Knicks Morning News (2019.02.01)

I’ll repeat from last thread 😀

@312 In the East that’s easily a playoff team, my over/under will be 47,5.

FWIW
Once the details are finally defined,
Pelton gave us a B and Dallas a C-, Duncan and Laroux think the FO did a nice job even if Laroux call us “right now from a basketball prospective an empty canvass”, while the guys at 538 had only partial info at the time of their roundtable (and some of them suffer from PTSD being former Knick’s beat or fans, just like us).

Duncan & Laroux released (Patreon subscribers only) the updated cap situation,
using 1st pick value for projected draft expenses (Zion will get 9.65 Mil in the first year), including roster charges for empty roster spots and the dead money for Noah and LT (1 Mil guaranteed).

I’m a bit surprised, it’s less then I thought:

69,5 Mil even declining Trier option and with only 6 players signed (Knox, MitchRob, Frank, Dot, DSJ, 1st, we could resign Kornet and Vonleh later in different ways).

Max contracts for KD and Kyrie sums up around 71 Mil so there’s still work to do but I’m sure they’re counting pennies and dimes to try it…

P.S.
Or they could take slightly less then the max to join forces… they just need to renounce 1 Mil each 🙂

english_knick’s numbers are very right, Duncan & Laroux’s 69,5 M extimates include renouncing Trier (3,55 M) , so he’s spot on.

🙂

I’m surprised by Marks missing by 5M, good work from ESPN’s cap expert… 😀

BTW if they try Kyrie + Kawhi they need “just” around 65,5M…

Just the room, since they used the bi-annual on Trier. The room is $4,449,000 (plus a standard increase for year two. It can only be a two-year contract).

The rest would have to be minimum guys (including vet minimum guys).

I do agree that “he didn’t want to be here” is nonsense and just general PR spin from a guy who is one of the best in the league at spin. Beyond that, though, I dunno. I don’t like the trade, but I don’t hate it, either. I guess I’m at a C for it, if we assume that C is “average.” Some people think a C is a bad grade, so in that case, I guess B- then? Whatever the grade you give for a “shrugs” sort of trade. I wouldn’t have done it, but I get the logic enough to not hate it. Unless they have an under the table agreement with KD in which he said he would only sign here if the Knicks signed another max guy, in which case I’d bump it up to an A.

The main thing I’d give it, though, is what I said in my post yesterday – it’s very much a familiar approach, as opposed to what Mills and Perry said that they would do. The difference here is that they might actually land their White Whales while Phil Jackson and Donnie Walsh failed miserably in their shots at it (this trade really reminded me a lot of Phil’s early trades, where so much was based on what he would do with the money he was squirreling away. The answer was “awful things,” but we couldn’t know that at the time).

So do they try to unload Frank and/or Smith to create more room?

A horrible, horrible trade. They shipped out potential *amazing* for a player nobody here likes, cap space and two mid lottery (at best) picks in 2710 and 2874.

We literally got their first available first round pick.

Really? For one or two years of top Durant and either Kawhi or Kyrie? All of them missed years to injuries before so the risk is there. How is that better than 23 year old KP and one other max player?

Who’s the other max player? It wasn’t going to be Kawhi or Kyrie. Durant will be 31 next year. Jordan was playing baseball when he was 31, so there most likely is a lot of life left in KD’s body.

We’re speculating, right? We don’t know that KD and Kyrie are coming. We’re just hoping that maybe. So I think we could speculate that it would have been KP and Kyrie.

You were responding to my “If they have a deal with KD where he would only sign here if they got another max spot, then I would give it an A” comment. So “KD and Kyrie coming” is built into that comment.

Logically, I understand the trade. Emotionally, I am pissed. That’s alright, isn’t it? I just unfollowed KP on Twitter.

A horrible, horrible trade. They shipped out potential *amazing* for a player nobody here likes, cap space and two mid lottery (at best) picks in 2710 and 2874.

Even in the best case scenario with KD and Kawhi this is not a championship team, and KD would be in decline soon so the window is one or two years tops. Add Zion and you get some excitement back, but still no rings. And this is the best case scenario, with multiple ifs attached.

I wish KP the best, it was fun to watch him play during his time here. No, he wasn’t top 10, and maybe he’ll never get there, but he did things on the court that I’ve never seen before and that left me excited and happy like a 10 year old.

Oh, and please, don’t give me that “he didn’t want to be with us” tears the New York Dolan’s management is crying now. You guys are incompetent fools, of course he didn’t.

I thought this was a parody post.

I thought this was a parody post.

Look who’s talking.

They really should sign Anthony Bennett to a deal now, right? At least for 10-day contract. See if his G-League improvement is for real.

I think an AD trade is coming, I really do. I’ll be sad if Mitch goes, but he might have to. Frank, Knox, Kanter, our 2019 pick and the Dallas 2021 pick would be the trade, maybe with Mitch too.
Then you get Kyrie in the summer. You still have DSJ to trade for a good vet, and you can sign a few more minimum deals, and maybe DeAndre nets you at least a late first/early 2nd.
Perry has the ability to do this, and he might.

If AD is coming than sure, this was a brilliant move. We have a week to see if that’s happening.

I’m having a really hard time with this trade. Not because it’s a bad trade (it could wind up being anything from a colossal franchise-crippling blunder to a key to a championship run) but because it once again deprives us of any short-term hope of building a contender around a beloved homegrown player for the first time since Ewing. The next best hope for that is the 14% chance of landing Zion, and in my book it there is a substantially greater than 14% chance that KP develops into a top-20 player. The other thing is that my 19yo son, who is going through a hard time right now, has a signed KP jersey hanging in his room and once again has had his heart ripped out by the starstruck fandom he inherited from me: Knicks, Mets, Jets. I drove him to work this morning and tried to explain the nuances of the cap to him and why it may be for the best that he was traded. But it still really hurts.

There are several scenarios that could ease the pain over time:
-KP never develops into a max-level player or struggles mightily with injury over the next few years
-Dennis Smith Jr figures it out and becomes a star
-We hit the lottery and draft Zion
-Somehow we wind up with 2 of Durant, Irving, Leonard or Davis and start a string of 50+ win seasons
-Mitch, Trier and Knox all develop into very good players
-we use the Dallas picks to land a 3rd star

But somehow it feels that none of these things will happen and we will continue to churn in the 20-40 win range for the foreseeable future, while Dallas is the next team to build a contender on our mistakes.

Look who’s talking.

No offense, man. I just thought you were kidding. I can’t believe your entire revulsion to this trade is that they got rid of player who “did things on the court that I’ve never seen before and that left me excited and happy like a 10 year old.” Its like a kid who is mad for eating his broccoli because he doesn’t like the taste.

The Dolan’s are about to take a similar risk on a 31 year old who wants to be the man on yet another win now foray into oblivion. I don’t see how is this better.

Hmmmmm….. let me see…. Durant’s 36 year old season will likely better than KP’s best….. which player would I rather bank on for the next 5 years…. the one who has never played more than 30 good games in a season or the MVP type now 30?

https://www.basketball-reference.com/play-index/pcm_finder.fcgi?request=1&sum=1&player_id1_hint=Kevin+Durant&player_id1_select=Kevin+Durant&player_id1=duranke01&player_id2_hint=Kristaps+Porzingis&player_id2_select=Kristaps+Porzingis&player_id2=porzikr01&idx=players

Z-Man, I feel your son’s pain. Mine is only 8, and mostly has shown no interest in sports. At first, I felt like I had to push him so we’d have something to bond over, but we have other things, and why would I want to condemn him to root for this team, or to deal with the various moral quandaries that come from being a fan of almost any team in 2019?

I’ve quickly zipped through the Five Stages of Grief with this trade. I’m still prepared for a catastrophic free agent summer, but until then we can have fun speculating, I guess. Sigh…

Not because it’s a bad trade (it could wind up being anything from a colossal franchise-crippling blunder to a key to a championship run)

It literally cannot be the former, though it certainly can be for the Mavericks. We didn’t take back a single risk-prone asset. Even if KP turns into a generational talent, that’ll sting like hell but it won’t have any direct negative implications on the Knicks.

If we spend the cap space poorly that’s an entirely separate issue.

Tim Hardaway as a 3rd option is probably going to be really good.

[citation needed]

Tim Hardaway as a 3rd option is probably going to be really good.

[citation needed]

lol
Atlanta Timmy was about average in usage and posted his best TS, WS/48, etc.
It’s only when he takes all those dumb shots that he really sucks on offense.

by the way super hilarious that the Super Bowl is literally in 2 days and the top trending topics on Twitter yesterday were basically all NBA.

This trade has made me schizophrenic. There are things I like and things I hate. But one thing I’m sure of, no matter how this works out, is we do not have good mgmt.

1. Joakim Noah. This goes all the way back to the decision to stretch him instead of wait. That is now officially a massive blunder bc he probably could have been part of this deal.

2. I really believe this happened in 48 hours. The league is in shock. Most executives didn’t know he was on the block and are miffed that they couldn’t make an offer. Cuban came to NY and did a smash and grab on these guys. Carlisle showcased Dennis Smith and the knicks fell for it.

3. We could have had a core of Frank-Mikal-Porzingis-Robinson that at least would have been an incredible defensive foundation. They opted for Knox, Smith Jr, and dreams. That says a lot about them.

4. I would have been them protection on their 2021 pick for their extra percentage points in the lottery this year (I.e. swap rights). Not doing that was a missed opportunity.

There’s nothing wrong with the trade. The problem is that no one trusts management to capitalize on the opportunity they bought.

Also, remember that as good as AD is, he’s still going to command a $46M AAV contract. Unlikely that he’s a huge overpay, but $46M demands a ton of production out of one player. Every missed game due to injury (to him or his star teammates) makes it that much more important that he keep the 9.0 BPM where it is.

And as NO showed, he can’t carry a bad team to the playoffs on his own. He’s the guy you get when you already have LeBron or Kawhi or Kyrie, not the guy you get to start your team around. He is far past that point, salary-wise.

Davis is clearly a high All-NBA player and an MVP candidate. But this trade should not be defined by whether it yields any individual player. They reduced the chance to whiff on an onerous KP Max contract to zero. That is a very good thing.

@45

Exactly. If a front office with a history of making competent moves did this, we would all be a lot happier.

It’s just so uncertain, it might yield good picks, it might bring top free agents, it might signify a change in approach to a more patient rebuild where they go methodically building assets and working with them, it might mean Zion…

It might also mean we’ll get non-Lottery’s Mavs picks, pick 5th on a 3 man draft, waste the cap on Tobias Harris and Khris Middleton and we’re set for 5 more years of pain…

The ball is on Mills and Perry’s hands now, and for the first time in so many years there’s actually a real blank slate for them to work with, all the previous mistakes have been mostly erased.

It’s just a strange feeling for Knicks fans as were immediately used to not trust the management of this team, with very good reasons. I have hope, but also a sinking feeling that they’ll blow up this chance as usual. They’ve banked it all on the next offseason and the draft.

If we traded two first rounders and one of our better young players for a player named Pristaps Korzingis who had the track record, contract status, and injury history of Kristaps Porzingis this board would be rightfully apoplectic.

If we traded two first rounders and one of our better young players for a player named Pristaps Korzingis who had the track record, contract status, and injury history of Kristaps Porzingis this board would be rightfully apoplectic.

I think the thread could end here (but let’s get another three hundred comments anyway)

but there’s a higher than %14 chance KP becomes top 20

With a max contract. That’s the problem. And not every top 2o player is worth a max contract.

I do agree that “he didn’t want to be here” is nonsense and just general PR spin from a guy who is one of the best in the league at spin.

I don’t agree at all.

KP wanted to be in “NY”, but he wanted to WIN in NY. He didn’t want to be the next Anthony Davis or Kevin Garnett playing for a team that was still struggling to land stars and get into serious contention years from now.

He was giving these guys every chance to turn things around.

What he saw was a management team that alienated and then traded his best friend, screwed up the cap situation again with Hardaway, traded or allowed productive role players to leave, brought in NBA cast offs that are bad players on both sides of the ball, and most importantly a team that’s worse now than it was when they took over.

All of that may be fine and dandy on a forum that thinks chronic tanking is the “way, light, and truth”. But players want to see progress. Too many top players wasted half or more of their careers being loyal to dimwit organizations. This organization is being run by guys that do not value players well in terms of productivity or money. I know it. KP knows it. The rest of the NBA knows it. It was a smart career move for him to make it apparent to them that he was not happy and wanted out. Now he’s with an organization with a better track record of success and has a young budding superstar that he likes personally to build with going forward.

The Knicks have cap space (they will probably screw up) and have most likely set the rebuild back several years because they lost their best most seasoned young player.

Value-wise I really think Perry did fine (not taking into account the mistakes that led us to this point, which all occurred prior to his tenure).

in terms of comparable situations:

Demarcus Cousins trade: Buddy Hield, the 10th pick in the draft, no salary relief. we clearly got more value than this, even though Cousins was NOT coming off a major injury.

Kyrie Irving trade: Broken Isiah Thomas, Jae Crowder, Zizic, Nets 1st-round unprotected pick. This one is close, but also the Cavs did not get any salary relief, Isiah came injured.

Kawhi Leonard trade, bearing in mind Kawhi is 5x the player KP is: Derozan (nice player on a bad contract), Poeltl (likely to max out as a 5th best player on a good team), top 20 protected 1st, and the Spurs also had to give up Danny Green. No salary relief. No question the Knicks got better value than this for KP.

I have to say, I’ve been very impressed with Scott Perry. This is a decisive swing for the fences move that has downside (ie. KP blows up in Dallas and no one signs with the Knicks), but not THAT much downside – all assuming he doesn’t do dumb stuff this summer. If he doesn’t blow cap space on undeserving players, the worst that can happen is that we really start with a true rebuild with tons of financial flexibility and draft assets.

OK, so hypothetically, the Knicks whiff on KD, Kawhi and Kyrie. Do they:

A. Just sign whatever guy is still available that has the highest PPG to a megamax, or
B. Rent the cap space, take on a bad contract, pick up assets, blah blah blah

I mean, it’s like a 99.999999999% chance of option A, correct?

That’s what hangs over this trade, JK47.

If Mills and Perry were just doing a hard reset on all the team’s past mistakes and starting fresh, I would be ok with this deal. We’re basically over all past mistakes right now except Noah. There’s value in that.

But I fear they are just setting themselves up to make new mistakes. Imagine if Durant goes to Brooklyn. You think they’re going to stay the course? They’re going to go all in on Kemba and Boogie, and they’re going to trade the first round picks for the Andrea Bargnani.

But I fear they are just setting themselves to make new mistakes. Imagine if Durant goes to Brooklyn. You think they’re going to stay the course? They’re going to go all in on Kemba and Boogie, and they’re going to trade the first round picks for the Andrea Bargnani.

One can never predict what Durant is going to do, but really there are a lot of tea leaves pointing towards the Knicks. Durant’s manager/friend Rich Kleiman is a lifelong Knicks fan and native New Yorker. Durant’s best friend in the world is Royal Ivey, a Knicks assistant coach. And Durant wants/needs a new narrative after being portrayed as a carpetbagger latching onto the Warriors’ bandwagon. I just can’t imagine Durant passing up the Knicks to go to Brooklyn, even though the Nets’ are really pretty good. But maybe that’s just my Knicks-centric self talking.

@51
+100

I am under-the-radar actually pretty intrigued to see DSJ play with Mitchell Robinson.

By the way, KP’s qualifying offer lowered to just $4.5 million due to time missed. Therefore, is that serious leverage? “I’ll take $4.5 million and hope for $150 million the following instead of just taking the $150 million now!” Seems like BS.

This hurt to read, Brian.

I’m disappointed New Orleans wasn’t willing to call that bluff, but I can’t blame them for not wanting to take that risk.

It’s ridiculous that Mills and Perry took it seriously.

On the flip side (and there’s a strong flip side to everything with this trade, which is why I’m so schizo), I can actually see how Mills and Perry could have gotten so tired of KP, his camp, his bluffs, and his attitude that they just thought he isn’t worth the trouble and wanted to be done with him.

We got Dennis Smith Jr (a low basketball IQ player that can’t doesn’t defend and that Dallas was trying to unload for weeks to no takers) and 2 future 1st round picks (that will probably be late 1st rounders by the time we get to use them) for a player that half dozen of the smartest organizations in the league were interested in knowing full well they’d have to give him the max.

Yeah you mentioned this point yesterday re: the Clippers, Heat, Spurs etc.
Clippers have been run well since jerry West came on board.
I truly believe the Heat and Spurs have been rescued from horrible GM’ing by their absolutely superlative coaches. I mean look at some of the contracts on their books.
The mavericks have basically been a model of terrible management in the last 8 years or so until they managed the Luka trade. They’ve been living off the original Dirk trade (and his generosity by taking way less than he could get on the market).

Also I think the Knicks’ (and teams in general) leverage over KP is/was overstated. Players will just sign their contract then agitate to get moved if they really don’t want to be on the team. He would’ve found someone to sign him to a 2+1, gotten his guaranteed $, then asked for a trade in 2020.

So under GM Stratomatic, Doug McDermott, Justin Holliday, Kyle O’Quinn are all still Knicks. I presume these are your “productive role players.” To what contracts have you signed them?

I’d add in Hernangomez, but yes. Any combination of those would have been better than paying for Mudiay, signing Hezonja, or eve taking a flier on Burke (which was no so bad) and other no skill players they come up with.

The idea is to take fliers on players with some skill or add productive players, not trash. But you have to be able to value players correctly. I give them all due credit for Vonleh, but more than likely a blind man could have come up with Vonleh given the pressing need for a PF that could defend and rebound on the team of trash they assembled.

I already said that I’ll give my final grade on this trade in july, I don’t want to wait until the picks 🙂

And I get that we as a group have PTSD from past FO decisions.

But a day after the trade… I don’t get all the harsh criticism.

We spent months talking about why KP is not a max player, is not a superstar, how we’re worried about his return from injury.
We spent years talking about getting rid of Lee’s and THJ’s contracts and clear cap space.
Someone spent months crying about drafting Frank instead of DSJ.
All three things are resolved but that’s not good.
Coherent.
We get “assets” (2 1st, one unprotected!), but in some strange way that’s a very good thing when Ainge, Morey and Hinkie did it but a colossal error when Mills and Perry do it.
Very coherent.

I think this is a ballsy move, a move that no one ever think our FO will do (and I don’t believe it was a 24hr decision, there are many reports from credible sources that they’re gauging KP’s trade value for weeks, because of his perennial passive-aggressive stance), again if other GMs did this they’re genius, but we’re a super coherent bunch so this is a shitty move.

The worst outcome is maybe Cousins and a washed up Kemba. That’ll be baaaad.

The middle outcome could be 4 years of Middleton (28-31 seasons) 4 years of Harris (27-30 seasons), 4 years of 44-48 wins and some playoff games. That, compared with the last 5 years, could be fun.

The best outcome is beyond everything we ever dreamed.

And anyway the “rebuild” is not over, with Mitch, Knox, DSJ, Frank, this year 1st (and maybe Trier and Dotson) even in the middle outcome we’re still working on a young base.

Perry and Mills could do a lot of things to screw this up, but right now I just don’t get the hate.

So you would have signed McDermott’s 3/$21M deal? You would have signed Holliday’s 2/$9M deal? You would’ve increased the KOQ offer to make it clearly superior to Indiana’s, which he chose over our equal offer (I don’t think we had the cap space to do this but I also don’t remember)?

It’s very hard for me to see how any of those things except maybe the KOQ one would benefit the Knicks. On the contrary, they would make us very marginally better for a short period of time at the cost of a lot of flexibility and draft positioning. So they’d be pretty typical Knicks signings, actually.

Even with KOQ, the mistake was not moving him at the deadline. Once we had Robinson, Knox, and KP his potential place on the team became pretty unclear.

The takeaway from the SI article really resonates with me-

there are a bunch of nice players that don’t move the needle, and then there are the superstars that really do create a contender out of thin air, especially when paired up. There are 2.5 of those on the market this summer in Durant, Kawhi, and Kyrie (I give Kyrie a 0.5), and Anthony Davis is somewhere out there too.

All this talk about McDermott, KOQ, etc etc — those are all rearranging deck chairs, that if rearranged just right leads you to 44 wins.

This is a huge swing by Perry to get access to the REAL difference-makers.

Bringing two 1st round picks makes the deal more reasonable. However I liked Porzingis for his elite defensive presence and versatility on offence (even though not very efficient) which makes him very easy to pair with other players.

I really didnt see Porzingis taking the QO as long as we equaled the max contract rival teams can offer (so, not the full 156 million we could theoretically have offered), although the ACL scared me a bit. I think he will shine in Dallas if healthy.

Obviously, key to this deal is what we do with our cap space this summer… if they dont bring Durant and Irving, I hope they rent their cap space for extra assets.

How much do you think DSJ’s triple double at the Garden influence the outcome of the trade? Sample of one.

I do not claim to know a lot about stats or probabilities but I’ve been thinking a lot about this since yesterday.

This site is a stats based site yet a lot of people still make emotional hot takes (me included). But this franchise is not cursed. Dolan’s razor is not a thing. We do not have bad karma because of the Ewing trade.

The team has been bad over the last 19 years because for the large part we have made bad decisions. We’ve made win now trades for over the hill veterans. We traded first round picks to clear cap space in the hopes of landing superstars that weren’t interested in coming here. When they didn’t, we overpaid for pseudo stars and those signings killed our flexibility.

Bad decisions lower the probability of things going right. Every year I would talk myself into how our team could be good and the thing is, if it worked out the way I saw it working out in my head, the teams could have been good. But probability wise, the chances of that happening were slim. And since bad decisions lower your odds of things working out right, your forced to make more bad decisions.

But now, for the first time in my adult life, The Knicks have a completely clean slate and a cupboard full of picks and young, cheap players. We can sign free agents with our cap space. We can draft more young players. We can use our picks and players to make a trade for a star player and not have it completely wipe us clean.

Is it possible we waste the cap space on players who don’t deserve it, the mavs picks don’t come to us until 8 years from now and none of our picks or young players turn out good? Sure. But the probability of all of that happening is very slim. Even if we strike out in free agency or sign the wrong guy, we still have picks to build with. We have insurance now. The odds are in our favor and Perry and Mills have options to work with now. We are in control of our own destiny.

I will only say that imo any stat that says DSJ is a better defender than Frank is not capturing some aspect of their play correctly. I’m not buying it. If it had them closer than my personal observation, I’d buy that I am a little wrong. But I’m not buying that DSJ is better

Sometimes we have to stand humbly before the facts.

I get why they would go for Kyrie + Durant, but isn’t Kawhi + Durant a much better get? Is Kawhi just not going to play in the East Coast?

Word was that the Knicks along the Clippers were two of the franchises that Kawhi was willing to accept a trade to back when he was in San Antonio busting to get off the Spurs.

Good posts, swift. For what it’s worth, I think professional sports is at its best when there is some irrational attachment. For example, the Sixers could probably move to the front of the AD line if they made Embiid available, and they’d be a better team if they swapped the two. They’re not going to do that though because they want to win with Embiid. I’m okay with that–the more professional sports teams deviate from what is essentially a corporate model, the better. I’m sure the Yankees could’ve sold high on Jeter’s somewhat inflated reputation at some point, but I’m very happy they didn’t.

That’s why I’m still bummed about the trade despite thinking it’s a good move from a basketball perspective. I want, like, one god damn player to be associated with the Knicks in a positive way in my lifetime.

However, for perfectly valid reasons KP did not want to be that guy. When taking that into account, I think the move was correct no matter how you look at it.

Really hope trading for Dennis Smith doesn’t mean we’re averse to drafting Morant if we’re not #1 in the lottery. I still prefer him over Barrett, who I think is solidly #3 at this point in time.

Really hope trading for Dennis Smith doesn’t mean we’re averse to drafting Morant if we’re not #1 in the lottery. I still prefer him over Barrett, who I think is solidly #3 at this point in time.

Agreed, but I also think Dennis Smith is being overlooked as part of this trade. I’ll again go with the “shoe on the other foot” example–if we had a player who was wildly productive in the ACC, had a rough rookie year but showed flashes, and then made major growth in year 2 at age 21, there’s not a single poster here who would think that player was definitely a bust.

I like his chances at being a rotation level player and I think his ceiling is higher than that, but what worries me is the possibility of him playing superficially well and then us overpaying to keep him. It’s the same dilemma people are having with the trade itself. We can only hope Scott Perry isn’t a moron and it’s pretty anxiety-inducing!

@99

I’m fairly bullish on Smith–I think he stands a good chance to be a solid rotation player, though I’m in doubt of his star power. I’m just much more bullish on Morant, who looks to be in his best case the second coming of Westbrook.

Look, it sucks that we have to get rid of our most valuable asset in order to dump two stupid contracts (and of course, don’t forget the Noah contract plays into this as well) But we were all agonizing about maxing out KP and watching him be Mr. November again and get hurt every year.

And I know we all have Knicks fan PTSD and always expect the worst, but do you really think Perry is going to give a big chunk of cap space to Boogie Fuckin’ Cousins?

I’m fine with this deal. And I have a feeling that there were a lot of clandestine communications between Knicks management and Durant’s agent that made Perry feel like he could pull the trigger on this deal.

The more I read, the more I get flashbacks to the time they traded Randolph and Crawford to clear space. If these big FAs come woohoo! If not, we kicked the can down the road to add to our collection of failed Lottery pick PGs.

“This was not the ultimate Knicks trade, but it was the ultimate Knicks feeling. A review of all Knicks feelings. A kaleidoscopic, palimpsestic soot of 20 years’ scorched bullshit.”

Seth out of blogtirement. One of the all time greats. Trust him to get it perfectly.

Well, now that we have traded KP, should we trade Knox and Smith too? Giddyup.

But Z-Man, I feel for your son. I really do.

Yeah, me too. There’s a lot of great fathers on this board. I remember mine having to console me when the Bulls ran up the score on the Knicks in Game 7 of the 92 EC QF. I’m still not over Smiling Cliff Levingston rubbing it in.

Can the Lakers trade for AD and then sign Kyrie in the offseason? Because this would make sense of Kyrie’s sudden apology to LeBron a couple of weeks ago, and it’s a sure fire championship core.

DBPM…a defensive stat that overlooks the impact of not being able to stay in front of your man if you can come up with an extra steal or two every other week.

I wasn’t referencing DBPM. I was referencing DRPM.

@111

They certainly can, they’ll have enough cap space for Kyrie easily. Unless it’s a crazy ass trade where they only send expirings to New Orleans, which is really impossible to believe.

@112 it sent me to the dictionary too

imagine a white board that’s been vandalized for years. tons of dicks drawn all over it. you wipe it off, and it’s as clear as you can make it, but you can still kinda see the dicks.

now people are still trying to write equations on the whiteboard and have its content taken seriously, but the ghost images of the dicks are on there and they’ll always be there.

The idea that the Knicks had to trade their best asset, a young 7 foot 3 guy with some pretty unique upside, just to dump the crappy contracts the front office got themselves into makes it pretty underwhelming. Add to that the long odds of signing two max worthy free agents in July – ask yourself, when was the last time that actually happened? I can only think of once, Miami in 2010 with LeBron making it happen. I would be elated but quite surprised if they ended up with KD at all much less him and another max worthy free agent.

We’ll have to wait and see, but this whole “ freeing up cap space to sign max free agents” plan very rarely works. More likely they end up overpaying for some 2nd tier all stars.

@115 Hmm. So let’s see. If I’m AD and I’m best friends with Kyrie, where would I rather go, to LA to play with LeBron for Magic Johnson, or to NY to play for Dolan? Tough call isn’t it.

AD has to be traded to the Lakers for their pile of young players in order for them to pull this off. Remember, the same group of young players that lost to the Knicks at home without Lebron is the only group of players that has lost to the Knicks in the last SIX WEEKS.

The trouble from the Lakers perspective is that their young players just aren’t that good. Lonzo’s fine, Brandon Ingram kinda looks like he sucks, Kuzma is as one-way a guy as there is. But none of these guys really moves the needle. And their draft picks are all going to be terrible.

now people are still trying to write equations on the whiteboard and have its content taken seriously, but the ghost images of the dicks are on there and they’ll always be there.

excellent. in fact, this is how i actually picture the exit meeting when janis told steve mills they wanted out (nsfw):

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgYVgKNotVc

I wasn’t referencing DBPM. I was referencing DRPM.

That’s a little better. But correct me if I’m wrong: doesn’t that require a baseline of what the team did without you on the court? It seems like something that can generate an unreliable indication of your defense if JJ Barea is your backup.

I haven’t really seen enough of Smith to know if that stat is noise. I suspect he’s inferior to Frank but will “stand humbly before the facts” if that suspicion proves wrong here.

Holy sht this is perfect:

Kristaps Porzingis embodied hope (1), but I think we can all admit that hope wavered (2), but no developing player is complete and issues can be fixed (3), but also sometimes they can’t and one ends up feeling stupid for having committed (4), but this felt more like suddenly bailing than carefully eschewing commitment (5), but the return package is decent (6), but it’s hard to believe a better one didn’t exist or couldn’t have been generated with a long bidding war (7), but it’s also hard to believe there was a team out there that wanted Porzingis and the Knicks’ garbage contracts (8), but those garbage contracts were their own fault (9), but it really seems like he didn’t want to be here (10), but that information got leaked by the team which never happens and reflects poorly on them anyway (11), but all of this is gonna feel unimportant if the Knicks win the lottery (12), but they won’t (13), but that will feel unimportant if they sign the very best free agents (14), but that has literally never happened before so why would it this time (15).

Also, I’m on board with everyone who’s said “what’s the point of KD and Kyrie now anyway?” I just don’t see that being very appealing with this current roster.

My preferred outcomes to this trade are:

1. We win the lottery and go forward slowly with the Zion era, without any max free agents, using the cap space to acquire asset after asset in a long, steady build to a dominant team around Zion.

2. If we don’t win the lottery, we make use the extra ammo to swap. Let’s say Phoenix wins the lottery. Offer them something like our top 5 pick, next year’s pick (top 5 protected), Dennis Smith, and Dallas’ unprotected pick to move up.

3. Try to make the best offer to New Orleans for AD and then sign Kyrie.

4. Be patient.

If this team could just be NORMAL and stop making OBVIOUS GLARING MISTAKES it would be nice. I’m glad to have gotten two 1RPs for Porzingis (well, probably they’ll both end up being 1RPs) but once again we had to give up something of value to paper over past mistakes. That’s a recipe for treading water.

The way to stop treading the water is to not give out max contracts to guys who cannot outperform them, not to burn this cap space on the usual sack of magic beans, but Lucy has pulled the football away from me too many times at this point. I’m just going to assume this team is going to give out more huge mistake contracts until they prove to me that they won’t.

Hubert, if you’re going to fantasize, how can you not be fantasizing about Kyrie, KD, and Zion all playing on the Knicks in 2019-20?

That’s a little better. But correct me if I’m wrong: doesn’t that require a baseline of what the team did without you on the court? It seems like something that can generate an unreliable indication of your defense if JJ Barea is your backup.

DRPM is not the end all be all defensive metric. It just looks at the score of a game for when a player in on the court as the primary variable while controlling for the impact of different lineups, courts, opponents, etc. But its the best we currently have and it has DJS as our best defensive point guard. Trier is considered the worst in the league BTW.

Hubert, if you’re going to fantasize, how can you not be fantasizing about Kyrie, KD, and Zion all playing on the Knicks in 2019-20?

If we won the Zion sweepstakes I would really rather take it slow.

I’d acquire as many draft picks as possible taking on salary dumps with our cap space. I’d draft at the top of the lottery again in 2020. I’d probably draft there again in 2021 and have an extra pick from Dallas. Then I’d start making my moves when Zion is in his third year.

The Knicks right now are like a 29 year old kid who just paid off all his student loans and a decade of credit card debt acquired through overspending. Other than Joakim Noah’s $6mm and the 2nd round pick we’re giving to Brooklyn this year,there are no mistakes hanging over this team for the first time since… the Patrick Ewing trade! How fucking great does that feel?

Are we going to go straight back into debt or do it right this time? Granted, Kyrie and KD are hardly terrible mistakes. But Kyrie’s got injury issues and KD is 31. Why do we have to win a chip in Zion’s first year? Let him get his feet wet and by the end of his second year will have Zion Williamson and a Hinkie-level number of trade chips and cap space. That’s my fantasy.

Yeah I’m about as cautious as anyone but KD and Kyrie pretty much gives you a 50 win floor assuming you can put your pants on correctly. From there you’d still need to be smart about signings, draft picks, etc. but that’s pretty much the team you want to put together when you build through the draft anyway.

I will certainly not be angry if next year’s Knicks feature Zion, Durant, and Kyrie.

I’m just saying if I won the Zion sweepstakes I’d be patient. What if it turns out that he works best as a ball dominant center, for instance? I’d rather give him the ball and build around him than shoehorn him in as the third guy behind Durant and Kyrie.

ghost images of the dicks

so it does relate to NYK 😉

Can someone please tell me what it means to “rent cap space”

@143
Trade for another team’s bad contract in exchange for a sweetener, usually first round pick(s) or very interesting young player(s) on cheap deal.

This can especially be interesting during FA time when teams are looking to clear some cap space to sign an expensive free agent.

In his podcast on the trade Simmons claims he knows for a fact that Wade and Lebron wanted to come to the Knicks and then Dolan and Donnie Walsh fucked up their meeting with Lebron so badly they started looking for a plan B

@147
IIRC, I read at the time that Walsh came in a wheelchair (looking weak…I think he had just had surgery or something) and Dolan was slimy and bossy. The take was that it was an inept recruiting attempt.

If they can get KD, they have to do it. But, he is on the wrong side of 30.

I don’t think there’s any way in hell that New Orleans or the league lets AD go to the Lakers except as an unrestricted free agent, and I don’t blame them.

I think the Knicks have a pretty competitive package for AD – better than the Lakers package – and if I’m the Pels, I want this done sooner, not later, to get the rebuild started. Then, once we have AD, we pick between Kyrie and KD. I’m not worried about filling in the blanks around the pair of stars.

@142 Pat Riley gutted his roster in 2010 to form the Heatles, and the remaining players were all marginal at best. Granted, you’re talking about LeBron who wins with every roster, but I’ll take my chances with Kevin Durant, who IMO is the 2nd best player of our generation after LBJ.

Yeah, but they had three max players. We’d have two.

I’m not really sure Durant + Irving + a bunch of dreck is really the best plan, but whatevs.

My link is to a really thoughtful article about the trade from Tom Scholes of Franchise Sports
https://franchisesports.co.uk/new-york-knicks-trade-kristaps-porzingis-dallas-mavericks-nonsense/
And here’s a good place to say that I’ve always felt that KP was overrated because of his Unicorn like nature. Here are some numbers to illustrate: KP is compared to Deandre Jordan, the guy we’re getting
Career PPG: Jordan 9.5, KP 17.8,
Career RB: Jordan 10.8, KP 7.1
Career Assists: Jordan .8, KP 1.3
Career FG%: Jordan 67.1, KP 43.7
Career BLK: Jordan 1.7, KP 2
Some more general comments. KP is the better scorer but he has a much worse shooting percentage. The reason is that Jordan doesn’t fling up those long 2 pointers. Jordan never leaves the paint. In passing, KP has a lead of .5 more assists per game. KP should be an elite shot blocker but Jordan’s not far behind. They use different techniques. KP can (and does) block shots by jumping straight, using his height. Jordan blocks more like Kyle O’Quinn. He’s stronger than KP so he can stay up on his man and block the shot through timing. Jordan has, throughout his career (the Clippers until this season with the Mavs) been considered an elite defender and that’s why the Mavs traded for him but now the word out of Dallas is that he’s not playing good defense but it “disinterested”. I doubt he’s deteriorated in one year and put these comments down to team chemistry but it does suggest that the Mavs don’t value him so highly as when they acquired him. KP’s best attribute as a defender overall is protecting the rim because of his height but Jordan plays more and Oakley style of defense which KP cannot do. When KP is not playing around the basket, say he is guarding a forward, his lack of footspeed works against him. And last point, Jordan has never played fewer that 70 games since his rookie year. KP, in his 3 seasons has played 48, 66, and 72 games.

My personal guess is that Durant did want to come here, but given everything that’s played out this season, he probably sees Brooklyn as a much more attractive way to play in New York. They have everything he wants in a basketball situation and he gets to be in a big market without any of the pressure. It seems perfect. But that’s just me projecting logic on a blank canvas.

I really don’t think that’s happening. These guys want the narrative. There’s no narrative with the Nets. His best buddy is an assistant coach on the knicks. his close business partner and friend has been a Knicks fan forever. I mean what do I know but if I’m Durant and want to put my name up there (and even beyond, honestly) with Lebron, Jordan, etc., you sort of have to bring a title to the Knicks. No one’s going to care much if Brooklyn wins.

If he doesn’t blow cap space on undeserving players, the worst that can happen is that we really start with a true rebuild with tons of financial flexibility and draft assets.

After the emotional reaction that Z-man’s son went through (sorry, Z-M!) and ptmilo described, I’ve been able to be more rational and appreciate the POV first espoused by tnfh and detailed by Frank. In a vacuum, this actually is a good trade, for all the reasons others have discussed. But it’s not a total vacuum, as we’ve seen the kinds of players Perry has signed, and DSjr is a trigger on that as well. It is very easy to imagine that they don’t fully appreciate the opportunity they just created, and they blow it on a series of bad moves.

But…

They don’t have to. They could get it right. Imagine this:

We don’t get the first pick, but we get the second. We take Ja.

KD and Kawhi both sign.

We resign Vonleh and/or pick up a couple useful vets.

Would anyone hate a team featuring:

MRob
KD
Kawhi
Frank (?)
Ja

with DSjr, Trier, Dotson, Kornet, Vonleh off the bench? Alternatively, we package DSjr and/or Frank plus a pick for a decent SG, because for the first time in forever, we have a lot of assets and young players.

To me that’s an ECF team. And that’s if we DON’T get our wish and draft Zion. Still better than anything we’ve had for decades.

Edit: I forgot Knox! So we trade him too, and get an even better SG.

Oops, in my prior post (#159), I overlooked KP’s poor rebounding (10.8, Jordan, 7.1, KP). That’s quite a deficit for KP and a major dent in the Unicorn narrative.

In his podcast on the trade Simmons claims he knows for a fact that Wade and Lebron wanted to come to the Knicks and then Dolan and Donnie Walsh fucked up their meeting with Lebron so badly they started looking for a plan B

Yeah, I think I injured my eye rolling at that one. Gimme a break. The Heat had room for three maxes and Wade was already there, but he and Lebron were going to pass that up to go to the Knicks but then Donnie Walsh was in a wheelchair so they changed their minds? No effin’ way.

That said, I do think Donnie Walsh being in a wheelchair made a bad impression and I believe Lebron thought that their presentation was bad. I can easily buy that. I just don’t buy that he and Wade hadn’t already made up their minds to go to Miami to play with the third max guy, Bosh.

Yesterday, from thenamestsam:

I mean we joke but they aren’t seriously stupid enough to just trade him to whoever gets them on the phone first following the meeting, right?

The more logical explanation (which, Dolan’s razor, obviously does not imply is what happened here) is they were seriously considering trading him and had already solicited offers all over the place, called a meeting to see if things could be patched up/take the temperature, and when they decided to trade him after the meeting they leaked that he “implied that he wanted to be traded” to make him seem like the bad guy and went with the offer they’d already settled on. The other possibility is just too absurd even for the Knicks.

A very reasonable assumption. But today, from Howard Beck:

The deal was made so quickly that most teams had no idea Porzingis was even available, which means they had no opportunity to make the Knicks a better offer.

“They absolutely did not do due diligence,” one source said.

Sigh.

If teams didn’t know that Kawhi Leonard was available, then that’d be pretty sad on their part.

Kyrie is gone in a heartbeat if he finds a situation he likes better. The idea that he was going to be loyal to the Celtics in the first place was absurd. He should have never made the original comments guaranteeing he’d sign there.

If teams didn’t know that Kawhi Leonard was available, then that’d be pretty sad on their part.

The part about making a better offer. The talk at the time was Spurs didn’t net nearly as much as was assumed they could have for a player like Leonard. That they didn’t do enough enough haggling with the Lakers or Celtics to get better than DeMar DeRozan, Jakob Poeltl and a protected 2019 first-round pick from Toronto.

If KD and Kyrie actually do come, it probably means that Knox and Frank will be traded for veterans. Could imagine something like Knox + Frank + a protected pick for cost-controlled role player like Robert Covington for instance, especially if Minnesota continues to stink.

If we’re fantasizing about two max guys, I find the less spoken about combo of KD and Kawhi much more appealing. It also dovetails nicely with the low cost talent we have, if you believe Dennis Smith and Frank Ntilikina can eventually stop sucking.

You could run out:

1 Smith
2 Frank
3 Kawhi
4 Durant
5 Robinson

With Knox, Trier, Dotson, and whoever we draft coming off the bench.

It’s still stars and kids and all the kids not named Mitch are suspect, but at least those 5 could D from day 1.

Meanwhile, who plays tonight? Who starts? Should Jordan and Matthews even be suited up (vs. sit them out to avoid injury in the hopes that they can yield 2nd round picks)?

If they do suit up and start with DSJ, should the team be temporarily named the New York Mavericks for a few games?

BTW, Mudiay has to know that he’s a goner, right? How much angrier will Kanter get if Jordan starts and plays a lot?

@173

You could run out:

1 Smith
2 Frank
3 Kawhi
4 Durant
5 Robinson

That would be fun, if highly unlikely to happen. Man, Frank and Kawhi guarding the wings? That would be fun to watch, even though I don’t like DSJ as a player, and less as a pouting-sitting out games-poor man’s-DRose. But, maybe the trade will be a wake-up call for him?

If they do get Kyrie, then DSJ has to be a goner. Imagine how he’d sulk.

The talk at the time was Spurs didn’t net nearly as much as was assumed they could have for a player like Leonard. That they didn’t do enough enough haggling with the Lakers or Celtics to get better than DeMar DeRozan, Jakob Poeltl and a protected 2019 first-round pick from Toronto.

Ok. But literally no one said “they traded him before anyone knew he was available”. Kawhi’s soap opera lasted one year. Everyone had an opportunity.

I am sure the Celtics and Nets, even Philly, are salty as Hell for not being notified by Mills/Perry about KP’s trade status. But they can kick rocks.

Shouldn’t we be salty as hell if Perry didn’t bother to check in with three of the most asset-rich teams in the league?

That would be fun, if highly unlikely to happen.

Of course. Any max free agent is highly unlikely to happen.

I’m just saying if Durant wants to come here and he wants a max sidekick… why is the speculation about Kyrie? He and Kawhi are perfect for each other and they fit well with the young players already here.

But literally no one said “they traded him before anyone knew he was available”

This is why I am skeptical about these reports. The idea that “most teams” needed to know KP was available isn’t necessarily a given. What if Perry/Mills just decided to identify a few key teams that were in the right conference, had the right assets, and could provide the relief they were looking for in the eventuality of a trade? We know they at least looked at New Orleans and Dallas. w

I love how we can complain about everything here. People complain about trade rumors getting leaked and potentially hurting the chances of the trade going through but then complain because it happened so quickly (in the public’s eye) that it must mean they rushed the trade. Maybe Perry is just really good at making sure this stuff doesn’t get leaked out early.

You’re making fair points about the unreliable nature of unidentified sources. It could very well all be coming from Sean Marks, bitter that his grand plan blew up.

FWIW, I would always take the best deal on the table from anyone, even if it was someone in my division.

Before I waste too much time playing on the Trade Machine, what teams could A)actually use either of DeAndre or Matthews, and B)have expiring salaries to match? Houston, for instance, just needs bodies at this point, but they’d have to give us somebody like Knight, whose salary goes into next season.

If we have to buy them out, so be it. Don’t let them fuck up the tank. But it’d be nice to at least stockpile a couple of additional 2nd rounders.

looks like farfa picked a bad week to stop sniffing that knick glue…

hahahahahahahahahahaha…

Before I waste too much time playing on the Trade Machine, what teams could A)actually use either of DeAndre or Matthews, and B)have expiring salaries to match? Houston, for instance, just needs bodies at this point, but they’d have to give us somebody like Knight, whose salary goes into next season.

a good fit might be the kings for koufos and randolph expirings plus the minny and orlando 2nds. they have no incentive to tank and he might help them a bit.

DARE TO DREAM

Yep, you can’t win big if you don’t dream big. I am fine with the Knicks not being a franchise of half-assed measures anymore. For years we’ve complained about how they managed their franchise just to win a low seed/early round playoff exit. Now we have a front office that is going for broke – rather intelligently for once – in both the draft and free agency. They’re finally trying in a way that doesn’t put all of their eggs in one basket on the free agent market or draft. But unlike many in Knicks fandom, I’m thrilled about it. Even if it doesn’t play out the way we hope, at least there’s a smart process here.

At this point the people who are still down on this trade have basically two arguments:

1) We didn’t hear about it till it happened so therefore the Knicks must have missed out on a better deal (for a player on the final year of his contract coming off an ACL injury).

2) The Knicks might screw up free agency this summer.

@ 200 – The Knicks are literally in the best position they have ever been in during my entire adult life to build an actual, sustainable good team. If you are not hopeful right now you really should stop rooting for this team. Being mad that they created an opportunity to fuck it up is the most absurd argument I have ever heard (and I made an argument justifying the bargnani trade).

Being mad that they created an opportunity to fuck it up is the most absurd argument I have ever heard (and I made an argument justifying the bargnani trade).

This. It’s like being mad about dating Rihanna because you’re eventually going to breakup.

@ 201, hopefully it was clear that I agree with you. While I was initially terrified at the lack of picks and then thought they would end up being minimal, given how good they are I think it’s a good deal. If we have even decent lottery lock (I’m talking just getting Morant or Barrett or something) and get one quality star in free agency, hard not to feel great about how much we’ve improved our position in a year. 6 first round picks in four years, a bunch of cost controlled players, and tons of cap room.

Being mad that they created an opportunity to fuck it up is the most absurd argument I have ever heard (and I made an argument justifying the bargnani trade).

You can’t seriously chide a Knicks fan for being terrified of what we may do with cap space. The last time we had cap space we signed Tim Hardaway and Ron Baker to terrible contracts. The time before that we signed Courtney Lee, Lance Thomas, and Joakim Noah to terrible contracts.

Do I have to keep going? I only have 1,497 characters left. Not sure that will get me through 2008.

You can’t seriously chide a Knicks fan for being terrified of what we may do with cap space. The last time we had cap space we signed Tim Hardaway and Ron Baker to terrible contracts. The time before that we signed Courtney Lee, Lance Thomas, and Joakim Noah to terrible contracts.

I mean, you can’t put that Perry though. I think its a very good sign our front office cleared just about all of those bad contracts which were signed before he came along.

The Knicks should be trying to get back their 2nd round pick from Philly for DeAndre Jordan, and I’d probably keep Wes Matthews as he’s a mostly harmless player in terms of the tank, but would be a nice high volume 3 point shooter to put next to some high volume scorers.

I don’t want the Knicks to go get two max players. I’d much rather, if we’re going to sign KD, that we go after a bunch of low cost assets like Bojan Bogdanovic and Nerlens Noel. I’d feel better about the team’s future if instead of Irving and Durant, we did something like Durant, Noel, Bojan Bogdanovic, and Ricky Rubio while retaining Vonleh and Wes Matthews. I don’t think we’d get one max guy without another signing, but I just don’t agree with the plan of surrounding two All-NBA players with the depth of the 2014 Miami Heat.

of the teams within 2 games of the playoffs, here who has enough in expiring contracts they might trade for Matthews ($18.6) or DAJ ($22.9):

Sacramento: Koufos ($8.7), Randolph ($11.6), McLemore ($5.5)
Lakers: Caldwell-Pope ($12), Rondo ($9), Stephenson ($4.4), Beasley ($3.5)
Clips: Gortat ($13.5), Boban ($7), Teodosic ($6.3), Beverley ($5), Scott ($4.3), Mbah a Moute ($4.3)
Jazz: Rubio ($15), Sefolosha ($5.3), Udoh ($3.4)
Nets: Crabbe ($18.5), Carroll ($15.4), Dudley ($9.5), Davis ($4.4)
Pacers: Evans ($12.4), Joseph ($7.9), KOQ ($4.4)
Sixers: Chandler ($12.8), Muscala ($5), Patton ($2.7), Korkmaz ($1.7)

NBA Draft Net has Keldon Johnson as the #5 pick. Never heard of him either.