at staring PG and another wing who can score away from being a great team. But I like the effort and we’ll probably bounce back Sunday.

We’re an upgrade at starting PG away from being a good team and an upgrade at staring PG and another wing who can score away from being a great team.

So… Haliburton.

Brian Cronin: Daryl Morey has completely reinvigorated the Sixers

Do you think he could get exec of the year or might there still be too much resentment for the China blowback?

Do you think he could get exec of the year or might there still be too much resentment for the China blowback?

Wow, that’s a good question. I think you’re right that that might be a bit too much of a stick in the craw of the voters. Rob Pelinka didn’t win last year, so I think he has a good chance this year for adding so much talent to that Lakers team on the margins (and as a sort of retroactive award for adding AD last year).

This season, since returning from injury, Ball is absolutely sizzling as an outside shooter. Over his last 12 games, Ball is shooting 45.8% from 3-point range on exactly eight attempts per game. To put that in perspective, only six players have attempted as many 3-pointers as Ball has in that span and only Stephen Curry (47.3%) is shooting a better percentage. – via Jacob Rude @ Yahoo! Sports

I think we can put to rest the chance to trade for Lonzo, with his current stats he’d probably cost to much for us.

The way Thibs coaches this team and runs his rotations probably make us outperform our talent level a bit during the regular season since we play our best guys huge minutes and treat every game like it’s the playoffs. Once the playoffs actually start and we face off against teams like Boston or Brooklyn and they are working as hard as us it’s going to be a bit of a rude awakening.

We need to refocus ourselves on the actual purpose of this season and that is developing Mitch, IQ, and Barrett and seeing what we have with Toppin and to a lesser extent Knox and Frank. Toppin needs to start getting 20+ minutes a game right now. With Mitch out we should just run Toppin at center behind Noel, run Knox as Randle’s back up and bench Gibson, who is only supposed to be a spot minutes, end of the bench player anyway. We should also let Frank have some of Burks/Bullock’s/Payton’s minutes. It is really not okay that Bullock, Burks, Rivers (when he played), and Rose are all averaging more minutes than IQ and that everyone that has ever been in the rotation even Gibson is averaging more minutes than Toppin.

Thibs is not really helping this team by not focusing on our future while running us into the ground chasing .500 and a 6th or 7th seed. Playoffs should not be the lone goal.

Morey did what had to be done. He took the 1st or 2nd worst constructed team in the NBA and re-rearranged the secondary parts in a way that maximized the talent. It sure didn’t hurt that Embiid seems to be in better shape this year and isn’t gassed down the stretch of games.

cybersoze: I think we can put to rest the chance to trade for Lonzo, with his current stats he’d probably cost to much for us.

I don’t mind giving up pick(s). It’s the player we might have to include with the pick(s) that could be a problem. What good is solving one problem if it creates another.

“We’re an upgrade at starting PG away from being a good team”

LONZO BALL! New Orleans isn’t holding onto him because he’s not staying there.

Basically what Ben has been saying the last month or whatever is dead spot-on and his last post continued his run. We’re seeing now the advantages of Thibs (*), but the costs of all this aren’t really showing yet. Eventually, we’ll start seeing the costs. The costs have shown up everywhere he’s been and will inevitably show up here.

Whether or not the ultimate result would have been changed, last night was just a completely piss-poor effort by the head coach in every particular. Appalling.

(*) And there *are* advantages. He gets teams to play hard and he knows how to implement and teach good defense, He’s good at making the culture more serious and committed. He’s elite or near-elite at cobbling together spare parts and dreck and turning them into something at least passable. Those things and the impact of those things are inevitably front-loaded. They will be here, too.

Thibs gets a Moneyball-esque advantage by playing his main guys too much and stressing every game too much when the other teams don’t do that. That’s a lot of what’s going on here.

Deeefense: I don’t mind giving up pick(s)

Ntilakilla: LONZO BALL! New Orleans isn’t holding onto him because he’s not staying there.

And what do you guys think would cost us to trade for him?

E, all merc’d out: Whether or not the ultimate result would have been changed, last night was just a completely piss-poor effort by the head coach in every particular. Appalling.

I don’t get too deeply into the game-by-game coaching fluctuations, just like players, even the greatest coaches have some bad nights. And beyond that, last night was on the players…Thibs didn’t make Rose and IQ shoot 2-22, didn’t make Noel cough up pass after pass, etc. He could have tried some different things, but once Ross went MVP on us and Randle started missing 3’s and easy pull-ups that he was money on before, it was pretty much over.

As to the other points E and Ben make, all of that was a given once Thibs was hired. There would be trade-offs. He said from the get-go that he believed you can develop players without giving them undeserved playing time, that they had to earn the time in practice and continue earning it during games. He also said that he would go with lineups late in games that he felt gave him the best chance to win. So it may not be what you or Ben want, but he’s staying true to who he is and he isn’t going anywhere. It’s sort of pointless to keep harping on what is a) obvious and b) not going to change any time in the next 2-3 years at least. And he REALLY isn’t going anywhere so long as the team keeps outperforming Vegas odds by 10 games.

“And what do you guys think would cost us to trade for him?”

A protected first? We can always call NO’s bluff. They aren’t extending him as he doesn’t want to stay.

We’re an upgrade at starting PG away from being a good team and an upgrade at staring PG and another wing who can score away from being a great team.

So… Haliburton.

Halliburton and Mikal Bridges

The “trade-offs” aren’t worth it. I’m not sure they’re even close. Cobbling together meaningless wins on the backs of temps and mercs, at the expense of development, all the while playing guys too many minutes, doesn’t even come close to offsetting the loss of a lottery pick.

This team and this roster is not ready to miss the lottery. It simply isn’t. (I won’t even get into the perpetual debate about Julius in his miscast, unsustainable role.) Once that all-but-incontrovertible fact is established, what should transpire speaks for itself. If Thibs gets in the way of that thing transpiring, he isn’t adding value — he’s extracting it.

And honestly, if he thought that Alec Burks and Reggie Bullock gave him a better chance to win than RJ Barrett, I question his sanity. It was a bullshit performance, featuring all of his worst traits.

Ntilakilla:
“And what do you guys think would cost us to trade for him?”

A protected first? We can always call NO’s bluff. They aren’t extending him as he doesn’t want to stay.

I’d be pretty pissed if we gave up a first for Lonzo.

And he played Austin Rivers after no real practice and he played Derrick Rose after no practice at all, so the practice thing is BS, too.

“I’d be pretty pissed if we gave up a first for Lonzo.”

If it was a lottery pick I wouldn’t do it. But a late first? He’s a top 10 PG right now according to NBA Real Plus-Minus.

I’d give up the Dallas 2023 for Lonzo. If that was enough to get him, I’d be thrilled. I’d rather keep it for a Beal or other superstar trade, though.

E, all merc’d out:
The “trade-offs” aren’t worth it.I’m not sure they’re even close.Cobbling together meaningless wins on the backs of temps and mercs, at the expense of development, all the while playing guys too many minutes, doesn’t even come close to offsetting the loss of a lottery pick.

This team and this roster is not ready to miss the lottery.It simply isn’t.(I won’t even get into the perpetual debate about Julius in his miscast, unsustainable role.)

And honestly, if he thought that Alec Burks and Reggie Bullock gave him a better chance to win than RJ Barrett, I question his sanity.It was a bullshit performance, featuring all of his worst traits.

We know this is how you feel. Your messaging has been very consistent since day one. I think it’s an incredibly narrow lens through which to view things, and frankly, an unfair one. To me, it comes as continually arguing from a fixed conclusion.

I have no problem with hating the Thibs hire, or the collective decision to prioritize chasing marginal wins over a) at one extreme, maximizing playing time for young players or b) at the other extreme, trading young players and assets for impact players like Beal.

But by now, nothing is going to change regarding a) and nobody knows what will happen regarding b).

So your arguments start to come across like “well, we would have won that game if they eliminated the 3-pt line.” Once something is part of the rules of the game (in this case, whatever management rules the Knicks are playing by) then why keep belaboring the point? We all get it by now.

E, all merc’d out:
I’d give up the Dallas 2023 for Lonzo. If that was enough to get him, I’d be thrilled.I’d rather keep it for a Beal or other superstar trade, though.

I’d be okay with that, since it’s top-10 protected. I’d be okay with not doing that either.

It wasn’t a “fixed conclusion” at all. Frankly, my working assumption was that all the digs on Thibs were bullshit put out there by people who wanted to get him, but couldn’t get him on his record. Which is why I said little or nothing about the hire until a few games in. I was fine with it. I even put KATs stuff up to millennial whining.

Now it’s clear that those things were all true and might even have been understated. Have to adjust accordingly. I don’t think he should be fired, or anything like that. I do think that the FO needs to neuter him, though, keep him in his lane and make sure Thibs-ism doesn’t become the philosophy of the franchise. The Rose trade was the opposite of that.

E, all merc’d out:
I’d give up the Dallas 2023 for Lonzo. If that was enough to get him, I’d be thrilled.I’d rather keep it for a Beal or other superstar trade, though.

No, not the 2023 pick, because that pick has protections that make 2026 the next available pick DAL has for trade. So they’ll probably need to lift that protection, and we’ll get another asset for it. Maybe our own 2023 pick?

Real Plus-Minus

LONZO BALL: 3.65 (8th out of 85 PGs)
ELFRID PAYTON: -3.49 (76th out of 85 PGs)

Are people really telling me that a protected first wouldn’t be worth that upgrade at our most vulnerable position? Payton is playing 27 MPG, the most of anyone of the bottom tier of point guards in the NBA. That’s a lot of suckitude that could be replaced with a guy who pairs beautifully with RJ.

The argument about young players needing to earn it is crap. IQ is second on the team in BPM but 9th in mpg. Toppin is ahead of Bullock, Barrett, Knox, Rivers, Gibson, and Payton in BPM and has been consistently trending up as the season has progressed yet is still the lowest man in the rotation and couldn’t even get a minutes boost when Mitch went down.

Thibs preaches “earning it” but really he just plays the players he trusts regardless of performance and usually trusts young players less.

The problem with giving up assets for Ball is it is assets and the willingness to give him a $20+ million a year contract. I don’t know if that is worth it.

If he doesn’t have the balls to sign the qualifying offer, a la Noel, it’s not him that will dictate his value.

Well, looked it up and Lonzo’s qualifying offer is quite huge… 14.36M!? :O So yeah, maybe he signs it, if he doesn’t like the offers presented to him!

Ball isn’t going to dictate his value, the market will. It is a pretty weak free agent class next year do you really think no one would be willing to offer Ball $20 million a year? We would have his restricted rights but we’d still have to match the offers he would get.

Either he comes here and shits the bed in which it’s a bad trade or he comes here and plays well and we have to pony up big money to resign him. Kind of a lose lose situation. With that said if we could try him out cheaply I’d be good with it but a 1st or multiple 1sts even protected seems unwise.

I think the best trade candidate for these Knicks is Mo Bamba. He’s an actual difference maker who can’t get off the bench because Orlando drafted him when they had Nikola Vucevic on the roster, and I think something like Knox and Noel is enough to entice the Magic to send Bamba our way. Lonzo Ball would be fun to have but I agree we should hold onto our best assets for a bigger fish to be named later.

I also don’t think Lonzo Ball will get a contract much bigger than what Orlando gave Markelle Fultz. Lonzo Ball’s mid-20s at $16-18M isn’t a bad contract, I don’t think. If Thibs can turn him into the defensive monster he was back in Los Angeles and the shooting stays where it is now, then he’d likely be a bargain on his 2nd contract.

Why give away assets for someone you could have only by paying money some months later?
(Is the Carmelo Trade our Groundhog Day?)

My disappreciation for Payton is known and Lonzo would be a good improvement, but what’s the goal?
Taking the seventh place instead of the tenth in the play-in mini-tournament?
You still have to resign him at the end of the season.

Paying for a possible short term rental is a move you do when your goal is to win all the marbles (Cubs and Aroldis Chapman, 2016) not when you’re clutching at straws to get a playoff spot.

If our FO like him so much, just wait and blow New Orleans away with a dynamite Offer Sheet in july.

Why give away assets for someone you could have only by paying money some months later?
(Is the Carmelo Trade our Groundhog Day?)

I am anti-trading a first for Lonzo, but he’ll be an RFA not a UFA so it’s far from certain we could add him for money alone in the offseason.

Max: If our FO like him so much, just wait and blow New Orleans away with a dynamite Offer Sheet in july.

I have no doubt NO will match almost any offer, because they’re not properly a FA destination. So they’ll keep what they have that it’s good. And Lonzo is becoming a very good player.

I actually think the Markelle Fultz contract is a bad sign for resigning Ball cheaply. Fultz struggled with injuries, was traded for almost nothing, was widely regarded as a bust, and had one decently promising season and still got $16 million a year based largely on his pedigree. Ball has had a much better career than Fultz so far, is playing better than Fultz ever played, and has just as much pedigree. There is no way he doesn’t get considerably more than Fultz did.

thenoblefacehumper: I am anti-trading a first for Lonzo, but he’ll be an RFA not a UFA so it’s far from certain we could add him for money alone in the offseason.

Absolutely true. You made your best offer sheet and wait to see if NO match it, if they match alas, you keep your money, had used your first round pick and maybe you’ll be lucky and get another (better) IQ.

The player I would try and make a lowball offer for on New Orleans is Hayes. He is pretty much out of the rotation and I think he has some real promise. I would much prefer a flyer on him than on Bamba.

“You made your best offer sheet and wait to see if NO match it, if they match alas, you keep your money, had used your first round pick and maybe you’ll be lucky and get another (better) IQ.”

The chances are that we aren’t going to find a better PG than someone already in the top 10 among PGs in real plus-minus at just age 23.

Ben R:
The argument about young players needing to earn it is crap. IQ is second on the team in BPM but 9th in mpg. Toppin is ahead of Bullock, Barrett, Knox, Rivers, Gibson, and Payton in BPM and has been consistently trending up as the season has progressed yet is still the lowest man in the rotation and couldn’t even get a minutes boost when Mitch went down.

Thibs preaches “earning it” but really he just plays the players he trusts regardless of performance and usually trusts young players less.

I couldn’t disagree more with this take. For example, Obi’s BPM is in a tiny role at tiny usage and he is next to unplayable on D. RJ is playing a zillion minutes despite having a BPM of -2.2. IQ may very well be excelling because he’s being properly used by Thibs and not being thrown to the wolves.

And you kind of contradict yourself when you say that Thibs is lying or clueless about developing players, but use their development as evidence that they should be playing more.

The point is that he is playing to win first and to develop players second. That’s been his consistent message. And lo and behold, the team is winning and by your own account, the rookies are developing!

To say Obi is “next to unplayable on D” is nuts. Hit me for being too negative on Thibs if you choose, but the counterpart is being way too positive/deferential and this kind of thing falls smack into that category.

And it’s rich to whack guys for “small sample size” when the only reason they have a SSS is because of Thibs’s stubbornness. Kind of the definitive “heads I win, tails you lose” scenario.

And no, the team is not “winning.” They’re losing. They’re playing 38-44 pace basketball. Under Miller, they were playing 32-50 pace basketball. 38-44 is losing basketball, not winning basketball.

E, all merc’d out: It wasn’t a “fixed conclusion” at all.

Well it sounds like you went from an unreasonably optimistic take on Thibs given his historical preferences to a reasonably pessimistic take grounded in evidence. My problem is, now that we know who he is and who he isn’t, what good does it do to say over and over again “See? He’s playing the mercs over the kids and fucking up our draft position in the process!” Everyone here has pretty much conceded that…and made their positions known on whether they think that is a good or bad thing. So why not shift the discussion to predicting what will happen going forward under the current management/coaching braintrust? Whether they should or should not trade for Lonzo is a very debatable point. Whether Thibs should bench Payton or Bullock is not….it’s just not gonna happen.

E, all merc’d out: To say Obi is “next to unplayable on D” is nuts. Hit me for being too negative on Thibs if you choose, but the counterpart is being way too positive/deferential and this kind of thing falls smack into that category.

Maybe I overstated this, but he’s pretty terrible as a defender. The bigger problem is that he’s playing behind our best player. He’s certainly not a better option at the 5 than Noel or Taj if you want to win.

E, all merc’d out: And no, the team is not “winning.” They’re losing. They’re playing 38-44 pace basketball. Under Miller, they were playing 32-50 pace basketball. 38-44 is losing basketball, not winning basketball.

I thought it was pretty obvious that I was saying that in comparison to expectations. A 6-win difference is pretty significant. Outperforming Vegas odds that take into account improvement by other teams by 10 or more games is pretty significant. But if your point is that we should have rolled with Miller for another year, that’s what I said all off-season before Thibs was hired. And keep in mind, he didn’t care much about developing the young guys either.

The Heat desperately need a third guy to play well. Jimmy and Bam have been very good but the rest of that team has played like shit this season. Duncan is a great shooter, I guess, so maybe they have 2.5 guys. Nunn has sucked, Dragic has been hurt or mediocre, Tyler Herro is playing replacement level ball etc etc . . .you think they’ll figure it out because they were so good down the stretch last year and they have a very good coach but they’re running out of time to get their shit together. Right now the pieces aren’t fitting together, they can’t rebound and they’re throwing the ball all over the place.

DRed: The Heat desperately need a third guy to play well. Jimmy and Bam have been very good but the rest of that team has played like shit this season. (…) they have a very good coach but they’re running out of time to get their shit together. (…)

Is there any chance Jimmy gets fed up and asks to be traded on the offseason? If he does it, it’d be to the Knicks (because of Thibs and his old Bulls pals)!
He is under contract until 2023, but next year he has a player option so it’s like he is on an expiring contract from MIA pov. And Riley doesn’t lose players for nothing.

vincoug: He lost Lebron for nothing.

That’s right, but that one is understandable, because keeping Lebron seemed to be a lock for the three-peat.

I think getting Lonzo for a 1st would be pretty neat. There usually arent many good PGs available. Most of them are locked with the team that drafted them for their first 8 years in the league, and not many last long after that (see Wall, John). If you are looking at the market…. well, unless you count getting Steph as a FA in 2022 I don’t see many great options available. There are a few upgrades on the older side that I guess that we could trade for (Rubio, Satoransky, Lowry). I am optimistic that Lonzo could be a good PG for us, but we should count on matching a max offer from other rival teams. Also we could wait till the draft and arrange a S&T if we dont get a PG then.

I don’t think the drop-off from Taj to Obi is very big, if there at all, so the effect on wins and losses should be minimal. I’m not suggesting we bench all the vets and just play young guys and tank our way to 20 wins. I’m suggesting there is a happy medium between play Taj and Rose more minutes than Obi and IQ and not playing them at all.

I also question how real our improvement is. We have been very lucky when it comes to major injuries and Covid and we are still only a .5 game out of 9th place and 3 games ahead of the clearly tanking Wizards. We are in 6th place right now and I think 12th place at the end of the season is more likely than 5th, and we will probably end up somewhere between 8th and 10th. I predicted 32 wins and I think we are still at that pace. Thibs is leading an improved Randle and a more balanced roster to a handful of more wins than Miller was averaging. It hardly seems like a great achievement to me.

It would be one thing if Thibs had us on a 50 wins pace but he is sacrificing development to chase the 8th seed and win less than half our games.

Also, I think critiquing our current situation is just as viable a topic of discussion as longshot future trades and moves. As for them: Ball – only if cheap, Olidipo – never, Drummond – oh god no, Lowry – only if also super cheap, Beal – not at the price it would take.

Hey geo, yesterday i remembered i didn’t send you any music lately, and all because ORL has a player named Gary Clark.

So here it goes, a much better performer than that ORL’s player…
Gary Clark Jr Live at The Surf Lodge (Montauk, NY)

PS: Look at the girls on the front of the stage, that’s the hard life JK47 and Danvt (i don’t remember if there’s more musicians among us) have to endure, the poor guys! LOL

Ben R: I predicted 32 wins and I think we are still at that pace. Thibs is leading an improved Randle and a more balanced roster to a handful of more wins than Miller was averaging. It hardly seems like a great achievement to me.

Your prediction in and of itself speaks well for Thibs. Again, Vegas had us at 22 wins. So it sounds like you are not considering whether other teams improved relative to us, or whether Miller would be doing anything differently (he clearly did not defer to younger players any more than Thibs is, e.g. limiting Mitch’s minutes and slowly burying Knox. If you are suggesting that Miller is as good of a coach as Thibs, sure, that is very possible…I really liked Miller and thought he did a good job, but he was also a win-now coach fighting for his job and didn’t give a shit about developing younger players at the cost of wins. You are also not considering whether Randle’s improvement or RJ’s, Obi’s and IQ’s development has anything to do with Thibs. They are pretty effusive in their praise for him.

Ben R: Also, I think critiquing our current situation is just as viable a topic of discussion as longshot future trades and moves.

Sure, I agree, but once it’s clear that Thibs is not going to bench Payton, Bullock, etc., isn’t there a point where saying it again serves no further purpose in generating “discussion?”

Ben R: but he is sacrificing development

This is the most debatable point. Thibs would argue that he is furthering their development, not sacrificing it. Since they actually ARE developing (you said so yourself) I don’t see what is being sacrificed. Did Knox and Frank develop more by playing unlimited minutes their rookie years? Would RJ be all that much worse right now if he played 20mpg last year and got yanked when he put up a 4-18 rather than playing 30mpg no matter how badly he played? I don’t have a definitive answer…both POVs have merit.

One thing I know for sure is that it’s a positive for the franchise to be viewed in a positive light, which is what is happening right now. It would be hard to shake the laughingstock rep if we were losing at the Vegas rate.

who is going to come in as a new coach in the nba and not going to be “win-now” unless ownership said (like Brown in Philly) just lose now…i don’t see any franchises doing that right now…there were a lot of new coaches hired this summer….please point out which ones are not win now…if they aren’t then they will not be in their position very long…….that seems like a silly way too judge a coach…

it is how they decide to win now….and that is dictated by the rosters they inherited…is there anyone in the league focused on “development”, i.e., playing their rookies over mercs/vets…i don’t see that either…seems like splitting hairs over 5-10 mpg for a few guys…

i don’t like that rose is first guard off the bench now…i would rather IQ and I also would like to see Toppin getting more run in lieu of 2 or 3 more wins…but that may happen if we lose more games and the end of season becomes moot but Thibs seems like he will be “all gas no brake” until the bitter end…

The Athletic has a nice piece on how this year’s draft picks are doing. It’s overall verdict is the draft class is not as bad as advertised

https://theathletic.com/2396477/2021/02/18/nba-rookie-tiers-2020-class-has-been-surprisingly-decent-lamelo-ball-leading-the-way/

Quickly was in the top tier “already delivering” and labeled the steal of the draft so far, with the big question being “ whether he can ever put enough pressure on the rim to be a high-end starter“. Toppin was in the 5th of eight tiers of players “starting slowly”

Z-man: This is the most debatable point. Thibs would argue that he is furthering their development, not sacrificing it. Since they actually ARE developing (you said so yourself) I don’t see what is being sacrificed.

I don’t think Thibs is doing a terrible job and most of my biggest critiques are at the edges. While I would love to see him bench both Payton and Bullock I haven’t even brought that up. I think Thibs is doing a good job getting Barrett and Robinson minutes and isn’t too far off with IQ. I think at this point he has earned 25 minutes or so and to be at least the first guard off the bench if not the starter but I can live with him getting 20+ minutes a game from here on out like he has recently.

I think the biggest malpractice is how he has handled Toppin. Toppin was the most “NBA ready” prospect and for the most part, has delivered so far (as well as he could given limited minutes and no structured role within the offense). He is shooting over 60% on 2 pt shots on a variety of looks. We need to find ways to incorporate him into the offense and utilize him on our bench unit. So far Thibs has shown very little interest in finding a role for him and when Mitch went down did not make any apparent attempt to increase Toppin’s role.

I also have an interest in seeing Frank and Knox get at least a little playing time since they are still, at least in theory developing players. I don’t see how giving them 10 minutes a game would radically alter the trajectory of this team.

Even in garbage time, Thibs sticks to his rotation till the bitter end.

Ben R: I think the biggest malpractice is how he has handled Toppin. Toppin was the most “NBA ready” prospect and for the most part, has delivered so far (as well as he could given limited minutes and no structured role within the offense). He is shooting over 60% on 2 pt shots on a variety of looks. We need to find ways to incorporate him into the offense and utilize him on our bench unit. So far Thibs has shown very little interest in finding a role for him and when Mitch went down did not make any apparent attempt to increase Toppin’s role.

I dunno, not seeing the same things you are seeing with Toppin. I see a guy who takes 45% of his shots from 3 and hits less than 30% of them, and who has a FTr of .120. The team is -5.3 per 100 poss with him on court, and his on/off per 100 is -6.3. I can’t believe that anyone who watches him can’t see how bad he is on defense…maybe slightly better than Knox but not much. Most of his defensive value comes from being a non-awful defensive rebounder and blocking a few shots. But he gets twisted up and blown by regularly in the halfcourt and totally can’t stay in front of quicker wings on the perimeter. Honestly, you could argue that he’s actually getting more minutes than he deserves. But sure, I’d like to see him play more too. I just don’t think Thibs will do it until the defensive lapses are less egregious.

One of the issues is that the Knicks used a lottery pick on an offense-first, older rookie and then have a terrible offense and yet…A. Don’t play their offense-first, older rookie many minutes and also B. don’t run any plays for the offense-first, older rookie.

It is quite puzzling. “Our offense sucks, but let’s not change anything about it” does not sound like a promising plan.

There’s a chance that Toppin is just completely lost in practice and doesn’t look at all ready for the NBA, but in any case he should be getting more minutes before we can decide he’s a Knox level bust. I am still fine with the way Thibs is handling thing because we all knew from the time he was signed that he would do this, he will play go win every game no matter what.

That does raise the most important question: if that was the case, why did we draft Toppin? Didn’t the Knicks draft him precisely because he was supposed to be NBA ready? How does a guy who’s supposed to be NBA ready look so absolutely lost on the court, totally playing outside of what were his strengths in college? That part is probably on Thibs, because well, it’s his job to use his players in a way that maximizes their skill sets.

It’s sad that I barely remember him when thinking about the team, but the situation is so convoluted that I can’t really think about assigning blame yet, outside of maintaining that Haliburton was the pick and our front office screwed that up.

Obi may come along, he was a late bloomer at every stage. Still a suboptimal pick no matter how you slice it but I kinda like rooting for him and hope the tough love is the right approach. He does seem like someone who is transitioning to being PG-dependent on offense…he just ran roughshod over defenses in college and can’t do that anymore…so it may be a year or two before he works out the kinks. But his having to fix his D before getting extended minutes is probably a good thing in the long run.

I’ve sort of resigned myself to thinking about him as a 19-yo rookie…he is locked up on the rookie deal and if he DOES improve, we’ll have a young guy in his prime on a cheap-ish deal. Not all 22 yo rookies are close to being finished products, and not all 19 yo lottery picks improve very much. Also, things could change very rapidly…Julius, Taj or Noel could tweak something before Mitch gets back…or some trade could come up out of the blue or at the deadline….there’s still more than half of a full-length season to go…lots could happen.

Z-man:
Obi may come along, he was a late bloomer at every stage. Still a suboptimal pick no matter how you slice it but I kinda like rooting for him and hope the tough love is the right approach. He does seem like someone who is transitioning to being PG-dependent on offense…he just ran roughshod over defenses in college and can’t do that anymore…so it may be a year or two before he works out the kinks. But having to fix his D before glomming minutes is probably a good thing in the long run.

I’ve sort of resigned myself to thinking about him as a 19-yo rookie…he is locked up on the rookie deal and if he DOES improve, we’ll have a young guy in his prime on a cheap-ish deal. Not all 22 yo rookies are close to being finished products, and not all 19 yo lottery picks improve very much. Also, things could change very rapidly…Julius, Taj or Noel could tweak something before Mitch gets back…or some trade could come up out of the blue or at the deadline….there’s still more than half of a full-length season to go…lots could happen.

I mean yeah, we’re overanalyzing because that’s what we do, he’s got the whole season and 3 more years before any real meaningful decision has to be made, so let’s hope he gets better. It’s just disheartening because this could have been such a massive draft for this team, Hali and Quickley would leave us set at guard for the first time in so damn long, even though it would be unlikely selecting Quickley after Hali. Anyway, as long as we keep hitting on any draft pick, highest or lowest, there’s still improvement.

– Gary Clark Jr Live at The Surf Lodge (Montauk, NY)

thanks soze…it’s been decades since i’ve visited montauk, i remember it as a beautiful place…

i like that gary glark jr stuff…if you close your eyes, you can almost imagine the heat of the bodies, and the smell of alcohol and water…

listening to the KEXP performance now…probably my favorite artist setting is with them live in a studio…not sure how it might affect their play performing without an audience, but – i like the way the music sounds in those settings…

someone just mentioned “tiny desk concerts” to me…

for some reason, the last few days i keep playing captain fantastic and the brown dirt cowboy over and over again…not the whole LP, just that one track…

Brian Cronin:
One of the issues is that the Knicks used a lottery pick on an offense-first, older rookie and then have a terrible offense and yet…A. Don’t play their offense-first, older rookie many minutes and also B. don’t run any plays for the offense-first, older rookie.

It is quite puzzling. “Our offense sucks, but let’s not change anything about it” does not sound like a promising plan.

This completely.

I know Obi doesn’t look great on defense but we are very good defensively and can afford a little drop off it helps our offense, which is really bad and would be worse if not for the occasional hero game from Randle or Barrett or Quickley or even Rivers a couple of times. Even with no plays run for him he still has shown a tremendous amount of touch near the rim. He is shooting way too many threes and not getting any offensive rebounds but I think both those things are mainly due to us completely misusing him and him spending 95% of his time stuck on the three-point line. He needs to be nearer to the basket most of the time and we need to be posting him up and running pick and rolls the whole time he is out there otherwise what is he for.

I’m hoping for Obi to become a good player, but I really don’t think it’s going to happen. I think he looks lost out there because in terms of NBA players, he is a tweener, just like Kenny Walker was, not because he is being misused. I’m not even sure what he’s good at, which is worse than Ntilikina, who at least was clearly good at defense. I know the reports are that the Knicks wanted him all along, but it still feels like other teams realized he wasn’t worth drafting despite his stats in college and the Knicks didn’t wonder enough about why other teams felt that way.

Most video analysts like this one killed Obi’s defense (skip to 5:18 weaknesses) ptmilo was also very down on the pick because of his defense…not sure if it was eye-test or stats-based. It’s not really a surprise that Obi would have a tough time staying the floor for much time under a coach like Thibs. He has certain defensive principles that he won’t compromise on, and my eyes tell me that Obi continues to do shit like he did in the scouting video. And it’s not like he is doing all that much on the offensive end either. So I don’t think he presents to Tom as an answer to the “why does our offense stink?” question.

I am with you all on not liking the Toppin pick but he is ours now so we need to figure out how to utilize him. He has unquestionable talent and needs to be used appropriately to see if that talent can translate. We drafted a poor defense, interior scorer that can finish as good as anyone not named Zion to come out of college in a long time and we treat him like he is Davis Bertrans and wonder why he is struggling.

Maybe he is going to be a bust but we are not doing anything to find out. He will continue to look bad if he is constantly relegated to the perimeter and limited to 10 minutes a game.

As for playing under Thibs, we drafted him knowing Thibs was our coach and he was a poor defender. Why would we have drafted him if Thibs wasn’t going to play him.

little late on this but here’s the feb draft update.. this time going deeper given where we are in the standings:

1. Jalen Suggs
2. Evan Mobley
3. Jalen Green
4. Jonathan Kuminga
5. Jalen Johnson

Not much notable except who’s now missing which i’ll get to in a sec… Suggs has been consistently great and there’s really not much to talk about except how good he is relative to other top pg prospects… and he might not turn out better than them but he’s certainly turned in the best freshman season…

We also have real live games to look at for Green and Kuminga… and they are impressive… altho it’s hard to judge the comp what you can see is how explosive these guys are… Kuminga prob has a shooting problem both at the line and at distance which has followed him since hs.. but he is probably the most physically imposing wing since… possibly lebron? not as quick but there’s def a wow factor with him.. Green is right there also and they might make this a 4 way race for #1..

6. Cade Cunningham – some of the early fears people have noticed have come true and his 2p fg% has plummeted to 43%… the texas game in particular was really brutal and i don’t see how he’s in the running for the top pick anymore… if it continues he could slide further but he still has some time to recover… there’s still a good player here but the shine has def worn off…

7. Moses Moody
8. James Bouknight
9. Jaden Springer
10. Josh Christopher

These guys comprise the bulk of the value in this draft… they are all athletic… shoot very well… and have great scoring instincts… some of them have been gradually floating to the top (Bouknight)… but some others are inexplicably still considered late first (Springer/Christopher)… they all represent good targets with either of our picks as the represent both value and fit a need… and it’s a great opportunity to fill out our lineup with high upside scoring punch….

11. Charles Bassey – coming from Mitch’s alma mater an injury derailed him early on but he came in with a lot of fanfare and mystery much like Mitch… but he wound up staying and he’s been tearing up college basketball since… even tho he redshirted he’s still relatively young and he’s been pretty beastly this year… besides mobley probably the best big in the draft but that’s also not saying much.. but he’s good in his own right…

12. Keon Johnson – he’s a lot like the earlier group of sg/sf types except he’s not as good of a shooter but he does the other things well like defend and he’s probably the best one of the bunch…

13. Jared Butler – some similarities to Josh Hart in that they are both really good players from great programs that are just getting ignored by draft analysts.. ppl wonder if he’s a pg but he’s just a real good player… i think he could play pg… but he’s probably best served as how quickley is used as a pg… great shooter… great instincts… top notch defender… a lot to like..

14. Scottie Barnes – a freak of nature .. the shot is not there but for his size he’s got an amazing handle… ppl said he was a PF but he’s playing guard at FSU which is probably affecting his rebound rates… he is legitimately playing pg as a 6ft 9 240 lb forward at least on the college level…. lot of intriguing stuff here..

15. Ayo Dosunmo – I actually have someone else here but wanted to squeeze him in since he’s probably the best actual pg we have a shot at… and he’s not bad… he’s got great end to end speed… great attacking the basket… and he’s developed into a not so bad pg when he wasn’t really one coming in… in fact his shooting has also improved to the point where it’s reliable now.. … he’s a tall pg which probably means he’s in for an adjustment period coming in but if you’re looking for a pg in the draft.. this is probably the one to keep an eye on through march madness…

Ben, you are suggesting that this is as good as it gets between Thibs and Obi. I highly doubt that this is true. We’re at the 20 game mark. If by April 2022 he’s still coming off the bench for 10 mpg I will start to worry.

Geo – The take away show was a big thing for a bit. Maybe it still is. Kind of checked out of the indie scene to my chagrin. Check out La Blogotheque and Black Cab Sessions for the 2014 version of the phenomenon.

The one I remember best is Arcade Fire. Takes a while to unfold but that’s part of the fun.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtR5L-RGKgw&list=RDqtR5L-RGKgw&start_radio=1

Really captures something about being a musician, just the ability to go perform anywhere. Takes talent.

Z-man:
Ben, you are suggesting that this is as good as it gets between Thibs and Obi. I highly doubt that this is true. We’re at the 20 game mark. If by April 2022 he’s still coming off the bench for 10 mpg I will start to worry.

You may be right but it feels like Mitch’s injury is the perfect time to get him some minutes and see what we have. Once Mitch is back his minutes get squeezed again. Also as we race for the playoffs I could see Thibs tightening his rotation even more.

Ben R: You may be right but it feels like Mitch’s injury is the perfect time to get him some minutes and see what we have. Once Mitch is back his minutes get squeezed again. Also as we race for the playoffs I could see Thibs tightening his rotation even more.

I suppose they could try that, but if you put him at the 5 with Randle, it presents a matchup issue against teams with rugged bigs. Either you have to play Randle at the 5 and wear him down or get him in foul trouble, or have Toppin bodied out of the paint by bigger, stronger players. Even a guy like Theis is too much for Obi right now. I agree that it might be worth trying, and it probably will be tried, but it isn’t necessarily bad that Thibs doesn’t want to put him into situations where he will likely fail. Taj can get overmatched too, but he’s a crafty vet who knows angles, footwork, team defensive principles, when to foul and when not to, etc.

geo:
thank you owen – i loved them singing in the elevator , that was cool…

so far, studio wise – probably my favorite is Radiohead – In Rainbows From the Basement (April 2008) At Home

the sound simply defies logic…

This video literally made me like the album, I was never really high on it when it was released, but this performance is so damn good that I couldn’t stop watching it. I still feel bad for not buying the overpriced ticket for their show in São Paulo in 2009.

supposedly they were gonna tour prior to the pandemic…would be great to find them at a site with less than 15k or so in attendance…

DJ, I just have to point out that’s an insane preponderance of the letter “J.”

And in the very rare cases where there’s no J, you’re clearly leaning in on the M’s.

So here it goes, a much better performer than that ORL’s player…
– Gary Clark Jr Live at The Surf Lodge (Montauk, NY)

PS: Look at the girls on the front of the stage, that’s the hard life JK47 and Danvt (i don’t remember if there’s more musicians among us) have to endure, the poor guys! LOL

I’m in this video, too! And actually those girls came to my house across the street from surf lodge to party after the show 🙂

One of the best performances I’ve ever seen. Closed with a 15 minute version of Numb while the sun set behind him.

God I miss that place. Please have concerts this summer.

I’m in this video, too! And actually those girls came to my house across the street from surf lodge to party after the show 🙂

dang hubie, you’re doing something right in this living life thing…

for two months of the year when I’m in montauk, I wouldn’t trade places with anyone. Although I think I’m running out of time there. This summer it became a shit show straight from the jersey shore, and as long as venues like surf lodge remain shut down, it will likely remain.

geo:
supposedly they were gonna tour prior to the pandemic…would be great to find them at a site with less than 15k or so in attendance…

Yeah, one of the reasons I ended up not going was that the venue was for like 35k people, I thought it would not be the style of show they would shine on… until all my friends came back from it and couldn’t stop talking about it. Then they went 9 more years without ever coming to Brazil and came to São Paulo again in 2018 while I was in Europe, so yeah, I’m still pressed about this lol.

I do. Most of my friends out there are either big fishermen or surfers. I’m not particularly good at either but I can do them well enough to enjoy myself. Also, it’s kind of impossible to not catch fish in montauk.

My favorite activity out there is biking, though. There’s some incredible dirt trails.

Owen:
It’s Norman Powell’s world. We are just living in it.

Another guy the Raptors picked up with a late pick and used their G-League team to develop… this is one of Masai’s innovations that I’m confused as to why other teams haven’t picked up and done the same, investing in their G-League affiliate has quite literally given them an entire bench on the title winning team, with VanVleet and Siakam going even further.

the uniform colors on the nets/lakers game look all wrong…at LA with the nets in white and the lakers wearing clipper blue…

It does make you think. Powell wasn’t great in college. He really does feel like a front office success story.

Yeah, Masai’s scouting is just out of this world, either him or his team of scouts.

Injuries aside, as it would be insane to watch the Nets and Lakers going at it fully healthy, watching the Lakers get slapped is always a source of joy. Also, how did no one put up a better offer for Harden will always be a mystery to me, him changing him game this season and still being this fucking good is not getting enough attention.

Bruno Almeida: Another guy the Raptors picked up with a late pick and used their G-League team to develop… this is one of Masai’s innovations that I’m confused as to why other teams haven’t picked up and done the same, investing in their G-League affiliate has quite literally given them an entire bench on the title winning team, with VanVleet and Siakam going even further.

Agree, sort of like the MLB model. I took a lot of blowback (not from you necessarily) during Frank’s first couple of years for suggesting that he would have benefitted from spending time in the G-League. Can’t prove it was true, he might have sucked anyway, but it certainly couldn’t have hurt!

Another guy the Raptors picked up with a late pick and used their G-League team to develop… this is one of Masai’s innovations that I’m confused as to why other teams haven’t picked up and done the same, investing in their G-League affiliate has quite literally given them an entire bench on the title winning team, with VanVleet and Siakam going even further.

Yeah, that’s why I don’t take Malachi Flynn not playing at all this season to mean anything, as I imagine the plan is to just develop him to use later. They’re so good at doing that. The Spurs, I think, are doing a similar deal with Tre Jones.

Z-man: Agree, sort of like the MLB model. I took a lot of blowback (not from you necessarily) during Frank’s first couple of years for suggesting that he would have benefitted from spending time in the G-League. Can’t prove it was true, he might have sucked anyway, but it certainly couldn’t have hurt!

It was definitely from me too lol, I thought it would shatter his already shaky confidence… turns out his confidence would get shot anyway and here we are.

The Raptors have no right to have been so good in these past few years, I still think it’s the most impressive building job I’ve ever witnessed in the NBA, a roster that had reached its limit becomes a real contender with barely any high picks and a ton of value coming from 2nd rounders, G-Leaguers, an undrafted guy, it’s insane. That plus the guts to pull the trigger on the Kawhi trade were legacy defining moves from Masai.

@Geo I know what you mean about the sense of heightened focus you get from watching live performances recorded in a studio setting. It’s great when that comes across in small concerts and clubs too. These MTO performances at Owl Music Parlor and at The Stone give me that sense. So does this old Marc Ribot concert. There are a bunch of recorded performances of MTO in the WFEV studio if you like them. I think they hit a sweet spot with their covers of Sly.

geo: someone just mentioned “tiny desk concerts” to me…

I’m also a fan of those, but you’re right the near studio versions of KEXP are much better, the tiny desks are much more like the old unplugged concerts from MTV… keep listening sometimes to the Nirvana one, it’s one of those amazing moments in life!

Owen: Check out La Blogotheque and Black Cab Sessions for the 2014 version of the phenomenon.

Didn’t knew these ones, Owen, thank you. Going to check it out properly when i have time, for now clicked on a Beirut at La Blogotheque and thought to myself “oh, they’re so young in this video”… yeah, it was from 2007! 😀

Bruno Almeida: Then they went 9 more years without ever coming to Brazil and came to São Paulo again in 2018 while I was in Europe, so yeah, I’m still pressed about this lol.

Same problem here, Bruno, bands come to Portugal once in a while, we’re not a lock to have a date on all of their tours, so i’m in the same position… still haven’t seen Radiohead live, and i gotta do it before all is said and done! 😉

Unreason: There are a bunch of recorded performances of MTO in the WFEV studio if you like them.

It’s WFEV? Or did you mean WFUV? I’m asking this because i listen to WFUV in the morning and i know they have bands coming in and playing there, but never searched it on Youtube (now that i think about it, it’s strange i never did it).

Hubert: I’m in this video, too! And actually those girls came to my house across the street from surf lodge to party after the show 🙂
One of the best performances I’ve ever seen. Closed with a 15 minute version of Numb while the sun set behind him.
God I miss that place. Please have concerts this summer.

That’s amazing, Hubert, you rule! 😉 And now i’m very glad i brought up Montauk’s Gary Clark Jr concert! 🙂
Never been to the States, but always remember Montauk because of the movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. If any of you didn’t watch it, you better do it, as it is a truly remarkable movie.

Now Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind (unlike Groundhog’s Day) is definitely a movie I would call an existentialist romcom.

1. The marginal wins from Thibs coaching style are not coming at a huge costs to development. The young players are still working with our coaches on weaknesses in practice and playing in scrimmages. When they earn minutes through their play and development, they get game time. That’s exactly how Pop and the Spurs approach development. That’s how most successful teams approach it. It’s not a Thibs thing. It’s the consistent losers that just throw all the kids out there and watch them flounder and lose for 4-5 years.

2. The purpose of coaching to win games is not just to torture forum fans suffering from ETS (eternal tanking syndrome), hahaha It’s to get the young players used to playing hard for 48 minutes, to learn how to lock down on key possessions for the win, to perform under pressures and finish games. Guys like Barret, Mitch, Quick and even Randle are learning from it. They aren’t just playing to run out the season and add a pick. They are competing for a playoff spot and getting better because of it.

3. If the organization is successful enough to finish with a playoff spot, agents and top players will start viewing the Knicks as a young up and coming team that finally has the right management and coaching in place to be successful. They’ll know if they joined the team it would take the next step. That’s how you get trades and free agent deals done to get the PG or shooting and scoring wing we need to come to NY.

For the first time in almost forever we actually doing almost everything right. Just enjoy it and root for wins and more development from the players that are earning the playing time because they are working harder and getting better faster.

More succinctly, there are multiple paths to building a perennial playoff team. the steepness and shape of the curve varies, but they all involve certain ingredients, such as:
-drafting good players in the spots you have
-winning transactions
-having a logical plan
-avoiding albatross contracts
-finding value players outside the draft
-having a top-notch staff member responsible for every aspect of running a franchise and not meddling in their areas of expertise

Some luck is involved in getting from there to being a true contender…being in a desirable market, getting lucky in the lottery, avoiding catastrophic injuries, etc. but you can get to perennial playoff team without any luck whatsoever

I’m mostly in agreement with Strat, at least for points 1 and 2. I think there’s ample room for Monday morning quarterbacking with various of Thib’s decision-making (a bit more Obi please, doing nothing about the third quarter collapses, that last end-of-game guard decision). But in general it feels as if the kids are growing into their skill sets at about the pace we can hope for, the rotations are somewhat logical and explicable, and as mentioned since Thibs will go for wins, he’s not doing it entirely off the backs of vets (admittedly it helps that most of our vets suck…).

Not so sure about point 3 though. I don’t disagree, really, but it just seems so situation-specific (Anthony Davis, Jerami Grant just to name two wildly different versions) that while not being a laughingstock certainly doesn’t hurt (and even helps), I’m not sure it’s the driving force in decision-making.

Utah is a great example of a franchise that never tanks and never picks in the top 10 yet they’re almost always a 50 win team that makes the playoffs, will win a round and now they’re one of the best teams in the league.

Also, The Spurs. Everyone loves to bring up them “tanking” for Tim Duncan but that was 22 years ago and its hard to say that Duncan was the reason they went to back to back finals in 2013/2014 and won in 2014. Parker, Ginobli, Kawhi and all of their other players were drafted later in the draft, not in the lottery.

Miami as well. Wade was a lottery pick and obviously huge in their first title but they’ve maintained excellence for years because of good drafting and developing.

Obviously its amazing when you draft a franchise player. But that doesn’t always happen even with the first pick. Worse is when you pick a non franchise player or non all-star with a top pick and now you gotta overpay them on their second contract (cough cough Wiggins).

Don’t trade picks. Collect them when you can with trades. Draft well wherever you draft. Develop players. Have a good coaching staff. Sign good free agents at a fair price. Don’t go all in on superstar trades when the team isn’t ready for that. The point is to get to a place where you’re consistently a playoff team that wins 50 games and gets to the second round. Once you do that, then its a bit of luck, pushing the chips in and timing to go all the way. Unless Lebron or Kawhi wants to super friends your team (which being respectable helps with that regards aka The Nets winning KD/Kyrie over us bc they were respectable).

What’s the knock on Mo Wagner’s little brother? He’s playing really well for Michigan but I haven’t heard anything about him

I’m really interested in (and a little afraid) about what the Celts will do next. Ainge finally admitted that he can’t sit back and wait for another sucker to come along and refuse to engage in any transaction that isn’t a home run or at least a double for him. I don’t see why he wouldn’t do something for Drummond, who despite his flaws is the best rebounder in the NBA. A primary lineup of Drummond, Tatum, Brown, Smart and Kemba would be formidable. They could possibly pick up a couple of waiver wire minimum guy to fill out their rotation, and then either just let Drummond walk or offer him a value deal depending on how he buys in to a more limited offensive role, i.e. not the role in that video Jowles shared.

Raven: Not so sure about point 3 though. I don’t disagree, really, but it just seems so situation-specific (Anthony Davis, Jerami Grant just to name two wildly different versions) that while not being a laughingstock certainly doesn’t hurt (and even helps), I’m not sure it’s the driving force in decision-making.

There are ample examples of guys who target specific “desirable” situations. Not being “dysfunctional” probably is more important than a specific geographic location or team mystique, but LA sucked when LeBron picked it and Miami was no great shakes when Butler chose it. But as you said, it doesn’t hurt and probably (almost certainly) helps not to be a laughingstock. I’m guessing that if Riley were employed by the Knicks and Walsh was employed by the Heat, LeBron would have taken his talents to 7th Avenue.

What’s the knock on Mo Wagner’s little brother? He’s playing really well for Michigan but I haven’t heard anything about him

He’s in my top-10 and I’d be delighted to have him. The knocks basically come down to him not being a high level creator, and it’s true he profiles as more of a jack of all trades master of none type. Where we’re likely to be drafting though that’s absolutely fine with me. Productive wings are like starting pitchers, you can pretty much never have enough.

LA sucked when Lebron chose them but it’s still the Lakers. They have a championship history and we’re only a few years removed from back to back titles. Also they didn’t totally suck. They were a 30 win team with a lot of young players and draft picks. Lebron knew if he went there they would be able to attract another star bc he would be there and they had the assets to pull off another major trade plus the pedigree of being the lakers.

It’s not like us where we’ve sucked for two decades, are always bashed for incompetence and haven’t won a title since the early 70s.

LeBron also wanted to start focusing on his movie producing interests in the latter years of the career, so LA had an advantage that no other market could match.

These MTO performances at Owl Music Parlor and at The Stone give me that sense. So does this old Marc Ribot concert. There are a bunch of recorded performances of MTO in the WFEV studio if you like them. I think they hit a sweet spot with their covers of Sly.

nice unreason, i really liked the Owl Music Parlor performance…

back in the early 2000’s i liked to collect those MTV Unplugged and VH1 storytellers dvd’s…a lot of really great performances by all time great musicians: david bowie, steely dan, eric clapton, pete townsend and etc.

i’ll never forget though when i first saw the unplugged clip of stevie ray vaughan playing pride & joy, i wasn’t really that familiar at the time with his music…but, it just stopped me in my tracks…i don’t know anything at all about the technical aspects of playing an instrument – but, it just struck me really hard that that was an absolutely flawless performance…as perfect as perfect can be…that and what a unique sound he was able to make with his guitar (at the time i don’t think i had ever heard a 12 string guitar before)…

Was just about to come in and mention both Franz Wagner and Daishen Nix as guys who should be in the late lotto conversation. Nix has been playing quite well in the G-League, and I’d basically put him in the second tier of point guards (i.e., the quintet of Nix/Dosunmu/Butler/Cooper, and Springer, who I see as the best of the crop right now) who all belong in the late-lotto conversation. I would love Franz Wagner even though he doesn’t profile as particularly elite in any facet (he has an excellent A/TO though, >2:1 and he can create at a plus level for a SF, I think)

geo: nice unreason, i really liked the Owl Music Parlor performance…

back in the early 2000’s i liked to collect those MTV Unplugged and VH1 storytellers dvd’s…a lot of really great performances by all time great musicians: david bowie, steely dan, eric clapton, pete townsend and etc.

i’ll never forget though when i first saw the unplugged clip of stevie ray vaughan playing pride & joy, i wasn’t really that familiar at the time with his music…but, it just stopped me in my tracks…i don’t know anything at all about the technical aspects of playing an instrument – but, it just struck me really hard that that was an absolutely flawless performance…as perfect as perfect can be…that and what a unique sound he was able to make with his guitar (at the time i don’t think i had ever heard a 12 string guitar before)…

Geo, thanks for sending that link

I was talking music with a friend of mine (we’re both in dad bands) and I brought up SRV. He dismissed him and said he wasn’t all that great. I thought he was kidding at first, but he was serious. Hard for me to respect his opinions after that, to me, SRV is one of the greatest guitar players ever, right up there with Hendrix and Clapton. And his voice was pretty damn good too!

Imagine being, like, “Who needs Myles Turner and Doug McDermott? We’ll just ride with Tristan Thompson.”

The point with LeBron and LA is that our team is very similar to the pre-LeBron Lakers. If 33yo LeBron came here for free, we have enough assets to build a team around him by going all in. If they were a complete laughingstock and we were who we are now, maybe NY is closer in appeal. BKN was more appealing to KD and Kylie because they were managed by competent guys and had pieces to improve further. We finally have some assets and look good on the court. That’s arguably better than scenarios involving losing a lot because your young players are overplayed and look bad doing it.

Yeah BC that was a head scratcher from hell. Ainge has to hit a home run to live that one down.

I was talking music with a friend of mine (we’re both in dad bands) and I brought up SRV. He dismissed him and said he wasn’t all that great. I thought he was kidding at first, but he was serious. Hard for me to respect his opinions after that, to me, SRV is one of the greatest guitar players ever, right up there with Hendrix and Clapton. And his voice was pretty damn good too!

for me it’s similar to listening/watching the Radiohead In Rainbows From the Basement performance – the sheer technical expertise almost intrudes on the immersive quality of just getting lost in the music…

you’re lost in the music, and then suddenly you become acutely aware of just how amazing the skill is that is the sound…

I brought up SRV. He dismissed him and said he wasn’t all that great.

ahahahahahahahhaha

Brian Cronin: Imagine being, like, “Who needs Myles Turner and Doug McDermott? We’ll just ride with Tristan Thompson.”

Craziness and I know Celtics fans who defended it! Were saying that Turner makes too much more money than Tristan so it wasn’t worth it. Meanwhile, Boston was already over the cap. Just insane that they didn’t get anything for Hayward when trading him was their last real chance to make a significant change to the team without trading away Tatum or Brown.

What’s the knock on Mo Wagner’s little brother? He’s playing really well for Michigan but I haven’t heard anything about him

silky and noble are spot on in that he’s good and deserves attention in the top half of the first round… he’s very productive and he’s got good measurables and underrated ball skills…

the knock though is that he’s just not quick enough to play the 3… and as a stretch 4 he probably doesn’t rebound enough to make it that way… plus the fact that he relies a fair portion of his offense on these mini postups which may or may not translate… he’s probably going to have a tough time creating offense for himself and the perception of his upside is muted because of that… and in this draft there’s a lot of guys with legit intriguing upside cases as well as players who have been as productive as him and sometimes both…

but folks are probably sleeping on franz a bit… he is good and on a fun umich team…

Was just about to come in and mention both Franz Wagner and Daishen Nix as guys who should be in the late lotto conversation. Nix has been playing quite well in the G-League, and I’d basically put him in the second tier of point guards

i think Nix has done ok and i’m not sure if anyone has any gleague translations but they do have jarret jack on that Ignite team and Nix has done maybe as well as him maybe worse? jack is 37 years old and hasn’t been in the league for a few years…. i have no idea how to interpret that but i’m leaning it’s soso for him now so that’s part of why i’m pausing on Nix for now… his handle is pretty good and he’s super young so he’s def one to watch also…

I just became a Julius Randle fan. I have to admit, I didn’t like his game last season and was as down on him as anyone. But he’s making a believer out of me. The following is an amazing video: Julius Randle being interviewed by JJ Redick and Tommy Alter I love it when an active player interviews an active players. The conversation gets real. Talking about how hard he worked on his 3 point shooting, Randle gained another gold star with me. “I stayed in the gym until I had a thousand makes”. That’s gotta make a fan smile. He has work ethic and referred to playing basketball “his craft” several times. Just a very cool interview which really gives you a more honest, less filtered, player perspective.

The problem some people have with SRV is that he generates a backlash because of a small hipster contingent who insist he was a better guitarist than Hendricks, which he was not. But anyone who says he wasn’t all that good is smoking that good shit or just plain dumb.

Idk Ntillakilla, listen to SRV doing Voodoo Chile live and tell me he’s much inferior to Hendrix.

I’m not going to get into who’s #1,2 or 3, but SRV is not far from the top IMO.

Craziness and I know Celtics fans who defended it! Were saying that Turner makes too much more money than Tristan so it wasn’t worth it. Meanwhile, Boston was already over the cap. Just insane that they didn’t get anything for Hayward when trading him was their last real chance to make a significant change to the team without trading away Tatum or Brown.

Heck, the fascinating thing is that it was craziness by the Pacers, too! Would they really be any better off than they are now with Gordon Hayward and no Turner or McDermott?

1. “also ranking the greats is dumb”

What’s dumb is this self-contradictory statement. Hendricks, SRV, Clapton, etc. wouldn’t be “greats” by general audiences if they weren’t ranked to begin with on some level.

2. “Idk Ntillakilla, listen to SRV doing Voodoo Chile live and tell me he’s much inferior to Hendrix.”

I have and it is.

cybersoze: I’m also a fan of those, but you’re right the near studio versions of KEXP are much better, the tiny desks are much more like the old unplugged concerts from MTV… keep listening sometimes to the Nirvana one, it’s one of those amazing moments in life!

Didn’t knew these ones, Owen, thank you. Going to check it out properly when i have time, for now clicked on a Beirut at La Blogotheque and thought to myself “oh, they’re so young in this video”… yeah, it was from 2007! 😀

Same problem here, Bruno, bands come to Portugal once in a while, we’re not a lock to have a date on all of their tours, so i’m in the same position… still haven’t seen Radiohead live, and i gotta do it before all is said and done! 😉

It’s WFEV? Or did you mean WFUV? I’m asking this because i listen to WFUV in the morning and i know they have bands coming in and playing there, but never searched it on Youtube (now that i think about it, it’s strange i never did it).

WFUV Thanks for catching that

Thanks for the links Geo. Those were fun!
Here’s a couple acoustic blues faves. One Bukke White solo, another with him and Howlin’ Wolf just talking to him and commenting while he plays. I had big photos of Bukka and Son House on my wall back in high school when I played fingerpicking blues and slide.

What’s dumb is this self-contradictory statement. Hendricks, SRV, Clapton, etc. wouldn’t be “greats” by general audiences if they weren’t ranked to begin with on some level.

Or you could try to be less belligerently and obnoxiously stupid and accept that one can identify a subset of guitarists who contributed new, influential or inimitable ideas to the language of guitar music and that any ranking of those pioneers within that subset is not dependent on categorical fact but on subjective taste and preference. What’s dumb is your assertion of your own personal taste, so lucidly illustrated above (“I have and it is”) as useful to literally anyone but your own self. Or, you know, whatever.

Now Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind (unlike Groundhog’s Day) is definitely a movie I would call an existentialist romcom.

I see this is not the first time you’ve struggled with categorical arguments today. Groundhog’s Day is a rom-com. There is no debate about this. It is fact, based on the structure of romantic comedy.

Elements of romantic comedy:

(1) Romantic interests meet and reject each other as partners.
(2) There is some obstacle facing them that causes a misunderstanding.
(3) They confront the obstacle separately or together in a way that effects personal growth.
(4) They realize a second-level understanding of each other on account of that growth.
(5) They acknowledge their feelings.

i.e.

(1) Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell travel together for an assignment.
(2a) Murray is an egoist only obsessed with his self-image. MacDowell recognizes this and is repulsed.
(2b) Murray is thrust into the time-loop conceit, unbeknown to MacDowell.
(3) Murray is forced to confront his own egotism to reach a higher level of consciousness.
(4) MacDowell comes to understand that Murray is not the egotist she believed him to be.
(5) Murray leaves the time-loop. They prepare to fuck.

this year has been an absolute high as far as Knicks basketball is concerned. I don’t even really care about the wins or losses. just a really likeable team.

KnickerBloggerPowerRankings:
this year has been an absolute high as far as Knicks basketball is concerned. I don’t even really care about the wins or losses. just a really likeable team.

And not at the expense of the future. The possibilities are endless.

Groundhog Day truly is the Frank Ntilikina of movies.

All you lovers of G-Day should check out Palm Springs if you have Hulu. Enjoyable flick. Definitely a rom com.

this year has been an absolute high as far as Knicks basketball is concerned. I don’t even really care about the wins or losses. just a really likeable team.

hey KBPR, hope all is well…how’s the new job venture thing working out for ya, have you even had any time to watch the games 🙂

geo: hey KBPR, hope all is well…how’s the new job venture thing working out for ya, have you even had any time to watch the games 🙂

It’s cool man — we’ve got our second launch event coming up on 3.17.

I’ve been watching all the games either on msggo or the 10 min game highlights on youtube. it helps that I’ve migrated to LA for the winter for that early start time.

I love frank’s minutes distribution. truly a blessing. I heard the Nets are looking for defensive help…

All you lovers of G-Day should check out Palm Springs if you have Hulu. Enjoyable flick. Definitely a rom com

might have to re-up hulu for this. oddly there is a lev grossman groundhog day movie just out on amazon called the map of tiny perfect things. it isn’t good, but it is so platonically a rom com it plays like a personalized message from the time loop genre to knickerblogger: move on, find a new slant.

jamal murray went 21-25.

we are leading the nba in total pt differential vs the same day vegas spread at 4.1 per game.

flipping around on the games…stopped on the Sixers-bulls just in time to see a Luke kornet 3pt brick….ahhh… the good old days…

Wow, the terrible Magic just beat the Warriors…or maybe they’re not that terrible

Fournier, Ross and Vuc are a tough combo when they’re hot…

Pels were up 102-91 after 3 quarters and lost 132-114.

Their defense is god awful, and some of that has to be on Zion.

LeBron 2.0 Zion, trumax Ingram, and Knicks fan wet dream Lonzo hardly look like a big 3…

Ranking musicians at best fosters conversation about your favorite players. What analytics can or should measure differences between Jimi or SRV? The eye/ear test is not enough. Make an objective opinion about relative greatness?

I prefer to like one musician over another, due to their ability to influence a reaction from me. Musical taste cannot be more subjective. There is no way one person’s list is more valid than another’s.

Julius Randle won me over. I was in staunch trade for assets group, The spin move into triple coverage killed me everytime, but this year it barely exists. As I learn more about him as a player and as a person and a Knick, I wouldn’t mind him being the core for the next 5-10 years.

Win or lose this is the first enjoyable group since right before the melo trade.

KnickerBloggerPowerRankings: this year has been an absolute high as far as Knicks basketball is concerned. I don’t even really care about the wins or losses. just a really likeable team.

Agree 100%. This team is fun, just keep it up (or try to upgrade Payton’s boring game).
And good luck with the launch event, you guys seem to have a very interesting software, i’m going to follow it. 😉

GoNYGoNYGo – Tired of Tanking:
I just became a Julius Randle fan.I have to admit, I didn’t like his game last season and was as down on him as anyone.But he’s making a believer out of me. The following is an amazing video:Julius Randle being interviewed by JJ Redick and Tommy Alter I love it when an active player interviews an active players. The conversation gets real.Talking about how hard he worked on his 3 point shooting, Randle gained another gold star with me.“I stayed in the gym until I had a thousand makes”. That’s gotta make a fan smile. He has work ethic and referred to playing basketball “his craft” several times. Just a very cool interview which really gives you a more honest, less filtered, player perspective.

Very cool interview, thanks. I’m on Team Randle also, and i think it’s possible to build around this new Randle (for KB it’s “The Good Julius”). Of course, if there’s a trade to be made that’ll net us an even better player, you have to do it. But besides that, i’d keep him as the face of the franchise for now.

the phoenix announcers were blasting the pelicans last night and van gundy…I thought I heard them say van gundy was questioning the “desire” of his team in pre-game or last week…I wonder if he is the first coach to get fired this year…

pepper:
the phoenix announcers were blasting the pelicans last night and van gundy…I thought I heard them say van gundy was questioning the “desire” of his team in pre-game or last week…I wonder if he is the first coach to get fired this year…

They really should be better than they are…

That was a great interview, GNYGNYG, thanks for posting it. Whatever Julius means for the future of this team, he’s a very easy guy to root for. Redick did a nice job with the interview as well.

So among rookies with at least 200 minutes of PT, Obi Toppin is 7th in BPM (-1.1), 11th in WS48 (.083) and 8th in VORP (0.1). I wonder what his numbers would look like if he had the minutes and green light that Kevin Knox did his rookie year…my guess is much worse than these.

RE great guitarists. I had a chance to see SRV play, many years ago, but I guess my favorite guitarist that I’ve ever seen is Jim Heath/Reverend Horton Heat. He seems pretty amazing to my untrained eye as well as putting on fun shows.

A friend of mine who’s a long-time guitarist claims that Brian Setzer is the “best” rock/blues guitarist he’s ever seen, and he’s seen many over the years. FWIW.

It’s rare for a guy to have a career as long as Setzer’s and not be something at least a little special.

Here’s a guy who has waaaaaay too much praise: John Frusciante. You could call him the Keith Richards of white-man rap-funk. He’s written some iconic riffs: “Under the Bridge,” “Give It Away,” “Scar Tissue,” and “Californication” are instantly recognizable. Great riffs, even if RHCP’s entire catalog can trigger the cringe real fast, as it has for me since about 2001. But as a soloist? One of the worst famous ones I can think of. His live videos remind me of “Shreds” overdubs. He improvises so poorly that it makes me question my own sense of reality. How can a guy that solidly below-average (we’re including hobbyists, here) be exalted for anything other than his riff-writing?

Stevie Ray Vaughan was a really impressive guitarist– had great tone, feel, phrasing, note selection, chops, and played with an overwhelming physicality. Tremendous player.

I can’t put him on the same plane as Hendrix though. Hendrix’s musicality was deeper, connected to something so inherently soulful it’s hard to put it in words. His “voice” on the instrument is similar to me to musicians like John Coltrane and Miles Davis. There is no amount of technique or practice that can bestow that kind of “voice” on your playing, you simply have to BE those people.

Hendrix seemed to shatter norms and to invent things without even trying to…it’s almost like the guitar wasn’t even an instrument to him, but an extension of his brain. SRV seemed more like a guy who took what he was given by Hendrix and others to a very high level of technical expertise. Whatever he achieved, I just don’t think he added very much to what was already out there. The gap between what Hendrix did with his guitar and what everyone before him did seems like a gaping chasm, and I’m not sure anyone since has fully bridged the gap, including Vaughn.

I found SRV’s playing impressive in concert back in the 80’s (again, I’m a non-guitarist but a rock and roll music lover), but the show was kind of dull. At least that night, he pretty much stood in one spot with his eyes closed and played lots of long solos. Of course, that’s more an issue of him as a front man than as a guitarist.

The opening act was Jason and the Scorchers, who at the time were an exciting, up and coming country punk band that I’d seen before in a small club. Their energy level was pretty exciting, and they had a great front man, so I felt that, as a band, they were much more entertaining to watch than SRV’s. Probably not a good choice to open for SRV.

Any fans of Ollie Halsall here? He’s probably the most underappreciated guitarist of his time. He died young, at age 43.

He was probably most well known for being a member of The Rutles, but my favorite work of his came from his time as Kevin Ayers’ lead guitarist. He was also in a pretty interesting prog band called Patto. I’m not really a huge prog fan to be honest but his playing in that band is stellar.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcCoPmVLwjE

In the mid ’70s Robin Trower formed a power trio and put out the hugely successful Bridge of Sighs album. I remember him being talked about as a successor in the Hendrix continuum. I loved the album but didn’t really feel the comparison. Then Trower put out some less popular stuff and sort of just slipped into obscurity.

JK47:
Any fans of Ollie Halsall here? He’s probably the most underappreciated guitarist of his time. He died young, at age 43.

He was probably most well known for being a member of The Rutles, but my favorite work of his came from his time as Kevin Ayers’ lead guitarist. He was also in a pretty interesting prog band called Patto. I’m not really a huge prog fan to be honest but his playing in that band is stellar.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcCoPmVLwjE

Whoa, that’s crazy good playing

BTW, how are things with you JK? Between the pandemic’s effect on the music industry and the whole Ariel thing, must have been a rough last 10-12 months for you…

#Any fans of Ollie Halsall here?#

Here’s one!
I Love his Patto stuff.
Pretty Unique with very impressive timings.

Harvey Mandel is one more great axeman going under most radars. His Cristo Redentor is a hell of an album.

BTW, how are things with you JK? Between the pandemic’s effect on the music industry and the whole Ariel thing, must have been a rough last 10-12 months for you…

I’m actually doing pretty well, working a lot. I’m a composer on a network show and we’re just about to wrap our season, so that has kept me very busy. We’re waiting to hear if we’re renewed for another season, we’re kind of on the bubble but that would be great if we got renewed. I’m ghost-composing on a couple other shows starting next week, and I’ve been doing a lot of remote sessions from home for some producer friends of mine. I’m lucky that I had transitioned out of the world of touring and into the world of composing when I did, Hollywood is getting back to full production and the Covid protocols are going well, so there should be work for me to do.

My wife is a teacher and is taking the year off, so I’ve been supporting the whole family and we just bought a house, so that’s been a little stressful but we’re making it work so far. Depending on how vaccines work out she might be able to get back to work this fall, which would take some of the pressure off me. We have a two-year old and that has been the hardest part of the pandemic. We don’t really feel safe sending him to daycare and we’re strict social distancers so it has been just the three of us isolated since last March. I love the little dude but two year olds are a pain in the ass. We could use some help and it ain’t coming any time soon.

I haven’t spoken to Ariel and honestly I don’t really know what to say to him. The best word I can think of to describe the situation is “embarrassing.” I hope he’s okay on a personal level.

Any fans of Ollie Halsall here? He’s probably the most underappreciated guitarist of his time. He died young, at age 43.

I never heard of him. Thanks. I enjoyed his playing.

Z-man: successor in the Hendrix continuum

Imitators like Trower are way less enjoyable to me than the people from that time like Eddie Hazel who carried things forward in their own way in the space that Hendrix opened up.

As far as more recent popular blues-rock faves go, Dan Auerbach’s early Black Keys stuff stands out to me because, despite his technical mastery, he always stayed focused on expressiveness and feel. So many talented blues-rock guitarists devolve into demonstrating virtuosity for its own sake or can’t tell when their long self-indulgent meanderings outlast the amount of imaginative power they need to reward close attention.

Thanks for the link GNGNG. I agree with you and everyone who found Randall appealing in that interview. Very likable guy and very glad he’s on the team.

LOVE Ollie Halsall!

Own all three Patto LPs and dig each one of them but my fave – by far – is “Hold Your Fire.” Just a great, great listen from start to finish; not a dud track on it. Highly recommended, if you can find it.

Patto also has the unfortunate distinction of being one of the most ill-starred bands in rock history. Halsall died early of a drug overdose. The lead singer and band namesake, Mike Patto, died a few years after him of leukemia. The bass player, Clive Griffiths, and the drummer, John Halsey, were both in a terrible car crash that left Griffiths with a loss of memory and no recollection of his musical career and Halsey with crippling injuries. Arguably, they are second only to Badfinger (and their two suicides) as the unluckiest rock group of all time.

Ranking guitarists is kind of like ranking chess players to me.

Each generation gets to learn from those that came before them. The very best add to it, try to take it to anther level, and sometimes come up with something new.

A lot of it is also personal preference. I watch some of the shredders today and my head explodes at the speed and accuracy of their playing. If I could do that, I’d only do it once to show people that I was capable and then never do it again because most of it “to my personal ear” is not particularly enjoyable. I’d way rather listen to David Gilmour or Mark Knopfler play 10 perfect notes than some technical wizard play 300 BPMs. It’s not that I’m against speed. There’s a place for it, but imo it shouldn’t dominate.

Also, there’s a lot of bullshit out there. Van Halen (as great as he was) generally gets credit for inventing tapping. That’s nonsense. I’ve seen tapes of guys tapping from decades before Van Halen did it. He just brought it to Rock and Roll.

This is 1965.

https://www.facebook.com/dusttodigital/videos/331701627862944

The Honorable Cock Jowles: Here’s a guy who has waaaaaay too much praise: John Frusciante. You could call him the Keith Richards of white-man rap-funk

I enjoy Frusciante’s weirder solo stuff, like Empyrean. I guess he is ok in RHCP, but I care less for that.

Talking about Frusciante, he was quite influenced by Eddie Hazel, and I consider him out of this world. I find Maggot Brain to be mind blowing, and his version of California Dreamin’ is also incredible.

Ah, since y’all are back on guitars right now, I could use some advice:

I want to birthday gift myself a new acoustic guitar but don’t want to spend a lot (under $300). I’d like something with low action and a nice tone… really just for strumming and a bit of picking.

Any suggestions?

I found SRV’s playing impressive in concert back in the 80’s (again, I’m a non-guitarist but a rock and roll music lover), but the show was kind of dull. At least that night, he pretty much stood in one spot with his eyes closed and played lots of long solos. Of course, that’s more an issue of him as a front man than as a guitarist.

The opening act was Jason and the Scorchers, who at the time were an exciting, up and coming country punk band that I’d seen before in a small club. Their energy level was pretty exciting, and they had a great front man, so I felt that, as a band, they were much more entertaining to watch than SRV’s. Probably not a good choice to open for SRV.

that’s interesting to consider the time and setting with how you perceive the performance…to this day – one of my favorite shows ever was in a park in st. pete (florida),,,went there for something to do on a saturday day, was walking around and heard cisco kid in the background, went to where the music was playing, saw like 50 guys up on the stage and knew it was war…no doubt they’re skilled musicians, but mostly it was a really beautiful park, close by the water, really nice day, and an unexpected treat…

Was listening to a Santana song on the radio this afternoon and immediately started wondering where all our guitar aff-Knicks-ianados would rate Carlos, relatively speaking.

I saw SRV live on the same night as Jeff Beck.

IMO, SRV was more of a pure blues player than of lot of the blues/rock guitarists. Among pure blues players, he kind of took it to another level. But if you throw him in with all the great rock guitarists also, I’m not sure he ranks as high as his reputation although still obviously a great guitar player.

To me the most underappreciated guitarist is Roy Buchanon. There are a lot of videos of him on Youtube (Live From Austin TX) that are awesome. Some of his bending with the volume control makes me shake my head. Here are a couple and imo it’s not even his best work. Some of his note selection on some songs is insanely good and then he goes off on some random craziness of speed. lol I saw him live also, but I was so stoned out and drunk I can barely remember much of it other than him being beyond insanely good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMcjPZgK9GM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swX9oq6TVAU

I want to be clear that no one really thinks Keith Richards is a virtuoso guitarist, but he has written too many iconic riffs to not be considered “great.” The story about him whipping “Bitch” into the ripper that it is, just too good: he’s late to rehearsal, Micks Taylor and Jagger are working on the early version, which was slow and loping. Richards is stoned and sitting on the floor eating a bowl of cereal while everyone else works. Gets an idea, stands up and straps on his guitar and plays it at the speed and intensity we hear on Exile. Boom. Song’s done. That’s how I think Frusciante should be considered: a guy who wrote riffs and contributed to songs with a distinct flavor. Not a soloist. Not a guy who can shred. And he isn’t on Richards’ level, even with those conditions. Obviously.

Was listening to a Santana song on the radio this afternoon and immediately started wondering where all our guitar aff-Knicks-ianados would rate Carlos, relatively speaking.

A pioneer and excellent player. I don’t really care much for the indulgent fusion bands of the 70s across the board, but he contributed an awful lot to the instrument. A shame he’ll be best remembered for playing counterpoint with Rob Thomas, one of the most grating voices of my relatively short lifetime.

Houston is releasing Boogie so they can play smaller when Wood comes back, while letting Cousins sign onto a team that might play him more. Wonder how this will affect Cleveland’s attempt to trade Drummond.

I want to be clear that no one really thinks Keith Richards is a virtuoso guitarist, but he has written too many iconic riffs to not be considered “great.”

It’s a different but probably more important talent.

There are guys all over Youtube and my Facebook feed that are technically miles better than Richards, but most will never get past accumulating “likes” on social media or teaching songs and techniques via their social media channel and Patreon account. The guitar player that is sound technically but writes great stuff is the guy that has a chance to make it big.

JK47: I’m actually doing pretty well, working a lot. I’m a composer on a network show and we’re just about to wrap our season, so that has kept me very busy. We’re waiting to hear if we’re renewed for another season, we’re kind of on the bubble but that would be great if we got renewed. I’m ghost-composing on a couple other shows starting next week, and I’ve been doing a lot of remote sessions from home for some producer friends of mine. I’m lucky that I had transitioned out of the world of touring and into the world of composing when I did, Hollywood is getting back to full production and the Covid protocols are going well, so there should be work for me to do.

My wife is a teacher and is taking the year off, so I’ve been supporting the whole family and we just bought a house, so that’s been a little stressful but we’re making it work so far. Depending on how vaccines work out she might be able to get back to work this fall, which would take some of the pressure off me. We have a two-year old and that has been the hardest part of the pandemic. We don’t really feel safe sending him to daycare and we’re strict social distancers so it has been just the three of us isolated since last March. I love the little dude but two year olds are a pain in the ass. We could use some help and it ain’t coming any time soon.

I haven’t spoken to Ariel and honestly I don’t really know what to say to him. The best word I can think of to describe the situation is “embarrassing.” I hope he’s okay on a personal level.

I went down a few rabbit holes and discovered Molly Nilsson.

Then I went down a few more and what I found super interesting was Maus and Pink’s manifesto. They are against Useful Idiots, which is dripping in irony.

Alan, I was curious as well. Carlos has always been my favorite, although as others have written that partly has to do with context (he was the first extraordinary guitarist for me as a lad, plus I grew up in a household where Latin and R&B was headlined and where impressive guitar was pretty much the Isley Brothers Fight the Power).

Glad to hear, JK, it’s amazing how differently folks have been affected personally, professionally and family relationship-wise by the pandemic-Trumpism combo. I could retire at any time now, but the pandemic has been way easier on me as an administrator than it is on teachers. No discipline issues, no teacher observations and rating forms, no standardized testing, no school-wide events (except on zoom)…so it probably extended my career for at least a year.

thanks for all the links everyone, having fun checking them out…

the eddie hazel and parliament stuff was crazy…i’ve heard of the black keys before, but, i’m not that familiar with their music…going through some of it now…been listening to the o brother where art thou soundtrack a bunch lately, i like the gospel sound in some rock and blues music…

and no, i don’t mean creed…actually you know what – i like them too 🙂

one of my favorites from the soundtrack: “Hard Time Killing Floor Blues”…it may be a little over the top for some, but no doubt though my favorite tune from there is Down to the River to Pray…no guitar, no nothing but voices…

Even if one narrows down the field to “white blues guitarists,” SRV would not make the top of my list. That spot would be occupied by the late, great Peter Green.

Green is best remembered as the founder of Fleetwood Mac, which began life as a blues band. His contribution to that outfit is largely a footnote today as Green was gone by the time the group had reinvented itself as the kings & queens of the AM airwaves in the mid 1970s. Another rock ‘n’ roll tragedy, Green had long since faded from the scene on account of mental illness.

His time in the limelight was brief, but influential. Toward the end of his tenure with Fleetwood Mac, he had moved well beyond straight blues and was developing into a powerful songwriter, penning such classics as “Green Manalishi”, “Albatross’, “Before the Beginning”, “Man of the World”, “Oh Well”, and, of course, “Black Magic Woman,” later made famous by Carlos Santana.

As a guitarist, he had few peers. BB King once remarked that Green was “the only white guitarist who can send shivers down my spine.” Green typically eschewed flashy fingering or speedy runs in favor of a few perfectly placed notes delivered with a distinctive, haunted tone that was unmistakably his own (one can definitely hear his influence on Santana’s playing style as well) An excellent example is on this early recording, The Supernatural, made with John Mayall’s band a year or two before Green broke away to form FM:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YoasUjXBkm8

KnickerBloggerPowerRankings: Then I went down a few more and what I found super interesting was Maus and Pink’s manifesto. They are against Useful Idiots, which is dripping in irony.

Their manifesto also says they’re against drugs, which they must have written on Opposite Day

JK47: Their manifesto also says they’re against drugs, which they must have written on Opposite Day

This made me laugh.

KnickerBloggerPowerRankings:
How would you grade Elizabeth Cotton?

I like her. I’ve been working on “Freight Train” for over a month trying to get my “boom chuck” fingerstyle to a level that doesn’t make me ill. I love that old fingerstyle stuff.

I just started on slide too. I’m trying “I can’t Be Satisfied” by Muddy Waters.

This stuff is brutally tough for someone at my beginner/intermediate level, but I’m plowing ahead. I have to do something productive during a pandemic.

Jeff Beck- has anyone done less with more? For me, he’s by far the most interesting of the Yardbird three as a soloist but has he made one great album?

I saw Trower at the Palladium back in ’79 and it remains the loudest show I ever saw. A Hendrix clone for sure but always had a beautiful tone and great vibrato. The last couple of minutes of “Daydream” off of “Live” remain the closest aural equivalent to morphine I’ve heard.

A buddy of mine just made me a multi-hour mix of Frippertronic bootlegs that’s pretty amazing- makes today’s loopers look like total frauds.

I was a total Yes freak growing up so if no one’s mentioned Steve Howe…

Alan:
Houston is releasing Boogie so they can play smaller when Wood comes back, while letting Cousins sign onto a team that might play him more. Wonder how this will affect Cleveland’s attempt to trade Drummond.

It’s gotta hurt Cleveland. The odd thing is, when we played Houston recently, I thought Cousins was their most effective player against us. I suspect he’ll find a home. Actually Boston comes to mind as a possible destination.

I was a total Yes freak growing up so if no one’s mentioned Steve Howe…

Great! Huge Yes fan here.

i remember the first time i heard Oh Well, and then learned the group was called: Fleetwood Mac – for a while i literally believed there had to be another group called fleetwood mac…i had never seen this early clip of the song before…man, that dude is sooooooo freaking high…it’s amazing he kept it together as well as he did, matter of fact – it looks like they’re all on some rolling around all over the floor kinda drugs…

The Great Curve just came up on shuffle play so shout out to Adrian Belew as well. Between Crimson and side gigs with The Talking Heads and Laurie Anderson he ruled the early 80s for me.

Yeah Jeff Beck is a great player, totally unique and brilliant, but doesn’t have a lot of material that’s very listenable. He’s probably the greatest “bender” of all time, the way he bends notes with such amazing control and the phrasing he is able to achieve as a result is really special.

So many of his albums fall into the dreaded “fusion” category though. Not a very high fun factor on those records. I do like his version of Goodbye Pork Pie Hat a lot.

I suspect he’ll find a home. Actually Boston comes to mind as a possible destination.

Oh, I’m sure he’ll find a home, especially since any team that needs a cener can acquire him for just money, and surely less money than they’d have to pay Drummond.

Most of my favorite guitarists, the ones who really influence me, are guys who could really play SONGS. Like the guy who would come up with the great overdub or melodic solo that would lift the song to the next level.

My favorites are players like Lindsey Buckingham, Johnny Marr, George Harrison, Rick Nielsen, Elliott Easton, Robbie Robertson, and Mike Campbell. Those are my role models.

Any Robbie Basho admirer?
I don’t really like acoustic guitar but i love this guy’s discography. They tag him as “American Primitivism” and he sounds quite ‘trippy’ without effects or much arrangement.

geo: looks like they’re all on some rolling around all over the floor kinda drugs…

Wouldn’t surprise me at all. Legend has it that Green and fellow Mac guitarist, Danny Kirwan (the dude with the shaggy blond hair in the clip you linked) attended a party in Munich around that time where they both partook of some devilishly bad LSD from which neither man ever recovered, Green wound up abandoning the band in the middle of a US tour, returned to England to become a gravedigger, and was subsequently diagnosed as schizophrenic. Kirwan hung on with FM for a couple more albums after Green left but wound up getting fired from the band for his increasingly erratic behavior which led to a long downward spiral ending in homelessness and an early death.

Any other questions on the subject of rock ‘n’ roll casualties? I’m your man!

damn…that’s some scary shit…weed and booze may not be the healthiest endeavors ever, but, some of that stuff is just a bridge too far…

i’ve never understood the desire to see things that weren’t really there…

it happens, maybe not something to really be pursued though…

My favorites are players like Lindsey Buckingham, Johnny Marr, George Harrison, Rick Nielsen, Elliott Easton, Robbie Robertson, and Mike Campbell. Those are my role models.

It’s hilarious that they had to literally bring in two guys to replace Buckingham, since his vocals were one thing and his guitar-playing was a whole other thing. Neil Finn could replace one, but they needed Campbell to replace the other. Also, how bad must your behavior be if your band has to fire you when you’re, like, 70?

It’s gotta hurt Cleveland. The odd thing is, when we played Houston recently, I thought Cousins was their most effective player against us. I suspect he’ll find a home. Actually Boston comes to mind as a possible destination.

Wood really is the whole team right now, though, so they have to focus around him and Boogie, on a one-year deal, just wasn’t going to have much of a role when Wood is back.

That makes sense. I hope Boogie finds a good landing place. He’s had so many injuries and moved around so much lately, it would be nice if he could find a home.

@Alan Santana’s early albums are huge in my book. His playing was amazing, but I thought the whole sound was a fantastic blend of the percussion and melodic flavor from Latin American jazz with acid rock. To me, his gift was as much in bringing that together so powerfully as it was in his guitar playing. But I love his guitar from those years. When I was first learning electric guitar as a little kid I wore out the grooves on Samba Pa Ti learning it as best I could.

There was so much great psychedelic-Afro-Latin funk/rock/jazz stuff happening in Cuba, Brazil, and all over Africa back then. It’s crazy to me how little in that vein ever became very popular in the US. Olatunji opened for James Brown a lot during his peak years back then. Santana was big. Seems like there should have been a bigger market here. Maybe a lack of managers with the right connections just made it hard for great foreign acts to get the attention of US audiences unless they were from England.

In December of 2012 I went to the Sandy concert at MSG which included an absurd lineup of iconic bands: Stones, Springsteen, Pink Floyd, The Who plus McCartney, Billy Joel and others.

We sat to the side of the stage and could see that almost all the bands had additional players behind them as support (not visible to most of the arena) Except for Clapton, he came out with a drummer and a bass player and just ripped the house apart. Could not believe the sound I was hearing from just 3 musicians.

I know it’s almost become a cliche to talk about the greatness of Clapton on guitar, but he was so impressive that night, will never forget it

(Oh, and one additional note: of all the bands who appeared that night, guess who got the loudest reception by far? If you guessed Bon Jovi you’d be right. Not a fan myself, but I guess the NY/NJ connection was strong and the crowd sang every line of every song.)

Berman suggests the Knicks and Mitch are looking at March as his return date. And in the meantime:

According to sources, Thibodeau has spent three days of practice trying to mix and match. One thing he has looked into is playing more small-ball, moving Julius Randle to center and using rookie Obi Toppin at power forward.

Thibodeau is also debating whether to return Kevin Knox to the rotation at power forward, using him with Randle at center. Knox was taken out of the rotation on Jan. 31 against the Clippers — 10 games ago. Knox, the Knicks’ 2018 lottery pick, has made three garbage-time cameos in that span, playing a total of nine minutes.

I don’t care about the Knox part of it, though his shooting could be useful. I just want to see more of Obi.

Any opinions on Jack White? Been on a bit of a White Stripes kick lately (mostly Elephant and Get Behind Me Satan), and it’s been a good reminder of how much presence he can generate on the guitar. Not even close to Jimi of course (who is all-time the guitarist I am just the most in awe of), but somewhat similar in the amount of space he can take over with the instrument at any time. Rough, raw, not pretentious, but clearly an obsessive at the same time

In terms of attempting to rank guitarists, I recall a story (though it may be apocryphal) where an interviewer years ago asked Eric Clapton how it felt to be the greatest guitar player alive. And he responded, “Well, you’d have to ask Prince, wouldn’t you?”

Alan: “Well, you’d have to ask Prince, wouldn’t you?”

What a talent. I wished that I liked even one of his songs. (that’s an overstatement, I do like some of them them a bit, but still…)

Oh, and one additional note: of all the bands who appeared that night, guess who got the loudest reception by far? If you guessed Bon Jovi you’d be right. Not a fan myself, but I guess the NY/NJ connection was strong and the crowd sang every line of every song.

This one hurts, I would’ve guessed Springsteen. I used to bus tables and cook eggs for brunch service at Salt Creek Grille in Rumson, NJ and both Bon Jovi and Bruce were semi-regulars. Springsteen was always a saint, very courteous and gracious, big tipper, made small talk with the lowly staff. On the other hand, Bon Jovi was a total fucking prick. A couple times he ordered ‘over easy’ eggs at brunch and then would complain about how yolky it was. Dude told me (17y.o. at the time) that he was 100x the egg cook I was and that there was no point in coming to our restaurant’s brunch as long as I was on the eggs. He also did not tip well and would frequently try to get comped meals thru complaining, even though he still ate there a few times a month. Fuck that guy, Springsteen smokes him in music and life.

TopOaf:
Any opinions on Jack White? Been on a bit of a White Stripes kick lately (mostly Elephant and Get Behind Me Satan), and it’s been a good reminder of how much presence he can generate on the guitar. Not even close to Jimi of course (who isall-time the guitarist I am just the most in awe of), but somewhat similar in the amount of space he can take over with the instrument at any time. Rough, raw, not pretentious, but clearly an obsessive at the same time

+1 on White…his recent solo stuff is awesome…Raconteurs stuff is real good…

also think Billy Gibbons should get more cudos…dude just cranked it out..

.someone mentioned sound coming from 3 guys…ZZ and Rush (Alex Lifeson another awesome guitar player) could blast it out…also an 80’s band Kings X were good 3 man band…saw them at some small venues and couldn’t hear for several days…

I was just thinking about Jimmy Page and how he was absent from this discussion. I don’t know where he ranks, but the guitar work on Heartbreaker and Black Dog is as good as rock guitar gets for me.

Page, May, Blackmore, Gibbons, Beck, Clapton, Gilmour, Van Halen, Fripp, Galagher, DAllman are all guitar heroes.
It comes to personal taste which one is the best among them.

And if you like some space freakout along your rock try these guys
Steve Hillage, Manuel Gottshing, Ed Wynne

The Honorable Cock Jowles: A shame he’ll be best remembered for playing counterpoint with Rob Thomas, one of the most grating voices of my relatively short lifetime.

That’d only be true if you were a…

…oh, never mind.

But it’s a bit like saying George Harrison will best be remembered for “Got My Mind Set On You.”

I was just thinking, maybe the Heat pick up Boogie…they could use a bit of size and maybe Jimmy and Spo can keep his worst instincts in check…Drummond might work there too.

man…rozier just single handedly beat the warriors…draymond with the double tech …what an idiot…

I sometimes take LeBron’s greatness for granted- tonight I was shocked to see him 7-21; any other star it’s another off night, with LeBron it’s an anomaly

I’ve seen a bunch of good guitarists live over the years in very intimate settings: Santana, Prince, Tom Morello, Derek Trucks, Trey Whatshisface from Phish (hard for me to tell if he’s over-rated or underrated cause I just don’t like their songs very much, but he was playing on a high (pun intended) plane that night), Mark Knopfler, Lindsey, Gary Clark, Ritchie Havens, and many others that i’m not recalling right now because it’s late and I’m reeling from my second dose of Pfizer… but, hands down, the best guitarist I’ve ever seen live is Tuck Andress. I catch him at the tiny clubs any chance I get and just stare in awe.

Given that nobody has mentioned Mike Oldfield, I will do. Ommadawn is probably my favorite album ever and features amazing guitarwork.

KYN, I have listened to Basho’s ‘Visions of the Country’ and find him to have a hypnotic quality that I quite enjoy.

Jimmy page is my personal favorite. Again its all subjective.

I attended about a half dozen SRV shows in the 80s (Anyone remember pier 84 next to intrepid?) SRV put on a good show and was technical genius, but the shows were meh, and yet I kept going bac for more.

Keith Richards – searing opening riffs off “can’t you hear me knocking” or “Monkey Man” nuff said.

I love Santana in all its different band formats over the years. My wife can’t stand carlos – they key he plays goes right through her like smoke detector alarm

nicos:
Jeff Beck- has anyone done less with more? For me, he’s by far the most interesting of the Yardbird three as a soloist but has he made one great album?

Anyone looking to explore Jeff Becks greatest albums:
Blow by Blow
Live Wired
Jeff Beck Group
There and Back

On youtube check out “live at ronnie scotts” The lineup with Tal Wilkenfeld and Vinny Colaiuta is super tight

As for Beck’s virtuoisty check out tracks “Definitely Maybe”, “Since We’ve Ended as Lovers”, “Nadia”

I recall a quote from John Lennon when asked about his guitar playing – I’m no eric clapton,I’m a song writer. Give me f***n tuba and i’ll write a song with it.

Tal Wilkenfeld is sultry…

Blow by Blow was very popular when I was in college…one of the few purely instrumental albums that went mainstream

I doubt that Phelps “Catfish” Collins (Bootsy’s brother) is high on anyone’s list of Guitar Gods. But I’d be lying if I said if he didn’t lay down one of the best damn guitar solos I’ve ever heard. Nearly wet myself the first time I heard it:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JhXGHkP1oIo

Great thread. The supplemental knowledge I derive from this site is incredible.* Listened to Tubular Bells while doing my cardio this am. I’d add John McLaughlin, who while more of a jazz musician did some stellar work on Miles’s fusion albums: Jack Johnson and Bitches Brew. I am also partial to Sonny Landreth.
We finally have a game tonight with some interesting sub-plots: The possible resurrection of Kevin Knox and Thibs vs. the team that fired him. I imagine the Knicks will come out with some fire tonight.
* Thanks, Count! Did not even know that Bootsy had a guitar-playing brother.

Among excellent guitarists who died tragically and young, Terry Kath from Chicago is wotth mentioning. I’m a Man and 25 or 6 to 4 both have some nice riffs…

Even if one narrows down the field to “white blues guitarists,” SRV would not make the top of my list. That spot would be occupied by the late, great Peter Green.

I haven’t listened to enough Peter Green to have a strong opinion, but based on my limited exposure that’s a tough compare for me.

Among blues guitarists there are guys that play that sweet major pentatonic style over major songs and minor pentatonic over minor songs (BB King for example). There are guys that mix it up and use the major and minor pentatonic in major songs, and guys that focus primarily on more rocky minor pentatonics even in major songs. The Green stuff I’ve heard was sweeter sounding than almost anything I’ve heard from SRV who has more of a rocky Texas blues style (except when he’s ripping off Hendrix double stops as part of his playing – lol)

I’m a big fan of that sweeter slow blues sound that almost everyone ripped off BB King and tried to take to higher places, but there’s a place for a more rock oriented sound. I think that’s partly why SRV was so popular. He made actual blues really rock.

Another name to add to the list is the late Gary Moore.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4O_YMLDvvnw

Z-man:
Among excellent guitarists who died tragically and young, Terry Kath from Chicago is wotth mentioning. I’m a Man and 25 or 6 to 4 both have some nice riffs…

Randy Rhoads at 25…was considered right up there with Eddie Van Halen…just Crazy Train alone is cred right there…

“Listened to Tubular Bells while doing my cardio this am.”

Wait, you listened to Tubular Bells without any drugs involved?

#KYN, I have listened to Basho’s ‘Visions of the Country’ and find him to have a hypnotic quality that I quite enjoy.#

Hypnotic, meditating, transcending, spiritual I’d say. Glad you enjoy him too!

#…I’d add John McLaughlin…#

When i said Jimi, Carlos, Frank and John are my best ones i wasn’t referring to John Mayer!
McLaughlin’s work with Mahavishnu Orchestra is a jazz fusion treat that rock fans enjoy much more than jazz fans. His playing there is stellar.

Alvin Lee forgive me
And of course Tony Iommi the dark lord for more heavy tastes

my personal favorite…Angus Young (you can combine with Malcom into one entity if you want)..

I read an interview with Robert Quine once where he said he liked to familiarize himself with the lyrics before he did his solos. Once you know that and then listen to waves of fear you have to list him among the greats

Rory Gallagher is somebody the SRV fans would love

Knew Your Nicks: McLaughlin’s work with Mahavishnu Orchestra is a jazz fusion treat that rock fans enjoy much more than jazz fans. His playing there is stellar.

I still remember hearing him, Al Di Meola and Paco de Lucia on that album together where it was like they were chugging whatever the precursor to Red Bull was and challenging each other to finger races. Acoustic, but played like hard rockers with their hair on fire.

You can hear one of those takes later in life, with just Al and Paco, where it’s more like they’re just in their backyard playing catch, but with a rainbow.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v35YhhzCrYk

Malcolm and Angus Young have a specific secret sauce, and it drives the sound of the whole band: they are always one million percent in tune.

This may not sound super impressive, but it’s actually pretty difficult to keep a guitar perfectly in tune at all positions of the neck. There’s something about the way those two voice their chords that’s just magic, they always have this chiming, ringing, perfectly in tune sound.

When i was on a more “jazzy” phase, i listened to Pat Metheny a lot. I think he’s clearly worth mentioning.

Like Jowles said, or at least i think he said it, i don’t have a problem identifying greatness on guitar, but to say who’s better between all of the greats i think that’s hard. And much like basketball, i think bandmates (like teammates) have to be analyzed to determine greatness. Take the late Kurt Cobain, as someone metioned, i love him and i love Nirvana, but to his greatness doesn’t average to good bandmates have a weight? As he’s so many levels greater than the bandmates, he might seem to be greater than he were. On the other hand, Jimmy Page is great, but did the “hall of famer” vocals of Robert Plant, and specially the otherwordly drumming of John Bonham, have a weight also? He doesn’t distinguish himself from his bandmates the way Kurt did, so that might bring his greatness to a little lower than if they switch places. And that’s why i don’t like to compare greatness, it’s like a level for me, some are in it, some don’t. I don’t compare the ones that are in it, i love them all.

Kurt Cobain was a great songwriter and that made his guitar playing seem great. He certainly wasn’t a BAD player, but he’s nowhere near as good as say, Greg Ginn or J Mascis or Thurston Moore or Curt Kirkwood or some of his peers in the punk/alternative world.

Cobain was a great songwriter, not guitarist. Influential, but not special. You could arguably say that about Nirvana, too. I love In Utero but their fame was more about crossover appeal than standing head and shoulders above their peers. It didn’t hurt that Cobain had the looks of a movie star. If Black Francis looked like that, we might talk about Pixies the same way.

Talking about guitar soloists is a little like talking about post-up centers; the game has changed and largely passed them by. The Edge/Kevin Shields/Jonny Greenwood atmosphere guys have had more influence on how rock sounds now than any soloists.

The last time I was blown away by a soloist was probably when I wandered into an Orthrelm concert cold- Mick Barr’s psychotic shred was almost religious in its intensity. Horse Lords guitar approach also blew me away- they sound like a weird mix of Discipline-era Crimson, Tinariwen (amazing North African band- if you like guitar check them out now!) and Terry Riley: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBqeYHeNkcA&t=1051s It’s kind of contemporary fusion but good! At least IMO.

JK47:
Malcolm and Angus Young have a specific secret sauce, and it drives the sound of the whole band: they are always one million percent in tune.

I think this goes for Steve Hunter and Dick Wagner…their work on Rock and Roll Animal and on Alice Cooper’s classic albums is about as good as guitar duos get….

I’m a cliche, which means of course I’m a Springsteen fan. I’ve heard more devout Bruce-heads argue that his guitar work is wildly underrated because he plays alongside so many other guitars, and because he’s so well known for the singing and the songwriting. To my untrained ear, when he solos in concert, he sounds great, but I have no idea if he’s special or just better than you would think since, again, we focus on other stuff with him.

One guy who I’m glad hasn’t come up is Jerry Garcia. My wife and my close circle of college friends are mostly Deadheads and I was never a fan. In the ’70s if you had a discussion about the top guitarists, some Dead fan would defend Jerry to the hilt. I just never got it.

Hank Garland was one of the greatest guitarists who ever lived, I have tried to seek out everything he ever played on.

He was a rockabilly pioneer, played some great down and dirty rockabilly guitar in the early days of that genre. He was the top session player in Nashville in the 50’s and 60’s, played on some of Elvis’ best records and backed Patsy Cline, Jerry Lee Lewis and many others. Fluent in almost every style, played rock, jazz, and country idiomatically. He played the guitar leads on both “Jingle Bell Rock” and “Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree.”

His career was tragically cut short in 1961 when he got in a near-fatal car accident that robbed him of his ability to play. Amazing player though, was one of the very best on the planet in the world at the time of his accident.

Not to change the subject because I love talking music (especially guitar players), but it’s starting to sound like the Mavs are considering a major overhaul of their entire team and Jalen Brunson could be available. IMO, he should be on our radar.

That wild rumor of KP being traded to the Boston Celtics may not be so far fetched either. They like WCS and if they think KP’s slip on defense and unwillingness to be as physical inside due to injury risk is permanent he’s expendable.

If there was a special category for acoustic guitar, I’d put Stephen Stills right at the top.

While maybe not great technical players, how about just very stylistically influential guys in punk/alt rock, like Johnny Ramone? Andy Gill?

And, going way back, does Chuck Berry rank as a great/influential guitarist or just as a song writer?

And, speaking of tragic rockabilly guys wiped out by car crashes, how about Eddie Cochran?

Simi Shittu had an interesting night for the Westchester Knicks last night. 13/14 shooting. He has a very live body and was all over the court. Not certain if he plays the guitar.

Jerry Garcia definitely ain’t bad.
It’s just that GDead’s tracks are full of rag and country and folk and bluegrass elements that tire you down if you’re into rock and psychedelic.
Extremely influential tho in Jam rock.

Neil Young also ain’t an acrobat but the sound of his guitar is unique and his melancholic powerful licks are heartmoving.
His solos on the live performance of “goin’ home” are extremely powerful sentimentally.

There was some stuff on Twitter about William Wesley angling for Beal.

Which is exasperating on two levels: 1)As we’ve discussed ad nauseum, this team is not remotely in a position to give up all it would take to acquire Beal, and 2)Wes now works for the Knicks, which makes this tampering if it can be proven.

***If there was a special category for acoustic guitar, I’d put Stephen Stills right at the top.***

“acoustic guitar” as a category isn’t really a thing, as Stills played a lot of electric too. Page played a lot of great acoustic and even nylon string classical guitar on some tracks. Dwayne Allman too. I think you are probably keying in on “folk guitar”, “flamenco guitar”, or “classical guitar”. Stills comes from the folk tradition, as does Lindsey B, who, even as a heavyweight in the rock pantheon, is probably underrated as a guitar god because folk guitar is largely unappreciated. Joni Mitchell is another’s great folk guitarists, and Springsteen too, as evidenced by his solo tours without Nils and/or Morello by his side. Guys like Canut Reyes and Django Reinhardt(!) come from the Flamenco tradition. Earl Klugh is a genius on the acoustic guitar but his work is largely marginalized on lists by the “smooth jazz” label, even though he’s done amazing work with George Benson (ahem) and others. But most great acoustic guitarists can play great electric guitar if they want to. So singling them out as great acoustic guitarists means you are probably under-valuing them as all-time great guitarists. Kind of like singling out great point shooters and saying they aren’t in the same conversation as great scorers…

Yeah, when Worldwide does something that works out as a win for the Knicks I will be happy and shocked.

if you venture into classical…well then…Segovia is the man…

Also, nobody mentioned Les Paul…he is in there somewhere…he used to play at Fat Tuesday’s in manhattan…I went once with my dad..just to pay homage…

I don’t know of anyone better on acoustic guitar than Tim Reynolds, who often plays with Dave Matthews. He’s great on electric as well, but I haven’t seen anyone with the command of an acoustic that he has.

Some of my favorite acoustic players: Bert Jansch, Davey Graham, John Fahey, Richard Thompson

if you want to see some percussive tapping technique I’d recommend Kaki King. Years ago I went to a Keb Mo concert (who I love and have seen a bunch of times) and she opened for him. I’ll never understand why they were paired except maybe their label, but whatever. I had never seen this technique before so she totally blew my mind. I’ve since learned she was influenced by others, but she’s still great at it. Musically, it’s not something I’d listen to a lot, but just for the sheer guitar technique it’s pretty exciting the first time to see it if you are a guitar player.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TV5JBCBcCO0

She’s great, strat…I like Keb Mo too, must have been a great combo…two totally different moods.

Z-man: NOP just seem very poorly coached.

if you look at the players on that team and you look the results it’s hard to think it could be anything else. There’s a HUGE amount of talent on that team. Usually when that’s the case, it’s that the defense sucks. That seems to be the case with the Pelicans too. Still, when you have a high volume efficiency monster like Zion, Ingram, good PG play, Reddick, and Adams around the rim they should be in the top few on offense and not 7th.

Z-man:
She’s great, strat…I like Keb Mo too, must have been a great combo…two totally different moods.

It blew my mind. The most amazing part was at the end they played together a little.

Keb is one of my all time favorites. I planned a vacation around seeing him in Florida one time. He’s seems like a lovable person on top of writing great modern blues stuff that he jazzes up a bit. I can play his song Perpetual Blues Machine fairly competently. It’s pretty much my best accomplishment on guitar. I guess it’s really not that tough, but when you love an artist, love a song, and are at my lower level, when I pulled it off it was pretty exciting for me. If I ever develop decent slide technique I’m going to try “She Just Wants to Dance”. I also love “More Than One Way Home”. He’s great.

I truly think SVG doesn’t last until next season, maybe at most til the end of the season. The team has holes and issues with fit, but his rotations are just crazy and he really seems to have no idea how to divide the roles on offense.

I like Ingram, he’s become a really good player, but Zion is a top 10 scoring threat in the NBA right now and that’s being conservative with the level he’s been playing, yet he is outside of the game plan so damn often in games. It got a bit better when Zion started playing more Point Forward, which has always been his natural evolution as a player, but you can’t have a superstar like him and not base your offense around him. The guy is just unstoppable and yet there’s so many games where he shoots 10 times, 12 times at most.

The Pelicans just don’t play perimeter defense at all. They get torched from out there on a regular basis. That is absolutely killing their team.

They play a relatively slow pace, yet they’ve allowed the most 3-pointers in the league and are allowing the 28th worst percentage. The end result is that they’re 30th in the NBA in defensive eFG%. Hard to win that way.

And speaking of guitar players, I grew up on metal music mostly, so the best ones I’ve ever seen were guys like John Petrucci, Randy Rhoades, Adrian Smith, etc. So it’s been a very informative discussion now that my musical horizons are much broader than they used to be as an edgy 15 year old lol

d-mar: I actually meant Brad Stevens

A friend of mine who HATES the Celtics even more than I do has started calling him “Fraud Stevens”, and I’m totally here for the nickname.

Big win for the Pellies.

Now let’s see the Knicks do the same against the Wolves!

The Kemba contract might be what sticks the Celtics in mediocrity for the next 3 years… Tatum is so damn good and Brown is a good auxiliary piece, but they definitely need something more than Kemba chucking garbage shots and playing no defense.

That game was a prime example of why some people hate the NBA. The end of the 4th quarter and OT took like 45 minutes

The Kemba contract might be what sticks the Celtics in mediocrity for the next 3 years… Tatum is so damn good and Brown is a good auxiliary piece, but they definitely need something more than Kemba chucking garbage shots and playing no defense.

Back before the Tatum draft, I noted that I thought Tatum could possibly be as good as Melo and would at least be a rotation player, but I never thought that he’d be better than Melo, but he really has been so far. Total shocking just how good he’s been.

And totally delightful how the Celtics have failed to build a championship caliber team around him and have actually been going backwards recently.

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