2019-20 Game Thread: Knicks vs. Nuggets

See, now this is why I don’t think it is inconceivable that the Raptors might actually let Masai Ujiri leave if he wanted to join the Knicks as the Glen Sather of the Knicks (the competent guy that Dolan trusts enough to run his sports organization). Ujiri was pushed out of Denver in one of those embarrassing power plays where the owner’s kid didn’t want to give Ujiri a big raise and total control like Toronto was offering Ujiri, but Ujiri had built up such a strong organization below him that when Tim Connelly was brought in to replace Ujiri, he was able to step in and make the transition a smooth one. The impact of guys like Ujiri go far beyond their skills as executives, it is also about building a foundation where you hire other talented people to work under you and allow for smooth transitions when the man on the top changes (Connelly, of course, should be credited, as well. Note that the guy Connelly brought in with him as his assistant GM, Art?ras Karnišovas, was so respected that they ultimately decided to promote Connelly to president so that Karnišovas could become GM).

By all accounts, Ujiri has turned Toronto’s structure around so well that one of his subordinates would likely do a fine job in Ujiri’s absence.

Long story short, competent organizations make me sad when I see Steve Mills fail his way to practically unfettered control over this piece of shit organization.

Let’s go! Knicks?

258 replies on “2019-20 Game Thread: Knicks vs. Nuggets”

Note in Denver’s offense Jokic sets a hard screen up high virtually every possession for the PG…. watching Dizfail????? This is what they call NBA basketball.

@1 – Good one

Jokic’s line could rival one of Harden’s tonight.

Fizdale is obviously not the answer and needs to go, but at this point I’m not sure what that would change. This team is is just a huge mismash of ill fitting parts. Red Auerbach couldn’t do much with this squad even if he had Pop, Pat Riley, and Red Holtzman as his assistants.

The cruel irony is that now that the Knicks are in full tank mode, the lottery odds are such that they may not really cash in anyway. More losing and dumb fuckery to come , stay tuned.
At least we can can debate Frank to death for the next 6 months

Solid first quarter so far. Randle looks infinitely better when he is moving quick and looking for the outlet pass.

turned on the game and was pleasantly surprised and the Knicks have bungled every possession since

So, let me get this straight: Robinson is now causing other Knicks to foul stupidly???

If Jokic were on the Knicks bob would post every day about how fat he was and complain he didn’t move on defense.

The Elfrid Payton/Dennis Smith, Jr. backcourt oughta be good for a few laughs. It’s almost as if Fizdale is trolling us at this point.

If Jokic were on the Knicks bob would post every day about how fat he was and complain he didn’t move on defense.

I was just about to post he should get Michael Jordan’s personal trainer and go on a low carb diet…..

I’m going over to the local Catholic school to watch some 7th graders play offense well and occasionally contest a 3.

You know those restaurants that name sandwiches after players? A Jokic would be a Mortadella and seven-layer cake on French toast.

I’m going to go out on a limb and say Fizdale has lost the team. They either aren’t trying now or they are so amazingly bad as individuals and as a team it has never been worse in NY.

Has Fizdale tried telling them not to leave the good shooters wide open every possession? Could be worth a shot.

I’m going over to the local Catholic school to watch some 7th graders play

curious now, what’s the second creepiest post in knickerblogger history?

Unless Fizdale has Bug Bunny’s special Space Jam drink for the half-time break, you have to think his doomsday clock is moving closer to midnight.

honestly i don’t think that was as bad as it looked. i mean, it wasn’t good but the nuggets really couldn’t miss from the perimeter.

@34

I’m not so sure what’s so creepy about watching the local CYO kids play basketball better than the Knicks, but I’ll assume this a personal issue with you for taking it in some perverted way.

you have to respect morris chucking full court at the buzzer when he’s leading the league in 3p%

Even at points with Hornacek, the players would pull it together every once in a while and win a game here and there with pressure on the coach. But these guys… even if they want to, they just can’t do it because the coaching is AWFUL.

honestly i don’t think that was as bad as it looked. i mean, it wasn’t good but the nuggets really couldn’t miss from the perimeter.

Yeah it didn’t have the same feel as the Bucks game despite the score being similar.

Still, our offense is fucking hideous.

The “switch everything” defense is bringing flashbacks of Andrea Bargnani trying to defend in space.

Outside of 20 good seconds from Kevin Knox, the 2nd quarter was unrelentingly grim.

You can’t play a switching defense without having players that actually have the ability to guard multiple positions. Outside of a couple players, the Knicks don’t have any players like that. They can’t even guard their own position. The Knicks start with some basketball philosophy and then try to force players that don’t fit into that system or with each other into it. It’s incomprehensible incompetence on every level. This team has some players that can play. Someone competent could probably make just a few moves and coach the team to respectability, but it won’t be these guys.

I’m still at work.

Is it as bad as last year’s game in Denver? I remember it because it was the one game I was legitimately upset at Fiz for the team’s shitty effort.

I’m a 10 plus year lurker here. I check in multiple times a day. I almost never post cuz I’m just not insightful enough to add anything meaningful to the discourse here (and because I’m afraid of jowles 🙂 Tonight I feel confident enough to make a few bold assertions:

This team sucks

This team will probably suck until I die (I’m 52)

Wally is an idiot

Is there a reason we still have Randle shooting 3s when it’s pretty apparent last year’s mediocrity was an aberration?

The rest of the time he’s in there, Frank should just keep shooting threes, even if he misses them all.

I’m a 10 plus year lurker here. I check in multiple times a day. I almost never post cuz I’m just not insightful enough to add anything meaningful to the discourse here (and because I’m afraid of jowles 🙂 Tonight I feel confident enough to make a few bold assertions:

This team sucks

This team will probably suck until I die (I’m 52)

Wally is an idiot

Congratulations, you’re already smarter than 50% of the posters here (including me)

I’m not watching. Is the crowd chanting anything? Curious which of “Fire Fizdale”, “Fire Mills” or “Sell the Knicks” is taking precedence.

@58

I agree on all counts, except imagine how I feel. I’m 60.

Frank suddenly thinks he’s good enough to take a heat check 3 from 3-4 feet beyond the arc. Smh. Lol

Mitch dominated in the first half and has zero fouls, maybe don’t wait until the 7th minute of the 3rd to bring him in?

Better yet, maybe just start your best damn player?

I’ll guess Gilbert Arenas for the trivia question. “Highest scoring average for 2nd round pick since 1985?” Jokic inspired it as #7 w/ 16.2.

Maybe they could bring in lottery weighting based on consecutive years of losing…

Why hasn’t Denver emptied their bench and sent the starters home? They have Boston tomorrow on a back to back. Their bench is probably better than our starting unit.

Those Warrior/Knicks games suddenly may have some significance. lol

I just don’t understand why Fiz doesn’t at least try to spread the floor with Mitch in the middle and play anyone besides Randle/Portis at the 4. They have a lot of interchangeable pieces that can play the 2-4 and shoot at least halfway decent from downtown. Why not try it.

At least Robinson had a good two way game. He’ll be fine as soon as we get some real basketball people in NY and he learns how to play and expands his game.

@81

He’ll be back in shape in time for the playoffs….I think.

yeah you better keep running scared you little wussy lurker swine maggot baby

also this team sucks and will likely suck until I’m dead (I’m 33)

How is Fizdale not fired yet? This is definitely grounds for midgame dismissal

The answer is “What is so distressing is this is the second straight game where the Knicks have basically let go of the rope.”

What does it sound like when Mike Breen tries to get a coaching change?

I’ll take interim coaches for $400, Alex.

> yeah you better keep running scared you little wussy lurker swine maggot baby

This is why I love it here 🙂

You and JK are pretty much the only reasons I pay any attention at at all to this train wreck. And milo is truly a gem!

let’s focus on the fact that mitch played 30 minutes without fouling while also hurling bobby portis into an opponent

NYKFilmSchool
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53m
James Dolan has somehow agreed to pay Phil Jackson, Jeff Hornacek, and pretty soon David Fizdale upwards of $51 million for them to sit at home so Steve Mills can continue to make basketball decisions

The Knicks have won 50 games since Mills took over as President in 2017

It feels like you just told me that I’m the reason you continue to drink yourself into an early grave.

Did they rook us? Asking for a friend

thenoblefacehumper, just caught up on the thread from earlier and saw that you are a law student in NYC. I’m an NYU law grad. did the big law thing, then the in-house thing, then launched my own firm. shoot me a message if you want to dialogue.

Wow! Thanks so much. As you seem to have surmised, I’m a 1L at NYU 🙂

Edit: Also, I promise the knickerblogger account name I made at age 12 is not a reflection of who I am today.

Bruh, did Wally just say something that I agree with? He said that if you’re a bad shooter as a young player, it’s very hard to flip the switch in the NBA.

I’m watching the game now and I had the wierdest thought — it was maybe they should run plays for Frank. I know, that’s ridiculous, but he is the best three point shooter for the Knicks in this game so far. Even the one he tried from deep was closer than any from Randle.

If I can make a self-serving suggestion, guys: yesterday, we published my list of the 50 best shows of the 2010s. Not all of them may be for you, but I can guarantee every single one of them is more entertaining than watching this embarrassing trainwreck.

Take a break. Watch Banshee or Fleabag or Justified. Hell, The Leftovers will leave you feeling happier than this.

Ugh. Was he talking about Barrett?

Can they bring one of the van Gundys in mid season? That would be a fun storyline.

@103

Great list if for nothing else than the fact that you put The Leftovers on top.

Question for you: do you believe Nora’s story at the end? I do.

Best Clydesian suit of the season……

just starting the game now…very good call…damn that shit looks good though…

I mean, I can’t begin to remember the last tie i put on…it’s been a while for sure – but seriously, where would you even buy some stuff like that…it’s gotta be all custom wear…

Whoa, where is Stranger Things on this list? I also thought Orange is the New Black deserved a way better ranking.

Question for you: do you believe Nora’s story at the end? I do.

When I watched it, I did. Because Coon is that flipping great. The next day, I thought Nora was full of it. I flip flop on it constantly. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter, because her life unfolded basically the same way no matter what happened in that truck.

Whoa, where is Stranger Things on this list?

On a long list of the Hall of the Very Good from the decade.

Maybe they just think that since half the roster won’t be back next year, it won’t matter if they make Fiz a lame-duck coach by the first week of December

@94

Oh man, lowkey throwing shade at Farfa! The man watches every shit show game we play and recaps it for us in a humorous manner. You could at least give him a shoutout in the comments.

Guess I didn’t miss much this game. Looks like the highlight was Mitch getting to play more than 20 minutes. Looking at the schedule I’m really excited about the game at Portland on Tuesday. If we lose against Indy Saturday we’ll have a chance to lose against the Blazers and fall to 4-20. I’ve never been an enthusiast but that’s hilarious.

just finished the 1st quarter, couple of questions came to mind:

– is there any price that you would want bobby portis on the team?

– is mitch’s defensive stance fundamentally correct?

– is it me, or does dennis smith junior’s demeanor seem like it would suck the joy out of an area with a radius of at least 10 feet?

Love the list Alsep,

I think Community was my favorite show of the decade. Definitely had some issues with consistency and once Glover left, the heart really felt gone.

Love Atlanta, Fleabag, Parks and Rec, Bojack. I’ll have to check out the rest of the top ten, especially Leftovers.

I think Adventure Time was the surprising absentee for me. I didn’t watch the other animated shows (other than Bojack), but Adventure Time seemed to have a huge impact on animated shows in general. I thought it was really solid watching it in my mid-20’s.

Also welcome to Fetch and any other lurkers. I post here all the time and my insight is generally that Frank sucks. Really, it’s not that bad. Jowles hasn’t told anyone to drink bleach in years.

I think Adventure Time was the surprising absentee for me.

Haven’t seen it. Has long been on the to-do list with the kids, but knowing how many episodes there are to get through, we did some shorter-term series like Gravity Falls and Steven Universe first.

Haven’t seen it. Has long been on the to-do list with the kids, but knowing how many episodes there are to get through, we did some shorter-term series like Gravity Falls and Steven Universe first.

Makes sense. It was probably a year out of college or finishing it up and all of a sudden everyone my age was talking about how much they loved it. The show definitely surprised me with how good it was.

I had never heard of the Leftovers until earlier this week, when I was listening to Max Richter and it turned out to be his score for the show.

I would have thought Rick And Morty would have been on a top 50 list, but I’m a “stan” of that show as they say.

You’re a fine writer and that looks like a great list, alsep, thanks for posting it here.

really liking the msg feed…mike and clyde must really be making some noise around the league, they even typically broadcast an option for away games for the knicks…

aren’t we like the most valuable franchise in the association…those two are definitely helping the bottom line a bunch…

other than those two, what I like most is the in between time…like the bench, huddle shots and them showing the halftime shoot around…interesting to see some of their interactions…

if there was a player on the team you could sit down and spend a little time with – who would it be?

@127 I’d like to spend a little time with Trier and ask him what he did to be sent to the Dungeon for so long and how he plans on escaping.

Man, I just went through that whole list, and most of those shows I’ve never even heard of, let alone seen (I went into baby mode in 2015 and have only just started to re-emerge).

The only show I saw every episode of on that entire list was Parks & Rec, which I thought was just a guilty of pleasure of mine that I found on Netflix. It’s not my little secret? Damn.

I hope Owen was watching for that

Didn’t watch but that sounds like a David Lee interview. As good as he was as a player he is even better as a person. 😉 He’s a smart dude, love what he did after leaving the Knicks.

Very good thread folks. It’s going to be bittersweet if the Knicks get good and this board stops being so hilarious. Peak form tonight.

Alsep – Rectify! Tried to binge it at some point, possibly based on your review, but never got traction. Then saw you had it #9 on your list. Will have to revisit .

Parks and Rec is another masterpiece from Michael Schur, aka Ken Tremendous of Fire Joe Morgan fame.

I would have thought Rick And Morty would have been on a top 50 list

A show I admire (a lot, admittedly) more than love.

Hey Fetch, just remember that I am responsible for some of Jowles’ best posts….

most infamous*

I think ruruland takes the cake. Ted Nelson was smart but just too “produce original research or stfu” to be taken as seriously as he took himself. jon abbey was a real one, especially when he called Harden a forever sixth man. Z-man wore me down with his IRL good-heartedness. Stratomatic keeps barking at that those spreadsheet clouds and I really don’t know what to tell him anymore.

When I think about jon abbey’s misguided approach to team-building vis a vis Harden, I think, “Hey, sure, Harden had a career year before he got traded. .660 TS% on decent usage from a 22-year-old is great!” And then I remember that these things happen from time to time, especially on good teams. Jameer Nelson in 2008-09, Otto Porter in 2016-17, Larry Hughes in 2004-05, just off the top of my head. We weren’t arguing so much about what had happened in 2012, but what was expected to happen over the next several years (and apparently lingering into the next decade, which is insane).

ruruland, on the other hand, was telling me to disbelieve everything I had seen from Carmelo for 8 years. He told me that gravity and spacing would undo the sins of the triple-deke jabstep. He told me that .532 was, in reality, a very good TS% for a player to have during a season where the best-shooting team shot .584 and the worst shot .520, accounting for much of the difference between scoring 1.136 and 1.023 PPP. He told me that the Knicks hadn’t really given up much for Carmelo, especially when you consider how many other superstars would want to join him in NYC.

And then he said this to JK47 about A Very Tall Italian Man:

To pretend [redacted] is void of high-level skills for a guy his size disqualifies you from making intelligent commentary on the trade.

And in turn, I realized we had been trolled and trolled hard.

Great list, Al. I was pleased to see The Good Place on the list – a show I just binged with my son. A lot of my visual art these days is directly related to what he’s willing to watch (and might be appropriate for him). It was good to graduate from The Flash (admittedly pretty decent its first season and then…not) to Gravity Falls to Agents of Shield (genuinely great art in season four) to The Good Place this year. As you say, the highs are so high! Sometimes it’s just jaw-droppingly good and I can’t believe a network show is working through different philosophies of how to live a good life while tossing out genuinely funny jokes every other minute. Amazing stuff a lot of the time. Which puts Parks and Rec on my to do list…though probably not with him.

I haven’t seen a bunch of those shows (I refuse to have anything to do with Amazon), but the only one I kind of disagree with is Watchmen. Can’t argue with its quality (or its topicality and timeliness), but it’s so grim and a little slow and clumsily portentous. I think you’re giving Lindelof the benefit of the doubt given his track record, but…I wonder if it’s going to seem all that good ten years from now.

my first thought was RJ…it just impressed the hell out of me that he showed his very first day in the NBA ready to go to work…it’d be interesting to sit down with him and find out a little more how he grew up and where does he wanna go in the future…

then I thought taj, bet he’s got a lot of great stories, and, he’s a new yorker…

finally maybe julius…seems like a pretty affable guy…

Nice list, alsep73. It’s too bad no science fiction shows made the list. I get it, most of the stuff made in this decade was mediocre, but I’d like to think The Expanse would creep in near the bottom of the list. It takes a few episodes to get into (usually the 4th one is where people get hooked), but it is sci-fi with realistic physics (no warp drives / shields / phasers) which excites the nerd within me. New season coming to Amazon next Friday!

I would like The Deuce so much better if it didn’t have the double James Franco thing happening. I just didn’t find it believable that it was two different people, and that really killed the immersion factor for me.

I liked just trying to figure out of I could guess which shows you had in what spot in the top ten (I did pretty well)!

Alsep, I’m sure you’re familiar with him, but do you personally know Robert Thompson, the Syracuse University professor? I took his TV criticism class at ‘Cuse and it was a great experience. I really learned a lot from him. I’m sure you guys must have crossed paths at some point.

Justify was some of Elmore Leonard’s best work. The depth of the characters Raylen Givens and Boyd Crowder was just too good.

While reading @alsep’s great top 50 list, I saw an ad for an Eagle’s concert at MSG on February 14th. I assume JD and the straight shot will be opening. Perhaps KBers should attend with signs that read: “FIRE MILLS!”

It’s too bad no science fiction shows made the list. I get it, most of the stuff made in this decade was mediocre, but I’d like to think The Expanse would creep in near the bottom of the list.

First, I would argue strongly that Leftovers is science fiction — just not the “pew pew!” space battles kind.

Second, I enjoy Expanse but don’t give a toss about literally any character on the show. (Though I at least like Amos.) some of that’s on the actors they hired (especially once Thomas Jane ceased to be a regular), but I need some level of investment in the people on a show to consider it potentially Great.

I’m sure you’re familiar with him, but do you personally know Robert Thompson, the Syracuse University professor?

I knew Bob long distance for years and would occasionally quote him in my Star-Ledger column, but didn’t meet him for the first time until after TV (THE BOOK) came out and matt and I were invited to do a guest lecture at his class up in Syracuse. Very nice guy, on top of knowing his stuff.

so patently obvious that Mills/Perry are waiting to fire Fizdale until the schedule lets up, making it seem more like Fiz’s fault than their fault.

We are in a dangerous place now — lots of long-term decisions need to be made before the trade deadline, and there isn’t a single person in the FO or coaching staff who isn’t just trying to get through the next day.

Scary as it seems, we need Dolan to rescue this team. I’d love to fire everyone and install Mike Miller as head coach, but we still need someone to make long-term decisions about the roster for the rest of this season. I do not know how to reconcile these things.

Benny, this is why you fire fix even though we want to tank.

This shit is demoralizing. We’re creeping into worst-team-of-our-lifetimes territory. Any other team you might put up against it was probably trying to be bad.

Of course, when we’re truly bad enough to bottom out again, it’s in a weak draft, lol.

I like Cole/Edwards/Mannion/Halliburton (and it’s nice that all the best prospects outside of Wiseman are guards, especially point guards) but they strike me as RJB quality prospects–i.e. good, happy to have them, but not quite what you’re hoping for from a top 3 pick. Somewhere in between all-star and solid starter. Wiseman is obviously legit though.

Aslep, I keep going over your list. It’s very good and definitely gives food for thought.

I wonder about Girls being on that list as well. I thought it was self-indulgent, derivative tripe that we’ve seen before with Seinfeld, Friends, and Sex in the City but with a narrowed trust fund baby view of being a NYer really is.

I wonder about Girls being on that list as well. I thought it was self-indulgent, derivative tripe that we’ve seen before with Seinfeld, Friends, and Sex in the City but with a narrowed trust fund baby view of being a NYer really is.

1. I don’t think Girls’ view of NYC is any more myopic — or white — than those shows you listed.

2. I think the only one it vaguely has anything in common with thematically is Friends, and they’re so tonally different that it’s like comparing 2001 and Guardians of the Galaxy because both take place in space.

3. I think Lena Dunham, while a difficult public personality, is a really talented filmmaker. I liked being in thatbworld every week, even though many of the characters on it were toxic personalities. Many of my favorite images from the decade in TV come from that show.

The possible silver lining in this recent narrative is the situation is so dire that it finally might compel Dolan to blow up the entire management structure. That is the type of move that cannot be made mid-season unless you want Isiah Thomas as an interim POBO. That said, things have become so dire that replacing Fizz is inevitable to mitigate the harm to the young assets.
( aside to alsep: I think Unbelievable is worthy of inclusion both for the uniqueness of its pov, as well as the excellent acting).

thanks for that list alsep. i’m sure it’s a bit of a thankless task to have to pick 50 while everyone cries about the omission of their favorites. that said, if you think men of a certain age was better than shameless i will physically fight you.

It’s difficult to know how good any of our young players are when the overall team level offense is so terrible it’s clearly impacting the veterans badly. Here are the TS% of out recently acquired vets who are not in the middle of significant declines in heir career.

Morris
2018 – 56.8%
2019 – 57% (despite unsustainable 50% from 3)

Randle
2018 – 60%
2019 – 51.6%

Bobby Portis
2018 – 53%
2019 – 47.8%

Wayne Ellington
2018 – 58.4% (that was a peak year by ~ 56% has been normal in recent years)
2019 – 46%

Taj Gibson
2018 – 61.2% (way above long term average, but was also over 60% in 2017)
2019 – 54.2%

How can you know what Knox, RJ, Frank, Dotson, and even Mitch would be doing on well constructed team running a sensible offense for a good coach?

I think Unbelievable is worthy of inclusion both for the uniqueness of its pov, as well as the excellent acting).

Unbelievable will be on my best of 2019 list. I mostly avoided new shows from this year on the decade list, and made an exception only for Watchmen because I knew I’d be mad at myself years from now knowing that I omitted it — even if the finale doesn’t work.

that said, if you think men of a certain age was better than shameless i will physically fight you.

Bring it. Even in its really good early seasons, I think Shameless only made my top 20 for that year once or twice, because as good as Rossum and some of the other young actors were, I always found Frank stories an incredible chore to get through, and never remotely as funny as the show clearly found them. Men of a Certain Age benefits from its brevity — it never had time to get bad in the way that, say, Homeland or Handmaids Tale did — but I love just about everything about those two seasons.

Here are my Frank thoughts of the day.

1. I think Frank may still be playing through some pain (or he’s being frozen out by teammates).

a. I’ve seen numerous occasions he’s been wide open from 3 and they swung the ball the opposite way instead of going to him. Granted, Frank is a bad shooter and should not be a primary option, but when you have guys like Randle and RJ throwing up bricks all night against defenders, a wide open Frank is a better option. He’s hitting more 3s than those bricklayers.

b. Since the groin and back soreness became public he is having almost no impact on defense or on the boards. He has also backed off the improved aggression getting into mid range that gave him some chance to make a play or take an open 10 footer. He’s just handing the ball off to Randle (or whoever), moving to corner, the ball disappears into a Knicks ISO black hole, and he rarely sees it again. He has to stop giving up the ball so quickly to those black holes and try to make something happen quickly first. Then given his limitations as a penetrator at this stage, give it up if he makes no progress.

Girls is an excellent show if you understand it as cold-blooded satire, which it is. I can’t stand Dunham IRL but she viciously pillories daddy’s-money Millennial NYC transplants throughout that show and with incredible accuracy. I swear to God that Marnie is based on my ex.

Jk, I loved the episode with DFW and FJM references everywhere. I felt like the easter-egg-hunting geeks just feel when they watch Shaun of the Dead or Cabin in the Woods.

I always found Frank stories an incredible chore to get through, and never remotely as funny as the show clearly found them.

i liked early frank plenty but agree the series would have benefited a lot had they killed him off way before he became some kind of cartoonish walking dead mr. roper always playing the same grotesque song.

Men of a Certain Age benefits from its brevity — it never had time to get bad in the way

agree with the first half :). thanks again for the link, put a bunch on my list.

I wonder about Girls being on that list as well. I thought it was self-indulgent, derivative tripe that we’ve seen before with Seinfeld, Friends, and Sex in the City but with a narrowed trust fund baby view of being a NYer really is.

I never understood why girls received such a disproportionate amount of criticism for something literally every POV show does.

I never understood why girls received such a disproportionate amount of criticism for something literally every POV show does.

Because by the time it came around, every POV show in NYC did it by the early aughties. This wouldn’t be a problem if there wasn’t some sort of pretense that this show was ingeniously clever, witty, or innovative in depicting the lives of Millenial urbanites beyond recycling the most vapid stereotypical depictions about them. But somehow we exist in a universe where this show has 17 Emmy nominations and 2 wins while the Wire has none.

Yes, Girls has 2 Emmys and the Wire has none. So, yes, hate on…

Maybe they could bring in lottery weighting based on consecutive years of losing…

I think you meant this as a joke but it always made more sense than what they came up with.

A lottery system that used three year averages and gave extra weighting to teams that didn’t win in the previous three years would have accomplished what the draft is supposed to do while taking away much of the incentive to tank.

And it would have helped teams like us, who never embraced tanking and just needed a little luck. That’s who they wanted to help in the first place.

Here’s a positive from last night’s game: the Nuggets got to rest their starters, so they’ll be more likely to beat the Celtics tonight.

That’s all I got…

I always found Frank stories an incredible chore to get through.

I didn’t realize that show was a metaphor for this blog. Gotta revisit.

I actually love this lagged performance idea for lottery weighting. What am I missing?

Yes, Girls has 2 Emmys and the Wire has none. So, yes, hate on…

+1

Thank goodness for Mr. Sepinwall giving us something other to talk about than last night’s Knicks performance. My go-to method whenever the wife and I need a new show is to look at your year-end lists so I’ll be bookmarking that one and using it for a while. One that we discovered that way that I would personally advocate for on the top-50 is “One Day at a Time”. Maybe not as creative or mold-breaking as a lot on the list but one of my favorite sitcoms ever.

In Knicks news, after the two consecutive beatdowns we’re now more than point worse than the 29th ranked Warriors in net rating. We knew this was going to be a tough part of the schedule but I agree with Breen that it did look like the team let go of the proverbial rope a bit the last couple games. Particularly yesterday in the second half – the first half was actually more competitive than the score made it look because the Nuggets were red hot from downtown, but the team just didn’t look like they had much appetite to hang with it to the end. I’ve been beating the drum that Fiz would last until some more optimal scapegoating point for Pills but nobody can last long like this. Making it to Christmas has to look like an uphill battle for him at the moment.

I didn’t realize that show was a metaphor for this blog. Gotta revisit.

I realized after I hit “post comment” that that sentence had more than one meaning on a place like this.

One that we discovered that way that I would personally advocate for on the top-50 is “One Day at a Time”. Maybe not as creative or mold-breaking as a lot on the list but one of my favorite sitcoms ever.

I like One Day a LOT. Was one of the last shows that got cut once we decided to do 50 shows rather than 75 or 100. The list as a whole probably leans more towards drama than comedy, which I don’t love — the inherent bias towards drama as being fundamentally superior is one of the reasons I arranged the 2 & 3 shows the way I did — but as I kept fiddling with those last few slots, other shows just kept calling to me more. But I’d have loved to find room for either One Day or Carmichael Show or Speechless, to illustrate how issue-oriented sitcoms made something of a comeback late in the decade.

One of the things Zach Lowe doesn’t like:

2. Mitchell Robinson and Julius Randle together
It is the perfect synthesis of why New York’s summer spending spree yielded a team almost precisely as bad as last season’s very bad one: The Knicks cannot effectively play their star free-agent acquisition with their second-most-important building block. That seems like a thing you would want to do.

It goes on in some detail, but this first paragraph captures the gist of it.

Because by the time it came around, every POV show in NYC did it by the early aughties. This wouldn’t be a problem if there wasn’t some sort of pretense that this show was ingeniously clever, witty, or innovative in depicting the lives of Millenial urbanites beyond recycling the most vapid stereotypical depictions about them. But somehow we exist in a universe where this show has 17 Emmy nominations and 2 wins while the Wire has none.

The Emmy thing is fucked up, but you might as well get angry that Taylor Swift’s 1989 beat To Pimp a Butterfly at the Grammys in 2014, or that Morning Phase, a boilerplate folk-rock album, beat out Beyonce’s S/T.

I’ve dated three Bard College girls, and although I really enjoyed them (all three being from a similar lower-middle-class background as me), the people I met through them were often dead ringers for those characters. As much as I hate Boomers thinking that they know Millennials, the show is just on the nose with a lot of the depictions of privileged young-adult toddlers in NYC.

Speaking of which, at my last regional sales meeting we were receiving info about a new always-on microphone IoT product (that I would never, ever put in my house) and the 60-something product manager kept referring to the Millennials who would want it in their apartments. I looked around the room and thought, “80% of the room is over 50 and I’m sure they have Amazon Echos, Google Dots and Ring indoor cameras all over their houses.” If you have nothing to hide, what are you so worried about, Millennials?

@150

I think Lena Dunham, while a difficult public personality, is a really talented filmmaker.

I don’t see it. To me Lena Dunham is like a more contemporary version of Woody Allen without the high-art, philosophy, and history references. And I am reminded of this classic takedown of Allen’s work by the ever perceptive Joan Didion:

“The characters in Manhattan and Annie Hall and Interiors are, with one exception, presented as adults, as sentient men and women in the most productive years of their lives, but their concerns and conversations are those of clever children, ‘class brains,’ acting out a yearbook fantasy of adult life.”

I think the same can be said about Girls. That’s why I consider it so narrow, you keep repackaging the same wine in a new bottle and the taste loses the flavor. Then what do you have left?

I think the only one it vaguely has anything in common with thematically is Friends, and they’re so tonally different that it’s like comparing 2001 and Guardians of the Galaxy because both take place in space.

The same show about a niche of self-involved, neurotic, white college educated, single adult friends who barely seem to work in a city where they make up less than 10% of the actual population…but this time they’re Millennials and the female lead has body issues!

This idea of was interesting in the late 1980s when Seinfeld initially came around. At least then there was no pretense that Jerry, Elaine, George, and Kramer were these narcissistic, flawed and irredeemable characters doomed to repeat the same mistakes again and again. That show was the Boomer generation coming to grips with its own egoism and solipsism after a 8 years of Reaganism. Girls is about presenting Lena Dunham as the entitled and delusional face of her generation. Pass for me.

I don’t mean to be so cynical but Emmys (and grammys, and oscars) are not really awards. They’re tools an industry uses to mint stars so they can sell us those stars down the road.

No one wants to sell David Simon.

Girls always seems to have a lot of people who are really, really deeply invested in how much they don’t like it in a way I’m genuinely not sure I’ve ever seen with any other tv show ever. Maybe not any other piece of art in any medium ever. I’m curious how much of the show you actually watched Ntilakilla since usually when I don’t like shows I turn them off which makes it hard for me to have very informed opinions about them.

That’s why I consider it so narrow, you keep repackaging the same wine in a new bottle and the taste loses the flavor. Then what do you have left?

Brooklyn

it’s not gonna be a good draft but that doesn’t mean we can’t come away with a decent prospect…. you do have to do your homework though so you can’t just have rj barrett be there (who was very deserving of the #3 slot in just about any draft) and have the pick made for you….

besides wiseman at #1 and a edwards at #2… projections are going to differ wildly…. since we’re probably looking for a pg we’ll have a couple decent guys to look at… but probably not the ones all the mocks are thinking… nico mannion and killian hayes are guys to watch in that regard…

hopefully we won’t have mills/perry around to be making that pick….

I don’t mean to be so cynical but Emmys (and grammys, and oscars, and player of the week) are not really awards. They’re tools an industry uses to mint stars so they can sell us those stars down the road.

^Carmelo fixed it for you.

My top 5 tv shows of the 2010s

5. Leftovers
4. Bojack
3. Fleabag
2. Twin Peaks (episode #8 was the best episode of television of the decade, imo)
1. Hannibal

Haven’t watched all of the americans, rectified, justified, BCS, or better things however. Not a huge fan of Parks and Rec–I liked it but always compared it to 30 Rock, which I strongly prefer.

I’m working through Season 2 of Fleabag. When that show is on, it is really on.

and made an exception only for Watchmen because I knew I’d be mad at myself years from now knowing that I omitted it — even if the finale doesn’t work.

I was really liking watchmen until that ridiculous reddit theory about dr manhattan turned out to be true.

Gotta give credit to the internet, though. You can’t get anything past those guys. They had the two big reveals figured out by episode 2.

I may be a lowly, timorous lurker, but I may be able to claim superiority to jowles in knowledge of / exposure to the bard grad center exposure. Unfortunately, that knowledge does not afford me an insightful contrarian perspective on those folks. BGC is truly a hole filled with vapid entitled trust fund babies who don’t understand why unpaid curatorial internships don’t necessarily represent the pinnacle of achievement for those who don’t already own brownstones in Chelsea and/or half a mil in the bank accruing interest at 3%.

Also, Fleabag is dope.

“The characters in Manhattan and Annie Hall and Interiors are, with one exception, presented as adults, as sentient men and women in the most productive years of their lives, but their concerns and conversations are those of clever children, ‘class brains,’ acting out a yearbook fantasy of adult life.”

Brilliant, thanks for sharing this.

Thanks for the list, alsep73. Good to see Rectify in the top 10, I thought it was excellent.

I’m curious how much of the show you actually watched Ntilakilla since usually when I don’t like shows I turn them off which makes it hard for me to have very informed opinions about them.

I saw the first season after reading the major buzz about the show and watched into the second until that stupid episode with Donald Glover. Then I had to stop the hate watching because my masochism only runs so deep and I couldn’t take it anymore.

Brooklyn

[In my best Stephen A. Smith voice] Let us be very, very clear. The Brooklyn we see in Girls is the gentrified hipster Brooklyn, which is exactly my issue with this entire series and how it is blown up as emblematic of anything more than Lena Dunham’s pampered circle of trust-fund baby friends.

Girls has some stuff in it that’s pretty universal.

Like when you’re in your early 20’s you have this circle of friends that seems so important to you and are always going to be the most important thing forever but then you slowly start to realize that these people are your friends almost by random chance, and that some of them kind of suck, and that maybe you’re way, way overdoing it with how important they seem to be. I’m 47 and a dude and firmly a Gen-Xer but that part of the show rang true to me, especially in the later seasons when the friendships started to fray.

I watched it casually (my wife was a fan) but I thought it was a well-written show. Lena Dunham is a ridiculous person IRL and a convenient punching bag but that show was good.

I’ve dated three Bard College girls, and although I really enjoyed them (all three being from a similar lower-middle-class background as me), the people I met through them were often dead ringers for those characters. As much as I hate Boomers thinking that they know Millennials, the show is just on the nose with a lot of the depictions of privileged young-adult toddlers in NYC.

Here’s where we differ in our experiences. You may have acquainted yourself with these toddlers, but as a teaching assistant in a major NYC private university assigned to teach them. Lena Dunham is a dime a dozen in this world of brats who think they are more clever or original than they really are.

On a side note I think its kind of sad how many people are hating on Melo for winning player of the week. Its a completely meaningless award in the grand scheme of things.

Regardless of what you think of Melo and his career, you have to admit he’s doin’ all right with Portland and for a professional athlete who’s played ball his entire life only to then basically be out of the league for an entire year, its a good story. Give the man his props. I think the time away has humbled him a bit and he’s found a good situation for himself.

i’m enjoying this convo about tv shows, but it’s a very bad sign for the Knicks when a blog like this spends more of its time talking about tv shows than the team. And judging by the many emails from MSG and discounts I’m seeing on tickets, maybe the Garden is emptying out also. Ratings are down, attendance is down… maybe that’s what we’ll need to get Dolan to sell the team.

Do you think Melo was the best player of the week? Or the best narrative?

That Randle/Robinson stuff is pretty grim. Not sure how the front office can survive that.

If I were Fiz, I’d desperately start transitioning Mitch to a pf and give him the green light to shoot threes. Those two have to work together for all their sakes.

Do you think Melo was the best player of the week? Or the best narrative?

The point is who the hell cares? Nobody has ever cared about who won Player of the Week before and nobody will ever care again. If they want to give it to “best narrative of the week” for this week what’s wrong with that? Everyone knows Melo wasn’t the best player in the league last week, it’s just a recognition that he had a good week and it’s a nice story. Can’t it just be that and everyone just be fine with it?

Can’t it just be that and everyone just be fine with it?

It totally can and for most people it is just that.

But I can understand why Melo being overrated for a week rankles the people who have been complaining about him being overrated for a decade.

Doesn’t make me angry although I am firmly in that group. It’s honestly pretty hilarious.

@176

5. Leftovers
4. Bojack
3. Fleabag
2. Twin Peaks (episode #8 was the best episode of television of the decade, imo)
1. Hannibal

Haven’t watched all of the americans, rectified, justified, BCS, or better things however. Not a huge fan of Parks and Rec–I liked it but always compared it to 30 Rock, which I strongly prefer.

I think Twin Peaks: The Return #8 is the greatest single episode of TV that I’ve ever seen. I watched it again recently (I’ve watched it four times now). Incredible. “Gotta light?”

Justified was really enjoyable, and it had an excellent series finale, something that is pretty hard to pull off. I hope to do a rewatch of Mad Men soon, too.

As for worst of the decade, I’d nominate the return of X-Files for consideration.

What’s hilarious is that the disparity between Melo’s value and his reputation has managed to fuck us in a (hypothetical) trade (that we’re using to soothe ourselves while knowing that deep down know that millsperry were never going to make) yet again.

He’s John wick. We can burn his house down and send him into exile but he just keeps coming for us. He’s the goddamn babayaga.

It’s a participation trophy. Stop trying to convince me that he’s still a viable NBA player because he had three consecutive good shooting games. That’s all.

Let us be very, very clear. The Brooklyn we see in Girls is the gentrified hipster Brooklyn,

So then you’re saying the Nets’ “BED-STUY” jerseys are the Girls of uniform design?

I was watching a recent Blazer game and the dumb announcers were fawning all over Melo when he made a couple of shots. “He can get his anytime” “He’s still a lethal scorer” etc. etc.

I checked the box score a few minutes later and he was 2-6

And judging by the many emails from MSG and discounts I’m seeing on tickets, maybe the Garden is emptying out also. Ratings are down, attendance is down… maybe that’s what we’ll need to get Dolan to sell the team.

There’s no hope anymore, until Mills goes. They could get away with selling KD last year, and the “tanking” covered up a lot of stuff, but now everyone finally knows no free agents are coming to rescue this shitshow, and that Fizdale is an absolutely terrible basketball coach.

It’s probably the equivalent of saying that Mitch Robinson is an overrated 1-dimensional player who should be traded for Andrew Wiggins, but I watched the pilot of Breaking Bad and thought it was terrible and never went back for more. People insist I need to give it another chance, but it registered as a zero for me, and frankly I’m surprised anybody stuck around for episode two.

Hottest take yet!

Pilots are so laden with salesmanship that they often jam too much exposition and conflict into 40 minutes. I remember the pilot being especially good, but I wouldn’t dismiss a show like Breaking Bad until several episodes in. By the end of season 2 it has its foot on the gas and never lets up. It’s as close to Shakespearean tragedy as I’ve seen in TV.

I’ve tried to turn many people on to The Wire, and they can’t get past the first episode or two. One of my best friends is a TV/film snob, and he loved The Deuce and The Night Of, but can’t get into The Wire because he didn’t like the first episode.

It’s like dude, if you like those shows, you like The Wire.

@202
I watched all of Breaking Bad, and while I like it, I didn’t love it. I do think it had a great premise and some interesting characters and plot twists early on, but after a while I just didn’t care for anyone any more. I did hang on to see if WW could get a measure of redemption at the end.

Shows like Deadwood, The Wire, Mad Men, etc. have flawed or even “bad” characters that I still sympathized with through to the end. Not really so with anyone in BB, though. I doubt I’ll ever watch it again.

@180

It’s from a famous 1979 piece “Letter from ‘Manhattan.” The article is so good its worth getting the $1 subscription from New York Review of Books.

@204
I too did not like the first ep. of The Wire the first time I watched it. But, I gave it a second episode, and got hooked real quickly after that. I’ve watched the entire series three times, now.

BTW, to me the closest TV to Shakespeare is Deadwood, esp. with all the monologues and characters with self-doubt. Breaking Bad started out like that for me, but faded after a time. I see it more like Greek Tragedy with WW becoming self-righteous like in his hubris. Obviously YMMV.

Spoiler below

Walt’s redemption was that he was finally honest about what he did and why he did it (expressed to Skylar, “I did it because I liked it”) and freed an enslaved man whom he had wronged innumerable times. A fuller redemption would have been hollow and a total lack of redemption (Toby Soprano) would have been too bleak for many. I found the last episode a little too orchestrated and consider the penultimate episode the truer ending, but Walt finds his redemption during that conversation with Skylar. She does not forgive him, but his honesty is given for the very first time.

Damn, this discussion on Girls reminds me: Insecure should also be on asleep’s list. That show was way better.

The problem with the Wire pilot is that it is slow and smart and respectful of a patient, attentive audience and that audience alone. It doesn’t set up a grand season-propelling plot twist or tip all of its pitches re: character relationships.

It’s probably the equivalent of saying that Mitch Robinson is an overrated 1-dimensional player who should be traded for Andrew Wiggins, but I watched the pilot of Breaking Bad and thought it was terrible and never went back for more. People insist I need to give it another chance, but it registered as a zero for me, and frankly I’m surprised anybody stuck around for episode two.

I feel like we all have shows like this.

Fleabag is one for me. I gave up when they were sitting in on the lecture. I think that was, like, 20 minutes into the series. I keep thinking I should give it another go, but life is short, and why should I waste my time watching something that doesn’t resonate when I could be living my life, typing 10,000 words a day on new york knicks fan blog?

BTW, to me the closest TV to Shakespeare is Deadwood, esp. with all the monologues and characters with self-doubt. Breaking Bad started out like that for me, but faded after a time. I see it more like Greek Tragedy with WW becoming self-righteous like in his hubris. Obviously YMMV.

Keeping with the Shakespeare theme I always saw Breaking Bad as a contemporary Macbeth (my personal fave of the Bard’s plays). The show really is a wonderful character study on human frailty seen through a single man’s moral descent. Walter’s cancer diagnosis in the pilot basically plays the same role as the Weird Sisters prophecy in the opening act of the Macbeth in that it portends a certain inevitability that forces him to confront severe existential dilemma. All it took was a glimpse into the finality of their situations and both seemingly decent men engage in a series of choices which brings about great ruin.

we published my list of the 50 best shows of the 2010s.

just had a chance to check out the list…great write-ups for each that definitely have me interested in checking out some of those shows that i’ve missed…

i had no idea the leftovers were that cool, and a bunch of the other shows were that good…

how cool is it to get some tv watching homework assignments from mister al…

man, i thought i could couch potato out – you’re my hero al 🙂

BB is great, but the ending soured me on it compared to my personal list of best of–mainly because it wasn’t bleak enough (surely the ending would’ve been hated by most if it was as bleak as I wanted it to be, as Jowles rightly noted), and so gave Walt too much of a pass/betrayed the show’s core themes. That knocks it right below Sopranos/The Wire/Deadwood tier and into the Mad Men/Hannibal (yes, I really love Hannibal that much–wish we could’ve gotten Silence of the Lambs for s4…) tier. Mad Men is another show where I think the ending is made a little too pat/easy on the main characters. “Ozymandias” is one of the best episodes of TV ever, though. What a barn burner.

I feel like Walt’s mea culpa to Skylar in the end of Breaking Bad was fitting for two main reasons.

1. The show earned that moment and didn’t shoehorn it in. The main point of conflict between Sky and Walt after she found about his life as a meth lord revolved around their serious disagreements about why chose to enter a life of crime. Walt always rationalized it as a decision born of necessity to provide for his family and Sky always saw through that excuse as BS. I think leaving it out would’ve left their relationship arc unfulfilled in a really important way.

2. The show needed that moment to finally deconstruct Walt as a villain, not some unfortunate anti-hero who did the wrong things for the right reasons. Too many Breaking Bad fans who bought Heisenberg T-shirts, shaving their heads, and wearing pork pie hats were falling in love with the idea of this seemingly ordinary man taking charge over his life and asserting his will to power. It was cheap wish fulfillment that Vince Gilligan was very smart to put an end to by the series finale. After seeing how Sopranos fans idolized Tony and believed he deserved to live by the end of the show after everything he’d done I’m glad to see Breaking Bad nip that type of shit in the bud.

hmmmm, i was always rooting for walt to simply end up in prison – and, then start running stuff again…

i remember keeping count at one point, but, forget what walt’s body count was by the end of the show…yeah, not a good guy…

still my all time fave cook scene

for me though – the sound track that’s always stay in my head is tommy james and the shondells’ “Crystal Blue Persuasion”…

I have an opinion or three about Breaking Bad, you know. And I’m with Vince Gilligan, who told me once that the only real reason the finale needs to exist — as opposed to the show ending with “Ozymandias” — is for Walt and Skyler’s conversation, which couldn’t have realistically happened any sooner than it did. And it is a GREAT scene, and hugely important to the themes of the show.

(It also, sadly, illustrates how willfully people will misread the text even when the text is all but screaming at them not to. I still encounter people who have watched the whole show and believe that “Walt was just doing it for his family.”)

Honestly it feels really good to have alsep validate my lowly textual analysis

(It also, sadly, illustrates how willfully people will misread the text even when the text is all but screaming at them not to. I still encounter people who have watched the whole show and believe that “Walt was just doing it for his family.”)

Reminds of the confusion surrounding the Sopranos final scene and how fans hated it at the time because they were too busy rooting for Tony to live by the series end like a hero when David Chase was dropping hint after hint after hint that the guy was firmly on one way road to perdition.

Glad to see I’m not alone here in not loving Breaking Bad’s finale, especially since general consensus seems to be that it’s the best one ever. It was a good not great episode and really pales in comparison to Ozymandias. Still love the show but it doesn’t quite stick the landing.

@221

To be fair, a lot of the confusion about The Sopranos final scene was the hard cut to black. Honestly, my first thought was that my cable went out. In retrospect, now that I know it’s supposed to end that way, I think it’s great.

@211 Hubert, that’s funny, every single person I know watches Fleabag and loves it. I watched the first episode and wasn’t laughing nearly as much as I know I’m supposed to. So I stopped watching.

Maybe I’m just not into the Phoebe-Waller Bridge character and all those clever asides.

Sometimes a really good show doesn’t resonate with specific people. And sometimes you have to be patient. Is there a method to fleabag?

For instance, with the Leftovers, I always warn people the first season can be brutal but the next two seasons absolutely pay off your investment.

The show earned that moment and didn’t shoehorn it in.

You know what BB did shoehorn in? “I watched Jane die.” I didn’t think they earned that and just threw it in because everyone was waiting for it.

Looks like I can do a free trial of something called Philo so I can check out Fleabag. Better be worth it, y’all…!

If the Knicks need any hint about how much of a disgrace and how awful this season is, they just need to read this blog and see that we, the insanely rabid Knick fans, prefer discussing shows that ended several years ago instead of talking about the game.

Look, all I know is that I wanted to distract us all from last night’s fiasco, and I succeeded.

I Am The One Who Knocks (our discussion off course)!

@212

Keeping with the Shakespeare theme I always saw Breaking Bad as a contemporary Macbeth (my personal fave of the Bard’s plays). The show really is a wonderful character study on human frailty seen through a single man’s moral descent. Walter’s cancer diagnosis in the pilot basically plays the same role as the Weird Sisters prophecy in the opening act of the Macbeth in that it portends a certain inevitability that forces him to confront severe existential dilemma. All it took was a glimpse into the finality of their situations and both seemingly decent men engage in a series of choices which brings about great ruin.

Man, if you get me started talking Shakespeare, I’ll never stop! I had the great joy to teach both Macbeth and Hamlet for many years to advanced level high school seniors. I also tried King Lear a couple of times in AP, and did Julius Caesar a few times to sophomores.

An issue with all of S’s four main tragic heroes (Hamlet, Macbeth, Lear, and Othello) is that they are all, at some point in the drama and to some extent, probably mad, i.e. crazy. Macbeth is delusional before he even kills Duncan, and hears voices moments after he does. However, he also seems morally aware and regretful even BEFORE he commits his first murder. All of S’s guys are much more complex than Greek prototypes like Oediups and Creon (oh yeah, I got to teach both Oedipus Rex and Antigone a number of times, too).

Is WW crazy from the first episode? Does he later go crazy? Or is he never really that, just morally dark? Etc. Great stuff. I would say that two areas where Mac and BB diverge a bit, though, is that Mac is tempted with great fame and power from the Witches in his very first scene (“thou shalt be king herafter”), whereas WW develops that gradually, IIRC (it has been a while since I watched, so my memory may be faded). Also, there is the Lady Macbeth factor, as she drives Mac early on whereas WW’s wife does not assert…

They fired him after he just had a media session talking about shaking up the line up?

What are these guys doing?

I’m not saying Fizdale didn’t need to go. He clearly did. BUT YOU JUST LET HIM SPEAK TO THE MEDIA AN HOUR AGO ABOUT HIS STRATEGY FOR THE NEXT GAME.

They couldn’t fire him before lunch?

@211 Hubert, that’s funny, every single person I know watches Fleabag and loves it. I watched the first episode and wasn’t laughing nearly as much as I know I’m supposed to. So I stopped watching.

I felt the same way about Knives Out, which I saw on a whim last week. Not nearly as funny as it thought it was. Also the audience (at a center-right suburb’s mall cinema) did not seem to understand that it was a comedy, either. That may have affected me. I’m a sympathetic laugher.

Maybe I’m just not into the Phoebe-Waller Bridge character and all those clever asides.

I had a moment when she first breaks the fourth wall (like 15 seconds in?) that I had to reorient myself. I was in the minority, it seems, about cutesy quirky pukefests like Juno and Baby Driver, both of which had me staring at the screen in disbelief after I realized that the precociousness was going to extend to the full runtime. Perhaps it was the blunt force of the opening scene’s subject matter (“Do I have a massive arsehole?”) but I got over my reservations very, very quickly. Episodes 3 and 4 of S1 didn’t do much for me, but the revelation of her friend’s tragedy at the end of the first episode had me absolutely hooked. What an incredible casting job for Boo; their relationship is established so effortlessly and quickly I would almost have to assume they were IRL best friends. But if you don’t like her internal monologues and constant 4th-wall breaking, you won’t ever like the show, I think. Nothing wrong with that. Mulholland Drive is probably my #1 (and most-watched) movie of this century, but I could not get into the original Twin Peaks for the life of me. Tried 3 or 4 times. Really tried.

RIP Fizdale’s career. Got rooked by Steve Mills to the tune of a 4-18 record, which I readily take for data.

Frank Isola @TheFrankIsola
1 minute ago
David Fizdale fired….after losing to the Nuggets just like Derek Fisher. Denver coached by former Knicks assistant Michael Malone.

Off by a day…. 🙁

All of these questions exist in a universe where Knicks management has the tiniest clue of what it’s doing, guys.

Smart let go, as well. Glad I was wrong about that, at least.

They couldn’t fire him before lunch?

Waiting for Mark Jackson to call them back.

What are these guys doing?

I’m starting to get this nagging feeling that they don’t know what they’re doing.

He needed to go. Somehow we are worse than last years team and last years team was trying to tank wtf!

So, apparently the straw that broke the camel’s back was Fiz announcing lineup changes?

Okay…

What are the odds they haven’t told Fiz yet and he found out on twitter just now like the rest of us? Like at least 25% right?

Off by a day…. 🙁

I was off by one game…. twice.

That’s what you get for betting on the knicks to do the right thing.

Now comes the fun part: Mike Miller, Keith Smart, or Mark Jackson.

EDIT: One down (Smart).

No announcement of the new coach’s identity is troubling. Pills *cannot* be allowed to hire anyone other than an interim coach.

The best thing David Fizdale ever did was be a likable guy. The media won’t allow Fizdale to be the fall guy as bad as Steve Mills and Scott Perry want to try.

life is short, and why should I waste my time watching something that doesn’t resonate when I could be living my life, typing 10,000 words a day on new york knicks fan blog?

Hahaha. Yes, I feel the same way.

If it doesn’t grip me, I’m gonna walk away and never think about it again. It wasn’t just Breaking Bad. I watched the first episode of the Sopranos when it aired and never watched another. And I watched the first episode of West Wing and hated it and never watched another. And (uh oh, here it comes…) I watched half an episode of Game of Thrones and turned the channel back to KnicksIn60 because it felt like less of a waste of time:)

The only show I stuck through the first few bad episodes of was 30 Rock, which started out very generic. But I’d cought a later episode on a plane, and thought it was funny, so went back to beginning and was glad that I made it to episode 4 or so, because from then in it was sublime. But I think it’s easier to do that with episodic comedies than with hourlongs.

Homeland was gripping from second one, so I stuck with it even through it’s decline period (though I abandoned it when it just got flat out horrible).

Twin Peaks (original) is my favorite series ever. Gripping from the opening note of the title credits. Can’t wait to have time to watch the redux properly (someday:)

Some shows I make it a season through, like Lost and Mad Men, because the quality of the production grips me more than the characters and situations do. But once there’s a pause, I just don’t think to go back to them.

(I just watched the Paul Rudd series on Netflix, btw, and liked it a lot, but I also love the Charlie Kaufman movies that it was, obviously, highly influenced by.)

@253
Here’s Yardbarker in the 3rd P. of the article announcing the firing:

The Knicks have arguably the worst roster in the NBA after they missed out on all of the big-name free agents over the summer, and firing Fizdale is the easiest “fix” they can make at the moment.

Z-man
November 11, 2019 at 6:46 am
Fiz is a dead man walking, rightfully so. I’m picking December 7 as the day that will live in infamy. We’ll be 6-17 by then after having gotten routed on our home floor by the Pacers. How’s that for an over/under point?

Well I was close. Wait…it is actually December 7th in Japan rignt now and I was eating sushi when I made the prediction…

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