Comments on: Knicks Morning News (2017.12.10)

By: ptmilo

ptmilo — Mon, 11 Dec 2017 00:51:10 +0000

do we know for a fact that kp has peripheral vision

By: 2FOR18, understands math

2FOR18, understands math — Mon, 11 Dec 2017 00:26:45 +0000

The way I got over losing out on Curry is that I know if they drafted him, he would have went in the melo deal and my head would have exploded and Dantoni would have quit on the spot and then burned down the Garden and Dolans house.

By: ClashFan

ClashFan — Mon, 11 Dec 2017 00:00:20 +0000

@46
Z-man, it is right there, dead center in my original post. No great master’s thesis, just that draft position is a good thing. There are several currents in today’s thread, and I was not trying to address all of them.

Btw, my example is not about the “hypothetical importance of 1 draft slot.” It actually happened; nothing hypothetical there. The Knicks missed out on Stephen Curry by one spot. Further, it is about the team most of us here root for, the Knicks, a team that hasn’t had a lot of first round picks in recent years, so I think that one example has some relevance.

FWIW, someone else, I think maybe 2for18, brought up that draft earlier today.

By: Knick fan not in NJ at this time

Knick fan not in NJ at this time — Sun, 10 Dec 2017 23:53:25 +0000

But we are right on track to be where most of us thought we would be before the season started…a low-30’s win team and a mid-to bottom of the lottery pick.

The actual average Knickerblogger prediction was 28 wins. Only 5 people out of 25 thought the Knicks would have more than 30 wins this year. You could be right, we’ll regress to under thirty total. If we can’t learn to win on the road, our winning percentage is going to get worse. In a way, this might be a test to see if our veterans can actually teach the youngsters about how to do well on the road.

http://r.search.yahoo.com/_ylt=A0SO8ylsxi1a5N4AnUJx.9w4;_ylu=X3oDMTByb2lvbXVuBGNvbG8DZ3ExBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzcg–/RV=2/RE=1512978156/RO=10/RU=http%3a%2f%2fknickerblogger.net%2fofficial-knicks-2017-18-wins-prediction-thread%2f/RK=2/RS=rnen5GQ6ahwdrtpgM0pPuHQfA1Y-

By: Z-man

Z-man — Sun, 10 Dec 2017 23:50:51 +0000

Clash, you cited the example. My guess was that you were trying to make a point about the hypothetical importance of 1 draft slot, but you can’t really do that without considering the dynamics of that specific draft. Your point was inserted into an argument about tanking to get a higher draft slot, when neither the Knicks nor GSW did so that year and the teams that did never won a championship. If your point wasn’t to say that the GSW was smarter than us, what exactly was your point?

By: BigBlueAL

BigBlueAL — Sun, 10 Dec 2017 23:41:31 +0000

The Knicks wouldn’t have traded Curry for cap space because D’Antoni and Walsh were both in love with him. They traded Hill because he wasn’t very good although he did go on to have some decent success later in his career.

By: ClashFan

ClashFan — Sun, 10 Dec 2017 23:35:47 +0000

@43
All single examples are pretty poor, but that one involves the Knicks, and I did not say that GSW outtanked the Knicks (straw man?), simply that they had the earlier pick. Is that in dispute?

And, if you’re team stinks, nothing wrong with “tanking” by playing young guys and dealing off the vets. The record will take care of itself.

By: Z-man

Z-man — Sun, 10 Dec 2017 23:19:45 +0000

@39, it’s a pretty poor example. GSW did not out-tank us to get that pick; they actually won 4 out of their last 8 games to finish 29-53, while we went 4-13 in our last 17 games. Meanwhile, 5 teams in better draft positions passed over him to take the likes of Hasheem Thabeet and Jonny Flynn (the ever-tanking T-Wolves whiffed twice!) and of those teams, only OKC has been a true contender…and even they fucked up by letting Harden go to keep Ibaka and Perkins in the fold.

Obviously all things being equal, having a higher draft pick is better than having a lower draft pick. But it’s far more complicated than that, as ptmilo points out. It could mean that your team is so badly managed that you have no eye for talent and can’t build a roster full of value players, either through the draft or otherwise. Sacto and Minny are great examples, and before that, the Clips. The Warriors are not a great example. They did pretty much what we have been doing and just picked the right guys after other teams passed on them.

By: thenoblefacehumper

thenoblefacehumper — Sun, 10 Dec 2017 23:11:40 +0000

Ptmilo put it best. Every single piece of data we have demonstrates an almost perfectly linear relationship between draft pick and expected production. If I recall correctly there’s some random stuff here and there (3 being better than 2, etc.), but generally speaking there’s no disputing this.

So you have to weigh that against whatever benefits you think exist from winning games in a clear non-contending year. The higher draft pick has empirical evidence to support it, the winning meaningless games, to my knowledge, does not, though I would be interested to see if there is any information about this. You can probably tell which side I lean towards in this debate.

If we trade Lee and KOQ, I don’t have much of an issue with letting the dominoes fall where they may after that (unless we do something truly bizarre like play Noah and Lance Thomas a ton). There’s no logical reason to not seek to move those guys though.

By: JK47

JK47 — Sun, 10 Dec 2017 22:38:41 +0000

We would have traded Curry to clear cap space for LeBron, then not sign LeBron