Knicks Morning News (2017.12.19)

The Celtics are obviously tough to expect them to beat, so that Pistons game looms large. They need to win that one.

I was trying to think of when was the last time that the Knicks played a meaningful game on Christmas and then I remembered that they actually started well enough the last two years that the Christmas games kind of mattered.

Weird how it feels different this season. Should we give more credit to Phil being gone, or Melo? I feel like Rose contributed a big chunk to the cloud over last season as well

Understandable loss last night without KP and Timmy, but I worry about our mentality in road games. It seems like we lose all poise and play a little scared, and when the other team goes on a run, we just collapse.

Besides the 2 wins (and one was against Brooklyn, which is not really a road game) and the close loss to the Bulls, we’ve basically been blown out of every road game, with no chance to steal a game at the end.

That’s the worrisome part, January could get really ugly really fast.

The Grammys.

As always, we’re going to wish we had lost more games while resting guys like KP, and playing youth more (Frank, Willy) and not playing the decent vets that lead to unproductive wins (Jack, Lee).

It’s actually fun for me to watch players like Frank/Baker/THJ/KP/Kanter do well, or play well despite losing badly; it is not at all fun for me to watch a vet lineup with guys like Jack, Lee, Lance, and Beasley play well and win.

Wow, it really is the fucking Grammys. Insane.

Dotson is like Willy in that the full strength Knicks have players we should be playing instead of him if we’re trying to win games (and I guess we are). If you want to argue the Knicks shouldn’t prioritize winning this season I’d agree with you, but when we’re fully healthy I understand why Dotson isn’t playing every night. With Hardaway out I have trouble understanding why he doesn’t get some regular minutes.

there is zero reason to play kanter if he is hurt while you have koq, willy and Noah

I guess management isn’t sold on Hornacek (who was a Phil hire), so he feels like he has to win all the games he can.

And I have to say he looked pretty much average as a coach, having this team playing goodish offense and kinda average defense. I still see two glaring flaws in Hornacek: his rotations (sometimes he nails them spot on, other times it’s a total mess) and the fact that the youngsters don’t get burn when they should. Willy looks like a bum this season but why aren’t we giving him a serious chance with KP out?

500 minutes isn’t a huge sample size, but it’s not nothing either, and Felder has not been anything close to an NBA player over that time.

Not playing the kids more is on the front office. The ownership/front office has to set the teams goals for the coach. If they would like Willy/Dotson to play and Horny won’t play them, they need assure him his job is not in jeopardy if playing the kids costs the team wins and then fire him if he doesn’t listen. But I suspect the FO wants to win.

Hey Z-man, time to fire up your megaphone again. Kay Felder just got waived by the Cavs

Wait..what? They must be beyond certain about IT. The player they should have is Rose- especially with Wade performing well as a backup PG

#FreeWilly

Felder got just 134 minutes for the Bulls and played insanely bad in this small sample size. I really don’t think he’s a NBA player.

I’d rather see Nate Robinson back in blue and orange than Felder. The latter is truly terrible at NBA basketball.

How are we feeling that were chasing playoffs and not lottery balls?

I feel as much as KP plays outside, there’s no way we can actually have a Center who’s also shooting threes with him on the starting lineup. I mean, if he can shoot the occasional one here and there it’s good of course, but his offensive rebounding is by far the most important thing he does on offense for me.

I think with a guy like Kanter you either take him as he is and compensate his weaknesses elsewhere or you trade him / not re-sign him. We have to remember he also plays most of his posessions with Jarrett Jack, who might have issues stopping me from getting to the paint. Granted, the same issues happened last year with OKC’s good defense, but that’s my point, with him you take the good with the bad.

That’s why I said: “I think with a guy like Kanter you either take him as he is and compensate his weaknesses elsewhere or you trade him / not re-sign him.”

If we want a guy who can stretch the floor next to KP, Kanter is not that guy, it’s better to search for a stretch 4 type, which is far easier to find, than re-sign Kanter for 20 per year and hope he develops in such an unexpected way. I really can’t think of many players who can do what you wish, outside of Horford this year and maybe Towns (who can rebound but can’t or won’t play defense), Myles Turner or Joel Embiid (both who can shoot from the outside but not really well).

I don’t think it’s mutually exclusive. Having a guy like horford or ibaka or Love with KP isn’t much different than what the spurs are doing at times with pau and lma or the nuggets with jokic/milsap and also isn’t that much different from having an extra shooter like Ryan Anderson on the floor. That doesn’t mean the other three guys have to be Courtney lee.

I’m not saying that’s he only way to go with KP, either. You can probably just as well pair him with a big who can take the pressure off on D but is a little more mobile and versatile to at least maintain some of the matchup advantages on offense that you don’t get with a rolo or a kanter who isn’t secretly Kevin Love. But those guys are like impossible to get because they are like Steven Adams or draymond (or maybe young Noah…). but I think we have to face that just sticking kp out there at the true 5 like he was draymond or horford or Marc Gasol is going to be tough until he is willing to do it and seems strong enough to stay healthy/defensively useful l even when he has to guard a guy like Drummond or whiteside.

Pairing him with kanter seems like a waste bc although he has the toughness and drb he is just not a good defender and yet also counteracts some of the unique benefits of having a unicorn on offense.

My feeling is that Kanter is our best C right now. The problem is we don’t know who will be better long term between Kanter and Willy. It’s impossible to know what to do with either of them until we answer that question.

good news (i guess) for timmy – no setbacks to his recovery from his stress “reaction” (located somewhere between his left knee and ankle)…

a lot of this year seems to be about moving forward from the knick teams of the recent past…with that said – once again i’d like to point out how wonderful it is not to have to witness melo’s jab step to nowhere, rose’s eeyore demeanor, or, the mouth breathing of phil in the stands…hopefully though there aren’t too many of those charlotte games in our immediate future…

if so, probably not going to get too much use out of my league pass the next month or so…

would be nice to have both kp and timmy on the court for the bulk of the next month and a half, but, oh well…maybe some how, some way the team will be able to figure out how to pack their confidence and team identity, while playing at the garden, into their suitcases when they hit the road…

Felder has not played well, but he’s still a year younger than Willy and Dotson. I’d love it if we waived Sessions, signed Burke and replaced him in Westchester with Felder. I mean, if Shane Larkin can find a place in the league, so can Kay.

I’m down with that plan!

I agree that, at least for awhile, KP needs to be paired with a good rebounding big, so he fits well with Kanter (KP goes for blocks and Kanter gets the boards). But, could someone else do that for a lot less $? Willy?

I still think that Kanter is a great backup big who is a bit exposed as a starter, and is thus overpaid. He does have the great teammate thing down, though.

Getting a good young three who can D and rebound a bit would further complement KP and Kanter/Willy. And, oh yeah, a better PG (maybe Frank can be that guy, but not right now).

Kanter is tricky. On the one hand you could hurt the team by eventually overpaying. On the other hand if Willy does not exceed him, you hurt the team if you can’t trade him and allow him to walk. The ideal would be for Willy to earn the starting spot and make Kanter expendable or Kanter being willing to come back for less.

I agree, but how much better can we get than Kanter for a similar price? That’s the big question.

I think the answer is not very much, as pretty much every center with a more developed skill set is either not moving or will be incredibly expensive in terms of assets or just salary.

The center market is very odd right now. Some centers, like Cousins and maybe Jordan will command a lot of money. I don’t think Kanter is one of these. But there is not much of a market for ordinary centers because the league trend is to go small. So getting a better center than Kanter at less than he costs might be very hard, but getting a reasonable replacement for less money might be pretty easy. You could even say we have some replacements on our roster. So my guess is that Kanter opts in. That would probably mean that Kanter wants to stay here, which could easily be the case. The fly in that ointment is that then he would be our most tradeable center and we might then trade him. Not because one of the other three centers we have is better, but just because trading him might still leave us with a reasonable line up at center and we could get something we need more.

What makes the Kanter discussion so interesting is how poor of a rebounder KP is at present. Neither he nor Hardaway Jr. are high-efficiency scorers and Kanter’s offensive rebounding and put-back skill is a huge plus. But if he gets paid like he is right now or more, you are committing to him being your 3rd best player, and I don’t see that as a championship formula. I’d rather spend the money on a PG or wing and roll the dice with either Willy or a low-budget lob-catcher who blocks shots.

At the same time I feel like a championship caliber team in New York could hypothetically look like Ntilikina, Hardaway Jr, Michael Porter Jr, Kristaps Porzingis, Enes Kanter as a huge starting five with Ntilikina, Hardaway Jr, McDermott, Porter Jr, and KP closing the game. How unfair would it be to have a 6’5” point guard, 6’6” shooting guard, 6’8” small forward, 6’11 power forward, and a 7’3” center as the main components on your small ball line up? Playing Kanter to start a game gets our energy right and then our size and length should make us a tough team on the boards.

Also, I don’t really know if KP is as bad a rebounds as the stats bear out. I think (and I have no real evidence) that he rebounds better when he’s playing center as opposed to when he’s on court with any of our centers. The thing with our centers is their value is tied directly to their ability to hustle and rebound while KP is the offensive focal point every trip down the floor. If we made KP play more center I think he would grab 2-3 more rebounds per 36.

Part of the reason KP doesn’t rebound well is that he spends so much time on the perimeter. You see that with other stretch big men too. Dirk was never a great offensive rebounder for that reason. He would probably rebound better if it became more of a defined role for him at C. But even then, he doesn’t seem to have much instinct for where the ball is going or any natural level of aggressiveness to go after it. He also gets the ball taken away sometimes by stronger guys. If he just happens to be in the area and it comes to him he gets it. Only on rare nights does he comes out like he wants to get more rebounds. Then he does better. For all we know it’s all on purpose. Maybe he or Hornacek feels that as long as Kanter is rebounding well, they’d rather not have KP banging inside.

Jason Kidd told Middleton to miss a free throw up 3 with 1.4 seconds left. After the game he said it was bc he was afraid of the 4 point play. Something is wrong with the market for NBA coaches.

Did he ever have a drinking problem? 🙂

Sometimes people overthink themselves into silly conclusions.

kp was never really a great rebounder…. he doesn’t really expend energy on the glass … the difference between him and a guy like kanter is night and day and he’ll never be like that… but he doesn’t necessarily need to be….

it’s going to be hard to find an ideal pair for him… we need a decent rebounder and a decent all around defender that can play the 4 and hang on the perimeter…. kanter does about a third of that…. wily i’m not sure if he’ll wind up being the answer either….

there’s not much in the draft for that kind of player…. and the only guy i can see fitting that role would be a guy like noel… who we probably have no shot of signing…

I really have a hard time believing that Jason Kidd could be a better coach than Mark Jackson, who was a terrible coach

Jason Kidd told Middleton to miss a free throw up 3 with 1.4 seconds left. After the game he said it was bc he was afraid of the 4 point play. Something is wrong with the market for NBA coaches.

lol fireable

Funny bc Jason Kidd is one of the smartest basketball minds to ever play. Maybe he just so narcissistic needs to show off by being different. “Hey, I bet you guys never even considered the possibility of the 4-point play!”