NY Post: Inside look at how Leon Rose rebuilt the Knicks

I think it’s fair to say that a Team of Rivals is not what I’d prefer, but I think until it doesn’t work, we can’t say it won’t work.

That’s a real possibility, as well, but, if so, that’s really trying to thread the needle, no?

It’s a little meta, maybe, but if Leon fancies himself as the manager of a team of rivals part of his managerial role and tactics would be to use the press. Definitely possible. If Leon took to the press to prop up Aller and kind of Wes and knock Thibs down a peg, that would be great. Good for him.

It’s kind of self-promotional to put yourself in a position of putting together a team of rivals and being able to manage them effectively, so it very well could be Leon. The “will he be able to say no to friends?, (strongly implied) yes” is in this vein and could be a tell.

good stuff, Brian. I am personally inclined to give greater weight to the Toppin miss than you. And if you score that as a bigger miss, it changes the math a bit. But he deserves an open mind so far.

swiftandabundant: Before this season, you could easily make an argument for selling high on those guys. Most of this blog thought RJ had a horrible rookie year and had no path ahead to being a good player. And Mitch was the biggest value chip we had. Again, I would have wanted to keep both of those guys but if they were traded for something good, I don’t think people would have objected.

I don’t think this fairly resembles our consensus.

The article states Thibs wanted to trade them for “seasoned veterans.” That’s a subjective term, but my mind doesn’t think of players this blog would have been happy to give up RJ Barrett for.

swiftandabundant:
Or maybe the Hinkie comment was a joke off the cuff and everyone kind of laughed and smiled when he made it?

I mean trading Randle? Its rich for anyone on this blog (including Randle defenders) to act like Randle WASN’T the first player we were hoping to trade before this season.

RJ and Mitch is a bit more problematic but again people are looking at this with hindsight after we’ve seen RJ improve a lot this year and Mitch improve as a starter. Before this season, you could easily make an argument for selling high on those guys. Most of this blog thought RJ had a horrible rookie year and had no path ahead to being a good player. And Mitch was the biggest value chip we had. Again, I would have wanted to keep both of those guys but if they were traded for something good, I don’t think people would have objected.

The quote from the article is “At times, meetings with Thibodeau and Aller grew heated. Thibodeau would even mock Aller and call him “Hinkie” (a reference to Sam Hinkie, architect of the Philadelphia 76ers “Process”).” That doesn’t sound like an off-the-cuff joke, what with ‘heated’ and ‘mocked’ being the descriptors here. I don’t thing this is a huge deal, though. This is who Thibs is, we all knew or should have known this. If Rose can keep Thibs on his leash and focused on the court, I don’t see why this couldn’t work.

Sign me up for Team Aller, by the way. Also, did anybody ever hear about Brock Aller before this article? Are we sure he isn’t a tulpa created from a decade of Knickerblogger angst?

I don’t know that playing who the mole here makes a lot of sense. The reporter stated it was “ based on interviews with more than a dozen NBA sources, all with different connections to the Knicks”, and there’s no reason not to believe him. It reads like good, well-sourced journalism. A story from inside the knicks draft room doesn’t necessarily need to be told to the reporter by someone there.

This is far from ideal but a lot of you are ignoring the clear upside which is that if this group ever wins a championship there’s an entertaining movie to be made

thenoblefacehumper:
This is far from ideal but a lot of you are ignoring the clear upside which is that if this group ever wins a championship there’s an entertaining movie to be made

Who plays Guitar Jimmy? I feel like there’s a perfect actor on the edge of my mind I can’t quite recall.

Barrettcuda:
“Who plays Guitar Jimmy? I feel like there’s a perfect actor on the edge of my mind I can’t quite recall.”

An aged Jonah Hill or maybe Brett Ratner is hired to get away from directing and act.

I think Giamatti could really pull off the smugness, and after a certain point all doughy middleaged white guys with goatees start to look the same.

Also, if you read the article, it sounds like Brock Aller is second in command. We took his advice to trade back and grab Quickley instead of taking him at 23. We took his advice in free agency by not blowing our cap space and preserving assets for future strategies. Tom Thibodeau got his boy Derrick Rose, but that probably happened because we didn’t view the 41st pick in this draft and Dennis Smith Jr as pieces we need to get better (because we have Quickley and the 31st pick).

William Wesley’s sole victory and Tom Thibodeau’s sole victory feel like they came as compromises from Rose/Aller. Obi Toppin is clearly the guy Rose wanted most and nobody could talk him off that cliff, but something tells me the early returns on that one will give Perrin and Aller more pull with our first pick this season. They let Leon Rose go unchecked and he left at least two superior players on the board in Halliburton and Vassell.

“His job is to sort through different opinions from different people and make the best decision,” one rival executive said. “It certainly seems like he’s doing that well.”

I agree. And as Glass says, we will learn a lot from seeing how Rose processes the Obi mistake. (Not to say Obi can’t one day be a good player – I’m not as down on him as some – but the player most of us wanted has been vastly superior so far.) No one is right 100% of the time, so Rose has to learn from what worked and didn’t from his first year – which counselors gave better counsel, and which didn’t.

And yeah, what a terrible GM Thibs was/would be! But I bet his players won’t be upset by this at all – he’s been pretty open and consistent with his praise of all of Mitch, RJ, and Randle, their work ethic, their desire to improve, their importance to the team. And they seem to have bought in, so…I’m not at all worried there.

i think we all know how good that process was if quickley was off the board we’d be taking… nick richards….

But we wouldn’t have. As Brian pointed out in the intro, we traded out of the 33rd pick once Vernon Carey was off the board, even though Richards was still there. That actually makes me feel better about some of this. Because it suggests that if Wes is in agreement with others, then he can be the tie-breaking vote on something like taking Quickley. But if Wes is off on his own, he doesn’t get to override everybody else. He really wanted Richards, yet we punted on a pick that could have been used to take him with minimal risk.

the article says it was Brock’s idea to acquire the 33rd pick. It doesn’t discuss whose idea it was to give it away

The Richards stuff was definitely intended as a shot to Wesley, as an attempt to take away a little of his shine. You know, “Yeah, he wanted Quickley early, but had Quickly not been there at #27, he would have wanted Richards there! He just wanted a Kentucky guy!” Not saying that that is the truth, but that’s the framing of it in the article. There are definitely some attempts to put down the non-Aller guys in this article.

They have CGI faces now. Worked in The Irishman.

Give Giamatti a chance. He’ll do the best damn Guitar Jimmy you’ve ever seen!

E, all merc’d out:
They have CGI faces now.Worked in The Irishman.

In that case, how bout Meryl Streep as Dolan? I smell an Oscar.

“heated” is so subjective though.

“Heated” combined with “mocked” followed by “some found this tussling strange” is pretty clear cut.

There is no reasonable way to read:

At times, meetings with Thibodeau and Aller grew heated. Thibodeau would even mock Aller and call him “Hinkie” (a reference to Sam Hinkie, architect of the Philadelphia 76ers “Process”). Some around the team found this tussling strange. It’s one thing for a group that’s been together for years to debate the organization’s direction; it’s another to have this kind of philosophical disagreement among new hires brought in by a team president, who, in theory, during interviews would have shared his plan.

as

Or maybe the Hinkie comment was a joke off the cuff and everyone kind of laughed and smiled when he made it?

As I note in the post, I’m not particularly worried about it all, either, but come on, “Maybe it was just friendly when the article made it clear that it wasn’t!” isn’t the way to go on this.

Don’t tell Thibs about CGI and Scorsese, he’ll try to get it for Rose and Gibson.

“Like you see CGI young looking DeNiro and Pesci faces walking around with a walker in their elderly bodies. I didn’t like it at all.”

My interpretation of the film was that this choice was intentional. The story was told through the limited perspective of an older man recounting his many regrets throughout a long life. The CGI materialized an eerie feeling of decay that permeated that older man’s story, as if his recollection of his youthful regrets were filtered through his present perspective as a withered senior citizen. So we’re not seeing a bunch of 20 -40 something guys as they were, but as someone 70-something years old remembered them as. It made the story feel very somber in contrast to the full tilt exuberance we saw in Goodfellas, for example.

Meyers Leonard, dude, there are words that just shouldn’t fall off your tongue so easily.

But we wouldn’t have. As Brian pointed out in the intro, we traded out of the 33rd pick once Vernon Carey was off the board, even though Richards was still there.

we made the pick because of wes… at least that was heavily implied… and it was based purely on the fact that he went to UK….

He pressed for the team to consider taking Richards at No. 27.

i mean we don’t know for sure… but we were originally supposed to take maxey and instead we took quickley… and if quickley was off the board… is it crazy to think we wouldn’t have picked richards based on what we know? maybe he didn’t want to give www two picks in a row? who knows… i do know that everything that’s come out after the draft connected us with a lot of UK guys for some odd reason…. and now we know….

anyway… this palace intrigue stuff is usually almost always a one-sided… and hence skewed.. perspective on things… so i’m not saying we definitely know what would’ve happened…. but knowing what we know from different sources are we really discrediting that we had these kentucky guys much much higher than everyone else?

This board will side with Allers (we’re right of course).

But I also think the board assumes the piece sides with Allers, but the article does a good job of being even handed and feeding into reader’s pre-existing biases. Fans not on this board will love Wes’s irrational confidence in IQ and his “people skills.” Others will read Allers objections to Thibs’s win now moves and think Allers is a moron because a couple win now moves for Thibs would make us a “true contender.”

What’s so weird is if you watch the video, he very deliberately pauses and then lets it fly. It’s like he was weighing the pros and cons and decided in favor of it.

Remember that Giants Pats Super Bowl where they let Ahmad Bradshaw score? He ran really hard to the goal line, realized what was happening, but it was just too late and he fell forward.

That’s what the pause was. The part of his brain that isn’t stupid was like Eli Manning yelling “stop!”, but the stupid part of his brain had already hit the hole so hard that he had to finish the sentence.

Anyway… bye Meyers.

Sort of unrelated point (only “Sort of” because his name was brought up earlier)…if Kawhi had stayed in San Antonio all of this time, do you think they would have won another title?

I wonder what Perry’s angle would be in leaking this story?

The only two things I could think is…

1. The comment about how, during the Mills/Perry time, Perry’s guys had to fight with Mills’ guys, as a sign that it wasn’t Perry’s fault how bad things got.

2. Perry thinks that this piece makes him look good, which it does not.

they whiffed on a lotto pick and seem to have gotten very lucky on IQ, as they clearly wouldn’t have taken him if he didn’t go to kentucky

I think this is pretty unfair (re: IQ). They had intelligence on a guy and used it. That’s not luck. That’s having good connections and trusting those connections.

Gotta be honest – I am believing more than ever now that aside from the very extremes of players (ie. LeBron James, Anthony Davis, Kevin Durant, or on the other end, dudes that just can’t play), environment and work ethic determine outcome. Isn’t it weird that basically no Jets draft pick ever works out, yet the Ravens and 49ers seem to hit it out of the park every year? Or why every player gets better when they go to the Spurs or Raptors or Jazz? But even the good teams need the guys with the right mindset – and this is where having deep knowledge for years about players’ character and work ethic is so important — ergo the hiring of Wes, Kenny Payne (who knows these guys from the recruiting trail since they were probably freshmen in high school), Alex Kline, etc. You never see the Spurs drafting or signing knuckleheads because their Spurs magic won’t work unless the player wants it.

The stories about the Thibs Twolves are so interesting in this way — Thibs comes into a team that already has KAT, Lavine, and Wiggins, decides he can’t win wit these guys without one of his guys – Jimmy Butler. With Butler they make the playoffs, but Butler knows that KAT/Wiggins are supremely talented but not willing to put in the work, AND that Thibs the GM has already hitched his financial cart to these losers, and so Butler takes off.

Alan: I think this is true, too. I spoke with one Knicks writer who is guessing that the primary inside MSG source for the story is Scott Perry, interestingly.

This kind of makes sense. The article gives some negative feedback to each camp, except Perry’s (assuming he still has enough people to be called a camp).

From the article:

For a front office that for years has struggled with infighting, especially among its last regime when those loyal to now-former team president Steve Mills often clashed with those brought in by general manager Scott Perry

This quote puts some distance between Mills and Perry. There was also the split between Mills and Perry on trading Morris that was made very public immediately before Mills got fired.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Perry is here to stay. He had a good rep in the league prior to joining the Knicks. Personally, I give Perry the benefit of the doubt given Mills’ well-documented ineptitude.

“They literally lost to a Kawhi-led team, though, in 2019.”

That Raptors team was deeper than the Marianas Trench. Kyle Lowry, Pascal Siakam, Danny Green, Fred VanVleet, Serge Ibaka, Marc Gasol, OG Anunoby, Norman Powell, etc. And even then it took Klay Thompson and Kevin Durant breaking down late in the playoffs for them to do it. I just don’t see the Spurs benefiting from that situation over the Rockets.

What’s so weird is if you watch the video, he very deliberately pauses and then lets it fly. It’s like he was weighing the pros and cons and decided in favor of it.

For whatever reason, I tend to equate anti-semitism with like really old people from last century sometime. It’s not something I would equate to younger folks – except maybe for those white supremacist people. Hmmmm, we see you now Myers Leonard.

That Raptors team was deeper than the Marianas Trench. Kyle Lowry, Pascal Siakam, Danny Green, Fred VanVleet, Serge Ibaka, Marc Gasol, OG Anunoby, Norman Powell, etc. And even then it took Klay Thompson and Kevin Durant breaking down late in the playoffs for them to do it. I just don’t see the Spurs benefiting from that situation over the Rockets.

They won 48 games without Kawhi that year. The last year he played for them, they won 61.

I’ve got $5 that says he’s waived by the end of the day. We all knew he was a bigoted fuck last summer, wrapping himself in the flag like a good bootlicker, but there’s no way they’re going to keep him on the roster in fucking South Florida of all places.

I had to look it up: 500,000+ Jews in South Florida. How fucking dumb can this guy be?

Leonard is a gamer. For whatever reason younger gamers (I assume mostly white gamers with white friends) have decided racial slurs are perfectly acceptable.

I’ve had to speak with the boys reference any type of bigotry talk on the mic. Unfortunately even at their young age the “f” word seems to be thrown around pretty casually.

Bigotry speech isn’t just limited to white folks. Sadly it permeates throughout society regardless of a person’s sex, religion or color of their skin.

I used to think it was mostly tied to a person’s educational level; but, that doesn’t really seem to be the case either. I think it mostly comes from parenting.

Raven:
Mike gets Giamatti even as I was thinking it, AND he’s taught me tulpa.

Glad to be of service haha. Just make sure to think independent beings into existence responsibly, with the Circular Ruins by Borges being a premier cautionary tale.

The only contra-Perry point is that Aller, his main rival, comes out looking too good.

Re Leonard: Don’t know exactly what he said. Do know that there are way too many words being said by too many people to too many ears being captured and recorded by too many devices. If he used a bad slur, I guess he’s gone but I’m more interested in the first sentence. I preferred playing NHL 95 on Sega Genesis with my buddies and beers and bongs in the privacy of my own apartment. Why would anyone want to broadcast that to the world and why would the world even care? I saw the YouTube clip and the guy’s sitting by himself in a room. Seems kind of stupid. The era-equivalent would be “Here’s Big Country Reeves playing Mario Brothers by himself.” Why would anyone be interested in that?

Knew Your Nicks:
Giamatti looks great for JD but i wouldn’t mind Zach Galifianakis also giving it a try!

Does Dolan have any similarly shitty cousins, nephews or sons he could play?

The movie Swingers had a good NHL 95 scene. Compare and contrast that with Meyers Leonard sitting in a room by himself talking like a dumb shit.

#Does Dolan have any similarly shitty cousins, nephews or sons he could play?#

I thought the movie would be about the knicks!
Let’s not make it a Kardashianesque reality on Dolans!

As to the broader cultural point raised by Leonard and Fantastic geo, your true white supremacists have always hated Jews as much or more than Blacks. We need merely go back to Charlottesville 2017 where the KKK types chanted — infamously and delusionally — “Jews will not replace us.” Your hard cores that a lot of people sloppily turned into “Trump supporters” actually detested Trump because he let his daughter marry a Jew.

#I was thinking more just a cameo. You gotta have Dolan in at least one scene, so you may as well get all the Dolans to pump the scene through the roof.#

Lately i like watching SNL videos on YouTube.
I would love to watch a JDolan related one but it would need Alan to hijack the script to get this done!

If the film is to be a satire of the Knicks, then Danny DeVito + CGI = James Dolan.

Brian Cronin: He was definitely against drafting him at #23, but it doesn’t say what he thought about drafting him once they traded down. It does note that there were a number of folks in the front office who believed that Quickley would be there at #33, but it doesn’t say whether Aller was one of them.

Apologies. You’re right, I misread it.

The real question is how many people previous to this incident would have bet small sums of cash that Meyers Leonard was in fact Jewish?

Phil Jackson discovering how to fix the Knicks: https://imgur.com/ggJ5Vrw

Internet is fast!

Googling “Meyers Leonard” gives you that in wikipedia as a result:

#Meyers Patrick Leonard (born February 27, 1992) is an anti-semitic …#

If you click in it’s different but the incident is already in his wiki profile on the personal life section.

I wonder if there’s a Wikipedia task force on standby to undo edits on pages of people who do dumb racist things. Like, I already imagine Wikipedia editors to be joyless dweebs, but that would be another level.

I could see John C. Reilly as a convincing Dolan.

I wonder if there’s a Wikipedia task force on standby to undo edits on pages of people who do dumb racist things. Like, I already imagine Wikipedia editors to be joyless dweebs, but that would be another level.

I am one, and fuck you I have my fun, though not as active as I used to be since I have a real life now. When someone’s in the news like this, the page is either locked or subject to quick reversions.

One of my favorite rewrites was taking Dwyane Wade’s long-ass page and editing it for neutrality. Read like it was hagiography/fanfic for awhile, there. I should do it for all the Celtics.

The Honorable Cock Jowles: I am one, and fuck you I have my fun, though not as active as I used to be since I have a real life now. When someone’s in the news like this, the page is either locked or subject to quick reversions.

One of my favorite rewrites was taking Dwyane Wade’s long-ass page and editing it for neutrality. Read like it was hagiography/fanfic for awhile, there. I should do it for all the Celtics.

I’m both shocked and completely unsurprised haha. Please do with the Celtics – editing their wiki pages to be neutral is but one battle in the war to nip the homerism of future Celtics fans in the proverbial bud.

My drachmas:
A healthy prime Kawhi makes you a contender on his own.
Having Pop and co also are two good reasons to compete for a chip every season.

Mike Honcho: If we’re going the satire route, we need a flashback scene of Sam Elliot as Phil Jackson getting high on peyote and mumbling about triangles.

Perfect casting! Chris Rock as Steve Mills?

The guy who played Biff on Back to the Future would make a great young Tom Thibodeau

I will point out again that Leon Rose is a rookie GM. It’s not an easy job…especially for the Knicks. I’ll give him a slight pass on the Obi pick…chalk it up to a rookie mistake. He hasn’t made any other big mistakes yet, so I’m in wait and see mode. If he’s smart he will get to where we all seem to be right now…listen to the guys with the most expertise in a given area and filter everything a final time through Aller. Rose owns the Obi pick…strike one.

Knew Your Nicks:
Giamatti looks great for JD but i wouldn’t mind Zach Galifianakis also giving it a try!

I think Galifianakis would make a wonderfully ridiculous Kristaps Porzingis… or at least Janis.

Manny Jacinto should play Jeremy Lin, but for some reason Dolan always sees him as Ken Jeong

vincoug: B. You comment regularly on a Knicks fan site, you’re not allowed to call anyone else a joyless dweeb.

Ha!

erkel could play Scott Perry

Now that I’ve thought about it from a casting perspective, I’ve found our Dolan.

Like singers at CPAC, no reputable actor would sign on. There’s just no meat to playing a static super-villain. So Giamanti, and the ghost of Gandofini, and the corpse of Glen Frey are off the table.

So, our Dolan has to be… Craig Bierko.

Yes, I know, that’s not who y’all had in mind. But just look at how he wears his pork-pie hat, and the shit-eating grin he can muster to go with it…

https://flickr.com/photos/169456107@N06/51021348822/in/dateposted-public/

Igno-Bot 3000: Igno

I’m not sure which rankings you are referring to. The Athletic has us 13th in this week’s ranking And ESPN has us at 15th. That’s not outrageous for a team that’s over .500. The ESPN one actually predicts in the text that the Knicks will miss the playoffs this year because of the strength of the upcoming schedule.

I finally watched the Meyers Leonard video and I think you guys are misinterpreting the pause before he says the word. I don’t think he paused to consider if he should say that word and then decided to say it, I think he was going to say a different word, the n-word, realized he really, really can’t say that, and pivoted to a different slur but one that was less likely to get his ass kicked on the court.

Vorkunov has a piece today suggesting names of players the Knicks might target if they’re looking to upgrade at the deadline, while acknowledging the potential cost and warts. So Oladipo’s on there, even as Vork notes that he still can’t shoot and would take possessions away from Randle and RJ. But there’s also Fournier, Bjelica, Kenrich Williams, Reddick, and a few other guys who would be potential Reggie Bullock upgrades.

I know most of us don’t really want to go any more in for this season than we already did with the Rose trade. But assuming the cost is relatively minor (a 2nd round pick or two, one or both of Frank and Knox), are there any wings you’d be interested in taking into our cap space this year?

And I’d rather give Frank a look at being the Reggie Bullock upgrade.

I’d definitely rather play Frank than Bullock, but even with the hot 3-point shooting, Frank’s offensive ceiling isn’t particularly high. Short-term, it feels like the team needs one more reliable scorer to go with Randle and RJ. On some nights, Quickley is that and more. On others, he can’t hit the broad side of a barn, which is okay since he’s a rookie. Burks briefly looked like that guy at the start of the season, but it doesn’t seem like he ever fully recovered from that early injury.

Lonzo Ball makes so much sense for this season for the reasons being discussed.

I don’t get the sense Lonzo is available or affordable.

Alan: Burks briefly looked like that guy at the start of the season, but it doesn’t seem like he ever fully recovered from that early injury.

Or alternatively, he’s just not that good…

I think the very act of live gaming in that setting and live streaming brings out those antisocial thoughts and eventually words. So much of life is now so performative that it’s hard to even tell what’s real anymore. Was this “real” anti-Semitism or just an anti-Semitic word used for maximum shock in a setting in which shock value is so much the coin of the realm?

(This isn’t remotely a defense of the arrested developed loser and likely anti-Semite, so please don’t interpret it as such. For public policy purposes, it’s fine to default to “you used the awful word, you are the thing that people who use the awful word ‘for real’ are,” but there’s more going on that’s worthy of closer examination.)

Hubert:
I don’t get the sense Lonzo is available or affordable.

Whoever pays him $100M over the next four years better hope that his contract-year shooting improvement is not a mirage. I’ve always liked Lonzo and thought he was the #1 prospect in that draft class, which doesn’t say much given that there are no real top-tier superstars from that class yet, but he is not going to move the needle anywhere with his 98 TS%+ and 20% USG. Especially not at 25% of a team’s cap. If you go off actual production and age, I’d say he’s more a $12M a year guy. But upside, draft slot, college pedigree, point guard, so he’s gonna get paid.

Donnie Walsh:
***Vorkunov has a piece today suggesting names of players the Knicks might target***

When is Vorkunov going to do a piece suggesting names of actors they might target to play Knicks?

He better not use any of the names bandied about here the last couple of days. Especially Meryl Streep!

Lonzo is RFA this offseason. We would probably still have to do a sign and trade to prevent NOLA from just matching our offer sheet. Which reminds me: can anyone think of a case where one team declined to match their restricted free agent’s offer sheet and it worked out well for the team that got that free agent? All I can think about are guys like Lin and TH2, where the teams that got them eventually had to use a sweetener to offload the contract.

The tricky thing with trade targets in my opinion is that the big spot in the rotation that needs an upgrade is Bullock, but because he’s the primary wing defender a lot of guys who seem like potential replacements would actually change a lot of roles fairly significantly. Fournier, for example is a player I like reasonably well and who would be a reasonable target given that he’s expiring and unlikely to cost a ton of assets. And theoretically you could just drop him into the starting lineup and rotation for Bullock without changing much else and madke the offense look quite a bit more dynamic and varied. But I don’t know if he can handle the primary wing defensive assignment every night and I wouldn’t want to put that on RJ at this point either. A lot of the “more shooting” wing names you see thrown around have this problem.

I keep coming back to the fact that in order for me to feel okay about any trade it’s going to need to be a homerun – something where we get a guy who can help us in a real way right now but also causes no long-term issues and also comes at incredibly low asset cost. That’s a lot to ask and why we should probably just sit tight.

IIRC, Utah declined to match Portland’s offer sheet for then RFA Wes Matthews – who went on to have some pretty good years for the Blazers.

You say that like Bobby Portis wasn’t worth $15M last year!!!

Portis was UFA. We wildly overpaid him just because it seemed like a good idea at the time to Steve Mills.

thenamestsam: The tricky thing with trade targets in my opinion is that the big spot in the rotation that needs an upgrade is Bullock, but because he’s the primary wing defender a lot of guys who seem like potential replacements would actually change a lot of roles fairly significantly.

I think this is right. The real question is how valuable is Bullock’s defense? Thibs thinks it’s pretty valuable otherwise we should see a lot more Burks. I do think Fournier is a significant upgrade and guarantees a playoff spot, but the difference between him and Burks or Bullock is not worth a 1st.

Rose’s shooting keeps defying my expectations, but I still think we need a PG upgrade more than SG. If Rose works out, then I think Bullock’s small usage can be hid.

“You missed a critical symbol in that sentence.”

Wouldn’t be the first time.

Glad Brian took my comment out of moderation, though.

Well, Mr. le Pew has not yet been canceled from the NYT crossword, per Sunday’s puzzle. Where’s strat to explain to me the limits of NYT’s liberal bias?

Ideally we’d trade Burks or Bullock and just give the minutes to Frank.

Alan: Portis was UFA. We wildly overpaid him just because it seemed like a good idea at the time to Steve Mills.

Pretty sure Portis was RFA, otherwise I never would have thought the money made sense. I remember thinking it made at least some sense since we needed to pry him away from Washington(?) and we had the money. Then again, Mills gave Ron Baker $4M and a de facto no-trade clause.

Best way to interpret l’affaire Le Pew is as just another attack on the mating rituals of white heterosexuals. There’s a lot that goes into that under the surface, including sexual competition, that is a bit beyond the scope of a basketball website. Suffice it to say that things are never as simple, and certainly not as simplistic, as they are too often held to be. We live in a strange, transitional, between-analog-and-digital era. Hopefully the end product will be OK.

E, all merc’d out:
Best way to interpret l’affaire Le Pew is as just another attack on the mating rituals of white heterosexuals. There’s a lot that goes into that under the surface, including sexual competition, that is a bit beyond the scope of a basketball website.Suffice it to say that things are never as simple, and certainly not as simplistic, as they are too often held to be.We live in a strange, transitional, between-analog-and-digital era.Hopefully the end product will be OK.

The guy literally holds down a female cat who is clearly uninterested while attempting to force himself on her. It’s a G-rated date rape, and I really hope that date rape is not considered to be a crucial mating ritual for straight men. Seems pretty simple to me.

Portis was an RFA, and then when Mills made him that offer Washington rescinded their qualifying offer and he technically became a UFA. I have no idea what the difference between rescinding a QO and not matching an offer sheet is. But for all intents and purposes, Washington could have matched our offer if they wanted do.

The whole “joke” of Pepe Le Pew is that he doesn’t give a fuck about consent. That’s the tension that creates the “humor.”

Not appropriate for a child’s cartoon now, and honestly I don’t know what the fuck they were thinking in 1955 either but good riddance Pepe. Let’s not lament the “cancellation” of this boring, unfunny, one-dimensional character. He sucked in the first place and was pretty much the worst Looney Tunes character to begin with. I was way into Bugs Bunny when I was a kid and I would always get bummed out when a Pepe joint came on back in the day.

I think the Post article yesterday, as they often are, was ultimately aimed at Dolan. That’s a significant means of communication between Knicks execs and the bluesman.

JK47, this is what is so funny to me. Pepe was like a 3rd string looney tune character. And the Dr. Seuss books that they decided to stop publishing were like his 6 least popular books. These are not big losses and its not “cancel culture” for an entertainment or publishing company to decide to discontinue a now obsolete and unpopular product.

Its all a distraction. The GOP is happy to engage in real cancel culture, which is cancelling voter rights of POC in this country through legislation, gerrymandering, etc. That is literally the definition of taking away someone’s right to express themselves politically.

You all lack the nuance to see that they’re actually just practicing jiu jitsu

The Honorable Cock Jowles:
You all lack the nuance to see that they’re actually just practicing jiu jitsu

What does it say about me that this is what popped into my head when I read your post https://youtu.be/o0u4M6vppCI?t=118

So much of life is now so performative that it’s hard to even tell what’s real anymore.

That’s a wild thought. As younger generations become more and more inundated with content designed to draw attention – what affect will that have on human behavior going forward, not just here in the US, but around the world.

User supplied content really cuts out a lot of opportunity for moderation.

The other thing I find interesting about this is the fact that everything entertainment wise is supposed to be available to us to chose to purchase/view or not. Between every streaming site, being able to order stuff instantly on Amazon and apple TV where pretty much every movie, tv show is supposed to be available, I feel like there is now this idea that nothing should be discontinued or else its censorship.

But when we were kids (at least those of us who are mid 30s or older), that just wasn’t the case. Blockbuster didn’t have everything and you couldn’t access everything on amazon or streaming or whatever. I remember flipping out when I found the DVD collection of Get a Life bc it was impossible to find and I paid top dollar to buy it.

Like 20 years ago would people even notice if Pepe LePeu was no longer airing? Are old Looney Tune cartoons even played on TV anymore? There is endless content available, new stuff being produced all the time. Were parents really clamoring to read the racist Dr. Seuss to their kids or would they have even noticed if they had just disappeared without announcement?

One of the boys is a big Jessie fan (Disney show I think), I had no idea the show was older (ran from 2011 to 2015). A lot of the humor is aimed at “stereotypes”. I remember catching part of one episode where they relentlessly dogged old people. Even I was getting a little irritated.

The thought though that came up was how challenging it must be now to put together a show like that in today’s environment.

Making fun of easily recognized stereotypes is easy humor to hit upon and relate to a child. Change is occurring, it’s not always easy though to identify it at the moment it happens.

Shockingly, the term “rape” has now been walked back to “sexual assault.”

As I said in my very first sentence before getting unfortunately roped into all this, what is really going on is that the way white men depict themselves treating white women is under cultural attack — as is now crystal clear from the to and fro. Pepe Le Pew was a smelly cad marketed as a Lothario. He doesn’t need to be turned into a “rapist” for that to have been a bad thing, although in the spirit of the Leonard discussion the word “rapist” in this context has a pretty obvious performative element. I think that’s a good thing — as I would have said if anyone had asked. But the ritual gonna ritual.

The only options from Vork’s list I found even mildly intriguing were taking on OPJ for sweetener and gauging Kenrich Williams’ market. Everyone else comes with the problems ‘stam identified–they’ll either cost too much, or their impact will be so minimal it’s silly to give up literally anything for them.

There’s no one on the market that could significantly brighten our future, and there’s no one on the market that could make us a lot better right now without giving up more than we should be willing to give up to do so. We already threw Thibs a bone with one bad-but-inconsequential trade. Stand pat and see what happens.

Re: Pepe LePew, given that children often directly mimic the conduct of their fictional characters of choice, it seems glaringly obvious to me for that reason alone that we should retire the guy whose entire shtick is, to put it as mildly as possible, sexual misconduct.

E, all merc’d out:
Take the picture to a detective or a jury, tell them it’s evidence of “rape.”See what they say.

He’s trying to seduce the cartoon cat, apparently.She appears uninterested.If you have pictures of him doing more than that, get back to us.While subjective word and image association will be what subjective word and image association will be, there’s no sense in which the picture actually denotes or connotes “rape.”

Lol nice moving of the goalpost to the legal standards of a courtroom. Yes, I’m quite sure a judge wouldn’t be convinced that’s evidence of rape, because it’s a fucking cartoon; none of it, in fact, happened, so evidentiary standards will be especially hard to meet in this case. What do you, as an adult hypothetically capably of engaging with subtext, think Pepe intends to do with the cat? It’s a kid show, they’re not going to graphically show the skunk raping the cat or doing anything more than grab her, but the subtext is blindingly obvious. Is grabbing someone and holding them while they try to squirm out of your arms as you try to “seduce” her a totally normal mating ritual for you? Even if we remove the term rape and substitute in sexual assault, does Pepe come off looking any better?

I will concur with you, E, that the Pepe discussion is stupid and thread derailing, so I’ll take a vow of silence regarding a certain skunk.

LOL I’m sorry for bringing this topic up.

If it helps matters, I’m smiling and laughing as I write “Le Pew.” I just laughed again.

Barrettcuda:
LOL I’m sorry for bringing this topic up.

As sorry as Eris after she lobbed the golden apple.

Hubert: accurately?

Frank just entered the chat

“accurately?”

CANCELED!

“As sorry as Eris after she lobbed the golden apple.”

I think all of Olympus should’ve been embarassed by what happened there.

BTW, that entire legend should also be canceled. The idea that the great epic war of the Bronze Age Mediterranean was caused by petty female vanity is just sexist and mysogynistic.

Coming back to this thread after a few hours has apparently turned me into the personification of the Abe Simpson at the burlesque house meme.

“Or should I say their favorite “freedom” skunk is being sent to the memory hole. Remember that one, Freedom Fries? Glad these totally not hypocritical people are here to save us from cancel culture.”

Totally agree. And that’s always been the irony with these right-wing cries about cancel culture of political correctness. Its they who are the biggest crybaby snowflakes. They’re just projecting their own bullshit when they decry censorship. Many of these people are the same ones who made sure to boycott the Dixie Chicks when they critized GWB and the Iraq Invasion or supported that Orange Orangutang in getting Colin Kaepernick blackballed from the NFL for kneeling during the anthem in protest of anti-black police brutality.

Hubert: Projecting our 2022-23 starting lineup (age in parentheses):
1 Rozier (28)
2 Beal (29)
3 Barrett (22)
4 Randle (28)
5 Robinson (24)
6th Quickley (23)
7th one of our picks in the 2021 draft

I thought Beal was only one part of your plan. You really think this team can win a championship? :O

I’m all in for that team.

The floor on that team would be in the upper 40’s win-wise, I think. If we could keep Noel I could see that being a legitimate playoff team for years.

Oh, it’d easily be a playoff team for years. But it sounds more like a Joe Johnson/Josh Smith/Mike Bibby/Al Horford style playoff team.

E, all merc’d out: The picture wasn’t sexual assault, either. Kissing a woman against her will could theoretically be, but the picture didn’t include that and it’s not in the same stratosphere as actual rape so it’s either pointless or disingenuous to talk about the two as if they’re remotely the same.

Also, no one mentioned that the cat is smiling- it’s obvious she totally wants it and is just playing hard to get. I mean, she’s not even wearing any clothes!

Just standing alone it looks like at least a quasi-affectionate quasi-embrace and I have no qualms whatsoever saying that as it’s 100% true. (I looked again as I was walking to the UPS store to mail in my covid test to finally be able to go to MSG!!) Standing alone, and I repeat standing alone, it’s a perfectly normal picture of a “man” and a “woman.” There apparently is a context behind Le Pew and the cat that gets you to darker contextual places, but anyone who gets to those darker places based only on that pic is going about things pretty wrong.

I’m not sure what exactly is being mocked with the “It’s obvious she totally wants it.” You can’t tell one way or another whether she wants it, there’s no indication the topic has even been broached by Le Pew, no indication that he wouldn’t broach it if that was on his mind, and I haven’t heard anyone anywhere (other than maybe corners of the ‘net in which I don’t travel) suggest that if a woman quasi-affectionately quasi-embraces you, she “wants it.” If that’s the strawman people are looking to pummel, pummel away.

The Wilkens Cavs really weren’t *that* far away. That can be shot directly into my veins.

One thing I included above that I hadn’t thought of the last time I was discussing Beal:

we are the only team that can offer three picks in three years. The Dallas trade ensures we have at least one first in 2021 and 2023, so we can trade our first round pick in 2021, 2022, and 2023.

We also have a huge advantage in the perceived value of our picks. Two unprotected first round picks from the Knicks this summer should sound like potential gold. But if you’re giving Thibs a top 4 of Randle, Beal, Barrett, and Mitch, I’m willing to take my chances that those are non lottery draft picks.

It’s a big bet that we’ll be better than our recent history. The more I see out of Julius Randle, the more I’m willing to make that bet.

The math on assembling that team, by the way…

– The key piece that most everyone will disagree with is the Beal deal. I’m betting Toppin, Knox, our 2021, 2022, 2023 picks can get it done this summer. Humor me for second.

– Randle turns down the extension to try free agency. Beal picks up his option so he can get his max later.

– We bring back Rose, Noel, some other vets on one year deals to support Randle, Beal, Barrett, Mitch. Let’s call that a 45 win playoff team that gets everyone excited.

Cap sheet going into the summer of 2022 looks like this:

Beal – $37mm
Barrett – $10mm
Quickley – $2mm
Our 1st round pick from 2021 (I projected 18th) – $3mm
Mitchell Robinson’s cap hold – approximately $3mm
7 empty roster cap holds at ~$1mm each = $7mm

That’s $62mm in salary out of a $115.7mm cap, leaving ~$52mm to sign Randle and Rozier (or any other PG you like). And the room exception to add one of Thib’s favorite veterans.

AND, we have a first round pick every single year going forward (Dallas’ in 2023, our own thereafter), so all the claims of gutting the team for Beal were baseless.

I’m telling you, man, that is the way. Sign me up. If Beal wants a max, give him a max, I’ll ride with that team for 4 years.

Holy shit, if I was at a bar and saw a guy force an embrace on a woman while she tried to squirm out his grasp and get her face as far away from his as far as possible, I’d step in to physically intervene. You don’t put your hands on a woman like that without her consent.

I’d see Pepe Le Pew on Saturday mornings as a kid, and while I knew that you weren’t supposed to imitate his behavior, I didn’t learn until I was older that forcing yourself on a woman and kissing her up and down without consent wasn’t all fun and games. In fact, I had to learn some hard lessons that having the mindset of pursuing a woman relentlessly until she finally said yes wasn’t appropriate either, even if I didn’t touch her. Pepe Le Pew cartoons did not help me respect women or have emotionally healthy relationships with them.

It’s not just the explicit behaviors. It’s the condoning of those behaviors by presenting them as children’s entertainment.

Hubert: That’s $62mm in salary out of a $115.7mm cap, leaving ~$52mm to sign Randle and Rozier (or any other PG you like). And the room exception to add one of Thib’s favorite veterans.

Not that i subscribe your plan, but you could spend the cap space before re-signing Randle. We’ll have full bird rights on him and can sign him above the cap… no biggie, it’s only Dolan’s money!

You wouldn’t think “it’s not ok to try and hug and kiss another person without their consent and especially not when they’re clearly struggling to desperately get away from you” would be a controversial position but here we are. This is a “doesn’t know the meaning of ‘consent'” moment here.

Hubert: Beal – $37mm
Barrett – $10mm
Quickley – $2mm
Our 1st round pick from 2021 (I projected 18th) – $3mm
Mitchell Robinson’s cap hold – approximately $3mm
7 empty roster cap holds at ~$1mm each = $7mm

That’s $62mm in salary out of a $115.7mm cap, leaving ~$52mm to sign Randle and Rozier (or any other PG you like). And the room exception to add one of Thib’s favorite veterans.

Randle has a $30M cap hold, so you can’t sign Rozier for more than $22M unless Randle takes less than his cap hold.

I’m also not sure why Beal takes his option when he can opt-out and potentially find a suitor for the 10yr max of $40M . It’s entirely possible no one wants him for that money, but it’ll still be an issue.

If Rozier and Randle both continue the excellent years they’re currently having, then that won’t work under the cap unless you’re doing something really screwy that I can’t think of off the top. Of course, if they don’t continue their excellent years, then that team is definitely not a contender unless RJ really steps up his production.

I do think that’s a very good team but only a contender IF :

(1) RJ and IQ make substantial improvements
(2) the Knicks are the #1 defense every year.
(3) Beal really carries the crap out of the offense, by this year’s OBPM he may honestly be capable

You do have picks left to trade in order to upgrade the rest of the roster.

Ultimately, if that is our plan then I’d rather try to scoop Beal as a FA when he opts out in 2022 rather than trade for him now. We’d also have flexibility to go after KD or Harden if they opt-out. They’re both older, but potentially more valuable than Beal.

You wouldn’t think “it’s not ok to try and hug and kiss another person without their consent and especially not when they’re clearly struggling to desperately get away from you” would be a controversial position but here we are. This is a “doesn’t know the meaning of ‘consent’” moment here.

No, everyone here agrees with that one. But the claim was that the picture at issue shows that and it doesn’t come even close to showing it. Stick them on a bench at the Met, center their eyes on the Dutch neo-classicals, and no one blinks an eye and obviously no one even thinks for a moment of breaking it up through violence.

The claim about the picture is completely unpersuasive, even as to the “embrace” part, much less the “rape” part. Like completely, totally, utterly unpersuasive. There’s probably wide agreement on the broader themes at work here, but this is the internet and so agreement is frowned upon. Disagreement on the picture is used as a wedge divisive heuristic to infer imaginary disagreement on the broader themes. Everyone gets it.

I’d see Pepe Le Pew on Saturday mornings as a kid, and while I knew that you weren’t supposed to imitate his behavior, I didn’t learn until I was older that forcing yourself on a woman and kissing her up and down without consent wasn’t all fun and games. In fact, I had to learn some hard lessons that having the mindset of pursuing a woman relentlessly until she finally said yes wasn’t appropriate either, even if I didn’t touch her.

1

Like, how can you look at that picture and believe she’s embracing him?

A near-compulsive drive to argue about everything, all the time, always. I was looking for a post about consent that I made after Kobe died and found the same argument from this particular poster about how histrionic everyone is about consent and how they’re missing the bigger picture entirely. Old habits, etc.

E, all merc’d out: No, everyone here agrees with that one. But the claim was that the picture at issue shows that and it doesn’t come even close to showing it. Stick them on a bench at the Met, center their eyes on the Dutch neo-classicals,and no one blinks an eye and obviously no one even thinks for a moment of breaking it up through violence.

The claim about the picture is completely unpersuasive, even as to the “embrace” part, much less the “rape” part.Like completely, totally, utterly unpersuasive.There’s probably wide agreement on the broader themes at work here, but this is the internet and so agreement is frowned upon. Everyone gets it.

Again, E you’re the only one considering the picture in isolation. This isn’t a court of law, the picture isn’t the only depiction of Pepe that exists, and it’s probably the first picture that showed up rather than the most damning.

If this were an actual trial, then we could flood the blog with enough damning evidence that the case would be decided in summary judgment for at least sexual abuse. I don’t think anyone here cares enough to go through hoops of litigating an actual case, so your adherence to judicial process is unnecessarily pedantic.

Seeing as G-rated cartoons lack genitalia, you’re technically right there would not be a conviction of rape because it’s impossible for penetration to exist absent genitalia. Again, no one was seriously arguing this.

If you want us to jump through the hoops of an actual trial, my rate is $300/hr and I bill in 6 min increments.

Rose is out again tomorrow night, though the Knicks aren’t saying if he tested positive or if it’s an ongoing contact tracing thing.

E, all merc’d out:
They’re animals, but you’re reading the “escape” part completely into it.Imagining it, really.Seriously.

They’re anthropomorphic animals. Please describe what the cat is doing in that picture.

Hubert: I’m not sure why you think Beal needs to “carry the crap” out of an offense with Randle, Rozier, and a mature trio of RJ/Mitch/IQ.

If $20mm isn’t enough to sign Terry Rozier, fine. We can find a good PG for $20mm.

Yeah, I’ll elaborate a bit.

Scenario 1: Beal doesn’t needs to carry the offense, but that’ll require Rozier and Randle maintaining their current production, then Randle is getting the max or near it and Rozier is getting at least $25M if not more.

Scenario 2: Beal needs to carry the offense because Rozier and Randle regress, but you’re able to fit them both onto the team.

Contender status depends a lot on RJ projections. He’s a pretty unique player, so I’m not sure where he’ll end up production-wise. DJphan probably has a better projection system.

Randle and Rozier are 2nd tier stars at best and Beal is a low-end #1 star.

The Clippers Kawhi & Paul George have 2 better players than Beal.
Nets have arguably 3 and easily 2.
Giannis + anyone is better.

We might squeeze out a championship, maybe that’s a good enough shot, but it’ll be more like the perfect storm of Dallas over Miami than as a favorite. There’s definitely a puncher’s chance.

E, all merc’d out: The null hypothesis that she’s leaning back to get a wider look of her quasi embrac-ee’s face, as affectionate embracers do all the time, can’t be remotely disproven. And even consensual embraces are eventually ended in similar ways.Go back to what I said about the Met.

But of course the burden of proof for such a provocative claim is on the claimants.The burden hasn’t come close to being met.

And what’s she doing with her feet?

Also, what is she doing with her arms?

I explained what she’s doing with her “feet.” (Arms were added/edited — one of her arms is on his shoulders). There was a bonus explanation tacked on even — Embrace, then “Come on Pepe, I gotta cook dinner.”

We’re down to forensic analysis of a cartoon skunk and a cartoon cat. That’s probably a good signal to move on. I’m heeding the signal.

***Wow, I’d totally forgotten about “freedom fries.”…I always thought that PLP was some sort of satire of French guys.***

You mean freedom guys.

Hubert: I’m high

Now, that explains it! 😛

Nature is violent.
Cartoons as Sports are entertainment.
Eliminating or at least minimizing violence in entertainment may result to a more civilized society.

Haha what

“I’m pretty sure you could read this thread aloud at an Ionesco convention and receive a standing ovation.”

LOL!

Knew Your Nicks: Less violence wouldn’t hurt anyone tho…

This is when the crowd would rise spontaneously with a roar…