The Athletic: Knicks Planning on Packaging Their Two First Rounders to Move Up in the Draft

breaking down the quote…

If the knicks are trying to move up from 19 & 21 to, say, 14… I would imagine it’s very likely another team would take that trade.

He’s saying it’s unlikely anyone will take their offer, though, so it probably means they’re trying to trade up to the top 8 or something.

From the last thread:

Ben R: I would sign Shane Larkin. I banged the drum for him last year and I still think he would be a great pickup.

I’m with you on this, Ben. I think Larkin would be a great get for the Knicks. Then we bring back DRose and use #19 on a PG prospect (my preference is Springer, i hope he’ll be there).
Quick and Vildoza at SG, and again using #21 for the 3rd stringer (Moody probably won’t be there, so maybe Josh Christopher).

“Why are you trying to package picks to move up in one of the deepest drafts in years? Just keep the dang picks!”

I’ll try to answer this question.

The Knicks clearly need all star caliber players and not more young role players. If they can get in the lower lottery there may be someone there they feel more certain has all star potential than having two scratch offs at 19 and 21 where they may see solid role players. It’s a gamble either way because no one really knows, but if there’s someone you really like up there, you move up.

I like Moody, Bouknight, Wagner, Jalen Johnson if he falls a bit, Butler pending medical, Kispert, & Giddey.

Everyone else seems pretty suspect to me, and I’d be okay trading up for one of the above. Of course I’m no draft expert, but that’s where I’m at. Take 1 good prospect rather than 2 crap shoots.

I don’t like Duarte, older players rarely seem to translate as smoothly as people think, e.g., Obi.

Cooper I’d be okay with, but not thrilled. Shooting I’d too important and he doesn’t defend.

The only player outside of the “consensus” top 6 guys I’d be happy with the Knicks moving up for is Moses Moody. Other than that, I’d wait for whoever falls to 19/21 and pick the best guys.

Brian Cronin:
Yeah, fair enough, if Moody is available in a trade up, I’d do it. But then, if Moody is available where I’m picking, why am I trading him for the #19 and #21 picks?

Good question 🙂

Okay, I’ve scrapped the original poll and put up two new ones. 🙂

My new answers are: Yes, there’ll be a team willing to trade down (SPURS); No, please don’t do it Leon, unless you’re 100% sure you’ll be getting a future all-star;

People keep saying its a deep draft, but I find they’re rarely right about those things.

I then read the descriptions of players like: Duarte, he’s 104 years old and you’ll get about 2 solid years before retirement. He’s an okay stopgap 3&D player but not actually that great at defense. Projected draft position: 17

Knicks fans spend a decade bitching that they’re always drafting in the low lottery, have one good year, and want to trade up into the low lottery

I’m guessing they have their eye on Bouknight, maybe Mitchell or Giddey…

And maybe they’re willing to include a player in that trade (Mitch?) to get into the top 7. Who the hell knows.

it seems like the same 10-12 names keeps getting bounced around on this board and if the knicks just stay put and just remove the names brandon boston… usman garuba.. and isaiah jackson entirely off their board… they have a good chance at coming out of this draft with near unanimous praise… even if they move up for someone like bouknight i think everyone.. including me… would like that move…

that would be the easy way of doing things.. and yet it seems like it’s the most difficult thing to do for some apparent reason…

I’d be inclined to stay put myself. That said, I feel like I’ve lost track of the number of times in the last dozen or more years where, pre-draft, Berman et al wrote about our interest in a prospect who would be picked out of our draft range — Klay and Kawhi are two that come to mind (and Kawhi wound up falling painfully close to us) — and that we ultimately chose not to trade up for. Plus, that John Wallace/Walter McCarty/Dontay Jones trifecta from this draft range 25 years ago still haunts me, especially when pretty much everyone taken immediately before Wallace was a good-to-great player for a long time.

I understand the value of more dart throws. But I also feel like if Walt Perrin and company feel strongly enough about a player to trade up for him, I’d at least want Leon to listen to their argument.

But what if they can take the two picks, move up to like 13 or 14 and then take the two second round picks and maybe throw in a second from 2023 and move up to the mid 20’s? So you’re doing like 14 and 25 instead of 19 and 21?

I’m done with the Mets until Edwin Diaz is off the team

2 things:
1. RE: Sexton trade..one last thought. I’m not saying DON’T trade for Sexton or never trade Obi..I’m saying don’t trade Obi and his potential for him. Of course he doesn’t have a clear path to realizing his potential as a Knick, but don’t you think the other 29 teams value what he can do once he gets the opportunity? I’m saying be shrewd with a possible Obi trade knowing you have a kid on your roster who can be an Amare at worst if he reaches his potential. He’s the guy you use in a trade for an all star, not a guy you hope can be an all star. You include him in something like a Dame trade to sweeten the pot..not a Sexton trade lol

2. Who would be the target if we trade 19 & 21 to move up? I don’t think we can get far enough up to draft a real difference maker. I like Moody and Bouknight..but they don’t make enough of a difference in year one. Now..if we get a really good PG in free agency, that trade up looks good in hindsight. So hypothetically, let’s say we trade up and nab Moody or Bouknight. Adding Lowry looks really good and does 2 things- stabilize a starting lineup that will probably have a rookie SG and gives extra tutelage to prepare Quickley. Also- cap permitting- in that scenario I would love to bring back Noel, Taj, Rose, and Burks. I think Bullock prices himself out as opposed to Burks, coming off a good 3 & D season.

Alan: I understand the value of more dart throws. But I also feel like if Walt Perrin and company feel strongly enough about a player to trade up for him, I’d at least want Leon to listen to their argument.

Exactly. It’s all about player evaluation. Get the right scouts in, do your homework, examinestats-based models, pore over synergy-based metrics and game film. don’t leave any stone unturned, trust your gut, etc. and if a guy grades out higher than others, and you need to move up a few spots to nab him, go for it.

Problem is, the Knicks seem to have erratic voices having too much of a say. Anyone with eyes could see that Obi’s defensive problems have a congenital component. Anyone who studied the draft thoroughly should have known that Haliburton’s b-ball IQ, length and shooting/passing made him a much better candidate once he droped to us. OTOH, IQ was exactly the kind of player that graded out better by synergy/measurables/intangible/coachspeak than by purely box score stats-based models. So somewhere between the two is the sweet spot. The Team of Rivals approach is fine, but someone like Perrin shoold be making the final call without being pressured by CAA/Kentucky ties and whatnot.

Elaborating further, what I can see in the Lonzo scenario is a further commitment to youth. He’s really more of a 3-and-D player who can pass, dribble and rebound than a ball-dominant PG. If you think of him more in the Danny Green role, or even like a George Hill, he’s more palatable in the $20-25 mill AAV range. I don’t know how much competition there will be for him, but even his you have to overpay a bit, he’s got the whole package except for finishing in the paint.

But I also feel like if Walt Perrin and company feel strongly enough about a player to trade up for him, I’d at least want Leon to listen to their argument.

Based on the draft room expose, it didn’t seem like Walt Perrin was really driving the bus. If they trade up for a guy, it could be bc WWW loves him.

The last guy they wanted to trade up for was Obi Toppin, so it’s not like they’ve built enough capital to earn blind trust here.

Hubert: Based on the draft room expose, it didn’t seem like Walt Perrin was really driving the bus. If they trade up for a guy, it could be bc WWW loves him.

The last guy they wanted to trade up for was Obi Toppin, so it’s not like they’ve built enough capital to earn blind trust here.

This is fair, although as has been pointed out, there was zero confirmation that they were committed to trade up for Obi. Even so, just the fact that they selected Obi over Hali raises red flags. And this isn’t to say that Obi was a reach or anything, he was mocked in the top 5 all over the place. He’s just not the product of shrewd talent analysis. If all of us at KB are in agreement on something, that’s a red flag in and of itself. Literally no one here wanted Obi, although as Brian pointed out, he wasn’t much of a topic of conversation since he was widely expected to be unavailable at #8. And there is still some upside to him, so even though he’s older, he has been a late bloomer at every step and was definitely hurt by the lack of PnR, having Julius in front of him, and a defense-first coach. But just about everyone here would have picked either Hali, Deni or Vassel over him.

Z-man:
For the record, I’d rather have Ball and all of our assets than trade for Sexton pre-draft.

I’m not sure I want either alone, but if we could get both (or some other combination that would make me happy), I’d feel pretty good. We’d be adding a solid scorer, much better overall playmaking, better shooting, youth and upside, and Ball could take the rougher defensive assignments. I could live with Ball, Sexton, RJ, Randle, and Robinson or Noel. That’s a pretty good team with a TON of upside. I’d be willing to give up a good stash of our picks for that.

The Bucks are big, man.

Yeah, I mean this is definitely CP3’s moment right now. He has to take it. Besides CP3 and Crowder, the Suns are pretty young and inexperienced and they definitely got a little lucky getting to the Finals. The Bucks have way more veteran experience and it’s showing in these last 3 games. But this is CP3’s moment right now.

I’m going to be the guy who stumps for Obi for a minute:

First I would echo what swift said about not blaming the FO because we all thought Julius was a goner. Additionally, Obi was a consensus top-5 pick, and his upside was probably underrated (although his NBA-readiness was probably overrated).

But also, this FO seems really intent on sniffing out guys who may have injury histories, and despite his good qualities, Haliburton really could be an injury risk for the rest of his career. In other words, I think it’s still early to say that passing on Hali was definitively the wrong move.

All that being said, since Obi is now stuck behind an all-NBA forward, it might be best for us to move him as part of a deal for a quality backcourt starter.

swiftandabundant:
I don’t know, its really hard for me to criticize the FO for picking Obi when literally every person wanted to trade Randle before the season started. And if you wanted to trade Randle, that leaves a huge hole at PF, which Obi in theory would fill. And he absolutely was a top 5 prospect that fell to us.

So when you add those 2 together – top 5 mocked prospect who fell to us, position that would be his once Randle was traded….Obi seems almost like a no brainer. But then Randle went nuts and turned himself into a second team all NBA player.

And yes, CP3 should absolutely take over the game tonight. This might be his only shot at a championship and if he loses, the narrative will be that he’s choker. He needs to take his fate into his own hands and play like the all time legend that he is. I want to see CP3 put up 30 plus tonight with 15 dimes.

So even though we were a terrible team when we drafted Toppin if was justified because because we were drafting for need rather than best player available?

And I can imagine a team with no Randle last year and playing Obi instead and it’s a terrible team.

And what has more value now in a potential trade for, say, Collin Sexton, that 2023 2nd rounder or Devon Dotson?

The 2023 second rounder, but it has less value than Saben Lee, who was selected with the pick we traded away and would be a nice fit for our current roster, and Paul Reed, who was picked after and clamored for by many here.

https://www.si.com/nba/2021/07/20/nba-mock-draft-cade-cunningham-evan-mobley-jalen-green

Blech. Count me out on Trey Murphy. I’m sure he can stick in the NBA with his shooting but his upside seems painfully low for a first-rounder considering he brings literally nothing else to the table. We’ve discussed Jackson before–he’s a fine center prospect but I’d rather just…keep Mitchell Robinson.

McBride at #32 would be a nice get, but I doubt we’re making 3 picks anyway (even though we should).

There was a lot of FO frustration on the draft thread, and it isn’t entirely unjustified:

(1) The board appears right about Hali over Obi
(2) IQ may still have been available at 33
(3) Plenty of decent looking players went after 33: Saben Lee, Tillman, Maledon (maybe)
(4) Devon Dotson didn’t play many minutes but his numbers in those minutes look good

Also, Devon Dotson went undrafted. That’s not the relevant comparison.

2) IQ may still have been available at 33

But then again, he may not have been. We don’t know. A good 3 point shooting guard from the top college basketball program in the country. Easily could have gone between 26 and 32.

I get not reaching when you have a pick in the top 15 or so. But I think its really nitpicky to criticize a FO for picking their guy at #25. I mean, how much value you are you really squeezing out of these picks by waiting to draft later than 25?

thenoblefacehumper: The 2023 second rounder, but it has less value than Saben Lee, who was selected with the pick we traded away and would be a nice fit for our current roster, and Paul Reed, who was picked after and clamored for by many here.

https://www.si.com/nba/2021/07/20/nba-mock-draft-cade-cunningham-evan-mobley-jalen-green

Blech. Count me out on Trey Murphy. I’m sure he can stick in the NBA with his shooting but his upside seems painfully low for a first-rounder considering he brings literally nothing else to the table. We’ve discussed Jackson before–he’s a fine center prospect but I’d rather just…keep Mitchell Robinson.

McBride at #32 would be a nice get, but I doubt we’re making 3 picks anyway (even though we should).

Outcomes like this are why I want to trade up or make a move for Sexton.

End of the day, Obi & IQ are a pretty damn good outcome so far. But that doesn’t mean we couldn’t have done better.

Obi has upside, but it’s difficult to build value playing 10min a night. And I doubt any front office puts value on Summer League.

thenoblefacehumper:
I forgot that we wound up at 33, not 38. Maledon definitely has more value than a 2023 DET 2nd, and Tillman likely does as well.

I suppose we have to wait until 2023 to make a final ruling on that trade out, but it’s not looking good right now.

Again, you really can’t do that after the fact when you would have blown that pick. The outcome right now is 100% better than what you would have ended up with. Why can’t you admit that?

I mean, if we include the 2023 pick for Sexton and in 2023 Cleveland picks Jokic 2.0 with that pick, does it mean that we were stupid for including it? I mean, why is it so hard for you to admit that we probably would have taken a guy with similar to less value with that pick based on strict probability?

swiftandabundant:
Knicks fan NJ…did you miss the part where I said Obi was mocked to go higher than he did and fell to us?

Obi would have fit a position of need AND was the consensus best prospect left on the board. Lets not act like Halliburton didn’t have a ton of question marks about his game going into the draft. His funky shot, his inability to get to the rim, his skinny frame, etc.Hindsight is 20/20. Haliburton has proven to be a good player although we should see how much he improves before we declare him a great player. Obi was projected to be top 5 and fell to us and was in theory going to take over for Randle once we traded him. It just didn’t work out that way because no GM or FO can predict the future. I’m sure if they knew Randle was going to turn into a 2nd team All NBA player they probably wouldn’t have drafted Obi.

I didn’t miss that part, but you did start off explaining that we really needed a power forward. I focused on that. If you’re saying he was a good pick who didn’t work out, or maybe hasn’t worked out yet, you can certainly make a case for that. But citing all the draft pundits doesn’t convince me. I think the pundits saw nice stats and athleticism, but the teams that passed on him correctly saw that circumstances like his age and the type of competition he had was making him look better than he actually was. Our front office didn’t see that. Of course it’s not a done deal yet. He could get a lot better. But I don’t expect it.

I feel an unexpected kind of role reversal here. I am usually kind of optimistic and expect good things. I thought Ntilikina would do better than he did and argued for patience. But with Obi, I’m the naysayer here and happy to get anything reasonable for him. I hope I’m wrong.

I feel like if you end up drafting players that you can reasonably say will be serviceable NBA players with both of your picks, the draft was a success. Obi looked rough to start the season but I also think a dude like IQ is much more plug and play in today’s NBA than a player like Obi. No summer league or training camp playing for a coach who has a short leash for young players behind a guy having an ALL NBA season and its remarkable Obi kept his head up and improved. I feel like we walked away with 2 players that will have NBA careers, possibly even “good” ones. That’s something. Yeah you’d love to hit #8 out of the park but #8 is also notoriously where FO’s can swing and miss (as we all are well aware of). So I don’t know. We got a big and a guard who both look to have futures in this league. We hit a single and a double. Would have been nice to hit a double or triple or home run with pick #8 but we still got on base and I think IQ was a double considering where he was drafted.

Early Bird:
2nd rd picks don’t have much trade value, the upside to a 2nd rd pick is immensely more valuable than the downside. And picking 33rd in a draft that appears to have significant 2nd rd talent is a better proposition than kicking the pick down the road.

Both statements are totally false, but you keep right on believing!

There seems to be this idea that bc the Knicks went 41-31 in a weird, fluky kind of year (during which they got a completely unexpected All NBA 2nd team performance), that it vindicates everything about Leon Rose and Tom Thibodeau. That is not logically sound.

Winning the 4 seed was really fun. We all had a blast this year. But becoming the 4 seed via a three way tiebreaker is really not that big a deal. We became the Gilbert Arenas Wizards.

Rose and Thibs have miles of road ahead of them.

Hubert: The anti-FO takes on draft night were accurate then and are accurate today. Going 41-31 doesn’t mean they aced the draft.

Straw man alert: No one, at the time or now, said that they “aced” the draft. Nearly everyone, including me, bristled at the Obi pick, there was nearly universal agreement on that. However, there were lots of more controversial takes about the FO on draft night, and your’s turned out to be particularly bad in hindsight when compared to everyone elses. For example:

Hubert: Getting negative value for the 33rd pick was a disaster.

A disaster? Really?? How hyperbolic can you get? And I like how you conveniently omit the dealing that turned lower picks into higher picks without costing a single asset….was that a portent of horrible draft nights to come?

Hubert: IQ outperforming expectations is the only thing that saved it from being one of the worst drafts in team history. And it’s not like IQ is a future all star.

So hitting at least a triple with an outside chance of a home run at #25 is dumb luck because he outperformed YOUR expectations? THEIR expectations don’t count?

The likelihood is that whoever you would have drafted at #25 would have made this draft worse, not better. And if Obi has enough value to be the centerpiece of a deal for Sexton, I don’t know how anyone without a massive hardon for killing this management team could even hyperbolically suggest that it would be one of the worst draft in team history.

Hubert:
A friendly reminder:

in 2019, the Pacers had the 32nd pick in the draft and traded it to the Heat for *three* second round picks.

https://www.miamiherald.com/sports/nba/miami-heat/article231755078.html

That’s the value for the pick we traded. And our FO gave it away for one pick, a pick that (even with Detroit being terrible right now), is most likely not going to be as high as 33.

It was a very dumb trade.

Dude, that trade was made a month after the draft pick was already exercised. The Knicks probably could have gotten more, but again, you neglected to mention that a) they only had that pick in the first place because they made some brilliant moves and b) they were on the clock and had minutes to either use it or lose it. I agree that they could have picked someone that some team coveted and then worked out a trade, but again, it’s a very tiny opportunity cost and one mitigated by the deals they made to even be in the position to do it.

You also like to bang the drum about how they were on the verge of trading up for Obi. Well, that never happened. Why didn’t they pre-emptively trade up? Does that suggest restraint? Or perhaps that they never were planning to trade up in the first place? Nah, that would require looking at things in a positive light.

People doubted hiring Rose. They doubted hiring Thibs. They doubted our draft picks and free agent signings.

Yeah, and you know what? They could all still be right.

Plenty of NBA teams have reached the glorious height of “three-way-tie-for-fourth-in-the-east” and not gone on to greater things.

They could still be right.

Well, yeah, sure. And Zion could still turn out to be a bust. Are you really going to ding the FO based on something that COULD happen in the future?

And really…Thibs is an established winning coach but people acted like we hired Fiz 2.0 or something. Give me a break!

2023 IS THE DOUBLE DRAFT. 2nd round picks in that draft are potentially going to be worth more and also more likely to yield a good NBA player. Kicking the pick down the road a few seasons could be a good thing!

the 2023 draft is not double anything as of yet and if nothing happens to draft eligibility within the next 180 days it will just be a regular draft… it was always an assumption and it’s not looking too great now as there’s zero momentum to change the process…

It’s pretty frustrating watching multiple iterations of the FO pass on the Knickerblogger Hive Mind Pick, only to watch the Hive Mind Pick turn out to be a really good player. We’d be in real nice shape if we had Tyrese Haliburton in the PG mix instead of the redundant low-ceiling Obi Toppin.

The 2020 draft worked out kinda okay because IQ panned out and Obi showed some signs of life at the end of the season. I’d give that draft a B. Problem is we really needed an A.

Looks like the 2nd time it was me that wasn’t reading the questions right… i didn’t pay attention to the “top ten” in the first question, but i’d still vote yes because the Pelicans need players (as an insurance in case Lonzo and Josh Hart get a contract offer they don’t want to match) and so maybe they’re open to trade #10 for #19 and #21.

every meaningful player that is actually under contract this year (rj, mitch.. and randle) were accrued under a different regime… every extra picks we got were accrued under a different regime…

the jury is very much still out…. and it continues this offseason….

bingo

didn’t the nypost expose basically vindicate the whole bad process talk? unless world wide wes desperately trying to finagle the analytics staff to make shit up to justify the quickley pick is some sort of good process… a guy who was no where on anyone’s radar as a first rd pick…

this is settled isn’t it? why is it being brought up again?

Sign me up for the CP3 game(s). I’m rooting for that to happen. Giannis will have more chances to be a NBA Champion, and maybe this is the last one for CP3.

When the good process calls for passing on IQ and even LaMelo for the likes of Devon Dotson, sign me up for the bad process.

Devon Dotson had a 32.7 on/off this season

in 50 minutes but still CHECKMATE

the upside to a 2nd rd pick is immensely more valuable than the downside

This is 100% true. The 31st pick will cost, what, about $6M over four? This is insane value if you have team options in years 3 and 4 and the player is replacement level or better.

So when a team has 2 first round picks in a draft and absolutely hits one of those picks out of the park, its a “bad” night? Dude, you wouldn’t last one second as GM if that is your attitude!

Most draft picks don’t work out. At least not in the sense that they live up to their expectations. If you get a starter level player from the #8 pick, that is actually a good outcome. And Obi could very much end up being that level player eventually. You act like he’s Shawn Bradley.

And somehow the process of picking IQ was bad even though we ended up with an insanely good pick at #25? So having inside information from a former coach/college connection is somehow views as a negative thing with this FO? Why? Like people do get that UK is THE top college basketball program in the country right? They almost always get a few of the top 10 high school prospects every year and people act like UK being a pipeline to the Knicks is somehow a negative thing?

The Honorable Cock Jowles: Devon Dotson had a 32.7 on/off this season

in 50 minutes but still CHECKMATE

Touche. You think he will be first ballot or second?

The Honorable Cock Jowles:
This is 100% true. The 31st pick will cost, what, about $6M over four? This is insane value if you have team options in years 3 and 4 and the player is replacement level or better.

Doesn’t everyone know this by now?

The real question is: what is the usual outcome for the 31st pick? In other words, is the value or a 31st pick likely to be greatest before you make the selection or after you make it?

I wouldn’t evaluate the 31st pick by who was taken there, in part because the #31 is chosen by the team with the worst record in the league, and is therefore often bad at talent evaluation, but rather who was taken in the 2nd round altogether. I mean, here’s a partial history of the last twenty years of #2 overall picks:

Thabeet
Darko
Derrick Williams
Stromile Swift
Mike Beasley
Kidd-Gilchrist
Evan Turner
Marvin Williams
Fuckboi Russell
Vic Oladipo
Jabari Parker

I wouldn’t call Oladipo a bust — he’s overrated as hell, but I’m willing to chalk it up to bad injury luck, just as I wouldn’t call Jay Williams a bust at #2 despite his literal-crash-and-figurative-burn career — but I would certainly call the rest of them that. That’s half the list, with the disappointing Jabari, Turner and Russell as the best of the busts. Does the #2 overall pick suck? Or could each of those picks have been used on a HOFer instead?

Berman wrote today an article talking about Quentin Grimes as someone the Knicks are high on although he is a borderline 1st rd pick.

The Honorable Cock Jowles:
I wouldn’t evaluate the 31st pick by who was taken there, in part because the #31 is chosen by the team with the worst record in the league, and is therefore often bad at talent evaluation, but rather who was taken in the 2nd round altogether. I mean, here’s a partial history of the last twenty years of #2 overall picks:

Thabeet
Darko
Derrick Williams
Stromile Swift
Mike Beasley
Kidd-Gilchrist
Evan Turner
Marvin Williams
Fuckboi Russell
Vic Oladipo
Jabari Parker

I wouldn’t call Oladipo a bust — he’s overrated as hell, but I’m willing to chalk it up to bad injury luck, just as I wouldn’t call Jay Williams a bust at #2 despite his literal-crash-and-figurative-burn career — but I would certainly call the rest of them that. That’s half the list, with the disappointing Jabari, Turner and Russell as the best of the busts. Does the #2 overall pick suck? Or could each of those picks have been used on a HOFer instead?

This is all true, I thought it was implied that I wasn’t talking about a specific number as much as a general location. You can use picks 28-32 if you will, or picks 30-35 but only when a team with a good record made the pick as a result of a trade to eliminate the “bad management” argument. My guess is that the probability that the pick becomes a productive rotation player over many years is still well south of 50% but I’d certainly like to see the stats before passing judgment.

The 2023 DET 2nd really has negligible value. They’re about to make the #1 overall pick and should have the financial flexibility to throw together a decent team soon. Thinking about it more, I think it’s far from certain that pick has more value than even Devon Dotson, who had a pretty good G-League stint and held his own in his limited NBA minutes (faint praise, sure, but that’s how little value that 2023 DET 2nd has).

This is of course putting aside the fact that it’s questionable to say the pick can only be compared fairly to Dotson, who thenoblefacehumper on knickerblogger would’ve taken, as opposed to the range of options available to the highly compensated group of people in charge of running the most valuable franchise in the NBA.

Even on draft night, no one argued it was a catastrophic mistake in terms of outcomes. I think Hubert’s “disastrous blunder” characterization is 100% accurate in terms of process though because it’s really not hard to figure out that the 33rd pick is overwhelmingly more likely to be a better pick than a vague future 2nd.

I think we can somewhat safely say:

1) this front office is better than the garbage we’re used to i.e. Isiah/Phil/Mills, and

2) we still don’t know much about where they stand relative to other front offices

Little things like the Ed Davis trade and the Vildoza deal are sadly enough on their own to get us to 1. As for 2, they’ve basically avoided big mistakes (though I think I’m being a bit generous to Obi Toppin here) but haven’t made much in the way of affirmatively great moves.

This draft should tell us a lot.

Hubert: And as I put it, turning in a middling performance on an occasion where you needed to excel is a bad night.

This is such an inane statement it defies logic. Every team needs to excel on draft night. The Knicks are one of 30 teams trying to max out their picks. They didn’t have a bad night, just not a great one, which is true for nearly every team in the draft. You don’t think GS or Minny or PHX would want a do-over?

Mills had no business being in that position and never would have been anywhere else, so he barely counts. Phil had his weaknesses, but if he’d been allowed to trade KP for the Celts package or Booker, his tenure looks completely different as that was both a smart idea and a ballsy one. Isiah was seen as coach/GM material since he was a player and was made a coach almost right away, but did a poor job.

“They’re better than Mills/Phil/Isiah” is a worm-low bar, not really indicative of anything. That gap between that and “he’s earned the fans’ trust” is basically the Grand Canyon.

Leon Rose is an ex-agent, with no personnel experience. William Wesley has no business in that high a position, other than to try to star fuck. Scott Perry is meh. If Aller and Walt are the voices who Rose listens to, while he just kind of nods at WWW and Perry, then it could work.. Otherwise, I’m not remotely convinced. Rooting for them, but also realistic. Off to a pretty good start.

thenoblefacehumper:
The 2023 DET 2nd really has negligible value. They’re about to make the #1 overall pick and should have the financial flexibility to throw together a decent team soon. Thinking about it more, I think it’s far from certain that pick has more value than even Devon Dotson, who had a pretty good G-League stint and held his own in his limited NBA minutes (faint praise, sure, but that’s how little value that 2023 DET 2nd has).

This is of course putting aside the fact that it’s questionable to say the pick can only be compared fairly to Dotson, who thenoblefacehumper on knickerblogger would’ve taken, as opposed to the range of options available to the highly compensated group of people in charge of running the most valuable franchise in the NBA.

Even on draft night, no one argued it was a catastrophic mistake in terms of outcomes. I think Hubert’s “disastrous blunder” characterization is 100% accurate in terms of process though because it’s really not hard to figure out that the 33rd pick is overwhelmingly more likely to be a better pick than a vague future 2nd.

This is total BS. Devon Dotson couldn’t get playing time on a lottery team, he has zero value in a trade. He’s a D-league caliber player. You play the modesty card as tnfh the kb poster (god forbid someone appeals to authority) but are still critical of the “process” that led to the IQ pick. A bad pick (almost all are) at #33 today is not worth more than a still unmade pick in 2023.

I feel that whining about the 33rd pick is like complaining about the perfection of shot mechanics of a midcourt desperation shot but maybe I’m just FO biased

*and who is picked with the “vague” 2023 pick is irrelevant. It’s the uncertainty that gives it value in a future trade. What would you rather have, the #8-9 picks after they were used on Knox and Ntilikina or a future #15 pick?

Second rounders are used to facilitate trades all the time. They don’t take up cap room or take up roster spots. A future second rounder was used to facilitate the Melo trade, and that one turned into Mitch. They can be used to trade up in a particular draft, and 2023 might be a good draft in which to trade up. You keep harping on the players that you can draft at those spots and ignore the flexibility that they represent in making multi-asset moves. And the double-draft in 2023 may be overstated in reality, but you can be sure that the perception of it right now is a thing among GMs. I believe we now have 4 or 5 picks in that draft. We will likely be capped out and will only be able to find value in the draft, so having as many assets as possible at that time is preferable to having some D-League scrub.

And I am pretty confident that if you offered that 2023 2nd rounder to the Bulls for Dotson, they would jump at the opportunity.

Hubert:
No one had brought up 33rd pick in like 7 months but Z-Troll decided to log in today and make the brilliant argument that since the guy TNFH would have drafted sucks, Leon Rose didn’t make a mistake.

Can you even read? I actually brought up your criticism to tnfh as a valid one in terms of what we got in return for the pick. And yes, if you would have done something even worse than what was done, you shouldn’t have too much to say about what was done. And you certainly shouldn’t criticize a process that led to a better pick than the one you would have made.

And you yourself offer the vapid disclaimer that “well, they made up for some of the draft day “disaster” it by doing a couple of other good things…” while continuing to bang the “disaster is lurking around the corner” drum at every opportunity. And when you are refuted, you paint the other side as Rose/Thibs fanbois.

The truth is that they had a mixed day on draft day…some brilliant maneuvering with some head-scratchers…then they made a series of one excellent roster move after another, from the Ed Davis moves to the Vildoza signing….then they overachieved even the most optimistic prognostications…and let’s not forget how you felt that we had a better team than the Hawks and it was Thibs’ fault that we lost…how’s that look in retrospect?

Be fair. Have humility when you’re dead wrong. Very simple principles.

#This is less true than you suggest, and it doesn’t really address the issues being discussed.#

You’re probably right but i truly don’t consider 2nd round picks as much valuable.
That’s the reason i don’t praise the FO for their last draft’s 2nd round manoeuvres.
It’s definitely great! to get something out of nothing but let’s not make it triumphant.
And that’s the same reason i don’t care much about the 33rd also

Greek Freak brings Larry O’B to Parthenon in 7hrs!
Going to sleep/See ya later!

Loving the Statler and Waldorf routine. It’s funny every time.

So out of boredom I did wander around what the picks were at 33 over the years, and it’s not good — Jalen Brunson and Joe Harris and Hassan Whiteside, but most of the rest were garbage I’d never even heard of. Just for fun I glanced at 25 for no good reason, and I was surprised by what really looks like a significant difference — Capela and Bullock and Batum and Tony Allen and Gerald Wallace and, god forbid, Al Harrington, to name a few. Mostly bench fodder or worse, but some definite hits.

Doesn’t really mean much of anything, but (surprise, Jowles!) it looks like one would rather have 25 than 33, all things otherwise being equal…

And now to crawl back under my obviousness rock.

Z-man: This is less true than you suggest, and it doesn’t really address the issues being discussed.

Not only can they be sold for cash, they’re routinely sold for cash each and eveyr year as in like consistently all the time sold for cash. Their actual value in the real world is orders of magnitude less than their value in the internet armchair GM world, wherein they’re now against all odds being denominated a possible maker or breaker of deals for superstars. IAGM world overvalues all unmade draft picks; that’s just the nature of the beast. The 19th and 21st pick don’t really even have that much value as we see in the fact that the 16th pick had the market value of “give away to get a bad salary off the books.”

The expected value of 19 and 21 is probably “sub-consistent rotation player.” Throwing 21 in with 19 will move you up maybe five spots and probably more like three. Again, all of us want the Knicks to beat those odds — but those are the odds. If the Knicks get one decent three-year starter out of the two picks, they will have beat the house.

There is way too much time and energy wasted here discussing 2nd rd picks when 95% of them suck.

Also trying to make this draft as important in evaluating this front office is a bit tough because 19 and 21 arent exactly great picks. People here underestimate how truly bad the majority of players drafted outside of the Top 5 wind up being. That’s why I’m actually fine with them trading up because if they stay at 19 and 21 I’m not so sure how much playing time both picks can realistically get, if they trade up that means they have their eyes set on a specific player they really like and therefore will be willing to give playing time and opportunity to that player.

So now we know…

19>25>33. Factorial.

I love this site.

Instead of chasing someone like Lowry or Ball what if we traded for Bledsoe? New Orleans wants to dump him so he will come with an asset and he could be a decent stop-gap while Vildoza, Quickley, and whoever we draft get good enough to start. I don’t know if New Orleans would be willing to attach the #10 pick outright but if not maybe something like #21 for Bledsoe and #10+#40. That gets us into the low lottery and gives us a starter at PG if Vildoza or Quickley or whoever we draft are not ready to start, but also a benchable player if any of them are ready.

When evaluating a front office I think you have to separate their performance in the draft (which is to some extent is throwing darts at a board) and their performance in trades and free agency, In the later two, the skills and productivity of the players are more known. You can also make very educated guesses about whether player are likely to fit together beforehand. You also know the salaries and can make an informed judgement the cost. It’s on the basis of their free agent signings, the team they created, and how Thibs got them to fit together and play hard each night that I am giving this front office very positive reviews. Sure, I think they kind of blew the Obi pick when a LOT of people here and in the consensus like Haliburton and also thought he’d be a good fit, but that story is not finished yet. The Quick pick was obviously terrific.

Grimes atrocious 2 point percentage and age are red flags, but he shot well enough inside the arc last season, so I’m at least intrigued.

DRed is entitled to a beverage from time to time, lay off.

I’d wager Randle said no to team USA and they’re covering for him. Randle stands to lose a lot of money with an injury in Tokyo with his next contract (or even an extension) pending.

Scott Foster missed his first call but that was a fun block by Giannis

We really need Giannis to score 50. I cannot stand the thought of Chris Moltisanti taking all of Hubert’s money.

Giannis is putting up 32, 13, 5.6, 1.4 stl, and 1.2 blk shooting 61FG%, 63TS%, 62eFG%. Do people here actually think Middleton can possibly win MVP just because he’s shooting 36% from 3?

Suns need Ayton to make shots and the team as a whole to start hitting some 3s before Giannis buries them

Berman mentioned Cameron Payne as a potential FA target at PG.

I wonder if Silver put Scott Foster in there to spite CP3 for his incessant bitching…

I am sure someone does but it’s hard to believe anyone has ever shot midrange jumpers better than Chris Paul.

The Bucks should have four more points between the goaltending that should have been called and the one that shouldn’t.

Owen: Owen
July 20, 2021 at 10:12 pm
I am sure someone does but it’s hard to believe anyone has ever shot midrange jumpers better than Chris Paul.

Some guy in the 90’s was pretty good at them, I think his name was something like Jichael Mordan…

Must be hard to play 1 on 5

That scene in the street is unbelievable, I’ve never seen anything like it.

Giannis man

Allan Houston 46.4%

Imagine if that dude had played in the modern NBA!

Holiday played that possession like it was a ten-point lead at the end of the first quarter in a preseason game.

Man, this is a war of attrition. Nice minutes by Kaminsky.

Brian Cronin: Imagine if that dude had played in the modern NBA!

Houston in the 1999-2000 season shot 48/43/84 with the toughest shot selection imaginable while playing in all 82 games and averaging 39 mins per game. He was labeled as a soft player but that dude was tough as hell.

What a weird bit by Portis blocking Paul there.

I probably would have loved Bobby Portis if he made $3mm instead of $15mm

If Portis played for the Knicks the way he plays for the Bucks, he’d have been worth the $15M

Ball don’t lie!

eh, maybe not after that technical

Giannis – greatest free throw shooter in NBA history

Never thought I’d see the day:

Giannis 16/17 from ft line
CP3 misses tech

Shouldn’t they just feature Giannis on every position? Why is Middleton hero-balling?

I don’t care at all who wins this series (I like both teams) and I’m stressed right now

CP3 needs to show up in the last few minutes. Booker isn’t a good bet to pull this out in my book.

Crowder may have just saved the Suns season with that offensive rebound.

How did the Bucks not get that d board?

What a great series

This game ain’t over yet.

I don’t know if I would close with Portis but in Budz they trust

I was shocked Middleton hit that shot.

Well, that MVP bet looks like it will pay off. 🙂

We get Chris Paul on a max 1 year deal now? Lol

Bucks absolutely deserve this

(I was gonna add an * but decided not to)

Nice series,
hat tip to the Suns for their great season but I’m very happy for the Bucks.

I like to see Giannis rewarded for his decision to stay and put together “his” team instead of hunting for other stars to give him shelter (yes, I’m talking to you Kevin Durant).

It reminds me of Duncan and Dirk and it’s so refreshing to see in this NBA…

Paul should run it back. There’s nowhere for them to go but up. Just hopefully for their sake they’re up enough to deal with healthier teams on the very difficult West road to the Finals.

Legendary Freak

CP3 should take the minimum to play for Brooklyn

BigBlueAL:
Knicks went 2-1 vs the Bucks!

They played their backups for 1 game, but I say it still counts

Congrats to the Bucks!

Is Budz getting fired now???

Happy for the Bucks but not half as happy as my wife is for Giannis.

Congrats to former Knicks Portis and Thanasis

Going 17-19 from the FT line in the biggest game of his life after all the shit he’s taken is the epitome of redemption. Bravo Giannis, that was a performance for the ages.

and now the giannis spin cycle goes into the pantheon of moves with other champions …. just wonderfully captures his technical skill.. athletic ability.. and sheer length…. that along with the best block i’ve ever seen is what this finals and year should be remembered for.. i guess the KD foot on the line shot will be a footnote along with all the injuries which were a shame…

and the draft is in a week… wow…

I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a coach going into the locker room of the opposing team after being eliminated to congratulate them and thank them for making him a better coach and his team a better team due to the experience. Fascinating stuff.

Giannis looked LA Shaq scary the past couple of games- especially last night. Sheesh. Sad for CP3, but happy to see the way Giannis put the team on his back when it mattered the absolute most. Salute to him

Knew Your Nicks:
“I could go to a super team and just do my part and win a championship, but this is the hard way to do it, and this is the way to do it, and we did it. We f*cking did it…”

from Giannis on super teams

Way to go Giannis,
somewhere Kevin Durant’s, James Harden’s and Anthony Davis’ ears are bleeding…

Giannis was incredible last night (and I’m still shocked that anyone could think Giannis wasn’t winning MVP if Milwaukee won) just a truly incredible performance and we’re lucky to have been able to watch it. I am disappointed because I was rooting hard for Chris Paul to win a ring. I hope he gets another chance.

Will Torrey Craig accept a ring if Milwaukee offers it?

Now CP3 is a lock to try again with this crew, right? And probably opting out and getting a 3 year contract with the Suns, which will be the last of his career.
Or does any of you think he’ll sign with another team (eg, Knicks)?

cybersoze:
Now CP3 is a lock to try again with this crew, right? And probably opting out and getting a 3 year contract with the Suns, which will be the last of his career.
Or does any of you think he’ll sign with another team (eg, Knicks)?

There’s no way he’s leaving the Suns after coming this close. No way.

#congrats to all greek nation, specially KYN and Owen’s wife, but most and all congrats to Giannis!#

Thanks man!
Greece is Extremely Proud right now.
Not only because of Giannis’ incredible sport achievements but also for his unbelievable journey to the Top and especially for his heart transcending High Character.
I just wish i were a bucks fan right now. They should be flying pretty high ecstatically!

I agree, namestam, but I always root for the underdog in these situations!

Also, this championship could be the experience that brings this Bucks team to the next level. Like this whole season and post season was about them learning to play together and win and get confidence and now that they did it, I could see them coming back next year and dominating. If Giannis has truly improve the FT shooting, it is a game changer for him.

Chamberlain did make 28 of 32 free throws the night he scored 100 points against the Knicks.

swiftandabundant:
I agree, namestam, but I always root for the underdog in these situations!

Also, this championship could be the experience that brings this Bucks team to the next level. Like this whole season and post season was about them learning to play together and win and get confidence and now that they did it, I could see them coming back next year and dominating. If Giannis has truly improve the FT shooting, it is a game changer for him.

Yeah, I agree completely. The FT thing for Giannis has clearly been significantly mental – he was actually a pretty good FT shooter earlier in his career (back to back seasons of 76 and 77%) and I think there’s a compelling case that his struggles from the line all date to the ECF collapse against Toronto where he was 18-24 combined in the first 2 games (both Ws) and then 17-36 with some big misses in the last 4 (all Ls). He has really struggled since then and been way worse in the playoff crucible than the regular season. Having the kind of success he did last night in that situation could go a long way to exorcising those demons.

No way Chamberlain was “more skilled” than Giannis.

***One thing this finals performance by the Greek Freak proved that a young Wilt Chamberlain, who was clearly taller, stronger, longer, faster, more agile, and more skilled than Giannis, would have been just as dominant today as he was in the 1960’s, if not more so.***

I’m not a lawyer, but I have the feeling that this “proof” wouldn’t hold up to the reasonable doubt standard.

giannis reminds me more of hakeem than wilt…although, i never saw wilt play, so who knows…

E please don’t (even if I agree)

New Wasserman mock: Trey Murphy at 19 (Wasserman says he’s trending up, and, “I’ve heard Mikal Bridges used as a comparison from a team that sees a valuable three-and-D role player”), Isaiah Jackson at 21 (Butler, Springer, Sharife, Mann, and others still on the board), Josh Christopher at 32 (which I know would make some here very happy), and McKinley Wright IV again at 58.

That game from Giannis is absolutely one of the best I’ve ever seen. If anything, it makes it more impressive that he was able to do it without a jump shot. I don’t remember ever seeing someone basically score at will like that without a jumper (I only caught the tail end of Shaq’s prime).

All of the injuries in the playoffs sucked, but at the end of the day I can’t complain about the finals. We got a good series between two mostly healthy, excellent teams.

It’ll be fascinating to see where the Suns go from here. They definitely have a strong young core, but Chris Paul being so essential to their success is a bit of a curveball. Running it back makes sense if Sarver can stomach the bill. Otherwise it wouldn’t shock me to see them take an intentional step back of sorts.

Onto the draft! I’m a little worried about the late Trey Murphy hype. I see very little there in terms of upside, even by the standards of late first-round picks. There are plenty of guys who should be available in the second round that are hard to distinguish from him IMO. Unlike Quickley, he hasn’t shown the ability to shoot threes off the dribble and he really doesn’t appear to bring much to the table besides spot up shooting in general. Would be a very unexciting pick even at 21.

Trey Murphy would make a good Kevin Knox replacement as a guy who looks like a basketball player, but isn’t

It’ll be fascinating to see where the Suns go from here. They definitely have a strong young core, but Chris Paul being so essential to their success is a bit of a curveball. Running it back makes sense if Sarver can stomach the bill. Otherwise it wouldn’t shock me to see them take an intentional step back of sorts.

I think there’s a temptation for them to feel like they’re ahead of schedule but I kind of feel like the time is now for them. CP3 is old and they’re only a couple of years away from Bridges & Ayton getting really expensive. I’m not sure a Booker/Bridges/Ayton core is really that hot once CP3 ages out (btw future Knick Colin Sexton had a better BPM than Devin Booker this season). I kind of think they need to get aggressive and see if they can find a move to get them over the top next season.

Giannis debuted in the Garden and I was there in the baseline seats. First game Bargnani played as a Knick and he played like crap and I was kind of ripping him to my buddy and the guy behind me said “You really don’t like Bargnani do you?” and I said, “No, he sucks,” which while entirely factorial, is like totally out of my public character.

I’m too young to really have a Wilt take but I’ll say I thought Ben Taylor’s backpicks series piece on him was pretty interesting. He made a compelling case that Wilt’s scoring didn’t really lift his team’s offense as much as you’d expect. Worth a read/watch.

As a huge fan of Chris Paul, it felt kind of sad watching him to defer to Devin Booker over the final 3 games. Last night, with the game still winnable in the final two minutes, I was hoping to see Paul grab the game by its throat. Instead it was mostly Booker hero ball with Paul off to the side.

Giannis is undoubtedly a elite great player. You aren’t going to stop him. But he can be slowed down. Just because the Suns didn’t have the players and/or strategy that could do it doesn’t mean it can’t be done. It has been done. I still rank him a notch below guys like Leonard and Durant. Durant is literally unstoppable by anyone. He’s the greatest scorer ever with plenty of other skills to go along with it.

Forget playing today, I would love to see Wilt play in the early to mid 90’s having to go up against Ewing, Hakeem, David Robinson, Shaq, Alonzo Mourning, Mutombo and even guys like Brad Daugherty, Divac, and Rik Smits.

I understand that Trey Murphy is kind of limited, but so was/is Mikal Bridges. Are they very different?

Fair question for sure but there are important differences.

While Bridges was never a high-volume 2PA guy, by his junior year he was averaging 7.3 2PA/40 and maintaining his strong 2PT%. Murphy was still at a minuscule 3.8 2PA/40 as a junior. Relatedly, Bridges was a high-volume scorer in general for Villanova by the time he was a junior while Murphy was still relegated to more of a 3-and-D role (those guys are valuable in the NBA obviously, but the successful ones tended to take on higher usage in college).

Bridges also nearly doubled Murphy’s steal and block numbers, which for whatever reason have proven to be good indicators of NBA translation. His numbers in other areas were consistently a few ticks higher too.

In fairness to CP3, there haven’t been many guys in the history of the league who have been capable of carrying a big offensive load at a championship level at his age. Once you combine the 36 years with the 6′ stature, I agree with Z-man that the physicality of the games (and man were they letting them play down the stretch last night) looked really hard for him. He made some tough shots last night, and even the “easy” shots he was getting were like run a PnR to get a switch, run a 2nd PnR to get open into a midrange jumper; that’s far from an easy possession. It’s incredibly rare to dominate based on tough shots alone and that was really the story for not just Paul but the whole Suns team the last 4 games. The Bucks took away the easy 3s and the rim and forced them to try to win it with just contested jumper after contested jumper and they didn’t have quite enough.

JK47:
Hearty recommendation for “Summer Of Soul,” instantly one of the greatest music documentaries of all time.

Mahalia Jackson: The Wilt Chamberlain of singers- huge voice but would where would she fit in today’s musical landscape???

I am a small person so I kind of enjoyed watching Devin Booker come up small last night. Apparently Jrue was guarding him more last night than the other games in the series, where he was focused on Paul.

Ayton was also pretty invisible. Bucks did a really good job on him.

Shout outs to Pat Connaughton who was a -21 last night and Jeff Teague (would love to see his total for the series) who managed to be a -5 in 1:43.

Wilt was good at sports, period. He had insane agility and coordination for a man his size. Would have been great in any era.

This seems like a dumb thing to even be discussing.

bassey is one of my favorites this year…. bigs with this kind of upside used to never in a million years sniff the second rd yet here we are… the physicality kind of jumps out at you once you see him and it’s backed by the #s.. he was downright dominant against admittedly inferior comp but it’s not easy to post the #s he did against any kind of comp…

if he’s the guy at 32.. it would secure at least a very decent night….

CP3 played pretty well this series, he had 2 bad games (only one of which was awful) and 4 games somewhere between okay and very good. He certainly wasn’t great, but he was arguably the Suns best player and he’s 35 or whatever. Sucks his team didn’t win, but Giannis put in an all time great finals performance and guy enough from the rest of the guys on his team.

I saw a rumor that Lakers have discussed trading Kuzma, Horton-Tucker and Schroeder for Russell Westbrook. Has anyone else seen that?

I actually like that deal for Washington although I’m sure Laker fans would be all in for Westbrook.

If the Knicks lose Bullock, they’d be more likely to attempt to match a modest offer to guard Frank Ntilikina, a restricted free agent. According to a league source, the Knicks haven’t ruled out bringing back their 2017 lottery pick selected by Phil Jackson, even if Thibodeau barely played him last season.

hon hon hon

I just read the first posted over/under win totals for next season and the Knicks are listed at 37.5 wins. Take the over before the number goes up!

I read it as 37.5 wins which is a 0.457 winning percentage. The team will probably improve over the summer so that should be very doable.

I know people are heavily into the draft now, but the Knicks stand to lose Bullock, Burks, and Noel. That’s a lot of production to replace, especially if Randle takes a small step back shooting 3s. if Robinson is healthy and they bring Gibson back they’ll be fine at C, but they obviously won’t be as deep if there are injuries. The story today was that they want to bring Bullock back, but if it gets too expensive they may bring Frank back. I’d be fine with that. But losing Burks is going to hurt and I’m not sure we can count on Mitch being healthy. Free agency may be more critical than the draft.

I can live with losing Noel because someone makes him a great offer. We have Mitch and Pelle isn’t so bad. Add Gibson or some other free agent or maybe a draft pick as the third center and that is probably enough. But if we lose both Bullock and Burke, I don’t see how we’ll replace them.

I agree that free agency is important. Even if we don’t get a big star we still need a team of competent players and many competent players from last year aren’t under contract for next year yet.

I thought Wilt was great in Conan the Destroyer.

I’m not taking the over on 37. Even if we run it back, I don’t trust everyone to shoot over 40% from 3 again AND to have great opp 3p% luck.

Plus, Rose & Randle both got very lucky from the midrange.

PLUS, we avoided major injuries.

We got every break imaginable and I suspect our roster will downgrade slightly this off-season. I’d at least want to see the roster before laying out money.

Atlanta has new motivation to resign John Collins. Okongwu is out six months after a torn labrum.

Donnie Walsh: Donnie Walsh
July 22, 2021 at 1:00 am
***How much research have you done on Wilt’s athleticism and skill?***

Haha, sorry Ted Nelson. Didn’t realize you were back.

Admittedly, not much. But it doesn’t matter because the burden of proof is obviously on you. (and Giannis winning a title does nothing to support your odd, unsolicited, non sequitur of a conclusion).

My stock quote to my students for 30 years: I can’t teach you anything, I can only help you learn what you want to learn. If the desire isn’t there, no problem, there’s no shame in being massively unknowledgeable about the history of the NBA and its all-time greatest players. Strikes me as an odd choice for an intelligent chap who frequents a basketball blog on a regular basis.

When i voted Bucks in six right at the start of game 5 i felt like a troll or at least like an avant garde artist since i was alone!
Predicting Frank 3yrs 18M is like robbing a church! Easy Money Prediction!
;-p

Are there any particular players you noticed that they were particularly far apart on?

Agree on Bassey – it’s not clear to me why he is so low on draft boards. Seemingly has great feet, great second jump. Shot 30.5% on 3’s and 76% from the line, form looks ok, so might have some untapped upside as something other than a pure rim runner. Low steal rate seems a little bit of a red flag, but hey, you can’t have everything.

Wonder if it is something on background – presumably Leon/Wes/Kline etc know the deal. At 32 it seems a no-brainer especially if Noel is going to sign elsewhere.

**Yesterday at The Athletic Sam Vecenie released his yearly 140-pages Guide To The Draft.

While it’s not mandatory to agree on every player (for instance his views and the Top-70 list made by Hollinger are full of disagreement) it’s a great read for anyone interested.**

Thanks for posting. It’s good to have some more comprehensive coverage. Also another opinion next to Hollinger.

I just perused it and they were far off on Jalen Johnson, Bassey (V has him near 60), Queta (H has him really high). I’m sure there’s more, but those stuck out.

Early Bird:

I just perused it and they were far off on Jalen Johnson, Bassey (V has him near 60), Queta (H has him really high). I’m sure there’s more,but those stuck out.

Yeah, I skipped Jalen Johnson (9th for Hollinger 25th for Vecenie, from mid lottery to low first).

Both Hollinger and Vecenie explain their choice well, I find the different views from “Front-Office POV” and “Scout POV” fascinating.

From what I understand, The Knicks still have cap space left over from this season that just ended and that can be used in some way up until the draft? Can anyone explain what that means and how we could potentially use that?

I think we can also make trades and accept a player into cap space. I can see us doing something like that in order to move up in the draft.

Wow – according to spotrac, GSW will pay $120MM in lux tax (for a lottery team!), Brooklyn $68MM, Clippers $24MM, Bucks $20MM (well worth it).

So 26 nontax teams will split about $230MM – not bad.

I think the under/over is only 37.5 because Vegas is building in the possibility we may lose some talent in free agency, Randle may not duplicate his production from last year, and we got a few breaks last season we may not get next season.

On the flip side, who’s to say we can’t come out of this with a significant upgrade at PG over Payton (which is really not that difficult given how terrible he was last year), development from RJ, Quick, and Mitch, and a couple of other surprises out of FA, trades or the draft.

That 37.5 may be correct given what we know now, but I think it’s assuming all the downsides without considering possible upsides that could happen. It would not shock me if that number rises a few games before the season starts, but it does depend on our off season,

There is definitely a lot of regression to the mean potential with this team, not to mention all the variables regarding which free agents we bring back, what new players we add, etc. I expect we’ll make the over, even though I wouldn’t be surprised if we’re a much lower playoff seed next year, assuming better health/luck for other teams.

Meanwhile, here’s the troubling last tweet in a thread by Tom Piccolo (a Knicks Film School type) after breaking down Murphy’s game film against Syracuse:

Overall, it’s difficult (foolish) to judge a player on one game, esp. versus a zone-playing team like SU. But I try to focus on overall mindset & style of play. Trey has upside as a 3&D floor spacer but I worry about his passive tendencies that, at times, remind of me Kevin Knox.

We’re definitely making the over. Our record will be similar, if not better, than last year.

I get we leaned a lot of vets but our two best players who played the most minutes were Randle and RJ. Randle is 26 and RJ is 20. Everyone expects Randle to regress but what if he stays the same or even slightly improves? And RJ will most likely improve again this season. If Randle stays the same and RJ improves, that means our 1 and 2 options are better, not worse. We also will most likely resign Derrick Rose, which means a full season of him as the back up/spot starter at PG and we will most likely upgrade from Elf at the starting PG position in some way.

We also will hopefully have a full season of a healthy Mitch. IQ should be better or even if he’s the same, he’ll probably play more minutes in year two than he did in year one. And we have cap space to bring back some of Bullock, Noel, Taj, etc…or upgrade a bit at some of those positions. So while it is possible we could regress, I actually think its more likely we improve a bit from last year. There will also be continuity between the seasons with the coaching staff and our core players. Something we have not had in a long time. Oh, and Obi will play more minutes too and be better. Giving Randle more of a break to stay fresh all season.

I’m really liking the idea of a trade for Bledsoe in order to move up to 10. Something like our 19 or 21 and Knox for Bledsoe and #10. His contract isn’t THAT bad or too long and he would be an improvement over Elf. Not a huge upgrade but he’d be better and if we got the #10 pick out of it? That would be nice if they wanted to do that.

I’d say the odds of the Knicks actually drafting at 19, 21, and 32 are close to zero. The unexpected 41-31 season and 4th in the East will push Leon to avoid falling behind the Hawks, Celtics, and Heat in 2022. Look for a trade to acquire a veteran with picks being used.

Quality draft coverage has definitely badly dried up over the last few years. Hollinger still does good stuff at The Athletic and Wasserman at least tries to combine his scout speak with some numbers. Almost everyone else…I read them due to the vacuum and that’s about it.

Some exceptions off the top of my head:

Whoever runs this site: https://hardwoodblues.wordpress.com/

He has a statistical model that he occasionally supplements with some good observations.

Dean is full of himself but is better than most: https://deanondraft.com/

This site has a lot of numbers I can’t find anywhere else: https://www.barttorvik.com/

Trying to figure out how good next year’s team will be at this point seems like a total fool’s errand – we barely have a roster. In terms of minutes played from last year we currently have under contract #1, #2, #7, #10, and #11. That’s it for guys who played real roles; you might notice some numbers missing there. Forced to pick I’d take the over because I think the front office and Thibs will do everything they can to make sure we don’t take a big step back but who can possibly know at this point.

I like Reggie and he had chemistry with Randle. We should try to keep him.

The Knicks are at 37.5 in Vegas because the smart money understands what a fluke last year was. Not just ISM, but also COVID TS%s and lack of home court advantage and load managements and all the rest. Once the crowds came back and the playoffs hit, they reverted more to true form and the prediction is that the normalcy of next year will continue the reversion. It’s a sensible line. I’d probably go a bit over, but if the line was 41, I’d probably take the under. Right now, I’m kind of at “it’s like 50/50 them finishing above .500.” Still a lot of uncertainty about the roster, so I wouldn’t make any bet.

Crowds returned to MSG during the win streak of the regular season, no? They weren’t full capacity but there were crowds there. Lets not act like the full capacity playoff crowd at MSG is why they lost to The Hawks. That played a factor in maybe the first half of game one. The crowd definitely helped them win game 2. They lost to Atlanta bc Atlanta is the better team than us.

The “crowds” between fully empty time and playoff time weren’t crowds; they were small gatherings. And in any event, they didn’t just lose to the Hawks, they got obliterated by the Hawks.

I forget now, I think it was SI who a few days ago did a story on the warped COVID empty arenas numbers versus normal. It’s the stuff that flukes are make of, for sure.

I always agree with E, so yeah i’d give Reggie the 3/$27M. Then i read that Cam Payne will command 10M to 12M AAV, so let’s say we give him 3 or 4 years, even if it’s a 12M AAV, that means 21M in salary beyond 2022. Still room for a max. The other salaries will have to be one year deals.
Starting five – Cam Payne, Reggie, RJ, Julius, Mitch;

I’m starting to believe the trade up is just a few spots, probably one of #19 and #21 with #32 or Knox, to target a player that is projected to give you the same as Joe Harris on a rookie contract. Not a bad idea, i’d say. The player is Corey Kispert, if he’s there in the 13-15 range, they’ll probably try the trade up to get him.
Didn’t read it anywhere, was just a hunch i had, because Burks is going to be expensive and if they have Kispert there’s no need to pay Burks, so we can use the money elsewhere.
What do you guys think?

JK47
July 22, 2021 at 1:11 pm

“If they’re going to decline it’s likely going to be because their DEFENSE got worse. If they’re a top 5 defense again, they should be able to win 40 games.”

Every team in the top 10 defensively last year was above .500. So it’s probably a sure thing!

If they’re going to decline it’s likely going to be because their DEFENSE got worse. If they’re a top 5 defense again, they should be able to win 40+ games. I think the defensive improvements seem sustainable, depending on who returns and who is picked up. Thibs can coach defense, I’m pretty convinced of that.

our defense… and for that matter a number of other things… could very easily backslide to merely a top 10 defense or just slight above average… our defense was buoyed by a pretty low opp 3pt% and it’s pretty established how little defense has any sort of meaningful impact on that year to year…. so it could be that our luck neutral defense is merely top 10…. or maybe even above average…. which probably sounds about right… a top 5 defense is very hard to replicate even for actual top defenses….

and if our defense is merely top 10 then that will impact our record…. and maybe even pretty significantly…

In a very dumb manner of doing it (just replacing our opp3% with league average), our point differential drops from 2.3 to -0.8.

Obviously some number of points scored off OReb will be wiped out. Based on our rebounding, this would result in about 49 fewer offensive boards for opponents. An offensive board is worth 1.10pts according to Google. So the defense saves about 54pts this way. This results in a point differential of only about -0.14.

In other words, we should be about .500 team with an average opp3%. We’re still above 37.5 wins, but you can apply the same logic to the 4 shooters on our roster who set career highs in 3p%. RJ is young, but was never considered a great shooter. Randle, Rose, and Burks are longtime vets and only Burks broke 40% previously in his career and he only did it once. If they all shoot an above average 37% we could have lots of improvement elsewhere and we’d still be worse off on offense.

Maybe Thibs & and our training staff are geniuses and have actual improvements, but I’d wager the Knicks will get hit very hard by regression to the mean this year. Or at least I wouldn’t wager against it.

I’ll wait to bet when the team will have more than eight players under contract (including Vildoza and Pelle).
Right now over/under (or any other prediction) doesn’t make sense.
Let’s wait three weeks…

It’s WAY TOO EARLY to predict W/L but if Thibs can go 41-31 on his first season with a mostly new to him motley crew Why Not get easier to a 50% record on his second more controlled season?

According to Shams the Knicks are extending Scott Perry.

bit weird but it’s Jimmy’s money

The thing is, you could make the argument that Perry has been fantastic. He was hampered with having to work with Steve Mills.

Fizdale is his biggest black eye. Knox is the second big mistake. He took flyers on one year dudes like Mudiay and Hezonja that didn’t work out and he seems to love Elf but I wouldn’t call those moves damaging really.

Melo trade – had to happen and he got that 2nd round pick out of it, which he then used to pick Mitch

Draft Mitch

Drafted RJ (which was a no brainer)

KP trade – people say we should have gotten more but getting out of that potential onerous contract and getting something out of it was ultimately smart.

Signing Randle – got a lot of shit for it when Randle sucked. Now its a great move.

Signed Morris – traded for a pick that turned into IQ

Signed Bullock – good player for us.

So there are a lot of good moves that he made that definitely laid some foundation for this season’s success and gave us room to maneuver in the future.

That is true, Raven, but our offense also improved considerably once Rose was traded to us and if he does come back for a full season, that’s a lot more minutes of competent PG play right there. I gotta think Bullocks or Burks will be back but not both but we’ll find a replacement for the other. Plus IQ playing more minutes, no Elf (hopefully).

I get that we don’t know what the roster will be yet fully. But Randle, RJ and IQ all played big roles to some degree (Mitch too) and the odds of RJ and IQ being better are high because they’re both still so young.

Randle COULD regress but he could also not regress. And I don’t think it’s presumptous to think that some of the Rose, Bullocks, Noel, Burks, Taj crew will be back. And we know we have enough cap space to bring some of that crew back and probably upgrade fairly significantly at PG in some manner either via a trade with picks/players or an outright free agency signing.

I guess I just think you’d have to take a pessimistic view on an overall regression from the returning players and us not bringing any of the vets back who helped us win and also striking out on whatever free agency signings, trades and draft picks we make in order to believe we’ll be much worse record wise. I think the core of this team with Thibs can beat most shitty teams on most regular season nights.

I don’t think it would be that difficult to construct a team around the guys we currently have that could win more than 38 games, but we just haven’t done it yet and it seems like a dumb thing to bet on.

Yeah I think it’s fair to say that the devil is in the details with the 2021-2022 Knicks. We got good value out of cheap role players last year and might not find that kind of lightning in a bottle again.

I do think Thibs has the magic touch to turn bad defenders into competent defenders (like Obi) and to turn “Meh” defenders into good defenders (see Randle and RJ.) He did have strong defensive teams throughout his run in Chicago. We don’t have the kind of personnel that those Bulls teams had, but I think in general his shit works.

Booker has long been derided here for being a terrible defender but I thought he was excellent on Middleton in game 6 and pretty good overall. Scheme and coaching is clearly very important and it seems that anyone with smarts desire and reasonable athleticism can become at least an adequate defender.

I don’t think over on 37.5 is a bad bet for the Knicks. I think if all out averages regress we’re right there, but yes we should be slightly improved over that.

I would worry if we don’t have a Noel level backup C or use a rookie for 2000 min

Z-man:
As to Thibs, he definitely helped Obi, and definitely couldn’t do much with Knox. That’s why I’d like to see Obi get another whirl before dumping him in a trade. He’s capable of improving and there isn’t a better vertical athlete in the league.

He helped Frank too 🙂

I think we can be in good shape, Thibs and his staff can do a great job, but for the Knicks as for every team this last season has absolutely zero meaning as a predictive tool.

I took a look at how many games to significant players the teams lost to injuries and Covid Protocols and many teams have been ravaged as never before (and remember, this was a 72-games season).

Plus there was a short training camp, a reduced preseason, a crammed schedule (with the return of the dreaded 4 games in 5 nights), no fans in the stands and a team played all his home games in a neutral site.

Everything will hopefully be different in the world next season and literally every roster will be totally different in less than a month.

Making predictions today based on the 41-31 record as if it was “really real”, while discounting those peculiar circumstances and with over 200 free agents plus 60 picks to be signed is totally useless and very strange for a site so proud of his smartness and analytics.

Shouldn’t we be talking about what draft strategy, and what specific players, we think the Knicks should go for?

Question for all the The Athletic subscribers,
who do you hope will take the place of the great Mike Vorkunov on the Knicks’ beat?

When he was on paternity leave Vardon subbed him and it was a disaster, any hint on who could be next?

Draft makes me happy (no order):
Wagner
Kispert
Moody
Bouknight

Happy but more risk:
Jalen Johnson
Giddey

Average:
Butler

Meh:
Springer
Mann
Cooper

Angry:
Any C
Trey Murphy
Ziaire Williams
Duarte
Keon Johnson
Cam Thomas

Throw remote thru TV:
BJ Boston in 1st

Anyways, wanting the first 4 is why I want to trade up. Maybe one of them falls or Jalen falls, but I doubt they make it to 19.

**Disclaimer** I’m absolutely not a draft expert

Max: Yes, yippie!!! Thanks Cyber 🙂

Let’s go then… 😉
We have two routes – use all three selections or combine two for a trade up and only use two selections.
I’m ignoring pick 58 because that one only serves to guarantee a guy for a 2-way deal.
Now about our routes:
If we select 3 times, i’d take Jaden Springer and Jared Butler in the first round, and Queta with pick 32 (no need to re-sign Noel then).
If we trade up, i think we can’t go very far, as we all have discussed, so i hope it’s for Bouknight or Kispert (players most likely to produce right away). And then Springer again, with the other first round pick.

Shouldn’t we be talking about what draft strategy, and what specific players, we think the Knicks should go for?

I think our draft strategy is pretty clear and almost straightforward even… we should be aiming for a 10-man rotation…. we really only have 5 guys returning that are definitely part of it… and we want to keep a max slot free for next year…. right now it looks like:

PG: open / maybe IQ maybe Vildoza
SG: Barrett / IQ if he’s not playing pg
SF: open / open
PF: Randle / Toppin
C: Robinson / open

Given that we have three picks…. it’s pretty easy to visualize how those three picks slot in to the rotation:

1) backup pg – in actuality this guy will be competing with vildoza and IQ and in the event this guy can’t break through the rotation.. or someone else rises to the occasion… then you have the gleague to put him on ice .. maybe we go big for a pg this summer and just forego one… but it’s going to be a long term need as anyone we sign will have enough risk attached to it that we would not be able to afford to go into the season with only one actual pg… the cupboard is also bare for a pg next summer as well so we should shoot our shot this year….

options: yes i stan hard for ayo dosunmu… sharife cooper is also an option…. there’s also josh giddey on a trade up… and i believe that’s it… some of these ‘maybe pgs’… like butler.. springer… hyland are basically redundant with what we already have… vildoza and IQ are also basically ‘maybe pgs’ and it would be awkward to shoe horn another with that profile… that’s why i think if we draft one.. it’s going to be one who’s actually played the position and doesn’t have too many questions about filling that role at the next level…

**But who? Isaiah Jackson?**
I would not be happy with a C, but if we could get a valuable SG at 32 I wouldn’t be horribly upset. Sadly, it’s not up to me or DRed who actually gets picked.

Honestly I prefer Queta & Bassey to a lot of Cs looking like rd 1 guys. If Garuba fell to us I’d strongly consider gambling on him learning to shoot.

I’m looking more at roster construction and want 1 strong wing and a backup C. I’m not thrilled with the wings or guards at 19 & 21 if we keep the picks. So if there’s enough solid wings in rd 2 I could live with it.

Early Bird: Honestly I prefer Queta & Bassey to a lot of Cs looking like rd 1 guys. If Garuba fell to us I’d strongly consider gambling on him learning to shoot.

Now we’re talking. 😉 I like Bassey a lot too, and think he can be productive. Garuba i wouldn’t take because he’s such a raw project, i don’t think a player needing 2 or 3 years of development would be a good choice for this win now approach of Leon/Thibs.

Less than a week away…

1. Jalen Suggs
2. Jalen Green
3. Cade Cunningham
4. Evan Mobley
5. Scottie Barnes
6. Josh Giddey
7. Jalen Johnson
8. Alperen Sengun
9. Franz Wagner
10. James Bouknight
11. Moses Moody
12. Jaden Springer
13. Jared Butler
14. Jonathan Kuminga
15. Sharife Cooper
16. Keon Johnson
17. Josh Christopher
18. Ayo Dosunmu
19. Chris Duarte
20. Cam Thomas
21. Miles McBride
22. Nah’Shon Hyland
23. Tre Mann
24. Usman Garuba
25. Davion Mitchell
26. Charles Bassey
27. Neemias Queta
28. Jason Preston
29. Isaiah Jackson
30. Trey Murphy III
31. Mckinley Wright
32. Justin Champagnie
33. Corey Kispert
34. Joel Ayayi
35. JT Thor
36. Aaron Henry
37. Day’ron Sharpe
38. Isaiah Todd
39. DJ Steward
40. David Johnson
41. Matthew Hurt
42. Kai Jones
43. Kessler Edwards
44. Jose Alvarado
45. Daishen Nix
46. Greg Brown
47. Ziaire Williams
48. Scottie Lewis
49. Joe Wieskamp
50. Jay Huff
51. Isaiah Livers
52. Santi Aldama
53. Juhann Begarin
54. Luka Garza
55. Trendon Watford
56. Joshua Primo
57. Gabriele Procida
58. Quentin Grimes
59. DJ Carton
60. BJ Boston