Ah, the truest sign that time is actually passing, we have another “How Many Wins Will the Knicks have?” prediction thread, a Knickerblogger tradition as valued as never being willing to kick anything to the curb or wondering whether the true responsibility for a player making a bad play is held by the player who passed that player the ball (welcome back, Woody, we missed you!).
This dovetails nicely with our all-poll content.
As is my wont, I will bid high, and say that the Knicks will win 31 games. As we saw with Jeff Van Gundy, a good defense is like three point shooting in March Madness. It keeps you in games you otherwise should not win. RJ Barrett is looking good, Mitch is awesome and it’s possible that Quickley can help the Knicks offense be less terrible than normal. We shall see.
Also, please, Thibs, just freakin’ start Mitch. Please!
Sorry, there are no polls available at the moment.
156 replies on “The “How Many Wins Will The Knicks Have In 2020-21?” Prediction Thread”
I’m with you, Brian. In an 82-game season, Thibs plus player development would get us somewhere in the low-mid 30s, so I went on the high end and guessed 31.
Happy Festivus, everybody! Though I imagine we’ll be airing grievances all year long.
36-36
With FizMiller i (think i) predicted 33w(82g) and if Fiz wasn’t a dreamer it could have been possible.
When we got TT i had an epiphany of 41-41.
It’s mainly based on coaching effect.
And why not be optimist if you’re feeling healthy!?
(If all things go south tho we could easily end with a record of 17-55) Which is also optimistic!
I went with 24-25. This is a bit rosy but I figured in Thibs’ coaching being worth 4-5 wins. Might have gone higher but I think the league has improved…very few clear lottery teams and we’re one of them. Expanded playoffs will have some bottom dwellers playing harder.
My brain says 16 games but my heart says 24 games. So I will go with that.
34-35. Start slow, eventually trade Randle, team responds with court spacing and some winning. By season’s end team is competitive, but hole too deep to climb to .500.
Marc Berman predicts too:
#2. Frank Ntilikina is traded at the March deadline for a 2023 second-round pick and the rights to a European who will never play in NBA.
The Post forecast
30-42: With another coach, I’d tab 22 wins, but Thibodeau is the real deal.#
I went for 24-25, as .333 ball is where we should be headed if our rotation will be clogged by non-shooting detritus as it looks like it will be.
That said all I ask for is, as always, competitive basketball. And I’m quiiiite sure we will have some of that.
Also: get ready for at least three-four games where the starting five will be Payton-Burks-RJ-Randle-Noel
A nice story for all the kb guitarists out there and the never stop dreaming and chasing the impossible mentality”
When Frank Zappa auditioned a 20yrsoldSteve Vai he asked him to play a ‘ridiculously difficult’ guitar line.
Vai said “well that’s impossible!”
And Zappa responded::
“I hear that Linda Ronstadt is looking for a guitar player!”
Also voted 24-25, as i think .333 is achievable mixing the bad 3P shooting with the rising of the young guns. We shouldn’t try to be better than this, or we’ll regret it when the bottom teams (CLE, DET, CHI) draft a stud in 2021 and we get another 8th pick.
How did you like Babylon Berlin? I saw the first episode. Gave me strong Bertolucci/Conformist vibes but didn’t stick with me. I think I’ll go back if you give a good review.
Wow, lots of optimism here with predictions of 30-ish win Knicks season in a truncated 72 game schedule.
A funny guy voted “Over 40”! LOL
And the “Under 20” is rising, if it’s any of you regulars, can you care to explain? Under 20 seems too low, i think.
I went 26-27 which would be about 30 wins in a normal season. With Thibs being a relatively good coach, especially compared to our coaches since firing Woodson, and a normal level of improvement from our young players we should be just good enough to really fuck up our draft position in what’s supposed to be a very good draft.
Liked the first two seasons a ton. The third arrived here during the pandemic, and I have discovered that one of the casualties of quarantine is my ability to watch things with subtitles for long periods of time. And the dubbed version stinks. So that’s on indefinite hold, alas.
The most promising thing is Thibs and the nature of our roster being perfect for this brand of coaching. His stature is so much bigger than any of the players that there will be no barrier to building the identity he favors…defensive intensity, offensive opportunism, high-IQ play. The talent deficit is just too extreme to win many games, but even good teams will not be able to mail it in and get wins against us, which is all I could ask for given our roster. If Fiz was still coaching, no way we get to 20 wins.
Maybe if we accumulate a couple of assets we will have enough to move up a couple of spots…
I think the Vegas Line reflects the fact that everyone has written the Knicks off. They didn’t do anything splashy to change people’s minds. So no one is betting for them and that pushes the line down. But I can’t see why we won’t be better than last year, which would be much better than the Vegas line, if only because we have consistent coaching. And some teams could struggle with depth and Covid. So I’m going with 29 wins.
“If Fiz was still coaching, no way we get to 20 wins.”
I can’t second that hard enough.
Since I got Pollyanna-ish with my prediction, let’s bring us back to reality with an important question: was Fiz the worst Knicks coach of this century, was it Larry Brown, or someone else? Looking back over the decisions Fizdale made, it’s staggering how inept he was in just about every way. Whereas, when, say, Zeke had to coach the team, the problem was much more with the roster he had assembled than with his actual coaching.
Right, but the problem is that several teams have improved significantly. Pretty much every team in the West is better than us and the only teams we compare to roster-wise in the east are CLE, DET, and CHI. Have we improved? There’s really nothing to hang your hat on right now other than better coaching and roster construction. You would have to be betting on young guys making significant improvement and vets taking their games to another level. But on paper, we’re really bad.
I went for “under 20”. Actually, let’s say 10% less, 18 wins.
As a pessimist I can only be pleasantly surprised. Let’s hope I’m wrong.
@Alan – I was an “under 20” voter. First, it’s a shorter season. Second, the Knicks talent level isn’t greatly improved. Third, the East has gotten stronger. Yeah, the schedule is more balanced, I just don’t see enough games against the Cavs and Pistons to warrant a better prediction. As I said earlier, I’m a pessimist and hope to be surprised.
It’s kind of hard to predict wins when you feel fairly certain the team is not done making moves. These guys believe in building via a combination of trades, free agency, and draft. IMO, there are going to be some trades/moves made trying to upgrade the roster THIS year, especially since the free agent class for next year has already begun to dry up. In some ways the team is worse than last year, but we have some young players that should be better, added a couple new ones (one that could have a positive impact Quickley – haha), and have a much better coach and coaching staff that will steal a few wins with defense, adjustments, and development. I think the under/over is 22 1/2. I like the over. I’ll say 25, but that could change depending on what happens with trades and after I take a better look at the schedule.
You make a good point. And historically I’ve been over optimistic about the Knick’s much more often than I’ve been the opposite, which suggests I’m doing the same this time. But I do think our defense will be better not just because of the coaching but because we now have two defensive centers. Who can we beat? Well, besides The teams you mentioned, there is Charlotte, with an already injured Hayward, OKC, and maybe Sacramento and Orlando.
I got 26 wins. What we lack in overall talent, we make up for with young legs to throw at teams. That plus Thibs’ coaching should give us more than the 22 or so wins pundits have been projecting. So..26 is my floor with this team, 30 being the ceiling
I voted for 32-33 wins. I think we’re going to surprise people and I think Thibs/Payne are gonna be a big reason why.
I agree with Z-Man. This is a good roster for Thibs because there is no one who is good enough to act like a diva. Minny was bad but had Towns, who was a number one pick. Our top pick, RJ, doesn’t have that demeanor. Randle might be the most talented but he’s never been on a winning team and isn’t close to an all-star, so he can’t really demand diva like attention. Someone like Elf might not like being benched over a rookie but again, he’s not gonna raise a stink about it if he wants to play somewhere else next year or remain with us. All the vets are getting paid hardly anything. If we can’t trade them for anything, cutting them doesn’t really hurt us at all. And I think the roster, while not talented, is better fitting than last year. And there is the X factor of RJ and Mitch taking a leap forward. If both of them do that, we could be super fun to watch.
I think Quickley will be good for us. I think Knox is gonna be better. I think Frank’s days are numbered (as are DSJ’s). I think Toppin will struggle more than expected (but will surprise with his passing and unselfish play and be better on D) and we’ll end up keeping Randle, possibly even picking up his team option for next year.
I do think there will be a trade before the deadline for future picks of some sort.
And I think the Payne development effect will show itself. I’ve said this before, but I’m a huge UK basketball fan (my family is originally from Lexington). And the big thing under Calipari with Payne is that they consistently get better as the season goes on. This happens almost every year with them. I always thought it was a Cal thing but now I think it might be a Payne thing and I think we now have that.
I’m the most optimistic I’ve been as a fan since 2010.
9-23 the first half of the season as Thibs tweaks his rotations and the team internalizes his schemes.
17-15, the second half, after we discharge the flotsam and jetsam that we started with.
RJ and Mitch make great leaps.
Easy… Derek Fisher! He was as bad as the worst coaches we had, and probably was hitting on the players girlfriends (and this puts him above the list)! 😛
Worst brand of basketball? Easily Fizdale, sometimes i didn’t even understand what schemes he was trying to apply… the most accurate definition of disaster!
The Athletic doesn’t agree with you, look at the bottom 5 teams of their power rankings.
21. San Antonio Spurs (Previously 22nd)
22. Oklahoma City Thunder (Previously 23rd)
23. Orlando Magic (Previously 20th)
24. Sacramento Kings (Previously 18th)
25. Minnesota Timberwolves (Previously 25th)
26. Charlotte Hornets (Previously 27th)
27. New York Knicks (Previously 28th)
28. Chicago Bulls (Previously 26th)
29. Cleveland Cavaliers (previously 29th)
30. Detroit Pistons (Previously 30th)
I’m picking 24. For the people optimistically predicting numbers up into the 30s I’m very curious how you see the breakdown of offense vs. defense in that prediction. I still think this looks like close to a lock to be a bottom-5 offense and being that bad on one end is a huge hurdle to overcome in getting up towards .500. To creep up even to 30 wins I think this would have to be close to a top-10 defense most likely and while I like the rim protection and I think Thibs will get us higher than last year’s 23rd on that end we just don’t have the horses on the wing and in the backcourt to get quite that high I don’t think.
We are going to lose some of the games we are favored in, but we are going win some we don’t expect to win because we randomly had a great night shooting, the other team had a bad night, the other team had a key injury or two etc.. If we stay relatively healthy, I think we’ll have a better team than last year. The focus on defense will keep us in more games. Then we just have to steal 1-2 extra and/or blow 1-2 fewer than is typical of our poorly coached teams to at least have a promising year.
23 wins. Lots of playing the youngsters, not enough shooting/defense, trading away any valuable vets, and fringe playoff teams have incentive to play hard.
Yep. I can see up to a 1/3 of the team turning around before the snow melts.
I went with 24-25. I think they’ll play hard defense and catch some teams unprepared for a young, hungry squad pushed by Thibs. Also I think RJB gives them someone to lean on, not in goto situations but during the regular flow of the game.
Also nobody here calculated advanced stats yet. We’re all gut feeling. Where are ptmilo, thcj and Mike when we need them?
The one thing I will say is that we have a lot of lineup combinations to throw out there. We can go big, small, offense, defense, fast, slow. It a balanced roster…just not very talented on paper. Our best feature is that we are very athletic. We will catch some teams on back-to-backs or out of sorts (hi Rockets!) and run them out of the gym.
I will also say that guys like Bullock, Burks, Rivers and Noel are hungry. They’ve been second fiddles their entire careers but when they play at their best they can play with anyone. I really like Bullock and Burks, they are pro’s pros. Noel has an edge and will push Mitch. Randle will push Obi. There’s a lot of good, friendly competition on this roster. Guys will have to compete extra hard in practice to maintain playing time.
There’s like a 5-10% chance that they put it all together and get into the 30’s. More likely, we endure a bunch of very entertaining losses and a couple of nice stretches.
And yeah, roster moves are probably coming, hopefully ones that either shore up some weaknesses or yield assets.
My prediction is definitely based on optimistic wish casting but I think its almost meaningless to look at the offensive and defensive rankings from last year’s team because the team was so horrible under Fizdale/when Elf was out. Elf can’t shoot to save his life but in the other areas of being a PG, he’s competent and him being hurt the first part of the season left us with no real PG at all. And it was compounded by Fizdale just being the worst coach in the NBA.
So I predict Elf will remain healthy and Quickley will be able to at the very least be a competent back up. Plus Rivers and Frank can handle PG duties. And I think while DSJ is here, he’ll be better too (not good but not the total garbage fire he was last season).
And I think RJ is poised to take big step forward on offense. Him shooting 70 percent or better at the FT line helps out the offense tremendously and Mitch staying out of foul trouble will help out the defense a lot too. I expect RJ and Mitch to both take steps forward. I expect Randle to cut down on his mistakes. In full, I expect Thibs to do a lot for this team and I think the team will play more unselfishly as a whole. We’ll still struggle from 3 point land.
Harden gonna Harden. From Tim McMahon:
26 wins. following a key charge drawn by taj gibson, jamal crawford gets us win number 25 with an OT buzzer beater over SGA. by the end of the year more than 50% of knickerblogger would trade obi for any one of: malachi flynn, desmond bane, tyrese maxey. alec burks scores 23+ in back to back games early and several of our resident deadeye knicks swiftly identify him as a big dog who cannot be traded and congratulate thibs and kenny payne on their player development acumen. dennis smith jr tries to glom onto rjb jr’s improved ft shooting to sell r2d2 tshirts but it never gets traction due to the fact that dennis smith jr still absolutely sucks at professional basketball. the kevin knox great leap forward into a 40% 3pt shooter who sucks at everything else only partially hits.
One of our youngsters in today’s NY Times crossword puzzle:
44-across – cloth that goes to waist? (3 letters)
hahahahahahahahahah maybe if their eyetest is precisely honed, only a few of us on here and they are more than willing to self-identify hahahahahahahahah
24 wins because I have been here too long to be dumber than that
Lady Jowles and I race the Friday through Sunday crosswords every week like big nerds (she does the Saturday in like 12 minutes and I fucking hate it). This is a weird clue. Usually it’s “judo belt” or something like that. Obi isn’t exactly a common English word so the nationality/language omission seems weird to me.
Harden is deliberately tanking his trade value, right? There’s no other explanation.
Reasons for Optimism.
-Team is better than last year’s team (Thibs Factor) which was on pace for 26 wins (.317)
-Barret takes Quantum leap
-Randle gets traded for help/assets
-Kids run teams out of gym with energy
-Fans are overdue to watch some decent decent basketball
swiftly identify…hmm, me thinks this might be a dig on me?
I like Burkes but I don’t think he’s a foundational piece. He’s too old.
The most reasonable path to overperformance (more than mid-low 20s wins) is if thibs builds a better defense founded on a mitch/nerlens spine. Our offense is almost certainly going to be bad barring a huge leap from RJ
I agree that you can’t graft too closely onto last year’s results because there’s been a good amount of turnover. The reason I try to drill down on approximately where I think the team stands on offense and defense is because I think it gives focus to my thinking. I find it easy to be sort of vaguely optimistic, oh RJ will be better, little bit better coaching, etc. etc., but I find it harder to be specifically optimistic – the more I try to drill down on where I see this team’s strengths relative to the rest of the league, the more I come up empty.
We should be a really good offensive rebounding team again. Probably a good defensive rebounding team as well. We’re pretty long and athletic and hopefully with better coaching that translates to being decent forcing turnovers and limiting opponent shooting, neither of which was a strength last year. That hopefully adds up to an above-average defense. On offense, I just can’t get there. Not enough shooting, not enough creation, too many big question marks.
“dennis smith jr tries to glom onto rjb jr’s improved ft shooting to sell r2d2 tshirts but it never gets traction due to the fact that dennis smith jr still absolutely sucks at professional basketball.”
LOL
Will be interesting to take the temperature of the board after we start 1-4
As for Harden, he posted it on Instagram right?
I do think he’s trying to force his way out of there by being a prick. But isn’t the other explanation that he’s just an idiot treating the virus like no big deal, which puts him in a similar company to like 50% of the country? I mean the fact that the strip club is still open and there are other idiots there to photograph Harden being an idiot kind of speaks to that, right?
i voted under 20…even wit Thibs’ magic…looking at the schedule…its hard to point to any game as say “yep…for sure W”…I think they max out at 20…but…in the alternate reality where IQ turns into gus williams…then the sky is the limit!
Apparently people like what they say from Wiseman. And his conditioning is behind where it should be because of Cvid. He looks like a player for sure but interested to see how he turns out. He seemed to have a hard time catching the ball on passes and rebounds. Trying to remember a center who was like that, had really small hands for his position and was constantly fumbling. Anyone, one game, and I guess we will have tons of chances to watch him on national tv. Rather have him than Edwards or Ball for sure.
https://sports.yahoo.com/james-wisemans-nba-debut-warriors-153428596.html
Going with 24.
The defense should be better, though not necessarily by leaps and bounds (Noel is only going to play so many minutes and I’m not sure who else represents a marked improvement on that end). I’ll arbitrarily predict we finish 19th in defensive rating. Top 20 baby!
However I could easily see us finishing dead last in offense. It’ll be between us, Detroit, and Cleveland and it might come down to what the latter two decide to do with Griffin and Love respectively. This isn’t rocket science–we do not have any high usage, high efficiency basketball players. The closest thing we have to one of those is Alec Burks, which tells you all you need to know. Maybe Randle rebounds enough to get us into the 25-27th range but even then I don’t think 19th defense and 25th offense gets you much more than .333.
Tim McMahon confirmed this morning that Harden had Covid over the summer. This doesn’t excuse his behavior at all as even epidemiologists aren’t sure exactly what that does for you, but if you want to be generous I guess you could say it earns him some slack in this regard.
I’m assuming he is well aware of the league protocols so I think Occam’s Razor suggests he’s basically holding out by other means.
thenamestan,
That is totally legit. I guess I just think our two core young players from last year, RJ and Mitch, are way better than people think they are (especially RJ) and I think if they’re unleashed and take that step forward, we could catch people off guard. And I think Knox is gonna improve a lot too. I also think the team really has nothing to lose. They’ve been ragged on by the league so hard and its a bunch of young players and vets who aren’t big names. There’s a real chance for a team with very little ego playing above their fighting weight.
I’m also still riding high on the Quickley sugar rush. Check in with me tomorrow and I’ll probably change my tune!
I think Charlotte and OKC both merit mention in the worst offense discussion, but otherwise completely in agreement.
edit: Maybe Orlando and Chicago as well.
I wish the highlights included defense and misses. Other than that, an athletic, fluid 7 footer with a smooth shot (7 of 13, 19 points) seems very promising. I think I’ll even trade Quickly for him.
I voted for 24, but, honestly, I forgot it was a shortened season. So adjust that vote down. (I am not going to spend any time doing math to convert the 24-58 winning% into a 70 game season. In fact, I’ve wasted too much time on this just voting and writing about it).
the only real areas of outperformance are going to come from noel (relative to gibson) and rj (relative to rookie rj)….. payton and randle may or may not add minimal incremental improvements but they probably won’t be massively better….
whatever you think of burks.. bullock.. or anyone else for that matter… it’s a tall ask to have them outperform morris… this is very much a low 20s win team….
which is exactly where we need to be because the only chance to turn this thing around for real is going to come in the draft next year….
Nobody on this team is “too old”.
All I ask is that we keep Harden away from the Knicks. I’m for big game hunting, but Harden is a big turkey.
(70/82)*24 = 20.5
You’re welcome 🙂
Quickley could be an upgrade at PG fairly Quickley.
Why can’t Mitch learn to reduce fouls, get some more minutes per game, and get a little better in other areas?
I heard Frank is working on his corner 3 and is draining those Steph Curry tunnel shots left and right. I also heard he grew 2 inches since the Achilles tightened up last week. 🙂
OKC is a definite possibility, though with a gun to my head I’d say SGA/Hill/Horford drag them above us. Charlotte I think will finish comfortably ahead of us. A Rozier-Graham-Hayward-Washington-Zeller lineup is…coherent? Definitely better offensively than anything we can throw out there, and I bet it’s their most common lineup.
Regardless we pretty much agree. Our offensive ceiling is something like 25th and the floor is dead last.
Even if we go 0-3 as expected, how we lose will tell us a lot about what to expect going forward. If we get blown out 3 straight times, then 20 wins will be a reach. If we’re reasonably competitive, the mid-20’s is more reasonable. Same if we pull one out.
If we win 2 of 3…..nah, I’m not even going there.
Guys, i know it’s not healthy to wish bad on other teams, but to prevent the media picking up the #lolKnicks again because of the Nets campaign, i’m rooting that they come down to (flat) earth sooner than later.
Went with 26 games – a 15% improvement over last year – anticipating significantly better D and young guys getting a bit better.
Improvement comes from not giving 35% of our minutes to DSJR, rookie RJ, Knox, Frank, or Gibson.
The minutes we do give to those players will be better minutes or Thibs will pull them from the rotation (I’m trying to think of another word, but can’t) Quickley.
The one guy who immediately comes to mind of a big man with small hands is Kwame Brown. He never did get a handle on it (so to speak).
I said 24-25. There’s not as many easy wins this year compared to last and we will miss Morris.
But I believe in Thibs or at least believe in Thibs coaxing a lot out of 2 game changing defensive centers.
I also believe that most rookie years are crappy, meaningless affairs. If RJ can get his TS% over .500 our team looks significantly better. Remember, RJ was 2nd in minutes and was among the worst players in the league.
“Among all active players with at least 1,000 career shot attempts, Frank Ntilikina is last in true shooting percentage, Kevin Knox is third worst, and Dennis Smith Jr. is fourth worst.”
I can’t imagine us winning more than 23 games. Even though I do think we’ll be a bit better than last year. I just hope I can enjoy hard-fought losses, though.
Shams:
Oof.
Well it’s nice not being the league’s most dysfunctional franchise, so there’s that!
(now watch Stoute show up on a zoom call in a Nets jersey…)
The good (or bad if you’re into tanking) news is that if they continue at that level they will certainly not play. Thibs is all over the offensive/defensive efficiency metric. Frank might survive if his defensive impact is reflected therein. DSjr either contributes on O or he’s benched/gone. Same with Knox, although he’s younger and has more time on his rookie deal.
Hey everybody, I haven’t posted in a while, but still an avid reader. Put me down for 27. They’re bound to hit it one of these years.
most of the time the ability to grab a ball doesn’t have much to do with hand size… having big hands helps… but just because you have small hands doesn’t mean you drop everything either… biyombo has famously huge hands yet he is relatively clumsy even when catching the ball… the differentiator is usually dexterity which is hard to measure but spacial recognition and eye movement speed help with that… and sometimes you can make an inference in the box score through steals and blocks since they are very reactive ….
ewing had famously small hands but ppl always said he had issues catching the ball and was always mentioned when he dropped it… but it didn’t really happen all that often…
Houston may have to attach a pick to Harden to get rid of him if he’s the one that made contact with Cousins and others. 🙂
Last year we were:
29th in efg%
30th in ts%
20th in ttl rebound%
24th in made FT per 100
15th in TOV
There are ~ the “four factors.” Coaching and scheme can make those numbers a bit better, but how much better? On the floor, talent and leadership still matter. I’m not sure we have either one.
Been away a long time (2020’s a bitch), I’m back in time for the prediction thread.
Voted for 26-27 W despite my heart telling me to go higher.
And, like many european KBloggers, I’m ready for some sleepless night, starting today: let’s go Knicks!
Woj:
Brian, today is a day when I could really use those gif powers you’ve been promising me…
I went 24, but the development is more important to me.
-We know Mitch and Noel are going to split C
-We should either cut Smith Jr now or let him be the backup PG for the first 5 games to see if he proves himself or he’s done. With Payton starting and Smith/Frank/Quickley battling for minutes we have a log jam.
-That leaves 3 positions, 144 minutes a night. RJ and Randle are going to start. Rivers, Obi and Burks are going to play. That leaves maybe 25 minutes a night for guys like Knox / Bullock / Frank (not at PG).
-I’d like to see a 9 man rotation of Payton, RJ, Burks, Randle and Mitch, then Noel, Rivers, Obi and Quickley. That leaves nothing for Knox / Frank / Bullock. Knox and Frank need minutes to decide their fate…..I don’t see why we let Bullock eat into their time. And I don’t get why we signed Rivers at all.
-Last year, we made 1 in season deal, and it was a good one, but it took Morris playing at his ceiling for 32 minutes a game; we got a late 1st. 2 of the 4 of frank/knox/bullock/rivers need to be dealt, and we dont’ have 30 minutes a game to showcase them.
This article is bumming me out. See who’s #1, and who’s not on here.
Of course it’s all guesswork at this point.
Rookie Team WAR
Tyrese Haliburton Kings 23.7
James Wiseman Warriors 17.7
Anthony Edwards Timberwolves 16.9
Devin Vassell Spurs 16.5
Chuma Okeke Magic 16.2
LaMelo Ball Hornets 16.1
Onyeka Okongwu Hawks 13.5
Patrick Williams Bulls 13.1
Killian Hayes Pistons 13.1
Deni Avdija Wizards 10.7
According to FiveThirtyEight’s multiyear projections
The Knicks have always been better with Frank on the floor. So was his French team in those European games. Granted, the Knicks were bad and some of the substitutions were even worse, but that hasn’t been the case with Knox and DSjr. They were terrible no matter how you slice it. I think on/off and RAPM does a better job of capturing Frank’s contribution than boxscore. But if he still can’t shoot, he’s not going to play on a team that still lacks spacing. For me, it keeps coming back to Obi. We desperately needed a PG and stretch PF that could shoot. Maybe we have the PG, but if Obi’s game doesn’t stretch out to an NBA 3 pointer we still have an issue with spacing regardless of whether it’s Mitch or Nerlens or Randle or Obi. Throw RJ into the mix and Frank can’t be in that lineup unless he can shoot.
24-25. Vegas number is a touch low — I’d take the over for sure if I had to bet my life — but not by much. It’s very tough to win an NBA basketball game.
But let’s keep our eyes on the real prize — still the case, and won’t be changing, that the only thing that matters is the development of RJ, Toppin, IQ, Mitch, Knox, Frank, DSJ. Preseason upped the optimism level for me on that front, but without a breakthrough this year or next from one of those guys, it’s going to be pretty hopeless around here. I sense some good percolation on that front, though. *With* a breakthrough, things can change in a hurry.
Whatever, Nets. Nobody cares.
I went 26/27 and then immediately called myself up looking for action on an under bet.
I’m still cautiously optimistic that Frank’s shot comes around if he stays healthy and gets minutes. That might not happen before they ditch him in a trade, but if he survives the trade deadline and we’re not in the hunt for anything, I think they will try to see what they have in him at the expense of the vets.
21 wins.
24 wins. The offense will be baaaad.
Re: the Harden situation. The current standard for immunity from past infections is 90 days. If Harden had it in the summer, maybe it’s been more than 90 days.
I said 24 a while back, and I’m sticking to it. I like the symmetry of 24-48.
Some time back my wife asked me to promise to take her to some local Holiday Lights thing. Little did I know until my wife informed last night that this event is tonight. Yup, same night as the opening night for the Knicks. So, I’ll probably miss the first hour or so of the game.
I can’t beg off as she was willing to sit through the entire 2018 Anthony Hopkins version of King Lear on Netflix with me the other night. Hopkins, as you might expect, was terrific in playing the temperamental, vain, and crazy old man. It was pretty faithful to the dark, bitter play (the updated setting was fine), but uneven. They kind of botched the famous horrific final scene, and I didn’t like Andrew Scott as Edgar, to my surprise, though I generally like him elsewhere.
Still recommended, though, but not for light viewing.
I put 26, but forget about the shortened season. Put me in for 25 (yes, I know that’s not a linear change). I think we’re due for slight overperformance if only because some teams are going to be playing short-handed throughout the season due to COVID. Plus, I’m a little bullish on our young guys not being the absolute worst players in the league–so if that prediction bears out that might be enough for the difference between 22 wins and 25
21 wins. The schedule is, uh, not soft. But outcomes this season are going to completely depend upon the covid situation so that could easily be really low or really high with teams having groups of key players miss games and some games outright cancelled.
bib?
Full state tonight. Marquee games: BOS-MIL, NOP-TOR, DAL-PHX, UTA-POR
Let’s go Knicks!
Oh, it was a Toppin thing. Nevermind. I disliked the pick and I can’t stand his nickname so I basically tune him out completely.
Coach supergenius is going to need to dig deep into his bag of tricks to score against Milwaukee without last years two leading shot creators. Should be interesting to see what he schemes up.
I went optimistic and said a probably slightly high 32 wins.
Last year Miller won 38% of his games which would be 27 wins this year. I think Thibs is a better coach and I think we did improve. RJ will be better, Noel is a huge improvement over Gibson/Portis, Quickley/Rivers is a huge improvement over DSj, Burks is better than Ellington or Dotson, plus, hopefully, Knox and Frank will be better or play less. On top of that, this is a weird season and I think Covid is going to cause more parity as teams will just simply lose sometimes as much of their rotation is forced to sit out. This will affect every team fairly equally but will hurt good teams much more. If 10% of the games for every team is determined by Covid that will help bad teams like us because a coin flip on those games is better than the 20-40% win% we would have otherwise. I think every bad team wins 2-3 extra games and every good team loses 2-3 extra games because of Covid.
This is a strong endorsement of Thibs. 🙂
This is (probably) the last season (or even maybe half season) to have Frank arguments. So enjoy it, Frankophiles.
MKG – Nailed it!!! Kwame Brown was exactly who I was thinking about and couldn’t remember.
There were two times where he had trouble gathering the ball for a dunk. One time he just sort of jettisoned the ball towards the hoop like he was dropping a grenade. It bounced off the rim and in but it was so awkward.
Such a contrast with Mitch the other night where he basically did a two-handed emphatic stuff on a ball he only had his fingers on for an instant.
I have seen Alan’s gif work on Twitter and it is excellent.
#44-across – cloth that goes to waist? (3 letters)#
Obi Strip
An obi strip is a piece of paper wrapped around the spine of Japanese CDs, DVDs, movies, or books sometimes referred to as a “spine card”.
They started in Japan as a way of providing Kanji translations to overseas CDs imported into Japan, but have since become a standard part of a new CD providing labels, catalog numbers, barcodes and other information that usually clutters the back of a CD. Most people simply discard and ignore them after unwrapping the plastic from a CD since the info contained on them are mainly for the seller and not the buyer. But to the collector market they’re a rare commodity that can increase the collector price of the CD; and in the case of MusicBrainz they provide a wealth of information that isn’t reproduced on the album itself and often more info that most western CDs contain (such as price and original release date).
I went with 27. Like Ben, I think Thibs will get more out of this roster than Miller could, which means better than Miller’s 27-pace season. And I agree that COVID will hurt good teams more than bad teams, like us. But I also think we have some issues to sort out, and we didn’t have a lot of prep time, so the beginning of the season is going to be….aesthetically unappealing. I think we’ll finish strong, which of course also supports Dolan’s Razor, in that finishing strong will not be helpful to our draft position. But Thibs isn’t a guy to play for draft position, so…27.
I thought of who Quickly reminds me of, and why I think he might actually be a viable PG: Andre Miller. Not particularly quick, about the same size, but a good shooter with a lot of deception. Good at drawing fouls and getting the team to play to plan. So, yeah, I’m optimistic he will stick at PG, once he’s seen enough time to play him over Elfrid.
2hrs ago i dreamt Frank having a sidedrive reverse dunk in my evening sleep.
I won’t lie.
It felt great.
Maybe it’s a sign of a premier Win.
25 wins. Bottom 3 offense, 15-20 defense
I know we get into this argument every year but we really shouldn’t worry about draft position. Especially this year.
If we win high 20’s/low 30’s then most likely Thibs has done a good job, RJ and/or Mitch has progressed and the other young players have gotten better or proven to be decent for rookies. All of those things combined are just as important to the long term success of the franchise than a high lottery pick. Of course I would LOVE a top 3 pick, especially this next year. But minimum we’re probably guaranteed a top 10 pick. And we have the second first round pick from Dallas plus 2 second round picks and lots of picks going forward (including 2 first rounders in 2023 and like all of the second round picks).
The lottery odds are flattened. If we REALLY get screwed by those odds again, the extra picks could allow us to trade up. We didn’t want to do that this year because it was a bad draft but next year it might be worth it to add that one guy to take us to the next level.
And I truly believe this. Karmically we are due for a ping pong balls bouncing our way. We’ve had bad draft luck but a big part of that was giving away our picks for half of the 21st century. We’re due to be rewarded for finally being patient.
Predicting around Vegas/Bookie’s numbers is definitely safe and if i had to bet tons of money i’d go 5wins up and down of the projected victories to have a real chance of winning the bet.
Otoh nothing feels better than an underdog ride.
Trust me, i know:
A 150/1 bet to win the competition, Greece’s run to become European Champions in 2004 was one of the most unlikely soccer triumphs of all-time. Victories over France, the Czech Republic and the hosts Portugal saw Greece crowned European champions.
The whole Country was in a Frenzy for many years!
mark me down for 27 also…
just because fiz was so terrible, i thought we’d hit between 27 and 33 wins (adjusted to shortened schedule) this season – last season…with the moves we’ve made since fiz’s firing our win’s progression felt pretty certain…
i mean, it’s hard to be as bad as we were…you have to really work at it…
i wanna say 30 wins, but – i’ve been burnt too many times from wishful fan thinking, so 27 it is…
i can’t remember the last lottery ticket or slot machine i played, but – i’m pretty sure we’ll hit at least 23…to all you going in on the over – good luck with your bet 🙂
Last year we were on pace to win ~22.9 games in a 72 game season. So Vegas just seems to be pushing. If we get reasonably good PG play or Thibs is better than Fiz, we should win more.
I’m optimistic on the upside, but at best we stayed put while other teams got better or healthier.
Even if we all want Randle gone, we’re going to miss 22 wins if we trade him midseason and don’t get back a win-now player.
If you buy Miller’s record as being more indicative of this year’s team, then we’re projected to win ~27.8 games and you should probably take the over. I did think this before seeing the zone stonewall Payton.
There should be some counterbalances, but if IQ and Payton flail we’re going to look a lot more like Fiz’s team.
FWIW, Fiz’s record projects to a whopping 13 wins. Cade baby!!!
Anyone heard anything about who’s starting tonight? I can’t find anything and we’re only a few hours away.
I was just about to post about why the fuck haven’t they announced the starting lineup yet? It’s just silly. It’s not some fucking state secret here, Thibs. There’s no need for the cloak and dagger. Unless he starts Noel, of course, in which case keep that shit as quiet as possible.
We can’t let them get the extra hour or 2 of zone practice in when we announce Payton.
But yeah, there’s really no reason to announce it. Thibs seems old school and just won’t ever show his hand till the last minute even if we all know what’s there.
Man, i liked you but that’s over now! 😀
Probably waiting for COVID tests to come back.
20 wins. these guys stink.
This certainly looks like a mid-20’s win team, but that seems maybe a little floor-ish to me. I don’t think we’ll go much below that and win, like 18 games or something.
This is probably a bottom 5 offense that maybe, MAYBE could sneak in the top 20 on defense. We’ll have to see how much Thibs’ coaching helps the defense. You can run some decent defensive lineups out there that are not disgraceful, unlike in seasons past.
I could see this team overachieving a little bit and winning in the low 30’s. Maybe RJ’s seeming improvement is sustainable, Mitch takes a step forward under Thibs, the vets all give solid contributions, one of the presumed busts like Knox or Ntilikina gives unexpected production, etc.
Something like 24-26 wins is most likely but I wouldn’t be shocked if we did a little better than that.
You really think some team is dumb enough to let the Knicks trade up for Cade/Suggs/Mobley? No way in hell, either you tank and pray, or forget about those guys and concentrate on the next 8th to 10th pick the Knicks will do (which will still be a good player, i think, but not superstar level).
Of all the years to tank in recent memory, this is the year. But Thibs will strangle someone (probably DSJr) long before that happens.
#Man, i liked you but that’s over now! :D#
¯\_(‘/’)_/¯
Last year was a good year to tank too. I’d rather have Hayes than Obi.
I’m portuguese! 😉
Reason prevails!
You don’t hire Thibs to tank, so unless it’s the most accidental accidentank ever, might as well not even think about it. Most likely scenario is that we’ll be in the 8-12 range in the lottery.
The most realistic things to hope for are a) Thibs coaching with a modernized offensive mindset thanks to his banishment and re-education and b) improvement in several young players (RJ, Mitch, Obi, IQ and Knox, in that order…oh yeah, Frank. Can’t have a rosy upside discussion without including him…)
I really didn’t like anyone who got drafted in the top-10. The two players I wanted were still available: Hali & Vassell.
Hayes could be good, but he’s far from a lock and won’t be a superstar. I did like him more than Obi (I like a lot of people more than Obi) but there probably isn’t too much separating them.
“I’m portuguese! ;)”
I know man/sorry for the 2004 “heist”
At least you watch better football with Figo,Ronaldo and co
Sounds like they would have taken Obi anywhere after #3 when LaMelo was taken, so tanking wouldn’t have mattered anyway unless you really wanted LaMelo.
A more aggressive, efficient from3 Obi won’t be so bad imo. Have Patience and Faith.
And if Thibs can make Frank more aggressive and decisive i think he can do it for Obi too
And right on cue I read this post from LatvianPrankster on P&T:
Here’s the link tot the article he cites
Atlanta traded down from Doncic to pick up Trae young so dumber things have happened.
They might have taken Obi but if we had the higher pick I would have had more reason for resentment later.
I am excited Mitch is starting. Seems crazy he took this long to come around, or that it took a Noel injury, but whatever….
#Atlanta traded down from Doncic to pick up Trae young so dumber things have happened.#
How d you call that process?
I’d call it Psychedelic!
Mitch starting
Rockets v. OKC postponed. This’ll be an interesting season…
Official: Payton/Bullock/RJ/Randle/Mitch
what!!! can we start a new thread on why quickley should be starting??
Here’s Vorkunov quoting Thib’s justification:
bull-aaahk starting is weird for the bingo cards but this is a good result. mitch starting is what matters most.
That’s actually a lineup I predicted. I hope I’m right about the wins too, although that’s much harder.
I counted up all the predictions. The average of the 40 predictions in the comments was 25.7 with a median prediction of 25 wins. That is significantly more than the Vegas line. The low prediction was 18 and the high was 36.
i like how thibs threw in the “matters who is finishing” remark…nice qualifier…
Peyton as starting point guard isn’t a shock. What I can’t figure out is which point guard will be first off the bench.
This always made more sense to me. Burks is a better creator which should help rookie IQ and the reserves. If he’s in with Ranlde, then he’s just sitting in the corner waiting to shoot. Bullock can do that just fine. Bullock can’t drive, pass, or up his usage as easily.
Personally, I don’t care if Mitch starts or not. I want to maximize his minutes on the court because he’s the better player. If he gets in foul trouble quickly against good big men like Turner or the craftier Sabonis, what good is starting if he plays less minutes than he would coming off the bench dominating scrubs and playing less minutes against players that will know to and try to get him in foul trouble. We want him at the end too. Good test for him tonight.
Not bad, I can live with this. Definitely like Mitch in the starting lineup.
“Obi” is Japanese for “belt,” dude.
I can’t complain about the lineup because I only cared strongly about one thing and Thibs did the damn thing.
However, Bullock over Burks is an oddity.
On second thought, it might make some sense to break up the guys who can handle reasonably high usage (Burks and Randle) because we don’t have many of those. So, cool with me.
It was deserved, we played in the first and last games of that championship, and Greece won both, so congrats. 😉 And since then, we did it also in 2016, so it’s all good. And because of covid we’re still the reigning champions. 🙂
mitch finally did it… hopefully he keeps it…
i’m just soooooo ready to post on the first thread of the new season…the anticipation is extreme…
i don’t know how it happens but, seems as though this site gets better year by year…
well, actually i do know – we’re fortunate to get a bunch of good folks whom willingly subjugate and denigrate themselves to knick fandom….
“Obi” is Japanese for “belt,” dude.
I know boy. Just threw some info for Lp/Cd collectors in there so they don’t throw away the obi-strips of their Japanese releases as i did when i was younger and uninformed.
The lineup is ok, and yes moving Burks to the 2nd unit is a good move. I just hope that Payton creates for all the players and not only for Randle, or this will have been a poor choice.
The only thing that can derail it is if he gets abused by stronger and/or smarter Cs that get him in foul trouble quickly and he winds up getting fewer minutes than if he came off the bench.
#It was deserved, we played in the first and last games of that championship, and Greece won both, so congrats. 😉 And since then, we did it also in 2016, so it’s all good. And because of covid we’re still the reigning champions. :)#
I enjoyed it wholeheartedly but won’t hide that a few conspiracy theories are still in my mind since we had the Olympics in the same year plus way too many opponent shots went just outside our goal posts! Plus our team wasn’t exactly great.I thought of a magneticsomthin’ballcontroller or super anabolics to the players but of course after all it’s just football… anything can happen!
I’m not an expert, but this draft has been talked about as the best in many years, is it smart to go for the 10th place in the east and miss on this generation? I think it’s not, but Rose did hire very smart people and they know (much) better than me, so i trust them.
I say .500
I’ll be wrong probably but maybe Mitch and RJ make the all star team. Quickly develops quickly…
Hey, a guy can dream. This is the time to
You know what would have been awesome? To have someone tell Wally that Noel was starting, have him explain how that was the obvious call. Then say, “Oh, our bad, Mitch is starting” and have Wally then explain how that was the obvious call.
I wonder how far the Knicks would have to go for Wally to express any level of disapproval. Re-sign Joakim Noah for another 4/$72M an hour before tip off and start him?
How come Thibs didn’t challenge that foul on Mitch?
I guess too early in the game to risk a challenge?