(Tuesday, April 03, 2018 10:14:40 PM)
NEW YORK (AP) Mario Hezonja scored 19 points, Jamel Artis added 16 off the bench, and the Orlando Magic beat the New York Knicks 97-73 on Tuesday night.
(Tuesday, April 03, 2018 5:39:17 PM)
The Knicks will be without Michael Beasley and Enes Kanter for Tuesday night’s game against the Magic, reports Ian Begley of ESPN.
(Tuesday, April 03, 2018 2:45:48 PM)
It’s time to start thinking about what this team needs to do in the offseason.
(Wednesday, April 04, 2018 12:14:10 AM)
Maybe there’s a silver lining to the disappointing night suffered by the Westchester Knicks, who were eliminated from the G-League playoffs Monday in the first round by the Raptors 905. For the second straight season, the Raptors 905 have been guided by head coach Jerry Stackhouse, who may get an interview for the Knicks job,…
(Tuesday, April 03, 2018 6:36:54 PM)
He didn’t cry this time. But he wanted to. Jordan, the now 12-year-old Knicks fan known as “The Crying Kid,” had just shut off the television the night of Feb. 6. Homework was extra heavy that night, so Jordan missed the play, missed Kristaps Porzingis leaping over Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo for a dunk and…
(Tuesday, April 03, 2018 6:32:42 PM)
The Knicks were embarrassed by the obscure likes of Orlando rookies Khem Birch, Wes Iwundu and Jamel Artis, whom the Knicks cut after the first game of the preseason. In an offensive dud in which they shot just 34.9 percent and tied their season low for points scored, the Knicks were booed off the court…
[NYDN] Jeff Hornacek senses Knicks gave up in latest loss (Tuesday, April 03, 2018 7:33:10 PM)
The last thing Jeff Hornacek needs for his unstable job security is his players quitting.
[NYDN] Frank Vogel: I was ‘surprised’ Knicks didn’t offer me job (Tuesday, April 03, 2018 5:43:20 PM)
Vogel revealed Tuesday that he thought he’d be the Knicks coach.
(Tuesday, April 03, 2018 10:42:46 PM)
Frank Vogel leaned against a cinder block wall at Madison Square Garden Tuesday night and held court with a small group of reporters.
133 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2018.04.04)”
Wow what a night for the tank.
Chicago. Man. Adam Silver really DOES need to take a look at what they are doing — not because of the win, because of course that’s what Silver wants them to try to do. But Lauri Markkanen had 24 points on 14 shots and Hoiberg intentionally sat him for the entire 4th quarter in a close game.
The schedule may be playing out very well to our advantage —
CHI has 2 games left against the Nets. If the Nets win both, then there’s a good chance we at least tie them for #7. If they split them (and we do the expected and lose out), we could still tie with the Nets if they win another game, and it gives us another cushion game with Chicago. If Chicago wins both then our dreams of #7 probably go away, but it’d cement us at #8. I don’t see Chicago winning against Boston tonight, but if Rozier and Irving are both out, it’s a theoretical possibility. And who knows what happens in the last game of the season against Detroit.
But hey, I know we’re going to screw it up somehow by splitting one of the last two games with Cleveland.
Continuing the discussion from last night about trading for first overall. If the other team asked for KP straight up for the first pick, no pick swap, no future firsts, would you do it? We’d go forward building around Doncic and whoever we draft with our own pick (Bamba, Bagley, Bridges) and hope that Ntilikina pans out.
@2 – would have to think long and hard about that. I love KP, love his attitude, love his upside, but his max extension is coming up and he really seems to be injury-prone (although the ACL thing seemed a bit of a freak accident given he landed on Giannis’s foot). The real question is whether the FO would take Doncic or Ayton. I would think hard about KP for Doncic but I would not do it for Ayton, especially given the number of good bigs that we could target with our own pick.
Honestly I think the draft is deep throughout the first round to that we could trade down if we had 8th pick.
Out 8th to phx for both of their mid firsts would be a smarter trade than trading up. Guys like Troy brown and Robert Williams possibly Alexander might all be there.
I would trade KP for that first overall pick. His history of fatigue and major knee injury tell me he’s going to be a major health risk throughout his career.
So, anyone read that Vogel is projected to be our next head coach? Of all of the potential candidates I find him to be one of the least obnoxious options.
Yeah I wouldn’t have to really think about KP for Doncic.
I thought I heard last night during the game something about Vogel being the choice as coach with only Hornacek having to be interviewed.
I think at 6 we’d be choosing between Bamba and Trae. There’s a chance Jackson drops there, but Porter is unlikely. Maybe they’d take Carter anyway?
I love Trey but I’d still probably take Trae. And I’m totally losing hope in Frank. He would need a complete transformation this summer to even become close to an average offensive player. Right now he looks like a positionless bench defender.
I’m all for getting a new coach. Horny can’t motivate guys anymore and his rotations are clueless. For instance, a guy who won’t play Lance Thomas would be refreshing!
I think I’d prefer Chicago winning both games against the Nets and the Knicks locking up the 8th spot than hoping for various combinations of other things and winding up in a coin flip that gets us back to 9th. There’s still a decent chance the Knicks win 1 more game because they will be trying to win (foolishly) and a team like the Cavs may just bench everyone heading into the playoffs.
If we are 8th, I think we are fairly certain or get either Bridges or Carter. I’ll be fine with either of those.
The only pick that would make me a little nauseous is Trae Young. I have no strong opinion on what he will become, but I have a strong opinion on what he will be over the next 2 years. He’s going to be a low efficiency terrible defender that should be playing behind Burke. If I was close to certain he was going to become a star PG, I’d say “go for it”. But as of now I think we are in decent shape at PG long term with Burke and Frank. I see no reason to swing for the fences on a guy that may turn out to be a bust (or at best a really good passer/scorer than can’t defend a lick) when we need a SF or a player that can play PF/C with KP and rebound and defend. If Young turns into some kind of supestar in 3-4 years, so be it. I’m wrong again. Won’t be the last time. I just think it’s a bad gamble.
Wait wait wait wait wait. Frank Vogel? WTF is that all about?
Not that I think he’s necessarily a bad coach, and I get the Orlando connection with Perry. But there are so many other candidates that could fit better, especially in the new pace-and-space NBA.
I mentioned Vogel a couple of weeks ago. I read an article from one of the Orlando writers suggesting he might get fired and knew that he interviewed in NY previously. So I threw the name out there to go along with Jackson, Van Gundy and others as a possibility. Now the story made its way to NY.
Is someone actually saying that Vogel will be hired? What paper?
I think Vogel would be an odd choice for this particular group of players (as he strikes me more as a guy that you go to if your team is ready to make the next leap, not rebuild), but hell, he’s not Mark Jackson, so that’s sadly good enough for me.
I’m a little more bullish on Trae Young. He is kinda scrawny but he can put on muscle in a real NBA training program. He is kind of a chucker but that’s what was needed from him with the rest of the flotsam that was on his team. What’s most exciting to me about him is his court vision and ability to shoot off the bounce. The Ringer can compare him to Seth Curry all they want, but Seth Curry BEST assist rate in 4 years was 16.2% and 3.2 assists/40. People can compare him to Buddy Hield all they want, but Hield topped out at 2 assists/40 in the same offensive system. But the fact remains that Trae Young is the only player in the last 25 years in college basketball (per Sports-Reference) that averaged 25/8 per game (and he averaged 27.4 and 8.6 – I lowered the limits to try and find players). And he did it as a freshman in a real conference with no help on his team.
If you change the search to freshmen who averaged “only” 20 points and just 5 assists per game, you only come up with THREE names in the last 25 years – Trae Young, Markelle Fultz, and someone named RJ Cole who did it this year for Howard University.
Basically, Trae has had literally unprecendented production in terms of creating points for himself or others at age 19. Hard to know whether that will completely translate in the pros, but there really isn’t a comparable. A cautionary tale might be Kay Felder, who averaged 24.4 and 9.3 (as a junior in a tiny conference) and despite Z-man’s love, hasn’t done anything in the pros. But he is way smaller than Trae. Another “cautionary” tale might be JJ Barea who also put up great numbers producing points, but it’s fair to say that Trae is probably a better athlete than Barea – and to be fair to Barea, he’s actually a really good player (although not someone I’d like to draft at #8 in a strong draft!)
Will be a very tough call for the FO if, say, Young, Bridges, and Carter are all on the board when we draft.
I’m not sold on Vogel but at the very least he cares about defense and knows the importance of the three pointer.
It would be really hard to fire Hornacek and hire one of the very few (only?) coaches with a worse record than Hornacek over the last 2 seasons. Why not get Earl Watson and be done with it.
vogel is another guy who is probably best suited for a veteran team….. his results with the magic should be a caution for us hiring him….
I’m not looking at Trae Young if I’m the Knicks because we’d have to wait at least a season and a half before he’s as good as Trey Burke, and I doubt he’ll ever be the low turnover guard Burke is proving himself to be. If I’m the Knicks I’m trying like hell to get Michael Porter Jr to refuse workouts and physicals for Sacramento, Orlando, and the other small market teams and selling him dreams of being in New York with Burke and Porzingis.
It the Knicks hire Vogel, itll be made clear that all Mills and Perry are interested in is tbinly veiled cronyism and making a team that’s “theirs”, rather than the best team possible. Much like their boss.
I’m not anti Vogel in a vacuum, but he’s not the optimal pick for a rebuilding team.
From yesterday’s thread:
You said it: those numbers do not reflect reality, given sample size, level of opposition, other factors like player mobility, defensive ability or disposition, rebounding, attitude, training habits, etc.
Yours is a perfect example of not understanding that numbers, while good and desirable, do not by themselves provide a complete picture, given the game’s complexity.
I think this question is for you – you were making the same arguments for Cole Aldrich, who turned out to be scrub whose numbers fooled a lot of people who never actually watch the games.
No.
I defer to the knowledge, leadership, experience of Popovic, who promptly benched Cole Aldrich, the guy you defended in the same exact manner you’re pretending Willie Hernan-Gomez is not the end-of-bench player we see on the court.
And I’m surprised a self-proclaimed numbers guy uses team standing as proof of coaching skill. Was D’antoni a good coach when he coached the capped out 32-win Knicks? Is that your proof?
Did he miraculously become a good coach with the Rockets? haha WHAT???
Cole Aldrich was fantastic on the Clippers and they adequately appreciated his talents, FWIW.
Also, even Gregg Popovich can be wrong sometimes.
Would I trade KP (often injured, TS 540 WS/48 100) for Luka? Yes.
I’d be extremely happy with JVG, don’t know if there’s truth to the rumors. Vogel has a job, and is basically a 90’s coach with 3’s. And otherwise, I’d be very happy with Blatt, who has seen success everywhere he went, and Popovich’s James Borrego, Ettore Messina are by all accounts modern and superb. Also, Nick Nurse with the raptors changed their entire offense, and maybe Becky Hammon but I don’t know anything about her
So you’re using as your reasoning that he must be bad because Popovich benched him. And when was that, exactly?
Scott Perry & Frank Vogel, because who wouldn’t want to recreate the Orlando Magic.
Listen the reason Cole Aldrich doesn’t get playing time is because he’s on a team coached by an expert who watches basketball games who knows that *squints* Andrew Wiggins is one of the best players in the NBA.
Vogel’s reputation is built on a goatee screaming that the east is big and Hibbert having a Matterhorn Year in 2013. Their offense being a 48 minutes of bricking and rebounding. A brick with a plan.
But from pioneers we went to dreck, that we still are, with just one altering block.
And ex Knickslayers seem to be a major disturbance in our cosmic health.
So, keine Vögel bitte.
I don’t think Vogel to the Knicks is an actual rumor. The headlines today quote Vogel as saying he expected to be hired by the Knicks in 2016, and was surprised that Hornacek got the job instead of him.
That’s the impression that I got, as well, but I thought that maybe others saw a different story than that.
Yesterday was a good one for reviving the tank, but it could have been better. Sacramento missed two chances at a tying 3-pointer against Phoenix in the final seconds. Had they won, we’d only be 1 win behind them for 7th place. Instead we’re still 2 wins behind Sac and Brooklyn.
If our scouts say that Trae, Young, Bridges, whoever is the best player available, then we take them. We have, like, negative talent. We don’t draft on need. If Doncic is available and we moved up to 4, we take him even though we have seventeen SG’s.
Yes we like them, but Frank, KP, and Timmy are not in any way good enough at the moment to determine our drafting strategy when we suck so much.
Gregg Popovich is so good he can bench players on other teams! Truly a mastermind.
You just don’t understand the complexity of the game.
I could see the benefits and downsides from a team building perspective of Young or Bridges. One the one hand, with the emergence of Burke, PG becomes less of an immediate need. Burke has been quite good and is probably at the least a very capable 6th man/first PG off the bench dude and our hope is that Frank can also be a PG too plus we have the limitless potential of Mudiay to develop, so why get another PG when a wing is now the most pressing need. Plus Bridges will most likely be a good defensive player and a good 3 point shooter. His floor is solid NBA contributor and at 8th or 9th pick getting that as opposed to a potential bust is crucial. We need another star player or two, sure, but we also just need good NBA players in general.
But then again Trae Young could be something special. The Warriors had Monte Ellis who could score like crazy and was young when they drafted Curry (not trying to invite Curry/Young comparisons) and that didn’t stop them from drafting who they thought could be a transformational talent and superstar. And Trae Young has that potential. His numbers and passing and shooting is VERY intriguing. Him as a starter with Burke backing him up…we could have real fire power at the PG spot for the first time in forever. Plus, Frank has the length to potentially play the 3. You could have a Trae Young, Hardaway, Frank 1,2,3 and if Frank puts on muscle he could be the starting 3.
You’d just have to most likely give up on the Mudiay project which would make Jowles really sad but I’m sure he’d get over it.
We should not take team need/fit into account in any shape, way, or form. This team is god awful and is even worse than its record indicates from a long-term perspective. The BPA between Young, Bridges, and Carter isn’t easy to determine, but it should be the only consideration. I personally probably rank them this way:
1) Carter
2) Young
3) Bridges
I would be very happy with any of them though. I also continue to think there’s no way Young is available to us unless we slip below Brooklyn/Cleveland anyway.
Carter is imo the second best player in this draft. Trae is Bagley/Bamba level, and Mikal is one tier below them I think. Carter should be our #1 target assuming Doncic isnt available.
MPJr is a cipher and while he could be pretty good (go to three level scorer with decent defense) the risk factor is just too high.
If we’re really committed to drafting for need, then let’s do it with our second rounder and draft Isaac Bonga.
I saw a story that he might get fired so I threw his name out there a week or two ago just to make conversation. The only report I saw yesterday said that he thought he was going to get hired by the Knicks and Phil Jackson. There are no rumors of him coming to NY, but one could speculate that if he does get fired and he was strongly considered by Mills/Jackson previously, they might consider him again. Beyond that, I know nothing.
This is 100% correct in theory, but the reality is that most likely we are going to have Perry, Mills, and a few scouts in a war room and they aren’t going to agree on who to draft because they’ll have different opinions on who the best player available is. They will all throw out their opinions, someone is going to make the final decision, a few of them are going to disagree with it, and they will pray they got it right.
Why don’t the Knicks promote Mike Miller (G League coach of the year) to the Knicks and send Jarret Jack down to coach Westchester?
The organization absolutely loves Jack (for good reason), he seems to love NY, and he wants to get into coaching.
Strat, that’s what smart franchises do. So, no.
I just spent too much time creating a spreadsheet to calculate the probabilities that the Knicks will win or tie their tank race vs the Bulls, Nets, and Kings. Based on my estimated win probabilities of each team’s remaining games, I got the following results:
Knicks win or tie tank race vs Bulls — 62%
Knicks win or tie tank race vs Nets — 22%
Knicks win or tie tank race vs Kings — 8%
I’d like to take Landry Shamet in the 2nd round, even though we have forty guards already. We need three-point shooting in the worst way and not the Timmy brand of three-point shooting. Carter/Mikal and Shamet would be a nice haul.
I think it’s fine either way, I just don’t want the Knicks to drop below 9th, that’s all. Anything better than that is obviously great. Seeing as the league won’t do shit to the absolutely blatant tanking going on in Chicago, the Knicks should obviously follow suit and just sit Kanter + Hardaway + Lee, but I guess last night showed we don’t actually really need to do that.
I’m confident because Philly won’t stop winning and that means we get back to back pissed off Lebron to finish the season.
I’m just going to be forever disappointed that we have no shot at all to get Doncic, I really feel like he’ll give Ben Simmons like impact very early on in his career.
I’m not sure I’d put him that high, but I do think he’s the most undervalued of all the top prospects. He’s the type of play who will connect guys offensively, something this team desperately needs next to an ISO type guy like KP.
lets move KP for Doncic; and separately trade our first to PHX for their 2 mid firsts, holiday, alexander, williams, brown, zhaire smith, miles, knox, walker …someone will be available. kick start the rebuild in one fell swoop!
Always got to pop my head up when I catch wind of Cole slander. The only reason that he isn’t a solid starter is because he has the conditioning of a asthmatic walrus. In limited minutes off the bench, he is still very useful. He’s also one of the best rim protectors in the NBA. Leave Cole alone. Sorry for tardiness.
What are that walrus’s stats per 36? 🙂
I’m also pretty high on Wendell Carter, who does a bunch of things well:
-Rebounds in traffic
-Blocks shots
-Shoots well from outside
-Plays responsible defense
-Sets sturdy screens
I think he’s going to be a solid starter in this league for many years.
I’m worried that Duke apparently had to abandon playing man-to-man defense this season, but I don’t watch college basketball so I don’t know whose fault that was.
I don’t know about Jack, but I’ve been saying they should promote the Westies guy all year.
Duke was noticeably worse on defense whenever Bagley played, and he led the team in minutes. Carter was generally acknowledged by fans and press to be the team’s best defender, and he did lead the team in blocks, DBPM, defensive rating etc.
I don’t know if that’s an accurate assessment, but that’s what the conventional wisdom is. ¯\_(?)_/¯
No team would do that, and we should take it in a heartbeat.
Around the number 4 pick is where it becomes realistic.
This was done more to hide Bagley, as Hubert alluded to, than Carter who was solid as a defensive anchor.
https://deadspin.com/the-thunder-have-a-melo-problem-1824906596
They actually are kind of gentle on Melo.
mmm I don’t know about that — assuming his recovery is going as planned, one can imagine a reasonably plausible scenario in which Cleveland/BKN wins the lottery and would MUCH rather have KP than a 19 year old kid that hasn’t done anything in the pros yet. Hill, Hood, Lebron, Love, and KP would basically be unguardable, and the addition of KP on the defensive end would literally be a gamechanger. Even a Hill, Hood, Lebron, KP, Nance lineup would be very very difficult to stop and would be a pretty good defensive lineup too. And teams that are looking to rebuild on the fly, like the Clippers (who have 12 and 13) might do it too. And the Sixers? They’ve given 2500 minutes to the combo of Amir Johnson, Trevor Booker, Ilyasova, and Richaun Holmes (who is good). Wouldn’t they rather have KP than Doncic or Ayton?
All this is of course predicated upon KP’s recovery going as planned, but I think those 3 teams at the very least might seriously consider that trade…
duke went man to start the year and all of a sudden switched to zone…. theringer had a decent article about it but carter isn’t exactly that quick and bagley isn’t a good defender at all… so the zone was meant to hide some of their faults on defense….
is carter going to eventually be good against the pnr? that is something very hard to predict…. most big men in general struggle a whole against it when they go pro because whether they play zone or not…. opposing college teams just don’t run pnr that often…. and when they do the guards are of way less quality than nba guards….
so it’s an open question… and that’s going to depend on his development.. but i think he’s capable to be at least ok…. but the question of pnr defense does affect all big men equally… even guys like bamba or jackson who are physical freaks…. there’s a certain level of awareness and being able to switch your attention quickly that’s required to play against the pnr effectively that has nothing to do with your athletic prowess….
I’m honestly shocked at how bad Melo got so quickly. I thought that he would shoot 40% from 3 with all the open 3’s, and I never dreamed that he would be so washed in every other way. He was clearly on the decline but I thought at the very least his shooting would make him somewhat valuable. But he’s the worst player on that team right now. 0-9 from 3 yesterday in a game that they lost by 4. Yikes.
Melo looks a bit like Paul Pierce when he was suddenly washed. Maybe if they gave him fewer minutes he could be a little more productive per minute, but they have so little depth on that team it gets tricky to create good lineups with him coming off the bench.
@54 They’re in a tight spot after trading for an injured IT, so I thjnk they’d have to take a healthy player. Even without that… I can’t see KP being valuable to a team that wants to win a title next year.
i can see kp being valuable to a team chasing a title, he could def be that one missing piece. you think OKC would be winning a ton of games if they had KP instead of Melo but i digress.
that cavs team would be dangerous.
@54
i dont see the clips giving up 2 lottery picks for an injured Kp though
If we draft Trae Young, this could be our depth chart at the start of next year:
PF:
SF:
C: Enes Kanter, Kyle O’Quinn, Joakim Noah
PG: Trae Young, Trey Burke, Emmanuel Mudiay,
SG: Tim Hardaway Jr, Courtney Lee, Frank Ntilikina
That would be…. Knicksy.
Melo is looking like Clippers Paul Pierce when his shooting went completely off, but Pierce was 38 and took 5 shots a game while Melo is 33 and takes 15.
The most frustrating thing is that he’s certainly blaming on not being able to get into a rhythm as the 3rd option instead of realising he should never be starting or taking this many shots.
Genius Presti managed to destroy their bench for a 1 year rental of George + Melo’s 27 million deal to win less games than the Westbrook against the world team while being capped out for next year.
On the other hand, with the way George is playing I don’t feel good for the team that’s going to pay him a max starting next year.
That’s an intriguing lineup. KP would fix a LOT of their issues. I just wouldn’t trade KP for anyone below Doncic/Ayton, so the Nets pick isn’t enough. We’d need something else. And they’d have to match salary. KP is a proven NBA player, draft picks aren’t. Also, they may not have LeBron next year, and may be interested in rebuilding.
that lineup sux. i wonder what the trade value of THJR is since we cant move Lee
ProjectKnicks: Willy has played like shit in Charlotte, per usual!
Any reasonable person: Well, his numbers are awesome in Charlotte.
PK: The numbers are only good because small sample!
ARP: But you said he played like shit.
PK: Because he did!
ARP: But his numbers are good.
PK: Because the numbers are fake!
ARP: Because it’s a small sample?
PK: No, because those numbers do not reflect reality, given sample size, level of opposition, other factors like player mobility, defensive ability or disposition, rebounding, attitude, training habits, etc.
ARP: So BPM, VORP, WS, and WP are just fake stats?
PK: For Willy they are!
ARP: But the numbers represent his actual play on the court, not something unquantifiable or unable to be isolated, like “training habits” or “attitude.”
PK: They’re quantified in his numbers!
ARP: Which are good.
PK: Nuh uh!
Totally, except Melo’s ceiling was lower than Pierce’s, and I think Pierce was a consistently-overrated player for most of his career. Pierce was a solid player even during his first couple years, so he had a strong 3.7 BPM for his 15 seasons with the Celtics. Melo had a 2.0 BPM with the Knicks and 1.0 with the Nugs. Now he’s one of the worst players in the league. He’s cooked. I wouldn’t sign him to a vet’s minimum if my team were looking to fill a roster slot. He’s a game-loser.
Melo is going through his normal decline phase. He was a good, not great player at his peak when he was like 26 or 27, and he has declined exactly how you’d expect a one-dimensional player like himself to decline. He hasn’t been able to jump for several years now, and he’s not a smart or savvy player who is going to be able to adjust his game. As always, he provides very little in the way of secondary skills. He gives you pointzz, and he never gave them to you very efficiently. Now that he’s old and he has a .500 TS% he is just about completely useless.
Phil Jackson thought this was the right player to build a team around and that Melo would become an elite player in his 30’s because of triangularity. #NeverForget
But but but GRAVITY
Searching through the archives for some preseason prediction gems:
er:
http://knickerblogger.net/knicks-morning-news-2017-10-17/#comment-597812
Try 18, nerds!
er, part 2:
http://knickerblogger.net/knicks-morning-news-2017-10-17/#comment-597831
lol ^ 2
The legend, ruruland:
http://knickerblogger.net/knicks-morning-news-2017-10-17/#comment-597833
Feedback loop: TS% of .528, .566 and .502 respectively. G-g-g-gravity!
JK47:
http://knickerblogger.net/knicks-morning-news-2017-10-17/#comment-597866
How about if they threw in a pick? Unprotected? 🙂
I agree with pretty much everything you said.
The sad part is that I think he was a very talented and skilled player. He just never learned how to play basketball to maximize that skill. He probably has no idea now how bad he is or how foolishly he played all those years. In his mind he probably thinks if they would just give him the ball more often he could carry the team better.
I used to joke that KP was going to have to unlearn everything he learned from Melo, but it’s probably no joke.
I’m actively worried that KP will follow Melo’s career arc.
@68
I don’t think I’ll ever forget the day someone actually thought 33 year old Carmelo Anthony would be more impactful than Chris Paul for a NBA team, and called everyone who disagreed haters. A lot ot stuff we say look pretty shit in hindsight but my goodness.
But thanks for this post, I had totally forgotten about the “FEEDBACK LOOP” argument LMAO. I only remembered the gravity bullshit and the “Melo is the best spot up shooter”.
By the way the .566 ts% referenced is for Paul George. His mark since the all star break? .501. (Melo unbelievably has been even worse, .478, which would be something like Frank + Mudiay taking 17 shots per 36)
@68 – My pre-season prediction: Search for GoNYGoNYGo (post #158)
Not everyone was fooled by this roster.
I picked the most cynical win total I could think of, which was 32 wins. So I am pleased that they are going to be worse worse than that. However, the only reason they’re going to do worse than 32 wins is because KP got hurt, so that’s a very bad result, as well. So…hmmm…I guess the easy answer is “Dolan’s Razor.”
Ruru posted here like one time all offseason and still managed to make possibly the single dumbest and most laughable statement. You gotta give it to the guy. Now THAT’S efficiency.
Knick fan not in NJ at this time
October 18, 2017 at 7:23 pm
I am terrible at picking wins. This is a smart blog so I predict 28 wins which is the average of the 25 predictions above (26, 33, 29, 28, 16, 28, 26, 28, 28, 29, 28, 26, 27, 25, 31, 35, 32, 26, 28, 28, 30, 30, 30, 28, 33)
Well, at least we were right on the money as an average! I had 27 which I thought was pessimistic at the time, but then again we never expected KP to get injured.
THCJ are you able to pull preseason or last season quotes about Willy from before he fell out of the rotation and was part of the “core” for the future? I’m curious as to how the management supporters felt about him before management soured on him, but have zero search skills (or am just impatient and lazy).
Off the top of my head, I don’t think there was much turnaround there. So I’ll give the usual folks credit there. It’s not like there was this huge “Willy is the best!” contingent that turned on him as soon as the Knicks hinted that they didn’t like his attitude.
We all saw how quickly Melo was losing his ability to jump, drive, rebound, defend PnRs, rotate to open shooters, etc. But I am surprised at how he’s lost his ability to hit catch-and-shoot jumpers. Those were legitimately very good shots for him throughout his Knick career. It’s bizarre how he suddenly can’t hit anything.
there was a thread late May-ish when the board debated whether it would be smart to trade him straight up for the third pick in the draft
Oh definitely, but the dudes who are giving him shit now weren’t saying no then, ya know?
We should scout RJ Cole. He probably doesn’t get attention because he plays for Howard. Jeremy Lin was undrafted, because he played for Harvard, and maybe because he doesn’t look the part; even though Wages of Wins (I think) suggested he was possibly the best PG in the draft because of his PAWS rating.
@81
I checked his stats now and his counting numbers are nice, but his efficiency stats are very very underwhelming, like a .537 ts%, while Lin for example had elite efficiency for a PG in his junior and senior years when he accomplished that. Lin did struggle a lot with efficiency in his first two years and RJ Cole is a freshman, so there’s that.
I had Knicks at 25 damn that’d be nice right about now
I’m willing to write off some of Melo’s performance this year as related to his age and declining skills. It wasn’t too difficult to predict his skills would decline a bit more, but the degree to which they declined when you consider he has a good PG and another scorer on the team for the first time in awhile is surprising.
George was actually playing very well for awhile after a slowish start. I have no idea what’s going on with him now. He said his shot is broken. Who knows what that means.
Westbrook is Westbrook. I’m not sure anyone could make him better and I’m not sure he makes anyone around him better either. He runs around like a maniac doing as many dumb things as amazing things. He’s pretty much in his own world.
Defensively, the loss of Andre Roberson really hurt. There is a lot of data that suggests he was a key part of that team defensively.
I think my prediction was that they were a much better team, but it was hard to know how many games they would win because a lot of other teams in the west also got better. Still, I thought they’d be better than this. I think the fit of these players is just terrible. None of them makes anyone around them any better. I guess that was predictable given their history and playing styles, but people have said that about other ball dominant scorers and they eventually found ways to make it work and make the whole better than the parts. This is a case of the whole being worse than the parts.
Here’s one of my quotes from that thread:
Just substitute Jack for Sessions. And yeah, something went wrong….
@60 you’re forgetting about Ron “The Butterscotch Stallion” Baker, our all-purpose guard.
Do we care if Orlando wins?
lol, look at this idiot:
“Edit: that being said, I would take the over on the Knicks this year (I think it’s around 28 or 29 in vegas atm)”
I don’t think there’s a chance of us dropping below Orlando or Dallas so yeah, doesn’t matter.
That made me chuckle.
Melo was never a very complete basketball player. In fact, he had a very narrow skill set. He basically did very little well other than take a lot of mid range shots with mediocre scoring efficiency while drawing a good number of fouls and committing relatively few turnovers. He wasn’t a good three point shooter. He wasn’t good in transition. He didn’t defend well. His passing was ok, his rebounding ok. But basically, he was a one trick pony. Melo was never made to be a complementary piece. He just never had the skills to generate offense off the ball. We saw that very clearly during Linsanity.
So, this shouldn’t be surprising. I mean, it isn’t surprising, we all knew Melo was incredibly overrated. But it’s surprising how quickly and badly he has imploded.
We had a fractional chance of tying Dallas if they had won tonight. But that’s pretty much over with the loss to Orlando.
The most remarkable thing about Melo was how well he behaved when Phil was shitting all over him.
Melo sucking this year does not equal “there is no such thing as gravity”. That’s like saying that because I got the flu this year in spite of getting the flu vaccine that all vaccines are bunk. It’s just a dumb statement (*THCJ readies his burn cannon*).
All you have to do is look at the extremes. Look at players that clearly have a lack of gravity — like Memphis with Tony Allen where his extreme lack of gravity allowed GS to play 5-on-4 on defense in that playoff series — that decision basically ended the “Grit ‘n Grind” Grizzlies, who were thought to have a chance against GS.
On the other end, look how defenses contort themselves to prevent Curry from shooting, which opens up everything for that Golden State offense. The degree to which Curry’s teammates’ efficiency benefits from his presence on the court has been really well documented.
Or for us Knick fans, remember how Tyson Chandler’s presence on the court as that dive man made everyone else better? That’s gravity.
Or for James Harden – how can he create all those corner 3’s? Because he drags all the help defenders into the paint.
Or for Lebron, king of corner 3 assists – doesn’t he have gravity?
In terms of Melo – playing with Westbrook has led to him taking 6 “open” or “wide-open” 3’s per36. This is as compared with 4.3 and 3.3 open/wide-open 3’s per 36 in the two prior seasons without Westbrook. Do we think he just magically created more open or wide-open assisted looks without “gravity” from the teammate that passes him the ball all the time? It’s not like these are schemed 3 pointers — for instance – Melo gets hardly any stuff off screens (33 possessions total the entire year). He just stands behind the 3 point line and waits for Westbrook to create space.
In defense of that position, I think it’s very likely the Knicks would have gone over if they didn’t lose KP for 34 game and Hardaway for 22. The team only has 2 scorers (before Burke). If you are missing one of them it gets tougher. And since KP was the backbone of the defense too, it was kind of a disaster. All teams have injuries, but those were 2 pretty big blows.
They would have definitely gone over. That’s why my 32 wins wasn’t pessimistic enough. I underestimated the Knicks’ ability to do the dumbest thing possible every season and the only way they avoided it was by having a terrible injury to their best player.
Frank – There is no question Melo’s opportunity set has changed. Lining up next to the 2017 highest usage player in the NBA will do that.
But gravity is never going to change the fact that Melo simply isn’t a good three point shooter. He never has been more than mediocre. He doesn’t have the knack and if he did have the knack we would have known it long before now.
My point was never that Melo is good — it’s that some are insinuating (or at least that’s how I took it) that Melo’s struggles mean that Westbrook’s ability to draw defenders doesn’t exist — that gravity doesn’t exist. I mean, look at posts 67, 68, and 71 in this thread.
Melo is sucking this year in spite of Westbrook creating great shots for him, but that’s a Melo problem, not that Westbrook isn’t able to create those shots.
One small niggle:
We also saw during 2012-13 that playing off the Felton/Chandler PNR he was pretty freaking awesome as a weakside 3 point shooter and secondary initiator. He had the highest usage but the initial action that year was, for the most part, PNR with Felton and Chandler.
Man. That year was so fun.
He definitely didn’t handle Linsanity too well but I think some of that was personal (“I’m not going to defer to some Taiwanese kid from Harvard”) and some of that was just small sample size. If Lin had come back, my guess is that they would’ve figured something out.
I have to disagree about Melo as a complementary piece. How many alley oops have you seen Melo put down in his life? How many back cuts? How many give and go’s even? How many fast breaks in traffic? He was never a junk yard dog on the offensive boards. And as I said, he was never particularly good as a spot up shooter. Name pretty much any way you can think of to score that doesn’t involve right wing iso or the right block and Melo just isn’t that good at it.
Which is why it doesn’t really surprise me that he has struggled as a role player. Melo wasn’t going to turn into vintage Kyle Korver just because Russ generated more space for him.
And yeah, that year was fun. I feel very lucky to have watched Tyson Chandler in his prime.
Frank,
People tend to see things as black or white. I think “gravity” has more or less been documented by advanced stats studies. But it’s impact is probably not as large as some “believers” think and not as small as some “skeptics” think.
I’m less certain about Westbrook’s gravity impact.
Going into the season, I thought he almost had to help both George and Melo because neither had ever played with a PG like him and Russ does pile up assists. But there are different quality assists (get a guy an open shot at the basket vs. get him an open jumper and stuff like that). I think part of why Durant left was Westbrook’s style. Now he doesn’t seem to be helping George much either. On the flip side, Olidipo and Sabonis both jumped despite higher usage when they left him. Of course there’s probably a lot of other noise and change that accounts for these isolated cases, but it doesn’t argue well for Russ making players better.
@98
I think there were some stats that suggested that Melo was pretty good at spot up open 3s over the last few years (or maybe it was when he trailed the play and was openn???). I agree that wasn’t his game and he never got that many, but I think OKC was counting on him getting more of them with Russ and hitting them at close to a 40% clip. But he hasn’t hit them at a solid clip this year.
He was a very talented guy. He spent his life mastering the mid range, post up, ISO game. He got great at it at approximately the same time the sport started realizing it was a bad way to play basketball. He resisted every coach’s attempt to change him..
Except that brief stretch in 2011-12 when he knew he would be the scapegoat with D’Antoni gone and then most of 2012-13. Shockingly (not really shockingly at all), 2012-13 was also his best season.
This just isn’t true. He was in the 93rd percentile last year on spot ups and always had EFG% near 60 on catch and shoot jumpers when he was with the Knicks.
You can knock every other part of his game but the man could shoot the ball.
I was referring to spot up threes. Anyway you slice it, he’s not a three point specialist.
“Gravity” as defined by ruru on that past thread means that the opposing team sends a help defender to deal with you. Melo apparently had a very high “gravity” score because he got double teamed a lot.
This still didn’t help his teams much, and it still didn’t make him an awesome player. Why? Because Melo simply shoots the ball through the double team.
You’re an opposing coach. Melo gets the ball in his hands. Do you:
A. Have your help defender stay at home, because you’re worried Melo is going to pass out of the double team and burn you, or
B. Go ahead and send that help defender, secure in the knowledge that Melo is simply going to heroball his was through that double team
It’s obvious that it’s B.
For certain guys like LeBron James and Russell Westbrook who have good court vision and can burn you if you double team them too much, sure, maybe there’s something to the whole “gravity” thing. But Melo’s “gravity” doesn’t help you much. We’ve all watched the guy play eighty million minutes, we all know how he plays. Get double teamed, try to drive through the double team, put up a low-percentage layup attempt, brick, complain about no-call, lazily jog down the floor on defense while still complaining. How many times did we witness that exact sequence? A lot of times.
Young Melo was a tremendous transition player-he had 165 dunks in 2005, which is an absurd number for a wing player (Lebron has never dunked that many times in a season). Melo’s just always a what could have been guy-if he’d come along a decade later could he have been a really good stretch forward? Or if he’d been coached differently? Maybe he was just too stubborn to coach. There’s enough skill there that you could have created a very good player out of Melo’s toolkit, he just never did it.
For reference, here are Melo’s eFG%s rankings on catch-and-shoot jumpers:
2017-18 — 37th percentile
2016-17 — 71st percentile
2015-16 — 39th percentile
2014-15 — 55th percentile
2013-14 — 75th percentile
That is surprising. I feel like those Nuggets were pretty run and gun. Although they played at a pace of 94 (second in the league) while the Cavaliers are at 98 this year for only 12th in the league. So that probably doesn’t explain it. Certainly, as a Knick, he never showed the kind of burst that great transition players are made of.
It’s interesting to think about Melo as a guy with all the tools who never optimized for maximum production. I don’t know that I buy it. He certainly optimized for salary though.
Don’t forget about his post-ups on the elbow where the double team would come from above the break, Melo would see it coming, and instead of kicking to the open shooter would turn toward the baseline and take an 18-footer falling away from two defenders. Those were always fun to watch.
@106 – source?
Also we all know that the Triangle especially sacrificed 3’s for long 2’s, and on top of that, Melo never saw a jumper he didn’t like no matter where it was on the floor. So eFG (which takes into account shot selection) is not really that relevant in terms of what we’re talking about today (clearly it is relevant overall, but less so here). The question is whether Melo is a good spot-up 3 point shooter.
According to this Washington Post article from before this season —
1) Carmelo averaged (I think prob 2016-17) 1.23 points per catch-and-shoot attempt –> top 6% in NBA
2) 2016-17 Melo his 44.8% of his unguarded catch-and-shoot 3’s and even taking into account catch-and-shoot 2’s, had an eFG of 63.7 on unguarded attempts.
he’s shooting more unguarded attempts this year but just hasn’t shot them as well.
we don’t have all the sportvu data going back before 2015-16 but while Melo might not be Steph Curry, but he has been a good spot-up shooter when given the opportunity.
sorry – link for the WaPo article above: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fancy-stats/wp/2017/10/13/carmelo-anthony-is-a-great-fit-for-the-thunder-but-there-is-a-catch/?utm_term=.cec33135740f
Now that’s a single play I’d like to see Zach Lowe spin into a 1,000 word article.
Let’s just keep moving the goalposts on the Melo debate until it becomes, “Did Carmelo Anthony actually play forward in the NBA?”
I think Melo is just lazy and stubborn. Advanced stats aside, if you take Curry, and he goes crazy and wants to only take contested 45fters, his stats will all look bad. Melo has a good shooting stroke, we’ve seen it- he just only wants to take 90s-era low post contested hero ball shots. He’s taking the same % of 3’s, layups, and dunks. He can do it, I’ve seen it. He just doesn’t want to, just like he doesn’t want to pass the ball.
Whatever, doesn’t matter what the reason is- Melo still sucks.
Too many? 🙂
@109
Frank,
Here’s the source for Melo’s catch-and-shoot numbers:
https://stats.nba.com/players/shots-general/?Season=2017-18&SeasonType=Regular%20Season&GeneralRange=Catch%20and%20Shoot&CF=FGA*GE*3
wow kyrie done for the year.
the c’s werent beating lebron anyway but it wouldve been a good series.
Melo’s best attribute was creating a shot for himself. When the offense was had no shot, he’d be able to get something off, with some, albeit low, chance of scoring.
Hate his game all you want, and no one does more than me, but he had enormous talent. If he played smart, he would have been one of the best of his era instead of a ball stopping, hero-balling, no defense playing, loser.
He refused to change his game, so he was always an overrated loser.
“..I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am.”
Lots of players could throw the ball toward the basket at a 30% clip, especially during the ballhog AAU/streetball era. Acting like Melo was somehow rare in being able to “create” a FGA is patently absurd.
Yeah, it’s not fair to say that Melo had no gravity effect on the Knicks offense. He did. Problem is, he never had gravity like Jupiter, but rather more like Ceres.
Not the king of the gods, but more like the king of the asteroid belt.
🙂
Kyrie injury sucks — even as a Celtics hater, it is not good when a team that really should’ve been in the mix as a title contender literally loses their 2 best players (maybe Horford fits in there somewhere).
That said – it might work out perfectly for the Knicks.
You have to think that teams are going to try and be in the 2/3/6/7 part of the bracket as opposed to 1/4/5/8. Cleveland right now is tied with Philly for the 3rd seed, and will likely need both of those end-of-season games to clinch that 3 seed (tomorrow’s Cavs/Sixers game should be awesome). Similarly you would think our other 2 games (Milwaukee and Miami) will be games our opponents really want in order to avoid the 8 seed. Basically, I don’t think any of the teams we have left will be resting dudes for the playoffs because those games will matter to them.
Chicago has shorthanded Boston, two Nets games, and the Pistons. They could easily go 2-2.
Nets have Milwaukee, the two Bulls games, and Boston at the end of the year. You have to figure it’s going to be the Abdel Nader Shane Larkin show that day so that they don’t get any of their other guys injured. They could go 2-2 or 3-1.
Sacramento has Memphis (W), then Spurs (L), and Houston on the last day. Houston could just lay down since they are so far ahead. I can’t imagine either Harden or Paul will play.
It’s not totally outrageous to imagine 3 teams (NYK/Sac/BKN) tied for #6. I have no idea how a 3 way tie would work.
Oh man I just read Kyrie’s instagram saying he has an infected post-op knee. That’ll make more scar tissue even assuming it’s aggressively and successfully treated. This is a big problem for him.
Someone mentioned on here how bad hiss knees were when the KP trade rumors were alive.
Terrible for the NBA. I don’t think the Celtics really stood a chance of beating two of the three other contenders (TOR, CLE, PHI, in that order), but I was looking forward to seeing some awesome 7-gamers.
I wonder if Kyrie now thinks that modern medical science is a hoax, too.
As much as I always want to see the Celtics crash and burn, yeah, it’s sad that we won’t see the Celtics at full force going against the rest of the east. They might still win their first round matchup as Brad Stevens is approaching miracle worker status by now…
On the other hand, if Philly does end up with the 3rd seed it will be such an entertaining situation, they could definitely beat Boston without Kyrie and they would be favorites against Miami, Milwaukee or Washington. We could see the process in the ECF in their very first year, which is insane to think about.
Crabbe w 2 huge 3s to bury the Bucks.
Those two games between Brooklyn and Chicago look sweet right now. The risk that the Knicks win 1 more game and blow it is diminished a bit now that we are right there with both of them. I’d really like to clear one of them. I hope the Cavs don’t tank against us.
It would be great if the Sixers beat the Cavs tomorrow, as unlikely as that seems, as it would force the Cavs to beat us twice without resting anyone to have a chance at the 3rd seed.
I have a sinking feeling that we’re beating the Cavs once, but there’s no way that actually happens right?
Interesting tidbit from Zach Lowe on Burke:
Basically the way regular ties are determined (they all split the ping pong balls evenly) except I believe instead of a coin toss, it’s a random draw between the three teams to decide who gets officially declared #6 and then a coin toss to decide who gets officially declared #7.
So next year, after KP returns, we might have a starting lineup of Burke, Hardaway, KP, Kanter and someone else, maybe Ntilikina or Thomas with a rookie, O’Quinn, Beasley and Ntilikina or Thomas coming off the bench. Is that a good team?
A. Who’s the rookie?
B. How has KP recovered?
That said, even if A is someone good and B is that he has returned as the same player, the answer is “probably not.” But they’ll hopefully be on the right path after getting a high draft pick in the 2019 Draft. If he recovers (big if, I know), KP’s injury could have been the best thing to happen to this franchise in a long time.
The rookie is whoever we draft this summer. Since we are probably drafting 8 or 9th or so, I figure he won’t end up starting and posited him on the bench. I was thinking it’s not that impressive a lineup, but hoping I was wrong. But I am afraid you are right.
He won’t be good next year, but there’s a good chance he’ll be good in Year Two. Add an even higher draft pick in 2019 and 2019-20 might be an interesting season and then 2020-21 might be a downright good season! There is some actual hope here.
All, of course, predicated on KP actually healing correctly.