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2022-23 Game Thread: Knicks @ Suns

Early Sunday games are total crapshoots, as you never know who partied too hard the night before, so the Knicks could totally steal a win here in Phoenix.

Let’s go, Knicks!

214 replies on “2022-23 Game Thread: Knicks @ Suns”

Between the Giants and my Miami Hurricanes badly losing a game that would’ve clinched a ranking I’m in a bad mood. Hope RJ Barrett doesn’t make it worse.

Grimes Grimes!

The Jets’ defense is keeping us in the game, but their offense is awfu and now has the ball on their own 5.

Sims!!!!!! Obi bounce back? RJ?

I like Monica McNutt. Has she ever done color commentary with Breen? Should she?

My “bets” tonight
RJ 5/8 3pointers
Randle triple double
Sims dunking in Ayton’s face
Brunson 19p/9a/5r

I can’t tell if iHart is playing really well or really badly. At least he’s active.

I like Monica McNutt. Has she ever done color commentary with Breen? Should she?

Of course she should, she is funny and that’s a much better transition from Clyde than the boring Wally.

“I can’t tell if iHart is playing really well or really badly. At least he’s active.”

This season Hart has taken over from Mitch as the early foul master. Lots of those are on stupid screens, too. Nonsense.

Mitch just fouled on a made 3pt shot. Is Sims our best center now 😉

So we’re still late and don’t prevent the 3P, but now we add a foul to the play? Oof.

Great start guys!
I’m hearing the italian broadcast and the announcers are trashing:
– Our offense
– Randle’s defense
– RJ Barrett

My wife can’t understand why I’m laughing so hard… 🙂

Stuck on the Suns network. They just did a really nice appreciation piece for the Native American tribes in the Phoenix area.

“RJ, wide open corner… CLANG”

Also looked like Obi could have taken it to the hoop there. Worrying that he did not.

Barrett can’t hold dorozan..Wiggins or levines collective jock straps…guy is useless…

Funny that RJ didn’t shoot the full court shot at the buzzer. I thought he didn’t care about efficiency.

Can’t believe we ended the 1st quarter behind in rebounding by only 16-13. Feels like 25-5.

Damn, tough for the Jets to lose on a punt return late in the 4th quarter. Hopefully the Knicks can save my day.

Suns announcers are amazed at how bad Barrett’s been playing.

It’s not just us.

Suns announcers are amazed at how bad Barrett’s been playing. It’s not just us.

Let’s hope not all GMs are seeing it 😉

Barrett now leading the team in minutes for this game. Despite playing like my cat’s ass. Again.

Owen,

“Strat – Raw ts% has moved a ton over the years and TS+ isn’t available.”

We don’t need surgical precision for something like this.

The main issue with RJ is shooting and scoring efficiency.

What we want to find out is how much a players TS% is likely to improve from 22 to his peak.

“Obi’s last few games have been awful.”

Yeah, that’s a sad truth I’m doing my best to ignore.

We just don’t get enough easy shots. Part of the problem I think is that this is a poor screen setting team. It’s rare that you see a Knick set a good solid screen and create some space for a ballhandler.

The whole team is missing bunnies. It’s like a myxomatosis epidemic.

Thibs: “We’re getting too close, let’s put RJ back in”
I think he wants Wemby! 😛

There’s going to come a point where either RJ is going to break out of this slump and start playing better (like he has after other streaks like this in prior seasons) or Thibs is going to come under pressure to make some kind of change. The “he’s young and we have to let him develop” excuse is wearing thin among fans and blog, beat, and newsletter writers. He is young and will get better, but he’s losing us games NOW when he’s playing this many minutes and his best is simply not good enough to warrant big minutes anyway. Grimes and Cam are better and arguably the net of Fournier’s better offense and worse defense is at least close.

“Mikal was my choice in 2018 instead of Knox, and that draft also haunts me”

Bridges is impressive, but Knox does hold the active record for most consecutive three on three scrimmages played.

“Knox over Bridges was a bigger blunder than Obi over Hali…”

I was gonna call you Captain Obvious, but Obi is insisting on making a game of it…

The starting lineup should be Mitch, Randle, Cam, Grimes, and Brunson if we actually want to win games.

I’m starting to like Randle’s new game, so obviously he’ll regress hard on the 2nd half

Even when Grimes misses a 3 he barely misses. His defense is better than RJ’s. He moves the ball better than RJ. He HAS TO start. Then we just have to convince Thibs that Cam is better than RJ and has more upside also (which imo he is and does)

If Grimes has been capable of this for a few weeks WHAT THE FUCK WERE WE DOING THIS WHOLE TIME

My guess is Booker will be very aggressive to start the second half- should a good test for Grimes.

I used to think Grimes was an excellent swing passer. Thinking about it now, it might just be that nobody else on the team swings the ball

re Games injury, I thought plantar fasciitis was ruled out, but Wally did ten minutes on it early in the game, so …?

If Grimes has been capable of this for a few weeks WHAT THE FUCK WERE WE DOING THIS WHOLE TIME

Force-feeding shots & minutes to the worst player in the league

“Knox over Bridges was a bigger blunder than Obi over Hali…”

More importantly, if we got those two fairly “obvious” picks right, we’d be a MUCH better team.

Grimes looking like what we thought RJ would be

Sadly, RJ is playing like I thought RJ would when we drafted him which just makes everything that much more frustrating.

JK said it earlier, when the Suns score its on open 3’s and dunks, when we try to score its a massive struggle

Ah, the Randle jump-pass. I missed it. Although it was not so long ago…

Randle should be sat for the rest of the game, he literally hasn’t been trying

I think we can safely cross Julius Randle off of the list of power forwards Phoenix might try to acquire.

Deuce, two points, two fouls, and an award for best impersonation of a dandelion.

>This should be our starting unit. Brunson, IQ, Grimes, Randle, Mitch<

Those are probably our 5 best players, but it's too small. I think you need Cam in there for his length.

50-26 in the second half. Poor offensive execution leading to transition offense, and an avalanche of open 3’s on the other end.

None of this works. You could probably make a couple of tweaks and turn this into one of the tankiest teams in the league if you wanted.

I know Obi didn’t give us anything on O the last 2 games but at least he’s terrible on D…

The fact that I’d rather watch the kids out there now than the guys who started the game, even though it was close to start and now it’s a 22 point game, says a lot.

“Those are probably our 5 best players, but it’s too small. I think you need Cam in there for his length.”

They were playing well together at the time. Got it down to 10 😉

>I know Obi didn’t give us anything on O the last 2 games but at least he’s terrible on D…<

This is the kind of stuff that let's you know he's not a starter over Randle. That's not a defense of Randle, but Obi is going to get shut down a lot against starting units that game plan against him at all.

Miles making a serious case for taking RJ’s minutes…

Well okay, Rose’s minutes if he’s out for a while with that toe.

But Deuce haters, take a seat.

So it was “lay an egg” Sunday for New York’s team…

Let’s put the record aside for a moment…

We met both the Warriors and the Suns in a bit of troubles and we were never in the game both times…
A lot of players looking like shells of themselves (RJ, Obi, Hart, Fournier).
Wins are mostly hard fought games, losses are mostly uncontested.
Something feels wrong.

Everyone in Arizona gets a free burger from Carl’s Jr. tomorrow thanks to the Knicks 3pt D.

Deuce looks much more comfortable today than he has in the past. He’s ready for some kind of role, but he’s not a PG. Given I don’t think Quickly is a real PG either we still have issues at that position, especially if we trade Rose. I way prefer Quick off the ball.

Cyber, 29% from 3 for the Knicks, 45% from 3 for the Suns.

Plus we killed bunny after bunny at the rim.

Speaking of such, Hart owed Deuce for blowing that assist with the weak sauce non-dunk.

The Knicks really need to clean house. They may even make the playoffs this year as an 8 seed, especially if RJ sits or gets hot, but they’re clearly going nowhere long term with this core. We barely beat bad teams and get blown out by the B-team of other playoff squads. We should unload every vet we can and if Leon is unable to do that we should find a GM who can.

I love Brunson but his talent is wasted here…

Quentin Grimes isn’t the savior of the franchise, but he is what a well-rounded two-way player of a prospect looks like. I had almost forgotten what that actually looks like in real life.

Randle must have heard rumblings that RJ’s contract might be worse than his. That second half defense was spectacularly bad even for Randle.

Cyber, 29% from 3 for the Knicks, 45% from 3 for the Suns.
Plus we killed bunny after bunny at the rim.
Speaking of such, Hart owed Deuce for blowing that assist with the weak sauce non-dunk.

Thanks! 🙂 Looks like we’re back to square 1 again, but a win in OKC will make this a winning trip. I don’t remember the last time we had a winning trip against west teams, but i’m going to check when it was to see if i’m wrong about this.

We had a winning trip out west last season, but that shouldn’t count because it was our typical go for meaningless wins in the last 20 games of a lost season.

I know that Quickley brings some defensive ability to the table, but man does that guy struggle to throw the ball into the basket

tomorrow’s predicted debate topics:

1. True or false…when a team has a young roster and a boatload of future picks…the future is so bright..you gotta wear shades….

2. True of false ….even though our two highest players suck donkey you know whats…and the third can’t get in a game …there is no real evidence of incompetence in our front office…

3. True or false…Thibs (the guy who plays a 22 yr old stiff inexplicable amounts of minutes) was robbed of his rightful 3rd COY award back when they were doing the intra mural league type of season…

4. True of false…it’s ok…we were expected to tread water and we’re developing our young…uh…uh…excuse me had to clear my throat…TALENT?

man…i can’t really watch randle and rj anymore and obi and IQ are slowly wading into that pool…

lets go rangers..

Nothing has changed just because we sucked against one of the best teams in the NBA on their court in the 4th game of a tough road trip.

I was happy with some things I saw.

Grimes looked good. He was only 1-5 from 3, but it’s going to take a couple of weeks for his shot to sharpen up. The rest of his game looked good.

Deuce looked way more comfortable and ready.

Other than Brunson, the rest of the team sucked ass and that’s why we lost so badly. It happens.

When they drafted RJ, they made a bet that he was eventually going to become an all star caliber player. When they extended him they doubled down. Right now, he barely looks like a rotation player on a good team.

That’s a big problem.

They have the assets to get a star player to go along with Brunson (who can reasonably be assumed to be a good 3rd option). We will eventually be able to move on from Randle with this team’s timeline. But if RJ is kind of a bust, we need 2 all star caliber players to go with Brunson. That IS a problem.

“Nothing has changed just because we sucked against one of the best teams in the NBA on their court in the 4th game of a tough road trip.”

Correct. We were a directionless, middling team before that happened and we are a directionless, middling team after.

It’s really funny when Leon Rose defenders revert to the “these are the kinds of games .500 teams are supposed to lose” defense as if it’s exculpatory.

The very issue is that we are a .500ish team with no plan to get substantially better. That we lose games that .500ish teams usually lose is a huge indictment on the front office.

FWIW, it’s starting to look like all the camaraderie from preseason thru the first 4 games is gone. Aside from the brief afterglow of team dinner, the players don’t seem to trust each other or themselves when opponents go on a roll. That has to be grating on Leon and WWW.

If they lose in similar fashion to OKC with no team chemistry, Thibs’ seat might get very uncomfortably hot..

“The very issue is that we are a .500ish team with no plan to get substantially better”

The plan is for one of RJ, IQ, Obi, Cam, or Grimes to turn into an efficient and consistent third scoring option. It may be a bad plan, but that’s the plan. We need to give all those guys as many minutes as possible to find out if they improve. It they don’t improve, it’s time to tank. “More than 44 or less than 35 wins.”

And, for the record, I don’t see many better defenders than E4 out there. At least we know he can put the ball in the basket.

EDIT: For the record, it’s really silly for me to type for the record up there 😉

I think it starts with Thibs…he is probably not the guy you want to hear when things aren’t going well and you’re not getting minutes because the two overpaid “stars” get plenty of PT when they don’t deserve it and he’s preachin’ his “its all bout team” bs…dude is full of hot air…players are on to his shtick…

Charting a path forward is pretty difficult. The front office really kind of locked us in to the whole purgatory thing.

Brunson is awesome, but we’re so far from contention all he’s going to do is substantially worsen our lottery odds for the next few years. On December 15th we should see if the Lakers would give us one or more of their picks for him. It sucks, but it’s what a smart front office would do.

Shop Rose, Fournier, and Randle to the extent possible. Realistically we’re probably stuck with Randle though, and I have no good answers for what exactly to do about that.

See if we can get any value out of the McBride pick, play Grimes, Quickley, and Obi as much as possible, and tell RJ Barrett he can either embrace being a medium usage jack-of-all-trades or lose minutes to Svi Mykhailiuk.

There are problems with this plan, but it’s better than “win 37 games, pick 11th, rinse, repeat, and hope something changes without actually changing anything.”

>there is no real evidence of incompetence in our front office…<

The problems are related to Knox over Bridges, Obi over Hali, and dropping down to RJ instead of getting Morant. If you want to go back further, KP breaking down, and in a bad draft taking a project like Frank. The other stuff is all a sideshow to getting 2 obvious picks wrong, dropping down in the lottery, and having bad injury luck.

“The plan is for one of RJ, IQ, Obi, Cam, or Grimes to turn into an efficient and consistent third scoring option.”

Putting aside the likelihood, would this really change our position much? Still doesn’t make it any easier to get the first two, and our problem is we’ve cut off so many of the paths to getting those guys.

Obviously I would welcome any and all development from these guys. It just speaks to how far from contention we are that it would take so much more than that to get us out of the mud.

“The other stuff is all a sideshow”

You omitted “giving out two $100M+ contracts that no other team would take on for free.” Hard for me to view that as a “sideshow.”

“in a bad draft taking a project like Frank”

“Projects” are supposed to have successful endpoints. I think you meant “a total bust like Frank.”

“The problems are related to Knox over Bridges, Obi over Hali, and dropping down to RJ instead of getting Morant. If you want to go back further, KP breaking down, and in a bad draft taking a project like Frank. The other stuff is all a sideshow to getting 2 obvious picks wrong, dropping down in the lottery, and having bad injury luck.”

that is the kind of speech that if you give it to your boss about why the team sucks ….gets you fired…you take a job with the known deficiencies…likley promising to be able to navigate them and get some success…i am sure leon didn’t caveat his future performance that he was going to ultimately get to blame shit on his predecessors in any future evaluation of his work..if things went south…don’t work like that…

“Putting aside the likelihood, would this really change our position much?”

This really is the million dollar question. If we’re locked into Brunson and Randle, then, based on complementary skills, our best case scenario is prolly for Grimes and/or Cam to pan out as consistent defenders who score 15 every night. That prolly sounds grim to you, but it might be a fun team to watch with Mitch and some kind of bench mob.

Of course, heart-wise, I would much rather Obi, IQ, or RJ improve and stick. This season is looking doubtful for all three at the moment, but the season is long.

EDIT: +1 to Pepper’s post. Leon is not thinking any of that or at least not saying it out loud. He built this team. He likes it. It will be Thibs who falls on the sword.

“They have the assets to get a star player to go along with Brunson (who can reasonably be assumed to be a good 3rd option). ”

************************

We’ve been hanging onto this slim reed in order to keep our hopes up, but in reality the Knicks’ asset chest is one of the worst in the association. It might be the worst.

It’s even stranger to keep thinking this given the fact that they literally just offered up their asset chest to try to get a “superstar” and got smoked by another Eastern Conference team.

PS: In the post game today Monica specifically mentioned the Knicks have a poorly conceived “protocol” to always retreat four guys on D immediately after a shot rather than crash the offensive boards. Alan was also critical over the last couple games about coaching decisions. MSG-knives may be coming out.

TNFH,

Most of your plan is fine, but I think you can forget about trading Brunson. There is zero chance they are going to go backwards on purpose.

I think they know what they need (#1 option and 3&D PF), but they aren’t going to panic into bad moves just to try to move it along faster. They can probably move Rose and get something. They might as well do that since they seem hell bent on Quick being the backup PG now and Rose is too old to sign again.

Maybe they’ll use what they get for Rose to move Fournier since he’s out of the rotation and unhappy.

I think they know Randle is not the answer/fit with Mitch but they aren’t going to give him away. IMO the Randle contract is not great, but it’s only “really bad” in the minds of Knicks fans still stuck on the version of Randle you get when the team has no PG, he’s getting double teamed every night, and you are trying to run the offense through him. Everyone else knows he’s better than that as long as he’s not melting down emotionally. What you can get for him is another matter. No one is going to swap a starting 3&D PF for another starting PF. So we’d probably have to make multiple moves.

The near term and long term problem is RJ.

When he was going well I said we should expect more of these slumps, but I’m beginning to have an issue with him in other ways. His priorities are wrong and his view of himself is delusional. Unless someone smacks him the head, it’s hard to imagine he’s suddenly going to realize that efficiency matters more than PPG and that since he’s not a good shooter he should be very selective.

“that is the kind of speech that if you give it to your boss about why the team sucks ….gets you fired…you take a job with the known deficiencies…likley promising to be able to navigate them and get some success…”

I don’t disagree. I’m saying the problem has been the lottery/draft and not all the other stuff that gets focused on.

We’ve had bad lottery luck, bad draft injury luck, and passed on very good players. They weren’t the kind of players you know about after you get to see them play for a couple of years. These were consensus players that fit a need that we reached past to go in another direction.

“That prolly sounds grim to you, but it might be a fun team to watch with Mitch and some kind of bench mob.”

What sounds grim to me is being locked into Randle and RJ, and at this point RJ is more of a concern for me than Randle. There’s at least proof of concept for Randle being a relatively productive player. He’ll always be overpaid and that’s why we probably won’t be able to move him, but on a good team he could probably be a 20-25 minute 6th man. RJ really might just stink.

“Alan was also critical over the last couple games about coaching decisions. MSG-knives may be coming out.”

I find myself in the weird position of being somewhat Thibs sympathetic these days. Too many Knicks fans seem to think he’s the reason we’re not good. Meanwhile he’s mothballed Fournier, nearly mothballed Rose, played Obi and Randle together more, and given Quickley at least as many minutes as another coach would.

There are still things I don’t like (his defensive scheme seems to be stuck in the early aughts, this Grimes business has been odd, whatever the hell is telling RJ Barrett isn’t working) but at this point 95% of our issues boil down to the front office’s many mistakes.

***It sucks, but it’s what a smart front office would do.***

I mean, smart in an emotionally detached savant kind of way maybe, but in the human world it could have some pretty serious side effects. They poached Brunson from a team he was happy with because they said they would treat him like the family he is. To then flip him and send him to LA, where even 2022 Smashing Pumpkins tickets are marked up, would send a very poor message to the next guy they make promises to.

“The problems are related to Knox over Bridges, Obi over Hali, and dropping down to RJ instead of getting Morant. If you want to go back further, KP breaking down, and in a bad draft taking a project like Frank. The other stuff is all a sideshow to getting 2 obvious picks wrong, dropping down in the lottery, and having bad injury luck.”

************************

Yeah, but all that stuff is sunk costs at this point. You don’t get any extra credit in the present and the future from having royally fucked up the past.

And what you absolutely, positively cannot do is try to skip steps or shorten the process because you spent so many years fucking up. It doesn’t work that way. (And that’s of course exactly what they did.)

To make the best future plan, the past simply has to be ignored. It’s irrelevant. Meaningless.

It’s time to strip it all down and start over. That means shopping Brunson the day he’s eligible to be traded. As to Barrett, it’s probably best to play him 40 minutes a night. Either he’ll break out of this and become a player or he’ll keep playing like shit and add absolutely imperative ping-pong balls to the mix. (If you can pawn him off for something that makes sense, of course you do that.)

This is what every single good GM in the association would do with this team if they took over tomorrow. There’s just nothing here.

“We’ve been hanging onto this slim reed in order to keep our hopes up”

There are probably 20 teams in the NBA in the same position as us.
They are also looking to make a move for a star player right now because they are one player away from making noise or serious contention. We have more picks than any of them.

“It’s even stranger to keep thinking this given the fact that they literally just offered up their asset chest to try to get a “superstar” and got smoked by another Eastern Conference team”

They did NOT offer their war chest. That’s why they didn’t get the deal done. They wanted to keep something in reserve. The Cavs kind of went all it (as did Minny). They could have made that deal if they wanted but then some of us (like me) would have been whining about the fit and price.

>To make the best future plan, the past simply has to be ignored. It’s irrelevant. Meaningless.<

I agree with that.

If you want to argue that Leon hasn't landed the #1 option yet or managed to fit the pieces together right yet, you won't get an argument from me. If I thought he was also positioned poorly, I'd be screaming, but I think the team is positioned OK to execute the his plan.

If you are arguing that we need to strip down and start over because the lottery and draft is better, I'm going to keep saying the same thing. Our greatest failing (among many) has been our bad luck and skill in the lottery/draft.

As a grade, I'm not sure what I'd give Leon and company because they aren't done yet. I know what the plan is. I know what their position is. Now I have to wait.

I love you guys, but the same fucking post mortem after every loss gets a little tiresome.

“There are probably 20 teams in the NBA in the same position as us.
They are also looking to make a move for a star player right now because they are one player away from making noise or serious contention. We have more picks than any of them.”

Every single part of this is false. It’s true that our record is similar to many other teams’, but that’s just a product of it being early in the season. There’s only so much separation that’s possible in terms of raw record. Prior to today our net rating was 24th, and if that changes it’ll be in the wrong direction. We are worse than most teams.

As for having more picks than other teams, where are you getting this from? The Pelicans are much, much better than us and they could absolutely drown us in picks, and they have the kind of picks teams actually want. They own god damn *Lakers* picks for the next two seasons!

OKC is about as good as us (20th in net rating) without the most recent #2 overall pick. They also laugh their asses off at our “war chest.” They’ve got more unprotected/lightly protected picks than they know what to do with.

If you want to argue that Leon hasn’t landed the #1 option yet or managed to fit the pieces together right yet, you won’t get an argument from me.

*********************************

He hasn’t managed to do anything. They’ve gone backwards since he took over, and he now helms the team with something like the second or third worst situation in the entire league.

We would be a very good team if:

(1) Randle gave a shit on defense
(2) IQ could put the ball in the basket
(3) RJ plays well or gets benched

Of course, 1 & 3 may be physically impossible

“the same fucking post mortem after every loss gets a little tiresome.”

+100000000000000000

They have a bunch of protected picks that add up together to be something like a low lottery pick, but they had to give up a low lottery pick to get them — so I’m sorry, but I fail to discern the genius in that.

It’s pretty alarming to watch your most recent lottery pick score 1 point total in two consecutive games in his third year while healthy and getting 17mpg.

I mean, I get that the “same post mortem” is tiresome, but to be frank we look like shit. We’ve only beaten bad teams, our young players are not what we hoped for so far, and we’re looking to have two rather immovable contracts. I would love to be wrong, and I’m still cheering for wins (I still think the over is more likely than the under, tbh), but this team *merits* the same postmortem until we manage to beat a couple teams with a positive SRS at full strength or if we see some inkling, any, of a definite direction from this FO.

Brunson is not going to win us many games if his teammates keep playing like they are. He’s fun to watch and worth his contract, but whatever he gives you on O, he gives a lot back on D.

Now if Dolan unceremoniously ditched Leon, Thibs, and his dad, he might actually want out. But short of that, he ain’t going anywhere.

i think every fan blog on the internet has these same post mortems after the team looks like this…

I mean on the ny ranger blog…and they are actually a title contender…they are having these same discussions after every loss…like…what else are we going to talk about…how great mcbride looked in garbage time and how awesome its going to be when he takes over for rose…

I also understand the frustration with the Groundhog Day esque post-mortem, but I view it as the Knicks’ fault for not giving us anything else to talk about.

Seriously, what else is there? We could talk about how the team could get better this year, but at this point there’s pretty much one thing left: stop playing RJ Barrett. It’s not going to happen.

Re: trading Brunson, I agree it would be a bad look of sorts and wouldn’t do it this season without his permission. Hard for me to imagine he’d veto going to a better team, but who knows?

“Same post-mortem” is a true-ish complaint, but we gained more data on young players RJ, Obi, IQ, Grimes, Mitch, and Sims. It’s a slow repetitive process, but that’s it. Most of the news tonight is bad except Grimes played well and Mitch, well, played. In veteran news: Fournier stayed glued to the bench even though we needed his shot; Hart was passed over twice in favor of Sims; DRose hurt his toe. The rest is silence.

“I find myself in the weird position of being somewhat Thibs sympathetic these days. Too many Knicks fans seem to think he’s the reason we’re not good. Meanwhile he’s mothballed Fournier, nearly mothballed Rose, played Obi and Randle together more, and given Quickley at least as many minutes as another coach would.”

i don’t think the question is whether Thibs is coaching well or not. I think it whether he’s the right coach for this team or not. The answer to the second question has been a resounding “NO” from day one.

The only way this roster can win is to continually overachieve relative to the roster of their opponent. Thibs is the kind of coach that can get a team to do that…for a while, anyway. It seems to me that there comes a point where the players get tired of his constant bellowing, and he them puts himself in a box.

He now has a bunch of players underperforming expectations and looking lost…Fournier, RJ, IQ, and now Obi…and there’s nobody really exceeding expectations except Cam, and that’s only because the expectations for him were so fucking low for him. They’ve managed to scrape out some nice wins, but the losses look terrible because they consistently reveal that there is a malaise over the team. Fred Katz pointed that our after the OKC game when he ended an article entitled “What’s wrong with the Knicks” with a three-word sentence: “Something feels off.”

I think tomorrow’s game will tell a lot about this team. If we let OKC shit all over us like they did at MSG then the ship will truly be sinking.

“We could talk about how the team could get better this year, but at this point there’s pretty much one thing left: stop playing RJ Barrett.”

It’s pretty clear that Thibs is being stubborn with RJ…kinda like he was last year with Randle, and the year before with Elfrid.

I think RJ needs to keep playing, but with guard rails tied to his minutes. Only a different coach will do that. I also think that while any new coach will try to win every game, Thibs takes that to a detrimental level. We need someone who wouldn’t dare refer to Brock Aller as Hinkie in a meeting, who’s just happy to have an opportunity and will not get angry and petty and stubborn when things start going south.

That would start a pivot to an accidentank. No need to sell low on anybody, or to make any roster changes at all unless good deals with desperate are out there before the deadline. Just let the young players play free and loose without a bellowing maniac up their ass, and take the Ws and Ls as they come.

To be clear, I wasn’t recommending glueing RJ to the bench. That’s the clearest way to improve the team in the here and now, but I think it would be detrimental to any longer-term vision.

Of course, the fact that there’s such a big delta between those two things speaks to how incoherent our “plan” has been. We’re trying to win now while also trying to “develop” a high-usage player who seems way in over his head in that role. Makes no sense.

Everything we’ve done only makes a scintilla of sense if we were operating under the assumption RJ Barrett is a good player, in the face of tons of evidence to the contrary.

The roster is built around RJ becoming a superstar. It should happen this year or next. It won’t.

We need RJ to breakout. We need RJ to be a 2-way star. He isn’t.

Offensively RJ/Randle/Brunson could work… if RJ could pass off a drive.

The defense could work… if RJ wasn’t too slow.

People here know RJ isn’t good. The FO doesn’t. We wouldn’t need to tank if RJ matched his rep.

That’s the plan. That’s what other teams plan. Find a star, build. We built it, but Star-J never came.

If the FO and RJ thought he was a “star” then why did they agree on a clearly non-star contract?

I turned this one with 6 minutes left, saw Hartenstein make a nice pass to Deuce, saw the score, and immediately turned it off.

Not going to pour any more gasoline onto the burning tire.

We would never trade Brunson without his approval. And I expect they will have it after the season.

If the FO and RJ thought he was a “star” then why did they agree on a clearly non-star contract?

come on man…a 20 million AAV is like 2.5 times the avg NBA salary and i believe 5x the median AAV…this is a contract for a star albeit not a super star but to paint it like the FO pulled the wool over his eyes or know something that we didn’t is not even realistic…putting aside the fact there was no real good reason to do that deal until this summer…

If you asked me who is going to have the better career between RJ and Torrey Craig I don’t know how I would answer.

I was sick for the whole month of October. I am just praying RJ is trying to play through the same thing.

pepper, you wrote: “The roster is built around RJ becoming a superstar.” I’m taking issue with that because there is no evidence at all that the FO built the roster with that assumption in mind. In fact, RJ was clearly offered up in a trade with a bunch of unprotected picks and some additional players for an actual star that isn’t quite a superstar.

I get the alarm and disappointment about RJ but he certainly wasn’t the end-all you are suggesting in your post. That said, it is certainly legitimate to feel that they jumped the gun on the extension and should have waited. I, for one, wasn’t itching to get him signed. But the salary numbers are in line with how he was perceived league-wide, as per Katz’s article before the extension.

Given that college players can get paid now why can’t we just trade RJ back to Duke for Dariq Whitehead? Actually you’d probably have to add some additional picks for Whitehead or one their good freshmen- maybe Duke has a fifth year senior hanging around we could swap RJ for.

i wasn’t the one who wrote “roster built around him becoming a superstar”…not sure I would even agree with that…but….them jumping the gun on the deal suggests they thought they were the smartest guys in the room because it was going to look like a bargain down the road…well..that ain’t lookin’ to good…

you could argue that RJ taking that deal suggests he knew what was up and was getting it while the gettin’ was good…

It’s really funny when Leon Rose defenders revert to the “these are the kinds of games .500 teams are supposed to lose” defense as if it’s exculpatory.

Does he even have defenders anymore?

I can’t imagine anyone being able to make a case for Leon Rose being good.

“We could talk about how the team could get better this year, but at this point there’s pretty much one thing left: stop playing RJ Barrett.”

“…and there’s nobody really exceeding expectations except Cam”

“Seriously, what else is there?”

Ahem. Cough cough.

#Miles

Also just going to mention that RJ ‘only’ got 27 minutes, which is second lowest for the season. About 25 minutes more than he deserved, but hey, looking for silver linings here…

***recent rj rhymes pretty well with the last year plus of keldon johnson, except johnson has shot 40pct plus from 3 on almost 7/36 attempts. i thought keldon got a pretty fair contract at $75/4, and i slightly prefer his defense to rj’s***

Oof, you really brought Keldon down to RJ’s level with this comment, pt. A Starksian 2-18. Makes Barrett look like Steph Curry.

Z–man says:
November 20, 2022 at 20:54
It’s pretty alarming to watch your most recent lottery pick score 1 point total in two consecutive games in his third year while healthy and getting 17mpg.

Yes it is. Maybe Obi is getting defended differently than he used to be.

I think you can just say Obi is being defended period. Take away run outs and wide open threes (his release is low and a little on the slow side) and he’s got nothing but the occasional cut. He needs to at least try to do something off of the bounce in the half court.

Does he even have defenders anymore?

I can’t imagine anyone being able to make a case for Leon Rose being good.

I knew Leon Rose sucked the moment I saw the details of the incineration trade. Not that the trade itself was that crippling, just that the thought process behind it showed a complete misunderstanding of the NBA draft and a rockheaded mentality with regards to player valuation. I called it right there and then.

I have said this here many times before: I’m just a guy on the internet. I play keyboards and guitar for a living. I’m not saying I would do a better job. I’m wrong about a lot of things all the time. But I was right about that one. Leon blows.

To then flip him and send him to LA, where even 2022 Smashing Pumpkins tickets are marked up,

Great show, btw. I sat in the pool circle, got a great look at Jimmy Chamberlain on the drums. That guy’s great. They played Jowles’ jam, too (stand inside your love).

And I went to Cholada Thai. Great day.

On the brightside, we do have three 1st rd picks based on current standings. Mavs dropped into the back end of the lotto.

Picks 10, 14, 18*

*10 & 18 are 3-way ties so 10-12 & 18-20

History was not kind to the Knicks the last time they had three in the first round.

So the good news on Obi is that teams are defending him rather than leaving him open for three pointers because this year he is shooting them with a good percentage. The bad news is that this defense totally shuts him down.

KFNINJ, I think you’re thinking of the John Wallace, Walter McCarty, Dontae’ Jones draft. But actually the last time we had three picks in the first round we drafted Channing Frye, Nate Robinson, and David Lee.

Hubert, you are 100% correct. I forgot that Frye, Robinson and Lee were all in the same draft. That was not a bad result at all.

1996 was the last time the Knicks had three picks in the first 21 picks, at least! 🙂

Also, Nate was technically drafted by the Suns.

Also, in 2005, Chris Paul went #4, Knicks picked #8. Story of the Knicks.

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