Knicks Morning News (2019.01.23)

What’s the over/under on Harden tonight? I’d guess 38.5 or so…

real answer: turnovers

Zion called Jay Z the GOAT rapper

That’s a subtle message that he wants to land in NYC, and Brooklyn doesn’t suck enough to get him.

It’s interesting you if you finish with the worst record, there is almost a 50% chance you will pick 5th, and only a 40% chance you will finish top 3.

Yeah, the tank outcomes are pretty weird now. Still there’s a serious incentive to lose games, as you noted — everyone should be able to agree that having a slot that guarantees no worse than #5 is better than a slot with a guarantee no worse than #6. We all should accept that if the season were to end today, the single most likely outcome would be the 5th pick.

The flattened odds simply mean that the value of the guaranteed “low” slot (i.e. improving the worst outcome) has increased and the value of tanking for the top pick has decreased. But it’s still best to lose as many games as possible.

Remaining games against hard tankers:

2/14 @ATL
2/28 CLE
3/6 @PHX
4/1 CHI
4/9 @CHI

So this is actually good — the Knicks have a ton of games left against decent teams. But every one of those games is going to be critical to the tank. Pulling out two wins against CHI in the home stretch could ruin the whole thing.

You missed 2/11 @ CLE

we end up getting Zion because of it and now we all love Melo because of it.

That’s a good scenario!

Most likely, though, Melo hero-balls it and the Bulls lose down the stretch, as Anthony personally, though accidentally, hand delivers Zion to chicago.

After Zion, there’s no consensus on who to draft 2-8, so I’m less worried about where we finish so long as it’s in the top 3 (and #4 wouldn’t be a disaster either.) The second, third or fourth best players in this draft are a total crap shoot. Guys like Garland, Little, and Porter deserve consideration, and picking 3rd might pressure teams into picking Reddish, Bol Bol or Hachimura.

Last year I won $20 off an Oregonian for whether the Thunder would break 54 wins last year. I would be educating them to their own detriment.

1) Doncic has good stats.
2) Doncic has “pretty good” teammates, despite, on the whole, their poor stats.
3) Dallas has a poor W-L record.

Therefore: Doncic must be overrated by the box score.

I’m sure you can see the issue, here.

You missed the part where I said he looked terrible on defense when I watched him play, his on off/stats suggest he’s a negative defender, and the on/off in general suggests he’s a negative. To that we can add that NBA plus/minus suggests he’s a negative defender.

I’m not sure what the reality is given the beautiful boxscore data and evidence that he’s a negative defender. However, a positive + a negative is definitely at least a smaller positive.

To which I added, he’s amazing for 19 year old and I wish we had him. He’s just not as good as the hype right now anymore than KP is as bad as you think because you don’t give enough credit to off boxscore defense.

What I am saying is no big deal. Don’t take it so personally because you love Doncic.

@8 Even though I am vehemently against trading number ones (due to ptsd from past results) I would do that trade with Cleveland, who is preordained to get the number 1 pick AGAIN. Zion has proven he is that good, at least to me. I would even throw in some other crap if necessary to make it work, future #2’s and or any player on the roster not named KP and maybe Mitch.

@20 Preferably Knox, because he’s pretty redundant with Zion, KP, Mitch, and with a little luck, Vonleh. Also, he has more value than Frank, so maybe we get more protection on next year’s pick.

If the NBA draft is rigged then I think we have a really good shot this year. Cleveland got Lebron cause he was from Ohio and then Irving bc they lost Lebron. They won their title. They don’t need to be good again.

Phoenix is a small market and they got the top pick last year.

Chicago…that could be a threat cause they are a big market and have the history of Jordon and those titles. Returning them to glory could be a nice story line for the NBA.

But The Knicks? I mean we still do have Dolan but he’s been pretty much out of the picture since Phil took over. We haven’t even had an Oakley type controversy since Perry and Mills took over and we are finally rebuilding with youth. Plus we have Porzingis on the team all ready. Giving us the top pick would pretty much instantly put us on the right track towards being good. Zion in the Mecca also sounds really cool from a marketing perspective.

tonite should be a good night for us to showcase our “talent”.
-our best defender on harden, which is vonleh or (frank)?.
-capela and enes /mitch matchup should be interesting till mitchrob fouls out.
-timmy vs gordon a battle for the “ages”

It doesn’t matter what we offer. The only team that would win the lottery and trade Zion is us.

Does anybody know what good is Hicks for if, after having told Kanter he wouldn’t play anymore, we’re starting Enes because Kornet got hurt? Call up Hicks, give more minutes to Vonleh, Mario and Mitch (fouls notwithstanding) and you’re set.

Hicks is very bad and him taking up one of our 2-way slots is something that makes me more angry than it should

The word is that not many team are “sellers” into the trade market (5). That bodes well for the Knicks in their attempt to move any players they are interested in moving.

Also, to be clear, I didn’t say the only team that would trade Zion is us because I think we’d make a Atlanta-esque kinda trade. I could see us trading Zion for a win-now player, though.

On the one hand, the Knicks have a lot of two-guards, so two-guard isn’t really a position of “need.”
On the other hand, most of the Knicks two-guards suck.

So I kind of like Jarrett Culver as a potential Knick, because while he is a two-guard in the NBA, he has a pretty well-rounded skill set and looks like a dude who will be a solid NBA rotation player. I don’t see lots of weaknesses in his game. He won’t be a star, but he can play.

I just want to see a handful of games this season with various combinations of Robinson, KP, Vonleh, Dotson, and Frank. Then throw in one other scorer like Trier or Knox to see what a defense first lineup can do. They did some of that at the beginning of the season and they were OK.

Not sure what deal you could possibly construct to acquire Zion.

We win the lottery, Damian Lillard demands a trade, Portland offers him to us for Zion.

I think Mills and Perry would leap at that.

Hubert, stop trolling me.

The Knicks are and have been hugely dumb historically but I can’t believe they would ever contemplate trading the best prospect since Anthony Davis for Damian Lillard.

I could see them trading him for AD if they could add Durant as a part of the package.

@42 – “so where does zion play in the nba – the three or the 4 spot?”

He plays anywhere he wants to

In the unlikely event he actually ends up in NY I’d go with Zion at the 3, KP at the 4, Mitch at 5.
You could go small with Zion at the 4 and KP at the 5.

My dog could start speaking and I could win the lottery tomorrow too

I blow my brains out

i call N.O. and offer up Zion, timmy and Lee for AD

i call N.O. and offer up Zion, timmy and Lee for AD

A better idea.

Good question. No one really knows what he wants. But I would suspect he would work with one other guy. Harden has Paul and LeBron had Kyrie and it didn’t stop either of them from putting up video game numbers.

For the sake of this mental exercise, let’s assume he is. And unfortunately Anthony Davis already forced his way to LA, so he’s off the table.

For the sake of this mental exercise, let’s assume he is. And unfortunately Anthony Davis already forced his way to LA, so he’s off the table.

I’d have to think about it some more, but I’d probably do that deal.

There is no guarantee Zion becomes a generational player like Durant or that with the current core plus him we would become serious contenders any time soon.

That deal gives us an all time great player and an elite offensive PG for several years without having to demolish the team after Durant ages in 3-4 years. The KP/Lillard tandem can continue for years after that all while players like Knox, Frank, and Robinson are at their peaks.

You’d be trading longer future value for present value, but for several years of superior present value.

If I was 100% sure Zion was going to become a generational player I’d probably wait a few extra years until he started impacting games at a Durant level and then worry about adding or developing someone like Lillard later, but there’s something to be said for a bird in the hand now instead chance at a bird in the hand for longer in the future.

@56
probably like 6k comments over the course of two weeks!

You guys are getting me all excited with these “if we get Zion” scenarios

And then I have this clear vision in my head of Adam Silver announcing: “And the 1st pick in the 2019 NBA draft goes to……the Cleveland Cavaliers.”

The Hawks trade was so much smarter than what the Kings did.

@ephus,

The problem with this kind of solution is it disregards the competing goal of having the worst teams generally get the best players in the draft. Your system would generally be a reverse of the current system with the strongest non-playoff teams largely getting the highest picks, but with a huge dash of randomness peppered in since teams eliminated near the end would have some wildly skewed records (e.g. if you’re eliminated with 1 game remaining then you either pick first or last depending on the results of that one game – not sure if you see this as a feature or a bug of the system).

However, if you don’t care at all about that redistributional goal – and we can debate whether it’s important or not (I’d say yes, not because it encourages parity as much as because it gives very concrete reasons for fans of bad teams to stay emotionally involved) – you don’t need to dream up some complicated scheme. It’s trivial to come up with solutions that eliminate the incentive to lose – just go to a fully flat lottery where every non-playoff team has the same odds to pick in every spot in the the top-14. Arguably this still gives some incentive to lose to teams right on the playoff bubble – would you rather be the 8th seed and get stomped by GS or be just outside with a ~7% chance at Zion and a ~20% chance to pick in the top 3? – but that’s also the case in your system.

You could also move towards the wheel idea Zach Lowe has floated which completely divorces draft picks from your record in every way. Or my preferred solution where every eligible player is just a free agent instead of having a draft at all. But all of those solutions involve to varying extents getting rid of the idea of the draft as an engine of parity. The fundamental challenge is if you care about the worst teams getting the best young players there’s no way to do that without incentivizing losing.

Why not keep the odds like they are but just put some limits to how many top picks a team can get within a 3 year window. So you can never get the top pick 2 years in a row and you can’t get a top 5 pick more than 3 years in a row. This would mean that Phoenix, for example, could not get Zion this year since they had the top pick last year. And it would mean no more “process” bullshit where a team is purposefully tanking not just one season but multiple seasons.

Get on the phone tonight, Mills! You might be able to deal THJ!

Of course, we know that instead, Mills is all, “See? I was right to sign him!”