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You Can Call Me “Mellow Yellow” About the Donovan Mitchell Trade

So, as DRed predicted, while the site was being revamped by Mike, Donovan Mitchell was, indeed, traded…to the Cleveland Cavaliers.

I just thought that the trade should get its own post. I even gave it a horrible pun title.

There are so many interchanging thoughts about this non-deal, so let me try to parse mine together.

1. Like the title says, I’m fairly accepting about the whole thing. Obviously, you all know me, I don’t think they should be striving to just get into the playoffs when they don’t have a team that’s much better than perhaps fluking into the #5 seed and a first round exit (and heck, with this Mitchell trade, it’s even harder to break into the top six, with Cleveland set up quite nicely). However, as the song says, “I’m not mad about fourteen.” In other words, whatever, it is what it is. We all knew that this was how Leon Rose was going to play it, so knowing that this was the way he was going to play it, my hope (as I noted a bunch of times last season) was that he would clear cap space, sign Jalen Brunson and then extend Mitch Robinson once Brunson was signed and, well, he did just that. Doing that at least showed that he understood that if he wanted this team to be an okay team, it wasn’t going to get there unless he dumped the guys he signed last season while keeping Mitch. So that was nice to see. Even if I don’t agree with the overall strategy, I at least liked the short term moves if he was to follow that strategy.

2. However, as we’ve pointed out a few times during the offseason so far, even with me liking the signing of Brunson and Hartenstein and the resigning of Mitch, the current team does not make sense. It just doesn’t. There are too many decent players for not enough minutes. Cam Reddish might be an interesting player. He probably won’t be, but he might, and there isn’t enough minutes to go around for everybody…even with Cam Reddish getting zero minutes! Think about that, the Knicks traded a slightly singed first round pick for Cam Reddish, who will be a free agent after this upcoming season, and their current plan is to not play him any minutes…and they still don’t have enough minutes to use optimally for the players that they have remaining after not playing Reddish any minutes! This team is built for a consolidation trade. It’s one of the most glaring cases of needing a consolidation trade that I’ve ever seen and yet…is there going to be a consolidation trade? There is still time to do so, of course. Donovan Mitchell, after all, was just traded, and the Utah Jazz are clearly not done making deals (they have a very much in-demand player in Bojan Bogdanovic, one pretty high in-demand player in Jordan Clarkson and one….maybe somebody wants him? player in Mike Conley. They’re going to deal at least Bogdanovic, and maybe even all three), and neither are the Lakers, who have Russell Westbrook burning a proverbial hole in their pocket at the moment (and possibly willing to deal two first round picks to get rid of him). Deals will still be made, so the Knicks might (hopefully?) be doing some more deals. They really, really need to.

3. Going back as to whether Donovan Mitchell should have been the guy that they consolidated with, it’s a fascinating question. Woj noted that this is where the Knicks and the Jazz stood when the Knicks basically cut off discussions and then the Cavs swooped in and said, “Fine, you can have three unprotected first round picks”:

When guard Immanuel Quickley was proposed as a replacement for Grimes in the trade, Utah wanted three unprotected first-round draft picks as part of the package — but New York would only do a third first-round pick that included top-five protections, sources said. Those packages would’ve included two second-round picks, two pick swaps and two expiring contracts from a third team, sources said. New York would’ve moved out Evan Fournier and first-round pick to a third team to spare Utah taking on Fournier’s remaining $37 million, sources said.

Back when the deal was first discussed, this is what I thought the deal would look like:

I figure we’re looking at Grimes, Fournier (for his salary to make the salaries work), one of IQ and Obi (maybe both) and five picks (two Knick picks and then three picks they acquired from other teams).

The Knicks, apparently, were willing to do RJ Barrett, Immanuel Quickley, two unprotected picks in 2026 and 2024, two pick swaps in 2025 and 2027, Milwaukee’s top five protected 2025 pick (it’s annoying that Woj makes it sound like it was the Knicks’ top five protected pick, right?), two second round picks, and one more first round pick (presumably one of the protected ones they got from the other teams) used to dump Fournier on another team in exchange for two expiring contracts who would be sent to Utah. That’s a lot. Ainge obviously preferred to get three unprotected picks (plus Cleveland threw in the guy they just took in the lottery in the 2022 Draft, which is kind of sort of like a draft pick), so he accepted Cleveland’s offer instead.

But, again, Rose offered a lot. In other words, he obviously felt like getting a star player like Donovan Mitchell was worth a lot, and, well, they didn’t get a star player like Donovon Mitchell. Let’s use VORP for a second (I have no specific preference for VORP. I just wanted to pick something to see what the options look like out there). Let’s look at players in the NBA who were in the top 25 in VORP at age 25 or less, like Mitchell was (he was ranked 18th). You got Luka, you got Tatum, you got Trae, you got Dajounte Murray, you got Ja, you got Booker, you got TIME LORD?! (wow), you got LaMelo, you got Sabonis and you got Hali (tied for 25th). Three people on this list hilariously were dealt this year, but I would imagine none of those three would be on the move this year, as the teams who just dealt fir them would not want to give them up so soon. The other players sure don’t seem to be going anywhere, either, right?

So, if not Mitchell, then who? Who is going to make more sense for the Knicks while apparently also costing less than Mitchell did?

I didn’t want the Knicks to give up that much for Mitchell, so I am happy that the deal didn’t happen. But my concern is that I don’t think Leon Rose is happy that the deal didn’t happen. If he was willing to give up that much for Mitchell, and Mitchell is now off the block, then what’s next? What’s the move he makes instead of this one? If you go to #33 for VORP, Shai is there (23 last season). Is Shai the move? Would Shai actually cost less? Is Shai even available? Is the move to just tread water and hope something fluky happens?

I am not here to bury Leon Rose. I’m really not. I don’t think that not making this deal is a sign he is bad, or anything like that, but I do think that it doesn’t make him look good, either. It is hard to brag about Rose’s negotiating skills when he was already willing to give up so much. I don’t think that means his skills should be knocked, either, he made a bet that Ainge wouldn’t get three unprotected picks from any other teams and he bet wrong. That’s not a sign that Rose is bad by any means. It just isn’t a sign that he is specifically good, either.

I think, once again, we’re sort of in a stalling pattern, waiting to see the move that will make it clear how good of a GM Rose is. And while I’m mad about saffron, I’m not mad about that. You can call me mellow yellow.

144 replies on “You Can Call Me “Mellow Yellow” About the Donovan Mitchell Trade”

Right now, every team seems to be set in stone, but by the trade deadline the song will change. Injuries will happen, some teams will underperform, some will overperform, some star will demand a trade, etc. And we will well positioned to either trade for some star power, or trade our players for future assets.

I am not that worried about the minutes distribution. Sure it is a bit tight, but injuries do happen, and in the end there will be time for everybody.

About Leon Rose, for me getting Bruson and Hartenstein are positives, but not drafting Tari Eason and the RJ extension are negatives. About the Mitchell trade, I am happy that he did not gave up unprotected pick so far in the future, but I am a bit puzzled that the protected draft picks we own from other teams moved the needle so little. Cleveland was already a playoff team on the back of two very young players (even if they lost the play-in) and their picks are less valuable, and while Markkanen is nice, Sexton is meh. I wish we could have done it with only two unprotected picks, but it was not meant to be.

The comments at the top about Reddish are true. What struck me as I read them was that any first round pick we might have made this year would also have a hard time getting minutes too. It would be like a “why did we draft him if we weren’t going to play him” argument. So I’m not so unhappy we traded our first round pick for future picks. We do need a consolidation trade. But our management and me both seem to want to trade older players like Fournier to give opportunities for younger players like Grimes rather than trade players like Grimes (judging by their reported offers for Mitchell). So who can we trade those older players too? The one option that stands out is the Lakers. They could use any competent player they can get. And to be fair, they are right. For them, Fournier would be a big help. So if we could trade Fournier and say, Hunt, and maybe (gulp) Reddish for Westbrook and their future firsts, I’d probably be for it. We could maybe throw in some of our crappy first rounders from other teams in return for no protection on their picks so they could feel they have a chance at first round picks much sooner. Then, of course,we buy out Westbrook.

In a way, this is a big bet on RJ, as we apparently could have gotten Mitchell for a big but not crippling price if we had made RJ the centerpiece. Given my agnosticism on RJ’s ability to reach his ceiling (and/or on what his ceiling actually is), that has me worried. But I still don’t think Mitchell was the right player for this team at this time, given how much he was going to cost.

> some star will demand a trade, etc. And we will well positioned to either trade for some star power, or trade our players for future assets.

Exactly this. I look at the DM trade like this: Ever want to make a big purchase (car, rowing machine, faberge egg, etc.) but you’re unsure whether you should or not? You hem & haw, ask your spouse, friends, family whether you should or not. Everyone is split on the issue. You finally decide to pull the trigger … and it’s no longer available! Sold out.

You feel like you just got a punch to the gut.

But guess what? You still have your money. You can buy another one. You know what you want, and you know approximately how much you’ll spend. You just need to wait for the opportunity to arise again. So you start researching looking for the same.

Unless the purchase was a ridiculously discounted deal (which DM wasn’t), you’ll eventually find a suitable replacement. And it might be better or worse than the original, hence the cost will reflect that as well. But you’re prepared because you did the original research and you know what you’re doing at this point.

Excellent write up. This is the first time I learned that the future top 5 protected pick was Milwaukee’s, not ours.

I think this negotiation helps us understand the value of the picks we acquired vis-a-vis one unprotected pick. Perusing our protections, there’s a ton of uncertainty:

1. Dallas’ 1st round pick to New York protected for selections 1-10 in 2023, 1-10 in 2024 and 1-10 in 2025.

the easiest to predict; we will most likely have a pick in the 20’s this year

2. Detroit’s 1st round pick protected for selections 1-18 in 2023, 1-18 in 2024, 1-13 in 2025, 1-11 in 2026 and 1-9 in 2027.

this one seems likely to convey in the teens between 2025-2027

3. Washington’s 1st round pick protected for selections 1-14 in 2023, 1-12 in 2024, 1-10 in 2025 and 1-8 in 2026; if Washington has not conveyed a 1st round pick to New York by 2026, then Washington will instead convey its 2026 2nd round pick and 2027 2nd round pick to New York

this one is the hardest to predict; it’s as likely to be two seconds as it is a single first outside the top 8.

4. Milwaukee’s 2025 1st round pick to New Orleans protected for selections 5-30 or to New York protected for selections 1-4.

the details on this one surprised me: if the pick is in the top 4, it goes to New Orleans and we would get nothing in the future.

The value of our supply may have been overstated then. We were throwing around phrases like 6 first round picks, but the Jazz didn’t see it that way.

So I played with the trade machine. We could conceivably trade Reddish, Rose and Fournier for Westbrook and it would work in the trade machine. We would then have Westbrook as a backup point guard instead of Rose, which might not be so awful. The Lakers would have a much better team. It’s a fantasy, but they should be willing to throw in picks to make this work. It even lowers their tax bill.

Excellent write up. This is the first time I learned that the future top 5 protected pick was Milwaukee’s, not ours.

Terrible reporting by Woj there, to only call it a “top five protected pick” and not, “Milwaukee’s top five protected pick.”

A question for the group:

Looking back at the summer, what is your biggest regret?

a) no regrets

b) not acquiring Mitchell

c) not acquiring DeJounte Murray (the cost was about 40% less than Mitchell)

d) not selecting a player in the lottery (either at 11 or 13)

no brian, woj doesn’t make it sound like a knicks pick, he is actually reporting it was the knicks pick. on his podcast talking about the top five protected pick he said it was a late 2020s pick that probably would have conveyed because the knicks “wouldn’t have been that bad.” that’s not the 2025 top 4 protected bucks pick. there is just mixed reporting on what the third pick in the deal was.

So if we could trade Fournier and say, Hunt, and maybe (gulp) Reddish for Westbrook and their future firsts, I’d probably be for it.

the lakers are not giving us two firsts for this deal. zero chance.

By the way, at this precise second, we can’t do polls, so if you want a poll, it’ll have to be like Space Invader’s above.

no brian, woj doesn’t make it sound like a knicks pick, he is actually reporting it was the knicks pick. on his podcast talking about the top five protected pick he said it was a late 2020s pick that probably would have conveyed because the knicks “wouldn’t have been that bad.” that’s not the 2025 top 4 protected bucks pick. there is just mixed reporting on what the third pick in the deal was.

Thanks! Begley says the third pick was the Bucks one, and so does Ric Bucher, but honestly, if Woj says it was the Knicks’ 2028 pick, I would tend to believe him over the others. If Rose did offer a top five protected pick in 2028, then this whole thing makes even less sense, as how could that be the line in the sand for Rose? “You can have an almost certain to convey pick in 2028, but not a certain to convey pick in 2028!”

In short, there will be another player on the market of approximate DM’s quality (or better) and the Knicks will still have the assets to make the acquisition. And with another competitive team off the market (Cleveland), the deal will be easier to do.

The only way it doesn’t work out for New York is if they never pull the deal and wait too long and their assets dry up. (Prospects don’t always pan out, draft picks turn into players, or end up worse than expected, etc.)

Finally it’s also possible that one of those assets increase in value. What if (hard to believe given our history) the Knicks actually land a great player with one of those draft picks? What if one of their young players actually breaks out & reaches that ceiling?

“You can have an almost certain to convey pick in 2028, but not a certain to convey pick in 2028!”

i hear you. in theory, it is possible to hold the line on top 5 protection, not for certainty, but for the massive value cliff at the very top of the draft. this particular value difference was a popular topic in the nerdier corners of nba front offices starting a couple of years ago.

on earth, though, i am somewhat baselessly convinced that leon/we were just pennying the negotiations toward the end, believing that utah had few comparable alternatives, and also perhaps hearing the media cacophony that ainge was being a “pig” who was going to squeeze the blood out of leon. i believe without much evidence that if we had a right of refusal on thursday, we cave on that third pick. and yeah, that was a lot to give either way. i think both offers are better than the cavs offer. i think iq is a modestly better asset than agbaji (though tony jones claims they love him; he is also bombastic as reporters go). rj is a better asset than sexton and lauri combined by a decent margin. and i would rather own 3 knicks firsts even with one top 5 protected than 3 unprotected cavs firsts given mobley and garland.

I’m starting to think Mitchell is the most overrated player in the NBA.

He’s a chair on defense. I take that back. At his size at SG he’s more of a stool. Sure, he can score, but he so bad teams target him. Brunson was killing him in the playoffs. There are YouTube videos circulating of Dennis Smith JR torching him this summer.

It would have been a nightmare in NY next to Brunson and RJ with our big men. Sure he’d have 40-50 point outbursts and get headlines from Berman and other beat writers, but we’d be a horribly constructed defensive team going nowhere. We’d be a worse version of Utah or the eastern version of the recent Trailblazers.

It’s not going to be easy to find a #1 option, but better to do nothing than something that IMO was clearly the wrong thing. Stay the course.

I don’t think enough is being made of the actual years of the picks. The Caves gave up unprotected first rounders in 2025, 2027, and 2029, and pick swaps in 2026 and 2028. They already have their 2023 pick traded out (top14 protected, which now seems like a lock to convey. To say that the Knicks unprotected firsts were “more valuable” is not necessarily true. I have been pretty firm on not trading any of our own firsts beyond 2026, and because we all know that the farther picks are out the more valuable they become, I doubt that making that trade, even if we kept our own 2023 and 2024 and all of the protected picks, would have left any of us feeling very happy. There is no guarantee that CLE won’t hit a major bump in the road in the next 7 years, so it’s quite the haul they gave up. Imagine not having our own pick outright until 2030, just to get Mitchell…that would literally be insanity.

While any assertions about what went down have to be baseless, as milo says, it’s difficult not to conclude that this got personal towards the end. Ainge’s job is to get the best return possible, and giving NY a last chance to top Cleveland’s offer would have done that. From all accounts, that call was never made. The only other possibility was that Cleveland made Ainge accept on the phone – “our offer is good now, and if you don’t agree, it won’t be there after we hang up.” But there are ways Ainge could keep them talking – “let’s confirm the details so I’m totally sure what I’m getting” – while an underling reaches out with an urgent call to the Knicks for a final chance to top. That didn’t happen, so I’m leaning toward bad blood.

Which is good for us, as Donovan wasn’t a good fit once we got Brunson. We desperately need top-end talent, but that wasn’t the move. Doing the wrong thing because there are no other current options does not make it right.

It’s not reassuring that we went as far as we did, but every team needs some luck to get gud, and maybe we just got lucky.

I also think that criticizing Leon for what he initially is rumored to have offered is not fair. I always find reporting through “sources” a bit sketchy, especially early on in negotiations. The bottom line is, a deal wasn’t made and it is in the best interests of the team that it wasn’t made at anywhere close to the amount that CLE gave up. They had enough surplus assets and a rotation core to go all in all the way to 2030. That’s eight fucking years. There doesn’t seem to be much they can do to make another deal of consequence that doesn’t involve Spida, Mobley, Allen or Garland in that time frame. And who knows, maybe Mitchell hates CLE and opts out in year 3 of his current deal. Maybe tension develops between him and Garland, or one of the bigs.

And frankly, for me, this pushes the jury out on the Leon regime once again. I have consistently said that we can’t judge this group fully until opening day 2023-2024, barring a blockbuster trade. Had Ainge accepted an offer that Leon possibly knew that he wouldn’t, we’d be having a conversation about how Leon, like his predecessors, sold the farm for a flawed star that had no chance of making us a top 5-10 team. Now we continue to have a chance to talk about possibilities and potential, which is what nearly all of us wanted. It still sucks that he committed the original sins of hiring Thibs and foregoing a true rebuild, but damn, I’m really happy that we get to see the answers to the RJ, IQ, Grimes, and Obi questions right here. I’m really glad that we will likely have two picks (to punt on) in the upcoming draft.

Now if only we could find a way to get Julius, Fournier and Rose off the team….paging Rob Pelinka…I’d really be fired up!

“But guess what? You still have your money. You can buy another one. You know what you want, and you know approximately how much you’ll spend. You just need to wait for the opportunity to arise again. So you start researching looking for the same.”

Thanks Mike K. I felt literally home sick and lost when this news broke and the site was down, lol. Glad it’s up. Glad you’re sanguine on the non move. Me too. Keep your powder dry, Leon!

“Now we continue to have a chance to talk about possibilities and potential, which is what nearly all of us wanted. It still sucks that he committed the original sins of hiring Thibs and foregoing a true rebuild, but damn, I’m really happy that we get to see the answers to the RJ, IQ, Grimes, and Obi questions right here.”

We’re also well positioned for a rebuild right now. If it all goes sideways and we’re not sniffing the play in, we can pivot, fire Thibs, bench / trade the vets / play the kids / draft higher / rinse repeat for THREE seasons…

I always find reporting through “sources” a bit sketchy, especially early on in negotiations.

no doubt the leak game is tmz for us semipro ball watchers. but when the best sourced reporter on the day of the trade very unambiguously says and never walks back a specific early offer and rejection:

https://twitter.com/wojespn/status/1565505224986566657?s=21&t=pqiG81llD1X7x4J1jhxmNA

i’m inclined to believe it is well sourced and accurate. i also believe the odds are high the source came from the knicks, given the timing (moderate delay after deal broke) and the widespread reporting that the knicks were not given warning of the deal and dismayed to see it go down. it sounds a hell of lot like “don’t kill us for not offering enough, ainge is just a stupid prick.”

Pt but the delay is key. The Knicks source might be using woj just to placate doubters. It truly makes no sense that the would REDUCE their initial offer by as significant of an amount as is reported and yet be considered to be seriously bargaining as things moved forward. That first offer sounds like a smokescreen.

I’m inclined to really believe the Knicks offered Barrett and other stuff as reported. Woj reported that offer and then recently Windhorst reported that there was a lot of animus from Utah after the Knicks signed Barrett to the extension. The two things match up and are from different reporters.

It truly makes no sense that the would REDUCE their initial offer by as significant of an amount as is reported and yet be considered to be seriously bargaining as things moved forward.

it’s weird, but i find it even more unlikely that a reliable source — one that would lead woj to report something very specific that utah would know to be a lie (it literally claims they rejected it, not that it was merely mentioned) — would fabricate it. nba teams and woj in particular play a very repeated game together, to a much greater extent than with other reporters — this is a big part of what secures the crazy network effect around news breaking that entrenches woj and shams. i also am not sure the putative reduction was as significant to them as it is to us. it could be that obi and rfa mitch didn’t have as much value to the teams as we think, such that the come down from that to iq and two seconds wasn’t actually that huge to them. but of course i’m not sure. they could have panicked and just fibbed. which would be max cringe as the kids would say. but i’ll take the other side.

If it’s a real negotiation you’re trying to find something the other party would accept that you are willing to pay. So you try offering different stuff if your first offer didn’t work out. So I’m not sure reduce the offer is the correct way to look at it. Maybe it’s more like searching for a fit.

And frankly, for me, this pushes the jury out on the Leon regime once again. I have consistently said that we can’t judge this group fully until opening day 2023-2024, barring a blockbuster trade

I wrote a post yesterday detailing how Cleveland and the Knicks were in lockstep with each other until Leon Rose was hired. Leon decided to scrap rebuilding after two seasons and try to win. The Cavs continued rebuilding for one more season.

It’s rare that we can see so clearly what a different path would have looked like. We got the thrill of 41 wins that was soon forgotten and an ill-fitting roster full of unattractive long-term contracts. The Cavs added a franchise player and put themselves in perfect position to add one of the best players in the game.

Leon surely has plenty of time to change his grade, but I don’t think we need more time to see that he’s made grave mistakes from the start.

RJ, Obi, Mitch, and three unprotected 1s for Donovan Mitchell is a preposterous offer.

Be patient; there’s a decent chance that RJ alone will turn out to be better than Mitchell. I’d commend Vecenie’s long piece on RJ in The Athletic a couple days ago. In terms of Mitchell, some might recall here the only-on-KB pedantic pushback on the verb “torched” to describe Brunson on Mitchell in the playoffs. Herring had a story in SI a day or two ago where he quoted a guy with data who used the term “flame-broiled” instead.

Bullet very, very, very much dodged.

Vecenie:

“But Barrett was always in an advantageous position to get paid because it’s very easy to make strong arguments in favor of his play so far. According to Basketball-Reference.com, since 2000, only nine other players have averaged 20 points, five rebounds and three assists per game in a season by the time they were 21 years old. Eight of those players went on to make an All-Star team. Still, you might argue those aren’t Barrett’s comparable players. Rather, I found a group of players who averaged somewhere between 15 and 21 points per game, at least five rebounds, over 2.5 assists and under a 54.0 true-shooting percentage by the time they were 21 years old. Barrett has actually done this twice, so it gives us a nice window into what he actually is while removing a couple of outliers (like Luka Dončić and Tracy McGrady). Ten players are reasonable statistical comps to Barrett in that regard. Five of those guys (LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony, Elton Brand, LaMelo Ball and Brandon Ingram) went on to be All-Stars, and I’d bet on another — Cade Cunningham — to hit that level at some point. The common denominator between all of those players? All were top-three draft picks who had a lot of usage placed on their shoulders early while playing for bad teams. Two of the others are Josh Smith and Lamar Odom — two strong players on winning teams — and the final two are Tyreke Evans and Cole Anthony. Again, with Odom and Evans, you see top-four picks who were responsible for a lot.

This is what happens with young players who probably aren’t quite ready to help a team win or be efficient when they’re handed high-level usage early. They’re asked to do a lot, they struggle with efficiency, and then they tend to get older and figure it out. Being able to take on that much of a workload and become that productive at that age is a fairly good barometer of high-level success in the NBA at some point.”

I’d commend particular note be taken of the last sentence. The ability to get off good shots on your own in the NBA is a far more rare skill than being able to hit a decent percentage of a tiny amount of shots.

Herring:

“If you witnessed Brunson’s postseason outburst several months back, or if you watched the Jazz on any given night, you likely saw bits and pieces of how absent Mitchell can be on the defensive side of the ball. In the words of The Ringer’s Dan Devine: he got “flame-broiled in the opening round of the playoffs.” (He certainly wasn’t alone in this regard. But to be clear: He often was the worst offender, and it left Rudy Gobert and other Jazz players having to put out fires on the back side.)

One of the clearest flaws of a club featuring Mitchell and Brunson would be the nightly size disadvantage the Knicks would find themselves with. Both Brunson and Mitchell—each of whom are known more for their offense—stand just 6’1″. From a statistical standpoint, Dallas was 5.1 points worse per 100 possessions defensively this past year when Brunson was on the floor. The Jazz were 6.5 points worse per 100 with Mitchell on the court.”

Thanks, but no thanks.

***Looking back at the summer, what is your biggest regret?***

Not re-registering yesterday as “Hubert”, just to see if cyber and geo could spot the difference.

gonna pick up some tics sometime this weekend to go see jenny and the mexicats october at lasanta in santa ana mid-october…funny, i’ll start with just getting 3 tickets, the funny thing is – i don’t even have anyone to go with yet…it could end up just being me going by myself, or with like a half dozen people…we’ll see…

jenny and the mexicats was something Raven had brought up as a suggestion, their music is more than legit…should be a cool show donnie…

there’s also a venice show (the venice west), but, i like the santa ana venue a little better…

tonight gonna catch elvis costello over at yaamava…my go to concert buddy couldn’t make it, so may be taking the kids mom…hopefully she’ll make it to the house in enough time so we can get there early enough so i can get a little booze in me before the show starts…

Tommy Beer:

France just beat Lithuania 77-73 in EuroBasket.

The two best players on the floor were both Knicks:

* Fournier scored a game-high 24 points to go along with 5 rebs, 4 made treys and three assists

* Rokas Jokubaitis finished with 13 points, 4 rebs, 5 assists and two made treys.

Jokubaitis was a team-high +12 for Lithuania. No other Lithu player was higher than +3.

Jokubaitis has been impressive in EuroBasket action as Lithuania’s starting PG.

Look, we lost out on Mitchell but all is not lost. Bill Walker and Jonathan Bender are going to be cornerstones for this franchise and Sergio Rodriguez has A LOT of potential.

Took the opportunity to change the username…I’m fka Totes McGoats lol

I don’t really know where to begin about this Donovan deal. But one thing I know for sure is it isn’t a failure by the Knicks FO to not land him at that price. Cleveland didn’t have the better package..they could just afford to meet Ainge’s price- and I’m more than ok with that. If Leon Rose had said yes to that deal, it would have gutted us worse than the Melo trade. At least we already had STAT on the roster then.

I am actually a little jealous of Cleveland’s position though. They were able to throw picks Utah’s way AND still have Mobley, Allen, and Garland. Before the details were announced, I thought it would involve Kevin Love, Agbaji, and picks. Never in my wildest dreams did I think Ainge would accept 2 longer-term deals in Sexton and Markannen with picks projected to be worse than the Knicks picks. Ainge still has to move Conley and Clarkson though- maybe it’s to the Lakers for the right to buy Westbrook out.

I honestly don’t know who fleeced who here, but I’m glad we didn’t take that trade at that cost. I guess all eyes are on SGA now? Possibly Jaylen Brown if he’s truly bothered by the KD trade talk? Who knows. One thing’s for sure- without Donovan, now is the time to hand the keys to our newly paid RJ. I would look for a Randle trade with one of our firsts to happen by the trade deadline.

Oh- I do have one gripe with the Mitchell trade:
HOW DARE DANNY AINGE REFUSE JULIUS RANDLE AND TAKE MARKANNEN AND SEXTON AS IF THEY WOULD BE BETTER TANK COMMANDERS THAN GIVING JULIUS THE KEYS WITH LESS HELP THAN HE HAS IN NY!!

W
T
F

Not re-registering yesterday as “Hubert”, just to see if cyber and geo could spot the difference

It’s funny you mention that because my biggest regret is not logging in 5 minutes sooner so I could have taken Z-Man. But everyone would have known it wasn’t him as soon as I began offering a sensible analysis of Leon Rose instead of treating every little thing he does as magic.

“ Leon surely has plenty of time to change his grade, but I don’t think we need more time to see that he’s made grave mistakes from the start.”

See, I really have to vehemently disagree with this. Not that he hasn’t made mistakes, but calling them grave is just not fair. Trading for Eddy Curry, signing Jerome James – THOSE are grave mistakes.

Now, if your point is that Rose’s refusal to tank harder during RJ’s rookie season (‘19-20) was a grave mistake, or that they should’ve tanked in ‘20-‘21… a few things:
1. I believe ‘19-‘20 was more about ultimately drafting Obi vs Haliburton. The answer still edges twds Hali as of now, but we’ve enough from Obi to tentatively move this out of the “mistake” column.
2. We’re forgetting that ‘20-‘21 was a major surprise season. And there were several elements that were thought to be sustainable. So the Knicks resigned their vets, but not to the kind of contracts they couldn’t pivot from if they were wrong about the following season. Well, they were wrong about ‘21-‘22, and they were able to pivot – something this team had *never* been able to do in the past 20-years.
3. Once the NBA flattened the lottery odds, it changed the outlook of the tank strategy. Look at it this way: since the disaster picks of Knox and [redacted], the Knicks drafted RJ, Obi, IQ and Grimes with their 1RPs. None of them are world-beaters yet, but definitely better performing talent than the latter two, particularly in respect to draft positioning.

Leon’s always made decent choices for the path he’s on, CDiggy. His mistake was choosing the wrong path.

Just one more year. One more season of rebuilding and there’s a 50% chance we’d have added Cunningham, Mobley, or Barnes.

Not re-registering yesterday as “Hubert”, just to see if cyber and geo could spot the difference.

Hahaha, best comment of the day! 😉

It’s funny you mention that because my biggest regret is not logging in 5 minutes sooner so I could have taken Z-Man.

So, Hubert is not coming back? 😉

About the trade, i wouldn’t agree with the Jazz having all our picks from 2025 to 2029. Two are swaps but they get the better one, so no expectation of a good pick for 5 full years. No, thank you.
About Leon, he’s doing a meh job. Yes, we shouldn’t have gone for wins in a super packed draft. And in a very Knicksy style we indeed did win, there were so many years we were set up for winning and couldn’t do it, we obviously had to do it in a draft for the ages. But now, Leon got Brunson, corrected some mistakes, altough some are still there (DRose, Fournier, Randle), and let’s see what we can do. The east is tough this year, so if we’re only aiming for the lower seeds of the play-in at the deadline, Leon needs to pivot to youth. If he doesn’t do it for another season, i’ll start to lose my hope that he can be good. He refused to do it last season, even though it was the right thing to do, so let’s believe he learns from his mistakes.

New look KB!!! I like it.

I mean, I’m mellow too on the whole Mitchell thing, it would have been exciting but I’m glad we didn’t overpay and we move on. It’s probably for the better and don’t think it will be something we’ll regret later.

Tjarks wife’s post is beautifully written, I cant imagine having the ability to write well at such a terrible time. I’d be incoherent

Keeping all your draft picks, assets and waiting for the right player to go all in seems to me like Tantric sex.
Otoh sell the farm to get Spider is more like First time in the local Strip club!

Getting Spider would have been definitely sexy and different than last few seasons so more exciting overall

I seriously doubt tho that it’d had been the ideal move for this win curve moment… especially at this aingeprice

There’s the catchy song and there’s the classic
Time tells the difference

Leon has done several things well. Where he has failed utterly is at getting us high end talent. We haven’t drafted high enough, we haven’t signed a top free agent (though Brunson is good), and we haven’t yet traded for anyone. We have a lot of pretty good players. Maybe one of the kids becomes more than that. But you wind up in purgatory with a roster where no one is awful (other than maybe Julius) but no one is great, either.

Leon Rose ain’t a wizard.
He’s making everything possible to have the team ready to grab the high end talent.
Cleaning cap and roster while gathering youngsters and draft picks ain’t very easy in front of this hungry for success fanbase.
Was DonMitchell a good chance to upgrade
Naaaaah
Rather an overpriced one not to call it desperate one

There would be more and better in the future.
And I’ll bet that this patient mfkr we have in charge would pull the trigger when it would actually worth it

***Just one more year. One more season of rebuilding and there’s a 50% chance we’d have added Cunningham, Mobley, or Barnes.***

Even if the knicks drafted in their customary #8 spot — a spot that has produced zero very good NBA players since the draft went to a two-round system (Vin Baker remains the only all star at #8, selected way back in 1993) — the ironic thing is that the one year the Knicks accidentally over-achieve and unexpectedly make the playoffs, the #8 pick is used on Franz Wagner, a player who is, by all metrics and eye-tests, a considerably better player to invest in than $120,000,000 man RJ Barrett.

If we keep getting talented kids in some of them will turn into better players than we would have predicted after year 1. We have 7 guys on the roster 24 and under who have played reasonably well at least in the NBA (Hartenstein, Mitch, Obi, RJ, Grimes, Sims and IQ) and a couple longer shots (Keels, McBride & Reddish). That’s a lot of bites at the apple.

Keeping all your draft picks, assets and waiting for the right player to go all in seems to me like Tantric sex.
Otoh sell the farm to get Spider is more like First time in the local Strip club!

But that’s the issue, right? Rose wanted to sell the farm, Ainge just wanted a few more acres.

I have to say I’ve concluded the Knick’s desired strategy is really what the press says it is: accumulate enough assets to trade for a high end star or two. But circumstances have forced the Knicks into a let’s see which of the kids turns out to be really good and then create a good team, which is the strategy I originally thought they were doing.

And I’ll bet that this patient mfkr we have in charge would pull the trigger when it would actually worth it

I don’t see how you can look at the offers he put out there and say that he was “patient” about the Mitchell deal.

I need to find someone who will give me odds on “Aaron Judge wins a World Series as Met.”

It seems to me Ainge was tryin to play Cleveland and NY against each other, but NY didn’t play ball by setting a deadline of needing to sign Barrett and the acting on it. Utah seems pissed about it but they shouldn’t be. Somebody has to stop the requests for more and more and it just happened to be NY.

#But that’s the issue, right? Rose wanted to sell the farm, Ainge just wanted a few more acres.#

When you’re not fully interested or desperate to sell or buy you’re just fuckin around bargaining.
If Rose wanted him badly he’d have gotten him.
Also let me still believe that what comes out and what was talked between Ainge and Rose ain’t exactly identical.

#I don’t see how you can look at the offers he put out there and say that he was “patient” about the Mitchell deal.#

When i want something badly I’m getting it even by overpaying.

It’s ok to talk about the “offers” and the what ifs but let’s not pretend that Donovan Mitchell’s trade was an ‘open to the public’ one

I’m just not believing that the initial offer is as stated in any real sense, or that there was ever a chance that a deal could have gotten done at that price if Ainge had only said yes. It just makes zero sense that that was a legit firm offer and then shortly thereafter the Knicks wouldn’t offer anywhere near that amount. You are not going to convince me that the Knicks made a firm offer of Mitchell Robinson, Obi Toppin, RJ Barrett and 3 unprotected firsts, and then wouldn’t offer 3 unprotected picks ever again. My guess is that it was a “feeler” type of offer, being that Ainge was on record saying that he wanted 7 first rounders, and “offering” 3 under those circumstances isn’t really an offer, it’s a feeling out for a middle ground. Again, no “serious” offer came close to what was in that initial offer, so it makes no sense that the Knicks were negotiating to make the gap between the parties bigger than it originally was.

Also notice that there is no mention of the 4 protected picks in that initial offer, just 3 unprotected picks or pick swaps. Does that make any sense? Not to me.

I will say this, though. If you are keeping all of the unprotected picks and there are no pick swaps, meaning just a clean 3 unprotected picks in 2023, 2025, 2027 then you could make an argument that it was a much better deal for the Knicks than ones that could have gotten a deal done at the end. You would have avoided (over)paying Mitch and RJ a combined $44MAAV for the next 4 years, and would still have 6 #1 picks, including 3 of your own, in the next 6 years. But it still would have been a very bad move and I’m glad the offer was made at a time when there was zero chance that Ainge would even consider it.

Knicks were shocked they lost Mitchell, were also shocked they didn’t have a chance to counteroffer and they didn’t want to offer a 3rd unprotected pick!
But during the drafts FOs buy,sell and trade in a heartbeat while noone getting hurt or shocked or burned!
Just incinerated!!! “Begley and co” are trusted but i trust “What really happens and common sense ” even more

in my seat at 8:04pm…oh yeah baby, drink in hand, how ya like me now…

kids mom bailed on me, guessing when she googled who the fuck is Elvis Costello, she wasn’t so impressed…

Leon has done several things well. Where he has failed utterly is at getting us high end talent.

I think he’s done many things well. This offseason was very good, IMO.

The point of his gig, though (and any gig, really) is not to do a lot of things well. It’s to do the important things well.

There have been three inflection points in the Leon regime:

The first was day 1. He wanted to make a splash and win as many games as possible in his first year. So he hired Tom Thibodeau and drafted the oldest player in the lottery.

Let’s not undersell how stupid this was. Think of a good GM. Whoever you just thought of, imagine him coming in to the Knicks after 19 wins and 23 wins. Do you think he would have said “let’s win now”?

I think if there were 10,000 qualified applicants for the job, 9,999 of them would have come up with a better plan than “let’s hire Thibs to get the most out of this roster in year 1.”

He has a massive original sin he needs to overcome. He can make 100 decisions right, but he may never overcome his first mistake.

The second inflection point was after his first year, when the playoffs thoroughly exposed the entire team and painted an extremely clear picture of where we were headed. He failed that test pretty miserably, too.

And the third was right now with Mitchell. We’ll see how that turns out, but he’s failed in the two biggest spots of his regime so far. Getting lots of small things right doesn’t make up for that.

My biggest complaint on LRose was getting Fournier and Kemba instead of D-Oriented guards.
I am fine with his other decisions.

I’m just not believing that the initial offer is as stated in any real sense, or that there was ever a chance that a deal could have gotten done at that price if Ainge had only said yes. It just makes zero sense that that was a legit firm offer and then shortly thereafter the Knicks wouldn’t offer anywhere near that amount. You are not going to convince me that the Knicks made a firm offer of Mitchell Robinson, Obi Toppin, RJ Barrett and 3 unprotected firsts, and then wouldn’t offer 3 unprotected picks ever again. My guess is that it was a “feeler” type of offer, being that Ainge was on record saying that he wanted 7 first rounders, and “offering” 3 under those circumstances isn’t really an offer, it’s a feeling out for a middle ground. Again, no “serious” offer came close to what was in that initial offer, so it makes no sense that the Knicks were negotiating to make the gap between the parties bigger than it originally was.

I’m not necessarily going to question the first offer, either, as I, too, don’t know how “real” that offer was. It’s the more recent (and much more “real,” as multiple independent people have all been reporting baaaaasically the same trade parameters) one that I think was too much, and yet (if Woj is correct) also not so far away from what Ainge was asking for that difference to be a “walking away” point (if Woj was wrong, then it was a pretty notable gap, I’ll definitely concede that, while still being a lot to offer).

So it’s “we lost spider cause of not wanting to give a 3rd pick” vs “a knicks front office’s melodramatic press release” ?
I’ll stick believing the second

Here’s how it’s going to go down:
Donovan Mitchell is going to average 22.5 points and 4.5 assists and will shoot 45.1 percent from the floor (35.7 percent from three) for a Cavs team that will get the 5th seed and lose to 4th-seed Philly in the first round. It will be widely considered to be a rousing success, and we will all hand-wring about what a mistake we made after our beloved Knicks eke into the 8th spot and suffer another first-round exit at the hands of…….shudder…….the Miami Heat.

But none of that changes what the sage poster (wish I remembered who it was) stated when he said (basically): Just because it was a good trade for the Cavs to make does not mean that it would have been a good trade for the Knicks.

I’m going to hang my hat on that.

Wait, what? Miami over Milwaukee for the first seed? Unfortunately, Giannis will suffer a torn oblique on January 10 that will knock him out for the rest of the regular season. (Do I wish this upon him? Of *course* I don’t—I love Giannis. And don’t worry—he’ll be fine long-term and will carry the Bucks to the Eastern Conference Finals. I just wanted to explain why the Bucks won’t be the #1 seed.)

And he’ll be playing verrrrrrryyyyyyy regularly in MSG starting in 2025.

I know lots of stuff.

It wouldn’t surprise me if Cleveland makes the playoffs and loses in the first round. That’s sort of what Utah did every season when they had Gobert and Mitchell. Is Cleveland better than that team? You can make a case it is because overall they both had scoring guards who don’t defend and good defenders down low. I guess the swinger is how good Mobley and Garland get.

I see my prose was a little confusing above. I think Cleveland now is somewhat like Utah was, with good defense down low and Donovan Michell as scorer and not much back court defense. Maybe they will be better, but it’s not a given. So it’s easy to imagine a first round exit on their part, just like Utah had many of.

Don’t agree at all, KFNINJ. Mitchell had Rubio and then old man Conley as his backcourt partners in Utah. I think Garland is on another level, and he’s young and improving, not at all the same as in Utah. Then if you say Allen is a poor man’s Gobert, what would you say that he’ll give you? 80% of what Gobert would give? That’s not that far, i guess. Insert now Mobley, a young player with a very high ceiling and compare him to Ingles or Bogdanovic. It’s a whole new level. Cleveland assembled a good team, and they’ll be here for the next 4 years, at the very least, fighting for the playoffs. I’d bet good money they’ll advance the 1st round more than once, in those 4 years.
And for the record, Utah made the 2nd round twice in the 5 years Mitchell was there.

I honestly think Cleveland will be very good this season- especially if Bickerstaff can add the right wrinkles to his defense to keep teams from consistently figuring them out. They have a deep rotation of Garland/Mitchell/Okoro/Mobley/Allen/Love/LeVert/Rubio/Osman..plus Rondo as insurance until Rubio is back. If they stay healthy, that’s a good mix. Healthy their floor is the 5th seed – over Atlanta and Toronto by a couple of games. And Atlanta’s roster looks good. It doesn’t sound like much, but the East’s top 4 teams are REALLY good.

I don’t know how I feel about Chicago in the pecking order though. I guess it depends on Lonzo. Our Knicks still can and should get to 42 wins, but the East is kinda stacked. Before I thought that we could get to a top 6 seed, but Mitchell in Cleveland and KD/Kyrie staying in Brooklyn has definitely made us a play-in squad at best- even with 42 wins. How crazy is it to know that even if we overachiever like we did 2 seasons ago, that we will still likely be a play-in team? LOL. In all seriousness, that’s a big reason (IMO) why Rose didn’t stretch too far to grab Mitchell. You can’t empty the war chest and still be a 7-10 seed. I have the East’s best six(Milwaukee, Boston, Miami, Brooklyn, Cleveland, Atlanta) clearly better than our Knicks right now. And even if we made that trade for Mitchell, we’d still be behind Toronto and maybe a healthy Chicago because we will have given up RJ and Quickley or Toppin. And you can’t have a small backcourt without a frontcourt that’s good defensively. I also wouldn’t sleep on the Wizards if the other guy can stay upright.

The East is gonna be must watch TV this season

I don’t know if there’s a post coming for today, so i’ll keep making comments in here until/if it happens.
We analyzed what Leon did and should have done, but now Mitchell is the past for me and i’m worried for the future. What would Leon do now? I suppose nothing, but i don’t agree. I think Randle can be a big problem during the season, and it’d be best to avoid it sooner than later. Of course Leon is banking on Randle being a good boy scout, sharing the ball and surrendering being the man for the greater good. I just don’t believe he’ll do it, but i guess that’s what we should be rooting for.
If i was Leon, and looking at the east, with Cleveland getting a lot better than us now, the 6th seed we’d be fighting for is probably out of reach. So being a play-in team, i’d prefer for us to make the adjustments the team needs. RJ needs to be back at SG, so we should trade DRose and Fournier, to have a rotation of Brunson, RJ (starters), Quick, Grimes (backups). Then we’ll need a starting SF, there are reports OG wants out, i’d give 2 of our protected picks from other teams and Fournier to get him. The team would be more balanced with him instead of Fournier, and he’s a good player that other teams would want, so it’s also better for the star chasing plan. And last i’d use DRose and Randle plus another pick to get a good starting PF, i just don’t know who that is. Maybe wait until training camp starts to check which players the teams would be ready to part with for this return. This way we would still keep a lot of picks to trade for a star, when the next one breaks free, and we’d have a much better team, balanced and young, giving us hope that it could improve a lot even if we keep failing to attract a star here.

Sooooo…top 6 should easily be Milwaukee, Boston, Philly, Miami, Brooklyn, Cleveland?

With a tough Toronto and Atlanta rounding out the top 8?

Yikes!

Yeah..Leon was definitely right to hold the line. Shit…

Can you imagine emptying the war chest for Donovan and still being #6 at absolute best?

Oh yeah..I definitely prefer to chase SGA at all costs because landing him wouldn’t case Thibs to alter his defense for a small backcourt and only Mitch in the frontcourt as a plus defender

Cybersoze, you convinced me, Cleveland is likely better than Utah was. PJ, of the top teams in the East you mention, I think the one who should worry is Miami. They probably aren’t as good as last year, while Cleveland, Atlanta and Philly all got better. Brooklyn’s probably better too if Irving plays full time and Simmons actually plays The Knicks got better too, for that matter, despite not getting Mitchell.

I’m guessing that the daily update bot has not been engaged yet, so Brian or Mike K would have to do it manually. It’s offseason and not a massive thread yet (and no ugly exchanges between me and Hubert because I am choosing to ignore his trolling), so probably best to keep it on topic.

The very best way for Leon to troll Danny Ainge would be for him to jettison Julius, Fournier and Rose, fire Thibs, and play the kids under a fresh young coach with a learning curve. We’d be just as assured of ticket in the Wembanyama sweepstakes as any team in the NBA. My guess is that we’d be better on paper than the Jazz, Thunder, Rockets, Magic, Spurs, and possibly the Pistons, Hornets, and Pacers.

Obviously that’s a pipe dream, but that would make many of us very happy, right?

That’d be amazing, Z-man, but there’s like 1% chance of that happening. 😛 I’m more concerned about the unbalanced roster that we have, and about the minutes distribution. I think we need adjustments.

@Cyber —**Of course Leon is banking on Randle being a good boy scout, sharing the ball and surrendering being the man for the greater good. I just don’t believe he’ll do it, but i guess that’s what we should be rooting for.**

I think this is exactly what will happen, and we will read feature stories in which Randle says how basketball is now fun again with a real point guard (Yadda Yadda) and that everyone is playing to their strengths. One thing about the Knicks: we have a “corporate” franchise and the messaging is usually consistent. That’s why Randle’s bad behavior was such an anomaly and also not accepted at all by the in-house commentators or the coach. For better or worse, like the Yankees, the Knicks desire a group in lock step. I’m not saying it’s always been this way, but I think Dolan sees that as a goal identity for the franchise. On this Dolan, Rose, Thibs are all in total sync. Whether we win or not is a different question. I think that will depend more on how many shots RJ and IQ make.

What this saga really tells me is that truly there isn’t any way to build a true contender at this point other than getting absolutely super lucky in the draft — and by that I mean picking a real star in the teens/20s or by tanking in the right year AND by having your pick stay high enough in the lottery to get your guy – or by straight tanking for multiple years in a row to increase your chances of being in the right year and having your pick stay high enough.

We DID tank the year we got RJ – and we got not so much unlucky as much as we just weren’t LUCKY. Lucky = #3 picks such as Luka, Mobley, LaMelo, Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown. Unlucky = Otto Porter, Okafor, Kanter, Derrick Favors — RJ is not in the class of the former (At least not yet), and definitely is better than the latter.

But the cost of trades nowadays + the fact that no one gets to free agency — there’s just no real way of getting the first star in the door by trade and having enough stuff left over for the 2nd much less the 3rd. One day, when Ainge is ready to trade a bunch of these Minny/CLE picks to get his 2nd or 3rd star, he will come up against the standard that he is set — ie. I will take everything you have and don’t care whether you are left with anything to build after this star. The more you have, the more we will take.

Re: Leon’s performance in this saga – I am totally fine with it. You have to draw a line. If you keep compromising your line then the line will keep moving. Someone on some radio show mentioned that he was an integral part of the Melo trade to NY, and knows what happens when you take all the assets from a team in trade, and how difficult it is to build a real contender when the cupboard is essentially empty.

So we still have all these assets, and it is still possible that we make a trade for a draft pick (ie. move up like we didn’t do for Ivey) rather than a ready-made “star”, which I still think Mitchell is just on the border of (ie. not definitely a star).

We analyzed what Leon did and should have done, but now Mitchell is the past for me and i’m worried for the future. What would Leon do now?

The biggest problem this team has that I see is Fournier and Randle standing in front of Grimes and Toppin with contracts that no one wants. (These negotiations showed Fournier’s worth; we needed to attach a first to unload him.)

I think you have to sacrifice Grimes and Obi this year and play the two veterans. At the end of the year, they will be easier to trade either way (if they play well, maybe someone wants them; if no one wants them, they’ll have one less year).

Ultimately I think we’re in a holding pattern until that can be resolved. While we’re in that holding pattern, I would tilt the team towards Brunson and Barrett and see what they can do.

What this saga really tells me is that truly there isn’t any way to build a true contender at this point other than getting absolutely super lucky in the draft

How many more teams like Golden State, Phoenix, Memphis, Cleveland, and soon probably Detroit do there need to be before we see the light?

Yes, you need to get lucky. But the important thing is to commit to the rebuild so you increase your chances to get lucky. If you tank one year and move on to adding veterans after one pick, you’re not even giving yourself a chance. It’s like complaining that you didn’t lose weight when you crash dieted for one month and then went right back to eating junk food and being lazy.

I think Leon and Thibs have to have a very frank (npi) talk with Julius. They have to tell him in no uncertain terms that he needs to fully embrace the “Chris Bosh” role with this team. Not just do it, but embrace it. They should tell him that if he is not enthusiastic about that, no hard feelings, they will work to move him as soon as they can and even be prepared to attach an asset to move him. They should tell him that he will increase his his chances of being moved by at least appearing to accept that diminished role with energy and positive vibes, even if he is faking it.

In either case, if the season starts and he regresses (both play-wise and emotionally) back to his 2021-22 shitty self, he should have his minutes diminished and even be removed from the starting lineup. If he balks at that, he should be benched entirely until he can be dealt at a minimal cost. If it gets really bad, just tell him he needs to stay away from the team. I don’t think it will get that bad, but that should be the mindset of management and the coaching staff.

If Thibs is not on board with this line of thinking, he needs go be fired. Management and coaching staff have to be on the same page. Most importantly, WWW and Thibs need to see eye-to-eye on this. If one of them has to go, it needs to be Thibs.

KnickerBlogger
Knicks, Stats, Humor, Analysis.

hmmmm, wondering if perhaps we could extend the KnickerBlogger mission statement to include:
Knicks, Stats, Humor, Analysis and Life.

i seem to be challenged with staying on script…

speaking of which – Elvis was magnificent last night…i had discribed him as a “english pop singer”, truth is, that dude came with the full rock and roll repertoire…

started the show off with a couple of rockabilly tunes…man but do a love that hillbilly shit…

i’m not really that familiar with his catalog, i showed up mostly to hear: Watching the Detectives…thankfully he not only played that song but also did some improvisation with it, which was absolutely wonderful…

this was the last of 3 straight shows i watched at Yamaava (local casino), good sound, good sights – fucking god awful crowd…i could feel them all sucking the life out of me while i tried to enjoy the performances…

i swear it was like damn near the whole lot of them for each show were oxy/norco’d out…fucking zombies…i felt like some kind of super tweaker in there amongst them…

the next few shows are at the Echoplex, LaSanta and the Palladium…

which leads me in to – the first unofficial knick west geo summit will be taking place October 14 at LaSanta in Santa Ana…

the spotlight artist: Jenny and the Mexicats

courtesy of Raven (thank you for your most excellent artist suggestion)…speaking of which – i hope all is well for you Raven, thinking about you…

Raven, please let me know if you’re in the area, i’ll make sure to grab you a ticket for the show…

to add a little extra spice to this extraordinary event – any one i spot wearing some knick gear that evening, will get a piece of my quesadilla…

should i finish said quesadilla prior to observing anyone in their knick gear – edible on me, lord knows i’ll probably have enough with me to get the whole room high…

see you there 🙂

From Berman article:
“The Knicks reportedly moved to extend Barrett once they caught wind that the Cavs were favorites to trade for Donovan Mitchell.”

This suggests that the Knicks knew beforehand that the Cavs were serious suitors. It also suggests that on August 25 when Fred Jones put out there that the Jazz had several offers “worth pursuing” that the Cavs offer was on that list. When they pulled out on August 26, it was with the caveat that they declared Garland, Mobley and Allan untouchable. Makes it sound like there was something close to the Cav’s final offer on the table before RJ was signed and that Ainge was convinced he could use it to squeeze the Knicks for more assets. Once Ainge kept insisting that they could get more from the Cavs than Leon was offering, Leon set the RJ deadline and said take it or leave it. Ainge chose to leave it. Then Ainge probably just milked the two pick swaps out of the Cavs or something like that to finalize the Cavs deal, and had no interest in going back to the Knicks because RJ was not an asset anymore.

The current trajectory of this particular team kind of proves that “rebuilding takes too long” is not a great argument. This is an extremely incremental kind of build we have going here. I do appreciate that we haven’t made Eddy Curry/Joakim Noah/Andrea Bargnani level mistakes, but it’s hard to get excited about a team with the floor/ceiling combination of this particular Knicks team.

Elvis Costello is great, Geo. I saw him solo at Avery Fisher Hall once. He was pretty stoked to be there and the crowd was pretty stoked to appreciate it. The acoustics were perfect. What a night. I think he looked at me during “Green Shirt”

Looking at the way the teams are stacked, Knicks might be accidental tankers to late lottery team again. That’s fine with me because we pick where we finish. I don’t mind good faith efforts to actually compete, this off season. But Brunson, RJ, Mitch, etc. might end up needing to be moved for picks next summer. That’s better than the same result with Donovan and five fewer picks.

I thought the Cavs deal was beatable by the Knicks and not necessarily even an overpay.

The question for me is whether the Jazz valued Sexton more than RJ. If that changed the pick compensation significantly, then the Knicks rightly backed off.

Of course, there’s a bigger issue if the league sees Sexton as more valuable than RJ.

***That’d be amazing, Z-man, but there’s like 1% chance of that happening.***

Are you referring to Z-Man successfully ignoring Hubert?

“JK47says:
September 4, 2022 at 13:55
The current trajectory of this particular team kind of proves that “rebuilding takes too long” is not a great argument. This is an extremely incremental kind of build we have going here. I do appreciate that we haven’t made Eddy Curry/Joakim Noah/Andrea Bargnani level mistakes, but it’s hard to get excited about a team with the floor/ceiling combination of this particular Knicks team”

Fair… I accept the incremental build because I believe the Knicks are building a base system of competency that does not *rely* on superstar players. This system has been absent for 2 decades. And the bad and crippling decisions made during that time have been magnified with bouts of bad luck (Steph going 7th with us having the 8th pick – THAT’S one memory I repress b/c for me that hurt waaay too much). Other that uber-tanking (which was nerfed by the flattening of odds), there’s no other way this team was digging themselves out from under all of that. They’re doing it the “hard” way. I can actually appreciate that in the aggregate.

This isn’t me saying that we don’t (eventually) need superstars: of course we will. There’s only so many of those, so what do you do if you can’t currently (and reasonably) draft/trade/sign one? Well, there’s other ways of building a competent, young-talent led team with financial flexibility and draft capital w/out nerfed uber-tanking. And the Knicks have found such a route.

“The current trajectory of this particular team kind of proves that “rebuilding takes too long” is not a great argument. This is an extremely incremental kind of build we have going here. I do appreciate that we haven’t made Eddy Curry/Joakim Noah/Andrea Bargnani level mistakes, but it’s hard to get excited about a team with the floor/ceiling combination of this particular Knicks team.”

This regime inherited arguably the worst roster in the NBA (projected to win 23 games) has had two seasons and coming up on three offseasons on the job. In that time they have pretty much transformed the roster. We have 3 vets…one on the last guaranteed year, one with two years left at market value, and one overpaid disgruntled player locked into an ill-advised extension that can be moved with sweetener. They re-signed Mitch to a reasonable extension, same with RJ, drafted solid rotation players at 8, 25, 25 and possibly 34, 36 and 57. They still have all of their own picks and 4 surplus protected picks that are likely to convey in the next 2-3 years. They just signed the single most coveted FA on this market to a reasonable deal despite his current teams willingness to match or exceed the Knicks’ offer. They (I’ll concede against their wishes but whatever) making a foolish deal for a flawed star.

They have a very interesting young team with five kids in the rotation (six if you include Brunson and Hartenstein) and as Ainge made clear, most of these players could intrigue a team looking to part with a star. Even Cam Reddish has a team interested in him.

So in two year’s time, the Knicks have assembled a team that a star of Donovan Mitchell’s stature would be excited to play for. He will not be the last star of at least that stature that will be seeking a trade in the next few years. Now that Chet is a big question mark, keep your eye on SGA. Also, keep your eye on teams in the West that have made big moves but still languish in the play-in realm.

In summary, I don’t see how this can be even remotely compared to the transitions that FOs have made in the past, or to regimes that have failed to improve their teams dramatically over a 5 year span. We are technically not even in year 3 of this process, and a consolidation trade is almost certainly going to happen in the next month or two. Other teams need to consolidate too, and some additional second-level deals are possible. We can also facilitate deals as a third team.

I’m really looking forward to October 4.

On the proud papa front, in her first game as a starting 6-rotation outside hitter, my kid carried her college volleyball team on her back to a 5-set win yesterday, recording the 6th most kills in a single match in program history.

“If Thibs is not on board with this line of thinking, he needs [to] be fired. Management and coaching staff have to be on the same page. Most importantly, WWW and Thibs need to see eye-to-eye on this. If one of them has to go, it needs to be Thibs.”

Yes, this.
Management needs to be crystal clear this season with their directives to Thibs on ensuring the young guys get their minutes and that Julius knows his role w/out question. If the team is going to chase an 7/8-seed in a projected tougher Eastern Conference, it’d better be because RJ, Obi, IQ continue to progress while Brunson stabilizes the PG position as expected.

What about Randle, you ask? As much as we all want him traded now, I believe the best course is to get him to show he can handle the “Bosh” role for 30-35 games. Then trade him by the deadline; resist the urge to say “hey, Julius has really turned it around! Let him stay!” Even if he miraculously turns (back) into a top-15 player, it’s in the franchise’s best interests to trade him at his best. And yes, I know folks like Hubert said this 2 years ago – there was just no way to have predicted Randle’s mental/dispositional issues last year.

Congrats ZMan! That is awesome!

I am in the “Leon hasn’t done anything great but hasn’t made any killer mistakes” camp.

But I feel that big mistake is coming.

Congrats to your daughter, Z-man!

Our women’s volleyball team completed a doubleheader sweep on Friday in a hot-ass gym (first game was a grueling 5-set win against an athletic Santa Monica squad). They’re 3-0; it’s a large freshman class of women who had been in the coaches’ club systems for years.

Fournier and Randle are the weak links. I’d bet on both to have at least a little bit of a bounce back year.

I’d like to say again, the regime has 2 years with an SRS of at least .500.

It’s a serious problem of how we get to the next level, especially with the East getting better and better. But it’s the best 2yr stretch we’ve had in a decade.

I have my questions about Chicago and Brooklyn, but a healthy team for either will be difficult to top.

Big “if” though

“And the Knicks have found such a route.”

Yes, I think the concept of accidental tank is underrated. The Knicks should try to be competitive. They should take their swings. An NBA season is a terrible thing to waste. Go after the opportunities as they arise. Sometimes it may be strip it down. Sometimes it might be end of the road Marcus Camby, Jason Kidd, and Rasheed Wallace. (I wish Sheed hadn’t gotten hurt that year…)
I’ve gotten used to out and out tanking. I’m not shocked by it anymore, but it’s shitty to do to a fan base. If the opportunities don’t work out, it’s “fair” to say, we’re going to prioritize Obi Toppin’s potential upside, compared to seeing Julius Randle’s downside and, maybe, sacrifice some wins in the name of development, but cynically mapping out three years of losses in the name of Ralph Samson, is a bit wwf.

So yeah, I’m a Leon Fan. We have our picks if we suck. Big difference from the last twenty years.

I saw Built to Spill last night, and they were not good. Not bad mind you, they were fine But after every song Doug had to tune every string on his guitar twice, in silence. Such that no other band mate could talk to the audience while this occurred. I think he spoke once in between songs, announcing that it was a song from Richard Hell. No not a television song or a popular voidoids song. The other cover was Bloody Rainbow from Daniel Johnston. Again a deep cut. Performed admirably, but nothing special about the cover.

No “Carry the Zero”. No “the plan.” No “Strange”. It was … fine. The band sounded great.

So my question – do I inform my friends that this was a mediocre show, or let them keep their wrong notions that it was an excellent show?

I mean on one hand I want them to have that good feeling. On the other I want them to know there are better live music experiences. Dilemmas…

“So my question – do I inform my friends that this was a mediocre show, or let them keep their wrong notions that it was an excellent show?

I mean on one hand I want them to have that good feeling. On the other I want them to know there are better live music experiences. Dilemmas…”

I’m a music teacher. I used to not allow my students to refer to music as good or bad, or to say I like or don’t like it. You can imagine why. Especially with young kids. Minds need to be open to experience beauty in anything. We can’t let preconceived notions or, especially with music, first impressions cloud our judgement.

Lately though, I’ve changed. I do believe there is bad music. Not bad genres, but bad music within genres. We all experience bad music, but defining what makes it bad is tricky. In its proper context it often works. Sometimes, you realize that later.

Ultimately though, I think the tuning thing sounds annoying and you can be honest with your friends that it stomped on your buzz. There’s machines that do that now for musicians. That’s undeniable and not a judgement call

Thanks guys! CDiggy, glad you are into your gig’s vball so that at least someone isn’t bored by my daddy-gloating!

As to Julius, Most of us felt that locking up Julius at what is less than half of the current max was a sound move at the time. I guess that those who felt otherwise can gloat, but any fair-minded analyst would not crucify management for it…maybe mildly criticize it but it was a signing that a guy like Pat Riley or even Ujiri would probably have made. Fournier was not a great signing, but it was really re-signing Noel, Rose, Burks, and Taj that kinda stunk.

But in the position we are in, so much depends on finding out what we actually have. Barring injury, the only players you can count on for playing within a relatively narrow range are Mitch, Fournier, and Rose. Everyone else has both significant upside and downside. I think this is the year we learn who Randle, Brunson, RJ, Grimes, IQ, Obi and Hart really are. I guess you can throw Cam in there but he probably won’t be on the opening day roster, and Deuce, Sims and Keels almost certainly won’t be in the rotation and Rokas will be kept overseas.

I know folks like Hubert said this 2 years ago – there was just no way to have predicted Randle’s mental/dispositional issues last year.

They were on full display in the Atlanta series.

Oh no, he used an electric tuner and cut the volume. The problem was it was dead air. After every single song. Silence. 3-7 of music that you wanted to hear. Then nothing. The crowd nervously milling about. The musician just looking at his equipment, ignoring the audience.

At one point a few people were screaming Idaho during the silence. (He’s from Idaho). He didn’t acknowledge it. At one point they screamed the bassist’s name, and she clearly smiled. So he was just up there, like he was in his garage and there wasn’t a crowd.

Look I’m not expecting Freddy Mercury or something like that. Just skip the tuning for a song. Maybe you tune every other song. Say “Thank You”, “Hello New York” introduce the band, or anything I guess.

And if that’s not your personality, cool. Get one of the other bandmates to do it.

The dead air was like smelling someone else’s fart in the middle of a meal.

By no means am I crucifying management. I believe Leon made the wrong decision at the two most critical moments in his tenure, and that has significantly increased the degree of difficulty he now faces.

I liked this offseason very much. I’m excited for the Brunson Barrett backcourt (and the Rose Quickley one that backs it up). Hartenstein was a great signing, too.

The key now is patience. Randle and Fournier are going to block the team’s progress but we’re stuck with them probably for this season and the next one. We need a very lucky break.

it stomped on your buzz.

ha, i like that…

i don’t know mike k…that’s nice they were getting more out of the experience than simply financial gain, however – it is a “performance”…otherwise you could just sit at home and listen to it there…

Built to Spill is an American indie rock band based in Boise, Idaho, United States formed in 1992. Centered on guitarist/lead vocalist Doug Martsch, the only permanent member, Built to Spill has released eight full-length albums since its incarnation.

considering your comment, that part about doug being the only one really in the band, is kind of funny…

I get the thirst of the knicks fans to see them great again as soon as possible at any cost, with stars and superstars on the roster but that rush to see them great again is part of the reason we’re fucked every time we try the quick fix instead of the Culture Change thing.
Like it or not and Without having any clue how he does it in front of Dollan, LRose shows Patience, Coolness and Balls so far.
Waiting for his Big Move Patiently.

https://knickerblogger.net/2021/08/05/espn-com-julius-randle-agrees-to-4-year-117-million-extension-with-new-york-knicks/#comments

Here is the link to the comments thread from the day Randle was extended. The only poster vehemently against the signing was E, and while he was correct, he made some statements that at the time were simply not true (read TNFH’s rebuttal.) Hubert was a bit concerned but not against the signing…he only accurately predicted that Randle would jump at the extension rather than play it out in hopes of a max, and suggested that his poor playoff performance was a factor in that, although he attributed his performance more to issues with spacing and coaching.

The one point made in favor of the deal then that still stands today is that Julius was paid like a 2nd or 3rd option, which is the role he was ultimately destined for. Isn’t that the question that is on the table this year, i.e. can Randle accept being a third option to Brunson and RJ, who are now getting paid as much as (technically more than) him?

I think it would be prudent management to demand that from Julius before selling at rock bottom. Even look at establishing a 1A-B-C framework where the lead guys share the rock equally and all have responsibility as distributors.

“Real Problems”
I’m trying to accept my green coloured not exciting figure avatar for two days but it’s hard…
2 shades of Green!!!!????
In a knicks blog?
And what’s that image? Aztecan bathroom tiles?
Cooom oooon!!!
;-ppp

Ric Bucher, while plugging his latest podcast:

Why Donovan Mitchell wound up with the Cavs…(Learned yet another reason after recording the podcast: some Jazz officials were not happy that Mitchell wanted out and viewed sending him to CLE — rather than home to NY — as payback)

I get the sense we’re trying to promote the peculiar idea that a mistake is not a mistake unless someone called it in the comments section on the day the mistake occurred.

#I get the sense we’re promoting the peculiar idea that a mistake is not a mistake unless there is loud protest in the comments sections on the day the mistake occurred.#

Not even then if i remember the incineration riots in the Kbitol!
;-p
A mistake is just a “bet” that went wrong.

Re: the Ric Bucher thing – that sounds like sour grapes from either Donovan’s or the Knicks’ side. Objectively speaking, the Cavs offer was pretty darn good – at least comparable to if not better than whatever the Knicks were offering. But I am happy it is out there because it’ll create even more animosity with agents vs Ainge – truly one of those guys who you hate except when he’s on your team.

Re: this next season – I actually think the best course of action is to go ahead and play Randle a lot. either he returns to 2020-21 form and he improves his trade value (or proves he’s a keeper) or he is among the greatest tank commanders in the league. either of those would be good outcomes. I’d like to see Obi play 18 minutes/game of course, but my inclination is that fully-realized Julius Randle is a better player than fully-realized Obi Toppin (I could easily be convinced otherwise of course).

All I know is Nigel Tufnel was able to tune his violin mid-song while using it as a guitar pick, so not sure what Doug’s problem is.

“Space Invadersays:
September 4, 2022 at 19:27
I get the sense someone is promoting the peculiar idea that a mistake is not a mistake unless there is loud protest in the comments sections on the day the mistake occurred.”

I guess you skipped over the part where I wrote this:

“and one overpaid disgruntled player locked into an ill-advised extension”

But that’s okay. I think it’s a bit rich to rant and rave when management does something contrary to what we think at the time and call it dumb luck when it works out, and bitch and moan about the deals they make that we commend them for at the time that ultimately don’t work out. We’re not really lay people here. We spend oodles of time scouting players, looking at film and stats, understanding the cap, dissecting coaching decisions to cop out as “well, we’re dumb and they’re supposed to be smart. Especially when you are one of the first guys to criticize folks for deferring to authority in the coaching/GM ranks.

Hey, JK, since it’s august in the nba, and this site is all dressed up with nowhere to go, and discograffiti is dead to me now, how would you rank the following:

a) The Heartbreakers
b) The Silver Bullet Band
c) Crazy Horse
d) The E Street Band
e) The News
f) The Range

At the Bauhaus concert i attended a few months ago Peter Murphy was complaining from start to The Very Early finish to his sound engineer about his microphone’s sound and finally left the stage after only 50min…
leaving the rest still playing a cover of Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust-the guitarist sang also after Murphy left the stage…
I read yesterday that Bauhaus cancelled their US tour cause Murphy went for rehabilitation…
Primadonas and Drugs don’t match

Ziggy Stardust is a masterpiece. Over the years my feelings about best song on that album evolved, from Suffragette City as a kid to Lady Stardust in my old age.

“The problem was it was dead air. After every single song. Silence. 3-7 of music that you wanted to hear. Then nothing. The crowd nervously milling about. The musician just looking at his equipment, ignoring the audience.”

yeah, I was being sarcastic about the tuner (though I did teach a couple of the guys from the band Smithereens how to use one, fun fact…)

No, that’s bad and worth mentioning to friends considering seeing this. You said the music was meh as well? Wouldn’t be the first time something underwhelmed. In my experience, people believe the hype. They may pretend they enjoy something mediocre or completely ignore something amazing. I had to learn to trust my instincts because I always had an inferiority complex that I didn’t know how to have fun. But music is a bus man’s holiday for me. I had been mixing drums all day, once, and that night I walked out of an Allman Bros show during the drum solo. Forgive me, Lord. Maybe it was actually great

*Hang on to yourself most fave for me from Ziggy.
Despite Bowie’s best known for his 70’s period i must say that i find his ’95 album Outside the most consistent and most fave of mine.

#They may pretend they enjoy something mediocre or completely ignore something amazing#

After decades of listening to music i came up with two conclusions:
Giving a fair chance to any music is the first
Listening with your heart first is the second

Most of us here if not all would have picked Doncic at number one so i guess we’re not just lay people man!
We’re Executives Next Door!

“Space Invadersays:
September 4, 2022 at 20:32
You think you have acumen on the level of a competent NBA executive?”

Yes, which is more about them and less about me.

Donnie Walshsays:
September 4, 2022 at 19:54
Hey, JK, since it’s august in the nba, and this site is all dressed up with nowhere to go, and discograffiti is dead to me now, how would you rank the following:

a) The Heartbreakers
b) The Silver Bullet Band
c) Crazy Horse
d) The E Street Band
e) The News
f) The Range

To which I’d add
g. The Bad Seeds
h. Crazy Horse
I. The Wailers
And for true rock aficionados: J: The 8th St. Kidz.

“Zorba the Knicksays:
September 4, 2022 at 20:40
Most of us here if not all would have picked Doncic at number one so i guess we’re not just lay people man!
We’re Executives Next Door!”

It’s a great example. There are tons of them. There are more than a few posters here that I would trust to make final decisions on trades, draft picks, acquisitions, and coaching choices than more than half of the NBA execs out there. I’d put myself in that mix, largely because I’m pretty good at figuring out who to listen to and how much to value their opinions. We would all have the resources to hire competent people to do research and offer expert opinions.

Donnie…I know I’m not jk…but..

I would go …c-d-a-b…the last two don’t belong…

“Zorba the Knicksays:
September 4, 2022 at 21:29
Z-man honestly Would you hire Hubert at least as a barista?
;-ppp”

Sadly, Hubert would also make a better GM than a bunch of those out there. Although like most of us, he’d quickly get fired for excessive competence.

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