(Monday, November 19, 2018 7:50:00 PM)
At some point, it will happen, right? Futility and slop can’t last forever.
And when the Knicks finally do win a championship, super fan Michael Rapaport knows what the reaction will be toward the team owner.
“James Dolan will still be booed. The New York Knick fans, after we win that championship,…
(Monday, November 19, 2018 4:00:00 PM)
It’s mid-November, just about a month into the NBA season, and David Fizdale has already stopped worrying about the grim record.
Riding a five-game losing streak heading into Tuesday’s game against the Blazers, the coach asked for his players to face the reality that winning is not the priority.
…
(Monday, November 19, 2018 1:35:00 PM)
Kevin Knox is still working on his effort problem.
It was a knock on the 19-year-old in college, commonly labeled as ‘not having a high motor.’ And that has followed Knox to the NBA, with both he and coach David Fizdale acknowledging the issue Monday after practice.
“It’s up and down. Still learning…
(Monday, November 19, 2018 11:45:00 AM)
Joakim Noah may resurface in Memphis to back up David Fizdale’s foe.
Noah, the 33-year-old center who is still owed $38 million from the Knicks, is in discussions to sign with the Grizzlies, according to the New York Times.
Noah hasn’t played since January, when he and former Knicks coach Jeff…
(Monday, November 19, 2018 10:41:55 PM)
Zion Williamson THREW DOWN an electrifying windmill dunk off a steal Monday night.
(Monday, November 19, 2018 4:13:01 PM)
Courtney Lee is inching closer to returning for the Knicks.
(Monday, November 19, 2018 11:32:20 AM)
David Fizdale appears to be on the same page with Kristaps Porzingis this time around as the Knicks forward continues to make progress in his rehab.
(Monday, November 19, 2018 9:39:54 PM)
The Knicks have been a dumpster fire on defense all season. And with Portland’s vaunted duo of Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum visiting the Garden on Tuesday, it’s not going to get any easier. Asked about how his team plans to contain the Trail Blazers’ high-scoring backcourt, David Fizdale responded simply, “Prayer.” “No, you gotta…
(Monday, November 19, 2018 2:23:03 PM)
Both Kevin Knox and his coach agree — he needs to play with more fire. Going into the draft, there were concerns about Knox’s motor. And 10 games into his rookie season, those concerns remain. A day after Knox was significantly outplayed by Aaron Gordon in the Knicks’ 131-117 defeat at Orlando, David Fizdale described…
(Monday, November 19, 2018 11:43:49 AM)
Look, let’s get this out of the way at the top: Unless a number of extraordinary and unforeseeable things happen, the Giants aren’t going to make the playoffs. Just about every viable site that formulates such mathematical probabilities stands in agreement with this, but let’s rely on the smart folks at FiveThirtyEight, which lists Big…
(Monday, November 19, 2018 8:30:46 AM)
Joakim Noah’s NBA vacation could be over. The Knicks’ free-agent bust is in talks with the Grizzlies, the New York Times reports. The Knicks released Noah using the stretch provision last month after two seasons, one altercation with former head coach Jeff Hornacek, 53 games and a wasted $72 million. Noah’s contract stands out in…
(Monday, November 19, 2018 6:07:22 AM)
ORLANDO, Fla. — Sunday at Orlando’s Amway Center, former defensive center Clifford Ray, of Warriors fame, sat behind the basket and barked instructions at rookie center Mitchell Robinson. Add another former NBA player enlisted by the coaching staff to tutor Robinson — and other young Knicks. Ray attended Knicks practice in Orlando on Saturday to…
[NYTimes] The Memphis Grizzlies Are in ‘Extensive Discussions’ to Sign Joakim Noah (Monday, November 19, 2018 8:02:39 PM)
Noah was waived by the Knicks in October after two disastrous seasons of a four-year, $72 million deal. The center has been away from the team since an argument in February.
61 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2018.11.20)”
RPM Stat debuted. Here are some notables showing their rank out of 430 players:
KNICKS
Mitch (97)…. Highest among rookies! BPM and RPM both like MRob.
Knox (424)… Not the lowest among rookies!
Trier (413)…. BPM and RPM don’t like Zo
Frank (411).. Well, Z-man’s happy
Hez (425)….. Notice a trend since Mitch?
Dot (358)….. Well he’s not in the 400’s
Vonleh (93).. Able to re-sign him cheap since non-spacing 4/5 not in demand in modern NBA
THJ (92)……. Minus 2.83 DBPM, would be a star if he could just be average on D
Enes (359)….. Minus 2.03 on defense, ranked last among centers in DBPM
Trey (221)….. + on offense, – on defense, nice bench piece
OTHER TEAMS
Jabari (430)…. Didn’t some people here want to trade for him?
Crabbe (423)… Think of this when you think about THJ’s contract
Ingram (410)… I keep hearing this guy’s gonna breakout
Bags (429)……. Knox and Hawks appreciate this
Trae (419)……. Divac appreciates this
Collin (426)….. So there are a few teams dumber than us in the draft
Bamba (420)… Very surprising
SGA (362)……. Somewhat surprising
Jaren (131)…… OK
Doncic (150)…. OK Minus .38
Ayton (218)….. Figured he’d be higher
Monk (395)….. Feel a bit better about Frank?
DSJ (354)……… How about this re: Frank?
Mitchell (200). Ranked right after Harrison Barnes
Miles B (279).. Minus 1.38
Mik B (108)…. Second highest rook after Mitch. Ouch. Knox Knox
Dinwiddie (140).. Our future 1 guard? meh
Rozier (294)… Our future 1 guard? meh
Wright (277).. Our future 1 guard? meh
Payton (191).. Our future 1 guard? meh
Kyrie (9)…….. Our future 1 guard? That’s the ticket!
Jerian (184)… Hmm
DRose (110).. Hmmm
Melo (247)…. Hmmmmmm
Correction: Enes last on DRPM among centers. I wrote DBPM by mistake.
I forgot Mudiay who’s at 267.
Mitch is highest among ALL rookies across all teams. It’s tough to imagine a world where we drafted Hez or Mudiay or anyone instead of KP or a world where we didn’t draft Mitch.
Who would be your top 5 in a redraft?
@1 re: Frank, lol, as a Knicks superfan since 1967, I’m certainly not “happy” that Frank is as bad statistically as he is. All I’ve been doing is calling out the bullshit self-serving cherry-picked narrative of a few posters who have insisted that all he needs is time and reps to be a productive NBA point guard.
Ouch, Frank is dead last on ORPM among PGs.
At least on DRPM he’s 26 of 90. So another evidence that he’s at least a decent defender.
You’re calling bullshit on a narrative that isn’t there. This is strawmanning to the umpteenth degree.
Here is the pro-Frank argument:
He has shown the potential to be elite at one of the most important aspects of the modern NBA game, so it is in our best interest to be patient with him while he tries to develop the aspects of his game that we can all see suck.
No one is certain that he will get better with reps. But we are certain that reps will help him more than yanking him from the lineup when he has 5 bad minutes and making him afraid to make mistakes because there’s two other players with much more experience ready to steal his minutes. And given that we’re tanking this year, what’s the point of gaining an incremental increase in PG productivity if it detracts from Frank’s development? There is no sense in withholding what Frank needs in order to develop Mudiay.
Hubert, did you just join this site yesterday? This has been going on since before draft day, so don’t tell me what the narrative has been. Feel free to go back to that time and read forward to catch up.
Hey, since winning doesn’t matter, why don’t we try to make Mitch a point forward? Since he can block shots already, maybe with more reps he can become Jokic with rim protection!
Other than Ntillakilla, I don’t know many posters here who believe Frank is absolutely going to be a PG and “all he needs is reps”.
Please, posters who believe this, raise your hands.
Because that doesn’t make sense.
Playing a point guard at point guard makes sense.
I still believe Frank is going to be a very good player, but I have 0% faith that some people will ever appreciate it because they are focusing on or putting too much weight on the wrong things (or they have already made up their minds and have a vested interest in trying to prove otherwise).
Right now, despite being terrible on offense, he’s already one of our better players. That’s not a compliment. But he does one thing poorly and one thing very well. Most of our players are mediocre on one side and terrible on the other.
I’m pretty sure he’s never going to be the modern scoring PG. He doesn’t have to be. If you want someone like that, Kemba is available. All he has to do is defend at a high level, improve his shot over time (like Kemba and many others have slowly) and become competent on offense.
Rebuilds require patience.
The basic pro-Frank argument is that we suck with or without him playing point guard, so we might as well play him at least 15/20 minutes most nights at point guard and see what happens.
(and his potential is very good, since he is already good on one side of the ball, and the other has a good chance of improvement given what we’ve seen in flashes)
Listen, lets use a razor- the most likely reason Frank is shooting and playing poorly seems to be confidence and overthinking. He says things to that effect, and we see things to that effect, so it may just be that. If that’s all it is, and his shooting form, footwork, and European stats say that there is room for things to improve, let him work it out. This is like the best season ever to do that. I don’t care if it’s with us, our G-League team, or with another team. Because it’s idiotic not to see the potential here, no matter how unlikely.
Have not witnessed that.
I will go on record, once again: Ntilikina is a bad player, he will be a bad player. He sucks and no amount of repetitions or time will make him into a good player. He lacks the talent to become a good player.
He is more Shumpert than Rondo. In fact, Shumpert has more natural talent.
Ntilikina is not a PG. He is not a SG. He is a mediocre player without a clear position, a very rarely successful condition in the NBA.
The problem is not Ntilikina, though. It’s our own desperation for relevance, for developing talent, any atalent, that leads us to a complete state of delusion where Phil Jackson has more knowledge and talent as a GM in one of his fingernails than all of us together, where Carmelo was as good as Kevin Durant, where Fizdale is “very articulate” and a good coach, where our rookies are better than all other rookies and somehow their obvious ‘suckiness’ is not part of the dismal losing record.
Even the most rational regulars here often succumb to the delusion: Cole Aldrich and more recently KOQ were ‘undiscovered gems’, and cherry-picked stats were readily published to counter the very painful and different reality.
Let’s start dealing with *that* reality. Let’s demand our team makes better decisions at drafting and at negotiating contracts. And, yes, we have zero input, but the least we can do is acknowledge the reality that we are being served a poopoo platter. We don’t have to eat it.
We don’t have to become the stupid fans that validate Dolan’s perverse game.
I agree, playing a point guard at point guard makes sense. But see, here’s the thing (and it’s so tedious to have to bring this up over and over again since it’s an indisputable fact with documented evidence.) Frank not only isn’t a point guard now, he never was one. In Strasbourg he almost never played PG. Nothing in his film or stats from Strasbourg suggested that he had any aptitude to be a successful NBA PG.
And predictably, he has shown no aptitude to become a PG in the NBA thus far, zero, zilch. He has been the worst offensive PG in the NBA by any objective measure. He’s as bad as a PG as Mitch would be at being a point center, as in league worst. Running an offense through him was a dumb idea to start, and is now proven to be a dumb idea.
If you think that Burke or Mudiay shouldn’t be our options for PG, then call up someone from the G-League who actually IS a PG by trade. Maybe you’ll dig up the next Jeremy Lin or Patrick Beverley. As JK47 has emphasized, the square peg in a round hole thing is as plain as day unless you are a pie-in-the-sky Frank fanboy.
I’m starting to believe that this isn’t the case. I do think he lacks confidence, but that this is a result of being a poor offensive player. As of right now he is a terrible shooter, and if he were just able to knock down open shots consistently I don’t think anyone would have major problems with his offense even if he lacks the skills to be a PG. I do agree with the second part of your post though, and with most of the people on this board that believe that we might as well play him at PG because of the situation we are in this season. We don’t have anything to lose, so what’s the harm?
I do think that Frank’s defense has somewhat dipped this year compared to last year, but I think that his true ability on that end is closer to what we saw last year. It is hard to get a gauge on individual defense when the team is so poor defensively as a whole. With nearly every pick and roll that the guards are involved in defensively ending with a switch or the hedging of Enes Kanter, we are getting a very skewed look at the guard’s defensive abilities.
25 years of suffering has earned every single Knicks fan the right to call a spade a spade. Let’s stop looking for the silver lining in every fucking talentless cloud.
Frank sucks.
My posts keep disappearing, so if a double post on Z-Man and Frank eventually shows up, my apologies.
I agree that people are strawmanning this Frank debate. Literally the first time I saw him dribble my reaction was, “uh oh, that’s a high dribble.” He didn’t look like he had an NBA level handle and not much has changed. He definitely does play good defense though, whatever the numbers are saying so far about this year. We saw a lot of really great defense from him last year and he has all the necessary tools and to my eye instincts to be a game changer on that end. I still believe that. What happens on offense is up in the air but we have a couple of years to see how it goes.
Once we get Kemba on his 30 million deal Frank might be the perfect complement.
Most of the Knicks suck. We’ve won 4 games.
I’ve been one of Frank’s biggest supporters since we drafted him. However, if we go back BEFORE the draft I had more mixed feelings. At one point I clearly remember saying that if he was close to a zero on offense in the French league he was going to be a zero in the NBA for awhile. So I wasn’t too keen on drafting him early on. I warmed up as we got closer to the draft and I saw him play a little.
The one thing I’ve been very surprised about is his shot. He was NOT a bad shooter in the French league and early scouting and workout reports suggested his shot was NBA ready.
That’s why I haven’t given up on him in terms of at least improving his shooting.
The defenders are quicker, longer, and better, but shooting was never an issue for him and he has good form. He may not have the quickness and aggressiveness to ever be an efficient volume scorer off the dribble, but I still think he’s going to turn it around on his more basic shot making. Some of it may be mental at this point.
@18 I totally agree. I have said repeatedly that I think Frank can be an elite wing defender (not there yet as I pointed out yesterday but has the potential for sure) and is best suited for a 3-and-D role, i.e. off the ball and low usage.
16 – Things are the same until they change.
Everything is going to be ok. Frank will improve and will eventually be a good rotation player/starter on a contending team. That contending team will be The Knicks.
Frank, Knox, Robinson, Dotson, Trier are all going to be with us long term. Vonleh and even Mudiay might be there too. KP will come back and look rusty as hell and will take a less than max extension with plenty of injury insurances built into it. The Knicks will land a top 3 pick this summer. We’ll get rid of Kanter and his cap space and either use it on either Durant or Kyrie OR if they aren’t on the table, we’ll not just spend it to spend it. KP will then come back next year and by this time next year will be better than ever. The Knicks, with or without Durant or Kyrie or Kawhi next year…will make the playoffs.
From there who knows. But it will be the start of us being a competitive team that regularly makes the playoffs and gets to the second round at least.
Management and coaching and ownership are all in complete agreement that the past methods of building a contender have failed spectacularly. Phil may have phailed but he did one very important thing. He convinced Dolan to stop meddling in the day to day affairs of the Knicks. Perry is competent and has control over Mills. Fizdale is a good coach for where this team is at right now and if the time comes to replace him, it will be because he’s coached them up to a place where they’re a good team that needs to take the next step.
We have the youngest team in the NBA, KP itching to come back, all of our draft picks going forward and cap space will be clearing up over the next few years. If not this summer, in the next few years, a big time superstar player will join the Knicks in his prime.
Golden State is near the end. No one is ready to take their place. Teams that have been decent are now falling apart and new blood is on the rise. The Knicks will be a part of the next wave…
Someone whose opinion I respect told me last night Kemba is now > Kyrie on both sides. lol
That’s exactly what people said about Shumpert at the time. Does ‘lockdown defender’ ring a bell?.
We also tried making him a point guard. We saw the problems on offense. We tried him as a shooting guard. We eventually settled for him being a ‘combo guard’ (a euphemism for ‘sucks at both positions’).
The outcome: a journeyman at best. Frank is worse.
I was one of the main people who thought Frank had a role as a starting PG, and well, I’ve stopped arguing that for many reasons. I really don’t see anyone defending this position so much more. As I’ve said before, I still stand by my position, which is that I want to see some sign of improvement on year 2 but it’s fine if it doesn’t come right away, and by year 3 there needs to be real improvement or it’s probably hopeless. We’re all collectively freaking out about stuff we all knew would happen, meaning that this team is bad and has little talent and potential on the roster.
Honestly, it is what it is, a bad roster with bad players. It doesn’t mean everyone of those guys will be a failure, it doesn’t mean it can’t change, but once again the obvious thing happens to the Knicks instead of the hopeful projections. Let the kids play, hope we get a very high pick out of this and that’s pretty much all there is for us in this season.
That says it all.
Frank Ntilikina’s ceiling is a mix between Pablo Prigioni and Andre Roberson. I’m not sure that’s more valuable than Dotson’s ceiling, which seems to be a plus rebounding version of Courtney Lee, but I do know Frank needs more time to figure his game out. Mudiay is showing signs of life after 3 full seasons of NBA basketball. Ntilikina is a catch and shoot game away from being a two way contributor.
He is not a point guard, though. He can guard point guards without actually being one, and we need to accept that. I have no evidence of this, but I think if we land a high usage point guard like Irving, Lillard, or to a lesser extent D’Angelo Russell/Spencer Dinwiddie, Frank would just have to shoot threes and cause havoc on defense.
One thing I need from him defensively is more turnovers. If you’re not creating turnovers I’m not sure you can claim to be an elite defender.
That is a rational assessment I completely agree with. My issue is with the deluded rosy projections (@22) where the Knicks are a contender in two years and Golden State is collapsing…lol…
Even the most optimistic people here don’t think he’ll ever be a primary ball handler that initiates the team offense. But that doesn’t mean he can’t play point guard in today’s NBA where you initiate the offense from any position you want.
Can he be George Hill? Can he better than Mario Chalmers and Norris Cole? Those guys were the point guards on two title-winning teams. Not every PG has to be Kyrie. Having the best player in the league to cover Kyrie, though, is something worth being patient for when we’re so shit.
And that “best player in the league to cover Kyrie” is…..Ntilikina!!!!!
Who is the strawman master? Who is deluded here?
Delusion runs rampant: I remember the days when Carmelo could (if he “WANTED”, of course) play great defense, specially on LeBron.
The Knicks are either 1 year or 5+ years away from being good depending how Robinson, Knox, KP, and Frank develop over the next few months and who we sign in free agency.
If KP comes back better than ever, we sign Durant, and get any improvement from the rest of the young core, we are going to be a very good team NEXT year.
IF KP is struggling, we sign some random filler to 1 and 2 year contracts because no one any good would sign with us now, Knox can’t defend or score efficiently, and we are still having discussions about Frank, we are going nowhere for another 5-6 years.
The most likely outcome is somewhere in between.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidberri/2018/01/30/trying-to-win-with-unproductive-stars-has-become-a-tradition-for-the-new-york-knicks/#69d59436c0d4
Kemba is definitely outplaying Kyrie so far this year. I doubt anyone wouldn’t rather have Kyrie, though.
I think Kemba is going to follow the Kyle Lowry career playbook and be a force for a while. I’d hate to max him because by rule I think you should only max guys who can give you value above the max salary. And if we’re maxing him and Porzingis, we’ve got two max guys who don’t deserve it, so we’re fucked.
But we’d probably be pretty good with Kemba Walker.
In a world where imo all the publicly available basketball models suck, Wins Produced sucks more than most.
@33
I’m not in favor of maxing Kemba for the same reasons and because he’s older, but he got better almost every year and now he’s gone from overrated to underrated. He’s VERY good.
I wouldn’t want to place a max bet on Kemba keeping up this kind of superhuman effort. But you have to respect what he is doing this year. Herculean.
Yeah, he’s probably playing over his own head right now, but even if he drops off a bit, his steady improvement has been impressive.
Kemba Walker’s age 29-32 seasons might actually be pretty valuable, and he seems like the kind of guy all three of Mills, Perry, and Fizdale would covet.
Kemba Walker, Kristaps Porzingis, Zion Williamson, TH2, and Frank Ntilikina would be very fun, though. And if we get November KP/TH2 for an entire season? We’d be cooking with some serious gas.
EDIT: I’m not in favor of maxing Kemba Walker. He’s not a player that changes the win curve like KD or Kyrie would. Just saying there would be some fun nights.
@29 sure, he can become one of those guys. I can just envision him becoming a career 57% TS guy, just like Hill. Right. Or alternatively, I can see us acquiring a modern version of the LeBron, Wade and Bosh trio that would perfectly complement Frank’s weaknesses. Because, you know, guys like Chalmers and Cole are pretty hard to find. Maybe we should hope that Mitchell Robinson becomes the next Joel Anthony!!!
Dick Vitale
Verified account
@DickieV
Pls PATIENCE/ KEVIN KNOX is a teenager / don’t rush to judgement / prob with ?@nyknicks? they DO NOT have enough quality vets to let him just blend in as he learns about the ?@NBA? ?@UKCoachCalipari?
Wow, no post I make about Frank is getting through. Z-Man has taken control of the blog…
Either Kevin Durant or Zion Williamson would sufficiently be able to assume playmaking and primary ball handling duties from the wing, and both are plausible acquisitions this summer.
You’re locked into outdated positional expectations. You still think a point guard needs to initiate the offense and be the primary ball handler. You still think a low-usage “3-and-D” player needs be defend the wing instead of the point of attack. The NBA has run laps around these notions already. Patrick Beverley has been a useful low usage 3-and-D point guard for years now.
If all you can do is hit a three consistently, provide secondary playmaking, and play elite defense, you can be a point guard in this league if your team has a primary ball handler on the wing.
Let me try this without addressing it to anyone in particular:
1. Does a PG who plays D have more value than a 3-and-D wing?
2. If so, then what do we have to lose running Frank out at PG the rest of the year? If he sucks, we lose, and every loss gets us better draft odds. If he’s OK, then we know he could potentially grow into that role and – at 20 – he needs more time. If he’s good, well, then we have a good PG and don’t need to throw money at Kemba or Kyrie.
Seems really logical to me.
You say this a lot and I’m not quite sure why. Cap space should be used to acquire assets.
Signing free agents that you actually want on your team for the foreseeable future (provided they align with your win curve), signing free agents that you think you’ll be able to flip for picks, and using cap space to take on bad contracts for picks are all acceptable uses.
Signing random players that don’t fall into any of those categories is a stupid way to use cap space, since it can be used to acquire actual assets. This is why it was incredibly stupid when Phil Jackson spent more money on Arron Afflalo and Derrick Williams than Sam Hinkie spent on two pick swaps and an unprotected 2019 first from Sacramento.
I don’t know why, but I have a lot less patience for Knox than Frank. I’ll accept this as illogical, inconsistent, and not a statistically-based opinion.
I’m biased towards players who seem intelligent, look for their teammates, and are strong defenders. And I hate guys like Knox.
1. Does a SS who hits 30 HR have more value than a 1B who hits 30 HR?
2. If so, then what do we have to lose running Prince Fielder out at SS the rest of the year?
Your assumption is that players that we would want for the long term will sign with a team that sucks and is rebuilding.
My assumption is that those kinds of players often won’t be willing to sign with a bad rebuilding team unless you overpay them.
That’s why it can make sense to take on short term contracts.
You can continue to draft young players, look for undrafted role players, make trades, develop the long term core etc… Then you use the cap space a year or two later when the team is attractive enough for someone good to want to come. This is not some desired strategy or outcome. It’s sometimes the best option available. So you do that instead of signing some bum to a long term contract or renting out cap space by taking on a horrible contract for a pick that’s not worth the trouble.
@45
I agree with you.
Frank already is already good at 1/2 the game and it’s not very unusual for a player’s 3p% and shooting in general to improve over time. So it feels like it’s pretty likely he can become an efficient lower usage player on offense.
Knox does not look very good on defense and even if his shot improves further (which it should also) he gives you the feeling he’s going to be one of those higher usage less efficient scorers based on the way he’s playing now.
I have a bumper sticker on my car that says “Don’t Blame Me I Voted For Mikal Bridges”
@46
I can understand the point, but it’s the other way around. Does a shortstop who’s elite defensively yet won’t contribute on offense have more value than a 1B who played similarly? Because running Prince Fielder as a shortstop is basically asking for a loss, as it’s clearly a pivotal defensive position. Playing Frank at PG is more akin to having a SS who can’t bat, as his defense only becomes valuable if his offense is compensated somewhere else. The 1B comparison won’t be accurate because the value of a elite defensive 1B is naturally lower than the other, harder to play infield positions so teams can simply switch the best batters with poor defense to that position, while PG is a very important defensive position.
I don’t know, I’m very disappointed in Frank but I really think people are taking it too far, as I don’t think he’s completely unplayable. Good defenders with terrible offense have always been a part of good NBA rosters, you just can’t rely on those guys for offensive production and the rest of the roster has to compensate for it, which doesn’t happen at all on the Knicks. He’s already not the PG of the team as he’s been playing pretty much all his minutes lately with Burke or Mudiay.
Bingo.
Besides which, EYE-TEST ALERT, when I’ve watched the games, I see a player who CAN actually penetrate, but once he’s in the lane or near the hoop, passes back out to the 3-point line. Again, it’s totally possible that he never can do more than that, but he goes to his left as easily as his right, and that’s a positive indicator that it isn’t totally insane to believe the potential is there. And despite his high dribble, I think almost all of his TOs have been bad passes.
Bad passes are still TOs, but if the argument is “high dribble, can’t penetrate, will get picked or has no ability to go north-south,” then that argument isn’t valid. He sucks because he isn’t making shots, and because his assist/TO ratio is terrible this year. But he isn’t getting picked, and he is getting into the lane.
I normally wouldn’t have agreed with your position here, Strato. But it’s exactly what the Clippers did and it’s looking pretty good for them.
Mitch is an elite defensive SS who doesn’t hit much, Frank is a pretty good defensive center fielder who can’t hit at all.
If Mitch and Frank were baseball players they would be raw, four-tool players in AA and no one would be making bold proclamations about the absolute certainty of their future.
Knox would be a one-tool player who hits really long home runs in batting practice that everyone knows will suck because he can only hit straight fastballs.
Frank’s offensive tools are what exactly? Seriously, he’s poor ball-handler, a terrible shooter (26% on threes 100% of which have been either open or wide open so just stop with the he’s got a nice stroke nonsense) and offers little in the way of playmaking. He throws a nice pocket pass in pnr’s- that’s the sum total of his offensive skill set. That’s not a bad skill to have but when you’re completely incapable of scoring yourself it makes it tough to take advantage of.
I’m not really interested in developing the next Norris Cole or anyone else who’s primary responsibility is to dump the ball into the post or hand it off at the top of the key. If FN can’t be a two way player “off with his head”. What I like is that we WILL know the answer. I’m hoping we don’t already know it but that hope is diminishing. One thing about Fiz is that, unlike Hornacek, he will find the answers to NYK’s persistent questions. No one’s languishing on the bench a la Hernangomez last year. It seems like we’re actively sorting our roster and doing a marvelous job of tanking as we do.
The true key to the future is KP. If he comes back strong we’ll be fine, if not, ooh…
Also, can we turn this misery into Zion, Cam Reddish, Bol…?
If we get three rotation players out of this and last years draft, and the above questions are answered in the affirmative, we’ll be great. That’ll be the key luring quality FA’s as well.
Oh, and since we don’t talk B-ball all the time…
What do you guys thing about the NYY James Paxton deal?
It seems strange to me that Markelle’s advisors think the best way to protect him is to keep saying how injured he might be
I keep saying this but Frank’s lack of offensive aggression could really work out in the Knicks favor long run. First of all, he’s got 2 more years after this one on his rookie contract but even in that time, even with KP coming back and maybe some better teammates next year via the draft and free agency…Frank still may never be a plus on the offensive side. But this could be a great thing for us! Players who score ALWAYS get paid more in free agency than players who don’t. Frank might be a guy who will not get a huge pay upgrade after his rookie year and ends up outperforming his first non rookie contract because of that.
Like what if Frank ends up being a guy who only averages like 8 to 10 points a game but he’s a monster on defense and plays smart, team ball and is versatile enough on the defensive side to be plugged into a lot of line ups. He’s all ready showing that he can hold his own against 4’s in short spurts. His versatility, especially on defense, could mean he’s a guy that you can plug into a lot of 5 man line ups, giving the coach a lot to work with and he might get a lot less than say DSJ bc he doesn’t score POINTZ.
I’m not sure what you mean.
I think the Clippers have generally been doing a very good job of moving past the CP3, Jordan, Griffin team with trades that have kept them pretty good without going into all out tank mode for 5-10 years. They got some quality players back in trades. They have the flexibility so sign the good veterans back and can add more. They are in a good spot, though they overpaid for Gallo.