[www.si.com] — Wednesday, October 5, 2022 10:20:03 PM
Jalen Brunson, Knicks Find Favor in NBA General Manager’s Survey Sports Illustrated
[nypost.com] — Wednesday, October 5, 2022 6:30:00 PM
Miles McBride’s defense could help him battle through Knicks roadblocks New York Post
[www.si.com] — Wednesday, October 5, 2022 5:30:25 PM
Mike Breen Thanks Walt Frazier, Knicks For ‘Unbelievable Kindness’ Sports Illustrated
[www.cbssports.com] — Wednesday, October 5, 2022 3:03:56 PM
Jeremy Lin says Knicks didn’t re-sign him due to ‘multiple points of opposition’ inside organization CBS Sports
[www.si.com] — Wednesday, October 5, 2022 3:00:31 PM
Knicks Preseason Win vs. Pistons: 3 Realistic, Reasonable Takeaways Sports Illustrated
[wvsportsnow.com] — Wednesday, October 5, 2022 1:43:55 PM
Knicks Fans Call More Minutes For Miles McBride During Preseason WV Sports Now
[www.sportskeeda.com] — Wednesday, October 5, 2022 12:11:55 PM
“You spoiled motherf**ker for making all this money”- Shaquille O’Neal recalls the lesson his father taught him following a poor outing against Knicks Sportskeeda
[www.sanluisobispo.com] — Wednesday, October 5, 2022 11:43:01 AM
Barrett leads Knicks to win over Detroit in Brunson’s debut San Luis Obispo Tribune
[nbaanalysis.net] — Wednesday, October 5, 2022 11:24:10 AM
NBA Rumors: This Knicks-Hornets Trade Features Mitchell Robinson NBA Analysis Network
[www.barstoolsports.com] — Wednesday, October 5, 2022 11:20:33 AM
It Took One Game To Confirm That Kourtney Kellar’s Gameday Routine Will Determine How Good The Knicks Are This Year Barstool Sports
[www.si.com] — Wednesday, October 5, 2022 11:11:31 AM
‘This is the Year!’: Eric Adams Up on Knicks, Addresses MSG Move Sports Illustrated
78 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2022.10.06)”
Adding to yesterday’s breakdown of the Pistons game: Like all here (and Leon obvs), I pray Brunson improves Randle’s and RJ’s efficiency by a lot and would like to keep track of the stats to prove it. Agree with Jowles that Brunson is not in the Steph class of championship game-changers, but just having a real offense should make things so much easier for us, even if it shows up mostly against terrible teams like Detroit. If Z is right that many of Randle’s misses are of the “I guess I better shoot b/c there’s no other plan” variety, then even Julius should want to cut those down. As for RJ, honestly, he looked good against Detroit (eye test) and his numbers kind of backed it up, right? Baby steps. +1 for Hart plus Randle on the floor.
Since I’m up early, assigned myself as driver of the Deuce Bandwagon, and noticed the story above on him, I’ll weigh in and disagree with Z–Man (!) on his saying he’s not worried about Deuce’s shot.
I was like that for most of last year, after the summer league and pre-season where he was pretty much shot-for-shot with Grimes. And I did try to placate myself over the season with Thibs’ nightmare “Go play for 1.5 minutes in the corner and if the ball happens to come to you you’ll have one chance to shoot it” use of the poor guy. If it was me I’d be wound tighter than a spring. And his G-League games said something different.
I’m a little worried now. Having said that, I’m hoping that Brunson can be a model for Deuce — they’re basically the same size and shape, and neither have real hops or speed. If Deuce can study (and hopefully be mentored by) Brunson’s game, there’s real hope he could turn into a solid pro on O.
I think the reason for the decline in Randle’s work around the hoop is a guy named Mitchell Robinson. Mitch’s inability to operate far from the dunker’s spot on offense has really limited Randle’s ability to get down low the way he did in previous stops. Katz and others have talked about this, which is one of the reasons I hope Thibs finds ways to play Julius and iHart together.
I still can’t believe that the Mets won 101 games and didn’t win their division. That fucking sucks.
BTW my/our guy IQ was 1/4 from three and 2/4 from the line. Ummm … wtf?
Yu Darvish is 8-0 lifetime vs. Los Mets, including 2-0 this season. Mets going with Mad Max against him. Even if they eke by the Padres, cannot see them beating the Dodgers, who can throw three very good lefties against them( especially with Marte out).
“I think the reason for the decline in Randle’s work around the hoop is a guy named Mitchell Robinson. Mitch’s inability to operate far from the dunker’s spot on offense has really limited Randle’s ability to get down low the way he did in previous stops. Katz and others have talked about this, which is one of the reasons I hope Thibs finds ways to play Julius and iHart together.”
Since Mitch is the best offensive rebounder in the league, and one of the best lob targets, I’d be curious to learn if it was a wash or even better in terms of PPP outcomes. There are several ways to mitigate the spacing issue…more PnR action, Julius making better reads out of double-teams, or just deferring to other players when the drive isn’t there rather than dribbling the air out of the ball and putting your head down.
In other words, if Hart is hanging out at the three pt line, I’m not sure that it is necessarily going to generate more PPP overall that can’t be generated by minor spacing adjustments and different sets with Mitch in there. Just wondering on my part, because I honestly don’t see a world where Thibs doesn’t pair Mitch and Julius for the bulk of Mitch’s time.
“Bo Nateman says:
October 6, 2022 at 09:31
Yu Darvish is 8-0 lifetime vs. Los Mets, including 2-0 this season. Mets going with Mad Max against him. Even if they eke by the Padres, cannot see them beating the Dodgers, who can throw three very good lefties against them( especially with Marte out).”
I can’t believe that a non-displaced fracture of a finger is taking so long to heal. Can’t they nuke that up with a numbing agent or something?
Zach Lowe on the Knicks from his recent column.
I think Macri’s assesment is spot on. The team is deep with productive, if not great players. But we’ve got a lot of dudes that would be the 4th or 5th best player on a good team and maybe Brunson/RJ/Randle can make that jump to the 3rd best player on a good team or even the second. And if two of them make that jump while the rest of the team plays their roles well and Thibs relies on a 10 man rotation where the starters get less minutes but everyone plays balls out when they’re on the court, we could be pretty good.
I think there’s a lot of players on this team looking to prove themselves. Randle wants to bounce back. RJ feels overlooked by the league. Mitch wants to prove his contract was worth it. Brunson wants to prove he can be the starting point guard on a good team. Rose wants to bounce back after injuries. IQ and Obi want more minutes, etc. And so many of the players from last season want to prove they’re better than what transpired last year.
So I think we can be pretty good, at least in the regular season. I think we can beat up on the bad teams, catch good teams on off nights, beat teams with our depth, etc.
Really our starters just need to be better than last year and play even with other team’s starters. Our bench should be better than a lot of team’s benches. And Brunson will help in close, end of the game situations.
I’m not going to board the hype train without some real evidence. Preseason is pretty meaningless. We went 4-0 last year and still sucked.
I’m just very happy with the changes to the roster. We ditched a totally washed up former star PG, a journeyman vet wing, and a no-hands walking injury big, and replaced them with an exciting and brilliant young PG and a healthy, skilled and cerebral young shot-blocking big, and more minutes for our rookie contract guards and wings.
The losing season put some heat under Thibs’ seat.
Julius and RJ are hungry for redemption.
Rose might just stay healthy for 50+ games, but miss enough to give Deuce enough opportunities to get as comfortable shooting the ball as he seems down in the G-League.
Mitch finally seems to be going into the season as a bigger, smarter version of his rookie self, locked up and healthy.
IQ is making strides attacking the rim, and hopefully can shoot more consistently relative to the first half of last year when he was distracted by adapting the lead guard position.
I’m not expecting much improvement from Obi, Grimes, and Fournier…any upside there would be gravy for me. But even a repeat their numbers from last year, with more minutes for Obi and Grimes, would be fine by me.
So even though I still don’t see us winning much more than 40 games, it should be a very fun young team to watch that will beat some very good teams at home and be in most games until the end.
@walkerandbendercornerstones:
That’s exactly how I view this team. Let’s remember the following:
First, Randle was top-10 two years ago. Second, Mitch is the best offensive rebounder in the game and one of the best shot blockers in the game. He had the highest FG% in the NBA in 2019-20.
Those are facts that can’t be forgotten. This is a team that fell apart last season because it did not have a point guard. Kemba was a disaster and Rose got hurt. Thibs relied on Burks. How much did that hurt Randle and RJ? I think a lot. It’s not Burks fault. That’s wasn’t the role he should have played.
Brunson looks like the real deal. He’s a true point guard. It’s ironic that there’s a link to the Macri interview with Jeremy Lin up top. Watching Brunson the other night reminded me of the way Lin played. Offensively he attacked the basket and was able to pull up from 3. Where he looks better is commands the court. Brunson can distribute and manage the pace.
The attention that Brunson demands will help every Knick on the floor. If he and Rose can stay healthy, I can see this team doing something special.
I think there’s a lot of players on this team looking to prove themselves. Randle wants to bounce back. RJ feels overlooked by the league.
Yes we are deep, yes there are lots of players who can improve, but head and shoulders above anything else are 2 things: RJ has got to get better and Thibs has got to figure out how to make Julius fit in. I am hopeful about the first, but worried about the second as both Julius and Thibs would have to evolve.
Randle was 100% not top 10 two years ago.
Yeah, Randle was great two years ago, but he made second team All NBA because forward was a bit thin that year. The nature of it having to match positions, as opposed to it being players 1-5, then players 6-10, then 11-15, helped him. (Though he probably would have made third team even under that kind of system.)
Here are the Knicks biggest minutes-getters at PG for the last 8 years:
2014-15: Shane Larkin, Langston Galloway, Jose Calderon (a dash of Prigs)
2015-16: Langston Galloway, Jose Calderon
2016-17: Derrick Rose 1.0, Brandon Jennings, Ron Baker
2017-18: Frank Ntilikina, Jarrett Jack, 1200 minutes of Trey Burke and Emmanuel Mudiay
2018-19: Emmanuel Mudiay, Frank Ntilikina, Trey Burke, Dennis Smith Jr.
2019-20: Elfrid Payton, Frank Ntilikina, Dennis Smith Jr.
2020-21: Elfrid Payton, Derrick Rose 2.0, around 700 minutes of rookie Immanuel Quickley
2021-22: Alec Burks, Kemba Walker, Immanuel Quickley, 600 minutes of Derrick Rose
What a shitshow. Haven’t we suffered long enough?
If there’s one silver lining to the Mets winning the WC instead of the division, it’s that it will be easier to win 3 of 5 from the Dodgers than it would have been to win 4 of 7. That is, of course, if the Mets manage to get past the Padres.
Yu Darvish is giving me Mike Scott vibes
Despite all of the team positives/potentials expressed here, I can’t help but think, unfortunately, that Rose is simply positioning the team as middle-of-the-road pseudo-contender for years to come.
I’m not trying to flip to the pessimist’s team per se, but it’s really starting to sink in that both a deep playoff run AND a shot at Wemby are off the table with this team (very very low odds at best).
Can we still enjoy a productive season? Of course. And I won’t revisit how most of us would prefer to build a team through the draft a la OKC. But as a fan, it’s just… a daunting place to be.
So ess, what is the next step in improving this rotation?
I think the front office was on the right track and essentially saying that the guy that should be replaced first is Fournier. I know many consider Randle to be the weak link, but to me, that depends on his role. He’s actually a well above average power forward if he isn’t a number one or number two option.
So I think the next step for this team is to try to acquire a two way larger shooting guard or small wing that can really bend a difference. That might cost assets, but that would be my main priority. I honestly don’t think that Donovan Mitchell was that guy. Someone like Jaylen Brown, Kris Middleton, Jimmy Butler. Maybe they think that Grimes is that guy, or RJ if he pops. But that’s what I see as our biggest need.
^Bend a defense
As you know you’re preaching to the choir ess-dog. I won’t belabor the point but what it comes down to is this: at some point Leon Rose is going to have to take a risk, and probably a pretty big one.
There’s one path to contention that comes *relatively* risk-free, and that’s the Hinkie/Presti approach. We’re not doing that, so the only remaining paths inherently involve a lot of risk.
Most of Rose’s moves so far have been of the low-risk variety (Randle’s extension seemed to fit this description at the time even though it blew up in his face in hindsight). That’s all well and good and there’s plenty of room for those kinds of moves on the path to contention, but the thing about low-risk moves is they usually (not always) also have a commensurately low-reward.
Rose wasn’t 100% comfortable with the amount of risk involved in a Mitchell deal (I think he *was* more comfortable with it than some people seem to think, hence all the whining about us not being given a chance to match the offer), and that’s totally fair.
What’s not realistic is the idea that we’ll be able to bunt single our way to contention. People can shout “we have all of our picks” from the rooftops, but things like that are supposed to be a means to an end, with that end being contention. Rose is gonna have to put his job in the hands of a particular move or moves at some point, and given the way contracts work in the NBA it’s not realistic to think he can take as much time as he wants to identify the moves in question.
Hopefully, but San Diego did play pretty well against us this year. Outscored us 36-23 and won the season series 4-2. And Yu Darvish owns us for some reason.
‘There’s one path to contention that comes *relatively* risk-free’
Two topics I hate are tank and path arguments, but it’s a slow morning here, so I’ll just accent your star treatment there. At least half the drafts have a bum even just in the top three, whether it’s Okafor or Fultz or Bagley (or, heh, Barrett), regardless of whether it’s skill set or drive or injury. Plus, of course, it’s super risky for the people in charge, who are likely to get fired because losing, which is a lousy career path.
Not advocating for the path we find ourselves in, which is a rather mysterious one in the deep dark woods that might just end at a cliff or in a swamp, but I’m very much in the ‘is what it is now, let’s see if this season is fun’ camp.
“ So I think the next step for this team is to try to acquire a two way larger shooting guard or small wing that can really bend a difference.”
Yeah that sounds like Amen Thompson unfortunately lol.
If you pick a bum at the top of the draft, you’ll be bad again and get another chance to pick at the top of the draft. Rinse and repeat. You can do this for as long as team ownership allows.
“Plus, of course, it’s super risky for the people in charge, who are likely to get fired because losing, which is a lousy career path.”
Yeah, I meant “risk” in the context of long-term damage to the team’s flexibility and the like. If you want to avoid those risks, tanking is pretty much the only game in town (outside of now defunct scenarios like signing LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, and Chris Bosh in unrestricted free agency).
You’re not wrong. But this is the New York Knicks we’re talking about. This is a team that has had a losing record in 17 out of the last 21 seasons. That is an astonishing record of incompetence.
If the team has a losing record for four straight years, NOBODY WILL NOTICE. It would be business as usual. It just amazes me that we get all of the losing, all of the pointless basketball, all of the irrelevance, but none of the upside.
Let’s keep doing that though!
“What a shitshow. Haven’t we suffered long enough?”
Shit show is an understatement.
I think the difference between good PG play and bad PG play is a bit greater than the difference in stats you see in the boxscore between the two players. IMO running the offense properly adds value that accrues to other players statistically. Some of that is in the assists, but there’s more going on than that.
That’s why I wasn’t so down last year and am more optimistic this year.
As bad a Payton was in some ways, at least he was a real PG. Last year we had no PG and took a huge step back defensively any time Kemba was on the court on top of it. Brunson is a million miles ahead of Payton and light years ahead of last year’s debacle. It’s a massive jump in value.
Add to that any net development from our huge number of young players and we should have a pretty competitive club.
The one downside is the loss of the Burks.
I know almost everyone here is glad he’s gone because he reached puberty quite awhile ago (haha), but he’s a GOOD player. Granted, it was joke to play him at PG, but that’s not his fault. Quick is not really a PG either. Setting the PG stuff aside, he hit 40% of his 3s, defended well, played smart, and made some big shots. He added some wins last year. I assume Grimes and Quick will get most of his minutes. They are going to have play better than last year to equal what Burks did.
(Randle’s extension seemed to fit this description at the time even though it blew up in his face in hindsight).
Randle has not yet played a single regular season second on his extension. So “blew up in his face in hindsight” is hardly applicable, unless you consider the ability to trade him in an asset-neutral deal at this very moment.
I understand the harsh criticism of the way Randle played and acted last season, it is very much deserved. I also understand those who don’t want him on this team because they just don’t like his game, even when he plays well.
But you and others have suggested that he’s a broken down version of his LAL/NOP who can’t get to the rim due to irreversable physical decline, and/or that he’s an irredemable head case who will never accept an appropriate role for his size/skill/athleticism package on a team with a legit PG, and/or that his 3pt shot is broken and unfixable, and/or that his contract is and will continue to be the worst contract in the NBA.
If that’s not a correct characterization, is it fair to say that you have pretty much definitively stated that the odds of him playing up to his (nowhere near max) contract are very low?
I truly don’t see how anyone can say any of these things with any level of confidence about a 27yo in obviously top physical condition who has played at or above his contract for 3 of the last 5 years.
To be clear, I am not saying that Randle will definitely, or even probably, turn things around. I just wouldn’t want any part of betting against it. And I think E had a point in saying “If you feel so strongly about something, would you put your money behind it?” Would you lay 3-1 odds against Randle receiving considerable all-star attention in the next 2 years? Or RJ?
This is a team that has had a losing record in 17 out of the last 21 seasons.
The fallacy with this statement is that we haven’t had the same GM for 21 years. If we had the same GM for 21 years then, yes, of course, why the hell didn’t we tank for just like 4 or 5 years to get a bunch of top picks and do a full rebuild from the ground up.
But we’ve had like 10 GM’s in that time. None of them give a shit about how bad their predecessor did. They’re starting from day one and the clock is ticking for them to get better. Add to that, the more years the team is bad, the more pressure there is on a new GM to right the ship because the fans have been suffering for so long.
Leon is going into his 3rd season. Not his 5th or 6th, his 3rd. There’s a weird disconnect where people who want us to tank for multiple years would be patient with a 5 year tank job but are impatient with a not even 3 year hybrid approach. Like if we had the same number of young players on this team right now but more of them were top 5 picks and we had a worse record overall, you’d be more optimistic about the future than you are now?
Do we really have to have this dumb ass rebuild debate every day?
There are advantages and disadvantages to every approach to rebuilding. They vary slightly by market, but there’s not much difference except when a team is obviously old, has no flexibility, and the window is shut. Then you have to blow it up.
The data is out there. It has been studied by a lot of people.
Saying the same nonsense every day because you would have preferred a different approach is not going to change the probabilities.
What will change them significantly is the competence of the people pulling the strings.
We will be successful or unsuccessful based on how well we draft, manage our cap, evaluate players and their fit when we make trades or sign free agents, and how “lucky” or “unlucky” we are. Luck is also a factor.
If you think Rose, his management team, and Thibs suck at those things, well that’s a reason to think we’ll fail. But you have to think in the terms they are thinking (not in the terms you want) and decide if they made a good move to achieve THEIR goals.
Was signing Brunson to that big salary a good idea given what they are trying to accomplish?
How about Hart?
How about passing on Mitchell at the price even though he might have been the scorer the team needs?
What about rolling out picks for future options and flexibility or using picks to move vets?
BUT AGAIN, NOT IN TERMS OF WHAT YOU WANT THEM TO DO, BUT IN TERMS OF WHAT THEY ARE TRYING TO ACCOMPLISH.
walkerandbendercornerstones,
The last paragraph of your last post nailed the patience/impatience issue.
IMO, even 5 years is not enough of an assumption these days when you start from zero given the players’ ages unless you are very lucky. Then, you still have to worry about some of those guys wanting to get paid and leaving. A lot of the superstars that go on to win championships don’t win them with the team that originally drafted them. That’s an underappreciated risk.
Who did a better job than OKC drafting Durant, Harden and Westbrook?
It’s it virtually impossible to be more competent and lucky in combination, but they all left for various reasons.
“If the team has a losing record for four straight years, NOBODY WILL NOTICE. It would be business as usual.”
Come on, JK, you know this isn’t true. NY is the media capital of the universe. No one notices it when MIN drafts KAT at #1 after 100 years of losing and then goes on to lose for 100 more until they land Anthony Edwards. The Knicks had a winning season in 2020-21 and folks were shutting down 7th avenue dancing in the streets, and are now ready to jump off a bridge and hand Leon and Thibs because they regressed to, god help them, 37 wins.
By winning for one measly season, they pulled the rug out from under the upstart Brooklyn Nets who had to have promotions to sell playoff tickets despite building a contender….without tanking for 4 years, I might add. Tanking for years after they landed KD and Kyrie would risked a major shift in the young fan base. For better or worse, it just wasn’t going to happen…certainly not on Dolan’s watch. But if it did, people would definitely have noticed.
“Leon is going into his 3rd season.”
And he is still less than 2 years out from his first roster transaction.
If we had done a proper rebuild, we wouldn’t have the same number of young players on the team. We’d have MORE young players, and MORE quality future draft picks. And we’d probably have BETTER young players too, because we would have been selecting higher, when better players tend to be available.
That’s the whole idea of doing a rebuild. This seems like something I should not have to explain, yet here we are.
“Tanking takes too long”
“You gotta give the hybrid method at least five years to see if it’s working”
#ShootMe
“There’s a weird disconnect where people who want us to tank for multiple years would be patient with a 5 year tank job but are impatient with a not even 3 year hybrid approach. Like if we had the same number of young players on this team right now but more of them were top 5 picks and we had a worse record overall, you’d be more optimistic about the future than you are now?”
Guess I’ll just keep repeating this.
Peoples’ objections to the Rose regime have nothing to do with time. The primary objection is that there doesn’t seem to be a plan to get us to contention, independent of any time considerations.
Shorter version: we don’t think it’s taking Leon Rose too long to build a contender, we think Leon Rose is not building a contender period.
As for whether we’d be more optimistic if the Knicks were worse, maybe! Did you see that Wemby/Scoot game? A 25% chance at one of those guys may well be a more promising path to contention than whatever we’re doing, sorry if that offends.
“If we had done a proper rebuild, we wouldn’t have the same number of young players on the team. We’d have MORE young players, and MORE quality future draft picks. And we’d probably have BETTER young players too, because we would have been selecting higher, when better players tend to be available.
That’s the whole idea of doing a rebuild. This seems like something I should not have to explain, yet here we are.”
This is absolutely true. Unless of course your FO thinks that Marvin Bagley III is a better draft pick than Luka Doncic.
But again, it just has no possibility of happening while Dolan is in charge. So what’s the least worst alternative? Probably something like what we’re seeing right now, an incremental hybrid rebuild i.e one without prematurely going all in on a faux star. Can you at least agree with that?
(on the methodology, not the blow-by-blow execution)
Look, I know that if you come into an interview with James Dolan and tell him “We’re going to trade every veteran on the roster for draft picks, acquire as much draft capital as possible and do a patient, sustainable rebuild,” he’s going to have you forcibly removed from his office. I’m aware of the constraints Rose is operating under.
He seems to be pretty good at keeping his job. He has still managed to avoid making obvious guffaw-inducing blunders, even if he has made some mistakes. The Knicks are a pretty stable .500-ish team and probably won’t completely collapse into bottom feeder status anyrime soon. We’re probably due for an era of some mildly exciting basketball. Maybe we’ll catch some breaks and do even a bit better than that.
I do expect Myles Turner to force the brakes on our paint-heavy offense expectations
A 25% chance at one of those guys
Hey boss. I’m not going to worry about these smaller clients that are a sure thing because there’s a 25 percent chance I could land this bigger client.
You’re fired.
25 percent chance. So a 75 percent chance of failing?
walkerandbendercornerstones — who is this poster
I mean he
I mean hey, league rules could change in a variety of ways. After this year, maybe the league will clamp down even more on tanking the way it did with free agency? Or maybe they will make it easier/more lucrative for vets to switch teams in free agency?
Even if the odds were to tilt ever so slightly, that could be enough for Leon’s approach to become a perfect fit.
I don’t think that getting Jaden Ivey or Bennedict Mathurin in last summer’s draft is rightly denominated a “failure.”
“The Honorable Cock Jowles says:
October 6, 2022 at 15:57
walkerandbendercornerstones — who is this poster”
think bizarro dawdlingandscarce
I definitely wasn’t saying tanking in general carries an exactly 25% success rate. There would be no way to calculate such a thing.
I was saying, in response to your specific question, that giving yourself a small chance someone like Wemby/Scoot is in fact a clearer path to contention than putting together a .500 team and hoping to get lucky in some unspecified way.
Maybe save the snark for when the great Leon Rose puts together a team that wins one (1) playoff series.
Does winning a round in the play-in tournament count? Cuz I got me a pile o’ snark I’d like to unload…
The play-in tournament is rather like the holiday kiddie table, no?
If you tank your way to one of the 3 worst records (getting the worst one is a real art form) your most likely outcome is drafting 4-6.
If you look at the 7 drafts from 2015-2021, only about 14 players out of 42 in the top 6 are already difference-makers, or on their way to being one. The majority of those were in the top 3. Yet the majority of the 21 players in the top-3 were NOT difference-makers, or don’t look to be.
So via tanking with the flattened odds, you not only have to be lucky enough to be in the top-3, you have to pick the right player.
And even if you hit, you STILL have to build a team around the stars you draft. KAT is still waiting to get out of the first round after 7 years. Simmons self-imploded without getting past the conference semi’s. OKC, ORL, SAC, DET, HOU all seem a loooong way away. If UTA winds up picking 5th in this draft, I suppose they can package all of their future picks from Minny and Cleveland to move up, but then what?
It just isn’t a sellable strategy for a GM to take at MSG. Ultimately it is the most safe, but it’s not foolproof and you’d better not miss.
Can we identify a Danny Ainge 2.0 that may decide to tank after watching Victor and Scoot the other night?
“It just isn’t a sellable strategy for a GM to take at MSG.”
I think this is obvious to most of us. Toronto is proof that it’s not *impossible* to build a contending team with low draft picks, and frankly, we’ve had bad luck as an organization in the past.
I didn’t mean to reignite the tanking debate. It’s just that it does feel as if the Knicks are destined for no man’s land, for this season at least. But team-altering trades will present themselves again, hopefully sooner rather than later. I’m not totally disheartened. It’s just that their target player is an unknown right now. It isn’t Wemby or Scoot, and guys like Tatum or Zion aren’t forcing their way to NYC like players might have done 10 years ago.
I don’t know why everyone is worried, we’ll get Wembayana when he’s 35 and coming off back surgery and tearing both ACLs
Look at how tall Victor is next to Gobert! https://twitter.com/DanWoikeSports/status/1578134552173637632
The team is the most valuable franchise in the league. Buy some stock and enjoy the ride! To be arguing about tanking at this point in the Rose regime is nuts.
“I don’t know why everyone is worried, we’ll get Wembayana when he’s 35 and coming off back surgery and tearing both ACLs”
…and he’ll still be our best player…
No man’s land.
How can a team with 90 percent of its players under age 25 and all of their picks that wins 42 to 48 games be in no man’s land?
That could only be the case if you believe RJ, Mitch, Brunson, IQ, OBI, Grimes, and Hart will never get any better beyond where they are this season. And that Rokas and all of our future picks will all flame out and/or we will never be able to execute a trade to get a good player to add to the mix.
I just don’t see that as possible.
Frankly, if we suck and only win 20 games but end up with a high lottery pick I would be way more concerned about the future of this team bc while we would draft a potentially really good player sucking that bad would mean that all of our current young players sucked this year.
Also can we pump the brakes on declaring Wemba a hall of famer? He’s played zero games in the NBA.
Speaking of pumping the brakes, maybe we should pump the brakes on us winning between 42-48 games? We finished under .500 and there’s a definite change we do that again this year.
Well we did kick the Pistons’ asses in preseason so mid-40s is pretty much a lock…
Sure we could only win like 30 games. My point is just that 42ish wins when a team is all young players for the most part and has all their picks plus some extra ones is in no way in no man’s land.
A team that only wins 30 games or 20 games is in way worse shape. It doesn’t matter how many high lottery picks they have on their team bc even high lottery picks flame out or leave shitty teams for better teams.
@ThisChicanery:
@Alan
The point I was making is that Randle was a true superstar, an elite player, in 2020-21. You don’t buy top 10? Then top 15.
@JK47
I don’t buy this. We already have 3 kids that will have trouble finding minutes: Deuce, Sims and Cam. We have to many picks. There’s no place for those picks on this roster unless we trade. The team is loaded with tradable assets and it needs to turn into elite additions.
@gkhenman: The tanking versus rebuild on the fly debate is like the late night shows resident band. It’s always here. 😛 The other debates are the guest bands, and they come and go. 😀
If someone finds a futures market for the French national team in the next Olympics, let me know
signed up for nba league pass trial subscription today, cuz i thought it was the 7th…
kept hitting the play feature on the game over and over…for the life of me i couldn’t understand why it kept listing the game as: upcoming…
yeah, interesting to think of the team in terms of long term contention…i can’t even get the day right…
Timberwolves-Mavericks later tonight might be interesting.
I was so bored of the Miami-New Jersey (yeah, I said it) game I switched to a bad movie. However, in the few minutes of watching, I noticed both teams had players other than the guy with the ball moving around in their half-court sets. Is that actually a thing?
So root for Green Bay or New England?
Green Bay’s got that egalitarian ownership thing, while New England ownership is deeply satanic. But Green Bay’s quarterback is a huge tool, while New England got rid of their huge tool quarterback. New England is in New England which is a plus, but it still has that troll Bellichick. Plus rooting for them is now like rooting for the Yankees (sorry Yankee fans).
If Jowles were still arguing he’d probably argue to stop watching the effing NFL because the whole thing is evil. And he’d be right.
I noticed that our first two preseason games are against Detroit and Indiana, while the Nets play Philadelphia and Miami in their first two preseason games. Seems like a very different philosophy for vetoing ready for the season. Although this could be the choices of our respective opponents too.
Did I already say that Embiid is playing for France in 24? They will be nasty.
Randle got the recognition he got because he played a ton of minutes and put up some robust per game and total numbers. I don’t think he would have been on anyones top 20 list of players you want in the playoffs.
It’s too early in the hype cycle to raise doubts about VW and in the spirit of that I am going to wait till game 20 to remind everyone how I feel about the Knicks right now.
@cyber Good one.
Is it me or have some people disappeared after one preseason win?
We haven’t finished over .500 for consecutive years since 2012-13 so a little stretch of mediocrity would be a huge improvement for this shitshow of a franchise.
The NFL did with football and head injuries what the tobacco industry did with smoking and cancer. Yeah, I’m good on that.
The last paragraphs are good shit
https://nypost.com/2022/10/06/mitchell-robinson-poised-for-big-knicks-season/
ugh, don’t wanna do it, do wanna jinx the young fellow…
was watching him in some exhibition game against the g-league today – considering his enormous height, his limbs and torso all look pretty well proportioned…
he really moved smoothly for a person that size…i think he has a good shot at staying healthy…
yeah, they tried to make lung cancer traumatic brain injury look sexy, and very very masculine…cut to the chase – eat asbestos tacos and beat your head against the wall…
in less than a generation they’ll both probably be illegal…
“pepper says:
October 6, 2022 at 22:47
The last paragraphs are good shit
https://nypost.com/2022/10/06/mitchell-robinson-poised-for-big-knicks-season/”
I know I can be a bit hyperbolic from time to time, but I truly mean this.
I’ve been to hundreds of games at MSG since the late ’60s, almost always with lower bowl tickets. I’ve seen virtually every great big from Wilt to Kareem to Shaq to David to Hakeem to the more recent guys, up close and personal.
Speaking just physically, the Mitch I saw on Tuesday was one of the most impressive physical specimens I’ve ever seen at MSG.
He’s NOT the same guy I saw for the past 4 years. Nobody is gonna push him around. Not Gobert, not Adams, not Drummond…nobody.