[NYDN] Knicks crashing back to reality thanks to injuries, road schedule (Tuesday, December 05, 2017 8:32:17 PM)
The Knicks had warned us they weren’t going to win very many games this season, using not-so-subtle code words for tanking and rebuilding.
[NYDN] Knicks guard Tim Hardaway Jr. to miss at least two weeks (Tuesday, December 05, 2017 8:31:35 PM)
The Knicks have another loss.
(Tuesday, December 05, 2017 11:29:34 PM)
Knicks center Willy Hernangomez admitted to being spooked in Indiana on Monday. It was the first time he played for the Knicks without his pal Kristaps Porzingis, who didn’t make the trip. It worked out well, as Hernangomez, flourishing in garbage time, posted his first double-double this season, finishing with a team-high 14 points and…
(Tuesday, December 05, 2017 12:27:25 PM)
Tim Hardaway Jr. isn’t coming back any time soon. The Knicks received a crippling blow as Hardaway will be out more than two weeks with a stress injury to his lower left leg, as the club continues to vaguely term it. The Knicks announced he would be reevaluated after two weeks, didn’t give a concrete…
(Tuesday, December 05, 2017 10:38:39 AM)
What could have been a worse scenario for Phil Jackson after he got canned by James Dolan in late June? Having his bitter enemy Jerry West replace him. According to a Sporting News feature on the Knicks, Dolan had his entertainment mogul/compadre Irving Azoff reach out to West after Jackson’s dismissal. However, West had no…
(Tuesday, December 05, 2017 7:08:09 AM)
Hey, it was nice while it lasted. On Monday in Indianapolis, the Knicks sank below .500 at 11-12 for the first time since Nov. 1. There are ominous signs that perhaps they’ll never see the north side of .500 again after losing five of six. And that’s despite playing their next seven games against sub-.500…
[SNY Knicks] Report: Dolan was interested in hiring Jerry West to replace Phil Jackson (Tuesday, December 05, 2017 6:26:11 PM)
Knicks owner James Dolan was originally interested in hiring Jerry West to replace Phil Jackson as Knicks president, reports Sporting News, citing sources.
[SNY Knicks] Hardaway out at least two weeks due to stress injury (Tuesday, December 05, 2017 4:55:28 PM)
Knicks SG Tim Hardaway Jr. (stress injury to his lower left leg) has started a treatment and rehab program and will be reevaluated in two weeks, the team said on Tuesday.
[SNY Knicks] Porzingis listed as probable for Wednesday’s game (Tuesday, December 05, 2017 4:13:05 PM)
Porzingis (ankle) and SG Tim Hardaway, Jr. (shin) were out for Monday’s loss to the Pacers.
(Tuesday, December 05, 2017 5:37:33 PM)
Knicks guard Tim Hardaway Jr. will miss at least the next two weeks with a lower leg injury.
(Tuesday, December 05, 2017 10:48:47 PM)
The Knicks got some good news regarding Kristaps Porzingis but not on Tim Hardaway Jr.
54 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2017.12.06)”
Malik Monk will channel Ray Allen for a week as the next guard that the Knicks should’ve taken over Frank.
I wonder if Lakers, Sixers, and Kings fans wish they took Dennis Smith Jr or Donovan Mitchell instead of their guys?
@1 hardly anyone advocated for taking Monk, so I doubt it.
@2 possibly (don’t forget the Suns, Josh Jackson has been awful!) but their guys were pretty much consensus picks. A lot of guys were in the mix after that. There was no consensus on Monk, Smith Jr. Markkanen, Frank, Mitchell, or Zach Collins.
You are tearing me apart, Knickerblogger!
Billy Donovan has been converted to the Church of Gravity (the part in bold literally made me laugh out loud):
http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/21683801/steven-adams-oklahoma-city-thunder-emerging-carmelo-anthony-paul-george-billy-donovan-says
I get that the guy is trying to talk up some of his struggling guys and manage Melo’s ego, but I wonder how Steven Adams feels when he hears his coach credit someone else for his stellar play.
Do you guys have any experience w/ tickets in Philly? I want to go to sixers-raptors on 12/19. Should I grab used tickets now, or wait until its closer? is stubhub the best bet?
I recall a lot of pro-Monk talk, to the point I threatened to riot if they picked him. I didn’t want Markkanen nor Smith as well. I could have lived with Frank, Mitchell or one of the Collins kids, figuring Gaines knows what he’s doing.
I recall being more interested in the second round rounders like Dillon Brooks, Swanigan, Thornwell and Bell and some others.
Ha! You just reminded me of the worst Knicks draft ever. 3 1st rounders and not one productive player for the team.
@5 I wonder what games Donavan is watching. melo is shooting 16 shots a game – 6 for 19 his last game. I only know this because he’s on my fantasy team. He’s doing nothing else stats wise, despite a nice start where he was getting steals and blocks for the first couple of weeks.
@8 the infamous John Wallace/Walter McCarty draft? I can’t remember the 3rd guy!
@10. That would be a gentleman by the name of Dontae Jones.
just looked that 1996 draft up quick. so we took Wallace 18th, McCarty 19th and Jones 21. In between….Ilgauskas! We just missed out on Steve nash at 15 and Jermaine Oneal at 17. In our defense, there wasn’t much picked after 21, except Derek Fisher at 24 and Malik Rose at 44.
Man, that draft saw Abdur-Rahim, Ray Allen, AI, Camby and Marbury in the top 10. But, then Kobe, Nash and Peja from13-15.
https://twitter.com/kajawhitehouse/status/938434806291025920
Being a ‘Cuse guy, I was so pumped when the Knicks drafted John Wallace. I was young and I didn’t know anything.
Josh Jackson has actually been very very good on defense, he just can’t shoot at all and nobody watches the Suns to pay attention to his defense.
Let’s see if Mitchell can sustain this a bit, he’s legitimately been playing these last few games like a guy who shouldn’t have dropped past the top 3, let alone all the way to 13.
Melo is Meloing. He’s shooting okay, not turning it over, rebounding pretty well. . .and that’s it. Maybe he’s trying on defense this year? I don’t know what anyone expected. If Russ was playing like he was last year or if Paul George wasn’t a very poor imitation of an all star in his prime OKC would be just fine. Melo is definitely part of the problem, in some sense, but anyone who thought he was going to a be a solution was expecting way too much.
OKC’s big 3 is more like a big 2.5, and it’s Russ, Adamas and George.
Wallace was one of those guys who seemed like he was going to go higher, so even though the Knicks didn’t even particularly want/need him, he was too tempting to pass up.
Yeah that was one draft where we were so low we couldn’t get anybody good.
Still wish we would have bundled two picks with a player and moved up. The 1996 draft was loaded.
Devin Booker was carried off the floor with a strained left adductor in the fourth quarter of Tuesday’s loss to Toronto.
Phoenix just took a huge lead in Tankathon, they might not win another game this year.
That it was loaded was why people wouldn’t move down for just a bundle of late picks. The #13 pick netted Vlade Divac, ya know? People knew that that draft was special back then.
Interesting experiment. They can give Josh Jackson all of Booker’s minutes at the 2 and play Monroe 30+ minutes and see if the improved defense, rebounding and low post play offset Booker’s no defense/pointz game.
Dennis Smith has been bad. Monk has been pretty bad. So has Lonzo. Mitchell has been “ok” at best and has had the benefit of playing next to a legit point guard in Rubio. Frank hasn’t had any of that. Give him time. I would like to see him play off the ball more, but our point guards are so bad, it makes that hard to do. How do still not have a legit point guard after all this time?
He was so awesome in the NCAAs that year. I definitely had a different mindset. I remember being PO’d at VanGundy for not playing him much. “he’s the only one that got game” was what I would jabber to friends.
I would think OKC would happily undo both of their trades.
Mitchell has been “ok” at best and has had the benefit of playing next to a legit point guard in Rubio.
this is just a thing to say. Mitchell has played half his minutes with Rubio and half without. his numbers are far better without.
@24
I don’t think they would undo the George one, because Oladipo’s improvement also has some relation to him not fitting next to Westbrook playing off the ball. I do think they would undo the Melo trade simply because they were left with so little depth in the frontcourt that Kanter, defensive issues and all, would be very useful still.
OKC is one injury in Adams away from having serious issues.
Rubio has been garbage for the past month or so, and his minutes are down. I don’t know, but has Mitchell just taken over the playmaking duties? Is Rubio hurt? Seems like he’s so talented but can’t catch a break.
https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/m/mitchdo01/gamelog/2018#6-25-sum:pgl_basic
Mitchell is shooting 40.3 percent from 3 on 7.2 attempts a game in his last 20 games. I guess that just “ok” now.
Frank is supposed to be a point. And it’s not like he hasn’t gotten lots of open shots- he has and he’s just shot poorly.
I thought Mitchell would have a better start than Frank, but I still liked Frank over him, so, in general, nothing that I’ve seen so far this year has me freaked out. Same thing with DSJ, who I expected to start better than Frank, as well. In fact, Smith’s poor start is a lot more concerning to me than Frank’s, since I figured Smith would be ready to go from the jump. That said, sure, it is not a good thing that Frank has regressed in his last 10 games or so and Mitchell has been surely on fire lately. If he keeps that up, he’ll be one of the best players in this draft.
With the Knicks season likely now turning to where most of us thought it would go eventually (losing lots of games), a question on Frank would be when to start him (if at all)? He might benefit from getting more minutes with KP (assuming he can stay healthy), Kanter, and Timmy (eventually).
Once he starts, his numbers should improve, esp. for assists. I’m guessing that Hornacek is in no hurry to start Frank, though, for quite a while, esp. if he continues to start Dotson in Timmy’s absence. An alternative would be to move Lee to the 2 and start McD at the 3.
@30
Exactly. Mitchell especially, since he’s 21, was widely expected to be more impactful early on than his peers.
The level that he reached these past games is what really impressed, because his first stretch of games was pretty damn awful. Shooting as insanely as he is now, he’s still only on a .528 ts% for the season.
I thought before the draft that his ceiling was a mix of CJ McCollum and Bradley Beal, and that’s pretty much what he’s been doing now. If you can draft a guy who surely will be between a McCollum and a Beal outside of the top 5, you do it every time. Still, it’s too early to know If he’ll keep it up.
Frank’s TS% is .399! Right now he’s a poor man’s Michael Carter-Williams. I thought he’s struggle offensively this year too but .399 is beyond struggling.
@32 especially if he can be that from the get. the actual Beal won’t end up being that valuable to the Wizards in the big picture bc he didn’t produce much value during his four cheap years and probably won’t produce much excess value under his max deal. But if Mitchell’s admittedly volatile efficiency isn’t a headfake he can generate a ton of value for Utah over his four golden years. There is definitely a world in which Frank eventually becomes a very productive NBA player but takes a while to do so, and never actually generates much value defined as production over cost.
That’s why you can make a strong argument in today’s draft for subordinating the best expected value players in favor of (1) younger guys with lower EV but higher variance, i.e. windfall chance of being an all nba player and out earning a max second contract (2) older players with lower EV but lower variance with less chance of sucking during the golden rookie contract years.
But if you’re a >30 win team you’re probably talent-starved enough that a solid but not great rookie isn’t going to make much of a difference. You’re better off swinging for the fences. I’d agree that that’s probably the better option late lottery and beyond but early in the draft I think you’ve got to go with upside.
Mitchell’s D projects out much better than Beal’s. And denying how good Mitchell looks right now is starting to sound silly. He is, and will continue to be, a rising star in this league.
I get waiting on Frank before making a final judgment…there’s still a reasonable chance he develops into a solid, or good, or even great player. But minimizing what Mitchell has been doing in his last 20 games or so because he’s at the ripe old age of 21 diminishes credibility. This isn’t the broken-shotted Landry Fields on an inexplicable hot streak.
He was doing enough things well early in the season to overlook the bad shooting, PFs, and TOs because those are the categories that plague most young players. Right now it’s hard to find anything he’s doing well. He’s not getting many assists, not getting many steals, and not being as disruptive on defense. He’s so young I’m not worried yet, but if he doesn’t get back to at least where he was earlier, we should probably look for a starting PG for next year. More of this will mean Frank is quite a few years away from being a productive starter let alone a real positive.
I’m definitely not worried about the fouls and the turnovers dropped off a bit in his last ten games- unfortunately his assist rate has cratered at the same time. My concern with his shooting is that, unlike a lot of rookies, his shot selection has been fine- it’s not like he’s taking a lot of bad shots (like Dennis Smith) so there’s less room for easy improvement. Euros do tend to struggle with the three early so there is hope there but he’s been so bad that he could improve a ton and still be a real negative shooting the ball.
@36
Did you really read my post as me diminishing or dismissing what Mitchell is doing? Damn, I really got to work on my writing in English.
this fultz story is almost not getting the attention you’d expect given how odd it is. i guess philly’s wins and Embiid/simmons is helping to defray it. can you imagine what this blog would be like if we traded two lottery picks for the #1 pick and he suddenly disappeared for two months with a non structural shoulder injury that made him shoot like Noah? I remember the two hour search for Derrick Rose like it was the Lindbergh baby.
i’m less convinced on mitchell’s prospects… he’s had a hot handful of games which has pushed a lot of his shooting average’s higher… his november #s were very mediocre…. but he did show promise in other areas besides scoring so i think he’ll be useful… i don’t think he’s a pg at all though….
@40
Yeah, it’s seeming more and more like another massive screw up by the Sixers staff, it’s unbelievable how unclear things still are today.
@41
I mean, we do have to admit what he’s doing is impressive, but I agree, it’s too early to say if this recent stretch is more significative than the early stretch where he was shooting horribly. Recency bias is a thing. I think he’ll be a good player for a long time and might end up as a top 3 or top 5 player in the class, but just calling him a star right away is too much.
Bruno, it wasn’t directed at you, see @22.
Yeah, true. But i posted his stats from the last 20 of 25 total games. Shooting 40 percent from 3 point range on 7 attempts per game over 20 games far outpaces the first 5 bad ones. And that dreadful 3-21 game is included in the “good” 20 stretch and his numbers still look like that. Hes definitely cookin’ right now and we will see long term of course.
Fultz is an interesting case. He looked so bad in his early stint that it’s hard to believe that injury is not to blame. But, yeah, right now it looks like the Sixers got completely fleeced by the Celts.
I truly cannot believe that they decided to just have Fultz play through the injury.
i wouldn’t hold fultz’s performance thus far against him… there was obviously something really wrong with him and he shouldn’t have been out there on the court….
the trade is a diff story and they probably gave up too much to jump up a couple spots…
It’s not like Ainge never made a mistake, but he’s so ridiculously selective about pulling the trigger on a deal, you have to ask yourself what you might be missing before doing a deal with him. You can be certain he’s almost never going to do a deal he thinks is fair. He always thinks he has the best of it with a margin of safety even if he’s a little wrong. Even Kyrie is working out better than most people thought.
@43
I’m sorry, you mentioned Beal and Mitchell’s age and I misunderstood it.
Fultz was clearly having injury-related issues, I think those 4 games he did play in are meaningless. However, if Philly managed to screw him up by letting him play through it, messing with his shooting form and etc, it would be the type of blunder I didn’t believe even Colangelo to be capable of.
One thing that pains me is knowing that Philly is gonna get screwed up somehow by Colangelo eventually. The Fultz trade is probably already the first instance.
I truly believe the NBPA needs to bring a lawsuit against the Philadelphia 76ers for medical malpractice. Fultz, Simmons, Okafor, and Embiid have all suffered major injuries and that alarms me. I don’t know if they actually have a case, but I hate what the 76ers are doing to the best group of young players since KD, Russ, and James Harden were teammates.
KP Is Back!
I just heard Eddie Johnson on NBA radio say that Mitchell has the most 3-pointers of any rookie ever in his first 25 games.
Well, he’s attempted 162 and made 61 (37%) so I don’t think it’s that startling. He and Smith, Jr. basically have the green light to fire at will.
Yeah, I mean this as absolutely no slight against Mitchell, but “amount of threes made” is an odd stat. I bet that’s a record that gets broken every other year as teams gun more and more.