2019-20 Game Thread: Knicks @ The Fox-less Kings

why not…

Why do the Knicks coaching staff look like nypd detectives

board man gets paid Mitch

we should try making 3 point shots

we should try making 3 point shots

Bold, provocative. You should send your resume to Dolan.

Has anyone seen rj?

It’s like, do they think that they’ll somehow, what, lose games if they play Trier and Iggy? What are they doing without playing them?!

Iggy gets minutes in Westchester, and appears to suck.

Iggy gets minutes in Westchester, and appears to suck.

I agree that he almost certainly sucks, but why have him on the roster if they’re not going to let him get minutes? The team is terrible and most of the guys who get minutes are on one year deals! Just play the shitty young players to see if they’re ever going to be good.

I missed the Trier news, though. That’s fair enough.

This is a clown team bros

this is a pretty good game from randle….

I was just thinking, “Wow, they might be able to get something for Randle if they traded him now!”

While we’re getting murdered our only good player is 6th in minutes played if you want to know how good the new coach is

Clown team’s gonna clown.

Buddy Hield also excited about the Knicks being in town. He has a quick release. Would not want to guard him.

pick and roll with mitchell robinson might work?

Wow look, a real PG. The team is still bad but 3x more watchable with Elfrid in.

i think we’re seeing the same thing with knox….

What’s worse for Knox is that they have other guys for his position, so it’s easy for them to bury him when he sucks.

has the msg broadcast said anything about dsj? just curious bc he was probable and berman weirdly dedicated an entire article just to say he was still in the rotation.

Sacramento has to be so embarrassed that this game is this close.

Payton needs to guard hield not frank

Miller playing Taj over Mitch in crunch time is just…lol

Miller could be 2-2 pretty soon. Extend Mills!

Especially since Mitch is having a great game

Yeah, it’s so confusing.

mitch really needs to be in….. and knox should not be anywhere near the floor….

Ok Taj don’t embarrass me with that

It is hard to imagine a worse announcer than Wally. Breen is so good that he sort of makes up for it, at least.

Breen: just don’t let hield get free for a 3
. . .
Breen: Hield wide open for a 3

I really thought that they’d have a chance against the Kings without Fox, but then they were down by so much that I figured that it wasn’t realistic. Luckily, they played strong defense and the Kings also just bricked almost literally every shot they took for the last five minutes of the game.

Mike miller is at .500

Extend Mills!

Fizdale must be so pissed at the fact that Miller is 2-2 with these guys.

Breen: just don’t let hield get free for a 3
. . .
Breen: Hield wide open for a 3

And then he bricked it, which was really the story of the night. Hield got ice cold at an inopportune time.

Mills is not getting extended Because we need a new fo and Dolan realizes that.

Does this win take Morris off the table?
Oh man

I can hear fiz right now ‘we’ll I didn’t have Payton and that’s why we couldn’t win!’

Meanwhile you started trier at pg over Payton opening game

Quite a revelation watching Payton. I never realized that a point guard could actually:

– Break down a defense and score
– Break down a defense and find an open shooter
– Take his man off the dribble and make a mid range shot

I was informed we already had a great floor general who “makes the right pass” and that playing Elfrid Payton was a great affront to this Lafayette of point guards

We overcame RJ this game. He’s been quite terrible lately.

Dotson quietly got us back into this game, deserves lots of credit.

Miller > Fizdale

So far, I see no reason he shouldn’t be given the rest of the year to earn the job full time. The players are still a mediocre mismatched lot, but the spacing and movement is a little better, I haven’t seen data but they seem more organized out of timeouts, and I like the lineups and effort better.

Payton should be fit enough to start, finish and play a full game by now.

We finally have evidence for why Knox looked so good against Miles Bridges when they played head to head. It appears Miles is the lowest rated player in the league on the NBA plus minus rating…just behind Knox who is next to last. (Before tonight’s game)

There’s a long way to go, but I’ve been saying from the start of the season that Payton had some stretches of excellent PG play over the last 2 years but injuries kept slowing him down and impacted his overall results. His development over the last 2 years may have been more significant than it looks. I’d say it’s at least even money he’s a legitimate starting PG when he stays healthy. Worst case is he’s a damn good backup. IMO we should keep him.

Payton is by far the best point guard on the team. I get that’s not saying much, but clearly he should be getting the majority of the minutes if healthy.

So far Miller looks like a reasonably competent coach which is light years ahead of his recent predecessors. Small sample size, but from what I’ve seen so far I’d rather roll with him for a couple of years over the re-tread names being bandied about ( Thibs, Mark Jackson, Van Gundy, etc..)

Isn’t it just so Knicksy that right when they get the tanking thing down and end up with what looks like it could be the worst record in the league two years in a row, the draft odds are flattened out thus assuring them of the third or fourth pick instead of the first pick in the draft? We were born to suffer with this miserable franchise.

I think I saw a picture of Zo Trier on a milk carton today – have you seen me?

frank’s really stunk it up since payton got back. It might be as simple as when he’s not assured of his place, he has no confidence and is awful. And when he is assured, he’s better but not nearly good enough.

A mixture of #1 and #3. As DRed noted, they were up five with, like, 9 seconds left and still somehow left Hield wide open for a three-pointer. He just bricked it. However, they did play some strong defense along with the Kings bricking open looks. Taj had a really nice block on a Hield three attempt.

Forgetting the final three pointer at the buzzer down five (which was obviously meaningless), the Kings scored three points in the last 3:36 and five points in the last 6:52. Not counting the blocked three, Hield took and missed four open threes and Cory Joseph missed two open threes. Hield hit one jumper with 3:37 left and then his only other score was when he got the offensive rebound off of his missed three and put it in for two fairly meaningless points with 1.8 seconds left to cut the Knick lead to three.

I’m not going to get fooled into thinking two close wins against terrible teams (and SACTO is that without Fox) mean anything, and honestly, a two point win on the road against a terrible team when Frank, Rowan, and Knox play like merde is by far the worst of all possible outcomes.

Frank is not a lead guard it’s that simple. Please don’t start him at point mike Miller.i think the issue is that he may not be a off guard either. Things look more fluid with Dotson at the two being above to create his own shot in space. Idk

Hield was unstoppable till Payton guarded him.

I gave up on the game after Knox gave up a blow by layup and the Knicks were down 16. Their play to that point was so piss poor. Randle had bricked a couple shots and they simply couldn’t put a ball int eh ocean.
I’m glad they came back and won, but Sac really wasn’t good either.
They beat so bad teams in a row.
Just hard to get interested.

@84 I totally disagree about Payton. He’s right at the age where point guards often turn the corner, and he has the physical tools to do it. He’s a great passer and if he can fix his jumper (always a big if) and just find a little more consistency, he could be a decent starter.

Barrett is really struggling, but since he was a starter from day 1, you don’t want to crush his spirits by sending him to the bench where he belongs. Fiz really was a shit coach with no plan at all. Obviously, the roster is flawed, but he had no idea how to do the few things that a head coach actually needs to do. Good riddance.

Payton becoming a decent starter isn’t enough. I want a star or near star as my starting point guard. Then I want Frank, one of the handful of best defensive guards in the association with better shooting form than Elfrid Payton, as my 8th man-ish combo guard.

“If he can fix his jumper” is a big old matzoh ball hanging out there. I vote that he can’t. If he could, he would have by now. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter, because you aren’t going to win anything with Elfrid Payton as your starting point guard. This year should be about finally getting Mills the fuck out, and developing Frank, Mitch, Rowan, and Knox. The rest is completely irrelevant noise. I literally don’t WANT them winning close games against shitty teams on the back of people like Randle and Payton, lest Mills somehow be able to con the idiot owner into not shitcanning him. Winning against a depleted SACTO with the young guys playing like crap is precisely what I do not want. I’d rather they get blown out with the young guys playing well.

Elf’s jumper does look fixable. He shoots on a line drive but he shoots within the rhythm of the offense. I’m all excited about any competent pg play.

If he actually had a wing to play along side … do we have a competent wing? Randle? Idk

He doesn’t really competently run an NBA offense; he just looks like what you guys want to see more in an NBA point guard than Frank does and you guys have a jones to show that Frank is shit, so you use Frank as your reference point. Frank is not the reference point. Payton turns the ball over a lot and can’t shoot. There’s a reason this is his fourth team and he was only able to get a one-year deal for the NBA equivalent of pocket change from a desperate, terrible organization — from the political guy who drafted him and obviously wants to use the Knicks to try to salvage his reputation (see, e.g., Hezonja, Mario).

In other words, the answer to Frank’s deficiencies is *not* having another point guard do poorly the point guard things that Frank does not do. It is to leverage Frank’s other skills — which he inarguably has — and use other guys to fill in the “gaps.”

The KB majority ranking:

A point guard who can break down a defense well and effectively
A point guard who tries to break down defenses and does so inefficiently with a lot of turnovers
Frank

The KB minority ranking:

A point guard who can break down a defense well and effectively
Frank
A point guard who tries to break down defenses and does so inefficiently with a lot of turnovers

That’s the philosophical difference here.

Payton is on a two year deal with a non-guaranteed second year. It’s an excellent contract. He’s also the only NBA-level PG on the team. Ntilikina and DSjr both belong in the G-League on their way overseas. The stupid thing was picking up their options, essentially tying up $11 mill in cap space next year on unplayable players. We should have let some other team “fix” them and turned the reins over to Kadeem Allen at the vet’s minimum.

It’s a terrible contract, because it’s pointless and detrimental to have him on the roster. He serves no purpose. Whatever marginal advantage he provides — and it’s still entirely unclear that that advantage isn’t zero — hurts the team’s draft position and the development of more important assets. There is no reason to have him on the team, and it’s beyond silly to use the afterglow of two counterproductive victories to start singing the guy’s praises. He will never be a useful starter on a good Knicks team (or any good team), and they already have a guy with a way better skill set to be an 8th or 9th man backup PG on a good Knicks team.

Frank played 21 minutes last night what are you talking about

Frank played 21 minutes last night. He’s 4th on the team in minutes played.

I wonder if anything has happened since the home opener. Probably not, I’m not going to check.

I wonder if anything has happened since the home opener. Probably not, I’m not going to check.

Yep, a lot happened. He played quite well for a pretty long stretch, making it impossible for them to do what they wanted to do and yet they still championed Elfrid Payton as the missing link to success.

And he got hurt and tried to play through it.

The only thing the Knicks have done to hurt Frank‘s development is to not put him in the G-league and have him play 36 minutes a night against his level of competition. If anything, they’ve babied his fragile ego and body.

178 players have played 500 minutes this year. Ntilikina ranks 174th in points per possession and 171st in scoring efficiency, outscrubbed by the likes of four rookies (including our very own RJB), Tyus Jones and the gone-too-soon corpse of Cory Joseph. It’s embarrassing that this guy was a lottery pick. Even more embarrassing that we can’t seem to agree that he is a total, abject bust.

Citing offensive statistics only won’t persuade me or other people Ntilikina is a bust. He’s still only twenty one and can defend. He’s also a starter, a position he got by outplaying another lottery pick. I don’t think he’s good yet, but I think he is improving. If the Knicks dropped him, I am sure some other team would pick him up. That means he is not a bust yet. His shooting was better in the first part of the season but has regresses since his injury. For a while his three point percentage was about 36%, which is close to league average. My worry with him is that when he’s good on defense he eventually pulls a muscle or something and that sets him back. I hope he can overcome this.

And its obviously not a coincidence that the team has played better and won when Payton played more. At this point in their careers Payton is simply the better player, it’s just absolutely obvious, and its not because he’s good, it’s because he can do the most basic things a Point Guard should do in an offense that has no other ball handlers or shot creators. Wanting Frank to be prioritized over him and to be treated as a major part of the rebuild because he can someday be a piece of a winning team is the same as trying to start building a championship team and getting your Mario Chalmers as the first piece.

The only thing the Knicks have done to hurt Frank‘s development is to not put him in the G-league and have him play 36 minutes a night against his level of competition.

I don’t know, we saw how that went in Golden State. There seems to be no Frank level of competition to be found. Anywhere.

Quick question for the bakers here, jowles in particular bc I’m sure you’ve done your homework on this topic:

Getting a Xmas gift for my GF who wants a pizza stone. You guys prefer the steel, right? Assume cost isn’t a factor and we only occasionally use it for pizza. It will more often be used on vegetables and such.

Her sister has a stone but they don’t know about the steels. Appreciate any feedback.

Steel for sure. Ceramic stores heat well, but does not emit heat nearly as well as steel. For pizza (or, as DRed suggested, using as a conductor for your sheet pan veggies or fry pan) you want rapid heat transfer into the dough. I sometimes use it for Trader Joe’s croissants (I don’t fuck with lamination unless it’s for a big crowd). The oven spring from the steel is amazing.

Go with the 1/2″ or 3/8″ steel. I wish I had bought one as wide as a half sheet pan. Mine is something like 16″ square. I keep it in the oven all the time. Helps regulate the temperature of the oven, as well as it’s an additional heat sink.

@118,

Theres 2 categories of Frank fans: (1) rational and wants to see if a young player can develop; and (2) those who think Frank getting less than 36 min is an affront to God and that even a mediocre performance by any other semi-viable pg on the roster is an existential threat to Frank, the chosen one.

E is in category (2).

But moreover, we only have Frank for another year. He’s out of development time. It’ll take him until he’s at least 25 or 26 before he’s even potentially an NBA player. There’s no justification to eat an entire 2nd contract worth of Frank in the hope he becomes a viable backup.

Frank is awful. He makes Jared Jeffries look like Kareem. He actively hurts Mitch, RJ, and Knox’s development. He makes it impossible to evaluate Randle’s value, especially playing alongside Mitch.

The reason the front office have up on Frank? Because he sucks, chicken and the egg situation except giving up on a player doesn’t actually make him worse at basketball.

Trier has racked up 13 DNP games (not counting last night) out of 26 games that the Knicks have played. So as noted above he’s been MIA in the dungeon for no apparent reason.

I don’t bake, but I find the cooking conversation much more entertaining than the Frank talk.

Theres 2 categories of Frank fans: (1) rational and wants to see if a young player can develop; and (2) those who think Frank getting less than 36 min is an affront to God and that even a mediocre performance by any other semi-viable pg on the roster is an existential threat to Frank, the chosen one.

There’s a third category — the ones who think that one of the best defensive guards in the world all of a sudden became a sucky defender and it doesn’t have anything to do with him being hurt. That’s basketball illiterate and not remotely objective.

Frank had 13 points and 4 assists and was plus-one in a six-point loss to Philly on November 29. He got hurt the next game against Boston (the “Dennis Smith game” LOLOL), sat out the next game against Milwaukee, and hasn’t been the same since.

I’m not in the category I was assigned here, either. Even when Frank was playing really well — and he was — I said his ultimate role was as an 8th-manish combo guard on a good team. I’ve never said he can be a lead, starter’s minutes PG on a good team. That’s not my vision for him and I’ve said it like 10 times now.

Yes, but just because it’s never been done before by anybody in the history of the league doesn’t mean we should give up on him, right? Right?!?!

At Frank’s age, Spencer Dinwiddie had a true shooting percentage of .394 and shot .302 from tripleville. The Pistons gave up on him and traded him for a bag of balls to the Bulls and the Bulls gave up on him and waived him. A really-well run organization picked him up from the scrap heap, developed him, and now he’s a stud.

The “third year” thing is rather silly. What does it matter whether Frank played at Michigan or Strasbourg instead of the Knicks at 19 and 20?

Also yeah, if you’re a person who moves every year, gonna be a bad time. I think mine weighs around 40 lbs.

Nah, same idea, different material.

Frank is quickly regressing to being as shitty as he’s always been. Sorry guys, it ain’t gonna happen. This is his third year in the NBA and he’s well on his way to being in the worst player in the league discussion for the third year in a row. If y’all really want to continue this shtick, I think you’ll have to find strasbourgblogger.net.

Elfrid Payton has a much better chance of being on the next good Knicks team, because he has a chance of being in the rotation of any good team at all. It’s not a very high chance, but the guy can do some things. It makes sense to play him more than Frank because doing so at least allows Mitch and co. to play with a point guard, not a “lead guard.”

137

You consider frank a ‘lead guard’ ?

I don’t. Rj is a lead guard before Frank is,

You consider frank a ‘lead guard’ ?

I do not consider Frank Ntilikina any kind of NBA guard.

Leave it in the oven.

Stone is just a small step down in performance. Unless you’re displeased with the outcome, no need to swap it out.

I like it geo

Let’s start elf, rj, randle, Morris and Mitch

He seems like a complete different player compared to his best performances this season.

It’s also possible that awful players are capable of having some decent games every now and then. We’re not talking about someone who churned out some 40 point triple doubles. We’re talking almost entirely about a single 14(5-12 FG)-6-4-4-3 game.

It was a good game! I enjoyed watching it. It’s also the kind of game a bad player can stumble into if you give him 3,200 minutes, and you shouldn’t expect him to replicate it at all that frequently if his career numbers are very, very different.

I mean if we’re just assuming every player’s best game is the most accurate reflection of them we’ve already got an all-star point guard in Dennis Smith Jr., so why are we even talking about this?

Trier or Dotson should be starting over RJ, but whatever.

Aside from the numbers it’s visible even to Stevie Wonder that Frank’s body language/movement is much different these days.
He started the season playing pretty good D with great energy and constant effort while nowadays he’s lost somewhere between Mediocre and Shit city…

I actually think theres a strong argument against overplaying young players. An extra 10 min won’t do much to really improve a player, rather it’s more likely to reinforce bad habits. Improvement happens with focused practice, the more minutes and exhausted a player gets, the less he’s able to focus on changing habits and will instead default to his old style of play. At best, no improvement comes from an extra 10 min, at worst you’re actively damaging growth.

Both RJ and Mitch should have their minutes limited. I’ve never understood the obsession with maxing their playing time (Mitch makes some sense since he’s our best center). The preference for us seeing them play just reflects the fact that we don’t see the improvement unless its realized on the court. A player can improve in practice, we just don’t know about it until he’s in an actual game.

RJs TS% doesn’t worry me, his ft shooting does. He’s regressed from college (thanks, Keith Smart) and it’s one skill that doesn’t reflect athleticism. Although players do get better at shooting over time, RJs baseline is so low right now that I’m not sure he can make enough improvement to ever be a good shooter. Again I think a cut in minutes may help him here.

lol

Both DETS

Mike Miller looks like a calm goodhearted man and i feel that his demeanor and his aura will make players more peaceful and focused on their game.

I don’t know about his bball effect to the youngsters yet but i can sense his psychological effect and i like it so far.

Fiz’s anxiety and smartassity looked like a distraction to me for the players so Miller’s calmness and kindness are definitely an upgrade in team’s psychic department.

wrapped in bacon, and it might just be the perfect food…

You mean the same Spencer Dinwiddie who played 600 minutes in the NBA and 600 minutes in the G-League during his first 2 seasons out of college, and earned a minimum salary until he finally started earning NBA minutes at age 23?

I mean the one that was awful and quite a bit worse than Frank at the same age, got traded for a bag of balls once, waived another time, and is now a stud.

(1) Frank’s contract ends at same time Payton’s contract ends. Payton’s “mercenary” status is irrelevant.

(2) Payton is already a low-end starter/solid backup. If Frank’s ceiling is an 8th man combi guard, then Payton is already above Frank’s ceiling.

(3) If you genuinely believe Frank is ultimately an 8th man, then it legitimately does not matter what we do with him. So why invest time and resources to develop him?

E, your position is internally inconsistent.

(2) Payton is already a low-end starter/solid backup. If Frank’s ceiling is an 8th man combi guard, then Payton is already above Frank’s ceiling.

He’s neither on a good team. He’s barely either on a not good team. You guys are completely overrating the guy because he’s not Frank and for some utterly bizarre reason basking in the afterglow of two wins over godawful teams. The reference point is not Frank.

The exact same thing was (rather comically) done on that Sunday afternoon after the home Boston game with DSJ. Frank is not the reference point. It’s flawed logic.

Thank you, Jowles and DRed.

If you bother looking at any actual metric, Payton has been perfectly serviceable the last few years. At worst he’s a competent backup pg, which you hope Frank becomes one day.

I do not base my position on the last 2 games at all, but the last 3 years of basketball during which Frank has objectively been one of the worst players in the NBA and Payton has been a decent to low end starter, at worst he’s a decent backup.

Go lookup some actual numbers that actual PGs produce. There’s 30 NBA teams, therefore at least 60 PGs in the NBA. Payton easily makes the cutoff under any metric.

Regardless, developing a potential 8th man is completely and utterly pointless. If your comparison is Dinwiddie, then let some other team develop him and we can sign Frank in 2-3 years after he gets cut by someone else.

I’m actually boring myself at this point, so I’m going to say it one more time and then take a Frank hiatus.

Must be contagious, you’ve been boring the shit out of everyone else here since you started posting. Your utterly blind allegiance to this embarrassment of a lottery pick is beyond tedious.

it’s pretty funny how there’s an inverse relationship between the crazy from the frank zealots and how good a non-frank pg plays…..

like why do you need to put down another pg that did well in order to raise up your guy? that should tell you how bad your guy is shouldn’t it?

In non Frank news:

Jarrett Culver and RJ Barrett have nearly identical seasons so far.

Brandon Clarke is crapping all over both of them on nearly 20% USG.

RJ is still a year younger than Culver and a few honest than Clarke, but I’d still take Clarke’s absurd Mitch-esque TS% over either one.

Memphis absolutely nailed this draft.

Garland struggling. I’m also still looking at Bol Bol going 44th as a complete head scratcher.

Any other decent rookies right now?

@184

Or maybe he wants someone who’s actually a basketball player. Stop bringing Smith Jr. into it, he’s also terrible, but at least it’s more tolerable to discuss how bad he is without people foaming at the mouth every time.

Perhaps Frank is a good cook

I’d even bet that Dennis is a worse cook than Frank

Frank sucks for sure, but I think he was a decent gamble at the time, as he was considered the best euro prospect that year. Any other year that would have been a good thing.

And as we now know, DSJ wouldn’t have been a better pick. Obviously, there were guys that turned out to be better choices, but Knox was just a straight-up ludicrous pick. I’d trade all three of those guys for one 1st rounder in a heartbeat if that was possible.

I brought up DSJ because that is who our starting point guard would be if we didn’t have Frank. If Frank someone says a “total waste of a roster spot” that literally means the team is just as good with Smith as with Ntilikina, which is clearly not true.

Of course, it would be nicer to have someone better, but the best we could do was Peyton, and he’s injured a lot.

cooking is an interesting combo of art and science…

crazy complicated chemistry stuff going on, particularly with the baking stuff…mmmmmmm, cookies…

*I mean, beyond the tragic waste of draft capital they both represent. As long as they play for us I’ll root for them to beat the insurmountable odds and improve, but that won’t happen any time soon…more likely they’ll be 2-3 teams removed if they ever are good enough to stick in the NBA.

Bol Bol turning out to be good would be painful and also pretty unsurprising….

I’ve been in the “just play the scrub until he hits the open market” camp for awhile, but I can’t argue that Z-man didn’t call it. It’d be moving the goalposts, E, if there were evidence that Frank had something that those players had other than his mid-lottery pedigree.

The 2019 RPM stats were just posted.

Current Knicks (in descending order by RPM)
– Morris +2.16…trade value will be at its highest on Dec 15th but FO will not trade him
– Payton +.88…he’s still young and on a nice contract
– Dotson +.46…surprising
– Randle +.04…surprising and encouraging
– Ellington -.21…surprising
– Frank +.60 DRPM and -.67 RPM…..not all that bad
– Mitch +.05 DRPM and -1.48 RPM….bad and depressing
– RJ -1.64 OBPM and -.03 DRPM….not so bad for 19yo rook
– Taj -2.26
– Zo -2.42 DRPM and -2.64 RPM……bad DRPM in garbage time is not promising
– Portis -3.29….we spent 15m on this guy instead of taking Harkless and a pick?
– DSJ -3.83….2nd worst of all 1 guards (Garland is worst)
– Knox -4.79…depressing but hey he’s improved from last season

Former Knicks
– Porzingis +.52……Ammunition for Strat
– Melo -.37
– Mudiay +.27………..Did Fiz fix him?
– Rose +2.57………..Ammunition for Strat
– Galloway +.93………Included for DRed
– THJ +1.61………Doncic effect
– WHG -1.52
– Enes +1.58

Players Who Might Have Been Knicks
– Russell -.69 (DRPM of -2.72)
– Mikal Bridges +.07
– SGA -.54
– Clarke +.55
– Poetl +2.1 (the Bargs pick)
– Melton +2.18 (remember’s he’s the guy we could have drafted with that Mudiay 2nd round pick)
– Brogdon +2.57
– Mitchell +2.37
– Harkless -.70

Players Who Might Be Knicks
– Ingram +1.60
– VanVleet +1.40
– Harrell +3.34

I don’t know if you’re being ironic or not, but Brandon Ingram is kinda becoming a guy who could be the player we pursue to be a main piece for this team. I admit I wasn’t a believer in his first couple of years in the NBA, but he’s showing real improvement across the board and is becoming a really good scorer. He improved his FT% and both 3 point volume and percentages massively, which could be signs of him figuring it out.

Yeah the key to that lineup is for RJ to make the jump, which, at this point, I’m not sure he can do. He’s a smart, hardworking kid, but he has some physical limitations that might put a ceiling on his talent. Hopefully he’ll put it together in a few years like Ingram is doing now, but it will take a big boost in shooting numbers.

We’ve had a ton of bad luck combined with terrible management when it comes to the draft.

Hopefully we can get someone good in the upcoming Morris trade. Maybe Terrence Davis from the Raps? He’s a guy I liked in the draft who is killing it now. Obviously a 1st rounder makes the most sense, but I don’t trust this team to ever make a good 1st-round pick! Perry seems decent with trades, so maybe he can find an underrated young player out there.

I honestly don’t get how so many kids coming out of the HS/AAU circuit have such ugly-looking shots. RJ, Zion., Lonzo, etc…are proper shooting mechanics so freakin’ hard to teach/learn?

Sometimes I think kids on the AAU circuit are playing too many competitive games and not having enough time to work on basics. I once read about how Dutch soccer clubs work with young players. There are lots of drills and practices and very few games. The Dutch are excellent at soccer, especially considering their country’s small size. Maybe they are on to something.

So it wasn’t hield with the putback dunk last game, it was Knox dunking in the wrong basket!

You are correct. I misread. Mitch’s number was so much lower than I expected I assumed it was worse than Taj’s. And I don’t know why I missed Dotson’s. As you say, the numbers aren’t the be all and end all for sure, but your comment does make me wonder what would happen if Dotson started in place of Barrett.

DSJ and Frank are like the Giants and Jets. Recent history has taught me that there are occasional spurts of optimism for one team or the other, but you know that by the end of season they will both be similarly bad.

Really good point, djphan.

Frank’s sucktitude is explained away because the weather was bad, or he’s being used correctly and needs a bigger role, but also not too big of a role, or three different head coaches have all not believed in him despite giving him boatload of minutes, or that ol’ chronic groin injury is has flared up for about 95% of the NBA games he’s played. These are all apparently valid reasons why a future stud is the same below replacement-level player in year 3 as he was in year 1.

DSJ makes fairly significant jumps from years 1 to 2, plays at a Ntilikinian level for 293 minutes in year 3 after losing his mother, and is apparently utterly hopeless.

It’s not even that I’m a big DSJ believer, it’s just very obvious that there’s a double standard here. I don’t quite know what to attribute it to other than an irrational attachment to a player we drafted? In Strat’s case it’s just one of the many ways Phil Jackson was actually a genius, so I get that, but I have no idea what brings this out in everyone else.

well if it makes you feel any better i think frank and dsj are almost equally terrible. i do think dsj’s good games have been irrelevant. even the best reasonable case for dsj leave him as a weak shooter with poor defense and below average pattern recognition on offense. this is the recipe for being useless to a good team even if you do keep your 2p pct high and generate some nominally interesting offensive numbers. and pretty soon you lose just a little burst and ups and it only gets worse. cognitive talent is a thing, too, and it’s been obvious from the get that dsj just isn’t able to see the game at a speed that, say, baron davis could almost immediately (to pick a pretty good, but definitely not elite athletic guy when it comes to seeing the game). if i had to guess which might be at least. a marginally productive part of a good team i would guess

1. neither
2. neither
3. frank
4. neither
5. dsj

this take hasn’t changed much from frank playing modestly better this year and dsj playing worse. dsj still has the better chance to put up decent but hollow numbers for a few years if he gets out of his latest rut. but i would happily trade him for a 2nd.

Meanwhile, Brandon Clarke had 25 points last night in 24 minutes.

Who’s ready to eat that crow on Clarke

Frank is like a box of ….Belgian chocolate.
You never know what you’re gonna get.

Time for Timmy and Unicorn to be Men !

I can’t think of a less cerebral player than Dennis Smith Jr. I could live with the shooting issues if he wasn’t so utterly clueless about the chess match aspects of basketball. Frank at least seems to have an understanding of the strategic aspects of the game. As I’ve always held, he’s a consistent 3-pt shot away from being a stand-in-the-corner defensive wing. I see absolutely no path to winning basketball for Smith. We need to find an “I can fix him” guy to take him off of our hands.

The Knicks are supposed to get the earliest first round Dallas pick. Why isn’t that the 2020 pick?

that “why” sounds a bit douchey in retrospect but at the time i actually thought ‘he prob know we don’t have the pick next summer and means something else’

Dallas can’t give up consecutive first rounders because of the Stepien rule, so since 2019 conveyed to the Hawks, the next pick they can give up is 2021.

maybe he’ll sprain his ankle again next year

Here’s a quiz…no peeking!
Who has the lowest TS% on the Mavs?
Who has the lowest WS48 on the Mavs?
Who has the lowest OBPM on the Mavs?
Who has the lowest +/- on-off net per 100 poss on the Mavs?
Who is the highest paid player on the Mavs?

Well, it’s a shame for us that Doncic is a true MVP contender in his sophomore year, but nobody could have really expected that. We all knew he was crazy talented and his rookie year definitely showed he was going to be great, but this level this early was unexpected by even the biggest fans of his game.

I have no regrets about trading Porzingis, but I’m pretty sure we could have gotten a major haul for him from Boston a few years earlier, possibly including this year’s Memphis pick which they own.

Easy to say in hindsight, I know, but selling high and against popular opinion is what good GMs do.

Begley is saying it will cost at least 2 1RPs for Masai Ujiri.

Bondy is saying Sam Presti will be allowed to walk if he so desires.

With that information in mind, do you trade 2 1sts for Masai Ujiri (the Dallas picks preferably) or do you take Presti for free?

You’d value Masai Ujiri so much more over Sam Presti that you’d trade 2 1s for him?

I think Presti is great, but FWIW I agree. Nick Nurse, Pascal Siakim, Fred Van Vleet, OG Anunoby, and just building a franchise from top to bottom from incompetent to title contender? That guy is the best and it’s not close to me. He took Andrea Bargnani and turned him into assets that eventually helped him land Kawhi Leonard. Presti didn’t miss on a single lottery pick and that’s impressive, but I don’t know if he can pick a coach or if he can build a team around max salary slots.

Giving up a lottery pick would be a heavy price. Isn’t he a free agent post 21? I wouldn’t have a problem giving up a late first and a late second. That seems pretty small beer for starting the process a year early.

Did Presti ever actually do anything other than luck into Westbrook, Harden, and KD? He also chose Ibaka over Harden for an extension, might have to check the numbers to see if that was a mistake.

He turned Ray Allen into Jeff Green (and our very own Wally)??? Sure he was a rookie then, but still underwhelming haul.

He traded for Dion Waiters.

He traded away Brandon Clarke for… someone?

He seems like he’s often been in the right place at the right time. Clippers needed Paul George to get Kawhi. Rockets inexplicably really wanted Westbrook.

Overall, Presti has failed to do anything despite having 3 of the 6 best players of the last decade fall into his lap, all hitting their primes at the same time. Yes, give me Ujiri.

2 firsts for an extra year is a lot. Especially if they’re actually offering him up for that which to me indicates Toronto knows Ujiri is leaving after next season. And what’s the chance Dolan trades the Mav’s picks and not our own? I think I’d rather have Presti than give up our own picks. Granted, we don’t if know Presti would take the Knicks job. And who would Dolan tap for a one year lame duck job?