Knicks Morning News (2018.11.27)

Morning everyone.
Haven’t really had much time to watch the games much less comment here on them, but I really enjoyed yesterday’s 151-comment thread – reasoned opinions on all sides, very little belittling etc… felt great.

My thoughts on where we are:
– I do not think that we will tank. I DO think there is a downside to throwing young kids (ie. Robinson and Knox) out there when they obviously are not really prepared to play in the NBA right now – it doesn’t do Robinson any good to get 4 fouls in 8 minutes and get even if he gets a couple blocked shots and dunks. So if you don’t play Robinson, who can you play? Vonleh and Kanter. That’s just the nature of the beast.
– I DO think there is some value to playing Vonleh and Mudiay even though they are not signed beyond this season. Ian Begley said on the KFS podcast the other day that he does NOT get the impression that the Knicks will just throw FA money around a la Amare/Felton in 2010 if they strike out on Durant and Kawhi — so in that case they will have the ability to reward one or more of the FAs-to-be on the team this summer, hopefully with a judicious / team-friendly contract. Unless they just absolutely blow up this season (even more so than they have), I don’t think either is in line for a big contract just because their playing history is so bad. And I agree with whoever said in the last thread that you just can’t stop playing players who you spend time developing and then lo and behold are playing well for the purpose of tanking. If you’re going to do that, you might as well just waive everyone and sign THCJ and DRed to play, and then cut THEM if they dare put up a TS north of 40.

– I would not play Hezonja pretty much at all unless they are really seeing something in practice. I guess he’s getting pretty minimal minutes anyway but I don’t get why Dotson and Trier aren’t getting all his minutes.

Tanking is not as easy as it appears to some. First of all, it’s illegal; second, players have no incentive to become complicit: why should Kanter, or anyone else, diminish his own value by playing worse than he can?

The only thing a coach could do is deliberately put a crappy lineup out there night after night, but that defeats the purpose of developing young players and finding out who might be a keeper. It may do more damage than the alternative, which is to play your best and let the chips fall where they might. I support this view.

That said, the obvious road for the Knicks is to give as much time as possible to the rookies so that they get a chance to develop while we tank to the best of our ability. Winning games on the backs of Kanter or Hardaway, for example, is not useful in any way.

So play the rookies and tank away! Best of both worlds.

During the Memphis game they mentioned that he is 10 pounds lighter. I’m sure that helped.

Vonleh on the other hand — not sure exactly what to make of him. His improved play is basically improved shooting from just about everywhere, and getting to the line a lot more. He’s shooting 41.7% from 3 point range which seems basically unsustainable given his history and how badly he misses sometimes. He is blocking a lot of shots too.

My too-early prediction for what the FO does this season:
1) Kanter gets bought out after the trade deadline
2) Courtney Lee gets traded, hopefully bringing back at least a 2nd round pick and a smaller 2018-19 contract (or an expiring)
3) One of Mudiay or Vonleh should be traded at the deadline but won’t be (redux of 2017-18 when KOQ and Lee should’ve been traded)
4) Trier signs the biannual, Baker gets dumped.

Good stuff Frank.

I don’t think Mudiay will continue to shoot 56% on 2PAs (he’s currently shooting 78% on 16<3 shots, among other outliers) but I can buy that he's made some legitimate improvements. The problem is due to where he was coming from production-wise, even the shooting 56% on 2PAs version of Mudiay isn't all that good.

I would like some more clarity on his cap hold situation. I was under the impression that if he rejects the QO, his cap hold of $12 million and change is on the books while he's an RFA until we renounce it. Ptmilo has forgotten more about the cap than I'll ever know though and doesn't seem to think that's the case.

Honestly it's still very difficult for me to envision a scenario in which bringing him back on any multi-year deal seems like a good idea by season's end.

This offseason will really be so interesting.

We all love the kids but as KFS + Begley said on their podcast, if somehow we do get someone like Durant or Kawhi to come, there is zero chance one or more of the kids aren’t packaged off with a draft pick to get a vet to come for a win-now season.

Even more interesting would be what happens if we strike out on KD/Kawhi. The cap jumps to 116? million in the summer of 20 and we could easily have max cap space then too even if we selectively sign some smaller deals this summer.

by the way re: Hardaway – hate to say it but I’m a fan. My feeling is after this summer when there is SO MUCH cap space out there and half the league in free agency, his contract actually won’t look so bad. If he were just a little better on defense…
Truth is – you put KP back in there and he covers up a ton of defensive mistakes. Not the case with the current form of Robinson and with Kanter.

I DO think there is some value to playing Vonleh and Mudiay even though they are not signed beyond this season. Ian Begley said on the KFS podcast the other day that he does NOT get the impression that the Knicks will just throw FA money around a la Amare/Felton in 2010 if they strike out on Durant and Kawhi — so in that case they will have the ability to reward one or more of the FAs-to-be on the team this summer, hopefully with a judicious / team-friendly contract.

But this doesn’t really provide any value. Signing free-agents to a fair market contract is something any team with cap space can do. Mudiay could just as well be on the Grizzlies developing and then we could sign him in the offseason.

Granted there is an advantage to being the incumbent team in getting free agents to sign, but a fair-market deal still doesn’t help much. I think the only way it helps is if we get a team friendly deal, or we trade him this year for future assets.

So if you don’t play Robinson, who can you play? Vonleh and Kanter. That’s just the nature of the beast.

Is it the nature of the beast? Why can’t we trade or release Kanter, and if Robinson picks up two quick fouls, enter Luke Kornet or Isaiah Hicks or some stiff we pick up on the scrap heap? That seems like a nice, simple way to accomplish our main goal this year.

I love me some Mitch Rob but I actually fear for his life tonight….Andre Drummond may actually kill him tonight and eat his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti!

And I agree with whoever said in the last thread that you just can’t stop playing players who you spend time developing and then lo and behold are playing well for the purpose of tanking. If you’re going to do that, you might as well just waive everyone and sign THCJ and DRed to play, and then cut THEM if they dare put up a TS north of 40.

I don’t mean to pick on your well-thought post, Frank, but I don’t understand why you can’t do this, either. This is exactly what Phoenix, Memphis, Dallas, and Chicago did last year, and now they have Ayton, JJJ, Doncic, and Carter, respectively. What did we gain that offset reducing our reward to Kevin Knox?

Dallas pulled Dennis Smith out of games in which he was playing too well. Chicago benched healthy young guys who were playing well. Memphis might have called THCJ and asked him to play shooting guard given the guys they were running out there. Are they worse off for that today?

It just seems like one of those things where we think we can’t do it, but really it’s a just self-limiting attitude because you’re (i.e. the Knicks) afraid to behave unconventionally to do what’s right.

As I said before, I still don’t buy that Mudiay’s cap hold is more than $10M. I read the CBA FAQ carefully and what I concluded matched the $4.5M figure on spotrac’s list of Knick cap holds.

Sportrac lists it at $5.7M but it also lists Porzingis’ at $7.5M, which I know is bullshit. The Capulator lists them at $12M+ and $17M+ respectively, which is consistent with my understanding of the CBA.

Refer to 37. How much do free agents count toward team salary?

Mudiay’s 2018-2019 salary is below the average salary, he’s a first-round pick, and we have his Bird Rights so I see no reason why his cap hold wouldn’t be 300% of his current salary.

This is exactly what Phoenix, Memphis, Dallas, and Chicago did last year, and now they have Ayton, JJJ, Doncic, and Carter, respectively.

33 year old Marc Gasol les the Grizzlies in minutes last year; 31 year old Wesley Matthews and 39 year old Dirk Nowitski were both in the top-five for the Mavericks; the Suns are in year 4 of their rebuild which is what got them the #1 pick.

The Bulls actively did what you’re suggesting the Knicks do and not only did they they got called out and reprimanded by the commissioner, but they also only ended up with the #7 pick — an outcome you are actively trying to avoid.

I don’t see how playing Emanuel Mudiay and Frank Ntilikina, literally two of the worst NBA players to ever play, 45 minutes per game is any different than what Memphis did last year.

I don’t believe Kanter incessantly whined to the media. I think he made a few comments and then a bunch of articles were written about it because every day, no matter what happens in the Knicks world, there are going to be at least half a dozen articles written about the team and you, being a fan of the team and of basketball in general, probably read all of them or at least read the headlines and then you go onto knickerblogger, posting and toasting, etc…and read everyone’s comments about those articles and thus it creates a bubble where you think Kanter is incessantly whining about his PT when in fact he wasn’t doing that but just had a normal human reaction to being demoted.

It’s a pity that in real life FOs can’t treat good pros like absolute crap like we do on our fantasy basketball here.

It’s not treating anyone like crap. You just have to communicate properly and manage expectations. If Rick Carlisle can do it with Dirk Nowitzki, Fizdale can do it with Emmanuel Mudiay.

What Chicago and Dallas did last year was cheating. They both purposefully lost games down the stretch and both were reprimanded for it. The fact that the cheating worked or that the league office has no teeth is irrelevant. Cheating is still inherently wrong even if goes uncaught or unpunished.

I understand if some people think cheating is okay since other teams do it and the league doesn’t really do anything but I don’t think that way. Ethics is more important than results so I would rather have us not cheat.

With that said I am all for moving on from Kanter, long-term he doesn’t do anything to help us tends to dominate the ball a bit and is playing in front of Robinson and Knox. I would play Vonleh and Robinson as the 5s and then Knox and Hezonja as 4s only.

IMO, the only silver lining to porzingis’ injury was the opportunity to have one last really sh!tty season, super high draft pick before beginning to truly build/trade/sign players summer 2021 (I honestly want no part of anyone this summer..even Durant). Don’t get me wrong, we’re all human and in the moment, the instant-gratification wins are fun. It also gives us hope that we have a good coach maybe. But it’s not what the goal should be. If porzingis turns into who a lot of us believe he can (and stays healthy), this should be our last high draft pick of this rebuild…we get one shot and we need to do all we can to make it count.

And literally none of this counters anything I said.

Sorry, I must have misunderstood. I thought you were saying that we should do what the Grizzlies et al did last year to get a better draft position.

What Chicago and Dallas did last year was cheating. They both purposefully lost games down the stretch and both were reprimanded for it. The fact that the cheating worked or that the league office has no teeth is irrelevant. Cheating is still inherently wrong even if goes uncaught or unpunished.

I’m not advocating outright cheating. I’m just asking why can’t you sit a young player who is playing well. Did Zach LaVine suffer long term because the Bulls made believe he was injured when he could have played?

Mudiay is tricky to manage. He’s going to be a free agent and he’s playing the best ball of his life. I get that Fizdale would be a little messed up if he benched him. For me, the point has been more about how I react when Mudiay wins a game for us. It doesn’t make me want to celebrate.

Kanter, though. Forget him. If we’re building up his value to trade him as soon as the Dec 15th guys are eligible to be moved, fine. But he should be traded, released, or benched by Christmas. I don’t want to win another game because he has a 25-25.

What Chicago and Dallas did last year was cheating. They both purposefully lost games down the stretch and both were reprimanded for it. The fact that the cheating worked

The cheating didn’t work. The Bulls got the #7 pick which is an undesirable outcome for people that favor tanking.

The cheating didn’t work. The Bulls got the #7 pick which is an undesirable outcome for people that favor tanking.

It’s a lot more desirable than the #10 pick, which is where they were in the standings before they did their super-tanking at the end of last season (they got all the way to a tie for #6, but they lost the tie-breaker). They lost 11 of their last 14, but they fucked themselves with a three-game winning streak mixed in that 14-game stretch.They’d look a lot better for the future if they had Mo Bamba instead of Wendell Carter Jr, but Carter is also a lot better than Collin Sexton or Kevin Knox, so it worked in that regard.

I have a simple question for the board. If you could redraft today, would you still take Knox at #9?

I’m a big Wendall Carter fan so I think it worked really well for them. It was considered a 7 player draft and they made sure they were in the top 7. You don’t always have to play yourself down to the worst record in the league to correctly tank.

I do like Carter, but I like Bamba a lot more. But sure, fair enough, the key was getting into the top 7 (top 8 if, like me, you dug Mikal Bridges – only the Knicks could pick 9th in an 8 player draft and then pass when the 8th player somehow fell to #9). I must admit, though, that while I liked SGA around #9, he looks like he might be even better than Mikal!

This is exactly what Phoenix, Memphis, Dallas, and Chicago did last year, and now they have Ayton, JJJ, Doncic, and Carter, respectively. What did we gain that offset reducing our reward to Kevin Knox?

Right. Losing games last year after the KP injury was a total free roll and we should have done everything in our power to make it happen. It was free money.

I understand the anti-tankers. They are correct that you can do it other ways. They are correct that it’s often the gradual accretion of good decisions that makes a very good team rather than a Giannis type thunderbolt from the blue.

But not tanking like we meant it last year was a colossal blunder.

The cheating didn’t work. The Bulls got the #7 pick which is an undesirable outcome for people that favor tanking.

Ummm… the cheating worked and worked very well:

https://www.basketball-reference.com/play-index/pcm_finder.fcgi?request=1&sum=1&player_id1_hint=Wendell+Carter+Jr.&player_id1_select=Wendell+Carter+Jr.&player_id1=cartewe01&idx=players&player_id2_hint=Kevin+Knox&player_id2_select=Kevin+Knox&player_id2=knoxke01&idx=players

They lost 2 more games than we did and finished with the 6th worst record rather than the 8th. That got them Wendell Carter

That’s really a kick in the nuts, innit? Not only did we fail to get ourselves into ideal position two years in a row, but then we swung for the fences on upside twice and ended up with two guys who are at about the level of prospect we could have drafted if we’d been in the second round of the playoffs.

Yeah, wouldn’t have drafted Knox in the first place. I also would have taken WCS over KP so what the hell do I know.

A normal human reaction would be to look in the mirror with a little introspection.

Do you actually know any normal humans?

The case for drafting Knox was laughably bad at the time, so with the benefit of hindsight it’s basically a sanity check.

Ntilikina’s case at the time was a little more complicated. I and some others were adamantly against it based on his statistical profile but there was legitimate hype for some reason. No matter what you think of him, I think there’s no case for him at that spot in hindsight.

The Robinson pick and the Trier signing undid some of the damage of the bad Ntilikina and Knox drafts. But it’s pretty Knicksy for the Knicks to own two consecutive first rounders in the first time since forever and completely fuck up both picks.

I was okay with the Frank pick at the time, but I was wrong. Knox I hated from the moment the rumors started floating around.

The Knox pick made zero sense with SGA, both Bridges and Zhaire Smith on the board. It’s not fair to evaluate rookies after 20 games, but that pick looks like a genuine blunder.

Where would Mitchell go in a redraft? Am I a shameless homer for thinking he’s up there with Bamba and Carter?

No, I think that’s precisely where he would go. The top of the draft would look baaaasically the same, with Robinson mixed in with Bamba and Carter and then SGA over Sexton. Knox would still go in the first round, but late first round.

You could make a case for him being drafted as soon as 13th (Jerome Robinson) or 14th (Troy Brown Jr.).

It’s ironic that Knicks brass thinks you can’t rebuild in NY but you can draft two 19 year old projects with no track records of production in the lottery.

Yeah, Trier in the very late lottery sounds about right.

Ummm… the cheating worked and worked very well:

https://www.basketball-reference.com/play-index/pcm_finder.fcgi?request=1&sum=1&player_id1_hint=Wendell+Carter+Jr.&player_id1_select=Wendell+Carter+Jr.&player_id1=cartewe01&idx=players&player_id2_hint=Kevin+Knox&player_id2_select=Kevin+Knox&player_id2=knoxke01&idx=players

They lost 2 more games than we did and finished with the 6th worst record rather than the 8th. That got them Wendell Carter

I don’t think that you can tank a season away for the seventh pick and call that a victory. They may have gotten a good player, but they could just as easily get a shitty player.

they did their super-tanking at the end of last season (they got all the way to a tie for #6, but they lost the tie-breaker). They lost 11 of their last 14

I don’t think “tanking” in March and April is what we are talking about in these two threads, though. People are talking about tanking an entire season to get a #1-3 pick. For the season, the strategy the Knicks are taking looks a lot like the strategy Memphis took last year. Which is a perfectly good one I think.

Don’t forget that the only reason the Bulls didn’t end up in the top 3 is because they dedicated a portion of their season to building up Mirotic’s trade value and then they dumped him the first second a team offered a 1st round pick. So they got the 7th and 22nd pick instead of the 4th. I’d do that, too.

If we’re building up Kanter, Mudiay, and Vonleh to flip them for picks, I will commend Mills, Perry, Fiz for this approach.

If we’re building up Kanter, Mudiay, and Vonleh to flip them for picks, I will commend Mills, Perry, Fiz for this approach.

One can only hope. Do we need to wait til February though? 🙂

By the way we should prepare ourselves for the inevitable Dotson for two second rounders trade.

The thing is that Kanter has been a force of nature on offense for years. I accept that he’s a league-worst defender, but he is a dominant player in the post and in the paint, albeit in an era when it’s better to be a PNR lob threat like Capela OR a stretch big like Embiid. Beating the horse to death, but he’s got everything you’d want from a center on offense in 2003.

Mudiay has a career TS% of .467 and TOV% of 16.9 at 24 USG%. Knox has been the worst rookie in the league, and therefore perhaps the worst player in the league. (I think he would struggle in the CBA, nevermind the world’s best basketball league.) Hardaway clearly belongs in the league but at about 1/3 his current salary. Throw in Burke and Trier, too: I love watching Trier’s athleticism in contesting shots and his hunger to make a big defensive play, but he still doesn’t strike me as an NBA defender yet.

But yes, I agree that it seems Fizdale and/or Perry think(s) that they can turn one-dimensional players into two-ways. That’s a scary thought when you believe that coaching provides marginal, not transformative, value.

The 2017 redraft is actually a really fun idea. As I recall, it was considered a bad draft, which made taking a risk on Frank acceptable, but hasn’t really gone that way. I mean, even Luke Kennard is good right now! Zach Collins is balling. There turned out to be plenty of value there.

Don’t sleep on Bam from the 2017 draft. He’s stuck behind Whiteside on a brain dead Miami team, but I actually think they look better with him in the game. He’s not exactly the ideal 2018 prototype but I think he’s a pretty interesting player.

Miles Bridges was a punching bag on this site for over a year before the draft.

This is true, but it was more the concept of him (a player who is available in the late lottery) than anything else that repelled people. By the time we knew where we were picking everyone had Miles above Knox.

By the way we should prepare ourselves for the inevitable Dotson for two second rounders trade.

Trading the rare second rounder that hits for some second rounders that won’t is a big part of what we do here.

the real question today is – how do we loyal knick fans stop this knick juggernaut…

a couple of years ago, this kind of winning streak would have given me lots of joy, not so much now…somehow or another we need to transmit all our negative energy and angst to that knick locker room in detroit this evening…

no more wins for a while…wish it everyone – and, it will be so…

if we don’t end up with one of the top 5 picks next year, no doubt we are screwed…

And Jordan Bell. He is in the Collins/Hart/Kuzma tier.

Don’t sleep on Bam from the 2017 draft. He’s stuck behind Whiteside on a brain dead Miami team, but I actually think they look better with him in the game. He’s not exactly the ideal 2018 prototype but I think he’s a pretty interesting player.

First guy I mentioned #74! He’s been a gem and was an easy choice I think based on his college numbers….

I forgot about Bam.

It’s difficult for me to figure where guys like Isaac, Maarkenan, Smith, and Fultz would go. I like Isaac and Maarkenan a lot. Smith and Fultz I’m not so sure.

All I know is I’ll name a lot of players before I say Frank.

As of now I would probably take Fox first, then Tatum, Mitchell and Ball in a re-draft for 2017. I think Fox is the better defender of the 4, is on par with Lonzo as the best passer and so far this season has been scoring more and about as efficiently as Tatum on a similar usage. Of course that assumes that Fox is the player he has shown so far in this 20 games and that his improvement from last year is sustainable, which I really think it is.

swift and abundant – didn’t you get the memo??? knickerblogger is where we all come to share all our knick related trepidation 🙂

it’s fun to give in and just let it all out…we’ve been doomed, we are doomed, we always will be – doomed…

hahahahahahahahahahahaha….

seriously though – this is one of my favorite knick teams to watch in a very long time…seeing as how only one team wins that last game of the year, and, everyone else goes home a loser…

i don’t agree with everything we’ve done, but, i’m actually pretty happy with the direction we’re going in right now…

actually, i was happy when phil came in and tried to improve the locker room (minus signing afflalo, rose and noah)…if you can’t win it all, or – even make the playoffs – at least give us some hope with young(ish) players who’ll play hard, and whom are decent humans to root for…

i really hope both knox and frank turn out to be high level contributors to our roster, they both seem like good young people to root for…

sorry to rant but its just so freaking annoying to see people deduce basketball into a simple spreadsheets and think that the knicks are screwing everything up bc they don’t follow your rules for how a perfect team should be built. Since Perry came on board we’ve done more things right than wrong and we currently have the youngest team in the NBA, all of our picks going forward, KP waiting in the wings and cap space coming up over the next couple of summers. I get people are anxious for a winning product and have been beaten down by years of losing but he angst level on this board right now is way too high compared to where we actually are right now.

+1000

@97 – I was just going to comment as a response to your first few posts that this is the problem with “statistics” over the “eye test”. If you rely totally on statistics, you’re assuming zero growth and zero change. But change is the one constant in this universe. Mudiay was a lottery pick because of his potential. The same goes for Ntilikina. Mudiay is still just 22. I am not surprised that good coaching, hard work and a positive attitude has changed things around for him.

Stats are a very strong component in predicting results – but stats aren’t everything. Heart and soul are needed.

“This year we need to be in the top 4. It’s not a failure if we don’t get Zion, it’s just a bummer. But if we end with the 6th worst record in the league and have a 65% chance of drafting 6-10 in a 4 player draft, then we’ve failed.”

Based on results so far, get ready for it.

By the way we should prepare ourselves for the inevitable Dotson for two second rounders trade.

I might take this if they are second rounders in the 30s. Dotson doesn’t have much value for us this year and is a low-ceiling player. How much is one year of cheap Dotson worth? After 19-20 he gets a decent contract and is a rotation wing player paid fairly, aka not a trade asset. For rebuilding I think you take the second rounders to push your potential assets towards years you may actually be good and hope you hit a home run with one of them.

Based on results so far, get ready for it.

Not only is drafting outside the top 4 a terrible result, but take a look at who is on the draft board after the top 4. It’s a who’s who of exactly what we don’t need more of:

– Four 6’5″ shooting guards (Quentin Grimes, Keldon Johnson, Romeo Langford, Kevin Porter Jr)
– One raw, 17-year-old French prospect
– a 7’3″ Unicorn whose slim body type makes you wonder if it can hold up over the long term

You can’t make this stuff up.

https://www.si.com/nba/2018/11/19/nba-draft-2019-bol-bol-oregon-deconstructing-unicorn-gamble

my 2017 redraft
1. tatum
2. zach collins (yup)
3. fox
4. john collins
5. Isaac
6. anunoby
7. hart (yes over lonzo)
8. Mitchell
9. smith jr
10. ball
11. bam adebayo
12. fultz

ppl think it’s not a great draft but a 50% hit rate in the lotto is about as good as you get…. and i have faith a lot of these guys will be making allstar appearances… it’s just that it was so guard heavy it takes a little longer for them to develop…

2017 Re-draft

1. Ball
2. Tatum
3. Mitchell
4. John Collins
5. Fox
6. Adebayo (man crush)
7. Allen
8. Anonuby
9. Bell
10. Hart
11. Kennard
12. Smith
13. Fultz
14. Zach Collins

BTW, let’s all praise the lord we didn’t tank enough just to draft Josh Jackson.

BTW, let’s all praise the lord we didn’t tank enough just to draft Josh Jackson

Didn’t Phil want to trade KP for the Suns’ pick to draft Josh Jackson?

2018 Lotto Redraft:

1. Luka Luka LUKA (this guy is going to be insanely good once he loses 15 pounds of baby fat on an NBA training regimen)
2. Jaren
3. Ayton
4. Mitch Rob (!!!)
5. Bamba
6. WCJ
7. Miles Bridges
8. Bagley
9. Diallo
10. SGA
11. Mikal
12. DiVincenzo
13. Shamet
14. Trae

Sportrac lists it at $5.7M but it also lists Porzingis’ at $7.5M, which I know is bullshit. The Capulator lists them at $12M+ and $17M+ respectively, which is consistent with my understanding of the CBA.

Refer to 37. How much do free agents count toward team salary?

Mudiay’s 2018-2019 salary is below the average salary, he’s a first-round pick, and we have his Bird Rights so I see no reason why his cap hold wouldn’t be 300% of his current salary.

If you read section 13 of the same link you will see there is an exception for players on the rookie scale who were drafted under the old CBA. Their salary for cap hold purposes is calculated by the previous rookie scale. I don’t know why it is there but suspect it is because owners didn’t want their cap space plans screwed up by the new CBA suddenly revaluing all their rookie scale players

We could counter the masochism by doing a 2015 redraft. KP would probably go 2nd even tho Turner has a great case to go ahead of him.

The 300% isn’t in the previous CBA, so I don’t think it applies to Mudiay’s cap hold. But reasonable minds can differ.

At the beginning of the season I thought this was the perfect roster for the tank. Especially Kanter. “Seemingly good but actually bad”. All offense, no defense, a walking minus number. I also liked that I like him. A fucking hero. A Turkish dissident. I thought, cool, a great person to lead us to Zion. Then we say peace out and use his money on KD. But something funny is happening. Like an NBA high 26 rebound game and a plus 9 on the road against the Grizzlies. It’s like “The Producers”. We were supposed to be a flop. Ditto Mudiay, Vonleh, Burke…

So there are a few possible outcomes. These guys turn back into pumpkins soon and we still draft top 5. These guys turn back into pumpkins later and we draft top 10 (the scenario most around here dread). Or we make the fucking playoffs. If we make the playoffs do you resign Kanter?

As to the kids, they’re playing and contributing as well, despite being decidedly below average on an objective stat based level. Frank does seem to be able to guard and Knox to shoot. Fultz is presently reading a magazine at a doctors office and is Jahlil Okafor even on a roster?

My take is that I’m down to play for optimal draft position in a down year but not to force the coach to make losing moves. That’s not even fair to winning teams, you know? I’m not mad at NYK for making the most of what they have. Off the last few games I’m even down to say fuk the tank but overall I know that the shit will come out how it does. Scientists look at evidence. If you want a forgone conclusion go root for the WWF.

anyone do a deal for markelle fultz

I’d maybe trade Knox for him? His shot is likely permanently busted.

Not unless he’s willing to take a huge pay cut.

I’m not sure what willing has to do with it, Kanter is gonna be payed a lot less next year no matter where he goes.

#12 – that was a good post dan…

If you want a forgone conclusion go root for the WWF.

🙂

If they took Lee for sure. I just kinda assume nobody actually wants Lee.

Although.. Knox and Lee for Fultz doesn’t work by the numbers. I think we’d need to take back two of their minimum guys as well.

The rumor was that it was to take Jackson. Phil liked Tatum and Jackson a lot, and Tatum obviously wasn’t going to be there at #4.

Thanks geo