(Thursday, April 18, 2019 10:54:27 AM)
The Knicks are entering their most crucial offseason in years, but president of basketball operations Steve Mills and general manager Scott Perry told reporters on Wednesday that they’re not necessarily feeling pressure to turn the team into an instant contender overnight with a series of major additions. As Marc Berman of The New York Post […]
(Thursday, April 18, 2019 3:28:55 PM)
Not everyone wants to see Zion in Madison Square Garden. Former Duke star and current ESPN college basketball analyst Jay Williams is one of them
(Thursday, April 18, 2019 10:11:25 AM)
Knicks president Steve Mills and GM Scott Perry are optimistic in the franchise’s future heading into the NBA draft and what is expected to be a busy free-agency period.
[NYTimes] Knicks Fans Dream of Durant and Irving. Will Dolan Be the Nightmare? (Friday, April 19, 2019 9:00:13 AM)
The Knicks could be a superteam next season. Or their owner, James L. Dolan, could mess it all up. What’s a fan to believe?
[NYTimes] North Carolina Coach Sylvia Hatchell Resigns After Investigation (Friday, April 19, 2019 5:57:35 AM)
Ms. Hatchell led U.N.C. women’s basketball for 33 years, but an investigation ordered by the university supported accusations that the coach had made racially insensitive remarks in front of her team.
[NYTimes] 76ers 131, Nets 115 | Philadelphia leads series, 2-1: Leaning Into His Role as the Villain, Ben Simmons Leads 76ers’ Rout of Nets (Friday, April 19, 2019 4:07:10 AM)
Criticized by Jared Dudley and taunted by Nets fans, Philadelphia’s second-year guard responded with 31 points, easily making up for the absence of Joel Embiid.
(Thursday, April 18, 2019 6:24:39 PM)
After his apartment was demolished to make space for Barclays Center, Jeff Mermelstein photographed the new arena’s suits, shills and suds.
[NYTimes] On Pro Basketball: The Celtics Really Need Jayson Tatum to Soar Again (Thursday, April 18, 2019 8:45:47 PM)
Whether he stays put or leaves as trade bait, much in Boston hinges on Tatum’s playing as well as he did in last year’s playoffs. Remember that dunk on LeBron James?
[NYTimes] N.B.A. Photographers ‘Do It for the Gram,’ Too (Friday, April 19, 2019 12:31:23 AM)
New technology and the rise of social media have changed what it means to take pictures of the N.B.A. One new requirement: making the athletes look good on Instagram.
(Thursday, April 18, 2019 6:25:50 PM)
DALLAS — Dallas Mavericks guard Tim Hardaway Jr. has undergone surgery for a stress fracture in his lower left leg and is expected to resume basketball activities before the start of training camp in September. The procedure announced Thursday came after Hardaway missed the last 11 games of the regular season. The sixth-year player averaged…
(Thursday, April 18, 2019 3:39:13 PM)
You don’t have to tell Phil Jackson, Larry Brown, Isiah Thomas or Carmelo Anthony about the risk of losing your legacy in New York if things fall apart. Knicks coach David Fizdale doesn’t see it that way at all. On July 1, Fizdale will peddle the rewards — not the risks — to free agents….
37 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2019.04.19)”
That the only cited instances of Trier’s “cancerous” play involved two shameless gunners whom the team happily unloaded has me dubious of the story’s premise. But the implication was that complaining continued from the veterans who remained post-KP trade, even as Berman acknowledged that the team’s other young players like playing with Trier. So who else could be complaining? Lance? Mario?
Where’d you see this?
I’m sure Hardaway and Burke both had to see Trier as a younger cheaper replacement who could make them expendable. This in itself would create alot of tension between them. In the NBA, jobs are always on the line.
I assumed it was THJ as well, but maybe it was Lance. What other vets stuck around? Does Vonleh count?
Derrick White, huh? Must be nice.
The amount of production the Spurs have gotten from draft picks that are invariably in the mid-late 20s is really amazing. Over the last 10 years (not including this most recent draft) the highest they picked was #20. Among those drafted:
Dejounte Murray (drafted #29) –> all defense 2nd team as a 2nd year player
Derrick White (drafted #29) –> likely to make an all-defense team this year
Milutinov (drafted #26) –> not in NBA but is killing it in Europe
Kyle Anderson (drafted #30) –> played well enough to get a lucrative multi-year contract from MEM
Livio Jean Charles – not in NBA
Cory Joseph (#29) – played well enough to get lucrative multi-year contract
James Anderson (#20)
I could go on and on, but just look at the players they’ve gotten at the end of the 1st round. It’s nuts. And it is indicative of the development system Pop has put into place there. No scout is that good – it’s the development that happens after the draft that is clearly the special sauce.
We should trade Ntilikina to San Antonio just to see if Pop can do it.
We should trade Frank to SA for Frank. I still believe.
derrick white was incredible last night, arguably the best game anyone’s had so far in the playoffs. if murray comes back looking good they’ll have an incredible defensive back court next year. it’s good to be a spurs fan. i was always a DW-optimist but I thought pop or no pop the spurs would be a 43ish win team who would have to fight for the last playoff spot and get blown out in the first round. and that was before the murray injury. dummy.
i still find it hard to viscerally adjust to the kind of numbers replacement-ish bigs routinely put up these days. you’d think that seeing valanciunas putting up Shaq-like per 36 #s yet being given away as salary match in a deadline trade would have been enough. last night two guys you could have picked up off the street put up the following per 36 numbers in the same playoff game
bogut 12/20/7 and 1.5/1.5 on TS 80%
zubac 38/32/0 and 2/2 on TS 68%
Couldn’t we do something life FDR did with Churchill in the 1940’s and just “Lend-Lease” him to SA for two years???
How about we just give Poppovich a billion dollars to run the Knicks?
Frank Ntilikina being picked 21 spots ahead of Derrick White is so indicative of the kind of stupid stuff teams do with the draft
You mean that White was a victim of “ageism”? I don’t pay enough attention and never heard of him before. I see he is 24 and spent four years in college.
When Derrick White was Frank’s age he was playing Division II college basketball. I think we’ll probably start to see smarter NBA teams lean away from drafting very young guards in the lottery in the future, because so many of them will be unproductive through their rookie deal even if they eventually develop into useful NBA players.
Or, if you are going to draft young raw guys like Frank N, then at least have a coach, system, and patience to help those kids. The Knicks still don’t have such things, but maybe that is changing? Yeah, probably not.
I saw it for the first time about 2 weeks ago. It was probably Berman, but I can’t swear to it. I was going to post it immediately, but I didn’t want it to turn a pleasant day into another Phil sucks thread. I want to get past all those debates. I didn’t have a major problem with the Lee signing anyway. I like Lee.
My guess:
1) 22 years old when drafted
2) played only one year of D-1
3) team was 19-15
4) lost in the NIT first round
Makes sense that he would fall. Still, he had awesome stats in his one D-1 year.
He wasn’t a world-beater this year, but that’s a hell of a contract for a guy that will be on the brink of 27 when it’s over. If they end up needing to max him, they get a 25% max through his age 31 season. Brilliant.
@9
It’s kind of amazing. Teams seem to be placing extraordinary value on a C’s ability to shoot/defend 3s and switch and guard pick and rolls and the perimeter. I don’t think there’s any question those things have value that’s not showing up in the boxscore, but there has to be some question about whether they are overdoing it. There are quite a few otherwise productive players being discarded like they are trash. smh
As a fan, I look at on/off and specific lineup data to see what’s actually happening on the court with those players compared to other options.
I keep wishing another Shaq would come along and so decimate the league that even if they took advantage of him on the other side, on a net basis his own edge would be so massive it would change the game back. I liked the old game better, which is surprising because when it was changing I thought it was a great idea.
That’s one of the risks I keep talking about.
The flip side is that most of the truly elite talents come out as soon as possible. So if you are “superstar” hunting, you may have to continue to draft teenagers and then pay them before you know what their peak will be.
If you are looking for great role players in the middle of the draft somewhere or you need a productive player right away, age should be way less of a factor.
It’s part development, but I think it’s also his understanding of the game. The Spurs play the game the right way. Was there ever any team more beautiful than the Spurs team that beat the Heat? I’d say maybe the Trailblazers with Bill Walton and the Knicks with Frazier/Reed but no one else I can recall.
He is finding players that have the basketball IQ and personality to fit into a team concept where superior ball movement, player movement, high level decision making, work ethic, and a team first attitude can add significant value to whatever God given talent you have to work with.
Can you find an example of a successful franchise having given a big contract to a guy before they knew he was a star? (And by “knew,” I mean that he put up demonstrably-great stats.)
I look at Aaron Gordon, Zach LaVine, Evan Fournier, Devin Booker, Andrew Wiggins, et al. and I see a lot of failure.
the spurs pick good players… part of it is development but the players they have picked have all stood out prior to them getting drafted… same thing with the raptors… picking the right players is probably 80% of what goes into them being successful…
The Bucks agreed on an extension with Giannis in September 2016, which is before he started putting up actual all star level production.
well now, I guess that answers the question – brooklyn is in the house…
it’ll be interesting to see what the nets moves are this off season…they could sure use a jimmy butler…
I would imagine they’ll bring russell back…
The Nets are a well coached collection of nice players including an overrated volume shooting PG. Last night they shit the bed against a team missing its best player.
I know they’re kind of a feel good story and we Knicks fans are supposed to be looking across the river with envy, but they are going to be entrenched in mediocrity unless some top free agent (or two) decides that Brooklyn is the place they wanna be.
I yearn for knickerbocker mediocrity…
Drafting 18 years old kids is a relatively new development.
You are unquestionably in a better position if you drafted a “special” player that is worth the max now and will eventually be worth more than the max. If he’s very good but not there yet, it’s going to take good player evaluation to figure out which players may still develop into stars and which won’t.
You are going to have to let some walk.
For example, injury risk and all, I think KP is worth it. You probably don’t. That’s partly because we disagree on what his contribution is now and partly because I see ways he could get better with a few tweaks to his game, let alone actually filling out and getting better. We’ll probably disagree later too even if he gets better. We’ll see.
If your rule is “don’t resign him unless he’s worth a max by my standard right now” you are probably going be rebuilding via a draft for a very long time unless you are one of the very lucky handful that strikes gold.
I think at least 2 of those are going to become VERY good players that could easily become key pieces on a championship contender eventually.
IMO, Wiggins and Fournier are not max worthy.
one of the things I enjoy the most about coming here (almost every day now) is that I’ll read someone’s comments and it’ll spark some interest in me…
it’s a big world and many of the folks here have detailed knowledge in areas I know little to nothing about…
I’m continually amazed at the ability some folks have here to be both skilled in the use of words and numbers (not a very easy thing to accomplish)…humbled at times by the wisdom some folks share…amused by a lot of folks humor (might just be a new york/knicks thing)…
so, took a look at finnegan’s wake (full disclosure – joyce and lawrence both kicked my ass in high school)…
holy shit though:
do all a turfwoman can to piff the business on. Paff. To puff theblaziness on. Poffpoff. And even if Humpty shell fall frumptytimes as awkward again in the beardsboosoloom of all our grandremonstrancers there’ll be iggs for the brekkers come to mourn-him, sunny side up with care. So true is it that therewhere’s aturnover the tay is wet too and when you think you ketch sightof a hind make sure but you’re cocked by a hin.
I can often times recognize genius, but, it’s hard for me to fathom the intellectual capacity of someone being able to create something like that…just how freaking smart can a person actually be…
I’ve had a chance to work with a few people that were next level in their ability to think quickly and problem solve at lightning speed – jealous of some folks whom seemed to exhibit a photographic memory (which is sort of like having a cheat code in life :)…
I remember at school, up on the hudson, there’d be these guys that were super smart, extremely athletic, really good looking, from good families (as much as anyone can know about another’s home life) – and to top it all off – they would be really nice people too…it’s like they hit the genetic/early environmental development lottery…
anyways – thanks for sharing, and, as rama so aptly put:…
keep on keepin’ on…
Mike Conley and Jrue Holiday have been productive players that were not so much during their rookie years.
I remember Conley’s first FA contract to be quite criticized (meanwhile Hollinger defended it), and I think Holiday’s was too. Their 2nd FA contracts look much worse, though.
I think the Holiday contract was the sunk-cost fallacy in action, and it coincided with the (disastrous) Cousins trade and the most critical time for the Pels to not allow AD to become Chris Paul Part II.
He’s a very good player — I would be happy to have him as a starter on the Knicks, provided he were the final piece to a 55-win core — but he’s not a superstar. Not nearly as egregious as the names I listed above, but it’s hard to get excited about Holiday when the Pelicans have one of the best players of the decade and they’ve made the playoffs just twice in his seven-year career.
Conley doesn’t fit the criteria. He got his supermax at age 28 and signed a team-friendly deal in 2010 –$9M AAV between 23 and 28.
He wasn’t a good player back then, but I guess I’m trying to articulate the difference between extending a rookie-contract player for $45M over 5 and extending for $150M over 5. Conley’s contract didn’t cripple the franchise, and he (as you’d expect) continued to improve into his mid-20s.
For a while Steve Nash was booed in Dallas for being overpaid.
And Allan Houston was bad during his rookie contract when the knicks threw money at him. And he turned out to be better than expected (so of course they then proceeded to throw all the money they could find at him for no reason at all).
More recently, Kemba Walker and Nikola Vucevic are guys that got big extentions off of their mediocre rookie deals and, eventually, played their way into their respective contracts.
The question to me is who you extend and who you don’t. I don’t think anyone’s arguing that you should merely throw money at your lottery picks because they can’t stand to get worse, but you have to at least see something relating to winning basketball.
The Pelicans’ situation is like stumbling upon a piece of Wagyu beef and then taking out a payday loan to buy some nice, but overpriced wine to go with it. (Then you convince your neighbor to trade his wife for the steak, make sure she knows about the deal, and then saying, “Haha, jk,” before letting the beef sit on your counter for a couple months.)
The Wolves’ situation is like stumbling upon another piece of Wagyu and then taking out a payday loan to buy a 2-liter of Diet R.C. cola for $150M.
If we’re going to throw big money at complements, I just want to be sure that the main dish is worth the debt. I agree that you eventually have to overpay (as the Warriors and Rockets are currently doing or soon to do), but the timing is critically important.
Lillard is one electrifying basketball player
OKC is killing Kanter in high P&R. I bet Frank Isola won’t tweet about that.
Also I don’t know anything so I might be wrong about all of the above.
@36
I don’t disagree with anything you are saying.
What it often comes down to is your view on a player’s current productivity and potential. I probably lean more towards paying for and drafting for potential than you do, but I sure wouldn’t be reckless about it.