But the conversation did get me thinking, has Lance ever set an on-ball screen in our offense? Like, he isn’t a good passer or anything so far as we can tell, but maybe Fiz envisions him playing some 4, setting on-ball screens and making plays on the short roll situations. I can’t remember any of the Fisher/Rambis/Hornacek crew even thinking to try to use him like that. We used Beasley a bunch like that, especially with Burke running point towards the end of the year, and Beasley was able to make some slick passes in that situation. It’s not like he’s ever been known as a great distributor.

It’d be interesting, but obviously I don’t think Lance ups his assists to Draymond levels even if they put him in better position to make plays.

He’s a lunchbox kind of guy who quietly makes a team more solid. Again, in style at least if not in actuality.

So, he does or doesn’t help?

I call Lance ‘Digital T,’ because his line is always ones and zeroes.

And yet coaches love him because he will do everything in his very limited ability to carry out their game plan.

Yeah, over the years what has made him a sort of kind of useful player is that he doesn’t actively screw things up for you. He doesn’t add anything to the table, but he doesn’t really take anything off from the table, either, and so if he’s playing with four other decent guys, he’s not going to hurt you. The problem for the Knicks is that they can’t seem to improve on “doesn’t actively hurt the team,” as that’s what guys like Mudiay do on offense and defense and what Beasely does on defense, so Lance keeps getting minutes. There is no upside to Lance, but hey, at least he is not so dumb that he fucks things up out there for the rest of the team. He’ll just quietly score his 6 points, get no boards or assists and play decent enough defense.

Lance and Mudiay shouldn’t be part of the plan, so I’m a little concerned he’s investing in them publicly. It makes me think this will be another season of winning three more meaningless games than we should have and costing ourselves another top pick.

Truth

I agree, Miles Bridges is our destiny. Hopefully his college success can translate to the NBA.