Congrats to Tom Thibodeau, the 2020-21 NBA Coach of the Year!

Congrats, Thibs.

Does this mean that E will disappear for 3 more months?

I think that trading for Lillard is a fool’s errand. As JK and DRed pointed out, why decimate our assets and cap space to build a team worse than the Blazers? Let’s build the right way for a change. Keep making small, smart acquisitions until we build up enough assets/good roster pieces so that giving up some of them in a deal for a max player still leaves us with a good core. Build like PHX, UTA, DEN did.

Norman Powell, not the Fed Chairman. Lol.

something about watching big men play the game well that makes me happy, blame it on ewing…good to see ayton playing consistently well…

MPjr just continues to impress, it’s more than just his scoring…really good competitor…

Also, Geo, don’t get on me about this, but we could have drafted Mikal Bridges

well then owen, i leave you this then:
Bag lady you goin’ hurt your back
Draggin’ all ’em bags like that
I guess nobody ever told you
All you must hold on to
Is you

hard to embrace the new, when you’re holding too tight to the past…

shit, i’m just kidding owen 🙂

#doowutchyalike

speaking of good ol’ digital underground…don’t think we ever talked about it, but rip to greg “shock G” jacobs…kinda fucks me up a bit seeing folks my age passing on…

fave lines from the humpty one:
One night I was cooling outside
Saw my man Wes and said, “Ah shit yeah, it’s gonna be live”
I was working a double breast silk leaf suit
With my five hundred dollar brown knee-high Bally’s

It was snotty nose, that means the extra chrome
Plate on the grill, for sunroof we say it had the brains blown
I said, “This bitch is inside, you ready to attack?”
Wes looked at me and said, “Mack mack mack mack mack”

Watching the Suns Nuggets game and I couldn’t help thinking the Knicks could have had either Mikal Bridges OR Michael Porter Jr and instead we have the useless Kevin Knox. Think how much either of those guys would have helped this year’s team….sigh

Mike Budenholzer: fraud?

Doug Chu:
Mike Budenholzer: fraud?

This.
I came in here wondering just what in tarnation(and I hope yal said that with a Yosemite Sam accent) is goin on with the Bucks-Nets series. But first I have to address Thibs. Congrats! Well deserved. IMO, it shouldn’t have been close! All due respect to Monty- he’s done a wonderful job. Snyder as well. But nobody- AND I MEAN NOBODY- did more with less than Thomas Joseph Thibodeau Jr. Both Snyder and Williams already had good teams. But Williams had the advantage of having CP3..voters must not realize how much easier a guy like CP3 makes it for coaches. Can you imagine if Thibs had CP3? We’d probably be top 2 in the East. The guy just flat out knows the game and can obviously still play at a high level. And again, I don’t mean to take anything away from Williams and Snyder- but that voting was ridiculous!
END RANT

Back to Bucks-Nets. Look…I fully expected this series to be competitive. But no one saw the Nets dominating Milwaukee without Harden. Holy hell! Is it preparation? Is Budz not the coach to get them over the Hump? Or is the roster ill-constructed? I dunno..but they definitely should not be getting the concrete shit kicked out of em. Sheesh!

We gotta see what Giannis and the Bucks can do back at Milwaukee, but i’m starting to think he’ll never win as the clear leader of the team, he’s no KD, Steph, Lebron. His game needs another superstar by his side to be championship contender. AD is the same, he won’t win on his own. And having said that, anyone feel Jrue or Middleton are superstars? Yeah, this won’t end well.

The Bucks are a very weirdly constructed team. I wasn’t a fan of the Jrue Holiday trade, even in the context of appeasing Giannis. It just seems like they don’t have enough shooting and playmaking. The Nets have both in spades. So do the Hawks. So do the teams left in the WC.

Honestly it would take a miracle or a spate of injury bad luck for anyone to beat the Nets. Blake in a limited role is a monster. Harris might be the best shooter in the league. Mike James? Wow.

Not gonna lie..as painful as it is for me to say it- I’m impressed with what the Nets are doing sans Harden. It’s not that I don’t think KD and Kyrie are that good- but just look at their starting lineup. I mean they are starting the reanimated corpse of Blake Griffin at C! And it’s working! They have no real rebounding and their best rebounder and paint defender is buried on the bench! I can only imagine what this team would look like in the playoffs had LMA been able to continue playing. I hate em like Julius’ son hates em..but they are really impressive right now. Gotta give credit where credit is due..unfortunately

Nice article by Vacarro on Thibs.

He didn’t bat 1.000 this year; he buried Austin Rivers, who sure could’ve helped the Knicks last week while he was helping Denver advance. He stuck too long with Elfrid Payton and instead of keeping Derrick Rose in a reserve role when he finally made a move, he started him, and probably helped wear him out.

But perfection isn’t a coach’s job.

Professionalism is. Establishing it, preaching it, implementing it. The Knicks were a joke for 20 straight years. They are a joke no longer. We will see what the next steps yield, but the ones we’ve already seen tell the story plainly: the coach made that much of a difference.

the Rivers’ buyout while keeping Payton was the FO’s move I didn’t like the most.
He must have pissed Thibs a lot.

The one thing to keep in mind about that — and that gives me some pause — is that Payton and Randle share an agent, Aaron Mintz. I wouldn’t be surprised if our ex-agent POBO, whose specialty is building and maintaining relationships throughout the league, decided to keep Payton and dump Rivers as a way to make nice with Mintz in advance of negotiations this summer about a Randle extension.

Then again, it’s entirely possible that, as we’ve discussed before, Thibs wanted at least one traditional point guard on the roster other than Rose, and Payton simply fit that definition more closely than Rivers.

Either way, it was a bad call, though I don’t know if it was a fatal one. Rivers is streaky as hell, and I don’t know that starting him and keeping Rose as a reserve would have been enough for us to beat Atlanta. Maybe we eke out that opening night win and lose in 6 instead, but we were not one role player away from winning that series.

re: Vildoza

While I’m sure he can be a useful player it’s not fair to invest him of too much expectations.

He’s a good player, with a high basketball IQ and he came to New York in his prime (unlike Prigs), but let’s remember that a lot of FIBA players, even very good ones, have problems in their rookie year to adjust to the NBA three point line and need time to learn the different speed/athleticism of the game.

Plus, there’s the new COTY and his high standards on defense, fitness and effort.
Belinelli (who played for Pop, Don Nelson, Monty Williams, Mike Budenholzer) still remember Thibs’ practices from his year in Chicago… 🙂

Thibodeau is the first Knicks coach since Pat Riley (1992/93) to win the award.

No love for JVG in the end of the 90s, i guess.

It’s the second Coach of the Year award for Thibodeau, who also earned the honor in the 2010/11 season with the Bulls in his first season as a head coach. No one had previously won the award in his first season with two different franchises.

Maybe he should switch teams each offseason? 😀

Re: the ongoing playoffs, I found myself naturally rooting for the Hawks on Sunday, and enjoying it. As I mentioned before, I never had an issue with anything Trae did or Capela said. I actually agreed with Capela, to be honest, and didn’t mind our guys getting called out. I may be totally crazy, and there’s a lot of series left with Philadelphia, but I think they’re going to be a viable threat to Brooklyn if they face them without Harden. Much more viable than this sorry showing by Milwaukee.

Side note: I thought maybe my guy would want to take my Suns bet off his books and sell it back to me for a nice gain (he’s on the hook for about $35k if they win). He soundly rejected my offer with a laugh! I guess no one is still taking Phoenix seriously. They’re path is hard but I don’t think it’s that unlikely.

Another name Fischer mentions is Hawks assistant general manager Landry Fields, who has previously been cited as a potential front office candidate for the Celtics.
“All teams are monitoring Landry Fields,” said a Western Conference executive, “because he’s going to get a real shot here to run his own team soon.”

Didn’t knew this. I’m happy for him, he’s a great guy and had terrible luck on his playing career.

Congratulations to Coach Thibodeau.

I disagree with the the “Coach Budd = Fraud” take. I remember that the Bucks were barely a .500 team with Jason Kidd as coach. Budd reconstructed the Bucks defense and built the offense around what Giannis does well. The team has been a regular season monster for the past three seasons.

It is a fair criticism to say that Budd has not been a good coach in the playoffs, in Milwaukee or in Atlanta. Teams with equivalent talent have been able to scheme against Budd, and he has not come back with successful counters.

Though it wouldn’t surprise me at all to see the Clips in the Finals,, I have zero faith in them. I dunno..it kinda feels like the year Utah gets back to the finals. I actually wouldn’t mind an old school style of play series in the WCF between Utah and Phoenix. It just may happen. As great as Jokic is, he’s not gonna save them from Phoenix without Murray- unless CP3 succumbs to postseason injury again. As a basketball fan- even with the blowouts- we will see some very good basketball through the rest of the playoffs. We’re witnessing the ascension of Trae Young to superstar status with his playoff run, and the other semifinal series are very entertaining. Not to mention we’ve already seen Luka and Ja shoot themselves up a whole ‘nother level in these playoffs in the 1st round.

NBA action..it’s faaaaantastic lol

I honestly kind of like the Hawks. They are a much better team right now for a lot of reasons than they were all season. It would take a lot – Embiid staying hurt – maybe Durant getting hurt. But it doesn’t seem out of the realm of possibility.

Suns look strong too. Ayton actually impressed me last night. He’s a solid player. Hubert made a good bet there.

It’s a lot of fun to watch. I haven’t been this motivated to watch playoff games in a while.

And I’m a no on Dame for all our assets and definitely a no on KP

It sure would be fun to have Lillard on the Knicks, but yeah, the cost would likely be too high. And KP? Dude still needs to get his ego in check. I wonder why the guy hasn’t developed a bit of a post game — hook shot, anyone? And maybe stop clubbing, too.

The further Atlanta goes, the less the playoff loss to them stings, if it stings much at all…

I’m a no on Dame, too, as much as I love him. He really backed himself into a corner signing that extension. He has to make it work in Portland.

Also the ease with which we were dispatched by a team that’s good but not great has sobered me up about trading assets to win now in a conference where even a team like the Bucks is a mile off the pace. Just make the three picks and keep building up our U-25 core of Mitch, RJ, Obi, and IQ.

(And yes, after a rousing postseason performance, I have turned the corner on Obi Toppin. You can add this to Jowles’ bookmark page, but I could see Obi breaking out next year and it making more sense to keep him than give Randle a $230mm contract. The keys for Obi, I think, will be bringing Rose back as his bench partner and letting him play some time at center, where he could dominate most backup C’s and small ball lineups.)

Trying to put aside our Knicks bias, would you rather be Dallas or us right now?

The one with the guy who might wind up on NBA Mount Rushmore

cybersoze: I’m happy for him, he’s a great guy and had terrible luck on his playing career.

He did have bad luck (and I can’t believe it’s been ten years since he first suited up, and is only 32) but he also got that $18M deal from the Raptors and married a supermodel. If he had been drafted in the first round, he would have had to wait another two years to hit the market, and who knows if his body would have suffered injury all the same.

Trying to put aside our Knicks bias, would you rather be Dallas or us right now?

Dallas every day of the week and twice on Sunday. They already have the future Hall of Famer, who almost singlehandedly took a team with Kawhi and PG to 7 games. Getting that level of superstar is the hardest part of the job. We have a bunch of assets and options moving forward, and we have a more enticing market, but we do not have our own Luka, or anyone close to that. All due respect to Julius.

Let’s say we send: Mitch + Quick + Obi + Knox + 4 1RPs for Dame + Covington.
Is that all that different from: Caris LeVert + Taurean Prince + Rodions Kurucs + Jarrett Allen + 3 1RPs + 4 swaps for James Harden ? I think the extra 1RP is more valuable than the 4 swaps.
New Knicks starting five: Dame, RJ, Covington, Julius, (some center);
Probably the starter C can be had for the Room Exception (4.9M). The 12.4M cap space available after the trade can be split on 2 guys like Reggie and Burks (or similar players); Vildoza at backup PG, Taj at backup C for the minimum; We just need a backup PF for the Bi-Annual Exception (3.2M);
Covington is an expiring, if Reggie/Burks are on 1+1, at the end of next season we can have 25M to add an impact player to the core of Dame, RJ and Julius.
It all depends on the price to pay, i wouldn’t say no to Dame without knowing it.

Speaking of models, anyone remembers when Porzingis was trying to pickup models on Instagram? Hilarious times. Nobody explained him that the DMs existed, i guess. 😀
And looks like Landry has a lot more “game” than KP. 😛

***happy birthday***

Thanks guys (and good pull, cybersoze:)

I kind of like this new feature. Not sure how we can keep it going, though…

Luka is great and knows he is great. Only bad luck and/or injury stands in the way of Luka winning a title. Still, kind of a ball hog in the ball hoggiest sense. Maybe he will take care of his body, maybe he will eat 5 Guys. A number 2 on the Mavs will watch Luka take a lot of off balance 30 footers and start working on their postgame press conference innuendo. There’s nothing wrong with watching greatness – watching joy is more fun right now.
RJ, Quickley and Toppin are incredibly likeable players hardwired with a strong work ethic. Randle had a rough playoff, but his teammates love him. When Randle’s time is up Zion will be just about ready to suit up. We have picks and cap space. We have pros in the back-office and on the floor. Screw the Mavs and their look how smart we are trading for KP selves.

***Dame has had a “Dame and a bunch of scrubs” team around him the past however many years, and that really didn’t go very far. Why do we want to repeat that model here?***

Dame and a bunch of scrubs did get them to the WCF two years ago, and if Thompson and Durant had broken down a week earlier, the narrative would be the reverse. Also, losing to that great Warriors team three times in four years was an unavoidable outcome for all 14 teams in the western conference during that time.

Lillard moving from the competitive west to the developing east is reason enough to repeat the model here, I think. But it’s probably not going to happen for the various reasons stated here since yesterday.

I will say that I don’t see Thibs wanting three new rookies on the team next year. I think they’ll try to make a deal with at least one pick. I wouldn’t mind seeing this year’s two first rounders go in a deal for a vet PG or a trade up. I’d prefer to keep our picks going forward though, in case injuries derail us next season.

co-signing the JK47 approach, which is a bit of a 180 for me. I was drunk on modest success when I thought things like trading Obi and picks for Beal or LaVine made sense. I am now sober AF after a harsh playoffs lesson.

IQ, RJ, Obi, Mitch, and our two upcoming first round picks is a pretty nice U25 core, and it’s not hard to plug in some vets to keep the team respectable while ensuring none of the kids will have to be overexposed too quickly.

We could be a consistent playoff team developing draft picks year over year while Nets age out. Patience has rarely been exercised at the Garden, but it’s the right approach.

I will say that I don’t see Thibs wanting three new rookies on the team next year.

We’ll be lucky if two of them are worth playing! Drafting the right players is hard, but I think we need to try and avoid any temptation to package picks for vets.

Ideally, Thibs will be willing to expand the roles of IQ and Obi now that they aren’t rookies. IQ can take the minutes played by Burks if we don’t resign him, and Obi can do the same with Noel or Taj. Then we can move our two first rounders into the limited roles that Obi & IQ had. If we’re constantly bleeding youngsters into the team like this, we’ll eventually be in a place where it does make sense to go all in.

Trading for Lillard is exactly what we should NOT do. There is no question that the price will be exorbitant. Even our draft picks have gone down in value because we’re better so we would once again have years with no picks and a top-heavy roster that never gets past the ECFs and probably bows out before that in most years. It would be a different version of the Melo trade, maybe with a bit more upside but not much.

We have oodles of cap space and a good amount of draft assets and young players, but not a lot of roster stability to build off of. That puts us in a great bargaining position for all kinds of deals. Why would we blow that all on one player unless we were surely in a position to compete for a championship? That’s what the Nets did with Harden. Had they done the Harden deal first, not sure how they could have acquired Durant and Kyrie.

there’s actually a lot of scenarios that could wind up working out wonderfully for us as long as we stay put… i don’t really like trading up in this draft… you very likely will get someone to fall that’s as good as whoever you were trying to trade up for anyway…. you’d basically be lighting an extra pick on fire… this draft is deep enough to get three rotation players out of this and we can very well stack our roster after this year if we nail it….

even with the prospect of thibs not playing all these rookies.. that’s what the gleague is for…. in any case we played two rookies decent minutes this past season and gave knox/frank enough run anyway with a much more crowded roster so i don’t think it’s beyond the pale to repeat that this year….

I love watching LIllard play. Actually, I should be clear and say I love watching him shoot under pressure. The rest of his game I could do without,

I’m not a fan of trading for him.

I’m not a fan of any of the super high usage scorer/ball handlers that don’t defend, don’t actually make their teammates better with their assists, and try to do everything themselves. The “fans” love these guys and assume they just need better teammates to win, but I see it the other way around. IMO, their ball dominance hurts purposeful ball and player movement, hurts some teammates, and gets disappointing results. (it does get accolades, big contracts, and media/fan worship though)

IMO, CJ McCollum is terrific #2 option skill wise. Powell, Covington, and Nurkic are excellent complimentary pieces. The bench is fine. They underperform expectations (or at least hopes) all the time because they don’t defend and they play a style of basketball on offense that doesn’t win championships.

We don’t want to bring that to NY and we certainly don’t want to give up a lot of assets for it.

It’s all moot though. I don’t think Lillard is going to come to NY to be on a team that won’t be better than Portland.

“Donsunmo did actually run a spread motion pnr offense in Illinois under Brad Underwood… so out of all the pg’s i would say he has the most experience running a pro style offense… it’s not exactly like what Thibs runs but it’s close…. and that’s why out of all the non-Suggs pg’s he’s not only one of the more talented but probably the best fit….”

I saw Ayo described as Elfrid-like. Is he Elfrid-like?

We need a starting PG and a legitimate #1 option to take the burden off Randle and RJ. Both of them are being asked to do more than their skillset warrants. That may not be true for RJ next year, but he’s almost certainly not going to be a legitimate #1 option. He’ll just add to his game and be a better player.

We shouldn’t plan a strategy. We have to see who and what is available first. There may be some surprises. I have no problem with trading our picks to move up or as part of a deal as long as it’s for a player that fills one of those needs properly. Maybe we can fill one of those need this off season and keep working on the other. Maybe we can fill both and maybe neither. But we know what we need. We want to keep ourselves in a good position to fill those needs. No panic buying and no more role players unless it’s short term or such an attractive contract it can be used as part of a value/team enhancing deal later.

I believe that playing Vildoza, DRose, IQ and a PG who we draft should be plenty for the position. We might bring Burks back too, who can fill in there.

It would also be a great idea to look and see if we can facilitate any deals for stars with our cap space to add a decent role player or two as well.

jazzfunk:
Screw the Mavs and their look how smart we are trading for KP selves.

Hahahahaha…. ya know I had a similar thought in that the Mavs are seen as one of these forward-thinking Western Conference teams while the Knicks have been, well, yanno. That’s begun to change, but it makes me happy that we ended up winning the KP trade before said perception change began. As someone else mentioned, at the time of the trade, the KB/P&T community were the only places you’d find folks saying that we made out decently.

And good for the Mavs for getting their generational player in Doncic, but yeah they’re losing big value on Porzingis right now.

I saw Ayo described as Elfrid-like. Is he Elfrid-like?

certainly not out of college…. they are basically inverses of each other…. payton was more slippery and calling card was transition and defense in college…. ayo scores at all three levels with a decently varied toolkit… both aren’t tremendous athletes but ayo is both bigger and has way more verticality to his game…

i’ve seen the comps also in some places but i don’t think the people making it haven’t really seen either play…. and you really only need to throw up a youtube clip to see it…

If Ayo can shoot threes at even a below average clip he’ll have edged Payton already.

Is peak KB to call Dame a stat-stuffer that doesn’t make his teammates better (he just averaged 10.2 AST in a 7 game playoff series) and doesn’t play winning basketball, or what?

The Infamous Cdiggy: btw I find it hilarious that this is his new nickname/moniker

Yeah, it is. 😀
I went from being mad every time i read his name to smiling every time i read “[redacted]”. 😉

geo:
okay then NetsTown, story time, if you please…

just curious, what’s up with the Nets “Town” reference on a knicks site…obviously your a knicks’ fan – why have the nets thing in your name?

geo, it was just meant as a joke. I’ll change it back to DudesTown now.

cybersoze:
Is peak KB to call Dame a stat-stuffer that doesn’t make his teammates better (he just averaged 10.2 AST in a 7 game playoff series) and doesn’t play winning basketball, or what?

IMO, assists are not a great measure of how much better you are making your teammates. To me, making your teammates better is about making passes that lead to much higher quality shots than your teammates would otherwise get. Almost any good ball handler will get 5-6 assists if they handle the ball all the time and have a few good shooters on the team. Very few of them create super high quality shots for teammates or consistently find the open man if doubled.

That’s what Jokic does. He makes passes that no one else in the league could make and they lead to some much higher quality shots than his teammates would get from anyone else.

NetsDudesTown: geo, it was just meant as a joke. I’ll change it back to DudesTown now.

We won’t be happy until you change to KnicksTown, right geo? 😀

The Honorable Cock Jowles: In case the rest of you were wondering:

O-LEBRON: 3rd
VORP: 5th
OBPM: 3rd
RPM: 7th (according to CraftedNBA)
RAPTOR: 13th

(This is not at all an endorsement of selling the farm for the end of Lillard’s prime, but… haha.)

Lebron is a great defender when engaged and healthy, always made all his teammates wildly better with spectacular passes, always found the open man when doubled, and often allowed teammates like young Kyre or Wade runs things for awhile. He’s the antithesis of what I was describing. I’d say “good try” , but it wasn’t.

I’m describing guys like Lillard, Harden in Houston with CP3, Doncic in his youth now, and Westbrook. All incredible talents, but I’m not a fan of how they play. You can change stripes though. Trae Young is learning fast and Harden played smarter with Durant/Kyrie than he did with CP3.

The Honorable Cock Jowles,

Lebron is a great defender when engaged and healthy. He always made his teammates wildly better with spectacular passes, always found the open man when doubled, and often allowed teammates like young Kyre or Wade runs things for awhile. He’s the antithesis of what I was describing.

I’m describing guys like Lillard, Harden in Houston with CP3, Doncic in his youth now, and Westbrook. All incredible talents, but I’m not a fan of how they play. You can change stripes though. Trae Young is learning fast and Harden was playing smarter with Durant/Kyrie than he did with CP3.

The thing about Thibs COTY award is that I think after he won it the first time he finished 2nd or 3rd the following year (or soon after) and had another top 5 finish. He was in the conversation several times and is now one of the very few to have won 2.

There is no such question as “don’t you have anything better to do,” here. The answer is a resounding “no.”

According to my phone’s screen time aggregator, there was a 400% increase in the time I spent playing online backgammon while I was on a KB break.

So yeah, it’s a no for me, dawg.

cybersoze: We won’t be happy until you change to KnicksTown, right geo? 😀

Is this any better?

Hubert: According to my phone’s screen time aggregator, there was a 400% increase in the time I spent playing online backgammon while I was on a KB break.

Are you winning? 😛

Attack of the Trolls Part 97352:

I had another department Zoom mtg a little earlier today. Naturally, the trolls (sans the AD for once) tried to come at me with their lil Julius Randle derogatories (yeah I just made that word up lol), but I clapped back. First, with the Randle KIA MIP graphic in my background, and then when one of them responded with an Isiah Thomas pic (talk about someone who really needs to be [redacted]), I upped the ante with the AD as Mr. Glass meme pic (go download that one if you haven’t already – it’s hilarious). That caused my dept secretary (a non-trolling Laker fan) to groan and say, “awwwww you know what, C?” I responded, “I’ll stop it when you tell [the trolls] to stop; y’all don’t realize that for once I have real ammo now!”

They all chilled out after that, haha!

The leaders in minutes on the Blazers after Dame were, in order:

Robert Covington
Enes Kanter
Carmelo Anthony
CJ McCollum
Derrick Jones Jr
Gary Trent Jr
Anfernee Simmons

That was the #2 offense in the NBA despite Dame supposedly not “moving the ball” enough.

I find myself in agreement with the concept that just because a player generates lots of assists doesn’t mean he moves the ball, or makes other players better, or is fun to watch, or is a winner. Once that usage% gets up into the mid-30s it gets hard to justify it unless his teammates are really lacking. Whether Doncic, Harden, Westbrook, Iverson, Melo, Kobe, or LeBron, that 35 usage% is a red flag. Either the player is selfish or his teammates are bad.

This is especially true at the highest level, where it is an assumption that the team has a lot of offensive options. Can you imagine replacing Magic with Harden or Bird with Doncic and those teams improving? I can’t.

or

C) 2021 New York Knicks without Randle.

(Not suggesting Randle’s on par with Doncic or Lillard — just wondering how the rest of the team fares…)

Jokic wins MVP. Lowest draft pick ever to do it. Well deserved.

Not a great start from the Hawks

Doc Rivers has made a subtle and effective change early. He has Tobias Harris leaking out early when the Hawks launch a shot. Since Trae Young is the floor balance, that has led to two easy, early baskets for Harris. This works because Simmons (who is guarding Young) crashes the defensive boards effectively.

Because Snell got hurt, McMillan is playing Lou Williams and Trae Young together.

Must be nice to have a Ben Simmons to guard Trae.

If he repeats as an All-Star (let alone an All-NBA selection), it would not be an overpay to give him the 30% Max (5 years/$201M).

It’s not an overpay, but I still think it’s a terrible deal. Kinda like how a Lamborghini is worth $250k but that doesn’t mean I need to buy one.

Simmons D’d up Trae in the half court and Trae looked as spooked as Randle staring at Capela. Literally the next play Trae adjusted and got down the court faster than Simmons, setting up an easy dunk for Capela. Next play down Simmons matched his pace down the court and forced Trae to give ball up.

Man, what a matchup.

Joel Embiid is a free agent in 2023, FYI.

Getting way ahead of myself here but the Hawks making the ECFs sure would be validating for our guys. Does anyone else find Huerter infinitely more hatable than Trae?

Hubert:
Joel Embiid is a free agent in 2023, FYI.

If Embiid makes an All-NBA team this year (certain) and next year, he will be eligible for 35% Max Extension long before he becomes a free agent. His situation is different than Kawhi/AD, who could not get the 35% Max Extension because they were traded from their original teams.

Bogie just ignited

Sixers just win the game at the end of that quarter, with those four free throws and the Shake three. Huge swing

After being awful for the first game and a half, Dwight Howard has been spectacular over the last five minutes.

Which roster would win more games over an 82 game season:

A) 2021 Dallas Mavericks without Doncic
B) 2021 Portland Trailblazers without Lillard

as least the mavs have brunson to run the point…even though you said “roster”, i’d count carlisle in to the equation too…

Great block by Gobert for the win, but I feel that Morris bailed him out by not drawing a foul on his first closeout. A savvy offensive player would have gone to the line for 3 to tie there.

Can the Warriors pull off a trade for Dame? A small ball backcourt of Dame + Steph + Klay would probably bring the Warriors back to title contention. If they all can keep healthy. A big if, i know.
Dame is from Oakland and grew up a Warriors fan. Just sayin’.

Macri newsletter today has a good breakdown of Sexton as a trade candidate, and why the Knicks should stay away unless they’re basically getting him for free. (And even then, he’ll cost a ton in salary very soon.)

Meanwhile..
Every time I see DeAndre Ayton out there lookin like Hustlin Raymond lol
*Ayton gets the ball in the post*
Me: Raymond is that you?
Ayton(in my mind): Naw naw this ain’t Raymond..naw!

Totes – I don’t really know that Simmons is rated that highly given the clear flaws in his game. It seems like the public evaluation of him is about right. One of the best, most versatile defenders in the NBA who can generate offense through transition, drives, and passing. Very good player who won’t ever be one of the handful of elite players. I think you can win a championship with him though just because he is so versatile and can combine so easily with other star players.

Paul George had an ugly line last night and Kawhi didn’t put the imprint on this game that he did in the Mavs series. Watched most of the third quarter and it was pretty damn exciting. Going to be a fun one.

Joinone, thanks for the tip. I will check it out. And I agree with you, the Suns are too low. The Jazz probably are too.

Brian Cronin: Nate Bjorkgren fired. Maybe they’ll get D’Antoni this time. Although he might get one of the open gigs.

Since the coaching carousel has started to turn — I wonder who Kidd is banking on signing with. Even given the Blazers’ struggles and the difficulty of turning that roster around with so much money allocated, it would seem pretty crazy to turn down a head coaching job for a franchise with an MVP candidate under contract. Of the contenders, I don’t see any with a coaching shakeup in the works. Even if Bud got fired, Kidd will never be welcome in MIL again. What’s the point of holding out? What situation is a better “fit?”

I wonder if Boy Genius is smart enough to avoid Kidd like the fucking plague.

I completely dismissed LAL as contenders. Of course that’s Kidd’s plan — wait it out another year and rise up to manage the Lakers. Mother fucking Littlefinger.

Is getting yourself in line to be the next Lakers coach really that sweet a gig? I feel like this year emphasized pretty starkly that they need both Lebron and AD healthy to be title contenders but Lebron is about to be 37 and AD is pretty much never healthy. In the short term, sure, they could probably win the title next year if things break right, but in the medium term I think I might rather coach Portland. As we all saw this year with Thibs coaches can have a big impact on defense (although they have serious limitations from a personnel perspective) and if they could just figure out the D they could jump up a couple tiers. Things always work out for the Lakers I guess but figuring out how to transition out of being totally reliant on an aging Lebron over the next few years is going to be realy difficult I think.

We managed to avoid having college teams raid our assistant coaching roster, but I wonder if Bryant or Payne might be in line for one of those openings. I hope not, because both feel kind of crucial to Leon’s star-hunting plans.

Hoop Central
@TheHoopCentral
REPORT: Kemba Walker and the Boston Celtics both want a “breakup,” via
@Farbod_E

I like Kemba Walker, but between that contract and continuing knee issues we can do without him in NY even though he’d be a good fit if 100% healthy.

This looks like a very good opportunity for Boston and Dallas to talk.

Both Kemba and KP want out, both have tough contracts to move, and both have some lingering knee issues. A little tweaking could get that deal done.

KP worked out so great in Dallas that the only way they can rid themselves of his final three years is to take on a contract that is almost as toxic.

Sounds familiar! Glad it’s somebody else and more us!

#Knicksy

TheClashFan: Someone really came at you with Isiah Thomas? Shouldn’t there be an expiration date on that?I mean, at least come at you with Phil Jackson as POBO or something.
🙂

1. Phil Jackson is known as a Laker coaching legend so they probably wouldn’t go that route.
2. His failings didn’t hit the same way as Isiah’s i.e. turn into late night talk show fodder.
3. It’d be easier (read: more trollish) for them to say “the Knicks are so bad even Phil Jackson couldn’t turn them around”. No way they would’ve cared to pay enough attention to know how Phil contributed to the team failures and why he couldn’t turn them around.

I’d go even more metta and say that you’d think that Isiah being a Piston, it’d be easier for Laker fans to find a reason to clown. But my observation…
A. I guess what’s one or two Finals’ losses when you have 17?
B. The one troll in particular wasn’t yet born when Detroit beat LA for the title.
C. It’s just not in most LA people’s nature to hold sports grudges they way we do (except maybe in HS sports b/c shit’s real out here). LA doesn’t do “long-suffering sports fan” because they’ll just emotionally disengage and go to the beach if their team isn’t good/great. Sure, the Dodgers still have the Giants as rivals but it’s NO WHERE close to Yankees/Red Sox. USC/UCLA will always be rivals, although I feel has been muted lately b/c UCLA hasn’t had a really good football or basketball team in a minute), and Laker fans will probably always hate the Celtics.

for some reason – i now feel compelled to defend petyr baelish…truth be told, i haven’t thought about that “world” in a long while, but, at some time, i’m gonna circle back on this…

i know i’ll never read A Dream of Spring, i’ve become increasingly skeptical on The Winds of Winter, i will say, it would be a nice christmas gift to myself though…c’mon grrm, if the knicks can get the 4th seed, you most certianly can shit out another 800 pages or so of asoiaf…he already had 150 pages written that didn’t go in books 4 or 5 in the series…

give us the battle of meereen already…and fuck you for teasing us with ice spiders, as big as hounds…

So many excuses for the oh so talented and wonderful unicorn.

Maybe, like all of us have been saying, he’s just not that good. Certainly not max contract material.

Take the L for once.

I’d have to check out his health but I wouldn’t hate acquiring Kemba if he came with picks. The AAV is high but the length is perfect.

Eunuch-corn

I’m assuming Boston knows it has to give up picks for Kemba, right? And there won’t be many takers with tons of cap space. So how about this trade:

Celtics get: Lucas Vildoza, the 21st pick

Knicks get: Kemba, the 16th pick, and a lottery protected future 1st

Kemba has been putting up 4.0 BPM seasons like clockwork before this last season so he seems like a reasonable bounce back candidate. If they’re throwing in assets I’d consider it.

marechal:
I think getting Kemba takes the Knicks away from the 2022-2023 FA class (he would never opt out of this contract). He has a 15% trade kicker, so his salary would be over $40m then. Hard pass, especially with those knee issues.

Oh wait, I did the contract math wrong, I didn’t realize he runs through 2023. Yeah okay that’s a no.

A lot of names flying around that for various reasons (unreliability, overrating, injury history, bloated contracts, assets cost, locker room stability) make me cringe…

Cam Thomas is an interesting prospect. I am fairly anti-Cam because he does literally nothing but score. It’s easy to see in both the numbers in the tape. He simply does not bring anything else to the table. I’ll always be hesitant about guys like that even if it occasionally leads me to be wrong about the Immanuels Quickley of the world because they have nothing to fall back on if they can’t cut it as high-usage guys in the NBA.

…but oh boy, does he score. He projects as a good shooter and I actually think he’s a good finisher despite the meh 2PT%–his 2PT% took on a lot of water from ill-advised/role based long twos. His FG% around the rim was 64%, which was similar to Suggs’, and that was with only 21% of those looks being assisted.

He’s the kind of prospect I wouldn’t draft, but I’d be somewhat excited if we drafted. I think there’s a possibility he could be the #2 scorer on a contender and that is seldom found where we’re picking.

He could also be Malik Monk though. So there’s that.

I understand that Walt, Pistol Pete, the Big O, the Mailman and Wilt are all in negotiations with Leon Rose,

Kemba? Please. That would be the dumbest move ever.

I imagine that the Knicks may talk to Charlotte about Terry Rozier. The Hornets seem intent upon giving LaMelo Ball the starting PG role. Rozier is not going to be happy coming off of the bench in the last year of his contract.

The Hornets have a void at center. Mitchell Robinson for Terry Rozer would work under the salary cap, because both teams have a lot of cap space. Alternatively, there could be a three team deal with the Knicks contributing their two first round picks and Charlotte packaging them with their first round pick to get into the Top 3 to take Mobley.

I imagine that the Knicks may talk to Charlotte about Terry Rozier. The Hornets seem intent upon giving LaMelo Ball the starting PG role. Rozier is not going to be happy coming off of the bench in the last year of his contract.

I assume Rozier would just shift to SG. And Mitch’s contract is such a value deal I’d hate to lose it for Rozier.

CP3 smelled blood in the water and went for the kill… plus 26 assists and only 1 turnover so far in the series. I sure hate watching him dominate us, but as a neutral this is pure joy.

I do not know whether Denver could have beaten Phoenix with a healthy Jamal Murray. Without Murray, they are getting blown out each night.

This discussion made read a little bit about the Hornets. They definitely need a center, but I don’t know why they wouldn’t just make Noel an offer. It’s true Robinson is better, but I think the Knicks will want to keep the best center they have; and, Charlotte won’t want to give up Rozier just for the benefit of having Robinson instead of Noel.

StatMuse:
Chris Paul is the first player with 15 PTS, 15 AST, 0 TOV in a playoff game since… Chris Paul in 2014, who was the first player to do it since… Chris Paul in 2008.

Myles Turner, anyone? Maybe Mitch and pick #21?

I go back and forth on the Turner idea. He’s not cheap, and while he can shoot threes, he’s not a real floor spacer like a Brook Lopez. And while the block numbers are good, he doesn’t seem as disruptive on defense to me as a Capela type. We definitely need a stretch-5 on the roster to combat that kind of defense (or Thibs needs to be willing to play Randle and Obi together more), but Turner feels to me like a Plan C or D at best in this offseason.

It’s an ESPN article (i.e. pay wall) but Zach Lowe’s ode to Phoenix is pretty good:

https://www.espn.com/nba/insider/story/_/id/31592965/how-chris-paul-phoenix-suns-flummoxing-nba-league-most-complex-pick-roll

I’ll briefly summarize if you can’t open without taking anything away from the author’s work:

for anyone (like me!) who attributed too much of the Suns’ success to Paul: think again. Paul & Booker were atrocious together through 20 games but Monty Williams continued to work on the offense and force them to figure it out so it wouldn’t be a “my turn – your turn” set up, and in the end what they have running right now is pretty brilliant (as seen by the endless barrage of videos Lowe inserted of their unstoppable offense last night).

I really hope we get a Phoenix-Utah WCF. Small market be damned, that would be one hell of a series.

Dumbest move ever?

I’ll see your Kemba Walker and raise you one John Wall.

I don’t think consolidating picks signals anything.

we have many open roster spots… if it’s not going to one of our picks… it has to goto somebody … and unless we’re using it on an udfa or on a trade that brings excess players back… it’s either going to a vet on a one-year deal of some value… or a vet on a multi-year deal of some value….

the one-year deal thing worked out last year and the year before… but this year if we do the same it is likely squeezing a pick from our roster…

Knick fan not in NJ: This discussion made read a little bit about the Hornets. They definitely need a center, but I don’t know why they wouldn’t just make Noel an offer.

Nerlins Noel is bad at catching the ball near the rim, while Mitchell Robinson is elite at catching and finishing at the rim. LaMelo Ball has shown signs of being elite at creating rim runs. Pairing Robinson and LaMelo would unlock something special.

Myles Turner has been on and off the trading block for quite awhile. The Pacers may think he’s not a great fit with Sabonis, but I always found their willingness to move him as a red flag. I’d rather stick with Mitch.

I’m not worried about win curves much. IMO, that’s a wildly overrated concept to begin with.

If you have a choice you are always going to prefer someone a little younger that will grow with the team. But generally, win curves are only a factor when you are overpaying someone older. If you have an older player on an unmovable contract that’s a problem. If you have someone on a different win curve on a attractive contract, that’s every bit an asset as a draft pick. Marcus Morris was on a different win curve than the Knicks. How did that work out? I kind of liked that outcome.

What we want to do is keep improving the team while making sure all the players are on fair or attractive contracts. If they are, we can always move them later as part of a major deal that lands the star we need. If we are signing trash for one year because of win curves, they are still trash that no one will want in a deal. That’s not how you move forward towards the promised land.

We are not tanking anymore, Thank God we have good management and those hellish days are finally over.

Hasn’t Mitch been practicing shooting threes for years now? Maybe one day he’ll unleash it for all the world to see. That would be a game changer.

Mitch and our two 1sts for James Wiseman, would you guys do it? I would.

We only need 4 more guys and an Austin Rivers type placeholder if Vildoza doesn’t workout. Taj, Rose, Bullock and 1 draft pick can pretty much round out the rotation.

so what happens to the other 5 roster spots and/or what happens if anyone misses any time?

I’m not against Rozier as a player, but he’s not worth $19M / year. He was like top 12 in the league in terms of minutes / game for PGs last year and averaged 4 assists. I know he played some SG, but still. I would definitely not give up Mitch for him. Mitch is our only C under contract. unless Taj Gibson has an older brother we can sign, we would have no depth at all. You can resign Rose for 2 years, start him at PG and get Rozier’s offensive production for 1/2 the $$.

chriskZIPCODE: unless Taj Gibson has an older brother we can sign, we would have no depth at all.

Maybe you meant younger brother. I think Taj’s older brother would be too old to help us. 😛

If we let Mitch out of his 4th year option, what do y’all think it would take to sign him?

It’s hard to figure what a center like him is worth these days. I’d be cool with him at around 4 years & $48mm. Would he top that as an RFA?

Mitch’s best case scenario is to become someone like Capela, who signed that 5/90 deal with the Rockets, was shipped out of town or being too expensive, and has been a godsend in Atlanta. Mitch isn’t there yet, though, and it feels like the number of teams that can support an expensive center who doesn’t shoot are few and far between. So my answer, Hubert is… dunno?

Hubert: Mitch (…) I’d be cool with him at around 4 years & $48mm.

I don’t think Leon does this, because next offseason Mitch has a cap hold of 3.4M. If it was a real bargain, say 3/$18M or 4/$24M, that’s only 2.6M cap space less. But 8.6M less in cap space, i don’t think it’s in the Knicks best interests.

an rj barrett stan account: I’m going to pound the Mo Bamba table until he gets traded to the Celtics.

Why do you think the Magic would trade him? I didn’t read nothing about it, so i’m guessing he’s in their plan for the future (as it should be).

Hubert:
strat, the win curve just suggests when you should be willing to pay a premium for additional wins. It’s not about tanking, age, or any of that stuff.

Maybe I’m using the wrong term.

The consensus is often that you shouldn’t add an older player when the team is not going to be ready to contend for “X” number of years because that player will be too old to be a key part of the team by the time the rest of the team is ready. The preferred alternative is that you should try to add picks, take a flier on a young player, or at worst add a mercenary for 1 year to keep the cap space.

I don’t think we should exclude anything.

If you add a solid 30-31 year old player at a bargain price I don’t care if we are 3-4 years away from contention and he’ll be too old. That contract is worth a lot in a trade (see Marcus Morris) . That player is an asset every bit as much as a pick. Sometimes it’s more attractive to teams that are ready to win now like the Clippers. So forget about how far away we are from contention now. Just look at the market and add the best possible assets including good older players on attractive contracts. You can always trade players like that, flip them for a pick, and possibly even make them part of a deal for a star player.

The idea is to get better, make the team more attractive, and accumulate assets. Assets includes picks, space, and attractive contracts, not just picks and players all on the same timetable. IMO we want to get out of that tank/pick/slow rebuild mentality.

I think management is doing it right (for once). lol

Here’s the thing about using Capela as a benchmark, though: what would *he* get if he hit the market today? I feel like he might have been the Last of the Mohicans.

But djphan makes a good point: Jarrett Allen will tell the tale.

In theory, Mitch’s long term deal should be less if we tear up year 4 and sign him now. The only reason not to do that is if you think 2022 is going to be our year in free agency.

I mean, we need players but those are roster spots that have been taken up by the Frank’s, DSJRs, and Paytons of the world the past couple years, plus our 2-way slots. No good player is going to sign up for bench duty so it’s mostly filler.

that’s the point… we used to have those guys under contract and now we don’t… we also had iggy and whoever else was in the cheerlead squad… they were on the roster because we had contractual obligations to keep them there to see if they pan out… they didn’t and now they’re gone and need to be replaced by someone…

those roster spots could be used on worthwhile players… that we used them on worthless players doesn’t mean we should continue cycling in dregs… we just so happen to have a lot of draft picks to fill them with… are we really that good where we can assume taj and rose to keep it together for a full season and we’re ok even if they don’t?

the raptors.. nuggets and any other well managed team understand the value of roster slots and developing players to be ready to contribute to a high level team…. what’s the point of trading for draft picks if you don’t use them at a time when you need them?

Here’s the thing about using Capela as a benchmark, though: what would *he* get if he hit the market today? I feel like he might have been the Last of the Mohicans.

Less after people got to see what Embiid could do to him vs. what he did to the Knicks. lol

Seriously though, you can’t judge a guy because there happens to be a couple of bad matchups out there where he’s clearly the inferior player. Every night there are going to be different matchups and sometimes you’ll have the best of it and sometimes the worst of it at different positions. Capela is very good at what he does. He’s just not a star player. He’s a very strong complimentary piece. He’s not going to impact games almost every night.

strat, win curve isn’t about paths, and players don’t have win curves. Marcus Morris had a price. Our position on the win curve informs us if he’s worth the price. His price was low and he was a good asset, so he made sense.

There is a point on the win curve where it makes sense to pay a lot to acquire a player. When I say our win curve points to 2023, I mean now is not the time to shell out big contracts or trade picks for a star. But if we keep doing the things we’re doing, we should be there in 1 or 2 years.

Homecourt advantage seems to be a thing again

The Bucks suddenly stop playing,
Giannis with a lot of low I.Q. basketball.
Bud’s chair is wobbling…

Let’s sign Thanasis. That was awesome….

The Bucks offense sucks. This is embarrassing.

That was a crazy ass shot by Durant.

thenoblefacehumper:
Cam Thomas is an interesting prospect. I am fairly anti-Cam because he does literally nothing but score. It’s easy to see in both the numbers in the tape. He simply does not bring anything else to the table. I’ll always be hesitant about guys like that even if it occasionally leads me to be wrong about the Immanuels Quickley of the world because they have nothing to fall back on if they can’t cut it as high-usage guys in the NBA.

…but oh boy, does he score. He projects as a good shooter and I actually think he’s a good finisher despite the meh 2PT%–his 2PT% took on a lot of water from ill-advised/role based long twos. His FG% around the rim was 64%, which was similar to Suggs’, and that was with only 21% of those looks being assisted.

He’s the kind of prospect I wouldn’t draft, but I’d be somewhat excited if we drafted. I think there’s a possibility he could be the #2 scorer on a contender and that is seldom found where we’re picking.

He could also be Malik Monk though. So there’s that.

Concerned about everything you stated but I don’t care. Cam Thomas at least has the tools to be an average defender and other than Derrick Rose the team has 0 players with his skillset.

I would be happy rolling the dice with Dosonmu and Cam Thomas

Great take by Holiday

Bruce Brown drive, just like how Nash drew it up.

Hubert:
strat, win curve isn’t about paths, and players don’t have win curves. Marcus Morris had a price. Our position on the win curve informs us if he’s worth the price. His price was low and he was a good asset, so he made sense.

There is a point on the win curve where it makes sense to pay a lot to acquire a player. When I say our win curve points to 2023, I mean now is not the time to shell out big contracts or trade picks for a star. But if we keep doing the things we’re doing, we should be there in 1 or 2 years.

Again. I disagree.

You never know where the best values will be, but you should not exclude anything.

If you pay an attractive price for a player that makes the team better it doesn’t matter what stage your team is at, whether he’s a role player or starter, or whether he’s 22 or 32. He makes you better (and more attractive), can be traded for another player that fits a greater need, can be rolled up with other assets into even a better player, or can be traded for picks. He is an asset just like a pick or cap space. IMO you can’t be overly worried about the timing of the team’s growth, having everyone on same age curve and things like that. Just keep trying to improve your position in every way possible “depending on the market at that time”.

Brian Cronin:
What a beautiful move by Holiday!

I love Holiday. I think he may be the most underrated guard in the NBA. I thought that was a great move by the Bucks and a huge upgrade over Bledsoe. I’ve been a little disappointed in his performance in the playoffs so far. It was nice to see him come through with a huge basket. If he gets going the Bucks still have a chance to win this series. It’s not a bad matchup for them.

Why couldn’t we have drafted Donovan Mitchell? But at least we had 4 entertaining years of Frank discussion!

strat, it’s never a bad time to get a good player at a good price. The win curve suggests when it’s worthwhile to get a good player for a very high price. You feel me?

i missed bucks nets. how in hell did these two teams end up 86-83!? Did the Nets actually play great D or did the bucks just lay bricks?

Hubert: strat, it’s never a bad time to get a good player at a good price. The win curve suggests when it’s worthwhile to get a good player for a very high price. You feel me?

Yes, but are they winning trades? Developing talent? Identifying productive players? Establishing culture? All of these things that mean an awful lot but also mean absolutely nothing all at once?

I’ll do a Nomen est omen for some of the nemes that come up here:
Donavan-irish origin, dark chieftain, brown haired leader…no further comment needed
Bojan- slavic, Boj = Fight, fought Kawahi well on O and spectaculary on D ( my father in law is a Fihgter also, good dude)
Bogdan- slavic chritsian name having latin , and greek origins- Bog= God, dan= given…a long awaited child/threepointer

I love Jared Butler. Duarte is a guy who looks ready to play right now.

The Marcus Morris signing worked out, because:

1. It was a short term deal
2. He was good enough during his one year contract to be flipped for a draft pick
3. BECAUSE THE DRAFT PICK ENDED UP BEING A GUY WHO FIT IN WITH OUR WIN CURVE

The Marcus Morris trade worked because we signed a good player for an attractive price PERIOD. Had we signed him for longer we may have gotten even more for him!! The Clippers signed him right back for more money because he was WORTH more. That’s why teams wanted him.

Had we traded him for another player or two that were on even bigger bargain contracts that would have been fine also. We could have kept them, traded them, or rolled them up later also.

Maybe i declared the death of your “Kawhi plan” a little too soon, Alan. ;P

The Clippers signed him right back for more money because he was WORTH more.

Correct, and this is why whatever point you’re trying to make is really not a point at all. The Morris situation was incredibly unique–he signed for less than his market value in terms of both years and AAV.

No one has ever argued we shouldn’t sign good free agents at obvious discounts. The reaction to the Morris signing was actually positive from the people you’re pretending hated it, precisely because his contract made him valuable.

The obvious problem with thinking this is repeatable at scale is…most good players do not sign for less than their market value. Like, there’s an incredibly lucrative agency industry that exists largely to prevent this from happening. That’s why “just sign a bunch of good players to very team-friendly contracts” is not a sustainable path to contention, and why you always struggle to name specific examples of players with whom we can execute it.

So yeah, sign good players to team-friendly contracts whenever you can regardless of your place on the win curve. Those guys can be parlayed into future, non-marginal wins. Opportunities to do this are, again, incredibly rare and in the case of Morris required a slew of bizarre events to occur i.e. him reneging on a Spurs deal AND Reggie Bullock failing a physical. That’s why your calls to just do this a bunch of times are met with eye-rolls. There are a lot more Courtney Lee signings than Marcus Morris signings.

Both Dosunmu and Butler would be pretty good outcomes IMO. I’m a little worried that Butler couldn’t crack .500+ 2PT% until he was a junior, but he wasn’t underwater as an underclassmen and my useless eye-test based observation is he legitimately honed his finishing skills.

Anyone saying we should definitely trade up is just not following this draft very closely. After the top 5, there’s not much of difference in the players projected to go 6-20 or so. I’m personally high enough on Giddey to think it’s a more of a top 6, but the overall point stands. Barring an unforeseen incredible opportunity, we should make at least 3 picks. Springer, Christopher, and Thomas, just to take one random possibility, would be a much-needed and exciting talent infusion.

The one thing I will say regarding a trade-up is that I trust this front office to do it in a way I would not have with any iteration going back at least to Donnie Walsh, and maybe to Dave Checketts. Walt Perrin was in Utah when they traded up for both Donovan Mitchell and Deron Williams(*), so if he has a strong feeling about a prospect and convinces Leon to go for it…

(*) In hindsight, of course, the Jazz should have taken CP3, but Williams played really well for Utah, got them a good haul from the Nets, and only then turned into a pumpkin for reasons that sounded more personality-based than talent-based. And Portland would certainly rather have had Williams than the combination of Martell Webster, Linas Kleiza, and Joel Freeland.

Yeah Alan the key phrase you used was “trust this front office”

Rose and company have not made a single head scratching move thus far. And the one deal they made that had us all saying “WTF?” was the Rose trade and look how that turned out.

I’d be shocked if our front office made some “win now” move like signing a DeRozan. They’ve shown nothing but patience and competence this far. If they do indeed trade up in the draft I have confidence they have a really strong justification for it.

For me, all three depend primarily on the price. Other considerations are secondary.

Where we are now as a team is not fixed. It’s transitory.

No one disagrees with the banal proposition that price matters when evaluating the merits of a move. When people rule out hypothetical moves e.g. a Lillard trade or a CP3 signing, reasonable projections regarding price based on precedent are built into their opinion. They don’t think something like “we should trade for Lillard if the cost is Kevin Knox and a second” is even worth saying, and they’re correct.

I understand that bargains don’t fall from heaven like manna, but we signed Noel, Bullock, Burkes, Gibson and traded for Rose all in one year.

Bullock is another example of a weird sequence of events leading to a valuable contract, and as good as Noel and Taj were for us we wouldn’t sniff a first-rounder if we tried to trade them.

It’s unlikely we could’ve gotten one for Bullock and Burks even with both contracts representing obvious value (Morris came with size, versatility, and the ability to take on higher usage that those guys don’t have). We also didn’t sign Rose, we traded for him.

But again, you’re arguing against no one. People supported the Burks signing when it was made. People identified Bullock’s reduced contract as a potentially valuable asset when it was renegotiated. There is no one saying we should never sign any free agents above the age of 25 regardless of price.

What people do say is the draft tends to produce better value for teams in our place on the win curve, and that’s downright indisputable. There’s a reason you can name a lot of the free agent contracts that were flipped for good draft picks off the top of your head.

thenoblefacehumper: worried that Butler couldn’t crack .500+ 2PT% until he was a junior, but he wasn’t underwater as an underclassmen and my useless eye-test based observation is he legitimately honed his finishing skills.

Anyone saying we should definitely trade up is just not following this draft very closely. After the top 5, there’s not much of difference in the players projected to go 6-20 or so. I’m personally high enough on Giddey to think it’s a more of a top 6, but the overall point stands. Barring an unforeseen incredible opportunity, we should make at least 3 picks. Springer, Christopher, and Thomas, just to take one random possibility, would be a much-needed and exciting talent infusion.

This is certainly reasonable, but I have always felt that if you feel very strongly about a player who won’t be available at your draft slot, you are justified in trading up. For example, if you really like Giddy or Mitchell and the cost for one of them is the possibility of drafting both Butler and Duarte, it’s fine to do that. It really should depend on Leon’s faith in his own judgment after listening to his Team of Rivals. My guess is that he will hear persuasive arguments on both sides.

The other thing is whether either the guy you want or the trade to get him is even available. For example, if we targeted Doncic, what could we have offered the teams drafting in the top 3 to make a more appealing deal than what Cuban offered? In retrospect, would it have been worth a couple of future #1s to move up?

i would reserve judgement on the FO even tho the short term results were ok on their year 1 moves… there’s still plenty of reason to question the process on almost all of their decisions to the point where it’s still possible something really spazzy could happen…

i would reserve judgement on the FO even tho the short term results were ok on their year 1 moves… there’s still plenty of reason to question the process on almost all of their decisions to the point where it’s still possible something really spazzy could happen…

Agreed. It’s way too early to grade them. We don’t even know enough about them to reasonably predict what they might do this summer. How we manage our draft picks this year will tell us a great deal.

I highly doubt there’s a single POBO/GM in the league that doesn’t understand the concept of win curve.

bullock is more pure catch and shoot.. duarte has more tools in the shed as far as that goes… he’s more will barton in my eyes.. and will barton is really good(just so happens to be a FA fyi)….

where we are picking at 21 that’s absolutely really fine to pick…. especially if he really does get to will barton’s level.. you have a high level role player on a rookie scale deal through his entire peak….

from where we are trying to step up on the win curve we need to pick guys like this along with the high upside guys to round out the roster ….. veteran role players weigh pretty heavily on the cap because they are generally overpaid or at best correctly paid..

which is why you need to jam as many picks onto your roster as you can since otherwise you are cycling through 1-year deal dregs to fill roster spots…. or doling out expensive multiyear deals that have a high likelihood of turning into albatrosses…

from where we are in the win curve.. we should be taking some risk on veteran contracts… but the picks themselves should be providing the backbone of our roster still…

I highly doubt there’s a single POBO/GM in the league that doesn’t understand the concept of win curve.

This still doesn’t rule out the highly-plausible “strat is Phil Jackson” conspiracy theory.

Hubert:
When it comes to trusting the front office on packaging their picks to move up, don’t forget they tried really hard to package three good draft picks to move up to select Obi Toppin. The only reason it didn’t happen is because every team said no. So I would maybe hold off on trusting them if they turn around and try to package all their picks again.

Yeah, I would hold off on praise until they make some sort of major move. I’m not willing to trust these guys yet after a year in which they minorly fucked up the draft, signed a bunch of 1 year deals to reasonable contracts, and made one trade at the request of the coach.

I would say they’ve already earned praise, vincoug. But the level of trust we’re talking about here still needs to be earned. Last year’s draft was all over the map. I’d love to see a better process this year that reveals a coherent, long-term strategy.

The key here is that strat thinks we all want young players & draft picks because we’re obsessed with age. We actually want young players and draft picks because they have the best potential to outperform their contracts. Surplus value is the key, not age. If a 32 year old wants to play here for half of what he’s worth, we’d all sign up for that, too.

History on This Day: Knicks become first No. 8 seed to reach NBA Finals
On this day in 1999, Allan Houston and Latrell Sprewell combined to score 52 points to lead the New York Knicks to a series victory over the Indiana Pacers and advance to the NBA Finals.
https://therookiewire.usatoday.com/2021/06/11/nba-finals-eighth-seed-new-york-knicks/

Oh, the good times. 🙂 One of these days we’ll get back to the NBA Finals again. 😉

thenoblefacehumper: Again these are all banal, non-controversial opinions that don’t provide any insight as to the best way to build a contender. What do you think the results would be if there was a poll posted here that said “if the Knicks are able to identify players who can be signed for value-added contracts, should they sign those players?”

In and of themselves, they are banal and non-controversial indeed. But When presented in the context of “doing whatever Rose & Co. did” vs. “doing whatever avoids marginal wins at the expense of draft position” crowd were adament about, it becomes much more meaningful and contentious. Strat’s point has been that you can build a sustainably good team AND chase wins at the same time. Clearly, winning 41 games (including going 16-4 to close out the season) did not improve our draft position, and caused us to miss out on the top of this loaded draft. But on the other hand, now you’re looking to sign the next Christian Wood or Bogdan Bogdanovic, but because a player like that can get you from 41 wins to 50 wins, or can be packaged for a star in his prime without decimating the team. Or maybe Vildoza give you a positive jolt at a bargain price rather than being signed by BOS or PHI or MIA. Or Kawhi renounces and signs with us as a UFA next year instead of LAL or ATL.

And that’s what’s getting glossed over in the dismissiveness towards strat. He has been consistent in saying that the route that Rose has chosen (and executed 1000X better than Phil thus far, sorry strat) is not only a plausable route to building a sustainable contender, but preferable one. And for now, he seems more right than wrong….just not about Phil.

Speaking of Amare I said hi to him a few hours ago-he apparently owns a cattle ranch that has a stand at the union square farmer’s market and he was there today. He looks like he could still play

Hahahahahah DRed for GM

Great tennis match on right now.

Nadal vs. Djokovic

Tennis Channel.

The Honorable Cock Jowles:
I’m out working right now and missing probably the best tennis match of the year. Clay is just so much more interesting than hard court. It almost looks like tennis, instead of just a serve contest.

I totally agree. Djokovic came back to win in 4 sets after losing the first. Nadal’s loss drops his record at the French Open to 105 victories and only 3 defeats. Incredible!

I really hope Embiid stays healthy for the remainder of these playoffs. When he’s healthy and in shape he’s a throwback beast. Just keep him in the paint!

I really love the player Trae Young is turning into on offense also. I just have to look away when he’s on defense.

Generally speaking, I think that some here are vastly underestimating the difficulty of doing what the Knicks FO did since taking over for Steve Mills.

I’m pretty convinced most people here are so shell shocked from years of incompetency it’s hard to imagine it’s actually possible to get good deals in free agency, make good trades, and develop young players.

Joel Embiid’s improved conditioning is a huge part of his improvement this season. In prior years, he would dominate for the first 6 minutes of the game, until he got winded. Once he was fatigued, Embiid would settle for jump shots instead of going into the low post.

Likewise, Julius Randle’s improved conditioning was a huge part of his improvement this year. He was able to play 38 minutes mpg, while carrying the offense and being a very strong defensive rebounder.

The biggest conditioning story, of course, is Nikola Jokic. When Jokic came into the league, he could not run up and down the court more than five times without losing his wind. Now, he is the reigning MVP.

The flip side is the saga of Eddy Curry. Curry had the skills to be a dominant low post scorer. For whatever reason (and he apparently struggled with mental health issues), Curry could not stay in shape. He basically ate his way out of the league.

geo: you have to imagine, at some point Doncic will get it…at that point he may be able to pull a lebron and make it to the finals with whatever roster is in place…

  

As Jokic has demonstrated, it is not about being cut like Giannis. It is about building the stamina to perofrm at a high level for 36+ mpg.

I don’t know how you are talking about conditioning and not talking about Hubie Brown

ephus:
Does anyone else think that Ayton looks like a 7/8 size version of Embiid?

I honestly think he’s really, really fucking good. I think people have chalked up everything good that’s happening in Phoenix to the CP3 effect, and while that is partially true, there’s been a lot of internal improvement as well. Ayton and Bridges specially have become really valuable players by themselves, and obviously really valuable pieces in a Chris Paul team in the process.

Simmons is so good on defense that he is actually able to dig on the post player and recover to Trae Young without giving Young a free drive to the rim.

the seth curry trade was one of the best deals of the season….

deandre hunter wouldn’t affect the series.. he’s just one in a long line of guys who depends on trae for most of his points.. this is just the sixers putting the clamps on… and if embiid is healthy they might be the best team in the league….

Sixers lost the first game just to make Knicks fans feel better about losing to this utterly mediocre Hawks team.

Hawks are not mediocre. They are maybe not a championship team but they are very good.

djphan:
simmons isn’t exactly a threat from the perimeter.. he was getting buckets because atlanta as a team decided to take a break for the 3rd quarter…

Respectfully disagree. Simmons is shooting 80% at the rim (0-3 feet) in this year’s playoffs. That is elite finishing. He cannot shoot from outside 3 feet and won’t shoot from outside 10 feet, but his layups and baby hooks are strong weapons.

campazzo/rivers starting backcourt is problematic if you are trying to get to the conference finals…not sure why malone thinks that will work in this series

Bridges and Porter Jr. playing for the title of who we’re angrier about having drafted Knox over.

It’s really too bad the Amish don’t watch television; I’m pretty sure who their favorite player would be.

Z-man: Your definition of mediocre is piss poor. Compared to what? Elite playoff teams? Or the 30 teams in the NBA? The are legitimately a top 8 team in the league. If you think that’s mediocre, your analysis is mediocre.

My definition of mediocre is a team who’s never, ever, getting even close to winning a title. The 8h best team in the league can absolutely be mediocre if the gulf between the actual top teams, the real contenders, and the middle of the pack teams, like the Hawks, is big enough, and that’s assuming they’re even the 8th best team in the league. Do you really think they’re better than the fully healthy Lakers or even the Celtics? Are they better than the Warriors with Thompson back, or better than the Mavs or Blazers? They were a ~2 SRS team during the regular season which is miles behind the elite teams like the Jazz, Nets, Bucks, Sixers, Suns etc, they’re closer to Memphis or GSW than they are to the Sixers or Suns.

If you think being a top 10 team in the league means you’re a good team, then fine, I guess they are good, I just don’t get very excited about a middle of the pack playoff team.

Teams that have not won a NBA Championship since 1970:

1. Brooklyn
2. Indiana
3. Charlotte
4. Atlanta
5. Orlando
6. Minnesota
7. Memphis
8. New Orleans
9. Oklahoma City (not giving them credit for the Sonics)
10. Clippers
11. Utah
12. Phoenix
13. Denver
14. Sacramento

Teams that have not made the Finals since 1970.

1. Charlotte
2. Atlanta
3. Minnesota
4. Memphis
5. New Orleans
6. Clippers
7. Denver
8. Sacramento

Teams that have not made Conference Finals since 1970

1. Charlotte
2. Atlanta
3. Minnesota
4. New Orleans
5. Clippers

The high water mark for the Hawks since they moved from St. Louis was the 1988 playoffs, where they lost to Boston in a great Game 7 where ‘Nique and Bird went head-to-head.

In a 30 team league, “mediocre” would be the 10-20 ranked teams, which the Hawks were for the season; however, they were much better in the 2nd half, a span of which they were definitely not mediocre. Which team is the real Hawks? Probably the latter, which is the healthy and stable version. But, that said, if we are grading teams based only on their healthy and most stable, they may slip back to mediocre, as there are a bunch of rosters that you’d probably prefer under perfect conditions.

First Bruno, sorry for the tone, it was definitely unwarranted. I still disagree, though, and think calling them mediocre is unnecessarily harsh. I’d classify the Knicks as mediocre and Atlanta as good and promising…in the same group as, say, the Heat. They have an excellent young core in Young, Hunter, Collins, Okongwu and Huerter. They have Capela and Bogdan locked up on value deals. Their only bad contract is Gallo, and it’s not terrible. There’s not a gaping chasm between them and, say, the Suns or the Nuggets. They have some big decisions this offseason and beyond, but just by continued improvement of the young core and better injury lock they should be a team to reckon with in thr EC for years to come.

ephus, if your point is that ATL’s history as a franchise is mediocre, that might actually be too kind! But I would gladly switch our roster for theirs right now.

Now this feels like offseason, when the best topic is to define what is mediocre. LOL

For me mediocre team means
Boring game
No potential
No fire No desire
Hawks just eliminated us and many here applaud them and wouldn’t mind watching them succeed

Mediocre means neither-here-nor-there. It’s negative connotation is subjective. It comes from the Latin *mediocris*, which means *of medium size, moderate, middling, commonplace”*; i.e. “halfway to the top”.

In NBA terms, it is the teams competing for the playoffs, not for the title.

bidiong the not so great:
Just swap mediocre with average and relax everyone. 🙂

Yeah, but how do you define “average?”
🙂

They are in the conference semi’s and only down 2-1 to the team with the best record in the East. That’s not average. That’s very good, but not a true contender. The Hawks are solidly in the second tier of NBA teams. Here is how I would break down the league right now:

First tier (contenders) PHI, BKN, UTA, PHX, MIL and LAC.

Second tier (not contenders but close, maybe a player or 2 away) ATL, LAL, POR, DEN, DAL, MIA, and maybe GSW and BOS, (some have players recovering from injury, like DEN and GSW, who can put them in the top tier without roster moves.)

Tier 3 (not anywhere near contenders, no clear path to building a contender but with some positive attributes): NYK, TOR, MEM, CHA, WAS, SAS, IND, NOP, maybe CHI. These teams could be on the rise (NYK, CHI or on the decline (WAS, TOR) so it’s really more about direction.

Tier 4: the horrifically mismanaged and/or rebuilding teams who are likely lottery-bound (on paper) for the next couple of years: ORL, CLE, DET, MIN, HOU, OKC, SAC.

To me, the tier 3 teams are mediocre.

Totes McGoats as Totes McGoats: 1. Renounce Ntilikina, Burks, 6, and Bullock

Haha, had a hard time trying to remember who 6 was. I guess i already erased him from my memories of this season.

Totes McGoats as Totes McGoats:
Would anyone be opposed to this offseason plan?:
1. Renounce Ntilikina, Burks, 6, and Bullock
2. Re-sign Rose, Noel, and Taj
3. Trade Knox and both of our 2nds to move back into the 1st round and add 3 1st round talents to build for the rotation
4. Sign Graham and Otto Porter in free agency

I like Devonte Graham, but i don’t like Otto Porter, so i’d be opposed to this plan, yeah. Anyway, just for the fun of it, tell us what money would you pay those guys and for how long.

Also i think you’re missing the starter SG, as with your plan i come up with this team:
D.GRAHAM + *DRose + Vildoza
??? + Quickley + 1RP
Barrett + O.PORTER + 1RP
Julius + Obi + 1RP
Mitch + *Noel + *Taj
(caps – new players, asterisk – guys to re-sign)

Totes and Cybersoze, two concerns there. First, while I once had a crush on Otto, I don’t anymore. Not sure what happened, obviously injuries, but he’s not the player he was. So I’d pass. Second, you’ve lost really important fire power by dumping both Bullock and Burks. They’re both streaky, but they both repeatedly kept us in games throughout the season. Unless you replaced ??? with a real scorer, I think you’ve gone backwards with that team.

If the price was right you could bring both back and slot them into Porter and ??? in whatever way you want (since both of them and Barrett are all basically the same size). It’s only adding a starting point guard and some rookies (while getting rid of some debris, and hopefully having a healthy Mitch), but I’d be willing to ride with that.

If you can find a hotshot scorer for ???, that’s even better (although I’d still try to keep one of Bullock or Burks instead of Porter). I don’t know who that’d be though.

Z-man: I’m guessing that Frank gets offered a better-than-minimum deal somewhere and that we don’t match.

I would be surprised if Frank gets a Qualifying Offer, which would essentially give him a 1 year/$7M guaranteed contract with a no-trade clause, for fear that he would accept it. Without a Qualifying Offer, the Knicks would not have matching rights on Frank.

Furkan Korkmaz is a unrestricted free agent. I would rather him than Burks at the same price, because of his ability to hit the 3 on the move.

cybersoze: I like Devonte Graham, but i don’t like Otto Porter, so i’d be opposed to this plan, yeah. Anyway, just for the fun of it, tell us what money would you pay those guys and for how long.

Also i think you’re missing the starter SG, as with your plan i come up with this team:
D.GRAHAM + *DRose + Vildoza
??? + Quickley + 1RP
Barrett + O.PORTER + 1RP
Julius + Obi + 1RP
Mitch + *Noel + *Taj
(caps – new players, asterisk – guys to re-sign)

Honestly I don’t know what numbers I’d give them. But if Porter’s healthy, he replaces Bullock easy but adds more rebounding and playmaking. But given his injury history, I wouldn’t give him much more than 6-8m a year probably. Healthy, I’m starting him at SF and moving RJ back to G. I think Quickley is in line for a bigger role next season so I’m not so worried about letting Burks go- as long as one of the rookies plays SF and can shoot.

I’ve heard alot of talk about foin for a big fish this offseason, but I’m not sure any of those “big fish” are worth it this offseason outside of CP3.

I really liked Otto Porter Jr when he was with the Wiz but his career seems to have been ruined by injury. But sure, for 8 million I’d give him a shot.

Roster spots are an important resource and it’s worth asking if we’d even think of giving one to Frank Ntilikina if he had the same exact body of work these past four years but for another team. I think the endowment effect is afoot.

If we don’t keep Frank we’ll need somebody else to perform the “come in for one possession at the end of the half and let the guy with the ball blow by me” role

Elfrid Payton should be pretty cheap this year

Yeah, you guys are right, it’s not going to be easy to re-sign the band. They played well, some team will give them the dollars. Maybe keep the plan to give 1-year contracts, or even better 1+1 team option, either to them or to similar players.
If we must choose, the guys i’d keep are DRose, Reggie and Taj.

ephus: Furkan Korkmaz is a unrestricted free agent.I would rather him than Burks at the same price, because of his ability to hit the 3 on the move.

Korkmaz is in fact a great idea, i don’t think he’ll be expensive, he’s very good for a backup, and he’s only 23. I thought he was older, like 26 or something.

thenoblefacehumper: The summer of 2022 is pretty much the deadline for us to spend our cap space, assuming we re-sign Randle (seems like a safe assumption, if not a guarantee). Randle’s cap hold will likely be smaller than his AAV and Mitch’s cap hold will be minimal assuming we pick up his 4th year option.

I’m starting to disagree with the Julius max next year, might be an overpay. The best case scenario for the Knicks is to offer him the max-extension, and he accepts it. He’ll be on the books for less money than the aforementioned cap hold, and it’ll extend the deadline to spend the cap space to 2023 (when RJ is going to get paid).

thenoblefacehumper: pie-in-the-sky options like Curry/Butler/Harden/Kyrie/KD

I don’t think Jimmy is a pie-in-the-sky option, because if the Heat have another disappointing season like this one, he might opt-out and come play with his old friends, Thibs, DRose and Taj.

Totes McGoats as Totes McGoats: 3. Trade Knox and both of our 2nds to move back into the 1st round and add 3 1st round talents to build for the rotation

I’m thinking about this, because it’s a great idea. Would the Rockets accept that package for pick 24th?

I can’t imagine anyone giving up anything of value for That Particular Player

bidiong the not so great: Sold!

And it’s another one for the All-Name team… Vrenz Bleijenbergh! 😀

cybersoze: And it’s another one for the All-Name team… Vrenz Bleijenbergh! 😀

He’s on a shooting Vrenzy tonight!

backtracking a bit – bruno, you pretty much had me convinced the hawks were a mediocre (not nearly championship level team) until dear donnie dropped this gem:

In a 30 team league, “mediocre” would be the 10-20 ranked teams

ugh, so hard to argue with logic…

you do though get the award for the funniest comment of the off-season:

I really didn’t understand why you were so angry

your unbridled optimism warms my heart…

cybersoze:
Can we draft this guy with the 58th pick? He was born in Belgium, like Frank, and is called unicorn, like KP. We’d have 4 years to talk about him, hopefully with a better end result than Frank/KP.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToRQmA9bBz4

I like him too..I’m not so sure he’s there at 58 though. We may have to take him at 32 if we want him as a project. Hell, he may even somehow rise to the end of round 1

in line with our off-season theme:

so I’ve been absolutely obsessed with wwe’s lost treasures show…I was never much more than a casual pro wrestling man, but, stayed aware of it pretty well from’75 to ’95…

the show is really bringing back a lot of memories from that period in time…

I’ve mentioned it before but one of my favorite sports movies is the wrestler…

ps4 recently put wwe 2k20 on sale for $15, so the kids have been playing at pro wrestling like crazy the last day since we downloaded it…

I shall make my ring debut tonight and try not to get crushed too hard by the kids…

I think it is definitely NOT too early to grade them on last year. They made plenty of moves consistent with a chosen strategy and seem to execute that strategy brilliantly. Rose is probably in the running for executive of the year. Any fair-minded analysis would give them an A (or A- or A+) for what the FO has done thus far.

Now, does that mean that the job is done? Of course not. Might they totally screw up going forward? Absolutely! Was going with the “win now but build for the future plan” the best choice? It’s a fair debate. Was there some good luck involved? Probably, but that’s true for all winning organizations.

+100
Two things in this regard:
1. The book on the Obi pick is not yet finished. We still may have been better off w/Hali, but the way Obi closed the regular season and playoffs with playing competent minutes makes me think there’s more under the hood.

2. I brought up a while back that many of us did not calculate or anticipate the positive effect of a FO and coaching staff that establishes a good foundation of culture for their players, a culture of hard work and development (who knew?!) While it ultimately wasn’t enough to overcome a overall lack of talent (which we all knew was gonna bite them sooner or later in the playoffs), it’s one part of the equation that can be carried over and built upon whenever the team does look to improve the talent base.

The culture of any kind of organized group of people goes a long way in developing an identity. Leon Rose & Co have begun to build the type of culture that can – dare I say – distance itself from the team’s owner and their recent past. An identity that has begun to move the organization away from the #lolKnicks days. I’d say that’s worth at least a lottery pick…

Mitchell just hobbled off

Donnie Walsh: it was fun to be out and at an arena again (…) But, to be honest, it felt kind of like a regular season Clippers game but with clean toilets

Yeah, that’s all cool and stuff, but about what’s really important.. did you start the chant “Kawhi, please come to the Knicks” or what? 😀

Totes McGoats as Totes McGoats:
You know what? I just thought about something. Maybe it’s because of my biased hopes for the kid, but I think Ntikikina’s corner 3 is real. Would it be so bad if we retain him and pencil him in as the Bullock replacement at the 2?

Stop making sense. That’s not allowed here.

Bullock is the type of player Frank should be trying to model himself after now. He can try to expand his offense a bit later. He’s still very young. He had no role this year because we have Bullock in a 3&D role now. Bullock is the more consistent and experienced. Our overall lack of firepower on offense kept Frank out of most other lineups.

If we sign Bullock back, then Frank will probably move someplace like Detroit, Dallas, Orlando etc.. that’s either rebuilding or could use some defense. But if we allow Bullock to leave because he costs too much or we upgrade that position, Frank would be a very cheap alternative off the bench in the 3&D role. And you correct. his current normalized 3p% is hard to know because even though he shot great this year the sample is too small. It’s hard to know how much was noise, improvement, better shot selection etc.. However, he’s pretty good from the corner for his career. So that’s likely real.

Everybody needs to promise they won’t continue to talk about [redacted] when he’s a solid 8th man for a European team or the 15th man for the Pistons or whatever

thenoblefacehumper:
Everybody needs to promise they won’t continue to talk about [redacted] when he’s a solid 8th man for a European team or the 15th man for the Pistons or whatever

Depends on the nature of “whatever.” If Frank goes on to be a decent rotation player on an NBA team, get ready for a decade of “I told you so!”

You know what? I just thought about something. Maybe it’s because of my biased hopes for the kid, but I think Ntikikina’s corner 3 is real.

Since we’re putting faith in teeny tiny sample sizes, is Frank’s .194 shooting percentage from 2pt also real? Because that’s what Frenchy shot from 2pt this year.

We really talking about Frank?

Would it be Knickerblogger if we weren’t talking about Frank? I may be misremembering, but I could have sworn we were discussing Frank even back in the Donnie Walsh era.

I wouldn’t be shocked if IQ, Frank, RJ, Knox and Obi share the knicks court together next season.

Knew Your Nicks:
I wouldn’t be shocked if IQ, Frank, RJ, Knox and Obi share the knicks court together next season.

I would put the odds at 10,000-1 against it…

wow, 425 and counting 🙂

Kyrie just got injured landing on Giannis’s foot. It looks like a high ankle sprain. Doesn’t look good.

Almost all players on bucks nets can shoot 3s
3 looks like the new D
If not “3 wins Chips” from now on then definitely “3&D wins them”

If the Bucks win this series it should have a huge asterisk next to it like Toronto’s championship

***If the Bucks win this series it should have a huge asterisk next to it like Toronto’s championship***

There’s no asterisk on Toronto’s trophy. They won it fair and square with nothing controversial about it.

That said, crippling injuries to Durant and Thompson (both of whom played 78 games and 2700 minutes that season) was a lot more surprising than Harden (who was injured all year) and Irving (who is hardly ever healthy) going down. This is what happens when you trade your depth for one guy. Why should opponents be penalized with an asterisk for the Nets risky business model?

The Nets fucked up by only signing 3 superstars

I’m very sorry for the nets injuries
#GTFOH#

Can you imagine Thibs doing a five-man mass substitution down only 15 with 4:28 left in a regular season game, much less a playoff game?

Fuck, this garbage time reminds me that we have lost games to Alize Johnson and Reggie Perry…

And KD is master in fucking nba’s competition:
There goes the vulgar Trae-chant perfectly:

FUCK KD!

Injuries are part of the game and history is full of unfortunate situations.
Just in the last few years:

Lakers won the 2020 Finals with Dragic and Adebajo injured,
Toronto won the 2019 Finals with Durant and Thompson injured,
Warriors won the 2015 Finals with Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving injured.

And one can go down in the past and find many other examples (in the Finals or in earlier rounds).

No astericks needed.

Oh, one last thing before I forget: fuck the Nets.

The ONLY entertaining things about these soulless superteams is when they lose.

Of all the teams remaining in the playoffs, the only team I am actively rooting against is the Nets.

The Nets when they were all healthy were pretty amazing, that would have been a fun team to watch. They never played together enough to irritate me. Maybe next year.

d-mar: Well maybe not the Clippers because Ballmer is a bit of a blowhard, and if Playoff P continues to be non-Robin to Kawhi’s Batman maybe Kawhi will bolt.

Kawhi leaving the Clippers is a high-risk/high-reward proposition. If he were to leave, Miami would have the cap space to make him a 35% Max offer (they would have to decline the options on Dragic and Iguodala and renounce their Bird rights on Ariza, Bjelica, Nunn and Robinson (the last one would hurt)). I do not know whether Kawhi would pick New York over playing with Butler and Adebayo.

If Kawhi went to Miami, they would clearly move into the top echelon of teams in the East. There would be four Eastern Conference teams that would be much more talented than the Knicks, with Atlanta and Boston at the same level.

If Curry and Draymond Green couldn’t lead the Warriors to one win against the Lakers or the Grizzlies, I don’t see how Durant and Jeff Green can lead the Nets to many playoff wins going forward. Especially not 2 of 3 against the Bucks, 4 of 7 against the Sixers, and 4 of 7 against whatever team survives the west. But, yes, hell of a story line if that happens.

Bogdanovic promoting Greek generosity and special effects yesterday:

“In the NBA you’re not getting hit by coins or lighters when you shoot free throws, they are not going to put the lasers in your eyes. Like in Panathinaikos’ (arena), I remember this, the green laser. It’s super tough to shoot like that! Now I know, I don’t have (to deal with this). It’s all about confidence, it’s mental”, explained the Hawks star.

I’d love to see the Nets and Clippers in the finals simply because I love watching the world burn. I think the overreactions from people about players like KD, Irving, George etc are hilarious and it would keep me fed on entertainment for weeks on end.

But my personal choice would be anything between Suns / Jazz vs Sixers, also to watch the anti-process people have a meltdown (and the Jazz and Suns are simply playing beautiful basketball).

JaVale Gervin!

Serious basketball fans understand the greatness of Chris Paul, but sometimes I think he’s still underrated. I’m not sure the Suns have enough firepower to win it all, but it would be nice to see CP3 hoist the trophy.

That’s all I got.

That’s enough

This has been the first time a Chris Paul team swept anyone in the playoffs. He’s simply never had real quality teams around him, and when he did he got injured himself. With the Nets injuries the title is wide open and I like the Suns’ chances, they match up very well against Utah and I think they have a very good chance against any team that’s not the fully healthy Nets. Their defense is legitimately good, Ayton is playing like a star and so is Booker. It all really hinges on CP3’s health, but they’ll have a week to rest and prepare.

Re: the draft, I think this FO is going to do everything they can to trade up. A top-10 pick is more valuable in a trade than a few “late firsts” regardless of how the talent shakes out in the draft.
You never know who is high or nonexistent on another team’s draft board, so moving up can always benefit the team.
We could move up to 13 or so with our two picks, but then a package with that 13 could jump us up even higher (although top-5 seems unlikely).
Remember, they have an extra Dallas pick and our own picks to sweeten a deal, plus some tantalizing rookies. Maybe this maneuvering gets them Giddey in the end or even a real #2 option (Ingram, Fox, etc.) It’s very hard to tell yet, but jockeying for better position always helps your trade odds.

Max:
I know, it’s not “Three or Rim”, so it’s not modern, efficient and smart,
but CP3’s display of pull-up midrange jumpers was a thing of beauty…

I’d like IQ to work on that kinda shot.

It will continue to be sad to me that CP3’s midrange game is an outlier in today’s NBA. That’s the game I grew up with. Although you could make the argument that plodding C’s posting up a billion times a game was also ugly, there has to me a middle ground somewhere. I still think that the most beautiful basketball ever played was the ’80s Celts and Lakers, and the mid-2010s Spurs. The NBA should consider rules changes to encourage that kind of basketball.

I can’t imagine him leaving Phoenix if they win the championship.

The other way of looking at the Phoenix situation is that he has given them a championship, and also finally won one himself. So there’s no guilt if he leaves, and he can check one or two more items off his career bucket list by playing in New York and for his buddy Leon.

I am not expecting it, either, especially given that his family is in LA. But to me it feels more like there’s a tiny chance of him leaving if Phoenix wins the title, and zero chance if that ascendant team still has unfinished business after the playoffs.

Was already rooting for CP3 to win a ring. I guess we’re all collectively doing the same.

Though he’s so damn competitive I could see him wanting to go for a repeat with that same Suns squad.

I really think if CP3 preferred being in NYC to Phoenix he could’ve made it happen pretty easily last offseason – stars are generally pretty good at getting traded to the team they want to be traded to and that’s even when they don’t have a personal connection with the POBO of the team they’re trying to get dealt to. He seemed pretty happy to be there and that was before being validated by all the success on the court. Seems like a longshot.

If you’re elite at this shot, to the point where you can expect to score more than shooting 3s, by all means take as many as you want.

It’s also worth saying about the Suns offense that a huge part of the story of their efficient midrange scoring is the pressure they’re putting on the rim via Ayton’s interior threat, and on the 3-point line with Bridges, Crowder, Booker, Payne, etc. Even CP3 himself I think would tell you that when he runs a PnR with Ayton he’s looking for the roll man first (rim), the wide open man in the corner second (3s) but with the knowledge that if the team plays a drop and doesn’t help from the corners he’s going to walk into FT line jumpers all day and that’s a great shot for him.

Great offense is about having a theory of how you want to get really efficient shots and then having counters if the defense takes away your primary options that while maybe not quite as efficient as the primary options are still effective. The Suns, like many teams, use the midrange as a really effective counter when defenses try to take away everything else from them in the pick and roll game, but they also are always hunting for even better stuff despite CP3 being one of the best midrange shooters alive.

The Honorable Cock Jowles:
His kids still go to school in LA. He’s not moving to the East Coast unless it’s for another huge contract.

Maybe he’ll move East to evade his impersonator in those State Farm commercials?

To equal a 3 pt shooter averaging 36%, a 2-pt shooter has to average 54%. Chris Paul averaged 54% this year. (Booker averaged 54.2%). Paul is at .509 for his career.

I do still love the mid-range game, regardless of math.

DudeInKnicksTown:
I’d consider locking up Frank on a deal similar to what we did with Mitch, say 5 years for $15 million. We’d probably be very happy with this contract a year or two from now.

I’m down with this

midrange shots aren’t inherently inefficient…. just like long touchdown bombs are probably the most efficent plays in football…. you can’t just bomb it down the field every single time… neither can you hit homeruns every single time you’re at bat….

the defense will take away the most efficient shots you can generate some to most of the time… they won’t just let you waltz to the paint and lay it in every single time… neither are they going to send you to the line or give up a wide open 3…. so there’s going to be a certain large percentage of shots that you need to take that’s in between the rim and 3pt area… and it’s usually the majority of the shots since you have to go up against a defense that takes everything else away….

if you hit those really really well then you’re a significant step up from your competition… and that’s a big chunk of the value of stars that can generate efficient shots from anywhere….. and that’s why they are so valuable in the playoffs where defenses get tighter and they take away most of the things you like to do…. where it doesn’t make sense is when you settle for those 18 ft’ers early in the shotclock against bad defenses in the regular season… that’s where those type of shots really suck….

so the calculus on a midrange shot shouldn’t be compared directly to a 3pt shot… it should be compared to the type of shots you give up to the opposition and how often they hit them..

In mid-April, during the final minute of a home defeat to the New York Knicks, Voulgaris was seen on the game’s broadcast footage standing up and leaving with about 45 seconds remaining. While the Mavericks were trailing by 10 points at the time, they cut the deficit to six and extended the game seven more possessions before eventually losing.

I just want to use this awful paragraph to promote the Elam Ending

so the calculus on a midrange shot shouldn’t be compared directly to a 3pt shot… it should be compared to the type of shots you give up to the opposition and how often they hit them..

I absolutely 100% agree.

You tend to play the best teams with the best defenses in the playoffs. Those defenses are trying to take away all the things you do very efficiently. They are more focused on what you are doing well and make adjustments. “X” of the time you are going to have to take a mid range shot. If you have players that are very good from there it will help the overall efficiency of the team even if in theory you’d rather have a shot at the rim or take a corner 3. What you want in theory does not always equal what you can get. Finally, I think some players simply get tight under extreme playoff pressure. The basket shrinks for those guys as you extend out to the 3 point line. Some even get tight from the FT line. The closer you get, the less that pressure seems to hurt. IMO the math kind of changes under extreme pressure.

I still think that the most beautiful basketball ever played was the ’80s Celts and Lakers, and the mid-
2010s Spurs. The NBA should consider rules changes to encourage that kind of basketball.

That was some great basketball. So was Walton’s Blazers and the Clyde’s Knicks.

The Spurs team that beat the Heat was insanely beautiful to watch.

“so the calculus on a midrange shot shouldn’t be compared directly to a 3pt shot… it should be compared to the type of shots you give up to the opposition and how often they hit them..”

Agree with this, too. Just considering what a good 2-pt-shooter looks like.

When glancing at the list for 2021, of course most of the high-end guys were monster dunkers, but two that stood out were our very own Dougie McBuckets at 64.1% (remember all those back-door cuts for layups back in the day…) and Duncan Robinson at 62.3%. Both Bridges are on the list, Mikal at 63.7 for 8th and Miles at 22 with 59.8%.

I’m trying to find a news story actually worth a new post and I was at the NY Post and there’s a headline about Kevin Hart trashing “cancel culture” and I just adore the idea of being, like, “What does Kevin Hart think about ‘cancel culture’? I must know!”

Barrettcuda:
Rubbing my hands together in a “Good, Good!” motion hearing about the disarray in the Mavericks FO.

As Philly has shown, a FO can be in a complete shambles and still put a successful team on the court. The key is having a Superstar like Doncic or Embiid.

Actually, a Frank thread wouldn’t be a terrible idea. I mean, it’s a terrible idea in some ways, but you know what I mean, so that’s what I’ll do.

JK47: Things I’d rather do than give Frank Ntilikina a five year contract:

1. Try to talk Mardy Collins out of retirement
2. Convert Taj Gibson to point guard
3. Staple a slice of provolone cheese to my ass
4. Eat a durian pie
5. Cut off 1.5 of my thumbs
6. Work for a year as James Dolan’s guitar tech

So you agree with me, don’t you? 🙂

I mean, take away two of the three best players of any team and I would agree that they’d probably lose. Imagine the 1991 Bulls trying to win with BJ Armstrong, John Paxson, Scottie Pippen, Stacey King and Bill Cartwright.

And the weird thing for me is that the one guy they have left uninjured is the only one who doesn’t have experience playing without the other two. Both Kyrie and Harden were used to playing without KD and each other, but he’s not used to playing without them.

I like the Nets’ chances tomorrow in Brooklyn (and I do not like the Nets) — even without Irving or Harden. Here are the key moves I expect Nash to employ.

1. Limit Giannis’ fast break opportunities by getting back on defense and building the wall after every missed shot.
2. Very physical defense, daring the refs to call fouls.
3. If the refs call fouls and put Milwaukee into the bonus with more than 2 minutes left in any quarter, the return of Hack-A-Giannis. He is hitting well under 50% of his free throws.
4. KD as the ball handler on pick-and-roll or pick-and-pop plays with Blake Griffin and Joe Harris.
5. Lots of no PG looks, with Harris/Shamet/Green/Blake/KD. Shamet will defend PJ Tucker and dare the Bucks to run the offense through Tucker in the post.