Our Short Jason Kidd Nightmare Is Over: Tom Thibodeau To Be Knicks Head Coach

From the no-longer-suspended Woj at ESPN:

The New York Knicks and Tom Thibodeau are finalizing a five-year deal to make him the franchise’s next head coach, sources tell ESPN.

Knicks president Leon Rose and agent Spencer Breecker of CAA Sports were working Saturday to complete contractual terms, and a signed agreement is expected in the near future, sources said.

There’s a popular children’s book by Louis Sachar called Sideways Stories from Wayside School, about a bizarre school and the odd students who go there. One of the earliest chapters tells the story of Joe, a kid who seemingly doesn’t know how to count, but ultimately always arrives at the correct answer in the end. Like the teacher puts down eight potatoes and asks Joe to count them and he replies, “Seven, five, three, one, two, four, six, eight. There are eight potatoes, Mrs. Jewls.”

I was reminded of that story during the Knicks’ offbeat process that led to them ending up with the coach we all knew they were going to hire if they could back in March. We got to the eighth potato somehow, even if it was all over the place getting there.

I still think Atkinson was the preferable choice, but Thibs is, at worst, a competent coach, which is a big step up from most of the recent Knick coaches. And, more importantly, he isn’t Jason Kidd, so this is fine news.

It’d be funny if the rumor that Alan mentioned the other day about the Knicks waiting for Woj to get off suspension so he could break it was true.

502 replies on “Our Short Jason Kidd Nightmare Is Over: Tom Thibodeau To Be Knicks Head Coach”

Stretching Noah seems even stupider now

Oh man, imagine if Thibs gets them to still re-sign Noah!

I mean, I guess it’s fine. At least it’s a guy who’s had success in his career instead of Jason Kidd or Mark Jackson or the other nightmare options. Not excited but at least not actively angry about it.

It says a whole lot of our collective reaction to this news that “Jason Kidd” is trending on Twitter and not Thibs.

I think this was actually a masterstroke PR move, though not intentionally. A lot of people were lukewarm on Thibs and wanted Atkinson or maybe a younger coach from a good coaching tree. The Knicks would have gotten a muted reaction from hiring Thibs. So the best way to solve that is to float a Jason Kidd rumor and all of a sudden everyone is setting off fireworks and stoked.

One positive is that Thibs will value balls-out players, so Wooten and Iggy should get some run and Knox and DSjr will be benched. He might even give Pinson and Harper some run.

I swear to god, if he tries to reconstruct the 2011 Bulls the way Phil did, he should be fired on the spot

The Honorable Cock Jowles:
I swear to god, if he tries to reconstruct the 2011 Bulls the way Phil did, he should be fired on the spot

One would hope that all the pre-hire posturing is a warning shot to Thibs to not do that…

So this is it for Knicks news until the draft lottery, right?

They could still do some front office hires (and who will Thibs’ coaches be?), but otherwise, yeah, pretty much.

It’d be funny if the rumor that Alan mentioned the other day about the Knicks waiting for Woj to get off suspension so he could break it was true.

It wasn’t my idea, but yes, it does seem convenient that the inevitable news somehow held until Woj came back.

Thibs’ staff has the potential to be news-y, if one or more of the runners-up gets hired. I think we’re now safe from Kidd, since being a Lakers assistant is simply a better job than being a Knicks assistant. Miller and/or Woodson both seem like they have good shots at the lead assistant job, while Atkinson is a longshot, but might make sense under the circumstances we talked about the other day. (Potentially few jobs opening up, and Atkinson looking at this as a lucrative showcase for next year’s theoretically more normal market.)

very much not a fan of this move but willing to keep an open mind…. i don’t think it works out given where we are on the win curve…. probably ends up like how it did with minny…. but hopefully i’m wrong…

Not bad at all
Leon +1
We may have a quite rootable team before we know it.

Ha! Looks like most of us fell for the smoke and mirrors lol

Knicks Fan: I want the developmental coach!
Jack: You can’t handle the developmental coach!!!

Meh…

We may have done another not terrible thing. Yay!

I guess if you’re gonna lose a disgruntled all-pro like Adams, this is about as good of a return as you could expect.

Woodson got the Atlanta and Knicks jobs by being head assistant.

Woody was with the Pistons before becoming the Hawks head coach.

Thank God. Something resembling sanity won out. Would still prefer Atkinson but it’s not like Thibs is a bad coach and he’s streets ahead of Kidd.

hard to tell how much of what we hear is true; but, it “sounded” like thibs really wanted this job…

david fizdale really wanted this job too…

I think thibs should be successful…I kind of thought the same of lenny wilkins, larry brown, don nelson, d’antoni…

sure, wtf…let’s get the season started again and see what happens draft night and in free agency…

seems though that those “control/money/length of contract” issues were all bullshit…

seems this was a done deal since february or even earlier…

there should be some kind of sports journalistic scorecard…

a few of them had this nailed the whole time…

The headline should read: James Dolan, the only man to turn Lenny Wilkens, Larry Brown, and Phil Jackson into losers, sets his eyes on Tom Thibodeau.

Donnie Walsh:
The headline should read: James Dolan, the only man to turn Lenny Wilkens, Larry Brown, and Phil Jackson into losers, sets his eyes on Tom Thibodeau.

eh eh, don’t forget Mike D’Antoni

Knicks: methinks Rose was trolling this board with the Kidd rumors…

Jets: very nice haul for the Headache Also Known As Jamal Adams.

Mets: Diaz just blew his first save this season. Another HR given up…

Well, they sure did drive a lot of traffic.

Bracing for a horrible win now trade….

I don’t think the trade window will open until the season is over, but it should open before the actual draft. Apparently, the finals could go as late as October 12, and the draft is planned for October 16th, so we have a long way to go before then.

Let Lugo close, that Kelenic trade isn’t going to stink any less if you demote Diaz

The good thing about Covid for the Mets is that Diaz didn’t get heartily booed. Nor Strickland now, who’s getting nuked.

Without the Delete 8 tournament, it’s just a set of exhibition games that all reasonable fans should want to lose. I don’t know if it gets worse than that.

Since all the Knicks have supposedly sheltering in place and not doing team sponsored workouts, I can imagine management wants an opportunity to see how players are doing and get a chance to coach them and affect their off season regimens. A mini bubble would be useful for that.

Ramona Shelburne:

Reporting with @BobbyMarks42: The NBA is investigating what Los Angeles Clippers guard Lou Williams did while on an excused absence from the Orlando campus, so it can assess the length of his re-quarantining process, multiple sources told ESPN on Saturday.

Williams was photographed at an Atlanta gentleman’s club on Thursday night by the rapper Jack Harlow, who quickly deleted the post from his Instagram story. Harlow tweeted on Friday, “That was an old pic of me and Lou. I was just reminiscing cuz I miss him.”

This is hilarious.

If they really want it to work they have to put the strip clubs within the bubble.
Stevie Wonder could see this coming…..

Thibs, not a terrible hire. It’s sad that we have sunk so low that we get excited by “not terrible” moves now

One player was quoted as saying,

(Thibodeau) plays his guys so many minutes,” one player said. “They’re playing like 40 fucking minutes a game in the regular season – like, why? I don’t think that’s how you’re supposed to coach.”

that’s funny…

TNFH, that link reminded me how it’s always possible to be worse off than you are. James Dolan seems the worst possible owner ever, like you couldn’t actively try to build one from scratch to be worse, until you realize that the Orlando Magic are actually owned by the Satan family, or should I say Beelzebub and spawn…

TNFH, that link reminded me how it’s always possible to be worse off than you are. James Dolan seems the worst possible owner ever, like you couldn’t actively try to build one from scratch to be worse, until you realize that the Orlando Magic are actually owned by the Satan family, or should I say Beelzebub and spawn…

Sheldon Adelson looking into buying the Mets has some of the strongest *monkey’s paw curls* potential I’ve ever seen

That is one reason, weirdly, that I feel good both about this move and about the new front office’s philosophy in general. Because Thibs is NOT the guy you hire if you think there are magic wands to be waved to attract free agents.

I am kind of curious to see what Thibs can do with Frank and Mitch on defense if Thibs can manage to not alienate them by doing his psycho act. It’s also going to be interesting to see what happens with Taj-he’s a fine enough player but there’s no point paying him 9 million dollars next season, so I think it should be a nice test to see how well the FO understands player valuation.

“If the strategy remains “just kind of putz around and hope to land elite free agents,” kind of a weird choice!”

My hope is that he is all about 100% commitment to winning and demands that from his players. So he will favor players that demand that of themselves, even if they aren’t the most skilled or efficient. The players that play hard and smart and good won’t have a problem with him. They don’t have to love him anyway, nor does he not accommodate offensive-minded players. I mean, his 62-win team had Rose, Boozer, and Korver in their top 6 players, and none of them could play D. One thing for sure is that we’ll know what we have in all the young guys. He’ll put them in the best position to be successful. He’ll bench them if they continue to suck.

I want a coach that gets the most out of his/her players, where the team is better than its parts. Not sure Thibs is that guy, but that’s what I’m looking for.

Korver before he got old was a fine defender. I mean he wasn’t locking guys down but he was more mobile than you’d think and he’s got good size and knew what he was doing. What is going to be interesting with Thibs and the Knicks is that a lot of our guys don’t seem to have any idea what they’re supposed to be doing on defense and Thibs is not known for his patience.

But with his “failures” he must know that he’s on notice to not alienate his young players again. If RJ starts bitching about him, that’s a problem. OTOH, maybe Thibs licenses RJ to call out Julius for selfish play more than he already does.

DRed:
Still don’t understand why Thibs wants to coach these guys

I think there is an allure to the possibility of being the one who turns the Knicks around. It would be one of the most heroic sports stories of the new century.

I’m getting the same sense of resignation that Kamala Harris is going to be the nominee as i did for Thibs. Not quite as strong, but getting there.

Now the question is, which player in the top of the draft is the best fit to play under Thibs? Divas like KAT and Wiggins don’t survive Thibs.

I’m getting the same sense of resignation that Kamala Harris is going to be the nominee as i did for Thibs. Not quite as strong, but getting there.

I think Thibs was more of a sure thing, but yes, it’s very similar in terms of them both being heavy favorites. I’d say 1-3 odds for Harris.

***Still don’t understand why Thibs wants to coach these guys***

He spent 7 seasons coaching the Knicks, back when their games were meaningful and everything wasn’t terrible 24/7. So he’s had a taste of success in NY, which is a pretty powerful aphrodisiac. (And he left just before Isiah took over, so he may not know just how bad things can be around here!)

Thibodeaux does not strike me as particularly self-aware, and as I’ve explained before, he seems to me to be one of the most monomaniacal people since Ahab, so I imagine not having a coaching job brings overwhelming existential angst. For those two reasons, I highly doubt Tom put much thought into his fit with the Knicks. He took the job because they called first with an offer long enough that he’ll have some power.

latke:
Thibodeaux does not strike me as particularly self-aware, and as I’ve explained before, he seems to me to be one of the most monomaniacal people since Ahab, so I imagine not having a coaching job brings overwhelming existential angst. For those two reasons, I highly doubt Tom put much thought into his fit with the Knicks. He took the job because they called first with an offer long enough that he’ll have some power.

As someone posted above, the Knicks are the team where legendary coaches’ careers come to perish. Though Thibs does not make it into the legendary category, he must know that coming off the less than stellar performance with the TWolves that if he fails to create the perception of success this will be his last NBA head coaching gig. The risk of this seems confirmed by his alleged insistence of a five-year deal, though that could also be seen as hazzard pay and what about Derek Fisher rationale. I would hope that as much as a megalomaniac that he may be that those he trusts have told him that he must adapt to the modern NBA or perish ( cf. Jackson, Phil). His appearance at Sloan at least suggests he listened a bit.
The bigger question is what is his mandate from Rose and we won’t know that until Rose starts composing the roster. It seems like hiring a veteran coach confirms what many here fear based on Dolan’s history- that Rose will be swinging for the fences in roster building. So who are the NBA comps to Cano and Diaz?

I don’t know Cano and Diaz, but if I had to pick a Knicksy win now move for the Knicks it would be something like giving Fred Van Vleet a max contract. Van Vleet is a good player, but he will be worse on the Knicks than he is on the Raptors, where he is surrounded by a balanced roster of good players, a good offensive system and an established organization. I predict it would soon look like a major overpay.

Knicks Fan: I want the developmental coach!
Jack: You can’t handle the developmental coach!!!

If you do a little research, you’ll soon discover that Thibs is recognized as one of the best developmental coaches in the NBA. Even players you wouldn’t connect with him naturally, like Kobe Bryant, give him immense credit for his role in their development. As do players you might expect, like Rajon Rondo, Kendrick Perkins, Derrick Rose, Joakim Noah, etc.

He’s a more conventional type of development coach, though. The kind that spends hours with each player breaking down film for him and personally drilling him on his unique needs. Frankly, I think that’s what some of our young guys need. If Knox and Frank have any potential to be NBA players, Thibs should be able to unlock it.

Atkinson’s brand of development is different. He installs a modern offense that plays to player’s strengths. That’s obviously pretty damn valuable, too. But our particular kids seem like they need a lot of help between the ears and could benefit more from Thibs.

Going into next season, I want to see Taj, Wooten, and Iggy man the backup frontcourt spots. That means Randle has to get moved and we have to draft a guy like Jalen Smith and sign one of Bertans or Harris. Actually in that scenario, I wouldn’t mind starting Taj at the PF spot and giving him 20 minutes a game so the youngins can develop.

But seriously, who would trade for Randle? Where does he actually fit? Portland? Sacto? Charlotte? Those teams feel iffy to me..

Thibs’ rep goes beyond his head coaching resume. He has been a critical assistant for a championship team (Boston) and on Team USA.

Pop and others who crucified the Knicks for firing Fiz (???) are lauding the hire.

It may not work out, but strictly going by credentials, there’s no one available out there who comes close. Even if he’s not what some here (including me) preferred, it is a very, very strong hire.

Two of the big negatives about Thibs are 1) how he has botched personnel moves when given more authority over them and 2) having a bad relationship with the FO. Those are things to keep an eye on, but Rose has built something of a Thibs-proof management team that will hopefully tell him, “Just coach who we give you.” Thibs needs to have zero input on drafts, trades and free agency.

It will be interesting to see whether they pick up Taj’s $9.5 million option. It wouldn’t be the worst concession to Thibs in the big scheme of things, but it is bad cap management in the short run. Rose has a team that can help build a roster of value contracts. Taj will not be one of them.

i mean we’ve done the whole credential thing here right…. why is this any different than all the big resume and big name hire for the sake of a big name and resume?

you can like what he’s about…. those bulls teams are probably at thibs best and probably where a lot of folks who like this hire are anchoring on…. i don’t really see it shaking out like that tho…

We won’t be the Bulls because we don’t have Derrick Rose, Joakim Noah, and Luol Deng. We won’t even be the Timberwolves because we don’t have Karl Anthony Towns.

Ultimately, we will not know anything about this team until the roster is put together. I will say that Tom Thibodeau has never been a coach who made his teams worse. He has always gotten the best out of his teams, whether it be the 2011 Bulls having a 21 game improvement over the 2010 Bulls, having a 15-12 record after Jimmy Butler forced his way out of Minnesota, or keeping his Bulls teams very competitive despite Derrick Rose’s injuries keeping him from returning to form.

I’m interested in what he can do with Frank, RJ, Knox, and of course Mitchell Robinson. Where all four of those guys fall short on talent they do not fall short in willingness to listen to a coach, and I think Thibs can make an actual good defense around RJ and Mitch with Frank and Knox chipping in where their minutes allow them to.

I’d be ecstatic if if we could get Jurkic and Little from Portland for Randle by the way. I know it’s alot of money to pay Jurkic to be a backup, but he’d be the perfect backup for Mitch. He has a well rounded game, he’s coming off an injury so there’s no rush to play him big minutes, and he can anchor that second unit very well- especially if Knox and Dotson stick around. They would get tons of open looks from deep playing with Jurkic. Maybe that helps Ntilikina too, who knows? But I’m down with trying that if it means getting rid of Randle

djphan: i mean we’ve done the whole credential thing here right…. why is this any different than all the big resume and big name hire for the sake of a big name and resume?

If the argument is “credentialed” (i.e. retread) vs. prospect (i.e. new to coaching but with glowing assistant credentials) then you have a point. The latter was my preference, but that’s besides the point. If the argument is about who is the best candidate from the retread group, there really isn’t a comparison. Thibs is the most qualified candidate by far by any measure, including developing young talent. Saying that it is because of a “big resume and big name” is pretty superficial. He has quirks and pet peeves that don’t sit well with me, but there’s no getting around his credentials being legit and superior to other available candidates.

Still don’t understand why Thibs wants to coach these guys

He’s not going to coach “these guys”

They are going to keep most of the younger players and continue drafting, but there’s going to be a major overhaul of the rest of the roster AGAIN.

The good news is that Mills is gone, we have a great coach, and if his reputation is correct we may have a good cap guy that will be a little more creative and marginalize Perry too. We’ve desperately needed that for years. We have some decent young players that will get better and CAN fit together, but we need a good basketball guy to find the right pieces to compliment them. That’s where the weakness may be. I have no faith at all that we have people in charge that understand basketball, evaluate players correctly, understand what it takes to win at the highest level, and fit pieces together probably.

I agree there is no evidence IC that, but I will say that he’s showing signs of being able to make reasonable hiring decisions. If he keeps that up, that will be very helpful.

I’m getting the same sense of resignation that Kamala Harris is going to be the nominee as i did for Thibs. Not quite as strong, but getting there.

I’m not disagreeing, but I’m not sure why.

She wasn’t particularly popular among democrats and moderate republicans/independents that could switch parties just to return the country to normalcy don’t like her. They all know a Biden presidency is going to be like “Weekend At Bernies”. Whoever is vice president and the party itself is going to be running things. I can’t see them switching parties for Kamala Harris.

If the goal is to secure the minority vote, I don’t see that as a big issue even though some black Americans are slowly shifting right. Their numbers are still too small. I have to admit, I’m not familiar enough with any of the other possibilities among minority vice presidential candidates, but if they feel compelled to limit themselves to a minority, they have to be able to do better than Harris. I’d probably go with the Elizabeth Warren. She’d neutralize Trump’s attempts to get the blue collar and union workers in swing states to vote for him again and she’d make the liberals in the party more enthusiastic than they are about “dead man walking” Biden.

Traditionally, Vice Presidents are selected to help win elections in key states, because of like thinking with the Presidential candidate (for example, Al Gore), or in order to help raise money by placating a key constituency (Palin or Pence). I don’t think Harris fits any of these buckets since she’s from California, which is very unlikely to go for Trump. Someone like Susan Collins of Maine (except she’s Republican) or that lady from ArIzona whose husband was shot, Giffords I think, Is much more likely.

Brian Cronin:
Why would the Blazers want Randle for Nurkic?

I dunno lol. I know I’m grasping at straws looking for places for Randle to go. But..maybe low post scoring or cap relief? They are paying the hell out of Whiteside, Dame, and McCollum while Randle’s deal is shorter.

KnickfaninNJ: Someone like Susan Collins of Maine (except she’s Republican) or that lady from ArIzona whose husband was shot, Giffords I think, Is much more likely.

This is a non sequitur

Just bite the bullet on Randle one more year. After that he’s only got $6mm guaranteed and can easily be waived or traded.

The biggest danger for Biden right now is that some of the attack lines from the right start sticking with independent swing voters, specifically “he is a puppet of the radical left”, “he wants to defund the police”, “he’s for chaos in our cities”, “he is against law and order” “he will tax us to death and bankrupt the country,” etc. He needs to pick a VP that doesn’t reinforce those tropes.

I personally feel that Warren would be more of a risk in those terms than Harris. Neither will lose suburban women, but Warren is much closer to Bernie/The Squad than Harris and will turn off some folks on the fence. Warren is probably perceived as more “presidential” by some, but not by much. And Warren is old, white, and professorial, while Kamala is young, a woman of color, and a tough-on-crime prosecutor.

Biden doesn’t need a game-changer here, it’s his election to lose. Once folks get a bigger dose of Kamala, I think they will come around. She’s not Obama but can be very formidable in articulating positions, as she did when she attacked Biden’s old stand on busing. She’ll be just fine.

Hubert:
Just bite the bullet on Randle one more year. After that he’s only got $6mm guaranteed and can easily be waived or traded.

$4 mill, but who’s counting?

KnickfaninNJ:
Traditionally, Vice Presidents are selected to help win elections in key states, because of like thinking with the Presidential candidate (for example, Al Gore), or in order to help raise money by placating a key constituency (Palin or Pence). I don’t think Harris fits any of these buckets since she’s from California, which is very unlikely to go for Trump. Someone like Susan Collins of Maine (except she’s Republican)or that lady from ArIzona whose husband was shot, Giffords I think, Is much more likely.

hmm… “that lady whose husband was shot…”…actually, it was her…and she retired given the traumatic brain injury she suffered…so don’t think she is going to be on the ticket…

I don’t get the recent increase in odds for Susan Rice. She’s currently #2 in the betting odds for VP after Harris. I like Susan Rice, but it sure seems like she’d be a PR nightmare for the ticket, no? It’d just bring Benghazi back to the forefront.

Brian Cronin:
I don’t get the recent increase in odds for Susan Rice. She’s currently #2 in the betting odds for VP after Harris. I like Susan Rice, but it sure seems like she’d be a PR nightmare for the ticket, no? It’d just bring Benghazi back to the forefront.

100% agree. She’s riskier than Kamala.

Kamala’s VP “run” is basically parallel to Biden in the primary. She’s been the frontrunner for VP since this started, and everyone looks at every other option because no one is enthused with her, but then they eventually come back to the original frontrunner all along. She’s not an inspired VP pick, but she’s fine.

This is a non sequitur

For sure. But my point In the paragraph above still stands. And I agree, someone perceived as tough on crime might help Biden. But I’m sure he’d prefer someone from a swing state.

And I apologize about Gifford.

Most election wonks feel that the geographical benefit of a VP candidate is pretty limited. As a Democrat partisan myself, I’d like to see two things out of the candidate: is she a plausible potential president, and is she somebody who can be the standard bearer of the party in the future?

For the former, I think Harris and Warren are the best picks. Harris is a better fit for the Biden ticket ideologically— she’s a straight up mainstream Democrat.

For the latter, the “standard bearer” part, I’d favor Stacy Abrams, who looks a lot like the future of the party to me.

Kamala has some baggage as a prosecutor that doesn’t sit well with many progressives and Black voters. But in a situation where you have to pick your poison, she’s a safe choice. And unlike Biden (who has very little upside) Kamala might actually make a great president. If the Democrats want to get anything done in the next 4-8 years, it’s important for the ticket to be as un-polarizing as possible.

I truly believe that Hillary would have theoretically made a great president if she wasn’t as polarizing as she was (in large part not of her own doing even though she didn’t help herself, but whatever.) Had she gotten elected, she would have gotten even worse treatment than Trump. None of her judges would have gotten approved, there would be rock-solid Republican majorities in the House and Senate, and she would most likely have been a one-term president getting crushed in a Republican wave, led by Trump and his narrative that the election was stolen from him, build a wall, China, etc.

The price of these last 4 years has been high, but I think the country will be better for it in the long run.

Assuming the vice presidential candidate has to be female, someone like Gretchen Whitmer, the governor of Michigan, makes sense.

And the election wonks could be right, but I’m sure geography still matters to Biden.

From Berman’s piece on the Thibs hiring (which is mostly about him comparing Thibs to Tom Coughlin coming to the Giants):

Still, Thibodeau is on record saying he has to change up and adapt. As The Post has already reported, Thibodeau is even willing to allow president Leon Rose and vice president William Wesley to choose at least two of his assistant coaches.

Former Interim head coach Mike Miller, whose contract has another year on it, and Mike Woodson, once repped by Wesley when he coached the Knicks, are solid bets.

According to an NBA source, the only hesitation with Thibodeau was whether his communication skills that have worked in the past still work with the millennial player. Sources in Minnesota contend Thibodeau did not connect well enough with some of the Wolves’ younger stars such as Karl-Anthony Towns and Andrew Wiggins.

That is why Knicks brass wants to make sure Thibodeau’s staff has enough variety.

“Thibs and his guys can flat-out teach and coach,” the NBA source said. “But do they have the communication skills to say the same thing a different way? It’s a subtlety but an important one. Are all of Thibs’ guys saying the same thing the same way? Management has been sensitive to at least the perception.”

I think Biden’s team has to assume that Michigan is safe right now. (I know, Hillary did the same thing, but in retrospect, it didn’t matter bc it was more a general demographic trend in several states than one particular state. She was in trouble as soon as VA was much closer than expected) Probably Wisconsin too. The most concerning state is Pennsylvania. If Biden wins Pennsylvania, it probably means he wins the other democratically-leaning swing states too. So I would nominate whichever candidate helps me most in PA, and assume that the candidate has the same impact in MI and WI. If Biden wins PA, it’s all over. If he loses PA, he has to win pretty much everywhere else just to get to 271, and the demographics that would cause him to lose PA wouldn’t bode well for that happening.

Obviously if Joe wins Ohio or Florida it is all over, probably by a landslide. But there’s no one on the short list that would impact those states any more than Harris or Warren. But certainly worth looking into.

Now, that candidate might be Whitmer, but I’d find out how she would play in PA compared to the others.

According to an NBA source, the only hesitation with Thibodeau was whether his communication skills that have worked in the past still work with the millennial player. Sources in Minnesota contend Thibodeau did not connect well enough with some of the Wolves’ younger stars such as Karl-Anthony Towns and Andrew Wiggins.

That is why Knicks brass wants to make sure Thibodeau’s staff has enough variety.

“Thibs and his guys can flat-out teach and coach,” the NBA source said. “But do they have the communication skills to say the same thing a different way? It’s a subtlety but an important one. Are all of Thibs’ guys saying the same thing the same way? Management has been sensitive to at least the perception.”

If you need someone to speak to the young players of today, you gotta go to Woody.

If you need someone to speak to the young players of today, you gotta go to Woody.

Communication is big, man.

I don’t get the recent increase in odds for Susan Rice. She’s currently #2 in the betting odds for VP after Harris. I like Susan Rice, but it sure seems like she’d be a PR nightmare for the ticket, no? It’d just bring Benghazi back to the forefront.

I understand this from the pragmatic perspective, but remember that the GOP will malign literally any Democrat in an effort to turn them into a toxic asset.

It does not matter one bit how clean someone is. Benghazi was a tragic event with a fake scandal and real political damage, but only because the GOP manufactured enough institutional response to give it legitimacy. Same with the Biden-Ukraine scandal.

I agree that someone like Hillary Clinton should never work in politics again, but the proof of concept has been thoroughly successful: if you create the right narratives, you can make non-Republicans worry about anyone’s “electability,” or “suitability,” in the case of bureaucrats. Sally Yates, Preet Bharara, Andrew McCabe, Geoff Berman, James Clapper, Dan Coats — the chaos is not the only point of the hundreds of firings and resignations manufactured by the Trump Administration; they also want to make sure the departures come with the stink of the dRaiNeD sWaMp, so there’s a thinner bench for future administrations and a chilling effect for those who might have before considered public service. It destroys past experience and limits future competence. It is exactly what the GOP wants, a drowning in a bathtub.

I understand not wanting to give anything up for the sake of this critically-important election, but permitting any semblance of truth to the scurrilous narratives around past officials seems yielding in its own toxic way.

How do you have the nerve to ban Bob Neptune and then pollute a thread about our new coach with this garbage?

***Kamala’s VP “run” is basically parallel to Biden in the primary. She’s been the frontrunner for VP since this started, and everyone looks at every other option because no one is enthused with her, but then they eventually come back to the original frontrunner all along. She’s not an inspired VP pick, but she’s fine.***

In sports, we call this being Thibodeaued.

Pretty much. Heck, that’s how we got to discussing Harris in the first place, Z-Man comparing her odds of becoming VP to Thibs’ odds of being coach.

I really wish Frank as a point guard would just work out lol.

He has great size and defensive chops, which allows your lineups to be switchable, and he mostly makes the correct pass. Idk… maybe it could work with RJ, at least for a while. Then add Vassell and Bertans to that lineup.

Otherwise, you need a primary ball handler who can shoot, and that either pushes Frank to sg or to the bench. At least with an RJ/Frank/Vassell backcourt, you get a potential top-5 defense.

How do you have the nerve to ban Bob Neptune and then pollute a thread about our new coach with this garbage?

Harumph, harumph! Hey, I didn’t get a harumph outta this guy!

Hubert, I think we’re talking strategy more than ideology. No one is personally attacking any individual or group on this board. If you can’t see the difference, whatever.

If you prefer some non-partisan balance, I think the best strategy for Republicans to retain power would be to convince Trump to step down and replace him with Pence. He’s perceived as much more level-headed, less divisive, abrasive and impulsive, and less dismissive of COVID than Trump. He would retain Trump’s base (unlike, say, Romney or Kasich) while luring back 2016 Trump voters who simply won’t vote for him again even though they are not a fan of Biden.

Trump is too narcissistic to do that, but that would be a good strategic move.

Frank at PG can work if you have LeBron, or Giannis, or Harden…but he can’t be the guy you run an offense through.

How do you have the nerve to ban Bob Neptune and then pollute a thread about our new coach with this garbage?

Not sure what you’re talking about. There has never been an outright ban on talking about politics. The discussion today has been respectful and interesting, probably because bob is gone.

For the latter, the “standard bearer” part, I’d favor Stacy Abrams, who looks a lot like the future of the party to me.

If Abrams had pulled out her 2018 race she’d be a shoo in, but I don’t think you can make the former Minority Leader of the Georgia State House of Representatives a geriatric heartbeat away from the presidency. I personally don’t fetishize experience as long as I can tell someone has good judgment, values, etc. but I don’t think the optics are tenable. It’s too bad because she really does check just about every other box.

My pick would be Warren for all of the reasons people have already stated, but it’ll probably be Kamala which is safe and unexciting. Kind of like Biden himself.

thenoblefacehumper: My pick would be Warren for all of the reasons people have already stated, but it’ll probably be Kamala which is safe and unexciting. Kind of like Biden himself.

And to come full circle, like Thibs.

“I truly believe that Hillary would have theoretically made a great president”

What is the name of all that is holy is this based on?

She spent most of her adult life riding her husband’s coattails.

She was a non-entity in the U.S. Senate.

Her time as Secretary of State was, at the very least, questionable.

The one thing she was put in charge of during her husband’s administration turned out to be a disaster of biblical proportions. Reminder, Hillary couldn’t get a DEMOCRATIC Senate to vote on her health care bill. It wasn’t that Republicans blocked it with the filibuster. DEMOCRATS didn’t want to vote on it.

She lost the 2008 Democratic nomination to a black guy with a Muslim-sounding name and she lost it, at least partly, because after a lifetime in politics she didn’t understand how caucuses worked.

She lost the 2016 Presidential race to DONALD TRUMP.

I can buy an argument Hillary would have made a better President than Trump but there is literally no rational argument supporting the suggestion she’d be a “great” President.

Mike

“I understand not wanting to give anything up for the sake of this critically-important election”

If that was truly the case, the Democratic nominee wouldn’t be a guy a half-step away from needing to be moved into an assisted-care facility. One of the things I’m most looking forward to in this campaign is reading Twitter when Biden just stops mid-sentence and wanders off the stage during a Presidential debate.

Mike

We need to hire a Randleologist.
A guy capable to trade Randle successfully.

MBunge:

She spent most of her adult life riding her husband’s coattails.
She certainly has not. This is a biased take. Hillary easily could have carved out a career in politics without Bill, and might have done better without him and his scandals.

She was a non-entity in the U.S. Senate.
This is total bullshit. She was respected on both sides of the aisle and very influential throughout her tenure.

Her time as Secretary of State was, at the very least, questionable.
So is every SoS depending on your point of view. She was respected by allies and leaders across the globe.

The one thing she was put in charge of during her husband’s administration turned out to be a disaster of biblical proportions.Reminder, Hillary couldn’t get a DEMOCRATIC Senate to vote on her health care bill.It wasn’t that Republicans blocked it with the filibuster.DEMOCRATS didn’t want to vote on it.

And universal health care is all the rage now. Excuse her for being ahead of her time.

She lost the 2008 Democratic nomination to a black guy with a Muslim-sounding name and she lost it, at least partly, because after a lifetime in politics she didn’t understand how caucuses worked.

She lost to a more dynamic, charming and equally intelligent change candidate with rock star appeal and a scandal-free history. John McCain and Mitt Romney also lost to Obama and both would have made fine presidents (not my cup of tea, but not embarrassingly incompetent or intractably ideological.)

She lost the 2016 Presidential race to DONALD TRUMP.

As did 20 or so Republican nominees, most of whom would be far better presidents than Trump.

Hillary was a flawed candidate, but would have been one of the most experienced, intelligent, knowledgeable, and prepared presidents ever. Way more than her husband.

She lost the 2008 Democratic nomination to a black guy with a Muslim-sounding name

Not a big Hillary fan so don’t really care to parse through the rest of this rant but this is a very bizarre thing to hold against someone. That guy kicked the ass of every politician on both sides who ever ran against him and would have a shot at 400 electoral votes if he could run in 2020!

We don’t need Bob because we have his polite twin cousin, Mike, to chime in the moment the word Clinton is invoked on a basketball blog.

Julius Randle has to go because his presence is hyper harmful to the development of our young players. He’s a high usage poor shooting turnover machine who has no position on defense. I’d trade him for a longer contract at this point.

One of the things I’m most looking forward to in this campaign is reading Twitter when Biden just stops mid-sentence and wanders off the stage during a Presidential debate.

One of the things I’m most looking forward to is the shock and dismay from people like Bunghole here when the supposedly senile Joe Biden mops the floor with Trump three times in these debates

JK47

MBunge:
“I understand not wanting to give anything up for the sake of this critically-important election”

If that was truly the case, the Democratic nominee wouldn’t be a guy a half-step away from needing to be moved into an assisted-care facility.One of the things I’m most looking forward to in this campaign is reading Twitter when Biden just stops mid-sentence and wanders off the stage during a Presidential debate.

Mike

I don’t think anyone thinks Joe is as intellectually spry as he was 40 years ago. But it’s pretty sad when people have to go through such lengths to paint him as “shot.” He debated a formidable field of Democratic candidates numerous times, and while he had some gaffes, he held his own well enough. You can’t do that and have one foot in a nursing home. But let the Republicans keep beating that drum, it’s worked wonders for them in the polls so far!

If I were a Trump diehard, I’d be pretty worried about how he’s going to hold up in the debates. His schtick isn’t resonating much any more now that he’s not an outsider. I can’t wait to see him trying to defend his COVID response, his take on Charlottsville, Confederate-named military bases, statues, his use of military force against protesters in DC, etc.

The whole “Wait until Trump destroys Biden in the debates” is some fascinating magical thinking nonsense.

re: Randle, my preference would be to trade him in an asset-neutral trade (i.e. not giving up picks or taking on a longer-term deal for a flawed player). But he is in great shape, works hard, and seem to improve under Miller. In his last 17 games, he had an above average TS%. I’d like to see what Thibs can do to help him be better on D and more team-oriented before making a bad deal to dump him.

It’s been a long time since last I posted.
Hope all are well.
I like having a defense-minded coach. I think it appeals to the city’s character. The Garden will be loud.
I also think Thibs sees the Knicks with a once in a generation physically talented center that he can build a tough defense around.
He brings discipline to what has been an undisciplined bunch.
I think the lack of star power will mean players will take the tough side of Thibs as well.
I’m excited.

Brian Cronin:
The whole “Wait until Trump destroys Biden in the debates” is some fascinating magical thinking nonsense.

I can’t think of a reason Biden needs to debate Trump without some serious concessions.

I’m fine with pretty much any Randle related outcome as long as they don’t use sweetener to dump him. His contract structure, which was one of the few affirmatively smart things the previous front office did, makes the whole thing pretty low-stakes.

Trade him for nothing, play him in a more well-thought out role and see if he can recoup some value, don’t play him much at all, whatever.

Just don’t use sweetener to save $4M in 2021.

I concur. I was just looking at Randle’s stats and last year was a down year in eFG and TS% by .06, which is a lot; and he wasn’t awful at 0.492 and.0.538, respectively. A lot of that drop was due to the team and scheme around him forcing him to do too much. It’s worth seeing if he goes back to his former shooting self with better coaching.

Randle is not suited to be a first offensive option. He’s a load in the post, but he should be a second option to shooting uncontested 3’s by good shooters, which he can help generate in a better scheme with better shooters around him.

Randle’s numbers are not as bas as the feeling you get by watching him destroy team’s rhythm.

He had a few games where he was an efficient beast but he also had many games where his spinning/ball hogging was absolutely nerve racking…

If Thibs can make him play on beast mode Only i’m in. Let’s make him our Carlos Boozer.
But if he starts spinning….Ban him!

I think they should just make Randle the backup center and ride out his contract. No need to waste a sweetener to get rid of him.

He’s a poor rim defender, but he could be a decent offensive option on the 2nd unit.

I listened to a Zach Lowe podcast with Chris Herring today where they discussed 6th man of the year. They actually spent a few minutes talking about Mitch, which impressed me. They both had Montrezl and Schroeder 1-2, but Zach said he was thinking about voting Mitch 3rd, although he was leaning towards Christian Woods. Nice to see Mitch getting some national recognition at least.

Wasting a sweetener to get rid of anyone in the roster would be dumb. Even DSJ.
We’re not in a position to take drastic cap measures.

Trump during the debates will ask Biden if he can remember “person, woman, man, camera, TV”

We’re not in a position to take drastic cap measures.

Gotta clear out cap space to sign DeRozan to a max deal.

ess-dog:
I think they should just make Randle the backup center and ride out his contract. No need to waste a sweetener to get rid of him.

He’s a poor rim defender, but he could be a decent offensive option on the 2nd unit.

That’s unlikely to happen though. My guess is that he will be in the starting lineup until further notice, and will mainly be at the 4. I agree with KYN’s take that he is analogous to Boozer.

Randle’s salary will be 18,9M for 2020-2021.
Second highest is Portis’ at 15,75M.
Third is Taj’s at 10,29M.
and after that there are single digit Million salaries.

If you can make your highest paid player effective and happy to come in from the bench you can move Kilimanjaro and Olympus!

Yeah, Thibs is extremely fond of playing lineups with two big men, so I imagine we’ll at least start out with Randle and Mitch in the starting lineup. We’ll see if that lasts all season, though.

My bigger hope is that he starts RJ at the 3, rather than the 2, though we’ll have to see which guards survive the offseason churn.

The best we can do is put a NSC in Randle’s contract.

*No Spin Clause

If you can’t trade Randle now how possible is to trade him after he asks for a trade without wasting a sweetener ?

Randle should NEVER attempt a 3 pointer unless it’s in desperation to beat the shot clock. His career % from 3 is .295 and in 2019-2020 it was .277.

Teams do tend to leave him wide open and obviously if they know he’s not gonna shoot, it’s now 4 on 5, but it’s on the coach to keep him in the low post area to avoid those situations.

Knew Your Nicks:
If you can’t trade Randle now how possible is to trade him after he asks for a trade without wasting a sweetener ?

We don’t HAVE to trade Randle. We just have to run out his contract. Shit, if we can’t trade him, we can even waive him after the deadline if he’s that bad.

If Randle can’t make or defend threes, he’s not a power forward in the modern NBA, and he shouldn’t be ahead of Mitch on the depth chart, obviously. Idk what else to say… it’s just a terrible fit for what seems like obvious reasons. Everyone questioned it at the time because we literally just got rid of Kanter, another big who can’t defend the rim or shoot threes.

I think you need to find the spots from where Randle is most efficient from 3 and limit his shooting to wide-open looks from those spots. If he doesn’t attempt any at all, he’s essentially Enes Kanter except at a position where his counterpart is shooting 3’s, plus Mitch needs some space. I agree that his attempts per game should be limited, though.

Agree with Z-Man. If you have a hard no 3 policy you’re completely surrendering on him ever being anything close to worth his contract and you have a smaller Enes Kanter.

That may well be where his career is headed but since he’s still young, had a relatively encouraging season from 3 just a season ago, and has been a consistently decent FT shooter I think you still have to try to make it a workable shot for him.

The thing is, his 3 point shots this season were almost all wide open. And mostly bricks.

And I disagree that to play power forward in today’s NBA you have to shoot 3 pointers. Paul Millsap career 3 point attempts/game is 1.4, LaMarcus Aldridge .6., Christian Wood 1.6. All pretty good power forwards.

Randle just has to play smarter and get rid of the ball quicker on double teams and he can be pretty effective as a low post scorer.

Isn’t it much better to trade a 20M player for useful and more fitted 20M player/players than waive him 3months after season’s start or bench him forever?

That’s where I have a little bit of faith in Thibs. He’s not going to be afraid to challenge Randle. The current front office (excepting lame duck Perry) is not going to be beholding to him, and if Randle doesn’t buy in, I expect that Rose is gonna back Thibs up.

More likely, though, I think Thibs will get through to Randle. One of the things that Thibs is supposedly good at is breaking down film and showing players what they need to do and not do. Randle is not some long-term pseudo-max player who’s ass needs to be kissed, like Wiggins. He may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer, but he works really hard and seems to care about winning. He just seems like he thinks winning is too dependent on him taking over, when that can’t be his role. But he’s really good at certain things and is a nightmare matchup for small-ball 4’s.

d-mar:

And I disagree that to play power forward in today’s NBA you have to shoot 3 pointers. Paul Millsap career 3 point attempts/game is 1.4, LaMarcus Aldridge .6., Christian Wood 1.6. All pretty good power forwards.

The game has changed, and so have these 3 players. In the last 3 years, Millsap has averaged 3.3 threes per 36. LaMarcus has played mostly at the 5 for the last 3 years and averaged 3.2 3PA per 36 this year. Wood averaged 3.8 3PA per 36 this year and 3.3 3PA per 36 for his career. Randle averaged 4.0 3PA per 36 this year, and only made 27% (terrible) compared to 34% (mediocre but not terrible) last year. If he can shoot somewhat less and make more then I’m okay with that.

It’s probably moot anyway because he’s not going to just not shoot them anymore.

Paul Millsap career 3 point attempts/game is 1.4

Hasn’t been below 3 3PA/36 since 2012-2013

LaMarcus Aldridge .6

3.2 3PA/36 this year in response to concerns that he was becoming a dinosaur

Christian Wood 1.6

3.8 3PA/36 in the only year he was a relevant NBA player (this one)

The way the nba goes even your coach should be able to hit threes in a few years!

By all means, trade Randle if you can, but it will probably have to be for a longer contract. Better to just move him to the bench and sign Wood or Bertans to start. Better yet, give Anthony Bennett a shot at the stretch 4 with a small contract. He was lighting it up in the g-league.

I turned on the Portland/Toronto scrimmage and Melo really is unrecognizably skinny, it’s crazy.

His 4/13 shooting line is all too familiar, though.

Trade Randle wasting a sweetener or trading him for a “worse” fit/contract is not what I’m saying.
But trade him for someone who’s gonna make this young squad better than he will/and fit better with new coach’s plan i believe is more desirable than setting 20M of cap space on fire.

Paul Millsap career 3 point attempts/game is 1.4

Hasn’t been below 3 3PA/36 since 2012-2013

LaMarcus Aldridge .6

3.2 3PA/36 this year in response to concerns that he was becoming a dinosaur

Christian Wood 1.6

3.8 3PA/36 in the only year he was a relevant NBA player (this one)

OK, then, well I guess Randle should just keep firing away. I for one will continue to wince every time one of his wide open 3’s clanks off the rim.

I mean sure trade Randle if you can somehow get an asset back but if we have to deal with him for another year who cares? Randle’s okay, he’s good at some stuff. Try to get him more minutes at center in p-n-r or hope he got better at shooting 3s and don’t let him initiate the offense 18′ from the rim.

If Miller had remained the head coach I’d say “Trade Randle NOW”
Thibs has his chance to make him fit.
Very curious to see what will happen.

Maybe Thibs can get Randle to play some D? Yeah, at least, stop running the offense through him.

Or Thibs could just turn Mitch into Anthony Davis and have him shoot threes and break guys down off the dribble. That’s more likely to work than Randle becoming a good stretch 4.

Trump during the debates will ask Biden if he can remember “person, woman, man, camera, TV”

okay, so you’re sort of making me break a silent vow of not talkin’ politics…that there though is legitimate humor…i refuse to look it up (i got enough random rolling around upstairs already), but – wasn’t camel in there too?

i like how the distinction between fox news daytime and fox news nighttime grows larger…in lieu of sports – sadly this year of news has done more than make up for in distraction…i find the presentation variance of “news” itself to be a little interesting from a sociology view…those ladies on oan look rough man, get them some new make up folks please…i see joy reid is getting a lot more coverage now…

Yeah, can you even imagine trying to trade Knox for Bridges now? The Suns would laugh you off the call. What a bad move. And Bridges wasn’t even that impressive in his rookie season, but he had a clear ability to play NBA-level defense at the wing, one of the most valuable skills in the modern NBA. Ooph.

Thibs used to be Isola’s source back in the day. I wonder if they’re still close. I guess we’ll find out if Isola suddenly starts breaking stories again.

miguel andujar – left field – oh oh, that’s not good…maybe my favorite yankee in a while…love to see him hacking at the plate…unfortunately he has issues with his glove, hence left field, in an already really crowded outfield…

in an already really crowded outfield…

So crowded that poor Clint Frazier — who would be starting for a lot of teams in this league — just got optioned down to the satellite squad in Scranton. Still hoping to see him home run in a major league game this season, while wearing his mask.

Speaking of baseball, it will be interesting to see what MLB does regarding the Miami Marlins situation. I have to think that at the least they would cancel the upcoming home series.

A favor. Let Team Optimism rule the day until we make a bad move under Rose.

I’m always Team Optimism but allow me to point out all the reasons why we should be optimistic about The Knicks right now.

1. We have 6 first round picks over the next 4 years.
2. Rose has hired good scouts, etc…to fill out the Bball operations team.
3. Thibs is a legitimately good coach. Look, we can argue if he was the best pick and there are flaws to him, like everyone. But people talk about bball changing and the modern NBA so much you would think the game is now played with two balls and a triangle hoop. Thibs still knows PLENTY of stuff about basketball. He will work his ass off and he will demand that the players work their ass off too. They will be prepared. Lost in all the Twolves talk is that they did improve under him and got worse when he left.
4. We have no real bad contracts and lots of cap flexibility. Sure, it would be great if some of Noah’s contract wasn’t still on the books but basically we have tons of room for maneuvering.
5. MITCH and RJ – hey, I’ll admit. They aren’t sure fire perrenial all stars in the making and I wish we had JA, but I think these 2 kids are the beginning of a foundation for us. And I believe they will thrive under Thibs.

So there are legitimate reasons for us to be optimistic.

The Marlins situation just went from bad to nuclear, per Jeff Passan:

Eight more players and two coaches with the Miami Marlins have tested positive for COVID-19, as an outbreak has spread throughout their clubhouse and brought the total of cases in recent days to at least 14, sources familiar with the situation tell me and @JesseRogersESPN

Marlins’ home opener has already been canceled. The Yankees, meanwhile, have to use the same locker room that the infected Marlins’ players just occupied. At this rate, I just can’t imagine the season being completed. The NBA bubble might not work, but there is at least SOME logic to attempting it. Baseball’s approach was always going to lead to something like this, because it was just willful denial of how contagious this thing is. And there is NO way the NFL season will be able to work.

From Berman:

However, after seven straight losing seasons, owner James Dolan wants victories. That’s why David Fizdale was fired so quickly after a 4-18 start. Tanking was not an option and Rose wants to prove his mettle and show free agents the Garden’s winning culture has been restored. That’s why Thibodeau is here and Kenny Atkinson became an also-ran.

lmao

With Rose, his former agent in charge, and Thibodeau as head coach, Anthony is in play. Thibodeau, as the Bulls coach, lusted after Anthony during 2014 free agency.

it’s 2020

1. Randle is good player that most teams would be happy and lucky to have. He’s just not a good player on a team with Mitch as your starting C and wings/guards that can’t shoot. If Mitch developed a KP-like outside game and created space and we had some players that could shoot a little, Randle’s TS% would get back to 60%, his TOs would drop, and he’d continue contributing on the boards. As the Knicks are presently constructed, he’d be better off coming off the bench.

Tanking was not an option and Rose wants to prove his mettle and show free agents the Garden’s winning culture has been restored. That’s why Thibodeau is here and Kenny Atkinson became an also-ran.

2. Berman must read this blog. I’ve been saying that all along and spelled it out clearly the other day.

Rose is not here to satisfy the fantasies of the tankers. He’ll die of old age before we rebuild that way. He’s here to develop some of the young players we have, continue drafting, potentially use some of the young players and picks as assets, and bring in guys that know how to play basketball, fit together, and can start winning. Then keep moving forward trying to get better each year using every option available.

That’s why I keep saying the biggest question is whether we have good basketball minds in the organization.

We may have a great coach.

We may have a very good cap guy.

We may have finally gotten rid of Mills and hopefully also reduced the influence of Perry.

But as far I can tell, outside just coaching with Thibs/Miller, we don’t have management people that actually understand basketball so we are drafting and bringing in the correct and complimentary free players.

With Rose, his former agent in charge, and Thibodeau as head coach, Anthony is in play. Thibodeau, as the Bulls coach, lusted after Anthony during 2014 free agency.

This is an example of the “understanding basketball” problem.

You more or less have to be brain damaged level stupid in basketball terms to bring Melo back at all.

If you do, it would have to be as a favor to allow him to have his farewell tour in NY. It can’t be to start, play serious minutes, or try to play winning basketball. If Rose actually thinks adding Melo would in some way be beneficial to winning or developing our young players, he can’t be fired fast enough. Melo used to be a VERY good basketball player (that never learned how to play correctly), but those days are long gone. Injury ended that years ago when he was still in NY.

Deeefense: hat’s why I keep saying the biggest question is whether we have good basketball minds in the organization.

We may have a great coach.

We may have a very good cap guy.

We may have finally gotten rid of Mills and hopefully also reduced the influence of Perry.

But as far I can tell, outside just coaching with Thibs/Miller, we don’t have management people that actually understand basketball so we are drafting and bringing in the correct and complimentary free players.

You kind of contradict yourself here. In addition, Rose hired an exceptional scout and others.

Beyond front office staff hires, Rose has made 4 moves:
Hiring Thibs
Waiving Trier
Signing Harper
Signing Pinson

So far, so good.

Now, we need to find out what our draft position is and find a starter and a rotation player from among the 3 picks, ppossibly by swapping draft position. That will be when we can get a better handle on what the FO is really thinking.

I think it’s fair to say that Rose/Thibs are not going to embrace a full-out tank. So barring injury and major trade developments, my guess is that we will be somewhere between 8-15 in 2021 draft position, plus somewhere around #20 with the Dallas pick. Sounds like we’ll be trying to emulate the Spurs, Warriors, Bucks, Raptors, Heat, Pacers, Nuggets, Jazz, etc…contending franchises who built contenders without abjectly tanking. The key is drafting smarter, not higher. Draft Donovan Mitchell, or one of the Collins’, or Bam instead of Frank. Draft Shai instead of Knox. Trade down instead of drafting RJ (not that I’m down on RJ, or know whether that was possible…). Rose seems to have a team that can do that if listened to.

And there is NO way the NFL season will be able to work.

Think about the human hours that will be invested into the planning of the NFL and NCAA football seasons, when there’s about a 0.01% chance they’ll function to any satisfactory end. Wishful thinking indeed.

Wow, MLB season might not even last a week. MLB.com has nothing up about the Marlins situation right now, but I’ve read that tonight’s Yankees game in Philly is cancelled. I guess they are trying to sterilize the visiting team clubhouse.

According to Eduardo Perez, an ESPN baseball announcer, traveling teams are creating more restrictive protocols. Quarantining teams in their hotel from the time of arrival until time to go to the ballpark. Apparently, the 113 page MLB protocol book has nothing for dealing with a spike of positive tests.

What a shock that a FL team is having a COVID spike, given how brilliantly their governor has handled things.

I guess you can add the Nets to a team who rebuild without top-of-the-lottery picks.

Sending all the kiddies back to school in a few weeks is gonna go great doe!

JK47:
Sending all the kiddies back to school in a few weeks is gonna go great doe!

Damn you, JK! Damn you!!

Bo Nateman:
According to Eduardo Perez, an ESPN baseball announcer, traveling teams are creating more restrictive protocols. Quarantining teams in their hotel from the time of arrival until time to go to the ballpark. Apparently, the 113 page MLB protocol book has nothing for dealing with a spike of positive tests.

Time for pages 114+, I guess.

I’ve been staying away from the political talk on this website because quite frankly I’m not qualified enough to speak on any of it, but I do think it’s embarrassing that leaders in this country are willing to sacrifice life in order to rebuild an economy. The economy cannot bring people back to life, but lives can remake an economy. Sending children back to schools, most of which in urban areas are overcrowded and underfunded, is just more of the same bullshit I’ve come to expect from the leaders in this country.

We have yet to see the worst of this pandemic in the United States, and because people (on both sides) are not taking this threat seriously enough we will experience it longer than maybe any other country in the world.

Like how is it even okay for an organization ran by cartel of billionaires to have no protocol for dealing with an outbreak when you have teams in Arizona, Texas, California, Florida, and New York? Billionaires have an uncanny ability to duck accountability.

Z-man:
What a shock that a FL team is having a COVID spike, given how brilliantly their governor has handled things.

This bipartisan talk is surely grounds for a 1000-year ban on Z-man, is it not?

But seriously, it’s nice to see the NBA looking like the rational league (relatively) during all of this.

ess-dog: This bipartisan talk is surely grounds for a 1000-year ban on Z-man, is it not?

Maybe the Knicks will be good by that time…

I’ve been getting bombarded with emails from my Knicks rep about renewing my season tickets. And in a true spirit of generosity, they’ve assured me that if any games are played without fans they will provide a refund or credit.

Seriously, though, is there any chance there will be fans attending sporting events in the next 12 months (especially indoor events)? I get that the Knicks have to pretend that we’re going to have a normal season, but it’s ludicrous for them to ask for $$ at this point.

ess-dog: But seriously, it’s nice to see the NBA looking like the rational league (relatively) during all of this.

To be fair, it’s by far the easiest gig. You simply couldn’t do it with baseball or football, too many players, bigger facilities and fields, need for all teams to participate. The NBA is also simply finishing off a largely completed season and having playoffs in a dwindling pool. The restart for 2020-21 will be a whole other undertaking, not sure if the bubble thing will work for a full 30-team season.

been thinking about the re-opening school thing a lot the last couple of weeks, it’s sort of stuck on my mind…for those of you who have young children you already know those first couple of weeks back you’re pretty much guaranteed your child is going to bring home something…

I need to find a good site which lists positivity rates by zip codes…I’m thinking if the zip codes the kid’s school serve has a positivity rate above 8% or so – best to keep them home…

I need to look again at what the “community” positivity rate the CDC lists as being too high for “safely” opening schools…I think it might be like 5% or something…

I’ve been staying away from the political talk on this website because quite frankly I’m not qualified enough to speak on any of it

That’s never stopped anyone else here before.

I think its a pretty low bar right now of being “qualified” to speak on politics when you take a look at who are the actual politicians that in theory are “qualified” to speak on politics…

geo:
been thinking about the re-opening school thing a lot the last couple of weeks, it’s sort of stuck on my mind…for those of you who have young children you already know those first couple of weeks back you’re pretty much guaranteed your child is going to bring home something…

I need to find a good site which lists positivity rates by zip codes…I’m thinking if the zip codes the kid’s school serve has a positivity rate above 8% or so – best to keep them home…

Geo.
Many of the state and county health department sites have data by zip code. I would start there. The problem for some schools at least in NYC is that they draw their student population from multiple locations and zip codes making it a bit more difficult to track.

Some wag on here, I think his name was JK something, said a few weeks back that baseball would start up and get shut down in a matter of weeks.

He’ll be back for another round of “I told you so’s” when the school openings turn into an unmitigated disaster.

I had a long talk with one of my friends who is a teacher in an affluent suburban public school. NYC has variables that suburban schools don’t have to consider, such as staff using crowded public transportation, multiple schools in one school building that need to share security, medical, and recreational space and personnel and need to coordinate arrival and dismissal, restrictive hiring protocols, very limited outdoor space per capita, inclement weather protocols….and widespread poverty and systemic inequities. I am trying to rally my colleagues to lobby for a phased-in approach…start with 100% remote and then phase in in-school learning one day at a time over the fall.

I think its a pretty low bar right now of being “qualified” to speak on politics when you take a look at who are the actual politicians that in theory are “qualified” to speak on politics…

QAnon conspiracy theorists are winning GOP primaries and will soon be a sizable contingent of their House representation soon. Let that sink in.

The restart for 2020-21 will be a whole other undertaking, not sure if the bubble thing will work for a full 30-team season.

The NBA needs to cut the shit with “tradition” and start thinking creatively. Having a series of short seasons, group play, and tournaments would be a perfect experiment during this time. It would allow for “decompression” from the bubble and minimize the risk of another truncated season, while allowing the NBA to exploit its ridiculous influx of superstar power right now.

I don’t know if it’s possible due to TV contracts, and probably isn’t, but I would start looking at some shorter-term options that will have less a blue-balls impact if canceled. You’re going to see some real brand damage done if they can’t finish out their full-postseason approach and have to leave the title unclaimed.

Better to have a new kind of champion than none, IMO.

Z-man:
I had a long talk with one of my friends who is a teacher in an affluent suburban public school. NYC has variables that suburban schools don’t have to consider, such as staff using crowded public transportation, multiple schools in one school building that need to share security, medical, and recreational space and personnel and need to coordinate arrival and dismissal, restrictive hiring protocols, very limited outdoor space per capita, inclement weather protocols….and widespread poverty and systemic inequities. I am trying to rally my colleagues to lobby for a phased-in approach…start with 100% remote and then phase in in-school learning one day at a time over the fall.

Z-man. Your proposal is more sound than what we currently have. It also gives time for the education and City bureaucrats to address the myriad of issues surrounding opening, not the least of which is childcare.
One of the many problems is that the stakeholders ( parents/students, teachers/admin, union, gov’t )do not appear to be having any kind of constructive dialogue around opening. The principal’s union issued a pretty comprehensive list of questions/issues around opening, few of which to my knowledge have been answered. The teacher’s union claimed that they were going to check the ventilation system of every DoE school. When I reached out to some chapter leaders I know to inquire about this, they investigated up the hierarchy and got no answers. Think about the political fallout if NYC schools are opened and it serves as a catalyst for a resurgence of the virus. Imo, the NYC locals are playing a game of political chicken with Cuomo waiting for him to make the call to delay opening.

hey bo, i hope all is well for yourself and family…it’s funny, i use different “queues” to remember different posters…whenever i see your name now i think: Bo’s burgers from queens (i think that was where you had mentioned grabbing a burger together) – and, it makes me hungry for a burger 🙂

i mean we talk about stats all the time…the only way i can think to provide the kid’s mom with guidance is to try to find the numbers and use them as best as possible to make a rational decision to minimize risk as best as possible…

my faith in others making those choices for the kids is not so great…

And not to be too self-absorbed, but it feels like principals are being set up for massive failure. I have never gone into a school year with this much uncertainty and with such a wide range (and high probability of) negative outcomes for which we will be held accountable. The typical principal is routinely out of compliance on about a billion things, yet rare is the case that it costs a life. This feels very dangerous for my colleagues (less so for me because as of this year I can retire at a moments notice with full benefits).

Geo
Data and common sense need to be deployed. I know parents, who are forming pods to collectively homeschool their kids using tutors. Part of their vetting process is their knowledge of the other families’ behaviors about the virus. The same goes for your Godson’s school. You must have a sense of the culture and attitude of the community as it pertains to the virus, which largely informs the status of the virus. Then it becomes a question of the school and what protocols they have in place for dealing with the virus. The NYC principal’s union issued the most comprehensive list of questions concerning protocols that I have read ( it was posted on SCRIBD and if I can find the link I will post it). You can select the most important questions and ask the principal.
Btw, While I like the name Bo’s Burgers, the place I will be taking you to is Emmy Squared.

Z-man:
And not to be too self-absorbed, but it feels like principals are being set up for massive failure. I have never gone into a school year with this much uncertainty and with such a wide range (and high probability of) negative outcomes for which we will be held accountable. The typical principal is routinely out of compliance on about a billion things, yet rare is the case that it costs a life. This feels very dangerous for my colleagues (less so for me because as of this year I can retire at a moments notice with full benefits).

Not self-absorbed at all! I understand your fear. On behalf of my wife ( who is somewhat similarly situated to you), I have read the NYSED reopening guidelines and the educrats are passing all the responsibilities on to the principals ( administrators) without giving the time, resources, guidance, or support to implement them. So this year, principals will be taking the place of teachers for the failures of the system, except as you refer to the stakes are literally life and death.

I am personally less risk-averse than many of my colleagues, so it is only in part about safety for me. It is also about the logistics and protocols for which we are fully accountable. There simply isn’t time to get it right for early September, not without necessary preparation time with teachers who are not back until after labor day, and some not back after that between waivers, leaves and hiring restrictions.

The school issue is obviously much more important than anything Knicks-related. But if you want to take your mind off Covid for a few, The Athletic has a very good article up from the T-Wolves beat writer about Thibs’ time there, what did and didn’t work, and why he thinks the X factor for Thibs succeeding or failing in New York will be Rose.

If anyone understands exactly what he is getting when hiring Thibodeau, it’s Rose. The two have known each other for years and helped bring Thibodeau to Minnesota. Rose was one of the most powerful and influential agents in the business at CAA, which represents Thibodeau, before leaving to run the Knicks. He also represented Towns, so he had a front-row seat for all of the drama that unfolded with the Timberwolves.

While Butler was orchestrating his exit, Thibodeau was digging in his heels and Towns was gritting his teeth, Rose was hearing it from all sides. He did not need to do any extra homework to see what went wrong in that situation because he was right in the middle of all of it. In giving Thibodeau a five-year contract to be his first head coach, Rose is making an emphatic statement that whatever happened in Minnesota could, at maximum, be only partially attributed to the coach.

Rose may also believe that his presence in New York will cover a lot of the holes that opened for Thibodeau in the Twin Cities. What Thibodeau needed more than anything with the Wolves was someone he respected who could alert him to the heat coming around the corner and help him address it.

One more important Rose/Thibs passage from that story:

In New York, Thibodeau only has to be concerned with coaching. The business and political obligations that come with a title like president will no longer apply to him with the Knicks. In Rose, he has a strong ally who is also well-versed in all of the booby traps and potholes lurking in an NBA franchise that can doom a coach and ruin a season.

After two fiery exits, and with the league and players evolving, one gets the feeling that Thibodeau needs the Knicks almost as much as the Knicks need Thibodeau. He will come to New York loaded with all of the information, stats and film study anyone could possibly have downloaded in that basketball brain of his, and Rose will make sure that he is not burdened with the dregs of the NBA life that do not suit him.

Thibodeau wants to put the last two ugly endings behind him and prove once and for all his long-held belief that the struggles the Bulls and Wolves have had without him validates his approach. And he wants to do it in New York, for a city and franchise he holds near and dear to his heart.

I believe that Thibs can make Mitch into a second team all-nba defensive player. The rest of it, i don’t know.

But hey, the gm and the coach are on the same page.

It’s cool to see that everything’s still going well here. It’s disconcerting, though, to see that notorious bumbling spoiled child Italy has (so far) managed the pandemic way more efficiently than USA.

I take issue with the idea that Thibs “flamed out” in Chicago. Their window of competing was simply closing after 5 successful seasons. He won 50 plus games every season he coached there despite the injuries. The Bulls blew up Jordan and company for god’s sake.

Farfa:
It’s cool to see that everything’s still going well here. It’s disconcerting, though, to see that notorious bumbling spoiled child Italy has (so far) managed the pandemic way more efficiently than USA.

Farfa!

Yes, isn’t that crazy?

sorry al…you’ve done an amazing job recently to help us to not focus on all the trials surrounding us…there should be an oasis from constant stark reality…somewhere to speak of the more mundane like – basketball…

don’t give up on us…

honestly bo, any burger that you could cook up and serve at your table would far exceed any kind of restaurant thing 🙂

i’ve always enjoyed demographics, just so little time to let my mind wander in that direction…this situation though – is relevant to such an incredibly localized level…

i just wish there were federal structure and enforcement geared towards specific locations…

i got something off-topic, but sort of interesting (to me anyways :)…a year or so ago had a chance to watch the two popes and just marveled at the acting jonathan pryce and anthony hopkins did, what a joy…

last night watched this flick from 2015 with christopher plummer and martin landau called remember – so cool to watch them act…

that must be really something to love your work so much that you continue to do it up until close to the end…

“It’s cool to see that everything’s still going well here. It’s disconcerting, though, to see that notorious bumbling spoiled child Italy has (so far) managed the pandemic way more efficiently than USA.”

The United States currently has 146,546 COVID deaths. If the U.S. had the same death rate as Italy, we’d have 190,658 deaths. That’s despite the U.S. registering VASTLY more COVID infections than Italy. The U.S. currently has 4,225,687 COVID cases. If we were reporting the same level of infections as Italy, that number would be just 1,337,332 COVID cases. And the U.S. is testing about twice as many people as Italy.

So, the U.S. higher number of infections is at least partly due to a higher level of testing. Meanwhile, Italy still has a significantly higher death rate. So Italy has certainly been more “efficient” at getting people killed from COVID.

Mike

One thing I thought was really interesting in that Krawczynski piece was the idea that lots of teams function on a good cop, bad cop basis but that because Thibs was both coach and president and functionally the sole authority he was lacking a good cop to balance him out. There’s some logic to the idea that Rose (who obviously knows how to manage player relationships) can be an effective counterweight to Thibs. I still think there’s real schematic questions about Thibs but the article made me more hopeful that it can work from a personality standpoint.

I will say that I think the idea of Miller and Woodson as assistants is questionable to me. The “team of rivals” approach can occasionally work but having two former Knicks head coaches on the staff, neither of whom have a strong preexisting relationship with the head guy and knowing in advance that Thibs is likely to be polarizing at best with the players – it just looks like a recipe for drama and backbiting to me.

I like the idea of Miller being on the staff but not Miller and Woodson. Miller makes sense. He was an assistant last year and took over as the head coach. He helps with continuity and knows the players all ready. He can help get Thibs up to speed, especially with the younger players.

Woodson is probably a fine assistant coach and I think he gets a little more flack than he should as a head coach. But to me, it just doesn’t make sense to bring him in. Why?

So, the U.S. higher number of infections is at least partly due to a higher level of testing. Meanwhile, Italy still has a significantly higher death rate. So Italy has certainly been more “efficient” at getting people killed from COVID.

In his infinite wisdom, The Great President Trump realized what no other world leader did: you can dilute your death rate by letting the virus run absolutely rampant among your entire population.

This of course gets far more people killed in total, and subjects far more total people to the short and long-term effects of Covid, than an approach that emphasizes actually suppressing the virus.

But hey, that’s a small price to pay for being able to ramble about mortality rates when confronted with the fact that your approach to the virus has been to wish it away.

Whoops! The U.S. testing rate is only about 50% higher than Italy’s.

Mike

“In his infinite wisdom, The Great President Trump realized what no other world leader did: you can dilute your death rate by letting the virus run absolutely rampant among your entire population.”

You…are not good at math. Or epidemiology. Or public policy if you think a higher death rate is somehow an indication of superior disease-control practices.

The mental energy people like you are going to have to begin exerting when you can’t just answer every question with “Orange Man Bad” is going to be enough to power human civilization for the next hundred years.

Mike

We may not have exceeded Italy on all metrics, but part of the US is doing it’s best to catch up. I mean let’s “make America great again”

This is sort of like debating who’s the better owner, Dolan or Michael Jordan.

Miller is a friend of a friend of Thibs’, at least, as he worked as one of Jeff Van Gundy’s assistants on some of the US national teams in recent years. JVG has sung his praises recently, even though he’s clearly happy Thibs got the job. I can see Thibs and Miller work well together, especially since, as Swiftandabundant notes, Miller has a lot of experience with these kids. Woodson seems like the more problematic hire, but he also has never come across as a politician or a backstabber type, so if Thibs is okay with it, it doesn’t trouble me.

c’mom man…mike woodson has a job with warm weather year round in a much more chilled environment…i mean, i’m not exactly saying LA > NY, butt, hell no to cold weather (anything below forty fahrenheit or so)…

plus he’s on the clips going for chips…why in the world would woody want us…i’d be disappointed in him if he took an assistant job with the knicks…

geo: plus he’s on the clips going for chips…why in the world would woody want us…i’d be disappointed in him if he took an assistant job with the knicks…

He has a shot at Knicks HC once the Knicks don’t miraculously get better in the next 2 years. Not true of LAC

Italy has a higher covid death rate than the the US. Italy is currently 6th highest in the world and the US is currently 11th. But it is also clear that Italy is on the upswing, while the US is in the throes of a massive wave that will inevitably raise their death rate higher, so going on a victory lap that the US has statistically handled the pandemic better than the most disastrous countries is, perhaps, a bit premature.

-Don

yeah well, we may have smog thick enough to hold in your hand – but, at least we don’t get freezing rain or searing heat with 200% humidity…

I think Woodson left the Clippers a season ago. News reports weren’t clear why.

maybe it was for a chance to coach on the heat…if you’re in new york you think maybe i should be in so cal or florida, if you’re in so cal you think it might be nice to be in miami…

The last time Mike Woodson was the lead assistant he was the beneficiary of the Melo hissy fit at Linsanity and the jealous undermining of D’Antoni. While I don’t necessarily think he was somehow involved — though I also don’t necessarily think he wasn’t — I’ll never make my peace with that. He doesn’t avoid the putrid stench and he’ll forever be damaged goods with me.(*) I don’t want him around.

(*) As will Melo himself. Even the 54 wins didn’t wipe away the stench.

I should clarify that I don’t want Woodson near this team.

“The East is big” but for some reason our 2pg lineup with Melo at the 4 was our only good team of the last 2 decades. That’s all anyone needs to know.

Not super psyched about a return of Woodson, can’t see any value add there. Maybe Thibs wants someone who’ll yell at the players for passing the ball. I wanna know who is it that’s shilling for Woodson?

going on a victory lap that the US has statistically handled the pandemic better than the most disastrous countries is, perhaps, a bit premature.

And the NYC death rate was a lot worse than what we’re seeing now in the south. Really, a lot of this is that docs know a whole lot more about how to effectively treat covid than they did in the spring. Death rates are down everywhere. It’s not an informative comparison, and it dimishes the danger of long term effects.

I think Woodson’s a competent assistant coach, but I’d prefer Miller as the lead assistant.

There’s a lot of obesity down here in the South, so I wonder if, as Covid spreads more, death rates might increase over time?

just thinking the name mike woodson – makes me yawn…no need for sheep, simply count woody’s different jobs…

death rates might increase over time?

not unless healthcare systems become overwhelmed…so, yeah, maybe…but, i doubt the curse of delicious bbq and fried everything for your area will cause a lot of extra trouble…

there’s fat people everywhere…heck, some soft, round looking weird guy keeps sneaking in to my mirror to mock me all the time…

All the Knicks need now is some good basketball players

I mean, if you like that sort of thing.

I am more concerned right now with the players we have playing well.

Thibs has a good track record with young players willing to buy in (i.e., not KAT and Wiggins). I have no doubt he will iron out all the sloppy aspects of Mitch’s defensive game, for instance, and turn him from a highlight reel into a game-altering force on that end. He will use Frank to his full potential on defense, and hopefully Rose will assemble a roster that can cover for our beautiful Frenchman a bit on the other end. RJ’s improvement will probably depend more on his shot than anything, but he seems like a hard worker who will do everything he can to improve. Knox is probably a lost cause, especially with this coach. (Knox is also a hard worker; he just processes things way too slowly in the halfcourt, in addition to seeming woefully uncoordinated.) DSJ, also probably a lost cause. Who knows what we have in Iggy, Wooten, and Harper (or Lamar Peters, for that matter)? If Taj stays, we know what we’ll get from him. Bullock seems more a matter of health than coaching, if his option gets picked up.

The real question mark among returnees, as we’ve talked about, is Randle. But he’s also basically an expiring contract, so if he doesn’t agree to stop the stupid goddamn spin move, he can watch from the bench.

No one on this team strikes me as a player who will have issues with Thibs asking a lot of them. The exception that immediately comes to mind is DSJR, but I don’t think anyone on this board will lose much sleep over benching him permanently.

DSJ and Randle might be the only ones (and Payton, too, if he comes back). With the others, it’s less a matter of will than of ability. Can RJ shoot better? Can Frank do enough offensively as a wing to stay on the court? Can Knox simultaneously get much better at every single aspect of playing basketball? But all three will put in the work, I believe.

You have to assume that we will draft at least one PG. That means we’ll likely have Frank, DSjr, Harper, and draftee competing for minutes. So it will be interesting to see if they keep Payton around. It’s kind of a value contract, so even keeping him for trade purposes isn’t the worst idea in the world.

Don Leon leads Thibs into an empty training room. A player is lying on a gurney, a sheet draped over his face.
LR: “Tomasso, are you ready to do this service for me?”
TT: “What do you want me to do?”
LR: “I want you to use all your powers, and all your skills.” [pulls back sheet, revealing Kevin Knox’s face] “I don’t want his mother to see him like this.”

He turns and points to a TV monitor with a loop of game film of Knox getting torched over and over again on D.

“Look how they massacred my boy…”

it will be interesting to see if they keep Payton around.

talk about if a player could only learn to shoot…

Absolutely, and if teams are feeling poor, there are probably trades we could make that would help them financially too.

We already have two firsts and a high second. Rookie contracts are hugely valuable and all, but Thibs is probably not going to play a lot of all-kid lineups, and we still ideally need to find playing time for Iggy and some of the other Westchester folk. And this draft is sketchy, though it sounds like the issue is more about top-end talent than role player depth. I guess what I’m asking is at what point does acquiring additional picks in this draft become a poor allocation of resources?

In an ideal world, the team would figure out a way to buy another pick or two and then flip them for 2021 picks, but I can’t see that happening.

Maybe an additional first helps to trade up if we really have an eye on someone. But more generally, I think Rose needs to convince Dolan to use his surplus non-cap money to the Knicks’ advantage during these lean times.

***I think Rose needs to convince Dolan to use his surplus non-cap money to the Knicks’ advantage during these lean times.***

As interesting as it would be to buy up draft picks, the reality is that teams are limited to spending a total of $3.5 million a year on “cash considerations”. $3.5 mil is what Golden State spent to buy the 2nd round pick that became Jordan Bell. ($3.5 mil just doesn’t go very far anymore, even when it has Dolan’s face on it).

Rookie contracts can be valuable when you draft the right guys. We’re paying DSjr, Frank and Knox like $17 million combined next year.

And yes, this draft is a good time to find high-floor role players and high upside, very low floor flyers. None of the top guys is certain to be a top-3 starter on a good team. OTOH, there will be some strong players in the late teens, guys like Nesmith, Kira Lewis Jr., Maxey, Bey, Precious, Hampton, Ramsay might all be available. So trading our late first and 2nd to move up might be a good idea, especially if we can buy another first rounder.

Donnie Walsh:
***I think Rose needs to convince Dolan to use his surplus non-cap money to the Knicks’ advantage during these lean times.***

As interesting as it would be to buy up draft picks, the reality is that teams are limited to spending a total of $3.5 million a year on “cash considerations”. $3.5 mil is what Golden State spent to buy the 2nd round pick that became Jordan Bell. ($3.5 mil just doesn’t go very far anymore, even when it has Dolan’s face on it).

well, that blows.

I have been following the NBA with a KB-level devotion over the last ten years, and I just learn in this thread that there’s a cap on cash considerations. Love this board.

I vaguely remember that provision…maybe iserp brought it up in the past, he was always on top of that stuff.

I think we could flip our late 1st and 2nd for a higher pick to a cash-strapped team. Maybe the Spurs? Although they hate us after the Morris deal.

I’m fine picking where we are though. I’ll take the Haliburton/Riller/Tillie special please.

I wonder if a team drafting around 8-10 would consider trading for cash and our two lower picks. They’d save both cash on the higher rookie salary and get the $3.5 mill, and still have a couple of flyer picks.

Pretty sure the cash limit is a pre-season thing, not per trade. But if it’s bad across the board perhaps they’ll adjust that rule for this offseason.

The lack of funds is why I keep saying the Knicks need to get draft picks if they take on CP3. Idk why, but people kept taking about the salary cap.

Like that’s great that teams have cap space but that doesn’t mean crap if the team owners are going broke paying $40 million.

If we really want picks we can skirt the cash limit by taking on excess salary.

Step 1: Let Portis and mercs walk this offseason
Step 2: Open our arms to all the overpaid crap from teams looking to cut salary

Yeah, the cash limit has been a major factor for the Knicks for years now. Dolan is an asshole, but he’s an asshole that used to be quite willing to spend money on draft picks and trades, but the cash limit was introduced seemingly specifically to stymie Dolan’s efforts.

The limit is $5.617 million this year, that includes all trades, not just draft pick trades.

Is anyone sure that Dolan isn’t also cash-strapped right now? He’s not Ballmer with $40B or Joe Tsai or even a financial services guy like Dan Gilbert. I’m sure he is diversified in some way like all ultra-rich people are, but his major businesses are all live entertainment — MSG/Rangers/Knicks/concert venues etc.

meanwhile Macri and co brought up the name DJ Augustin as a possible “vet” FA signing. He is 32 but as a spot-starter replacement on a 1 year contract for Payton I would be fully good with that. His 3P shooting sort of fell off last year but still a 38% career 3P shooter who averaged 15 points and 6.6 assists per 36 last year. A perfectly average player who won’t cost much. And played for Thibs in Chicago in 13-14 where he had maybe his best season.

interestingly by RPM he was the #12 PG in the league this past season with most of his value on defense playing for Steve Clifford, who was also an assistant under JVG and stylistically is probably pretty similar to Thibs? Last year was #15, year before #27.

When you make a trade to save some other team money, I suspect you get the most bang for the buck when you enable them to avoid paying luxury tax, but that usually means filling roster spots with lousy contracts. I’m not sure we should do that. I want those roster spots used for more young players. It might be better to trade the Charlotte pick and cash to move up. The Charlotte pick has value, but since it’s in the second round there is no rookie scale salary attached, which will save some other team money.

Like someone said, you only have so many roster spots for young players. If the Knicks do buy a pick, it will likely be used in a package to move up to get someone they have their eye on. In fact, they probably won’t leave this draft with more than two new players, especially because there’s likely to be some interesting undrafted options to put on the g-league team.

I guess the question is, do they use a Dallas pick to move up for LaMelo or buy another 2020 1st to do it? It probably behooves them to keep as much 2021 draft capital as possible, but we will see.

Even if the move up in the lottery and get LaMelo, they will still probably try to be aggressive and move up from 27 by packaging picks.

think Woodson’s a competent assistant coach, but I’d prefer Miller as the lead assistant.

I don’t have a major problem with him as a coach. He did a good development job in Atlanta and was decent in NY when he was head coach. So he’d be fine as an assistant. I just don’t trust him.

He’s going to be the “spy” this time that will tell Dolan what’s going on in the locker room, what the players are saying privately about Thibs, whether there are any splits in the locker room etc..”

At the first sign of trouble he’s going stab Thibs in the back and get in position to become head coach. He’s the new Steve Mills. He’ll be loyal to his superiors in public but quietly use the players and press to create problems and put himself in position to take over. If we are serious about winning and changing the culture he can’t be here. Maybe my distrust is misplaced, but I think he used his good relationship with Melo to help drive D’Antoni out and become head coach and he’ll do it again.

Z-man:
This seems to indicate that teams are getting cash-strapped and need to get out of the tax and unload bad contracts. It also means that good players may be bought out and decent flyers will be waived. Probably just wishful thinking on my part…

https://basketball.realgm.com/wiretap/258929/Majority-Of-NBA-Teams-Have-Already-Maxed-Out-$325M-Credit

When people talk about how much sport teams appreciate in value as if that’s the correct measurement of how well owners are doing they are being very ignorant about finance. At times, people pay all sorts of crazy prices for businesses, stocks, real estate, sports teams etc.. Sometimes that’s just “greater fool” stuff.

What really matters is the free cash flow the business generates over time and the risk involved.

When you put up a billion or two to buy a team, you better be generating a ton of free cash flow or you are probably making mistake. You can’t assume a bigger dimwit is going to come along after you and pay even more. You need to get generate INVESTABLE CASH for taking risk with your capital. It’s likely many owners overpaid and are just finding that out now.

In some of the debates about the split of money between players and owners, I haven’t been particularly kind to players. This is why. When they get these huge contracts and other deals, it’s all cash without putting up any of their own money. There is no risk (unless you are a boxer, football player or something like that and are taking risks with health). The owners are taking huge risks. Sometimes those risks may be low probability events, but they eventually occur and bite you in the ass. They are getting bit by a shark right now.

I guess the question is, do they use a Dallas pick to move up for LaMelo or buy another 2020 1st to do it? It probably behooves them to keep as much 2021 draft capital as possible, but we will see.

I’d blanked on the idea of buying an extra pick as part of a trade up for LaMelo. That makes more sense to me than giving up the Mavs pick or anything else from what’s expected to be a much stronger draft. Especially since it sounds like we won’t be tanking again and might need the capital to trade up a second time in a year.

We need to get lucky in the draft this year and get a top pick so we don’t have to trade up. It’s long overdue. I’d rather use the clips pick this year to move up. I know Dallas is a good up and coming team but Zinger is injury prone and they are one Doncic pulled hamstring or meniscus tear away from being a lottery team. Not that I want that to happen but I’d it did we’d be kicking ourselves for giving up that Dallas pick whereas we know for sure the clips pick will be a late first rounder.

Exactly, Swifty. The problem is that other teams will know that, too, and will be asking for the Dallas pick, which means we’d have to throw in other stuff to compensate for not giving it. That’s where buying additional picks this year comes in handiest.

I also think the utter lack of consensus on who this draft’s best players are could work to our advantage, even if we got the 6th or 8th pick. If Perrin and the other scouts are confident that LaMelo (or someone else) is head and shoulders above the other propsects, it may be easier to get the lottery winner to give up that pick than it would in a year with a no-doubt-about-it star at the top.

>>> I guess what I’m asking is at what point does acquiring additional picks in this draft become a poor allocation of resources? <<<

Check out Saddiq Bey's draft profile. 45% from 3 and can defend 4 positions. Projected to go in the middle of round 1. Shades of Mikal Bridges, and not just because they both went to 'Nova.

I would love to steal him for cash.

If we came out of this draft with Hayes/Halliburton, Bey, and Vernon Carey Jr with the Clips pick, I would be over the moon ecstatic.

If we came out of this draft with Hayes/Halliburton, Bey, and Vernon Carey Jr with the Clips pick, I would be over the moon ecstatic.

But would Thibs be playing all three of those guys, on top of Mitch, RJ, Frank, and maybe one of Knox, Iggy, and DSJ? He’s not kid-averse, but that is also a lot of youngsters for one rotation, and I imagine a bunch would just be sent to Westchester to get some run.

More than anything, I just hope that under Rose we are the kind of team that, if given the 15th pick in the draft for cash, would use it on a guy with Bey’s profile instead of Cole Anthony.

Our best player, by far, was the 36th pick in the draft. In the last 5 years we’ve drafted 8 guys and only 2 of them are any good so far. And even then we had to trade one of those guys. Especially in a draft where there doesn’t seem to be any consensus about who is the best player we shouldn’t be giving away chances.

>>> But would Thibs be playing all three of those guys, on top of Mitch, RJ, Frank, and maybe one of Knox, Iggy, and DSJ? <<<

Other than Mitch and RJ, none of those guys are going to be hard to beat out. I don't even know if DSJ and Iggy are NBA players. I still think it's too early to give up on Knox and Frank, but the same can be said of them.

Bey is a solid plug-and-play wing, a potential Robert Covington. No one on this roster is so good we should pass that up.

I personally love Carey with the 26th pick. My draft philosophy at this stage of the rebuild is simply to get on base, not hit a home run. Carey is going to be a good player in this league and offer Jarrett Allen value in the late 1st. Even if his impact would be diminished somewhat by being behind Mitch, he would be useful in a trade down the line. I would so much prefer that to taking a swing on a high-upside athlete with no track record of success in college.

Happy Birthday to my favorite Frank. Here’s to many years of outstanding defense and putrid offense.

Frank asked above if the Knicks were hurting for cash. This is a great question. MSG is a public company so some data is available. I looked at some of it. It turns out that MSG split into two companies this last April. They are MSG entertainment and MSG sports. There’s a lot of pieces of these two corporations, but I only focused on the ones relevant to us. The Knicks, Rangers and MSG networks are part of MSG sports, but MSG the arena is part of MSG entertainment. Two things were immediately clear from what I read. One, Dolan, who is in charge of both, will have his hands full and will have no time to micromanage the Knicks. Two, everyone is hurting, but probably the sports company is hurting less than the entertainment company. Both companies have significant cash reserves. Both companies are helped by the fact that both the NBA and NHL seasons were almost over when things shut down. They lost only eight Knicks home games and five rangers home games.

The real question for the Knicks is how well off are they compared to other teams and how willing are they to spend. On this I am hopeful. MSG sports isn’t taking losses from having an empty arena since that’s owned by MSG entertainment. And they still get revenues from MSG network and from the NBA’s national TV contract. Sure the revenues from the network may be down, but few other NBA teams have as much network income as the Knick’s do. I think the Knicks are capable of out spending a lot of teams if they want to (unless Dolan finds some way to use the sports company to subsidize the entertainment Corp). Dolan clearly wants a winning team and he just spent money on a new management team despite the pandemic, so I think signs are good in this regard. And even if he has to conserve cash, rookies are cheaper than vets and I don’t think any of us mind if we are pushed in the direction of more rookies and fewer vets.

But would Thibs be playing all three of those guys, on top of Mitch, RJ, Frank, and maybe one of Knox, Iggy, and DSJ? He’s not kid-averse, but that is also a lot of youngsters for one rotation, and I imagine a bunch would just be sent to Westchester to get some run.

Agreed. I’m pretty sure that if the plan was for three rookies and three or four other developmental guys to be major pieces in the rotation then Thibs would not have been the head coach hire. That’s a total rebuild/tank lose 65+ games next year type of roster you’d be talking about at that point. My expectation is that the roster is going to look much closer to this year with a mixture of vets and young guys and at least gestures being made towards respectability (even if those gestures are mostly meaningless). If they draft even two guys who should be getting minutes next year (i.e. not a draft and stash or a guy who clearly is going to be in the G league for a season) then they’re going to need to make some tough decisions on the holdover young guys.

Curious what people think about just picking up all of the one year options for the vets, making our draft picks and rolling out basically the same team from last season?

I would probably not pick up Ellington and let Harkless go, but I would not be against picking up Peyton, Taj and Bullock’s option and just rolling out basically the same team.

Miller had the team playing at about a 30 win pace after Fiz was fired. Assuming Thibs can at least keep that same baseline of competency and we have some internal improvement from RJ and Mitch, I could see us winning 35 to 40 games next year (if its a full season). I know Dolan wants wins but that actually would be a competitive team with a lot of young players getting a majority of minutes.

I could see Randle’s value going up under a full season of Thibs. I could see Peyton being a possible trade chip (Bullock too) at the deadline for a playoff team that needs some bench fortification.

I don’t know. Continuity with the players could be a good thing.

. My expectation is that the roster is going to look much closer to this year with a mixture of vets and young guys and at least gestures being made towards respectability (even if those gestures are mostly meaningless).

Yeah, it’s probably going to me more of the same bullshit we’ve watched for 20 years. If you replace the mediocre vets we have on the roster with some different mediocre vets and a different coach you’re going to get the same mediocre results. You need good players to win in the NBA. The Knicks have one good player.

I’m genuinely surprised/borderline shocked by two things:

1. That people think Thibs isn’t here for a rebuild.

2. That people think we don’t have enough room on this roster to add quality young players.

Yeah we have loads of room, I’m just not sure about #1, which is why I’m not sure we’re going to be playing a lot of kids. I mean the Knicks are obviously going to have to rebuild, because they suck and don’t have any long term contracts, but I’m not sure they’re going to be targeting a youthful rebuild.

I just listened to a long interview with Thibs that was earlier this year. He seems totally into developing young players and rebuilding a team. The Twolves were 29-53 the season before Thibs took over. They really weren’t that much better than us especially when you factor in the win pace Miller had the team playing at before the season ended. Sure, they had KAT and Wiggins but Wiggins ISN’T a star and KAT was really their only “good” player.

I may be optimistic and projecting my own ideals, but I expect Thibs’ first year to be one where he works closely with all the young players to figure out who he has. I don’t think he’s going to overplay vets just to avoid losing 60 games. By the end of year 1, the kids who have not responded well to his tutelage will be gone, and we’ll seek to build around those who remain.

In some of the debates about the split of money between players and owners, I haven’t been particularly kind to players. This is why. When they get these huge contracts and other deals, it’s all cash without putting up any of their own money. There is no risk (unless you are a boxer, football player or something like that and are taking risks with health). The owners are taking huge risks. Sometimes those risks may be low probability events, but they eventually occur and bite you in the ass. They are getting bit by a shark right now.

Serious question: has any owner of a major sports team ever sold at a loss, even adjusting for inflation? If not, this is just empirically false water carrying for billionaires.

He just signed a 5 year contract. He isn’t going to get fired after half a season just because the team is losing. I think the idea that Thibs is an all in “win now” move is a little half baked.

I do think the FO might try to upgrade the roster this off season, which, honestly, is what they should try to do every off season. I just don’t think they’re going to hamstring the future by going all in with a Melo type trade or overpaying for win now vets like Phil did with Noah, Lee, etc.

I honestly think our franchise, as a whole, has VERY SLOWLY been moving in the right direction and learning lessons from its past mistakes. Its been a long road and there is still a lot of work to do. But I think the organization has learned from its mistakes and is positioned quite well. Jsut in time for the world to end!

TNFH… I actually wrote out the same response to strat but dropped it because I wasn’t in the mood. Even Ted Stepien got a 10x return on his investment in the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Sports ownership is not a risk. It’s a ticket to draining municipal tax coffers.

It’s hard to know exactly what to make of Thibs in terms of rebuilding. He does have a good rep with lots of players for his developmental work when he was an assistant. While his Chicago teams had some guys who were fairly early in their careers and many who improved significantly under Thibs, they were mostly older – the only guys under-25 who got rotation minutes in his entire tenure were really Rose, Butler and then Mirotic in his final year.

In Minny when he had personnel control I think it’s pretty obvious what his preference was – he inherited a team with a ton of young guys, the first year his top 10 in minutes included a 20-year old, three 21 year-olds, a 22 year-old and a 24 year-old. And they lost a ton of games (basically no improvement from the Sam Mitchell version of the team) and he subsequently veered heavily towards an older version of the team, adding Butler, Teague, Gibson, Crawford and eventually Rose in that next season.

Obviously he won’t have personnel control here and he has enough developmental successes on his resume to think he can do a fine job with that aspect, but I think the Minny tenure is why people question whether he’s really interested in a full rebuild type situation.

The “good” thing is that we will know pretty soon what Rose’s view of the team next year is. Well, not soon soon, but at least within the next couple of months.

I expect year 1 of Thibs to be like the two years of D’Antoni prior to the summer of LeBron. His focus will be on establishing the franchise’s identity and turning the young guys into the kind of pieces that either will attract a star or can be used to trade for one.

Realistic or not, they’re going after Giannis.

Look, Thibs setting Frank and Mitch loose as a defensive terror squad is reason enough to watch next year. The window dressing I don’t care much about.

RJ Barrett was butt this year. Not a lost cause but I am happy no one is pretending he played well this year.

I actually wrote out the same response to strat but dropped it because I wasn’t in the mood.

I really tried my best to ignore it but it’s such an easily rebuttable proposition I couldn’t help it. I did ignore his bizarre anti-Woodson shpiel despite sensing a bit of a pattern in which Knicks retread coaches/executives he’s willing to defend to the death and which ones make him downright vitriolic.

Anyway, happy to shift back to basketball now.

He just signed a 5 year contract. He isn’t going to get fired after half a season just because the team is losing. I think the idea that Thibs is an all in “win now” move is a little half baked.

If you mean the Knicks won’t have championship expectations under Thibs from day 1, sure. That ain’t exactly plausible no matter who you hire.

What people mean when they say it’s a “win now” move is that he’s clearly not the coach you hire when you’re prepared to rebuild for as long as it takes to get the assets necessary to put together a sustainable contender. I mean you barely even need to look past his age to figure that out.

There is no risk (unless you are a boxer, football player or something like that and are taking risks with health). The owners are taking huge risks.

lol almost as good as “Democrats are less free-market than Russian oligarchs”

I just hope the FO doesn’t pick up Taj’s option. Because if they do it’ll confirm a bunch of my fears re: Rose + Thibs.

***He just signed a 5 year contract. He isn’t going to get fired after half a season just because the team is losing.***

You’re only saying this because it’s never happened before… At least, not in New York… At least, not in the past 15 years… At least…

I mean, there was that ONE time, where Fizdale was fired after coaching only 104 games of a 4/$22,000,000 contract….

And, I guess there was that OTHER time, where Derek Fisher was fired after coaching only 136 games of a 5/$25,000,000 contract…

And then there was that Lenny Wilkens guy, who was fired after only coaching 81 games of a 4/$20,000,000 contract…

Thats it.

Oh, no, wait. Then there was that other guy. Larry something. I only vaguely remember him. Maybe it was a dream? But I feel like he was like this Hall of Fame legend who had won basketball games everywhere he went, and had just won a championship with a team that didn’t even have any superstars on it (I know, right!). Anyway, this guy was like, SOOOOO bad at coaching, that he was fired in the first year of a 5/$60,000,000 contract. But, now that I think about it, yeah, you’re right. That’s just crazy. It couldn’t have really happened. I mean, fire a guy with 4/$48,000,000 on his contract? All because he couldn’t win with Eddy Curry, Jamal Crawford, and Jarrod Jeffries?

That couldn’t have happened. Certainly not in a New York.

Must have been a dream.

I”m just going off of what’s been reported in the media:

1. Rose is expected to have plenty of “vets” on this team.

2. LaMelo is at the top of the Knicks point guard list.

3. Melo is expected to be of interest to Rose.

4. The Knicks only see 2 difference-makers in this year’s draft.

If it were up to me, sure, I’d load up on draft chances and see who sticks. But, so far anyway, it seems like Rose maybe wants veterans who can win games or at least provide “leadership, etc.” So, thus far, my educated guess is that they will do their best to get one of what they feel are the “elite” prospects in this draft and maybe a good role player too.

Then, it sounds like Rose will use his connections to sign whatever free agents they think will make sense with the current roster. There’s probably a good chance they keep Taj and Bullock, maybe Elfrid, but they should get rid of Portis and Ellington. Add like 2-3 free agents to that (maybe Harkless and someone better) and then the kids plus two rookies.

Those were all 4 year coaching contracts and they all lasted at least one season. I believe in my original post I said he wasn’t going to get fired after half a season, so you aren’t really saying anything.

I would also say that Thibs and Rose are close to each other. I think his job is safe for at least one season, possibly 2. Same way Dantoni’s job was safe those first few years under Donnie.

Look, I don’t know what will happen. Just saying I think its unrealistic to think Thibs will get fired within the first season of his 5 year contract especially when Rose is his boss.

No Taj? Really?

Taj is the one vet I really hope they do bring back. Taj is a good vet to have on a young team. He isn’t playing that many minutes per game either. Dude plays the right way and is a good role model vet for the young players.

No Taj? Really?

No Taj at his $10M team option. If he wants to re-sign for much less after we use the money wisely, sure, Taj.

But then wouldn’t you have to resign him for more than one year? If you don’t pick up the team option and then ask him to come back for less, why would he stay?

I’m ambivalent about the team options for the vets (except for Ellington and Portis, whom I forgot about). I don’t think it would be the worst idea to just run the same team back for the most part with our new draft picks and see what happens.

I expect year 1 of Thibs to be like the two years of D’Antoni prior to the summer of LeBron. His focus will be on establishing the franchise’s identity and turning the young guys into the kind of pieces that either will attract a star or can be used to trade for one.

That’s exactly what I expect and that’s also exactly why I don’t think Thibs was the best pick for this team, at this point in the win curve. D’Antoni was such a good coach that he coached two shitty Knicks teams out of Russell Westbrook/Kevin Love and James Harden/Steph Curry.

No Taj? Really?

Taj is the one vet I really hope they do bring back. Taj is a good vet to have on a young team. He isn’t playing that many minutes per game either. Dude plays the right way and is a good role model vet for the young players.

What TNFH said. I don’t mind bringing him back, but it would be at a lower salary for 1 year. I just don’t want to see the FO doing ‘favors’ for marginal players. (tinfoil hat activated) It would tell me that this FO is valuing nebulous player relations over smart cap management. We already saw similar stuff with Chris Smith and CAA back in the day. And it didn’t help the Knicks reputation among players at all.

But then wouldn’t you have to resign him for more than one year? If you don’t pick up the team option and then ask him to come back for less, why would he stay?

I mean how competitive do you think the market will be for 35 year old Taj Gibson, dude? The Knicks are one of very few teams with cap space, and what’s more they have the advantage of not having to bid against the New York Knicks (at least theoretically anyway)!

If somehow the price reaches a number you could get any kind of asset for, you thank him for his services and let him walk. Sign a veteran mentor type with the minimum or close to it, which is realistically the most you should be paying for the nebulous benefits of having a “good role model vet.”

Btw it just occurred to me….

Is the 2021 draft going to be the biggest crapshoot of all time? I’m assuming there isn’t going to be any high school or NCAA basketball for the 2020-21 season. And even if there is, it’s not likely to be normal enough to provide meaningful data.

EDIT: I think players have the option of joining the G-League, which will make sense for many. Or they can just play overseas somewhere.

Do they have to eat money if they don’t guarantee Taj’s contract? If not, they’ll probably offer him a longer deal for more money at a lower yearly after free agency, like a descending 2 year deal of 7 and 6 mil. Just a guess because Thibs will probably want him around.

As I’ve said before, we need roster slots for young players. All our roster spots were full last year. We did give up Trier and Allen, but they are already replaced. We have three picks this year, that means we need three slots and have to give up or otherwise lose three players. We also have Iggy, Wooten and Lamar Peters who might earn time with the big club. So we have to not pick up the options or waive at least three players. My tentative thoughts are Smith, Ellington and Gibson. I was torn between Portis and Gibson, but the three point shooting and the thought that Portis might improve under Thibs made choose to keep him. I know he’s overpaid, but it’s only for a year and I really don’t expect we’ll red them money for free agents.

Of the vets on the team last year the only two that make sense to bring back are Payton and Bullock. Payton because he’s a competent NBA point guard who isn’t’ overpaid and Bullock because he would be an attractive low end trade piece if he has a good season from 3, and he makes no money so it doesn’t matter if he doesn’t.

I agree about Payton and Bullock. Even if we draft a point guard we still need more than one. Bullock is too good a deal to throw away, but I’d be open to trading him.

Dink: What TNFH said. I don’t mind bringing him back, but it would be at a lower salary for 1 year. I just don’t want to see the FO doing ‘favors’ for marginal players. (tinfoil hat activated) It would tell me that this FO is valuing nebulous player relations over smart cap management. We already saw similar stuff with Chris Smith and CAA back in the day. And it didn’t help the Knicks reputation among players at all.

Yeah, Taj seems like just a vet minimum type guy. Perhaps Thibs will want to keep and play all those willing to at least consistently try hard on D and jettison the rest? If so, they might choose to keep Taj.

Owen: RJ Barrett was butt this year. Not a lost cause but I am happy no one is pretending he played well this year.

I, for one, think his shooting was butt, but he played rather well overall for a 19yo, especially on D. He’s a pretty far cry from being a lost cause. Just not looking like a future star.

taj is most definitely not a center…i don’t see him as a solution for a backup five at all…if anything we need a center who can shoot three’s…

WE NEED BOOBY PORTIS!!!

That’s exactly what I expect and that’s also exactly why I don’t think Thibs was the best pick for this team, at this point in the win curve.

i know right, even when we obviously sucked jimmy d didn’t want to tank, no way with thibs are we not trying for an 8th seed…

that yankee/trump first pitch thing is just too funny…i was wondering why in the heck would the yanks invite trump…i saw though that he knew george steinbrenner pretty well…i thought maybe the steinbrenners were supporters…

turns out trump made that shit up, how bizarre, though not unusual…probably did it as a response to fuaci at nationals park…

Taj loves NYC, is a big Thibs fan, and has become a mentor to our best young player, so I don’t think he’s going anywhere. And honestly, he’s still decent at what he does. He’s a fine backup center. OTOH, Portis is just garbage. I’ve seen more than enough of that guy. I even prefer Randle.

I think they will keep either Dotson or Bullock, but not both. I also think DSJ could be given a fresh start with Thibs.

Players we should cut:

1) Portis
2) Ellington
3) Gibson
4) Harkless

Potentially cut or keep in G League:

1) Brazdeikis
2) Pinson
3) Harper
4) Wooten
5) Dotson

Easy for a rookie to outplay:

1) Knox
2) DSJr

We can absolutely take on another pick or two

***Look, I don’t know what will happen. Just saying I think its unrealistic to think Thibs will get fired within the first season of his 5 year contract especially when Rose is his boss.***

Yeah, I know what you’re saying, and I do agree with you. It’s just, this IS New York, and Dolan IS still in charge, and as long as this fact remains, the potential for disaster is ubiquitous.

(And Larry Brown WAS effectively fired during the first year of his 5 year ($60,000,000!) contract. Dolan and Isiah were just trying to build their case for disputing the contract and not paying the $40+ million owed on it. At one point he was barred from the practice facility and held press conferences in a median in Westchester, where he referred to himself as a “dead man walking” (even though he was on dialysis and wasn’t really walking much at all.) it was such a perplexing, how-low-can-we-go episode, and the sad thing is, nothing since then has changed in NY, and the answer to how-low-can-we-go remains largely unanswered.)

You know what gives me hope for Ntilikina, other than his defensive chops? Guys who don’t rely on elite level athleticism and hyper-aggression attacking the rim at PG, but still have an impact on the game. Not that I’m comparing because those guys tend to shoot better than Frank (except maybe 1, but even he’s improved), but guys like CP3, Rubio, Conley, Black Air Force 1’s, Secret Agent D’Angelo Russell (I refuse to forget the thing with Swaggy), and Dinwiddie. Granted, they all have at least 2 good skills on offense to build around and depend on- maybe not Black AF1 Pat Bev. So, I say that to say the fact that Ntilikina doesn’t have a penetrating game (yet, maybe?), doesn’t necessarily mean folks should right him off. Really, he’s a plus for us if he can get his shot to fall- but the game is there. We’ve seen it in flashes. I hope/think Thibs will be good for him

wasn’t there strong support here for mo harkless for a while…or, was that just because of his salary?

is bullock better than harkless, or just has a better existing salary…

People think we don’t have room for more picks? We have exactly two players who would generate any interest whatsoever if they were put on the trade market. We should be taking on all the picks!

It’s not that we don’t have room but for every new player we have to let someone go.

Don’t Bullock and Harkless play different positions with Bullock being a forward and Bullock a guard?

Harkless is a wing who can’t shoot. Pass.

I’d rather keep Dotson if we had to keep someone. Would much prefer we give RJ, Iggy, or (God willingly) Saddiq Bey those minutes

Nobody is saying we don’t have room for more picks, but that if we do make a bunch of picks this year to go along with the guys who are already here you’re either (A) going to have to pare down the existing stable of young guys somewhat or (B) play with an extremely young roster/rotation. (B) just doesn’t seem like what Thibs was brought here to do. (A) is probably what’s going to happen, and in some sense they’ve already started with Trier but he barely played this year so it doesn’t really clear any minutes. New regimes are often more skeptical of the young guys who were there before they got there than they would be if they’d made the pick themselves and I wouldn’t be surprised at all to see anyone other than RJ or Mitch moved at the draft.

Early Bird: Harkless is a wing who can’t shoot. Pass

Not true. He’s not the most efficient shooter from 3, but in 4 years in Portland he had a TS% of .562 and it was .572 this past year. In his past 4 years, his 3pt% has been .351, .275, .415 and .347.

Is it even possible to renegotiate Taj’s contract? If we decline his option, doesn’t that mean that there is a period of time during which we can’t re-sign him? Clearly he’s an overpay at the option. He’s better than a minimum player, though. At $5 million, he’s probably an asset at the deadline.

I would expect the following players to be in the rotation for sure next year: Randle, Mitch, RJ, Frank, and Bullock (it would be stupid to not exercise his option.) That leaves 4-6 spots open (Thibs tends to have a short rotation, so anything over 11 seems unrealistic.

Of the remaining guys, it seems likely that Knox, Wooten and Iggy will be given every opportunity, and at least 2 of them will be in the rotation, making either 7 or 8. It seems likely that Taj will be retained and will be in the rotation, making 8-9. It seems likely that our first pick will be in the rotation, making 9-10. Payton could be 10-11.

So DSjr, Harper, Pinson, the other 2 draft picks, and any UDFAs will fight it out for the remaining 1-2 rotation spots. And that doesn’t even account for any other vet FAs that are either retained or signed. Dotson will probably be let go.

It seems likely that since several of the young guys will be outside of the rotation, a trade will be needed to ease the crunch.

Also, as bad as DSJ has been, a guy like Kira Lewis – who everyone is raving about – doesn’t statistically profile to be much better than Dennis, and he’s mocked as high as top-10 on some boards.

I guess what I’m saying is that this isn’t a great draft, and there’s probably no good reason to sell low on our young guys. Even if we draft LaMelo or another pg, we could still keep DSJ and Elfrid if Frank moves to the wing.

Unfortunately, the likelihood of the Knicks trading for a low-grade “star” like Zach Lavine seems fairly likely (as a way to put butts in seats, but also as a way to clear the glut of forgettable young guys we now employ).

Oof can you imagine the shooting lines of a LaMelo/Lavine/RJ lineup?

I’m pretty sure we can decline Taj’s option and then re-sign him to whatever. There’s a period of time you can’t re-sign a player you’ve waived, but this isn’t that. We owe Taj all of $1M if we decline his option.

At $5 million, he’s probably an asset at the deadline.

Eh, I wouldn’t bet on it. He’s not bad but there are soooooo many players with his skillset on the market at any given time. Hard for me to see us getting an asset of any level for him when guys like Ed Davis and KOQ bounce around for the minimum.

Also, I caught some of the Memphis-Miami scrimmage and continue to believe we should target De’Anthony Melton in restricted free agency. He is literally the idealized version of Frank Ntilikina despite them being the exact same age. I imagine Memphis matches anything reasonable but it’s worth a shot.

Taj is a very smart player who clearly has something left in the tank. Ed Davis is making $5 mill next year. KOQ is not nearly as versatile as Taj, who can still score in the post and play adequate perimeter defense. Anyway, we seem to agree that at $9 million he’s grossly overpaid, and at $5 mill he is not a liability and probably not immovable.

Things learned from basketball reference today:

1. Play index is gone.

2. Eddy Curry’s career 3 point percentage is .565 points higher than Steph Curry’s.

3. Zach LaVine’s career similarity scores top ten is peppered with a who’s who of NBA greats like Dick Farley, Lorenzo Lomar, Eldridge Recasner, Ken Charles, Mervin Johnson, Tyus Jones, Oliver Taylor, and our own Pablo Prigioni and Jerian Grant.

ess-dog: Also, as bad as DSJ has been, a guy like Kira Lewis – who everyone is raving about – doesn’t statistically profile to be much better than Dennis, and he’s mocked as high as top-10 on some boards.

DSjr was a strong late-lottery prospect based on his college numbers. He just didn’t develop at all, and it seems that his problems are between the ears. His shooting has actually regressed. I don’t think you can assume that Kira Lewis Jr. is also not going to develop.

Donnie Walsh: Zach LaVine’s career similarity scores top ten is peppered with a who’s who of NBA greats like Dick Farley, Lorenzo Lomar, Eldridge Recasner, Ken Charles, Mervin Johnson, Tyus Jones, Oliver Taylor, and our own Pablo Prigioni and Jerian Grant.

Those scores in general are too abstruse for me. But I am not as down on LaVine as most. His shooting is improving…career .375 from 3…and he’s getting to the line and converting from there. He has averaged 5 rebs, 4+ assists and 1.5 steals per 36 the last couple of years…turns the ball over too much but those aren’t terrible stats for a SG. It looks like his D is bad, but I don’t know enough about it. He’s getting paid Julius Randle money, is that so bad?

I like Taj but I agree it’s very unlikely that there would ever be a significant trade market for him at any price tag. Bigs have been so deemphasized in the current game that you just don’t see contenders looking to pick up depth big guys at the deadline the way you used to 15 or 20 years ago. That’s not to say he’d be unmovable or anything like that just that you’re never going to pick up a significant asset for that kind of player anymore – unless I’m forgetting someone I don’t think a single contender added a big at this year’s deadline and last year only Marc Gasol really. Wings are where the market is every year now.

Taj is not a traditional big. He’s more of a position-less big. So I’m not sure if the logic you are using applies to him. But in either case, having a player of his skill level and intelligence for $5 million is not a problem.

He’s 35 years old and an adequate 8th or 9th man on a 6- or 7-seed. Let him go.

Taj is a position-less big defensively, maybe. Offensively? Not so much.

Z-man: I would expect the following players to be in the rotation for sure next year: Randle, Mitch, RJ, Frank, and Bullock

This is optimistic about Frank. After half a season of merely bad shooting, I am not ready to place him as a sure thing.

Of the remaining guys, it seems likely that Knox, Wooten and Iggy will be given every opportunity, and at least 2 of them will be in the rotation, making either 7 or 8.

It’s entirely possible that Knox, Wooten, and Iggy all suck enough to be unplayable. Out of those three we’d be lucky if one proved to be rotation-level player. There just aren’t that many rotation-level players in the 2nd round of a draft or in the G-League. Knox is as close to a basket case as can be found in the NBA. This accounts for zero rotation spots.

It seems likely that Taj will be retained and will be in the rotation, making 8-9.

Taj is fine, but he’s a 6’9″ center who has lost a step and has no real offensive talent. He’s better as a mentor who never sees the floor. Should not be in the rotation.

Payton could be 10-11.

Yeah that’s reasonable.

So DSjr, Harper, Pinson, the other 2 draft picks, and any UDFAs will fight it out for the remaining 1-2 rotation spots.

Again way too optimistic about a bunch of guys who have a much better chance of getting cut within a couple months than actually turning into rotation players. No one wants DSJr in the rotation unless he steps up his decision making. Pinson has a questionable shot that will likely make him unplayable as an NBA wing. Again, few G-League players amount to anything–Harper fits into this category.

I count 6 rotation level players. That leaves 5 spots. Even if all 3 of our draft picks end up in the rotation (unlikely), we could easily use…

do you think pistons fan are currently debating whether to resign john henson. you guys should stop wasting time worrying about roster slots for reggie bullock and bobby portis and instead start drafting the melton rfa offer sheet.

Taj is a position-less big, as in he shouldn’t be given a position in our rotation.

Without looking at a list, I’d guess there’s 5-6 centers that will make less than $5M this offseason that I’d take over Taj.

If the 6 rotation-level players we retain are Randle, Mitch, RJ, Frank, Payton, and Bullock, then that gives us exactly one starter-level talent (Mitch), maybe two if you count Randle. There is still hope for RJ, but not the other three.

So essentially, all we need are two starting guards. Easy peasy!

I caught some of the Memphis-Miami scrimmage

was flipping between that, barr’s “hearing” and biden talking…

wow, the grizz look really good, today and going forward for the next x number of years…it hurts watching the grizz- i soooo wish we had ja and brandon…

memphis has been my favorite team to watch all year. i was bummed to see winslow go down with some kind of serious hip issue. his injury woes are adding up.

mikal looked great today against toronto. he kind of looked like the best version of covington out there.

Considering the utter crud we have at the guard positions I don’t see why we’d turn our noses up at Zach LaVine. You get him for two more years at the Randle salary and he does some things pretty well, it seems like he’s kinda the big boy version of Allonzo Trier. Decent 3PT shooter on high volume, gets to the line a fair amount, chips in with reasonable rebound and dime numbers for a two guard. I wouldn’t give up great assets for him but I wouldn’t mind having him around either.

He’s not an amazing player but he’s a reasonably decent fit in terms of his salary, age and skill set.

Harkless is a free agent. He’s a nice enough player, but with the FA class what it is and the demand for wings in the league I imagine he’ll get a good offer from a better team.

***He’s not an amazing player but he’s a reasonably decent fit in terms of his salary, age and skill set.***

And he won a dunk contest, Dolan will like that.

It’s kind of funny how we talk about veteran mentorship and all that. Well, the Knicks have had, over the last few years, a shitton of coaches and veterans to mentor Frank, RJ and Knox and they’re all dogshit at basketball, still.

We don’t need Taj Gibson. We need the next Taj Gibson, 12-13 years younger than his old ass.

if we got zach lavine the deal would be awful for us. he has more trade value than some seem to realize. we aren’t just flipping randle for him.

I don’t know what Rose is planning to do but I fear there will be so many vets people will mistake the Knicks for a rescue shelter.

Has Thibs lengthened his rotations in the last few seasons? Cause I’m expecting a 9 man rotation that’s really just 8 with some filler, outside of a couple minutes of garbage time. But you know, perhaps that has changed.

Besides the numbers, the picky eye test and the optimistic projected upside of every player there’s also the “feeling” that the die hard fans of every team have for every player of their team.
If a young player with good numbers and impressive to the eye like LaVine was traded from Minnesota and now is possibly gone from Chicago too and fans don’t give a shit then he’s probably not a player you can build upon.
Now if you wanna trade him for Randle and other players you don’t really need, then that’s a no-brainer.
Stir the knicksoup a bit

If LaVine is the “explosive slasher DRose of 2020” in Thibs mind then expect a Frankenstein replica of the 2010’s Bulls built as weeks go by.
We’ve got the Boozer in Randle, we may get Rose in LaVine, we may have Noah in the making in Mitch…Frank can be Brewer….RJ maybe Deng?
Korver seems hard to find tho

Nba-Iggy looks like Thibs Bulls’ Scalabrine so far but i believe he can be a very useful player if he finds his rhythm.

Korver is a spot up Buddha! A shooting God. not guard!

Has Thibs lengthened his rotations in the last few seasons? Cause I’m expecting a 9 man rotation that’s really just 8 with some filler, outside of a couple minutes of garbage time. But you know, perhaps that has changed.

Oh I hear that in Minnesota, he favored more of a hockey system, with five men on and five min Play here than Minnesota, he favored more of a hockey system, with five men on and five men off. 10 total.

alsep73: Oh I hear that in Minnesota, he favored more of a hockey system, with five men on and five min Play here than Minnesota, he favored more of a hockey system, with five men on and five men off. 10 total.

you drinkin bud?

Apparently the Knicks were pretty impressed with Jay Scrubb after an interview.

you drinkin bud?

That’s what I get for doing talk to text. And not proofreading. The point is, he apparently played a 10 man rotation in Minnesota, with two 5-man units alternating.

In Minny he had 9 guys over 1,000 minutes every year, which seems fairly normal, but the guys at the top played heavy minutes. Wiggins and Towns were 1-2 in minutes in 16-17 and top 10 in 17-18.

You shouldn’t give that many minutes to Andrew Wiggins if you’re trying to win basketball games. Just my two cents.

That’s what I get for doing talk to text.

wait, what…that sounds like a PED for posting…mmmm, cold beer sounds pretty good right now…

alsep73: That’s what I get for doing talk to text. And not proofreading.

Just gratuitous needling of a highly respected wordsmith, pay me no mind. If it makes you feel any better, yesterday I sent an impassioned plea to the Chancellor to not have students return to school buildings in September, only to notice a glaring typo after the fact.

Ah man..I just watched a short film session on Thibs’ Bulls team defense in comparison to having KAT anchor it in Minny..
It was enough to salivate over Mitch’s prospects with Thibs’ coaching. Man oh man! He’s twice the athlete Noah was with the Bulls, and his defensive IQ id pretty high for a young big who played no college hoops. Anybody else feeling that way?

You shouldn’t give that many minutes to Andrew Wiggins if you’re trying to win basketball games. Just my two cents.

So your saying Knox has a chance at getting minutes..

Hm LaVine does have some pretty sick in-game dunks under his belt… would be fun to have him in the Garden. I think we’d have to give up our lottery pick for him though.

Wiggins was the 1st overall pick in the draft and one of the most highly touted prospects out of high school since arguably LeBron. You don’t think in his 3rd and 4th NBA seasons he’s not gonna get a ton of minutes??

BigBlueAL:
Wiggins was the 1st overall pick in the draft and one of the most highly touted prospects out of high school since arguably LeBron.You don’t think in his 3rd and 4th NBA seasons he’s not gonna get a ton of minutes??

From October 2017, after Thibs coached Wiggins for a year and then was part of the braintrust that signed him to a 5-year max extension:

Tom Thibodeau has been by Wiggins’ side since taking over as head coach and president of basketball operations.

“We’re very excited that Andrew has decided to commit his future to the Timberwolves,” said Timberwolves President of Basketball Operations and Head Coach Tom Thibodeau. “We feel strongly that he is just scratching the surface of the player he will become. Andrew is among the elite young talents in our league and the sky is the limit for him. We look forward to watching his development in the coming years.”

Hopefully we won’t be reading the same quote after Knox signs a max deal…

ess-dog:
Apparently the Knicks were pretty impressed with Jay Scrubb after an interview.

Don’t the Knicks already have enough scrubs?
🙂

Z-man: Wait til they see him play 3-on-3

Will he be playing WITH or AGAINST Knox, though, in 3-on-3? Could be crucial.

hopefully thibs can help develop at least two of these guys in to a solid nba starter:
frank
dsj
mitch
kevin
rj

pretty good chance he’s halfway there already…

Truth be told I’m a lot more interested in Dennis Schröder than Zach LaVine, but I wouldn’t be opposed to adding LaVine as long as the cost isn’t crazy. He’s a good scorer and volume 3 point shooter who gives you a little bit of playmaking and rebounding, and his presence on the Knicks means we slide RJ to the 3 full time. I’d offer Julius Randle, the LAC 2020/DAL 2021, and Kevin Knox.

I also think it’s worth mentioning that Zach LaVine tore his ACL in his only season playing for coach Thibodeau. I’m not sure how much that dynamic would work for Zach’s knees.

I’m a little worried about his past playoff performances

The joke is that he’s never played in one because he’s mostly been a trash player on a terrible team (so he’ll be right at home here)

ZL does seem to have improved the last couple of years…weirdly, he rates lower in WS48 than TH2 but higher in the other metrics…must be the turnovers…

I like the idea of getting a shooting guard. RJ needs to play the 3. I dunno if Levine is the one, but at least it would show some understanding of the roster.

LaVine isn’t bad, and might even be kind of good, but you can pretty much run back everything that’s been said about the win curve over the years when it comes to trading for him.

We can’t pay a premium for a guy who’s ideally the 3rd-4th best player on a contender before we have 1/2/3. We’re also in no position to essentially pay for a player of LaVine’s caliber twice (trade assets and contract).

I may sound like a broken record but this stuff matters. It’s the difference between putting together a team that can sustainably contend and putting together the Carmelo Anthony Knicks.

I think the original idea was to trade Randle for Levine straight up. That wouldn’t set us back: we’d have traded one starter quality guy for another, and it would give us a better fitting roster. I would go for that, although I worry about Levine’s character compared to Randle’s, but not for adding in substantial extra stuff in the deal.

That was the the idea we had. It’s almost certainly not what the smart new GM of the Bulls is thinking. I guarantee that he’s thinking, “Let me get something for Lavine while people still think he’s an asset.”

The Bulls are likely going to be crossed off the list of “Dumb teams who might take Randle” now that they went out and got the hottest GM on the market.

I think the original idea was to trade Randle for Levine straight up.

Well if we’re just assuming the other team in a trade doesn’t have to agree we can set our sights much higher!

Thanks, Bo. Every year I tell myself not to care about stupid awards, and every year, I get upset anyway.

It’s sort of like rooting for the Knicks, come to think of it.

(Also, I realize I should’ve changed my display name after I came out of the anonymity closet last year. Belatedly done.)

Would the Bulls even have any interest in Randle? I know neither Markkanen or Carter has really broken out at this point but they’re both still quite young and both seem pretty clearly to be in the Bulls future plans for the time being. I don’t see why they’d want to pay $20M+ for a bench big who doesn’t contribute outside of scoring. This is something I suspect they have in common with just about every other team in the NBA.

I have a feeling that Thibs is going to want an opportunity to coach Randle up. I also doubt that anything is going to happen with LaVine, he’s a pretty good player on a decent contract so why would CHI try to ditch him?

i’m trying to ignore the lavine for randle straight up stuff bc “the bulls would not fucking do that in a million years” hasn’t been sufficiently persuasive. if our goal is to get a 2 in the offseason, here are some less terrible ideas-

malik beasley- this is actually a bad idea. he scored really well after the trade and is a young legit shooter, but he will cost too much given his limitations. minny would seemingly match any reasonable offer sheet, tho they are up for sale.

kris dunn- i kinda like kris dunn, he is a beast on defense — even better than frank. but we already have frank and while dunn has done more on offense to date he isn’t a spacer and oversteps his limitations. doesn’t really make sense for us, he’s not even that young.

d’anthony melton – he is really a tweener guard and isn’t a spacer. also doesn’t make sense with frank. but i can’t write a post without mentioning him; we should still take a shot at him; he plays like alvin robertson and the grizz are already paying brooks and jones to play with morant.

john konchar – this is my favorite idea. he is sorta ron baker 2.0. he is an unimpressive athlete but a very smart potential two way player. he’s an oddly awesome rebounder, a good passer, a smart and active defender, and a decent 3pt shooter. his nba resume is paper thin so obviously i mean this as a possible deep value option.

monk – well discussed option. seems fine as lottery tickets go if he’s being given away but his defense his so bad even a big improvement limits his upside.

kyle guy — he played really well in the G league and the kings are about to pay a lot for bojan so if they don’t trade buddy he seems like he might not be too hard to get. he’s a pure shooter who can pass a little too, not sure about the defense tho.

also if we go after jordan clarkson then we know the thibs-crawford episode has deep and yucky roots

>>> hopefully thibs can help develop at least two of these guys in to a solid nba starter:
frank
dsj
mitch
kevin
rj
<<<

I'mma throw DS Jr out immediately, as I think he's hopeless.

Here's what we need that could realistically happen:

1. Mitch develops into an all star two way big / a modern Tyson Chandler
2. RJ Barrett realizes his potential and becomes a good two-way player
3. We nail our lottery pick

Now those three guys aren't going to win you a title. But the win curve is different in our market. Small market teams need to land their star in the draft. We just need to land the supporting cast. It drives me nuts that we never grasp that and go for upside guys like Knox instead of high floor guys like Bridges.

If Mitch, Barrett, and our lottery pick are solid 3rd, 4th, and 5th guys (and are making ~$20 million combined), we will land the superstar and supporting star in free agency.

It would be great if Knox, Frank, and whoever we get with the Clippers pick develop into cheap rotation players. But I think that is gravy. If the top 3 guys develop and we maintain cap flexibility, we'll be in the best shape we've ever been in.

I think Dunn has worn out his welcome in Chicago and if we could get him at a $5-$6M AAV that could be great value.

He, like Melton, would be an easy way to get the idealized version of Frank Ntilikina without having to rely on Frank Ntilikina to make rather unprecedented improvements.

I wonder how Eric Jr. Jr. will feel when Frank starts getting more of this kind of praise from the lyin’ mainstream media fake news metrics

The lack of Knicks in the stinkers box should be hailed as our greatest victory of the last 20 years

According to 538’s metric, Frank Ntilikina developed into a barely positive NBA player during his age 21 season.

That’s actually pretty significant and bodes well, assuming he isn’t the rare player who peaks at 21.

Draft notes: Deni Avdija just won the Israeli League MVP after leading his team to a title. He’s beginning to look like one of the safest picks in the lottery. I wouldn’t be mad at adding him.

538’s sports stuff seems kind of undercooked to me. I read that site daily but I almost always skip over their sports content.

ptmilo:

john konchar – this is my favorite idea.he is sorta ron baker 2.0.he is an unimpressive athlete but a very smart potential two way player.he’s an oddly awesome rebounder, a good passer, a smart and active defender, and a decent 3pt shooter.his nba resume is paper thin so obviously i mean this as a possible deep value option.

I like that idea. I wonder what it would take to get him?

Actually most Knicks are roughly fairly paid according to chart except for Robinson (underpaid) and maybe Portis and Randle. Portis is overpaid for his production, but he was signed to a very short term contract. And actually, he was in three of the Knicks five best three man lineups cited above. I don’t think that’s an accident. Even though his actual production wasn’t bad, he was one of the few Knicks who could space the floor.

Shams:

Sources: Zero NBA players have tested positive for coronavirus out of 344 tested at Orlando campus since last results were announced July 20.

Consecutive testing rounds where no new player has tested positive.

So far, the bubble is working…

Similar things to Ron Baker 2.0:

Chris Smith 2.0
Crystal Pepsi 2.0
Hemorrhoids 2.0
Nickelback 2.0

I’m gonna trade this life
For fortune and fame
I’d even cut my hair
And change my name

Alan – totally agree with your take on the Emmy”s and Better Call Saul. Especially the snub of Rhea Seehorn, who was just outstanding this season.

Good to see Watchmen recognized though, that show was a mind blowing treat week after week.

Similar things to Ron Baker 2.0:

Chris Smith 2.0
Crystal Pepsi 2.0
Hemorrhoids 2.0
Nickelback 2.0

one day very very soon you will be forced to watch frozen 2.0 ten thousand times and you will rethink your hellish sequels high horse

According to 538’s metric, Frank Ntilikina developed into a barely positive NBA player during his age 21 season.

It said he was slightly above replacement level (which is still a nice improvement for Frank), I’m not sure if that’s a positive.

one day very very soon you will be forced to watch frozen 2.0 ten thousand times and you will rethink your hellish sequels high horse

ahhhhhhh AHHHHHH ahhhhh AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

x infinity

Actually most Knicks are roughly fairly paid according to chart except for Robinson (underpaid) and maybe Portis and Randle.

I don’t think that’s what it shows. It’s a bit confusing, but it has the Knicks paying Portis and Gibson 25 million dollars for zero wins above replacement, which is a huge waste of money. Even Randle, on a bad deal, was more productive for less money.

Payton was decently productive at his salary, and Mitch is on a good deal (would have even been better if they played him more), and that’s about it.

Just looking at the chart it looks like a typical NBA player is slightly above replacement level and that the distribution is skewed (some players have a very high WAR, whereas the players who are negative are only somewhat negative). If Frank is a typical NBA player at 21, that’s good.

DRed: I don’t think that’s what it shows.It’s a bit confusing, but it has the Knicks paying Portis and Gibson 25 million dollars for zero wins above replacement, which is a huge waste of money.Even Randle, on a bad deal, was more productive for less money.

Payton was decently productive at his salary, and Mitch is on a good deal (would have even been better if they played him more), and that’s about it.

I just looked at the rough trend line for all players in the league and how the Knicks compared to it. Only Robinson Randle and Portis are outliers. I don’t understand why you are comparing Randle’s salary to the sum of two other players. Portis is overpaid, but filled a need as I described above. Gibson is overpaid but not by as much, so I didn’t mention him. I agree with those above who say he could be replaced easily.

I’d be stunned if Rose kept Portis for next season. How in the world would you not be better off giving his roster spot to a young player? He has no future, why in the world would you overpay to have Bobby Portis suck for you? It makes no sense. Gibson at least has the mentor stuff. That’s not smart, either, but it’s something. Portis isn’t even a mentor (unless you want boxing tips).

Brian Cronin:
I’d be stunned if Rose kept Portis for next season. How in the world would you not be better off giving his roster spot to a young player? He has no future, why in the world would you overpay to have Bobby Portis suck for you? It makes no sense. Gibson at least has the mentor stuff. That’s not smart, either, but it’s something. Portis isn’t even a mentor (unless you want boxing tips).

+1

Draft notes: Deni Avdija just won the Israeli League MVP after leading his team to a title. He’s beginning to look like one of the safest picks in the lottery. I wouldn’t be mad at adding him.

Bleacher Report’s mock draft today (teams pick in current order of finish, no trades) has us taking him at 6.

The Knicks would presumably consider him at No. 6 if LaMelo Ball and Tyrese Haliburton were gone. France’s Killian Hayes will also be in the mix, though scouts seem split on whether he’s worthy of going in the first half of the lottery, and it’s unclear where the New York front office stands.

But most feel safe about Avdija, even if they question the height of his ceiling because of concerns over his shooting consistency and ability to create for himself. At 6’8″, he’s put on considerable muscle and possesses the skill versatility to grab and go, handle in pick-and-rolls, work from the post and spot up from three.

Instead of adding a rookie to run the offense, the Knicks could focus on building their wing with Avdija and RJ Barrett and try to sign a point guard and/or give more responsibility to Frank Ntilikina.

The “presumably” in that first paragraph is doing a lot of heavy lifting, though. (The writer also acknowledges that our top priority is a point guard, but that Rose wouldn’t reach if the prospects he likes don’t make it to 6.)

Deni Avdija is probably the best player in this draft, and has ties to the Knicks as he played with Amar’e Stoudemire this season (and I think Amar’e’s relationship with Dolan is a good one). He’ll likely never be a CAA client or a World Wide Wes guy, but I see him as a perfect fit between RJ Barrett and Mitchell Robinson. I’m currently leaning towards Avdija, Vassell, and Toppin over every point guard not named LaMelo Ball, and then I’d take Grant Riller or Tre Jones at the back of the first round.

Wasserman at B/R suggests that if the Warriors win the lottery, they’ll want to trade down, both to save money and because neither LaMelo nor Wiseman fit what they want/need for next season. Given all the smoke about Rose wanting LaMelo — LaVar wanting his son(s) in NYC — I wonder how much it would cost to move up from 6 (or worse). All 3 of this year’s picks? Less? Would we have to throw in a Mavs pick?

Every time I look at Avdija’s numbers I’m underwhelmed. He’s a SF who has a really shaky shooting stroke, his rebounding isn’t good enough to play PF, and his passing is underwhelming for a wing who has a rep of a good passer.

He strikes me as the next Mario Hezonja.

The Warriors May be hurting for money. Apparently they have a lousy local TV deal and 80% of their revenue comes from their gate. If attendance is restricted next season and they can’t fill their new arena, they could be in a world of hurt financially. Saving money could be a real consideration for them come October.

I don’t see them giving up a pick, but trading down to, say, number 4 might really interest them.

Alan:
Wasserman at B/R suggests that if the Warriors win the lottery, they’ll want to trade down, both to save money and because neither LaMelo nor Wiseman fit what they want/need for next season. Given all the smoke about Rose wanting LaMelo — LaVar wanting his son(s) in NYC — I wonder how much it would cost to move up from 6 (or worse). All 3 of this year’s picks? Less? Would we have to throw in a Mavs pick?

I don’t think LaMelo is worth trading up for. But there’s so little consensus on this draft it may be all over the place in valuations and what teams are willing to offer. I’d guess it’ll cost at least our 1st and the Clips 1st because there will be at least a couple GM’s that think LaMelo is the next Doncic.

IMHO, next year’s Dallas pick should be closely guarded. Next year’s draft should be loaded with the additional HS talent and we should be able to grab some good players late because of the increased uncertainty from what I assume will be a shortened seasoned.

Avidja can’t shoot and there are questions about his handle? Maybe Frank can mentor him.

Not a big fan of Avdija, he reminds me way to much of Hezonja. Guys I’d take over him: Edwards, LaMelo, Wiseman, Haliburton, Okongwu, Toppin, and Achiuwa above him. and then it becomes more murky for me.

I would trade up for LaMelo, and maybe Edwards (who I think is going to be an excellent player, possibly a superstar.)

I think Avidja is an interesting player, but he just isn’t a consistent enough shooter. I know that he could learn and then he would turn out to be a steal, but I’m just tired of these guys where we have to hope that they learn how to shoot. We already have that in Barrett, I want a guy who actually can shoot from the get go.

This guy can’t remind you too much of Mario Hezonja

Avdija can pass, he can defend, he passes some key stat tests like being >50% from 2 and having >2 stls&blocks/36. He’s much quicker than we want to give him credit for, has a decent face up game and projects to be a good floor spacer. I look at him and see some Gallo, some Tatum (sounds like high praise but this kid was the Israeli League MVP at 19 and a FIBA U20 Tournament MVP at 18), and that gets me really pumped. He’s also been a professional forever and I bet he’d take to Thibs style and culture better than, I don’t know, Cole Anthony.

He’s #2 on my draft board behind LaMelo Ball, and that’s just because I think LaMelo Ball’s ceiling is Penny Hardaway. Avdija has the resume and the film of a pretty high lottery prospect in most years.

Sorry Glass, I’m not convinced. And definitely not interested in LaMelo, much less trading up. If we’re getting LaMelo to throw lobs to Mich, Thibs should just make Elfrid and the whole team do that — it doesn’t take a specialist. If you love his cross courts to the corners for the three, who’s standing over there for the Knicks? Exactly nobody, at least nobody who can make them regularly.
I want shooters in this draft. This is a shooter’s league, and we don’t have any.

I don’t think LaMelo is worth trading up for. But there’s so little consensus on this draft it may be all over the place in valuations and what teams are willing to offer.

One of the few notable things Rose said in that MSG interview is that his scouting team sees a couple of players (I forget his exact wording, so unclear if he was implying 2 or slightly more) who are clearly above the rest of the lottery. So if he thinks LaMelo (or Edwards, or Wiseman, or… not sure who the other possibility is) is so much better than anyone he can get at 6, I imagine he’ll try to trade up. Then again, he may feel there’s a clear separation between LaMelo and everyone else, while also not finding him a prospect worth trading up for. Who the hell knows with this guy? But there is definitely a lot of smoke around this team and LaMelo, and we’ve seen what 20 years of mostly awful point guard play(*) has done to our squad.

(*) Questions for the more statistically-minded members of our silly family: 1)Who have had the best point guard seasons for this team in the 21st century? 2)What was the last genuinely good point guard season we’ve had? Derek Harper? Even Charlie Ward never seemed much worth writing home about, at least offensively. Hard to believe this team once had both Mark Jackson and Rod Strickland at the position at the same time.

Gallo shot 40% from 3 and 85% from the line in his last year in the Italian League.

Avdija is a sub 60% free throw shooter!

He could obviously learn to shoot, and in which case, he’d be a stud, agreed. But I don’t want the risk.

I think this team needs three picks in this draft a lot more than it needs any of the prospects at the top of it.

If we can move up from 7 to 2 by throwing in Kevin Knox, I’d be open to that. But I don’t want to give up the Clips or Hornets picks. We desperately need those picks.

I want shooters in this draft.

i agree with what you say raven, who than is that though?

In the 21st century, it would probably be Marbury. Those teams were not good but he was the best PG we’ve had (that played a full season). You could also throw in Ray Felton’s half season in 2010 before the Melo trade?

swiftandabundant:
In the 21st century, it would probably be Marbury. Those teams were not good but he was the best PG we’ve had (that played a full season).You could also throw in Ray Felton’s half season in 2010 before the Melo trade?

Agreed, and I’m still pissed that D’Antoni banished him when he was 10X better than Chris Duhon.

I want shooters in this draft. This is a shooter’s league, and we don’t have any.

If you want shooting you’re looking at Obi Toppin, Killian Hayes, and Devin Vassell. Aaron Nesmith is also a good shooter but he’s likely not in consideration with our pick.

I like Avdija a lot. The word on him is he used the COVID lay off to work on his shooting and his recent games show that it has been fixed. Just remember Luka Doncic shot 28% from 3 his last season in Europe.

I also think we should be prepared for the Knicks to flip the Porzingis assets sooner than we’d like. In order to win that trade we need to get a player back who is better than Porzingis, and it doesn’t look like we’ll get that guy if we hold onto the picks. I’m sure Dolan is still keeping tabs on that and may want Rose and Wesley to move in and get a guy he can wave in Stefan Bondy’s face.

Isn’t Haliburton known for his shooting? That’s what I remember, but I’m no draft expert.

***(*) Questions for the more statistically-minded members of our silly family: 1)Who have had the best point guard seasons for this team in the 21st century? 2)What was the last genuinely good point guard season we’ve had? Derek Harper? Even Charlie Ward never seemed much worth writing home about, at least offensively. Hard to believe this team once had both Mark Jackson and Rod Strickland at the position at the same time.***

Marbury in 2005. He was legitimately good that year.

But, yeah, outside of that one year (and Doc Rivers In 1993), it’s been a sad, sad, sad past 30 years at that position in NY.

I’m not a Halliburton fan at all. He has great numbers but his ball handling is Frank level and his shot is very funky. Lonzo Ball was another prospect with even better numbers at the same age, but because he was a straight line dribbler with a funky jumper he struggled a ton his first couple years. When you take into consideration that Halliburton is skinnier and less athletic than Lonzo Ball, it just doesn’t look like a recipe for success. He may eventually prove me wrong and become a two way Kevin Martin, but I don’t think he’s a good fit for the Knicks at point guard. If you told me we were drafting him to be a shooting guard and added another legitimate point guard to play with him and RJ on the wings (maybe Kris Dunn?), you might have something. But Halliburton the point guard? Count me all the way out on that one.

Agreed, and I’m still pissed that D’Antoni banished him when he was 10X better than Chris Duhon.

He was a disruptive fool and significant part of an extremely dysfunctional organization.

Sometimes you have to take a step backwards to go forward. Moving on from Marbury to higher IQ and higher character players was a no brainer long term decision .

The mistake of that administration was going “all in” on Lebron and then bringing in Amare to save face. That ultimately lead to giving up way too much for Melo. They had to take a shot at Lebron, but they should have realized he wan’t going to come to a bad rebuilding team (same mistake we keep making) and had a plan to add players that worked with Gallo, Chandler, Lee, etc.. It would have taken a long time (as the current rebuild has and will continue to) but if they would have kept adding draft picks and used cap space to add quality players eventually they would have gotten somewhere. Walsh and D’Antoni both understand basketball. They acted like promised Lebron and the only way to save their jobs was to get desperate.

Thanks, guys. I’ve mostly blocked out the idea of Marbury as a good player, because his arrival was basically the first domino of the calamity that Isiah wrought on the franchise. But, yeah, he could still ball early on here.

Alan:
Thanks, guys. I’ve mostly blocked out the idea of Marbury as a good player, because his arrival was basically the first domino of the calamity that Isiah wrought on the franchise. But, yeah, he could still ball early on here.

Yeah, the pre-Vaseline eating phase of his career was pretty encouraging.

Agreed, and I’m still pissed that D’Antoni banished him when he was 10X better than Chris Duhon.

The way he scumbagged Marbury was despicable. If you’re going to bench a guy, you fucking tell him you’re going to bench him. You don’t play him in the rotation all throughout camp and then say right before the first game of the regular season, “Oh, yeah, by the way, we’re never going to play you.”

Brian Cronin: The way he scumbagged Marbury was despicable. If you’re going to bench a guy, you fucking tell him you’re going to bench him. You don’t play him in the rotation all throughout camp and then say right before the first game of the regular season, “Oh, yeah, by the way, we’re never going to play you.”

I agree with that part, but I’m close to 100% sure we don’t know the whole story.

I’d bet my life against a dollar that D’Antoni wanted no part of Marbury right from the start and made that very clear to Walsh and Dolan, But he was the “name” on the team and they either couldn’t or Dolan didn’t want to unload him. So MDA was waiting for Marbury to give him an excuse to get rid of him. To our knowledge Marbury never gave him that excuse. That’s why it looks so bad. But that does not mean we know what was going on behind the scenes. Marbury is an idiot that did a lot of things we didn’t know about until later. It’s not like anyone was going to bad mouth him on the way out the door.

swiftandabundant:
Why would Rose care about making the Zinger trade look good in hindsight? He wasn’t the one who made that trade.

I agree. Besides, that trade was a disaster no matter what those picks yield. We got DSJr and cap space that wound up being useless because Lee would be off and this would be Hardaway’s last year anyway.

Picks are essentially intrinsic value assets. What you get lucky or unlucky putting into them later are separate transactions. Looking at what they ultimately yield is flawed thinking unless you somehow know what you will get.

KP is worth more than DSjr and 2 future non lottery picks.

So MDA was waiting for Marbury to give him an excuse to get rid of him. To our knowledge Marbury never gave him that excuse. That’s why it looks so bad.

I think that’s likely accurate, but that’s why it was so bad. He made up his mind that Marbury couldn’t change. Marbury then changed and he still punished him. It was outrageous. It was similar to how he punished Nate Robinson because Nate was a moron and then brought him back without any change in Robinson’s attitude or game. I think D’Antoni is a very talented coach, but boy, he could certainly be a dick sometimes, too.

one day very very soon you will be forced to watch frozen 2.0 ten thousand times and you will rethink your hellish sequels high horse

OMG, Frozen 2 was rough, man. Last movie I saw on cinema before the quarantine. I loved the first one, but the second one seemed like people were yelling at me for an hour. Some of those songs were sung in torturous high pitch.

Welp, I can’t think of more than a handful of sequels that were better than the first movies (“The Godfather II” is a popular choice).

Marbury in the 2004-05 season was a legit All-Star caliber player and that was by far the best season by a Knicks PG since Mark Jackson’s 2nd season as a Knick. Ward had 2 very good season in 1997-98 and 1999-00 even though the raw numbers might not look it. I didn’t realize but he was in the Top 10 in steals back-to-back seasons and lead the league in DBPM in 1997-98. Back then it was generally considered that Ward was the more efficient, better at running the offense PG and Childs was the better defender and clutch shooter when the reality was Ward was just the better overall player period. I did love Childs though cause he was tough as shit and didn’t back down to anybody, just ask Tim Hardaway and of course Kobe!

Brian Cronin: I think D’Antoni is a very talented coach, but boy, he could certainly be a dick sometimes, too.

Agreed. I was not a Marbury fan, but fair is fair. He came into that camp in excellent shape and played way better than Duhon. He should have been given the opportunity to play his way out of the rotation. And the Nate thing was a joke.

Welp, I can’t think of more than a handful of sequels that were better than the first movies (“The Godfather II” is a popular choice).

Part II is definitely better than Part 1, but the first is a great film, obviously. Empire is better than A New Hope, Dark Knight better than Batman Begins, Mad Max: Fury Road is one of the greatest action films in American cinema (although I wouldn’t really call it a sequel any more than I would Blade Runner: 2077 — more a reboot in the same world) and of course, the Harry Potter films hit their stride around Prisoner of Azkaban, although the source material is significantly better, and the actors finally of an age where they don’t unintentionally make me laugh out loud in every scene.

I have strong feelings about people who think that Aliens is better than Alien, or T2 was better than The Terminator. They are not fond feelings.

Funny how nearly every movie mentioned is in the action/adventure list.

Welp, I can’t think of more than a handful of sequels that were better than the first movies (“The Godfather II” is a popular choice).

I love when people bring this up: Godfather II, The Good the Bad and the Ugly, Empire Strikes Back, Dark Knight, Bride of Frankenstein, and A Shot in the Dark.

Brian Cronin: I think that’s likely accurate, but that’s why it was so bad. He made up his mind that Marbury couldn’t change. Marbury then changed and he still punished him. It was outrageous. It was similar to how he punished Nate Robinson because Nate was a moron and then brought him back without any change in Robinson’s attitude or game. I think D’Antoni is a very talented coach, but boy, he could certainly be a dick sometimes, too.

He handled it poorly and was a bit stubborn at times.

My only point is that imo there was no way Marbury was going to change permanently and there’s no way he wanted him on the team, especially when he and Walsh made a big deal about changing the culture (just like each management team has said they were going to do since then). lmao

This is where I think Dolan is the problem.

He’s willing to spend money and allow you to make a lot of decisions, but he has certain people in the organization and certain outside relationships that he trusts. He forces some of them on each management team that comes to town. That makes it impossible to actually change the culture and also risks the kind of subversive behavior in media and behind the scenes that drives good people out and the incompetents back in power.

Man, I could go off on how Dantoni/Walsh screwed up those 2 seasons while they were just clearing cap space in the hopes of Lebron. To Dantoni’s credit, they did develop Gallo and Chandler and I liked the rest of the 2010 kid crew with Moz, Fields…but what a waste of 2 years all so we could max Amare and trade it all for Melo.

Walsh should have demanded Marbury start so that they could’ve upped his trade value. Remember, The Knicks under Dantoni with Crawford and ZBo started out 6-3 before Walsh then traded them both for Al Harrington and bunch of garbage that never even played. Crawford, a perrenial 6th man of the year candidate and ZBo, who just 2 seasons later turned into an all star with Memphis.

They should have started Marbury and let that team play till the trade deadline to see what they got under Dantoni’s system. That could’ve upped the trade value for all of those guys even if we did eventually trade them all. Or better yet, the team maybe could have continued to play well and that would have attracted free agents on its own.

jazzfunk:
Before Sunset is better than Before Sunrise.

And that makes us friends forever. Possibly my favorite movie.

wetbandit:
Jowles got me on Fury Road

cars II vs car I and toy story II and toy story…in the pixar universe ….are healthy debates as to which are better…for that matter despicable me 2 vs 1 is close….after the second one most go downhill….

Leonam: And that makes us friends forever. Possibly my favorite movie.

On the short list for – “most magical movie endings.”

Wrath Of Khan >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Star Trek: The Motion Picture

So I was all set to rag on Glass but then numbers got in the way. I fucking hate numbers.

So Haliburton is 6’5″, 175. Lonzo is 6’6″, 190. LaMelo is 6’6″, 180.

College/Overseas numbers:
Hal was FG% 50.4, 3PT% 41.9, FT% 82.2.
Lonzo was FG% 55.1, 3PT% 41.2, FT% 67.3
LaMelo FG% .375, 3PT% 25.0, FT% 72.3

Keep going:
Hal had Reb: 5.9, Asst: 6.5, Stl: 2.5, TO: 2.8, Ptz: 15.2
Lonzo… Reb: 6.0, Asst: 7.6, Stl: 1.8, TO: 2.5, Ptz: 14.6
LaMelo Reb: 7.6, Asst: 6.8, Stl: 1.6, TO: 2.5, Ptz: 17.0

Couldn’t find advanced for LaMelo, but they all match up surprisingly well across the board, with some exceptions like LaMelo totally sucks at putting the bouncy thing in the circular thing and Lonzo couldn’t hit his free throws much.

Even with the caveats that Haliburton was in his second year, and LaMelo played overseas, I’d still take Haliburton over either of the Balls (if they were all starting out this year). But that seems to be more of a Strat-level gut check than based on any obvious data (well I love what the reviewers say about Hal, but that’s just justifying my bias). Perhaps I’ll just say that since his free throw and steals rates are better, case closed…

I have strong feelings about people who think that Aliens is better than Alien, or T2 was better than The Terminator. They are not fond feelings.

Then you won’t be fond of me when I say Aliens is one of the greatest sci-fi movies ever made, better than the original. It grabs you from moment one and doesn’t let go. And Terminator 2 is almost as good as The Terminator, the special effects for its time were insane.

swiftandabundant:

Walsh should have demanded Marbury start so that they could’ve upped his trade value. Remember, The Knicks under Dantoni with Crawford and ZBo started out 6-3 before Walsh then traded them both for Al Harrington and bunch of garbage that never even played. Crawford, a perrenial 6th man of the year candidate and ZBo, who just 2 seasons later turned into an all star with Memphis.

Those Knicks teams were something else. The mighty 2008-09 Clippers finished the season with a 19-63 record (which would reward them Blake Griffin), but 2 of their victories came against the Knicks, both time they faced each other (at LA and NYC).

BOTH games went to overtime, and, in a development that would become a Knicks standard, both times the Clippers BACKUP shooting guards scored their career-high: Steve Novak (who would up his number playing for the Knicks) and the “unforgettable” Mike Taylor (51 total NBA games), who went for 35 points in MSG.

In the two games, Zach Randolph combined for a total of 81 minutes, 25-41 FG (61%), 2-5 3P, 3-3 FT, 21 REB and 55 points.

Baron Davis also scored a career-high 20 assists at Staples Center.

https://www.espn.com/nba/recap?gameId=290211012
https://www.espn.com/nba/recap?gameId=290325018

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLfFf4vB-38

I know this is a highlight reel, but I’m seeing a guy who is comfortable driving into the paint, using hesitation moves, getting to the rim (and getting his hand right to the backboard on driving layups), and shooting from all over the floor. He doesn’t look like a surefire superstar, but he looks like a guy who has great timing and keeps his eyes up when trying to break defenses down in the PnR. I’d be worried about the shooting form if it didn’t go in so damn much. And from this video, it looks like he doesn’t play out of control or bail himself out of bad decisions with highlight-reel, high-difficulty shots. His 2018-19 season was absurd in his assist-to-turnover ratio (125 to 28), and he blew his assist rate out of the water later year, albeit with a sizable increase in TO.

To my mind, he’s easily the safest pick among the guards in the lottery. He may not be a Doncic, but it’s hard to imagine him being unable to toss lobs to elite athletes like Mitch.

Man, I could go off on how Dantoni/Walsh screwed up those 2 seasons while they were just clearing cap space in the hopes of Lebron.

That was probably the most disappointing period of my Knicks fandom. I didn’t have strong convictions about Walsh, but I correctly thought D’Antoni was way ahead of the curve on basketball even if he wasn’t the best all around coach out there.

I liked the players they were accumulating and was getting enthusiastic. Then it all went off the rails over Lebron and totally melted down with the Melo trade.

I’ll never ever believe that D’Antoni wanted to trade Gallo. Gallo was the perfect player for him and he had personal ties through his father. Melo who was 100% the exact opposite of everything he believed about basketball. He may have thought he could change Melo after he was forced to accept the deal, but I don’t care what he says publicly. He’s FOS. No way he wanted to do that deal.

The Honorable Cock Jowles: To my mind, he’s easily the safest pick among the guards in the lottery. He may not be a Doncic, but it’s hard to imagine him being unable to toss lobs to elite athletes like Mitch.

We may view things differently, but I’ll sign off on this one too.

He almost looks like a college version of what we hope Frank becomes at the pro level in a couple of years. They might even be good together in 3-4 years with RJ at 3.

The Honorable Cock Jowles:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLfFf4vB-38

I know this is a highlight reel, but I’m seeing a guy who is comfortable driving into the paint, using hesitation moves, getting to the rim (and getting his hand right to the backboard on driving layups), and shooting from all over the floor. He doesn’t look like a surefire superstar, but he looks like a guy who has great timing and keeps his eyes up when trying to break defenses down in the PnR. I’d be worried about the shooting form if it didn’t go in so damn much. And from this video, it looks like he doesn’t play out of control or bail himself out of bad decisions with highlight-reel, high-difficulty shots. His 2018-19 season was absurd in his assist-to-turnover ratio (125 to 28), and he blew his assist rate out of the water later year, albeit with a sizable increase in TO.

To my mind, he’s easily the safest pick among the guards in the lottery. He may not be a Doncic, but it’s hard to imagine him being unable to toss lobs to elite athletes like Mitch.

EYE TEST!!!!

Seriously, I totally agree. He seems like a super high-IQ guy who is all about making the right play. For me, I might gamble a bit more in the top 3 on, say, LaMelo or Edwards, but I’d be fine if the new regime picked him there, and at 7 or 8 he’s a no-brainer.

The Glass Half Rebuilt:
This guy can’t remind you too much of Mario Hezonja

Avdija can pass, he can defend, he passes some key stat tests like being >50% from 2 and having >2 stls&blocks/36. He’s much quicker than we want to give him credit for, has a decent face up game and projects to be a good floor spacer. I look at him and see some Gallo, some Tatum (sounds like high praise but this kid was the Israeli League MVP at 19 and a FIBA U20 Tournament MVP at 18), and that gets me really pumped. He’s also been a professional forever and I bet he’d take to Thibs style and culture better than, I don’t know, Cole Anthony.

He’s #2 on my draft board behind LaMelo Ball, and that’s just because I think LaMelo Ball’s ceiling is Penny Hardaway. Avdija has the resume and the film of a pretty high lottery prospect in most years.

Those Avdija numbers actually look remarkably close to Hezonja’s Euroleague numbers, which is why I made the comparison. If Avdija’s shooting really did improve he might be worth the risk, but his poor FT% makes me wary. His total 3p% so far is sub .300 including EuroLeague and Israel. So Avdija grabs 2 more boards per game, but Hezonja could actually shoot.

Also, I have not seen anything putting Avdija anywhere close to 2 stls or 2 blks per 36.

***Before Sunset is better than Before Sunrise.***

Before Sunset is better than everything.

They had to take a shot at Lebron, but they should have realized he wan’t going to come to a bad rebuilding team

LeBron was a free agent three times in his career and all three times he went to a bad rebuilding team.

no way is godfather II better than the godfather…no way…the only thing which sort of, kind of puts it very close is robert deniro as young vito…

that’s it though…

much more of morose michael corleone – no thanks…

that’s funny, i was gonna say T2 over Terminator…

I say Aliens is one of the greatest sci-fi movies ever made

yeah, definitely ditto on aliens over alien…i just love me some private hudson…

Private Hudson : I’m ready, man, check it out. I am the *ultimate* badass! State of the badass art! You do not wanna fuck with me. Check it out! Hey Ripley, don’t worry. Me and my squad of ultimate badasses will protect you! Check it out! Independently targeting particle beam phalanx. Vwap! Fry half a city with this puppy. We got tactical smart missiles, phased plasma pulse rifles, RPGs, we got sonic electronic ball breakers! We got nukes, we got knives, sharp sticks…

yeah man, we got sharp sticks…

The eye test is all we have this year. I just wish I could find his lowlights as easily as the highlights.

I will say Expendables 2 is my favorite over 1 and 3….

well, that’s three hundred and thirty-two minutes of our life that we’ll never get back…

Godfather 1 and 2 are both epic, 1 beats 2 out by more than a nose but both are top-notch.
Terminator also edges out T2, but both also great.
Aliens is better than Alien

Red Dragon and Hannibal are both decent follow-ups to Silence of the Lambs, hokier but very suspenseful

Also, I have not seen anything putting Avdija anywhere close to 2 stls or 2 blks per 36.

I meant steals and blocks together. It points to activity on the defensive side of the ball, although it’s obviously not the best way to measure defensive ability. Normally if a guy doesn’t show up on the stat sheet defensively as a prospect, he won’t have a shot at being good in the NBA.

geo: well, that’s three hundred and thirty-two minutes of our life that we’ll never get back…

Anything with Jet Li in it is by definition worthwhile…

***Red Dragon and Hannibal are both decent follow-ups to Silence of the Lambs, hokier but very suspenseful***

There’s a scene in Silence of the Lambs where an old Austrian man unlocks a “your self storage” unit, letting Clarice into the dark, dirty, disgusting past of Hannibal Lecter. The movie is a psychoanalytical masterpiece. (The follow-ups are not.)

Wrath Of Khan >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Star Trek: The Motion Picture

Completely here for this.

The Glass Half Rebuilt: I meant steals and blocks together. It points to activity on the defensive side of the ball, although it’s obviously not the best way to measure defensive ability. Normally if a guy doesn’t show up on the stat sheet defensively as a prospect, he won’t have a shot at being good in the NBA.

Okay, that makes more sense.

If his shooting is real then I’m wrong. But I don’t think its real

I lean towards the shooting being real, but mostly because as an NBA player he’d have to create less and spot up more. At the end of the day, it’s up to Walt Perrin and whatever Worldwide Wes is heating about these guys.

A guy I forgot to mention is Kira Lewis Jr out of Alabama. He can shoot it off the dribble and off the catch as well as being able to handle the ball and get into the paint. I like his fit in a modern offense, but I’m not sure about his defense considering how small he is. He’s kinda like a 6’3” Brandon Jennings without the character issues.

Donnie Walsh: There’s a scene in Silence of the Lambs where an old Austrian man unlocks a “your self storage” unit, letting Clarice into the dark, dirty, disgusting past of Hannibal Lecter. The movie is a psychoanalytical masterpiece. (The follow-ups are not.)

Agreed, but Edward Norton’s portrayal of FBI agent Will Graham in Red Dragon was excellent.

Hot Take: Manhunter is the best Hannibal Lecter movie and Brian Cox was a better Hannibal than Anthony Hopkins.

I think my favorite Indiana Jones is The Last Crusade. Is that crazy?

There is something about watching Euro clips that almost never grabs me. Doncic was a definite exception. I have watched a fair amount of Deni clips and I just can’t get that excited about hm.

Dink, Silence is a better overall movie than Manhunter, but Cox and Tom Noonan are spectacular and Mann puts together a lot of scenes I still think about, like Reba touching the tiger.

Owen, Raiders is the better movie, but Last Crusade is the one I’ve watched the most. The Ford/Connery dynamic plays so well every single time.

Owen:
I think my favorite Indiana Jones is The Last Crusade. Is that crazy?

Yes. Raiders of the Lost Ark is the greatest movie of all time with the most iconic opening scene of all time and more iconic scenes than the rest of the series combined.

I don’t know about best opening scene. I think On her Majesty’s secret Service had a great one.

I figured that would be controversial. I don’t know, after the opening scene I slowly fade watching Raiders.

“She talks in her sleep” was a great line

it’s not the years, it’s the mileage

truest words ever written in to a script…

***Agreed, but Edward Norton’s portrayal of FBI agent Will Graham in Red Dragon was excellent.***

I remember liking Red Dragon, and not liking Hannibal. I forgot Ed Norton was in Red Dragon, but I like him in everything, so that must have been why 🙂

***Raiders of the Lost Ark is the greatest movie of all time with the most iconic opening scene of all time***

The thing that blows me away about the Raiders opening scene is that the wide-eyed Peruvian minstrel that does a short-lived back-stab is one of the best actors of his generation, and when I saw him on broadway in Yasmina Reza’s ART stealing the stage from Alan Alda and Victor Garber, I was like, whoa, that’s the wide-eyed Peruvian minstrel from Raiders??!

For the Indy series, they were like “let’s do something a little different for the sequel”, and it was terrible, so for partIII they were like “let’s recreate the original beat-for-beat only with rats instead of snakes”, and everybody was like “yay!!”

At the risk of offending other Knickerbloggers I will go on the record as saying that T2 >>> The Terminator. T2 had better effects, better performances, and developed a strong humanist theme whereas the original Terminator was really well done monster movie with a Bootstrap/Grandfather Paradox. I don’t know if there’s a more perfect action science fiction movie ever made than T2 to be honest and the effects still hold up to this day almost 30 years since. I don’t think there’s ever been a better female action hero than Sarah Conner in T2 or a better performance by a female action movie star than Linda Hamilton in the film.

Also, I wanted to throw my two cents in on Spiderman 2 being far better than the original Spiderman.

Ntilakilla: At the risk of offending other Knickerbloggers I will go on the record as saying that T2 >>> The Terminator. T2 had better effects, better performances, and developed a strong humanist theme whereas the original Terminator was really well done monster movie with a Bootstrap/Grandfather Paradox. I don’t know if there’s a more perfect action science fiction movie ever made than T2 to be honest and the effects still hold up to this day almost 30 years since. I don’t think there’s ever been a better female action hero than Sarah Conner in T2 or a better performance by a female action movie star than Linda Hamilton in the film.

I agree in principle, but the original was far better and more groundbreaking than you describe. And there was less need to suspend belief….the “friendly” terminator, the liquid metal, the characters not getting killed in the elevator…

The original was very simple and raw, and the conceptual framework was elegant in its simplicity.

T2 and Aliens are phenomenal but I prefer the originals by a tad, though Alien and Aliens is really close. Also, apparently, Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again is the best sequel ever.

I see now we’re getting down to the real nitty gritty. Which is better. Terminator of Terminator 2.

I have to agree that T2 is better. But both are masterpieces and its similar to The Godfather argument bc you can’t have the sequel without the original. But I rewatched T2 recently and the effects still hold up 30 years later, which is crazy. The liquid metal would look a bit more realistic if it came out today but there is nothing in that movie that couldn’t be done today and look amazing. And I love the story building on the world created in the first one.

But the first Terminator is really really good. But it is more like a simple horror/monster film whereas T2 is a real sci-fi action masterpiece.

Too bad they had to keep making them after that cause they could have ended it right there and it was the perfect place to do so.

I’m also biased because I was going into 8th grade when T2 came out and it was probably the most excited I ever was to see a summer movie. And my brother took me and my best friend to see T2 at a special midnight screening the night it opened (my parents allowed it since it was the summer and my brother was taking me). But it was a big deal for me to get to see an R rated movie at midnight at age 13. And it did not disappoint. Plus, I was a huge Guns & Roses fan and had been listening to “You Could Be Mine” on the radio for for weeks leading up to that movie.

Hubert: LeBron was a free agent three times in his career and all three times he went to a bad rebuilding team.

  

This may be the worst tweet in all history

Miami was a super team.

He went back to the Cavs because Kyrie was breaking out and they had a deal for Love lined up.

When he went to LA, he did not expect it to be rebulding team, but Magic was so wildly incompetent it delayed things by a year.

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