NY Post: Elfrid Payton answers challenge as Knicks clip Bulls

You know, watching the Kings/Celtics, I almost wonder if the Kings are going to have to make a decision on Fox soon. He and Hali seem super redundant together. I think they might have to choose which one they want to be the future of their team and trade the other one. Either one should fetch a hefty price on the open market, no?

Yeah, one of the things I’m really not loving is the whole deal with Quickley being on these units where he’s clearly the only guy who is going to be scoring. It seems like such a bad spot to put him in to, while at the same time, sure seems like it could tempt him with bad habits, as well (“Just keep on shooting, since you’re the only one who can score!”).

Not only that, but the more that I think about it, “We can’t start Quickley, we need his scoring for the bench” is a really backwards way of looking at things (if that is how Thibs is looking at things, that is. He could have other motivations for not starting Quickley). If the bench can’t score without Quickley being there, then you need to work on that, not use a promising rookie as a stopgap in a season where eking out wins probably should not be your main priority.

I don’t like how “What will be the best way for us to beat the Bulls on February 3rd?” seems to be the biggest motivating factor.

I will say this, though. Thibs’ commitment to defense is one thing that will not only help the Knicks beat the bulls on February 3rd, but it is something that will help the team going forward, so that part of the approach to the team I take no umbrage with at all. That’s just an amazing aspect of Thibs’ coaching that will be here throughout his time as the Knicks coach and I’m glad for it.

This was basically a merc win and we should never be comfortable or happy with merc wins.

Yes, Payton went off in the first half, but RJ scored 17 and was key to helping build the big lead that the Bulls couldn’t quite chip away at. Mitch had a ton of offensive rebounds, and Randle — who is not a mercenary, no matter how many times you insist that he is — closed things out. While most of the actual mercs like Bullock and Burks were irrelevant to the win.

That last 5 minutes of the game made me want to claw my eyes out. On offense, just dudes going 1-on-1 into traffic or taking stepback/fadeaway long 2’s. Defense not great. No one should ever ask Reggie Bullock to throw a pass out of the backcourt in the last minute of a game.

The good – Randle was really great last night, last few bricks notwithstanding. He did a very reasonable job on Markkanen, made some great passes, and was just on fire from 3. I do not imagine it is real, but he is now shooting 39.6% from 3, and these shots are just pure – it doesn’t seem like Obi where it’s a huge surprise that a 3 pointer went in (seriously, Obi has such horrible balance on his jumper). He’s averaging 22/11/6 with a TS of 58, usage of 27.5, and an assist rate of 28.3. Just having a great year. Putting these into B-R’s play index (which is behind paywall) still gives you the total # of seasons that a player reached these thresholds, and it is 6 total seasons. Really remarkable.

More good – RJ in the 2nd and 3rd quarters was fantastic. Nice PNR game with Mitch, great takes to the basket. That eurostep in transition was art.

The bad – I am very worried that we wasted another top 10 pick. Toppin looks bad. Or maybe not bad, but just sort of pointless out there. He can’t defend. He’s the 3rd or 4th best roll man on the team ie. never going to be the main roll threat. He can’t shoot. He can’t put the ball on the floor. He can’t post up Satoransky. What are we doing here?

Austin Rivers – needs to play fewer minutes. For Pete’s sake, play Ntilikina who is a better defender than all these yahoos and doesn’t do as much stupid stuff.

Reggie Bullock – if Reggie is going to have a TS south of 50, can’t handle the ball, can’t pass the ball… maybe someone else should play? He has nearly 1200 minutes played for the Knicks and his TS is 50. We may just have to accept that post-cervical spine surgery that his shot is not coming back.

From BC’s writeup:

“You know I loves me some Mitch (and he was great tonight), but I sure as heck don’t see Mitch’s passing as ever being a key part of his game. So that’s an odd response from Thibs.”

An odd response here, and odd response there, and pretty soon if we’re paying attention we should conclude we’re dealing with an oddball coach. And we are. The Knicks are now a full 1.5 possessions slower in pace than the second-slowest team in the association. That’s oddball.

I dont understand your harsh negative view of everything. It is really misplaced to me. You are failing to see any of the positives from the young players, Randle playing like an all-star or the team playing hard this year. Not everything is a “merc” win as you call it.

You seem to watch games with alot of preconceived notions and then grasp on to anything to meet that point of view.

I have a harsh negative view on jerry-rigging your way out of the lottery on the back of mercs and a primitive style you can’t really win with. We all should. No reason to apologize for it. Wide swaths of the fanbase have the very same “harsh negative view.” KB will, too, the next time the Knicks play a shitty game. KB is kind of bipolar on the whole thing. Other factions of the fanbase are more consistent.

can we just stop entertaining the troll please? he constantly does this for attention…. there’s nothing interesting about this discussion….

Last night wasn’t the ideal formula for a win by any stretch but comparing Randle to Portis et al. kind of tanks your credibility in any discussion of asset management

I honestly don’t know how you guys watch Obi lumber around the court looking like a useless turd and not get filled with the same angst as me.

There’s a Ntilikina-esque vibe where it’s not so much the lack of production (normal for rookies), but the fact that he simply looks like he doesn’t belong that does it for me. Big “little brother playing with the big kids” energy.

Count me in as someone who has done a 180 on Randle. I thought he was a merc last season. But its clear he’s worked on his game and become an All-Star player. I don’t know if he’ll ever thrive in a role less central than the one he’s playing but its hard to argue with some of the metrics at this point 23 games into the season. A WS/48 of .151, BPM of 4.1, and 7.8 off/on numbers are easily career bests for him. Dude is peaking across the board no matter how you want to slice it. We should develop his brand as an All-Star point forward. At best we become contenders around him and at worse he’s a future asset in a deal for a KAT type player down the line.

thenoblefacehumper: There’s a Ntilikina-esque vibe where it’s not so much the lack of production (normal for rookies), but the fact that he simply looks like he doesn’t belong that does it for me. Big “little brother playing with the big kids” energy.

And I gave Ntilikina a pass for 2.5 years because I’m usually patient. I’ve never been so out on a prospect before.

I want to say this is Jordan Hill 2.0 but I don’t think Obi can even reach those heights.

I agree with E on IQ, though. Thibs puts him in lineups with Austin Rivers, Obi Toppin, and Kevin Knox stinking up the joint and then has a quick hook when he can’t carry that load with Burks.

And there was totally a path with Bobby Portis

come on man

The “merc” debate seems to come down to semantics, but I wonder if there’s a difference between a merc and a “hold the fort” guy, to reference Bill Parcells? I’d think of a merc as more disposable guy basically on a one year deal, maybe a 1+1.

I’d view Julius as a hold the fort guy but Payton, Rivers, Bullock, and Burks as mercs. None of those guys are probably good for tanking, but Thibs is not going to tank, so those guys get to play.

And btw, please bench Rivers.

If the bench can’t score without Quickley being there, then you need to work on that, not use a promising rookie as a stopgap in a season where eking out wins probably should not be your main priority.

That’s what Burks and Rivers are supposed to be for. lol

We are arguing the same thing. Quickley should probably be in the starting lineup, but they have to improve the quality and depth of the bench also. Burks is fine (though he shouldn’t be a stopgap PG), but I’m not a Rivers fan. IMO Rivers isn’t particularly good on either side of the ball even though he’s had some spectacular games that are making his overall stats look better than the typical performance.

I’m also starting to lose a little patience with Bullock. He defends, but he’s not exactly lighting it up on offense or from 3. We have Frank to play defense and not exactly light it up on offense. I don’t see how Frank is not in the rotation. Unless he looks bad in practice, we should be giving him a good look now to see if he has improved at all. We aren’t getting very good play out of Rivers and Bullock anyway.

This is getting comical.

Randle is playing out of his mind. He came into camp in the best shape of his life. His playmaking, efficiency, and now even his 3p% are all significantly improved from last year. He’s being a good leader and defending well enough. yet people are focused on trading him.

Do you people love losing. Is masochism contagious?

Time will tell how much of it is sustainable (especially that 3p%), but unless there’s a better player out there available in a trade, we should be celebrating that we have a guy that’s 26 and is seemingly just starting to his grove for the Knicks.

Bullock has been bad this year, and he wasn’t very good last year either. He may just be done as an NBA player. He is hitting a passable number of 3s and he’s an okay rebounder but he’s doing nothing else good out there. Frank probably would suck too but there’s really no reason to play Reggie. If you don’t want to play Frank put Quickley (or Rivers, I guess) in the starting lineup and move RJ down to 3.

Randle is 23rd in the league in BPM & since he’s going to lead the league in MP, he’ll actually be more valuable than that number. Randle is a top player in the NBA.

It’s axiomatic that in the NBA you don’t want to be in the mediocre low-middle and that’s where the Knicks are, and somehow those of us who hew to the axiom — which is what makes it an axiom to begin with — are being called on to re-prove the axiom. (If not being called trolls or worse.)

The Knicks aren’t only in the mediocre middle; they’re in the mediocre middle in the worst way, where it isn’t just the product of natural organic growth and isn’t sustainable and isn’t even the platform for additional growth. I’ll take the slings and arrows but I’m not going to waver from clear NBA truisms just because the Knicks are no longer in the hands of David Fizdale and Steve Mills. Whatever happiness is out there about all this certainly must be strong enough to survive pockets of dissent. Be happy.

The Knicks could cut Elfrid Payton and Reggie Bullock today and they’d be a better basketball team. Reggie Bullock has absolutely no business as an NBA starter.

One important thing to note is that Randle does way better on box score all-in-ones (BPM, WS/48) than /- metrics (RPM, RAPM, the PIPM clone at bball index, and Darko DPM). Randle’s BPM number, like EB said, is good for 23rd in the league; his WS/48 is #47 overall. Meanwhile, his RPM is #104 overall (his ORPM is negative, which I don’t actually believe), his RAPM rank is #106 overall (slight positive in O and D RAPM), his LEBRON (PIPM clone) rating is #103 overall, and his DARKO DPM (no idea how this is calculated) is #113 overall. So we have a big spread between his box score stats, which seem to indicate that he’s anywhere from a top 20-50 player, and his /- stats, which are universal in pegging him around the top 100. I tend to think the truth has to be somewhere in the middle, just because it seems to me that BPM is severely overrating his defensive contribution and the /- stats underrate his obvious offensive contributions, but I’m open to correction here. In any case, it’s not obvious that Julius is outperforming his contract, but I don’t think any of these numbers give us good reason to think he should or shouldn’t be re-signed. We need more convincing data here.

Edit: To add to the Frank discussion, I think it’s likely that the Frank of last year was *better* than the Bullock of this year. Reggie is so useless that his better shooting doesn’t really move the needle for us at all. And, since we have one more year of Frank, we should check, one last time, to see if anything is there. But there’s not really an argument, imo, for playing Reggie or Rivers over Frank, since Frank’s play last year was better than both of them and he we need to check for any improvement, which is more likely in Frank’s case than Rivers or Bullock’s.

In 28 minutes of real action this year, part of which apparently he was playing on a bum knee, Frank has 17 points on 11 shots. Most normal coaches given the place of the organization would see if maybe that was signaling real improvement and could be built upon. It’s absurd that the guy lost his minutes because of injury and there’s really no reason at all that he should be behind Payton, Bullock, and Rivers. Whatever marginal wins over Frank those non-entities would produce are counterproductive to the Knicks’ best medium and long term interests anyway.

Silky Johnson, Fleet Admiral of the Tank Armada: One important thing to note is that Randle does way better on box score all-in-ones (BPM, WS/48) than /- metrics (RPM, RAPM, the PIPM clone at bball index, and Darko DPM). Randle’s BPM number, like EB said, is good for 23rd in the league; his WS/48 is #47 overall. Meanwhile, his RPM is #104 overall (his ORPM is negative, which I don’t actually believe), his RAPM rank is #106 overall (slight positive in O and D RAPM), his LEBRON (PIPM clone) rating is #103 overall, and his DARKO DPM (no idea how this is calculated) is #113 overall. So we have a big spread between his box score stats, which seem to indicate that he’s anywhere from a top 20-50 player, and his /- stats, which are universal in pegging him around the top 100. I tend to think the truth has to be somewhere in the middle, just because it seems to me that BPM is severely overrating his defensive contribution and the /- stats underrate his obvious offensive contributions, but I’m open to correction here. In any case, it’s not obvious that Julius is outperforming his contract, but I don’t think any of these numbers give us good reason to think he should or shouldn’t be re-signed. We need more convincing data here.

So, my understanding of BPM is the number is supposed to predict longterm RAPM with the added bonus that it converges much quicker than RAPM (which takes 3+ years to converge). The advantage of BPM is the input is more consistent and not reliant on team performance. But because BPM was trained on RAPM datasets, you would expect RAPM to show a similar result to BPM if given enough time. Even leading the league, Randle’s 800+ minutes aren’t enough for RAPM to separate Randle from his mediocre team and, likely more difficult for RAPM is his large MP means few minutes to evaluate the team without him.

thenoblefacehumper: I don’t understand how this matters at all in the context of a debate about whether or not he’s a “merc.” If the Knicks want to keep for an additional year, they can (and they almost certainly will). Mitch is also in the second-to-last year of his deal, is he a merc? I mean Randle is a much more realistic part of the future than Frank Ntilikina, who if I recall correctly you badly want to receive a lot of minutes.

Speaking of Frank, I’d have no problem with Thibs playing him over Bullock but I also have no problem with him not doing that. Thibs is trying to win as many games as possible (which I don’t like, but it’s a separate issue) and thinks even the diminished version of Bullock gives him a better chance to do that than Frank. If he’s wrong it’s definitely not by much, and neither guy is likely to be on the team next year (Frank might not even be in the NBA), so whatever.

This is a reasonable way to frame it. Some flexibility in the rotation would be nice, but ultimately this team will be the ninth or tenth seed in the East regardless of who’s coming off the bench. I would like to see Frank (and Knox, I guess) play just to see if there’s any potential for upside beyond what we’ve seen, but most likely that will not be the case.

I just find it utterly absurd what I see written about Obi and the 12 games he’s played at 12MPG… The players that get debated on these forums who have 3, 4, 8 years in the league and they get talked about ad nauseum yet, Obi Toppin is written off in 12 games…

We drafted Frank Ntilikina and Kevin Knox in the lottery recently so we can be excused for running a little low on patience.

In all seriousness, I’m not “writing off” Obi in any sense that matters. I’d still play him as much as possible (in fact more than Thibs is playing him if it were up to me), do everything possible to develop his game, etc. However early returns do matter to some extent, and his are, well, no need to go into graphic detail I guess…

No one is giving up on Toppin but I don’t think anyone can be faulted for being frustrated over his play or angry about his selection, especially after a night where Tyrese put up 21 points on 15 shots and a plus 13.

Randle is basically playing the way we expected when we acquired him, with a little more passing. When that deal was signed there was some grumbling but on some level I think everyone agreed that he was young enough and had been productive enough and was close enough to a reasonable use of cap space that it was fine, especially given the opt out. We weren’t going anywhere.

I applaud everything he is doing this year. Love his effort and love his play. That said, he’s just not a guy you want to give a max contract too. He’s not a centerpiece. He’s not a guy who will attract other good players. He isn’t a guy who pairs well with lots of different player types.

There simply isn’t a path to a relevance with him as your best player.

As for Frank, I’d rather watch him play than Bullock but I don’t think he’d be better.

the thing is – we need to find another player or two with a similar career arc to randle (different position and all)…

both randle and elf were good opportunities to take a couple of years ago, just didn’t work out last year becasue of LOLknicks…

this year elf hasn’t shown any kind of positive consistency…but, based on their play and where they were in their careers – it was a good gamble…

maybe somewhere below 28 million a year or so – this version of julius is most definitely a keeper…as a team we just got to figure out a way to be less dependent on him for everything…

plus, i like julius’ personality and his “bully ball” type play…

Yeah I don’t think Randle qualifies as a merc at all because of his age, the fact that we can bring him back next year if we want and the fact that there is even a debate at all about keeping him beyond that or not.

A merc is a one year signing.

I personally would extend Randle if he keeps this up after this season. I get why people don’t want to do that and I wouldn’t super max him or anything. But if you can get him for another 3 or 4 years at a similar price we have him at now (and I think this is realistic) then I think its a good call. I mean, what top ceiling are people afraid we won’t reach with Randle as one of our best players? The NBA Finals?

Lets get to 50 wins first before we worry about that. And with our draft picks coming up, we’re going to be able to add more cheap talent over the next few years…talent that can get better. Also, um Mitch and RJ and Quickley can get better too.

The only thing is it presents a real problem with Toppin. So I get not wanting to keep Randle too. But I’d rather bite the bullet and just trade Obi (his value would still be high I imagine) if we had to do that.

I guess I’d much rather look to improve our problem areas (Elf, Bullock) than get rid of the first legit all-star caliber player we’ve had since Melo/Chandler. Randle has stepped up and you know, he could still get a little better from here too. Especially if surrounded by better shooters. Let’s let him and RJ and Mitch (and Quickley) continue to build experience together. That is a very important part of building a good team. Have a core that gets reps together.

Look, I don’t think Randle at 15 million is a bad deal. I think he’d be a dangerous guy to give a max to and thus hard to call a long term building block. I don’t think his defense is good and you have to be absolutely outstanding on offense as a power forward to deserve a max if that is the case.

I think the Sabonis comp is a good one but he’s a little younger, a little bigger, and a little better. But he has some of the same issues. I wouldn’t be crazy about maxing him either unless you are the Pacers and can’t attract top talent anyway, making it a no brainer.

I just think there has been some strange strawmanning lately. Saying Randle is playing very well and won’t be worth his next contract is a perfectly rational position.

Frank’s career high TS% is lower than Bullock’s current TS%. Frank’s career high 3p% is .321, Bullock is currently at .342. Frank is almost certainly gone after this year, just like Bullock. I just don’t see any reason to play Frank over anyone anymore.

I think the reasons to play Bullock are he’s a good shooter and a vet and if he plays well, an average wing who can shoot can be traded. But he’s not shooting well and he’s playing quite badly overall, so there’s no good reason for us to be playing Bullock. Since Bullock is useless, we should try something else. Frank is young enough that he can improve. Worst case scenario he’s even worse than Bullock, but it doesn’t matter because this team isn’t going anywhere this season and we’re talking one or two losses if Frank really sucks and then you give someone else a try.

“I really like everything Julius Randle’s done this year but I think the best thing we can do is cash in on him after the season. I’m not talking about moving him for picks. I think he can be the centerpiece of a trade for the next disgruntled superstar. Like the Al Jefferson of the Kevin Garnett trade.”

My sentiments exactly.

I just think there has been some strange strawmanning lately. Saying Randle is playing very well and won’t be worth his next contract is a perfectly rational position.

Not when the season isn’t over, we have him for next year, and we don’t know what the contract is yet.

People here (incorrectly I might add) came into the season very biased against Randle because he had a subpar year, but imo they weren’t giving due consideration to the situation he was in that caused the drop in efficiency, extra TOs, and bad plays around the basket. We have better coaching this year, he has learned. and he’s playing better, but people haven’t let go of their previous view that he’s bad and has to be traded, He’s not bad. He’s good and he doesn’t have to be traded until we see more and have a better idea of how much and how long a deal will be.

geo:
the thing is – we need to find another player or two with a similar career arc to randle (different position and all)…

BAH GAWD THAT’S BUDDY HIELD’S MUSIC

Owen: I wouldn’t be crazy about maxing him either unless you are the Pacers and can’t attract top talent anyway, making it a no brainer.

Uh, as if the Knicks have been able to attract top talent?

I just think there has been some strange strawmanning lately. Saying Randle is playing very well and won’t be worth his next contract is a perfectly rational position.

Not when this season isn’t over yet, we have him for next year, and we don’t know what the next contract will look like yet.

Some people came into the season very biased against him because he had a subpar year. imo they weren’t giving due consideration to the situation he was in that caused the drop in efficiency, extra TOs, and bad plays around the basket. We have better coaching this year, he learned from last year. and he’s playing better. But people haven’t let go of their previous view that he’s bad and has to be traded, He’s not bad. He’s good and he doesn’t have to be traded until we see more and have a better idea of how much and how long a deal will be. Unless he can be part of deal for an even better player, we should just go with the flow and enjoy his play, enjoy winning some games, and fighting for a playoff spot. He’s 26 years old. He could actually get better.

I’d be ecstatic if Randle could be cashed in for a disgruntled superstar and totally agree that that’s the right play. I’d start by offering him up as part of a package for Bradley Beal. With an asset like Randle, you have to sell high and hope some FO overlooks the obvious warts there.

As to the next contract, we pretty much know what it’s going to look like. He’s going to ask for the max. He might even bluster about wanting the Knicks to pay him the $4M next year, rip things up, and give him the max. (Assuming that’s allowed; I’m not 100% sure.) If he plays for the third year price on his current contract, he’ll want a similar role to this year so he can try to get max money in the summer of 2022. If his role is reduced in a way that will hurt his market value in that summer, he’ll likely complain.

I think his max is $31. He might actually get it. If he doesn’t, it’s not going to be much south of that. It almost never is with free agents and we go through the same thing every summer. Throwing out the possible scenario of him wanting a new contract THIS summer, you’re looking at something like 5/145 if he signs with the Knicks or is signed-and-traded, or 4/120 if he signs outright. He absolutely positively isn’t signing a 4 or 5 year deal for something like 21 or 22 a year. He makes that now. That’s pure fantasy. Hayward’s contract adjusted for inflation is a solid floor, and Julius will probably exceed that by quite a bit. A max is by no means out of the question.

So we wind up where we always do when we get musing about this. You don’t want him in the only role that could justify a max; if you put him in the right role, he’s not worth anything like a max. That ain’t changing.

Frank: if you’re moving Randle to get a true star (I don’t know who that is, but let’s say it’s Bradley Beal)

I definitely wouldn’t do it for Bradley Beal. I might be guilty of endowment bias, but I think I’d rather have Randle than Beal right now.

I’m talking about when the next James Harden, Anthony Davis, Paul George level guy gets fed up and calls his shot. Like, let’s say Dame Lillard starts jonesing for MSG. Put Randle in the middle of that deal and throw an offer sheet at John Collins to replace him.

I don’t get the point in continually rehashing the position that Randle is representative of a doomsday scenario. I mean, it’s one signing that Mills should be given credit for…and the step-in-shit lucky Morris signing. It’s downright stupid to suggest that Randle playing as well as he is represents a bad thing. There are good choices and bad choices that can be made with regard to his future with the team.
-There is near-unanimity on KB that signinng him to a max deal or anything close would be a bad move. But why worry about that when the one thing the current regime seems to understand well is cap management and asset valuation?
-Most, if not all of us would prefer that he be moved either for excellent draft assets or a better player.
-The position that Randle would not accept being less than the sole #1 option he is right now is preposterous.

There are lots of reasons to be concerned about Thibs and his utilization of the roster and his preferences of player types. There are also reasons to question the FO’s drafting process, especially in the lottery. What I’m interested in finding out is whether Rose learns from his mistakes as a rookie POBO or whether he keeps repeating them. But Randle??!! that’s the best kind of problem to have.

What would people be willing to trade for beal? Barrett, Toppin, Knox & 4 first rounders(2 dallas picks & 2 of our picks)? Would Washington do that trade and is Quickley, Beal, Randle & Mitch anything?

I’m not against playing Frank over Bullock, I just don’t care about Frank’s development anymore. He has exactly this year to convince us to match a RFA contract and I don’t think Knicks mgmt care to develop him another 3 years. Bullock is a better player now.

Bullock is a vet we might be able to trade at the deadline. His 3pt shooting is down, but it’s not clear if this is the new normal or just some bad luck. It takes 750+ attempts to get a good idea of 3pt shooting ability, Bullock is still well short of that for the Knicks, including last year. If it creeps back up to .380, you can grab a pick for him even if it’s just a 2nd.

If anything, give Frank minutes over Payton or Rivers.

Yeah Z-Man, it’s just a hunch. But I love rugged big men and have followed a lot of them very avidly over the years, My observation is that most of them don’t age well.

I feel the same way about small guards who get to the line a lot. Making a living in the paint and around the rim is really difficult over the long term.

Obviously if Randle is a guy who can shoot 40% from three and 80% from the line he is in a different bucket. Maybe he is.

airkent:
What would people be willing to trade for beal? Barrett, Toppin, Knox & 4 first rounders(2 dallas picks & 2 of our picks)? Would Washington do that trade and is Quickley, Beal, Randle & Mitch anything?

That’s way too much.

There’s really no point in us trading for Beal. His optimal role is the third guy in a big 3.

djphan:
i don’t understand how ppl think randle is getting anything close to max…. randle got 23mm playing the type of ball he currently is…. sabonis got 4yr / 77m and vucevic got 4/100…

there’s really no precedent in the current market to pay randle what ppl are fearing… the market has considerably cooled on offensive only frontcourt players…. the lone exception is blake griffin but he was playing considerably better than randle was when he got that contract… and if randle plays better than he currently he probably would be worth it at that point…

but we are a long way from there….

Gordon Hayward got 4/128 like two months ago. There’s no cooling of any kind whatsoever.

airkent:
What would people be willing to trade for beal? Barrett, Toppin, Knox & 4 first rounders(2 dallas picks & 2 of our picks)? Would Washington do that trade and is Quickley, Beal, Randle & Mitch anything?

Nope, way too much for who we are right now.

I’d offer Washington Randle and the lower of the two Knicks 1s this year (which at least right now would be a lottery pick) and see what they say. They’ll probably say no at which point I’d throw in a 2022 swap. If Beal is traded, he’ll bring more than that. For the Knicks to get him, you’re probably talking Randle, a 2021 one and a 2023 one.

That’s assuming they have any interest in Randle at all, which they might not. If they did, Randle, the lowest of the 2021s and the Dallas 2023 might get it done but even that might be light. If they’d take that package, I’d do it.

https://streamable.com/0s4lux

It still hurts.

What would people be willing to trade for beal? Barrett, Toppin, Knox & 4 first rounders(2 dallas picks & 2 of our picks)? Would Washington do that trade and is Quickley, Beal, Randle & Mitch anything?

That would be insane for the Knicks to do. Four first-rounders plus their best prospect for one guaranteed year of Beal, after which he will almost certainly ask for a ten-year-vet supermax (it’ll be a travesty if he’s left off the All-NBA teams this year)? Even if he demands an extension as a condition of the trade, there’s no way in hell I’m trading four firsts and Barrett for the privilege of paying Beal $250M+ to anchor a perennial 43-win team.

Early Bird:
I mean 4 picks + RJ + Toppin is effectively 6 first round picks. Harden went for 4 and our picks will be better than Brooklyn’s. Is Beal better than Harden? I don’t think so.

If we had 1 true superstar, say Kawhi Leonard, then it might make sense. But I’d still take out 2 of the picks, 3 if RJ keeps up his recent play (and only because we’d need to move his salary).

The Nets traded four first-round picks, four swaps, Caris LeVert, and Jarrett Allen. I’m not trying to be pedantic but it underlines how steep a Beal trade would be, and how it doesn’t make any sense for us given the position we’re in. I think we all agree it’s not worth it anyway, but it shows how far away we are from even considering something like that.

our first rd picks are worth more than the bucks or nets since we’re probably not making deep playoff runs even with beal under the most generous of assumptions….

the sixers would have to package 4 1sts…. so would denver…. the knicks don’t need to….

Owen: Yeah Z-Man, it’s just a hunch. But I love rugged big men and have followed a lot of them very avidly over the years, My observation is that most of them don’t age well.

I mean he’s 26. There’s not aging well and there’s breaking down before age 31. He’s not LeBron, but the guy is a brick shithouse who keeps himself in top shape. He doesn’t have an above-the-rim game…not Zach Randolph but not far from it. If anything, he seems like his body and game are built to last. Millsap is another good comp.

and the point with sabonis is that yes… he’s better.. he was younger and more efficient when he got his contract and he was forced to settle on 4/77…. you’re very likely going to see randle settling for around low to mid 20mm in all likelihood…

and yes sabonis has been on better teams… but he’s a carbon copy of what randle gives you… so it is possible to build a pretty decent team around someone like randle… we have most of thse pieces too that we are developing with plenty of bullets in the draft to figure it out too…. but i find it a tough pill to swallow to hinge hopes on a deal for damian lillard or james harden with randle as the centerpiece…. like if that’s available we should go for it but other than that what exactly is considered a better opportunity?

What would people be willing to trade for beal? Barrett, Toppin, Knox & 4 first rounders(2 dallas picks & 2 of our picks)? Would Washington do that trade and

Yeah, that’s complete nonsense, you don’t trade RJ at this point for a 2nd level star scoring in bunches for a 5:13 team. Plus 4 firsts???

is Quickley, Beal, Randle & Mitch anything?

No.

Early Bird: Honestly, I don’t think that’s a better value than the proposed Beal deal. At least 1 Knicks & 1 Dallas pick are significantly better than the Nets 2022 pick + Milwaukee’s 2022 pick (which might as well be 2nds), Knicks & Dallas look like lottery picks this year. The value of distant future picks gets murkier, but let’s say they’re even.

Swaps aren’t too valuable, especially for the Nets picks who will be better than Houston at least this year and probably 2023. Besides, you’re only getting the difference in pick if it conveys at all.

Allen got traded for one of the 1sts, so he’s getting counted twice.

RJ today isn’t much worse than Levert who also struggles to score efficiently and projects to be much better longterm.

Obi is still basically a 1st round pick that we know little about. I’d evaluate him to be worth more than 1 swap, possibly both.

And of course I expect even a fat, unmotivated Harden to have a better year than Beal.

Yeah I’m just trying to set the table on what the starting price might look like. Take out a pick or swap or two and it’s still steep. FWIW those Nets picks + swaps after 2024 or so could look a lot better

STAT signed for 5/$100 million and Lee signed for 6/$80 million.

So it was definitely not a max deal for Lee, but it was still pricey for the era. Remember, the Warriors were really bailed out by Curry signing that below market extension. Dude was winning back to back MVPs making, like, $11 million a year.

Some of the packages suggested for Beal made my spine chill…

Haven’t we learn anything from the Carmelo’s trade?

Milwaukee overpaid to keep Giannis, Clippers overpaid because Leonard wouldn’t came without PG-13, Brooklyn overpaid for the new Big-3.
Their overpayings had focus, they put all the chips in to win immediately.

What are we overpaying for? To be a Washington Wizards reboot with Beal at the supermax?

We’re not in the position to trade for Beal now, let alone to overpay for him.

Keep the path straight, develop the youngsters, pick well in the draft (as of now 4 of the first 45 picks), next year try for a playoff season on the back of the young guns, stop selling the future for an ephemeral “now”…

Randle, Beal, IQ, Mitch might not be that much, but I’m happy to go to war the next few years with RJ, Beal, IQ, Mitch provided I can hold on to at least a 1 every year.

As to the other alternatives, yeah, they’re sensible but they have no real world application. There’s no path by which they’re going to hang onto the draft picks, develop the youngsters, and wait for next year to drive for the playoffs. No, this is a team that is playing Elfrid Payton, Reggie Bullock, Austin Rivers, and Alec Burks and giving an outsized role to Julius Randle in a drive to maximize current wins and maybe sneak into the playoffs. So the real choice is either … that … or it’s making a trade for someone like a Bradley Beal.

The idea that Julius Randle is going to take a pay cut in his next contract or sign for something like 22 or 23 also has no real world application. That is not going to happen. No decision or action can sensibly be premised on it.

Also, throwback to last thread. I’m jealous of everyone who lives a cooler life than me, which apparently is a lot of you.

The thing about Beal is that he has a skillset that’s really easy to project on to a great team. He’s a really good both on and off ball player so it’s easy to imagine how he fits in with your best groups (where you presumably have at least one player better than him in order to be a title contender) and easy to imagine him running your second unit while your best player rests. Plus he doesn’t come with a lot of the secondary concerns (culture, playstyle, age, history of disappointing playoff performances) that dog Harden. He’s obviously not as good of a player in a vacuum but I think a lot of teams that didn’t really go for Harden might go for Beal. Can we outbid those teams? Maybe. Should we? Definitely not, given that most teams in the league are in much better positions on the win curve to chase veteran star players than us. And that’s setting aside the issue that neither he nor the team seems to be motivated at all to get him out of there.

Are people really still down on Randle’s defense? I thought he was outstanding last night. He learned from Monday’s game and completely shut off Markanen’s 3pt looks and several times he was switched off on Levine and he played excellent defense on him. He’s made several big plays on defense down the stretch of alot of the wins too. I don’t know what the metrics say but I’ve been very surprised and happy with Randle’s defense this season.

Early Bird: Yes, but how much more is Harden worth than Beal? Harden is a perennial MVP candidate, Beal is more of a 2nd or 3rd star. How many 1sts would you have to add to a Beal for Harden trade?

And a locked-in mid-1st plus a potential Mavs lotto pick is pretty valuable when the Nets could possibly retool by the time those later picks convey.

Same goes for a young, talented-looking RJ (compared to picks). Right now he’s probably worth more than a 1st. I doubt the Knicks trade him for two 1sts and certainly not the Nets & Mil 2022 picks.

I also don’t think Levert had much value for the Nets. He’s completely expendable for the Nets in a lineup with Harden, Irving, & Durant. His primary skill is passing, but you’re not willingly putting the ball in his hands at any point in a 48 minute game. The Nets also have Joe Harris whose shooting fits that lineup better.

I agree that RJ is worth more than a 1st ,and that Harden is worth more than Beal. But it’s still going to be steep, look at the trade packages proposed around the league for Beal: https://sportsnaut.com/5-most-realistic-bradley-beal-trade-packages/

The original poster’s 4 1sts + RJ seems to fall somewhere close to these

If you buy that our current pace represents our true talent level, that means we’re a 35-36 win team. Unless we trade for Beal with zero current contributors (which would likely require giving up every pick we possibly can to have a competitive offer), we’re not in an appropriate place on the win curve to be having this kind of discussion. That’s where it begins and ends.

At the end of the day, all talk of Randle being a merc or centerpiece or whatever is unnecessarily premature at the moment. We don’t have to make a decision on the matter until next season’s trade deadline at the earliest.

fucking brilliant follow up performance today guys honestly no idea how you pulled it off unless you’re all coordinating on a secret discord channel or something. okay from the top now. then put your little hand in mine…

haha I am loving this thread

Also, throwback to last thread. I’m jealous of everyone who lives a cooler life than me, which apparently is a lot of you.

If it makes you feel better, I barely remember what Lana del Rey looks like naked.

Julius Randle shooting 40% from three is a top ten player. At 26 years old, I’d consider him a cornerstone piece for our future.

Also, Frank and Knox are still very young. I don’t think that we should totally throw them on the scrap heap quite yet.

NetsTown:
Julius Randle shooting 40% from three is a top ten player. At 26 years old, I’d consider him a cornerstone piece for our future.

Also, Frank and Knox are still very young. I don’t think that we should totally throw them on the scrap heap quite yet.

A top-ten player…in our rotation?

I have no problem throwing in my unrelenting negativity with E. People here are acting like we’re a good team trying to get over the hump and we’re not. We’re under .500 and have both the 10th worst MOV and Net Rating in the league. We’ve drafted and used our cap space so poorly that we have 4 players (5 if Burks starts playing well again) that you can honestly say have an overall positive effect on the court. And because of that, only those 5 players plus maybe Obi Toppin could be considered trade assets. We’ll be able to create cap space the next couple of seasons but there’s no one hitting free agency who’s a difference maker and Randle, Mitch, and RJ will all be hitting free agency in the next couple of years.

We’re pretty much exactly where Charlotte and Detroit have been forever and unless we absolutely nail the next draft when we should have two decent-ish picks I don’t see a realistic way to escape that fate.

#The truth is in the right questions#

Is Randle playing greater than anyone expected so far this season?

200%

Is Randle a player i trust ?

No

Is Groundhog Day a Rom Com?

My gf who LOVES rom coms fell asleep while watching it.
“Hippies” friends of mine who hate rom coms love the movie.

just to stick a pin in this whole groundhog day rom-com thing…

it’s the early 90’s and you walk in to blockbuster in “downtown” lawton, oklahoma – i’m guessing you’re going to find the Groundhog Day VHS tape slotted somewhere around: arthur, when harry met sally and pretty woman…

i’m just saying…

Early Bird: And now Jowles is trolling me, or maybe he’s not.

I’m not ; )

Exactly what Bruno said. Its been years since Ive actually looked forward to watching every Knicks game. The last few years I had to look at the NBA schedule to see what games are worth watching, now if there is a Knicks game that day I dont care what other games are on. I know Im in the minority in that I want this team to win as many games as they can and try to sneak into the playoffs, I totally understand that and admit its probably foolish thinking on my part.

But shit its nice to be rooting for at least a decent team again and going into every game not assuming we are going to get blown out and embarrassed most nights. As an actual just basketball fan this team despite all its massive flaws is fun to root for with alot of likeable players. Yes even Payton, he may have his horrible games but like the rest of his teammates he seems like a good dude and always plays with alot of effort.

The great Colin McGowan from realgm.com muses on the top-3 2020 draft picks

We had moments of enjoyable basketball in the last couple of years but the wheels always do fall off. I don’t expect anything different this year.

To Brian’s first post of the thread, I really am wondering about Halliburton’s defense. That’s the area where doubts seem to be crystallizing. I don’t know how Fox fares in that dept either.

Not sure what the contract conversation is on Fox but he seems to get a lot of press and his highlights are fun. I get a Schroder vibe watching him though and a definite sense the ROI on him might be low.

Bruno and BBA are spot on. This is entertainment after all. Maybe I’m spoiled by ’69-70 and ’73-74 but I’m not a championship or bust kind of fan. While we can bitch and moan at a high IQ level, alas, we have no decision-making capacity and kinda have to wrangle with whatever the front office serves. If I can have an enjoyable bunch of scrubs who play hard for a team that isn’t capped out and has picks and upside, I’m light years ahead of where I was a a Knicks fan for most of this millenium.

I would have drafted Hali, Bane and someone else, and thrown a better offer at Wood than what he got. But not trading for Westbrook or CP3 or signing Hayward to an expensive deal means something. The Ed Davis in-n-out bonanza means something. Going into the season with cap space as the FO stated that they would be willing to use that space to absorb contracts for picks means something. Holding Knox and Frank and Obi accountable means something. Drafting IQ and having him trending in social media for not nefarious reasons means something. Based on these things, the FO deserves at least some latitude.

I’m down with the direction of the team for now, if only until the next major disaster of a transaction.

Z-man:
Bruno and BBA are spot on. This is entertainment after all. Maybe I’m spoiled by ’69-70 and ’73-74 but I’m not a championship or bust kind of fan. While we can bitch and moan at a high IQ level, alas, we have no decision-making capacity and kinda have to wrangle with whatever the front office serves. If I can have an enjoyable bunch of scrubs who play hard for a team that isn’t capped out and has picks and upside, I’m light years ahead of where I was a a Knicks fan for most of this millenium.

I would have drafted Hali, Bane and someone else, and thrown a better offer at Wood than what he got. But not trading for Westbrook or CP3 or signing Hayward to an expensive deal means something. The Ed Davis in-n-out bonanza means something. Going into the season with cap space as the FO stated that they would be willing to use that space to absorb contracts for picks means something. Holding Knox and Frank and Obi accountable means something. Drafting IQ and having him trending in social media for not nefarious reasons means something. Based on these things, the FO deserves at least some latitude.

I’m down with the direction of the team for now, if only until the next major disaster of a transaction.

Exactly. This isn’t the same clown Fiesta we endured in the last 20 years, it’s as close to competency as we’ve been in a while. It’s not as competent as we want it to be of course, but I’ll give these guys credit for now. We still have picks, a lot of cap flexibility and some talent.

This one fits beat for beat too:

TheNobleFacehumper and Stratomatic hate each other in an anonymous online Knicks fan site> meanwhile James Dolan and Isiah Thomas make a bet that no matter how bad the team is, the franchise value of the Knicks will continue to increase exponentially > they hire a random young attorney (TNF) as gm and a random professional gambler (strat) as coach > strat demands to have players who “play the right way” but TNF gives him players that merely fit the win curve > they bicker and the team does badly > Dolan takes pleasure as MSG shares continue to rise in value, Isiah gets frustrated and tells them about the bet > realizing that they are both set up to fail they go out drinking together and share intimate secrets. They are about to kiss when some of the young Knick players show up and tell them that they heard about the bet and that they want to take down Dolan > during a montage sequence with Hot Chocolate’s I Believe in Miracles they work together to get the young players to “play the right way” > TNF trades away all the star veterans to the cross town rival, driving down the value of the Knicks > the team goes on a winning streak > Dolan loses the bet and is forced to sell> in a state of bliss strat and TNF are about to consummate their love when it is revealed that they have long hated each other online. They feel as if love has betrayed them > the Knicks winning streak comes to an end and both are fired > several weeks later strat is back at his OTB making nickel bets. He looks up and sees TNF standing in the door. He motions for him to come outside. Strat mimes “who me?”. TNF smiles. Together they leave the OTB and jump in TNF’s Miata. They kiss, put the top down, blast JD and the Straight Shot’s Fox The Knicks, and drive off into the sunset…

McGowan is a really good writer, but nothing gets my blood pumping like Donnie Walsh and his lurid imagination.

Groundhog Day is a romcom because it fits the formula beat for beat.

Yes, it is a romcom. There is no argument to the contrary. It just happens to be a good iteration of one.

GDay is a rom com just as batmobile is a car

Just want to give props to Bruno and Z-Man and say I’m with them entirely.

Topic two: Earlier in the day Haliburton was named the Western Conference rookie of the month for games played in December and January. Sigh.

Topic three, on GD as a rom com — a thing can be more than one thing.

Groundhog Day has some great writing, so…

It’s a rom com with good writing.

I think we need to have a Knickerblogger watch party for Groundhog Day and then vote on if it’s a Rom-Com or not. The only Knickerblogger approved way to settle anything is to get some numbers involved.

In the sequel we break up due to irreconcilable differences over Austrian economics

Strat loves Mises. TNFH is a Hayek guy.

A story as old as time.

Z-man:
The age difference is a bit creepy if you ask me…

It does give Strat’s negging of thenoblefacehumper a certain grooming vibe, for sure.

cybersoze: Don’t forget the swap of #27 and #38 picks for #25 and #33 giving exactly ZERO assets. That was hilarious, and in a good way for a change.

You can throw in the signings of Noel, Burks, and Rivers to market-value contracts at worst, and to a lesser degree, the retaining of Bullock and the re-signing Payton and Taj. Opinions on the merits of these moves can vary, but the prices paid are a welcome departure from the sins of the Steve “no one outbids me, not even me” Mills transaction machine.

oh shit donnie, you done scaredt me sober…

and yes, pretty woman/my fair lady is most definitely a romantic comedy and not light romance…

you know, i’m not so sure there is even a light romantic comedy genre – i think you just made that up…

howdy hubie…sorry to come out of left field with this (my mind doesn’t seem to ride along too well on specific tracks) – are their specific industry sectors or commodities that you focus?

if so, what led you to specialize on those industries or companies?

interests or just opportunity for profit?

I used to manage bond portfolios back when there were interest rates. I got really lucky on a smart premise in 2007. That was my one big trade. Then I switched from trading to wealth management, which is basically helping people avoid taking the kinds of risks I was taking as a trader. So, no, I don’t really focus on anything other than asset allocation and diversification.

2 lottery picks baby!

my last 2 cents
If Dead Man is a western and King Crimson play rock then GDay is a romcom

The Mavs are getting smoked. They play zero defense. Just awful for them. Let’s go Warriors!

Z-man:
9 years ago today….

A star was born.

DRed:
Dallas getting chopped up by Kelly Oubre?Certainly not how I would do it

Definitely not something I expected when evaluating the Porzingis trade at the time, but welcome nonetheless.

Oh fuck, Embiid left the game with a knee injury…

asset allocation and diversification

thanks hubie…just trying to figure out a way to get myself interested again…

i like money, it’s a good and easy way to keep score in business…it’s useful to have personally…over the years i’ve lost interest in it…trading can be fun and interesting, trying to figure out an avenue towards getting motivated again…

And the Sixers are losing to vintage Melo carrying the Blazers in Lillard’s absence… this is a crazy season for sure.

Also, thanks to the Hive Mind’s recommendations, I’ve been binging the Sopranos and hot damn is this a good show.

Mike, I hear this book about the show is useful to have while you binge.

you’re too funny al…i gotta do a bunch of correspondence stuff for work, sometimes i just get soooo sick of writing and explaining things, i just wanna come here and say goofy stuff…

i imagine you spend a whole lot more time than i do writing, and, i can imagine you thinking sometimes before you can type another sentence – you gotta say something knick related just as a sanity check…

so the nba and nbpa have just about worked out the all-star game…hard to imagine what player would willingly show up for that thing this year…

The Dallas slump also makes it easier to enjoy it when we win, without the “But… Cade!” pangs.

Kristaps looks so much worse on defense than he did on the Knicks

***you know, i’m not so sure there is even a light romantic comedy genre – i think you just made that up…***

A light romance is a movie that has the setup of a romance but intentionally lacks plausible dramatic depth in the name of increasing its box office. These light romances are often confused with romcoms because they both typically indulge in makeover montages and have a boy and a girl looking coyly at each other in profile on the poster. Examples off the top of my head:

Pretty Woman
Breakfast at Tiffany’s
Sleepless in Seattle
Dirty Dancing
Love Actually
Cyrano de Bergerac
Valentines Day/New Years Eve
Moonstruck
Working Girl
Bridget Jones’ Diary
Many more…

For the record, you’re all cowards without the courage of your convictions.

With that out of the way. Groundhog Day is definitely not a romcom. At its base, a romcom is about two people who are missing something from their lives that they need another person to fill. In Groundhog Day, only Phil needs to be fixed; Andie McDowell is perfectly happy person on her own. The fact that it’s pretty easy to see Andie McDowell continuing to have a happy life without Phil means it’s missing one of the basic tropes of a romcom and therefore cannot be one.

Also, like other posters have already written, the movie is really about Phil’s own journey to find peace with himself and not specifically about having a relationship with Andie McDowell.

pt to donnie: you’re good, kid…but as long as I’m around, you’re second best

For the record, you’re all cowards without the courage of your convictions.

i live for reading sentences like this…the only better is getting the opportunity to say it out loud to a large group of people…that’s joy…

Groundhog Day is definitely not a romcom. At its base, a romcom is about two people who are missing something from their lives that they need another person to fill. In Groundhog Day, only Phil needs to be fixed; Andie McDowell is perfectly happy person on her own. The fact that it’s pretty easy to see Andie McDowell continuing to have a happy life without Phil means it’s missing one of the basic tropes of a romcom and therefore cannot be one.

very solid argument there…you’ve changed my mind a bit towards it’s common classification…

Jesus, I am sorry I ever looked up why Ben Simmons is trending on Twitter.

Don’t do it. Just. Don’t.

geo:
i got one for you ras, since groundhog day we’ve had a few similar themed movies (actually, i can only think of one: edge of tomorrow, i’m sure there are more though)…

however, prior to groundhog day – was there another movie that used the repetitive day theme?

Yes. In fact, the fiction writer Richard A. Lupoff sued Colombia Pictures because he felt they ripped off his 1973 short story 12:01 PM which was adapted to a pretty successful short film three years earlier.

geo:
i got one for you ras, since groundhog day we’ve had a few similar themed movies (actually, i can only think of one: edge of tomorrow, i’m sure there are more though)…

however, prior to groundhog day – was there another movie that used the repetitive day theme?

There was a Japanese anime film, Urusei Yatsura 2: Beautiful Dreamer, that used a time loop in 1984. Mamoru Oshii directed the film and later became famous for directing the original Ghost in the Shell movie (circling back around, which seems appropriate given the discussion, Scarlett Johansson starred in the American live-action remake).

As a complete coincidence, I watched Beautiful Dreamer about a week ago before we started talking about Groundhog Day.

Avalon is another Mamoru Oshii film that’s worth checking out. It’s live action for those not interested in cartoons. Of course, the Ghost in the Shell sequel was nominated for the Palme d’Or so maybe worth checking out some of his animation anyways.

Ras is doing a perfectly good job explaining why GDay is not a rom-com, but I wanted to relay why the conversation is important to me.

Calling it a “rom-com” is implicitly condescending; it makes the work less than it is. I’m particularly sensitive to it because I’ve been seeing it for decades in my professional life; it’s a way men typically talk about art made about what are perceived as more feminine themes – love, family, etc. A few months ago we had a thread about great literary novels, and every single writer mentioned, starting with David Foster Wallace, was male. Is it because men are better writers? No, it’s because of the cultural bias toward the male genius trope. For example, Virginia Woolf is a much better writer than James Joyce, but Joyce was ostentatious enough to make the work ABOUT his genius, whereas Woolf used hers to explore what it meant to be human. Her novels are much more capacious and searching, whereas Joyce is almost puerile once you get past the experiments with language. Yet Joyce is heralded as the summit of 20th century letters. I didn’t weigh in because it was nice to see people talking about (mostly) great writing on a bball blog, but it was kind of amazing.

So it bugs me when people want to diminish actual art with reductive labels such as “rom-com.” Genre, like rom-com, seeks to comfort. Art seeks to confront. A movie with someone repeatedly trying to kill themselves because of the meaninglessness of the universe is pretty fucking confrontational – but because it is woven into a movie where the lead does end up with a beautiful woman, it must be genre. Really? That’s what you got out of it?

The amazing thing about Groundhog Day is that it DOES arrive at a reassuring ending. But the way it gets there is extraordinary. The girl is incidental; the movie is about enlightenment. Having the object he desired be a woman made it an easier sell. It also made it less pretentious, which is why so many here underrate it.

Dubliners was pretty great as I recall- hard to dismiss even if you’re not a fan of Ulysses or FW. But I get the point.

***So it bugs me when people want to diminish actual art with reductive labels such as “rom-com.”***

You’re confusing “RomCom”, a formula, with “ChickFlick”, a reductive label.

***donnie walsh i am onto you…sparsely populated blog…haven’t watched an actual basketball game since johnny newman dropped 34 on the celts 5 months before black monday….you have had too many femme fatale run ins to enumerate…running extremely long distances…***

Impressive post, especially given that you just played a whole 10 minutes tonight backing up an injured Joel Embiid.

I think it’s definitely a discussion that should be had, it’s a lexicon that we end up learning through our lives and we never really think about it. I don’t really think it was the case here as it was mostly playful, and I think while there’s obviously a fine line, playing with the stereotypes can be helpful to deconstruct them in a more organic way. In this sense, discussing whether Groundhog Day is a romantic comedy is, in its own way, questioning the very nature of what we perceive as rom com etc.

I tend to make sure I keep paying attention to this kind of stuff (and older posters will remember I took particular exception to people saying Porzingis played like a “p*ssy” because it’s the same thought process working here) and it’s always an important aspect to remember.

Identity is the vanishing point of resemblance. I am not Gilles Deleuze. We’re both men. Categories are useful when you need to group like things and obscure important differences when the particulars matter. They’re invented for a purpose, not real things that matter apart from that function of chunking the overwhelming variety of experience into manageable bits.

If I’m not this guy and don’t need to put boxes in bins for customers to browse, or this gal and don’t need a term that coveys a plot pattern to readers like this guy, then thinking of GHD in terms of a genre only serves to gloss over everything that’s fun or moving about it in favor of a tiny set of boring attributes.

Absent a practical need, the precise boundaries or aptness of a category only serves to standardize what rom-com means, not what Groundhog Day is. Depending on what I need to do – It’s a story. It’s a movie. It’s this or that kind of movie. It’s a particular set of experiences I had watching a flickering rectangle on long series of bus rides. Fun threads like this rescue it from stable categorization.

As alternative categories go, I’m with those that like the idea of grouping GHD with other stories that try to illustrate or provoke enlightenment. It could be a modern addition to the yogavasistha sutra, a compendium of stories told to prince Rama to tear away the veil of maya. Oldies but goodies. Trippy entertaining tales designed to undermine the cognitive tricks we learn to hold our picture of the world together. Much like the poems of Wallace Stevens who wrote that Identity is the vanishing point of resemblance.

Identity is the vanishing point of resemblance.

whoa, it is way too late to digest that…I’m gonna have to circle back on that tomorrow…

I know, it’s for the money, but this year all All-Star Game is one of the stupidest, greedy, petty decision ever.
Adam Silver must be ashamed and Michele Roberts too.

rama is cautiously optimistic: Star Trek: TNG?

Wouldn’t surprise me if they did one but I never watched Star Trek so I’m definitely not thinking of that. Honestly, it might be a cartoon.

geo:
ah rama, again it being late, but, had to go check my bookshelves:

a bunch of anne rice, and that’s pretty much it…oh, and I just finished the hunger game ladies’ books…

interesting point…I don’t know though that it simply says something about me, or larger society…

If you’re looking for female authors I’d highly recommend Mary Doria Russell, who mostly writes historical fiction but also some sci-fi; NK Jemisin, who is a fantasy/weird fiction author; Madeline Miller, who reinterprets Greek myths; and Susanna Clarke, who writes fantasy but very elevated fantasy compared to standard fantasy.

Outside of the genre sphere, Yaa Gyasi and Tayari Jones are pretty great.

@Unreason

Now you’re just making stuff up.

nicos:
Russian Doll was a very good time loop show (and definitely not a rom-com like GHD totally is). Alan, do you know if they’re ever going to do a second season?

Yes. They renewed it pretty quickly, and then I think the pandemic delayed production on season 2.

Revisiting yesterday’s discussion of when/if to trade Randle, Macri on his podcast today suggested there are only three teams this season who could both take on Randle’s contract and would want to: Golden State, Boston, and Charlotte. But none of them really have the motherlode of assets we would want. (Wiggins would almost certainly be part of a GSW trade, for instance.) So unless a Mystery Team calls Leon Rose with a Godfather offer, we may be better off just hanging onto E’s favorite player of all time at least through this season, and then see what’s what.

Strat loves Mises. TNFH is a Hayek guy.

I’m not so sure I love Mises so much as I hate Keynes. I’m basically just in favor of sound money and the limitations that puts on incompetents and crooks in government and on Wall St.

Sound money creates a choice.

If you want to spend more you have raise taxes and risk getting thrown out of office.

If you want to engage in speculative activity you have to risk bankruptcy because the Fed is not going to bail you out.

With that comes some other risks and downsides that have to be dealt with in other ways, but right now the world is in a debt and monetary mess from which there is no easy escape and that’s because of decades of progressively less sound money.

Not a motherlode, but we’d need a first and a goodish young player. I’d love for Boston to send us Time Lord, Payton Pritchard, a first and a second for Randle but it isn’t gonna happen (and anyway I don’t even know if such a trade would garner much appreciation around here)

Dallas is a mess at this point.

Doncic is still in terrible shape. He can’t defend anyone, KP looks unwilling to risk injury by banging or mixing it up inside on either side of the ball, and going from Seth Curry to Josh Richardson in an effort to upgrade the defense just downgraded the offense and did nothing for the defense.

They’ve been missing a lot of key pieces all season and are just finally getting healthy and in shape, but some of this is on Doncic. He’s the #1 player and a supposed MVP candidate. He showed up in terrible condition and has taken a step backwards on both sides of the ball (and he was already a negative on defense). If he’s serious about being a top 5 superstar, he has to get in much better shape and move the damn ball instead of playing 1 on 5.

Bad news for them is good news for us, but now I’m more in favor of trying to use that pick as an asset in a trade instead of guessing and whiffing on another potential lottery pick.

There once was a legal case in which a man had tattooed his will onto the back of a woman. The man, woman, and another witness had been stranded at sea following a shipwreck. The man, about to die, asks the woman if she would consent to the tattoo. She agrees. The process is undertaken with a needle made of fishbone & cuttlefish ink. The man signs his will & the signature is presumably witnessed by the necessary 2 people–the woman receiving the tattoo and the other witness. (On the topic of great literature, Melville authors a scene in Moby Dick in which Ishmael writes a will prior to a storm that only Queequeg witnesses and would have been invalid under prevailing English law).

Anyways, upon returning to civilization the court is puzzled. Can a tattoo be a will? By law a will must be on parchment. The court resolves this query by accepting the gruesome argument that, if detached and dried skin would make excellent parchment!

A second puzzle appears. The court is stumped again by the question of whether a will should be allowed to testify as a witness. In the courts view it’s absurd that a will can speak! After all the woman was just deemed parchment and parchment certainly cannot speak. The court philosophizes on the matter: her skin is separable from her faculties generating speech and the capacity of thought, although one certainly doesn’t want to attempt the separation in practice. The court seems convinced this would be an easy case if only the skin were detached and they could point to two different objects, one the will and the second the woman, that way they could physically place the tattoo in evidence and the woman at the stand.

Of course this philosophical conundrum is no conundrum at all. If one simply recognizes that a thing can belong to multiple categories, the puzzle dissolves before us. The woman is will and witness. Groundhog Day is rom-com and art on enlightenment akin to nirvana following endless cycles of reincarnation.

Rama, I get your point, but I think you’re doing exactly what you’re accusing others of doing — condescending toward romantic comedies as lesser forms of art.

I’m not, because they are explicitly aiming to be lesser works of art: they are literally formulaic. The idea is to deliver exactly what the audience wants, but with a little twist to keep it fresh. As I wrote, genre seeks to comfort – and there’s nothing wrong with that! I watch plenty of movies purely for comfort. But art seeks to confront, to challenge. Real artists strive not to repeat themselves. Genre makers seek to grow their audiences explicitly by repeating the same story with just enough change so that people feel satisfied and not bored.

If someone writes a really great Hallmark movie, it still isn’t art, because Hallmark wouldn’t have let it on the air if it didn’t meet the criteria of the formula. By writing to formula they are consciously limiting the potential of the work. So that movie would just be a well-executed version of the formula – which, again, is totally fine! I do not look down on the (mostly) women who watch the Hallmark channel, just as I don’t look down on the (mostly) men who read Jack Reacher novels. But I do make the distinction about the work, because those distinctions are intentional – just as the decisions made with GDay were also intentional, and were about subversion, not about conforming to formula.

Groundhog Day was a fun movie about not so nice guy that experiences the same day over and over (for no reason I could ever figure out) and after being both frustrated by it and trying to use it to his advantage to bed a woman, falls in love with her and slowly becomes a much better person.

The key word in that description is FUN.

If you’re looking for female authors I’d highly recommend Mary Doria Russell, who mostly writes historical fiction but also some sci-fi; NK Jemisin, who is a fantasy/weird fiction author; Madeline Miller, who reinterprets Greek myths; and Susanna Clarke, who writes fantasy but very elevated fantasy compared to standard fantasy.

Outside of the genre sphere, Yaa Gyasi and Tayari Jones are pretty great.

Not terribly impressed by Jones, but hard yes on the others. And Mantel, of course. Helen DeWitt’s LAST SAMURAI, if you’re into brilliance. Jeannette Winterson, Sarah Waters. Donna Tartt, definitely. Toni Morrison, obviously. It’s not like there’s a shortage!

I used to smoke cigarettes a lot. For like 15 years…from the time I was in high school till my early 30’s. I would try to quit and it would never stick.

You should have been hanging out with Unreason and Faye Dunaway in the El Dorado….

Deefense, it would be insane to trade the Dallas pick at this point.

Just because we messed up the Knox and Frank picks doesn’t mean we’re doomed to mess up another lottery pick. I mean, looking at RJ now, I would think he wasn’t a messed up pick. And Toppin…well, who knows. I actually think he looks pretty decent out there in limited minutes because he sets screens, makes good passes, etc. But Randle coming on does present a problem.

But we could seriously have a top 5 pick with that Dallas pick this year (and maybe another top 10 pick with ours). This is a stacked draft. The chance to add two cost controlled rookies in the top 15 of the draft in a loaded draft to complement a core of Randle, RJ, Quickley and Mitch? I think trading that for a star at this point would be beyond foolish.

I think trading that for a star at this point would be beyond foolish.

Totally agree. As Z-man said, the best thing about this FO is that they haven’t done any short-sighted win-now trades or signings. They avoided all the obvious mistakes we were concerned about. Trading away what is likely to be a high draft pick in a loaded draft when we aren’t near to contending would be the height of dumb.

Randle and the Dallas 2021 definitely starts a potential package for Beal nicely. Just like you want to offer up Julius when he’s going well, you want to offer up the Dallas 2021 when it’s 3.5 games and four teams into the lottery rather than wait too, too long only to find it slip out of the lottery.

Yes, we can take the easy cop out and say that Groundhog Day is both a romantic comedy and a film on existentialist self-rediscovery. And there are wonderful films that I would categorize as both, the quintessence of which is Wim Wenders’ 1987 masterpiece, Wings of Desire. But the problem with the rom com analysis is that it signals a missing of the movie’s actual point. If you carefully consider the film, there is very little that is actually romantic about it until the end when Phil and Rita actually fall in love. Phil behaves deplorably to her and their co-worker before his purgatory loop and then spends a good portion of the film trying to bed her as a conquest to pass the time eternally returning to the same day. We learn very little about Rita beyond Phil’s gaze. She’s mostly an object because the protagonist himself sees her as one throughout most of the film until his enlightenment. So, as a romance, Groundhog Day really isn’t that good because that’s just not the point of conflict driving a narrative where Phil is simultaneously both the movie’s primary antagonist and protagonist. And you can see that in how the film resolves itself. Had Phil and Rita not fallen in love and decided to live in Puxatawney his arc would still have been resolved because his journey of self-rediscovery and enlightnement is complete. He didn’t need Rita achieve the goal and move forward. She’s sort of an afterthought who ends up pursuing him.

Owen: Does anyone think Shaq improved that show? Can’t stand him and he also managed to ruin Charles Barkley for me too. I know it’s been 11 years but I still feel that way.
  

At first I didn’t like him. Now he doesn’t bother me as much. IMO, the real problem with that show is that they are using 3 players that understand the nuances of the game really well they but don’t work hard enough watching all the games and keeping up with all the players. So they often says things that are wrong about a specific player. They treat it like an easy paycheck. What they really need on that show is a high level coach that’s still actively trying to get another gig so he’s staying on top of everything, watching all the film, and bringing more accurate and specific insights to the table.

Considering what we would likely have to give up, Bradley Beal post trade would do for us exactly what he’s doing for the Wiz. Is anyone here excited by that? A $35mill AAV no-D chucker who gets you into the bottom of the playoffs at best? What exactly does he do for our team beyond what Randle is doing right now? And by the time you build even a 40-win team around him, he’s up for a mega-max extension. Fuck that.

The premise that DAL will recover and make the playoffs is irrelevant. Even if it’s true, franchise-changing players are potentially available all through the teens. We’ll have two shots at one of those guys, maybe two. The key for now is to sit tight and to identify and sign the Christian Wood types until the time is right to land the big fish. Now is definitely not that time, anyone with half a brain should be able to see that.

rama is cautiously optimistic: As I wrote, genre seeks to comfort – and there’s nothing wrong with that! I watch plenty of movies purely for comfort. But art seeks to confront, to challenge. Real artists strive not to repeat themselves. Genre makers seek to grow their audiences explicitly by repeating the same story with just enough change so that people feel satisfied and not bored.

I don’t get this. All of the great arts masters repeat themselves within a genre. Truly great individual works of art simply transcend the mortal constraints that lay people invent to describe and classify their works.

sign the Christian Wood types

Forget Frank over Donovan or SGA or any Bridges over Knox, just this last year we could have signed Wood and drafted Hali. Argh!

We’re still in a good position, but…argh!

Considering what we would likely have to give up, Bradley Beal post trade would do for us exactly what he’s doing for the Wiz. Is anyone here excited by that? A $35mill AAV no-D chucker who gets you into the bottom of the playoffs at best? What exactly does he do for our team beyond what Randle is doing right now? And by the time you build even a 40-win team around him, he’s up for a mega-max extension. Fuck that

This is why I wouldn’t trade anything for Beal. He’s a good player, and he would make sense for a lot of teams in the NBA, but not as one as bad as we are. Optimistically we’re like 2 years away from trading for a Beal type player.

Ntilakilla:
Wood isn’t the most durable guy in the league though.

Wood sprained his ankle…that’s the most common injury in basketball. I don’t know if that raises durability issues.

Z-man: Considering what we would likely have to give up, Bradley Beal post trade would do for us exactly what he’s doing for the Wiz. Is anyone here excited by that? A $35mill AAV no-D chucker who gets you into the bottom of the playoffs at best?

franchise-changing players are potentially available all through the teens. We’ll have two shots at one of those guys, maybe two. The key for now is to sit tight and to identify and sign the Christian Wood types until the time is right to land the big fish. Now is definitely not that time, anyone with half a brain should be able to see that.
  

IMO, the thing we want to avoid is giving up assets for a player at the tail end of his all star level play. If the guy can play at an all star level for the duration of a fair contract, you get him.

Beal is a very good player. He’s not a plus defender, but he can defend when he’s in the mood. He’s mostly not in the mood on that crap team (LOL), but he’s capable. It would depend on the price. I don’t mind giving up picks, but if you are adding in talent and picks we are nowhere.

Levine is a hard “no” for me. He can’t defend at all and is not a very high level talent on offense either.

Franchise changing players are available in the 2nd round also, but the draft is a game of probabilities. You are unlikely to get an all star caliber talent in the mid to late teens. You can sign or draft all star caliber talent using assets you’ve accumulated, players you have, and your own picks any time one is available. There a few of them available every season, but you can’t be a dreg team and get one. That has been our problem for a long time. They won’t even go on a first date with us, let alone get into a relationship. That’s what current management and coaching is trying to change by competing & making us more attractive. They want star players to consider us in trades and FA. Patience.

I’m not in favor of a Beal trade unless Washington is basically giving him away. Any realistic trade would be at best a lateral move and, more likely, probably hurts the team long term considering the kind of assets we’d have to give up and our spot on the win curve.

Haven’t we learned anything from the original Melo trade?

The problem with the Melo trade wasn’t Melo. It was that we gutted the team and overpaid by so much it was going to be a long rebuild and not give us any kind of reasonable window to compete while he was still productive and close to his peak. Then he got hurt and closed it shut on whatever he had left in the tank. (not to mention it was a dumb skill fit with Amare whose window was even shorter)

No one is saying it has to be Beal, that we should gut the team for him or a trade has to be done now. The idea is to improve the team when we have opportunities. However, in the end we need all star caliber talent, not role players. And the best way to get all star talent is via trade and free agency once you’ve already tanked yourself into a couple of good players and added a few others and are likely to start drafting in the teens.

If you ask me right now our best asset to include as a player in a trade is Mitch because we have a pretty good defensive substitute and Mitch is not making any progress into a more complete two way player like we hoped. I’m trusting Thibs and Paine on his development and knowing what the upside actually is.

Bradley Beal pre-season was 15th on SI’s list and is heading for virtually certain all-NBA status. He’s a 27 year old superstar and the Knicks have nothing close to that. We have to at some point get out of the habit of condescending to the idea that the Knicks are too good or pristine for players like him. Julius Randle isn’t even close to as good; they’re different classes of players entirely. (“Entirely” in bold, all caps, with stars and glitter and glows around it.)

(Which is why the Wiz aren’t going to want Randle back, most likely, but that’s a bit beside the current point.)

Which is another thing about Wood

You missed the part where there was no other thing…

Bradley Beal pre-season was 15th on SI’s list

The arbitrary rankings of naked punditry? Not persuasive evidence on Knickerblogger.

Which is another thing about Wood – he was bounced out of the league despite being a very productive player.

I don’t regret passing up on a guy with those character issues.

Do you have any sources for his alleged character issues? I mean, Jeremy Lin bounced around the league before he broke out here. Seth Curry was an NBDL player for years before finding a place on a contender, even though he had come from Duke and was known to come from a high-character family: zero character issues. NBA franchises are largely dreadful at evaluating talent.

And the best way to get all star talent is via trade and free agency once you’ve already tanked yourself into a couple of good players and added a few others and are likely to start drafting in the teens.

Has strat just been slowly adopting the consensus KB strategy and is only now comfortable enough to admit it?

I don’t want to win more games if it means trading young talent and future picks for Bradley Beal. He isn’t that good and we wouldn’t be good if we got him.

The Knicks direction is fine right now. We have some young talent, we have some valuable draft picks, we have a clean cap sheet.

If the Knicks FO actually is above average, and there are reasons to hope that is true, we might actually be turning a corner here.

Trading for Bradley Beal would be turning a full 180.

The problem isn’t the Knick FO, it’s the fact that the head coach engenders zero confidence in either his ability or propensity to properly evaluate and deploy young players. That’s his history entirely, and he’s obviously continuing it this year. That reality has to be taken into account in realistic next steps. Tyrese Haliburton would be on probation behind Elfrid Payton right now, just like Immanuel Quickley is. That doesn’t really scream “let’s hold on to our lottery picks and just slowly rebuild.”

As an aside, Beal is a guy the Bucks should have targeted, not fucking Jrue Holiday.

i was about to say the bucks would have been much better off with resigning malcom brogdon, just looking at a stat comparison of jrue and malcom though the difference in their play doesn’t seem that great…

IIRC Holiday rates very, very highly in RAPM, like a top 10 player between 2017 and 2020 or something like that. And the Bucks have an EWL of 16-5 right now with an SRS over 8, so it’s not like they’ve lost a step. Eric Bledsoe maybe single-handedly took the last two postseasons from Giannis, and I think there’s a solid chance they whoop the depleted Warriors in 2019. (Less optimistic to face down a healthy LeBron & AD combo, but that’s the case for literally every team in the league.) They’re beyond all-in, but I think the Holiday trade looks far worse with more readily available metrics.

“Except there’s a shorter leash on him when he’s not playing well …..” That shorter leash is exactly what I mean. There is no short leash on Austin Rivers or Elfrid Payton or Reggie Bullock.
And Frank, yeah — he’s shown no interest in developing Frank in the least and has played merc stiffs over him instead, and took away his minutes because of injury.

If you want to go back to his GM days, he turned Kris Dunn, Zach LaVine, and the draft pick that became Lauri Markkanen into Dario Saric and Robert Covington. The atmosphere he set up was rebelled against by Karl-Anthony Towns (*), most likely because of Thibs’s favoritism toward Jimmy Butler.

I guess we’ll just agree to disagree, but there’s nothing about Thibs that gives me any confidence with young draft picks. He has a long record, and he’s doing it again this year. I have zero confidence in him in that regard. His sweet spot is cobbling something together that can make spare parts play a bit better than expectations or a lesser coach would have them play in the regular season and he’s doing that well this year. He wasn’t even that great a playoff coach in his heyday.

(*) SLAM magazine: “Karl-Anthony Towns says the way former Timberwolves head coach and president of basketball operations Tom Thibodeau treated young players is a “disrespect and a slap in the face to their development.””

Owen:
I can see an argument that Beal is a slightly better fit with Giannis but the idea he is a lot better than Holliday, or better at all frankly, reeks of yay pointz.

I mean, am I crazy? Is Bradley Beal really a guy you could ever see in the NBA stratosphere?

Between his age and shooting I just think Beal is a way better fit than Holiday. And I think Holiday is a bit overrated.

We need all star caliber talent on this team and not another potentially good role player several years from now.

True, it’s impossible to find anyone good with late first round picks. I mean just look at the absolute bum the Knicks just drafted at #25. The Dallas pick this year will almost certainly be higher than that, but still, no chance it lands us a good player. Might as well trade it for Rudy Gay or something.

Re: Beal, if he is actually put on the market the competition for him will be cutthroat. I would say the bare minimum we could get him for is RJ, Knox, and three unprotected firsts (whichever picks are better between ours and Dallas’ in those years).

Now tell me how good the remaining team, which would be without future three first-rounders assuming this conservative estimate is correct, looks. I think 48 wins is a stretch and they’d be closer to the 40-42 range.

if you haven’t already seen it yet – here’s the MSG piece on clyde becoming clyde…

love his perfect blend of deep, but not too deep…

An yes, Karl Anthony Towns. The superstar who only got to the playoffs once when he was coached by Thibs and had Butler as his teammate but was such a diva because he didn’t want to play defense that he drove them both off the team and now is THE MAN on a team with a 235 win percentage.

Thibs ain’t the GM. So bringing that up is pointless.

Thibs ain’t the reason Frank missed a month with a knee injury.

It sounds like you’re just a secret Frank fan and most of your angst comes from that.

Frank is not part of our core future. The best case scenario for him coming into this season was he proved to be a decent bench piece. Maybe Thibs should give him another chance but so what if he doesn’t? Dude has had plenty of chances with The Knicks and any time he’s shown even a hint of progress, its followed by an injury. I mean, if you were thibs wouldn’t you be wary of taking away minutes from some productive vets only to have him get hurt again in a few weeks and now you gotta change up your rotations again?

Yeah I feel kind of relieved not to have given that contract to Trevor Bauer. Get Odorizzi to eat some innings, maybe bring in Jackie Bradley and Justin Turner on a short deal to play 3B.

Yeah, I don’t care what KAT said about Thibs. Honestly. He’s one player. Just because he puts up numbers and was the number one pick people act like he’s a star. He isn’t. He’s the Demarcus Cousins of the Gen Z NBA. A talented guy who could be one of the core guys on a good team if he ever gave a shit on defense. But he doesn’t so his team sucks. I mean, I thought teaming up with rising superstar Russell, his best friend, was going to unlock the KAT we all know exists. But its the same ole same ole. Sounds like disrespecting the youngsters to him means demanding excellence from them and not accepting it when they slack off.

The “demanding excellence” rationalization sounds a whole hella lot the old dictum of “if everyone you see is an asshole … “

If I’m Thibs, “Karl-Anthony Towns didn’t meet my lofty standards, but Elfrid Payton does” isn’t exactly something I’d want to go to bat with.

Now what will probably be the last word on Frank and there really isn’t even much substance to it. Objectively, here’s what happened. Frank finally got a chance for two games and played pretty well. He got injured. Thibs took him out of the rotation because of that injury. Rationalize it, explain it, justify it, do whatever you will with it, whatever — that’s what happened. It’s a virtual axiom of sports, honored entirely in the breach, that players don’t lose jobs or minutes because of injury — and they absolutely, positively don’t lose jobs and minutes because of injury to the likes of Austin Rivers and Reggie Bullock. It’s just extremely poor man management. This could never have been happened and it would still be quite sensible to be terrified of young talent in Thibs’s hands, but it did happen. One more for the ledger.

The point of all this isn’t really to bash Thibs as much as it is to set rational expectations of how this team should be built and planned. If you want to slowly build through asset accumulation and young draft picks, Thibs simply isn’t your guy. That means you have to go to Plan B. Thibs could be your guy for a Plan B. He isn’t your guy for Plan A. I doubt he’d even stick around to see Plan A through and he’d likely sabotage it to try to get his way in any event.

Trying this again since I have a comment in moderation for some reason: Karl-Anthony Towns and De’Angelo Russell have played a grand total of 114 minutes together, and if firing Thibs were a condition of getting the former to come here I would happily star in a film written and directed by Donnie Walsh if that’s what it took to make that happen.

Does anyone else think E is actually Mike Miller?

Pretty sure E is Elfrid Payton’s burner account. Reverse psychology.

I just simmed the lottery on Tankathon and the Knicks got the #1 and #4 picks on the first try.

Therefore this is what is actually going to happen

Considering KAT has never come close to the playoffs without thibs and is now the man on a team with a 235 winning percentage, I’ll take the coach who prefers grinders over lazy talented players who underperform.

Obviously the best combo is a super talented player who is also a grinder like lebron, Kobe, Duncan, etc. those are the guys who win rings. But if I don’t have one of those dudes on my team, give me the grinders every day. The grinders can be the role players that support the superstar and win it all.

I really don’t mind when I’m loathed by the most-loathed poster on the board

Owen:
You hate to see it…

https://twitter.com/tommybeer/status/1357788193396039683?s=21

So tragic (grabs a kleenex…)

Bargnani vibes

The best coaches and leaders can manage all personality types, not just their own. Actually, the best coaches and leaders are able to figure out when they’re favoring the personality type with which they most closely identify, and adjust and adapt.

E, all merc’d out:
The best coaches and leaders can manage all personality types, not just their own.Actually, the best coaches and leaders are able to figure out when they’re favoring the personality type with which they most closely identify, and adjust and adapt.

Yeah, I was especially impressed by the way Pop managed Kawhi’s personality.

Adebayo has taken and made 11 FT in the first 15 minutes of the Heat game. Crazy.

DRed:
Pass first James Harden is a trip

He’s been very pleasing to watch, aesthetically, which is not something I expected to say of James Harden.

Did he do it again?

Edit: nope

Why is Bradley Beal making me look bad? I take everything back.

DRed:
Durant just tweeted ‘Free me!’

What is wrong with that dude?

Nice win for the beleaguered Raps…they look like they are coming together

That’s a really impressive night from Lamelo. Holy cow. 34 points with no turnovers.

I’m having a tough time getting used to the clippers in those colors, I keep thinking they’re the spurs, especially when kawhi is out there…

https://tv5.espn.com/nba/insider/story/_/id/30816181/nba-mock-draft-new-2021-nba-draft-lottery-picks-prospects-rise

Guys – i have found something positive for my entire family (Wife and 3 kids) that has come out of Knicks fandom. Here’s the flowchart:

1) Become Knicks fan
2) bang head on wall out of frustration
3) look for others to share in frustration
4) fall ass backward into Knickerblogger
5) read Mike Vorkunov writing stuff on Knickerblogger before he becomes Important Beat Writer
6) realize “alsep” and “Alan” = Important Entertainment Writer
7) decide to listen to Important Beat Writer and Important Entertainment Writer do a podcast
8) for some reason decide to listen all the way to the end after they’ve stopped talking about the Knicks
9) learn about a show called Bluey which is a kids show – I can’t stand watching kids shows
10) For some reason turn on Bluey out of desperation of something to do with my kids
11) Whole family now addicted to Bluey

Truly amazing – all thanks to the Knicks!
(And thanks for the recommendation Alan!)

Frank, if the rest of my career is just about me convinceing people to watch Bluey, it will be worth it.

oh man. jowles will never know lana del rey as intimately as i’ve come to know luna girl. that fucking show. on the other hand one of my kid’s cutest moments came when he wasn’t really doing coherent phrases yet and on the way to the park suddenly grabbed the push rod of his little blue truck and started wobble sprinting while screaming SUPER GEKKO MUSCLES

Z-man:
What’s with the 1PM starts on both Sat and Sun?

so us folks on the left coast have something to watch with our brunch….I think on super bowl sunday the nba tries to have the games not conflict with the game on sunday..