(Tuesday, September 18, 2018 4:35:05 PM)
Courtney Lee arrived a week and a half ago at the Knicks’ Tarrytown training center for voluntary workouts, gearing up for Monday’s start of training camp. The Knicks guard just doesn’t know how long he’ll be there. According to an NBA source, Lee’s preference if he gets traded is to be dealt to a playoff…
(Tuesday, September 18, 2018 9:25:06 AM)
It is unknown if Frank Ntilikina will start. It is unclear if Ntilikina will play the majority of time at point guard. What is clear for Ntilikina entering his second season is his looks — a newly sculpted, taller body after an offseason that has Knicks management drooling. The low-key Frenchman even boasts blond streaks…
[NYTimes] The Los Angeles Clippers Signed a Big Star. From Sports Illustrated. (Wednesday, September 19, 2018 12:18:27 AM)
Lee Jenkins, one of the magazine’s best-known writers, has prompted head-scratching from around N.B.A. with his move from covering the league to team executive.
(Tuesday, September 18, 2018 11:27:26 PM)
Amid reports indicating that Courtney Lee is seeking to be traded to a contender, the 32-year-old told ESPN that he does not want to be traded and is happy to remain with the team.
(Tuesday, September 18, 2018 1:28:15 PM)
To up his game entirely, Fizdale wants the young guard to be more aggressive and physical. In turn, Ntilikina hit the weights.
60 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2018.09.19)”
folks,
Steve, Perry and Fiz are going to drag this rebuild as much as possible. Hence, the town hall propaganda. Wont make any bets where if wrong they end up losing their jobs. We should be making the Jimmy deal, if they take Courtney, Timmy and a top 5 protected 2020 1st, but we wont.
KP, Jimmy, Knox, Burke, Frank, Mitch and $40M in cap space this summer makes NYC the #1 free agent destination. Add a Max guy; mid-level guy; extend KP & lets go to war vs Boston and Toronto. Risk chemistry issues, injuries, lack of grit needed in playoffs etc???…For that you need guts. These three guys don’t have any. They will drag this out; hope for a miracle draft pick and talk about building the team the right way…no trades no big agent signings, talk about developing the youth etc…
talk talk talk…look up and its 2022. Where did the time go?
There are a number of permutations that would result in the Knicks being surprisingly good this year. It is actually a blessing in disguise that KP is out for at least the first 30 games. Without the pressure to build the team around his game, the focus can be squarely on developing a team culture based on the young guys. That means Robinson and Knox get minutes right away, and hungry guys like Frank, Dotson, Baker, Vonleh, Hezonja and Mudiay (yuk) will get a chance to play free and loose, without the pressure of winning.
The most essential ingredients to winning are Kanter and Burke. Both would have to have career years for them to be in play for an 8th seed (which should be had for 38 wins or so.)
Kanter is in a contract year and desperately wants to stay in NY, even though the odds are stacked against him. I expect him to play his usual strong and efficient offensive game and to improve marginally on defense due to being in incredible shape and having a coach that will encourage and enable him to make modest improvements (face it, he’ll never be actually good on D.) Overall, he will have to play like a top 20-30 player in the league, and maybe at age 26, this is the year he does so. He’ll certainly have the opportunity.
I’m convinced that the Burke we saw last year is the real deal. He’s a very, very good offensive PG, and in this contract year, he’s gonna take firm hold of the reins to this team because no one (certainly not Frank, Mudiay or Baker) is there to challenge him. I think he relishes this opportunity and plays like he’s been let out of jail and has a new lease on life. He’s got lob target in Robinson, a low-post offensive rebounder in Kanter, and 3-pt guys to kick out to in TH2, Dotson, Knox, and Hezonja. For the team to win, he needs to put up 20 and 10.
If these 2 things happen, the rooks play like NBA players and KP comes back and plays reasonably well, the Knicks can make noise in the putrid EC.
Of course, this is far from the most favorable outcome for the future of the team. A far better scenario is that we trade Kanter for assets, the rooks play like rooks, Hezonja flame out, KP takes the year off, and tank our way to Zion Williamson. I’m just pointing out that we could possibly be better than projected, for better or for worse. (actually the best outcome is to just miss the playoffs and then hit the lottery, but I digress…)
Seems like a safe bet that they would. Go for it Z-Man!
A starting line up of Burke, Hardaway, Hezonja, Knox, and Kanter should be bad enough for us to lose a bunch of games. None of those guys are knockdown 3 point shooters, and our best chance of stopping people would be the forward combination of Kevin Knox and Mario Hezonja. We won’t stop anybody and we shouldn’t be able to shoot enough threes to keep up with anybody.
This season needs to be a race for Zion Williamson. We get Zion Williamson and then we can sell Kyrie on joining Ntilikina, Zion, Knox, and KP in New York City. Or we can strike out in free agency and continue to build an awesome group of players.
Oh man that really could be our starting lineup. hahahaha.
Like, every year we go through the same stuff, yes, there’s a chance the Knicks play well and that all the players develop and we could make noise and all…
The reality is that this team is really, really garbage. It is definitely one of the 5 worst teams in the league. This team went 6-26 without Porzingis and are returning 4 of the 5 starters of that team, plus replaced veterans like O’Quinn, McDermott, Beasley and Jack for literal rookies and failed projects in Hezonja and Vonleh. Rookies usually suck is kind of a rule, but specially both Knicks rookies are as incredibly raw as they can be and should not be expected to produce anytime soon.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m very much hopeful about this year and a lot more than with last year’s team, as there’s more young talent to look forward to their development, but this team on the court should be absolutely terrible. It might be the one of the 3 worst teams in the NBA before Porzingis comes back.
Yeah, they could maybe make some noise. I just hope that noise ain’t the noise of another 7-10th pick in the lottery, because I’m pretty sure this team won’t even sniff the playoffs.
Is Fiz the band Steve Perry formed after he left Journey?
Yep.
Seems like being a ‘good fan’ requires a high dose of delusion.
I’ve read a lot of posts where people use inherently vague language like how it wouldn’t be outrageous for us to make the playoffs or there are worlds where it could happen. But though precision is elusive, these kinds of statements are meaningless without at least some flailing quantification. There are some worlds where the Knicks disband mid-year and become a dance troupe. I’m curious if there’s any interesting disagreement on this. How many posters here think we have at least 1 in 4 chance of nabbing a playoff spot?
I honestly don’t know how these Knicks will perform. What I do know is that I agree with Z-man that it’s a blessing that KP is out to start the season. It’s good for the tank but it’s also good to give the new guys a chance to establish themselves. In many ways, he’ll be coming to a new team. Hezonja, Vonleh, Knox, Mitchell, Burke and Mudiay are all starters/rotation guys that haven’t played with him. My guess is that KP is back for the Christmas game.
Butler is a very good player but he’s just turned 29. He’s at his prime but by the time the Knicks are good, is he going to be on the down-slope of his career? I don’t trade away any picks for him. I don’t trade any 1st round picks for anyone over 25. Being good isn’t the objective – being great is. I would trade THJr or Lee for him. Sure. But Minnesota’s not going to want them. So it’s a moot point as far as I’m concerned.
Also, my hope is that Knox is Butler or better. Adding Butler at this time would undercut Knox’s development.
What I’m thinking, post Xmas, is this rotation:
Burke, Nitilikina, Knox, Mitchell, KPorzingis
Mudiay, Hezonja, THJr, Vonleh, Kanter
That leaves Thomas, Kornet, Lee, Baker and Dotson struggling to find playing time.
And I agree with Bruno, We’ll be stinking and that’s OK because adding another lottery pick is important.
My question is this. Is there a scenario where we are bad enough to land a top 5 pick but look promising enough to attract a star free agent next summer?
Cause most likely we’re either really bad and get that top 3 pick but that turns top free agents away from us cause we got a few more years of rebuilding to do OR we’re better than advertised and make the playoffs or barely miss them…thus missing on a top pick but look promising enough where Kyrie or Kawhi or KD wants to come here.
The only way I see us having it both ways is that we suck really bad at the beginning of the season. Porzingis comes back after the new year, closer to the all-star break and it takes him a few weeks or month to really get going. Then he looks awesome the last month or two of the season, the team is playing well and we’re winning games but its not enough to make up for how bad we were in November, December and January.
@10
Yeah, that’s my point. There is a plausible scenario where the Knicks become good this year, but out of all possibilities the ones on which this team sucks are just more likely, and those optimistic takes ignore the scenarios for every other team in the league too. I’m sure there’s a world in which Brooklyn’s young guys all develop and they make the playoffs, there’s another where Blake Griffin is a bonafide superstar and leads the Pistons to the 4th seed, one in which the Magic young players progress and they become a lot better, etc etc. The Knicks could conceivably be better than last year and better than expected an still worse than others relative to the league’s overall strength.
I don’t see this team winning more than 32 games ever, and I think that’s the team’s ceiling. I think the start without Porzingis will be an absolute mess and will kill the season right away before it had any chance to come to a playoff push. If I had to bet now without seeing preseason or training camps I would go with 25 wins, maybe 23 depending on KP’s return schedule.
@12
The point is: why the hell would Kawhi, Kyrie or Durant want to leave their 55-60 win teams, that are likely to be 55-60 win teams for at the very least two more years, to join the 8th seed in the east who just won 38 games if winning now is what they care about?
I think it’s far more attractive to these guys to have elite potential talent, which the draft can provide, than being swept by the Celtics in the first round. The only reason any of those guys would want to come to the Knicks is for some weird attachment to NY, which would still be with the Knicks if they win 17 or 47 games.
I would happily take this risk over the risk inherent in giving him a 5 year 25% max.
Having said that, my suggestion was to split the difference and offer him a 5 year, fixed dollar contract with a $27mm AAV, so we’d stand to benefit from a rising salary cap.
I say this a lot but it bears repeating:
He is not an elite defensive player. He is an elite rim protector. But rebounding is an equal factor to shooting percentage, and he is a terrible rebounder.
There certainly won’t be any chants of “Defense” “Defense” “Defense”.
KP is a power forward playing on the perimeter most of the time. He’s also skinny as a rail with weak hands and arms. He gets pushed out of the paint all the time and has the ball taken away from him sometimes even when he has position and gets to the ball first. The rest of the time he defers to Kanter, who is a very good rebounder and has a body more suited to bang others bigs (and not risk getting hurt).
So yeah, he’s a bad rounder. Add 20 pounds of muscle and play him at C and he’ll rebound better. I’m not so sure we even want that though. On defense we want him roaming a little protecting the paint and on offense we want him knocking down 3s at a 40% clip and Kanter (eventually Robinson) trying to clean up the ones he misses.
As long as the “team” is built to rebound well, I don’t care if KP isn’t getting a ton of them because of his role.
I realized after writing this that technically it’s half the factor if you’re using the 4 Factors, but you get my point. He gives back a lot on defense by not being able to rebound.
You don’t have to take our word for it — Zach Lowe / Brian Windhorst gave the Knicks the 2nd best chance of signing Durant next summer if I remember correctly (after the Warriors) – certainly they said there had been some backchannel buzz about that. I assume it’s entered KD’s mind that his legacy will always be tainted by his teaming up with a 73-win team (Clyde’s “asterisk” comment) — but should he fix the Knicks, that asterisk will forever be gone.
Kyrie had the sad-sack Knicks on his short list of teams he wanted to be traded to. He’s also a Jersey kid.
Why would Lebron want to go to LA rather than Philly? To play with Lance Stephenson and Rondo? Or the immortal Mo Wagner?
A team with 7’3″ big who can’t rebound is inherently built to not rebound well.
Play him at power forward with a center, and teams are going to go small and pull him out of the paint, negating his rim protection and taking advantage of lateral movement that isn’t on par with the wings of the NBA.
Counter that by putting him at Center, and you’re giving up extra possessions every game because he can’t adequately rebound his position. (The only solution to that is paying a premium for players at other positions who can rebound extraordinarily well. Which is why – full circle here – you can’t give him a max because you need cap room to get those guys!)
If the guy ever made a playoff series, his weaknesses and the impact they have on team structure would jump off the TV. But he hasn’t. Which is why it’s absolutely PREPOSTEROUS to give him a max. I can’t think of any player other than Wiggins and Embiid who got a max contract before even making the playoffs. Wiggins was a franchise-crippling mistake, and Embiid was a calculated risk on a player who, when healthy, demonstrated that he was immensely superior to Porzingis and almost a lock to be an MVP candidate when healthy.
Follow up to:
MAYBE Zion Williamson is the evolutionary Charles Barkley and we can draft him, which would solve the Porzingis problem. That’s what I’m hoping for, at least.
Re: KP’s defense – I think it’s really hard to measure his defensive impact when he’s playing next to Kanter and Jack, while also playing out of position chasing stretch 4s. Smallish sample but remember that if you put him on the floor with a reasonable perimeter defender (Frank) and without obviously awful defenders (Jack/Kanter), the Knicks had 457 possessions with a DRtg of 98.9 -> 97th percentile. Even if you take out the lineups with KOQ (who mitigated the rebounding issue), Frank+KP (minus Jack/Kanter/KOQ) was still an elite defense with a DRtg of 100 (96th percentile) in spite of horrible rebounding (4th percentile) — they did that by putting a lid on the basket (eFG-allowed of 43.1% -> 99th percentile and forcing turnovers (91st percentile)).
Hornacek was really the worst. The most obvious 3-man combination was always Frank+THJ+KP which had a net rating of +14.8 in 236 possessions (a 97th percentile defense and an 87th percentile offense). The fact that it only played 236 possessions together is coaching malpractice.
Rebounding is only 1 of the 4 factors.
If you’re great or at least above average at the other 3, or are able to mitigate KP’s rebounding issue with good rebounders at the other possessions, you can still be a great defensive team even in the playoffs.
KP’s never going to be a great rebounder but if he can just be like 35th percentile for centers, I don’t think it’ll be a problem for the team to overcome. Horford has been one of the worst rebounding bigs in the league the last few years and it doesn’t seem to have prevented Boston from being an elite defense. What prevented BOS from being an elite defense until last year was playing an obviously awful defender (Isaiah) at the point of attack.
I’m not saying that I would want to give KP the max – obviously I’d rather have him on a Giannis or Gobert-like deal. The real question is whether you’d trade him a la Demarcus Cousins to avoid that max deal.
So Butler is asking for a trade and his preferred destinations are perhaps the three most joked about franchises in the NBA: Nets, Clippers, and source of our collective misery.
No first round picks, no KP/Frank/Knox/Mitch Rob. If you can somehow swing it without using any of those assets, have fun!
Oh boy. This will be a real test for this FO.
The argument that KP’s rim protection can be minimized when he plays the four hasn’t played out at all. KP spent the vast majority of his time at the four last year and still managed to be leading the NBA in blocks when he went down. On top of that, the Knicks overall defense at the rim is elite when KP is playing and that is with Kanter playing a lot of minutes next to him.
The rebounding argument isn’t a good one either. His individual rebounding numbers might look poor but his contributions to team rebounding have been good. The numbers in parentheses are where that number would have ranked in team overall ranking that year.
Team overall DRB%:
17-18: KP on court 77.6% (14th)
17-18: KP off court 76.1% (28th)
16-17: KP on court 74.0% (30th)
16-17: KP off court 74.1% (30th)
15-16: KP on court 76.4% (13th)
15-16: KP off court 75.2% (20th)
On overall defense he has a similar effect:
Opp DRtg
17-18: KP on court 108.2 (14th)
17-18: KP off court 113.1 (30th)
16-17: KP on court 110.7 (23rd)
16-17: KP off court 112.9 (29th)
15-16: KP on court 106.9 (17th)
15-16: KP off court 108.3 (22nd)
As you can see the Knicks were above average in defensive rebounding and defense last year when KP was on the court and 28th in defensive rebounding and last in defense when he wasn’t on the court. The two years before we see a similar but smaller difference on defense and a similar effect in his rookie year on rebounding and no difference on rebounding his second year.
The effect KP had on our defense last year was elite. It was more than just rim protection and he was not only not a liability rebounding the ball but the Knicks were considerably better with him on the court.
He’ll end up on the Clips. They have a number of young players to send, have a generally talented roster that can contend, and their GM didn’t just say that he would never trade 1st round picks…
Harris and Lou Williams might just get it done.
I don’t think Marks will give up any more than the Knicks will give up. That Nets roster is really devoid of talent other than young dudes like Jarrett Allen that you’d think they wouldn’t want to trade.
I can kinda imagine Thibs not wanting to trade him within the western conference though.
If I’m Philly, I take Butler on a rental, send out Chandler, Bayless (ie. expiring contracts) and a pick.
@20
But that’s exactly my point Frank. That if they want to come to NY they want to come anyway, no matter if they we win 27 or 37 games, if they’re already interested while the team is this garbage.
Lebron just left a team that went to Finals 4 years in a row to join a team in a tougher conference that didn’t make the playoffs.
Kawhi was traded to Toronto. He didn’t choose to go there and Toronto has a history of players leaving them bc they don’t want to live in Canada.
Kyrie was traded to Boston, a team he did not want to go to. He is from New York, has expressed interest in joining the Knicks and Boston is not exactly the friendliest city to live in if you’re not white.
Jimmy Butler was traded to Minnesota and it is widely reported that he doesn’t want to be there and doesn’t get along with Wiggins and Towns. Minnesota is also a franchise that players tend to not want to play for and will leave.
The point is..you can’t just look at a team’s record and say “well this team is better than the Knicks so only an idiot would leave them to go for us.” There are so many factors outside of the most recent win loss record that determine where a player wants to go, especially an elite player who has his choices. All things equal they will probably go to the better team but factors like family, background, where they are in their career, how they ended up on their current team, etc…all play a big factor.
No on Butler. Depletes our assets in a rebuild year.
Don’t most of the posters here think Knox is garbage? If so, why not a package for Butler centered around Knox? Sure he’s valuable now but if he actually plays and reveals he’s garbage he’ll be worth very little.
Similar to the Wiggins-Love deal.
This team will be atrocious on defense. We were 23rd last year with better defensive players. Kanter, THJ, and Burke might lead the team in minutes, and all are brutal defensive players. Mario is bad. Mudiay is bad. Knox will be bad as a rookie, because most rookies are. Lance and Lee are average. Frank and Porzingis are the only two rotation players who are above average, and Zing might miss 3/4 of the season.
Even if Burke, Mario, and Knox hit their offensive upsides, I don’t see how this team will be any good. We’ll be bottom 5 on defense when Zing gets back. We’d have to be elite offensively to be anywhere near .500.
The Knicks, Nets and Clippers? Where did Butler come up with that list, by drawing teams out of a hat?
Can someone explain?
I think the Nets and the Clippers are definitely jumping at Butler now and it’s good for us. We shouldn’t be offering too much, let them bid against themselves. Id take Butler because he is a terrific player, but not at the cost of an unprotected pick or Knox / Ntilikina etc.
If they want Lee + a protected first in 2021 they can take it, if not good luck in Brooklyn. I’d maybe include Knox if it means no picks, like Knox + Lee or THJ or something like that.
New York and LA. Dude wants to grow his brand. Doesn’t want to be overshadowed by Lebron on the lakers. Seems pretty clear.
Maybe he wants to live in NYC or LA and doesn’t want to join the Lebronettes.
He can’t get traded to the Lakers, literally, so it’s not so much about LeBron as the fact that he wants out now and the Lakers literally can’t match his salary.
I would consider something like Lance + Lee + Hardaway for Dieng and Butler.
Dieng is a significantly negative asset that, if we took him on, might substitute for us giving a good pick. That trade wouldn’t change our long-term cap outlook much.
I really have a hard time believing that Thibs will get any sort of good offer. They are clearly over a barrel here. There are a ton of teams including NY/LAL/BKN who will have max cap space this summer, Towns is threatening not to sign if Butler isn’t gone, and Butler’s value goes down every day he isn’t on his ultimate team. And what if Butler gets injured? I kinda think this is going to go down pretty soon, maybe even before the weekend is out.
I’m agnostic as to whether the Knicks should make a move. I like Butler a lot and it’d be super fun to have a team that is halfway decent with a chance of being really quite good if KP comes back healthy and Knox/Robinson/Frank fulfill their potential – and we would have near max cap space for 2019 FA as well. But if the FO thinks he’s too old and doesn’t fit the timeline, that’s fine with me too.
Like I said, I would not give up KP, Frank, Knox, or MitchRob, nor would I give up Kanter’s expiring (so as not to lose cap space this summer) or an unprotected 1st. Anything else on the roster I’d throw at Thibs and see what sticks.
The rough thing is that Wiggins and KAT seem to legitimately HATE the guy. Wiggins brother was commemorating the fact he asked for a trade on Twitter even. The same thing happened with the Bulls, when he was absolutely hated by the young players who took Rondo’s side on the feud.
There is a trend going on and well, the only relevant players on the Knicks are young… could be a recipe for disaster.
The trades suggested on ESPN are pretty outrageous IMHO other than the Tobias + LouW for Butler trade. No chance the Knicks are giving up Frank AND a top-5 protected 1st. No chance the Bucks are giving up Middleton and Maker for a guy who’s a rental. Even less chance that the Sixers are trading Markelle Fultz when they wouldn’t include him in a trade for Kawhi.
yeah that is definitely worrisome, and with the emphasis the knicks are putting on the kumbaya locker room vibe, maybe something they will avoid.
It could also be that the young players on those teams legitimately deserved Butler’s scorn. I mean, Wiggins sucks. Towns IS awful on defense. And the Bulls young players are terrible players.
Yeah, but what about our young players? KP has already been called a p**** by one coach, we don’t know if the others suck or not. To fuck up an environment of development for one year of a potential rental that doesn’t even make us contenders?
Including Knox in a trade is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. Butler is over his prime, why would you give a lottery pick. This is the shit we always regret doing.
Let butler come here on his own next season, what are we contending for this season, nothing.
Timmy for butler straight up
Hasn’t that “players need to be in LA or NY to grow their brand” ship sailed? Why not another shitty team like Dallas or Detroit? Really what’s the difference?
From what I’ve heard/read Butler’s work ethic is apparently intense and he takes the game super seriously, which is how he came from being so unheralded to one of the best 10 or so players in the league. And he seems to want other players to take is at seriously as he does. If he could successfully bring that culture to our young players, it could obviously be pretty beneficial but it’s got to be a pretty big red flag that so far he only seems to know how to use his demanding-ness to alienate players, not to actually get them to do what he wants.
If Porzingis was healthy I think we’d be a lot more tempted to do what it takes to get this done. As it is this is an easy pass. We’re not dealing future value for current value at the moment. Thanks for thinking of us though!
Let’s see what happens in a playoff series against a team that goes small when KP is in with a center. We haven’t gotten there yet.
You’re isolating things to avoid looking at the total picture. There are no large minute samples of us being good defensively and rebounding at the same time.
We rebounded fine when KP was on the court because Kanter was often on the court. But that robbed Peter to pay Paul, because our defense was significantly worse with Kanter on the court.
These are the kinds of problems you have with a flawed player, and that’s what he is. A very good player with immense potential and flaws that are glaringly obvious and should disqualify him from getting a max contract.
I think it’s maybe less “growing the brand” at this point then that’s just where the dudes want to live. I agree with you in this day and age with so much of “branding” being tied to the internet and the league being such a national (and international) phenomenon there’s not that big of a difference between being in NY and Dallas. On the fringes I’m sure it still matters a bit, but it’s not a critical factor.
I think with Lebron it was 100% clear that his brand was doing just fine in Cleveland and would have continued to be fine if he’d signed to play in Nome, Alaska. But he (and his family) wanted to have their in-season home be the same place as their off-season home in LA. Obviously they’re not there all the time given how much travel there is but it’s probably, what, 75-100 extra nights a year where you’re in NY/LA instead of Minneapolis? I understand why that’s a factor for these guys (and I don’t intend that as a slight on Minneapolis, which seems perfectly lovely).
Butler was in Chicago his whole career and that’s as big of a market you’ll find outside of NY and LA. I think it’s more likely that he just wants out of Minny for basketball and contractual reasons, and he wants to go to teams that will offer him the big deal he wants + are located in places where he wants to live.
The guy barely uses social media and doesn’t strike me as the type of guy who cares much about non-basketball stuff. It’s probably a combination of just wanting to live in those cities + wanting to be the guy on a max contract with his own team.
I just don’t want a repeat Carmelo situation. We can’t forget that we’re talking about a legitimate unquestioned superstar, it’s just that the timing doesn’t feel right for a deal and the outside aspects of it (his age, his contract, our cap situation etc) are less than ideal.
Adding Butler would take us from a 26 win team to a 36 win team? Who gives a shit. There’s no way we’re contending this season, and we can just sign him next year if we really want him
Not sure how carefully you read my post but it’s a “best case scenario” post that culminates in “The most essential ingredients to winning are Kanter and Burke. Both would have to have career years for them to be in play for an 8th seed (which should be had for 38 wins or so.)” It is not a prediction.
So if your best case scenario is 32 wins, that scenario is actually consistent with what I wrote. A team that wins 32 will probably be “in play” for a playoff spot for most of the year in the EC. The Vegas line is set at 29.5. I think that’s pretty accurate, and if I had to bet I’d probably bet the under.
But shit happens. Who expected Oladipo to be one of the best players in the league last year? Indiana was projected as a lottery team and ran off 48 wins, mainly based on his development into a star, and less so on the equally unexpected emergence of Sabonis. It’s highly unlikely but possible, and all I was doing was pointing our what I think would have to happen for us to get to contending for an 8th seed in an historically weak conference. Even 38 wins still means that they are a bad team, probably a bottom 10 team in the league.
But if you feel that you need to be your usually snarky prick self towards my posts, sure, go ahead.
This is not a young Melo, Tmac etc…
We’re talking about a certified stud; a top ten two-way player in the league and the best shooting guard in the NBA; just last week he turned 29 years old; serious about winning with an of the charts work ethic; culture setter and proper role model for youth. No bad habits plus I have to admit, he’s really easy on my eyes. His value is down now that everyone knows Thibs has to move him. Its a perfect storm and opportunity for us to steal the best shooting guard in the NBA for a mid-ceiling young kid (Frank) and likely non-lottery, bottom of the 1st round 2020 pick, while at the same time dumping Courtney’s contract.
Where are all the advanced stats on Butler? Bet they demonstrate the same thing I said above.
The only reason we don’t do this trade is because “we’re not ready and it speeds up our rebuild”… HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Three musketeers have no guts and without guts there is no glory. Like I said, look up at its 2022, they still have a job cause they did nothing wrong and we’re talking about the rebuild proces. Where did the time go?
I don’t agree with any of this.
Dirk wasn’t a very good rebounder for a 7′ 1″ player partly because of his role and even though he was WAY stronger than KP is at this stage. Teamed with Chandler Dallas did fine.
KP is already a better defender than Dirk ever was, but as I said, KP’s rebounding should improve a little as he gets stronger and smaller players aren’t pushing him out, taking the ball away from him, or smacking it out of his hands because he’s so weak.
Rebounding is team and role issue. The idea is to fit the pieces together properly. It’s the least of our problems. It wasn’t a problem with KP and Kanter on the court together.
Everyone can say this in every thread until next year. It’s not going to change a thing.
If he comes back, stays healthy, and by the end of the season we can confidently say he has picked up where he left off or improved, he’s going to get a max contract. All the reasons have been highlighted to death, but the biggest is that’s he’s already better that all the BS boxscore models everyone is looking at say and everyone in the league knew coming in he was a 3-5 year project because of his body. It’s still early for him relative to players that come in with NBA bodies.
Every team in the NBA including the Celtics, Spurs, Heat, etc… would give him a max contract if he was on their team and he came back good.
We all know it can all go to hell with another serious injury like his ACL or a series of them that destroys his development. But every team in the NBA is going to take the risk because of his age and upside. You don’t toss talents like this in the garbage because your favorite flawed model says he’s over rated now. You pay them and hope. This is one of the risks of the draft. You get players so young and sometimes so under developed, you have to pay them before you know how good they are going to be.
@52
I mean, at this point at the very least we’re both snarky pricks to each other right?
When you start with “There are a number of permutations that would result in the Knicks being surprisingly good this year.”, I don’t read that as “this is what I see as the best case scenario”, I read this as “there are multiple possibilities that result in the Knicks being surprisingly good”.
Me, and ptmilo who I guess was even snarkier than me if that’s even a word that exists, were mostly arguing that we think this is super unlikely. Your post came out to me as saying that it’s more likely than people think, and I disagree, I think it’s extremely unlikely. Is it possible? Of course it is. But every offseason we have posts like yours outlining the possibilities of everything going right, and well, they never really materialize.
Well, apparently Towns is adamant that he’s only signing the extension if Butler is not on the team.
That is a good sign as it literally kills any leverage the Wolves has, so the big offers involving picks should instantly be off the table. At least makes me a bit more confident that Mills and Perry will actually stick to the plan.
I just figured I’d make my comment a post. 😉
http://knickerblogger.net/knicks-jimmy-butler-steve-mills-scott-perry/
I just don’t buy this. Some coach who goes small with Kanter and KP on the floor is committing to defend KP with some guy who is 6’8″ or less. Coaches are going to be scared of KPs offense in that case, and I think rightfully so. And that coach will be giving up rebounding also, because that guy is both smaller than a typical big and has to stick to KP like glue to have any chance of defending him.
This is just terrible. All of it. Especially “you pay them and hope”. That’s exactly what you should never do. You pay for production you expect to receive, you don’t pay and pray for something better than you’ve ever seen.
At least, no GM who knows what they’re doing does.