It’s pretty funny how Melo being traded to the Western Conference and then traded again and then cut has made it so that there really hasn’t been much of a “reunion” vibe in any of his games since he was dealt, especially since their first game against him as a member of the Thunder came so soon into the 2017-18 season.
So now we’re over two years later and it’s like Melo’s time as a Knick was in a different century. But hey, he’s proving he still belongs in the league, which is nice for him.
After a promising start to his Knick coaching career, it’ll be interesting to see if Mike Miller changes stuff up now that he’s had a few practices under his belt.
Let’s go, Knicks!
155 replies on “2019-20 Game Thread: Knicks @ Trailblazers – The Melo Reunion Game!”
Argh, stupid west coast games with no Clyde.
Almost went to the game tonight. Was going to buy floor level seats and wear a paper bag.
I look at the Trailblazer lineup and the first thought I had was that every one of their starters is better than ours.
The blazers stink they’re 9-15
Those uniforms are such bright blue, I’m having trouble picking which player is which. It didn’t help that when some Knick ran around a curl, got a pass and went to the basket and scored, it was Frank. That really confused me about who was who.
hmmmmmm, just started looking at tickets for the jan 5 game at staples…got a buddy that wants to kick it at some sporting event…
i don’t know…something about the 2019/2020 knicks at clips doesn’t scream entertainment value…
i may just look for some boxing/mma thing…at least then i don’t have to pay money to be potential sad and disappointed…
Booze helps turn any dud sporting event into an occasion.
Credit to Smith for that follow, but in general, I just want him down in the G league.
The Mario Hezonja reunion has also been swept under the rug a bit.
Lillard is unreal.
What exactly is it that D Smith is supposed to do well???
Only have the score ticking over on gamecast, but are the Lillard 3’s at least contested or is he just hot? Or is both?
Lillard is in the zone. Mostly good D, though Dotson went under a screen, which isn’t wise when a great shooter is that hot.
Knox missed that layup, but I love how he’s always looking to break.
I can accept Lillard getting hot with good coverage. The guy can flat out score, so what can you do?
Payton should absolutely be starting. Terri nice drives, 4 points, 1 assist.
Gotta say, Melo isn’t playing well, but he doesn’t look washed. Pretty spry, actually.
There was a whole minute there where Wally didn’t say anything. Really enjoyable stretch of basketball.
This team sucks
I have always wondered how Wally ended up at MSG when he had no affiliation with the Knicks during his playing careers. I know that isn’t the criteria for getting a job calling basketball games, but a lot of colour commentators for local broadcasts generally have some history with the team.
That was a BS call on Frank. Lillard is hot enough without that.
Wally is a Long Island kid.
Sometimes as we talk about the transition from Pills to whoever or Dolan to whoever I think about the transition from Walt to Wally.
That would really hurt
damnit fizdale i thought you said you’d keep inspiring these guys from home
Well….the rangers are on 326….
I was looking for someone to blame for this, thanks!
There you go. If I weren’t so lazy I could have probably Googled Wally and put 2 and 2 together ha ha.
Clyde is irreplaceable. It hurts me to think of how great Clyde and Breen have been as broadcasters and how terrible the team has been for them to call the last 20 years. If we win a Championship in their broadcasting lifetime, Clyde and Breen need a ring.
If the Knicks keep losing by 30 maybe Mills and Perry will get fired soon
Shooting 9% from 3 is not great
I really sort of want them technically fired them now but not replaced until after the season. I don’t want Allan Houston coming in and somehow keeping the gig, ya know?
Knicks are missing good shots, but I kinda wonder if it’s because they’re doing a good job getting people open or if the Blazers just don’t think it’s worth bothering to defend them.
i really thought wally was going to go for third clank clunk there
This team is so fucking boring
I went out and enjoyed a couple of competitive high school bb games tonight. Not one complaint to the refs in either game. Boys game went OT and ended on a last second shot. Now, watching the likes of Whiteside gripe after every single call, and typically lousy Knicks D.
Oh, yeah, and I feel sorry for Miller. What a dumpster fire.
In the darkest depths of Knicks lossdom, I sometimes think of the Cleveland Spiders and chuckle to myself.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleveland_Spiders
Make sure to scroll down to the subheading: “1899: The Debacle.”
Masai isn’t coming. Just another retread of the “Basketball Mecca” myth.
Q: if the cosmic trade off for the Knicks being good was to have Wally as the play by play announcer for the next 20 years, would you make that trade?
this offense looks atrocious… i promise this isn’t just results oriented thinking but we’re taking 10 seconds to get the first pass off only to throw it in the post half the time for another guy to dribble another 5 seconds to do something…
the mike miller era not looking good….
Calling this early: ?Golden State tomorrow.”
The Knicks are 4/28 from three. That’s not a typo.
Damn. Here it is, boys and GianaDanis. The worst Knicks team of my lifetime. And it was designed to win games.
Who was it that was saying that missing shots didn’t matter? Mike Miller, welcome to the board!
Is this Knox’s worst game as a Knick? So far, I mean.
It’s times like this where I say THANK GOD I’m also a Yankees fan.
so got home, turned on the tv to watch the game and just so happened to see the score on espn: 92 – 62…
watching the game and there’s about 3 minutes left in the first…you know what – knowing now what I know is about to happen – fuck that…clyde may have kept me around to the second half…
got two of my favorite henry fonda movies on the dvr: 12 angry men and once upon a time in the west…
a little courtroom drama doesn’t sound like that bad an idea…
I love Once Upon a Time in the West!
I have always rated the 05/06 Knicks as pretty bad. Also designed to win games with Larry Brown at the helm, but that team at least won 23 games though so this year could be up there.
was kind of glad to see strasburg sign back with the nats… just makes for a good story…do hope they pick up cole though…
despite my belief that no baseball player can provide value at 30 million plus (even trout) – it just takes too many other players to win, plus we already have stanton anchoring the payroll – we desperately need gerrit cole wearing pinstripes…
hopefully he can perform well in the bronx…
nine years and 324 million…hope he stays healthy and can pitch in the bronx…
Can the NBA take wins away? It feels like they should take our wins away.
Our 3 lottery picks were a combined 3-21
Good times!
Trier with 13 points on 9 shots in 14 minutes. Knox, RJ, DSjr, Payton and Frank with a combined 16 points on 32 shots in 84 minutes.
But Trier is selfish and doesn’t play D so bury him…
Fuck Fiz
Fuck fiz
Trier *is* selfish and doesn’t play defense. Winning teams don’t have guys like that in the rotation. He’s nothing more than hollow numbers for a pathetically godawful team. He’s irrelevant to anything that would ever happen if this team ever got good again.
Whatever optimism I had about Miller dissipated when I saw his offensive numbers in the G League and well, here we are. Plus he doesn’t have the freedom to not play DSJ or Randle so it’s pretty much the same Pills-orchestrated dysfunction.
There are some pieces here, but the atmosphere in which they’re being developed is utterly, completely toxic. That hasn’t materially changed with Fizdale’s canning. Change is only possible if Mills is fired and the new guy gets actual full autonomy to build a program.
Ewing added his voice to the “Why was Fizdale fired?” brigade. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like this many other organizations and prominent people publicly putting their names to criticism of another organization’s personnel choice. In any sport, at any time. It’s stunning, really.
Add Rick Carlisle to the list, who put his name to the comment that he was happy that Fizdale was able to get out of a “terrible mess” at the Garden. When is the last time in any sport, anywhere, that people put their name to this kind of commentary about another organization? Has it ever happened?
Just watched the game:((
We suck like there’s no tomorrow.
This kind of prolonged collective sucktitude is rarely manifested so severely and thoroughly, everybody sucks and some of the players might be zombies or worse.
You have a slanted take . What is your point exactly?
And yes trier plays defense, he’s better on offense but he plays defense about as well as the rest of them.
Steve Mills and Scott Perry stand no chance, and all outside sources seem to be putting pressure on the Knicks to fix what is going on.
Firing David Fizdale was the straw that broke the camel’s back. He wasn’t a good coach, but this was an impossible situation and he is well liked around the NBA. This team was built without rhyme or reason, and it appears no coach can even make this a competitive group. I wonder if Fizdale would have looked this bad if we went after Brogdon and Rubio instead of Portis and Randle. Rubio, Brogdon, RJ, Morris, and Robinson probably would have gone to the playoffs.
Didn’t see the game because I have my contracts final today, sounds like it was as miserable as the box score makes it look.
I guess Trier is on the list of Knicks’ guards some folks wish to see fail because he could be threatening to the Golden Boy, who is quickly regressing to his normal, awful self. That Dallas game was fun though.
I’ll miss Didi greatly but oh man the Yankees could be really fucking good next year. Especially since other elite teams have apparently decided the ultimate goal in professional sports is Financial Sustainability and Flexibility. The financial muscle can go pretty far when you have a smart front office cc: James Dolan!
I’m a huge Knicks fan.
I’m a huge Jets fan.
THANK GOD I’M A DIE-HARD YANKEE FAN!!!!!!
The Knicks looked f’n awful last night. They were sooooo bad that there’s nothing to say.
COLE!!!!!!!
I’m not as bullish on Cole as everyone else, even though I’m obviously enthused for the short term.
It reminds me of the Stanton trade, which I also was cautious about, and now looks like a very bad move.
This team has a weird way of spending. They’re cheap until the most expensive toy in the world is available and then they buy it.
Our pitching has been very good in october but we hit .164 in the ALCS and it was just as bad in 2017. Our lineup can be pitched to a little too easily by good pitchers. I was hoping we’d sign Grandal and trade Sanchez. Add an SP, a LF, and 1B. Four significant upgrades on reasonable deals would have been better than one major acquisition for a ludicrous 9 years.
Good luck, man. I reached out to Zack the lawyer and we’re going to grab a drink and watch a Knicks game with you when you’re done.
The Knicks are infuriating. They are a bad team, but not THIS bad. Certain things are obvious:
Payton is the only actual point guard on the roster and should get 32 minutes. DSJr should never see the floor until his shot is fixed a la Fultz. Frank should get the backup 16 at PG and 10 at the 2 where he really belongs.
Mitch has to get 32 minutes a game til he fouls out.
Trier is the only semi well rounded offensive player on the roster besides Morris and he need some play, but he can’t be on the floor with Knox, Portis, Randle and DSJr for obvious reasons…. that isn’t rocket science.
Then next time I hear Wally or Breen say that’s a “good” shot when Barrett heaves an open look from 25 feet I’m going to stick a hot poker in my eye! I’s not a good shot because it is open if you cannot make 30% of them!!! Someone should notify Barrett of this, too!
I swear to Christ I desperately want to sell Morris (not his fault), Randle and Portis and bring up Wooten and start MR, Wooten, Barrett Payton and Frank.
They might score 60 points a game but the defense would be strong. They’d be more competitive than they are today……
Our last three lottery picks combined to shoot 3-21 for 9 points, and that’s including 4 FTA. Yikes.
I am curious as to why? He seems like the best pitcher in baseball to me, is a stud innings eater and a proven playoff stud. They paid market value for him.
Stanton is an easy pinata but he was NL MVP his last year with the Marlins and hit 38/100 for NY in his transition year. He tore his PCL but both Tiki and Ronde Barber survived playing 10 plus years in the NFL without one 🙂
Anything that draws more attention to our bad management is good to me – losses, ignorant press, and recent picks not playing as well as they could. Anything to ditch Mills/Perry and their signing of more power forward Afflalos this season.
The need for better management was never higher – the margin for error in trades, signings, drafts, hiring the right shooting coach and med staff, etc.
This is New York. Every NY firm tries to sign or poach the absolute best. We should not have Perry’s and Fizdales. Go get the absilolute best shooting coach. When every single player outside of Aron Morris plays shittier in your team- and there have been hundreds of players going thru our roster in the past ten years – you need better EVERYTHING.
Anything to change management.
Not all that long ago, the Knicks had a management team of Donnie Walsh and Mike D’Antoni. You *obviously* can win big with that team. That’s a management team that can win a championship.
They chose Carmelo Anthony and Steve Mills instead.
They got all the cap space ready for a run at LBJ and the other free agents and whiffed. Dolan never forgave Walsh and that experience made him absolutely obsessive about putting together a management team that he thinks will appeal to free agents. Given the buzz about Kidd, it’s quite possible he still has that obsession — *ten years* later. They hired Scott Perry and David Fizdale because of the obsession.
The Woj/Shelbourne piece is just pathetic.(*) Scott Perry worked in the Sonics front office in 2007 when they drafted Kevin Durant and therefore that relationship would make Durant want to come to the team Perry is the “GM” for 12 years later.
There’s incompetent and then there’s downright pathetic …..
(*) In addition to being a must read for Knickerbocker Kremlinologists.
It’s the latter.
Say what you will about KP — I’m fine with him being traded — but Pills handled the trade of him incompetently and didn’t get anything like full market value back. Everyone knows this.
Knew it. They don’t want Frank to play.(*) I mean, honestly, insisting to your owner that the team would improve when it got Dennis Smith, Jr. and Elfrid Payton back from injury … there are no words really for such clueless, delusional drivel.
Dennis Smith, Jr. and Elfrid Payton!!!!! The team would turn around once Dennis Smith, Jr. and Elfrid Payton came back to stabilize the point guard position.
Fire these people immediately.
(*) I’m sure that will raise at least some hackles around here, but there’s common ground to be easily found — they don’t really want Mitch to play, either.
(**) Um, no — things got way better when Dennis Smith, Jr. and Elfrid Payton went out with early injuries.
Not sure what to make about this one without knowing exactly what the “complications” would be. Most likely isn’t anything good. It sounds like it means Dolan would work around Pills, but that’s stupid, too, because then the new POBO might be stuck with the guy.
This organization is just a disaster. It’s pretty much hopeless.
The complications are that a new GM would want to hire a coach of his choosing, so you’d rather have an interim coach who can be replaced easily than a just hired coach on a big contract that you would still have to pay.
I haven’t read the article you are citing, but it is revisionist history to write that the KP trade was considered horrible when it was made. At the time lots of analysts commented that the Knicks got reasonable value for him. And even on this board many thought that too. Of course, some of the value was in erasing previous Knick management mistakes like Hardaway, but that still was value received.
It’s totally revisionist history regarding KP. The question in my mind is whether or not We tested the Kp market or did we just sell to an individual.if it’s the latter then that mistake is unforgivable.
Yes, when Donald Sterling was owner of the Clips. (Back in the good old days when Dolan was simply the “2nd worst owner”:)
Perry isn’t bad at getting reasonable value back in trades. The problem is the choice of what type of value to receive. Instead of trying for a coherent team with a good mix of skills, they got a team where the whole is much less than the sum of its parts.
You can take that literally, or as a metaphor.
The Knicks are actually trying to be good though! They are more like the St Louis Superbas, but only if the Superbas had accidentally made themselves worse in their process of looting all the Spiders’ good players. (Like if Dolan bought the Wolves and forced them to trade Wiggins, Teague, and Culver to the Knicks for Mitch Robinson).
I should clarify:
I am not bullish on the idea that Cole papers over all the cracks that have kept us from making the world series.
The lineup has too many all or nothing guys that skew towards nothing in the postseason.
I think we would have been better served upgrading across the board. Maybe we’ll still make improvements but I doubt it.
Reading that Ramona piece (and everyone should for sure read it) it sure sounds like the Knicks were worried that KP’s trade demand and list of teams was going to imminently leak. According to Ramona the deal was agreed literally in the minutes after the meeting with KP and Janis (before they even got home).
Would that really have submarined his value if it had leaked? I’m not convinced because I never found the idea of KP actually taking the qualifying offer remotely credible, but you can kind of understand why they looked at the deal they had on the table and thought they might not do better once KP got the word out that he wanted to be dealt and only to 4 places (none of which would’ve been a great fit just off the top of my head). I continue to believe they got good value in a vacuum in that move, but breaking DSJ and completely whiffing with the cleared cap space has already squandered probably 60% of that value. Luka’s faster than expected rise to true superstardom has degraded the other 40%.
I still doubt that shopping him around the league would’ve found them a significantly better offer of the same format. Once we accept that clearing the contracts was a requirement in any deal, I don’t know how much better they could’ve done. Should it have been a requirement? Hindsight is 20/20 and we will never know exactly what promises were made and/or broken under the table.
As far as last night’s game (which I only saw about the first 2.5 quarters of – I appreciate the Knicks keeping alive their hallowed tradition of getting blown out in west coast games so I can go to bed at a reasonable hour) I actually thought they didn’t play that bad. They really just couldn’t make a shot to save their lives in this one. Obviously that’s a systematic issue for the team and the fact that (as THCJ pointed out) our young guns were foremost among the bricklayers is extremely concerning. But there were some things I liked:
-more pick and roll, and in particular Payton had a nice impact during his first half minutes getting into the paint for a couple easy shots. Not sure why he only ended up with 13 minutes but given that he’s just returned and it’s a B2B I can forgive it – he should hopefully be playing big minutes soon
-freeing Trier from the dungeon: I get it, he sucks on D. But he’s a guy who can make a shot on a team that desperately needs that. Lots of teams find ways to hide bad defensive guys for their offensive prowess
-good energy level: yeah it’s another ~30 point loss, but they didn’t get punked quite the same way in this one I didn’t think, it really was a shooting story. At half they were 2-15 from 3 and a lot of those were good looks, and Dame was completely on fire on some pretty tough shots. If they play with the same energy and make some shots they should have a good chance to break the losing streak tonight.
Last night, 3 of Miami’s younger players – Duncan Robinson, Bam Adebayo and Kendrick Nunn – were a combined 39-60 for 100 points. Oh and Adebayo had 11 rebounds and 11 assists. None of them were lottery picks, in fact, Robinson was undrafted. The Heat are currently 18-6.
Our three lottery picks were 3-21.
I hate this team so, so much.
good luck with your finals today TNFH…
when in doubt – always select choice C 🙂
I read the romana article and it’s confusing About the main point of the trade. Annoying.
Janis listed 4 teams he wanted and none of them were Dallas. How did a deal with Dallas go down if they weren’t on the list?
Also, Does that mean no other offers were made, (From the rest of the league or the remaining 4 teams). I don’t understand.
Sad that our best player could only log 27 minutes because he racked up 3 fouls. Coaching in the NBA is really difficult.
Obviously yesterdays game was not as bad as the score because we just absolutely could not make a shot but it doesn’t look like the new coach knows what he’s doing either.
they’re pods…we draft and sign players and then replace them with alien pods…seems we may be doing the same thing with coaches too…
too funny…
I mean dang – I keep thinking we must have hit rock bottom, and then, we slide a little lower…
According to Begley, three different NBA teams believe Marcus Morris can bring back a 1st round pick. He for damn sure isn’t going to re-sign with us, so we better go get that pick and draft Cassius Stanley or something.
I mean you don’t actually get to choose what team you get traded to unless you have a no-trade clause. All you can do if you’re KP is say “Here’s my list and if you trade me anywhere else I’ll take the QO” and count on that killing any interest other teams have in trading for you. But they did the trade literally within minutes of Janis giving them the list, and before either the list or even the request had been made public so it was totally irrelevant to the situation.
As for whether any other teams made offers, none have been reported that I’ve seen. Ramona mentions the Knicks offered KP for AD and were turned down. Otherwise all we know is “dozens of teams were confused about why they never had a chance to bid on him”. Dozens may be used a little loosely there since there’s literally 2.5 dozen teams in the whole league but it certainly sounds like (both from Ramona and from what other people like Zach Lowe have said) most other teams did not know he was available.
roster construction is different for each sport, but, devoting such a large percentage of roster salary in baseball to just a few individuals doesn’t seem to work well…
I like Stanton, but, yeah the dude’s a monster and all that torque going on at the plate isn’t going to keep him healthy…
great numbers, but, there should have been more concern for his availability to actually play…
there definitely wasn’t a good energy level…. a lot of settling for jumpshots….
i like that we have consistently been preaching attacking the basket… a fizdale/smart thing…. but there should be some awareness of just throwing up bad shots near the basket against high resistance… as we all know that’s randle’s main problem…. but looks like rj has caught the bug too….
rj’s now ~50% near the rim…. that is bad…. and he needs to cut some attempts or finish stronger… there’s a lot of balls that hit rim in and out for him so some of that is variance but he’s also having a tough time against length… vs kp… vs isaac… vs turner… and vs whiteside have been very glaring examples of this…. he’s still doing ok on the shot selection front but we’ve seen him forcing the issue on occasion these last few weeks…
that’s bad and it’s tanking his current and future value… i’m pretty confident he will recover… but he’s gonna need to adjust again in order to do that….
and to touch on the energy level last nite… on top of settling for mostly bad jumpshots (some good shots rimmed out but mostly they were bad)…. the offball motion was very poor… it’s actually been a consistent thing but especially notable last nite….
one thing i like paying attention to is how long it takes for a second and third pass to occur…. a lot of times last nite it was happening with under 10 seconds left in the shot clock… and it was mostly because of bad offball action…. portland played pretty good offensively but it seemed like they knew everything that was coming and just muddled everything up also….
you can definitely see the difference between what we run and how other teams run… how we set half hearted screens… jog through them…. or we’re just standing around…. and then you have the other team actually committing to the action.. and it results in passes zipping around in under 2 seconds …
that’s a sign of bad coaching… that’s on fizdale and up to mike miller to fix and early returns aren’t good…
I missed the first half last night, but did “tough” it out and watched the entire second.
I agree that Trier shouldn’t be in the dungeon like he has (since we have no reports as to why), but to be honest, almost all of his production last night was late in garbage time. He did throw a few passes when totally hemmed in, but he was looking to get his pointzz most of the time. I don’t really blame him for that.
Still, all the other guards (and I do mean all) were terrible last night. What can Miller be reasonably expected to do? He probably cannot bench Randle (3 year deal), but maybe he can take Portis out of the rotation?
I’d start Payton, Trier, Morris, Randle, and Taj. Trier’s the best scoring guard, so he goes in there. Let that unit do all the Iso-ing it wants. Maybe Payton and Taj can bring order to that group.
The kid second unit is DSJ, Frank, RJB, Knox, and Mitch. I’d actually play the kids unit lots of minutes. Yeah, that lineup will stink and struggle to score, but get them together and see what they do. The kids have got to be sick of playing with Iso Morris and Iso Randle.
The vets get the “honor” of starting and can stay in longer if they produce (and build trade value, hopefully), but otherwise play the kids. Mitch will be okay, RJB hopefully too, and I’m still holding out hope that just one of DSJ/Frank/Knox will pan out to be a decent rotation piece.
At least Jordan Poole exists. We can no longer call our scrub rookies vying for worst rookie season of all-time. He is currently shooting .321 eFG%. Not a typo.
Even Cam Reddish looks like an all-star next to this guy.
Sure we should probably get a new GM and most likely a new coach at the end of the season.
But for the love of God can we find whoever the best shooting coach or coaches are in the world and throw them a boat load of money to be on our coaching staff? WE CAN’T SHOOT.
I know it would take lots of time and wouldn’t be some instant fix but its a huge issue. We need to sign and draft guys who can shoot (especially the 3). Its just atrocious. I love RJ as a prospect but its going to hold him back big time if he never becomes a decent shooter. If he can become a decent shooter, sky is the limit for him. But its a huge what if.
I tend to be more patient about making lineup changes than most of you (primarily because one or two game results can be very fluky); but nonetheless I don’t understand why Smith is getting minutes before Payton.
gut feeling
BTW, in my previous post 89, this is a bit of a take on an old (and somewhat controversial) K-12 teacher strategy for dealing with a difficult class of kids. You break it up into two broad groups: those who want to learn and those who don’t. You don’t do this until after trying various other interventions, but if those don’t work and you’ve got a handful of kids ruining the class…
You move the “good” kids to the front and focus on those. The “bad” kids go to the back and can sit around and twiddle their thumbs so long as they do not disrupt the others. Those kids can move up and join the front any time they want, and you continue to appeal to them in one on one or small group situations to try to reclaim them.
I never had to do this on a class wide basis, but did do this on rare occasions in cases of kids who just, for whatever reason, were incorrigible. I did once have three boys in a 10th grade class that I used this strategy on, and it worked well. Eventually two of them were expelled, and the third one then turned over a new leaf and was okay.
@94
When I taught in the South Bronx, I used that intervention, which I based on Bunny Colvin’s creation of Hamsterdam on The Wire. I met with the group I called the non-learners and told them as long as they did not disrupt, they could sit in the back and do no work.
For a while, it did result in a quieter classroom and a couple of non-learners ( there were only about six out of a class of 28) actually asked to join the learners. Of course, once admin found out it was caboshed. I did use variations of divide and conquer throughout the rest of my teaching career to decent outcomes.
More recently with the charter school catalyzed Balkanization of public schools in areas like Harlem, admin has adopted this tactic. A former colleague of mine told me that at his school, non-learners are sent to the computer lab, where ostensibly they are supposed to be using educational software but wind up playing Fortnite.
I consider the beginning of this rebuild to be the failed season where we eventually put Melo on ice, cleaned house, and drafted KP. We had no 1st round pick the following year (or the year before KP), but since then we drafted Frank, Knox, and Barrett from the lottery, picked up Robinson and Trier, and added a few veterans.
We no longer have KP. We have DSjr instead and he has been terrible. Frank, Knox, and Barrett are all still net negative players showing various levels of potential to eventually have a role on a good team (but that’s LONG term, stressing the “LONG”), Robinson could become a significant 2-way player eventually, but we are worse today than the year we drafted KP.
This is not going well.
@95
Interesting! Sorry the admin was not on board with your first try. Yes, divide and conquer was what I generally did first. I’d move the “bad” kids (really, those looking to talk to anyone around them) right to the front, and that generally worked, but not always. Moving them later to the back at least gets them out of the sight lines of the kids willing to work.
I was very lucky to never have more than 3 very difficult kids in any one class. In the case of the three boys I mentioned, I alerted my admin and they were fine with it. Really, one of them was the ringleader (and a habitual problem at the school). Once he was removed from school, all was well.
I’ve been mostly retired for 2 years now, but near the end of my full time teaching days, I found that allowing limited cellphone use in class can be used surprisingly well in a “carrot and stick” way to help with class management. Whereas many teachers at my last school were (and still are) adamant with a no cellphones ever policy (and some even make the kids put them in a bin when they enter their room), I came up with a quick policy on limited use when work was properly done, etc. I explained to each class, and it worked out better than I’d hoped! I never had to confiscate a phone again.
As Dolan ponders whether to fire Mills and if so, to regulate his current authority to deal, I wonder whose counsel he is taking.
Well in this “rebuild” Phil Jackson gave a 4/72 contract to Joakim Noah, acquired Derrick Rose and gave a four-year guaranteed deal to Courtney Lee, and then Steve Mills gave a big contract to Tim Hardaway and then Perry traded KP to clear room for Kevin Durant and then Durant didn’t come and so instead of using the cap space to acquire assets the team signed a bunch of mediocre veterans.
None of these are things that you do if you are rebuilding.
Strat, you might consider that to be the first rebuild season but Phil Jackson most definitely did not. He went out and got Noah and Rose in a move to compete.
Phil was trying to half rebuild/half compete. I’m not defending Mills and Perry at this point but you can’t call it a rebuild just bc they drafted KP. Phil screwed any chance of a real rebuild by bringing in Noah. Lopez was on a team friendly deal. Calderon was in the last year of his deal. A rebuild would have been letting that season play out and not signing Noah and Lee.
So for me the “rebuild” started once KP got injured.
Politics and incompetence, though Elfrid Payton isn’t a needle-mover in the slightest.
@90 – Some Knick fan elsewhere suggested we trade Morris and Randle for Cam and Chandler Parsons. No picks involved. I couldn’t convince him it was stupid.
The one new thing I learned in the Shelbirn article was that the Knicks were negotiating with Griffin and signed THJ at the same time. That’s so absurd.
Can the Knicks still get Brian Cashman to handle their trade deadline? The winter meetings will be over and he is almost done with the Yankees for the offseason.
were i a betting man – i’d say the person’s name starts with an “i” and ends with “h” and has a “sia” in the middle of it…
I like heaping criticism on the Knicks as much as the next guy, but Miller has said that Payton is on a minutes limit – he did just miss six weeks with a hamstring injury. He played 11 minutes in his first game back, 17 in his second game back, and then only 12 last night, but that’s in part because his second half time was curtailed due to it being a blowout and the first night of a B2B. Lets maybe wait until the guy is fully healthy before we start worrying about whether he’s getting short shrift in the rotation.
Literally the only thing Mike Miller can do to prove his competence is develop Mitch, RJ, and to a lesser extent the rest of the guys on rookie contracts. This team sucks, but the young guys need to improve.
Also, when it’s all said and done the Knicks jobs should be some of the most attractive jobs in the sport so long as Dolan doesn’t get in the way. A Marcus Morris trade for a 1RP means the Knicks will have 4 1RPs total in the next two drafts, two blue chip prospects in RJ Barrett and Mitchell Robinson, and $50M+ in cap space for the next season. That’s a pretty great place to start if you’re a half decent executive. A guy like Phoenix GM James Jones could take this team and make it competitive.
I didn’t know that. Thanks for the info.
That’s the rub, though, right?
You know whose rep should be hurt a little by this mess? Woj. He got to where he is today by working sources, but the flipside of that is giving them positive coverage. He can usually do that while still being a responsible journalist. You know, just find something good to say about them. Most executives do stuff that you can legitimately compliment. In Woj’s case, though, he stumped for the Knicks’ moves this offseason. He looked bad when he did it and it looks even worse now.
If the team doesn’t have better offensive sets by the end of the month, and if the right players aren’t playing, then…maybe not.
I just can’t believe that with the Knicks, it is ALWAYS worse than your worst prediction. They defy the odds. This team is a curse and a blight on the life of anyone who follows it.
Anyway, hope everyone is having a good day!
If you’re rebuilding Dolan Style you do.
Also, the most important detail to me in that Ramona Shelburne piece was where she states that Rich Kleiman, Durant’s agent and business partner, informed Dolan directly (as in he didn’t speak with Mills or Perry) that Durant would be signing with the Nets. Mills and Perry’s relationship with stars had nothing to do with Durant. It was the relationship between Kleiman, who tweeted he’d run the Knicks one day, and Dolan that must have been the concrete evidence Dolan needed to make that ridiculously bold statement this past spring.
I wonder if Kleiman ends up getting the POBO or GM job. You guys think Ujiri would pass us up if Dolan insists on having Kleiman in the front office?
The frustrating thing is that Dolan actually did the right thing. He hired a POBO that he trusted in and stepped away from the team. From there, it all falls of Phil Jackson, who should have known that it was in the best interest of the franchise to trade Melo to the Bulls for Taj Gibson (ha) and Mirotoc or whatever goodies the Bulls were willing to part with (it didn’t even need to be for picks or a Paul George like windfall). Then rebuild around youth. It’s that simple. Every other team does it. Even the Lakers and Bulls.
Rama, is that name change a reference to Patriot? Another great show that got absolutely no love when it ran (or on the Knickerblogger Review of TV!)
Agree that we need see what miller’s sets look like in a month before writing him off. Hopefully he’s at least an able placeholder for the kids’ sake.
Masai is not coming here, but if Mills gets the boot and we land another top pick (and cut bait on some of our more foolish 1+1s), the season is a success. Any recouped value for Morris is a bonus. We were never going to compete this year (and from the wins prediction thread, nobody should be disappointed by this). A trainwreck-forced cleansing of the front office / HC + top pick really is the best outcome anyone could have hoped for
Huge caveat: mills needs to go before this pick is made, or we need to luck into a foolproof blue chip #1 prospect
Every time I think of being a Knicks fan this Lil Abner character comes to mind……
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTPs4Y8gzOBIV01l7LgPDrt4IzMV17o46VzO7oRgnfA0xbiFqSm&s
Yeah, the Knicks have still not started on a real rebuild. They’re still trying to institute a “winning culture” or “winning system,” thus all the PR about attitude and dawgs and all that stuff leading into this season. Triangle? Dawgs? All rebranded crap.
They get some small credit for at least not trading away first round picks for vets, but that has not stopped them from signing vets in what are lateral money wasting moves, at best. And, they still don’t have a clue about renting cap space for picks.
It was saddening to watch RJB, Frank, DSJ, and Knox all play like garbage last night. They all look lost….well, Knox pretty much always looks clueless, but…
I will say this:
If full autonomy is a guarantee, there is no way Masai Ujiri or anybody turns this job down. To be the highest paid executive in basketball in New York City and to start with RJ Barrett, Mitchell Robinson, 2 1RPs in 2021, at the very least a top 5 pick in 2020, and $50M+ in cap space? Once you know ownership will get out of the way, you take that job and become a legend.
I also think Dolan isn’t as bad as it seems and that all of our team’s troubles are more or less linked to Steve Mills. You’re not going to convince me that Dolan said “go get Bobby Portis, Wayne Ellington, and Julius Randle at all costs.” He opened the checkbook and trusted the wrong guy since 2003. Not wanting to offer Kevin Durant a max contract was smart. Dolan is a lot of things, but I don’t think throwing fans and legends alike out of MSG is the reason we suck. I think the blame for this current dysfunction is 80/20 Mills/Dolan.
I miss the rebuild before Melo:
Gallinari
Wilson Chandler
Landry Fields
Renaldo Balkman
Jared Jeffries
Mozgov
Etc.
There were guys there to cheer for….
But they weren’t good either
If Dolan isn’t that bad, why has he hired Mills twice? Why does he continually hire incompetent management? Even if Dolan isn’t directly involved in any transactions, he’s directly responsible for hiring an unending string of incompetent employees.
We should bench RJ, playing in our ultra big lineup does not help him attack the basket. Dotson, Ellington and Trier should all get more burn with him because they can at least threaten to hit a 3.
Frank sucks again.
Oh, and Kadeem Allen should split pg duties with Payton.
This actually does make it his fault. He is the guy who chose the GM’s that have sucked and when he had a good management team in place Walsh/Pringles he Bogarted them and wouldn’t let Walsh do his job.
All this shit is completely on him.
And choosing Phil…. a smart guy with zero experience at his new job (hello Peter Principle) is his fault to.
And that’s factorial!
A lot of sports franchises trust the wrong guys. Jerry Jones refuses to fire Jason Garrett. Ted Leonsis held onto Grunfeld forever. Minnesota gave Scott Layden a job after he screwed us up.
I guess my point about Dolan is he has always been willing to pay guys, and that’s a huge part of being a good owner. I’d much rather have Dolan than Clay Bennett because I think a tight fisted owner (like those Wilpons in Queens) is the only thing you can’t overcome. Dolan hasn’t screwed with things since the Bargnani trade in 2013, and since then he’s given guys full-ish autonomy to screw with things. I truly believe you can win with Dolan as your owner. I do not believe you can win with Mills in your organization.
It’s also possible to be a horrible human being and a good owner of a franchise. Dolan isn’t a good owner, but it’s easier to shut up and get out of the way than it is to learn “hey maybe we shouldn’t give Tim Hardaway Jr $70M” or “maybe Ron Baker doesn’t deserve the full MLE” or “let’s keep Kornet for $2M instead of paying Bobby Portis $16M.”
They were a game over .500 mostly young and improving which looks like the ’27 Yankees compared to today…..
Dolan forced his GM and President to give a press conference immediately following a game like two weeks ago. Now is that a big thing? Probably not. It was embarassing and a bad look and immediately kicked off the talk that Fiz was a dead coach walking but this team wasn’t going anywhere fast even if Dolan hadn’t undermined the coach ten games into the season.
We don’t know exactly how involved he is in day to day running of the basketball side here but we have at least one piece of recent evidence that he’s still sticking his nose in where it has absolutely no business with negative consequences.
@124 I never said he wasn’t bad. I’m saying that Mills has been present since 2003. He left during 2009-2013, and we had 3 winning seasons since then. Our best season, 12-13, had nothing to do with Walsh or D’Antoni, and since his fatal Bargnani trade fiasco, he has learned to stay out of the way more or less. You could give Steve Mills the 9th pick in the draft and he’d take Kevin Knox over Shai Gilgeous Alexander. You can give him $70M in cap space and he’ll give you 4-20.
Yeah, Dolan is ultimately responsible for this shit. No doubt. He has been the worst owner in the NBA since he’s taken over, but I think he’s learned from two decades of being terrible, and he may finally be ready to do right by the Knicks. He also has a fully functional hockey team in the same building.
Again. Dolan sucks. I’d prefer he sell the team. But I don’t view him as a disease the way he’s viewed by a lot of people.
I agree that at this point it’s mostly Mills and not Dolan that is the root cause of dysfunction. I know this last month has been ugly with the press conference and firing, but many owners would have insisted on changes once results were obviously so much worse than planned.
It depends on you definition of a rebuild.
Setting aside the mistakes that our GMs and presidents have been making since before some of you guys were even Knicks fans (maybe even before a few were born lol), imo there are a lot of combinations of things you can do to rebuild from zero.
Losing every year, drafting an 18-19 year old (that might be be good in 6-8 years), trying to accumulate “future” picks for an 18-19 year old (that may start being good 10 years from now), hoping you “eventually” get a pick that lands you a #1 or #2 option (who may decide to leave because your team sucks or demand a max extension before you know he’s good) etc… is one option.
That will work. It will just take forever.
My view is that we should use every option available including drafting, trading picks for players, free agency, trading vets for picks etc… depending on what’s available, where we are in the rebuild, what we need, and our best estimate of the quality of the players we are talking about now and in the future.
Our problem hasn’t been the WAY we’ve been doing things. It has been the competency of the people doing it.
If those idiots didn’t want to be in a press conference explaining their trash team, then they shouldn’t have taken $70M in cap space and turn it into a team that gets ran out of the building against the lifeless Cleveland Cavaliers organization. Your big ticket free agent is literally impeding on the growth of your 2018 draft class because he’s plays Kevin Knox’s position and clashes with what Mitch does best. Luke Kornet, a guy you spent two seasons developing and costed nothing, got replaced by a guy making 8x his salary but doesn’t give you the same defense. Mills and Perry are legitimately terrible.
If it turns into two 1RPs in the 2020 draft, two 1RPs in the 2021 draft, and a bunch of cap space for Masai Ujiri and Jeff Van Gundy, I’ll always be grateful for Mills and Perry. But as of right now, they are the rotten arm that needs to be cut from the body.
Dolan is the guy ultimately responsible for everything because he’s the owner, but he’s not the incompetent that’s been making most of the bad basketball decisions. That would mostly be Mills. Mills is the common denominator in decades of dysfunction and bad basketball going all the way back to Thomas.
I know I rag on Mills and call him an idiot all the time, but he’s obviously a very educated and intelligent man. He’s just not a basketball guy or GM. He’s over his head doing THIS and has been all along.
You need someone that understands the game at a very high level to select players with the talents, skills, basketball IQ, work ethic, team oriented thinking etc.. that fit together coherently into some basketball plan.
You also need someone that understand contracts, player values, and the rules that govern the game well enough to try to find good values among the players the first guy wants to bring in and then give them contracts on terms neutral or favorable to the team.
We always only have 1 or neither of those 2 guys.
Thanks so much! Can’t wait. One down, two to go. Law school exams are brutal, but this one did keep me from watching last night’s next game so in the words of Mike Woodson, you gotta look at that.
I know it’s all part of Strat’s long running “Phil Jackson cannot fail, he can only be failed” narrative, but are there any organizations that are actually structured as one “basketball-knower” guy backed up by a second “contracts and values” guy?
It seems to me like people tend to overrate the importance of the top guy having some unique basketball insight. The person at the head of any organization is always going to be in largely a managerial role. The basketball ops side of an effective organization is going to be made up of a large staff of people – coaches, trainers, scouts, analytics staff, video guys, and a whole bunch of mid level executives running each of those brances. The guy at the head of that tree ultimately has to decide whether to give Joakim Noah 4/72 but if he’s spending most of his time checking out Noah’s ass for optimal pinch-postiness it strikes me that he’s probably doing his job wrong.
I guess if there is any silver lining, any new team coming in (FO and coach) are going to have a good jumping off point with Mitch and RJ and a swag of picks. That’s not a bad situation to come into as far as teams rebuilding/needing a rebuild. You could maybe throw in Randle, Knox and Frank in that mix, but I leave others to argue why they should be included. Other upside is we aren’t hamstrung by ridiculous contracts. The strategy after missing on KD and Kyrie was fine, but execution was off.
I usually try and be relatively optimistic (mostly because I want to try enjoy watching the Knicks), but this team just make it so hard sometimes. I think there is a big possibility we can land a good exec (whether it is Ujiri or someone else). The Knicks are a big challenge, and I think there are people willing to take that on. It’s on Dolan to allow that to happen though.
This is the thing about rebuilding that you either don’t understand or that you try to misrepresent for some reason: yes, if you just draft one dude a year that will take a long time. That is why you… drum roll… ACQUIRE SURPLUS PICKS.
You accelerate the process by dumping anything you have of value to teams on the other end of the win curve, and plucking future assets. This way you don’t just pick one 18 year old per year, maybe you take one of those high-upside guys with a lottery pick then draft a high floor role player type with one of your surplus picks.
Rebuilding is not “lose a lot then use the one first round pick you get automatically every year until you’re good.” It is not that at all. You should be trying to get LOTS of picks. It goes much much faster that way.
I have a friend ten years my junior applying to T1 and T2 schools right now. She keeps telling me about how tired she is, working a 10-6 paralegal job for a boutique firm on the UES. I keep responding that she might want to figure something else out before she commits to three years of ultra-competitive hell and a 35-year career of billable hours. Can’t count how many people I’ve seen passed out in their law school textbooks on the train. Hope you’re getting enough sleep, tnfh.
Law school is a nightmare and I strongly suggest to anybody who isn’t already in law school not attend. A 10-6 job is a cakewalk compared to law school. That said, good luck TheNobleFaceHumper, esquire.
@136 the other key to rebuilding is to sell high on the assets you have. Examples: Ainge with Isaiah Thomas, Jae Crowder, Avery Bradley. The Pacers with Paul George (yeah he’s still really good but I’ll still take Oladipo and Sabonis)
The Knicks could have gotten a nice haul for Melo instead of giving him the mega max and watching him decline. Boston would have given us a king,s ransom for Porzingis a few years ago, but instead we were in a weak bargaining position once the league knew he wanted out. And yes, there would have been howls from fans for trading KP when it looked like he was on the verge of stardom, but that’s what good GMs do – make unpopular moves that pay off big long term.
And as well noted, late 1sts and all 2nds are unbelievably cap friendly. They’re like the equivalent of MLB pre-arbitration deals: minimal risk, the capacity for enormous returns. Pascal Siakam is getting paid as hell next year, but he’s making $2.3M this year! He’s currently at 18 win shares for his career, so the Raptors have paid him roughly $355k per Win Share. Even if you know that WS is a bad stat, let’s assume that it doubles his described value. How about $700k per win? Sound good?
John Wall will make $500k per game next season, and has basically cost Washington about $2.5M per Win Share over his career. And he’s a pretty damn good #1 overall pick.
If you stack up those late firsts and select players with demonstrated histories of productive play, you will eventually get a few Siakams on your roster. And if you can get them on the cheap, you won’t care so much when you waive one of them. And you will definitely have max cap space ready for when the rare superstar decides to come to the boring, slow-paced, culture-less, overrated shithole known as Manhattan.
i’m dying to ask – who thinks the knicks will win tonight?
@139
Amen! Way back in 1982, I remember the Mets trading away my favorite player at the time, Lee Mazzilli, to the Texas Rangers. He was the only “star” on a pretty bad team, and the Mets had been bad for a long time. In return, the Mets got a couple of pitching prospects named Ron Darling and Walt Terrell.
I wasn’t happy at the time, but both guys soon panned out as young starters as the Mets finally started a true, inspired rebuild. Oh, and a year or two later they flipped Terrell to Detroit for a young Howard Johnson! It also helped that they started nailing their draft choices…
DLo will go off for 40 and the Knicks will lose by the difference between their missed fts and what an average NBA team would hit.
probably crazy, but, I think part of what happened in portland was the team looking past them to this warrior game…
should be an interesting (and sloppy) game tonight with both sides desperate to enjoy that winning feeling…if only for a short time…
This will be the Eric Paschall game. Book it. If he plays.
The most basic front office concept is time arbitrage, trading current performance for future performance based on your place and your trade partner’s place on the win curve.
How often have the Knicks successfully executed on this strategy? Not that often in the last 20 years. Mitch is the best example I can think of but that has a lottery luck aspect to it.
I worked as a middle school teacher prior to law school, and while law school is still as hellish as it seems, there’s nothing that prepares you for chaos and stress quite like staring down hundreds of middle schoolers and realizing you’re responsible for their learning. It has a way of making 7 hours in a silent library not seem so bad.
Got a much needed laugh out of me. I will reiterate to all potential future employers who may be Knickerblogger commenters that I made this account when I was (I think) 12!
I stand behind this screenname
unless HR is reading this in which case I have no idea who The Honorable Cock Jowles is
I remember at some point in time years ago googling: cock jowles, cuz, it kind of sounded like an actually thing…
I think I got some wierd porn hits…of course – one person’s weird is someone else’s pleasure…
Well… playing devil’s advocate,
You can argue (if you’re Mills/Perry) that you signed these one-year-contract guys specifically to trade them for picks/young players before the deadline.
Maybe that’s even a better strategy that taking on guaranteed dead money contracts for 2 or 3 years? It might work with Morris.
The problem with that idea? Portis. Gibson. Randle. Ellington. Etc.
Having completed law school I can confirm this, but I can also guarantee (despite the stress and hours) legal practice is well worth it if you find what you are passionate about within the industry. Unfortunately most don’t work out whether they actually want to be lawyers until they start practising, but hoping it pays off for you in the long run TNFH.
Universally I’ve found school teachers of young kids, take law school in stride much better than anyone else.
Really hoping you become a judge some day so you can be Your Honor, Thenoblefacehumper.
I’m in my 2nd year of law school in Colorado, so I probably won’t be much help with employment. Otherwise, I’d definitely offer to help out. So if you have interest in taking the Colorado bar, let me know
This is pretty funny (tweet)
I took one law class at Syracuse, Communications Law. Never in my life have I felt a stronger sense of “fuck this.” I barely got through it. I tip my cap to anybody who makes it through law school. My brain is not set up that way at all.
That Dolan burner account thing is hilarious. Must be a deep fake but it’s pretty good.
I am not going to watch a second of the game tonight and I feel really good about the decision.
My take we got shortchanged on KP trade.the following as I recall.
1. Nix worried teams would be scared off by KP demands re team and dollars. Ridiculous. No shortage of teams who dont care about these things..
2. Extra baggage of THJ. Same answer.
3. Not exploring other offers shortchanged the nix. Remember Rickets offered FOUR number 1s for Jimmy Butler.
4. DSJ sucks.
Face it, Nix blew and hit way too little for KP. Oh, and no team cared about the rape allegations either.