Knicks Morning News (2019.06.27)

From yesterday’s thread I got the impression people would like to roll over our cap space rather than spend on non A list free agents. But when the idea came up of giving Cousins a large one year contract, that was shot down, even though that would roll over a lot of cap space. Why is that?

I’m ok with smart one-year deals. The thing is, even with one or two non-max guys, you still have lots of cap space to absorb a contract if great assets come attached, like those of PJ Tucker or Eric Gordon. Maybe Houston gets some picks for Capela and gives those to us for taking on PJ and Eric. I think Boston should give up next year’s Memphis pick for Capela, who is their kind of player.

I think Boston should give up next year’s Memphis pick for Capela, who is their kind of player.

I wonder whether it makes more sense for them to just take Adams and possibly add a pick in the process!

You are not going to get a large contract one year deal with a team option from anyone unless you also make the option year very expensive, which negates the point of giving the option in the first place. So stop thinking about such an option as a possibility on a highly paid one year cap hold contract.

But with a simple one year deal you still will get a good shot at re-signing someone anyway because players often prefer not to move.

I’m not a big fan of signing Boogie to a one year deal because I think his injury made his defense even worse. But it’s not the worst way to hold over cap space. And then he’s a big expiring contract you can trade at the deadline to someone who wants to reduce payroll.

From yesterday’s thread I got the impression people would like to roll over our cap space rather than spend on non A list free agents. But when the idea came up of giving Cousins a large one year contract, that was shot down, even though that would roll over a lot of cap space. Why is that?

Probably because he is a high volume chucker with a lifetime TS%of .539 (even though it has gotten better) who is too immobile to switch out even a little bit in space. He is a skilled player who is a lifetime underachiever.

4 years at 12M presents value for him but if you bring him in for short term work he is only going to try to score pointzz to enhance his next contract. Plus once Me7o left I haven’t had to stomach many of those infernal smirks he and Cousins patented and the game is more aesthetically pleasing….

I think everyone is way too focused on these 1 year deals. They’re very unlikely to happen. Once we miss the top guys hopefully we’ll pivot to eating some bad contracts.

So much this if we miss out on the top 4 or so players….

I do think Adams would make a lot of sense in Boston, he’d be a fan fave and would ease the loss of both Horford and Baynes. Sounds like an Ainge kind of deal.

Cousins is HARD NO for me.

1. He’s overrated overall.
2. He’s a target on defense
3. He plays C and would take minutes away from Robinson
4. There’s at least a some chance he’ll be disruptive in the locker room
5. There’s a 0% chance I’d want him to stick

I have no problem with rolling over cap space. Remaining flexible is a perfectly good strategy if you can’t attract top tier talent now because you aren’t good enough and the only opportunities for renting cap space are for 2-3 years for a mediocre draft pick. But generally, if you are rolling it over, you want it to be on players that might stick long term.

This City will eat Boogie alive.

If it gets to the point where we are just going to roll over some cap space for a year, I like Gallo way more than Cousins. Assuming Khawi rejects us and has it down to the Raptors and Clippers, LA may might to move Gallo to fill out the team differently to attract Khawi. Gallo is not going to be a key part of any championship run, but he’ll be popular in NY, he loves it here, and he may want to come back the following year at a big discount just to stay in NY end his career here. Eventually, a few veterans are going to be part of the team anyway. We won’t be tanking until the mid 2020s (at least I hope not).

kemba going to boston is/would be a surprise

Signing Boogie absolutely reeks of a move made to win the headlines. It’s primary purpose would be to assuage a certain class of fan (of whom I’m afraid our owner is one) that we signed the “star” they were promised this offseason. He’s guaranteed to “win” you the backpages not only for the signing, but repeatedly throughout the season, for reasons sometimes good and sometimes bad. On a one year deal that certainly wouldn’t be the most disasterous move of that type we could dream up this offseason, but I don’t see any positives there either. There are many productive ways to use cap space and the offseason will be a failure if the Knicks can’t manage to find one of them.

IMHO there is a somewhat unexplainable bias against Demarcus. Clearly he is not a perfect player, and in no way would I ever agree to max deal for him. But is he a good player? For the last ~5 seasons or so, he’s been roughly a 0.150 WS/48 player, ~+3 DBPM, +VORP player. He’s graded out quite well on RPM as well. Per 36 playing next to Davis he was 25/12.8/5.3/1.6/1.6 with a TS of 58 on 31.9 usage. Last year after coming back from the Achilles he was STILL really good statistically with per-36 22/11/5/1.9/2.1 and TS of 56, +3.4 DBPM, +3.6 BPM overall, and #11 center overall in RPM (actually was negative on offense but the #6 defensive center by RPM).

There weren’t any reports about locker room issues in New Orleans or GS.

I’d certainly rather plan A or plan B than Cousins, but if it turns out it’s a short-term deal for reasonable (far-from-max) $$?

If you ask me, the bias against Cousins is related to all the technicals he got in Sacramento plus the residual conversation about whether he was worthy of a supermax in Sac or a max in New Orleans. I didn’t think he was worthy of either, but at something far short of the max and on a short term deal? I’m fine with that.

btw I am terrified of Kemba signing with the Celtics mostly because they would then renounce Terry Rozier which makes it a little bit possible that he would end up a Knick. Any interest in Rozier makes zero sense to me unless you are trying to get as many players with a FG% <40% as you can.

I just want to know how you would have reacted if KP scored 25 a game on .600 TS%, because that’s what Randle did last year.

I just want to know how you reacted to Enes Kanter putting up better numbers than that for like 4 straight seasons. And without a mysterious .100 jump in his 3-pt %. (fyi he can be had for less than Randle, let’s go for it!)

But to answer your question, if KP reached those numbers on offense, he would be a two-way superstar that wouldn’t be scrounging for non-max deals like Randle. He would also have commanded an AD-type return in a trade, in spite of his shitty rebounding. But yeah, great point, you got me on that one!

Forget about Cousin’s stats.

Did anyone watch the playoffs?

Cousins has a gigantic red bulls eye on his back. He’s so terrible defensively at this point, teams target him. And on top of that, he’s a low b-ball IQ player that makes a lot of mental mistakes in key situations. He’s practically unplayable on a good team. The only reason he was on the court for the Warriors is that with Durant hurt and at times Thompson or Curry out resting (or Thompson out altogether), they needed some kind of scoring threat on the court with Curry. Other than that, he would have been buried behind “Bogut” the entire series and rarely saw the court when they had a big lineup out there. He’s not a good basketball player, at least not anymore in the current game.

Signing marquee past-prime names to massive deals after significant lower-leg injuries is a big part of (what we want to) do here.

Signing young, promising based on (one or less) season of decent play, defensively challenged players to untradeable deals is also a big part of what we do hers. TH2 anyone?

Keep in mind we are mostly discussing what “should be” worst case scenarios if we had a competent management team.

Plan “a” is signing elite free agents.

Plan, “b” is signing young players that could easily be part of the long term.

Plan “c” is taking on a bad “1 year” contract for an asset.

Plan ‘d'” is signing young players that have disappointed elsewhere to short term contracts to take a look at them.

Plan “e” is signing a specific veteran to an inflated 1 year deal if we are sure can help a specific young player

Plan “f” is rolling over cap space with 1 year deals for players that are unlikely to stick
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Plan “z” is Boogie

Yeah, Boogie was “break glass in case of emergency” for GSW. He got roasted against Kyle Lowery.

I don’t wanna see it if I’ve seen it. Don’t take minutes from the young players.

Did anyone watch the playoffs?

Cousins has a gigantic red bulls eye on his back. He’s so terrible defensively at this point, teams target him.

i don’t want cousins on the knicks because i understand that marginal utility is a thing (for the same reason i would take 1 worthless cousins year over randle at 4/80), but this is a good example of the dangers of the eye test. we all watched the playoffs. we all heard everyone talk and write about how opponents were targeting cousins. when they did inevitably run plays at him to force the switch in the PNR, the announcers talked like looney’s collar bone was the most important injury in nba history. here’s what actually happened.

1. playoff opponents did not in fact run plays that targeted cousins at a higher rate than they ran plays targeting other warrior bigs when cousins was on the bench (per minute of play).
2. when cousins played opponents averaged 62.5% of their FGA at the rim or behind the 3 pt line. when he sat they were 67.7%.
3. when cousins played opponents shot 64.6% at the rim. when he sat they shot 64.9%.
4. when cousins played opponents had a TS of 54.34%. when he sat it was 56.85%.
5. when cousins played opp TOV was 11.4%. when he sat it was 10.84%.
6. when cousins played opp score 107 PPP. when he sat is was 113.
7. when cousins played the average quality of offensive player was modestly higher than when he sat.

@40

The Warriors (and I) don’t accept the significance of those stats.

The Warriors made other adjustments when Cousins was on the court and a lot of the “overall” outcome is noise.

The proof is that when Durant came back Cousins was buried on the bench and likely to stay there because they didn’t need his scoring and knew they were better off with defensively with Bogut in the big lineup. Then they could go small without either when they wanted or needed to.

Stats matter, but basketball is a game player rolls, matchups, and adjustments. The Warriors did not want Boogie on the court. They had to put him on the court for offense when Durant and Thompson got hurt. But if you want to argue with the Warriors strategy and what their coaches were seeing, feel free to.

I know Kawhi is a dream not likely to happen but I really hope the Knicks are going all out in an effort to get him. He should still be target number one especially now that Durant is hurt. My pitch would be this:

1. We can max you and get you every endorsement deal you can imagine in this city. It will be your team. You won under Pop and ended the Miami Big Three era. You won in Toronto, brought them their first championship and ended the Golden State dynasty. Now come to The Knicks, bring us a championship and you will be remembered as one of the greatest players of all-time. I can’t think of a single player who has won a championship with 3 different teams.

2. We can add another max player for support. We think it should be Kemba Walker but if you want it to be Kyrie or Butler or Tobias Harris, we can do that too. Or if you want to use the rest of our cap space for 2 players, you tell us who you want and we will go get them.

3. We have RJ Barrett, who we believe can be a great number two or three option. We have Mitch, who is going to help you anchor the defense. We have a lot of young players that we can develop or use as trade chips to bring in help for you. We have 6 first round picks over the next 4 years to help bolster the team. You are young enough that if we sign you for 4 years, in 2 years our young players will be improved and have the experience and we can take a shot at a championship. We will have our mid level exceptions to add veterans to this core.

They have to make a play for Kawhi. Everyone says it won’t happen but I believe he will take a meeting with us. Since Durant went down people have been forgetting that we can still have the basic pitch that a superstar can join up with another star player because we have the cap space for that.

Clippers will always be number two to The Lakers. Lakers will be good but probably can’t add a third player and will have to retool when Lebron gets too old. Nets are second fiddle in NYC. We…

The Warriors (and I) don’t accept the significance of those stats.

The Warriors made other adjustments when Cousins was on the court and a lot of the “overall” outcome is noise.

Pardon my disbelief but I do believe you are talking completely out your ass right now. You literally just made this up.

The proof is that when Durant came back Cousins was buried on the bench and likely to stay there because they didn’t need his scoring and knew they were better off with defensively with Bogut in the big lineup. Then they could go small without either when they wanted or needed to.

1) Durant played 12 minutes in the single game he played against the Raptors.
2) Bogut played 2 minutes at the start of the second quarter (with Durant). This seems a very small amount of time on which to be basing your “proof”.

Stats matter, but basketball is a game player rolls, matchups, and adjustments. The Warriors did not want Boogie on the court. They had to put him on the court for offense when Durant and Thompson got hurt. But if you want to argue with the Warriors strategy and what their coaches were seeing, feel free to.

In the finals the stats suggested the exact opposite effect of what you’re saying.
Cousins actually had a (very) net negative team on/off offensively – 98.6 when on, 113.9 when off
Defensively he was a net positive when on the court – Dubs’ DRtg when he was on the court was 103.2 and when he was off the court was 118.8. Overall he was a net + 0.4 rating in a series in which the warriors lost by an average of 5.7 points per game.

Dubs’ defense when Bogut was on the floor was worse than when he was off (117 vs 112) but his net rating overall was actually positive (probably because he got to play more with scorers than DMC).

https://www.theringer.com/2019/6/26/18759523/team-usa-basketball-3×3-2020-olympics-tokyo

I think Kevin Knox should go get himself a gold medal….

Again – I’m not saying that we should sign Cousins, mostly related to potential fit on the team, “win curve”, and whether you want him in the locker room. In fact I’d prefer they not sign him. But he is a legitimate buy-low candidate on the right deal.

My most preferred strategy (outside of totally unrealistic things like signing both Kawhi and Durant, or 2 of the 3-4 best FAs out there this summer) would be to sign Durant, sit him a year, spend the bulk of rest of the $ on taking bad 1 YEAR contracts for assets. We should be looking squarely at Charlotte and trying to get 1st round picks or at least Cleveland’s 2020 2nd round pick. They’ll need a PG if Kemba leaves – DSJ for Marvin Williams (or Biyombo or MKG) and a top 8 protected 2022 1st (the double draft) that steadily loses protection if not conveyed would be pretty reasonable IMHO.

The main reason I want no part of Cousins is he cannot play next to Robinson and would take minutes away from him. I want Robinson to play 30 minutes a game next season not be relegated to the bench because we signed Cousins to a one year deal.

If we want a backup center we need to go hard at Noel. He is incredibly underrated and could be had pretty cheap. I don’t want Kornet back or even really Vonleh but they are better than Cousins because at least they won’t steal minutes from Robinson.

Mitch is going to get his minutes. The only guy that will limit Mitch’s minutes is Mitch, most likely due to foul trouble (you don’t really think that problem will be solved this year, do you?)

The Warriors (and I) don’t accept the significance of those stats.

The Warriors made other adjustments when Cousins was on the court and a lot of the “overall” outcome is noise.

lmao

a d j u s t m e n t s

“Dray, set your moving-screen slider to 2.5. Steph, crank your pick-and-pop potentiometer as high as it can go. Klay, loosen your shoelaces to get maximum lift on your jumper.”

The only thing more inevitable than Demarcus Cousins’ Knicks tenure is Knicks fans defending the move. What a complete and utter waste of resources. You all realize there’s no obligation to meet the salary floor, right? If we can’t meet it with moves that move the team forward, it’s much better to just distribute it among everybody (I recall hearing this actually built some goodwill with the young Philly guys) than to make sub-optimal moves.

Lowe made the exact point we’ve been making for years now on his podcast–there is literally no point to bringing in “Plan C” type guys. No potential free agent is going to be so impressed with the guy he’d be replacing that they’ll want to sign with you, that simply does not make any sense.

The historical precedent for how to move a team forward is clear on this point; get as many damn draft picks as you can. They’re great trade assets, they don’t count against the cap until the pick is made, and after that they’re cost-controlled. Any one-year “Plan C” deal is a failure if so much as one first round pick was available instead.

The historical precedent for how to move a team forward is clear on this point; get as many damn draft picks as you can. They’re great trade assets, they don’t count against the cap until the pick is made, and after that they’re cost-controlled. Any one-year “Plan C” deal is a failure if so much as one first round pick was available instead.

If yesterday’s thread was any indication, this board is still in denial about the disparity in risk between picking a scrub at, say, #20, and giving a max contract to Bradley Beal, Kristaps Porzingis or the like.

1. We can max you and get you every endorsement deal you can imagine in this city.

For what it’s worth, Kawhi has been rocking the shit out of that New Balance/Aime Leon Dore collab. Maybe deep down he really does want to be a New Yorker.

We need to renounce all our players in order to fit 2 max players. Kornet can always be signed later if we whiff. Its completely expected to renounce him and means nothing.

What is the appeal of signing a vet like Cousins to a one year deal? Is it just to make the viewing more interesting or filling out one of 15 spots? To me, rebuilding means filling the roster with young players with the intention of developing and moving forward with them.

@66
Well, if the FO doesn’t sign two guys to maxes, they probably want to maintain cap space for next year, etc.. So, sign guys to 1 year deals so there is no cap hold for next year. If a guy plays well, you have an inside track to resign him. I guess.

Supposedly Dolan likes his “star” players, so give him one or two to appease him?

Like you, I just want to play the kids, rent cap space for more picks, etc.

@67

let’s have a wacky season with Boogie. Boogie Nights! Remember that movie? This is gonna be fun, guys!

I think in your sarcasm you are missing something. The PR! Merch! Remember KC and the Sunshine Band? “I’m your Boogie Man!” Also, you can have “Boogie Shoes” night. Free disco shoes to the first 1000 fans to the game! With his extensive connections in the music industry, Dolan can license all those great songs of the past! I can just see JD and the Straight Shot covering “Boogie Man.” Epic.

So much more than just an occasional “Boogie Nights” promotion. The possibilities are endless!

hey Brian, can we put up a poll about if the board want’s Durant or not?? Count me in the no camp, just not smart to max a 7 footer coming off an Achilles tear……..

i’m saying if you want to make an argument about cousins’ defense…. on/off isn’t gonna tell you much because of the amount of noise that is inherent in any on/off numbers… the fact that he didn’t play against two of the top offenses in the league could tell you that much… and the fact that he played 100 minutes….

even if you want to use a much larger sample during his sacramento years….. their other bigs were jason thompson … ryan hollins.. and a whole bunch of other names that had their last stop in the nba with the kings… that they were worse defensively when he wasn’t on the court is not a huge surprise because the bar is that low… if they had capela or any other nba bigs on the roster that sample might tell you something meaningful….

when looking at the defense as a whole… the kings were 22, 23 and 29 in each of cousins’ last few seasons with the kings… playing by far the most center minutes on those teams…. in his prime…. i don’t think that tells the full story either… but certainly tells you more than cousins is better than sub nba replacement level….

https://www.theringer.com/nba/2017/12/27/16820018/demarcus-cousins-pelicans-anthony-davis

if you subscribe to on/off numbers that probably tells you more about cousins’ defense than either his time on the kings or the warriors…. when you measure his on/off time vs someone like AD… he’s probably the equivalent of below league avg for near the bottom among starting caliber centers within all that context….

so no… i don’t think thinslicing on/off numbers are all that effective…. if you’re gonna use that let’s bring everything else in… and when you do… it’s not exactly all that glowing for cousins…

1) Durant played 12 minutes in the single game he played against the Raptors.
2) Bogut played 2 minutes at the start of the second quarter (with Durant). This seems a very small amount of time on which to be basing your “proof”.

Throughout the series every player and coach was saying that with Durant and/or Thompson out, the Warriors had to get scoring from somewhere else and Cousins was the best option. That’s why he was on the court instead of Bogut or the “death lineup minus Durant and/or Thompson”. (obvious stuff)

There’s no debate about why they were playing him so much.

When game 5 started, I believe it was Jeff Van Gundy (though I could be mistaken) said that Boogie was told he would not be playing many minutes or possibly at all in that game. The reason was that with Durant and Thompson back, they had enough scoring to go with the “death lineup” and didn’t need Boogie’s scoring. That’s how they started the game and most likely would would have continued. They even made a big deal when Durant went down again of how that meant Boogie had to get himself mentally prepared to have a major role again.

Strategically there is absolutely no question what the Warriors were thinking and why.

Statistically, you are free to disagree with their thinking on Boogie’s value or defense.

However, imo, it’s a 100% certainty they weren’t making decisions based on a small sample of team level stats. They were looking at who the Raptors were putting the court against Boogie and what plays they were trying to run.

The fact that they made the decision to take Boogie out first chance they got is telling you they agreed with all the coaches & players that said Boogie was a liability on defense in certain situations. These are great coaches and players that know all the plays, whose getting beat, who has to help etc… They don’t care about the short term stats.

A lot of people are underestimating how hard it is to “flip” a guy making +/- $25 million to a contender at the trade deadline. Unless the other team has $25 million in cap space (which no contenders have), they can’t trade for him unless they send back $20+ million in contracts. It is very difficult to match salaries without taking on crappy contracts in return.

continued…

Seriously, this is not basketball 101, but it’s not advanced.

What’s advanced is recognizing and understanding every play, every switch, every defensive assignment, every defensive breakdown, every help, every adjustment, and then making your own changes and adjustments as soon as possible so it doesn’t become a stat that even people on a basketball forum can see.

That’s why they have coaches on the broadcasts. It’s so the casual fans can understand the thinking behind the decisions being made without being an expert in all the X’s and O’s and watching game films all night.

Terry Rozier and DeMarcus Cousins would be the Knicksy outcome we should have all seen coming.

@77, Knox is listed as a small forward and that is how I think of him. Even if he is a power forward, they only have him at the position. And of course they have to fill in depth after whiffing or getting their big name free agents targets. I thought how to fill in that depth is what we were discussing. I have no yen for Boogie or even Randle, but I don’t think we can get someone like Capela without giving up something. I have asked two times for people to suggest other signable bigs and haven’t heard anything. If there are no ideas of other candidates, maybe it’s not so easy to fill in depth.

What’s advanced is recognizing and understanding every play, every switch, every defensive assignment, every defensive breakdown, every help, every adjustment, and then making your own changes and adjustments as soon as possible so it doesn’t become a stat that even people on a basketball forum can see.

That’s why they have coaches on the broadcasts. It’s so the casual fans can understand the thinking behind the decisions being made without being an expert in all the X’s and O’s and watching game films all night.

Do you honestly believe that Jeff Van Gundy and Mark Jackson educate their audience? This might be a new low for the board

Do you honestly believe that Jeff Van Gundy and Mark Jackson educate their audience? This might be a new low for the board

I think Jeff Van Gundy has already forgotten more about basketball than you and I know. He unquestionably educates his audience on the nuances of the plays and strategy.

I like the chemistry with Mark and will leave it at that.

Time for me to go to Belmont to watch one of my horses run. Enjoy disagreeing or ignoring me for the rest of the day. 🙂

I didn’t say no to Randle. I’m making the case that Randle and/or Boogie are reasonable options to fill in the roster that our management should explore. There aren’t lots of perfect players out there.

I’m not even anti-Boogie as a player. Heck, if they wanted to give him a two year deal, I’d be more receptive. But a one year deal where he either just walks at the end of the year or they re-sign him is utterly pointless, because they could just sign him anyways next year if they wanted to.

Jazzfink, that is a great video. Thanks for the reminder. Compare Edfie Donovan and Red Holzman to today. For me the deBusschere trade sealed it. I remember reading about a proposed trade with the Pistkns for months and Donovan finally pulled the trigger on the greatest trade in NYKs history. Those were the days.

Let the Celtics sign Kemba, they are dooming themselves to #4 seed status. That will be a mistake for them. They’ll have $65M tied up in Kemba Walker and Gordon Hayward for the next two seasons. So much for Danny Ainge’s brilliant galaxy brain. They’ll be paying $12M more per year for a player who is less productive than Kyrie.

They’re headed to irrelevance real fast.

I just can’t believe that the Hornets are not even willing to MINI-max Kemba Walker out. That just seems ridiculously cheap of them.

It would be great to take bad contracts on for more assets but guess what we’re not doing that

the knicks trying to “secure a meeting” with kawhi is almost personally embarrassing at this point

If the Lakers end up with LeBron/Kawhi/AD then just screw everything! That is not good for the league.

Whoever we sign that’s below the top-5 free agents will not be worth their contract so why bother? I would just do a Charlotte trade into cap space for a first-round pick and call it a day. Maybe get a few cheap, older vets like Vince Carter and a euro baller or two. Keep the rebuild going.

I wouldn’t pay Nerlens Noel big money when we can have Kornet and Robinson man the 5 for maybe $16M total over the next 3 years.

If the Knicks do nothing except bring back Kornet and Vonleh, we’re probably a 24 win team instead of a 17 win team. Looking at it, I think Mitchell Robinson could be worth 10 or so wins next season if he just gets the minutes, and the other 14 guys on the roster shouldn’t be so bad that the Knicks would be worse than 24-58. So if we accept the premise that New York is a 20-24 win team at the moment, that leaves you with $70M to put enough pieces around your young guys that would make this team a 40-45 win team. Provided you don’t spend money stupidly (which is a big if considering it’s the Knicks), it’s not hard to see how spending $70M could make the Knicks a playoff team.

The question is really about what is the right way to spend that $70M. If we get burnt by Kawhi/KD/Kyrie, then we should allot half of our available cap space to free agents under 26 and use the rest to pick up salary dumps. Say maybe $40M gets you Brogdon (at $25M AAV) and Randle (15M AAV). You could flip the other $30M by taking André Roberson and Marvin Williams off their current teams’ hands for draft capital. If you go into 2020 with a starting five of Smith Jr, Brogdon, Barrett, Randle, and Robinson with Kornet, Williams, Knox, and everybody else off the bench then you could be looking at a lower playoff seed in the East next year with a ton of youth/draft capital. Will you end up with a top 5 pick? Seeing how things shook out this year, you really don’t know (Memphis and New Orleans were like 6th and 9th worst or something), but you get to put out a respectable product while maintaining youth and flexibility going forward.

JK47 – do we need to get Brogdon when we have Barrett?

JK47 – do we need to get Brogdon when we have Barrett?

I would say yes. Those guys are both theoretically switchable wing defenders, lots of teams are loading up on guys like that. Brogdon is a nice two-way player, he’s more of a SG type while Barrett is a little bit more of a SF type.

The Russell-Brogdon-Barrett-Randle-Robinson team would actually be fairly well-balanced and fun to watch.

If the Lakers end up with LeBron/Kawhi/AD then just screw everything! That is not good for the league.

I kind of doubt that Kawhi, fresh off of winning a title as the undisputed #1 is interested in joining a team where he’d be outshined by a couple guys with more cachet than him. He is really hard to read though, so who knows.

I disagree with you about that being a problem for the league though. It would be literally those 3 guys on the team. The entire rest of the roster, including 4-5 rotation players would be basically minimum guys. It’d be the most concentrated star power team we’ve ever seen, but they’d have incredibly glaring weaknesses as well. This isn’t like the Warriors where you took a team that was already a juggernaut and then added one of the 3 best players in the league. Whether it would work or not would be a pretty open question in my eyes and highly dependent on whether a. they can get competent ring-chasers at the minimum and b. they stay healthy (beacuse they’d have like zero depth). I’d be fascinated to see it personally.

I can’t believe Lebron is giving up his number for Davis.

Then again, I also can’t believe that Lebron couldn’t wear #23 with Miami because the Heat had retired the number for Jordan like a bunch of weirdos.

i like brogdon…. but he’s the type of guy you go after when you’re much further along the win curve….

with randle or russell…. they’re probably C pieces but they could be B pieces…. brogdon probably won’t be more than a C piece… he’s a good one… but you can get guys like that for much cheaper…. sort of like ariza 5 yrs ago or something… or eric gordon on his next contract…. or you can find him in the draft even…

a higher usage guy that can carry an offensive load that brings other things to the table… that’s really where the majority of your cap should go…. thats not to say that randle or russell will be those guys but they might… that’s why even tho brogdon is probably better than either of them… he’s a slightly worse long term buy….

with randle or russell…. they’re probably C pieces but they could be B pieces…. brogdon probably won’t be more than a C piece… he’s a good one… but you can get guys like that for much cheaper…. sort of like ariza 5 yrs ago or something… or eric gordon on his next contract…. or you can find him in the draft even…

Maybe you don’t think it was for real, which would be fair, but Brogdon got his usage pretty damn high this year. He scored 19.6 PTS/36 with a .614 TS%. His age is a little iffy with our timeline, but of the 3 it’s most difficult for me to see him becoming an albatross. A true talent 40% 3PT shooter who doesn’t always need the ball and is a tall, switchable defender is pretty useful to just about team trying to win games. When you consider that he might not require a full max, the idea starts to look kind of appealing.

Overall I’d still prefer to just take on every salary dump there is with a 2-year limit, but the Brogdon/Randle/Russell scenario wouldn’t kill me. I guess at a certain point I have a visceral desire to see the first watchable team since 2012-2013.

I should add that I think Randle specifically with any double digit AAV is a bad idea. There’s a reason he keeps signing short-term deals despite obviously having a lot of talent. His skill set is very easily attainable for much less money. How much better is he than Kyle O’Quinn? He’s better, for sure, but is he worth $20M more? I definitely don’t think so.

Watching this video of Mitch and Knox makes you realize just how young these kids are.

https://www.instagram.com/tv/BzOU2qaFTP0/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

well to me brogdon is like otto porter… and they’ve had similar usages at similar ages also…. and very similarly as efficient and productive… i love them… every team needs guys like that…. but they’re also more available and easier to find…. 3 and D guys are available every offseason and sometimes they’re expensive when they’re porter or brogdon or ariza… but very often you can find a danny green on a salary dump when you need to find a guy like that…

what’s much harder to find is getting guys who can carry a large offensive or defensive load… preferably you want both but you’re getting into a very illiquid market where it’s more luck and hope to land those guys….

I think since they did not extend a qualifying offer that Kornet is an unrestricted FA now.
I would’ve extended the QO.

Yeah, you’re right. They still keep their bird rights, but it makes Kornet unrestricted. I agree that that could be an issue, if other teams are interested in Kornet.

Out of curiosity I compared Randle to Kanter on Basketball-reference. They are pretty similar, but Randle gets many more assist and might be a better defender. Randle has also started to shoot threes. He took 195 attempts last year and hit 34% last year. Randle is also younger. To me he is is worth more than Kanter. And even though Kanter couldn’t defend, he had his uses. Randle would be useful too. If we get him for substantially less than Kanter’s salary, he could be a good deal.

bobby portis would be nice also… but i think it’s very likely the wizards even without a front office just match….

Kemba to Celtics is a match in heaven.

Happy for Kemba and Celtics

So now we’re talking getting options on mediocre players who get into fights with Their teammates and whose stats suggest they are old enough not to be improving much anymore.

Overall I’d still prefer to just take on every salary dump there is with a 2-year limit, but the Brogdon/Randle/Russell scenario wouldn’t kill me. I guess at a certain point I have a visceral desire to see the first watchable team since 2012-2013.

+1

I know what the right thing to do is, but there is so much uncertainty with that path, and we’ve been brutally bad for so long, it’s hard not to want a team that gives you at least some reason for watching.

@124, thank you for sharing that – recommend it to all the Mitch lovers out there. Seems like a goof. First question to Kevin Knox, “What was it like playing with Mitchell Robinson last year?” Last question, “OK, name this guy, he can’t dribble, can’t shoot, has big feet.” LOL

PG Russell
SG Brogdon
SF Barrett
PF Randle
C Robinson

Bench: DSJ, Knox, Ntilikina, Dotson, whatever else

Sign me up. Potentially fun to watch, young with upside, competitive, enough assets with our picks to maybe trade for a disgruntled stud.

Hire that man

https://theundefeated.com/features/is-the-knicks-change-in-culture-working/

Knoxx is a future star?

Randle can do something that O’Quinn can’t, which is score efficiently at high usage. That does have value. Randle has showed he can score at a .600 TS% with usage around 25.0%.

I agree, I don’t want a long-term, high AAV contract for Randle either, but he’s a little bit of a different kind of player than the generic cheap PF type like Kyle O’Quinn.

Randle is definitely better than O’Quinn, and anyone else you could get for the minimum/exceptions for that matter. The question is when it comes to trade value, what team is going to want to trade for him at whatever big price knowing they could get, say, 50-60% of him for nothing? That’s the difference between him and Russell + Brogdon–no matter what one thinks about giving them big money, everyone knows that their skill sets are rare and the minimum/exception options are almost universally garbage.

I would be fine with signing Russell and Brogdon and then keeping any remaining space open for potential salary dumps during the season. Adding Randle to the mix badly hurts our flexibility and I don’t see the upside.

what’s much harder to find is getting guys who can carry a large offensive or defensive load…

Russell and RJ are each capable of carrying a large offensive load. The 2 of them together are 55-60% of your offense for the price of one mini max and a rookie salary. Who knows if it would work ofcourse.

I wonder if KD not tearing his achilles and signing here with Kyrie is going to be a depressing what-if thought experiment in a few years if we find ourselves back on the 32 win mediocrity treadmill.

Why would he say that? It makes the Knicks look desperate like they’re looking for a savior and put all of their eggs in one basket and now its blown up in their faces. And the team is not desperate even if we do strike out on all the major tier A free agents. That quote doesn’t really seem that out of line with everything Perry has said since the day he got here.

Those Hornet 2nd rounders are going to be sweet! Another nice job by Perry.

Something I’m not sure I’ve ever said about a Knicks move before, and something I’m not sure I’ll ever say again: I was too pessimistic about that trade and it now looks like a win for the Knicks.

I still can’t believe that the Hornets are being so cheap with Walker. I knew his “I don’t need the mega-max to resign here” was him subtly saying, “But you better give me at least the regular max!” and they wouldn’t even do that. So lame! Great for the Knicks, though!

Lol Steve Mills. The anti George Washington.

Sounds like maybe Charlotte is trying to totally blow up the team.

Sounds like maybe Charlotte is trying to totally blow up the team.

Then how did they not trade Walker last year? “We won’t trade him for anything but we’ll also lowball him.” What the fuck, Jordan?

But hey, at least this really does work out perfectly for the second rounders the Knicks own from them!

@158

Yeah, this is the issue. Did they suddenly decide that they wanted to blow out the team only after the season? What did they expect? Is MJ stupid enough to keep Kemba past the deadline just for a chance at some playoff revenue and then lose him for nothing in the offseason?

I get that they want to blow it up, and I do think it’s the right decision, they’ve been picking 9-12 for like 5 straight years and have nothing to show for it. But the way they went about it is pretty much the worst possible scenario they could have followed.

Yeah, but don’t forget that we gave up a future HOFer in that deal with Charlotte.

The Knicks are signing KD.

@165
Gut feeling. My version of the eye test.

If I saw a source, I’d mention it here. At least, the FO must be convinced that the deal will be done. I guess I could cite Jalen Rose!
🙂

Also I love that the board has gone from “only top tier guys, no middling guys” to being super down with Brogdon and Randle.

To be clear, I’d much rather acquire assets with the cap space. I would way rather stockpile draft picks. But if the Knicks DON’T do that, the Brogdon/Randle/Russell strategy is more appealing to me than the Boogie Cousins/Ricky Rubio strategy. Young players who are actually kind of productive aren’t necessarily a complete dead end. We’re talking about which of the paths are least bad here.

Brogdon/Randle/Russell strategy is more appealing to me than the Boogie Cousins/Ricky Rubio strategy.

Fuck up our cap space for the next 4 years or the next year? Neither of those teams are going anywhere

Totally down with everything Mills said. They put themselves in a position to grab Durant or whomever but it wasn’t central the overall plan, just one option.

They made sure to trade Hardaway and Lee to clear out their space for this specific free agent season and they stretch waived Noah to free up space for this specific free agent season, what, just for the heck of it? Come on. He’s full of shit.

how big of a mistake will stretching joakim have been?

It is downright impossible for me to see Brogdon’s contract ever becoming untradable. He just does too many important things well. I don’t think it would fuck up our cap because like Courtney Lee before him we could trade him for a first round pick whenever we wanted.

Russell is more complicated. I think there is some albatross potential there. It wouldn’t take much regression for him to all of the sudden be a no defense chucker who needs the ball in his hands to produce making $30M AAV. Of course, it wouldn’t take much improvement for him to represent value on the mini-max either. It’s risky and I lean no, but I can see the rationale.

I’m a pretty hard no on Randle unless his market falls into a sinkhole.

It’s important to keep in mind that the next free agent class worth a damn doesn’t come until 2021, and even then it’s kind of hard to see Giannis leaving Milwaukee if they keep posting 60 win, #1 SRS seasons. They might fuck around and win it all between now and then. That’s the rationale behind using the cap space to add players now who have a shot at being on the next good Knicks team. My personal preference is that we exhaust every possible salary dump situation before trying to add any significant players, but that just doesn’t seem to be a big part of what we do here.

This is the really good free agent class. There are a goodly amount of possible salary dumps right now for that very reason. Steven Adams is a legitimately good player and he might be salary dumped! When teams realize whether they have a legit shot at a free agent, they will begin to need to dump guys. The Lakers, for instance, just earlier today dumped a decent amount of young guys (Mo Wagner wasn’t pathetic this past season as a rookie) and a second round pick just to clear out max space.

I think OKC is willing to attach picks for their other guys (like Roberson). But yeah, it does seem hard to believe they’d need to pair Adams with a pick. As for the other teams, the Clippers might be willing to pair Gallo with a pick. The Spurs are talking about making a move on Bogdanovic and would need to clear out a lot of cap to make that happen. The closer we come to free agency, the more opportunities there will be.

Oh, it’s definitely not better than going after Kawhi. But he’s not coming here, right?

But the key thing is that you could even pick up Russell or Brogdon and still have tons of room to park contracts in cap space.

I agree with that but if we get Russell or Brogdon wouldn’t it be worth filling out the roster and building a playoff team? The key is not getting stuck with any bad long contracts. As long as we stay flexible and not sign any bad players I’m happy.

Woj typically has the best info on these things, and he tweeted on Wednesday, “Houston’s offering Clint Capela, Eric Gordon and PJ Tucker individually to teams w/ space to absorb salary. Rockets trying for best available first-rounder for any of those three, hoping to redirect pick to Philly in pursuit of Jimmy Butler sign-and-trade.”

That’s probably the most accurate version of the story.

Especially since CP3 and Harden alone take the Rockets to $76 million, leaving them just $33 million under the cap (before any other cap holds) and Butler’s max is greater than that, so they almost certainly have to trade for Butler and not sign him outright.