Knicks Morning News (2022.12.05)

cyber, the 4th quarter went much like the first 3. Kept waiting for the Spida explosion but it never happened. Refs continued to call ticky-tack travels, setting the record for this season. The two standout players were Brunson and IQ. Mitch did an awesome job on the boards, and kept a critical possession alive that allowed the Knicks to run down the clock. One notable fun fact was that Thibs kept RJ on the bench until around the 3 minute mark. Another is that IQ didn’t take a single 3, scoring all his points on drives and floaters. Finally, Deuce got extended minutes and was a huge factor on defense, although he can’t make a three to save his life.

Both teams were ice cold from 3 but the Knicks defended the 3-point line much better than they had in previous games. We know that players today can go off from 3 even when defended well, especially Mitchell, but far fewer easy looks tonight than in our bad losses.

Thibs seemed to like the 9-man rotation with Deuce although he suggested that it was a rest day on a b2b for Rose, so maybe this was just a mirage. BTW he almost blew the game by getting T’d up on a non-travel call on Garland when we were clinging to a 6-point lead.

Thibs should keep using Deuce on B2Bs and selectively against other matchups when we absolutely need better D at the G position like yesterday. If we are going to trade Rose and Fournier we should know what Deuce looks like.

I’m really not sure how much of yesterday was better defense and how much was the Cavs in a coma. Certainly in the early stages they were just missing open looks.

I’m not a fan of the Knick shooting so many 3s. It’s one thing to eliminate longs 2s and replace them with 3s. It’s another thing to strategically shoot more 3s when no one on your team can shoot.

Thibs still obviously has the team and locker room. They played hard on a B2B after a very embarrassing loss.

Obi was making 3s when they left him open. When they started closing out he started missing. Now they are back to giving him easy shots and he still can’t make them. This is why he’s on the bench. Unless we are playing a dumb team giving him a lot of transitions, backdoors, and lobs etc.. he can’t score. Not that Randle can hit 3s, but he can create other shots he can make.

RJ is getting “bad Randle” level hard to watch. We are at the point where if we didn’t tank to get him at the #3 pick and pay him 100m, he’d be out of the rotation. Virtually anyone would be better. If you are going to be an inefficient scorer, it should be on low usage and come with plus defense defense. Right now he’s the worst combination of everything.

Thanks, Z-Man. Defending the 3P line better is a must, so if we’re doing it, that’s a great improvement. We have a good test on wednesday against the Hawks, to check if this is for real or just a game that went well.

I had us going 10-10 at the 20 game mark, and we went 9-11. But i had this stretch at 1-3 and we went 2-2, so we’re right on track again. If we can go 4-2 in the next 6 to be 15-15 at the 30 game mark. Can we do it?
It’s ATL, @CHA, SAC, @CHI, @CHI, @IND. That’s a lot of road games, but we’ve been better on the road than at home, so there’s that. 😉

I’m happy with the win.

It was an awful basketball game, teams’ stats say they combined for 40 turnovers, with 14 calls for traveling.
As much as I like a little more restraint on the subject, this made the game unwatchable.

The third best 3-point shooting team in the league faced the 2nd worst defense against the three and shot 8-35.
Was it good defense or simply luck? Make your choice.

DM made his best effort to let us know we were right in not wanting to sell the future for him.
Did Grimes and Deuce defend him well? Yes, but how many open threes did Spida miss? Let’s say “some”.

Defense was a bit better and every Knicks player did “something” to help the win. Will it last? Only time will tell.

Still, Randle went 7-19, RJ had 6 TOs (and an atrociuos first half), Grimes missed all his threes, Obi did the same and Deuce too, Mitch had good numbers (Allen didn’t play, don’t forget that) but was minus-7.

To me IQ (6-8, with no threes attempted, 5 boards, plus-13) and I-Hart (10 points, 9 rebounds, team best plus-16 with some good passes and cuts in only 14 minutes, most of his missed shots were contested unlucky tap-ins) were the best.

An alien can land in NY, watch the game with no knowledge of the past and understand when Thibs is coaching for his job, and this wasn’t an exception.
9-men rotation, Cam and Rose glued to the bench, Deuce as the first one to enter the game.

But Brian is right, no matter how hot his bench will become, we’ll never get rid of him.
I’ve made peace with this and my life has been better since. 😀

Mitchell has been shooting well this year, but he still has a negative on/off. That has been his history except for the first couple years of his career when his defense was a bit better than feared coming out of the draft. There’s obviously a lot noise & other issues in that kind of metric that make it volatile, but when you are supposedly a star player, it’s two different teams, and it’s 4 years running, something is amiss with your game. I have no remorse about passing on him despite the headlines for how well he’s playing. The Cavs have a pretty good young team, but they would have had a pretty good young team without that trade. They aren’t “that” good and are going to have a rough time taking more steps when Utah has most of their picks or the right to swap picks.

Was hoping for a loss so we could be rid of Thibs and be one step closer to being rid of Leon. But we should know by now that we can’t have nice things if we root for this team.

Here is what confuses me about Deuce: I understand that the competition level in the G-League exponentially lower than in the NBA, which is why Deuce can get to the basket so easily with Westchester and not with us. But he also shoots well from distance in the G-League and horrifically when he gets minutes with the big club. Is it just (as Macri suggested on last night’s postgame) that the lack of consistent minutes if messing with his head, and thus messing with his form? At this point, I’m assuming he’s just going to be a Matisse Thybulle type who will defend his ass off and mostly make you play 4-on-5 on offense. But it’s still weird.

I’m a high school basketball ref, and we’re taught to strictly enforce the rules, especially traveling. The most common violation is when a player catches the ball at the 3 point line, and in their haste to make a move to the basket, they shuffle their feet (when my son played he did it once a game, which made him hate referees lol)

I don’t have a problem with NBA officials tightening up the rule, especially when it provides an advantage to the offense (I.e. going to the basket and taking an extra step) But they’re way overdoing it on the shuffling the feet call, players have been doing it their whole NBA careers, and it provides no advantage to the violator. And it really mucks up the game, as we saw yesterday.

Also sad to say I’ll be missing most of the rest of the World Cup, as I’ll be traveling (-:

RJ really makes this team unwatchable, he’s so bad. I can’t tell if he’s in a mental funk or if he just doesn’t give af now that he got his bag and was in trade rumors for the first time. Either way, it’s a real disaster for Leon. He’s clearly not “playing through it” at this point, as it’s been 15-plus games with a couple exceptions.

“But he also shoots well from distance in the G-League and horrifically when he gets minutes with the big club”

If he misses in the G league no one cares. When you are fighting for a spot in the rotation, if you start bricking open shots when you finally get into a game that puts you back on the bench. He has to know that to win and keep a spot, he HAS to make shots. That adds pressure.

Some of it may be that in the G league he gets more space because he can get to the rim easier if they are up on him. That gives him more time to set and the players aren’t as long defensively.

Some of it is probably just noise.

Whatever is going on, the difference can’t be as bad as it looks.

When the vast majority of the offense on the other team comes from their two super-quick, 6’1″ backcourt mates, putting IQ and Deuce in to try and shut them down makes infinite sense. No idea why he had Barrett chasing them around in the first quarter. But give Thibs credit for coming up with the obvious solution fairly early.

I think the win was a combination of the whole team trying on defense (well, with perhaps the exception of Barrett, who was also atrocious on that end) and the Cavs not being able to hit the broadside of a barn.

As Cyber says, the Hawks game will be telling for the whole team. It’ll be interesting to see if Trae tries to score 60 just to say “F-You” to the coach, and whether Thibs goes to Deuce early.

Trae Young is now 0-2 in getting along with his NBA coach. If this results in him being the next big star to be on the trade market, Leon will no doubt be in on the action.

“Either way, it’s a real disaster for Leon. ”

In defense on Leon, he didn’t draft him, was willing to put him in the trade package for Mitchell, and didn’t max him. So he probably has a realistic view on the probable range for him.

These are the tough decisions that come up when you draft very young players.

If you keep trading the ones that don’t blossom right away you are going to trade away a few players that go on to be very productive players on high level teams. That’s going to slow down your rebuild by years until you finally get lucky.

If you pay them based on projected improvement, you are going to wind up with a few players that don’t improve much and ultimately wind up with a bad contract for a few years.

It’s too early to throw in the towel on RJ, but it’s not encouraging. He looks a little lost out there and like he’s feeling some of the heat.

This is the issue with being mediocre. We’re currently tied for the last play-in spot with the potential pick conveying Wizards.

We’ll hang around this spot all season. This could easily be Thibs lifeline at least for awhile.

Also, I finished Atlanta last night.

Raven is a Big Black Bird says:
December 5, 2022 at 00:04
Makes ya wonder if you had $26 million in the bank and $207 million coming in over the next five years, would you do and say whatever the fuck you wanted?

You know, thinking about it, probably not. I’d still be the same guy basically. Maybe I’d buy more expensive wine, but even doing that I might worry about price when I didn’t actually have to. So I’m not sure it’s the money that is making Trae like that, maybe he’s just actually like that.

If anyone notices the site going down, when it comes back up if you could note that in a comment when it’s back up again?

Will do, Mike. Thanks for all you do to keep this forum up and running!

Thanks Mike! We’ll keep you updated, so far today it’s been very stable and not slow in loading comments (fingers crossed).

Just giving kudos to our two-headed center last night, 6-11 for 15 points and 22 rebounds (half offensive). Mitch had 3 steals too, and was really throwing himself around and intimidating shooters into not shooting (there’s a stat I wish existed…).

I know RJ is making lots of money and not earning it by the numbers, but I think folks are being too hard on him.

-He’s 22 years old.
-He’s a 34.2% career 3pt shooter on over 1,000 attempts, so that will probably come around eventually.
-He’s showing improvement from 2 and from the FT line
-Are we really all that worried about his defense?
-He’s 22 years old.

Anyhoo, he’s not going anywhere, not for a long time anyway. But I doubt that the perception of him around the league is as dire as it is here on KB.

What frustrates me most about him is his lack of situational passing, i.e. when he puts his head down and ignores everything around him. That’s also a coaching thing.

Maybe Thibs leaving him on the bench for most of the 4th Q last night is a start in holding him more accountable. Maybe IQ and Grimes will push him a bit for earned minutes.

“They aren’t “that” good and are going to have a rough time taking more steps when Utah has most of their picks or the right to swap picks.”

A little over a quarter of the way through the season, the Cavs are 4th in the NBA in net rating with the #1 ranked defense. They haven’t been battered by injuries, but key players have missed significant time. They have 4 guys under the age of 26 who either have made an all star team or likely will in the future, and the guy who hasn’t yet (Mobley) may turn out to be the best player of them all.

Dunno, think I’d trade positions with them in a second.

“I know RJ is making lots of money and not earning it by the numbers, but I think folks are being too hard on him.”

If anything, I think the outlook on him here is a little more favorable than a perfectly objective analysis would dictate. We’ve all seen the lists of guys who have played like him to begin their careers, though at this point we’re hardly at the “beginning” of RJ’s career. We’re approaching the point in which him turning into a good player (say, 2+ BPM) would be *completely* unprecedented.

If other fan bases were making these kinds of excuses for a 4th year player who has racked up 7,400 minutes, we’d be laughing. I mean let’s say RJ Barrett was on the Kings and signed to his contract–how would a poster who suggested trading even one of our protected firsts for him be received?

RJ’s FG% at the rim has been 54%, 55%, 55%, and 57%. So basically just noise level improvement at the skill he’ll absolutely need to get of the schneid. I’m just not really seeing the bull case anymore, we’re in year 4 and still no one has a good answer to the question “what is RJ Barrett good at?”

Mike, if you want to know at all times if the website is up, https://uptimerobot.com/ is a very good tool do it.

Not only has RJ not improved his shooting/finishing can anyone honestly say he’s improved any area of his game? His rebounding, assists, turnovers, steals, and blocks are right in line with his rookie year and career averages.

Now for some positivity: don’t look now but IQ’s 2PT% is above 50%!

This is at least partially fueled by unsustainable accuracy from floater range (.561 from 3-10 feet), but he’l likely always be pretty good from around there and last season he was at 42% from that range so the crash shouldn’t be too harsh.

He’s at 64% at the rim, and while the volume is still low it’s a career high 19% of his shots. By the eye-test he looks *a little* more comfortable going up against bigs to finish, though most of his finishes still seem to be of the fadeaway off the glass variety.

The improvements he’s making in other areas are well-documented. He’s our best POA defender and is averaging 7(!) TRB/36. He doesn’t get a lot of rebounds that are contested per se, but a lot of his long rebounds seem to be beneficial when it comes to getting out in transition so I don’t think that’s an entirely empty stat.

If you assume the shot will simply come around (FWIW I’m less comfortable with this assumption for both him and Grimes than some are, we still need to see IQ shoot well over a full season with fans in the stands and Grimes’ college numbers don’t really scream “marksman”), he’s probably our second best player. He’d have a .576 TS% if you arbitrarily gave him a 37% 3PT%.

It’ll never happen, but the best starting lineup in terms of winning games, developing possibly good players, and watchability might include Brunson, IQ, and Grimes.

TNFH, as was demonstrated when you published your list, RJ is kind of an outlier. There are very few players in NBA history that had a similar-type game that played nearly as many minutes as he has and put up such a low BPM.

The question for me is whether minutes in the NBA between ages 18-22 are any more telling than minutes in college/overseas. We will never know what Obi would have done in 7000 NBA minutes between age 18-22, and yet at age 24 we are hoping for further development. Quentin Grimes is older than RJ and yet we are still hoping for further development. IQ is a year older than RJ and we are still hoping for further development.

It’s interesting that a quintissential win-now coach who has a reputation for not trusting young players trusts his youngest player the most. Is it possible that he is seeing something that we are missing?

RJ’s minutes only make sense if/while Thibs is waiting for our lottery #3 to become Michael Jordan. Mercifully, we may be coming to the end of that phase. Last night, as mentioned, Thibs sent RJ and Brunson off together and then brought Brunson back alone to play with IQ. Overall RJ played ~ 30 minutes, which we all love, and that reduction may even help RJ’s own beloved stats if/when he’s matched up against more 2nd unit guys.

Of course it’s not time to give up on RJ, but it is time to give up on the idea that he is a “mamba” who can beat anyone all the time. The desire and ego may be there, but the skill set is not. Rather we should find the right matchups that work to his and our advantage.

I mean, the Kings DID draft their own RJ… Marvin Bagley.

The good news is Bagley is turning it around somewhat in his age-23 season albeit with a different team.

The bad news is that he still doesn’t project to be a starter—maybe topping out as a good bench player on a good team at best. And he’s obviously more of a big than RJ, so, theoretically, he needs less floor skills than RJ.

All this is to say, sure, RJ has room to grow, but that long, winding path isn’t really worth it when you can always sign an Alec Burks-type to do the job better and cheaper.

“TNFH, as was demonstrated when you published your list, RJ is kind of an outlier. There are very few players in NBA history that had a similar-type game that played nearly as many minutes as he has and put up such a low BPM.”

He was an “outlier” in the sense that most players who have been as bad as RJ have stopped accruing so many minutes and so much usage. I don’t know that this means such lists are misleading in some way.

“We will never know what Obi would have done in 7000 NBA minutes between age 18-22, and yet at age 24 we are hoping for further development. Quentin Grimes is older than RJ and yet we are still hoping for further development. IQ is a year older than RJ and we are still hoping for further development.”

There are huge differences here. We are hoping Obi, IQ, and Grimes build on the legitimate skills they have demonstrated as NBA players. That’s completely within the bounds of the standard development patterns of players at their ages, and even older players.

We are hoping RJ Barrett demonstrates a legitimate skill as an NBA player. It’s not unreasonable to hope he improves, in fact he almost definitely will. The problem is just how much he’d have to improve, or to put it differently just how many different areas of his game he’d have to improve.

It’s one thing to hope a guy becomes a better 3PT shooter. It’s another to hope he makes significant improvements at everything.

“It’s interesting that a quintissential win-now coach who has a reputation for not trusting young players trusts his youngest player the most. Is it possible that he is seeing something that we are missing?”

I wouldn’t read too much into this. For one, we don’t have much in the way of evidence Thibs is particular good among NBA coaches when it comes to playing the guys who lead to wins. Maybe more importantly though, we have no idea how much of this is being dictated by the front office. I am nearly certain the answer isn’t “none of it” though.

“ We are hoping RJ Barrett demonstrates a legitimate skill as an NBA player.”

I think/hope Thibs et al realize this is now what we’re waiting for. Not waiting on a superstar. It’s sad, but someone has to make that call.

RJ’s synergy #s at the rim is a bit misleading… or a product of how unreliable synergy#s are in general…. on bref his rim #s (0-3) feet is currently at .642 a career best mark with .568… .605… .596 the preceding 3 years…. that looks like there’s improvement but that’s why measurements in the 3ft to 3-16ft are a matter of how you’re measuring and if you’re not getting precision you shouldn’t take it literally….

i’ve said this many times before but the most stable part of shooting .. which are free throws and 2pt% are showing career best marks for RJ despite the enraging looking results… that doesn’t necessarily mean the 3pt shooting will come around but if you’re going to judge him based on that it’s going to be inherently volatile and all the anger and jubilation it comes with…. if he just restricts himself to catch and shoot which it looks like he’s doing lately then i would bet on more favorable results to follow….

as far as the secondary skills he’s sort of settled in to who he is but they were never really problematic to begin with… except for poor defensive #s which i think is a product of whatever thibs is doing… he rebounds and passes well for his position so it’s really just a matter of how his scoring comes around….

it wouldn’t be quite unprecedented as he’s both very young and also actually showing some improvement already….. 90% percentile outcomes are probably not in the cards but something like a Jason Richardson which is what i pegged as his 50% percentile outcome who’s probably adjusted for age as a 2-4 bpm player is still very possible….

with guys like frank ntilikina and kevin knox… the cake was already baked for them and so banishing them to the shadow realm was entirely justified… with guys that show nba ability and being imperfect players it’s not going to be a straight line to fulfill their potential…. just look at andrew wiggins….

so yes.. i think ppl are a very premature to bury rj esp since he’s hot shooting from 3 for a few games from painting a very different picture of where he is

So since I desperately don’t want to do my work today, I did a little dive into the RJ Barrett archive to see if I can figure out who this guy is.

A lot of articles say this, and it pretty much doesn’t matter what year or time of year it was written:

“In the four-game stretch from January 6th through January 11th, Barrett averaged 12 points per game, 7.8 rebounds, and 3.0 assists on 30.3% from the field, 6.3% from three, and 46.7% from the free throw line. The 20-year-old guard couldn’t hit anything in a massive shooting slump.

In the four games since then, Barrett completely flipped the script, averaging 20.3 points per game, 7.5 rebounds, and 3.3 assists, shooting 49.1% from the field, 33.3% from three, and 90.1% from the free throw line. So what’s changed?”

I’m including this quote as it’s kind of incomprehensible at the moment, but gets to a point I want to make:

“One point to notice here is that Barrett’s rebounds and assists barely changed. Even when Barrett isn’t scoring, he still impacts the game—he’s averaging 7.4 rebounds per game and 3.4 assists per game on the season. Barrett’s most underrated skill is passing, and there’s still reason to believe that he can eventually play point guard in small spurts at some point in his career if needed.” (By the way, this is 2021.)

So here’s the hot take: there is a decent, maybe even good RJ Barrett in there. But I think the problem is he’s becoming more one-dimensional in his play over time, not less. It’s all drive left, shoot threes, and not much else. And when those aren’t working — when his three-point shot is off (and so far he’s clearly a wildly streaky shooter), or when defenses let him drive left into bigs waiting on his ass because everyone knows what he’s going to do — he’s going to suck because he just keeps doing them.

I just don’t know if he’ll ever a) hit the three consistently, and b) develop enough other crafty moves to flummox defenses. He’s so unathletic (the “ooo’s” when he dunks are laughable — your 6’6″ wing is supposed to dunk!) that those two other things have to happen to make him anything more than a bench player.

The guy RJ reminds me of most is Mark Aguirre (if anyone goes that far back). And that’s a best case scenario. Mark was a shorter chunkier guy who scored a lot of bully points in the paint but also had nice touch from outside, passed and rebounded a bit. Aguirre was a 20+ ppg #1 option for Dallas but actually won his ring with Detroit by taking a smaller more focused role. RJ should say nightly prayers to get that kind of career.

I have two totally different takes on RJ and I’m not giving up yet (but wobbling a bit more, bad game after bad game).

One is the game-to-game one, and this year it has been mostly negative.
The other is the “who I think he is”.

Before the season even the staunchest anti-RJ supporters didn’t expect him to play this badly, he’s been a negative surprise to everyone.

But he isn’t Frank Ntilikina or Kevin Knox.

Last season, and the one before that, he was a “real” NBA player.
A player with flaws, prone to shooting slumps, not a max-contract, but there was no doubt he belongs.
And, from what I’ve seen in the previous three years, I can’t believe “this” is the real RJ Barrett.

He looks lost or in a coma most of the time, he moves slow, he reacts slow and is often careless with the ball, he defends as if his mind is wandering away.

To me he is okay physically (there are no known lingering issues) but he’s a mess psychologically.

Did he relax too much after signing the extension? (I don’t think so)
Does he think he’s a star after the extension? (maybe a bit, but he didn’t sign for the max)
Has he lost his confidence/Did he feel betrayed knowing they were close to trading him? (probably)
Are there “outside” (family/friends) issues we’re not aware? (maybe)
All of the above?

I try to remember that he’s a 22-years old kid after all, pampered since day one, now facing the up and downs of a professional athlete’s life.
He’ll never be a star or the savior of this wrecked franchise, but there’s a useful player there.

@Cyber: you’re not alone on RJ’s Island… at least for now 😉

“He was an “outlier” in the sense that most players who have been as bad as RJ have stopped accruing so many minutes and so much usage. I don’t know that this means such lists are misleading in some way.”

Or alternatively, that the vast majority of eventually good players who would have been as bad as RJ from ages 19-21 did not enter the NBA until age 22 or only got token rookie minutes.

“There are huge differences here. We are hoping Obi, IQ, and Grimes build on the legitimate skills they have demonstrated as NBA players. That’s completely within the bounds of the standard development patterns of players at their ages, and even older players.
We are hoping RJ Barrett demonstrates a legitimate skill as an NBA player. It’s not unreasonable to hope he improves, in fact he almost definitely will. The problem is just how much he’d have to improve, or to put it differently just how many different areas of his game he’d have to improve.

It’s one thing to hope a guy becomes a better 3PT shooter. It’s another to hope he makes significant improvements at everything.”

I agree that IQ is closer to being a “good” player than RJ, despite his woeful shooting. I think you vastly understate the gulf between where Obi and Grimes are right now and how many things they need to improve to be “good” players. And Obi is more than 2 years older than RJ. I would guess that the chances for significant development after age 24 are significantly lower than they are for a player between ages 22 and 24.

And that’s the question for me: how important is age when trying to project floors and ceilings for players compared to NBA minutes played?

In other words, if Quentin Grimes and Obi Toppin played 7000 minutes in the NBA from ages 18-21 (I can only imagine how they would have looked in 30+mpg in the NBA given that they were not distinguished as college players until they were 21) and now, at age 22 and 24 respectively, played like they have played thus far this year, would your opinion of their potential be any different?

I also disagree with the opinion that RJ has to get “significantly better at everything.” I think he has clear strengths on both side of the ball, but his biggest issue is consistency. For example, his 3pt% is over 34% for his career on over 1,000 attempts, with lots of hot and cold streaks. If he stabilized a consistent 36-38%, that would in and of itself make a significant difference. And it’s certainly not unheard of for 22yo’s to become more consistent shooters from the perimeter. He also shows potential as a switchable defender, but again, there’s a consistency issue.

The Cavs have a pretty good young team, but they would have had a pretty good young team without that trade. They aren’t “that” good and are going to have a rough time taking more steps when Utah has most of their picks or the right to swap picks.

2021-22 SRS: 2.04 (13th)
2022-23 SRS: 6.16 (4th)

They pushed the chips in and are consequently a title contender.

They pushed the chips in…

That perfectly sums up our dilemma. We will never push the chips in at anywhere near the right time, but will push them in nevertheless as long as we have the same owner. His FO hires know they are on the clock even as he professes he will not interfere.

Well, the Bulls are a team that pushed all the chips in and they’re currently at 9-14. Granted they’re missing Lonzo, but that team is very far away from being a championship contender

Reports that Kate Upton’s husband has signed with the Mets for 2 years and $86 million. So, same AAV as Scherzer.

“I think you vastly understate the gulf between where Obi and Grimes are right now and how many things they need to improve to be “good” players.”

The odds seem stacked against RJ ever having as good a season as Obi Toppin’s 2021-2022.

>2021-22 SRS: 2.04 (13th)
2022-23 SRS: 6.16 (4th)

They pushed the chips in and are consequently a title contender.<

SRS is capturing what happened so far without regard to injuries, days between games, home/away, and is always influenced by randomness in smaller samples like this. It's tough to adjust for all that in a way we'd easily agree on.

Last year they didn't have Sexton for almost the entire year and Markkanen was in and out a lot with injuries. He is young and finally taking a step forward. Both are playing very well. This year Garland has been out for some games for the Cavs.

Let's discuss their SRS at the end of the season, not now.

I'm just noting there's not much evidence Mitchell is making them a LOT better in on/off and Utah has been playing better than expected despite losing both Mitchell and Gobert.

It was probably a better trade for them than us because they had excess player assets and already had solid defense to backup Mitchell. For us I think defense would have been a bigger problem. But I don't think it was such a great deal for them either.

I think I’m happier with two years of Verlander, even at his age, than five (six possibly with option) years of DeGrom.

Not sure if it was covered on the telecast or postgame, but RJ was throwing up in the hallway during the game. It was captured by quite a few people on instagram.

I mention this bc I see some people pointing to his reduced time vs the Cavs as some sign that Thibs is learning. It isn’t. RJ was puking, that’s why he didn’t play more.

Well damn, if RJ had the flu he gets a pass on last night. Makes me wonder if Cam’s excruciatingly bad stretch the game before, where he literally couldn’t hold onto the ball, was the flu, too.

Which raises the rather peculiar question of why Thibs would play someone who is clearly sick as shit. Like play him any minutes, much less ‘reducing time in the second half.’

IMO to be a USEFUL role player you only have to do 1-2 things at a high level and then find the team that needs those skills.

Your value depends on the makeup of the team and what it needs.

RJ is a jack of all trades and master of none. He’s a does a lot of things meh, but virtually nothing above average. That can be more problematical.

If some guy is already a plus defender, solid ball mover, and can make a few plays he only has to add a 3 point shot to be useful to a lot of teams that already have the volume scoring they need.

If a guy like Grimes gets consistent from 3 he’s got a job in the NBA even if he never expands his offense (in his case he can do enough to hope he can expand).

RJ is not already good on one side and we are just trying to make him useful or neutral on the other. Right now he’s a negative on both sides. He’s not terrible at anything (like say Frank is), but he’s not a plus on anything. The difference being you can hide a weakness with the right lineup in order to get a role player’s strength out there. What’s RJ’s role?

“I mention this bc I see some people pointing to his reduced time vs the Cavs as some sign that Thibs is learning. It isn’t. RJ was puking, that’s why he didn’t play more.”

Dammit

Obi and RJ are a good comparison of the kind I was talking about.

RJ can do a lot more things on the court than Obi, but Obi does a couple of things very well (finish/transition) and RJ does nothing really well. Despite being limited, Obi can be an energy player off the bench on a decent team as long as you have a solid defense, good rebounding, and shooting on the court with in aggregate with him. He’ll bring his pluses into the mix. And you hope he add something like a consistent 3.

Even with his wider range of skills, unless RJ improves on at least one side of the ball it’s harder to figure out why you’d want him the court. Of course if he inched forward on both sides he’d be better than Obi because he’s got more skills that are at least close to being good.

So RJ has to literally throw up to get benched.

Not sure 31 minutes counts as getting benched.

“The odds seem stacked against RJ ever having as good a season as Obi Toppin’s 2021-2022.”

I was never mesmerized by Obi’s success on his 473 shots. Of his 251 makes, 104 were dunks and 52 were 3’s (30.8%). So he made 97 non-dunk 2pt shots, and the vast majority of those were inside 10 feet…mainly short-range put-backs. For a guy who largely scored inside, his FT rate was very low. He was never, ever double-teamed.

Seems like a couple of very simple defensive adjustments to minimize run-out transition dunks has punched a major hole in Obi’s offensive game. For a breif while, he couldn’t miss an open 3. Alas, that too has dried up, and his percentage has plummeted. And now he never gets to the line.

Maybe now that Obi’s a slam-dunk champ and all, defenses started adjusting to his greatness and have exposed him as a one-trick pony that can be easily marginalized on O and hunted on D. Or maybe it’s all Thibs’ fault because he can’t devise an offensive game plan that creates more uncontested dunks for him while hiding his many defensive issues.

So my question is: Are the odds more stacked against 24yo Obi ever having as good a season as Obi Toppin’s 2021-2022 (hopefully while playing over 17 minutes a game) than they are against 22yo RJ?

You don’t have to have been mesmerized by Obi’s play, but he was a productive NBA player. That seems light years away for RJ Barrett right now.

RJ’s passing is pretty bad. His AST% this season is 50th among wings playing at least 20MPG; in-between Alec Burks and Deni Avdija: https://stathead.com/tiny/D6he3

Last year was his career high and he was 31st, in-between Anthony Edwards and Ayo: https://stathead.com/tiny/n6D3J

Don’t mean to interrupt the thrilling discussion about our various low-ceiling prospects but I didn’t get to weigh in on Bruce Springsteen the other day and since this is the internet and I like to procrastinate I feel compelled to comment about him.

I was just listening, coincidentally, to The River that very morning! That record is kind of like the sweet spot Bruce record for me, the record I can really get lost in. It’s really long, and like all great double albums you can make an INSANE single album out of it. Fun fact: “Hungry Heart” was written for The Ramones.

I love the sound and energy of the first five Bruce albums, you really get the mojo of the E Street Band shining through on those. Those guys are all great musicians individually, and have great chemistry, and they can really put a song over, elevate a good song into a great one.

The equation gets changed a little bit around the time of Born In The USA, which is more slickly produced and arranged and loses a little bit of that energy. Still a fine record though, despite how overplayed it is. The next group of records– Tunnel Of Love, Human Touch, Lucky Town– that’s the nadir of his career to me. He rebounded after that though. From the mid-90’s on, he has consistently made solid records and is aging really gracefully.

One of my favorite records of his is Magic from 2007. That record suffers from absolutely godawful production, marred by the dreaded brickwall limiting techniques that were popular at the time. I loathe the way it sounds, but the songwriting on that record is really amazing, that’s a record that I always go back to despite its sonic flaws.

“…but he was a productive NBA player”

…in limited minutes mostly against scrubs and without any defensive attention with stats padded by meaningless minutes at the end of the season, and who has majorly regressed since…

“…in limited minutes mostly against scrubs and without any defensive attention with stats padded by meaningless minutes at the end of the season, and who has majorly regressed since…”

You can qualify it any way you want, but if RJ Barrett had a season 75% as productive we’d be jumping for joy even if he was coming off the bench or whatever else.

While I understand Z-Man’s skepticism of Obi’s game, I think a lot of the criticism is a bit unfair. He’s not a great defensive player by any stretch, but his on/off defensive numbers are consistently good, and all the advanced stats peg him as a moderate negative on that end at worst. While I think his deficiencies would get exposed in the playoffs (he’d get hunted on switches), that’s not the standard we should be holding him to, as quite literally half our roster would get mercilessly hunted on defense in the playoffs. He’s a rotation level NBA player, and possibly starter quality. He hasn’t been good enough to displace Randle, but he’s not just another guy either. I’d certainly rather take a bet on him De-Novaking himself next year and putting it all together into a productive starter quality player than I would on RJ rising to starter-level player next year. You should be more bullish on Obi’s career VORP than you should be on RJ’s at this juncture, and I don’t see how any fair assessment of their respective play and stats could yield a different conclusion. He’s also been obviously under-utilized in Thibs’ awful offensive sets. And lets banish the “playing against scrubs” argument for good. We all known that barring the Cole Aldriches of the world that per 36 stats translate pretty well from the bench to a starting role. Obi is not Cole Aldrich, since he can run 94 feet without his heart giving out.

And, for parity’s sake, if you think it’s plausible that RJ might be a statistical outlier (and tbh I don’t think he’s all that much of one, though I’m not as bearish as some other folks here on him), Obi certainly is, as he’s a known late bloomer in general (he went from just a guy in college to national player of the year!)

And now, here’s my hot take: RJ is worse on defense than Obi Toppin. He posts nothing in the box score, dies on every screen, has awful on/off defensive numbers; he’s a literal non-entity. Obi at least can get some steals or weak-side blocks every now and then, and stays with his man (before getting blown by because of his stiff hips).

If you have South Korea +7 goals… you’re probably gonna lose

I hate football but am incredibly bored with the Knicks. Apparently, Baker Mayfield got waived today. Odds on the Jets or Giants jumping on him?

And, to be absolutely fair, RJ’s AST% among wings still on a rookie contract is 37th, between Avdija and someone named Naji Marshall: https://stathead.com/tiny/ArwBe

His AST% last year among rookie contract wings was 43rd, between THT and Scottie Barnes: https://stathead.com/tiny/j5HD7

His rebounding numbers are similarly bad; 44th last season and this one among wings still on their rookie contract.

“And now, here’s my hot take: RJ is worse on defense than Obi Toppin. ”

ruh, roh 😉

We need duelling iso-cams in split screen of Obi and RJ on D. If we can stomach watching.

TUKoB, believe me, no one here is rooting harder for Obi than me, being that he’s from the next town over and I may have actually played pick-up with him when he was a kid. He’s also a delightful young man to boot.

But the fact is that he’ll be 25 before the season is over and RJ won’t be 23 until June. That is a massive age difference. Obi had not played a single minute in the NBA yet at RJ’s age, meaning he had more time to refine his game and physically mature before entering the league. The late bloomer thing seems pretty far-fetched at this point. I truly hope he defies the odds, but am not holding my breath.

We have no evidence that Obi could handle a starting role in the NBA. We also have no evidence that any team is willing to give up anything of value for Obi, or that he would be valued in a trade (Ainge made it pretty clear that he vastly preferred RJ over Obi, and he seems to be a pretty good judge of talent and value.)

Put it this way, if the Knicks signed Obi to the same extension they just gave to RJ, I’d be mortified. At least with RJ, the pre-extension GM survey in The Athletic confirmed that the consensus was that he was worth something in the area of his extension. If Obi has any fans in other FOs around the league, even the Daryl Morey types, I haven’t heard about it…

Yeah, that’s the other bummer thing about RJ, he was supposed to be a boxscore stuffer of a player but that has not really panned out.

The easiest way for him to add value to his game would be to look to pass more off his drives instead of just throwing up a weak layup attempt between three defenders at the rim. He has some pretty severe tunnel vision when he’s driving. He’s pretty good at getting into the paint and drawing defenders, he just doesn’t know what to do once the defenders have been drawn.

Reports that Kate Upton’s husband has signed with the Mets for 2 years and $86 million.

Well, Kourtney Kellar’s reign atop the NYC WAGs rankings was brief but glorious.

BREAKING!

@SBondyNYDN
The Westchester Knicks have traded Feron Hunt to the Birmingham Squadron for former Hofstra standout Justin Wright-Foreman.

Hunt was on a two-way deal with the NBA Knicks until he was waived last week.

“RJ’s passing is pretty bad. His AST% this season is 50th among wings playing at least 20MPG; in-between Alec Burks and Deni Avdija: https://stathead.com/tiny/D6he3

Last year was his career high and he was 31st, in-between Anthony Edwards and Ayo: https://stathead.com/tiny/n6D3J”

if you’re including shooting guards and small forwards with guys like Edwards and Paul George in the same query then that is not ‘pretty bad’ since being above average in that pool would be top 60 and not top 30 since you’re looking at two positions and not one…. this should be apparent since you have 100 players in your results….

being top 30.. as he was last year… would put him firmly in above average as that would be either top 15 for either SG or SF….

From Katz’s article in The Athletic. When Randle was asked about the difference between the Dallas and Cleveland games Randle responded, “The travels,” Randle joked. “That was the key.”

“How can the Knicks build on a strong performance like this?” a reporter asked.

“Hopefully, we can force them into more travels,” he said.

That’s very funny but I wish it didn’t come from a guy whose defensive effort has been laughable most of the season.

And on RJ- per stat muse the average 2 guard last year per 36 averaged 3.5 assists and 4.74 rebounds, the average small forward 2.9 assists and 6.07 rebounds. So the average wing averaged 3.2 assists and 5.4 rebounds. RJ was at 3.1 and 6.1. So utterly average as a passer and an above average rebounder. Of course that’s the average so it includes bench guys- I’m guessing if you compared RJ’s to other starting wings he’d probably be below average assist-wise with average rebounding but I could be wrong there. But you add in horrible steal/block numbers and RJ looks barely average in terms of peripheral value.

We need duelling iso-cams in split screen of…

At this point i really thought you were going to say Z-Man and Noble typing furiously on their keyboards. 😀

I’m sticking with Obi needing to help on the defensive boards more as the reason he isn’t the league’s best one man fast break this year. The mismatch with iHart in DREBing is the reason for Obi’s lower numbers.

And the reason Grimes & Obi weren’t in the league yet but are now is that they made a big jump. We can’t just assume RJ will make that jump. He may, he may not. But it looks increasingly unlikely he ever does.
****

That said, if you adjust RJs 3p% to his career average, then he’d be having the most efficient year of his career. It’d be a still bad .540 but that is showing improvement.

Fun fact: “Hungry Heart” was written for The Ramones.

Wow, a fun fact about The Ramones that i wasn’t aware of. Thanks, JK. 🙂

Birmingham Squadron

There’s new teams in the GLeague? Never heard of Birmingham Squadron before. But it’s a good move, now we have a new player to over-analyze (Justin Wright-Foreman) that won’t be playing a single minute for the big club. 😀

I picked SG and F because those are the positions he plays; last year mostly SF and this year mostly/exclusively SG. And I have no idea how 60/100 is average.

RJs rebounding & assists are fine. They aren’t star numbers and wont keep him in the game alone but hes not deficient either. The issue is his scoring & defense. He sucks at both.

Then again, he should probably have more assists given his usage. That’s probably a better stat.

I love the sound and energy of the first five Bruce albums, you really get the mojo of the E Street Band shining through on those.

i dipped out on bruce after Darkness on the Edge of Town…Glory Days for me was like hearing rod stewart sing Hot Legs – just a wtf is that moment…

One Step Up though brought me back in…never been married, or hell, even stayed in a committed relationship much past a single season…this sounds pretty honest though:
It’s the same thing night on night
Who’s wrong, baby? Who’s right?
Another fight and I slam the door on
Another battle in our dirty little war

When I look at myself I don’t see
The man I wanted to be
Somewhere along the line I slipped off track
I’m caught movin’ one step up and two steps back

hmmmmm, looks more and more like any plans to get an old friend to move out this way ain’t happening, i mean we’re still friends, just no geographical proximity bonus…it was a nice dream for the moment…

just need to resolve myself to getting out there and crawling like a viper through these suburban streets…

oh yeah, daughter took her dog back…fuck…

RJ just doesnt fit with Randle and Brunson. They need to be surrounded with efficient 3&D players who can run the floor and rebound like Grimes and IQ. If Leon flips him after December 15th for a 1st RP and a 3&D player, – this team will win a lot more games. There are a lot of good specialized pieces on this team that can’t be used properly because of RJ’s ineficient high volume game on both sides of the floor.

“So utterly average as a passer and an above average rebounder.”

tough crowd huh… i mean we can’t all be like Obi who’s probably in the bottom third in terms of secondary stats and doesn’t get nearly this much hate and being three years older to boot….

this slow start from RJ has happened every year in his career and the rhetoric doesn’t seem to change… he isn’t entitled to patience just like anyone else but you guys are twisting things to fit this narrative at this point….

his faults aren’t being utterly average on his secondary stats…. because i 100% guarantee that if RJ had average numbers everybody would be ecstatic about his outcome and he’s basically a 34% 3p shooting percentage away from that…. if you breakdown his box score stats he has two deficiencies… his 3pt shooting and his defensive #s… defensive #s are inherently volatile and they matter but they matter more to his long term outlook than in isolation (that’s probably the most interesting discussion to be had)… as mentioned previously his 3pt shooting is in the toilet but there’s reason to believe it’ll improve…

if you want to breakdown his bpm that’s exactly where it’s being weighed down… objectively and simply speaking that’s basically it…

Djphan, I agree; even though I’ve been harshly critical of RJ it’s more because a) his game is so hideous to watch right now, and b) he acts entitled to throw up garbage and play garbage D, which is infuriating. Obi, on the other hand, tries really hard, and yeah he doesn’t always succeed but it’s hard not to root for him.

I fully expect RJ to come around and stop puking, whether literally or figuratively, and get up to ‘normal’ RJ numbers by the end of the year (which means playing above that for a while), which will probably help us win some games and we’ll all go phew.

But he’s basically wasted a quarter of a season already. It feels a bit like KP, except KP was anemic and injured all the time, whereas RJ just wanders around in a deep funk.

***I didn’t get to weigh in on Bruce Springsteen the other day***

Wait a sec, I slog through years of knicks talk here just to somehow miss the Springsteen discussion?? That’s uncool.

Since I too missed it, I’ll add to what JK said. Aside from being the greatest performer I will likely ever see in my lifetime, I think Springsteen belongs I. The conversation of the great American writers of his generation. And I don’t mean songwriters. I mean all writers. (Though he became a bit conservative musically after Born to Run, his songs, lyrically, speak for themselves. Many, many screenwriters refer to Springsteen as a master story-teller. There’s even a UCLA screenwriting class that is dedicated entirely to the Ghost of Tom Joad songs. But besides his songs, he also wrote a beautiful book, and an amazing broadway show.)

The lyrics of “Born To Run” are so awesome. Many people have tried to write this kind of “getting out of your hometown” kind of song, but that one is the GOAT.

In the day we sweat it out on the streets
Of a runaway American dream
At night we ride through the mansions of glory
In suicide machines
Sprung from cages on Highway 9
Chrome wheeled, fuel injected, and steppin’ out over the line
Oh, baby this town rips the bones from your back
It’s a death trap, it’s a suicide rap
We gotta get out while we’re young
‘Cause tramps like us, baby, we were born to run

Agree that the peripheral stuff isn’t the big issue with RJ but given how ordinary those numbers are it’s increasingly looking like it’s volume scoring or bust for RJ. That really narrows the potential paths to success for him- TNFH has repeated said that RJ’s best chance to succeed is becoming and Iguodala-like jack-of-all-trades and I don’t think he’s alone there. He’s limited athletically defensively so he’s not going to add plus value there even if he’s not the sieve that he’s been this year. And can you see him being a genuinely plus rebounder or playmaker? Because he’s done nothing to suggest that- he’ll throw a nice passes every now and then but so does almost every other wing in the league. I mean if he becomes a league average scorer but remains mediocre in every other way is that a player you want to pay 25m?

And on Born to Run- the breakdown leading into “The highways jammed with superheroes…” is pretty much the apotheosis of Rock and Roll. The blow the roof off moment of all blow the roof off moments.

it wouldn’t be quite unprecedented as he’s both very young and also actually showing some improvement already….. 90% percentile outcomes are probably not in the cards but something like a Jason Richardson which is what i pegged as his 50% percentile outcome who’s probably adjusted for age as a 2-4 bpm player is still very possible….

the problem with this is offense has changed so much that j rich of the aughts would not be a 2-4 bpm player today. if today he produced his numbers from the stretch from 04-07 when he averaged a peak bpm of 2.5, he would be more like a -1 to -1.5 bpm player. and if you took his steals and block down a bit (but still above rj’s career), it dips to ~-2. in reality j rich would be shooting more threes and his 2pa distribution would improve, so his efficiency numbers would be better today. but that means the bar for rj reaching that level from where he is now is higher than it looks.

yeah, lyrically he really comes out with such a bang…so many of his first few lines are just so memorable…

this is the one that never leaves me…
I got a sixty-nine Chevy with a three-ninety-six
Fuelie heads and a Hurst on the floor
She’s waiting tonight down in the parking lot
Outside the Seven-Eleven store

this always makes me smile…
Well they blew up the chicken man in Philly last night
Now they blew up his house too

yeah, philly does seem kind of a harsh place…

“I mean if he becomes a league average scorer but remains mediocre in every other way is that a player you want to pay 25m?”

hell no….but…but…don’t worry he’s only 22 and will be awesome when he’s 26…we can max him then….

i think Jungleland was when i first got hooked on that sax sound in their music…

initially, it was like – what is that…oh, i like that…

are we still trying to keep the dream of our number 3 pick alive…

hope for the best, expect the worse…

the only thing that’s hard to tell is how much of a negative influence is the role thibs has RJ playing…

hopefully we get rid of thibs before too long so we can find out…

***like all great double albums you can make an INSANE single album out of it.***

It’s also insane that over the years he has released several dozen outtakes of songs that DIDN’T make the The River album, and a lot of them are really really good songs (Restless Nights, Roulette, Living on the Edge of the World, etc…)

“Glory Days” stinks and is part of an unfortunate micro-genre of baseball-themed rock songs from the 80’s, along with the similarly sucky “Walk Of Life” by Dire Straits and “Centerfield” by John Fogerty. “Walk Of Life” isn’t even about sports, it just SOUNDS so shitty that it became a sports song by default.

“I’m On Fire” is, in my opinion, the best song on the Born In The USA album, and one of Bruce’s finest overall.

For a tiny school in the middle of nowhere, Colgate U had a run awesome concerts in the ’70. Among these was Bruce Springsteen in 1976, fresh off the Born to Run release. A couple of my buddies were from Long Branch and played the earlier albums a bunch. I liked but didn’t love the big hits, but it was cool to see him take off from mostly a niche guy to a superstar.

PS the concert was in the hockey rink. We smuggled in a supply of gold…Cuervo and Acapulco…so my recollecteions are fuzzy to say the least. I do remember a bunch of us watching from the wooden platform that the hockey announcers would use for broadcasts. At some point the front legs gave out and it slammed down into an angled position. We so buzzed that we just layed back and laughed and sort of watched the rest of the gig.

As a ballad guy, my personal fave from that album is Meeting Across the River

Other concerts at the ‘gate during that time: Santana, Billy Joel, Fleetwood Mac, Bob Marley, Grateful Dead

“…along with the similarly sucky “Walk Of Life” by Dire Straits…”

I love that entire album …Walk of Life is schlocky but it fits in in a weird way. Again, the ballad Brothers in Arms just kills me…as does Your Latest Trick and The Man’s Too Strong.

JK, you mentioned The River…I’ve been trying to expand my very limited repertoire since retiring and was just working on playing that song the other day…the problem with Bruce songs is that there are such lengthy lyrics to remember…

So I get to be the one to change Nicos’ whole perception of the song by telling him it’s broken heroes not super heroes? Cool.

“That really narrows the potential paths to success for him- TNFH has repeated said that RJ’s best chance to succeed is becoming and Iguodala-like jack-of-all-trades and I don’t think he’s alone there. He’s limited athletically defensively so he’s not going to add plus value there even if he’s not the sieve that he’s been this year. And can you see him being a genuinely plus rebounder or playmaker?”

RJ is 22… things like rebounding and passing while probably won’t improve dramatically or for everyone… can and does improve if not moderately so…. Jaylen Brown who was once a KB whipping boy did just that recently in his career… and another KB whipping boy Rudy Gay also did that… and in my younger days i could probably name a dozen more…

and yeah the name Rudy Gay probably sends shivers down the spines of folks but he wasn’t a useless player and he was a relatively good starter if not overpaid… he just wasn’t the superstar ppl wanted or what his contract was paying him as….

and yeah Gay and Brown are not picture perfect comps as they were ahead on RJ in some fronts … but RJ also has some advantages on them at similar ages too…. he’s not gonna turn into Giannis but there’s a lot of room and circuitous paths for 1-4 bpm players…

“the problem with this is offense has changed so much that j rich of the aughts would not be a 2-4 bpm player today. ”

Rudy Gay at the age of 32 and multiple knee surgeries put up a 1.4 bpm season with SA in 1800 minutes…. he did not play like he used to and it looked different but that should tell you that isn’t some impossible outcome for that kind of player….

and high volume mediocre efficiency scorers aren’t the BEST investments but that also doesn’t mean that they can’t be GOOD investments… you can build a team around something like that… but you probably can’t build a team with them making max money…. just like any imperfect player you need other big pieces around them but just because they’re not that big piece doesn’t mean they don’t count either…

I’m struggling to remember a high volume/low efficiency player that was a good investment. Who are we talking about Allen Iverson who had a 94 career eFG+ and 98 career TS+ and hovered around those numbers his entire career?

Even Rudy Gay, a player I hate and have compared RJ to negatively several times, has a career 98 eFG+ and TS+. RJ is far l way behind the ball compared to these guys and doesn’t have a single plus skill to fall back on.

“but that also doesn’t mean that they can’t be GOOD investments”

at 25million AAV…that is not a good investment…that is no bueno…

“I’m On Fire” is, in my opinion, the best song on the Born In The USA album, and one of Bruce’s finest overall.”

Any love for “No Surrender” off that record? My favorite track 😉

Also, in 1984 I had the crazy good fortune to see Stevie Wonder at the Masonic Temple in Detroit and then Springsteen’s Born in the USA tour at Joe Louis Arena. I think the shows were like a month apart or something. I was a big Stevie fan but went to the Springsteen show mostly b/c of the hype, but Bruce made me a believer.

To this day, I still can’t get over how different yet similar Stevie and Bruce were as entertainers. Both shows were just insanely good, with huge, talented, and incredibly tight bands, and they both played for well over three hours giving us punters more fun than I thought was possible at a concert. The feeling sticks.

So I get to be the one to change Nicos’ whole perception of the song by telling him it’s broken heroes not super heroes? Cool.

Ha! Maybe I need to cut down on the afternoon vaping!

It’s a great Springsteen discussion. I haven’t listened to his latest work but now I feel the need to.

As far as Obi goes as you probably know I’ve been a big skeptic. After he was drafted some analyst was quoted as saying fans are going to love him and then went on to compare him to Kenny Walker. That seemed accurate and scary. Kenny Walker basically never made it as a Knick. Fans always wondered why he wasn’t getting much playing time. The fans were wrong, he didn’t deserve the playing time. It seemed like he couldn’t defend the same position he played on offense. After five years in the NBA he was playing in Europe (despite the slam dunk contest).

By the standards of Kenny Walker, Obi is doing well. He has improved his outside shooting and has a regular role off the bench. I hope he keeps on improving but I’m not holding my breath. I think improvements will still come but will be slow. Like not a few months but a couple of years more before he’s at a good starter level.

One of my favorite and I think highly under rated Bruce songs is Night from the Born To Run album.

I’ve always loved this lyric:
“And the world is busting at its seams
And your just a prisoner of your dreams
Holding on for your life
You work 9 to 5 but somehow you survive until the night
The rat trap’s filled with soul crusaders
The circuit’s lined and jammed with chromed invaders
She’s so pretty that you’re lost in the stars
As you jockey your way through the cars
And sit at the light”

Not only is he a great writer/singer/musical performer but I’ve also always admired his speaking ability. He does an amazing job speaking the stories as well as singing them. I love it in the Broadway show when he says that all these characters he really just made it all up.

One of my favorite and I think highly under rated Bruce songs is Night from the Born To Run album.

I’ve always loved this lyric:
“And the world is busting at its seams
And your just a prisoner of your dreams
Holding on for your life
You work 9 to 5 but somehow you survive until the night
The rat trap’s filled with soul crusaders
The circuit’s lined and jammed with chromed invaders
She’s so pretty that you’re lost in the stars
As you jockey your way through the cars and sit at the light”

Not only is he a great writer/singer/musical performer but I’ve also always admired his speaking ability. He does an amazing job speaking the stories as well as singing them. I love it in the Broadway show when he says that all these characters he really just made it all up.

I am probably a 100th percentile Bruce fan among people born in 1995. My contribution here is to stump for my favorite of his deeper cuts: Outlaw Pete

I dig No Surrender too!

There are some recent good covers of Im On Fire. One of them is from the movie Cover Pig with Nic Cage. It’s sung by Cassandra Violet. Worth a listen.

“Then again, he should probably have more assists given his usage. That’s probably a better stat.”

Cleaning the Glass has a stat for this, AST:USG. RJ has ranked in the 28th, 42nd, 41st, and 39th percentiles among wings. All four seasons the ratio itself has been in the 0.53-0.58 range.

So yeah, hell of a stretch to call playmaking a strength.

Dunno, I’m just not seeing it. He has such a long way to go just to be the kind of usage soaker djphan is talking about–the league average TS% is now around .570, how the hell is RJ Barrett getting there when we have to pretend he’s shooting better from 3 to get to .540?

Barrett has been above average for his position at exactly one thing since entering the league: rebounding. That’s all good and well but it’s not like he’s some elite rebounder, and more importantly we all know being a little above average at rebounding is not exactly going to keep an otherwise bad, high usage player on the floor (in an ideal situation anyway, in this particular situation it actually does).

I hope I’m wrong and I respect the hell out of djphan’s opinions, but I just don’t see the bull case for RJ at all.

“i mean we can’t all be like Obi who’s probably in the bottom third in terms of secondary stats and doesn’t get nearly this much hate and being three years older to boot….”

“Put it this way, if the Knicks signed Obi to the same extension they just gave to RJ, I’d be mortified.”

Can’t say I really get what point is being made here. If the Knicks drafted Obi 3rd overall, immediately handed him the keys to the franchise by playing him 35-40 minutes every single night and letting him nearly lead the team in usage, and gave him a $100M+ extension despite him never being productive in that role, well then yeah, I would imagine the discourse around Obi would be quite a bit different.

This context obviously matters. Toure Murry and Frank Ntilikina are similar caliber NBA players, but we spilled ever so slightly more digital ink on the latter because he was a lottery pick we drafted instead of Donovan Mitchell. Of course opportunity cost and the like effects the way we talk about players!

Speaking more of Springsteen, there is also the song “Fire” (different from “I’m on Fire”) that he wrote for Elvis to perform but I think Elvis never did. It’s also very good.

“There are some recent good covers of Im On Fire. One of them is from the movie Cover Pig with Nic Cage. It’s sung by Cassandra Violet. Worth a listen.”

I could give or take the movie overall, but man, this cover is great and is deployed at the perfect time.

Yeah. The movie was fine. But the cover is exceptional.

***“I’m On Fire” is, in my opinion, the best song on the Born In The USA album, and one of Bruce’s finest overall.***

I’m On Fire is one of those songs that even people who “can’t stand Springsteen’s music” say “except I’m On Fire, that’s a good one”. It’s kind of a stand-alone in his canon.

One of the things I liked best about the pandemic was that I put my then 3 and 5 year olds to bed each and every night for over a year. I’d sing and play the guitar, and over the course of the year we sort of assembled a set-list that they’d request and I’d sing. The song they requested most was I’m On Fire, which is one of the few Springsteen “lullabies” that he has. The only problem is it’s a sultry song about lusting over “little girl”s, which was a bit risqué for bedtime. So I transposed it way up to B natural and sang it as a quasi R&B song, which for some reason made it sound a little more innocent, taking the edge off just enough for them to never ask what the song was actually about.

To me “I’m On Fire” sounds like it is sung from the perspective of a protagonist who suffers from PTSD, maybe a Vietnam vet. It’s the middle eight and last verse that evokes that to me:

Sometimes it’s like someone took a knife, baby
Edgy and dull and cut a six inch valley
Through the middle of my skull
At night I wake up with the sheets soaking wet
And a freight train running through the middle of my head
Only you can cool my desire
Oh, oh, oh, I’m on fire

Beautiful song any way you slice it.

I love the song “Girls In Their Summer Clothes,” that’s such a great later-period song of his. Amazing autumnal song about aging, and how seeing a pretty young girl as an older man fills you with a kind of melancholia. Beautiful soaring melody, gives me goose bumps every time. He’s a national treasure.

“This context obviously matters. Toure Murry and Frank Ntilikina are similar caliber NBA players, but we spilled ever so slightly more digital ink on the latter because he was a lottery pick we drafted instead of Donovan Mitchell. Of course opportunity cost and the like effects the way we talk about players!”

Obi is not Toure Murray. He was drafted at #8 after he “fell” to us and most of us greatly preferred Hali (or at least Vassell) at that spot. And next year we will be in a similar position of debating whether to pay him or not, except at age 25, i.e. a time when further improvement seems unlikely.

The big “I told you so” player in RJ’s draft was Brandon Clarke. I don’t recall anyone saying that Garland was hands down the better prospect. There was actually less opportunity cost with drafting RJ at #3 than drafting Obi at #8.

At least we didn’t trade up for him…

I got into a debate once with a song writer in SF about whether the line was “Six inch valley through the middle of my skull”, or “Six inch valley through the middle of my soul”. I was sure it was soul, he was sure it was skull. I pulled out the springsteen authorized song book with all of his lyrics in it to prove it was soul. He pulled out the album liner-notes to prove it was skull. Not satisfied to both be right, we finally just turned the song on and listened to it. He clearly rhymes dull and skull and I ceded the battles. (It was kind of a Mandela Effect moment for me. I’d heard the song thousands of times and always heard soul. Maybe Bruce did too when he wrote soul in the song book. I kind of like soul more, even if it is a slant rhyme:)

I can say that I have never been more moved by an original opening song for a movie than I was by “Streets of Philadelphia”. Killer song, killer montage…and an all-time great movie. It became an integral part of our 8th grade Health curriculum.

“Skull” is better. Hits harder.

“And next year we will be in a similar position of debating whether to pay him or not, except at age 25, i.e. a time when further improvement seems unlikely.”

And I promise you, if we give Obi 4/~$110M guaranteed, I will be apoplectic barring some pretty insane improvement this season.

Alas, this has not occurred, so people do not talk about Obi as if it has.

the list of guys of who had been at one point perennial KB whipping boys for being high volume mediocre efficiency guys is quite long.. and it includes the likes of donovan mitchell… jaylen brown… devin booker… and to a lesser extent guys like deaaron fox and jamaal murray coming up very recently… i know this because i was likely leading the charge in being their #1 critic….

but something happened and a lot of these high volume mediocre efficiency guys became much higher efficiency guys right around their age 25 years… and that just because you’re high volume mediocre efficiency chucker at age 22 doesn’t destine you to become a JRich like efficiency for your career…. guys like JRich stayed like JRich because coaches kept letting them shooting midrangers…. that’s just not happening anymore….

yes the chasm between what RJ is now is very very far from what any of those guys are but believe it or not… it wasn’t really all that far off at age 22…. and if you all remember what u guys were saying about any of them at age 22 then you can realize how quickly these things can and often do turnaround….

where RJ is coming from is pretty low which is why i’m not saying it’s some guaranteed thing… but i am saying it’s something like a 50/50 chance at this point that he will see an allstar game at some point… or average something between 1-2 bpm for his career… and i’m seeing a lot of folks insinuatings closer to zero percent… and yes there’s a lot of bad games and feelings clouding people’s judgements… but that imo is overstating the case by a lot…

Skull is definitely darker and more vivid

he must have just kept writing, pretty consistently, his whole life…incredible that so much of it is that good…

writing must be like a compulsion to him…

oh yeah, then add all the music to those great lyrics…

I’m tired just thinking about how much he must work…

“he must have just kept writing, pretty consistently, his whole life…incredible that so much of it is that good…”

In the Howard interview he said that is not the case…that he sometimes goes years with “nothing.” He said kind of tongue-in-cheek “I’m not sure if I’ve written my last song…” to suggest that he just doesn’t know when the next song worth writing will come to him.

It was an incredible interview, and his vignette solos to add emphasis to his anecdotes were just mindblowing.

“Can’t say I really get what point is being made here. If the Knicks drafted Obi 3rd overall, immediately handed him the keys to the franchise by playing him 35-40 minutes every single night and letting him nearly lead the team in usage, and gave him a $100M+ extension despite him never being productive in that role, well then yeah, I would imagine the discourse around Obi would be quite a bit different.”

but the discourse around Obi is that there’s something there to be unlocked… he’s consistently… since college… rebounded very poorly for his position along with his other defensive #s and for a guy who’s score so well inside he’s also perpetually had poor ft rates… all that and he’s also already at age 25… there’s not much more to unlock here….

and the part of the dialogue that i’m seeing is that there might be something else from Obi.. which yes is possible but it’s also possible in the way that any of these stretch 4s become useful.. if he ever shoots 3s he’ll get the MLE somewhere and get 2000 minutes…

the expectations are incongruent between RJ and Obi.. but we could very easily replace whatever Obi could ever become… and guys like RJ get heavy investments because of whatever chance they have to fulfill some of that promise because high USG anything is very rare…

The Rockets are running the tank to perfection- staying competitive in games, developing promising young players but losing enough to give themselves a shot at Wemby.

Wouldn’t mind being a fan of that team )-:

I disagree DjPhan – the discourse is that Obi is fun and verifiably a solid basketball player. There is a belief he would probably do as well as Randle if given the leash. But I don’t think anyone thinks he will ever make us unregret Halliburton. I don’t think he will make an all star team.

I think if you play great defense as the high usage low to mid efficiency type it matters. Jaylen Brown and Tatum were guys I was soft on but they play great D. Their offense has improved too.

I do think the changes in NBA offenses have swung the needle in favor of that player type substantially.

Don’t know how I got that font but looks cool

***Skull is definitely darker and more vivid***

I don’t know. A skull is tangible and superficial, it gives the impression that he merely has a headache; whereas a soul is conceptual and implies an existential crisis.

But skull rhymes better, so I get it.

(This debate actually arose from a geeked-out discussion of great bridges, which devolved almost immediately into just great Springsteen bridges. Though we debated skull/soul, there was little debate as to the best Springsteen bridge. (We agreed that it’s Backstreets:)

i got into a period of time where all i did was listen to Tom Joad…loved that album…

best Bruce memory was when i was in like 6th grade…i used to sleep over my best friends house all the time…was about 10 minutes from the Arizona State Univ campus…his next door neighbor moved away and rented the place to some hard core partying guys from Chicago who supposedly went to ASU…we loved those guys…they were like heroes to us…but ….every Fri or Sat night…for like a year…like clockwork…at midnight…Cadillac Ranch would get cranked up and my friend’s parents would get all pissed off and call the cops….but that drum intro is embedded in my cerebellum from that experience….actually any party I went to for like a decade after that..i always expected someone to crank up that tune…great party song…

Sorry, no Bruce love from me. I grew up in the 70s/80s, listening to punk and college/indie rock. The folks that’d laugh at me for listening to nobodies like the Pixies, Sonic Youth, Red Hot Chili Peppers, the Smiths, etc. tended to either listen to Bruce/GNR or heavy metal. So I have a hard time liking any of these, especially how much they filled the airwaves at the time.

He seems like a great person/human, but I was once stuck in a car ride with 3-4 Bruce fans, and they were just gushing over his songs, and I we were stuck in traffic (and I get car sick to boot), so maybe that has something to do with it as well.

Now if you want to talk about the amazing long career They Might Be Giants has had, and how genius John Linnell’s lyrics are, I’m game. And laugh at you want about how he can be silly at times, but it’s the silly songs that suddenly plunge into the deep. Like a song about Brontosaurus (released this year) with silly puns, that all of a sudden goes into:

You want to leave an impression
You want to express an emotion
You crave some attention
And for this transgression, you’ll be repaid when
You fall and you fail and sink into depression

It was as dark as Get Out
I went and stuck my neck out
Wearing an expression of optimism
(Optimism and bad vision)

Do you think this tale has gone on for too long?
(Join the chorus, you can join the chorus)

Can’t cut it as an artist
Maybe I’m too sensitive
Who would have believed
skin could be so porous?

Yikes John! Get help!

My wife’s favorite songs are happy melodies with sad or dark lyrics. She’s not wrong…

I like TMBG too! The Communists Have The Music is a great song, and has amazing lyrics.

(I got handed an Ayn Rand sandwich
Straight from a can it tasted so bland
I asked a lass to pass me a glass
Of Engel’s Conditions of the Working Class…)

I also just gotta give a shout out to how great “Hungry Heart” is, in all facets of music.

As I mentioned above, it was written for The Ramones, so in writing a song like that, job #1 is to keep it simple. So Hungry Heart is just four chords: I-vi-ii-V. Until it hits the organ solo, which is a super satisfying key change. Just a gorgeous Brill Building kind of modulation, very classy.

The arrangement and production are also killer, that opening piano lick played by Roy Bittan, the Phil Spector-style glockenspiel, Clarence punctuating the bass line with bari sax. Played with swagger and conviction. In the second verse Flo and Eddie come in singing backup vocals, that’s Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan from The Turtles, who were a very underrated band in their own right. There are a couple of Flo and Eddie records that they made post-Turtles that I absolutely love.

The River is a pretty good sounding record production-wise, but “Hungry Heart” just has an iconic sound, it jumps out of the speakers. And of course it has the great memorable opening lyric: Got a wife and kids in Baltimore, Jack, I went out for a ride and I never went back. The hook “everybody’s got a hungry heart” is a timeless, universal lyric.

It was John Lennon’s favorite song at the time he died, he mentioned it in a few interviews shortly before he was killed.

Sorry, no Bruce love from me. I grew up in the 70s/80s, listening to punk and college/indie rock. The folks that’d laugh at me for listening to nobodies like the Pixies, Sonic Youth, Red Hot Chili Peppers, the Smiths, etc. tended to either listen to Bruce/GNR or heavy metal. So I have a hard time liking any of these, especially how much they filled the airwaves at the time.

Yeah, it’s interesting, a guy like Bruce with the extreme heart-on-sleeve hyper-sincere kind of persona is definitely at odds with the ethos of punk rock in a lot of ways. I have lots of musician friends who came up in the post-punk era who don’t really relate to him for that reason.

But it’s telling that he wrote “Hungry Heart” with The Ramones in mind, because I think he was inspired by a lot of the same music that inspired them, some of the same early rock and roll and girl group albums. The Ramones had a more rude and crude way of putting that music over, and didn’t have the same kind of conventional talent that Springsteen has, but to me it all comes from that same “rock and roll will save you” kind of place. It’s almost quaint to think about now, how much the idea of “rock and roll” meant at one time.

Springsteen LOVES punk. At one show I was at Mike Ness came onstage and they sang Bad Luck together. You could feel the crowd losing him, but you could also tell that Bruce was loving every second of it.

he sometimes goes years with “nothing.” He said kind of tongue-in-cheek “I’m not sure if I’ve written my last song…” to suggest that he just doesn’t know when the next song worth writing will come to him.

thanks for sharing that z-man…wow, that’s really surprising…

ha, thinking of him and clyde as young folks thumbing through their dictionaries and thesauruses searching for more words to express themselves…

Obi had a .614 TS% last year on a usage over 20%. That’s a very useful player even with his other deficiencies. There’s legitimate reasons to like Obi even with his age. He also put up eye-popping stars when getting more run at the end of the season.

RJ could turn it around… but he’s not close. He needs to shoot around 43% from 3 to get to league average TS%. This is the sort of thing we clowned Frank for.

All that said, RJ is still having his best year (ignoring his way too good shooting in empty arenas). If RJ improves in the 2nd half of the year, we could be happier with his progress. Maybe I’ll take the sick games out of the sample & look at his numbers then.

He just has so far to go… and he’s losing us games now. I’d like him more if he got fewer minutes.

I have to admit I have never been a Bruce guy. I think it’s like having that gene some people have that makes cilantro taste like soap.

I actually had the Mike K problem with Bruce- too associated with jocks and keggers in the late 70s/early 80s for me. But somewhere around ’87 someone played Nebraska for me and that made me go back and really listen to the older stuff. Nebraska remains by far my favorite Bruce record- as great as the E Street band is at what they do, I’m just not crazy about that bluesy bar band sound. I mean you couldn’t pay me enough to go see someone like Southside Johnny but when the songs are as good as Springsteen’s…

So I get to be the one to change Nicos’ whole perception of the song by telling him it’s broken heroes not super heroes? Cool.

Kind of like the Knicks, right? We’re always waiting for superstars and are only “jammed” with broken stars!

Sorry, no Bruce love from me. I grew up in the 70s/80s, listening to punk and college/indie rock. The folks that’d laugh at me for listening to nobodies like the Pixies, Sonic Youth, Red Hot Chili Peppers, the Smiths, etc. tended to either listen to Bruce/GNR or heavy metal. So I have a hard time liking any of these, especially how much they filled the airwaves at the time.

We’re a lot more alike than i thought. 😉 I just remember music from 12yo and on, so it’s mid-80s and early 90s for me. Punk rock, punk hardcore and grunge leading the way, but everything alt-rock was on my list too. All this to say, i’m not a Bruce fan, but i like several of his songs, not at all in the same category of GNR or heavy metal from that time, they were all super pretentious, was the feeling i’d always get, always trying to write “stadium songs” and feeling like they were the best in the world. Don’t like that at all in music, i like people that even if they’re among the best, they always try to write from the soul and don’t try to chase success/fame with each song they write/compose. And btw, you couldn’t torture me if i had to listen to Bruce for several hours, whereas with GNR i’d reveal all the secrets i know pretty fast. 😀 One of these days, we have to trade playing lists, Mike. 😉 And ClashFan too, he comes from the same background, if i’m not mistaken.

the list of guys of who had been at one point perennial KB whipping boys for being high volume mediocre efficiency guys is quite long.. and it includes the likes of donovan mitchell… jaylen brown… devin booker… and to a lesser extent guys like deaaron fox and jamaal murray coming up very recently… i know this because i was likely leading the charge in being their #1 critic….

So let’s compare their age 21 seasons: https://stathead.com/tiny/pH4lQ

RJ has the worst 2P%, 3P%, FT%, steals, blocks, and 2nd worst assists. He has the worst eFG%, TS%, BPM (2nd worst OBPM and DBPM), and VORP. And while all of the other players had nearly league average or above eFG+ (ranging from 96 to 104) and TS+ (ranging from 96-101, RJ’s were 88 and 90.

RJ’s age 21 season was far behind those players age 21 season and I’m sure we can say the same at the end of this year about his age 22 season.

“RJ has the worst 2P%, 3P%, FT%, steals, blocks, and 2nd worst assists. He has the worst eFG%, TS%, BPM (2nd worst OBPM and DBPM), and VORP. And while all of the other players had nearly league average or above eFG+ (ranging from 96 to 104) and TS+ (ranging from 96-101, RJ’s were 88 and 90.”

Enough said. RJ is not them. The sooner Leon/Thibs realize this, – the better it is for everyone.

RJ needs his minutes cut significantly and asked to learn to be more efficient on both sides of the floor to remain as a starter. Also, take away his green light to force shots. Not every shot is a good shot for him as he doesnt have the athletic ability to make the difficult in your face type shots. Lastly, tell him to lose 10 pounds of “bulk” by end of the season and 20 before next training camp.

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