Knicks Morning News (2018.07.07)

Lol, Zach LaVine got 80 million

Oh my, how do you not trade up 3 spots to get Bamba. He looked so raw last night and yet you can see that his potential is incredible.
Knox better show something tonight or the premature evaluation machine would go nuts.

Bridges ought to do well in Summer league since he is a more polished product than most rookies after three years of school. That said, I do hope Knox at least shows something to like tonight.

What time is the game?

Steve Mills won’t sign off on any “give away” trade of TH2 because then he’d look dumb. I expect TH2 to be trade bait for all stars this season after he does his best Devin Booker impersonation.

Thx vt

Good.

#Knicks are prepared for star Kristaps Porzingis to miss all of next season, league sources tell AmicoHoops’ @amathur90. #NBA https://t.co/gKOJTm4EJl— Sam Amico (@AmicoHoops) July 6, 2018

I honestly don’t get the gnashing of teeth about KOQ. We have the built in excuse to tank ultra hard this season with KP’s injury so the decision matrix should revolve around getting as many young players as many minutes as possible and losing as many games as possible.

If KOQ, Enes and Lee combine for an additional 4 or 5 wins IT IS AN UNMITIGATED FUCKING DISASTER! The difference between the worst record and the 4th worst record is measured in orders of magnitude.

KOQ is a proven nice player for 18 minutes a game. He is a fun guy to have around and a nice back-up, but the open marketplace rates him rather low. Not every team had room , but objectively enough did to drive his price up if he was deemed worth it in today’s style of play… but he isn’t after 6 years in the NBA.

The marketplace could be wrong, but he will be an UFA next year and if he excels, the Knicks can make a run at hi if they care to, but there is no reason to give him a one year or multi year deal today. Period….end of story.

If they play all the youngins and really suck hard…. OK top 3 pick here we come. If they youngins play collectively well enough to win 30 games…. so be it. With the addition of KP the following year and results from a few young promising players, one or more actually good UFA’s may find the Knicks an interesting place.

But winning a single game because Lee, Enes and KOQ played well is a crime against humanity.

Assuming the Bulls match the offer sheet for Zach LaVine, why don’t the Knicks offer Hardaway Jr or Lee to the Kings into their cap space and take back a pick in Hardaway’s case.

Unbelievably, THJr has a 15% trade kicker. He’s probably unmovable on his own.

So KP’s going to miss 110 straight games before signing his designated-player max contract. How Knicksy.

I can’t believe Hardaway has a trade kicker. That’s amazing.

Tim Hardaway Jr. was supposed to pair with KP and put us in the playoffs.

They were both injured enough last year that this theory wasn’t put to the test, but my understanding of previous comments on Knickerblogger is that the Knicks did pretty well when both were healthy and in the game. Unfortunatrly, given how long KP will be out, we may never find out if this true.

Is there any roster in the NBA where Tim Hardaway junior would be the third best player?

@25

Probably the Knicks and the Hawks, I guess? Maybe Grizzlies, Suns, Kings or Magic if their rookies take long to get used to the NBA, or the post-Lebron Cavs… yeah that’s pretty much it.

I don’t know how any Knick fan can be happy about KP missing all of next season. An ACL injury that takes 18 months to heal sure sounds career threatening to me. Even conservatively 12-14 months is a long healing process and that would get him back this season.

I know people want to tank but to root for KP to be cooked just so we can get a marginally better pick is shitty.

@24

I agree that it does fall in a pattern of the Knicks overrating what they have. However, KP might be the exception. We may really have a franchise player in him…

But I look at the litany of “franchise” players we’ve signed compared to their actual value and it makes me really mad. Marbury, Eddy Curry, STAT, Melo…and the good players we’ve shed to make room for said “franchise players”…Gallinari, Chandler, Ariza…PLUS the opportunities to draft players we’ve forgone…

I’m just done with trying to sit here and justify these decisions. This organization has been losing at poker since they traded Pat Ewing for Glen Rice. RC Buford, Danny Ainge…these guys are cold blooded decision makers who rely on the knowledge that’s available and make incremental improvements that result in tens of more wins for them compared to us every season. Even, IND just fucking takes our money, again and again. We get Donnie Walsh, he get’s swallowed up when we decide to produce No No Nanette.

This summer we get Mario Hezonja. Another bust. Maybe he can be our power forward? Really? He averaged 3.7 rebounds a game last year. Well, he’ll need to improve on that…Hey, why not?

@30

Yeah, but in this era of talent concentration it really says more about those teams than it does about Hardaway to be honest. I’m sure he would be useful even for the top tier teams, but he’s getting paid to be a 3rd or at most 4th best player when he wouldn’t be anywhere near that on the real contenders.

I think if KP misses the whole season it is a disaster, simply because I think the decision to re-sign him has already been made. If the injury is so bad that he can’t play for 18 months we just can’t re-sign him, there’s no way. Cousins was in a similar situation and got a 5 million contract, and there’s no way Janis and KP are settling for this level of contract with the Knicks.

My best case scenario is the team absolutely sucks until the all star break, having the worst or 2nd worst record in the league (Atlanta will be super hard to beat in that race) and KP comes back on a minutes restriction but healthy and producing well, while we keep a top 3 lottery placement. Well, of course I’d rather have all the young guys making leaps and becoming stars but a best case scenario has to be at least somewhat probable to me.

So KP’s going to miss 110 straight games before signing his designated-player max contract. How Knicksy.

It sucks but I am not in favor of rushing him either. I’d rather play it safe and tank commit than rush him and win a few more games.

you guys are quoting a Sam Amico paragraph like he’s a journalist and not an alchemist who turns moldy outdated quotes into clickbait

Being the “third-best” player on a team means very little. It’s all about providing value relative to other players who play a similar position/role. He could be the 8th best player on the Warriors or the 2nd best player on the Knicks, but aside from the diminishing returns of putting a shoot-only guard on the Warriors, he’d contribute roughly the same to win probability.

In terms of contract value, paying your third best player 18 mill per is not obscene; paying your 8th best player is.

It sucks but I am not in favor of rushing him either. I’d rather play it safe and tank commit than rush him and win a few more games.

It’s not about rushing him back to win games. The 2019 Knicks could go 0-82 for all I care. Some shitty scenarios include:

1) KP misses the whole season and the Knicks give him the designated-player max anyway.
2) KP misses most of the season, comes back with a torrid 15-20 games and the Knicks give him the contract based on a small sample.
3) KP misses most of the season, comes back weak and the Knicks sign-and-trade him for pennies on the dollar.
4) KP misses most of the season, comes back weak and the Knicks give him the max anyway.
5) KP is traded before the deadline for pennies on the dollar.

The most optimistic and lowest-risk scenario is:

6) Some GM is dumb enough to give them multiple unprotected 1st-round picks and/or young, good players for an injured KP.

1-5 seem much more likely to me.

#2 is optimistic but still carries huge risk. We’ve seen Porzingis play like a star for short periods. No evidence that he can do that for 82 games.

“If the idea is just to get worse why don’t we just trade KP, Knox, Frank, and Dotsun too? That would guarantee us a series of top 5 picks (plus the picks we got for them) that would probably be better than the current core.”

That’s beneath you. That’s a hoolahoop or er level post.

Hezonja and Knox do not cancel each other out. Both are wings who don’t rebound well but Mario can pass and Knox can run. So we have some shooters who may mix well together. Dotson and trier also fits well with that group but they won’t see the light of day behind Timmy and Lee.

I think the implication was that O’Quinn led to more wins, keeping the Knicks in purgatory. VORP has him at 6.2 WAR, WP at 7.5, WS at 4.8. With a scrub in his place, they could have won 21-25 wins, planting them in the Doncic slot.

But, the trade deadline was feb 8. After that, we went like 6-21. What could you argue we would have been without KOQ….5-22? 4-23 at worst? that wasn’t enough. Even at 2-25, there would have been 4 teams worse than us.

Out of all the games we won from February on. There is only one game which you could argue O’Quinn made a tangible difference. So not trading him cost us at most one game. That one game maybe cost us one slot and my guess is we would have picked Knox over Sexton anyway.

Not trading O’Quinn at the deadline is such a hypothetical mistake it’s really not worth ringing our hands over. We have no idea if there was a real offer made, and if Kanter had opted out and Robinson had not dropped keeping O’Quinn might have been the plan.

There is a lot of legitimate things to criticize: picking Knox, THJ’s contract, trading for Mudiay, trading Willy for peanuts, Baker’s contract, etc. We don’t need to manufacture mistakes to get upset about.

@43

I agree with the premise of your argument, but let’s be careful not to put the cart before the horse. We have to separate the contract issue from KP’s rehabilitation. Whether or not the front office overpays him, trades or him or whatever else is peripheral to the way his recovery will be handled. I am personally of the mind that we should be prepared not to play him this season. And right now, I am happy that the FO is of this mind. If he can come back at the tale end of the season, show us he’s fine, and not fundamentally disrupt or tank in a totally Knicksian fashion then fine. But first things first.

Why not trade him in December? Or why not give him 35 minutes per game to trick bad GMs by inflating his per-game numbers?

You don’t have to wait for the trade deadline to make a move.

We have to separate the contract issue from KP’s rehabilitation. Whether or not the front office overpays him, trades or him or whatever else is peripheral to the way his recovery will be handled. I am personally of the mind that we should be prepared not to play him this season. And right now, I am happy that the FO is of this mind. If he can come back at the tale end of the season, show us he’s fine, and not fundamentally disrupt or tank in a totally Knicksian fashion then fine. But first things first.

The contract issue and rehabilitation are inextricably linked. There’s no call to rush him back from rehab to inflate his trade value, and especially not to prove that he can play before offering the contract. That would be downright silly.

He will ask for a max contract and the Knicks will be the ones who’ll be maligned if they let him walk or trade him for future assets. Either he signs a max deal and becomes a max-level player after his major injury, or the Knicks fleece some team in a sign-and-trade in which Porzingis shows himself to be a dud in 2019-20 and the Knicks make out like bandits (a la the Carmelo trade).

Chrisk. Another 2nd rounder could have been bundled. Ir as jowels pointsout, trade him earlier. Trade lee also.. The best teams are identifying better value and trading up or down asneeded. Just miss on Curry in 09, Seattle fir Jordan hill. Trade our first etc and get Bamba. .the nyks settled for Knox instead of the multiple options they had. That may work out yet, however.

JK. Agree. Everyplayer, every cap dollar, every draft spot has value. I know football is a different sport, but imagine for example instead of drafting Saquon 2nd, Giants had traded down. What could they have gotten from other teams, the jets included?

Yeah, there is absolutely no reason to stretch Noah until you get an agreement from a worthwhile (i.e. top 15, not Kyrie Irving) free agent.

Where’s reub with some unrealistic optimism when we need him?

I really hope Knox shows us something in summer league. If he turns out to be a bust that will set the Knicks back even further. I don’t know what the hell Fizdale is thinking with that proposed “super big “ lineup that has Knox at the 2. The one excuse about his poor college performance that makes the most sense is that he was playing out of position with Kentucky, at you guessed it, the 2 guard. Let’s try it some more – Brilliant, pass me a Guinness !

Sitting KP most or all of the year is the best move. Helps the tank and hopefully the contract negotiations.

1) KP misses the whole season and the Knicks give him the designated-player max anyway.
2) KP misses most of the season, comes back with a torrid 15-20 games and the Knicks give him the contract based on a small sample.
3) KP misses most of the season, comes back weak and the Knicks sign-and-trade him for pennies on the dollar.
4) KP misses most of the season, comes back weak and the Knicks give him the max anyway.
5) KP is traded before the deadline for pennies on the dollar.

Of course in Jowlesian fashion you omit the most obvious scenario:

The Knicks hold KP out the first 70 or so games to maximize the tank and after watching his rehab from Sept to April (having a pretty good line on his health while maximizing the overall body remake) allow him to play every other game Embiid style restricted to 18 or so minutes.

This does a number of things:

1… Maximizes his long term health by delaying the onset of high end stress as against a 10-12 month rehab.

2… Gives KP peace of mind that his body can still play after a catastrophic injury.

3…. gives the Knicks knowledge whether he can still play at a high level post catastrophic injury after watching him rehab daily (any setbacks?) for 6 straight months.

4…. Let’s opposing GM’s have some tangible information should they be moved to make a big offer for him.

5… gets 95% of total tankibility out of the injury….

if there wasn’t a GM that was willing to give him more than 4.5M for a single year when he is playing at a career best level

I think it’s a trend league-wide, right now, to not give long contracts to “role players.”

years/AAV $M

Bradley, 2/12.5
Cousins, 1/5.3
Randle, 2/9
Calderon, 1/2.4
Tolliver, 1/5-6
KCP, 1/12
Glenn Robinson, 2/4
Elfrid Payton, 1/2.7
Stephenson, 1/4.5
Hezonja, 1/too much at any price
VanVleet, 2/9
Baynes, 2/5.5
Gay, 1/10
Harris, 2/8
Grant, 3/9
McDermott, 3/7.3
Davis, 1/4.4
Rose, 1/2.2
Casspri, 1/undisclosed (probably under $5M)
Belinelli, 2/6
G. Green, 1/2.4

Then some guys who earned long contracts and some guys who shouldn’t have gotten long contracts:

Barton 4/12.5
Paul, 4/40
George, 4/35
James, 4/40

It seems to me that this is a bad offseason to be a FA of any quality aside from “superstar.” Lots of those contracts in 2016 are turning bad teams into also-luxury-taxed teams, so I can see why he didn’t get a 4/$40M deal that I’d have expected two years ago. But still, the Knicks turned him into nothing. Nothing! If you can turn WHG into two future 2nds, you can get something from Kyle O’Quinn, who would be an excellent bench player for a Finals contender, or a solid starter for a team hoping to break into the Semis.

Bob. You make a good point. We are all great GMs in our own minds.

Predictions for Knox tonight? I’m going with 4-11 (2-6 from 3) with 4 boards and 1 assist.

KNOX!!!

Have mercy! Knox coast to coast. Looking quick and strong there.

Knox sure isn’t shy about scoring the ball.

Frank comes in and gets two quick steals, one on Young.

Knox definitely has the right mindset, he’s on full attack mode getting to the rim all the time. I like it so far.

Poor Young getting guarded by Frank lol.

Frank is such a beast on D. He really relishes it. Too bad he doesn’t have the same aggression on offense.

Dotson is cold-blooded about his shots. He and Knox have about 80 percent of the teams shots between them.

“Yeah, I like the way Knox is playing in this game. He’s taking the ball to the hole hard, and not looking for finesse/floater type shots.”

I’m surprised at how aggressive and quick he looks. Because he was labeled a “low motor” guy before the draft.

Knox looks great in transition. I like that he’s attacking the rim in the half court, but he’s gotten bailed out with the two foul calls—on both he had little/no separation and they would’ve been low percentage looks otherwise. Hasn’t gotten by anyone, and touch looked bad on the two missed layups.

Dotson is more of a PG than Frank.

So far:
Knox = good!
Dotson = good!
Frank = same as last year!
Robinson = didn’t really do anything!
Everybody else = who gives a shit!

Trae looks either confused or in awe out there.

Troy Williams is playing good against the scrubtastic Hawks second team

100%, noble.

It’s nice that Knox is taking it to the hole but it sure seems like he has no idea what to do when he gets there.

You have to love watching Knox go to the hole.

We going to win the (summer league) title?

Robinson looking very athletic. Still don’t think he’s learned how to control his body, but his rusty and very raw.

Oh and Troy still looks pretty darn good.

Only half a summer league game but man I was really hoping to see some obvious strides from Frank. Second year guys usually look a lot more “with it” than rookies but Frank still looks totally lost on offense

I’m just a guy on a blog. I’m wrong about stuff plenty often. There are lots of things I could learn about basketball.

But I am pretty damn sure Frank Ntilikina is not an NBA point guard.

For whatever reason, Knox and Dotson seem to be dominating the offense. They are 7/21 combined.

At half, Knox 3/3 on dunks, 1/9 on all other shots.

The rookies look about as expected. Dotson looks good—he should get major minutes this year. Troy Williams also looks good, but the key with him will really be his shot.

But I think the biggest revelation has been Frank’s lack of development. Summer League is the time to stretch your wings, and Frank has shown nothing outside of a nice scoop layup. He doesn’t look like a PG, and doesn’t play like a PG. Trier looks like more of a PG. Dotson looks like more of a PG. Hell, OG Anuoby has shown more off the dribble in Summer League than Frank so far.

Frank does the same thing every time up the court: dribble to the top of the 3 point line, pick up his dribble, then pass to someone standing 5 feet from him. Pretty predictable.

Robinson does remind me a lot of Whiteside. If he hits that level, what a find for the Knicks in the 2nd round.

First round lottery pick Mitchell Robinson looks great, second round flyer Kevin Knox has been a caricature of himself

We’d be in great shape if we traded our 1st round pick for two 2nd rounders

Robinson does look pretty damn promising.

I’m willing to give Ntilikina until the all star break to show us something in terms of ball handling, but right now it’s still terrible. No need to overreact but it does look exactly the same as last season.

I think a Tony Allen who can shoot 3s potentially is still a pretty good player, but if that’s his ceiling I’ll be very disappointed.

MitchRob looks great. With his high hips/long legs, wingspan, and quickness, he can guard the ball handler and still contest the pass out to a three pointer shooter. It’s truly impressive. His defensive instincts look good too.

Mudiay don’t got it either. It seems to be Burke’s job to lose. But who starts at the 2?

Robinson with the rebound in traffic. He’s doing some things.

His conditioning also looks pretty good for a guy who hasn’t played much.

Tim Hardaway starts at the 2. No question.

In other news, I expect we’ll see a lot of 20 FGA / 2 or less assists games for Knox this year. Love that he keeps attacking the rim, but he really isn’t interested in making plays for anyone else.

I could get into a MitchRob/KP/Knox/Frank/Burke lineup with Troy/Dotson/Kornet/Trier bench.
Trae looks pretty good today btw.

Mitchell Robinson’s knack for rebounding in traffic and his natural shot-blocking ability are the most exciting things I’ve seen today. He’s less raw than I had thought. He has a nose for the ball.

if frank gets moved off of pg then you might as well release him…. the whole point to drafting him was his upside as a pg…. if he’s not working out there then you just drafted something you could have gotten off of waivers…..

drafting projects and not giving them the time to develop is the height of schrizophrenic development process…

Kevin Knox is not a point guard nor was he drafted to be a playmaker. Frank was and he is terrible at it. That is the problem. Last play was a terrible turnover because he has no handle and wound up throwing a terrible pass. Sheesh.

if frank gets moved off of pg then you might as well release him…. the whole point to drafting him was his upside as a pg…. if he’s not working out there then you just drafted something you could have gotten off of waivers…..

This is utterly, completely wrong.

Frank has useful NBA skills. Those skills do not include “playing point guard,” but he has useful skills nonetheless. Saying you should release him because he can’t play point guard is ridiculous, that’s like drafting a player at shortstop who turns out to be a terrific hitter, but who can’t play shortstop, and then releasing him instead of moving him to second base because “we drafted him to play shortstop.”

Knox finishes 5/5 on dunks (4 in transition), 1/7 on 3s, 2/8 otherwise.

I think we should all be pretty happy with the players we got in this year’s draft. There is finally reason for optimism in Knickland! Knox, Mitchell, and Trier. We did good on draft night.
I hate it when my team loses and I expect that we will lose a lot this year but watching these guys develop will be fun.
Despite my sense that Frank will never be a point guard, we have other players who can handle the playmaking responsibilities until Uncle Drew arrives (smile) so no big whoop. So many people gnashing their teeth about the Know pick, but it is wasting a lottery pick on Frank that should have you upset.
Anyway, looking forward to game two for our young Knicks. So far, so good.

My biggest fear with Knox isn’t that he washes out of the league. It’s that he continues to do his Andrew Wiggins imitation all the way to the bank.

I really like Robinson though and hope he somehow winds up starting, or at least getting all the minutes he can handle.

A lot of hot takes after this game here and in the twitterverse:

Knox looks like the right pick. Culture is everything from here on out.— Charles Oakley (@CharlesOakley34) July 7, 2018

Can’t believe there’s really people out there that don’t think Ntilikina is an NBA player. Shit is laughable.— New Era Knicks (@NewEraKnicks) July 7, 2018

If Frank grows to 6’8 do we even want him at PG?

Do you think Giannis and Ben Simmons should play any position but PG?

I’m still trying to wrap my brain around the Zach LaVine contract. Not as bad as Wiggins, but it’s basically like giving $78M to Mudiay.

People got paid large sums of money by one of the most-storied franchises in the world’s best basketball league to offer that contract. Think about that.

did somebody actually post that we should cut frank because he’s not a PG, or have the Russians gotten their hands on our site?

Speaking of head scratching contracts, how the hell did McBuckets get a 3-year deal at those dollars???

I will be against anyone who says Frank can’t be at least league average from 3.

Someone with his form can’t be that bad a shooter forever.

He is a very good on-ball defender and that is ALL.

Be fair, he’s also a good help defender. He had a very authoritative block today as well.

I wouldn’t be so against Frank if it wasn’t the fact he was drafted by Phil because he was a perfect fit for the stupid triangle then Phil was promptly fired right after the draft. Oh yeah and the Knicks passed on Donovan Mitchell to take Frank.

I think everyone needs to calm down a bit. It was one summer league game. My feelings about Frank’s potential have not moved an inch because of this game. Summer league is bad for passive players and role players. Scorers with no conscience tend to do well. Even if he took a huge step forward summer league is not where Frank would shine. Let’s at least wait until the end of training camp before we close the book on Frank’s improvement.

Re Frank, it’s not just a summer league game! He’s going into his second year, remember? The reason a lot of us were so anxious for this game was to see the manifestation of his off season workouts on his handle and his game overall. It’s perfectly reasonable to be HUGELY disappointed that he doesn’t look a bit different than the rookie Frankie we watched ALL of last season.

Unlike a lot of second year players I’ve watched in summer league, Frank’s play was utterly and completely indistinguishable from his rookie season.

i think it’s important to remember that ‘last season’ was a little under three months ago….

frank’s got a lot of work to do… but that was gonna be true whether or not he put in a good or even crappy summer league….

i’ll say that knox’s performance was actually pretty good for a summer league… and yes jacking up terrible shots is gonna happen but what’s important at this stage is not being or looking overwhelmed… and it doesn’t seem to be the case…. efficiency is not that important here….

again… one game… and it’s summer league but you can have appropriate levels of optimism from this performance…

Pretty fun summer league game. Mostly agree with consensus.

1. Robinson looked really interesting both as a defender and as a finisher. He has a quick second leap, quick hands on defense and a bit of an edge (though he also got frustrated and stopped trying for about 90 seconds in the second half after Collins got the best of him). Really encouraging. His shot looked a fuck of a lot worse from the foul line than his YouTube videos shooting 3s. Pretty exciting debut for a second rounder.

2. Yeah, Frank did not show any new downhill gear or fancy finishing moves on offense. Also threw of couple of his Ryan Leaf specials. Did have a huge block in the 4th.

3. I don’t if I was discouraged or encouraged by Knox. He uses those long steps well and he can really get up even when off balance. But the handle, strength, vision are far away to be efficient putting it on the floor in half court. I disagree with those who though his D looked pretty good; he looked soft and slow-to-react, but the effort was solid. A key question is whether he’ll be a very good shooter or just an okay shooter.

Did Knox pass the ball even one time in the half court offense? I’m not even exaggerating, I’m not sure I saw him pass the ball once.

Also after drinking 1.5 beers and watching some highlights on Twitter I am pushing all my chips in on Mitchell Robinson

@183 because he hasn’t played in a year, he has to be on double secret probation until we have enough minutes to constitute one per 36 sample. But yeah, ya think?

From Woj:

Sources: Charlotte, Chicago and Orlando finalizing trade that includes Mozgov to Magic, Biyombo to Charlotte and Julyan Stone to Bulls.

Apparently our boy Jerian is going to the Magic too.

Is this the most random 3-way trade ever? Who initiated this shit, like who called someone and said “I want Biyombo” or “I want Mozgov” and who is Julyan Stone?

Huge grains of salt and all that, but the one block where he followed one man into the lane, rotated 180 degrees when he passed and stuffed the shit out the guy he passed it to was a really impressive display of athleticism and timing. Yeah it’s summer league, but if you can block shots you can block shots.

I was discouraged by Frank’s first half. But his second half was better. He had some good passes and a couple of attacks at the basket, one of which was successful. I’ve always thought it will take at least two years for him to get good. He’s still very young too. He’s less than two months older than Trae Young. We all want him to be good as a point guard this coming year, but my guess is that it will take more time than that.

Yeah, I also thought Frank looked better in the fourth. More comfortable, less hesitant. There were a lot of nerves on the court tonight, tomorrow should be more interesting.

I get that it takes a while to learn to play point guard at the NBA level, but it’s hard to see even the basic building blocks of point guard play in Frank’s game. Doesn’t dribble well, doesn’t seem to be able to execute a pick and roll, doesn’t attack the rim, isn’t great in transition… He just does not seem to have the instincts or the skill set to play the position.

I could see if he showed some of the basic skills you need to play PG but was inconsistent. Then I would say yeah, he just needs time to develop. But I’m not even seeing flashes. He dribbles the ball up to the three point line and dumps it off, that’s his idea of how you play the point guard position. When he does get over his own tentativeness and tries to put the ball on the deck and make a play, the results are usually ghastly.

I’m just not seeing it.

Doesn’t dribble well? His handle looked much improved in this game.

In the off-season you can improve strength, conditioning, skills like shooting, etc…but you can’t really improve on being a point guard without, you know, actually playing point guard. The last season was 3 months ago and frank is still younger than slot of the people drafted THIS YEAR.

Knickerblogger: where everyone talks about rebuilding the right way but then turns around and gives up on second year players in their first summer league game.

As for yesterday’s game:

Having never seen Knox play and after listening to him being pilloried here during the draft run up, I was pleasantly surprised. For a guy who couldn’t do anything but shoot, he got 8 boards, 2 dishes, blocked a very nice shot and at least looked adequate on defense. He shot a lot but wasn’t chucking at all. Almost all of his shots were perfectly good shots, he attacked the rim relentlessly and got to the line alot. His 3 ball didn’t drop, but 3 of his first 4 rattled in and out and his form is A-1.

Robinson was a bloody revelation with a pretty unique skill set and played amazingly well for not playing a single game above AAu/HS. Lock him up , please…. he is at least going to be an NBA defensive player who can catch and finish and could be special if nurtured properly. Someone inthe scouting department deserves a raise.

As to Frank, everyone knows Phil drafted him to play defense, bring the ball up the floor and dump it into the post and run behind the arc….. and that’s not what he is being asked to do. He isn’t a prototypical point guard and never will be. He is a wing who can handle the ball ok for a wing, play Joe Dumars minutes as a point and play world class shut down defense. That will be his roll and that will make him a valuable NBA player but he likely will never be a 36 MPG classic point.