Knicks Morning News (2018.06.23)

“The Knicks drafted Kentucky’s Kevin Knox with an eye toward making the franchise “attractive” to free agents in 2019″ -SNY

So much for embracing the long-term rebuild.

https://www.sny.tv/knicks/news/knicks-draft-focused-on-making-team-attractive-to-2019-free-agents/282323566

If the plan is to put together a team appealing enough to make Kyrie Irving sign a supermax with us, man, that would be depressing while totally predictable.

Fizdale made a comment about Kevin Knox’s legendary workout that I thought was interesting. He said that Knox’s handle was much improved from the season in that workout and that was surprising. If Knox actually tightened that handle you’re talking about a very different basketball player. I just want to see him in summer league already.

At 9, with the picks already made, this would have been my list:

Mikal
Miles
SGA
Zhaire
Porter
Walker IV
Robert Williams
Troy Brown
Kevin Knox

I’ve been watching Mitchell Robinson draft interview and the Knicks post draft press conference. Wow is he awkward in an interview. I feel bad for the kid.

I would have made the trade that Philly did with Phoenix.

I would have taken Mikal, but I would’ve gladly made the trade Phoenix made when they came calling (which we have every reason to believe they would have).

I mean, I had pretty much every conceivable option ranked ahead of Knox. Mikal was my preference but I could’ve lived with SGA, Zhaire Smith, Robert Williams, Troy Brown, and even Miles Bridges. I would’ve preferred to talk myself into Lonnie Walker—I think there’s more there than there is for Knox. Ironically, the only option I might’ve picked Knox over was the one the crowd was pining for (MPJ).

Who would you have taken? (no trade up/down scenarios allowed)

I would have taken several of the guys who went immediately behind Knox, though I wouldn’t have felt very strongly among them, here’s a rough order.

Mikal
Miles
SGA
Z Smith

I would also like to say that if you put a gun to my head and my only choice was who would have a better NBA career #9 Kevin Knox or #46 De’Anthony Melton who will have a better NBA career, I would take Melton with very low confidence (though drafting him 9 would have been silly).

One last thing. I sound like a raving Mikal fan after these last two posts but that’s not really true. I have what seems like a bland consensus-like guess on him. I would have been a lot less bummed than others if we had taken Miles, for example. I just have a low opinion on Knox as a prospect, and I think Doston has a much lower ceiling and base case than a guy like Mikal.

1. I’ve been saying from day 1 they aren’t going to “tank” next year either. They will be bad because Porzingis is out and we have a lot of young players that aren’t anywhere near ready. However, their “goal” or “hope” right now is to finish the season strongly when KP comes back so they can go into the off season and say to free agents, “Down the stretch we were playing some good ball. All the young guys will be better next year and if we add you we’ll be positioned to make some noise, add another player next year, and keep going.” That’s the sale pitch to get Irving or someone like that. They hoping the young players play well down the stretch.

2. The comment about Knox’s handle is not surprising either. There’s no way these guys are just looking at a stat sheet and picking the kid with the best numbers in college. They are doing skill assessments. They probably have a checklist of individual offensive, defensive, and personality attributes that players get rated on. Then they try to figure out how they would use him and how he would fit with the other players on the team to get best out of him. The accuracy of their draft is related to the accuracy of their checklist. The stats are part of it, but not the only thing.

3. I’m pretty convinced they were looking for a legit SF/PF wing and not a SG/SF type. Fisdale specifically brought up the height of Lee and Hardaway as a reason Knox could win the starting job. They wanted a much taller and longer guy to guard SFs and to stretch the floor as a PF in a small ball lineup. That might be one reason that took Knox over Bridges. Bridges is smaller. He’s more of another SG/SF. So unless he rated well above Knox, they were going to go with need in a marginal case. They said in one of the interviews that between similar players they would go with need.

4. Multiple articles implied that Fisdale had a lot of input and loved Knox’s workout because he showed improvement.

@16 I believe Brett Brown indicated in his press conference that they didn’t get offered until after they picked Mikal.

No matter who was picked there would be unrest, when are you guys going to let this go?

Calipari has him playing the 2 all season because he’s able to create a mismatch with Knox’s size and shooting. Of course he assists and steals rates will be lower, He’s not a guard! His defensive ratings also suffered cuz he getting beat by quicker guards and has to play out to the arc. Obviously calipari trusts his athleticism and versatility,
Fix will play him at his natural position sf and he will start to learn to use his size. This kid is going to be good, I applaud FO for having vision.

I was uneasy with the pick but my attitude is changing because none of the players mentioned selected after him had his ceiling size youth, etc. Knox was the right pick.

@14

IMO, Mikal’s primary strengths are shooting open 3s, shot selection, and potentially elite defense. His primary weakness is not being able to create his own shot off the dribble. He’s more or less average or close to average at most other things.

IMO, Dotson’s primary strengths are shooting open 3s, potentially high caliber defense, and rebounding for the position . His primary weakness is not being able to create his own shot off the dribble.

They have similar “profiles”.

To compare them I think the best approach is to look at their stats in their final year of college. That way you are comparing them using the same 3 point line and against similar competition. Mikal is the better and younger player overall and actually faced better college competition. So I’d way rather have him. But they are similar enough in skillset and profile for me to call Mikal a “rich man’s Dotson”. He’s another 2/3 that can knock down shots and defend.

The only players I fell for in the entire draft are Doncic, Bamba, Young’s offense, and Ayton’s aura. I would have tried to trade up 3 spots for Bamba.
But given the options available at #9, and with the very limited info Youtube provides, I would have taken Miles.

Trust, but verify.
Reagan was a blind squirrel, but that phrase was his one found acorn.

Y’all must either work for really bad authoritarian managers or are those guys yourselves. It’s a really inefficient way of doing things as it totally neglects the capacity of others (besides the manager) to propose and defend unique and possibly ingenius and/or risky choices. As an example, Trumps’ greatest failings comes largely from his egotistical authoritarian tendencies.

Based on my understanding of the Knicks’ draft research, they were using a team-based approach to assess the positives and negatives for each player, as well as the questions or unknowns that workouts and/or interviews could address.

Picking Knox wasn’t solely based on Mills or Perry, but rather it involved Fizdale (possibly even his new assistants too), the scouts (including Phil’s guy, Clarence Gaines), in addition to the medical staff (which was probably why MPJr kept on dropping).

Mills and Perry clearly trust Fizdale and Gaines, as they should. Fizdale knew what to look for as was exhibited by having WCJr working on PnR switches and perimeter D in addition to looking for the improved handle, motor, awareness and physicality from Knox. Gaines’ record speaks for itself.

My suspicion was that, before the Knox workout, the multidisciplinary team had developed a series of concerns and questions pertaining to every possible draftee.

And of all the available choices, Kevin Knox was able to answer the largest portion of concerns and questions once he was under the Knicks’ microscope.

While the Knox selection is loaded with substantial risk (and the Mitchell selection even more so), the Knicks’ multidisciplinary team proposed and put forth defensible reasons for those choices.

Trust, but verify.

At 9th, there honestly weren’t any great choices to be made. And, given the process they used to arrive at picking Kevin Knox, I choose to trust that they chose well.

@14

The problem with using models that try to aggregate skills into 1 number is that when people debate players they typically use their own favorite model to support their opinion. Then when that player goes from college to the pros (or another team) they use the same exact model to say “see I was right”. But you are only right if your model is right. If two people disagreed to begin with it was because they were using different evaluation techniques. So they will disagree again later. Nothing is resolved or proven.

I’ve seen that a million times with the Wins Produced crowd.

They have some player rated very highly. More conventional thinking rates him much lower. The player comes into the pros and is buried on the bench for multiple years on multiple teams with multiple coaches. Then they call every coach a moron for not giving him more minutes because their model still says he’s still highly productive. I’m not making a point about their model, but you can see why debating won’t work. They start with the assumption that their model is definitely right.

I also like more concrete evidence like how the team does when he the player is on/off the court, hurt, traded, etc… Even that gets too complex, but at least it adds evidence.

At 9th, there honestly weren’t any great choices to be made. And, given the process they used to arrive at picking Kevin Knox, I choose to trust that they chose well.

There are some front offices that I instinctually trust. For example, even at 18 I thought there were multiple better options than Lonnie Walker but I genuinely believe the Spurs have a plan for him that will make the pick look better in hindsight (and I’m personally happy he wound up there, despite my concerns about his outlook I’m rooting like hell for the guy).

It’s baffling to me that anyone has that level of trust in the NEW YORK LOLKNICKS.

@33

I’ve seen enough of the Perry era to trust how the Knicks are doing things.

These aren’t your daddy’s Knicks.

I also like more concrete evidence like how the team does when he the player is on/off the court, hurt, traded, etc… Even that gets too complex, but at least it adds evidence.

well, RPM wins actually includes on/off so you are welcome pick that one. yes, of course, summary stats are highly imperfect. you know else imperfect? bullshit. and by that i mean words that cascade out of people’s mouths with infinite degrees of freedom.

but look. if you think summary stats are arbitrary you would be even MORE excited to make this bet. because the best is structured such that you win all toss-ups and the entire bottom part of the distribution. if i offered you this same bet except mikal and doston would be flipping coins instead of playing basketball and producing advanced stats, you would (should) take it 7 days a week. we know VORP/RPM are flawed. but not as flawed as “similar.” similar has no meaning outside of your brain. maybe we made this same bet in 2013 with chris copeland and kelly olynyk and in retrospect you think the next 3 years were a push because “similar.”

the overwhelming majority of the summary stat studs are also consensus studs. sure, there is lots of potential leakage. but the alternative to leakage is not drowning in empty words.

Look, I know the guy produced shitty stats in significant minutes but he was playing out of position, but he has great wingspan and is only 18 so given time and proper coaching he will surely develop into a great player. But enough about Frank.

Seriously, there are reasons to criticize the pick. However, when guys like Schmitz, who has one of the better track records in analyzing draft prospects, and 538, whose model is at least as accurate as WP40 in predicting outcomes, both say that Knox is a reasonable pick, it’s kind of disingenuous to conclude that this was a no-brainer pass based on analytics. Unless you can explain to me why those guys, despite their track records, are less trustworthy than whatever model you are relying on (which seems to be: an 18yo’s efficiency stats as a freshman in college outweigh any other factor in predicting his development.)

@40, there’s nothing wrong with that. Or any other scenario. For now.

Summer League performance is hardly conclusive (see: Steph Curry, Anthony Randolph) but I am really interested in seeing how Knox looks. Last year, you could tell right away that Mitchell and Tatum were for real in Summer League.

@6 Good point. But I’m still wary.

@41 As much as I hate the Knox pick it does make me feel a tiny tiny bit better to see 538’s model have him at 7 in 2025. However, they comp him (using WAR) to MKG, Young, and Looney? Yikes. Also, the model overvalues offense, strength of schedule, and youth so he’s certainly getting all of that help in the projection. And he’s basically tied with Huerter who no one in here is picking 9th, and is barely ahead of Trent Jr (who’s comps are DeRozen and Beal btw!).

CARMELO doesn’t have a great track record… and schmitz is a great analyst but i don’t think he’s involved in the rankings…. which is why he focuses on positive things with every prospect….

CARMELO doesn’t have a great track record

Tell me then, what model does? What model consistently predicts draft outcomes 5 years out?

As we’re seeing here, the defense of Knox is that he was very young, raw, playing out of position…thus the poor stats and eye test.

So, if true, he simply needs to play consistently hard and focused to prove the skeptics wrong, and that is something that should be evident very early on this season. We’ll all forgive not so great stats this upcoming season if the effort and focus is there, as it did not appear to be at Kentucky (except when plays were called for him).

If he plays D like Michael-Beasley-Without-the-Rebounding as he did in college, we’ll all see that pretty quickly.

I’m rooting for the kid despite my reservations. Sometimes guys with low motors and BBIQ never get it. Let’s hope that is NOT the case with this kid.

I’m looking forward to seeing the new draftees and new, bigger Frank during summer league.

When I listened to the Robinson interview, I thought of Charles Oakley…not his game but his elocution.

@52
6.7 rebs for 40 for a forward prospect is really low. That’s why I think average rebounder in the NBA is probably the best case scenario.

As for defense, he had the worst steal and block numbers of anyone drafted in the first round, and he had a poor dbpm and dws. So since he was terrible defensively last year, expecting him to be anything more than average seems like a pipe dream.

That’s why I think best case is he raises both his defense and rebounding from terrible to average.

Expecting Knox to be a good defender would be like expecting Ntilikina to be a volume scorer. Neither has shown any indication that that is even possible.

BTW, if you haven’t seen this before, I think it is a pretty fair assessment of Knox, though I think it could’ve gone a bit more in depth into his weak defensive performance this past season:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRVPATH6Szc

I do think that, if he fills out a bit into a stretch four, that he is a plus athlete for that. I think he will struggle as a three, though, defensively, if that is what the Knicks plan to do with him. If Frank has indeed grown to 6’6 or 6’7, he may end up guarding the good threes in the league, allowing Knox to settle in at the four next to KP and THJ handling the twos. However, in that case, Knox MUST improve his rebounding.

How come no one is discussing the truly big news — Melo is picking up his $28m player option! I was sure he was going to hit the open market so he could cash in with a 1 year, $6m deal.

I think looking at it it’s about the type of player I want. I want defensive minded players. If I get a young, raw player I don’t want the questions to be about his effort or his defense.

With Knox, he will have to be one hell of an offensive player to make up for his defensive shortcomings.
Here’s hoping he is.

OKC is going to be a cluster next year. I wonder if Westbrook will end up punching Melo in the face during the season.

Long, potential offensive player, can play the 3-4, mediocre rebounder, bad defender, takes plays off. Minus the head case — and the proven scoring — aren’t we talking Beasley?

Like djphan said you can see how various models have performed over time at tothemean.com (personally I think Jesse Fischer’s APEX and Kevin Pelton’s WARP do pretty well), but honestly I think the best way to evaluate prospects is still to compare their numbers to Ed Weiland’s benchmarks. If they miss 1 or 2 that shouldn’t be considered a death knell and that’s where I think scouting comes into play–you should try to determine why that happened and whether or not it’s a legitimate issue(s).

If they miss damn near all of them like Knox, then, well…

Z-man –

SGA

Actually, that isn’t a fair bet…Robinson could be a starter next year.

And everyone knows that highish lottery picks gets chance after chance despite sucking…Hello Emanuel!

BTW, tell me again why Allonzo Trier wasn’t drafted…

My best guess is that Knox turns out to be a good-not-great scorer, TS% in like the .540 range, and won’t do much else. That’s not really a winning player, so he’ll need to do stuff he’s never shown the ability to do to turn out to be a plus player. Like many have said here, he’ll either need to develop into an outstanding scorer, or somehow radically improve his secondary skills to make this a worthwhile pick. “He was good in the workout doe” as the main rationale for drafting him does not make me think kind things about this FO.

if Gaines signed off on Knox, I’m willing to give the kid a chance.

I think Gaines is no longer with the Knicks.

Just a random thought about where Lebron should go next season…What a better way of sticking it to KD than to sign a 1 year deal with OKC. A lineup of Westbrook, Lebron, Melo, Adams and the return of Roberson would beat any team in the West! After that hit the free agent market again when more teams have available money.

But for the first time, it will have Olympic Hoodie Third-Option Melo! And he won’t be asked to create his own shots, like he had to with Paul George!

I can’t imagine Lebron coexisting with Westbrook, much less having to deal with a washed up Melo.

I would buy the nba season pass just for the comedy of watching LeBron play with Westbrook and old melo.
Not happening.

@57 Great analysis vid. Makes me even more sad about Knox. I’m getting over it tho. It’s not like we missed out on an obvious stud. Would have loved Zhaire + pick but Philly was totally lucky there.

@58 Excellent site. Interestingly, the 2 models that hate Knox the most (APEX & Pelton) have underperformed the GMs for 4 of the last 5 drafts.

I wanted no part of Monk last year, but if you put together a Monk highlight video you at least had something interesting to watch. But Knox was just so damn meh to watch, and his numbers are brutal too. He has a nice stroke and he’s tall and young, so I guess if you squint enough there’s reason for optimism. I’ll root for him. I have nothing against him. But it was a poor decision to draft him over Mikal or SGA.
Mikal is better than both of them right now, but ok he’s an old ass man of almost 22! Well then take SGA who was also a freshman but freaking did everything better than Knox. His weakness is his shot and he still had much better percentages across the board.

To be fair, Monk is at least a year younger than Mitchell and with a crappy organization, but most people here were wary of Monk because of his poor defensive potential…

So then we pick a guy with bad defensive stats.

That being said, Knox has a good defensive reputation from high school and his defense was pretty tight during the tourney.

I don’t agree with the pick, but I’m going to wait and see what he’s got.

This is a really interesting draft on the part of the Knicks. The more I read about Knox, the more I like him as a pick. His MSG interview suggested he’s a smart self-aware kid who knows what he has to do to succeed. Watching him and Robinson will address two questions. One, how much did playing out of position affect Knox’s stats, particularly rebounding?

Two, how necessary is playing organized ball to improving as a young player. I’ve long thought that young players play too much youth basketball and it sometimes makes them spend less time developing skills. Now we get a guy who only worked on his game for a year. Who knows how he will look in an organized game.

I guess I would have taken Porter Jr.

I think Knox could surprise and I expect that Kentucky, like Summer League, could be an inaccurate predictor. I do believe that consistent and proper roles make a big difference. I think Frank really suffered from that last year. Like, never being on the floor with KP and not being made starter even once tanking season began, etc. So, even if Knox busts I don’t really care. He’s a 9th pick. I’d just like to see him put in the best position to succeed. If he doesn’t there’ll be another chance to get an impact player next year (plus more cap#, etc.) Let’s just get our act together, work with our young players, and get an identity as an organization.

I’d have just gone with Mikal Bridges.

The big selling point for Knox is his size, that he’s 6’9″ and thus he can play power forward, but he really doesn’t do power-forward like things. I think there’s a little bit too much obsession with what makes a “modern” basketball player and not enough focus on whether the player is actually good or not.

Mikal has been an efficient scorer his entire college career, a sky-high eFG% player who also contributes on defense. Sure, he’s older and he’s more of a 2/3 than a 3/4 but he’s GOOD AT BASKETBALL. That’s like, pretty important. For those of y’all talking about Mikal’s age vs Knox’s age, I’d submit that Mikal was better as a freshman than Knox. Mikal had way better efficiency, got twice as many blocks and steals and even had the same TRB%.

Why not just draft the guy who is already good at stuff instead of the guy who might someday get good at stuff if you use him in the right role?

I think there’s a little bit too much obsession with what makes a “modern” basketball player and not enough focus on whether the player is actually good or not.

This is precisely the point of the “tweener” argument going on some months back.

A player can be 6’7″ and be DPOY as a rim defender (Draymond Green). A player can be 7’0″ and be the worst center to play in the modern NBA (Bargnani).

It’s sort of like if you bought a car without a non-functional engine because it looked like a flashy sports car, knowing that you’d have to put a ton of work in under the hood to make it street-ready, while there were fast cars out on the market that you passed on (idk, Tesla Model 3?) because they looked like a normal commuter car.

I think that a viable draft strategy is to flip players and picks outside of, say, the top 3 for a huge number of picks. You then select as many highly-productive college players as you can, and settle for a 50% success rate. Pick the players who are already good!

JK, like you I very much want players who are good at basketball, and I want them at least passable on both offense and defense. I also want a team that’s good at basketball as a team, which is a different thing. But there is a case to be made for someone like Knox even believing that. If you’re convinced he will become good at basketball, then he fits the Knicks timing for a good team better than Mikal does. Mikal was just traded for by a GM who may want to keep his job because he’s about as win-now a player as you can draft who is not a sure fire top pick. But that doesn’t mean he will ever be more than a role player.

Also, workouts are the smallest sample size ever. Also a small sample size? An entire NCAA season. Every FO that didn’t pick Doncic when he was available is staffed by complete fucking morons.

I think I would have picked Mikal and hope for an Otto Porter-like player.

I am a bit worried that it is said that Knox does not a have a good motor, as I think that characteristic does not usually improve. However, I trust the FO with the decision. A lot of draft projections fail, no matter if they are stat based or scouting based, specially with such young players. And I think in the last drafts, the return has been good respect to the position we were drafting (although we might have drafted better), so our FO might be doing something right, perhaps measuring players and physical traits, perhaps using workouts correctly, or perhaps by dumb luck. So for now, I will support the kid and not judge the decision for a couple of years until we see Knox developed.