ESPN.com: Sources: Detroit Pistons trade Derrick Rose to New York Knicks in deal that reunites former MVP with Tom Thibodeau

Made this comment on the game thread but might as well bring it up here too.

For those complaining about giving up the Charlotte 2nd rd pick, do you really think next season the Knicks are going to carry 4 rookies on the roster? Having 3 picks in the Top 31 or 32 is definitely more than enough, dont think another 2nd rd pick in the 40’s would be more than maybe a euro draft and stash. Now could you get a better player for that pick than Rose is definitely a good question or trading that pick for a future 2nd rd pick would be more understandable too. But at this point there is nobody being drafted in the 40’s who will have 3 other rookies drafted in front of him that will be doing anything other than getting G-League minutes.

BigBlueAL:
Made this comment on the game thread but might as well bring it up here too.

For those complaining about giving up the Charlotte 2nd rd pick, do you really think next season the Knicks are going to carry 4 rookies on the roster? Having 3 picks in the Top 31 or 32 is definitely more than enough, dont think another 2nd rd pick in the 40’s would be more than maybe a euro draft and stash. Now could you get a better player for that pick than Rose is definitely a good question or trading that pick for a future 2nd rd pick would be more understandable too.But at this point there is nobody being drafted in the 40’s who will have 3 other rookies drafted in front of him that will be doing anything other than getting G-League minutes.

This is definitely fair.

I think we all need to be honest here: at least 50% of the negative optics of this trade is because it’s Derrick Rose. If it were another player with the same statistical profile and contract situation, I don’t think we’d frown at this nearly as much.

vincoug:
How does Rose improve the offense?He’s putting up 14 points with an eFG+ of 87 and a TS+ of 91.There’s only a few players on the team that’s better than and none of them are Austin Rivers.

Rose OBPM: 1.2
Rivers OBPM: -2.1
Payton OBPM: -2.5

I’m unsure how much his passing will drop playing with Randle. He’s still a better attacker than Payton.

It’s always possible we bench Payton instead of Rivers. However, Payton should look better running point with more shooting in the 2nd unit. He’s a better passer and more consistent penetrator/PG than IQ.

Either way, I expect Rose to improve the offense. Again, Rose’s defense is a big concern. I still don’t like or want Rose.

1. I’ve been hard on DSjr because I don’t like his game, but he seemed like a good enough kid. He wasn’t going to play in NY & deserves a chance to save his career. This trade will give him a chance. I’m happy for him.

2. The intrinsic value of a middle 2nd round pick is minimal. We are only going to carry so many rookies next year anyway. We have 2 first round picks.

3. If we are being honest, Quickley is more of a combo guard. If we are going to run a PG centric offense (which is not my preference, but seems to be the preference here), Quickley is not our PG of the future. He’ll probably play more SG now where he probably belongs.

4. Rose is here for 1 year to try to help the team make a playoff run, make us less of a laughing stock around the league, and get the kids some experience in important games. Then he’s out. He’s not going to hurt anything even if he goes AWOL.

5. Assuming Rose is the backup PG, this frees Thibs to move Quickley to the starting lineup at SG if he wants to take a look at a Payton/Quickley combination and get more scoring in the starting lineup. Rose could then run the 2nd unit at PG and be that scorer off the bench we need if Quickley moves to the starting lineup.

This is no big deal.

The trade gives us a little more flexibility in our rotations, helps DSJr, and the pick we gave up is not important enough to have a tantrum over. We aren’t going to find an all star with that pick and that’s the one and only thing we should be focused on long term. We need star players.

To quote Jack Sparrow as he was getting ready to be marooned on a desert island, “”I really rather hope we were past all this.”

Stupid trade. Is it awful? No but its stupid, I would rather have the pick back. Rose gives us nothing or value, as a player or an asset and I cant stand watching him play or rooting for him.

The corpse of Rose is shooting .472 at the rim. If that isn’t some kind of fluke, look for a lot of hapless solo drives to the rim by Thibs’s guy, followed up by a lot of loafing back on D and pointing at other guys to pick up his man. And then Thibs telling us Immanuel Quickley needs to practice better and break down defenses better and play better defense and don’t worry nothing’s set in stone.

And then for the Knicks to sign him for 3/36 this summer, as Thibs is totally not at all signaling he wants to happen.

Well, at least Tyrese Haliburton and Mikal Bridges are playing badly today…oh wait…

BigBlueAL: Will be interesting to see if this does indeed lead to a trade of Austin Rivers like has been rumored by Woj today.

That alone would make this a good deal. lol

If any Frank-ophiles were hoping he’d make a rotation comeback this season, you can kiss those dreams goodbye.

BigBlueAL:
Will be interesting to see if this does indeed lead to a trade of Austin Rivers like has been rumored by Woj today.

Well, if Rivers and/or Payton are traded, this will open up time for Quickley once in the inevitable Rose injury happens.

I voted yes, so did 4 other people. were they just doing it to be a dick like I was?

Rationalizing shitty trades is a big part of what we do here at Knickerblogger. We’re not about to kick it to the curb.

Seriously, how ’bout those Kings?

Anyone who doesn’t think this will effect IQ’s minutes is deluding themselves. Thibs is always looking for reasons to play IQ less. After a string of very good games by IQ all it took was one good game by Payton to relegate IQ to less than 15 minutes in back to back games in which IQ was still playing well. All the while Rivers kept getting his normal minutes even while playing like trash.

Thibs doesn’t want to play IQ big minutes and this will allow him not to. It’s that simple. IQ might replace Rivers in the rotation short term but I guarantee you that after one or two bad games you will see Rivers back in the lineup.

Awful. Plus I really hate Rose’s game and being subjected to him with the only respite being Payton is truly horrific.

Thibs obviously sold Leon on the whole shared last name thing.

BigBlueAL:
For those complaining about giving up the Charlotte 2nd rd pick, do you really think next season the Knicks are going to carry 4 rookies on the roster? Having 3 picks in the Top 31 or 32 is definitely more than enough, dont think another 2nd rd pick in the 40’s would be more than maybe a euro draft and stash.

In other words, the Knicks gave up absolutely nothing. Remember that Leon basically threw away the Knicks last 2nd round pick this past year. Let’s see how this impacts the rotation.

“The only saving grace is that we will never see DSjr don a Knicks uniform ever again. ”

Careful, Z-Man. I bet you said the same thing when DRose left in disgrace…

Yeah, there’s a chance Rose is useful to the offense this year, and/or that the Charlotte pick doesn’t amount to anything. And it’s still a bad trade, because the process and philosophy are so stupid.

In other words:
This trade ain’t about DFUKINRose but about Thibs.

in my mind we also got a pony

Right, whereas in reality we actually got something for something else…

Raven: Careful, Z-Man. I bet you said the same thing when DRose left in disgrace…

Check the archives. I dare you. (please don’t!)

Brian Cronin:
In other words, sure, so long as those other words are incorrect words.

What’s funny is that we just saw how two such picks can be packaged to move up several spots in the draft. I wonder what the 31+40ish picks could get you to…

Well, this puts to bed my plan to get my fellow countryman Neemias Queta to be Mitch’s backup with CHA’s 2nd RP. 🙁

Nightly Hickory High alert (NY Post):

*************************

“RJ Barrett wasn’t in a scoring mode on Super Bowl Sunday, but when he made a defensive miscue on a pick-and-roll coverage, it was the last straw for Tom Thibodeau.

Barrett was yanked midway through the third quarter and never returned, finishing with three points, as the Heat escaped with a 109-103 Garden matinee victory.”

*********************

Wonder if Berman is channeling Thibs here?:

“You got to make plays down the stretch,’’ Thibodeau said. “You have to understand the fourth quarter is different. Decision-making is different. Officials allow more to go on in terms of physicality. We have to understand that part of it. ‘’

Rose can do all that stuff late in games and did that for the Knicks in 2016-17, when he averaged 18 points per game. Barrett has yet to show a strong knack for being a closer. Even in their recent win in Chicago, Barrett missed three straight shots down the stretch.

*******************************

So the team propagandist has Derrick Rose as a closer and RJ Barrett not a closer. Good times ahead.

DAL are at the bottom of the standings, maybe they are tanking! 😀

cybersoze: Didn’t thought about that, but you’re right, if they’re banking on upping Rose’s value in 6 weeks to then trade him for more draft capital than we surrendered, then it’d be worth it.

CBA FAQ is down or no longer working so I can’t check but I’m pretty sure we can’t do that. If you trade for a player you have to wait 60 or 90 days or something like that before you can trade him. So Rose is here for at least this season and I’m sure we’ll be looking to re-sign him this summer.

vincoug: CBA FAQ is down or no longer working so I can’t check but I’m pretty sure we can’t do that. If you trade for a player you have to wait 60 or 90 days or something like that before you can trade him. So Rose is here for at least this season and I’m sure we’ll be looking to re-sign him this summer.

There is zero reason to believe that they acquired Rose with the goal of trading him.

Bruno Almeida:
Do the people praising the trade even watched Rose when he was on the Knicks? His infuriating drive to the basket with blinders on, throw an awkward layup that has no chance of going in, rinse and repeat? And by the way he’s 4 years older now with knees that are completely gone?

I think “praise” is too strong a word even for Team Optimism. I, alongside BigBlueAl and a couple others, are just pointing out there are potential benefits to this trade for this season. Yes, the biggest risks is that Thibs uses Rise to cut into IQ (and RJB’s) minutes.

And now I’m going to say something that you all may find totally blasphemous, even myself: there is a universe where Derrick Rose may actually be a good basketball influence for IQ and RJB. Yes yes I know, he bolted on the team in the past and he’s an accused rapist and he’s not who any of us want. At the sams time, we all know NBA players don’t look at each other the way us fans look at them. Is there a non-zero chance that D-Rose the Playoff Warrior can impart some jewels on the young guns? I think so…maybe.

There. I said it. I’m on record for it, and I take full responsibility if the absolute worst case scenarios you all have said happen.

I’m not happy about this trade at all but I try to look at it from the current front office and coaching staff’s point of view. Unlike others here who live in a fantasy world where in their scenarios they keep the Charlotte 2nd rd pick and somehow use it to collect an All-Star I try to face reality lol. All I hope is it doesn’t affect RJ or especially IQ’s playing time, as long as that doesn’t happen it really is just complaining for the sake of it to continue to whine about this trade as if it is changing the future dynamics of the franchise. We’ll have to wait and see.

Blegh, real stinker of a trade…has that classic knicks stench with a some new “Thibs-safety-blanket” seasoning tossed in for taste.

this right here…this is it…

there is no question rose will get hot a time or two and maybe even help win us a game, even as he gets burned over and over on defense…boy though – what kind of owner we have to allow an employee who went awol back on the roster…

The point is that facing reality is understanding that the last time Derrick Rose was good was 9 years ago, so we’re trading for a guard who has a .517 ts% at age 32 who’s never been a good passer or defender.

We’ve acquired a bad basketball player for nothing, to play minutes in a position where he’s not necessary, so what’s the point? The absolute best version of Derrick Rose in the last 9 years, which is probably last season at Detroit, will add at most, being very generous, 2 wins worth of production to a team.

Living in a fantasy world is believing somehow Derrick Rose will have a positive impact on a team in 2021, despite the fact that he has failed to do so in two straight years for the team that’s willing to trade him for Dennis Smith Jr and this useless 2nd rounder you don’t care about.

Noone likes DRose but like it or not he’s a pg upgrade on the cheap.
If Thibs is stupid or suicidal then DRose will fuck the team and drag him to the exit.
We don’t need a stupid coach.
DRose is Thibs’ 1st bet so far.
A cheap one.

To be fair, in the 2018-19 season, Rose was being considered for 6th man of the year and comeback player of the year. That version of Rose is most certainly worth a 2nd round pick. So in that sense, BBA and GNYGNYG have a point.

But even if he becomes that player, I personally don’t like what the move represents in terms of priorities and direction. Sure, it’s not a big deal in the big scheme of things, but like Alan said with his reference to the Ron Baker (sob!) deal, it speaks to a mindset. In this case, the mindset should be reserved for a playoff team, not an overachieving bottom-10 team that is early into a rebuild. It is also a terrible PR move for a team looking to escape its clown-show past.

unfathomably stupid trade by an unfathomably stupid franchise and coach

Voted with the majority and went with a big ‘No’ on the trade. Any deficiency we are trying to cover at the PG spot can be addressed by simply playing Quickley (and Frank).

That being said, the deal itself isn’t “bad” per se from a value perspective, but it just feels like a sideways step for us. Maybe Rose plays to his 18/19 form and solidifies our position as a low seed playoff team? Great, but we were already potentially that team without him so *shrugs indifferently*

After a lot of thinking, i’ve come up with two theories for the DRose trade:
1 – Leon noticed the double 50pt games of Steph and Jokic, and immediately ordered Perry to get the cheapest player with a career 50 pt game;
(i like this one)
2 – Leon is planning to hire his son for a job in the Knicks front-office and for that hire to go under the radar he’s plotting to hire 4 or 5 players or executives named Rose;
(oh, this one is even better! LOL)

Can you trade a player you just traded for?
If teams acquire a player in a trade, they are allowed to trade that player straight-up for another individual player immediately. However, if teams wish to package that player with another and make a trade, they must wait 60 days before doing so. … They can be traded immediately, just not to their previous team.

And bam! Here it is, the glimmer of hope. We can trade him, if it’s a swap DRose for a player we want (or a player we don’t want and draft picks).

Beyond the trade itself is how Rose is used. You could argue that his dribble-penetration as a backup might help Obi and IQ, and maybe Noel has more garbage to clean up. Last year he took 30% of his shots at the rim and shot 65% from there. Same in 2018-19.

I noticed in the last couple of games that IQ is getting lots of defensive pressure and is leaving his feet and throwing desperation lob passes. Teams seem to be on to him a bit, so I would expect some regression until he figures that out. Rose might help with that. In any case, after the initial gag-reflex stuff, I’m interested to see how Thins uses him.

Derrick Rose sucks and is miserable to watch. I’m completely serious when I say this makes me much less excited to watch this team going forward.

I am not claiming the Hornets’ pick was some great asset, I mean it projects to be right around where Mitch was picked, but whatever.

Let’s say it had a 5% chance of getting us a good player. Derrick Rose gives us a 0% chance at getting a good player! I don’t see what’s so hard to understand about this. It’s an unambiguously shitty trade even if it, in isolation, doesn’t have dire implications.

thenoblefacehumper: Derrick Rose sucks and is miserable to watch. I’m completely serious when I say this makes me much less excited to watch this team going forward.

Is he any more miserable to watch than Rivers or Payton?

‘Is he any more miserable to watch than Rivers or Payton?’

Yes. Yes he is.

Rivers and Payton are nice guys who just happen to be fairly incompetent at parts of their jobs. DRose is also somewhat incompetent at parts of his job, but he is also deeply creepy; Plus his very existence on the roster makes it feel like we’re going backward, not forward.

Well okay, there’s that. It probably helps that we’ve had two decades to get accustomed to it. I suppose if Derrick Rose were our point guard for the next 20 years I’d…

…well not kill myself. But certainly willfully choose another sport.

It also helps that we don’t have Dolan on the court every game, so he’s slightly easier to ignore, at least lately. But I still think there’s no reason to populate the roster with mini-Dolans.

As I said on the previous thread..I will (or won’t) like this trade once we see what happens next. If we move on from Payton an Rivers so Quickley and Ntilikina can play more- then this is a great trade. I’d prefer to bring Rose in with the 2nd unit with Quickley starting. But..if they do something stupid like hold on to Payton and give he and Rose the lion’s share of the minutes at the point- this is an incredibly stupid trade. God I hope there’s an announcement regarding Payton tomorrow

I remember a couple of years ago when Rose was making our lives miserable, and I was desperately hoping that his empty scoring numbers might convince some sucker to take him off our hands. I started ticking off every GM in the league, and ended up coming to the conclusion that our only hope was that Thibs would have a nostalgic connection to him.

Now Thibs is our sucker.

Is he any more miserable to watch than Rivers or Payton?

By a lot.

USG%:

Rose: 29.4%
Payton: 22.7%
Rivers: 16.3%

He’s significantly more of a bad experience.

God bless everyone who thinks you can add a 30% USG guard and not see Quickley and Barrett get marginalized, I envy you.

I noticed in the last couple of games that IQ is getting lots of defensive pressure and is leaving his feet and throwing desperation lob passes. Teams seem to be on to him a bit, so I would expect some regression until he figures that out. Rose might help with that. In any case, after the initial gag-reflex stuff, I’m interested to see how Thins uses him.

It’s obviously a game of adjustments and now is when we see if Quickley can adjust to them adjusting to him. I’d bet on him, but we shall see.

We are going to hate watching Derrick Rose. Maybe it doesn’t make a difference but it still sucks.

Can’t wait for DRose’s debut! lol
At least there’ll be a change in the rotation after ages!

I don’t think his USG is etched in stone.

We talking about the same guy? This is Derrick Rose. His career USG% is pretty much the same. The dude calls his own number, that’s his thing.

We’re regularly going to watch games in which the FGA leader is a 32 year old with a .517 TS%. The season was fun while it lasted!

Rose has been frightfully bad shooting from 0-3 feet this year, so bad that you wonder if it’s some sort of statistical anomaly. He’s shooting .472 from 0-3 feet. Owwwch. In his last two seasons he was well north of .600 so either it’s a small sample size anomaly or dude has really forgotten how to score near the basket. That is a pitiful number.

Elfrid Payton, by comparison, is shooting .559 from 0-3 feet.

Before Sunday’s game, Thibodeau was asked about his reputation of not wanting to play young players, and he invoked Rose’s name.

“I think you just look at the guys and study who was on each team — Derrick Rose is the youngest MVP in the history of the league,’’ Thibodeau said. “So I don’t worry about that stuff.”

I do…

pepper:
Before Sunday’s game, Thibodeau was asked about his reputation of not wanting to play young players, and he invoked Rose’s name.

“I think you just look at the guys and study who was on each team — Derrick Rose is the youngest MVP in the history of the league,’’ Thibodeau said. “So I don’t worry about that stuff.”

I do…

It seems to be more about playing guys who suck, which young guys tend to do. Of course he played the shit out of Wiggins, who sucked big time.

There’s just so many layers to him!

How much does he get re-signed for in the offseason? Three years, $50M?

The Honorable Cock Jowles:
How much does he get re-signed for in the offseason? Three years, $50M?

“Thibodeau likely won’t start Rose, but he may close with him.” says Berman..

so likely the AAV in the next deal will be formulaic as proposed by Steve Stoutte brandmaster and resident capologist as (# of times used as “closer” x $1 million) raised to the nth power where n= games that they win when he is in closer role….

Thibs: To know Rose is to love Rose.
Kbloggers: To know Rose is to hate Rose.

They don’t have to be mutually exclusive.

I’m sad we traded away the second round pick but honestly Leon got three 2nds in the Ed Davis maneuver so I will give him a pass on trading away a 2nd.

The problem isn’t the price we paid it’s that we want Rose at all. He isn’t a very good player and will steal minutes away from one of this seasons bright spots. Now with Rose ahead of IQ he will start getting the Toppin treatment and play for 10 minutes a game and never see a play ran for him at all.

Plus Rose is on the Mount Rushmore of Knicks I’ve hated watching. I was so relieved when we didn’t resign him and now he’s back. It’s going to be much less enjoyable to watch the Knicks for the rest of the year. Absolute disaster.

Bruno Almeida: He played better today

You sure you checked the right boxscore? He was 4-20 for 14 points today with 2 asts and 3 TOs.

Walker’s 3p% should bounce back to the 36% range (and likely higher), which will substantially improve his overall efficiency.

That said, he got to the basket at the lowest rate of his career last year, and in the small sample of games this year he’s been even worse.

Kemba shoots well enough to stick around for a few more years, but at 6’0″ he has a fast approaching expiration date. His height may also affect his ability to get separation for 3s and shut the window even faster.

Z-man: You sure you checked the right boxscore? He was 4-20 for 14 points today with 2 asts and 3 TOs.

Oh wow I was checking the Clippers game results. 4-20 including 0-9 from 2 point range, yikes.

charlotte really looks like an up and coming team this year…they have 11 wins, we have 11 wins…

That’s one of the interesting things about this trade. No one would want the Knicks to trade their second round pick (if they had it still) for Rose, right? But somehow Charlotte, who has the same amount of wins as the Knicks, is inherently going to be in the 40s?

Now we have to get ready for the Noel and a 1st RP for Drummond or young player (Frank? Knox?) and a 2nd RP for JJ Redick. Or even worst, for both. Let’s be ready for the Rose+JJ+RJ+Julius+Drummond starting lineup, that will lead us to the 8th spot… is this worth it, since we were already on pace to be in the play-in (so it’s a 2 spot jump)?

cybersoze:
Now we have to get ready for the Noel and a 1st RP for Drummond or young player (Frank? Knox?) and a 2nd RP for JJ Redick. Or even worst, for both. Let’s be ready for the Rose+JJ+RJ+Julius+Drummond starting lineup, that will lead us to the 8th spot… is this worth it, since we were already on pace to be in the play-in (so it’s a 2 spot jump)?

Ugh, I just threw up a little, thanks.

Tom Brady has another Super Bowl ring, and Derrick Rose is back on the Knicks. To quote Agent Dale Cooper, what year is this?

Put me down as very slightly in favor of this trade if and only if this doesn’t mean Quickley is relegated to 3rd -4th guard off the bench (he’s been 2nd or 3rd behind Burks/Rivers).

The trade makes reasonable sense if the purpose of it is to put Quickley in the starting lineup and Payton somewhere in Eastern Europe. The cost was not much (honestly, I’m sort of surprised the Pistons didn’t hold out for just the 2nd round pick and no Dennis Smith, since Smith is definitely a negative asset on his contract – it’s not like his rights are going to be worth anything). The #40ish pick is not nothing, and one could’ve hoped that they would be able to swing that into a 2nd rounder in a later draft, but you never know whether those things will be available.

My sense as to why Quickley wasn’t playing more minutes with the starters is that the 2nd unit really needed him — who else is going to run that unit and be able to have a plausible offensive output? If you want to see Payton crater the offense on a unit, wait until you see him running primary ball handler with Obi Toppin, Nerlens Noel, and Alec Burks. Now that Rose can/should be the primary scorer on the 2nd unit, Quickley can play with the starters.

Re Rose – hard to know what to make of 340 minutes played this year. It is worth noting that he really had a tremendous year last year, literally every bit as good statistically as peak Derrick Rose.

2011 Rose (MVP year) – per 36 – 24.1 points, 7.4 assists, 3.9 rebounds, 33.2 3P%, 85.8% FT, 38.7 Ast%, 13.1 TO%, 55 TS, 32.2 Usage

2020 Rose – per 36 – 25.1 points, 7.7 assists, 3.4 rebounds, 30.6% 3P%, 87.1% FT, 40.5 Ast%, 13.4 TO%, 55.5 TS, 31.6 usage

Those are basically the same numbers with the caveat that the majority of his minutes last year came playing as a backup.

As always, we’ll have to see what the Big Plan is. But I’ll say this much – it is fun to watch the Knicks play and to actually hope they win. Has been a while.

1. I can’t get over the fact that Derrick Rose is now the centerpiece of the Porzingis trade.

2. I wonder if Noah is on the phone with Thibs yet? That would be like a Crosby, Stills, and Nash reunion. Then Melo could come back next year and it would be like Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young.

People are making way too much of this Derrick Rose move and what it means for the decision making short and long term. I guess it’s a kind of mental illness that comes with being a Knicks fan for a long time and expecting the worst and/or having the tanking mental illness and thinking you should almost always try to maximum some distant theoretical future instead of actually trying to get better once you have a few good young pieces.

I hated when Dolan went with Leon Rose because IMO you need executives that understand the nuances of basketball to build a team properly. That’s not Leon Rose’s expertise. But honestly, I’d be hard pressed to come up with a move I don’t like so far. It looks like he has a pretty good management team (I’ve even stopped whining about Perry still being there) and now we have a great coaching staff. The closest thing to a complaint I can up with is taking Obi over Hali, but I think I understand the thinking there too. They wanted a true PG or stretch PF. They see Hali as another very talented combo guard, So they went with Obi in the draft and are still on the prowl for the PG of the future. It may or may not turn out to be a mistake. But if you don’t think Hali fits into what you are building, it’s understandable that they went in another direction.

That is why Derrick Rose is back also. I’m sure they love Quickley, but he’s not a true PG. He’s a combo guard. I think Ball may still be on the radar.

Anyway, the point I’m making is this Rose trade is no big deal and probably means nothing about the direction they are taking other than wanting to upgrade the PG position with someone that can actually play PG.

I have no problem with the Knicks looking to upgrade at guard, but 32 year old, high usage Derrick Rose makes zero sense. And if it was Thibs pushing hard on management to do this, that’s concerning as well.

Also, if this results in IQ’s minutes being cut, well, then I’ll really start to lose hope in this franchise.

I tend to agree with Deefense here about people overreacting with their Knicks PTSD. A few thoughts.

We aren’t “chasing the 10th seed.” We’re in the 6 to 8 range for most of the season and that’s with one of the toughest schedules so far and more road games than home games. People need to accept that we are probably a playoff team. Its ok cause we got the Dallas pick and that could end up in the top 8. Before the season started, most people thought we would miss the playoffs and they would make the playoffs, so its a little greedy to expect us to come away with two top ten picks now that the season has started. Having one top 8 and one top 20 pick is a great situation for us.

Second, we don’t really know what the context of this trade is. Sure, it could mean less time/shots for RJ and Quickley or it could mean less time/shots for Elf and Rivers. Thibs has the rep for playing vets but he also has the rep for playing his best players. RJ and Quickley are 2 of his best players. For all we know, an Elf or Rivers trade could be in the works too.

In short, making a playoff push isn’t some horrible decision for a franchise that has sucked for the last 20 years. Already the narrative around The Knicks has changed considerably. If Rose can provide some scoring (which he will) and we continue to play RJ, Quickley and Mitch good minutes, then I’m totally fine with this. The second round pick would be nice, but again, its not like we can’t somehow grab another one through an upcoming trade. People just assume if we make the playoffs we’re getting swept in the first round but that’s a false assumption. Maybe we’re clicking, we pull off an upset and suddenly we’re a second round playoff team that has multiple picks, young players and a good cap situation going forward. that’s how you change the narrative of a team.

While I don’t think this is a “damning” move per se, I do think it shows that this regime — for better or for worse — is primarily focused on showing free agents that winning is important (not tanking) with the goal being “get stars to the Garden.”

As such, the Knicks are both going to save cap space and collect assets so that they can sign/trade for a star. Until then, peripheral players are fairly meaningless to them.

I know that no star is saying they want to play with Derrick Rose, but the team is clearly are prioritizing making the playoffs as much as possible, I suppose to become a desirable free agent destination. Idk if this is a good or bad plan, it just that it seems like what they’re doing.

Same voices mounting the same arguments for today’s Knicks bullshit.

People are making way too much of this Derrick Rose move and what it means for the decision making short and long term. I guess it’s a kind of mental illness that comes with being a Knicks fan for a long time and expecting the worst and/or having the tanking mental illness and thinking you should almost always try to maximum some distant theoretical future instead of actually trying to get better once you have a few good young pieces

Your daily gaslighting from the board’s smartest, most sage-like poster. Copypasta until everyone gets diabetes of the brain.

This trade won’t be anything but a footnote.

Re Rose – hard to know what to make of 340 minutes played this year. It is worth noting that he really had a tremendous year last year, literally every bit as good statistically as peak Derrick Rose.

2011 Rose (MVP year) – per 36 – 24.1 points, 7.4 assists, 3.9 rebounds, 33.2 3P%, 85.8% FT, 38.7 Ast%, 13.1 TO%, 55 TS, 32.2 Usage

2020 Rose – per 36 – 25.1 points, 7.7 assists, 3.4 rebounds, 30.6% 3P%, 87.1% FT, 40.5 Ast%, 13.4 TO%, 55.5 TS, 31.6 usage

Those are basically the same numbers with the caveat that the majority of his minutes last year came playing as a backup.

Do I have to explain the problem with your line of reasoning, here?

The Athletic did a roundtable with Seth Partnow (analytics guy), Danny Leroux (cap guy), and Sam Vecenie (draft guy) about the trade, and they are mostly positive about it for the Knicks, while also thinking the Pistons should have gotten more for Rose. Two notable passages:

Is this enough of a haul for Rose?

Leroux: No, it is not. If the Pistons were able to both pick up a decent second and create a usable trade exception, I would be much more on board. By taking on Smith, the Pistons only get one of the two, and not for a particularly good reason. The other missed opportunity here from Weaver’s perspective is not negotiating for the better of the Hornets’ and Pistons’ 2021 seconds since the Knicks have the rights to both. Our best guess is that the picks will be fairly close in the end, but that was low-hanging fruit, especially with them taking on Smith too.

and

What does this deal say about the Leon Rose regime in New York?

Partnow: This is the second in-season Knicks move that is defensible in its own right but raises questions about process and influence on decisions. Taj Gibson was plausibly the best available fill-in big when he was signed a month ago. He was also a firm favorite of Thibs in two different stops. If Rose can duplicate anything like what he has done in the two previous seasons, this wasn’t a big price to pay, but he’s also a former favorite of Thibs in two different stops. If one were going to be an optimist, one would note Gibson has barely played since being signed, so to the extent Obi Toppin isn’t getting minutes, it’s not that he’s lost out to Gibson. The Knicks can only hope the same applies to Quickley.

If you’re the kind of fan who is tickled by a possible playoff appearance, you must be thrilled that Thibs and Leon are making that happen a) without a single signing with a team commitment beyond one year and b) playing RJ, Mitch, IQ and Obi rotation minutes. Rose doesn’t change any of that.

If you hate the fact that Thibs is coaching to win on its face, you probably should have been out on this regime the minute that Thibs was hired. Rose doesn’t change any of that either.

I’m more or less agnostic about trying to make the playoffs. If it were up to me asset maximization would be the name of the game, but like you said nothing wildly irresponsible has been done in pursuit of the playoffs so I don’t feel terribly strongly. Maybe there is some benefit that would come with it that outweighs the benefits of giving out more roster spots to flyers, playing Toppin/Quickley more, etc. I won’t claim I know definitively.

The problem is I disagree with you that Rose doesn’t change anything. The nature of his game means that if we do make it, it will necessarily have less to do with Quickley and Barrett than it otherwise would. He is a 32 year old inefficient chucker who, again, is now the highest usage player on the team. I think anyone who doesn’t think he’s going to make his mark on this team is deluding themselves. That’s simply the way he plays, and that’s the way our coach has always played him.

Tidbit from Macri’s newsletter that is not at all surprising but will ruffle some feathers:

Lastly, I’m told the Pistons could have had Frank Ntilikina instead of Dennis Smith Jr if they wanted him. They didn’t.

I’m more or less agnostic about trying to make the playoff

Exactly. We don’t give a shit about the results Rose and Thibs are expected to provide, but I’m guessing they do.

I’m not a fan of the move, but I can’t understand why people are literally beside themselves about it. This is 100% the move we all should have seen coming since preseason when we had zero functioning point guards.

I guess if we had the pistons record at this point, we probably wouldn’t have made this move. But you knew Thibs wasn’t going to tank.

Exercise in futility? Maybe. I’ll wait til they don’t make the playoffs to get pissed, though.

And if he has, that would cost the team wins, which isn’t what Thibs wants to happen. So it will either be that Thibs is going to use him in a way that translates into wins, or that it will be obvious that Rose has lost it and he will not play much, and will certainly not be re-signed.

Or Thibs fails to identify Rose as the agent of losing basketball and continues to play him in big minutes, or denies — like a certain brilliant poster on this board — that his poor play is attributable to his role or confidence or teammates and continues to invest playing time in him to effect the actual Derrick Rose he believes is lurking deep down.

And then, of course, he may be re-signed.

Thibs has a cult-like loyalty to the guy that transcends all objectivity, rendering the odds that he’d ever identify him as a problem effectively zero.

Thibs is a cultist. A lot of people rightly can’t stand him, and he’s alienated wide factions of the association, but he’s managed to keep a core group of loyalists — Rose/Noah/Butler/Deng/Gibson from his very early Bulls days, and the two coaches his hard work has greatly benefited professionally, Jeff Van Gundy and Doc Rivers. Add the CAA loyalty to that group and it’s just enough to keep him working. But he really isn’t a mainstream guy at this point and to anyone looking at this even semi-objectively, that’s a massive worry. It’s a massive worry when loyalty, rather than production and ability, is the measuring stick. It’s affecting his decision-making, and the team’s decision-making.

To me, it’s simple. Statistically and also the eye-test confirms, without a doubt, that Derrick Rose is better than Elfrid Payton in every way except defense. The Knicks improved. How much? Little. Rose might mean a net positive of 2 or 3 games. I don’t think it goes the other way.

The big issue is fan attitude … a loser’s attitude. The virus which infects Knicks, Jets and Mets fans is insidious. It symptom features a need to tank, clinging onto mediocrity, ageism and the irrational belief that 2nd round picks should be taken rather than traded.

This team has a core of kids we like: Randle, RJ, Mitch and IQ. We don’t really know about Obi yet. But that doesn’t mean any of them are untouchable or irreplaceable. But we are no longer the “worst team in the NBA”. It’s time to shed the loser mentality. The Knicks have had the most difficult schedule in the NBA. They’re in the playoffs as of now. The schedule turns in favor of the Knicks. The question should now be “how high a seed can the Knicks be?”.

The BEST thing for the Knicks is to get the kids playoff experience. How about 2 rounds worth? I want to play the Nets and shut them down. Ponder this: What would you trade for Jimmy Butler? That’s how we should be thinking.

Note: I hated the way this team was constructed, how Rose ignored the PG position, but the emergence of Quickley filled the gaping hole we all thought the Knicks had. The Knick point guard situation has gone from worst-in-league to okay.

So it will either be that Thibs is going to use him in a way that translates into wins, or that it will be obvious that Rose has lost it and he will not play much, and will certainly not be re-signed.

I don’t think the coach that let Jamal Crawford and Andrew Wiggins have higher usage rates than Karl-Anthony Towns has a perfect sense of what rotations are optimal.

There are two schools of though on this on the extremes: 1) players develop best when getting maximum minutes regardless of their impact on wins and losses, and 2) players develop best when they have to outplay veterans to get minutes, or at least don’t get in the way of wins. There is merit to both approaches, and Thibs seems to be in between the extremes but clearly favors option 2.

In the context of Barrett and Quickley specifically it sure seems clear to me that playing has helped them, as evidenced by the fact they they’re both playing well!

The fact that it’s Rose, as opposed to another high-usage inefficient no-D PG, only makes it worse for you.

Here’s what I don’t understand. Let’s say you want to pursue the playoffs at the expense of some minor assets. I’ll put aside the wisdom of that because we’ve had some version of that discussion a million times. Who the hell was saying “what this team needs is a high-usage inefficient no-D PG?”

The fact that Rose is a lame defender just shows how critical loyalty and known quantity-ism is for Thibs. Yuck.

‘It’s time to shed the loser mentality.’

Let’s trade for Derrick Rose.

‘ What would you trade for Jimmy Butler? ‘

Nah, forget Butler, let’s get Derrick — that’ll get us over the hump.

‘…the emergence of Quickley filled the gaping hole we all thought the Knicks had. ‘

So let’s fill the filled hole with the corpse of DRose.

E, all merc’d out:
So the Knicks are going to beat the Nets in round 1 of the playoffs now?Seriously?

Not as currently constructed.

Tell you what, why don’t we wait like 5 games to see what it looks like?

Why would the next five games be more descriptive than the 141 he’s played since he left the Knicks four seasons ago?

It symptom features a need to tank, clinging onto mediocrity, ageism and the irrational belief that 2nd round picks should be taken rather than traded.

I really wish one of these anti-tank zealots would acknowledge that the point of tanking is to break the cycle of mediocrity and create a team that consistently competes deep into the playoffs. Just once.

Outkast concisely express my thoughts on Leon & Derrick Rose in this moment.

thenoblefacehumper: You sure are inferring a lot from people saying “I really don’t want 32 year old Derrick Rose to be on my favorite basketball team.”

No. This is a general malady. Knick fans don’t want Harden. They don’t want Wall. They don’t want Westbrook. Plug in any of a dozen names that have been rejected in the name of Frank Ntilikina and Kevin Knox.

Mike Honcho: Aren’t you the dude who claimed that we could trade a pupu platter of Knox, Frank, DSJr, some other scrub and a second round pick for Bradley Beal because it worked in the trade machine?

One in the same. But that was not the full offer. It included picks and other players. I’m the guy that advocated trading for Beal – period.

GoNYGoNYGo – Tired of Tanking: One in the same. But that was not the full offer. It included picks and other players.I’m the guy that advocated trading for Beal – period.

Nope. Your first draft of the trade was four scrubs and a second rounder. I remember that quite clearly because it was the stupidest, most out of touch trade proposal I’d ever seen and I thought for sure you had to be trolling.

Also, how is not wanting Westbrook a knock on Knicks fan? Are you paying any attention at all to what actually happens on the courts or would you rather just rail against “Knicks fans” addicted to losing?

1) Derrick Rose fucking sucks to watch play basketball

this…i mean the whole last “i don’t know how long” has been a dumpster fire of basketball at msg – but, derrick rose, despite his assist rate seemed to be more interested about getting his first all the time…not only is he slow on defense, but, never really seemed like he wanted to get very physical either…

to top all that off – he would frequently get all pissy at his teammates out on the court when he fucked up…

“The fact that RJ and IQ are good enough to warrant double-teams from the Miami Heat is a big positive, not a negative.”

That’s true, but the flip side of that argument is that the Heat knew that nobody else on the team could hurt them when they rotate to a double team. And/or that the Knicks are so bad at passing that they wouldn’t be able to get the ball around to the open guy in time.

I’ll just add, to stay topical, that I’m sure Rose will solve that particular problem.

If you go here and then down to the section on the Phoenix Suns (7), the embedded video shows the Celts doing just what the Heat did yesterday on defense, and how the Suns counteracted it. I suspect we’ll be seeing that a lot, likely tomorrow and possibly going forward.
https://www.theringer.com/nba/2021/2/8/22271901/power-rankings-lakers-clippers-sixers-jazz

i’ve really appreciated the collective effort to free us from the shackles of our self styled groundhog day romcom ironiloop. tacitly agreeing to ignore the mysterious great departure of jan 9 2017 and persecute any who dare commemorate it as mentally ill sufferers of a cultish pessimism virus may seem a bit on the nose
to outsiders, but we know it needed to be done. the only question that remains is: was the leftovers a mockumentary?

never ever forget that this exchange from the rose awol game:

https://streamable.com/w7q5r

Aren’t you the dude who

I feel like it’s a civic responsibility to provide at the aloe vera at no cost when you start a sentence like this

Knick fans don’t want Harden. They don’t want Wall. They don’t want Westbrook. Plug in any of a dozen names that have been rejected in the name of Frank Ntilikina and Kevin Knox

You’re a long-timer, man. You were almost certainly where when I and others like me were arguing in 2012 that James Harden was a future superstar. We also argued that MVP-era Westbrook was an absurdly talented and productive, if overrated, do-it-all PG in the era of Hardenball. And John Wall is getting paid like $40M a year to be a replacement-level player next to a legit budding superstar in Christian Wood.

And I, along with those posters who agreed with me on the other three players, fucking hated the Knox pick and quickly soured on the Ntilikina picks because they both absolutely suck at basketball and we could have gotten real talent at those draft slots.

So it doesn’t have to be an either-or here, either. You can hard pass on the corpse of John Wall (he sucks this year, just not quite bad enough to write off entirely, except again, he has a supermax) AND hard pass on Frank Ntilikina’s career arc and the prospect of paying him $25M over three years to see if he ever learns how to dribble into the paint, what with being an NBA guard and everything.

I’d like an app of some sort that sends me a push notification before games if drose is injured or otherwise away from the team. Just to save me the trouble of looking up injury reports.

The Honorable Cock Jowles: Those are basically the same numbers with the caveat that the majority of his minutes last year came playing as a backup.
Do I have to explain the problem with your line of reasoning, here?

Actually maybe you do need to explain it to me. If you had a bench player who put up MVP numbers (in bench minutes), this would be a bad thing?

I have no idea what is actually going to happen, but the best thing is that we will know soon enough, prob within the next couple weeks.

If it were up to me asset maximization would be the name of the game, but like you said nothing wildly irresponsible has been done in pursuit of the playoffs so I don’t feel terribly strongly.

Agree – but just like the Nets being a mediocre team last year turned Caris Levert (who is not great) into enough of an asset that he was the main player traded in the Harden trade, players look better if they are on teams that are not terrible. In terms of tanking enough that we have a plausible chance at a top 4 pick, that ship has sailed. We are 1/3 of the way through the season, currently in the 8th seed, and 1.5 games out of the 5th seed. There is no way we are going to tank this season. Given that fact, is it better for the franchise to benignly neglect the outcome of this season or is it better to make moves that might improve the outcome?

Even though this team isn’t great, but is good enough that our lottery pick is unlikely to be a very good one, I’d wager that our overall asset chest is probably more valuable now — because Quickley, RJ, Mitch, Randle, and to a much lesser extent Burks/Bullock have all played well. The only way we would have a very valuable pick is if all those players were bad.

I don’t know – it’s hard to be upset with this year. It’s fun to watch an ok team again.

Is Derrick Rose’s neck tattoo of the Illuminati pyramid with “God Speed” written over it a new thing or was that there in his last stint? I kind of resent the intrusion on my branding here.

I guess the takeaway here is despite drose being personally abhorrent, the Knicks have kept it professional and finally done something to rectify the team’s lack of shooting. Now we’ll have the spacing we need to compete.

The Honorable Cock Jowles:
shit, I meant his OutKast link

I guess the stank is onia then haha?

Knick fans don’t want Harden.

I want Harden

They don’t want Wall.

Wall makes a supermax and is coming off a huge injury, is on the wrong side of 30 and has always been overrated

They don’t want Westbrook.

Westbrook is 32, is playing like a sub-replacement level player this year, and makes a supermax

You do realize that just because certain players were once good that they’re not going to be good forever, right? Like it’s really not that hard to see why you wouldn’t want to waste a max salary slot on players who rely a lot on their athleticism and who are in their decline phase, correct? Surely you must realize this.

I’m definitely less viscerally angry at the move than I was yesterday, but I’m still disappointed and annoyed we are acquiring Mr. “Unable to Define Consent” again purely because Thibs has a cultish loyalty to him. Does Thibs feel guilty about Rose’s career-derailing injury in garbage time? Or does Rose have kompromat on Thibs from their Chicago days? Hopefully the next great Knickerblogger slash fiction from Donnie Walsh will address these enigmas.

Mike Honcho:
I’m definitely less viscerally angry at the move than I was yesterday, but I’m still disappointed and annoyed we are acquiring Mr. “Unable to Define Consent” again purely because Thibs has a cultish loyalty to him. Does Thibs feel guilty about Rose’s career-derailing injury in garbage time? Or does Rose have kompromat on Thibs from their Chicago days? Hopefully the next great Knickerblogger slash fiction from Donnie Walsh will address these enigmas.

I think he just wants veteran attacking PGs to run his offense at all times, and Rose may be the best they can get at this time. Payton’s inconsistent (at best) at that, and like all of us older gents there’s probably some nostalgia involved for Thibs. He can now get 48 minutes of that per game, if he likes.

And, yeah, he just probably doesn’t trust giving lots of minutes to rookies unless they were like an early lottery pick. But, it also might just be Rivers who loses minutes here.

Great point Honcho. Having Rose in unnecessarily in that playoff game has to be Thib’s biggest mistake.

Frank:
to be clear – watching an ok team make a push for a likely 1st round exit is not the goal. but we still have lots and lots of ways to improve even after this.3 premium draft picks this coming draft, gobs and gobs of cap space, and young players that could be assets in bigger trades.

A key point (over and over again) is that all that cap space and those assets are utterly useless unless the team is a playoff contender and seen as a good destination among premier free agents and unhappy players looking to be traded. Otherwise we’ll keep signing (and sometimes overpaying) mercs because no one wants to play on a trash team.

We have a ton of upside among the young players we have right now to go along with Randle and plenty of draft firepower to add to them if we don’t use some of those assets in a trade for a star player later.

The only time you are really in trouble is if you are capped out, don’t have picks, and have a few overpaid or unattractive players that no one wants. That was the position we were in a few years back. It was ghoulish, but it’s been over for a few years.

Now we are flexible, have picks, some youth, and fair contracts. There are loads of ways for a smart management to improve over time. It takes time to rebuild. Mills/Perry made a few mistakes that set us back again, but we are fine. We just have to get past the tanking phase to be attractive.

The reaction to the Rose trade is comical. No problemo!

There’s several ways to view the Rose trade:

(1) What does it do for us this year?
(2) How does this improve our longterm prospects?
(3) Is this good asset management?
(4) Does trading for Rose make sense from a macro-strategic standpoint?

For (1), this trade makes a lot of sense. DSJR sucks and a 2nd rd pick is useless to us within this season and likely doesn’t return much more value than Rose. From a fully rational standpoint, Rose will either be better than our other options or he won’t play. Of course, Thibs isn’t a fully rational actor and will likely play Rose regardless of whether he’s an improvement or not.

Continuing to build on (1), we can value the tradeoff between Payton’s D & Rose’s O. Rose is a better fit attacking the basket and making fewer passes, however, as people have pointed out Rose will probably also eat attempts of more efficient scorers and not just Payton. This year, Rose’s O hasn’t been enough to offset his D, which is a straight loss.

For (2) the answer is obviously “no” since Rose is a FA this summer and we’d have the 2nd round pick moving forward or it could be rolled into another asset or a different future 2nd.

Of course, the value of (1) & (3) depends on its value in light of (4). In other words, does making a marginal improvement this year make sense from a macro-strategic standpoint?

The answer is no. When there’s a plethora of franchise talents at the top of the draft, the Knicks should do everything they can to maximize their lotto odds. If RJ or IQ carry us above that point, we can live with it. If Randle carries us, then we can live with it on the premise we can and should trade him for more valuable assets than marginally better lotto odds this year, ie, more 1st rd picks.

There’s some sense to playing well this year in an attempt to woo FAs, but who is worth wooing this year? Spencer Dinwiddie? Evan Fournier? John Collins only makes sense if we move Randle and don’t believe in Obi…

In his MVP season, Rose added 32.3 pts by TS Add. Last year he subtracted 15.5 pts.

In his MVP season, Rose’s TS% was higher than league average. Last year, Rose TS% was lower than league average.

We also shouldn’t discount an aging, athleticism-dependent player’s early struggles at the basket where he’s taken 53 shots already. For point blank range, that number should stabilize quickly.

Finally, don’t forget the Knicks have the worst spacing in the league. Rose’s rim attempts & percentage will likely fall, regardless of natural decline in ability.

Early Bird:
In his MVP season, Rose added 32.3 pts by TS Add. Last year he subtracted 15.5 pts.

In his MVP season, Rose’s TS% was higher than league average. Last year, Rose TS% was lower than league average.

We also shouldn’t discount an aging, athleticism-dependent player’s early struggles at the basket where he’s taken 53 shots already. For point blank range, that number should converge quickly.

Finally, don’t forget the Knicks have the worst spacing in the league. Rose’s rim attempts & percentage will likely fall, regardless of natural decline in ability.

I’ve said getting him might be stealth tanking. Actually, I used the wrong term. I should have said unintentional tanking. Whatever the case, yeah, I think Rose might actually be good for those wanting to tank. We’ll see.

I’ve really appreciated the collective effort to free us from the shackles of our self styled groundhog day romcom ironiloop.

Here’s a new topic, that’s the same topic for you ptmilo:

Russian Doll is also a rom-com. And under the 2-sides theory to rom-coms, for those who subscribe to it, Russian Doll is more of a rom-com than Groundhog Day.

It’s a romantic dark-comedy, but fits the bill by several proffered definitions.

Apropos of nothing, no one warned me how good the Sopranos soundtrack is, or how inventive and clever the show was in terms of editing/presentation and whatnot. This show is better and more experimental in those areas than a lot of “modern” shows I’ve seen.

So we went from a used car salesman to a used car driver

Alan:

It’s kind of funny to see so many national NBA analysts — especially one like Hollinger, who never passes on a chance to take a swipe at the Knicks — less up in arms about the move than we are. I still hate it.

But they all agreed (Hollinger, Vorkunov, Pelton, the trio at The Athletic…) that if this end up stealing minutes for IQ and Barrett then it’ll be a very bad move.

I strongly dislike Derrick Rose, but from a basketball perspective the only thing that really worries me is the impact on the young players’ playing time (IQ and Barrett, not Knox and Frank, just to be clear).

Clyde’s reaction to the news was so candid 🙂

KBloggers’ judgement on all the other aspects of the trade are based as usual on the same old spectrum of opinions (propensity/hate for tanking, belief/denial that playoff experience is useful, optimism/pessimism on the FO, Knicks’ Fan PTSD, Rose’s past as a Knick and a citizen, his style of play, Old Guard vs Analytics) and are impossible to reconcile.

Clyde’s reaction to the news was so candid 🙂

if you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all

definitely took clyde a moment to find some words…

geo:
so, is it pretty much the consensus here the derrick rose won’t be starting for the team a month from now?

No, for me is 50%-50% 🙂

yeah, that’s kind of what i was thinking too 🙁

i’m not sooooo thrilled with elf’s play as our starting point guard…at least he knows how to let julius control the offense (not saying that’s an ideal situation either)…rose is gonna rose (hero ball here we come) – and not play any defense…

vincoug: This is mediocrity! We’re 3 games under .500 and the only reason we’re in the playoff race is because the east is, as usual, terrible and the bottom 3 playoff teams are all under .500.

You need to first achieve mediocrity when you were abysmal before you become outstanding.

This is mediocrity! We’re 3 games under .500 and the only reason we’re in the playoff race is because the east is, as usual, terrible and the bottom 3 playoff teams are all under .500.

We have the lowest payroll in the NBA. We have the 6th best defense. The 4th youngest team. We have 2 first round picks coming up, at least one of which will most likely be in the top 8. With a little bit of lotto luck, we could have a top 5 pick while still making the playoffs (and another one in the 15 to 20 range). We have no real bad contracts weighing us down for the future either.

Oh, and we’ve achieved this “mediocrity” while going through a big chunk of games where we were missing like 4 rotation players due to injury. We’ve also had a lot of road games and one of the toughest schedules so far.

To dismiss all of that as mediocrity just because the team isn’t tanking seems overly pessimistic in my view. I’ll say it again. Most people thought we would miss the playoffs and Dallas would make it. In that scenario, we’d still end up with a lotto pick and non lotto pick. So to now be upset we aren’t potentially going to have 2 lotto picks…seems a little greedy to me.

I get it. Unless we’re a 50 win team with our starting 5 all under the age of 24 and sign everyone one of our core pieces to below market value so we have a 10 year plus window of being championship contenders we aren’t rebuilding the correct way to some people. Me, I’ll settle for this type of mediocrity for now. Its not like some of our best players aren’t still going to get better. Its not like we aren’t adding any more young talent to our team over the next few years.

I’m glad to have stirred things up a bit 🙂

Mike Honcho:
Also, how is not wanting Westbrook a knock on Knicks fan? Are you paying any attention at all to what actually happens on the courts or would you rather just rail against “Knicks fans” addicted to losing?

Westbrook is far from awful. The Wizards as a team are awful. Westbrook has only played in 14 games due to rest days, COVID cancellations and a groin injury. He has 5 triple-doubles in those 14 games. He and Beal are not their Wizards problem.

Deeefense: A key point (over and over again) is that all that cap space and those assets are utterly useless unless the team is a playoff contender and seen as a good destination among premier free agents and unhappy players looking to be traded. Otherwise we’ll keep signing (and sometimes overpaying) mercs because no one wants to play on a trash team.

Deeefense, I’m gonna back you on this. A good foundation is like nectar to the bumble bee. The most difficult thing for an NBA team to do is shed the scarlet letter of being awful. It’s why achieving mediocrity, is so important when you’ve been abysmal.

GoNYGoNYGo – Tired of Tanking:
I’m glad to have stirred things up a bit 🙂

Westbrook is far from awful.The Wizards as a team are awful.Westbrook has only played in 14 games due to rest days, COVID cancellationsand a groin injury. He has 5 triple-doubles in those 14 games. He and Beal are not their Wizards problem.

If you genuinely think Westbrook is still a good player worth spending assets to acquire at his current age and contract because he’s strung together some triple doubles, I have a nice bridge you might be interested in. Note that Westbrook was considered a negative asset in the trade market by pretty much everyone, and Washington took him on as a cost of dumping Wall.

Westbrook is far from awful

lol dude it is not 2016 anymore

I stand by it. Westbrook is FAR from awful. And I know it’s not 2016. And his contract sucks. He’s not awful.

GoNYGoNYGo – Tired of Tanking:
I stand by it. Westbrook is FAR from awful.And I know it’s not 2016. And his contract sucks. He’s not awful.

Unfortunately, acquiring him means acquiring his contract. You can’t get the one without the other.

Whoa, holy shit. My wife and I just started watching The Sopranos too, neither of us had seen it beyond a few episodes.

And it REALLY still holds up. Also, I didn’t realize how funny it is. James Gandolfini is so good you forget that he’s dead (RIP).

We just finished the pine meadows episode too. Pauly is driving me crazy this season.

GoNYGoNYGo – Tired of Tanking: I stand by it. Westbrook is FAR from awful. And I know it’s not 2016. And his contract sucks. He’s not awful.

.491 TS% for a TS%+ of 86

That’s objectively awful.

Westbrook is far from awful. The Wizards as a team are awful. Westbrook has only played in 14 games due to rest days, COVID cancellations and a groin injury. He has 5 triple-doubles in those 14 games. He and Beal are not their Wizards problem.

Funny thing about Westbrook’s season: he’s exactly the kind of player all-in-one box score metrics probably overrate, and yet here he is with a negative WS48 and BPM. This is one of the funnier hills any poster has died on in a long time. I mean even the most analytically backward voices in the mainstream media have come around to the opinion that Westbrook is cooked.

We have 2 first round picks coming up, at least one of which will most likely be in the top 8. With a little bit of lotto luck, we could have a top 5 pick while still making the playoffs (and another one in the 15 to 20 range).

I’m enjoying the Mavs’ struggles but I highly doubt they’ll give us a top 8 pick. Them doing so is certainly not “likely.”

I get it. Unless we’re a 50 win team with our starting 5 all under the age of 24 and sign everyone one of our core pieces to below market value so we have a 10 year plus window of being championship contenders we aren’t rebuilding the correct way to some people.

The dialogue on here is so weird right now:

“Trading a minor asset for a 32 year old credibly accused rapist who is having a shitty season and will likely take touches from young players was a bad idea.”

“SO YOU WANT TO TANK FOR 15 YEARS HUH?!?!?!?!?!”

honestly, even if Derrick Rose plays a ton of minutes and takes a ton of shots, it still has no long-term consequence – it’s not like RJ’s usage going from 24 to 22 in the 5 minutes he and Rose play together will change RJ as a player.

So now we’re rationalizing Barrett and/or Quickley losing touches to Derrick god damn Rose. I have said from the start that this is not some franchise ruining trade and no one is saying it is, but will you really not be annoyed as hell when that happens? I mean what is the case for it being an affirmatively good thing, which is what you’re supposed to get when you trade assets?

The reason I’ve enjoyed this season is because the wins have largely been fueled by Barrett and Quickley. Now they’ll often be fueled by a 32 year old who sucks to root for and sucks to watch. I know it’s fun to be an edgy contrarian but the case for this trade is laughably weak.

The fact that this comes on the heels of Thibs yanking RJ makes this even more troubling.

Our starting lineup will soon be Rose, Burks, Bullock, Randle, Mitch.

Our starting lineup will soon be Rose, Burks, Bullock, Randle, Mitch.

Just give Taj time to work himself up into starter’s minutes, Hubert…

Mike Honcho: This season has been night and day to the Phil Jackson and Mills era, which has been nice.

It’s still night. It’s just not as pitch black. Or maybe your eyes are just getting used to the darkness.

I’m telling y’all… the writing is on the wall with Leon Rose. It was there on draft night. It’s going to take some of you a bit longer to see it bc you want to give him a fair shot. He’s not as bad as Phil Jackson or Steve Mills. But he’s fucking bad.

We had four picks in the 2021 draft. Now if you set the over/under on how many players from that draft make our roster at 0.5, I might go under.

These guys want mediocre vets, and they’re willing to give up assets to get them. In a league with so many sharks as GM’s, they will find the blood in the water and steal those picks from Rose.

I’m making plans to embark on a total re-watch of The Sopranos, my wife has never watched the whole serie, with Alan’s book as my Virgil.

Still one of my favourite shows ever.

Hubert: It’s still night. It’s just not as pitch black. Or maybe your eyes are just getting used to the darkness.

I’m telling y’all… the writing is on the wall with Leon Rose. It was there on draft night. It’s going to take some of you a bit longer to see it bc you want to give him a fair shot. He’s not as bad as Phil Jackson or Steve Mills. But he’s fucking bad.

We had four picks in the 2021 draft. Now if you set the over/under on how many players from that draft make our roster at 0.5, I might go under.

These guys want mediocre vets, and they’re willing to give up assets to get them. In a league with so many sharks as GM’s, they will find the blood in the water and steal those picks from Rose.

I suppose I should have specified to a glooomy, half-lit kind of day haha, but I do think we’ll keep the lottery picks. If Rose is dumb enough to dumb both of our first rounders next year I might join you in Knicks nihilism. (Knicksilism?)

But being a Pessimist Knicks fan tends to a masochistic perversion if you’re unable to even enjoy team’s ultrarare “unexpected” success so far.

finally a greek chorus that gets me. this is not about derrick rose and his lack of marginal utility to this team or the low but still very much nonzero value of a pretty good 2nd rounder. it is about unwavering fidelity to an unabashedly morose ritual of pain and despondency, for their own sake. damnit shirley.

They do say,” Mr. Adams said to Old Man Warner, who stood next to him, “that over in the north village they’re talking of giving up the lottery.”

“Nothing but trouble in that,” Old Man Warner said stoutly. “Pack of young fools.”

I think there is little chance that Rose starts, but I think it’ll take a couple of games to see precisely what role he will play. I think the most likely scenario by far is that Thibs views Rose and Payton as like Mitch/Noel, where the replacement replicates the skill set of the starter.

So the question will be who will lose time? Rivers or Quickley? I really don’t know. We shall see soon enough.

DRose “unlocking” Obi’s offensive potential is always a possibility also…

Today’s Knicks commentary for this week’s ESPN power rankings

The Knicks find themselves in a playoff spot a third of the way through the season — a better result than anyone reasonably could’ve expected. Now, we’ll see if the team gets a further spark by the reunion of coach Tom Thibodeau with former league MVP Derrick Rose, whom the Knicks reacquired after Sunday’s loss to Miami. The Knicks are (ironically) tied with Detroit for 24th in the NBA in offensive efficiency, to go along with their sixth-ranked defense. Detroit, however, was 6.5 points per 100 possessions worse offensively with Rose on the court than off it this season.

The last sentence is particularly worrisome and encapsulates everything TNFH is worried about.

Knick fan not in NJ:
Today’s Knicks commentary for this week’s ESPN power rankings

The last sentence is particularly worrisome and encapsulates everything TNFH is worried about.

Lost in all the psychological analysis of members of this board there is this, the fact the fucking worse team in the NBA thinks Dennis Smith Jr and a useless second are better than the guy we got, and that he might just not be a good basketball player at all.

20 Nov 2020
Bob Myers-GSW GM: “I think it’s Klay Thompson and Derrick Rose. Those two guys, I think, are universally beloved.”

I feel like there should be a laugh track accompanying this statement

I feel like there should be a laugh track accompanying this statement

remember when rose had that 50 point game for the wolves – man, it was like the birth of baby jesus and the buddha all rolled up in one moment…

rose is a very sympathetic figure for many…

From Berman ( not Woodward, Bernstein, Jane Mayer, or[for boomers] Sy Hersh) of the Post
“It makes sense in there’s a lot of pressure for the organization — they feel they need to win,’’ one NBA executive familiar with the Knicks’ thinking said. “It’s not OK to just play better than last season and progress. That’s not good enough. There’s internal pressure* that they want to win, it doesn’t matter whose minutes [Rose] takes. They just want to win. He’s still got a tremendous ability to score.”
https://nypost.com/2021/02/08/a-lot-of-pressure-prompted-knicks-trade-for-derrick-rose/
* internal pressure=geetar jimmy d

#BTW let me just get one thing out there: let’s stop psychoanalyzing people you don’t know or diagnosing them with a “mental illness” of any sort. This is 2021, this shit isn’t funny or something you just throw out there specially in these terrible trying times we’ve all been living through.

Discuss opinions, hate all you want the messages, but try not to go as low as this shit please.#

I guess this one goes to me.
Psychoanalyzing people and diagnosing mental illness ? Aren’t you overreacting a bit?
Optimists and Frankophiles as myself are mocked in here and considered lunatics or stupid for ages.

Anyway if i offended or hurt anyone’s feelings I’m sorry
Not intentional

The assumption is that anyone who follows the fortunes of this godforsaken franchise suffers from severe mental illness…Bruno is just saying no need to rub it in.

Knew Your Nicks:
#BTW let me just get one thing out there: let’s stop psychoanalyzing people you don’t know or diagnosing them with a “mental illness” of any sort. This is 2021, this shit isn’t funny or something you just throw out there specially in these terrible trying times we’ve all been living through.

Discuss opinions, hate all you want the messages, but try not to go as low as this shit please.#

I guess this one goes to me.
Psychoanalyzing people and diagnosing mental illness ? Aren’t you overreacting a bit?
Optimists and Frankophiles as myself are mocked in here and considered lunatics or stupidfor ages.

Anyway if i offended or hurt anyone’s feelings I’m sorry
Not intentional

I was quite directly referring to strat and his common practice of using the words “mental illness” all the time.

You’ve been here for a while and I’ve never found you to be straight up disrespectful so really, it isn’t. I’m just saying there’s a fine line between poking fun / discussing in a heated manner, and being absolutely unnecessarily offensive. It’s been a fucking year for everyone (and I’ll admit I’ve felt it incredibly hard because of my own personal stuff), so I’m just not feeling the casual use of shit like this.

I think we have the whole DSM-V covered just in this thread…

As for what Clyde actually said…

At one point in the first quarter, Kenny Albert asked Walt Clyde Frazier what he thought of the rumored trade for Derrick Rose. The following is a paraphrasing of Clyde’s response:

“Uhhh…, I don’t know, Kenny, because Payton is playing well now, you have Quickley and Ntilikina …. I’m somewhat… surprised.”

What was delicious was the really long, drawn out “Uhhh…” and various pauses as he scrambled for non-offensive wording (“surprised”).

I did not expect LaMelo to be this good his first year.

kp dropped one from the logo

These Hornets announcers might be the most annoying in the entire league, and that’s saying something.

DRed:
I did not expect LaMelo to be this good his first year.

I didn’t expect him to be good at all, like a Lonzo version with lower basketball IQ, but I was very, very wrong. The kid is incredibly entertaining to watch and fearless when he has the ball, he does have future star written all over him. Never has that feeling of “does he belong on the court” that we’ve grown so used to seeing with the Knicks picks.

Ntilakilla:
In Charlotte they start their promising young PG in LaMelo Ball.

Here in NY our coach trades for washed up Derrick Rose to take minutes away from IQ.

Good grooming habits or not, DRose should not be taking minutes away from IQ.
🙂

So, Guitar Jimmy wants to make the playoffs this year, eh?

*** (okay smart folks – what’s the 12 and 35 all about?)***

I’m kind of disappointed in you geo…

12 x 35 = ___

wait a minute now donnie – are you saying the song is about getting high…i thought i had it figured out now, that it was about some cancel culture shit with rocks…fuck…

oh yeah, i’m not that smart donnie…i literally gotta google like crazy most of the fun shit milo writes down…

it’s funny, we all got our little crushes – jowles and milo were my first loves here at kb…

A couple of years after “Rainy Day Women,” Dylan also wrote “The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest,” which also namechecks “four and twenty” (which, of course, is just a reference to “four and twenty blackbirds,” but I just thought it was funny in the context of 420 references).

It’s funny, I always bought into the “A mother and daughter stopped by the studio one day to get out of the rain and Dylan just named it after them in a fit of pique” story, with the mother being 35 and the daughter 12, but I now realize that there’s no real proof behind that story, either.

And Bob Dylan “inspired” what is, in my opinion, one of the most beautiful sad songs of all time, Joan Baez’s Diamonds and Rust.
Even when he wasn’t himself making gems, his presence was.

***Don’t let him snow you geo. Rainy Day Women #12 and 35 was written in 1966, 5 years before the alleged birth of 4-20.***

Bob was, routinely, 5 years ahead of his time.

kb theme song for the rose trade…”tangled up in blue”

ptmilo:
Don’t let him snow you geo. Rainy Day Women #12 and 35 was written in 1966, 5 years before the alleged birth of 4-20.

yeah right then why didn’t abe just say 87 years ago like a normal person

drop the mike…its over

I have taken my L on Lamelo. I am proud of how quickly I did. 🙂

One thing that was making me feel good about the FO was that they apparently affirmatively loved Lamelo and obviously they went after Quickley and made a point to take him in the 1st rather than 2nd.

Didn’t want to give them much credit for that after passing on Halliburton but it showed something maybe for a little while there to be optimistic about. A few teams were rumored not to like Lamelo as I recall.

The collage I was trying to piece together of Rose as a possibly forward thinking GM is now definitely torn and frayed.

Also, I liked KG’s remarks about the modern NBA that I saw today. He basically said most of the guys from his era probably wouldn’t make it. Very refreshing from a member of the old guard and such a noted trash talker. Maybe he is angling for Shaq’s job.

I chuckled a bit watching Draymond have his little Bargs moment at the end of the game, what the hell was he thinking?

Bruno Almeida:
I chuckled a bit watching Draymond have his little Bargs moment at the end of the game, what the hell was he thinking?

he thought spurs guy was going to foul him as they had a foul to give so he heaved up the shot but the guy pulled his hands back and never touched him…

Raven:
Jesus Bruno, haven’t thought of Diamonds and Rust in ages. I pissed off untold numbers of toothless bikers playing that on dive jukeboxes. Breathlessly sad.

And the opening lines are perfect for the new DRose era:

Well, I’ll be damned
Here comes your ghost again
(But that’s not unusual)

Just fitting. It’s hauntingly sad for me, a true bitter song in so many ways, but so beautiful at the same time.

I chuckled a bit watching Draymond have his little Bargs moment at the end of the game, what the hell was he thinking?

Gotta give Kerr props for trying to take the blame. “It’s my fault. The Spurs don’t foul up three (and Green likely thought they were going to, which is why he tried to throw up the shot quickly, thinking they’d foul and maybe he’d get three free throws). I have to make that clearer to the players.” Nice try but, come on, dude.

Guilty, at least in part, about Lamelo,
his court vision and rebounding were never in doubt and I’ve always thought he’s better than his brother,
but I’m really surprised that his commitment and shooting are this good so soon,
I thought it would take a year or two to get there.

I had a crush on Jason Williams so I’m fond with this type of passers…

The difference between all these national writers defending the trade and us is that they assume Rose will help the offense. None of them are doing anything to support their assumption, though.

Bruno Almeida: It’s insane to see how impactful he still even though he’s less than a 0 in terms of scoring.

So there’s a path for Frank to be an NBA player? LOL
If the over/under for number of years Frank stays in the league was set at 6.5, who would take the under? I’m leaning towards the under, nowadays.

I’m not a fan of acquiring Rose, but it’s not a crazy move. Making the playoffs is a reasonable goal for an NBA team and giving up a 2nd round pick is a small price for him. Agree with it or not, the rationale for the move is easy enough to follow. The Knicks need offense more than defense, and Rose should provide some offensive punch. The Knicks may even be buying low. Even everyone here agrees Elfrid Payton needs fewer minutes and we never agree on anything.

HOWEVER,
KB differs from the national guys is the value of making the playoffs (I mean it would be fun even if it ill-advised) and the value of a marginally higher draft pick/lotto odds. We’ve discussed this ad nauseam, so I’ll leave it there.

The other issue is everyone in NYC who doesn’t have the initials TT and a last name that almost rhymes with pizza dough hates Rose. He was one of our worst signings of the last decade. And that says something.

Finally, assembling the good (but never great) Bulls team from a decade ago for the 4th time makes me roll my eyes. That’s 3x under Thibs & 1x under Guru Peyote Triangle. How’d that goink? Well we’re still paying Noah from the last time we tried it.

More finally (call it a GHD timeloop), Rose is the type of empty calorie scorer Knicks management has loved for the past 2 decades.

I’ll leave the moral objection for it’s own post because it deserves it and we’ll no doubt cover that topic again.

Objections to the site on this trade aren’t really saying “we gave up too much”.

No, there have definitely been people who feel like giving up anything for Rose was too much — that the only circumstances under which he should be a Knick again is if we were paid to take him. Which I kind of agree with, even though it was never going to happen, since some contender would’ve given the Pistons a 2nd for him. I don’t want him here for a variety of reasons. I’m bringing up guys like Lowe and Partnow not to defend the trade, but just to note that it’s interesting that a number of smart, analytically-minded basketball minds are largely okay with the deal. But they also don’t have to root for the team that Rose now plays for.

National writers don’t have to watch the team every game and root for the team. (I mean honestly none of us really has to at this point either- all debts paid).

It’s a mixture of moral, aesthetic and statistical disgust.

Also, people can rationalize almost anything. Yeah, they are doing it in good faith but they are wrong.

fortuitous bounce:
Fuckin’ Priest does a great Diamonds and Rust from UNLEASHED IN THE EAST.

one of the great live metal albums…green manalishi is my favorite on that one..

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

You are right about the absence of KAT helping KP look good. KP is not as bouncy as he was with the Knicks. In watching that great shootout vs. the Warriors, KP could not keep up defensively, a step behind most of the time. But last night he had 6 blocks. I’m guessing that on some nights those knees aren’t holding up well.

His defense is more of a problem now.

He’s a step slower. So they are targeting him for switches in the P&R. The question is how much of that is the added weight & muscle, how much is the surgeries slowing him down, and how much is just getting back in peak physical shape after the layoff and no camp.

On offense he may actually be better.

His 3p% in January was 28.6% and is now 41.9% in a few games in February. The truth is probably somewhere between the two, but I predicted he’d get off slow start shooting like he did last time off a long layoff (as do many other player coming off injuries). More important, his weakness has been in mid range creating off the dribble. He’s still bad at that, but they are finding him in spots in mid range where he’s more set and doesn’t have to put the ball on the floor to create. So his mid range game is improving. We’ll see if that can be sustained or whether defenses will adjust. The other thing I noticed is that he’s getting double teamed in the post a lot again (like in NY). He’s passing out of it better now than he did then, but he still doesn’t have the post moves and strength to finish. He has to improve on that and get stronger.

The bottom line is that you can live with all the injuries slowing his development, but you can’t live with them taking a toll on his ability to roll to the basket quickly, get up and dunk lobs & OREBs, or defend the paint and stay in front of players well enough to at least not make him a target. We’ll know more in a few weeks.

National writers don’t watch every play of every meaningless game like the game-thread folks at KB do. They look at the value on paper, but largely have no idea what the likely “unintended consequences” may be. Clyde, on the other hand, who DOES watch every play of every meaningless game, was more attuned to the game-thread chorus…

The only question is wither you are a masochist that enjoys losing as much as possible every year for some theoretical draft benefit in the future or whether you are trying to get better now to compete for a playoff spot accelerate the development for the young players that comes from playoff experience and make yourself more attractive to free agents and potential trade targets now.

Hmm, I dunno, I can think of some other questions:

1) Do you enjoy when your favorite team employs credibly accused rapists?

2) Do you enjoy watching Derrick Rose’s aesthetically hideous brand of basketball?

3) Do you think 30 USG% players perhaps take touches away from other players you are both more invested in and prefer to watch?

4) Is a .517 TS% at age 32 good or bad?

5) What picked was used to draft Mitchell Robinson?

Hubert: The difference between all these national writers defending the trade and us is that they assume Rose will help the offense. None of them are doing anything to support their assumption, though.

Exactly, none of them are ‘showing their work’ as far as Derrick Rose aiding the offense. The Knicks have the same shitty floor spacing and overall lack of talent as the Pistons. It’s not like Rose is coming into a better situation or a team that better fits his “skills”. Why are they assuming his play will improve? Thibs magic?

I think the national press kills this trade if it’s made by the Mills regime (if he somehow kept his job). Leon Rose has a lot of shine and I think a bunch of writers are still in suck-up mode.

My worry is exactly the “process and influence on decisions” stuff which to me encompasses “knock off effects on usage and minute allocations.” Those worries are very real and very genuine and if anything avid KP types should have a better handle on those than even the national writers. I personally don’t care that much about the 2 given up and obviously give zero f’s about DSJ.

Top Oaf from the Top Rope.

+10000000000

Most of the writers have said they don’t agree with the approach of pursuing the playoffs this year but putting that aside a 2nd for a potential minor upgrade isn’t an awful price to pay. That’s reasonable, and the first part is aligned with the KB consensus.

A lot of differences when it comes to the second part boil down to whether you’re a fan of the New York Knicks or not. I’ve enjoyed watching Barrett and Quickley produce, now that will happen less. I’ve enjoyed the fact that our unexpected success has largely come at the hands of core pieces, now that’s less true. I’ve enjoyed the fact that we didn’t employ anyone who once said of consent “we men, you can assume,” now we do.

These are all things that affect fans of the Knicks more than people who cover the NBA in general. I’ve said from the start the trade is more irksome than disastrous. It does have worrisome implications for our front office’s perspective on a number of things that could lead to disastrous moves later. NBA writers don’t have to worry about those, but fans do.

My opinion is that an Orlando Magic-esque approach of pushing for that final 36-46-ish final seed in the shitty East is really fucking stupid. There was a time not too long ago in which I thought that was virtually axiomatic around here and I can’t remotely identify when or why it became a topic necessitating relitigation.

People talk incredibly vaguely about benefits such a “run” holds because it’s really difficult to articulate anything tangible.

What has the Magic losing in 5 games in the first round in consecutive years done for them? Did all of their young players come back from those experiences markedly better? Were free agents lining up to play for the Magic because uhhhhhhh respectability? Which free agents are we even trying to impress anyway?

People are understandably excited about seeing a Knicks team that doesn’t totally suck. I am too! The reality of the situation, though, is that there are 19 teams with between 9-12 wins so we really aren’t doing anything that merits a change in long-term planning.

Wasserman did a 2020 NBA redraft exercise, based on how the rookies have played so far. Now we get Quickley at 8 (Hali already off the board), and Saddiq Bey at 25. He has the Celtics taking Obi in the teens.

Haha, remember when the Magic traded Oladipo and Sabonis for one season of needle-mover Serge Ibaka?

Oladipo at 2 is a bust. Aaron Gordon at 4 is a bust. Mario Hezonja at 5 is a bust. They gave up Sabonis for virtually nothing. Isaac at 6 looks like a bust. Bamba at 6 is a bust. They traded LAL’s Horton-Tucker for cash and Paul Reed, which they flipped for a 30-year-old James Ennis. I don’t know who Chuma Okeke is. And then Cole Anthony.

It’s hard to find a franchise run harder into the ground than ORL, and competing every year for a 1st-round blowout is Exhibit A in that case.

gotta switch up that sensory input – trick yourself in to believing what a Good Life it really is…

i like all kinds of music, but, no question house music don’t allow for no time of sorrow or grief…

Life is Thriving

The debate around this trade isn’t whether we should move pieces, even ones of limited value, to get marginally better in the short term (spoiler alert: we shouldn’t), but whether this trade even helps us win (it doesn’t). That is the real crime of this trade, we are bringing in a player that will steal minutes from IQ, touches from RJ, bury Frank and probably Knox even deeper on the bench, make the Knicks both harder to watch and harder to root for, and at the end of the day it probably won’t even help us win games.

Rose dominates the ball too much for a marginally efficient player, he doesn’t help with spacing (our main offensive issue), and he is terrible defensively. Even with rose-colored glasses and choosing to forget; the rape allegations, him abandoning the team, and his ugly play style, it is hard to see the real upside of this trade.

Yeah, if the Knicks traded this pick for a player who obviously made us better I would still disagree with the larger approach but I wouldn’t be terribly upset about it. An example might be someone like Jeff Teague.

Instead we traded for someone who very well may make us worse (or at least not any better), is an enormous eye sore on both ends, and is one of the least rootable players in the league.

It’s kind of amazing that the trade critics are the ones being asked to justify their position. The team didn’t improve, it’ll now be exponentially less fun to watch, and we paid for both of those things.

Oladipo at 2 is a bust. Aaron Gordon at 4 is a bust. Mario Hezonja at 5 is a bust. They gave up Sabonis for virtually nothing. Isaac at 6 looks like a bust. Bamba at 6 is a bust. They traded LAL’s Horton-Tucker for cash and Paul Reed, which they flipped for a 30-year-old James Ennis. I don’t know who Chuma Okeke is. And then Cole Anthony.

It’s hard to find a franchise run harder into the ground than ORL, and competing every year for a 1st-round blowout is Exhibit A in that case.

Funny, when I read this I thought “gee, having a bunch of top 8 lottery picks doesn’t guarantee success either.

Guess its how you look at things, right?

Eh, don’t like the trade for all the same reasons, but I’ll wait to judge until the deadline. Seems possible we’re moving Payton and Rivers, which would make this make more sense.

Yeah, if the Knicks traded this pick for a player who obviously made us better I would still disagree with the larger approach but I wouldn’t be terribly upset about it. An example might be someone like Jeff Teague.

The Jeff Teague who has a 44 TS% this season? The Jeff Teague that has been worse than Rose on BPM each of the last 3 seasons? Am I missing something here? I’m thinking more and more that part of the national vs. knickerblogger split on this is knickerblogger consensus is placing way too much weight on how bad Rose was when he was a Knick and not nearly enough weight on him being a very good to excellent backup PG the last couple years. Even if you place full weight on Rose’s poor play this year relative to his last two years he’s still been pretty obviously better than either Elf or Rivers this season.

It’s going to be really interesting what we think about Randle in 20 games. Two things have absolutely popped. His assist rate and his 3P%. He’s gone from 16% to 28% and from 28% to 40% from three. A lot of other numbers, rebounds, usage, 2pt fg%, look pretty similar.

I am really curious to see what he does for the next third of the season and how it will affect the narrative around him.

If I had to choose the over/under on this three point shooting for the next 20 games set halfway between last year and this year at 34% I’d take the over but it would be pretty close.

“Elf could be traded (the rumors are out there). Rivers could lose all his minutes (rumors out there that he might get traded too), Maybe Quickley moves to the starting line up off ball with Elf (or with Rose) or maybe he’s going to take over the starting job, Elf gets shipped out and Rose is the back up.”

Yes. Outside of the fact that I really hate watching Rose’s game, there is definitely a non-zero chance that this could work out ‘not completely badly.’ But if Quickly wasn’t starting before, I don’t see the reason Thibs would start him now. And right now Elf is still here. (As is Rivers.) So IQ is now the third-string point guard, and depending on how you look at it, the third- or fourth-string shooting guard. It’d be great if this is the first move in a four-dimensional chess game, but until that proves true this gets a resounding F- (optics F, aesthetics F, fills a need F, development F) from me.

I just think its hilarious that Knicks fans…fans of a team that was an 8th seed and beat the #1 seed on its way to the NBA finals, would dismiss being an 8th seed. Crazy shit happens sometimes. If we’re the 8th seed and we get swept, sure it seems pointless. But what if we’re the 8th seed and go on some crazy run, win the series and then somehow end up in the ECF? Crazier shit happens in sports ALL OF THE TIME.

And the 4th seed is currently 12-10. The East is so tight beyond the top 3 with a BUNCH of mediocre teams. People throw out the 8th seed as a way to dismiss a team trying to make the playoffs instead of tanking. But we could easily be the 7th, 6th, 5th or even 4th seed! Are you gonna tell me if we end up being the 5th seed and win the first round series, that it won’t be good for our franchise? When we could end up with a top 10 pick because of Dallas?

We found Mitch and Quickley later in the draft. I don’t have the time to do all the research but the NBA is full of great players picked out of the top 10, top 15 even. To me its the arrogance and self assuredness of everyone who thinks making the playoffs is somehow bad for our team. When was the last time Utah picked in the top 5?

***”Oladipo at 2 is a bust. Aaron Gordon at 4 is a bust. Mario Hezonja at 5 is a bust. They gave up Sabonis for virtually nothing. Isaac at 6 looks like a bust. Bamba at 6 is a bust. They traded LAL’s Horton-Tucker for cash and Paul Reed, which they flipped for a 30-year-old James Ennis. I don’t know who Chuma Okeke is. And then Cole Anthony.”***

Jonathan Isaac is a bust? Mo Bamba is a bust?

If these guys were Knicks we’d be spewing copious amounts of virtual ink extolling their per-minute stats as 22 year olds. If we’d had the #6 pick in those drafts instead of the #8 and #9 respectively, and took those two, we’d be on the fast track to sustained relevance. (The only blight on Isaac is that he didn’t take a knee during the anthem last year, leading antifa to remove it. But he’ll get it back and will go back to being pretty awesome with it).

I mean, is there really anybody on the Knicks current roster that we WOULDN’T trade for Jonathan Isaac? And Bamba could still turn out better than anybody we have, so…

If Phil Jackson acquired you at one time that gives you a lifetime pass because Phil has forgotten more about basketball than anybody in the world has ever known and God don’t make mistakes

swiftandabundant: Funny, when I read this I thought “gee, having a bunch of top 8 lottery picks doesn’t guarantee success either.

Guess its how you look at things, right?

Cleveland picked Kyrie, Waiters, Bennett and Wiggins in successive years (1, 4, 1, 1) and only got bailed out because LeBron had survivor’s guilt. If LeBron doesn’t come back, Kyrie walks in free agency and they’ve lit four consecutive high lottery picks on fire.

No one has ever, EVER made the argument that picking high guarantees success. Picking high guarantees that you get to choose a player before other teams can. That is it. Nothing more, nothing less.

Quickley was widely panned on this blog as a horrible pick.

I think the issues were about nepotism and asset management, no? I don’t feel like going back to the thread to relive the Knicks picking Toppin over Hali.

I always enjoy the “high draft picks don’t guarantee success” squad. Yeah, we all know that but considering this team has prioritized trades and free agency over high draft picks for the past 20 years could we maybe give high draft picks a shot?

They tanked once in the past 20 seasons and they got RJ Barrett for it, and they promptly said, “That’s enough of that!”

Three months ago Randle could be traded for a bag of beans 2 gyros pita and an untradeable albatros contract.
After two months of Not Tanking he has actual value.
The side effects of playing…the right way.
Turning your garbage into Art.

Jane’s the best actor on The Expanse in the early going. In general, if you’re watching Expanse for the characterization or the acting, you’d best move on to something else. Steven Strait, who plays Holden, is pretty terrible. But the sci-fi parts can be really good, and the show picks up a lot once a lot of the stories start intersecting late in season 1.

Derrick Rose will likely come off the bench for the Knicks when he becomes available to play.— Mike Vorkunov (@MikeVorkunov) February 9, 2021

At least for now, Elfrid Payton didn’t hear no bell.

This rotation is gonna be a mess for a while.

geo: ha, it’s early yet (about 3 episodes in) – so, i didn’t want to jump to any quick decisions on steven strait…but, yeah he’s a little sketchy in front of the camera too…

hmmm, i wonder if that’s more on the actor or director…

to me…he was the one real downside …otherwise I really enjoyed all the seasons and seems like the CGI really improved once Amazon got a hold of it…

I think I saw where Strait was like an executive producer or producer…maybe that was one of the perks…slotting yourself in as the lead…he had a reduced role in the last season which was another benefit…

#That’s one random dude just talking about trading for Randle. He’s not even reporting on rumors or anything.#

I’m not talking about him.
I can already sense Randle’s value in my veins.
It’s happening.
His numbers don’t lie and Team’s Wins and Game back it up.