[www.essentiallysports.com] — Thursday, September 15, 2022 7:00:00 AM
“Knicks Fans Are Gonna Lose Their Minds”: NBA World Left in a Meltdown as $163 Million All-Star Confesses New York Expectation EssentiallySports
[celticswire.usatoday.com] — Thursday, September 15, 2022 5:00:00 AM
Tennis great John McEnroe talks Knicks fandom, KD dreams with Celtics icon Kevin Garnett Celtics Wire
[nypost.com] — Thursday, September 15, 2022 12:01:46 AM
Jerry Ferrara tells Jalen Rose how he knew ‘Entourage’ was a hit New York Post
[www.si.com] — Wednesday, September 14, 2022 9:48:18 PM
Pistons Reportedly Signing Former Pacers Player Sports Illustrated
[fadeawayworld.net] — Wednesday, September 14, 2022 9:23:06 PM
Western Conference Executive Praises New York Knicks Offseason: “Not Giving Away The House For Donovan Mitchell Has Given Them A Lot Of Flexibility For The Future” Fadeaway World
[www.gwinnettdailypost.com] — Wednesday, September 14, 2022 7:03:42 PM
Cavs’ Donovan Mitchell Says He Thought He Was Being Traded to Knicks Gwinnettdailypost.com
[nba.nbcsports.com] — Wednesday, September 14, 2022 5:57:00 PM
Donovan Mitchell thought he would be traded to New York Knicks NBC Sports
[www.si.com] — Wednesday, September 14, 2022 5:24:26 PM
New York Knicks Not Showing Interest In Three Former All-Stars Sports IllustratedHow Knicks could fill final roster spots with major trade still possible New York Post NBA Writer Trashes The Knicks For Latest Media Move YardbarkerWhat should the Knicks front office do now? Posting and ToastingJulius Randle gives Knicks fans a special shoutout on Instagram Daily KnicksView Full Coverage on Google News
[www.si.com] — Wednesday, September 14, 2022 5:16:06 PM
Opinion: Why Haven’t The Los Angeles Lakers Signed This Former 9th Overall Pick? Sports Illustrated
[www.si.com] — Wednesday, September 14, 2022 4:21:40 PM
BREAKING: New York Knicks To Sign Former Grizzlies, Rockets And Kings Player Sports Illustrated
[hoopshype.com] — Wednesday, September 14, 2022 4:01:35 PM
Donovan Mitchell thought he was headed to Knicks Hoops Hype
[hoopshype.com] — Wednesday, September 14, 2022 3:49:33 PM
Knicks not interested in Blake Griffin, LaMarcus Aldridge or Carmelo Anthony Hoops Hype
[www.si.com] — Wednesday, September 14, 2022 1:00:34 PM
WATCH: Knicks’ Mitchell Robinson Has a Message For ‘All Y’all Beeps’ Sports Illustrated
[nbaanalysis.net] — Wednesday, September 14, 2022 12:46:38 PM
NBA Rumors: This Knicks-Nuggets Trade Features Michael Porter NBA Analysis Network
[nypost.com] — Wednesday, September 14, 2022 12:43:00 PM
Wife of Cavaliers great Zydrunas Ilgauskas, Jennifer, dead at 50 New York Post
[www.postingandtoasting.com] — Wednesday, September 14, 2022 12:21:27 PM
In Hell, the only GM to trade with is Danny Ainge Posting and Toasting
[heavy.com] — Wednesday, September 14, 2022 10:52:32 AM
Knicks ‘Could Still Save Face’ After Disastrous Trade: Analyst Heavy.com
114 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2022.09.15)”
The only thing I found interesting about the Mitchell comments was that he hinted he knows more about what was going on than the press/fans know and that the deal was very close to done. Maybe the full truth will leak out eventually.
In any event, I’m still happy we didn’t do it at the price. I could do without winning 45+ games and going out in the 1st round every year when teams target him in the playoffs and then the press saying he just needs help on offense.
It will be frustrating if RJ stalls out at his current level while Mitchell winds up giving much more effort on defense than he did in Utah. I’m mostly at peace with the non-trade, though, other than the very clear sense that Leon desperately wanted to do it, and thus that different stupid moves could follow.
Training camp cannot possibly get here fast enough.
I appreciate the concern, fellas. Despite being a bad night it does not excuse my behavior on Tuesday. If you can forgive me for my outburst, I would be grateful.
In particular, Brian and Alan I called you both out by name rudely and unnecessarily. I am sorry. And, begrudgingly, I apologize to Z-Man, as well.
I maintain that the act of consistently quoting someone and writing a provocative, non-basketball-related statement underneath it falls under the definition of trolling. If it’s persistent, it’s inevitable to strike at a time when someone’s nerves are raw. I also maintain it is vastly different than frequently disagreeing with someone’s basketball ideas.
Nevertheless, my response was unacceptable and my behavior was beneath the standard the board expects from its members and the one I expect from myself. Thank you all for allowing me to continue here despite my occasional inability to regulate my emotions.
We gotta hope that Brunson really is that upgrade that fixes our offense and Randle gets his shit together and the youngsters all step up. If those things happen and we’re better than expected, the pressure to do something immediately eases up on Leon. GM’s make dumb trades when they’re pressured to do so and that has been a huge part of the problem with this franchise the last twenty years. But if we’re above 500 and clearly in the playoff hunt, young players are playing well and Randle has bounced back, suddenly Leon will have a lot more options. The value of our players will be higher and the cost to deal for a star will be less.
Anyone checked the first 3 seasons of DeRozan in comparison to RJ’s first 3 seasons? The numbers are almost identical, and RJ is a year younger, he came to the league at 19 and DeRozan was 20. A DeMar DeRozan outcome for RJ would be a good thing, i think.
Hey Hubert, everybody has bad days, no harm was done and yesterday’s thread was even super polite and friendly so we took something out of your outburst. I chased two burglars once, and i can confirm we get in a state that we won’t take the slightest sh*t afterwards and for a period of time until we cool off. 😉
Whenever i think about that day, i know i’m not very smart in these type of situation, the 2 guys were big, maybe bigger than me, thank God they got afraid and run… and that i didn’t catch them! 😀
Btw Donnie it’s not the same neighbor. I moved. This one is in her 50s. I’d have to be in some mood to go over there for that. Although I suppose I could expect her to be extra grateful.
“In particular, Brian and Alan I called you both out by name rudely and unnecessarily. I am sorry. And, begrudgingly, I apologize to Z-Man, as well.”
Your apology is appreciated and accepted.
“I maintain that the act of consistently quoting someone and writing a provocative, non-basketball-related statement underneath it falls under the definition of trolling. If it’s persistent, it’s inevitable to strike at a time when someone’s nerves are raw. I also maintain it is vastly different than frequently disagreeing with someone’s basketball ideas.”
And I maintain that continually condescending, dismissing, mocking, and wilfully mischaracterizing, exaggerating, or using the most jaded possible interpretation of a post you disagree with, is going to provoke an escalated response. I will continue to view such responses as treading the over the line between legitimate disagreement and personal attack. Same when you pile on when I am arguing with someone you happen to like more than me.
Anyway, I will go back to trying to being more civil with you and others apologize to you and to the board for my role in escalating the most recent conflict.
I want to see 3 things from RJ this year.
1. Get the FT% back up and heading in the right direction. He gets to the line well. It would really help if he was especially good from there eventually too.
2. More control and better decision making when trying to go to the basket. He gets his shot blocked way too often. He has to pass out of those situations more often. If he’s on the court with someone like Reddish and gets guarded by smaller players, maybe that will help.
3. Better shot election on 3s. The prior year he was conservative. Last year he tried to expand what he was doing. That’s the right idea, but I think he overstepped a bit.
If he can do those 3 things, I think his efficiency will take a nice jump and he’ll add an assist here or there. If he comes to camp with more actual skills, it could take a healthy jump up.
“cybersozesays:
September 15, 2022 at 08:53
Anyone checked the first 3 seasons of DeRozan in comparison to RJ’s first 3 seasons? The numbers are almost identical, and RJ is a year younger, he came to the league at 19 and DeRozan was 20. A DeMar DeRozan outcome for RJ would be a good thing, i think.”
Yeah cyber, it’s been a common upside comparison for RJ. On the plus side, RJ seems to have more aptitude from 3 and on D. On the downside, DeRozan’s offensive game inside the arc is pretty polished, and he seems longer and more explosive. But it’s a good comparison on a lot of levels.
How many games do we win if:
1. Mitch and Hart are the same low usage highly efficient Cs we expect them to be and do a good job of protecting the paint.
2. Obi is hitting 34%-35% of his 3s, doing his usual highly efficient open court transition and cutting scoring and playing adequate D
3. RJ gets his TS% up to the 54%-55% range.
4. Grimes is playing solid 3&D and adding in a little extra here or there
5. Brunson continues his fine play as the lead PG in NY
6. Quick doesn’t have any severe slumps this year and plays consistent solid basketball
7. Reddish is healthy and takes a moderate step forward on both sides and wins a rotation spot
(I’m purposely leaving off Fournier because I expect him to come off the bench and I’m leaving off Randle because I think one key to this team really outperforming will be good 3p shooting from Obi and him taking over at PF)
It’s a lot of ask that everything breaks our way, but I think we could win 45+ games.
I hate the DeMar comparison for the simple reason it brings back nightmares of the 2009 draft where picks 7, 8, and 9 were Steph, Jordan Hill, and DeMar.
***I’d have to be in some mood to go over there for that. ***
Poll question: which will happen first? The Knicks win a playoff series, or Hubert is in that kind of mood
Apology accepted, Hubert. Though I appreciated the suggestion that I have that much pull around here.
Poll question: which will happen first? The Knicks win a playoff series, or Hubert is in that kind of mood
I think there is a bit of cause and effect at play here.
Strat, I think even if all of those ifs come true — and Obi taking over PF from Randle is a very big if — 45 might be attainable, but we’d still likely be in the play-in game. The East is just really really deep right now.
I also think the only way Cam sees the court for significant minutes is with one, and probably two injuries to guys in the rotation who play PG, SG, or SF. I suspect Thibs will play a 9-man rotation before inserting Cam, Sims will play if a center is hurt, and it does not seem as if Thibs views Cam as a smallball 4. But maybe I’m wrong. It’s just a dumb, dumb, frustrating situation. I’m incredibly dubious that he will ever be any good, but given the cost of getting him, shouldn’t we try to find out?
The way I see this season playing out at PF is that Randle will initially start while Thibs has a chance to evaluate where Obi is now defensively. If Thibs is not satisfied, that’s the way it stays. If Thibs is satisfied that Obi can defend consistently and has expanded his range and skills a bit on offense, then Randle will traded at the deadline even if it means attaching something. But hopefully, Randle has improve his market value.
It’s even worse than that, Bernie. We could have taken Jrue! We could have taken Brandon Jennings, Ty Lawson, or Jeff Teague, all of whom flamed out in a few years but at least had their moments at the position we’ve struggled to fill for so long. Darren Collison, even!
The question is which of those guys would Donnie Walsh have been willing to use as a sweetener to dump Jared Jeffries’ contract? I’d like to believe he wouldn’t have done it with Steph, and that by the time that trade was made, it was just clear that Jordan Hill was no good. But it would have stunk if we’d drafted Jrue or DeRozan and then they got traded a few months later to undo one of Zeke’s many, many, many mistakes.
>I’m incredibly dubious that he will ever be any good, but given the cost of getting him, shouldn’t we try to find out?<
I'm in that small and rapidly shrinking camp that thinks his development going all the way back to college through the pros has been repeatedly interrupted by injury. So I haven't given up on him.
Even though they are complete opposites as far as basketball players go, my thinking on him is similar to Frank. I see a finished product I could like (love in Frank’s case) , but the road there has had so many potholes he may never get there.
Speaking of Frank (hahahaha), Cuban has been speaking highly of him all off season after he had an significant defensive impact in the Suns series against Booker and Paul. With Brunson gone, he has to beat out Josh Green for that 3&D secondary playmaker role. It won't be easy because he's been injured all summer and hasn't been able to work on his game. What else is new? smh
Uh oh…I feel a frank nkikilna isn’t “all that bad a pro” debate a’brewing…please no…I’d rather watch z vs Hubie part V….
DeRozan is a tough comp for anyone because he’s had one of the more unique careers I can remember. It looked like he had stalled out as a high-usage, average-efficiency regular season innings easter until he turned 30, and then he became one of the better high-usage scorers in the NBA.
The thing about DeRozan is it was clear relatively early on that scoring at the rim would be a standout skill, even if everything else took a while. RJ doesn’t have a comparable skill on offense right now. The foul drawing is nice but it won’t take him far on its own. It’s also going to dry up if he doesn’t turn out to be good enough to justify being on-ball most of the time, which I fear might be the case.
He simply has to get up to *at least* 60% at the rim this year, which would still only put him in the ~35th percentile among wings and was pulled of by the likes of Talen-Horton Tucker on similar at-rim frequency.
If he can get there, keep up the foul drawing, keep making improvements from 3, and increase his FT% we might get somewhere.
It’s…more than I’d like to ask of a guy we just gave $100M+.
I mean yeah, if a lot of things go right the team could win X number of games. That’s true for pretty much any team in the league. If all of those things go right and nothing goes substantially wrong, sure the team could win 45 games. That’s probably the “everything goes right” upside.
I still see too many shots in this offense for poor eFG% players, and a team eFG% that’s likely in the bottom third of the league. That’s tough to overcome. That’s the number that really needs to improve, so we are really going to need for RJ and Randle to stop throwing up so many bricks. It’s not a whole lot more complicated than that.
We could win 45 games and go out in the play in or first round pretty easily this season. Some of the teams in the east people are expecting to be really good are going to have shitty seasons-we’re not going have 11 teams winning 45+ games
If we do everything on that list, I predict we win all of the games 😉
Hubert, just chiming in to send you internet-strength after that ordeal. That is/was a rough challenge to get through, for sure. The board is here for necessary distraction and support at all hours.
PS: I just got the email to buy Knicks tix, and Julius is the only face. He’s not going anywhere.
People aren’t going to like this but the whole Cam Reddish situation is the kind of thing that makes me pretty skeptical of the Leon Rose regime.
Playing Cam Reddish a lot this year makes perfect sense from a “we traded a first-round pick for him and need to see what he can do so we know how to navigate restricted free agency” perspective.
Playing Cam Reddish a lot this year makes zero sense from a “we want to win as many games as possible” perspective, based on the history of Cam Reddish.
I don’t think we’ll be doing tons of winning this year anyway so I’m partial to playing him, but if we’re going that route then we should also play McBride instead of Rose, among other things.
It’s just another example of competing, contradictory agendas existing in a front office that has already chosen to make team-building more difficult than it needs to be by foregoing picks at the top of the draft.
Joe Girardi said it best.
Obi-efg+
Mitch-efg+
Hart-efg+
Brunson-efg+
Fournier-efg+
Grimes-efg+
Rose-efg+
That’s all just last season. The glaring problems are Randle & RJ. Randle has been efg+ several times in his career, but wasn’t even in his all-NBA year for us. RJ hasn’t really come close. If you want to squint if you combine his post-ASG play with pretty good 3 point shooting (which has shown some ability to do) you probably get at least close to average.
Best solution is to dump Randle imho.
Amen to that! 😀
But not only because of eFG%, it’s also because we need to play Obi a lot more, for development/evaluation reasons and for our eyes (Obi’s game is a pleasure on the eyes, and Randle’s… well, Randle’s game is not).
I don’t think it’s unfair to make Reddish show what he has in practice before he gets regular minutes even if we did trade a pick for him. And he might actually earn minutes that way. He was getting regular minutes at the end of last season before he was injured.
I’m amused to see that the CHA pick was a very bad pick on the Knicks hands, but since we traded for Cam it’s a “first round pick”. No caveats.
“How many games do we win if:
1. Mitch and Hart are the same low usage highly efficient Cs we expect them to be and do a good job of protecting the paint.
2. Obi is hitting 34%-35% of his 3s, doing his usual highly efficient open court transition and cutting scoring and playing adequate D
3. RJ gets his TS% up to the 54%-55% range.
4. Grimes is playing solid 3&D and adding in a little extra here or there
5. Brunson continues his fine play as the lead PG in NY
6. Quick doesn’t have any severe slumps this year and plays consistent solid basketball
7. Reddish is healthy and takes a moderate step forward on both sides and wins a rotation spot”
*********************
Without commenting too much on the substance, I think the way we try to figure that out is by starting at the beginning and that’s: “What assumptions on those points are baked in already to the 38.5 win Vegas consensus.”
We’ve talked at some length on the board about the traits and characteristics of .500-ish teams. Those kind of teams have good players, even the occasionally great player, and they occasionally during the year look like excellent teams. They have good young players. They beat contenders handily. They run off 4 and 5 game win streaks, sometimes even more. They frequently make their fans say things like, “How can a team that looks this good only be a .500 team,” or “If they could only play like this more consistently, they’d be a contender.”
All of which is to say that a 38.5 win projection already has some of those things baked in.(*) The question is really more, “Where are the Knicks going to beat consensus, who are the players who are going to, and what’s it going to translate into if they do?
But we should have no illusions. 45 wins is 6.5 above expectations so (in the absence of some ISM-type fluke) someone is going to have to outperform consensus pretty significantly.
(*) Strat, you’re a bettor. You know Vegas. The people who are setting Vegas lines aren’t saying to themselves, “Julius Randle is dreadful; he has zero chance of a bounceback to potential mean.” A non-zero chance of that is already baked in.
Noble, you’re on a mission to prove Leon has no plan, i know. But the plan is to win, and to make players earn their playing time (well, except Randle! LOL), which Cam isn’t capable of doing, as it seems. Probably Leon thought, or someone convinced him, that Cam would only need a change of scenery to show he’s a good player. A reclamation project. But the bet will not pay off, probably. And Cam will walk for nothing at the end of the season. I’d prefer to have the charred pick back, if i could.
He was getting regular minutes because several rotation players were injured at that time, Knick fan. And even in the unlikely event that he’s balling out in practice, whose spot in the rotation is he taking. Thibs is not going to play 11 guys. (And in fairness to him, almost no coach does that.) Is the team going to just bury Fournier? Stick IQ in the dungeon? Brunson will play a lot. Ditto Grimes and RJ.
“I don’t think it’s unfair to make Reddish show what he has in practice before he gets regular minutes even if we did trade a pick for him. And he might actually earn minutes that way. He was getting regular minutes at the end of last season before he was injured.”
This is an idiotic way to run a basketball team. You don’t trade first-round picks for guys, but then let them walk if they don’t “earn” minutes in practice. You determine whether they’re going to get minutes *before* you trade the pick for them.
Anything short of that is unambiguously incineration.
“I’m amused to see that the CHA pick was a very bad pick on the Knicks hands, but since we traded for Cam it’s a “first round pick”. No caveats.”
Well, at one point it was the 19th overall pick in a draft in which multiple players selected 19th or later are looking quite promising. The Knicks traded that pick for a pick that was less valuable, but still was a pick. That was very, very dumb.
They proceeded to trade *that* pick for a player they seem content to not really play for them at all. That’s even dumber.
I’m not seeing what’s inconsistent about any of this!
A couple of problems with the Derozan/RJ comparison.
1. Derozan’s shooting at the rim was already 62% as a rookie. It dipped the next 2 years and then shot up to 66% in year 4 (which is also his career %) and goes over 70% several times throughout his career. RJ’s career high % at the rim would be the 2nd worst of Derozan’s career.
2. Derozan was significantly better from the midrange. RJ’s career high from 3′-10′ is 31%, from 10′-16′ is 31%, and from 16′-to the 3PT line is 39% (which is wildly outside his norm; he shot 28% and 30% his other two years). Other than that 39%, all of those would be far and away the worst shooting seasons of Derozan’s career. Not only that, other than shooting 39% on long 2s, every single shooting % RJ shot from midrange would be the worst of Derozan’s career.
3. Derozan is way more athletic than RJ, to the point that he’s competed in 2 dunk contests.
No, pro sports aren’t “you earn your time in practice” places. That’s like junior high stuff. Cam Reddish should be in the Knicks rotation, full stop. If he’s not, they’re doing this completely wrong. If the FO wants him to play — which it very much sounds like they do — and Thibodeau doesn’t, Thibodeau should be fired.
Flame at me if you will, but there’s little doubt in my mind that Thibodeau’s obsession with Grimes is at least in part his mental pushback on Reddish.
i love how most of knick fandom right now is obsessing over mitchell’s comments…
whereas here in knickerblogger land it’s like, been there, done that, let’s dig in to draft/roster minutiae…
very cool…
They proceeded to trade *that* pick for a player they seem content to not really play for them at all. That’s even dumber.
********************
That’s because Leon runs things by “everybody gets their turn, then no one can get too mad.” It’s Thibs’s turn to get his way with Reddish, and so he does.
If Thibs is in fact stepping outside the “now it’s his turn” template and taking “extra turns,” he should be shown the door.
Cyber, if the plan is to win as many games as possible, why did we trade a first-round pick for a player we apparently don’t think helps us do that? There’s simply no way to square this circle. It’s just incompetence.
It’s not like we gave Reddish a chance to prove himself and he fell on his face. We just didn’t even see what we had at all, and unless something changes that seems likely to be the case again this season.
I wouldn’t have traded for Cam Reddish, but it’s inexcusable to trade for him and then not even bother to see if we could get *any* return on the investment. That’s just donating an asset to the Atlanta Hawks.
prior to cam’s acquisition i thought he had some potential, the trade didn’t upset me too much…
then though when i saw him play for us, he seemed kind of “sleepy”…
it was a gamble that doesn’t seem like it’ll pay off in anyway, i don’t think it was a totally unjustified gamble though…
Edit: i get what you’re saying though noble, to some extent, it was a fuckup…
Why should Cam Reddish be in the rotation, he’s terrible
TNFH that’s a fair take on Cam. I didn’t like the trade when it was made, although to be fair, I thought the CHA conditional pick still had similar value of the 19th pick it was acquired for, so I agree that if you legitimately gave up a “first” for him then you paid too much. However, if you gave up “virtually nothing but a pile of ashes” (or alternatively, two future 2nds) for him then it was a reasonable risk from a valuation perspective.
He was actually playing at the time of his season-ending injury, and playing relatively well. And he was rumored to be coveted by the Lakers and as such seemed to retain (or exceed) the value of what was given up for him, especially if you think that what was given up had little value.
But all that said, neither transaction made a lot of sense to me, and I think it is fair to hold both up as evidence that management has flawed reasoning about draft pick valuation. However, I don’t think it says all that much about the big picture, either now or going forward. Those decisions pale in comparison to things like trade offers for Spida, signing Brunson and Fournier, extending Julius, RJ and Mitch, or drafting Obi over Hali.
And yeah, they should play him or trade him. I’d prefer the former.
There’s not really much point in discussing the “19 for charred remains, charred remains for 1.5 seasons of a bad player” sequence of moves. It was bad process and it’s probably going to be a bad result. Not Leon’s finest hour. Get ‘em next time.
We played Cam, he was bad and he got hurt. That’s his career in a nutshell.
Should we have traded for Cam? No.
After trading for Cam, should we have played him? Also no-unless we were trying to tank-because he’s bad at NBA basketball.
He’s obviously not “Thibs’s kind of player,” which I personally give negative seven fucks about.
interesting z-man, looking at some of these “transactions” in taking in to account the “stakes” involved…
yeah, cam was a relatively low cost risk…
yes – opportunity cost, opportunity cost, opportunity cost – we could have had the next “whomever” low end draft pick who makes good…
not every move is some life/death decision though…i know that must rub folks with high expectations the wrong way, but…
I like how strat doesn’t trust journalists or the media and vets every fact with his own objective research, yet reads the summer tweets of Mark Cuban as gospel.
“I like how strat doesn’t trust journalists or the media and vets every fact with his own objective research, yet reads the summer tweets of Mark Cuban as gospel.”
That’s a fair question. He said it in a podcast. That doesn’t mean he actually means it. But at least I know the “media” isn’t making up the quote or taking it out of context like they usually do.
Why should Cam Reddish be in the rotation, he’s terrible
*************************
I don’t accept that he is, but the answer is that the Knicks should be rolling the dice and trying to develop high end talent even if it costs them wins.
The New York Knicks are in NBA purgatory. (Yes a segment of their fanbase can outline some reasons for optimism and sensibly approaches the team with optimism, but that doesn’t change the underlying fact.) More marginal merc wins not only don’t do them any good; they’re affirmatively counter-productive.
We should be clear-eyed here and not shy away. The empty building season had some excitement, but it was a disaster for the franchise. The absolute emptiest of calories. Like eating movie candy for a week straight.
We’ve all prolly played organized team sports, so we know there is much more to minutes allocations than just Who is the Best Player? Coaches have personal preferences and make vague soft evaluations using eye test and perceived chemistry.
IMO Leon collects whatever players *could* be useful, at his price points, but (so far) he’s let Thibs choose which ones to play. Coach frustrates us at times because we’ve seen him give longer ropes to some players and not others. But all coaches do that.
As for Reddish, he is prolly just not a Thibs guy. He’s clearly not a DRed kind of guy (haha), and I didn’t see much to shout about either. But Rose prolly just says, “fine” I tried. It didn’t work. Next. If he’s a good businessman, that’s what he does.
Strategically, Thibs might give Cam some minutes early this season and let him “shine” if only to raise his value to someone else. I have vague memory of us doing that with Dennis Smith Jr., maybe also Mudiay, and (maybe?) Allonzo Trier. Like Cam, these guys were flyers, but it soon became clear they were never gonna play here.
Cam’s played 3300 minutes for I think 3 different coaches and he’s sucked the whole time. It is what it is whether you accept it or not. Could he get better? Sure, but to this point he’s a terrible NBA player. We have nothing invested in his future, there’s not much reason to play him unless he’s showing you something in practice that makes you think he’s done something to fix his problems (terrible shot selection and clueless team defense). If he’s done that, sure, find some minutes for him and see if it crosses over to real games.
Trading for Reddish is spilled milk.
1. It was decent move if you see him as a very athletic player with significant upside whose development was stalled by injury and that filled a need for a taller/longer player at SF.
2. It was a mistake because the coach didn’t like the trade and told management he wasn’t going to get into the rotation by replacing Knox in that same non rotation slot.
All of that is irrelevant to what we do with him now. We have a limited time to evaluate and/or trade him. But to me he has to earn it. I don’t care about the past.
hi strat, i hope all is well for you…just realized you have been sounding very good and at peace for quite some time now…i hope all is well for you and you’ve found a nice spot and a good rhythm to things…
“We played Cam, he was bad and he got hurt. That’s his career in a nutshell.”
Cam Reddish has played 215 total minutes with the Knicks. He played 20+ minutes in a game exactly two times.
I’ve been clear that I never would’ve traded the 19th pick, nor would I have traded the worse pick (which is even worse than it looked at the time due to the Miles Bridges situation…) for Reddish.
However once you make that trade, one of two things are true:
1) you absolutely have to give Reddish more than 215 minutes
2) if Reddish really is so bad that you can’t give him even deep-rotation level minutes, trading anything of even remote value for him was incredibly dumb, because nothing that happened in 215 minutes scattered across 5-10 minute increments should’ve changed your priors on him
“There’s not really much point in discussing the “19 for charred remains, charred remains for 1.5 seasons of a bad player” sequence of moves. It was bad process and it’s probably going to be a bad result. Not Leon’s finest hour. Get ‘em next time.”
***********************
What almost certainly happened in the “process” was that leading up to the draft, Thibs was whispering “You know Leon, we have a pretty set rotation here that did pretty well last year, I’m not seeing a lot of guys in the draft who could fit” and Leon stupidly listened. Then later in the season when things had gone south and Thibs had lost a little juice, one of the smarter FO guys pitched Leon on taking a swing at Reddish and Leon listened to him/them, and then Thibs acted out.
That’s what happened. The real question is what if anything Thibs said about Reddish in the days before the trade, or whether he was even consulted at all. Whatever the details, he obviously “lost” the argument. As he absolutely should have.
Given the Knicks actual (as opposed to fictitious and imaginary) place in the association cosmos, it was a perfectly fine trade, arguably even an inspired one.
Its potential and philosophical underpinnings got sabotaged by an old man yelling at cloud.
At the end of the day “in defense of the Knicks not playing the guy they traded a first-round pick for, the guy they traded a first-round pick for is terrible” just does not inspire confidence in the operations of the Knicks.
1) you absolutely have to give Reddish more than 215 minutes
No you don’t, and he suffered a season ending shoulder injury after we started giving him a little playing time. That’s why he didn’t play more than 215 minutes.
I believe Cam needs to be in the rotation at the beginning of the year to see what he can do. I would sit Rose and play IQ as the backup pg for the first 10 games or so to make room for Cam. At this point in his career Rose should be able to handle the situation. He did volunteer to come off the bench, so that Kemba could start.
DRed, you really don’t think that *once you make the determination that a player is worthy of a first-round pick* in a trade, it logically follows that said player should receive more than 215 minutes?
We also only gave him that pitiful number of minutes after a slew of injuries to other players–he was fully out of the rotation in the penultimate season we had him under contract.
I’ll repeat that I wouldn’t have made the determination that Reddish was worth even the, ahem, devalued pick in a trade, but once that determination was made it strikes me as far more important to see if you can get any return on that investment than to make sure Julius Randle gets 34 as opposed to 28 minutes per game.
Why do we assume Thibs and Leon are in opposition on something as banal as acquiring Cam Reddish? It could just as easily have been: Leon, “Hey Thibs, we could take a flyer on this guy who was once rated highly. Wanna give it a whirl?” To which Thibs says, “Sure.” Weeks later, coach reports back, “I don’t really like the guy for us,” bad fit, bad attitude, whatever. Leon just says, “okay. next.”
I get all the complaining if Leon traded a valuable asset for a player coach did not even try out, but maybe our guys are actually in sync and agree they’ve done due diligence on Cam, or else they plan to do so this season.
Reddish himself is also a wild card in this whole thing. Rumor was that he thinks he’s a super-star, so that’s prolly not going over … super-well.
“hi strat, i hope all is well for you…just realized you have been sounding very good and at peace for quite some time now…i hope all is well for you and you’ve found a nice spot and a good rhythm to things…”
Hey, thanks a lot for noticing.
I’m off meds and feel better than I did when I was on them. It turns out some of my problem was mid day withdrawals from Xanax. My urologist (of all people) recommended I see a nurse practitioner he knew after I described my symptoms. Within 10 minutes of the first session she told me what the problem was and gave me a plan to taper off. She gave me an emergency number I could reach her if there was an issue because she expected a tough few weeks. I had a few tough weeks. I saw her once more a couple of weeks later during a particularly bad day. She gave me a cheer leading pep talk and told me to march onward! My symptoms vanished shortly thereafter. I’m sure glad I listened to my urologist about mental health issues. lol I’m more relaxed now than I have been in a long time and it’s not because I don’t have a ton of stress. My life is still crazy, but I’m handling it way better.
Cam Reddish, KB’s new Frank Ntilikina! 😀
“Hey Thibs, we could take a flyer on this guy who was once rated highly. Wanna give it a whirl?”
The Knicks’ front office made the determination that the Hornets’ pick was at least as valuable as the 19th overall pick in the 2021 draft. I think they were dead wrong as everyone knows, but that was their valuation.
They also thought Cam Reddish was at least as valuable as the Hornets’ pick. I also thought they were wrong, but again, this is them talking through their actions, not me.
All this to say that trading a pick you purport to believe is at least as valuable as the 19th pick in the 2021 draft is not a “flyer.” That’s a very real asset that you shouldn’t trade for someone you think has a very low probability of succeeding.
Trading late 2nds, giving UDFA/two-way contracts, etc. are examples of “flyers.”
If you can trade a bad player for anything of value then he’s probably not… just bad.
The idea with trading for Reddish is probably something like this is a talented guy who isn’t playing the right way or isn’t being properly developed. We are going to bring him in and see if we can make him better.
Let’s just give him big minutes is not a path to get better if you’re just going to let the guy keep doing the stupid shit that is preventing him from being any good. It is-to me-entirely fair to make Cam earn more minutes. He got an opportunity and he fucked up his shoulder. People will get hurt again this year, he will probably get some time.
If this is what happened, it speaks to something a few of the beat writers suggested at the time of the trade: that the FO apparently did not do enough homework on Cam. Not a good sign at all.
So, can we now agree that Phil’s tenure was a disaster? Haha, just messin’ with ya. Glad to know you’re doing ok.
TNFH — Haha. Cam rises atop the leader board!
Yeah, okay, maybe I mean “flyer” not in the sense of negligible cost but in the sense of high ceiling but also high risk of no return at all. Our front office seems to take on a lot player-projects in hopes that one will pan out (as mentioned, Smith Jr. Mudiay, Allonzo (Von)Trier. I don’t think that’s a terrible strategy.
Of course, yes, in this case, if I understand you correctly, we’re basically left now saying “We picked Cam Reddish 19th in the draft, and he’s a bust.” And, yes, that absolutely sucks. But I still applaud Leon’s philosophy of seeking such diamonds in the rough where possible, which is even on your own (very good) list of things to try doing (I think).
Of course, by definition there are precious few diamonds found this way, so most attempts are prone to failure. We must accept the cost of that.
I think Cam will be out of the rotation, but he’ll have a spot once the annual DRose injury comes along. Also, they might use him at the deadline, hopefully with Randle and Fournier, to make a big trade. If he plays, as DRed says he’ll play bad and his value will be even lower, let him be a mistery that will tempt a GM to try to prove he’s smarter than everyone else (like Leon tried).
I absolutely think this is what happened (is happening). There was even a whole “RJ will help” thing (if I remember correctly).
I don’t discount the notion that making a young guy “earn his minutes” is the best way to develop his potential. It’s possible — these are human beings and they respond differently to different incentive structures and human interaction. I personally think for most guys, game reps are a way better learning tool than practice reps — but not for every single guy.
I do, however, entirely discount the notion that Tom Thibodeau, with his long track record in this area, is making Cam Reddish “earn his minutes” because that’s the best way to develop Cam Reddish. I don’t think Tom Thibodeau gives a shit about developing Cam Reddish and nothing in what he’s said or how he’s acted leads me to think otherwise. If I had some faith that the “earn his minutes” idea was arrived at fairly and sensibly, I’d be fine with it — but I have zero faith and in my opinion rightly so.
Of course, by definition there are precious few diamonds found this way, so most attempts are prone to failure. We must accept the cost of that.
*******************
Yes, definitely. Here though the cost is actually a benefit, because it would just mean more ping pong balls.
Marginal, merc wins do this team zero good. In that spirit, in purely basketball terms, Derrick Rose has no business on this team. Every second he’s on the court will be through the clenched teeth of E.
Again, the thinking with Cam was that they needed a taller longer SF. He was a highly regarded young prospect whose development was hampered by injury. Agree or not, they thought he was a better gamble than the typical player they could get with the Charlotte pick.
The problem is not really about playing him or not playing him. Thibs will know what’s he’s got from practice.
The problem is that we have less time to evaluate his progress and he lost development time again last year when he got hurt again.
If he comes to camp and sucks in practice he’s not going to play and he’ll eventually be out the door. If he looks good in practice he’ll play.
thank you so so much strat…your words are gold to me…
i really needed to hear that…
i ran in to a situation with my VA primary doc refusing to refill my xanax…i’ve tampered off a bunch, but having them accessible is still a huge security blanket to me…
turns out within the VA system the psychiatrists are the ones to prescribe more “serious” mental health meds, which they classify xanax as…i’m waiting for my consult date with a VA psychiatrist…
i do have a few pills in case of emergency…
i’ll probably also reconnect with my work in-network doctor’s office that was previously seeing me, just to fill that prescription as soon as possible…
i’m afraid to be without it…sad truth…
i’ve been back at work now for almost a month – my perception is:
looks like i picked a bad week to stop sniffing glue
that and it’s a conflict i need to resolve (someone denying me something i want)…
the therapist though thinks it great: trigger/event desensitization…
i actually have moments now where within a space of an hour i’ll slip in between periods of high anxiety and zen…
it’s so fucking weird…
so, i’m trying to follow you brother…stop so much “avoidance” behaviors/tools, and just sit tight through a rocky ride, and trust that eventually things will smooth out for me…
faith and trust…man…
thank you again strat…you done did your good deed for the day 🙂
Thibs will know what’s he’s got from practice.
*****************
Sorry, strat, but there’s no reason to have any confidence in this. We need to dispense with it.
He has a massive double standard. We all saw it last year with Julius Randle.
Hey, geo — hate to hear those medical bureaucracy stories … especially when you know yourself way better than the doctors do. Hang in.
Cam Reddish’s line in the 2021 ECF is a more valuable data point than every practice he’d participate in between now and the year 2525. Enough with the practice.
We should post Iverson’s practice rant in the Knickerblogger rafters or sticky archives. Nobody should give a shit about f’in practice.
The Reddish affair is frustrating all around. I don’t think much of him as a player, but the plan should be to get him playing well, find a role for him, and get him minutes. We could actually use an athletic wing on this team, so it’s not like there’s no role for him.
Pretend he’s a veteran who had a good year like two years ago, give him that long of a leash. This is not a true “win now” situation, this is a team that’s projected to finish around .500 so you can afford to take a long look at your distressed asset.
The 19th pick trade was bad. The Reddish trade was catastrophic.
The Knicks traded for Reddish hoping he’d improve. Reddish got to NY and immediately showed everyone he had no intention of putting in the work necessary to improve.
That’s why the Knicks made the trade.
That’s why they tried to trade him immediately afterwards.
That’s why he doesn’t get playing time.
And that’s why there are reports that the Knicks didn’t do their homework, i.e., they should have known there was no way he’d actually put in the work.
***Cam Reddish’s line in the 2021 ECF is a more valuable data point than every practice he’d participate in between now and the year 2525.***
As a people, we’ve been Jerome Jamesed before, and we’re not gonna let it happen again.
Weighing in on Cam not because I give a damn but because I really don’t want to do my tasks today.
First, not a big fan of wild narratives about people at loggerheads when there’s no real evidence of that. This is what we’d call in the newspaper business ‘click bait’. We have no idea if Thibs and Leon were at odds over Cam. No idea at all. Sure Leon got Cam, and Thibs didn’t play him much, but a few things.
First, as Dred says, he was slowly getting more playing time (after injuries to others, but that’s clearly a Thibs MO) and then he hurt himself. Second, while he’s a superior athlete, he’s got some serious holes — bad shot selection, bad D, and very poor self-recognition.
I certainly wouldn’t play Cam much if I were the coach until he stopped believing he was God’s gift to Mr. Naismith and started to play smart basketball. Giving a player with shitty habits lots of minutes is Kevin Knox territory, or Mudiaystan, and evidence isn’t great at this point that that’s a way to improve anyone.
It’s a perfectly reasonable take to believe that the Knicks coaching staff, which seems to have done a good job with most of their kids based on significant improvements across the board over the last few years, can coach/beat the bad stuff out of Cam. If so, we could have a diamond in the rough. If not, well, so be it and the takes can run hot.
So this year will be interesting. It could definitely be a big strike out, which is a bad look (and a bad thing). But it’s really too early to wring our hankies.
He wasn’t really a highly regarded prospect when he was drafted. He was highly regarded coming out of HS but was terrible at Duke which is why he fell to 10th and should have fallen to the end of the 1st round.
You mean his line from game 6 of that series when he randomly got red hot from 3? Because in the other 5 games he didn’t play in 2 of them and didn’t do much of note in the other 3.
We should assume Cam Reddish will always shoot 64% from 3. Noted.
Iverson was good at basketball. Cam Reddish is not.
We should assume Cam Reddish will always shoot 64% from 3.
**********
We should have a coach who’s first word association with “Cam Reddish” is “How do I get him to play all the time like he played in the playoffs?” (*) Instead, we have one who says, “He’s not going to be able to make it through my practices, he’s too cool, harrumph, harrumph.”
(*) Compare and contrast Cam Reddish turning it up in the playoffs and Thibs pet Julius Randle wilting in the playoffs.
The overwhelming consensus here is that a) we shouldn’t have traded the #19 pick and b) we shouldn’t have turned the resulting CHA pick into Cam Reddish. There are differences to the degree of these errors, but no one is really applauding the moves, except in the more general sense that finding reasonably low cost/high upside young players and rolling the dice on them is fine.
I think Thibs actually cares a lot about developing young players, but not by playing them at the expense of winning. There was that article about how he had special morning practices for all of them, and Cam was surely in that group. I don’t think he had any kind of vendetta against Cam….certainly nothing like the one he had vs. Kemba.
If he’s still on the team when camp opens, I think he will have some opportunities to show whether he took Thibs’/Johnnie Bryant’s coaching to heart and worked hard and effectively on his game this offseason, and has results to show for it. Even though it was only 215 minutes, I didn’t see Kevin Knox or Frank Ntilikina out there. He actually looked pretty good on both ends except for his 3pt shot, which is the least of his worries.
My guess is that he will be on the floor in a Knicks uniform on October 4.
I don’t think Cam went through with Thibs anything that Obi, Deuce, Grimes, Sims, and to a lesser extent, IQ went through under Thibs. All of them cost some kind of asset. All had to earn PT.
Remember when Larry David as Steinbrenner would start talking about something and then get all wound up into calzones or Ken Phelps or whatever and just go on and on, and George Costanza would kind of give up and slowly walk away?
That would be me and Tom Thibodeau. I can imagine many of his co-workers over the years have had the same reaction. Eventually, it’s just complete tune-out, I don’t want to hear anymore.
Wait, E: you don’t like Thibs? Why has this not come up before?
Yeah I actually think Cam has a decent shot, if he looks good in camp, at making the rotation. And at the very least, he will be the 11th man on the rotation. Since he can play SG, SF and even PF if needed, I think he’ll get minutes because there will be injuries throughout the season.
If thibs only cared about winning and refuses to play/develop young players why did he play an unproductive young player more than anyone on the team?
I don’t think Cam went through with Thibs anything that Obi, Deuce, Grimes, Sims, and to a lesser extent, IQ went through under Thibs. All of them cost some kind of asset. All had to earn PT.”
I hopefully obviously meant: *didn’t go through* under Thibs.
I suppose it’s fair to ask: If all of these guys had to earn PT, why didn’t RJ?
My guess is that when Thibs breaks down game film he sees things on the defensive end that don’t show up in the box score, and that RJ scores higher on these things than other players do. But it’s just a guess. I’m pretty certain that was the case with Obi, he was really terrible on D in lots of ways for much of his 2 years but seemed to come around in the last 30 games or so.
Now, should it matter if the player is constantly associated with good on/off numbers, as Obi was and RJ wasn’t? It’s a fair question. But I doubt very much that it’s a knee-jerk reaction or some kind of favoritism.
This Cam debate is too dumb for this board. Are people unaware that by not playing him, we lose nothing? In fact, we gain something?
1) Cam isn’t very good. He has shown flashes (64% 3-point shooting across…a couple games?), but any interest in him is based on potential. Not playing him keeps it all about potential. His trade value remains where it is.
2) Not playing him has no effect on our ability to re-sign him. We retain his Bird rights…not that it will matter, because no one will be coming in with a big offer for a player who doesn’t play. Another win for team Not-Playing-Bad-Player!
3) We will, throughout this time, see him in practice every day, which contrary to what that bonehead E says, clearly has a lot of value, or else Thibs wouldn’t dedicate a special practice to developing the young guys, and we wouldn’t then be seeing the results of that work on the court. So if Cam “gets it” and does what the team asks of him, then we can tender a contract. We won’t likely have much competition, and Cam will likely take whatever we offer, and it will be a value deal that all the Chicken Littles will say is overpaying. Can’t wait for that day.
Cam is a sunk cost. No reason to play him.
Cam sucks. He’s had individually good games but any player can do that. The last time Cam was consistently good at basketball he was planning for prom.
RJ, who I don’t like and didn’t want to draft or extend, has a better chance of living up to his contact than Cam has of becoming a legitimately useful NBA player.
This is exactly what I think will happen. Take Atlanta, for instance. They don’t actually have good regular seasons. And there’s been tier 1 teams that have woefully underperformed (Boston & Miami two years ago, Brooklyn last year).
Thibs isn’t obsessed with playing vets like people think. He’s just obsessed with doing the same thing over and over.
As far as our record goes, sadly, Julius Randle is probably the key. If he’s on the team, he has to play like an all-star for us to beat enough good teams to have a winning record. If he plays like he did last year, I don’t see anyone on our team who is going to dominate starters on good teams like Julius did in 2020-21. Empty arenas or not, the dude was a force.
I know people want to get rid of him and his contract….me too! But I don’t see a *clear* path to 45 wins without him being a major part of it. Now there are *unclear* paths with or without bad Randle that involve multiple players making significant leaps, but Randle just has to play something like what he did in three of his past 5 seasons….hit on 50%+ on twos, 35% on 3’s, 75% from the line, something like that…and wipe the stick-um off of his hands and let Brunson, Rose and IQ run the offense.
Cam has sucked. I don’t think that means that Cam is irredeemable. In his short stint with us, he looked better than Knox or Ntilikina ever did, and that was without making any 3’s, which he probably will eventually be good at based on his FT%.
The hype definitely got to his head, but I do see a future for him if he really dedicates himself and tightens up his game, like Andrew Wiggins did, but like Mario Hezonja didn’t (man, did he have nice tools and measurables, still can’t believe he never panned out.) It’s all about his mental makeup.
outlier files: geo,
I’ll elaborate more since my experience may be helpful to you.
“Theoretically” I believe Xanax is only supposed to be used as a temporary solution for anxiety problems (a week or two). Some doctors will prescribe it for longer periods. Others will require you see a mental health professional to get it. My primary care doctor knows I hate taking meds. So he trusted that I would not abuse it and always prescribed it for me “as needed” (maybe 50 pills per year of the lowest possible dosage). I kept some in the house for years and would take it for a few days but only if things in my life got really crazy or I couldn’t sleep. Too long a story, but I had a rough patch awhile back and started taking it daily. I ultimately increased the dose under that doctor’s care. That went on for about a year. Ultimately I must have gotten mildly addicted to it because my body seemed to need it every 8 hours or I would get hot flashes and feel anxious. That went on for awhile but neither I or the doctor knew what was going on. We thought I needed even more because of the pandemic, my elderly mother, special needs brother etc.. . He ran a bunch of other tests looking for physical reasons also but found nothing. You know the rest of the story. The nurse practitioner knew what it was immediately and reversed course. She said if I ever need something again, she’ll prescribe something else for long term use. However, I still have the Xanax with me as a safety blanket at home and on vacation. I just haven’t had a single one since April of last year. I’m med free.
Daquan Jeffries is not a bad pickup off the scrap heap. His biggest issue thus far is that his 3pt shot hasn’t translated from college where he consistently shot 37-39% fron the shorter line. He looks pretty athletic and rugged, so if he can develop his shot and defense in the G-League maybe there’s a 3-and-D future in the NBA for him.
Instead of listening to Iverson, maybe we should listen to Navratilova: “you play like you practice”
Back to our open roster spots:
(1) We have 3 roster spots left: 2 NBA & 1 two-way
(2) The draft this year was considered weak but deep with 2nd rd talent.
There might be a few diamonds in the rough we take shots at if no trades materialize.
We can always cut players to facilitate trades
(3) We probably keep Hunt on the NBA roster as emergency 2-3-4 and practice body
(4) I imagine Jean Montero at least gets a camp invite, maybe has the inside track
(5) I suspect we’ll wait and see who looks good in preseason across the league before signing anyone
(6) The good part of having too many rotation-level players is we can take upside swings. I expect to sign players who left college as freshmen and sophomores.
Montero is a good thought. He showed flashes in summer league and he is very young.
I wonder if Frank could lock down the future peak Cam ! 😉
Apparently Garrison Brooks is signed to an exhibit-10 and Montero is stil signed to the Knicks on an Exhibit-10.
Brooks is 23 but just left college. PF/C who can rebound, defend, and shows some shooting ability (35% on 90 shots thru 5yrs, 63% FT… I’m being generous). Barely played in SL, 5.7 total min.
nice…
thank you strat…sincerely thanks…
I need to get a better understanding of pharmaceutical options for anxiety here in the short term…
too funny, for years i resisted using it, at all, did not like the way it made me feel…it was like the house could be on fire and I wouldn’t even give a shit…
that’s a legit scary feeling and comcerned me even more than the anxiety…
therapist mentioned something about beta blockers…
I get though how it can become addictive…I get it…it is dangerous stuff…
I know it is something that at some point (hopefully in the next year or so) that I can manage without needing to stare at fucking birds and trees or walking for hours at a time, numbing myself with weed and pills…
I’m proud of you strat…who says us old dogs can’t learn a few new tricks 🙂
Thibs default is that a young player/rookie has to earn a spot very clearly before he’ll take it away from a more experienced veteran (especially a vet that has a history of closing games well). It’s comparable to the way boxing used to give close decisions to the champ. Once they earn though, he’ll start and play young players and rookies.
>therapist mentioned something about beta blockers…<
My doctor tried those as an alternative years back when my blood pressure was also a bit high. They worked for both issues, but they had an unfortunate side effect. Let's just say they also reduced certain desires. 🙂 Maybe they will work better for you.
In the non med area, I had some success with guided meditation. It took a few months but I started liking so much I joined a group. Unfortunately when the pandemic hit the group ended. You can find some good guided meditation videos on Youtube.
You can turn this around. I know you can. If I can you can.
I know I need to use it – guided meditation – I just don’t like hearing people speaking when I’m trying to relax…a hard head makes for a soft ass 🙂
haven’t really got around to being able to block out noise, I got a pretty good bit of a ways to go with this therapy stuff…
I remember when I first got in the service and was eating at messhalls, lots of talk about “saltpeter” in the food…
I’m afraid to get on a bicycle seat these days…
geo, don’t take this the wrong way, but when you were all thanking strat I got a flashback to Dr. Lecter thanking Clarisse…
In other words, if you’d kill and eat James Dolan, I’d be much obliged…
oh man, that is funny 🙂
I don’t know z-man, trying to talk a dear friend in to locating here…
she’s been more than patient and generous over many years…
like the kids, she motivates me to be better…
bunch of stuff to work on, but, yeah, I spend more than a bit of the day walking around for no good reason pissed like the hulk…
it’s too funny, it’s like waking up after 59 years to realize exactly how serious an obnoxious dick I can be…
generally polite about it though 😛
at least I got that going for me, although…
geo, you are the literal salt of the earth. And not that Morton when it rains it pours shit. You’re that gourmet Sicilian coarse sea salt.
Good luck with your lady friend, old friends can be best friends…
Hunt looks like he would be a + defender, seems like the kind of guy who would be good to have in practice and not a disaster if he had to play 10 minutes in some emergency games if you needed that.
Daquan Jeffries’ G-League stats are impressive…he shot 34% from 3 on 263 attempts and .592 from 2 on 273 attempts. His TS% was over .600 for all games combined.
There’s a player in there somewhere, might take a couple of years but the dude can shoot a bit and is crazy strong and athletic.