From Marc Berman:
Knicks GM Scott Perry not only will run the upcoming draft but will be back next season, a source confirmed.
The source said Perry’s option will be picked up for next season by president Leon Rose. The Post reported last week that Perry, despite the hire of VP of strategy Brock Aller, would run the NBA Draft. At that point, there was no guarantee he’d be back next season despite leanings that way.
Perry’s current staff that includes personnel director Harold Ellis, assistant GM Gerald Madkins, scout Fred Cofield and capologist Michael Arcieri aren’t guaranteed to return as Rose continues evaluations. Their contracts run until August and there could be changes.
“Scott is a well-respected basketball executive who I have known for more than 20 years, and I look forward to continuing to work closely with him as we look to build a winning team in New York,” Rose said in a statement.
Perry isn’t a lame duck as much as Rose will see how it goes and make decisions on whether to extend his deal next season. The coronavirus pandemic – with New York as epicenter – has played some role in keeping more of status quo.
“The shutdown may have helped everyone — at least temporarily,’’ one NBA source connected to the Knicks told The Post last week.
As noted in the article, the Coronavirus crisis seems to have played a major factor in Rose deciding to just stand pat for a year, as this isn’t exactly an ideal time to do a big search for a new GM and since Perry was already under contract for one more year, it made sense to just tread water a little bit more. I wouldn’t be signing any long term leases in New York if I were Perry, though, as I bet this upcoming season will be his last, but hey, good for him for hanging in there. As I said in the previous post, once the list of possible new GMs went from “Wow, a bunch of these guys would be great! Especially that guy from Denver!” to “Oh, that great guy from Denver was hired by the Bulls while we did nothing!” to “Wait, Allan freakin’ Houston?” then Scott Perry suddenly seemed a lot more appealing as a hire.
I know it is very Knicksy to say, “I am happy that we stuck with a proven mediocrity for a year instead of hiring a walking dumpster fire, which we will do next season instead,” but, well, it is true. I am fairly pleased with this move, all things considered.
And hey, KnickfaninNJ should be pumped, right? That’s something!
118 replies on “NY Post: Scott Perry keeping Knicks GM job under Leon Rose”
You know what? I’m OK with this. Perry has been competent. Not great but not horrible either. Obviously the Frank and Knox picks are not a good look but drafting Mitch Robinson was a fantastic move and the contract he signed him to was amazing. And while none of his free agent signings have worked out, he hasn’t burdened us with anything horrible either. All of them have been one year or two year deals with team options. We used to never get players to sign team options. Our cap situation is pretty good going forward and we have a surplus of picks, which is what a team like us should be doing.
I’m curious if this is a sign that Miller is also staying put for another year.
Our PoBO is in charge of vision, philosophy, and player personnel decisions. Our GM is essentially an errand boy.
The decision to trade Melo or Morris, for instance, seems to be made above the GM. The GM merely assembles the best options for someone higher up to choose. I’m sure his opinion is valued, but that’s the job. Perry does well in that role. So whatever.
It all comes down to whether or not Dolan and Rose have a real plan or it’s just more starfucking. I think our GM is inconsequential in that matter.
In general, that’s what most PoBO do (it’s what Mills, Phil, Walsh and Isiah all did), but that’s not what every PoBO does. Rose might seriously be a hands off guy. We shall find out soon enough.
I think Rose’s hand was forced to some degree by these extraordinary circumstances. (Though Chicago was obviously able to interview and hire Karnisovas.) And I don’t hate Perry as a number two guy. That said, if the hope was that Rose’s executive inexperience would be countered by having a really clever, forward-thinking GM, that is not what has happened. So unless Rose himself proves to be a much more outside the box thinker than his resume would suggest, get ready for more of the same, guys. Fun!
I’m pretty skeptical of this “proven mediocrity” theory. When I look at a GM making lots of bad, but ultimately not disastrous or consequential moves, I don’t think that means that’s the status quo going forward. Eventually he’ll be confronted with a big, consequential move to make, and given his track record, my expectation is that he’s going to do a bad job on that too. Remember, there was a whole bunch of positive “Phil Jackson is returning the Knicks to normality!” spin during his first offseason. Everything in Perry’s record is mediocre, but I see no reason to assume that’s the floor; it may well be the ceiling.
I’m most definitely NOT ok with this (with the caveat that I get it- COVID killed the Knicks chances at networking and marketing, bringing in fresh FO hires and players)
– Most importantly, if you look at the Knicks history, their trades, drafts, signings, and their record, as well as how STUPID everything they did for 20 years looks in hindsight… and you DONT decide to burn the whole FO down and start fresh… you’re an idiot. It’s like taking over after Boss Tweed and not replacing everyone to burn and bleach everything from corruption.
– He sucks at roster creation: I don’t really want to get into this. we know he signed 4 power forwards in the modern NBA, and a non-shooting PG in the modern NBA, and no one fit our win curve. He signed two old as f veteran shooters for some reason, who ended up sucking ass, but whatever.
– As I said, he doesn’t appreciate what you need to win in the modern NBA. Nothing speaks for efficiency, shooting, youth, ball movement (which is as modern as Manu Ginobili)…
– He traded OK- the KP trade I count as a positive, even though I would rather they call KP/JP’s bluff on re-upping. Dennis Smith Jr was a nonfactor, as was the filler; two picks was nice.
– He did not appreciate the value of losing more as the season progressed and there was NO REASON TO PLAY MO FREAKIN HARKLESS. Long term investments like Frank, Trier, Dotson, and even Iggy/Wooten were not played as they should have. If they contribute to winning, great! If they contribute to losing, great! Idiot.
-Minutes allocation- ties into the above statement on playing vets>youth,
-Draft- He’s decent at drafting outside of the top ten. Nothing crazy, we’ve spoken about this at length. Mitch was a great pick, Knox terrible.
Bottom line, Rose should have found someone better, it was literally why he was hired
I’m going to go through all significant transactions since Scott Perry was traded for. (He was still part of the Kings when Ntilikina was drafted.)
2017-18:
-signs Ron Baker, 2/$9M contract with an effective NTC
-signs Michael Beasley and Ramon Sessions
-signs Jarrett Jack
-traded Carmelo Anthony for Kanter, McDermott and 2RP that turns into Mitch
-signs Trey Burke
-trades WHG for two 2RPs
-trades McDermott and 2RP for Mudiay
-fires Hornacek
-hires Fizdale
-drafts Knox with 9th pick
-drafts Robinson with 36th pick
2018-19:
-signs Trier
-signs Hezonja
-signs Kornet
-signs Robinson
-signs Vonleh
-waives-and-stretches Noah
-waives Baker
-trades THJ, Lee and Porzingis for DAJ, Matthews, DSJ and two protected 1sts
-waives Kanter
-waives Matthews
-buys back 2RP given up to trade for Scott Perry for $1MM, selects Brazeikis
-waives Lance Thomas
2019-20:
-drafts Barrett 3rd overall
-signs Randle, Morris, Gibson, Portis, Ellington, Payton, Bullock ($78M owed in 2019-20)
-fires Fizdale, promotes Miller
-trades Morris for Harkless and 2020 1RP, 2021 1RP swap, 2021 2RP
——————
So yeah, it’s a lot of useless moves, a couple terrible moves (stretching Noah, drafting Knox), and then some very good, forward-thinking ones (Carmelo trade, Porzingis trade, Morris trade). Not much that hamstrings the team, but at 21-45 with no viable franchise player on the roster, he’s still years away from contention. That’s not where you should be three years after accepting the job. Three years should be enough for demonstrable improvement, barring bad injury luck.
The failure of the Knicks to acquire a high lottery pick is the most concerning thing to me. They simply do not understand the win curve. You should not pick ~8th in three of four years, but here we are again.
Yeah, everything Jowles said
The moves done while Perry had been here have been more bad than good, of course. It’s just a question of whether it was Mills’ fault more so than it was Perry’s. That Perry was saying, “We should trade Marcus Morris for a first round pick!” and Mills was saying, “Let’s keep Morris and trade a first round draft pick for Terry Rozier!” I think it is arguable that Perry himself is mediocre while Mills was the dumpster fire.
Do I agree with the general, “How do you not clean house?” approach? Yeah, but once that seemed to be off the table (and it is very possible that “you can’t clean house” is just a requisite part of being the Knicks’ PoBO under Dolan), I think giving Perry a chance is better than hiring Allan Houston or trying to get Elton Brand out of his Philly contract, especially for the point that Z-Man mentioned earlier, which is that giving Perry one more year makes it much easier to dump him after this year if someone big becomes available (you wouldn’t even need to fire him, as his contract is up after next season), which would be tougher if you just hired a new GM for the gig.
It’s a little hard for me to buy that this is merely a COVID-19 necessitated stopgap, because while that sounds perfectly plausible the Bulls are still managing to go about a full front office hiring and restructuring process.
The only way Perry’s tenure here looks anything other than bad is if you attribute a ton of bad stuff solely to Mills, while crediting Perry, and only Perry, for the few bright spots. I guess it’s possible things really did break down that way, but Perry’s track record elsewhere doesn’t exactly give me confidence that’s the case.
On a more fundamental level, it’s extremely frustrating that because of Dolan the most valuable franchise in the sport is incapable of going about a serious front office hiring process. Where’s the report that we tried to interview, like, Mike Zarren? Did we even check in on Bobby Webster? When you stop grading these front-office hires on a Knicksy curve it becomes obvious they’re just objectively bad. Maybe Leon Rose won’t suck, but how many guys out there could’ve been had, likely at a similar salary even, who we know do not suck?
Yeah, I prefer Perry to Elton Brand. That said, if you look at the track record elsewhere, it’s not great. Right before we lured him away from Sacramento, he did the same “sign lots of overpriced, middling veterans to short-term deals” move we all enjoyed so much when he and Mills pulled it this summer for the Knickerbockers. There are things he’s not terrible at, but his ceiling as an executive is incredibly low.
I’m going to go with a different approach and try my absolute damndest to see where you’re coming from.
As I understand it, your view is that Phil Jackson had:
1) a good sense of which players lead to wins
2) a good sense of which players had skillsets that complemented one another, this is how I interpret “the right style of basketball”
You concede he had no idea how to do the numbers good. Okay, so, what this connotes to me is that the teams he put together should’ve been good, but perhaps limited from an upside perspective due to imperfect cap/asset management.
No two teams are exactly alike, but some examples of this might be the 2019-2020 Heat, the 2013-2014 Pacers, and the 2009-2010 Hawks. Teams that were good and fun to watch, but no one really thought could contend because they hit a cap ceiling before they got good enough.
Here’s my hang up: the teams Phil Jackson put together fucking sucked. His taste in players and his idea of how player skillsets fit together are not some theoretical thing we never got to see–we know exactly which players Phil thought lead to wins (Carmelo Anthony, Derrick Rose, Lance Thomas, Courtney Lee, etc.), and which players’ skillsets fit well together (see above).
We also know the results: his teams won 17, 32, and 31 games. If “the right style of basketball” is a purely aesthetic thing…I mean, I guess that’s subjective, but I kid you not, the 2016-2017 Knicks were my single least favorite team to watch in my history of watching this team and I became a fan in the early 2000s.
Continued…
You also say that Phil was on track to “build a winning team that would eventually compete for championships.”
The problem with this is we can actually look at the team he was building, how much room it had to improve, etc. When Phil was fired, the roster consisted of:
Carmelo Anthony $24,559,380
Joakim Noah $17,000,000
Courtney Lee $11,242,000
Lance Thomas $6,191,000
Frank Ntilikina $4,855,800
Kristaps Porzingis $4,317,720
Kyle O’Quinn $3,900,000
Mindaugas Kuzminskas $2,898,000
Willy Hernangomez $1,375,000
That team is…not good, cannot afford a max free agent, not quite bad enough to reliably add through the draft, and getting old fast. So how much longer did Phil need? When would this roster have turned into a championship team?
If you address one thing, please make it this question: what specific transaction or transactions did Phil Jackson make, in his capacity as President of Basketball Operations for the New York Knicks, that made clear to you he’s a basketball genius who has a deep understanding of what players lead to a lot of wins, and what players play well with one another?
Because to be honest, all I see is a team that Isiah Thomas would’ve liked: a lot of PPG, and not much else.
Thanks!
So does this mean we can hire Ujiri at the end of next year?
In Perry’s defense, things would feel a bit different if we had gotten the first or second pick last year. Which would be unfair also.
Based on the reporting at the time of Mills’ firing — that Mills wanted to trade down from 3, while Perry was adamant about taking RJ — I wouldn’t be shocked if he had taken Barrett over Ja if we’d gotten that second pick.
I think the idea is that Phil drafted Porzingis and Ntilikina— basically Dirk Nowitzki and Scottie Pippen as far as Strat is concerned— and that those two and the future Porzingises and Ntilikinas are what would have led us to greatness.
All the other stuff, the Melo contract, the $72M worth of pinch post passing, the brief presence of Derrick Rose, trading away a useful pick so he could sign the Wear Bear without costing James Dolan some luxury tax money— all of that stuff either didn’t matter or was somebody else’s fault.
That’s my understanding of it at least.
Berman had them as hoping like heck that Morant fell to #3. They knew he wasn’t going to, but they were hoping for it. So I think Owen is correct. Our view of these guys really would be changed a lot if they just had a little more luck in the last lottery.
But Phil Jackson wanted to trade Porzingis!
Strat sometimes cites that as evidence of his genius, other times it’s picking Porzingis in the first place (pretty much exactly where he was slated to go), depending on, well, I don’t know, the weather?
But hasn’t our draft position also been partly due to bad luck. With both Knox and Frank we picked later than we were statistically most likely to pick because of the lottery odds. Same with RJ Barrett at 3 this year.
If we drafted where we were supposed to draft, do we have RJ, Knox and Frank on the team right now as three of our young players?
So while I get that we haven’t always tanked properly, its not like they were actively trying to win AT ALL last year. And the 2 years before they basically tanked the second half of the season once they knew the playoffs were out of the picture. The year Zinger went down, for example, they basically cleared the roster and only played scrubs till the end of the season.
That was the first time they tried it and, shockingly, they got their highest pick since Ewing!
It is literally mind-boggling that the Knicks have been so fucking unlucky when it comes to ping pong balls. And even with some of the meaningless marginal wins, it was the Maurice Ndour’s and Justin Holiday’s of the world that made the difference in those games.
It is so ironic that in the 2015 draft, we were literally the only team to move down in that lottery, yet it might have actually been lucky to not have remained at #2 where it is quite likely we would drafted Okafor.
I mean, they seriously have not moved up since Ewing! It really is bonkers.
So, of course, they’ll move up in this shitty draft so that they can take Cole at #4. 😉
btw Brian, I was a bit overly snarky when I said “don’t put words in my mouth” and even though it didn’t seem to bother you, I was unnecessarily edgy and I apologize for it. I honestly don’t mind when people disagree with my take on the Lin non-matching, but it’s frustrating when it is erroneously interpreted to mean that i “wanted it to happen” or “was happy that it happened.” Like everyone else, I was shocked and hugely disappointed when it went down. I just thought that, upon more sober consideration, it was less indefensible or consequential than people made it out to be at the time, and still feel that way. It’s fine that people feel differently, but it’s not necessary to distort each other’s positions.
Lin was a productive player in 2012-2013. Not wildly so, but probably better than Raymond Felton. Would’ve been nice to not have to play 39 year old Jason Kidd 2000+ minutes and then watch him predictably fall off a cliff in the playoffs. Wouldn’t have cost us literally anything but Dolan Dollars that were subsequently spent on Andrea Bargnani.
Seems…open and shut to me?
It only seems that way because it is that way.
if you look up milquetoast in the pictionary…there is a picture of Scott Perry…he has done nothing that one can see in his NBA career to distinguish himself…i guess that could also be considered mediocrity….at best he did not have any say in or hopefully opposed the “millsian” moves but was able to do just enough to not cripple the franchise economically…at worst he was complicit but managed to make it appear that he wasn’t…i guess that shows some guile…
Someone put words in Z-Man’s mouth?!
Oops, that was me.
He didn’t really say anything about being a Linsignificant footnote.
But he thought something close to that, once.
And, heck, he was pretty much right about it.
But still,
We’ll always have Linsanity.
Z-man’s got enough words in there, no need to add them ; )
Yeah, fell by one slot in 2017 and 2018. That’s hardly “bad luck.” 2019 sort of broke in our favor, as there was a 60% chance of picking 4 or 5.
Well, hopefully, this is a case where Rose will say things like “my intel has told me Tre Young wants a trade to NYC. Brock, run the projections on who is a must-keep on our roster. Scott, start weighing the assets we have with Brock, and let’s get this done.”
In other words, I guess there are ways this could work, but we’ll just have to see.
Here are the stats from 2012-13 fro Lin vs. Felton. I don’t understand how anyone can look at them and conclude that Lin would have made an appreciable difference in how the season panned out. Their WS48’s are .012 apart. Their BPM’s are 0.2 apart. Their VORP is 0.3 apart. is Throw in the salary difference and it looks even more clear that it was at worst a wash. And take a look at Lin’s and Felton’s playoff stats. Do you really think that they suggest that Lin would have put up a playoff WS48 of more than .127 with the Knicks? In 477 career playoff minutes, he posted a WS48 of .002, and never topped .069 in his 4 playoff years.
I also think that Lin was never as good of a perimeter defender as Felton. I don’t have synergy stats to back that up, but if I needed a stop in a big spot, I would have been much more comfortable with Felton on the floor vs. Lin. Maybe that’s just because I saw Felton block Curry’s last shot in that 54-point game that I was at, but certainly he had a better rep as a defender, even if box score stats don’t corroborate that. But consider that in 2012-13, Felton’s OBPM was 0.9 and Lin’s was -0.1. By that metric, Felton was actually the better offensive player that year.
That Linsanity kool-aid is strong stuff, people can’t shake the hangover after 8 years.
But even if you think all of that highly questionable stuff we could’ve had both for nothing but money in an obvious win-now year in which we played a 39 year old 2000 minutes
If the plan is to hold onto Perry until Ujiri becomes available, then fine. Perry hasn’t done anything detrimental yet, so I can’t complain too much. On the other hand, history teaches us that it’s only a matter of time for a Knicks GM before he screws up horribly
Early Bird, that’s kind of why I like Perry. He’s cheap in his spending habits. Good GMs know how to spend when they have to, bad ones think they know how to spend when they have to but end up blowing it and putting their team in a hole. Consider the Hardaway contract as an example. I’d rather have Perry than a bad big spender. Of course we won’t be good for a while, but we will keep getting decent draft picks and some of those players will develop. And from the Post review of Perry’s drafting, he’s not awful at it.
Rose is the bigger issue, I would imagine. What’s his game plan? I have no real idea. Actually, now that I think about it, Ujiri really isn’t even an option, is he? Since he wouldn’t come to New York to take a demotion. I guess someone like Morey is a more likely pie-in-the-sky option.
Man, why the heck did they hire Rose? This team makes no sense.
Lin v Felton is a red herring. The comparison isn’t relevant. Classic Z-Man.
The relevant comparison is the minutes that Lin would have replaced, namely Shump, Brewer, and White (the three least productive guards on the roster). In 12-13, Shump+Brew+White combined for 2,142 minutes played and 3.2 win shares and 0.6 VORP. In 12-13, Lin played 2,640 minutes and produced 5.4 win shares and 1.5 VORP. Linn was a clear improvement.
And if you want to get into the speculative (which is usually where you like to take losing arguments), Lin could have carried a greater minutes load than Shump+Brew+White, which means we could have given J Kidd more rest; making him more playoff ready.
In the 8 years since we let Lin go, we have yet to find a PG as good as Lin. He would have been our starting PG in every single year since he’s left. Even if I give you Felton, Lin would could have certainly used Lin as a backup PG or scoring threat when Melo sat.
In the alternate reality where they kept Lin, they also wouldn’t have had to get back Calderon when they traded Chandler, since they would have had Lin, allowing them to get something more useful for Chandler.
Plus, of course, Felton fell off of a cliff in 2013-14 while Lin was the same ol’ same ol’, so the 2013-14 team would have probably made the playoffs.
I actually like Perry well enough. Mediocre is good enough in the NBA, you just need to get lucky in FA or the draft. The problem is I remember thinking the same thing about a number of previous GMs before everything imploded.
Out of everyone on this board, I was actually relatively bullish on Perry’s moves:
– Morris turned into a pick + some
– I liked the Randle signing at the time
– Bullock is on a good deal this year (even on the pre-Morris deal he’s decent value)
– I like the 1+1 contracts, it’s a flexible strategy
I’m interested to see how he does without Mills, but he won’t turn into Ujiri over night. My initial response is crafted from the constant ineptitude in the front office over 2 decades and thinking that Grunwald and Walsh were solid GMs before being disappointed.
I hope you’re wrong about Perry disappointing us, but it could certainly happen.
took ma testing today, went surprisingly smooth…thankfully no more nostril invasion with a pointy object (I was prepared for the worst)…it was a throat swab…results within 7 days…took about 2 hours…
not bad at all…
Masai Ujiri is not going to be a GM who works for Leon Rose.
Is the next idea to retain Mike Miller and have Steve Kerr be his assistant?
He wouldn’t. I shouldn’t have mentioned Ujiri.
Sorry, I may get why a guy like Webster maaay come here (lateral move, though), but why would a guy like Morey? Masai ain’t happening either.
Rose is a superagent. He was brought strictly to bring superstars to this team. Otherwise, why would Dolan choose an agent? The problem I have isn’t that he’s going to overpay a player, but that I have no idea what type of player he likes.
What’s the highly questionable stuff? Tell me what I said about their stats that is highly questionable. What I think is highly questionable is your statement that Lin was “probably” more productive that Felton in 2012-13.
I don’t recall anyone discussing a scenario in which we could have had Lin, Felton and Kidd at the same time. My understanding is that we could only have one of Lin and Felton, not both.
Respectfully, this is all conjecture. At the end of the day, Lin never was worth the bloated contract he signed. He had his best year with the Rockets in 2013-14 and Morey couldn’t wait to dump him for his cap space, including a 1st round pick that turned into Larry Nance Jr. for the privilege. And why? Mainly because of an actually good PG he dredged up out of the G-League and who got paid 10% of what Lin was getting paid.
And as bad as the Morey overpay was, the Nets deal was even worse! They basically lit $36 million on fire.
Sad to say it, but this is an improvement: Leon Rose isn’t making knee jerk decisions. Did Dolan hire a sensible person and then give him true autonomy? We’ll see I guess, but this seems to be a good start. Though, I’m not sure how much credit he deserves for doing the logical thing during these times. I suppose his choice for HC will paint a clearer picture. But…optimism, right?
this right here…you would think leon with all his vast knowledge of the nba, dealing with front offices around the league, and knowing he was getting the job months before it happened, and here it is a couple of months later…
is perry really the best candidate he’s aware of, like the capologist guy and director of b-ball ops from cleveland…are they the best he knows…or, maybe that are even willing to jump in to this dumpster to try to put out the fire…
i can’t imagine working for the knicks is a big resume booster…
i’m gonna stay skeptical with just about every move we make for quite a while…
jeremy who…shit, jared jeffries should get more love here…he used to look like he was trying soooooooooo hard…lance thomas before lance thomas…only much better…
This is just flat out wrong. The Rockets traded Lin because they needed room to make Bosh a max offer.
i’m not sure which was more disappointing as a knick…i guess noah…maybe…our team/owner certainly seems to bring the worst out of a lot of folks…
Geo, I hope your ma is okay!
Retaining Scott Perry is sort of the definition of “meh.”
Ah, Linsanity. The reason why, to this day, I hate the Houston Rockets.
🙂
Most importantly, it was really Lin who fucked up the most. I only say that because it was reported that he was “devastated” that the Knicks did not match that offer. Everyone knew that Dolan was a vindictive little prick. If Lin really wanted to stay in NY, why would he sign a “poison pill” offer sheet? You’re telling me this Harvard grad couldn’t predict how Dolan would react to that?
Here’s what Lin said to Steve Serby in July 2016:
Translation: “They didn’t offer me a contract right away, so I could have just gone out and found out what the offers were, and I actually did when the initial offer sheet was reported. But then, rather than give them a chance to propose a counteroffer, I jumped on a ridiculous poison pill offer sheet, thinking that James fucking Dolan, with all the millions he lit on fire on terrible players, coaches and GMs in the past, wouldn’t bat an eye, he would just match it and laugh off the the potential tax hit. (Some say he could have avoided the tax/cap hit by trading or waiving me, but why would I suggest that when I just said wanted to finish my career here?) Yeah, I was shocked, shocked when he took it so personally! I mean, do you think I would have signed that offer sheet if I thought there was any chance that I wound up in Houston of all places? I mean, does Dolan know who I am? I’m Jeremy Lin! I made my bones when you were going out with cheerleaders!”
We signed-and-traded for Felton, nothing stopped us from matching Lin’s contract except the desire to save money for the eventual Bargnani trade.
Oh? Is that also why they hung a mural of Melo wearing his #7?
I have no idea what you have against Jeremy Lin, but a lot of what you’re saying is factually incorrect.
Maybe we should move on and debate why the Knicks didn’t match the great Landry Fields offer sheet…
Keeping Perry for another year really makes it all the more ridiculous we didn’t just wait for Ujiri. That was my joke.
Obviously he isn’t coming here now.
Lin held opponents to fewer points per play and a lower field goal percentage (37.8) last season than Felton (41.6). Of the 235 players to defend at least 300 plays, Lin ranked 78th in fewest points per play, while Felton ranked 133rd.
Which part is factually incorrect?
I have nothing against Jeremy Lin. I just think it’s disingenuous to give him a free pass on why he wasn’t resigned, and to pin all the blame on Dolan.
awww, thanks clash fan…yeah ma’s cool…she’s being smart…for me it was a day to spend time together…
it was funny man…i had her in the backseat (spent two hours cleaning out the car this morning)…you know what drives me crazy when i’m cleaning the car – seeing footprints on the ceiling…i anticipate the odd chip or petrified fry…
it’s those footprints, c’mon man…the kids are killing me…
anyway…had mom in the backseat, we ended up spending 5 hours together 🙂 – i noticed that when she’s in the backseat, i’m able to use the same technique for any nagging or too much bitching type sounds as i do when one of the boys start peppering me with a million and one totally useless and meaningless questions…
ummm, hold on for one second please, i just want to hear this song real quick…volume up…
i’ve noticed that if i don’t take action quickly enough, eventually it’ll slip out – who cares…
Uh, the three things I’ve already pointed out?
1) Lin was a better defender
2) We could have Lin, Kidd, & Felton
3) The reason the Rockets traded Lin
i would totally take the penguin over jeremy…i like jeremy and all (great hair), but, basketball wise, felton was much more useful on a team…
speaking of plump, why is it that everyone who leaves our team suddenly gets in to the best shape of their life…
That’s fine, but it was never a choice between Felton and Lin. The choice was between Lin and $$$ on a capped out team that couldn’t do anything else with the money anyways.
I offered a very tentative opinion, based largely on perception. It was not intended to be a statement of fact by any stretch. I even said that BPM rated Lin a better defender in 2012-13.
No one, and I mean no one, thought of that as a reality. They already had Kidd and Prigioni on the roster. They only traded for Felton once they decided to move away from Lin.
They traded him because they wanted a big 3 and Lin was the only non-big-3 guy on the roster grossly overpaid enough to make the money work. But It was clear before then that Morey and his coach did not think highly of Lin, and then Morey hanging the mural of Melo wearing Lin’s number demonstrated how little he thought of him. There was no walking back from trading him after that, especially since Alexander wanted Lin’s $15 mill salary dumped as well. Do you actually thought that Morey signed Lin to that contract thinking that he would be jettisoning him and a first round pick in year 3?
This is simply not true. Felton was only signed to replace Lin. Everyone knows that to be factually true. Stop making shit up.
I’m just stating facts. You can attempt to argue with those all you want.
I wish Knickerblogger was around when the lottery pick and Camby for McDyess trade went down….
it’s frustrating…mud and felton ain’t the only two guys to suddenly discover slimfast when they left here…
hell even j.r. smith turned semi-normal…
Dolan to Lin: “go find an offer.”
Anonymous Knick source: “New York will match any offer under one billion dollars.”
Rockets to Lin: “Here’s a contract for millions, not billions.”
Melo to Dolan: “That contract is ridiculous.”
CAA to J.R. Smith: “Lin could hurt your contract extension next year.”
J.R. Smith to the media: “Without a doubt it could be a locker room issue.“
Dolan to Lin: “I don’t want any locker room issues so I’ve decided that I’ve I’d rather have fat, gun waving Ray Felton back.”
That’s one version, told by the always reliable Anonymous Source. Here’s another version:
And I have no real problem with what Lin did, sure, go for the most money you can make, it’s a business!
But when you turn around 4 years later and say to the NY media after you sign with the Nets: “I was really, really sad. I was sad the way everything went down, ’cause nothing happened the way I thought it was going to. I had wished that they had offered me a contract just in the beginning, and that didn’t even happen. And then, when I found out that they weren’t gonna match, I was even more sad, ’cause honestly, I wanted to finish my career there….” it sounds pretty disingenuous.
The original offer sheet from Morey was reported, and the Knicks told Lin immediately they would match it. If he wanted to “finish his career there,” he sure didn’t act that way when he went back to
Morey.
He whines about “I had wished that they had offered me a contract just in the beginning” when there was every indication that he felt he was worth more than the Knicks could or would offer him and that he would test the market anyway. There’s nothing wrong with that, either. That’s what RFAs should do. And he was right! Good for him!
Just have the dignity not to shift the blame to the Knicks for how it turned out. Dolan was a known commodity. It was painfully obvious that he would not take kindly to the poison pill. You don’t need to be a Harvard graduate to figure that out.
Has there ever been another instance where a player’s own teammates will criticize the player’s contract? That was the most eyebrow raising part of the episode for me.
That was 100% wrong for them to do, especially Melo, considering that he was always all about the dollars above the best interests of his team.
Melo was a cancer for this team, and fuck ruruland
Z-man…Melo, as well known in the whole universe is all about winning which was well documented in the way he came here and the way he left gazilions of his hard earnd money on the signing table of the MMM deal. Ruru told us all. The mesiah landed at the MSG raisng his pointerfinger all the way to the rafters.
His lingual misfortunes and other minor verbal shit don’t count because we all know that you are what you do and not what you say.
And Fuck Lin and his decison making…my firstborn was 6 at the time asking me million questins about Jeremy(his words) this and that…he also asked at the time…dady who is Goran?
For Geo et al:My first album: Arena Duran Duran(10 years old, a gift), first bought vinyl album: Delicate sound of thunder…paid moms Yougoslav dinars for it – I was around 14 and it was 1989. Best concert: Living Colour at my hometown summer festival…they were desoundfecting the whole city for hours.
When certain posters deny the statistical argument, we have a word for that, it’s called the “eye-test”.
We need an equivalent word when we factor “non-cash” considerations into a free-agent decision.
One glaring exception is that aged-veterans will forego dollars to win a championship.
>>> No one, and I mean no one, thought of that as a reality. They already had Kidd and Prigioni on the roster. They only traded for Felton once they decided to move away from Lin. <<<
Z-Man, you're forgetting that we got lucky that summer. The players union filed a grievance on behalf of Lin and Novak and won. The Knicks were able to do all their free agent business, use all their exceptions, and go over the cap to bring back both Lin and Novak.
If it were Lin or another player, you can make a case. But the choice was "all the players on that team, plus Lin" or "all the players on that team, and no Lin." That's why we were all so mad!
Dolan valued the satisfaction of telling him to fuck off more than his value as a player. And I also think Dolan thought he was doing Melo a solid, too. Because it was obvious that Melo didn't like him, and Dolan loves to take care of his stars.
You know its gotten bad when we’re rehashing Jeremy Lin arguments.
Tomorrow let’s revisit the “Is David Lee really an all-star” argument!
I was so sad we didn’t bring back Lin. I do wonder if we had just offered him a good contract on day one if we could have avoided the whole thing. So that seems Knicksy to me. That we didn’t offer him a contract, promised to match him so he could get the best deal and then balked when he got the poison pill. But also, he did kind of do us dirty by going back to get more from Houston. But also, fuck Melo for calling his contract ridiculous.
I always wonder though. I think Felton vs. Lin is pretty much a wash. But Lin was younger/had more upside and brought more excitement to the Garden, which seems like a silly reason but really isn’t. A PG rotation of Lin/Kidd and Prigioni would be a bit more exciting to me than Felton/Kidd/Prigioni but then again Lin also got injured a bunch. Could he have handled being a full time starter for the entire season? I don’t know. But also, could Lin have become even better with a mentor like Kidd? These are all questions we will never have the answer to.
All I know is that I was at the Garden for the Utah game, which was the first game where he started and its easily one of my top 5 garden experiences. I had season tickets for 3 years, 2010 through the 54 win season and that period was insane.
What I always wonder is how different things would have been if Lin hadn’t gotten hurt that year. We had Linsanity, then we had the Melo/Dantoni/Lin drama ending with Dantoni quitting. But then when Woodson took over, I remember the team again won like 7 in a row before Lin got hurt. And that stretch was when I thought we looked the strongest. Melo and Amare were both healthy. We had our starting PG. We had JR and Novak. Lin wasn’t doing Linsanity type numbers but the team was playing really well. If he had just finished out that season playing with Melo, I wonder what could have been.
Let’s be honest, though: Lin acted in bad faith when he told Houston the Knicks were going to match and then let them design a new offer that would give him a little more money and fuck the Knicks over. Dolan’s a twat, but a lot of better people than him would have told Lin to go fuck himself after that.
>>> Tomorrow let’s revisit the “Is David Lee really an all-star” argument! <<<
[Hubert checks calendar]
[Calendar says "still in lockdown"]
HUBERT: Let's do it.
If I recall correctly, the argument was “David Lee is better than Kobe Bryant”.
Take it away, Owen!
Cause I remember watching those post Dantoni games when Lin was healthy and I remember it looked like Melo and Lin were having fun playing together. Maybe playing out the season together, winning games together, etc…would have forged their friendship a little bit more. As it is, when Lin got hurt it kind of put the kabosh on them bonding as teammates.
Yeah, there’s not a single thing Z-Man has said that isn’t blown up by the fact that we could’ve had Lin + Felton + Kidd + Prigioni. Now, if we had Lin would the Felton sign-and-trade have been the best use of those resources? Probably not, but doesn’t really matter.
The team undoubtedly would’ve been deeper and better. I mean, what, was a team that started Raymond Felton and 39 year old Jason Kidd most nights just absolutely swimming in guard depth such that a league average-ish player like Lin wouldn’t have helped at all? That’s laughable.
Also, this seems relevant to the nonsense Z-Man is spewing about how Lin should’ve known that James Dolan is a weirdo: https://twitter.com/MikeVorkunov/status/1255888885034426368
Defending not matching the contract is defending Dolan’s right to a) be a petty asshole and b) save money that couldn’t be repurposed to upgrade the roster in other ways. There’s literally nothing more to it than that.
That’s NBA Champion David Lee to you
TNFH, FTFY
Those really were the golden days of KB
https://knickerblogger.net/who-on-the-knicks-would-you-trade-for-kobe-bryant/
It absolutely DOES matter. Only an idiot would still think that the Knicks would have traded for Felton if they planned to match Lin. It’s total nonsense to consider whether we could have done it or not. It made absolutely no sense to trade for Felton after we signed Kidd and had Prigioni. You yourself said “probably not” (code for “it would have been stupid but I just feel like being argumentative) so why are you even bringing it up?
So let me get this straight…after the fact, Lin said that he was actually trying to get his agent to tell Morey “Hey, Lin was only kidding when he signed that poison pill contract, we were just using your stupid ass as leverage and never had any intention of Mr. Linsanity actually playing for your shitty franchise in your god-forsaken city….Turn the machines back on! Turn the machines back on!!”
To me, that makes him look like even a bigger asshole/moron (take your pick, I choose door #1) and whiner to boot when his scheme didn’t work out.
I totally concur.
Arena by Duran Duran was my first vinyl album too!
(8 yrs old, bought from a huge Super Market of the era on a Friday evening family trip for shopping. I Remember clearly the smell of the roasted chicken next to the records bin!
Waited 2yrs to listen to it since we didn’t have any stereo yet!
Lin wound up not being worth the money anyhow, so idk. Maybe he would have been a bit better if he’d stayed with us.
It would have been nice to have the parallel universe option and watch what if Lin had stayed with us (curiosity-wise)…
But since he negotiated like a prick i was and still am fine with not re-signing him.
How do you run the play index to compare David Lee and Kobe through the end of their careers? Like 2008-9 on?
I can’t revisit that thread. Like a millennium ago.
I…I don’t think “if the Knicks matched the offer sheet, they would’ve been free to pursue someone other than Raymond Felton” is a great argument against matching the offer sheet.
Having said that, even after the Felton trade it wasn’t clear that the Knicks weren’t matching the Lin offer. This is likely because, I will repeat, a guard rotation of Raymond Felton/Jason Kidd/Pablo Prigioni doesn’t scream “we’re at full capacity baby!”
Won’t somebody think of the poor Houston Rockets?
You mean the poor Houston Rockets because the opportunity to get Harden for a good price came along and that meant they wasted their investment in Lin? The Knicks should have such problems.
We were at an all-in part of our win curve. We didnt have lots of ways to add to the core of talent, but we had Bird Rights on Lin. It was stupid not to match. Lin played a position of need and he only cost some Dolan Dollars. But no, all of the sudden it’s like “oh noes what about the future when the poison pill kicks in” and it’s all about cap restraint and fiscal sanity. Mmmkay. Whatevs.
It was Knicksy.
The comparison isn’t perfect because the cap went up but it seems worth noting the dreaded poison pill year that it was very rude of Jeremy Lin to impose on poor Mr. Dolan was less than we paid Bobby Portis this year
You should have stopped there…
I think we could have still gone after Felton but most likely James White or Ronnie Brewer would not have been on the team.
I don’t know. Lin was an exciting player. He’s done best post Knicks when he’s been a 6th man, like for Charlotte a few years back. He’s a good bench guard/below average starter. But considering how the team ran out of gas in the 54 win season, having another young guard on the roster probably would have been useful.
Its possible that the Knicks were stupid AND Lin was selfish.
***Wide angle shot of the fertile valley of Westchester***
***A father and son can be seen walking at a distance***
***Close-up shot of the faces of the father and son***
Boy: Pappa, what are those bumps that I can see with my eye?
Man: Ah son, those are hills.
Boy: Wow, hills, you say?
Man: Yes, my boy.
***Wide angle shot of the fertile valley of Westchester***
***The pair continues to meander***
***Close-up shot of the faces of the father and son***
Boy: Pappa?
Man: Yes, son?
Boy: One day, I shall die upon that hill there.
Man: One day son, one day.
***Wide angle shot of the hill in discussion – we can see a sign hanging on the road leading up the hill***
***Close up shot of the sign that reads: Town: Linnville***
***Fade to black***
I couldn’t tell, was that dated before or after we acquired Jason Kidd?
Now that the Knicks are showing Linsanity reruns for the first time, is Rose working on Dolan to allow him to bring him back? That would be hysterical!
You know all this talk about Melo couldn’t play with Lin is kinda revisionist history because when Woodson took over the Knicks went 6-1 before Lin was out of the rest of the season. Lin’s usage went down a bit after the change obviously but he was still starting and handling the ball a bunch so it wasn’t a huge difference. Would’ve been nice to have had Lin the next couple of seasons and interesting to think about.
More fun from the archives
https://knickerblogger.net/is-james-dolan-a-hypocrite-a-by-the-numbers-investigation/
“James Dolan, who over a previous six year span had forked over $190,089,121 in luxury tax payments (all for an average of 31 wins/year (yes, that’s $1,016,519.64 in taxes per win!)), had reached his breaking point. The thought of paying an extra $28 million for a player was simply too painful to swallow”
Dunno, but it was still an open question after we had both Felton and Kidd.
That article says it would be surprising if they didn’t match despite having Felton and Kidd, which I would’ve agreed with back then because, yet again, we’re talking about Raymond Felton and the oldest player in the NBA at the time. There was no embarrassment of riches.
Shump was out till I believe January that year. We played 3 guard line ups and 2 PG line ups all year. And we gave significant minutes to James White and Ronnier Brewer that year. We could have easily added Lin to our guard rotation and been fine. Probably would have meant no James White that year which would have been fine. He was pointless.
Z-man, if they bring back Lin and Melo next year how ridiculous would that be especially if they both came off the bench.
It’s an opinion piece which we now know was false, the Knicks clearly did not consider matching once they signed Felton. And let’s not forget about Knicks all-time fave Pablo Prigioni!
That would be something, maybe bring back Shump and JR too!
i remember that song: cult of personality, that must have been a fun show…
from time to time i think about live music…honestly, i was just kind of having my second resurgence in life in wanting to go to concerts…now that i can’t do it – i really wanna go to a show…
that’s way cool, how old were you? i still remember the first time a friend brought over the dark side of the moon…life was never the same…
nice…nahshortenyourfuckingnameplease bringing out the big brain…don’t spoil us too much with the good stuff…otherwise we’ll expect it all the time 🙂
that’s some hard-core stuff right there…
Yes, and this was stupid for all of the obvious reasons you’re pretending not to get. We had no shortage of floatsam and jetsam on that roster, we were all-in from an asset and financial perspective, and Kidd and Prigioni were old as hell.
Would anything have been different? Who the hell knows, but I will say that Pacers series was close and hard-fought, and all of our non-Prigioni guards sucked in it. I would definitely be interested in seeing the alternate timeline in which 1) Kidd doesn’t have to play 2000 minutes in the regular season and 2) we have another solid guard option in that series.
I don’t have time to go through all the comments so I don’t know if someone else already brought it up but Mike Woodson literally went on camera and said the Knicks were going to match Houston’s first offer to Lin: https://www.espn.com/new-york/nba/story/_/id/8158354/new-york-knicks-absolutely-match-offer-jeremy-lin-mike-woodson-says
you know hubie, there’s all kinds of models in the world…hell, you could be a foot and ankle model showing socks and shoes off all over the world…to be honest though – i have you pegged as one of those calvin klein guys laying up on on the side of a building in them scrotum suffocating shorts staring down seductively on all the folks on the street…
it’s your fault hubie, you put that notion in my head…my personal paradigms pass slowly…i mean this is my world and all, right…
i also got a mission to one day to pick up a tasty reuben from our fine friend grocer’s deli tucked away some where down in the lower part of manhattan…i know for sure know i wanna meet that seamster friend with the emergency needle and thread at the ready…rare to come across that kind of high level of preparedness for when a button might just decide to no longer be a part of your wardrobe…
ahhh, ticking away the moments that make up a dull day…
Yeah, you don’t play Maurice Ndour if you’re actually hoping to eek out a win.
I’m fine with keeping Perry around. He’s the best MSG has had at trades since, I dunno, Red Holzman? And he’s good with contracts. Pretty sure that the Baker contract happened a couple days before he was hired, might be wrong though. Who the hell knows though? Why keep a guy around for contracts and trades if you’ve hired a ‘capologist’ who’s above him in the org chart? Maybe Rose can’t get an established good GM to buy in. Maybe he just doesn’t want to get involved with overseeing the various depts. Maybe he just wants a fall guy.
It doesn’t matter much, since not much has changed. Dolan is still in charge, and the Knicks are back to relying on luck to make them better.
The Knicks should have rolled the dice and matched Houston’s offer to Lin. Damn the torpedoes!
Looks like Lin is being quoted in a recent interview as saying he told his agent to have Houston lower the contract financially so the Knicks match it because he knew they weren’t going to match the poison pill contract. Don’t know if he is just saying that now with MSG showing Linsanity games but that’s his current story.
I’m a sucker for anectodal ringer profiles with no statistical analysis. After reading this, I’m prepared to admit I may eventually fall in love with the Andrew Thomas pick.
https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2020/4/30/21241695/2020-nfl-draft-andrew-thomas-jedrick-wills-tristan-wirfs-mekhi-becton