damn! Throwback Tyson alley oop inbound for the win.

He makes something like a gazillion dollars to play for them, so I can’t feel too bad for the guy, but ugh, he still could be a helpful piece on a contender instead of languishing his career away in Phoenix.

But KP is a much more willing passer and team oriented player.

He’s not a more willing passer.

I hope this is something he’s not locked into. KP was a willing passer when he first came here.

But KP is a much more willing passer and team oriented player.

He’s not a more willing passer. You pass him the ball, he’s shooting that ish. His 33.7 USG% and 6.9% AST% speak to this. Melo never had an AST% that low in his entire ballhogging career.

If you stuck him on a team where he was 3rd or 4th option and he only shot when he was at the rim, drawing fouls, wide open spotting up for 3, and squared up relatively close over a smaller player, he’d have a TS% over 60%.

This is literally the argument people made about Melo for years, and this year is proving it’s bullshit.

Two players having similar stat lines doesn’t mean they are similar type players. It’s an abuse of metrics.
That being said, KP was thrust into a similar role as Melo was, so there will be similarities. But KP is a much more willing passer and team oriented player. He’s 22 and stilling piecing his game together. Being the #1 option on an NBA team is a new role, the most difficult he’s ever had to play. Now add double teams to the mix. This is a enormous load to lift.
KP spent the off-season getting physically stronger and refining new moves. Now he has new stuff to work on. He’s acknowledged it.
Melo is a different animal. He was one of the best of a generation at creating his own shot, but also a ball stopping, hero baller more concerned with scoring than winning, with no commitment to defense that refused to change his ways. That’s not KP.

BTW, for entertainment purposes only, check this out, SI.com’s “redraft” of last year’s draft. It has the Knicks taking Anunoby and Frank being undrafted through the first 14 (yet Monk is in there at 13):

https://www.si.com/nba/2017/12/25/2017-nba-draft-jayson-tatum-lonzo-ball-markelle-fultz-kyle-kuzma

Woj said that Jackson was into Jackson, so I presume Jackson would have been the guy (since, as you note, Tatum was going to be off the board).

Jackson has been pretty bad so far. We’ll see what he becomes.

I’m not buying that we know what Phil was actually thinking beyond that “if” he did something with Phoenix, Booker would have to be part of it. I’m not sure Phil knew what he was doing. 🙂

Honestly, I still don’t think he would have pulled the trigger. Just talking about it was probably one of the straws that broke the camel’s back. Porzingis has been hyped to hell, the fans love him, he’s very good with the press, and it’s a shame that this matters, but he’s a white guy. He’s a marketers dream. There were probably deals that made sense, but you’d get crucified if you did it.