2019-20 Game Thread: Knicks @ Warriors – Tankageddon!

The Knicks head to California tonight to take on the one team in the NBA that is likely much worse than them, so the Knicks likely SHOULD win this game, but they’re so good at grabbing defeat from the jaws of victory that victory is over in the corner, whimpering about how it never gets fed, so who knows?

Let’s go! Knicks?

289 replies on “2019-20 Game Thread: Knicks @ Warriors – Tankageddon!”

let’s go knicks…let’s go knicks…

feels like weeks since we last won a game…thankfully no worries on draft position, pretty confident we’ll finish in the bottom 3 this year…

time to enjoy an evening of some pasta, a fine cerveza, some smoke and a clear new york win from start to finish…

geo, to answer your question: no, I do not think this team will win this game

Golden State has had this game circled on their calendar since game 5 of the NBA finals.

Julius Randle is actually good on the break and so is RJ. Our starters (especially if they’re not going to start mitch) should probably aggressively play for turnovers on defense.

feels like weeks since we last won a game

Yes, but it only seems that way because we haven’t won a game since Nov. 18

Golden State has had this game circled on their calendar since game 5 of the NBA finals.

that’s some legitimately funny shit right there…oh man, I think I’m gonna cry…

the warriors just have no interior presence at all. Mitch was pulling down offensive rebounds 1-3 and RJ is getting to the rim like it’s nothing.

RJ and everyone else needs to throw the ball to mitch when he’s on the post calling for it…

team memo: mitchell robinson is the best player on the team…

Obligatory Jokes: “I bet Mike Miller is feeling right at home coaching this game”

Turns out everyone looks good on offense when your PF is a 6’6 Eric Paschall and a washed Draymond Green

Obligatory Jokes: “I bet Mike Miller is feeling right at home coaching this game”

I don’t know early bird, I’m still waiting for swift and abundant to be funny…

my expectations have been raised, and, sadly not yet met…

granted they don’t play enough defense to run effectively but they absolutely have to push it whenever they can with how bad they are at shooting

only randle and rj are good on the break.. probably mitch too… but everyone else on the roster are not really good at playing fast….

We are looking good beating the “Warriors”. Knicks will probably give Miller a 5 year 25 million dollar contract off this.

Knicks will probably give Miller a 5 year 25 million dollar contract off this.

Fine? Don’t care how Dolan spends non-cap money, and there’s at least some evidence Miller is a solid coach.

Not that I think it matters much at all, but at the end of the year when we are jockeying for lottery position some people are going to wish we didn’t look so good tonight.

i may not
always love you
but as long as there are
stars above you
you’ll never
need to doubt it
i’ll make you so
sure about it
god only knows
what i’d be without you

uh oh, just stumbled on some pet sounds rock doc thing…is halftime over yet…

Frank is in a two way coma. He’s the designated tank commander for tonight.

Frank has some serious confidence issues. It takes so little for him to let a game go sideways.

Edge came loose on the left pocket. Never thought about it till it was too cold to go without the coat. He sewed it right up!

i mean we can blame it on confidence… and this might come as a shocker to some.. but it could be that he’s bad…

after the second straight turnover to start the 2nd half – frank had that wide-eyed “i am freaked the fuck out” look on his face…

he’ll be fine…he just has to learn to blink and breathe when things go wrong…

Between Frank (4) and Payton (5) TOs tonight we could probably use Smith. lmao. The tank is alive and well.

We absolutely have to trade Morris for a first rounder at the deadline

Randle with 5 asts and “only” 3 to’s. Maybe Fiz was on to something with his Point Julius thing.

And thanks geo? I’m just taking advantage of the situation. Lowlands is basically a community garden, with all that entails.

I like how we ran an RJ/Mitch pnr with the floor spread and got an easy dunk in the first quarter and then never did it again while playing our only good player 24 minutes against a 5 win team with no good big men. Mike Miller doesn’t know what he’s doing either. Just fucking bozo shit.

I’m not sure what I’m rooting for anymore…

The answer was anything but OT, apparently…

It’s so embarrassing I can’t find the words to describe it properly. We are so bad, so dumb, and so heartless in combination, this could easily be one of the worst teams in NBA history.

Remember when people wanted to send Ntilikina to the G-League last years to boost his confidence up?… Well, now you see how that would have gone.

Strat you can’t complain that we’re winning and costing us lottery position and then bitch when we fuck it up.

It’s so embarrassing I can’t find the words to describe it properly.

It’s a really bad relationship. They’re all hanging around wanting closure and no one has the courage to just walk away.

bingo, anything but overtime…

yes sir mister grocer, that was indeed sincere…as dred so eloquently put it:

Grocer rolls with people who keep that mf’ing sewing kit on them

i want in on that shit 🙂

We absolutely have to trade Morris for a first rounder at the deadline

We do, but primarily because there’s no way he’d stay and play decent basketball for this dumpster fire organization through a fair multi year contract. That might make sense if we started rebuilding under competent management using our cap space. So instead, if we are lucky we’ll get a late 1st rounder we’ll use to draft some kid that at his peak in 2028 won’t be as good as Morris.

If we do get another excess pick, we really need to start looking to package them for a good player, assuming we have competent management next year.

This game is like going to see the Suicide Squad movie. You know it’s going to be bad, but then you go see it and somehow it’s worse than you imagined. Finally, as the runtime gets close to up you realize it’s the extended cut and there’s an extra half hour of Jared Leto’s “edgy” Joker.

Strat you can’t complain that we’re winning and costing us lottery position and then bitch when we fuck it up.

I’m not worried about our lottery position much at all. I was assuming people here would be. I thought lottery balls were a bit overrated before, but now they are more overrated.

I’d way rather some of our young players look good, but they are pretty terrible. There are talents you can point to, but none of them are any good yet. I get the excitement about Mitch, but he’s got a LONG way to go.

It’s like flying Spirit airlines. It’s the cheapest ticket, but then they nickel and dime you for everything. The airline takes it’s customary hour and a half delay. Finally you land, only to discover they flew to the wrong airport.

well hopefully miller realizes what his best lineup is now and it was out there in OT….

I mean, come the fuck on, an overtime win over Golden State behind IsoMorris dropping 38? This is the worst kind of win.

At least Barrett had a good game, too.

If there’s anything positive to say, I like Miller way better than Fizdale. I’ve been seeing some decent plays outs of timeouts and there’s generally a little more space and ball movement.

The biggest disappointment for me personally is that Frank was in a coma on both sides of the ball. I fully expected him to have a lot more bad games and even some bad stretches along the way, but he seemed to at least be getting past the youthful fear aspects of his development and into the more serious skill development phase, but he was in a coma tonight. He’s still an immature and mentally weak player. As soon as things started going badly it fed into more fear and bad play. He’s a 3rd year rookie.

This is the worst kind of win.

there is a very real possibility that we will not win another 15 games this year…I haven’t looked at the schedule, but it could be weeks…

for some reason I had some wierd malfunction with my dvr, otherwise I may have just saved this game until our next win…whichever month/year that may come about in…

We play Atlanta on the 17th and Washington on the 23rd & 28th. ATL is definitely beatable. WAS is beatable though I won’t go so far to say we’ll win either game.

Made a quick, rough count. There’s about 15 winnable games left on the schedule, so that number is actually right on.

I only watched the last couple minutes of the game and OT, but it featured all the worst plays in basketball short of a player scoring on his own basket.

i may not
always love you
but as long as there are
stars above you
you’ll never
need to doubt it
i’ll make you so
sure about it
god only knows
what i’d be without you

Maybe the greatest song ever for harmony and melody …. brian wilson….

I mean, come the fuck on, an overtime win over Golden State behind IsoMorris dropping 38? This is the worst kind of win.

It is the best kind of win if it re-kindles interest in Morris……

It is the best kind of win if it re-kindles interest in Morris……

Knowing these bozos, they’ll think it is reason to NOT trade him now!

Dolans razor has Morris Sr making an all-star game and Pills offering him a max contract. Then in a twist no one saw coming, Morris miraculously doesn’t continue shooting 50% from 3.

well hopefully miller realizes what his best lineup is now and it was out there in OT….

May I ask who he was playing?

So far, just looking at the box scores, miller’s rotations have been indistinguishable from Fiz’s.

And Robison and Portis were substituted for each other down the strech depending on what was needed O or D.
I don’t think we would’ve scored five points in the fourth if our precious projects were playing. The game was won by the 1+1s /+ RJ.

We should jump on Zack Norvell, who the Lakers just let go. Good college stats, nice range, Gonzaga kid… and we desperately need decent guards.

This is the bridge between the (awesome) surf years and the glory of Pet Sounds. I remember when I first got into Today!, I could tell there was something different about this song’s composition. Turns out it’s the first one he wrote after using marijuana.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwiDOOFdpqs

Sorry that there are no recaps these days, but it’s quite hard to recap such worthless basketball.

Just a few thoughts out there:

– It looks like Mike Miller took the job on a political promise (to not make Pills look bad with coaching decisions). I don’t know how else to explain the fact that you take a 4-18 team and change pretty much nothing in rotations and playsets (aside from a slight uptick in PnR that might just be random variance). I’m very displeased.
– Frank needs a good psychologist. I don’t care if he doesn’t feel full support from the coaching staff: he’s starting for the last 45 days, what else does he need? His start of the third quarter was entirely inexcusable. Not that Payton didn’t turn it over, but at least Elfrid makes things happen.
– I don’t know what’s the purpose of winning behind Mook’s 36 points. At least RJ played a good game.
– I literally fell asleep with 3 minutes to play in the fourth and woke up to the final buzzer. This is how much this game sucked. It was close and I still fell asleep while watching it.
– It looks like a completely lost season thanks to Pills. As long as it doesn’t totally ruin Mitch’s development, I couldn’t care less. That’s how jaded you quickly become “rooting” for the Knicks.

I wish they’d given Randle’s money and years to Morris; he’s a piece that would work on the hypothetical Knicks good/playoff team that may never materialize but should still be the template of analysis.

Whether my next cereal purchase is regular or strawberry Life is of more consequence than who won last night’s Knicks game. Golden State’s roster is barely above G League caliber, if at all. I’d have preferred a loss with more time and better performance from Mitch/Frank/Knox. At least Rowan played well.

I don’t care if he doesn’t feel full support from the coaching staff: he’s starting for the last 45 days, what else does he need? His start of the third quarter was entirely inexcusable.

Full support of the coaching staff and a functional organization.

Even really good players (which Frank isn’t) have stretches of really poor play. I’m not quite sure how it got written in the cosmos that every time Frank does, it actually “proves” something. The Knicks have never really deviated from the San Antonio Opening Night Plan for Frank, which is completely, utterly ridiculous. Preposterous.

Full support of the coaching staff and a functional organization.

I’m a nurture over nature guy, but unless there’s some MSG employee who stalks 24/7 Frank in the arena’s corridors whispering in his ear “you won’t play another minute very soon” mental breakdowns like, he wont’t get any free pass from me, not anymore.

That Ja Morant dunk was pretty spicy. Almost put his elbow through the rim. Don’t think he could handle the pressure in NYC though.

Very disappointed with Eric Paschall. This was his chance for greatness.

It looks like Mike Miller took the job on a political promise (to not make Pills look bad with coaching decisions).

Maybe it looks like that, but I doubt it’s the case. My experience with coaching changes in sport is the new coach almost always makes the same personnel choices that the old one did. Fiz tried a lot of lineups in the beginning of the season and settled on this one. I’m not at all surprised that Miller has kept at it. If Miller evolves the offense into something different that may call for a different rotation, but that will take some time.

Knowing these bozos, they’ll think it is reason to NOT trade him now!

The talk is they might get a late 1st rounder (possible a future one).

If we trade him, the idea should not be to draft some 18-19 year old next year so we can develop another decent role player for 2025-2o28 when he’s finally coming into his own. Role players are a dime a dozen and can easily be put into cap space or traded for.

If we make that trade, we should it to combine that 1st round pick with others (like the Dallas picks or even a future 1st of our own) to land a player in NY that can actually move the needle and be part of the longer term plan. We are looking for a 1st or 2nd scoring option, not to just accumulate picks for role players.

I’m not at all surprised that Miller has kept at it.

I didn’t predict he’d change a lot of things so soon, but the minutes allocation screams “they told me to do this”. Mitch still plays under 30 minutes in a game that goes to overtime.

The Warriors comeback wasn’t pure chance. Kerr changed the defense to slow down NYs offense and when he finally changed to one where he pressured our point guards, it worked. I suspect other teams will try the same thing now, and it will make games more difficult against us unless the Knicks practice beating it.

Frank is fourth on the team in minutes, he’s getting pleeeenty of burn. And after a handful of shitty games he’s headed back to the same sub-zero WS48 land where he has always lived.

Maybe there’s no conspiracy against him and he’s just not very good. It might be time to start coming to terms with that reality.

Farfa, we have the thirtieth ranked offense in the league while our defense is twenty fourth or twenty fifth. Personally, I think we’d do better by trying to improve our defense instead of trying a for a better offense. That would mean more time for Robinson. But I’m not surprised when a coach thinks differently and plays more minutes for offense first players.

It might be time to start coming to terms with that reality.

But he’s still 21!!!!

I wish my clients would say things like that about me when I make some mistake. The average age in my profession is around 55.

Hey, Farfa called the wrong company to fix that wall! But he’s still 36!

Hey, Farfa miscalculated our expenditures for 2019 by 1.000 euross! But he’s still 36!

But I’m not surprised when a coach thinks differently and plays more minutes for offense first players.

I’m not surprised either, but as a coach you have to be pretty clueless to give minutes to Portis in order to win games. After three games (extremely small sample size) Miller is either a disinterested caretaker who gets paid to take a nasty chunk of blame or a dumb coach. His G-League stint doesn’t depict him as dumb, so…

Frank needs a good psychologist. I don’t care if he doesn’t feel full support from the coaching staff: he’s starting for the last 45 days, what else does he need? His start of the third quarter was entirely inexcusable. Not that Payton didn’t turn it over, but at least Elfrid makes things happen.

I don’t think he need a sports psychologist. He’s an insecure, risk adverse, immature young man when it comes to basketball. We are all surrounded by Franks in our lives. Not everyone is going to be a confident dominant person. But if you are professional athlete, you have to be more confident than Frank.

Beyond that, he clearly doesn’t have the skillset to run a one man PG driven offense either (certainly not at this stage). He’s player that you want impact the game on the defensive (which we know he’s fully capable of doing when locked in), hit wide open 3s at a good rate (which he’s getting better at), move the ball, and occasionally make a very good play. I have no doubt he can become that player, but the path there is going to slower than we hoped because of his personality. And even if/when he gets there, I’m not sure that’s the player the Knicks even want. It looks like they want to run a PG centric offense where everyone creates and scores. To me, that’s an inferior offense,but so be it. He may belong on a team that runs an offense more dependent on ball and player movement and making the extra unselfish pass to get their better looks.

If he was on Dallas, he’d fit perfectly. Doncic runs the offense, Doncic/KP are the #1 and #2 scorers, there’s a ton of space in that offense because of those two, and all they’d need from him was to focus on D, be disruptive, and not worry about playing PG. They don’t need a scorer or penetrator. They need someone to upgrade the defense and keep the the ball moving.

the rotations haven’t really been all that different…. but mitch has been the first big off the bench and he’s been replacing taj earlier and earlier and portis has been getting less and less minutes… that may have more to do with mitch avoiding foul trouble lately (finally)…. but all anyone is asking for is the coaching staff to realize how good and important mitch is…. it’d be nice if he avg’ed 30+ mpg but i’ll be happy if he’s 26-28 also.. he just cannot be at 20mpg like he has been…. he’s a major part of the team and the minutes need to align with that….

the lineup data isn’t great with randle/mitch pairings but whether it has been good or not should not be relevant… we should be highly motivated to devoting time to making it good because they are your two best frontcourt players…. in the early days of the blake griffin clippers… pairings with deandre jordan were also pretty bad… but they eventually figured it out (with the help of cp3)….

we may not figure it out considering we don’t have cp3 level ball handlers…. but it’s worth our time to see if we can… mitch is definitely part of this future and we have to give randle more than a quarter of the season to see if he’s also part of it too…. and if mitch starts getting more minutes we’ll see that pairing more and hopefully payton stays healthy and plays well enough to see if there’s anything worth building there…

geo, to answer your question: no, I do not think this team will win this game

Wrong as usual. (As as always, the team with the most pointzz won, advanced metrics be damned)

Doncic/KP are the #1 and #2 scorers

Do you think KP is a net positive on offense?

If you put Frank on a good team he’d “fit in” by racking up DNP-CDs. Good teams have better players than Frank in their rotations.

The replacement coach of the worst Knicks team in 73 years probably deserves some shit for not completely blowing up Fiz’s lineups, but it really doesn’t matter. Make sure Mitch and RJ get some decent runs together and let the chips fall. The rest of this garbage will fade into Ken Bannister Land and Eddie Lee Wilkens World.

KP has really dropped off.
39% from 2 pt
33% from 3 pt
eFG% of .466
TS% of .500
Only real improvement is he is getting 10.4 rebounds/36, a full 2 boards better over career average (up 24%)
Even his FTs are down to 70%.

I mean conventional wisdom is that a shooter suffering a knee injury actually can improve his shooting accuracy because all he can really do while mending is shoot.

This guy is significantly off his career averages in all areas, but rebounding.

You know, Morris and Randle are better than average NBA players ( I know Randle has his turnover issues, but a lot of that is because he’s playing that dumb “point forward” ) Mitch is a legit starting center who just needs to stay out of foul trouble.

Add a quality PG and a generic 2 guard to that mix and I think you have a 30 win team at minimum. Unfortunately, we have a trio of 2 horrible and 1 average at best point guards who will lead us to another 17 win season (maybe)

In a league where you either have to have LeBron James, Giannis or a solid PG to succeed, the Knicks have trotted out dreck at that position for as long as I can remember.

Let’s say that Porzingis shoots a very good .580 TS% instead of a very bad .500. That would mean that over the first 22 games, he would have scored an additional 58 points, or 2.6 points a game.

But he hasn’t, so we’re talking about his team having to score an extra 2.6 PPG in his 30 MPG (via gravity or synergy whatever the fuck ever) to make his impact on the level of a .580/25% player who doesn’t create these hypothetical opportunities for teammates. Let’s not forget that he is a black hole on offense, with just 30 assists in the entire season (which Doncic matched in his two best AST games this season).

If we trade him, the idea should not be to draft some 18-19 year old next year so we can develop another decent role player for 2025-2o28 when he’s finally coming into his own.

can you give a plausible example of a trade you would like to see?

I was hoping DSJ was a DNP-CD but alas I checked the box score and it was in illness. Bummer.

Does anyone think one possible reason that Mitch’s minutes are low, aside from the foul trouble, is that he gets gassed easily? I’m relying on the dreaded eye test here but there are times to me he that he just looks tired. I know he looks like a gazelle so the assumption is that he should be able to run for 48 minutes with ease, and also that he’s young and young = energy, but maybe as a thin-framed, still developing 21-year-old big man, young = still developing strength and stamina?

So in your opinion, jowles, would giving a player with a team-best ts% (Trier, .690) zero minutes last night be an example of a) good or b) bad minutes allocation?

Trier may be shooting the most perfect number in existence, but the sample’s too small. His DNP-CD is baffling for other reasons.

I missed almost the entire game. Surprised that Trier is still in the dungeon. I keep thinking that there must be something really bad off the court for the reason, but nothing has leaked to the media.

I mean, why wouldn’t he at least get Dotson’s backup SG minutes? Is Trier really THAT bad on D?

At some point, I hope that RJB is moved to the three, and Trier starts at the two (Payton at the one). Give Dotson’s minutes to Frank to try him where he should be — wing. Frank is outshooting Dotson from three so far (a bad 33% vs. an even worse 30%).

Does anyone think one possible reason that Mitch’s minutes are low, aside from the foul trouble, is that he gets gassed easily?

It’s very possible, but I think that’s a coaching issue too: Mitch doesn’t know how to switch gears. It’s like he’s always pressing the turbo button.

His DNP-CD is baffling for other reasons.

I mean, have you guys seen Dotson’s shooting splits and shot selection? And Dot’s badly regressed on the boards and on defense.

Trier is a FA this offseason, so the good news is we can sign him for cheap. But yeah, Trier’s 1v5 offense is significantly better than this shit show.

Trier had a great ts% last year too. I know he’s a no-D chucker, but on a team where nobody can shoot…

Surely Payton will be starting soon, assuming his hammy holds up. So, assuming the Knicks are souring on DSJ, Frank might be the backup “PG” for awhile.

Okay, so pair Trier with Frank in the second unit. Those two might sort of, kind of, complement each other’s games. Dotson needs to be the odd man out at this time.

When coaches don’t play guys for mysterious reasons I always suspect that they want the guy to change his game in some way and will reward him with minutes if he does so. You can’t tell this by watching of course, because we don’t know what the coach wants him to do. But it’s easy to imagine this being true for Trier.

I was hoping DSJ was a DNP-CD but alas I checked the box score and it was in illness.

It was. Watching him play made Miller sick to his stomach.

This is the bridge between the (awesome) surf years and the glory of Pet Sounds. I remember when I first got into Today!, I could tell there was something different about this song’s composition. Turns out it’s the first one he wrote after using marijuana.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwiDOOFdpqs

hey jowles…it’s been a while, but, i don’t know if you remember me telling you how surprised (in a very good way) i was to hear you sing…i just hadn’t expected that level of control, pace and tone in your voice – for those of you whom may have previously missed it: https://soundcloud.com/ricky-ha-1 our very own THCJ…

maybe cuz i was doing the game and listening to the studio stuff for pet sounds at about the same time…at one point they played the different parts of the recording, one being carl wilson’s voice alone – i immediately thought how great you would sound singing: god only knows acappella…

fellow new yorkers, ariel pink is going to be at le poisson rouge on 4/29. be there or be dolan.

Shams is reporting the Knicks have interest in hiring one of Mark Jackson, Tom Thibodeaux, and Jeff Van Gundy if (but more like when) they move on from Mike Miller.

If we end up with Masai Ujiri, Jeff Van Gundy, and the #1 pick in the draft I would cry. Like legit cry.

Trier is averaging 3.9 turnovers to 3.7 assists and plays absolutely no defense. It’s not hard to understand why coaches wouldn’t like him. We should probably give him some minutes because we suck and he’s probably better than DSJ but it doesn’t really matter.

geo is my burner account confirmed

i’ll tell ya mister jowles: i’m pretty committed to the team i’m already signed to (even down to the color of the jersey i prefer), but – if i ever did think of switching teams, me and the missus jowles would be battling it out 🙂

We should probably give him some minutes because we suck

Let’s just watch the Warriors

1) not freak out that they could realistically lose more games in one season than they had in the previous three combined

2) refuse to scour the FA market for 1-year veteran stopgaps and instead play Glenn Robinson, Eric Paschall, Alec Burks, Ky Bowman, Jordan Poole, Omari Spellman and Marquesse Chriss to the tune of a perfect 69% of their available minutes

3) not foolishly package away any of their next four first rounders — their 2020 pick should have gone to Brooklyn but instead will convey as a 2nd rounder in 20-fucking-25!

Is jowles the type of character who would profess love for himself via burner? Maybe he and jowles2 would consider pairing up in New York if we can free up the cap space?

Is jowles the type of character who would profess love for himself via burner?

What if Jowles was the Tyler Durden to geo’s Narrator?

Shams is reporting the Knicks have interest in hiring one of Mark Jackson, Tom Thibodeaux, and Jeff Van Gundy if (but more like when) they move on from Mike Miller.

Well 2/3 is an improvement I guess. Can’t wait for us to pick Jackson over those two.

if james dolan allows this current front office to have any hand in signing a new coach he’s a fool…oh wait, he is a fool…

Dolan is going to hire the coach himself. It’s stupid because everything else equal, it makes it tougher to bring in an accomplished new POBO.

I don’t expect Miller to even last much past the new year and then the question of what the new hire means for Pills will become much more clear. Best case scenario would be that the new coach gets Mills’s job on an interim basis and Perry stays around and then goes when the new POBO comes in. (“Best case scenario” meaning “best case given Dolan,” not literal best case.
We can never have literal best case around here.)

mitch has been the first big off the bench and he’s been replacing taj earlier and earlier and portis has been getting less and less minutes… that may have more to do with mitch avoiding foul trouble lately (finally)…. but all anyone is asking for is the coaching staff to realize how good and important mitch is…. it’d be nice if he avg’ed 30+ mpg but i’ll be happy if he’s 26-28 also.. he just cannot be at 20mpg like he has been…. he’s a major part of the team and the minutes need to align with that….

i think mitch can do more offensively…i think he can do it from the post too…

Let’s just watch the Warriors

1) not freak out that they could realistically lose more games in one season than they had in the previous three combined

2) refuse to scour the FA market for 1-year veteran stopgaps and instead play Glenn Robinson, Eric Paschall, Alec Burks, Ky Bowman, Jordan Poole, Omari Spellman and Marquesse Chriss to the tune of a perfect 69% of their available minutes

3) not foolishly package away any of their next four first rounders — their 2020 pick should have gone to Brooklyn but instead will convey as a 2nd rounder in 20-fucking-25!

4) know that they are guaranteed have a couple of pretty good players on the roster next year no matter what happens.

It bears repeating and really needs to sink in: this front office doesn’t believe in Mitch and that’s why he’s not starting and playing starter’s minutes. It’s not an accident.

Shams is reporting the Knicks have interest in hiring one of Mark Jackson, Tom Thibodeaux, and Jeff Van Gundy if (but more like when) they move on from Mike Miller.

I’m definitely in the camp that thinks Jackson did a better job at GS than some people will give him credit for. But even I would never consider hiring him in a million years given the red flags. Would be an insane hire that would in all likelihood end in flaming wreckage.

Thibs obviously had a great run in Chicago, but his time in Minnesota was not great. For a guy whose reputation is built around being a defensive specialist his TWolves teams were 27th, 27th and 24th (he only coached half the year) in defensive rating. That’s awfully damn ugly and while the offenses were pretty good they weren’t imaginative at all and really suffered from “kill what you eat”-ism in a way that I never want to see again – Towns (.646 TS%) having the 4th highest usage on the team behind Butler (.590), Jamal Crawford (.519!!) and Wiggins (.505!!!) during the year they were actually good is not what I want to see. Derrick Rose and his .463 TS% also had a higher usage but only played 9 regular season games so I didn’t list him, but if you’re wondering if he had a higher usage than Towns during their 5 game playoff loss, yes, yes he did.

I love JVG like every other Knicks fan but hiring a guy based on his success twenty years ago is not smart. Among these options, yeah I’d take him, but you don’t need Dolan’s razor to see how it’s likely to fail. If JVG really has interest in giving up the cushy media life to rejoin a team (I’m skeptical) I’d rather he come into some kind of senior front office consulting role than be on the bench.

Sham, I agree 100%. I hope the rumor isn’t true. I’d pick JVG if I had too pick one of the three.

frank’s our longest tenured player and he’s just in his 3rd season, and, he’s already on his third coach…yeah, that screams good player development…hopefully they let miller finish the season at least…

Also, I love good defense, but this team needs a better offense more than a better defense. Those are all defense first coaches who are noted for their unimaginative offenses.

Van Gundy? Thibodeaux? What is this, throwback Thursday?

I hear Mike Fratello and Hubie Brown are prime candidates as well.

Those are all defense first coaches who are noted for their unimaginative offenses.

But then again I’m willing to bet none of them would base their offensive system on Point Randle.

By the way, given how Randle is playing, is there anyone thinking we would have been better served keeping Vonleh?

What’s everyone doing for dinner tonight? I think I’m going to try making some korean fire chicken w/cheese

Maybe Dolan won’t let them hire a new coach, in the interests of not setting more money on fire. JVG doesn’t want the job, Jackson has a job, so Thibs would probably be the easiest to acquire but how much is that going to take? For him to just stick around for the rest of the season, or to complicate hiring a new FO? This is the rare scenario where I’m hoping Dolan cares about the money and let’s Miller finish out the season.

Also Thibs as a development coach sounds bad. This team doesn’t need an 8 man lineup and we probably shouldn’t play Barrett 42 min per.

What’s everyone doing for dinner tonight? I think I’m going to try making some korean fire chicken w/cheese

This is why we need to be able to post pictures.

Don’t get me wrong, i love JVG, but i don’t see Dolan permitting him to get the job again after he resigned years ago. Again, i don’t fault Jeff and I even remember Spree saying something like “I would never say that Jeff bailed on the team. If he felt he had to quit, no one should question the fact that he gave his all to the team and this job.” But Dolan strikes me as a vengeful guy and i don’t think he will forget that JVG “quit on him”.

@146 – I’m actually going to a tasting for my son’s upcoming wedding. I agree about the pictures 🙁

This season is convincing me of something that flies in the face of what the consensus seems to agree is the best approach. Sometimes the majority is wrong and the scant few are correct – just like the middle ages when they thought the earth was flat until they found out it wasn’t….

The Knicks should not rebuild by trading away all the 1+1 players for picks. Yesterday showed us why – and the Knicks are not where I’m looking for proof. Right now, the Warrior team is as pathetic as the Knicks. They have Draymon. They have D’Angelo Russell. They have a few other lesser pieces. What they don’t have now are Steph, Klay and KD. The Warriors played the Knicks even. They were the lesser team by a hair. Basic math says that the 3 superstars are the difference between a garbage team and a championship team. 3 players!

Who on the Knicks are the top 3 players you would keep as pieces going forward if 3 free agents would just decide to join hands and come to NY? IMO it would be Robinson, Barrett and Morris. Yes, Morris. I want to re-sign him now, ASAP to a longer deal – add a 3rd year. Everyone else is trade bait and easily replaceable – or not. I now believe that if we build a strong core of NBA players and hit on another draft pick, free agents will come eventually. I want that next tier of players to be attractive for them. As an example, the Knicks could have used a Kanter and D’Andre on this roster but we jettisoned them.

One of the reasons I say this is that no trade will return a lottery pick which dramatically diminishes the value of the trade. Also, only the cream of the lottery picks are going to be the type of player that puts the Knicks in a position to become a championship team.

There are only 2 paths to find players that yield future success. 1) Draft 2) Free agency. For the first, the draft, we just need to suck now.

here’s an updated top 10 for the draft since we have some more games to work with and there are some developments at the top…. altogether it’s shaping up to be ok altho still weaker than recent drafts…

The Bigs
This group is as good as any recent big heavy draft… they are all deficient with ballhandling/passing which limits their offense a bit but they are all right now high lotto worthy… it will pose some interesting decisions depending on where we land pick wise…

1 – James Wiseman – getting some heat from some other bigs but he’s still #1 for now..
2- Onyeka Okongwu – he just got on my radar but he’s the one guy in the draft who’s a freak… he’s a bit like elton brand physically except with some pogo stick to his game and a less refined offensive repertoire… great hands and great defensive potential.. one to watch…
3 – Vernon Carey – the least wow factor out of the 3 but probably has the strongest post game… i’m not completely sold on him tho but the numbers are difficult to ignore..

The Edwards Tier
4 – Anthony Edwards – he’s here until he improves his 2p shooting…

The PG’s
Much like the bigs .. pretty good as a group but they all have some drawbacks..

5 – Killian Hayes – best dribble drive and most creative of the bunch..
6 – Nico Mannion – a lil light on the athleticism but has the best outside shot and passing vision..
7 – Tyrese Halliburton – his handle may not be there and he has a slow shot release but he can do enough good things well that that he provides nice value even in the top half of the lottery…

The Others</strong
Not too confident in this group and the draft starts dropping off around here but they are performing well enough to give them a mention.. some notable exclusions (cole anthony.. lamelo ball.. jaden mcdaniels) have severe questions that may not be reconcilable..
8 – Josh Green
9 – Cassius Stanley
10 -…

I’m with DMar on this.

Edit:this posted after I went into the subway and like 10 posts filled the void. I think we need new blood for the coach

IMO it would be Robinson, Barrett and Morris.

Robinson is 21, RJ is 19 and Morris is 30. Morris is a versatile combo forward who can shoot a bit so he’s a useful player, but he’s not valuable on a 5-20 squad. Great guy if you need to plug a hole in a good team but not the kind of player you’d be looking to build around.

That’s a nice looking pie jowles.

It’s getting there. Home ovens are still shite. I started parbaking the crust and adding the bufala later, maybe 5m without and 2m with. I made one with burrata last week. A little too rich, IMO. I was into it, but I only got it because it was on sale. If I have to choose between $22/lb. bufala or burrata for a good ol’ za, I’m going with the buffalo.

I have no problem with JVG.
And he would arrive with warm support from the Knicks base of fans.
I also have no problem with a defense first coach, especially for a team that hasn’t played much defense over the past 15 years or more.
Thibs kills players. I don’t like him.
JVG players have shown a willingness to do anything for him.
So I’m okay with that.

@155 – My point is that if we came into 2020/21 with, say Robinson, Barrett, Morris, Knox (because nobody wanted him), Payton, Iggy, Trier and Taj + a top pick, we would have a foundation that, if we added a few better (B+/A-) FA’s we could make the playoffs. At that point maybe we can attract a legit superstar. That’s kind of what the Nets did to get their guys, right? KD & KI saw some kind of foundation that they could take to the next level.

This is why we need to be able to post pictures.

@148 still trying to visualize exactly what a “community garden” is…i sort of have a small idea from something i saw on tv once, but, i’ve been a burbs/small town person most my life…

i’m guessing this is some kind of urban thing wherein people geographically close to one another rent/lease a small piece of property to develop growing different fruits and veggies…

i think i even saw one time where folks were doing this on top of a building…

is that kind of what it is?

@152

IMO, it’s obvious the most important part of a rebuild is securing the #1 and #2 scoring options on your team. Those are the hardest players to get. Of course, you don’t want them to be inefficient volume scorers, guys that can’t defend, or guys that are bad in other ways. But once you get a solid #1 and #2, finding the role players and filling out the bench is the much easier part.

If you have a young player that looks like he’s going to grow into a legit #1 or #2, you pay him and worry about developing further later.

If you don’t have one, you have to be good enough to attract one into space or have the assets available to trade for one.

Screwing around for a decade and trading away decent players because you are hell bent on every player being under 25 or insisting on drafting your #1 and #2 is a sure path to screwing around for a least a decade. lol

We’ve had space multiple times but since we always suck, no one comes.

We’ve had lottery picks and even the worst record, but that’s a crap shoot and it takes year to develop a SERIES of kids.

Right now we don’t have a legit #1 or #2. Best case is that a few years from now Barrett can maybe become a player of that caliber and Mitch can be a #3 or #2 if he can expand a lot.

We should be looking to package excess picks for a good young player that can move the needle. If we can add more picks by trading a vet that’s fine as long as we use those assets to get better and not screw around for another decade drafting role players and hoping to get lucky.

We should be looking to package excess picks for a good young player that can move the needle.

You think that this 5-20 team has excess picks? Uh… what?

@ 159 I have done a community garden out in Andover NJ (near Vernon more or less) for the past few years. It is a large area where you rent a plot for the season, say March through November and can renew so that, as I did, you can overwinter garlic and presumably other similar things. The advantage over a backyard is that there are multiple other people so you can socialize over it and, for me, learn. Water is provided, the space is fenced, if you went they will till and in past years mulch, compost or fertilizer was available. I have seen but not snooped NYC areas but assume it operates as a closed system for a building or housing community with produce available to those who pitch in.

There’s an enormous city-run community garden just south of my house. Plots run from 50 sq. ft. to 800.

thanks nick C …that sounds pretty flipping cool…i have a small garden on the patio (sadly, i only really like to watch stuff grow – not really eat it), but, getting together with some other folks to work on something on a larger scale in a shared area sounds like a lot of fun…

seems gardening attracts sort of similar personalities (the kind that would rather normally hang out with plants than people)…it’s funny though – if you had asked me when i was about 40 or so if i’d ever be in to yoga and gardening at any point in my life – i’d have laughed at ya…laugh’s on me now though cuz i really love that stuff…

just got some nice peppers and tomatoes…still waiting for the lemons to come in…i absolutely love watching stuff grow and looking at the produce on the vine/tree, i just don’t actually feel like consuming it…i just want to try to make it happen and look at it…

That’s the least imaginative group of coaching prospects I could imagine. I still feel pretty definite about it being Jackson. Dolans Razor is a powerful law.

I appreciate what Morris is doing. You have to give him a ton of credit for producing amidst the wreckage. But if we don’t get a late first for him this season will have been a complete waste. Not to say a late first would justify it but it’s something….

I suspect they’ll let him ride out the season and throw a shitton of money at him during free agency. And it will be horrifically stupid.

@160:
No offense, but worst plan ever. Did the last 20 years not teach you that trading picks (unless for generational talent) is the worst thing a bad team can do??? Like, what, you’re gonna end up trading for Booker with 2 firsts and 2 seconds, and end up worse. Or if you think our FO knows valuable targets, you’ll end up trading picks for who? Guys like Ja, Zion, Mitchell, Towns, Jokic, Tatum and Doncic are NOT getting traded for picks. The guys who would are the Bookers and future Afflalos.

The only path forward is through hording picks and picking well so you end up getting lucky with someone from the A-list. The issue was (a) trading picks, and then (b) picking badly or without luck. It takes smarts, but picking in the 7-10 range was stupid/unlucky to begin with.

So your plan should be:
– Hire a good front office that is known for being good at this (not a prior coach, player, yesman). This is key for absolutely everything else. You can horde picks and end up with Knoxes.
– Trade anyone not RJ/Mitch for appropriate levels of pick-based packages.
– Draft well.
– Hire a good developmental staff
– Hire a good coach that is known to be a good coach (not player, analyst, or yesman)
– Make trades understanding value and insight into where you are right now
– Patience.

Really, just hire a great front office. It’s New York, for gd’s sakes, every other team has had success getting whoever it was they wanted, can we just do that?? Give Ujiri 50mil/5 years, or even more. You KNOW the stock will go up more than that if the team has any semblance of success. DO IT

Strat – the problem is that young, established #1 or #2 scoring options are just not available, and when they are the price is a king’s ransom. KP’s bonafides were pretty thin in terms of actually being that guy, and he still cost about five first round picks worth of value.

So why don’t you throw out an actual name? Who is a guy the Knicks should be trying to acquire using their extra assets? Because right now it kind of sounds like you’re saying the Knicks should try to trade for Luka, which I mean would be pretty cool but doesn’t seem all that likely to me.

If you want to put burrata on a pizza, you should try it with basil pesto and sundried tomatoes. It will pack a hell of a punch.

We should be looking to package excess picks for a good young player that can move the needle. If we can add more picks by trading a vet that’s fine as long as we use those assets to get better and not screw around for another decade drafting role players and hoping to get lucky.

You act as if the Knicks have been doing a patient rebuild for many years and it just hasn’t worked out. In reality they constantly do the opposite, it’s a year or two of accidental tanking followed by a flurry of win-now moves, over and over again. That’s what I want to stop. The win-now moves that don’t accomplish anything. You know the ones. Mega Max Melo. Pinch Post Noah. Courtney “Four Year” Lee.” Tim Hardaway Jr. II: Electric Boogaloo. The further back you go, the more of these moves you unearth. It’s twenty years of a shitty hopeless team making “win now” moves that don’t pan out.

@146

What’s everyone doing for dinner tonight? I think I’m going to try making some korean fire chicken w/cheese

Tonight I’m making chicken cacciatore!

If you want to put burrata on a pizza, you should try it with basil pesto and sundried tomatoes. It will pack a hell of a punch.

c’mon farfa – whatcha know about real pizza…them crackers with a bit tomato sauce and cheese on it ya’ll eat over there ain’t no real pizza…little caesars for life baby

What’s everyone doing for dinner tonight? I think I’m going to try making some korean fire chicken w/cheese

Kale salad w/ barramundi. One of the few dishes I can prepare for my pescatarian gf.

Trying to keep it lean between my big eating (+ drinking) holidays.

A bunch of 1 and 2 options were available on the free agent market last summer and the Knicks whiffed on every last one of them. Once that happened, whatever followed became essentially irrelevant — although they’re stupid enough to have thought that they got one in Julius Randle. They didn’t.

The Knicks need a superstar. They’re hard to come by. Maybe Rowan Jr. can become one. I detest the fact that he’s had to learn the ways of the association in the midst of this shitshow.

i think i may have wore out my welcome picking at djphan…i’m gonna have to mess with farfa for a while now…it only really works though with folks whom are secure and have their shit together…

sorry farfa…i think i may just be experiencing some sort of mental and spiritual breakdown at the moment…it heals me to poke fun at others…

thank you in advance for your understanding…have a good day…

A “patient” rebuild for the Knicks can’t last any longer than 2 seasons max. That is the problem. Even when they talk the game of a rebuild, its really just a year or a year and a half so they can clear cap space to go after Lebron, Melo, Durant, etc.

We are in a rebuild right now that started when KP tore his achilles. But that’s been less than 2 seasons. Drafting KP wasn’t a rebuild. It was one rest season after Melo got resigned and then had to get knee surgery.

All in would be trading Morris and Portis by the trade deadline for picks…whatever they are. Late first, second round. Add to the cupboard. We got to reset the team when we traded KP. I get why that’s frustrating bc KP was the best young player we’ve had in a long time. But now with RJ just a rookie and Mitch only in the 2nd year of a 4 year contract, we have the chance to add more young talent around these 2 and in a few years THEN we go after a star (and hopefully RJ, Mitch and whoever we draft this year in the lotto are budding stars as well).

I was saying that you made me sad for advocating for terrible pizza, geo. Nothing more.

@167 the Mavericks traded picks for players (KP) and so did Golden State. Houston did too I think. Those are well run teams and there was a case for what they did. You can’t rule out the strategy categorically. The devil is in the details. Also the good deals come along sporadically when some team has to jettison a player.

Hah, geo, don’t ever worry about me misunderstanding! I know a good natured soul when I see one 🙂

KnickfaninNJ,

I wrote “trading picks (unless for generational talent) is the worst thing a bad team can do”

So your teams (GSW and HOU) were good teams looking to improve, and were probably not going to have great picks anyway. And I’ll argue that although the Mavs were bad, they are now in good position with a great player, and despite this, they made the wrong move trading for KP- he is just not worth what they traded.

So yes, if a team is bad, and it isn’t for a generational talent, then it is a bad move to trade picks.

I was saying that you made me sad for advocating for terrible pizza, geo. Nothing more.

please, you couldn’t pay me to eat that little ceasers shit…unless of course I was really hungry, to which, a beta are off at that time…

Hah, geo, don’t ever worry about me misunderstanding! I know a good natured soul when I see one 🙂

awwwwww, much love to you brother…you just made my day…

Strat’s got a plan to Make the Knicks the 10-14 Detroit Pistons Again. Gotta hand it to him for that.

A bunch of 1 and 2 options were available on the free agent market last summer and the Knicks whiffed on every last one of them. Once that happened, whatever followed became essentially irrelevant

Very, very false. If the Knicks took on Harkless and Iguodala (and I’m purposely omitting guys who were salary dumped before we knew we got spurned), the offseason would’ve been wildly successful. We would’ve still had the space to fall ass backwards into Morris and potentially get a pick for him, too.

@167 the Mavericks traded picks for players (KP) and so did Golden State. Houston did too I think. Those are well run teams and there was a case for what they did. You can’t rule out the strategy categorically. The devil is in the details. Also the good deals come along sporadically when some team has to jettison a player.

I assure you, I’m ready to change my opinion on this as soon as we have our own Luka Doncic, Steph Curry, and/or James Harden. Until then, if you’re trading picks to make your 5-20 team more like an 8-12 team, I promise you you’re getting had.

Also, just gonna keep beating this drum until/unless it becomes untrue: are we positive the Mavs could recoup two first rounders for KP at the moment?

can you give a plausible example of a trade you would like to see?

I’ve probably asked him to do this 10+ times to no avail. Hope you have better luck than me!

I assure you, I’m ready to change my opinion on this as soon as we have our own Luka Doncic, Steph Curry, and/or James Harden.

Well the Rockets did trade picks for Harden at a point when they were middling (albeit much better than we are now). I think that’s basically the kind of trade Strat is describing. Which I don’t think anyone here is probably really against. If another team offers you a trade that will go down as one of the worst ever from their perspective then yes we should probably be opportunistic buyers in that situation.

I just don’t see the player out there who is comparable to Harden – young star talent underappreciated by his current franchise (hell, Mitch might be just about the best example going even if he still has way more to prove than Harden did when he was dealt). That’s why I keep asking Strat for a name instead of just a vague hypothetical.

Also, just gonna keep beating this drum until/unless it becomes untrue: are we positive the Mavs could recoup two first rounders for KP at the moment?

Yeah… but only if they trade him for Wall, Parsons, or Batum.

Max’d and mediocre KP probably ain’t worth much,

Brandon Ingram is the closest thing to 2012 James Harden out there, and that’s because he and Zion probably play the same position and he also has the blood clot issues. Kelly Oubré might be turning the corner in PHX, but they just traded for him so I doubt they’d let him go for an early-mid 20s 1RP.

Well the Rockets did trade picks for Harden at a point when they were middling (albeit much better than we are now). I think that’s basically the kind of trade Strat is describing. Which I don’t think anyone here is probably really against. If another team offers you a trade that will go down as one of the worst ever from their perspective then yes we should probably be opportunistic buyers in that situation.

Yep. When the Rockets traded for Harden he was 22 years old and coming off a 4.5 BPM, .230 WS48 season. I’m happy to go on the record and say if a player like that hits the trade market, I wouldn’t mind pursuing them (despite the fact that we’re much, much, much worse than the Rockets were at the time).

The problem is the players who hit the trade market tend to look a lot more like Blake Griffin.

I’ve always thought 2 picks for KP was a steal. It’s a superstar price for a mediocre, injured, expiring contract. Plus we dumped Lee and THJr.

Usually when I mention it I get a lot of flack because “if we hadn’t included Lee and THJR we’d have gotten more.” No, 2 firsts is an excellent deal for the right to offer KP the max after missing a year of basketball.

I love me some Mitch but the hyperbole about him is a bit much. Does anyone in their right mind think that Robert Williams is close to being the Celt’s best player? Yet putting Mitch on the Celts would basically be a wash.

These guys have tons of potential but are still ultra-raw.

The problem is the players who hit the trade market tend to look a lot more like Blake Griffin.

Or Anthony Davis. Or Paul George. Or Kawhi Leonard.

Or Anthony Davis. Or Paul George. Or Kawhi Leonard.

And we can debate the merits of trading for these guys, but we couldn’t even get a foot in the door anyway, because we didn’t have enough assets, BECAUSE WE’VE NEVER REBUILT GAHHHHHHHHHH

We were never getting George, Kawhi, and AD doesn’t make sense for us. I don’t mind not getting any of those guys.

The players we legitimately had a shot at were Randle and Brogdon. We got one of them.

Im starting to think we should put Randle as the center for non Mitch minutes. If were gonna suck, might as well pair him with Payton again in the PnR to get his numbers up.

Also, play Trier with Frank, Mitch, Morris, and whoever else can play D. He can chuck his way to more wins than the crap we’re doing.

And we can debate the merits of trading for these guys, but we couldn’t even get a foot in the door anyway, because we didn’t have enough assets, BECAUSE WE’VE NEVER REBUILT GAHHHHHHHHHH

Yeah, that’s the other thing that makes me want to bang my head against the wall, is that when one of these guys becomes available we get outbid because we don’t have the assets because we never made it a priority of collecting the assets, instead prioritizing the Joakim Noahs, Courtney Lees, Bobby Portises and Taj Gibsons of the world.

I don’t really understand why Strat makes the same “if you just draft one 18-year old every year you’ll never get good” argument, and why he’s opposed to stockpiling picks and assets. Yes, you can also get great players by trading for them. Guess what other teams want when they have to unload one of their stars? Why, it’s draft picks! Assets!

This is almost like arguing with a flat earther or an anti vaxxer or something. At some point you gotta just step away.

I see strat is still sticking to his patented move “let’s get good established players!” without ever actually saying who of these established players would be available for trade or willing to sign with the Knicks.

Harden and Leonard are not realistic examples. Harden was a once in history level of fuck up that only happened because the damn owner of a NBA franchise preferred to save a couple of bucks instead of keeping a 23 year old mega superstar, and Leonard made it very clear that he was interested in Los Angeles and nothing else. Davis was available, and for all we know the Knicks did try for him, but there were better offers because this damn franchise never gathers enough assets to really make a move.

Paul George was acquired for a package that was thought of at the time as being completely weak. You don’t really have to consciously accumulate assets to come up with that kind of package.

Paul George who was just traded for 5 1st round picks, 2 swaps, Gallinari, and SGA????

I presume he’s talking about the trade that brought him to OKC, for Oladipo and Sabonis.

There’s still nothing the Knicks can take away from that. Oladipo was a 3rd overall pick who hadn’t fully broken out, but had produced enough (1.8 BPM at age 23) the prior season to get a 5/$100M deal. We don’t have an equivalent. Sabonis was the 11th overall pick from the previous draft.

Again, if your argument is we should pursue opportunities to trade for good players as often as possible…all of the precedent shows you should want to get the most picks, and the highest value picks, possible. I don’t know why this square is so hard to circle for some folks.

@199

Yeah, and even when it’s a weak package, there’s so many other things going on. You have to have the assets, but also to have them at the right time when an opportunity presents itself. I’m not defending the absolute shitshow the Knicks have been, because good GMs pay attention to this and might be able to produce opportunities with good moves, but “winning trades” is an incredibly hard thing to do consistently and there’s a reason only the absolute best GMs (and whoever is managing the Lakers at any given time) can do it.

What’s everyone doing for dinner tonight? I think I’m going to try making some korean fire chicken w/cheese

What kind of cheese?

-Draft Thoughts-

The triptych of a great draft pick:
-Talent
-Determination
-Health

The triptych of a great draft picker:
-Bball Talent evaluation & farsightedness
-Psychological analysis
-Skilled Medical staff

Special Effects:
Luck / God’s Will

Franchise players and busts are like mushrooms. You need knowledge and special trained dogs to pick the most valuable and to avoid the dangerous ones.

It’s nice to look at a boxscore and see S Curry shooting 9-11. It makes the world feel in balance again.

I’m looking at a Serious Eats recipe for this fire chicken and I have a ton of gochugaru and gochujang to use up from my kimchi-brined fried chicken from my birthday last summer. Thanks for the tip. Looks awesome.

My point was simply to refute the notion that “…the problem is the players who hit the trade market tend to look a lot more like Blake Griffin.” The truth is, superstars hit the trade market all the time. Problem is, the Knicks are never in the position to capitalize, or where even if they were, it wouldn’t make sense. You can even argue that Luka Doncic was acquired via a trade by a team that had a better asset than us, or at least was willing to give up more than we were willing to give up (Maybe KP and 2 #1’s would have done it…)

@160 – I’m not trading draft picks unless it’s to package two to move up in the draft to nab a stud.

@165 – As I said, I don’t want to trade Morris (although it’s almost a guarantee we will)

@167 – There are scenarios where I would trade a pick (see my first reply) but very few. However, collecting and then drafting 2nd rounders doesn’t excite me. We lucked out (good scouting?) with Mitch but lets be real.

@168 – We should be willing to pay a king’s ransom for a young #1/#2. This entire game is about collecting 2 or more of them.

@170 – Not one of those moves brought in a #1/#2. I didn’t consider Melo to be that when he was resigned.

@179 – Teams that trade picks for players are the ones that found that first stud and also had a decent supporting cast. They traded to “win now” and get those final stud pieces.

@190 – And we got Jordan in the deal. I wish we resigned Jordan (4yr @ $10M/yr) instead of Portis ($15M 1+1).

@193 – Those are the #1/#2 players that are finishing touches. And @194 – Nope to all that. We need to get into a position where we DO attract them.

@196 – You’re right about us needing to collect assets to trade for players like AD when they’re available. There are very few assets I wouldn’t give up for a player like that.

All: When we we finish a season above .500 we should celebrate with a pot-luck dinner!!! I posted in the afternoon and had to run to a tasting for my son’s upcoming wedding. I’m stuffed but somehow my mouth is watering after reading through the menu!

@89 Jowles I’m a lifelong Beach Boys fan and I’d never heard that song before. It’s wonderful.

Listen to the rest of that album. I’m a latecomer to it also. “She Knows Me Too Well” is another barbershop/surf number that blows me away. Outstanding vocal performances and the slightest bit of weirdness to the chord progression. Distinctively Brian.

Oh, and the last song on it (I can’t remember its name, but I don’t really like it at all) is so obviously the inspiration for early Dirty Projectors. It sounds exactly like his early troubadour stuff, which I also don’t like much.

I learned recently that Roger Waters asked The Beach Boys to be on The Wall, but the deal fell through, so he hired Bruce Johnson to write the harmonies that The Beach Boys would have sung and used them for The Show Must Go On. It’s funny because that was kind of a throwaway song on the album, but listening to it now, it sounds the most modern.

I love the Beach Boys album “Friends,” that is a great wall-to-wall album. Short but sweet.

The “SMiLE” project had crashed and burned a year before, and the Beach Boys were irrelevant in the culture by the time “Friends” came out in June, 1968. Rock was getting heavier and seedier and more ominous, but Brian Wilson made this sweet little album of gentle melodic pop gems in his basement. It bombed. It was his last great album in my opinion, after that he sort of gradually receded from the scene, contributing some great songs here and there but mostly hanging out in his bed eating Rocky Road and doing a bunch of blow.

I have had the pleasure of chatting with Van Dyke Parks a few times. Well, it’s more like I had the opportunity to have Van Dyke talk to me, because it’s hard to get a word in edgewise with that cat. That guy likes to talk. Endless great stories though.

The man who sprinkled magic dust all over Ys. That album has all the names on its production.

Everybody just wants to talk to Van Dyke about “SMiLE,” and it’s not his favorite topic of conversation. But I love an album he produced called “Greatest Hits” by Phil Ochs (not a greatest hits album, but a fucking great album) and nobody ever asks him about that. That album has an amazing list of incredible musicians who played on it, including Ry Cooder, Gene Parsons, James Burton, Clarence White, Chris Ethridge, lots of guys who were adjacent to the Byrds during their country phase. Everybody is playing their asses off on that album. It was awesome hearing him talk about all those great players.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTHxqTzU_N4

You can even argue that Luka Doncic was acquired via a trade by a team that had a better asset than us, or at least was willing to give up more than we were willing to give up (Maybe KP and 2 #1’s would have done it…)

You could easily argue that. These morons have always tried to win when they shouldn’t try to win, all the way until last year, when they were willing to tank for a single season, right when the odds changed, and that has made their assets terrible over the years. Had the Knicks had the #3 pick two years ago instead of the #8, they could have had Luka! It’s so painful.

Or how about Lebron’s draft, when the Knicks drafted ninth in one of the greatest drafts of all-time because they were still trying to make the playoffs with a lineup of Howard Eisley, Allan Houston, Latrell Sprewell, Othella Harrington and Kurt Thomas (I think I just threw up in my mouth)? This franchise is so, so stupid.

Although, this is kind of funny. The Knicks traded their 2004 and their 2010 first round picks to the Suns in the Starbury trade (I think they’ve changed the rules and you can’t trade picks six years apart anymore), but the Suns then flipped both of those picks plus a second round pick…for Keon Clark.

Other teams can be stupid, too.

Albert Pujols will make 59 million across the next two years and has produced exactly 0 wins above replacement over the last 5 years. It’s not just basketball.

I don’t envy the people who manage sports teams. Oh wait, I definitely envy them and could definitely do it better than they do.

That Duncan story reminds of myself in college. I was phenomenal, led the team in fga’s consecutive seasons !

Also, this is a great piece about Duncan Robinson on the Heat and his surprising backstory.

Who’s next, Jordan Chamberlain?

Is Frank starting again? Because he was beyond awful against GS.

I think this team has to start Elfrid, Morris, and Mitch to not get embarrassed every night. Ironically, they still don’t have a great fit at pf next to Mitch — unless they slide Morris down.

I’d love for them to try out a Payton/Trier/RJ/Morris/Mitch lineup, but it doesn’t seem like that will ever happen for some reason.

Knicks are:
30th in SRS
30th in Offensive Rating
30th in eFG%
30th in 2PT%

Woof. Right now Marcus Morris is shooting like some kind of Ray Allen/Reggie Miller freak on 3-pointers or we’d probably be 30th in that too.

It’s kind of amazing but this truly is one of the very worst teams we’ve had here.

If you were trying to win and/or play coherent basketball, maybe you could go with a Payton/Ntilikina/Barrett/Morris/Robinson lineup, that would at least be defensively decent and it would be a more modern smallball kind of lineup. That lineup would still probably struggle to score but we’re already the worst offensive team in the NBA so maybe smallball might be a better idea.

But nah let’s keep running power forward-palooza out there

You think that this 5-20 team has excess picks? Uh… what?

We have 2 extra Dallas picks that have an expected long term value of around “role player” given how good Dallas is now and how they are expected to get better. We’ll be able to find role players relatively cheaply in free agency any time we want. Also, those Dallas picks won’t actually yield a decent player until the late 2020s. When we make those draft picks the kids will 18-19, suck for a few years, and then finally start getting good in their mid 20s. What’s the point?

What could be good for the current rebuild is packaging them with a 1st rounder we get out of Morris or even one of our own 1st round picks for a young stud who becomes available because he’s unhappy. You can’t predict those things, but #1 and #2 options become available almost every year.

What could be good for the current rebuild is packaging them with a 1st rounder we get out of Morris or even one of own 1st round picks to move up in this draft or the next draft to get a stud.

What I’m saying is that draft picks are being massively overvalued now given the lottery process and the age of the players being drafted.

Role players are a dime a dozen. So unless you have a top 5 pick, you should be trying to trade your picks to either move up in the draft or land a #1 or #2 player. That’s the key!

Dallas had the correct formula in the current environment.

They used picks as currency to move up and land Doncic and then used picks as currency to land Porzingis. They traded their way to their #1 and #2 option and are set for the next decade. Now they only have to find floor spacers, elite defenders, a 6th man, bench players, and develop Doncic and KP to be among the elite teams fro years to come.

People here were making fun of Pat Riley a year or two ago. Now despite some terrible contract mistakes he already has a very good team in the east that’s one player away from…

>But I love an album he produced called “Greatest Hits” by Phil Ochs (not a greatest hits album, but a fucking great album) and nobody ever asks him about that. <

I bought this album from a cut out bin for $1.99 in the 80s and instantly fell in love with it. Over 50 Phil Ochs fan can’t be wrong, no? I only bought it cuz I was a big Dylan fan and Phil Ochs was always mentioned in stories about Dylan’s protest days and I had never heard him. Thought it odd that I ain’t marching anymore wasn’t on his “greatest hits” album 🙂 I’m pretty sure I still have it. The music used to just make me feel happy until I heard about his struggles at the time of the recording then it made happy and sad at the same time Truly a forgotten gem. I have never heard anyone ever mention this album. I always felt like it was my own personal treasure.

I really love this site

It’s not like all these struggles on offense were hard to predict. We signed a bunch of veteran players that don’t fit together to play with a bunch of draft picks that won’t be good for another 3-5 years and Fizdale put all the wrong combinations on the court together in a system that needs a high level PG which we don’t have. Doh!

You could easily argue that. These morons have always tried to win when they shouldn’t try to win, all the way until last year, when they were willing to tank for a single season, right when the odds changed, and that has made their assets terrible over the years. Had the Knicks had the #3 pick two years ago instead of the #8, they could have had Luka! It’s so painful.

Regardless of original intention they tanked for KP also. They just screwed it up the last week or we would have gotten Towns, who incidentally despite being a great offensive player still leaves a lot to be be desired on the other end.

The original intention of Mills/Perry was NOT to tank either. They only tanked because KP went down and Hardaway was also hurting. That gave them a double tank opportunity so they smartly took it.

Also, those Dallas picks won’t actually yield a decent player until the late 2020s.

Is Jarrett Allen a useful player? He debuted two years ago.

I think it’s time Dotson started, him and rj with Payton at the point can you give you cohesiveness , put taj and Mitch upfront and run. From there you tweak the starters with Morris , trier , randle frank and Knox.
Makes sense on both sides of the ball to me.

That’s why I keep asking Strat for a name instead of just a vague hypothetical.

That’s not a real question.

Dallas didn’t wake up one day and decide to trade picks for KP. KP became available and they liked him so they gave up 2 picks and took on Hardaway.

LA didn’t wake up one day and decide they wanted to trade Davis. Davis became unhappy so they went after him with everything they had.

Miami didn’t start out looking for Butler. Butler wanted out and Riley decided he would be a good fit.

There’s a long list of #1 and #2 options out there. Almost every year a couple of them are unhappy and want to move on. When the word is out that one is unhappy, you have to be willing to use picks and players to try to land him. You want a good fit and good timing age wise etc… but the goal is to get the #1 and #2 option and not endlessly draft role players.

We learned the wrong lesson under Thomas. We learned that trading picks is bad. No it’s not! Trading good picks for bad players like we did is bad.

@231

Just another common strat-ism, no 19 year old drafted will ever be impactful until they’re 27. It’s the double combo, where it allows him to shit on the Knicks front office for prioritizing picks + defend Ntilikina at all costs at the same time.

As much as a I hate everything the man has to say, I do find the consistency rather amusing.

Let’s just trade Morris as soon as humanly possible when the 15th comes and go through with the tank with Miller as the coach, to see if he can inspire any sort of confidence that he should be the full-time coach. It’s a simple plan.

Is Jarrett Allen a useful player? He debuted two years ago.

If I took 4/5 on a coin flip and won 3 in a row I’d still be an idiot.

Point being, you can’t look at the results of any particular draft pick and think that tells you much about the long term expected value of that pick. Some people will get lucky in the late 1st round or 2nd round, but the long term expectation is not very high. Some people will get burned with the #1 – #5 picks several years in a row, but the expectation is still very high.

I’m not eliminating “skill” when it comes to making picks. I know that matters also. But the lottery and picks are still to a large extent mostly expected value combined with some skill and luck.

IMO, those Dallas picks don’t have a lot of value.

We’ll be able to find role players relatively cheaply in free agency any time we want.

Are you aware of the current state of the Knicks’ roster, filled out with role players? How much did they cost? And how much are they contributing?

Also, those Dallas picks won’t actually yield a decent player until the late 2020s.

That’s if you fail to recognize that productive players are routinely found in the late 1st and early 2nd.

2014 Jokic (41), Powell (45), Capela (25), Nurkic (16)
2015: Harrell (32), Nance (27), Looney (30), Wright (20), Holmes (37), Richardson (40)
2016: Siakam (27), Brogdon (36), Murray (29), Zubac (32), LeVert (20)
2017: Allen (22), Collins (19), Bryant (42), Anunoby (23), Derrick White (29)
2018: Robinson (36), Williams (27)

Pretty sure you could eke out a .500 team by selecting smartly in the late picks, given enough attempts.

Yet you are claiming Dallas as the poster child of smart play. Were they smart to package a pick to move from Young to Doncic? Obviously. At the time, it looked good. Everyone and their mother knew that Doncic was a star in the making. But no one — and I don’t give a fuck what the Mavs claim, NO ONE — believed that Doncic would be an MVP frontrunner this early. I think most people would have laughed at you if you said he would be vying for an All-NBA 3rd-team nod in his 2nd season.

And again, you keep arguing that Porzingis is their #2 option. Bro, it is not hard at all to find a guy who can score 20 PPG on .500 TS%. In fact, the list of players who have played >300 minutes with a USG% of >25 is 46 players long. Porzingis ranks 45th, just ahead of Westbrook by a single point. That’s right — Porzingis is shooting worse than Collin Sexton, Dennis Schroeder and Andrew Wiggins, and on similar volume.

VORP has Doncic worth 8.6 WAR. They’d be a borderline lottery team without him. That’s not good roster-building. That’s winning a longshot bet and claiming you knew it was coming all along.

Just another common strat-ism, no 19 year old drafted will ever be impactful until they’re 27.

Most players start peaking in the mid 20s assuming they’ve also gotten the playoff experience necessary to get hardened and be ready for that kind of competition.

A legitimate high level player can be significant in his early 20s, but you typically get those in the top 5 unless you are lucky.

There are always exceptions, but I am not talking about exceptions. I am talking about expected values of players drafted well below the top. You are going to get a lot of duds and role players that will take years to develop and have any impact.

There’s a long list of #1 and #2 options out there. Almost every year a couple of them are unhappy and want to move on. When the word is out that one is unhappy, you have to be willing to use picks and players to try to land him.

But my dude. This is one of the reasons why you stockpile picks in the first place.

I’m trying not to be rude here. I guess maybe we agree on this when you get right down to it? I meah yah, if Anthony Davis or Kawhi Leonard or some shit becomes available and you have picks to trade to get him, then yeah trade them shits! I don’t think anybody is going to have a problem with that.

First you have to have them shits to trade. That’s the thing. Draft picks: more than one use! Draft players with them! Or trade them for teams that are looking for them! TA-DA!

Instead of acquiring those we’re watching the scintillating play of Wayne Ellington and Taj Gibson. Well done everybody. You can never take my Wayne Ellington memories away. That one time he came off the curl and hit that three. I have a poster of that ish hanging in my room.

Strat – The six top players on the Nets in terms of minutes were all drafted out of the top ten. Only Taurean Prince was drafter higher than 20 actually. And they are 13-11.

The expectation for any individual late first is low, I agree. But the odds do increase the more you pick.

I think you have made some good points over the years about exploiting other areas of opportunity. The Nets again are a good example. They didn’t draft any of their current core other than Allen. They developed some guys astutely. But that doesn’t mean accumulating picks is a bad strategy. They are all useful ways to improve and they are not mutually exclusive.

I think that’s honestly what people don’t understand. It’s not like you can’t trade for picks while also trying to develop or find breakout players.

And yeah, if prime James Harden, Anthony Davis, or Kawhi Leonard are available, back up the truck. The only player we have done that for was Melo and we all knew it was a mistake months before it went down.

I think you have made some good points over the years about exploiting other areas of opportunity.

Which again, nobody is against. If you can get a player that fits in with your win curve and it costs you a draft pick, FINE. Do it!

The main gist of a rebuild though is that you need to acquire assets that have a long-term future and not pick up a bunch of marginal win-humping win-now bullshit when you’re a 20-win team. That is the thing the Knicks always do. They should probably stop that. It don’t work.

@236

1. Dallas is probably as surprised as anyone else that Doncic developed as quickly as he has, but I don’t see the relevance. They thought they were getting a future #1 or #2 option and that’s what they were correctly prioritizing.

2. I don’t want argue KP’s value with people here anymore. I disagree with the way people here value players. I think the public models used are nonsense.

Dallas knew what they were getting and valued him higher than the consensus here (as I do). They also knew that off a 2 year layoff he was likely to take several months to get to 100% (if not a full year like Hayward). Still, with what they perceived to be a solid #1 and #2, they didn’t think those picks would have a lot of value. They were more right than they thought because of Doncic’s development.

If KP had come back much slower, unable to move, unable to block shots etc.. I’m sure they’d be very worried about their obvious gamble on his health. But he’s stronger, rebounding a lot better, and still blocking shots at a high level.

He just can’t hit a shot in the ocean even though they are getting him better looks than he had in NY. He can’t even hit FTs at the same rate. That screams “rust” and not diminished athletic or innate ability. I’m sure they aren’t worried about rust.

They are worried about increasing his number of 3s to provide Doncic more space and to improve both players’ efficiency, reducing his mid range shots to increase his efficiency, and getting him to the basket more. In other words, they see the talent and are trying to use it properly instead of the way he was used on the Knicks or forced into being a double teams as a #1 option before he was ready.

However long it takes to get his shot back is fine with them as long as he doesn’t get hurt again.

I’m trying not to be rude here. I guess maybe we agree on this when you get right down to it?

We generally probably do, but I don’t think Riley is an idiot for going after Butler at his age or always trying to compete. I think you look at the landscape make the best deals you can without some preconceived notion for how to rebuild (like insisting that it must be via draft).

Riley made a lot of mistakes but he’s still a million miles ahead of the Knicks because he understands basketball.

2. I don’t want argue KP’s value with people here anymore. I disagree with the way people here value players. I think the public models used are nonsense.

TS% is not anything like the “public models” that you are so fond of trashing. It’s simple and descriptive — this is how many points a player generates when he himself puts the ball in the area of the hoop. From there, you can start to ask questions as you work backward. Does he only shoot open corner threes? Does he dunk a lot, indicating that he’s very good at an efficient shot attempt? Are all of his shots unassisted ISO jabstep hesi jimbo pull-ups?

You can pose hypothetical after hypothetical about how you could turn a .500 TS% player into a .600 TS% through better shot selection, pinch-post action, higher arc, more PNR attempts, fewer ISO threes, and so on. But the simple reality that you, for no good reason except your own eyetest, refuse to accept that Porzingis is a dreadful shooter.

If you want to wax on about how many open looks he generates for his teammates, who convert them at a significantly higher rate than they would if some other tall guy were drawing a defender away from them, sure. No one is going to buy it without evidence, but okay.

You cannot say that Porzingis is an elite scorer. He simply is not. He never has been. This is fact. Undisputed fact. We know this because the “public models” of FGA, FTA and PTS are accurate as hell and tell us how many possessions a player fails to generate points by using. They tell us almost nothing about how those FGA, FTA and PTS come to be, but they tell us something real and indisputable, namely whether a player puts the ball into the hole when he tries.

The only explanation you have is “rust,” except there’s never been evidence that Porzingis is capable of breaking league-average efficiency. It’s all upside, speculation. Which means it’s imaginary.

Yeah, every stat including the eye test easily shows Porzingis is not close to an elite player on offense, and most of his value actually seems to come from the rim protection.

On the Riley stuff, can we please wait until the season has reached halfway point or something to sing the praises of a team that has 3 rookies in the top 7 on minutes played, and is getting unreal (and quite obviously unsustainable) production from 2 of them, undrafted guys? I’ll believe Duncan Robinson can sustain a .680 ts% while shooting 7 threes a game when it actually happens over a season. Butler has been great for them, Adebayo is a fantastic player, and they have good depth, but I’m really willing to bet that the current level this roster is playing at is simply unsustainable.

And oh by the way the Heat has 5 players in their rotation that they either drafted or picked up as undrafted rookies, Adebayo, Nunn, Herro, Robinson and Winslow.

That’s if you fail to recognize that productive players are routinely found in the late 1st and early 2nd.

2014 Jokic (41), Powell (45), Capela (25), Nurkic (16)
2015: Harrell (32), Nance (27), Looney (30), Wright (20), Holmes (37), Richardson (40)
2016: Siakam (27), Brogdon (36), Murray (29), Zubac (32), LeVert (20)
2017: Allen (22), Collins (19), Bryant (42), Anunoby (23), Derrick White (29)
2018: Robinson (36), Williams (27)

I’m more interested in the odds. What are the historical odds that a player drafted 17+ becomes useful? BTW, we have useful players already, we need bonafide stars. Asking that same question about stars? The answer is few to none. Just looking at your list I would say that Jokic, Siakam and Brogdon, might be the only ones that eventually earn the “star” designation.

Who’s a useful player on a long-term deal? Robinson and…?

This team is 5-20. Useful players are not in abundance on this roster. And guys like Morris will not be here next year, or they’ll be here on a cap-crippling contract.

If i were watching KP for the first time this season i wouldn’t have been impressed.
He looks soft, slow and not very promising…
Having seen him earlier during his knicks years and while playing for the national team of his country I’m still in the camp of his believers.
If he sustain health i expect him to be Special.
He’s tall, he’s smart, he’s 24.

The great thing about suggesting it’s sometimes a good idea to trade picks for players and maybe the Knicks should consider it is you can never be wrong as long as you don’t specify the players, don’t specify the picks, don’t specify how many picks, and don’t say when you think any of this should happen.

How good does the player you’re trading for have to be? How young do they have to be? Should they trade their own picks? Only the Dallas picks? Should the 5-20 Knicks be looking to trade picks right now?

For the love of god, put some damn skin in the game. No one has ever argued it is always a bad idea to trade picks. It’s not remotely insightful to say “actually sometimes trading picks is good.” Yeah, we know. It’s a meaningless contribution if you’re going to leave it at that and insist it makes you more enlightened than the masses.

And oh by the way the Heat has 5 players in their rotation that they either drafted or picked up as undrafted rookies, Adebayo, Nunn, Herro, Robinson and Winslow.

i was watching some of their highlights the other day and thinking just how much i hate the heat…i know, neither jealousy or envy is very sexy, but there it is…that should be us…

That’s not a real question.

There’s a long list of #1 and #2 options out there. Almost every year a couple of them are unhappy and want to move on. When the word is out that one is unhappy, you have to be willing to use picks and players to try to land him. You want a good fit and good timing age wise etc… but the goal is to get the #1 and #2 option and not endlessly draft role players.

The vast, vast majority of these guys who get moved are prime or later which is why just “yadda yadda”-ing past the “good fit and timing age wise” just doesn’t work. It’s rare that young guys with legit star level production resumes get traded and when they do the price is extremely high. Davis was one and we didn’t have enough to get in on that. Some would argue KP but he really didn’t have the resume (and still doesn’t) and still cost a fortune in picks. Otherwise you’re almost exclusively looking at older guys.

So the more likely to be relevant question is do you think the Knicks should be looking to get in on a trade for an older star if one becomes available? (the correct answer is obviously no)

Can we just hire the Heat’s lead scout as our GM? Seems like he might be pretty good at finding talent.

Skin in the game: I’d without question trade the two Dallas picks for a young or prime 1 or 2 option. Those picks really aren’t all that valuable. Cherry picking draft successes doesn’t tell you the actual value of the picks because a big majority of them turn out to have drafted crap. The list in 236 ranges from picks 16-45 and contains 22 players, many of whom aren’t 1 or 2 options. During those five years, 150 picks were made between 16 and 45, so we’re talking about a hit rate of about 15%. If we’re talking pure 1 and 2 options, it’s Jokic, Siakam, and if you REALLY squint, Brogdon. That’s three in 150 picks — a one in 50 chance. And Brogdon’s prime was available in free agency last summer.

I’m not hanging onto picks at all costs for a one in seven chance at Caris LeVert. That’s crazy. I’m not giving them away for dreck, to be sure, but that’s a different matter altogether.

And the 2021 Dallas pick *loses* value with time, as you don’t even get to speculate as freely on a Luka or KP catastrophic injury as time elapses — because the time for it to happen elapses and more and more wins are in the book even if it does happen. It has way more value now than it’s going to have this time next year or almost certainly on draft day 2021.

Skin in the game: I’d without question trade the two Dallas picks for a young 1 or 2 option. Those picks really aren’t all that valuable.

Do you see why your first sentence doesn’t match your second sentence?

This is rising to epic levels of “no shit.” I’d without question trade my 2014 Jetta for a new Audi A6 but nobody seems to be willing to take me up on that offer.

I can trade the two Dallas picks for Karl-Anthony Towns? Okay! Sign me up for that!

Yeah, the term “skin in the game” means “name us a player that you think would be available for the Dallas picks that you’d like to see the Knicks trade the Dallas picks for.” You’ll soon realize that there really isn’t anyone available that you could get for the Dallas picks that you’d like to trade the Dallas picks for, hence saying “I’d trade the Dallas picks for a good young star” is not actually putting any “skin in the game.”

At this point, I’m not even sold on trading Marcus Morris. He’s a nice player who I project to be a very useful part on a very good team — which isn’t hard to do since he has been a very useful part on a very good team. The reason you move him is because you stupidly signed Julius Randle with the money you should have given Mook, and they can’t play well together — but that’s the definitive sunk cost. Moving Randle to the bench or trading him is a better alternative.

There’s no such thing in the real world as the elegant fantasy of having only a bunch of young guys who miraculously grow together into a champion. It never happens. The closest thing was probably Durant/Westbrook/Harden — and it didn’t happen there, either. That was a fluke.

There’s no such thing in the real world as the elegant fantasy of having only a bunch of young guys who miraculously grow together into a champion. It never happens.

What was that one team, the Golden State, uh, Fighters or something? OH WAIT THEY BROUGHT IN IGUODALA WHEN HE WAS A VETERAN HAHA DOESN’T COUNT

Okay then.

Yeah, the term “skin in the game” means “name us a player that you think would be available for the Dallas picks that you’d like to see the Knicks trade the Dallas picks for.” You’ll soon realize that there really isn’t anyone available that you could get for the Dallas picks that you’d like to trade the Dallas picks for, hence saying “I’d trade the Dallas picks for a good young star” is not actually putting any “skin in the game.”

Guys become surprisingly and unpredictably available all the time in the NBA. The Dallas picks aren’t really worth that much, so it’s a bit much to ask people to construct trades around them. It’s a bit rich to respond to people who say the picks aren’t worth that much by saying, “OK, put some skin in the game and tell me who you could get for them.” There are a lot of players I’d trade them for. In purely basketball terms, I’d trade them for D’Angelo Russell, but the contract gives me some hesitation.

I don’t think you understand what “skin in the game” means.

Skin in the game: I’d without question trade the two Dallas picks for a young or prime 1 or 2 option.

I give up 🙁

What was that one team, the Golden State, uh, Fighters or something? OH WAIT THEY BROUGHT IN IGUODALA WHEN HE WAS A VETERAN HAHA DOESN’T COUNT

And Andrew Bogut and Shawn Livingston and Leandro Barbosa and then eventually … gulp … Kevin Durant.

In purely basketball terms, I’d trade them for D’Angelo Russell, but the contract gives me some hesitation.

So…you wouldn’t?

Not so easy when you have to say more than “I would simply win some trades,” huh?

So…you wouldn’t?

Give me a list of players and I’ll happily commit. Among the players talked about explicitly:

Love, no.
DeRozan, no.
Schroeder — The 2023 one for sure, maybe the 2021 one (meaning one or the other, not both).

I actually probably would make the Russell trade for both, but I’d have to give it one more look.

And none of this is to say that I want Steve Mills trading them ….

And Andrew Bogut and Shawn Livingston and Leandro Barbosa and then eventually … gulp … Kevin Durant.

The core of that team that won their first ring was:
Steph Curry (26)
Klay Thompson (24)
Draymond Green (24)
Harrison Barnes (22)

They drafted those cats. Yeah, they had some other role players they brought in to flesh out the team, but those four dudes led the team in minutes.

Stop embarrassing yourself.

When people like me say “acquire assets and build around youth” some brain damaged people seem to think that means you can’t bring in veterans when you’re getting close on the win curve.

SEE, THEY NEEDED LEANDRO BARBOSA TO PLAY BACKUP GUARD, YOUR PRECIOUS “BUILD AROUND YOUTH” STRATEGY DOESN’T WORK.

Gonna go huff some paint right now.

I for one would not trade a first rounder for Dennis Schroeder, who has never posted a positive BPM or .100 WS48 in his life and expires after next season. In fact he seems more like a salary dump candidate to me. I mean what’s the idea behind trading for him? “Compete” in 2020-2021? How exactly is that going to happen?

The idea is that he’s still young and would be a massive improvement to your roster at a position of need and will help you win games and build a culture of competitiveness and game winning.

If the counter to that is just that it’s pointless to try to win games until you know you’re a championship contender, that’s a philosophical dispute we’re never going to be able to have a meeting of the minds on, so count me out.

Paul George was had for five 1st rounders, a promising young PG/SG, and an average wing. They also get to pay him $105M over three years for the privilege. He can opt out after next year and ask for a supermax, which will be as much as $250M over five years.

Anthony Davis was had for two former #2 overall picks, two more players, cash and three future firsts. They will offer him a $240M supermax this offseason.

Russell Westbrook was had for two 1sts and two 1st swaps with protections, plus Chris Paul’s shorter contract. He is owed $131M in three seasons after this one.

Can we all agree that if you are trading away future firsts, you’re probably doing it for a guy who’s about to make 30-35% of your cap, and he’s probably not all that young, either? How could the Knicks possibly be in the position to undertake one of these monkey’s paw trades? With a 5-20 roster? With a handful of all-upside scrubs, whatever the fuck Julius Randle is, and Mitch under contract?

Dennis Schroeder? Why settle for 3 shitty point guards when you can have 4 shitty point guards

Props for naming a name I guess, but herein lies the rub: if a player is available for trade for a single first-rounder…there’s a good chance they look something like Dennis Schroeder. They’re expensive and probably don’t make you much better.

If a player is available for trade for more than that, there’s a good chance we’d need to have done some serious asset accumulation in order to be a serious bidder. We weren’t even in the ballpark for Kawhi/AD/Paul George because the Zen Master preferred Arron Afflalo to picks.

This mystical good, young player you can get without totally devastating your asset chest does not exist!

Dennis Schroeder? Why settle for 3 shitty point guards when you can have 4 shitty point guards

Seriously…it’s not at all clear he’d be the best point guard on this roster

Also, Durant was the weirdest, flukiest, right-place-right-time FA signing in NBA history. Seriously, there has never been anything like it. When the ’96 Bulls got Rodman, they got him for $2.5M, about 10% of their total payroll. You have to believe that the league didn’t value him all that highly, given his previous salaries.

I don’t need to tell you what the league thought of Durant before he signed with the Dubs. MVP, multiple scoring titles, All-NBA perennial. The Warriors made their own luck, but a different player might have balked at joining the team that just knocked him off in the conference finals.

Durant’s case should be looked at as an exception that will never happen again. The league’s most versatile scorer joining a 73-win core without having to give anything up, all because the union was able to enforce no cap smoothing? Fuck, man.

I’m so tired of hearing strat attribute Porzingis shooting as poorly as he’s always shot to a layoff.

The guy didn’t break a leg like Hayward or George. If he can rebound and block shots as well or better than ever there’s no reason to assume his timing is off.

He’s not going to shoot better. He is what he is.

I think old ‘Staps might see a bit of an uptick in his shooting numbers, as he’s below his career norms this season. But his career norms are not great to begin with, and it seems like some serious wishful thinking to believe he’s going to be able to have some big breakthrough and improve substantially on those career norms.

He’s 24. He’s not really any better than he was as a rookie. The players who he’s supposed to turn into were already bona fide studs by age 24. Also he’s injury prone and his intangibles suck as he already believes he’s a megastar.

Fuck that dude

An ACL injury should not affect 3PT%. Not 18 months out.

And what’s worse — he’s playing with what looks like the great offensive player of the next ten years! We all had some thoughts about what KP could have done with competent PG play. Well, he’s got it now. And he’s shite.

I guess we’re going to ignore the Paul George trade where he was available, with two years fewer wear and tear for a disappointing going-to-his-third-team Victor Oladipo and a rookie who averaged 6 ppg in his first crack at the NBA. A return that had everyone in the league and the league message boards breaking out in LOLPacers hysterics.

The Knicks could have gotten him without question at the time for Kristaps Porzingis. They probably could have gotten more. The Knicks are going to wind up with pennies on the dollar for KP compared to his peak market value. That one is the big killer. (Note: It doesn’t matter what KP has become; what matters is his market value. The fact that they could have turned him into way more than he’s become makes the failure worse.)

The Knicks are going to wind up with pennies on the dollar for KP compared to his peak market value.

I mean, yeah, sure, but that was before KP’s injury and before he orchestrated his way out of MSG. At one point he was considered a building block and it wasn’t entirely unreasonable to consider him so.

With 20/20 hindsight yeah, they should have traded him before the injury but considering the circumstances, they got a pretty solid return for that d-bag.

It’s not really 20/20 hindsight — Jackson wanted to trade him and would have gotten way more than they actually got. The failure with him set the organization back by years.

The Suns wouldn’t give up Devin Booker for Porzingis. They offered the #4 2017 pick that ended up being Josh Jackson plus a 2018 protected pick from the Heat (ended up being Zhaire Smith) and were also offering notable piles of suck Dragan Bender and Marqueese Chriss. Phil was apparently eyeballing Josh Jackson with the pick.

So that’s how that could have ended up, Porzingis for Josh Jackson, Zhaire Smith and Dragan Bender. Sick haul.

It’s not really 20/20 hindsight — Jackson wanted to trade him

You’re right, Phil knew when to move him, but

and would have gotten way more than they actually got.

That’s wrong. Even with the timing right Phil was looking to move him for 40 cents on the dollar:

https://mobile.twitter.com/YahooSportsNBA/status/877691488129474560?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fd-21160124581742708816.ampproject.net%2F1912120230490%2Fframe.html

The Pacers did get a sick haul for Paul George. The next time we are forced to trade an elite, in his prime talent, that’s the kind of return I hope we get.

As I said at the time, if the Knicks made the KP trade without assurances from Durant that he was coming here, I thought it was a foolish trade. However, I also think that they likely did have assurances from Durant (through Rich Kleiman) that just fell by the wayside when Durant got hurt. I think Mills and Perry are pretty bad, but even I don’t think they were so bad that they made a blockbuster centered around clearing up two max spots just on the hope that two max guys were coming here.

So for me, it’s a bit hard to gauge the value they got for KP because I think the situation changed dramatically with Durant’s injury. That Mills and Perry just were that stupid is at least a possibility, I must concede, but I doubt it.

on either simmons or lowe’s pod they strongly hinted KD stopped wanting to come to the Knicks when we traded Kristaps

I know for damn sure there was no KP for Paul George trade being discussed. Phil was aiming a whole hell of a lot lower than that.

I’m more interested in the odds. What are the historical odds that a player drafted 17+ becomes useful? BTW, we have useful players already, we need bonafide stars. Asking that same question about stars? The answer is few to none. Just looking at your list I would say that Jokic, Siakam and Brogdon, might be the only ones that eventually earn the “star” designation.

You’d have to define “useful”. A positive VORP over, say 7000+ career minutes? Because the odds of that between 2011-2015 for picks 17-60 were 18%.

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