Knicks Morning News (2022.09.13)

“Hubiesays:
September 13, 2022 at 07:53
Owen is exactly right and I think it is self evident. These takes from Z-Man stretch credibility to its limit and belie his intelligence. “The 6th most cap flexibility among non hard capped teams”, whatever that actually means, is not something we should be excited about.”

This is pretty funny given how just a few days ago Hubert was offering high praise for Leon’s offseason. Make up your mind, man!

lol I go out to play a round of golf and come back here to learn that Hubert has gone postal on me. Because I had the temerity to disagree with his opinions. (thanks swifty and KBA for your honest takes agreeing that that was all I was trying to do.)

In response, I’ll speak my peace and then let it go.

I don’t think I said anything personal about anyone recently. I don’t see how anyone can say with a straight face that I did, certainly not intentionally.

One thing I’m quite sure of. I didn’t say anything like this from Hubert:

“And yet we have one guy here, who FOR TWO YEARS, has not allowed one single criticism of the front office to be typed without an aggressive, and often personal, attack…This is the biggest troll job I’ve ever seen, and it’s fucking insane…The only reason he hasn’t joined the ranks of the banned is because he kisses the ass of Alan and Brian (the two who obviously conspired to ban Bob Neptune).”

Or like this from E:

“As a result, he shares with Z-man what I’ll colloquially call “center of attention syndrome,” wherein most of their days and all of their professional time is spent in a position of authority where people have to listen to them.”

These are clear examples of personal attacks. Trying to divine things about one’s personal life or professional life from their posting here is extremely rude and beneath the dignity of this forum. E has no idea what my relationship was with my students, colleagues, parents, and many other stakeholders, what my leadership style was, or what I am like in private life. We should all keep these kinds of opinions to ourselves.

I think ptmilo’s putting what happened on draft night into perspective (and TNFH calling his reasoning sound) sort of highlights the issue. When essentially the same opinion comes from me (and if you look at yesterday’s thread, I said essentially the same thing) I’m a troll:

“And yet we have one guy here, who FOR TWO YEARS, has not allowed one single criticism of the front office to be typed without an aggressive, and often personal, attack.”

Most posters have heard me criticize the FO right from the start, most notably about hiring Thibs in the first place. And my posts are often less about “defending” a particular move and more about having a less dire assessment of how it impacts the future of the Knicks. For example, I didn’t “like” or “praise” punting on the 19th pick, I only thought it wasn’t that big of a deal, and that overall it was a good draft night for the FO. Is that trolling?

What’s weird about this is that I’ve really made a concerted effort to ratchet down the tone of my interactions with a few agressively opinionated posters. I’ve tried to respond to Hubert like I do to everyone else, in good faith. I have no problem with strong rebuttals from him or anyone else, even ones tinged with sarcasm or condescension, and I expect everyone else to do the same, always within reasonable limits.

What’s also ironic is that on a number of occasions over the last couple of years, a particular has brought my name up out of the blue when I wasn’t even part of the conversation. Sound familiar, Hubert?

I’m truly sorry about whatever made you flip out like you did today, and sorry you had a bad night. But the flipping out is totally on you, and you should apoligize both to me and to the board. Nothing that I said justified this extreme reaction.

And now back to your regularly scheduled programming….

Brian and Alan, I’m going to ignore a certain poster for a while because I know it will make you happy. BTW you boys sure are smart, and handsome too!

TNFH regarding your post about current contending teams and how they got their stars, you are correct in saying that almost none of them got them by making 2 blockbuster trades:

I should have been more general and included free agent signings that were actually sign-and-trades, or that involved clearing up significant cap space to accommodate the signings. For example, The Nets used two first round picks to clear salary for Durant and Kyrie, and technically traded D’Angelo Russell to the GSW for Durant. The Heat acquired Jimmy Butler via a 4-team sign and trade where they had to dump Whiteside, Richardson, Harkless and a protected 1st rounder to create the cap space.

If your rebuttal is that:
a) Free agency as an avenue for acquiring stars is dead, that may or may not be true, but the reality is that stars have moved via one path or another, and to acquire them you need cap flexibility, assets, or both. That was generally true in the past as well. Stars generally don’t want to join teams that have oodles of readily available cap space because those teams generally suck. So I choose to include sign-and-trades, or FA signings that involved the receiving team clearing cap space via trades prior to the signing, as “trades.” If you don’t see things that way, sure, I’ll concede the point. But one way or another star players continue to change teams.

b) nearly all current contending teams acquired at least one star (by your BPM definition) via the draft, I would also agree. But lots of those stars were acquired outside of the top of the lottery, and often well outside of it. These include:

Suns: Booker (#13)
Grizzlies: Clarke (#21) Bane (#30)
Warriors: Curry (#7) Klay (#11) Draymond (#35)
Nuggets: Jokic (#41) MPJ (#14)
Clippers: None
Heat: Bam (#14)
Celtics: Williams (#27)
Bucks: Giannis, (#15) Middleton (#39)
Sixers: Maxey (#21)
Timberwolves: You got me on that one! They haven’t sniffed a second round game in like 1000 years, including 7 years after successfully tanking for KAT, so hopefully this final all-in Gobert gambit pays off.

Now if an additional rebuttal is that we shouldn’t be pissing away first round picks like we did this year because every pick is a potential star, that’s fair. It’s nice that we have lots of picks coming up to either make, or use to clear cap space to sign a FA, or use in a deal for the next disgruntled star.

One more thing about the FAs: they all signed with teams they wanted to sign with. Butler CHOSE Miami. Kawhi CHOSE the Clips. Durant and Kyrie CHOSE the Nets. Harden CHOSE the Nets, and then the Sixers. AD and LeBron CHOSE the Lakers. Chris Paul CHOSE the Suns.

This year, the best UFA on the market (and maybe the second-best one?) CHOSE the Knicks. The top star to be traded PREFERRED the Knicks, and possibly would have chosen them if he had more contract leverage. He still might choose them in a couple of years.

Having players consider the Knicks a preferred destination, and not just because they could offer the most money (see: STAT, Tyson) is a refreshing development in my book, and it was a specific goal (or direction, or methodogy, or whatever) for Leon & Co.

Will it uptimately work? We’ll find out in a couple of years. This year is mostly about the continued development of the guys 26 and under on the roster. We are far from a finished product, unlike many of the teams on your list.

Guys, I’m really trying not to respond directly to Hubert but he keeps provoking. It seems like the sentiment on the board right now is for us not to post at each other. If that is true, can you please let him know that?

“He probably just forgot about those free agents like Beal who stayed with their own team and didn’t really seem to be on the open market.”

More accurately, I discounted FAs who obviously weren’t going anywhere for many millions of reasons and were never really on the open market. But whatever.

Why don’t we just stipulate that if any of us says anything egregiously wrong or engages in blatant trolling that one of the many sharp posters here will call us out on it? And if they don’t then it probably wasn’t worth bringing it up?

I’ll also say this about Brunson. He’s a different kind of player between the ears and in the chest. He was brought in as a stabilizing agent. It’s not a sure thing by any means, but the hope is that he embodies a team-first approach that rubs off on other players. It should be evident pretty early on as to whether that makes a significant difference. He’s not going to out-talent a guy like Murray, but I like my chances of winning with him running the show maybe more than I do with Murray and a lot of more physically talented guys.

What’s funny is that no one seemed notice or to care much about anything I had posted in response to you. To me, that means either that whatever I said in context wasn’t all that offensive, or was actually appropriate based on the content and tone of what you said. How it came across on first reading is kind of important, as is context.

Much worse gets said to/about strat (including by you) than I have ever said recently to you, but I never have seen you come to his defense. Which is ironic because, in my opinion, you and he are extremely similar, except that he has a much thicker skin.

You are an irreverent flame thrower who would hardly be accused of mincing words or caring about the feelings of posters you argue with. Your posting often comes across to me as smug, condescending, dismissive flip-flopping for the sake of being right no matter how things go down. That you have the audacity to call anyone a troll is priceless.

It will be my pleasure to ignore you and to leave to others pleasure of interacting with you. Kindly afford me the same courtesy.

“The difference between you and me is that I talk about positions and ideas. You talk about posters.”

More self-serving drivel. Everyone on this site knows who you are and who I am. Do you truly think that when the tone of your rebuttals are smug, condescending, patronizing, antagonistic, etc., that you can cop out and say “nothing personal, it’s just about positions and ideas?”

You don’t have to use the words “you are stupid” or you are lying” to call someone a stupid liar. For example, when you continually characterize someone as blindly defending the FO no matter what they do and not tolerant of criticism of them, despite ample evidence to the contrary, that’s a character attack no matter how you slice it. You do that kind of shit all the time and especially to me. So stop with the whiny “innocent victim” schtik and take a good look in the mirror.