“At What Cost, Opportunity?” – The 2021 “Grade the Knicks Draft” Thread

Woj says we signed Aamir Simms. Here’s an excerpt from Vecenie’s writeup on him:

Simms’ skill level is absolutely fascinating in the frame he has. Very few guys bring this level of shooting and passing at his height and weight. He also reads the play extremely well and has a great sense for how to play within a team construct — even when he was the primary option. He was excellent defensively in college. I’m just worried that he also might not be able to guard down the lineup in a way that makes his switchability valuable at the four. I’m also worried he might not be bouncy enough to defend at the five as a rim protector. If I’m looking for two- way flyers among the older players in this draft who could become a valuable and versatile bench piece, Simms is one of my favorite chances to take. If he can improve the athleticism while maintaining a level of strength, he can be useful in a rotation.

McBride might be a steal (and of course he might be a bust), but even if he is, it doesn’t justify incinerating the 19th pick.

Grimes and McBride are Thibs guys; Rojo is the non-Thibs faction’s guy, and when 19 popped up all their “guys” were gone and so they lit the pick on fire. Focusing on your “guys” is no way to conduct a draft and yet again the Knicks just wind up doing weird things with weird ideas behind them. The weirdness is the one constant with this organization and it sticks around like the BO in Seinfeld’s car.

They punted the 19 because they were lazy and unprepared and rigid, which is exactly the reason they punted the 33 last year.

A 2024 2 doesn’t have any value in a move for a star. It’s worthless.

And it wasn’t even fair value for the move from 21 to 25. It took more than the 21 to move from 19 to 14, we all know that, so how could the Clips move from 25 to 21, only one fewer spot, with a mere three-year-out 2? Even granting the possibility that the spots between 19 and 14 are more “valuable” than those between 21 and 25, it still isn’t fair value.

Trading down or even out is fine and defensible if you get good value for the move. The Knicks didn’t get even close to good value. They got shit value.

Trading down or even out is fine and defensible if you get good value for the move. The Knicks didn’t get even close to good value. They got shit value.

In a vacuum yes — but if you have equal grades on 5 guys and you don’t really care which one you get, isn’t it better to get something rather than nothing?

And while the 2024 second might not mean much in, say, a Lillard trade, let’s not forget we traded a mid 2021 2nd round pick for Derrick Rose, who basically turned out season around.

An asset is an asset. Obviously I agree with you that it seems like poor value, but comparing trading down from 21-25 to trading into the late lottery – that’s not a good argument. Obviously the better the pick you’re trading for, the bigger the price. And most people seemed to think there was a cliff after the first 15 or so picks.

It’s fascinating to me how intelligent people can rationalize something so obviously mismanaged. Denial is a big part of the copong process in many parts of life, unfortunately.

CHA protections seem partly like a gamble to land a 2023 double draft 1st. Knicks betting big on the double draft

I’ve been noticeably quiet these past few weeks about the draft. That all stemmed from my in initial review of the class, a very casual one, where I learned it was a deep draft up until the end of the lottery. Sitting outside the lottery meant that the 19th and 21st picks seemed to be a crap shoot. The difference in players between 19 and 39 seemed negligible. The wildly varied results of the draft compared to mocks clearly validates what I believed. There was a clear elite tier, the top 5 or 6 players. A second tier of about 10 players were wannabes. Then there was the rest, a collection of flotsam and jetsam that had value but near equal value.

The Knicks really need two starters. One coming in a trade and the other as a free agent. I said it earlier this week. I expected and hoped that the Knicks would package the picks in a trade for an all-star. While they didn’t quite do that, they still can. Only these picks are future picks now.

I expect Randle, RJ and Mitch to be starters. Toppin, IQ and Vildoza are in the rotation. That’s 6 out of 10 rotation players. Add the rookies and two more veteran players – Let’s say Beal and CP3 or Lillard and DeRozan or something like that and that’s where we land.

Why?

2022. The new draft, with the one-and-done eliminated. The loaded FA class. Leon Rose has done well so far. the team is still rebuilding. Let’s see what happens Monday. I think that will be the wild ride. And if you don’t think the deals have already been made, you’re deluded. Rose already knows what this roster will look like a week from today. The Knicks behavior at the draft just confirms that.

KnickFaninChicago:
It’s fascinating to me how intelligent people can rationalize something so obviously mismanaged.Denial is a big part of the copong process in many parts of life, unfortunately.

Don’t knock my COPONG MECHANISMS until you’ve lived my life!!!!

d-mar:
Love the bitching about the Knicks drafting “Thibs guys”

Yeah, we really should avoid hard nosed players who play defense.

Thank you. I still can’t believe the Thibs hate.

What if..nah nah..it can’t possibly be..

What if Quickley, Obi, and Jokubaitis are heading to Portland along with all the firsts we can trade over the next 3 seasons for Dame? There’s gotta be a method to the FO’s madness in all the maneuvering last night…

I slept on it.. and it’s still horrible… and i’m still giving it an F (from an F-)…

if you asked me before the draft whether Quentin Grimes.. Rokas Jokoubitas.. and Miles McBride were good with the 19.. 21 and 32 picks alone.. that would have gotten a F alone… if you added a dozen second rd picks 5 yrs out that would change the grade either….

yes reaching for guys can sometimes work out…. IQ worked out for a year and it remains to be seen how his career will progress… but this FO.. off the backs of a roster where more than half wasn’t returning… and where it’s best players played well off the backs of 3pt shooting… they were acting like this was a championship squad with narrow needs and few roster spots….

reality couldn’t be further from the truth…. yes trading for a star is probably strategy #1… but you know what helps you land a star? developing your draft picks! those draft picks don’t have to suck! you can play them! you have the gleague! toronto and denver wouldn’t be anything near what we know today if they acted like us and they were actually meandering franchises….

and what exactly are we swinging with in a trade for a star? it’s really just RJ.. Obi.. Quickley and a bunch of picks.. and so what is going to be left? how are we going to match contracts? well we’re about to find out what you can get for a one year contract really soon cause most of our roster is going to be filled with it.. or go back to what it was like during the phil jackson years with multiyear deals for mediocre vets….

it’s pretty telling that actual teams in contention were fighting to get picks in the first and second rd of this draft…. teams like the nets and sixers and milwaukee have open roster spots and few rotation spots open … it is the height of arrogance and tunnel vision the way we behaved this draft… and it may not bite us this year.. and these picks might turn out good.. but the chickens will eventually roost…

Doug Chu: Don’t knock my COPONG MECHANISMS until you’ve lived my life!!!!

lol.
My comment was directed more at Macri. I never thought this draft would have me examining my life like this.

The trade at 19 was non-sensical and reeked of unpreparedness and chaos. Everything else was OK. If you want to nitpick you can say they could have got more from the Clippers, but what happened at 19 was just a blunder and amateur hour.

there’s only been one move stranger than the trade of the 19th pick that I can remember.. and that was the Suns straight up selling a lottery pick that became Luol Deng….

of course you get into the Stepien and Isaiah Thomas deals that occurred before the draft but i’m not counting those… this deal goes into the pantheon of terrible head scratching draft day deals….

and this may work out! portland may demand a charlotte pick for revenge of the bowie/jordan pick…. and you know what… we cornered the market between us and charlotte…

but we just turned $1 into 50 cents… maybe even less… that pick on the trade market are no better than future 2nds…. much akin to the Nerlens Noel trade where it was made so you can say you traded for a ‘first rd pick’ in a press release…

it is again the result of arrogance.. tunnel vision… and just tremendous short term thinking….

last year i slammed the draft because of ‘bad process’… i have absolutely no idea what this was in comparison… but it’s just plain embarrassing…. the worst night we’ve had since the bargnani deal…

Speaking of Springer, i think the Sixers selected a good player, as i’ve said before. But will there be minutes for him, Maxey and Milton? I’d be interested in any of Maxey and Milton, if it’s on the cheap.

Hey, here are some smile-inducing highlights of Jericho Sims showing off in a practice gym. Can he do those things (the baseline floaters especially) in live game action? Who the hell knows, but I suspect he’ll be a fun summer league player.

Is it possible that there is more to the Charlotte trade than we know about at this time? Could it involve Devonte Graham or Rozier? I think there’s more here than meets the eye.

“the fact that the calling card from the guys selected (except McBride) is “impressed at the combine” screams that they don’t do their due diligence.”
This is a great point. Seems very clear that the combine performances that Grimes and Sims had are the reason they are Knicks. I was not very impressed with Grimes from what I saw this season. Hopefully the combine is a springboard to him elevating his game, but I’m not convinced.

“I’d be interested in any of Maxey and Milton, if it’s on the cheap.”
So would the Knicks! They wanted Maxey badly last year, and traded down once the Sixers drafted him. But the Sixers are smart. They won’t sell low on a player with potential like that, and especially not to a semi-rival.

One final note…I am definitely a fan of Miles McBride and think he can become a good player for the Knicks. I also love Ayo Dosunmu, and I’m annoyed that we passed on him…twice

Nice Simpson’s reference Brian 🙂

I think they did EXACTLY what they should have done given their view of the players. Keep in mind. It’s THEIR view (scouts, coached, analytics team, interviews, film work etc..) not the view of some amateur blog fans.

The goal is and should be to try to get all star caliber talent. It is not to accumulate role players via draft or build with 2027-2028 in mind.

In their estimation there was no potential all star caliber talent at #19 and #21. So they pushed the #19 out to next year where there could be an extremely strong draft if “one an done” is eliminated. They also saved a few million of cap space to use this year in free agency. Assuming one and done is eliminated (and a guy like Rose would certainly know the status behind the scenes) the Charlotte pick is going to be perceived as having more value than selecting some role player they didn’t want at #19 last night anyway (even with protections).

The trade down to #25 also saved a little cap space and they got the player they wanted at #25 anyway.

As to adding just 2 players, that also makes sense. They have a lot “wins” to replace in free agency depending on who leaves. They need those roster spots and the cap space for players that can actually play NBA level basketball. They can always send anyone else down to the G league for development.

I’m not going to give them high marks because the ultimate goal was to either trade the picks for a very good player or to move up in the draft to get someone they really loved, but it takes two to tango. Given neither plan A or B was available, they came away with 2 players they liked, saved cap space, and still have a stockpile of extra 1st round picks (and an extra 2nd) to land a star. It was GOOD night despite all the whining.

The crazy thing is this: If you had told me yesterday morning that we’d come out of the draft with Grimes, McBride, a promising draft-and-stash guy in Rokas, Sims as a late flyer, and several additional picks down the road, including a potential first from Charlotte, I’d have probably been quite pleased. (Even if I might have preferred at least one swing for the fences over all these high-floor guys.) But the way it went down does not leave me feeling great about how Leon and his guys work, especially coupled with some of last year’s moves.

It’s all very weird and unsettling, but in different ways from past Knick regimes, because the actual results have been pretty good, and because they have yet to make what we assume will be The Big Moves.

I kind of have to applaud the FO for how masterfully they fucked with us last night.

I say this without sarcasm – you have to grudgingly respect how little they cared about how it would play with the die hards.

I suppose you can rationalize the 19th pick as them preferring to have the cap space after their targets were taken. I don’t agree with their assessment of where the team is on the win curve but there is some process there and I could be convinced it wasn’t as easy to trade out of the pick as some think.

Still, I would have just taken a dude and hoped for the best.

I am glad we got Deuce, the Hive Mind likes him, but it seems like the night would have gone a lot differently if he hadn’t gone undrafted and been there for us at 36.

@Owen,

I believe there was still Cooper & Butler on the board, so the chances of us not getting a decent PG going at 36 after trading 32 was zero.

OK – with all due respect to our amateur draftniks here who spend their spare hours watching YouTube videos —

this is not Steve Mills who is completely unqualified doing evals and making picks here.
We’ve got Walt Perrin and Frank Zanin – who by all accounts are extremely well-respected personnel guys.
There literally is zero reason to think the FO didn’t do their homework on these guys.

This is how I read it:
1) they tried really hard to trade up, but had a limit to how much they would throw into those deals. Everyone obviously asked for too much, so they said no deal.

2) at pick 19 and pick 21, they likely had good intelligence that the guy they wanted there (Grimes) would be available a few picks later. It’s not a great value for value trade, but if you give them the benefit of the doubt that they really liked Grimes and knew he would be there at 25, then the trade-downs are ok. Not great value by whatever chart you look at, but if you get your guy AND you get something else, then that is still a (minor) win.

3) pick 32 for 34+36 is undoubtedly a good deal.

Re: Grimes – I don’t know college basketball and I am not a scout. But the idea that they saw him play at the combine and said that’s our guy is patently ridiculous. The dude was a high profile recruit, played for Kelvin Sampson (who is close with Thibs), and took Houston to the final 4 this year. Did his showing at the combine help? Sure maybe. But the guy has good size for a 2, shot 40% on very high volume from 3, plays defense, and works hard. Again, he was mocked to us in some drafts at 19 or 21, seems fine to get him at 25.

Re: McBride. I know djphan doesn’t like him, but hey, djphan also thought Donovan Mitchell was completely overrated and wouldn’t amount to anything. Plenty of scouts liked him enough to mock him into the top 20-25 of the draft.

The great Masai passed on Suggs for Barnes. That’s a potentially franchise-crippling blunder.
The great R.C. Buford picked Primo at #12 when not a single analyst anywhere had him going in the top 20.

Let’s see how those moves pan out.

I am amused at the reaction to the draft. To be clear, I voted “Met expectations” because I hated our position in the draft. I gave my reasons earlier. But I want to share my theory about why the trade of 19 for a future pick no better than 19 next season would make sense to Leon Rose.

The cap holds for picks:
#19: $2,241,600
#21: $2,065,700
#25: $1,754,600

The Knicks saved $2,552,700 in cap space.

This is all about free agency. The 2.5M is worth way more than a late first round pick. As far as I’m concerned, after about the 12 pick, all the picks were basically replacement value players. The future pick is a trade asset.

B-, Meets expectations, barely.
This front office is too clever by half. The wings that they, and I, wanted were all gone, but they should have gotten more for 19. Charlotte really needs a big and I thought they were going to take Jones at 11. He’s perfect for them. If they weren’t going to give us excess value for the pick, we should have just taken him ourselves. I really can’t argue with Grimes and McBride, especially after reading a couple of Athletic article on them this morning. I didn’t like the Rokas pick. We’re going to sign a veteran point guard, I hope it’s Rose. At that point the back court will be pretty crowded. I would have liked to see them take Bassey with that pick. Sims is a nice 2 way flyer, figuratively and literally. I think the odds now swing in favor of us keeping Bullock over Burks. On to Free Agency.

I would’ve taken Jalen Johnson at 19, but obviously there’s more going on there than just his talent. Also, he’s a non-shooter who is best suited to play Randle or RJ’s position. I still would’ve taken him, but hard to fault an NBA team for passing on him with his question marks.

Early Bird:
**The Knicks also managed to gain cap space in trading 19 and 21 ($4.4 million) for 25 ($1.8 million) which appears to have been a factor in the moves back.**

It’s actually more than that because 1sts can sign for up to 120% of the rookie scale number and almost always do.

I think early 1st rounders do but a 25th pick has very little leverage.

For the record I voted “Met expectations” exactly because we ended up with a nice haul of prospects, some of them maybe already able to contribute (and before the draft I wrote that I’m pro “ready” picks).

But sorry, I can’t totally shake away the feeling that this end came a bit like a Mr. Magoo cartoon.

I don’t think Macri and the Knicks understand the value of future picks lies in their uncertainty, and the protections in that deal make it so the pick is definitely not going to be particularly good. So yes, we can use it to trade for a star player but it’s not going to be a valuable part of whatever package we’re offering

**I think early 1st rounders do but a 25th pick has very little leverage.**

I’m not sure what the actual rate is, but I do believe most 1st rd picks at any slot sign for 120%.

FWIW, IQ was 25 last year and signed for the full 120%.

I think after seeing two drafts from this front office it’s pretty obvious that they laser focus on a limited group of guys and do what they can to secure those specific guys; they look to trade up if they think they need to in order to get those guys, and they look to trade out even if it’s not for great value if none of “their guys” make sense in that slot.

It’s generally not a good process in my eyes and the trade at 19 last night shows why – if you’re always the team who’s motivated to make a move then you’re not going to generally be the team getting value, however ultimately it’s a strategy that will live and die with how good your scouting is. We all thought IQ was a reach last year, but he was their guy, and it looks like it was a homerun. We all thought it was weird that there was nobody they liked at #33 and it turns out there were some pretty good guys they passed on. They bet on their scouting again in this draft, particularly in the clear representation that they didn’t like anyone at 19 and they need to be right because they clearly didn’t get good value in the CHA trade. If the protections were 4-5 slots lower, especially in the later years that would be a really valuable trade chip and I would like the deal, and the draft, a lot.

this is not Steve Mills who is completely unqualified doing evals and making picks here.

Steve Mills acquired Julius Randle, RJ Barrett, Mitchell Robinson, and Reggie Bullock, i.e. our four best players. Right now Steve Mills has done infinitely more to contribute to this team than Leon Rose.

We’ve got Walt Perrin and Frank Zanin – who by all accounts are extremely well-respected personnel guys.
There literally is zero reason to think the FO didn’t do their homework on these guys.

There is no reason to think Walt Perrin and Frank Zanin are making this decisions. They’re scouts. They develop reports. Leon and Wes make the decisions. For all we know, Walt Perrin liked someone at 19 but Leon didn’t agree.

this is not Steve Mills who is completely unqualified doing evals and making picks here.

Steve Mills acquired Julius Randle, RJ Barrett, Mitchell Robinson, Reggie Bullock, and three surplus first round draft picks.

We’ve got Walt Perrin and Frank Zanin – who by all accounts are extremely well-respected personnel guys. There literally is zero reason to think the FO didn’t do their homework on these guys.

There is also no reason to think Walt Perrin and Frank Zanin are making these decisions. Walt Perrin could have loved someone at 19, but Leon or WWW ignored him bc they wanted to keep the Dame Lillard dream alive.

The presence of Walt Perrin cannot continually be used as justification for stupid moves.

Random, morning after, half-baked takes:

– Don’t watch college hoops myself so have no idea how the draft assets the Knicks had going in might have been leveraged for a better haul of talent. Were I a serious draftnik, though, I really would have been pissed! From the outside looking in, it sure does appear as if the likes of djphan & tnfh spent waaaay more time thinking about, planning for – and generally giving a shit about – the ins and outs of this draft than did anyone in the Knick FO.

– If each successive Knicks FO can said to work really hard at anything, it’s staying two steps ahead of the cynicism of the fan base. We’re rightly jaded and think we’ve seen it all as far as incompetence and mismanagement are concerned but whenever a new regime shows up, they’re like “Hold my beer!” Prior to last night, the most jaundiced of us were convinced that the absolute worst thing they could possibly do was trade up using two (or more) picks for some middling talent. The collective sigh of relief when they did not trade up was soon replaced by the sound of millions of palms hitting millions of faces when Rose & Co. kinda sorta traded the 19th pick sideways for, uhhh, nobody really knows what. Will the next FO be able to out-inept that? I don’t see how but never again will I doubt the ability of a Knicks FO to do so!

– And we ain’t seen nuthin’ yet! Armed now with some $50 million in cap space in a down year for free agents, a handful of aging superstars as potential trade targets, the possibilities for this FO to perpetrate even greater acts of malfeasance are legion! We could be on the cusp of some truly legendary shit that will make even the sins of Isiah & Phil seem trifling.

(Character limit looming; to be continued)

Barrettcuda:
Man, I hope we get Lonzo Ball. It would be a real fun team with him running the point.

I’m betting that Rose has had a deal with them months ago. You know the Balls want the NY spotlight.

djphan: charlotte needs to be a 6 seed in order for this to relay..

and the year after Charlotte needs to be like an 8 seed, and the year after that the 10th seed

Random, morning after, half-baked takes (Part 2):

– Bearing Part 1 of this post in mind, one can’t help but wonder if Dolan selects FO personnel on their ability to offend. I’ve long suspected Guitar Jimmy of being the ultimate troll; that fan outrage is, for him, a feature not a bug. We fans foolishly cling to the quaint idea that Dolan is in the business of providing entertainment for us fans when, in actuality, we’re the ones doing the entertaining, solely for his benefit. It’s quite possible that our sustained anger gives him a glee not dissimilar to that felt by Trump supporters who get off on “pwning the libs.”

– My wife has tolerated my myriad sports frustrations with a detached bemusement for more than 30 years, largely without comment. But as she heard me rail, unceasingly, at the teevee last night, she asked, “Isn’t there another team you could root for?”

Grimes’ journey is really interesting — he was a five star high school recruit as as ball dominant PG, went to Kansas, his hometown school, which was a bad fit for him. He transferred to Houston, and reinvented himself as a 3 & D super role player. If nothing else that shows adaptability and tenacity.

Fun fact: His brother is Tyler Myers, a defenseman for the Vancouver Canucks, making him part of the first NHL/NBA pair of brothers in history.

I’m betting that Rose has had a deal with them months ago. You know the Balls want the NY spotlight.

What would a deal with them months ago matter when New Orleans can match any deal he gets and just dumped a bunch of salary in Bledsoe?

New Orleans might have dumped that salary to sign Lowry

Doug Chu: and the year after Charlotte needs to be like an 8 seed, and the year after that the 10th seed

No, the protections on the pick are top 18, 16, 14, 14, and then it becomes two 2nd round picks. If Charlotte’s a 10th seed we don’t get a 1st round pick.

I just think its crazy. You look at the 3 dudes they got and everyone here seems to be ok with them. But everyone freaks out over one pick. Its the 19th pick in the draft. It ain’t a lottery pick. I get we want to extract the most value out of every single transaction but that’s not how it works in the real world. Also, the details of that trade have not been fully released yet. Let’s wait and see maybe?

“Sometimes you don’t get good value in a trade, and that’s okay!” is probably the worst defense for the deal that I can think of.

Passing over LaMelo Ball for the likes of Killian Hayes, etc. would fall into the category of an inexcusable drafting blunder. Thankfully Charlotte wasn’t incompetent enough to do that, making it far more likely that the first rounder will convey on a LaMelo-led team.

And the proposition that if the pick doesn’t convey next year, it is a bad thing is curious. It would be actually better if it doesn’t convey until 2024, when it is only top-14 protected, and when it is more likely as Charlotte will be at least an 8th seed in the playoffs. And even if Charlotte is still in the lottery in 2025, then the two second rounders are likely to be around the same slots that got us McBride and Jokubaitis. The odds that the outcome is anything but marginally worse that having #19 in this draft is better than 50-50.

Hubert: One thing is very clear, though: the healthy cynicism of many board members about Leon Rose & Co was entirely justified. Hopefully we can put to bed this foolish idea that they’ve been great so far. There’s no more “except for Obi Toppin and setting fire to a draft pick, they’ve been great” nonsense. Those mistakes were early signs of decay that many people picked up on.

Obviously you are so locked in to this dumb position that even a 10-year playoff run with multiple finals appearances wouldn’t change your mind. And what’s hilarious is that NO ONE has exalted Rose to the level of being infallible, as you like to characterize anyone who disagrees with your provably dumb takes. You’re an all-or-nothing kind of guy who continually argues from a preconceived opinion, and will use any level of fabrication and distortion to justify that opinion no matter how things turn out.

No one here said “Hey, great move Leon!!! Bravo! Once again you are playing 3-D chess while everyone else is playing checkers!” Yet that is the drum you keep beating. Let me clue you in, buddy…there’s a gaping chasm between your takes and the reality of what is happening. For example, no matter how many times you use expressions like lighting picks on fire, it doesn’t make it any more true. The only reason to say it is to exaggerate in the service of your tedious narrative.

Hubert: bc it IS worse! You’re right, we all went into the night with specific concerns. And what they ended up doing was worse than anything any of us could have imagined!!! Please, give me Ziaire Williams now. That was my previous worst case scenario.

Here’s another example of a grotesquely bizarre exaggeration. I mean, can you actually say something stupider than this move is worse than drafting Kevin Knox, or tying up 4 year of cap space in Noah (who is still on our books, yikes!) or Jesus Christ, the Bargnani trade? Only a complete idiot, or a complete asshole, would buy into that line of reasoning.

Two things can be true:

1)The Knicks made four picks, taking several promising prospects (albeit guys who seem more high-floor/low-ceiling) — most of them mocked roughly around where the Knicks were originally slated to pick — and in the process acquired multiple future assets, one of which may be a future 1st rounder. In several instances, Brock Aller and company basically pulled picks out of thin air while still getting the players they wanted in their earlier positions.

2)The Knicks appear to have gotten very poor value for trading out of the 19th pick, whether because they panicked when all their favorites disappeared off the board right before it was their turn, because there was barely any interest in that pick once they were on the clock, or some other factor of which we are not aware.

Over these two drafts, there have been a number of transactions suggesting this front office very much cares about accumulating assets, and has the ability to manufacture them with no real cost (32 becoming 34 & 36 this year, or turning 27 & 38 into 25 & 33 last year). And there have been several transactions (punting the 33rd pick several years down the line after Vernon Carey was taken, doing the same with the 19th after Murphy and Mann were off the board) suggesting they don’t really care at all, and/or don’t always understand the best way to leverage draft assets.

People are complicated. So are basketball organizations. I still don’t feel good at all about the Charlotte trade, even as I really like a lot of what I’m reading about the guys we took.

One thing I think it’s important to realize is we all put too much pressure on 1st round picks. Way too much. Combining the one and done era with the media frenzy over these high school kids and college freshmen, we tend to forget these picks are literally children. On top of that, we get so caught up in imagining what these kids will be- that we forget that MJ’s Bulls teams had 1st round picks up and down the roster. Most of them became quality role players, while we expect stardom(to a certain degree) out of these kids. With our Knicks it may have been a little understandable considering we were star-starved. But even then it probably was a little unreasonable to expect the world from these kids. Every year most of the lottery picks don’t become stars. It’s been that way since the NBA had their first lottery.

So..why are we even viewing our recent draft haul under such a white hot light- as opposed to seeing what they are and how they fit in our scheme? Once they show they can work..then we should worry about what they develop into. All of these kids were great in high school and mostly good in college- all the way to the top pick. This is why we need to trust the scouting and developmental staff- and wait and see what they can do with them. Trust me, if these kids weren’t workers who have shown fruits of their labor- this current FO would not draft them.

I guess I’m sayin all of this to say- let’s just hold off on wtf’ing a pick like Grimes because we didn’t draft him to be a star. We drafted him to be a piece of a good team. Sometimes folks all over act like every first round pick is a top 3 selection, and most years even those picks don’t measure up.

I am surprised to be saying this, but I’m embarrassed by the hot takes on the draft. People are clearly operating from emotion and not rationality:

But ultimately they can’t be graded until they make their big swing. If they steal a superstar via trade or free agency, it can validate these poor decisions.

One thing is very clear, though: the healthy cynicism of many board members about Leon Rose & Co was entirely justified.

I mean, that isn’t even internally consistent! And a lot of the people decrying the process, or saying there was no process (which is plain damn stupid; there was obvious process, you just disagree with it), are saying that if they knew we ended up where we ended up, they’d feel it was OK. They don’t like HOW we got there.

I respect djphan for at least being consistent: he graded a bunch of players higher and felt we should have picked them. But a lot of people just didn’t enjoy how it FELT. And how it felt is utterly meaningless.

I don’t have access to the front office, so I could be wrong, but I’d be shocked if the #19 trade was part of an already agreed trade for a major player. They needed another future first and got it, so they don’t care about the protections, because they know it meets the requirements of the team they’re trading with.

Y’all bunch of geniuses can’t see that, I guess….

Steve Mills acquired Julius Randle, RJ Barrett, Mitchell Robinson, and Reggie Bullock, i.e. our four best players. Right now Steve Mills has done infinitely more to contribute to this team than Leon Rose.

If you never wanted anyone to take you seriously again, congratulations, you win!

Here’s what I will say about the Rose regime thus far:
-They are not geniuses at drafting, but not idiots either. Most of us probably could have done at least as well, but the blunders are not really big deals, just annoying.
1) The main part of their job in the present was to change the perception of the franchise from perennial losers and laughingstocks to a positive, if not preferred, destination for free agents. In my book, they’ve hit this one out of the park.
2) Going forward, the jury is out. They have created a favorable cap situation and have amassed a nice trove of draft assets to facilitate deals. Nothing they did or didn’t do in the last two drafts matters anywhere near as much as what they do in trades and free agency in the next few weeks.
3) Most of us would have preferred a true down-to-the-studs rebuild. But even after Thins was hired and that idea was moot, when guys like Hubert were screaming at the top of their lungs to trade Randle for peanuts, and are now crediting him for all the success the team had this year without crediting management for not listening to Hubert et. al.’s advice, those guys lose way more credibility than Rose. And you couldn’t have had 1) without Thins and the win-now approach. The fact that we knocked the Nets off the back page and had by any fair account a MORE SUCCESSFUL SEASON IN THE COURT OF PUBLIC OPINION THAN THE BIG-3 SUPERTEAM ACROSS THE EAST RIVER is an enormous boon for the franchise. Not a single hive-mind poster expected that glorious outcome. I would say that this in and of itself bought Rose & co. lots of good will with me, certainly enough to look the other way when they make a minor draft incongruity.

But Z-man, don’t you know? There is no way Randle won’t regress. RJ has already hit his ceiling. None of the veterans will come back and its guaranteed we’re going to overspend on free agents that aren’t as good. Last year was a flash in the pan and next year we play the Hawks 82 times in the regular season!

It’s going to be a heated August on KB I can see.

I guess I am reluctantly in the “let’s wait to see what very stupid thing they do in free agency before fully judging this draft” camp

I’ll re-post my takes that got lost in the wee hours of the morning last night as I was cramming information about someone named Rokas Jokubaitis:

I’m not as out on this draft, process included, as some others. If they had reason to believe McBride or another guard they liked would be there at #32, trading #19 makes some sense in a vacuum. I would not have made the Grimes pick but I don’t dislike him so much I can confidently say the process sucked.

However, I think the return on #19 is indefensible. When I first heard a Charlotte first I thought that was fine, but we’ve almost locked ourselves out on the pick being better than #19. That means we’re blindly relying on the future draft, and we don’t even know which one it’ll be, being deeper (seems unlikely).

The idea is probably that a future first has more value than a player we pick at #19, which would be reasonable if the future first was a real future first. It’s not like other teams will be fooled by “future Charlotte first,” they can see the damn protections on it that render it fake. I don’t think it has much trade value.

Between this and ditching #33 last year in similar fashion, it seems like these guys decide they’re trading a pick and figure out the trade after. That’s not good process.

swift, I love you dog, but you lose some credibility when everyone knows you will reflexively defend the front office to the maximum extent possible no matter what they do. You should change it up every once in a while to keep us off-balance. Maybe go absolutely apeshit on the Jericho Sims pick or something.

If we ended FA with Ball & Lowry on multi-year contracts taking up all our cap space, would people be happy or angry?

Lowry is slowing down, but still put up good numbers last year.

That seems like the one configuration that couldn’t happen, right? Because if the Pellies aren’t signing Lowry, then they gotta bring Ball back.

Early Bird:
If we ended FA with Ball & Lowry on multi-year contracts taking up all our cap space, would people be happy or angry?

Lowry is slowing down,but still put up good numbers last year.

Not a big Lonzo fan but and don’t love him on a max deal but it’s probably ok. How much $$$ and years are we giving 35 year old Lowry?

From my own perspective, and you can check the posting record:

I would not have hired Thibs
I would have traded Randle
I would have drafted Haliburton over Obi
I would have drafted Bane over IQ
I would have drafted someone at 33 rather than punting
I would have drafted Cooper at 19
I would have drafted Springer at 21
I would have drafted Butler at 33
I would have drafted Bleijenbergh at 58

So where would the franchise be now if I were in charge instead of Rose?
-We almost certainly would have had another losing season and would still be in the Nets’ shadow
-Frank and Knox would have played a lot more
-We’d be drafting in the top-10
-We’d have a similar trove of assets and potential cap space

It really comes down to the Thibs/Randle combination. Does what they have costed in draft position worth what they have gained in franchise credibility and possibilities for the future? I see arguments on both sides, enough so that I am still willing to give Rose a tempered pass on the Obi pick and the draft punts. I still credit them for the things they didn’t do….Westbrook, Hayward, VanVleet, even CP3…enough to wince a bit and then get back on the rails when they don’t do everything as I wanted them to.

I’m merely a bit player in the colorful pageant that is this Knickerblogger forum. As such, I almost always stick to the sidelines whenever the latest skirmish in the neverending Optimist v. Pessimist battle flares up. I’m squarely in the P camp myself but that’s purely a personal choice, not some fundamentalist belief that I feel compelled to proselytize to any Knicks fan who professes a belief that the glass is indeed half full.

To each his own. I take no issue with those who choose to look upon last night’s maneuverings with a less jaundiced eye. I just can’t do that myself. Not yet. This team, under this owner, has burned me too many fucking times for me to even consider giving it the benefit of the doubt until I see much more in the way of on-court results (and, no, being on the wrong side of a gentleman’s sweep in the first round of the playoffs in a fluky season ain’t gonna cut it)

I guess my Knicks fandom at this point can be best summarized by the words of Tim Whatley (the Seinfeld dentist who converted to Judaism for the jokes): “it’s our sense of humor that has sustained us as a people for thousands of years …” Cynical gallows humor, born out of decades of frustration and continually lowered expectations that nevertheless go unmet year after year after year, is pretty much the only thing that has sustained me as a Knicks fan for a really long time now. I’ll change as soon as this team gives me some other means of enjoying my misbegotten affection for it. Until then, I’m strictly in it for the jokes.

Last night reminded me about the John Mulaney Delta Airlines bit. “Can you please just make the #19 pick?” “NO!” “Ooooookay…”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHwKmZnc7l4

As someone who was very pro-trading pick 19 because I didn’t like anyone, even being okay with trading a 1st for a future 1st 1-to-1, I find the protections pretty jarring.

I’m still going with Aller loves 2023 and it’s a calculated risk to get another 2023 pick.

Man, that clip of McBride getting two steals in a row off Cade Cunningham has me quite pumped. I recommend watching it…

JK47: Last night’s Charlotte trade is Exhibit Z. It was an obvious facepalm of a blunder. Is it a fatal mistake? No, not in and of itself. But it’s a very bad sign that the people running things at MSG could make such a completely inept mistake.

  

JK, how did you fell about the Spurs taking Primo at #12? Or the Raps taking Barnes over Suggs? Or the Warriors taking Kuminga at #7?

If we had #5, or #7, or #12 and did any of those things, yet picked Deuce McBride at #19, would you have been more happy?

My point is that you are completely focused on the #19 pick and totally ignoring that we traded #21 for #25 plus and asset and got the player we wanted at #21, and traded the #32 for #34 and #36 and got the player we wanted at #19 plus a draft and stash guy, and still have what will likely be a #19 or so pick in the next 4 years or at worst 2 2nd rounders. I respect you a great deal, but truly don’t see how you can look at the body of work and not see any clear breaks from the incompetence of the past. There is a near zero chance that whoever we targeted at #19 or #21 (likely McBride and Grimes, right? Right?) would have changed the fortunes of the franchise more than who we eventually picked at #25 and 36 (oh wait, McBride and Grimes!) So what would we have gained by picking McBride and Grimes at #19 and #21 and Joku at #33? The crazy irony is if that’s what the Knicks did, you’d be satisfied, not necessarily with the picks, but with the process. So the process they used got those same picks, plus a future first (or 2 2nds) and a future 2nd. Could they have done marginally better? Sure. But it starts sounding a bit PTSDish when you think that the net result is a disaster, unless you hate the picks themselves, which would have been exactly the same if they didn’t make any trades.

I will tell you what the problem is. Its you guys.

I am surprised to be saying this, but I’m embarrassed by the hot takes on the draft. People are clearly operating from emotion and not rationality:

it’s a sports fan’s blog, so, yeah…

you all got me rolling this morning 🙂

Hubert: There is no reason to think Walt Perrin and Frank Zanin are making this decisions. They’re scouts. They develop reports. Leon and Wes make the decisions. For all we know, Walt Perrin liked someone at 19 but Leon didn’t agree.

They’d be better off firing Wesley and Rose and letting Aller and Perrin run the team. Literally the only reason they’re there is because Dolan thinks they’ll help his silly and perpetual exercise in starfucking. They don’t know shit about basketball personnel. (Which is a big reason Rose never talks to the media, never really talks basketball to the public in any way — he knows he doesn’t really know shit about it.)

There is a near zero chance that whoever we targeted at #19 or #21 (likely McBride and Grimes, right? Right?)

There is no way that they targeted McBride at #19/#21 and then traded out of the #19/21 on the belief that McBride would be available at #36. In other words, while I think McBride was an excellent pick at #36, I think it was an excellent pick made based on them being unable to pass up the chance to get such great value there than them actively planning for him to be there. It just doesn’t make a lick of sense for them to think he’d be there at #36 after passing on him at #25 (or if they did, that would be unreasonable in and of itself). In other words, if they actually were targeting McBride, they wouldn’t have dealt out of the first round period with the #19 pick.

Grimes, though, yes, they clearly (and reasonably) believed he would be there at #25 when they traded #21.

The hand-wringing here is a little baffling. If we had picked McBride and Grimes at 19 and 21, would that have been acceptable? They both rank very highly via advanced stats, aren’t exceptionally old (or young), aren’t “raw” at anything, and aren’t “upside” bets… They are just two players that have proven to be good at basketball in college.

Past boards would’ve loved those picks. They are totally opposite from the Frank/Knox picks. AND… the Knicks also got 3 future 2nd rounders out of their dealings. Plus, they got an appealing eurostash and a high-energy big in the 2nd round. Idk if it matters so much how they got there.

Most importantly, I like these picks. Keon Johnson is really just a tremendous athlete, which is not the same thing as a great basketball player. Cooper cannot shoot OR defend. Every other prospect at 19 had big question marks. Sure, we didn’t get Giddey or Moody, but that was never happening. I am pleased today.

JK47:
One of the things we hear all the time here is “it takes too long to develop young players.”

A player that we drafted at 19, if all goes right, should be a useful player in two or three years. That’s a good fit with our window. Now we’re looking at drafting a guy at roughly the same slot in the draft, but in like 2023 or 2024, meaning it’ll be like 2026 or 2027 before that guy is a developed player.

This is like cooking a meal, and having the potatoes come out 20 minutes after the steak.

But you are ignoring the near-fact that we got the player people were excited about at #19 with pick #36!!! It’s convenient to forget that when making your steak-potato analogy. Are you actually disputing that if we didn’t trade the pick we would have picked different players? There is zero evidence to suggest that.

The most likely outcome is that we would have drafted the same players and would have been paying them more at the cost of more cap space, and would not have any future assets. So you’d still have your steak and potatoes as you like them, plus a voucher for dessert later on. The only issue is whether the steak is overcooked and gristly and the potatoes moldy and crawling with vermin.

In other words, since our targets were clearly Grimes, McBride and Joku, whether at 19, 21 and 32 or at 25, 34 and 36, wouldn’t you rather have those guys plus future assets than just those guys? Or just go on the record and tell me who you would have picked at 19, 21 and 32 and let’s see how they turn out compared to Grimes, Joku, McBride and the two future picks.

We could have had Grimes, Jokubaitis, McBride AND another piece at 19. That’s the thing: opportunity cost.

This reminds me so much of the 2021 LV Raiders situation, where LV got a first round talent in round two, then fans used that to justify the third-round talent the Raiders selected in round 1. A really good team would have taken a first-round talent in round one and then ALSO got the first-round talent in round 2.

I simply don’t believe there were no other good players available besides the guys we drafted. It’s dumb to lock in on a small group of guys that you covet. That’s how Jon Gruden operates.

Who would people have drafted at 19?

I’m on record as Jalen Johnson while TNFH & djphan have their boards posted.

Anyone else want in?

Z-man, this gets back to my point. People are looking at one pick from a very granular perspective. The Knicks are looking at the draft as a whole. What they had to work with (the 3 picks), who was on the board, what was available trade wise, the cap implications, etc. People say they hate the process but they’re focusing on the one pick instead of what the end of the night looks like.

And the end of the night looks pretty good? Three picks yielded 3 players all mocked within the range of the picks they went in with and all looking like decent picks plus they gained future assets. But jesus reading this blog last night was hilarious. The collective meltdown was unbelievable. Like we just had a great season. Perspective people.

I also think $100 bill is not appropriate for a 19th pick. Its more like $10. But then again, I still think getting a $100 bill is a lot of money when it actually isn’t.

Brian Cronin: What would a deal with them months ago matter when New Orleans can match any deal he gets and just dumped a bunch of salary in Bledsoe?

Word has been that New Orleans is not going to match a Knick offer. They are over the cap, like most NBA teams. The Knicks will come close to maxing him out at $28M and the Pelicans won’t touch that. When you sit at the table with the big stack of chips you can bully the opposition.

As someone who was very pro-trading pick 19 because I didn’t like anyone, even being okay with trading a 1st for a future 1st 1-to-1, I find the protections pretty jarring.

It’s REALLY weird. I was talking to an NBA writer who said he couldn’t remember protections like this before, that make it very hard for the future pick to be higher than the present-day one you just traded.

So either Rose has some kind of Jekyll and Hyde personality where he trusts wildly different advice from transaction to transaction — and thus was ignoring Aller on this but listening to him when they turned 32 into 34 & 36 — or Aller’s not as smart as he sometimes seems, or there really is some three-dimensional chess going on that we’re all (even Jowles) not smart enough to understand.

But I trust the results more than I do The Process.

Also, Yaron Weitzman — who, again, seems to know more about the weird inner workings of our FO better than any other member of the media — tweeted this while praising Macri’s newsletter (that defended the Charlotte trade):

This is a really good recap of the Knicks’ draft that does a really good job of explaining how they approach things. I also think it’s become clear that the Rose FO is big on picking the guys they like — and then working backwards to get them, as opposed to just looking for value

Hubert, how is that possible when they ADDED future picks plus young players today.

The Knicks added to their youth core and created the possibility to add even more to their youth core while ALSO opening up cap space to help sign vet free agents. They actually accomplished both goals (adding to the future youth and creating room for vets/free agents). 2 million isn’t a lot but for some vets out there the difference between an 8 million and 10 million dollar contract is enough to sway their choice.

Now if they trade all of these picks and half of the youth core for Dame, then, yeah, its potentially a disaster. But as of right now, their future building prospects are BETTER than they were 24 hours ago because they added 3 prospects (not counting the 58th pick here) and created more future picks out of the process.

How is that bad processing? It seems the biggest thing people are pissed about is the pick protections. Which I admit was not good but not nearly as bad as people are making it out to be.

Yeah I keep thinking there is more to the charlotte trade than we know about at this time.

Early Bird:
Who would people have drafted at 19?

I’m on record as Jalen Johnson while TNFH & djphan have their boards posted.

Anyone else want in?

I said Cooper and Springer.

swiftandabundant:
Yeah I keep thinking there is more to the charlotte trade than we know about at this time.

It sure would make sense, wouldn’t it?

Swifty, because they are consistently getting less than full value for their assets. If you don’t like anyone at 19, and you do what OKC did (which was to get *two* future first rounders for the 16th pick), then Bravo!

Now I’m not going as far as JK47 and fully writing them off. But I am skeptical. I’ve always been skeptical of this front office. That I am guilty of.

i think we’re seeing the same people who backwards rationalize things actually mirroring the draft strategy of our front office…

it’s quite ironic…

“Also, just want to point out that this is now 2 years in a row where on draft day tons of people were screaming bloody murder only to look a little over the top the next morning. Y’all need to cut back on the coffee or maybe not get so caught up in the moment. ITs the draft, not game 7.”

WORD ON THIS.

The Mets will be making a big move before the end of the day now. Take that to the bank— Ben Verlander (@BenVerlander) July 30, 2021

I think we’re seeing the same people who post horrifically flawed lottery boards and making insanely wrong predictions about players the Knicks draft acting like they know what they’re talking about.

Hubert:
Swifty, because they are consistently getting less than full value for their assets. If you don’t like anyone at 19, and you do what OKC did (which was to get *two* future first rounders for the 16th pick), then Bravo!

Now I’m not going as far as JK47 and fully writing them off. But I am skeptical. I’ve always been skeptical of this front office. That I am guilty of.

Hubert, I don’t think any Knick fan has to excuse having some degree of skepticism in any Knick front office after what we’ve endured for the last 20 years. All I’m saying is, maybe it’s OK to allow yourself to believe a bit in what this front office is doing even if they don’t do exactly what you’d want them to do.
“Oh, they didn’t get two future 1sts like OKC did! They’re a failure at pick valuation!” That’s the bar for this team? If they don’t consistently pull rabbits out of hat then they suck? It’s not nearly that black and white for me.

Now I’m not going as far as JK47 and fully writing them off. But I am skeptical. I’ve always been skeptical of this front office. That I am guilty of.

You know what, this is fair. I won’t fully write them off. But they’re not great at the draft. I see some Jon Gruden tendencies here: fixate on a small group of players, undervalue draft picks, make draft day trades that you have to twist yourself into pretzels to rationalize.

Maybe free agency is their thing, and they pull off something big when the FA period starts. Not loving this latest data point. Maybe the next data point will be better. Skeptical.

RC Buford has been doing dumb shit for quite a while now, which is reflected in the Spurs’ new status as mediocre also-ran in the West

Early Bird:
So right now:

???/McBride/IQ
???/Vildoza
RJ/Grimes
Randle/Obi/Knox
Mitch/Sims/Pelle

Plus: Aamir Simms & Rokas

This is what I’m seeing, a need for a starting PG & Wing.

Probably a backup C that has a good chance of being Taj again.

I’m not really sure how to shuffle Vildoza, McBride, & IQ unless 1 starts. Do people expect Vildoza to start? I’m guessing he’s filling more of the Austin Rivers emergency backup role.

Graham, Ball, or Payne as starting PG and Duncan Robinson as starting SF. If there’s money left, resign Noel and Rose.

All I’m saying is, maybe it’s OK to allow yourself to believe a bit in what this front office is doing even if they don’t do exactly what you’d want them to do.
“Oh, they didn’t get two future 1sts like OKC did! They’re a failure at pick valuation!” That’s the bar for this team? If they don’t consistently pull rabbits out of hat then they suck? It’s not nearly that black and white for me.

CDiggy, they don’t even compare favorably against a Bot that had stood still and taken ESPN’s best player available at every pick.

Last year, an auto draft would have selected Halliburton at 8, Desmond Bane at 27, and Isiah Joe at 38.

This year, auto draft would have taken Jalen Johnson, Keon Johnson, and Sharife Cooper.

So, yeah, I don’t see the last two drafts as decent results.

GoNyGoNYGo: Damn right. I was one of them. I was pissed that we passed on Haliburton for Obi.That draft convinced me that Leon Rose doesn’t think the way we do and he’s got a shit-ton more experience and personal knowledge about how to get done than all of us combined. He got where I wanted to get taking a quite different path. That’s why I’m not passing judgement right now.

That’s why statements such as “It’s poor asset management and poor process” is amateur naivety. Rose played and won on the big stage as an agent. I think he’s as sharp as a razor and takes approaches that we novices couldn’t ever conceive.We’ll see what we’re really up to in a week .

What are you talking about? Last offseason was a punt, we brought back largely the same team as we had in 2019-20. All the improvement came from Thibs.

JK47: Uhhh you could keep the pick at 19 and still trade the 32 for the 34 and 36. I’m not anti-trading picks. I’m anti-trading picks for shitty return. Maybe I’m missing the point here? We turned a 2021 pick into likely a 2023 or 2024 pick, with a non-zero chance it becomes second rounders in like 2025 and 2026. What does that have to do with trading 32 for 34 and 36?

Yes, the point you are missing is that when you make a lot of pick swaps, you are going to miss on some and hit on some. It’s a mentality that is usually either one or the other. Show me a team that makes lots of swaps and I’ll show you a team that has some head-scratchers. So if you are only going to make draft-day trades with 100% chance of being positive value, you are going to be reluctant to trade. It’s pretty ballsy to judge a team only on the dubious moves and not credit them for the good ones. Again, if you slept through draft night and learned that we drafted Grimes, McBride, Joku and Sims plus acquired a lottery-protected first and a future DET 2nd, but had no idea where they were picked or how we got the future picks, how would you feel? My guess is that you would totally focus on whether you liked Grimes and McBride either being to your liking or not. If you loved them, you’d be thrilled. If you hated them, you be pissed.

So I’m down with folks hating the McBride or the Grimes picks on their merits and preferring other guys at 19 and 21. I did! But every other rumor leading up to the draft suggested that we were hot for McBride at #19 or the latest #21. Yet we passed on him 5 times (19, 21, 25, 32, 34) and STILL got him. And the box-score guys had him rated over Mitchell who would have cost all of this year’s draft capital and some from future years to nab. But that’s not good enough, lit picks on fire bad return process we’re doomed yadayada. Tedious.

vincoug: What are you talking about? Last offseason was a punt, we brought back largely the same team as we had in 2019-20. All the improvement came from Thibs.

Not according to Hubert.

JK47 is saying don’t make dumb trades and Z-Man’s counter is you have to tolerate dumb trades to get good trades.

I mean it’s way more important to the future of the Knicks whether the guys they picked last night turn out to be good than whether they should have negotiated slightly better protections on the future Charlotte pick (and yes, they should have) and yet you could be excused for reading this whole thread and thinking we hadn’t even made a pick last night. Just kind of seems like tunnel-vision on the thing where nit-picking is most justified.

@shwinnypooh
As @JCMacriNBA
mentioned bc of the protections on the CHA 1st the next FRP they can trade isn’t until 2027, at least not until this conveys to NYK. If they wanna make an in-season upgrade and need access to a 1st less distant, they’ll need to negotiate w NY to lift the protection

Potentially renegotiating the protections would be a godsend

Maybe we’re like this:
??? / Vildoza / McBride
??? / IQ / Grimes
RJ / ??? / ???
Randle / Obi / Knox
Mitch / ??? / Taj?

i’m getting a feeling obi may not be here next year…

too funny soze, when you mentioned fire and music – i was 100% expecting: this

The way you walk and talk really sets me off
To a fuller love, child, yes, it does, uh
The way you squeeze and tease, knocks to me my knees
‘Cause I’m smokin’, baby, baby

@ptmilo,

I’ve read a bit about McBride that makes him sound more capable of running point than an average combo guard. And apparently his team had poor spacing, which got fixed towards the end of the season and McBride averaged 6asts per game over that span.

Anyways, I think McBride has some upside as a PG because that’s a skill that can take time to develop. In the meantime, he should be fine running Thibs offense which likes scorers more than pure PGs.

awwww c’mon man, don’t go there…

Hubert: Let’s stop and examine this.

Last year, with three good picks, we ended up with one potential 6th man and a likely lotto bust.

This year, again with three good picks, we ended up with three low floor, low ceiling prospects.

Are we sure these results are decent? That’s 6 picks, and one guy that anyone is confident can be an NBA rotation player.

I disagree that the picks this year were “good”, and even then you have to judge that on the level of targeted talent available in a given draft respective to your draft position. Pick #19 in this draft to me was meh. Not terrible or bad, but not good.

With last year’s draft, I think you have to look at how Obi looks coming into this next preseason; one year (or even two-ish) does not make a pick a bust. I feel like Randle’s revelation allowed the team to take it slower with Obi’s development, and that was a double-edged sword: he was billed as a plug-n-play forward but he wasn’t, yet the team was afforded time to work on his liabilities and build him up. And we started to see some results of that late in the season and the postseason even! So how well does he build off that? Is he working his ass off this offseason? The book on him is far from written.

I don’t know much about Grimes or McBride other than I know some people here had Grimes on their 1st rd board and the noise around McBride makes him sounds like a good 2nd round pick. I’ll have to read up on both. Are we sure both are low-floor low-ceiling?

I have a headache from reading all the comments in the past 20 hours….

geo:
awwww c’mon man, don’t go there…

WTF

geo: too funny soze, when you mentioned fire and music – i was 100% expecting: this

That’s also a very good choice. 😉
I like this board on fire, we get to read a lot of passionate opinions which help us deal with our own frustration about what is happening.
Hell, yesterday i was also on fire, it was 3AM here in Portugal and, after waiting so long, Leon trades the picks… man, i was really on fire by that time. 😀
I’m chilled now and waiting for free-agency / trades to know exactly what was the whole plan.

Look, I have my concerns about the Leon Rose approach as well. I certainly don’t think that his approach to draft day transactions inspires confidence in and of itself. But overall, so long as the draft moves are on balance a mixed bag, this is the little stuff. IQ was a clear win at #25 and Obi is a Jury’s still out guy who was fun to root for down the stretch and in the playoffs. I don’t really give a fuck that we have a future 2nd rounder instead of Isaiah Joe. But I will give 1000 fucks if we use that 2nd along with a zillion 1sts, RJ, Mitch and IQ to trade for Lillard or Beal. Or in 2 years we are capped out with RJ, Randle, Mitch, Lonzo and Sexton as our starting five. That’s the point here. If your flow chart shows that punting on #19 and #33 last year——> Noah/Bargnani/MeloMax/Knox 2.0, after a season where we outperformed all but the most pie-in-the-sky optimistic projections and going onto an offseason where we have the most favorable cap situation and one of the most favorable future draft pick situations in the league, that’s way, way beyond healthy skepticism.

It was a dumb and pointless trade. But I’ll take a step back from “these guys are incompetent” and I’ll go with “this was a troubling data point.”

Let’s see what they do next.

It was a dumb and pointless trade. But I’ll take a step back from “these guys are incompetent” and I’ll go with “this was a troubling data point.”

Let’s see what they do next.

Agreed. And there were some troubling data points at last year’s draft, too.

They’re clearly banking on their ability to hit a home run in free agency, either this year or next. We have to at least see what happens before writing them off.

E, all merc’d out: When lottery talents fall to 19, you do not respond by going, “Ooh, I think we can get Quinton Grimes at 25, let’s win this draft!!!!” You ready yourself in advance for the almost inevitable situation of a lottery talent falling to 19.

So who was the lottery talent that fell to #19? Please commit to one guy. Same with #21 vs #25. Ben committed to Keon and Jalen Johnson. I committed to Cooper and Springer. The Knicks committed to Grimes and McBride plus a future 1st. (again, if they were taken at #19 and 21, no one would have known that they were still available at #25 and #36…many mocks had them valued around that area.) And let’s not forget the cap space opened up, probably as recommended by their capologist.

Ben R…but we did draft players. We drafted 2 of them that could very well be in the rotation this season. And one of them we drafted was a clear draft and stash for the future, which is a nice “don’t eat all your dessert at once” move. The 58th pick is inconsequential but even that one seems like a nice “swing for the fences and hope to get another Mitch” type move.

Nothing they did last night prevents them from incrementally improving by adding youth. They literally did that AND added future draft picks.

Honestly the more I think about it, the more I think its kind of brilliant. They basically allowed themselves to still draft players while keeping picks that can be used for a trade for a star. They did both moves at once. Its slick.

Hubert:
Agreed. And there were some troubling data points at last year’s draft, too.

They’re clearly banking on their ability to hit a home run in free agency, either this year or next. We have to at least see what happens before writing them off.

This is at least a measured take, not a knee-jerk reaction. My issue is that there is so little regard for the many, many really smart things they did, including this years and last years draft night. The Ed Davis maneuver in and of itself should inspire optimism. Every signing and non-draft trade they made thus far was better than fair market value. Every rumored blockbuster deal they avoided turned out to be a blessing. So why obsess about two dubious trade-outs when they were surrounded by several more reasonable draft-day transactions? Especially after a glorious season that had masses of fans dancing in the streets and mocking Brooklyn, without any albatrosses or squandering of assets? (we actually accumulated assets in the process!)

People here are advocating the Knicks should’ve drafted someone like Cooper at 19 when he lasted all the way to 48? I guess some people here are alot smarter than literally every single NBA front office.

I’m a guy on the internet, and don’t claim to be smarter than any NBA front office.

I still know it’s dumb to punt the 19th overall pick and get stugots in return.

2) “but the Knicks didn’t get proper value for their picks in trade”
– i happen to agree with this, but I don’t really have that big a problem with it
– I remember a few years ago the Raiders drafted Clelin Ferrell at #4 – a guy that most people had as a mid-late first rounder. Was it correct that they drafted “their guy” there, or would it have been better for them to trade down a little even if it wasn’t great value and draft him at, say, #9 instead? Or would you refuse to pick up extra assets just because it wasn’t the right value? Of course it’s better to get the guy you want AND get some assets than to get the guy you want and NOT get some assets.

In this draft – shouldn’t San Antonio have agreed to trade 12 for 19 since Josh Primo wasn’t mocked to go until late 1st? Shouldn’t they have traded down even to 13 or 14 even if the deal wasn’t a great deal for them?

I think the Knicks had equal grades on a whole bunch of guys. They did not want more than 2 rookies on the team because they don’t think there is enough time to develop more than 2 more rookies on the NBA roster. And like Macri wrote in his newsletter, rookies who don’t play mostly don’t develop, and then they just depreciate in value (like Obi did this past year). This is the problem with how Ainge dealt with his bounty of picks — rather than rolling them over to the next year, he kept on making picks. And those picks ended up being Yabusele, Ante Zizic, RJ Hunter etc — dudes that seemed reasonable to pick when they were picked, but just depreciated from the moment they put on the hat. Wouldn’t he have been better keeping them as future 1st round picks? Not only do you continue a steady stream of rookie contracts if you DO make the pick, you also maximize their trade value, especially if you don’t like the available players that much anyway.

I think you have to look holistically – we’re in great shape asset/cap-wise. Draft was fine.

JK47: I still know it’s dumb to punt the 19th overall pick and get stugots in return.

Why do you keep saying that when they got something in return? Stugots=lighting it on fire=/=what they did.

Wow, I made it to the bottom. That was like a channel swim! Thanks for the wiseness and sumuppance, fellas. To me, what it’ll come down to is whether someone we didn’t pick plays better than someone we did. Like any draft. But it’ll be more understandable if it’s a swing and miss than if we had biffed in the lottery. So, I was about to gnaw my arm off when they traded 19 then 21, but after catching a few waves today I can deal. On to FAs and trades. Stoked for Summer League.

I’m a guy on the internet, and don’t claim to be smarter than any NBA front office.

I still know it’s dumb to punt the 19th overall pick and get stugots in return.

Yeah, that’s pretty much it.

Some people, for some reason, have introduced this idea that unless a poster could do a better job as a GM, their criticism is invalid.

You’re right Frank, I know next to nothing about these prospects. Do I have to be an NBA scout to recognize a poor thought process?

Donnie Walsh: This is a multi-billion dollar franchise, and the msg execs are the highest paid in their field. So, though perfection is unrealistic, it’s fair to expect competence on every single draft pick, free agent signing, and trade.

Still waiting for the Ujiri worshippers to weigh in on passing on Suggs. Was that competence? If not, does it make him incompetent? If Rose did that, would you be okay with it?

People here are advocating the Knicks should’ve drafted someone like Cooper at 19 when he lasted all the way to 48? I guess some people here are alot smarter than literally every single NBA front office.

That is one name that has been brought up, yes. People have also mentioned Jalen Johnson, Keon Johnson, Cam Thomas, Isaiah Jackson, and Jaden Springer who were also available and picked in the first-round. You could add Bones Hyland and Josh Christopher to that list.

We definitely passed on a lot of guys who other GMs, including notably smart ones i.e. the ones picking late in the draft, had first-round grades on. You can think that’s fine, but handwaving it away by citing Cooper’s ultimate position is silly.

They did not want more than 2 rookies on the team because they don’t think there is enough time to develop more than 2 more rookies on the NBA roster.

Tell me, Frank: how many AAU players do I need to scout to know that this is a stupid thing for our front office to believe?

Talk about the height of arrogance. The New York Knicks are too good to have three rookies.

Hubert: You’re right Frank, I know next to nothing about these prospects. Do I have to be an NBA scout to recognize a poor thought process?

You should at least hold yourself to the same standard. Trading Randle for nothing, which you actively clamored for, would have been a 15 on a 1-10 dumbmeter. This move is like a 2.

Hubert,

Criticism is fine. I’m reacting more to the inflammatory in the moment hot takes from last night. Its like one move people don’t get or understand or like and Knicks PTSD kicks in and all the gains and positivity from the last season are lost. This ain’t the Fizdale era anymore. Its totally fine to not like the move and I am definteily defending it more than it should be., But damn some of them takes last night were salty as fuck.

Does anyone besides Z-Troll remember “trading Randle for nothing” being something I banged the drum about?

Hey guys! Remember happiness? Remember joy? Remember liking things?

Here’s a story that may remind you of liking things. It’s an SI profile of our own first round pick, Quentin Grimes, and the circuitous route he took from HS superstar to Kansas bust to Houston role player supreme. And it includes this passage about his alleged low ceiling:

“He’s not a three-and-D guy,” Sampson says right before he lists all the games where Grimes’s ability to take and make difficult shots saved Houston from a loss. “To me, early in his NBA career, [he’s] going to be a scorer on the second unit. They’re going to find out very quickly that he can … light that scoreboard up in a hurry.”

Grimes agrees, to a point. He also understands how his range and defensive versatility have turned him into a commodity that any team picking late in the first round that has big goals (like the Sixers, Jazz, Nets, Nuggets or Clippers) could’ve used in the playoffs. “I think people kinda label me as [three-and-D] right now because of how well I’ve been shooting the ball and how well I guard the ball,” he says. “But I feel like coming out of high school it was like the complete opposite. ‘He doesn’t shoot that well. He’s athletic, gets to the rim,’ so it’s crazy to see the flip side.

“I’m definitely a playmaker for sure who can shoot the ball off the dribble, off the catch, can make plays for myself and I feel like I’m a really underrated passer. So I definitely don’t feel like I’ll be a 3-and-D for too long. I think that’s just the label that people have kinda made for me right now.”

So I missed the draft, got on line as it was ending with no idea what happened, and found out about it by reading the thread. That was at least as wild as watching the event itself.

I’m going to turn away from process for a moment and just say I was high on Grimes earlier, and now after digging around I am just a bit in love. I think he’s going to end up surprising a lot of people, with a floor of Bullock/Burks and a ceiling of dancing around the edges of all star.

So that’s MY hot take. I’m avoiding the process, except to say the Charlie Brown/Lucy description was apt.

To add “experts” thoughts about the subject, a couple of comments.

Pelton on ESPN Evaluate the trade and give the Knicks a B- and Charlotte a B .
“To be willing to settle for such limited upside in a future first-round pick, with the downside of potentially just getting second-rounders, the Knicks must not have been high on the talent available in the middle of the first round. They suggested that again shortly afterward by trading down from No. 21 to No. 25 with the LA Clippers.”

Hollinger piece “best, worst and weirdest from 2021 NBA Draft” (extract):
“Biggest left turn: New York
All we heard all week was that the Knicks were in win-now mode…
… Instead, they went in a very different direction that got weird at times but ended up in a good place…
… The Knicks instead traded both Nos. 19 and 21, but not for immediate help — they got a future first and a future second out of it.
… New York reaped further gains when it traded the 32nd pick for Nos. 34 and 36, an outlandish win for the Knicks.
… Miles McBride, was one of the best value selections of the draft.
… Overall, the Knicks still may pivot to win-now when it comes to free agency. But they didn’t let it infect their draft strategy.
… There also may be an additional angle to the Knicks’ strategy: They were rumored to be involved in a deal to send either the 19th or 21st pick to another team for a player under contract. That team may have pivoted toward wanting a future pick instead when their player wasn’t available, necessitating a shift in New York’s draft night approach to come up with the needed goods.”

My impression: both were surprised (Pelton’s “willing to settle for such limited upside”, Hollinger ” very different direction that got weird at times”) but consider the end results good.

A position shared by many here that don’t fall in the extreme “Our FOs are geniuses”/”Our Fos are incompetent”. One can criticize and still be happy.

Z-man: So who was the lottery talent that fell to #19?

Jalen Johnson, Keon Johnson, Cameron Thomas. They should have drafted one of them at 19. Instead they made a ridiculously stupid trade of the 19th pick, one of the worst trades of the 19th pick (or thereabouts) in NBA history and yet we still get their amen corner saying, “Well, you win some you lose some, tomato tomatoh, let’s whistle while we work, I’m singin’ in the rain.” It was a ridiculously stupid trade.

Cooper Is the player I think we will regret missing out on.

Though I would have taken one of the Johnson’s with #19 I would have done with the hope of getting Cooper later.

I think Cooper is going to make a lot of front offices look stupid. He is the only PG with all-star upside taken after the top five. If he gets his shooting in order he is Trae Young. I am so sad we had four chances, five if you count that we could have traded into the 2nd round easily, to take him and we didn’t.

Berman of the Post confirms what many of us assumed: Jokubaitis will stay in Barcelona for at least a season. But he might play for our summer league team after the Olympics end.

thenoblefacehumper: a front office very obviously screwing up is a really bad thing to do both for the immediate consequences and what it says about that front office more broadly. T

See, I think the magnitude of the screw up is critically important. Drafting Knox is an unmitigated disaster of a screw up that has repercussions for years. Same with drafting Frank. There was zero logic in drafting those guys. None. Same with the Noah signing. This regime is still paying for those colossal blunders.

In this case, there is some threadbare rationale for this move, such as preserving cap space and having a trade asset that would not involve a receiving team taking on salary. The transaction neither resulted in much of a difference in the outcome of who we drafted, nor in the team’s bargaining position going forward. They went in with 4 draft slots and came out with 4 player who were reasonable picks (by your own evaluation) at the original spots plus two future picks plus additional cap flexibility. They just didn’t max out on the return, sort of like they probably didn’t max out of the KP trade return.

Last year, exactly the same outcry, exactly the same portent of doom conjecture, was followed by…(please list the predictably terrible moves they made in trades and free agency, you know, the ones they had to make because they kicked #33 down the road.)

In other words, if the same doubters were as dead wrong as you could possibly be about the predictive value of the same process scenario last year, don’t you think they should be a bit more charitable this year?

E, all merc’d out: Jalen Johnson, Keon Johnson, Cameron Thomas.They should have drafted one of them at 19.Instead they made a ridiculously stupid trade of the 19th pick, one of the worst trades of the 19th pick (or thereabouts) in NBA history and yet we still get their amen corner saying, “Well, you win some you lose some, tomato tomatoh, let’s whistle while we work, I’m singin’ in the rain.”It was a ridiculously stupid trade.

You can’t pick all 3. Pick one of them and stick by it.

I also want to remind everyone that a lot of these post-draft analyses are self-referential, particularly about ceilings and floors. It’s one thing to criticize a team for picking a 2nd-round-projected player with a high lottery pick, but I read some analysis by CBS or something like that that was criticizing teams for not “taking a bigger swing.” No one really has a fucking clue who will be a good NBA player, e.g. Josh Jackson had a perfect score of 100 from NBADraft.net and was #1 on their big board. He’s played for three teams in four years, had his fourth-year option declined and still inexplicably got a two-year guaranteed deal from Detroit last winter. Too many other “sure-thing” busts to write with my thumbs.

Hubert:
Talk about the height of arrogance. The New York Knicks are too good to have three rookies.

This is actually a good question that I do not know the answer to. How many teams have had serious playoff aspirations (not necessarily title, but aspirations to win a round or two) and have added >2 rookies and have had that turn out well for all of them? Remembering of course that even rookies that turn out to be good are often bad players in the first year, and so it’s harder for teams that care about winning to give them real minutes?

Looking quickly just at this past year (And looking only at teams that were expected to be playoff teams)

Philly – 3 rookies (Maxey and Isiah Joe) who played 900 and 300 min. Paul Reed played 166 minutes
BKN – zero rookies played real minutes
MIL – had a few rookies – Jordan Nwora played most minutes at 274 min
ATL – Okongwu, and two players named Nathan Knight and Skylar mays who barely played
MIA – only Precious Achiuwa really played any minutes
BOS – Nesmith and Pritchard played some
WAS – rostered 3 rookies (Avdija, Anthony Gill, Cassius Winston) – only Avdija saw more than 218 min
TOR – rostered 3 rookies (Malachi Flynn, Freddie Gillespie, Jalen Harris) – Flynn saw a lot of minutes, Gillespie 400, Harris almost none
UTA – Trent Forrest 300 min, Elijah Hughes played 60 minutes

and so on
So basically very few teams rostered 3 rookies, almost no teams had more than 2 rookies that played any minutes (and some of these were almost certainly UDFAs – ie. did not have to spend draft capital on them).

I don’t think it’s ridiculous to think that unless there’s a SPECIAL 3rd rookie, to just cut it off at 2 per year. Deferring the pick not only preserves it as a trade asset, but also delays the salary and the point at which you need to make a decision on the player if you do draft one.

***This is actually a good question that I do not know the answer to. How many teams have had serious playoff aspirations (not necessarily title, but aspirations to win a round or two) and have added >2 rookies and have had that turn out well for all of them?***

Robert Horry and Sam Cassell come to mind.

[edit: oh, sorry, I’m not good with greater than/less than signs. My bad.]

[edit: wait, that Rocket’s team had 5 rookies: Cassell, Horry, Jent, Riley, and Petruska. So I will re-submit them as evidence]

[edit: and, finally, it comes to my attention that Horry wasn’t a rookie that year. Not sure why it was locked in my long-term memory that he was (it’s only been 30 years)]

[edit: I blame my PTSD c. June, 1994 for that error. I thought the electroshock therapy had worked, but apparently nightmares of Robert Horry run deep]

Yeah, I’m very in sync with Hubert on this deal. We shouldn’t be in win-now mode. We should be collecting assets, not punting on 1RPs to clear tiny amounts of cap space.

We’re simply not in the position where we should be turning up our noses at mid-first round picks. Doing win-now shit when you’re not ready to win now makes me want to pull my hair out.

lol come on, Z-man. you’re too old to be such a troll.

The only things I can say about this current regime are these:

Prior to them coming – we were a laughingstock team with a prized rookie that played terribly (RJ), a free agent signee that the entire fan base wanted gone (Randle), with the only bright spot being Mitchell Robinson.

Since then:
Hired COTY
won some ridiculous # of games over our vegas prediction
#4 playoff seed, losing to a team that eventually made the WCF
have lowest payroll in league / highest cap space
have zero outgoing draft picks
have most draft assets going forward except OKC (trying to lose) and New Orleans (gifted Anthony Davis)
rehabilitated Julius Randle to all-NBA 2nd team
impressive development by RJ and Mitch
showed very shrewd knowledge of market / player / team fit in signing Burks, Noel, and trading for Rose
drafted Quickley who obviously was a great pick even though it was before the all-knowing mock drafts had him
drafted Obi – unclear how that will work out.
And then we have the 4 draftees from last night who of course are all TBD in terms of what happens with them.

I think that’s a pretty good track record 16 months in.

Max:
I can’t wait to watch this kids in the Summer League.
Do you think IQ and Obi will be there?
A Mc Bride/IQ/Grimes/Obi/Sims lineup looks palatable…

Alan said Joku is also playing, and i read somewhere that Vildoza is too. It’s going to be fun to watch.

Hubert: yeah, that’s why my take has always been “it’s too early to judge them, but I have a shitty feeling based on x, y, and z.”

Which I get, and it’s a fair place to be. I’m pretty much in the same neighborhood, but seeing how they went about filling out the roster to create a pseudo-win-now team while actually acquiring assets and freeing up future cap space is enough reason to believe that this is not the same-ol’ same-ol’. We agree that the jury is out and the next weeks, and perhaps months and years, are wide open for the entire spectrum of outcomes. I just think that making a mountain out of a molehill totally ignores what happened between draft day 1 2020 and Draft Day -1 2021, which is a much bigger trove of data and which is nearly 100% positive. Even the longer-term deal that didn’t work out (Rivers) had an easy out. So when you get $1.50 on the dollar in 20 straight transactions, why focus on the 2 where you got $0.75 on the dollar as the real asset valation bellweather? You’re all about x, y, and z when a,b,c….u, v, w are all suggesting to the contrary.

there really shouldn’t be any wrong with calling a spade a spade… there’s really no other way to look at it in terms of a horrible trade.. that it could possibly work out is some real 4d chess type of thinking…

there’s nothing wrong with criticizing this front office… this highlander type of thinking maybe the next evolution of basketball where we could peer into the souls of the prospects and determine through our emotions that they are the one… that might work out… but you can separate process from the results just like you could laugh at the guy hitting on 17 and constantly hitting fours… things work out beautifully for some of the biggest idiots in the world and you really only have to look out your window to see that…

and it’s true there is no one size fits all strategy… and we’re all sort of guessing and what’s right or wrong… but that does not also mean that just about anything goes and that everything is ok and free from criticism… that criticism being as transparent and telegraphed as possible yet being labeled emotional and knee jerk…

that’s quite offensive and this traffic cop behavior is also quite toxic… and brings down the discourse on what is usually a lovely site… people need to grow up… seriously…

point taken –but why do these teams trade away picks? Because they don’t have the luxury of giving minutes to kids that aren’t ready to play in the NBA, because wins count. And maybe because they know that rookies that don’t play don’t develop and then eventually depreciate in value.

well usually because they don’t have enough roster spots or they’re trying to move up the win curve… like the bucks obviously traded a whole lot of draft picks to get jrue holiday… that makes sense right?

but how does that apply to a team with 8 open roster spots and half it’s rotation missing with two starting positions needing to be filled and two others filled by players who only had one good season at under age 24? presumably if you don’t use your picks under those conditions then when do you use them? i think the answer is quite obvious… yet for whatever reason people are able to casually handwave it away.. and i think that’s pretty terrible thinking…

Alan said Joku is also playing

No, I (or, rather, Berman of the Post) said he might be. But, yes, if he and Vildoza are there, and if the front office decides Obi and IQ should play (sometimes sophomores do, sometimes they don’t), we should have a very fun squad in Vegas.

djphan – they actually did pick 4 players you know, which is exactly the # of draft picks they had going into the night. 1 is a draft/stash and is a highly regarded player. Two are likely to play real minutes and seemed to be players they really liked. Sims will likely play in the g-league. And they added two more picks for the future.

As far as I can tell, you just didn’t like the value of two of the trade-downs they made, and McBride and Grimes did not score highly on the djphan scale. But they still made 4 draft picks and came out with 2 extra ones for future years.

no question the CHA trade was a bad trade value for value. It doesn’t necessarily mean that it was a disaster or a represents an irretrievably bad process in the big picture.

literally how? what on earth could redeem that?

you realize that instead of turning an asset into a theoretical pick.. that we could also pick a player and develop them that we apparently play lip service to but we dont’ really do.. and then trade that also right? is our vaunted player development program absolute garbage or something now?

like what does that say about what we think about quentin grimes? that we didn’t use our pick at 19 for him and instead literally gave it away… and that we didn’t pick him at all again at 21… and then we finally decided to do it at 25? it must mean that we’re entirely confident that everyone else thinks he’s a terrible enough player to last that long right?

and then what happens if someone then jumps ahead of us to pick him? would we have traded out of 25 for another set of future second round picks? are we then going after mcbride?

these are really stupid questions to ask which ought to tell you how stupid this whole strategy is….

you realize of course that the Charlotte pick IS still an asset.

Look, none of us know what the internal process was. All we know is what the result is. One day when Brock Aller writes a book about the chaos in the draft room and how dumb everyone is, then we can all agree on what happened. As of now, we know from predraft reporting that the Knicks really liked Grimes and McBride. They got both of them. They made two trade downs that weren’t great value trades, then made one ridiculously good value trade in 32 for 34+36.

“It ain’t just cap space, dude. Be honest with your arguments.”

I am being honest based on past experience. We’ll just see, my man. Put me down as not optimistic that any top free agent is signing here this offseason.

I think you have to look holistically – we’re in great shape asset/cap-wise. Draft was fine.

somehow while reading this post, the immediate translation in my mind was: it’s okay to eat chocolate chip cookies…

with cold whole milk…

E, all merc’d out: They’re wrong not to trade him now when his value is at his peak and it’s blatantly obvious you won’t be going anywhere with him in his current alpha role.I don’t care if they win 47 games again next year.(*)I’m not looking for 47 Thibs wins and a first round blowout at the hands of a lower seed.I’m sure that floats some boats; it doesn’t float mine.

(*) Ten above current Vegas, BTW.

This is fair, but the point I’m making is that trading Julius last year for what he could have garnered (a protected first and a second? Maybe?) would have turned out to be a massive blunder in terms of asset valuation. If your point is to trade him now while he’s at peak value, that’s totally valid.

The problem is that there is zero likelihood of that happening. So what good does it do to shut down any possibility of being the team you want to be because of that? It’s simplistic to think that there’s no road to building a sustained period of excellence that doesn’t go through a Randle trade.

See, I think the magnitude of the screw up is critically important. Drafting Knox is an unmitigated disaster of a screw up that has repercussions for years. Same with drafting Frank. There was zero logic in drafting those guys. None. Same with the Noah signing. This regime is still paying for those colossal blunders.

Of course the magnitude matters, but how can you confidently say anything about the magnitude of this move which you concede was a screw up? What if Jalen Johnson is the next Shawn Marion? Cam Thomas the next Devin Booker? Then this will become an all-time blunder (obviously, there are less dramatic outcomes that could still make it a very bad move in hindsight too).

The reason we’re all in agreement that it was a screw up is because 1) there were players everyone liked available and 2) we have neither a clue nor control over whether or not that will be the case if/when we make the Charlotte pick. That’s a recipe for a potentially very bad screw up, with no counterbalancing upside (again, we locked ourselves out of the possibility of this move having upside).

It’s also totally possible Grimes and McBride are better than any of these guys, but it’s insanely reckless to not insure yourself against the possibility your novel rankings are wrong by getting fair value for the pick.

What that means for the front office going forward, I do not know, but I’m a bit confused as to why it’s controversial to say “it definitely doesn’t bode well that they made a move we all agree sucks.”

Hubert: I gave them immense credit for putting a good team together. I wasn’t one of those people with no expectations of this team. I called them a playoff team before the season started.

But here’s the problem: all those great transactions that made us get better were one year deals. That, to me, is unsustainable.

Maximizing your draft picks is a much more sustainable model, so I weigh their performance in that arena heavier than their success in the one year deal dept.

Well one, it is not the only model that leads to sustained success and two, it is actually what we are doing, if somewhat suboptimally. There’s less margin for error, but there is still an ample amount. It depends on what you do with your cap space and assets beyond just the draft. But again, we are actually drafting and rostering at least two guys every year. That’s far different from the terrible strategy of trading picks for middling, overrated players. But yes, it’s not the preferred route, we agree there.

Hubert: And yeah, I give the front office no credit for “rehabilitating Julius Randle.” And just bc I made a joke once doesn’t mean I wanted to trade him nothing.

That’s not my point. I think you were on the trade Julius before the season bandwagon, and as I said to E, that would have been a massive asset valuation blunder, considering how much more he’s worth right now. At the very least, the Rose/Thibs braintrust kept him around and deployed him effectively and deserve credit for that.

I’ll start: would you guess that Grimes or Deuce (as McBride likes to be called) is more likely to be I’m the rotation on opening night? Obviously, some of that depends on what we do in free agency and trades. Seems more of an opportunity on the wing, unless the Knicks don’t really think of IQ or Vildoza as point guards.

I’m inclined to believe the selection of Grimes spells the end of Bullock’s tenure. We probably don’t want to commit multiyear money to him because, for better or worse, we’re prioritizing flexibility. I hope the pick wasn’t made specifically with replacing Bullock in mind because that would be god awful process, but I think there’s a good chance we try to slot him right in that role (or something similar to it off the bench if we’re not comfortable starting him).

As for Deuce:

I’m reasonably optimistic that McBride can have some impact as soon as next season.

Someone made this comparison last night, but he’s a bit like the fan fiction version of Frank Ntilikina–not a primary playmaker but can certainly make reads (that actually result in, like, assists and stuff), pressures the hell out of ball handlers (sometimes to his own detriment), and there can be little doubt about his ability to shoot (I don’t think anyone will have to play the “just you wait until he learns to shoot, pass, and dribble” game with him). I think his arrival spells the end of the Ntilikina-era because, again, he actually does all of the things the Frankophiles have been telling us are just around the corner for four years.

He places very little pressure on the rim as of now and often settled for midrange garbage because of it. For this reason I could actually see lineups with him and Rose making sense.

@Alan,

I really like McBride, I think Thibs falls in love with his defense so he’ll get minutes despite being a rookie. His ast:to ratio is good so Thibs might trust his decision making more and pull him less than IQ got pulled. Plus, McBride’s main weakness seems to be his playmaking but Thibs looks for his PGs to score. He can’t be worse than Elf.

But yeah, I’m betting Grimes has a better shot at the rotation because he’s the 1st rd pick and we have no wing depth behind RJ right now. Like you said, McBride may end up competing with IQ & Luca for minutes. I really want to see a Quick-Deuce backcourt, I think they’ll compliment each other well. Also, potty humor.

I’m excited about Sims. I think he has a real chance to contribute too. Sounds perfect for Thibs system, mobile big who contests shots well is what Thibs wants.

Taking another wing in this draft at 19 would have been advisable. Even with Grimes on the roster we don’t have enough wings. We have lots of 1/2 combo guards.

Sims is very intriguing after looking him up a bit I dont see him as a fringe prospect. Efficient finisher, solid rebounding, good rim protection, doesn’t foul too much and can switch out and contain pretty much any position.

I mentioned yesterday that his block stats dont tell the full story since Texas played a switch heavy defense so he was out on the perimeter a lot.

I thought I posted an article about Sims last night, but I can’t find it now… maybe lost to the server issues last night (Leon Rose pissed us off so much we collectively killed KB trying to vent).

Anyway, the effect of the article was Sims is NBA-ready and supposedly an NBA team having trouble with a C in the 1st rd called up the coach and said the could really use Sims in their series right now. I’m not saying it was the Knicks, but Capela killed us and we could’ve used a mobile 250lb C with the T-2nd best leap in combine history.

I was actually talking about Aamir Simms who we signed to a training camp deal. I’m pretty low on Jericho Sims because by the time you’re a senior I think you should simply be more productive than he was, but again there’s not really any such thing as a bad 58th pick and I will give these guys a small amount of credit for even making the pick.

I think the root reason that so many are very mad at the trade of 19 for a probably worse future pick instead just picking someone is not the size of the perceived mistake (which honestly is pretty small ). It’s that the trade represents a very different value system for building a team than they have. They would like to make as many swing for the fences moves as possible because that’s their favored route to becoming good.

Nah, this isn’t really it. You can do both! You can bring in veterans AND draft rookies. The cap savings on the #19 pick is not going to buy you a whole lot of free agent.

It’s about maximizing assets, not leaving value on the table, not spending unnecessary opportunity cost. There HAD to be something better to do with that #19 pick than trading it for a future pick that may very well be a worse pick, and that may not convey for many years. It’s just unacceptable risk, and unacceptable opportunity cost. It was a very uncreative use of a pretty appealing asset.

We have plenty of roster spots, and would have had plenty of cap space even if we had drafted somebody at #19. If the Knicks had flipped that pick for, say, TWO future picks, then great! You gained assets. In this case, we are letting an asset depreciate. That pick may convey in a worse draft, it could convey at a lower slot, it may not convey for three or four years, it could turn into two 2RPS.

This isn’t about “my way is the only good way.” It’s about not making unforced errors.

This stuff that the Knicks don’t believe in rostering and playing rookies is the biggest bullshit being spewed on this board.

this is true.

the better way to put it is that the knicks will not draft developmental players with high ceilings who cannot contribute immediately. They will play a rookie, but it needs to be an older, ready to play immediately rookie.

And I just think a) we’ll miss out on good players bc of this, and b) there’s no good reason to think this way.

It’s that the trade represents a very different value system for building a team than they have. They would like to make as many swing for the fences moves as possible because that’s their favored route to becoming good.

I have no preferred method. I say take what the market gives you.

Right now we’re hoarding cap space, but there’s no superstar free agent.

Right now we’re ready to pull the trigger on the first superstar trade that comes up, but we don’t have enough players to field a competitive team after the price is paid.

What we do have is a few really nice players and a lot of draft picks. So I think we should be crushing the draft, not trading back or out to save cap space and roster spots.

Hubert, you are being honest and clear about your position. You want to crush the draft. I think there are other ways to get good and that current Knicks management believes those other ways can be effective, but there’s nothing wrong with disagreement on team building philosophy.

JK and DJphan, let’s wait and see what team the Knicks actually put together for the coming season. Of course we need a point guard, but quite a few point guards are actually available as free agents this year and we have Vildoza too. I think a lot of teams in the NBA have imbalanced rosters and will have to make deals to fix them. There are opportunities for the Knicks to get value in trades or free agency. I think you might be surprised how not drafting every possible pick can work out for us.

***Oddly enough, Leon Rose was Bargnani’s agent when the Toronto trade transpired.***

Not just Bargnani. He was the architect of the Carmelo Anthony trade, the Mega Max Melo extension, and had his hands in the Eddy Curry trade. The man has done more to fuck the Knicks than any other. Obviously, his intentions are different now, but, still, forgive me if I harp on his failures more than his successes until his penance is fully paid.

so talking about the prospects:

Grimes – he’s problematic.. the stat profile is very risky and screams all sorts of fluke.. especially during a covid year… shot 40% from 3 once out of the three years…. that coincided with a ft% bump so some of that does seem legit but what his actual 3p% is tbd but likely much lower especially as a rookie… you also have to be careful about guys who all of a sudden turn it on as upperclassmen…he was quite terrible his freshman and soph years and then turned it on across the board as a 21yo.. is it because he made actual improvements? maybe.. is it because he’s more physically mature vs the pool? maybe… former would be good.. the latter would be really bad..

good thing is that we could see the answers to a lot of these questions immediately… his ft% is easy to track and probably the best indicator of how good of a shooter he can be.. if he’s struggling early then you could be looking at a complete bust because his whole offense relies on jumpers.. pullup / catch and shoot.. he has no dribble/drive game and is a nonthreat and will likely need to limit himself to catch and shoot opps and low usage until his abilities catch up if it ever does. defense is fine.. not elite.. but you can never actually truly judge perimeter defense because college perimeter guys and the pnr is nothing like you see in the pro’s… only the truly special really make an impact at all at the next level anyway…

anyway.. the freshman year does tend to be sticky but occasionally players do improve organically … and i think we can tell pretty early on with what we have… i’m not optimistic but it’s not a high bar to be a low usage catch and shoot and defense guy and he has a chance to be efficient in that role like many others do.. it’s just a matter of if he thinks he’s more than that and if he can even finish the easy opportunites given to him .. which even with frank and knox wasn’t a given and maybe a problem here too…

Jericho Sims – i managed to watch a bit of UT games given the prospects on that team and their games vs OSU and Baylor.. he was pretty forgettable at UT.. much like kai jones for that matter.. and seemed like a try hard guy with not a lot of athleticism.. i was completely shocked with his vertical… not so shocked about his measurements… he measured shortish…

he’s a solid defender and good out on the perimeter and that’s about all there is to him… the numbers don’t look all that good for a big at all… he’ll finish the gimmes.. he might be a lob threat? didn’t see too much of that.. altho he was a roll man quite often… maybe he replaces Pinson or Pelle .. i don’t really think anyone should expect much…

I don’t have a good read on Rokas Jokubaitis’s game.. but the numbers dont’ look all that promising and seems rather pedestrian.. but maybe he’s more but it seems to me a lot of these draft and stashes have a low probability of coming over unless they’re killing it and he’s definitely not doing any of that…

I don’t think it was a particularly good draft for the Knicks. The trade out was baffling and disappointing. The picks were pedestrian and uninspiring. Very, very meh. I actually feel worse about it than last year, when I really wanted Hali and he was the consensus KB pick. I didn’t care as much about punting on pick #33 as I did about trading out of #19 for a paltry return.

But Obi grew on me and IQ was a revelation. I don’t see that happening as much with this year’s picks, but let’s see what happens. Juko is a version of kicking the can down the road, and Sims/Simms are probably headed for the G-League. If one of them surprises, I’ll be thrilled, but no reason to expect it. Vrenz was my guy and since they worked him out I was hoping he would be our draft and stash.

I’d give the FO a C- on the draft for now based on the way I’m feeling about it. At least they didn’t trade up for Kispert or something like that, but most of us could have done at least as well as they did even without their inside info. That’s disappointing for sure.

In the big scheme of things, I’m still in a very good place based on how well last year turned out. The next few weeks will be very telling, as they were last year, when they hit lots of singles and doubles. I’m expecting either more of that or maybe a triple and HR which will fill our our rotation roster in a sensible way. It’s fair to expect that based on the personnel transactions they made last year, which I would describe as measured and value-conscious. So for me, while the draft didn’t inspire confidence, It didn’t inspire dread either.

At least we know that the Garden will be rocking again. I don’t expect another 4-seed or anything, but we will likely have a fun, gritty team that wins lots of home games and has lots of young pieces to root for. Last year we went into the season as the low-water mark of the Vegas odds. Now there’s expectations, which is both exciting and anxiety-producing.

Bring on Summer League!!

Ingmarrrr: Perfectly average Lonzo is predicted at 18-20M per year. No max, like some here believe he will get, or anything close to it.

Well, what ESPN says is the price, has a chance to be and a chance to not be the price. This one’s easy, i’ll take the over all day long.

I’m not sure the ESPN numbers are low for point guards. There are quite a few on the market this summer. Schroeder, Dinwiddie, Ball, Rose, cameron Payne, Kyle Lowry, Mike Conley and others are available. There aren’t necessarily enough teams who need free agent point guards to hire them all. Ball is one of the more attractive ones, but there is competition. Who knows what the actual salaries will turn out to be.

I forgot to say that this draft for me gets the OUTSTANDING grade, it’s just not because of the Knicks… 😛

Queta was taken by the Sacramento Kings with the 39th pick in the 2021 NBA draft on Thursday, making him the first-ever native of Portugal to be drafted.

cybersoze:
I forgot to say that this draft for me gets the OUTSTANDING grade, it’s just not because of the Knicks… 😛

Queta was taken by the Sacramento Kings with the 39th pick in the 2021 NBA draft on Thursday, making him the first-ever native of Portugal to be drafted.

Congrats Cyber!

I’m trying to keep pace with all the rumors and parse the most realistic but I’m failing miserably, my head is exploding…

Names floating for the wing spot: Bullock, DeRozan, Oubre, Fournier, Ross (trade)…

For the PG spot: Dinwiddle, Payne, Ball, Lowry, Schroeder (OMG Noooooooo!!!!)

Rumor has it the wizards are going to reroute some of the Russ trade assets to Brooklyn in a Dinwiddie sign and trade. So probably cross him off our list.

Fournier seems like a good option we need wings and hes young enough where a multi year deal wouldnt be bad.

Max: Congrats Cyber!

Thanks, Max. 🙂
Let’s hope he can keep around for years, and at some point on the Knicks would be amazing.

I’d be fine with Fournier on a one-year deal, but I bet he gets more.

As for Ball, seriously, what notable RFA ever signed for less than the max? It seems foolish to think he’s somehow going to be the exception, especially since Chicago is interested in him, as well.

And, of course, there’s the whole thing where New Orleans cleared out a lot of salary so that they could easily match an offer sheet if another team gets Lowry.

Last year we were very deliberative during free agency, and we made our signings at the very end. It’s a good strategy and I wouldn’t be surprised if we did it again.

DudeInKnicksTown: Congrats, soze! I would have preferred Queta to drafting Rokas tbh. I also like Jericho Sims but Queta is so much more versatile.

Thanks, Dude. If they’ve done that, i’d have given them an OUTSTANDING grade also. 😉
I might even have helped Z-Man defend the 19th pick trade during the day, if Queta was on the Knicks. 😀

For the guards that i think we can realistically grab, i have: Lonzo, Cam Payne, Devonte Graham, (hey geo) TJ McConnell.
For the wings: Powell and Bullock. But i’ll add Fournier, if he’s not too expensive, he’s a good option.
For backup C: Can Daniel Theis be a good solution? He’ll probably be less expensive than Noel, i think.

cybersoze:
For the guards that i think we can realistically grab, i have: Lonzo, Cam Payne, Devonte Graham, (hey geo) TJ McConnell.
For the wings: Powell and Bullock. But i’ll add Fournier, if he’s not too expensive, he’s a good option.
For backup C: Can Daniel Theis be a good solution? He’ll probably be less expensive than Noel, i think.

The Hornets definitely owe us something, don’t they?

Lonzo has improved every year he has been in the league and he’s still only 23. He’d solve the gaping hole at PG capably for years, and if you needed to trade him even on a $24M salary or whatever, you probably could. He’s a pretty nice well-rounded player at this point and I’d be happy to have him.

Reading the posts today brought the infamous Underpants Gnomes of South Park to mind.

1- Collect Assets
2- ????
3- Win a Championship

Ingmarrrr: McBride: C. I don’t like small combo guards without an elite skill on offense. But maybe the NBA changed enough so that he has a place in the league. Not sure.

McBride looks like high IQ. I’m updating my opinion on this pick from C to B+.

To me Ball is a SG and not a PG, he’s good in transition but Thibs ran the slowest team in the league last year. I don’t think he’s a good fit for the Knicks. Fournier would be a better SV for us, but obviously the age difference starts to matter. I don’t believe Ball can run the offense Thibs is going to run.

Theres a decent amount of options at PG but we might have to overpay. For UFA’s theres Ball, Mconnell, Reggie Jackson, Cameron Payne, Rose, Dinwiddie and potentially Devonte Graham

kevin5318:
Theres a decent amount of options at PG but we might have to overpay. For UFA’s theres Ball, Mconnell, Reggie Jackson, Cameron Payne, Rose, Dinwiddie and potentially Devonte Graham

The Hornets don’t want to pay Graham and he would cost a lot less than Lonzo would. It’s worth looking at.

I think Ball and Sexton is a decent backcourt pairing that has some synergies.. at least if you can convince Sexton to stop hogging the ball….. I think getting just one of them poses some issues and relying on RJ and Randle too much… there needs to be a third playmaker.. and Ball doesn’t do that in the halfcourt.. at least yet but it’s a large question if it ever comes… he’s good on the edges.. passes the ball around and recognizes shot opportunities… but in terms of bending defenses with his dribble.. a large portion of the thibs offense… he doesn’t have that ability..

Sexton does… and pairing him with Ball gives you real good ball movement possibilities if Sexton is willing to give up the ball more often and you’ll have a ton of better third and 4th passes leading to high quality attempts… i’m very intrigued by that and i think this offseason we should do everything to make it happen….

including two firsts for Sexton? jettison another two for Ball? if this is what we’re doing with our firsts anyway.. there’s absolutely no reason to keep them… get them lottery protected and try to roll with whatever vets you deem appropriate…

The only player I don’t want regardless of deal is Schroeder. For anyone else, it depends on what it takes to get them.

The only real plus I see about Jokubaitis is that he got lots of minutes for Barcelona at a young age. His film looks pretty pedestrian to me, doesn’t seem like a really great athlete.

It’s kind of weird to me that this FO focused so hard on such a small group of players, and THOSE were the players. Most of the guys they really liked were kind of pedestrian prospects. The guys we drafted all seem pretty low-ceiling, they should have taken a swing with a high ceiling guy with that 19 pick.

It might take Jericho Sims a little time to get up to speed but he’s an incredible athlete with quick feet. I wouldn’t call him a lost cause.

this has nothing to do with me liking or not like the player they chose…..

roku isn’t coming over this year… and it’s a very open question if he ever will….

even forgetting that possibility for that matter either.. two second round picks and a 1st is very different from 2 1sts and a second… if we traded that other first for two more seconds.. are we going to give them credit for making 5 picks? are we just turning a blind eye to the quality of the picks based on the actual draft position altogether?

does trading the #1 pick in teh draft for #30 straight up mean the same thing to you just because their draft picks? how does the quantity mean anything here?

Some people are stating that the Knicks “got their guy” at 25 and 36 as if that’s a known fact. We have no idea if they were targeting Grimes and McBride. Maybe they wanted Garuba at 25, but he got taken, so they settled for Grimes instead.

Just because a team trades down doesn’t mean they masterminded the draft and got the player they always wanted anyway.

I know I’m a Vol alumnus, but I just feel that taking and keeping Keon Johnson at 19 would’ve been nice. Even though the Knicks weren’t thrilled about him or anyone else at that point, he might be a better “asset” in a potential trade in the fairly near future than the heavily protected 1st rounder they got.

And I really think he’ll end up being a solid rotation player in the NBA, and more if he can improve his shooting (it does need a lot of work, though).

@OakmanCometh,

There were several reports prior to the draft that the Knicks were interested in Grimes and McBride. Maybe they did want someone else, but they had previously indicated they’d be fine with those outcomes.

It doesn’t necessarily mean they got their guy, but I don’t think people are just saying it either.

The 19 pick trade is a little perplexing, but otherwise the issue seems to be that you’re evaluating the picks differently than others.

no that’s not the issue at all which people seem to be confusing… the trade was terrible.. there’s nothing perplexing about it.. it was just flat out terrible… call a spade a spade… turning the 19th pick into POSSIBLY NOTHING is just flat out stupid… it’s like this FO has some jedi mind trick or something… AT BEST we get to use it next year at a worst draft slot in a likely much worse draft… there is NO POSSIBILITY we win that exchange… NONE…

when did we start excusing this type of behavior? this is beyond player choices… they didn’t think anyone was valued enough to possibly never use the pick for four years… everybody but grimes and mcbride and basically nobody else…. that’s how little they thought of it… and that’s a bet they cannot win… and on that basis alone the draft was a failure… thats irregardless of the other picks…

and that’s another thing… if the 19th pick doesn’t matter.. then how does grimes and mcbride matter at all either? this logic is not exactly congruent with each other… it’s either none of it matters or it all matters.. and if it all matters then grimes and mcbride need to turn into some really really good players in order for this to work out which i don’t even think the most optimistic of anyone thinks is ever going to happen….

I think we are underselling Joku a bit. Joku was runner up for Euroleague rising star, just behind Garuba, and won the Euroleague player’s choice best young player. You have to go all the way back to 2008 to find a player who won rising star who is not in the NBA.

I would be shocked if he does not come over, he chose to put his name in the draft, the players who don’t come over are the ones whose names are automatically entered at 22, players who choose to put their name in do it because they want to play in the NBA.

Joku’s highlights are not terribly impressive but his numbers, especially for a 20-year-old in the best non-NBA league in the world, are very good. He is known as a good defender and as the season progressed Joku was being trusted more and more to create and have the ball in his hands. Players his age rarely play huge roles at this level but he did and was 5th in minutes on the entire team.

There are questions about his athleticism, probably a bit overstated, and if he can be a true PG in the NBA but I think he might have the highest upside of any of our picks and I could see him taking a huge step forward this year in Europe.

Does anyone else besides me enjoy how this Knicks management always seems to play with our minds?

I find it perplexing that a franchise would make a terrible move. I find most terrible moves perplexing and rarely find good, average, or even below average moves perplexing.

I’m not saying that Jokubaitis will become a star but I have a few names on the tip of my hands about the “Drafted and stashed”:

all first rd picks…

Joku’s numbers seem to justify a selection more or less where he went. They’re not terribly dissimilar from the age 20 stats of other Euroleague guards who have had NBA success. His tape lends credence to the idea that his assist numbers would be higher if he weren’t deployed off-ball but that’s in the eye of the beholder.

He does feel like a free roll of the dice since I would’ve been fine just taking McBride at 32 so I won’t complain about the pick even though I wouldn’t have made it (FWIW, I do regret not having him ranked on my board at all). If he has a good season in Europe he probably becomes a better trade asset than the average 2nd rounder.

If the Knicks didn’t get assurances that he’s coming over before using the 34th pick on him, obviously that would render the pick god awful.

Is there any reason we should care whether or not we “got our guys” with the picks we made? This has no inherent value unless those guys are actually, you know, good.

What we know is that the league consensus on “our guys” was that they shouldn’t be picked at 19/21. Assuming they were actually “our guys” regardless of whether we stayed at 19/21 or traded down, I understand we think that consensus was wrong.

What I don’t understand is excusing not getting fair value for both trades simply because we got “our guys.” This assumes our novel rankings on them were correct…but isn’t it more likely, just from an Occam’s Razor perspective, that all of the teams that disagreed with us were in fact correct? That’s why it’s still unacceptable to recklessly piss away value in trades like this.

It feels a bit patronizing to be breaking down the idea that “you need to get fair value in trades” this granularly but I’m seeing some bizarre justifications for these moves.

thenoblefacehumper: It feels a bit patronizing to be breaking down the idea that “you need to get fair value in trades” this granularly but I’m seeing some bizarre justifications for these moves.

Yeah, it’s really weird to have to be relitigating that obviously true statement. Even if they got “their guys,” they could have gotten “their guys” and still gotten “a good deal for the 19th pick,” rather than “a laughably awful deal for the 19th pick.”

“Their guys plus a good deal” is obviously better performance than “Their guys plus a laughably awful deal.” That’s pretty much in QED territory.

My problem with both the McBride and the Grimes picks, and even Joku in some ways, isn’t that I don’t like them as prospects it’s that none of them have a great deal of high upside potential. If we could have gotten at least one moon shot in K Johnson or J Johnson or Cooper then I would like the picks. I was actually rooting for Grimes to be picked, but not until after we got a higher upside prospect.

I think Grimes’s shooting is real and he will end up being a solid NBA rotation player, but I see very little high-end starter upside. That is fine especially in the late 1st round but there were players with true high upside potential we could have taken with 19 (or at any time for Cooper) that we passed on.

I give the Grimes pick a B, the Joku pick a B plus, and the McBride pick a B-. Overall all pretty good but the fact that I give the 19th pick a F-, averages out the draft to be a D or a D plus.

So a below-average return and a terrible omen for our management’s plan equal a bad night.

The Knicks board could’ve been very close to lots of other teams who just happened not to have picks. It’s not that every other team passed on them. Teams rate players differently, otherwise we wouldn’t get 34 & 36 for 32.

As far as why the Knicks didn’t get 2 firsts like OKC, there’s the obvious reason that Sengun was no longer available. Plus, HOU’s 2 picks were also heavily protected. It’s still a bad trade, but that’s a pretty unreasonable argument and not necessarily a fair standard.

I spent the last 10 minutes trying to come up with a Greek Freak like nickname for Queta, just for you Cyber. But, man, it’s hard to rhyme adjectives with the word “Portuguese”. The best I’ve come up with are: the Iberian Criterion, the Amar’e of Nazar’e, and Julius Vandal. (Sorry I couldn’t do better, but gotta get on with my day:)

The Tower of Lisboa.

(But you have to say tower with a NY accent: tow – wa)

Ben R:
My problem with both the McBride and the Grimes picks, and even Joku in some ways, isn’t that I don’t like them as prospects it’s that none of them have a great deal of high upside potential. If we could have gotten at least one moon shot in K Johnson or J Johnson or Cooper then I would like the picks. I was actually rooting for Grimes to be picked, but not until after we got a higher upside prospect.

I think Grimes’s shooting is real and he will end up being a solid NBA rotation player, but I see very little high-end starter upside. That is fine especially in the late 1st round but there were players with true high upside potential we could have taken with 19 (or at any time for Cooper) that we passed on.

I give the Grimes pick a B, the Joku pick a B plus, and the McBride pick a B-. Overall all pretty good but the fact that I give the 19th pick a F-, averages out the draft to be a D or a D plus.

So a below-average return and a terrible omen for our management’s plan equal a bad night.

It was a boring, eat-your-vegetables draft and one can’t help but wondering whether that’s a sign of Thibs’s growing influence.

My problem with both the McBride and the Grimes picks, and even Joku in some ways, isn’t that I don’t like them as prospects it’s that none of them have a great deal of high upside potential. If we could have gotten at least one moon shot in K Johnson or J Johnson or Cooper then I would like the picks. I was actually rooting for Grimes to be picked, but not until after we got a higher upside prospect.

I completely agree and what’s infuriating is their initial pick locations allowed them the flexibility to take a shot on someone with serious upside like the guys you mentioned (I’d add Springer and Cam Thomas to the list) while still hedging their bets with guys who are good bets to produce (if that was so important, I’m partial to djphan’s opinion that you should find lower-ceiling guys in free agency).

I’ll add one small caveat: I do think McBride has some upside left as a primary ball handler. WVU’s offensive scheme is bizarrely antiquated (they ranked 279th in 3PA rate), and while the “he’ll benefit from NBA spacing” thing is kind of a cliche people randomly apply, I think it could actually be true for McBride.

Ainge got an unprotected Kings’ pick for moving from 1 to 3. It wound up being 14th because the Kings had a decent year by their standards but it was a very good asset. I would say he adequately insured himself against the possibility his preference for Tatum was wrongheaded.

We literally have no insurance if our reckless “no one available at 19 will prove to be a better asset than a heavily protected future first” opinion proves incorrect.

If Charlotte wanted Kai Jones more than they wanted one of their future firsts, they should’ve been the ones paying. It’s almost like we traded down but gave up assets to do so–the certainty that came with the 19th pick made it legitimately more valuable than a mid-to-late first in one of 4 possible future drafts.

thenoblefacehumper: legitimately more valuable than a mid-to-late first in one of 4 possible future drafts.

It’s worse even than that — there’s a very decent chance the Knicks traded the 19 in 2021 for two 2026 seconds. That’s entirely contradictory to any semblance of competence, and that’s what rightly has a bunch of us worried.

Re: “getting their guys,” I ctrl-F’ed the thread (which is in conjunction too long, speculative and pedantic for me, sry) and couldn’t find any reference the Stan Van Gundy reaction to the draft: that it was miraculous that every team got their exact guy in the exact slot they were allotted. (Obvious /s) Pretty funny reaction to the endless PR circus that is the draft, especially in wake of Jerry Colangelo throwing Kevin Love under the team bus and doing so with the fervor that only a near-retirement man with zero fucks to give can muster.

We waived Pelle. We are making every dollar of capspace available.

We also picked up the team option for Mitch, so we are not making him a restricted free agent the summer. That means he will be unrestricted next summer. But maybe we will sign him to an extension.

Yeah it’s not like the more you think about it, the more trading 19 makes sense. The more you think about it the worse it seems actually.

Clearly they did it mainly to clear the cap space, which is just insane.

Donnie Walsh:
I spent the last 10 minutes trying to come up with a Greek Freak like nickname for Queta, just for you Cyber. But, man, it’s hard to rhyme adjectives with the word “Portuguese”. The best I’ve come up with are: the Iberian Criterion, the Amar’e of Nazar’e, and Julius Vandal. (Sorry I couldn’t do better, but gotta get on with my day:)

Hubert: The Tower of Lisboa.
(But you have to say tower with a NY accent: tow – wa)

Iberian Criterion is quite funny. 😉 Tower suits Queta very well… but he’s from Barreiro, which is like Jersey to Lisbon, so he can be the Tower-of-Barreiro, yeah. 🙂

I have to inform you all that Joku played in his homeland (Lithuania) last season, and the seasons before, for Zalgiris Kaunas (also plays the Euroleague). He’ll play for Barcelona starting this season.

I don’t think Pelle was waived for cap space, it’s just that he isn’t a player we want to keep.
To pick up the options for Julius and Mitch was a no brainer, because they’re trying to maximize cap space for 2022. And because of that we would only work an extension with Mitch if we already have our stars long term (Lillard? Beal?), if not we need to maximize the cap for 2022 and an extension for Mitch would ruin those plans (his cap hold is tiny – 3.4M). So i predict no extension for Mitch. For Randle of course we’ll try the extension, but in his case it’s the player that won’t want it. I predict no extension for Julius also. But it’d help a lot on our plans if he can sign the extension, even if it’s a 2+2 player option.

Ben R: I am very worried there is a Beal or Lilliard trade in our future and we are going to be stuck watching Randle, Lillard, DeRozan, and a bunch of minimum vets win 45 games for the next three years until it all implodes and we have no future picks because we traded them all.

I’m afraid we AREN’T going to do that.

I rather not have DeRozan because we have better in RJ. I would rather it be Fornier or JJ Redick. It needs to be a perimeter scorer.

cybersoze:
I don’t think Pelle was waived for cap space, it’s just that he isn’t a player we want to keep.

Jonathan Macri
@JCMacriNBA

Tough break for Pelle, who fit in well with the locker room and had some nice moments in limited action. I’m sure he’ll catch on somewhere, and maybe even back with NY after everything shakes out.

Seems like the Knicks are accumulating every cap dollar they can get.

Can’t wait hear what Clyde turns Rokas Jokubaitis into – that will be worth bringing him over from Europe whether he can play or not

Pelle was fine but we don’t need to bring back a 28 year old 4th string center now

From the link I just posted Sims looks better than Pelle, but draftees always look promising before you actually see them play in the NBA

@GrantAfseth
Mike Conley is expected to return to the Utah Jazz on a three-year, $60 million contract, a league source tells @MavericksSI.

The first-time All-Star is coming off a season featuring averages of 16.2 points, 3.5 rebounds, and 6.0 assists.

He wasn’t coming here, anyway. But I wonder if this relative bargain winds up impacting the rest of the FA PG market at all.

Count de Pennies:
I’m merely a bit player in the colorful pageant that is this Knickerblogger forum. As such, I almost always stick to the sidelines whenever the latest skirmish in the neverending Optimist v. Pessimist battle flares up. I’m squarely in the P camp myself but that’s purely a personal choice, not some fundamentalist belief that I feel compelled to proselytize to any Knicks fan who professes a belief that the glass is indeed half full.

To each his own. I take no issue with those who choose to look upon last night’s maneuverings with a less jaundiced eye.I just can’t do that myself. Not yet. This team, under this owner, has burned me too many fucking times for me to even consider giving it the benefit of the doubt until I see much more in the way of on-court results (and, no, being on the wrong side of a gentleman’s sweep in the first round of the playoffs in a fluky season ain’t gonna cut it)…

And as a member of Team Optimist, I say this is totally fair. It’s more than OK to say “ok, let’s see you follow up last season with at least a solid Year 2” before you decide to believe more in this front office. I mean, I could quibble with you and say that the team did exceptionally well to get to the point of becoming the victim of a 1st round 5-game KO against an eventual ECF team. But it’s all good to ask for a bit more to begin to erase about 2 decades of overall disaster.

My concern was the belief that a sub-optimal (and do we really know if they could’ve done a bit better?) trade of a mid-late 1st = unmitigated disaster. It’s not.

Maybe we deserve a front office that executes everything perfectly for the 20 years of grief we’ve suffered. Maybe that’s the level of goodwill it will take to back some of the ledge whenever this regime makes any degree of misstep. But even the very best front offices goof…

I say this periodically here to crickets, but, here goes again. I’m a fan of anomalies.

i’m paying attention dan 🙂

speaking of anomalistic type things – did you know that between the years 2001 and 2015 vermont led the nation is ufo sightings per capita…

what ya’ll got going on over there in the woods…

“what ya’ll got going on over there in the woods…“

You are a great listener, Geo and I appreciate you very much. IDK about UFO’s but my friend pretended to see Bigfoot to try to get on TV. So, maybe a lot of bullshit per capita. Couldn’t be worse than LA tho so I’m stumped, lol

Been on family vacation so have had time to soak up the views here but not to post.

I don’t easily identify with either team optimist or team pessimist – I’m generally pessimistic about Knicks moves but good at talking myself into them once they happen.

Overall I’m ok with where we sit post draft – no-one really knows what players picked in the 20s and 30s will be and our scouting dept have earned some rope with the IQ pick so I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt on Griles and Mcbride.

I also don’t think the 19 trade is bargani-level bad because the stakes are lower and the outcome range is less negative.

But the arguments about process here remind me of the debates we used to have about opportunity cost. From where I’m sat it is impossible to feel ok about the process or the logic of that trade. The ‘rules’ of the game in finance and econ are pretty clear. You get compensated for giving up certain value today. You might buy a bond for a small guaranteed return. Or a stock for a riskier chance at a higher return. Or you might gamble for a negative expected return but a small chance of a massive payoff. What you don’t do is use your $100 to buy a $50 bet with odds of a tiny bit better than evens. your expected value is negative AND your best possible return is negligible. There were a lot of guys picked after 19 who we could have taken and at least had an outside bet at a massive return. The logic of the deal is really, really bad.

english_knick: What you don’t do is use your $100 to buy a $50 bet with odds of a tiny bit better than evens. your expected value is negative AND your best possible return is negligible.

Yes, but you can’t separate the individual move from the overall context. They got the player they would have picked at 19 and added (something like) an exact copy of the pick. So, they got the player and surplus value. Even if it only conveys 2nds in ’26, that could be considered a win.

The moving cap space thing doesn’t really stack up. Their plan a was to move up to the 10-13 range for a single player who would have cost the same as the two other picks combined, near enough, so that smacks of post-hoc rationalisation to me.

And in terms of ‘the outcome was the same but we picked up assets’ – we’re back to opportunity cost. Yes, getting the same players plus assets is better than just the players. But that’s not the alternative. We could have got the same players plus another player. So the question is what’s the better value of those options? Seems to me that just picking Kai and then holding out for more later from Charlotte of time was an issue would still have been a better play. 1rps have a degree of sticker value and we didn’t realise that value. Like I said – outcome not terrible, but I’m with others that the logic and the process were very, very bad.

English Knick (sorry quote button does not work for me):
The logic points to a strategy of looking to do a major trade perhaps as soon as this off season. So you really are disagreeing with the strategy. I also disagree, but I wouldn’t call the strategy very very bad.

The process had a flaw, but was not very very bad. Using your $100 example, the pick was worth that before the draft started. Once names were removed from the board, the value declines. At the time the Knicks decided to trade the pick they had a short window to realise its value. The only way they could have realised the $100 is if they found 1 team who really wanted a particular player that would likely be on the board at 19. That didn’t happen. So the flaw or “bad process” was trading in the limited timeframe where leverage and liquidity would be very low. But they probably knew that when they made the decision, and it points more to the strategy in that they value a diminished 1R future pick as a trade asset more than a player they could try to develop.

btw, I live in England (since 1990) but I am not English!

english_knick: don’t think the 19 trade is bargani-level bad

Apart from a few anguished howls of outrage made in the heat of draft night, no one has seriously argued that position. Nonetheless, Knicks fans have every right to be gravely unsettled by the 19 trade, even if the ultimate consequences of the move turn out to be relatively minor.

We are a fanbase famished for anything that resembles competent leadership. Every time there’s a change at the top, a new POBO is announced, we collectively hold our breaths. Is this new guy just the latest in the series of pimps brought in to slake Dolan’s lust for starfucking? Or is he just some lazy ass motherfucker, content to collect the owner’s millions while phoning it in from his ranch? We scrutinize the minutia of every move, every transaction, made in the first couple of years of each new regime in search of clues that may signal competence. Or – as things usually turn out – something much, much worse.

Is it any wonder, then, why gift-wrapping the 19th pick to CHA would set off flashing red lights and sirens in the abuse ravaged brains of Knicks fans everywhere? Such a dumbfuckingly incomprehensible move now makes it extremely difficult for me to credit Rose & Co. as competent stewards of this team going forward. Worse still is that no one really understands yet what it portends as to what kind of operation this FO will be. Was the trade born out of an “our guys are off the board, so why bother” laziness? Or was it a means of clearing the decks in advance of some massive deal (starfuck?) in a year when the pool of available talent is less than stellar? As I read the tea leaves, those are the two most plausible explanations for the trade of the 19th pick. I find neither one of them to be terribly encouraging.

One additional point:

Some here have suggested that this FO deserves some benefit of the doubt on account of the Knicks exceeding expectations last year. As I (and others) have already said, after two+ decades of suffering, that’s nowhere near enough to stem the tsunami of doubt that flooded my brain post 19th pick. If this regime does go on to assemble a body of work comparable to Ujiri & Buford, I’ll be much more willing to excuse a draft day faux pas here and there. But we’re still a loooooooooooong way from that. One step at a time. Making it through the upcoming free agency without trading fifty million dolandollars for a flock of albatross would be a nice place to start.

Exactly Rama its pretty obvious we wont be hanging onto that pick for long

First, someone posted that I “defended” the pick 19 swap. I didn’t. I put it into perspective as a minor hiccup in the context of reasonable priority choices and a slew of reasonable (Rivers deal) to brilliant (Ed Davis maneuvers) transactions. The overall record of this management team is something like 50-2-2 (some moves, like traading down from 21 in return to 25 and a future 2nd are pretty much a wash in my book.) They clearly have a blind spot in understanding the value of a given pick in a transaction per se. They should have gotten more for the 19, and more for last years 33. That can’t be disputed. But the reasoning behind trading out (we can get the guys we want anyway and save cap space and have a future asset) is reasonable, especially when you consider that Brock Aller is a shaker and mover on the team.

Yeah i agree its more of a throw in. Its not like there arent dumb teams in the league who could be convinced the pick has value Imo.

Especially if they can be convinced of Marcis argument that Charloette can be negotiated down to potentially remove the protections.

The Mets will not be signing Kumar Rocker, and they traded the 2020 first round pick Pete Crow-Armstrong for a two-month rental of Javy Baez. They do get the 11th pick in next year’s draft as compensation for Rocker, but that seems… not ideal. They also forfeit $1M in bonus money.

#LOLMets

I appears that the throw-in 2nd rounder is often the thing that gets a deal done, kind of like when I wrangle for all-weather mats to be thrown in at the end of a negotiation for a new car. It’s an asset, plain and simple. It also matters a lot where the pick is likely to be. I’d rather have one pick 30-40 than five picks 50-60. If you go to B-R and look at which picks got NBA minutes, you’ll see that the chart goes pretty blank after pick 45 in most drafts. The pick we got is likely to be in the 35-45 range.

Z-man: why are you feeling the same way again

Because I’m a long-suffering fan who by rights should be wearing dentures after having been kicked in the teeth by this franchise for so many fucking years,

Last year was awesome. It was the most fun I’ve had as a Knicks fan in a goodly while. Still can’t shake the feeling, though, that it might have been something of an outlier and that this franchise could be headed back to SNAFU-ville soon enough.

The best moves this FO made last year were ones of restraint, No big deals/trades for Hayward, Russ, FVV were certainly a welcome relief from what we’ve seen from past regimes who’ve had any assets to play with. If that turns out to have been Step One in a patient, brick-by-brick rebuild, then All Hail Leon Rose! However, if it was merely the FO keeping its powder dry to make a big splash this year that may turn out to be premature (at best) or ill-fated (at worst), then welcome back to the same ol’ same ol’. We’re all going (goink?) to know a whole lot more about where this regime stands, competency-wise, one week from now.

I have zero issue with anyone who chooses to give this latest FO the benefit of the doubt. Of course I’m aware that they’re not the ones responsible for the many horrors that came before. Sadly, the man who cuts their paychecks – the same man who has had a hand, directly or indirectly, in many of those said horrors – is still around. Forgive me for persisting in my disbelief of things being any different this time around, pending further evidence to the contrary.

Count, well said. But consider that “showing restraint” means something very important. If you show restraint now, you are that much more likely to show restraint later. If you make value deals now, it is that much more likely that you will make value deals later. (and on the negative side, if you undervalue a particular draft positional asset now, you are more likely to do it in the future, as in 2020 pick #33——>2021 pick #19. We are actually in complete agreement that the sample size is too small to take to the emotional bank in either direction, and I am not really that far from your postion. Call me a guarded optimist.

We are also in full agreement that the legacy of this FO will nearly 100% lie in the next phase of this “fast twitch rebuild” that they are trying to execute. That’s why I don’t get too bent out of shape about these minor draft-day hiccups. Had they picked Isaiah Stewart with last year’s #33 and signed Gordon Hayward to the CHA contract (and let’s remember that they waived and stretched Batum to do that) I’d be far more pessimistic about the future. Even the draft day hiccups are on the “restraint” side of the ledger.

JK47:
Rose certainly deserves plenty of credit for last year’s team. He didn’t make any obvious mistakes (well, Obi over Hali, but okay) and he made some sensible moves in bringing in productive free agents on the cheap. He made two outstanding moves that I panned at the time (Quickley and Derrick Rose)and of course he hired Tom Thibodeau.

That was the easy part though. He did great at that! The hard part, getting into that next tier… we’ll see if he’s up to the task. This was a mediocre draft for the Knicks considering the picks they had in hand going in. Maybe one of the two guys who will be rostered surprises us and pulls a Quickley, but that’s a pretty hard thing to replicate year after year. You’re basically the Spurs (good version) if you can pull that kind of a rabbit out of a hat every year.

There also seems to have been an emphasis on creating cap space in a year where the free agent class is pretty thin. Rose can still redeem this offseason after a shaky draft but he has some serious work to do.

JK also well said. I think you are still hedging when you say “sensible” moves…Burks and Noel were better than sensible, E Davis in-and-out were brilliant. Payton was a solid out-and-in value-wise but it went south and Thibs misplayed it, so you can criticize that in a fringe sort of way, same with Rivers.

The DRose and IQ moves are really telling in that they should give folks like you a bit of pause in going off the deep end at the inefficient #19 move and the guys they picked. This isn’t Kevin Knox-level stuff. It just isn’t. It may not be what the KB pessimist hive mind wanted, but let’s at least be humble enough to acknowledge our own evaluative fuck-ups before jumping to conclusions. And it sounds like you are settling into that place.

The DRose and IQ moves are really telling in that they should give folks like you a bit of pause in going off the deep end at the inefficient #19 move and the guys they picked.

Thing is though, there’s a pretty big difference between drafting a guy that seemed like a little bit of a reach (turned out he wasn’t) and completely mismanaging an asset in a way that immediately devalues it. Reaching for Quickley had an upside: he could turn out to be good, which he did! Punting 19 has an upside so tiny you need a microscope to see it. I was *mildly* concerned about the Quickley pick. This is way, way more of a red flag.

You should probably give a rest to the “you were wrong about this thing in the past therefore your opinion is worthless” shtick. I mean we might as well go ahead and shut this board down if that’s going to be the standard.

I may turn out wrong but when you also just look at the historic value of 1rps in a trade it doesn’t look like we did a great job under any strategy.

is this even being valued as a 1st rd’er? this has to be valued as something less.. but maybe slightly more than a 2nd…

JK47: You should probably give a rest to the “you were wrong about this thing in the past therefore your opinion is worthless” shtick. I mean we might as well go ahead and shut this board down if that’s going to be the standard.

Sorry, I’m not going to do that. If you were not only wrong, but out-of-control wrong on matters of asset valuation (especially draft picks) on a significant number of occasions in just the last couple of years, you should cool your jets. My understanding of this board is that you are wrong, you should be prepared to be called out on it forever into the future. Just the other day, someone linked to a post I made 8 years ago to attack my current credibility. And that wasn’t even about a move that I called for! Someone (was it you) brought up my love for Ron Baker, who was an UDFA!! And I didn’t call for that salary move either, or suggest that it was a smart move!

If you can find posts where I went embarrassingly ballistic about Rose and co. did this, but they didn’t do that, or embarrassingly gushed over something they did that turned out to be a horrific blunder, please, feel free to hold me accountable. But stop with the “you can say whatever you want however you want to and not be held accountable” nonsense. There’s some stupid, overreactive shit being said right now, similar to the stupid overactive shit that was said last year. If folks talk in measured, fair language, I’ll back off.

Lots of protected 1st conveys into seconds at some points. Some don’t. At the very least, the Knicks should have insisted that the picks turn into an unprotected 1st in 2026. It was a bad negotiation, no doubt about it.

One slight caveat, if the picks don’t convey by 2025, that would suggest that CHA is still terrible and the 2nd rounders are in the 30-45 range. Two such picks are probably worth a trade up to #29-34 or something like that. So the worst conceivable outcome is a loss of 10-15 draft spots. The most likely outcome is a similar draft position somewhere in the next 4 years. Is that fair?

JK47: Thing is though, there’s a pretty big difference between drafting a guy that seemed like a little bit of a reach (turned out he wasn’t) and completely mismanaging an asset in a way that immediately devalues it.

That’s NOT what was said at the time. Folks were insistent that at the very least he would be there at #33 and might have gone undrafted. They also said that the odds were pretty high that IQ would never make it in the league, or at best would be a back-end-of-rotation 3pt specialist. In the process, they derided certain types of analysis that saw all the things beyond 3pt shooting that we see now.

And please keep in mind that I’m not even defending the #19 mistake or any of players we picked.

About this, you are wrong. 1st round picks have cap holds. It saved $2.5M.

it’s only 1.5mm .. every roster spot has a cap hold…

We won’t be making that pick.

Again, anyone who is evaluating the draft without context is just being dumb. It’s really obvious there are other moves coming, and their strategy here was certainly influenced by what they need there (picks, space). I hope those moves are good moves…. To me this feels like ’96, where we are going to be surprised with a franchise-altering package of players.

What difference does it make whether or not we make the pick as far as the value of the asset is concerned? Again, other teams will not be fooled into thinking this is a “future Charlotte first.” They can read.

As for the “this was all about avoiding the cap hold for the 19th overall pick” rationale, well, we’re gonna find out very shortly if the Knicks’ moves absolutely required $2.7M more in cap space than they would’ve had. This amount of course could’ve been created by trading Knox, and if there were no takers stretching him. The latter would not be a great option, but if we’re apparently so desperate for the space you gotta do what you gotta do right?

It’s not fair value, but it’s not nothing or anything close to nothing. It’s probably $.075 on the dollar bad.

You’re leaving out a crucial detail. Let’s accept for the sake of argument they got $0.75 on the dollar. A fair return given everything we know about the draft was not $1, it was $1.25-$1.50.

We gave the Hornets a pick that allowed them to pick any number of known quantities. They knew with complete certainty they liked Kai Jones. There is no such guarantee for a late future first or two seconds in any one of five future drafts. It is totally within the realm of possibility that the future pick conveys and neither the Hornets nor us particularly care for anyone available, a risk we took on ourselves and insured the Hornets against without extracting any surplus value.

djphan: it’s only 1.5mm .. every roster spot has a cap hold…

Not all 15 – only the first 13. You don’t HAVE to have more than 13 players. There are also some exceptions available for the team this year. The 2nd rounders don’t have cap holds. They can be sent to the G-League or stashed in Europe.

ptmilo: this kinda feels like the greg monroe slash lma slash rolo free agency year where it’s clear some stuff is going to happen but it’s a little hard to find a plausible scenario where that stuff will be real exciting. seems more like it’ll come in between “okay that’s not too bad for now” and “holy fuck no leon”

As usual, pt articulates my exact feelings much more accurately than I would have been able to do using ten times as many words.

(one prolific poster had LaMelo rated outside the top 10 in last year’s draft…now THAT’S the guy we should be listening to in asset valuation….right.)

This wasn’t even me and I’m still going to take another opportunity to point out that this shit is so weak. No one is telling you you’re no longer entitled to an opinion because of your prior enthusiasm for Tyrell Terry or Andrea Bargnani or Ron Baker. They’re evaluating your arguments on the merits. Give it a rest, especially if you’re not going to post a board of your own.

Stein:

Miami’s status as the favorite to land Kyle Lowry was only enhanced by the decision to pick up Goran Dragic’s option for next season, league sources say.

A sign-and-trade with Toronto for Lowry centered around Dragic’s $19.4MM deal for next season is an obvious route to a deal.

Lowry seemed unlikely to come here, but this will have down the line repercussions, particularly with Dallas and NOLA, both of whom are hot for Lowry.

According to the last updates (from the likes of Woj, Shams, Marks, Stein and other “reliable” sources)
it looks like we can cross some names from the PGs pool:

Lowry (to MIA via sign and trade)
Dragic (to TOR in the aforementioned sign and trade)
Ball (with the Lowry LSD dream gone NO will re-sign him)

plus CP3 (consensus is he will opt-in and extend to lower the cap hit)
and Conley (already agreed under the table at a 3YR deal to stay in UTAH)

MIA is also re-signing Robinson.

If this is true I hope we’ll get Graham (or Payne), using the infamous 19th pick in a trade with CHA.
Everything to avoid Schroeder…

Signing Melo to a small one-year deal wouldn’t be the end of the world but would not leave much of role for Obi Toppin.

this has been forgotten but the spot that the 2nd rd pick got punted for went to…. austin rivers….

it’d be interesting who we could absolutely never play in the rotation or put on the roster with the 19th pick but instead entrust a roster spot over them for…

and it would not shock me if the big brain answer to that was carmelo anthony…

I still think the FO is planning a Lowry/DeRozan reunion with the cap space. Those two are really close friends, and they plug our theoretical holes. It wouldn’t make for a title team but it could be a fun one to watch and an improvement over last year.

thenoblefacehumper:
Devonte Graham is a nice player, but trading a pick AND paying him what he’ll likely command would be a big mistake. He doesn’t put any pressure on the rim whatsoever, and while he puts up a good fight on defense given his height he’s still 6’1?.

I could countenance a reasonable offer sheet for him, but he’s not even close to a guy we should pay for twice.

Totally agree, but I’ll pay from my pocket to avoid Schroeder… 🙂

Carmelo Anthony on a 1-year deal when there are no stud free agents is a very good move in almost every way. Prove me wrong.

I know i’m not on the majority on this, but i like Graham. And i don’t think he’ll command a lot of money. On that ESPN’s article about projected free-agent’s salaries, he was in the range 12M-14M. If we have an “agreement” with CHA to not match, maybe we also have good value – around 10M AAV would be great.

thenoblefacehumper: You’re leaving out a crucial detail. Let’s accept for the sake of argument they got $0.75 on the dollar. A fair return given everything we know about the draft was not $1, it was $1.25-$1.50.

We gave the Hornets a pick that allowed them to pick any number of known quantities. They knew with complete certainty they liked Kai Jones. There is no such guarantee for a late future first or two seconds in any one of five future drafts. It is totally within the realm of possibility that the future pick conveys and neither the Hornets nor us particularly care for anyone available, a risk we took on ourselves and insured the Hornets against without extracting any surplus value.

I don’t think the $1.25 to $150 is a fair bar. No one goes into a transaction actively trying to get less value than they’re giving up. So the standard should be dollar for dollar. Anything beyond that is unessecary quibbling and certainly not worthy of outrage.

cybersoze:
I know i’m not on the majority on this, but i like Graham. And i don’t think he’ll command a lot of money. On that ESPN’s article about projected free-agent’s salaries, he was in the range 12M-14M. If we have an “agreement” with CHA to not match, maybe we also have good value – around 10M AAV would be great.

We agree! I like Devonte Graham and would be happy to see the Knicks get him. He’s highway robbery at 12M/year.

JK47: Yes, they did it in response to YOU doing this sort of thing ALL THE TIME. To show how tedious and annoying it is.

I respect the intelligence of most people here, we’re all gonna whiff on one every now and then because we don’t have Biff Tannen’s fuckin’ sports almanac. You’re no different than anybody else.

Persist if you must, I guess, but it makes you look like an ass. Which you’re not.

I try to only do so in response to smug, supercilious, patronizing, condescending, or hyperbolic posters. That was you to the tee on draft night. If anyone looked like an ass, it was you when you directly compared the #19 trade to Bargnani/Noah-level blunders. And I know that you’re not an ass either, but that was really fucking annoying.

So we’re actually calling for the same thing, aren’t we? Argue fairly, tone down the rhetoric and the Fox News-worthy alarmist hyperbole, and allow for the possibility that you are wrong, at least in part, especially in the face of being wrong about the same shit over and over.

Sign me up for Graham at that range but I see no way Charlotte wouldn’t match. I mean he’d be a good trade asset immediately.

I highly doubt we have some wink-wink, nod-nod agreement with them not to match an offer, but it’s possible the trade in general will be part of a larger sign-and-trade for Graham.

Depending on the money, the asset devaluation we agreed to in trading 19 for the protected pick would be palatable in that context if there weren’t other assets involved.

Z-man: I don’t think the $1.25 to $150 is a fair bar. No one goes into a transaction actively trying to get less value than they’re giving up. So the standard should be dollar for dollar. Anything beyond that is unessecary quibbling and certainly not worthy of outrage.

No!! I’m sorry but this is wrong. Nobody in any context ever says ‘I’ll give you a dollar today if you’ll promise to give me a dollar next week’. Giving up a certain value today is ALWAYS remunerated with some level of return for the risks of the return coming back in the future. You can argue if it’s 1.25 or 1.50 we should have got. And you can argue what the value of the Charlotte pick really is given it ‘could’ be as high as 15 in a future draft. But TFNH is spot on when he says we should have returned something worth more than a dollar for our dollar today…

english_knick: No!! I’m sorry but this is wrong. Nobody in any context ever says ‘I’ll give you a dollar today if you’ll promise to give me a dollar next week’.

Incompetents do.

The time-value-adjusted expected return on that asset is, without question, under a dollar. Even in the highly unlikely scenario that it comes back as a higher pick, moving up only 3-4 spots is nowhere near high enough compensation for the time value lost. They literally dissipated the value of the 19th pick in exchange for nothing.

thenoblefacehumper: Lord give me the confidence of someone who caped for Bargnani and still says things like this…

Again, if you have to go back 8 years to when I defended management for a hot second and did an about face within a few games of evidence, that pretty much sums things up about you and others being non-learners.

You had Dotson as a fucking lottery pick and he went undrafted. You hollered about picking IQ and he has since played like a lottery pick. You had Hayes ahead of LaMelo..thank god we weren’t picking #3 with you in charge! That’s all within the past 12 months. I don’t have to go back 8 years to find reasons to be skeptical of your opinions.

And we actually agree on the #19 trade, just not on the implications. Did any of your inferences you made about the ability of management to value players based on the #33 trade-out last year have merit in retrospect? Beyond having a tendency to undervalue specific picks in transactions, which I agree with?

english_knick: No!! I’m sorry but this is wrong. Nobody in any context ever says ‘I’ll give you a dollar today if you’ll promise to give me a dollar next week’. Giving up a certain value today is ALWAYS remunerated with some level of return for the risks of the return coming back in the future.You can argue if it’s 1.25 or 1.50 we should have got. And you can argue what the value of the Charlotte pick really is given it ‘could’ be as high as 15 in a future draft. But TFNH is spot on when he says we should have returned something worth more than a dollar for our dollar today…

It seems that I was unclear here. By dollar to dollar, I mean with asset appreciation/depreciation factored in. For example, if the future pick was only top-10 protected in 2022, it might still convey as a 19th pick, so that would make it more of a dollar-to-dollar thing in that the risk/reward calculation on the pick changes. The odds of the pick conveying as a future first higher than pick 19 change dramatically, and the risk of them conveying at 19 or lower, or as two 2nds, decreased. Something like that would make it dollar-for-dollar, which to me would have been perfectly acceptable.

In other words, it’s the level of protection that I take the greatest issue with, not the pick per se.

Z-man: You had Dotson as a fucking lottery pick and he went undrafted.

Not trying to get into this argument, but i think you know a lot of guys from pick 40 and on, decline to being drafted so they could choose which team they’ll join. I just refered Ayayi on my previous post, and the other guy the Lakers signed to a 2-way contract did the same (Austin Reaves, and he was projected #32 by Sam Vecenie).

english_knick: Yep. But our plan a was trade up and accept a $4m hold, so the idea we weren’t willing to draft two guys whose total hold was c4m because we wanted the space doesn’t sound that convincing to me… especially as two guys also saves you a minimum roster charge. Berman was saying the Knicks ‘never planned to make both picks’ for cap reasons and that is, given the trade up chat, ‘bollocks’ (to use a popular English phrase).

First, Marc Berman does not command my respect.

Second, the mechanics of the cap and roster spots is very complicated. In my mind it was both the cap and the open roster spot. As I said to others, that pick locks money and a spot. It was a message by Leon Rose that the Knicks are no longer in the business of playing for lottery picks. It goes against what most people think here, but we’ve been playing the lottery way too often. Now the idea is to get into the playoffs and keep getting into the playoffs.

This team will now be built through free agency and perhaps trades. And we’re not playing for this year either. It’s a buildup towards next year’s draft and free agency. Our draft picks will need to fight for playing time. Nothing is guaranteed for them.

It was a message by Leon Rose that the Knicks are no longer in the business of playing for lottery picks. It goes against what most people think here, but we’ve been playing the lottery way too often. Now the idea is to get into the playoffs and keep getting into the playoffs.

do draft picks not help you do that or something?

i get that rookies can most of the time be terrible players… but they contribute in much the same ways as other terrible players that tend to go for one year deals also…. and then you also take into account that we have alot more to play for beyond next year and i don’t know.. why?

like what i’m seeing is a lot of people having a tough time grappling with the rationale with it since i’m seeing a lot of inconsistencies in these arguments and this is why…

and i get it.. people want to believe in leon rose really really badly for whatever reason.. but you have to look at what’s happened for what it is… and all the good moves weren’t really all that good to be giving him all the benefit of the doubt… i think we all agreed we had to wait on more moves to judge further..

well we’re getting it and the returns aren’t good… that we’re acting like we’re some sort of contender that we’re too good for draft picks is just another in a line of examples that this FO doesn’t have a grasp on this team and how it’s trying to achieve it…

Mike Schmitz: What are the Knicks getting in Lithuanian lefty PG Rokas Jokubaitis?
https://twitter.com/Mike_Schmitz/status/1421871430824693766

I think i’m going to take back my prediction that this guy wouldn’t be joining the Knicks ever. He has some skills, so let’s check what he can do in one of europe’s best teams (Barcelona) this season, before coming to any conclusions.

I am just curious. Am I the only one who doesn’t want to make a big splashy trade and try and land a star?

I would be okay making a big trade for a younger potential star (young actual stars like Luka, Trae, Jokic, and Zion aren’t moving anytime soon) but pushing all our chips in on a star who is over 30 seems like a bad idea and a rather boring one.

I have no desire to move RJ, Toppin, IQ, and 3-5 future 1st round picks for a chance to watch Beal or Lillard get bounced in the 2nd round for the next 3 years before they start to decline and we are boned for the next half-decade.

I also don’t want a sort of super friends type deal. I think it would be rather boring to be a Lakers, Clippers, or Nets fan right now. Watching a bunch of players that I have no connection to win games in a Knicks jersey isn’t what I want as a basketball fan. I want to develop a team and watch it grow like the Suns or the Jazz or the Bucks or the Blazers or the Hawks or the Nuggets or the Mavs. Or like Memphis and New Orleans seem to be doing right now. Just no super team bs.

I am totally okay adding pieces even making a big swing to put the team over the top like the Raptors with Leonard or the Suns with Paul but I need the core to at least be players that we developed. I don’t want to watch a bunch of superstars and mercenaries with no one connected to the team. At that point why even watch the Knicks.

Am I alone in this? Maybe it’s just me.

Other than strat – who took to this board shortly after trade 19 was made to praise its brilliance – is there anyone on here who regards it as a net positive for the Knicks?

I didn’t think so. It sure appears to be that rarest of kb birds – a subject on which there seems to be a near unanimity of opinion here.

The real disagreement seems to center around what it all may – or may not – tell us about this front office. Opinions on that score range from “too small potatoes to really mean much of anything” to “here we go again, another FO that has no clue how to properly value and manage its assets.” As I’ve said, my own opinion hews much closer to the latter. Perhaps it really is just my Knick PTSD coming through but to me it was all too reminiscent of prior regimes that would chronically undervalue draft picks / cost controlled assets en route to pissing them away in pursuit of the Next Big Name. Is that what’s about to go down here? Too soon to say, of course, but I don’t see how any Knicks fan would not be able to understand why some other Knicks fans might reasonably be feeling that all too familiar sinking feeling in the wake of that trade.

No interest in super friends; open to a trade for a star depending on what goes the other way. Little to no confidence a star trade would be sensible.

Malik Monk hits free agency and we have 50 million to burn

grant riller didn’t get a qo from charlotte which seems like a small surprise? excellent guy to take a back bench shot on, he can really shoot and he’s a known tryhard.

iserp: Well, those projections of future NBA production/value don’t look very good right now with 12 months of additional information. There is still uncertainty, though, but I would not bet on Dotson turning his career around.

Additionally, teams are not graded whether they got their big boards ‘mostly’ right. If they get a mistake somewhere in there, it will be costly. The Knicks could have predicted correctly the production/value of every player in the 2018 draft except they overvalued Knox, and that is what really counts.

For that reason, i am ready to excuse the 19th pick blunder. It was definitely a mistake, but it may also reflect certain awareness that they did not have enough information to make a worthy pick at that spot. That is obviously a bad look on their scouting, but keeping some of the value in a future 1st might have been better than blindly picking a player.

iserp, you are a very respected poster here, and this is a respectful, measured take.

Let’s not forget that the Cavs traded for Ricky Rubio for a reason.