Knicks Morning News (2019.06.16)

Three picks and two pick swaps when your future is tied to a 34 year old is a huge amount to pay for any player, even a top-10 overall talent. The chances that at least one of those picks is really good are pretty high and they already gave up 4 in this draft and three other decent young guys as well. I’m pretty glad we sat it out if that was the price.

It looks more and more like our options will be KD and roll forward the rebuild or just roll forward the rebuild. I’m fine with both. But if the FO really have the mental fortitude to sit out the second tier of FAs after all the noise about this summer I’ll be both impressed and surprised.

Dolan will sell seats regardless, so it’s not like it’s “sign KD or struggle to fill the Garden.” I’m pretty sure he will stay out of the way and that whatever happens this summer will be on the front office. The challenge will be to use the draft and free agency to turn our team into a mid 40s win team. You add Kevin Durant to a young team that won 43 games and you have a clear way out of NBA purgatory. Maybe RJ Barrett and D’Angelo Russell + improvement from our young guys gets it done, but I think we need to be a lot more creative than that.

Happy Fathers Day to all you mothers

I’m happy to have been wrong about the Knicks and AD, I was certain they’d overpay. Although it would have been pretty impossible to go over LA’s bid. So now the Lakers would get either Kyrie or Kemba, Kawhi would stay in Toronto because going against a super team in your own town as part of the Clippers is insane.

If Durant and Thompson stay with GS, the remaining top free agents are Butler, Kyrie/Kemba, and Harris. I doubt any of them is enough of a star to move the needle for Dolan.

The Lakers have LeBron, AD, Kuzma, $30+ million in cap space and a bunch of flotsam and jetsam. They’ve got lots of work to do but they’ll be a handful for anyone out west next year.

Anyone noticed that we seem to be set on waving Lance? That would be a bad sign

The Lakers aren’t tying their future to a 34 year old Lebron they’re tying it to a 26 year old Anthony Davis. They have a lot of work left to do and I don’t have a lot of confidence in their front office, but Davis is really good and in his prime.

Thinking of it that way, their trade is similar to our trade for Melo, only worse, because of all the good draft picks they gave up.

While I am in favor of staying away from the shiny objects, if the Nets sign Kyrie and/or KD, there will be plenty of pressure on the Knicks to make a big move. Dolan is already being critcized by shareholders for not earning his salary and Knick TV ratings are way down. I don’t think he will have the patience to sit through another terrible year. I’m afraid Perry needs to have a really good offseason or heads will roll.

AD is a significantly better player than Melo and LeBron is waaaaay better than Amare, so the deal is overall a smarter move for a win-now team. But in terms of what they gave up, yeah, it compares.

I also think Griffin had more leverage that was suggested on the last thread. Clearly the Celtics, Knicks and probably other teams would have made offers. I’m thinking he probably could have gotten Kuzma if he waited. It’s a great haul for the Pels, but they were surely going to get a great haul from someone.

If anyone is sad that we didn’t get AD, watch this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAfnMNBU4DY

Thinking of it that way, their trade is similar to our trade for Melo, only worse, because of all the good draft picks they gave up.

if you miss jowles just say you miss jowles

@19

I’m kinda drunk and the beach sun is setting my skin on fire but I don’t think I’m crazy when I say that in 2022 we’ll think back to the AD trade as a major bullet dodged. I really think Mitch is gonna be 75% of what AD is now by the end of year 4 (which means we’ll need to max him, and we’ll willingly do so).

This draft should be pretty interesting. Expecting plenty of trades from the Celtics, Pels, Hawks, Cavs, and more. I’d love us to grab another pick somehow, even if it’s just a higher 2nd rounder… We could use a legit sf prospect.

What a great trade for the Knicks! Why? Because the FO realized that we are nowhere near close enough to contention to mortgage the future for AD and showed actual restraint. The Lakers can take that risk because the have Lebron. They now have 2 truly generational talents on the roster. I would feel differently if KD were healthy and going to be a Knick. I’d still be a little upset over it, but I could reconcile making a trade like that with a healthy KD in tow.

What’s next? Who knows. But this actual rebuild with draft picks and young talent is still an exciting time. We know Fiz is gonna coach the young guys up. I just hope we don’t panic and offer Butler his max or somethin like that. What do you all think of inking Middleton or Harris (if Kawhi won’t be a Knick) and renting cap space for a year?

Is Julius Randle restricted? I think he’d be a really good signing as well

@5 while I applaud single mothers and single fathers, I don’t believe in one celebrating the other’s Day. Mothers celebrating Father’s Day takes away from all the great dads out there who are doing their job. It’s bad enough society has low-key downplayed Father’s Day for a while now. Fathers deserve to have their day.

Any of you interested in trying to pry Lonzo from NOLA?. Perhaps with his shooting stats and his stated non-interest in the Pelicans, he can be had at a reasonable price or even discounted?

Let’s say the Knicks have Culver rated evenly or higher than RJ. Would it be crazy to try to convince NO that Ball would be a fair price for the privilege of swapping the #3/#4 picks?

1. After banging his head against a wall for 7 years in CLE, Bron leverages free agency and forms the Big 3 in Miami. Wins 2 chips.
2. Bron levers FA again to take advantage of the Cav’s freak luck in winning 3 of 4 number 1s. Knows he has another Big 3 waiting for him before he jumps back to Cavs. Wins another chip.
3. Rested up most of this year and leveraged his position to force buss to go all in for AD. Prepares to make runs the next 2-3 years. Decent chance to win another chip.
4. His contract provide the leverage to join Bron 2.0 wherever he lands in 3 years, quite possibly to a great Pels team (and win another chip?)
Brilliant career management.

Serious question: Would you take Gordon Hayward off the C’s hands if they throw in assets?

I think the Lakers will be in the playoffs for the next couple of years, but I am not sure about them winning a ring, or even the Western conference.

Serious question: Would you take Gordon Hayward off the C’s hands if they throw in assets?

Honestly, I probably would. Gives the team some veteran leadership with less pressure on Hayward to perform [other than the NY media scrutiny part]. Plus, he’s still pretty young so I feel like if he could put up close to what he averaged his last couple years in Utah, he could still be a borderline All-Star (or maybe something close to a 18/5/3 player]

I was reading the blog yestarday, and many people seemed enthusiastic about signing D’Angelo Russell. I was surprised, because i had a bad opinion about him. But looking at this years numbers, he seem to have a nice bpm and he is very young. And someone mentioned him having a 41% AST (2nd in the NBA) and how he is a good distributor… and then I thought that %AST might be misleading.

%AST measures the percentage of your *team FGs* that a player has assisted (while on the court). However, if your team does not shoot too much, that means you can have a high %AST while making very few assists. Increasing your usage just increases your assist percentage: If D’Angelo Russell takes lots of isolation plays (instead of his teammates), he is going to have a high %AST; on the other hand, if Donovan Mitchell takes lots of isolation playes, that makes the %AST of Ricky Rubio go down.

Instead of using %AST, i think AST per 100 possesions give a more accurate picture of the playmaking abilities of each player. By that metric, Russell is 6th in the NBA, still very good, but behind Chris Paul or Jokic, and more in line with my intuition.

@43

None of those metrics is going to be right all the time.

When Kobe was playing for D’Antoni, during one stretch the Lakers had a string of injuries and didn’t have a single healthy PG on the team. D’Antoni made Kobe the PG for a few games. He was piling up assists like he was a great PG. Then when the players got healthy again, he went right back to scoring.

The same thing happened with Paul Pierce. During a period of excessive injuries at PG, the team gave the ball to Pierce and he played point forward. He was great at it and piled up assists left and right on top of scoring. Then he want right back to being Paul Pierce.

A player either has the court vision and passing skills or he doesn’t. Even if he has those skills, he still may not be in the play making role because they have another play maker and/or need him to create shots and score more instead.

On the flip side, if you give the ball to some mediocre play maker he might get 5 assists a night because he always has the ball in his hands. He may not even be contributing much to the efficiency of the shots being taken, but he’s getting assists.

I think you have to know what the player’s role is on his own team and evaluate what skills he has independent of his stats by watching him play. However, since the idea is to win games, the best play makers will tend to have the ball in their hands more often and be asked to make plays.

Serious question: Would you take Gordon Hayward off the C’s hands if they throw in assets?

I proposed this the day after the Durant injury. The Knicks should really be in Bill Belichick asset acquisition mode here. Assuming after the first 2 picks they believe 3-8 are in the same relative league:

Their first call should be to NO and tell them we like Barrett very much, but if you are interested in moving up, let me know before I call someone else.

Then call Atlanta and say, “Everyone knows you covet Culver as a switchable player to go along with Tre and you can’t get him at 8, so let’s talk…”

Then call Ainge and say, “to bad Kyrie jumped to the Nyets, but we can absorb your 75 M misfortune with Hayward for a price…”

I just think someone who rolls the dice on Bol Bol with a middling pick and has multiple picks is going to be very happy in a few years.

Added ancillary benefit of AD going to La…. it makes Dallas’ record worse and even might take Kemba Walker off the table, too for then next 4 years! Thanks Bron!!!

I almost hope KD and Klay stay in GS and return in March for the playoff run…..Anything to make Dallas worse!

How many years left on Hayward’s deal? If two, I’d be down to eat it for 2 future unprotected firsts.

Rozier is a free agent – he’s going to get paid.

How many years left on Hayward’s deal? If two, I’d be down to eat it for 2 future unprotected firsts.

Yep… and keep the powder dry for a Giannis attack in 2021 only this time with a half dozen picks prior…. maybe we’ll have a half dozen good young players to surround a real star in his prime with….

The bad contract I ‘d love to eat for a price is Parsons. He’s expiring so the impact is very short term. He’s unpopular in Memphis so they would definitely like to ship him out. Unfortunately they probably don’t have free agent aspirations so they may not feel urgency to get him off the books. But if we could deal the #3 for #2 and Parsons, that would be amazing.

One downside of not making an AD deal is that we didn’t unload Knox while his value is still relatively high. I was really hoping to ship him out before he puts up another garbage season and everyone realizes he’s a homeless man’s Rudy Gay.

I have it on good authority that Knox will be a surprise and a pleasant one for our fans…

Only a million of Lances contract is guaranteed, so cutting him means we’re planning on adding free agents. We should be trying to trade him to a team that needs cap space

I think taking on Hayward is a no-brainer.

The Ringer updated mock draft post-AD trade. They have RJ 3 and Culver 4. They have Culver as the second best play maker in draft behind Morant. Comps for RJ:

Jalen Rose, alpha Andrew Wiggins, Harrison Barnes, Rudy Gay

I think I’ll take option 1.

yeah, all else equal, the swap rights dominate the deferral. swap rights are like getting to roll two dice and pick which is higher, while the deferral is like rolling one die and having to decide whether to switch before rolling again.

but why’s interesting is how small the difference is for an random situation. if you use the prototype nba draft value board, swap rights are worth about 11 points, which is equivalent to getting the 31st pick outright. the deferral is worth more like 8 which is around the 34th pick. so griffin would need very little extra judgment (maybe he thinks the ’25 draft looks better than ’24, or he thinks the lakers will be better than the pellies) to take the deferral. probably he thought neither and this is just the deal he got.

Contemplating whether or not I’d still do the porzingis trade with the benefit of hindsight. It’s a tough call.

You’d think we could have gotten a better package if we didn’t have to include Hardaway and Lee. But he could have used his restricted status and general malcontentness as leverage. Still, with even just 2 options, you can get a lot of leverage.

And then, of course, there’s the issue of if we’d be better off with him or without. A Barrett-Porzingis-Robinson frontline with Knox off the bench would have been very enticing. It will be interesting to see what kind of contract he gets. If he just wasn’t getting a max I’d probably want him here.

I think a 32-34 year old top 10 player of all time will be more valuable than 5 years of KP on a max contract. We also don’t have to watch TH2 chuck to his heart’s content. I regret nothing

Take Hayward with a 1st round pick or two? Yes, please.

In fact, the Knicks could sell that to many dumb fans as acquiring a “star” on the cheap and to the rest of us as renting cap space for the rebuild. Let him put up all the pointz he wants next year so that he’ll either opt out of his deal or at least become a coveted expiring.

As noted above, though, why would the Celtics do that? Are they are eyeing a max level free agent?

I feel Hayward is a bit underrated at the moment. Boston would be selling low if they were to dump is deal, and I am not convinced they would be willing to give up assets to move him just yet. I think it’s not too controversial to think a player may be better off in year 2 post recovery from his ankle breaking in half.

All that said, I would not hesitate to jump at taking on board his salary if some 1st came with it.

Ok, here’s a fun game. What does the alternative “Phil Jackson never got fired” timeline look like?

Probably a wreck. I think KP would have been traded for much less. We wouldn’t have resigned Hardaway though.

Found it. But not where you evaluate swaps and deferrals.