Knicks Morning News (2018.01.03)

I’ve generally been impressed with Hornacek, but he really isn’t helping KP at all.
It seemed they made a conscious effort to get KP on high PNR actually rolling and not popping last night… but did it with another true big clogging the paint, so every time Kp got the ball on the roll, Aldridge or whoever was covering Kanter/KOQ was just standing there. Yes, KP could have and maybe should have made the extra pass, but he just doesn’t have that in his arsenal yet. There were 3-4 possessions like that last night, and KP predictably threw up some garbage or had to kill the possession passing out.

But the whole idea of getting KP on the roll is great, but the implementation was just bad last night.

Sounds like Frank was physically ill last night which is why he only played 15 min and didn’t look particularly energetic. But McDermott has been straight awful for a couple weeks now. When his shot is this off, he just doesn’t do a lot, and defensively he is a mess against a team like the Spurs. I would really like to have seen Dotson get a few more minutes last night in McD’s place. I know they only sort of play the same position, but Dotson is big enough and strong enough to hold up at the 3 in limited minutes.

Newsday has a Freudian Typo

Baker went through practice Monday, but he was held out of the contract parts

After sleeping on it and calming down, I haven’t changed my mind about Porzingis.

In his defense, getting used to facing double teams and Hardaway being injured is hurting him in the short term. I still think he’s going to be a very good 2-way player and all star. But his shot selection is SO horrid, I’m starting to think he’s one of those guys that just doesn’t intuitively recognize good vs. bad shots in game play the way some way less talented players do.

I’m willing to wait to see what happens when Hardaway comes back and takes some of the pressure off him, but if this decline continues the strategy for building the team has to be a little different if we are starting to think KP is more of a #2 than a true franchise player.

The Knicks’ on-court issues in order of importance:
1. Inability to defend anything after the second pass. This is huge, and I don’t want to know the number of uncontested 3’s they give up per game. It’s a mess.
2. Inefficiency of shots. KP is taking more long-2’s than 3’s and dunks, and that is partially on him for not getting to the right spot, but mostly on coaching for not making it happen. Kanter and O’quinn are frequently get the ball under the basket, why can’t KP. Also, everyone is taking long-2’s. That’s on coaching.
3. Inability to set plays, including setting screens, and quickly moving the ball to set up an open man. There is almost never an open man. There is almost never a set play that I can see. KP keeps getting the ball with 10 seconds left, and two defenders, no open passing lane that he can see, and keeps shooting that damn contested long-2. It’s like Hornacek is into ISO plays or something.
4. No penetration.

All of these suggestions about how they should improve the offense….this is why you keep a team together from season to season instead of trading away players and adding a bunch of new players every year. Why do you think the Spurs are so good? They’ve basically had the same team for many many years. Of course they’ll lose a few players and have to add a few new players every off season and they’ve had some years where they’ve had to retool more than others, but the core group of guys is the same.

All of these wrinkles to the offense will happen if we keep the core together. KP of course will eventually add passing to his game. We’ll get a penetrating guard at some point via the draft or free agency (plus we don’t have Timmy right now). The team will get better at setting screens, etc. But it takes time. They’re playing together as a unit for thee first time. If we bring back most of the same team next year, this off season players can work on specific skills knowing their roles and when they get to training camp next year they’ll all ready have the basics of the offense and defense down and can add new wrinkles.

I remember when Dallas won in 2010. There was an interview with the coach afterwards where he talked about how they used a zone defense throughout the series at key times to frustrate and confuse miami. And the coach said that they started to learn and implement the zone defense in games THE PREVIOUS SEASON. So it had taken them almost two seasons to learn how to play the zone defense as a team and get really good at it before he could bust it out in a playoff series effectively at the right time.

See, it isn’t just about individual players getting better and reaching their peak. Its about a team learning to play together and adding wrinkles to their team game. And yes, adding pieces and upgrading.

Porzingis doing his year-long fade again after yet another great start is definitely very concerning. Maybe more so because there were all those triumphant pieces early in the year about the changes he’d made to his diet / exercise regimen etc. It was pretty clear they thought they’d figured out his worrying lack of stamina, but it appears not to be the case.

That said,I came into the year expecting him to have some growing options offensively. Expecting him to step up and become a #1 option on a team where there’s nobody who can generate him any kind of reliable easy looks is a huge ask for a 22 year old. While it’s probably correct to continue to revise downwards the future expectations that he can be a 1A type offensive option, I think overall he’s meeting reasonable expectations this year.

He may end up more of a second option offensively, who’s a respectable leading man but not one capable of driving an efficient offense, but as a stretch 5 who’s a potentially elite defender in that role I think that’s still a franchise player. Casting him in that #2 offense role also potentially solves the shot selection issues which as Strat has highlighted continue to be very concerning. But I really think we need to see what he looks like on a team with even average guard talent to really get a picture of what his finished offensive game might look like.

Honestly I’m not that worried about KP per se, I’m worried about the fact that Hornacek looks like he doesn’t know how to use him properly.

@12

Ok, we can really agree to disagree then.

I think the Knicks as currently constructed clearly lack the talent and the assets (and great front office) to acquire such talent. GSW went all in when they had Curry and Klay, found Draymond out of nowhere and kept going.

Of course I hope it happens, I just would hate to once again be a fan of a team that has no direction outside of “let’s keep doing what we have done and hope this time it works!”

Almost everyone here predicted thirty wins or less and not because they thought we had talent but let us coaching. So I don’t understand all the complaints paining about Hornacek suddenly. We lost to a good team that played lock down defense on us. I don’t blame the offensive schemes for that. We need more experience as a team (as noted above) we need better guard play and probably another good player

So I don’t understand all the complaints paining about Hornacek suddenly.

Do you know that the Knicks and Rockets have just about the same 3P%, but the Rockets take MORE THAN DOUBLE the number of 3PA each game?

Do you understand now?

And a pretty tentative 19 year old at that, too.

I’ve been noticing one thing lately about the Knicks tendency to take a lot of long 2s.

I’m not sure if the issue is that they aren’t moving the ball quick enough or whether the Knicks players are taking too long to get off their shots, but this is what happens a lot.

The ball gets to a player in position to take a 3, the defender closes out well, the Knicks player will fake the 3 to get the defender in the air, take a few steps forward and get off an open long 2 instead. Courtney Lee does that all the time.

An open 2 may or may not be better than a strongly contested 3, but the goal it to get an open 3, a shot at the basket, or to draw a foul. If you are taking a long 2 (even if you are pretty open), the defense has typically won that possession. The ball either has to get to the shooter faster so he’s open for a 3, the player has to get the shot off quicker, or he should probably be driving to the basket and trying to draw a foul and not settling for the long 2.

Do you really believe those incremental improvements are going to be enough, if they even happen, to take a 30 to maaaaybe 35 wins team, which is what the Knicks are, to a good level?

If you think Porzingis is going to be a franchise player I think the right move is to start building around him and compete the best you can. You can continue adding pieces via trade, free agency, and draft like the Bucks, T-Wolves, 76ers etc.. have been and get there over a 3-4 period as the young players peak. We are behind them because we didn’t have 2 first round picks under Phil, but it’s the same path.

If you DON’T think Porzingis is going to be a franchise player, you have a different problem because it’s much harder to get the franchise player via trade or free agency than the supporting all stars and role players that will come to play with him. That’s when you have to consider tanking to get a top 5 pick where your chances of getting a franchise player improve. But if you are going to tank, you have to totally tank. The difference between the 10 pick and 14 pick or 8th and 10th is not very significant. I still don’t see us tanking to a top 5 pick

I don’t think KP will ever be that kind of superstar. He just doesn’t have it in him. But you can contend with a nice core of dedicated players. Which is why we should play the youngsters more, to build chemistry between them.

The ball gets to a player in position to take a 3, the defender closes out well, the Knicks player will fake the 3 to get the defender in the air, take a few steps forward and get off an open long 2 instead. Courtney Lee does that all the time.

+1000. Courtney Lee is the worst at this, and Jack/Frank are close. Lee probably passes up 2 3PA/game.

I’m definitely worried about KP’s shot selection, and I also think he thinks he’s much better 1-on-1 than he actually is, especially off the dribble. He’ll reach his offensive ceiling much sooner if he comes to terms with the fact that he’s Dirk-like, and not Durant-like. I think he thinks he’s the latter. Much of this comes down to coaching –> Hornacek has to be the one to tell him this in some way that doesn’t engender bad blood between the two of them.

Bruno,I am not saying anyone should be happy about the losing. All I’m asking is why are people complaining about the coach if they thought our talent was too little or too green at the start of the season. We are actually better or similar to what everyone expected at the start of the season, so overall, I don’t think coaching is the issue.

And Joeles, if you are complaining that Hornacek isn’t D’Antoni, that’s one thIng, but it’s kind of like complaining that KP isn’t Dirk or Ntilikina isn’t Frazier.

Remember when we had the actual Mike D’Antoni as coach and then management traded away every asset in the cupboard and still neglected to acquire a PG so instead Toney Douglas was out there trying to run SSOL?

That shit was pretty Knicksy.

Come to think of it, that should be the team motto each season.

Knicks 2018-19: The most likely outcome is more mediocrity!

I’m still waiting for someone to explain to me how exactly are Mills / Perry suddenly going to turn into RC Buford, Bob Myers, Masai Ujiri or Daryl Morey.

The Spurs are great every year because Pop is maybe the best coach ever, and they drafted two superstars.

I thought Pop’s “in game” use of time outs was extraordinary last night. Two or three times when the Knicks went on little mini runs he called quick time outs fairly early in the game and fixed issues. He didn’t wait. Just a great in game coach. It doesn’t hurt that he has thinking players, but he makes a hell of a Geppetto.

The problem with tanking is that it isn’t in the coach’s or player’s best interest to tank. If Hornacek loses too many games he’ll be out of a job and I’d be surprised if another team hires him. If the players tank, they don’t get their next paycheck. If the GM or president or whoever tries to tank, well how do they force the coach or the players to do that? Do they make mid-season trades for injured players/dump our valuable ones for picks? They risk their jobs too.

Tanking takes a organizational commitment and risks alienating the players. Right or wrong, it just won’t happen unless it has Dolan’s blessings and a GM hired specifically for the purpose. Dolan probably doesn’t want to tank because more wins = higher ticket prices = more Dolan dollars.

@40

But that wasn’t really Hubert’s point, was it? It’s not why they tanked or if the tank helped or not, it’s that tanking does not have this ability to destroy a franchise as people have argued over and over here. It’s a strategy that should be employed in the right situations, not infallible or anything, just a team building strategy that has pros and cons. Even though Barnes didn’t turn out to be a star, you make the decision to tank in their situation every time, let’s not use this hindsight argument of “it didn’t matter in the end”.

So, today the Knicks need to simply double the number of three pointers attempted (while apparently also assuming that the team will continue to make them at the same rate), and they become the Houston Rockets? Sure, they should shoot more three pointers, but that’s not the main issue with the Knicks.

A couple of weeks ago, someone said just trade for Avery Bradley and, boom, 50 wins.

This team needs MORE young (under 25) talent. Play and evaluate the young talent. Someone mentioned Toronto a day or two ago and showed Ujiri’s recent drafts in the mid to late round. No need to tank, right? Except that he already had at least two young stars in place in Lowry (2006) and DeRozan (2009, 9th pick). Let’s look at right now with the current Knicks.

The Knicks don’t have two young stars yet. Maybe one (KP, but lots of angst about him right now). Maybe Frank in a couple of years. Maybe Willy (but he doesn’t play). Maybe none.

Get more young talent, then look to add a vet or two and learn to “win.” Get Hornacek on board with the soft tank (trade vets, give young guys lots of playing time, losses will probably follow).

I think the Spurs play excellent d against the 3pt shot, but yes, a penetrator would help set up our shooters more.

I’m honestly not that worried. A #10 pick in the next draft will be fine, and I like that the team gives a damn. Horny isn’t blowing anyone away, but cmon, he doesn’t have much to work with. I’m willing to give him some time.

I’d like to sell high on Beasley, though. The Blazers would like to get under the tax line and might trade Vonleh and a 2nd round pick to us for Beas. They could use some bench scoring for the playoffs.

But that wasn’t really Hubert’s point, was it? It’s not why they tanked or if the tank helped or not, it’s that tanking does not have this ability to destroy a franchise as people have argued over and over here.

Tanking for 2 weeks is not the same as tanking for 2+ years. For all the hoopla surrounding Philly, they are 17-19 and I wouldn’t give them more than a 40% chance of cracking the top 3-4 in the Eastern conference in the next 2-3 years. Don’t get me wrong, I would rather be them than us right now, but it’s far from certain that this is all going to work out for them.

One point worth noting — if not for the institutional tanking in Philly, KP might be playing next to Embiid right now — it was specifically because of tanking that KP wanted no part of Philly.

One point worth noting — if not for the institutional tanking in Philly, KP might be playing next to Embiid right now — it was specifically because of tanking that KP wanted no part of Philly.

@49 +1

The same is true of free agents and even trades. When a quality player is available for a trade, their agent will guide any deal towards one of the teams the player wants to play for by telling the unattractive ones that there’s no way he’ll resign with them.

@49

One point worth noting — if not for the institutional tanking in Philly, KP might be playing next to Embiid right now — it was specifically because of tanking that KP wanted no part of Philly.

Possibly. But also, if not for the institutional tanking in Philly they might not even have had the chance to draft KP. They also might not ever have gotten Embiid. Or Simmons. Or Fultz. Or the picks they have coming up this year?

Perhaps if they’d kept trying to “win,” they would have been stuck in late lottery hell with a mildly bad team. Who knows?

@53

Exactly. They traded the opportunity to be the Charlotte Hornets North for the team they have now.

Even if they never become better than the 4th best team in the east in the next 3 years, who cares? Simmons is 21, Embiid is 23 and Fultz is 20. Now they have a decade to build around these guys, now they can follow the beautiful pipe dream of win trades, make smart signings and draft well in the later picks.

There’s no way Philly would have been in such good position were not for tanking so many years, and one of the reasons they are not as well as they could have been is because the ownership got scared and put one of the most incapable GMs in the league in place of Hinkie.

By the way, I’ll say this once more so people finally understand: I have never said the Knicks should process-tank. It’s sucking for less than 50 games to get a better pick now. That’s it. How is that anywhere close to getting Sixers comparisons I’ll truly never understand.

@43

When used strategically and at the right times tanking can be effective. It worked that year in GS because with Curry out they didn’t really need to try very hard to be bad. If Curry hadn’t been hurt I don’t think they would have tanked and probably would have won 40 games. We are in the same boat. As long as our star is healthy we can’t realistically win less than 30 games without intentionally getting in the way of KP’s development. If he got hurt then I’d be all aboard cutting our losses and maximizing our draft pick.

Once a budding superstar, which KP most definitely is, is in his third season it gets very hard to continue to tank because their mere presence elevates your team above the worst teams in the league and tanking is only worth it if it nets you a top 3 pick. Once Durant was in his third season OKC was done tanking, GS would have been done tanking in Curry’s third season if he hadn’t gotten hurt, Milwaukee was done tanking by Giannis’s third season. This is when it makes sense to try and win.

Jan. 23 is the date when I will officially start judging Horny, for good or bad. That’s the day our schedule evens out between home and road games. Right now I think the team has played above its talent, but with all the home games it’s hard to tell what our “true” performance has been.

By the way, I’ll say this once more so people finally understand: I have never said the Knicks should process-tank. It’s sucking for less than 50 games to get a better pick now. That’s it. How is that anywhere close to getting Sixers comparisons I’ll truly never understand.

It’s not the same thing. It’s the right thing to do in terms of maximizing long term team building, but it’s not a zero cost strategy in other ways.

1. Dolan has to be willing to accept lower attendance, lower ratings on MSG, and lower merchandise sales for a year or more while the team is tanking.

2. Hornacek has to to risk getting fired or at least dealing with a blow to his reputation.

3. Mills/Perry have to to risk getting fired or at least dealing with a blow to their reputations.

4. Veteran players in contract or option years have to sit on the bench and potentially cost themselves money while young players are getting court time. Other veterans and even some young players will get pissed off because inferior players are getting their minutes or because they are sick of losing.

5. Porzingis, Frank, and any other young players will have their development slowed down by not playing in important games and potentially the playoffs.

These are all short term downsides. The better draft pick is a long term upside. But unless everyone is on board it’s going to be a mess. That’s why teams wait until the last few weeks to tank when they know they are out of it and the downsides to the franchise and some players are limited enough that everyone just sort of gets it. The true all out tanks are usually 1 year affairs like we did to get KP. Anything that happens after that is more random and related to injuries. Like if KP got hurt to start the season and missed 50 games, it would help us long term, but hitting him in the knee with a crowbar is not a good plan. 🙂

I think what you guys are missing is we dont’ have the skill to MAKE all those extra 3’s without our 2 best shooters. THJ might be back in a week. Trent Tucker retired 20 years ago.

We’re dead last in 3PA in the entire league. We might not have the personnel to play exactly like the Rockets, but our current rate is inexcusable. I don’t know what Hornacek’s deal is–he’s talked the talk about avoiding long twos in the past. He’s either not emphasizing shot selection at all, or players aren’t listening to him. Both would indicate a pretty big problem. I don’t think I’m in favor of firing him just yet because we at least know he’s familiar with these concepts and a coaching carousel is generally a bad look, but it’s been a highly disappointing year from him.

Once a budding superstar, which KP most definitely is, is in his third season it gets very hard to continue to tank because their mere presence elevates your team above the worst teams in the league and tanking is only worth it if it nets you a top 3 pick.

KP’s numbers simply don’t support the idea of him single-handedly preventing a tank, which is actually too bad. In the beginning of the year they certainly did and that’s why I argued that our inability to tank this year was, overall, a good thing. Now he’s back to basically being Melo with good defense. Useful player for sure, but if the front office/coaching staff wanted to take a few measures to secure a better draft pick it wouldn’t be very hard. I understand if they want to wait for THJ’s return before they do anything drastic but they need to be ready. Oh, and Lee should absolutely be traded regardless.

Timmy attempts 3’s at a much higher rate than anyone else on the roster for what it’s worth.

“I’m still waiting for someone to explain to me how exactly are Mills / Perry suddenly going to turn into RC Buford, Bob Myers, Masai Ujiri or Daryl Morey.”

Start praying……hard

“Dirk had Don Nelson, an actual offensive genius, for the first 7 years of his career.”
Funny, melo had Nelson and Dantoni and still couldn’t figure out the right way to play. However, ever since their loss to the Knicks, melo has been buying in to the role Dantoni had in mind for him. He’s finanally gotten out of standing at the elbow calling for the ball and basically been embracing the role of spot up 3 pt shooter/space creator.
I’m telling you, I could tell by the look on his face that he was demoralized after that loss. Soon after I saw an interview where he finally seemed to get it.

This whole business with the Sager family is very sad.

i saw this and was heartbroken. Craig Sr seemed like such a good guy with a good heart and to have this happen is rough.

This whole business with the Sager family is very sad.

Damn that is unfortunate. I have worked on a couple of deceased estate matters where family members are disputing wills. Always ugly, and the only real winners are the lawyers.

I think it has already been touched on, but in our criticisms of KP, I think we have played down how good the Spurs are defensively. Weigh that up with how meh we can be and it’s not surprising. I think the positive thing with KP is he is acknowledging what he needs to do be better. We saw to an extent him making an effort to improve aspects of his game (i.e. quicker decision making/shots etc.) against NO. He just now needs to put that together on a consistent basis.

KP’s own comments are a legitimate source for optimism, and we’re lucky he’s being groomed in an era in which shooting efficiency is emphasized more than it ever has been. There is definitely still an infatuation with pointzzz, but 15 years ago most people would’ve seen his 24 PPG and figured he’s an awesome finished product. Now I have at least some hope that someone, be it the Knicks, his representation, or whoever, will tell him this is something he needs to work on. If not you can probably go ahead and add 15 years or so to our title drought.

The Knicks are 18th in the NBA in 3pt %. Shooting more 3s might help, but not a lot

Toronto is 26th in 3PT% and 7th in attempts, on their way to the 4th best offense in the league. Houston is 14th in 3PT% and 1st in attempts, on their way to the 2nd best offense in the league. It really is just the way to run a modern offense these days (with some notable exceptions that we would never be able to emulate e.g. the Spurs). Even mediocre three point attempts give you a better return than good-not-great twos.

Would it make the Knicks a playoff juggernaut? Hell nah. But if we want to instill good habits in KP (and other young players) while also winning as many games as possible, we should be encouraging these guys to shoot some damn threes.