Knicks Morning News (2019.07.10)

Everyone knew Shaun Livington was being cut, right? It’s just odd seeing the reactions today. I thought it was pretty much a given that he effectively “had” to be cut, right? And so everyone was working under the assumption that he was gone.

An NBA source indicated a red flag with his physical has delayed his signing. Bullock’s contract terms were being reworked as a result, according to sources. The report said there was concern Bullock’s health would affect his ability to play the entire season. There is concern Bullock’s health would affect his ability to play the entire season.

That’s some…writing there by Berman.

Yeah, Chandler came out way too young. It didn’t help that the Bulls insisted on trying to make him a power forward (what the what?).

But he’ll really sell us on it working!

Good thing we went and got a point guard that can’t shoot – that’s a great fit with RJ’s skillset!

This will have to be deja vu for DSJ who just got out of a situation where he was pushed off ball by a passing wing. I hope he really is learning to shoot.

Oh and Knox is still the worst player in the NBA.

Can we call Perry bad at his job yet?

Yeah, Chandler came out way too young. It didn’t help that the Bulls insisted on trying to make him a power forward (what the what?)

They had the great superstar Eddy Curry at center, so obviously Tyson needed the adjust.

While the Bulls obviously made up for the Curry fuck-up by fleecing the Knicks and getting Joakim Noah out of the deal (and could have had LaMarcus Aldridge, as well, but they were dumb and traded him for Tyrus Thomas), they also compounded the Chandler mistake by signing old Ben Wallace and letting prime Chandler go.

NBA GMs are dumb now, but they were so much dumber 20 years ago.

I quite liked what I saw from Barrett last night. Not a great showing, but the rebounding is for real and he was much more in control. He has a lot to work on (the shooting is atrocious) but the talent is there.

Man, imagine if Eddy Curry was still in his “prime” when Jackson was still in charge. What he wouldn’t do to have that big ass on the Knicks.

Curry was an amazing athlete in high school but couldn’t control the eating. Today maybe he could’ve/would’ve gotten a personal chef/trainer right after the draft. He clearly didn’t have good support as a young man like Barrett does, for instance.

More Summer League slop last night. Iggy is a talented basketball player with a strong handle and confident movement. RJ’s spin move and pass to Iggy under the basket at the end of last night’s game was a play that showed RJ’s potential. Knox shoots and scores (sometimes), but still looks awkward and uncoordinated. Knox’s awareness of teammates is undeveloped. Mitch needs to be paired with a power forward who can cling to the glass or pick-up the driver if Mitch’s block attempt falls short.

@ Totes Don’t you know hot takes go bad if you let them sit out too long

Knox’s deathride-drives are bball nightmare material.

On the other hand Iggy and RJ show they have certified driver’s license !

#Don’t Brick, Just Drive#

Hot takes are a big part of what we do here.

to me mitch has been the biggest disappointment of, yes, 3 very low information-content summer league games. he’s still awesome, but he really hasn’t show any signs of smarter, more controlled defense. he did try to take one charge yesterday that was called a block, but that is pretty much the only positional defending he’s done so far. everything else is level 10 flyswatter mode until he hits complete exhaustion. has mitch ever made a verticality attempt on D?

knox looks mostly the same to me; he’s a pretty high effort player with a nice looking shot and a tricky ability to use his length to get a step on people despite lacking explosiveness. but he still seems to really lack body control and functional strength. he’s still pretty young. he clearly hasn’t figured out how to guard the PNR; he looks like he needs a compass out there. i though rj had a pretty decent game yesterday, but only on offense. i still worry his game will look like evan turner’s. he is very, very strong for a teenager with some handle and good feet, so maybe that advantage really wells up in the next couple of years as he gets even stronger.

The problem with Knicks fans is that they’re so loyal and want their players to do well that sometimes they treat hard working but talentless players or kind & great character players just like moms treat their spoiled brats.
Ron Baker, Lance Thomas and many many others were great guys but not exactly meaningful nba players.

Personally, I think that some of the Knox criticism is over the top. I’m pretty confident that he’s going to be better this year, unless Fiz screws it up by coddling him. Since we went out and spent all of our cap space on competent players (well, the jury is out on Portis) then the young players should have to earn time on the floor and should be sent to the G-League if they need basic skill development. I still remember how stupid it was for the Knicks to hand the keys over to Ntilikina when he had absolutely no PG skills. Even if you believe that he had potential as a PG, you don’t demoralize him by having him get his shit handed to him night after night. You send him to the G-League and keep him there until he has some success. And if he doesn’t have success at the G-League level, you get rid of him asap, since he would never be an NBA player anyway if he can’t dominate down there. They should do the same thing with Knox, Iggy, and if necessary, RJ. That’s what the G-League is for.

At this point, Frank and DSJ are too far past the G-League being useful. If they don’t develop this year, you just let them become RFAs and let their rookie deals go. Who cares if they’ll be good in 3-4 years?

Has anyone looked in to whether having a veteran on a team actually affects the development of the young players? Would much rather have someone other than Vince Carter/ Lance in that last roster spot but I suppose the odds of anyone else in that spot actually contributing or developing into anything are quite low…

Vince confuses me. You’d think he would like to play for a good team in his final season, but he seems to be more interested in going somewhere where he might actually get real minutes. Seems kind of pointless to me. He might actually get to be the 15th guy on the Lakers or Clippers or Jazz or whatever.

Odds are DSJ is above replacement level this year and better next year. Frank has farther to climb but if you adjust for injury last year and age, he could become productive, but like you say Z he has to show something this year. If we can’t even get 2RP for Frank might as well see what he’s got. Knox is also young and just not having free reign like last year will be enough for improvement. Getting him to productive is a much bigger lift. That will be partially on him partially on Fiz.

I’m guessing Vince is in it for the respect or maybe to get experience on the coaching side and front office connections or maybe just endear himself to a new market for better TV opportunities. It might be harder to get those things buried on the bench of a contender with stars chasing a championship.

Personally, I think that some of the Knox criticism is over the top. I’m pretty confident that he’s going to be better this year, unless Fiz screws it up by coddling him.

Almost any 20-year-old sophomore will be better than he was as a 19-year-old rookie. The question is how much better. Incremental improvement is not going to cut it for Knoxie-boy. If he’s 10% better this season, 10% better next season, and so on, he’ll be an NBA starter by age 40.

We need to see leaps-and-bounds improvement. Ideally that would mean a lot less “Imma run toward the hoop as fast as I can and fling the ball in its general direction and hope something good happens.”

If we had 3 first rounders in the next two drafts, I don’t think we’d be apoplectic about half of our rookie-contract players being among the worst NBA players of the modern era.

Haha, I see what you did there.

RJ looked exactly like the player I thought we were getting last night. He rebounds and makes plays at an above average level for a SG, but he’s going to have to become more efficient by improving his shot and shot selection over time. I’m still trying to evaluate his defense.

Knox is Knox. You can see why this management was attracted to him. He’s still ridiculously young and is probably going to get a lot better. Still, IMO we would have been way better off with Mikal Bridges. I’d way rather have a solid 3&D player with good shot selection that’s working on other areas of his offense than someone with more natural talent on offense that doesn’t defend well and does almost nothing at a high level yet. At best, Knox belongs on the bench getting 10-15 minutes at backup. On a good team, he’d be developing his game in practice trying to break into the rotation.

Robinson is Robinson. He’s an extremely gifted athlete that blocks shots, rebounds, and finishes well at the rim. However, he still no idea what he’s doing on either end. He’s still very raw.

Iggy has some skills. Anything we get is a plus.

Frank was a 3& D player in France (40%). The 3 part hasn’t been so good so far in the US. lol We’ll see.

frank’s situation is the epitome of why ‘projects’ are terrible picks… you have way less time than you think to develop a player.. it’s basically the first two years to show nba viability or you’re either gonna be traded or scrounging for a roster spot on the waiver wire… and way more often than not that’s a good move…

that is why projects are terrible picks… it’s a euphemism for a bad player… and bad players almost always stay bad….

what frank is experiencing now… is very likely gonna be knox’s fate next year… and the only way knox avoids that is if he takes a quantum leap this season… and that quantum leap will still only be 10th man level of good…

I think the problem with “just keep Frank around and see what you have” is that this roster is really, really crowded now. If they’d used their cap space on just a couple of players they might have had a role for Frank, but with as many as 7 (!) new signings now along with a bunch of holdovers who are clearly ahead of him in the search for minutes, and RJ clearly headed for a significant rotation role as well, I don’t see any way Frank is getting real minutes on this team.

Frank does NOT belong on this team with this management and this coaching staff.

He should ask for a trade.

He was drafted by people that believe in having multiple playmakers on the floor that move, share the ball, and defend their position. These guys want an athletic PG that can penetrate and run the whole offense and a SG that can light it up scoring. He has no role here. He should aspire to become a longer more versatile version of Patrick Beverley, George Hill, Danny Green etc.. over time.

There’s a perfect spot for him in Dallas and Cuban understands what he needs.

Doncic and KP are going to be their #1 and #2 scorers. Doncic will be the primary ball handler and playmaker. They need a guard that is primarily a defender that can be a secondary playmaker/ball handler and knock down 3s well enough. That’s why they went after Beverley and Green. They actually know what they are doing in Dallas. If he doesn’t end up in Dallas, San Antonio, or Golden State I’ll feel bad for him because he has to get away from these pinheads to have any shot at a good career.

Some pretty good players were drafted as projects though. Giannis for instance. Kawhi was something of a project coming out of college. His scoring numbers were weak in college.

I don’t know. Just glad RJ showed a little life.

I don’t agree about Knox having to make a quantum leap to be playable. He has to be more efficient and rebound and defend better, just like nearly all 19yo rookies. Mixed in with the awkward flailing drives (and he gets fouled on a lot of those) are some quite polished moves. That floater that nobody here likes is an important shot type for a scoring wing. I just don’t see the completely useless player that others are seeing.

Knox is only as good as his shot, and even then he’s not very good.

I agree Mitch needs more work on defense. I think Taj may be a good mentor. He definitely doesn’t get to his level from size/shotblocking.

RJ was more the player I expected. Poor efficiency, but adds other stuff. And anytime someone struggles as bad as he did the 1st two games, I think criticism is fair. And as I’ve pointed out before, most detractors of RJ here point to his Duke mediocrity. SL just confirms what we already suspected.

Frank shot very well in the U18 tournament. He played pg. I think he benefited from being ~5 inches taller than everyone guarding him. I’m still surprised he’s this bad at shooting and I was against drafting him.

Anyway that’s my smorgasbord of Knicks thoughts this morning.

He was drafted by people that believe in having multiple playmakers on the floor that move, share the ball, and defend their position.

The reason he was drafted with a lottery pick was because the Derrick Rose and Carmelo Anthony lead super team these guys put together predictably sucked ass.

My feeling about all very young players drafted is to be patient; commit to at least a full 3 year look.

Now, if the team determines very early on (at end of first year?) that the player may not work out, then by all means try to trade for a first round pick, maybe a couple of seconds. If you can’t get that, then why not just stay the course while the kid is still pretty young? Supposedly the Knicks could not get a single second rounder for Frank, and I’d imagine they probably couldn’t get that for DSJ, either, at this time, based on the stunt he pulled in Dallas last year.

Frank and DSJ would combine for about $12m if both are picked up for 2020-21, IIRC. If Frank shows anything at all in the upcoming FIBA, then by all means pick his (and DSJ’s) options up. Show some confidence in them. That’s less than they are going to pay for one year of Bobby Portis. I know the odds are low for either of those guys making a leap this year, but maybe one or the other does?

The team does have a lot of cap flexibility next offseason, and they can probably still have tons of cap space available in 2021, the next time a nice crop of FAs might be available.

Frank is pretty expensive for a flyer. I think plenty of teams would be interested in developing him at a lower price point.

Well they were free to give us the second round pick we were requesting for him but they preferred Isaiah Roby. So, is the new slant that even the smart teams on which Frank would thrive don’t even know how badly they need him?

The actual reports were that several teams were discussing Frank for a late 1st rounder or early 2nd rounder, but they didn’t want to make a trade because it would fill cap space before they were sure what their free agency opportunities were. Also, because NY gave him such inconsistent minutes at different positions when he was healthy they weren’t sure what they were getting.

Everyone will get another look in France to see where he is now when healthy and then hopefully he’ll be out of NY and on a team where he at least has a shot to develop. I already know he has no future with these dumbbells. They should let him go after France. Then we can stop talking about him unless he locks down one of our players and KP goes off for 35.

Too many PF’s not enough shooting.

Portis played mostly played center for the Wizards last year. BRef has him playing C 77% of the time. He split time at C and PF the years before that. He’s 6’11” and will play C next to Taj or Morris off the bench.

We literally just went out and signed, Portis, Ellington, and Bullock who all shoot.
We drafted Iggy who can shoot.

We signed Randle who shot okay last year.

We have Knox, Dotson, and Trier who can all shoot.

If they really want to win, they should probably reduce the minutes of everyone they drafted, play the veterans they bribed to be here by overpaying them, and get a new coach.

@64 hahah, I actually started writing this and then had to, you know, do my day job

Some pretty good players were drafted as projects though. Giannis for instance. Kawhi was something of a project coming out of college. His scoring numbers were weak in college.

I don’t know. Just glad RJ showed a little life.

Kawhi may have been a project, and one of the funniest mischaracterizations of a player that I can recall (“NBA Comparison: Luc Richard Mbah a Moute/ Gerald Wallace”), but he had an elite statistical profile and was a productive NBA player from his first season — his worst season BPM is 3.9 and WS48, .166 (sophomore season).

So maybe he was labeled a project, but he’s always been a very good basketball player.

Giannis had a poor rookie season, but not in the true dregs of the league. And since there, he has shown near-consistent improvement in the following five seasons.

Berman is a LOT better as a basketball analyst on Podcasts than you can tell from his articles.

All I remember about Kawhi Leonard as a prospect was that all of the smart people on this blog knew he was a great prospect. That much I know for sure.

I think their defense can be better because hopefully Mitch will get starter’s minutes from the get go instead of Kanter being the starter for half of the season.

Kawhi only committed to two years with the Clippers, player option for year 3. Likely back on the market in 2021.

Also last year’s Knicks were fairly decent in the other three of the Four Factors, they were above average in FT/FGA and average-ish in TOV% and ORB%. Their eFG% was just so horrible it dragged the whole team to 30th in offensive rating.

The team leaders next year in FGA are probably going to be Randle, Knox, and Barrett. After that, probably… Portis? He’s about an average eFG% guy, doesn’t move the needle a ton. DSJ/Payton? Not a lot of hope there. Ellington/Bullock? Probably won’t get a ton of shot attempts. Mitch is good for a high eFG% but on low volume.

I infer from the comments that you think
30 games is optimistic unless our defense improves significantly.

Kawhi only committed to two years with the Clippers, player option for year 3. Likely back on the market in 2021.

WOW. Clippers’ PG trade is playing with fiiiiiiiiire…

And as d-mar said, this means the Knicks are going to commit to maxing cap space just to sign eight veteran, middling PFs all over again.

I think their defense can be better because hopefully Mitch will get starter’s minutes from the get go instead of Kanter being the starter for half of the season.

I wouldn’t bet much money on this (since the Knicks’ are run by irrational, incompetent boobs), but don’t be surprised when Portis (or Randle) starts at C on opening night.

Someone needs to tell these guys that Mitch can foul out of every game and it won’t hurt anything at all. It’s not like getting a red card or technical fouls, guys. Let him foul out until he learns to stop fouling out.

It blows my mind when guys get pulled with 4 fouls and, like, 16 minutes to go. I’m always like, hey, you could get 16 minutes out of him, or you could artificially limit him to the last 8 minutes of the game, which he might foul out during anyway. I get it if you think that they need a less foul-prone matchup, but that does not seem to regularly be the case.

Bobby Portis makes a lot of money and he gets some pointzz so I am expecting him to start and get 25+ MPG.

He’s not a very good player. He’s a big reason why this will be a 25 win type team.

The 2020 draft class is pretty interesting, so I’m cool with it.

30 games is optimistic unless our defense improves significantly.

It really depends on the minutes distribution. As I said a few days back, simply removing Knox and Ntilikina from the roster and replacing them with below-average veterans will make an enormous difference on their win expectancy.

The offense is going to be a hell of a lot better. Not good, but better.

Ntilikina and Knox combined for a .462 TS% on an incredible 1196 FGA and 256 FTA. If they had shot at the same volume as well as the 29th-ranked TS% team offense (CLE) at .540, they would have added 205 points to the Knicks’ average.

That would increase their pythag win percentage from 19% to 30%. Yes, that’s only 5 wins, but consider that Knox and Ntilikina only played 15.4% of total minutes. FIFTEEN PERCENT.

Yes, improving the shooting efficiency of the Knicks’ two worst players to the 29th-ranked team average would improve the team’s pythag by five fucking wins. That is how bad those two were. And so the team’s success will largely hinge on how well they limit the negative contributions by some of the worst rotation players in my lifetime.

If anyone had projected him to be KAWHI!!!, he never would have gone 15. He wasn’t really even an “upside” play to any material degree. He was a two-year mid-major guy with a meh offensive portfolio.

I do agree that no one saw him as a future Finals MVP. A lot of people on this board wanted him because he did a lot of important things well — no one saw the Jordan-like prowess as a shot creator. I probably would have taken Faried over him if he had been there at #17.

So far RJ’s outside shooting has been horrible in SL. I was happy to see him make strong drives to the basket and pass more. He should continue to do this until he improves or get more confident in his outside shot. Looks like he can be a good rebounder for a guard.

Knox was chucking every time he got the ball. Maybe it was because it was his last SL game but would like to see him pass more.

I think that might have been a joke but sort of curious if we thought anything about Kawhi during the draft. Too lazy to go look though….

Z-man was real high on Shumpert. latke (does he go by a different name now?) was the real loser in that thread. Smart poster, bad take.

yeah but I liked Kawhi too. Nearly every draft board had him gone by the time we picked. That was a weird draft.

Last year’s Knicks were last in the NBA in eFG% by a mile, they were a whopping 13 points worse than the 29th worst team.

If you look at eFG% rankings, it almost mimics the standings. If the FO focuses on improving that stat alone, the Knicks will start moving forward as a team. KK and RJ, are you paying attention?

Just took the time machine back, most people wanted Chris Singleton except THCJ who also hated Shump and was thirsty for Faried. Zman seemed like the main pro Shump fan even wanted him over Kawhi (who wasn’t available obv). Shump is probably a good example of someone you squint at and see a complete player but the development never came together…

http://knickerblogger.net/d-day-2011-who-will-the-knicks-choose/

Every draft ever:

“With the _____ pick in the _____ NBA draft, the New York Knicks select _________”

Most KB posters: “WHAT THE FUCK THAT GUY SUCKS”

A handful of KB posters: “Well, let’s see how he plays once the season starts, maybe he’ll develop his outside shot”

(player turns out to suck)

As things turned out, I was certainly wrong to think that Shump would fix his jumper and totally overrated him in several areas. That said, he became a legit NBA rotation player (as opposed to Singleton…yuck!) and a part-time starter on a championship team so at #17 he wasn’t as terrible of a pick as THCJ feared. As to Faried, he was all that for a couple of years and kind of petered out. Ironically, there were better players than him that we passed over, including Tobias Harris and Jimmy Butler (and Bojan Bogdanovi? , Chandler Parsons and Isaiah Thomas, but no one saw those guys coming.)

If I remember correctly I wanted Singleton, and that was one of my early lessons in preferring a defense-oriented player who can’t score. Those players often turn out to be not even that great on defense, and almost never develop into good offensive players. I’m very wary of those players now.

Stanley Johnson was the one that cemented it for me. Those defensive-oriented guys always seem tantalizing but in this era of the NBA you’re better off drafting the guy who shows shooting/scoring/ball skills.

i remember exactly where i was during that draft. i was on a third date at one of those movie-in-a-park things & i was following the draft on my phone. but i can’t for the life of me remember what i was rooting for; kind of crazy because i remember what i was thinking for much older drafts.

Crazy, I just googled Vesely (not for his perfect, girl-next-door ex, I promise) and he won Euroleague MVP last year!

it wasn’t in a cocky way, he was playing along humorously. Good times

Just turned it on. Are any of these guys expected to make the team this year?

and hayes and mitch apparently eat the same alex p keaton amphetamines for breakfast

Hayes had a really nice dunk the other day. He’s bouncy.

Fuck ESPN. stfu and show the game assholes

Why does ESPN feel the need to split screen everything.

They must’ve spent almost 2 minutes it seemed on a split screen of Jason Kidd just sitting there.

who do they think is watching this shit except the craziest fanatics who don’t GAF what frank vogel learned at PR school

Wear Bear!

Psych. Apparently it’s Wear Bear’s twin.

Riley is a fucking lunatic.

RJ isn’t shooting well, but I really like his passing

Psych. Apparently it’s Wear Bear’s twin.

He played in Australia last season. Not terrible, but his scouting report would probably contain the word “underwhelming” a fair bit.

I believe that Riley story happened when he was coaching the Heat not the Knicks.

Mitch can finger roll!!

RJ has 1 assist but 4-5 nice passes

Interesting fast break from Knox

That old draft thread… If I were latke, I would have changed my handle too. Ouch.

I thought I was on it, rooting for Fareid, but I forgot that was on my sabbatical from the team after the Melo trade.

Did anybody else just see Mitchell Robinson pull off a step back dribble?

Mitch are Perkins’ lunch so bad that Perkins got ejected lmao

At least he’ll have a cool story to tell his kids about multi-time DPOY Mitchell Robinson

Brazdeikis is already kind of a better version of Knox, right? Not much of a box score stuffer, but he sure seems to be able to get buckets.

I love Mitch. Not that he is in summer league. But the three point blocks that lead to dunks, definitely.

@153

Idk, Iggy seems to have a good sense of when to pass/quick decision making in general. He’s not a good passer per se, But he keeps his head up and only seems to go in when he feels he has the advantage. And he gets a block and a steal a game usually. Not super impactful on defense but not that bad either. He’s pleasantly surprised me.

Iggy is not Ron Baker. He’s the real deal.

so the book is closed on rj for the summer league… here are his per 36 avg’s…

16.9 pts
10.6 reb
3.3 asts
0.9 stls
1.2 blks
36% 2p fg

aside from the 2p fg% it’s a very good line… and for comparisons sake here’s the numbers for another guy in summer league not that long ago…

15.9 pts
11.3 reb
8.1 asts
1.5 stls
0.7 blks
37% 2p fg

that guy is ben simmons…. i’m not saying he’s gonna be like ben simmons… but the shooting like i’ve said is not that big a deal…. what’s more important.. not that any of this stuff is all that important… are the other basic things… and if you can do the basic things of filling up the box score then you can’t be all that bad….

and i think the key numbers to watch for on rj are gonna be 1) 2p fg% which is always a key filter 2)stls and blks .. stls are a bit low and hopefully gets over 1.0 during the season and 3)3pa … he’s still getting used to the nba line and he’s very consistently short on almost all his misses there…. and i just hope he restricts himself to just catch and shoot opportunities… those looks are way better for him than the others….

if we get the version of rj that we got in the last couple of games that guy is a pretty good and pretty valuable player… but the first two… well hopefully we can all just laugh about it in a couple of years….

That 2013 draft thread is awesome. Best line on it:

Thomas B.
June 23, 2011 at 8:49 pm
Oh God, we are going to end up with Marcus Morris. Shoot me now.

Welcome to New York, where the more things change, the less things change…

(Also, Latke! You guaranteed it, wtf! (Latke was typically a good poster, iirc. In fact, I think that may have been Max Cohen’s handle before he started contributing here. He was off his game that day, though, haha!)

sorry to see summer league end…I kind of wish they’d do more tournament style events during the summer for the young players…

seems like it would benefit most concerned to get time on the court and tv…

shit, most of us crazy people tune in to the stuff….