Knicks Morning News (2022.09.05)

I’ve been a Knicks fan to remember the last time the team made a championship trade: Walt Bellamy and Howard Komives for Dave DeBusscherre. Same with the Mets when they traded for Gary Carter. I also remember the disappointment I felt when the Knicks gave up two pieces too many for Melo, knowing that the team now was a finished product and would come up short because they had nothing left in the tank. If they beat the Cavs offer, we would have been fucked for the next 10 years. Fucked.

So who gives a shit about how it didn’t happen? Who cares what impact it had on RJs or IQs or OBI’s feelings? Who cares what it says about Thibs’ minutes distribution two months from now?

I feel like my prayers were answered.

Hubert, I commend you for what seem like very fair takes on the current state of affairs. I’ve always said that there is a learning curve for being a POBO and some hard lessons need to be learned; that the trick was to not do anything crippling during this period of “residency.”

I have to push back a bit on the valuation of protected picks, though. I think it’s a reach to say that Leon didn’t get the difference between a current protected pick and an unprotected pick several years out. In fact, his willingness to part with the protected picks but not the unprotected picks, or to demand protections on that third pick, suggests the opposite. Brock Aller is every bit as shrewd at asset valuation as Ainge, and that’s why the talks broke down.

The point of the protected picks is to have insurance if you actually have to trade unprotected picks. If the initial offer was RJ, Mitch, Obi and three Knicks unprotected picks, and Ainge accepted that, We’d still have first round picks to make every year. That Ainge insisted on those protected picks being included further suggest that both Aller and Ainge valued them similarly.

“Put another way: I think Ochai Agbaji and Quentin Grimes had more value than two or even 3 of those future protected picks. I’m optimistic this will get Leon to start making those picks instead of trading them.”

Are you saying that if we had drafted Agbaji rather than executing the trades that led to the 4-pick stash, we could have just thrown him in to the initial deal with 3 future unprotected picks and it would have worked?

Because my understanding is that Ainge refused that initial deal because he wanted 7 picks, and probably would have settled for 6.

I’ve been pretty consistent in saying that under no circumstances should the Knicks part with any unprotected picks beyond 2026 (or 2027 if only 2 were involved.) That 2029 pick is by far the most desirable asset in the cache Ainge was demanding, and that he got that from the Cavs is a coup for him. 7 years is an eternity for an NBA franchise, and picks 7 years out are crown jewels of any franchise.

So if Leon thought that 3 soon-to-convey protected picks were worth more in a deal than a 2029 unprotected pick, he was surely dumb for thinking so.

However, that does not equate to 3 protected picks (with the specific protections of the ones we acquired) are worth less than Agbaji. They were definitely factors in this deal, but just not enough to entice Ainge off of his obsession with 2029. And good for him!

“We’re quite a ways into the Leon Rose experiment now, and his hallmark seems to be “at least he didn’t do that awful thing” and not “wow he did this great thing.” Meanwhile the team is on a treadmill of mediocrity, apparently stuck in the 8-11 seed range, with some of the better young players blocked by what appears to be overpriced veterans.”

I guess you can look at this way, although it seems like the most cynical take possible given the circumstances. You seem to have already shut the door on significant improvements from RJ, Mitch, Grimes, IQ, Obi and Hartenstein. You seem to be saying that prying Brunson out of Mark Cuban’s clenched hands was no big deal. You seem to be saying that having all those picks still at our disposal when the roster is so crowded that some of our recent picks like Sims and McBride will not get off the bench is a negative, or conversely, that having Daniel Oturu, Kai Jones and Tari Eason on the roster would have us in better position to make upgrades than we are right now.

Like you and others, I would have preferred a different path, but we’re a hell of a lot better off than we were when Leon took over, with a much higher ceiling in the next 5 years than we’ve had since Ewing was on the team. Sorry you can’t feel the least bit excited about that. I sure do!

I would also reserve judgment on roster construction/playing time issues until the season starts. We are still in the aftermath of an all-consuming blockbuster trade effort being derailed, and there’s no telling what’s moved to the front burner. I’m going to savor the afterglow of this dodged disaster and wait to see what happens in the next few weeks before getting bummed about anything.

“The most frustrating part of Leon’s tenure here has been his unwillingness to use ALL OF HIS draft picks on players.”

There, fixed that for you.

And I don’t believe that either. I think you are frustrated that he didn’t get commensurate return for the 2020 2nd and the 2021 first. You seemed more okay with the return on the 2022 first, is that fair?

“E, all merc’d outsays:
September 5, 2022 at 12:50
This team and roster were never even CLOSE to being in a position to punt/incinerate/char current draft picks. Full stop. This is a discussion forum, so it’s certainly a topic that’s open to discussion — but there’s no serious debate. This team punting draft picks is utterly clueless.”

Sure.

If somehow the Knicks can get SGA for a smaller haul than it would have taken to land Donovan Mitchell, this Knicks fan would be much happier. He’s by far a better fit with Brunson than Spida. I wonder what it would take.

“Space Invadersays:
September 5, 2022 at 18:03
The trade from 11 to 13 was an outstanding one.

The trade from 13 to 2025 just to dump Kemba was not so good.

I was happy to let things play out before criticizing it, but they have now and I think it looks really bad.

And while I am happy we didn’t trade for Mitchell, it would be a lot cooler if we had a fresh new lottery pick on the team.”

It’s a fair critique, but mostly about personal preference. The job of Brock Aller is to micromanage the cap. If you make a pick at #13, you are locked into a cap hit of $3.28M. If you stretch Kemba instead of trading for him, your dead cap hit is around $3M per year for the next 3 years.

So by not picking at #13, you essentially traded #13 + Kemba for Milwaukee’s top-4 protected #1 pick in 2025 and $6.2M in cap space. That may not be “cool” but it’s not insane either, especially since cap space was needed for the Brunson offer.

Jeremy on KFS does a really good job of explaining cap considerations and my recollection is that he saw the logic in the deal and was fine with it. Don’t hold me to that, though.

But my recollection is that opening up sufficient cap space was essential to acquiring Brunson once Cuban balked on a sign-and-trade.

“Your commitment to Leon Can Do No Wrong has taken you to some crazy places but this one might take the cake.”

It kind of makes it impossible to have an honest debate when you take every point I make to some kind of extreme that doesn’t even match up with what I’ve said in this very thread and the previous post-site rebuild ones. If you are a patient and thorough reader, I’m sure you can find plenty of flaws I have pointed out about Leon, including the most important original sin of hiring Thibs and foregoing a complete rebuild.

It is especially ironic because you are the one who came off all warm and fuzzy about Leon’s job performance this summer and is predicting that this team as currently constructed will win in the mid-high 40s, while I think they will surely finish under .500 again, are surely in the play-in, and are probably back in the lottery (Vegas has us at 39.5, boy are they dumb!)

So let me get this straight, you are faulting me for being too optimistic when I am far less optimistic than you?!

“Leon Rose hasn’t drafted or signed anybody close to that good.”

Not yet, anyway.

“And then filled in around that with people like Tyler Herro (drafted with one of them there non-lottery 13th picks)”

Interesting that Ainge seemed to value non-lottery Quentin Grimes more than Tyler Herro…

“Leon Rose has done things like sell off the 11th pick to clear cap space to chase Jalen Brunson.”

Who Riley himself coveted. So we used the 11th pick and 4 second rounders for Jalen Brunson and future 3 first rounders. God help us!!

PS when I say we are “surely” finishing below .500, this is on paper, and is assuming that nothing dramatic happens. What I’m essentially saying is that the Vegas line is quite reasonable. If any or all of our young players make huge jumps and Randle comes back to his better side, sure, we can get on up into the 40’s.

Right. They are floating around .500 with tons of draft assets and promising young players on either rookie deals (Obi, IQ, Grimes, Sims, etc.)or reasonable non-max deals (RJ, Mitch, Hart, Brunson).

Let’s not forget that the great Pat Riley drafted Michael Beasley at #2, or maxed Hassan Whiteside, or matched Tyler Johnson, or hugely overpayed Dion Waiters, and now Duncan Robinson, and has squandered so many assets that he couldn’t compete for Donovan Mitchell or even Jalen Brunson.

“JK47says:
September 5, 2022 at 21:37
The constant paper clip trades with the draft picks is the most annoying part of the Leon Rose regime so far. Take one decent asset, turn it into 1-3 less good assets, then when it’s time to cash in those assets, trade them for 1-3 other less good assets. It’s a cute trick but it’s not accomplishing anything.”

That’s the same as not going all in on a questionable hand accomplishes nothing. The reality is that you lose only a couple of ante’s worth of value as you wait for a hand with a better chance of winning, even at the risk of the hand not being as good.

“They’ve actually done a pretty decent job with the guys they have selected, which makes it extra annoying.”

So if you trust them to get good value in the picks they make, why don’t you trust them when they feel that there isn’t enough value at a particular spot to clutter up the cap and the roster with what the odds say is a likely non-rotation player who won’t give the team any surplus value over his rookie deal?

Here’s a thought:
Now that the dust has settled on the Mitchell non-transaction, RJ and Mitch are extended, and Brunson and Hartenstein have been acquired, in terms of trade value, how would you order our current player/draft assets, taking contracts into account?

One could say that the 2029 1st is at the top of the list
Then 2028 1st
Then Brunson
Then 2027 1st
Then Grimes
Then RJ
Then 2026 1st
Then 2025 1st
Then IQ
Then 2024 1st
Then Obi
Then Mitch
Then 2023 1st
Then Hart
Then Dallas 2023 protected
Then Fournier
Then Wizards protected
Then Detroit protected
Then Rose
Then Milwaukee protected
Then Cam

Everything else is pretty much either worth a 2nd rounder or is a negative asset (Randle).

Thoughts?

“The guy had one year, $10MM left. This was the highest price I’ve ever seen paid to dump such a modest contract.

He could have dumped Kemba for less draft equity.”

This is really a silly reach of an argument. It assumes that a) The Knicks didn’t scour the league for alternatives, b) that this deal wasn’t connected to the other deals made with DET to dump Burks and Noel, and C) there was no time pressure to clear the space before Brunson could be locked up, and d) the difference in value between the top 5 protected MIL pick and #13 pick is greater than whatever you would have paid to unload Kemba in a pinch.

And stretching Kemba would have been a very dumb idea. Dead cap space is never, ever a good thing, especially when you are in hybrid mode and every cap dollar counts.

“And the fact that Pat Riley covets Jalen Brunson doesn’t have shit to do with shinola.”

It simply means that Brunson was highly valued by a highly respected GM and worth the cap gymnastics it took to wrangle him away from the Mavs. That Leon was able to pull that off without relinquishing a single asset of note (in fact, acquiring net assets in the process) is, even in your own words, a significant win. Seems like nitpicking to me.

In other words, my list wasn’t about what would have the most value in a trade for SGA et. al. with a tanking team. It was relative to trades with all 29 teams in all situations, or conversely, the cost of acquiring that asset if it were held by another similar team. Re: Brunson, I think there’s a break-even point somewhere a couple of years out. I took between the 2027 and 2028 picks but sure, it could be sooner than that. OTOH, the Jazz’s unprotected 2023 pick is probably worth far more than picks 5-7 years out.

“I have no idea what that list of largely untrue personal attacks has to do with our lack of high-end talent, it certainly doesn’t rebut anything I said”

First, characterizing these as personal attacks is surprising, but I certainly didn’t mean any of what I said to be personal, and apologize if you took it that way.

I don’t have the energy to find all the posts that you made referring to the strong possibility of losing Mitch for nothing and how devastating that would be, but my guess is that it numbers in the triple digits. Mitch was an UFA and could have signed anywhere. He chose to stay here. That suggests that the FO is accomplishing what it had hoped to…making NY a destination for free agents…even their own.

You are “surprised” that a shrewd operator like Cuban let Brunson go for nothing, but what does that say about Leon and his team? It’s the single biggest FA get this year, and the Knicks pulled it off. Yet another sign that NYK has become a destination city for FAs.

There are ample reports that Donovan Mitchell preferred to come to NYK. The trade didn’t work out, but it easily could have. What does that say about a) whether we have the assets to compete for top players when they come on the market and b) whether they want to come here? Seems like a very positive development to me. But of course, no such player will become available in the future, not will he want to come here, because we’re bad and our FO doesn’t know what it is doing.

That you would call RJ’s contract “fairly close to the max” sort of makes my overall point, which is that you have a very jaded, black and white view of the overall NYK situation that diminishes the positive and exaggerates the negative. The max for RJ was for a guaranteed $193M over 5 years, with incentives up to $231M. It starts at $33M and goes up to $44M. RJ signed for only 4 years, starting at $24M and goes to $29M. That’s nowhere close to the max and you know it. Furthermore, per Fred Katz, it’s right in line with the median of what surveyed executives around the league said he was worth ($25MAAV). So again, RJ wanted to stay here, rather than test the market and hold out for a better deal as a RFA (see: DeAndre Ayton.) Yet another example that Leon’s approach is working.
Is it perfect? No. But it is far from a “bad” situation. Leon is employing the Pat Riley approach: make your team a preferred destination for disgruntled stars under contract and free agents, and be in a position to have either the cap space or the assets to pounce on opportunities as they arise, while avoiding an overpay that would eliminate future flexibility. Leon wavered by almost overpaying for Mitchell, but he didn’t break and said FU to Ainge by extending RJ to a reasonable extension.

And we get to see what we actually have in RJ, Obi, IQ, Grimes, Mitch, Hart, and even maybe Reddish before putting all the eggs in one basket. The team is more balanced and deep than it is top-heavy and talented, but aside from the uncertainty with Randle, it’s far from a bad situatlon. We’re not trapped here.