111 replies on “2019-20 Game Thread: Knicks @ Hornets”
Develop or Die !!!!
you know, at this stage of the season – it kinda feels like we have lost already….
The real winning was the friends we made along the way to another disaster season.
Watching the whole game will demand strength, courage and even blood…
Taj’s development looks like a priority right now.
hope the work day wasn’t too terrible and you’re getting ready to enjoy the game with something good to eat and drink knew your nicks 🙂
When a player fails a drug test, do they publicly disclose which drug he tested positive for?
Geo I’m working right now !
Do you really think I’d spend my precious free time on watching this garbage game Live ?
At 2:34 am !!!????
I turned on the game a bit before it started, watched the first 10 or so possessions and… nope, nope. I’m not doing this to myself. Watching the Knicks feels like torture these days, I can’t bring myself to do it. I’ll still keep checking the score every so often out of habit, and if it’s close in the 4th I’ll maybe tune in but I just don’t have the mental fortitude to watch a game like this anymore, where there’s 0 exciting players on both sides.
put that highlight in the dennis smith trade prospectus
Crazy, but not surprisng, that it took 4 minutes for RJ to get a touch on offence. Compare that to the 7 FGA’s Taj had in the same amount of Court time. I know you have to work with what the D gives you, but at least have some plays for the kid!
then dennis with a nice kobe assist
Willy traveled like 4 times there lol
DSJ is better than Zack Galiffianakis.
He makes me laugh harder!
Repost from posting in an old thread.
I am sure the coach is getting some direction on how to allocate playing time, but it’s not necessarily at the level of give player A more minutes. At the beginning of the season the direction was clearly play the players who give the best chance to win. Then the direction might have been showcase Smith for a trade. Now it’s hard to tell, but my guess is it’s something like help us figure out which players we should try to keep next year. If this is the sort of direction the coaching staff is getting, it seems like normal management to me.
Our body language says:
No motive
Watching these Knicks is giving me a greater appreciation for Morris.
Me too
Morris is a decent NBA player, which means he does not belong on the Knicks
It took until 8:30 in the second quarter to run a pick and roll with Mitch. We sort of ran one at 5:00, and that was it. The ballhandler scored both times on a layup. Mitch played 10 minutes and had zero fouls. Mitch, by the way, has been the best pick and roll finisher in the NBA this season, and the Knicks offense fucking sucks.
Watching these knicks makes me appreciate life, time, loss and trash…
I think I’ve seen enough. Without Frank playing , i can’t sustain interest when they are playing this poorly. Time for Married At First Sight.
What are the chances that Minny, Cleveland, Atlanta and Charlotte can all pull out a win tonight? Could be big.
Married At First Sight
To be fair, that’s like skipping a shot of bleach in favor of a snifter full of ammonia…
Pretty play there by Harkless and finally a nice shot by RJ
That’s like the best start to the second half we’ve have this season
Without Frank playing , i can’t sustain interest when they are playing this poorly.
with frank not playing, it’s hard for me to even tune in much…sure mitch is a lot better, and RJ has a lot more potential; but, they ain’t box office like frank…
Bridges isn’t any good but he can really dunk
Clyde complimenting DSJs jumper while they run a graphic showing he’s 4/11 for 9 points
Which two under 25 players in this game on either team will have the highest single year career peak? I’m gonna go with Robinson and PJ Washington. Take off the under 25 limit though and I might pick Taj and Zeller.
28 seconds left in the 3rd quarter and the Knicks pass to Mitch near the rim for the first time tonight
Clyde is trolling hard tonight:
“Very entertaining game”
I think he also said:
“DsJ continues his outstanding game”….
It’s definitely entertaining in a wicked way
The dreck we trotted out over Trier this season continues to be the second weirdest decision of all, only behind the stubborn refusal to start Mitch.
I’m not very high on Trier but we should have been able to give him some minutes because hey, why not
Clyde for Randle:
“He’s been a juggernaut tonight on both ends of the floor”…..
Hey the Knicks finally got mitch a shot
Clyde “They should do that more often”
Lonzo can certainly get buckets
can’t blame the knicks for playing RJ, but him scoring 5 points on 11 shots cost the Knicks this game. Entertaining semi-comeback, Mitch was terrific, Trier filled it up and DSJ had a cool dunk. Sort of a shame we wasted one of the random Bobby Portis can’t miss games.
I say bottom 3 spot and 14.25% shot at numero uno is looking very doable…
wow Memphis is down 81-47 to Houston.
If Portis made less money I wouldn’t mind having him back next year on the chance he has a hot first half and we can trade him
Finishing without Randle and Using Trier are good signs from the coaching staff.
Not starting Mitch tho is not my favourite…
Although i see the reason behind it.
need a hawks comeback here…come’on trae…
yes…twolves…pull it out…
I’ve been on the Trier train for a long time, finally he is getting some burn. He seems to be thinking really hard out there, trying to make the smart play. Probably to a fault, but I get why. He’s clearly been humbled but at the expense of playing freely. I honestly didn’t see him make a low-IQ play out there. He got caught up on a screen that he should have gotten over, but the screener’s man didn’t hedge and Rozier drained a critical jumper. He threw a pass to the corner that Portis should have caught but it was Trier’s turnover. But every other play was pretty much the smart play. He tried hard on D and boxed out on the boards. I hope they continue to let him earn more minutes.
On 2 possessions in a row (or close to it) RJ drove right and put up an ugly right-hand banker that went nowhere. Clearly everyone is forcing him right and he will need to make teams pay for doing that. Seems like for now, all he can do to his right is convert point blank layups. Beyond working on his shot overall, that should be priority #1 this off-season.
I guess this was a great night for the tank, other than the Hawks. Tied for the second fewest wins? Wow!
I say 6 or 7 more wins this year…hopefully that should do it…
I know “pass the ball to Mitch” is DRed’s lane but, yeah, what the hell is he doing only taking seven shots.
At least he got 30 minutes.
Also, I love the Houston box score tonight. Westbrook scored 33 and was a 33. Harden scored 30 and was a 7. Russ played 5 more minutes.
Good night for KP again too.
Now that KP is having a great stretch and Miami is 2-7 in their last 9 games, having just lost to the Cavs and to the Wolves at home, I guess we all know what will be strat’s focus for the next couple of days
I mean if Mitch took 7 shots because they passed to him 7 times I wouldn’t complain but they only passed to him 3 times (and he got fouled before he could shoot on one of them).
Lamar Peters wasn’t a great college basketball player and he’s probably a terrible defender at his size, but I think he could be an option to play in a reserve role.
Bruno Almeida:
Now that KP is having a great stretch and Miami is 2-7 in their last 9 games, having just lost to the Cavs and to the Wolves at home, I guess we all know what will be strat’s focus for the next couple of days
1. Miami is still one star away from being a contender, but is well positioned for a playoff run this year and to make a run at someone next year.
2. KP is playing like a #1 option in FEBRUARY, not October, not November, FEBRUARY!!! Not a number 2 option, a number 1 option.
The only people that didnt understand his value were people focused on his stat lines instead of what he could actually do on both sides of the court with a good team that used him properly and after he filled out a bit (and Mills/Perry).
It would be so monumentally sad if he breaks down 3-4 years before he and Luka peak
In other Dallas news, the Mavs and Hardaway are in contract negotiations for an EXTENSION because he’s playing so well as a 3rd option in a well defined role for smart management and very good coach.
Not that I was ever a Hardaway fan at the ridiculous salary our management gave him, but there was no reason he couldn’t be a productive 6th man with good coaching. Carlisle just seems to be better than just good.
Imagine what he could do for Trier who has been needlessly buried on our bench despite better scoring skills than Hardaway.
We already knew that about Hardaway. That’s what he did in ATL. Knicks overpaid him to chuck threes.
If fairness to Hardaway in NY (who I was very critical of), he was basically the #2 option to KP when KP was nowhere near ready to be a #1 option and then often a #1 option when KP was out. Both were paying without a good PG and he was also playing hurt a lot of the time. In Dallas they gave him the correct medical treatment to fix his leg, there is plenty of space, a multitude of scorers, and a terrific playmaker. He may not even sustain what he’s doing for them this year, but in a more limited defined role he’s fine. If they do extend him, I can’t wait to see what they give him and for how long.
What’s wrong with a look at a small ball lineup of Frank, Trier, Dotson, Barrett, and MItch for a few minutes.
Fascinating. Sure, I’d be down for a look at something like that. However, the key thing for the rest of the season should be giving Trier as many minutes as possible at the 2 and Barrett at the 3 and see what they can see.
Those 3 first round picks we got from Dallas (if you include the Morris pick from The Clippers) will be nice.
But not gonna lie. There is a part of me recently that has been thinking that our starting 5 right now could be:
Payton, Hardaway, Barrett, KP, Mitch
We still would have had cap room to get Payton and another player or two this past off season even if we’d maxed KP. And yes, it will be nice to have Randle gone as soon as the next trade deadline. And I don’t think KP is a max player, at least not yet, though this board LOVES to ignore his defensive impact. But you look at his rebounding numbers and how young he still is and think that our front court could have been him and Mitch (no layups ever) with RJ at the 3, Hardaway playing the 2…I don’t know. I’d feel a lot better about where were were headed. Fuck, you could have Frank starting at the 1 sometimes and the defense in that starting 5 would be REALLY good. Record wise we probably wouldn’t be THAT much better than we are now but there is potential there.
As it is right now you got RJ and Mitch and a whole lot of “hope one of these draft picks lands us a star” But that starting 5 would be one good PG away from being a pretty good team with lots of youth. You’d have Hardaway’s contract expiring soon (you could extend him at something more reasonable).
I don’t know. I’m not trying to be all “I miss KP” but I do think about this as we slog through the end of another lost season.
Here’s what it should be with no special competence or creativity at all.
KP, Mitch, Mikal Bridges, Frank, Dotson, Hardaway, RJ, and Trier and whoever we put into the cap space we already had before we re-signed KP (which could easily be another solid player). That’s a very good young core that plays solid defense on the perimeter and killer defense inside. KP and Mitch compliment each other well inside and outside and KP could move to C when Mitch got into foul trouble.
But who’s complaining? We have Portis, DSJr, Knox, Randle, Bullock, Ellington, and still have Noah on the books etc… Doh!!!
On the bright side, we have some extra lottery tickets to try get to the same place we could have been now a few years from now.
Strat imagining a fake team in which multiple parts of history are changed and yet still having us take Frank Ntilikina with the 8th overall pick is too perfect
I mean 56 players from the 2017 draft have played in the NBA and Ntilikina’s VORP is dead last among them. Putting him on your “All-Knicks What If Team” is truly something special!
And he also kept Dotson on the squad… The PJax apologism even extends to Knicks fantasy team hypotheticals.
At least he didn’t throw Noah’s name in there.
Cognitive Dissonance is a condition that impacts many Knick fans.
KP, Mitch, Mikal Bridges, Frank, Dotson, Hardaway, RJ, and Trier and whoever we put into the cap space we already had before we re-signed KP
Just try to imagine what that lineup would look like on offense. That team better be the #1 defense in the NBA because it’s gonna have like a .475 team eFG%.
When Frank is playing overseas in his early 20s, I have a feeling Strat will be something akin to a WWII Japanese holdout. The rest of the Frank Hive will have surrendered, but he’ll still be fighting the good fight.
I’d be easy on strat, he looks more right on KP every day…
I am a Frank fan, but I agree his stats this year aren’t much improvement. By the eye test he is playing differently. It’s perplexing that this hasn’t translated into better offensive numbers. I still have hope for him. He’s still young and he still defends. Once he internalizes being more aggressive on offense maybe he can mentally start to focus on being more consistent in his shooting.
JK
I’m actually thinking with Mitch and KP, the interior D would be pretty amazing.
I typically find myself seeing things as you do, but your view feels a bit dated: KP’s performances are getting increasingly better as the season goes on and February has been outstanding (Feb. TS% .668 on 28.8 usg%), Mitch’s is tops in eFG% in the NBA, and Hardaway is in the top third in eFG% this year.
I mean I literally said at the time that KP was bound to improve from the Wigginsian levels he was at earlier in the season.
That doesn’t answer the question of whether or not it would’ve been smart for the Knicks, who had a 17 win non-KP core, to give him 5/$156M. As of now, I still feel great about thinking that would’ve been stupid and have no problem with trading it in for two firsts.
How good KP will have to be to change that calculation is an interesting question. I know his biggest supporters think numbers are fake or whatever, but I think he’d have to turn into a bonafide .200+ WS48/3.5+ BPM guy. Certainly a high standard, but that’s how far off the Knicks were (and still are) from contention. Maxing out anyone below that standard would’ve been a waste and a bad reading of our place on the win curve.
Kristaps wouldn’t be playing this well on the Knicks because we don’t have the personnel to mitigate his biggest weakness on offense-he needs other players to get him good shots. Combined with his injury risk and the fact that he did not want to be a Knick the trade still makes sense. Bigger picture our inability to develop Kristaps and use him correctly was and probably still is a huge problem with the franchise, but you have to be realistic about things.
I think that there was an under the table agreement with Durant, so I can’t complain about the KP deal.
If there wasn’t an under the table agreement with Durant, then I would have preferred that they do a different deal that didn’t include dumping salary. I agree that trading KP made sense (and that, of course, is the funny bit. It’s both “They should have kept KP” and “Phil was smart to want to trade KP.”). I just would have looked for a different sort of return if there was no under the table agreement.
I just think that there was one.
We’ve all seen KP go on hot streaks like this before. Surely we remember past Novembers when he looked like a bona fide star.
Problem is he hasn’t been able to sustain it. Let’s see if he can sustain it this time before we anoint him as a great player. His hot streak encompasses six of his last seven games. He’s done that before. Maybe he can sustain it, maybe not.
Back on the topic of player development…I was watching the Bay Area NBC Sports Network last night and they had a whole 30 minute show on the Warriors approach to player development…there are like 3 or 4 coaches (who sit behind the bench as well every game) whose titles are “Player Development Coach” and they talked about how they work with each player on all aspects- diet, strength, quickness..shooting,etc. and look to identify weaknesses and work on strengthening those areas…all these coaches were ex-players…and I thought, there is no way this exists in the Knick organization…and yet another reason why we have crappy teams all the time…
yeah Brian, I think you follow it a lot closer than me, so I don’t have any insight on the deal.
But there were a fair number of people here who saw flashes of what KP could be, but knew he needed strength. But it was there. I agree that him not wanting to be here was a major factor, tho.
I agree with DRed that the Knicks lack the guard play to make KP better. But THIS KP is not just getting the ball in good places, he’s pulling down nearly 10 boards a game, and better than 10 over February. That means he’s learning to muscle and when his team needs him.
And I don’t think we should underestimate Hardaway’s play; he has been surging in February as well with a TS% of .620 and shooting 44% from 3.
I note February only because this is where shitty players really start to fade and where good players start to surge.
I had a feeling I was going to regret the KP trade. But what really makes me angry is that the team left him feeling unwanted and overrated. Compared to actual outcomes, the Knicks seemed to have fucked this up royally.
I’m going to mention it once so we can be done with it: KP has been doing very well this month. Like, very very well. He’s probably going to keep shooting at least at 36% from 3, 88% from the line, and IF (I hate saying this) someone gets him to stop shooting the long 2’s, then he’s a great player.
He would be a great fit with Mitch and RJ, YES AT A NONMAX CONTRACT. (Honestly wouldn’t we all rather have KP taking a semi-big contract than having guys like Randle, Portis, and Ellington making 41M this year. Whatever. Lets drop this, we won the trade right)
I get the sense that RJ is getting frustrated playing with Payton and wants to play with Frank because they play a similar style and Frank keeps the ball moving in his direction.
JK,
Agree. Let’s see how long KP can maintain this.
My suspicion is he will. Knee surgery people tend to take a half season or so to feel confident in their knee.
The fact that this surge is happening in February, not November, is important. and I’m not sure he had a month-long stretch like this. I don’t think he ever averaged 10 boards over a month, and nearly 2 blocks a game.
This feels different.
> Lets drop this, we won the trade right)<
lmao
we got slaughtered.
The salary dump aspect of the deal is definitely the worst part in hindsight, but even that could’ve been fixed if they just immediately pivoted to taking on salary dumps after being snubbed. I even said so at the time! They didn’t, because they are dumb, but that has to be considered independent of the deal itself.
Yeah, it’s totally plausible that this is sustainable:
ORtg/DRtg
Oct 107 107
Nov 97 104
Dec 104 105
Jan 103 115
Feb 132 106
Oh, no, no — we’re definitely seeing the “real” Porzingis now. Nevermind that his career NetRtg monthly splits are never separated by > 7 points. He’s definitely now a +26 player. That makes total sense.
You know whose numbers are eerily similar to Porzingis’ ?. Another overrated “superstar” Jayson Tatum:
Oct 97 98
Nov 102 106
Dec 111 104
Jan 110 107
Feb 126 110
And like KP, also very, very sustainable.
No but you can see a trend, Oct-Nov-Dec to Jan to Feb, that seems positive. Really, it’s all bullshit, and I agree, but you take the hot streaks with the cold, and average it out – his numbers are slightly better overall this year, including a time when he was crap right after coming back. His WS/48 is above .100 (woohoo) for the first time. He’s 24 and at t he right price would have been nice on this team.
kp has been worth closer to his salary this year than randle has his. tatum has been fantastic.
No but you can see a trend, Oct-Nov-Dec to Jan to Feb, that seems positive.
Recency bias is strong with us. It’s a trend when we’re convinced see a pattern. I see a regression to the mean coming. A few of his patented 6-19 games and we’ll be back to Kristapsblogger 2k16.
Until KP can get through all of next year without a severe injury and put up All Star numbers, none of this really tells us anything.
I guess it comes down, for me, to this. Is it better to have Randle here for this year and next plus 3 late first round picks or KP at a slightly higher salary locked in for the next 4.
KP is slightly younger, has way more upside (even with the injury concerns), and is no doubt a plus defender. We argue about his actual value all the time but he does have value, especially when he’s healthy, and he could still take that leap to an elite level. Plus him and Mitch would probably fit together better than Mitch and Randle.
Randle is probably the better offensive player (for now) but he is not good on defense at all and also seems to be kind of a dumb player. But he’s on a shorter contract and we got 3 late first round picks in addition.
If even one of those picks hits on a good player, the math changes considerably for us. But there is an argument to be made that having a core of KP, Mitch and RJ locked in for the next few seasons would be a better foundation to build with and we could have that right now.
There’s no question the chucklefucks who run this thing wasted the cap space they cleared by moving Lee and Hardaway. That part of the trade blew up in their faces. We’ve been over it a million times, if that cap space was used to stash contracts and extract 1RPs instead of being used to create the grainy Bobby Portis memories of my future, we’d be sitting fairly pretty.
Yeah, it’s idiotic to say those of us who have defended the trade were proven wrong, because it was never in our plans to sign Bobby Portis and Wayne Ellington and all this damn garbage.
I defended the trade because it was an opportunity to shed a lot of salary, get first round picks for a questionable prospect in KP who didn’t want to stay anyway, and it was a way to get a clean slate for a real rebuild. The real rebuild has yet to come, and the only move they did that I rate as positive is the Morris signing and subsequent trade.
If the Knicks traded KP for Damian Lillard, then turned around and flipped Lillard for Bobby Portis, Elfrid Payton and Taj Gibson 3 months later, that still wouldn’t mean it was a bad trade, just that as usual the front office botched the execution of the next steps of the plan.
Call me when KP is doing this consistently and staying healthy for a season, and then I’ll happily admit he’s a good player who should be maxed.
Recency bias is strong with us. It’s a trend when we’re convinced see a pattern. I see a regression to the mean coming. A few of his patented 6-19 games and we’ll be back to Kristapsblogger 2k16.
Are you disagreeing with me? KP would be a good addition to this team if on a non-max contract? I think he would be. I’d rather be paying KP Portis Randle’s money and still have some left.
(Now I know we didn’t necessarily have to have those two guys, that was a separate bad decision, but you get it. Who else were you spending your money on anyway. I also am aware that he may have walked on us completely, rather than take a non-max, but first I’d call bullshit, second, you can trade later and make everyone happy. Anyways, that’s not the point I was making. I was making a remark that he’s better than, say, Kevin Knox, Frank, Dennis, and RJ. I mean, imagine playing Frank, Dot, RJ, Knox, and Mitch. It’s better to me than Peyton, RJ, Bullock, Randle, Gibson – separate decisions all around, but it does flow.)
I mean they gave up trade capital to move Courtney Lee who was making $12M for one more season, and then they turned around and spent the $12M on Wayne Ellington and Reggie Bullock. You almost have to admire how bad they are.
“Call me when KP is doing this consistently and staying healthy for a season, and then I’ll happily admit he’s a good player who should be maxed.”
So…you wouldn’t max Ben Simmons if he was on the Knicks? You wouldn’t have maxed Joel Embiid?
Embiid has missed two entire seasons to injury, has played 31, 64, 65 games the next three seasons, and looks like a sure bet to only play about 65 games this season at best. His scoring, rebounding, and blocks are also markedly down this season.
Simmons has also missed an entire season due to injury and is putting up stats closer to a better-passing Lamar Odom than LeBron James.
It’s fair to blame the Knicks front office for sucking because they DO suck but I think the existing evidence indicates the “We MUST trade KP” conviction of many around here was dubious at best.
Mike
It may still have been a good trade gone bad if KP is good, the two picks turn out to be low 20’s and come up as bums, we didn’t use cap space for Durant/Kyrie, and Dennis Smith Jr continues to suck. I mean, trades take years to evaluate, and this one is still up for grabs.
My main point (again) was that if KP could be had for less than max, then he would be a good fit – he’s neither bum nor superstar right now.
I think the salary dump aspect of the deal is underappreciated.
1. We don’t sign Marcus Morris if we have $60mm going to KP, Timmy, and Lee.
2. Even though we blew it on a gaggle of chucklefucks, most of those chucklefucks expire this year and we’ll have another opportunity to cash in on it correctly.
So what did we get for the cap space? An LAC 1st, a DET 2nd, an overseas prospect, and we have $48mm this summer available that would have been locked up in KP and Timmy. The jury is very much still out.
So what did we get for the cap space? An LAC 1st, a DET 2nd, an overseas prospect, and we have $48mm this summer available that would have been locked up in KP and Timmy. The jury is very much still out.
On the one hand, this is true.
On the other hand, it seems very, very likely that the new guys running the Knicks are going to do something very stupid with that $48M of cap space. So sure, the jury’s out, maybe they’ll surprise us and do something smart. The safe bet though is that the $48M is going to be used on another bag of magic beans.
I’m not including Portis or Ellington. I’m simply comparing having Randle and 3 late first round picks to having KP with Timmy and Lee coming off the books this summer.
Also, lets not act like people didn’t think Randle was a decent signing this summer. Most people did.
Tatum made 48 out of 96 3 point shots in February. That’s not sustainable.
sure tatum’s recent play isn’t sustainable. he’s not better than kd. but tatum has been great if you consider his entire year. he is a very good defender, a high usage scorer on pretty good efficiency, a decent passer, a good rebounder and he has one of the lower turnover rates for his usage you will see. he doesn’t turn 22 years old until next week and he is a career 40pct 3pt shooter on 56.6 ts. his numbers this year are as good or better than siakam’s. it really doesn’t mean anything that his recent hot play is unsustainable, just like his cold start was also irrelevant. it sucks for us but he is really fucking good.
Tatum is a slightly above average efficiency scorer on slightly above average usage who plays good/very good defense and is a bit of a chucker. He’s definitely more promising than Siakam because he’s much younger, but they’re about the same this year. Siakam is also an overrated player on a team that wins because of its depth. The Celtics and the Raptors have a lot of good players and are well coached, and because of the way the NBA media is set up they both need to have ‘a guy’.
I’m pro Tatum. I like Kemba, too. I’m not impressed with the rest of that team, though, and they’re pretty much locked into this current roster for the next few years.
“So…you wouldn’t max Ben Simmons if he was on the Knicks? You wouldn’t have maxed Joel Embiid?”
Of course I would, because they are productive players, and their worst seasons so far in the league are still better than Porzingis’ best season in 4 years. It’s really not that hard to understand. Give max money to players who produce like max level players. Simmons and Embiid have their flaws, but they’re far, far closer to max level production than KP is, and the comparison is even worse when their stats are much better AND they’re both elite defenders, so the esoteric “stats don’t actually capture production” argument is even more stupid here.
>Also, lets not act like people didn’t think Randle was a decent signing this summer. Most people did.<
I said from day one he's a good player that's a terrible fit on this team. I haven't changed my opinion. I have no doubt he'd he much more efficient on another team.
The cap space we added via the KP deal was mostly worthless.
We had some cap space coming into this year that we were theoretically going to use first before we re-signed KP to begin with. Both Lee and Noah would be coming off the books and the end of this year anyway opening up a ton of more space. Instead, we still have Noah on the books for two more years!!!! DOH!!!!
The one thing we gained in terms of space was moving Hardaway’s contract, but that contract was not going to destroy our rebuild if we sat on it until it expired. He’s not worth the salary, but he would have been a contributing young player on an improving young team in the same way he is in Dallas now. Of course, they are competent so they have him playing better and want to extend him. He probably would have sucked for us and we’d have to sit on it until he expired.
We basically got DSJr and Dallas’s 2 picks out of the deal.
There isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell I’d take that deal over KP.
The chances we get a player of KP’s quality out of that are extremely low. And YES KP IS WORTH THE MAX. The fact that some players that get the max are a lot better than him is an indication that some players are worth a LOT MORE than the max, That’s well known. But you don’t toss away legitimate #1 and #2 options because they aren’t one of the super elite max players worth twice the price. You keep those #1 and #2 options and keep building because you aren’t going anywhere without them.
I’d be willing to bet that if KP went on the market right now at his current max salary more than half the league would be on the phone trying to get him even though he such a poor start related to the layoff. The teams that weren’t trying would be those that either don’t have the need for a big man or that are very cautious related to injuries. But without injury risk, virtually everyone would have maxed him given his unique skillset on both sides. No one is looking at his stat…
>Recency bias is strong with us. It’s a trend when we’re convinced see a pattern. I see a regression to the mean coming. A few of his patented 6-19 games and we’ll be back to Kristapsblogger 2k16.<
I see a guy I predicted would start the season off poorly because he was off for so long and said it would take time for him to get his confidence back in his knees and physically ready to handle game speed and conditions. I believe my exact prediction was that he'd start showing signs of improvement in January. Then the other knee got a little sore, his missed around 10 games, it set him back, he came back with something like a 2-15 disaster game, and has slowly worked himself back to form 1 month later than I predicted.
It was obvious his poor play early this season was not random. He was shooting worse from every area of the court including the FT line. The same thing is going on with Oladipo now and I've seen it plenty of other times over the decades of being a fan. It takes time for some players to recover mentally and physically from a serious injury.
Obviously, his February level of play is not sustainable. However, they are using him better. So his efficiency should rise somewhat from his NY days with his current superior shot distribution, not being the #1 option getting double teamed anymore, and being on the receiving end of better spacing and PG play. He just has to stay healthy. I see no reason he can't sustain a 56% TS or a tad better from February forward. From there you keep working on skills and strength and try to get even better. He was very raw to start and missed a lot of development time. We haven't seen his best if he stays healthy.
Knicks fans shitting on Tatum and Siakam = those nerds at clubs who call all the girls ugly
ptmilo: sure tatum’s recent play isn’t sustainable. he’s not better than kd. but tatum has been great if you consider his entire year. he is a very good defender, a high usage scorer on pretty good efficiency, a decent passer, a good rebounder and he has one of the lower turnover rates for his usage you will see. he doesn’t turn 22 years old until next week and he is a career 40pct 3pt shooter on 56.6 ts. his numbers this year are as good or better than siakam’s. it really doesn’t mean anything that his recent hot play is unsustainable, just like his cold start was also irrelevant. it sucks for us but he is really fucking good.
DRed:
Tatum is a slightly above average efficiency scorer on slightly above average usage who plays good/very good defense and is a bit of a chucker.He’s definitely more promising than Siakam because he’s much younger, but they’re about the same this year.Siakam is also an overrated player on a team that wins because of its depth.The Celtics and the Raptors have a lot of good players and are well coached, and because of the way the NBA media is set up they both need to have ‘a guy’.
The judges have spoken. And the winner is………..Iron Chef pt
Tatum has played the most minutes on a top-4 team as a 21 year old. He leads his team in VORP, is second to Kemba in BPM, and is the highest usage player on the team (even higher than Kemba!)
He’s essentially prime offensive Carmelo Anthony who plays very good defense. At age 21. I know we hate us some Celtics, but this kid is really, really good.
More relevant to our situation, Tatum is the guy the Celtics wanted from that draft in the first place, but even though they had the #1 pick, they traded the pick to Philly, got Tatum anyway with the #3 pick and also obtained another pick in the following year’s draft. This is what we need to do, assuming we still agree that there’s no clear #1 option in the draft and, of course, we win the #1 pick in the wrong draft year.
111 replies on “2019-20 Game Thread: Knicks @ Hornets”
Develop or Die !!!!
you know, at this stage of the season – it kinda feels like we have lost already….
The real winning was the friends we made along the way to another disaster season.
Watching the whole game will demand strength, courage and even blood…
Taj’s development looks like a priority right now.
hope the work day wasn’t too terrible and you’re getting ready to enjoy the game with something good to eat and drink knew your nicks 🙂
When a player fails a drug test, do they publicly disclose which drug he tested positive for?
Geo I’m working right now !
Do you really think I’d spend my precious free time on watching this garbage game Live ?
At 2:34 am !!!????
I turned on the game a bit before it started, watched the first 10 or so possessions and… nope, nope. I’m not doing this to myself. Watching the Knicks feels like torture these days, I can’t bring myself to do it. I’ll still keep checking the score every so often out of habit, and if it’s close in the 4th I’ll maybe tune in but I just don’t have the mental fortitude to watch a game like this anymore, where there’s 0 exciting players on both sides.
put that highlight in the dennis smith trade prospectus
Crazy, but not surprisng, that it took 4 minutes for RJ to get a touch on offence. Compare that to the 7 FGA’s Taj had in the same amount of Court time. I know you have to work with what the D gives you, but at least have some plays for the kid!
then dennis with a nice kobe assist
Willy traveled like 4 times there lol
DSJ is better than Zack Galiffianakis.
He makes me laugh harder!
Repost from posting in an old thread.
I am sure the coach is getting some direction on how to allocate playing time, but it’s not necessarily at the level of give player A more minutes. At the beginning of the season the direction was clearly play the players who give the best chance to win. Then the direction might have been showcase Smith for a trade. Now it’s hard to tell, but my guess is it’s something like help us figure out which players we should try to keep next year. If this is the sort of direction the coaching staff is getting, it seems like normal management to me.
Our body language says:
No motive
Watching these Knicks is giving me a greater appreciation for Morris.
Me too
Morris is a decent NBA player, which means he does not belong on the Knicks
It took until 8:30 in the second quarter to run a pick and roll with Mitch. We sort of ran one at 5:00, and that was it. The ballhandler scored both times on a layup. Mitch played 10 minutes and had zero fouls. Mitch, by the way, has been the best pick and roll finisher in the NBA this season, and the Knicks offense fucking sucks.
Watching these knicks makes me appreciate life, time, loss and trash…
Mitch: 10 minutes, 0 fouls, +2
Taj: 13 minutes, 1 foul, -12
I think I’ve seen enough. Without Frank playing , i can’t sustain interest when they are playing this poorly. Time for Married At First Sight.
What are the chances that Minny, Cleveland, Atlanta and Charlotte can all pull out a win tonight? Could be big.
To be fair, that’s like skipping a shot of bleach in favor of a snifter full of ammonia…
Pretty play there by Harkless and finally a nice shot by RJ
That’s like the best start to the second half we’ve have this season
with frank not playing, it’s hard for me to even tune in much…sure mitch is a lot better, and RJ has a lot more potential; but, they ain’t box office like frank…
Bridges isn’t any good but he can really dunk
Clyde complimenting DSJs jumper while they run a graphic showing he’s 4/11 for 9 points
Which two under 25 players in this game on either team will have the highest single year career peak? I’m gonna go with Robinson and PJ Washington. Take off the under 25 limit though and I might pick Taj and Zeller.
28 seconds left in the 3rd quarter and the Knicks pass to Mitch near the rim for the first time tonight
Clyde is trolling hard tonight:
“Very entertaining game”
I think he also said:
“DsJ continues his outstanding game”….
It’s definitely entertaining in a wicked way
The dreck we trotted out over Trier this season continues to be the second weirdest decision of all, only behind the stubborn refusal to start Mitch.
I’m not very high on Trier but we should have been able to give him some minutes because hey, why not
Clyde for Randle:
“He’s been a juggernaut tonight on both ends of the floor”…..
Hey the Knicks finally got mitch a shot
Clyde “They should do that more often”
Lonzo can certainly get buckets
can’t blame the knicks for playing RJ, but him scoring 5 points on 11 shots cost the Knicks this game. Entertaining semi-comeback, Mitch was terrific, Trier filled it up and DSJ had a cool dunk. Sort of a shame we wasted one of the random Bobby Portis can’t miss games.
I say bottom 3 spot and 14.25% shot at numero uno is looking very doable…
wow Memphis is down 81-47 to Houston.
If Portis made less money I wouldn’t mind having him back next year on the chance he has a hot first half and we can trade him
Finishing without Randle and Using Trier are good signs from the coaching staff.
Not starting Mitch tho is not my favourite…
Although i see the reason behind it.
need a hawks comeback here…come’on trae…
yes…twolves…pull it out…
I’ve been on the Trier train for a long time, finally he is getting some burn. He seems to be thinking really hard out there, trying to make the smart play. Probably to a fault, but I get why. He’s clearly been humbled but at the expense of playing freely. I honestly didn’t see him make a low-IQ play out there. He got caught up on a screen that he should have gotten over, but the screener’s man didn’t hedge and Rozier drained a critical jumper. He threw a pass to the corner that Portis should have caught but it was Trier’s turnover. But every other play was pretty much the smart play. He tried hard on D and boxed out on the boards. I hope they continue to let him earn more minutes.
On 2 possessions in a row (or close to it) RJ drove right and put up an ugly right-hand banker that went nowhere. Clearly everyone is forcing him right and he will need to make teams pay for doing that. Seems like for now, all he can do to his right is convert point blank layups. Beyond working on his shot overall, that should be priority #1 this off-season.
I guess this was a great night for the tank, other than the Hawks. Tied for the second fewest wins? Wow!
I say 6 or 7 more wins this year…hopefully that should do it…
I know “pass the ball to Mitch” is DRed’s lane but, yeah, what the hell is he doing only taking seven shots.
At least he got 30 minutes.
Also, I love the Houston box score tonight. Westbrook scored 33 and was a 33. Harden scored 30 and was a 7. Russ played 5 more minutes.
Good night for KP again too.
Now that KP is having a great stretch and Miami is 2-7 in their last 9 games, having just lost to the Cavs and to the Wolves at home, I guess we all know what will be strat’s focus for the next couple of days
I mean if Mitch took 7 shots because they passed to him 7 times I wouldn’t complain but they only passed to him 3 times (and he got fouled before he could shoot on one of them).
The Knicks have a guy down in the G League doing this.
Lamar Peters wasn’t a great college basketball player and he’s probably a terrible defender at his size, but I think he could be an option to play in a reserve role.
1. Miami is still one star away from being a contender, but is well positioned for a playoff run this year and to make a run at someone next year.
2. KP is playing like a #1 option in FEBRUARY, not October, not November, FEBRUARY!!! Not a number 2 option, a number 1 option.
The only people that didnt understand his value were people focused on his stat lines instead of what he could actually do on both sides of the court with a good team that used him properly and after he filled out a bit (and Mills/Perry).
It would be so monumentally sad if he breaks down 3-4 years before he and Luka peak
In other Dallas news, the Mavs and Hardaway are in contract negotiations for an EXTENSION because he’s playing so well as a 3rd option in a well defined role for smart management and very good coach.
Not that I was ever a Hardaway fan at the ridiculous salary our management gave him, but there was no reason he couldn’t be a productive 6th man with good coaching. Carlisle just seems to be better than just good.
Imagine what he could do for Trier who has been needlessly buried on our bench despite better scoring skills than Hardaway.
We already knew that about Hardaway. That’s what he did in ATL. Knicks overpaid him to chuck threes.
If fairness to Hardaway in NY (who I was very critical of), he was basically the #2 option to KP when KP was nowhere near ready to be a #1 option and then often a #1 option when KP was out. Both were paying without a good PG and he was also playing hurt a lot of the time. In Dallas they gave him the correct medical treatment to fix his leg, there is plenty of space, a multitude of scorers, and a terrific playmaker. He may not even sustain what he’s doing for them this year, but in a more limited defined role he’s fine. If they do extend him, I can’t wait to see what they give him and for how long.
What’s wrong with a look at a small ball lineup of Frank, Trier, Dotson, Barrett, and MItch for a few minutes.
Fascinating. Sure, I’d be down for a look at something like that. However, the key thing for the rest of the season should be giving Trier as many minutes as possible at the 2 and Barrett at the 3 and see what they can see.
Those 3 first round picks we got from Dallas (if you include the Morris pick from The Clippers) will be nice.
But not gonna lie. There is a part of me recently that has been thinking that our starting 5 right now could be:
Payton, Hardaway, Barrett, KP, Mitch
We still would have had cap room to get Payton and another player or two this past off season even if we’d maxed KP. And yes, it will be nice to have Randle gone as soon as the next trade deadline. And I don’t think KP is a max player, at least not yet, though this board LOVES to ignore his defensive impact. But you look at his rebounding numbers and how young he still is and think that our front court could have been him and Mitch (no layups ever) with RJ at the 3, Hardaway playing the 2…I don’t know. I’d feel a lot better about where were were headed. Fuck, you could have Frank starting at the 1 sometimes and the defense in that starting 5 would be REALLY good. Record wise we probably wouldn’t be THAT much better than we are now but there is potential there.
As it is right now you got RJ and Mitch and a whole lot of “hope one of these draft picks lands us a star” But that starting 5 would be one good PG away from being a pretty good team with lots of youth. You’d have Hardaway’s contract expiring soon (you could extend him at something more reasonable).
I don’t know. I’m not trying to be all “I miss KP” but I do think about this as we slog through the end of another lost season.
Here’s what it should be with no special competence or creativity at all.
KP, Mitch, Mikal Bridges, Frank, Dotson, Hardaway, RJ, and Trier and whoever we put into the cap space we already had before we re-signed KP (which could easily be another solid player). That’s a very good young core that plays solid defense on the perimeter and killer defense inside. KP and Mitch compliment each other well inside and outside and KP could move to C when Mitch got into foul trouble.
But who’s complaining? We have Portis, DSJr, Knox, Randle, Bullock, Ellington, and still have Noah on the books etc… Doh!!!
On the bright side, we have some extra lottery tickets to try get to the same place we could have been now a few years from now.
Strat imagining a fake team in which multiple parts of history are changed and yet still having us take Frank Ntilikina with the 8th overall pick is too perfect
I mean 56 players from the 2017 draft have played in the NBA and Ntilikina’s VORP is dead last among them. Putting him on your “All-Knicks What If Team” is truly something special!
And he also kept Dotson on the squad… The PJax apologism even extends to Knicks fantasy team hypotheticals.
At least he didn’t throw Noah’s name in there.
Cognitive Dissonance is a condition that impacts many Knick fans.
Just try to imagine what that lineup would look like on offense. That team better be the #1 defense in the NBA because it’s gonna have like a .475 team eFG%.
When Frank is playing overseas in his early 20s, I have a feeling Strat will be something akin to a WWII Japanese holdout. The rest of the Frank Hive will have surrendered, but he’ll still be fighting the good fight.
I’d be easy on strat, he looks more right on KP every day…
I am a Frank fan, but I agree his stats this year aren’t much improvement. By the eye test he is playing differently. It’s perplexing that this hasn’t translated into better offensive numbers. I still have hope for him. He’s still young and he still defends. Once he internalizes being more aggressive on offense maybe he can mentally start to focus on being more consistent in his shooting.
JK
I’m actually thinking with Mitch and KP, the interior D would be pretty amazing.
I typically find myself seeing things as you do, but your view feels a bit dated: KP’s performances are getting increasingly better as the season goes on and February has been outstanding (Feb. TS% .668 on 28.8 usg%), Mitch’s is tops in eFG% in the NBA, and Hardaway is in the top third in eFG% this year.
I mean I literally said at the time that KP was bound to improve from the Wigginsian levels he was at earlier in the season.
That doesn’t answer the question of whether or not it would’ve been smart for the Knicks, who had a 17 win non-KP core, to give him 5/$156M. As of now, I still feel great about thinking that would’ve been stupid and have no problem with trading it in for two firsts.
How good KP will have to be to change that calculation is an interesting question. I know his biggest supporters think numbers are fake or whatever, but I think he’d have to turn into a bonafide .200+ WS48/3.5+ BPM guy. Certainly a high standard, but that’s how far off the Knicks were (and still are) from contention. Maxing out anyone below that standard would’ve been a waste and a bad reading of our place on the win curve.
Kristaps wouldn’t be playing this well on the Knicks because we don’t have the personnel to mitigate his biggest weakness on offense-he needs other players to get him good shots. Combined with his injury risk and the fact that he did not want to be a Knick the trade still makes sense. Bigger picture our inability to develop Kristaps and use him correctly was and probably still is a huge problem with the franchise, but you have to be realistic about things.
I think that there was an under the table agreement with Durant, so I can’t complain about the KP deal.
If there wasn’t an under the table agreement with Durant, then I would have preferred that they do a different deal that didn’t include dumping salary. I agree that trading KP made sense (and that, of course, is the funny bit. It’s both “They should have kept KP” and “Phil was smart to want to trade KP.”). I just would have looked for a different sort of return if there was no under the table agreement.
I just think that there was one.
We’ve all seen KP go on hot streaks like this before. Surely we remember past Novembers when he looked like a bona fide star.
Problem is he hasn’t been able to sustain it. Let’s see if he can sustain it this time before we anoint him as a great player. His hot streak encompasses six of his last seven games. He’s done that before. Maybe he can sustain it, maybe not.
Back on the topic of player development…I was watching the Bay Area NBC Sports Network last night and they had a whole 30 minute show on the Warriors approach to player development…there are like 3 or 4 coaches (who sit behind the bench as well every game) whose titles are “Player Development Coach” and they talked about how they work with each player on all aspects- diet, strength, quickness..shooting,etc. and look to identify weaknesses and work on strengthening those areas…all these coaches were ex-players…and I thought, there is no way this exists in the Knick organization…and yet another reason why we have crappy teams all the time…
yeah Brian, I think you follow it a lot closer than me, so I don’t have any insight on the deal.
But there were a fair number of people here who saw flashes of what KP could be, but knew he needed strength. But it was there. I agree that him not wanting to be here was a major factor, tho.
I agree with DRed that the Knicks lack the guard play to make KP better. But THIS KP is not just getting the ball in good places, he’s pulling down nearly 10 boards a game, and better than 10 over February. That means he’s learning to muscle and when his team needs him.
And I don’t think we should underestimate Hardaway’s play; he has been surging in February as well with a TS% of .620 and shooting 44% from 3.
I note February only because this is where shitty players really start to fade and where good players start to surge.
I had a feeling I was going to regret the KP trade. But what really makes me angry is that the team left him feeling unwanted and overrated. Compared to actual outcomes, the Knicks seemed to have fucked this up royally.
I’m going to mention it once so we can be done with it: KP has been doing very well this month. Like, very very well. He’s probably going to keep shooting at least at 36% from 3, 88% from the line, and IF (I hate saying this) someone gets him to stop shooting the long 2’s, then he’s a great player.
He would be a great fit with Mitch and RJ, YES AT A NONMAX CONTRACT. (Honestly wouldn’t we all rather have KP taking a semi-big contract than having guys like Randle, Portis, and Ellington making 41M this year. Whatever. Lets drop this, we won the trade right)
I get the sense that RJ is getting frustrated playing with Payton and wants to play with Frank because they play a similar style and Frank keeps the ball moving in his direction.
JK,
Agree. Let’s see how long KP can maintain this.
My suspicion is he will. Knee surgery people tend to take a half season or so to feel confident in their knee.
The fact that this surge is happening in February, not November, is important. and I’m not sure he had a month-long stretch like this. I don’t think he ever averaged 10 boards over a month, and nearly 2 blocks a game.
This feels different.
> Lets drop this, we won the trade right)<
lmao
we got slaughtered.
The salary dump aspect of the deal is definitely the worst part in hindsight, but even that could’ve been fixed if they just immediately pivoted to taking on salary dumps after being snubbed. I even said so at the time! They didn’t, because they are dumb, but that has to be considered independent of the deal itself.
Yeah, it’s totally plausible that this is sustainable:
ORtg/DRtg
Oct 107 107
Nov 97 104
Dec 104 105
Jan 103 115
Feb 132 106
Oh, no, no — we’re definitely seeing the “real” Porzingis now. Nevermind that his career NetRtg monthly splits are never separated by > 7 points. He’s definitely now a +26 player. That makes total sense.
You know whose numbers are eerily similar to Porzingis’ ?. Another overrated “superstar” Jayson Tatum:
Oct 97 98
Nov 102 106
Dec 111 104
Jan 110 107
Feb 126 110
And like KP, also very, very sustainable.
No but you can see a trend, Oct-Nov-Dec to Jan to Feb, that seems positive. Really, it’s all bullshit, and I agree, but you take the hot streaks with the cold, and average it out – his numbers are slightly better overall this year, including a time when he was crap right after coming back. His WS/48 is above .100 (woohoo) for the first time. He’s 24 and at t he right price would have been nice on this team.
kp has been worth closer to his salary this year than randle has his. tatum has been fantastic.
Recency bias is strong with us. It’s a trend when we’re convinced see a pattern. I see a regression to the mean coming. A few of his patented 6-19 games and we’ll be back to Kristapsblogger 2k16.
Until KP can get through all of next year without a severe injury and put up All Star numbers, none of this really tells us anything.
I guess it comes down, for me, to this. Is it better to have Randle here for this year and next plus 3 late first round picks or KP at a slightly higher salary locked in for the next 4.
KP is slightly younger, has way more upside (even with the injury concerns), and is no doubt a plus defender. We argue about his actual value all the time but he does have value, especially when he’s healthy, and he could still take that leap to an elite level. Plus him and Mitch would probably fit together better than Mitch and Randle.
Randle is probably the better offensive player (for now) but he is not good on defense at all and also seems to be kind of a dumb player. But he’s on a shorter contract and we got 3 late first round picks in addition.
If even one of those picks hits on a good player, the math changes considerably for us. But there is an argument to be made that having a core of KP, Mitch and RJ locked in for the next few seasons would be a better foundation to build with and we could have that right now.
There’s no question the chucklefucks who run this thing wasted the cap space they cleared by moving Lee and Hardaway. That part of the trade blew up in their faces. We’ve been over it a million times, if that cap space was used to stash contracts and extract 1RPs instead of being used to create the grainy Bobby Portis memories of my future, we’d be sitting fairly pretty.
Yeah, it’s idiotic to say those of us who have defended the trade were proven wrong, because it was never in our plans to sign Bobby Portis and Wayne Ellington and all this damn garbage.
I defended the trade because it was an opportunity to shed a lot of salary, get first round picks for a questionable prospect in KP who didn’t want to stay anyway, and it was a way to get a clean slate for a real rebuild. The real rebuild has yet to come, and the only move they did that I rate as positive is the Morris signing and subsequent trade.
If the Knicks traded KP for Damian Lillard, then turned around and flipped Lillard for Bobby Portis, Elfrid Payton and Taj Gibson 3 months later, that still wouldn’t mean it was a bad trade, just that as usual the front office botched the execution of the next steps of the plan.
Call me when KP is doing this consistently and staying healthy for a season, and then I’ll happily admit he’s a good player who should be maxed.
Are you disagreeing with me? KP would be a good addition to this team if on a non-max contract? I think he would be. I’d rather be paying KP Portis Randle’s money and still have some left.
(Now I know we didn’t necessarily have to have those two guys, that was a separate bad decision, but you get it. Who else were you spending your money on anyway. I also am aware that he may have walked on us completely, rather than take a non-max, but first I’d call bullshit, second, you can trade later and make everyone happy. Anyways, that’s not the point I was making. I was making a remark that he’s better than, say, Kevin Knox, Frank, Dennis, and RJ. I mean, imagine playing Frank, Dot, RJ, Knox, and Mitch. It’s better to me than Peyton, RJ, Bullock, Randle, Gibson – separate decisions all around, but it does flow.)
I mean they gave up trade capital to move Courtney Lee who was making $12M for one more season, and then they turned around and spent the $12M on Wayne Ellington and Reggie Bullock. You almost have to admire how bad they are.
“Call me when KP is doing this consistently and staying healthy for a season, and then I’ll happily admit he’s a good player who should be maxed.”
So…you wouldn’t max Ben Simmons if he was on the Knicks? You wouldn’t have maxed Joel Embiid?
Embiid has missed two entire seasons to injury, has played 31, 64, 65 games the next three seasons, and looks like a sure bet to only play about 65 games this season at best. His scoring, rebounding, and blocks are also markedly down this season.
Simmons has also missed an entire season due to injury and is putting up stats closer to a better-passing Lamar Odom than LeBron James.
It’s fair to blame the Knicks front office for sucking because they DO suck but I think the existing evidence indicates the “We MUST trade KP” conviction of many around here was dubious at best.
Mike
It may still have been a good trade gone bad if KP is good, the two picks turn out to be low 20’s and come up as bums, we didn’t use cap space for Durant/Kyrie, and Dennis Smith Jr continues to suck. I mean, trades take years to evaluate, and this one is still up for grabs.
My main point (again) was that if KP could be had for less than max, then he would be a good fit – he’s neither bum nor superstar right now.
I think the salary dump aspect of the deal is underappreciated.
1. We don’t sign Marcus Morris if we have $60mm going to KP, Timmy, and Lee.
2. Even though we blew it on a gaggle of chucklefucks, most of those chucklefucks expire this year and we’ll have another opportunity to cash in on it correctly.
So what did we get for the cap space? An LAC 1st, a DET 2nd, an overseas prospect, and we have $48mm this summer available that would have been locked up in KP and Timmy. The jury is very much still out.
On the one hand, this is true.
On the other hand, it seems very, very likely that the new guys running the Knicks are going to do something very stupid with that $48M of cap space. So sure, the jury’s out, maybe they’ll surprise us and do something smart. The safe bet though is that the $48M is going to be used on another bag of magic beans.
I’m not including Portis or Ellington. I’m simply comparing having Randle and 3 late first round picks to having KP with Timmy and Lee coming off the books this summer.
Also, lets not act like people didn’t think Randle was a decent signing this summer. Most people did.
Tatum made 48 out of 96 3 point shots in February. That’s not sustainable.
sure tatum’s recent play isn’t sustainable. he’s not better than kd. but tatum has been great if you consider his entire year. he is a very good defender, a high usage scorer on pretty good efficiency, a decent passer, a good rebounder and he has one of the lower turnover rates for his usage you will see. he doesn’t turn 22 years old until next week and he is a career 40pct 3pt shooter on 56.6 ts. his numbers this year are as good or better than siakam’s. it really doesn’t mean anything that his recent hot play is unsustainable, just like his cold start was also irrelevant. it sucks for us but he is really fucking good.
Tatum is a slightly above average efficiency scorer on slightly above average usage who plays good/very good defense and is a bit of a chucker. He’s definitely more promising than Siakam because he’s much younger, but they’re about the same this year. Siakam is also an overrated player on a team that wins because of its depth. The Celtics and the Raptors have a lot of good players and are well coached, and because of the way the NBA media is set up they both need to have ‘a guy’.
I’m pro Tatum. I like Kemba, too. I’m not impressed with the rest of that team, though, and they’re pretty much locked into this current roster for the next few years.
“So…you wouldn’t max Ben Simmons if he was on the Knicks? You wouldn’t have maxed Joel Embiid?”
Of course I would, because they are productive players, and their worst seasons so far in the league are still better than Porzingis’ best season in 4 years. It’s really not that hard to understand. Give max money to players who produce like max level players. Simmons and Embiid have their flaws, but they’re far, far closer to max level production than KP is, and the comparison is even worse when their stats are much better AND they’re both elite defenders, so the esoteric “stats don’t actually capture production” argument is even more stupid here.
>Also, lets not act like people didn’t think Randle was a decent signing this summer. Most people did.<
I said from day one he's a good player that's a terrible fit on this team. I haven't changed my opinion. I have no doubt he'd he much more efficient on another team.
The cap space we added via the KP deal was mostly worthless.
We had some cap space coming into this year that we were theoretically going to use first before we re-signed KP to begin with. Both Lee and Noah would be coming off the books and the end of this year anyway opening up a ton of more space. Instead, we still have Noah on the books for two more years!!!! DOH!!!!
The one thing we gained in terms of space was moving Hardaway’s contract, but that contract was not going to destroy our rebuild if we sat on it until it expired. He’s not worth the salary, but he would have been a contributing young player on an improving young team in the same way he is in Dallas now. Of course, they are competent so they have him playing better and want to extend him. He probably would have sucked for us and we’d have to sit on it until he expired.
We basically got DSJr and Dallas’s 2 picks out of the deal.
There isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell I’d take that deal over KP.
The chances we get a player of KP’s quality out of that are extremely low. And YES KP IS WORTH THE MAX. The fact that some players that get the max are a lot better than him is an indication that some players are worth a LOT MORE than the max, That’s well known. But you don’t toss away legitimate #1 and #2 options because they aren’t one of the super elite max players worth twice the price. You keep those #1 and #2 options and keep building because you aren’t going anywhere without them.
I’d be willing to bet that if KP went on the market right now at his current max salary more than half the league would be on the phone trying to get him even though he such a poor start related to the layoff. The teams that weren’t trying would be those that either don’t have the need for a big man or that are very cautious related to injuries. But without injury risk, virtually everyone would have maxed him given his unique skillset on both sides. No one is looking at his stat…
>Recency bias is strong with us. It’s a trend when we’re convinced see a pattern. I see a regression to the mean coming. A few of his patented 6-19 games and we’ll be back to Kristapsblogger 2k16.<
I see a guy I predicted would start the season off poorly because he was off for so long and said it would take time for him to get his confidence back in his knees and physically ready to handle game speed and conditions. I believe my exact prediction was that he'd start showing signs of improvement in January. Then the other knee got a little sore, his missed around 10 games, it set him back, he came back with something like a 2-15 disaster game, and has slowly worked himself back to form 1 month later than I predicted.
It was obvious his poor play early this season was not random. He was shooting worse from every area of the court including the FT line. The same thing is going on with Oladipo now and I've seen it plenty of other times over the decades of being a fan. It takes time for some players to recover mentally and physically from a serious injury.
Obviously, his February level of play is not sustainable. However, they are using him better. So his efficiency should rise somewhat from his NY days with his current superior shot distribution, not being the #1 option getting double teamed anymore, and being on the receiving end of better spacing and PG play. He just has to stay healthy. I see no reason he can't sustain a 56% TS or a tad better from February forward. From there you keep working on skills and strength and try to get even better. He was very raw to start and missed a lot of development time. We haven't seen his best if he stays healthy.
Knicks fans shitting on Tatum and Siakam = those nerds at clubs who call all the girls ugly
The judges have spoken. And the winner is………..Iron Chef pt
Tatum has played the most minutes on a top-4 team as a 21 year old. He leads his team in VORP, is second to Kemba in BPM, and is the highest usage player on the team (even higher than Kemba!)
He’s essentially prime offensive Carmelo Anthony who plays very good defense. At age 21. I know we hate us some Celtics, but this kid is really, really good.
More relevant to our situation, Tatum is the guy the Celtics wanted from that draft in the first place, but even though they had the #1 pick, they traded the pick to Philly, got Tatum anyway with the #3 pick and also obtained another pick in the following year’s draft. This is what we need to do, assuming we still agree that there’s no clear #1 option in the draft and, of course, we win the #1 pick in the wrong draft year.
a good deed by James Dolan
And actually, it’s a really nice act on his part