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Knicks Morning News (2022.09.26)

  • New York Knicks: Should Evan Fournier or Quentin Grimes start at SG? – Sir Charles in Charge
    [sircharlesincharge.com] — Monday, September 26, 2022 6:45:00 AM

    New York Knicks: Should Evan Fournier or Quentin Grimes start at SG?  Sir Charles in Charge

  • “I knew immediately” ? Reggie Miller on scoring 8 points in 8.9 seconds against the New York Knicks – Basketball Network
    [www.basketballnetwork.net] — Monday, September 26, 2022 5:18:49 AM

    “I knew immediately” ? Reggie Miller on scoring 8 points in 8.9 seconds against the New York Knicks  Basketball Network

  • Jason Kidd Reveals The Challenges Of Playing Without Jalen Brunson In 2022-23: “He Brought So Much To The Table, Not Just On The Court but Off The Court.” – Yardbarker
    [www.yardbarker.com] — Monday, September 26, 2022 1:32:27 AM

    Jason Kidd Reveals The Challenges Of Playing Without Jalen Brunson In 2022-23: “He Brought So Much To The Table, Not Just On The Court but Off The Court.”  Yardbarker

  • Is Russell Westbrook the Missing Piece to Knicks-Jazz Donovan Mitchell Trade? – Bleacher Report
    [bleacherreport.com] — Monday, September 26, 2022 12:53:46 AM

    Is Russell Westbrook the Missing Piece to Knicks-Jazz Donovan Mitchell Trade?  Bleacher Report

  • New York Knicks Sign Former Toronto Raptors Player – Yardbarker
    [www.yardbarker.com] — Sunday, September 25, 2022 10:21:37 PM

    New York Knicks Sign Former Toronto Raptors Player  Yardbarker

  • Julius Randle and RJ Barrett remain key to it all for Knicks – New York Post
    [nypost.com] — Sunday, September 25, 2022 10:14:00 PM

    Julius Randle and RJ Barrett remain key to it all for Knicks  New York Post

  • Possible Knicks Target Officially Requests Trade: Report – Heavy.com
    [heavy.com] — Sunday, September 25, 2022 7:13:12 PM

    Possible Knicks Target Officially Requests Trade: Report  Heavy.com

  • Jericho and the Jets: Knicks’ Sims Greets Gang Green – Sports Illustrated
    [www.si.com] — Sunday, September 25, 2022 6:30:13 PM

    Jericho and the Jets: Knicks’ Sims Greets Gang Green  Sports Illustrated

  • Atlantic Notes: Knicks Rotation, Barrett, Udoka – hoopsrumors.com
    [www.hoopsrumors.com] — Sunday, September 25, 2022 6:15:00 PM

    Atlantic Notes: Knicks Rotation, Barrett, Udoka  hoopsrumors.com

  • New York Knicks Waive Two Players Ahead Of Training Camp – Sports Illustrated
    [www.si.com] — Sunday, September 25, 2022 5:44:53 PM

    New York Knicks Waive Two Players Ahead Of Training Camp  Sports IllustratedKnicks Sign Jalen Harris  hoopsrumors.comKnicks’ Jalen Harris: Signs with Knicks  CBS SportsKnicks Sign Nuni Omot  NBA.comFormer Florida State star signs with New York Knicks  Sports IllustratedView Full Coverage on Google News

  • Nuni Omot, Garrison Brooks waived by Knicks – Hoops Hype
    [hoopshype.com] — Sunday, September 25, 2022 5:44:04 PM

    Nuni Omot, Garrison Brooks waived by Knicks  Hoops Hype

  • Bleacher Report shows Knicks’ Quentin Grimes appreciation in 2021 redraft – Daily Knicks
    [dailyknicks.com] — Sunday, September 25, 2022 5:00:00 PM

    Bleacher Report shows Knicks’ Quentin Grimes appreciation in 2021 redraft  Daily Knicks

  • NBA Rumors: This Bulls-Knicks Trade Features Nikola Vucevic – NBA Analysis Network
    [nbaanalysis.net] — Sunday, September 25, 2022 2:57:32 PM

    NBA Rumors: This Bulls-Knicks Trade Features Nikola Vucevic  NBA Analysis Network

  • The major questions surrounding RJ Barrett after huge Knicks extension – New York Post
    [nypost.com] — Sunday, September 25, 2022 2:08:00 PM

    The major questions surrounding RJ Barrett after huge Knicks extension  New York Post

  • Knicks’ Derrick Rose ‘Blessed’ to Be Back at Rookie Weight – Sports Illustrated
    [www.si.com] — Sunday, September 25, 2022 1:40:07 PM

    Knicks’ Derrick Rose ‘Blessed’ to Be Back at Rookie Weight  Sports Illustrated

  • 109 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2022.09.26)”

    Unless I have misread his tweet, it sounds like Berman is retiring after today.

    Today is first day of Knicks training camp. And my last day covering Knicks for The Post after 23 seasons. Thanks for reading. Thanks for responding.

    You must be correct Alan. His Post article was not that clear but his tweet certainly is.

    Two off-topic items from our days as Carblogger and TVBlogger:

    * The Bolt so far is pretty great. Have driven it on highway, surface streets, etc. Still have to get used to how easily and silently it accelerates. And when last night’s monsoon began, I briefly forgot that I had the car plugged in in the driveway. But all seems okay.

    * Rolling Stone had a panel of actors, showrunners, and critics vote on the 100 greatest shows of all time, and then I wrote about all 100. https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-lists/best-tv-shows-of-all-time-1234598313/

    Just listened to the 538 Dunk’d on podcast with Jared Dubin and Fred Katz. Really high-end discussion, highly recommended:

    https://basketball.realgm.com/wiretap/268748/Duncd-On-New-York-Knicks-2022-23-Season-Outlook-with-Fred-Katz-and-Jared-Dubin;-Cleveland-Cavaliers-2022-23-Season-Outlook-with-Chris-Fedor

    While all should listen, here are some notes:

    Fred Katz emphasized that Thibs “loves” Grimes, going back to before the draft and just as much now. “There is an avenue for [Grimes] to get 26-30 minutes and get starters minutes at the 2…” Katz thinks that Grimes is their best perimiter defender, and that his skill would be wasted playing against other teams’ bench players.

    Re: Randle, nothing new, it’s all about whether he will accept/be able to handle not being a #1 option.

    Katz: (paraphrasing somewhat) You can’t just plug and play him. Need to have the right roster around him. Last year’s roster did not make sense for his abilities. When on the floor with a rim-running center (vast majority of the time last year) he only went to the rim 22% of the time (conscious decision on his part because the spacing just wasn’t there), and settled for jumpers (other than Jalen Suggs was the worst high-volume jumpshooter in the NBA) but when not on the floor with a rim-running C went to the rim 40% of the time, a great number. Katz thinks that [in spite of roster changes] since they continue to have a team that wants to operate inside the paint (RJ, Mitch, Brunson) that he doesn’t see a way for Randle to improve much in that situation, and that puts a cap on how good Randle can be. You’re not going to get the best version of Randle with the roster we have.

    Nate: Very few teams want a 4 that doesn’t shoot 3’s, you have to be all-NBA level like Giannis or Zion for that, so hard t see a place where Julius fits. After adding Brunson and with RJ attacking the rim more as he did towards the end of last season, if you just had a Jae Crowder type at the 4, it would make more sense. They’re building the kind of roster the coach wants.

    Katz: Thibs does not need a “rim-diving” rim-protecting C, just a rim-protecting C. It just is common for rim-protectors to be rim-divers. Thought the Knicks were a perfect Myles Turner team. He brought up Joakim Noah as a guy who under Thibs operated outside the paint and had an unconventional role, ran the offense through him and Noah finished 4th in MVP voting. Wonders if Thibs will break out the Noah playbook for Hartenstein. Also brought up how Taj was shooting corner 3’s last year as an indication that if Thibs has a C that shoots 3’s he’s not going to discourage that.

    Katz and Dubin #1 key thing this season (and for the future of the franchise) is RJ’s evolution.

    Dubin: Biggest issue with Thibs is not playing time choices but is his offensive scheme.

    Nate: This team might make the most sense with Cam Reddish playing the 4.

    Katz: Cam is the most extreme example of FO and Thibs not being on same page. Same with Toppin. Not great at anything but changes the energy and is so active. Inability to find room for Obi, IQ, Reddish is a weird disconnect.

    Dubin: IQ is a lot better than people think, his stats demand more minutes (others with his stats in year 2 averaged 34 minutes) but he might wind up getting less.

    Nate: whether vets will start to get minimized to determine what younger players can be.

    Strengths of team: Rim protection, depth, top-10 defensive potential, lots of guys who can potentially do stuff off the dribble.

    Weaknesses: Spacing, perimeter size, pieces not fitting together. Katz: player optimization issues in every single aspect. Lack of star power.

    Nate: not high on Toppin. Kind of shares my view, discussing him as a replacement in the starting lineup for Randle is not sound.

    In listening to these very objective and analytical takes on the Knicks, I was left wondering if signing Mitchell Robinson to an extension was a mistake.

    Mitch is a reasonably valuable player. While it’s debatable whether he is worth his extension, in a vacuum he probably is.

    But roster construction-wise, he’s a paradoxical player. Beyond defense, he’s a great rim-offensive rebounder and vertical spacer, mitigating some efficiency issues from both the perimeter and around the rim. However, he interferes with interior spacing for guys like RJ and Randle to attack the rim, reducing their efficiency.

    I think you can make the argument that on our roster he does as much harm as good.

    I don’t think he is much of an asset in a trade at his current salary. I’d be surprised if we could get much more than a protected first rounder for him, and shocked if we could get an unprotected one even from a team likely to be out of the lottery that year. So now that we have Hartenstein, who looks to make more sense as a starter than Mitch, what did we really gain from “not losing Mitch for nothing?”

    Before answering that question, consider whether his presence in the starting lineup is actually devaluing Randle, RJ and Brunson by that commensurate amount, meaning that whatever you gain in value for keeping Mitch is lost by his value coming at the expense of other players.

    Nate, Fred and Jared indirectly backed up this premise in a number of ways. If you listened to the entire podcast with the question of Mitch’s value on this particular roster in mind, and the domino effect that it has (e.g. Mitch and Hart make it less likely that Obi and Randle share the floor than Hart and Sims) then it begs the question: if you can’t trade Randle without giving up a valuable asset as sweetener, does it make sense to trade Mitch (either with assets to get a more suitable guy like Myles Turner, or just on his own to steer Thibs’ roster decisions towards more coherent lineups that maximize fit, or packaged with Julius or Fournier to make those guys more palatable to other teams?

    That podcast sounds like it covered a lot of the things I’ve been saying about Randle and Mitch for awhile with a few exceptions.

    1. There is a place for Randle where can be efficient inside and still bring his rebounding and secondary playmaking to the table. It’s with a stretch C. I’m hoping Thibs tries teaming him up with Hartenstein as often as possible just to see how that works. But there are also trade partners. I’ve long said he’d fit perfectly next to KP, but hadn’t even though of potential trade to the Wizards until ptmilo brought it up.

    2. I don’t like Cam at the 4. I think he’d get beat up by a lot of bigger stronger PFs.

    This is what it comes down to (and I’ve said this repeatedly)

    If Robinson is the starting C, we need a legitimate stretch PF. Either Obi will grow into that role or he won’t. If he does, no problemo. If he doesn’t we’ll eventually have to find one.

    If Hartenstein is eventually the starting C, that might free up Randle (and RJ/Brunson) better (my hope) but that depends on whether Hart can remain as productive playing starters minutes against starters and shoot well enough from outside to warrant covering him tightly.

    I don’t think your question is crazy Z-Man, but you’re leaving out an important detail: no one is forcing Tom Thibodeau to play suboptimal lineups. He is absolutely free to stagger Randle/RJ and Mitch’s minutes, play Hartenstein as much as he wants, experiment with no-center lineups, etc.

    If he just refuses to do any of that, well, that’s a coaching problem.

    Now, I am strongly in favor of Hartenstein having a significant role. We should absolutely see if he can replicate his production in 20+ minutes per game. If he can, or even if there’s a small drop off, then trading Mitch definitely starts to look more appealing.

    I’m not sure it’s worth discussing before we know if Hartenstein can do that though, and if it was a sure thing he could I’m inclined to think he would’ve been more widely targeted as a free agent.

    Part of why we got iHart, on top of his short track record, is (1) his wife is a model/actress and so can only really work in NYC and LA and (2) the other NYC/LA teams didn’t have the full MLE and couldn’t beat or come close to our offer.

    I like the point about defense, we’ll have offensive problems even if RJ & Randle bounce back to only slightly below league average efficiency.

    How good our defense is could make or break our season (AKA play-in run). The difference between 2 years ago and this past season were significant.

    If Grimes’s defense is as good as Thibs believes, maybe we can improve enough on that end to make a real difference. I also like putting RJ back on the #2 option more than the #1. Saves RJ for offense and he’s not really a #1 stopper.

    Doesn’t really engender a lot of confidence (the Noah model is now getting on 10 years out of date) and the Grimes obsession is just flat out weird.

    Look for another frustrating, pointless/counterproductive season.

    Doesn’t really engender a lot of confidence (the Noah model is now getting on 10 years out of date) and the Grimes obsession is just flat out weird.

    Look for another frustrating, pointless/counterpoint season.

    The Nate Duncan pod is basically crack for Knickerblogger. Just smart three dudes talking about the Knicks for over an hour.

    You’ll all be shocked to know I fully agree with Katz that while it may have been smart to not trade for Mitchell in a vacuum, the fact that we weren’t in position to make the trade is an indictment of our larger strategy. Especially considering it’s clear how badly we wanted Mitchell specifically.

    Also, Duncan brought up the idea of playing RJ at the 4 and it’s an absolute disgrace we haven’t seen more of that during his time as a Knick. We’ve barely seen it at all. The guy is 6’6″ and would have way more of a speed advantage against other 4s than he does against most wings. It’s not like what we’ve done with him to this point has clearly worked well from a developmental perspective.

    The pod touched on this, but it’s part and parcel of a larger issue with Thibs. He has his good qualities. I’m not a full-time hater. But he is probably the single least experimental coach in the NBA. You’re simply not going to find out much about a player you didn’t already know if Thibs is their coach.

    It’s a huge contrast to someone like Spoelstra, who is constantly throwing different looks out there to see if something sticks.

    Man if Mitch could just step out and take/make a corner 3 every once in awhile it would help things so much.

    Rolling Stone had a panel of actors, showrunners, and critics vote on the 100 greatest shows of all time, and then I wrote about all 100.

    You checked the #1 before committing to write about the list, didn’t you? 😉

    I know it’s just media day, or whatever the Knicks are calling it, which is a day where all teams are amazing and will have great seasons. But thinking about the season, i have one pressing question. Are we ready to not make the play-in and still work on the things we should be working on (future)? Or are we going to reach panic mode if that’s the case?
    In the east i see tier 1 with 5 teams – MIL, BOS, PHI, BRK, MIA – and tier 2 with 4 teams – ATL, CLE, TOR, CHI. That’s 9 teams and only 1 place left for the play-in, to the best team of tier 3 – NYK, WAS, CHA, IND. Are we sure we’re better than WAS, even on paper?
    I hope the FO has the notion that we can fail their goal to get back to the playoffs and i’d like to see us react a lot better to it than last season.

    If Beal and Porzingis stay healthy or relatively healthy then no, the Knicks aren’t better than the Wiz.

    Nate: (…) if you just had a Jae Crowder type at the 4, it would make more sense.

    As DRed and i said yesterday, this is what Leon should be doing. Our roster still isn’t balanced, and we should be trying to fix it. Rehabbing Randle’s value has a good chance to cost us the season and, even worse, has a greater chance to not rehab his value at all.

    Predicting the upcoming season ain’t very easy during Thibs era as we saw twice.
    We may seem like a a safe 35-45w bet right now but many could go north or south and change team’s route completely.
    I’m ready for the best…as always!

    and the Grimes obsession is just flat out weird.

    What is weird is you not liking the fact that Thibs likes Grimes. Grimes is a second year player, plays good defense and shoots 3’s well. He is not a merc and you’re handle name is literally a critique of the FO supposedly choosing mercenary vets over young players.

    Isn’t Ball already scheduled to miss a lot of hte beginning season in Chicago? Seems like they peaked last year in the first half. If Ball is hurt, they are not very good. I don’t think Chicago is a lock to be top 8 at all.

    For me the biggest enigma this season is the Regular season’s Defensive intensity.
    The rest will follow smoothly

    Hopefully the FO is smart enough to realize that we could be much improved from last year, the young players could be getting better, Brunson could be an upgrade and we could still have a similar record as last year and/or miss the playoffs because of how tough the East is.

    If they are smart enough to hold those two thoughts in their brain, then they will know that while they’ve upgraded the team, there is still work to be done in the form of finding a place for Randle, Fournier and even D Rose.

    I like that Crowder idea because he is a good player and would seem to be a Thibs guy too. Only danger is Thibs might want to start him over Obi too! But would people want to attach first with Randle in order to make that trade with The Suns?

    Not all is bad, i’m hopeful that Brunson, a good PG, will help us a lot. And i’m hoping Thibs plays Grimes ahead of Fournier. Also hoping that RJ has a breakout season, which is the most important thing for the future of this team. And then Quick, i hope he can play PG for the 2nd unit, he’s the future, DRose is not, so it has to be this way. I don’t have high hopes for Obi, at least for the first part of the season, because with Randle playing heavy minutes, the only path for more Obi minutes is to trade Randle at the deadline. I’m curious about Hart, maybe we found a diamond in the rough, maybe not. Either way, it was a very good gamble from Leon.

    Randle’s fit with this team doesn’t go away without Mitch and a stretch-5 in his place. Randle also doesn’t fit with Brunson and RJ. We need to move on from Randle. Thank you for 2020-21, but good riddance.

    So not nice, E had to say it twice…

    It’s a problem with the website refresh, when posting the comment. And Hubert warned us that deleting a comment would get the account to be frozen. That’s why folks don’t delete the duplicate comments.

    If the Knicks need a Jae Crowder like forward who shoots 3s he is on the roster and his name is Julius Randle. Randle shot 3s exactly as often as Crowder did last year, Randle just missed a ton of good looks from 3. He made 29% of his wide open 3s and 35% of his open ones.

    ‘IQ is a lot better than people think, his stats demand more minutes (others with his stats in year 2 averaged 34 minutes) but he might wind up getting less.’

    This. I almost posted it twice, like E.

    I don’t like the idea of RJ at PF. I was one of the first people calling to move him from SG to SF because he’s not the fastest guy in the world. I thought the speed differential might help. Last year it looked like I was wrong. One of the biggest problems he had last year with finishing at the rim was that he got his shot blocked so often. He was getting to the rim against SFs, but he wasn’t finishing OVER or THROUGH them well. They were too tall, long and strong. IMO, he was probably better at SG. If we switched him to PF, it might help against some matchups, but imo they’d eat him alive defensively on most nights. Let him grow into the SF role or move him back to SG depending on other developments. We don’t know how things are going to work out with Cam and Grimes, but Cam is a legitimate SF in size/length.

    Thib’s obsession with Grimes is that he plays both sides of the ball. Some of our recent players have been limited. They only play one side well or on offense they can only score in a limited way. Grimes defends well, hit the 3 well, and showed some sign of being able to finish. That’s what made him a hot ticket around the NBA. He plays both sides. If last year wasn’t a fluke and he can do the same things against starters that are focusing on him more, he’s got the starting SG spot locked up.

    TNFH I think that while Katz called into question the FO’s strategy, there were some sutleties both in what he said and what Dubin and Nate said on the matter. Most specifically, they suggested that we don’t really know what we have because roster construction is putting multiple players in situations/roles that are not ideally suited for them. How good is RJ? We don’t really know. Same with Grimes, IQ, Obi, Hart, Brunson, and yes, even Randle. You could even extend that to Fournier, who might be just an average to below average starter, and yet could be a 6MoY candidate in his appropriate role. What is IQ’s absolute best role as far as contributing to winning? Can he be a starting-level 2? Well not with Grimes and Fournier slotted ahead of him in that spot. A starting 1? Well not with Brunson and Rose in front of him.

    The point is, we may actually have most of the #3-10 spots on a contender already in house, and it’s possible that one of Randle, RJ or Grimes (or Cam?! Just had to throw him in!) emerges as a legit #2 or 2a. Then you are fishing for a #1 or a #1a that can be had with the player the Knicks can include being one or two of those guys to reduce the # of picks (think: Kawhi Leonard to Toronto or Jimmy Butler to T’Wolves trades).

    But right now, because we don’t know who our players are, they are going to be less valuable than they would be at their ceiling if it is truly higher that what we have seen thus far or will see in a clunky, unimaginative lineup.

    If the Knicks need a Jae Crowder like forward who shoots 3s he is on the roster and his name is Julius Randle.

    If Randle is open to fit his game to what the team needs, i’m all for giving him that chance. I’m just having a hard time believing he can do it.

    “Rehabbing Randle’s value has a good chance to cost us the season and, even worse, has a greater chance to not rehab his value at all.”

    We aren’t going anywhere serious this year anyway.

    This year is entirely about observing the players, seeing who moved forward and who did not, who is going to be part of the team long term and who is not, and then trying to improve the team if any opportunities open up before the trade deadline and again next year.

    However, they aren’t going to play young players just to observe. Part of observing is seeing who wants it badly enough to earn it on merit by working hardest in practice and then coming through when the opportunity presents itself in a game like Grimes did last year.

    Right now I’d say the only long term locked up starting positions are Brunson at PG and RJ at either SG or SF. The other 3 positions are dependent on who moves forward and who fits best.

    “The point is, we may actually have most of the #3-10 spots on a contender already in house”

    I think it’s almost certain we do.

    “But right now, because we don’t know who our players are, they are going to be less valuable than they would be at their ceiling if it is truly higher that what we have seen thus far or will see in a clunky, unimaginative lineup.”

    I think we know who our best players are in this snapshot in time, but we also know they are not done developing and that a lot of them are awkward fits with each other and are underperforming (at least on stats) because of that. It’s all going to get sorted out over time and we’ll make changes/trades to improve the quality and mix over time. This is rebuilding.

    We aren’t going anywhere serious this year anyway.

    Can cost us the development season, if we keep being Randle-centric.

    So yes, Thibs is a very peculiar coach for this team. On one hand, I disagree that he is unwilling to experiment and be imaginative in certain ways. No matter how far away we are from his days of running the offense through Noah, a) he still did it, and b) it still works if you have the right guy doing it. Last year he was comfortable having Taj out there shooting 3’s. But I agree that he’s not going to experiment much with things like a no rim protection lineup.

    And that’s the problem with Thibs. He is so defensive-minded, and has such ingrained principles about defensive efficiency, that he will defer to that side of the ball and then make it work as well as possible on the other side by keeping things simple. Getting him to compromise defense for offense is a tough sell. I have to wonder if that’s why he traded LaVine and maxed Wiggins, i.e. he saw then What Wiggins could be defensively compared to Zach.

    As I’ve said all along, he’s just not a great match for this situation. His pidgeonholing of players is shifting individual player roles in ways that lower their market values. Even if you win more games because of it, it works against building a cohesive roster.

    There’s no chance in hell we’re better than Miami, Boston, Philly, or Milwaukee.

    Pretty insane stuff would have to happen for us to be better than Cleveland, Toronto, and Brooklyn.

    So we’re probably looking at a ceiling of the 8th seed, which is not really a sentence you ever want to hear.

    I’d pick Atlanta over us, but it’s not insane to take the other side on that. Might come down to Murray’s fit with Trae, which isn’t super clear to me at the moment but good, smart players tend to make these things work.

    I actually might prefer us to Chicago, which is funny because they were the #1 seed for a significant portion of last season. That was all smoke and mirrors though and with Lonzo out they really can’t afford any regression from DeRozan. That’s quite a bleak roster from 4-12.

    Washington is a good bet to get off to a decent start, maybe fueled by a nice 20 game stretch from Porzingis that will have, um, some folks here posting a lot. Their posting frequency will likely fall off when Porzingis misses the next 50 games with “knee soreness” or something though, so I’d pick us over them.

    The vibes are terrible in Charlotte, but I wouldn’t rule out them being better than us. LaMelo isn’t gonna stop getting better and I could see Duren being productive as a rookie. Close enough call but I’d take us since their non-LaMelo players are mostly bad.

    Detroit, Orlando, and Indiana aren’t really trying, though a huge leap from Cade could potentially get them in the play-in conversation.

    So the 9th/10th seed with the potential to be slightly better or slightly worse seems about right. Worth remembering that until the advent of the play-in game this would be universally regarded as the disastrous outcome it is, and I don’t think the privilege of getting to play a single “playoff” game or two really changes that.

    Dunno, at some point we’re going to have to try to get better than this!

    “* Rolling Stone had a panel of actors, showrunners, and critics vote on the 100 greatest shows of all time, and then I wrote about all 100.”

    Quick reaction:

    1. Squid Game at 95 seems like the obligatory insertion of a foreign language and newer series…if…and this probably should have just excluded foreign langague shows..you needed one foreign show..for example Dark is WAY better than Squid Game (even Money Heist’s first few seasons is too)

    2. Barry in the fifties ain’t right…that is top 20 material (perhaps top 10)

    3. Never saw Succession or Atlanta but can’t really quibble with the top 20..(watchmen at 23 is a stretch)…

    Randle is going to have to fail again to be traded. There is zero indication that the FO or coach sees him as anything but part of the solution right now. He is going to get an outsized chance to rehabilitate his reputation and value for the rest of 2022, and frankly, I think he deserves it. He went through a rough patch, sure, but he’s not a bad guy and was a big reason why we knocked the Nets off of the back page of the Post (in a non-clownish way for a refreshing change.) If he indeed worked on his body, mind, and game this offseason and is willing to put it out there and see how the fans at MSG and the media treat him, I can respect that.

    “There is zero indication that the FO or coach sees him as anything but part of the solution right now.”

    I think they are very actively trying to trade him, actually. Begley said in a recent mailbag he thinks there’s a 40% chance he’s not on the opening night roster. Just about every other beat writer has similarly indicated they’re looking to move him.

    They’re just running into the “no one wants him” problem.

    Yeah, i agree with Swift and TNFH, maybe CHI is on our tier. I don’t agree ATL is on the same level as the Knicks, no matter the Dejounte fit. The other 4 guys were already there and unless they underperform again, they’ll be better than us. So we’ll be fighting for 9th/10th with CHI, WAS and CHA. I’ll accept that IND might not be in this to win, but they’re not known for tanking, and if Mathurin has instant impact like Hali had on his rookie season, their starting 5 isn’t far from ours.

    My feeling is the FO is definitely open to trading him but also open to keeping him if they can’t find a good trade now and he comes into camp with a new attitude and plays well. IF he does that, then I think they will pivot to trading Obi but I don’t think they’re 100 percent sold on Obi either. Yes Obi is on a rookie contract and cheaper and a fan favorite but he also has holes in his game and is an older young player so his ceiling is already lower. I think Randle is basically right back to where he was going into the 20-21 season in a way.

    So I don’t think they’re trying to trade him no matter the cost just to get rid of him but they’re also very open to moving him if they can. But if he plays well and shows he’s fixed his attitude issues, I think he’s back to being considered a piece of the puzzle.

    Like us, I think they’re on the fence about him but not looking to make any rash moves.

    RE Alan and the top 100 TV shows. I really wish I could like The Sopranos and Friends, but despite several attempts to get into each, I couldn’t.

    I love Mad Men, Breaking Bad, The Wire, etc., so why can’t I like The Sopranos? I’ve watched several episodes of Friends with my wife, but did not laugh once. With the Sopranos, I just didn’t care…with Friends, I found it annoying and unfunny.

    I’ll try The Sopranos again. I’ll commit to at least getting through the entire first season. I mean, I made it through nearly 2 full seasons of the awful Star Trek Discovery before giving up…

    “Can cost us the development season, if we keep being Randle-centric.”

    Randle is young enough to be our starting PF for the duration of his contract. The problem is basketball fit and the proper role. Obi has had an entire off season to work on his shot, handle and defense. If he can’t win the starting job from Randle this year, he’s probably not the PF of the future. We may not have our starting PF yet.

    “I think they are very actively trying to trade him, actually.”

    TNFH I should have prefaced what I said with “Given market conditions…”

    The Wizards are better than us at #1 and #2 but worse than us at just about every other position, on the bench, and defensively.

    In the east i see tier 1 with 5 teams – MIL, BOS, PHI, BRK, MIA – and tier 2 with 4 teams – ATL, CLE, TOR, CHI. That’s 9 teams and only 1 place left for the play-in, to the best team of tier 3 – NYK, WAS, CHA, IND. Are we sure we’re better than WAS, even on paper?

    nice fodder to feed on cyber…

    most likely at least one of these teams will underperform:
    MIL, BOS, PHI, BRK, MIA

    at least one of these teams will overperform:
    ATL, CLE, TOR, CHI

    no sure thing that the other three will have a good season…

    seeing as how the likelihood of us going from no playoffs to championship contender is fairly non-existent – hopefully our defense, rebounding, and okay-ish offense an bring us to the sixth seed this year…

    we shall see in about six months…

    judge just has to hit one tonight, right?

    time away from the stadium should do him well, next two pitching matchups are really favorable for him…

    either gausman or berrios is giving up 61…62 will come quick…

    I think pretty much everyone in the NBA knows what Randle brings to the table. If he comes to camp in shape (every indication he’s in great shape), accepts a major role on offense, but with it running through Brunson instead of him and perhaps behind RJ also depending on what the latter brings to the table, without sulking, acting up, yelling and pushing coaches and teammates, his contract will be seen as a positive asset, especially when the new TV deal leads to a big jump in the cap. Right now, no one is anxious to take on 4 years of player that may become a problem in the locker room. It’s not basketball or his salary per year that’s the major problem. No one gives a crap about his TS% last year. They know what he can and cannot do.

    That’s pretty much where I am, strat, but positive asset might be a stretch. I’d settle for neutral.

    We may not have our starting PF yet.

    Sorry, i should’ve elaborated a little more. I think Randle’s style of play is detrimental to the development of the whole team. So, if he’s humble enough to change the way he plays, i’m OK with him here. If not, i think he has to go. We saw at the end of last season with no Randle, the free flow of the offense, sharing the ball, looking for cutters, a modern offense. And Thibs was still the coach, so i don’t know if this prehistoric offense is on Thibs or on Randle.

    hopefully our defense, rebounding, and okay-ish offense an bring us to the sixth seed this year…

    Geo, are you trying to turn me into a believer? 😉

    “I think pretty much everyone in the NBA knows what Randle brings to the table”

    therein lies the rub…

    The more I look at Hartenstein, the more intrigued I am by him. If he could even come close to matching his numbers from last year over 2000+ minutes he’d be a real plus player. I know he is not going to actually play that many minutes barring injury to Mitch, I’m just saying hypothetically he’d be very valuable.

    He looks good in a box score but he also excels at pick and roll defense, which does not directly show up in a box score. He gives you good rim protection too, and passes well and can knock down a jumper every now and then.

    He came up through the ranks and doesn’t have the lottery draft pick pedigree, but he doesn’t seem to have an obvious flaw in his game. He’s not as athletic as some of the elite centers in the league, but he’s not UNathletic either. I would not be surprised at all if some of our most effective lineups featured Hartenstein at C.

    My buddy who is a Clippers fan texted me JEALOUS the day we signed him. He said we were going to love him.

    hope feels good cyber…hang on to it as long as you can…

    Pros:
    depth
    defense
    rebounding
    point guard play

    Cons:
    no high end talent
    high volume inefficient scoring

    and then probably the three most key factors to the season could end up either helping or hurting us:
    RJ
    thibs
    julius

    no way to know what we’ll get from each…

    unlike previous season where it seemed our win total could swing between 4 or 5 games…i think this year we could fall anywhere between 38 to 48 wins…we’ll see…

    Boston is going to take a sizable step back this year. Their defense lost its head coach and its starting center.

    There’s no chance in hell we’re better than Miami, Boston, Philly, or Milwaukee.

    Pretty insane stuff would have to happen for us to be better than Cleveland, Toronto, and Brooklyn.

    There are realistic chances we’re better than some of those teams. The first obviously is health. Let’s say Embiid gets hurt and Harden is no longer an all star caliber player. The Nets imploded last year, their best player demanded a trade a few months ago and they’re relying on Kyrie Irving and Ben Simmons. The heat are relying a lot on a 33 year old Jimmy Butler and a 36 year old Kyle Lowry. The Celtics defense relies on Al Horford, who is old, and Timelord, who is always hurt and they just lost their coach etc etc.

    Time lord is gonna miss the first half of the season because of his knee surgery, no? Boston isn’t exactly unbeatable

    finished going through the leon interview…

    i had forgotten he’s from jersey, and lord does he sound jersey…

    he looks like he’d be much more comfortable in a cashmere sweat suit, but then again who wouldn’t…

    he’s out in the sun a bunch, or at least recently…

    as long as he stays away from cliches (that accent don’t help him) – he sounds okay…not a basketball guy though…

    i think pretty much everything he does, or the team does, is based off of whomever in the room provided him with the best argument for their preference or choice…

    something he could understand…

    i don’t think he has any original basketball ideas at all…

    one thing is for sure to start this year – we have an incredibly slow footed first unit…

    they better be really physical, otherwise they’ll get run off the court if they themselves don’t hit threes…

    julius might be the fastest guy out there end to end…that’s not good…

    our second unit though is a totally different story…

    Time lord is out for 8 to 12 weeks, which means anywhere from early December to early January.It’s a significant chunk of time, but hardly half a season. And they sucked for about that much time last year before they got together and then went on an amazing run, so I wouldn’t count them out just yet.

    That said, it doesn’t sound like this is a one shot deal as much as the beginnings of a chronic problem.

    I guess the one thing I might add is, now that we’re actually handicapping our chances, at least we’re not in exactly the same position after mortgaging the future for Donovan Mitchell.

    Any win total could be an opportunity for growth. If we’re on the low end of projections, staple all the vets to the bench, get final answers on prospects, prep for the draft.

    A lot of early smoke on Knicks Twitter about the Suns impending demise and what that means for Devin Booker.

    I will eventually talk myself into Devin Booker if/when the time comes but I’d like to say right now I do not want to trade what it would cost for the other undersized one way shooting guard with ties to CAA.

    I would much rather wait for Embiid to realize Morey and Harden are selling him snake oil then trade 6 picks and two swaps for Devin Booker.

    I don’t think he’s supposed to miss that much but he’s had 2 knee surgeries in the last six months and he was injury prone before that so I doubt he plays more than like 55-60 games. That means they’ll be tempted to play Horford more and he’s 36.

    And I would be very very surprised if we won more games than the Celtics, I’m just saying there are realistic paths for them to do significantly worse than people assume.

    Yeah we have maybe a 5% chance of being better than Boston this season. If we split the season series with them, though, I wouldn’t be shocked in the slightest

    The Celtics look pretty thin up front. Looks like they’ll be relying on two guys named Kornet and Vonleh for minutes. Ever heard of them?

    Boston is a significant injury to Tatum or Brown away from being just like us. They realy need both of those guys healthy to scare anyone. I think one of the strengths (and weaknesses) of our team is that we are not dependent on any one or two players.

    Not to be argumentative (on KB?!?!), but Booker’s 6’5″. Not quite undersized.

    For some reason I thought he was 6’4”.

    Point still stands. Devin Booker won’t be worth the pound of flesh he’s traded unless RJ Barrett and Jalen Brunson are All NBA performers.

    ***My buddy who is a Clippers fan texted me JEALOUS the day we signed him. He said we were going to love him.***

    Your friend knows you love everyone, right?

    I love Mad Men, Breaking Bad, The Wire, etc., so why can’t I like The Sopranos? I’ve watched several episodes of Friends with my wife, but did not laugh once. With the Sopranos, I just didn’t care…with Friends, I found it annoying and unfunny.

    I’ll be honest: it was groundbreaking TV, and when it’s good, it’s VERY good.

    When it’s bad, it’s VERY bad — there are entire episodes that I will never watch again (“Columbus,” “A Hit is a Hit”). It also took a few seasons until they had the budget to do stuff outside of (pretty awful) TV sets, so the quality of the production will improve over time.

    But aside from some phenomenal acting performances, I can’t say that I would necessarily recommend it to a person with limited time. The humor is particularly challenging — are you supposed to be laughing WITH or AT the mobster bigots when they make little racist, sexist and Islamophobic asides? It’s not always clear, especially when they set up Meadow to be a caricature of a stereotypical millennial, always on a soapbox for progressivism but ending up as the butt of the family’s jokes, which hit hard because she is such an unlikeable hypocrite. (Millennials, am I right?)

    tl;dr

    It’s okay to not love The Sopranos. It hasn’t really aged well.

    Whenever I recommend The Wire, I always have to tell people they really need to stick with it, give it at least the first season before turning it off. There are parts of that show that haven’t aged that well either– the attempts at humor can be kind of awkward, and it’s such a slow burn that it seems like a routine police procedural for a few episodes.

    You really have to give that show time to grow into what it eventually becomes. The Wire is still the GOAT to me.

    I thought Gallo was a pretty big loss for Boston. Gallo is not exactly in his prime, but he’s still a very smart efficient offensive player that provides great space. I thought he was exactly what they needed off the bench and in certain situations where his suspect defense would be less of a factor. Not that I feel badly for Boston, but I do feel badly for Gallo. He has kind of been used and tossed aside by several teams just as they were about to break out into the contender level. He would have been a good fit on a serious contender there and gotten his first real shot at a title. Though with the injury to their starting C and lost coach on top of losing Gallo, Boston looks a little less formidable, at least until they get heathy. Gallo said he can make it back before the end of the season, but at his age I kind of doubt he’ll be very effective even if he can.

    When NY had an unexpectedly good season and made the playoffs, commentators all basically thought NY wasn’t really that good. Here also we knew we had an invisible sixth man and Randle was great and might not be that good the next year. But when Boston had an unexpectedly good season last year it was because Boston is intrinsically good and coming into their own. I think Boston is intrinsically good, but not necessarily as good as they seemed. Things are already going wrong for them this season. You have to say they are a good candidate for a regression.

    I have consistently felt that Boston was both good and lucky last year. OTOH, they are now counting very highly on two injury-prone pieces in their top 6 (Timelord and Brogdan) and an “ageless” 36yo. Marcus Smart had a great year but he’s volatile, Tatum had some shoulder issues which tend to linger, and Brown must have felt dissed by the KD trade chatter, i.e he’s second fiddle there even though he might be as good or better all-around than Tatum.

    I don’t think they’re a top-3 team in the East, and with some bad luck they could easily drop into the play-in. But they are mostly intact and probably very hungry and adversity might just galvanize them until RWIII gets back.

    The Sopranos completely missed me. I thought they were deplorable people and it made me slightly ill watching them.

    Mad Men and Breaking Bad are my 1 & 2, followed closely by Buffy the Vampire Slayer (which would have been my #1 if it had ended at 5 seasons when the story had run its course; those last two seasons had some nice individual moments but were kinda shit).

    Mad Men edges out BB bc I think they nailed the finale and BB’s was a little silly (although Ozymandias was the climax, so maybe I should cut them some slack).

    Angel can’t make the list but I think they had the best finale of any show I’ve ever watched.

    Richard Dreyfuss’s son Ben who is or was some sort of journalist is having an incredible meltdown on twitter about Alan’s tv show list if anyone would like a laugh

    I only have seen bits and pieces of The Sopranos. Like Hubert (sheesh!) I just couldn’t get into it. Maybe someday.

    been a while since I’ve watched a giants game, they actually look pretty competent…

    their offensive play calling is excellent considering their offensive line and lawrence and parsons on the other side of the ball…run daniel run…

    the sopranos are born of the MTV age…a bit of both real and raw with a nice soundtrack…

    no question The Wire is brilliant…pretty grim stuff though with limited humor…

    amazing work at hbo…I think I went from The Larry Sanders Show, Oz and then the Sopranos being my favorite shows…

    My wife had just spent a few months doing the casting for Analyze This when the Sopranos premiered, so maybe we had wiseguys in therapy fatigue, but we watched the pilot when it first aired and found it dull and never watched another episode.

    I don’t know how to feel about Marc Berman after 23 years of buffoonery. Maybe he’s been the krytonite that’s been holding this franchise back.

    ***Maybe he’s been the krytonite that’s been holding this franchise back.***

    Z-Man = Berman Police (nee Clyde Police)

    BTW my kid’s MRI came back with about as good of news as I could have hoped for, the radiologist interpretation indicated a contusion behind her patella but all ligaments, tendons, meniscuses (menisci?) are intact. Which is weird because she felt the injury when she landed on a stiff leg, no contact or fall involved. What’s frustrating is that when she went to the orthopedist about 6 days out feeling pretty healed and ready to play, he performed a manipulation that suggested an ACL injury (I believe it’s called the Lachman Test, but thats just based on what my daughter told me.) Still needs to be cleared by the same orthopedist, so who knows what he will say? But not being an ACL or meniscus or anything serious with the patella anatomy is still a huge relief!

    “Donnie Walsh says:
    September 26, 2022 at 22:48
    My wife had just spent a few months doing the casting for Analyze This when the Sopranos premiered, so maybe we had wiseguys in therapy fatigue, but we watched the pilot when it first aired and found it dull and never watched another episode.”

    That’s cool! Did she get rejected by 6 other actors before settling for DeNiro? Does your kid look anything like Billy Crystal? (shit where’s that delete button…)

    What do you mean “just”, Jowles? Were you not here when I explained that I read the entire Tolkien universe in high school? No one who goes out with girls does that.

    I’ll tell you what, too… I believe it was Buffy, not the Sopranos, that ushered in the golden age of television. Season 2 of Buffy was epic. Shakespearean, even. And like Shakespeare, before Buffy, characters used to just be. There was no development in the 80s and 90s*, every show featured stagnant characters doing the same thing over and over. There was nothing like Wesley starting off as a clean-shaven, bitch-ass watcher and ending up a scruffy, bad-ass, demon destroyer. And I’m still upset that he and Gunn died as enemies after being the best of friends.

    * I’m sure there are exceptions and Alan will know them.

    ***Did she get rejected by 6 other actors before settling for DeNiro?***

    Stars are attached to projects to get them out of development, long before the casting directors begin work. So she, for the most part, just had to audition every Italian actor New York could muster, many of whom were just dudes who had Bobby’s back when he was a kid, not actual actors (and many of whom, I’m sure, found their way onto The Sopranos at some point).

    ***Does your kid look anything like Billy Crystal? (shit where’s that delete button…)***

    They don’t look like Billy, but they are Clippers fans, which I always found suspect. Thanks for opening my eyes. Explains a lot.

    DW, again, very cool! Hopefully her producer didn’t overrule her and force her to trade several young prospective actors for an overpaid, overrated faux star, like some mercenary ex-GM of the Knicks had to…

    ***again, very cool!***

    It honestly wasn’t that cool. Casting is pretty ugly work, especially back then. She only did a few rounds of it as an associate back when she was very young and got sick of it fast. (The only kind of “cool” thing from her short stint is that when Adrian Brody won his Oscar, I could brag that she discovered him way back when. He came in to read for a part and she came home and said the didn’t need to bother auditioning anybody else and could stop their search right there. (Must have been like what Steve Mills felt when he saw Kevin Knox play 3-on-3.)

    I just watched the Mitchell Robinson interview. Damn, I love me some Mitch and now feel bad about suggesting that he might be trade bait. His flakiness is just so endearing.

    Any way to post that interview with Mitch, Z-man, or maybe even a snippet of it? I’m interested to see how (if?) our man in the middle has matured since he got into the league.

    My feelings on Mitch: I don’t want him to go anywhere. I don’t know how much of it is the “homegrown” aspect, or just the fact that (at least up to this point) his personality is relatively lovable, but I want him here. I do have a niggling feeling that IHart is going to earn the starting spot over him, but that doesn’t mean that Thibs will make that change.

    Is there any way we could play a “Twin Towers” lineup (Mitch at true C and IHart at PF), a la Olajuwon and Sampson? Yes, I know that it goes against what the NBA is right now, but sometimes really good things happen if you zig when everyone else zags. Damn, that would be cool to see, but if there is a 25 percent chance of seeing IHart in the starting lineup at any point this season (barring injury), there is probably a 2 percent chance of seeing a Twin Towers lineup for more than 0 minutes.

    * I’m sure there are exceptions and Alan will know them.

    Hill Street Blues, St. Elsewhere, China Beach, NYPD Blue, Homicide… to name just a few.

    Also, I love Buffy (even if its creator sucks). But to say it ushered in the new golden age implies a level of influence that I don’t believe it had. At the time, it was an incredibly low-rated show on the fifth or sixth-place broadcast network. It received no awards love, and while it was covered by the media wildly out of proportion to its commercial success, it was not a show that people in the industry at the time seemed to know and/or care about. Sopranos, on the other hand, was a juggernaut, to the point where you had people like the CEO of NBC sending out memos saying, “We need to find our own Sopranos.” You can prefer one to the other, or say (as several people have here) that you just never got into Sopranos, but its role in making TV what it is today is undeniable. Whereas Buffy’s influence was mostly posthumous, and far more in movies, where the self-aware Whedon tone is a key element of all the Marvel films.

    The same holds true for Babylon 5, which a lot of nerds(*) like to cite as the show that invented the idea of intensely serialized, pre-planned storytelling, but that nobody in the business I’ve ever met seemed even vaguely aware of.

    (*) I am a nerd, but not a Babylon 5 nerd. I was a Deep Space Nine guy. (Which is another pre-Buffy show where characters changed quite a lot.)

    BTW my kid’s MRI came back with about as good of news as I could have hoped for

    That’s great news, let’s hope she’s back playing in no time.

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