[NYTimes] Raptors Eliminate the Wizards, and the Cavaliers Are Pushed to a Game 7 (Saturday, April 28, 2018 3:32:20 AM)
The Raptors advanced to the Eastern Conference semifinals, and the Cavaliers were blown out by the Pacers in Indianapolis.
[NYTimes] On Pro Basketball: ‘Playoff Rondo’ Politely (Not Really) Requests a New Nickname (Friday, April 27, 2018 11:33:07 PM)
There is plenty of evidence that Rajon Rondo ramps up the intensity when the regular season ends, but the New Orleans Pelicans’ guard isn’t buying it.
(Friday, April 27, 2018 11:59:19 PM)
The one area Knicks brass failed to mention during their recent press conference on what they will seek in a new coach was … “A winner.” That just happens to be David Blatt’s top attribute. It is a strength Knicks president Steve Mills and general manager Scott Perry may want to ponder as they reduce…
67 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2018.04.28)”
RE: Westbrook & OKC
That’s just the way how he play..but he’s got to be able to figure it out as the PG & unequivocally best player. When GS incorporated KD, they learned how to play with him and how to best utilize him, and it also didn’t hurt that they are naturally unselfish. When Lebron remade his roster in Cleveland, he worked on learning how to play with the new guys. When CP3 joined Houston, Harden learned how to play with him. Is Billy Donovan just not fostering an inclusive atmosphere out there? Not to slight Utah, but I just expected more.
This is what I think happens during the offseason, as it relates to big moves:
1. Melo signs with Houston after seeing how well their star players play together. Melo as a 3rd option there works.
2. Lebron stays in Cleveland which throws the Lakers in a panic, which leads them to trading young talent and at least one pick for Kawhi. Pop smiles.
3. Philly will make a huge run for PG. He fits in perfectly there. If OKC is smart, they ask for Covington & Redick in a S&T and be happy with either one. I am convinced Westbrook needs to be casted in the “AI in Philly” role.
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………AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
It seems highly unlikely that Melo will opt out of his contract when no one else is going to give him even close to the money he will make if he opts in.
As for PG and the Sixers, they can just sign him outright, why would they do a sign and trade for him?
Melo should retire.
Sucks that Rubio got hurt. I think Houston beats Utah pretty handily.
I don’t think George is a good fit for the Sixers. He’s an ISO machine and they already have a ball-sharing superstar and a high-scoring center. George is an excellent wing defender but I don’t see how he warrants a max through his age 33 season, especially to a team that has been judicious about using cap space.
Melo is not opting out under any circumstances. He would be lucky to get 10 million as a free agent. DRed is right. He should retire.
Melo is done. He doesn’t play offense well in the newer pace and space style and given how teams are smart enough now to repeatedly target the weak link on defense with a switch, he’s almost unplayable because of his defense.
If Kanter never plays another game in NY the Knicks won that deal in a landslide. There are at least some matchups where Kanter has the best of it.
@2
I second that emotion
But I will say in hindsight Donovan should have had melo in the game last two minutes but how would he have known they couldn’t hit a three.
Pg is signing with Lakers. Last nite decided that.
At this point, do we need to explain how he should have known?
The problem with George is that he plays like a #1 option but he’s not quite good enough to be a good #1 scorer. He has to learn to be more effective off the ball and less of an isolation player. If he could do more of that, he’d be an excellent two way second option on a serious team.
Westbrook is Westbrook. He’s going to do a few things that only he can do to keep his team in the game and then he’s going to do a few things that are so foolish you are going to want to blame him for the loss.
@9
Ok but george was fouled and should’ve had three free throws. How they missed that call is beyond belief in the scheme of things and will have repercussions for okc franchise.
The Thunder have reaped what they’ve sown. The no-call was egregious beyond belief, but the Thunder’s problems run far deeper than a coin flip at the end of a first-round series. Unprecedented luck has been undone by staggering roster mismanagement, somehow turning Durant, Harden, Oladipo, Ibaka and Kanter into a first-round playoff exit, a Carmelo Anthony opt-in, and a Russ contract that will look absolutely terrible when he’s no longer able to attack the rim with reckless abandon. (He is one of the most watchable player in the NBA, but imagine what he’ll be when his vertical drops by 3-4”.)
Don’t blame the Thunder’s impending implosion on a single botched call. They chose to pay Westbrook and Carmelo $70M combined in 2018-19. No one chose for them.
Per Stein. They would seem to be our finalists.
Wow lots of Melo hate today. Honestly, Melo’s best bet is to try and become Ryan Anderson-lite. If he can just shoot threes at a good clip and play passable defense…
Losing George would hurt, but if they can replace him with a young impact player and their other young players can take leaps, they could be ok.
They probably need a better coach, though, because last night’s “plan” was ridiculous.
Also, I have this terrible, nagging feeling that we are drafting Knox due to “fit”, “upside”, and “versatility”. Talk me down.
So like… Victor Oladipo?
What’s wrong with Knox? I have asked several times.
I agree with everything you said especially that they shouldn’t have signed melo, they went ‘all-in’.
Thier fatal flaw, I think this is your point, is committing to Westbrook all these years. That’s not exactly ” mismanagement”. look at it this way if you traded rwb and he found success somewhere else you’d be fired!
Knox has poor steal and block rates, even for a 3. I don’t think he’s a bad defender so much as he’s not an impact defender. His rebounding for a 3 is pretty solid and that’s what he played at UK. His shooting splits are very comparable to Tatum who played the 4 in a much more spread out offense.
I doubt Knox is going to make the leap Tatum did though. The big question for Knox is whether he has the tools and wherewithal to transition to play 3/4 combo forward at the next level. I’m not sure he can or will tbh. My feeling is there will be better prospects on the board when we pick.
I thought that was a great no call. Gobert bit but also jumped to the side of George. George could have had a clean shot after Gobert went by him, but instead he went out of his way to create contact with Gobert. He sought the bail out instead of taking the shot. Great no call.
The problem is we’ve seen that get so many calls that we’re used it.
@14
Ryan Anderson lite?
That could work if Melo has the fg efficiency even then he a sieve in defense.
It’s hard for me to blame OKC for Oladipo.
Granted, I wouldn’t necessarily have made that deal, but Oladipo did not look like an all star prospect going into the season. He looked like a decent young player that you could hope would continue developing. With George they were getting a proven two way all star with plenty of productive years left that was on the same timetable as Westbrook.
Then Oladipo exploded forward and Sabonis made a nice leap too. Ouch!
The deal you can blame them for was Melo.
They knew they were trading away an overpaid C that was getting targeted defensively and that was unplayable against a lot of match ups. What they didn’t know was how washed Melo was even though all the signs were there. That’s entirely on them.
I’m not a big Westbrook fan. In fact I hate his game. But they had to re-sign him.
The Durant and Harden debacles are another issue.
@20
Not sure that’s a great no call but you’re convincing me toward trending at ‘could go either way’. I didn’t see george go into gobert and there was a lot of contact.
I don’t think Gettelman was mocking analytics. He was mocking a flawed argument that was being repeated ad naseum, and being repeated so much that people began to think that bc it was being constantly regurgitated it must be true. But it was a thoughtless argument. The argument is all about positional value, but the people making the argument are locked in a box thinking Saquon is merely a RB. At a certain point, players transcend their position and comparing them to other players at their position makes no sense.
Look at it another way… based on statistics, you should never pay a TE $9mm. All the evidence in the world suggests paying a TE $9mm is a mistake. If you were to give your team’s TE $9mm, it would be a bad way to build a team. All the statistics demonstrate this.
However… that does not mean you shouldn’t pay **Rob Gronkowski** $9mm. Evaluating him solely on the basis of his position is a terribly silly thing to do. You might not automtatically be better off paying an average TE marginally less than average salary and letting Gronk walk.
… Saquon was an elite performer in college. In addition to his track record, by combine metrics, he proved to be stronger than Joe Thomas, quicker than DeSean Jackson, faster than Devin Hester, and can jump higher than Julio Jones. He is quite possibly an evolutionary human being like LeBron. He can run, catch, and block at an elite level. He is an outlier.
Arguments for Saquon don’t reject analytics. Arguments against him reject outliers, and outliers are legitimate in analytics.
I thought the George trade was dumb all along…you don’t trade young talent for a guy who is openly saying he wants to join the lakers in a year. Especially given the history of moving great players to appease rwb.. And then they followed that move up with melo. Pretty dumb.
Sorry for another football post but at least there is a legitimate statistical point in there.
I don’t know guys..maybe I just have hope that Houston’s team 1st environment helps Melo. OKC clearly didn’t have that this season. I’m not sure Melo is done overall, but he’s definitely done as a top option. You could see the frustration in Melo this season. The whole “I sacrificed this much usage and it’s not paying off” vibe was strong with him. I think that’s on Westbrook more so than anyone else. At this point, Melo should hopefully realize it’s all about the rings now- he’s made more than enough money. The only other place I see it working for Melo, other than retiring or Houston, is anywhere Lebron plays.
As far as PG, I think the Lakers whiff on star free agents. I just have that feeling. He can be the man in LA, sure. But I’m not convinced he would be a good fit as an “alpha” for that market. Maybe he could be, but I think he fits better as a 2nd star somewhere and I don’t see Lebron leaving Cleveland, so what’s the point of the Lakers signing him?
Yeah, don’t get me wrong, the OKC FO is dumb as rocks… I just think they could build on that flawed core ever so slightly if they want to. But maybe they should be proactive and just blow things up now?
Hubert, your argument is One of the ones I understand, and as a Giants fan, I sure hope you’re right. But Dave’s history as a general manager suggest he simply overvalues the running back position, and doesn’t really care about analytics. Which is troubling. Even if Saquon turns out to be great.
28
How about pg in San Antonio Aldridge. He could be the alpha male. swap out kwahi who would be a good fit with rwb, plus a sweetener from okc.
Spurs’ goal should be to dump salary to add PG as a free agent, not swap Kawhi for him. I think Kawhi will stay, he just wants to have to feel he has the talent around him to make it worthwhile.
I actually think Knox is an above-average defender, but his shot and shot selection seem fairly flawed. I’m not really sure what his plus offensive skills would be.
@19 I think that’s a fair assessment. At 9 or 10 he’s someone who will get consideration. I don’t understand how he became a punchline.
He said you have to run and defend the run to win. This is not borne out by evidence.
I wonder about this. The Spurs don’t seem happy with him. If they can get a nice package I think they take it.
I don’t think kwahi wants to stay either. He recently said that he wants pop to ease up, that’s not going to fly. Pop is not changing his winning ways to appease some 26 year old no matter how good he is. Pop will say to mgmt. I’m leaving and they will move kwahi in a heartbeat.
Wow, Melo was -19 last night in 25 minutes. The next worst for OKC was -7. Yikes. Paul George’s 2 for 16 shooting night didn’t help, either.
Where are all the media pundits who lauded OKC when they made those deals and then beat the powerhouse Knicks on opening night? Not sure how much he is to blame, but perhaps Billy Donovan will be the scapegoat.
Imagine what must be going through Melo’s head in these playoffs. 18 months ago he was the king of New York, a guy with a ton of organizational influence who had the offense revolve around him while getting cheered in Madison Square Garden and still enjoying a rep as a star. Now he’s taking 7 shots in a playoff game while watching a teammate take 43(!!). The team makes a run whenever he leaves the floor and all the fans consider him a burden. He has no influence with management or teammates. He’s at best an afterthought and at worst a loser. It’s been a stunning slide into irrelevance.
Perhaps. I’m not well versed in his Carolina history. If it’s true he overvalues the position, at least we got lucky and happened to have such an elite prospect for him to overvalue.
I think his argument that opportunity scarcity is more important that positional value was pretty smart, tho. You just can’t afford to blow the #2 pick, and QBs are statistically no better than a 50/50 proposition in the top 3.
No way Melo retires- I guarantee you he’s thinking that once George leaves he’ll get more touches/be able to get into a better rhythm and he’ll be back to averaging 20+ points a game. That it’ll take him 20 shots per game to get there won’t concern him at all.
Nobody here would pass up 28 mill even if you were the most hated man in the city.
Well, OKC was 6th to en the season in SRS, which is not bad, although they had the Rockets, the Warriors and the Jazz over them in the same conference (which, except the Jazz, was expected).
I would argue that they matched poorly with Utah, because Westbrook is at his best when he drives to the basket, and Gobert takes away that. They cant get Gobert to foul, because they dont have a post player to put pressure on Gobert. So they depended on getting hot on 3pt, but Westbrook is bad at that, and also they dont run any kind of plays to get the players free… it is mostly Westbrook and PG (and Melo sometimes) taking turns with the ball, and Adams crashing the offensive boards.
As much as OKC had wrong with then, I think they could have been a pretty formidable playoff team win Roberson healthy. Putting out George Adams RWB and Roberson at max effort in the playoffs is a damn menace. Roberson also would have provided a better reason to bench Melo than the hobbled post injury version of PP though even then I doubt Donovan would get the balls in time.
With Westbrook and Roberson playing OKC was plus 11 this year as one of the best defense in the league versus plus 3 or 4 with Westbrook sans Roberson. I think you stick those four guys out there with Jerami Grant and you can make life really hard on anyone and basically let RWB and PG do their ugly but not terrible thing on offense to make up for the lack of shooting, and you can also put Abrines or PP for Grant if you’d rather add a little shooting.
So now we’re interviewing Juwan Howard. No stone unturned.
Melo asked about possibly coming off the bench: “I’m not sacrificing no bench role. So that’s out of the question.”
If I was running OKC the first thing I would do would be to announce publicly that Melo will be coming off the bench next year if he opts in. You have to at least try to play chicken with him and hope his ego forces him to exercise his ETO.
Ladies and gentlemen, the leader of the 221-283 Knicks (2011-2017)!
Never forget the times some of you tried to convince us that he was a superstar, you delusional fucks. You deserve the next five-plus years of bottom-dwelling.
I think Morris’ minutes are a good barometer for game 7. He’s looked pretty rough in this series on both ends and with Smart back I feel like he’s mainly in there because the Celtics are so desperate for some kind of shot creation when trailing. If they get a decent lead early and can afford to play Ojeleye and Smart more they’ll be in better shape. Of course it’s one game so it might just be about whether which of Rozier/Bledsoe goes 6-12 and which goes 2-12.
Isn’t it amazing how super talented guys tend to take a new step forward in their games after departing their role on Thunder as Russ’ teammate? Harden, Oladipo, Sabonis…even Durant has shown new dimensions to his game on Golden State.
Sure, causation may not equal causation. And it’s true that Oladipo wasn’t all that much in Orlando before he was traded to the Thunder. But I also seriously doubt that anyone of these guys would have had the room to spread their wings and fly had they stayed in OKC playing with Westbrook.
So, basically, Melo is now finding himself in the same place Derrick Rose did at the beginning of this season. Here you have an aging, one-dimensional superstar “scorer” whose game is anachronistic in today’s NBA now forced to choose between playing as a rotational role player or not playing at all. And unlike former superstars past, such as Paul Pierce, I don’t see Melo easily acquiescing to that new reality. Good luck to whatever GM and coach who think they will able to utilize his narrow skill-sets towards the end of winning a championship. That person will find themselves in a similar situation to the one that confronted Lebron and Lue in Cleveland after realizing their team could not win at a high level with Rose receiving serious minutes on the floor.
Surprise!
But, seriously, I don’t understand how someone clearly past his prime, with less to offer his playoff team than every before, can presume to tell team management what he will or won’t do for them. For as much as Phil was criticized in the way he publicly handled the Melo trade situation, I would have no problem with OKC’s front office doing the same thing to him. It is an outrage that someone so overpaid would have the gall to dictate to the team that is overpaying him how they are going to use him in trying to win basketball games. Its basically a huge “FUCK YOU” saying that Melo would rather lose as a starter than increase his team’s chances of winning in a more specific role.
Melo should go walk the earth with Jo Noah and get centered
Age, age, age. Durant was not nearly as good this year as he has been because of aging. He’s still an excellent player, but players peak at ~26 and there’s no reason to expect a particular player to be any different. If the Dubs got him at age 24 they’d be the GOAT. But he’s 29 so haha stop being fucking surprised that basketball players don’t age like Pinot. Jesus mother fucking Christ.
Oladipo is, of course, hitting his stride around the exact age we’d expect him to, and also he’s taking way more shots because he’s the “star” on a team that has no other notable volume shooters. Wow! Surprise!
Stop trying to explain player decline with stupid fucking concepts like “fit” and “synergy” when Occam’s Razor is right there in front of your nose in the form of “athletes are worse when they’re old.”
sure just roll out shabbazz and Jason terry in the second half of a game seven you’re doing great
Stop trying to explain player decline with stupid fucking concepts like “fit” and “synergy” when Occam’s Razor is right there in front of your nose in the form of “athletes are worse when they’re old.”*
*does not apply to Lebron James
the Jabari contract this summer is gonna be like Harrison Barnes. It will be two years in and a lot of people still won’t know it was a terrible deal.
I mean, Durant’s last season was also a fucking work of art, when you reach this sort of heights it also gets progressively harder to replicate this sort of success.
Melo’s decline has been very similar actually to what happened with Wade, in the sense that it was fairly obvious to predict. A career mediocre shooter who still manages to produce because he’s more athletic than most players struggles to reinvent his game as his athleticism fades and he refuses to try different approaches. It really wasn’t rocket science.
i would def give some money to jabari parker… he’s not like barnes at all… barnes was a low usage guy trying to be a higher usage guy… jabari is already there altho his ftr went in the wrong direction…
if his ftr starts approaching 30% and he keeps making 3s then he becomes a very good player…. but that may or may not come esp after two knee surgeries…. he has a chance to be that tho which barnes realistically was never gonna attain….
i don’t think melo’s decline was all that predictable…. it was definitely possible and i’m sure most on this board wanted him to fail…. but if he improved his 3pt shooting and started passing more… which he was starting to do with derek fisher… then he would have aged fairly gracefully….
but a 32% 3pt shooting and shooting them more with a declining ft rate and declining secondary numbers is gonna doom anyone…. but guys like melo can age in a variety ways… good small forwards can flicker out quickly… like james worthy… or extend out for awhile like paul pierce….
what you generally need are strong secondary skills and great outside shooting in order for that to happen…. melo just never delivered on that.. but if he did he would have been pretty decent for awhile…
Davis is a joy to watch.
the thing he has in common with Barnes is that he’ll be averaging 21 ppg or something and ppl will think his deal is money good. but he is a nightmare on D except in two quarters in one playoff game which, along with being a good but definitely not elite shooter, means his upside to meet a big money contract doesn’t really exist. on the other hand he has many roads to being worth very little. he has a ton of offensive talent but I don’t see how that turns into a really valuable player. very rare to see a guy still loafing around on D by year 4 become anything but a liability on that end.
yea i mean i get that…. but parker def has some ability and there’s really no telling how much the injuries will impact his career…. the last 30 games might have been an aberration or he could turn into a decent starter….
i don’t think he has superstar potential… he’s probably something like a glenn robinson which probably equates to what you might be imagining for him…. but i do think there’s some room for him to be more than that because he scores with decent volume at decent efficiency and that’s generally very hard to find…
@58
But that’s the point, yeah, he could have done all that. Wade could also have learned how to shoot 3s after 15 years in the league.
It’s just that there’s never been any indication at all that Melo was either worried about developing those skills or even interested in becoming more of a role player instead of the #1 superstar type. I never wanted him to fail as a Knick, I just thought it was plainly obvious that he thinks of himself as a mega star and would never be willing to change his game. His outright refusal to come off the bench in OKC just made it even more obvious.
Pierce adapted when Garnett and Allen arrived when he was younger than Melo is now and had less mileage on his body due to staying longer in college and playing a lot less playoff games / team USA stuff etc, but he really didn’t change much. His statistical profile is nearly identical from the years before, his usage just dropped quite a bit and he started shooting a bit better.
New Orleans is learning the hard way that playing the Golden State Warriors is a whole different universe than beating up on the Portland Trailblazers.
My argument is the opposite though. I am amazed you came to this conclusion from reading my post. Durant didn’t decline last season, he had one of his most efficient seasons ever as a player and I am willing to bet that it had a lot to do with not having to accommodate Westbrook’s game.
Nope, still wouldn’t happen. Because Melo still would have to accept he’s too slow and old to be a starter on a championship contender, and that isn’t happening. Some older players can accept that like Paul Pierce. Others like Melo or Kobe will never do it.
LeBron James is a freak of nature a la Barry Bonds 2001-2004. I cant tell if it’s PEDs or once in a lifetime talent. I don’t really care, but let’s all agree that LeBron’s 2009 is the greatest postseason by any player in the shot-clock era and he will never come close to approaching that performance even if he’s still worth 20 WAR.
Chazz from Germany here…
Just joined the community here. Hope to find here better interaction then in Germany. I love the Knicks ,but to love them hurts, there is no explanation necessary I think;-)….
What about the current coaching search situation? Who would be the fit for us. I read a lot here, and there are many against Mark Jackson, but I think, he should be the choice. He knows NY, what the ppl are starving for. I think to get the Knicks feeling of the 90s back, is that what we all want, hard D first!!! Thats Knicks ball!!!
About the Playoffs, seems that the Warriors will run easiyl into the Finals and that they are back on track. The east is a bit open, between 76rs, C`s (I still hate Paul Pierce lol), and Toronto.
LBJ is not from earth, but one alone can´t win all Series in the East. I think his chapter is done in CLE. But don´t know, if he wants to win another Rings, he must join Houston, maybe 76rs (don´t think so) In LA (no Rings possible) as well all other targets.
I am still kind of sad, that we didn´t get it done in Melo´s pime in NY. He is a Roleplayer now, if he joins a contender. And if the Bananaboat crew wants to player together, it is Houston!