The Knicks are currently annoyingly leading the Wizards in the second quarter.
Let’s go, Nick Saban!
164 replies on “2017-18 Game Thread: Knicks @ Wizards”
Caught the game late 2nd Q. Not exactly sure what the Wizards are doing out there. Our boys aren’t going to just lay down and hand the game to them…
No thank you to Wendell Carter Jr.
Oh and it really doesn’t matter if we win games or not from this point forward, we’re stuck at 9 and not out tanking anyone behind us.
It’s about time the Wiz start waking up. How is this a playoff team? I think even our situation is better than theirs.
The Ramon Sessions revenge game!
@5. We can only hope.
I’ll be a little upset if we win because passing Sacramento and/or Chicago is still at least conceivable.
Frank Frank!
Burke might be the best player on the Knicks.
If this goes to OT I’ll be annoyed.
If it doesn’t matter than that’s a fun win. Mudiay was actually good.
It was a fun win although Frank was awful.
Frank and Emmanuel are Yin and Yang
@4
Agreed, pretty ugly situation down there in DC, their current 20/21 cap situation looks like this:
Otto Porter: $28.5M
Bradley Beal: $28.8M
John Wall: $40.8M
Plus they will most likely be picking in the late teens and early twenties. I don’t really see a way they can improve. And that doesn’t even include that terrible Ian Mahinmi contract that expires in 19/20
Kornet and Williams also had nice games off the bench.
Dear Washington Wizards,
You had one job…
Only 14 pts for Beal. What happened, he got tired of son-ning us?
Mikal, Wendell or Trae at 9 hopefully.
Can the Knicks please bench Lance and Lee for the rest of the season? Also- why only 13 minutes for Williams?
Frank was awful if we’re only evaluating offense. His defense on Porter was lights out despite a major size disadvantage.
sigh
Yeah, this game was pretty much vintage Frank: lockdown defense in multiple players, lots of missed open 3s, penetration without being able to finish, some really nice passes (not all for hoops). Such a big question whether he can get there offensively next year. Mediocre offense would make him a real plus player overall.
I was watching the game the night Emanuel Mudiay put it all together
The Kings and the Nets also lost and both had some chance of ending up with a win.
There’s just no way to move down, we just won too many games in the beloved Jarrett Jack era to have a real chance, we’ll eventually take games out of these inconsistent teams. At this point I’m just fine with the 9th pick and my biggest expectation is to at least not get fucking leapfrogged to 10th in tbe draft.
I watched the second half of this game, and my comment is the same as when they beat Charlotte. Mudiay is improving, and the Knicks don’t look like a bad team, at least not as bad as their status among the tankers. This was a game Washington wanted, and our defense made it difficult for them, despite not having Porzingis or O’Quinn and having to play Beasley as starting small forward. I don’t know why O’Quinn didn’t play but he wasn’t in the line up at all. I’m starting to be hopeful for next year. We won’t be great, but maybe we will be in most games and have a shot at the playoffs eventually.
Melo is totally washed. Holy hell that was some shitty stretch to close the game from him.
Argh why did we win??
Oh, whatever. Looks like another average pick for us this year.
But hey, maybe we should be glad to get #9? #8s have yielded mixed results at best (Jordan Hill, Frank Ntilikina).
Looking at the schedule, I have to say I’d love to see the Knicks take it to the Cavaliers in the last two games. Despite losing being better for the tank.
The tank is dead for this season.
Yeah, and Mudiay isn’t starting anymore, which I don’t think is coincidence.
@24
His VORP is actually below Mudiay and they’re pretty much tied in BPM. It’s a bit unbelievable even for us, and we knew he was absolutely done.
In a way, we got Mudiay as part of the Melo trade since we eventually traded McDermott for Mudiay.
If you consider that we gave up a 2nd rounder for Mudiay, we essentially swapped Melo for Kanter and Mudiay and moving up a few spots in the 2nd round. Great strategic move considering the NTC but hopefully we don’t screw it up and re-sign Kanter or Mudiay.
That’s a good point. I’m more worried about re-signing Kanter than Mudiay just because of how much he costs. Also, I know Mudiay is bad, but he seems to have improved a bit in the little time he’s had here and if he’s cheap, he might be an OK backup point guard.
The tank has driven into a ditch. The only team we can possible catch now is Sacramento, because they have an easy schedule. But obviously we have to go 0-8 to even have a shot. So the odds are still about 50/1.
Chicago might not win another game all year. They’re smartly resting all of their starters. Meanwhile, Tim Hardaway is averaging 35 mpg in the month of March.
I can’t wait to meet up with my friends at our 50-year high school reunion in 2049 and swap stories about how the 2018 Knicks did things the right way and won a GLOOOOOORIOUS 29 games, instead of tanking their way to a lowly 24 wins like those loser teams with their stupid worthless high draft picks. Great memories, boys. Soak it in.
Burke/Frank – PG
Frank/Hardaway/Baker – SG
Bridges/Hardaway – SF
KP – PF
KOQ/Noah – C
Various combinations of this would not be such a bad place to be in at the end of next season. We’d have a good defense and enough scoring depending on the combination used. If they buy out Noah, so be it.
Next year I would try to move Kanter’s expiring contract to add a decent piece, let Beasley walk, move Lee for a couple of 2nd rounders and an expiring, and see what else we can add or develop. I’d also move on from Hornacek. I like him and think we need some stability, but I’m not convinced he recognizes who the best players are and how to use them. That’s too basic. When fans are a week or two ahead of where he eventually ends up anyway, that’s not a good sign (though some may be management).
God this is so tedious reading complaints about “boo hoo we aren’t tanking correctly.” Accept that we’re gonna be the 9th pick and move on. If Hardaway hadn’t won those games two years ago we’d just as likely have Okafor or Russell right now as we would KAT. Every year there are players picked later (Mitchell anyone) who end up being better than the projected “stars” of the draft. Its a crap shoot and 90 percent of it depends on how that player behaves AFTER they are drafted. The work they put into their game, the role they play on the team they go to and how that team develops it. You guys act like it was a given Steph Curry was a superstar when he was drafted. It wasn’t.
I mean, no one wants to talk about how this team has played MUCH better the last week? No one wants to actually discuss how Frank, Burke and Williams are playing minutes and helping us win games? Are we just gonna moan and complain about being dumb? Aren’t we winning these games because the young players are CONTRIBUTING?
And not only that but we’re actually going to end up a few games worse than last year but place one spot lower in the draft. So its the Knicks fault these other teams suck so much?
Lets discuss anything else please. Lets discuss the merits of keeping Horns or who we’d want to hire instead of him. Lets discuss who we realistically think we can draft. Lets discuss the development of Frank, Trey and Williams. Lets discuss what moves the Knicks should make in the off season. Lets discuss ANYTHING other than complaining about not tanking.
I guarantee you we are drafting Knox, either at our current spot or by trading down a bit. It’s just too Knicksy not to happen:
– Knox’s “potent” dribble drive/big-shot offense will be the FO’s remedy for the current Ntilikina no-shoot blues.
– Perry will prove to everyone that his street-smart, one-of-the-guys background in this league will trump any arcane “advanced” stats that anyone can throw at him. He’s gonna have a few insider tips on this kid, just trust him.
– the Knicks like em young like Knox (youngest player in the draft) because we can coach em up like no one else! We’ve got this super-secret program that Robinson put together all by himself with the help of Democratic Party analytics and some Joe Biden fundraising. Look at how good Emmanuel Mudiay has become in just 15 games! He’ll be an all-star next year, for sure.
– The East is still big, man. We need a 6’9″ guy at sf, not a 6’7″ guy.
– Kentucky grows pros, everyone knows that. And the agents that swarm around UK are extra connected, baby! That can only help.
God this is so tedious reading complaints about “boo hoo we aren’t tanking correctly.” Accept that we’re gonna be the 9th pick and move on. If Hardaway hadn’t won those games two years ago we’d just as likely have Okafor or Russell right now as we would KAT. Every year there are players picked later (Mitchell anyone) who end up being better than the projected “stars” of the draft. Its a crap shoot and 90 percent of it depends on how that player behaves AFTER they are drafted.
What’s tedious is this absurd argument that draft position doesn’t matter, so who cares where we pick? Because I know that even you don’t believe that. If someone offered you the #59 and #60 pick for the #9 pick, would you take it? Of course you wouldn’t. Because higher picks are better.
So no, we don’t just have to accept whatever mediocrity the Knicks throw at us year after year after fucking year. We as fans have a right to complain about non-strategic decisions, like building a 30-win team every season. We have a right to be pissed at our management for not selling off the vets and benching them late in the season, when every loss counts. We have a right to roll our eyes at meaningless gobbledygook like “winning culture” and “let’s attract free agents by winning 35 games, even though we have no cap space,” which are illogical, have no empirical evidence behind them, and hurt the long-term quest for a championship.
If you want to get excited about what you’ve seen this season, or what Phil did, or what Isiah did, or what Dolan does, that’s your prerogative. The Knicks have 2 winning seasons in 17 years. That speaks for itself. I’m sick of this goddamn 30-win treadmill, and so are a lot of other people. So yeah, we’re going to complain until they make a fundamental change in their approach.
I mean, no one wants to talk about how this team has played MUCH better the last week? No one wants to actually discuss how Frank, Burke and Williams are playing minutes and helping us win games?
I’m encouraged by the Burke/Frank combo.
We know Frank has a lot more work to do on the offensive end and Burke has to get better defensively, but that won’t be a bad place to start next year if they both come back a little better.
Burke looks like he’s either going to become a pretty good starting PG or a damn good backup. Depending on how Frank’s development goes he can either play with Burke (and be the PG when Burke is out) or take over at PG longer term.
Burke’s still shooting unsustainably well (well, probably) but the 3 point shot looks like it’s for real, and I’d feel fine relying on him to play decent basketball next season. If someone could tell him to knock it out with the long twos he probably could be an adequate starter.
Nice straw man argument with your example of the 9th Pick vs. picks at the end of the 2nd round. Gee I must be such an idiot to think those have equal value! You win the argument.
Give me a break. I’m talking about th difference between the 9th Pick or say the 6th or 7th Pick.
Or would you rather we have the number one Pick with the worst record in the league bc KP couldn’t handle being the number one option and didn’t show real superstar potential. Cause in that scenario then we’ve all ready wasted a top pick cause KP sucks. But hey let’s all keep salivating over the potential of a top five pick. How’s josh Jackson looking this year? That Russell and Okafor sure are superstars on the rise! Man Mario Hezonja looks like a perennial all star.
I could go on with top ten picks the last decade who are just meh. But let’s freak out about how stupid we are bc we have a slightly less percentage chance of drafting a superstar bc we’re picking 9th as opposed to 6th.
They didn’t build a 30 win team this year purposefully trying to be a middling team. They made a Melo trade with the specific purpose of rebuilding around KP. KP outperformed and they had some early season success but I guess it would be better for KP to not play well and improve as a player so we could draft higher? What an idiotic idea!
In the last year the team has added youth and athleticism while jettisoning Melo and Rose. We have one of the youngest teams in the league now and have potential improvement with so many players. We’re going to add more first round picks that will be in the top ten of the draft this year and next and will clear cap space with vets coming off the team. This team is heading in the right direction you’re just too blind to see it bc you’re jaded by past mistakes this franchise has made. That’s understandable but wrong.
@40
Admittedly I have very little insight into who in our range is going to turn out to be the best player, but Mikal Bridges has been “meh” lately and may be dropping a little. It’s probably more likely we’ll have a chance to take him now than before we won these 3 recent games. So if that’s your guy (speaking to everyone), you should probably be feeling better about our chances of getting him.
In the last year the team has added youth and athleticism while jettisoning Melo and Rose. We have one of the youngest teams in the league now and have potential improvement with so many players. We’re going to add more first round picks that will be in the top ten of the draft this year and next and will clear cap space with vets coming off the team. This team is heading in the right direction you’re just too blind to see it bc you’re jaded by past mistakes this franchise has made. That’s understandable but wrong.
They have a fairly young team now, but now was far, far too late to do them any good this year, since they moronically decided to play veterans for most of the year, just to make sure that they couldn’t possibly get into the bottom of the draft. That was a horrible decision this year that will hurt them this year, not a mistake of the past, a mistake of the present.
But yes, after it didn’t matter, they did start playing the younger players. That was nice. I do like that. Maybe if they had played Burke a little bit sooner, they wouldn’t have traded a draft pick for the worst point guard in the league. Or is a mistake from a month ago also a mistake of the past?
swiftandabundant,
I didn’t say you would trade two late picks for one high pick. In fact I said the exact opposite. See below.
If someone offered you the #59 and #60 pick for the #9 pick, would you take it? Of course you wouldn’t. Because higher picks are better.
My point is that you know low picks are not as good as high picks. Higher is always better. That means the #9 pick is not as good as the #6 pick. It’s not even as good as the #8 pick.
Yes, this year’s team is moving in a better direction than in years past, when we were going completely in circles. That doesn’t mean we’re going in the right direction. There are a lot of things we could be doing better. One of them would be to not play THJ and Lee a combined 62 minutes, as we did last night. Other teams are benching their vets, losing more games, and rising higher in the lottery. Why can’t we do little things like that? What do we gain by winning meaningless games on the backs of older players, while Dotson, Hicks, Williams, and Frank get a combined 34 minutes?
Well, with Mudiay’s stout VORP of -0.2 over the last 18 games versus -0.6 over the earlier part of the season with Denver, I’d say checkmate, Perry/Mills.
You lose, Nuggets!
The Knicks were not going to lose every game to end the season and once they won those two against Charlotte and Chicago they pretty much cemented the 9th pick. They actually won the Washington game doing what we wanted, playing Ntilikina and Burke, and honestly, the win did not matter. Chicago is doing the most egregious tank job since Minnesota a couple years ago and will probably win maybe one more game all season.
No one was happy about those two wins but I don’t know what the Knicks could do. Charlotte played really bad and Chicago left it’s four best players in Chicago for that game. The Westchester Knicks might have beaten Chicago. All the hand ringing in the world is pointless. Once we were 17-14 tanking to the top of the draft was nearly impossible. When KP went down, 9th would have been a pretty decent outcome and if not for hot streaks by LA and Charlotte we could be picking 11th.
As for the early season wins they were good. We were trying to win and before injuries and a lot of 4th quarter meltdowns in January we looked like a playoff team. We were winning on the back of KP and the only way we tank for a worse record at that point is limiting KP’s minutes and hurting his development. All the whining about winning late games is stupid, we were 5 games ahead of the 8 teams below us less than a month ago and the fact that anyone even got close to catching us is a testament to great tanking, but we weren’t going 0-20 to end the season and some of the teams below us are tanking so bad it’s basically cheating.
Let’s focus on Frank, Burke and Troy’s development, they all look like definite long-term rotation players and be happy we’re still picking in the top 9.
Burke, Frank, Williams, Hicks, Mudiay, Kornet and Dotson should be getting 25 mpg each every game. There is no reason not to. Every time THJ or Beasley or Lee or Kanter or Lance gets more than 15 minutes, it’s a complete waste. We’re not learning anything new about them.
Just play the guys who have some uncertainty. We’ll be bad, rise in the lottery, let these guys develop against NBA competition, and we’ll see what we have in them. We should have been doing this for the last 2 months. And we’re still not doing it. Why?
Brian,
What’s been discouraging is that we’ve been almost as bad as you can possibly be and haven’t been able to move up in the draft at all. Yes, we weren’t getting the #1 because of the good start but you’d think losing 15 of 18 would at least get us close to the top 5. Nope.
I respect your opinion that wins are less important than losses right now, and that the NYK organization should have worked the system even more, but I bemoan what the NBA has become. It’s like the WWF. Something needs to change in the system and I’m not sanguine on the little modifications coming in 2019. The NBA is basically unwatchable after the trade deadline.
I do worry that opting out means he’s re-signing here for 4 years 40MM. Or more. Ugh.
our draft position isn’t really all that bad… there’s 9 names that are close to consensus right now… and that’s …
doncic
ayton
bagley
porter
trae
carter
jackson
bamba
mikal
the names we should be wary of are bamba… bagley and ayton… i doubt we’ll have to concern ourselves with the latter two but it’s probable that bamba will go ahead of our spot… and he might not be all that bad himself…. and it’s always possible that a name like sexton or sga starts getting into the discussion….
what would suck is if someone behind us jumps into the top 3… in that case we’re looking at knox and miles bridges.. but hopefully we have troy brown on our radar….
Yeah, Kanter is probably just finding a guy who can get him an additional player option plus a NTC from the Knicks this summer. It could be any of us for all we know, it just seems inevitable.
God this is so tedious reading complaints about “boo hoo we aren’t tanking correctly.”
I can never quite get my arms around the whole irritated optimist persona.
STOP WHINING ABOUT LIFEBOATS YOU IDIOTS TRY APPRECIATING THAT BEAUTIFUL ICEBERG!!!
If we don’t get bumped down and stay at nine, I think we’re getting either Bamba or Mikal, and I’m fine with that. I just hope they don’t go rogue or get bumped to 10, although Mitchell Robinson or Robert Williams could be tempting there.
some of the teams below us are tanking so bad it’s basically cheating.
I’m not happy with our minutes allocation at all, but this is a good point. The Knicks just aren’t as bad as some of these other teams. It was obvious post ASB we were going to have to get super lucky to improve our draft position. Hornacek’s stupid minutes allocation past that point hasn’t had an effect on it. We won last night playing the kids and it’s not going to make a difference in where we pick.
Kanter is the one player I legitimately want off the team ASAP.
I like Kanter in several ways and wouldn’t mind him off the bench, but imo he’s the one player that’s most likely to be mis-valued badly in terms of salary and minutes.
Noah will probably eventually be bought out. He’s a sunk cost and the timing for when he expires is sort of in sync with when we hope to be getting good anyway. There’s not much harm from here unless there’s a free agent you want to sign immediately.
Hardaway is more of a 6th man getting millions more than he’s worth, but at least there’s an outside shot he can get better and turn it into a tolerable error.
But if we hitch our wagon to Kanter long term at a big price and make him the starting C for the foreseeable future, I will personally shift gears away from this rebuild and start looking forward to when we fire Mills/Perry. We can get away with one significant mistake like Hardaway, but we won’t get away with two of them.
Tanking is not as easy as some think.
Players have an incentive to do their best, for many different reasons: to get a new contract, to stay in the NBA, to impress possible suitors, etc. Coaches are in the same boat. And teams can’t just openly order anyone to ‘tank’ – that person might be the whistle blower or disgruntled ex-employee that creates hell for the team and the NBA.
That said, rebuilding goes much further than mindless tanking. We all know the odds of getting a franchise-caliber player are very low beyond the 1st or 2nd 1st-round picks. Our Knicks are a lot of players away from true contention. The talent pool is almost empty right now.
I suggest the team forgets about the “build around a star” concept and considers trading Porzingis for a couple of good assets (assuming Porzingis is no damaged goods at this point). That would be a healthier and faster road to recovery.
But if we hitch our wagon to Kanter long term at a big price and make him the starting C for the foreseeable future, I will personally shift gears away from this rebuild and start looking forward to when we fire Mills/Perry. We can get away with one significant mistake like Hardaway, but we won’t get away with two of them.
There isn’t a single Knicks player (including Porzingis) worth re-signing at the prices they will command.
I don’t see Kanter commanding some huge salary. He got lucky because of the year he was a free agent and his youth/potential at the time. The market is much different now and he’s closer to the finished product he will be until he declines. He’ll be lucky to get 3 years/10 million a year. And I’d be open to us keeping him. BUILD A TEAM. CONTINUITY.
Not sure why we mind if THJ is getting minutes. He’s 25 and on major money. That decision to sign him is over, but I absolutely want him playing and getting reps alongside Burke, Frank, Williams, Kornet and Hicks, all of whom are long and maybe, potentially, hopefully could be long-term pieces for us. The only thing that really bothered me last night was playing Lee down the stretch over Frank and Hicks getting 0 minutes, the latter being more defensible since I’m not convinced Hicks’ ceiling is even rotation player.
If Kanter opts out that’s great and maybe we can throw Randle an offer sheet this summer but if he opts in I’m not too worried about it. So long as we don’t pay up to keep him in summer 2019 that’s fine.
My amazement over Melo continues. I knew he was bad but it continues to amaze me how bad. At what point do the Thunder bench him? I know that’s never happening but it should right?
I continue to not care about Frankie’s ineptitude on offense. I love the way he plays D. To me, it’s a lot more fun to track a guy like him on defense than all but a handful of players on offense. It’s really uncanny how well he moves on defense for someone who doesn’t appear to have outstanding athleticism. And he gets results. I am still on Team Smokes and will be for as long as he defends like an All-Star.
For those of you who missed, the Giannis 60 minutes is excellent. Kid has got a great personality.
Don’t get me wrong I am upset about the minutes as well. I want to throw something at my TV everytime Beasley, Lee or Thomas play more than a couple minutes but that has nothing to do with tanking. I want our young players to get as many minutes as possible so we can get a really good handle on if they are long-term pieces or not. I think Burke and Williams should be part of the rotation next year and possibly going forward. I think Ntilikina should start next year. Dotson I’m not sure about, I haven’t seen enough and I doubt Hicks or Kornet are in the NBA in two years, though I have more hope for Hicks than Kornet. Mudiay might improve but I honestly hope we trade him this offseason and he can maybe develop somewhere else.
As for the tank, we have the worst record in the NBA since KP went down, I don’t see how our rotations have screwed up the tank. If anything getting Mudiay is the only reason we had any shot of moving down. There is no reason to ring your hands at these wins. We weren’t moving below 8 in the best case so 9 is fine.
As for trading KP that would be unspeakably stupid. He is one of the top 5 players under 24 in the NBA and there is no reason to think this injury will have lingering effects. There is no possible package that anyone would offer that would be worth moving KP for.
Also let’s make offer sheets for Randle, Hezonja or Noel. Any would be great pickups for reasonable prices.
This season has been mildly disappointing, but shit, can you imagine if we were looking at another year of Melo? Granted, we’d have a better draft pick, but it would have been a miserable watching experience and an absolute media shit show.
@60
OKC would almost certainly be better off if they benched Melo, but I’m going to guess he has no idea how poorly he’s playing. He probably thinks he’s being the good soldier by accepting a more limited role and should actually have a bigger one. If you are the coach, it can’t be easy to tell a former star it’s time to go to the bench, but with Melo, I don’t think he’s self aware enough to figure it out on his own.
Melo’s shooting 35% from 3, which is not great, but it’s respectable. But he can’t draw fouls anymore and he can’t get to the rim at all, so anything that’s not a 3 is an awful shot.
Yeah, the issue with Melo is that probably for him it’s all about “rhythm. Oh I’m not getting as many shots or being featured so I can’t get my rhythm, and the solution to that is always take more shots.
OKC is clearly better with Grant over him, but the reputation and the fact that “Melo can ball” / is a ruff rydah won’t let that happen.
He is one of the top 5 players under 24 in the NBA and there is no reason to think this injury will have lingering effects.
Those are all obviously-better players than Porzingis, not even counting his injury.
Of all players 23 or younger this season with >1000 minutes played, he ranked 33 (of 64) in BPM, with a -0.4 mark.
Wishful thinking doesn’t make a player great. Add his unusual height and a severe injury and baby, you got a stew goin’.
If we could trade KP and THj for excellent assets then I’d be down for that. Blow it up completely. Who would go for KP that has a top pick this year, or who looks like their own pick in a few years will be top 5? Would the Cavs take him for the Nets pick and a future Cavs first? 2020 Cavs pick might be a nice one to have.
This seems like a vanishingly unlikely scenario.
Of the guys you listed:
Giannis (obviously)
Simmons
Towns
Are the only sure fire players I’d take over KP. Embiid is better but I’d put the over under on five or six healthy seasons for his career, capela is great but I think KP will be better if he puts it all together and I personally don’t like jokic. His body language sucks and he phones it in on defense too much. I don’t think he wins anything in his career. Something about him runs me the wrong way.
But even accepting they are better KP is still top 10 in potential and unless the offer is two top 3 picks it’s not worth it.
I think RPM and RAPM account for KPs defensive contributions better than BPM, so I think the reality of KPs production is somewhere between #40 player overall (where RPM had him before he went down) and league average player (where BPM has him); and closer to the former than the latter. He’s a guy who’s one of those more difficult mini max decisions especially post injury, but I think pre injury you ultimately play the odds and max him given his (by my lights) solid productivity and room for improvement. I think reasonable people can disagree on that score though, and I wouldn’t necessarily be averse to trading him especially post injury.
Ultimately though I’d keep him, especially given the realities of this organization where a bird in hand is particularly advantageous — I simply don’t 1. Trust this FO to get adequate value in a trade scenario and 2. Develop its drafted players competently enough a la San Antonio (I bet Kawhi would’ve been merely quite good if he was drafted by the knicks rather than Pop Engelland and company.)
Fultz is playing tonight.
I know it’s against Malik Monk, but Frank is looking pretty good driving to the rim tonight
Saw this on Twitter:
LeBron James just had the most prolific offensive week of his entire career.
He scored or assisted on 63.3 PPG, his most ever in a single week. This was the 357th week of his career.
Oh and he did it while shooting 63 percent from the field en route to a perfect 4-0 record.
The Frank Ntilikina game!
Frank went down to Charlotte, ate him some hot sauce!
Frank has been sandbagging! lol
Frank just karate chopped Kemba then dunked one handed like a damn basketball ninja
The complete absence of Mudiay is a sight for these sore eyes
Trey seems like the real deal.
But Kanter was crushing Willy in practice, so this doesn’t count.
Those were some shit calls on Frank.
It would so nice if Trey Burke could be our starting point guard for the next 5 years.
Trey is the new mid range god.
Trey Burke got obliterated on that screen, but I don’t buy that he’s a bad defender. He understands team defensive concepts and he’s aggressive at the point of attack.
Burke with the first 40/10 game by a Knicks guard since Marbury!!
Beasley at center was the stealth tank, make no mistakes about it. Burke played his heart out for us tonight.
Ok I’m against drafting Trae Young now.
Trey looks like AI with a 3 point shot
Fultz had a solid return
That team is *scary* if he comes back full from his…whatever it is that he had
Its worth noting that TH2 started at shooting guard and had about as good a box score as you could expect from him on a nightly basis. I’d prefer to put Hardaway as the 6th man with Ntilikina as the starting off guard, but you really can’t argue with the nights Burke and TH2 just put up. How Knicksy would a Burke, Hardaway Jr, Miles Bridges, Julius Randle, and Kristaps Porzingis starting five be?
As impressive as his scoring has been Burke’s assist to turnover ratio has been just as impressive- it was 3.7 to 1 going into tonight where had 12 and 2. If you’re the Knicks do you give him full starters minutes (30+) the rest of the way at the expense of Frank and Mudiay to see if wheels come off before potentially drafting a one?
Trey Burke dropped 42 and 12 on the second night of a back to back. The starting job is his to lose. He’s going to play 30+ minutes a night and we’ll have a better picture of what he is by Tax Day. If his numbers on the season are legit then we have a top 12 starter at point guard on a minimum salary deal, and Scott Perry would have hit a homerun.
Frank and Trey! And we still lost!
Fultz looked hella good, 8 assists with only 1 turnover even though he shot poorly, 4 rebounds too. If he’s relevant as a basketball player the Sixers are so fucking insane. Simmons and Embiid are 100% the real deal.
I seriously thought that they didn’t have back to backs this late in the season. Oops, my bad! The highlights were fun to watch. Burke and Frank are fun to watch in general!
Don’t forget the Sixers have a max slot this offseason
Kms
@alanhahn
Tonight @TreyBurke went for 42 pts, 12 assists with just 2 TOs. Only 4 players have had at least 42/12 with 2 or fewer TOs in a game:
Allen Iverson
Kevin Johnson
Michael Jordan
Isiah Thomas
By the way Philadelphia plays the Knicks, Hawks twice, Hornets, Mavericks, Nets, Pistons, Bucks and the Cavs to close out the season, and they’re the 4th seed, one game behind the Cavs.
There’s a very real chance the “failed process” could lock up the 3rd seed in the east in a year where the 2nd seed (Boston) is ravaged by injuries…
The Suns are really terrible. Josh Jackson has made some nice plays in the open court though
Is the site on Spring break? We are still on two day old game thread. Sigh.
damn what a game for burke. that’s pretty ridiculous.
shout out to courtney for barely sullying the boxscore in 32 minutes.
2/1/0/0/0 /0/0 even lance is impressed.
If his (Burke’s) numbers on the season are legit then we have a top 12 starter at point guard on a minimum salary deal, and Scott Perry would have hit a homerun.
How many transactional wins does Perry need to convince y’all that the Knicks are being run by a guy that actually knows what he’s doing?
Honestly, those continuing to expect the worst at this point are just exhibiting confirmation bias.
Well he’s still the one who acquired Mudiay for a second round pick, sooooo let’s just wait next offseason to evaluate Perry
a 2nd for Mudiay was worth the shot. If you think 2nds have that much value, then he got 2 of them for Willie, who is almost as bad as Mudiay
For those of you that are still down on Frank, remember, the only reason we have Burke is that Utah and Washington gave up on him at 24. Frank is only 19.
How Knicksy would a Burke, Hardaway Jr, Miles Bridges, Julius Randle, and Kristaps Porzingis starting five be?
As of right now, I think Bridges is going to be available. If you can figure out how to get Randle here, sign me up. I’d include a future #1.
How many transactional wins does Perry need to convince y’all that the Knicks are being run by a guy that actually knows what he’s doing?
I’d be convinced if he didn’t also do the Mudiay and Hernangomez trades. When you also do foolish things, it’s hard to trust that the smart things you did weren’t an accident.
I’d be convinced if he didn’t also do the Mudiay and Hernangomez trades. When you do obviously foolish things, it’s hard to trust that the smart things you did weren’t an accident.
Exactly. The Willie trade was so, so bad. And Mudiay will likely never be an NBA player… But the Willie trade was so, so bad.
Trey’s coming out game was dampened by how fucked we’re gonna be if Fultz/Embiid/Simmons stay healthy. Did I mention that their pick this year is only spot behind us.
Oh guys and also by the way, the team Perry (and Mills) built with so much competence is 27-48 and happens to be 4-19 in the last two months in a year they clearly wanted to win.
I thought this might be relevant.
Perry didn’t build shit. He came in after the THJ and Baker contracts were agreed upon and has worked to balance the roster out and made some fringe moves. So it’s not really relevant.
What might be relevant is the team’s best player being out for the last 2 months with an ACL injury though.
Who the F cares about Fultz? Burke was ridiculous last night!
I know we have him for next year but they need to make him an offer RIGHT NOW. At the very least he can be our back up PG for the future and should absolutely be considered part of the core going forward. I know its one game but he’s been killing it in general since he got called up. He’s put in the work and has made the progress and absolutely should be locked up now. Cause now we could probably still get him for a good price. If he has a handful of these games next year, he will not be cheap for too much longer.
Also, I think this means we should focus on an SF for the draft. I know drafting for need when you suck is not always the wisest moves but there will be some very talented SFs most likely available and it is such a position of need that I think it just makes sense. Let Trae go somewhere else. Get one of them Bridges boys on the Knicks!
Saw this list below on ESPN.com regarding this year’s draft, and it made me sad. There are 3 tanking teams – Atlanta, Phoenix and Chicago- who will be drafting twice in the first round (Phoenix actually three times) Where are the Knicks on this list? I guess we should be happy we’re not one of the teams giving up picks. Low expectations and all….)-:
The Cavaliers will receive the Nets’ pick unprotected
The Lakers’ pick will go to the 76ers if it lands at No. 1 or Nos. 6 to 30; the Celtics get the pick at Nos. 2 to 5
The Clippers will receive the Pistons’ pick if it is outside the top four
The Suns will receive the Bucks’ pick if it is Nos. 11 to 16
The Suns will receive Miami’s pick if its outside the top seven
The Bulls will receive the Pelicans’ pick if it is outside the top five
The Wolves will receive the Thunder’s pick if it is outside the lottery
The Lakers will receive the Cavaliers’ pick if it is outside the top three
The Hawks will receive the Wolves’ pick if it is outside the lottery
Relax on Trey Burke. He’s taking a ton of long 2s and shooting 55% on them. He’s a career 43% shooter on long 2s. Dirk Nowitzki, probably the best mid-range shooter ever, is 47% on long 2s for his career.
So unless a 25-year-old Trey Burke suddenly became far better than the greatest midrange shooter of all time, he’s due for a massive regression. He’s not a starting PG. Hopefully he has improved his game enough to be a competent backup next year.
So it’s not really relevant.
I’m totally willing to give Perry credit for Burke. He may end up only a back up 1, but that’s still a really good signing.
But pretty much everything else (only a few things, tbf) is negative.
D-mar, thanks for that list. Crazy. The Suns are in a position to change their team overnight.
@109
I agree he didn’t build shit, so maybe we should wait a bit before giving him so much credit for this team?
Burke is a terrible defender who’s shooting way above his usual career averages. Committing to players like this because he scored 40 is precisely the sort of Knicksy move we’ve come to expect of this franchise.
Let him play obviously, he’s somewhat young and already under contract for next year, but please let’s chill a bit.
I’m totally willing to give Perry credit for Burke. He may end up only a back up 1, but that’s still a really good signing.
But pretty much everything else (only a few things, tbf) is negative.
This is probably where I differ from most here, but I think Perry took over a mess at a super inopportune time and has done fine.
IN: Kanter, Burke (non-guaranteed next year), Williams (non-guaranteed next year), Mudiay, Beasley, Jack, 2018 CHI 2nd, 2019 CHA 2nd, 2020 CHA 2nd, Kornet?, Hicks?
OUT: Melo, Willy, 2018 LAC 2nd
IN-OUT: McDermott, Sessions
For me, I really like Willy and said as much many times after last season. It’s also been reported he showed up feeling entitled this season. Hahn reported after the deal Willy even refused to go to the G-League, something even Noah did. I also believe Kanter is better, but that groundbound 5s in their mold without much shooting range are a dying type with the way the game is going. I’m also not of the belief Willy’s trade value was ever anymore than what we ultimately got which was 2 seconds from a team who is capped out to hell and seems destined for a rebuild.
I totally understand that others feel very differently about it. IMO it’s not clear cut good or bad, but rather more up in the air. It depends on what happens with those picks and/or if Willy goes on to become a real difference making player.
The Mudiay deal is also potentially a poor value, but I don’t think Perry planned on keeping McDermott after the season and felt using their late 2nd on a reclamation lotto project was a decent gamble.
I also think he’s made moves like bringing in Craig Robinson to head up the G-League team and overall development for the organization are hard to define the value of. But Burke balling out after floating around the league for 4 years on the heels of his Westchester stint and Kornet showing flashes may reflect well upon what we do long term. I also like the Williams pick up
More or less I’m cautiously optimistic about what Perry’s done because I feel he’s prioritizing athleticism and trying to do so without compromising any major assets long term in the form of picks or cap space and been able to negotiate very team friendly contracts on the margins. It’s been rumored he also inquired about Jabari Parker last summer and Hollis-Jefferson this year, so it seems he’s actively searching for an athletic combo forward type which would make the KP at the 5 lineups more tenable.
I guess I think Perry isn’t for sure the next Morey, but I also think he’s less Knicksy than his predecessors so I’m willing to give him some more rope, for now. This summer I think will tell us alot about his patience and vision.
I’m gonna go against the idea that perry has sucked.
1. Won the Melo deal.
2. Beasley for the vet minimum was a good signing.
3. Called up Burke and we got a non guaranteed option for next year.
4. Same for Williams.
5. Kornet – he seems to be promising too.
6. Jarret Jack – again a vet minimum good signing.
7. Mudiay and Willy – ok those are the questionable moves. 🙂
Also letting Horns ride out the season without too much drama. Downplaying the Noah situation, which has basically gone away for now. This summer will be an intersting one for Perry. A big test for him.
Also, I really think we need to let Horns finish out his contract and not mess with hiring someone new. He hasn’t been given the best hands to deal with his first two years. First year, Phil meddling and a horrible roster with uninterested vets like Rose and Melo. Second year, mismatched roster with 4 centers over performs early then big injuries to Hardaway and then Zinger. But here we are. The team has no reason to try and win games and they could easily be mailing it in yet they’re going out and competing and actually wining games which I know annoys people on this site but live with it. The tank is dead. We’re finishing 9th. The team looked horrible after KP went down and we brought in all these new players but a few weeks later and they’re actually playing pretty well all things considered.
I’m not saying he’s a great coach. But let him have another training camp and year. Coaches can get better too and looking at how Burke and Frank have been playing recently, I see improvement. Plus KQ, Lee, Beasley, Kanter all had “career” years this year. Maybe he’s not so bad and having some continuity for once would be nice. He’d have a longer leash next year cause the team is not expected to do anything until KP gets back.
Having a strong opinion either way on a GM’s tenure after less than 9 months is silly barring some really, really extreme moves, and that’s pretty much the opposite of what we’ve seen from Perry so far. He’s mostly tinkered around the edges of a situation that was largely set in stone before he got there. Some of that tinkering has been good, some has given reasons for concern, but it’s all small stuff at this point. It takes real time to judge a GM’s body of work (consider that Hinkie’s plan in Philly is just now finally coming to fruition and he has already been fired for almost two years) and the moves that will in all likelihood define Perry’s tenure one way or the other still are all ahead of us.
Scott Perry has made good marginal moves like Beasley and Jack, robbed OKC, and then added good young guys in Burke, Kornet, and Williams. The Mudiay deal was bad but harmless. The Hernangomez deal wasn’t as terrible as people want it to be just because bad defense at the 5 isn’t something you can hide. Feel how you want to about Burke’s defense, you can give Frank Ntilikina the opposing team’s best guard. You just can’t hide a poor team defender at the center position. We got 2 2nd round picks after we torpedoed his value. I get that, but it’s not like he’s tearing it up and his constant complaining about minutes (despite not being better than KO or Kanter) wasn’t good.
I’m a fan of Scott Perry’s work so far just because our long term plans don’t change that much. And the Knicks did NOT have intentions to win; that’s revisionist history. All the articles that came out spoke to how the Knicks would play hard but would play for the future. Right now, regression aside, it looks like we have 3 guys who should be starters in TH2, Burke, and KP. Frank Ntilikina is developing slowly but it’s obvious he’s a player, and then we have a shot to land two more players in the 2018 draft. I like the Scott Perry Knicks more than any other Knicks team I’ve liked in a long time. I think the Steve Mills factor is what people are upset about because Scott Perry really hasn’t done anything to damage this team’s long term outlook.
@118
1. Won the Melo deal.
2. Beasley for the vet minimum was a good signing.
3. Called up Burke and we got a non guaranteed option for next year.
4. Same for Williams.
5. Kornet – he seems to be promising too.
6. Jarret Jack – again a vet minimum good signing.
7. Mudiay and Willy – ok those are the questionable moves. 🙂
Burke was a nice pickup and could be a solid backup PG in the future. As some have argued, he’s probably due for a regression in his shooting. Williams was a nice pickup. Let’s be honest, these nice moves are mostly for potential bench/rotation pieces. The teams desperately needs some young, potential good starter talent other than KP and Frank.
Wasn’t Kornett signed when Phil was still here? Beasley and Jack were probably signed to try to be good this year, but have worked out better as stealth tank assets.
RE Willy. I’d like to know the truth behind dealing Willy. Was he really acting entitled? Did he really refuse to go to the D League? Even with that, do you maybe hang on to the guy and see what happens in the offseason with OQ and Kanter?
“He’s a career 43% shooter on long 2s. Dirk Nowitzki, probably the best mid-range shooter ever, is 47% on long 2s for his career.
So unless a 25-year-old Trey Burke suddenly became far better than the greatest midrange shooter of all time, he’s due for a massive regression.”
In the two seasons prior to this one, Burke shot 48.5% on 10-16′ shots and 43.2% on 16′-the three point line. (For his career, Dirk is 47% for both.) Burke’s TS% has improved every year for the last four years — .455, .507, .532 and .581 this year (after shooting .592 in 1000 minutes in the D-League this year). So, while Burke is shooting a ridiculously high percentage on long 2’s so far, the regression might not be so massive. Re: Mudiay — while he’s been lousy, he is only 21. Maybe the people on this site who have been advocating for a long slow rebuild and developing young players should be a little more patient before they jettison a guy who is still younger than a lot of the guys who are playing in the NCAA Final Four?
Remember, those teams had assets they unloaded for 1’s. we haven’t had that luxury. The best chance would have been to trade Willy last offseason for a 1; I think some of us would have flipped out had we done that.
@122
On Mudiay, you’re missing the point. It’s not that they’re developing a 21 year old and people are angry, people just don’t see the point in trying to develop this specific 21 year old who has shown historically bad numbers for 3 years already.
It’s very simple, not every 21 year old is the same person. People like me want the Knicks to find and develop actually productive young players who have shown they can get better or young players who have shown real promise in at least some areas. Mudiay doesn’t fit either description.
@ 118 – yes, this is a great assessment. I think people want to complain and say its the same ole knicks bc that is what they are used to and since we aren’t winning 50 games yet they can say “see, we still suck so we must be inept” but Perry has been low-key with his moves and patient and has made moves to get us younger. But this is going to take some time. People just want to be negative bc they’ve been conditioned to feel that way from years of losing and ineptitude. And believe me, I completely understand why that is a natural reaction. But the overreaction to things like the Willy and Mudiay trades are just that. Overreactions. These aren’t cap killing, future killing moves. Its like people complaining about Horns “being an idiot” when his options sometimes aren’t that great as far as who he plays when.
I mean it could all go south. And even if Perry rebuilds “the right way” that is no guarantee of success. But there isn’t anything so far in his short tenure that looks like he’s being short sighted or trying to make a flashy move and win now.
I’m personally more excited about the long term prospects of this franchise than I have been in awhile. We have KP, Hardaway, Frank, Burke, Williams, Dotson, Ron, Kornet, our 2018 first round, The chicago 2nd round, next year’s first round…to build on. There’s also Kanter and KQ that we could possibly resign to reasonable deals if we want. Lee could be hopefully be traded for something but even if he just plays out his contract that isn’t such a bad player to have. Lance and Noah will come off the books eventually. Beasley can probably be resign for the vet minimum again and likes it here. We’ve got youth, future picks, future cap space in a few years when we should spend that cap space and lots of room for internal improvement from our young players.
Omg I hope we draft Liangelo Ball in the 2nd round just for comedy’s sake.
What’s depressing about the current state of the Knicks is our most direct competitors in Philly, Boston, and Toronto either spent the time they weren’t good furiously hoarding assets (the former two) or successfully accumulated a lot of young talent while they were good (Toronto).
Under Phil, we took the “none of the above approach” and are now extremely far behind all of those teams both now and for the future. It is mostly a Phil problem, but while Perry has made some nifty moves here and there for which he deserves credit, he also exacerbated the issue by trading Willy for 10 cents on the dollar.
I just don’t see us catching up to those teams by making one pick every year in the mid-to-late lottery while our cap sheet gets worse and worse. Our only shot is to make a Kawhi/Giannis-level value pick(s). I guess the point of my rant here is FUCK Phil Jackson and it blows my mind that the guy still has defenders. He sat on his ass and watched our competitors hoard assets while we spent them trying to get to 40 wins.
LiAngelo would be our next Chris Smith. All of the headache with none of the talent. He’s perfect.
But the overreaction to things like the Willy and Mudiay trades are just that. Overreactions. These aren’t cap killing, future killing moves.
In chess, there’s a thing called “positional” playing style, which means playing conservatively and capitalizing on your opponent’s small inaccuracies to develop an advantage. As players have incorporated world-beating computer engines into their analysis, it’s rare to see a top-level player make an aggressive gambit or sacrifice against another top-level player.
That’s where we’re headed with front offices in the NBA, albeit slowly because it’s an Ol’ Boys Club, just like baseball was. What Perry’s doing is giving away small advantages (pick swaps, an All-Rookie player being traded for future 2nds, etc.) for virtually nothing. There was no upside to the Mudiay trade, and that’s been confirmed. WHG might never be an All-NBA player, but he is, at worst, a league-average young player on an outstanding contract through 2020. They traded him for virtually nothing.
The Mudiay and WHG trades won’t sink the franchise immediately, just as an “inaccurate” pawn or minor piece move won’t immediately lose a chess game. But over time, below-average decisions accrete and leave a team wondering how they ended up with a 35-win rookie-contract core instead of the 45-win core that signals a team’s window to sign or trade for a marquee free agent to become a Finals contender.
The constant apologism for these bad, but not terrible, moves tells us that you have no idea what you’re talking about. This is a game where 2 or 3 missed shots and 2 or 3 extra turnovers per game are the difference between a 2nd-round playoff team and a lottery team. You do not bridge that gap without making the most out of “little” assets. You do not build a winner by habitually trading away good players, even if they’re 5% better than league average.
@ Jowles I appreciate your analogy although I think its a little off. In chess, when you make a small bad move, you might lose a piece (like a pawn). In NBA GMing you could lose a small piece (like an overrated rookie center who plays no defense) but you also in theory get pieces back when you make trades. For example, we actually acquired two second round picks for Willy. Now you might say those aren’t valuable but then again wasn’t Willy himself a second round pick? If even one of those turns into a decent player, that trade completely changes.
Also, your statement about Mudiay is just not true. At least not yet. There’s another PG on our team who was a first round pick who up until a few weeks ago was considered a bust in the NBA. Last night he scored 42 points for our team. So yes, Mudiay could end up sucking forever. But this idea that he is done because he’s all ready been in the league for 2 years and has sucked. Well, that’s just not how it always plays out. Mudiay was acquired in the hopes that he can be developed. We had to give up McDermott, who I liked, but who we would have to pay to keep and isn’t really worth keeping for more than minimal money and a second round pick. So in essence we traded Willy and McDermott for Mudiay and a second round pick. That’s two players of marginal talent for one who sucks now but has a slight chance to get better and another pick. We traded two pawns for two pawns.
And you have no idea what you’re talking about! So there!
I appreciate the Jowles analogy also, but we should probably take Perry’s record as a whole as opposed to only picking out the bad things.
I think we can probably equivocally say that the Trey Burke signing was a really good move. You have a guy who probably will regress somewhat but even if he does that, is probably a real rotation player. Perry got him for nothing and has him signed through next year on a minimum contract. I have no idea what Burke would get on the market if he were an unrestricted FA this summer, but it’d probably be at least something between the miniMLE and nontaxpayer MLE, so Perry probably got us $5MM in marginal value there. That move in itself easily cancels out the Mudiay and Willy trades. And re: the Willy trade, it is quite possible that those Charlotte picks end up being very early 2nd round picks, and so I think it’s too early to say how good or bad that was.
Troy Williams is fine and is probably a rotation player on this team – he’s also signed with a nonguaranteed contract through next year.
So overall he’s made a few good moves and a few bad moves, and so at worst he’s done an average job. That’s not even considerint the Melo trade which at this point HAS to be considered a hugely positive given how washed he looks right now. Even Daryl Morey and Sam Presti make bad moves sometimes. So overall I’d give Perry a positive grade.
Relax on Trey Burke. He’s taking a ton of long 2s and shooting 55% on them. He’s a career 43% shooter on long 2s. Dirk Nowitzki, probably the best mid-range shooter ever, is 47% on long 2s for his career.
So unless a 25-year-old Trey Burke suddenly became far better than the greatest midrange shooter of all time, he’s due for a massive regression.
The reality is probably somewhere in between. He has been slowly improving his efficiency all along. He played very well in G League and is also on a roll for the Knicks. He’s probably not as good as he’s been playing for the Knicks, but he’s likely to be way better than he was in prior years.
I’ll take that.
If we started the season next year with Burke and Frank in the backcourt and eventually handed the reigns to Frank and sent Burke to the bench, I’d be fine with that.
All GMs make mistakes. So you have to forgive one here or there. But some moves that turn out bad looked OK when they are made. At a minimum they were understandable. They just look bad with the benefit of hindsight. Those are way more forgivable than the ones when almost everyone on a blog/forum is pounding the table that it was a bad move and they all turn out to be right. That’s a sign of incompetence. That’s less forgivable because it means it’s going to happen again and perhaps on a big move next time instead of just the small ones.
@ Jowles I appreciate your analogy although I think its a little off. In chess, when you make a small bad move, you might lose a piece (like a pawn).
I can tell you aren’t quite following the analogy because pawns are not pieces, but that’s okay. FYI if you lose a pawn to me, I’m going to beat you like a red-headed stepchild. If you lose a piece, you might as well resign.
In NBA GMing you could lose a small piece (like an overrated rookie center who plays no defense) but you also in theory get pieces back when you make trades.
In chess, like in other zero-sum games, this is called compensation. Sometimes the compensation doesn’t make you whole. (See our adversarial legal system, which often awards cash for accidental dismemberment. A million bucks is a lot of money, but it’s not going to, say, grow your hand back.) In the case of Mudiay, we received virtually nothing of value. You could have traded $20 for him and it would have been a bad trade. He could play for free and it would be a bad trade. Getting “assets” in return doesn’t make it a good trade. It just gives you a way to defend idiocy.
For example, we actually acquired two second round picks for Willy. Now you might say those aren’t valuable but then again wasn’t Willy himself a second round pick? If even one of those turns into a decent player, that trade completely changes.
Would you trade a $5 winning scratchoff for two $1 tickets? We’ve been through this before: those picks are virtually worthless, and could almost certainly be bought without giving up anything more than cash. Willy is a “now” asset, and at worst, he is a solid bench player at ~$3 over the next two years. Ask Toronto about the value of solid bench play.
the best thing about the Mudiay trade is that I believe he is literally the player Jowles hates the most and so of course the knicks traded for him lmao
Would you trade a $5 winning scratchoff for two $1 tickets? We’ve been through this before: those picks are virtually worthless, and could almost certainly be bought without giving up anything more than cash. Willy is a “now” asset, and at worst, he is a solid bench player at ~$3 over the next two years. Ask Toronto about the value of solid bench play.
While this is sort of true, I would say that very useful players have been traded for 2nd round picks just in the last few years — PJ Tucker, Elfrid Payton, etc. 2nd round picks are also used as sweetener for deals. So they are not worthless in that other teams value them enough to trade FOR them either with players or as a part of a larger deal — not to mention that early 2nd round picks when actually used to select players (and not just as trade chips) are more and more often turning into actually playable players.
My only happiness about the Knicks situation is that we’re capped out for next year anyway since Kanter will either re-sign or opt in, and that will stop the Knicks from offering Tyreke Evans the inevitable 4 year 40 million contract that’s been like 5 years in the making.
if the knicks re-sign kanter then i’m positive we won’t be going anywhere for awhile…. he should be traded or let go and our defense after kp’s injury should make that abundantly clear…
fun with Trey Burke and B-R–
he’s the only player in NBA history (at least back to 1946) who has played 500 min and averaged 22/7 and ?2 turnovers per 36
this season the only players who have averaged 22/7 per 36 and TS >57 are Burke, Lebron, and Harden.
How does trading Willy for players who probably won’t be as good as Willy in 2022 make the Knicks better?
yes, but what if we can pick TWO players that aren’t as good as Willy?!
sure would seem like trey is fool’s gold about to show that underneath his shining efficiency is some lackluster yellow marker coloring…
watching him though – he sure plays with fire a lot of fire and confidence – imagine him and timmy coming off the bench, along with kanter – instant offense…
i can’t imagine him as an average starting nba point guard – however, his current performance seems to indicate that he could be a starter and help the team win…
i go back and forth each day on the topic of whether or not to bring back horny next year…i mean it’s not like we have any intentions on competing for the playoffs next year…some players have shown improvement this year…he says the right stuff to the media…coaching continuity would be nice…
however, his communications skills may not be so great and, his rotations are baffling at times…
i’m pretty sure he’s not a top tier coach…if i was perry i’d probably extend him another year and let him coach for us at least another year…
one thing about Trey Burke – from what I remember of him at Michigan (I watched a lot of Michigan back in those days) and Utah, he looks like he’s in way better shape now. Maybe just getting older/more mature and in better shape has done something for his game. He’s referenced his immaturity a bunch in interviews as a cause of the slow start to his career – wonder if that just meant a ton of partying and not taking care of his body.
re: Hornacek – it sure does seem like he lost the team in Phoenix and has had some questionable relationships with players here in NY. Sometimes dudes just rub guys the wrong way.
Berman wrote a long article today about this – really does sound like he’s on his way out. I really hope Mark Jackson is not the answer to the question though.
JVG
Fizdale
Blatt
maybe even Stackhouse although I think his role with the Raptors bench is probably overstated (Siakam and FVV barely played for 905 last year).
Did anyone read the article where KP’s trainer said he’d be ready to go by the start of the season?
I believe he said the Knicks would probably be cautious and give him more time, but that he’s working on other parts of his body already, would come back much stronger than before, and would be ready at the start of the season.
For argument’s sake, let’s say he’s physically ready and cleared to come back in December and the team gets off to a decent enough start to remain in contention.
With a few improved young players and a successful pick, what are they going to do?
Willy Hernangomez has a WS/48 of .192 for Charlotte so far in limited action this season.
How is trading two second rounders for him a good deal?
It’d be nice to see Burke with a big who could really roll to the rim.
Berman wrote a long article today about this – really does sound like he’s on his way out.
It’s probably even money Berman’s source is Mills or someone doing his bidding. Berman is laying the groundwork for them.
Trey Burke is finishing at the rim like Lebron James and shooting long twos better than most guys shoot layups. It’s not for real.
His playmaking might be better, and it’s likely he’s developed into a good three point shooter, but be realistic.
Trey Burke is finishing at the rim like Lebron James and shooting long twos better than most guys shoot layups. It’s not for real.
I can see it now. Trey Burke at the FT line and the Garden chants “MVP MVP MVP”.
Trey-sanity (with the big difference being we won all those games with Jeremy Lin)
Agreed RE Burke. He’s been a nice find, but he should be treated as possibly a solid backup pg. If he continues to play well next year, then you consider extending him.
I would say that very useful players have been traded for 2nd round picks just in the last few years — PJ Tucker, Elfrid Payton, etc
Yeah, but those players are at the ends of their contracts and the trading team hasn’t any interest in re-signing them, so anything they get back is better than nothing.
In the case of WHG, he was under a team-friendly contract for several more years. That’s what is so head-scratching about that trade.
Re: Mark Jackson
The positive about him is that he’s shown a desire to fight with ownership and management, which is probably more useful at MSG than having actual coaching skills.
@147
Willy has played a total of 141 minutes for the Hornets. Most of the minutes that Willy has played have come in garbage time.
There is absolutely no conclusions you can draw from a sample size that small.
I am not a big fan of the trade but using a sample size to draw your conclusion about the trade is ridiculous.
really fun statistical take on the top 40 players of all time. Clyde at #34, Ewing at #27. Some interesting stuff on CP3 too, who doesn’t rank as well (“only” #21) as I thought he would’ve.
yes, but what if we can pick TWO players that aren’t as good as Willy?!
lol
Re: Willy’s sample size, the thing is, those numbers this year are consistent with his numbers last year. He is an efficient scorer who rebounds well. He is on a multi-year deal that pays him little more than league minimum. That kind of value is almost impossible to beat.
So, yeah, it is a big deal, and it is totally a sign that at the least we need to be worried about Perry’s assessment of value. The Mudiay signing is another cause: the amount of improvement he’d need to make in a season and a half to become even league average is almost unfathomable. It has probably never been done in league history.
I concede to Lavor that he has made some decent moves beyond Burke: Beasley and Jack (and Sessions, though it didn’t work out) were all good moves. I was ecstatic about the Melo trade, but won’t call it a good move unless we don’t resign Kanter. So I won’t give him that one. And Williams…I guess he could be a rotation player on a good team in two years, but he could also be out of the league. Again, hard to call at this point.
I’m not saying he’s terrible, but he’s shown as much or more cause for concern than optimism.
On the other hand, at least he’s not tweeting random shit about other teams and players….
Those two second rounders are probably the most Willy is ever gonna worth. The timing of the deal is what makes it dumb.
Those two second rounders are probably the most Willy is ever gonna worth.
Nice analysis.
The thing about the Knicks is they always seem to sell low. If the Knicks were thinking Willy was not part of the future because of his awful defense, trade him before the season starts. Or at least, play him a bunch and hope he puts up a few double-doubles and you can hoodwink another GM into a first rounder. Instead, they devalue him and get nothing back. Same thing with Melo, his peak value was when Phil re-signed him to the mega max. So we end up getting McDermott and Kanter instead of valuable assets and picks.
Contrast that with Danny Ainge. The Brooklyn Nets fleecing. Flips Rondo in 2014 for Crowder et al plus two picks. Trades Jeff Green to Memphis in 2015 and gets back a 2019 first rounder. Trades Isaiah Thomas after his best season in the NBA and an overrated Crowder and gets back Kyrie.
None of those players got better after Ainge moved them.
Those two second rounders are probably the most Willy is ever gonna worth.
Even if true, then if that’s all you can get for him, you obviously don’t trade the guy. This wasn’t a guy on his way out – he’s a guy who was controlled cheaply for years to come. Trading him now for whatever they could get for him was a bad move.
New thread up about the Berman article about Horny’s future (or lack thereof).
164 replies on “2017-18 Game Thread: Knicks @ Wizards”
Caught the game late 2nd Q. Not exactly sure what the Wizards are doing out there. Our boys aren’t going to just lay down and hand the game to them…
No thank you to Wendell Carter Jr.
Oh and it really doesn’t matter if we win games or not from this point forward, we’re stuck at 9 and not out tanking anyone behind us.
It’s about time the Wiz start waking up. How is this a playoff team? I think even our situation is better than theirs.
The Ramon Sessions revenge game!
@5. We can only hope.
I’ll be a little upset if we win because passing Sacramento and/or Chicago is still at least conceivable.
Frank Frank!
Burke might be the best player on the Knicks.
If this goes to OT I’ll be annoyed.
If it doesn’t matter than that’s a fun win. Mudiay was actually good.
It was a fun win although Frank was awful.
Frank and Emmanuel are Yin and Yang
@4
Agreed, pretty ugly situation down there in DC, their current 20/21 cap situation looks like this:
Otto Porter: $28.5M
Bradley Beal: $28.8M
John Wall: $40.8M
Plus they will most likely be picking in the late teens and early twenties. I don’t really see a way they can improve. And that doesn’t even include that terrible Ian Mahinmi contract that expires in 19/20
Kornet and Williams also had nice games off the bench.
Dear Washington Wizards,
You had one job…
Only 14 pts for Beal. What happened, he got tired of son-ning us?
Mikal, Wendell or Trae at 9 hopefully.
Can the Knicks please bench Lance and Lee for the rest of the season? Also- why only 13 minutes for Williams?
Frank was awful if we’re only evaluating offense. His defense on Porter was lights out despite a major size disadvantage.
sigh
Yeah, this game was pretty much vintage Frank: lockdown defense in multiple players, lots of missed open 3s, penetration without being able to finish, some really nice passes (not all for hoops). Such a big question whether he can get there offensively next year. Mediocre offense would make him a real plus player overall.
I was watching the game the night Emanuel Mudiay put it all together
The Kings and the Nets also lost and both had some chance of ending up with a win.
There’s just no way to move down, we just won too many games in the beloved Jarrett Jack era to have a real chance, we’ll eventually take games out of these inconsistent teams. At this point I’m just fine with the 9th pick and my biggest expectation is to at least not get fucking leapfrogged to 10th in tbe draft.
I watched the second half of this game, and my comment is the same as when they beat Charlotte. Mudiay is improving, and the Knicks don’t look like a bad team, at least not as bad as their status among the tankers. This was a game Washington wanted, and our defense made it difficult for them, despite not having Porzingis or O’Quinn and having to play Beasley as starting small forward. I don’t know why O’Quinn didn’t play but he wasn’t in the line up at all. I’m starting to be hopeful for next year. We won’t be great, but maybe we will be in most games and have a shot at the playoffs eventually.
Melo is totally washed. Holy hell that was some shitty stretch to close the game from him.
Argh why did we win??
Oh, whatever. Looks like another average pick for us this year.
But hey, maybe we should be glad to get #9? #8s have yielded mixed results at best (Jordan Hill, Frank Ntilikina).
Looking at the schedule, I have to say I’d love to see the Knicks take it to the Cavaliers in the last two games. Despite losing being better for the tank.
The tank is dead for this season.
Yeah, and Mudiay isn’t starting anymore, which I don’t think is coincidence.
@24
His VORP is actually below Mudiay and they’re pretty much tied in BPM. It’s a bit unbelievable even for us, and we knew he was absolutely done.
In a way, we got Mudiay as part of the Melo trade since we eventually traded McDermott for Mudiay.
If you consider that we gave up a 2nd rounder for Mudiay, we essentially swapped Melo for Kanter and Mudiay and moving up a few spots in the 2nd round. Great strategic move considering the NTC but hopefully we don’t screw it up and re-sign Kanter or Mudiay.
That’s a good point. I’m more worried about re-signing Kanter than Mudiay just because of how much he costs. Also, I know Mudiay is bad, but he seems to have improved a bit in the little time he’s had here and if he’s cheap, he might be an OK backup point guard.
The tank has driven into a ditch. The only team we can possible catch now is Sacramento, because they have an easy schedule. But obviously we have to go 0-8 to even have a shot. So the odds are still about 50/1.
Chicago might not win another game all year. They’re smartly resting all of their starters. Meanwhile, Tim Hardaway is averaging 35 mpg in the month of March.
I can’t wait to meet up with my friends at our 50-year high school reunion in 2049 and swap stories about how the 2018 Knicks did things the right way and won a GLOOOOOORIOUS 29 games, instead of tanking their way to a lowly 24 wins like those loser teams with their stupid worthless high draft picks. Great memories, boys. Soak it in.
Burke/Frank – PG
Frank/Hardaway/Baker – SG
Bridges/Hardaway – SF
KP – PF
KOQ/Noah – C
Various combinations of this would not be such a bad place to be in at the end of next season. We’d have a good defense and enough scoring depending on the combination used. If they buy out Noah, so be it.
Next year I would try to move Kanter’s expiring contract to add a decent piece, let Beasley walk, move Lee for a couple of 2nd rounders and an expiring, and see what else we can add or develop. I’d also move on from Hornacek. I like him and think we need some stability, but I’m not convinced he recognizes who the best players are and how to use them. That’s too basic. When fans are a week or two ahead of where he eventually ends up anyway, that’s not a good sign (though some may be management).
God this is so tedious reading complaints about “boo hoo we aren’t tanking correctly.” Accept that we’re gonna be the 9th pick and move on. If Hardaway hadn’t won those games two years ago we’d just as likely have Okafor or Russell right now as we would KAT. Every year there are players picked later (Mitchell anyone) who end up being better than the projected “stars” of the draft. Its a crap shoot and 90 percent of it depends on how that player behaves AFTER they are drafted. The work they put into their game, the role they play on the team they go to and how that team develops it. You guys act like it was a given Steph Curry was a superstar when he was drafted. It wasn’t.
I mean, no one wants to talk about how this team has played MUCH better the last week? No one wants to actually discuss how Frank, Burke and Williams are playing minutes and helping us win games? Are we just gonna moan and complain about being dumb? Aren’t we winning these games because the young players are CONTRIBUTING?
And not only that but we’re actually going to end up a few games worse than last year but place one spot lower in the draft. So its the Knicks fault these other teams suck so much?
Lets discuss anything else please. Lets discuss the merits of keeping Horns or who we’d want to hire instead of him. Lets discuss who we realistically think we can draft. Lets discuss the development of Frank, Trey and Williams. Lets discuss what moves the Knicks should make in the off season. Lets discuss ANYTHING other than complaining about not tanking.
I guarantee you we are drafting Knox, either at our current spot or by trading down a bit. It’s just too Knicksy not to happen:
– Knox’s “potent” dribble drive/big-shot offense will be the FO’s remedy for the current Ntilikina no-shoot blues.
– Perry will prove to everyone that his street-smart, one-of-the-guys background in this league will trump any arcane “advanced” stats that anyone can throw at him. He’s gonna have a few insider tips on this kid, just trust him.
– the Knicks like em young like Knox (youngest player in the draft) because we can coach em up like no one else! We’ve got this super-secret program that Robinson put together all by himself with the help of Democratic Party analytics and some Joe Biden fundraising. Look at how good Emmanuel Mudiay has become in just 15 games! He’ll be an all-star next year, for sure.
– The East is still big, man. We need a 6’9″ guy at sf, not a 6’7″ guy.
– Kentucky grows pros, everyone knows that. And the agents that swarm around UK are extra connected, baby! That can only help.
What’s tedious is this absurd argument that draft position doesn’t matter, so who cares where we pick? Because I know that even you don’t believe that. If someone offered you the #59 and #60 pick for the #9 pick, would you take it? Of course you wouldn’t. Because higher picks are better.
So no, we don’t just have to accept whatever mediocrity the Knicks throw at us year after year after fucking year. We as fans have a right to complain about non-strategic decisions, like building a 30-win team every season. We have a right to be pissed at our management for not selling off the vets and benching them late in the season, when every loss counts. We have a right to roll our eyes at meaningless gobbledygook like “winning culture” and “let’s attract free agents by winning 35 games, even though we have no cap space,” which are illogical, have no empirical evidence behind them, and hurt the long-term quest for a championship.
If you want to get excited about what you’ve seen this season, or what Phil did, or what Isiah did, or what Dolan does, that’s your prerogative. The Knicks have 2 winning seasons in 17 years. That speaks for itself. I’m sick of this goddamn 30-win treadmill, and so are a lot of other people. So yeah, we’re going to complain until they make a fundamental change in their approach.
I’m encouraged by the Burke/Frank combo.
We know Frank has a lot more work to do on the offensive end and Burke has to get better defensively, but that won’t be a bad place to start next year if they both come back a little better.
Burke looks like he’s either going to become a pretty good starting PG or a damn good backup. Depending on how Frank’s development goes he can either play with Burke (and be the PG when Burke is out) or take over at PG longer term.
Burke’s still shooting unsustainably well (well, probably) but the 3 point shot looks like it’s for real, and I’d feel fine relying on him to play decent basketball next season. If someone could tell him to knock it out with the long twos he probably could be an adequate starter.
Nice straw man argument with your example of the 9th Pick vs. picks at the end of the 2nd round. Gee I must be such an idiot to think those have equal value! You win the argument.
Give me a break. I’m talking about th difference between the 9th Pick or say the 6th or 7th Pick.
Or would you rather we have the number one Pick with the worst record in the league bc KP couldn’t handle being the number one option and didn’t show real superstar potential. Cause in that scenario then we’ve all ready wasted a top pick cause KP sucks. But hey let’s all keep salivating over the potential of a top five pick. How’s josh Jackson looking this year? That Russell and Okafor sure are superstars on the rise! Man Mario Hezonja looks like a perennial all star.
I could go on with top ten picks the last decade who are just meh. But let’s freak out about how stupid we are bc we have a slightly less percentage chance of drafting a superstar bc we’re picking 9th as opposed to 6th.
They didn’t build a 30 win team this year purposefully trying to be a middling team. They made a Melo trade with the specific purpose of rebuilding around KP. KP outperformed and they had some early season success but I guess it would be better for KP to not play well and improve as a player so we could draft higher? What an idiotic idea!
In the last year the team has added youth and athleticism while jettisoning Melo and Rose. We have one of the youngest teams in the league now and have potential improvement with so many players. We’re going to add more first round picks that will be in the top ten of the draft this year and next and will clear cap space with vets coming off the team. This team is heading in the right direction you’re just too blind to see it bc you’re jaded by past mistakes this franchise has made. That’s understandable but wrong.
@40
Admittedly I have very little insight into who in our range is going to turn out to be the best player, but Mikal Bridges has been “meh” lately and may be dropping a little. It’s probably more likely we’ll have a chance to take him now than before we won these 3 recent games. So if that’s your guy (speaking to everyone), you should probably be feeling better about our chances of getting him.
They have a fairly young team now, but now was far, far too late to do them any good this year, since they moronically decided to play veterans for most of the year, just to make sure that they couldn’t possibly get into the bottom of the draft. That was a horrible decision this year that will hurt them this year, not a mistake of the past, a mistake of the present.
But yes, after it didn’t matter, they did start playing the younger players. That was nice. I do like that. Maybe if they had played Burke a little bit sooner, they wouldn’t have traded a draft pick for the worst point guard in the league. Or is a mistake from a month ago also a mistake of the past?
swiftandabundant,
I didn’t say you would trade two late picks for one high pick. In fact I said the exact opposite. See below.
My point is that you know low picks are not as good as high picks. Higher is always better. That means the #9 pick is not as good as the #6 pick. It’s not even as good as the #8 pick.
Yes, this year’s team is moving in a better direction than in years past, when we were going completely in circles. That doesn’t mean we’re going in the right direction. There are a lot of things we could be doing better. One of them would be to not play THJ and Lee a combined 62 minutes, as we did last night. Other teams are benching their vets, losing more games, and rising higher in the lottery. Why can’t we do little things like that? What do we gain by winning meaningless games on the backs of older players, while Dotson, Hicks, Williams, and Frank get a combined 34 minutes?
Well, with Mudiay’s stout VORP of -0.2 over the last 18 games versus -0.6 over the earlier part of the season with Denver, I’d say checkmate, Perry/Mills.
You lose, Nuggets!
The Knicks were not going to lose every game to end the season and once they won those two against Charlotte and Chicago they pretty much cemented the 9th pick. They actually won the Washington game doing what we wanted, playing Ntilikina and Burke, and honestly, the win did not matter. Chicago is doing the most egregious tank job since Minnesota a couple years ago and will probably win maybe one more game all season.
No one was happy about those two wins but I don’t know what the Knicks could do. Charlotte played really bad and Chicago left it’s four best players in Chicago for that game. The Westchester Knicks might have beaten Chicago. All the hand ringing in the world is pointless. Once we were 17-14 tanking to the top of the draft was nearly impossible. When KP went down, 9th would have been a pretty decent outcome and if not for hot streaks by LA and Charlotte we could be picking 11th.
As for the early season wins they were good. We were trying to win and before injuries and a lot of 4th quarter meltdowns in January we looked like a playoff team. We were winning on the back of KP and the only way we tank for a worse record at that point is limiting KP’s minutes and hurting his development. All the whining about winning late games is stupid, we were 5 games ahead of the 8 teams below us less than a month ago and the fact that anyone even got close to catching us is a testament to great tanking, but we weren’t going 0-20 to end the season and some of the teams below us are tanking so bad it’s basically cheating.
Let’s focus on Frank, Burke and Troy’s development, they all look like definite long-term rotation players and be happy we’re still picking in the top 9.
Burke, Frank, Williams, Hicks, Mudiay, Kornet and Dotson should be getting 25 mpg each every game. There is no reason not to. Every time THJ or Beasley or Lee or Kanter or Lance gets more than 15 minutes, it’s a complete waste. We’re not learning anything new about them.
Just play the guys who have some uncertainty. We’ll be bad, rise in the lottery, let these guys develop against NBA competition, and we’ll see what we have in them. We should have been doing this for the last 2 months. And we’re still not doing it. Why?
Brian,
What’s been discouraging is that we’ve been almost as bad as you can possibly be and haven’t been able to move up in the draft at all. Yes, we weren’t getting the #1 because of the good start but you’d think losing 15 of 18 would at least get us close to the top 5. Nope.
I respect your opinion that wins are less important than losses right now, and that the NYK organization should have worked the system even more, but I bemoan what the NBA has become. It’s like the WWF. Something needs to change in the system and I’m not sanguine on the little modifications coming in 2019. The NBA is basically unwatchable after the trade deadline.
apparently Kanter is hiring a new agent? could that mean he might opt out?
I do worry that opting out means he’s re-signing here for 4 years 40MM. Or more. Ugh.
our draft position isn’t really all that bad… there’s 9 names that are close to consensus right now… and that’s …
doncic
ayton
bagley
porter
trae
carter
jackson
bamba
mikal
the names we should be wary of are bamba… bagley and ayton… i doubt we’ll have to concern ourselves with the latter two but it’s probable that bamba will go ahead of our spot… and he might not be all that bad himself…. and it’s always possible that a name like sexton or sga starts getting into the discussion….
what would suck is if someone behind us jumps into the top 3… in that case we’re looking at knox and miles bridges.. but hopefully we have troy brown on our radar….
Yeah, Kanter is probably just finding a guy who can get him an additional player option plus a NTC from the Knicks this summer. It could be any of us for all we know, it just seems inevitable.
God this is so tedious reading complaints about “boo hoo we aren’t tanking correctly.”
I can never quite get my arms around the whole irritated optimist persona.
STOP WHINING ABOUT LIFEBOATS YOU IDIOTS TRY APPRECIATING THAT BEAUTIFUL ICEBERG!!!
If we don’t get bumped down and stay at nine, I think we’re getting either Bamba or Mikal, and I’m fine with that. I just hope they don’t go rogue or get bumped to 10, although Mitchell Robinson or Robert Williams could be tempting there.
I’m not happy with our minutes allocation at all, but this is a good point. The Knicks just aren’t as bad as some of these other teams. It was obvious post ASB we were going to have to get super lucky to improve our draft position. Hornacek’s stupid minutes allocation past that point hasn’t had an effect on it. We won last night playing the kids and it’s not going to make a difference in where we pick.
Kanter is the one player I legitimately want off the team ASAP.
I like Kanter in several ways and wouldn’t mind him off the bench, but imo he’s the one player that’s most likely to be mis-valued badly in terms of salary and minutes.
Noah will probably eventually be bought out. He’s a sunk cost and the timing for when he expires is sort of in sync with when we hope to be getting good anyway. There’s not much harm from here unless there’s a free agent you want to sign immediately.
Hardaway is more of a 6th man getting millions more than he’s worth, but at least there’s an outside shot he can get better and turn it into a tolerable error.
But if we hitch our wagon to Kanter long term at a big price and make him the starting C for the foreseeable future, I will personally shift gears away from this rebuild and start looking forward to when we fire Mills/Perry. We can get away with one significant mistake like Hardaway, but we won’t get away with two of them.
Tanking is not as easy as some think.
Players have an incentive to do their best, for many different reasons: to get a new contract, to stay in the NBA, to impress possible suitors, etc. Coaches are in the same boat. And teams can’t just openly order anyone to ‘tank’ – that person might be the whistle blower or disgruntled ex-employee that creates hell for the team and the NBA.
That said, rebuilding goes much further than mindless tanking. We all know the odds of getting a franchise-caliber player are very low beyond the 1st or 2nd 1st-round picks. Our Knicks are a lot of players away from true contention. The talent pool is almost empty right now.
I suggest the team forgets about the “build around a star” concept and considers trading Porzingis for a couple of good assets (assuming Porzingis is no damaged goods at this point). That would be a healthier and faster road to recovery.
There isn’t a single Knicks player (including Porzingis) worth re-signing at the prices they will command.
I don’t see Kanter commanding some huge salary. He got lucky because of the year he was a free agent and his youth/potential at the time. The market is much different now and he’s closer to the finished product he will be until he declines. He’ll be lucky to get 3 years/10 million a year. And I’d be open to us keeping him. BUILD A TEAM. CONTINUITY.
Not sure why we mind if THJ is getting minutes. He’s 25 and on major money. That decision to sign him is over, but I absolutely want him playing and getting reps alongside Burke, Frank, Williams, Kornet and Hicks, all of whom are long and maybe, potentially, hopefully could be long-term pieces for us. The only thing that really bothered me last night was playing Lee down the stretch over Frank and Hicks getting 0 minutes, the latter being more defensible since I’m not convinced Hicks’ ceiling is even rotation player.
If Kanter opts out that’s great and maybe we can throw Randle an offer sheet this summer but if he opts in I’m not too worried about it. So long as we don’t pay up to keep him in summer 2019 that’s fine.
My amazement over Melo continues. I knew he was bad but it continues to amaze me how bad. At what point do the Thunder bench him? I know that’s never happening but it should right?
I continue to not care about Frankie’s ineptitude on offense. I love the way he plays D. To me, it’s a lot more fun to track a guy like him on defense than all but a handful of players on offense. It’s really uncanny how well he moves on defense for someone who doesn’t appear to have outstanding athleticism. And he gets results. I am still on Team Smokes and will be for as long as he defends like an All-Star.
For those of you who missed, the Giannis 60 minutes is excellent. Kid has got a great personality.
Don’t get me wrong I am upset about the minutes as well. I want to throw something at my TV everytime Beasley, Lee or Thomas play more than a couple minutes but that has nothing to do with tanking. I want our young players to get as many minutes as possible so we can get a really good handle on if they are long-term pieces or not. I think Burke and Williams should be part of the rotation next year and possibly going forward. I think Ntilikina should start next year. Dotson I’m not sure about, I haven’t seen enough and I doubt Hicks or Kornet are in the NBA in two years, though I have more hope for Hicks than Kornet. Mudiay might improve but I honestly hope we trade him this offseason and he can maybe develop somewhere else.
As for the tank, we have the worst record in the NBA since KP went down, I don’t see how our rotations have screwed up the tank. If anything getting Mudiay is the only reason we had any shot of moving down. There is no reason to ring your hands at these wins. We weren’t moving below 8 in the best case so 9 is fine.
As for trading KP that would be unspeakably stupid. He is one of the top 5 players under 24 in the NBA and there is no reason to think this injury will have lingering effects. There is no possible package that anyone would offer that would be worth moving KP for.
Also let’s make offer sheets for Randle, Hezonja or Noel. Any would be great pickups for reasonable prices.
This season has been mildly disappointing, but shit, can you imagine if we were looking at another year of Melo? Granted, we’d have a better draft pick, but it would have been a miserable watching experience and an absolute media shit show.
@60
OKC would almost certainly be better off if they benched Melo, but I’m going to guess he has no idea how poorly he’s playing. He probably thinks he’s being the good soldier by accepting a more limited role and should actually have a bigger one. If you are the coach, it can’t be easy to tell a former star it’s time to go to the bench, but with Melo, I don’t think he’s self aware enough to figure it out on his own.
Melo’s shooting 35% from 3, which is not great, but it’s respectable. But he can’t draw fouls anymore and he can’t get to the rim at all, so anything that’s not a 3 is an awful shot.
Yeah, the issue with Melo is that probably for him it’s all about “rhythm. Oh I’m not getting as many shots or being featured so I can’t get my rhythm, and the solution to that is always take more shots.
OKC is clearly better with Grant over him, but the reputation and the fact that “Melo can ball” / is a ruff rydah won’t let that happen.
I’m gonna stop you right there.
Simmons
Jokic
Towns
Giannis
Capela
Embiid (just turned 24 so I’m counting it)
Those are all obviously-better players than Porzingis, not even counting his injury.
Of all players 23 or younger this season with >1000 minutes played, he ranked 33 (of 64) in BPM, with a -0.4 mark.
Wishful thinking doesn’t make a player great. Add his unusual height and a severe injury and baby, you got a stew goin’.
If we could trade KP and THj for excellent assets then I’d be down for that. Blow it up completely. Who would go for KP that has a top pick this year, or who looks like their own pick in a few years will be top 5? Would the Cavs take him for the Nets pick and a future Cavs first? 2020 Cavs pick might be a nice one to have.
This seems like a vanishingly unlikely scenario.
Of the guys you listed:
Giannis (obviously)
Simmons
Towns
Are the only sure fire players I’d take over KP. Embiid is better but I’d put the over under on five or six healthy seasons for his career, capela is great but I think KP will be better if he puts it all together and I personally don’t like jokic. His body language sucks and he phones it in on defense too much. I don’t think he wins anything in his career. Something about him runs me the wrong way.
But even accepting they are better KP is still top 10 in potential and unless the offer is two top 3 picks it’s not worth it.
I think RPM and RAPM account for KPs defensive contributions better than BPM, so I think the reality of KPs production is somewhere between #40 player overall (where RPM had him before he went down) and league average player (where BPM has him); and closer to the former than the latter. He’s a guy who’s one of those more difficult mini max decisions especially post injury, but I think pre injury you ultimately play the odds and max him given his (by my lights) solid productivity and room for improvement. I think reasonable people can disagree on that score though, and I wouldn’t necessarily be averse to trading him especially post injury.
Ultimately though I’d keep him, especially given the realities of this organization where a bird in hand is particularly advantageous — I simply don’t 1. Trust this FO to get adequate value in a trade scenario and 2. Develop its drafted players competently enough a la San Antonio (I bet Kawhi would’ve been merely quite good if he was drafted by the knicks rather than Pop Engelland and company.)
Fultz is playing tonight.
I know it’s against Malik Monk, but Frank is looking pretty good driving to the rim tonight
Saw this on Twitter:
LeBron James just had the most prolific offensive week of his entire career.
He scored or assisted on 63.3 PPG, his most ever in a single week. This was the 357th week of his career.
Oh and he did it while shooting 63 percent from the field en route to a perfect 4-0 record.
The Frank Ntilikina game!
Frank went down to Charlotte, ate him some hot sauce!
Frank has been sandbagging! lol
Frank just karate chopped Kemba then dunked one handed like a damn basketball ninja
The complete absence of Mudiay is a sight for these sore eyes
Trey seems like the real deal.
But Kanter was crushing Willy in practice, so this doesn’t count.
Those were some shit calls on Frank.
It would so nice if Trey Burke could be our starting point guard for the next 5 years.
Trey is the new mid range god.
Trey Burke got obliterated on that screen, but I don’t buy that he’s a bad defender. He understands team defensive concepts and he’s aggressive at the point of attack.
Burke with the first 40/10 game by a Knicks guard since Marbury!!
Beasley at center was the stealth tank, make no mistakes about it. Burke played his heart out for us tonight.
Ok I’m against drafting Trae Young now.
Trey looks like AI with a 3 point shot
Fultz had a solid return
That team is *scary* if he comes back full from his…whatever it is that he had
Its worth noting that TH2 started at shooting guard and had about as good a box score as you could expect from him on a nightly basis. I’d prefer to put Hardaway as the 6th man with Ntilikina as the starting off guard, but you really can’t argue with the nights Burke and TH2 just put up. How Knicksy would a Burke, Hardaway Jr, Miles Bridges, Julius Randle, and Kristaps Porzingis starting five be?
As impressive as his scoring has been Burke’s assist to turnover ratio has been just as impressive- it was 3.7 to 1 going into tonight where had 12 and 2. If you’re the Knicks do you give him full starters minutes (30+) the rest of the way at the expense of Frank and Mudiay to see if wheels come off before potentially drafting a one?
Trey Burke dropped 42 and 12 on the second night of a back to back. The starting job is his to lose. He’s going to play 30+ minutes a night and we’ll have a better picture of what he is by Tax Day. If his numbers on the season are legit then we have a top 12 starter at point guard on a minimum salary deal, and Scott Perry would have hit a homerun.
Frank and Trey! And we still lost!
Fultz looked hella good, 8 assists with only 1 turnover even though he shot poorly, 4 rebounds too. If he’s relevant as a basketball player the Sixers are so fucking insane. Simmons and Embiid are 100% the real deal.
I seriously thought that they didn’t have back to backs this late in the season. Oops, my bad! The highlights were fun to watch. Burke and Frank are fun to watch in general!
Don’t forget the Sixers have a max slot this offseason
Kms
https://www.basketball-reference.com/play-index/tiny.fcgi?id=YWPSF
By the way Philadelphia plays the Knicks, Hawks twice, Hornets, Mavericks, Nets, Pistons, Bucks and the Cavs to close out the season, and they’re the 4th seed, one game behind the Cavs.
There’s a very real chance the “failed process” could lock up the 3rd seed in the east in a year where the 2nd seed (Boston) is ravaged by injuries…
The Suns are really terrible. Josh Jackson has made some nice plays in the open court though
Is the site on Spring break? We are still on two day old game thread. Sigh.
damn what a game for burke. that’s pretty ridiculous.
shout out to courtney for barely sullying the boxscore in 32 minutes.
2/1/0/0/0 /0/0 even lance is impressed.
How many transactional wins does Perry need to convince y’all that the Knicks are being run by a guy that actually knows what he’s doing?
Honestly, those continuing to expect the worst at this point are just exhibiting confirmation bias.
Well he’s still the one who acquired Mudiay for a second round pick, sooooo let’s just wait next offseason to evaluate Perry
a 2nd for Mudiay was worth the shot. If you think 2nds have that much value, then he got 2 of them for Willie, who is almost as bad as Mudiay
For those of you that are still down on Frank, remember, the only reason we have Burke is that Utah and Washington gave up on him at 24. Frank is only 19.
As of right now, I think Bridges is going to be available. If you can figure out how to get Randle here, sign me up. I’d include a future #1.
I’d be convinced if he didn’t also do the Mudiay and Hernangomez trades. When you also do foolish things, it’s hard to trust that the smart things you did weren’t an accident.
Exactly. The Willie trade was so, so bad. And Mudiay will likely never be an NBA player… But the Willie trade was so, so bad.
Trey’s coming out game was dampened by how fucked we’re gonna be if Fultz/Embiid/Simmons stay healthy. Did I mention that their pick this year is only spot behind us.
Oh guys and also by the way, the team Perry (and Mills) built with so much competence is 27-48 and happens to be 4-19 in the last two months in a year they clearly wanted to win.
I thought this might be relevant.
Perry didn’t build shit. He came in after the THJ and Baker contracts were agreed upon and has worked to balance the roster out and made some fringe moves. So it’s not really relevant.
What might be relevant is the team’s best player being out for the last 2 months with an ACL injury though.
Who the F cares about Fultz? Burke was ridiculous last night!
I know we have him for next year but they need to make him an offer RIGHT NOW. At the very least he can be our back up PG for the future and should absolutely be considered part of the core going forward. I know its one game but he’s been killing it in general since he got called up. He’s put in the work and has made the progress and absolutely should be locked up now. Cause now we could probably still get him for a good price. If he has a handful of these games next year, he will not be cheap for too much longer.
Also, I think this means we should focus on an SF for the draft. I know drafting for need when you suck is not always the wisest moves but there will be some very talented SFs most likely available and it is such a position of need that I think it just makes sense. Let Trae go somewhere else. Get one of them Bridges boys on the Knicks!
Saw this list below on ESPN.com regarding this year’s draft, and it made me sad. There are 3 tanking teams – Atlanta, Phoenix and Chicago- who will be drafting twice in the first round (Phoenix actually three times) Where are the Knicks on this list? I guess we should be happy we’re not one of the teams giving up picks. Low expectations and all….)-:
The Cavaliers will receive the Nets’ pick unprotected
The Lakers’ pick will go to the 76ers if it lands at No. 1 or Nos. 6 to 30; the Celtics get the pick at Nos. 2 to 5
The Clippers will receive the Pistons’ pick if it is outside the top four
The Suns will receive the Bucks’ pick if it is Nos. 11 to 16
The Suns will receive Miami’s pick if its outside the top seven
The Bulls will receive the Pelicans’ pick if it is outside the top five
The Wolves will receive the Thunder’s pick if it is outside the lottery
The Lakers will receive the Cavaliers’ pick if it is outside the top three
The Hawks will receive the Wolves’ pick if it is outside the lottery
Relax on Trey Burke. He’s taking a ton of long 2s and shooting 55% on them. He’s a career 43% shooter on long 2s. Dirk Nowitzki, probably the best mid-range shooter ever, is 47% on long 2s for his career.
So unless a 25-year-old Trey Burke suddenly became far better than the greatest midrange shooter of all time, he’s due for a massive regression. He’s not a starting PG. Hopefully he has improved his game enough to be a competent backup next year.
I’m totally willing to give Perry credit for Burke. He may end up only a back up 1, but that’s still a really good signing.
But pretty much everything else (only a few things, tbf) is negative.
D-mar, thanks for that list. Crazy. The Suns are in a position to change their team overnight.
@109
I agree he didn’t build shit, so maybe we should wait a bit before giving him so much credit for this team?
Burke is a terrible defender who’s shooting way above his usual career averages. Committing to players like this because he scored 40 is precisely the sort of Knicksy move we’ve come to expect of this franchise.
Let him play obviously, he’s somewhat young and already under contract for next year, but please let’s chill a bit.
This is probably where I differ from most here, but I think Perry took over a mess at a super inopportune time and has done fine.
IN: Kanter, Burke (non-guaranteed next year), Williams (non-guaranteed next year), Mudiay, Beasley, Jack, 2018 CHI 2nd, 2019 CHA 2nd, 2020 CHA 2nd, Kornet?, Hicks?
OUT: Melo, Willy, 2018 LAC 2nd
IN-OUT: McDermott, Sessions
For me, I really like Willy and said as much many times after last season. It’s also been reported he showed up feeling entitled this season. Hahn reported after the deal Willy even refused to go to the G-League, something even Noah did. I also believe Kanter is better, but that groundbound 5s in their mold without much shooting range are a dying type with the way the game is going. I’m also not of the belief Willy’s trade value was ever anymore than what we ultimately got which was 2 seconds from a team who is capped out to hell and seems destined for a rebuild.
I totally understand that others feel very differently about it. IMO it’s not clear cut good or bad, but rather more up in the air. It depends on what happens with those picks and/or if Willy goes on to become a real difference making player.
The Mudiay deal is also potentially a poor value, but I don’t think Perry planned on keeping McDermott after the season and felt using their late 2nd on a reclamation lotto project was a decent gamble.
I also think he’s made moves like bringing in Craig Robinson to head up the G-League team and overall development for the organization are hard to define the value of. But Burke balling out after floating around the league for 4 years on the heels of his Westchester stint and Kornet showing flashes may reflect well upon what we do long term. I also like the Williams pick up
More or less I’m cautiously optimistic about what Perry’s done because I feel he’s prioritizing athleticism and trying to do so without compromising any major assets long term in the form of picks or cap space and been able to negotiate very team friendly contracts on the margins. It’s been rumored he also inquired about Jabari Parker last summer and Hollis-Jefferson this year, so it seems he’s actively searching for an athletic combo forward type which would make the KP at the 5 lineups more tenable.
I guess I think Perry isn’t for sure the next Morey, but I also think he’s less Knicksy than his predecessors so I’m willing to give him some more rope, for now. This summer I think will tell us alot about his patience and vision.
I’m gonna go against the idea that perry has sucked.
1. Won the Melo deal.
2. Beasley for the vet minimum was a good signing.
3. Called up Burke and we got a non guaranteed option for next year.
4. Same for Williams.
5. Kornet – he seems to be promising too.
6. Jarret Jack – again a vet minimum good signing.
7. Mudiay and Willy – ok those are the questionable moves. 🙂
Also letting Horns ride out the season without too much drama. Downplaying the Noah situation, which has basically gone away for now. This summer will be an intersting one for Perry. A big test for him.
Also, I really think we need to let Horns finish out his contract and not mess with hiring someone new. He hasn’t been given the best hands to deal with his first two years. First year, Phil meddling and a horrible roster with uninterested vets like Rose and Melo. Second year, mismatched roster with 4 centers over performs early then big injuries to Hardaway and then Zinger. But here we are. The team has no reason to try and win games and they could easily be mailing it in yet they’re going out and competing and actually wining games which I know annoys people on this site but live with it. The tank is dead. We’re finishing 9th. The team looked horrible after KP went down and we brought in all these new players but a few weeks later and they’re actually playing pretty well all things considered.
I’m not saying he’s a great coach. But let him have another training camp and year. Coaches can get better too and looking at how Burke and Frank have been playing recently, I see improvement. Plus KQ, Lee, Beasley, Kanter all had “career” years this year. Maybe he’s not so bad and having some continuity for once would be nice. He’d have a longer leash next year cause the team is not expected to do anything until KP gets back.
Having a strong opinion either way on a GM’s tenure after less than 9 months is silly barring some really, really extreme moves, and that’s pretty much the opposite of what we’ve seen from Perry so far. He’s mostly tinkered around the edges of a situation that was largely set in stone before he got there. Some of that tinkering has been good, some has given reasons for concern, but it’s all small stuff at this point. It takes real time to judge a GM’s body of work (consider that Hinkie’s plan in Philly is just now finally coming to fruition and he has already been fired for almost two years) and the moves that will in all likelihood define Perry’s tenure one way or the other still are all ahead of us.
Scott Perry has made good marginal moves like Beasley and Jack, robbed OKC, and then added good young guys in Burke, Kornet, and Williams. The Mudiay deal was bad but harmless. The Hernangomez deal wasn’t as terrible as people want it to be just because bad defense at the 5 isn’t something you can hide. Feel how you want to about Burke’s defense, you can give Frank Ntilikina the opposing team’s best guard. You just can’t hide a poor team defender at the center position. We got 2 2nd round picks after we torpedoed his value. I get that, but it’s not like he’s tearing it up and his constant complaining about minutes (despite not being better than KO or Kanter) wasn’t good.
I’m a fan of Scott Perry’s work so far just because our long term plans don’t change that much. And the Knicks did NOT have intentions to win; that’s revisionist history. All the articles that came out spoke to how the Knicks would play hard but would play for the future. Right now, regression aside, it looks like we have 3 guys who should be starters in TH2, Burke, and KP. Frank Ntilikina is developing slowly but it’s obvious he’s a player, and then we have a shot to land two more players in the 2018 draft. I like the Scott Perry Knicks more than any other Knicks team I’ve liked in a long time. I think the Steve Mills factor is what people are upset about because Scott Perry really hasn’t done anything to damage this team’s long term outlook.
@118
“He’s a career 43% shooter on long 2s. Dirk Nowitzki, probably the best mid-range shooter ever, is 47% on long 2s for his career.
So unless a 25-year-old Trey Burke suddenly became far better than the greatest midrange shooter of all time, he’s due for a massive regression.”
In the two seasons prior to this one, Burke shot 48.5% on 10-16′ shots and 43.2% on 16′-the three point line. (For his career, Dirk is 47% for both.) Burke’s TS% has improved every year for the last four years — .455, .507, .532 and .581 this year (after shooting .592 in 1000 minutes in the D-League this year). So, while Burke is shooting a ridiculously high percentage on long 2’s so far, the regression might not be so massive. Re: Mudiay — while he’s been lousy, he is only 21. Maybe the people on this site who have been advocating for a long slow rebuild and developing young players should be a little more patient before they jettison a guy who is still younger than a lot of the guys who are playing in the NCAA Final Four?
Remember, those teams had assets they unloaded for 1’s. we haven’t had that luxury. The best chance would have been to trade Willy last offseason for a 1; I think some of us would have flipped out had we done that.
@122
On Mudiay, you’re missing the point. It’s not that they’re developing a 21 year old and people are angry, people just don’t see the point in trying to develop this specific 21 year old who has shown historically bad numbers for 3 years already.
It’s very simple, not every 21 year old is the same person. People like me want the Knicks to find and develop actually productive young players who have shown they can get better or young players who have shown real promise in at least some areas. Mudiay doesn’t fit either description.
@ 118 – yes, this is a great assessment. I think people want to complain and say its the same ole knicks bc that is what they are used to and since we aren’t winning 50 games yet they can say “see, we still suck so we must be inept” but Perry has been low-key with his moves and patient and has made moves to get us younger. But this is going to take some time. People just want to be negative bc they’ve been conditioned to feel that way from years of losing and ineptitude. And believe me, I completely understand why that is a natural reaction. But the overreaction to things like the Willy and Mudiay trades are just that. Overreactions. These aren’t cap killing, future killing moves. Its like people complaining about Horns “being an idiot” when his options sometimes aren’t that great as far as who he plays when.
I mean it could all go south. And even if Perry rebuilds “the right way” that is no guarantee of success. But there isn’t anything so far in his short tenure that looks like he’s being short sighted or trying to make a flashy move and win now.
I’m personally more excited about the long term prospects of this franchise than I have been in awhile. We have KP, Hardaway, Frank, Burke, Williams, Dotson, Ron, Kornet, our 2018 first round, The chicago 2nd round, next year’s first round…to build on. There’s also Kanter and KQ that we could possibly resign to reasonable deals if we want. Lee could be hopefully be traded for something but even if he just plays out his contract that isn’t such a bad player to have. Lance and Noah will come off the books eventually. Beasley can probably be resign for the vet minimum again and likes it here. We’ve got youth, future picks, future cap space in a few years when we should spend that cap space and lots of room for internal improvement from our young players.
Omg I hope we draft Liangelo Ball in the 2nd round just for comedy’s sake.
What’s depressing about the current state of the Knicks is our most direct competitors in Philly, Boston, and Toronto either spent the time they weren’t good furiously hoarding assets (the former two) or successfully accumulated a lot of young talent while they were good (Toronto).
Under Phil, we took the “none of the above approach” and are now extremely far behind all of those teams both now and for the future. It is mostly a Phil problem, but while Perry has made some nifty moves here and there for which he deserves credit, he also exacerbated the issue by trading Willy for 10 cents on the dollar.
I just don’t see us catching up to those teams by making one pick every year in the mid-to-late lottery while our cap sheet gets worse and worse. Our only shot is to make a Kawhi/Giannis-level value pick(s). I guess the point of my rant here is FUCK Phil Jackson and it blows my mind that the guy still has defenders. He sat on his ass and watched our competitors hoard assets while we spent them trying to get to 40 wins.
LiAngelo would be our next Chris Smith. All of the headache with none of the talent. He’s perfect.
In chess, there’s a thing called “positional” playing style, which means playing conservatively and capitalizing on your opponent’s small inaccuracies to develop an advantage. As players have incorporated world-beating computer engines into their analysis, it’s rare to see a top-level player make an aggressive gambit or sacrifice against another top-level player.
That’s where we’re headed with front offices in the NBA, albeit slowly because it’s an Ol’ Boys Club, just like baseball was. What Perry’s doing is giving away small advantages (pick swaps, an All-Rookie player being traded for future 2nds, etc.) for virtually nothing. There was no upside to the Mudiay trade, and that’s been confirmed. WHG might never be an All-NBA player, but he is, at worst, a league-average young player on an outstanding contract through 2020. They traded him for virtually nothing.
The Mudiay and WHG trades won’t sink the franchise immediately, just as an “inaccurate” pawn or minor piece move won’t immediately lose a chess game. But over time, below-average decisions accrete and leave a team wondering how they ended up with a 35-win rookie-contract core instead of the 45-win core that signals a team’s window to sign or trade for a marquee free agent to become a Finals contender.
The constant apologism for these bad, but not terrible, moves tells us that you have no idea what you’re talking about. This is a game where 2 or 3 missed shots and 2 or 3 extra turnovers per game are the difference between a 2nd-round playoff team and a lottery team. You do not bridge that gap without making the most out of “little” assets. You do not build a winner by habitually trading away good players, even if they’re 5% better than league average.
@ Jowles I appreciate your analogy although I think its a little off. In chess, when you make a small bad move, you might lose a piece (like a pawn). In NBA GMing you could lose a small piece (like an overrated rookie center who plays no defense) but you also in theory get pieces back when you make trades. For example, we actually acquired two second round picks for Willy. Now you might say those aren’t valuable but then again wasn’t Willy himself a second round pick? If even one of those turns into a decent player, that trade completely changes.
Also, your statement about Mudiay is just not true. At least not yet. There’s another PG on our team who was a first round pick who up until a few weeks ago was considered a bust in the NBA. Last night he scored 42 points for our team. So yes, Mudiay could end up sucking forever. But this idea that he is done because he’s all ready been in the league for 2 years and has sucked. Well, that’s just not how it always plays out. Mudiay was acquired in the hopes that he can be developed. We had to give up McDermott, who I liked, but who we would have to pay to keep and isn’t really worth keeping for more than minimal money and a second round pick. So in essence we traded Willy and McDermott for Mudiay and a second round pick. That’s two players of marginal talent for one who sucks now but has a slight chance to get better and another pick. We traded two pawns for two pawns.
And you have no idea what you’re talking about! So there!
I appreciate the Jowles analogy also, but we should probably take Perry’s record as a whole as opposed to only picking out the bad things.
I think we can probably equivocally say that the Trey Burke signing was a really good move. You have a guy who probably will regress somewhat but even if he does that, is probably a real rotation player. Perry got him for nothing and has him signed through next year on a minimum contract. I have no idea what Burke would get on the market if he were an unrestricted FA this summer, but it’d probably be at least something between the miniMLE and nontaxpayer MLE, so Perry probably got us $5MM in marginal value there. That move in itself easily cancels out the Mudiay and Willy trades. And re: the Willy trade, it is quite possible that those Charlotte picks end up being very early 2nd round picks, and so I think it’s too early to say how good or bad that was.
Troy Williams is fine and is probably a rotation player on this team – he’s also signed with a nonguaranteed contract through next year.
So overall he’s made a few good moves and a few bad moves, and so at worst he’s done an average job. That’s not even considerint the Melo trade which at this point HAS to be considered a hugely positive given how washed he looks right now. Even Daryl Morey and Sam Presti make bad moves sometimes. So overall I’d give Perry a positive grade.
The reality is probably somewhere in between. He has been slowly improving his efficiency all along. He played very well in G League and is also on a roll for the Knicks. He’s probably not as good as he’s been playing for the Knicks, but he’s likely to be way better than he was in prior years.
I’ll take that.
If we started the season next year with Burke and Frank in the backcourt and eventually handed the reigns to Frank and sent Burke to the bench, I’d be fine with that.
All GMs make mistakes. So you have to forgive one here or there. But some moves that turn out bad looked OK when they are made. At a minimum they were understandable. They just look bad with the benefit of hindsight. Those are way more forgivable than the ones when almost everyone on a blog/forum is pounding the table that it was a bad move and they all turn out to be right. That’s a sign of incompetence. That’s less forgivable because it means it’s going to happen again and perhaps on a big move next time instead of just the small ones.
I can tell you aren’t quite following the analogy because pawns are not pieces, but that’s okay. FYI if you lose a pawn to me, I’m going to beat you like a red-headed stepchild. If you lose a piece, you might as well resign.
In chess, like in other zero-sum games, this is called compensation. Sometimes the compensation doesn’t make you whole. (See our adversarial legal system, which often awards cash for accidental dismemberment. A million bucks is a lot of money, but it’s not going to, say, grow your hand back.) In the case of Mudiay, we received virtually nothing of value. You could have traded $20 for him and it would have been a bad trade. He could play for free and it would be a bad trade. Getting “assets” in return doesn’t make it a good trade. It just gives you a way to defend idiocy.
Would you trade a $5 winning scratchoff for two $1 tickets? We’ve been through this before: those picks are virtually worthless, and could almost certainly be bought without giving up anything more than cash. Willy is a “now” asset, and at worst, he is a solid bench player at ~$3 over the next two years. Ask Toronto about the value of solid bench play.
the best thing about the Mudiay trade is that I believe he is literally the player Jowles hates the most and so of course the knicks traded for him lmao
While this is sort of true, I would say that very useful players have been traded for 2nd round picks just in the last few years — PJ Tucker, Elfrid Payton, etc. 2nd round picks are also used as sweetener for deals. So they are not worthless in that other teams value them enough to trade FOR them either with players or as a part of a larger deal — not to mention that early 2nd round picks when actually used to select players (and not just as trade chips) are more and more often turning into actually playable players.
My only happiness about the Knicks situation is that we’re capped out for next year anyway since Kanter will either re-sign or opt in, and that will stop the Knicks from offering Tyreke Evans the inevitable 4 year 40 million contract that’s been like 5 years in the making.
if the knicks re-sign kanter then i’m positive we won’t be going anywhere for awhile…. he should be traded or let go and our defense after kp’s injury should make that abundantly clear…
fun with Trey Burke and B-R–
he’s the only player in NBA history (at least back to 1946) who has played 500 min and averaged 22/7 and ?2 turnovers per 36
this season the only players who have averaged 22/7 per 36 and TS >57 are Burke, Lebron, and Harden.
How does trading Willy for players who probably won’t be as good as Willy in 2022 make the Knicks better?
yes, but what if we can pick TWO players that aren’t as good as Willy?!
sure would seem like trey is fool’s gold about to show that underneath his shining efficiency is some lackluster yellow marker coloring…
watching him though – he sure plays with fire a lot of fire and confidence – imagine him and timmy coming off the bench, along with kanter – instant offense…
i can’t imagine him as an average starting nba point guard – however, his current performance seems to indicate that he could be a starter and help the team win…
i go back and forth each day on the topic of whether or not to bring back horny next year…i mean it’s not like we have any intentions on competing for the playoffs next year…some players have shown improvement this year…he says the right stuff to the media…coaching continuity would be nice…
however, his communications skills may not be so great and, his rotations are baffling at times…
i’m pretty sure he’s not a top tier coach…if i was perry i’d probably extend him another year and let him coach for us at least another year…
one thing about Trey Burke – from what I remember of him at Michigan (I watched a lot of Michigan back in those days) and Utah, he looks like he’s in way better shape now. Maybe just getting older/more mature and in better shape has done something for his game. He’s referenced his immaturity a bunch in interviews as a cause of the slow start to his career – wonder if that just meant a ton of partying and not taking care of his body.
re: Hornacek – it sure does seem like he lost the team in Phoenix and has had some questionable relationships with players here in NY. Sometimes dudes just rub guys the wrong way.
Berman wrote a long article today about this – really does sound like he’s on his way out. I really hope Mark Jackson is not the answer to the question though.
JVG
Fizdale
Blatt
maybe even Stackhouse although I think his role with the Raptors bench is probably overstated (Siakam and FVV barely played for 905 last year).
Did anyone read the article where KP’s trainer said he’d be ready to go by the start of the season?
I believe he said the Knicks would probably be cautious and give him more time, but that he’s working on other parts of his body already, would come back much stronger than before, and would be ready at the start of the season.
For argument’s sake, let’s say he’s physically ready and cleared to come back in December and the team gets off to a decent enough start to remain in contention.
With a few improved young players and a successful pick, what are they going to do?
Willy Hernangomez has a WS/48 of .192 for Charlotte so far in limited action this season.
How is trading two second rounders for him a good deal?
It’d be nice to see Burke with a big who could really roll to the rim.
It’s probably even money Berman’s source is Mills or someone doing his bidding. Berman is laying the groundwork for them.
Trey Burke is finishing at the rim like Lebron James and shooting long twos better than most guys shoot layups. It’s not for real.
His playmaking might be better, and it’s likely he’s developed into a good three point shooter, but be realistic.
I can see it now. Trey Burke at the FT line and the Garden chants “MVP MVP MVP”.
Trey-sanity (with the big difference being we won all those games with Jeremy Lin)
Agreed RE Burke. He’s been a nice find, but he should be treated as possibly a solid backup pg. If he continues to play well next year, then you consider extending him.
Yeah, but those players are at the ends of their contracts and the trading team hasn’t any interest in re-signing them, so anything they get back is better than nothing.
In the case of WHG, he was under a team-friendly contract for several more years. That’s what is so head-scratching about that trade.
Re: Mark Jackson
The positive about him is that he’s shown a desire to fight with ownership and management, which is probably more useful at MSG than having actual coaching skills.
@147
Willy has played a total of 141 minutes for the Hornets. Most of the minutes that Willy has played have come in garbage time.
There is absolutely no conclusions you can draw from a sample size that small.
I am not a big fan of the trade but using a sample size to draw your conclusion about the trade is ridiculous.
really fun statistical take on the top 40 players of all time. Clyde at #34, Ewing at #27. Some interesting stuff on CP3 too, who doesn’t rank as well (“only” #21) as I thought he would’ve.
http://www.backpicks.com/2017/12/11/the-backpicks-goat-the-40-best-careers-in-nba-history/
lol
Re: Willy’s sample size, the thing is, those numbers this year are consistent with his numbers last year. He is an efficient scorer who rebounds well. He is on a multi-year deal that pays him little more than league minimum. That kind of value is almost impossible to beat.
So, yeah, it is a big deal, and it is totally a sign that at the least we need to be worried about Perry’s assessment of value. The Mudiay signing is another cause: the amount of improvement he’d need to make in a season and a half to become even league average is almost unfathomable. It has probably never been done in league history.
I concede to Lavor that he has made some decent moves beyond Burke: Beasley and Jack (and Sessions, though it didn’t work out) were all good moves. I was ecstatic about the Melo trade, but won’t call it a good move unless we don’t resign Kanter. So I won’t give him that one. And Williams…I guess he could be a rotation player on a good team in two years, but he could also be out of the league. Again, hard to call at this point.
I’m not saying he’s terrible, but he’s shown as much or more cause for concern than optimism.
On the other hand, at least he’s not tweeting random shit about other teams and players….
Those two second rounders are probably the most Willy is ever gonna worth. The timing of the deal is what makes it dumb.
Nice analysis.
The thing about the Knicks is they always seem to sell low. If the Knicks were thinking Willy was not part of the future because of his awful defense, trade him before the season starts. Or at least, play him a bunch and hope he puts up a few double-doubles and you can hoodwink another GM into a first rounder. Instead, they devalue him and get nothing back. Same thing with Melo, his peak value was when Phil re-signed him to the mega max. So we end up getting McDermott and Kanter instead of valuable assets and picks.
Contrast that with Danny Ainge. The Brooklyn Nets fleecing. Flips Rondo in 2014 for Crowder et al plus two picks. Trades Jeff Green to Memphis in 2015 and gets back a 2019 first rounder. Trades Isaiah Thomas after his best season in the NBA and an overrated Crowder and gets back Kyrie.
None of those players got better after Ainge moved them.
Even if true, then if that’s all you can get for him, you obviously don’t trade the guy. This wasn’t a guy on his way out – he’s a guy who was controlled cheaply for years to come. Trading him now for whatever they could get for him was a bad move.
New thread up about the Berman article about Horny’s future (or lack thereof).
@160 Do you disagree?