(Wednesday, October 31, 2018 8:20:00 PM)
A fourth quarter disaster spoiled a dominant performance from Tim Hardaway Jr.
The Knicks guard went off again in a 107-101 loss to the Pacers on Wednesday night at The Garden.
After walking into Madison Square Garden dressed as a superhero, Victor Oladipo had to shake off his lingering bronchitis…
(Wednesday, October 31, 2018 8:29:13 PM)
David Fizdale enjoyed working as a television commentator and might have stayed in that role longer if not for the opportunity with the Knicks, writes Ian Begley of ESPN. Fizdale called TV work a “comfortable” job without “the stress of coaching,” but he couldn’t pass up the opportunity to try to build a winner in […]
(Wednesday, October 31, 2018 10:41:47 PM)
It was another fourth-quarter breakdown for the Knicks, as they lost a tough battle to the Pacers, 107-101, at Madison Square Garden on Halloween night
(Wednesday, October 31, 2018 9:28:58 PM)
On the outside, Knicks 2017 first-rounder Frank Ntilikina doesn’t fit into today’s style of play in the NBA.
(Wednesday, October 31, 2018 7:20:19 PM)
After dropping their first home game of the season, the Indiana Pacers venture to the perhaps even friendly confines of Madison Square Garden on Wednesday night as they face a New York Knicks team that has lost five of seven to open the season.
(Wednesday, October 31, 2018 1:06:18 PM)
Rasheed Wallace apparently isn’t the only big NBA name giving advice to Knicks rookie big man Mitchell Robinson.
(Wednesday, October 31, 2018 10:36:10 AM)
Kevin Knox isn’t used to watching his team play from the sideline, but the Knicks rookie says his view from the bench still brings value while he works his way back from an early-season ankle sprain.
[NYTimes] Blake Griffin Isn’t Bitter. Detroit Has Made Him Better. (Wednesday, October 31, 2018 10:53:57 PM)
Broken promises made him a Piston, but a fresh start and a 50-point stunner have the former Clippers superstar looking forward.
(Wednesday, October 31, 2018 9:52:44 PM)
By the end, the final buzzer’s groan filled the old gymnasium. The folks had had their fun and now it was time to catch their trains home. It’s night like these when if feels like there has never been a faster-emptying arena ever built than Madison Square Garden. It is starting to sink in that…
(Wednesday, October 31, 2018 6:57:38 PM)
Tim Hardaway Jr. was headed toward hero status. Then the final three minutes happened, resulting in another late Knicks’ loss against a quality opponent. Can you say Déjà Knicks Blue? The Knicks’ one-game winning streak ended Wednesday night in a 107-101 Garden loss to the Pacers as Victor Oladipo got the better of Hardaway down…
(Wednesday, October 31, 2018 5:57:59 PM)
One of the addictive qualities of the game is this: there is still the capacity to surprise. Even in an age of analytics, there is still a requirement to play the games, to either make sense of the numbers or defy them. Hey, any dice player can tell you: the laws of probability insist you…
(Wednesday, October 31, 2018 5:12:16 PM)
The Knicks have moved on with Noah Vonleh becoming a reliable defensive big man, but coach David Fizdale wanted center Kyle O’Quinn back as “a mentor.’’ Part of O’Quinn wanted to be back, too. In July, O’Quinn, a Queens product, left the Knicks to sign a one-year, $4.45 million deal with the Pacers after opting…
(Wednesday, October 31, 2018 8:19:57 AM)
Mitchell Robinson has gone from a rookie project who was headed for G-League action to starting center. One of the more reserved rookies in the NBA and famous for his one-sentence answers to the media, the 20-year-old “Cajun Kid” is letting his hair down and now doing shows. Robinson will appear in a future episode…
20 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2018.11.01)”
About last night’s game, am I the only one who’s noticed Kanter anagrams to Tanker?
Looks like a coup took place and I’ve been ousted as head of Team Optimism by Frank and Hubert. My tenure was brief – my legacy will be my faith in Frank as a 1 guard and my belief that we have the best young core in league other than healthy 76ers.
So now it’s OK for me to be a but negative. Hard to fault FO in general but couldn’t they have gotten a team option for a Vonleh 2nd year? They did after all get him to sign a vet min where only 100K was guaranteed. That would have been huge not having to burn cap to re-sign him this summer and being able to go over the cap in summer of 2020 using his early bird rights (enabling up to a bit more than MLE) when we’d be over the cap anyway.
Derrick Rose.
Wow.
I’m honestly happy for him. He put on a show. It’s nice to see again.
I hope he doesn’t get injured after this.
In Central Park yesterday on nice autumn day. Stopped by Strawberry Fields while Beatles discussion happening here. Jowles KD take inspired me to IMAGINE alternate universe in summer of 2019 where Jowles is Knick GM:
::phone rings at MSG HQ::
Durant: Hi Jowles, KD here.
Jowles: KD, what a surprise.
Durant: Well it couldn’t have been *that* much of a surprise.
Jowles: OK, whatever. What’s up?
Durant: I wanna be a Knick. U got great young core starting w/guy I dubbed a “unicorn”
Jowles: KD, U know metrics. U should know Rebounds=Wins. Are u a unicorn whisperer bc I don’t like guys who don’t rebound.
Durant: You must really like D-Dot then?
Jowles: You mean The Rapping Rap!st? There’s only one thing I despise more than a guy who doesn’t rebound: rap music.
Durant: ::face palm:: Well there’s my boy Frank who looks a lot like a 20yo KD.
Jowles: Only if you look at his 436 TS in the mirror. And what good are those long arms if they don’t grab rocks?
Durant: ::sigh of frustration:: Guess I won’t bring up Mitch.
Jowles: ::Silence as Jowles chokes up gazing at oversized photo on wall of Tyson dunking::
Durant: l’ll make those young guys better.
Jowles: Not when u r getting worse. U peaked at age 26. Nothing personal, just science.
Jowles: KD, i’ve been too negative. Happy to have u a Knick at 15m/yr w/4th year team option
Durant: ::laughter:: u serious? U want me to take less than Timmy money?
Jowles: I want u to take what u worth according to my present value calculations
Durant: Dude, u effin’ nuts. Does Mrs Jowles have burner acct where she snipes at knick players?
Jowles: How dare u besmirch good name of Lady Jowles ::slams phone::
Funny to see virtually everyone here salivate at the totally delusional idea that it would be good for the Knicks to go into win-now mode with Kevin Durant. Those are the same bipolar hypocrites who applaud the current rebuild, but dream of going full-Dolan at the first opportunity.
Have they forgotten the old ‘when you have the opportunity to sign this type of talent, you just do it’ argument justifying the Melo blunder? Do they remember the ‘he’s the NBA’s purest scorer’ bs they used?
They even favored Melo over…Durant!!!!!
Two main differences between Melo/Durant moves:
1) we are not trading away Porzingis, Knox, and 2 first round picks for a guy that we can sign in the offseason for just $$ like we did with Melo. As much as we (rightfully) kill Steve mills for having a hand in many many bad decisions in the past, at least he seems to have learned his lesson from that Melo fiasco.
2) Durant is actually a great player on both ends of the court. IMHO Melo could have been a great player on the offensive end — and was a very good offensive player especially in 12-13 and 13-14 while being at least acceptable on the defensive end — but the original sin of giving away the farm for a guy we could’ve just signed as a free agent really crippled us.
Check out the 3FG% to date of our youth:
Frank = 38.7%
Dotson=37.8%
Trier=45.5%
Knox=44.4%
Sample size….but if all of these guys just shoot in the high 30’s, that would be huge. Opponents will have to cover them to the arc which will open up cutting and driving opportunities ending in Mitch lob-dunks or put backs. Trier’s always had a high FTr but this will be a key improvement area for the others.
Correlation: no tattoos = timidity?
If Kevin Durant wants to come here for some dumb reason, you definitely take him up on it. If Melo wanted to join the Knicks as a free agent back in 2011, I’d have been all for that, as well. The problem there was that Melo’s unwillingness to risk the new CBA possibly costing him money cost the Knicks so many assets by him forcing a trade rather than joining as a free agent (just so many assets). It’s not like peak Melo was a terrible player. It’s funny, I recall all of our debates about Melo before the trade and they all basically boiled down to “If he would just shoot more threes, he could be a good player” and he came here and shot a ton more threes and was a good player for a couple of years. And then the moron Knicks GM gave him a mega-max extension instead of trading him before his inevitable aging issues when the Knicks had no chance of putting together a good team around him.
Boy, Phil sucked so much.
Could not watch Knicks’ game yesterday (I’ll watch the replay on LP).
I was stuck with the Wolves’ one and even if I’m not a Rose fan, I had to admit I was astonished by his play.
It was like been in a time machine, back to 2010. He attacked the rim despite Gobert, canned some threes, single handedly willed his team to a win versus a good team.
@5
+1
We could agree or disagree on Durant’s value, peak years and so on for centuries (I’m not 100% sold on him but more positive then negative about it) but the difference between the Melo TRADE and an eventual Durant FA SIGNING is so clear that it’s not worth discussing.
Clarence Gaines is becoming my favorite basketball follow on Twitter. Here’s some more. I haven’t seen anything on Knox or Trier, but he seems to like Mitchell and Dotson and LOVES Frank (and of course KP) . I wonder if he had some input on the Mitchell pick but not on Knox/Trier because he comments most on the guys we know he had input on.
“Speaking of mid-range games, I like what I’m seeing in @FrankLikina’s ability to get good looks off his dribble drive pull-up game – didn’t fall for him tonight but that will eventually be a staple of his game as he matures.”
“The brightest spot in what you call an off night for Frank is the he is showing an ability to get to where he wants to on the floor. Big time quality in a NBA guard. Growth still needed in the finishing aspects of the game but he’s evolving nicely. He’s got the goods.”
“When @nyknicks drafted @FrankLikina the NY media called him a triangle guard. I laughed – What one must understand – if you can play in the triangle you can play in any system.The reverse is not necessarily true. Frank has outstanding guard skills & his BB IQ on both ends is high.”
What do you honestly think will happen once we go into ‘win-now’ mode???
Picks will be traded away, cap money will be gone and no young player will be safe from a bad trade in our desperation for surrounding Durant with a ‘winning support cast’ that will consist of a couple of faded stars and no bench.
Because you can’t just add Durant and magically transform the Knicks into a contender with the current roster, right?
This is Melo II, only with a better Melo. The outcome would be the same though: capped out, picks gone and looking at a ‘proper’ rebuild 5 years down the road.
Isn’t this what Dolan has always done and been criticized for? Has everyone forgotten the re-build we were applauding all summer?
If the Knicks had not traded picks for Melo, I would have been totally fine with them trading picks for another player (like Chris Paul, who was extremely available at the time. He ended up getting dealt for essentially Eric Gordon and a back of the lottery pick, ya know?) after signing Melo. So yes, adding Durant would likely add to them trading draft picks, but that’s just normal, logical GMing. Like the Cavaliers trading the #1 draft pick for Kevin Love after signing Lebron, which then led to four straight NBA Finals appearances for the Cavs and one title.
I take offense that I’ve been represented as a guy who doesn’t like rap. To Pimp a Butterfly is the best album of the decade and its predecessor makes a strong case itself. (Damn. is overrated, don’t @ me)
If you can get Durant as a FA you get him. Then you drink yourself into a euphoric stupor. When the hangover finally wears off, then you start worrying about the next move. Durant is going to be an elite player for a few more years. It’s going to take a few more years for guys like Knox, Frank, and Robinson to peak, but we can add other vet pieces. I just have a tough time figuring out why he’d want to come to NY when the core is so far away from being good.
Call me crazy but I think a team with Kevin Durant and (a healthy) Kristaps Porzingis is the bones of a really really good team. Assuming Frank Ntilikina continues to develop into at least a credible 3-D type of player who can guard 1-3 at a high level (he can do that already), those are 3 guys who could be legitimate 2-way starters on a contender. Honestly, name a team that wouldn’t start at least KD and Porzingis — even Golden State would start Porzingis over whoever they play at center 100% of the time. I know some here think that Frank is still a net negative, but I really do disagree – I think he will be good enough to be a starter on a contending team – the kid can pass, handle, and defend, and I really do think he will be at least an average NBA shooter. Add in young guys that look like they have some promise (Knox, MitchRob, Trier specifically) and I think you’re right in the Eastern conference top-4 seed mix. Depending on how the young guys develop, you might have to go and trade one or more of them to get the guy that gets you over the top, but like Brian said, that’s just normal reasonable stuff.
If Frank is looking like a starting 1, I wonder what team would do about the reserve 1 position. Is it possible Trier could evolve to where he’d take reserve 1 minutes (after Frank) and reserve 2 minutes (after Timmy) next year? Retaining Burke is an option. There’s Dinwiddie as UFA.
Ben R threw out a Phoenix trade a few days ago that didn’t give Suns enough. Maybe something like this could get them to bite:
PHX…..Courtney, Burke, Charlotte 2nd round pick, Hezonja, Kornet
NYK…..Tyson, Melton
We rid ourselves of Courtney, acquire nice young 2-way guard in Melton, and Tyson would be perfect mentor for Mitch.
I think we need to concentrate on the teams that are dumpster fires right now — specifically the Wizards, OKC, Cavs. The Austin Rivers – Lee trade seems too easy — Wiz need veteran leadership in a locker room that sounds like a mess, not to mention a really good 3 point shooter and better defender in Lee.
OKC is sort of hard to picture a direct 2-team trade unfortunately. Re: the Cavs – JR for Lee (then presumably waive JR, who only has ~$4MM guaranteed for 2019-20?) would work.
Man, it’s like Clarence is in my head. Great scouting minds think alike.
I really can’t believe there’s any debate about going after Durant. The guy is a once in a generation talent, who if there had never been a LeBron James would be the NBA’s #1 poster boy.
A 7 footer who can shoot from anywhere, handle the ball, rebound, and defend? He’s the real unicorn, I would bet we won’t see another player like Durant for a long time.
They never should have gotten rid of him. A good eye for basketball talent is an asset no matter who originally hired him. It would not shock me if he was in favor of Robinson but was eventually pushed out because he was Phil’s guy and wanted someone other than Knox.
He seems to like two way potential but prefers defense. Maybe he liked Mikal Bridges.
He’s talking about Robinson but has been strangely quiet about Knox and Trier. I guess Knox hasn’t played much, but I’d have expected some more. I’m sure we’ll hear what he thinks once Knox starts playing again. I see the potential for Knox on offense and understand the pick. They were shooting for the higher potential upside, but I’m not entirely convinced he’s going to be efficient on offense or a good defender. We’ll see. He’s so darn young.