(Monday, May 28, 2018 6:58:41 PM)
Michael Beasley was back at the Knicks training facility in Tarrytown last week reuniting with David Fizdale. Beasley had two stints in Miami with the new Knicks coach — from 2008-10 and 2013-15. Fizdale was a Miami assistant then. “He likes him a lot,’’ said a source close to Beasley. Whether the 6-foot-9 Beasley gets…
[NYTimes] Warriors 101, Rockets 92: Warriors Dispatch Rockets, Setting Up Fourth Finals Against Cavs (Tuesday, May 29, 2018 5:18:25 AM)
Down 11 points at halftime, Golden State rallied in the third quarter to beat the Houston Rockets, winning the Western Conference finals for a fourth consecutive year.
[NYTimes] On Pro Basketball: Look Who Answered LeBron’s Call: Jeff Green, the Former Celtic (Tuesday, May 29, 2018 10:23:13 AM)
Green was a twice a Celtic before rising Sunday night to help defeat his former team in the conference finals and get LeBron James to yet another N.B.A. Final
(Monday, May 28, 2018 3:36:33 PM)
With their No. 9 pick in this year’s NBA Draft, rumors have been stirring that the Knicks will look for a versatile small forward to add to their young corps.
124 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2018.05.29)”
It would be a poor decision for Mike Beasley to leave New York this summer. If he stays he’s more than likely our starting power forward from Day 1 and he’ll have the opportunity to be the walking bucket. Either that or he’ll be the 6th man. Our starting five next year is probably going to look like this:
PG: Burke
SG: Ntilikina
SF: Hardaway Jr
PF: Miles Bridges
C: Kyle O’Quinn, or
PG: Burke
SG: Hardaway Jr
SF: Miles Bridges
PF: Mike Beasley
C: Kyle O’Quinn
Beasley should stay one more year, help us tank, and then go get a check to play off the bench of a contender.
Shooting a lot of 3s is mathematically the correct thing to do long term. However, imo, it’s a double edged sword. Playoff basketball is a little different. The greater natural variance, higher playoff pressure, and better playoff defense in combination ties your fate to extreme variance.
I’m starting to think the old timers are correct in that you also need a really good inside game in the playoffs (especially under game 7 pressure) or your fate is too tied to randomness. Not that either Boston or Houston was supposed to win their series, but the strategy of bombing 3s was the death knell for both of them in game 7s at home. When it comes down to 1 or 2 games game and the pressure is on, if you’re not making 3s and that’s all you’ve got, you are toast. At one point I think Houston missed over 25 in a row. Capela had no such trouble with the playoff pressure around the rim.
@2- at what point does it become mathematically viable? I think you have to be above 35% and close to 40%, if you assume you are shooting easy two’s, say a little over 50%. I’m getting the +50% because i am assuming the % increases when you take some of the low % threes out of the equation.
Last night could have been Kings-Lakers 2002 if Paul had been healthy. We was robbed.
Realistically, it’s going to take an injury to Curry, Durant, or Green to make this a competitive Finals. It’s unfortunate that after one of the greatest seasons we’ve ever seen, LeBron is going to get fed to the lions. It feels like all those Super Bowls where Elway carried a sad sack of losers only to get humiliated in the end and have to listen to people say he can’t win the big game.
@3
I’m not sure what the right answer is, but I think it’s more complicated than just the basic math of (2p% * 2) vs. (3p% * 3). Even in the playoffs where they allow you to get more physical you are more likely to get fouled going to the basket than taking a 3. There are also some offensive rebounding advantages around the basket that allow you to get another shot. When you throw playoff pressure into the mix it starts getting obvious that some of these payers go into a coma shooting 3s.
I’m not saying the game should go backwards. Over the course of an 82 game season you are better off shooting moref 3s if you have some good shooters. But I think the math changes a little under extreme pressure. Just because the Warriors have been been able to win a title this way doesn’t mean it’s the right path for teams without 3 of the greatest shooters of all time on the court together.
If I were the Rockets, I’d try to continue developing Capela’s game and turn him into more of a legitimate consistent scoring weapon. They also clearly missed Paul’s more consistent mid range game when they really needed a bucket and kept throwing up bricks.
It’s like Liz’s ex from 30 Rock. “Technology is cyclical – the beeper is going to come back into fashion!”
Just like teams are going to go back to the days of Ewing and Mourning backing each other up for 20 seconds each possession.
After watching this Rockets-Warriors series I am convinced the NBA game has degraded. This entire series was a glorified 3 point shooting contest without any of the variety which used to characterize a previous era of basketball. The mid-range game is gone. The post-up game is gone. And I don’t see how their erasure at the highest level of basketball in favor of a style of play which offers fans a choice of seeing 3 pointers jacked without abandon and a occasional dribble drive layup mixed in in is a good thing for the sport. Variety and not homogeneity of style should be the mission of any league. But the pendulum has swung too far in one small ball direction. It used to be a fan could occasionally see two very different approaches like the 2004 Pistons and Lakers square off in the Finals. But those days look numbered.
I think the Rockets faded in the 2nd halves of games because it takes too much energy to defend the Warriors well for a whole game. Especially without Paul, it made their shots flat and they stopped chasing down the loose balls in the second half. This doesn’t mean the strategy is bad. It’s just very hard to sustain in a close game against a great offensive team like the Warriors.
(ps— I think GS wins 6 and 7 even if Paul is healthy, but, yeah, it’s too bad he was out cause who doesn’t want to see these warriors pushed as hard as they can be pushed.)
Chris Paul’s injury is an all-time bummer. We were deprived of the series for which this entire NBA season was one long lead up. It’s truly very upsetting, but I guess that’s the nature of the beast.
As you can already see from the above posts, there will be tons of questions about the Rockets’ roster construction, strategy, and probably analytics as whole. At the end of the day, I’ll take the team that put the fear of God into what very well may be the best team of all time. What they did last night was almost certainly their best shot at pulling off the upset while missing an all-time great.
The most feasible way for LeBron to get to Houston is likely opting in on the condition that he’s traded there a la CP3 last offseason. The Rockets could trade their bad/mediocre contracts plus any pick package they can cobble together. I honestly hope that happens. I don’t blame anyone involved with the Warriors and would likely do the exact same thing in all of their positions, but the NBA is getting pretty monotonous.
Amen to that. I’m really not that excited about the 4th straight rematch between the Cavs and Warriors. I mean I’ll watch it, but the outcome is pretty much predetermined barring injuries. Which is sad because we have the possible GOAT going up against possibly the greatest team ever assembled.
Durant’s going to GS ruined the NBA for me.
I turned off the Rockets/Warriors game a few times to see what the score of the hockey finals was and found myself enjoying the action of the hockey more.
Ntilakilla @7 absolutely. This endless stream of 3s is boring. Sucks that it became the only game in town.
And I’m also not excited about the 4th installment.
Golden State is one of the 2-3 best teams in NBA history, and Houston could have beaten them without their second most valuable player if they’d hit some decent shots. That’s pretty good! Boston had a great defense and almost went to the NBA finals because they essentially got lucky on offense for a couple weeks. That’s also good!
We all knew at the start of the season that the team who won the West was going to be the strong favorite in the finals barring some sort of injury. It just sucks that Lebron is so good that he dragged the least interesting underdog all the way to the finals.
Shooting this many threes was the right decision by Houston, they just didn’t expect to shoot historically bad for an entire half.
It seems to me that D’Antoni realised his team had no shot at beating the Warriors unless someone got hot. They were driving every possession and getting pummeled with no calls, what’s left to do without Paul in the lineup? The Warriors defense is also amazing at keeping opponents out of the paint in the first place.
If they shoot 25% instead of like 0% on those 26 threes, we would be discussing a completely different game and probably a different result, it was a major statistical anomaly.
It just sucks that again the Warriors get lucky with injury and now the finals will be boring as hell.
Who feels worse, Trevor Ariza or the Liverpool goalkeeper?
I honestly think that if you played last night’s game 100 times with random officiating crews, Houston probably wins 95 times. This was a 9 point game (3 3 pointer difference). Harden himself literally got 10 points taken away from him by officiating — two obvious fouls on three point attempts in the 1st half that weren’t called, and the 4 point play that should have been called in the second half. And then there was the most obvious moving screen foul in the history of the NBA (on Jordan Bell bulldozing the way for the Curry 3) that was another 3 points basically given to the Warriors.
Basically, the Warriors got an extremely friendly whistle on the road, to the point that many nonpartisan NBA twitter accounts were saying that it looked like the fix was in.
On top of that, Houston shot 1 for 16 on “open” 3 point attempts per Sportvu tracking. If they even shoot 4 for 16 (25%) and still shoot terribly from everywhere else, it’s a tie game.
That said – the game was sort of ugly, but it was like 90s ugly in that both teams shot terribly but also both teams played SO HARD. I love watching that stuff. Especially PJ Tucker, who can play for the Knicks any day of the week as far as I’m concerned. That dude would have fit in perfectly with Oakley and Mason.
by the way did Steve Kerr really say that if Iggy was playing they’d have won the series in 5 games?
Seems like a very un-Kerr thing to say, especially since if CP3 had played they would have lost in 6 games.
I agree w @7. I think the game has degraded to a point where it’s in ways just as bad as the 90’s basketbrawl style. The shots that teams are taking are simply bad shots. With the exception of LeBron and some of Curry’s insane 3’s (bc he’s the goat shooter) there is very little spectacular play happening. I think the level of basketball in this playoffs has been downright awful w the exception of LeBron.
Injuries are part of the game.
It’s very possible Paul does not get hurt if he doesn’t play so hard during that 5th game, which in turn would have led to a loss for his team.
Not to mention Houston got home court advantage because of several injuries to Warriors players throughout the season.
Injuries are an integral part of the game – that’s why teams need to assemble a good bench.
Us, who remain Knicks fans, have no right to utter the words ‘awful basketball’. We have no credibility.
Clint Capela shot 7 for 8 in the first half and 2 for 2 in the second half…..
Meanwhile, if Iguodala really does have a bone bruise, he might not play at all in the Finals. Those are basically fractures, and I would imagine that’s a weeks-long recovery. That could make the Finals a lot more interesting. Without Iguodala, I imagine you’ll see a lot more of Durant on Lebron, which could take its toll on KD on the offensive end.
Not sure who has a prayer of defending Durant in this series though…
Meanwhile – while thinking of dudes that have guarded Durant for the Cavs, I thought of Richard Jefferson. He seems a pretty reasonable comp for Miles Bridges?
The playoffs are fixed. LeBron is doping. The NBA is dying. Basketball is awful.
Ntikilina will magically become a great player. Just give it time.
It’s not like Chris Paul is an iron man who’s path to glory was derailed by a freak injury. Staying healthy is as important as basketball skill when it comes to winning championships and building great careers. There’s a reason the Cleveland LeBrons make the finals every year and it’s because of Jame’s durability relative to the other star players in his conference.
Curry’s injury is probably what gave the Rocket’s home court advantage in the first place, after all.
It sucks for the fans for stars to be injured for their biggest games. But it doesn’t suck as bad as stars getting suspended for leaving the bench area for their biggest games. (#stillbitter)
Well said. Not to mention Paul was the beneficiary of Iguodola’s own injury.
Last night’s reffing was karma for Harden gaming the refs the entire season.
The 3-point shot has ruined the game. I would love to see the shot either eliminated altogether or moved out to like 28 feet with the court widened/lengthened accordingly, maybe even widening the lane a couple of feet or using the international trapezoid lane. One of my favorite parts of my 50+ years of watching/playing basketball is bad-ass post play. It’s become such a minimal part of the game, nowhere more so than in the WCF’s. When the team with the best record in the NBA is shooting more 3’s than 2’s, and only hitting 36% of them, that’s f–ked up.
More scientifically, the 3-pt line should be at a distance where the eFG% for 2’s and 3’s is roughly the same, or maybe even favoring the 2. Guys like Curry and Harden would still be stars, but you wouldn’t have the Draymond Greens and P.J. Tuckers of the world (not to mention Towns and Embiid) camping out at the 3-pt line. I wish they would try experimenting at least.
i think its time for the nba to abolish the 3 pt shot; or at least limit it to 10-15 makes a game…maybe with 2 minutes to go in the game the 3 pt shot is back, something has to be done because the difference between the good teams and the bad teams is growing to be too vast. its boring to watch another Gs raise another championship banner
The point I am making is that over 82 games it doesn’t matter if you randomly have a few games where you shoot historically bad because you have the long term math on your side and will win more games that way. The problem is when it’s down to 1 or 2 games and you add in the pressure of a game 7. The math CHANGES because the pressure can cause greater volatility to the downside.
IMO, it was not an random accident that Houston and Boston both shot horribly in game 7s. They were both feeling the kind of pressure that causes you to miss 3s more often.
That’s not an argument for abandoning the strategy of shooting 3s. It’s an argument for building a team that can go inside and outside. Maybe the ideal model is a variation of the Rockets with Hakeem. Then you had 1 in and 4 out. Hakeem could kill teams consistently on the inside if the 3s weren’t dropping but they still had some snipers outside spreading the floor and taking more efficient shots.
If Capela was a consistent 20-25 point player from the post, that might be a better model. He’s young and may still get there.
I agree. The problem is that “skill” is not a constant. Players are getting better at 3s. If they keep getting better you’d have to change the line every “x” number of years.
I think you guys that want to revise or eliminate the 3 point shot are in a huge minority. Ask your typical millenial NBA fan, and they’ll tell you you’re crazy to want to do anything to change the rules. Watch any NBA game and listen to the home crowd explode after a made 3. Sorry, but not the same reaction as some big man dribbling 10 times and dropping in a 3 foot jump hook.
Personally, I do agree that it’s gone too far, but I think there’s almost zero chance the NBA does anything to change the 3 point rule.
The main development I’m hoping for as a result of this era of sustained GSW dominance is simply improved decision making around the league. The other side of the coin when it comes to the lack of parity in the NBA is the sheer number of teams that make incredibly stupid, unforced, obvious-at-the-time mistakes.
GSW and similarly smart teams (Housotn, Boston, Philly to name a few) have made it so the margin for at least clearly preventable error is zero. If you sign Joakim Noah, Evan Turner, or whatever other obviously mediocre-to-bad player in a fashion that severely limits your flexibility, you’re going to fall behind and possibly in an irredeemable way.
That’s not even to say any team has completely eliminated human error. I’m sure Houston would like the Ryno contract back, GSW wishes they picked up Looney’s option, Philly wishes they didn’t make the Fultz trade, etc. The difference is smart teams make moves in a way that still leave them flexibility and options if they don’t work out.
I’m coming around to the idea that they should move the 3 point line back and remove the corner 3 entirely. I agree that the current way things are trending is already hurting the game in the way a people have mentioned and the scary thing is the trend line is only getting more dramatic at this point.
15 years ago the average team took 14.7 3PA/G.
10 years ago it was 18.1.
5 years ago it was 20.0.
Last 5 years: 21.5, 22.4, 24.1, 27.0, 29.1.
The year over year changes are now more dramatic than the five year period between 02-03 and 07-08. It looks like an exponential curve at this point. I don’t think the league should wait to find out if it will correct on its own.
Re last night : at what point do you stop chucking up threes that you’re not making? Missing 27 in a row is just ridiculous and a sure recipe to lose by. I couldn’t believe Harden kept hoisting up miss after mss when he was easily getting to the rim for layups, lobs to Capela, or a trip to the free throw line – like every time. I’m sorry, that just looked idiotic to me and an example of poor basketball IQ. D’Antoni deserves some blame too, how about some coaching? “ Hey guys cut back on the threes because we’re off tonight and take the ball to the basket?” I dont get it. Boston did the exact same thing with the exact same result.
Houston had Golden State on the ropes and was grinding their offense to a halt and then suddenly stopped doing it. I do think they missed CP3 badly, he would have settled them down some.
If Lebron somehow goes off and wins the championship with this team over GSW he is straight up the GOAT, no debate at that point.
I have a deep bone bruise/strained calf muscle right now and it is so painful that I wake up during the night from the pain. I can’t imagine anyone playing top-level basketball with one of those injuries to any part of the leg.
Yeah, I miss 2003-2007 too. Rember when the Pistons beat the Nets 78 to 56 in the ’04 Conference Semis? That was a good time. Or maybe the 79-61 drubbing of the Cavs in the ’06 Semis. Or the 93-63 defeat of the Hornets by the Heat in ’04. Good times.
Re: Rockets losing in the third quarter–
Warriors net scoring by quarter, 2017-18
1st, 0.0
2nd, +1.3
3rd, +5.1
4th, +0.1
So yeah, the Rockets couldn’t hang in the third. Neither could the other NBA teams.
I find it funny that people are saying that the 3PT shot is not viable in today’s game when the Warriors just stole a game with it. The Rockets’ season low before last night was 22.6% on threes, and as noted above, they missed a metric fuckton of open looks last night. Maybe it’s fatigue, maybe it’s the Warriors’ defense on open looks (lol), and maybe it’s a statistical anomaly. Maybe they were fine until Chris Paul went down, because losing a top-3 all-time PG who’s still in his prime is not good for winning odds.
I know that it’s important that we pronounce a particular game as a Very Important and Real Case of a Greater Trend Both Objectively and Verifiably True, but that reads as totally ridiculous when a team loses by 9 points in a game where they set a season low, by far, in 3PT shooting percentage.
how about this approach, each team is allowed 30 ish three pt FGA’s, above that number techs ensue…your 31st attempt, if its a miss, is a tech..final two minutes each team is allowed an additional amount of 3’s, similar to timeouts perhaps..that would force teams to be much more efficient on usage of 3’s and reward teams accordingly for doing so. also, it would make the game more interesting.
Fans definitely love the 3 ball. Very few want to go back to slow plodding centers or inefficient mid range chuckers of the early 2000’s.
Exactly. Teams making shitty choices is ruining the league more than the 3 ball ever will.
There were also way to many instances of the game being reduced to an offensive player (usually Harden) aggressively trying to run into defenders who are desperately backpedalling or getting out of the way to avoid contact. Which is not exactly how it’s supposed to go.
For all his remarkable efficiency, Harden is a hard player to watch.
The Warriors lost Iguodala after easily handling Houston in two of the first 3 games. That was very a significant injury that turned the series before it got turned again with Paul’s injury.
If both teams had remained healthy, the Warriors most likely would have won game 4, punted game 5 with a 3-1 lead, and closed this series out in 6 games at home without it ever being in serious doubt.
And when you commit a technical foul, the other team gets to play one possession with an additional player. And when you miss two free throws in a row, the other team gets to select one player to put on a dunk exhibition, and if he scores above a 45/50, the team gets 2 points and the ball. If he fails to convert the dunk, he is disqualified and becomes a free agent after the game, after which the non-playoff teams can make bids for his services, but if they win that, they have to give up one player on a rookie contract to the Make-a-Wish Foundation to shoot free throws for charity. If he makes 10 in a row, he’s allowed to rejoin his team.
Move the three point line back to 27 feet and by default eliminate the corner three. That will be enough to switch up things. I don’t think that would send us back to ultra low scoring games. The motion offense would still be the best system to use.
There was a graphic that showed Paul/Harden shooting 1/41 when guarded by Igoudala in this series.
You can’t bring up Paul’s injury without bringing up Igoudala.
im revising my rule, no techs…30 attempts cap, above that its a long, very long 2. teams would have to strategize to use the 3.
Maybe when you have 3 of the greatest shooters in the history of basketball you have an advantage shooting a ton of 3s under all conditions and when you are everyone else you are at higher risk choking your brains out under extreme playoff pressure.
Chris Paul is a great player and they surely missed him, but missing 27 in a row is not bad luck. Nether was Boston’s game 7 performance from 3.
This game is always math, but there’s a human element to the math. It varies depending on whether you are playing the Knicks up 20 at halftime or playing the Warriors in a tight game 7 to get to a finals in front of millions of viewers and your peers.
Oh, Deadspin wrote on this too. A link from the article:
https://twitter.com/BPredict/status/1001311171771817985
Haha, are you serious?
The funny thing about the three point shot is that most of us here have been calling for substituting the three pointer for the mid range shot for years. Taking thirty threes per game when you have great shooters is clearly the smart thing to do and it was a lot of fun watching the NBA slowly come to agree with us.
But yeah, the aesthetics. I feel like a grumpy old man saying it but I don’t enjoy watching teams optimize as much as I should.
Here’s something I did not recall – Shandon Anderson actually won a title. Huh. He even played 19 minutes in an NBA Finals blowout! His other appearances were basically cameos and he didn’t play in all six games, but that still impresses me. That is a legit ring!
The sad thing is that Houston’s 3 point shooting contest strategy was an optimal one. The NBA game has degraded so low this lazy, uninspired form of basketball is what dominates games now. But the 3 ball’s ascendance is partly attributable to legislation by the NBA Commissioner’s Office. So I think new rule changes can diminish the role of the 3 ball to create more variety in the style of NBA basketball. One thing to do is bring back hand checking. They also need to crack down hard on carrying. And let fouls be harder instead of regulating hard fouls. Move the 3pt line back 2 feet.
moving the line back would create longer rebounds and fast break open 3’s; the number of attempts from 3 would go up not down.
If you really want to diminish the effect of the three point shot on basketball, move the line IN, not out! Moving the line out a bit further just helps GSW/Curry more! The league should move the line in just enough for Burke and Ntillikina to have a chance.
🙂
But really, is the NBA even slightly contemplating changes to three point shooting?
I agree with him. Missing 27 in a row in a game 7 is more likely the result of pressure affecting your shooting than bad luck. Rozier 0-10, Ariza, 0-9…Starks 0-11! Game 7s are hard to manage.
The Rockets went 7-44 (392-1 odds) the day after the Celtics went 7-39. This is just a statistical cluster that happened to be in two game 7s?? Doubtful.
@45 What evidence proves to your satisfaction that missing 27 threes in a row is solely due to bad luck?
As much as I am as bored as everyone else by the prospects of Warriors-Cavs 4, watching newly certified ruff rydah Harden chuck threes and then drive-into-the-paint-and-have-a-seizure offense was getting unwatchable. 11 threes a game on 24% shooting might be sub-optimal.
Really? What fanbase would have a more intimate knowledge?
I didn’t watch much of the series, because it really was some ugly basketball. Most of the suggestions about the 3-pointer are just silly, but they may need to adjust the depth of the line a little. On the other hand, both Boston and Houston dying by the sword might underscore the message that a team needs more than 3-pointers and lobs. Like, there’s this system that prizes the midrange game, I think it’s called the Rhombus or something….
Of course, there’s still the problem of the iso-switch game each team plays…I don’t know what you do about that, but that was more ugly than all the 3-pointers. Joking aside, I am with Phil when it comes to making hoop a team game again instead of glorified 1-on-1 ankle-breaking shit.
While I’m at it, a shout-out to Reub, who was all about adding PJ Tucker. A nice, solid player I wish we had (when we get good).
Any of you guys remember 1995, when the league moved the 3pt line closer because people complained that the game was too boring and scoring was too low?
It’s silly to try to legislate a game to fit a particular style. The game is alive and evolving. That’s a good thing.
(A few years ago it was the hack-a-D’Andre strategy that was killing the game. Before that the hand-checking. Before that the dunking. Next, It’ll be deemed that behind the back passes are ruining the game. Then, after that, alley-oops. You can’t please all the people.)
Some people here saying that the mid-range is gone, but it will never be gone because of what we saw yesterday: when the 3 is not falling, you can recurr to a sweet Kevin Durant ISO near the elbow, with Eric Gordon on his back to no avail. Now, more than ever, the 2pt is the ultimate weapon against clogged paints and cold 3pt-shooting. You just have to look at LeBron and his fadeaways, which are saving the Cavs season. The difference is that now it’s considered a last resource.
I don’t get the hate for the extreme 3 pt shooting Houston did. It’s just one strategy, it’s not like it’s easy to execute or other strategies are 100% not viable anymore because of it. I’d much, much rather watch this than go back to post Jordan NBA watching inefficient guards pulling up from mid range the entire game, at least there’s some excitement and chance for crazy comebacks. If your team has the tools to make use of the more valuable 3 pointer then do it.
Artificially limiting 3 pt attempts would be the same as saying Joe Montana should have been allowed to pass only 20 times a game, or that Cristiano Ronaldo cannot shoot more than 5 times at the goal. It makes zero sense to punish great players for being great at the more efficient plays in the sport.
My 10 year old girls watched the end of the game with me last night. They know nothing about the NBA outside of the few bits of wisdom I’ve tossed about (like: “don’t root for the Knicks, kids”.)
They asked if the Warriors were going to beat the Cavs, to which I told them that it was probably going to be a sweep because the Cavs are just LeBron James surrounded by a bunch of scrubs, blah blah blah. They responded with some pretty good follow up questions, which I didn’t really have very good answers for cause I haven’t followed the league that closely this year.
1) if you take LeBron off of them Cavs and replace him with Curry, do the 2017-2018 Cavs still make the finals?
2) similarly, if you replace LeBron with Durant on the Cavs, do they still make the finals?
And finally, 3) if you take LeBron off of the Cavs, are they still better than the Knicks.
I would answer no for all 3, honestly.
You could also eliminate the rule on zone defense, which was only instituted in 2001 to stop Shaq’s dominance in the paint anyway.
Someone who is easier with statistics should look this up. I believe the fans love the 3 yes but I also think the fans like “made” shots better than missed ones and that the % of missed shots this post season SEEMS way up largely due to poor 3 pt shooting. So when Jowles brings up the 2003 era or other such times when the game was in a down cycle and scoring was low it SEEMS like the % of made shots was actually similar to this year’s playoffs. This year those shots are just longer. I don’t see why that’s a more pleasing outcome for fans.
You answered your own question. The hate is because this one-dimensional strategy is extreme. That wouldn’t be an issue if it were confined to one team, but it’s increasingly becoming the norm at an alarming rate. The Western Conference Finals was supposed to be the real NBA Finals with the best basketball the NBA has to offer today. If that glorified 3 point shooting contest is the best that the NBA has to offer the sport today then we are in trouble.
Rule committees exist so that the game will be artificially limited. You think the 3 second rule was arbitrary? It was created to limit Leroy Edwards’ scoring dominance in the 1930s. Mikan and Kirland’s ability to catch the ball downward on a shot gave us goaltending rules. Before Wilt, it was possible stand at the top of the key, throw the ball up toward the basket, take two steps, jump toward the rim and jam the ball through the net on free throw attempts.
I think people are misremembering just how miserable basketball was to watch oftentimes in the 90s and 2000s. Don’t get me wrong, I loved the physicality of the 90s defenses, but it was just brutal to watch on offense both in pace and in scoring volume. I really would like to avoid watching Z Bo and Eddy Curry take turns pounding the ball for 20 seconds in the post before throwing up a contested hook shot, about as much as I’d like to avoid seeing Allen Iverson post a 53% TS on 30% usage while constantly pulling up from 15 feet. I think extending the 3 point line a little bit is enough, and then maybe changing some of the screening rules to make illegal screens more common so as to give defenders at least some kind of chance of getting through multiple screens. In that regard I agree with Rama–what’s way worse than the jacking up of 3s is the screen n iso bullshit that all the best teams are leveraging because it’s impossible to get through two to three screens unless you’re andre roberson. Which then creates the iso problems that make the game more boring to watch, because that’s what allows Harden, KD, etc., to continue to hoist up 3s ad inifinitum since they need little space to get a shot off.
@57
1. Yes
2. No, Durant was merely very good rather than a top 15 player this year. Also I’m pretty sure he’d choke with that much pressure on him (see: OKC, the Houston series.)
3. Yes, if K-Love is healthy. He’d be back to putting up 25/10 splits, I think.
They should just eliminate the corner 3 since it’s a shorter distance anyways. If you did that you would see alot more value return to the mid-range and low post, while still allowing great 3P shooters the ability to impact the game.
I don’t think any rules regarding the 3P line would impact GSW since outside of their 3 HOF legendary shooters they don’t even have many good snipers. That team is just a freakish anomaly.
Houston on the other hand is one of the most boring “elite” team I’ve ever watched in my life.
The math is clear on this. Right now the league has a skewed reward system. Teams make a 3PA at ~36% on average, and 2PA at ~46% on average (source: https://www.basketball-reference.com/leagues/NBA_stats.html )
So for a 10% difference in difficulty you have a 33% extra potential reward. It makes too much sense to jack threes.
If you shoot 100 3s and get an average result, that’s 108.6 pts: (100*3)*.36
If you shoot 100 2s and get an average result, that’s 92.0 pts: (100*2)*.46
The distance should be reverse engineered to make those numbers less blatantly advantageous, then balance would come back. That will take a lot of trial and error, though, which should ideally be happening in the G league.
FiveThirtyEight did it for me:
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-odds-of-the-rockets-missing-that-many-3s-1-in-72000/
Please tell me how it was either (a) unprecedented defensive pressure by the Warriors upon the Rockets or (b) a fundamental flaw with the 3s-and-layups idea that led to this statistical aberration.
I’m not a luddite. If the math is there then you have to use it because your opponents sure are. Butttttt, analytics taken to the extreme like the Rockets and most of MLB are doing make me queasy.
I don’t want to watch a 3 pt shooting contest, and baseball, a sport I’ve loved since I was about 5, is becoming tough to watch. Between the shifts, emphasis on launch angles, juiced balls and players, everybody throwing 95+, and all of the numbers showing bunting, SBs and hit and runs are dumb, it’s s fast becoming a glorified stick ball game.
@65 – it’s actually a 50% greater reward (3 is 50% more than 2). It takes only two 3 point makes to equal three 2 point makes, so each 3 pointer is worth half-more than a 2 pointer.
That is really the problem – the 3 should be worth like 2.5 points, not 3. You could give it some premium in terms of expected point production just to make it more interesting, but 50% is way too much.
Honestly though – the game is much more fun to watch now than before. And in spite of the overpowered 3 pointer, it was the defenses that dominated the conference finals, with only the very best offensive players being able to break through those defenses. That’s kinda the way it should be.
And meanwhile, post play HAS become more useful now with all the switching defenses, and I think we’ll see a very healthy dose of Lebron in the post against Curry and Thompson in the Finals.
(side rant – the D’Antonis are always talking about how shots in the post are the least valuable shots in basketball – which is true if you’re talking about center-on-center or SF-on-SF. But I guarantee you Lebron would score about 1.8 PPP if you tried to guard him 1-on-1 with Curry, not to mention Curry would foul out within 10 minutes).
It prob is worth someone’s time to go and look to see if 3 point shooting becomes more variable in either direction than one would expect in playoff crunch time.
One non-“choking” take on it would be that due to adrenaline, higher minutes played, and actually putting out full effort the whole game etc., players are probably a lot more tired in the 4th quarter of a tight game 7 than in any other sample period, and so shots that require the most lift/legs would suffer the most.
It’s quite possible that the advantageous nature of shooting 3PT shots at extremely high levels is built into the geometry of a basketball court. At the same time, in recent years we’ve still seen teams put up top-5 offenses without taking very many. I wouldn’t overreact to a strategy one team was essentially forced into (or forced into utilizing even more than they already were) due to an injury to an all-time great.
I actually think the larger issue is how many players are being forced out of the league, forced into bit roles, or have been rendered unproductive to the game evolving. I think it’s more of a labor issue than a aesthetics issue, because as others have pointed out it’s easy to forget that the NBA nearly faded into obscurity largely due to how hideous the game was. I would hope any potential changes take that into account, even if I could get on board with diversifying the game to an extent if this trend continues.
The point was that it was (c) the pressure of game 7 of the conference finals. That’s why a similarly almost impossible shooting display happened literally the day before, and has happened in other game 7s, including one that Knicks fans are all too familiar with.
Maybe missing 27 threes in a row is bad luck or something else.
Not changing your strategy somewhere along the line to increase your odds of at least putting the ball in the fucking basket more often is just plain stupid IMO.
The three ball has become the great equalizer both ways- it can get you back into the game when you’re way down and it can lose you the game when you’re way up if you keep shooting and missing them (see Boston and Houston game 7’s).
Look, bad basketball has always existed in the NBA from time it began. Much of it saturates the earlier rounds of the playoffs in good conferences and lasts at a higher level in bad ones. But the game was a more versatile game during the 1990s and 2000s. There was also some wonderful variety in the game. We just saw a series with the two cutting-edge teams in the NBA and the best they had to offer was some of the most one-dimensional basketball chucking I’ve seen at that level in awhile. And this is the direction the league is heading. Is that what we really want to see? An all or nothing game where its either 30 foot shots and layups/dunks and no one plays with their back to the basket?
Don’t really know exactly what you mean but i disagree. I think it’s pretty fascinating what’s going on with analytics in baseball. Unlike in basketball, where analytics have produced what appears to be one dominant solution with the three ball, there is no killer app. The search for an edge is constantly evolving and it’s playing out with dozens of different experiments. It’s an ebb of flow of adjustments and counters which is a heck of a lot of fun to follow, although I read Fangraphs every day, so consider the source.
Also, at the end of the year, every playoff series in baseball is more or less a coin flip, which you have to appreciate with the Cavs and the Warriors now lining up for the fourth straight year (not that the NBA playoffs were without drama) That would never happen in MLB.
Absolutely!
Your expectation for making 3s is not fixed under all conditions. If you were 36% for the year, you might be 40% under some conditions, but 35%, 30%, 25% and maybe all the way down to 15% under other conditions.
When you miss 27 in a row, that’s not an indication that your expectation was 36% last night and you just happened to have a ridiculous multi standard deviation negative event happen to you on the biggest night of your career. It’s an indication that you were a little tight under the pressure of the circumstances, maybe a few in a row didn’t go in randomly, that built the pressure further, that made you tighten up and lose your form and concentration further, and it developed into a death spiral.
Was there some luck involved?
Sure! You should make a few by luck even if you are a poor shooter.
But a big part of the equation was the stage and pressure of the circumstances. Lower probability outcomes are more likely to be impacted by pressure. If you give the ball to Capella and ask him to make a layup or dunk, no amount of pressure is going to alter the outcome much. If you ask him to shoot FTs, he’s liable to struggle more at the end of the 7th game in a must make situation than he is against the Knicks up 20.
3 pointers can be volatile under normal circumstances, but in these huge games they can clearly be a much bigger problem. That argues for altering the strategy a little.
1. No way Curry could carry that same load without getting completely worn out long before game 7 of the conference finals.
2. Could iso-Durant win three consecutive series? I doubt it.
3. Certainly with KP hurt. With a healthy KP they’re probably a wash though I think the Cavs roster fits better with LBJ given their superior three point shooting.
that was a painful meltdown to watch…it seemed like eric gordon was the only one on the rockets whom seemed to get that the 3 ball wasn’t dropping, and, wasn’t gonna start suddenly dropping…
yeah, not just bad luck there…poor coaching…and, what the hell was ryan anderson doing out on the court – at all…
especially with capela able able to out jump everyone, and, tucker able to out muscle everyone – at some point houston should have stopped praying for three and start trying to collect two’s…
yay, cavs vs warriors part 4…how exciting…
I don’t believe anyone thinks it was all bad luck, but if they do it could only be the result of never having experienced extreme performance pressure turn your brain into mush and your body into an temporary spas case. Then you might have a religious devotion to numbers that excludes the human element.
I’ve seen world champions go into a semi coma from pressure and I’ve experienced it myself performing for peers at my own much lower level level with money on the line (not in basketball).
The whole point behind trying to get young teams into the playoffs is that the more experience you get under that kind of pressure the better players tend to get at coping with it.
The league is not heading in some 3 point shooting apocalypse of a direction, people. Giannis, Ben Simmons, Kawhi Leonard, Kevin Durant, Karl Anthony Towns, Joel Embiid, Anthony Davis, Kristaps Porzingis, RJ Barrett, Bol Bol, Jayson Tatum, Luka Doncic, and Michael Porter Jr are what the next generation of superstar talent is going to look like in the NBA. We’re headed towards positionless basketball and three level scoring. Three point shooting became so important because of all of the talent at point guard that came into the league from 2005 to like 2012. Guys from 6’7” and taller will dominate the NBA and we’ll get back the midrange game and those things. All the great point guards are in or past their prime, and what we have left in terms of young point guard talent is 6’6” Lonzo, Fultz at 6’5”, and Ntilikina at 6’6”. Dennis Smith Jr and Trae Young are almost the last of their kind.
The next generation always plays a different brand. I’m excited for what the future holds, and I know the talent of the day will dictate the game.
Pressure so great that an all-time great 3PT team all got the yips — all of the players at the same time — and missed 27 shots in a row. Okay.
Yeah, that 87-79 game on Sunday was a real barn-burner!! I truly enjoyed watching the Celts and Cavs go a combined 16 for 74 from 3! What a classic!!! I’m sure fans will “rember” that one for a long time!
Or maybe you liked the combined 23 for 83 in the GSW-HOU game.
Yeah, nothing like two game 7’s in the conference finals where the four teams go 39 for 157 from 3. I love watching teams hit one of every four shots!
@81 Touche Z man
The halcyon days of basketball aesthetics for me were the mid-1980’s Celtics-Lakers genre (it kind of sucked that I hated both teams, but that’s besides the point.) The combination of brilliant low-post, mid-range and situational 3-pt play was perfect for me. And for all their thuggery, the Bad Boys were a very balanced team.
I mean, hey, that narrative isn’t gonna write itself!
Just picking a random year from the “Golden Era” here’s the shooting percentages from the 1990 Finals:
Portland .456
Detroit .454
Here’s the shooting percentages from this years conference finals:
Cleveland .451
Boston .423
GS .475
Houston .420
I mean not as huge a difference as you might expect given how many more three’s were attempted in 2018 vs. 1990. I think the awful shooting in the two game 7’s blew out of proportion some imaginary issue with the NBA game as a whole
I’m still thinking that Trae will drop to 9 and that we’ll take him. Teams are rightly or wrongly obsessed with measurables (because everyone thinks they can coach people up because they’re geniuses) like length and hops, but Trae has insane decision-making abilities and court skills. I think we’d have to take him and make it work.
@66 So FiveThirtyEight figured out that the enormously improbable series of events we witnessed was enormously improbable. Great. The question is then, why? Blind, unadulterated luck, chaos theory, or bad luck accompanied by humans wilting under pressure? Even Bill James gave some credence to clutch factors when presented by the evidence of David Ortiz. Or for a counter-example, Don Drysdale.
The game 7 shooting meltdowns were likely some combination of bad luck, pressure (esp. as the misses started to mount), and fatigue from a long season and series. Fatigue can mess one’s skill up in any number of sports.
Yeah, if Trae is there, the Knicks have to take him or trade down for a nice package. I still don’t think he’ll be there, though.
In every other finals between 1984 and 1992 but one, one of the two teams shot over 50% and not a single team during that stretch shot under 44%. And in the one exception in 1988, Detroit shot 47.6% and the Lakers shot 46.7%.
And it might not seem like much, especially in the TS% days we now inhabit, but I’ve always felt that there’s a HUGE difference between a 48% shooter (or team) and a 42% shooter (or team.)
I’m not advocating for eliminating the 3-pt shot, just stating that the game is far more interesting when the percentages favor a reasonable balance (maybe 1 out of every 3-4 shots.) But I think the game is less interesting when a team like Houston for the season shoots over 40 3-pointers a game and makes only 36% of them. Not a single rotation player on Houston cracked 40% from 3 for the season, yet nearly all of them shot over 50% from 2! And yet Houston led the league in wins going away. That is not good for the game.
Given Cleveland’s utter lack of playmaking outside of LBJ they kind of have to take Young if he’s there no? If LBJ is staying maybe you go with Mikal Bridges given that he’s the most likely to be ready to contribute from day one and hopefully gives you everything JR is supposed to but rarely does. But I doubt he’ll have made his decision by draft day.
Trae will go 8th to the Cavs. It is known.
Edit: posted before I saw post 90
You’re seriously so dogmatic that you see a 1 in 72000 occurrence happen in a game 7 the day after a similar astronomically improbableoccurrence happened in another game 7 and you chalk that up to a freakish clustering of statistical improbabilities before admitting that something you can’t quantify (i.e. pressure) exists?
Normally when something that statistically improbable happens, the first question anyone asks is why, because it’s not bad luck. In fact, that’s precisely what Herring did in the article you cited. He gave you the odds, but he didn’t chalk it up to bad luck.
Trae Young’s floor is Cleveland but he’ll end up in Orlando. He’s too good a prospect and Orlando has nobody at the position. They have to take a point guard there. The thing with this draft is there are about 9 premier talents and Mikal Bridges (who projects as a star role player). At 9, two or three of Miles Bridges, Mikal Bridges, Wendell Carter Jr, Jaren Jackson Jr, Trae Young, and Michael Porter Jr will be on the board. That’s crazy to me. The most pessimistic top 8 I can think of is this:
Ayton
Doncic
Bamba
Bagley
Porter Jr
Young
Carter Jr
Jackson Jr
That leaves us with both Mikal and Miles Bridges to draft. I prefer Miles Bridges because he’s a three level scorer, a plus rebounder, and he can create his own shot which would take a lot of pressure off KP to score every time. He actually reminds me a lot of a young Carmelo Anthony, and I’d love to have a coachable Carmelo Anthony in the fold. Mikal Bridges wouldn’t be a bad choice, either, but I have my apprehensions about him. He’s without a doubt a great defender, so we’d be building a serious defense with KP, Ntilikina, and Bridges.
This is a very deep top half of a draft, and about as deep a draft as I’ve seen concerning lottery picks. Normally guys like Zhaire Smith, Collin Sexton, Kevin Knox, Robert Williams, and Shai Gilgeous Alexander are the kind of “reach for the stars” picks you’d find between 6-12 but this year they can’t crack the top 10. You have guys like Jared Vanderbilt, Shamorie Ponds, and Brian Bowen in the second round, too. Hopefully the Knicks don’t screw this up because there is opportunity at 9 and 36 to add two long term starters.
I didn’t see the Celtics Cavs game 7, so maybe they are young and just came crashing down to earth in an instantaneous regression to the mean. But I watched the Rockets game last night and was exhausted just from watching those teams scramble up and down the court. It’s really not much mystery to me why the Rockets faded. It’s incredibaly tiring to defend the Warriors for 96 feet over 48 minutes (and over 7 games). When you get tired, your shot is the first thing to go. Sure, hey didn’t get any lucky bounces (except the ones the refs waived off). But to say that with anything but astronomically bad luck, the Rockets would have won ignores all the other factors at play, like fatigue, a superior opponent, and possibly somebody putting Visene in the Rocket’s pregame buffet…
I mean, did Ali get lucky that Foreman, after dominating the first half of the Rumble in the Jungle, suddenly wasn’t able to land any punches? Or was Ali simply the better 10 round fighter?
Harden even said as much. To quote from the Times “Harden … said he had urged his teammates to pick up the pace in the second half, but that everyone was spent.”
@94
It’s much more likely scenario one if the bridges is gone than porter… I think teams have to make a tough choice between one of the bridges and porter.
Also carter vs bamba is a question mark, one of those two guys could drop to us.
Another way to balance out the glut of 3’s and bring the midrange shot and post play somewhat back into the picture without changing the lines/dimensions of the court is to tweak the rules (been done a zillion times already.) Examples:
-Allow more hand checking
-Restrict screening around the 3-pt line
-allow incidental body contact vs. the 3-pt shooter
-Allow a fouled 3-pt shooter only 2 shots
-have an “illegal offense” call, where only 2 players can be outside the 3-pt line at any given time
-restrict 3-pt shooting to the last 14 seconds of the shot clock (you can shoot before then but they only count for 2)
-have a qualifying tournament for 3-pt shooting (the PGA rule)
-only count 3-pointers if they swish (the HORSE rule)
-only count 3-pointers that are shot entirely with one hand (the George McGinnis rule)
-only count 3-pointers if they are shot underhand (the Rick Barry rule)
-Allow defenders to put their foot in the shooters landing zone (the Bruce Bpwen rule)
-id you miss a three pointer, you’re not allowed to play defense on the next possession (the James Harden rule)
-Allow players to kick 3-pt shooters in the nuts (the Draymond Green rule)
-Allow coaches to grab the leg of a potential 3-pt shooter (the Jeff Van Gundy rule)
Interesting think piece on Knicks Wall about Donic pulling a Kobe:
https://theknickswall.com/jonathan-macri-luka-doncic-kobe-bryant-draft-day-maneuver-away/
I doubt it happens, but I agree that Donic holds the cards and it’s not a big jump that would require him to get to the Knicks at 9. Would still need to move up, as I think anyone from 4-8 (noting the Hawks and Kings appear to want to go with a US prospect) would be willing to probably call his bluff, but something to muse on while we sit and wait for the draft. Big question is whether Memphis want another Steve Francis situation in Grizzlies history ha ha
the cavs probably will take trae since hes with klutch…. but they should be taking one of bamba carter or jackson…..
At first I thought I would do the deal suggested in the article (THJ, the ninth pick and say Mudiay for Memphis’s fourth pick and Parsons, assuming Doncic is available at number 4), but then I looked at Parson’s contract. It’s Meloesque at $24M and $25M for next year and the season after, and Parson’s will be 30 next year. I’m probably wrong about this, but I just can’t see taking that on and giving up a useful player in THJ (maybe overpaid, but still young and useful).
This is pretty insane.
https://www.theringer.com/platform/amp/nba/2018/5/29/17406750/bryan-colangelo-philadelphia-76ers-twitter-joel-embiid-anonymous-markelle-fultz
I’d do that trade in a heartbeat if Doncic is there.
Re: Trae, Hammond in Orlando is big into measurables and probably won’t pass on Bamba or Jackson if they’re there, and I think Cleveland will either trade the pick for a player or take someone ready to play with Lebron (who will stay, why leave after a finals appearance?)
Yeah that Colangelo shit is bonkers.
You make that deal for Doncic in a split second. If there’s a possibility we can have a trio of Doncic, KP, and Ntilikina locked together for the future you do everything in your power to make it work.
ABSOLUTELY you do that deal for Doncic if it were possible. The Knicks aren’t winning anything in the next 2 years. I’d have no problem moving Timmy, Mudiay and the 9 pick for Doncic and Parsons. OMG.
This is some very Knicksy drama they got down in Philly
I doubt it’s actually on the table, but #9 + Hardaway for #4 + Parsons is a great trade for the Knicks. It’s the kind of trade they should have been using their Dolan Dollars to pull off for over a decade now.
Just because the odds are against something happening, it doesn’t make the fact that it happens unlucky. Shooting a regulation basketball into a regulation-sized rim from a regulation distance under reasonably controlled circumstances (no differences in gravity, wind, etc.) is not a random event. The fact that 27 shots by decent-to-very good 3-pt shooters, many of them reasonably wide-open, were not within the margin of error (the basket is two basketballs wide) enough to go in (and many were uglier-than-ugly bricks) speaks to something other than bad luck. Something threw the Rockets’ hand-eye coordination off, and my guess is that it was something near their collective Adam’s Apple.
Maybe it would make more sense to Jowles if he thinks about it as a 1-13 streak followed by a 1-14 streak…
Oh, and PS the Rockets are NOT an “all-time great 3-pt team” as you suggest. At 36.2%, they were 13th in 3-pt%, behind teams like the Celtics, Wizards, Kings, and Pistons. They were a whole 1 percent better than the Knicks.
Haha for years you’ve been tossing volume shooter salad for how difficult their jobs are, and now a team that literally scored 140 pts on 3s and layups can’t crack your “elite” tier of scorers to have their salad tossed
Ok haha
Btw this thread is full of
CONJECTURE CONJECTURE CONJECTURE
“Yeah but what about—“
CONJECTURE CONJECTURE CONJECTURE
Nice armchair psychology everyone, you fucking hacks
I just wanna say I was the first person on the internet to suggest we trade TH2 and #9 overall to Memphis for the #4 and Chandler Parsons and JK47 yelled at me for it.
If you are not getting Doncic at number 4, I don’t see the trade. There seems to be a lot of evenly distributed talent after the top two or three, so unless someone slips in the rankings, I don’t see it. Of course, if Doncic does slip, that is what we were talking about.
I have to say that so many teams are capped out and Parsons’ salary is so gigantic, it’s hard to fine a reasonable deal for anyone along the lines of one team trades up to number 4 and takes Parsons on in return. I think it’s also possible that some team drafts Doncic but then finds they can’t sign him because he threatens to stay Europe. That might be a better time for a trade than before the draft. Suppose Sacramento takes him and miscalculates. We could offer our first round pick for next year, plus whoever we draft this year for Doncic.
I would do that deal with Memphis in an instant, Parsons contract is horrible but ends earlier than THJs less terrible deal, and Doncic is absolutely worth it. I just think it is incredibly unlikely to happen unless Doncic really wants to avoid all 4 top pick teams, and even then why wouldn’t someone else bring a better offer?
I know everyone hates on Hinkie for being a technocratic guy who emulated the Buffett shareholder letter and all, but man, he’s looking a lot better than Colangelo right now.
The top of the draft could easily go Ayton/Bamba/Jackson Jr (or Porter Jr) if teams aren’t sure Doncic wants to be there. Of course it’s a draft day trade since you can’t guarantee yourself a shot at Doncic with the 4th pick, but maybe you take a play out of the Jets’ playbook. They traded up early and identified 3 guys they would take in Darnold, Mayfield, and Rosen. Luckily for us our top guy fell to us, and that may happen if the Knicks trade up to #4. You’d have to identify four guys worth trading up for, and maybe those four guys are Doncic, Ayton, Porter Jr, and Young/Jackson Jr/Bagley III. If Memphis is willing to trade out of the #4 slot with us because Doncic is pulling an Eli Manning, then we almost have no choice but to do it. The only way I don’t do it is if it costs me a 2019 1st round pick.
For me, Doncic is the only guy worth trading up for. Everyone else seems to have potential weaknesses that mean they could be the next Okafor.
The only slight hope here is that Memphis is desperate to unload the Parsons contract. And the Knicks would have to forget any silly ideas about clearing cap space for after next year. Just ride out Noah and Parsons for two years.
Well if Baker and Kanter exercise their options, I don’t think we have any cap space next year anyway. It’s only 2019-2020 that’s really affected. But it’s hard having two players, Noah and Parson, taking up salary slots and not doing anything.
Although I will say that when I compare stats for Parsons and Thomas, Parsons plays the same position and actually looks better than Thomas, so I am coming around to the idea of this trade (which probably means it won’t happen).
https://www.basketball-reference.com/play-index/pcm_finder.fcgi?request=1&sum=1&player_id1_hint=Lance+Thomas&player_id1_select=Lance+Thomas&player_id1=thomala01&y1=2018&player_id4_hint=Chandler+Parsons&player_id4_select=Chandler+Parsons&y4=2018&player_id4=parsoch01&idx=players
I have to give Bryan Colangelo credit. He makes Phil Jackson seem like a swell guy in comparison.
I also, though, can just imagine Phil’s reaction to this mess as, “Wait, this was an option?”
Colangelo definitely looks bad. I never understood why he was considered such a good hire by Philly
He was the definition of “generic NBA executive” and the other NBA owners desperately wanted the Sixers to start doing generic NBA team stuff, so Colangelo fit perfectly in that regard.
That makes sense. I guess from a selfish point of view, I’d much rather have a Colangelo team in our division than one managed by Hinkie. But I feel bad for Philly fans. Now they may have to live with unhappy players and a less effective front office.