The Honorable Cock Jowles: Prigioni WP48: .185
Felton WP48: -0.004

Prigioni doubles his WS48, too.

Aside from “wear-and-tear” issues, this is going to make the Knicks even better.

This should be an interesting test for WP48. I don’t care much for Felton’s game, but it’ll be really interesting to see how the Knicks’ offense performs without him.

Frank: There’s the eye test, and then there’s the “sniff test” – and in this case, Wp48 smells like garbage.

Good one!

flossy: And in the meantime I wouldn’t be shocked to find out that CAA hooked him up with a $1-2m/year side gig tutoring Dolan’s kids in Latin or something…

The only Latin JR could teach is the dance he does after hitting a buzzer beater.

Frank:
Wow. The coach killer does it again. Avery Johnson fired according to Twitter world.

Avery Johnson sucks. He sucked when he was with Dallas and he sucks now. He just runs a freaking ISO offense all the time, it used to be so frustrating to watch that team, they’d win a lot but it looked hideous. He’s a pretty good defensive coach, I’ll give him that, but he’s not that good. Unfortunately I could see the Nets giving someone an absolutely absurd contract this year. Does Phil Jackson come back after being spurned by the Lakers? (and the Knicks if you believe Bill Simmons) Does Carlisle want to stick with the Mavs after they fucked up his championship team to go chasing after “stars” (Dallas would have been fucked if they signed Deron Williams, no one thinks he’s as good as Chandler do they?)

whoops sorry, he’s more like 17/5/3. That list is much longer. But if you restrict it to guards, it’s still a pretty impressive group:

http://bkref.com/tiny/6beHx

I disagree that Smith passed up bigger contracts elsewhere. No one was offering Smith the MLE this offseason. Teams were offering the mini-MLE, but that was basically what the Knicks were offering except without the added value of knowing that by playing for the Knicks for one more year for roughly the mini-MLE ($2.8 million as opposed to $3 million) he would be able to re-sign with the Knicks for $5 million. While I absolutely do agree that JR enjoys playing for Woody and the Knicks, so far nothing he has done has been against his financial interests. The Knicks offered him the most money coming back from China and the Knicks offered the most lucrative free agent deal this offseason (once you look past just this season’s salary, which even there it was basically a wash).

The Honorable Cock Jowles: Melo’s something like .150 if you list him as a SF, which I think is appropriate. Your whole “it can’t be right if it doesn’t mesh with the eyetest” is grossly unscientific, despite what you say.

The trouble is, he’s not playing SF. He’s playing PF. And even at a WP48 of 0.150, it seems grossly low. Does he have the same effect on a game as Dorell Wright? Jason Richardson? Kris Humphries, who can’t even get in a game anymore? He has a lower wp48 than Kurt Thomas even if you make him into a SF, which he is not right now. There’s the eye test, and then there’s the “sniff test” – and in this case, Wp48 smells like garbage.

Right now Melo is averaging 28.5 p/36, 6.1 reb/36, with a TS of 59.2% and a TOV% of 9.7. So he is scoring at an unbelievable rate in a very efficient way, chipping in on the boards, and essentially never turning the ball over. Do you know how many players have reached the threshold of 28+ p/36, 6 reb/36, TS >59, and TOV%<10?

Two. Carmelo Anthony and Michael Jordan. It's hard to imagine that these numbers don't translate into wins. Oh wait – they do. The Knicks are 18-6 when he plays, and are 3-2 without him with all 3 of the wins coming against high lottery teams in very close games (2 buzzer beaters and 1 squeaker against the Cavs when Kyrie went for 41). Obviously small samples, but I wouldn't say squeaking out wins against the PHX/CLE/CHA types would be considered a good sign for life without Melo.