2020-21 Game Thread: Knicks vs. Thunder

Merriam-Webster definition of a trap game:
“To carry a 3-games winning streak into a home game against a young, frisky opponent deemed inferior”.

I don’t question the authority of such a respectable source but I doubt Thibs will allows them a drop in concentration.

Let’s go Knicks!

In Thibs We Trust

I know we like to try and keep the game threads relatively politics free but I have to share this. The soon to be former president’s personal twitter account is permanently suspended.

bounce back game from IQ tonight

Lu Dort is going to be a problem for RJ

Are any of our injured players back yet?

vincoug:
Are any of our injured players back yet?

Who needs ’em when we have Austin Powers Rivers!

Nice start

I’m officially buying stock in Randle!

The sound of a brick – DORT!

Put in the shooters

Or I guess just start making shots would work

RJ finally showing touch…

Poku looks like a character from one my son’s favorite books, Flat Stanley

That Poku screen was like a tender breeze.

I can’t stand playing commercials during free throws.

Austin Powers!

I see a lot of Kevin Knox in Poku

So nice to have a rim defender on the floor every minute of a game. Noel doing his thing.

i don’t know how anyone can outtank okc with this lineup that they’re throwin out there….

djphan:
i cannot believe we had a team of people watching kentucky games and thought knox was going to be the better pro….

You forget, it wasn’t his career at Kentucky it was a 3 on 3 scrimmage that convinced us to draft him.

Poor showing from both teams, but they are worse.
It’s nice to have Noel back…

I’ve haven’t felt this confident that the Knicks should win a particular game in a long time … so god help us when we lose tonight

vincoug: You forget, it wasn’t his career at Kentucky it was a 3 on 3 scrimmage that convinced us to draft him.

Fiz…the gift who keeps on giving!

Facepalm

Thunder : “Here Knicks, take the game”

Knicks: “No thanks”

Barrett stop. Stop.

I don’t really have any choice but to hold on to my Poku stock because no one is buying it

Poku looks like he’d float away in a stiff breeze.

vincoug:
I know we like to try and keep the game threads relatively politics free but I have to share this.The soon to be former president’s personal twitter account is permanently suspended.

And perhaps not coincidentally, a new user on JetNation calling himself “realdonaltrump” appears and starts a thread saying that he’s been banned from twitter, wants to know how the Jets did the last 4 years, and compliments Woody Johnson. Some pretty funny replies follow…

Quivers-RJ-Randle-Mitch. I like this lineup.

djphan:
poku needs to calm down on the shooting but the other stuff looks intriguing enough….

no doubt you can see the measurables and the projectable skills, but talk about humble beginnings

Amazing.

Can’t buy a bucket. Shot selection hasn’t been terrible, either. Even Mitch’s putback attempts have looked out of sync.

Mitch really should call for the ball more on offense.

OK, I’ll razz Poku one last time. He’s built like a matchstick with that big head of his.

DRed:
Put in the shooters

Did we make a few trades?

Quickly did not look like a PG tonight. He looked like almost nothing … But to be fair they run a different offense with him in game …

if poku tries to set another pick on randle
he’s gonna floss with him

friend of the program langston filling it up tonight

Mitch is menacing

rivers is hot… eventually the shots won’t fall enough times and you’ll realize why not many teams wanted him….

Man Knox is bad.

Maybe we should guard Al

Horford using this game to make his case for the rest of the league to trade for him.

Hideous game aside from Mitch’s defense

This game is “bowling shoe ugly,” as Jim Ross would say.

Ha. Great cleanup by Mitch. He was like, enough of this shit.

Poisonous game though.

Owen:
Great play by Knox. Respect.

He seems to pull off an impressive out-of-bounds save once a game now.

They defend well most of the time but the shooting was terrible.
Could we play Barrett only in away games?

Brandon Clarke’s making Jowles proud vs the starless Nets

Starting to watch now, still a tie, so what did i miss? 🙂

Love how Clyde pronounces Horford as “Harford”

great in play switchback between rj and mitch

When Elf starts missing bunnies he become a massive negative.

Plus taking shitty longer shots.

please put payton on the bench

Man is this a step down from the prior games…

I mean, are we better than a team that has Horford, SGA, Lu Dort and George Hill?

That team has a billion picks on the way and still has players to trade.

It was time…

Barrett needs to learn how to draw more fouls. He gets bodied up in a way where most guys get a call …

The spacing is always trash with Payton and Barrett in,
nobody’s worried by their shooting prowess…

We need Frank’s 3 point shooting. Bang!

Is it me or are we sleepwalking

Utter disgust

Knicks tonight realizing they suck

What the phuck are they doing

Offense is shit they are gonna have to suffocate on D… only shot

So everyone decided to regress all at once eh

Why can’t Barrett get calls…

It’s as if OKC’s terrible shooting in the 1st quarter lulled the Knicks to sleep.

Gotta give credit where it’s due, OKC is playing some ferocious defense

I like that they’re letting IQ play through sucking

The Quickley reality check game

They keep refusing open threes and taking shitshots

Quickly refuses all contact inside 20ft. That’s a problem… offense is complete aimless for all besides

Thank god Quickley hit a shot.

That Maledon shot was also pretty nice

RJ!

Poku dagger. God dammit. I feel like an ass. Classic trap

Where the phuck is Mitch

Man, Barrett has to hit his open 3s. It’s not going to work if he can’t do that.

why isn’t mitch in….

Where is Mitch indeed.

Knox has terrible balance when he pulls up

Sit Randle down. His head is out of it.

The game looks over.

playing most of the 4th with randle at center is a real weird choice

Fuck. Fuck!

Real sloppy shop tonight.

There are lessons to be learned from this game, even for Thibs.

I think Mitch is hurt. He pulled up at some point and I noted it. Played for a bit after but not much after he went out.

And it would be hard to explain otherwise

Owen:
I think Mitch is hurt. He pulled up at some point and I noted it. Played for a bit after but not much after he went out.

Clyde did say that Mitch went “out of the game” earlier, but I thought he meant to the bench.

Owen:
I think Mitch is hurt. He pulled up at some point and I noted it. Played for a bit after but not much after he went out.

And it would be hard to explain otherwise

Yeah, I started to fear that, there’s no other explanation…

i mean play noel or something… it’s been a layup line with randle at center…

I’m a sad man

Lottery here we come…

This is a mirror image of the Knicks’ previous wins — the Thunder wouldn’t go away and eventually the Knicks relented.

Dort’s dagger, game over.

RJ refusing the three and shooting a midrange down by 9 shows his faith in his shot…

watching the pistons game…their dancing girls are quality

pepper:
watching the pistons game…their dancing girlsare quality

Indeed they are.

Pels-Hornets is tight. Lamelo is looking like a steal.

How the hell he posts those numbers in Australia and then comes and plays like this I have no idea. About to be the youngest player to ever post a triple double.

I guess Lavar was on to something

I haven’t been in this site for a while, but just had to shake my head on RJ

Also, the Jerami Grant experience is going a lot better than some expected.

what exactly is there to be worrying about rj?

Owen: How the hell he posts those numbers in Australia and then comes and plays like this I have no idea. About to be the youngest player to ever post a triple double.

LaMelo only played like 300 min in Australia. No one really knew anything other than the fact he looked amazing passing the ball.

That was certainly a steaming pile. Not really upset about it but, jeez, man! Jeez.

Had this one on in the background. Don’t really know what happened but this is not good. We need to win these games if we’re going to be winning games.

so we’re ready to bury a guy that’s improved his ft% by 15 % based on his ‘shooting’? where were these criticisms after the indiana and atlanta games or do you guys just come out of the woodwork after these shooting nights?

seriously these hate rj… love rj after these type of games is tiring… just be patient….

We’ve been out rebounded 62-48.

djphan:
so we’re ready to bury a guy that’s improved his ft% by 15 % based on his ‘shooting’?where were these criticisms after the indiana and atlanta games or do you guys just come out of the woodwork after these shooting nights?

seriously these hate rj… love rj after these type of games is tiring… just be patient….

Who’s coming out of the woodwork?

No big deal.

We are young, not a very good team, and we are going to have rough nights on top of it once in awhile. This was one of those nights.

Our bench was terrible. Quickley? WTF? Can we get a 2nd rounder for him. lol

jazz saving face in Milwaukee

If you told me that players were exhausted or that the game was rigged id believe it.
The D was shit and the Offense was trash.
These weren’t the same knicks as the ones we saw 1 game before…
No effort
No focus
No fire
No desire
Sad

Like we were too cool to play hard
Fuk y knicks

nicos: getting blocked inside like he’s 6’2?

only when there’s six other guys in the paint because there’s no spacing tbh

we’ve seen him muscle through a lot of guys this season at the rim

We’re not the only one experiencing a rude awakening,
how could the 6-2 Suns lose to the 1-7 Pistons?

Max:
We’re not the only one experiencing a rude awakening,
how could the 6-2 Suns lose to the 1-7 Pistons?

Jerami Grant put up 31 and 10?

RJ has been alright this year. Any word on Mitch?

ah, here we are:

Thibodeau said Mitchell Robinson was not in at times because they were trying to go small to “generate some offense.”

Says Mitch wasn’t feeling great today either

The only excuse i can come up with is that Mike Miller as an Okc assistant coach has a better knowledge of Knicks players even than Thibs has right now and made easily some scouting report magic.

djphan:
why would you be worried about a .461 ts this early in the season?

Because his TS% was .479 last year. That is Knox/Frank/Smith Jr. level bad. He certainly has better peripheral skills but those are peripheral- a sub .500 shooter with 20 usage is almost unplayable unless he’s great at something else. RJ has been okay on defense (just okay) and has provided solid rebounding and playmaking for a wing this year. But he’s neither a great rebounder or passer and probably will never be truly great at either. He has to score efficiently to be good and right now he is terrible. So I’m worried.

Don’t worry about RJ. He’s still a kid and we don’t have solid PG play and spacing yet. He’s better than he looks based on his TS% and he’ll get better over time, Either that or I’m wrong and we should start Frank in his place. Frank’s TS% this year is .587 and he’s hitting 55.6% of his 3s. 🙂

djphan is gonna need a bigger bucket to bail with

I mean Ben Simmons? Ben Simmons could score efficiently from the get go. RJ may never top Ben’s rookie year numbers. I mean seriously, I would have a hard time taking the over on RJ ever clearing 56% for a full NBA season.

He does a bunch of nice things but his scoring efficiency has been garbage and to my eye projects to be garbage for a long time.

Nic Batum’s return from the crypt is pretty amazing. He looks good. So does Christian Wood.

And Tyrese has a three, a rebound, 2 assists, and a block in his first three minutes

djphan is gonna need a bigger bucket to bail with

haha.. how’s clarke doin?

These kind of stinkers happens in a season,
we need to out hustle everyone and defend well for the entire game, tonight they did it for two and a half quarters.
We didn’t protect the rim, but we protected our ping pong balls…

“I didn’t put Mitch in because I want to find some offense” is a proof of Thibs’s candor,
but a weird decision nonetheless, when you shoot 35% you need all the blocks, offensive rebounds, alley-ops and tap-ins you could get…
If Mitch’s sick is a totally different thing.

lol rj

Max: “I didn’t put Mitch in because I want to find some offense” is a proof of Thibs’s candor,
but a weird decision nonetheless, when you shoot 35% you need all the blocks, offensive rebounds, alley-ops and tap-ins you could get…
If Mitch’s sick is a totally different thing.

It’s a double edged sword.

If you are having trouble scoring and think you need more firepower in the lineup in terms of the ability to shoot and create you can go small, but you are obviously giving something up with Mitch out too. I think he was probably desperate to try to get something going and tried playing Randle at the 5. It didn’t work. Not that anyone played well, but the real problem was that the bench sucked.

Sometimes RJ will have a hot night and you’ll think “oh, he’s improving” but he still throws a lot of stinkers out there. Like a disproportionate amount of stinkers. He doesn’t seem to be having fewer stinkers than he did last year, it seems like a pretty similar ratio.

So I dunno. So far his development seems pretty tepid to me.

Nice win for the Dubs. Steph is not washed guys. Can confirm. It only seems that way when he is out there with the starters.

I don’t have any idea who M Mulder is but they were. Plus 27 with him out on the floor so he is clearly very important. 🙂

Halliburton hit 5 threes on ten shots and 8 assists and one turnover.

And the Bulls almost beat the Lakers. Lavine went off. I think I have a man crush on Wendell Carter Jr but I suspect that’s because I don’t watch him much on defense

RJ is still 20, right?

That’s still very young. Jimmy Butler, who is maybe his best-possible long-term ceiling, had a .520 ts in his first year at age 22. Hopefully RJ is on that trajectory.

I think Elfrid makes it tough for RJ out there…. he needs the ball and better spacing to work. Hopefully that happens when Burks gets back and Quickley finds his footing again.

This year, he really just needs to get his drive-and-dish and pick-and roll down and make his free throws. Baby steps.

Let’s not talk about RJ like he’s shooting 85% from the line. He’s at 71.7%. You have to squint to the point of shutting your eyes completely to see that as a harbinger of decent 3pt% just around the corner, especially considering that his misses are about as ugly as they get.

It’s silly to compare RJ to Jimmy Butler at this point…he has a long way to go to get to Caron Butler, let alone Jimmy. Projecting him as anything beyond “decent starter” based on what he’s done thus far requires inflating the good and dismissing the bad to an absurd degree.

Right now we should be in hope and pray mode that he defies the odds and learns how to shoot at least decently, because any reasonably objective look at his stats does not bode well, beyond concluding that he will probably turn out better than Stanley Johnson.

And I guarantee that if his KB defenders were talking about a player on another team, they’d laugh at anyone who spun his stats the way that they are being spun here.

I think that Barrett could end up looking a lot like Westbrook if he shrinks and gets faster and meatier soon. But he also could be Durant if he grows a few inches and learns to shoot. Gobert is an outside chance if he invests in Duolingo and starts licking microphones. Really, RJ Barrett is very likely to be something other than RJ Barrett someday. A beautiful butterfly, shooting 71% from the stripe and not embarrassing himself when he drives right. Whether that means he learns to drive right or just quits organized basketball, rendering driving ability moot, I do not know. Only Twitter knows.

rj increased his ft% by 10%.. that is incredibly rare….. and yes that does signal that an improvement in shooting is probably coming… it might not but with josh jackson or stanley johnson they never had this single year improvement….

there is also an across the board improvement … his ws48 after his god awful struggles is sitting at .042… which for a 2nd year player who’s not even shooting well is also something josh jackson or stanley johnson didn’t do in their 2nd year…. that’s pretty good and also signals that even shooting just a little better will result in a mini-breakout… this is exactly what happened with brandon ingram and markelle fultz who people were so eager to bury and throw in the garbage after their 2nd years….

there’s really no defying the odds on this… he’s working on the things he’s struggling with…. he’s adjusting…. and it’s resulting in small improvements….. sooner or later it will probably result in bigger improvements…. you just have to give it more than 9 games before declaring that it’s impossible or that there’s some huge concern…..

umm Stanley Johnson didn’t need to improve his FT%…he averaged 76% during his entire rookie deal. 71% is low for a guard/wing…he still has to improve just to get to average, on a shot with no variance from game to game, shot to shot. It took a 10-pt improvement just to get into the conversation with mediocre 3pt shooting shooting guards/wings. So his shooting prospects went from being utterly hopeless to highly unlikely. But hey, that’s progress!

And it’s not like he’s dazzling the league with his playmaking. He has a 13% assist%.

So we have a prospect that can’t shoot, doesn’t pass all that much or that well, and isn’t all that special athletically. But hey, he’s over 70% from the line!

i don’t know how you can make the case he hasn’t improved at all…. his ws48 is at .042 which is a massive improvement from last year with his 3pt shooting at a likely depressed 24%…..

that should tell you that you’re missing something or freaking out about his shooting unnecessarily right? or it doesn’t mean anything?

like his rebounding improvements… or his assist to turnover ratio…. is his improvement at the line…. that’s what that number is telling is improving and it’s resulting in a not a good player still… but it’s passable for a 20 yr old in his second year so far….

and the year’s not even over! it’s 9 games! if he’s performing worse or exactly in line with last year i would be right there with you in freaking out…. but he’s improved…. it’s not such a massive leap but if he shoots just a little better on his 3s to last year then yea his ws48 probably sits at .065 … which would be a huge leap….

so really the doom and gloom is a bit overdone…… there’s zero case to be made that rj hasn’t improved at all.. and there’s zero case that he’s jackson or johnson or something ridiculous….

***we have a prospect that can’t shoot, doesn’t pass all that much or that well, and isn’t all that special athletically. But hey, he’s over 70% from the line!***

Fred Astaire’s first audition card at RKO read: “Can’t sing. Can’t act. Balding. Can dance a little.” And he became a Hall of Famer, so keep the hope alive…

djphan:
i don’t know how you can make the case he hasn’t improved at all….his ws48 is at .042 which is a massive improvement from last year with his 3pt shooting at a likely depressed 24%…..

that should tell you that you’re missing something or freaking out about his shooting unnecessarily right?or it doesn’t mean anything?

like his rebounding improvements… or his assist to turnover ratio…. is his improvement at the line…. that’s what that number is telling is improving and it’s resulting in a not a good player still… but it’s passable for a 20 yr old in his second year so far….

and the year’s not even over!it’s 9 games!if he’s performing worse or exactly in line with last year i would be right there with you in freaking out…. but he’s improved…. it’s not such a massive leap but if he shoots just a little better on his 3s to last year then yea his ws48 probably sits at .065 … which would be a huge leap….

so really the doom and gloom is a bit overdone…… there’s zero case to be made that rj hasn’t improved at all.. and there’s zero case that he’s jackson or johnson or something ridiculous….

He and Jackson are eerily similar. Top of the class recruits who weren’t bad but not nearly as good as expected then still got drafted high. Take a look at the numbers- RJ turn it over less, Jackson’s defensive stats are a little better, other than that almost identical. Both skilled guys who aren’t quite as athletic as they need to be to play the game that best suits them. RJ’s 20 so plenty of time to change that trajectory but your high if you think Josh Jackson is an impossible outcome- show me someone with a more similar profile.

So we have a prospect that can’t shoot, doesn’t pass all that much or that well, and isn’t all that special athletically. But hey, he’s over 70% from the line!

Not sure how you’re getting to this from what I’m saying. RJ was fucking awful last year, we should expect him to be bad this season. If he increases his FT shooting that’s good in and of itself, because it’s better to be better at shooting FT, and it’s a sign he can improve his shooting. It’s not what’s going to make him a good player. RJ was taken in the high lottery but he’s is a long term project.

In seriousness, I think he is improving and will continue to improve. But this is more about RJ vs. his peers. It’s not RJ vs. RJ. If Ja, SGA, Ball, Doncic, Zion, Edwards, Young, and even Haliburton look like legit NBA initiators and also improve their games, where does that leave our guy? And that’s just his peer group. There will continue to be the Murray, Mitchell, Tatum and Jaylen Brown group just ahead of him, and whichever elite talents come in by storm after him. He’s a #3 overall pick and has not yet played like one except in short bursts. The concern is well-founded and it’s going to take more than a nominal lift toward mediocrity in the easiest skill in basketball to make me an optimist on this one.

djphan: i don’t know how you can make the case he hasn’t improved at all…. his ws48 is at .042 which is a massive improvement from last year with his 3pt shooting at a likely depressed 24%

WS is a lousy stat…see: Kevin Knox, who by WS is an equal or better player. Same with BPM and VORP, which also show that we should be gaga over Knox’s improvement. PER is probably a better metric than WS despite what naysayers here believe. But let’s take a closer look at a range of advanced metrics:
PER: bad, slight improvement
OBPM: bad, slight improvement
DBPM: bad, somewhat improved
VORP: bad, slightly improved
2pt%: bad, nearly the same
3pt%: godawful, much worse
TS%: godawful, slightly lower
FTr: ok, somewhat lower
REB%s: ok, slightly higher
AST%: meh, unchanged
STL%: meh, slightly lower
BLK%: low, somewhat lower
TOV%: good! Significant improvement!

So his improved WS48 is nearly entirely due to turning the ball over significantly less and rebounding slightly better. His improved (but still mediocre) FT shooting has resulted in an increase of only a tenth of a made free throw per game, probably because it is offset by his decrease in FTr.

If you want to argue that not turning the ball over is a positive development and offsets his terrible shooting from 2 and 3, fine. But his shooting in particular, and every other element of his game besides turnovers in general, have barely budged.

best weekend of the year for kicking back and consuming some football…

If you completely throw out threes- if RJ took zero- his TS% last year would have been .478 this year it’d be .502. That’s a solid improvement but when you’re starting so low… When he shoots well he looks like a real player unlike say Knox who when he shoots well just looks a shitty player who happened to shoot well so there is that and that’s not nothing. But his shooting numbers are terrible so I worry.

Rose keeps adding value to the sidelines, and that’s good.

Mike Vorkunov @MikeVorkunov:
The Knicks made another hire for their analytics department, adding Nick Restifo to manage coaching analytics, league sources say. Restifo was with Tom Thibodeau in Minnesota as a basketball ops analyst.

Deeefense: Now that Ariel Pink…

So, when you knew a fellow KBer was part of the band, you didn’t have any interest, but now that the guy went to a “Trump rally” (whaaat? stop embarassing yourself!) you’re suddenly super interested in his music.

Jayson Tatum going into quarantine for covid: https://twitter.com/ShamsCharania/status/1347966787305013251

10-14 days, so he should be missing our game against Boston Jan 17.

About yesterday’s game, well we all know it was a bad game, and that happens to all teams. What i think went unnoticed was that OKC might have been the first team to game plan for the Knicks. They clearly invited us to launch threes, and clogged the paint. What it’s even sadder is that we know so well we’re bad at 3P shooting and so we kept on trying to get to the rim. On one of the blocks on RJ, he was fighting 3 defenders and never thought about kicking it out.

cybersoze: So, when you knew a fellow KBer was part of the band, you didn’t have any interest, but now that the guy went to a “Trump rally” (whaaat? stop embarassing yourself!) you’re suddenly super interested in his music.

I’ll be 62 in a few weeks. I pretty much haven’t gotten into any new music since Grunge. I listened to a couple of his songs and thought the musicianship (including our local KBer) was especially good but the songs didn’t grab me. For future reference that’s what happen as you age. lol

I thought I was very clear, I was impressed that instead of hoping his friends in the industry and band would rally in support of him and his character, he told them to distance themselves so they wouldn’t be harmed by the cancel culture (which I deplore) that was causing him trouble. So yes, now I’m interested to hear what else he has to say. He appears to be a very unique character. Maybe I should have given his music more of a chance.

The panic over RJ is reaching ridiculous proportions. He’s 20 years old, we’ve played 9 games, we still don’t have a good PG or spacing, he’s playing huge minutes, and he’s been especially bad in one of the most volatile areas of the game (3 point shooting). I’d rather he was lighting it up also, but he clearly has some good skills. As long as he makes some progress we are fine. Not every player is going to become a superstar. If he can become a good 2nd option on a playoff team by the time he’s 24 we should be happy. He doesn’t have to be that in game 9 at age 20.

DRed:
It’s been 8 or 9 games, we can’t really know what RJ has or hasn’t improved.I’m just saying if you’re drafting a kid who can’t shoot you can’t just give up on him when 65 games later he’s not a good shooter, and all his shooting is probably not going to improve at the same time at the same rate.If all he improves this year is FT shooting and ball handling that’s not the end of the world.

I don’t think many people here are saying to give up on him though I would. I’d be calling around and seeing what teams would give up for him and Obi because I don’t have faith in either of them.

WS is a lousy stat…see: Kevin Knox, who by WS is an equal or better player.

i never said to take ws48 at face value… but it’s a signal that you’re missing out on improvement when everyone is just focusing on just 3p%….. all those improvements that are being handwaved to just variance or being really small.. they add up! i went into this whole spiel on knox’s ‘improvement’ and his improvement is entirely driven by the fact that he’s limited himself to a catch and shoot guy… with zero improvement anywhere else.. that’s really bad for his future!

rj is obviously not in that category…. so i have no idea why knox is being invoked….

He and Jackson are eerily similar.

and yes if rj starts playing worse he could be like josh jackson….. but you could say the same about brandon ingram or markelle fultz or jaylen brown or jason richardson or kelly oubre or demar derozan or rudy gay or just about everyone else who struggled in their first couple of years in the league… struggling this early is not that uncommon…. and rj is both younger and has shown more than a lot of these players did at the same age so it’s not like he’s destined for just average mediocrity… the upside is still very much there….

the time to be concerned is when he’s below the mendoza line in his 2pt fg% like with knox and frank… he is obviously not in that ballpark of bad so we’re past the point of outright bust territory….. or if he hasn’t shown measurable improvement… which we’ve demonstrated that he has…. or that he is at substandard contributions for his position… which you could really only say that about his shooting….

it’s ok to be pessimistic but the concerns about the 3p shooting is misplaced…. and it’s not really the thing that is holding him back….

No one is selling low on RJ here. He has sucked but everyone agrees he is likely to improve.

you could just scroll up and find at least a few people who are very dubious of that fact or else why are we even talking about stanley johnson or josh jackson…..

or that the whole board was ready to trade brandon clarke for rj…..

djphan: i never said to take ws48 at face value… but it’s a signal that you’re missing out on improvement when everyone is just focusing on just 3p%….. all those improvements that are being handwaved to just variance or being really small.. they add up!

The improvement in ws/48 seems largely due to DWS, which is itself noisy and likely driven by teammates or the team’s luck in opponent 3pt shooting as he’s not considered a good defender.

As somebody who has been Ariel’s friend and colleague for 20 years, I can tell you he’s a loyal friend and and much less kooky and crazy than he seems. I can also tell you that in all the time I spent with him, which is a LOT of time, he has rarely expressed interest in politics, and only understands politics and government in a superficial way. He gets information from fringy sources and is prone to conspiracy theory type thinking. I consider myself pretty well informed, and I always found political discussions with him to be frustrating.

He’s a contrarian by nature, he’s interested in things that society has discarded and I think that comes through in his music. His embrace of Trump likely comes from a place of “well, everybody else says this sucks so I’m going to find value in it.” His public comments about his support of Trump are cringe-worthy, they reveal a person who is going out on a limb to defend something he really doesn’t understand very well. He’s an intelligent guy and he’s well read in some areas, but his comments about Trump just make him sound dumb.

For instance: he has tweeted that he believes the voter fraud conspiracy because Trump was so far ahead in swing states, then all these mail-in votes were counted and Biden surged ahead and boy that sure seems fishy. That’s something only stone cold idiots believe. There is not an intelligent person I know who believes this. He does seem to actually believe it, it seems like it’s not a put-on.

I don’t blame Mexican Summer for dropping him and I don’t blame “cancel culture.” Most of Ariel’s fans are thoughtful people who can see through Trump’s lies, and who realize the damage those lies have caused. They’re not going to stay fans. They have a right to express that they don’t support him anymore. And Mexican Summer has a right to protect its brand.

It’s an unfortunate situation but he’s no martyr.

RJ’s propensity to miss really open shots is a major problem. He airballs wide open looks.

djphan: and yes if rj starts playing worse he could be like josh jackson

How is he better than Josh Jackson now? He turns the ball over less and gets to the line more but has actually shot a little worse and isn’t as good defensively. He might be a little better and given his work ethic you’d think he’ll have a better outcome but he’s far closer to Jackson than he is to Jaylen Brown or DeRozen in their early years. Acting like RJ is is in a different class than Jackson is just wrong.

JK47:
I’ll say one other thing about this.

He’s not getting “canceled” because he merely showed up “at a Trump rally.” This was not just a Trump rally. He showed up, and voiced support for, a rally that was at its core attempting to overturn the results of a free and fair election. That rally was a LITERAL assault on democracy itself.

I don’t have a clue as to what an Ariel Pink is. But IMO a lot of the criticism he’s receiving is overblown. He attended a rally, which originally functioned as a protest for many of the people who attended. If he didn’t storm the Capitol Building then what is the real issue? That his politics are uninformed and dumb? Welcome to America. I think people have to step back and gain a perspective here. He wouldn’t be the first American musician to support an illegal and unjust political initiative for the wrong reasons. Anyone remember the furor in the lead up to the Iraq War? Hundreds of thousands died in that war that so many artists, actors, musicians, journalists, and talk show hosts supported. Have these people been canceled? Nope. I sometimes think Trump has irreversibly broken the left-hemisphere of your average milquetoast liberal’s mind.

The whole rally was called the “Stop The Steal” rally. It was a rally in support of anti-Democratic, fascist, authoritarian bullshit.

“I was just at the Klan rally, I didn’t burn a cross” is not really a great defense for going to the Klan rally and saying what a great time you had.

But there was time when friends, fans, and people in general set politics aside or were more forgiving of ignorance and mistakes unless they were extreme.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYzsukyYgC4

One must realize, when mounting any response to the quoted post, that this is a gentleman who described it as a soon-to-be “footnote” and that the media, those damned lying bastards, hyped up the size and threat of the mob. Of course, none of that is at all accurate.

I can put politics aside when it’s a matter of “should we tax sugary drinks” or “does rent control harm housing markets more than it protects those it benefits.” The above link? That’s not a “let’s just go out for a beer and talk it through,” strat. If you cannot understand this, you should stop posting your opinions because literally no one here is ever going to agree with you. Because it’s insane. It’s “are you fucking blind or dumb or both” shit.

Strat, you are showing your whole ass, yet again.

The whole rally was called the “Stop The Steal” rally. It was a rally in support of anti-Democratic, fascist, authoritarian bullshit.

These were a bunch of ignorant dolts that believed very biased media companies, very biased social media tech companies, and cheating with mail in ballots and voting machines impacted the election enough to change the election result. They honestly believed it was stolen (you know kind of like Russia stole the last election). They thought they were there to prevent an injustice. Like I said, they are ignorant dolts. The real failing was not protecting the capital properly. They allowed some people to basically walk right through the police lines. That was insanity. This should have ended with a few thousand people venting their mistaken frustration for a couple of hours and going home to drink moonshine.

These were a bunch of ignorant dolts that believed very biased media companies, very biased social media tech companies, and cheating with mail in ballots and voting machines impacted the election enough to change the election result.

FUCK THIS.

You know who these people believe? DONALD FUCKING TRUMP. Stop blaming “biased media companies,” try blaming Donald Trump, Ted fucking Cruz, Josh fucking Hawley and every leader and elected officials who spouts this shit.

Try some intellectual honesty just one fucking time.

JK47:
The whole rally was called the “Stop The Steal” rally. It was a rally in support of anti-Democratic, fascist, authoritarian bullshit.

“I was just at the Klan rally, I didn’t burn a cross” is not really a great defense for going to the Klan rally and saying what a great time you had.

This is a bad analogy. The rally wasn’t explicitly “anti-democratic” (a weird descriptor since our presidential elections aren’t democratic anyway) . In fact, their aims were to restore the integrity of an election they believe was stolen. That they believed in a discredited conspiracy theory with little grounding in reality is true. But then, by this logic, so did every Russiagate nutter who believed the 2016 election was illegitimate because of Putin’s meddling until Mueller’s Report discredited most of their conspiracy claims.

The KKK, on the other hand, is unambiguously a racist, white supremacist terrorist organization which routinely engages in violence to promote the separation of races and the establishment of a WASP ethnostate since Reconstruction. There’s no comparison. The fact that this comparison is being made is just more proof that Trump has distorted all political perspective in this country.

The Honorable Cock Jowles: No, you don’t. It’s easier for you to casually and meritlessly shit on RAPM than it is for you to admit you don’t know jack shit about statistics.

lol

IMO various on/off and RAPM stats seem to do the best job, but they are so noisy, by the time you have enough of a sample, the player’s form may have improved or deteriorated significantly from year to year, may have been impacted by a specific system, series of injuries, lineup combinations for awhile etc.. It simply can’t handle all that. So you are right back to making subjective judgements about critical factors.

I gambled serious money on basketball at one time, As part of that I looked at all these stats models, read all the critiques from other model creators, stats opponents, players, coaches, etc.. and slowly saw patterns of failure in each model. I don’t have the stats knowledge to create a very sophisticated model like these, but I can see the failures of those that exist. I tested them with paper bets. That’s why I rejected them all. I know I can do better subjectively. I tested that with real money.

The problem is you want to believe the game is simple enough to reduce to a single number.

Unfortunately it’s just not. It’s very complex and grey and the single number stats miss the mark fairly often and sometimes badly.

JK47: FUCK THIS.
You know who these people believe? DONALD FUCKING TRUMP. Stop blaming “biased media companies,” try blaming Donald Trump, Ted fucking Cruz, Josh fucking Hawley and every leader and elected officials who spouts this shit.
Try some intellectual honesty just one fucking time.

I know they believe Trump. That’s a big part of it.

But they are correct that the media and tech companies have a huge impact on what is in the news, how it is spun, etc..

They also know much of establishment media has been trying to bring him down from day one with spin and some lies. That’s why they don’t trust the establishment media to tell them the truth like when I was a kid and Walter Cronkite was giving us the news. There is almost no unspun media anymore. There are two sets of facts, two world views, and they are both bullshit. That’s why we have this great divide, Both sides think they are the ones getting the truth and they are both wrong. That creates quite a predicament and problem for the country,

There are idiots on the right that believe Trump, but there are idiots on the other side too.

Both sides think they are the ones getting the truth and they are both wrong.

“Only I am smart”

-Strat

“Only I am smart”
-Strat

Or, hyper-narcissistic personality disorder.

Where else have we been seeing this…

Deeefense: These were a bunch of ignorant dolts that believed very biased media companies, very biased social media tech companies, and cheating with mail in ballots and voting machines impacted the election enough to change the election result. They honestly believed it was stolen (you know kind of like Russia stole the last election).They thought they were there to prevent an injustice. Like I said, they are ignorant dolts. The real failing was not protecting the capital properly. They allowed some people to basically walk right through the police lines. That was insanity. This should have ended with a few thousand people venting their mistaken frustration for a couple of hours and going home to drink moonshine.

I like how it’s “the media” spreading these lies and not actual elected officials like Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, and the sitting fucking president. Also, conveniently ignoring the pipe bombs that were found at the RNC and DNC.

Also, conveniently ignoring the pipe bombs that were found at the RNC and DNC.

oh man, just re-played the video in my head of that one police guy screaming his head off while he was getting crushed up against a door…

He doesn’t want to hear anything that discredits Trump’s glorious win over the hated Hillary because he has the maturity of a 12-year old and he’s a poster boy for the Horseshoe Theory who probably subscribes to Chapo Trap House.

Wow. An ad hominem on top of a red herring. I must have really triggered you here with a simple analogy about two discredited conspiracy theories.

The idea you think I think Trump’s win was “glorious” is funny. Almost as funny as you being offended for me pointing out a man you called a friend for decades (your words) isn’t a KKKer because he attended a rally protesting voter fraud. Jesus, Trump really has melted the milquetoast liberal mind.

Querly Q-Word, Pen Name of Pen Name Early Bird: And yet you immediately assume we all get our news from the biased media and are incapable of discerning what is or isn’t embellished. No, only Strat alone can see the spin and see past it.

We are all unthinking automatons regurgitating MSNBC and CNN.

No, I assume there are people on both sides of the spectrum that are getting their news from very biased sources and that’s why we have this great divide and why people like Trump has dolts that follow him and there are people on the left equally lost.

Re: Ariel Pink. There are so many asshole artists whose work I love I can’t cancel them unless they’re off the rails (Never a big Michael Jackson fan but Off the Wall is a really good record that is now unlistenable for me) or it’s baked into the music (misogyny in a some rap for instance). Ariel Pink’s music hardly seems like a soundtrack for Trumpism. I actually haven’t listened to that much (Pom Pom plus random tracks here and there) and always kind of lumped them in with Of Montreal and the like which I find neither hooky enough to satisfy as pop and the experimentation not interesting enough to excite me on that end. I love it when a great bridge comes out of nowhere or chores takes a turn you never expected but the totality eludes me. Is there another of his records that could dispel that notion for me?

I thought you were leaving?

Bye!

I only wish we canceled everyone who supported the Iraq War, an actual calamity which really decimated a country, like Ariel Pink for attending a rally. But that would mean canceling our new President. Whoops!

***You know who these people believe? DONALD FUCKING TRUMP. Stop blaming “biased media companies,” try blaming Donald Trump, Ted fucking Cruz, Josh fucking Hawley and every leader and elected officials who spouts this shit. Try some intellectual honesty just one fucking time.***

I’d never heard of Ariel Pink before JK and others started discussing him here. I hate that he’s a trump supporter, because trump stands for so much that is terrible. But I’d rather listen to Ariel Pink at this point and still give him all chance than read one more intolerably asinine post from Strat/Dee/Lockjr. He’s become a troll with nothing to offer this site. Sad.

I only wish we canceled everyone who supported the Iraq War, an actual calamity which really decimated a country, like Ariel Pink for attending a rally. But that would mean canceling our new President. Whoops!

“Cancel culture” is just another word for “free speech” and “free markets.”

You’re allowed to say whatever you want, have any opinion you want. Then OTHER PEOPLE are also allowed to have any opinion THEY want. Some, or many, of those people might say “hey, fuck you, I’m not listening to your music or coming to your shows anymore.” There is nothing broken with this, nothing wrong with it. If you own a business and one of your assets is generating negative publicity, it might be in your best interests to sever your ties with that person. I really don’t know why this is something we should lament.

Dude can still make records, he can still tweet, he can still go to other Trump rallies and talk about how fun they are, and nobody is going to stop him. He’s just not entitled to have everybody still like him.

Deeefense: These were a bunch of ignorant dolts that believed very biased media companies, very biased social media tech companies, and cheating with mail in ballots and voting machines impacted the election enough to change the election result. They honestly believed it was stolen (you know kind of like Russia stole the last election). They thought they were there to prevent an injustice. Like I said, they are ignorant dolts.

This interview with two Capitol police officers indicates that’s not the case.

While some of the images from that day appeared to show officers standing by to let the mob into the Capitol building, the veteran officer said that they had fought them off for two hours before the attackers eventually gained access. The officer said that many of the widely spread images of smiling marauders, wandering the halls dressed in absurd costumes, had the effect of downplaying how well prepared some of the rioters were to overtake the building, and even to capture and kill Congress members.

“That was a heavily trained group of militia terrorists that attacked us,” said the officer, who has been with the department for more than a decade. “They had radios, we found them, they had two-way communicators and earpieces. They had bear spray. They had flash bangs … They were prepared. They strategically put two IEDs, pipe bombs in two different locations. These guys were military trained. A lot of them were former military,” the veteran said, referring to two suspected pipe bombs that were found outside the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee and the Republican National Committee.

Ntilakilla:
Damn, Tyrese Maxey.

Not bad at all. Maybe it wouldn’t have been the worst thing in the world if he’d fallen to us at 23…

There are some more Ariel Pink comments that have been unearthed from the past few months, in which he denies climate change, says that the COVID vaccine does not cure the disease, and that January 20 will be “day of the guillotine” and that Democrats rigged the election through Dominion software.

So, uh, maybe I do need to re-evaluate this friendship. I mean I wouldn’t be friends with fucking Ted Nugent.

This should have ended with a few thousand people venting their mistaken frustration for a couple of hours and going home to drink moonshine.

Seeing as how these poor, mislead souls came equipped with IEDs and murdered a police officer because the President of the United States couldn’t stop telling them the election was stolen by Hugo Chavez and Dominion, I’m not sure this was ever going to end well.

F’in’ LaMelo Ball…

That Sixers game was a mockery of a sham. Hopefully the ease of that win will make the Nuggets soft and ripe for the picking tomorrow.

Definitely regretting my homer Obi for ROY vote, Brian.

Leon loved Lamelo.

Thar was about as bad a basketball take as I have had.

Kid was one assist last night short of posting two triple doubles in his first ten games.

Also, what Raven said.

Some folks here liked LaMelo…

Just wait till Okongwu posts back to back double doubles…

djphan: enough for what? if you think he was going to turn into doncic that was never going to happen and you’re going to be disappointed…. if you thought that he was going to be an above average player who could possibly make a few all star teams then minor improvement is more than fine….. at this age and in his 2nd year being a bad but improving player is fine as long as you improve.. there’s no benchmark that you need to be productive at age 20…

When your starting line is godawful, then you do need to make big jumps. Again, compare him to Ingram who needed two gargantuan leaps to make it to an all-star level. Compare him to Wiggins who started out much better and only got a little better. Minor improvements are fairly meaningless.

djphan: going from 61% to 71% in free throws is not minor… going from 5.9 reb per 36 to 6.7 is also not minor… that’s fairly large and the only reason it isn’t readily apparent is because of the shooting…

It’s a question of variance. Players don’t put up the same numbers month-to-month or year-to-year. A string of bad games could easily put him back to where he was, just like a string of good games could make him look much better. The further he is from last year’s numbers the less likely the change is due to variance.

djphan: why? i already do understand the metric and so does everyone…

Yeah but like 90% of the change is due to his DWS or DBPM. So it’s fair to question if it’s really any improvement to him.

The 3p% could go up, but if the other numbers go down slightly then he’s the same player.

pepper:
Popovich needs a haircut unless he is ultimately going for the pony tail…

Just as long as he doesn’t go full Keith Morris…

When your starting line is godawful, then you do need to make big jumps. Again, compare him to Ingram who needed two gargantuan leaps to make it to an all-star level.

ok let’s look at brandon ingram….

ingram ws48/bpm/vorp

age 19 –.007 / -4.4 / -1.4
age 20 – .068 / -1.2 / 0.4
age 21 – .055 / -2.0 / 0.0
age 22 – .115 / 2.1 / 2.2

rj
age 19 – -.015 / -4.3 / -1.0
age 20 – .042 / -2.9 / -0.1

does that not look like a similar leap in performance as ingram made in year 2? and that’s if you freeze rj’s worse shooting.. is it not?

Again, compare him to Ingram who needed two gargantuan leaps to make it to an all-star level.

yes the second one didn’t come until last year… age 22… rj is 20 now and in the middle of what is probably a year of small but noticeable improvement…. same as ingram…

that does not mean rj is destined to be the next ingram… it does mean that ppl need to chill out….

I don’t know much about Ariel Pink but one tiny defense of one of his statements: the COVID vaccine isn’t a cure. The vaccine reduces symptoms, but there aren’t studies to show whether they will affect transmission yet. That probably – given the other statements he apparently made – was not the point he was making, but in any case…

Basketball related question that I figured someone has already thought of, or can point me to a study. My intuition is that as three-point shooting attempts increase, the higher variance associated with three-point shooting contributes to higher variance in predicting wins and losses for NBA teams. Which may have the effect of increasing parity slightly, at least in won lost record across the league.

Now I could be (and probably am) wrong, as I have no data. Does anyone know if this has been considered?

I agree people should chill out about RJ. He’s young and the Ingram example indicates not everyone who will be good is good right away. But I don’t trust small changes in the all in one seats either. So it’s impossible to tell if he’s getting better by just looking at his statistics

I believe he brought him up previously several times…

djphan: does that not look like a similar leap in performance as ingram made in year 2? and that’s if you freeze rj’s worse shooting.. is it not?

So there’s 2 problems. First, RJ’s 2nd year numbers are not as good as Ingram’s 2nd year numbers.

The second reason goes back to what I was saying about how defensive numbers are calculated for all-in-one stats. If the team does well, then all the players tend to benefit from the defensive improvement. Even a terrible defender’s DBPM/DWS will look good because he’s getting credit for the overall defense. The next step of these defensive numbers is to assign defensive credit to the various players. I’m not terribly familiar with this step, but people are mostly skeptical about the merit in distributing defensive value according to it.

Because team defense factors heavily into individual DBPM/DWS there’s several ways to explain RJ’s defensive improvement, most of them have nothing to do with RJ:
(1) Mitchell Robinson is an extraordinary defender
(2) Opponents have been on an unsustainable cold streak from 3 that will revert to the norm
(3) Thibs is an alchemist that has discovered the secret for eternal life and turning lead into gold

I haven’t watched RJ’s defense too closely and I couldn’t tell if he’s a good defender even if I did. So I’ll go off the reports I hear, and most of them call RJ a below average defender.

So even the numbers that you’ve posted are to some extent misleading. If instead we focus on the more reliable OBPM/OWS then there’s a pronounced difference between RJ’s numbers and Ingram’s numbers (I’ll use OBPM because it’s a rate state and not cumulative):

RJ OBPM

YR1 -2.9
YR2 -2.4

Diff 0.5

Ingram OBPM

YR1 -3.0
YR2 -0.9

Diff 2.1

Just to clarify Ingram’s vorp went from -.4 to 1.4 (so plus 1.8) and RJ’s has gone from -1 to -.1 but if you adjust for games played it’s the improvement shrinks down to around .3 (too lazy to do the math). So if RJ’s numbers stay where they are he’d be nowhere close to Ingram’s improvement.

RJ isn’t a bad all-around player and that’s something, but if he’s cast as a guy who needs to take 12 shots per game because of roster construction and draft narrative, well, he’s either miscast or a bad player.

I fully believe it’s the former (since he’s a net positive in every other facet of basketball) but that doesn’t mean we’re not right worrying about him.

the reason i think the iggy comparison sucks is bc it either badly underrates iggy’s defense or projects a totally unrealistic range for rj’s defense. iggy was fucking killer wing defender with drew brees type pattern recognition plus all the prereq physical traits from day 1 and rj is a fully so-so high effort low impact guy. being iggy with okay defense is like being michael vick with okay foot speed.

RJ is not the uber-athlete that Iggy was, but he’s a solid defender for a young guy and will get better there. His strength and footwork are assets…he’s pretty switchable.

If there’s a valid comparison there, it’s in projected role…basically a #4-5 guy on a contending team. That’s probably RJ’s upside unless his shooting improves dramatically. Which is fine if he gets there, but still disappointing in that we picked 3rd in a two-player draft and better players will have been picked below him.

Thing is, RJ thinks he a #1-2 option. He doesn’t get why he was left off of the all-rookie team when any objective self-reflection would explain his omission. It’s fine that he’s confident and all, but dude, get real…you sucked last year.

In 6 of 9 games this year, he’s had the same or fewer point than shots. It’s not just that his shooting is consistently mediocre…in more games than not, it’s downright abysmal. Here are 5 of his 9 games:
2-15
4-15
4-19
4-14
7-21
Then there was a 7-17, which you can live with but still not good. There’s a difference between being “off” and “can’t hit water when falling out of a rowboat.”

And yet Thibs keeps rolling him out there for 43 minutes. I guess he likes what he sees beyond the shooting and hopes that he will work through it. It’s worth noting that that approach didn’t work for Wiggins, who Thibs felt was deserving of a max contract. But hey, we’re a long way away from that so hopefully things change as we go through the year.

Sure, Killian Hayes is a better draft prospect than LaMelo Ball. Sure. Remember those conversations?

I had them ranked 1 and 2 respectively but this is an extremely dull victory lap. Hayes played 148 minutes and got injured. Pipe down.

Shams:

Dallas Mavericks forward Maxi Kleber is entering isolation and will miss 10-to-14 days due to COVID-19 health and safety protocols,

Maybe a shorter Kyle Anderson?

Kyle Anderson is an anomaly in his game speed. Barrett is fast and athletic but can’t get the ball in the hole.

There are a lot of players like Barrett and very, very few like Anderson. Barrett will always “get his shot off” which might lead to a 25 PPG season in which he shoots .520 TS%. Anderson plays within himself because he’d be embarrassed off the floor if he tried to take that many attempts a night. His career high in single-game points was 20 coming into this season. Barrett obliterated that in his rookie year. Just two completely different bodies and games. Couldn’t be more different in attack.

when do we expect Obi back? and how many minutes will he carve out

Hugo Busto:
when do we expect Obi back? and how many minutes will he carve out

I think he’s supposed to be back pretty soon. I would hope that he can take all or most of Knox’s minutes and another few minutes from Randle.

if barrett can get to stack/mash/butler…I would sign up for that…that…seems to be an accurate ceiling…i think even those guys had better basketball athleticism than rj…

djphan:
the idea that i’m pushing back on is that because rj is a bad shooter now he will always be a bad shooter and thus will be a bad player…. it’s just way too premature to be saying that at this point … especially when the same camp is pointing to this small sample of shootingbut at the same time handwaving all the other stuff because ‘it’s noisy’….that is just incredibly backwards since all the other stuff is way more reliable at this stage in the game….

that’s just being overly pessimistic….

I don’t think anyone here is saying that RJ can’t or won’t improve, even me and I’m probably the most pessimistic poster here. The question is how much improvement is realistic? You’ve talked about his improved FT shooting, and it has improved by a fairly significant amount, but even with that improvement he still isn’t a good FT shooter. He’s not even an average FT shooter at 71.7% vs 76.5%. So he has to make another significant leap just to be a good FT shooter. Meanwhile, he’s also still below average at best at shooting from every location on the floor and I think it’s pretty obvious, Steve Nash being his godfather not withstanding, that he’s not going to be the kind of passer/playmaker that’s good enough to make up for a lack of shooting.

djphan: that’s not what i’m saying….

that is what i’m saying…

Right, but what I’m asking is what’s a realistic improvement for RJ look like?

Fun if slightly tedious discussion of RJ today, partly because who knows. With the extreme caveat that I am not in any possible way a shot doctor, I’ll add to the fun tedium by saying that RJ’s shot doesn’t seem ‘broken’ in a Fultzian manner. But it does seem like he’s doing various things wrong, especially on his 3’s — they just look a bit fugly in terms of position and motion, not sure exactly why but I rarely think, “Oh that should go in.”

But he’s a good and smooth athlete otherwise. So there’s every possibility, if he hooks up with some shot doctors who are actually good, and puts in the work, he could significantly improve. It’ll take time, of course. I imagine he’ll put the work in from what I hear about him, so it’s getting the shot right. I think it absolutely can happen, but who knows if it will.

I’m not too horrified by his general lack of improvement, as until now we had what appears to be no development system in place whatsoever. So he gets a soft pass from me until next year.

He needs to do the equivalent of what Randle did this past summer (if you read the NYPost piece of a few days ago) but make it all about his shooting.

I was in the dumps yesterday – just wasn’t a great week and I realized I’ve been pretty angry. I’m a bit better today: me, the wife and her bestie are going to the beach to grill – therapeutic for me and them. Had to catch up with all the comments

As soon as Dee/Strat made his comments about Ariel Pink I KNEW JK47 was about to ether him. He and others made the points I would’ve, so I’ll just add this:
Strat, please stop with the “both sides” rhetoric. It’s bs. And it’s BS because this has clearly gone way beyond politics. It’s clearly about things that have a clear right/wrong moral factor to it. You can be a Repub and support civil rights and BLM. But if you’re a Repub *and* you support Trump, it’s not about politics – period.

I’d like to think we can return to a time where debating politics is just that, but we’ve come to a serious point of reckoning in this country and I’m not sure how we’ll come out on the other side of it. Racism runs deep, and JK said it best: too many know the reality of the damage of racism but cling to lies that they think absolve them of being recognized as a racist/bigot.

On RJ: I’m glad yall discussed comparing hin to Brandon Ingram, because of the Laker games I watched when he was on the team, I saw the groundwork of a great midrange game (he can hit them even contested – I just thought it wouldn’t mesh well with LeBron). I’ll hang my hat on an Ingram comp w/RJ.

But with your examples we come back to the fact that RJ is only has OK athleticism for an NBA player. Most of the players you listed are way better athletes than RJ.

i’m not sure why athleticism matters or why you think rj is so deficient…. rj is probably a fair bit better than everyone i’ve mentioned in the open floor other than vince carter… is that not true?

what measure of athleticism are you counting?

if there is not much else to discuss…..that means we have to go back to debating frank…

is he still on the roster…ou est monsieur ntkilina?

djphan: i’m not sure why athleticism matters or why you think rj is so deficient….

Athleticism matters because being able to move faster and jump higher is an advantage in basketball. RJ isn’t deficient, he just isn’t great. He’s average to above average for an NBA player.

djphan: rj is probably a fair bit better than everyone i’ve mentioned in the open floor other than vince carter… is that not true?

You already mentioned VC but Jason Richardson and Demar Derozan were also much better athletes than RJ is and it’s been a long time but I remember Derek Anderson being a good athlete but I might be wrong about that. And a lot of guys look good in the open court but most basketball is played in the halfcourt.

djphan: what measure of athleticism are you counting?

Everything. He’s got good not great straight line speed and jumping ability but below average at best lateral speed and agility.

EDIT: I should mention he is very strong, especially for his age.

nicos: C’mon Z-Man. Mason had better lateral movement at 250 than RJ does at 215. He’s not a bad defender but he’s not a particularly good one. He’s smart and works hard so I can see him being a plus defender eventually but nowhere near Iggy (or Mason).

Well Mase was essentially a 25 year old rookie…he had 120 total NBA minutes before that. I could see RJ getting up to 230-240 lbs…he’s got a pretty big frame and is already jacked in a lean way. The kid is strong as an ox, I’ll give him that….he doesn’t get pushed around. I’m not sure about the lateral movement thing, he moves pretty well and has great footwork.

There’s a reason Thibs is playing him big minutes, and his D is probably a big part of it. I don’t get why people are calling him an average to below average defender…he looks pretty damn good out there to me.

Anyway, I was more thinking about his funky lefty shooting form, which very much reminds me of Mase. It’s not a form built for high-volume-high-efficiency scoring. Mase was generally a low-usage guy…never averaged above 10FGA per 36…and kept his efficiency high by being selective. RJ doesn’t seem to be amenable to that yet, nor should he if Thibs is okay with him clanging away.

djphan:

rj isn’t a generational athlete but he’s good… certainly above average which is basically all you need…. he’ll be fine in that regard….

Because of his strength, I think it’s just a matter of time before his rim attacks bear more fruit. He’s already shown some craftiness around the basket.

Z-man: There’s a reason Thibs is playing him big minutes, and his D is probably a big part of it. I don’t get why people are calling him an average to below average defender…he looks pretty damn good out there to me.

If Thibs loved his D Bullock wouldn’t be the guy taking the tougher assignment every game. Diallo went around Barrett like he was standing still multiple times as did Norman Powell against Toronto. He’s smart, works hard and rarely blows assignments- Like I said I can see him being a positive on that end but I highly doubt it’s something he’s ever going to be able to hang his hat on.

From Mike Vorkunov 2:

Knicks rookie Obi Toppin remains out, though Tom Thibodeau says he’s making “steady progress but still not cleared for contact.” Toppin played in the season opener Dec. 23, re-aggravated a calf injury, and hasn’t played since.

Memo: tonight game starts al 6 PM

djphan: rj isn’t a generational athlete but he’s good… certainly above average which is basically all you need…. he’ll be fine in that regard….

No, he’s not above average for guys dependent on getting to the rim for their offense. Guys who succeed at his game look like Jaylen Brown and Oladipo and he’s a solid tier below that.

Are we talking about the same Derozan?

oh you’re right…. i don’t know what i was looking at…

but in any case… it’s not like derozan is just far and away a better athlete than rj…. the dunk % is .060 which is inline with where taytum… brown…. and derozan were in their first 4 years… this is just what they are…

and it’s really tough to talk about athleticism and say what about it that actually matters? is it a vertical? is it quickness? all that manifests itself in oncourt production…. doncic isn’t athletic.. neither is curry or harden or chris paul… or paul george… even kawhi leonard isn’t blessed with a ridiculous vertical….

there’s very few that make it just because of their athleticism… they make it because of their skills…. sometimes that’s augmented by their athleticism….

in any case rj’s athleticism is not holding him back…. that’s really near the bottom of things of why he’s not looking great right now…..