Knicks Morning News (2019.07.16)

For fear of Dot or Trier falling out of the rotation, I wonder if this would be a sensible move that would include waiving the guards and playing Barrett at the 3. Of course we would require a 1st in this deal

Berman:

Reggie Bullock has signed an agreement with Knicks for two years with a team option for second year, per source. The reworked deal has him taking less than the $4.8M room exception.

And that’s 15 guys on the roster. We’ll see if Frank and/or Dotson are still here when training camp opens, I guess.

I’m working in Medford, OR (southern border) and there’s a guy wearing a St. Patty’s Marbury jersey in line for coffee.

Re post from yesterday in response to 2FOR18:

Private pharm companies do medical research so they can develop new drugs to sell

There’s a misconception that because we want Government out out of X, that means we don’t want X.

So a pharma company. It’s run by a board, which represents the owners, and selects a CEO and other suits. Isn’t this structure just like a government? These guys have a pretty strong control over their employees. In many cases as strong as a national government does, or stronger. So what have you achieved?

Sure, an employee can resign but which form of governance would be used by his next employer? And if you’re saying the employee can resign again and again, and everyone can be on their own, you’re basically saying no to any effort to organize. Which brings me back to my original question, how do you get organized?

I’m just answering a civil question in a civil manner. Can we be civil to each other and avoid personal insults?

I’m in.

Wake me up when politics end

@5

I’m stoked for the season to start. I like the overall talent level. Plus a year more mature Mitch.

Rj could be the real deal!

I’m ready.

This FO basically decided to punt a season. They had cap space and could have done creative things with it, but they spent it on magic beans. It’s gonna be a slog. There’s not a whole lot to hope and dream on here. We’re out in the wilderness. Still. And will be for quite some time.

You can’t run a society on “I got mine, fuck you.”

We’re giving it our best shot, though!

Even a savvy coach with an established track record of success would have the devil’s own time molding this mis-sharpen collection of pricey veteran mediocrities, undeveloped youngsters in need of significant minutes, and more power forwards that could fit inside a subway car into anything resembling a coherent whole.

You, sir, are a nattering nabob of negativism (-:

I haven’t been shy about stating how much I think Frank Ntilikina sucks.

He should still get one more crack at making something happen here. It’s not likely that he’s going to end up an NBA-caliber player, but he’s young and under team control, maybe a miracle happens. It’s worth a look. So I’m with Strat on this one.

One post on politics, then I am checking out for the day. I’ve had about enough of this place.

Libertarians come in all sizes and flavors. There is wide disagreement among libertarians on practically every issue. They just share some general principles about limiting the role of government economically (especially the monetary system) and socially. Most libertarians are not extremist anarcho libertarians in the same way most democrats are not full out socialists (only the economically illiterate pinhead ones).

The Bullock, Ellington, and Morris signings seem totally pointless and create a logjam for minutes to be distributed to the young guys, who by the way need to play. Not wishing injuries to anyone, but I’d much rather watch Iggy, Barrett, Trier, Dotson, and even Knox get minutes instead of these guys.

Fizdale and the FO just seem to be treading water with no discernible plan on getting to the destination of building a good, balanced team with a winning culture. I have little confidence they will suddenly figure it out.

@6 Starbury St Patty’s Day Jersey, LOL. That guy must be a lifer.

John McAfee finished third in the 2016 Libertarian primary.

Maybe I should predict bitcoin at 2M by the end of 2020. I’ll finish second.

I think we have a really good chance at being Utah Jazz East as early as this year. Mitch and Morris are our Gobert and Crowder, RJ Barrett is our Donovan Mitchell, Smith Jr/Payton sorta look like Rubio and Exum, and we don’t have a Joe Ingles but Julius Randle’s pretty good at basketball. It depends on if Knox, Smith Jr, and Barrett will sink us, but none of those three are guaranteed minutes if they prove to be terrible next season. I’m cautiously optimistic about this Knicks team. Randle and Robinson remind me a lot of Amar’e Stoudemire and Tyson Chandler.

we are not the utah jazz of anything…. the jazz have done a lot with very little… we have done the absolute least with the absolute most….

we have a handful of promising guys that could turn into something…. but that basically makes us the kings or magic of season’s past…. it’s not any different than other organizations who had some lotto picks a few yrs in a year….

i am pretty optimistic about this core though…. but let’s just say that there isn’t anything special in what they are doing and they left themselves plenty of ways to screw this up royally and they are very very capable of that….

Great work with the video, ClashFan. I loved the 2nd song the most, good strong energy. The story in the slides reminded me of Nashville, the series, which my girlfriend loved so I watched all the seasons with her. Not anywhere near Deadwood but still it was fun.

Re the police, yeah, they would harass you for nothing sometimes.

The better players will play. The better players will have their options picked up then we’ll draft again. Our young players looked very strong against their counterparts on other teams at SL. What, now we’re bummed that Ellington might steal a few minutes from one of the players on last year’s juggernaut? Chill, everyone. This year is about R.J. and Mitch.

Color me skeptical as to the process these coaches will use for sorting out just who are – and who are not – the “better players.” How much patience will they exercise with the raw youngsters who will need PT to demonstrate that they may indeed be better than the more immediately serviceable, high priced veteran mediocrities who could be called to step in following the first rookie mistake? And while most on this board are rightfully gaga over Mitch, it’s still an open question as to whether the brain trust shares these sentiments. If we see a reprise of last year’s 20 minutes per game Mitch in the ’19-’20 season, then we’ll know that this staff has no clue as to how to balance the sometimes contradictory goals of developing young players for tomorrow and fielding a competitive team today.

I mean sure, get a few veteran “play the right way” kind of guys, whatever fine. They kind of overdid it though, no? They signed SEVEN veterans. It’s just a really odd plan to me, they’re really making it difficult for some reasonably promising young players to get minutes or even make the roster.

I think Frank will definitely start the season on the team. We already picked up his option and no one would give up one second rounder in a weak draft for him, so how exactly would he not start the season on the team?

Minutes will be a different story. I think he should get more than Ellington, Bullock, etc. simply because he’s young and on a rookie deal, but I won’t get nearly as mad about him losing minutes as I will about RJ/DSJ/Trier/Iggy/I guess Knox losing minutes. A lot of his benchings last season were more merciful than anything else, I’m not sure telling a guy in a 27-92 shooting slump (this is the real number that lead to 3 DNPs last year) to “just keep playing your game” or whatever is optimal. I mean a lot of the time it looked like Frank didn’t even want to be out there.

I have to agree with Strat. Any arguments about Libertarianism or libertarianism or classical liberalism are fundamentally stupid because no one can define what one is. It’s really not worth arguing about.

bless you owen for making some sense out of this crazy libertarianism discussion…i spent about 30 minutes yesterday googling it, and, only became more confused – especially when i hit the part about left-wing/right-wing libertarianism…

about the only good that came of poking around with it was finding this:
https://i.imgur.com/2ezi8tN.gif

i liked this one a lot too, but, not 100% sure what it even really means:
https://thumbs.gfycat.com/AdmirableRadiantIcterinewarbler-max-1mb.gif

an extreme laissez-faire political philosophy advocating only minimal state intervention in the lives of citizens.

yeah, i’m gonna say that pretty much is exactly the opposite of where this world is heading…

@36

That’s the point, did we really need 7 veterans, when there’s already 8 players on the roster in rookie contracts who could (and some should) be part of our future past those 2 seasons? Signing so many veterans definitely means some of the young guys are not part of the plan, which I would assume are Ntilikina and Dotson, and others are definitely seeing less minutes, like Trier, DSJ, Knox and maybe probably even Mitch.

I don’t care much for Ntilikina and Dotson as I don’t think they’re NBA rotation players right now, maybe Trier is in the same spot, although I like him a bit more. But I’m pretty sure we’ll see plenty of nights where Fizdale will go for Portis or Gibson at Center because “they’ve earned it” while Mitch sits on the bench like he did so many times with Mudiay in place of the other guys and now he’s gone with no positive to the Knicks.

@44 it was recently revealed that the FO was adamant about not including Mitch in an AD trade. Wouldn’t this imply that they value him highly and plan to play him a lot?

We should call this the annual mudiay award.

For me, it’s got to be named after Carmelo. Reading Karl’s remarks about him in his memoir proved to me that I still have a lot of anger left about the entire Melo era. Although, part of what got me so steamed up was that even Karl still feels he has to genuflect to this myth of Melo’s offensive ability.

Geo, I have been down the libertarian rabbit hole so much in my life. Loved loved loved Hayek and Friedman in that phase so many have. I think I learned my lesson when I realized that one of the modern guys I was most influenced by at the time, a libertarian writer named Jonathan Rauch. didn’t even consider himself a libertarian. (he’s a communitarian as it turns out). You can splice and dice these things as much as you want.

The good thing about that libertarian phase is that it gave me a theoretical structure for profound pessimism and a dim view of human nature. Basically, the perfect training ground for being an adult Knicks fan.

There’s no such thing as a Libertarian government in the world, and the American Libertarian Party is so moribund it draws single digits of support and is led by a low-impact boob who has about as much understanding of geopolitics as an average Kardashian. So forgive me if I don’t take it super seriously as an ideology.

I’d actually like to see Libertarianism flourish, because Libertarianism is essentially Republicanism but without the Bible thumping and with legal weed, so it’s a marginal improvement. So you go, Libertarians. Do your thing. Recruit more members, and remember: always vote for the Libertarian. Don’t do the thing where you say you’re a Libertarian on the internet and then vote straight ticket Republican in every single election. Let’s make this thing happen! Otherwise you’re just a Republican who pretends to be something else to avoid the stink of Republicanism.

So either Fizdale was just saying stuff to the media when he talked all that stuff about Mudiay, which is also very possible, or there’s some wiggle room for him to operate as he likes.

Fizdale reminds me of a contestant on one of those Iron Chef shows who’s challenged to create a palatable dish using everything in a basket of odd, seemingly mismatched foodstuffs.

Mitch could end up being one of the central ingredients in an interesting but not entirely successful dish. Or he could wind up as merely garnish for some ungodly concoction that looks and tastes like shit.

I just found this on Twitter. I thought some might be interested since it touches upon the issue of public-private partnerships in the biomedical research field we were discussing on the libertarian topic.

Publicly funded drug research is “not a far out idea,” posits @DeanBaker13. Delinking drug prices from research costs is also a topic at international forums. https://t.co/cEnNnKagHJ pic.twitter.com/p1vGNpiRGg— CEPR (@ceprdc) July 16, 2019

Maybe I should predict bitcoin at 2M by the end of 2020. I’ll finish second.

I’m invested and would be happy if this Bitcoin $100,000 were to happen.

@10

Wake me up when politics end

It’s going to be a long nap Mr Van Winkel…but I agree (bitcoin isn’t “politics” per se)

@12

I’m stoked for the season to start. I like the overall talent level. Plus a year more mature Mitch.

I want whatever drugs you’re on!

@24

The Bullock, Ellington, and Morris signings seem totally pointless and create a logjam for minutes to be distributed to the young guys, who by the way need to play.

That’s my problem with the off-season. If they left 2-3 slots open for prospects like Wooten to crack the lineup, or to have cap flexibility to absorb a star contract if one became available.

Also, unless we want to retitle this web page, let’s get off of politics because the temptation to post something belligerent is overwhelming and difficult to resist.

Perhaps you’d all like more bitcoin rabbit hole stuff. https://www.wired.com/story/was-bitcoin-created-by-this-international-drug-dealer-maybe/

Also, unless we want to retitle this web page, let’s get off of politics because the temptation to post something belligerent is overwhelming and difficult to resist.

Yeah, so far everyone seems to be able to work well and play well with others, but you can feel the belligerency simmering just below the surface.

I haven’t lost hope that DSJ can figure it out and become a competent point guard and valuable contributor for the Knicks. The coaching staff should earn their salaries and work with him on improving his decision making and 3 point shooting. How hard is that? He certainly has some skills to work with. The chances of him becoming good are exponentially higher than Frank’s IMO.

Troubling note from Vorkunov’s summer league wrap-up, while discussing the encroachment on Mitch’s playing time this season:

Randle is nominally a power forward, but he played half his minutes at center for the Lakers in 2017-18 and played there a quarter of the time last year in New Orleans. That may be his future with the Knicks, too.

“Fiz says he’s going to play him a lot at the five,” Knox said last week, “which is going to be a nightmare for a lot of fives in the league.”

We’ll hear directly from Fizdale at some point what he intends to do with Randle, but indications are that the 6-foot-9 lefty could be seeing significant time at center. Maybe that doesn’t really matter, and he still intends to play him a good amount alongside Robinson, but it’s clear that Fizdale thinks Randle is at his best as a center.

Stop worrying about Mitch. He’ll play plenty.

Trier does deserve some run, and his skill set is actually something the team doesn’t have much of: he’s a speedy guard who can get to the rack and score and draw free throws and he can also shoot a little. Most of our guards are not that type of player.

Agree, Trier can play and deserves some burn.

Trier can and should play, but signing Ellington and Bullock plus drafting Barrett probably tells us they’re not looking to give him many minutes. He’s not a Point Guard at all, so he should not be competing for minutes with DSJ and Payton. I like him, I think if he can shoot more threes and get to the rim consistently he can be a Eric Gordon type of player that has a spot coming off the bench for even contending teams, but he’s also not a good defender and has to improve some before I get too excited about him.

Not for us. I think as soon as he loses his big contract number someone will give him a shot for a while.

I just saw a video of a recent Ntilikina workout. Did he grow even more since last season? He looks a little taller and stronger/heavier than last season like he’s FINALLY growing into his frame. Kinda looks like he’s growing into a frame similar to Iguodala. Long arms, broad shoulders, more muscular build. He looks like he has worked really hard to tighten his handle. I guess we’ll see if it worked come preseason. If he’s grown some more and it translates to the court- I dunno yal. Fiz may not want the team to trade him. But we’ll see.

I just want to remind everyone how rare it is for a lottery pick (lmao, Ntilikina was a lottery pick!) to be out of the league by the end of their rookie contract. But indeed, that is a real possibility with our Frank.

I wasn’t upset about the Frank pick. I was furious about Weiss over Artest, Knox over SGA or Mikal, Hill over Lawson. Frank wasn’t an outrageous reach or anything at the time.

Yeah hindsight is always 20/20 on Frank. IIRC a lot of mocks had him at about the range we picked him. I think most on the board were either in for Frank, DSJ or Monk (although I think a few less were on the Monk train).

The 2 spot is going to be an intriguing camp battle and it will be interesting to see how comes out on top. I feel RJ is the lock to start, but as far as any rotation goes that is anyone’s guess. If Frank appears to have grown a bit more into his frame, it would be interesting to see if Fiz looks to move him to a wing.

Ok. Honest question for Mets fans here. What trade EVER in NY Mets history do you love? (for the Mets, of course)

Preston Wilson and some assorted junk for Mike Piazza was a good time

@84 – yeah Piazza’s probably the winner

The trade that sent Bob Ojeda to the Mets and Calvin Schiraldi to the Red Sox was a true win-win

@85 I would like to believe that. I think he has to show a lot in the FIBA tournament and pre-season.

I did hear that Frank grew more. Could he be a SF now? That SG/SF 3-and-D seems to be his calling… if he can figure out the 3 part.

The more I think about it, the more I dislike the Bullock signing. I think it will generate goodwill and help change the perception around the league considering the team took care of him when they didn’t need to, but we already have a Reggie Bullock. He wears #21. And Bullock is probably his floor. It would be disappointing, to say the least, if Dot and Trier can’t beat Bullock out. I’m still on t hff e fence about Ellington..

The more I think about it, the more I dislike the Bullock signing. I think it will generate goodwill and help change the perception around the league considering the team took care of him when they didn’t need to, but we already have a Reggie Bullock. He wears #21. And Bullock is probably his floor. It would be disappointing, to say the least, if Dot and Trier can’t beat Bullock out. I’m still on t hff e fence about Ellington..

Considering word is he will miss the first month of the season makes it even stranger. Upside is more minutes for Dot, Trier and RJ.