One thing I’m not sure of: do we have a better outlook today than we would have if we had signed Kyrie and Durant?

Fuck yes.

This take is legitimately wild to me. I don’t think signing Durant was any kind of slam dunk – THCJ is right that the injury/age combination is legitimately terrifying. It’s a massive roll of the dice on him coming back healthy. It’s also important to remember that if he does come back healthy he would have been by a not insignificant margin the best player to ever suit it up for the Knicks, and that a 100% Durant + Kyrie is a legitimately championship worthy 1-2 punch. Now even in this scenario you may not win the title – you still need to maximize the fringe talent and get your fair share of luck, but you’re in the mix.

And now here’s the real key – we did basically nothing of value with our cap space instead. If you want to argue that we might have theoretically been better off with an optimal use of the cap space than with signing Durant, okay, I’m willing to hear you out. But if you’re trying to convince me that I should be happy to have Bobby Portis+Marcus Morris+Wayne Ellington instead of Kevin Durant I’m not buying that for a second. Sure, you’ll tell me that in two years those guys will have expired whereas Durant would still be on the books, but I’d rather roll the dice now with legitimate championship upside than kick the can down the road two years with no real plan.

Kind of like James Harden, but playing a different position and not being one of the best offensive players in NBA history.

Randle is pretty elite offensively. In the last 3 seasons, only three other players who played more than 2000 minutes have a TS% of .600 or above, a usage of over 27% and 10+ per 36. Giannis, AD and Towns, all of whom signed max contracts. Two are perennial preseason MVP candidates, one is a top 10- 20 player. He’s not James Harden, I’ll give you that, but he’s a very nice complementary player for the price.

One thing I’m not sure of: do we have a better outlook today than we would have if we had signed Kyrie and Durant?

Fuck yes. There are three main ways the Nets can go with the Kyvin Durrving era:

1) Their current role players and young’ns develop like crazy, Kyrie stays healthy, Durant comes back the same explosive sharpshooter he’s been for like 13 seasons, and they are a top-2 powerhouse in the East starting in 2020, while the Sixers lament their pisspoor, short-sighted management over the last couple seasons; the Bucks fail to keep the role-player glut intact and see Giannis superheroing the team to 55 wins and a threepeat of Conference Semis losses; Miami cries itself to sleep as it realizes it’s traded for Chris Paul’s hilarious max and will be paying a 30-something Jimmy Buckets to spray Cristal all over the world’s hottest Latina women on the average weeknight; and people completely forget that the Boston Celtics even exist. Oh, and maybe Mitch wins DPOY and R.J. turns into prime Wade.

2) They realize it was a giant fucking mistake to sign an aged, injured guy (already on the decline!) to pair next to a malcontented weirdo and blow it all up for a haul of assets as oversized as KD’s risk-laden contract. This seems like career suicide for Sean Marks, even though Joseph Tsai might have this month made himself the smartest owner in American sports, so maybe the case could be made. But probably not.

3) Most likely to my mind? The Nets struggle in the mid-40 win range and they start mortgaging virtually all of their future assets to make a big splash during trade season. And that maybe gets them up into the 50-win club, but certainly far short of the 57+ you’d expect from a contender.

#3 is the one that would worry me most if I’m a Nets fan. And since I’m a Knicks “fan,” I can sleep at night knowing that we’re probably not trading the 2023, 2025 and 2027 1RP out of…

But good riddance to him.

KP can also spread the floor beyond the 3 point line at high efficiency

What does this even mean? Despite the good 3pt shooting KP’s efficiency is still mediocre.

I know that you argue DAL/Carlisle will cut back on the bad mid range shots so KP’s TS% will improve. But I would still be nervous about KP’s lack of production around the rim for a 7’3 guy. He doesn’t leverage his size enough to get easy buckets and hasn’t shown any propensity to bang down low. Not sure if his lack of strength is the only reason either. Rookie Mitch was a beanpole just like KP and still managed to score a bunch around the hoop.

I’m inclined to say yes, simply because dodging the Durant bullet is that significant. And we’re probably going to have a lottery pick this summer instead of whatever Kyrie could have carried us to. But we need to eventually capitalize on the future space to confirm.

Maybe I’m delusional, but I’m feeling not horrible about this team and it’s future. Now if we can just get rid of Dolan…

I find myself feeling generally upbeat, too.

There’s still a ton of work to do. But I think we have at least three young pieces in place (Randle, Barrett, Robinson) that I think can be part of a good team in the future.

We have some scratch off tickets in Knox, Trier, Smith, Payton, and Brazdekis that could pay off.

And PICKS! We have surplus of draft picks! I’m not saying it’s a good time, but it’s nowhere near the worst time to be a Knicks fan. There’s definitely an uptick.

Yeah, I wish we had his talent, but he’s gone. We move on.

Randle’s defense is quite suspect but his flaws are fixable. The other day I watched video of him going one-on-one against Carmelo Anthony and the first thing that I noticed is his failure to use his hands. I’ll let you all judge that. Then I found this article on P&T and it confirmed what I saw. He’s fast enough to stay in front of the person he’s defending and he’s very strong and doesn’t get moved. What the author noticed was the same thing. He doesn’t complete the defensive play. He doesn’t contest the shot enough. Using those hands to bother shooters could make a huge difference in his game – especially since his problem is due to mechanical flaws.

I’ll be curious to see how he plays when camp opens. One thing that bothers me a lot is that there’s no real defense coach on this team. I would love to get a real defensive savant to work with our guys daily.

Maybe I’m delusional, but I’m feeling not horrible about this team and it’s future. Now if we can just get rid of Dolan…