Berman reports, “The Knicks have paved the way for shot-blocking power forward Kenny Wooten to get some time in the NBA.
The Knicks are waiving Ivan Rabb, their two-way contract player, an NBA source confirmed.
That will allow the Knicks to now sign Wooten, already a member of the Westchester Knicks, to a two-way deal. Wooten starred at summer league after being undrafted out or Oregon and the Knicks were concerned he was going to sign elsewhere.
Rabb was signed right before the season opener to a two-way deal when the Kris Wilkes’ agreement fell apart.
Rabb came on recommendation from since-fired coach David Fizdale and never saw action with the Knicks.
The Knicks have to rejigger their two-way contract guys by Jan. 15. After that deadline, no two-way player can be signed. Wooten is allowed 45 days with the big club.”
Good move.
An obvious one, but still a good one!
128 replies on “NY Post: Kenny Wooten set up for Knicks chance in two-way contract shuffle”
*Knicks fans breath sigh of relief*
Looking forward to the defence from a Mitch/Wooten/Frank line up if it happens.
There is a God. He’s mostly a Celtics fan but he loves Clyde.
now we can start complaining about lamar peters not getting a shot
Frank, Dot, RJ, Woot, Mitch
The only thing Fancy Dog hates more than Burisma is Knickerblogger….
OK, even I’m happy this morning.
I’ve been screaming to give this kid a shot since summer league. I love him. I have no idea how developed his offensive game has become in Westchester, but I know how much energy he plays with on the defensive side and I know he can dunk lobs. There’s a job for him on my team. Finding the right lineups might be tricky, but he’s too talented and passionate to lose him without first giving him some time to expand his game.
The Wooten news is good. Berman’s other news is less so:
I’d like to think this is just posturing to get the best possible package. But everything these two yahoos have done indicates they value cap flexibility to an unhealthy degree. Morris freaking drops out of the sky for us, has a career year, and we’re going to be too dumb to sell high on him.
Berman made an interesting point about Morris. I’m not sure if was informed as to what the offers have been or just speculation, but he said the Knicks didn’t want to trade Morris for a late 1st rounder if it involved taking back a contract that was for more than 1 year. Maybe that’s what’s on the table so far.
edit: I see someone beat me to it.
The combined blocking power of Mitch and Wooten on the same team caused the release of the blocking wave. The blocking wave caused chaos, blocking everything it touched. Cock-blocking Lakers fans at bars, blocking traffic on roundabouts near Boston, and even blocking KBlogger from accessing its database.
What big free agents are we allegedly signing this summer that we so desperately need to hoard cap space for? Hell, even if we have a real shot at Giannis the following year (which I don’t believe for a second), the roster has been deliberately been built with so much flexibility elsewhere that we should be able to weather one albatross contract and still sign the guy.
TRADE. MORRIS. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD.
I mean… I get it. Why should we do another team the favor of taking a bad contract when they get a playoff ringer in Morris? Taking the 2-year contract is another first, so 2 firsts in that deal, please.
And thank God kb is back on air, I was getting the shakes.
I looked up Wooten’s stats in G league. I thought he was a center, but actually he’s a 6’8” power forward. He’s still second in the league at 3.4 blocks per game despite not being a center. The guy he replaced, Ivan Rabb, has stats that aren’t bad and is more of a scorer than Wooten. Seems like the Knicks actually are putting defense first.
Think Wooten will play tonight? Or at least be available?
So Knicks may hold on to Morris unless he’s part of a deal for a star player? If they keep him, they will re-sign him this summer. They’d look like fools if he walked so they’ll give him a sweet deal. There aren’t many teams who would have cap space to give Mook what he’s after. And, of course, it will be a 4-year deal and the guy will regress to his norm or worse starting in year 1.
If this were a Western, we’re sitting in a fort which has been under siege by the Indians for days. It’s nighttime – Indians won’t attack at night and are waiting for daybreak to finish us off. We hear their ceremonial war sounds in the distance. On their first attack, they scalped AD’s brow. The second attack involved an arrow to a healthy KD’s achilles. The 3rd attack was brutal as the fort dwellers’ prayers to Zion went unanswered and the news arrived that Ja was felled before he could penetrate into our ranks. So here we sit waiting for the fort to go up in flames – the inevitable news that our starting lineup on Feb 7th and beyond will be Payton, RJ, Wiggins, Morris, Drummond. Mitch, Frank, Mavs picks will all be gone.
I know I’m in the minority here, but I actually think the Knick’s decision not to trade Morris for a first round pick if they have to take on a long term contract isn’t bad. The Knicks can probably re-sign Morris for the same amount of money they’d have to spend on the returning player. It’s true you don’t get the pick then, but I just don’t think late first round picks are valuable enough to give up one of your best players for, especially if this coming draft is considered a bad one.
Just a quick review:
1) We can open up nearly $20M space this summer by doing nothing other than declining the options on Portis/Gibson/Ellington.
2) If you’re going to say we shouldn’t trade Morris if it means taking on post-2020 salary, you need to look at the list of 2020 free agents and say which one(s) requires us to have more than $20M. Otherwise you’re saying nothing at all.
Off topic, but since this is now my go-to site for TV, cuisine, politics, and more, I’d kind of like to get the board’s feedback on the movie Parasite. It has a 99% rating on rotten tomatoes, is winning every award on the planet, and everybody I personally know (including filmmakers themselves) are gaga over it. I love foreign films, I like a lot of Asian films, I thought Parasite was thoroughly mediocre. It was weak in theme, it lacked style, it wasn’t the least bit revelatory, and it was ugly both inside and out. Is this an Emperors New Clothes thing? Is it going to be like that silent French movie that everybody got so pie-eyed over a few years ago, only to never think about it again? Or is the love of Parasite real and lasting, and if so, why?? (Editor’s note: I am the guy from the TV thread that didn’t like Breaking Bad, The Sopranos, and Game Of Thrones, BUT, to be fair, I only watched the pilots, and I acknowledge that if I had the time and interest to invest in them fully, I’m sure I’d see the inherent greatness in them. With Parasite, I experienced the beginning, middle, and end, and still left the theater scratching my head as to what the hubbub was all about…)
It’s not that they overvalue cap space.
It’s that they overvalue cap space in combination with a bad team.
What good is cap space if no all star caliber players will come to your team in free agency or trade because you suck and you keep tanking?
Cap space has a TON of value once you are a playoff team and become an attractive destination. Becoming a playoff team takes some pretty good players or a TON of time if done exclusively via draft.
this is a weak draft but it looks like there probably will be a decent player available at the end of the first… there’s enough land mines that are getting first round and lottery hype that have no business being there and that will likely push the real talent further down in the draft….
at the very worst that guy has a better shot at being a contributor on this team in a few years than morris does… if we are trying to save cap room morris won’t be resigned anyway….
there is some value in keeping cap space tho… vanvleet will be very attractive if we can lure him and he’s likely to get a shit ton of money…. if we have any shot of obtaining a true star in a couple years we are gonna need impact players and we currently have a bunch of guys who are clearly overextended in creating offense for themselves (randle/rj) and/or highly dependent on others creating shots for them (mitch)…. a true starting level pg that could unlock some hidden production is sorely needed and vanvleet is young enough to fit the timelines of our young guys….
but … he’s just one guy and we could very easily lose out on him….. he’s worth to keep some space open to find out tho….
I had a totally different experience. Ms. Jowles and I walked out of the theater utterly speechless, in awe of the mastery of vision, story concept, scripting, blocking, set design, acting, sound design — everything about that film was perfect, IMO. In fact, I told her Sunday I couldn’t wait until it got to a streaming service so I could experience it again. I found it incredibly rich thematically, without stabbing me to death with heavy-handed symbolism (which is how I’m finding Succession through the first few episodes, notably the last shot of the first episode, pulling back from the child’s apartment to show the looming wealth of the city above it).
spoilers–
Lacking in style? I really could not disagree more. I was howling with laughter while the family pulls their initial cons — e.g. when the siblings are walking up the stairs for the first “art therapy lesson” and she’s singing the nursery rhyme as a mnemonic device, or showering the housekeeper with peach dust. And then when the housekeeper returns in the rain and the hard-right turn toward menace, only growing darker and more malignant as they descend into the unknown bowels of the house. The style was utterly fantastic. Not to say that abrupt tone shifts are anything new (Mulholland Drive is a top-3 film for me for this very reason, see the cold read scene between Naomi Watts and the sunburnt older actor after a solid half-hour of hilariously Mary Sue melodramatic acting) but I thought it was executed perfectly.
@16
IMO, late 1st round picks are wildly overvalued here.
If we trade Morris for a 1st rounder, the goal should be to package it as part of trade for a better player or to move up in the draft to get a player we like a lot. It should not be to draft some teenager 27th.
Despite popular opinion, guys like Morris do add value to our young players by teaching them and helping them mature quicker. He also wins games for us. The latter is a requirement if you eventually want to use cap space to attract an all star. You first have to win games and become a destination before free agency and some trades for all stars even become feasible. Playoff experience, while not a consideration for this year, is also a huge stepping stone in the development of the kids. That’s another reason to try to get good. Of course, we could keep tanking forever until we strike gold too.
A quick shout to Zach, TNFH, Rama, and anyone else who’d like to meet up for the Knicks Bucks game tonight:
8 PM at Eastpoint, 25 Ave B.
The Knicks have plenty of cap space, so I don’t mind them taking on a player for next year if it means getting a first rounder for Morris. That said, it seems hard to believe that they can’t get an expiring plus a pick for Morris. Like, say, Harkless and a first. This just smacks of them coming up with an excuse for them holding on to Morris because they’re morons. “We won’t trade Morris for a first if it means taking on another year of salary.” “Has no one offered an expiring plus a pick?” “…Next question!”
And, not for nothing, if no one will seriously offer an expiring and a pick for Morris, then that surely tells you something about how the league values him, no? It must not be very much if no one will even give up an expiring and a first for him.
I will be there. Does East Point serve food?
So you don’t really dislike Breaking Bad, The Sopranos or Game of Thrones. You disliked their pilots.
1) The Sopranos’ pilot was shot well before the 2nd episode, IIRC, and has a totally different cinematography style. Not everything about The Sopranos has aged well, but it still has two of the best lead-actor performances that have been committed to film. Gandolfini and Falco were sublime.
2) Breaking Bad has a wonderful pilot, executed perfectly, but is not even close to the heights that the show reaches in later seasons. The show decides what it wants to be at the end of Season 2 (a uniquely bleak anti-hero story) and puts its foot on the gas pedal in the beginning of season 3, never letting up. It is a major folly to dismiss that show after one episode.
3) I do not recommend watching Game of Thrones as the show goes so far off the rails in season 6 (barring the episode “The Door,” one of the best episodes of TV I’ve seen) that it undermines all of the incredible work that was done in the first four seasons. I believe it was Lindsay Ellis that said, essentially: “All of the journey led to this?” I would strongly recommend for a newbie to watch The Office Seasons 2 and 3, for instance, even though starting about halfway through Season 4, it makes a hard turn toward schlock and reaches some truly horrific lows by Season 7, culminating in one of the worst final seasons imaginable. But I would still recommend it. I cannot say the same for Game of Thrones — but S1-4 are far better than the pilot would suggest.
Serious TV pilots have an enormous, almost unrealistic task: establish characters, setting and conflict within the span of 25-60 minutes; make it accessible enough that the studio folks will give it the green light; but not so accessible that it insults your audience. That’s a lot to ask of a work of narrative fiction that plans on telling its story over 20-60 hours.
Strat,
I appreciate Morris’ value, too, but I don’t understand why you wouldn’t be ok with trading the guy, getting the pick, then re-signing him.
Also, why do you act like we can only draft teenage projects at the end of the first round? Late first round picks have become a breeding ground for finding experienced, productive players ready to contribute immediately.
Some guys drafted in the 20’s or after the last couple years that I would love to have include:
2016:
Caris LeVert (Senior)
Pascal Siakim (Sophomore)
DeJounte Murray (Freshman)
Malcolm Brogdon (Senior)
2017:
Kyle Kuzma (Senior)
Josh Hart (Senior)
OG Anunoby (Sophomore)
Jarrett Allen (Freshman)
2018:
Aaron Holiday (Junior)
Moritz Wagner (Junior)
Landry Shamet (Sophomore)
Jalen Brunson (Junior)
2019:
Matisse Thybulle (Senior)
Yes. It’s basic bar food. Burgers, chicken sandwich, etc.
I brought this up here last week actually. If you go back a week or so ago you’ll find comments from a bunch of us.
I was taken to see it by someone and was unaware of the buzz. I had very low expectations and I really enjoyed it. A bit too long, but definitely a good film.
I made the list of guys picked 25th or later in the last few drafts for Strat a few days ago. Plenty of guys we’d love to have.
He ignored it and then chimed right back in with the “you can only get bad teenagers with those picks” thing.
I’m not even trying to make this personal, just an objective observation: he does not change his opinions in the face of evidence.
Unless I’m missing something, those guys are worth $34 million next year. Plus Trier, Dotson, and salary cap raise space brings the total to $46 million. Assume we keep Morris for approx. the same money
If we move Randle and Frank for Drummond, that’s another $22.8 million. Total: $66.8 million give or take.
We shouldn’t trade Morris because we want to (foolishly) sign him in free agency which we can do anyway after we trade him is some real brilliant front office work.
Like this is the insanely stupid shit Pills are peddling to our doofus owner in order to try to keep their jobs.
Fun fact: SGA had as many defensive rebounds last night as Frank has in his top four games of the year combined.
The top of the draft looks weak, but often draft analysts are wrong (I tend to agree with them this year). Could be lots of talent, but scouts are just looking at the wrong guys. Could be lots of really solid, but unspectacular players late in the draft. There’s plenty of reasons to take a late 1st and a non-expiring, mostly that Morris himself is overrated and will not hit 45% of his threes next year.
2022 and later draft picks are going to have a whole lot more upside because of the glut of 18- and 19-year-old scrubs that will be “locked up” by bad teams. If there’s a draft where you REALLY want some late 1sts, it’s those. Why? Because you can pick around the teenagers and actually get some goddamn value.
But nah, “stop tanking,” just sign two max players to a 20-win team and we’re good.
more often than not
I don’t trust these two guys to be selfless and make trades that make us worse this year and/or next year because they’re sure to get fired. But that is what’s needed now. So, they will probably keep Morris and sign him to another one-year deal ~$25m – cut Taj and Ellington this summer and give him their salary.
I do admire the way he goes all and just stays there long after it’s clear he needs to vacate the area. It’s endearing.
Strat, I hope you are in NYC tonight. Would love to meet for the game.
See, Mulholland drive is a top-3 film for me, too (top-2 actually), so I was primed to like Parasite, but I didn’t. With Parasite, there was nothing cathartic about it, there was nobody likable in it, and the social commentary didn’t have a resolution. And when I say it lacked style, I mean that cinematically. For me Mulholland Drive is like the 2015 Golden State Warriors of cinematic style. Parasite is more like the 2013 New York Knicks— competent enough to fool you into expectations, but with no long-term potential for greatness.
Franks suffers from paint-o-phobia.
Been saying this for a long time…the only way he’ll swim is if you through him off on the deep end and go for a beer.
Yeah but SGA’s not a real threat in 3-on-3, which is where the league is headed.
Say we keep the team as is, waive Taj, Ellington, Portis.
We somehow (thanks Joakim!!!) fit VanVleet and Drummond:
VanVleet/Payton
RJ/Bullock
Morris Sr/Markieff(?)
Randle/Knox
Drummond/Mitch
That’s not a terrible team, but it’s also not competitive. Still not sure Randle plays well next to Drummond. Is Drummond worth the max? You see some greatly diminished returns in rebounding. Miller Triangle??? For some reason you have the Morris twins until they’re 35.
Oh, really? I’ll try to find those (I’ve been a bad KBer of late, mostly because, you know, the Knicks are bad too). Thanks.
I didn’t actually know the movie was as well received as it was. It wasn’t when I came out of the theater that I was told it had a 99% rating and had winning all the major awards. I’m still trying to get my head around why that movie, and why now. It just felt like it must be a trendy thing, and wanted to see what you guys thought because I know, respect, and understand you all more than I do the rotten tomatoes aggregate 🙂
Like a never-ending class war, perhaps?
I mean, it’s not a comic-book movie, right? And Mulholland Drive, which we share among our favorites (I do consider it the best movie of the century so far), shares that distinction — even our beloved heroine turns out to be nothing like we were led to believe…
Like a never-ending class war, wherein a new family moves into the house and the underbelly continues to dream for something they will never, ever have. ; )
Not every movie is for everyone. Unlike basketball, art is subjective. You can’t say Parasite objectively sucks. On the other hand, you can say Frank Ntilikina objectively sucks (ducks and hides).
speaking of frank, how’s his groin doing?
For me it’s obvious that Mills thinks he found the genius formula to not piss fans and the ownership. The Knicks past front offices were wildly criticized for two things, trading away first rounders and wasting cap space on bad deals. So Mills, being a person who obviously thinks he’s smart realized the perfect plan: don’t trade away firsts for anything and keep cap space every offseason so he can sell Dolan on X Y or Z being available with this cap, then he can say “it didn’t work out but it will next time!”
They’re executing a management plan that has literally only one goal: keep their jobs. That’s why they won’t trade Morris, that’s why they’re reportedly interested in trading for stars but not if it costs first rounders, and that’s why its abundantly clear that they’re not the right guys to lead this franchise.
let’s reverse engineer this thing donnie – what kind of tv series do you normally like?
hahahahaha…
@47 I mean… Idk if those are two bad principles, really. I just don’t trust Mill/Perry to recognize good talent. That’s their major shortcoming and a lethal one.
Trying to navigate any Parasite spoilers. Can’t believe I haven’t seen it. Saw Knives Out finally and enjoyed it. Solid 52 win team with some quality young talent and some good veterans.
Think 1917 is next on my list while I can still see it in a theater.
Fun fact: since Miller moved Frank to the 2nd unit where he is the main playmaker, he’s posted better stats than SGA in: dime%, dime ratio, dime/turnover ratio, eFG, TS, net rtg. And Frank’s got a higher STL% and BLK% for the entire year. Not to mention Frank’s been doing it on a balky groin while teamed with the likes of Knox and Ellington; SGA has got CP3 feeding him. Could SGA put up similar stats if he replaced Frank on that 2nd unit and played with Knox, Ellington, Mitch, and Portis? Maybe, maybe not. CP3 floats a lot of boats and SGA ranks a mere 50th among SGs by RPM.
Figures an old WP guy would still be peddling rebounding as some kind of revealing metric. But if you’re still into those flawed metrics, Frank’s defensive rebounding rate since he’s been on the 2nd unit is higher than notorious rebound hunter Payton’s rate.
If NYK FO were smart, they’d put a 7m/yr extension in front of Frank’s agent this summer and offer Mitch the 10m/yr extension. That’s the best road to achieving surplus value in the future.
You mean how’s his groin goink? Hope he’s out again tonight, much though I like me a good Frank argument thread.
Hubert, I’ll be there!
I’m kind of with KFinNJ – a late first in this draft isn’t hugely valuable, so to take a non-expiring back with it in Morris trade doesn’t make a lot of sense. We have the better piece in the trade, so shouldn’t have to take anything bad back.
Now for TWO firsts, that would be a different story.
https://twitter.com/kirkgoldsberry/status/1217109175894831105
Maybe the most succinct possible explanation for what has happened to the NBA.
Spot on. I’ve been saying this for over 18 months now.
Movies like Mulholland Drive make me declare: That’s what Cinema is.
I heard from a friend of mine that Parasite is great and read it also in here so I’m really intrigued to check it out.
Any fans of Greek Weird Wave out there ?
Yeah, I get that, but that just seems so surface level. There was no emotional depth to it. And frankly, the underclass is represented solely by total sociopaths, so if the take away is that modern culture is fucked, fine, but that’s not revelatory. It’s just depraved.
If it had the cinematic flair of the Jeunet/Caro films, or the technical precision of the Cohen brothers, or the character depth of a Cronenberg story, or the puzzlement even close to anything by Lynch, I would have appreciated it. As it was, I didn’t hate it. I can see how it could be a top 5-pick in the 2000 nba draft, which I suppose 2019 has kind of been like for movies. But in a regular year, to me Parasite is a late-first rounder, not much better than a replacement player to come out of Korea.
@50
They’re not terrible principles but simply adhering to those is misguided without thinking about the context. Cap space specially is only a useful resource if you can turn it into improvement for the team or assets, simply rolling cap space from year to year can be completely useless or downright detrimental. Considering the 2020 Free Agent class has no one we should even consider targeting, taking bad deals that run out in 2021 for extra assets seems counterintuitive but it’s actually the best possible use of this dead cap space.
Taking risks is also a part of team building if you’re in a bad spot, but they just seem extremely averse to doing that and looking like fools. I guess that’s better than Phil, but I can’t be really happy with just that.
I respect your opinion, Mr. Walsh, but I disagree. : )
But also, idk how they play Wooten and Mitch together. Wooten doesn’t shoot threes, is shooting .575 from the line, and is pretty duplicative of what Mitch does well.
Call me a classic tin foil hat-wearing, PTSD Knicks fan, but the Wooten signing feels like a preamble to an idiotic Mitch trade (so we can pair overvalued vet X with Drummond).
they cock block themselves by simply being themselves
A lot of posters have advocated taking on bad contracts to get more picks. Generally speaking, I’m in favor of that provided we have the roster space (or we just waive the guy). But the Morris trade that Knicks management apparently turned down involved getting a pick in return
for taking on a bad contract and also giving up one of our best players. That’s a much worse deal. Of course if your only goal is to tank at all costs such a trade will seem helpful, but it is still a lousy deal.
TV is tricky for me because I don’t really have the time to invest in something long term. I went to film school and grew up in the three act structure, so unless the characters or situations grip me immediately, I don’t sustain it. I love some of the episodic comedies, like Curb Your Enthusiasm (the greatest), and Parks and Rec, 30 Rock, the original Arrested Development, etc. But for dramas, there are very few shows I’ve watched from beginning to end in my adult life.
I watched all of season 2 of Succession, which I was rather ambivalent about, because I didn’t find anybody appealing and thought it lacked a B story line, and all they did was move from venue to venue talking abut the same boring accusations jumbo-jumbo in every episode— BUT, I still found myself strangely drawn to it, so I knew they were doing something right, I just wasn’t sure what it was, so I kept tuning in. Ultimately, I could live without a season 3, but if there is one, I’ll probably tune in.
Other than that, I think Homeland was the only other show I invested in over the past 10 years. Season one was gripping, and unique, and everything about it worked well on me. I liked elements of seasons 2-4 as well of it, but by season 5 it was cooked, and I stopped watch8ng when it got painful and depressing.
I liked season one of Mad Men because I thought the mis-en-scene of the production was on par with anything I’d seen in movie theaters. But as a series, I had no interest in the lives of the characters or the business, so I just never thought to tune in when season 2 came around.
I watched the first two and a half seasons of Lost, which I found fun and engaging, but all it did during those seasons was ask questions and I lost faith that there would ever be any answers.
I’d like to watch the Wire sometime, I believe I’d like that. And of course, the Twin Peaks redux…
I don’t see Wooten and Mitch on the floor together. I see Wooten coming in when Mitch gets into foul trouble. Without Mitch, there’s no rim protection. Wooten does not yet have a good NBA offensive game. That’s what’s held him back.
As for Morris, you all know that I’ve flipped on him. He needs to be traded while he has value because, in truth, he’s over valued. Morris is a marginal NBA starter and not someone to build around.
I compare this argument to the difference between the Yankees and Mets. My friend, a Met fan, was all excited about signing Rick Porcello and Michael Wacha. I told him that the Yankees wouldn’t even consider them because they’re just OK unless they got him really cheap and could stash him. That’s what Morris is, “just OK”. The Yankees went for Gerrit Cole, one of the top 2 or 3 starters in baseball. They even let Betances, a former allstar, go because they just didn’t need a mediocre player.
If we’re trading Morris in a sign-and-trade for Giannis, OK, let’s do it. But why lock up a roster spot on a resigning if the player is just OK. Try to fill that slot with a real star or someone with a real upside.
watch The Wire now
There are a lot of different scenarios that could play out because of all the options, but if we decline Portis’ option, waive Ellington and Gibson (we’d still be on the hook for $1M each), and have a $15M contract on the books we got back from a potential Morris trade, we’re at $19.5M if you (arbitrarily) assume we have the cap hold for the 3rd overall pick.
I’m leaving Trier and Dotson’s cap holds on the books, keeping Payton, and keeping Bullock in this analysis. You can probably get to $34M by going nuclear on the team, which I’m not even against, I’m just trying to paint the picture in the most favorable terms possible for the people who want to keep Morris.
Funny story: we actually have less cap space if we keep Morris’ $18M cap hold on the books than we do if we trade him for a player making $15M. We lose his bird rights of course, but if this ~22 win team just absolutely must re-sign 31 year-old Marcus Morris to a big contract we can just use all the cap space we can easily create. So if you’re obsessed with cap space…you should want to trade Morris!
I really want these questions answered one single time so I can better understand the “keep Morris” position, because to be honest right now I think it’s one of the weirdest arguments I’ve ever seen on this board:
1) Who in the 2020 free agent class do you want to sign?
2) Why does signing them require more than the $19.5M+ we can open up by not picking up the options on a bunch of scrubs?
Wooten makes Mitch look like Einstein. Ever notice on all of those Wooten blocks that he swats the ball into the stands? This is kinda fundamental and you wonder if G league coaches have been working on it. Mitch and KP try to keep their blocks in play. He appears to be a one-trick pony but sure a 2-way is worth a try.
The two candidates would be VanVleet and Bertans. So a starting lineup of FVV, RJ, Bertans, Randle, Mitch. Not saying we should do it but we could do a lot worse.
Someone was asking for TV opinions? I do have some expertise in this area, if you’re looking for ideas:
http://rollingstone.com/tv/tv-lists/50-best-tv-shows-of-decade-2010s-914737/
https://www.grandcentralpublishing.com/titles/alan-sepinwall/tv-the-book/9781455588190/
I took this board’s advice on Justified, by the way. Currently on Season 4. It’s kind of been the background noise of my home life since early December.
Here’s a useful exercise for all those people that want to keep Morris as part of the future.
SCENARIO 1:
1) Pretend (NOT REAL!) that Morris gets a season-ending injury that will not affect him long-term even in the slightest.
2) Pretend the league will give the Knicks and only the Knicks a late 1st round draft pick for such an injury.
3) Get the 3rd pick in the draft because we’re not as good a team without Marcus Morris
4) Go into free agency and sign Marcus Morris to whatever contract
SCENARIO 2:
1) never mind steps 1 and 2 above
2) get the 9th pick in the draft because we’re a better team with Marcus Morris
3) Go into free agency and sign Marcus Morris to whatever contract
Haul from Scenario 1: 3rd pick + late 1st + Marcus Morris
Haul from Scenario 2: 9th pick + Marcus Morris
Who here opts for Scenario 2?
Cosign everything TNFH just wrote. Who cares if the Knicks take back a contract that’s on the books next season? There are plenty of ways to open up cap space if they want to sign a big money FA (but they shouldn’t).
Mulholland Drive and Lost Highway are two of my favorite movies for the same reason. Lost Highway edges it out for me mainly because it has the creepiest scene I’ve ever experienced (though Patrick Fischler + the dumpster from MH come close).
Except for the one where he catches the shot at the apex with both hands.
I have no allusions about Wooten but there is no question the last few months of the season will be a heck of a lot more entertaining with him on the court.
Haha, yeah, I’d like to give that one a try. But I can’t do it now. Even if the Knicks were championship material this year, I don’t think I’d be able to find the time to watch the games. (With TV, I only watch shows that my wife is watching. I actually borrowed the Wire season one dvds from a friend a bunch of years ago, but I couldn’t get her to nibble on it. Maybe now that she loves Idris Elba (I’ve caught some Luther episodes via her) she’ll be more excited to give The Wire a chance. I’ll keep trying:)
Recently watched all of Halt and Catch Fire, and it is one of the best things I’ve seen on TV in recent years.
The counter to this is valuation.
If a team wants to trade a guy who makes $18mm next year for an expiring contract, that costs a late 1st round pick. This is well established (Iguadola, Crabbe, our exploratory offers for Joakim Noah, etc).
That essentially reduces Morris’ value to nothing.
Teams trying to pull that are working us over. Morris is worth an asset and taking back a contract is worth a similar asset.
Lost Highway I’ve seen a number of times, but it doesn’t do as much for me as Mulholland Drive. It veers too far off the deep end for me, which is saying a lot. That scene is legendary, though. The sound editing is exquisite.
Re: the Miami game:
I specifically loved these plays:
1) Knox take for a layup in traffic – stayed low, not bothered by the dig, strong finish (see “driving layup“)
2) Randle from the I-formation, hitting the hole at full speed (unfortunately turned it over, but it was a good setup) – for some reason the clip is not on the stats website. weird.
3) can’t find the clip, but RJ gets stuck on a pindown and the guy he’s guarding goes up beyond the arc. RJ can’t get past the screener but literally shoves Knox in the back to get him out to the 3 point line on the switch. Great heads up play by RJ, but shows Knox is just sometimes asleep at the switch on defense.
sorry – 1 more — Randle was called for goaltending on it, but he came from way back for a chasedown block on Butler. Amazing effort. (see “driving dunk shot”)
Not to get all pervy, but the lesbo scene in Mulholland Drive with Naomi Watts and Laura Harring practically burned a hole in the TV.
@76
Well, if we had cap space instead of Morris, or Gibson, or Portis, or Ellington, we could just do that, but obviously they chose to waste 8 million so Ellington can rack up DNPs while shooting at below Ntilikina levels instead of using it for any deal.
And the bad contract we take back is going to be another guy who prevents us from taking back a 1st next year, so that adds opportunity cost to the deal.
It’s not the right valuation for Morris. I’m sorry but you don’t get one of the best pieces on the trade market and dump a contract for one late first. That means the other team is getting something (either Morris or cap flexibility) for free.
I support Perry on this. (And I assume it’s him because he is the only person in the organization who seems to know how to properly value assets in this league).
I have been going through some of the films of the 90s that hit Amazon and Netflix recently — think Rounders, The Rainmaker, Primal Fear — and am positively shocked how poorly the female characters are written.
In Rounders, Matt Damon’s girlfriend (why bother using her name since she doesn’t pass the Bechdel test) is one-dimensionally shrewish, harping on him for fucking up his law career when the movie really wants to show us that he’s actually a genius poker player (he’s not) who can really go out and win, to the chagrin of his nagging mistress. (She’s basically everything that people wrongly and misogynistically accused Skylar White of being.) In The Rainmaker, we have Matt Damon playing the uncomplicated white knight, this time for Claire Danes, playing a battered woman protesting Damon’s willful urge to save her from herself. In Primal Fear, Richard Gere and Laura Linney produce some of the worst romantic chemistry I’ve seen in a hit film, where Linney, again, is a anxious chain-smoking shrew standing between the oh-so-clever Gere and the professional/moral outcome he seeks.
And then you have a film like Mulholland Drive, where a torrid lesbian sex scene (that at first appears to be an example of the male gaze cranked up to 11) turns out to be a wisp in the imagination of a sick woman torn apart by a pathological and violent jealousy. Upon the movie’s close, it’s hard to go back to that scene and derive any sense of pleasure from the romance and consummation we see unfold for the first hour of Watts’ screentime. Lynch is a goddamn genius, sometimes.
Re: Rounders — Brian Koppelman is on twitter a lot talking about the Knicks – probably would respond to your criticism!
I deleted Twitter last year and I’m pretty sure my blood pressure came back to normal
also I’m shocked that the movie was not written by a 21-year-old frat bro, along with 21 and Limitless (both hilariously bad)
We could get all the way to FVV’s max figure by just not picking up options/waiving non-guaranteed players/renouncing scrubs like Dotson, but more importantly I think I finally figured out what’s being missed by the keep Morris crowd: his cap hold.
Guys, if you want to maintain Morris’ Bird Rights, that means he stays on the books this offseason at $18M, or at whatever figure we sign him to before the end of the offseason. In other words, there is no way to sign FVV, another expensive free agent, and Morris outside of trading Randle, etc.
We should put this Marcus Morris rumor in perspective by surmising what it most likely is:
The Heat offering Dion Waiters and their next available 1st round pick, which is in 2025, for Marcus Morris.
That sounds like robbery to me.
(Now if they want to gamble and make that pick unprotected, I’d do it; but I can understand Mills and Perry being turned off by getting a pick they probably won’t be here to make.)
I’m surprised people are floating FVV. I find him pretty indistinguishable from Terry Rozier, and none of us wanted him at 3 years, $46mm. FVV is likely going to cost more than that.
I’m pretty sure we don’t have his bird rights because it was a one-year deal.
Hubert we can talk more about this in person but if you’re saying we should drive the toughest bargain possible for Morris, then sure I absolutely agree.
The question is what do you do if it comes down to getting a late-first with a contract that goes into the 2020-2021 season for Morris, or getting nothing for Morris? To me it’s a very easy call: take the damn pick and be happy one of your mercenary signings yielded anything at all.
Even with a Morris sized contract on the books, we can still get all the way up to FVV’s max (that the Raptors will probably match, but whatever) fairly painlessly. If you want more cap space than that, we can’t get there if we’re keeping Morris because of his cap hold!
The only scenario in which we have more cap space than that is one in which we keep Morris…and then renounce his Bird Rights. All for the ability to give some non-FVV, non-Morris player(s) an extra $17M or so. Suffice to say, I don’t think it makes any sense whatsoever to do that.
🙂
Correct, I was referring to the ability to go over the cap by paying him 120% of his current salary. This would be $18M, and would almost certainly be enough to get it done (and if it’s not we should not be having this conversation).
I should note that I’m not endorsing the max FVV idea, just saying we can still easily do it with a Morris sized contract on the books.
We need someone to throw lobs to Drummond.
But seriously, wouldn’t it be cool if we had drafted good young players so we don’t have to overpay for above-average players (e.g. draft SGA instead of Knox)?
spartacus: blood and sand
if watching sweaty half naked men speaking in some kind of odd shakespearean dialect and fighting and killing to the point the screen is literally painted red doesn’t do it for you – not sure what to tell ya…
jk 47 – if you like you some wild bunch…this may just be your thing…
yes, i am spartacus…
Seems difficult to square the “late-firsts are worthless” opinion with the “we need to make sure we can sign undrafted Fred VanVleet to a max contract” opinion, by the way.
Ditto for the “we need to make sure we have cap space to sign 42nd overall pick Davis Bertans” opinion.
It’s almost as if you can find good players with late picks!
I don’t see it as losing Morris for nothing. If I don’t trade him, and he leaves, I have $15 million in cap space, which I can rent to another team for a 1st round pick. If I don’t trade him, and he stays, I have 2 more years of Marcus Morris, who seems to be peaking as a player. (I can see how that’s unappealing with respect to our win curve, but I’m now firmly in the “try to be respectable” camp.)
So I see that trade (and I’m going to keep assuming it’s Miami, bc it probably is) as choosing between:
A. Miami’s 2025 protected 1st
B. The ability to rent cap space for a 1st this summer
C. 2 more years of Marcus Morris
I don’t know that A is such a clear cut winner out of those three. It’s probably the best choice because you can’t be guaranteed B, and C doesn’t seem to fit our win curve. But it’s not so overwhelming.
And also fuck Pat Riley and the Heat. That’s a factor for me, too.
I’d go back to Riley with this:
Heat get: Randle, Morris
Knicks get: Herro, their 2025 protected first, and take back $27.5mm in 2020-21 salary from James Johnson and Dion Waiters
That’s a proper trade that gets them two starters and relieves them of their two worst contracts. Certainly worthy compensation for Herro.
Which one? (/wry smile)
I have Mulholland Drive as the best movie ever made and no re-viewing has yet changed that opinion. I absolutely love the 60s audition songs/”this is the girl” scene and find it impossible to watch only once every single time I watch the film and every single time it puts a massive smile on my face. I can’t imagine a movie ever depicting show business and the American dream better and more insightfully and artistically, though never say never.
good day mate and a m?rena to you (couldn’t remember exactly if you were in australia or new zealand)…
that’s interesting you mentioned the band’s “timing” dtrickey…i’m not a huge tool (fan), but i am familiar with their music…really though this was the first time i ever intently focused on what i was hearing from them – after about 40 minutes in to the show i realized they had the most: unusual/unique/odd/creative/distinct/different timing i’ve ever heard…
the only thing that came to mind for comparison was that the music sounded like the exact antithesis of rhythm and blues…such unusual “beats” and breaks…certainly nothing necessarily rhythmic about it in a move your body gracefully kind of way…
not to be too politically incorrect, but, i kept thinking – thank god i’m half white and can actually follow the sound…
We should absolutely trade Morris but it needs to be a good trade. I’d take on salary for a 2020 or 2021 pick but taking on salary for a heavily protected 2025 pick that becomes nothing if it doesn’t convey by 2026. That’s a terrible trade.
Miami has no 2nd rounds in 2025-2026 and cannot trade picks after 2026. So we’d have two shots for it to convey in the distant future and we take on a bad contract. No thank you. Waiters and Herro for Morris I’d do though.
someone just told me tool’s timing on one of their songs, lateralus, has something to do with fibonacci numbers…
great more math…just what i needed in life…
This doesn’t have to be a choice though. We can take on, say, Waiters and still have over $20M to take on salaries by doing nothing other than getting rid of Portis/Ellington/Gibson. That’s what makes this argument so confusing to me. It’s very hard for me to see a scenario this offseason in which we find ourselves wishing we had substantially more cap space.
The idea is that VanVleet is a tenacious defender who could space the floor for RJ and Randle. Bertans would also give the team optimal floor spacing for those two. RPM, Raptor, and PIPM like FVV way more than Rozier. The key question is do we want to be building a team around RJ and Randle? IF the answer is yes (and I’m not saying it should be), then he and Bertans wouldn’t be bad fits. I still gotta believe one of the Clippers or Portland would trade us a late first and an expiring contract (Bazemore, Harkless) for Morris. We’d have all our picks plus 2 mavs picks plus Morris pick plus 2 Hornets picks. Our main roster could look something like this next season:
1: VanVleet (25m), Frank (6m), Kadeem
2: RJ (8m), Dotson (3m)
3: Bertans (13m), Bullock (4m)
4: Randle (19m), Wiseman (6m)
5: Mitch (10m), Wiseman (mitch offered 10m extension this summer)
It doesn’t matter if the Knicks have Bird Rights on Morris, he’s going to want market value and they’re probably going to have cap space anyway. As stupid as investing 4 years of FMV into Mook is — and it’s really fucking stupid — I assume they aren’t so stupid that they’re going to exercise all the options and run everything back next year — though I know that it’s not wise to assume a lack of stupidity.
tnfh, it’s not about the space, it’s about making a crappy trade just to say “we got something.” The point Hubert’s making (and with which I agree) is, we’re better off just letting him come off the cap than trading him for a bad contract and distant first. We should be getting value!
Again, if it were TWO picks…or even if it were Hubert’s trade, for dreck (ugh, Waiters) but a first and Herro, that would be value.
You’re also seeming to assume that the bad contract is for one more year. What if it’s for two? An argument can be made against it for exactly the same reasons one can be made against our signings – cap space has value, because you never know what might come up, and flexibility is a very good thing when you’re terrible.
I mean, I’m firmly in the “please trade Morris” camp. But there’s no reason it should be done out of desperation. Just let him expire and renounce him.
fyi…. vanvleet was extended the QO last summer and will be an unrestricted FA this offseason….
i’m not sure what he’s worth…. ppl have been floating 25-30mm aav…. seems high but he’s certainly better than rozier…. but while the 2021 free agent class is top heavy… there’s not really much there beyond kawhi and giannis… unless we think lebron is being lured here…. signing vanvleet doesn’t prevent any of those signings…
i’m not sure if it’ll be worth it but it’s an attractive option if you don’t go the starphucking route… you could sign kawhi or if you strike out you could shop in the victor oladipo tier and you just manufactured a young 40 win team….
My first ever “pro” music gig was with a band called Lusk, it was a side project that was mostly the baby of Paul D’Amour, who was the original bassist of Tool. He famously played the bass lick on “Sober.” It was kind of a “supergroup” that included Greg Edwards who was in Failure at the time (now in the excellent band Autolux) and also Brad Laner, who was in the beloved LA band Medicine and later made some cool freakout electronic music under the name Electric Company. The main singer and keyboard player was a guy named Chris Pitman, who ended up being on board for the entirety of the Guns N Roses “Chinese Democracy” sessions. Danny Carey played drums on a few tunes on the record. I didn’t play on the record but I was in the touring band. We did two wild and wooly van tours back in 1997, the first one in particular was one of the wildest, most debaucherous tours I’ve ever been on.
Paul had left Tool fairly recently, but was still good friends with Danny, so I ended up seeing Danny around a bit and was friends with him. It’s been many years since I’ve seen any of that gang of folks, but a good friend of mine went over to Danny’s place recently and told me the following anecdote. They go into Danny’s garage, which is like airplane-hangar sized. He has a bunch of sports cars. Not surprising. Then he goes “check this out” and pushes a button on the wall. A trap door opens in the floor, and a hydraulic jack contraption comes up and there’s a rotating platform with some insane Lamborghini on it. Oh, and there’s a pentagram on the rotating platform. Lights and a smoke machine were also involved.
If you’re gonna have “fuck you” money, that is a pretty good way to spend it.
I wouldn’t take Waiters contract into cap space for a heavily protected 2025 pick much less also send out Morris. With that said there is no scenario where I want to resign Morris to a big contract. I’d just rather lose him for nothing than get stuck with Waiters all for a distant pick that might never convey.
Hard to imagine a Miami trade unless they put in a good young player like Winslow or Herro. The ticking clock on that 2025 trade makes it seem more likely that it’ll turn into some other non-1st-round pick thing unless it really has minimal or no protections. Even so, I do not imagine that Perry/Mills would make a trade for a pick that is almost certainly (hopefully) going to convey after they are long gone.
Meanwhile, I imagine we could trade with the Clippers or Sixers and get a better package (pick-wise) than a 2025 1st. (Sixers would prob require a 3-team deal though)
Seems a lot of people are putting together god awful Morris returns and arguing against those specifically instead of arguing against trading Morris for the best possible deal.
I guess it’s possible we shouldn’t trade Morris if the best possible return is a single 2025 pick that might not convey and a contract that goes past 2020-2021 (again, if it’s on the books for 2020 we can still open up a max slot for FVV or whoever else). I still probably would, but sure, it’s an argument. Waiters expires after 2021, FYI.
The problem is I’m fairly certain there have already better offers publicly reported e.g. the Clippers’ one. It’s extremely difficult for me to see a scenario in which the best possible offer is one heavily protected first and a contract so bad I literally can’t even think of an example that isn’t absurd.
All this hubbub about the commute seems ridiculous on its face, but I have to say that it’s probably a real factor. I live in Westchester and love my job in the city, but that commute really sucks, and is maybe one of the biggest factors in my life– now that i have kids, job is busier, etc, how much would I pay to have an extra 1.5-2 hours/day? A lot. It’s amazing how much happier I am when the commute magically gets shorter, like over christmas week for example.
I get why the Knicks have a facility in Westchester, and it’s nice in terms of the synergy with the G-league team, but I don’t doubt that it is a factor (maybe a small factor) when FAs come.
so glad you’re here jk…makes me feel – almost famous 🙂
i don’t know much about music, but, a few songs in and even i could figure out the dude on the drums was something special…felt like my heart was gonna explode…it felt really good…
Haha a Lamborghini on top of a rotating pentagram, what the fuck
I’m amazed how many people on this board (many of whom I often disagree with) have Mulholland Drive at the top of their lists. I love this place.
If the best possible deal literally values him at next to nothing, I’d rather keep him. Win curve be damned.
I’m not strat arguing that late firsts are worthless. I just don’t wholly believe in the win curve any more.
There are four teams in the two largest markets. Three of them made themselves respectable and they were immediately rewarded with LeBron James, Anthony Davis, Kawhi Leonard, Paul George, Kevin Durant, and Kyrie Irving.
So I see some value in keeping Morris around if the only offer we have for him is hot garbage.
If we’re being honest, MSG is the Mecca but players probably spend more time in Westchester practicing (we talking practice?!?).
Okay, the difference in salary numbers is Dotson, Trier and the $1mil payouts for cuts. I was under the impression that those guys didn’t have guaranteed money next year. Too difficult to keep track, lol.
Dot and Trier are FAs. I assume they’re both gone unless we shell out some money for both. I expect both to get enough interest to leave/make it them not worth keeping.
If we plan to keep Frank and grab Fred VV, we can also cut Payton to make another $7 mill (he definitely has guaranteed money). In theory we can dump DSJr on someone too. That clears $5.6 mill from next year.
If Morris seriously can’t even net an expiring and a first, then I guess they didn’t get a fairly-valued player.
+1
Loving all the MULLHOLLAND love! Just chiming in with the trivia (many of you prolly know): Composer Angelo Badalamenti makes a delicious cameo in that aforementioned “This is the girl” scene.
https://twitter.com/KnicksMemes/status/1217192910275465217
This one got a solid chuckle out of me….
I just don’t see why we should be trying to get better by signing free agents in 2020 instead of waiting until 2021, which has a lot more potential stars and more interesting RFAs for a potential offer.
It sucks that our own draft picks don’t seem that they’ll be able to improve the team on their own, because then we could have the type of inside out improvement a team like the Clippers has before they attracted FAs, but simply adding guys like VanVleet or Bertans is not enough.
We need some hits at the draft before we start thinking about throwing 4 year contracts at role players.
Plus the Morris discussion is starting to resemble the Courtney Lee discussion a lot. Yes, he’s more valuable than Lee ever was, but if the offers just aren’t there, how can we know he’s so valuable?
Since we’re fans of MULHOLLAND DRIVE on this board, some/most of you may know it is a failed TV pilot that was shot for ABC and shelved. Lynch then “came up with an ending,” shot that too, and re-purposed the existing pilot with his new stuff to make the feature film. Who knows if his show would have been nearly as great as his film turned out to be.
Thus the crazy genius of Lynch’s structure is essentially a “bright side” result of the same kind of corporate confusion and ineptitude that troubles our own Knicks 🙂
The New Yorker piece here (warning: Long Read) is wonderful on it if you care to dive deep. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1999/09/06/creative-differences
I have no allusions to Morris’s value. I was just arguing against the terrible Miami trade which seems to be the most reported offer for him and the one that we seemed to have declined. If there is a late first in the next 2-3 years and a not too onerous contract you take it. If not just let him expire and walk away.
Australia, so g’day 🙂
@107 JK47 that is some serious name dropping! What an anecdote.
We could try to trade Morris to the clippers for something decent, or see if Milwaukee wants a wing for Ilyasova (one more year at 7 million), salary filler and their Indiana pick. Maybe OKC is willing to give up some of their lesser picks to get something out of the money they’re wasting on andre roberson
Have fun at the meetup tonight, fellas. Wish I could join but work’s got me this week.
This is why Joe Judge will probably be a good coach. Trying to shove square pegs into round holes is a big part of what the Knicks do. God forbid they try to play their young players to their strengths…..
The Knicks can’t pull the 3 point trigger. How many times do they pass up a 3 only to turn it over or drive straight into traffic?