(Sunday, February 25, 2018 8:06:01 PM)
The Warriors will make their annual visit to the Garden on Monday night, but it won’t quite be the same for Kevin Durant without Kristaps Porzingis in a Knicks jersey. Porzingis is out for the season after suffering a torn ACL in his left knee Feb. 6. “It’s disappointing he got injured,” Durant said Sunday…
(Sunday, February 25, 2018 7:36:41 PM)
It is the way they share the ball. Or the way they defend. Or the way they shoot. Or their depth, experience, quickness, versatility, unselfishness. You could use up all your cloud storage listing attributes that make the world-champion Warriors great. Now the Knicks get another eyeful Monday at the Garden. “Obviously, they’re a great…
(Sunday, February 25, 2018 5:57:40 PM)
Early in the third quarter Saturday, Knicks center Enes Kanter had a gimme layup. He missed. He rebounded and shot again. And missed again as the ball rolled off the rim. And no, the third time was not the charm. After another offensive rebound, Kanter bricked a baby hook. Now given the Knicks lost, 121-112,…
(Sunday, February 25, 2018 1:52:34 PM)
As a rookie with the Jazz in 2013-14, Trey Burke started 68 games. He averaged 12.8 points and 5.7 assists, was an all-rookie first-team selection, and finished third in rookie of the year voting behind winner Michael Carter-Williams and Victor Oladipo. Then the Jazz drafted another point guard, Dante Exum, with their lottery selection in…
[NYDN] Knicks’ Trey Burke working to shed reputation as poor defender (Sunday, February 25, 2018 10:32:29 AM)
Trey Burke can score. That much has never been in doubt.
(Sunday, February 25, 2018 7:42:09 PM)
GREENBURGH, N.Y. — Enes Kanter learned from former Thunder teammate Russell Westbrook to look at the opposing team as the enemy. Kanter takes that approach into every game, but there’s one team he dislikes more than any other.
[SNY Knicks] GEICO SportsNite: Burke leading the young Knicks (Sunday, February 25, 2018 10:59:43 PM)
[SNY Knicks] New Jersey-bred Kyrie Irving shines vs. Knicks (Sunday, February 25, 2018 2:29:03 PM)
Celtics G Kyrie Irving scored 31 points against the Knicks on Saturday night in what was a homecoming of sorts for the 25-year-old, who grew up in nearby West Orange, New Jersey.
174 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2018.02.26)”
Burke is sure to come back to earth, but he definitely is something the Knicks haven’t had in pretty much forever — a guard who can punish drop coverage and switches in the PNR. If the big drops at all, Burke looks super confident shooting both long 2’s and 3’s off the dribble with no hesitation. And he straight out embarrassed a couple bigs trying to stay with him off the dribble. And doing what he did Saturday against the #1 defense in the league is no joke.
But the most impressive thing is that he hasn’t been an obvious minus on defense. A quick guard who can shoot 3’s, avoid turnovers, and assist the ball a bit will always have a place in the league, but if he can actually defend also?
We can say whatever we want about Hornacek, but his offense in PHX was super PG friendly — Dragic pretty much had the best season of his career under Hornacek, as did Brandon Knight. Burke’s 2P% is sure to come down, but maybe the offense (and time in his life) is just right for Burke.
It’s too bad we won’t see him with KP until at least mid-season next year.
I’m pretty sure Burke only looks good on D in comparison to the human sieve that is Emmanuel Mudiay. But being better than a flaming train wreck as a 6’0 g league call up whose calling card is offense is basically found money I guess, so I can’t complain too much.
Anyway it’s incredibile how watching Mudiay just a few games gave us the certainty that he’s awful, and still our coach gives him the starter nod even as he’s still trying to win games. Hornacek looks less and less the sharpest tool in the box.
I dunno guys. While I don’t think Mudiay is a good player right now, I think there’s still hope for him and he’s not as bad as most of us think he is. But he is pretty bad though lol. One thing I do appreciate however, is his willingness to push the ball and pass. He also has the aggressiveness in the half court that we’d LOVE to see Ntilikina display.
I wonder how much the playing time is being influenced by the fact that Perry just made the deal. I think it’s a factor. They just traded for Mudiay. Putting him on the bench immediately would be an admission that it was a bad move given they already had two young guards in Burke and Frank who look pretty good together.
I read a report that Mudiay stayed late after practice and was working on his shooting form with Hornacek. At least they are trying. As long as he’s working hard on fixing the things that are broken, it’s not going to kill us to give him more of a chance.
As bad as mudiay is he is still further along than frank, I can’t fault hornacek for starting him.
Maybe this is a good scenario for frank to learn how to push and attack. He is 19 and has a lot of room to grow.
Unconsciously Im afraid frank will be a bust and that’s why it bothers me mydiay is getting his pt but frank is young and raw while mydiay is young and raw he still lacks defense. Frank will be better
Burke competes on defense which is the least we can ask for.
Anyone else confuse Burke with iverson, I can’t even tell the difference
Burke is Iverson.
Frank won’t be a bust unless we force on him our projections (he needs to be a PG that probes the defense). He’s already a major plus on defense and at worst he’ll be a rotation player for 10 years. At #8, that’s not a bust.
I guess having three young pgs is a good problem to have. Let’s make Kenny the jet out hc and get some decent player development for a year till we get kp back. Idk
There’s no guarantee Frank is a rotation player for 10 years. If he doesn’t improve, he’s a poor man’s Tony Allen. Allen couldn’t even get minutes for the wing-hungry Pelicans this year, and may be out of the league next year. Frank could be stuck as a 12th man if he doesn’t develop a shot or become an absolute lockdown defender.
https://www.theringer.com/nba/2018/2/26/17052150/mit-sloan-sports-analytics-conference-jimmy-butler-daryl-morey
Good piece. Good wrap up on how front offices feel about publicly (and privately) available stats and how they think the public misuses thems. I also like the “cigarettes in prison” line and some of the ideas for creating new forms of trade currency are pretty cool. Like trading a percentage of your lottery shares. I can’t even imagine how Masaii would scalp the Knicks if that were possible.
Uhm, let’s see… Tony Allen is 36 years old. I suggest that Frank will be a rotation player until his 30th birthday.
Does anyone here seriously think Frank’s 3pt% won’t be at least league average in his career? I’d bet against who says he won’t be a decent shooter with his form.
Thanks for the link, Owen. The most interesting thing was Zarren’s suggestion that lottery ping-pong balls could be traded, affecting percentages. More intriguing and dngerous than just changing positions.
Frank won’t be a bust because after the Knicks give up on him they will trade him for a second rounder or two and he will blossom and become an all star with his new team.
I don’t worry about Frank being a bust.
The defensive aptitude and tools are there. That’s 50% of the game. As he grows and gets bigger, he’ll only get better.
On offense he has nice form on his jumper, has good court vision, and honestly has pretty decent tools athletically. He’s pretty fast (faster than I thought he would be) – doesn’t really have that much quick twitch athleticism but makes up for it with his length. His major weakness seems to be mindset – too deferential, not aggressive enough — and a lot of this could be “blamed” on growing up in the European system. He has a rep as a hard worker so as he gets older and more established I think the weaknesses will get significantly better.
We are all so “now now now” about him — but if you look at the worst PGs in the league by RPM right now, it’s all the PGs in the vaunted PG draft class of 2017. Fultz, Fox, Smith, and Frank are all in the bottom 20. Do we think all of them are going to be busts forever? Is any other fan base doing this to themselves?
if the knicks want to move frank off the ball permanently.. i can guarantee that won’t work out very well unless he somehow hangs on in a tony snell/justin holiday kind of way…. the only thing he does well is pass…. his assist and assist/to and his defense is basically the only thing he does at an nba level right now…. taking the ball out of his hands is asking him to do things that he simply sucks at….
there’s not much upside to his scoring…. he probably won’t ever see 50% on his 2p fg%…. probably not even 45%…. the only hope is that he gets it to a passable level…. and he could eventually turn into something like rubio or tj mcconnell… low usage caretakers at the position…. moving him to sg is also matching him up against guys who are basically the same size as him or bigger so whatever defensive advantages he has is mitigated…
you can see in the early returns that he’s been even worse than he was…. his assist rates have plummeted and he’s less engaged on offense….
we need to figure out if he’s a pg…. half a season is not enough time for that….
One of the many dumb moves under Hornacek was moving Frank to the 2 for half of his 20-28 minutes a game. If you pair him with Mudiay/Burke/Jack, you are taking the ball out of his hands:
– He seems to be very good at calling and initiating plays, often with someone else shooting and assisting.
– He seems to be good at reading defenses based on my eyetest.
– His areas for improvement are in initiating a play through dribbling, fast shooting, and driving. Putting him in the corner would eliminate that growth.
– Those guys hog the ball too much. Burke especially. Mudiay seems content enough to just fall down sometimes.
– He can do this at the 2, but having him defend the opposing PG is usually a great bet.
He needs time as a point guard, since he is a pass-first, thinking, and very young point guard. To put him at the 2, especially long-term , is dumb.
Why are we OK w/ the concept of Burke improving at 25, but we are sure Mudiay will not at 21?
I did a double take when I saw that Mudiay is 2 years younger than Dotson.
Frank may end up being 6’7. Tall enough where his already shaky handle would get more exposed and where it might hurt his ability to guard smaller points(tho Klay seems to do a good job on them at 6’8)
The Bulls are blatantly resting healthy players and while I could be wrong it doesn’t seem to be doing vast damage to their reputation around the league. At this point the Knicks doing the same to Kanter and KOQ is only sane. I’ve largely given up on catching anyone below us but it’s incredibly important to hold off the Lakers–we’re right on the border of where the players in this draft stop getting all that intriguing.
Klay is 6’5.75″ with a relatively short wingspan at 6’9″. He’s got a similar body to Kobe, not Carmelo or LeBron (each a legit 6’8″).
anyone catch this article on burke espn has up: http://www.espn.com/blog/new-york-knicks/post/_/id/67015/67015
despite what seems like a hot mess of an organization – it’s good to hear positive things about the knicks, and, about players wanting to come here and, as in the case of newcomer troy williams – how welcomed the guys on the squad make everyone feel…
shoot, it doesn’t appear as though enes kanter has any desire to go play for a winning club, but, would rather lose games and stay with the knicks…
i know the opportunities of being in new york have a good bit to do with the desire some players have to come here – it’s good to hear though that the knicks locker room is a fairly positive and supportive environment…
@ 22
Yeah I agree I don’t understand it either, I understand Mudiay is raw and his play is up and down but we can’t write him off and be so sure that he wont improve. Of course burke is going to look better than Frank and Mudiay when he’s been in the league longer.
That’s not how it goes. Burke was given a chance on the G-league, has played well and earned a call up. He was not traded for or given minutes for free because of some obscure reputation perception. He showed positives in his G-League stint that made it a cheap, inconsequential gamble that could pay off with no risks attached. Mudiay has been bad at everything and has shown no promising signs ever, and yet was brought in to start right away. It’s a very different context.
@28
Amen to that
Not debating how he got to the Knicks, he earned it and worked very hard.He’s been very solid in the majority of the minutes he’s played. I think thats a stretch saying Mudiay showing no promising signs ever. He can clearly get to the rim, pushes the ball up the court. He’s shown some good vision. The problem with him he’s very sloppy, makes questionable passes, his pick and roll defense can use some work. Jumpshot mechanics need work as well. He has his share of flaws but to think that he can’t improve on them just like burke has improved his game over time is kind of ridiculous. I think a good coach can help him with his game, just like frank as well. His game needs discipline. Should Mudiay gotten the starting gig over the two guards who have been on the roster no. I do think he can certainly improve his game, maybe if all the pg on the roster can work with clyde.
Burke was also a College Player of the Year and a lottery pick himself. Admittedly, so was McDermoitt, but he actually has been accomplished at a level above high school or AAU. The article references him getting married, his newfound “faith” and “not being out partying.”
If this holds true, there will be 3-4 very good players available to us. We have to find 1 of them.
give me a few hundred grand at the age of 20 something – i’d have been a mess too…heck, give me that money now at my age – and, i may never be sober again…
haven’t heard burke speak live yet to the media…hopefully he continues to improve (or at least sustain), plays a role for the knicks (seems like a really good backup point guard – who knows – maybe he can even start…sorry frank) and has a chance to use the platform of playing in nyc to pass along a positive message to others…
i almost feel bad for mudiay when horny and the FO realize starting mudiay may not be that good of an idea and he gets buried on the bench…would still like to see frank get some time as the starter before the season ends…
I’ve been away for a while. First, on vacation, in Costa Rica, where round balls are used for kicking and then, back home, depressed about this season. I’m another year older, and I had to watch another Knick season go down the toilet. KP tore up his knee just before I left on vacation. They haven’t been worth watching since.
It’s depressing being a Knicks fan, but that’s preaching to the choir. All I’m looking for now is to get the kids some playing time. Tonight is going to be depressing. I don’t know if I can even watch the game. It’s would require watching a bad college team play the best team in the world.
We can only pray that the likes of Ntilikina, Burke and Mudiay get the playing time that they need and that one of them takes the next step next year.
It’s be one thing if mudiay were getting minutes at the expense of Frank, but I don’t think he is. I’m not concerned about Frank and Burke trading ball handling duties either – one of Frank’s big weaknesses is that he’s almost useless offball on offense and that needs to change. I’d like less of LT and the Beas, but minutes in the last couple of games are fine.
We should waive Jack so he can try and catch on with a playoff team since he’s completely out of the rotation. With his spot we should take a flyer on Christian Wood. He’s 22 and I think has more potential than Hicks or Kornet.
The NBA back channels seem to work well enough. If Jack was wanted by a playoff-contending team, the Knicks would probably grant him the courtesy of a release.
They’re not gonna embarrass the guy by cutting him if he has nowhere to go.
@32
Remember 2015 when the Wolves lost 12 straight games to finish the season starting guys like Adreian Payne, Arinze Onuaku, Robbie Hummel and Lorenzo Brown? And they picked up the best player on the draft who’s a transcendental offensive player at age 22? #TankingWorks
@ 36
I was hoping they signed Christian Wood to a 10 day before they signed Troy Williams.
@38
Unfortunately I do, but the point is the results over many drafts are random enough that even if we wind up 9th, there will be 3-4 players in our range that are better than some of the players that get drafted 1 through 5. For every success story like the T-Wolves, there are disaster stories. So rather than dwell on the fact that we are 9th, if we get this pick right, we can come away with an all star.
@ 39
True I agree it does work, thats how they got Porzingis and we all know this team needs more young talent in order to truly contend. I was not happy how they were winning games in the earlier part of the year, cost them a chance at being in the top of the draft order.
For every success story like the Bucks with Giannis, there’s a Wolves with Towns.
The math just doesn’t add up, I’m sorry, when out of the top 10 players in the NBA there’s Curry at 7, Leonard and Giannis at 15 and everyone else was a top 5 pick (Lebron, Durant, Harden, Davis, Westbrook, Towns and Paul).
Yes there’s talent everywhere on tbe draft, obviously. But saying that 3 or 4 guys out of the other 55 will be better than let’s say, 2 of the top guys isn’t very encouraging to be honest.
Mudiay 5 for 5 with two 3 pointers. Extend him!!!!
Sooooo… I guess Horny fixed Mudiay’s shot with 2 practices?
@42
No one is saying that you aren’t better off with a higher pick. That would be ridiculous.
However, people have very strong opinions about their draft boards and favorite prospects. They get upset if we don’t get the player they want. But teams make a LOT of mistakes. So it’s not the end of the world when you are drafting 9th if you are skilled at it.
So Mudiay was 5/6 and 3/4 from 3, had 14 points, with 4 assists and 1 steal and was -4 in an even game at this stage.
That’s pretty meaningless
still at work, so unable to watch live…checked some replays though on espn – despite sharpshooting his way to an early 14 points – emmanuel mudiay still has a serious case of the “jimmy” legs…
holy crap – were up by 4 (51 to 47) and mudiay is a minus 7…hahahahahahahaha…
Hardly a pitchers’ duel…
Clyde telling Breen he would have sold David West a ring for a lot less than the 12 million he gave up to join golden state was great
Pretty sure when you elbow the shooter in the head and slice open his eye while he’s in the act of shooting that’s a foul
Beasley might have used the other 89% of his brain to will his eye open…
It’s so goddamn conflicting rooting for and against this team at the same time. I feel like that robot probe NOMAD on the original star trek…error…error…
I actually think Mudiay’s shooting form was much better on most shots. But yeah, he’s still doing his usual thing on defense. Plus, he’s trying to contain an all-time great…
Don’t worry Z,
They will lose this game. It’s nice to watch this much youth and effort, though.
Gotta say, highly entertaining 1st half.
The Warriors are in their locker room deciding whether to put the hammer down in the 3rd quarter or the 4th quarter.
Golden State goes through stretches of regular season games now where they just don’t try on defense.
Man, Hardaway sure does a lot of dumb things…
Get Burke out there!
Just like that.
Nice block by Mudiay on Steph
Well, the only suspense now is do the Warriors cover the -12.
Beasley is the Tanking General,
good move by Horny playing him so much.
@53 appreciate the reference, Z-man
Meanwhile, we didn’t really have to worry about this one…
The Warriors set much nicer illegal screens than we do
nice little floater try from frank…. didn’t go in but he needs expand his finishing moves….
triple pg lineup from Horns
I was just thinking, if KP goes down in November with his ACL injury instead of February, the Knicks wouldn’t have won all those meaningless early season games, we’d be in contention for worst record and we’d also have KP for the beginning of next season.
Oh well…life as a Knicks fan…
hicks does not belong in the nba…. and i feel pretty mad that someone thought that he might….
That was one half of entertaining basketball more than I expected the Knicks to play tonight. I’ve no complaints.
Half of a good game is much better than none.
All three of our kid pg played okay against the warriors, and we secured the L. Nothing too much to be upset about
Anthony Davis v. the Phoenix Suns is pretty entertaining
I mean it is only the Suns but AD dropped 53/17 with 5 blocks and fouled out Len, Bender & Chriss. That’s pretty ridiculous.
Anthony Davis is on an absolute rampage lately. It’s funny that superstar DeMarcus Cousins goes down and the Pelicans continue to be exactly what they were with him, a bad team that has a transcendent player trying his hardest to carry their asses.
It almost seems like Beasley is trying to get himself waived- he’s looked completely out of it (or at least more so than usual) on both ends for the last few games.
Big wins by BKN and DAL tonight, still thinking that they can be caught, and maybe CHI. Eighth spot seems very possible if BKN plays hard. Anything more than that would be miraculous.
Just a thought: couldn’t we cut Jack and Beasley, who at the moment are totally useless, and let them chase a roster spot on playoff bound teams? Jack would be a good third string PG on a number of teams (Minnesota, OKC, Indiana) and Beasley could be what a offense starved team like the Pelicans need.
Nice game by the Knicks tonight. I like Frank at the 2, even if he has some trouble defending guys who run around too much.
So the Mavs (and possibly other teams) are reportedly using “inverse analytics” to find the lineups and players that play worst together so that they lose as many games as possible… https://sports.yahoo.com/nba-teams-using-inverse-analytics-aid-tanking-063744639.html
@farfa We could also cut O’Quinn if he agreed to cancel his player option. We should do it. We won’t do it.
With respect to Dean Oliver, we’ve missed out on Steph Curry, Russell Westbrook, and Karl-Anthony Towns by winning 2-3 extra games a year because we were trying. Tanking may not be foolproof, but it’s still better than winning those extra games.
Flat lottery odds are the only way forward. This is terrible for the NBA’s product.
So the Mavs (and possibly other teams) are reportedly using “inverse analytics” to find the lineups and players that play worst together so that they lose as many games as possible…
you knew the league would catch up to us eventually. we never should have let isiah go on tv and give away all our secrets.
And yet Hinkie is the one blacklisted simply because he was open about his strategy.
Beasley at the 1, Kornet at the 2, Lance at the 3, Hicks at the 4, Burke at the 5.
See, and I didn’t even need “inverse analytics” to come up with that!
If they do go back to flat lottery odds the smart play is for teams to tank out of the 7th and 8th spots-I wonder who will be the first to realize that.
flat lotto odds aren’t good for reasons dred stated…. you don’t want to pollute the playoffs and the fight for the 8th seed…
i like putting rules in place for lotto picks…. sort of like the stepien rule… like you can’t get a top 3 pick in consecutive years or if you get a top 3 pick you can’t pick any higher than 10 the next or something like that….
the problem is discouraging more than one year of extreme sucktitude…. that would have prevented the sixers from tanking and the fluke odds of cleveland(and previously the magic) from getting b2b #1 picks….
Burke looks like a keeper at backup point guard. A good change of pace up who can score. Kanter looks like he’d make make a good backup as well if they can keep him at reasonable price. As someone else stated, the Knicks have some decent parts as backups, the problem is these guys are starters.
Mudiay – he didn’t look terrible last night. At this point that’s about as good as it gets with him.
They really need to hit on their draft pick in June, this team is lacking in talent all the way through the roster.
The easiest way to fix tanking is to end the max individual salary. It’s far and away the biggest factor in terms of why superstars are so valuable in the NBA. If there was no max individual salary, you’d see lots more teams like the mid-2000s Pistons where you’ve assembled a group of guys who play well together and are more valuable on the court than they may seem. Free agency would become a legitimate way of building a contender rather than just a trap that desperate and stupid teams fall into. If superstars are less valuable, so are top draft picks.
But the NBA won’t do it because they don’t want to see superstars stuck on mediocre teams. They want as much star power in the playoffs as possible.
The flat lotto odds thing though is just as much an issue for the league since the league wants the draft to be the way to build teams as it equalizes small and large markets.
Flat lottery odds for all 30 teams,
and fuck off the losers.
This thing is becoming a joke and a shame for the league, sport is about effort and competition, not playing to lose.
It seems like Carlisle’s changing his mind and playing the veterans again.
http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/22591534/dirk-nowitzki-dallas-mavericks-opposes-owner-mark-cuban-notion-team-tank
Flat odds for 30 teams.
Might it be interesting to automatically convert veteran players’ contracts (post rookie-contract) to player options (one-time exercise) if a team is bottom-5 for three consecutive years, or has a losing record for five consecutive years? Sort of like a self-amnesty program.
It’s a shitty set of policies when you have a player like Anthony Davis who will spend the next three years glued to a shitty, capped-out roster in a small market just because he was unlucky enough to be drafted by that franchise. As much as I’d hate to see him in green, he shouldn’t be incentivized to stay on the Pels.
Very fun first half yesterday,
then Golden State went Terminator,
but it’s nice to see the kids play.
Beasley is annoying, he has totally given up
and I’m worried by Lee too.
Problem is, we’re still probably Tank Brigade’s best team, it’ll be hard to gain ping pong balls.
in reverse order:
1-10 average 10% odds of #1 pick (a gradually reducing scale, such a s##1 @ 12%, #2@11.5%, #3: 11%, etc.)
9-16 (including last 2 playoff teams) average 2.5% odds of #1 pick. I doubt that many teams would tank into the #15 or #16 spots (or #8 if we keep conference play intact) spot just for a 2.5% (1 in 25). chance at the #1 pick.
Still a welfare cliff. If you’re clearly out of the playoff hunt, you’re going to try to lose as many games as possible to get the 12% chance. There should be no incentive to purposely lose games.
Every time you create a rule,
even the most intelligent and “fair”,
someone will try to outsmart the others and screw the system.
The lottery became a problem when someone transformed it in a philosophy and shows to the world how smart he is.
You can do nothing about playing time and lineups, that’s impossible to rule, so let the lottery be a real lottery, equal for all the teams and with no incentives for losing.
Or get rid of the draft and let college players be free agents.
Let’s see how teams’ll use their cap space…
I think that right or wrong, it’s assumed that it’s better for the league (marketing-wise) to have the worst teams land top picks. So long as that paradigm is in place, there will be a reason to “tank” at some level. The conundrum is: How can you encourage bottom-feeders improving via the draft (especially small market teams) while minimizing, if not eliminating, the incentive for tanking? My idea isn’t perfect, but I think the key issue is 1) giving teams incentive to fight for a playoff seed and 1) making the difference between non-playoff seeds so marginal that tanking is statistically unlikely to yield a meaningful advantage.
The situation is variable, depending on the draft class. But if the odds are flattened out enough so that no matter where you land, the likelihood that you will NOT land the #1 pick is 88% or better, of if the odds between #1 and #8 seed are virtually the same, and not much better than the #9-16 seed, then you still make it a near-certainty that highest picks will go to a somewhat needy team. You also make trading unprotected #1 picks more of a crap shoot.
I would also consider making it against the rules to trade draft picks at all. You could do this by stating that a player can’t be traded until at least 2 years after he is drafted. I truly think that trades like the ones that Brooklyn made are bad for the league, maybe worse than tanking.
Getting rid of the draft altogether could be a good solution, but there has to be an incentive for teams in the bottom to be able to become destinations for these kids. Something like get rid of the draft and then impose a hard cap + get rid of the rookie max scale, so a team like the Hawks could offer Doncic a 15 million per year contract for example that allows them to be competitive with much better teams with less cap space in the signing.
The NBA is way too star driven to not have a compensating rule to help small market teams. I don’t want a league where the Lakers instantly become the premier landing place for every promising player because everyone wants to live in LA.
What if there was an inverse power ranking that was determined by a neutral group of people to determine draft order. That would actively punish teams they thought were tanking and look at many things like injuries, bad luck, roster construction and record to find the worst teams.
@96
Hard cap and no Rookie Max Scale, you read exactly in my “let’s see what they do with their cap space”.
🙂
Let Luka, Ayton, Young and the others get their “market value” from whoever wants to pay them as long as it stay in the boundaries of the cap.
Think about the Nets or the Hawks getting all three this summer… that’s a hell of a rebuild! 🙂
Unless you’re OK with having Golden State having equal odds at Doncic as us, you want some kind of welfare system. You’d still have some trying to lose.
I still think the best option is all non-playoff teams get equal odds at each pick. You just need a reason not to tank for those on the ledge, so at least the 8th seed might still want to be in the playoffs for money/fame/culture reasons, which is fair.
This tanking issue reminds me of the how gov’t creates unforseen problems with well intentioned laws/regs, then keeps trying to fix the new problems with more laws/regs.
Not fair that Orlando got back to back #1 picks? New rule, let’s weight the lottery, which results in massive tanking.
Not fair that rookies are making too much? New rule, max rookie contracts, which results in some of the best players in the league making chump change while shitty vets cash in.
Not fair that shitty teams have their best players leave first chance they get? New rule, let’s incentivize them to stay with their original teams, which results in the AD situation.
Not fair that superstars are making so much? New rule, let’s make max contracts, which leads to the ridiculous G State situation.
……
We need to simplify this rather than adding new rules. I think getting rid of the max contract like latke suggested, ending the various ways around the cap, and getting rid of the lottery weighting system would go a long way to reducing the tanking we see now.
Hard cap, no individual max, lottery players are sold on an auction basis with the remaining non lotto spots being normal rookie scale deals. Draft picks matter in the back half of the first, and trading lotto picks gives the receiving team the opportunity to participate in the auction multiple times or once if they’re in the playoffs.
This system doesn’t encourage tanking out of the playoffs because the financial gains of the playoffs vastly outweigh paying a large amount of money to a rookie when you have a hard cap in place.
not having a max is going to hollow out the middle class…. it’s a non-starter for the nbapa and it encourages hollowing out of rosters to land that star that you covet… more than half of the league becomes disposable at that point….
the laws are what they are in this country because there are always exceptions…. blanket rules are effective if everyone has the same interpretation and it accounts for all desired outcomes.. it’s obvious that is not always the case….
the challenge is having the simplest rules that give you the outcome you want… the world just isn’t that simple…. humans are very adept at exploiting their environment… and so you have one ruleset that teams and people are actively trying to exploit for selfish gain….
ppl are also hesitant to massive change…. because massive change brings about unknowns and it’s unclear if that will actually be an improvement…. that’s why incremental improvements are usually the most agreeable path forward(not necessarily the best)… you keep all the good from the original ruleset and plug up the bad results…. that’s how rules.. laws and institutions have evolved over time….
but that also leads to complexity…. but if in practice people understand that complexity then in my opinion that’s a secondary concern as long as it solves the problem….
Power rankings might be the very worst way to do it. E.g. Carmelo Anthony was #64 in ESPN NBA Rank and he has the worst BPM — by a country mile (.9 points) — of all 101 players who have played more than 1500 minutes this year. The worst! What would a pundit say about Carmelo?
“Proven scorer, creates spacing, smooth jumper, veteran presence in the locker room, fierce competitor.”
Silver should find a way to unilaterally impose flat lottery odds *this season*. What’s going on is a disgrace. I know these things are collectively bargained but maybe he could use a “best interest of the league” clause or something. The Mavs pulled all their best players with a 10 point lead in the 4Q recently. That’s too far.
Say you’re the Suns now and there is no lottery-it’s just flat odds for all teams, or maybe all non-playoff teams-there’s still no reason to try to win games. It’s not an easy problem to fix. I think equal odds for non-playoff teams would at least eliminate teams actively trying to lose, or at least the perception existing that teams are purposefully losing. Yes, some years the 7/8th seed might try to lose a few games to get into the lottery, but there are (probably) enough teams that would rather be in the playoffs, and those teams would almost certainly not be engaged in the kind of season long tank-a-thons we see now.
@101
I love this but I think simply getting rid of the max is too much, like djphan pointed out. I like the Derrick Rose bonus a lot, I think one good way to do it would be to allow for massive incentives for true proven superstars. Let’s say, getting a certain amount of MVP votes or playing in the NBA finals raises the max salary for that guy by 10 million, for example. It shouldn’t be too many subjective stuff (like all star appearances or something like that), but something to ensure the absolute best guys get paid more without overpaying the 2nd or 3rd tier of stars.
Of course, instead they’re going to be imposed NEXT offseason, and I will be shocked if Dolan’s Razor doesn’t kick in and it doesn’t end up burning the Knicks. You just know the Knicks are going to go 17-65 and still pick eighth.
@102
See, I’m not sure if that’s actually the case. First off, teams are only going to be able to afford one bona fide star player at most if an individual max is removed. This has a concomitant downward pressure on the contracts of the non bona fide max, non vet min guys—aka most of the league. If anything, this discourages the formation of super teams and creates incentives for well structured teams that attempt to find market inefficiencies in cheaper non star players, rather than the current system, which simply rewards teams who assign max contracts to just those players who outperform them (golden state, Lebron, etc.) Which also increases parity because success becomes less contingent on the whims of the living preferences of the, say,top 15 players who outperform a max, and more on those teams like Toronto or San Antonio who accrue value signing after value signing. This will spread out the distribution of stars and because of that will also encourage middle class teams to go out and find the Nogueiras, Van Vleets, and Capelas of the league.
A huge part of the problem is the league revenue sharing system. It’s supposed to be bad for business to be terrible. Now it doesn’t matter if you suck, you’ll still make money as long as other teams are.
This is part of the reason tanking has shot up in baseball, too. And that’s a sport where NO ONE should ever tank bc of the 162 game season.
One of the tremendous ironies of the world is that America is a capitalist society with socialist sports systems while Europe is far more socialist but has an absolutely capitalist sports structure.
What Oliver is pointing out is that you also could have tanked to get Bennett, Oden, Bargnani and others that turned out better than them, but not up to the same level as 3-4 other players drafted later. The same is true of picks 2-5.
That’s not an argument for winning meaningless games.
It’s to point out that the “value” of a higher draft pick gets overrated in people’s minds because people overrate their ability to select the best player in the draft.
If we gave this board the #5 and #9 pick every year for 10 years, when we looked back on it, we should do better with our group of #5 picks. But our #9 pick is going to turn out better often enough that its not the end of the world that we have #9.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZC5DH7VScY
Anyone see the Anthony Davis highlights from last night? Look at all those tip-ins and lobs and putbacks! Imagine how great he’d be if he could create his own shot and not make his teammates take all those tough shots!
No one is more free market than I am, but the thinking about sports teams should probably be different.
The Knicks are NOT actually competing with the Lakers, Celtics, Cavs, Mavs etc… in a business sense trying to steal market share and put them out of business.
Teams are more like subsidiaries within a corporation that are competing with each other for resources but also working together for their own well being. The end goal being the greatest possible success for the overall corporation and not any particular subsidiary within in.
The NBA is actually competing with other sports and other forms of entertainment.
So when you think about how to structure the draft, revenue, trades etc… you should be thinking in terms of maximizing the NBA and not worrying about ensuring a free market within the NBA.
This is another example of what I’m talking about. The seen vs the unseen.
Interesting. Also, things like drugs/alcohol, prostitution and gambling are generally more restricted in our “free” country than in those damn pinko countries.
@112 AD does create his own shots tho.
If they want to restructure the draft they first have to get the rookie salary structure efficient relative to other contracts.
For example, if the difference in cost between the #1 pick and #5 pick compared to the probability for success was efficient, there would be no great incentive to tank for the #1 pick.
If you picked a bust at #1 you’d be stuck with a much worse rookie contract for several years. That would make you think twice.
The way it is now, the value equation favors tanking to get #1 because you have a better chance at getting the better player and the downside if you are wrong is not such a terrible contract relative to #5 that you are worried about it.
I don’t know what the rookie structure should be, but the pay gap between #1 and #2 should be larger, the pay gap between #2 and #3 should be larger etc.. Then teams would think twice about tanking for a better pick and potentially getting stuck with a really bad rookie contract.
Ok strato, let’s go again.
What I get from your argument is two things: drafting well is more important than drafting high, and drafting well at 9th is more valuable than drafting 5th because the draft is random enough that in the long run there’s bound to be similar talent available in both places.
See, I still disagree. Maybe 5th to 9th yes, I agree with you. But seeing as I work with the assumption that at least 20 teams in this league are not good at all at team building and talent evaluation, I would much rather pick in the top 3 every season and hope to luck out into a true bonafide superstar than draft smartly every year with the 9th pick.
I think front offices are generally terrible at player evaluation, but even incompetent front offices can sometimes work with true superstars. Cleveland has made egregious mistakes but as long as Lebron is there they are contending, while the Raptors have made brilliant small moves and are finding value every year out of less valuable picks and are still struggling to make the leap to contenders. OKC literally traded away the chance for a dynasty trading Harden and losing Durant and are still a solid playoff team because of Westbrook. Granted, I’d much rather be the Raptors now than the Knicks or the Kings, but there’s just a ceiling for teams without a #1 incredibly valuable player and there’s still no better way to find those without the draft.
KP needs to find out who is training AD and spend the next 2 years with that guy. AD seems to have strengthened his base and improved the way he lands. He used to look kind of like KP – always falling down and hurting himself.
Yep.
His usage would never be as high as it is unless he was also creating for himself.
That’s the whole point behind behind giving value to shot creation. If we had 5 very efficient low usage Franks, our offense would struggle to score at times. Even a team of very good passers and shot makers sometimes loses a possession to the defense. Then someone has to create something on their own. If they are all poor at it, their overall efficiency will suffer because those busted possessions would be be especially poor.
An efficient Frank becomes valuable when you already have other guys that can create on their own at adequate or better efficiency levels. Frank becomes the role player playing off them efficiently on lower usage, but when you need something else, you have it. The net is good. If you have a player that can create his own shot at high efficiency, then you really have something.
Not exactly. I am saying I’d rather pick 5th than 9th, but I’m not losing sleep over picking 9th because the difference in value is not as large as people think. It’s perceived to be larger than it is because people overrate their own ability to select the best available player in any slot.
So would I because a small advantage in value in a single year becomes a large amount of value if you repeat it often enough.
I’m sure my opinion is not very different than most others even though I take the opposite side in discussions. I think it’s a matter of degree. Where for some people getting the 5th pick would feel like a huge positive, I’d take it, but with lower expectations of it working out better.
@109 – i think we could speculate all day on what a no-max league would look like… it might be better might be worse… it really all depends on what you want the league to look like… i generally just don’t like the nfl and the way they do things…. there is such a thing as too much player movement and too much parity…. and so whenever a conversation about a no max / hard cap comes up i generally just cringe….
in the nfl you have stars(mostly qbs) capturing more of the cap dollars…. but everyone else is disposable…. most teams are defined by their qb’s… and literally everyone else is just laundry… the patriots are basically brady… but the spurs… while it was mostly duncan… was also parker and manu as well…. there’s something to be said about being able to keep an excellent team together…. i don’t think anyone begrudges the celtics or the lakers or the pistons in the 80s or the bulls in the 90s or the lakers in the 00s or the spurs to be bad for the nba…. you just need those excellent teams to be go through challenges and obstacles along the way… that’s why the hero’s journey is such a popular narrative structure….
what most ppl want is to see really entertaining basketball… and it’s clear.. they want to see the best competing…. and that also mostly means having two really big super teams go at it…. parity is mostly for the hardcore fanbases to see their team be competitive but you’ll never see that in the nba…. the talent is too top heavy for that to truly happen with restructuring salaries… it’ll really only happen if we cut down the teams in half….
This is true, but I suspect it’s even more important to draft more often, and there is probably some extremely difficult to detect value in having a good developmental system. With more kids going high in the draft this is going to be more important.
But given that it’s the Knicks who are actually making the pick I want as few chances for them to screw it up as possible! I’d agree that the a player picked 9th by the Spurs has pretty good chance of outperforming a guy picked 5th by someone like Sacramento but I’m not quite as confident when it comes to the Knicks.
Rookies
Draft slot/BPM, >1000 MP
Bell, #38, 5.1
Adebayo, #14, 2.3
Collins, #19, 1.5
Lonzo, #2, 1.4
Tatum, #3, 0.9
Mitchell, #13, 0.8
Anunoby, #23, 0.7
Hart, #30, -0.4
Of the ten rookies with a positive VORP, only two of them were in the top 3 slots. The highest draft slot after Ball and Tatum? #13.
It’s looking like NBA teams are still bad at evaluating talent, so I’d prefer to have the #9 and #10 pick than, say, the #5 alone. Most years, I’d be fine with the #1 over a pair of late single-digit picks, but multiple picks provide great value no matter where you are in the draft.
Still in disbelief that Toronto got Anunoby
You’re not giving proper consideration to the negative side of the ledger that goes with tanking. The cost is high.
Intentionally building a losing organization is idiotic, unless you have a real chance at picking an elite player at the very top of the draft.
Losing is cancer and the knicks are very very ill.
For starters, paraphrasing Perry, when you encourage losing, that can become hard to get out of the building. Well, it’s already in the building and they can’t get it out.
Forget about ever signing FA’s looking to join a winning organization. Or, winning the Lebron, KD, Kyrie sweepstakes. Or for that matter, the David West’s of the world. Forget getting a good deal on a contract extension to keep the team together.
The knicks need to learn how to win – with the players they got. And build on that. They need to make good trades, sign good contracts, drat well, and improve in increments. It takes time and patience and a good organization.
But to think they’re going to become a championship team by moving up two spots in the draft a couple of years in a row is insane. Even if the knicks had drafted Steph Curry, he’d never have become the player we see now. Because the knicks suck and that’s all they know how to do.
The list of reasons to not tank goes on and on. Losing to move up in the draft doesn’t come without it’s cost.
And, what happens if you draft a dud?
That I can agree with. I’d take the 1st or 2nd over the 9th plus 10th, but 9th plus 10th over the 3rd or 4th and onwards.
Apparently you can rebuild in New York under James Dolan, so long as your team is the New York Rangers. Rangers traded Rick Nash, Grabner, Nick Holden, JT miller, and McDonagh, for 3 roster players, 3 quality prospects, 2 first round picks, 2 second round picks, a third round pick, and a seventh round pick. Insane.
I don’t think it’s a Dolan problem with tanking so much as he just hires anti-tank idiots for the Knicks specifically for whatever reason. Why can’t the Knicks ever have nice things?
I’d take the 9th and 10th over the 5th all day long every year.
Occasionally the 1st and/or 2nd pick are extremely valuable because it’s obvious who the pick should be and highly likely he will be an all star or better player. But tanking down to that level (assuming you get the pick you want of the lottery) are problematical on other levels. If you are THAT bad, it’s going to take many years to turn around even if you get your target and it works out well. And with the Knicks luck, it would probably be Greg Oden.
I’m not enough of a hockey fan to know how Ranger fans react to rebuilds, but you can see the impatience of Knicks fan even on this blog where the basketball IQ is very high. I have no ability to project how good Frank is going to be. I think he has a lot of good qualities. I feel good about his prospects. However, I also think it’s going to be years (with an “s”) before we know. My twitter feed is full of Knicks fans calling him a bust already and the tone of the NY media articles has slowly been getting more negative. So you can see the problem.
@130
Yeah, I agree that we’re generally an impatient lot, but so are sports fanbases in general, and plenty of them rebuild. What Sather & Gorton did a few weeks ago is actually publish a memo to Rangers fans basically saying “we’re trading everyone that you love away, but we need to, so we’re telling you in advance so you have time to process”; the general tenor I’m getting from family, friends, and online is that this was a needed step, and the outrage has been pretty scarce, which has kind of surprised me.
Considering most Knicks fans are also Rangers fans, I imagine they could stomach a true rebuild, if it was sold properly. But it’s hard to say. The NY sports media certainly cares less about hockey than basketball, that’s for sure. That said, Sather & Gorton made an absolute killing with their trades this season, whereas Mills & Perry make trades for Mudiay. So maybe the outrage isn’t there simply because they did a good job, and we can’t actually trust our management to do that, lol.
The Sixers just signed JJ Redick and are probably one of the top 3 or so likeliest teams to sign LeBron because they built a good young core…via tanking. Meanwhile, when are the Knicks going to cash in on all this good will they’ve apparently built up by doing things the “right way” or whatever?
On a separate note, I do think tanking is a legitimate problem for the league. There are 8 teams who definitely prefer losses at the moment with another few who are at least agnostic about their results. I don’t blame the teams at all because it’s only smart to do what the system incentivizes, which is also why I think any “solution” that maintains record-based draft position is just window dressing. The two need to be completely separate for the league to actually address tanking. I think Zach Lowe’s Lottery Wheel idea is the best solution I’ve seen so far.
But that’s the thing, even now with the Knicks clearly not caring much about wins, we don’t see the front office talking about long and steady rebuilds, or a long term plan.
We don’t really know if the fans could handle a true rebuild because as Brian likes to point out, correctly imo, the Knicks have never done one in the last decades. The team is going for wins as far as 90% of the fan base has been alive for and has mostly failed miserably, it’s understandable that they feel annoyed by yet another lost year.
The Rangers on the other hand have been a perennial playoff contender for a decade now and are widely seen as a well run franchise. Of course the fans are going to be more confident in a well done rebuild.
I’m 100% sure that if a seemingly competent front office comes in and lays down a 2-3 year rebuild plan, the fans will be fine with it, maybe not the absolute most casual ones, but why would the Knicks care about them anyway? It’s not like the garden is lacking in attendance, we’re still 12th in home attendance percentage with 96.1% even in this sorry ass season.
Why should the Knicks care if trolls on twitter hate Ntilikina, as long as they still watch games and buy merch? We’re never attracting Lebron or anyone else anyway until we’re a well managed team with talent, and that’s never happening with Dolan, Mills and the clowns running the show unless they literally stumble upon a superstar by sheer luck.
Wow, Boban!
I think the main problem for years was that Dolan liked basketball more than hockey. The hilarious thing is that he’s actually more hands on with the hockey team than the basketball team now, but by “hands on,” I mean he actually talks with Sather about stuff, but he still mostly lets Sather do whatever he wants. Nowadays, he is more hands off with the basketball side because of how bad he was under earlier GMs (which even he has copped to). I love that notion – the guy is a big basketball fan, so he involved himself so much in the decision-making that he screwed his team for years! Meanwhile, he’s less of a hockey fan, so he essentially did his “Give the team to Phil” moment with Sather a decade ago, only he picked an actual competent executive (also, unlike Phil, Sather was actually famous for being a General Manager already), so it worked out (and, as noted, he never officially just “gave it” to Sather, as he has always talked with Sather about stuff). This is the Dolan curse with the Knicks – he was over-involved too early and now that he’s not involved, he continues to screw things up by giving total control to Phil and now Mills!
@131 – I’m not a hockey or Rangers guy but the outrage on Twitter and Rangers blogs I checked out was palpably hostile after they traded Nash and McDonagh. I don’t think Rangers fans are enamored with what the FO has done and from what I read have been rehashing past mistakes endlessly.
As far as Scott Perry is concerned the net of what he’s done is fine. I really liked and still do, to an extent, like Willy’s offensive skills, but as I’ve watched games this season players in his mold are becoming increasingly obsolete. Jarrett Allen on the Nets is a 19 year old rookie I’m not even particularly high on, but he’s a way better prospect than Willy because of his mobility and ability to play above the rim on both ends. I also don’t think his value was affected very much by not playing, but that’s very subjective.
Aside from that Perry traded a 2nd round pick which is probably going to be somewhere in the late 40s and McDermott who I’m assuming they had decided they didn’t want to pay this summer for Mudiay. If he sucks fine he’s a great tank commander for 1.5 years and if he comes good even better. He signed Burke on a extremely team friendly contract through next season.
He traded Melo for Kanter and a CHI 2nd. Then he gave vet mins to Beas, Jack, Sessions and a 10 day to Williams. I think Perry’s moved the roster more towards where the league is going with a ton of work left to do, but he seems OK thus far.
The Rangers have some issues, as well (like they really need to change their coaching staff), but if any Ranger fans were mad at the haul that the Rangers got for their veterans (most of whom were impending free agents), then they’re way off base.
With the Rangers, I gather the issue is much like what I heard two years ago when the Yankees traded Miller, Chapman etc., “you owe it to the fans to try to win, why should I watch blah blah blah” Essentially short term thinkers or people who somehow do not think there is any intrinsic value to just going to the game and watching it.
@136
I like Perry so far.
1. Even though the addition of Kanter caused other problems, I think he won the Melo deal.
2. Burke was a terrific addition even if he’s eventually just a backup.
3. Mudiay is not a good player now, but he has some talent and is young enough to fix his shot, get in better shape, and become a better defender. It’s conceivable he’ll be an asset even if he’s not the future starting PG.
4. I have no complaints about the Beasley or Jack contracts.
5. I wasn’t a fan of trading Willy for a couple of 2nd rounders. That may have been the market and he may have felt compelled to break the logjam at C, but I think we lost that deal. However, I don’t consider it a disaster. Willy’s upside is probably a slightly better version of Kanter. The real key is whether they keep Kanter and how much they pay.
6. Most disagree with me, but I am fine with the way we handled the vets that were already on the team (other than Noah) and the timing of our tanking.
The only big complaints I have about the season are the Hardaway and Baker contracts. We put negative value into the huge Rose cap space we had coming into this season!
Had we used that cap space in a positive (or even neutral) fashion instead of negative, we’d be in a better position.
Granted, not many quality players wanted to come to NY because we suck, but then we should have signed a few fillers to 1-2 year contracts and rolled the cap space over until we were good or lucky enough to attract the right player at the right price. All of that is on Mils.
Even the daily thread generator has given up on the Knicks.
@140 – it looks like we’re close to hitting rock bottom
Tanking. 🙂
I’m probably late to the party as I haven’t scrolled up to read earlier comments…
But..what do we make of this alleged possibility of Doc Rivers being the next coach if Hornacek is let go? I still prefer a young, up and coming brilliant coach, but Doc- so long as he doesn’t make personnel decisions- wouldn’t be a bad consolation prize. If he were a FA coach, I wouldn’t be mad at all if Mills & Perry focused on bringing he and Woodson over to be HC & assistant HC, respectively.
rivers hasn’t had much success outside of veteran teams and he’s had a strong preference to going to those type of teams… i don’t see how the situation here is any different than what the clips have… if anything they might be on a better future path…. i don’t really think too highly of him in any case….
we need a developmental coach… someone like budenholzer i think might be good…. nick nurse from the raptors someone mentioned previously sounds like they might be good…. it doesn’t sound like we are invested in that whole process so i doubt we’d be going in that direction….
as far as perry is concerned… i feel like he would be a much better gm for a team that has a core already in place and trying to move from a playoff team to higher up… sort of like how the 00 pistons were built… I think he’s sort of trying to replicate that on the fly….
the deals that were made have been ok… but really are more appropriate for a team that’s much better than we are…. right now we are trying to accumulate good young talent and also develop them…. kp, th2, frank, mudiay and burke will absolutely need to develop if we’re going to be seeing the playoffs in the next decade…. that is what is required and it seems that we’re focused on development through osmosis rather than having a good program in place…
Apparently Michael Porter jr was warming up before the Missouri game last night. Hopefully we can get a solid couple weeks of games worth of seeing what he can do.
I got my first look at Collin Sexton last night. No thank you. He has that Mudiay looks-like-tarzan-plays-like-jane aura.
@Stratomatic – I agree on THJ and Baker but it’s important to remember those deals were agreed upon BEFORE Perry got the job. In fact when those deals were agreed the Knicks were actually in talks with David Griffin. So I don’t put those contracts or terms on him.
@144..I do agree for the most part. To me though- that’s why it would be important to not give Rivers power in personnel decisions. I believe this change to go young and rebuild properly- especially with KP bein out for a while- is too enticing for Mills & Perry to pass on, which should give Rivers no choice but to coach guys up. Woodson did well as HC- offense sucked, but it was built around iso-king Melo. We have bigs who can legitimately shoot, bigs who board an score inside, passing and shooting on the perimeter, and good defenders there as well. I think the combo of Rivers and Woodson are smart enough not to build a better offense around what we do have.
But still..my 1st choice is aligned with pretty much everyone else here when it comes to our next HC. We need a guy who can and will develop the youth- preferably a young coach. Miami got so lucky when they had Spoelstra on the coaching staff..
What’s the deal with Harry Giles?
If Woodson came back as the assistant I would find that hilarious. Poor guy gets fired from here and then comes back as the assistant again? Of course what would happen is Rivers would get fired, Woodson would take over mid season, the team would go on a tear and then have a really good following season only to collapse again the next season and he’d get fired again.
I think they shut down Giles for the season.
I’d take Doc Rivers over Mark Jackson, I know that much. At least I’ve seen Doc Rivers out coach some teams in the playoffs. I don’t think he’s the guy to develop a young international group of players, and hiring him feels like “hey we’re landing a big name” more than doing what’s right for the team. If he comes here, we’ll here all about how much success he had developing Rajon Rondo a decade ago and how he hopes to do the same with “more physically talented guys than Rondo ever was” blah blah blah. I fully expect Doc Rivers to replace Alvin Gentry if he gets the boot.
Harry Giles is redshirting this year to work on his body. It’s not that he isn’t medically cleared to play, it’s that the staff in Sacramento wants to build his body where he won’t be so injury prone. I think it’s a solid plan.
Hmm…now that does sound like a good fit- Rivers and the Pels. I wonder how good a coach Gentry really is. He seems a bit overrated to me but he gets calls based on the fact that he’s a D’Antoni disciple. Can we even give him a little credit for AD’s explosion? If so, would that make him a feasible candidate to coach the Knicks? I really get the feeling that Hornacek’s a dead man walking- I don’t think Mills & Perry see him as a coach they would want given the choice.
What’s happening with the daily post not refreshing?
Liked this on Boban, it points out that he is pretty much incapable of playing extended minutes. But he really is amazing when on the court. Great highlight reel
https://deadspin.com/the-boban-show-is-captivating-even-if-the-episodes-are-1823390620
Somethings must be up with Mike Kurylo. I hope he’s ok.
I was watching that clippers/nuggets game and Boban utterly destroyed Denver. It was wild. The nuggets completely fell apart once Boban was in the game.
If only KP had a little more ropey orc muscle….
The NBA intelligensia would make you believe that when Boban scores 45 points per 48 on .650 TS%, he’s giving up 60 on .700 TS%.
Any team that contracts him as a bench-warmer is a fucking joke.
you know you’re getting old when something out of the ordinary happens and your first thought is – i hope they’re okay…which is exactly what i was thinking also…
Yeah, the Spurs are a fucking joke
@158
You might try actually reading the piece being referenced once in a while… It very specifically indicates that Boban CAN’T play more than 15 minutes without becoming useless because he’s so gassed.
Sounds like another 7’3″ player I’ve heard of… Can’t remember his name….
To be fair, KP is much more mobile than Boban, much more of a factor on D. But there may be something to it that most players significantly over 7′ can’t handle the pace of the modern NBA for 35 minutes every night. Wilt, Duncan, Dirk, seem OK, but Boban, KP, Yao, seem to struggle.
Then again, there’s Dikembe, maybe Muresan… Could be a totally bogus theory. Except that KP doesn’t seem to be able to handle it.
Kareem was at least 7 ft 3 so he broke the mold.
Probably too small a sample size of guys that tall to mean anything, but intuitively it makes sense.
Plus there’s the anemia thing with KP.
Here’s my tanking solution
Split the draft into three rounds of 20 picks.
For the first round, picks 20-15 allocated as now to the bottom 6 playoff teams. The 14 lottery teams play a version of Simmons’ ‘entertaining as hell’ tourney. Seeded to favour the teams with the best records (e.g. teams closest to making playoffs get a bye, better records get home court) with the results deciding order of picks (winning team gets top pick etc).
Second round – picks 1-10 in reverse order of record, 11-20 also in reverse order of the ten teams with the best overall regular season record.
Third round – reverse order of record starting with 20th overall record.
Thanks gives everyone an incentive to keep winning throughout the season while still redistributing competitive balance. Worst ten teams pick in the top 14 then again 21-30. But the very worst teams are likely to pick nearer 14 than 1
Next 4 worst teams likely to pick in too few picks then again 41-44.
Next 6 – 15-20 and 45-50.
Top ten – 30-40 and 50-60.
Complicated but I think it distributes incentives much better while retaining, on average, a transfer of draft assets to the weakest teams.
You must have missed the 2016 WCSFs where Adams and Kanter demolished the Spurs in the paint. 20MPG of Boban wins that series.
Boban is a fucking force of nature and I’m baffled at any coach that doesn’t realize that. He ate Jokic alive for ten minutes.
He’s slow and lumbering but he just dominates the game against pretty much everyone who’s not AD and Giannis. And maybe LeBron if he plays 15 minutes at C.
Boban is really a matchup choice. Against slow-footed centers like Jokic he dominates but against more nimble athletic centers he becomes a total liability. O’Quinn ate him for lunch when we played Detroit this year and O’Quinn isn’t even that quick.
He is like uber-Kanter, his scoring is even more efficient and dominant, his rebounding is just as good if not better but he is even more, much more, of a liability defensively. It makes him even harder to play because if he doesn’t dominate every minute he is on the court you are giving so much up to the other team.
Don’t get me wrong, he can play at best 20mpg. But there’s so much you gain from him playing those minutes that you should do it at any cost.
Not sure about the Doc Rivers interest that’s been reported. Given he left Boston because he didn’t want to be a part of a rebuild, it seems odd he would want to come here when we will be rebuilding ourselves, regardless of whatever nostalgia he might have coming back to New York. My preference would be to keep Hornacek for his final season, but if we had to choose a replacement I wouldn’t hate getting Blatt in. He went to Cleveland on the basis he would be trying to develop a young team before LeBron came and changed the course of things. Given his history as a coach, I think he definitely deserves another NBA job.
For me, Rivers is almost as big of a NO than Mark Jackson. Please don’t.
About Boban, it’s clear that he’s a specialist, a designated hitter type of guy that won’t ever be a starter or play 35 minutes a night. But it is incredibly stupid to do what Van Gundy did with him, which is to ignore his existence. He has already shown he can dominate in certain circumstances, to have a coach that’s unwilling to at least plan ahead and use him for some of those circumstances is just plain stupid.
Make a plan where your offense focuses on him as a primary option for 10 to 15 minutes per game, and then you can maximize his production.
The Knicks don’t need another player’s coach, respected locker room presence, old school guy. We just need a young dude who’s heavy on fundamentals and development and who’s willing to work with the way the NBA works right now.
Stop with the big names for God’s sake.
Well, at least Coach Van Gundy can always blame his moronic GM for signing a guy that his coach was never going to play. 😉
Basketball is a sometimes more a game of matchups (kind of like boxing) than just a match of overall skills. Frazier beat Ali and gave him all he could handle in another right. Foreman utterly demolished Frazier twice. That did not mean Foreman could beat Ali.
There are going to be matchups where Jokic is killing the opposing C on offense and can handle him on defense and there are going to be nights where he is overwhelmed on defense and being defended well.
There are going to be matchups where Boban is killing it in the paint and not a huge liability on defense and there are going to be nights where he’s a bigger liability on defense than an asset on offense.
It depends on the individual skill set each brings to table.
In his case though, they are telling us Boban can’t be as effective for 36 minutes as he can in a few. That’s partly why he’s on the bench. That’s usually the case with “energy guys” like O’Quinn, Faried and others that play at a very intense level, but can’t sustain full productivity past a certain point. But it’s also true of other players. Just like there are natural sprinters and marathoners in track and field, some guys have more stamina than others in other sports.