(Tuesday, December 19, 2017 9:19:33 PM)
Kristaps Porzingis is expected to return to in time to face a Boston buzz saw Thursday at the Garden. Boston brutalized the Knicks, 110-89, in their lone meeting in late October at TD Garden. In the season’s third game, Porzingis shot 3-of-14 as the Knicks dropped to 0-3. Porzingis said he wasn’t getting any calls…
(Tuesday, December 19, 2017 2:37:48 PM)
When he’s not tearing up the court at Madison Square Garden, Knicks player Kyle O’Quinn spends his Saturday nights tearing up the dance floor with tweenagers. The 27-year-old Queens native has spun his Big Apple fame into a unorthodox side-gig — moonlighting as a bar mitzvah entertainer, according to a new report. “The parties are…
(Tuesday, December 19, 2017 11:56:23 AM)
The Knicks still have no definitive timetable on Tim Hardaway Jr.’s complicated “stress injury” after his “reevaluation.’’ The club announced that “based on his progress,” Hardaway will step up his rehab and courtwork and be reevaluated again in another week. He already has missed the past 16 days with the injury to his lower left…
(Tuesday, December 19, 2017 8:31:03 AM)
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Five thoughts on Monday’s queasy 109-91 Knicks loss in the Queen City: 1. The Knicks’ home-road statistical differentials are staggering, so it’s no surprise the records are so disparate. The Knicks are second in the NBA in home wins with a 14-5 record, but Monday’s meltdown dropped them to 2-9 on the…
(Tuesday, December 19, 2017 6:32:30 AM)
Maybe it was always like this. After all, Joe Namath once missed 30 out of 56 starts in a four-season stretch between 1970 and ’73. Frank Gifford was a glamorous, unscathed football prince one second, laid flat by Chuck Bednarik the next, sent out of football for a whole year. Not just around here, either:…
[NYTimes] How This Lithuanian Outpost Lured LiAngelo and LaMelo Ball (Wednesday, December 20, 2017 10:00:32 AM)
It all started with a message on Twitter in the wee hours of the morning. Less than a week later, the brothers signed a contract and sent the town into a frenzy.
[NYTimes] On Pro Basketball: Why the Dowdy Celtics Are Trying to Wear Supreme (Tuesday, December 19, 2017 11:55:21 PM)
The N.B.A. wants to run a 2017 sports business, and even teams that have historically resisted change are getting on board.
[NYTimes] Our Journalists Share Their Most Memorable Interviews of 2017 (Tuesday, December 19, 2017 4:49:04 PM)
Times reporters reflect on the conversations that stuck with them long after their assignments ended.
(Tuesday, December 19, 2017 5:15:03 PM)
Tim Hardaway Jr. was re-evaluated by the Knicks’ medical staff Tuesday, but the team still isn’t giving a timetable for his return from a stress injury in his lower left leg.
(Tuesday, December 19, 2017 6:43:40 PM)
Knicks guard Tim Hardaway Jr. is progressing in his rehab from a stress injury in his leg, but will be sidelined until at least Dec. 26.
[NYDN] Tim Hardaway Jr. set to ‘advance’ rehab for Knicks (Tuesday, December 19, 2017 1:56:31 PM)
The news on Tim Hardaway Jr. is encouraging as the Knicks announced on Wednesday that “he will advance his rehabilitation and court work.”
[NYDN] How Knicks center Kyle O’Quinn became ‘Bar Mitzvah Man’ (Tuesday, December 19, 2017 9:26:58 AM)
Kyle O’Quinn is known for his defense and rebounding prowess when he hits the floor for New York.
[SNY Knicks] GEICO SportsNite: Will the Knicks come back to Earth? (Wednesday, December 20, 2017 1:14:23 AM)
[SNY Knicks] Daily News Live: How far can Knicks go without a healthy Kristaps Porzingis? (Tuesday, December 19, 2017 5:30:47 PM)
The DNL crew gives their thoughts on the Knicks’ blowout loss last night and how far the Knicks can go without a healthy Kristaps Porzingis.
[SNY Knicks] Hardaway cleared to increase rehab on injured leg (Tuesday, December 19, 2017 4:15:36 PM)
Knicks guard Tim Hardaway, Jr. was re-evaluated on Tuesday and was cleared to “advance his rehabilitation and court work” as he rehabs the stress injury in his left leg, the team announced.
[SNY Knicks] Kyle O’Quinn really likes going to bar/bat mitzvahs (Tuesday, December 19, 2017 12:40:59 PM)
Many know Kyle O’Quinn as the powerful Knicks center, but most don’t realize he is a hot commodity in the bar mitzvah and bat mitzvah scene.
[SNY Knicks] Beasley’s offense overshadowed by defensive woes against Hornets (Tuesday, December 19, 2017 10:10:57 AM)
Knicks F Michael Beasley may have had a team-high 23 points on Monday night, but his overall play wasn’t anything to brag about.
56 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2017.12.20)”
Continuing yesterday’s discussion, it’s pretty clear that Kanter has been injured for the last week or two (he’s also outright said it himself). It’s extremely disappointing that the team is letting him play through it for no discernible benefit rather than just seeing what Willy fuckin’ Hernangomez can do.
Like DRed said, I can understand the decision to not play Willy right now with a fully healthy roster even if I vehemently disagree. With a gimpy Kanter and no KP, there’s really no excuse for it. Complete waste of a rookie-deal year.
I agree. If KP and THJ are out and Kanter is hurting, unless you are playing a bad team and have a shot at the win anyway, rest Kanter to get him healthy again (a longer term plus) and play Willy (a longer term plus). The calculation for what you are giving up in your chances of winning tonight vs. what you are gaining by getting Kanter healthy and Willy minutes is no exact, but sometimes it should be obvious.
Anybody see the story that Turkish government is seeking a 4 year prison term for Enes Kanter’s insults to President Erdogan?
Yeah, it’s pretty insane, but it was expected. Erdogan wants to crack down on support for Fethullah Gülen in any way he can and Kanter is a well known Gülen supporter, so the Turkish government would surely come harder after him as he’s a well known public persona too.
Giving Erdogan the finger makes me like Kanter even more.
I hope Kanter and his family are safe.
I don’t know about you guys, but I’m planning on taking my massive tax cut and buying some mad Knicks gear!
At what point is it worth reconsidering Trey Burke? Is this just another Jimmer situation of a guy too good for the minors and not good enough for the show? He can’t possibly be worse than Sessions, though, and at a certain point the whole “Sessions is here for when Jack suffers his inevitable injury” stops making sense, because Frank is worth starting if that happens. And since Burke isn’t on a two-way contract, I’d like to see what he can do at MSG before someone else takes a flier on him.
Im pretty sure they had to disown him in Turkey to remain safe there.
Here’s a fairly recent article about Burke. Near the very end of the article, there seem to be some hints of off-court and/or effort issues. There’s mentions of “situations” and a need to “stay focused” and limit “distractions.”
The link:
https://www.deseretnews.com/article/865693282/Former-Jazz-guard-Trey-Burke-revives-career-in-NBA-G-League.html
I went to watch the 76ers lose to the Kings last night, wanted to share some thoughts.
First of all, the place is nuts about the process. Mostly full arena for a Tues night game vs. a shitty team. But, it’s got me questioning the process. Without Embiied, they are a flat, small team with no energy; they got abused by big Zack. It seems like with all those picks, all they really have to show for it is Embiied and Simmons, who are both great, but they were picked 1st and 3rd. Saric seems like a decent player for a 12th pic.
Well, a major point of the Process was to collect high draft picks, so we can’t hold it against them that they got good players with high picks.
They also have more picks coming to them, including a Sac/LAL 1st rounder and 7 second-rounders over the next 4 years. And Fultz is coming back soon. So the final chapter of the Process can’t be written for a few years.
They also gave lots of development time to Covington, who’s become one of the best 3 and D wings in the league.
Yeah, despite how weirdly they handled the Noel thing and the bust pick of Okafor, its been far more successful than most detractors ever thought it would be, and that’s with the worst injury issues possible with Simmons, Fultz and Embiid.
They’re struggling a lot without Embiid but also because Covington’s performance has dropped off a cliff. While some regression was to be expected he’s a better player than he is showing lately.
Don’t forget this is the first year they’re all playing together and Simmons is just 21, Fultz is 19 and Embiid is 23. They also project to have 31 million in cap space next year while every core player on the team is already signed for at least 2 more years.
Aside from Colangelo potentially screwing everything, they are in an incredible position.
I don’t believe in Trey Burke, but with the way he’s played in the g league might as well bring him up and see if I’m wrong
Rather than signing him for a minimum contract for 2 years with a team option in the second, I’d rather see Trey Burke play a thousand minutes of league-average play with another team so we can sign him for $50M over four during the offseason.
the “process” is an absolute joke…any strategy which involves continually and purposefully sucking over a 4 or 5 year period is ridiculous…
it’s basically the front office waving the white flag and saying we are so totally inept at scouting talent and negotiating free agent deals that – we give up and are just gonna hope for the best with high draft picks…
wanna trust a process – trust the jazz, spurs, raptors, celtics…only one team a year wins the last game of the season – everyone else’s season ends with a loss…much better to win 45 to 50 games a year than to lose 60 games a year – year after year…
sure, fast forward three years from now – and, depending on player health (which is not always so dependable), and, maybe, just maybe – the 76’s will compete in the ecf…
The process didn’t involve sucking for 5 years intentionally. They just got unlucky. Some of Hinkies moves didn’t make sense, and he did a bad job selling his plan, but in broad strokes it’s pretty sensible.
To be honest, I’m glad the process whiffed on selecting Porzingis. It would entirely have been possible that they trotted out Embiid, Porzingis and Simmons. Not sure what they would have done in last year’s draft, but we dodged a bullet there.
After your first sentence, I expected to read, “the knicks could have ended up with Okafor”.
(If the knicks picked 3rd)
the process isn’t a real thing. it’s 90% a story borne of coincidences and hinkie’s bizarre personality. noel and embiid were totally normal picks; it’s just a coincidence the Sixers happened to sit in spots where stud draft picks with injury risk started to make sense. very unusual. the holiday trade was a no brainer. the #10 and #6 for an decent player already off his rookie deal on a team that won 28 games last year? can’t say no. the MCW trade wasn’t tanking at all. he wasn’t a win now player (or a win ever player), it was just a good trade.
the elfrid payton trade was incredible. again, not a tanking move. payton was not going to produce wins as as rookie. they got saric, a 2nd (hi billy where r u?) and another 1st (what ended up being the 5th pick in the 2017 draft!) for payton. an awesome trade.
thad young was a tanking-type trade, but if you’re a horrible team as they were & you don’t want to trade thad young for a 1st why are waking up in the morning.
so what else did they do? refuse to resign evan fucking turner and spencer hawes? taking meetings with greg monroe or robin lopez? they would have been really bad no matter what. when a bad team gets offered two top 10 picks for jrue holiday and then happens to land an injured draft pick, they are going to be worse. the process comes to them. it wasn’t even 17 wins or 30 wins. it was 17 wins or 21 wins.
the true story of the process is not any of the shit hinkie did, but the andrew bynum trade. people forget what the sixers gave up in return for nothing: 1. Andre Iguodala. 2. Nicola Vucevic. 3. ultimately the #5 pick in 2017 4. Mo Harkless. this is the trade hinkie inherited. he had to make a great trade just to get that #5 pick back (payton) then made another great trade to turn it into the #3 pick. so Brian C then gave the Lakers pick & the Tatum pick for Fultz, picks that were all but manufactured out of thin air by hinkie. the process…
I guess my point on the sixers is this…there’s a lot of talk on here about tanking. but, tanking isn’t enough. You also have to draft well, and get lucky. I mean, the sixers are an extreme example of tanking. And there success isn’t great. I mean:
-You have a #1 overall pick who looks like a star, but missed an entire year
-a #1 overall pick who has missed the first 1/3 of his rookie year and has big questions
-a #3 overall pick who looks insanely good but missed the better part of 2 years.
-a #3 overall pick who you traded for nothing
-a #6 overall pick that you traded Jrue Holliday for (and you got a 1), who you later let go for nothing.
They did turn the 1 they got for Noel (Efrid Payton) into Saric, a 1 and a 2.
And for all that, their fans sat thru 4 years where they averaged 19 wins. I mean, they picked in the top 3 four times.
I’m in on promoting Trey Burke, if only to keep him away from other teams. Why do we have Sessions if he doesn’t play? Why do we have a G-League team if we don’t promote deserving players. His stats:
MIN: 36.9 , APG: 5.6, TS%: 60.6, +/-: 7.6, Ortg: 112.5, Drtg: 101.8, 3pt%: 43.6
Hinkie didn’t do the Fultz or Noel moves. Since Colangelo came on, they’ve been acting much more like a “normal” NBA franchise, like offering a designated-player max to Embiid despite the enormous injury risk, and trading future firsts to move up a couple slots in the draft. I’m a little confused as to whether you’re criticizing Hinkie’s plan or the abortion that Colangelo has attempted in his 18 months as president. They’re very different strategies.
And I’m not sure what the #6 overall pick refers to. They don’t have a #6 anywhere in their recent draft history.
Noel was taken 6th
You also have to draft well, and get lucky.
i mean, yeah duh. running an nba team is like a lot of things in life where the best you can do is risk everything and sweat your ass off just to hope you manage to tilt the wavefunction enough to slightly improve your odds of opening the box with the still breathing cat. but none of the supposedly “tanking” moves hinkie made were either radical or dumb, just the opposite. if you are a 28 win team and can trade jrue holiday on a non-rookie deal for the #6 pick and next year’s #10 pick you need to do that every time, even though your picks’ outcome will ultimately have a large who-the-hell-knows component. that is the only process part that was real. sometimes you put yourself in a good position and then you take okafor over porzingis. the irony is the sixers ended up in a pretty good position. they have two guys who if they stay healthy will be worth more than their max contracts and they might have time to acquire a third before they are capped out. that is not a process it is the live cat.
san antonio may make it seem like you don’t have to take a lot of uncertainty and risk but you do. give buford and pop enough time and they’ll open the wrong box despite odds in their favor, too, and suffer the consequences. the existence of that uncertainty itself doesn’t answer the question of how to balance a few low value wins today against few unpredictable probability points tomorrow when you’re in charge of a team with shitty assets.
that was too funny ptmilo – the process came to them 🙂
i do get the whole bottoming out thing…it’s just some franchise trying to sell it as a strategy seems silly…
although, can’t argue with the lakers, wolves, 76’s prospects going forward…
seems the way to go in baseball now also…
They probably should have stayed at 3 and drafted Tatum, but our boy Frank also seems like he’d be a great fit there. With Simmons as the primary ball hander, a lot of Frank’s weaknesses are covered, and you get the full benefit of the havoc he creates on defense and his ability to guard opposing 1s. Trading down and adding Frank would have been smart, in hindsight.
Of course, Fultz could very well end up fulfilling expectations, too.
All fair. But we’ve been just as bad, we’ve drafted very well, they’ve had a nincompoop come in and screw up Hinkie’s plan, and they’re still in better shape than us, so….
Yeah, the “Process” was just a standard complete teardown, the only difference was that they didn’t bother hiding it like other teams doing complete teardowns did. Sam Presti paid lip service to the Sonics/Thunder not doing the same thing and he didn’t get any shit. Hinkie went all in with vocally saying that they were not going to be trying to win in the short term and that was the downfall of him.
I agree w/ Cock that Collangelo is handling things differently. I guess my 2 points are:
-the idea of tanking, which we talk a lot about on here, is really over-simplifying things.
-Kinda a brilliant piece of marketing that Hinke did. tear it all down, lose for 4 straight years, don’t draft particularly well (he was good at taking bigs and hurt players), but give it a really cool name, and when you finally get it right once or twice, the fans will buy in!
Hubert, we did draft well, but we didn’t draft many players because our picks were already traded. That’s different from Philly. Our misery was probably just as bad as that of Philly fans, or maybe worse, but I’m pretty sure our win total was better.
I agree with you almost entirely but I think that in not paying lip service to the idea of winning at all, it did allow Hinkie to go like 5% further than your standard rebuild. I don’t think just about any other GM would have taken the first “prize” asset of a rebuild and trade him away after a season where he just won rookie of the year like Hinkie did with MCW. And that was a phenomenal trade.
Same idea when it comes to picking both Embiid and Saric in the same draft knowing neither was going to play at all at first, which allowed them to all out tank another season. I think most GMs would have felt “forced” to take a guy ready to play after Embiid to have something to show for the draft right away to allude to the idea of progress towards winning even if it’s in the smallest, most meaningless way.
Basically I do think Hinkie went further than anyone had before, even if it was only slightly further than your “standard” teardown. And his brutal honesty about it was definitely the bigger factor in eventually getting him canned.
The uncertainty of the draft was inherently built into the concept, though. Lose for multiple years because the odds are that you won’t hit every year, so you give yourself the most opportunities to hit before you then start building around the assets that you did get.
Yeah, fair enough, Hinkie probably did go slightly beyond a typical teardown. The basic framework, though, was just your standard NBA teardown. If you don’t think your team has a realistic chance of competing for a top seed in the near future, tearing down always makes the most sense. It has for decades.
Hinkie was a victim of the “immediate gratification” culture that has been epitomized by Knicks management since forever. He was on the right track but got busted by impatience. Those clunker picks didn’t help his cause, but he’s why the Sixers have a bright immediate future.
I can still remember when we traded Darrell Walker for a #1 pick and then traded that pick for Juwann Oldham (never mind that the Bulls drafted Olden Polynice with that pick when the next 3 picks were Derrick Mckie, Horace Grant and Reggie Miller, or that we traded the pick that became Scottie Pippin as BC wrote about way back when.) We are only now starting to recover from that bug.
Oh man, you’ve sadly now reminded me of how Knick impatience really has gone back multiple decades by now. Ugh. It’s like, they were patient for one brief period in the 1960s and they ended up with their only two titles and they’ve decided to never follow that path again for some reason.
How about when we signed the great Pat Cummings as a free agent and gave up the 2nd round pick that was used to draft Mark Price as part of the compensation rule for signing FAs?
@22
That’s one reason I think the tank strategy is now overrated.
When you are in the lottery, having more ping pong balls does not guarantee you a better pick. Even if you do get a pick equal or better than expected, there is no guarantee you select a good player let alone the best player available in your area of the draft. There is some luck involved even among experts. The incremental value gained from a tank must be weighed against the financial downsides to sending out a terrible team, the loss of a potential playoff drive and experience, and the lesser ability to attract quality players to a perennial loser.
Of course, if a super tank falls into your lap (like KP & Hardaway are out for the season or David Robinson is out for the season), then the difference between where you would have picked and where you will pick is going to be so large, you have a unique opportunity to add a very good player to an already good team.
I should add that if you are willing to raise the risk of getting fired by getting rid of every player that can help the team now for future picks you can do that. You will suck for a log time and get several good picks. But no one other than Hinkie was really thinking in those terms. They mostly tear down their teams and then start building with a combination of strategies like Ainge. Some have just drafted and traded so poorly they’ve sucked for a long time by accident – which of course exposes the risks inherent in a “mostly draft” strategy.
this is a perfect example of what I’m saying. If the draft is such a sure thing, why didn’t we take Price 5th, instead of Kenny “sky” walker?
The shame is that Jax was dealt the perfect hand for the tear-it-down strategy. All he had to do was not re-sign Melo.
Alas…
just finished watching the laker game…man are they a fun team to watch…
sooooo many good young players, josh hart had a real good game – played excellent defense…
brandon ingram, kyle kuzma are gonna be beasts…crazy athletic and composed…
liked the shaq lakers, hated the kobe lakers…love these young lakers…
That MCW trade was quite ballsy and possibly unprecedented. Has any 1st year player ever been traded immediately after winning ROY? (Not including Webber, who asked out). Like Hinkie or hate him, but you have to admit that he pushed the envelope quite far.
Hinkie’s two glaring flaws were admitting to his plan and curiously drafting 3 centers in league going small.
There are situations when tanking makes sense – Not when you have a young, hungry team playing .500 ball with a revitalized coach and new management . . . that’s only a couple of pieces away from being a top four seed in the conference.
I admit that I need to eat crow on David West. Dude is playing out of his mind and has fully bought into the Warriors’ system. He leads the team in blocks per possession. Crazy for an age-37 NBA player to be able to claim that on one of the league’s best defenses.
Even better, sign and trade Melo! It was all right there, ready for the taking!
Sure, add Kevin Durant and Steph Curry to the Hawks and they’re a top four seed in the conference, too. It doesn’t mean anything to say that the Knicks are two really good players away from being a good team when there is no realistic way of them getting said players.
I still like Okafor and I can’t believe that they didn’t just trade the pick. It made no sense to draft Okafor there. Definitely the worst move Hinkie ever made. Just trade the pick!
Few Rookies of the Year were like MCW. He was a particularly bad Rookie of the Year. Most Rookies of the Year are really good players. Would it shock you if the Bucks traded Brogdon this year? No, right? Because Brogdon was also a particularly bad ROY. The guys that don’t get traded in their second year are the studs. MCW was clearly not a stud. He just came out in a terrible top end of the draft where the best players all took time to develop.
Has any 1st year player ever been traded immediately after winning ROY?
Elton Brand for Tyson is the obvious one.
Brand was traded after his second season, no?
Hinkie got two problems:
1) He overdid it. He did not try to sign good young players (like Khris Middleton) to keep tanking.
2) The draft balances the power in the league, but it was seen as the 76ers were taking unfair advantage out of it. I believe that Adam Silver made some comments to pressure the 76ers not to keep with the tank, and that resulted in Hinkie’s firing.
The real solution would be to get rid of the draft, put a lottery wheel or something else into play, and let the cap rules be the only balance to the NBA. Keeping a system that rewards tanking, which is disliked by fans and frowned upon by the NBA, does not make sense to me. Still, the success ratio of tanking teams seems low enough that this system will stay in place until FOs figure it out.
He was missing 2 first round picks in his first 3 years. That’s not ideal. It’s a disaster.
If only there was a team that wanted Melo that had two first round picks burning a hole in their pocket back when Melo was available for a sign and trade…