Knicks Morning News (2019.07.01)

I wake up to a 15m Portis signing after the Taj nightmare? Some positive news though: Randle’s 3rd year being non-guaranteed is huge. It’s better than a team option because a team could trade for him and then cut him right away if they needed cap space.

Overall Grade: D+

Better Strategy:
– Sign Randle to same deal
– Sign Vonleh/Kornet to cheap deals (young, average+ last season, could improve)
– Put 10m/yr, 2-year offer sheet in front of Satoransky (guy’s average plus player, able to play the 1)
– Put 10m/yr 3-year offer sheet in front of Bryant (average+ last season, promising young center)
– Sign vet mentors like Taj to 1-year deals (no player options)
– Keep 15m or so of cap space to maintain possibility of very sweet trade deadline deal

Bottom Line: We’d have a group of many young average+ players on very reasonable deals. SF is our weakest position. Youth Roster:
1: Satoransky, DSJ, Kadeem
2: RJ, Trier
3: Knox, Dotson, Braz
4: Randle, Vonleh, Kornet, Braz
5: Mitch, Bryant, Kornet

Went to sleep disappointed but not super unhappy.
Woke up still disappointed, not super unhappy, but not happy at all about the Portis signing. Not that Portis is terrible or anything but I don’t get it with Knox, Gibson, and Randle all on the team already.

Overall Randle + Gibson + Bullock I get. But instead of Portis, use that cap space to take on Batum or Marvin Williams for picks. C’mon man.

Offensively the team should be much better next year, but the defense could be truly terrible. Even worse than last year unless Mitch is truly an all-NBA type of defender next year.

Re: the Durant thing – everyone is bashing Dolan for this but I don’t think this is directly Dolan’s fault — ie. the media stuff, the banning the fan stuff. I really don’t think players care that much about that, and there are plenty of star players who have played for the Knicks (Tyson, Melo, etc) who have good things to say about Dolan. And I DO believe that Dolan has stepped back from basketball operations. But this is the Phil Jackson hiring and everything that represented coming home to roost. Years of not thinking ahead, years of bad contracts, years of arrogance leading to a dumpster fire of a roster. And even so I truly believe Durant was coming until that Achilles injury – there were just too many connected people who believed it and wrote it. I think the way this went down is that Durant could not find a running mate that was willing to play with the kids for a year while his injury healed, and didn’t want to come by himself to a team that was not ready-made to at least compete even without him.

This could go spectacularly badly for Brooklyn, but they did an amazing job and deserve all the credit.

(meanwhile Russell on the Warriors is sort of a weird move. But whatever)

Tea leaf reading is the order of the day. Berman:

Mills and GM Scott Perry have said for months a new culture/vibe had star players wanting to be with the Knicks. But they have struck out on Durant, Irving and Kemba Walker, and their jobs could be in jeopardy.

*****************************

The funny thing is that Dolan actually owns another sports team and it’s a very well-run one that’s been very good and even engaged in a teardown/Process that’s going very well. It would be great if he somehow learned the Rangers lessons and applied them to the Knicks but basketball is way, way, way more of a celebrity/star world and he kind of laughably sees himself as, and wants to be, a player in that world.

After reading Bullock’s personal story, I’m less angry and disappointed. He is definitely a high-character guy. And a career 39% 3-pt shooter is a huge uptick from TH2. So I guess I’m on board with his and Randle. Not so much on Portis and Gibson.

Z they are both relative my man lol

I would much much rather have spent 2 years $10MM on Vonleh than 2 years $31MM on Portis.

So are we done?
And why do I have this feeling we are going to be playing Randle at the 3 sometimes next to Portis and Mitch? (jumbo lineup of Frank, RJ, Randle, Portis, and Mitch seems a very Fizdale thing to do)

Randle really is an interesting player — really CAN handle the ball, makes some really nice and non-obvious passes to cutters and 3 point shooters, gets to the line a ton, AND finishes around the rim like a boss (69 and 73% from 0-3 ft the last 2 years – that is nearly Giannis-like) and is a pretty good rebounder. Offensively one could (as many have) make the comparison to what Zion is and will be — of course Zion might be better on defense than offense, but who’s counting…

Honestly think a lineup of Frank, RJ, Dotson or Bullock, Randle, and Mitch would be really fun.

Just REALLY don’t get the Portis signing.

So other than Iggy, who GS asked for his preference before shopping, who else have we missed out on renting space to for a pick? Not hypotheticals, actual moves made.

And yeah, after all the talk about not signing second and third their guys going out and signing second and third their guys feels a hell of a lot like the hand of Dolan. At least they’re young, other than Gibson.

So other than Iggy, who GS asked for his preference before shopping, who else have we missed out on renting space to for a pick? Not hypotheticals, actual moves made.

We could have offered to cut him right after trade (or maybe after a couple of months to enable a bit of mentoring). He then could have gone to team of his choice. We’d have gotten a protected GSW pick and lost a roster spot. Not sure, but maybe large 2-yr RFA offers to players like Satoransky or Jones might be better. May have been able to do both. Appears we’re doing neither. Uggh

Bud did not want the GM job. Perry had already been hired before coaching interviews took place. Budz just wanted roster input and they told him that he would not have any. So he went to Milwaukee instead.

Griffin, though, yeah, that was just a fuck-up.

Went to sleep depressed. Woke up more depressed. It’s a downward spiral. I thought 17 wins was a bottom. All I look for is a path towards improving. How are we better off than this time last year? Where is the light at the end of the tunnel?

btw has anyone heard for sure about whether Randle’s 3rd year is team option or non/partial-guaranteed in some way?
Seems some conflicting info out there. Haynes, Berman, and Begley have all written that the 3rd year is a team option whereas Popper said no, then amended to “there is just a partial guarantee on the third year for Randle – which sounds like a team option to me” which doesn’t make any sense.

Popper likely had someone say, “It is not a team option” and when Popper pressed on it (since everyone else was reporting “team option”) he was told it was a “partially guaranteed third season,” which Popper correctly noted is, in effect, a team option. I guess if you have to pay the guy some money, it’s not technically a team option (since a team option would strictly be a yes or no deal).

Went to sleep depressed. Woke up more depressed. It’s a downward spiral. I thought 17 wins was a bottom. All I look for is a path towards improving. How are we better off than this time last year? Where is the light at the end of the tunnel?

It’s going to have to be through the draft. We have to hope that Barrett somehow turns out to be a star and that Mitch improves even further and that their draft picks in 2020 and 2021 work out, as well. There is a theoretically bright future for this team, but it is all based on the draft.

It’s really funny to read all the bullshit our FO and Fizdale say and then look at what they do. It’s a clown show.

Rose-colored glasses back on: Here comes summer league!!!

We could have offered to cut him right after trade (or maybe after a couple of months to enable a bit of mentoring). He then could have gone to team of his choice.

He did that anyway without any uncertainty? I’m just saying, renting out cap space for picks doesn’t look like a thing so far. Everywhere Leonard could go can sign him outright. I guess we’ll see if there are anymore of these deals.

I’d really like them to explain the (ir)rationale behind the Portis signing…

Ay-yep. And there’s zero accountability.

Or, or, there’s a Dolan shaped presence in the room saying “do something, I look stupid right now!” That’s a kind of accountability.

The Knicks are like a turd. They want to flush and quick fix it all up, but they’re not good enough, so there’s not enough water to float the turd and allow the flush, so you get a beached whale type of a turd, which is worse than the original turd.

I have to hand it to the Nets, though. They were in a much worse position after the horrible Boston trade, but they stockpiled, hit on basically every pick (does that just mean ‘developed?’), and floated their turd for a glorious flush of epic proportions, one that flushed their cross river rivals’ fans hopes down with it

I’m ok with everything other than Portis. Slight overpays for Randle, Taj and Bullock, but that’s to be expected in FA, especially if you’re hell bent on only 2 year contracts. Portis at $31mil is just mind blowingly dumb, even without considering the glut of PFs on the team already. By every metric other than rebounding Kornet was a better player last year than Portis, the same age, and an order of magnitude cheaper.

I agree with Grocer. there’s no evidence at all that anyone was interested in giving us a pick yesterday to use our cap space.

I’m totally good with Randle. He got Harry Barnes $$, shorter time, and he’s a better player. He seemed to be in some demand. When we signed him, we had no PFs. And if year 3 is an option, sweet.
I gon’t get Gibson’s deal. Twice what Ed Harris got? Then again, he’s cheaper than Trevor Ariza at 2 for $25M
I’m fine with Bullock as a player, he is older than the others. It seems like $10M a year is what a backup costs now? That’s a lot of $$ for a guy to play behind Barrett and take Trier’s minutes.
The portis deal I don’t get at all. He’s an OK player, with the other deals that signed and his age, I guess he’s in the $10M a year range, but not $15M.
Portis AND Gibson makes no sense. We could have signed Portis then spent $6M / year on someone like Noah, KOQ, whoever.
SO…..to me, We spent $5M / year too much on Gibson and $15M / year too much on Gibson. BUT…we didn’t go long term, we didn’t give a max to someone who doesn’t deserve it, we didnt bring in Boogie. that’s not horrible. We do have deals that at a worst case look tradeable.

Randle is a force offensively (and young), Bullock could be useful,
but with that money I’d rather have Ed Davis (2YR/10M from Utah) and Satoransky than Gibson and Portis.

Not fair to blast us on not offering KD the max. He wasn’t going to take it anyway, unless it included Kyree, and squeezed in Deandre.

But he had to choose from teams that had cap space and wanted the GSW pick. If we had agreed to cut him, he could have gone to almost any team in the league. He also could have asked us to wait to cut him to let the season play out and then choose a team.

I guess, but I don’t think we were part of the conversation at all. “Where would you like to go? That’s who we’ll talk to.” Dunno how you can give the FO shit for it, is what I am saying.

The broader point is that there was a lot of chatter about using cap space to get picks, but that’s only happened once so far. I think maybe we misread the market on this one.

Like a lot of us said yesterday before the news, we weren’t going to get upset if the Knicks whiffed on Durant/Kawhi/Kyrie
**whisper: because honestly why the fuck would they come anyway???**
… it was in failing at Plan B, and signing a guy like Cousins or Harris for long term contracts, and they didn’t.
Also, a lot of people assume renting out cap space in an epic offseason of cap space would yield picks… I doubt that, and we have no proof of it ever existing.
So far, all they did was get two marginal upside guys who happen to play power forward (on offense), and one old barking defensive vet (I think this was necessary-that’s why I wanted Beverley) who plays the same position, but probably won’t play much.
How’s this- I think players didn’t want to come because we suck. We couldn’t get a guy like Beverley or Barea if we tried, much less Durant. We had to overpay to get the guys we got. I trust that Perry knew who was gettable weeks ago.
But we didn’t lock up anyone past two years. No one on max. No one a washed up vet taking too many minutes and money from young players. And no trades giving up assets. Maybe things aren’t so bad?

There’s a new thread 🙂