NY Post: Scott Perry safe as Knicks GM after newest front-office hire

You simply cannot have Perry run your draft and then fire him. That’s just incompetent.

It’s becoming a NY tradition, though. You mentioned Phil but we let Ed Tapscott draft Frederic Weis, too, before firing him. And if I’m not mistaken, the Jets did this recently, as well.

Z-man:
PS I don’t actually think you are either a moron or an idiot. Just an abrasive, condescending, self-righteous, unapologetic, and often tedious blowhard. Not that I’m perfect in any of those regards, but man, your soapbox is fucking gold-plated.

This is a reasonable critique. I’m not absent self awareness.

I tend to come from such a different angle that I find I often have to explain myself in much greater detail than most here. Many of you are beginning from a commonality, so you can get your point across with less words bc you already agree on 60% of the argument.

I appreciate the guys like Jowles, JK47, TNFH, and even you sometimes who disagree with nearly everything I say but at least recognize that it’s still an honest viewpoint.

It’s interesting reading about the Giants here. It seems that Gettleman is getting good players but maybe is paying too much. The Knicks, on the other hand, aren’t getting players, but generally aren’t paying too much. If Gettleman were running the Knicks maybe he would have just paid KP and kept him. That might have been better than where we are now.

The Jets seem to be actually doing a normal rebuild. Wouldn’t that be nice for the Knicks.

Actually, strat, you’re the one who is being willfully ignorant due to an overdose of motivated reasoning. There is lots of evidence that, yes, he really did mean using disinfectant.

This has been peddled for years as a miracle cure for autism and other diseases in the same community of conspiracy theorists, anti-vaxxers, and fraudsters where Trump makes his home: https://www.foxnews.com/health/bleach-products-not-cure-autism-fda-warns

And guess what – someone was peddling it to Trump just last week! https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/24/revealed-leader-group-peddling-bleach-cure-lobbied-trump-coronavirus

Note, in that article, that this cure has been peddled by right-wing nutjob Alan Keyes, who was one of a number of Presidential candidates who presaged Trump within the GOP. (Along with Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin, etc.)

And Trump’s own defense of his remarks was that he was being sarcastic: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/04/24/disinfectant-injection-coronavirus-trump/. Not that he was talking about something other than disinfectant – he admits that he was talking about disinfectant but now claims it was just a joke.

Your defense of Trump is that “he’s not a complete fucking idiot.” But all evidence is that Trump actually is a massive idiot. He just happened to be a great conman at a time when our white collar laws weren’t being enforced against the rich (so he dodged jail) and there were a massive number of voters primed for his BS by right-wing media. But he is, most certainly, a massive idiot. There is loads and loads and loads of evidence for that. If you can’t see it, then it is you who have TDS, not the rest of us.

I was laughing yesterday about how Trump had people defending him by trying to parse his language to come up with a way where he wasn’t dumb and then he cut the legs off from under them the next day by saying, “No, it was dumb, but intentionally so.” But I didn’t expect defenses of his language after he outright conceded that it was as dumb as everyone said (just “purposefully” so).

I await the vigorous defense of Joe Biden when he inevitably makes a gaffe and gets some fact wrong and the whole right wing noise machine descends on him as being basically a senile vegetable. I’m sure Strat will be right here telling us how unfayeer it all is.

Hubert: This is a reasonable critique. I’m not absent self awareness.

I tend to come from such a different angle that I find I often have to explain myself in much greater detail than most here. Many of you are beginning from a commonality, so you can get your point across with less words bc you already agree on 60% of the argument.

I appreciate the guys like Jowles, JK47, TNFH, and even you sometimes who disagree with nearly everything I say but at least recognize that it’s still an honest viewpoint.

Fair enough, though it seems that your viewpoints are often selected out of a desire to appear uniquely clever, when the nuance you hammer away at is not really worth a billion posts and counterposts. As much as I can surmise (and I only half paid attention), you seem to be saying that there is more that can be done to open up the economy relatively safely, and that being overly rigid can have consequences such as long-term or even irreparable damage to the economy, which will put lives at risk in a different way. Most of us get that, and the disagreement lies in the when and how. We get that you are not calling for radically getting rid of all forms of social distancing or that you don’t think that expanding testing is essential to safely and wisely re-opening the economy.

I think your assessment that NahNahNah didn’t seem interested in giving you some benefit of the doubt is valid. That’s something we all could probably do better, and him especially.

So are we mentally prepared for the Cole “Blood in the Ground” Anthony era of Knicks basketball? He of the blessed .380 FG% is ready to lead us to the glory of picking 8th next year.

Cole may be a super risky pick in the upper half of the lottery but my gut feeling is that he will eventually be a pretty good player.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPDPzbLFeP4

also “warrior” last year on cinemax was a good for season and just got renewed..

howdy pepper…hope you and the missus are all well…you all got this thing right, up there by the bay…

i used to live off montague, close to the 880…it’s packed with people, but, not that far from the coast…my goodness, the weather though there around san jose…no need to guess at it, chances are very good it’s 80 and beautiful…

it’s funny, head 30 or 40 minutes south to gilroy and you’re guaranteed to bake…

been a while since i’ve visited the boardwalk over in santa cruz…first time i went there was in the early 90’s…it was a cool place…i miss the ocean…

a couple of weeks back you mentioned trading cards…i collected thousands, hoops, hockey, baseball, football, partridge family, all kinds of stuff (70-80;s)…after I read your post I went looking for my prize collection which I have in a speacial photo album…like my top 500 which are mostly rookie cards, rarities, etc., and I couldn’t find it…i panicked and accused my son’s “vape smoking hoodlum” friends of stealing it and later that day I found the album stuffed in a box in the garage…my son looked at me like “you stoopid old ass” hold your tongue next time…anyway…I keep it next to my nightstand now…

I heard Kim Jung Un injected himself with Bleach — so…. 4th-dimensional checkmate?

https://twitter.com/hashtag/KIMJONGUNDEAD?src=hashtag_click

“He needed a QB, but the QB’s weren’t special.”

He thought Jones was special and that is why he drafted him at 6. He didn’t think drafting the pass rusher at 6 and praying Jones was still available at 17 when Washington drafted before us and teams like Denver were sitting at 20 desperately needing a QB (they took lock in the second round) who had the draft capital to move up 4 or 5 slots.

His calculus that Jones and someone like Dexter Lawrence was better than Josh Allen and a significant chance of no QB. Gettleman also has been not as wildly overspending as you say.

He let overrated safety Collins walk and sign a huge contract with the Skins and watched him “anchor” a terrible defense. A safety that can’t cover in space isn’t worth large dollars.

He signed Beckham long term as per Mara’s instructions and then neatly flipped him for Jabril Peppers, Dexter Lawrence and Oshane Ximinez. Ximinez had a terrific rookie season coming from very small college football school ODU and had 4.5 sacks in part time play getting his feet wet. He reminds me of Osi coming out of Troy State who had ONE sack as a rookie and blossomed in year 2.

Those were 2 pretty slick cost saving moves .

i panicked and accused my son’s “vape smoking hoodlum” friends of stealing it

oh, that had me rolling…yeah i’m pretty sure the kids will be the death of me yet 🙂

oh man, you’re close by the water ain’t you, can you walk to it (3 miles or so?)

I keep it next to my nightstand now…

hide it under some dirty clothes or dishes in the sink – chances are the kids will never find them…

Agreed, and by comparison to many Knick GMs at least mediocre is much better than it could be.

I know that this is a board meme, but I genuinely believe DRed would make this a playoff roster within three years. I cannot say the same for any hire Dolan would actually make.

The more I think about routes to getting good, the more I think a lot of It’s about getting lucky, not great GMing. Look at Memphis or New Orleans, for example. Just having management that doesn’t sabotage is a step and enables luck to actually be helpful.

Z-man: If Dan Jones becomes a franchise quarterback, it was a brilliant move to draft him. Case closed.

I am not sure that the case is closed.

If the argument is that you can reliably identify all-world hall-of-fame talents like Giannis or Brady, then sure, you should pick them. However, as with Dan Jones, the statistical profile of these three players before entering the draft does not suggest that they would be such talents. And if you can’t identify the statistical outlier, then the process isn’t repeatable. Now, if you are saying that Gettleman is using the “eye-test” effectively, then the conversation pretty much ends there. If you are a regular reader of this blog and believe in the effectiveness of the eye-test, I’m not about to change your mind. But let’s further assume that for many hall-of-fame talents, the pre-draft statistical profile isn’t an appropriate forward-looking metric. This still favors a strategy of asset collection (and thus not selecting D Jones in Round 1), because an inherently random draft process favors maximum darts thrown at the board.

Let’s say you do in fact identify an all-world talent like say, Patrick Ewing, Jacob DeGrom, or Darrell Revis. These are examples that even identifying all-world talents isn’t the end of the conversation. You still need to surround them with other effective players. So if you are wasting a draft position on the Daniel Jones’s of the world, you are handicapping your ability to fill out the rest of the roster. Because hitting lightning once doesn’t equal a championship.

Perhaps the conversation is whether it’s better to be lucky or good. If we are using the benefit of hindsight, then sure, I would always prefer to be lucky. Since any given draft only has a few hall-of-fame talents (and they are almost never are drafted 1-2-3), knowing beforehand who is of such caliber is…

NahNahNah, you think I’m a troll and I think your vapid commentary is at the very bottom of the KB posting chain, so there’s no point in seriously engaging with you. I think you’d do the board a favor if you, indeed, just went the other way.

Perhaps the conversation is whether it’s better to be lucky or good.

i’ll cut right to the chase – i was watching this study/social experiment some guy was doing in some small town in the UK about “luck”…

it was on one of them pseudo science channels, like the science channel…basically at the end of the show some weird lucky lottery type shit happens – but, the interesting part is that a person’s “luck” seems to have a bunch to do with them being open and aware to opportunity…

which is to say – it could be raining hundreds from the sky, good chance our hero dave would tighten his hat and glasses a bit, and keep right on going…

“i’ll cut right to the chase – i was watching this study/social experiment some guy was doing in some small town in the UK about “luck”…”

Fortune favors the prepared mind. Our friend Masai gets “luckier” when he has beaten the bushes more thoroughly than …. say…. Phil.

And it also helps to have Dolan negociating across the table from you when you know he is desperate for something.

Z-man: not that old…

but since you brought it up, my point is that I think some get too bothered and judgmental when a GM doesn’t want to get too cute about drafting a particular prospect a few spots higher or lower….could Gettelman really be sure that Jones would be available in the 2nd round, or even 5 picks later?Even if the odds are 95%, if you think he’s your franchise QB, why take that risk? And if he turns out to be the guy, why would fans fault him for not taking the risk?

There are lots of very good reasons for Giants fans to dislike Gettelman, but drafting Jones at #6 shouldn’t be one of them, at least not at this point. And I’m not even a Giant’s fan.

Fair enough. If I follow this logic path, then would it have made sense for Gettleman to trade the farm for the #1 overall pick, and then select Jones? If you know Jones is THE MAN, then this is a sound plan. Because waiting around at #6 gives five other teams the chance to draft the next Tom Brady. This isn’t meant as a troll’s argument. This is a simple logic chain. You must assign some value to Jones to determine where he should appropriately go in the draft. And that value must align with the perception of the rest of the league. There is no risk-free returns in the draft. You must measure Jones’s value against some pre-determined mean/average.

I d prefer to be lucky during an earthquake and good as a GM in the NBA.
But that’s just me.

“This isn’t meant as a troll’s argument.”

Could have fooled me…. and its not a simple chain of logic. Part of the GM’s job is eveauating draft risk. The 4 teams just in front of the Giants (AZ was a lock to take kyler Murray) the JETS and SF had just made big deals for their QB and Oakland and TB had QB’s locked up long term and were minimal risk to take a QB or trade down since very coveted players were available at their spots.

However he wasn’t confidient Jones would be available at 17 for obvious reasons. Hence… perfectly played by Gettleman.

He thought Jones was special and that is why he drafted him at 6. He didn’t think drafting the pass rusher at 6 and praying Jones was still available at 17 when Washington drafted before us and teams like Denver were sitting at 20 desperately needing a QB (they took lock in the second round) who had the draft capital to move up 4 or 5 slots.

There’s a difference between “I think someone is special” and “someone is undeniably special.”

When you’re granted the opportunity to take one of those special guys, you have to do it, imo. If you’re in the top 5, take BPA every time, fill need later.

A great example of this is the Sacramento Kings. They thought Bagley was special. Luka was undeniable.

If we had gone BPA every year we’d have Saquon, Josh Allen, and Tua. Assuming Tua’s hip recovers (a fair risk), that’s a lot better than saquon, Jones, and a nice tackle.

“I like Jones but he isn’t Peyton Manning.”

So now to be an excellent pick Jones at #6 has to be a Peyton Manning clone…. my my how goalposts shift to suit an argument

I’m not shifting the goal posts. Your argument assumes that we needed to get Daniel Jones. So we couldn’t have risked not taking him at 6 because he might not have been available at 17.

The counterpoint is we would have been fine if we didn’t get him at all. Even though he’s good, there’s prospects like him all the time. There were 4 the year before and 4 this year.

” There were 4 the year before and 4 this year.”

I’ll be happy to call bullshit on that. The #1 picks weren’t available so scratch Burrow and Murray.

There isn’t a single other QB in the last 3 drafts I would trade Jones for. Good luck keeping Tua heathy with his surgery on both ankles and hip BEFORE he sets foot on an NFL field.

“If he stops making monumental blunders like the Leonard Williams trade (I notice you haven’t touched that one, which is wise), we could be in very good shape this time next year.”

I don’t know why you think test driving a good starting NFL DL is a monumental blunder for a 3rd and a next year’s 5th. You don’t like his salary?

DJ Reader just signed a 4 yr 53M deal with CIN. That’s market value. Which player do you like better as they are the same age:

https://www.pro-football-reference.com/players/R/ReadD.00.htm

https://www.pro-football-reference.com/players/W/WillLe02.htm

“It’s a half joke”

Please, no such jokes.

Thomas made the playoffs his first year here.

And a hamberger on me!

I do like the idea of using “it was sarcasm” to deflect from any stupid thing I do.

“Why is this dollhouse stuck on my head? Perhaps you’ve never heard of a little thing called SARCASM?”

By the way, if we’re supposed to buy their nonsense about how his tweets are part of the presidential record, then why is he allowed to delete the ones that embarrass him?

It’s sad how fans are now looking back at the Woodson/Melo years as some sort of golden age. I guess everything is relative, and sure they had some good older role players on that team, but Jesus Christ…

“Wait, you thought I was serious about David Lee being a perennial NBA All Star? That’s just the crazy fake news. Everyone knows that I talked for years about how he was the worst defense, possibly ever.”

If the Knicks end up at 6, I think they might go for Hayes. Idk how you can justify trading up in this draft, but that doesn’t mean they won’t do it, probably for LaMelo.

If they slip to 7 or 8, I’m guessing it will be Haliburton. #9 could be interesting though. If all the good guards are gone, I’d go for Vassell because of his defense and 3pt shooting. They might even want to trade down for him if they don’t believe in the top pgs and look for one later in the draft.

Then maybe they can grab Jalen Smith with the late first and Malachi Flynn in round 2.

Turns out the Lakers are a small business in need of federal payroll assistance.

I wonder how this makes the Pelicans feel?

I didn’t really get into basketball into I was in my teens. So the Woodson Knicks is the best iteration I’ve followed. Turns out getting into the Knicks around 2002 was a terrible choice.

If Kidd’s legs had held out a little longer I think we’d have made a really good run in the playoffs. Also a lot of those Roy Hibbert “going straight up” calls were BS.

Team would not have last much longer but we had a legitimate, if still improbable, shot at competing. All we had to do was run it back, maybe add a bit of depth, instead we trade for Bargnani and move away from our dominant 2PG lineup.

Hey, glad to see you guys are doing alright. I had to take a break for a bit because hearing some of the horror stories was triggering anxiety. Also, I knew some people who got sick – four recovered, but one died. Thankfully, all my family back in NY and in FL are OK.

This weekend here in LA was a lil tough for me and the fam because of the heat. It felt like we should be going outside to the beach or find a pool to dip into. The news has covered how different counties are handling social distancing when it comes to their beaches. LA County is shut down; Ventura County is enforcing tight distancing requirements on beachgoers, and the OC more or less left it up to individuals to trust in their own distancing.

He was suggesting there are things that kill the virus quickly (like disinfectants and UVA/B, humidity etc..) and perhaps there is a way to inject SOMETHING into the lungs that would work in the same way, but not specifically Lyson or Clorox.

I’ll bite on this one, Strat: Part of being a public official is not just crafting what you say but understanding how it may be interpreted. Forgetting everything else about what Trump said for a sec – he should have been aware that it’s at least plausible (and I’m being kind) that some people would interpret his words as saying “we should try to find a way to safely ingest substances like this”, substances that are not intended for consumption at all.
I’ve read a lot of your posts, Strat. You’re a smart dude. I don’t think you’ve would’ve made the same comments in the same manner Trump did if you were in his shoes. Because even if you didn’t interpret Trump’s comments to suggest drinking Lysol or Clorox, you would know that – in times like these – there are more than a few desperate people who would feasibly forgo common sense (and their own safety) to try anything to beat this virus.

At best, Trump’s comments were irresponsible for those…

Turns out getting into the Knicks around 2002 was a terrible choice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-TE_Ys4iwM

I don’t know why you think test driving a good starting NFL DL is a monumental blunder for a 3rd and a next year’s 5th. You don’t like his salary?

I’ve stayed out of this because while I am a Giants fan who watches games and nominally follows transactions etc., I can’t claim to know a lot about the machinations of football front offices.

Having said that, even I knew the Williams trade was awful the second the ink was dry. A horrible team has no business “test driving” a disappointing DL at the cost of two picks. This is Asset Management 101 and anyone defending it has made clear they’re just reflexively defending Gettleman (what a weird thing to do, but perhaps not more so than reflexively defending Phil Jackson, so can’t say it’s something I’ve never encountered).

He was either going to be expiring or franchise tagged–Gettleman wound up going with the latter and Williams is now filing a grievance because they mislabeled his position to save money. So that dude will likely not be coming back after this year, a year in which we win a maximum of, what, 7 games?

The only other possibility is he uses the leverage he gained when Gettleman foolishly donated two picks to the Jets for him to ink an above-market extension after tallying half a sack in 2019. Woo hoo!

Also, I’ve noticed you think that Daniel Jones has somehow already vindicated his draft selection. That’s…simply false. The jury is still very much out. His rookie season was fine by rookie QB standards and that’s about all you can say. If he doesn’t get a lot better, he’ll have been an awful use of the 6th overall pick just as it seemed at the time.

Early Bird, I agree. The only guys who seemed good at three pointer ms and had significant minutes were Portis and Morris. If we could get Portis to come back on a cheaper contract, I could see doing that. He was bad on defense, but it’s useful having a big off the bench who can shoot threes

thenoblefacehumper: Also, I’ve noticed you think that Daniel Jones has somehow already vindicated his draft selection. That’s…simply false. The jury is still very much out. His rookie season was fine by rookie QB standards and that’s about all you can say. If he doesn’t get a lot better, he’ll have been an awful use of the 6th overall pick just as it seemed at the time.

For my part, I’m not vindicating the pick, just saying that the pick should be judged by how Jones plays going forward and not nitpicked if he plays reasonably well.

I, and probably most, Jets fans were pretty happy to get a 3rd (and an early one, at that) and a 5th for Leo Williams. He’s been okay but never came close to living up to his billing as The Best Player in the Draft(tm).

Most Jets fans were hoping for a 4th or a 5th.

so much for not bingeing out on the wire this weekend…blew through season 2…

man, that marshmallow test shit just fucks me up every time…it’s like i’m not even battling against any kind of normal sweet smores ready jet-puffed marshmallow, or, even them cute little freeze dried marshmallows you find in your cocoa (not that anyone here would ever stoop to using packaged cocoa :)…

no man, i’m in a daily full on battle with that evil grinning stay puft monster from ghostbusters…kicks my ass all the time…

one positive – no more listening to tom waits creaky and creepy voice singing way down in the hole…sorry tom, i know there are lots of folks out there who just love ya…and yeah, them neville bros boy, sure do sound good…

thenoblefacehumper: Every Jets fan I know was ecstatic to get value like that for Williams.

This Jets fan was indeed pleased. And I liked Leonard.

I think Vassell is an interesting prospect, but we shouldn’t be thinking about him with our own pick barring a trade down. The shooting samples are too small to draw much of a conclusion and if he’s not a 40%+ guy he’s suddenly a shaky proposition. I’d love him if he slipped, but couldn’t justify it with out own pick with at least one of Hayes/Haliburton/Okongwu still on the board.

Hard no on Okoro. I have no idea what anyone sees in this guy. He’s a god awful shooter, rebounder, and there are no defensive stats that back up the reputation.

Jalen Smith is one of my favorite semi-realistic options with the Clippers’ pick. Hard to imagine he’ll make it past the combine still being mocked around there though–his standout skills are just too highly sought. I’d give him a look anywhere after 7-8 in this draft.

At the draft position we are likely to have, getting one of a defensive stud or a competent catch and shoot player would be reasonable. Getting a player who can do both would be a home run n

We really really need some guys who can throw the ball into the basket. Every year we draft some dude with like a .430 eFG%. Defense is nice and all but it’s hard to win when the only guy who can throw the ball into the basket can only do it when he’s one foot from the basket.

Give me Halliburton if we get our usual shitty low lottery pick.

Brief pivot to Bakingville, if I may… I got this baking steel on Xmas (thanks to Jowles & Dred), and was thinking of doing unusual things with it since it’s so damn hot. You guys ever do non baking stuff on this? The other day I took the outer layers off some brussel sprouts, mixed em up with some olive oil and salt, and burned the shit out of them on the steel. Ended up with some delicious chips. Not sure if that was dumb. I guess I could have just done it in a steel pan, too.

Also, PSA: the complete current season of better call Saul is for sale on prime for twenty bucks.

I didn’t think highly of RJ coming out of college so him continuing to suck is par for the course. I’m not sure why that would change now.

I’m still giving him a 2nd year, rookies tend to be terrible, but I don’t see him doing much ever. I think the strongest arguments in RJs favor are (1) like Frank he’s so young he may eventually develop into something, and (2) our players don’t fit his drive-heavy, ball-dominant playstyle.

the complete current season of better call Saul is for sale on prime for twenty bucks.

finished up this season of BCS a week or two ago…vince gilligan just doesn’t disappoint…

similar to other really good shows like breaking bad or boardwalk empire – the supporting characters/cast are almost always engaging…

I guess D-Wade is the ideal for RJ, in which case Haliburton is probably the best fit in the backcourt with him. That shot is slow and weird, though, and he seems pretty frail, so I’m not totally sold on him yet. Either he or Vassell seem like good fits around RJ. I like Smith too. But I’m sure the Knicks, as usual, won’t consider advanced stats during the drafting process… so let it be Cole Anthony, He of Blood from thy Ground.

as the wise mister phantom tollhouse cookie milo recently said – be true to yourself…or something like that…or shit, maybe what he said had nothing to do with any of that at all…it’s hard to tell sometimes with milo…plus, who can keep track of all these words…

i myself kind of like my steak well-done and sort of dried out, kind of like beef jerky…i know, that’s like its own kind of sin…on the rare occasion when i do go out to a decent steakhouse, i’ll order it medium, just for appearances and so people don’t think i’m some sort of madman…

geez hubie, you’re a male model who knows money, keeps a clean house, and can cook…seeing how jowles is already taken, what’s up with you man…you don’t need like a roommate or anything do ya???

I’m a male model too…a Model T

Z-man: I don’t see Wade, he was a better quick-twitch athlete with an uncanny shot-making ability. Maybe a smarter Demar DeRozan?

Most say that DeRozan is also a “too athletic” comp… maybe a better-passing Rudy Gay? Basically a ball-handling wing that can distribute, drive, and draw fouls but doesn’t shoot real great.

Tips for the perfect roasted potatoes:

1) Use yukon golds or another high-starch potato cut into quarters or sixths. Red potatoes are waxy and they don’t crisp well. They’re potatoes — stop trying to make them healthier than they should be.

2) Put a small amount of baking soda in your boiled water (along with the shitton of salt you should have in there, too). It will break down the starches to make a more textured roasted potato. Maybe a 1/2 tsp.

3) After parboiling — soft enough to push fork in without the whole thing crumbling — toss them in oil or butter or animal fat with salt, pepper and the aromatics of your choosing (we usually make a mixture of EVOO and butter infused with garlic, thyme and a little rosemary, strained out after the infusion) until the outside looks like mashed potatoes. Really toss the shit out of them.

4) Bake at 400 or so, flipping once in the middle of the cook time. The parts that are touching the tray will crisp pretty good, so watch carefully so as not to burn them.

I hope at least one person tries this so they can report back and validate this method. People become positively tumescent when they have my potatoes. I didn’t invent it but it is the method for home cooks. It’s a french fry on the outside and mashed potato on the inside.

Andre Iguodala

And apologies for the layout. Someday I’ll figure it out…

Right-o. Nice catch. I know it’s been said here before, but that just seems a good comp. Strong, somewhat ground-based game, moves purposefully, good game sense, but mediocre shooter. RJ’s assists are low, but I think that’s an artifact of being a rookie in a hyper-fast league, and playing with shite teammates. He already has higher pointz per. I’d say he has a real chance of being a good deal more, but at worst there’s an NBA player in there.

that potato method is similar to what i usually do without the parboil…will give it a try…

I like the rest of RJ’s game other than his scoring. If he gets the scoring to a reasonably efficient level he’ll be a nice player. The rest of his game is pretty well-rounded and I like his intangibles— seems like he works hard and is ambitious.

Is anyone else stuck at home with kids under 7? I love them, but man does this suck. After they go to sleep I stare at a wall for 40 minutes, no exaggeration. I’m done. I’m tired. I don’t want to go to sleep bc at 7 it all starts over again. And it’s week 6. (Yes I know we are lucky for many reasons at this time… but knowing that has stopped helping. I’m numb)

that’s a whole bunch of continuous cooking and cleaning there wetbandit…hopefully you have a partner that’ll help carry a bit of that weight…cuz, it’s a heavy heavy load to carry…not sure if you’re trying to work from home now too, but, yeah let’s pile that virus shit right on top of everything else…

when things get tough, i’ll usually go hide in the bathroom for a while…and post 🙂

this bit of dialogue comes from this movie called clockers…there’s this one character played by isiah washington that’s in the box being interrogated by a couple of detectives for a murder…he’s a “good” guy trying to do right, busting his ass working two jobs and trying to get himself and his family out of the projects…

Det. Rocco Klein: You’re so close,
you never walked
by on a hot day
with your two kids?

Stopped in for a soda?

Victor Dunham: With my two kids?
I barely see my two kids.
I’m always working.
When I get home, I’m exhausted.

Do you have any kids?

Det. Rocco Klein: Yeah. I have
a two-year-old daughter.

Victor Dunham: Have you ever
come home so tired
you hated the sound of
your own kids cryin’?

Your own flesh and blood.

from the day i heard him speak those lines they stayed with me, long before the godkids ever came in to my life…that feeling of being “tired”…something that sometimes all the love in the world won’t make go away…

just noticed richard price who’s name i’ve seen on the wire credits, also wrote the screenplay for clockers …

I like the rest of RJ’s game other than his scoring. If he gets the scoring to a reasonably efficient level he’ll be a nice player. The rest of his game is pretty well-rounded and I like his intangibles— seems like he works hard and is ambitious.

Yeah, me, too. I was pleasantly surprised by a lot of his game this year, but the scoring was just so bad. If he could become a competent scorer, he’s basically an All-Star.

But will it happen?

Last season in QBR Jones finished one tenth of a point behind the GOAT Tom Brady and 3.2 points ahead of 3 time NFL MVP Aaron Rodgers. He did this playing behind a piss poor OL , with Barkley missing 4 games and playing on one good leg for another 4 or five with no other running back of note on the roster. AND his receiving corps…. Golden tate missed the first 4 games, then Evan Engram went out with a lisfranc foot injury and sterling Shepard had his brains scrambled 3 times and played about 15 minutes. Throwing to a bunch of crips and feebs (other than Slayton) Jones played great.

With all that going on he finished with a QBR a parsec ahead of the great Sam D’arnold. Yeah…. he proved nothing to anyone last year…. only those who won’t look at objective facts.

I am not sure “by one metric, Jones was almost the 17th best QB in the league last year” is a rock-solid argument for picking him 6th overall. He was 18th in QBR, 20th in passer rating, and 26th in adjusted yards per pass attempt. This all speaks to my point–if he doesn’t improve, and rather substantially at that, the pick will look just as bad in hindsight as it did at the time.

As to Leonard Williams I posted a comp FA that signed at a figure in the Williams ballpark. The have til July 15th to sign him long term. Hey…. he isn’t reggie White as some thought but you won’t likely find a durable run stopping pocket pressuring DT in the 3rd round.

I cannot believe I’m even interacting with someone defending this utterly clownish move. Yeah, they have until July 15th to sign him to a deal they could’ve just waited until he was a free agent to offer him. The only difference now is they feel more obligated to give him a deal he likely won’t justify, because they surrendered a ton of value for him. Guess it was too important to “test drive” him in a season in which they won 4 games.

Wetbandit, my kids are 9 and 11, and I have to say, things have just turned a corner recently, and the grueling caregiving has lightened up. They are both girls, which probably helps.
Divorce is brutal in many ways, but one thing that it’s been good for is the new “on/off” schedule of taking care of the kids. I’ve gotten some of my life back from it. I remember the early years were so tough, particularly negotiating jobs and duties with your partner and feeling like the work never ends.
Just know that there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

For those of you with little ones at home, these sites may help. All have been vetted and used by teaching peers ( and former elementary school students of mine) and are free. Many are useful for 3K through middle school
Picture book read alouds by a variety of actors and actresses
https://www.storylineonline.net/
Indoor Phys Ed. via dancing and games:
https://www.gonoodle.com/
Educational Videos and games
https://www.abcya.com/
Games and Videos
https://www.funbrain.com/
Mathematics through video games
https://www.coolmath4kids.com/
Video games that teach coding concepts
https://code.org/learn

IMO keep your kids reading and you have little to worry about (excluding the social isolation). It’s the kids who are in cramped apartments with no meaningful supervision and a lack of quiet space that I’m worried about.

This is a great chance to instill the discipline to read in silence for progressively longer periods of time.

Easier said than done, I am aware : )

I am divorced with an 8 year old and 6 year old and have been quarantining WITH my ex wife for the last 5 weeks. It’s like a 24 hour per day deja vu. Haven’t been able to be on the blog much lately. Nice to see things have not changed much!

Re: RJ, he gets a surprisingly small amount of virtual ink here for a guy we just took 3rd overall and is going to be crucial to our future one way or another. I mean compare the amount of discussion about him to the amount about Frank Ntilikina, who will be playing in another country soon.

I don’t think he’ll ever be one of the top 2/3 scorers on a good team, but if he embraces the role I could see him becoming a valuable Iguodala-esque glue guy. He should aspire to something like a semi-efficient 15 points, 7 rebounds, 5 assists, and good wing defense.

If he has free-reign to chuck for the duration of his rookie contract, I could see his next contract being an issue. Gotta do what it takes to keep a Guy Who Can Give You 30 Any Given Night, after all. It’ll be up to the front office to make sure he’s not overpaid. That doesn’t exactly inspire confidence but we shall see.

Donnie- thanks for the sentiment. I actually really enjoy the morning routines and the reading together etc.. but by the end of the day…….

You tell me I will be glad for this experience when they’re teens… I tell you I will be glad for this experience when they’re dealing with their own rascals and dare to complain to me

Iguodala was an elite defender. RJ, not so much

The Honorable Cock Jowles:
Easier said than done, I am aware : )

Jowles, much respect for your intellectual capability, but you just did a hard core “mansplain” of parenting. I agree that reading to your children and quite time are important. But if you haven’t been a parent, you just don’t know. There are no off-days. You have to live it every single day and every waking hour. I live in a two-bedroom in NYC with a four-year-old and two-year-old. We read to them all the time. The level of energy it takes to even read a book to your child is unthinkable.

a hard core “mansplain” of parenting

C’mon, now. That’s hyperbole and you know it. Plus, didn’t you see in the initial post that I said that children who are in small spaces (and by extension, their parents as well) are the ones I worry about? And then later, me saying, “Easier said than done?”

My point was that the personal development that happens while reading is still attainable at home. Nothing about how having kids is easy, especially with young children who by nature have little emotional regulation or impulse control. I may be a fool, but not that foolish.

Holy shit cgreene that’s insane. I could never, and my girlfriend would dump me even if I could. Godspeed…

cgreene:
I am divorced with an 8 year old and 6 year old and have been quarantining WITH my ex wife for the last 5 weeks. It’s like a 24 hour per day deja vu. Haven’t been able to be on the blog much lately. Nice to see things have not changed much!

The Honorable Cock Jowles: C’mon, now. That’s hyperbole and you know it. Plus, didn’t you see in the initial post that I said that children who are in small spaces (and by extension, their parents as well) are the ones I worry about? And then later, me saying, “Easier said than done?”

My point was that the personal development that happens while reading is still attainable at home. Nothing about how having kids is easy, especially with young children who by nature have little emotional regulation or impulse control. I may be a fool, but not that foolish.

Of course I saw you write “easier said than done”, because I quoted that very line of yours in my post. And of course, I was being hyperbolic. Knickerblogger has to Knickerblog.

But it’s also true that (extreme example) you can’t say something racist and then say, “but I’m not racist”.

Mansplaining is mansplaining even if you acknowledge you are mansplaining. I do it all the time. I’m no better.

Rhetorics aside, the larger issue is the tremendous guilt that comes with being a parent these days. The expectations are sky high. So every time I use my TV as a pseudo baby sitter to get a break from the day, I feel like a shitty parent; and that gets reinforced all the time by non-parents.

The Honorable Cock Jowles: Cool, but I flatly reject the accusation.

Duly noted and accusation retracted.

You tell me I will be glad for this experience when they’re teens… I tell you I will be glad for this experience when they’re dealing with their own rascals and dare to complain to me

thank you for saying how i feel sometimes 🙂

it’s a lot emotion stuff going on…

The Honorable Cock Jowles: Cool, but I flatly reject the accusation.

are you getting a better handle on what I meant by vapid?

Ha, Early Bird, I think you’re talking about, like, parents buying afterschool coding classes versus those who don’t…

There are plenty of ways to screw young people up, but that’s more along the lines of teaching them to be racist, beating them up, or generally OKing all sorts of awful behavior, directly or implicitly.

But yeah, if you’re a decent person and deal with your kids’ mental/physical issues, they will most likely be ok people. As for personality, yes, they just come out the way are.

Oh Swift, I’m so sorry. Yeah, that first 3-6 months is a nightmare of exhaustion. And then, as mentioned above, you forget all about it. I’m convinced it’s genetically hardwired. Write your future self a note now, because in a year or two you’ll be going oh, she’s so cute, let’s do it again. Trust me, one’s enough. Plus it’s environmentally responsible — doesn’t matter how much you recycle, drive electric, avoid palm oil, etc., pop another one out and the extraction and impacts dwarf all your other efforts.

“It’s Stockholm syndrome. You’re abjectly miserable 100% of the time and the only way you can justify it is that you love your kid.”

i’m bookmarking this one…

can’t tell you all how much i really appreciate you all sharing your thoughts and lives…everyone’s words have meant a whole lot to me today…

time to get weird and personal – i think your star shines really bright mister jowles…i find your ability to recall, analyze data and communicate very unique…your will/force of personality and how you see the world and approach the world is interesting to me…

We’ll see how this recall works after another few months of WFH, when I’ve had a long streak of microdosing tincture throughout each day.

It is VERY hard. The nights are impossible. She has had some good nights but we’ve had a majority of nights where she just won’t sleep and cries constantly. My wife and I have both had breakdowns in tears a few times.

I have a question for parents who have had this happen to them. Obviously nursing mothers can’t sleep through feedings/pumpings, but isn’t it possible to split night duties to ensure that people actually get some sleep?

I have a friend who insists that it’s a moral responsibility for both he and his wife to take care of the newborn through the nights, with no exceptions. His wife gets up to nurse, and then it’s his responsibility to change the kid if needed. Otherwise it wouldn’t be… fair? Wouldn’t it also be mutually responsible to have one parent sleep through the night (on the couch, let’s say) so they can switch off in the morning and the other can sleep in? At least some of the time, to avoid the mutual enmity that might result from being chronically underslept?

I’m genuinely curious about the practicality of it. There must be something I’m missing.

so tell me thcj, if you don’t mind – was it your parents, or, just something you had from the beginning – in terms of self-discipline?

so tell me thcj, if you don’t mind – was it your parents, or, just something you had from the beginning – in terms of self-discipline?

My parents have the attention spans of newts. Big TV watchers, often in separate rooms where you could hear one TV in the room with the other blaring. Just a horrible place to get any thinking or quiet work done. Imagine a 7-year-old trying (and failing) to practice Hanon exercises on piano while his parents are blasting evening television in the next room — that’s me!

Thankfully my mom put books in front of me from an early age, owing to her dirt-poor upbringing and fear of intergenerational poverty. I had to develop skills in adulthood that I think are still woefully inadequate. If you compare me to a solid law or medical student, I probably have the attention span of a Candy Crush champion. I’m consistently in awe of the young children I see at chess tournaments who can sit still in total concentration for three hours. I’m the guy who sometimes needs to take a walk around the room mid-match out of mental fatigue.

Jowles, infants are LOUD. If your house is big enough and you have bedrooms in distant wings or basements, sure. But even if you try sleeping on the couch, you hear the kid crying, which if you’ve ever flown on a plane is a really hard noise to ignore.

Sure, that’s fair. White noise machines only go so far, and ear plugs are allegedly unsafe to wear for that length of time (ear infections abound).

And frankly, even if you get one decent night of sleep out of two (which rarely happens), one every-other totally broken night just leaves you fatigued if not broken in the long run.

I already experience this from a 6:30-4ish workday. Good luck getting me to sleep in past 7 anymore, even on vacation. I can’t fathom being woken up multiple times in that period.

FWIW, there’s research out there that says parents don’t have as much of an impact on their kid as popular culture suggests,

This is maybe true on the “good parent” end of the spectrum. On the “shitty parent” end of the spectrum the shittiness of the parenting has a huge impact. I have lots of eye test evidence of this.

that’s interesting…i know there are self-motivated, disciplined individuals from early on, but, my basic belief is that who you are in large part comes from your parents, both in terms of environment and genetics…

particularly early on in life…

i don’t know, i need to give what ess-dog, early bird and raven wrote above more thought…some deep and important stuff…

of all the folks whom i think have the biggest challenge in life – it’s orphans…i can’t imagine growing up without a steady consistent parent…although, there’s no doubt my sister and myself profited a great deal from not having our father as a greater participant in our lives…

without even one solid parent…whew…

i have a great deal of respect for you bob – not actually from neptune city…opening your heart and home to a child whom needed a home, and doing it twice, is very commendable…

“I am a new parent (barely 3 week old daughter).

It is VERY hard. The nights are impossible. She has had some good nights but we’ve had a majority of nights where she just won’t sleep and cries constantly. My wife and I have both had breakdowns in tears a few times.”

I don’t know if this applies to your daughter but No 3 son hade just what you describe…. would not sleep and this went on for 6 bloody months. # trips to the pediatrician and an abdominal ultrasound to rule out bizzare shit and nothing worked. Then a friend of my wife said….”Why don’t you try him on a soy based formula?”

18 hours later…. quiet as a church mouse. I literally wanted to kill the fucking pediatritian.

Pro tip #2: when all else fails if you have a dryer, hoist junior over your shoulder and hop on top of the dryer (if it is stand alone) and turn it on. I don’t know if its the vibration or the low pitched rumbling sound but it used to work like catnip!

Re: crying babies–

Not sure if this is legit or a PR-ploy stitch-up, but there’s this video from awhile back that people seemed to rave about before the comment section got shut down (as you could imagine).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2C8MkY7Co8&t=7s

Jowles, I can only speak from my limited experience but while splitting up the time sounds great in theory, in practice its much more difficult. They are really loud when they cry, especially when they reach the point of just freaking out. I’m noticing there is “I’m hungry” or “my diaper needs changing” cries, which are not too bad. But then there’s “I’m upset and past the point of being able to process it” crying which is literally glass shattering loud. I could be in the other room or upstairs with her and if she’s freaking out my wife can still hear her from the bedroom.

But we have done some switching off. She’s taken her into the living room for a few hours at night so I can sleep and then I’ve taken her for a few hours during the day while I work (the days are easy), so she can sleep. But you never get more than 3 hours at this point (if you’re lucky) because they have to eat every 2 to 3 hours. And she has to pump all those times too. Its crazy!

I’ll try the dryer trick!

We are doing breast milk but she is pumping. But I have heard that what she eats can affect it.

We’ve had some good nights. I just think we’re still in early days. They can’t tell night from day yet, so its hard. She will go out quickly if she is on me or my wife’s chest but we can’t really sleep that way. Its when we put her down in the bassinet she just won’t take it. She’ll settle down and you think she’s asleep and then 10 minutes later. Boom!

When it comes to sleep, every child is sui generis. You all need to function in sleep deprivation mode like the rest of us did.

Jowles, there’s something scientific that happens to women and men when they’re sleep deprived and postpartum with raging hormones. The mom says fk it you stay up with me asshole, and the dad says I have work in the morning, let’s make a schedule and is never heard from again

JK47: This is maybe true on the “good parent” end of the spectrum. On the “shitty parent” end of the spectrum the shittiness of the parenting has a huge impact. I have lots of eye test evidence of this.

Right, so the argument is that this is actually due to genetics. Parents who struggle to regulate their emotions will have kids who struggle to regulate their emotions. So if a parent has a tendency toward violence, their kid will have a genetic tendency to violence.

Honestly, I don’t 100% believe the theory the book puts forward. That said, I think it’s interesting and definitely cuts very hard against the cultural assumption. I think the less out there point remains that it’s okay not to stress out about your kid watching a bit of extra TV or being the perfect parent all the time.

CBS Sports headline: “James Dolan, Jeff Wilpon will be on Governor Andrew Cuomo’s New York Re-Opening Advisory Board”

What could go wrong?

You have no conception how many girls in this country get pregnant and for moral reasons aren’t comfortable with abortion and are deleriously happy to go through the pregnancy and give them up to someone capable of raising their child. Now that’s a selfless act.

I was one of those kids. Adopted through the NY Foundling, for whom I work in my part time. If you’ve ever seen Daryl McDaniels (from Run DMC) documentary on his adoption journey, it’s the same group. That documentary was like a step-by-step guide for me. I called all the people in it and that’s how I found my birthmother.

Anyway, a tip of the cap to all you parents going through this. The timing of when we should have kids was the reason I ended my last relationship. She wanted to conceive last fall. I wanted to wait until we got married, bought a house, etc. We couldn’t sort it out.

And here I am now… not locked down with a woman who is 7 months pregnant in her one-room studio.

Why is Lin’s shitty team in 2012 light years ahead of us? Pick and roll everywhere, passing for days, penetrations and handoff/kickouts, Novak my spirit animal… was this the most Chandler gave a shit while on the Knicks? He was so good. Lin was so good. Novak. Landry, Shumpert, Skywalker for 3… that team could beat the shit out of us and look more modern. 8 years.

***I don’t mean to pry but the word “batches” really makes me want to know more.***

Let’s just say I have more kids than Larry Johnson…. And Shawn Kemp…. And Kenny Anderson…

Why is Lin’s shitty team in 2012 light years ahead of us? Pick and roll everywhere, passing for days, penetrations and handoff/kickouts, Novak my spirit animal… was this the most Chandler gave a shit while on the Knicks? He was so good. Lin was so good. Novak. Landry, Shumpert, Skywalker for 3… that team could beat the shit out of us and look more modern. 8 years.

That team was excellent on defense. The Linsanity Knicks weren’t a very good offensive team, but they were really good on defense and Lin and the others did just enough on offense for them to win. Shump, Fields, Jeffries and Chandler together were outstanding on defense. They were a swarm, as they could all switch like crazy and play more traditional defense. That was the best usage of Jared Jeffries’ limited skills ever.

That was really a magical time. Just shows how much difference even a “good” PG could make…

That was the all-time Knicks Flash in the Pan team: Jeremy Lin, Steve Novak, Iman Shumpert, Landry Fields, Toney Douglas, Jerome Jordan…

I still can’t get over how good Jeffries was during that time when STAT was out.

Jeffries was a good player, just a gross overpay and put in too large of a role.

Z returned with receipts and I am loving it

As I recall, I was one of the few who didn’t fully buy into the hype after he got exposed first by Deron Williams and then by the Heat. If you fish around, you’ll find quotes from me questioning his durability and whether he would fare as well once he went around the league a couple of times.

I also felt that whether I liked it or not, Dolan was justified in not paying like $70 mill in salary plus luxury tax for 3 years of a middling overhyped PG coming off knee surgery; that Morey was dumb to offer him that poison pill contract; and that Lin was dumb to sign it. We can quibble, but I’m pretty comfortable looking back on that take right now, especially considering that Morey had to include a first rounder to dump Lin after publicly humiliating him by hanging a mural of Melo wearing his number 7. It’s pretty ironic to think back on some allegedly smart folks here whining that Dolan picked the wrong time not to grossly overpay for a mediocre overhyped player. (I know, we were capped out, yadayada…)

But yeah, as a diehard Knicks fan, I relished every minute of Linsanity while it seemed real. I took my son to a game right in the thick of it vs. Atlanta. Lin jerseys were everywhere, and I had two Harvard professors sitting in front of me and a Taiwanese couple who had no interest in basketball sitting next to me. If only it weren’t too good to be true…not to mention how good Shump, Fields and Novak looked during that stretch.

Seems like we’re a decent PG away from revisiting those times…a young team with heart, cohesion and potential.

That is, until Rose re-signs Melo, drafts Cole Anthony, and trades Mitch, Barrett and 4 #1 picks for Chris Paul.

I disagree, Brian. We can second-guess and theorize all we want about that, but for all we know, Lin would have either played poorly or have been been beaten up and/or injured long before the Indiana series. We seem to forget that he broke down after 900 minutes and then after his knee recovered he opted to not play in the playoffs so that he could max out in free agency. It would have been a galactic overpay to match that “ridiculous” offer, and not a single GM other than Dolan would have been stupid enough to match it given the luxury tax circumstances, hence the phrase “poison pill.”. Folks here get annoyed that in this case, Dolan wasn’t as stupid as he was for so many other financial moves, and largely didn’t allow us to match out of spite.

Let’s also not be too quick to gloss over the fact that Lin was not anywhere the same player in 2012-13 as he was during the height of Linsanity. He was a below-average PG for Houston during the regular season and played horrifically in the playoffs for them, and wasn’t much better in 2013-14.

Sure, I would have loved for Dolan to have matched the offer sheet, who wouldn’t have? But Morey figured that even Dolan wasn’t stupid enough to do it. Lin got the money he wanted, but I believed at the time that he made a terrible career move and in retrospect I can’t see how that can be refuted. He went from being the most celebrated athlete in the most cosmopolitan and international city in the world, to a non-entity who squandered the rest of his career in obscurity. Whatever he made extra from the Rockets, he would have easily recouped in NY in endorsements and appearance fees. And Morey made a colossal blunder in trying to erase the mistake of letting him go in the first place…nobody else would have offered Lin that contract, and he never got his money’s worth.

Everyone got screwed, especially Knicks fans, but I blame Morey and Lin way more than Dolan on that one.

Lin got screwed by circumstance more than by Morey. Remember he was signed by a Hardenless Rocket team. He might have done fine there, but the opportunity to get Harden came and Morey took it, making Lin a sixth wheel on that team.

“Seems like we’re a decent PG away from revisiting those times…a young team with heart, cohesion and potential.”

No question average or above average PG play would help a lot but just as big an issue is the starting 2 shot 32%, the starting PF shot 29% and the (should be) starting 5 shoots 0% from 3. The back ups aren’t much better.

The way IGGY progressed the last part of the seson at Westchester I really want to see him get some floor time. We also desperately need RJ to get his godfather to break down his shot and rebuild it from scratch because his motion is seriously flawed and only a few players like Jamal Wilkes can shoot consistently with an unorthodox motion.

You’d need Chris Paul’s and John Stockton’s love child to overcome that dearth of shooting….

am actually fine with keeping Perry as GM

if you look at the mechanics under Perry’s GM tenure, it’s all been fine. The contracts have been reasonable and even team-friendly, the trades have been reasonable value. The problem has been the underlying strategy. And it sure seems like Brock Aller and Leon Rose will be doing the strategy part, and will leave the mechanics to Perry, which he is well-suited to.

With each passing day I become more convinced that Leon Rose is going to be a continuation of the dumber than a pile of rocks management we’ve had in place for most of the last few decades.

Building a good team is about understanding how to play winning basketball, evaluating talent, developing talent, fitting pieces to together well, and then paying those players fair to bargain salaries with a sensible contract duration. We are accumulating and keeping a bunch of basketball imbeciles. They don’t understand how to play wining basketball, don’t evaluate talent well because they stress athleticism and shot creation over defense and team oriented play with a lot of player and ball movement, and have no clue whatsoever how to fit the pieces together.

Even with all his bad GM level decisions (with help from a wildly incompetent GM in Mills), I’d take Phil/Gaines over these idiots every day of the week. We need a Phil level basketball mind with a very good GM. We don’t need basketball imbeciles with a barely competent GM.

Lin was a good player that was ideally suited to play for D’Antoni, but it’s obvious he was nothing more than a good backup or stop gap in any other situation. He ultimately declined due to repeated injuries. He would have been more than adequate under MDA as long as Melo/Amare wren’t part of team together. Melo and Amare were always a horrible fit because they were both bad on defense and overlapped in some ways on offense. That combo also ruined what Lin did best which was run the P&R and drive and kick. You need space, 3 point shooters, and a good finisher to optimize that. It would have worked with Amare but not with Melo and definitely now with both Amare and Melo.

Even with all his bad GM level decisions (with help from a wildly incompetent GM in Mills), I’d take Phil/Gaines over these idiots every day of the week.

Well, we KNOW Phil stunk at being POBO. I’m kind of with you that Rose will PROBABLY be bad. But we KNOW for sure that Phil was bad.

Rose has a 5% chance of being good. Phil was definitely, certainly not good. I’ll take 5% over 0%.

Steve Mills as Phil Jackson’s scapegoat is still my favorite Strat fantasy land construction. It’s just the best.

“We need pinch post passing, go get me Joakim Noah”
“Uh, Phil, he’s asking for 4/72, should we give him that”
“Listen, I don’t know what numbers are, I only know basketball things”
“Okay, I’ll give him 4/72 then”
“Okay now I need Lance Thomas”
“He wants four years, should we give him that”
“Listen, four is a number and I don’t know numbers”

Again, we can second guess all we want, but had they matched, there’s no telling what deals would have been made or were even possible. At the time, the tax implications were clearly the reason for not matching, I don’t understand how you can call it a “theoretical monster” when it was very real. Maybe I am misremembering, but I don’t recall anyone discussing creative ways the Knicks could have avoided that tax hit during the matchng window. My recollection is that they subsequently were able to make some deals because they weren’t hard-capped by signing Lin. I vaguely remember folks saying that signing Lin would have prevented the Bargnani deal, is that not correct?

We did discuss creative ways they could have avoided the tax hit, because they were many (like trading any number of players, which is precisely what happened, or even waiving guys if need be to stretch their salaries out, plus, of course, the general “the cap will probably be going up and thus the luxury cap hit will be lessened,” which was also what happened). Not signing a guy who could help your capped out, win now team in 2012 because of a theoretical cap bill in 2015 is not a good idea. And, again, I don’t believe it was the concern. It was that Dolan felt disrespected by the reworked deal. I mean, come on, Glen Grunwald literally trying to hide from the Rockets so that he could delay the start of the offer period sure doesn’t sound like the actions of a guy who thinks that the new deal was an automatic “no,” right?

The only limitations for the Bargs deal, vis a vis Lin, would have been the fact that they would have added even more salary in the Bargs deal. In fact, the fact that they added a bunch of salary in the Bargs’ deal was a good indication that the luxury tax complications wasn’t the deciding factor for the Knicks, since Dolan had no problem adding salaries a year later (and, of course, the fact that Dolan had previously spent $45 million in luxury tax on a 33 win team and $37 million in luxury tax on a 23 win team).

Linsanity started while Melo was injured, if I remember correctly, and Melo never seemed to be on board with It.

He was definitely not on board with it. The Lin contract was one of the only times I can remember a player talking shit about another player’s contract when Melo called the Rockets’ offer ‘ridiculous’.

But at least eventualy Melo got a ‘ridiculous’ contract of his own when Phil gave him the mega max. Kinda ironic.

He was definitely not on board with it. The Lin contract was one of the only times I can remember a player talking shit about another player’s contract when Melo called the Rockets’ offer ‘ridiculous’.

But at least eventualy Melo got a ‘ridiculous’ contract of his own when Phil gave him the mega max. Karma, I guess?

JR was also talking shit about it because he was worried it would impact his salary the next season.

JR was also talking shit about it because he was worried it would impact his salary the next season.

Forgot about that. Makes me think that CAA (+ Knicks) may have had a hand in coordinating the comments. You just never see stuff like that anywhere else. It’s dumb + convoluted enough to feel Knicksy.

“Let’s build around Carmelo Anthony’s decline phase”

GENIUS

JR also said:

I don’t really know how Mr. Dolan [owner James Dolan] feels at this point with what the luxury tax is now and what it used to be, but I just hope it works out the best for both of them.

That quote is weird as hell. What player openly worries about the owner’s luxury tax payments? That was fed to him by his CAA agent.

If you want a rosy take (npi) keeping Perry on for a year might suggest that they will go all-in on Masai.

If you want a rosy take (npi) keeping Perry on for a year might suggest that they will go all-in on Masai.

Shit, I was seriously just about to edit the piece to say, “And who knows who might be available in a year?” Yeah, that’s a great point. It probably won’t pan out (because Knicks), but it’s a great point, nonetheless.

Dolan needs a new mole w/o Mills. This is Perry’s audition.

Ha! I like the idea of Berman just writing a bunch of articles about how great Perry is.

All in all, we can go on and on about Lin. The truth is, he just wasn’t that good and probably would not have made much of a difference going forward. I doubt that he would have held up, or played well enough to advance us into the ECG, and the chemistry issues were real. But I would have preferred that Dolan matched.

It’s just that in the long line of grievances I have re: Dolan, not matching that contract is very low on the list. I said so at the time and I still feel that way. Lin went on to have a very mediocre career, so whatever.

That’s good to hear that you would have preferred that they matched.

And hey, while I think it was a terrible move, I am more than fine with not bringing it up (as I do think we’ve made our positions crystal clear by now)! I haven’t brought it up in years!

Brian Cronin: That’s good to hear that you would have preferred that they matched.

I’ve said that all along. I never advocated for not matching. Don’t put words in my mouth, please.

I’ve said that all along. I never advocated for not matching. Don’t put words in my mouth, please.

I certainly didn’t mean it as such. I honestly didn’t recall you saying that before. My apologies for any “word putting” implication.