Raptors reporter Michael Grange has some interesting thoughts:
Mills, the longtime lackey of Dolan, got the boot Tuesday morning after having traded Kristaps Porzingis for pennies on the dollar and cap room a year ago, and failing to use that cap room to sign – or even meet with – any significant free agents this past summer, then firing his head coach David Fizdale earlier this season when it became clear the dog’s breakfast of a roster couldn’t compete. Again.
It was noon on Tuesday when well-connected ESPN NBA insider Adrian Wojnarowski tweeted that Dolan was targeting Ujiri to “ultimately oversee New York’s operations.”
This is – of itself – not news. Similar reports were circulating before the Raptors’ NBA title defence began in October, and more earnestly back in December after Fizdale was fired.
On Tuesday night, longtime NBA insider Marc Stein reported that Ujiri might even bring along Raptors general manager Bobby Webster, whose contract matches the term of Ujiri’s and whose wife – while we’re connecting dots – is from a prominent family in the New York area.
A couple of key nuggets bubbled to the surface back in December, too.
I reported that Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment — the conglomerate that owns the Raptors along with the Toronto Maple Leafs, TFC and other holdings — had never offered Ujiri an extension (later confirmed by MLSE minority owner Larry Tanenbaum to Sun Media) and that he was all but certain not to accept one if it were offered before 2021 when his contract is up. The expectation was that Ujiri — who had started off as an unpaid international scout barely 20 years ago — was going test free agency.
Another key detail?
That Ujiri may have an out on the five-year deal he signed in the summer of 2016 — which back then was in part a preemptive strike against the Knicks nosing around — that could allow him to hit the market this coming summer. Whether it’s a formal out or more of a gentleman’s agreement isn’t exactly clear.
But it’s not good business for an NBA team to have an executive of Ujiri’s stature going into the final year of his deal without some assurance about the future beyond that. Forcing him to stay the length of the deal if he’s determined to leave seems pointless.
One way or another, the expectation is Ujiri’s status will be cleared up well before the 2020-21 season.
As one league source put it to me recently: “If something is going to happen with Masai and the Knicks it will happen quick, probably a few days after (this) season is over.”
Taken together, a picture seems clear.
The Raptors haven’t offered Ujiri an extension, he’s determined to become a free agent and he may have an out on his deal this coming summer.
Short answer? Ujiri is gone.
Amusingly, though, Grange notes that there are many in the NBA who think that Dolan is too impatient to wait for this deal to happen and that he’ll just barrel through and hire someone else.
It’s funny that the rest of the league is also aware of Dolan’s Razor.
DRed for POBO!
289 replies on “Sportsnet.Ca: Knicks report a sign Ujiri’s time with Raptors could be winding down”
Let’s make this happen.
The stuff about no one believing Dolan can actually play this right rings pretty true.
Maybe this has been addressed before and I don’t remember, but the Rangers have not been near the cluster fuck the Knicks have been.
Dolan owns them.
Why is that?
The right course of action seems so obvious it’s painful to think Dolan will probably screw this up again. Keep Perry until the end of the season, telling him his job is to trade Marcus Morris and anyone else that has value for assets; negotiate with Ujiri a way out from his Toronto contract and bring him in the offseason. It’s a perfect plan, a fantastic executive with an elite track record and assets and flexibility to make any move he wants.
Dolan cares more about basketball, so he was always inserting himself into the GM stuff until he finally realized he needed to do what he did with the Rangers, which was to find a smart executive and give him total control. The problem is that the executive he chose to do that with was Phil Jackson. And then, once Phil was gone, he decided, for some bizarre reason, that he should do the same with Mills.
If he gives Ujiri the Glen Sather/Phil Jackson treatment, things will work out. And I think enough outside consultants are probably telling him that exact thing that it might just happen.
How about if the Knicks offered one of the Dallas picks and cash (say, enough to pay the salary of their next GM…$20 million or so) for Masai? Is cash compensation kosher? Is it unlimited?
I wish we had a semi-normal owner, because then my preferred course of action would be to trade nothing, or minor assets, for one of the countless smart people working in a smart front office rather than give up a king’s ransom for Masai.
Don’t get me wrong, I fully believe Masai is a wizard and might literally be the best executive in the sport. I just also think he’s not the only person on Earth with the wisdom to fix this morass, and the drop off between him and Zarren, Webster, etc. might not be so steep that it’s worth a major compensation package.
Alas, we do not have a semi-normal owner and he needs a huge name to behave properly. So yeah, I would surrender picks to get Masai and still be delighted to do so. It just sucks that we can’t be normal, ya know?
We’ve all wanted Mills gone for so long, I’m a little surprised that the board isn’t more obviously jumping for joy. From my own lack of enthusiasm, I’d guess that’s because of the fear of what comes next – it actually could be Mark Jackson. Until that’s resolved, I’m holding my breath…but at least now there is a chance we can hire the right person to steer us back toward respectability and perhaps even success.
How much would you give up for Ujiri? I don’t mean money – pay the man whatever he wants – but in terms of picks? I’m happy to give up one first for him. Two is a bit steep. On the other hand, two if it means him starting in July would probably be worth it – as we’ve discussed, one good thing about Perry is he’s made smart deals (if for the wrong players), so we have a ton of flexibility and options (literally). This is a good draft to give up our undoubtedly high but not high enough pick.
Edit: Z-man and tnfh already started this convo. Suffice to say that, as the dropoff to the next “smart front office exec” is a complete black box, Ujiri is absolutely what we need. We cannot afford to get it wrong again.
Z-Man I’m not sure Dolan can offer that kind of money. That would be a nice loophole if he could, but isn’t there a 2 million limit on cash transfer between teams?
There really is no reason for Dolan to make a quick move to hire a POBO. Once tomorrow is over Perry is probably competent enough to keep MSG moving along until the season is over.
I think Dolan’s biggest issue is his behavior at the arena. He tosses fans and Charles Oakley from the garden and is as stubborn as a mule. He doesn’t understand today’s player or the NBA. Hockey team rosters are much larger (23) than the NBA and just has never figured out that they need to be managed quite differently.
This is actually not a bad situation if you were gonna do a real rebuild.
You can probably get at least a 1RP, and probably some 2RPs for the other semi-useful pieces like Elf and BulLOCK. So going forward that’s three surplus 1RPs, all our own (lottery) picks, some extra second rounders, Mitch Robinson, RJ Barrett and a bunch of cap space.
That’s not a terrible situation. It’s the beginning of a rebuild.
Totally. My only concern about this team was always who was in charge. The pieces are definitely there for a real rebuild.
I think that’s his biggest issue from a moral perspective. It’s just dick behavior. I don’t think it means much to the way the team is run overall, though. But yeah, he’s such an asshole.
Rama,
because like the stock market, what’s past is past. the only thing that matters is what’s next and therein lies the rub: Dolan gives us little confidence he will make a smart move.
Brian,
I hope you’re right about Dolan, that he is learning.
Mark Jackson would be as bad as Isiah. And that’s why I expect it to be Mark Jackson.
Jowles,
I had a thought that if Stephen A. Smith is screaming for Jackson, then that would push Dolan away from that idea.
So far, so good.
I view the Mills/Perry Era as one long concession that they were too stupid to do anything affirmatively smart, and thus just tried like hell to avoid crippling mistakes. That’s why it was such a weird situation—we had a god awful front office, but also not one that sabotaged us too badly. That’s what made them “better” than Phil, etc. despite arguably being just as clueless.
How is this not illegal? The boy who was tossed a couple of weeks ago bought a ticket, and I’m sure he didn’t shout louder than other fans when they’re, for example, cheering for the team. How can Dolan throw him out?
I like that. Like they were thinking, “Fuck, if Durant and Kyrie want to pick us on their own, then great!” But otherwise, “Let’s try to avoid making any real decisions until a free agent just decides to come here.”
Numbness towards this team. There were so many changes and craziness. Without this blog would anyone here even care?
Maybe it would be Stephen A. Smith then.
Kind of like how Frank was smart enough not to shoot on offense.
Hopefully they won’t pass the ball to Julius Randle at the top of the key.
SAS is screaming for Kenny Smith with Mark Jackson, presumably as his coach.
it is laugh out loud funny that the knicks started this season with an impromptu front office press conference to address absolutely nothing, morphed into firing their coach with no immediate interaction, and now you literally have only mike miller doing knicks media in the wake of steve mills getting bounced days before the deadline. the end game is to trade every single player and direct all press inquiries to one of the acquired players.
I think this was literally their “plan.” Putz around with short-term contracts for guys who probably wouldn’t be tradable (because that would involve them actually identifying guys who would have value at the deadline) until a summer with elite free agents, and rinse, repeat when they inevitably missed out on those free agents.
It was hilariously stupid, and still somehow beat the baseline established by, like, three other GMs we’ve employed recently.
So revisiting yesterday’s conversation about the worst Knicks exec of this century leads me to ask the inverse question: who wins the booby prize as best Knicks exec of the century? Glen Grunwald, who did a number of intelligent things but was also still technically employed when the Bargnani trade happened? Or Donnie Walsh, who did some good things, did some bad things that were defensible at the time (out of the hope that LeBron would sign here if we got under the cap in 2010), and then reportedly had his balls cut out during the Melo negotiations? Is there anyone else who should even be considered?
I think it’s definitely Grunwald. There’s strong evidence the Bargnani trade was above his head, but regardless he put together a team that began an NBA season with a non-zero chance (low, I know, but non-zero) to win a championship. He is literally the only person in this pool who can claim as much.
Honestly, probably not. Though I’ve been saying we are well set up for a bright future IF Mills is fired for a while, so I’m a little surprised at my own lack of excitement. Everything depends on bringing in the right person.
Ingmarrr,
Now you’re just scaring me…
I thought Donnie Walsh did a lot of good things, and then Dolan intervened and it all got blown up. am I remembering incorrectly?
I remember Walsh as the guy who signed Amare despite his knees, then traded the farm for Carmelo despite a bad fit with Amare, and actually traded actual assets for a former star just to put fannys in the seats. He may also have been the guy who managed to mess up keeping Lin.
KnickfaninNJ,
My understanding was that Dolan forced the trade for Melo.
And I loved Amare.
Melo messed up keeping Lin, I think.
Don’t worry, I’m not confirmed on twitter.
Man, add a competent GM to that scenario and I think Knicks fans would be the happiest they’ve been in decades.
Which probably means we keep all our mercenaries and bring in Mark Jackson as GM and coach.
Yes, I have Knicks fan PTSD
I don’t know about that with Dolan. Walsh always defended it as his decision. I can see loving Amare and tgat is the smallest of my beefs with Walsh, but I would have liked a better contact for Amare instead of an inflexible five year deal. As for Lin, Walsh should have traded Melo if Melo didn’t support what the coach wanted. And there was a bunch of public talk from the Knicks management about Lin and a potential contract that Houston heard. Houston then concluded they could make a poison pill offer for Lin, which they did and we lost Lin.
While I had a lot of fantasies about Steve Mills getting fired none of them involved doing it two days before the trade deadline.
Apparently we hired some guy named Steve Stoute and he has been flexing his muscles and is surprisingly prominent, according to Popper from Newsday. Never heard his name.
Rumors on Twitter is that Trier has been told he’s been traded. We’ll see if that pans out.
Damn…have to move my Trier jersey to the back of the closet next to the Porzingis and Mark Sanchez jerseys…..
Stoute…he is the brand consultant…i guess he said Mills was bad for the brand…had to go…
It’s amazing the Knicks need a brand consultant to tell them to not hire shitty executives.
Mitt Romney says he will vote for impeachment.
wow
Never made a political donation in my life…until this.
Not sure how to feel if we end up with Russell and Kuzma after this… as long as we keep all our picks and Frank/RJ/Mitch, whatever, I guess.
Trier wasn’t getting playing time, so it’s probably good for him, unless he’s just filler
I can’t really imagine a trade for Russell getting over the finish line. There’s very little incentive on either side to consummate a deal now. With Mills out of the picture and the impetus to show immediate improvement (hopefully) gone I don’t see any reason for the Knicks to move on it now. And for Golden State I expect they’d want to see how Russell looks with Curry (and ideally Klay but I doubt he plays at all this year) before making a final decision. Even if there is really some interest on both sides it strikes me as more of a deal that would get struck at the draft/over the summer.
I mean this is what the Lakers did more or less, and it worked swimmingly for them. I think too this is what a lot of people on /r/nyknicks want. “How are we ever going to attract top FAs if we keep sucking?” is the question they all ask. When I say, “Isn’t that the plan that the team has had the last 6 years? Get as good as we can without sacrificing cap flexibility and pray a top FA rescues us? Why hasn’t it worked yet?” they tend to do the “downvote and ignore” thing that’s so popular on reddit.
You couldn’t pay me to follow that reddit board.
Now Twitter….
It’s amazing how much more fun it is to follow the Knicks on twitter than watching their games. Twitter really is a narcotic.
The reports recently have said the Knicks made everyone available outside of RJ and Mitch, that Morris will be moved and they are still pursuing Russell.
I’m cautiously optimistic and I know I shouldn’t be.
Some reports on Twitter (unreliable) out there that Morris and Trier have been traded for Kuzma, Danny Green and a 2nd.
Also this from Woj:
-Steve Popper
-Begley
So uh there’s still a chance the Knicks deal multiple firsts for DLo. Still a chance for something really stupid to happen.
I beg everyone that we move back to the present and forget the past, but going forward this is what has to change.
Dolan gave Phil control of basketball, but Mills had to remain as the GM and Phil wasn’t allowed to change the medical staff or some other management positions already in place.
Then Mills was in charge.
Even yesterday, Mills may have been fired, but he was given another job for Dolan on a board. Dolan is insanely loyal to those he believes are loyal to him (no matter how incompetent).
The reason David Griffin did not take the job was not because he didn’t want it. He DID want it. That was even reported again in the last 24 hours. It was because Dolan would not give him the power to bring in all his own people. Dolan wanted to keep some people around that were loyal to him so he knew what was going on (and then those incompetents would eventually stab Griffin in the back like they did with Phil and others) So Giffin said “No thank you”.
This time whoever comes in has to fumigate the place, bring in all new people, and get rid of all the incompetents at every level.
There’s enough chatter in the air to make me fear Rich Kleiman, Mark Jackson, and Andrew Wiggins will all be Knicks by the end of the week.
I find it REALLY funny that Steve fuckin Stoute has Dolan’s ear.
I hope nobody takes our preciouses. We could be in a tremendously advantageous situation with assets and a competent front office this summer or we could have a worse version of this team … again. Part of me wishes i still had the devil i knew. I must have PTSD, right?
BTW, Yankee news:
Oh man, Perry, you are in such a perfect position here. Keep saying no to both teams right up until the deadline, one of them will blink and give us a nice haul.
it’s as though we’re stuck in the same nightmare…
Mark Jackson would be an upgrade over DSJ
Unless you think wasting 20m of cap space on Hardaway/Baker instead of moving us in a positive direction, not salvaging the KP situation, getting less for KP than he was worth in order to include Hardaway’s bad contract (which was their mistake) in the deal to get more space, pushing Noah’s contract out to make more space, striking out with all that space, drafting Knox, not using any previous space in between effectively not crippling I agree with you.
These guys suck so badly even Dolan figured it out.
They were handed a team with a few good young players (KP among them), 20m of cap space, and all their 1st round picks, and they literally have a “worse team” 3 years later that is only moderately better positioned than when they took over.
THEY ARE IDIOTS
The last three lotto picks make their reign a solid D+ for me. Only thing worse would have been trading picks or giving out long contracts. But turning three lottery picks into three guys who can’t hit the broad side of a barn is… not good.
Better keep yourself clean and bright; you are the window through which you must see the world
as is always the case: one thought leads to another…
was thinking about those artists considered to be the greatest/most significant of the 20th century…o’keefe, picasso, pollack, matisse, even warhol gets mentioned a bunch…rarely if ever will you hear someone say – man, i really love me some norman rockwell (maybe a precursor to later “realism”)…
I love those saturday evening post drawings…they just feel right…
even more so you’ll never hear someone mention folks like dillon, jim lee, pichelli or maybe my all time favorite john romita…
well look at that – i just did…go knicks 🙂
The Lakers don’t have shit to give us for Morris, just talk about how much you love Kuzma until the Clippers give up Shamet.
Neither of the LA teams have 1s to give up; if they did, Morris could probably get two back in a properly-conducted bidding war.
I am also strangely into getting Shamet as well, but Talen-Horton is intriguing, and maybe has higher upside.
Not the Mills/Perry Era
I do not care about losing out on the opportunity to give 5/$156M to a guy with a .522 TS%, but both Lowe and Begley have said that if this is something you do care about, you should be mad at The Genius.
I said at the time that they could make up for this by taking on salary dumps if they missed out on Kyrie/KD, I was 100% right, and the fact that they didn’t do it doesn’t change a thing about evaluating the deal in a vacuum.
This was bad and I wouldn’t have done it, but it’s a little hard for me to judge because they were in an awful position because of the contract The Genius handed out.
Yeah I think I made pretty clear how I feel about the strategy of putting all of your eggs in this basket.
No doubt, almost as bad as the Ntilikina pick.
Can you name:
1) The other “good young players”
2) What happened to the other $80M of the cap, $20M ain’t much
clippers can trade their 2020 1st…
Knicks fans on Twitter: “Resign Morris to 4 years 60 million!”
Fuck outta here with that shit.
The Dolan J. Trump account is worth a follow for Knicks fans. I am still convinced someone on KB is running the account.
No way the Clippers consider offering us Shamet, but I am pulling the trigger on any deal if they do. Wouldn’t even double check to see what we would be giving up.
The Dolan_J_Trump account is excellent on Twitter.
what are the knicks fan twitter accounts you would recommend?
LA Times reporter also going with the Kuzma+Green for Morris possibility now. I would also take that in a heartbeat despite not being enamored with Kuzma. For pure value that’s very good. You can get something for Kuzma from someone in the league if you decide you don’t want him and Danny Green is significantly better than Marcus Morris and will have a similarly broad market (could move him on before the deadline if possible but also wait until the draft/next year’s deadline).
I would be pretty surprised if the Lakers would actually do that. I had assumed the Lakers were looking to get Morris without including Green, in which case I agree that it’s not clear they have enough unless other offers are weaker than expected.
Reports now saying the Knicks know they can move Morris. Now it’s just a bidding war (or posturing)
What do people think of moving the Clippers pick or Kuz for DLo in a 3-way trade?
It seems like something the Knicks might push for.
I’d move Kuz or the Clippers one and the Dallas 2023 1 for DLo. I’m not crazy about him but if you can get him cheap, it’s worth it.
If you moved both Dallas 1s, it would basically then be KP for D’Angelo (*) which is at least marginally palatable.
(*) And, I guess, DSJ but that head case is basically worthless — almost the elegant polar opposite of a winning player. If he gets moved, and I really hope he does, you can put the marginal return they get back on the KP return side of the ledger.
Knicks Film School does some nice stuff (their newsletter is worth getting in your emails). The Knicks Wall is pretty good. Their in-game tweeting and highlights are nice if you can’t watch the game. Knicks Nation isn’t too bad either. They don’t do anything super insightful, but they tend to capture the mood of the fan base pretty well. Knicks Sports Illustrated isn’t bad either.
Some individuals that pump out Knicks content worth following are Jonathan Macri from KFS. Jeremy Cohen has some good stuff. I have gotten on to a few Kncks related accounts through these two, especially Macri who has some really good pieces.
DLo has so many red flags…
* Most analytics dislike him… ranked 173rd in the league in RPM, near the likes of Bismack Biyombo, Meyers Leonard and Jackson Hayes. BPM: 1.9, WS/48: 0.071… Even the volume scorer loving PER only rates him 19.6
* His old team is about as good this year even with Kyrie out as they were last year with Russell in.
* His current team is somehow on an 18 win trajectory even with Russell healthy. How frequently do teams with a healthy star win 18 games?
* Since stats suck at measuring defense, we can look at subjective evaluations, which largely call DLo’s defense a train wreck.
GSW is not gonna be ripped off in a trade. So if you wanna trade for Russell, then you have ot believe that either he is secretly better than everyone else thinks or that the Knicks are especially in need of exactly what Russell has to offer. I would argue that he is secretly worse than everyone thinks and that the Knicks are in a bad position to trade for him. The Knicks are especially in need of net gains in talent. Long term, this move is unlikely to improve their talent level even if it temporarily bumps us up into the 30s in terms of wins.
The problem with trading for DLo is that a) he will likely be available in June; and b) there is no point having him on our roster now.
Plus he was awful in the playoffs last year and that’s usually a massive red flag for me. I don’t really want him, but if the price is right, I can rationalize giving it a shot. He’s still young enough to improve more. If he’s really getting torched on a particular night, that’s what Frank is for — kind of like the Wolf in Pulp Fiction.
Signing DLo instead of the 1+1s would have been fine. Trading assets for him is not fine. Golden State is trying to do the very thing that we should have tried to do. He’s a pump-and-dump kind of asset. Let’s not be the place where he gets dumped.
This may sound crazy, but I would want an asset attached to DLO to take him. lol
He’s a pretty good offensive player that may be improving, but right now he’s as bad or worse on defense as he is on offense. I think it’s questionable whether he’s even a net plus player. If he’s a plus player, it’s only mild.
I love the idea of the Knicks thinking that they’re getting Shamet for Mook. It’s never happening. It can’t hurt to ask, of course, but it’s just funny.
Shwinny Pooh, who I think has some posting and toasting affiliation is another one.
And all the beats of course
If we trade Morris for him, isn’t that the same thing as signing him in the offseason?
@64
I’d have this conversation with you, but I think we’ve already covered it.
We disagree strongly on the value of most players and in some areas of how to build a team.
I’ve been watching basketball, learning the game, watching builds and rebuilds, and looking statistics for gambling purposes for probably twice as long as you are even alive. I know the game pretty well and have strong opinions.
If you can’t see that Mills is among the biggest basketball incompetents in human history (and even Dolan could) and Perry has done virtually nothing of value in any way in 3 years except draft Mitch (blind squirrel), done a couple of very stupid things, built a hodgepodge of players that make absolutely no sense together and gotten us virtually nowhere in 3 years there’s nothing else to say. That says it all.
With Morris, the blind squirrels found their 2nd nut.
These guys were terrible.
Sure, but the Warriors, who have the worst record in the NBA, do not employ Steve Mills and thus do not think Marcus Morris’ expiring contract provides them with any value.
They’re looking for future assets. Draft picks, mostly.
If we wanted D’Lo the time to get him was this past offseason for money alone. Now it would be pretty stupid.
Shwinny Pooh is actually the guy who posted here under the lavor postell nick
I wonder how Pop is feeling about Morris and the Knicks now that a bidding war may be brewing for his services? lmao
I think I’d be pretty upset.
My guy, I literally stated my exact evaluation of these guys earlier in the thread. It was pretty similar to this, actually, I’m just capable of acknowledging that even this is better than Phil Jackson. By the way, now that literally all of The Genius’ biggest signings are either washed as hell or out of the NBA (with many of them still being paid via the contracts he gave them), does he still get a B-?
i don’t get the hype on shamet. he definitely doesn’t seem like an outsized return for a rental. sure he’s 22 and an excellent shooter, but that’s pretty much it, and he’s basically guaranteed to be a defensive liability 4eva. he’s not a great creator or passer, he’s a below average rebounder, and he doesn’t get to the rim. it’s amazing that the clippers got shamet plus 4 draft picks for an expiring harris, but shamet is just an okay prospect imo.
Goddamn it, I was just thinking to myself this morning, “Wouldn’t Taj fit perfectly into the $12 million trade exception that the Rockets have from the Capela deal?”
I should have posted it.
#86
I think you are a clueless troll that has no understanding of basketball at all. I only engage you because I am foolish. If there was an ignore button, I would use it.
Keep seeing the Trier trade reports, but no one can actually seem to give any indication where he has been traded to and what for. Seems to be alleged it was leaked vi the NY player group chat, but who the hell knows.
@87
I was just taking a better look at Shamet this afternoon.
Guys that can shoot like that will typically have some value. He’s young and might get better, but I agree that he’s doesn’t bring much else to the table and seems like a negative on D. I wouldn’t mind having him on the team, but he’s not someone I’d be super anxious to have or give a lot away for. I’m not sure he’s actually a real starter even though he starts many games for the “Clippers”.
Oof, I appear to have touched a nerve with that archive search.
Someone on Twitter mentioned that the Rockets would probably try to use that trade exception this morning and I wasn’t smart enough to think of Taj. But I think it’s a good idea for them. I just don’t know what we could get, but I guess anything would be OK.
it would surprise me if the rockets didn’t go for a guy making less to stay out of the luxury tax. remember there’s a new sheriff in town (and he’s a bit of a prick). that’s why i was thinking baynes, i think they are about $6m away.
I’ve been hoping for morris = shamet for a while…everytime I watch a clips game he’s curling around a screen, or, sitting outside the arc and draining threes…his shooting form looks really nice…a young jj reddick…
to be honest though (which at times may be more a curse than benefit), I never really looked at the other aspects of his game…
I didn’t even read it until just now. I didn’t think it was worth the time.
I pretty much stand by everything I said in that post.
B- was generous, but given the absolutely horrid hand he was dealt – missing 2 1st round picks, unmovable players like Felton and JR Smith needing to be excommunicated, and Chandler hurt and wanting out, I was probably feeling sorry for him given the biased/basketball ignorant coverage he was getting from people like you in the press that didn’t understand some of the problems (and still don’t)
Baynes would cost a lot, no?
Taj you could get for a future second!
But yeah, I didn’t know Taj would take them over the tax. I agree that Taj is not someone you go over the tax for. Heck, wouldn’t Baynes even take them over the luxury cap?
I love when someone does an archive search to zing another poster and I actually posted something prescient somewhere therein…keep saying dumb things, strat!
Same here.
Well, getting an extra 2nd rounder for taj was a nice thought while it lasted.
The Knicks badly need good shooting, Shamet is young and seems like a very good shooter. It’s not a tremendous haul, but it’s certainly better than the return you’d expect on a bad first round pick.
i feel sorry for orphans…that’s got to be a real challenge growing up in that circumstance…not sorry enough to actually do something to help, but, the seeming difficulty in trying to overcome/adapt to that situation makes me think it would be tough for them…
as far as phil goes – only time i ever really felt sympathy for the guy was watching him try to move around or stand with that crooked back of his…i’ve had some issues with my back (actually i think it’s more that iliopsoas muscle that just gets inflamed) over time – it’s humbling not being able to stand straight up and it looks like your listing heavily to the port or starboard side…
But he does do a spot-on Duke Blue Devil mascot impression…
I happen to respect your opinion on loads of things even though we also disagree on some player values (which is to be expected) and my insistence that my experience and actual data studies done suggest that tanking is not all it’s cracked up to be except in very specific situations. But there is nothing dumb about me understanding things that people in the press or here are biased about or did not understand at the time.
When I’m actually wrong I’ll admit it. I didn’t like Morris, but his game and maturity has shocked me (with just a couple of momentary exceptions). And now we may get a 1st out of it. I was wrong.
I agree, it is a good idea for the Rockets. I can’t figure out what we’d get back either.
It’s never happened but hypothetically if you were ever wrong about anything you’d totes admit it I’m sure
#BMinusForPhil
Strat, problem is that you are entrenched in position while offering virtually no analytical support to defend them. Your go-to line is bullshit like:
“I’ve been watching basketball, learning the game, watching builds and rebuilds, and looking statistics for gambling purposes for probably twice as long as you are even alive. I know the game pretty well and have strong opinions.”
Do you know the game better and watching it longer than Isiah Thomas did? Or Elgin Baylor? Is the risk you take in gambling as big as the risks taken by the typical NBA GM? Have you ever let down a whole fanbase and been run out of town and went on to be a perpetual object of scorn and ridicule for your decision making?
As a gambler, if you put money on every executed Knicks transaction you supported (trades, FA signings, draft picks) or on your preseason predictions for the team’s W-L record, would you winning money?
I love your commentary strat, but mostly in that you serve as a good-natured foil for the posters who actually come at these arguments with more than “I’ve studied basketball for longer than you’ve been alive.” Not to say that you’re never right, but if anyone is the “blind squirrel” around here, it’s you.
Other things that are a B minus:
“Bio-Dome” starring Pauly Shore
JD and the Straight Shot
Licking subway seats
Bedbug infestations
Vacationing in Youngstown, Ohio
Christmas fruitcake
Eric Trump
Scientology’s OT V level
Yeah, I was talking about moving Morris to the Clippers, their 1st to GS, DLo to us. Some filler to balance stuff out.
I admitted that was overly generous above. I also explained why I rate him higher than general perceptions. Sometimes I have limitations in my tolerance for biased reporting and pinheads in the press and overshoot a little. But I will admit some of the younger pinheads of 3-4 years ago have gotten massively better over the last few years and now I read them with enthusiasm.
To summarize, the entire world thinks that as a GM, Phil was a clueless, doddering burnout who set the franchise back 5 years in its trajectory towards building a contending team. You can find glimmers of intelligence in some of his decisions, but he never did a single thing that would make anyone here say “wow, that was Masai-level brilliance!” He made bad draft picks, got fleeced on trades and made idiotic free agent signings, including Melo. He fucked up in hiring coaches and then meddled in their fucked-up coaching, fucking it up even more. Why are you so oblivious to what is so painfully obvious to the entire basketball community?
Z-man
Posting data that is obviously incomplete and that can’t handle the complexities of coaching, system, matchups, teammates, how players fit together etc.. does not make your arguments better.
What makes them better is saying “I know Kanter rates very highly on some stats”, but they don’t include x, y, and z. And even though I’m often not be able to precisely value x, y, and z and simply “assert it”, being approximately right is better than being obviously wrong as many here were and then learned.
KP is better than give credit here
Frank is closer to being a neutral player than given credit here.
I could go on and on and know I am right more often than the supposed experts. I’ve actually gambled on my opinions on the values of players and made money. Try it. Let me know how you make out. That the only test.
Heck, wouldn’t Baynes even take them over the luxury cap?
i’m working off memory but i think they are about $6m under post capela and baynes would put them just under it. he would presumably cost their 2022 first, the only one they have to give.
@111
Maybe I need to explain to you that a B- is not a “brilliant” rating. And since I conceded I was a bit generous, maybe C+ or B would have been better. But I don’t care what the rest of the world thinks (especially the media). The media is mostly a collection of people that are just learning the subject they are writing about. Basketball was full of writers that were too young at the time trying advanced stats, too old at the time and not, and people that hated Phil because of his arrogance and attitude and wanted to bring him down a few notches. He’s not a likable guy when dealing with players and media. I don’t blame people for not liking him. But over and above the basketball, it impacted their ability to be objective. No one that I know other than Howard Beck has ever even admitted that he had an asshole of a GM forced upon him and that mattered.
Strat, I mostly agree on Porzingis in that he is undervalued by many here and has a good chance of becoming anywhere from a minimal legit max player to a superstar. But right now, he is a league-average player. What he gives you in rim protection he gives back on other aspects of defense. What he gives you as a floor stretcher he gives back in inefficiency and bad decision-making. Will he improve? Probably, but possibly not. Will he be injury-prone? More likely than not. Will he be a distraction? Possibly, he’s had his share of off-court drama and bad FO relations.
But Phil only is responsible for picking him at #4, and many other GMs would have done the same. Phil also helped set up the conditions to make him want out. Phil also didn’t trade him for better than equal value when he had the chance.
Phil got laughably shitty results, because every major decision he made blew up in his mustachioed face. He had three offseasons to accomplish something and didn’t do shit, the team was the same pile of garbage when he left that it was when he got there.
C+ doe, because he “knows the game” or some boomer horseshit.
Howard Beck has a long history of hating the Knicks and Dolan and spitefully trashing them at every opportunity. But of course, no one else in the media could possibly be counted on to give an objective take, only Howard Beck.
Please, get real. Phil is a gazillionaire with a reputation for flouting authority and not giving a shit about the media. He floated self-serving propaganda pieces one after another via his asshole spinmeister mouthpiece Charlie Rosen.
I, like you, go back to the ’69-’70 glory days, and was pissed when Phil was passed over by the Knicks when he was leading the Albany Patroons to glory. I truly hoped he would show the same acumen as a POBO that he did as a coach. But he failed epically, and to blame it on Steve Mills is to call him a sniveling coward who was led around by the nose someone he had to view by a moron. It essentially calls him a shill for Mills who lurked in the background while Phil met the media and justified all of his moves, then took the fall. Do you realize how moronic that sounds?!
well – where the hell are the trades???
seriously the whole league is asleep
I’m with Z-Man in that I appreciate having someone who’s completely against the grain on this website and at the same time isn’t an actual troll like reub was or others have been.
But the endless appeal to authority is so damn tiresome, because to be quite frank nobody gives a damn about your life or the result of your bets, because we have no feasible way to verify any of this and nobody cares enough to do so.
We have really brilliant people on this board, big writers, musicians, people in high esteemed positions in the academy or the private sector, yet you don’t see those guys coming out and saying stuff like “I’ve been doing this since before you were alive and thus you are wrong”. Its tiresome and adds literally nothing to discussion. Fuck, I was part of the committee that brought Judith Butler to Brazil for a series of conferences, and yet I sat here watching people discuss gender related stuff and I’m not playing that card. Once you start treating people’s arguments with respect, without dismissing them immediately because of your presumably amazing knowledge, maybe people will do the same to you.
@166
Next time you get dealt 7 -2 off suit in a hand of Texas Hold’m like Phil got dealt and leave the team with Porzingis, Frank, Dotson, Willy, a 30+ win team, all the 1st round picks, and 20 million of cap despite Dolan and Mills hampering you, you’ve done a better job than a LOT of people even though your weren’t brilliant.
But you start with the assumption that unless he tanked exactly like the prevailing wisdom here says he should have he was stupid without even knowing the results of some of the studies done on various types of tanking and subsequent results. It’s not as attractive an option as you think.
(If you don’t understand the 7-2 off suit reference I elaborated on the crap he inherited above.)
Time for me to go again. “Married at First Sight” is more interesting than more of this.
I’m giving back what I’ve been getting for a long time. I’m dismissed because I don’t go along with a “program” I think is wrong.
And if I have to, I’m willing to apologize for bringing gambling and such into the fray, but I’m trying to establish some level of credibility even though I disagree.
KP kinda worked out.
Frank is a bust.
Dotson is generic NBA filler.
Willy is back of roster dreck.
30 wins ain’t shit. He inherited a 32 win team.
Whoop de doo, he didn’t trade first rounders.
20 million in cap space but also 80 million tied up in garbage.
A grade of D is generous.
there truly is only one person’s thoughts and feelings that matter – your own…
easy to say, harder to do…don’t let others determine your behavior…
it’s all just air, ink, or in this case ones and zeros…i can’t imagine the payout is worth the emotional investment…
don’t change – we/me like you as you are…
$100 says you’re wrong! Heretic!
just did the quick wiki search thing…gender performativity is some pretty interesting stuff…reality and “facts” aren’t always as stable as you might think…
one thing that i find interesting is the use of the term: queer…i had always thought it was a derogatory term…that doesn’t seem to be the case though…
miami gets iggy, wants gallo
I don’t really understand why the Thunder want to unload Gallo. They have a good team and could easily be a 4 seed.
I need more trades. This is BS. And then I need Mem-Dal to be nationally televised and Luka to be healthy.
sounding like jae crowder and solomon hill got traded. just scratched.
is he really worth that???
Any circumstance where you would trade this years first rounder given the draft? Just to liven up the conversation…
kp just tried a legit 38 footer
Holy crap, that Igoudala extension! He’ll be 38 by the time it’s up! Wonder what they gave up to get him?
It’s a team option on the second year for Iggy.
It’ll be interesting to see if Justise Winslow can turn his career around in Memphis. I’m glad the Knicks never listened to me about drafting him.
memphis getting a first plus winslow to keep iguodala on their roster is fucking nice
DRed not for GM then?
OKC are an interesting case study this year. They are in the hunt for a home advantage in the 1st round, yet are seemingly doing what the Knicks should be doing with their vets on the proviso they are unlikely to seriously contend in the West.
Team option aside, I think someone needs to check in on Riley.
Good time to talk about opportunity costs. The Knicks could have absorbed that Iguodala contract in the offseason and received assets then and now. Must be nice to have a competent FO.
It’s the only point of bipartisan agreement on this board. Not kicking that to the curb.
I had no idea Winslow had regressed so savagely. I thought he was rounding into a real player.
I would say it’s a mistake to deny Thunder fans a quality playoffs run. For the first time for a thousand years it kind of seems pretty up in the air out there?
And the comment I wish I had made
Also, KP is responding to our criticism in strong fashion. Ready to prove Strat right.
That 2024 pick is going to be a decent pick from Golden State too. Would work perfect on our timeline since we should be decent by then and looking for some cheap talent. And we’d have a look at Justice Winslow as well right now.
The Knicks are going to end up playing the whole league against each other for leverage until there’s no one left to trade with.
It’s funny to read Hollinger commenting on trades now, given that Memphis became a smart franchise the moment he left.
This is kind of amazing….
https://twitter.com/Nykterryandtray/status/1225237186989166592
The #Grizzlies traded Mike Conley (plus Jevon Carter and a 2024 2nd) for:
Brandon Clarke
De’Anthony Melton
Jae Crowder
Grayson Allen
Josh Jackson
Justise Winslow
UTA 2021 1st (prot. 1-7, 15-30)
GS 2024 1st (top 4 prot.)
PHX 2020 2nd
PHX 2021 2nd (prot. 36-60)
future knick d lo revenge game with the rare -48
@145
Wow! That’s amazing, we can only dream of having a front office anywhere near that competent. And supposedly Jae Crowder is on the move too. Him and Solomon Hill are out of the lineup tonight.
kp looking for another 35-10
Damn the Grizzlies got Winslow too? They’re definitely going to be my favorite team to watch.
@126
Geo, the queer movement idea is based on the concept that you can turn a derogatory term into a positive identity, use it to bring together a group of people who have been called that with malicious intent, to take pride in who they are. It’s the idea of resignifying cultural statements, like if we turn this word into something positive for us, we take away the power the language exercises over this group of people. It’s quite similar to what the black community has done with their own vocabulary and history in some instances.
KP with 24 points on 16 shots, 6 rebounds, 2 steals, 1 block, 3 for 8 from 3 point line, in 17 minutes at halftime with Brunson at PG and no Doncic.
Riley is a wild man and is going for it next 2 years.
Memphis management is killing it.
Back to “Married at First Sight” for me.
Remember when Isiah would trade two totally unprotected future firsts? Man, those were the days.
So the Grizzlies got a pick just for taking Iguodala, then got another pick and Winslow for trading him away… must be nice, really.
At least we got the privilege of creating so many memories watching Portis and Ellington, who cares about picks.
The picks are the friends we made along the way.
If we do actually trade Morris for something worthwhile, like a useful player and a pick, then it’s like we turned the cap space we used to sign into a useful player and a pick, which is actually better than using cap space to take on an unwanted player in return for getting a pick. Of course, this is the Knicks, so I probably jinxed it already.
Looks like the Kings are trading Dwayne Dedmond and 2 2nd rounders to Atlanta for Alex Len and Jabari Parker. The blockbusters are rolling in now folks.
looks like kp may have gotten his nose broken with an elbow
I was given reliable info that he tried to talk Dolan out of the Melo and Bargs deals.
He could be full of shit, of course, but Paxson even later noted that he probably would have accepted top five protections on the first pick.
The Hawks got the Kings’ second rounder this year and next just for keeping Dedman on their roster for next year.
From the Athletic (which by the way is pretty good reading from time to time)
@155
The point is that we could have done both. We had cap space to sign literally everyone we signed, except Portis, and we could still have taken on Iguodala’s 17 million deal.
I’ll be happy if Morris is turned into good assets, but there’s a very little chance anyone else is giving us even close to the return the Iguodala deal left Memphis with.
Via woj.
Riley trying to demonstrate how you can build a competitive team of veterans and still draft and trade for a young core of up and coming players giving you both near term upside and a future young core all without a total tank and despite some significant errors along the way…..all while his critics were calling him an idiot just a year or two ago. I hope he pulls it off. I’d love to see Gallo in Miami on a good team, with a good coach, and great management down the stretch of his career. #GalloManCrush
Mofos up in here talking shit about Youngstown, gtfo.
I mostly skip past Strat’s posts since they’re 90% blather but I admit that I’m glad he still posts. I enjoy the replies. Sometimes arguing with a brick wall really helps to clarify arguments.
I know +/- is a flawed stat, but…did D’Angelo just put up a -48 against his former team? Hope Perry was watching.
Figured I’d check in tonight to see what the talks are here on the potential trade rumors and the entire thread was mostly about Strat and his continued love affair with Phil and KP. That’s why I love this site 🙂
Sounds like Knicks sleeping on a decision. Really pushing for Shamet, but nothing happening tonight
Crowder is having a down year and may or may not not be what he was, but he’s younger and fills a Dallas need better than Lee. If he’s still the same player, they are getting a nice upgrade on top of it for what will probably amount to relatively meaningless draft compensation.
Landry Shamet just scored 8 straight points vs the Heat to put the game away, and is 5-12 on three pointers. He’s close to 40% from three for the season.
The Clips are definitely not giving him to us for Marcus Morris
Maybe we’ll do a DSJ to Minny deal for Malik Beasley now that they have him… sweet dreams, Knicks fans.
The +/- for that entire box score is out of control.
Can’t you see West dangling Shammet in front of the Knicks til the last minute to keep him from the Lakers……
I dunno, you’d think that any GM (even Perry) would be competent enough to have a backup deal in place if the Clippers won’t give up Shamet, no?
Sixers got Burke and Robinson from GS for three 2nd rounders, hmmm…
thanks bruno…makes total sense, a term used specifically by those within the community…
always liked the word gay, which is literally defined as a positive experience…always thought that was kind of cool…
interesting to think how defining gender roles can be used as a means of control, by those in control…judith has some very good points…really liked the notion that we are who we are before we are even born…
I remember when I was younger watching a PBS program called eyes on the prize…those whom are willing to face crazy odds against them to fight for the rights of others are pretty inspiring folks…
A Knicks fan walks into a repair shop.
The clerk approaches him.
“Sir, can I help you?” asks the clerk, eager to help.
“Thank you, good man. I’d like to have my phone checked out, it doesn’t seem to work properly” answers the Knicks fan.
The clerk obliges, and tells the man to be back in an hour, because that’s how long it takes for diagnostics to run.
The Knicks fan gets back to the shop in due time.
“So tell me, what’s the problem? Can you fix my phone?” asks the fan, with a pretty evident trace of anxiety in his voice.
“I’m sorry sir, I checked it thoroughly and there’s nothing wrong with your phone. It works perfectly” answers the clerk, visibly befuddled.
“But” and here the Knicks fan starts stuttering, eyes watering with a million tear embryos, “but…”
“Sir, what’s the problem?” a worried clerk goes on to inquire.
A moment of pure existential dread enshrouds the thoughts of the Knicks fan.
“WHY THEN WHEN I HIT THE REFRESH BUTTON THERE’S NO KNICKS TRADE ANNOUNCED?”
lol Farfa so true
but hey this team is just starting to gel yo
GSW trading Glenn Robinson III and Alec Burks to Philly for three 2RP.
I like Wes wilcox
This has all the makings of a deadline where we look back and see every seller did better than us bc they acted sooner.
At this point I don’t trust Perry to get as much for Marcus Morris as GSW got for Glenn Robinson.
I’m truly hoping the Kuzma stuff is a smokescreen and just being used to get the Clips to put in another asset. Just don’t want Perry to overplay his hand. That said, the whole reason the Clips held onto their first round pick was to trade it for a guy like Morris. I think Mook is unquestionably the best fit for them (Actually think Taj would be a great fit there too). Just don’t want Perry to overplay his hand. Would be very happy with Kabengele + Harkless and a 1st, and as a side deal send Taj into their Harris trade exception for the 2021 DET 2nd round pick that the Clips have. Would end up being a 2-for-2 deal where we don’t have to do any other roster gymnastics to fit the incoming players.
a playoff unit of Pat Bee, George, Kawhi, Morris, and Taj would be very very tough defensively.
if that trade were to go through, then basically we would’ve turned ~$24MM of cap space into a former 1st round pick (Kabengele), the Clips 2020 1st, and what will likely be a good 2021 2nd. That is not bad. Easily could be something Perry could tout as he goes out into the market for another job this summer.
Will be very interesting to see what Perry does, since this trade deadline is basically his job interview. Certainly he has to know that he’s gone after the season and that win-now trades will not impress anyone least of all future employers.
Now they are looking at Aaron Holiday?
Doesn’t Houston want Taj? Not sure what they can offer us except Hartenstein/Tucker.
Bucks are still a possibility for Morris if they give up Indy’s first. That would be ideal.
It’s looking more like there’s a chance Gallo could be jointing Butler, Iggy, Adebayo, Nunn, Robinson etc… in Miami if they can figure out his contract status. He’s a free agent after this year but he wants an extension. Miami wants to keep flexibility going forward to add another star or possibly even make a run at Giannis. They gave Iggy a 2 year overpay, but it’s irrelevant with a team option for next year. Not sure what they can do to make Gallo happier than just going to Miami. OKC vs Miami. Duh!!! Pack your bags, buy some sun tan lotion, and go!
The Knicks better at least come out this “blind squirrel finding a nut situation” with Morris with a late first rounder. Then they’ll have 3 extra 1st rounders to trade. That will give a competent executive something to work with in trying to land a good young player next year that will actually move us forward for the first time in 3 years.
Dude, no. Plenty of folks think your general approach to team building is solid. The problems are your self-victimization; your refusal to ever quantify your arguments in any way; your off-hand dismissal of any evidence that runs counter to your preferred story; the ridiculous and irrelevant appeals to your own authority; your heavy reliance on a methodology that’s so deeply flawed it’s inane to have to refer to it as a “methodology;” your bizarre and slavish devotion to a terrible GM; and your constantly shifting denunciations and endoursments (the media is all horrible I never read them/this media is okay cause they wrote a single line that agrees with me*, I read them all the time).
But you are funny, albeit unintentionally. So you alright with me.
*It was a typo.
Lol @ Farfa,
That’s exactly how I feel
Fun fact, squirrels are red-green color blind.
Deadline is at 3 est, correct? Plenty of time for Perry to continue his streak of good trades. Still, I’ll believe Dolan will allow it when it happens, not before. No trade, history suggests Dolan is the cause and he’ll scapegoat Perry if folks don’t like his decision.
Needing to run everything through Dolan and his new PR advisor probably complicates the process.
I know exactly what you mean.
This forum is a lot like the old Wins Produced blog that David Berri used to run. There was an endless supply of brilliant young talented people defending an indefensible model and way of thinking about basketball and you could never get through to them.
There were a few people like me trying to explain what they were missing.
The there were a few Berri critics that were also stats heads trying to analyze the game correctly and create a useful set of numbers. (I assume a couple of those guys eventually landed jobs in the NBA because they understand basketball, were very smart, and had an education in numbers).
Jump X years forward and some of the Wins Produced guys don’t defend their model as much anymore. They understand the game better now.
But I will give Berri credit where’s it’s due. He did a lot of studies on tanking to demonstrate the probability of success using various approaches (some of which I argued with him about because I’m more open to tanking than he was ). But at least he tried to study it and supply data.
It seems like Knicks management is just trying to figure out what will sell the Knicks to the fans instead just trying to build a better team
While I think this to be true to some extent, it’s simply hilarious to figure someone imagining that Portis and Ellington will sell the Knicks
That was before Dolan brought in the marketing guy. The terrible team Mills and Perry put together was aimed at appeasing Dolan. Dolan is now obsessed with the PR of the team, so moves they make will have to be made with that in mind.
I think it may be true at the moment because Dolan was stung by the chants. I’m not sure if was true when Pills assembled the team.
How are we to quantify something like Frank’s defense on the entire Cavs team, and eventual forcing of a bigger player (Osman) into a much more difficult shot than expected, in the 120-120 possession a couple nights ago? On-off numbers? Plus-minus?
That’s kind of the fundamental problem with the analytics age in sports — the idea that if it’s not quantifiable it somehow “doesn’t count.” It’s simply not the case that things not provable by the principles of statistical inference aren’t things. What statistical inference insists is “noise,” often is anything but.
The fact that BJ Armstrong is reportedly being considered for the job is bad PR… oh, and fking stupid
Dolan’s a guy who lurches from one obsessive overarching principle to the next, without any thought as to ultimate goal or relevance. He’s still obsessed about hip-replaced Donnie Walsh showing up for the meeting with LeBron in a wheelchair. He is routinely, constantly fighting the last war.
The straightforward thought that, “Hey, maybe I should stress and reward performance and excellence in building a good basketball team” has seemingly never even hit his brain. And the even more bizarre thing is that’s a really easy thing to do. And quantifiable!
what BJ Armstrong did with Donatas Motiejunas (basically agent malpractice) should disqualify him from consideration.
how about we just get someone smart who has experience running basketball operations? former playing experience in the NBA NOT REQUIRED.
I’m a little skeptical of Iggy. He obviously has more big game chops than just about any other role player around, but I think how loaded those GS teams were the last few years masked his decline a bit. They were able to take it really easy on him for the most part and only ask him to kick it up to high intensity for like 10-15 games and he still missed playoff games each of the last 3 seasons. No idea how to figure the impact of taking the first half of the season off, I could see it going either way. I just think between the health and age issues and his always inconsistent jumper there’s some real bust potential with the move.
@175
The thing about queer, geo, is that it’s much more inclusive than just gay; gay has become very associated to the cisgender male person, while the queer nomination is typically used for people who are in other gender spectrums, non-binary, various forms of transgender, pansexuality etc.
@195
This is the typical fallacy against stats. Yes, they can’t accurately evaluate the one single play you loved so much, but you’re asking statistics to do something it never intended to do. The type of statistics you criticize are meant to paint a bigger picture, a “landscape” if you will, that gives you an idea of the players production over time. It only means something when there’s a relevant sample size and time frame. How much is that one possession you loved really impactful when we think about Ntilikina’s 1000 minutes? Or 3000 minutes?
I don’t think this is true. If it was true, Morey would have a bazillion rings on his fingers and there’d be no point in playing actual games. In 2020 people realize at a rational level that at least a modicum of advanced stats is needed to comprehend the real contribution of a key player; the thing is that people tend to fall in love with various things, and when one of this things is a basketball player (or better yet, the idealisation of said basketball player) rationality goes out of the window and the eye test gets invoked.
Notice that I’m talking about key players: it’s possible that a situational player wins you a series while being a .020 WS/48 guy because the specific matchup is favorable.
I mean, WS/48 is far from being a good descriptor, but does a very nice job at skimming good players from bad players.
Here’s the list of over .100 WS/48 19/20 Knicks: Mitch, Morris, Taj.
Here’s the list of under .040 WS/48 19/20 Knicks: Knox, Frank, Ellington, RJ, DSJ (Iggy in limites minutes).
Do you really think the stat does a bad job?
After that, you have to look closer at players to fully understand their impact, but I feel like the two group are rightly populated (with the caveats that come from a guy being young).
I finally did some homework on Steve Stoute. I thought this was a meaningless event. MSG hired a PR consultant… makes sense… they need one.
The more I learn about him the more I realize that we probably replaced one Steve Mills with the next one. This guy looks like another potential Wormtongue who will command Dolan’s ear for a long time.
Unless we get Masai. It’s really him or bust.
@IanBegley
On Knicks presidency search, people around James Dolan continue to have strong concerns about compensation package it might take to land Masai Ujiri, there’s serious pessimism about Knicks’ pursuit of him at the moment, per SNY sources. NYK continues to guage interest of agents.
He does that kind of thing all the time on defense. The vast majority of 1s and 2s either cannot or do not do those things. How are we to quantify it? Ultimately, he reduced the likelihood Cleveland would score on that possession, and that possession was a high leverage one. Against another 1/2 defender, Osman’s expected shooting percentage would have been, let’s say, .75 and because it was Frank, it was, let’s say, .40. (*) Those are numbers that can be worked with, but of course, we’ll never have enough data on that reduction across all possessions and the reduction is guesswork. But there’s no reason something should be deemed to have “meaning” just because we have the requisite data — that’s the tail wagging the dog.
You can kinda sorta proxy it with on-off and plus-minus numbers, and lineup data, but every time that’s tried, all that comes back is “noise.”
(*) And even that’s assuming the other defender even would have been there to defend Osman, which in a lot of cases isn’t even true.
See what I mean? Who are these “people around Dolan”? Seems like that’s Steve Stoute’s new job.
Once of these guys gets their hooks in Dolan, it’s a golden goose for them and their friends. I’m afraid we’re heading towards replacing Mills Perry and Fizdale with Stoute Kleimann and Jackson.
That’s pretty much Steve Stoute to a tee.
Needing to be liked at all costs is definitely Jimmy’s fatal flaw.
This whole “Masai is going to cost too much” stuff is so depressing, especially when you just know guys like Stoute know that Masai won’t put up with all these hangers on and so that is almost certainly influencing their advice.
https://www.billboard.com/articles/business/branding/8549399/steve-stoute-new-york-knicks-brand-consultant
^ Just look at this guy. This is not a guy I want around Jim Dolan. Anyone telling Jim Dolan that Masai Ujiri costs too much needs to go away. These people are just telling him that because the first thing Masai will do is tell them to fuck off.
You beat me to it, Brian.
We need Silver to step in and guide this process.
“People around James Dolan” could just be “James Dolan.” This could be just negotiating through the press, which happens all the time — but, yeah, it could be this new brand guy in Dolan’s ear, no question.
I don’t know the first thing about Steve Stoute, and certainly wouldn’t make any judgements on him based on his appearance in a picture on the Billboard website. He seems to be a self-made guy who has done lots of impressive things and has been involved in supporting many successful people. Even so, that does not qualify him to be in the ear of James Dolan re: basketball operations.
I don’t think Stoute is a bad dude, but he’s a guy who’s smart enough to know that being Dolan’s guy is a very good place to be if you like money and power.
And he’s not a basketball guy, which is why that’s a bad place for us for him to be.
Which leads him to a place that if he’ll listen to you on one thing (brand management), he’ll listen to you on everything (basketball). He has no ability to put together a team of people and make them stay in their lanes, which is why Mills moved so smoothly from the business side of MSG to the top of the basketball department.
If the new guy is trying to talk basketball, what most people in Dolan’s position would do is something like listen, nod his head, and ignore him. In other words, manage the people who work for him. Dolan seemingly has no capacity to do that.
Meanwhile this KAT losing streak is really unbelievable. Have we ever seen a player who is so bipolar on the court in terms of offensive ability and defensive suckitude? He is #1 among centers in ORPM and dead last in DRPM. I mean, the difference between him and the #2 center in ORPM is the same as the difference between the #2 center and the #50 center. It’s really nuts. And all this talk about him being disrespected… dude, your team literally can’t win when you’re on the court. It’s nuts.
It’s not that facets of the game unable to be quantified are “meaningless”, it’s that the eye test is fundamentally unreliable, especially on defense. To use an example mentioned a day or two ago: the eye test cannot account for the difference between a Dotson (hustle guy who gets over screens, not very good on defense) and RoCo (top wing defender, actually disruptive); or Frank (good but not elite point of attack defender) and RoCo, or Frank and Pat Bev, for that matter. To do that you need to do things like count steals, deflections per 36, defensive rebounds, blown coverages, and so on. No one can count all of that reliably, but computers (with human assistance!) can, and we can construct models that then quantify defensive contribution on the basis of these accurate counts. Obviously defensive metrics don’t tell nearly the whole story, but they’re still better than the eye test as a method. The problem is weighting the variables correctly and accounting for noise. But it’s the best tool we have, because the eye test gives you only the most coarse-grained data imaginable on the best of days.
Thinking a bit more about Dolan and his guys. Mills was in charge of MSG, and was fired after they lost a multi million dollar sexual harassment lawsuit, but then Dolan brings him back and puts him in charge of the Knicks over the GM who had just led them to their only really good team of Dolan’s entire ownership of the team?
How does a guy this stupid even exist?
Inherited money?
Obsessing about steals is exactly what I meant about the availability of data and the tail wagging the dog. Just because we have the data doesn’t make it any more of a worthy factor in measuring defense than anything else.
Good defenders ultimately reduce the expected shooting percentage, and in turn expected point value, of shots they defend. (They do more than that, of course, but this is at least a starting point.) I would assume we can all agree on that. How is that quantified in the data we see?
Irrelevant. It’s either a worthy tool or not a worthy tool and it has to be defended as such without reference to its ease of availability.
Well, one fall evening back in 1954, Charles Dolan had a romantic dinner with his wife Helen. They both had a little too much to drink, one thing led to another, and Knicks fans were forever doomed.
You guys are overthinking this. MSG does need marketing and this guy looks qualified. If Dolan is worried about appearances, and he probably is; then that is an issue, but probably not a big one.
Many teams have hired good GMs that we never heard of, in theory the Knicks could do the same, so it’s reasonable to wonder how much compensation is worth it to hire Ujiri. it’s a normal discussion to have in an NBA management team.
I think what’s holding up trades is that Perry can’t get a deal that looks like a clear win for the Knicks if that’s the case, we won’t have a reason for a new thread until tonight’s game.
What’s so weird is that he has done really well for himself with his family’s business. Investors love him. He makes people money. And yet when it comes to basketball, he’s a moron. It’s so weird.
He’s also an overall asshole, but that’s a whole other deal.
Dolan is so freaking stupid. There’s no point in rushing the choice of next PoBO. Toronto’s leverage gradually disappears the closer we get to the offseason.
But of course, he will listen to the hangers on who are interested in maintaining their own power instead.
That’s really the depressing part and why the Stoute stuff is worrying, because yes, they have an operable team right now. There is no need to get a new POBO until the draft. That they seem to want to speed this up is insane.
“We can’t get the best choice right away? Okay, moving on!”
KAT is a “franchise player” who really isn’t a franchise player. Fits nicely in that Simmons group with KP and Booker.
The rush is exactly so they don’t get Masai. There’s no other explanation.
And Woj now reports Leon Rose is the target. Fucking kill me.
I love when Woj tweets stuff clearly designed to suck up to sources. “Elton Brand just did a great job”
Remember when he talked about how good the Knicks’ offseason was, because he and Perry are tight?
What’s so weird is that he has done really well for himself with his family’s business. Investors love him. He makes people money. And yet when it comes to basketball, he’s a moron. It’s so weird.
i have a lot to say about this but today’s not the day for it. maybe no day is but today def not. lemme just say it’s not as simple as this.
today is about leon and perhaps marcus.
AHAHAHAH Leon Rose is too Knicksy not to be true
They’re trying to get you to click …..
Leon Rose is probably better than Mills, at least.
But yes, I am so sick of, “Well, this guy is a slight improvement over the earlier moron.”
Leon Rose already ran the Knicks and he traded for Andrea Bargnani
Wow – Isola reporting that Leon Rose and the Knicks are close to a deal. Unreal.
It definitely is sad when we’re a few years removed from everyone making fun of the Knicks for being run by CAA and Dolan says, “Let’s put CAA in charge!”
What a disgrace.
Holy @Q#%$$^ they’re going to complete this deal literally 3-4 hours before the deadline. What a bunch of idiots.
I will, as always, be Team Optimism, but boy does this process stink.
I mean, how do you even have time to interview people– unless this process has actually been going on for a while.
But isn’t he like Masai there? Shouldn’t he get credit for helping to fleece the Knicks in his client’s favor? He wasn’t trying to improve the Knicks, he was trying to help his clients.
will we have still have time to trade for melo after leon signs?
What in the hell? How do you make this decision in, like, a day? They really wouldn’t let Perry just carry us through the deadline with low-risk moves and then do a complete search? Will Rose be making incredibly important decisions in his first 5 hours on the job?
I guess we’ll just have to wait and see when it comes to Rose’s competence, but this process is indefensible. What else is new?
well that sucks
Leon fawkin Rose? Are you kidding? Stop trying to do what everyone else does and put a legit basketball mind and someone who negotiates well and can manage the cap in the FO. We all know Rose can negotiate, but is he strong enough to not let Dolan swoop in and make rash decisions? Can he manage the cap efficiently enough to put the talent that Perry finds together?
I wonder, considering the team wants to move quickly, does it mean Perry stays if Rose gets the job? Or are we still angling for Ujiri in the offseason? I dunno. Is Dolan even trying to do what he did for the Rangers? Feels like he doesn’t know what he wants and he really is playing with the toy car or G.I. Joe with the kung fu grip.
I don’t know, man. He seems like a guy who is here to take advantage of Dolan’s star fucking weakness.
Here’s the clip from this guy’s book, The Tanning of America. I don’t see how his expertise (marketing to a multicultural audience) is among our top 200,000 needs at the moment.
The Razor cuts again
by the way, Mitch + Towns would be pretty incredible.
All depends on how hands-on he is, who he hires, etc. The problem with Mills, in addition to not knowing shit about basketball, is that he wanted to be a co-GM. If Rose is just there to recruit, negotiate, manage Dolan, make the Knicks “cool,” and hires a great GM/coach, it could work. The POBO doesn’t absolutely have to be a personnel guy.
Still really weird and Knicksy. Dolan’s Razor.
Well, it is sort of nice that for once all of Knickerblogger will be unanimous in their opinion about something the Knicks did.
The fantasy: We’re getting KD
The reality: We’re getting Bobby Portis
The fantasy: We’re getting Masai
The reality: CAA is coming back for another crack at this
Maybe the Wilpons are advising Jimmy D.
( one would hope that there were back-channel talks with Ujiri that led to the belief that he would not be coming)
Rose is obviously telling Dolan he’s got the master plan to bring like KAT and DLo to the garden and then Minnesota is going to be like go fuck yourself and we’ll overpay some other losers
I don’t want to prejudge Leon Rose, who might be just fine or even good. But man…. this process was sooooooo baaaaaaaad.
I knew it
I mean, we all knew it. But I felt it in my marrow.
if you want to learn a little about leon:
https://youtu.be/JLdV2Ht-R0U
Google is amazing by the way – This is from isola back in 2010!!
This is really rather remarkable. It’s really one step short of just re-hiring Isiah.
Get Chris Smith on the phone, that guy deserves another tryout
Dolan is obsessed with getting stars through relationships. Walsh failed in 2010, Mills failed in 2019, this time he’s gonna try an agent. He’ll never, ever believe Walsh and Mills failed for reasons beyond their relationship-establishing.
I mean, jesus, this makes me sick. World Wide Wes too? Really?
What the hell. How does this end well?
@248
Indeed lol. It’s like being a Knicks fan and a Mets fan are one in the same. At least the Mets have a fairly competitive roster
I mean Dolan’s razor absolutely says this won’t work out but I’m not as down on Rose on principle as most seem to be. Your POBO is basically an executive position, i.e. managerial. You don’t need to be some kind of basketball savant to do that job well. You need to be a good manager of people, capable of building a strong structure below you in a lot of different and quite varied areas (scouting, development, medical, analytics, coaching etc.), and have strong basketball connections. I can’t say I actually know a lot about Rose personally but I don’t think there’s any reason an agent couldn’t be a strong choice for the position and obviously other agents have had success doing it. A ton will depend on how thoroughly he cleans house and how effective he is in recruiting good people to work with and below him. I’m reserving judgment a bit.
On the other hand, obviously it goes practically without saying that the timing is insane here.
I have a friend who has a friend who is friends with Worldwide Wes and when they go out to dinner Wes will order a shirley temple with a glass of orange juice on the side.
Nice, so we went from happy with Mills getting fired to hey maybe Ujiri forces his way to the Knicks to… CAA again. This is so fucking stupid.
@258 – I’m not specifically against the idea of an agent being the top guy – and someone like Rose has great connections, great negotiating skills, presumably excellent knowledge of the market and player/contract worth, the CBA etc. And he’s been extremely successful at what he’s done. But he has no freaking experience running a team, and if there’s anything we need right now, it’s a steady hand to guide this ship.
by the way I believe he is also Kyle Kuzma’s agent. Argh.
If he thinks this is going to stop people from chanting sell the team….
I said earlier in this thread… the best moments in Knicks fandom are those little slivers in time between our major mistakes where we think maybe this time will be different.
TAKE THAT MASAI
We know now with absolute 1,000% certainty James Dolan’s philosophy of basketball and that’s never, ever changing. Bring stars to NYC and MSG through relationships, that’s it. There’s nothing else to it. He has zero interest in whether you got Fred Van Vleet on the free agent market and developed him, or whether you drafted Pascal Siakim in the 20s and developed him. Even his interest in Ujiri had nothing to do with that, but only in his own personal perceptions based on his own personal dealings with the guy.
With that said, I’m going to reserve judgment until the other, more important positions in basketball ops — GM and coach — are filled and until I see what Rose and Dolan envision as Rose’s role. If he’s going to be going to practice every day and going to all the games with the GM like Mills did, it’s gonna be bad. If he’s going to hire good people and let them work and spend most of his time with the big picture and managing Dolan, it could be good.
That’s fair but I tend to think managerial skills are more portable than people think. He hasn’t run a team but he has run a significant basketball related business. That’s relevant experience in my eyes. Steve Popper says he expects them to bring in an experienced GM in place of Perry. Obviously that will be a critical hire but get an experienced, solid #2 in there and I get even less concerned about the experience angle.
On the other hand I find this extremely concerning.
This shit is grim
Steve Mills was political through and through and unwilling to bring in top talent under him for fear of losing his prerogatives and position. He was massively unqualified for his position, and did not remotely stay in his lane. If Leon Rose is willing to bring in top talent under him, it’s already a massive improvement. But we shall see.
Less than 24 hours of disillusionment is good. Imagine waiting for Masaii over the next few months. Go Bernie!
These guys convinced Dolan that they are the ones who can get him his star. And what they’ll end up doing is getting themselves and all their friends paid while no one like Durant gives them the time of day.
Rose is announced per Woj. Looks like no trades today. Instead doing things (trades) that needed doing immediately, we spent time hiring someone new.
Zo and Mitch with Rich Paul now
Yep, it’s a terrible process.
Even though JD poured his heart out in song about Trayvon and is like totally best friends with Isiah Thomas, KD still said the Knicks aren’t cool
Something had to be done. You don’t need to be a basketball guy to see that
JD’s got some priorities
I don’t get how this doesn’t mean we’d make some moves today
I think they’ll still make a move. It’s just odd that this is when they want to do this Rose thing.
Agreed the timing is god awful and undoubtedly Knicksy
I think there’s no time anymore to do moves unless they are already agreed and waiting for signature.
Also begs the question, Does Perry need Rose’s approval to make a deal?
Is Wes taking over as GM? Rumors he’s coming too
Watch them immediately trade for Kuzma and deal assets for DLo
I LEARNED THE GAME FROM WILLIAM WESLEY YOU CAN NEVER CHECK ME
I’m just standing here watching the wheels go round and round…i really love to watch’em roll….
That was clearly directed at the following paraphrased but typical examples:
In terms of what got you so worked up, an eye test story. I couldn’t watch a game this past week so in the morning I hit up one of those recap thingies where it’s just people scoring. Useless of course, but I wake slowly. That evening a friend was heard to mention how well Frank did, especially on defense. I commented that he made a couple nice offensive plays but on defence he was routinely getting blown past and kept missing his assignments off-ball.
Your eye test is you seeing only the things you want to see. It’s worse than worthless as an evaluative tool, it’s actively detrimental. I’m confident this eye test based argument will convince you.
So now the story is we want to “mirror” the success of Myers and Palooka…I mean Palinka…
Lived in Bay Area last 10 years to see the whole evolution of the Dubs…and while Myers is good…having Jerry West at your side for six years was invaluable and probably just as much a factor in the team’s success…and getting KD didn’t hurt….
Palooka…what kind of success as he had…he got fortunate that LeBron wanted to reside in LALA….nuff said….
So based on these two examples…we are following that “template”….seems like they just made that shit up in the last couple of days to justify this hiring….
I honestly can’t believe they would do this TODAY of all days.
Like maybe Rose can be OK if he’s just the bigger picture management guy like people are saying and he hires a good GM and coach to do all the basketball stuff.
But why not focus on the trades that will give this team more picks to build something going forward and you can hire Rose, I don’t know…tomorrow?
Also, someone said Dolan hired Donnie cause he thought he could bring in a big star. Donnie was actually forced upon Dolan after the Isiah/sexual harassment fiasco. Donnie never really stood a chance. I think once the Knicks got Stat and Melo and were “good” again, the writing was on the wall for him.
James Dolan is supremely impatient. It’s the core problem. It’s why he’s a hair trigger asshole to fans. It’s why he has to open for the Eagles instead of workshopping his material in smaller venues. It’s why the Knicks ignore the win curve, why they sign pointless vets, why they don’t ever do a rebuild. Why he forced through the Melo trade, ect ect.
Masai drops rumors he’s got an out from his contract this summer. He wants the Knicks job. Dolan can’t wait that long, because there’s three hours till the trade deadline so he has to hire someone right now, even though there’s nothing substantive a new exec can do after, checks watch, two hours and forty-four minutes from now until the end of the season when an effective proven professional will be available.
I guess it’s possible the Knicks could luck into a good season at some point. It happened once before. What a worthless, hopeless team.
Wouldn’t Portia be a perfect 5 for HOU?
marcus morris …knick for life…the cornerstone of the new Stoute brand…”Not Soft”…..
oops…spoke to soon..they pulled the trigger…