[Hoops Rumors] Five Key Offseason Questions: New York Knicks (Tuesday, May 28, 2019 5:03:05 PM)
One of the NBA’s most iconic franchises, the Knicks have also been one of the league’s most dysfunctional in recent years. They’re set to enter a crucial offseason after having won between 17 and 32 games in each of the last five seasons. Having been unable to put together a core of promising young building […]
(Tuesday, May 28, 2019 9:57:58 PM)
Presumptive No. 3 pick RJ Barrett would welcome the opportunity to play for the Knicks.
(Tuesday, May 28, 2019 9:55:11 PM)
Some members of the Knicks front office are high on the 6-6 shooting guard from Texas Tech.
(Tuesday, May 28, 2019 11:05:24 AM)
While Kevin Durant remains mostly idle as the Warriors prepare for the start of the NBA Finals against the Raptors, new odds on where the pending free agent will sign have come out.
(Tuesday, May 28, 2019 4:46:18 PM)
LOS ANGELES — RJ Barrett said all the right things, but you could sense he can’t wait to become a Knick. “It would be a lot of fun, definitely, playing in the Garden, those bright lights and they have so much history,’’ the Duke swingman said Tuesday at the BDA Sports Management Pro Day at…
(Tuesday, May 28, 2019 12:22:57 PM)
Former Knicks coach Jeff Van Gundy and Mark Jackson had precious little to say on whether they believe Kevin Durant should seriously consider New York as a prime destination. But the legendary broadcasting duo know the notion the Warriors are better — or as good — without the injured Durant is ludicrous. “He’s an all-time…
58 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2019.05.29)”
@ Hubert, Tjarks is the Ringer guy I mentioned that’s super high on Clarke. Not sure how good of a talent evaluator he is, but he was drooling over Luka about the same time his name started popping up on this site, which was when he was about 16 I believe. He also happens to live near Dallas and be a Mavs fan. Unbelievably lucky.
I want to make it clear that I was a huge RJ fan pre-Duke. I was so pumped this season bc I knew the Knicks would suck and wanted either he or Zion (like most, I had RJ over Zion last summer).
I don’t think anyone can deny that he had a somewhat disappointing season. Not fucking Cam level disappointing, but definitely showed red flags unrelated to being in the shadow of Zion. I think at least three times (I’d have to go back and try to figure out when) I can remember him trying to close a tight game in the last 2 min, clearly getting tunnel vision, and missing terrible shots rather than making a good play. He definitely lost a game for them doing that shit (too lazy to look up which one). There’s a difference between drafting a super competitive player and drafting a super hero-baller that wants to get his more than win (not saying this is def RJ, just worrying that it is). He appears to rely on his athleticism to overpower weaker college players at the rim, and he won’t be able to do that as a pro. I think he’s surprisingly not as athletic as many think given his measurements. His FT% sucks and everyone knows that’s the best predictor of shooting in the pros (I was a vocal advocate for Fox bc of his decent FT shooting despite dismal 3pt in college and he’s up to a solid 37% from 3 in only his second year). His stl/blk numbers suck. He’s a decent passer and rebounder. And seems like he’s not very good yet off the ball.
I doubt he’ll be a bust, and seems to have enough skills to be around for a while, but I’m just not that excited about a player whose best case scenario is Derozen.
Also, no one said Simi Shittu is better than RJ. The point of the story is that a former teammate of his supposedly quit the team because of not getting along with him. Maybe it means absolutely nothing. But it’s still a red flag. To argue that it doesn’t matter because he’s better than Simi seems insincere.
Does being overly cocky in HS/college translate to the pros? Who knows? Is it even a problem? Maybe not. Just pointing out things that worry me about the potential future franchise player if the echo chamber media reports are not true. Also, imagine a cocky young player (think Jalen Brown) playing alongside Kyrie. What could go wrong?
It would be fascinating to see Atlanta end up with Young and Clarke from that Doncic trade. That’s not a bad result.
I’m not being snarky when I ask this. I really want to know. If Barrett has so many flaws in his game/personality, why is he the consensus number 3 pick in this draft? At this point is it all just based on pre college hype and playing on ESPN every week with Duke?
I ask because reading this blog since we got the third pick, one would get the impression that he has serious flaws to his game. What is it about his game that puts him at number 3 in this draft? Is it all hype? I’m genuinely asking because when I watch his highlight video, I can’t really see what makes him so special either but he seems to be the consensus number 3 pick. So what are the good things about him that make him that high of a pick? Or is it just because he’s young, was a top high school prospect and its a weak draft?
There’s one and only one serious consideration when it comes to RJ Barrett.
Do you think he’ll be able to improve his outside shot enough to become an above average efficiency scorer from outside?
If he’s does, imo he’s going to be a perennial all star because he has above average talents and skills in other areas. This year, when the Knicks are comparing Barrett and Culver, it’s probably not going to be on who does better in 3 on 3. It’s going to be on who just happens to be knocking down 3s better on that day. lol
I mean, wouldn’t be the first time the consensus was stupid. Wiggins was a consensus #1. Knox and Frank were consensus lottery picks. Melo was a consensus max-worthy player.
I could go on and on and on and on. It’s silly to pretend the people currently making decisions in the NBA are all making them to the most optimal possible extent. We’ve been through this before.
Having said that, I don’t think #3 overall is a horrible place for Barrett. I probably lean more towards putting him in the 4-6 range, but that’s not a very big difference. This draft just kind of sucks after pick 2, so of course we have pick 3. If it sucked after pick 1, we’d have pick 2. If it sucked after pick 59, we’d have pick 60.
Pretty sure Phil traded pick 60 to Jeanie Buss as an anniversary gift when they were dating.
This blog tends to focus on a player’s “current” TS% and metrics like BPM.
The NBA is focused on a checkbox of skills and other attributes. It wants as many skill boxes to be checked as possible and there to be good potential to develop that greater variety of skills over time.
Do you want the player very likely to become a productive role player or the player with greater risk and the potential to become a star?
It’s a simple question, but the right answer is probably “it depends”.
Woj is reporting Chris Paul will be available in trade discussions this summer. My guess is we’ll see him get traded to Toronto (Siakim and Lowry or something like that) or in a 3 team deal sending CP3 back to LAL, Anthony Davis to HOU, and NOP gets the Jimmy Butler package from Houston plus all of the Lakers’ young guys.
Pointz still means a lot to NBA talent evaluators. Volume scoring and all that. If he develops his outside shot, he might one day be very good.
I’m iffy on him. On draft night, if the Knicks are on the clock, they should probably take him and see if Cleveland then gets a bit desperate to trade for him.
I’m going to be the first to say it.
Morey is wildly overrated.
He has that genius reputation because he embraced “advanced stats” so early, but he’s made countless errors along the way.
In his defense, if anyone can figure out a way to trade a rapidly declining CP3 with that contract, Morey will be the guy to do it.
I don’t blame CP3 for wanting out either. The offense Houston ran sucked. It must be frustrating for an all time great pure PG like Paul to watch Harden dribble for 15 seconds and throw up so many garbage shots while doing his other dazzling things. It’s mind boggling to me that a D’Antoni coached team plays that way. It was terrible.
Houston cutting bait on Paul is the best thing they can do. He’s in clear decline, on a max contract and its always better to get ahead to get rid of a high priced player too soon than to hold onto him for too long.
My guess is we’ll see him get traded to Toronto (Siakim and Lowry or something like that).
there is a .01 percent chance toronto does that deal, exactly equal to the .01 percent chance they bring back isiah to rim basketball ops.
…and the consensus here at KB was that consensus high lottery picks Tatum and Markkanen were most likely to be busts. As a group, we’ve been pretty dumb at drafting too…me included.
How much Houston sweetener would it take to prefer a maxed, ancient CP3 over a maxed Kyrie? Or Kemba?
This is a straw man. Kawhi, for example, had a .513 TS% in college and he was still popular on this blog because he profiled well in other ways. If your point is that this blog has an analytical bent, well yeah, that’s by design. It’s in the freakin’ banner of the website. No reason to be so reductive about it, though.
Daryl Morey took over the Rockets prior to the 2007-2008 season. Since then, the Rockets have the second highest winning percentage in the NBA (Spurs are, of course, #1). This is despite not being a major free agent destination and having some pretty terrible health luck along the way.
There are moves Morey have made that haven’t turned out well. Sometimes that’s only been clear with the benefit of hindsight, other times he’s made some fairly baffling moves (ME7O). I don’t know how you could argue he’s been anything but excellent overall, though.
When Steve Clifford was interviewed at the draft combine he mentioned that a head coach can do a lot of damage by interfering in the draft process. Teams have teams of scouts that watch these guys from the time they’re in middle school. RJ has been on the radar for a long time. A couple of bad games at Duke don’t mean as much to them as they do to us.
To me, he doesn’t “look” that agile and Duke’s problem was that teams packed it in to try to keep Zion from getting the ball and dared them to make threes which they struggled with.
Another problem we have is that the Knicks decision making seems like it’s all done on the back of a napkin at a three Martini lunch.
Another problem is the Anthony Bennetts and Andrea Bargnanis of the world. Those players where the consensus turned out to be wrong.
Still, like many have said about the Knox pick. The pick doesn’t need to work out to not be a bad pick. He was a player with a good amount of data that said he could provide upside. There was no obvious superior pick. They did their due diligence and made a selection other smarter teams might make.
When we picked Pat Ewing the second pick was Steve Stipanovich. Was it a dumb pick? No. Did he have a similar career to Pat? No. This year, would I rather have Zion? Yes. Do I think RJ will have a similar impact? No. Will I be happy with the pick? Yes. I’ll trust that more went into the decision than we see in front of us, that our player development has turned a corner, and that he works out.
I agree it’s a good time to trade Paul, but it’s not going to be easy to get value for him. From Houston’s point of view, they will probably get more this year than next year, but it could hurt their chances of a ring next year. After all, the Warriors are likely to be weaker next year, which ups Houston’s chances. So I suspect at least part of this willingness to trade is driven by money considerations on the part of the new owner.
If they do trade him, I think Philadelphia could be interested, depending on what happens with their free agents and other trades by them.
I’m still comfortably in the “Markkanen sucks” camp. That dude is and always will be a defensive sieve, and he’s not some offensive dynamo–hes not even Ryan Anderson yet. Idk if I’d call him a bust, because that title is reserved for recent Knicks 1RPs, but he’s definitely not good and I’d probably look to trade him if I were Chicago.
I was answering the following question.
Why is Barrett so highly regarded around the NBA but not here?
The NBA is focused on “overall” skills and potential. That why the NBA likes Barrett more than a guy like Clarke even though a lot of people here see it the other way around. The NBA sees Barrett as a more complete offensive player. People think he’s more likely to move beyond the excellent role player level they see for Clarke. Even though the popular metrics say Clarke is much better now, that’s not what the NBA thinks.
To me, you need a few guys that can put the ball in the basket efficiently in a variety of ways on high usage. One you have guys like that, you fill out the team with guys like Clarke. If you don’t think Barrett or anyone else in our range can become one of those guys, then it makes perfect sense to look at someone like Clarke. But if you think there’s a good chance Barrett can expand and improve his shot making, he’s probably going to be a much more complete and better player than Clarke.
Markkanen is all good and well until he’s up for an extension. At that point Chicago would be wise to give him the Porzingis treatment unless major changes occur between now and then.
I’d say the jury is still out on Tatum as well, but also the conversation surrounding him was a lot more mixed than it was about Markkanen.
Morey has wildly overpaid for players a number of times and killed some of the flexibility he had to trade for or add the players he needed. What he has been brilliant at is escaping from his dumb moves by finding someone to take his mistakes off his hands. That has allowed him to keep moving forward. In other words, despite his dumb overpays and mistakes, he keeps “winning enough of the important deals” later to come out fine. Not that anyone else around here thinks you can create a contender by being a smart deal maker instead of drafting for 10 years. Of course, had he not made a bunch of mistakes, maybe he would have had the room and assets to beat the Warriors.
I still don’t think this is a fair representation of the board’s opinion. Everyone I’ve seen talk about Clarke acknowledges that he likely will not be the “best” player on a contender, at least not in a conventional (high usage, high efficiency) sense. The idea is that the players who could be that will be gone by pick #3, so it’s better to get a guy with a very high floor and try to get the aforementioned kind of player later.
No one thinks you can win a championship with 12 Brandon Clarkes, but it’s perfectly possible 1 Brandon Clarke is more conducive to a championship than 1 RJ Barrett depending on what the rest of the roster looks like.
For the one millionth time, if you can find someone stupid enough to give you a James Harden level player for whatever scraps you have lying around, feel free to enter win now mode. There is literally no one who disagrees with this. However, there’s a reason that trade is one of the most infamous in NBA history. Trades like it don’t happen very often!
We have criticized Morey for his blunders, specially the way he conducted this past offseason for the Rockets, where he got guys like MCW and Melo. It’s not like he’s been called a genius every single time he does anything. But there’s a lot of merit to what he’s done, he trusted Harden could be a superstar when a lot of people even on this board thought he was just a sixth man, he built the only team so far in the west to really challenge the KD Warriors and he did all that while being on a team that never gets top free agents.
Sam Presti and Danny Ainge are wildly overrated. I’d argue Morey is a lot closer to properly rated than those guys.
“Another problem we have is that the Knicks decision making seems like it’s all done on the back of a napkin at a three Martini lunch.”
Word
RJ Barrett is the Knicks destiny for better or for worse – let’s hope it turns out more positive than most on this blog think it will. We are overdue for some good luck. Look on the bright side, at least they won’t be drafting Reddish
Knicks are in a pretty tough position – it’s very hard to turn away a potential #1 option like Barrett based on one early-entry college season when every team is dying to get their hands on a player like that. That being said, Barrett has a lot of usage from this year that proves he wasn’t in the camp of “great” college players but shows him as a tantalizingly almost “very good” college offensive player.
And I disagree that his shot is his only issue. I think his defense is actually more questionable. But I do think his counting stats, age, and abilities definitively put him in the #3-5 range. It’s hard to squint and see Culver as much of a better player with a lot more upside than he already has, but you could definitely argue that Garland (shot, handle) and Clarke (hustle, defense) have higher single-skill levels than RJ, although one is untested and the other is much older. If you could trade RJ straight up for Garland and Clarke, that would be worth it, but barring that, it will be hard for any exec to trade RJ unless it’s for a star like Davis.
Markkanen and Tatum are not “stars” production-wise, but they have significant value in the trade market. I certainly wouldn’t max the former and would have to wait and see on the latter, but whatever they are, they were excellent picks in terms of trade value two years out.
No takers on @17? I thought it was not the dumbest question, considering today’s Woj-bomb. If they throw in, say, Hartenstein and an unprotected future #1, is it worth it?
Kinda seems like you’re being contrarian for the sake of being contrarian here. Usually you’re very concerned with a player’s defensive ability, but in this case you’re not concerned with RJ’s paltry steal rate and his general lack of defensive chops. His defense looks like a real possible concern.
It’s almost like people here aren’t high on RJ, so by default you’re high on him.
Barrett: my concern is his shot, because (based on memory) it includes some rotating movement of his bottom half. I think a lot of his inaccuracy come from there, and that is not easy to fix. Plus, he was not working on it from the look of it. On opposite, Zion clearly has changed his 3pt shot this year: his new movement is sound but he still releases the ball at different heights at every attempt. More repetitions and he (Zion) will be fine. I did not see any reshaping in RJ’s shot, so he is late in fixing it.
Defense: I am not impressed by Duke’s defense and all their ball watching. All team would watch the ball for cross court passes. And then they lose their man.
Barrett’s defense in terms of instincts is average, nothing special, not bad either. But one thing: he cares! When he loses his man because of the ball watching he will immediately chase. He would not take a possession off. Others would (including the future #1 pick, who has better defensive instincts though).
RJ Barrett is a high usage scorer, who I don’t think will be able to score at the next level. He can’t shoot and I don’t think he’s quick enough or strong enough to get to the hoop or finish through people the way he does in college.
He doesn’t project well on defense. He only goes left. He has a high dribble.
On the plus side he can pass and rebound. However, I question the value of his passing when he can’t dribble or drive effectively. I could be wrong and he arguably has the most upside of players after 3, but there’s a lot of red flags and I don’t think his upside is as high as others project.
There’s no question to me he’s coasting at least a little bit on his status as #1 prep prospect, the “Steve Nash’s godson” thing and his big game for the Canadian team. There’s just not a lot for me to dream on other than the hope he becomes a dangerous 3-point sniper in the pros. If other teams value him highly, great! He has trade value. In fact, that might be his best attribute: the fact that other teams rate him highly.
I think lumping Presti and Ainge together is pretty unfair. I despise the Celtics with every fiber of my being, but Ainge has been a pretty successful GM overall. I mean the guy keeps stockpiling draft picks, but the Isaiah Thomas deal and the Tatum deal with Philly were complete heists. I guess you could say the Hayward signing is an albatross, but we’ll never know if the injury permanently affected his production.
The bloom is obviously off the rose a little with their recent playoff flame out, but there aren’t many GM’s I would put ahead of Ainge at this point.
The Celtics had some bad luck in that they had high picks in weak drafts. Which, yay to that! Ainge put a team together that had lots of nuts and bolts but not a lot of chrome and leather. It’s really a team full of complementary players with nothing to complement.
I think Barrett is plenty quick and strong, but scoring at the rim is also about touch, and there’s no easy way to explain a guy who gets there but can’t finish. Curry, for instance, made some kind of superhuman leap in rim finishing around 2014 and has never let up. It’s impossible to predict whether he’ll be Curry or Mudiay (or Wiggins) at the rim, and I don’t think that athletic gifts will be the major factor there. Obviously being an explosive, agile leaper will get you better looks, but finesse is a completely different skill. Some guys have it and some simply don’t.
Zion and Clarke have it, that’s for sure.
@31
The issue for me is, do we even have anything that Houston wants in the first place? Unless Morey loves RJ Barrett or someone else for whatever reason, or it’s come to the point where he’s simply dumping CP3 for cap space, what can we even offer?
As long as Houston has Harden their first rounders are not valuable pieces, unless they’re far into the future, which wouldn’t fit our timeline if we do get Durant and Paul. Capela is the best sweetener Morey could possibly add, and it seems he’s open to trading him too, but he plays the one position we do have a young guy ready to take over.
Id still go for Irving over anything Morey could throw at us to accept Paul, specially since I’m scared Paul will be really done in the next 2-3 years while Irving has a chance to stay productive for the entirety of his contract, and is probably more productive than CP3 right now.
Chris Paul is a great player but he’s a bad risk on that contract. I’d stay away from that. They should trade him to some (other) dumbass starfucking team like the Lakers. He’d fit in great there, because he makes no sense there.
My point grouping Ainge and Presti together is that I think both were dealt incredible hands and haven’t done much with it.
Ainge obviously has had more success, but it mostly came from McHale gifting them Garnett, and then Billy King gifting them a ton of picks for Garnett and Pierce when they were already done. Obviously he deserves merit for making those deals and feasting on the stupidity of those teams, and he did a great job building the Isaiah Thomas team pretty much out of nothing. But for all the incredible collection of assets he had and the trades he pulled, his team is still a 2nd round exit that might be even worse than that if Irving leaves and he can’t replace him. For the hand he was dealt and what he had to work with, it’s gotta be disappointing.
The same goes for Presti who got top 5 picks in amazing drafts in the perfect timeline and still managed to screw everything up (while being touted as a genius all along).
I’m not saying they’re bad, I’m saying they’ve been wildly overrated especially by the media.
I think Paul is a top-3 modern-era PG but I wouldn’t touch that contract even with Dolan’s money
adam silver was on espn today…rob manfred seems pretty okay, roger goodell seems like a dick, but, love me some adam silver:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aj0vKamZiP4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4nRhjW4_Xg
FWIW Paul is also going to make $38m this year, and adding Hartenstein takes you close to 40m. Kyrie max is around $33m. So even if Paul was as a total salary dump, taking him rules out signing KD. Definitely not worth it…
“I’m not saying they’re bad, I’m saying they’ve been wildly overrated especially by the media.”
Wildly overrated compared to whom?
Presti had some great draft luck but it’s not like Westbrook and Harden were both #1s. Other people had a chance at them and passed. Presti then put together a team that made the Finals once and might have ruled the West for a long time if the Warriors hadn’t come along. And it’s not like Presti’s gotten a lot of praise since he traded Harden for a bag of beans.
Ainge came into a playoff team, had the brains and guts to admit it was never going to win a title, and blew it up. He then rebuilt it into a team that made the Finals twice and won a title and if not for knee injuries to Kendrick Perkins and KG it could have been even better than that. He then blew that team up before it completely fell apart and rebuilt it into a team that made the conference finals three years in a row, once when its two best on-paper players were injured.
How many other GMs can compete with that?
Mike
Masai Ujiri, Bob Myers, R.C Buford, Pat Riley’s Miami years and Morey himself are all guys I would take ahead of those two.
When evaluating what a GM has done you have to factor in context. That’s pretty much what I’ve been saying about Ainge and Presti. Yes, they’ve had success, but the reasons they’ve had success matters. Harden fell to number 3 because Chris Wallace was incredibly stupid, the Durant pick was a simple no brainer and the Westbrook and Ibaka picks were good ones. Then everything he did after that literally made his team less and less likely to win a title, resulting in Durant giving up on the franchise.
Ainge is obviously better, but his team was supposed to win around 60 games this season and it flopped hard, and this year was supposed to be culmination of all the good moves he has done over the years. Do people really not realize how fucked the Celtics are if they lose Kyrie for nothing? They’ll be paying 60 million combined to Horford and Hayward, plus they’ll be capped for a long time as Horford expires in the same season Brown will be up for an extension. Unless Tatum really does become a superstar, which seems unlikely, or they really hit on the draft picks they have, there’s very little to work with in the near future.
This is pretty cool. Every single NBA Finals has had a player that was a Knicks at some point in there career.
Also, it’s absolutely hilarious that Strat aka You Should Build a Contender by Making Good Trades and Signing Good Players, Not Tanking thinks that Daryl More, a GM whose team is consistently good and built a title contender by making good trades and signing good players, is overrated.
How good was KP?
Some hints about how the Mavs plan on using his skill set more effectively and make him more efficient.
https://www.mavs.com/how-good-was-kristaps-porzingis-the-last-time-he-took-the-court-good-very-good/
Not sure about that KP article. Uses a lot of counting stats and weird, arbitrary cut-offs (lol@ making the RPG# > SIX(!) to get that Anthony Davis comparison in there) to make the case that Porzingis is one of the best players in the league. I agree with the author that he’ll likely get more catch and shoot opportunities playing with Luca and that should help his TS% somewhat. I wonder if he’ll ever be able to leverage his height in getting easier buckets around the rim though.
Mavs.com says Porzingis is good
Case closed y’all
Porzingis is good. How good is not certain. How he will come back from injury is a question too, but it shouldn’t blind to the fact that he is probably worth what Dallas paid.
Barrett shot a tick under 65% at the rim. At least in college he could finish. His thing is he can’t shoot.
The thing with Ainge is he has an incredible resume but it’s almost entirely down to him being able to constantly make incredibly lopsided trades. You can’t deny him his due, but it doesn’t mean you’d pick him ahead of the other guys. You can’t keep banking on being able to find the dumbest person in the league and gouging him (although he does seem to be able to constantly do it).
Really not sure who would be willing to take CP3 with that contract. He was still pretty good last year, but his durability is a big issue and if he keeps declining rapidly he’s going to be a negative on the court in a year or two. Maybe they can try to get John Wall?
Yeah, I’m not down with CP3. Fuck Houston and Morey. Still haven’t forgiven him for the shit he pulled with Lin. He has no core.
More like Mavs.com is looking at the “details” of KP’s skillset and suggesting how and why it’s very likely he’ll be more efficient if used properly. And of course, it’s also considering his defense. The one thing it did not do is trust broken models that don’t include defense and that are incapable of teasing out individuals skills and whether the player has been used effectively(due to coaching, system, teammates, or low basketball IQ).
A first in the history of fan-site prognostication.
I’d love a GM like Ainge. Yes, the C’s flamed out this year. Something was wrong with their chemistry. I think Kyrie is likely to be out of there and was looking at the door the whole season. Still, I’d love a team that makes the playoffs each year and cuts bait when the writing’s on the wall. In short, you can only do better than Ainge did if you have excellent luck. Hayward’s injury is likely the story of this iteration of the team.
Meanwhile, we continue to throw four cards down in a game of five card stud…