Knicks Morning News (2018.06.29)

It’s clear to me, from the interview that Stephen A. Smith had with Steve Mill yesterday that the Knicks are not going to be signing any big names or trading for anyone of substance this year. I’m actually happy. They are embracing the tank.

Mills said that they are only signing 1-year deals with free agents. He said that they have room for a max contract next year. He didn’t say it, but he implied that going into 2019 the Knicks will have 4 lottery picks on the roster which will make the Knicks attractive to free agents. I expect us to scrape the bottom of the barrel of free agents for 2018.

Isn’t this what we’ve asked for?

How do you trade someone who’s surely opting out?

How do you trade someone who’s surely opting out?

People are traded as rentals all the time. My guess is we could have gotten at least a 2nd round pick for him, ie. traded him into a trade exception or for a similarly expiring contract, but who knows, maybe not. Or even better, since we should’ve known ahead of time that we were not going to be active in FA this summer, they could’ve gotten back a player who’s expiring this season (after the 18-19 season) and extracted a better asset as compensation for that. For instance, maybe we could’ve traded KOQ + #36 to Washington for Jason Smith (making $5MM in 2018-19 with the Wizards in the tax) + #15. Or something like that.

Sam Presti got killed in both of those trades if you ask me. Oladipo, Sabonis, and Kanter would probably make OKC better than what they are with Melo and PG and there would be no risk of losing any of them for the foreseeable future. Now they’re a luxury tax team that runs the risk of having to trade Westbrook next off season if PG leaves and they can’t Jedi mind-trick a team like NOLA to send them Anthony Davis. I know it’s easy to want to fire a GM or POBO, but I really wish the NBA had a clause to deem an owner or ownership group bad for the league and force them to sell. Guys like Clay Bennett, James Dolan, and Robert Sarver have cost their team more wins than any bad GM could ever have, and it hurts the overall parity of the NBA. If you want more competition in the NBA, then don’t have your GM trade James Harden in favor of keeping Kendrick Perkins.

Depends a bit on if you mean worse in hindsight or at the time. I’d say at the time that Sabonis and oladipo was very little to pay whereas the price for us to acquire Melo seemed steep at the time, as well as now. Of course now Oladip is an all star and MIP, it looks a lot worse…

After Mills’ interview I wonder if Kanter is going to ask to be traded. There are no long term deals available to him in New York because we’re trying to land Kyrie Irving next summer, so if he opts in he has to know it would be his last season in New York. If he wants long term stability, maybe Milwaukee, Denver, OKC, Dallas, Washington, or the Clippers make more sense for him as soon as this summer. Kanter and Lee have a lot to offer a playoff team and we need to be selling them today.

Does Kanter have anything to offer a playoff team? I’m not sure the league thinks so. If he doesn’t get some defense together I think his career is basically toast.

The Bucks were reportedly interested and last night he tweeted their logo as well.

@14. OK. But how about they keep the 3 cheap centers, and use the room exception on Seth Curry, and sign, say, Jeff Green, Tolliver, and Lawson to minimums?

Now you have Seth, Kawhi, LeBron, PG and Center X starting, with Lawson, Hart, Green, Tolliver and Center Y and Z off the bench?

Or maybe LeBron is willing to take less money to build his brand in LA and then all bets are off.

Assuming Kanter opts in, I believe the Knicks will have 8.5 million mid level exception. I was under the impression from his Twitter comments that O’Quinn wanted to come back and was willing to give us a small discount. Now now that we’ve drafted Robinson I’m less sure the Knicks will want him back. We could wind up with the same glut problem at C we had last year. So I guess depending on what they think of Robinson at this stage and if they intend to give Noah a shot as the backup they may or may not use some or all of that 8.5 million on O’Quinn for 1 year.

I imagine Buford is taking the calls, not Pop.

This is why the Knicks have to publicly state they’re not signing anyone this summer. ” completely theoretical” musings in random articles freak us out.

The Thunder got hosed in the Oladipo/Sabonis deal, but they didn’t give up any future picks for George. So it’s merely bad. No one in the Carmelo trade was quite as good as Oladipo has become, but the loss of depth and future picks was crippling.

Either way, stunning incompetence by the Thunder, further compounded by Westbrook’s soon-to-be-terrible contract and Carmelo being Carmelo. Honestly, any team interested in giving a roster slot to Carmelo, much less Mega Max Carmelo, doesn’t know a thing about player value.

We knew that when Presti let Harden walk (well, some of us knew), but Carmelo is, at best, a 12th man. I don’t think he has a place in the league anymore. You can’t be a “knockdown shooter” at .476 eFG% when the league’s worst offense bests you by a standard deviation. That makes you a game-loser.

Where’s ruruland to tell me I’m wrong?

LOL.
While every media outlet is running with the story that Kanter is opting in, this is what he tweets

The George trade was good. If they hadn’t traded for Melo, PG+Russ with a supporting cast of Roberson, Adams, Kanter, McDermott, Grant, PatPat, etc. isn’t close to Warriors/Rockets level good, but they’d comfortably be in with a shout for best of the rest with more depth and trade flexibility than they possess currently. I also suspect they’d have had a much better chance of winning a playoff series and getting PG to lock in long term.

Either way they’re well and truly fucked now. Their best bet is to just buyout and stretch Melo.

Hi guys.

Can we please not excoriate the Knicks’ front office for a theoretical trade brought up by a journalist with no ties to the Knicks? Thanks.

Luv,
A Knicks Fan

@32

That’s the best idea I’ve seen so far to secure the tank 100%, but I don’t think even genius Presti is dumb enough to do it.

Kanter denied Shams’s report that he has decided to opt-in, saying he still hasn’t decided. God just say you’re opting in already, we all know there’s no way you’ll leave this much money on he table.

Yea right!

How much better would Okc be with two shooter like Lee and Timmy instead of one black hole to play along their superstar!

We can sell Timmy as oldipo lite who doesnt need the ball in his hands as much.

Perry Mills need to get on this

Is Melo’s NTC still in effect?

I’m not sure a single 1st is enough.

Maybe I’m wrong, but I think Hardaway is still worth a mid to late 1st rounder on his own despite the small overpay. If we assume I’m right just for discussion’s sake, that means we are swapping Lee for Melo. Melo comes off faster, but I still think we can get an expiring plus a 2nd rounder or two for Lee. That doesn’t count the money they’d have to give Melo to just walk.

If we wanna trade TH2, Cleveland has that beautiful George Hill contract that isn’t guaranteed for the 3rd year. I would trade TH2 there, and then send Lee and Kanter to Dallas for Wes Matthews. That would clear an extra $30M off the books and secure the tank.

@32 – mase that’s a fantastic idea! I hope Perry reads this blog.
I’d do that for a 2nd if they balk at the 1st.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news again, but the Knicks are not trying to tank next year. They are wisely not going to tie up money long term just to move forward a little faster this year when they want to try to add someone like Kyrie next year and take a bigger step. Mills even opened the door to KP returning in November. Even if that’s wildly too optimistic, they are going to be handing out playing time based on merit and trying to win, especially when KP comes back It’s just that it’s likely Frank will break through and get a lot more minute this year and since we don’t have a real SF Knox has the upper hand to earn that spot despite being very young. So with KP out and a very young team we are going to lose a lot games for awhile, but I’d estimate the chances they are TRYING to get worse at less than 5%.

Strat, just admit already that you do not want to trade Lee and his veteran leadership!!!!

lol!

I have no problem with the idea of trading Lee. I have a problem with giving him away for an expiring dreg just so we are worse. I’m not smart enough to know exactly what the market is now. He was productive last year, looks like he still has a bit in the tank, and the contract is 1 year shorter. I think he’s worth more than a dreg.

Do you mean we are giving up a mid to late first for someone to take Hardaway? Because that I can see.

Listen the Knicks are paying $82 million to Kanter, Noah, Timmy, Lee, Lance, Baker and Mudiay!

If they’re not trying to tank this year then we might as well all just give up until Dolan meets up with a woodchipper.

What could explain this spike? Probably the announcement, late Wednesday, that James Dolan, chairman and CEO of MSG, is considering spinning the Knicks and the Rangers off into a separate company, which would smooth the path for an eventual sale of both teams, per a Crain’s report. This suggests that there may be a day, perhaps even in the not-so-distant future, when those teams are no longer owned by James Dolan.

https://deadspin.com/james-dolan-lays-groundwork-for-sale-of-knicks-and-rang-1827236645

Whoa, is this the beginning of the end to our misery?

Before anyone gets too excited about the MSG spin, it’s not obvious at all that this is a precursor to a sale of the team. Lots of investors want to see a spin on the hopes that an independently traded SportsCo will better reflect the crazy trophy value of the Knicks. Because of presumed super voting shares in spinco, Dolan could even monetize some of that valuation by selling shares without giving up control. Remember, the last time Dolan spun out MSG from CVC it was Cablevision that was sold.

What I read is that stock analysts are pushing for the split into two companies, but Dolan plans to do it in a way where he is in charge of both. Honestly, I’m not upset with him as an owner for the last few years. He has been pretty hands off, but fired Phil when he had to. Now he hired new management that seems like normal management, and us still hands off. I know everyone wants a Danny Ainge, but normal management is pretty good. Compare this to Sacramento or Detroit or Charlotte. It could be much worse.

@52

Yeah, but it’s the contract that matters. I would be very happy with Hardaway if he was making 6 million a month like a rookie scale contract is, then he is surely worth a mid to late first rounder. I would rather gamble on a 19 year old being eventually better than him while being under control of my franchise for 4 years than knowing Hardaway is what I get for 18 million for 4 years. Even if I knew the best player I could get at the 18th pick is Hardaway I would still rather have the rookie than him as he would have more value as a flexible asset to move eventually.

MSG only has five years on it’s lease then it’s shutting down for the Penn station rebuild. I could see Dolan not wanting to build another arena for the Knicks and Rangers.

I never understood this.

Why did they spend a fortune to redo MSG if this was coming up?

@61

Let’s assume you ARE going to get a player as good as Hardaway in the draft with some 1st round pick. I’m saying that by the time that 19 year old kid is as productive as Hardaway (assuming he eventually is) you will be getting ready to pay him more anyway. In the mean time you’ll be getting less productivity for several years while you wait. It would be different if you could assume you were going to draft some kid and he’d be just as productive immediately.

Hardaway was drafted 14th. True or not, let’s just assume that he’s typical of the 14th pick.

Since we both agree that he’s overpaid, he clearly wouldn’t be worth the 14th pick. But if you ask me, he’s not so overpaid that I’d take a 2nd rounder for him that could easily bust out and not so overpaid I’m dying to rid myself of the contract. It’s unattractive, but not a disaster.

Like I said, I doubt this is the way teams think about it. I have a really tough time understanding how to value picks. It’s the way I think about it and it could easily be wrong.

What I am suggesting is that perhaps the league is overvaluing picks right now. The results are more volatile when people are drafting 18-19 year olds and you don’t get them cheaply while they rare productive anymore. You get the cheaply while they are learning.

You’re likely correct, but let’s not forget that Morey courted Melo with a max deal at the same time Phil wound up trumping him with a near mega-max w/ a NTC and trade kicker.

That was four years ago, and Melo was coming off what was almost certainly his best-ever season (albeit on a terrible team). Morey would have been wrong to sign him then, but he’s become one of the worst regular players in the league, not even considering salary. But when you do…

I mean, there were only five players with less than a -1.0 VORP in the league: Isaiah Taylor, Josh Jackson, De’Aaron Fox, Tyler Ulis and Carmelo.

$305k
$5.1M
$4.6M
$918k

and $26.2M

P.S. The Knicks would be a playoff team if they had drafted the players I’ve historically liked and didn’t sign the overrated players I didn’t like. So I guess I know nothing about basketball, yet still more than the last decade of Knicks management, including a guy with 13 rings.

Why did they spend a fortune to redo MSG if this was coming up?

Either they didn’t do their homework/didn’t believe the council or it’ll have paid for itself by the time the lease is up. Probably just assumed they’d be able to buy enough votes or generate enough protest.

I would trade consecutive unprotected picks for a new owner. Please let this unfounded rumor be true!

As bad as Melo was last year, I don’t think he’s quite as bad as he looked last year (at least “yet”). It makes no sense to have Melo standing behind the 3 point line trying to create space for Westbrook and George when he was never a very good 3 point shoot to begin with and you could get a much better shooter/defender for a lot less.

Melo is a scorer.

Ideally, you give him the ball late in the clock and let him create something that won’t be so great, but it will be better than what most NBA players could create given that little time on the clock. The problem is that Westbrook and George are both capable of that also. So there was no point.

I still hope the Knicks are not planning to go after Kyrie or any other expensive guy in 2019. Unless Frank and Knox both show significant improvement, KP comes back for at least part of the season and all looks good, and the team secures an early lottery pick.

I think Mills just came out and said they were going to do exactly that.

Honestly, assuming we don’t have to give up assets to get rid of Courtney Lee (I think we could prob just send him out for expirings at worst?) and Kyrie is actually healthy, then I think it’d be ok. Kyrie, Frank, Timmy, Knox, KP, 2019 lottery pick, MitchRob, Dotson, etc. is not that bad. We still have all our 1st rounders, and even more cap room in 2020 once Noah and Lance’s small guarantee come off the books. If it were up to me I would take a step back in 18-19 and 19-20, collect assets, draft top of the lottery for those years, then make the big splash in summer of 2020 when we presumably would have room for 2 maxes. But I doubt Mills/Perry have that much patience.

@75

Assuming the Knicks got a healthy Kyrie and KP is 100% and still on the upswing, the Knicks would be 1 all star caliber player away from making noise. They might not be a championship contender, but they would be good, young, and improving. Then the idea would be to hope that either Knox or Frank breaks out into stardom or they’d have to look to put together a package of assets to get that 3rd star. You could see this developing before last season. I don’t think it’s a bad plan. It’s a matter of landing the 2nd big fish. But hey have to be sure Kyrie is healthy because KP is already a risk.

If Kyrie is the 2019 free agent of choice, then we absolutely need to tank and grab RJ Barrett. A healthy Kyrie/KP tandem with Frank, RJ, and Kevin Knox on the wings would kick Brad Stevens’ Celtics in the dick.

For real though, Frank Ntilikina and RJ Barrett on defense would be hell on wings.

Kyrie can’t stay healthy. We’ve been down this road before

That was four years ago, and Melo was coming off what was almost certainly his best-ever season (albeit on a terrible team). Morey would have been wrong to sign him then, but he’s become one of the worst regular players in the league, not even considering salary.

Either he was catastrophically dumb for even courting Melo, or Phil was not all that dumb to outbid him (I’ll take door #1). It’s not like Melo had some catastrophic injury to suck as bad as he does now. According to one of the guys on NBA radio (I forget which one) he is the worst volume shooter in the league (15 or more attempts a game) and the worst defender in the league (not just at his position.) It was dumb luck that Morey didn’t get tied up with that money. He’s also the guy who poison-pilled for Jeremy Lin.

The Knicks would be a playoff team if they had drafted the players I’ve historically liked…

You mean, like drafting the great Willy Cauley-Stein over Kristaps Porzingis (hot garbage was how you described KP if I recall) or taking the washed up at age 28 but future HOFer Kenneth Faried over Iman Shumpert?

…and didn’t sign the overrated players I didn’t like…

I’ll give you that one…although watching your all-time fave Tyson Chandler get unspeakably debased by Kareem Abdul-Hibbert was not much fun.

Yeah, THJ on a 3/54 deal is a negative asset. We’re stuck with that mistake until 2021.

He’s in the pantheon of Knicks contracts in which the moment it was announced, I was like “oh fuck, when does this horrible thing expire?”

If you throw in Baker, we’re overpaying by $45m combined. So 45% of our cap is dead money.

The 2018-2019 Knicks have got to be one of the most talent-strapped teams in the league. The rotation figures to look like this:

PG Trey Burke, Frank Ntilikina, Emmanuel Mudiay
SG Courtney Lee, Damyean Dotson
SF Tim Hardaway Jr, Lance Thomas, Troy Williams
PF Kevin Knox, ???
C Enes Kanter, Joakim Noah

That is a bottom 5 defense, bottom 5 offense type team.

The 2018-2019 Knicks have got to be one of the most talent-strapped teams in the league. The rotation figures to look like this:

Sure is depressing when you spell it out. Hopefully Robinson and Trier get signifiant minutes at some point, otherwise we’re probably a hard 30th in the League Pass rankings.

The 2018-2019 Knicks have got to be one of the most talent-strapped teams in the league. The rotation figures to look like this:

PG Trey Burke, Frank Ntilikina, Emmanuel Mudiay
SG Courtney Lee, Damyean Dotson
SF Tim Hardaway Jr, Lance Thomas, Troy Williams
PF Kevin Knox, ???
C Enes Kanter, Joakim Noah

That is a bottom 5 defense, bottom 5 offense type team.

Forgot Mitchell Robinson, likely at 4/5. Beasley will return if no one else takes his spot. Finally, Mudiay is most likely the starter because “lottery pick”.

#Lakers PG-SG Lonzo Ball has a torn meniscus in his left knee. Expected to be ready for training camp.— @kc1nyk (@kylecohenNBA) June 29, 2018

Now Ball would fit right in. 🙂

Oh yeah, that’d definitely be smart. But it says that he’ll be back by training camp, so I doubt he’s really a buy low candidate just yet.

See, I realize you’re trolling, Z-man, because that’s the only defense you have to your legacy of abject stupidity on this site. You’ve been wrong so many times, and to such a degree, that I would need a whole list of bookmarks to keep track of you. It’s safe to say that this franchise would be just as fucked if you were at the helm, because you know nothing about what makes an NBA player good. Like, nothing.

You mean, like drafting the great Willy Cauley-Stein over Kristaps Porzingis (hot garbage was how you described KP if I recall) or taking the washed up at age 28 but future HOFer Kenneth Faried over Iman Shumpert?

http://bkref.com/tiny/nlzRM

http://bkref.com/tiny/JUtL6

And you still want to rag on Morey for the Lin contract? I can’t believe you’re serious with this shit — again, you must be trolling. He signs Lin and Asik to three-year, $8M AAV contracts and wins 99 games in two seasons, and despite the “underperformance” of those two, he still has the flexibility to parlay his assets into 56-, 41-, 55- and then 65-win seasons.

You’re still hung up on the Lin contract? That’s a grasp at straws if I’ve ever seen one. Hilariously stupid, but nothing new from you.

Never forget what you said about the Bargnani trade. I sure wont, as long as you’re here to try to get a rise out of me:

I don’t get the bashing of this trade. The draft picks? The 2 ultra-late second rounders are no more likely to be productive than an undrafted free agent. The 2016 late first rounder? Possibly a keeper, but more likely not productive until 2018. And just as likely not productive at all.

Again, you have no ground to ever criticize the prognostications of others.

Let me put it this way. If you had an undiagnosed, grapefruit-sized, cancerous tumor on your face, and you went in for a physical, and your doctor spends 20 minutes staring at your face but didn’t note the tumor, what would you assume about the doctor?

[cue 500-word screed about how my analogy doesn’t work because of upside, or spacing, or gravity, or talent, or whatever]

OMG I had to check out that Bargiani “I Believe I Can Fly” video on Youtube. I can’t believe I missed out on that. There was a void in my soul which I didn’t know was even there and it just filled up upon seeing it.

The Knicks are NOT tanking next year. That much is certain. They are going to do everything they can to win games next year except sign someone to a long term contract this year because they are targeting a max player next year. The young players will get a lot of minutes and lose a lot of games, but the minutes will be based on merit and as soon as KP is healthy and ready to go he’s going to play. They already told us that much.

The eventual starting lineup will:

Kanter – C
Frank – PG
Knox – SF
Hardaway – SG
Porzingis – PF

The major question is who the starting PF will be until Porzingis is healthy (perhaps a 1 year veteran free agent).

The other question is whether Frank is actually going win the starting PG job from Burke.

The Knicks have been consistently dumb to sign mediocre veterans and play them over trying to find young talent in the D-League or in the 2nd round or in small trades. With that said benching productive players just to lose games is cheating. What the Bulls did down the stretch last year was disgusting. I want no part of that.

Trey Burke, Tim Hardaway Jr, Kevin Knox, and Enes Kanter will score points and pretend to play defense but ultimately there will be more blame than communication on defense and it will end up being the worst defense in the NBA.

This season is about maybe 4 things:

1) Developing Kevin Knox, Frank Ntilikina, and to a lesser extent Mitchell Robinson.
2) Keeping KP healthy.
3) Landing RJ Barrett in the draft (this would literally make the entire Dolan era worth it).
4) Securing Kyrie Irving in free agency.

There is no reason for this team to compete other than making Fizdale look smart. The Knicks aren’t going to quit and if Knox or Ntilikina has 31 points in a close game we’re not going to sit the hot hand, but we are not trying to be competitive this season. If we actually hit on all four of those objectives, we’re a candidate to double or triple our win total in 2019-2020. I’ve been sold a dream of Irving, Ntilikina, Barrett, Knox, and Porzingis and I don’t want a refund. The Knicks need to make this happen the right way.

Kanter opted in.

I’m actually kinda psyched for Mitchell Robinson. If his mental shit is something he can sort out guy could be a monster. Looking forward to summer league.

I figure the thing with Robinson is he doesn’t love basketball. He only started playing cause he ended up tall. So at best, for him it’s a path to make cash. That doesn’t necessarily preclude him being good, the guy might work for his money. If they can crack that space, get the man to invest the way he needs to to have a career he could be a great find.

Three things here:1) It's his left knee, same as the previous issues.2) Shams describes it as a minor injury.3) The Lakers diagnosed this at the end of the season, so this isn't new to them, which makes the timing of this news…interesting. https://t.co/KnQhGz5OBz— Laker Film Room (@LakerFilmRoom) June 29, 2018

I’m surprised Jordan actually opted out (I thought he was looking for a sign and trade). I guess he figures that even if he doesn’t make $24 million a year, he’ll make up for it in the overall contract length and he might not get the same offer next year.

Dallas is at least an interesting team – Doncic, Matthews, Barnes, Dirk and Jordan? Not a good team, per se, but interesting.

Agreed. It would be a bad idea for a team that was looking to compete now, for a team that is going to need a couple of years like the Mavericks, it is a pure Knicksy-type move.