45%, obviously.

I mostly agree on Morrow, Ben. However, he’s what I would define as a role player or specialist. He’s one of the best in the entire league in that role. As Brian said and I have said, though, the Knicks don’t really need 3pt shooting: Gallo, Walker, Douglas, and now Rautins, maybe Fields, and possibly Jaycee Carroll. It’s not ideal to have a team of nothing but wing players who do nothing but shoot and are average defenders and worse (Douglas maybe being the exception on both counts). Because most of the Knicks players are unknown quantities, they need playing time to (hopefully) prove their worth and boost their trade value around the league. (i.e. if you sign Morrow and trade just about any Knick, you’re not likely to get great value for the guy you trade.)

I know that D’Antoni loves jump shooters, but his success in Phoenix was not due to getting a bunch of one dimensional jump shooters. About the only one he had was James Jones. Nash: Amazing playmaker. Bell: out there for defense as much as or more than 3pt shooting. Barbosa: dynamic scorer/playmaker. Marion: decent shot, but better finisher, strong defender, decent rebounder. Diaw: ok jump shot, good defender, good passer… versatile. Amare: solid jumper, but amazing finisher. Joe Johnson: very well rounded game. Q was mostly a jump shooter and good rebounding guard, but they dumped him ASAP.
Morrow, Walker, Gallo… literally all they do is shoot 3s. That’s the only reason those three are in the NBA right now (guaranteed contract for Gallo aside). That’s not what D’Antoni did in Phoenix.
And that was the only place D’Antoni had NBA success, so it’s hard to say “this is what he does.” It’s more like “this is what he did that one time, thanks largely to Bryan Colangelo.” (Heard Colangelo to NJ rumors… if Walsh’s health is in poor shape he should make the short list along with Pritchard… since he and D’Antoni are very much on the same page and he’s more respected than Pritchard I would put Colangelo ahead of Pritchard probably.)

re: usage… Depends. If you continue to take shots you are comfortable with, then your efficiency shouldn’t suffer. If all of Chandler’s increased shots were long jumpers, however, his efficiency would likely fall off a cliff (as happened to Trevor Ariza last season). If Morrow was asked to increase his usage by penetrating and getting to the hoop, given his poor lateral quickness and explosiveness, that would probably hurt him (granted he’s very efficient as stands). If he’s playing with Walker and Gallo, someone has to step outside their comfort zone and do something besides shoot 3s/long 2s.

I agree that a good offense and ball movement create efficiency. However, having below-average defenders means a below average defense. Lee, Gallo, Chandler, Morrow, Douglas… that’s got to be a bottom 5 defense. To have good ball movement, you need good passers. Having a bunch of spot-up shooters who sit there waiting and just swing the call around the perimeter isn’t going to cut it. D’Antoni had very good passers like Diaw and Johnson and Grant Hill off the ball in Phoenix, plus one of the greatest play-makers of all-time.

Walker has kept his TS% around 60%+ and his 3P% between 38.5-43% at 4 different stops over 1700 minutes played the last 2 seasons between the NBA and the D-League. He’s not a sure thing, but it’s also not a 200 minute sample. He’s also costing the Knicks under $1 mill and gone next offseason if he flops… while Morrow would likely cost them $7 mill per for the next 5 years.

Financially I agree that it was the wrong move, though I certainly think he’ll make $15 mill overall if he goes for the most money (PER is flawed, but obviously that’s what Hollinger looks at… RJ is an above average NBA player on both sides of the ball even in SA form). While he probably left $5-10 mill on the table this season, RJ’s already made close to $70 mill and something was wrong in SA. There is so much cap space this offseason that I can understand his decision to some degree, since next offseason he’d almost definitely have to take the MLE at most (he may not even get that this offseason, I have no idea, but I assume he gets at least that much).

The biggest reason I can understand his decision is that as a Knicks fan it puts one more free agent on the market… It the end I don’t think that can be a bad thing for the Knicks. If Hollinger is right that he won’t make $15 mill for the rest of his career, then he’s a steal for the Knicks: had a shooting slump last season, is a good passer, low TO, and a good defender. (I look at Hollinger basing his analysis on PER about the same way I look at Chad Ford’s Landry Fields Top 100 comments…) He takes leverage from Rudy Gay (who he is likely better than, but older than too) and probably also Joe Johnson. If you bump up Jefferson’s ast% to what it was in NJ’s offense, is there really any difference between he and Joe Johnson (other than Jefferson being a better defender)?
http://www.basketball-reference.com/play-index/pcm_finder.cgi?request=1&sum=0&p1=jefferi01&y1=2009&p2=johnsjo02&y2=2010&p3=gayru01&y3=2010
If nothing else, at similar money he’s a better gamble than Josh Howard.

As for Morrow, I think we differ a bit, I guess because I think with him, right now I see him as a good NBA starter and a great bench player with potential to be more. You do not like him as much, but your assessment of him is fair. I agree there is alot of redundancy with our players but thats the kind of players D’Antoni builds his system on. He loves jumpshooters and if we get a dynamic star then surronding him with jumpshooters will give him space to operate. Plus Gallo, hopefully, will become more aggressive and dynamic and grow out of being a one-dimensional jumpshooter.

I also do not think usage is a terribly important stat except for very low usage players and very high usage players. I think most players can shoot a little more or a little less without huge disruptions in their efficiency. So I think on a team built of medium usage players (like Walker, Chandler, Douglas, Gallo, Morrow would be) someone would step up and shoot more and I do not think his efficiency would suffer too much. Also we should sign a high usage PF even if it’s just resigning Lee, so it’s not like we won’t have a focal point to our offense. I would be shocked if we do not have one of Boozer, Bosh, Amare, or Lee once this offseason concludes. As for creating shots I think a good offense with good spacing creates plays more efficiently than all but the best playmakers.

Very last point, if Walker was a sure thing then I would say pass on Morrow but we do not know what we have with Walker and his incredible efficiency seems unlikely to be maintainable. If we signed Morrow and Walker was able to continue to be as good as he was last year then it would be a bit of a squeeze but having too many great efficient jumpshooters is a pretty good problem to have. Also Kapono is a bad comparison because Kapono has only had one season out of seven with great efficiency while Morrow in both seasons has been very efficient.

In addition, for a guy playing his way back from an injury, I would put a premium on his more recent statistics (as we would have to think the guy was playing his way into shape, right?). And that last month, he shot 62%, averaged 6 assists a game, and 15.5 points per game and was active on defense, too. He looked to me like he was putting it all together (as he looked awful for Washington earlier in the season).

Just that last month alone made me think he would be worth a flier. He even cut his TOs down to less than 3 a game on average.

Morrow:

The reason I don’t think Morrow has much room to grow is because I think his game is already developed. He’ll be 25 to start next season and has played a good amount of NBA minutes both his first two seasons without improving. At 21 Kevin Martin was raw, barely played, and was terrible when he did. He improved significantly from year 1 to year 2. Morrow’s numbers from year 2 are pretty identical to year 1 (maybe slightly worse per minute).
Allen, Manu, and Martin all had steady improvement. Martin and Manu improved *significantly* from year 1 to 2. Ray Allen also took a step forward 1 to 2, though not as marked. Certainly Morrow could improve after stagnating in year 2, but I wouldn’t predict a drastic improvement.

Morrow takes 85% jumpers and 40% of his FGAs are 3s (Kapono takes 34%). Morrow’s a valuable player, but he’s largely a 3 pt specialist.

As part of a larger plan (or for another team) I think Morrow can be a good-to-great value at the MLE. I’m just not sure a spot-up jump-shooter has much value on the Knicks as constructed. Danilo, Toney, and Walker are all primarily jump shooters, and of the three only Toney does much to create his own shots. Danilo, Walker, and Morrow all score in very similar ways (80+% Js asted on 75+%, and 45+% of inside shots assisted). The three of them are average-to-well-below-average defenders.

Livingston:

He doesn’t shoot 3s, but is a good jump shooter (.469 eFG% for someone who doesn’t shoot 3s is good). Perhaps he can extend his range, his 35% on a low volume of 3s and bump up that eFG% on Js.

He was only 21 before he got hurt. He had steadily improved from awful to bad to decent his first three years in the league. If 24 year old Anthony Morrow can make the jump from average to well above average in your estimation, then why can’t 24 year old Livingston improve? (Born the same month of the same year… hard to think a 24 year old has all the room in the world to grow but doom another player for his play from 19-21 years of age.)

I don’t put TOO much stock in any one stop he’s made since coming back. Overall, though, there’s 1000 minutes there and remarkable consistency across 2 separate seasons overall. 1000 minutes is how many Toney Douglas played. Shaun’s overall stats (PER, WS/48) are very much in line with his 21 year old season before his injury. Only his scoring efficiency has improved. It’s not that he got good out of nowhere for 200 minutes. He’s been largely the same below-average player for 3 seasons. Born only 2 weeks before Anthony Morrow, I think he can piece it together to become a solid player. In 666 minutes for Washington Livingston matched Morrow’s .084 WS/48 and topped his 14 PER with a 14.4.

As far as value there’s not a HUGE difference between 1 and 3 million dollars if you have cap space. If he would end up being a good value at $1 mill, I don’t think he’d be a bad one for 2 mill more.