(Saturday, June 09, 2018 10:12:45 PM)
The NBA mock drafts look like they did last spring — overpopulated with teenagers, who dutifully served one season in college. The 10 freshmen — and 18-year-old Frank Ntilikina — selected with last year’s top 11 picks couldn’t wait to enter the league. They couldn’t wait to become millionaires. And Miles Bridges couldn’t wait to…
(Saturday, June 09, 2018 7:29:14 PM)
Freshman Kevin Knox plays the position the Knicks crave — he’s a rangy, 6-foot-9 athletic small forward who can shoot daggers from 3-point range and possesses a 7-foot wingspan. But John Calipari, who coached Knox at Kentucky, warned at the draft combine any team that drafts his former player must be patient because “you’re going…
(Saturday, June 09, 2018 9:45:39 AM)
Enes Kanter wasted no time in imploring LeBron James to join the Knicks this summer.
(Saturday, June 09, 2018 1:45:18 PM)
The Celtics are concerned that Kyrie Irving will bolt in free agency, with the Knicks as a realistic landing spot.
(Saturday, June 09, 2018 10:15:06 AM)
Knicks’ brass will travel to Chicago next week to meet with Missouri freshman forward Michael Porter Jr., a league source told SNY.tv.
(Sunday, June 10, 2018 2:30:00 PM)
What a difference a year makes.
East 169th St. in the Bronx was almost the last place Jaheem Hunter laid his eyes on thanks to a depraved gunman, whose bullet lodged in the 5-year-old’s head.
Politicians, police officers, anti-violence activists and cadre of pint-sized superheroes gathered in the…
(Sunday, June 10, 2018 2:00:00 AM)
Forecasting elections is a fraught endeavor, especially before autumn has arrived. British Prime Minister Harold Wilson was fond of saying that a week is a long time in politics; if this is true, then five months is a veritable eternity.
Despite trying daily to take this maxim to heart, if you…
(Sunday, June 10, 2018 1:30:00 AM)
When Dr. David Appel was a child, he frequently heard his school nurse mother complain about the lack of proper medical care for students.
Greta Appel, a Holocaust survivor, believed every student should have access to all of the health services they need to prosper scholastically right in their…
(Sunday, June 10, 2018 1:20:00 AM)
Weegee was no flash in the pan.
Fifty years after his death, the man born Usher Fellig remains the quintessential New York tabloid photographer.
Weegee captured some of the most iconic shots of New York — classic photos printed in the Daily News and other papers, full of blood and death and life…
(Sunday, June 10, 2018 1:10:00 AM)
Sunday, as more than million people come out to Fifth Ave. to celebrate Puerto Rico, two dark clouds linger over the island and the 3.5 million American citizens who live there.
Eight months since Hurricane Maria hit shore, Puerto Rico is grappling with the news that, according to a Harvard University…
(Sunday, June 10, 2018 1:00:00 AM)
Remembrances abound in the wake of Anthony Bourdain’s shocking suicide last week. But one is a short story about the beloved celebrity and the fame he brought to Hilma’s Windsor Castle, a tiny restaurant on the Dutch side of St. Maarten-St. Martin island in the Caribbean.
My tale is so, so Bourdain!…
(Sunday, June 10, 2018 12:00:00 AM)
Many still Access a poor ride
Rockaway Beach: A once-in-a-while good experience with Access-A-Ride is, in my opinion, just that — once in a while (“Better service for Zelda,” editorial, June 1).
Two examples from recent experience: My pickup was late which is not unusual, when he got here he did…
(Saturday, June 09, 2018 11:55:00 PM)
One of the weapons used on Minnie Dilley, 76, was beside her when her nephew found her bloody corpse in her mansion in Forty Fort, Pa., on April 4, 1931.
It was a bottle of ginger ale, covered in blood with strands of gray hair sticking to it. Someone apparently had beaten the woman’s face to a…
(Saturday, June 09, 2018 10:30:00 PM)
A man was killed and a woman wounded when a gunman started firing outside a Bronx memorial service Saturday, police sources said.
The shooter was targeting Miguel Aviles, 25, when he unloaded on a crowd gathered in the courtyard of a building at the corner of Prospect Ave. and E. 183rd St. in Belmont…
(Saturday, June 09, 2018 10:15:00 PM)
Yes, Mets fans. It can always get worse.
Despite a breakout three-run first inning that brought some semblance of hope back to Citi Field, the Mets suffered their eighth straight loss and second in a row to the crosstown rival Yankees, 4-3, Saturday night in Flushing.
Aaron Judge broke the tie…
(Saturday, June 09, 2018 10:10:00 PM)
LA MALBAIE, Quebec — The annual G-7 summit appeared to have weathered tensions over President Donald Trump’s threats of a tariff-fueled trade war until the mercurial American pulled out of a joint statement while citing “false statements” by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
It was an unprecedented…
(Saturday, June 09, 2018 9:25:00 PM)
As the Mets dig themselves deeper and deeper into the depths of mediocrity, the Yankees, it seems, can do no wrong.
On Saturday, the Yankees lost their second starting pitcher of the week to injury when Masahiro Tanaka landed on the 10-day DL. Then young righthander Domingo German allowed two home…
(Saturday, June 09, 2018 9:00:00 PM)
Rapper 50 Cent lent his high-wattage star power to an embattled police detective at an NYPD boxing tournament, the Daily News has learned.
Fitty was sitting between Detective David Terrell and Terrell’s lawyer Eric Sanders at the Smoker at New York Expo Center in the Bronx on Thursday when the…
(Saturday, June 09, 2018 8:55:00 PM)
Mickey Callaway made some bold lineup moves in search of offense that paid early dividends, but then he made some curious bullpen decisions that may well have contributed to the Mets losing still another ballgame.
Where does it end for this team?
They finally broke out of their offensive funk,…
(Saturday, June 09, 2018 8:40:00 PM)
Well, that didn’t take long.
A Bronx man was wounded in a shooting — just hours after he was released from prison, police sources said Saturday.
A 13-year-old girl was also shot when a gunman opened fire on Kevin Cruz, 26, at the Nelson Playground in Highbridge at 5:15 p.m. Thursday.
Both victims…
(Saturday, June 09, 2018 8:10:00 PM)
When you train three horses only to come up short three times in a bid for the Triple Crown — none as agonizing as Real Quiet’s loss in 1998, when he lost by a nose — you might start to think that the ship has sailed on winning horse racing’s Holy Grail.
But after Justify won Saturday’s Belmont…
(Saturday, June 09, 2018 8:00:00 PM)
STOP IN HER TRACKS, GO ANOTHER WAY
I dreamed I saw a woman walking ahead of me wearing a navy suit and a navy hat that was flat on top. Suddenly she stopped in her tracks, bent over and bowed her head all the way down until her hat touched the ground. The moment the hat touched the ground, a secret…
(Saturday, June 09, 2018 7:20:00 PM)
Of all the history that was made at The Belmont on Saturday evening, it was history repeating itself that provided the most distinct local flavor.
That is, the Giants still always come out on top in any championship-level head-to-head battles with the Patriots.
Justify, partially owned by Chris…
(Saturday, June 09, 2018 6:57:00 PM)
Vestibulum purus quam, scelerisque ut, mollis sed, nonummy id, metus. Phasellus magna. Nam adipiscing. Maecenas egestas arcu quis ligula mattis placerat. Ut leo.
Aenean tellus metus, bibendum sed, posuere ac, mattis non, nunc. Phasellus leo dolor, tempus non, auctor et, hendrerit quis, nisi. Fusce…
(Saturday, June 09, 2018 6:55:00 PM)
Twenty years ago, jockey Mike Smith nearly had his racing career come to an end after he had a hellish fall at Saratoga. Smith got launched off his horse and landed on the turf before the 1,300-pound mare he was riding, Dacron, fell on top of him, breaking two of Smith’s vertebrae. Smith was in…
(Saturday, June 09, 2018 6:00:00 PM)
The messages from Sandy Alderson and Mickey Callaway have been clear. They’ve been pushing for Yoenis Cespedes to return to the lineup as soon as possible, with Callaway harping on how much of a difference Cespedes would make to the Mets’ struggling offense once he’s back. Alderson even mentioned…
(Saturday, June 09, 2018 5:45:00 PM)
Saquon Barkley is probably going to stick to football.
The Giants rookie running back participated in Landon Collins’ Celebrity Softball game to benefit the Jay Fund Foundation on Saturday in Pomona, NY but it was no slow pitch affair.
Morgan Foley, a professional softball pitcher for the Houston…
(Saturday, June 09, 2018 5:15:00 PM)
A Bronx apartment fire killed a man and seriously injured two others Saturday, authorities said.
Firefighters found a severely burned 44-year-old man inside a flat on Adams Place near E. 182nd St. in Belmont around 1:15 p.m.
A woman and another man, both 50, were also in the apartment. All three…
(Saturday, June 09, 2018 5:00:00 PM)
If a couple of months ago someone had told you that Mickey Callaway would say on June 9 he was building his lineup around Brandon Nimmo in the No. 3 spot, you’d have probably thought the Mets were in serious trouble.
And you’d have been right, of course.
To be fair, Nimmo has been something of…
(Saturday, June 09, 2018 4:35:00 PM)
Shaun O’Hara has not been shy about the confidence he has in Eli Manning, and on Saturday the former Giants center took things a step further.
O’Hara said at the Landon Collins Celebrity Softball game, which benefits the Jay Fund Foundation, that the Giants have actually “wasted” the prime of the…
[NYTimes] Keeping Score: The Warriors Were Dominant. But How Dominant? (Saturday, June 09, 2018 6:32:10 PM)
Accused of making the sport uncompetitive, the Warriors won the N.B.A. title by the largest combined point margin of any champion that has swept the finals. But other sweepers have been close.
[NYTimes] Warriors, in Full Dynasty Mode, Sweep Cavaliers in N.B.A. Finals (Saturday, June 09, 2018 6:39:15 AM)
Kevin Durant was named the finals’ M.V.P. again, after the Warriors won their second straight championship over LeBron James and the Cavaliers.
[NYTimes] On Pro Basketball: LeBron James Reveals an Injury, but His Destination Is Far From Clear (Saturday, June 09, 2018 5:14:35 PM)
If James wants to beat the Warriors, he may need to take a page out of Kevin Durant’s playbook and find a team that makes the game seem unfair.
29 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2018.06.10)”
I think De’Anthony Melton might be who we wished Langston was going to become but didn’t.
Re: Busts, Okafor is clearly a bust, but many others (D’Angelo Russell, Mario Hezonja, Justice Winslow, and others) are mild to major disappointments. There’s no telling how much a 19 yo will develop, or even a promising 21 yo. All my commentary about Frank N is grounded in the probability that he won’t significantly develop traditional PG skills, which can’t be proven at this point. Even though he sucked this past year, I concede (and alswys have) that it’s too early to pass final judgment on him, and there’s still a (small) chance he develops into a top 3 player on a contending team and a (remote) chance he becomes a perennial all-star. The odds are that at least 2-3 players selected in the top 10 of this year’s draft will be disappointments, and that none of us have any freakin’ clue who those players will be. Last year, the two KB consensus picks for busts were Tatum and Markkanen, both of whom had very promising rookie years (Tatum more so) and surely won’t be busts or even disappointments. The surest thing in this draft is probably Doncic, but who knows?
Yeah, but none of those guys are big men. I said “big men go bust in the lottery every year”. Over the past 15 years there have been roughly 80 PF/C selected in the lottery. About half of them severely underperformed relative to their draft position.
(Do the names Hilton Armstrong, Jan Vesely, Marcus Haislip, Nikoloz Tshitishvili, Mike Sweetney, Robert Swift, Rafael Araujo, Darko Milicic, Sean May, Ike Diogu, Patrick O’Bryant, Mouhamed Sene, Sheldon Williams, Greg Oden, Tyrus Thomas, Yi Jianlian, Hasheem Thabeet, Jordan Hill, Ekpe Oduh, Thomas Robinson, Alex Len, Dragan Bender, Yaroslav Korolev, Anthony Bennett, Nerlens Noel, Jason Thompson, Melvin Ely, or Fran Vasquez invoke basketball prowess in your mind?)
You seem very bullish on this year’s draft (was it you that called it the best draft ever recently?). Maybe it’s as strong as you say, but with 5 PF/C slated to go in the top 9 picks, I’ll bet that 2 or 3 of them significantly underperform and are out of the league sooner rather than later. (And that bet is based on pretty much every draft over the past 15 years).
Bamba a is a stud. Checks every box; top 1% in every category; His release looks very very smooth. I would call ATL and ask them if they want Timmy back, $3M cash & our #9 pick for their #3.
The best players in the 2014 draft, as an example:
Capela, Jokic, Embiid, Powell, Anderson. #25, #41, #3, #45, #30. I count two franchise players, another guy who’s 24 and is maybe the most efficient overall player in the league (and certainly the best possible fit for the Houston offense), and two outstanding bench players who have given outstanding value (Dallas fucked up the RFA sheet, probably could have had him for half the cost).
Wiggins, Parker, Exum, Stauskas, Vonleh, Payton, McDermott, LaVine, Warren, Payne, Young, Ennis, Caboclo, McGary — lots of scrubs on the list.
Yes, there are going to be a lot of busts in the lottery, as always. The real skill is knowing when to dump them — Aaron Gordon and Zach LaVine, e.g., are probably getting maxed this offseason because of upside, when they probably should have been traded midseason for whatever assets the transaction could yield. Wiggins is going to make $33M in 2022-23!!!!!!!!!!
I don’t know what the solution is aside from stockpiling picks for greater chances to build a solid roster, and then hoping you get lucky with your top-5 pick. And that solution is so obvious that the Celtics and Sixers have gone all-in and built title contenders out of the ashes of shitty, shitty roster situations. I think it’s too late for the Knicks to do the same — basketball is getting Moneyballed and they’re ten years too late.
I wonder if there’s a real chance of Lebron to the Spurs? That would be interesting.
I like the idea of trying to move up in the draft by dealing Timmy to Atlanta or Memphis (as has been proposed here recently), but why would any team want to do that? I’d gladly take Chandler Parsons back to move up, but Memphis won’t do that.
Frank bulked up. A lot.
I like the idea of trying to move up in the draft by dealing Timmy to Atlanta or Memphis (as has been proposed here recently), but why would any team want to do that?
if we called atlanta and told them we wanted to swap firsts for TH2 they would assume we were talking about the #19.
@7 He is gonna make a certain poster look very foolish in a few years.
@7
Wow, he’s looking huge!
I don’t think you guys realize but teams would probably want to get paid for taking THJ’s contract, not giving up the better assets in the trade for the privilege of paying him 18 million for the next 3 seasons.
@10
Agreed!
Memphis probably does want to unload Chandler Parsons, but not that badly!
Frank looks great, but let’s hope he’s not neglecting his legs…
🙂
Wow, that’s LeBron-style ripped. Not bad for a lanky teenager
Photoshop, the quickest way to get big.
@13
That or PEDs?
🙂
The big men that bust are often above average rebounders with potential on defense but without much offensive game. The models that weigh rebounds heavily love them, but unless they develop efficient scoring at the basket, their rebounding will not keep them in NBA. They are drafted with the hope of turning them into the Chandler, Capela, Gobert type but most never get there.
The small men that bust are often above averages athletes that are inefficient scorers or great shooters/scorers that can’t defend a lick. The hope with the former is to improve their shot and basketball IQ (which rarely happens). There’s usually little hope at all for the total non defenders.
I don’t agree. How many big men busts have we had in the last couple of Drafts and how did they bust?
Out of top 10 picks, the ones I remember are Meyers Leonard Alex Len, Nerlens Noel and Jahlil Okafor. None of them, except Noel, fit the rebounds/ dunks / Chandler clone archetype, and Noel has had so many injury issues + weird off the court stuff it’s hard to put it on him not being able to develop an offensive game. Since 2012 most of the highly regarded big men have paid off or is a very promising player still, Anthony Davis, Andre Drummond, Joel Embiid, Julius Randle, Towns, Porzingis and Myles Turner. I’m not counting Cauley-Stein as Sacramento is a mess and he’s still only going to his 4th season. Even Alex Len had a pretty good season this year in Phoenix.
At least since 2012 it really does not seem the case.
Only an idiot would think that a person can get “ripped” or “bulked up” in less than two months. Either he looked pretty much that way already (he didn’t strike me as out of shape or skinny, do we have any pictures of him shirtless and sweaty from mid-April for comparison?) or he’s juicing.
Frank gained 8 lbs of muscle in season. How he looks is the result of months of work since he got drafted by the Knicks.
Does adding a bunch of muscle improve your ballhandling ability? Asking for a friend
If they’re medicine balls it does
Guys usually bulk up like this in the offseason because they aren’t running as much and burning calories as they do during an NBA seasons. KP talked about this as a problem for him in maintaining the weight he puts on during the summer. Plus Frank is growing and putting on a larger frame to pack that muscle on. Kid doesn’t stop growing.
KP’s people in Spain are saying the right thing about fixing his body mechanics to avoid similar ACL injuries in the future. This is very heartening news.
Hmm.. Probably PEDs. Good on him, that’s the kind of drive, desire, and initiative I like to see in young players. Don’t wait for success to come to you, go out and grab it! Intravenously!
I mean, it’s just a shirtless picture. No need to overreact either way, it’s going to be a slow offseason.
Z-man, you’re out of your element. Keto diets leave a good athlete ripped in a matter of weeks.
You’re right about the bulking part. Adding muscle mass is not easy and it takes time if done naturally, even for world-class athletes. Adding muscle quickly without adding fat is damn near impossible, although I’d be inclined to think that a millionaire athlete would have better access to nutrition and supplements than the average gym rat.
I would be very impressed if Ntilikina added 10 lbs. of muscle during the entire offseason, even though he’s young and tall. The odds are that he’s got low bodyfat to begin with so any gains seems pronounced.
None of this matters though. Ntilikina should stay light and do plyometrics and power movements like box jumps and rack pull hex deadlifts. Going for hypertrophy as a basketball player is nonsense.
Frank looks like he’s in great shape but he doesn’t seem that much bigger.
Frank definitely looks bigger to me. More muscular but also I do think he grew an inch.
@22
the guy at the gym(twitter GipJohnson) has the reason for KP’s ACL tear figured out IMO.
KP’s knees band in valgus position under pressure and even in normal exercise routine he presses the knees together. Programming his next ACL tear is what he does. Trainers should eradicate this movement to prevent further injury to the knees. When he lands awkwardly he should roll the ankle not tear his ACL. I would strengthen his core and lower extremities…monitore his movement and landing routine. Fix it if necessary. Restore his body to default settings and not mold him to something he can never be.He can add muscle later when he learns how to stay on the court for a season.
A lot of injuries happen with a reason that one could predict and prevent especially with the kind of money involved…Brandon Jannings tore his ahiles after he put up a lot of muscle during off-season and if you saw his landing after a layup and then turn on a dime sprint back to D you knew it was a time bomb.
I wasn’t a fan of Okafor in the draft, but I don’t consider him a bust yet. He’s had chronic injuries and his style of play is totally out of favor, but I still think he has a chance to be a good player.