Knicks Morning News (2019.06.25)

Listened to the Locked on Knicks podcast this AM who had Marc Berman on – really sounds like the Knicks FO is very very unsure about whether Durant is going to come. Interestingly Berman said as if it was ridiculous to think otherwise that of course a calf strain would lead to increased risk for an Achilles injury. Regardless of what has been reported, it seems the Dubs really did a bad thing in letting him play under the pretense that he couldn’t hurt it worse. Yes of course the player has to agree to play, but also of course players want to play and if the medical staff is telling you you can’t hurt it worse, then why wouldn’t you say yes?

Assuming this is true and that we are not going to sign any big FAs this summer, I would be perfectly content to spend about $40MM of the cap space signing guys to either 1 year deals or to longer deals that are very clearly value deals, and then using the $20MM to take on bad contracts this offseason to grease other teams’ spending, then hold onto the rest for midseason deals. I’d give Vonleh 3 years at the mini-MLE number, not sign Mudiay.

Assuming (big assumption) that Frank will be able to shoot 35% from 3 this year, he actually seems like he would fit quite well with RJ. An interesting lineup could be Frank, Dot, RJ, Knox, and Mitch.

I also think Kadeem Allen is going to play a lot this year if the big game FA hunting doesn’t pan out. i love that dude.

I stated it yesterday in a different way. The Knicks can only be a draw for superstars that feel they can win surrounded by kids. For mid-tier free agents, the really good complimentary pieces we’re poison. What we did with Enes Kanter and DeAndre Jordan last year is a warning sign that said, “don’t come to NY if you’re an established player. Our kids will get the playing time”.

In retrospect, that was a mistake. We should have made it more inviting to them. Now, with no established veterans on the roster, we have the aura of a team in full rebuild. So the only real option is to continue collecting kids and building through the draft. This is where losing a player of KP’s talent level was devastating.

Oh yeah, you better believe they’re bringing back Mudiay in that case. I think it’s part of why people want D-Lo, just to close that door.

It’s either him or Elfrid Peyton. It’s not gonna be just DSJ and Kadeem running the point, although I like Kadeem.

I seems like the management has the right idea in terms of the max slots. It’s being reported that they will only give max slots to Durant, Khawi, or Irving with the one exception being Kemba, but only if Durant or Khawi requests him.

That takes Russell and any other 2nd tier players off the table. To me, that’s good news.

The next test is what to do if they strike out with the max free agents (which seems more likely now). That’s a lot of cap space top fill.

1. Solid rotation players in their low to mid 20s that fit long term and are signed to attractive enough deals that they can be used as part of a trade later if any opportunities present themselves. I include Vonleh in that category if the price is right.

2. Young players that have disappointed elsewhere but are still young enough to have some small probability of breaking out into a category #1 type players (signed to short contracts). Hezonja probably still fits into that category given he has multiple skills. This would be more of what we have already been doing, but doing a better job of selecting the players. Perhaps we should be focusing more on defense instead of offense.

3. Taking on bad contract for picks, but the duration should preferably be 1 year and definitely no longer than 2 years. I don’t want tie up a lot of cap space for more than a year for some “future” pick that will net us some 18-19 year old kid at that time and then wait until 2027-2028 for him to start coming into his own. Picks have become overvalued since drafting very young players became the norm.

4. Veterans than can be mentors. I don’t see much point to this beyond a specific player that we are sure can help one of our kids. Then an inflated 1 year deal to get him into that role might be OK.

Fast forward to late November. The Knicks did a bunch of 1 year deals, preserving some $30 million in cap space and nothing else. RJ is playing OK but is clearly not an immediate all star. KP is putting together a string of 8 games with 25 ppg, 2 threes and 2 blocks, and Dallas has twice as many wins as NY.

How long before the tabloids start demanding Perry’s head?

lol fast forward to January 2020. KP is either injured or for the last 3 weeks or has had a TS of 52 with a usage of 30 as his body begins to break down. Janis is hinting that even though KP signed a max contract, he’s monitoring the culture of the team and that this is not what he signed up for.

Mills and Perry are made of Teflon. The tabloids will keep spinning away and deflecting the bad and not even consider the lack of doing anything really good over multiple years as a knock against them.

They’re teflon because they treat the media nicely. As the Enes Kanter coverage showed us, if you’re nice to the media (read: give them content to write about) they’ll fawn all over you regardless of your actual value on or off the court. If you’re mean to the media, they’ll harness all their twitter followers and dudes like Howard Beck who have an endless axe to grind against the Knicks to attack you.

Not that what Dolan does to the NYDN is smart (it’s really dumb in fact), but honestly, what the Daily News Sports section has become is trash, and hardly should be considered actual media – more like a troll operation.

How long before the tabloids start demanding Perry’s head?

Mills and Perry are made of Teflon. The tabloids will keep spinning away and deflecting the bad and not even consider the lack of doing anything really good over multiple years as a knock against them.

In this is the case, I hope having Dolan as an owner might be an actual asset. He’s loyal to those who work for him. He gave Jackson three years despite the tabloids being very negative on Jackson much sooner than that. I hope gives Perry enough time. It’s not Perry’s fault KD was injured.

we have the aura of a team in full rebuild.

We are a team in full rebuild. It seems like a lot longer, but this was only year two of that. If the rookies start to work out we’ll start to improve. We positioned ourselves to take a Durant sized shortcut – didn’t work out.

They’re teflon because they treat the media nicely.

Treating the media professionally entitles you to be treated back fairly and professionally. It should not knowingly or unknowingly influence your spin on the news.

I don’t always agree with Bondy, but I don’t think he’s negative because of the way he’s treated. He’s treated poorly because he tells the truth as he sees it. That’s mostly negative. The others are often full of crap because they don’t want to be treated like Bondy (and Isola before him).

Mills is a snake. He’s obviously an incompetent basketball person. But he also has a history in the organization beyond basketball that probably should have disqualified him from a high level job with the Knicks to begin with. The thing is, he has his claws into Dolan in the same way Isiah did. He was previously Dolan’s eyes and ears into the organization. There’s no way on earth Phil wanted Mills as his GM. He had no relationship with him and they have diametrically opposed views on basketball. But that was part of the deal. Dolan wanted Mills there so he could know what was going on. Mills then used his friendly relationship with the press to advance his own interests.

This is the current media spin.

Mills made some mistakes early on, but that was before he had a competent GM like Perry.

Mills WAS the GM under Phil.

Where was his share of the blame and why did he get promoted?

Unbiased fans want to know.

Maxing KP would be more devastating than losing him.

Maxing KP would be more devastating than losing him.

Not if he turns out to be awesome.

I get that going from 17 wins to contender is unlikely, and that marginal wins don’t do much good until they get you into the playoffs, but I think positive players have more value than many are giving them credit for. To me, we already lucked out with Mitchell Robinson, and Mitch + minutes = Star, so we need to do everything we can to create and bolster that perception, which will make the Knicks more of a destination. I think his development and hopefully his ability to continue producing in larger minutes will naturally put us further ahead in the rebuild process than many are assuming. I think the Knicks are in a position to take on good value contracts that ideally allow enough future flexibility to still sign a star if available, and are also in a position to take on quality players (especially a point guard to run the offense and distribute) on one year contracts even at higher than their market rate AAV. I think this boosts the development and morale of our best performing young players who are most likely to be future contributors at the expense of minutes for underperforming, low likelihood players.

How long before the tabloids start demanding Perry’s head?

Any corporation that makes decisions based on what they read in the tabloids deserves to fail.

I think the point here is not that the team is following the tabloids, but that the tabloids have a lot of influence over an average fan’s perception and feelings. No corporation can ignore bad media coverage that changes customer and investor opinion…

Interesting little tidbit in Berman’s Post article about Frank is him training in Dallas with Kadeem Allen.

So, who’s right: Igoudala or Jalen Rose? I hope Iggy is. Commit to the rebuild!

KP may be awesome for some parts of the season. He’s also highly likely to get tired/injured and see his level of play decrease each month after that awesome stretch.

Mills is bad at basketball decisions but he wasn’t making those under Phil. Phil was POBO just like Perry is. GMs don’t necessarily have the same duties team to team. Why this continued attempt to resurrect Phil’s reputation?

The Knicks roster is filled with young players who need developing. Is Fizdale up to the task or are certain players in for more random unexplained trips to his “dog house”? It’s looking more and more that NY will be shut out of the big catches in free agency for better or for worse, so developing what they have will likely become the most important issue. So far Fizmagic is pretty underwhelming imo and he’ll need to come up with a better approach so as not to squander whatever potential the current players have. Hopefully he and his staff are up to it or this ride is going to get very bumpy in a hurry.

Zach Lowe says that there are reports that the Nets are having internal discussions is getting Irving by himself (i.e. without KD) or would it just be better to go with Russell.

Or maybe sign Alex Caruso? He played pretty well in limited minutes for the Lakers last year and he’ll only be 24.

I’m rooting for Alex Caruso, mostly because of his male pattern baldness at such a young age. Can’t help but sympathize.

I feel like Knick fans will automatically hate Kyrie right off the bat.

This is a city that reveres point guards, and Kyrie would be the best one to play here since Frazier.

Kenny Wooten Jr. highlights will bring a smile to your face.

I think I’m getting whiplash going between “so glad we didn’t max the most promising player the Knicks have had in years” to “so sad we won’t be able to give the max to a guy who won’t play basketball for a year and then will be 32 years old and coming back from an Achilles injury.”

Granted, Kobe blew his Achilles at 35 instead of 30 but he was an absolute shell of himself when he returned.

Mike

I get that going from 17 wins to contender is unlikely, and that marginal wins don’t do much good until they get you into the playoffs, but I think positive players have more value than many are giving them credit for. To me, we already lucked out with Mitchell Robinson, and Mitch + minutes = Star, so we need to do everything we can to create and bolster that perception, which will make the Knicks more of a destination

Can we come up with a comprehensive list of players whose signings were defended along these lines?

-Amar’e
-Melo NTC max
-Courtney Lee

The cure for the franchise’s piss-poor reputation is not perception. It’s actually being a winning team. We know this about ticket sales: a superstar signing produces a temporary boost, but does not sustain them. A winning culture comes from wins, not a bunch of MLE-deserving veterans who get overpaid to “instill a winning culture.” It’s a half-measure, and far more costly and risky than just loading up on young players and seeing which ones pan out.

Dolan having an aneurysm wouldn’t hurt the team’s rep, either.

Just a question for the group, how would you all feel if Brooklyn won a title before us? I honestly don’t know any nets fans….. so curious how the city would react…..

@47 — I personally wouldn’t care — nor do I feel like they are that much closer to a chip than the Knicks. The only thing I’m jealous about the Nets are the dope Biggie Smalls colorways.

That being said: Since Dolan’s Razor snapped away all potential offseason moves to dust, I think it’s clear what must be done. Short of a Kawhi Leonard miracle signing, let’s take a giant ice bath and remove any and all horniness for a playoff run over the course of the next two seasons. Fuck it. Let’s build a gawd damn dynasty. Slow drip coffee our way to success and fail on the strength of our scouting. I can’t bear any more risk-heavy committed money.

jotd: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxVZDxK02QE

With respect, Amar’e’s was not a good contract independent of the self-directed Melo heist. That’s why he was a candidate for amnesty. He rarely played for the lone very-good Knicks team so far this century and was largely ineffective for the last three seasons of that contract. He produced 2.0 total VORP (5.4 wins) over five seasons under contract. Even if you found an RAPM number that suggested him three times as valuable, the contract would have been terrible.

The only reason we don’t rue that fateful day is that we have the Melo, Curry and Bargnani trades to prop it up next to. Oh, and the dozens of shitty veteran signings that did almost nothing to move the needle.

In other news — Iguodala is a homophobic bigot? Bummer. Always liked him, but his comments about Mark Jackson are stupid at best. His “all convictions should be held as equally valid” bullshit carries no weight.

“I honestly don’t know any nets fans….. so curious how the city would react…..”

Raise your hand if you know any Nets fans.

It ranks up there with a Big Foot sighting I think

To all those who replied to my statement that “This is where losing a player of KP’s talent level was devastating.” Thanks.

You all made my point. In a fantasy world, KP becomes an all-star starter. We have him and Mitch and now RJ Barrett. Now we look enticing.Put aside what the media morons say. We ARE in full rebuild and it WILL not happen overnight. So as much as a dream of a championship was a alluring, Durant and Kyrie would NOT have brought it to our doorstep. We are 2 years away from such a dream.

We should probably not sign any free agents of substance or to any long term deals. 1-2 year deals for players that are told they are just placeholders. We may not even get decent players. If we double our win total from last season, I would be shocked. We need to see Frank, Knox, Trier and the rest of the kiddie Knicks improve dramatically for us to take the next step. We won’t be ready for any decent free agents until we have 4 or 5 NBA level players on this roster. That might mean needing another tank. With our 3 picks in the 2020 draft, we need to come up big. (BTW, I understand that the next great draft is 2021.)

So saddle up guys and get ready for another lonnnnnnnnnng season. And also, be alright with it. It’s the only path to getting better.

BTW, I was a Nets fan – when they had Rick Barry and Dr. J. and weren’t in the NBA. Once they moved into the NBA they became dirt to me.

So the Mavs are offering KP the full max – 5 years, $158 million

Damn, I wish that was us.

The only Ninja GM in NY is Brian Cashman.

@59 – I wake up daily thanking God that I was born a Yankee fan. Cashman is the Ninja king.

I’m super glad we didn’t keep KP, BTW. We just need Dallas to be good enough not to land a top-10 pick in 2020 and bad enough that it’s a high pick in the teens.

@59 – I wake up daily thanking God that I was born a Yankee fan. Cashman is the Ninja king.

I’m super glad we didn’t keep KP, BTW. We just need Dallas to be good enough not to land a top-10 pick in 2020 and bad enough that it’s a high pick in the teens.

I believe you’re describing the conditions of the 2023 Dallas pick the Knicks own. They also have the 2021 pick unprotected.

I don’t know, you’d imagine Dallas isn’t in the dark on his medical condition and would only invest that money if he had a good prognosis.

@geo – ts, bpm and any advanced stat are backwards looking…. and by those metrics dennis smith wasn’t good….

but if you look at his secondary skills…. stls + blks…. 2p fg%…. he looks like a pretty decent player because those are pretty tough categories to look good in…. so why does it look like he suck?

it’s mainly because of a really poor ft% and really poor 3p% and a really high TO rate… i mean poor is putting it lightly… it sucks… and yes it matters… but these are the type of things that can and do get better as ppl age…. that’s why he’s infinitely better to bet on succeeding as opposed to frank…. who has ok defensive numbers but cannot score anywhere on the court….

and yea a two year trend line shoudl be taken with a grain of salt… but he’s already increasing his ftr and lowering his 3pr…. which means he’s learning to leverage his physical advantages to get the easy buckets he’s capable of….

so he’s still a work in progress but he’s developing in a way that it’s very possible… almost likely… that you’ll see some stark improvement eventually….

I wake up daily thanking God that I was born a Yankee fan. Cashman is the Ninja king.

in ’75 i had a choice that summer for my birthday to either get a bicycle or tv…i chose the tv (ended up getting the bike for christmas)…

at the time my favorite shows (abbott and costello, the odd couple, the honeymooners) were all on WPIX, channel 11…which just so happened to be where phil and bill were announcing yankee games…

i am so very thankful i was never that in to some of the shows over on channel 9 wwortv where they showed the mets games 🙂

@65…thanks dj…

i know he still does a lot of dumb things (high turnover rate) – after mitch and RJ though, seems like he has the greatest likelihood of developing in to a good pro…

it’s just going to be another rough season watching two inexperienced ball handlers (DSJ and RJ) throw the ball all over the court next year…without point god mario (or even DAJ) initiating the offense it may not be to pretty to watch at times…

All-Star doesn’t mean jack shit

It does to idiots like Cuban and Dolan

Rooting for the Yankees in 1965 was like being a Knick fan in 2019.

If the Knicks had won like 20 championships in the 30 years before that, sure

The only Ninja GM in NY is Brian Cashman.

All due respect to Cashman, it’s a helluva lot easier to be a GM when you don’t have a salary cap and you also have the YES network which basically prints money.

All due respect to Cashman, it’s a helluva lot easier to be a GM when you don’t have a salary cap and you also have the YES network which basically prints money.

That would be a fair criticism if he wasn’t working for a couple of tax dodging spoiled brats who self imposed a salary cap on their own team so they could keep as much money for themselves as possible.

I got married in my rose gold Patrick Ewing sneakers. Ball is life.

All-Star doesn’t mean jack shiT

It definitely affects market value.

It definitely affects market value.

I don’t really understand. It’s a fair contract for Porzingis because he should be compensated according to populist values like All-Star appearances? Is Wiggins’s contract fair because he was pretty much a consensus #1 pick five years ago? Does Melo deserve a new deal because Paul George thought he was a viable NBA starter 18 months ago?

If the market says that a popularity contest decides contract value in a league with guaranteed contracts and a punitive soft-cap system, well — there’s your answer as to why the NBA apparently requires hard socialism to effect parity, and poorly I might add.

@THCJ I would say the KP contract is fairish in that it is fair market value as there is probably at least one other team that would have paid that much if KP was a free agent and they could get him with just that much cash. It is a mistake in that KP will probably not provide anywhere near that much value in terms of production. In a bad logic sunk cost fallacy way it made sense for Dallas to max KP as they had sunk all these resources into acquiring him and the only consistent course of action is to commit to his upside. They also have a decent shot at selling another front office on KP’s value, but that is a very risky thing to bank on. It is dumb but there are front offices in the league that value All Star voting. It is worked in to the bonus structure of multiple NBA contracts. These inefficiencies and others mean we can build value by paying market rate free agents if Perry is smart.

Is there a decent chance Kristaps produces enough to justify that deal? Probably-he has the skills to be a very productive player. But he also has big health risks and he hasn’t put it together yet, and some guys that are very skilled go their whole career without ever stopping doing dumb shit. There’s a lot of risk in that contract and it’s good we’re not taking it

In a bad logic sunk cost fallacy way it made sense for Dallas to max KP as they had sunk all these resources into acquiring him and the only consistent course of action is to commit to his upside.

The incredible part is that this was the plan all along, since they were confident that they would not have him for a single minute last season. In that sense, it’s even worse than, say, Philly preparing to give Jimmy Butler a max salary since the acquisition cost was so high and there are now few alternative uses for that money.

The Mavs gave up all those assets knowing full well that he’d receive max offers from other teams if he hit the open market. They knew this and did it anyway.

It’s not a sunk-cost fallacy if they believe he’s going to outperform the contract; it would be that if they felt that they didn’t receive good value from the trade itself, but decided to pay him to justify that acquisition cost. The faith they have — the sheer opportunity cost of tying $158M in cap space to a fragile tall guy when your 19-year-old future MVP candidate isn’t close to his final form — defies my ability to comprehend.

What about doing something similar to what Philly did w Reddick w Reddick. Give him 25M or even more for one year to come and help develop the team as a sniper if Philly passes on giving him a long term deal. His shooting would really loosen things up for our young guys.

Would do something similar for Rubio to run the offense

We need to get Jimmer.

Vegas has the Nets as heavy favorites for Durant now.

What is with this DeAndre Jordan rumor? How the heck can they max Durant and Irving and sign him? And how the hell could that end up happening in NY but not for us?

And! Biggest question here: how the fuck does Kyrie Irving hold so much god damn sway? If Durant wants to play for the Knicks and Jordan is willing to play on some mid level deal, why wouldn’t Durant be like “you follow me, I’m not following you”?

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/27054891/rockets-eyeing-sign-trade-butler

There’s draft picks somewhere in the future for us in this. Like 2023 when the Rockets suck really bad. Unrestricted…

I mean, for all we know, maybe KD is driving the bus. Brooklyn does have better basketball infrastructure and a better roster.

I have it on very good authority that KP was banging his brains out for his entire Knicks tenure. In the words of the late, great Mickey Goldman, “Women weaken legs!”

If the Nets land KD and Kyrie, good for them. Keep the rebuild alive!

I just saw an article saying that Melo and Vincanity could join the Knicks. At first I just laughed.
Then I had a wacko thought. Why wouldn’t we pay these dude on 1 year deals…..
PG Jose Calderon
SG Jamal Crawford
SF Carmelo Anthony
PF Channing Frye
C Tyson Chandler

I just saw an article saying that Melo and Vincanity could join the Knicks.

I like The Onion too!

I just saw an article saying that Melo and Vincanity could join the Knicks.

I like The Onion too!

Ian Begley today:
Could Carmelo Anthony, Vince Carter be among Knicks’ backup free agent options?

I have completely come around to signing Randle. He is an elite scorer and a very good rebounder and passer. His defense might not be very good but with Robinson at the 5 we have almost the perfect situation to maximize Randle’s strengths and minimize his weaknesses. I think his three-point shooting is promising and could be a plus in a year or two. He is 24 and fits with our timeline perfectly. 25 pts, 10 rebs, 3 asts, and 60% TS% are pretty amazing numbers.

The caveat is he needs to be in conjunction with at least one other good long term signing and anything more than 4 years 80 million would be a gross overpay and I’d feel a lot better with a contract closer to 4 years 60 million. If he is the 2nd best player we sign I am happy if he is the best or only player then we did poorly.

There is nothing in that article that resembles support for these propositions. It’s pure speculative BS.

I’m very lukewarm at Randle. I like him, I think he’s very good, but he doesn’t seem to be a guy who can be the second best player on a very good team, let alone the best, and there’s no way we’re signing him for less than “second best player on a good team” money as so many teams have cap space and he’ll surely be overpaid. There’s also risk he won’t keep up his numbers at this level, so yeah… if he came with a healthy Durant or Kawhi I wouldn’t hate it at all, but that’s very unlikely to happen.

@120 Agreed.

i think randle is a pretty reasonable signing…. not for anything close to max and i dont think he’s getting anywhere near that… but he’s a young guy who’s shown something…

i don’t think his 3pt shooting needs to be real in order for it to be worth it….. the guy is a banger and he’s pretty decent down low and he also passes well… that’s another non-pg position passer…..

the downside is that he’s terrible on defense…. but again…. you kind of have to get over the perfect player syndrome if you want to do anything in this league and you don’t have A-list FA’s begging to be on your team….. why can’t randle be a zach randolph in memphis type? he might be zach randolph on the knicks… but for a reasonable amount of money i don’t think it’s too much risk to find out….

i think there’s this mentality that great young players grow on trees or something…. and yea maybe rolling over cap space is fine but if you look at FA’s next year… i don’t think there’s anybody even better than randle worth getting….

so depending on the money… randle is a decent target… i mean is going after ppl who clearly belong in the nba and about to enter their prime such a terrible thing?

To be honest, we could do a lot worse than VC on a vets minimum deal. Seems like he is generally happy to go to a non-contender as long as he is getting some minutes. I know it counts for little here, but could be a solid veteran presence for the young guards. Had an okay year in Atlanta too.

Surely Randle will have value as a trade chip if we can pump his numbers? I doubt that’s the intention here, but he does make a certain kind of sense from that perspective. If he has a market now, he’ll have a market as a trade piece.

I’d love to have Julius Randle on the Knicks. He’s a good and young player, though flawed, and if he’s willing to take a 1 year deal I don’t really care what salary he’s making. Of course at a multi year commitment like the one we gave TH2 then it’s a no.

Did anyone here know RJ Barrett speaks French? Maybe he and Frank Ntilikina can build a bond and harass offenses together. I’d love if Frank could help RJ out on the defensive side.

Yeah, Noah did too and that didn’t seem to help much.

Randle is in a weird spot because we really don’t know how his value is perceived around the league right now, we don’t know if the Pelicans wanted to trade him and couldn’t or simply didn’t want to. I think a 1 year deal is the worst case scenario, as it provides literally zero upside for us, but something like a 2+1 deal could work if the numbers are reasonable.

In a way, Julius Randle is a good fit for this team because it is sorely lacking people who have the ability to throw the ball into the basket. Randle has had two straight seasons of good, solid, high-efficiency scoring on pretty high volume. So if the goal is to start winning more games, he probably helps achieve that.

I’m still a “no” on Randle because I think this team should still be tanking, uh, I mean rebuilding. But, you know, if you want to send out a 30-something win team next year, Randle is a good piece to achieve that end.

Is Chris Paul done or was he just randomly bad last year? Would a trade to an offense that he could run unlock enough value to fight his age related decline and injury risk? Do the Rockets consider Paul a negative asset or do they think he has trade value? Trying to figure out what the reported Paul deal was that the FO turned down… He is not a guy we could build around at this point in his career, but at the right deal he could be value depending on what the rockets give up. Probably won’t happen though as even though the rockets are incentivized to sell future assets for current wins, they probably still see Paul as a positive.