(Sunday, September 16, 2018 3:00:00 AM)
If you’re reading this, congratulations on surviving a brutally hot summer. After shielding children in swimming pools and freezing cold movie theaters, the fresh outdoors beckon with the promise of changing leaves and bonfires. The autumnal equinox, too, signals the start of school, but hey, that’s…
(Sunday, September 16, 2018 2:00:00 AM)
Can you smell it?
That pungent, stinging reek in the air is a fear-drenched river of flop sweat rolling off Trump and his professional defenders. For Team Trump’s endless attempts to change the subject, toss out shiny distractions, beef with NFL players, boast about Trump’s self-graded A-plus hurricane…
(Sunday, September 16, 2018 1:10:00 AM)
New York’s progressives are exuberant after voters tossed out six of eight members of the now-defunct Independent Democratic Conference in favor of left-wing challengers.
We interrupt the high-fiving to inject some political reality. The bright blue wave just might crash before it reaches the beach.
…
(Sunday, September 16, 2018 1:05:00 AM)
Proudly, a Republican President and a Republican Congress take ownership of low unemployment and growing GDP — fueled, they loudly proclaim, by the $1.5 trillion tax cut that passed on party lines last December.
They shirk all responsibility for a deficit metastasizing as a result of that very…
(Sunday, September 16, 2018 1:00:00 AM)
Let’s quickly sum up 2018 New York Caribbean Carnival and J’Ouvert festival happenings in Brooklyn: Both events ended without any major incidents reported, yet some media outlets linked unrelated criminal incidents to the carnival events.
“Please stop blaming the Caribbean community for common…
(Sunday, September 16, 2018 1:00:00 AM)
The progressive wave crashed over state Sen. Jeff Klein of the Bronx, founder of the breakaway Independent Democratic Caucus, and pulled him in the undertow. Between now and year’s end, he’ll likely have to clean out his desk and turn over constituent services work to Alessandra Biaggi as his successor.
…
(Sunday, September 16, 2018 12:00:00 AM)
Osaka bested Serena fair and square
New Paltz, N.Y.: After reading Carron J. Phillips’ column regarding Serena Williams’ loss at the U.S. Open (“Feeling’s all too familiar to black athletes,” Sept. 11), I felt like I needed to take a shower. Not offering one fact to support his assertions “Williams…
(Saturday, September 15, 2018 10:25:00 PM)
ARLINGTON, Tex. – The Giants are going to win on Sunday night. They are built to. They must. They will.
They have no other choice.
Maybe they aren’t built for the Super Bowl run that GM Dave Gettleman tried to go for in his first year. Maybe they are. Their offensive line certainly wasn’t up to…
(Saturday, September 15, 2018 10:10:00 PM)
The suggestion is insulting, ill-informed and just plain wrong. To hear some people tell it, you’d think that Sam Darnold was saddled with throwing and catching footballs all by himself, surrounded by a bunch of invisible teammates.
Imagine how good Darnold will be when he actually has good wide…
(Saturday, September 15, 2018 9:30:00 PM)
Time marches on, and the next generation in pinstripes steps up and takes the place of former champions. Hours after first-year Yankee manager Aaron Boone was tactfully trying to talk about the possibilities that veterans of the last Yankees World Series team may not have a place on this year’s…
(Saturday, September 15, 2018 9:20:00 PM)
The boxing world waited exactly one year for some vindication, and it was received Saturday night in the form of a thrilling fight that ended with Canelo Alvarez handing Gennady Golovkin his first loss as a professional fighter.
It was a highly-anticipated rematch, especially because last year’s…
(Saturday, September 15, 2018 9:00:00 PM)
It’s usually considered rude to go around telling people how great you are.
But what was Joe Namath supposed to do? Lie?
“We are going to win the game,” he said in 1969, three days before Super Bowl III. “I guarantee it.”
And he made good on it, too, when his Jets beat the heavily favored Baltimore…
(Saturday, September 15, 2018 9:00:00 PM)
Gaffney, S.C., is a rural Southern town with a population of about 13,000. It is famous for two things — its Peachoid and its serial killers.
The Peachoid, as any fan of “House of Cards” will tell you, is Gaffney’s million-gallon water tank, constructed and painted to look like a big ol’ peach….
(Saturday, September 15, 2018 9:00:00 PM)
General Horoscope for September 16, 2018
We are still caught in a complex dilemma that pits our logical heads against our illogical hearts today. Thankfully, a friendly Mercury-Jupiter sextile makes it much easier now to resolve the tension by simply making a choice without…
(Saturday, September 15, 2018 8:35:00 PM)
An 8-year-old Harlem boy suffering from asthma died Saturday after losing consciousness in his home, police said.
Cameron Wilson’s mother called 911 just before 6 p.m. after she found him unresponsive inside their apartment on Seventh Ave. near W. 122nd St., cops said.
Paramedics rushed Cameron…
(Saturday, September 15, 2018 7:20:00 PM)
A U.S. Border Patrol supervisor accused of killing four prostitutes was arrested Saturday after a fifth sex worker escaped his clutches and contacted police, authorities said.
Juan David Ortiz, 35, confessed to murdering four women and kidnapping a fifth in a two-week orgy of violence near Laredo,…
(Saturday, September 15, 2018 7:15:00 PM)
The pieces are slowly coming back, but will the Yankees have time to put them all back together? Aaron Judge and Aroldis Chapman could be ready to rejoin the roster in full before the end of this homestand, the last of the injured Yanks to make their way back from the disabled list.
But the Bombers…
(Saturday, September 15, 2018 6:45:00 PM)
Aroldis Chapman got through his bullpen Saturday without any issues.
The Yankees’ closer gave a thumbs up when asked if he is ready to progress on to a simulated game.
After that, Chapman could be quickly activated, Aaron Boone said.
“It’s possible it could just be the sim game and then we go,”…
(Saturday, September 15, 2018 5:15:00 PM)
A mother disappeared with her 6-year-old son after the boy’s father handed him over for a visit in a meet-up at an NYPD precinct stationhouse in the Bronx, cops said.
The bizarre incident kicked off about 6 p.m. on Sept. 7 when the parents of little Vincezo Dacchile rendezvoused at the 45th Precinct…
(Saturday, September 15, 2018 4:20:00 PM)
It’s up to Jacob deGrom now.
The Mets ace will take the ball Sunday afternoon with a lot riding on his start against Chris Sale. DeGrom will have a chance to bolster his case for the NL Cy Young award if he can silence the roaring Red Sox lineup, and he could help this improving club take two-of-three…
(Saturday, September 15, 2018 4:20:00 PM)
A high school fight over a boy has left one 16-year-old girl dead and a 17-year-old in jail.
Tanaya Lewis was charged with first-degree murder after she allegedly stabbed a classmate with a steak knife and then began laughing at her heinous act of horror, reported Detroit TV station WXYZ.
The gruesome…
(Saturday, September 15, 2018 4:00:00 PM)
A 28-year-old gang member died after he was shot in the back in Brooklyn early Saturday, officials said.
The victim was on Grant Ave. near Fulton St. in Cypress Hills about 4:30 a.m. when three men approached him, cops said.
One of the men opened fire, striking him in the back.
Responding officers…
(Saturday, September 15, 2018 3:55:00 PM)
It was Sandhi Ortiz-Del Valle’s passion and ambition that led her to a maximum-security prison in Rahway, New Jersey, back in 1989.
Her uniform, not surprisingly, had stripes.
At that point in Ortiz-Del Valle’s officiating career, she was obsessed, chasing basketball games wherever they were held,…
(Saturday, September 15, 2018 3:45:00 PM)
ST. PETERSBURG – A week ago, Buck Showalter was sitting at his desk in the visiting team manager’s office at Tropicana Field when his bench coach, John Russell, dropped the lineup card in front of him for the day’s game between the Orioles and Tampa Bay Rays. As he picked up the card, Showalter…
(Saturday, September 15, 2018 3:30:00 PM)
During a recent interview on ESPN-98.7’s “The Michael Kay Show,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone proclaimed: “All I want to be is authentic.”
Is the Yankees manager succeeding in his mission? He remains likeable, as he was during his eight seasons working as an analyst for ESPN, which included a stint…
(Sunday, September 16, 2018 12:01:00 AM)
The team president says he and GM Scott Perry have a plan to bring the Knicks back.
14 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2018.09.16)”
Judging by reports it looks like Noah is gone before training camp starts whether that is via trade (unlikely) or stretch waive (most likely).
Still convinced the FO should hold on as long as possible, but I guess if Noah gives the Knicks a deal similar to the Deng one that might not be too bad, but I guess it’s just a watch this space scenario. All depends how much Noah actually wants to play on a team willing to give him a meaningful role.
In light of the Noah saga (slowly) ending, I would be interested to hear what people think was worse: the Noah contract, or the Jerome James deal? Both appear to be headed on the same trajectory.
That’s a good, very knicksian question lol.
I think the Noah one pisses me off more because the team was on a clear downward slope towards a post-Melo rebuild and it was so obvious he was done. It not only brought a useless player on a terrible contract but it is still hindering the first decent chance at a real rebuild we’ve had in decades.
I mean, Noah was a very good player once and there was at least some marginal chance he would be a positive influence somewhere, while Big Snacks was always horrible, but those Knicks teams of 2005-2009 were doomed anyway because of everything else that his contract was more of another drop in a bucket full of crap, the team would have been hopeless and garbage anyway if you take away his contract. At least now there’s some hope for a better situation and Noah only hinders the possible moves this team could be making.
I don’t remember the terms of the James deal, but he was younger and I can see oneself holding out hope for him. I saw no hope for the Noah deal right away. Even if he had played reasonably at the beginning, he would have been taking minutes from prospects; and there was no chance he would live up to the contract for four years. So I vote Noah’s deal was worse, but it’s a tough call.
Big Snacks was 30 when the Knicks signed him and his deal was 5 million per year, a bit more than 10% of the cap at the time if I remember correctly. Noah was 31 and his deal is roughly 18% of the cap now.
It boggles my mind that James was already 30 when the Knicks signed him, I could swear he was younger than that.
Yeah I seemed to recall he was younger too, but time makes fools of us all I guess. On a numbers basis the Noah deal is probably worse. The dumb thing about the James deal was that Isiah signed him off the back of “contract year numbers” produced in 11 playoff games. What Isiah really paid $30 million for was a center that averaged 4.3 points and 3.1 rebounds per game across 4 years.
Noah is probably worse given he was clearly on the downside of his career and at best should have been offered a vets minimum. Good times.
As one of the most anti-Noah people on the board at the time of the signing I’ll say that I still think James was worse. The trend lines for Noah were absolutely awful and there was a very real chance that his body was never going to let him be a productive NBA player again (exactly what happened), but he at least had a real track record of being a player worthy of the salary we paid him. It was never the most likely outcome, but Noah certainly was capable of earning that contract or at least playing well enough for it to not be a disaster. He basically peaked in 13-14 (finishing 4th in MVP), had a down but still largely productive season in 14-15 and then 15-16 was mostly lost to injury. If he had bounced back to something like his 14-15 level for the Knicks and had a gradual decline from there the contract would have been not great but not awful.
Again, I’m not saying any of this was likely or that signing the contract was a good idea. To make up some numbers lets say the deal had a 10% chance of working out, a 20% chance of being an overpay that’s not a disaster, and a 70% chance of being a disaster. That’s obviously a terrible deal, but the Jerome James one was like 99% disaster. JJ averaged 5 points and 4 rebounds in his 4 seasons for Seattle (normally I’d use per36 numbers, but for a guy who could play about 45 seconds before he needed a blow I’m not sure how indicative they are). His “regular” stats sucked, his advanced stats sucked, his eye test sucked, he just sucked. The entire premise of the contract was that at age 29, 11 playoff games indicated a new level of play that he was going to continue going forward, setting aside the other ~250 games of his NBA career. And that’s before getting into soft factors like how bad an idea it is to give a big payday to a guy who clearly struggled dramatically with motivational issues. There was no chance of it ever working out even halfway.
The “best” thing about the Jerome James signing was that they follow that by trading for Eddy Curry. Let no one forget just how mindnumbingly stupid Isiah was a GM. Of course to bring it all home one of the pick in the Curry trade was used to pick Joakim Noah. Does it get any Knicksier?
For Noah, Phil Jackson actually built up two years worth of cap space to sign him. For Jerome James, Isiah simply burned the mid-level exception. James was a better mistake to make. The biggest problem was that the two moves that the James signing should have precluded still ended up happening: the aforementioned Curry trade, and the use of the full MLE the next summer too (Jared Jeffries).
When I think about how dumb Isiah was, at this great remove, I feel real admiration.
Speaking of comparing the Titanic to the Hindenberg, who was worse: Isiah or Layden?
Layden has repaired his reputation but his time here was a disaster. Unlike Isiah, who took over a roster that was a steaming pile of garbage, Layden inherited a team in the NBA Finals.
I’ll always give Isiah the edge in any bad-GM contest. I don’t think anyone else has ever painted such a comprehensive picture of having no freaking idea what they’re doing. He did pretty much nothing right and managed to cover nearly every mistake in the entire GM playbook; He had significant failures based on: going for players based on small playoff samples, going for washed up players, going for injury prone guys, going for head cases, trading too many picks, over prioritizing scoring, getting players who were too similar, over valuing “name” players. Basically if you made a list of common NBA GM mistakes, Isiah covered every single one of his bases. And he didn’t just completely master the standard realms of failure, he went above and beyond and threw in a sexual harassment scandal as well. To me he stands alone.
I think my brain automatically says Isiah because he was here longer and the off court stuff, but otherwise I think Layden was worse. The Allan Houston contract, how bad he botched the Ewing deal, the Weis / Nene / Sweetney picks, McDyess, the Sprewell contract and then trade, the Glen Rice trade that brought Eisley and Shandon Anderson to the team… everything he touched was garbage.
That’s also true of Isiah, but yeah, Isiah inherited a horrible team with no talent or cap space, Layden had something to work with at least and botched every single move.
I think Isiah had a top-to-bottom ineptitude that was unparalleled. But Layden’s moves were even dumber.
27 year old Marcus Camby and the 7th pick in the draft where Amar’e and Nene were available for McDyess coming off an injury was incredible. The Ewing trade for bad contracts. The Allan Houston deal. Shandon Anderson and Howard Eisley.
Him and Isiah can go punch for punch.
Isiah had a special ability to put together a team that was less than the sum of its parts. That last Isiah team had Stephon Marbury, Jamal Crawford, Quentin Richardson, Zach Randolph and Eddy Curry playing major minutes. Those guys were all decent players (well maybe not Curry) but they made no sense together whatsoever.