Knicks Morning News (2018.09.18)

OK so what’s the most anyone here would give up for Jimmy Butler in a deadline-type deal?

Pros for trading for Jimmy – great two way player. Hard worker. Wants out / expiring so perhaps the cost would not be that much. We could not sign him outright (as a 2nd “max-type” player without making many other deals).

Cons – seems that he doesn’t get along with others. Will be 30 at start of his next contract. Not a great shooter (although TS has been 58-59 last 2 seasons).

He actually doesn’t have that much mileage on him — ~3100 college minutes + ~16600 pro minutes = ~20,000 minutes total. By comparison Durant has played 34000+ minutes, Kyrie has played ~17000 minutes, Kawhi has played about 17500 minutes. Never mind Lebron who has played 54000+ minutes. On a 4 year deal even the last year might not be that bad.

I think I’d go as far as Timmy, Lance, and a top-10 protected 2020 pick (I know Mills just said we would not trade picks). That trade would net us another $4+MM in 2019 cap space. Minny would get the pick, and also 2 guys that can contribute right away (and Timmy is signed long-term and is sort of young).

A lineup of Kyrie, Frank, Butler, Knox, and KP might be kinda fun and maybe kinda good?

Good question Frank. Here are the pros of a deadline Butler trade as I see them:

1. If we traded THJ or Noah as the matching salary, we’d be getting rid of a bad contract. If we traded Lee, we’d be getting rid of a mediocre contract.
2. It would give us a leg up on re-signing Butler in the offseason.
3. It would give us the cap space to sign another max FA in the offseason.
4. It would turn NY into an attractive destination for a max FA.

Here are the cons:
1. We’d be locking ourselves in to going all-in on winning next season.
2. If no other superstar signed with us in the offseason, we’d be stuck in mediocrity with a 30+ star.
3. We would win too much this season, hurting our lottery odds.

Given that I think the front office is going to go all-in next offseason whether we like it or not, I probably would make the trade you proposed. If Minnesota insisted on Kanter’s expiring deal instead of THJ, I would say no.

“Hey guys, how does the roster look?”

“Well, we’re clearly one of the worst teams in the NBA”

“Let’s make some win-now trades then!”

“Ok!”

Because he’s 7’3?, can be a high usage scoring option, hits 3’s at a high clip and is an elite defensive player who lifted a garbage team of defenders to 15th in DRtg when he was healthy last season.

Regarding KP and the max.

To that I would add:

1. He’s physically immature compared to some of the players he’s routinely compared to and was expected to take longer to develop right from the start.

2. He’s been used poorly since he’s been on the team.

He’s 7’3″, long, and athletic enough to slam back offensive rebounds or catch alley oops, yet he gets fewer dunks than a lot of players with half that much going for them. We’ve had him taking mid range shots off the dribble and other such nonsense when he should be shooting 3s and getting more attempts inside. His shot distribution is not ideal.

3. Some of his problem has been decision making, but there’s no indication it’s an intellectual thing. He’s incapable of learning. He was inexperienced as the #1 option and didn’t have much help for awhile.

All these things suggest there’s a lot more untapped potential there. He has the talent and work ethic. He needs the coaching and help (and to stay healthy).

We are on a longer glide path now they we were previously. Previously, for better or worse, we were trying to both get better “now” by adding experienced players while also adding young pieces to develop long term. Now we are are “all in” on all young players. Someone Butler’s age makes much less sense to us now than before. He makes sense to teams that are closer to their destination or that tend to look around and try to get better every year from wherever they can find value (like Miami, San Antonio, Houston etc..) If we were on a different glide path and were still trying to build a team with a combination of value adding moves, I’d be more inclined to trade for him because he’s very good & is probably going to be pretty good for the duration of his next contract. It would be more a matter of price.

I just don’t think there’s a possible trade that fulfills both a) we don’t give up a pick or 1 or 2 young guys b) makes sense for Minnesota.

Butler was their win-now move, their young players, mainly KAT, are ready to compete and the rest of the roster is either ancient and bad or just bad. Unless the Knicks are offering good picks, why the hell would the Wolves want THJ, so they can play two slightly different versions of Andrew Wiggins at the same time? And it doesn’t make sense for them to want Knox or Ntilikina either because they’re not ready to be playoff contributors which is obviously a priority, considering KAT’s pending extension.

Even if the Knicks were willing to part with the young players I don’t see why the Wolves would be interested in it, there’s no way they don’t get better offers in terms of players. If the Knicks are giving up picks then of course that changes, but Mills was adamant he wasn’t going to do that just yesterday.

Just not trading for him already takes away the worst possible scenario, which would be giving up assets for him, then striking out on free agency and him leaving for nothing next season. That is enough reason to not do a deal unless it’s really for absolute peanuts, which is incredibly unlikely.

I don’t want the team to plan one year ahead on the possibility that Kyrie Irving will really want to come as a free agent. If these guys want to play for the Knicks they can come as free agents and then we see what can be done with the cap / assets etc, then you can deal away Hardaway with a protected pick for example if it guarantees you’ll get both while keeping everyone else, etc.

Doing prospective deals one season ahead based on unlikely possibilities is an automatic no for me.

“Hey guys, how does the roster look?”

“Well, we’re clearly one of the worst teams in the NBA”

“Let’s make some win-now trades then!”

“Ok!”

well that’s a little disingenous. If we had a healthy KP, I’m not sure anyone would say that we would be one of the worst teams in the NBA right now. The major issue for this team this year is going to be defense, and that’s because we will be missing one of the best mistake-erasers in the league for much of the year.

By the time the trade deadline rolls around, I think we will have a reasonable idea of a few important things – 1) how healthy KP is; 2) what kind of difference Fizdale does or doesn’t make; 3) whether Kevin Knox is real; 4) what year 3 looks like for Frank.

If KP isn’t healthy or looks like he’ll never return to being what we thought he could be, obviously that changes the long-term calculus for the team. If Fizdale stinks and there’s a player revolt, obviously that changes things. If Kevin Knox looks like Kentucky Knox and not summer league Knox, that changes things. And if Frank looks no different than last year except bigger, that changes things.

That said – it’s plausible that KP looks really good (it’s possibly LIKELY, given what has been written about his injury/surgery/rehab), Fizdale actually connects with the players and runs a modern system, Knox looks promising, and Frank plays his usual great defense and shoots 35% from 3 and actually gets to the cup every now and again.

If that’s the case, you’re saying you wouldn’t trade Tim Hardaway, Lance, + a lottery protected first for Jimmy Butler if it also meant being able to recruit/sign a (presumably healthy) Kyrie Irving? Or Kevin Durant? Remember, there is basically no chance of signing 2 significant players without also sending out assets to move other contracts.

This is mostly a useless exercise given Minny will prob get better offers anyway, but still.

Did you mean “He’s capable of learning”? That makes more sense with the rest of the post.

Yes.

I saw that and was going to add another post to correct it, but figured everyone would figure out what I meant. I do stuff like that all the time on message boards. I write a sentence, don’t like it, fix part of it, and then screw up the meaning or make a grammar error because I didn’t read it again. I’m not sure if it’s laziness or that I’m at work and do a lot of this while looking over my shoulder. 🙂