Yeah, I think it is just a matter of defining what “tanking” means. I think tanking means getting rid of veteran players who won’t be part of the next good Knicks team (while not taking back other veteran players who won’t be part of the next good Knicks team – so it means keeping Noah, because you can’t get rid of him otherwise and it means keeping Lee unless a team will just give the Knicks a first rounder and an expiring or just a first rounder) and playing the young guys. If the young guys make the playoffs, great. But falling short of the playoffs with a rotation heavy with guys who won’t be part of the next good Knicks team is the ultimate waste.

If you’re defining tanking as benching all your good players and, like, having Mark Madsen shoot 8 threes a game, then sure, I’m not for that, either.

You’re talking about the ultra extreme then… that’s your definition? If you took off all the solid role players from the Knicks and replaced them with the best young 2nd rounders you could find while keeping Noah and maybe Lance for locker room leadership, this is a 20-25 win team no question and finishes with a top 5 pick no question and likely develops 1-2 solid rotation players from those young players and has them signed for 3-4 years for next to nothing and actually now has some upside. Even with Kanter (who has been coming down to earth after the insane start), it’s still likely a top 5 pick team.

That’s a plan that a lot of people here would call “tanking”. Would you?

I agree it’s highly unlikely and this team is better than last year’s, but all I’m saying is it’s not impossible. If the veterans leave and one injury happens, we could be closer to the bottom than we thought was possible.

Our record last year at 14-12 was deceiving. Our point differential last year was much worse than this year, meaning a correction was in order. Our SRS was also much worse last year. We had a team filled with drama and discord, we lost our starting C for the last 30 games of the season, our PG for the last month and KP was shut down with 2 weeks to go. On top of all that Melo started mailing it in halfway through the season.

It took a lot of things to go wrong to start 14-12 and end with 31 wins, which was only bad enough for the 8th pick anyway. We might not be a great team but I don’t see a complete implosion looming. Do you really think this team is as dysfunctional as last year’s? The only way this team ends with under 28 wins at this point is a season ending KP injury or massive discord and a complete collapse. Both of which would not be worth moving up from 12-16 to 8-12.

I’m betting there will be at least 7 teams with less than 25 wins this year. It is going to be a very tank heavy close to this season. We just can’t compete.

I really do. The Knicks were 14-12 last season with 26 games done, and finished with 31 wins, 17-39 in total, and that’s with no big injuries.

Hardaway is still going to be out for a little while, if Lee + O’Quinn get traded for picks and you insert Ntilikina, Dotson, Willy playing big minutes it’s definitely not a complete stretch to believe this team could win 14-16 games total for the rest of the season, specially with their road record. I wouldn’t bet on less than 12, that seems a bit too much, but I could see this being a 27-30 win team still.

What do 100 minutes of three man combo stats tell us?

That we should play them more together until we get 200 minutes of three man combo stats

Tanking is trying to lose, not playing young guys or focusing on the future, but actively trying to lose games.

Teams tank by benching or shutting down productive players, even young ones, by cutting or trading productive players with the sole purpose of losing games. Tanking would be shutting down KP, trading Lee for nothing and playing Beasley and Sessions and other scrap heap players to ensure losing. Teams often play young players to tank, because young players are often bad and they can sell it as “trying to win” but if the goal is more to lose than to develop players then that is tanking.

I have no problem trading Lee and O’Quinn for good returns, I think Baker, Dotson and Frank should all play heavy minutes but I also want KP to thrive and the Knicks to win. We realistically can’t tank as long as KP is playing. The bottom 7-8 teams will all probably win less than 25 games, especially since the top of this draft is so stacked. Does anyone think we have a shot at winning less than 12 games for the remainder of the season if KP is playing.

The New York Knicks are outscoring opponents by 15.3 points per 100 possessions when Doug McDermott, Frank Ntilikina and Kristaps Porzingis share the floor.https://t.co/7YXR1aGhNI pic.twitter.com/be9DlufPmZ— Andy Bailey (@AndrewDBailey) December 11, 2017