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Knicks Morning News (2022.12.07)

  • Knicks underpaid Jalen Brunson? | Max Greenfield – Deadspin
    [news.google.com] — Wednesday, December 7, 2022 7:00:00 AM

    Knicks underpaid Jalen Brunson? | Max Greenfield  Deadspin

  • The Myth of the Knicks – The Nation
    [news.google.com] — Wednesday, December 7, 2022 5:11:03 AM

    The Myth of the Knicks  The Nation

  • Atlanta Hawks vs New York Knicks Predictions, Best Bets, Odds – World Sports Network
    [news.google.com] — Wednesday, December 7, 2022 4:54:06 AM

    Atlanta Hawks vs New York Knicks Predictions, Best Bets, Odds  World Sports Network

  • Knicks’ task: Stop former offseason target Dejounte Murray – New York Post
    [news.google.com] — Wednesday, December 7, 2022 3:50:00 AM

    Knicks’ task: Stop former offseason target Dejounte Murray  New York Post

  • Derrick Rose, Cam Reddish out of Knicks rotation for now; Miles McBride to see more time – Yahoo Sports
    [news.google.com] — Tuesday, December 6, 2022 9:26:00 PM

    Derrick Rose, Cam Reddish out of Knicks rotation for now; Miles McBride to see more time  Yahoo Sports

  • Deuce is Loose: Miles McBride Latest to Rise in Knicks’ Rotation Adjustments – Sports Illustrated
    [news.google.com] — Tuesday, December 6, 2022 7:50:19 PM

    Deuce is Loose: Miles McBride Latest to Rise in Knicks’ Rotation Adjustments  Sports Illustrated

  • Knick Knack – Who’s There? The Firth Youth Center That’s Who! – TAPinto.net
    [news.google.com] — Tuesday, December 6, 2022 7:00:00 PM

    Knick Knack – Who’s There? The Firth Youth Center That’s Who!  TAPinto.net

  • Tom Thibodeau’s lineup tinkering will soon reveal who Knicks really are – New York Post
    [news.google.com] — Tuesday, December 6, 2022 6:50:00 PM

    Tom Thibodeau’s lineup tinkering will soon reveal who Knicks really are  New York Post Donovan Mitchell’s homecoming spoiled, Cleveland Cavaliers lose to New York Knicks, 92-81  cleveland.com’It’s Over With’: Knicks Ditch Mitchell’s Homecoming in Upset Victory  Sports IllustratedNBA Twitter Praises Knicks for Beating Donovan Mitchell, Cavaliers After Failed Trade  Bleacher ReportKnicks News: New York knocks off Donovan Mitchell and Cavaliers, trade rumors heat up  Daily KnicksView Full Coverage on Google News

  • Trae Young leads Hawks back into MSG to face Knicks – CBS Sports
    [news.google.com] — Tuesday, December 6, 2022 6:11:00 PM

    Trae Young leads Hawks back into MSG to face Knicks  CBS Sports

  • Trae Young at odds with Hawks ahead of Knick nemesis’ return to Garden – Yahoo News
    [news.google.com] — Tuesday, December 6, 2022 5:50:00 PM

    Trae Young at odds with Hawks ahead of Knick nemesis’ return to Garden  Yahoo News

  • Opinion: The New York Knicks Should Trade For This 5x NBA All-Star – Sports Illustrated
    [news.google.com] — Tuesday, December 6, 2022 2:35:59 PM

    Opinion: The New York Knicks Should Trade For This 5x NBA All-Star  Sports Illustrated

  • Wassup in Westchester: Three Knicks assignees lead W-Knicks to another big win – Posting and Toasting
    [news.google.com] — Tuesday, December 6, 2022 1:44:44 PM

    Wassup in Westchester: Three Knicks assignees lead W-Knicks to another big win  Posting and Toasting

  • ‘Can’t F*** This Up!’: Knicks Get Victor Wembanyama in Kevin Garnett’s Fantasy – Sports Illustrated
    [news.google.com] — Tuesday, December 6, 2022 12:36:10 PM

    ‘Can’t F*** This Up!’: Knicks Get Victor Wembanyama in Kevin Garnett’s Fantasy  Sports Illustrated

  • Latest trade report makes bold prediction about Isaiah Hartenstein’s future with Knicks – Daily Knicks
    [news.google.com] — Tuesday, December 6, 2022 12:06:00 PM

    Latest trade report makes bold prediction about Isaiah Hartenstein’s future with Knicks  Daily Knicks

  • “I’m here and I plan to finish my career here” ? when Patrick Ewing left the New York Knicks for the Seattle Supersonics – Basketball Network
    [news.google.com] — Tuesday, December 6, 2022 10:20:31 AM

    “I’m here and I plan to finish my career here” ? when Patrick Ewing left the New York Knicks for the Seattle Supersonics  Basketball Network

  • The Knicks Must Get More Out of Their Players – The Knicks Wall
    [news.google.com] — Tuesday, December 6, 2022 8:42:01 AM

    The Knicks Must Get More Out of Their Players  The Knicks Wall

  • Dallas Mavericks Interested In Trading For New York Knicks Guard Derrick Rose – Forbes
    [news.google.com] — Tuesday, December 6, 2022 8:00:00 AM

    Dallas Mavericks Interested In Trading For New York Knicks Guard Derrick Rose  Forbes

  • 121 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2022.12.07)”

    Oh boy.

    Full disclaimer- I LOVE this version of Rose as a Knick.

    However, I am 200% on board with pulling him from the rotation in favor of giving Deuce a look so we can figure out what we have. We know what Rose is gonna give us once he gets his legs under him. What I don’t understand is pulling Cam.

    If you wanna go with a 9 man rotation- fine. But that rotation needs to include Cam at SF/SG, and Quickley at the 1. Then you give Deuce time when you want more perimeter defense, when you want to go small and run, or when foul trouble or ineffectiveness is plaguing Brunson or Quickley. Quickley is a combo guard at minimum, and that suits his role as the 6th man very well. It will be very hypocritical of Thibs to consistently trot Deuce out there as the primary backup PG for up to 20 mpg, and not give the same rope to Obi even when Randle is off.

    And of course- you know Cam is feeling maaaaaaad alienated right now. And he is our one true wing that has the size and game to play SF full time and some SG. So..that sucks

    If we replace Leon Rose with an actual GM hired by James Dolan, he’s not going to be better than the other 29 GMs. Most likely he’s going to be a league average GM or, because it’s Dolan, a below average GM.

    If zero GMs drafted Desmond Bane or offered a 1st rd pick for Desmond Bane, then who in the market pool of GMs that we might actually hire would have drafted Desmond Bane?

    You’re asking for James Dolan, who is notoriously bad at hiring GMs, to hire the best GM in the league. That’s why we would not have Bane.

    The GM you’re asking for does not exist. The VOR-GM is positive because no GM would have Bane and most, if not all, wouldn’t have IQ either.

    Interesting stat of the day and imo a better way to measure usage than just how the possessions ends. Personally, I don’t think you can win a championship with one guy having the ball so much.

    >>NBA Stats
    @sports_mediocre
    Crazy NBA stat of the day #60:

    How much more time Luka has the ball than the highest usage players:

    Giannis +89%
    Joel +223%
    Ja +18%
    Trae +27%
    Shai +43%
    Tatum +127%
    LeBron +79%
    Dame +47%
    KD +138%
    Spida +59%
    Book +79%
    Steph +67%

    Luka on pace for the most time ever with the ball<<<

    Most mock drafts had Bane going #26. I saw him mocked as high as #20 and as low as #28. #30 was a bit of a drop for Bane. I still can’t believe Boston dumped him. He would have been perfect for them!

    Quickley, agreed, most GMs would not have taken him #25.

    I’m not sure whether I should be hoping the Knicks trade Cam before they destroy his value again after just restoring it, hoping RJ twists an ankle so Cam gets to play and we win more games and then bring him back or RJ has a second half more in line with what I expected for this year and just write off the trade and handling of Cam as more Knicks idiocy.

    There may be upsides to having a set rotation so everyone knows what their role is, what the substitutions are going to look like, and approximately how many minutes they are going to play. I’ve heard enough players say they like it that way or were struggling a bit because they didn’t know. But imo matchups and what’s going on in the game have to be part of the equation. What we need on the court on some nights is not going to be exactly the same as what we need on others. There are nights it should be Deuce and others when it should be Rose, some when it should be Hart and some Sims, some Cam Deuce and Quick etc…

    There may be upsides to having a set rotation so everyone knows what their role is, what the substitutions are going to look like, and approximately how many minutes they are going to play. I’ve heard enough players say they like it that way or were struggling a bit because they didn’t know.

    I think it may be true for veterans (I heard veteran relievers say the same things about bullpen roles), but the young kids? I don’t know…

    I imagine everyone of us has played some kind of organized basketball or any other team sport.
    Have you ever been on the bench (not a starter)?

    And if so what did you prefer?
    To know that your coach would always use you in the same way and for the same amount of time, or that in the right game, with the right situation, playing well you could deserve more minutes?
    When I was a bench player I was dying for minutes to demonstrate what (little) I could do!

    But imo matchups and what’s going on in the game have to be part of the equation. What we need on the court on some nights is not going to be exactly the same as what we need on others.

    I’m 100% with you on this.
    Otherwise what’s the use of a deep roster?

    @Cyber

    sorry for being late, great win yesterday against my neighbors!
    Well done (especially benching Ronaldo) 🙂

    I don’t want to get into the details of this argument about Bane but I just find the following logic weird.

    Let’s criticize Rose for not picking Bane when he wasn’t picked until 30th and let’s also criticize Rose for picking IQ at 25 instead of 33 because he would have been there at 33. But we like IQ and think he’s turned into a pretty promising young player. So if the role of a GM is to find good talent late in the draft and pick players that others would not have picked, can you really ding Rose for taking IQ at 25 instead of 33 just because at 33 he theoretically might have still been there?

    The goal of the draft is to leave with good players. It’s not to extract the maximum value out of every single pick. 25 is late enough in the draft that I think it’s absurd to ding Rose for taking IQ there instead of at 33. He got a good player that other GM’s passed over. It’s not like he took IQ with the 8th pick.

    Very happy for Judge. No one got more screwed over by MLB’s criminal rookie contract/arbitration system and he risked a ton for this.

    Apparently the Yankees are still willing to spend, but I’ll believe that when I see it. I was pretty dispirited about the gulf between the Yankees and the Astros after the ALCS, but if we add Rodon and/or Yoshida I’ll be excited about the 2023 team.

    Thanks Max, it was a great game but we’re trying to not get carried away because the next one starts 0-0 all over again. 😉

    In other news, Aaron Judge re-signed with the Yankees (9/360).

    Disaster avoided… for now.

    P.S. TNFH beat me to it 😀

    Can someone tell me why is Quick in trade rumors along with Cam, Rose and Fournier? Those three make sense, because they don’t seem to fit what we’re trying to do, but not Quick. He always plays and is improving, plays good defense and it’s a matter of waiting for the shot to be more trustworthy and we have a very good player there.

    The correct answer (for me only) to the which historical music concert is the Charlatans, 1990, October 4th in New York City.

    That way I can see my teenage self at my first concert. I’d hand myself $100 and tell me to invest it in Microsoft and wait 10 years. Also IIRC, it was a really good show. They were just off their first album, and everything sounded awesome.

    Otherwise a Beatles concert in Germany would be nice. Maybe that RHCP/Nirvana/Pearl Jam concert that lasted like a week.

    Or better year, I’d check out the national anthem at MSG on May 8, 1970. Then maybe catch the game after. 😉

    https://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/197005080NYK.html

    Katz with some scoops: https://theathletic.com/3977210/2022/12/07/knicks-trade-immanuel-quickly-cam-reddish-evan-fournier/

    -We’re trying to trade Fournier, but not willing to attach assets just to dump him. We’d potentially take on a worse contract with an asset attached.

    -We’re seeking a future first for Quickley. He could be traded with Fournier or alone. He has fans in other front offices.

    -No one really wants (Derrick) Rose.

    -The chances we recoup the fake-ish first we gave up for Reddish are “slim.” Sounds like a trade of some sort is inevitable.

    My feelings on the series of transactions that have led to Cam Reddish being glued to our bench and likely traded for nothing are well-known, so I’ll just add that getting a single first for Quickley would be very disappointing to me considering it would almost certainly come from a decent-to-good team.

    I wish we got to see what he could do as 28+ MPG fixture, but we couldn’t largely because that would likely come with some reduction in minutes for RJ Barrett.

    Until now the bizarre fixation on making sure RJ got a bare minimum of 32 minutes every night was arguably more or less harmless, but now it might force us to basically sell low on Quickley.

    This all screams of very shoddy asset management. These guys are better than Phil Jackson, but still don’t meet the apparently high bar of “uncompensated Knickerblogger poster.”

    Quickley, agreed, most GMs would not have taken him #25.

    Yeah, they would have taken him at 33 instead and come away with both.

    Let’s criticize Rose for not picking Bane when he wasn’t picked until 30th and let’s also criticize Rose for picking IQ at 25 instead of 33 because he would have been there at 33. But we like IQ and think he’s turned into a pretty promising young player. So if the role of a GM is to find good talent late in the draft and pick players that others would not have picked, can you really ding Rose for taking IQ at 25 instead of 33 just because at 33 he theoretically might have still been there?

    Bane was the better prospect at the time, and he’s been the much better NBA player since. And he fit a clear need on the team at the time.

    Meanwhile, their Kentucky connection told them that IQ was a find, which was nice, there’s no doubt about it, it’s nice that their Kentucky connection helped them identify IQ as a good pick, but then they went way over his mock spot to get him, when his highest mock was #35 (most had him in the high 40s, and even into the 50s) and they had the #33 pick, which sort of defeats the purpose of having “inside info” if you have to go way over his projected draft spot to get the guy. And really, whether they picked IQ or Bane at #25, trading the #33 pick for a future second rounder was just plain dumb. Who the heck just punts on the #33 pick in the draft?!?

    The alternative to Leon Rose—in the real world—is not a mock draft, it’s one of 29 other GMs or guys similar to them who also do not draft Bane.

    Who do you want to hire as GM who could feasibly be a choice by James Dolan for GM?

    Masai Ujiri? Didn’t want Bane.

    Sam Presti? Didn’t want Bane.

    Daryl Morey? Didn’t want Bane.

    There’s nobody we’d have hired who would have drafted Bane unless you think Dolan will actually hire Jeremy Woo or Sam Vecenie or Wasserman or whichever mock drafter had Bane at 25.

    Swifty/Walker, that’s not the argument.

    See, somehow there are still people who defend the terrible results Leon Rose has gotten from the bounty of draft picks he inherited.

    Those people use things like “Bones Hyland is bad at defense” or “the 700 minutes Keon Johnson played as a 19 y/o were bad” to support the idea that there was no lost opportunity.

    The argument is that we should have taken the best player available with every pick, and using nothing but player rankings from draft express shows you just how outstanding the prospects available were. The “there were no good players” argument should be dead and buried, yet somehow it still exists.

    Good stuff from Katz, but Idk, nothing in there seems like much of a big deal.

    It would be great to move Fournier, but if not, he just sits… same with Rose. Recouping a first for Quickley would be a fine trade. I like him, but this is the first year he’s shooting over .400 so far! He’s not exactly Ray Allen. And they don’t seem to view him as a PG, so I guess he’s expendable.

    This quote was telling:

    “A deal where they send out two players and bring back one or something of that ilk is possible, as well, but as of now, they have made it clear to other teams that their goal is to free up space on a crowded roster.“

    Since RJ’s minutes arent going anywhere and Thibs loves Grimes, it will have to be either Quick or Cam who goes… and if they keep Cam, he will probably be gone after this year as well. Idk, maybe he signs a prove-it deal with us next year?

    But what really matters is how our guys play. I would say “young” guys, but at this point, it’s pretty much all young guys out there (Randle and Brunson aren’t even that old).

    If they suck, that’s a shame, but then we get a high draft pick. If they play well, that’s good!

    Plus, I would not underestimate the possibility of an Accitank with this group. We are one Brunson injury away…

    “ Who the heck just punts on the #33 pick in the draft?!?”

    Rose does this consistently because he always wants picks on hand for that promised “superstar trade.”

    The problem is, he has never done a good job at this, and he will likely do a worse job moving forward because the league knows what he’s up to now. So he might as well just draft good players with his excellent scouts.

    There was one good player in the second round that year. Punting was fine.
    ——————————–
    Citing mock drafters saying no team wanted IQ before 35 is a terrible argument. We 100% know that a team did want IQ higher than 35.

    The whole punting on picks to acquire shittier picks because you think they’re more valuable in a trade thing betrays a lack of confidence in drafting ability.

    You know what has really high trade value? Good NBA players. Try to draft them. Even if you fail, we’ve learned the trade value of these punted picks isn’t much anyway because it turns out other teams also understand the concept of pick protection. Isn’t this why we hired Walt Perrin? Am I not told that all is well, because we can always draft a star with one of our mediocre picks?

    Of course I’m not against trading out of a draft in a vacuum, all deals come down to the details. But when you’re getting *at best* neutral value for a present pick, there’s a very good chance you’re the sucker.

    Hubert, there are plenty of reasons to dislike Rose but the one you chose—wishing we had Keon Johnson—is not one.

    And the auto-draft you have in your head is meaningless. Some people had Keon Johnson very high, some didn’t. Kai Jones was often mocked 18-21ish. If you’re looking at average mock spot, then auto-draft would’ve taken Deuce McBride at 32 and not Jeremiah Robinson-Earl. We got him anyways plus another pick.

    Turning the 19th pick into Cam Reddish was stupid. Everything else you’re saying aren’t reasonable criticisms.

    Sorry but the difference between pick 25 and pick 35 is not “way over.” Its not the same as pick 5 and 15.

    Once you get into the late teens, the mocks are essentially meaningless. If you pick a good player anywhere later in the draft, you have succeeded at your job.

    You can try and draft good NBA players in 2023, 2024, & 2025 too. There’s no rule against it.

    There are only 3 things we know for certain:
    Bane was picked 30th.
    IQ was picked 25th.
    Any mock draft that had Bane going earlier or IQ later was wrong.

    Would I have liked to have both–of course. But that is not a valid criticism since we never could have once we settled on IQ. The valid criticism is if there was any player available at 33 that was better than the return on the punt–and not at the time, you are able to use hindsight for this one.

    From what Katz says, it doesn’t seem to me that they are trying to move some specific player, they just think they have too many average players to play them all so they will trade whoever they can get a fair price for. That seems reasonable to me. It’s much better than having to trade one specific player.

    The players they are reportedly are considering trading are Quickley, Fournier, Rose and Reddish. (Notably that excludes RJ and Obi). One was drafted at number 25. If you get a first round pick for him, you basically break even and that’s a good result because most late first rounders don’t do much in the NBA. Rose was acquired for a second round pick. Given that we got two years of useful play from him, we got our second round pick’s worth already. Giving him away for nothing and sending him some place he would be helpful would be fine. Fournier’s hiring was a mistake. It’s hard to see getting out from his contract at low cost. Reddish was probably a smaller mistake. It seems like there’s something we don’t know about that affects his play or attitude sometimes and that seems to be sinking him as an NBA player. I’m not happy about it, but this sort of things happens (and not just in Basketball) and is hard to predict. So, whereas I think Fournier being overpaid was predictable and the blame lies with management, I’m not sure Reddish wasn’t just bad luck. Overall none of this makes me very angry at Rose and company. It just seems to be the results of average GMing. As a long time Knicks fan, I know it could be much worse.

    “You can try and draft good NBA players in 2023, 2024, & 2025 too. There’s no rule against it.”

    A lot of these picks come with little to no certainty as to when/if they’ll convey. If the plan is actually to draft players with them, this makes it very hard to do so in a way that is conducive to planning around various contractual timetables.

    So much so in fact that it’s hard to believe it’s actually the plan to draft players with them!

    Using hindsight, no, there really isn’t anyone worth having in the 2nd rd that year. There’s Xavier Tillman and Kenyon Martin, Jr. Neither are very good so far. I certainly don’t mind missing on them.

    “The players they are reportedly are considering trading are Quickley, Fournier, Rose and Reddish. (Notably that excludes RJ and Obi). One was drafted at number 25. If you get a first round pick for him, you basically break even and that’s a good result”

    Sorry, but this is not the mentality a team as behind the 8-ball as the Knicks currently are should be employing.

    We desperately need to be getting value out of our transactions. In other we words, we need to be *beating* the expected ROI on just about all of our picks, signings, etc. There’s no other way out of middling team hell.

    Trading Quickley for another 25th pick does very little for us. It’s basically a concession that we can’t afford to pay one of the few legitimately intriguing players on the team because we paid too many of the un-intriguing players. If the return is actually just a single mediocre first, I’d much rather just accept the latter are sunk costs, pay Quickley, and try to draft more Quickleys.

    If we had selected AJ Griffin at #11 this year, he’d be the best prospect on the team right now, by a wide margin.

    I can live with drafting the wrong guy with a first round pick. That happens a lot. It’s harder for me to deal with “Nah, I don’t like any of these guys available at #11, let’s convert this pick into some future protected picks.” Fuck that strategy all day long. It doesn’t work.

    I’ve been assured the next GM will get a better player than Quickley with a draft pick. So it’s a good trade really.

    “Using hindsight, no, there really isn’t anyone worth having in the 2nd rd that year. ”

    man tough crowd…. Paul Reed and Tre Jones in shambles….

    And yeah, i think we should be using the picks we have. Now that we’re shifting even more to the youth movement, we could have 2 nice young prospects instead of Svi and Arch. That’s not debatable, i think.

    and might i add… that future second rd pick we incinerated that year was traded to dump Kemba’s contract…..

    with all these genius moves it must come as a shock that we’re this bad right… or maybe it isn’t surprising and these were actually terrible moves….

    My apologies to Paul Reed. I did not realize he was doing that.

    Not sure I’m gonna miss having Tre Jones that much.

    “with all these genius moves it must come as a shock that we’re this bad right… or maybe it isn’t surprising and these were actually terrible moves….”

    It’s almost as if when the best thing you can say about, like, 10 different moves is “that was bad, but not franchise crippling,” eventually the franchise does indeed get crippled.

    Dumping players is a reasonable use of a 2nd rd pick for anyone who isn’t the omniscient GM KBers think we’re gonna hire to replace Rose.

    Fuck that strategy all day long. It doesn’t work.

    Amen. One of the reasons it doesn’t work is outside of the Knicks I don’t think anyone has ever done it. Though I am not sure the 11th pick is the best example (since it was done as a step to land Jalen). 19th is a better example. Has there ever been a top 20 pick where the result is that absolutely no one came in that season as a result of it and that was the plan? I can think of only 2 instances–Larry Bird taken the year before he was eligible to play and David Robinson taken 2 years before everyone knew he would suit up. And the Knicks aren’t ending up with them.

    I might be wrong but I cannot think of other instances ( I do not count drafting an injured player or a Ricky Rubio type because you are hoping that player plays for you next season)

    Hard no on trading IQ for almost anything. Sure it’s fanboi recency bias and all that, but I tune in to games for three reasons: IQ, Obi, and seeing if Deuce gets his three minutes (13 now?). Okay, the occasional Sims dunk.

    If IQ goes, why do I bother tuning in? To watch Randle spin and drop the ball and RJ get blocked at the rim? Been there done that.

    “Dumping players is a reasonable use of a 2nd rd pick for anyone who isn’t the omniscient GM KBers think we’re gonna hire to replace Rose.”

    we punted on a top 3 second rounder for a detroit second rounder which had that familiar ‘might be as good as the pick you traded but also might not’ thing to it’…. it just turned out that detroit happens to still be really bad and so that was likely a top 5 second rder just evaporated….

    other kinds of second rd picks dont have much value… that kind of second rd pick does actually have real value… and in some drafts valued more than the 29th/30th picks…. they have so much value we just traded for a bunch of firsts that might actually turn into those!

    Turning Kemba Walker, Alec Burks, Nerlens Noel, a 1st, and a bunch of 2nds into Brunson, Hartenstein, and three 1sts is not franchise crippling.

    ***Turning Kemba Walker, Alec Burks, Nerlens Noel, a 1st, and a bunch of 2nds into Brunson, Hartenstein, and three 1sts is not franchise crippling.***

    This line of reasoning is a little hard to follow. Rose didn’t inherit Kemba’s contract, or Noel’s, or Burks’. It’s bad management to burn picks to fix the problems you create.

    We can sit here and analyze this all we want, but the bottom line is that we have been a bad-to-mediocre team for quite a while now with the exception of one good season, and we have gotten very little out of the draft in that time other than guys who project as role players. We’re still waiting on that big white whale of a trade, and we don’t have the assets to pull that off either.

    Wake me up when the next jabroni gets hired to do that job. I’ve seen enough of this particular jabroni.

    finished the first season of Rings of Power last night…I enjoyed it a lot…

    you all are tough crowd to please sometimes…

    still have seasons 3 & 4 of Atlanta to finish…I’m kind of saving those…

    probably gonna move over to Disney and check out Andor and that Chris Hemsworth’s Limitless thing…

    anyone have any suggestions for some more binge-worthy stuff?

    Or better year, I’d check out the national anthem at MSG on May 8, 1970. Then maybe catch the game after. 😉

    We have a winner.

    I tune in to games for three reasons: IQ, Obi, and seeing if Deuce gets his three minutes (13 now?). Okay, the occasional Sims dunk.

    A thousand times this. And Mitch.

    Btw Donnie I am meeting JK47 for lunch Thursday and we can save you a seat.

    In LA? Tomorrow? Got room for a third seat?

    @geo…i just started watching Rogue Heroes on epix..that is pretty good and the soundtrack is littered with cool AC/DC songs..so …you know…i’m there…also watched The English on amazon prime…that was ok…started good but faded a bit for me…

    “We can sit here and analyze this all we want, but the bottom line is that we have been a bad-to-mediocre team for quite a while now”

    eggzactly…its pointless to dissect the minutae when you pull back the lens…it’s a pile of dung…like the ol’ cheech and chong bit…hmm looks like shit….hmm…smells like shit…hmm…taste like shit…must be shit…

    What makes our situation particularly bleak is it’s pretty hard to say where we can go from here. The absolutely ideal blueprint is something like:

    -Definitely trade Randle/RJ/Fournier/Rose
    -Honestly, trade Brunson for a haul. He’s awesome but future assets are simply worth more to us than present wins right now.
    -Let the dominos fall where they may with whoever is left with a coach willing to utilize modern offensive and defensive schemes

    The problem is we can’t trade Randle and RJ and won’t trade Brunson, so the best “pivot” we can make is basically what we’ve already done–benching Fournier and Rose, basically. It doesn’t amount to much.

    bad-to-mediocre

    Under Leon Rose we have been kinda good-mediocre.

    I think part of hte problem is past regimes made us suffer for so long that Knicks fans are very impatient for a really good product and they just lump everyone together. But we have not been “bad” under Leon. We were mediocre the first year. Ended that year strong (so kinda good). Then we were mediocre last year and so far we’re mediocre this year.

    But what people are missing is that each of these 3 seasons we’ve gotten younger while remaining mediocre. So each season the wins are more and more because of young players, not vets/mercs.

    Literally the only “older” vet left in the rotation now is Randle. Fournier has been out for awhile. Rose is now out. Randle is the only older player left on the team and he’s 28.

    If RJ was playing better, we’d have like 3 or 4 more wins and everyone would be pretty pleased with the way things are going. RJ is really the only true negative of the season.

    And it’s still early in the season.

    Hubert, there are plenty of reasons to dislike Rose but the one you chose—wishing we had Keon Johnson—is not one.

    That is a wild mischaracterization of my reason.

    Having said that, I think you’re vastly underestimating Keon. There’s a lot to like about him, and your use of small sample statistics is not convincing.

    “I think part of hte problem is past regimes made us suffer for so long that Knicks fans are very impatient for a really good product and they just lump everyone together.”

    I would be happy to wait out a plan that took 5 or 7 or 10 seasons to make the Knicks a contender. I’m not remotely impatient.

    I just want to see a plan that actually achieves that, or at least has a better chance to achieve that than “commit to mediocrity and hope you get really, really lucky.”

    My problem with the current “plan” is not that it’s taking too long, it’s that it’s failing. There’s absolutely no reason to think time will make things better except in the context of simply waiting out all the bad contracts we’ve signed.

    We’re already seeing that time can in fact make things worse–we’re probably trading one of our better young players because we failed to capitalize on the advantages provided by his rookie-scale deal.

    Why exactly should I believe that it’s literally just a matter of time until we’re a good team? Plenty of NBA teams take long, winding roads to nowhere. Sure seems like that’s our thing.

    You can try and draft good NBA players in 2023, 2024, & 2025 too. There’s no rule against it.

    Don’t tell us, tell Leon.

    And yeah, i think we should be using the picks we have. Now that we’re shifting even more to the youth movement, we could have 2 nice young prospects instead of Svi and Arch. That’s not debatable, i think.

    Yes. Draft, draft, draft. The (false?) promise of our young players is the only thing that makes the current sucky years better than most other sucky years. The hope that Mitch turns into gold, or Obi, IQ, Grimes, or Sims is what keeps me tuning in. If we have terrible offensive ideas and pathetic effort on defense, at least let’s watch young players do that. I think it’s E who is “all merc’d out” but I heartily agree. Leon should just step up and draft and refuse any trade for players over age 27 unless it’s for G-d himself. Let’s just embrace the idea that NY is in fact a “small market” town with an irrationally valuable basketball team. At least the kids are fun to watch. As Jesse likes to say, “Keep hope alive.”

    I would be happy to wait out a plan that took 5 or 7 or 10 seasons to make the Knicks a contender. I’m not remotely impatient.

    Right now I’m on year 22, and I have to say I’m a little antsy.

    If we replace Leon Rose with an actual GM hired by James Dolan, he’s not going to be better than the other 29 GMs. Most likely he’s going to be a league average GM or, because it’s Dolan, a below average GM.

    Wake me up when the next jabroni gets hired to do that job. I’ve seen enough of this particular jabroni.

    This is why Team Pessimist will always have the lead. Because it’s Dolan that hires the jabronis 🙁

    I think a consolidation trade could be good but won’t really touch the bigger issue of this team’s current offensive/defensive construction unless they can somehow nab a decent 3&D wing.

    RJ is really the only true negative of the season.

    Therein lies the problem. When the general consensus is that RJ is the key to not only this season but the general framework to become a contender it gets harder to be optimistic.

    so i went through to see what patterns Dolan might have with his GMs to see how long Rose actually has… and to no one’s surprise he has a short leash(but most owners do)….

    Isaiah Thomas 2003-2008 (the longest!)
    Donnie Walsh 2008-2011
    Glen Grunwald 2011-2013
    Steve Mills 2013-2014
    Phil Jackson 2014-2017
    Steve Mills 2017-2020
    Leon Rose 2020 – ???

    it’s quite possible that Dolan has some sort of weird attachment to Rose as he did with Isaiah but barring that i think he really has at most next season to bring us back to relevancy and might even be shorter than that…. yes Rose has a playoff appearance under his belt but so did Grunwald and Grunwald ironically built the best teams and had the shortest tenure….

    all that said.. GMs very rarely get to turnover the core they built and for better or worse Rose picked everyone on this roster…. as far as Rose surviving he really probably needs to make the playoffs at least or land that star that’s been his strategy from the start… and it’s not looking good on either front…

    Z-man has retired. He is posting a bit less. Noble is now working as a lawyer. He is posting a bit more. What am I missing?

    “Therein lies the problem. When the general consensus is that RJ is the key to not only this season but the general framework to become a contender it gets harder to be optimistic.”

    For all of Rose’s moves you can kinda, sorta, perhaps incorrectly say were defensible at the time they were made, extending RJ was an obvious unforced error.

    We literally just had to allow him to become a restricted free agent. It was the simplest possible thing to do, and Leon Rose went out of his way to fuck it up.

    Grunwald ironically built the best teams and had the shortest tenure….

    Grunwald wasn’t really Dolan’s “guy.” He was just promoted to replace Walsh. So he had the shortest leash out of everyone.

    Would I have liked to have both–of course. But that is not a valid criticism since we never could have once we settled on IQ. The valid criticism is if there was any player available at 33 that was better than the return on the punt–and not at the time, you are able to use hindsight for this one.

    Bane was a better prospect than Quickley. Bane has been a much better NBA player than Quickley. They picked Quickley over Bane. I did not like that move then, and I don’t like it now. That I also think Quickley would have been available at #33 had they taken Bane at #25 (and had not foolishly dumped that pick, of course) just compounded my initial dislike of the move, but the initial bad move was taking Quickley over Bane.

    That said, knowing the Knicks, they’d somehow be attaching Bane to dump Fournier’s contract right now, so I guess it all evens out.

    RJ is really the only true negative of the season.

    Obi is prolly the only other net negative this year IMO (so far) due to expectations.
    Hart is maybe less appealing on the floor than in our minds, but that might be on Thibs.

    As for the others, it may be ugly to watch but —

    Randle has played within himself.
    Brunson has been as advertised.
    Mitch is on par.
    IQ is showing signs
    Sims is way better than (I) expected.
    Grimes is on par.
    Cam is better *and* worse than expectations, so zero sum.
    Deuce may yet get his shot.
    DRose is basically an afterthought, and that prolly bothers no one at this point.

    Thibs is maybe an idiot, but he *has* been playing the young’uns, and my (misguided?) quibble with benching Fournier has basically allowed that to happen, so … I yield.

    extending RJ was an obvious unforced error.

    I know you saw that a mile away, but RJ’s failure to thrive, so to speak, is a surprise to me and some others here. Obviously it is to Thibs and Rose.

    Yeah, I’m kind of surprised that Rose and Cam are out of the rotation, but I guess I understand why. Cam showed flashes, but also had times where he appeared to be mostly spectating, esp. when with the ball dominant starters.

    Bondy reporting that the Knicks and Cam are working towards a trade. I bet it’s gonna be a Reddish/Fournier dump to…somewhere? Reddish, Rose, and Fournier for RWB works in the trade machine, fulfilling every KBers nightmare (though I think we’d win that trade even if we included a nominal 2nd.)

    Dolan has a lot of flaws as an owner but he is clearly a very loyal boss. We saw it with Isiah, and we saw it with Carmelo Anthony, and we saw it with Steve Mills. Phil Jackson forced his own termination by being incompetent. Rose hasn’t been incompetent. I’d expect Rose to be here for a while.

    I see that, as with The Incineration, people are still having trouble with the simple and straightforward equation, “Drafting Immanuel Quickley and Desmond Bane > Drafting Immanuel Quickley.”

    This remains the headscratcher of all headscratchers.

    Quick practice test.

    1. Drafting Quentin Grimes, Miles McBride, and Bones Hyland.

    2. Drafting Quentin Grimes and Miles McBride.

    Which is better, 1 or 2?

    It’s time for Dolan to clean house.

    IMO, there was absolutely nothing wrong with the trade for Cam. They needed a bigger longer wing, he’s talented, he’s young, his development was interrupted, and the pick they gave up did not have all that much value. It was OK to take a shot he’d start putting it all together over 2 years. And imo he clearly has improved on both sides.

    But given the coach was not on board to begin with and has now taken him out of the rotation for a few minutes of terrible basketball when he was outplaying their hyped star on both sides of the ball for weeks before that, and how their biggest signings have sucked ass for months at a time and were never held accountable….

    I mean come on.

    These guys are not on the same page, are not holding RJ to same standard as everyone else, are apparently talking about trading Quick when he’s made more progress on both sides than anyone and is so obviously a better player than RJ you’d have to be an idiot to argue otherwise….

    You guys were right.

    I still don’t agree with some here on some of the details of rebuilding, but in the grand scheme of things they are idiots.

    On The Athletic, former Knicks beatwriter Mike Vorkunov wrote a piece about Luis Scola and my beloved italian team and now I’m ecstatic… 🙂

    In one of their last podcast Windhorst, Bontemps and MacMahon talked at lenght about the (many) teams that passed on Haliburton, very funny podcast…

    I’d rather have Reddish than Grimes. Neither is that great. I’m not convinced at this point that RJ’s better than Reddish.

    If they attach Reddish to move Fournier, then the infamous pick will finally reach its Incineration destiny. Another Knick asset pitched into the Staten Island Landfill.

    Would I have liked to have both–of course. But that is not a valid criticism since we never could have once we settled on IQ. The valid criticism is if there was any player available at 33 that was better than the return on the punt–and not at the time, you are able to use hindsight for this one.

    The criticism is that the Knicks suck, teams who suck should use all their draft picks, and when they have surplus draft picks they should use one or two of them on elite athletes with reasonably attainable ceilings.

    The counterargument has been that there was no one worth drafting (categorically untrue), that the Knicks would have never drafted the right guy anyway (true, but not a good defense), that the Knicks could only draft one guard per draft, and (my favorite) that Quentin Grimes is so good it makes up for not having Halliburton, Bane, Johnson, Johnson, Dosunmu, and Griffin. That last one is my favorite because it’s so dumb.

    But IQ hasn’t actually been traded.

    I love this blog but there is a tendency to shit on the FO for possible moves that are bandied out in the press that end up never happening. Or for doom casting worst case scenarios (we didn’t trade Mitch and now we’re going to lose him for nothing!) and blaming the FO for these “inevitable” outcomes that end up actually NOT happening.

    So maybe let’s hold off on blasting Leon for trading IQ until it actually, you know, happens.

    “I know you saw that a mile away, but RJ’s failure to thrive, so to speak, is a surprise to me and some others here. Obviously it is to Thibs and Rose.”

    Oh, I’m not claiming I had any special insight as to RJ’s future. But not giving him $100M+ before he was even approaching “good player” status was a no-brainer. If he went out and killed it, great! We could’ve matched any offer he got, or just given him this contract at that point.

    “I bet it’s gonna be a Reddish/Fournier dump to…somewhere? Reddish, Rose, and Fournier for RWB works in the trade machine, fulfilling every KBers nightmare (though I think we’d win that trade even if we included a nominal 2nd.)”

    This is going to sound insane but I’m not sure the Lakers do that at this point. Westbrook hasn’t been *terrible* since he started coming off the bench, more run-of-the-mill bad. It wouldn’t shock me if the Lakers prefer him to a pupu platter of players the Knicks don’t want.

    I like Quickley as a player, and he was clearly a fine pick for a late first rounder. He’s probably our best prospect.

    But that’s the problem in a nutshell: he’s probably our best prospect, but what’s Quickley’s ceiling? Average NBA starter? You could say the same about all of the Knicks’ young players, they all have very underwhelming ceilings. Probably a few of them will pan out and make it as decent starters, and a few will probably be below-average NBA players. I don’t see a potential All-Star in the bunch.

    Not a super exciting situation.

    Naturally after spending much of the day whining about the terrible state of the franchise, I’ll be at the Garden tonight. Deuce Deuce!

    Quick practice test.
    1. Drafting Quentin Grimes, Miles McBride, and Bones Hyland.
    2. Drafting Quentin Grimes and Miles McBride.
    Which is better, 1 or 2?

    2. Go Rokas! 🙂

    On The Athletic, former Knicks beatwriter Mike Vorkunov wrote a piece about Luis Scola and my beloved italian team and now I’m ecstatic… 🙂

    That’s great, Max, congrats! I don’t have TheAthletic subscription anymore, because i almost didn’t use it, and so i can’t check it out.

    thanks pepper 🙂

    that Rogue Heroes stuff does look interesting…i don’t have the Epix thing, but, perhaps at some point i might check it out…

    I tried The English…i like emily blunt, i really like westerns, but, it didn’t really grab me…i’ll probably give it another try at some point…

    this was from espn power rankings (which has us a scintiallating 23rd):

    New York managed to snap a five-game home losing streak with a win over Donovan Mitchell and the Cavaliers Sunday, but RJ Barrett remains in a season-long slump, hitting just 28.2 percent of his attempts from 3-point range on over five attempts per game. It is the worst percentage of any of the 53 players who have taken at least 125 3-point attempts this season. — Bontemps

    Idk what to think about the news of Cam wanting a trade. He was both maddening and flashed more potential than any other Knick. Basically, it was the same story as in Atlanta.

    Long term, it was just a waste of time on Leon’s part. Maybe this will teach him that drafting and coaching up players might ultimately be a better way to go.

    I don’t see a potential All-Star in the bunch. Not a super exciting situation.

    Yeah, this is the problem. But i’m still holding out hope that RJ can do it. Each game we play, i’m expecting him to wake up from this slump he’s in.

    reference getting old…reached down in to the pantry to grab something off the bottom shelf to drink…back went out and crumbled to the floor…

    icing it and using the TENS stuff now…still, felt so damn random…for some reason i seem to be prone to inflammations and that dang iliopsoas muscle going out on me from time to time…it’s weird, it’s like the top half disconnects from the bottom half…

    this follows about a week ago dislocating my middle knuckle while snapping my fingers…somehow my middle finger got caught against the thumb and the knuckle popped out…went right back in, but, still don’t feel so good…

    sucks, it hurts when i instinctively flip stuff off…and, for whatever reason – it seems either a verbal or physical gesture: fuck you, is never that far off for me…

    sure enough, getting old is not for the weak…

    “This is going to sound insane but I’m not sure the Lakers do that at this point. Westbrook hasn’t been *terrible* since he started coming off the bench, more run-of-the-mill bad. It wouldn’t shock me if the Lakers prefer him to a pupu platter of players the Knicks don’t want.”

    I considered this, but I think the Lakers are desperate enough for shooting and above-replacement-level bodies that Cam, Rose, and Reddish would all get PT on that team. Russ isn’t important enough coming off the bench for them to pass up three minutes soakers, all of whom can credibly shoot a 3 (well, maybe not this year’s Rose, but don’t let that distract from the main point.) But yes, I could also see them balking.

    “But that’s the problem in a nutshell: he’s probably our best prospect, but what’s Quickley’s ceiling? Average NBA starter? You could say the same about all of the Knicks’ young players, they all have very underwhelming ceilings. Probably a few of them will pan out and make it as decent starters, and a few will probably be below-average NBA players. I don’t see a potential All-Star in the bunch.”

    I think IQ’s ceiling is borderline all-star/”super role-player” type. If he manages to learn how to shoot well, play elite defense, and pass all at the same time, rather than cycling through each skill every three weeks, then we have a Mikal Bridges level player–a key starter who plays serious minutes on a championship contender, but a step or two below the #2 guy. That’s not ideal (since we have no chrome and leather at this point besides Brunson), but still a very important piece to have–every good team needs a glue guy like IQ has been for us.

    I think IQ’s median outcome at this point is something like a normal starter-level guy, assuming he learns how to shoot the 3 at an average rate again and continues his good defense.

    Naturally after spending much of the day whining about the terrible state of the franchise, I’ll be at the Garden tonight.

    that’s funny noble…the good news is – you done found the right spot to bitch about the knicks…

    Wrong sport, but I just ran across this, which I find remarkable:

    By betting on himself, Judge earned a $146.5 million increase — more than the payroll of 14 teams last season — from the Yankees’ April offer.

    “But that’s the problem in a nutshell: he’s probably our best prospect, but what’s Quickley’s ceiling? Average NBA starter? You could say the same about all of the Knicks’ young players, they all have very underwhelming ceilings. Probably a few of them will pan out and make it as decent starters, and a few will probably be below-average NBA players. I don’t see a potential All-Star in the bunch.

    Not a super exciting situation.”

    JK, you’re probably not wrong in your analysis, but I’m going to channel Z-Man here, which may make him apoplectic but he’s the only educator I know of on here (and he’s never said any of this, so I’m channeling a made-up version of him).

    My approach to this team is like a (made-up) principal’s approach to his (or her) students. I’m not expecting a Nobel prize winner or a US president to come out of the bunch. So I’m not disappointed when that doesn’t happen. I’m hoping they become the best versions of themselves. Whatever that might look like.

    My problem isn’t that RJ isn’t going to make it big in business and then become a distinguished and beloved senator. It’s that he’s down in the boiler room smoking crack right now.

    I swear KBers lack object permanence. If we don’t immediately draft a player then a pick ceases to exist. I guarantee you that these 1sts are written down somewhere and Adam Silver won’t accidentally forget the Knicks traded for it.

    We have 2-3 firsts this upcoming draft. We have Rokas coming over at some point. (As an aside, he’s averaging over 8asts/36. He’s a couple years older than Rubio & Luka were but neither averaged 8asts/36).

    They’re all written down, on paper even.

    I trust that everyone except Early Bird knows that we didn’t need to burn the #11 pick in a good draft to sign Jalen Brunson, so I’m not going to respond to that repetitive argument.

    “I swear KBers lack object permanence. If we don’t immediately draft a player then a pick ceases to exist. I guarantee you that these 1sts are written down somewhere and Adam Silver won’t accidentally forget the Knicks traded for it.”

    We talk about them all the time! I hope we draft some players with them, but unless/until we do that what do you want people to do, celebrate the great young players we inevitably will draft with these protected picks?

    We know the front office isn’t dead set on drafting players with these picks because they’ve already offered them all in a trade. Perhaps their plans have changed, we’ll see, but no one is going to give a front office that has developed a reputation for punting on picks credit for 1) drafting a good player or 2) drafting a player at all with these picks until they actually do it.

    Rokas’ season in EL so far (11 games) has been underwhelming.

    When they got rid of Calathes there were expectations that Rokas can win the starting spot, but they signed Satoransky…

    He’s playing less than 14 minutes a game (down to around 17 last year), he’s shooting 46.3% from 2 (last year 56.1%) and he’s trying less than one 3-pointer a game (he’s 3-10, last year he shot an absurd 25-44).

    Secondary stats are in line with last season, he’s always been a really good passer.

    I watched 9 of his games and I haven’t seen the progress I was expecting after last year.

    He’s doing a little better in ACB, where the competition is weaker and Barca often “rest” his players for EL games, so he has more minutes.

    Glass half full, there’s still a lot of basketball to play, many games left between EL and ACB, he has time, but at this moment I wouldn’t switch Deuce for him.

    Cam’s representation really gets after it. How the hell he gets so much press baffles me.

    I am strongly against an IQ trade. I think at the end of the day he could end up an important player on a very good team. It won’t be the Knicks of course.

    I don’t think I was that into the draft the Bane year but I can absolutely remember people stanning him really hard before the draft, during it, and after. Not sure we have that draft thread saved anymore but would love to revisit it.

    Mike K, I do have that thought a fair bit. Monster Energy, (then Hansen Natural I think), was trading at around 4 cents in October of 1990. It trades at 100 dollars now. But I think MSFT might have pulled ahead with its dividends. Which is quite amazing.

    Wow, which one of you Team Pessimists penned the 538 take-down of the Knicks? I don’t even know what quote to offer up from there. This one is pretty good:

    “As a sign of just how irrelevant the Knicks have become, only the Charlotte Hornets have fewer playoff appearances since the 1999-00 season.”

    Or this one, which has been lamented upon here in various versions:

    “In the 26 seasons between 1973 and 1999, the team had a .522 winning percentage (a 1,096-1,004 record). In the 24 seasons since Dolan took charge, New York has a .419 winning percentage (782-1,086), and is a total of 304 games under .500, which is the worst in the NBA.”

    Hubert, we got three 1sts for the 11th pick. See what I mean?

    If you mean the 13th pick, we got a 1st for that one too.

    When it comes to putting together a championship-caliber team, there are a few tried-and-true methods. Teams can build their nucleus through the draft like the Golden State Warriors did. They can make a franchise-altering trade like the blockbuster deal the Toronto Raptors pulled off to acquire Kawhi Leonard. They can mimic the San Antonio Spurs’ dynasty under head coach Gregg Popovich and front office executive R.C. Buford. Or a team can catapult itself into contention through free agency, similar to how the Miami Heat orchestrated a championship roster.

    Or maybe they should just look at whatever the New York Knicks are doing, and do the exact opposite.

    1. Damn.
    2. Notable by its absence is the hybrid method.
    3. Daaaaaaammmmmmnnnnnn. That was the first paragraph, bro. Use some lube next time.

    Our sad history under Dolan is why I’m not as down on the Rose era (so far) as some people are-being mediocre for a few years would be an improvement.

    Early Bird, you’re trying to win the war by fighting all these meaningless little side battles.

    Would you rather have:

    a) Obi, Quickley, Cam, Grimes, Deuce, Rokas, iHart one Milwaukee Bucks pick, and two highly protected firsts that might convert to 2nds.

    b) Tryrese Halliburton, Desmond Bane, Tre Jones, Jalen Johnson, Keon Johnson, Ayo Dosunmu, and AJ Griffin

    That’s it. Jalen Brunson’s got nothing to do with it, and even if Keon Johnson does suck it doesn’t tip the scales.

    “Idk what to think about the news of Cam wanting a trade.”

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

    Simple, really. He was playing to specifications if not better, got injured, and as a result of the injury, lost his job. I’d want out if that happened to me, too.

    This is why Team Pessimist will always have the lead.

    We don’t just have the lead; we’re undefeated.

    And I don’t think anyone here is actually a pessimist. I think the best way to describe the schism is Team Wait & See vs Team I’ve Seen Enough.

    Some of us thin slice, some of us need to be knocked off a horse on the road to Damascus. It’s not pessimistic to have early conviction.

    The Knicks *are* irrelevant. Literally no one outside KB and a few other niche factions of the fanbase talks about them in any other way. No one, but no one, thinks they’re “building” toward anything other than continued purgatory and there isn’t a stitch of evidence to counter that opinion. There’s no national buzz about them whatsoever.

    There’s hope to be sure, and hope isn’t a bad thing it’s a good thing, but we’ve at that point left the realm of basketball and entered the realm of spirituality, philosophy, guides to the good life, etc.

    I reject the premise that another GM would make perfect picks the last 3 years. So they’re no side arguments at all. You’re framing the question in an absurdly slanted way.

    Would you rather have group (a) or:

    Jalen Smith, Udoka Azubuike, Kai Jones, Daniel Oturu, Keon Johnson (who, again, has been terrible), JT Thor, and whichever player from this last draft you don’t like?

    If we’re making up hypotheticals why are we assuming a different GM drafts specifically the players you like in hindsight?

    Problem is, some of these players we passed on were consensus hive mind Knickerblogger picks. Tyrese Haliburton, come on down. ‘Sup Desmond Bane. I’d have taken Jalen Johnson with the incinerated pick, he’s not much better than the other prospects we have but I’d trade Cam Reddish for him in a heartbeat. I liked AJ Griffin at 11.

    You don’t need to have the benefit of Biff Tannen’s almanac to do better than the Knicks have done in the draft the past few years. Regular normie consensus picks would have been better than (looks around) whatever all this is.

    Unless DRed gets hired as GM we’re not getting Bane or Hali with those picks.

    Seven other GMs passed on Hali for Avdija, Wiseman, Okongwu, Okoro, Vassell, Killian, and Jalen Smith.

    Chances are we’re getting one of those 7 GMs. Not a GM who drafts Hali early.

    The premise was that a bot selecting the best player available on ESPN’s player rankings would have picked those specific players (and so would have most the posters at Knickerblogger).

    So did Leon do better than the bot?

    You’re arguing against the guy who said no, Leon did not do better than the bot. But you’re just picking side fights about Keon Johnson and stuff while avoiding the actual premise.

    Unless DRed gets hired as GM we’re not getting Bane or Hali with those picks.

    Seven other GMs passed on Hali for Avdija, Wiseman, Okongwu, Okoro, Vassell, Killian, and Jalen Smith.

    Chances are we’re getting one of those 7 GMs. Not a GM who drafts Hali early.

    Man, I thought I was a pessimist. Your take seems to be that not only is our GM demonstrably worse at drafting than the consensus of a message board, there is not even any HOPE of ever getting a GM that can out-draft the consensus of a message board. That’s impressively bleak even for this board.

    I am not upset about the draft picks we made. While Hali would be better than Obi and Bane would be better than IQ I like both Obi and IQ and am satisfied with those picks. I actually like Grimes more than Dosumnu so I am not losing sleep there either. If the Knicks get a good player with their draft pick I am not going to wring my hands that it might not have been the very best player.

    The picks I am upset about are the ones we punted, 19 and 13. If we had Jalen Johnson and either Griffin or Eason instead of Cam and Ihart+the Milwaukie pick I would be much happier.

    Overall though, we all know that our management team has done a mediocre job at best, and arguing if Rose is the worst ever or just pretty bad seems a little pointless.

    We all would love a change but unfortunately, that isn’t happening this season. I do think that when we have drafted players, while not perfect overall, we have done well. So my hope is we can use our picks and add some more good young players and not punt or trade away our draft capital.

    What I really want more than anything is to move on from Randle and Thibs. Randle has been by far our worst player this year and is almost singlehandedly torpedoing our defense. Until we trade Randle and fire Thibs nothing we do is going to matter because we cannot win with them on the team.

    Cam is playing for a contract so of course he’s going to want a trade now that he’s been indefinitely removed from the rotation. Especially when RJ has been awful and Grimes ain’t exactly lighting it up. Still, he’s in his fourth season and is playing for his contract and still has debilitating focus issues. He has way too many stretches where he’s completely unengaged on both ends to be making demands about playing time. I’d rather go back to a ten man rotation than dump him though. I think my question is is he going to bust his ass for 15 minutes a night or is he going to sulk. If he needs starter minutes to play hard then, yeah, see you later.

    Bigger picture- if we’re not going to be actually good we should at least leave the season knowing exactly who our young guys are. It looks like Quick and Grimes are going to play solid minutes and Deuce is at least going to get a real look. I really want to see Obi play more with the starters- we know he’s great in transition but I want to see him running two man actions with Brunson, I want to see him guarding guys who are going to go at him, just give him some real responsibility and let’s see what’s there. I think Cam showed enough flashes to deserve 15 minutes a night but his benching isn’t all that high on my list of grievances, especially if that means Grimes and IQ are each getting around 30 minutes a night.

    Okay, since it worked for Cleveland, to my great surprise, I’ll try again with a reverse jinx. We’re likely to get blown out tonight. Especially as that sharpshooter with the same name as that other sharpshooter is back.

    And Trae Young has the same nose as Jokic. There, I said it.

    “The Knicks *are* irrelevant. Literally no one outside KB and a few other niche factions of the fanbase talks about them in any other way.”

    True but we are prolly the franchise that can become relevant the quickest —media-wise — if that’s what we’re worried about. I’m not.

    And fully agree with Nicos above. It’s nonsense to shorten the rotation to 9 players as if we’re heading into the conference finals and we really need to get Randle and RJ on the floor ALWAYS. Rather play more guys but keep pairs or trios together so they know one another’s tendencies.

    As for Cam, maybe they’ve simply made up their minds to move on, and they just don’t want him to get hurt (again) before shipping him out. Based on Cam’s physical history, I would support benching him for that specific reason.

    Ben, I’m assuming you mean Randle has been our worst defensive player, because ain’t no one coming for RJ Barrett’s crown when it comes to our worst player overall.

    Hubert, I have no idea what rankings you’re talking about. Or why you’re choosing them over another.

    Despite Raven’s getting in touch with his inner Z-man, I’m not engaging with this debate. Everything that needs to be said has been said, and no one is moving off of their entrenched POVs on the Leon Regime.

    Anyone have any thoughts about the 9-man rotation as it currently stands? I’m looking forward to seeing if Deuce can shake the cobwebs and hit a freakin’ 3.

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