And right there is the reason I wont be concerned if either of them gets traded. Although on defense WC does seem to um…. you know… um…. care.

I know what you were getting at, and there’s definitely something to what you’re saying. I just think it’s unfair to slam Nate’s attitude and praise Chandler as some sort of saint. Nate needs to mature on the court, but his attitude is a big part of the reason he walked on the Washington basketball team and went on to become the best 5’7.75″ NBA player in quite a while and probably the shortest guy to block Yao since 3rd grade. (Being some-sort of otherworldly athlete probably helped as well.)

Unfortunately an area where WC is the polar opposite of Nate is assertiveness and aggression. I haven’t seen many 6-8, well-built, athletic players without much of a jumper shy away from contact the way Chandler does, at least not in the NBA. I’m not tempted to blame this on his ball-handling, since he’s perfectly capable of cutting to the basket off the ball. Plenty of bigs with no handle finish at the rim consistently. And then there are all the wings in the NBA who take the ball from the 3-pt line to the basket without so much as one dribble (2 steps my …). Chandler took 24% “close” shots last season and hit 53%, Nate (a foot shorter) took 28% “close” shots and hit 60%… So, while I agree Nate needs to tone it down (especially whining to the refs) and pick his spots, I get tired of people criticizing his attitude. The guy seems to want it in the worst way and plays balls to the wall, if the Knicks had a few more guys with that attitude they might actually sniff .500.

One way in which WC is not the anti-Nate is favoring isolation, crap basketball. Both of them tend to dick around and throw up absurd shots instead of playing within the offense. I guess that’s what happens when Jamal Crawford is your team leader for several years…

Those similarity scores are somewhat encouraging. There’s still hope.

That said, is there anyone on this board who would take $12M a year to live in Oklahoma City over $10M a year to live in Manhattan? How can that be a good move from an endorsement perspective?

I love David Lee and I realize that he is, by far, the best player currently on the Knicks. Why should we squander the possibility of two max FAs on one productive role player who will not win a championship without a superstar? There is little doubt that a team must have a legitimate superstar to win a title. The 2004 Pistons are the only champions I can think of in the last 20 years without one. I’m ready to jump ship on Lee and let some other team overpay him.

Boy is my wife a bad cook. (crowd: how bad is she?) How bad? Last night she brought me a baked potato and apologized because she couldn’t get all the bones out of it.

Yeah, but my wife is a real wonder in bed, a real wonder. In fact, every night I wonder if I’ll ever have sex again.

Yeah she has her flaws, but what do you expect from a woman concieved in an Edsal?

Or how about:

Faithful Knickerblogger readers I have two bits of bad news for you. The first is that Caleb was not available to write todays article, the second is that Thomas B. was.

Thank you. I’ll be here all week. Tip your waitress and try the veal!

Walsh’s target price seems to be Lee at $7 mil and Nate at $5 mil.

BUT:

Lee @ $7 mil + Nate @ $5 mil > Lee at $10 mil and Nate at $0.

I’d prefer the latter.

A source told Ken Berger that he believes David Lee’s days as a Knick are over. Agent Mark Bartelstein will reportedly have Lee sign an offer sheet with the Grizzlies or Thunder that the Knicks will not be willing to match.

“It’s a tough loss for New York, but they don’t want to screw up their 2010 plan,” the source said.

I will be pissed if we don’t even get anything in return in a S&T. Although, it was also claimed that the Grizz were going to offer Millsap 12 mil a year for 5 years. What is this offer that Lee is going to get? 11 mil a year? for 5 years? I love Lee, but he’s not worth that. I mean, we’re talking about Gortat getting 5.5 mil, and he’s a true 7 footer that can block shots. I’d be willing to go to 9 mil for Lee. Maybe the source is basing this on Donnie throwing out that 7 mil number the other day. Also, not sure what those teams have to give in a S&T except a good 1st round draft pick. Maybe Sefolosha, DJ White… Chuck Atkins. And the only player worth taking from the Grizz is Conley and they probably wouldn’t do that. This could be a real downer. But I have to believe the Knicks at least threaten to match. Even if they have to suck it up and sign Lee at 11 mil, they can still let Nate go for free. And he could sign the QO. And both of those are tradable during the season…

Ess-dog’s gettin’ nervous…

It doesn’t make sense to compare first years, because players will be of different age. Does it make sense to compare Jermaine O’Neal’s first season (age 18) to Marcin Gortat (age 23). That’s a five year difference, and even though they’re both just entering the league, obviously the latter is more physically mature and has had more training. I think it’s more important to compare players at the same age due to the physical difference. Young players tend to fill out muscularly, and older players tend to lose their speed, jumping, etc. When O’Neal is hitting his prime in his 10th season Gortat will be in serious decline (33 years old).

As for the similarity being widespread, welcome to statistical analysis. Did you expect to see 10 guys with exactly the same exact career path? Especially for a young player like Chandler, it shows that it can be difficult to identify which players will succeed, and which will fail. One thing to get from this list is that Chandler clearly has a few different ways in which he can develop. Should he improve in some critical areas, he could have a very nice career. I think one thing to check is how did some of the successful players changed from this year to the next. Nowitzki’s TS% and pts/36 went through the roof the next season (60.1 and 20.6). For Chandler to have a similar career path, you would expect him to experience that change as well.

I was referring to the excessive technicals, complaining to the ref, the posing and primal screams, etc. Chandler apparently works every bit as hard as on his game as Nate does, but never, ever draws any attention to himself (except with an occasional spectacular play), never complains about calls, never goads opposing players into fights or takes the bait when they do it to him. In that way they are polar opposites.