Knicks Morning News (2022.11.22)

The pivot to an accidentank took a major hit on this road trip. Thibs just bought himself another 20 games. For better or worse, I loved every minute of the wins and about half of the minutes in the losses. Sue me.

Will the real RJ please stand up….

All 3 of the $26M AAV players played to their respective salaries last night. IQ and Sims were the only other players that played up to snuff on both ends. Grimes, Obi, Hart, and Deuce gave good defensive energy but shot a combined 8-31, including 1-13 from 3. They held the fort, which should be their job, so hard to get too down on them, except maybe Obi, who continues to confound.

Now that we are back in “Mitch is injured a lot” mode (man, those contract years!) and we’ve gotten a good look at how the team functions without him, is anyone thinking that re-signing him might have been a mistake? I’m pretty ambivalent (always was) but wondering if any minds have changed one way or another…

Julius Randle is tied with KP for 40th in usage% at 26.5. Among the players with usage of 25% or higher, only the following players have a higher TS% than his .585, Here’s the list and their contract status:

Jokic (max)
Beal (max)
Harden (near-max)
Mathurin (!) (rookie deal)
Bane (rookie deal)
Wood (bargain!)
Ingram (max)
AD (max)
Zion (max)
DeRozan (similar, bargain)
Fox (max)
Garland (max)
Booker (max)
Mitchell (max)
Steph (max)
Tatum (max)
Lillard (max)
Durant (max)
SGA (max)
Embiid (max)
Doncic (max)

“We’re 23rd in SRS, because most of our wins have come against bad teams, except the wins against good teams while the good teams were missing their superstars. The Utah win was a quality win because they appear to be a legit solid team. Other than that… ehhh.

We’re slightly outperforming our Pythag, and we’re below average both on offense and defense. We need to play better than this or we’re probably looking at a sub-.500 season. We certainly COULD play better, I’m not ruling that out. But it has been an underwhelming start.”

Underwhelming? I guess.

I’d say in line with expectations, slightly on the higher side.

There is a tendency to discount wins when other teams are missing one or two of their best players. I get it, but winning on the road against any team is still very tough, and Denver just beat Dallas on the road without Jokic.

And it’s not like the Knicks have been at full strength. Granted, we don’t have a Jokic or Embiid to be missing, but some here have insisted that Mitchell Robinson is our best player (although now that Jalen Brunson is on board, maybe that has changed.) To win 3 of five on a long road trip essentially without Mitch and mostly with Obi and RJ playing terribly, Grimes being so-so for only one of the wins, and IQ’s shot all over the place, is somewhat impressive.

Is there upside? Well, I think yesterday was our first real look at how the team performs with Randle, RJ and Brunson all playing at least reasonably well in the same game. IQ was the only bench player that gave them a real spark, but we got close to nothing on O from Grimes, Hart, Obi, or Deuce. Not to mention Rose, Mitch, Cam or Fournier.

Of course, expecting consistency from RJ is a fraught proposition, but it doesn’t seem far-fetched to assume that we will get better and more consistent play from Obi, IQ and Grimes. We’ve already seen more of the OBI-Randle pairing than expected, and would probably see more if Obi stopped stinking up the joint on offense.

Given that we are locked into win-now no matter how much people whine about it, the goal this year should be to increase the market value of every player on the roster. Winning helps with that.

If the team reverts to losing, it might be a good thing because Thibs would eventially get fired, but it would also mean that our players are underperforming, especially the RJs and Randles who we are locked into, but also the Obis and IQs and Grimes’s who are possible trade pieces.

And that’s the dilemma….asset depreciation vs. draft position depreciation.

Since we are clearly not going to tanking except via the accidentank, it seems to me that any scenario that results in an increase in the value of our roster assets is more of a good thing than not.

“maybe i’m crazy alongside you z-man, but that’s an excellent way of framing it…”

Regardless of the likelihood of success, which is certainly fair game to be skeptical about, the long-term strategy seems to be along these lines:
-sign “core” players to “non-max” long-term contracts (Randle, Brunson, RJ, Mitch)
-develop young non-core players in the context of winning (IQ, Obi, Grimes, Sims, Cam, Deuce) so that their market value increases
-make the Knicks a preferred destination for disgruntled max players and free agents
-have enough assets so that when a star shakes loose you can trade for him and have either a good enough core for that star to make the team a contender, or enough left to make another big move.

Right now, there are some holes/setbacks in that strategy due to definitively bad decision-making. That really can’t be disputed.

And if the current assets on the roster don’t appreciate, the strategy is likely to fail and result in first Thibs, and then the rest of the FO getting fired, if not this year then next.

And what after that? With Dolan at the helm, who can say with confidence that the next FO will commit to a full rebuild and make smart drafting decisions? Is the devil we know better than the devil we don’t know?

That’s why I am not concerned with whether we win 38 or 42 or 46 games nearly as much as I am concerned with how Randle, RJ, Brunson, IQ, Obi, Grimes, and Mitch, and to a lesser degree, Cam, Sims and Deuce, play. (Rose and Fournier are sunk costs, imo.) Whatever one thinks of their strategy, all of them playing well increases the likelihood of its success.
–

“These are, and always have been, reasonable criticisms of the Rose administration.”

Agreed. Although we might have differing parameters about a) your initial point, as I have seen it brought up countless times and b) where the line is between “complaining” and “endless whining” is.

“Is there really a zero percent chance of those things happening?”

Zero chance is a bit much. My guess is that there will be additional draft-day trade outs, non-optimal trades, and premature signings. To me, it’s about a) the magnitude/impact, b) frequency, and c) how long to wait before passing judgment.

“If so, let’s just fire him now and move on.”

Now THERE’S something that there is zero percent chance of happening, at least in the foreseeable future. Agreed?

I’m unpleasantly surprised that a certain poster thought it would be a good idea to weigh in. So much for letting sleeping dogs lie. But whatever, I’ve said all I need to say on both matters, and I doubt that anyone wants further exchanges.

“Perhaps you should have tried not referring to other people’s opinions as “endless whining.””

It was in response to TNFH’s comment about “moralizing, and was meant kind of tongue-in-cheek. The point was that we each find different things to be annoying, depending on our own point of view. If that came across as triggering to anyone, my bad for not choosing better words.

“The problem with people like us, Z-Man, is we’ve been abrasive so many times that some people read us in a way that we don’t intend. It is unfortunate, but it is also our just dessert for having a little too much asshole in us.”

Agreed.

“Then again, a lot of these snowflakes aren’t even from New York. They’d be a lot less triggered if they had spent their whole lives here like us.”

You can take the boy out of The Bronx, but…

“I strongly disagree. If Randle is playing better but we still can’t trade him, then literally all he’s doing is racking up marginal wins for us. I am aware you think we should not talk about that because the front office currently doesn’t view such wins as “marginal,” but if you’re asking me my personal opinion as to whether his play is a “huge positive” I’m going to answer with my honest opinion.”

It’s fine to have that opinion, and you can talk about it all you want, The reality is that a) yes, the FO doesn’t view those wins as “marginal” so the point is kind of moot, and b) they very well may view him as an integral part of a winning team as better pieces are acquired. In other words, the idea behind signing him to a lengthy extension wasn’t to trade him, it was to lock in a valuable piece long term.

Besdes, that he’s probably not tradeable right now is in large part about fear of regression towards last year’s performance rather than being underwhelmed by what he’s currently doing, i.e it’s the length of the contract more than the number. So if you are “stuck with him” for that reason, wouldn’t it be better for him to be a reasonably efficient scorer on medium-high usage?

Randle is clearly benefitting from having Brunson on the team. He’s clearly willing to hand over possessions to a better distributor/more efficient scorer. Why wouldn’t it follow that if they land another player that’s even better than Brunson that he wouldn’t maintain his value to the team by becoming option 2A or 3 rather than part of 1A/B/C? Because that’s what he’s getting paid like.

“This all changes if we can trade him of course, but I’m very skeptical of that because by both the eye-test and various numbers he’s decided to be the basketball equivalent of a DH this year.””

Well then we’re really in trouble because equally efficient/high usage Brunson also fits that definition. Of course, I don’t buy the analogy. We saw in the Denver game what he’s *capable of* on defense. He’s also consistently one of the best defensive rebounders in the league.

In summary, if he can’t/won’t be traded, and will play 30+ mpg unless he gets hurt, what’s the best outcome to home for? Isn’t it something like what we’re seeing now?

“It might make sense to just trade Rose for an expiring contract”

Did u mean for a draft asset? Otherwise that makes no sense since Rose’s contract is essentially expiring…

strat, just to be clear, I was talking about their deeefense.

I ALWAYS KNEW KEVIN KNOX WOULD BE GOOD!!!

I don’t remember discussing Paul Reed, he was a 58th pick in the 2020 draft…not sure what context I would have debated him. But he’s averaging 3.3 pts per 36 on a .313 TS% before today’s game, so…

I think defense is similarly important at every position, including at PG, as we saw last year with Kemba Walker. That said, I didn’t mean to imply that they were similar *players* as they clearly have much different roles. But they do have very similar shooting efficiency numbers, which are derived in largely the same way, and they have similar types of games relative to their peers with similar usage at their respective positions. Beyond that, in general I associate PGs with assists and point of attack defense and PFs with rebounds and interior defense. I agree that PG is the more important position, and so do most metrics I guess. So I would go as far as to say that Brunson is the more important and more effective player, and more essential to winning. But Randle’s shooting efficiency has been more consistent across wins and losses.