(Wednesday, December 20, 2017 9:59:29 AM)
Philadelphia 76ers center Joel Embiid, sidelined with a sore back, could miss two more games this week but is expected to return for the Christmas Day meeting with New York.
(Wednesday, December 20, 2017 7:49:49 AM)
Prosecutors are seeking more than four years in prison for the Knicks’ Enes Kanter on charges of insulting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, according to Anadolu Agency, Turkey’s state-run news agency. Kanter would be tried in absentia.
[NYDN] Knicks still have to find a way to beat Danny Ainge’s Celtics (Wednesday, December 20, 2017 8:18:10 PM)
Danny Ainge is a lethal combination of patient and shrewd. Boston always wins, right?
[NYDN] Porzingis expects to play vs. Celtics but still has to be cleared (Wednesday, December 20, 2017 8:17:11 PM)
Kristaps Porzingis survived practice without an issue and expects to return for Thursday’s national TV matchup against the Celtics.
[NYDN] Knicks’ Enes Kanter sacrificed everything to fight Turkish leader (Wednesday, December 20, 2017 8:16:21 PM)
Enes Kanter woke up to the news Wednesday morning that he’s a wanted criminal facing over four years in prison.
[NYDN] Kanter on facing Turkish prison sentence: Four years? That’s it? (Wednesday, December 20, 2017 8:02:45 AM)
Enes Kanter won’t be intimidated — by NBA stars or the Turkish government.
[NYDN] Enes Kanter wanted in Turkey for insulting country’s president (Wednesday, December 20, 2017 7:04:40 AM)
Turkey’s state-run news agency says prosecutors are seeking more than four years in prison for Enes Kanter.
[NYTimes] How This Lithuanian Outpost Lured LiAngelo and LaMelo Ball (Thursday, December 21, 2017 6:34:09 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] Our Journalists Share Their Most Memorable Interviews of 2017 (Wednesday, December 20, 2017 7:30:55 PM)
Times reporters reflect on the conversations that stuck with them long after their assignments ended.
(Wednesday, December 20, 2017 10:13:00 PM)
Kristaps Porzingis moved well during the end of practice Wednesday. He hit a couple of shots, ran out to close on a shooter and emphatically swatted a shot inside.
(Wednesday, December 20, 2017 6:42:00 PM)
Enes Kanter is more concerned about the Knicks making the playoffs than he is about the Turkish government trying to jail him.
(Wednesday, December 20, 2017 7:30:08 PM)
Tim Hardaway Jr. will be an expensive cheerleader for the 10th straight game Thursday night, but his status seems to at least be trending in the right direction. On Tuesday, the Knicks announced Hardaway, out since Nov. 29 with a vaguely-described stress injury to his lower left leg, will increase his rehab and courtwork and…
(Wednesday, December 20, 2017 3:24:03 PM)
This is one game Kristaps Porzingis desperately doesn’t want to miss — not after the way he performed the first time the Knicks faced the Celtics. The opportunity to defeat the team with the best record in the Eastern Conference at home on national television is one he is relishing. And, fortunately for the Knicks,…
(Wednesday, December 20, 2017 9:09:59 AM)
Knicks star Enes Kanter is laughing in the face of thin-skinned Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is trying to jail the hoopster for 48 months for talking smack about Erdogan’s foul regime. “I was like, ‘That’s it? Only four years?’ All the trash I’ve been talking?” said the 6-11 center, who was born in…
[SNY Knicks] Porzingis goes through full practice, hopes to play Thursday night (Wednesday, December 20, 2017 12:03:37 PM)
Knicks F Kristaps Porzingis was a full practice participant on Wednesday, and he hopes to be able to play against the Celtics on Thursday night, according to multiple sources.
[SNY Knicks] Enes Kanter threatened with prison time for insulting Turkey President Erdogan (Wednesday, December 20, 2017 10:46:15 AM)
Turkish government is seeking more than four years of prison time for Knicks C Enes Kanter on charges of insulting Turkey’s present — Recep Tayyip Erdogan, per ESPN.
44 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2017.12.21)”
Keeping with the last thread, 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.
The idea is to create competitive balance in the league. That makes for more competitive games and fewer financially unhealthy teams. The problem with helping teams that may be a little down on their luck is that rewarding failure (the lottery) creates a negative incentive at the margin. That’s true whether we are talking about basketball teams or people. It’s not easy to balance help vs. negative incentive.
The superstar system of refereeing does not exactly help matters.
Whats a girl gotta do to see the best player on our team play tonight against a #FakeTopSeed?
Pretty funny that Kelly Olynyk torched his old team last night in Boston.
KP should come out with a serious attitude tonight (assuming he plays) The Celtics abused him up in Boston; I also hope Horny watches lots of film from that game and plans accordingly.
The more I think about it, the more I think that PHI just kind of got weirdly lucky. Their draft picks got hurt and they were able to get more picks as a result. So, they stockpiled 4 top five picks. “The Process” had to do with keeping payroll low and not signing band aid FA’s. This is something that would have benefitted NYK and was Hinckie’s smartest play
Meanwhile, Okafor and Fultz have amounted to nothing (so far) and they’re 14-16 with their PG and C of the future plus JJ Redick, etal. If they had drafted Porzingis and Tatum? Wow… what could have been.
It shows, that any strategy is fraught. Knicks are actually in pretty much as good a shape and at least made a good faith effort (though extremely flawed) in trying to put a good product on the floor.
Looks like, based on PHI’s so so drafting, both teams are in the same basic spot. We have some more long term salary on the books but basically similar, right?
Philly basically has two guys in the same stratosphere as Porzingis (extremely young and already performing at a very high level) plus Fultz who was the #1 pick in this loaded draft (shoulder is obviosuly a concern). They also have Saric and some extra picks going forward. Their cap is also in good shape going forward. They’re not as far ahead of us as they might be if they’d hit on more of their picks (and I wasn’t a fan of moving up to get Fultz although obviously nobody knew it would go this poorly), but they’re pretty far ahead of us nonetheless.
Not to mention the fact that the Knicks would have to go over the cap to even bring back this year’s team next year. So, yeah, huh?
The idea behind The Process is to suck until you get a really good player or two. So if you tank for a year and draft Lebron James 2.0, you probably only suck for two years. The goal is that when you get your good young star(s) you’re in a nice position to surround them with talent because you have a pretty clean cap and some assets.
ESPN/Begley article about the Knicks that makes both Phil and Melo both look rather bad. I found the alleged confrontation between Melo and Rambis interesting:
http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/21828352/implosion-rebuilt-new-york-knicks
@4 – Turn on the tube or buy a ticket.
@9 – Right again. I guess the question is, do we have our new core yet? I think we need 1 or 2 more players to be here. And Brian is also right. Our salary cap is a mess because of Noah. We’re bound to lose 2-3 good players next season.
In my mind, we’re where we need to be with the exception of the horrific Noah contract. I can’t see us being able to pay Kanter, Noah, O’Quinn and Wily next season – yet Kanter and O’Quinn are my new favorite Knicks and I think we lose one of them, most likely O’Quinn.
The best move we can but won’t make is to trade Lee and O’Quinn now for a controllable contract or picks.
Interesting article, but also oddly written with the numbered sections. It’s like he couldn’t be bothered to just write a cohesive article, so he just threw up a bunch of bullet point topics. Odd.
Did anyone ever explain why the Melo to Houston deal fell apart?
Everything I read on the subject says the players thought it happening, but it never made any sense to me without a 3rd team. That seemed somewhere between difficult and impossible to pull off unless someone was willing to get screwed with Anderson’s contract. Houston didn’t have any assets they could use to entice someone to take Anderson.
That Begley article was good. It confirms that we had a bunch of cancerous individuals (Melo + Phil) on the team last year.
What annoys me about this is that it was published now, when it doesn’t matter. While there was innuendo last season, a reporter with balls would have put this stuff out there a year ago.
The Sixers are definitely a step or two ahead of the Knicks, even if Fultz turns out to be a bust, simply because they have talent and flexibility. We might have talent, at least as much in terms of question mark players, but we don’t have nearly the same flexibility and assets.
I might be alone in thinking this, but I think The Process itself and the picks Philly made are largely separate. What I mean by that is based on where Philly has picked, they could have had all of the following players:
Ben Simmons
Kristaps Porzingis
Joel Embiid
Jayson Tatum
Nerlens Noel
Robert Convington
TJ McConnell
Richaun Holmes
I’m sure there are a few I’m forgetting and I didn’t think it was fair to include players that plenty of teams missed (e.g. they picked MCW over Giannis).
My point is, what other strategy in the NBA even gives you the opportunity to amass talent at that level? While it’s true that Philly appears to have missed badly on some picks, The Process itself gave them a chance to have a truly epic team. Missing on the picks is a separate issue, and despite missing on a few they’re still in great shape because the margin of error is so big.
I bet it came down to Portland balking at taking Ryan Anderson. I think that Houston thought that they had a deal at one point where Portland would accept Anderson and it just fell apart.
No, I agree on that. I think Hinkie has even spoken in the past on the idea that you are going to miss out on some picks. The goal is to just get as many top five picks as you can and not load up your cap with wasteful cap killers and then the idea is that eventually it should work out that you have a good young team and then you can supplement the team through free agency due to having so much cap room available.
Yeah I don’t think people would be complaining about the process if they were able to roll out a KP, Simmons and Embiid lineup. They’re also unlucky in having one of the worst training staffs in professional sports.
@4. Load up NBA 2K18 and turn injuries off.
@19: That was probably the most realistic what if result of the Process. And as I said previously, I’m glad they whiffed on it. While it’s a team wrought with injury concerns. That team would be the future of the league.
Still, the Sixers are still ahead of us in the futures department, if only because our salary situation and theirs are not at all similar. Luckily, things like that can change with one good deal for us (or one bad deal for them).
OK, thanks. I guess this makes a lot of sense. Let’s beat them on Christmas anyway and take care of the C’s tonight. I’m pretty confident about our prowess at home right now. Let’s at least hope the team can remain competitive and stay healthy. We can’t exactly outrun our past failures in the short term but we can have some fun this season and next, potentially, and move up an echelon after that.
Philly could have 6 draft picks this year.
My takeaway from that Bagley article is that I’m very happy we didn’t trade Melo for Jabari Parker.
Isn’t he supposed to be back soon?
It’s a shame what happened to him. I think he actually had a chance to become a top player if he stayed healthy. I liked what I saw out of him way more than I liked Wiggins.
My takeaway from the article was that I would have accepted a quart of sour milk to get rid of Melo.
Agreed. Parker at least had certain things where he was clearly very good at. Wiggins is just sort of “okay” at a lot of things.
Carmelo Anthony is a good guy with enormous talent. He played an ugly style that could win it all at any level, except the NBA.
Phil Jackson is an egomaniac asshole and an awful GM.
If Parker really became a good 3 point shooter and wasn’t just a guy shooting pretty well for half a season he’s a useful player. He’s still just 22. But coming off another knee injury I don’t want to be the team that makes a large bet on him.
I really wish someone like Shaq or Kareem made their way to the NBA again. I’d like to see what would happen to the style of the game we play today if someone that could totally dominate inside wreaked havoc like those guys could and you couldn’t play small ball without giving up 40 and 16.
@26
If the team president asks you to meditate each day either because it has worked for him with great players in the past or because he’s a crackpot hippie stoned on hash all the time, you sit down, take it seriously, meditate, and set a good example as a leader. Nodding off and turning it into a joke is one small example of why Karl has talked badly about him, D’Antoni quit or got fired because of him, and Phil finally concluded that he was mistaken about him initially and was rumored to be wiling to buy him out and get nothing in return just to get him the hell off the team.
When the Cavs were playing poorly because of spacing and other issues and didn’t have enough punch on the bench, Wade went to the team and said he thought they would be better off if he came off the bench.
When a journalist in OKC recently asked Melo whether the team might be better off with him coming off the bench (an idea that many smart basketball people think might be better), Melo laughed at him.
He’s a LOSER!
You mean, like Porzingis? Because he should really be like Kareem, who never was a huge intimidator but used his finesse and feel to become one of the most unstoppable players ever.
Speaking of which, I have been watching some video on Kuzma, who’s come out of nowhere this year (apologies to Knickerbloggers who were high on him, but I don’t remember him ever coming up). He is really adept at versions of the skyhook – one-handed finesse shots around the hoop. Very difficult to stop. KP really needs to pick up that shot; how dominant would he be then?
I hate Melo’s game. He’s a selfish styled hero-baller on the court. I cringed when they traded for him. Yes – as a player, he’s a loser.
So, I wondered why his teammates spoke so highly of him. I thought a lot about it and realized it’s because he’s a good guy. A good person. I know a lot of people don’t care about that. I do.
That was the the intention of my comment. It was about his demeanor. Ironically, he’s more zen than the pseudo Zen Master will ever be.
I’m happy they’re both gone.
I recall Melo standing up for KP a couple of times during his rookie season when guys tried to intimidate him on court, etc. I think one was vs. Atlanta. That was good to see.
About the Zen thing, yeah, just do it. You’re being paid millions of dollars.
🙂
Melo was wrong but fuck Phil. Im pretty sure if he didnt come here the Knicks would have been better off
Phil is a bit of a dinosaur. The game and players were changing around him in a way he did not like. He tried to turn back the clock and prove he could win without a team of all time greats. It didn’t work.
With that Begley article, and stars sacrificing for just a chance to win, it makes Melo look VERY BAD. You’ll get no argument from me on the loser sentiment. I mean..he just looks awful in that light. His actions haven’t felt winner-ish, except the surface reactions to the Phil thing.
It is possible that both Melo and Phil are to blame.
I think you can blame Melo for not passing more and for not playing any defense at all last year because he was pouting. Otherwise it’s not his fault he took way more money than he was worth.
That Begley article left me with the impression that Melo is a generally good dude and a good teammate. Unfortunately he’s got a big ego as a basketball player and didn’t like Phil telling him he wasn’t good enough, so he rebelled. Phil, whose ego is the size of Saturn, didn’t like being challenged and the relationship spiraled from there.
The bottom line is that the Knicks were caught in a power play between an egomaniac who was really bad at his job and an apathetic player who was kind of bad at his job. And what a coincidence, the team sucked.
Carmelo Anthony seems like a better person than Phil Jackson, but they were both woefully bad at their jobs as members of the New York Knicks and us being rid of both of them is no small reason we’ve had relative success this year.
i am probably in the minority but i would have gladly taken parker for melo…. there are worse things to bet on than a talented 21 yo…
It all has worked out so far. Instead of Jabari Parker we have Kanter and McDermott. Phil is chewing on shrooms in Montana, while Melo is helping OKC tank. All good things. I no longer care about last year.
What I care about is BEATING THE CELTICS TONIGHT!
I’m pretty confident, if he’s not 100% done physically, that Parker will be a valuable player. I would be fine with taking a gamble on him for Melo, the only real issue is having to pay him this year without seeing much. I’m happy with how it went eventually.
While I agree it’s a fascinating one to ponder I think it’s worth noting that the end of illegal defense has changed so much. The ability to zone up really early makes straight post-ups way less effective as an offensive strategy. It not only makes the entry passes much harder but means that double teams arrive much earlier than they used to if you choose to double on the catch. I think teams would be able to (somewhat) effectively stop them from getting 40 that way, the question is how much they’d get killed by open 3s out of the post.
Shaq was always a surprisingly good passer (Kareem was before my time), but I really think they’d have to do a lot more of it in the modern game. Trying any form of straight up 1 on 1, whether it’s a post up or isolation is just so much less effective now than it used to be with every team overloading the strong side.