From Marc Berman:
Former Knicks interim coach Mike Miller is unlikely to return to the Knicks as he explores other coaching opportunities, according to a source. Miller is under contract for next season, as The Post reported last month.
Miller could return to the Knicks in a scouting capacity, if he doesn’t find another position.
A source told The Post after Tom Thibodeau was hired that Miller was disappointed and may not campaign for a return to the staff despite his solid work after taking over for David Fizdale on Dec. 4. Miller went 17-27 as interim coach.
According to sources, Thibodeau had agreed to allow the front office have heavy input into the coaching staff and that has prevented him from immediately hiring his usual guys such as Ed Pinckney, the Greer brothers and Dice Yashimoto, who is working for the University of Georgia. It is believed, however, that Andy Greer and Yoshimoto are still under consideration.
Sources contend Knicks vice president William Wesley pushed for Kentucky assistant Kenny Payne, Johnnie Bryant and Mike Woodson, whose hiring appears imminent. That made Miller’s inclusion dicey because Thibodeau would be limited in hiring his own guys.
Sources contend Miller was considered strongly for the permanent job after a solid interview.
It’s a shame, as Herb Williams was able to go back to being an assistant coach after being the interim coach after Lenny Wilkins was fired in 2005. He remained an assistant coach for the next decade, working for four other coaches in the process.
However, it is fair to say that the Knicks’ hiring of Johnnie Bryant away from Utah almost certainly included Bryant being made the lead assistant, so it wouldn’t just be a demotion for Miller, but a demotion to not even lead assistant, which I could see stinging a bit.
Good luck to Miller on his coaching opportunities. I hope he at least gets a lead assistant gig somewhere. I doubt he’d be the guy in Chicago, but hey, maybe they’ll give him a shot (or, again, hire him as lead assistant. I think he’s clearly good enough to be a lead assistant).
189 replies on “NY Post: Mike Miller’s time on Knicks coaching staff likely done”
Just wanna re-post this here since there’s actually a thread for it:
You know..I really feel some kinda way about Miller drawing the short end of the stick. His not being on the new staff is understandable, but he DESERVES a larger role after patching the team up on the fly. I’m really rooting for him to land the Chicago job. Hell, I’d even like to see him get the Brooklyn job- though I know he’s not even on their radar. Maybe even Sacramento, if they cut Walton loose.
Feels kinda weird being excited to see the new staff once it’s finalized knowing Miller won’t be a part of it
Oh..and free agency request final answer for me?
Jerami Grant and Joe Harris. Hopefully we nail this draft, and can grow from there. Should we fall short on Grant, I’m perfectly ok with saving that money, only getting Harris, and drafting a 4 with a shot to replace Randle in a year with one of our 1sts like Poku or Smith. If Smith is available, obviously he’s the pick. But I’m officially intrigued by Poku with our late 1st
I agree. It’s clear the new front office is prioritizing “development” coaches. It’s good they want te develop young guys, but it sucks for Miller. I have a weird hunch he may end up in New Orleans in some capacity.
Ooo…what if they land Atkinson with Miller as the lead assistant? Wowsers
Ooph, they released the video of the interaction between Masai and the California deputy who tried to stop Masai from getting on to the court when the Raptors won the title and it looks baaaaaaaaaad for the deputy. The idea that this dude then sued Masai is insane.
https://www.ktvu.com/news/new-video-sheriffs-deputy-the-undeniably-initial-aggressor-in-toronto-raptors-shoving-match
Atkinson and Miller would be a good combo for New Orleans.
Watching Harden and Eric Gordon slice and dice through OKC and Dame destroy everyone would seem to raise the value of our Frankie N to playoff teams, who lack a stopper.
Whiteside’s rim protection was awesome own the stretch of that game. Hassan, Mitch, Myles Turner, and Nerlens have such great timing on blocks.
Not sure if you guys have touched on that Ethan Sherwood Strauss super-long article about the NBA ratings during the bubble, but I personally think it has little if anything to do with social justice and more to do with the fact that it’s kinda boring to watch a game without a crowd? Also, the unfamiliar arenas make it look like you’re watching a 2nd-tier euroleague game – not that euroleague is bad, but it looks amateur. Or like you’re playing on a made-up 2K court.
I feel the same way about watching baseball right now- it’s just weird.
by the way, I like Mike Miller but I don’t need him coaching this team. Seems like a nice and straight up guy, but he certainly was not any sort of offensive innovator, and basically anything he brings to the table as a defensive guy is clearly overshadowed by Thibs. It’s possible this was the plan all along, and that all the positive media spin was based on Rose/Wes trying to get him a soft landing somewhere.
Woodson I’m not sure about. They already have an assoc head coach and a highly paid assistant in Bryant and Kenny Payne — at this point is Woodson going to take being a guy in the second row on the bench?
Reposting from the old thread:
I’m disappointed Miller won’t be here, even though I also understand why he wouldn’t want to go from interim head coach of a team to third or fourth-place assistant on that team. He did a good job for us and he also knows the current roster very well. That said, I also don’t think it’s a huge loss, especially when you consider the assistants we’ve already hired. Miller is obviously a solid coach, but Fizdale’s sheer incompetence also made him look better than he may be. Obviously, he didn’t get an offseason and training camp to implement his own offensive or defensive schemes, but nor does he strike me as an X’s and O’s savant — just a guy who knew to have the players stop doing monumentally stupid things on both ends of the court. And while his Westchester teams graduated a fair amount of players to the NBA, there’s also not some famous developmental success story from his time there, as opposed to guys crossing the borderline between not quite NBA caliber to fringe NBA roster player.
I’d like to see him succeed somewhere else, though I would wager his best employment opportunity next year will be as someone else’s lead assistant. He did a good job for us. He deserves some kind of reward for that.
Oh, and this is exciting, for the many Perry skeptics out here. Shams says our GM could be heading back to Sacramento soon:
But from what I see in the numbers, though he may be better, he isn’t THAT much better, and people that aren’t Jakob Poeltl and Ivanka Zubac fluffers (aka, everyone) will admit that those guys are nowhere near being elevated to superstar status.
i’m ignoring holmes, because he’s 26 and an important component to mitch-hype is that he’s 21. the biggest thing i think you’re missing is that there’s a big fucking difference between a 72.6 TS and 15pts/36 and a 65.1 TS (zubac) or a 61.2 TS on 11pts/36 (poeltl). it’s a mistake to just say “awesome TS.” mitch just literally set the nba record for fg% at a 15pts/36 pace. you would never in a million years consider a 56TS and a 49TS comparable. and within that delta is mitch dunking 4.7/36, an absolutely monstrous #. the next highest guys on your list are at 3.4/36. and he’s done that with very shitty pgs. that’s a lot more reliable than thomas bryant’s* 64.9% TS including shooting 41% from 3.
the second thing you’re missing is the steep slope of a potentially massive defensive disruptor. mitch’s 3 blks and 1.3 stls are not just decently better than zubac’s 1.8 and 0.4 or even allen’s 1.8 and 0.8, they have the potential to be the difference between a defensive behemoth and just another guy in the paint. now, reality is actually the opposite at the moment, bc mitch in my view is still a horrific defensive decision maker, but very few guys in nba history get to 4.3 stocks/36, while 2-3 is standard.
i don’t believe that mitch is currently a materially better player than most of the guys despite on that list despite the #s, bc i think (but can’t show) he is still uniquely bad at non-stock defense. but i think the hype is real, and his really does shine brighter (kind of ignoring hayes, who is a 19 yr old lotto pick with 1K mins).
*i banged the drum for us to grab him when he was available for nothing. dred for asst to the gm.
All cops aren’t bastards! –just the ones that get caught committing battery, falsifying police reports, committing perjury and doubling-down on it despite a million cameras in the room they committed their offense in.
(I once thought that banning bobneptune was a questionable idea, and then I realized we haven’t had a 500-post Politiblogger thread since he was banished. Sic semper trolls!)
It would be great if we got that pick back…
that Masai body-cam video is so infuriating.
Alameda DA should prosecute him for all the lies, and certainly claw back all the disability/worker’s comp $ he has made.
he should have to pay Masai’s legal bills.
I doubt Masai will do it, but he certainly could go hard after him in a countersuit. It only says “nominal and punitive” damages but that could mean anything.
Yeah, posted that Ujiri thing in the other thread. Crazy. I hope it had nothing to do with us choosing Rose.
Masai has been pretty assertive in the whole matter. In this political climate, there’s not much to be lost from a counter-offensive. The bootlicking cop-lovers will see what they want to see in that video no matter what Masai does.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-raptors-president-masai-ujiri-produced-id-before-altercation-with/
It’s not just the plaintiff that’s a piece of shit. It’s the whole damn mafia that protects him, too.
I agree that Mitch has a long way to go with his decision-making, he bites and overcommits way too often and can be backed down by stronger players.
That said, his combo of size, speed, quick-twitch athleticism, and coordination are pretty rare. He also has a certain naive calmness about him. The blocking of 3pt shots speaks to that. He’s got first team all-defense written all over him already, and he is only going to get stronger and smarter. And his hand-eye coordination and body control suggest that he will improve on offense as well.
We simply have to sign him to a long-term deal asap. His likes don’t come around too often.
It doesn’t make sense to give him a contract yet. The risk of injury is too great, and it would make more sense to use Bird rights to resign him over the cap after swinging for the fences for superstars over the next two years (I think I have that cap condition right). Even if you “win” at, I don’t know, $10M AAV over four, what if he blows an Achilles or wrecks his knees?
The value we received in trades and contracts got so much better after Perry was hired, I hope we keep him.
But he also picked Knox over Bridges, SGA, and Porter — even if Fizdale was pushing for this, Perry made that terrible call — and was adamant about taking RJ over trading down. (Though who knows whom we would have taken had we traded.) And in both Sacramento and here, he signed a bunch of middling/washed veteran free agents in a futile attempt to seem more competitive, when the things that went well for both teams under his watch had more to do with younger players. I wont be angry if he stays, but nor will I be sad if he goes back to Lady Bird country.
If we are going to make a big bet on Mitch becoming a star level player, we should at least give him every chance to succeed by surrounding him with shooters and trying to expand him game beyond dunking lobs and OREB put-backs. Otherwise, he’s never going to be more than a great role player and 3rd or 4th option depending on the matchup.
Injury risk goes for every player, doesn’t it? I’m ok with waiting but at some point he (or his agent) might get wanderlust and look elsewhere (e.g. if he gets homesick, NO would be a great fit next to Zion.) I think $10mill x 4 years is a bargain, no matter what the cap circumstances. But yeah, there is risk and possible opportunity cost.
Both Mitch and RJ desperately need shooting around them. But both would also hugely benefit from a real point guard, instead of the hellscape that position has been for us for most of the last quarter century. If we win the lottery, we take LaMelo and figure out the shooting elsewhere. But if we stay in the 6-8 range, and can’t trade up for LaMelo, I think we’re probably better taking Devin Vassell or Kira Lewis and looking for a PG elsewhere.
The shit person that is deputy Alan Strickland gives the names Alan and Strickland bad names which makes me sad as a Knick fan for Rod, Erick, Houston, and Sepinwall.
Another way to look at it is, do you see him being a Rudy Gobert-level player in a year or two? Gobert is good enough to be considered part of a big-3 scenario, right? If yes, you want to lock that guy up at $10-15 mill AAV rather than wait until he costs you $25mill AAV.
Kira Lewis Jr. (who I like) seems to be shooting up the draft boards, I wonder why…
The other question is whether Thibs, Payne, and company can help Mitch reach his vast potential, or if he remains a super pogo stick with terrible fundamentals and instincts. If what we’ve gotten so far is all we’re going to get, is $10/4 a good deal, or a waste of cap space?
Sometimes you have to take risks on the most likely scenario. In Mitch’s case, it that he will a) improve and b) not suffer a career-threatening injury (which could happen to anyone…by this logic, why sign anyone to a long-term deal?)
But even at this salary, consider Mitch compared to other people making $10 mill….I would say he’s well worth that even if he stays roughly the same. But the odds of him not improving are pretty low, especially given the current coach, support staff and FO. I mean, seriously, would you bet for or against him getting better?
That video is gigantic non event. It’s a monumental waste of time, legal fees, court time, etc… for anything to come of it in either direction. We have much bigger problems than some security guy that didn’t know or recognize Masai asking for appropriate credentials (that Masai did not have), Masai continuing to walk past him until it could be sorted out, and the security guard responding by pushing him back to the checkpoint to ensure an unauthorized person did not get on the court. It’s almost hilarious that something was made of this because some dummy didn’t recognize Masai and Masai got pissed off because he was shoved twice and retaliated.
Nerlens Noel (today) is probably the best straight-up comparison for Mitch right now. He screwed himself for turning down a lucrative offer. I wonder what he’ll be offered as a UFA. That would be a good measuring stick, although it’s fair to assume that Noel is at his ceiling and that Mitch is not.
I saw Masai trying to pull a lanyard out from behind his jacket…
And Strickland said that Masai was the physical aggressor when he clearly wasn’t.
Even if he doesn’t counter-sue, it totally vindicates Masai. I don’t understand how you could see it otherwise.
Oh, I think the odds are pretty good of him improving, and I want to keep him around. I was just playing devil’s advocate, while also calling on the expertise of the many posters here who have a stronger sense of how different types of players should be valued in today’s NBA.
Right. The warrant that Alameda County was considering putting on a franchise’s top executive based on a falsified police report is a non-event. Would it be a non-event to you if you got threatened with arrest based on a lie?
Justice is never a waste.
A sheriff’s deputy.
Boot sufficiently licked, strat! Save some for the other Blue Liners!
You still fail to acknowledge that the deputy filed a police report and then sued Masai, claiming that he struck the deputy first. Does truth mean anything to you, Mr. Dershowitz?
I mean, I called it…
Our whole team needs shooting around it. lmao
Last year the Knicks were one of the most horribly constructed teams I’ve ever seen. If there was a worse one, I can’t recall it off the top of my head. And then to put a cherry on top they got killed in the Porzingis trade. He would have fit nicely with a few of the pieces and opened it up a little. Mills/Perry/Fizdale are wildly incompetent basketball people.
If you’ve blown your Hail Mary pass for Durant and either Irving or Kemba (a bad idea to begin with), at least build a team with rentals that fit together in some coherent fashion. It’s not fun when you swing for the fences and don’t hit a home run, but at least try to get on base.
Sure, but Mitch and RJ are our two theoretical building blocks, and both play particular types of games that are really hamstrung when they’re not paired with shooters.
Maybe Miller should have played his best player more. Seemed like he was at least a decent coach, hopefully the Knicks job will get him at least a nice college spot again.
In other news, Porzingis is questionable with knee soreness for today’s game.
The best thing about the Ujiri affair is the cop who shoved him has not worked a day since the finals and has been busy stealing taxpayer money by pretending Ujiri injured him so badly he’s unable to work.
“We have much bigger problems than some security guy that didn’t know or recognize Masai asking for appropriate credentials (that Masai did not have),”
Did you read the article? Masai is holding up the all access credential.
Jowles,
Do you have a comprehension problem over and above not understanding basketball?
I called everything about the incident “in either direction” idiotic.
What should have happened in a “SANE” world is that when the Sherrif’s deputy asked for PROPER credentials and Masai didn’t have them, Masai should have gotten really annoyed that the asshole didn’t recognize who he was, but stopped there. It would have taken about 10 seconds for other people in the area to let the dimwit deputy know who it was and allow him to pass.
Instead Masai continued walking to get past him.
Anything less than stopping him would have been a dereliction of the deputy’s job. Pushing may have been over zealous, but he had to physically stop him.
After the incident, the deputy should have said “I’m sorry I pushed you, but I didn’t know who you were and I was required to stop you from getting on the court and I may have been a little over zealous”.
Masai should have said, “It was unprofessional for you to push me and for me to take a swipe at you in retaliation, but this was the greatest moment of my life and you were stopping me from getting on the court”.
Then they should have had a beer together.
***That video is gigantic non event.It’s a monumental waste of time, legal fees, court time, etc… for anything to come of it in either direction.We have much bigger problems than some security guy that didn’t know or recognize Masai asking for appropriate credentials (that Masai did not have), Masai continuing to walk past him until it could be sorted out, and the security guard responding by pushing him back to the checkpointto ensure an unauthorized person did not get on the court.It’s almost hilarious that something was made of this because some dummydidn’t recognize Masai and Masai got pissed off because he was shoved twice and retaliated.***
It’s one thing to think this, but to actually spend time writing it and posting it makes me think that you are, in fact, a crackhead.
I have Knicks’ PTSD, so I’ll take good at something even if not good at everything because historically we’ve mostly been bad at everything. And anyway, it looks like we would have won thirty plus games with those middling free agents if not for Fizdale, so that wasn’t horrible in itself since they aren’t long term contracts. Of course, he was clearly on board with hiring Fizdale, which ended up being a mistake.
Which is, itself, idiotic, and fails to represent that the deputy has the backing of the state, with all its power to arrest, indict, convict and incarcerate, and Masai does not.
But what did he do, instead?
(a) took responsibility for his actions
(b) made a public apology
(c) filed a false police report, claimed he was injured, filed a lawsuit, and accepted the backing of the police department and union in amplifying those lies in order to smear the name of a man who did nothing close to resembling a criminal act
“Both sides”ing this Masai incident is ludicrous. The video shows Masai taking out his credentials when the deputy shoves him. A fan then yells at the deputy and grabs at his arm to tell him he fucked up and that he just shoved the Raptors president, at which point the deputy then shoves Masai a second time and then Masai, who has now been shoved twice for no reason, shoves him back.
Getting “both sides were wrong” from that is…ill-considered.
It is really unnecessary to engage with anyone who watched that video and came up with anything but the obvious- that deputy was a dickhead. Don’t waste your brain cells and time on dickheads who take his side.
i would give mitch the 4/40 norman powell extension if he showed up at the little table to sign it on crutches.
strat, there is a ghost of stratmas future 30 years hence posting on sonicblogger, and he is pedantically lecturing everyone on how he realized decades ago that the largest contributor to biased overconfidence is in fact the awareness bias and overconfidence exist, causing the victim to see bias and only bias wherever they looked. fortunately the key to overcoming this reflexive double bias is still to pay lip service to anything measurable while relying entirely on gut feeling and clarence gaines’ tweets, so you’ve been right all along.
After watching the Masai video i must say that the guy who shoved him has no place in any civilized country’s workforce.
Unacceptable in 2020
Maybe the Knicks will have to offer Sacramento a 2nd round pick to take Perry back. lmao
The best thing about Strat’s utterly ludicrous take on the Masai video (and I think ‘crackhead’ is a very reasonable reaction, although it might be maligning crackheads) is that the next time he puts something out there about ‘eye test’ we can just re-post the video in response, rather than wasting time disputing his idiocy.
thanks bo, caught your words on the other thread reference school and dad stuff…i appreciate them sir 🙂
one of the better things i picked up while in the army was: you got to see a man to be a man
still true today…
i just want to say – i’ve visited sacramento a couple of times (mostly just flew in and out)…i don’t really get all the “talk” about it being an ugly cow town…it seemed like a pretty okay place…i remember it even had like a little river going through it…that’s nice…i mean, it ain’t the bay area that’s for sure…it’s doesn’t seem like it’s oakland either though…
After reading this on P&T, the question is legit…would you include RJ in a trade for Donovan Mitchell?
For the record, I probably would, depending on what else it would take to get it done. I doubt that RJ will ever be as good as Mitchell, but who knows? Probably won’t happen but certainly an interesting proposition.
hi pepper…serenity and acceptance…not easy, especially when we project so much of our own dreams and desires in to our children…
it’s over a decade ago now, god daughter was around 6 or 7, i remember picking her up for the weekend and on the way over to the house she was boasting about how easily she was able to influence the people around her to get her way…she wasn’t directly talking about me, but – i took the opportunity anyway to inject what i thought was a necessary amount of guilt for those kind of words…
i remember her crying…i felt a little bad, but, thought it was necessary to share my feeling about using other people, i intended to make it a “theme” for the weekend – how to treat others with respect sort of thing…
at the time she was real big in to riding bikes, so saturday morning we hit the bike trail and we’re peddling along and suddenly i notice her heading straight for about a 2 foot deep drainage ditch which was oddly placed in the middle of the bike path…
she barely misses it, my heart literally leapt out my body and started beating right next to my ear, it shook me up pretty good…a little later we’re riding around this park and lo and behold she rides right in to a light post…it makes an awful sound and she hits the ground…she’s okay, just shook up a bit…
all those thoughts and ideas i had about making the weekend a “treat others better” theme went way out the window…i was just thankful to hold her…
biologically the kids aren’t mine, we’ve spent a lot of time together, so they have some of my behaviors and characteristics…one of the biggest parenting lessons i learned from my folks was in how they each viewed me – ma always saw me as my own person, dad always some me as his progeny, there’s a huge difference in those two perceptions…
their path is theirs to choose…easy to write, hard to accept…
i preach to the kids the same thing ma preached to me – come 18 you need to have a plan
i would cite the famous quote…”there ain’t no there…there”
geo…thanks…that is funny…the one theme I have been hammering home is the “come 18 you better have plan”…I got that from a car/limo service guy who I used to use to go to and from the airport (before uber/lyft) and his kids were older than mine and that was his approach..it’s just that I deliver the speech and I get the Homer Simpson blinking eyes back and not sure if he hears it or I sound like the teacher in the Charlie Brown cartoons…
Whoda thunk that the both guys bad guy would both sides bad this one
By the way, that Bo Nateman post was good. I agreed with a good deal of it with a couple amendments I can’t type with thumbs.
Donovan Mitchell is probably overrated…and he has only improved marginally from his rookie year. None of his advanced stats scream “max player.” He’s incredibly exciting but has a lot of Melo in him.
If you want shooting and you want a point guard, take Aaron Nesmith in the lottery and take Grant Riller late in the first round.
I see Mitchell as more a Brad Beal before he made the major recent improvement to his game. Time will tell if he makes the leap. Fair bet, but right now, he’s more upside than superstar.
Glass, I know precious little about the prospects this year, but I was under the impression that Vassell was the guy to go for if we wanted a reliable 3-and-D guy who could play right away. Why do you lean towards Nesmith?
Some people choose very strange hills on which to die
I was ready to bet that if BKN gets 1Win against TOR I’d become a vegetarian but their start chickened me!
I bet QSnider listens to rockabilly
Rebecca Haarlow been working for TNT all bubble?
TEAM OPTIMISM HOT TAKE ALERT! READ WITH CAUTION!!!
If The Lakers go out early in these playoffs, AD will opt out and The Knicks will have a legit shot of getting him in free agency.
HEAR ME OUT.
Lebron is 37 years old. How much does he realistically have left in the tank? He’s been regular season coasting for awhile and then turns it up for the playoffs. Can he do that next season? What about the season after that when he’s 39? Does AD really want to commit to the Lakers long term when half of a new contract would probably be AL (AFTER LEBRON).
The rest of their team is suspect. Its ring chasing vets like Howard, Green, JR, Rondo. None of those dudes are young. They traded away picks to get AD, so rebuilding on the fly could be tough. Sure, they’re The Lakers so they could conceivably sign another star in free agency to replace Lebron. But if you’re AD, do you count on that?
AD had The Knicks as one of his choices. We got Thibs and as the head coach and Rose is filling out the coaching staff and front office with some great guys. We got Mitch. Mitch and AD front court is potentially devastating on both ends. We got RJ and a lottery pick this year plus another first round pick. Then we have 5 first round picks over the next 3 drafts plus multiple second round picks. Plus, we got cap flexibility. We could sign AD outright without giving up any of our young players or picks. Then we could orchestrate a trade for another young star on the rise (Mitchell? Booker? Fox?) and even after that trade our cupboard of assetts would not be empty.
I know it seems far fetched but it could happen!
Please, guys. Let me have this dream for today.
I’ve seen Rebecca yesterday for the first time in the bubble.
Haven’t seen/hear KHarlan/MAlbert tho who are my faves along Breen
Mitchell’s a nice young player. I don’t think he’ll ever be a superstar (like a top 15 player), but if he develops a bit more he could be an all star caliber guard in a his prime. Being an above average high usage guard at 23 is pretty impressive. He’s a pretty good FT shooter, he’s a good mid range shooter, and if he turns into a good 3 point shooter and draws a few more fouls he’ll be a very good offensive player.
“Please, guys. Let me have this dream for today.”
That’s fair man but you’re destroying my “Freak/Dame dream” badly !!!
Damn, Lowry wound up and spanked the shit out of that equipment manager. I mean, when I see people bent over, I’m always tempted to punch their butt as hard as I can, but I usually manage to restrain myself, especially when a national TV audience might be watching…
Passing on Donavan Mitchell for Frank wasn’t a great move, but the one we may ultimately really kick ourselves for is passing up Michael Porter jr for Knox.
Gobert block on Jokic was iconic
I have the same fantasy but I think he would leave a good chunk of money on the table if he was to opt out and sign elsewhere (other than LA)…
I don’t think you can go wrong between the two guys, but Nesmith was on another level as a shooter this season and he’s on a short list for “best shooters to enter the draft since Klay Thompson.” This guy was shooting over 50% from 3 on just over 8 attempts a game, and he’s an 83% shooter from the foul line so you can bank on the shooting translating a little more than Vassell, whose form isn’t perfect and shot 73.8% from the free throw line.
I also like that he and RJ Barrett have nearly identical height/weight/wingspan profiles so they can play either wing spot interchangeably, and in general I think adding the drafts best shooter to a team that has close to no shooting is a great idea.
Ask a question, get a good answer. Thanks, Glass. Though I almost feel like the interchangeable size thing is a deficit in this case, in that RJ should be playing the 3 as much as possible, if not the 4, and anything that encourages the team to keep him at shooting guard seems non-ideal.
Knicks fans at the draft that night were chanting “Michael Porter!” when we were on the board at nine. I was certain he would have been gone either 6th or 7th to Orlando or Chicago so when he was on the board for us I figured we’d take him over Kevin Knox. When we still took Knox I figured MP Jr had undraftable medical reports. Turns out the Knicks were not only impatient, but stupid. I think everybody taken in the lottery outside of Jerome Robinson has been better than Knox so far. Mikal Bridges, Miles Bridges, SGA, Jerome Robinson, and Michael Porter Jr were the picks immediately after Kevin Knox. This board wanted either SGA or Mikal Bridges, and if the KnickerBlogger braintrust were drafted we’d have probably ended up with Bridges because he was a clear fit as a 3&D guy next to Porzingis.
At the end of the day, the same idiots who took Kevin Knox took Mitchell Robinson, but even that wasn’t a guarantee because Mitch received a promise from the Lakers at 25 which is why he skipped the combine. But the Knox pick was absolutely a fire able offense, and I hope we send Perry back to Sacramento because of it. Get that guy out of here.
Donovan Mitchell obviously didn’t like the “overrated” comments on Knickerblogger lol.
I’d agree with you here except the two could not be more different offensively. RJ Barrett’s game is more in the lane, drawing fouls, and setting his teammates up with good passing. Nesmith is your traditional shooting guard prospect who does well when you get him in rhythm in transition and off the ball as a floor spacing threat. Defensively is where RJ Barrett and Aaron Nesmith would be interchangeable, which works to their benefit and should work well under Thibodeau.
I’d be over the moon if the Knicks took Nesmith, but I don’t really expect it. He’s the kind of guy who gets with Johnnie Bryant and turns into Michael Redd because he really only needs to work on his game off the dribble. You don’t have to teach him how to finish, how to shoot, or how to defend. You plug him in, you play him, and you let him add things to his game in the off season.
looks like the dudes I knew in high school who snorted “crank”…
Porter Jr still might have a ticking time bomb in his back, so we’ll see.
Utah played some Bitches Brew “Jazz” tonight.
Made the Nuggets look like a High School team
Nuggets should let Jokic eat whatever he wants if they want to have a chance!
Thin Jokic looks sad.
Even a stopped clock is right twice a day!
Btw I’m in on Nesmith as well. The way he moves without the ball to get open/separation in nonpareil — he can already shake defenders the way Dame and Curry can.
And of course he had high percentages on high volume. Vassell is great, but he’s still a 12-ppg guy. There’s no guarantee he can be a scoring threat.
Nesmith has issues — the defense isn’t good and his driving ability is rudimentary — but the kid can really shoot.
Of course I talk shit on Donovan Mitchell and he puts up what will be one of the best performances of the year
Dude went to Duke for undergrad, law school AND business school, and even looks like he could have been cast for the American Psycho business card scene. I wouldn’t be surprised if his nasal passage has been reconstructed twice by now.
Plus, you know, it’s all but confirmed that he did a shitton of coke as HC of Missouri, and even banged one of his players’ girlfriends.
it’s probably karma that he ended up having to live in salt lake city…
Jojo is a beast inside.
Unfortunately the paint-ball demands much energy.
He don’t seem to me in great shape to dominate all game long/whole series long.
Salt Lake City is a wonderful place to live
if you’re not black
So AD opts out cuz the lakers get ousted and the team sucks after lebron leaves…he comes to knicks
Donovan Mitchell wants out of lily white SLC…and follows JB to the Big Apple….
That is a way better tandem then old man Durant and kyreee…knicks playing the long game…we had it all wrong.
No Simmons > No chance
how in the hell are the tampa bay satan-rays always so damn competitive…
i watched a ball game there once – easily the ugliest stadium i’ve ever been in…
porzingis playing…beverly out for clips…
Boston is greatly physically conditioned/coached
Phila is trash
Tobias Harris is turning out to be one of the worst max contracts in the league, not to mention an incredibly dumb trade to get him. In 2023-24 he’ll be making $41,000,000!!!
Not a great day for the Jayson Tatum doubters…
Brown and Horford should have quit/retired during halftime if they were gentlemen!
(pepper, when you quote someone, scroll down past “blockquote” before typing in your comment, otherwise your words look like they are part of what you’re quoting.)
that’s insane…i forgot why they went with him instead of butler…
The only positive thing for Phila from this “massacre” is the possibility to humble Embiid a bit and also make him work on his conditioning cause its obvious that he relies mostly on his talent instead of hard work.
ha, that always used to get me when trying to describe some bb code stuff to someone…whenever you try to explain or describe something – those letters/symbols just end doing what they do…
yes, nice guy brett brown should no longer be coaching the 76’s…even nicer guy elton brand sure didn’t do him any favors with this year’s roster…
Philly is fried. They have a clunky roster with a gimpy superstar and an unmovable max contract for a slightly above league-average player. They got impatient with Hinkie and totally screwed up what was turning into a good thing.
No way they ever get past the second round with this team going forward.
You wouldn’t think the Celts would be doing well when Kemba. Smart and Brown go a combined 4 for 20 from 3…
Uh-oh. What if Perry goes to Sacramento right as Philly is firing Elton Brand, and Rose hires him as the new GM?
(I mean, that probably won’t happen. But I won’t label it an impossibility given our history.)
Cole leaves game @ 109 pitches…10k’s….looks good…
f u alsep
I’m offended, Z-Man.
lol having the time to binge-watch The Wire might have been the best part of this whole pandemic…
Release the Boban!
Is PG13 hurt?
Clips need to stop fouling THj on layups and focus on rebounding after he misses.
Wait a minute, the lottery is tomorrow?
I can’t wait to find out whether we draft Cole Anthony at #3 or #8
You may have to wait until draft day to see if they trade up for him though.
It’s too early in the morning for that kind of plot twist, Donnie. Fuckin’ obscene.
I wish I could be more excited about the lottery tonight. I like Ball well enough, but I can’t exactly get pumped about moving up in the lottery to get a chance to draft him. I could probably talk myself into Edwards, so I guess I could be excited about the #1 pick in that instance…but then they’d take Ball, right? Grrr….
The #1 pick is going to have an AAV of approximately $12mm over 4 years. The #4 pick is going to be around $7mm. If we end up between 6 & 9, it’s somewhere between $4 & $6mm.
Given the salary cap savings and marginal difference between top picks, I think the top pick is a potential poison pill and the sweet spot in this lottery is winning 4th, where you’ll likely have an opportunity to draft Halliburton or Hayes. I even prefer falling down into Obi Toppin / Deni Avdija range than winning the rights to Ball or Edwards.
We are not a team that needs to land a star in the draft. We will land a star in free agency if we use the draft to select high quality players that can complement stars while they’re on rookie contracts.
Value the cap savings in this draft; and for once, value someone who has been productive over someone with raw talent.
For years this has been the case, but they keep swinging for the fences. It’s maddening.
This is such a terrible draft and I have no faith in this franchise to pick the correct player I’d rather move down than move up so we have to draft Haliburton. Being that this franchise is cursed (read, owned by Dolan) that means we’re definitely going to move up for the first time since drafting Ewing and we’ll pick yet another “high upside” bust.
While I get that he is mostly potential, I think Edwards did enough in college that there are reasons to be legitimately excited about him outside of just potential based on his striking athleticism. The trick is that the’d only be in on Edwards if they’re picking #2 and whatever team picking #1 wants Ball or Wiseman. Grrrr.
So yeah, this is one of those weird drafts where I’d just as soon see the Knicks remain around #6.
The more I research prospects and watch the playoffs, the more I’m liking Kira Lewis Jr. as a pick should we fall to 7 or 8 (very likely.) I probably still take Haliburton over him but don’t think he will be available. I would WAAAAAAY take him over Hayes.
Lewis can shoot and has excellent shooting form, get into the paint and make plays in half-court, and run the break in transition. The smallish engine PG is in vogue these days, and he’s not a bad defender for his size. His IQ is decent. He has room to put meat on his bones.
He may not turn into Lillard or Kemba, but seems like a sure-fire NBA PG at some level. I don’t see any bust potential at all, no glaring holes in his game other than turning the ball over too much. He’s also still 19, as young as many freshmen.
>>> The trick is that the’d only be in on Edwards if they’re picking #2 and whatever team picking #1 wants Ball or Wiseman <league average shooters.
But I can’t imagine us taking Edwards over Ball. If we win this lottery, we’re falling into the Ball trap, for sure.
And I say it’s a trap not because he isn’t a great prospect. It’s about considering all steps of the process. I’d rather have Anthony Edwards and a max salary slot to use on a PG than LaMelo Ball and overpaying for a two-way wing in free agency who complements Ball (and you always have to overpay for those guys!).
Shel Silverstein once wrote a song called A Boy Named Sue about a dead-beat dad that gave his son a girl’s name in order to toughen him up from a young age. So, by Silverstein’s logic, Kira should be ready for the New York media day one. I’m in.
Is there any other KDesque wing from Kentucky available on this draft to give it a 3on3 try?
I’m intrigued
So I’m trying to reconcile my pathological disdain for the Ball family’s Kardashian-like qualities of fame over substance with my sense that if he was named Johnny Jones, I’d feel like LaMelo was Frank with a much better handle and court vision but much worse defense, and a similarly crap offensive game. As in with this set of prospects maybe worth a 10-15 pick as a longer-term project, but that’s about it.
I think it’s over-reaction, but I’m not sure. Curious if I’m alone in this feeling…
It’s mostly terrible because of how little we know about the draftees. Every year has its share of overhyped future journeymen, lotto busts and late-draft sleepers, but this year, it’s trying to read the tea leaves via a photo taken on a flip-phone while drunk on rubbing alcohol.
The good news about that is that it’s even more likely that a good player will slip down to #7 or 8
There’s one incontrovertible truth about this draft: the 2 players selected before and after our pick will go on to have splendid NBA careers
#Dolansrazor
i am so out on edwards. dion waiters jr rider coming to a theatre near you.
if he was named Johnny Jones, I’d feel like LaMelo was Frank with a much better handle and court vision but much worse defense, and a similarly crap offensive game.
i’d be hard pressed to think of two same-position players who remind me less of each other. jokic and shaq?
>>> It’s mostly terrible because of how little we know about the draftees. Every year has its share of overhyped future journeymen, lotto busts and late-draft sleepers, but this year, it’s trying to read the tea leaves via a photo taken on a flip-phone while drunk on rubbing alcohol. <<<
And just think… next year's draft is going to this to the 5th power!
the thing that worries me about haliburton is the possibility that he has great skills that he won’t be able to maximize in the nba given his weaknesses, and more flaws than you’d like where his most likely role emerges. like, it seems highly unlikely for him to be a regular initiator on nba team bc his shake and first step are just so mediocre, and he’s not going to make up for it with girth. for a 3&D wing he’d be like the best passer ever, but will he be able to use that skill enough? and for a 3&d wing he hasn’t necessarily shown the elite lockdown d (and even his shooting is maybe a little more uncertain than usual for a guy with great shooting stats). then again, he seems like maybe a possible mold breaker. like if shawn marion was an outlier player who could play 2-5, his upside is becoming sort of the 1-4 version of that. it makes watching the lottery so strange bc he’s sure not what you’re used to seeing for a super premium pick prospect.
My impression of this draft is that the best player in it, whoever he is, is as good as the third or fourth best player in most drafts. If we do well we get someone like RJ, but no way do we get a player who will be an impact player right away. Because all the best players in this draft have big warts (metaphorically), it puts a premium on our scouting. Other than Knox, I think the Knicks have been alright at getting useful players in the draft, so my hope is just getting a guy who is starter level by year two or three. I know we always want more out of the draft, but this result is a more realistic possibility.
Edwards
Why Waiters/Rider and not Buttler/Oladipo ?
Or Drexler/Richmond ?
You see fire i see lightning
Agreed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdN6R1t7lOc
There is nothing in this highlight package that looks like Frank. If there’s anything to be worried about, it’s LaMelo Ball being Lonzo Ball. They look remarkably similar, except his long shooting form just looks loose, low and undisciplined, rather than totally broken.
LaMelo has some serious bust potential, but there’s a zero-percent chance he will be less than a quality reserve in the NBA. His feel for the game looks like Rajon Rondo’s, who is the very antithesis of Frank on offense. Even though the NBL is a relatively weak league, it’s still a teenager against grown men.
Yeah, Ball is obviously at least a rotation player. But man, the number one pick and you’re getting a rotation player? A year after the #2 pick is a budding superstar? Argh!
2:24 is a real winner for me. It’s an obvious failure by the switched defender, giving the roll an open path to the basket by literally being in the place that the defender should be. Note that #0 on Ball’s team runs a simple, jogging curl toward the corner to get his defender’s back exposed, allowing the two-man game to operate without help defense. The pass isn’t some act of genius, but it’s attacking the weakness on the floor immediately and precisely, in a way that you simply can’t teach. It’s perfectly executed, and is easy points for his team.
There’s some flashier passes, like 3:30, where he drives aggressively to the hole and makes a pass over his head to a wide-open teammate, or 1:28, which is positively Rondoesque, but you want to see guys making the simple, high-efficiency pass as much as you do the wild highlights.
If we drafted LaMelo and he turned out to be Rajon Rondo 2.0 I’d be pretty damn happy with that.
I meant offensive player, here. Referents and prepositional phrases are hard.
I think Edwards has a better profile than Waiters, but yes, I can’t deny that I could easily see a similar NBA trajectory for Edward as Waiters if he doesn’t get smarter. I just think that most NBA stars do get smarter. When they don’t, then yes, fair enough, they become like Dion Waiters. If he gets smarter, Edwards is easily a star.
In this life you can choose of being a Waiter(s) or a But(t)ler according to your work ethic.
Why Waiters/Rider and not Buttler/Oladipo ?
because when i think of two of the hardest working, court-aware, hi iq guards to come up in recent years, anthony edwards picking daisies on defense does not spring to mind. why not compare lamelo to cp3?
Drexler/Richmond ?
this is felony slash abuse. those guys have about as much in common as frank and ball, tho richmond could probably imitate the fuck out of a drexler foul shot. richmond was a much more shot-centric prospect than either drexler or edwards. drexler had some of the same man among boys size/explosiveness traits and likely a worse shot, but it’s pretty hard for me to see clyde fucking drexler when i look at anthony edwards.
The Ball highlights were fun. They made me want to see more. I’d be happy getting him out of the draft.
i don’t really think lamelo is at risk of being lonzo, in the sense that lonzo’s most limiting, defining quality — even more than his weird shot which may end up looking at least ok and uninteresting in retrospect — is that he can absolutely, positively, only move in straight lines. lamelo on the other hand has a shit ton of shake wiggle for his length. and lonzo’s ucal defensive fundamentals were already a gazillion times better than lamelo’s are now. lamelo kind of looks to me like a tall white chocolate, which sounds awesome, but his head is such a question mark wtf knows (and lonzo’s really isn’t). how many 6/ 7″ guys have i seen both handle and pass in traffic like lamelo, in australia, college or la fitness? just a handful, ever. i never saw penny make some of the passes he can make. but i dunno if that will be a enough for a kid that still chucks 35 foot pullups and 20 foot floaters while wiping his sneakers on d.
Thanks for the schooling, gents. I’m still not a fan, but I was clearly ignoring what he can do well.
If you could see Drexler while looking at 19years Edwards then noone ever would have been wrong on the drafts and the best players of any draft would have been picked in the best possible order according to their future nba careers.
You can see potential. And danger.
You see danger in Edwards, i see potential.
If you want shooting and you want a point guard, take Aaron Nesmith in the lottery and take Grant Riller late in the first round.
i’m a nesmith fan. i feel like his floor is pre injury wes matthews and there’s room to be a good bit better
I’ve never been sold on Edwards and hope we don’t pick him. Here’s what Bleacher Report just wrote:
“Every scout seems to have and project Edwards in the top three—yet nobody seems confident that he’s the right type of player to build an offense around.
I’ve heard “lowest basketball IQ for any potential No. 1 overall pick I can remember.” One executive called him a “top-three mystery,” which is an amusing oxymoron. Another scout questioned why Edwards couldn’t win more games on a team that had decent talent. “
This isn’t promising. See
https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2905180-2020-nba-draft-lottery-buzz-the-mystery-begins-right-at-the-top
I am on the fence with him. One of the big issues with such a hyped prospect is the exposure to the sunk-cost fallacy. I mean, shit, Frank has shown almost no ability on offense, yet we still spend an inordinate amount of time talking about his upside. Imagine if LaMelo is a .485 TS% shooter like his brother through his first three years, but has all of the nasty passes and highlight-reel drives that you see in the NBL highlights? Imagine seeing the Knicks give him $100M over four to “prove himself.” It’s a scary prospect.
True. LaMelo is definitely a guy that you easily forget is so tall, too.
You are the strangest bird. But Dion Waiter has his very own private island, so you have to give him that.
You see danger in Edwards, i see potential.
i sometimes get annoyed at your posts because to me they all read like cryptograms for “i have a colorful personality! i am a bon vivant!,” but there’s a 80% chance it’s jealousy that you’ve successfully blinded yourself to the dark reality that suffocates us all (and that’s just in terms of basketball). i of course agree with that a monster athlete like edwards has potential. you should read all of these draft posts as vague summaries of guesses about probabilities, not simply “seeing” one or the other. everyone sees danger and potential in nearly every prospect. oversimplifying into binary is for people who want the world to be easier than it is. normally only strat feels the need to spell this out but there it is.
i wouldn’t mind for the world to be easier than what it is…
To each his suff’rings: all are men,
Condemn’d alike to groan,
The tender for another’s pain;
Th’ unfeeling for his own.
Yet ah! why should they know their fate?
Since sorrow never comes too late,
And happiness too swiftly flies.
Thought would destroy their paradise.
No more; where ignorance is bliss,
‘Tis folly to be wise.
“i sometimes get annoyed at your posts”
Don’t feel bad about that.
Sometimes even Me gets annoyed at my posts!
Communication ain’t always rosie and fun.
Not even with yourself…
I say Edwards will be a star. You see him more as a bust. Why not ? Who knows !?
To be fair, I think Dolan has paid tens of millions of dollars for exactly this kind of analysis in his front office, so
We don’t have good luck with football players that switch over to basketball (e.g. Kevin Knox), so count me out on Edwards.
I think one of the big knocks on Haliburton, that can’t do certain things, is actually a strength in his case. It’s that he won’t do those things, not necessarily that he can’t, that makes him a smart player.
In reality, I think he should be able to shore up his weaknesses better than most players, but in college, he always put himself in the best position to succeed as a player by not overreaching. The Knicks could use a guy like that.
That said, I’m still high on Hayes and Avdija (although the free-throw shooting scares me). I also somehow think that Okoro will end up being the big star in this draft, call me crazy.
When it comes to Nba Draft my “anal ysis” is based on a quick look at a few highlights and a glance at stats.
I never declared an expert and i wouldn’t bet money on my draft predictions.
Just for the fun of the prediction game
This is what I was arguing a while back re: LaMelo vs. Hayes. LaMelo has many advanced skills and unteachable court vision. He is very inefficient and his self-scouting interview with Schmitz was very unimpressive (he sounded like an 8yo kid) but in this draft where there isn’t a Brandon Clarke jumping off the stats page, I’d roll the dice on him, especially in a crap shoot draft where we have two other scratch-offs. His upside is pretty unlimited…doubt he gets to generational player or even perennial all-star but he’s got that kind of size-athleticism-skill-court vision package. Most likely negative outcome is something like Jason Williams…talented but inefficient and mercurial, still a solid NBA rotation player. I don’t see the Rondo comparison, especially in the toughness/leadership realm, but who knows?
Sure, that’s a tough thing to figure out from game tape. Rondo’s memory is legendary, and he’s mean as fuck. Ball is from the Twitch-streamer-NBA-superstar era. I don’t expect the same kind of grit from the latest gen, for better or worse.
Given that New York Basketball Team will never win anything of note, I’d like to watch the second coming of White Chocolate for ten-plus years. That’d be fun.
I think you are forgetting Charlie Ward and Walt Frazier. Between them and Knox we are two for three.
I mean, Toppin is kind of this. I’ll be very interested to see who takes him and how his game translates. If he can show even passable D and work on his handle, he could become an pretty nice weapon for someone.
Ha! College-level football is a whole different thing. Ward was practically Bo Jackson.
New York Basketball Team was a bad joke parody the last few years.
Unfortunately for the absurdist in me but luckily for the bball freak this shitshow seems to end with Rose/Thibodeau and co.
I’m dressed for success/ No more Borat swimsuits for the Knicks fans
Toppin’s D and 3-pt shooting are major concerns, and he’s old. Clarke’s skills were all transferrable, and his college efficiency was off the charts. That said, he’s a fine “play it safe” pick.
Jowles, we’re in agreement (watch out!)
People focus on the negatives of Ball but for me, his poor shooting is partly because of shot selection, which is a coachable fix. The upside is there and the court vision/passing is next level. And that is something that can’t really be taught. Players either have it or they don’t. Not that players can’t get better at passing and up their assist numbers. They can. But some of the stuff Ball is doing now is unreal and it would be fun to watch that.
Basketball is a GAME that people PLAY. On some level it should be fun. When was the last time the Knicks had an 18 year top PG prospect who could potentially bring some real electricity and excitement to the team? Watching Ball throw some half court lobs to Mitch or pull a behind the back pass to a cutting RJ while the defense freezes and goes WTF? Sounds like a good time.
LaMelo is the second coming of Brandon Jennings. Now featuring extra rebounding!!!
Okongwu’s stats jump off the page. I’d be happy with him. I don’t know, Edwards and Ball just give me the willies.
If you want a Rondo-type player, Hayes strikes me as a better fit in that mold.
I honestly don’t think there’s anyone in the top of the draft I want. I’m legitimately hoping not to win the lottery or, if we do, to trade down.
Toppin’s shooting numbers are eerily reminiscent of (but worse than) Derrick Williams, who was fantastic in college and terrible in the pros. Id guess he’s fine in the late lotto, but don’t count on him stretching the floor.
Give me Haliburton or Okongwu as the best player in 5 years.
“The Chronicles of a bonjovi Vivant”
On Last year’s (Zion’s) draft lottery i had bought myself some cheap beers and a few highly unhealthy but extremely salty and tasty snacks to “celebrate” Knicks getting the No1 and feel some (bball) joy and excitement in general after ages….
Tonight I’m totally unprepared for good luck!
Let’s Do it!
might wanna just chug some retsina for this one…
I was at a sports bar with my work team during the lottery last year, and as soon as we got to the last 3 picks I started losing my mind in anticipation. Really thought it was going to happen for us.
I shouted “fuck” with an uncivil intensity when #3 came in, and went to the bathroom to blow off steam. I don’t get angry about sports, much. That night was rough.
Remember myself crying on Hibbert’s block…
Never had so passionate reaction from sports again….
Early in the Greek morning….fuck!#@$!!!
Brandon Jennings is 6’1″, LaMelo is like 6’7″
@pepper
Beware of Retsina.
It’s the “Pat Beverley” of wines.
It gives you one of the worst hangovers you can imagine!
And yet he still manages to suck at defense and
be an inefficient chucker
I think that if we end up with LaMelo Ball, we wouldn’t have to rely on him to be the leader since we drafted RJ Barrett. I also think the kid is a Doncic-type shot maker in that he’ll probably make 3-4 3s a night but still shoot under league average from deep, and I’m okay with that as long as we stick two good shooters at the 2 and 4 to fit between Ball, Barrett, and Mitch.
If we’re picking from 6-8, I like all of Avdija, Toppin, Lewis Jr, and Nesmith at those spots. Very easy pass on Halliburton because that jumper is funky and that handle isn’t reliable. Maybe I’m wrong and he’s this year’s Mikal Bridges, but I would be shocked if Halliburton is an NBA point guard.
been there…done that…luv that stuff…
Yeah, I’d be down for LaMelo at #1 just for the entertainment value. Even if he’s a train wreck, it would be fun to watch.
But if we land at #2 behind a team that’s clearly taking Ball, I’d be fine with trading down for two picks to get three swings a a starting-quality player.
You could grab a point, a couple wings, and a shooting big too with the 2nd rounder.
jeff green 6.0 looks pretty good…
I don’t get this at all.
I was in MSG at a season ticket holder event with 2 guys who bought tix the day after the Knicks won the Ewing lottery. Same reaction, only shared by like 200+ people.
When the Lakers got #4 we had a 50% chance at #1. And then, it seemed like seconds later:
“the 3rd pick in the 2019 NBA Draft goes to…..”
Ah, moments as a Knicks fan I’ll cherish forever…
I’ve never been less nervous for a lottery. This draft is underwhelming and kind of all over the place in terms of where the guys I like are projected to go. Theoretically I should still root for the highest pick possible because of trade down possibilities of course, but we don’t really do smart things like that, so whatever.
We need shooting, but we can get that with the Clippers and Hornets picks if we win the lottery. We have needed a good playmaker at point guard forever. Is LaMelo that guy? I don’t know, but I think it’ll be fun watching him try to fix our decades-old Achilles heel.
I consulted the Razor.
It said that this year’s weak ass draft is the year we win the #1 pick.
I think the Bucks are back
I’ll translate:
LaMelo is going to put up the same numbers as Brandon Jennings, but with more rebounds.
A 55 -point game by a rookie wouldn’t be bad in MSG…
Jennings went to a Michael Redd-less Milwaukee team where he imediately became the first scoring option (or second, but Bogut never scored much), which brought to surface the worst of his chucking. Ball wouldn’t find that scenario in NYC, he would have more alternatives. I think he would put his focus on passing, at first. By shooting less, he will be a better player.
I’m not sure why you think that. Just their size alone suggests that they are different players. Jennings was also very left-hand dominant and was never a big assists guy.
Even if he never develops his shooting beyond Jennings, he should get more assists, steals and blocks. All he needs to do to separate himself scoring-wise is shoot reasonably well from 2 (Jennings was a career 41% from 2) Considering he’s way taller, longer and more ambidextrous, that shouldn’t be too hard.
But if you’re saying that’s his floor, that’s essentially what we’ve been saying. I still think Jason Williams (who was also much smaller) has the most similar game to LaMelo, stylistically speaking. And he was at pretty much the same level as Jennings. What we agree on is that he’s totally an upside pick at #1, his stats don’t really justify picking him that high.
Lottery thread up!
Fingers crossed!
http://knickerblogger.net/testing-dolans-razor-the-2020-nba-lottery-thread/
I don’t think Jennings and LaMelo are the exact same players. But the only difference their height seems to make is in their rebounding numbers. They’re both godawful defenders despite having good counting stats on defense. Jennings also came in with an excellent reputation and a knack for passing, maybe not as good as LaMelo, but similar in that respect.
Both players bring something to the table, but their overconfidence in their ability to score is their doom. Shooting-wise, Jennings shot sub-40% from the field which is where I’m guessing LaMelo will end up.
Rondo had a lot of value on the defensive end, LaMelo doesn’t. Rondo was significantly shorter than LaMelo and didn’t show any propensity to chuck 20 shots a game. I don’t see how that’s a better comparison.
But who knows, maybe I’ll look like an idiot in 5 years.