Knicks Morning News (2018.02.20)

Brian,

I can’t remember anyone being claimed off waivers recently. It seems NBA teams don’t do that anymore. I’m not sure why. It’s either herd mentality, or maybe there is a structural reason. But I can’t figure out what that structural reason is.

I have no idea, but maybe the only way they could get him to come to NY for 10 days was to tell his agent that if he looked really good they would sign him to something more than the minimum. Maybe without that added upside, he would not have chosen to come to NY. We are hardly a prime destination. ?????

Who were the other teams that were looking at him for a 10-day but didn’t want to pick him up off waivers?

We had Shelden Williams too

When the threads get too long, I skip forward to five commenters: Jowles, JK, Brian, Mike K and DRED.

As someone with a mathematics background and law degree, IMO, Jowles makes the best statistical arguments on this board, and it’s not even close. Sorry haters.

For the record, Lady Jowles has a similar background/personality and she enjoys my low-impact ranting as well, even when, as she points out, it’s more style than substance. Still, I am humbled. I’ll be the first to admit that my statistical analysis is unoriginal, though. ptmilo, Silky, noble, et al. make more compelling statistical arguments (except when slamming a stat based on its relationship to RAPM, which is still, y’know, uncompelling).

As a member of the larger stats-loving subset, you have me, Owen, JK47, DRed, Bruno et al. who largely appeal to common sense with the best of our available metrics, e.g. “don’t target Mudiay, Bargnani, Wroten, Derrick Rose and the rest of the literal worst players in the league.” Basically, these are the guys who say that it’s a bad strategy to hit on 19, and for some reason have had to defend that kind of argument for years on end.

Then there’s a set of well-spoken guys who just happen to have a tenuous set of assumptions about basketball, and are therefore wrong most of the time.

Lastly, I won’t name names, but the stats denialists, fascism defenders and Carmelo fanboys. They are not to be trusted.

I’m actually very excited to see some of the upcoming games. We’re most likely going to lose them but if Jeff is true to his word and we see a lot more of Frank, Mudiay, Burke, Dotson, Williams and Kornet, it should be fun to see what we possibly have with this young group going forward.

Hoping we see a lot less of Jack and Lance. Less of Lee too although he doesn’t bother me so much as I think he could be the guy we keep around till the end of his contract as the “veteran presence” and I’m ok with that.

This Noah situation just flat out sucks though.

I’m actually very excited to see some of the upcoming games. We’re most likely going to lose them but if Jeff is true to his word and we see a lot more of Frank, Mudiay, Burke, Dotson, Williams and Kornet, it should be fun to see what we possibly have with this young group going forward.

Hoping we see a lot less of Jack and Lance. Less of Lee too although he doesn’t bother me so much as I think he could be the guy we keep around till the end of his contract as the “veteran presence” and I’m ok with that.

This Noah situation just flat out sucks though.

Yes, but Hornacek needs to go. If they accidentally win 2 of their next 3, does he start playing Jack again to make a last-ditch playoff run? If they have a winning preseason next year, does he decide it’s time to trade all future firsts for Kemba Walker and Dwight Howard? He cannot be trusted.

why on earth are we letting Noah get away with this?

Basically, these are the guys who say that it’s a bad strategy to hit on 19, and for some reason have had to defend that kind of argument for years on end.

I think almost everyone agrees with you.

But what if there were only 2 cards remaining and you knew they were both 2s. 🙂

Here’s the thing, the best way to find value is to find the exceptions within the kinds of stats everyone else is looking at and making their value judgments based on. Some stats are misleading or need to be filtered further etc…

I don’t think there’s anyone left on earth that can’t see that Mudiay has been terrible. They all also know that players that have been terrible for 2-3 years will typically remain terrible.

What people are searching for is possible exceptions.

Is there anything about Mudiay’s profile that is different than the sample of all such 21 year olds that makes him a little more likely to succeed than the overall stats suggest?

That’s the question.

I don’t think anyone here thinks Mudiay is good now or is likely to become good.

I think they are discussing his coaching in China, role and coaching in Denver, age, athleticism, work ethic, the view of scouts etc.. trying to determine if any of that gives him a slightly better chance of becoming good than the average guy that fits his profile.

The question is whether he’s a 30-1 shot or a 15-1 shot to become good?

I’m not smart enough to know, but I think it’s smart for management to ask. I’m not so sure our management knows either. They are just throwing things at the wall hoping something sticks.

It’s so annoying that such a simple thing seems so hard for the Knicks to do: hire / sign people who have proven some degree of competence in modern basketball

It starts at the top and filters its way down.

Given Mills’ track record in NY why would anyone put him in charge?

It happened because Dolan does not know enough about basketball to make informed judgments about who to hire. His hiring mistakes filter down and we wind up doing things like overpaying for Hardaway and Baker.

At this point, I don’t think Perry has done too much wrong. I think he’s been fine. But I’m doubly skeptical because Mills hired him. And I’m doubtful that if they fire Hornacek they will come up with the right coach. And if they come up with the wrong coach, we’ll be playing a system that doesn’t maximize or develop our players etc…

Mark Cuban just publicly told his team thay losing is their best option now. He also admitted to looking to lose intentionally last year to get a better position in the lottery.

Let’s see if the horrible poison of the tank attacks the Mavericks for the next few years.

@22

He also said that both last year and this year he waited until the team was out of playoff contention and that he thought the last two seasons were so painful (most likely because it cost him money lol) that this would be the last year they do it.

It’s not a “tanking good” vs. “tanking bad” debate.

There is everything from what the 76ers did to what we are going to do starting now and all sorts of variations and degrees in between. Each has pluses and minuses that net out to a different possible conclusion for different people.

i think the whole waiver shenanigans could be agent politics of some sort

Same. Why else would five teams have interest but nobody picks him up on a super team friendly deal?

I can’t remember anyone being claimed off waivers recently. It seems NBA teams don’t do that anymore. I’m not sure why. It’s either herd mentality, or maybe there is a structural reason. But I can’t figure out what that structural reason is.

It typically doesn’t make sense to claim players off of waivers, since the players who get cut are either A. bad players that no one wants, B. Veterans on expiring contracts who make a lot of money and no one wants to add them to their cap (or literally cannot afford to absorb them into their cap) or C. possibly good players on short term expiring contracts (so you would not gain any Bird Rights if they do well for you).

It is rare that a decent young player locked into a three-year team-friendly deal becomes available on waivers. The Rockets only cut him because they added Joe Johnson on a buyout deal. For a “win now” team, Johnson made more sense than Williams.

I have no idea, but maybe the only way they could get him to come to NY for 10 days was to tell his agent that if he looked really good they would sign him to something more than the minimum. Maybe without that added upside, he would not have chosen to come to NY. We are hardly a prime destination. ?????

What Williams and his agent want was only an issue once he cleared waivers. Before that point, it didn’t matter what he and his agent want, the Knicks would have him under contract due to claiming him.

i don’t think we could’ve claimed him off waivers since we are at or over the cap…. Brian might have more insight here…. i think the whole waiver shenanigans could be agent politics of some sort if not…. i don’t think it’s material either way since we signed him and if he works out we can work out a similar deal like we did with burke which would be similar to what he had anyway….

The Knicks could have claimed him using either of their two trade exceptions (he would have gone right into the one they created with Willy’s trade). Since he was already making slightly more than the minimum, the Knicks would have to dip into their cap exceptions in this offseason just to re-sign him to his previous contract! But yes, I do agree that in the end it will probably not matter. But that’s the problem with ill-advised process moves. They might not actually affect results, but they’re still ill-advised process things. Just like not getting an extra non-guaranteed year on Lance’s contract when they signed him after cutting him. That ended up costing them a shit ton of money.

“He did also say the tanking was a “1.5 year thing”, which means he’s also viewing this year as a tank for its entirety.”

I’m not even sure we can assume he’s telling us the entire truth because it’s politically incorrect for him to say he’s tanking. So if anything he’s going to tone down what he was thinking.

This is what he said in May of 2017 on Dan Patrick.

“”Once we were eliminated from the #playoffs we did everything possible to lose games.”-@mcuban on the @dallasmavs tanking”.

That’s probably pretty accurate because they won 33 games last year, but faded pretty badly once they were out of it

I think he was more or less tanking both last year and this year in that he knew they were likely to be bad, but not to the extent that he was trading players away or benching Dirk, Barnes, Matthews etc.. until the season was over. He added Barnes last year. That might have been a mistake, but it wasn’t a tank move. It was an effort to get better that failed. So he tanked late.

Somebody on here called mudiay a potential borderline Allstar if he does x, y, and z. A player with Presence who just Looks like a player.
Best Frontier gibberish read on here since Chris Paul not helping Houston.

@34

They obviously didn’t go to last season wanting to tank, that’s why the Barnes acquisition and everything else. But they clearly went into this season with the idea to tank, seeing as they barely reinforced the team in any way.

The Mavs don’t need to bench their veterans like Matthews or Barnes because they actually contribute to losses, but it is obvious, from Smith Jr. starting from day 1, that they didn’t intend to win many games this year. Obviously I can’t know if this is true, but that’s also why I think they gave Dirk a 2 year contract in this off-season, they expected to be terrible this year and didn’t want him to retire on a tanking year, but next year when they’ll actually be trying to win.

So yeah, last year they tanked after being eliminated from the playoffs, but it’s pretty clear that it was a season long decision this year.

Here’s the thing, the best way to find value is to find the exceptions within the kinds of stats everyone else is looking at and making their value judgments based on. Some stats are misleading or need to be filtered further etc…

Strat, you made the above claim, and everything in your arguments flows from this proposition.

What evidence do you have that everyone in the NBA is looking at these statistics? If you have read this blog the last five years (which I know you have), you would know (or would have reason to know) that many NBA executives (e.g. PHIL JACKSON, MARC JACKSON, THIBS) do not value current statistical methodology.

You don’t reinvent the wheel when everyone else is using [insert whatever technology predated the wheel].

Still, I am humbled. I’ll be the first to admit that my statistical analysis is unoriginal, though.

Why is being humble a good thing? Are you drinking your daily dose of Protestant-infused value cocktails? I like your analysis. Originality doesn’t get you closer to the truth. It’s why we “stand on the shoulders of giants”. But to your other point, yes, there are many other solid posters on this board. It’s why this blog is the first thing I pull up every morning.

With Horny announcing that Noah isn’t returning to the team, the classic Dolan move would be to stretch-waive Noah to appease Horny, then immediately get into an unrelated dispute with Horny and fire him. Oh, and we also lost KOQ, so now we have to sign a backup center.

Who says we lost KOQ? The market shrunk, not sure he’ll opt out.

He’s saying that that would be the Knickiest result. To lose KOQ after dumping Noah, so the Knicks would go from 4 centers to just 1.

I think i read updated news articles that said Hornacek in fact didnt shove Noah at all