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Game Thread

2022-23 Game Thread: Knicks @ Pistons

The Knicks head to Detroit to get a rare “gimme” game against a terrible Detroit team that is still playing without its star player, Cade Cunningham, and will likely also be without Bojan Bogdanovic tonight, as well as likely their star rookie, Jaden Ivey. Isaiah Stewart missed his last game, but he seems like he’ll play tonight.

The Knicks will have everyone available tonight, as Immanuel Quickley’s injury was luckily not enough to keep him out of this game.

Let’s go, Knicks! Let’s have one of those laughers that I’ve heard that teams theoretically can have in seasons!

142 replies on “2022-23 Game Thread: Knicks @ Pistons”

fred flintstone pulling that bird’s tail heading outta the quarry…

please, no one speak of how detroit is fittin to roll over…

beware kevin knox, beware RJ, beware julius…beware new york knicks…

caution ahead…

Was gonna say “Randle telling me I’m the albatross,” but the site didn’t load and then he missed some less-than-smart shots so the comment makes less sense now

The Knicks should send tape of just that one quarter to teams and try to get Randle traded tonight.

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The Detroit announcers like Randle….before the game started they called him one of the premier power forwards in the NBA. Yeah.

Knox should’ve been adding weight and strength every year to try to make himself a stretch four. Instead, he looks even skinnier than he was with the Knicks.

We should have a drinking game where we do a shot every time Breen says opposition player X “gets a wide open look”

But we’d all end up in the ER.

The Detroit announcers also seem to think we once had Cory Joseph? Just said he “marked this game on his calendar” or something. Don’t really know why he would’ve done that.

This Pistons team might be the worst in the NBA, but this Knicks defense is capable of losing to anyone

Detroit fans so quiet they brought 2021 Randle back.*

* I have no idea if they’re loud or quiet

Randle may be a premier power forward, with 22 points in the first half, but I swear to god he’s the clumsiest basketball player I’ve ever seen.

Deuce with the 4 seconds!
He doesn’t even get zeroes in the box score. It’s dashes, like it was too short to qualify as a zero.

Would be nice if we could rest out starters before our ass kicking by the Bucks tomorrow night

Despite all his points and the Knicks’ big lead, Randle looks like he’s about to blow his top at the refs.

Lol, Thibs loves killing those per game numbers.

Squeezing that small advantage with a good defender for 4 seconds. Thibsy.

If Randle was as relentless on the boards as he is going after the refs he’d lead the league in rebounds.

I’m with Dmar on this, we need our bench to get some minutes now that it’s garbage time.

And Thibs makes it so… at least partially…

Grimes next to Brunson looks like it might be as good as we were hoping at the start of the season. We need his defense, but he looks all around better. Now we just have to get RJ out of the starting lineup. 😂

It’s too bad RJ sucks because I really like IQ and Grimes. Could have been a nice young core along with Brunson

Wasn’t Grimes a top PG prospect coming out of high school? Could explain his surprisingly good passing skills.

I like Hart, but he is some weak sauce rebounding in traffic.

He gets a lot of rebs because he’s long and usually in position, but if it’s contested, even against guys a good deal shorter, the best he can hope for is a tap-back (usually to the other team).

Yeah Grimes was a high-level PG with no shot. At Kansas(?) his handle was too loose and he didn’t have enough “wiggle”, according to scouting reports I read. In other words, it wasn’t his vision or passing ability.

“Killian Hayes is as big a draft bust as Knox or Frank, and that’s saying something”

Yet a few folks here thought he was worthy of being picked #1 overall.

It was obvious to me from his game film that he was going to be a terrible NBA PG and did not merit being picked anywhere near the lottery, just as obvious as it was with Ntilikina.

So Hart is bleeding in a thirty point blowout and they put Mitch back in instead of Sims?

I’m betting he rolls his ankle. Any takers?

Quickly looks better on a bad knee than when he’s healthy. Maybe we should hire Tanya Harding as a trainer for Quick and RJ. She’ll help Quickly and get RJ out of the rotation. 😂😂😂😂

The Pistons announcers are lamenting the Novakization of Obi Toppin and they didn’t even credit “thenoblefacehumper from knickerblogger dot net”

“It was obvious to me from his game film that he was going to be a terrible NBA PG and did not merit being picked anywhere near the lottery, just as obvious as it was with Ntilikina.”

And it was obvious to me when I was in high school that the Andrea Bargnani trade was stupid as hell. We all have our misses.

The only move is to sign Killian to a $120M deal instead of trading him for Donovan Mitchell

“5 whole minutes for deuce”

I’m all warm inside.

Sims has gone full beast mode.

We needed an easy win like this with the Bucks back to back tomorrow. That could get ugly.

Well that was fun. Anyone not get an A tomorrow?

Well Barrett was still annoying, and Cam was off and on.

If they could tighten up the defense they’d win a lot more games, but Brunson, Randle, and RJ are a problem. If Mitch is out, there’s no one to bail them out. Grimes will help, but I’d still like to have a bonafide stretch PF that’s a solid plus defender even if he’s not as versatile of a scorer as Randle.

Luka is obviously one of the most talented offensive players in the league, but so far KP and Brunson both wanted out of there partly because their games were being stifled playing next to the world usage champion. Both are playing better without him. That says something. The only guys that seem to like to play with him are guys that like to stand on the perimeter and wait for him to dribble around until he gets double or triple teamed and then either take a tough shot or pass out to them for a spot up 3.

“And it was obvious to me when I was in high school that the Andrea Bargnani trade was stupid as hell. We all have our misses.”

Yeah, I was dead wrong for the tentative defense I offered for that trade, and didn’t put in the work I should have to have known better. Definitely learned a lot from that, and have tried not to make the same egregious mistake out of laziness.

But I did put in the work on Hayes, and wouldn’t have felt so strongly negative about him if I hadn’t. Watched all of his available film, both with and without accompanying analysis, read lots of scouting reports, and pored over both box score and advanced stats. I found it frustrating that you were pretty dismissive of that work, and the conclusions that I made based on it. I tried to make a pretty compelling case as to why I felt he would be extremely underwhelming and possibly a Ntilikina-level bust, but was no match for one with your gifts at making arguments, even ones that turn out to be dead wrong in retrospect. Ironically, you were one of the few who was in agreement with me at draft time that Frank was a bad lottery pick, and I found it frustrating that you didn’t see that Killian was a similarly bad pick for many of the same reasons evident in his game film analysis, and more subtly in his stats.

So I ask sincerely, is the miss on Hayes (keeping in mind that he was your #1 guy, not just someone you liked a lot, for example, Tari Eason) something you have since chalked up as an outlier in an otherwise sound approach to evaluating draft prospects? Or have you added or subtracted something to avoid a miss of that magnitude that was so clear to me (and some others) at the time?

It’s too bad the archives are gone, because Z-Man’s defense of the Bargnani trade was anything but tentative and in the very same draft he’s trying to pillory me over he was absolutely gaga over James Wiseman. I guess he’s mad Killian Hayes is currently out-career-BPMing his guy, -4.5 to -4.6.

Just an absolutely tiresome, boring shtick. I am completely satisfied with how the Knicks’ picks would’ve turned out if they just crudely followed my big boards, can you say the same?

“It’s too bad the archives are gone,”

They probably exist somewhere on the dark web….

Z-Man would like all of us to collectively forget that he founded The Thibodeau Society in 2021, but he’s totally down to remind you that Noble liked Killian Hayes in the middle of a game thread.

Sorry to hit such a nerve, humper. I liked Wiseman and am disappointed in his current trajectory, but I still think he will eventually be at the very least a servicable NBA big when he gets fully healthy. I had pointed out that 7 footers that can score and block shots (e.g. KP) tend to retain trade value above their performance, so there was less bust risk than with point guards who can’t shoot 3’s and have no off hand. But I also agreed that Wiseman was largely unproven and had substantial risk, and we didn’t really argue about him. Even so, suffice it to say that I doubt that the GSW braintrust would give you Wiseman for Hayes straight up, although you never know…they’ve done unexpected wonders with Wiggins!

Our lengthy and often heated argument was far more about me insisting that Hayes was a likely bust vs. you insisting that he would be a great risk at #1 than about LaMelo or Wiseman or Edwards (although I was heavily swayed by Schmitz’s oft-stated opinion based on video analysis that LaMelo was the most talented player by far in that draft) If you still feel that your logic was sound in retrospect and Hayes was simply an outlier, more power to you!

And yes, I’d rather have you picking for us than any of the Knicks’ FOs in recent memory. Pretty low bar, though.

I remember ruruland telling me that I was not qualified to speak about basketball because I didn’t understand the elite skills of the misunderstood Andrea Bargnani.

When the fans of the team that is trading him to you are celebrating like they just won the Super Bowl because they were able to get rid of him, that’s generally not a great sign.

“he’s totally down to remind you that Noble liked Killian Hayes in the middle of a game thread.”

Actually, d-mar brought Hayes’s suckiness up, not me, and I didn’t mention any names. Here are my exact words:

“Yet a few folks here thought he was worthy of being picked #1 overall.”

If TNFH, or any other of those few folks feel triggered by that, that’s on them. Although his dismissive reaction is predictable, being that he spent oodles of lengthy posts being dismissive of my arguments, and often not very politely, to say the least.

I liked Wiseman but we had three games of data on him against D2 teams. Did anyone feel confident in him?

The translation on young Euro pgs like Hayes. – did anyone feel confident in them?

There is a lot more skill in evaluating players who have accumulated a reasonable NBA sample.

Although his dismissive reaction is predictable, being that he spent oodles of lengthy posts being dismissive of my arguments, and often not very politely, to say the least.

I was writing a post listing all the times you’ve done this, but my phone died. And it was on, like, 80% when I started.

Funny how you seem delighted to rush to TNFH’s defense, Hubert, like he really needs your help. Another bad day on the personal front?

Hahaha very good. No, I’ve been mellowed out by the Southern California sun. That’s why my posts have been more light-hearted lately. You’re trolling pretty hard today, though. The whole Minister of Accountability thing is fine but if you do it you run the risk of being constantly reminded of things like when you boldly proclaimed Mike Miller was going to be a championship coach, or when you said it would be agent malpractice if Julius Randle signed an extension, or when you said Tom Thibodeau carried the Knicks to 41 wins (and then, like, forgot how to do that), or when you said Leon wasn’t punting he was targeting the double draft, or when you said you’d take Thibs over KAT, or when… shit, battery dying again.

For those of you who couldn’t sleep worried about the extraction, my apologies. They came out. There was some trauma. My daughter refused ice cream in fact afterwards. But she was allowed to watch her favorite show on the Ipad and eventually peace and tranquility was restored.

She got paid double for two teeth. She was very happy about that. She also picked up the letter from the tooth fairy and noted, without suspicion, “It’s interesting, the tooth fairy’s handwriting looks just like Mama’s.”

When you’re feeling down don’t forget your new tonic: the Detroit Pistons…
This game felt so easy and predictable I went to bed at halftime, saving some sleep… 🙂

Jules had a nice birthday, Jalen another day at the office, RJ can’t have a decent shooting night even against these kind of defenses, there was no revenge game for Knox & Burks… and I really dislike this renewed “Howitzer” version of Obi Toppin, another player I hope, for his own career, gets traded soon.

By the way (easy) mission accomplished in Motor City let’s show our mettle with the Bucks.

P.S.
The server needs a tonic too, any idea on how to raise money for it?

I hate to do this, but I have to just to clarify what was going on.

Even though Frank’s development has been wildly disappointing to me (injured all off season again this year), you have to keep mind what was going on at the time he was drafted. He was NOT drafted to be a traditional PG. Phil selected him to be part of the triangle and he would have come off the bench behind whatever vet he added (would not have been Hardaway) . That would have been a good role for him because he wouldn’t need pure PG skills or to be a high level scorer and he’d be given time to develop. He’d have to primarily defend, move the ball, be a secondary playmaker, stay in motion, hit 3s, and do a little more here or there off the bench. Once Phil was out, we had a player with no role.

The Knicks (and his injuries) destroyed his development by trying to make him a pure PG.

Second, even if we all agree he’s wasn’t worth anywhere near a #8 pick, that was not exactly a good draft in our areas of need. Our options were essentially Frank, Monk and Mitchell. A LOT of teams has issues with Monk and Mitchell because they were undersized SGs and likely to be significant liabilities on defense. That’s why they dropped. Defense was a major component of Phil’s thinking. So he went with the long very raw switchable defender that would fit well into the triangle over the 2 much more athletic scorers that wouldn’t fit what he wanted to build (team oriented, high basketball IQ, lots of player and ball movement and defense critical). Supposedly Mitchell was the 2nd choice even though he dropped all the way to 13.

All of this is why I always say I am 100% certain that if Phil remained for 1 more year Mikal Bridges would be a Knick (I was also told that by someone off the record). He was the perfect Phil pick. Knox wouldn’t have even been on his draft board. It would have be KP, Bridges, and Frank as the long term young core. What would have happen in the RJ year etc… is anyone’s guess.

That 3 man defense oriented young group was what I was screaming for at the time.

We’re still retconning the Phil Jackson era all these years later. See, Phil was JUST ABOUT to start making some good moves!

He was just *thisclose* to pulling it all off!

***I am 100% certain that if Phil remained for 1 more year Mikal Bridges would be a Knick (I was also told that by someone off the record). -Strat***

Strat: “I don’t trust the news. I verify facts with first-hand sources before making conclusions.”

Also Strat: “somebody told me what somebody else would have theoretically done in a fluid situation a year after being fired and I am 100% certain he is correct.”

“Also Strat: “somebody told me what somebody else would have theoretically done in a fluid situation a year after being fired and I am 100% certain he is correct.”

It was a Phil confidant that told me before either Bridges or Knox had demonstrated which of the two was going to be the better player, but you were right about one thing. Your default position should typically be to disregard what’s in the newspapers. He also liked the Frank pick. You didn’t nee that source though. If you know how Phil thinks about basketball from all he’s said and written and you know the triangle a little you know he smoked more weed than usual the moment we selected Knox over Bridges. 🙂

With the arrival of Z-Man’s spontaneous and unprovoked Airing of Grievances — and during a game thread, no less — it must mean that Festivus season is getting closer!!

There is no “good role” for Frank Ntilikina. He just sucks, no need to overthink it. Phil Jackson picked an outright shitty player 8th overall. There were literally *multiple* all-stars, and probably soon to be all-NBA players, still on the board. One of the absolute worst picks you could ever imagine.

The Mavs are desperate for any kind of spark and Frank can’t get off their bench. They signed Facundo Campazzo instead of giving him a shot. He might not be long for the NBA.

“ With the arrival of Z-Man’s spontaneous and unprovoked Airing of Grievances — and during a game thread, no less — it must mean that Festivus season is getting closer!!”

LOL

I think the server sometimes is slow, or even gives up, because some of us can’t let go of old (and tedious) arguments. I would do the same, in the server’s place.

Strat, I guess now that KP is playing up to his November potential a reminder of what could have been was in order. But you do remember that your man Phil wanted to trade KP for Booker and draft Markannen, so I am not sure your counterfactual of KP, Frank and Mikal as a young core survives scrutiny.

All of these beautiful strolls down memory lane have me thinking: why tf do I do this to myself?

I’m a busy guy with kids. Why have I allowed the Knicks to do this to me for the last 20-plus years?

Maybe it is time to not give a shit any more.

Hubert, nice try. There are plenty of instances where I made a prediction that turned out to be wrong. No need to grossly distort any of my positions to make a point. For example, it is enough for me to point out that you called Fizdale a fine coaching hire (i.e. something that you actually said) to make a point your acumen in evaluating coaches. I don’t have to lie and say you thought he’d be the greatest Knicks coach since Red Holtzman.

For the record, the draft opinion I am most embarrassed about is thinking that Mo Bamba would go on to be superstar. Whiffing on that one certainly impacting my thinking about the importance of motor. His seems permanently stuck in low gear. Cam Reddish is sort of Bamba in miniature, which is why I did not like trading the devalued pick for him. He’s done better than I expected this year, and still has useful NBA rotation player potential, as does Bamba. But I am still shocked that Bamba did not develop one iota, and may have even regressed since his rookie year.

Skipped yesterday’s game, but not even against the Pistons we can have a slimmer of hope about RJ? Maybe i’ll have to start thinking about leaving RJ island… 🙁

On another note, yesterday the picture my beloved 13+yo Samsung 50″ plasma tv started looking like an Andy Warhol painting. I did a quick internet troubleshooting search and it seemed that it was a problem with the board or power supply that wasn’t worth fixing. I went out and spent $1300 on a 55″ LG OLED to replace it. When I got home with the new TV, the old plasma was magically working well again. Now I need to decide whether to just return the OLED or bite the bullet and upgrade.

“The Mavs are desperate for any kind of spark and Frank can’t get off their bench. They signed Facundo Campazzo instead of giving him a shot. He might not be long for the NBA.”

Since you often don’t know the details of whatever you are blabbering about and don’t value defense correctly in the overall picture, I’ll bring you up to date.

Frank played important minutes in the playoffs for the Mavs last year and was pretty critical in one of their wins over the Suns by helping shut down Booker and CP3.

He was hurt AGAIN for the entire off season, camp, and beginning of the season. Repeated injuries have screwed up his development even more than the Knicks.

He more or less competes with Josh Green for OFF the BALL minutes (not PG minutes!!!). Green is younger and more talented on offense. He also defends. Last year Green and Frank would go back and forth depending on who was playing better. Frank won in the playoffs and played well. But it appears Green has taken a significant step forward this year and won the job while Frank was hurt. In fact, Green could become a pretty important piece for Dallas this year who is in desperate need of anything positive.

You aren’t going to get much of an argument from me about where Frank is as a player compared to my hopes. It’s been a disaster. But you should at least understand what we needed at the time, why he was drafted, and all the reasons his career went off the rails instead of talking about players that never would have fit into what we were doing or that a bunch of other teams passed on also.

If you got a great Cyber Monday deal I’d probably go for it. The new oled tvs are great and will capture every stitch of Walt Frazier’s glory.

Seems better than having it break in a season where the deals aren’t as good.

Although I have bought a bunch of TCL roku tvs lately for much less and they are perfectly fine. That said, does look like a fantastic price for Wirecutter’s favorite OLED

“Since you often don’t know the details of whatever you are blabbering about and don’t value defense correctly in the overall picture, I’ll bring you up to date.”

Yeah you just gave me an unnecessarily long-winded version of exactly what I said. Frank can’t get off the bench for the Mavs because they prefer Facundo Campazzo and Josh Green, because Frank sucks.

Is it time to start debating if signing Hart was a good move or not? The stats love Hart, but the real production on the court seems way lower to me. We could’ve waived Kemba, because we already had Brunson’s money available, there was no need to trade pick #13 unless we wanted to use 9M in free agency (that ended up being Hart). If we were hell-bent on getting a C, we could’ve drafted Jalen Duren, and if not, there was Tari Eason and AJ Griffin still available at 13.

You have to admire the commitment to the bit. The commitment to the bit has reached “Andy Kaufman reading from The Great Gatsby for an hour” levels.

I think that Hart has plus value on his contract (not sure, but he’s probably not being shopped so I have to go on gut feeling.) But in any case, the attraction for Hart is that he isn’t simply duplicative ot Mitch’s skillset like Duren or Sims.

Eason, Griffin, Dieng, Williams….these were all attractive pieces at that point in the draft (I personally liked Walker Kessler, but only as a trade-down). However, I am fine with the trade-outs as I think the value of signing both Brunson and Hart without any dead cap plus the future protected picks that are likely to convey were reasonably good value. Eason has come back to earth a bit; although he will almost certainly be a very good NBA rotation-level defensive wing in short order, the offense is a huge question mark. His TS% is down to .501, mostly on shooting a terrible 43% from 2, and his 3pt% is dropping like a stone after a ridiculously hot start.

Signing Hartenstein isn’t close to worth any kind of machinations with, or watering down of, lottery picks. Not even close.

Giving them the benefit of the doubt on trading out of 11, they should have just pocketed the delta between giving up 11 and acquiring 13, and drafted 13. That would have been a defensible and arguably even good 2022 draft night. Isaiah Hartenstein entering that thought process in any way, shape, or form was a fuck up.

“Although I have bought a bunch of TCL roku tvs lately for much less and they are perfectly fine. That said, does look like a fantastic price for Wirecutter’s favorite OLED”

Thanks Owen, here is the comparison I used to make a final choice between the LG and Sony models in a similar price range;

https://www.rtings.com/tv/tools/compare/sony-a80k-oled-vs-lg-c2-oled/31219/31229?usage=1&threshold=0.10

The Sony was now $200 more although it had sold for $1300 recently during a flash sale. I couldn’t go larger than 55″ because it had to fit inside a wall unit in my living room. I do have last year’s 75″ Samsung QLED Q80D in my basement family room, which is awesome but not as good as the OLEDs in the store…I just wasn’t gonna spring for the $4,000 for an OLED that size at that time.

Congrats to dtrickey, the aussies will be in the knockout stage of the world cup too! 😉

I would have been down with Kessler.

I think Hart isn’t 100% and isn’t playing anywhere near his best. Certainly Sims looks better at the moment. I like the idea of a center who can be a bit of a facilitator on offense but it hasn’t worked out like that yet. I would give him some time to get through his injury issue before making my mind up.

In hindsight, I would rather have made a pick than signed Hartenstein. Sims looks fairly intriguing and while we probably could be utilizing Hartenstein better, I think some of the drop off in his production is just good old-fashioned exposure at higher minute totals.

I won’t criticize the move because Hartenstein is exactly the kind of player I would’ve targeted in free agency. How the signing ultimately turns out for us is TBD, but even if it totally flops it was a risk worth taking.

Z-man, it’s only one pick. The trade was #13 and Kemba for MIL 2025 1RP (top4 protected).

Nothing wrong in a vacuum with Hartenstein. A lot wrong with him being a factor in lottery pick thinking.(*)

Eleven and four seconds for two lottery protected 1s and 13 would have been a nice night.(**) But we can’t have nice things around here.

(*) The other teams just never, ever do things like this and I challenge anyone who disagrees to find a single example of it ever happening. Lottery picks are not dispensed with for immediate cap space and especially not when the cap space is destined for the Harts of the world. It’s just never done. Then add on the fact that another major factor was dispensing of the year remaining on the contract of a guy they signed at buyout levels and we’re very safely into LOLKnicks territory.

(**) Luckily, their trade partner for 13 was Charlotte, another godawful front office. But of course the Knicks then squandered that luck.

I’m a little over obsessed with his, but since our loss to Portland where Jerami Grant attempted 28 FT’s he attempted 2 and 4 in the subsequent 2 games and he’s averaging around 6 FT attempts for the season

It’s just kind of mind boggling how we turned him into James Harden for one night.

I wasn’t paying close enough attention and I now (re-) see that they used almost $8M in cap room to sign Hartenstein and that takes the machinations with the lottery picks safely into terrible territory.

Z-Man, you literally said the San Antonio Spurs would want to hire Mike Miller bc he could be a worthy successor to Gregg Poppovich. I’m sure he would have brought Ron Baker with him, too, bc you were very keen on his potential.

Look, man, I don’t want to remind you of all the takes you’ve gotten hilariously wrong. You’ve died on so many silly hills and made life hell for everyone who disagreed with you. And whenever you’re proven wrong (like your Miller take, and your Thibs take) you pull a 180 and expect us to have collective amnesia. We all remember, we just don’t have the patience to fight you.

All this to say, we know you were right about Frank and Killian Hayes. If I had a brick for every time you reminded us I could have built the Tower of Babel. You used a flimsy opportunity like D-Mar’s comment to troll another poster in the middle of a game thread. I’m not defended Noble, I’m calling you out. That was troll shit, and you’re better than that.

Merry Christmas.

Agreed d-mar although many of the calls seemed legit…my issue is that we didn’t get the same calls.

As to draft night, I view the trades as a package of interconnected negotiations rather than separate transactions. I base that on the fact that DET took on all three of Kemba, Burks and Noel.

I love rooting every year for fresh draft picks to pan out and it sucks that only Keels is here for that. So I agree that I’d rather they picked someone than not. But the return seems fine to me. Hart has been so-so but sort of fills that void as an exciting new young player with upside.

Yesterday they said that Hart was working his way through an achilles injury, so I think we should keep the jury out on him. It might be that the somewhat frustrating inability to snag rebounds in traffic is because he can’t jump on it.

Still can’t believe we have a center who’s acknowledged across the NBA as a mini-Jokic level passer, with articles describing how he’s modeled his game after the Joker, and we make no effort to involve him in the offense that way. No! Hand-offs only!

While he looks for all the world like a backup stretchy 4/5 with defensive and rebounding issues, I’ll give Hart the player the benefit of the doubt and will simply note that projecting how a player will adapt to being put in a different situation is a fundamental part of a GM’s job.

When it became clear that “lottery pick” and “creating enough room to sign Hart” were being mentioned in the same breath, an adult in the room should have spoken up and talked sense into said room.

Still can’t believe we have a center who’s acknowledged across the NBA as a mini-Jokic level passer, with articles describing how he’s modeled his game after the Joker, and we make no effort to involve him in the offense that way. No! Hand-offs only!

That will only happen with a new coach. And the same FO that punts on picks to bring Hart here, also keeps a coach that will not play Hart to his strengths. There’s something not working with their decisions, when we traded for Cam it was the same, Thibs refused to play him.

You guys just need to take a wider view of what they’re trying to do with Hart. We’re bad but we can easily move Mitch for picks and still run iHart & Sims out there. Thibs will Thibs and play iHart 36min a game. What does this get us? A lot of losses and 2000 minutes for Isaiah. We’ll be terrible but nobody can say we didn’t play with a lot of Hart❤

Cyber, I was more okay with Thibs not playing Cam to start, as he was an unfettered chucker with no conscience and an utter disregard for playing defense. You can certainly argue ‘why get him then?’, but you can start to see the tantalizing rationale now, as he’s reining in his bad behavior and starting to play to his strengths without forcing things (something I admit I didn’t believe he could be potty-trained to do, see Barrett/Randle for counter-examples).

Jesus Early Bird, did you work on that one all night?

Kudos, regardless…

No Morning News? Site trouble?

I think the server sometimes is slow, or even gives up, because some of us can’t let go of old (and tedious) arguments. I would do the same, in the server’s place.

Aha. Got it. 😉

Apparently, time and the Pistons heal all wounds.

E4 the only DNP in a laugher? Is that some kind of veteran respect? Seems douchey by Thibs.

Is Obi ever gonna just *unleash* for 30 points? Or am I wasting my evening prayers every night.

All of these beautiful strolls down memory lane have me thinking: why tf do I do this to myself?

I’m a busy guy with kids. Why have I allowed the Knicks to do this to me for the last 20-plus years?

Maybe it is time to not give a shit any more.

and then, a moment of clarity arrives at ess-dogs’ door…

I always just try to think about this site when we actually have a good team and a real future. Like if we lucked into VW somehow. I don’t know. I have trouble generating realistic scenarios but it is theoretically possible.

We still have Clyde and Breen. Going to the Garden (which I am doing tonight) is still a blast.

And let’s be honest, we are the best fan basketball fan base in the world. The elite of the elite. So there is that. 🙂

I hope the server can hang on. Load times have been slow last couple of days.

“And let’s be honest, we are the best fan basketball fan base in the world. The elite of the elite. So there is that. 🙂’

So I don’t go to other sites or twitter or places where others discuss the Knicks. From what I understand re comments here, many of them have unrealistic assessments of the players.

Anyone here actively dispelling the myth of Barrett with a barrage of statistics on other media sites? We’ve been constantly highlighting it here, but that’s mostly preaching to the choir. Seems that would be a notable act of disruption. I think it would be right up there with feeding the hungry and crushing Qanon as a life goal…

“Anyone here actively dispelling the myth of Barrett with a barrage of statistics on other media sites?”

I don’t post much, but I check out r/nyknicks from time to time and even they have pretty much fully turned on him. I think it’s the high volume of sucktitude that has made it pretty much impossible to pretend the RJ Barrett experience is going well.

Frank on the other hand was only physically capable of taking, like, 4 shots per game, so the option to delude yourself into thinking there was anything there lingered.

Well, somewhat tongue in cheek. But the MSG fans are as knowledgeable as you will find anywhere I think.

Knicks Twitter pretty great too. I think the conversation on Barrett there has been highly realistic. Most people recognize he has been flat out bad and has a long way to go to be what we need him to be.

Being down on RJ is finally in on Twitter. The “sick” games opened up a lot of criticism. A lot of big accounts have been trashing him recently.

There’s still pushback but it’s more tepid.

You also get random people with their head in the sand lol-ing because he scores 20pts or whatever.

Before the recent stench of RJ games, you’d get shouted down for saying anything remotely negative. Its shouting into the abyss and the abyss trolling back. Anything more complicated than pure plus-minus or pointzzz is a chore to tweet about it.

Yeah, I was concerned about how it would go with the Three J’s and it hasn’t gone well.

But I don’t honestly think their chemistry has been that bad. RJ just can’t hit shots.

To me, the epitome of Knicks fans’ loyalty is being at MSG for a meaningless late season game and the Knicks mount a comeback and the “defense” chants fill the arena.

I don’t know if that makes us loyal or stupid lol

Randle has been really good offensively- even with the turnovers. If he can get his 3pt% up around 37/38% he might start to look attractive enough to a competing team (Miami and Phoenix both have huge holes at the 4) that it’s possible he could be movable without assets added. It’s doubtful he gets there but at least he’s trending towards movable. I think that between last year, this season’s defense and the fit with RJ, Mike’s conundrum (if Randle’s playing well enough to be traded the Knicks won’t want to move him) is probably over. I think the front office would move him as long as no other assets are attached provided the team is still struggling.

This World Cup group finish is bananas. Seeing Mexico eliminated for too many bad fouls is not going to ruin my day.

I was rooting for Mexico, it was a hell of a game. Schemes be damned, or those boring passes sideways, or wait for the right time to pass, they did none of that, they were on full attack mode. And clearly deserved to score the 3rd goal and go to the knockout stages over the boring Poland. Too bad the Mexicans only managed to put the ball in the back of the net when they were offside.

I was rooting for Poland for a few reasons. Apparently Mexican fans dislike their coach as much as we do. Really.,fun day and yeah, a little bit of a buzzkill that Poland went though with such a lackluster effort.

Owen, just set up the TV, it looks great! Only issue is that is isn’t as high off the bottom console part of the wall unit so there is a bigger gap between the top of the TV and the upper bridge. It’s not bad but I am considering either buying a little shelf to put under the TV to lift it a few inches, or just mounting it so that it’s centered.

“Z-Man, you literally said the San Antonio Spurs would want to hire Mike Miller bc he could be a worthy successor to Gregg Poppovich. I’m sure he would have brought Ron Baker with him, too, bc you were very keen on his potential.

Look, man, I don’t want to remind you of all the takes you’ve gotten hilariously wrong. You’ve died on so many silly hills and made life hell for everyone who disagreed with you. And whenever you’re proven wrong (like your Miller take, and your Thibs take) you pull a 180 and expect us to have collective amnesia. We all remember, we just don’t have the patience to fight you.

All this to say, we know you were right about Frank and Killian Hayes. If I had a brick for every time you reminded us I could have built the Tower of Babel. You used a flimsy opportunity like D-Mar’s comment to troll another poster in the middle of a game thread. I’m not defended Noble, I’m calling you out. That was troll shit, and you’re better than that.”

This is 95% bullshit, but whatever. Stop being so monomaniacal, dude, it’s creepy.

“Stop being so monomaniacal, dude, it’s creepy.”

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

And with that, irony is down to its very last breaths.

Maybe put a sound bar underneath?

Can’t go to the game. Whole family tested positive for strep and the guy I was going with has a son who is immune compromised.

Stuck with you cantankerous bastards

Owen, that’s a real shame. And Alan, any update? I trust you are out of the hospital

I have read the comments on Hartenstein, and I have to say I don’t understand them. We pay him a modest salary to be our backup center and he’s worth the salary. We do also have Sims but that doesn’t mean we have an extra center. We need three of them. Mitch gets hurt too often and Sims gets into foul trouble pretty often.

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