Knicks Morning News (2019.01.19)

I think it’s time to accept that Fizdale and the coaching staff are disinterested in actually winning games.

If the suggestion here is that Fiz is intentionally selecting the wrong players for the right reason (the tank), I find that hard to believe.

If the suggestion is that they’re only interested in player development, it still doesn’t excuse putting players like Hardaway in there over Frank and Mitch. Hardaway is 26 and it should be clear by now he’s not the guy for these moments. The other kids are 20 and actually need the experience.

The most logical conclusion is that Fiz is a guy with favorites and his head is so far up his ass that he’ll play “his guys” even when the situation is screaming for better personnel. And that is one of the clearest marks of a bad coach.

You are assuming he knows who his best players are.

That’s my problem with this management team. They haven’t done anything strategically horrific, but they seem to wildly overrate scoring, shot creation, and athleticism compared to defense, sharing the ball, player movement, and generally high IQ basketball.

This is Isiah Thomas all over again except with some lessons learned about throwing away picks.

It’ll be fascinating to see what Faried can do in the Capela role in Houston. Will the Rockets now finally cut Melo?

If the suggestion here is that Fiz is intentionally selecting the wrong players for the right reason (the tank), I find that hard to believe.

I was thinking more along the lines of being more interested in generating film of players in different situations. And we know he thinks guys can continue to improve their game over time. ptmilo’s breakdown yesterday lays the blame of the last play at THj’s feet – there’s probably some value in that to the coaching staff and there’s definitely more value to that than a win would carry. Especially against the Wiz who have the potential to catch us in the tank race. He’s swapped guys out for O/D at the end of close games against good teams before but Washington is not a team we want to hand an ‘L’ to.

I have no idea whatsoever about what’s in Fizdale’s head, but I’m not willing to concede that he knows what he’s doing in terms of choosing rotations and lineups. I think he stumbles into them.

Ps: I made the semifinals in the singing contest! Maybe someone here will sniff finals in 2019 XD

Congrats!

@3

Is this all we have to look
Forward too for the foreseeable future, melo who destroyed us getting cut?!

Congrats, Farfa! You should do an all singing recap one day. 🙂

He’s swapped guys out for O/D at the end of close games against good teams before but Washington is not a team we want to hand an ‘L’ to.

I’d love to think he was playing the game and knew the value of losing to the warriors but I’m extremely skeptical of that.

It’s far more likely that he’s just another bad coach who would rather stick with his guys than make an adjustment that would put the team in a better position to win.

Also I’m not sure your assertion that he goes with the better defensive guys against good teams is true. I’ve noticed in many close games, including wins over Boston and Memphis, he stayed with the offense guys on defense instead of making the switch. The most proactive I’ve ever seen him is to take Kanter out, but it would be negligent not to do that. Hardaway & Mudiay are defending at the end of probably 100% of our games that they’re available.

@Brian

You’re the wizard of embedding things here, tell me how to upload a video and maybe I’ll do that 🙂

For YouTube videos, it’s as simple as just posting the link. I’ve embedded a YouTube video here as an example.

Fizdale may be the kind of guy that overthinks some things.

Sometimes, when many factors are involved bright people make bad decisions in obvious situations.

They have all these things swirling in their head which player is better, who’s playing well today, who did the other coach put on the court, what are the matchups, which play do I think this team is going to call based on my film watching, how much time is left etc…

They end up with all these pluses and minuses in their their head and instead of just throwing the 3 best defenders out there they talk themselves into thinking having Knox, Mudiay, Hardaway, and Trier was a good idea.

It’s either that, he’s an idiot, or he cares so little about winning he actually wanted to see how some of the worst defenders on the team would handle the situation.

It’s also possible that Fiz is playing the guys who he believes are the future of the team. There’s a better chance that Hardaway is playing major minutes on the 2019-20 Knicks than Frank. So putting THJ in for clutch defensive possessions over Frank has some logic to it, even though THJ sucks on defense and isn’t likely to get much better.

It’s not necessarily that Fiz is playing favorites or is dumb and doesn’t realize THJ can’t guard anyone.

The concern for me is that is that he is “training” the players he sees as keepers, or should be unless he an idiot, and those players include Mudiay and Hardaway.

Bondy is reporting Perry approaches Atlanta about their interest in frank. They weren’t interested but I think it’s telling that frank is not part of the long term plan anymore.

I wish we could just get rid of THJ so this wouldn’t be an issue anymore. Can’t we trade Hardaway and Mudiay to Utah for Rubio and Sefolosha and be done with it?

I think Timmy would be good in okc. Being that he can create his own offense. And they need three point shooting.. their defense is excellent so a perfect 6th man.

It’s also possible that Fiz is playing the guys who he believes are the future of the team.

That’s possible, but that also makes him appear like a fool for the reasons Nick C described.

There is no explanation for keeping Mitch off the court in that situation that doesn’t end up exposing a foolish thought process.

There is one explanation for Frank, which is that he’s already given up on him ever being an NBA player. I think that’s a foolish thought process too but can at least understand it.

If you can get a pick out of Frank, you do it yesterday.

I will eat the biggest crow you can find if he shows up in a Knicks uni next year playing respectable ball in any form.

Now is the time to trade Frank, when he still has a tiny little bit of prospect “new car smell” on him. The more he plays, the bigger the sample size of suck gets and the more his trade value decreases.

His value couldn’t lower than it is right now. I wouldn’t move him for a second round pick

Q: What’s the organization’s vision for player development?

Craig Robinson: “What I love about both Steve [Mills] and [Knicks general manager] Scott [Perry] is that they understand how important player development is philosophically

37 games later

This 20 year old kid will never improve let’s trade him

I respectfully don’t understand, Jowles, why you ignore the age efficiency curve? It’s as statistical as anything else you believe in.

An NBA player’s age 19 season is as useful in forecasting his future success as his zodiac sign. An age 20 season is barely more useful. The efficiency leap from age 20 to 21, across a very wide sample, is enormous.

Making conclusive judgments on Frank before he’s 21 is unwise for any of us. For Mills, Perry, and Fizdale, though, it’s a sign of incompetence.

Frank has no value right now. You play and develop him into a decent player or hope he improves enough to where someone might trade for him.

Again, I think the odds of Frank developing into a good player are probably long, but we suck anyhow and he’s not going to bring anything back in a trade so why not just play him. There are maybe four decent players on our roster and all we do here is moan about Frank. There are two guys on the team who can get a defensive rebound, and we’re not playing one of them. Our defense is a joke and nobody on the team can pass. Let’s mix it up a bit!

I’m no a fan of D’Angelo Russell because he doesn’t defend, but we are into his 4th season and he’s just now starting to show signs that he may at least be a good ballplayer on offense.

For a group that’s constantly harping on building through the draft, we may need to adjust our thinking to never drafting anyone under 22 unless he’s a surefire future champ because there’s no patience here at all.

There are maybe four decent players on our roster and all we do here is moan about Frank

Four players? That’s generous. I can name three players that are good enough on both sides to be called decent.

I see KP, Vonleh, and Dotson. Who’s the 4th? 🙂

Of course, some people are willing to take a 2nd rounder for Vonleh and want to move on from KP because he’s not worth the max yet?

So I might be 90 by the time we get out of the lottery if they get their way. 🙂

Frank has become a lightening rod. Some people love him because he defends and wants to play unselfish ball. Others hate him because he can’t shoot and his boxscore stats suck. The sad part is that I’m pretty sure deep down inside some get joy out of him going 1-7 so they can some here and trash him some more. There’s no middle ground.

At this point a lot of it doesn’t even have anything to do with Frank.

Frank has no value right now. You play and develop him into a decent player or hope he improves enough to where someone might trade for him.

This is precisely why I would trade him for anything, because I think that there’s a good possibility that by the end of next year, the Knicks decline his player option and he heads to Europe. Again, if there’s a team dumb enough to give up assets for him, fleece them and start the draft development process over. He is perhaps the worst offensive guard I can remember playing minutes for this franchise, at least since I became a KB-level basketball follower.

Here’s a crazy statistic: since 2000-01, the Knicks have played 25 players for >750 with a BPM worse than -3.0.

Fifteen of those player seasons have come since 2014-15.

http://bkref.com/tiny/xJ5xn

Ntilikina represents the 12th- and 5th-worst seasons above that minutes threshold. Knox is 2nd-worst. THJ’s rookie year is 11th. Trier is 6th, Ron Baker 9th.

And Lance, of course, is, according to BPM, the titleholder for the worst Knicks season of the century with a -5.7 BPM in 1,040 minutes in 2014-15.

So yeah, forgive me if I’m not very bullish on Frank. Yes, I’m aware of how few young players have played big minutes for the Knicks owing to the eternal mismanagement of draft picks, but you need to squint really hard to look at that list of players and see optimism.

As I’ve said — play the shit out of Frank. Give him all the minutes you can. But if someone comes calling with a real asset, like a 2019 or 2020 draft pick, there’s an argument to be made for cutting your losses and getting a player who doesn’t freeze like a pick-up ball player when he gets in the paint or is pushing the ball in transition. He’s horrible, statistically and eyetestedly.

There have been 89 player seasons of 500+ minutes by guards 20 or younger since 1979. It’s really not that easy to project how frank is going to develop.

An NBA player’s age 19 season is as useful in forecasting his future success as his zodiac sign. An age 20 season is barely more useful. The efficiency leap from age 20 to 21, across a very wide sample, is enormous.

this is a greg anthony corner three overshoot. when age 20 isn’t your rookie year, the results are quite indicative, though of course far from dispositive. here are all the players since 1980 to play 1000 minutes at age 20 as a non-rookie. this list might have you more excited about andris biedrins than giannis, yet still even a naive look is extremely informative, i.e. predictive. it’s not the barely-better-than-astrology evidence you think it is

https://tinyurl.com/yavyq9rp

Can you break that down by players that were drafted at 18-19 because they were so damn good in college they knew they’d get drafted in the lottery and make millions of dollars vs. those that were considered a project coming in but were drafted anyway because the management saw qualities they thought would eventually pay off?

This is where aggregate data can “potentially” be misleading about the probabilities.

We all agree that Frank is among the worst offensive players in the NBA now. A good case can be made he has slipped on defense also (most likely because they are pushing him so hard to be aggressive on offense). There’s no debate there other than you have to at least consider his defense not contained in the boxscore.

I’m one his last hold outs. I haven’t given up. However, before the draft even I was saying that if he was a zero on offense in France he was going to be a zero in the NBA. That’s what a “project” is. Instead of starting at a more typical base and hoping for improvement, you start well below that and hope that given enough time the qualities that interested you initially can eventually be honed into a good ball player. So far not so good. But imo this project needs more time. He’s not the typical lottery college kid.

The reason people here constantly bitch and moan about Frank, at least the main reason I do, is because he was the 8th pick in the draft and was selected by Phil who was fired almost immediately after that awful pick. The Knicks are not in a position where they can waste Top 10 picks and so far it looks like they may have done so in back-to-back years, that’s the real frustrating part.

That’s what a “project” is. Instead of starting at a more typical base and hoping for improvement, you start well below that and hope that given enough time the qualities that interested you initially can eventually be honed into a good ball player. So far not so good. But imo this project needs more time. He’s not the typical lottery college kid.

This is a good strategy for a 2nd rounder, which is what Frank should have been. You don’t draft a 5-year project at #8. The problem now is that even as a project he’s getting paid triple what he’s worth. If you trade him for a 2nd rounder, you can draft another project and pay him a lot less.

I haven’t given up on him yet because I like his size, shooting mechanics and his work ethic. But I’d just as soon trade him or decline his option at the next opportunity unless he turns it around quickly. He’s pretty much a dime-a-dozen prospect right now.

There is no explanation for keeping Mitch off the court in that situation that doesn’t end up exposing a foolish thought process.

Rust? Conditioning? Some lingering tightness in the groin? Legit concerns that Mitch is the most likely player to commit a stupid foul when we least want one?

There’s a fuck ton of known unknowns, and probably more unknown unknowns. Hell, when they tell us things in the postgame it’s probably incomplete info and could easily be a misdirection. I’m not sold on Fizdale and I hate sounding like an apologist but Occam’s Razor really doesn’t come done on incompetence here: if a coach isn’t being evaluated on wins and it’s in our best interest to lose games suboptimal rotations do not indicate incompetence. Sort of like when the coach talks up ball movement but all your players suck ass (and not in the fun way) and go iso everytime a play breaks down it doesn’t mean the coach is telling them to go iso, it just means they suck ass.

@30 Sixty players is a really small sample size. Also the Knickiest outcome is we trade Frank and he spends the next 7 years absolutely dominating our franchise PG, Ja Morant.

The reason people here constantly bitch and moan about Frank, at least the main reason I do, is because he was the 8th pick in the draft and was selected by Phil who was fired almost immediately after that awful pick.

Where’s Ntilikilla?

Can you break that down by players that were drafted at 18-19 because they were so damn good in college they knew they’d get drafted in the lottery and make millions of dollars vs. those that were considered a project coming in but were drafted anyway because the management saw qualities they thought would eventually pay off?

feel free to break it down by hat size, bref will bend to your will. but the argument is not that this list provides conclusive evidence that frank is doomed. the argument is that this list refutes the claim that an average 20 year old non rookie’s production is almost irrelevant to his future nba success.

this list refutes the claim that an average 20 year old non rookie’s production is almost irrelevant to his future nba success.

Mudiay and Vonleh will prove you wrong! BWAHAHAHA!! /evillaugh

@36

Understood, but it might be irrelevant to a subset of 20 years with a profile like Frank.

The reason people here constantly bitch and moan about Frank, at least the main reason I do, is because he was the 8th pick in the draft and was selected by Phil who was fired almost immediately after that awful pick

I’m not sure who we should have taken before him. I still like Frank by a wide margin over DSJr. Supposedly the Knicks also considered Donovan Mitchell. That was probably the correct pick for them. Of course it’s 100% certain that in every draft you will find MANY players that were not the optimal pick where they were selected because it always was an educated guessing game and now with teenagers it’s even worse. It’s hard to be consistently right.

This is a good strategy for a 2nd rounder, which is what Frank should have been. You don’t draft a 5-year project at #8. The problem now is that even as a project he’s getting paid triple what he’s worth. If you trade him for a 2nd rounder, you can draft another project and pay him a lot less.

You are 100% preaching to the choir here, but maybe not the way you intended.

I think this is true for much of the draft. You pay teenagers millions of dollars to not be productive enough to justify their salaries and then they either bust out or you have to extend them before they are good enough to justify the extension. That’s why I’m not such a big fan of all out tanking. The successes aren’t as frequent as the disasters.

It may be worse with a player/project like Frank, but you weren’t going to get Frank in the 2nd round. If we passed Dallas would have taken him. From what I gather they still want him. He’s overpaid for sure though.

Rust? Conditioning? Some lingering tightness in the groin?

It was 2 seconds. I trust his conditioning could have held up.

Legit concerns that Mitch is the most likely player to commit a stupid foul when we least want one?

That’s precisely why he *should* have been in if your thought process is “I want to see how these guys handle it”. If you’re treating these things as a development opp, you play him over Hardaway bc you need to see if he can avoid fouling. If you’re trying to win, you play him over Hardaway bc he’s the better option to defend.

If you play Hardaway over him, it’s reasonable to conclude that he just plays his favorite guys and isn’t the kind of coach who will make wise adjustments.

I’m not sure who we should have taken before him.

There’s no question–

https://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/players/john-collins-1.html

And if you think Collins at #8 is a reach (and that’s totally fine), you trade down and pick up assets.

Good God, is anyone watching the UVA-Duke game? Just watched Zion lead the fast break, split 3 defenders, dunk the ball, and draw a foul. He’s so fucking good.

Why do I feel like we have zero chance to get Zion even though our odds will be probably as good as any team’s?

Somehow he’ll end up in Cleveland, the franchise that deserves nothing but gets everything

Pretty big kid on Virginia hit Zions arm on his dunk and it didn’t do anything

It doesn’t make sense as to why Barrett always leads Duke in FGA until you watch the games and see he’s the only player capable of breaking down a defense and creating his own opportunities. The other guys need Tre Jones out there.

the argument is that this list refutes the claim that an average 20 year old non rookie’s production is almost irrelevant to his future nba success.

No it doesn’t. Not even a little bit.

Filter out the selection bias bc generally speaking only prodigies got to play 500 minutes as a 20 year old from 1980 to today. LeBron James and Anthony Davis are not relevant to a 20 year old project.

What’s left supports my argument. Tony Parker at age 22, for instance, has a 766% increase in BPM from his age 20 season. Noah Vonleh is -4.0 at age 20 and is plus 1.4 at age 23. Tobias Harris was at -0.8 and has excelled every year after age 22.

I don’t know how you look at that list and think it refutes the idea that a 20 year old NBA player’s season is no trusted indication of where he might be at 22.

Going thru the crap we have as Knick fans since JVG left might be worth it if we are finally rewarded with getting Zion.

Jamal Murray, Tyson Chandler, Carmelo Anthony, Chris Bosh, Giannis… that list is full of players whose age 20 season gave no indication of how they’d perform in BPM for the rest of their careers.

Why doesn’t Zion shoot every time?

In this draft the team that has the worst record only has the same odds as a team that has the fourth best record. At least we won’t be beating ourselves over the head when we finished third or fourth worst because we have a lesser chance of drafting Zion.

Filter out the selection bias bc generally speaking only prodigies got to play 500 minutes as a 20 year old from 1980 to today. LeBron James and Anthony Davis are not relevant to a 20 year old project

that ain’t what selection bias means. if we took this same list and assigned the players random numbers, the chances that those random numbers would generate an r squared to future production as strongly as they did on this list would be extremely close to nil. yet that list would have the same “selection bias.”

you are maybe trying to say why strat said:

okay, so production for 20 year old non rookies is highly relevant overall but it’s irrelevant for certain subtypes of 20 year olds. that’s a inherently indisputable statement unless
you can define the population objectively without bootstrapping, so it’s pretty weak.

What’s left supports my argument. Tony Parker at age 22, for instance, has a 766% increase in BPM from his age 20 season. Noah Vonleh is -4.0 at age 20 and is plus 1.4 at age 23. Tobias Harris was at -0.8 and has excelled every year after age 22.

wait so the entire population is selection bias and these obviously randomly selected players are good evidence? those cherry picks are good evidence against only one argument: production is a perfect forecast; an argument made by nobody. it’s like saying mugsy and tony prove that height is irrelevant and Jokic and Covington prove that draft position is irrelevant.

is it seriously controversial here to say that production of a sophomore player is at least somewhat relevant to predicting his future?

Jamal Murray, Tyson Chandler, Carmelo Anthony, Chris Bosh, Giannis… that list is full of players whose age 20 season gave no indication of how they’d perform in BPM for the rest of their careers.

yes big surprise young players are not perfectly predictable. i think you missing the part where a dude named hubert said that they were barely better than a horoscope. do you feel the same right now about the gap between frank and fox or collins or tatum or mitchell as you did on draft night or does their interim production provide some useful evidence?

That Zion block was absolutely amazing….

Dude’s a monster. If we go through this hellish season to end up with someone other than Zion I’ll be unconsolable.

You’d think Virginia would figure out that Barrett only goes left

theres a decent chance we get outside the top 5… so we should be prepared to be disappointed…. its very much a crapshoot for the #1 ..

I know RJ is a chucker, but he really does have a terrific 2 pt percentage and great secondary skills which bode well for his future development (he’s not just a Wiggins clone). I’d be happy to have him or Morant as a consolation prize if we miss out on Zion. If we miss on those three though, we’re fucked.

All that said Zion on the Knicks would mean I watch literally every Knicks game until he switches teams or retires. The guy really is the greatest player to watch since LeBron

i predict either kevin huerter or buddy hield breaks klay ‘s 14 by the end of next year

I know RJ is a chucker, but he really does have a terrific 2 pt percentage and great secondary skills which bode well for his future development (he’s not just a Wiggins clone). I’d be happy to have him or Morant as a consolation prize if we miss out on Zion. If we miss on those three though, we’re fucked.

He has his flaws but I would still be ecstatic with him in the top 5.

I can’t wait until RJ Barrett is in a Knicks uniform.

that ain’t what selection bias means

You selected a group of players that is not random. If your second NBA season occurred at age 20 from 1980-2019, that list will naturally include an unusually high number of basketball prodigies.

is it seriously controversial here to say that production of a sophomore player is at least somewhat relevant to predicting his future?

You know full well I was responding to the notion that the production of a 20 year sophomore player is *conclusive*.

That list you provided supported my claim. The rest is just a demonstration of the fact that my horoscope analogy, which was obviously soaked in hyperbole, was suboptimal.

@40. We know that Mitch fouls stupidly on inconsequential plays, gonna go out on a limb and say he’s likely to do it when it matters as well. His poor positioning could be another reason you don’t want him out there on a set play but that’s not the point. Not saying you’re wrong necessarily, just saying there’s no reason to assume the reason is “Fiz likes whoever better than Mitch.” There’s no evidence for any of that shit.

You know full well I was responding to the notion that the production of a 20 year sophomore player is *conclusive*.

are you kidding

you:
An NBA player’s age 19 season is as useful in forecasting his future success as his zodiac sign. An age 20 season is barely more useful.

my response:

this is a greg anthony corner three overshoot. when age 20 isn’t your rookie year, the results are quite indicative, though of course far from dispositive.

What someone does in their 19-20 year old seasons obviously means something. And it’s obviously better to play well than do whatever it is Frank is doing. There just aren’t enough of these seasons to draw strong conclusions from

I am not kidding. The next two sentences that you cut out of that quote were:

The efficiency leap from age 20 to 21, across a very wide sample, is enormous. Making conclusive judgments on Frank before he’s 21 is unwise for any of us.

I find it odd that you’re focused on the literalness of an analogy that obviously steeped in hyperbole. But suit yourself.

I will further concede that a player’s age 19 season is, in fact, more predictive than being a Leo. You got me there, too.

Qualitative skills evaluation is probably more useful for projecting 20 year olds than assessing current impact. I worry about Frank not because of his box score stats or advanced stats, but because he shows so few glimmers of any skill that could eventually turn into something good. Mitch is not a very good player right now, but he does lots of things that might make him good one day. Knox, too, has flashed abilities that could turn him from putrid to good in a few years.

Frank just hasn ‘t. His offense is so nothing that he will be unplayable as a guard no matter how good his D. He is a complete non-threat with and without the ball. Yeah he’s young, but so is Dragan Bender. So is Marquese Chriss. So is Georgios Papagiannis. All those guys are 21-year old former lottery picks. What would you trade for them?

It’s pretty amazing (and sad) that some here will go to such great lengths to hang onto hope about Frank.

OT: watching this Lakers/Rockets game late. Lakers tried hard, but that KCP wtf airball 3 was the beginning of the end for them. Ingram got hot late and has the makings of someone who can’t be guarded by a smaller guy.

And speaking of can’t be guarded: that Harden step back 3 is unguardable. What a run he’s having.

I don’t understand why Chicago gets its ass kicked every game. They have LaVine, Markannen, Portis, Parker, Carter (and formerly Holiday) — all of whom are decent offensive players — yet are somehow last in the league in offense by a country mile.

Mitch is not a very good player right now, but he does lots of things that might make him good one day.

Mitch is a productive player already who fouls too much. On a rate basis he’s probably the best player on the Knicks

Right, but that’s sort of like saying that THJ is a productive player who misses shots too much.

Recent Posts

Recent Comments

Archives

73 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2019.01.19)”