Knicks Morning News (2018.08.23)

Man, the more that I think about it, the more I dislike the Hezonja signing. The best sort of realistic case with him as a Knick is that he plays well and they get a second round pick for him. All while he plays big minutes without any chance of being part of the future of this team.

Chicago turned 25 games of unsustainable, hot shooting from Nikola Mirotic into a decent first round pick. You never know.

So they can bury Lee before trying to trade him to clear his salary? Sounds about right. 😉

Now this would piss me off. I know everyone is saying we have to give heavy minutes to Frank and Knox, but I think our first priority should be showcasing Lee, Hezonja, Kanter, and Burke early in the season. Think of how well Lee and Kanter were playing through December of last year. A hot offensive start from these guys could net us a bevy of decent picks in the 25-40 range. There will still be plenty of NBA season to give extended minutes to the kids after we pump and dump all the dead weight.

I just don’t like these moves where there doesn’t seem to be a real plan behind it beyond, “Hey, he’s a good player. It’d be good to add a good player to the team, right?”

I hate these kinds of moves as well, but I think the Hezonja situation is a rare one in that it’s actually fair to wait to see what happens before judging. As Hubert alluded to, it’s not out of the question that he shoots 38-40% from 3 and a fringe playoff team and/or contender has interest. There are a number of teams who could at least theoretically use a player like that.

If he just plays kinda well or kinda badly and walks, then yeah it will have been a stupid use of resources.

We will see how knickerbloggers counter fizdales positivity.

The usual method is won-loss record.

We could always re-sign Hez if/when we whiff on our FA targets.

Like with everything else, you have winners and losers in this strategy and it plays out quicker.

This says absolutely nothing. It’s like saying, “In life as in competition, sometimes there is a win and sometimes not, and sometimes you are a person also and things happen faster than other things.” As the great Sam Hinkie said, wins are a zero-growth industry. Of course there are winners and losers.

For every winner there will be 3-5 losers and everyone knows who the winning executive is.

Again, how is this a viable strategy for team-building?

Ask Pat Riley and Danny Ainge, if this strategy got them rings or ask Magic how he got the best player in the world to join his bum squad?

Danny Ainge is brilliant. The man has done very little wrong over the last several years, and his fleecing of the Nets will go down as one of the great franchise-building moves in NBA history.

Pat Riley has been smart and lucky his whole career. O’Neal happened to want to murder Kobe at exactly the same time that Wade was ready to carry a team on his back to an improbable Finals win. Then he happened to be at the helm of the team when two and a half superstars decided to take paycuts to “artificially” create a 4-year Finals run. It’s exceedingly unlikely that it will happen this way for the Knicks. Even among true max players there’s a hierarchy of value, and LeBron is simply a generational player where Kyrie and even Butler (whom I like a whole lot) are not.

Perry can’t be scared and half ass it with one max guy.

This is exactly the strategy used by Layden to trade the farm for Eddy Curry, for Walsh to go all-in on Carmelo after blundering the 2010 offseason, and now to extend the suspect “star” with a bad knee because it would be just too much to position him as a trade piece to extend the rebuild by a couple more years. It’s a payday loan.

Jowles, we all know what happened and everyone understand its high risk/high reward strategy, unless of course, Perry is working the back channels and has insider information like Pat Riley did when he bet his farm. Like Donnie Walsh, if Perry is relying on a an honest and ethical recruiting process with a presentation, a poster on a building and a welcoming mat, then he has no business being our GM.

I’m in complete agreement with Jowles on this. Shocking, I know. Side note, Jowles…I want to apologize for going at you the other day (and in general). I get annoyed by your attitude sometimes and by the fact that you are usually proven right in the long run. I self exiled myself for a few days after calling you a Dick. Needed to step away from the keyboard for a bit.

I could be convinced to go after just Kyrie next summer. I believe if we don’t resign Kanter and find a way to trade Lee, we could get one max player like Kyrie and despite his flat earth beliefs, he would be the best PG we’ve had in ages and he would be in his prime. I think Kyrie plus KP gets us to the playoffs and gives us room to grow with our young players and future picks. It also means we don’t have to stretch Noah.

I would much rather go this route than go all in on two max players with Kyrie and Butler plus Porzingis. I guess if we don’t trade away assetts to get rid of TImmy to do this it could work out for us but ultimately I do not see the rush in building around Zinger. He’s 22. I do want us to extend him but I’d rather we just extend him and keep building with youth and picks. We have Knox, Frank and Mitchell all on cheap contracts for the net 4 or 5 years. We could get another top pick this year then make a real playoff push next year with Zinger back and healthy and the youngsters having more experience. Shooting for the moon rarely works for us.

Dolan bet on Melo the first time.

It was Walsh that bet on stat n me lo. He’s never been called for moves.

It was Walsh that bet on stat n me lo. He’s never been called for moves.

For his moves

More important, or less? Used to be you got a full 24 from every offensive board. Now that you’re only getting 14, the odds of scoring after the rebound go down, no?

Dropping the shot clock to 14 after an offensive rebound seems like a totally unnecessary change to me.

The big change I would make regarding the shot clock would be to not stop play on a shot clock violation if the defense has gotten the board or taken possession of the ball when the shot clock goes off. It stops play and allows the team to set their defense and seems to punish the team that played good defense instead of letting them get the possible fast break (which would also create more ESPN friendly highlights!) I would only blow the whistle and stop play if the team on offense still had possession when the shot clock expired.

But dropping the shot clock to 14 after an offensive rebound seems totally unnecessary.

Offensive rebounds are inherently harder to get than defensive rebounds though, so you could argue the team should be rewarded for grabbing a rebound that is harder to grab than a defensive rebound.

It probably won’t make a huge difference bc a lot of the time a team gets an offensive rebound they immediately put it back up.

Can’t believe I attributed Curry to Layden. I’m sorry, Scott.

@ 24 – fair enough. They just need to also then get rid of the stopping the action when the shot clock expires and the defense has the ball. It drives me crazy. Let them get out on the fast break!

I think the shot clock change was made to discourage situations that end up with forced fouls. Let’s say a team is up by 2 with 40 left, they hold for 20 then miss a shot and pick up the rebound. The team losing would instantly be put into an intentional foul situation, and now they won’t.

I don’t love the change because I think offensive rebounding is very valuable and should be rewarded, but I think it’s again the NBA thinking on how to make the end of games less of a slog. During regular game situations yes it will matter, but not so much as any team should be able to get up a decent shot with 14 seconds anyway.

There is nothing more tedious than watching the dog-and-pony show of the ref walking over to the scorer’s table, putting on the headset, motioning and pointing at people, turning the monitor around, watching 10 different replays, taking off the headset, walking back onto the court, and making the call. Same with the NFL.

Instant replay should be done by an official in Secaucus. They’re already sitting in front of all the monitors and have the replay technology ready to go. Just throw it to them and 20 seconds later you’ll have your decision.

I agree about the replay. They should have another official at a monitor all the time looking for missed calls, especially things like out of bounds, and they should be in the head ref’s ear as part of the officiating team. Final say still goes to the head ref but it would clear up obvious missed calls and the off the court official would be much quicker with replays.

Totally agree about instant replay in the NBA and NFL. Just have people in Seacaucus reviewing plays as they happen. Would totally speed up the game. I believe that’s what the NHL does already.

The other thing I’d like to see is to speed up the inbounds pass. There’s no reason for the ref to wait for everyone to get set and settled before starting the inbounds. Take a cue from soccer and just get the ball to the correct team and keep the game going.