2019-20 Game Thread: Knicks @ Hawks – 10th Seed, Here We Come!

I think Posting & Toasting had the best summary of the current win streak in their Detroit game recap:

“The Knicks have won four in a row. They’re five games out of a playoff spot. It’s OK to feel joy.”

I mean the reality is we should be hoping for more losses, and some of the wins have come off the back of EP and the Ellington revival, but it damn it if it doesn’t feel nice to win sometimes.

“but it damn it if it doesn’t feel nice to win sometimes.”

Honestly I thought it felt better when we lost by 20 and the Garden chanted “sell the team”. Those are the moments that give me joy.

Miller and the vets are good enough to keep us from bottoming out, but not good enough for anything else. Doesn’t feel nice to me at all.

The Knicks are actually looking like an organized team a lot of the time, not just a hodgepodge of mercenary talents and seem actually not bad at defense. That’s more something to take pleasure in than a win or two over a weak team.

Ten bucks says Leon Rose believes that team culture is vastly more important than individual ability when it comes to winning.

Ten bucks says Leon Rose believes that team culture is vastly more important than individual ability when it comes to winning.

Everyone knows championships are won off the back of locker room jocularity…….

Winning cures EVERYTHING. attitudes and relationships improve; work ethic gets better; Kids learn; coaches and management are respected; culture is created; free agents begin seriously considering us.

Do it with defense and more Mitch please.

Randle is an inconsistent Beast.

I’m not watching the game, as usual, but how does RJ continually miss so many shots? Are these outside shots? At the hoop? Wtf is he doing??

Forget the 8th seed, at this rate the Knicks gonna make a run at the 7th seed!!

At least if this team actually made the playoffs we’d get to watch just how much Giannis would obliterate us while playing 20 mpg, so that could be a fun experience for 4 games. But they won’t even do that, they’ll chase the 10th seed and wither away at some random point and that’s it.

The running floater is Knox’s signature move.

Unfortunately, his signature is illegible

If this bunch of scrubs made the playoffs it will mean that some of these scrubs CAN PLAY and they have become Assets.
What’s wrong about that ?
Winning creates assets besides lowering your draft pick position.

Barrett in > Hawks play even
Barrett out > Knicks run away
Knox in > Hawks go on a run

The vets are playing well of late although it’s hard to tell how much of that is just that the Knicks are playing teams that are more committed to their future. The Knicks’ young talent vs. the Hawks’ young talent wouldn’t even be close… Like let’s do an under 24 lineup:

Knicks:

Smith Jr.
Ntilikina
Barrett
Knox
Robinson

Hawks:

Young
Huerter
Reddish
Hunter
Collins

I like the Knicks spacing.

The sad part is if the Knicks didn’t play any of their lottery picks they would be a much better team.

Dumb foul, Payton

Love Randle’s hustle and muscle

If the Knicks can use the rest of the season to get Randle back to the level he was the last two seasons, that would be nice. He’s a talented, productive player, he should be playing better than his production this season. He’s carrying the team on his back in this game. Even just to turn him into a potential asset for next season’s deadline.

Frank with an impressive 14 +/- so far

frank is one of those parts that make the whole greater…

Is Mitch hurt?
Why is he wrapped around the waist?

Mitch always has that wrap on…looks like some kind of monitoring device

They keep not simply lobbing the basketball to Mitchell Robinson and it’s driving me nuts

Mitch always has that wrap on…looks like some kind of monitoring device

they highlighted those items on one of the inside the nba segments…

they’re heating elements I believe…can’t remember the manufacturers name rhough…

Kevin Knox is completely and utterly lost. Stupid fouls, horrible shots. I mean horrible

The local telecast is doing a nice piece honoring Clyde..

Frank getting to the rim

Is dsj injured or in Miller’s dungeon?

Why are they switching so much tonight?

Ellington is a reason to be a Knicks fan !

Mitch!

4th Quarter Juggernaut

Randle…5 turnovers…hes a machine

pepper:
Randle…5 turnovers…hes a machine

He’s got 28 and 15

Hes missed mitch multiple times

Randle is a pretty decent player but give me a fucking break

MITCH with the big block.
Bad shot by Randle.

But he has been a beast tonight

I love Mitch is finally getting minutes in the clutch. Huge steal there despite the missed go ahead bucket by Randle.

OT! The Knicks are looking like an elite bad team.

Shit my pants on the last shot of Young

oh wow what a pass by payton

That was sick by Payton!

If you play Mitch good things happen, it’s pretty simple.

If Mitch wants to win who am I to want tanking ?

BigBlueAL:
I’m sorry to say but I’ve been pretty excited by this comeback and defense in OT lol.

I just love when the Knicks play tough. Hard to not cheer for the young fellas

Game is exciting and the team is playing well, but I guess the most frustrating possible thing is feeling super excited in the emotional side of my brain and then my rational side pistol whipping that emotional side until it’s curled up in the fetal position and finally admitting, “OK, we’re beating one of the worst teams in the NBA by a thin margin! Largely on the backs of players with no future here! You’re right! I’ll stop cheering!”

This game should have been over. They found a way to win but are now searching hard for a way to lose.

That was a horrific sequence. Mitch was wide open under the basket. And then they move it back to Randle who gets stuffed.

Wtf Payton????

I mean, if Frank stuffs Young, I won’t complain about winning this game.

Until tomorrow.

Painful….4 possessions…wasted..

Assuming Young makes both, please don’t clear out for Randle

Embarrassing

What a spectacular collapse! C’mon we just need one more.

I mean Randle kind of jogging the ball up.
The guards out of the play, then no one wanting to make a play

Randle is just such a classic archetype, the power forward who wants to be a shooting guard.

That Ellington play where he beat his man and then threw it out was so freaking dumb

d-mar:
That Ellington play where he beat his man and then threw it out was so freaking dumb

Agree. HHe should have taken the layup.

saw a thing earlier this year that would try to find similar players based on shot locations and I think Randle’s most similar players were guards.

Payton has single-handedly blown this game.
Where is Frank?

Clutch turnover by Randle! I knew we could pull this loss out. It’s actually pretty important to put yourself in position to draft guys like Trae Young, who knew?

Is Payton being paid off?

Just so dumb.
They are playing like they’re afraid.
This handing the ball back and forth 25 feet from the basket is stupid.

You could run a play for a good three point shooter. Presumably.

Dumb finish

See, this is nice, a very entertaining game that ends in a loss against a direct competitor. Let’s do that more often please.

Mitch played 35 minutes tonight. Better rest him next game.

Nice Loss indeed

remember when knox had a good start to summer league and someone said they’d never trade him for trae young

I think even Frank would acknowledge that he gets a bit carried away with being “Team Optimist” sometimes.

I think even Frank would acknowledge that he gets a bit carried away with being “Team Optimist” sometimes.

you have a good memory; i was trying to avoid a call out bc it was more meant to be a haha knicks again post

wild utah win at the buzzer

Also, Mitch does have great hands as Clyde just mentioned. People were talking about how he doesn’t have great hands but that is bullshit. He catches a lob like few people I have seen.

Mitch does have great hands on lobs, offensive rebounds, and generally everything above the rim. My critique is more nuanced, he struggles with a lot of dump off passes, bounce passes, and anything below the rim in traffic. I kind of think he doesn’t expect the ball, as if he just looks for ORebs anytime the play isn’t specifically being run for him.

Great on lobs, bad at shovel passes.

Did not catch the game, glad to see Frank & Mitch got some decent minute totals. I’ve come around on Frank (as a serviceable player) just in time for him to not play anymore. Starting lineup really should be Elf & Frank in the backcourt.

That was a heck of a shot from Bogdanovic.

I am glad that Frank and Mitch played well. Our prince had a nice line.

I think its more likely we trade Mitch for an overrated all-star. You can feel the blow coming….

With due respect to Randle, he was trying to make something happen in the absence of any help.

He missed a bunch of obvious opportunities to pass to the super athletic 7′ guy with an unobstructed path to the rim because he was too busy trying to play heroball

The existential crisis of the middle class. It’s a good analogy.

For instance, the NBA’s oligarchal family, the Los Angeles Lakers, are like that 1 percenter that knows he’s worked harder and smarter than everyone else to attain his position. Yes, that family had talent long ago, but the buffoonish people in charge today are just riding out the advantages their grandfathers gave them.

Meanwhile, poor teams like Sacto just want a little taste of luxury every once in a while – a playoff berth, an all-star, something! They keep working their way up until the inevitable disaster strikes and turns them into a bottom-dweller once again. Drafting Bagley is like a middle-class worker who gets cancer and then has to deal with the inevitable medical bills that wipe out his savings and force him into the streets (I know, a bit harsh of an analogy for passing on Doncic).

But at least when you’re at the bottom, there’s nowhere to go but up. When you’re in the middle, you stress about how to move up but also how not to move down. It’s exhausting. It’s not sexy. It’s average.

Sure, but the middle class is shrinking because of stagnant wages. More and more people are slipping from the middle class and becoming poor.

I just thought it was an interesting analogy, if not perfect. I would love for us to be as good as The Pacers year in and year out.

I think my larger point is that teams like The Pacers are dismissed by fans as being stuck in no man’s land but if you’re a pacers fan and go to a game or turn them on TV, you are likely to see them win games and sometimes win games against really good teams. You have some hope things might get better even if they usually just stay the same. And then you have stints where you get to the ECF or even the Finals. All in all, not a bad team to be a fan of. And it used to be like that in this country if you were middle class. You struggled but you could work hard, save money, buy a home, send your kid to college and they might have a better life than you. Now you’re just holding on for dear life hoping you can offer your kids something close to what you currently have, not necessarily something better.

And as far as the poor. We have legalized gambling, the lottery, etc…things that are dangled in front of the poor as “hope” that they might make it big one day. Because working multiple jobs at minimum wage and saving is a losing proposition for them since it could all be wiped out at a moment’s notice and even if they work 2 or 3 low paying jobs, it ain’t enough. Kind of like how you can draft that top pick and he gets hurt or doesn’t pan out, so you’re stuck in the lottery year after year.

Kornet with 25 points on 14 shots last night. What was his salary again?

If your parents get into the middle class you are one lucky break or one generation of good education, hard work, and good fortune from being VERY comfortable.

My grandparents were very poor uneductaed immigrants from Italy in the early 1900s. All their children made it to middle class (though my father and mother just barely). Virtually all my 1st cousins are doing better then their parents. Now the next generation is more of a mixed bag with some doing spectacularly well and others hanging around in that middle class range or struggling a little. Part of the reason it’s hard to get out of that middel class range is that it often takes special talents and education to do so and not everyone is born with the gifts to get it done even if their parents have the means to help them get a head start.

I think basketball is simiilar.

One big break can get you out of poverty to the big time (I had an uncle like that), but successes like that are few and far between. Most of the successes result from a series of intelligent steps from the bottom to the top over a long time.

Also, Allonzo Trier is a buyout candidate. I agree that grizzled 24 year old with his decrepit 58.7 ts% should chase that ring while he has some spring in his legs.

I don’t even like Trier that much but the Knicks handling of him this season is perplexing.

There must be some back story with Trier that we’re not hearing. I don’t know what it is but can speculate that maybe he just doesn’t do the things the coach asks him to. They seem to prefer Kadeem Allen. Allen is on a two way contract. If they want to give more time to Kadeem, they have to make space. Buying out Trier would do that. It could also be they are just doing Trier a solid by buying him out, since they don’t have plans to use him.

Allonzo Trier is probably struggling to be responsible off court or he just gets killed in practice daily by RJ Barrett. That kid is a bona fide bucket and at the least should be playing over Wayne Ellington, who tries his best nightly to prove he’s the 3rd Splash Brother.

Whatever happened with Trier this year is a significant organizational failure. Everything about his rookie year screamed “useful player starter kit,” something that simply cannot be said about 90%+ of this roster.

Whether it was perceived laziness on defense, off-court issues, ball-hogging concerns (that I maintain are simply not borne out by the numbers compared to other off-ball guards), or whatever else these are things that competent organizations successfully address.

It’d be one thing if he was competing for minutes with, say, Dillion Brooks and De’Anthony Melton. He’s competing for minutes with Damyean Dotson (ass) and Wayne Ellington (old, and ass). It seems too late for this situation to get fixed, so I’m glad this team felt that exactly two intriguing young players was enough and thus hemorrhaged a potential third for no reason.

I think Sacramento drafting Bagley over Luka is more like if a middle class worker won the lottery and then chose to spend all his winnings on more lottery tickets.

I don’t know if I’d ever recover if the Knicks did this. Seriously, I have no idea how Kings fans hang in there knowing they were one very obvious draft pick away from turning it all around. They got their wildly lucky break and spent it on a guy who might not even be good, passing on a guy with NBA Mount Rushmore potential.

“So Tankathon has us taking Halliburton at the #6 spot now.”

Is there still time to hire Dick Cheney as GM?

nice pivot and ramble on class structure swift…

pretty big variance on income level between lower and upper middle class – the different life experiences of those two sub-categories are probably even much harder to define or standardize…it wouldn’t hurt my feelings though to see the knicks claw back in to the lower middle class – i’m going to make the wild assertion that’s it’s easier to climb to the top when you are already at least a few rungs from the bottom…

for this analogy i would describe us as the actual dirt beneath the ladder at this point…

what’s scary is even the teams that do have an impact player or two – can still suck right along with the other dregs of the league…

right now we have a roster made up of good back up players – i’m not sure whom if anyone would be a starter on a 50 win type team…

our only hope to compete right now until we acquire more talent is solid coaching…

a couple of people yesterday made the excellent point that winning a bit could possibly create as much assets as tanking…

not that it really matters, cuz the very last thing our organization is about to do at this moment is tank…hopefully we can make randall, elf, or bullock seem a little more valuable than what they may actually be…

Wonderful game last night. Lost to a lottery nemesis and Mitch played great. All I really care about at this point.

Maybe swift, yeah, some years that’s been true, some others it hasn’t.

I’m mostly talking about this because I think I the NBA should be thought about in a different way. I’m a person that is, quite frankly, the least result oriented person you’ll ever meet, I’m a firm believer that money, material possessions, efficiency and success are all relative and happiness in life can be achieved in a million different ways. However, when talking about basketball, I immediately gravitate towards analysis of production, efficiency and logical ideas, because that’s how I philosophically see it: logical, hard statistical analysis has a place in aspects of existence that are driven by the idea of achieving a singular goal.

It’s how I think about economics, for example: a formula might teach you exactly how to solve a specific problem, and thus it is perfectly reasonable to use it; however, when thinking about an entire country’s macroeconomics, you have to take a lot more into consideration and because of that, the formulas get less and less effective.

The NBA is a simple economics problem with a clear goal, winning more basketball games than everyone else, and the best way to do it is by having a team thats better than everyone else. Now, how to build that team in context is a much more diverse discussion, but it doesnt change the fact that 30 teams are following the same objective.

driven by the idea of achieving a singular goal.

championship or bust is a pretty hard line to draw though…that’s and there’s like a galaxy between us and a championship…

i remember how happy i was when phil came in and cleaned house on player personalities and backgrounds…it was nice just to have more team oriented, decent citizen type folks on our roster…

that was a big win for me as a fan…didn’t help win games much, but, much easier to root and watch games knowing that our roster wasn’t full of dipshits (sadly though, phil did in fact let a few of those in too)…

this year bringing in actual nba level talent (although a bunch of backups maybe – still legit nba’rs), getting rid of fiz – big win for me (terrible coach and communicator)…getting rid of mills – ha, who are we kidding – he didn’t go very far, and who knows what we are truly bring in to the front office…

still, little successes on hopefully building a path towards sustained success…

but, the notion of our team winning a championship, hell even making it to the conference finals – that thought is so far away that it doesn’t really seem much worth mentioning…

oh god, now that i’ve let that cat out of the bag – i’ll never challenge dred for gm…

still though, it’s nice to see little bits of improvement…

gotta aim low for this team, they’re all riding shetlands…

KnickfaninNJ:
I have a question for those of you up on the draft. When people say this is a lousy draft do they mean there are no obvious immediate impact players out there, or do they mean the bottom players available in the bottom half of the first round are more like typical players in the second round of most years, or do they mean something else?Just because the first few picks aren’t compelling doesn’t mean there’s no depth later, but I gave no idea if that is really the case.

I’m of the belief that there is talent in every draft and it is up to the talent evaluators to grab the right guys. The worst lottery of last decade was probably 2013, and that draft produced a 2x league MVP and another 2x DPOY in Giannis Antetokounmpo and Rudy Gobert at picks 15 and 27. 2016 was considered a weak draft and the top three picks all look like 10 year starters of different magnitudes. 2020 definitely looks like a weak draft class, but there’s talent to be had for sure. Obi Toppin is one of my favorite players and I think he would fit seamlessly between Mitch and RJ without compromising size. All of LaMelo Ball (can’t shoot), Cole Anthony (can’t finish at the rim), and Anthony Edwards (can’t dribble) are different degrees of high risk prospects, but you have guys like Aaron Nesmith and Cassius Stanley who should both be available on draft night.

When people speak about draft strength, they’re normally talking about the top prospects. There is always talent in the middle of the draft, and it’s normally the same amount of talent year over year. Guys like Jimmy Butler, Draymond Green, Rudy Gobert, Mitchell Robinson, Brandon Clarke, Pascal Siakim, Montrezl Harrell, Jalen Brunson, Khris Middleton, and Dejuonte Murray are available every year.

I have a question for those of you up on the draft. When people say this is a lousy draft do they mean there are no obvious immediate impact players out there, or do they mean the bottom players available in the bottom half of the first round are more like typical players in the second round of most years, or do they mean something else? Just because the first few picks aren’t compelling doesn’t mean there’s no depth later, but I gave no idea if that is really the case.

When people knock drafts, it’s always about the top talent. As others have noted, teams often find talent anywhere, but what teams typically love about the draft is that it allows you to simply add a superstar without any real risk. Like the Grizzlies being at #2. They knew they were pretty much getting an automatic stud when they drafted Morant. This draft doesn’t have a Zion or a Morant or a Anthony Davis or a Doncic or even a Trae Young, really.

So there’s less value in having a top pick. However, since there’s typically always some talent mixed in there that is less obvious, the more picks you get, the better you are able to grab one of those diamonds in the rough. Imagine if the Jazz didn’t have their 2013 first round pick, ya know? Imagine if the Jazz had said, “Eh, it’s a late first. Let’s just trade it.” Heck, the Nuggets actually drafted Donovan Mitchell in 2017 and they traded him to the Jazz on draft night for Trey Lyles! There’s a lot of self-owning out there in the draft.

That reminds me of the guy who sued Taylor Swift because she reported him to his bosses after he grabbed her ass at a meet and greet and they fired him.

It’s always easier to find value in the draft after the draft is over and you get to see the players play for a year or two in the pros. lol

If you are drafting some 18-19 year old kid over a 21 or 22 year old, you also have to wait 4-5 years to see who actually turns out better.

I give close to zero value to any team that drafted one of the consensus 2-3 players in their slot range. If a team trades up to get a specific guy, trades down for an asset and someone they want, or selects someone way out of the box and he turns out to be a huge bargain or star, then they are showing me something that “could but not necessarily” just more than just random small sample noise.

But when people start saying we could have had player X or Y and he was drafted 6-7 slots lower (blah blah blah), that just means that hundreds of experts that have spent hundreds of hours looking at player stats, long term data, watching film, doing interviews, doing athletic tests etc… got it wrong and if you got it right you were probably just lucky.

I’m willing to say the Knicks reached a little for Knox. He was lower on most mock drafts, some by a few slots. So the fact that they reached and seem to be wrong could be a legitimate knock. No matter what RJ turns out to be, they took the consensus guy.

hundreds of experts that have spent hundreds of hours looking at player stats, long term data, watching film, doing interviews, doing athletic tests etc… got it wrong and if you got it right you were probably just lucky.

Honest question: Have you read Moneyball?

So if this was 2013, and we had the same picks we have now, we’d have ended up with Nerlens, THJ, and Isiah Canaan. Kinda crummy.

Looking into the late 1st rnd, the Clippers pick could be real nice with what’s available. I might be biased, but I would love to take a look at Josh Green from Arizona if the Clipers pick falls in the 20-25 range. I think he will likely end up falling in a range that would be too much of a reach with our first pick and potentially may be gone by the time the Clippers pick comes up. Has great athletic ability and projects to be an impact wing defender. Shooting efficiency is a bit of a weakness, so not sure we need another poor efficiency wing, but there is some nice upside for a mid-late 1st round pick.

On the lighter side…. Michael Jordan ain’t got nothing on Cosmo Cougar the BYU mascot:

https://www.instagram.com/p/B8WzwRGhami/

Did not see the game last night. Is there a good reason Frank was nailed to the bench in the second OT when Tre was lighting it up for 48 and according to the box score Frank had played reasonably well?

Did not see the game last night. Is there a good reason Frank was nailed to the bench in the second OT when Tre was lighting it up for 48 and according to the box score Frank had played reasonably well?

The only thing I can think of is the offence was working well (up to a certain point) with Elf, Ellington/Bullock in the back court. It makes sense to me you would probably have your best perimeter defender on the other teams best scorer in the clutch, but I am not an NBA coach so what do I know?

Edit-i misread a comment.

damn, I just got vertigo watching that mascot fly through the air…that was crazy…

Jeez the Wolves somewhat look like a contender now… at least on offense.

It’s crazy how bad our team looks compared to basically every team. Is there a team with less actual talent right now than the Knicks?? Not counting on how RJ might get better and stuff like that.

The hill to contention looks frighteningly long and steep.

Maybe Charlotte and Detroit?

DLo is really the Knicksiest player in the game right now it’s amazing he’s not here yet

We should look at any of VCJr, Tyler Bey, Jah’mius Ramsey, and Tre Jones with the Clips pick. One of them should be there at 25 and they all stand a good chance of being rotation guys.

As long as we get one of Okongwu, Edwards, Hayes, Wiseman, or Halliburton with our lotto pick I’ll be happy. They all rate pretty well and we’ll be in a position to get one of Okongwu (my #1) Halli or Hayes if we stand pat at the 6 spot.

The Bucks won another game without Giannis, and I guess at this point we gotta call Middleton a superstar right? He’s been really great this season, if his massive improvement shooting sustains in the playoffs I can’t see anyone beating the Bucks in 7. I didn’t think he was going to be worth the contract they’ve given him, but so far he’s been worth it definitely.

So… with all the media reports about possible future coaches, how do people feel about JVG?

I want no part of Thibs – he seems to have worn out his welcome everywhere he’s coached.
Mark Jackson sucks, definitely want no part of him.

JVG though? I’m not super up and what happened in Houston, but it bears mentioning that he was fired after a 52-30 season and a 7th game loss to Utah in the first round. Can you imagine the Knicks firing a coach after a 50 win season? Maybe it’s nostalgia from my formative years watching those JVG Knicks teams in the late 90s, but I would be so excited for his return.

Yes it’s true the league is different now — but the Rockets finished no worse than 6th in defense in any of his 4 seasons, and while the offense wasn’t great, it bears mentioning that McGrady and Yao were injured so much those years, and lack of PG talent had him playing Rafer Alston a million minutes/game.

And in case we don’t think JVG can still coach now, here’s an article about a JVG-coached squad led by the immortal OAKAAK players Travis Wear, Travis Trice, and John Jenkins stomped Team USA 2x in the same day : https://clutchpoints.com/team-usa-rumors-senior-team-actually-lost-twice-to-jeff-van-gundy-coached-squad/

Bringing back JVG, and even having Mike Miller be on his staff, would be a huge win IMHO.

I’d rather have a coach whose best days are ahead of him. But I just don’t see the Knicks, even though they have new people in charge, ever being ahead of the curve on a hiring. So JVG is more of a “at least it’s not Mark Jackson” choice i guess.

It starting to sound like Embiid is unhappy in Philly and Jimmy Butler has a good idea for where he should go next.

Personally, I think a healthy in shape Embiid could be the kind of dominant post player that would swing the NBA back towards placing some value on that kind of play and having a big man that can defend HIM. But he’s in a bad spot. He does not fit with Simmons ideally (and vice versa of course) and adding Horford did not help with the spacing that both those players need to maximize their impact.

“What kills me is that I loved DLo because of his sweet shot in college and efficient shooting has been one of his worst traits! Although, .558 TS% this season isn’t half bad.”

I liked DLo coming out of college also, but that was because I never saw him play defense. I still haven’t. lol

Seriously, I think he was my preferred pick for NY that year just based on stats, but I was mistaken.

I like Miller so far, but if they are determined to bring in a bigger name, I think I’d prefer JVG over Thibs. Thibs has a reputation for playing players too many minutes and breaking some of them down. I’m not sure about all that, but I remember Haralabos Voulgaris saying that on twitter a few years back and he said there was plenty of data on minutes and injuries when I questioned it.

Looking at some of the options with our later picks, Devon Dotson seems like he has some potential as a combo guard type. Probably won’t ever be a primary playmaker, but he can hold his own as a point guard in spurts, takes defense seriously, has a nice 2PT% on a boatload of attempts, and his FT% bodes well for developing as a shooter.

Also does anyone happen to know if he’s related to Damyean? It’s oddly difficult to find out.

Did not see the game last night. Is there a good reason Frank was nailed to the bench in the second OT when Tre was lighting it up for 48 and according to the box score Frank had played reasonably well?

Besides what stricken said, I think Frank had recently played a bunch of minutes in the game and the coach may have just decided it was time for him to rest.

“I just looked at the 76ers cap situation. Yike!!!! ”

They went from an abundance of riches to all-in on Tobias Harris and Al Horford. And they have no more future firsts from Hinkie to bail them out of this mess. Serves them right for canning the guy who set them up so well.

Strat, have you read Moneyball?

I really hope the Knicks turn it around because if these proposed baseball changes happen the NBA will probably be the only league I still follow.

“Strat, have you read Moneyball?”

I don’t own it and haven’t read it start to finish, but I’ve read parts of it.

After going through my Wins Produced, Stumbling on Wins phase. I felt like I was better off looking at data, watching games, reading and listening to the thoughts of people that seemed to be doing good work in both areas, and trying to understand it all and fit together myself rather than getting totally bogged down in just numbers or the thoughts in any one book. Basketball is complex.

Hinkie was forced out because he was taking tanking to an almost absurd extreme, was treating players like line items on a spreadsheet instead of human beings with families and children, pissing off agents, and other managements didn’t like him or want the game to move in that direction. It was an unsustainable model that benefited in part from injuries to top draft picks that allowed him to stay at the top of the draft even longer and that the league felt was poisoning the intent of the lottery.

Hinkie actually had great relationships with players by all accounts. I’ve debunked the whole “injury luck” theory a million times but as usual some folks just do not allow for evidence that contradicts their ideas. That the league changed the lottery rules in response to him shows how ahead of the game he was.

Colangelo came in and fucked things up so fast it was almost impressive.

How big of an NBA sliding doors moment was it when Mike Budenholzer was eager to join the Knicks but we were unwilling to trust his basketball sense over Steve Mills’?

Pretty much most of the moves the Sixers have made post-Hinkie haven’t worked well and the team is still good which should tell you something about the Hinkie era.

Ugh – just watched the First Take clip with Steve Stoute about how he plans to help turn the Knicks around. Sounds like the old plan rebranded as the new plan = try to sign marquee free agents.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtHSdrZKCq8

What is wrong with these people? It’s not the image itself that’s the problem, it’s the underlying structure that results in the image.

Just once can someone say:
1) we are the New York Knicks – one of the iconic franchises in the NBA
2) we play in NYC, the greatest city in America
3) we are going to have the best of the best, and invest in all the support staff necessary to make sure the team is what the city deserves – this includes:
– the best performance staff money can buy
– the best medical staff money can buy
– the best facilities money can buy
– the best scouting staff money can buy
– the most advanced analytics team money can buy to try and find any advantage we can
– the best cap people money can buy so we can leverage every last detail of the CBA for the benefit of our franchise
– the most forward thinking coaching staff money can buy

Once you have all that, THEN the results will come, THEN free agents will say that NYC is where they want to be again.

The way he was talking, it sounded like he thinks a new coat of paint will get the job done. SMH.

Ugh, now Haliburton is out for the rest of the season with a broken wrist. A “weak” draft gets even riskier.

Frank, I think you can pretty easily reverse engineer Dolan’s thought process:

The Nets beat him to Durant and Kyrie.

He looked at them and asked “what are they doing better than us?”

Somehow he overlooked their basketball infrastructure and concluded that it must have been their branding, so he hired the guy who “crafted their narrative.” As if the Nets didn’t win the Durant/Iriving sweepstakes by finally forsaking that bullshit and making smart basketball decisions.

It’s fucking bleak, man.

These guys are probably going to deliver us some fake franchise players on max contracts (the next Melo and Amar’e) and pretend they turned the Knicks into a destination, and Dolan is gonna lap it up and sign them all to extensions.

>Hinkie seems like an absolute dipshit when he speaks and I suspect the “failure” of the process has more to do with that than the actual basketball results. His plan worked.<

I don't think anyone doubted whether what he was doing could or would work. They doubted how long it would take relative to clearing out old veterans and trying to get assets, tanking a year, and then rebuilding using all options available. They also wondered whether it was a sustainable and repeatable rebuilding model given injuries that helped and relationships with human beings. He's out of the league. So the answer to the latter question is no. They all hated him.

The reason the 76ers got a series of very high picks is because a series of players they drafted near the top were injured and whatever contribution and development they would have made to inch the team forward was absent. Embiid didn’t play for 2 years!!! Simmons didn’t play for 1. That allowed them to stay near the very top of the lottery for a more extended period of time. Also contributing was the fact that they drafted rather poorly.

*sigh*

Long story short, during Embiid’s first season (which he missed) his injury allowed them to draft…Jahlil Okafor. During his second season (which he also missed), they were seven games worse than the next worst team. There is no way in hell a heavily load-managed, rookie Embiid makes up all of that (he only played 31 games in his actual rookie season).

Then they drafted Simmons. Simmons of course was injured for the entirety of his first season too, giving the Sixers the great fortune of being put in position to draft a guy now starting for the Orlando Magic.

The fruit of all this injury “luck” was Jahlil Okafor and Markelle Fultz.

But hey, you’ve got your narrative and we all know it ain’t going anywhere in the face of directly contrary evidence, so the joke is on me for taking the time to type this out.

holy shit that stoute interview sucked. damn it jim.

Strat the problem is in saying “we should make good trades and signings whenever possible” you’re arguing against no one. I represent the mindset you claim to be arguing against, and I have no problem with that assertion.

I do have a problem with repeating this ad nauseam as a counter to the simple idea that we shouldn’t chase marginal wins.

If we make trades and signings that are actually good, the wins added, whenever they may come, will not be marginal. They’ll be coming from players that are a part of our future or can be assets in some other way. If that isn’t true, then you have the very definition of marginal wins and the trades and signings that brought the players in were stupid. This really isn’t hard.

After literal years, you’ve been unable to point to a single prospective transaction we should make that would fit the former criteria. Lo and behold, there just aren’t very many transactions that do fit the criteria when you’re in the Knicks position on the win curve.

If I recall correctly you weren’t even one of the people suggesting we should max out DAR, which was at least arguably one example of these rare transactions.

So it just rings hollow. Yeah, we should make good moves. Thanks for the novel insight.

How big of an NBA sliding doors moment was it when Mike Budenholzer was eager to join the Knicks but we were unwilling to trust his basketball sense over Steve Mills’?

Not that big, given that Buds wouldn’t do it without being GM, and his record as GM was…well, let’s just say he’s no DRed.

trade Korver for Mike Dunleavy and Mo Williams
let Horford go (when still really good) and sign Dwight Howard
sign Jose Calderon (after the Knicks! when he was clearly done!)
sign Ilyasova (which made some sense to me, but didn’t work out)

I didn’t want him as GM. I would have loved him as coach – but that wasn’t on the table. Now, is it possible he would have taken the job if Mills weren’t there? Sure. who knows? He might have compromised after losing the shot at the Knicks – so it might not have been about Mills, just about being PBO and accepting it wasn’t going to happen.

If we find a player that’s 28 and we sign him through 32, I have no problem with that as long as the contract is attractive and he’s the best player available to us at that time. If we trade him later because we find a deal we like better I’m fine with that.

Again, what you keep running into is the question “where are all these productive 28 year olds signing reasonable, tradable contracts?” If you can name them, I’m happy to tell you what I think about signing them. Until then it’s just pablum.

If we keep him until he’s 32 and then he leaves, we get the cap space asset back and I’m fine with that,

We could also just not sign him in the first place, avoid the marginal wins he racks up, and use the cap space to take on real assets instead.

If you sign someone for four years, don’t contend during that time, and are unable to trade them, that’s a massive failure of asset optimization.

“where are all these productive 28 year olds signing reasonable, tradable contracts?”

What, if anything, should we offer Mo Harkless next year?

I hear ya, Al.

Winning builds brands. Winning brings Drake. All these comments make it seem like the Knicks think it’s the other way around.

And that’s a pretty terrible thing for Stoute to say while Miller is doing a good job.

If you missed this Bloomberg article a few weeks ago, it’s a dandy:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-01-23/knicks-will-get-makeover-from-firm-that-helped-make-the-nets-hip

The lowlight:

>>The sports idiom is that winning cures all ills. Stoute said that isn’t true, and that there’s a better formula.

“Winning cures a lot of problems. Great marketing and exciting entertainment cure all problems,” he said. “The brand has to be strong regardless of the final score. When people are hopeful that things are going to be better, and it brings excitement, all of a sudden that becomes the brand.” <<

If we find a player that’s 28 and we sign him through 32, I have no problem with that as long as the contract is attractive and he’s the best player available to us at that time.

I mean sure, it’d be great to get surplus value from a free agent that you sign from his age 29-32 years, but there’s a very good reason why that rarely happens: that is when most players start their decline phase. You’re paying for his production from his peak years, but you’re getting his production from his post-peak years.

Most players who are free agents at that age have played a lot of minutes and have established a value, so it’s hard to find them on bargain deals. So at best you’re usually getting market value, and more often than not you’re not even getting that because of the player’s inevitable decline.

This is like team building 101, it’s honestly weird to even have to discuss this. If you have a huge hole on your roster, and you’re pretty close to the top of your win curve, sure, go ahead and sign a guy who can plug that hole and help you make a run if you have the cap space. But for a team at the bottom of the win curve it’s just not worth it. The asset is likely to decline and become an albatross before he can help you.

I think I threw up in my mouth a little when I read that article about Stout. I’m already planning the 2024 rebuild under new management.

FWIW Harkless is only 26, even though it seems like he’s been around forever.
Would be happy to sign him to 3 years $24MM

Re: Stoute – that was really really bad. Funny thing is I think he knew it with the heavy sweating that was going on during that. Feels like he thought it would be all fun and games up there and was not prepared at all for what they were going to ask him. Which is not good.

Decline phase is an overused term. Yes, player peak at 28 but its not like they turn into pumpkins at age 30. They might not be on the upswing but they aren’t falling off a cliff at 30 unless they’ve had serious mileage on them at that point. Role players, guys who got into the league later or who didn’t play big minutes when they are younger or who haven’t had significant injuries in their career can all play at close to their peak level at 30 to 32 years old.

Okay but the idea is to get SURPLUS VALUE. If you’re a bad team, signing a veteran to a “market value” contract looks a lot like Marcus Morris. It’s kinda pointless. Marcus Morris is kind of the poster child of the “don’t sign thirty year olds to market value contracts if you’re a bad team” concept. It’s cool that he was flipped for an asset! That was nice. But I’m glad we didn’t extend him, because that would have been dumb. He’s heading into his decline phase soon.

If you sign Marcus Morris to that 3/60 contract or whatever and in that second season he’s putting up like an .080 WS48 because he’s in his decline phase, well now you’re upside down on the contract even though he hasn’t fallen of a cliff or whatever.

Re: Stoute – that was really really bad. Funny thing is I think he knew it with the heavy sweating that was going on during that. Feels like he thought it would be all fun and games up there and was not prepared at all for what they were going to ask him. Which is not good.

He basically fired the coach with nearly 30 games to go in the season! When he doesn’t even have the authority to do that! Guess how much fun every Miller media availability is going to be over the next few weeks? Especially with Rose unavailable to talk, Perry in hiding, etc.

With a new PBO coming in Miller has to understand he’s not getting a new contract, but you think a marketing maven would have a better sense of what not to say in public

With a new PBO coming in Miller has to understand he’s not getting a new contract, but you think a marketing maven would have a better sense of what not to say in public

Exactly. Miller’s a lame duck, but now he’s publicly a lame duck, which makes life unnecessarily difficult for him and everyone else on the team over the next few months.

I’ve been saying for years that this team is motivated by marketing first, second and third. The only difference is that now it’s out in the open. Maybe if Miller gets his own PR and 2M followers on Instagram he can convince Stout that he IS a new coach and deserves to replace that gray, unassuming Miller from the g-league.

Maybe if Miller gets his own PR and 2M followers on Instagram he can convince Stout that he IS a new coach and deserves to replace that gray, unassuming Miller from the g-league.

🙂

seriously, how else can the situation be handled from afar but with humor…god what train wreck dolan is…

I can’t bring myself to watch that interview…will just aggravate me….

when the mills news came out…i texted my uncle..i was so happy…but in about 10 seconds he texted me back with …”yeah…but Dolan’s still there”…and I ignored it and went on being happy…should’ve known better….

now…since it looks like its more of the same…I guess we are back to relying on pure luck to offset incompetence…that has not worked well this century….

Anybody like that kid Nwora from Louisville…I saw some mock draft that had us using the Charlotte pick on him…I have liked what i saw in the few games I watched him play…