Knicks Morning News (2019.06.27)

  • [Hoops Rumors] Knicks Wonâ??t Tender QO To Emmanuel Mudiay Or Luke Kornet
    (Wednesday, June 26, 2019 11:46:55 PM)

    The Knicks, setting themselves up to have the maximum amount of cap space available once free agency begins, will not extend qualifying offers to former first-round pick Emmanuel Mudiay or big man Luke Kornet, reports Chris Haynes of Yahoo Sports (Twitter links). Both Mudiay and Kornet will be unrestricted free agents. Haynes adds that the decision on […]

  • [YahooSports] Don Nelson says suggestion to trade Patrick Ewing for Shaq cost him Knicks job
    (Wednesday, June 26, 2019 3:00:27 PM)

    Nelson says it’s because he told owner James Dolan and the rest of management to trade Knicks’ icon Patrick Ewing for Shaquille O’Neal. Nelson, now living happily in Hawaii, was on HBO’s “Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel” this week and talked about what went down. Gumbel: “Did you really suggest trading Patrick Ewing?

  • [YahooSports] Report: Mutual interest between Knicks, Julius Randle
    (Wednesday, June 26, 2019 5:47:52 PM)

    The Knicks priority this summer is big game hunting: Kevin Durant, Kawhi Leonard, maybe Kyrie Irving (if one of those first two come). Whether they land a superstar or not — and right now “not” seems the more likely outcome, reading the tea leaves around the league — they will need to round out the roster with good players to fit next to rookie R.J. Barrett and young prospects such as Kevin Knox and Mitchell Robinson. Enter Julius Randle.

  • [NYTimes]
    Marc Gasol: Exercises player option

    (Wednesday, June 26, 2019 2:04:00 PM)

    Marc Gasol: Gasol will exercise his $25.6 million player option to remain with the Raptors, Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN reports.

    Visit RotoWire.com for more analysis on this update.

  • [NYTimes]
    Kevin Durant: Officially testing free agency

    (Wednesday, June 26, 2019 8:41:00 AM)

    Kevin Durant: Durant (Achilles) declined his $31.5 million player option Wednesday, making him an unrestricted free agent, Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN reports.

    Visit RotoWire.com for more analysis on this update.

  • [NYPost] How Reggie Miller influenced new Knick Kris Wilkes
    (Thursday, June 27, 2019 12:51:41 AM)

    There are no lovers of the Pacers’ former Knicks-killer Reggie Miller in these parts, but the club’s newest addition, Kris Wilkes, makes for one. Wilkes, the 6-foot-8 swingman sniper who signed a two-way free-agent contract with the Knicks after he went undrafted, grew up in Indianapolis idolizing Miller. He patterned his game after Miller’s and,…

  • [NYPost] Knicks legend shows support for Kevin Durant
    (Wednesday, June 26, 2019 6:18:50 PM)

    This could be a Knicks blessing — or curse. Charles Oakley posted an undated photo to Instagram of him and Kevin Durant on Wednesday, just hours after Durant opted out of his contract with the Warriors to become an unrestricted free agent. “I see you out and about in my city. Wishing (Durant’s Instagram handle)…

  • [NYPost] Knicks’ secret negotiating weapon is on Kawhi Leonard’s feet
    (Wednesday, June 26, 2019 1:59:05 PM)

    When the Knicks meet with free agent Kawhi Leonard in a bid to lure the NBA Finals MVP to New York, there may be more for him to consider in addition to basketball. Though it’s true for Kevin Durant and all free agents the Knicks plan to recruit, the club hopes to underline the business…

  • [NYPost] Knicks’ first Kevin Durant recruiter is losing faith now
    (Wednesday, June 26, 2019 12:34:55 PM)

    Ex-Knick Enes Kanter has made his prediction in the Kevin Durant saga, and it’s not one his former employers will want to hear. “If I were him, don’t get me wrong I love New York, I love the Knicks, I love the fans, MSG and everything it’s cool,” Kanter said Wednesday on the Colin Cowherd…

  • [SNY Knicks] Sources: Knicks will not extend qualifying offers to Emmanuel Mudiay, Luke Kornet
    (Wednesday, June 26, 2019 11:40:28 PM)

    The Knicks appear to be freeing up as much cap space as possible for the upcoming free agency frenzy.

  • [SNY Knicks] Why Enes Kanter believes Kevin Durant won’t be signing with the Knicks
    (Wednesday, June 26, 2019 7:30:26 PM)

    Former Knicks center Enes Kanter was once one of the biggest Kevin Durant-to-New York supporters.

  • [SNY Knicks] Sources: Knicks ‘keeping an eye on’ Celtics RFA Terry Rozier
    (Wednesday, June 26, 2019 6:01:25 PM)

    The Knicks are ‘keeping an eye on’ Celtics restricted free agent Terry Rozier in case Boston rescinds his rights as free agency nears.

  • [SNY Knicks] Knicks will reportedly meet soon with free agents Kevin Durant and Kawhi Leonard
    (Wednesday, June 26, 2019 2:09:03 PM)

    The Knicks will reportedly meet with both Kevin Durant and Kawhi Leonard when free agency begins Sunday night.

  • [SNY Knicks] Latest updates from Knicks Summer League: EMU guard joins squad
    (Wednesday, June 26, 2019 7:46:26 PM)

    Knicks fans will get an early look at some of the team’s young talent during the Summer League schedule.

  • [SNY Knicks] Knicks’ odds to land free agent Kevin Durant still behind one other team
    (Wednesday, June 26, 2019 3:28:45 PM)

    The Knicks may have good odds to land Kevin Durant, but there is still one team in front.

  • [SNY Knicks] Sources: Multiple NBA teams have interest in pairing free agents Kawhi Leonard and Jimmy Butler
    (Wednesday, June 26, 2019 12:20:26 PM)

    Multiple teams have expressed interest in pairing Kawhi Leonard and Jimmy Butler together in free agency this summer, per league sources.

  • [SNY Knicks] Knicks target Kevin Durant becomes unrestricted free agent: Here’s all you need to know so far about his market
    (Wednesday, June 26, 2019 12:11:03 PM)

    Kevin Durant is officially a free agent, as he has declined his $31.5 million option to return to the Warriors next season.

  • [SNY Knicks] Latest on Knicks target Kevin Durant: KD declines option, becomes unrestricted free agent
    (Wednesday, June 26, 2019 11:38:29 AM)

    Warriors star Kevin Durant is one of the prizes of free agency, but the idea that he could join the Knicks this summer took a hit when he suffered an Achilles injury that could keep him out for the entire 2019-20 season. Here’s the latest…

  • 186 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2019.06.27)”

    Watched the “History of the New York Knicks” on Youtube yesterday. My daughter will probably throw out my VHS copy of that film along with my Doral Arrowwood Summer League programs someday. Besides being one of the greatest sports videos ever produced (how can you not relish watching Al McGuire wax poetic about the Old Garden and Joe Lapchick) it does a masterful job revealing the 60’s Knicks build-up from Jim Barnes and Willis Reed through the Komives/Bells trade. Even with all that accumulated talent – the injuries to Cazzie Russell and Phil Jackson were what forced the Knicks to move Bill Bradley to Starting Forward and cement that team.

    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?

    They should be using their mountainous amount of cap space to improve the future of the team. One-and-done deals are pointless in that regard. 1+1 deals, with the second year being a team option, are fine. Just flat out one-year deals, especially big money one-year deals, are not helpful for the future of the team.

    You’d think after never trading a single one of these one-year signings that people would also drop the “but you could trade them later in the year!” arguments, as well. Especially for a big-ticket free agent that anyone else could just sign themselves if they were interested in him. If Boogie Cousins is in a position where the best move for him is to take a one-year deal from the Knicks, then that tells you a whole lot about what the league thinks about Boogie Cousins right now.

    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 the only really smart one-year deals right now for the Knicks are ones with team options. Everything else, the Knicks can just sign those players (the ones who want one-year pillow contracts) next year if the Knicks roster improves.

    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!

    Difficult to know what to do with these Cousins rumors.
    I’m not altogether opposed in a basketball sense. He and Mitch can probably play together at least a little bit, and it’s not like those dudes will be playing 40 minutes/game anyway. So say DMC plays 30 min/game – that still leaves Mitch with 18 minutes without DMC, and maybe they play 12 minutes together. They essentially did that with Kornet last year, and as much as I like Kornet (who is infinitely cheaper), he’s no Demarcus Cousins.

    From an asset/cap management perspective — let’s just say you give Demarcus a contract that is $20MM per year. That can be a straight 1 year deal, it can be a 1+1 where the +1 is either a player or a team option.

    I would unequivocally NOT do a 1+1 where the +1 is a player option.

    A 1+1 where it’s a team option really just protects you against Demarcus being totally amazing and going back to better-than-before Achilles tear Demarcus which I’d say has like a 5% chance of happening. There will not be that much cap space out there next summer (most likely), and so there probably won’t be that many suitors anyway. On top of that, I believe DMC would essentially have a no-trade clause unless that team option is picked up (see the Nikola Mirotic part). Seems non-ideal. Imagine a situation in which DMC is really good but MitchRob completely blows up, averaging 15/15/5 with a TS of 70. DMC could be a prime trade candidate at the deadline but his no-trade clause would compromise that.

    A straight 1 year contract might be more palatable to Demarcus, and at the very least we would have non-bird rights.

    Last option could be a 2 year $40MM contract where the 2nd year is partially guaranteed, say for $4MM or something like that. Might be a good compromise.

    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.

    Frank our posts crossed, but we seem to agree on Cousins. It’s a good point about an option year functioning as a no trade clause.

    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.

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

    I like Adams and wonder what OKC is thinking. I guess every team thinks that traditional C’s are interchangeable and not worth putting big money into. I wouldn’t mind Adams if either we didn’t have Mitch, or if somehow Mitch developed enough to move to the PF position. This way you could play Mitch against small-ball C’s and stretch 4’s and Adams against big burly guys who would tend to get Mitch in foul trouble or any non-stretch 5 C where he can dominate physically inside.

    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.

    along with my Doral Arrowwood Summer League programs someday

    Dude we were probably there together! I remember 93 and 94. Greg Anthony, Hubert Davis, Charlie Ward, Monty Williams.

    Was that where the summer league began? I think it was. But there wasn’t really internet at the time so if something was happening on the other side of the country I probably didn’t know about it.

    Stratomatic "I'm tired of the Knicks paying lip service to DEFENSE. Get defenders & two-way players. Then play them!says:

    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.

    I made a post late last night about the relevance of the NY market. It’s still relevant. Yes, we’re in a kind of post big market world with players getting TV deals in places like OKC but what I was trying to say was that NYC and particularly the Knicks matter if you’re interested in playing for the most fans. There’s New Yorkers everywhere. Bring them a championship and it’s a quantum leap from doing it almost anywhere else.

    That should be our pitch to KI, KL KD, KW. Right now, that pitch is job one.

    And, when and if those guys decide to go to safer situations for them, we wait and make sure we can make that pitch to a true difference maker later.

    I’m excited to see RJ. Obviously, he’s a huge x factor in this. He’s the highest pick since Ewing yet the majority of posts about him here are negative.

    Stratomatic "I'm tired of the Knicks paying lip service to DEFENSE. Get defenders & two-way players. Then play them!says:

    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).

    I have two wishes for God to grant me for the free agent season:

    LeBron brings JR Smith to LA but not Me7o. That would literally kill him….

    Durant tells Dolan he signs if Charles Oakley is made an assistant coach…..

    Then…. I could die in peace!

    I’m not a fan of signing Boogie. But I also think there’s a lot more negativity about him on this site than he deserves. Statistically, he’s better than, say, Julius Randle in virtually every category, especially rim protection. He has actually proven to be a reliable 3-pt shooter (3 straight seasons of 3-pt shooting over 35% on relatively high volume) and a reasonably efficient scorer (3 seasons of TS% over 56%) and one of the best rebounders in the game. He hasn’t had any major off-court problems and seems a bit more mature on the court and in the locker room than in the past. When he lowers his usage, he’s not all that dissimilar to Embiid. Suppose they offer him a $2o million 1+team option deal. I wouldn’t be happy about it, but is it really all that bad?

    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.

    Statistically, he’s better than, say, Julius Randle in virtually every category, especially rim protection.

    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.

    addendum: I don’t want Randle

    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.

    what would signing boogie accomplish? he’s gonna be 29…. he’s coming off a major injury… we have no idea how many minutes he can handle…. or how good he’ll be in those minutes…. if he gets hurt again… it’s a waste… and even if he’s back to the good version of boogie… how do we benefit long term?

    if we were a little further along talent wise…. then i can see taking a gamble in an ok… let’s trade for blake griffin and see what happens kind of way….. i can see it.. but it would still be bad…. and this is way worse than that!

    cousins when healthy is better than randle… but randle at least has a shot to be on the next good knick team….

    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.

    Cousins also has never tried to force his way out of any team, even Sacramento, by all accounts works really hard and wants his team to win, and was liked by his teammates in Golden State. I’d much rather some guy gets technicals because he gets too emotional about wanting to do well than one that smashes his hand on a fire alarm and takes himself out of the playoffs with an injury. So I agree, he is unfairly maligned and better than many people think.

    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!

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

    Stratomatic "I'm tired of the Knicks paying lip service to DEFENSE. Get defenders & two-way players. Then play them!says:

    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.

    My problem with pre-injury Cousins was that he was situationally stupid. He had usage rate higher than Melo’s worst chuckery, and tended to make terrible passes in big moments. Even in the finals he mad a couple of ridiculously dumb decisions in crunch time.

    But the talent is undeniable. Has the injuries and the experience with the Dubs (and just getting older) made him a better situational player? Can he ever get back enough mobility to defend in space, at least as well as Embiid or Jokic? If yes, he’s a valuable asset at the right price. But it’s a huge risk.

    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?

    And for the record, I made it very clear that I don’t want Cousins. Just don’t think it’s the end of the world if we sign him to a 1-year deal at a reasonable price. We’ll still have lots of cap space to squander foolishly.

    Stratomatic "I'm tired of the Knicks paying lip service to DEFENSE. Get defenders & two-way players. Then play them!says:

    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

    Cousins has always been destined to be a Knick. If you squint and look sideways the numbers may seem ok but the red flags are everywhere. I don’t care if we sign him to a one year deal because I don’t have any better ideas but there is no long term future in Boogie.

    You know, he actually got a little lucky at the end of game 6 of the finals. He lowered his shoulder into a Raptors defender in what was a clear charge in my book but had the refs save him from having a major career lowlight. I totally agree that he is a guy who can play well but often doesn’t play smart.

    And with RJ on the team I don’t think there would be enough shots to go around.

    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.

    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.

    To be clear, I’m not advocating for signing Cousins, just saying like Z-man that it wouldn’t be the end of the world.

    That said – tearing into Cousins after he was basically playing rehab games in the NBA finals is a little bit unfair IMHO. The dude hadn’t played for a month after tearing his quad and you want him to be sharp as a tack out there?

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

    No one is advocating signing him to anything but a short-term deal.

    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.

    He was walking around on one leg in that series and gutted it out. Good on him. Just not NYK please. I don’t think Perry will.

    Stratomatic "I'm tired of the Knicks paying lip service to DEFENSE. Get defenders & two-way players. Then play them!says:

    @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.

    Hubert,
    We were probably sitting next to each other. Those Summer League games at the Westchester County Center were great. The action was so close and former players and coaches were everywhere – Dennis Johnson, Isiah, Red Holzman, Cal Ramsey. I remember having conversations with Mike Breen and Dick McGuire about the rookies. The optimism in those years was crazy.

    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).

    The Knicks do need big men on the roster. So far we have Robinson and maybe Kornet on the roster. That’s not enough. You could make a case to return DAJ, but it’s not clear he’s coming back. Other teams want him too. We may end up with a choice of a long term contract for Randle or a short term one for Boogie. I don’t think either is a horrible choice. If you don’t like either of these choices (and many here do not) who is actually available that you like?

    strat may you find someone who trusts you as much as you trust your fovea

    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.

    I like Adams and wonder what OKC is thinking. I guess every team thinks that traditional C’s are interchangeable and not worth putting big money into. I wouldn’t mind Adams if either we didn’t have Mitch, or if somehow Mitch developed enough to move to the PF position. This way you could play Mitch against small-ball C’s and stretch 4’s and Adams against big burly guys who would tend to get Mitch in foul trouble or any non-stretch 5 C where he can dominate physically inside.

    It’s a little frustrating that Steven Adams and Clint Capela could be had at a discount but that we’re all set at center.

    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.

    Someone tweeted yesterday that Ntilikina’s shooting numbers his first two seasons are the same as Rozier’s first two seasons and that Ntilikina’s assist numbers are better.

    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.

    per KFS twitter feed Chris Haynes just said that it’s always been NYK/GS for Durant, and that Durant may take a meeting with BKN but that it’d just be out of courtesy for Kyrie.

    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?)

    Boogie Cousins? Really? Please, no.

    I guess virtually any vet on a real cheap one year deal is not terrible, except each is taking minutes away from a younger guy. I’m really tired of the Knicks doing that, though.

    No reaction to Kornet apparently being non-tendered? Mudiay’s NT was expected, but the report that the Knicks are still interested in him is a bit scary. Of course, if it’s just a cheap one year deal…

    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.”

    It’s a little frustrating that Steven Adams and Clint Capela could be had at a discount but that we’re all set at center.

    I definitely get the feeling that there’s an opportunity to get paid twice for those guys, once to take them on and then again to send them to a contender after a little value rehab. Capela in particular is on a pretty nice deal, and is still fairly young. I get that the Rockets best lineups have been with Tucker at C which means Capela is getting paid a lot for a guy who isn’t on the floor when the chips are down, but I still think they’re (if the rumors are true) selling him a bit short.

    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.

    i’m pretty sure those playoff number on/off numbers are skewed by the fact that cousins played only 100 some odd minutes and that he wasn’t playing when they played against the rockets and blazers at all… who were 2nd and 3rd in the league in offense respectively….

    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.

    So I was thinking, if plan A fails- what would be a decent plan B?

    How about signing Portis, bringing back Vonleh, Kornet, and Ellenson to throw numbers at the big man spot behind Mitch, and renting out cap space for a year?

    I have finally warmed up to inking KD AND Kyrie- especially with Barrett likely to be our starting SG, so I’m bullish on bringing in KD even with the injury

    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.

    i’m pretty sure those playoff number on/off numbers are skewed by the fact that cousins played only 100 some odd minutes and that he wasn’t playing when they played against the rockets and blazers at all… who were 2nd and 3rd in the league in offense respectively….

    no this is wrong. if you just take the raptors series by itself, the numbers are even more extreme in every category. the raptors ORTG was 118 w cousins off and 103 with him on. they went at him less often than @ the C without him, had more rim/3s as % of shots without him, fewer TOV, and shot better at the rim with better overall TS. you wanna say this is a short sample i mean who doesn’t fucking agree but when you make an argument about a single series it rings a little hollow to be calling the sample police. if i came back with his 5 year DRAPM (it’s +2.96; cf Julius Randle -1.23) you’d say well that’s pre injury let’s talk about the raptors series.

    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.

    I don’t really care how good Boogie Cousins is or isn’t, or whether he was a defensive liability for the Warriors, or if he’s a good locker room presence, or if he’s healthier after the injury, or any of that shit. Boogie Cousins makes no sense on this roster. It’s a way to simply punt having tons of cap space. It’s basically saying “yeah we couldn’t think of anything productive to do with all of this cap space so (insert shrug emoticon) let’s have a wacky season with Boogie. Boogie Nights! Remember that movie? This is gonna be fun, guys! All-Star center Boogie Cousins! Woozle wuzzle?”

    It’s like the least possible creative use of that space. The best thing I can say about it is that at least it wouldn’t be 4 years and $120M worth of Joakim Noah and Courtney Lee.

    @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.

    The Knicks have a dearth of good or even league average players. Boogie fills a hole at the not sucking at basketball position.

    I think there’s a decent chance we can flip Cousins for a draft asset. I don’t see the problem with signing him. If we wait for KD, Lebron or Zion to fall in our lap we’ll be waiting a longtime. There’s 30 teams and only a handful of elite players. None of whom want to play for a cellar dweller except KD for some unknown reason.

    @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!

    Also the Knicks are “weighing” the idea of Cousins–a non statement if I ever heard one. Moreover they should be weighing it, they should be weighing everything, that’s their job.

    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……..

    You guys are really ignoring that we have only one signed center on the roster and no power forwards

    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…

    I think Bird is right. the ONLY reason to sign Cousins is to a 1 year deal, so he gets to accumulate stats on a shitty team, then we deal him for something at the deadline, and he gets to compete in the playoffs. But….that means you have to find a playoff team with offsetting dead $$ and either no C, or an injured C. I don’t see a lot of guys in the $20M – $25M range on likely contenders who are dead $$. Maybe Memphis is somehow decent and we do it for Parsons? but even then, what’s the best you can get, a lottery protected 1st?

    There’s no way he’s a long term fit.

    Stratomatic "I'm tired of the Knicks paying lip service to DEFENSE. Get defenders & two-way players. Then play them!says:

    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.

    @71
    And they’re “keeping an eye on” someone, too! I read that one, somewhere.

    @73
    And Boogie is the only C or PF in the NBA available? The roster is depleted b/c they are clearing cap space for two maxes. They’ll get around to depth guys, later. BTW, Knox should be playing PF.

    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.

    If we miss on Kemba/Kyrie and Kawhi, sign me up for Randle and Russell. It will feel like a consolation prize but they’re young. People are too focused on the perfect free agent at the perfect price. Here’s the way I see it. Russell and Randle are both young. Both have improved every year in the league and both aren’t even at their prime yet. Both are also near all-star level production on the offensive end. They also both fill positions of need.

    You add those 2 to the roster and we can finally get to work with a super young team that has a lot of room for internal growth and improvement and has some real talent on the team (Randle, Russell, Barrett and Mitch). Plus you had the wild cards of Knox, Frank, DSJ, Trier all possibly improving too and 6 first round picks over the next 4 years plus the mid levels to add to the team.

    Wouldn’t it be nice to not be waiting for the future? Not waiting for Amare or Melo to come back from injury. Not waiting for the next free agency period to hopefully sign a big name to save us? Not waiting for the draft to save us. Not waiting for KP to come back.

    The chances that Russell and Randle stay healthy and productive the entire time of their contracts is good. The chances they improve during the time of their contracts is good. The chance they could be central pieces in a trad for a superstar in a year or two a la Derozan for Kawhi is good.

    The team would be fun, young and have a real chance to be a playoff team in year one and improve from there. As a fan of a team that has been moribund and old and in decay or stasis for 20 years, I would totally sign up for that.

    Stratomatic "I'm tired of the Knicks paying lip service to DEFENSE. Get defenders & two-way players. Then play them!says:

    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.

    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….

    RAPM is not fooled (for the most part) by how good your or bad backup is; it is not the same as on/off. the whole point is to mitigate this precise deficiency with on/off by adjusting for the quality of floormates, opponents and backups. And btw ryan hollins was not a bad defender at age 30 on the kings, the only year in the sample he played with boogie. koufos was his main backup the other year.

    the idea that they “left boogie out” the first chance they got is just not actually what happened. bogut played 2 minutes as the first sub in game 6 and left immediately for boogie. he did the exact same thing in game 7. cousins’ minutes barely varied at all in the series except he played 8 minutes in his injury return in game 1. meanwhile boogie spent all his minutes chucking too much on offense which hurt them. but he moved WAY better than bogut in space against the pnr for anyone with working eyeballs. take that for data!

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

    Boogie was kind of a slow ass guy to begin with, so now that he’s older and even less mobile, sure, he’s a guy that’s going to get attacked on pick and rolls. He’s not going to be able to defend real well in space.

    In general Boogie has been an overrated player because he racks up big counting stats while also missing lots of shots and turning the ball over a lot. He ain’t really that good, and never really was. If they give him a one-year deal or something it’s not catastrophic, it’s more like a more high-profile version of the Arron Afflalo strategy.

    @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.

    As others noted, Kornet and Mudiay having their QOs turned down means nothing. All it does is give the Knicks more cap room to possibly sign two max guys. If the Knicks don’t sign two max guys, they’ll have so much cap room that they would easily be able to afford Kornet and Mudiay (and will still have Early Bird Rights on both players…I think Kornet might even still be restricted due to being a second year player). It’s effectively a non-story.

    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

    Stratomatic "I'm tired of the Knicks paying lip service to DEFENSE. Get defenders & two-way players. Then play them!says:

    @80

    Except that they flat out said on the broadcast that Boogie was not going to be playing a significant role in game 5 with Durant and Thompson back.

    With Durant and Thompson out, that leaves Curry to score.

    With just Durant out, that leaves Curry or Thompson alone any time the other is resting.

    Bogut, Bell, or Looney are not ideal in those situations (and Looney was hurt) against Toronto’s elite defense.

    That’s why Boogie’s minutes were consistent throughout the series. Again, they needed his offense.

    With Boogie, you have the 3rd scoring option with Curry and Thompson and 2nd scoring option any time either Curry or Thompson is resting.

    It was tradeoff.

    They felt that with the injuries they needed Boogie’s offense more than they needed better defense. But they knew Boogie was a liability in other ways. They would rather have been playing the death lineup, Bell, or Bogut instead of so much Boogie if Durant, Thompson and Curry were 100% healthy and scoring was no issue. This was discussed endlessly.

    Stratomatic "I'm tired of the Knicks paying lip service to DEFENSE. Get defenders & two-way players. Then play them!says:

    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.

    to add on to swift’s point… which is basically my offseason wishlist for the reasons he stated..

    whoever you’re acquiring with our cap space it’s going to be flawed… even the mid to late first rd picks that ppl want to rent out … you’re effectively paying those picks whatever you salary dumped for….

    ive been having this same discussion within my group of friends… but here’s a question for everyone that i asked them… if russell and randle were in this year’s draft… what picks would they have gone even taking into account the salary they would be commanding? my friend said dlo would go 2nd.. and randle 9th…

    let’s be generous and say they would both go #10…. who’s giving you a #10 pick in any salary dump? who are you rolling over your cap space for? a chance at giannis? oladipo? who are you picking that’s likely to be better than russell or randle? someone like cam reddish? nickeil walker-alexander?

    i don’t exactly think those are great alternatives…. especially when folks prefer a 1 year cousins deal that’s supposedly BETTER than gambling on randle… i can understand not liking randle… but to not like him that much that you prefer punting with cousins… that’s a very hard argument to be making….

    Stratomatic "I'm tired of the Knicks paying lip service to DEFENSE. Get defenders & two-way players. Then play them!says:

    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. 🙂

    The appeal to authority arguments are so boring I won’t even waste my time, thanks.

    So it appears Kemba will join the Celtics. I think he’s pretty good, but I also think Celtics fans rejoicing that they’re getting rid of Kyrie and getting him are in for a rude awakening.

    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.

    ptmilo is absolutely correct, Boogie is a fine player who doesn’t cost teams on defense anymore than other 5s. But there’s just no point at all in the Knicks signing him. It’d be a silly use of cap space, especially since there’s so little chance we’d be able to flip him at the deadline. Give out 1+1s to marginal guys as a tryout, don’t give it to some dude who nets you a few pointless extra wins.

    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.

    Why are we talking about Cousins so much anyway? If we sign him this offseason has obviously been a huge bust and we are in real trouble moving forward.

    We need to come away with at least one if not two longterm pieces or this whole offseason is a complete bust. Making moves like Boogie for one year or absorbing a terrible contract for a bad 2020 1st round pick will mean we have completely shit the bed this summer.

    If we miss out on the big three I think there are still players to chase:
    Brogdon
    Randle (if he is on the cheaper side – 3 years 50 million kind of thing)
    Noel (possibly the most undervalued player in the NBA and would be an amazing get)
    Russell (maybe)
    Beverley
    Bryant
    Bell
    Stanley Johnson (on a near minimum contract as a flyer)
    Rubio (on a short contract if we miss all other PGs)

    I think there are options out there we just need to build around our two legit prospects Mitch and RJ and fill the roster with other talented players and keep some financial flexibility moving forward.

    Also, I think we need to pencil Knox in as a PF. If he has any chance to make it in the NBA it is as a stretch 4. He is too slow and not good enough with the ball to play on the wing. He is still a longshot to be anything great but I think backup PF should be his role next year.

    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.

    Noel would be an incredible get for interior D, both as a PF and spot minutes at C when Mitch is in foul trouble. Problem is that you NEED perimeter shooters when they’re on the floor together (or alone), and we have nothing of the sort.

    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.

    This interest in Rozier is worrisome. He has moments where he looks pretty good but then you look at his stats and realize he’s a bad shooter and isn’t much of a passer. Which means he’s a perfect Knick lol.

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

    Also Boogie is obviously a bad idea, but for one year it’s vastly superior to Randle for 3/4 years

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

    The more I look at it I think our goal should be to sign maybe two long term players and two shorter term ones and build a 45 win team over the next two years and then have cap space for Giannis in two years.

    What about
    Brogdon – 4 years 100 million,
    Noel – 4 years 35 million,
    Randle – 2years 40 million, Beverley – 2 years 30 million.

    Then in two years when Ntilikina, Noah, Smith Jr, Beverley, and Randle are off the cap we make another play for a superstar.

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

    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.

    What about
    Brogdon – 4 years 100 million,
    Noel – 4 years 35 million,
    Randle – 2years 40 million, Beverley – 2 years 30 million.

    If you’re gonna go that route you probably need to spend some dough on a point guard, because the ones that we have stink. Beverly is not really that guy, he’s not a real big offense creator. Maybe remove Beverley and Noel from this and do something like D’Angelo Russell, Brogdon and Randle and that would be at least a somewhat interesting young team.

    PG Russell
    SG Brogdon
    SF Barrett
    PF Randle
    C Robinson

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

    The “sign young guys who might actually be good for a little while” strategy you’re outlining isn’t the worst I’ve seen.

    Yeah, I’m not against them signing young free agents, either, I’m just trying to keep this all in the context of what they said their plan is. They’ve said they will only give longterm deals to A-List free agents. Why? They say they will otherwise just sign one-year deals with guys, thus taking them out of the running for interesting guys like Brogdon and Russell. Again, why?

    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.

    Yeah, this is the best middle term strategy. We keep all draft picks and sign players that are young enough to still have upside. It scares me a bit to pay Brogdon so much since he’ll be 30 by the end of the contract, so we should expect him to be on his prime with not much room for improvement, but he’s a very useful player even if he never truly improves. If we go for Russell, Brogdon and Randle, and either Barrett is a star or we find a very good player next season with either our pick or the Dallas one (or even trade for a star with those assets), it could be a very good team.

    I just think there’s no way Perry and Mills are doing this, with their comments about only chasing A list guys etc.

    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.

    Yeah, that would be a fun team to watch but I can’t imagine it would ever happen. I also don’t think Randle is a great fit at pf and RJ and Russell might literally fight over the ball, but I like stockpiling young talent.

    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….

    Well they have said there is mutual interest on both sides with Randle.

    I think Perry’s statements are very open to interpretation though. Like what is a top tier free agent really? They could argue easily that Randle and Russell are top tier because of their age and how they project to improve over the next few years. He could just mean we aren’t signing Kemba on his own because he’s not Kawhi or (before he was injured) KD and therefore by himself wouldn’t catapult us to contender status.

    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.

    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.

    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.

    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….

    Forget Randle, there is strong interest with Bobby Portis!!

    He’s a restricted free agent, no? So unlikely to be able to sign him for a reasonable deal. Same problem with Satoransky and Bryant (not that Bryant would be someone the Knicks would be interested in since they have Mitch already).

    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.

    I know we talk a lot about “playing the kids” but this team doesn’t have any proven starters right now, the closest talent-wise being Mitch (although he still has “staying on the court” issues) and you could also possibly count DSJ.

    I guess Vonleh/Randle/Portis are the power forward options, but they probably need a swingman with legit experience too (a Jeremy Lamb-type) and another point guard. It will be interesting to see how that all shakes out…

    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.

    Since it appears that we’re trying to get as many players who can’t shoot as possible, might I suggest Stanley Johnson, whose option was just declined by the Pels

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

    Portis is kinda the reverse Randle, where he’s clearly a better 3 point shooter but much worse scoring inside. I kinda like him but it would have to be very, very favorable contrast for us. Something like 3 years 18 million, around that, and at that price I think the Wizards would rather just match it.

    Since it appears that we’re trying to get as many players who can’t shoot as possible, might I suggest Stanley Johnson, whose option was just declined by the Pels

    That’s precisely the sort of guy that you probably could get on a 1+1, so I wouldn’t mind him, honestly. A cheap 1+1, that is. 😉 He’s an absolutely brilliant defender. He just can’t shoot for shit. Those are precisely the guys you take a cheap flier on hoping for a Bruce Bowen-like changeover. And if it doesn’t happen, you just let them go.

    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

    I hadn’t realized how much Portis has improved as a 3 point shooter the last couple seasons. He also would be a decent piece alongside Mitch. Color me interested in Crazy Eyes, though as Brian says it’s most likely the Wizards match if it’s a favorable deal for us.

    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

    It would be literally those 3 guys on the team

    Man I hate the way the word literally is misused these days.

    THis is perfect from our GM-

    Our plan wasn’t to create $70 million in room to go after free agents this summer,” Mills said. “Our plan was to organically build this team through teamwork, drafting well, getting high-character guys that want to compete. The [salary cap] space was a byproduct of that. If the right guys are there for us, great, because we still have all the young pieces and draft picks to move forward.

    “And if they’re not, we’re going to keep building our plan, drafting our guys, playing well and potentially being trade partners. We feel really good about where we are going

    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.

    Our plan wasn’t to create $70 million in room to go after free agents this summer,” Mills said. “Our plan was to organically build this team through teamwork, drafting well, getting high-character guys that want to compete. The [salary cap] space was a byproduct of that. If the right guys are there for us, great, because we still have all the young pieces and draft picks to move forward.

    Heh, this is some amazing spin. If the plan had nothing to do with this specific summer, there was no reason whatsoever to dump the THJ/Lee contracts in the KP trade. I still support the trade, including that aspect of it given what we knew at the time, but this is hilarious.

    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.

    Heh, this is some amazing spin. If the plan had nothing to do with this specific summer, there was no reason whatsoever to dump the THJ/Lee contracts in the KP trade. I still support the trade, including that aspect of it given what we knew at the time, but this is hilarious.

    Holy shit. How could you ever accept anything this dude ever says again? He just sits there and outright blatantly lies. What the fuck, dude? You can just say that your plan went wrong due to KD’s injury. Only a moron would blame you for Durant’s achilles tearing! Oh…wait…right, your boss IS a moron. Gotcha.

    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.

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

    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.

    Well, Mills has been surviving for years and years at MSG, you don’t get to do that if you’re not very good at lying. We all knew that this is what he made a career of, so I’m not surprised at all.

    As long as the end result means we’re not going for Boogie or Harris or whoever is the not deserving of a max player of the day, I’m fine with it. Sometimes I wish they had the guts to make more risky moves, but then I remember they wouldn’t be the risky moves I want them to make, but terrible risky moves with low upside, so yeah… I’m fine with them staying quiet.

    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 would wait to celebrate until those picks are actually made by the Knicks, and not traded for the next Mudiay…

    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!

    It’s even weirder because most of Charlotte’s terrible contracts, all but Batum, expire after next season. So they could have kept Walker, let everyone else expire and then trade Batum when he’s expiring too and they would have a mostly clean slate to build around Kemba. The reports are that they offered a 5 year 160 million deal, which makes even less sense if they want to keep him.

    Lol Steve Mills. The anti George Washington.

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

    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.

    Julius Randle was top 20 last year in both points and rebounds. Brogdon was #60 in scoring, #108 in rebounding, and #70 in assists. Randle was #76 in assists per game. The idea that Julius Randle’s are a dime a dozen but Malcolm Brogdon’s are the rarest of jewels is just wrong.

    This is the reverse of the “that guy was a high lottery pick” bias where teams keep giving underperforming players chance after chance because everybody used to think they were good. Brogdon was an All-America player who stupidly went in the 2nd round because everybody in the NBA knows if you stay in school ’til you’re a senior, you must suck. He then massively outperformed that second round contract, giving the analytics crowd all the feels. Now he’s going to get PAID for being the fourth best player on a team that didn’t even win the championship.

    Mike

    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!

    Yeah I don’t see where Perry has gone wrong…yet. The trade of KP set them up to go after whatever FAs they want. There was never a guarantee they’d want to come. The tank was strong and we got the three pick. He’s clearly saying he doesn’t want to go after “a name”. He’s saying the right things. We’re ready for opportunities but not desperate.

    Now we try to get guys that add long term value or we don’t make a commitment and build through the draft. Maybe you think Russell or Randle will be part of a playoff rotation in a year. Maybe you just get one more expensive FA. Maybe it’s worth sacrificing some losses to get real value now. Maybe other than that you audition some guys on one year deals with a club option for another. If you don’t hit the salary floor that’s a nice bonus for the guys on the team.

    Everyone is panicking. No mistakes have been made…yet.

    @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.

    Brogdon is a good defensive player, switchable defender who can guard three positions, and he’s a good two way player that can shoot the three very well: .408 career from 3PT%. He’s exactly the kind of player that teams are looking for to play the modern game.

    Randle is an efficient scorer, but he’s a zero-position defender who doesn’t protect the rim and doesn’t defend well on the perimeter. He’s an undersized four who doesn’t stretch the floor with his shooting. He’s exactly the kind of player that is NOT in vogue.

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

    Julius Randle was top 20 last year in both points and rebounds. Brogdon was #60 in scoring, #108 in rebounding, and #70 in assists. Randle was #76 in assists per game. The idea that Julius Randle’s are a dime a dozen but Malcolm Brogdon’s are the rarest of jewels is just wrong.

    I’ve seen a lot in my time on this board, but this might be the first time I’ve ever seen someone use season totals to make any kind of point, and across positions at that! Hats off to you, sir.

    @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!
    🙂

    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. Totally consistent with everything they’ve said since Perry arrived. Mills is a piece of shit but every time they’ve been asked they’ve been consistent about FAs as one option among many. If you think he’s lying it’s because you convinced yourself, not because they convinced you.

    Also I love that the board has gone from “only top tier guys, no middling guys” to being super down with Brogdon and Randle. Every season since Ewing has been a completely wasted effort with next to nothing to show for it. We finally get a real rebuild and guess what? All the folks who said you can’t rebuild in NY because the fan base has no patience were absolutely right. All these people clamoring for a “watchable” team forever mired in mediocrity. “It’s been twenty years!” Then you can put up with a few more that aren’t a strategic disaster. “The proper way to rebuild is a mix of things that results in a team that I can comfortably enjoy seeing compete for an eighth seed for the next ten years.” I’m not interested in a team that is satisfied with 2.5 kids and mowing the lawn on Saturday afternoons myself. Perhaps you’d be interested in the Pistons instead? We’ve had two decades of fuckups. I don’t know why folks are in such a rush to add another 10 years of hopelessness.

    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.

    I am totally down for Brogdon because he is a fantastic player. I would rather have him than Kyrie. After Kawhi and Durant, prior to the injury, he has always been third for me. I think he is going to be a bargain at whatever contract he gets. Noel as well. I think he will be a bargain since it is almost for sure going to be less than 10 million a year and he was absolutely amazing last year, and really good over the last three.

    After that it gets tricky. I am down for Randle and Russell not because they are perfect but they are solid bets to put our money on since they are so young and have both shown enough, in my opinion, to have a plausible chance of outperforming their contracts and not much chance of being completely dead weight.

    We have cap space and we should want to get value for it. Trading for bad contracts is one way but if the return is future picks in the high 20s I think both Russell and Randle have more chance of netting a better return in the long run, by either outperforming their contracts or being trade bait. What we don’t want is a bunch of one-year deals providing no long term potential and keeping our young players on the bench.

    Some people seem to think that if you can’t leap from 17 wins to 60 you might as well not even try. We have two legit all-star prospects on our roster, 6 1st round picks over the next 4 years, 5 other young players of various, mostly low, quality but all young enough to surprise and tons of cap space. If we build a 40 win team this year with young players and financial flexibility it is not locking us into being the Pistons or the Wizards. It is a team with lots of growth potential and cap room in 2 years if we structure our contracts right.

    I don’t want a shortcut, Durant and Kyrie was the shortcut. I just want forward progress.

    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.

    Since when?

    It’s gotta be Barrett, right? That’s the only one I can even vaguely see. Even there is some serious wishcasting, but it’s something.

    I think I’m the only one but I am super high on Barrett. I like him much more than Morant. I think his scoring will completely and quickly translate to the NBA. I expect 20+ a game on decent efficiency by year 3.

    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.

    I don’t think there is a lot of salary dump opportunities right now. Maybe some will open up next summer but I think most of them are gone at the moment and really good ones only come about when there is a really good free agent class. Maybe late 1sts but nothing much better.

    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.

    The problem is Houston is looking for assets to them for their players. Adams might be a salary dump but he will not require a pick attached. That leaves maybe Portland so maybe you could get a 1st for their three bad contracts but that is not for sure and a lot of bad contracts for probably one low 1st round pick. Who else is looking to give away 1sts? I cannot think of any.

    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.

    I doubt Gallo needs a pick and we will see, if a bunch of 1st round picks move in salary dumps over the next month then I’ll admit my mistake but I think there will be maybe one or two and we aren’t the only team offering space so we’d get maybe half of them.

    Is that better than going after Brogdon or Kyrie or Noel or Kawhi? Randle and Russell are debatable. I’d probably roll the dice but I can see why you wouldn’t.

    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.

    He’s probably just done as a real player, but if Isaiah Thomas was willing to sign a 1+1, that would be interesting. Poor son of a gun. He was having such a great career and then kablooey.

    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.

    The problem is Houston is looking for assets to them for their players.

    That is not what Brian Windhorst said on a podcast yesterday. He said they would attach a #1 to Capela and Gordon for someone to take them so there would be a slot for Butler if he wanted to go there.

    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.

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