Knicks Morning News (2018.02.11)

  • [SNY Knicks] GEICO SportsNite: Enes Kanter talks playoffs, Kristaps Porzingis’ surgery
    (Sunday, February 11, 2018 12:03:09 AM)

    Kristaps Porzingis has scheduled his surgery for Tuesday to repair his knee and Enes Kanter discusses the Knicks’ playoff aspirations.

  • [SNY Knicks] Kristaps Porzingis set for ACL surgery on Tuesday
    (Saturday, February 10, 2018 3:25:29 PM)

    Kristaps Porzingis has a date for surgery: Tuesday, February 13.

  • [SNY Knicks] Kanter expects Porzingis to return ‘even stronger’ after ACL rehab
    (Saturday, February 10, 2018 2:30:32 PM)

    Enes Kanter says Kristaps Porzingis injury is really sad but he will return even stronger.

  • [SNY Knicks] Enes Kanter reiterates desire to retire a Knick
    (Saturday, February 10, 2018 2:00:24 PM)

    Enes Kanter has reiterated his desire to retire with the Knicks. He wants to be with the young core they’re rebuilding around.

  • [SNY Knicks] Mudiay trade not yet official, but Hornacek expects healthy competition at point guard going forward
    (Saturday, February 10, 2018 1:35:24 PM)

    Jeff Hornacek expects healthy competition at point guard between Frank Ntilikina, Trey Burke and Emmanuel Mudiay.

  • [ESPN] Sources: Porzingis knee surgery set for Tues.
    (Saturday, February 10, 2018 2:35:05 PM)

    New York Knicks star Kristaps Porzingis is scheduled to have surgery Tuesday to repair the tear in his ACL, per ESPN sources.

  • [NYDN] Hornacek confident Mudiay-Ntilikina can play together
    (Saturday, February 10, 2018 9:13:31 PM)

    Emmanuel Mudiay wasn’t available to practice on Saturday or even speak to the media for the first time since being acquired on Thursday.

  • [NYDN] The Knicks’ constant rebuild continues
    (Saturday, February 10, 2018 7:20:10 PM)

    Porzingis, a vastly different kind of big man than Patrick had been, had brought hope.

  • [NYDN] With no Porzingis, Knicks aren’t just bad, they’re boring
    (Saturday, February 10, 2018 7:50:12 AM)

    What’s left for the Knicks to sell?

  • [NY Newsday] New point guard Emmanuel Mudiay likely to take minutes from other Knicks guards
    (Saturday, February 10, 2018 6:35:00 PM)

    GREENBURGH, N.Y. — Emmanuel Mudiay was a spectator and not a participant at Knicks practice on Saturday. The point guard was unable to practice, the team said, because Thursday’s trade wasn’t official yet.

  • [NY Newsday] Kristaps Porzingis can expect another assist from Jarrett Jack
    (Saturday, February 10, 2018 6:31:53 PM)

    Kristaps Porzingis doesn’t have to look too far for some advice and real talk on battling back from an ACL tear. The man who has passed him the ball all season can offer up another assist.

  • [NYPost] Why Hornacek thinks Ntilikina can handle Mudiay addition
    (Saturday, February 10, 2018 8:05:04 PM)

    You have a young, foreign-born, lottery-pick point guard who has struggled lately as a rookie. So you trade for a young, foreign-born lottery pick point guard who has struggled since entering the league in 2015-16. What does that tell the other guy? Nothing negative, Knicks coach Jeff Hornacek hopes. Hornacek does not think the acquisition…

  • [NYPost] Even Enes Kanter realizes the Knicks’ reality now
    (Saturday, February 10, 2018 4:44:56 PM)

    Center Enes Kanter, perhaps the last guy in New York — beyond the drunk on the corner stool of a bar on W. 33rd Street — may have run up the white flag on the Knicks’ playoff hopes in the wake of Kristaps Porzingis’ injury. “It’s tough. We are in 11th spot right now. I’m…

  • [NYPost] Best place for LeBron to finish padding resume is in New York
    (Saturday, February 10, 2018 11:10:33 AM)

    There are a thousand reasons why this will never happen, of course. We could list them all here but: a) it’s depressing, and b) the list would probably run over into Mushnick’s page and he charges exorbitant rent. So we can focus on the one reason why it should happen. The one reason why LeBron…

  • [NYPost] Knicks GM’s plan delivers hope at a desperate time
    (Saturday, February 10, 2018 9:09:29 AM)

    It won’t speed up Kristaps Porzingis’ rehab process, but credit Knicks general manager Scott Perry for jumping in to pacify a saddened fan base with a series of well-intended sentiments. It’s part of the job, even if former president Phil Jackson didn’t think it was, and the first-year GM carried it out seamlessly. That’s why…

  • 46 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2018.02.11)”

    It’s interesting and refreshing that Perry is targeting the 2019-2020 season to be good after two more years of draft picks and hiring free agents in the summer of 2019. Not many, if any, Knicks’ GM’s have explicitly planned to build so much through the draft or been willing to wait so long to be good.

    Z-Man…..got a bone to pick on that one. My kid goes to Temple, everything there is first rate, including their parent bill pay system.

    Seriously though……wouldn’t mind having Fran Dunphy as our coach.

    Sorry about that, it wasn’t meant to me a swipe at Temple, I was actually a big fan when John Chaney was coaching there! And their current team is pretty good, actually!

    I agree that it’s great to hear he has a plan. Proof will come this summer as to how committed he/mills are to it though. Can’t extend KP, sign anyone to more than a 1+1 with the MLE or resign Kanter or OQ to multi year deals and still have much space the following summer.

    We’re gonna be real bad next season with KP coming off his ACL tear.

    Not sure how attractive we’re gonna be with a bottom 5 record and KP’s questionable health.

    We’re probably the least talented team in the NBA right now, and we’re only 3.5 games out of that bottom 8 mix up (the 8th worst team and the worst team are separated by 2.5 games). It’s entirely plausible that we’re bad enough to draft top 5 this year and top 3 next year.

    What we really should be looking forward to is the 2020 FA class. Kawhi, Kyrie, Jimmy, Draymond, Middleton, MKG, and Roberson are all UFA’s that year.

    The top three guys you named are free agents next year considering 2019-2020 are option years in their contracts. I really don’t think the Knicks will need free agency if one of Ntilikina/Mudiay develops into a starter and we get two high lottery picks. Ntilikina/Hardaway Jr/RJ Barrett/Michael Porter Jr/Porzingis is a huge line up that can match up with any team in the league. We just have to be terrible instead of mediocre for the first time since the 2014-2015 season.

    And for those of you who don’t know who RJ Barrett is, he’s the 6’7” 17 year old Duke commit who won the FIBA U18 tournament by himself for Canada. If we could get him and Michael Porter Jr we probably wouldn’t even need KP.

    God, our roster is the thrift store from Hell. People are actually excited about resigning Beasley. That’s how low the bar is now.

    But assuming none of these fliers like Mudiay work out and we let the vets expire, we could have some high draft picks these next two years (maybe like a Badgely and R.J. Barrett), lots of cap space, an improved Frank, and a patched up Unicorn. In short, a decent young core to build around. And maybe guys like Dotson, Kornet, and Burke will step up and become good bench players?

    My only shred of hope comes from the fact that we still aren’t absorbing shitty contracts under Perry. Hopefully TH2 and Ron were the last Mills signings EVER.

    @5
    It’s true we stink, but those teams below us are also pretty bad and they keep losing too. (Last night certainly didn’t help us, for example.) 3-4 games this late in the season is a lot of ground to cover, and we will need to go on an extremely bad run to leapfrog that many spots. But hey, it’s possible–and there’s always a lucky shot at the ping pong balls too.

    The plan has always been to add 2-3 more 1st round draft picks to the core of KP, Frank, (and formerly Willy) and then use cap space to add the missing pieces as Noah, Lee, and Thomas came off.

    Only the details have changed.

    1. We put Hardaway into some of Rose’s cap space long term and made him a core piece
    2. We moved on from Willy
    3. KP went down
    4. This management team seems slightly more open to moving veterans for young players even though they haven’t done it

    The idea was always that 2-3 years from now KP would be starting to peak and the other early draft picks (like Frank and Willy) would be beginning to come into their own. Add in a couple of other good young kids out of the draft and going into that free agency we’d have a good young core and a ton of space to attract quality players.

    We are on the same plan as before + Hardaway – KP for a portion of 2 seasons.

    There is no humanistic or personal development reason that KP’s injury can be considered a positive. He’s a great kid and we all want to him to remain healthy and develop as much and as quickly as possible. But he (and we) were dealt this hand. So let’s play it. We are going to get 2 better picks because of it and there’s a small chance that in his time off he gets a LOT STRONGER and comes back MUCH BETTER player as soon as he gets back in top shape.

    z-man, it’s ok….I was just kidding around! Those Temple teams from the Chaney days were good though, and fun to watch. Of course, 1/2 of that was the Cosby sightings, which seem to have been totally removed from campus.

    We are on the same plan as before + Hardaway – KP for a portion of 2 seasons.

    same plan give or take, all is good. you must be the only satisfied managed care customer in america.

    One promising development is that the FO didn’t make any panic moves just to dump salary or acquire pieces. Two unprotected 2nds from a middling at best and terrible at worst team coming back for Willy was rash, but still a market value transaction. Giving up an unprotected mid-range second and McDermott’s cap hold for Mudiay is a fair market value transaction, although one I wouldn’t have made. To think of all the things they could have done, e.g. using a future first to dump Noah’s salary, it’s only PTSD from previous regimes that keeps me from being optimistic about the approach.

    We just have to be terrible instead of mediocre for the first time since the 2014-2015 season.

    Fingers crossed! If they can just manage that seemingly simple task, the Knicks might have a bright future (if, stress if, KP comes back healthy).

    By the way, Kanter said that he was hoping that they would make moves to get to the playoffs. So isn’t there at least a chance that he wants to play for a competitive team? It was probably just lip service and the $18 million will talk loudest, but if there’s even a chance, then shouldn’t they start playing O’Quinn and Kornet over him? They can just say that they were having better practices than Kanter, as apparently people just believe whatever a coach says about what happens in practice, so they might have cover! “Can’t help it, Kornet and O’Quinn were just doing better than him.” Getting him to opt out would be huge. It helps the tank and it gives them more cap room to acquire bad players for assets.

    same plan give or take, all is good. you must be the only satisfied managed care customer in america.

    Ha. I remember my managed care years when the process of getting a referral was worse for my heath than what was ailing me.

    Rebuilding is a painful multi-year process, especially if you don’t draft well.

    Perry as a stand alone hasn’t done poorly. Even though the jury is still out on Kanter as a player, what it will take to keep him, and the problems the deal caused with Willy, getting the Chicago pick was a plus and McBuckets lead to Mudiay, which can’t hurt. Phil probably would have just bought Melo out, avoided the logjam, kept Willy, but netted us nothing.

    Perry seems to value having vets around to help with the development of young players also, but at least he brings in cheap guys like Jack instead of expensive long term guys like Noah.

    We have a bunch of games left. We should be rooting hard for Frank, Mudiay, Dotson, Kornet etc.. to play really well without winning too many games so we go into next season with the beginnings of a good team, a solid lottery pick, and KP on the road to recovery.

    @17
    Brian, so cynical! That must be why Jack keeps playing so much. Frank and Burke must be lousy in practice. Dotson too, just like Willy was. Kornett had a nice debut, but he’d better look good in practice or else.

    I guess the next interesting move will be who to sign with the midlevel after the season? I’d hope no one on anything other than a 1 year plus team option, but do you give multi-years to OQ? Can someone like Hezonja maybe be lured here for a flyer?

    Bad news: Courtney is not tradeable. I’ve been looking at the Capulator and just about all of the teams that might want him are either in the luxury tax or on the edge. For example, Minnesota will be about 2M above the tax line but a Courtney-Cole trade would plunge them into the tax. I don’t think a lot of teams would be lining up to take a 33yo average SG at almost 13m/yr in the first place let alone if it would force them into the tax. Plus they could probably get a younger better player by offering 2nd round picks. The best we could hope for is maybe we trade him as an expiring in the summer of 2019. This is a terrible situation since prevents Timmy from playing his natural position and makes it impossible to give enough minutes to frank/Dotson/Baker.

    @20
    Hopefully not, but the ship may have sailed on getting anything useful for him. As you say, his playing time is not really great for the development of young players. THJ and Lee are both twos. However, it is probably good for the tank as teams with decent threes and fours will continue to feast on the Knicks. I mean, if you have Lee and Beasley out there….D is gonna suffer.

    Maybe the best to hope for on him is finding a team with a salary or two that matches but with a player at a different position (like a real three or a decent four). Hard to imagine them getting a first and/or an expiring for him at this point.

    Some positive news if you’re a Mudiay optimist. Look at the 4-year trend for Napier:
    WS/48…..024, .004, 060, .119
    BPM……….Minus 2.6, Minus 4.9 Minus 2.2, Plus .9

    Speaking of 1 guards, Toronto’s got luxury tax issues and they have Lowry, Wright and VanVleet. VanVleet will be a RFA and he has been putting up some nice numbers in his second year. He ranks 24th overall in RPM at 3.58. Wow. In 956 minutes, he’s posted a WS/48 of .153 and a BPM of 1.8. Every metric likes him. Is it sustainable? Should we consider using our MLE money to try to get him to sign an offer sheet? The luxury tax and the presence of Lowry/Wright might put some pressure on Raptors.

    A bold plan would be to try to sign VanVleet and then offer Frank and Courtney in a S&T for Kyle Anderson. You know Pop and Buford’s eyes would light up at the idea of putting Frank through their development process. And Kawhi and Kyle do play the same position. Look at how it fixes all of our rotation problems.
    1: VanVleet, Mudiay, Burke
    2: Hardaway, Dotson, Baker
    3: Anderson, Draft Pick
    4: KP, Draft Pick
    5: KOQ, Kornet

    What we really should be looking forward to is the 2020 FA class. Kawhi, Kyrie, Jimmy, Draymond, Middleton, MKG, and Roberson are all UFA’s that year.

    Are you being saucy?

    Kawhi 29
    Kyrie 28
    Butler 30
    Draymond 30
    Middleton 28
    Kidd-Gilchrist (he’s actually young, but why would you want him?)
    Roberson 28

    You ready to pay $150-200M at $40M AAV to any of those guys from 28-33? Nah, don’t do that. As great as Kawhi, Butler and Green are, you don’t want them from 29-33 on their third contract unless you are an immediate title contender at the time of the signing.

    No problem if you’re a 60-win team trying to add the last piece, but we know for sure that ain’t us.

    VanVleet is a sign of the importance of the new G-League system. By having the extra roster spots, Toronto was able to take their time with developing VanVleet and it really paid off.

    @23
    Completely agree. Not only is the team nowhere close to being good enough to make such a “go for it” move, I think it took a step back this year (KP injury, recycling Willy for picks) unless Mudiay becomes a revelation or the Knicks really nail this year’s picks, getting a young star and rotation player.

    Even then, probably 3 years at best away…and that assumes the KP comes back better than ever. I’m not optimistic at all about Hornacek being able to develop all these young guys. 2021?

    VanVleet is a sign of the importance of the new G-League system. By having the extra roster spots, Toronto was able to take their time with developing VanVleet and it really paid off.

    We’ve discussed 76ers a lot here of late but one of the things that’s never mentioned is that hed process allowed them to pick Covington out of Morey’s trash barrel and give him some burn. The result is a really nice starter for them. I hope NYK use the the rest of this season and next season to give minutes to these types of players. I’d waive Lance and put a minutes restriction on Courtney to facilitate that. In addition to the MLE, we’ll have our BAE at about $3.5m so we should be looking to use it on a 1and1 type deal (team option) for maybe Hezonja or Looney or whoever instead of giving it to Walking Bucket.

    Didn’t even check the 2021 class. Giannis, Beal, AD, Oladipo all hitting their prime in that year.

    And who is psyched to resign Beasley?

    It’s not talked about much here but it you go anywhere else there are a ton of Knicks fans who want to resign Beasley for another 3-4 years.

    Giving up a second outright instead of a swap changes my calculus on the Mudiay trade. When it was reported as a swap, it was a move I wouldn’t have made but didn’t care much about. Now I think it’s more like a $20 scratch off than a $1 scratch off. Still a relatively low cost, but not one that justifies the tiny chance of a reward.

    The frustrating thing about Perry is while he does seem to see the value in giving young guys a shot on teams going nowhere, the players he targets are all over the place. I think he looks at highlight reels instead of any data. Burke happens to be somewhat intriguing by both, and if you squint you can talk yourself into Kornet’s college numbers being worth a dice roll, but giving up actual value for a guy like Mudiay makes no sense.

    I’m annoyed that the way these things work now, the pressure is on guys like Woj to report a deal FIRST before actually getting all of the details. Like the Willy deal, Shams had to just throw out a tweet saying he was traded so that he could stake his claim as being the first guy to report it, even though he had no details. And the stake claiming is important, so we can’t even tell these guys, “Just wait,” because it is actively bad for them to wait, but it also hurts the actual truth getting out there. Woj is reporting as the details come in and it ends up with incomplete or, in this case, confusing enough data that it ended up getting reported by other guys wrongly. Not cool.

    Yeah, it’s sort of forgivable on deadline day bc of all the action, but yes, it is annoying.

    @32 I totally agree.
    Being the first to report is more important that reporting the correct news.
    And we react immediately without having all the right details.
    Sadly it happens every day, in things way more important then basketball…

    I wouldn’t say I’m psyched about it, but if Beasley can be resigned for something close to what he’s making now, I’m all for it.

    I wouldn’t say I’m psyched about it, but if Beasley can be resigned for something close to what he’s making now, I’m all for it.

    They’re going to need players for next year, so sure, if he’s willing to take another one year deal, I’d bring him back, too.

    Everyone knows that Beasley can score. Yet, no one wanted him for more than the vet minimum. The Knicks should only want him back again at that same rate. Otherwise, sayonara.

    We don’t need him next year, we’re ticketed for a 15-20 win season,
    use that money on two G-Leaguer/Undrafted rookies,
    it’ll be the year of the lottery tickets.

    I like Beasley just fine but I see no point in retaining him. Between his age and generally unexciting production he’s definitely not part of the future, and he can always get hot and win us games against our tank competitors.

    It’s a roster spot that should go to an undrafted free agent or flyer signing in what should be a tanktastic 2018-2019 season.

    There’s also the reasonable chance that Beaze, after being the focal point of the 2018-19 Knick offense for most of the year, would net the Knicks a second round pick.

    But sure, I wouldn’t mind them giving his roster spot to an undrafted player, also.

    He definitely has value, but that same value should be there to other teams who could just sign him to the vet minimum like the Knicks, ya know?

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