Watch these assholes win this game just to make their play-in chances seem realistic.
At least Mitch is back! Maybe he’ll have a good game against the relatively short Warriors.
Let’s go take a nap!
Day: February 10, 2022
I sort of like that the Knicks/Lakers/Raptors possible deal was leaked, because it allowed people to say, “Oh man, gotta at least give Rose credit for pivoting” and then he…didn’t do anything. So it’s like they pulled the rug out from under a defense of the guy. Pretty funny.
That the Knicks couldn’t even dump Burks or Kemba says a whole lot of how poorly they managed the assets of the team, in the sense that they don’t really have many veteran assets, just deals waiting to expire. However, if the Knicks were at least considering dumping Burks and Noel to clear cap space for this offseason, it suggests that there might be a willingness to try that again in the offseason. It’s much harder to do that in the offseason since contracts or no longer expiring, but…well…fuck, I dunno, man, maybe they can still find a way? But probably not.
As an aside, the Knicks can’t cut Kemba, since his deal is guaranteed for next season. They really have to try to trade him somehow.
The Knicks didn’t trade Mitch, which would suggest that they now plan on keeping him longterm, which would be great, but, well, this is the Knicks, you can never rule them out of saying, “Burks and Noel, we gotta lock down before free agency even starts, but Mitch…hmmm…I guess we can just let him go for nothing.”
“They still have their future draft picks!” Why the fuck SHOULDN’T they have their draft picks? It’s like, “Hey, they tied their shoelaces! You can’t say they didn’t tie their shoelaces! Previous Knick GMs ran around tripping on their laces every other day, but not these guys! They tied their shoelaces!” Not to mention that they already burned through one of their draft picks to get Cam Reddish, so if “they still have their draft picks” is such a bonus, then that was a bad thing, right?
In other news, while his injury didn’t seem too bad at the time, RJ is now in a walking boot, which is hilariously bad. With 50 seconds left and the Knicks down 17, Thibs took Randle, Fournier and Burks out of the game, but chose not to bring Reddish in for RJ. When asked why not (after RJ, of course, injured himself with 18 seconds to go), Thibs explained that he had put the starters back in when the Knicks had cut the lead to 13 (it was actually 15, but whatever), ignoring the fact that, again, he took three of the other starters out with 50 seconds left but not RJ for…why? The guy doesn’t just make curious decisions, he then can’t even own up to the decisions he makes! What’s up with that dude?
Boy, it was nice to have a year off from this organization being a laughingstock.
Michael Scotto, who is an actual legit reporter so this is likely for real for him to be talking such detailed specifics, is reporting that the Knicks, Lakers and Raptors are talking about a three-way deal that end up with:
Lakers get Cam Reddish and Alec Burks.
Knicks get Goran Dragic and draft picks.
Raptors get Talen Horton-Tucker and Nerlens Noel.
Reddish can’t be combined with another player in a trade, but I assume that this deal takes that into account, so it’s really more like Reddish for pick and then Burks and Noel for Dragic.
This would clear a decent amount of cap space for this summer (something like $23 million, as I totally forgot that Taj’s money is non-guaranteed. Good call, CZ!), so that the Knicks could likely again sign a free agent before then re-signing Mitch to go over the cap (Mitch’s cap hold is miniscule, something like $3.2 million) and then extending RJ. So this could give them enough money to make a real run at Jalen Brunson, and if they free up even more money then even Miles Bridges could be a conceivable target. So that’s definitely nice.
It would be an abrupt shift in their plans, but since their first plan was a bad one, then a shift could be a much-welcomed turn.
The draft capital is the key here to see how good this particular deal is, but overall, I think it looks pretty much, like most Rose deals, “okay,” in that it works to basically erase his own mistakes, but using the charred Charlotte first rounder to do so (unless the Knicks somehow get a bunch of draft picks out of this deal). The end result could be a real positive if this deal goes down and they use the freed up cap space on someone like Jalen Brunson. I bet the Mavericks are a bit worried after seeing the rumors of this deal!