Knicks Morning News (2022.10.05)

Thing about Deuce is that his shot looks fine in the G-League. I’m not giving up on it just yet.

E, I was in section 109, would have been funny if we bumped into each other and didn’t know it…

Two other observations: first, the Aaron Judge moment was classy, nice job by MSG, and second, the bootleg PA announcer made you realize how good Mike Walczewski is and how different the game is without him. It’s similar to watching a broadcast without Breen or Clyde.

Also, are the Knicks City Dancers not a thing anymore?

I have to say again, the sheer size of Mitch really stood out. He looked like a man among boys.

“If there was one thing that was disappointing yesterday, it was that the Knicks’ perimeter defense looked a little soft. It was only game one of the preseason and the game had a ragged pickup quality to it, but it seemed like the Pistons got off a lot of open looks from 3.”

Yeah, I noticed that too and remarked to my son about it during the game.

I’ll be honest, it’s hard for me to tell what “defending the 3” looks like any more. The Pistons took 41 3’s, the most taken of any team that played last night, only 1 of the 8 that played had less than 30 (Bulls had 27). It’s hard to know what a “contested 3 rate” should be on a good defensive team. The Pistons shot 31.7% so were they just missing? Were they taking 3’s from lower % spots? Were the wrong players taking them? Were they more geared towards stopping penetration by Cade and Ivey?

A defense is always going to give up something, so I couldn’t tell which open 3’s were more by design and which were about poor defense.

re: pace, I’d surely like to see us play more in transition, but not sure how that will affect our pace numbers relative to the rest of the league. I still expect us to be methodical in the half-court, far from a 7SoL kind of team. I’m more concerned with the kinds of shots we take in the halfcourt and the impact on efficiency. Ultimately there are only going to be so many transition opportunities against teams that know how to get back on D, and those games will come down to half-court execution. But we seem to be very capable of being a hard-nosed, in-shape, physical team with excellent bench depth. I see transition as more of a way to wear other teams’ starters down than a significant component of our starting unit’s scoring. The bench is another story!

GNYGNYG It’s more that being a top-20 player is a really high bar.
Jokic, Giannis, Luka, Embiid, Steph, Durant, Butler, Lillard, Tatum, LeBron, AD, Kawhi, PG13, Booker, Ja, Trae, Zion, KAT, Harden, Spida, Bam, Ingram, Siakam, Beal, Gobert, DeRozan…there’s just so many players to pass to even sniff the top 20. But if you look at the top 40, there is some lower hanging fruit to displace. Realistically, if both RJ and Randle are even in the top 60, that would be a very favorable outcome.

It’s important to keep in mind that both guys aren’t really paid like top-20 players not on rookie deals, so just playing to their contracts would be enough for me to be optimistic. Same with Brunson.

“a 3&D rebounder who can push the pace after a defensive board”

If this team wants to win in the 40’s, he needs to be significantly more than that. He has to be a medium-high usage player at medium-high efficiency.

I agree that somewhere in the mid-30s on 3’s is very important to achieving that goal. But he definitely has to be a volume scorer on this team, not just a 3-and-D guy. It’s really a question of whether he can become one at reasonable efficiency. Same with RJ. For better or worse, that’s the bed that Leon has made.

Apologize for the posting frenzy, it’s raining and I’m bored!

re: Julius, the most important thing I saw last night was that he seemed to accept not being the primary leader on the floor. He still went iso at times, but it was much more in the flow of the game. That’s what I hope to see consistently as the games start meaning something.

“I don’t think we are thinking that differently, but he can’t be forcing face-up, one-on-one moves or trying too many drive passes aside from kick-outs. He just isn’t that guy.

Randle is who he is at this point and that’s not a bad player, but he shouldn’t be a prominent ball handler. The one play where he got the ball at around 12 feet from the basket, did one power dribble, and faked his way to a basket should be his scoring pattern (aside from threes).”

It seems that we actually are thinking differently. I think he actually IS that guy, but just not THE guy. He needs to do many of the things he did both last year and the year before, just to a lesser and more cerebral degree.

And that is where Brunson comes in. He can score just as well and as often as Julius ever could, if not more. But if he did, defenses would tilt to stop him and he’d get swallowed up just as much as Julius did last year (and in the playoffs vs. ATL.) Brunson doesn’t really force the issue, he takes what the defense gives him and is great at recognizing points of leverage. When Julius does that, he’s a force. When he doesn’t, he’s pretty easy to defend.

For this team to win in the 40’s, I don’t expect Julius’s usage to drop into the very low 20’s. Maybe 26 or 27%, but no lower than that. I just expect that his shot profile will change. More transition buckets, more spot-ups, more drives to the basket in 1-on-1 situations, more FTs. I also expect that he will commit fewer turnovers. And I expect that he will be a more engaged defensive player. I’d like to see Thibs keep him down to 30-32 minutes or so, with less minutes on nights where Obi has it going.

“argue all you want, but the definition I use is all-NBA 2nd team”

In my book he was not a top-10 player that year, and probably not top-20. Regardless, it was a quirky year, and I think this year’s top-20 will be deeper than that year’s.

The larger point is, we are both hoping that he and RJ move significantly up the player ranking ladder. Top-40 is good enough for me!

“I have come to believe that there are a select group of elite players (Luka, Steph, Jokic, Prime Harden, Prime Westbrook) that can drastically improve looks for their teammates but most ball handlers are interchangeable. Gary Payton Jr., for one, will continue to be an elite perimeter defender but he’s going to see a huge drop in efficiency when he is taking jumpers instead of cutting on every other possession.”

While this is likely true, there’s a special level of shittiness to the Knicks’ lead guard (or point forward) situation, especially in the more recent few years. The works have been really gummed up.

Brunson is not one of those guys, but he is better than competent, in his prime, and understands winning basketball. He should help those guys a lot, if they let him. That’s a big if, but I am eager to find out how it plays out.

“I do agree that the Knicks PG situation was so putrid that Brunson might have a big impact on the shot quality for the others, I’m just not very confident that this improvement in the shots Randle and RJ are going to take is going to be significant enough to make a big difference in terms of their efficiency. In fact my expectation is that we’re going to be a better team precisely because Brunson will be taking shots away from them and he’s flat out better at converting them. And yes, I do hope Randle gets his shit together and accepts a lesser role that fits his skillset, but that’s something I’ll have to see before I believe it.”

Re: Randle, in 3 of his past 5 years, he’s put up TS%s of .606, .600 and .567, all on moderate to high usage. I understand that his shot profile was different in those good NOP and LAL years. In particular, both his % of shots taken at the rim and to a lesser degree his efficiency on those shots has fallen off. I disagree with TNFHs suspicion that it’s due to physical decline…in fact, he looks healthier and fitter than ever.

My point is that Randle’s efficiency is different for the several subsets of shots that he takes. If Brunson takes a random sample of the shots Randle was taking away from him, then yes, Randle’s efficiency likely won’t change much beyond a regression to the mean for his 3-pt shooting.

The hope is that Brunson not only redistributes shots away from Randle, but those shots largely come out of Randle’s least efficient shot type, for example, pull-up threes above the break, or contested fadaway 2’s from the left side.

Even better, Brunson might help Julius keep his usage in the high 20’s but with a more efficient shot distribution. This outcome would not result in less shots for Julius, just better ones. More open catch and shoot 3’s, or shots at the rim vs. the shitty contested 2’s and pull-up 3’s. That dunk on that runout is a good example of an opportunity to improve Randle’s efficiency. It certainly helps Obi!

I think the modest .567 TS% he put up in 2020-21 seems attainable for Randle even at higher usage if he redistributes his shot profile. At that number, and with a more positive attitude in a more cohesive starting unit, he can be a valuable (tradable?) player again.

The same is true for RJ, but being that he’s just 22 years old, I don’t feel that his shot profile is super-reliable yet. But Brunson might be helpful in funneling him in to better shooting and driving situations.

Hopefully Thibs will insist on these things.