From Marc Berman, who, let’s be frank, seems to be kind of stirring the pot here, right? He could be correct, but it still seems like stirring the pot:
The Knicks did not make Kevin Knox, Frank Ntilikina or any of their first-round picks available in the Derrick Rose trade on Sunday, The Post has learned.
Though Knox and Ntilikina are out of the rotation, the Knicks are saving as many young assets as possible for a future significant deal.
The Knicks — as well as several other teams — are monitoring the situations of shooting guards Bradley Beal and Victor Oladipo. The Knicks (11-15) get an up-close look at both players in a Friday-Saturday back-to-back.
The Knicks face Beal’s Wizards (6-15) Friday in Washington, then host Oladipo and the Rockets (11-13) on Saturday.
Beal always seems a step away from being put on the trading block, and league executives think it’s more a matter of when, not if, he will be dealt.
“Eventually I think the Wizards will [trade him],” one NBA executive said. “They want to treat Beal right. I think Beal will get frustrated enough to ask for a trade and they will accommodate him.”
One league executive also wondered whether the Wizards would trade Beal to an Eastern Conference team.
The player who is already available — and who would be much less costly — is Oladipo, whom Houston obtained from the Pacers in the blockbuster trade of James Harden. Sources contend the Rockets are amenable to trading Oladipo, since he’ll be an unrestricted free agent this summer.
If the Knicks were to seize Oladipo, it would show that general manager Scott Perry still has considerable power in the organization. Perry, while with the Magic, drafted the University of Indiana product with the No. 2-overall pick in the 2013 draft.
“The Knicks were definitely sniffing around Victor when he was with the Pacers,” one NBA source said.
Knicks president Leon Rose is said to be not as high on Oladipo’s future, but coach Tom Thibodeau still is looking for roster upgrades because of his team’s scoring woes, league sources affirm.
“The team can’t shoot! I know, let’s go get Victor Oladipo!” is not something that I think has ever been said.
I can truly see the Knicks being in on Beal, though. They probably shouldn’t be, but I could totally see them being in on Beal.
149 replies on “NY Post: Win-now Knicks monitoring Bradley Beal, Victor Oladipo”
Beal would cure a lot of what ails this team. The problem is, he would cost nearly all of what works on this team, so I don’t see why either he or we would want that.
Meanwhile, Macri — who is usually Mr. Glass Half-Full when it comes to all things Knicks — published a pretty brutal assessment of Oladipo’s game in his newsletter last week. Unless it’s for Knox, Frank, and a couple of seconds, I have very little interest.
Yeah, I loved Oladipo in college and i think he could be a useful piece on an NBA team. He also has a great singing voice. But he isn’t good right now and I don’t see him ever being more than a nice 4th or 5th guy. Not someone I could get excited about throwing a lot of resources at.
Beal, I just don’t want him. Let’s stick to finding or drafting guys who can play on both ends of the court.
Payton-Dipo-RJ-Randle-Mitch would be the bricklayer’s fair
Why on earth would you trade for Oladipo when you could just pay money to obtain his services next year?
Probably also worth pointing out that Oladipo stinks at playing NBA basketball
If you have a chance to add a good player before Game 7 of the NBA Finals, you have to do it.
I just don’t think the right deal for the right guard/wing is out there and available this season.
Like I said before, the best scenario is:
– to be seen as a young, up and coming team.
– just miss the playoffs.
– have Dallas miss the playoffs.
– pull a ’93 Orlando Magic with either our lottery pick or the Mavs pick, or at least have one of those picks land top-5. I say one of the two, because if both picks jump to top-5 I don’t know if I could handle the Flashpoint-level reality warping that would take place if that happened.
Just keep drafting dudes. Hold onto the picks you have. Maybe you’ll hit on enough with the “blind squirrel finds nut” approach.
That has a better than 0% chance of working, which is better odds than the “trade for the bag of magic Oladipo beans” option.
On the one hand, it definitely seems like Berman is stirring the pot at least a little since “monitoring the situation” of guys who are obviously potential trade candidates is precisely the front office’s job. Still, the Rose trade made it clear, if we didn’t already know it, that the front office wants to make the team better in the short run. They’re not going to go crazy to do it; in free agency they dropped out when the bidding got too rich on Hayward, and a 2nd for Rose was a totally reasonable price, but it certainly looks unlikely to me that they’re going to go the other way – I’ve kind of mentally written off the concept of us trading Randle and I’d be surprised if they even sold on Burks for example at the deadline. I have no idea where the market might end up on Oladipo, since he really isn’t good anymore but still has some superstar shine on him from that 17-18 season. If the price is relatively low I would not be at all surprised to see him in a Knick uniform after the deadline.
these are the kinds of moves I’m afraid of but I’ll wait til they happen before I lose any sleep over it.
Oladipo was never a particularly efficient scorer until his breakout year. Now he’s back to what he was before the injury. So was the breakout year a fluke good year or was he just reaching his peak and then got set back by injuries. I’m not sure it matters one way or the other to us unless he recovers that peak form because otherwise I don’t think he moves the chain enough to blow up the rest of our rebuild.
Beal is more interesting because he’s a legit terror on offense, but he’s never scored particularly well on a lot of defensive metrics. I’m not sure if he’s one of those great scorers on a bad team that’s bad because their key players don’t defend or he’s a legit star player on a bad team that’s capable of defending at least adequately . If it’s the latter, I think you have to at least consider a big package for him. If it’s the former, I’ll pass.
I do think the addition of a legit star moves the chain a lot for this team while retaining a LOT of upside with RJ, Mitch, Obi and whoever else is left along with whatever picks we retain. So I am not against the idea. It just has to be a legit star player that’s going to be at his peak for the duration of the contract.
Why can’t the Knicks just chill and use all their picks? We’re not asking them to tank. Just use your picks, and if the core guys here win games, great.
Yeah Hubert, keep it simple stupid. Not sure why it’s so hard. It’s just basic risk management. Paying Beal supermax money just doesn’t seem like an optimal approach to anything other than maxing out at 40 wins.
+1000
Just stay the course, the Knicks are in a good place, don’t fuck it up!
Re: Obi on the previous thread…
He doesn’t have the body to be backing NBA bigs down. Aside from scoring on the break and with threes (I hope), his best bet is to use his passing acumen to get shots at the rim and short jumpers… also knowns as the PICK AND ROLL.
But apparently, Thibs only wants to run about three of those a game. Plus, that’s really the only offense Mitch can run right now.
My larger quibble with Thibs is that we clearly need to take more threes and play more guys that can make threes. It’s no coincidence that Utah is having a career year from three and is one of the top 2 teams in the league this year.
We are 2nd to last in 3-pt rate and bottom third in 3-pt percentage. In 2021, you can’t win that way (Thibs and co. claim they really like winning, right?)
Which is bad enough but Duncan Robinson isn’t a big, he’s a 2/3.
It would interesting to know where “the pressure” to win now or whatever bullshit/fiction narrative is/could be tossed around to justify one of these types of bad moves….
I think the “fan base” wants a winner…is not real
I think that Dolan is exerting it…is 50/50….depending on what bill of goods rose sold him on when he hired him
I think that Rose/Front office doing it..is also 50/50…given the offseason doesn’t seem likely
I think that it is likely coming from Thibs….he has a 5 yr deal so not sure what the hurry is….maybe its ego and he want to show he still has the chops to get to the playoffs but is wanting mgmt to get him some better players ….
I can’t see where in any of the above …the braintrust thinks that any deal is going to get a championship in the next few years so if they sat back rationally and acknowledge it doesn’t result in win now if that is how it is defined…why would they pursue these things….
then again…maybe berman is making this shit up because he’s bored….
Like I keep repeating, their offense is terrible and yet they don’t seem to want to actually change anything about it, just add a guy to plug into Payton’s role with the second unit.
The lack of PnR on a team with Mitchell Robinson, Obi Toppin, and RJ Barrett is criminal. The Knicks should be running as much PnR as any team in the association.
The reason for that is we have mostly have bad 3 point shooters. It would be foolish for our brick throwers to increase their rate of throwing up bricks. If we were taking a lot of long 2s, there would be something to complain about because we’d be better off taking 3s at a poor percentage than long 2s at a poor percentage. But we are mostly trying to get corner 3s (which we are OK at) and penetration for shots at the basket, floaters around the basket and other mid range shots that are at least tolerable. Thats what gives us out best chance of winning with a team of very limited shooting talent.
Yeah, I don’t get where this “pressure” is coming from.
The fans? They can’t even go to games and most fans on the blogs are relatively happy with what we’ve done this season. I know the blogs aren’t the only indicator of where the fans are at but pretty much every blog the comments are filled with people being happy to watch this team. Some people are more impatient than others but we’ve been a suprise
The media? The media coverage of the team has been positive too.
So it leads me to believe its either internal pressure from Thibs or its Dolan.
But they should just totally chill. I don’t mind tinkering with moves like Rose where we gave up basically nothing. And if they want to ship out Knox or Frank or Rivers and another second rounder or two for a similar type move, I’m cool with that too. But going all in on Beal or trading anything of value for Oladipo seems so short sighted.
Just keep drafting. We’re so close to breaking through. RJ and Mitch and Quickley are all going to continue to get better and even if we just add two first rounders in the mid teens, that’s going to be more young talent. And most likely one of those is at least top ten, maybe higher. The worst thing that could happen is we trade either of our firsts this year and that’s the one that ends up in the top 5. Just let it play out. We make the playoffs cool. If not, that’s cool too. The team most likely isn’t falling off a cliff bc defensively they’re solid.
I don’t think there is ANY pressure to win NOW at all. That’s just some BS narrative from writers.
What’s happening is a change in philosophy. We are changing from building exclusively via draft over a very long period and putting overpaid mercenaries in the cap space as holders to trying to improve the team with a combination of draft picks, free agents that make sense given the needs of the team and salary, and trades that improve the team now and/or long term. Trades can include young players, veteran free agents, using draft picks as assets, trading players for picks, etc… EVERYTHING is on the table. The idea being that making smart deals in a variety of ways can accelerate the process, get us into the playoffs, change the attitude of other players in the league about coming to NY, and get experience for the young players.
They are simply waiting on the right trades.
Rose fit the criteria. It made the team better, it’s only one 1 year to see what he has left, we gave up a G league player that was of no value to us and a 2nd round pick that in all probability would not even make the team. It didn’t move the chain much, but it moved the chain. Now keep looking.
Relative to league average we’re actually worse at making 2 point attempts than we are at 3s. Our relatively shitty 3 point shooting is basically the fault of RJ and Payton, who have taken like 20% of our attempts and shot terribly.
RJ should keep shooting 3s as a process thing, there’s not much we can do about that. Payton should probably stop, and we should try to get more 3pt attempts for our other shooters, who are not as awful as we think.
Honestly not even sure why we acknowledge BOTP’s gossip column when there are much better Knicks beat writers out there
It’s virtually impossible to have a good offense in the modern NBA when you’re playing Elfrid Payton this many minutes in his current role. Does not compute, never will.
The pressure is coming from Dolan and Thibs. It’s there. There’s a massive “maximize current wins” faction in the decision-making hierarchy and it would be folly to pretend otherwise. I still do not believe this team is going to rebuild or even just use the stocked draft picks. Credit to the “anti” faction for at least stopping stupid win now moves. But they’ve only won the tactical battles, not the strategic or philosophical ones.
Accepting that premise as valid, as we should, Bradley Beal is far wiser than Victor Oladipo, with the obvious price caveat. If you’re going to get a star, get an actual star, not a “star.”
Knicks FO and senior player types use BOTP to try to push/achieve an agenda. Carmelo Anthony basically communicated to the world that he wanted MDA out through BOTP. It has to be read that way, rather than as “news,” but it’s very valuable nonetheless.
In his way, he’s sort of like the carrier pigeons in Game of Thrones. If there had been newspapers back then, there would have been a BOTP-esque character in GOT.
Yeah, Berman’s very valuable for when it comes to the thinking of the team.
I’m assuming Washington would want Barrett and our 2 first round picks at the very bare minimum for Beal. I would assume they would also insist on obi or quickley. Hopefully that takes us out of the running!!
Is it? I thought we established a few months ago that he’s a mouthpiece for some people on the team – likely Scott Perry – but not others
If they trade either of this year’s picks (even with protections) for Bradley Beal I really will quit rooting for this team altogether. And I like Beal.
He was Mills’ mouthpiece, but he likely just moves to the next guy. Berman’s value is not saying what the team will do, but whether there is turmoil in the office, which we have seen usually takes its toll.
What would a trade for Beal even look like? RJ, Frank and three 1sts? IQ, Toppin and 3 1sts? All the 1sts and pick swaps for a few seasons?
Whatever it is, it’s going to gut the team significantly. Hard no.
I think Rose would at least hold on to RJ and Quickley since they can both contribute now.
This front office clearly values winning now over draft picks, and the rest of the league clearly values draft picks more than Rose does, so my guess is a Knicks offer would be:
Obi Toppin
Kevin Knox
Our 2021 first
Dallas’ 2021 first
Our 2023 first
Dallas’ 2023 first
This is obviously way too much to give for Bradley Beal. But I can see Rose and Thibs being happy with that trade. It could catapult us all the way to the 6th seed and make us perennial participants in the first round of the playoffs. What else is there to aspire to?
Why go after Beal while having Bullock?
I really don’t get it
I do a bunch of writing (mostly correspondence) in my current job. I would imagine though having a near daily writing requirement that involved some type of creativity to be extremely challenging. It would seem stressful.
Life is full of ups and downs, no one is at their best continually. To add on top of that – I also imagine doing whatever “task” for years on end results in some level of “burnout”. My expectations for someone writing all the time to provide content for consumption is that – they can’t all be winners, can they.
Having said all of that – fucking George Martin get your shit together. You still owe me at least 2 more books in ASOIF. You and your old lady need to leave that freaky cosplay stuff alone and get your lazy, non-focused hippie ass in gear.
Before we go hunting any more free agents, we need to find a starting point guard.
I’d take out at least two of the draft picks and see if they’ll take Randle. Odds are the FO isn’t thinking that way though. My general rule would be “no year without at least one 1.” Trading entirely out of ’21 and ’23 would be insane.
Not that it matters until there are at least three injuries, but Frank is out again tonight as part of the health and safety protocols.
“…but Frank is out again tonight…”
I thought we had a game tonight, grabbed my cola and my chips and was really excited to even watch it from my cellphone before realising that we don’t…
I don’t really believe that Thibs wants to win right now by sacrificing team’s flexibility and asset accumulation.
Upgrading his roster on the cheap is fine.
But fucking the future of this team for a sexy Playoffs run i just don’t see it…
We literally just gave up a minor asset for a player who’ll be a free agent this summer.
I like Beal but he is just not that dude. We’ve seen what teams with him and subpar teammates look like a bunch of times now. They aren’t very good. The bidding war for him is going to be insane when he’s on the market specifically because of how well he fits on contenders. You can safely ignore any suggested package that doesn’t include RJ and both of our 2021 firsts.
I continue to think Zach LaVine is underrated due to people not adjusting their view on him in light of seemingly genuine improvements and would target him in free agency in 2022 instead.
#We literally just gave up a minor asset for a player who’ll be a free agent this summer.#
As far as i remember we had bought a 2nd rounder a few years ago for just money so let’s not cry like we lost 21’s Jokic!
Great, than we could have had even more assets if we didn’t trade for Rose.
If Rose upgrade the whole 2nd unit with his game you get you minor’s asset’s value back x2.
Remember Randle last season and Randle under Thibs.
There’s value on the draft picks as also on your team’s players improvement.
So you are ok with sacrificing flexibility to win now.
#So you are ok with sacrificing flexibility to win now.#
I’m ok with upgrading the roster to maximize its value without mortgaging the future which is what’s happening so far this season.
Whoops, sorry, KYN. Point being, Frank is out for the next game. But also, Beal is going to miss the Wizards game against us. A tough blow for Team Tank.
“Whoops, sorry, KYN”
Not your fault Alan!
I had bought them before your post.
Now i must resist to not touch them without a knicks game which “legalizes” them for my nutrition!
I don’t even want Beal, but I agree: you really don’t get it.
Bullock: 14.8 USG%, .531 TS%, 16.4 PTS/100, 7.0 AST%, -2.4 OBPM
Beal: 36.5 USG% (1st in NBA), .582 TS%, 43.1 PTS/100, 23.9 AST%, 6.3 OBPM
agree Beal is likely too costly and not the right guy at this juncture….
but, on Levine…i agree he would be good to target as an UFA in 2022…he has really improved his game..
Haven’t you drink your coffee yet Jowles?
Again, that’s not exactly “fucking the future” as KYK said. A 2nd round pick is not nothing, even if it’s mid-round. But there’s a good deal of room btwn “not nothing” and “fucking the future”. See BigAl’s comments a few threads ago about how many 2021 drafted rookies will theoretically but realistically play on the team.
If it was a joke, I retroactively liked it
The bigger concern to me: it indicates that Derrick Rose might be a part of this team’s long-term future.
#If it was a joke, I retroactively liked it#
If it wasn’t then 911 should had already grabbed me!
Maybe in Spain i’m KYK or even KYKO but in here im KYN!
I’ve read through all the posts. Some like Beal some don’t. but of course, I like Beal and brought all of this up last week. I said trade Knox, Frank and DSJr and was willing to throw in picks and other players. I still am. The question might be, what will it take? Rose for DSJr and a 2nd was a steal (yeah my opinion, not most of yours … yet) and I predict that the Knicks resign him. The contract is the problem. Beal is also a FA after this season so there’s a hard cap on what we trade for him. If the Knicks make a trade, it needs to be a sign-and-trade. Oh, I’m not surprised that Washington announced that Beal won’t face the Knicks on Friday. I wonder why 🙂
#The bigger concern to me: it indicates that Derrick Rose might be a part of this team’s long-term future.#
Being part of this team’s long-term future don’t really bothers me if he’s not overpaid.
Btw the guy is 32. Long-term?
FO don’t seem stupid so far when it comes to salaries.
If DRose is able to run your 2nd unit effectively without fucking your salary cap why choose to put a DJAugustin/JTeague/JLucasIII shitty pg in his place instead of him?
Especially when he’s Thibs’s first true PG Love!?
Now if Thibs wants him for a starting PG we have a completely different discussion…
If the Wizards accept an offer for Beal centered on Knox and Frank they might as well close the franchise. I don’t want to trade for him, but there’s no way they dump him for a couple of mid range first rounders and actual useless players.
Imo with the previous FO/Coaching stuff a trade for Beal would had been Disastrous for another 5 years. Beal would have changed jersey and continued his stat madness on a Losing team.
With the ones we now have in charge i see them “pulling a Miami Heat teambuild approach” in the worst case scenario of trading multiple 1st round picks for Beal.
I don’t want it but might not be the end of the world also…
…. or not?
Come on, Bruno, don’t warn WAS about it… we’re due to have a lopsided trade in favor of the Knicks! 😉
Haha, no.
You can’t steal a player if there’s no real upside. What is the surplus value, a slightly better shot at the 8th seed or as a tank commander?
Beal signed an extension at the end of 2019, that will kick in next season, so no need for a sign and trade. If we trade for him we’ll have the pleasure to pay him 34.5M in 2021-22 and 37.2M in 2022-23. That’s max money, do you think he’s worth it?
Oh, and there’s more… he has a 15% trade kicker, so we’ll pay him even more. And 2022-23 is player option, a season to which he intends to opt-out, to sign a supermax contract. Are you sure you want to get in all of this?
The only reason to trade for Beal is if Kawhi Leonard is guaranteed to come in the offseason. Also, Kawhi is not coming in the offseason.
No. I am not sure at all.
not sure if it was mentioned but the l2m report for the heat game found two mistakes, but both in our favor
Fake news
But seriously, Olynyk didn’t foul Mitch?
he definitely hit him in the body but i think the nba claim is he had already been cleanly stripped and the ball was already coming out so it’s incidental. i think they may be right. olynyk definitely fouled him on that weird miss early in the third q tho.
Well, at least we are not the worst franchise in the league anymore.
We stole Derrick Rose from all the so many contenders who were dying to sign him and yet couldn’t be bothered to offer a middling 2nd rounder and a G-League player, just like there’s still many franchises interested in Frank Ntilikina.
I think it’s really clear Beal is not worth max money. He would be Melo 2.0 with us, he would score a lot of points, give up some points by not playing defense and that’s pretty much it, no relevant contributions outside of scoring. No thanks. If you’re just a scorer I need superstar efficiency to even consider paying a max, and Beal is simply not there.
First, thanks. I relied on Spotrac and it’s outdated, it seems.
To answer you, it depends on what we give in return. Do I think he’s worth that money? Yes. Would it be nice to get him at half the price? Yes.
Let me ask you, how many of the max deal players out there would you pay max for? I bet you wouldn’t say 20. Here, take a look: Player contracts
My argument is that this league is (what auction fantasy sports players call) stars and scrubs. The top tiers are overpaid, the bottom tiers are underpaid. To ever compete for big name, you need to be looking to play the max.
Acquiring Dreck Rose could never be called a steal. The going rate for a middling 20 min rotation player is a mid-second round pick. The best you could say about the deal is that it was good value, but even that is a stretch.
That said, he’s about as good of a backup PG you can find out there for a team desperately deficient at that position. Even if the deal was done to appease Thibs, so what? He’s by far the best PG on the team right now, and actually knows how to play the position within Thibs’ system. I get not liking him, and not liking his game, and not wanting him on the team either now or in the future. But from a strictly basketball POV, it’s probably a net positive in terms of W’s and L’s.
What other franchises have done is totally irrelevant.
I can’t see any logic in trading a boatload of assets for Bradley Beal. No way, no how.
We aren’t in a position to make a trade for a superstar.
It’s as simple as that.
Bradley Beal is not James Harden and we are not the Rockets
There probably isn’t a package that I wouldn’t green-light for Damian Lillard. Boat-load, shit-ton, butt-lot, you name it…
Lillard’s on the cusp of 31. Maybe five years ago, sure.
Melo scoring 15 in the 4th and you wouldn’t trade for him jowles? We need a closer
I wonder if Lillard will retire as a Blazer. The only scent of dissatisfaction I’ve seen was a few years ago when he asked to talk to the team owner about the direction of the franchise. I don’t recall hearing anything since.
He deserves at least one postseason shot with the Blazers at full strength. The problem is that, even then, I can’t ever see him/them getting past the Lakers in 7 to get to the NBA Finals unless the MonStars sap LeBron’s skills.
Melo will definitely miss a big shot at the end of the game, you can count on it
17th in the 4th for Melo let’s make the trade
Lillard had 23 pits on 8 shots in the first half. Not so great statistically in the second half, but good enough to carry the Blazers to a win over the top team in the east. (And he being over 30 just doesn’t seem like an issue at all, he keeps himself in immaculate condition, understands how diet correlates to,performance, is never injured, and keeps getting better and better every year. He’s basically the perfect specimen to lock up in a lifetime contract. Not too many of those. LeBron is basically the only other current player who comes to mind with 0 issues to consider).
A pristine balance sheet isn’t an end in itself, as it sometimes seems to be around here — it’s a means to an end. Every max guy isn’t going to be LBJ or AD or Kawhi and in an artifically-capped market plenty of guys are going to be worth a max who aren’t LBJ or AD or Kawhi.
Max guys don’t have to be LBJ or Kawhi…just part of a logical team structuring. It’s not Beal per se. It’s Beal at the cost of numerous assets. I’d rather wait five years without a true max player than empty the cupboard for someone like Beal. Much better opportunities will come along and you have to be positioned to take advantage of them. It would have been smarter to offer the max to Christian Wood without costing any assets than to decimate the team to get a second-level star in Beal.
In this draft you will surely have a reasonable opportunity to pick up two top-of-rotation players locked into 4 years of rookie salary. Giving up that opportunity, plus other assets, is about as dumb of a move as could possibly be made.
So it’s almost a sure thing that we draft BJ Boston, right?
The thing is, after this off season, we will still have our 2022 First and Second and two 2023 Firsts and a boatload of 2023 Seconds and that’s supposedly the double draft, so second rounders and late first rounders might be more valuable in that draft.
We will still have plenty of draft capital to trade after the 2021 draft but this upcoming drafted is supposedly loaded AND deep and we have 2 first round picks and a chance that both of them could end up in the top 10. Most likely at least one will be top 10 and the other top 20. And there’s even a very small chance we could get two top 10 picks or even two top 5 picks. I know those are not likely but they are not out of the realm of possibility either. Either way, we have a chance to add two more rookies in a strong draft class. After that we’ll have a core of our two 2021 Firsts, RJ, Randle, Mitch, Quickley and Toppin. Those two firsts will most likely be replacing two of the Elf, Rivers, Bullocks, Burk group of players. At that point we will have a really nice core of young players that we can build around with the option of maybe trading Randle as well for more capital. Plus, its not a ton of money but Noah is still on the books next season. IMO, the time to make that big trade would be next season or the season after. I think we can be pretty certain that the base level of this core with Thibs is a slightly below 500 team with upside. Lets add more youth to that, let the existing youth like RJ, Mitch and Quickley grow and then make a move after that. Who knows, someone might come available who isn’t even on our radar now at a cheaper cost than what Beal would cost us. Or we could be an attractive destination for free agents, which won’t cost us picks. I get the desire to do it cause the improvement of the team makes it enticing to want to upgrade and be a playoff team. But just a little more patience could be the difference between a decent playoff team and real contender.
Also, the NBA is becoming saturated with rotational talent (no expansion, please!!) This would suggest that secondary free agents would want bigger roles (and salaries) on other teams. Having cap flexibility in this capped-out environment is hugely beneficial. With a little bit of draft savvy, smart transactions, and some patience, this team could go from where it is to top-10 bu 2023, which is a reasonable time table.
Man, Melo had a game last night in a Blazers win.
I love watching Dame play, he’s super fun. He is a star. But I wouldn’t want to sell out for him either with where our team is and what age he is at.
Dame Lillard and a bunch of flotsam isn’t going to make you a serious contender.
There are superstar trades that can make sense, like the Rockets deal for Harden, (although was he a superstar at that point?), but I won’t hide my preference for a slow, patient, intelligent rebuild.
The FO seems capable of it. Some of the maneuvers they have executed demonstrate real competence, e.g. Ed Davis. So I think it just depends on Rose and Dolan.
There’s probably a price point where Beal makes sense for us…maybe RJ, Knox and a first or something like that…but the Wiz will never get there.
It seems pretty likely given current trends that if Beal really does become available eventually some contending team is going to be willing to throw in all their draft capital to bring him on. We saw it with PG, with Holiday, with Harden. Washington is going to want the full boat, every first round pick you have to give, a bunch of swaps etc. The problem with shopping at the top of the market is always that you’re going to have to outbid the contending teams that are very willing to trade off their future assets for current improvement. If you’re a middling team it’s very hard to win that kind of auction if you’re acting logically at all.
That’s why we still need to be looking at more under-valued opportunities to find a star rather than the most obvious guy in the league. Maybe LaVine is that guy – I still don’t like his game much but the scoring numbers this year are hard to argue with; maybe Oladipo is that guy – he stinks currently but if he can recapture his pre-injury form there really could be a buy-low opportunity there; Wood was a nice opportunity this summer. Looking for ways to get better I have no issue with, but looking at the same ones as every other team is always going to be too expensive.
If there was some way to go to future hoop war with RJ, Obi, IQ, Mitch, Beal, and at least one 1 every year, I’d be totally up for that. Not sure there’s a path there, but it’s certainly not inconceivable. No indication the FO/Thibs is of this mind; they’d likely trade RJ before Randle. Once you start eating into the 1s, yeah, it becomes tougher and tougher. No way you clear out your 1s like the Lakers and Clippers and Bucks did — that’s insane.
SI’s Howard Beck interviewed me and some other Knicks fans about why we stick with this stupid team, and how we’re feeling about the Thibs era so far:
https://www.si.com/nba/2021/02/12/knicks-twitter-2021-daily-cover
DeRozan, Poetl and a protected #1 turned into Kawhi. Oladipo and Sabonis (neither were all that at the time) turned into Paul George. Crowder, Zizic and a crippled Isaiah Thomas, a first and a second got Boston Kyrie. Covington, Saric, Bayless and a 2nd round pick turned into Jimmy Butler. Deals like that happen. And this doesn’t even get into free agents who might be available in the next 3-4 years once we build a core.
You just have to be patient. Don’t lunge at shortcuts.
Well..we can take a win vs Washington to the bank tonight. Our “Reggie Miller nemesis type of this era” will not be playing tonight.
Thank you Bradley Beal for agreeing to rest tonight lol
Btw when I say Reggie Miller nemesis type, I mean Beal just kills us every damn game and we lose more often than not against him.
Kawhi was with the Raptors one year. George was with the Thunder two years. Kyrie was with Boston two years. Butler was with Philly one year.
Other than Kawhi, who clearly lead the Raptors to a championship before splitting after a year, I don’t see any of the other three acquisitions as a model for anything.
None of those trades are that recent though; there was definitely a period a few years ago where it seemed like teams were very hesitant to throw their draft capital at stars, now the pendulum seems to have swung entirely the other way. An important question for the future of this team is whether that’s a lasting trend or just the product of a small sample size with a few unique situations. I don’t know what the answer is.
Yep, the key thing to remember is that Beal is going to cost a fortune. If you’re just, like, “I’d like to add Bradley Beal to the team,” then, sure, fair enough, I guess, but the cost is going to be crazy.
What I get from almost all the replies to this question of mine
Is that I win the bet. One person said Dame and that was shot down immediately.
My conclusion is that you all want a bunch of second-tier bargains and to be relegated to mediocrity forever. I believe that you win by having more of the absolute best players than your competition and backfilling with value. We’ll never agree. Beal is worth trading for, even with the contract. And BTW, I would probably pay about 80% of the slew of NBA max players the max if they would play for the Knicks. And of the 20% I wouldn’t pay the max, most are because of injury or advanced age.
I dunno stam, they were all like 3-4 years ago. Butler was traded in November 2018.
The crazy expensive deals of the last 2 years have been mostly situational. Milwaukee overpaid for Holiday to keep Giannis happy. Clips couldn’t get Kawhi without PG. Lakers needed to cash in on the LeBron window. The Rockets were drunk with desperation when they sold the farm for Westbrook. Nets needed to form a big 3 with Harden to have a legit title chance. But that kind of ridiculous overpay doesn’t make sense for a team like ours, and only the Lakers have a legit return on their investment so far. For all we know, the Nets, Bucks, Clips and Rockets (although they got a great return for Harden) might still be fucked 5 years from now for going all in with nothing to show for it. Meanwhile, OKC and NOP are primed for a decade of contending once they figure out what to do with all of their draft capital.
We need to think more like TOR, MIA, OKC, DEN, UTA, SAS, and teams like that for now. If teams overbid, let them. Opportunities will come.
Great article, Alan! Nice to have your distinguished self representing us so eloquently!
***I love watching Dame play, he’s super fun. He is a star. But I wouldn’t want to sell out for him either with where our team is and what age he is at. Dame Lillard and a bunch of flotsam isn’t going to make you a serious contender. ***
Well, there is literally nothing during the next four years that is going to make the Knicks into a serious contenter. So, theoretically, having one of the very best players in the league playing with flotsam is better than having just the flotsam.
As for Beal, one thing that will keep the price high is that Washington doesn’t really want to trade him, and Beal hasn’t demanded to be traded and has even insisted that he wants to stay in D.C.. it’s not like with Harden, who was making life difficult for Houston, or with Harden the first time, when OKC was mandated to cut payroll, or Jimmy Butler, who had a short list of destinations he’d agree too. There is nothing to drive down the price for Beal. (And whomever he gets traded to will likely take him off the free agent market next summer, so we have a Carmelo situation all over again of having to pay now AND pay later). That said Beal seems like a really good guy, and does fill an important need, so it’s not the absolute very most horrible option staring Rose in the face I guess…
Beal is taking a rest day because he wants to tank the game to the Knicks. That way when he’s traded to NY the team has an extra win in the playoff fight. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
I am very pleased that we will be playing the wizards this evening. I hope we win by 50. I don’t mind blowouts in our favor at all. Of course, we could end up losing by 50, but – it’s the wiz.
At this point in the season it appears that slots 8, 9, and 10 are still up for grabs in the east.
The one difference between now and the past is that we wouldn’t be capping ourselves out with a team of veterans that’s not good enough to contend now, aging, with no upside, and that lacks picks.
We can’t pay an insane price, but we could potentially add Beal and still have a solid playoff team with a lot of upside from some combination of players like Mitch, RJ, Obi, and IQ (also keeping Randle). That team would be good for a LONG time and have a lot of upside. Plus, as long as we don’t give away any terrible contracts, there are always still ways to make moves. We just don’t want to be old, capped out, have no picks for a couple of ears, and have several contracts that no one wants like we were not so long ago. That’s a disaster. As long as you are good now and there’s a clear path to being a lot better with development, you are fine.
The problem with Dame isn’t that he’s not good enough. It’s that he’s going to be paid progressively more as he ages, as a short guard, well past his prime. Does anyone here think he’s going to be worth his $54M salary during his age 34 season?
I mean, Steph is basically doing some black magic in GSW right now, but unless you can get two superstars — like, legit superstars, not occasionally-great but also often-bricklaying Jamal Murray or Donovan Mitchell — there is way too much risk of pushing the chips in on a guy whose best basketball is all but certain to be behind him.
If you could get Dame for nothing but cap space, maybe you can talk yourself into it on the assumption that he’ll be able to go 30 PPG on .600 TS% for a few postseasons. But he’s a huge risk of an acquisition target. I’d rather have Beal, given that our young players are themselves a few years away from peaking. You can live with Beal at 30 when RJ and Quickley and Mitch are hitting 25. That could be a really strong playoff team in the low 50 wins.
My theory is WSH wants to make the Knicks closer to the playoffs so they up their bid
“Well, there is literally nothing during the next four years that is going to make the Knicks into a serious contenter. So, theoretically, having one of the very best players in the league playing with flotsam is better than having just the flotsam.”
I don’t buy that. A couple good draft picks and a few years of development and we could easily have something. At which point you can trade for that year’s Bradley Beal.
We could have Mikal Bridges and SGA on this team. With a little bit more strategic thinking we could have Luka or Trae. We could have Tyrese.
We could so easily actually be in a position to trade for Beal if we hadn’t had such an unproductive yield from the draft in the last four years.
Alan – Loved the article. The Knicks fan community is awesome and the thought of what it would be like if we could actually be decent will keep me hanging on.
It’s crazy the amount of energy I’ve spent the last few years wondering where our starting point guard would come from. Who could we acquire through trade, draft or free agency that would give us our lead ball handling, offense creating guard. Considering the fact that for whatever crazy reason, the point guard position here in New York doesn’t seem to be much of a priority at all for our front office, it’s a pretty futile exercise.
However, if there is one position which I wouldn’t mind us overpaying for – a point guard, please.
I pretty much knew Thibs would want a veteran point guard. It’s hard to imagine him letting a rookie run the point most of the game (although IQ is getting some good minutes at the point, he still has a couple of years to go to be really competent against focused defenses). This off season I was hoping for either Conley (which would have cost us Julius), Bledsoe (which would have cost us some firsts and one or two young players), Rubio (which would have cost us little, but, seems Thibs didn’t want him – again), or Teague (who again doesn’t seem like Thibs wanted and who’s had a couple of statistically down years).
We’re stuck with Elf though.
My new hope for next season is for us to sign free agent to be TJ McConnell. Not much of a scorer, but, fits a similar profile career wise to the chance we took on Elf (didn’t work) and Julius (did work) a couple of years ago.
The Wizards resting Beal tonight is super weird, right?
They didn’t play last night and they’re not playing tomorrow, so a rest day for Beal seems awfully strange.
I’m not saying that it is some conspiracy or whatever, but it’s definitely weird.
***I don’t buy that. A couple good draft picks and a few years of development and we could easily have something. At which point you can trade for that year’s Bradley Beal.***
By “serious contender” I mean a team that can make the finals and win it. Not a team that is decent or has young upside. (And I mean in a regular year, not these asterisk years we are wading through). 4 years from now would include those “few years of development” you talk about, so, yeah, I don’t see it.
If in the next 4 years the Knicks somehow play in an ECF, I will remember this thread and will admit I was wrong. But I just don’t see any plausible path given the makeup of the league right now. And, given that, I think the team should just try to be relevant for a while, not try to “seriously contend”.
I am okay with Payton on his current contract as a rotation PG for this current team. He’s clearly a placeholder, and has glaring warts, but he plays hard, passes and rebounds reasonably well, is a switchable defender, and has some spurts of impressive offensive play in the paint. That’s pretty good for $4.76 million on a 1-year deal.
We just don’t have any smooth-looking perimeter players in our starting lineup, so he is kind of the poster boy for the ugliest offense in the league. Even the bench doesn’t have anything all that aesthetically pleasing. I guess Burks is the closest thing we have to a smooth-looking offensive player.
On occasion I see something looking smooth and polished from RJ, mostly from the 10-15 foot range, but we are mostly a clunky-looking team. Just for aesthetic purposes, Beal would be a sight for sore eyes.
the wiz have b2b sunday/monday which are oddly both nba tv games. not actually sure if that counts for the $100k fine (but i think even under the old rule the d’lo rest game fine was nba tv), so maybe they are resting him today instead.
also (churlish but true): if you post saying you might be cool trading for beal, you’re really aren’t saying anything at all if you don’t mention the most you’d give up. if it’s frank/knox and two protected firsts you may as well be saying you fucking hate bradley beal with all your heart, because that’s not close to enough. of course i’m not sure what the min offer would be but it’s a lot more than that.
I want to see the Knicks win in my lifetime.
Donnie – Trading for Beal or Lillard is going to be franchise crippling. That’s my view. It’s an opinion. I respect yours. But it wont work.
I don’t know, to me rolling out the young guys we have this year with a Mobley or Kispert, seems like an entirely fine way to spend a year of Knicks basketball. After a year of that, you can look forward to a year of not paying Joakim Noah, a reasonable pick, a long runway of tradeable future picks, and plentiful cap space.
That seems fine to me.
Watching Beal score 33 per game for a dogshit basketball team doesn’t.
There is a ceiling. Two 1sts plus one of RJ or OB, plus Knox plus major cap relief and minor assets is probably approaching my threshold. It is nowhere near the stupid Harden trade. We’re not in that position yet.
All the talk about wanting to see the Knicks win by trading for Bradley Beal seems a bit ironic when the team Beal is actually on has been dogshit and worse than the Knicks for 2 years now. Beal plus scrubs quite literally is not a team that you should expect to watch winning.
Thank you. I said upthread that you can ignore any offer that doesn’t include RJ and two unprotected firsts and I’m pretty confident about that. It’s easy to rail against everyone who wants to lose for ten years or whatever if you’re not willing to say anything of substance.
I don’t get this. Four years is an eternity in the NBA. We absolutely could contend within that timeframe if we make good picks and stay flexible. Four years ago the Lakers went 26-56, led by Julius Randle and D’Angelo Russell.
Trading for someone like Beal would significantly lower the odds we contend within that timeframe, even if it would raise our floor. Personally I don’t really care to raise our floor if it involves basically foreclosing contention.
Rewind 20 years…
The Pacers defeat the Knicks and advance to the NBA Finals. Since that time:
Knicks: 1 conference semi appearance; 4 first round exits
Pacers: 3 ECF; 2 conference semi appearances; 10 first round exits
At no point in the past 20 have the Pacers really been a “serious contender”. But they’ve been competitive, and relavent, and entertaining, and largely worth tuning in to on any given night if you’re a fan.
The Knicks, largely, have not been. And, honestly, even if they draft a super-duper star who progresses like Doncic, they still won’t be serious contenders within 4 years. NOLA got Zion and lots of good young talent around him and even they are realistically more than 4 years away. Even Doncic’s Mavs probably won’t make the ECF, and they already have the young super duper star that progresses like Doncic!
The Knicks should be smart and creative, but holding their cards for a chance to be a “serious contenders” is probably more detrimental than pursuing mediocrity.
That’s 3 major assets for zero superstars, and the team you’re left with is a first round exit, which may be where this team is right now anyway. Makes no sense.
I have been a championship or bust guy for (checks user account details) a very long time so I have some credibility on this topic.
I would have absolutely no problem with winning fifty games a year with a 22-25 year old Luka Doncic. No one would. Thats a hedonic treadmill I can get on.
Stepping away from the trade machine for a moment, an article in Ringer on 3 pt defending (that did NOT mention our Invisible Sixth Man) made me wonder how we’re doing as a team with our 3 pt shooting. Here t’is:
Randle .382 (decent)
Barrett .287 (was a respectable .351 in January, trending down so far in Feb but only 5 games)
Mitch .000 (sigh)
Elf .250 (just… don’t)
Bullock .374 (okay…)
Burks .452 (that’s what I’m talking about)
Rivers .364 (whatever)
Rose .667 (heh)
Quick .358 (thought it was higher)
Knox .391 (well…)
Taj .500 (heh)
Obi .276 (c’mon guy)
Frank .556 (sigh…)
It is what it is.
Right now, the trading rate for stars seem to be overly inflated. I think the price is biased because we have had a few very good teams, that managed to be almost contentders without mortgaging the future, going all-in at the same time. Probably influenced by the Toronto Raptors when they took the plunge and got Kawhi for the championship run for a merely a low 1st, Poeltl and Demar DeRozan (and to a lesser extent Gasol for Valanciunas and a 2nd)
After that we have got Davis to the Lakers for a boatload of picks and players, Paul George to the Clippers for a boatload of picks, Westbrook to the Rockets for a boatload of picks, Holiday to the Bucks for a boatload of picks, Harden to the Nets for a boatload of picks.
All those teams were in a better position wins-wise than the Knicks are right now. All those players except Holiday had a higher bpm than Bradley Beal. And not all of those were good trades.
I am fine with Bradley Beal, but we are not in position to make a trade like those trades. Besides, there are fewer and fewer teams in a position to do that kind of trades: Boston is the obvious one, but I dont see many more semi-contending teams with lots of picks to trade. Who are we really bidding against?
What would be my offer? something along the lines of a first and a player not named Mitch, RJ or Quickley. Would that be enough? Probably not, but I don’t think it makes sense for this team to offer more.
BTW tonight will probably be a nice reminder than Deni Avdija would have been a much better pick than Obi Toppin, too.
I don’t like our front office but I’m confident they won’t pay sticker price for Bradley Beal. They know enough not to do that.
Oladipo is the one you should worry about. There won’t be many suitors for him, and the rockets would jump at the chance to get two firsts for him. I think the Knicks might be dumb enough to do that.
Even Kevin Knox and a first is too much for Oladipo, but I think the Front Office would be ecstatic to make that trade.
Interested to watch Deni too. Still seems like a wet noodle and now he is shooting under 40% from three. But he would have been a better pick than Toppin.
I finished up season 1 of The Expanse. I’m over the not so great acting thing. It was nice though to see some screen time for Jared Harris, Kevin Hanchard and Frances Fisher. All really good actors. I’m pretty fully immersed in the story at this point. It’s a pretty frenetic storyline pace. It’s very cool to see that this whole thing originated as an RPG idea.
Add to the weird – the fact that Ty Franck (co-author on the novels) was for a time an assistant for GRRM. Obviously there is not nearly the depth to The Expanse universe (the books only average around 550 to 600 pages) that there is in the ASOIF universe (those books are around 800 or so pages each). Still, Ty could you please reach out to GRRM and give him a hand.
Right now I have: Justine, Odd Thomas, and Son of Dathomir all waiting on me to get started with them. No doubt though, at some point I’ll need to give Leviathan Wakes a read.
The Expanse has me reflecting a bit back on Firefly/Serenity. They’re very different shows; but, the whole crew interaction thing is interesting. Firefly absolutely excelled at the time in between the action. The idle conversation throughout the show was magnificent. Up to this point, there is almost no small talk with The Expanse. I’m interested to see how long that continues.
I would have to think about that trade. It’s essentially a first round pick for Oladipo. Knox has no trade value.
Yes, it’s very weird to rest Beal and I think the Knicks are going to go all out to get him. As with Hayward, as with Van Vleet, there will be a price that is too high but they are almost unquestionably going to be part of the bidding.
I don’t want Oladipo at almost any price. I’m done with hoping guys regain previous form or hoping their known warts become non-warts. Time for an actual star, not a fake one.
exactly. way too much.
John Collins is available apparently. The New York Knicks should inquire.
To do this out year projection right you have to assume baseline, proven over the years talent acquired at the relevant draft slot. You can’t just hope and pray and say “Well, if they get a superstar at 14 this year they’ll be great and we have to keep 14 for the tiny odds there will be a superstar there.”
Is a Knick team with stock picks at the projected draft spots they’ll be in plus the current roster, with Randle at 33 or so a year an ECF team? Seems like a bit of a stretch. Would need another big leap forward from RJ and IQ. That’s one of the main reasons I think missing the lottery this year would be short sighted and ridiculous.
Collins should theoretically be affordable since he’s a free agent. If the Hawks are trading him, it’s bc they don’t want to pay him. If they don’t want to pay him, it means they won’t match your offer.
I would submit an Obi Toppin for John Collins offer. It’s cheeky, but it just might work. Then after the season I’d cash in on Randle.
I would also offer Toppin for Collins, if that’s not enough I would “sweeten” the deal by adding Knox and if that still doesn’t get it done I would add as much as the Dallas 2023 protected pick. Toppin, Knox, and the 2023 Dallas pick for Collins seems both fair and a good move.
We could then flip Randle for at least as much as we gave up and come away with extra assets and a better player.
Collins is the type of young star we should be chasing over Oladipo (who isn’t very good) or Beal ( who would cost way too much).
Oh, totally. To me, both Collins and Markkanen, though I prefer Collins. Collins over Oladipo is a no-brainer.
The move is to get Collins and then sell Randle high.
Atlanta GM to Scott Perry: “we’ll listen to reasonable offers for John Collins. Whaddaya got?”
Scott Perry: “Obi Toppin?”
Atlanta GM: “click”
Imagine having RJ, Quickley, Collins, Mitch, plus two lottery picks, plus Randle to sell high. That would be the best shape we’ve been in this century.
Then again, Rose and Thibs would probably rather have a Derrick Rose / Victor Oladipo backcourt, let all the shine fall off of Obi, and give up some 1st round picks bc we need the roster spots for some mediocre vets, you know?
all the plugged in atlanta writers have repeatedly said the hawks aren’t trading collins unless they get significant win now compensation back in the deal.
Collins is interesting. Still super young and his box score stats say budding superstar, but he’s not a good defender and the fact that his current team seems to want no part of his next contract even though he seems like a totally fine fit on their team is eyebrow raising. I don’t have any sense of what his value is going to be around the league, but he’s in the category of 2nd tier guys I was talking about earlier where the price might not be exorbitant and you’re not going to be bidding against every good team in the league but he could still conceivably turn into the star we’re looking for. I get the feeling our front office is very high on Randle though so I don’t think there’s a fit there.
Yeah, calls to authority aren’t always reliable, especially since the Hawks do not always make the smartest decision (like trading away Luka). But it’s not just that the Hawks don’t want to pay him, but why they don’t want to pay him, which is the same reason I didn’t really want to draft Obi (whose best case scenario seems to be Collins): the ceiling of your team is only so high if you start a big man who can’t defend.
Collins is a RFA this summer, so we can also just make him a big offer. ATL may not even match a reasonable offer since they declined to extend him and signed Gallo for the foreseeable future.
Is Collins’ defense any worse than Obi?
Historically, Deni has not been a good shooter. Given that his ft% is Nate Silver’s favorite number, .538, I’d wager his 3p% will crater. I don’t get the love for him. He passes and rebounds well but doesn’t look like much of a scorer and I don’t recall scouting reports falling in love with his defense.
Yeah, just make ATL match a max offer sheet. 80/20 they won’t. Give them a face-saving asset to do a sign-and-trade if necessary. Then sell Randle high and if it takes one or two of the extra 1s and it’s the right guy, jump on it. That’s the play. Don’t expect it to happen, we can never have nice things, but that’s the play.
The thing with Collins is I think he is better than Randle, younger, and his max contract will be less than Randle’s.
I think unless we find an upgrade at the 4 we are going to give Randle a huge next contract and I would rather not do that. Getting Collins even if it costs a couple resources is worth it because it saves us from signing Randle to a $150 million dollar contract.
Collins isn’t a great defender but I don’t think he’s any worse than Randle and we have a good defense so I don’t think that should be a deal breaker.
How would we feel about, say, Noel Toppin one of the picks not from this year? ATL could probably use a competent backup for Capela, and I’m not sure what else we have that’d they want unless they like Burks or Bullock. We’d have to take back something other than Collins for Noel, which could be Rondo maybe. He hasn’t played well and there’s another year left on his contract. Heck, maybe they take Elfrid in the package as a way to upgrade their backup pg spot. Atlanta certainly has the shooting to make use of him properly, at least.