(Wednesday, December 26, 2018 10:04:53 PM)
It wasn’t a Merry Christmas for Knicks PG Frank Ntilikina on Tuesday, as he didn’t see the court in the team’s loss to the Bucks.
(Wednesday, December 26, 2018 9:00:35 AM)
If the Knicks snag one of the Top 3 picks, they should be in good shape and have their choice of one of Duke’s potentially franchise-altering talents: Zion Williamson, R.J. Barrett, or Cam Reddish.
(Wednesday, December 26, 2018 5:58:37 PM)
The best thing Knicks first-year coach David Fizdale had going for him is keeping up team spirit. That may be challenging as this season could spin out of control out West. Losers of 10 of the last 11 games, the Knicks are on the verge of inheriting the NBA’s worst record as they embark on…
(Wednesday, December 26, 2018 9:36:53 AM)
This has been a trying month for Frank Ntilikina, with his French hometown of Strasbourg making international headlines for all the wrong reasons. Ntilikina’s mother, Jacqueline, flew to New York earlier this week to be with her son and watch him play on Christmas Day at the Garden against the Bucks. The terrorist attack on…
[NYTimes] Athletes Don’t Own Their Tattoos. That’s a Problem for Video Game Developers. (Thursday, December 27, 2018 10:00:05 AM)
Sports video games strive for realism by closely replicating real-life players, but digitally reproducing their tattoos has led to court fights over ownership rights.
[NYTimes] The Town Where the Shots Go Up, and the Records Fall (Wednesday, December 26, 2018 6:51:49 PM)
Joe Girard III is smashing scoring records at Glens Falls High School, recalling another favorite son of upstate New York who preceded him there.
51 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2018.12.27)”
Good. Frank has an edge.
Yeah, but it has to manifest on the court too.
One step at a time 🙂
I hope Frank gets traded to OKC where they appreciate what he does and the win all the marbles…..
I was thinking back to the conversation about how few players there were who sucked for their first 2 years and then improved, the smallness of the sample size, etc. Then I started thinking about Spencer Dinwiddie.
Dinwiddie came into the league at age 21 and played 600 mostly shitty minutes in his first 2 seasons combined. Now, at age 25, he’s having a great year and just signed a nice 8-digit extension.
I imagine what his stats would have looked like if he played over 1000 minutes each year in the NBA at ages 19 and 20. My guess is that he would have been as terrible as Frank.
Only 19 guards have played 1000+ minutes as teenagers in the shot clock era. If you expand the list to include 20yo rookies, the list grows to 54. In other words, very few guards have been good enough to get drafted at age 18 or 19 and have gone on to see 1000+ minutes in each of their first 2 years. So what about the rest of the guards? Most were still in college or were one of 60 guys who played less than 1000 minutes as teenagers.
So if you want to feel optimistic in light of Z’s posts yesterday, you could argue that Frank should still be in college or shouldn’t be playing as many minutes as he has, and therefore shouldn’t be judged until he is 23 and still stinking it up. I wouldn’t argue that, but it is a reasonable refutation.
For me, part of being a fan is liking the players and style of play. I’m slowly drifting into a love/hate relationship with the current Knicks. I love the team and some of the players, but don’t like where current management and the coach is taking it.
The same thing happened to me when they traded for Melo. I hated the Melo deal. So part of me never fully embraced the team even when they were playing well with Chandler and Kidd.
I’m not at that stage yet, but I mostly don’t like the moves, rotations, and emphasis on offense over defense coming from this management team and Fizdale.
I don’t care if Frank is never more than the 4th or 5th option on the court whose only role is to lock down on defense, shoot spot up 3s, and make some plays once in awhile. One a team with KP, Knox, and another scorer, that’s exactly what you need anyway. But if you are going to insist he be an aggressive scorer or be benched, I suspect you are wrong on the basketball and he’d be better off somewhere else.
Yeah, this offense just plain sucks. Fiz is not the first coach unable to install a proper system (Scott Brooks and Donovan come to mind, also never forget that Malone benched Jokic for 20+ games to start last season! Damn, the coaching breed is really dumb), but our roster is particularly ill-suited to bear with a year of Iso-Whoever.
@7
I’m in the camp that believes shot creation and scoring usage has value, but I think they emphasize it way too much. You need guys that can create for themselves when you don’t get a good shot off a set play, passing, motion etc… But our offense is Hardaway taking contested shots, dumping the ball into Kanter, or Trier/Mudiay/Knox creating for themselves. There’s not much passing, play making, or movement.
Fiz would do well with a good technical offensive coordinator. It kinda would solve a lot of problems. The rotations on the other hand…
When your only plus offensive players are negative defensive players, and you’re coaching in the modern league with a need to get to 106 points on average, you’re stuck, especially with kids like Frank giving you near nothing. Like I said yesterday, Frank – Trier – Knox – Vonleh – Mitch is our best lineup in both development and balance, and Mudiay – Hardaway – Knox – Vonleh – Kanter is what Fizdale is running.
If the Knicks don’t trade Frank, Id hope that at some point Fiz pulls him aside and tell him that he’s IN the rotation permanently, no matter what, and then make sure he gets 20+ minutes per night. Fiz is still trying to “win” games too much with all the heroballing.
They should be tanking…so there’s no downside in that. It would help to move out either Burke or Mudiay. If they like Mudiay, then so be it. Move on from Burke as the backup PG.
I still don’t understand why they don’t just send him to the G League for now until they resolve the glut of bad guards that they currently have.
The biggest worry is not Frank’s minutes or lack thereof. It’s the utter lack of talent across the roster.
Without assets, we are forced to improve the team through free agency and the draft. A very long, slow and painful outlook.
Fiz is the perfect coach for this situation. Consider when we hired D’Antoni how awful of a decision that was. It’s better to have a “preacher’ type coach early on in a rebuild. That way he can be fired without remorse when the rebuild progresses.
And say what you want about his coaching ability, the team has won some games against good teams and has been competitive in more games than not. There isn’t a coach alive that could balance tanking and playing competitively while getting the young guys in much better than Fiz has to this point. Sure, there’s plenty of iso and chucking, but there’s also plenty of screen hand-offs, drive and kicks, etc. I don’t think what we’re running matters all that much right now.
There was nothing wrong with hiring D’Antoni except that the league, media, players, and fans hadn’t fully accepted that he was right yet and that he and Walsh put all their eggs in the James basket and wound up with Amare and Melo. uggh
They keep bringing in mostly one way offensive players that aren’t even particularly good on offense. Vonleh is the exception and filled a need that was so obvious even they didn’t blow it.
Dotson should never be fully out of the rotation and that’s been obvious from day 1.
If I was in charge we’d still have O’Quinn.
I might still even still have Justin Holiday.
Not that hose guys are necessarily such great assets, but they are actually basketball players that can contribute on both sides.
We should be giving more playing time to Kornet. He’s been not bad!
Also, some of the recent malaise is probably due to Mitchell being out. As flawed as he is he’s probably the most effective player on the team. He can’t stay on the floor but he’s the only rim protector we’ve got. (maybe Kornet is okay)
To clarify I don’t know if we would have won any of the games Mitchell has missed but the overall feel of the team would be better.
Frank should be shooting 500 threes a day in practice. There’s no reason he can’t improve on that and make himself more valuable and playable. I would think he would be pretty motivated to do it, but so far it appears he’s unable or unwilling to do so. If he doesn’t he will find himself out of the league sooner rather than later.
How do we possibly know whether Frank is shooting 500 3s a day or not?
I wouldn’t be surprised if Frank was working on his game tirelessly, including putting up lots of 3’s every day that he can. Honestly, it’s the thing I’m worried least about. He’ll likely be a consistent 37-40% shooter from 3 within the next 3-4 years, hopefully sooner rather than later.
The bigger problem is rebounding. He doesn’t seem to have a feel for it at all.
His second biggest problem is turning the ball over, he still thinks he’s a PG and tries to make passes that simply aren’t there.
Defend 3 positions, make 3’s, get the ast/to ratio above 2:1, and rebound well for a guard. That’s his road to NBA relevance.
So, to beat the dead horse until almost nothing is left. I tried to find a list of point guards like Frank who were still 18 on July 1st of their first year, and played over 1000 minutes. That leaves just him and Dante Exum. So, expanding to all PGs still 18 on 7/1:
Frank’s first year: 1706 minutes / TS: .437 / WS: -.026
1. Dante Exum (first yr: 1800 min): third year (3000 min) until he posted >520 TS, 4 (3235 min) until he posted >.100 WS/48
2. Lou Williams (1st yr: 145 min): 2nd year (800 min) TS>520, 4th yr (2700 min) >.100 WS/48
3. Shaun Livingston (814 min): 4 years (3000 min) until TS>520, 8 years until >.100 WS/48
4. Tyus Jones (573 min): 2nd year (573 min) until TS>580, 3rd year (2700 min) until >.100 WS/48
[Markelle Fultz (253 min): jury’s out, very weird case.]
[Just missed the cut: Jrue Holiday (1767 min): Came out shooting well, TS.526 , 6th year (9000 min) hit WS >.100- goes to show how defensive value isn’t well evaluated in these stats)
So, yes, Frank is exceptionally young, and young for a point guard, and it takes many minutes until you can even know if he is any good. To remind you, this is the TOTAL list of ALL point guards EVER that were as young as Frank. Granted, Frank is currently worse than all in terms of WS/TS, but by a hair. They are almost all clustered in the same stat-range. Not to say Lou and Livingston are world beaters, but they are rotation players at least, and the only others to compare to. Frank has played 680 minutes this year so far, I am holding out for now.
He still has a decent chance to bust, but it will take time to know, such is what you sign up for when you draft a point guard.
Breaking…Frank will be making an appearance tonight. I always forget, does that mean a longer or shorter winter?
https://www.theringer.com/nba/2018/12/27/18157868/justise-winslow-miami-heat-point-guard-resurgence
I’m not sold on either Frank or Winslow, but I think the thesis of this article is pretty much what “Frank as PG” advocates are seeing as a best case scenario
Frank will never be a primary ball handler but he can still be the PG if he’s paired with a playmaking wing. Which is why I’m still not over us losing out on Doncic.
@22
Seems about right. Unlike others who feel he can’t drive, I haven’t seen his dribbling as an issue in the games I’ve watched this season. He has also penetrated going left, which is a good sign. I’m not saying he has been good – his shooting had been bad, he’s made plenty of weak passes for TOs, and his D hasn’t been consistently good – but he has shot ok in the past, he passed ok last year, and his D is often still excellent. All to say I still think he could be a decent player, maybe even a PG.
But I admit I wouldn’t put money on it. Unless he’s traded.
Another Ringer article mentions both Mudiay and Vonleh as revived players. That kind of talk is good for dealing Mudiay, bad for resigning Vonleh. So we’ll probably re-sign Mudiay and watch someone else pick up Vonleh.
https://www.theringer.com/nba/2018/12/25/18155794/nba-christmas-winners-losers-giannis-antetokounmpo-lebron-james-stephen-curry-james-harden
pop a cork girls and boys we’ve been dekanter’d
For a second I thought you meant we’d traded him. Timmy has a cold, maybe out this game. That’ll be fun.
so: mud-lee-knox-vonleh-kornet…and, off the bench: burke-trier-frank-thomas-kanter…
dotson may again only see a few minutes, cuz, well – who really knows why…
yeah, put me in the group that would like to see no more of: mud, burke, kanter and thomas the rest of the year, and, watch timmy come off the bench…
Frank playing with Trier and Burke is gross. Rather switch him out for Lee so he can play with Mudiay.
Everytime Kanter doesn’t start my glasses become a little rosier
I watched Frank in warmups on Christmas day and he was shooting great from outside.
The first time I looked at Frank’s stats and saw him play in France, I was negative on him because I couldn’t imagine how a guy that was providing almost no offense in France was going to come to the US and score well enough. Then I read an interview with some shooting coach he was working with after we drafted him. He said Frank had an NBA ready shot and had scored very well on some shooting tests he gives players. So I became more positive.
I’m starting to think Frank’s shooting woes are mental. I don’t think he’s mentally tough enough yet. I think he feels pressure, gets shaken quickly if he missing a few, and is afraid to miss. I’m not sure how to fix that, but I’m pretty sure the threat of benching is not helping a guy with confidence issues.
Um, is Kornet any good? I still have no idea.
I doubt it, but neither is Kanter. So we might as well go with the unknown. 🙂
Kornet definitely has a spot in this league if he can shoot decently from 3.
When I watch Frank Ntilikina play, I dont see a guy who has no game on offense. His problem is all confidence, because if truth be told he’s likely the best passer, best defender, and best shooter of all the point guards we have on the roster. The problem, to me, is a lot of the Knicks’ offense is coming from options out of the high post. We get it to a big on the right elbow (normally Kanter), and that big either takes his match up on the block, passes it back to the perimeter, or gives it to the wing on a curl for a mid range jumper. I’m sure the stats are available, but I don’t believe enough of our possessions start with a pick and roll. When Ntilikina and Robinson are on the court, that’s when we see all the amazing lobs and Ntilikina doesn’t look like he doesn’t have the handle to penetrate defenses then. Part of it is Fizdale needs to do a better job calling plays for Frank, another part is Kanter is our best offensive player so we probably do need to run sets through him, and part of it is Frank needs to grow some balls and take his man off the dribble sometimes. Frank is literally the only player on the team who has a problem going off script, and it’s very annoying. I would much rather watch Frank take a 6’2” guy into the post then watch Timmy rush a shot over a defender in good position.
I’m okay with the rotations and minutes. Nice to see Kornet starting, let’s see what he can do against the good Lopez. Can’t be any worse than Kanter.
The problems with our offense are legion.
Nah, he’s a terrible rebounder and doesn’t jump. But he’s serviceable.
i dont think age really tells you much with frank…. yes hes young and yes other young guards like him struggle… but those other young guards had other things going for them even in their rookie years…. namely they all had foundational skills that all nba guards should possess which is converting opportunities near the basket….
the reason frank is dangerously close to being a bust is solely because of that… there are other guards that couldnt shoot from outside or pull down boards and sometimes both… but they wound up putting together a career because they convert opportunities all other nba guards get or make for themselves… if u dont… ur a huge minus based on that alone which is why 2p fg% is such a sticky stat for all nba players…
age matters yes… but alot of times older players that get drafted established their ability to convert at the basket in college or overseas at much younger ages too… the fact that frank still cant in the nba is not to be discounted or explained away purely by age…
I honestly think a lot of Frank’s problems are rooted in the fact that he is not only really young but he’s also not playing in an organized system of basketball like he did in Europe. He isn’t scared, he just doesn’t know what to do on a team where you “kill what you eat” and the players aren’t really playing together in a motion offense or whatever.
This isn’t to say he would become an all-star if he played for The Spurs or whatever but he’s a smart player. You can see this on defense because his good defense isn’t based on getting up in a player’s grill and causing a steal. Its based on positioning, funneling the player towards the base line so they step out of bounds or are forced to throw a bad pass (and another player gets credited for that steal). If he had a really defined role on offense and wasn’t sharing the floor with Beasley last year, Trier, Burke, etc…he would probably look a lot better. I don’t think he’s ever gonna be a guy who puts up gawdy numbers but I think he is the type of basketball player that can play on a good team because he plays a brand of basketball that is smart and unselfish.
Also, if confidence is an issue with him, then I don’t see how benching him helps. You bench guys when they fail to do what you ask them to do and they take bad shots, blow defensive assignments, etc. You don’t bench a guy to help his confidence. You bench them to teach them a lesson.
When Frank and KP played together last year, those were the best 5 man units we had and the defense was actually really good when those two shared the floor together. I hope the FO is smart enough to realize that. But I’m officially worried.
Since 2015-16, there have been 1171 player seasons in excess of 650 MP, and Ntilikina has the 13th- and 17th-worst eFG% seasons of that set. In TS%, he would be 8th- and #10th-worst. I just don’t see any objective evidence to this claim, even though Mudiay is a horrible shooter himself and Burke is… not good.
Other current and former Knicks:
Mudiay #10, #37, #41
Hezonja #20
Vonleh #59
Jennings #42 (some of which as a Knick)
Shumpert #73
Grant #58
Rose #59
Knox #109
Larkin #114
Galloway #134
Porzingis #175
i just want to say how impressed i am with your dedication to keeping your writing in all lower case letters – especially with your i’s, which can be a bit of a pain after a while…i’m also really digging the fact that you’ve forgone communicating with punctuation too…
Kanter is upset.
@43 you’re absolutely right that Frank has been terrible as a shooter (and his assist rate is paltry, and his defense is probably overrated). I’m more projecting that long term, Frank seems like the best bet of all of our guards to be a passable combination as a shooter/passer/defender. He doesn’t take bad shots, he’s the most willing passer, and he’s already the best defender. He’s definitely terrible now but his ceiling to me is a 6’6” Pablo Prigioni.
If Kornet starts we’re gonna get some sulking from Kanter. He should embrace it and hope to be traded to a playoff-bound team where he can be a scoring big off the bench.
@45 The Knicks need to cut ties with Kanter ASAP.
prior to a short while ago (maybe a month or so), i never really checked in on twitter stuff too much…the knicks have inspired me though…
so, kanter just posted a faceplam emoji – and, someone responded that’s how the rest of us feel watching him play defense 🙂
A Pablo Prigioni who is three inches taller, has tremendous reach and is in his very early 20’s is a very interesting player.
I would take a 6’6″ Prigioni. Especially on this team with so many guys that want to shoot.