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. 🙂

He will be 30 at the start of his 1st free agent year which obviously is not ideal, but as i wrote in the previous post, he has a lot less mileage on him than a lot of other players his age / skill.

This is not trading for a 1-way player, a big name who is otherwise washed, etc., and I’m not talking about trading any of our best assets or an unprotected pick. I don’t think it’s unreasonable if the price is right.

“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.

He’s incapable of learning.

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

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.

I agree.

I love Butler’s game, but it’s very unlikely and doesn’t make a lot of sense for NY unless we are stealing. This is kind of what Mills was talking about yesterday. If Butler is interested in coming to NY as a FA next year with Kyrie, we should consider it then based on everything else we know at that time. I think you can argue that a big 3 of KP, Kyrie, and Butler would be very competitive in the east for years while Knox, Frank, Robinson and others continue to develop.

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.

If KP has no chance of returning before Valentine’s Day, you don’t make that trade.