Knicks Morning News (2018.08.30)

His shot needs a lot of work but doesn’t look broken to me. I’m also on the Zion train until proven otherwise.

He probably won’t be there at 3.

Heh, the same guy that dubbed Zion a future NBA superstar before he registered for his phantom classes at Duke suggests that Shaq might have been less of a big deal today. Edibles, anyone?

You have dumb basketball opinions, but you’re a smart guy otherwise. Try reading this again.

The league TS% was .520 in 2002 and is .565 now. That’s a huge gap, and if Shaq came back with the same stats, he’d be significantly less valuable than he was. Still would be a great player, but he wouldn’t outpace his peers nearly as well.

Nowhere did I insist, state or imply that Shaq wouldn’t be a dominant force in today’s game. (He, along with Duncan and Garnett, was among the very best players at the turn of the century.) My point was that we have a guy with a diverse set of offensive power moves (Cousins) and despite his high-usage, pretty-high-efficiency numbers, he’s not all that valuable because we have many guards and wings who score in great volume and efficiency. Maybe top-level post play is just not going to take you as far as top-level perimeter play.

I always ask these questions, because I like to stir trouble:
Why wouldn’t Shaq be more dominant and more efficient against today’s smaller centers? Wouldn’t his box score, efficiency, and thus his advanced stats soar? I don’t get the opposing viewpoint. Imagine him playing Draymond (short) or Jokic (bad).

What if the bird s***s in your hand

Why wouldn’t Shaq be more dominant and more efficient against today’s smaller centers? Wouldn’t his box score, efficiency, and thus his advanced stats soar? I don’t get the opposing viewpoint. Imagine him playing Draymond (short) or Jokic (bad).

I think Shaq is a top-20 all-time player, so it’s not like I’m sitting here trying to downplay his incredible, storied career. Without Shaq, we would be saying things like, “Kobe vs. Vince Carter… who had the better career?”

My point was that Cousins has remarkably similar stats in terms of scoring efficiency and usage, but despite his edge in other box score stats like steal and assist rates, he’s rated significantly worse overall than Shaq because of the enormous change in league average and overall play style. It has nothing to do with whether a physical freak like Shaq could or could not be an MVP candidate (unlike Boogie) in today’s NBA. That’s a purely speculative question.

So in speculation, I think Shaq would get eaten alive on defense by hustle guys like Gobert and Capela. Dude saw a career low in BLK/36 just one season before his incredible 2000 campaign. The allegations of lazy defense are significant and justified, IMO.

Also, there’s no way that Shaq would be allowed to back down guys the way he did in the late 90s. He’d foul out as much as his opponents would.

re: the Joakim Noah probable stretch in September.
Let’s say Thibodeau signs him to a 1 -year vet’s minimum deal and again in 2019-20.
If I remember correctly the vet’s minimum for someone of his service time = 2.4MM/year.
Does that mean we get a 4.8MM offset ie. ~$1MM/year over the 5 years of stretch-waive?

@14 – I think you only get relief if a guy is claimed off waivers. Otherwise if he clears waivers then is signed, I think we’re on the hook for the whole lot. Could be wrong though…

Seems like stars get calls even more than in Shaq’s day.

This might be true.

https://i.imgur.com/Lj51ciO.png

This chart tells us that the number of fouls per game has significantly decreased over time. It doesn’t adjust for pace or for shooting fouls, though.

Just comparing 2018 to 2001, we see a

1) 6.7% increase in FGA (in virtually the same overall minutes)
2) 12% decrease in total fouls
3) a 13% decrease in FTA

In 2001, 27 of 29 teams committed >22.2 fouls per 100 possession. In 2018, only 2 teams committed than many fouls.

Again, there’s no way for me to accurately check the distribution of fouls among the league’s elite FT drawers, so I’ve got no conclusive evidence that there’s an element of bias against their defenders. In terms of raw numbers, today’s elite FT drawers (Harden, Giannis, Davis, Howard, Westbrook) are less prone to drawing fouls than some of the legends of the past:

Jordan 1989 972 FTA
O’Neal 2001 972 FTA
Barkley 1988 951 FTA

https://www.basketball-reference.com/leaders/fta_top_10.html

Can’t find FTr Top 10 yearly numbers, unfortunately. But it seems that the “superstar whistle” has always been in effect. Except for Carmelo, of course. Always the bridesmaid, that one.

Zion will bring us to the promised land. You heard it here first.

I really don’t think zion is a better choice than rj barrett. Barrett is taller than mr barkley part 2, but if he plays defense then he might get a ring or 2.

I always ask these questions, because I like to stir trouble:
Why wouldn’t Shaq be more dominant and more efficient against today’s smaller centers? Wouldn’t his box score, efficiency, and thus his advanced stats soar? I don’t get the opposing viewpoint. Imagine him playing Draymond (short) or Jokic (bad).

Modern opinions are gearing too much toward the outdated argument. The point is one must add modern skills to original games. But the outdatist are copying everything again by detail.

The basics are being lost.

But demarcus cousins isn’t all that efficient as a big man. It’s one of his problems.

The real problem for Cousins with respect to eFG% is that he had a far lower dunk rate than O’Neal. We don’t have shooting breakdowns earlier than 2001, but he had 251 dunks in 2005 (well past his prime), to the tune of 24.4% of his shots being dunks. Cousins has never had more than 9% of his shots coming as dunks. He was also a more efficient scorer from 3-10, too. And none of that comparison includes peak-athleticism Shaq between ’95 and ’00. We just don’t have the numbers.

None of this is to say that Cousins, with his 3PT focus and face-up game, is similar to O’Neal beyond the physical post play. But when it comes to modern players, he’s probably the closest thing we have to O’Neal in post aggression and physicality. Shaq was a bull in a china shop with a ridiculously light touch around the basket.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZi1BYOlbS0

I see both of those players in his playstyle: the banging O’Neal and the hesi stepback off-balance wrong-handed fadeaway jimbo bricks of #Me7o.

To be clear, I think Shaq was a legit MVP and an MVP candidate in many more seasons. Cousins wouldn’t have made a single All-NBA team if it were up to me.

Cousins has excellent touch for a big man. His reliance on midrange shots, at least earlier on, is much more reminiscence of a Ewing than Shaq. I’m not saying that Cousins and Shaq look identical, the way I feel about Barkley and Zion. I’m just saying that Cousins is a modern twist on a big post presence, the closest we have to a guy who grinds in the paint for much of his 35 USG%. And that, either by Cousins’ own deficiencies or a change in playstyle league-wide, is not as valuable or valued as it used to be.

re: the Joakim Noah probable stretch in September.
Let’s say Thibodeau signs him to a 1 -year vet’s minimum deal and again in 2019-20.
If I remember correctly the vet’s minimum for someone of his service time = 2.4MM/year.
Does that mean we get a 4.8MM offset ie. ~$1MM/year over the 5 years of stretch-waive?

Noah will spend 3, not 5, extra seasons on the payroll. By waiting until September, his 2018-2019 salary is fully guaranteed over the course of that season alone. We’re basically stretch waiving his expiring 2019-2020 year.

I don’t think we get any relief.

I’m just saying that Cousins is a modern twist on a big post presence, the closest we have to a guy who grinds in the paint for much of his 35 USG%. And that, either by Cousins’ own deficiencies or a change in playstyle league-wide, is not as valuable or valued as it used to be.

Shaq would be just as dominant today as he was in his time, maybe even more so with the way fouls are called today. He is at worst the second-most physically dominant big in NBA history, and would be by far the most physically dominant big in the league today. It’s dumb to talk about what his TS% was; he led the league in FG% 10 times (all at a 30% usage rate) and shot 58% from the field for his career. Cousins never even shot more than 50% from 2pt range until this past year, and that was .530 with Anthony fucking Davis on his team.

Today, Shaq would still demand constant double and triple teams, would still put opposing starters in foul trouble, would still put opposing teams in the penalty at a high rate, and would still be the best player on multiple championship teams, just like he would in any era. He might have been even harder to double with the way the game is played today. Arguing about whether he would be more or less valued or valuable is as laughable as arguing about whether Michael Jordan would be less valued or valuable with his paltry .569 career TS% or his god-awful career 3pt% of .327.

This is not to suggest that post play in general is still as valuable as it was; only that Shaq is a total outlier that transcends styles and trends due to his once-in-a-generation physical profile.

The Cousins to Shaq comparison is utterly ridiculous at their peaks. They are so far apart in dominance they are barely the same species. No one bothers doubling Cousins. They don’t have to. The Pelicans were arguably better without him. Shaq was killing teams even though he was doubled and being game planned against. Teams sat down in the off season and asked themselves, “What can we do to stop Shaq next year because there’s no way we are getting past LA if we can’t slow him down”. Not one team in the league is worried about Cousins. On top of that he gives up a ton with TOs. If Shaq was 25 right now and entering his peak the entire league would immediately go to their war rooms and start rebuilding their team to cope with him.

Lmao I am the biggest Cousins critic out, but if you think teams weren’t doubling him while he was on the Kings…

Did you even watch the games? Lolllllllllll

See post #24

Oh, Cousins is the big Melo, for sure.

The fact that he’s tall and strong as hell makes him more effective than Melo kinda by default, as he can just bully people inside and score if he feels like doing it, which doesn’t always happen. But just like Melo his issues are personality and decision-making related, as the body and skill are obviously there.

Houston has been surely doing some weird ass moves.

Marquese Chriss has that great combination of being horrible and a headcase, but I guess he has upside right, and Knight was kinda decent for 50 games like 4 years ago, so I guess high ppg for his career so he must be good or something like that?

The best player on this trade right now might just be the guy who never played a NBA game. I guess it probably saves Houston some tax money with Knight’s contract being less money than Anderson, so yeah, it’s probably that.

Well, yeah, but Brandon Knight hasn’t played a single game in a year and is owed 30 million for the next 2 years, the same length of Anderson’s contract.

I guess they gain a little flexibility by cutting Anderson’s contract in two smaller crappy pieces and they can just opt out of Chriss next season if he sucks, it just seems pointless to give up a rookie a lot of people are high on for two dudes who have been hot garbage. The only reason is luxury tax implications as they are over the cap by a lot.

I like the trade for both sides.
-Houston is in win-now mode and needs to take a risk.
-PHX can use a vet to stabilize a very young rotation.
-Melo and Anderson are redundant and Melo (from their perspective ) is a vet’s minimum guy, why not cut a bit of salary for two guys that might fill positions of need?
-Knight could be a not-terrible end-of-rotation player if healthy and has at least some upside.
-Chriss is raw but has some potential and is on a rookie contract, so probably as good of a bet as Melton

Chriss has been a terrible NBA player, but he’s primarily been awful because he takes a lot of 3s and he’s a bad 3 point shooter. Considering Houston’s cap situation he’s probably worth a gamble for them instead of Anderson. I think Melton is a better fit for their roster and what they try to do, but who knows, maybe they don’t like what they’ve seen from him so far.

You know I agree with that whole-heartedly. Cousins and Melo have had remarkably similar careers: big traditional numbers, no winning (unless they have actually-good teammates).

Yeah, because the league was rushing to the knicks to inquire about jr smith and ray felton. Melo spent most of his career in the post season. He’s most similar to bernard king whose his idol. Cousins spent most his career as a retard.

@49

Fair enough.

Chriss has taken ~149 corner threes in his career and has made just 31.5% of them, with last year being an incredible 25.5%.

If that’s a win-now acquisition, I really have no idea what Morey is doing.

@53

Random White People says you’re welcome, Joel.

Chriss has taken ~149 corner threes in his career and has made just 31.5% of them, with last year being an incredible 25.5%.

If that’s a win-now acquisition, I really have no idea what Morey is doing.

My guess would be they either somehow think they can fix his 3 point shot or they think they can get him to stop shooting 3s and just play like Capela (or they don’t know what they’re doing).

Embiid is the anti-Dwight. So ridiculously likable.

WHITE PEOPLE SHOOTING 3 POINTERS

DRed, I agree 100%. We just did it with Mudiay (trade for him thinking we have a chance making him good). I don’t know why it is though. Maybe most GMs thinks their pick for coach is much better than everyone else’s? Or maybe it’s just that the grass is always greener on the other side.

That Houston team is going to be wack. Well, they’ll still be very good, but they could have been so much more. It’s like they have all the chrome and leather but forgot to get the nuts and bolts and are just trying to hold everything together with chewing gum.

Guys, guys, guys: Very unlikely Morey is done dealing. He got rid of Anderson, who is unplayable in the playoffs, and bought low on Brandon and, to a lesser extent, Chriss. If either or both prove useful, great. If not, he hasn’t done any harm to his chances this year (which is all he really cares about, anyway).

Houston’s new ownership seems much more money conscious than the previous one. It sure does suck seeing the one team with a serious shot at dethroning the Warriors make a bunch of penny pinching moves.

Maybe they figure they can get more out of Chriss (I’ve always thought he has some tools and he’s still very young FWIW), but at the end of the day they likely dumped Melton to save some money. Sucks.