Knicks Morning News (2022.12.19)

It wasn’t pretty, it was a dog fight, in the mud, during a rainstorm.
But the Knicks crawled out of it with a very tasty win and the streak reached 7.

There’s still a lot of room to improve, our halfcourt offense is a quagmire, there were too many times when the 3-Lefties took turns overdribbling and isolating, too few movement and passing (only 13 total assists) and our new-and-reduced bench unit badly needs some scoring punch, but we’re forging an identity as a bruising feisty team and you can see the confidence level raising game after game.

The start was sloppy, RJ was his sleepy 1st qrt self, the Knicks missed 5 FTs (they would recover later, missing only 2 more) but they’re into it and a rare IQ’s three gave them a 1-point lead at the half.

In the 2nd RJ woke up (12 points, both he and Randle had fantastic dunks in the quarter) and there were hints that we could pull away, first a 7-points lead was lost in 1:56 then a new 9-points lead evaporated in 2:23. From there on the real fun began and the Knicks were up 1 at halftime only because a Hield’s basket was changed to a 2-pointer.

The 3rd was the highest scoring quarter of the game and I started to think it would have been a fight until the end, as neither team could shake the other off. Aaron Nesmith torched the Knicks with 12 points (en route to his season-high 23), Randle’s last possession made us pull our hair out and the Pacers were up by 1.

The 4th was scary, the Knicks bent but didn’t break, the Pacers went 4-9 on FTs (Turner, a 79% shooter for the season, went 0-4) and couldn’t kill us but still a Nesmith’s dunk gave Indiana a 6 point lead with 1:56 to go and hopes wavered.
But Jalen Brunson wore his leader mantle, hit a quick three then made a great steal for a layup moving the Knicks within 1.
Turner missed a three and Randle went 2-2 at the line to give us the lead with 45 seconds to play.
The nerves game started, Julius didn’t flinch, going 4-4 in the last 7 seconds, and Hali’s prayer from 44 feet was not answered.
The Knicks Won!

Next one:
the Warriors without Curry and Wiggins, let’s shoot for the 8-ball!

Stats Of The Game:

76.7% vs 65.2%.
In a close game I go with FT%, the Pacers missed one more despite shooting seven less.

Plays Of The Game:

By importance, the aforementioned Brunson’s 24 seconds span.
For aesthetics, RJ’s and Randle’s dunks.

Grades:

Brunson A-
The leader we missed for eons, he’s a winner and his “been there done that” demeanor in the clutch is a night & day difference to what we were accustomed to.
30 points, 3-3 from long range, 5-5 at the line but to me a little too much dribbling and an unusual 4:4 AST/TO ratio. All the same a great game.

Grimes B
Ignored by his teammates (only 3 shots) did a good job on defense and on the boards.

Mitch A-
13 REB, 4 BLK and countless altered shots, he won the matchup with Turner and he’s showing impressive consistency. Now if only his teammates can look at him more when he rolls…

Barrett B
When will he be able to play a whole game with the same focus?
Off from long range (0-4) he compensated going 10-14 in the paint with some really strong moves. Hield’s not an easy customer and RJ took a couple of naps on defense plus I can’t get too light on a wing player with 0 ASTs and 5 TOs but it was a positive game and another step in the right direction. If he keeps going his improvement can give us a big lift.

Randle B +
Gets a boost for his FT clutchness, a strong display of calmness (ironically, he missed his first 3 FTs and hit the following 9).
He’s really enjoying himself with his role as the bad bruiser from the 90’s. Vicious under the boards and punitive when he goes to the rim, engaged on defense, slumping from three (10-34 in the last 4). He’s having a very good season.

IQ C
Energy’s always there, the shot still isn’t. As the only bench guy with potential firepower we need more from him.

Hartenstein B-
As usual he did a lot of things, not all good. We still don’t know how to use him and, with the second unit’s struggling to score, it would be nice to learn it.

McBride B-
De-Fen-Se! De-Fen-Se! How can you not love this kid?

Sims C +
Our favorite grasshopper took a shampoo from Thibs and showed a stone face during it.

Thibs A-
Now “this” is a Thibs’ team, rugged and tough. The 9-men rotation is forcing him to stagger the starters differently and he’s doing a good job.
Offense is a completely different matter though and for the third season in a row I find myself asking why we can’t find a great offensive coordinator to flank him.

The more I watch, the more I wonder- is Mitch really only 7′ tall? Or is he just so long that he barely has to jump to punch it in? He looks really tall out there. Well..taller than 7′..I’m 5’8 so everything is tall for me lol. But I’m sayin..even against the bigger 5’s he looks like a man-child out there

Incredibly both Dolan’s teams are on a 7-games winning streak and while the Rangers had higher expectations, after last year ECF, the seasons have a lot of common traits.

Up and down starts, young players not showing the expected improvement, new faces playing well but not being enough, veterans struggling, undefined identity, rumors about coaches being on the hot seat, many frustrating home losses until the last ones (Dallas for us, the lowly Blackhawks for the Rangers) worked as a well timed slap in the face and gave way to the winning streaks.

I think the big surprise here is Dolan showing good restraints and keeping his itching fingers away from the “eject” button, but the “twin” unfolding of events is fun… 🙂

I don’t know when the winning streak will end, but i’m enjoying it a lot. And it’s great that RJ is showing some signs of life, we need him to breakout for this plan to have a real chance. About the streak, next we have the Curry-less Warriors, but with Jordan Poole fresh from a career high 43 points against the Raptors last night. Can we keep the streak alive?

@wojespn
This is the first time since 1976-77 — Nets’ first season in NBA — that both the Knicks and Nets have active win streaks of six-plus games at the same time, per ESPN’s @StatsWilliams

@Cyber

I did watch that game, Poole burned his 40-points game against the free falling Raptors (5-games losing streak, 2-8 in the last 10), well done 🙂

Wiggins is missing too, I think we’ll have a chance… 😉

RJ’s numbers looking suspiciously like last year. Let’s hope the last two weeks are the beginning of a.monster breakout. He’s been really good lately.

Wiggins is missing too, I think we’ll have a chance… 😉

I hope so. Because next we’ll play the Raptors, that as you said are in “free falling” mode, and then the Bulls again, now at MSG. All three games at MSG to be more precise. 10 game winning streak sound superb to me. 😀

Romantics and the fussy, as they are wont to do, attribute the streak primarily to Deuce and Grimes, but the real change and the far more important factor is RJ’s greatly improved play.

Of the three games, the Raptors worrying me the most.
They’re missing OG a lot but he can be back when we’ll play them, Nurse is a very good coach and they’re the kind of long, athletic team we had trouble with in the past…

JB vs FVV will be fun! 🙂

Watched the highlights last night. One thing that occurred to me. Randle, Brunson and RJ are not great 3 point shooters. But all three are pretty good at getting to the rim and getting and one’s. Watching the highlights last night I counted like 8 times between the 3 of them that they got and ones. That puts so much pressure on the opposing team’s defense because you’re not just scoring 3 points, you’re also drawing a foul.

Brunson. I mean what else can you say about this dude? He was so clutch last night. I know that’s an overused cliched phrase but when you’re down 6 with less than 2 minutes to go and you’re starting PG hits a stepback 3 and then immediately grabs a steal for a layup to cut it to one in mere seconds? What else can you call it but CLUTCH.

Randle hitting those free throws at the end. Really proud of him.

And RJ has played so much better.

We might not have a big three but with Brunson, Randle and RJ we have 3 dudes who could all fall between the 2nd and 3rd option on a contending team and RJ should continue to improve.

All we need now really is for IQ to start hitting some shots. And for the team as a whole to figure out a way to get Mitch more lobs and pick and rolls.

Hard not to be excited right now. 9 player rotation. 7 drafted players. 8 players 25 or younger. All our first round picks available plus a few extras the next few years. Brunson, Randle and Mitch all on team friendly deals. RJ improving. Grimes, McBride, Sims all contributing.

IT FEELS SO GOOD TO BE IN PURGATORY LOL!!!!

Also Mitch truly looks like a man among boys out there. He was so skinny and fast as a rookie and sophomore. But now he’s like the perfect mixture of being huge so he can’t get pushed around but still being spry enough to cause absolute havoc. He grabs so many offensive rebounds. He’ll still have trouble with some of the really strong dudes like Adams but he’s never gonna get pushed around anymore. With him and Randle you have so much power up front. Throw in Sims off the bench who is extremely strong and you’ve got a huge advantage in the paint.

I think what I am loving so much right now is that this is a THIBS team that is dominating on defense and the glass and hustling their asses off and as Knicks fans that is all we ever want.

E, all merc’d out says:
December 19, 2022 at 10:21
Romantics and the fussy, as they are wont to do, attribute the streak primarily to Deuce and Grimes, but the real change and the far more important factor is RJ’s greatly improved play.

Maybe Deuce and Grimes have taken a defensive load off of RJ by being the ones assigned to guard the other team’s best player who isn’t a big: thus giving RJ more energy for offense.

Lakers desperate for a big man sans AD for at least a month. I wonder if there’s a Hartenstein/Cam deal to be made?

Obi makes some sense to LA, too. He might have enough diamond in the rough potential for them to give up something valuable.

I think what I am loving so much right now is that this is a THIBS team that is dominating on defense and the glass and hustling their asses off and as Knicks fans that is all we ever want.

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

If I may … a lot of us want more than just that.

You know who makes sense to LA?

Julius Randle makes sense to LA.

I regret to inform you, E, that there is a 0% chance that the Rose administration will be trading Randle while this team is on a streak like this, unless the return player is a star. And LA has none to offer.

Agree with it or not, the days of trying to unload Julius for a ham sandwich have come to an end again.

I wasn’t thinking in terms of a ham sandwich in return, necessarily, since presumably Julius has “enhanced his value.”

More broadly, if a team in purgatory isn’t willing to make moves when they’re playing at the top end of their purgatorial value, that’s the road to eternal purgatory. We can’t have this situation be one where the players “don’t have enough value to trade, we have to wait until their value is higher” when the team’s going bad and “how could anyone want to trade anyone when things are going so well?” when things are going well.

“…the days of trying to unload Julius for a ham sandwich have come to an end again.”

Yes. And I’ll repeat: Leon actually *likes* all his guys. He thinks he’s done a great job. No chance he makes a move that suggests backtracking or failure. Even with E4, DRose, and Cam, Leon is prolly content to stand pat and let others try and persuade him. He knows he doesn’t have to win anything this year, so ….

If I may … a lot of us want more than just that.

So what do you want? A championship?

Who knows. Maybe we’re closer to that than we all realize.

The league only has a few truly elite teams. A lot of the “superstars” are aging out right now. Most of the league is in the murky middle. With team friendly contracts and extra first round picks, who is to say we can’t engineer a trade for a star or one more just below the star level type player and be a contender?

The way I see it. We’re back on track after one misstep of a season, only now we’re positioned to be even better than the 4th seed team two years ago.

Brunson – MASSIVE upgrade over Elf.
Grimes – upgrade over Bullocks and still has upside
RJ 2022 – better than RJ 2020
Randle – back on track and playing as well as he did 2 seasons ago.
Mitch – better than two seasons ago plus we didn’t even have him for hte playoffs.

Bench
McBride – I’m not going to say he’s better than D Rose. he’s not. But he’s better on defense, young and has lots of upside
IQ – better all around than 2 years ago. Offense needs to come around though
Hart – as solid as old man Taj but with more passing.
SIMS – way more upside than Noel.

7 first round picks in hte next 5 drafts.

This is only the beginning. You want more. Just wait. MOre is coming.

Man Jokic put up 40-27-10 yesterday. That looks like a fake line.

they’re playing at the top end of their purgatorial value

You do realize I said that as a joke, right?

So this is the best this team can be? You have to be fucking kidding me with that pessimism.

Oldest rotation player is 28. All the rest are 25 or younger. No bad contracts in our 9 man rotation. 7 players drafted by this franchise. 7 first round picks in the next 5 drafts.

But sure, let’s trade our second best player because he had a down year and got mad at the fans once.

LET THAT SHIT GO.

Is “Leon likes his guys and Leon thinks Leon has done a good job” really a response to “Julius Randle makes sense to LA”??

Or is it more in the vein of “Well, Thibs didn’t like how IQ was playing and liked the way Elf was playing and so he kept Elf in”??

I don’t think we have to take the blind spots of Leon and Thibs as our discussion-limiting reality. The team’s philosophical striving for and comfort with purgatory is, arguably, *the* key issue of the entire project.

The only trade we should make is a trade that unloads Fournier. IF that means including Rose and/or Cam to do that so we don’t have to include draft picks or can get something back, you do it. I’d really just try to include CAM and keep Rose as our third string PG and mentor/coach for McBride.

“I think what I am loving so much right now is that this is a THIBS team that is dominating on defense and the glass and hustling their asses off and as Knicks fans that is all we ever want.”

Swifty is on fire!

I think the combination of Brunson’s leadership and clutchness and the shorter leash for Thibs (he certainly had to be feeling some heat after the DAL debacle) has driven his coaching closer to his best work. Players are likely to be most successful when in roles that suit their games. The 1a-1b-1c roles for our 3 higher usage guys is working because Brunson is sort of a stealth captain. He lets up on the reins just enough to let Randle and RJ get theirs, including ample time in the #1 option role, but then takes over when it counts as the difference between winning and losing. They are developing great chemistry, and that’s mostly due to Brunson.

I believe Leon would be willing to break up this team and trade Randle if he was getting something he considered great in return. Two Lakers picks that are far in the future, at least one of which would be heavily protected, would not seem to qualify for him. Julius as one of the key pieces in a package for a perennial All-Star type, on the other hand? That, I think he would do. Leon wants out of purgatory, too. But he only sees one path to do that, and it doesn’t involve tanking. Agree with that or not, that’s the reality of the situation. And so long as the team is playing competently, there’s no way Leon replaces Thibs, nor that Dolan replaces Leon. We are what we are.

“They are developing great chemistry, and that’s mostly due to Brunson.”

Totally. I just hope we don’t break him.

Julius as one of the key pieces in a package for a perennial All-Star type, on the other hand?

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

Oh, sure — but he’s never going to be that so it’s silly waiting around for that to happen. At least if you ever want to be a contender.

You *might* have been able to swing something like that after the empty building year, the playoff meltdown notwithstanding, but that chance has long passed.

Leon wants out of purgatory, too.

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

Kind of an inchoate want, since he doesn’t do anything to get the team out of it and consciously strives to be in it.

It can’t be said enough that it’s easy to achieve purgatory because few if any of the other teams in the association want it. Leon is shopping in asset aisles that few if any other teams are shopping in and doing things that few if any other teams are doing, both with his draft picks and otherwise. The guy tanked a lottery pick to make room for Isaiah Hartenstein.

The real key, the actual hard part, is to get yourself out of it, either to the upside or the downside — and he’s shown no ability whatsoever to do that.

E trolling the board again.

Knicks are the 5th or 6th best team in the east right now… at minimum. On pace for 46 wins, a number most of us decided was not in purgatory.

A package of picks and the salaries of Cam/Fournier/Rose could potentially land a star. Or we could stand pat and wait for a better deal

Again, in order to be stuck in purgatory we have to get out of hell. The last time we had consecutive winning seasons was 2010-2013. Crying that we’re stuck in purgatory is some shit you’ve made up.

I think it’s fairly clear the main reason we have been winning more has been the improved defense. Even when the defense has only been mediocre throughout a game, it has been able to lock down better late on the key possessions. I attribute that mostly to a healthy Grimes, Deuce and Mitch, but Randle has been good down the stretch of games too.

RJ is playing better. That’s obviously helping, but it’s not so much that he’s winning a bunch of games for us with his offense. He’s just not losing any games with those truly terrible shooting nights on high volume with too many TOs.

“Julius as one of the key pieces in a package for a perennial All-Star type, on the other hand? That, I think he would do.”

You may be right, and have crystallized the million purgatories question:

1) Would Leon prefer to believe he has elevated forgotten guys and has drafted the right guys to become *his* ~ All Stars?

2) Would Leon prefer to make a clever trade for someone else’s perennial All Star?

Of course the choice needn’t be sooo binary, but I think Leon is more interested in #1 b/c he sees his mandate as “building a contender from scratch with a new culture, etc.”

(Luckily) I too am more interested in #1 b/c it leads to players like Mitch, Grimes, and, yes, Randle, and even Brunson, as opposed to renting Durant, Harden, and Kyrie for a year or two to get that ring.

Jalen Brunson: 3.6 BPM

Julius Randle: 3.3 BPM

Mitchell Robinson: 3.1 BPM

“Again, in order to be stuck in purgatory we have to get out of hell.”

Hell is worse than purgatory in basketball too. 🙂

I think team pessimism is not differentiating between having a 41 win team made up of mostly veterans with little upside, no cap flexibility, and not enough picks to do anything big and a 41 win team with several young improving players and excess picks to either draft, move up, or trade in something big.

The second scenario doesn’t guarantee anything, but neither does having a 20 win team and assuming you will win the lottery, there will be a franchise player there waiting for you, you’ll continue drafting well, and they’ll all stay for the duration of a very long rebuild.

The issue on the table wasn’t whether to tank, it was whether to try to trade Julius Randle at his now “enhanced value.” If the answer is “no, the team is playing well,” or “Leon’s only going to trade him for an all-star,” then he’s never going to get traded.

If he’s never going to get traded, then the merits of that decision would seem to be perfect fodder for KB.

Purgatory goal posts keep changing.

We’re clearly a playoff team. Not a play in team. Not a team barely missing the play-in but not bad enough to tank for a top pick.

When you have an entire rotation of young players that is clearly a playoff caliber team, 7 first round picks in the next 5 drafts and no really bad contracts weighing your cap down, you are not in purgatory anymore.

I think team pessimism is not differentiating between having a 41 win team made up of mostly veterans with little upside, no cap flexibility, and not enough picks to do anything big and a 41 win team with several young improving players and excess picks to either draft, move up, or trade in something big.

The second scenario doesn’t guarantee anything, but neither does having a 20 win team and assuming you will win the lottery, there will be a franchise player there waiting for you, you’ll continue drafting well, and they’ll all stay for the duration of a very long rebuild.

Exactly. These are the folks who only think you’re not in purgatory if you’re winning 55 games and making the conference finals on a team full of 23 year old top 5 lottery picks on rookie salaries.

In other words, their expectations are completely unrealistic.

We have a good team with young players and we have ways to improve that team, both internally and externally. That is all any sane rational fan can truly ever ask for. A good team that has a chance to get better.

We have that. Just be happy!

When you have an entire rotation of young players that is clearly a playoff caliber team, 7 first round picks in the next 5 drafts and no really bad contracts weighing your cap down, you are not in purgatory anymore.

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

A low playoff seed that’s no threat and goes out in 5 or 6 is absolutely purgatory. There’s been no goalpost move.

It’s arguably not as purgatorial as swinging for the play-in and missing, but there are more purgatorial types than elegantly sublime purgatory.

If you don’t think a team can contend around Julius Randle, RJ Barrett, and Jalen Brunson, then they’re in purgatory. That’s the goalpost and has always been the goalpost.

The issue on the table wasn’t whether to tank, it was whether to try to trade Julius Randle at his now “enhanced value.” If the answer is “no, the team is playing well,” or “Leon’s only going to trade him for an all-star,” then he’s never going to get traded.

This version of Randle can 100% be traded as part of a package for an All-Star. It would involve a ton of picks, some younger players, etc. But the team trading away their disgruntled star can more easily justify it both internally and to their fans by saying that they’re getting a very good player in return.

You hate Randle, E. You think he’s fool’s gold and want him gone at any cost. You still consider him a merc even though he’s in his fourth season with the team and could potentially be around for three more. I get it. (Maybe not the merc part, but whatever.) I wanted him gone before this stretch of play. I am still uncertain that he can continue to play like this, though the fact that Thibs went to more of a switching defense — which Randle says he prefers — has sure made him more engaged on that end. But if this is the real version of Randle, then on this contract he will have value throughout the league, and is not someone we should sell low on.

Exactly. These are the folks who only think you’re not in purgatory if you’re winning 55 games and making the conference finals on a team full of 23 year old top 5 lottery picks on rookie salaries.

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

Swifty, you keep saying this and I don’t know why. The ages of the players are irrelevant if you’re an actual contender. If you’re contending around Steph Curry, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green or Kevin Durant/Kyrie Irving, you aren’t in purgatory.

Definitionally, if you’re a contender, you aren’t in purgatory. Kind of axiomatic. If the Knicks had a geezer roster that was going to win 55 games and be a real playoff threat, they wouldn’t be in purgatory.

And just possessing your draft picks and a few other heavily-protected picks isn’t remotely inconsistent with purgatory, either. The point of purgatory is that you’re too good to get a draft pick that projects as a star unless you get extremely likely. You don’t have had to trade away draft picks to be in purgatory.

If you’re going to continue to quibble so much, at least get the definitions right.

This version of Randle can 100% be traded as part of a package for an All-Star.

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

You follow the association closely, with the requisite twitter feeds and podcasts and subscriptions.

Have you ever, a single time, heard chatter about Julius Randle being part of a package for another all-star?

“The issue on the table wasn’t whether to tank, it was whether to try to trade Julius Randle at his now “enhanced value.” If the answer is “no, the team is playing well,” or “Leon’s only going to trade him for an all-star,” then he’s never going to get traded.”

I don’t think the answer to that question is “trade him” or “don’t trade him”. I think the answer is “it depends”. He’s a very good player, but he has mental lapses and IMO is not the ideal fit next to Mitch (for either of them). But if you are going to trade him, you don’t just do it to get rid of him (despite my occasional outbursts on his bad nights :-). It has to make the team better short and long term.

I’m not sure how anyone can not be more optimistic now.

1. Brunson has exceeded our upside hopes.
2. Randle has exceeded our turnaround hopes and is now not the burdensome contract we feared he might become
3. Mitch is becoming the kind of player we hoped he would develop into even if he hasn’t stretched his game at all yet.
4. Grimes looks the perfect 3&D player we needed in that position and he can do more than just that.

From here we need more of the same, Quickly to break out of his slump, and RJ to accept a slightly smaller role and focus on efficiency.

What happens next depends on the opportunities, but it’s hard to imagine things going any better than they have so far. We have an unfinished team, but it’s a good team with upside.

I don’t think Leon & Co. signed Randle to a 4-year guaranteed extension with the idea of trading him. Clearly they think he is capable of being an integral part of the future contender they are trying to build. We are now 34 games into the extension, and Randle is playing like the guy they hoped he would be when they extended him. He’s already overcome a hurdle that for many players would be impossible…a hostile relationship with New York fans and media after a terribly disappointing season for which he bore the brunt of the blame (mostly but not entirely justified…there was plenty of blame to go around from top to bottom.)

Only a few traumatized NYK fans continue to see him as a guy to dump at the first opportunity to not have to include assets. Most objective observers would think that would be absolutely nuts to ditch an all-star level player on a $23.7M extension with modest increases just to be rid of him.

Unless someone bowls them over with a trade offer, he ain’t going anywhere, probably for the duration of his deal…unless his play regresses to last year’s level and stays there.

“I think team pessimism is not differentiating between having a 41 win team made up of mostly veterans with little upside, no cap flexibility, and not enough picks to do anything big and a 41 win team with several young improving players and excess picks to either draft, move up, or trade in something big.”

There is no “team pessimism”….

There was also an all-star available last summer, as we all remember. Was Julius Randle ever mentioned as part of that package? Like even the smallest amount of chatter?

Now, I know what the retort is going to be. It’s going to be, “Well of course he wasn’t, but now he’s rehabilitated his value!!!” But I’d submit the following: (1) do we seriously think the other GMs in the league are unable to do the same kind of future projections we are around here? Is someone like Danny Ainge unable to project what a bounceback Julius Randle would look like and how much value he would have? And (2) has anyone here ever heard of a player in his prime years who was untradeable and then 12-16 weeks later enough to anchor a package for an upgraded all-star? I know I haven’t. Association valuations of established guys like Julius Randle don’t fluctuate on a whim like that, or anything close.

The reason his value trails his seeming “production” or “production versus his contract,” even when he’s “playing well” is for pretty much all the reasons I and others have mentioned about fit, strange style, ability to work with others, and ability to work with a guy who thinks he’s that guy but isn’t. This is now established fact around the league and isn’t changing until he ages out of his prime. I’d LOVE to be proven wrong on this, but I’m certainly not holding my breath. Conning some team into overvaluing him is a possible path out of purgatory.

E, what is the definition of purgatory? Because before the season there was a bunch of discussion and it seemed like most people agree purgatory was something like between 36 wins to 44 wins.

Age on a roster does matter. If we’re 41-41 at the end of a season with a bunch of 30yo players, then we’re going to be around 41-41 the next year and quite likely worse.

If we’re 41-41 with a bunch of 23yos, we’ll more likely than not be better the next year without making any moves.

We’re currently on pace for 46 wins with 4-6 rotation players we expect to improve year over year and the other rotation pieces to more or less hold their value. The core of this team could be up to 50+ wins just by growing together for another year or two (assuming they don’t win 50 this year).

Having draft picks means you get even more value by picking well or through trades. If we add an all-star to a 46 win team without giving up a star player, that should get you out of purgatory. The Knicks have several years with their entire rotation in their prime, or improving, to cash in their picks or draft a high-level player.

E, what is the definition of purgatory?

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

Not good enough to really contend, too good to get a draft pick that projects as a star outside the kind of blind luck all teams can avail themselves of.

This has been the definition for like 40 years, maybe longer.

Utah had 56 pythag wins last year and Danny Ainge still denominated them purgatorial and broke them up. It has little to do per se with win numbers.

E, I humbly suggest you learn to stop worrying and love the bomb. It’s really fun having the old Julius back, this time with Brunson. Mitch is becoming god-like, Grimes is a solid #5. All we need is perma-good RJ for things to look very bright.

Man Jokic put up 40-27-10 yesterday. That looks like a fake line.

I honestly think he could do this nightly if he wanted, maybe chase some of those Wilt records even.

Just find a PG to get him the ball in the paint and let him get 50 layups a game. It’d be a travesty to take away his passing game, but sometimes I wonder…

Also, the rest of that roster is dog doodoo

Not good enough to really contend, too good to get a draft pick that projects as a star outside the kind of blind luck all teams can avail themselves of.

You are so wrong, it’s not even funny.

Hey Swifty, don’t be deluded by this team…don’t enjoy watching them, don’t believe in their core, their young players, their coach, their front office, their 7-game winning streak…it’s just a cruel illusion obscuring the reality that your team is in purgatory until Dolan sells the team. PURGATORY!!

And what does it mean to “really contend?” You make the playoffs? You make the semi-finals? If the 1998 Bulls are around are there no other teams in contention?

Or are you just going to leave it as an amorphous concept, in which case Swifty can consider 46 or 48 wins as contention?

And having a fun young team I can watch 3 times a week, regardless of record, doesn’t really strike me as purgatory for a fan.

E, I humbly suggest you learn to stop worrying and love the bomb. It’s really fun having the old Julius back, this time with Brunson. Mitch is becoming god-like, Grimes is a solid #5. All we need is perma-good RJ for things to look very bright.

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

That’s a worthy suggestion, but the real problem — well, one of the main problems — is that I can’t unsee the Hawks series.

But in any event, it’s cards on the table time. Who here thinks the Knicks are going to win a playoff series in the spring? If you don’t think that, that’s pretty much definitional purgatory. (Barring some future roster movements, of course, which may change things.)

I don’t think they’re going to. (Obviously if they make the playoffs, I hope they win the championship.)

Anyone else going to commit to “Yes”?

It’s a fun team to watch. There are enough young pieces to make me happy. We have our draft picks.

Not that many complaints. I don’t think we would take more then a game off the bucks once Middleton is back but if we can get into a series with the Nets that would be entertaining

And what does it mean to “really contend?” You make the playoffs? You make the semi-finals? If the 1998 Bulls are around are there no other teams in contention?

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

Well, TNFH has thrown out the even-lesser step of “just winning a playoff series.”

When’s that going to happen?

I’d call “really contend” something like “being a real threat to go deep in the playoffs and by “deep” I’d say conference finals without getting squashed.” As an example, I’d call last year’s Rangers a “real contender” even though they weren’t favored in the ECF and wouldn’t have been favored in the Cup finals. There was a time when they went up 2-0 in the ECF that they were second in the Vegas odds to win the Cup. That’s certainly “real contention.”

If you’re a fan who isn’t going to predict the Knicks to win at least a playoff series this year, you’ve pretty much conceded purgatory, even if you don’t want to. There certainly isn’t enough here to think that organic growth is going to close the gap between not winning a playoff series and real contention.

On one hand, it’s always important to stay measured and not change your priors too much based on a small sample of incredibly fun games.

On the other, everything is a datapoint of *some* kind so it’s totally fair to ponder the ways in which priors may have shifted based on the beginning of the first 30 games of this season, and to a lesser extent the last 7 games.

Here’s one of my priors I’m now budging on: prior to the season I was pretty certain we were fully two star level players away from contention. This obviously made me pretty bleak about our future prospects because it’s pretty damn hard, if not impossible, to bring in two stars without resorting to free agency or the draft.

Now, I could be convinced that adding *one* star level player to this group could get us there. To be clear it would need to be a player who fits pretty well and we’d have to pull off a trade that didn’t sacrifice much in the way of current production–that’s what it means to add a player to a group after all.

But if Randle, Brunson, and Mitch can hang in the 3+ BPM range (no it’s not a perfect measurement, yes it’s a perfectly fine shorthand for production that I think is more or less accurately capturing the play of all 3 guys this season), RJ can improve, and we keep at least some of Grimes/IQ/Obi around, adding one star could make us one of the exceptions to the two players, 4+ BPM law e.g. the 2019-2020 Raptors.

That team seems like a decent analogue to what this one could be if we’re able to add a guy using mostly future assets. This is all still quite difficult–Kawhi Leonards don’t grow on trees–but I can now see at least see a case it’s a more likely path to contention than a full teardown would provide.

“Utah had 56 pythag wins last year and Danny Ainge still denominated them purgatorial and broke them up. It has little to do per se with win numbers.”

Ainge broke up Utah because they failed in the playoffs multiple times with the same core and he was on the hook for a lot of money with Gilbert who was already 30 years. Bogdonovic was already 32, Conley was 34, and some of the supporting cast was at or close to 30. Mitchell is very good, but teams targeted and exploited him in the playoffs.

The choice was to ride that group into oblivion or cash in some chips and try to bring in some younger players with upside and picks. And in typical Ainge fashion he did both. It was the classic right time to blow it up. The most you could argue for is 1 more year.

I believe Leon would be willing to break up this team and trade Randle if he was getting something he considered great in return. Two Lakers picks that are far in the future, at least one of which would be heavily protected, would not seem to qualify for him.

Co-sign. There is basically nothing the Lakers could offer that would justify trading them Randle, and that’s even when he was playing poorly.

Only a few traumatized NYK fans continue to see him as a guy to dump at the first opportunity to not have to include assets. Most objective observers would think that would be absolutely nuts to ditch an all-star level player on a $23.7M extension with modest increases just to be rid of him.

I said this a while back: you trade this version of Randle (for anything less than an upgrade), and you risk waiving the white flag for a season where you’re currently in 6th place. There’s a lot of parity right now, and with that said, the bottom feeders (Pistons/Hornets/Spurs/Rockets) are well on their way to being entrenched in the Wembanyama/Scoot sweepstakes.

The winning streak won’t last forever, but there’s some formulaic things happening during this streak that looks sustainable.

I personally do not think the Knicks will win a playoff series this year, but they have the 10th ranked SRS as of now and teams in that range win playoff series all the time.

If you think the Knicks can continue to play how they’ve played to start the season (i.e. not stipulating the recent improvement is a permanent change, taking the season as a whole), then sure, it’s possible.

The problem — or issue, if you’d like a less loaded term — with adding that single star is whether Randle would adapt and defer and if so, what that would look like.

I don’t think he would, so that colors my view on the entire prospect.

ITs just stupid goal post moving.

It’s been pretty well defined on this blog that purgatory is a capped out team of older players who aren’t good enough to be a playoff team but not bad enough to tank.

We are literally none of that. We are clearly a playoff team. With 8 players in the rotation 25 or younger, we can literally do nothing and get better with internal improvement. We have no bad contracts in our rotation and we have 7 first round picks in the next 5 drafts.

This is the exact opposite of “purgatory” And the only reason anyone would still cling to that definition is because they can’t let go of their preconceived biases against certain players.

News flash. Randle is an all NBA level talent.

RJ is one of the best young players in the league.

Brunson is a legit all-star and one of the best point guards in the league right now.

The Knicks are well coached, well managed and well positioned to be contenders VERY SOON.

And that playoff loss to Atlanta? Well, Mitch didn’t even play in that series and if I remember, Noel got hurt so we were trotting out Taj Gibson as our starting center.

RJ was a second year player. IQ was a rookie. Brunson wasn’t on the team.

This team has much more potential than that team based on our youth alone. And there is NO CEILING to this team.

Get used to it. I’m going to be super annoying to anyone who is pessimistic because I TOLD YOU SO (and yes, you can throw this back in my face if the team implodes).

“We’re clearly a playoff team. Not a play in team. Not a team barely missing the play-in but not bad enough to tank for a top pick.”

in today’s episode of ‘Let’s Pump the Brakes a Tad’… out of our 17 wins only 6 came against a full lineup and only the Cavs are really considered a real playoff team…. here’s a full accounting:

Sixers – Embiid
Wolves – Gobert
Pistons – Cunningham
Jazz – mostlly full lineup
Nuggets – Jokic
Thunder – mostly full lineup
Pistons – Cunningham
Cavs – full lineup
Hawks – Murray
Hornets – Lamelo
Kings – Fox
Bulls – mostly full lineup
Bull -“”
Pacers – “”

and the majority of our losses against actual playoff teams it hasn’t really been close…. Suns… Nets… Warriors.. Mavs…. Celtics… all double digit losses….

there are reasons to be optimistic but we’ve been about as fortunate as we could’ve asked for and maybe things repeat like a couple seasons ago where these things continue but it’s more than likely not….

in all.. we’re probably fighting for the 8th seed unless Miami and the Hawks implode…

Purgatory has a negative connotation to it.

So let’s set this much straight.

41 wins can be a very bad thing, very good thing, or somewhere in the middle. It depends on how old the team is, the potential of the players on the team, the contracts the players are on, and the assets the team has.

I would say the Knicks are clearly on the better side of the middle even if it’s not likely God is going to invite us to heaven next week. We have more time to serve to make up for our past sins. 🙂

I didn think JB, RJB, and JR would combine well. It’s gone better than I expected.

I’d be skeptical about adding a star to thst trio. But maybe it would work.

It’s been pretty well defined on this blog that purgatory is a capped out team of older players who aren’t good enough to be a playoff team but not bad enough to tank.

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

Swifty, that’s always been *your* definition — but it’s not *the* definition. You might have noted that no one has ever assented to that definition.

I mean, yeah, it’s “better” if your purgatory at least contains some young players and therefore some possibility of growth from within, but if there isn’t enough potential growth from within — and there isn’t here — it’s still purgatory.

Your argument and definitions have always been, whether you admit it or not, that the Knicks are in a “better” form of purgatory. I don’t think you’ve ever gotten a whole lot of pushback on that because (a) it doesn’t really matter; and (b) you’re right.

If it makes you happy, I’d say that sitting here today, the Knicks are less obviously purgatorial than they were two weeks ago. But I certainly still see them as purgatorial.

Do you think they’ll win a playoff series this spring?

So E, is it only worthwhile if we contend this year or does it count if we have a chance to contend within the next few years? Because there’s plenty of young star laden teams that have passed their lottery days and not yet made the conference finals.

Say if RJ breaks out, then we might not even need to do anything else.

Or if we’re putting ourselves in a position like the Cavs did, to go all-in on a player like Donovan Mitchell?

I don’t think we’d want to go all-in yet, but we could certainly get to that point in the next few years without any massive changes. Trust the process.

djphan,

The Knicks were missing Grimes and Mitch for part of the season. It’s not like the Knicks have been at 100% for all those games. We were missing two critical pieces to the defense, our best perimeter defender and best interior defender, sometimes at the same time. Maybe we’ve had the best of it on the injury front anyway, but it’s not entirely one sided when you are missing key starters.

News flash. Randle is an all NBA level talent.

RJ is one of the best young players in the league.

Brunson is a legit all-star and one of the best point guards in the league right now.

The Knicks are well coached, well managed and well positioned to be contenders VERY SOON.

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

Do you think they’ll win a playoff series this spring? If you do, who is it you think they’ll beat?

Djphan’s post is a good addendum to mine in that it’s certainly not a given that the Knicks can keep up their pace from games, even if we think there are unrepresentative bad samples in there. It’s a perfectly open question.

Personally, I think if we’re to keep this up we’ll need more from our bench units than we’ve been getting. IQ, Hart, and Obi all having underwhelming-to-bad years has been pretty devastating on that front.

Funnily enough, the best performing bench unit so far has been Rose-Quickley-Fournier-Obi-Hart (+13.6 in 59 possessions). For a wide variety of (good) reasons we’re not bringing that back, so whether it’s schematic or just getting more from some of these guys production wise it’s definitely something we need to work on lest we run the starters into the ground.

Knicks are 10th in SRS, 8th in the RAPTOR player rating and ELO forecast (forecasting 46 and 48 wins, respectively), and are trending upward with a key rotation piece coming back from injury soonish and RJ rounding into form. We’re a threat to win 50 and may even be able to move into the 4th seed depending on how Philly does the next month or two. We’re certainly a threat to win a playoff series, especially if we’re in the 4/5 seed.

We’ve had some good injury luck, but good teams cash in on good luck, so I’m not sure we should be conservative in projecting this team just because they had some injury luck. I bet we’ll be looking for a player at the trade deadline (I wouldn’t be surprised if it were Jae Crowder) if our play keeps up.

I do think missing Mitch & Grimes was huge given how much better our defense is now.

Also, we all wish RJ had missed quite a few games when he was sick. Active ≠ healthy.

I do wonder if Rose or Fournier enters the rotation again at some point if RJ & IQ can’t get the offense going with that unit. Fournier likely not, but Rose maybe. So a 10-man lineup with a very small 2nd unit.

TNFH and DJ Phan posts are in line with my view….and I would agree that a playoff series win is not likely this year….and I prefer to see where the dust settles at the midpoint of the season to really feel good about post season prognostication….but…

it does seem like with our assets appreciating…it could be that Leon and team figure out some trade(s) that get a few more pieces (not even a star) that we need to shore up/improve on…eg., a better version of Reddish or a younger backup PG (IQ is not the answer) and that incrementally could push us to a higher playoff series win probability…with that said…I mostly enjoy watching this team (as long as the Randle spin and fall in the lane is like 1-2 times a game and the Barret wild drives and turnover is like 1-2 times)…as long as they hustle…but with grimes, deuce and Brunson always hustling …its like the other guys don’t want to embarass themselves anymore…so they can’t loaf (albeit RJ still does it and without any repurcussion from Thibs…I don’t know why he gives that guy so much rope)…

That’s a worthy suggestion, but the real problem — well, one of the main problems — is that I can’t unsee the Hawks series

The Atlanta series is on us for getting a little carried away. We thought it was one way. But it was the other way. We don’t have to do that this time.

I don’t think the Knicks will win a playoff series, either, and I’m totally cool with that.

I think the Sean Marks analogy that we’re a cake that needs more time in the oven was excellent.

I get your pessimism, E. Leon’s first cake was terrible, and his second one almost burned the kitchen down. But you gotta admit this one he just put in the oven smells kinda good.

Purgatory would be knowing that it is inevitable Leon Rose will burn this cake, and we’re doomed to watch him burn cake after cake until we get a new chef. That is a very familiar feeling around here.

But our situation is we hired an amateur chef; burning a few cakes is what amateurs do when they’re learning to cook. Maybe — maybe! — the mistakes he made were so clear to him that he’s not going to do them again.

And that little bit of hope is enough for this to not be purgatory.

Re: shoring up bench units, I am very, very against trading any kind of first for 34 year-old Eric Gordon.

However we do have a reasonably enticing 2nd to play with (DET 2024). Does Rose, Cam, and that pick for Gordon get it done? Maybe more importantly, do we want to do it?

Not sure on either front, but it’s not clear who’s giving them a first for the guy and he’d presumably be a solid addition.

E, raining on the post-game euphoria as hard as he can! Makes me wonder what his post-coital behavior is… An impressive effort, but I’d like to suggest that the rest of us refrain from discussing the word ‘purgatory’ for at least the next 24 hours. Not because it’s not a topic worth considering, as it is an interesting one, but because we’ve only discussed it over and over and over ad nauseum all damn year long.

But I do get to contemplate whether I’m officially a fussy romantic! So that’s fun.

When the game started I almost asked folks if they’d consider trading Brunson for Haliburton straight up, if contracts were similar. As the game wore on I felt less and less like that was a worthy topic. I love Tyrese’s game, but damn Brunson is a gamer.

The one thing I want to see is RJ Barrett getting more than zero assists. I’d love for him to pull a LeBron from a year or two ago and decide he’s going to lead the league in assists. Anything to get him out of his ‘it’s only about me’ act whenever he gets the ball. He is playing better, but it was almost impossible for him to play worse. To me he’s still got a big hill to climb to be ‘good’ — too few passes, too many of them into the third row. But it’s an upward trend, so I’ll keep hoping…

I hope I’m wrong, but I feel like maybe the Knicks are “peaking” a bit early and enjoying a run at the expense of a number of teams missing key guys. And stuff like Turner missing 4 free throws late in the game yesterday.

The Jets opened up 7-4 this year, but I felt it was weird b/c they opened up like 4-0 on the road, so it didn’t seem sustainable to me. They are 7-7 now.

OTOH, Brunson is here, and that makes me smile and hopeful.

“Leon’s first cake was terrible, and his second one almost burned the kitchen down. But you gotta admit this one he just put in the oven smells kinda good.”

This made me laugh. And it feels right.

We are definitely enjoying some good luck right now, but I don’t care who has been injured. We root for the Knicks, not for our arguments.

I agree with the “pump the breaks” take on the current team. It has a lot to prove yet. This is the first time around the league with the current rotation, mostly against creampuffs and compromised better teams.

Do I think the team will win a playoff series this year? Probably not, certainly wouldn’t bet on it.

But so what? That’s hardly the point of today’s discussion, and setting arbitrary goalposts like a playoff series win this year is ludicrous in evaluating the bigger picture.

If one wants to invoke a better metaphor for a negative take on where we are, a more appropriate one would be whether we are on the “treadmill of mediocrity.” I would argue that we are not, regardless of how this year ends up.

The main reason is that we are not a finished product by any stretch. As was pointed out, there is room for significant improvement on multiple fronts: internally via player development, coaching decisions, etc. or extermally via the draft, or via trades, or via free agency.

The key reason why that is true is that we did not make the Donovan Mitchell trade. THAT BY ITSELF would have locked us in to a hard ceiling of a gentleman’s sweep in the ECFs for years to come.

As to the team we have, nothing at all should be surprising other than the perma-benching of Rose and Fournier. No one is playing out of his mind relative to reasonable expectations. Nothing in the on-the-court game plan has changed much since last year.

The FO blundered last year with all the mercs and intelligently pivoted away from that mess, at some modest cost in 2022 draft capital. It may have been saved from itself by CLE swooping in for Spida. But the Brunson coup makes up for a lot of sins. He’s like Linsanity without worrying about the clock striking midnight. There’s no “empty building” nonsense to invoke to write any of this off. This is the real deal.

And THAT’S why I was constantly echoing the patience mantra going into the season….let’s see what we actually have before making rash decisions like dumping Randle or throwing rookie contract players into the Spida deal.

The only thing that I think is up in the air is whether Thibs should be retained, whether he is the right coach for this situation. I think he’s earned an indefinite reprieve, on the condition that he continues to stick with the current rotational decisions.

I am pretty excited about Grimes’ defense. That’s the best thing about the year so far for me. We will I am sure continue to debate the wisdom of rhe RJ extension. I think I’d rather have Grimes and Quickley than just RJ.

But for now he is playing like the absolute perfect fifth man for this starting lineup.

Now, I could be convinced that adding *one* star level player to this group could get us there. To be clear it would need to be a player who fits pretty well and we’d have to pull off a trade that didn’t sacrifice much in the way of current production–that’s what it means to add a player to a group after all.

After Noble said this, I got to thinking who might work. I stared at the NBA standings for a while and then it finally hit me.

Instead of trading for Lakers draft picks, why don’t we give the Lakers draft picks…for LeBron James.

It would only happen if LeBron wants it to. But if he does want it to, they’re gonna do it for him. If we keep winning games and they keep sinking… stranger things have happened (assuming, of course, there is, in fact, a multiverse, because nothing like that has happened in our timeline).

Wow there’s a real E-vs-the-World thing happening today…

Neither side is totally wrong, but it seems pretty clear that this is the team Leon is rolling with, and now they are in a prime position to trade for a star SF.

It’s great that RJ is improving because he’ll probably need to be in that trade! If they can get any picks for their bench dreck, then that would help get a guy who’s more on Randle/Brunson’s timeline.

The question is: who will that star swingman be? There’s not a lot of guys available, and I’m not even sure who the optimal guy would be (Paul George maybe? Or a younger version of him?)

A trade that might make sense for both teams but would probably upset both fan bases: RJ Barrett for OG Anunoby.

The absolutely ideal Knicks addition is a young star-level big two-way wing. Obviously that’s who everyone wants so they’ll have to compromise on that to some extent.

It’s too bad Pat Riley would never, ever trade Jimmy Butler to the Knicks…

“There’s not a lot of guys available, and I’m not even sure who the optimal guy would be (Paul George maybe? Or a younger version of him?)”

I still think he’s a tad overrated in some circles but the archetype we’re looking for is Jayson Tatum.

“As to the team we have, nothing at all should be surprising other than the perma-benching of Rose and Fournier.”

That’s been by far the most surprising thing, but lots of other lesser surprising things out there. I’m a little surprised Julius has become good Julius again, especially limiting his stupid plays. After last year’s meltdown I really didn’t see him recovering this well. I’m a little surprised by how much of a gamer Brunson is — I expected him to be good, but not quite this much of a grinding clutch player.

I’m definitely surprised that RJ has been THIS bad, fingers crossed the upward trend continues upward. I’m surprised — and delighted — that Deuce finally broke into the rotation, and that everyone gets what he brings to the table (which is not offense, so far…).

I’m a little surprised and disappointed by iHart so far, but jury’s out. Also a bit surprised that IQ hasn’t (yet) located his shot. Cam becoming almost decent and then getting jailed were both surprising.

And Thibs doing very non-Thibs things with the rotation has been very surprising, as nothing in his Knicks tenure suggested that was a thing he could/would do.

Someone had invoked that the two camps here at KB were best described as Team Patience vs. Team We’ve Seen Enough. I think that’s the fairest and most accurate characterization.

Nice to see some card-carrying members of Team We’ve Seen Enough indicating that maybe there’s reason to see more before passing final judgment on this regime.

Let’s see what happens after the next 5-game losing streak…

And stuff like Turner missing 4 free throws late in the game yesterday.

OK but Randle also made 6 free throws at the end of the game to seal the deal.

You can’t point to missed calls or free throws and say “well if they had made those/gotten that call they would have won.”

Randle also missed free throws early in the game. So in alternate universe land where Turner hits his late does Randle still miss his early?

We can multiverse this all we want. EVery player on an NBA roster is a professional. If your team isn’t playing well they will lose to any NBA team, doesn’t matter who they are missing. This is why I don’t buy the missing key guys argument. I’ve watched plenty shitty knicks teams lose over the years to know that it doesn’t matter how bad your opponent is or who they are missing. If that team is playing cohesive basketball and you’re not, you’re going to lose.

Missed calls and free throws are part of the game. Injuries are part of the game.

And I’m calling it now. We’re absolutely winning a playoff series this year. And it’s going to be over Cleveland in the first round to boot!

Raven, obviously we all had predictions and hunches coming into the season, and it’s fair to say we were individually surprised by the current outcomes.

My point is that none of those surprising outcomes should really be all that surprising. Randle has played like an all-star for long stretches before. Brunson has played like a clutch winner when given the opportunity for significant stretches. RJ has played both poorly and well for long stretches, and largely at his current averages. Deuce is playing great on D and badly on O, just like he has in limited minutes before. Hart was signed as a backup at a backup salary, and is playing like a backup. IQ is probably the most surprising player in terms of how awful he has been shooting, but he did the same thing for a long stretch last year before breaking out in the second half. Obi has been all over the place but nothing he is doing or isn’t doing should be all that surprising. Mitch is Mitching. Sims is Simsing. Grimes is Grimesing.

Really nothing to be suprised at, given the history of these players. No outlier shit going on at all.

Wow there’s a real E-vs-the-World thing happening today…

thank goodness too…E’s been on a roll the last week helping to drive our discussions:
– cam versus grimes
– julius versus 3 rando nba players
– our roster versus the rest of the NBA bottom feeder teams

and today it’s, I’m not sure…but, like every good morning shock jock E understands he needs to come out with some all or nothing type statement pitting something against something else…

it’s works, and provides a much needed service to our tiny eco system here…

my only gripe is – I wish it was me doing what he’s doing…seems like he’s having a lot of fun with it…

this time of year really makes me wonder – why don’t I eat tamales more often?

He’s been playing better, but the upgrade this team really needs is to turn RJ into something better. That starting lineup needs a knockdown shooter who can be a good secondary ball handler and defend at a high level. RJ is ok as a secondary ball handler but doesn’t do the two other things.

He has the PPP which makes trading him pretty much impossible, but when that is no longer a factor (this offseason?), I wonder whether trading RJ + some # of picks for, say, Mikal Bridges or (much more likely) OG Anunoby would be the thing that takes this team to the next level? I’m not totally sure we would have enough offense for a deep playoff run, but imagine trying to score against Grimes + Anunoby + Mitch.

Anunoby would be the most interesting replacement for RJ of players who might get moved but I’m not sold on his star status.

I’d be interested in LaVine but don’t want to pay what he’ll likely cost.

I don’t think we need to make an immediate move unless we want to sell high on RJ and/or Randle. With Randle the oldest player at 28, the age curve gives us a few years to raise our peak.

Was reviewing our pick stash and have some good news and bad news (well not really news, just things I had forgotten about):

-I thought the DAL pick conveyed as two seconds if landed in the protected range this year, but turns out we have two more bites at the apple in 2024 and 2025. So that will almost definitely convey as a first.

-The DET and WAS picks really might never convey as firsts. The protections on the DET pick gradually drop to top-9 by 2027, and the protections on the WAS pick gradually drop to top-8 by 2026. Both teams seem so god damn far from being anything but bad, and with WAS there’s a huge risk that they blow it up. So I can see why these picks had very little trade value.

I invoked Linsanity earlier, and it seems fitting that as loyal supporters of Dolan’s Knicks, we were sentenced to 10 years in purgatory for that privilege. Now the fleeting promise of Lin has returned in a too short, too squat, too unathletic of a body to be worthy of being picked before #33 despite being named NCAA player of the year and the key player on a 2X national championship team. Obviously he won’t get the same hype, but I wonder if that’s how Dallas fans were feeling when he torched the Jazz in the playoffs last year. And if they got a taste of what it was like to lose Lin for nothing when they lost Brunson for nothing.

Hopefully in 3 years Leon won’t be hanging a huge banner on MSG with an overrated free agent’s name across a #11 Knicks jersey…

hmmmmm, things this season I’ve found most surprising:
1). thibs benching drose, cam and evian
2). thibs changing up his rotation timing, one of my biggest gripes for years has been leaving players out there for 12 plus minute stretches
3). RJ playing so poorly
4). quik having so much trouble shooting
5). cam playing as well as he did when he got a chance
6). deuce and grimes having such a big impact on winning

Geo is a smart man ….

So we essentially have one vote for “yes, they’re going to win a playoff series,” and that one’s from, god bless him, the house optimist.

And I’d also wager that we have consensus on the reason why they won’t — because their best players, while certainly good or very good, aren’t good enough.

That, friends, is purgatory. Factorially purgatorial.

So the next question is “How do they get better players.” You guys can, but I’m not going to sit here and pretend that Quentin Grimes, he of the routine “get off seven shots or less in 30 minutes or more,” is going to become prime Sprewell or somesuch. (To be brutally honest, the Grimes Situation is a perfect example of what I alluded to up top — a low ceiling asset that doesn’t appeal that much to teams that avoid purgatory, currently deployed in the perfect niche role for a team trying to max wins within purgatorial guardrails.)

But I’m not entirely sold on my perspective, though I think it’s like 95-5 to turn out to be spot-on. If the Knicks actually beat a full-rostered good team (don’t know if it made djphan’s list, but Allen was out for Cleveland), I’ll sit up and take notice and then if they do it like three or four more times, I’ll really take notice. But the NBA is chock-filled with easy wins for teams that want to risk purgatory to get them, and even more so if the other teams are missing critical guys.

with WAS there’s a huge risk that they blow it up. So I can see why these picks had very little trade value.

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

Sorry to break it to Team Op, but Leon Rose, desperate to clear cap space that better GMs use far less blunt tools to clear, did not value picks better than his trade partner, Sam Presti. Far and away the more likely scenario is the opposite.

Quite a while ago, TNFH wrote:
“Funnily enough, the best performing bench unit so far has been Rose-Quickley-Fournier-Obi-Hart (+13.6 in 59 possessions). For a wide variety of (good) reasons we’re not bringing that back, so whether it’s schematic or just getting more from some of these guys production wise it’s definitely something we need to work on lest we run the starters into the ground.”

@TNFH: Using whatever site you used to get that information, what do you find is the highest-performing five-man rotation out of the guys that we are actually playing now? Meaning: Take Cam, Fournier, and Rose out of the equation. Just for more enlightenment, since Obi is injured right now and is not really a part of this winning streak, what is the best five-man-rotation if you remove, Cam, Fournier, Rose, *and* Obi?

@everyone else: It’s “Markkanen.” There is not now, nor has there ever been, a letter “T” in his last name. 🙂

“The DET and WAS picks really might never convey as firsts. The protections on the DET pick gradually drop to top-9 by 2027, and the protections on the WAS pick gradually drop to top-8 by 2026. Both teams seem so god damn far from being anything but bad, and with WAS there’s a huge risk that they blow it up. So I can see why these picks had very little trade value.”

DET has loads of young talent and will have cap space to improve. WAS is dicier but they also have some good young players and might keep Beal around and acquire some vets. I think both picks will convey as firsts and that they will continue to have reasonable trade value on that basis…more, for example, than the 2025 MIL pick, which will most likely convey in the 20’s.

The DET and WAS picks really might never convey as firsts. The protections on the DET pick gradually drop to top-9 by 2027, and the protections on the WAS pick gradually drop to top-8 by 2026. Both teams seem so god damn far from being anything but bad, and with WAS there’s a huge risk that they blow it up. So I can see why these picks had very little trade value.

That has been on my radar, too. If we still had the Hornets pick, that would also be looking unlikely to convert.

These are Leon’s burnt muffins.

@everyone else: It’s Markkanen. There is not now, nor has there ever been, a letter “T” in his last name. 🙂

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

It’s a riff on Clyde, who numerous times last night referred to the Pacers’ soon-to-be-superstar as “Matheson.”

Sam Presti

Ah, yes. The “genius” who let James Harden go for nothing. Teh guy who thought the carcass of Kendricks Perkins was a better fit than Tyson Chandler. And the guy who will eventually lose Shai because he wants to keep stockpiling picks instead of tryin to actually build a winning team.

Dude was gift wrapped one of the top 50 players of all time, another guy who is probably top 80 all time and a third guy who was one of the most explosive players of his generation in his prime and he messed it all up.

What exactly has Presti done that is so impressive other than being lucky enough to not have to draft Greg Oden?

If basketball purgatory is analogous to theological purgatory, three aspects of the latter are relevant: you can go up but never down, it is meant to be temporary not permanent and when you go up it is to heaven.

Ergo, being in purgatory is a desired outcome.

E just says arbitraty shit. Before the season we were in purgatory because of our Vegas projection. Now we’re out playing that a bit we’re in purgatory for a different reason. If we somehow win a playoff series it will be some other shit.

What exactly has Presti done that is so impressive other than being lucky enough to not have to draft Greg Oden?

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

Well, the current version was smart enough to not let his team fall into purgatory and so now he has a boatload of high-ceiling young talent and a massive war chest of extra first round draft picks.

I would pump the breaks on clear playoff team a bit. We’re only a couple games north of the play in and we’re a loss to the Steph less warriors away from all gloom and doom again

presti built multiple teams that went to the finals and conference finals… you can say durant was a gimme pick but westbrook and harden were certainly not… westbrook especially was much like the scottie barnes and giddey picks….

he’s consistently been able to identify talent through the draft and elsewhere and he has results to show… certainly got nothing on leon rose tho!

We’re good enough to be exciting with a tailwind, bad enough to be hopeless with a headwind. I don’t think which way the wind blows should impact our beliefs too much because it’s not about how good this team is. It’s about whether or not Leon can make it better, and that jury is still out.

I’ve been cheering Randle on just so he gets his trade value up enough to trade without losing assets. I’d package him and RJ for a bucket of picks any day. The game changed, the need for shooters is much higher than low TS iso head down dribblers. (thought experiment, if you traded Randle for a “lesser”-valued young shooter, like Hali, would that team be much better? Brunson, Hali, RJ, Obi, Mitch…. I’m not saying that’s the trade, I’m saying a pick or a young pre-star shooter is so much more valuable to this team than Randle. Same for RJ)

Well, the current version was smart enough to not let his team fall into purgatory

@E

By your definition of purgatory, the Thunder were there for 4 years after they traded KD and decided to keep Russ. They won under 50 games and got bounced in round 1 each year.

They later went pretty much all-in for a PG/Russ core.

It was actually at this point they acquired SGA—not while tanking—in the PG13 to LAC trade. Looking great for OKC right now (Jalen Williams taken with one of those picks too).

The last of those 4 years OKC had CP3 lead them to 44 wins after the Russ trade.

Presti is great most of the time. But let’s not pretend he’s never been in your very high threshold for purgatory.

Fair.

(1) Most of us would outright reject your definition of purgatory to begin with.

(2) Not wanting to guarantee getting passed the 1st round this year, and I emphasize this year, isn’t some condemnation of this team.

(3) The Knicks, based on the first 30 games of this season, are the 5th best team in the NBA by SRS and net rating. There’s a solid chance a 5th seed beats a 4th seed.

I’m skeptical we finish 5th but it’s a legitimate possibility. Even as a 6th seed we could steal a series. And again, that’s just this year.

Sorry 5th best team in the East by SRS and net rating, obviously not the NBA (yet)

I’d package him and RJ for a bucket of picks any day.

actually, a bunch of us would’ve done this deal months ago…and you know what, if we had, we’d be slogging through another unwatchable (although many folks here don’t seem to watch the games anyways) season of basketball…

for those unaware – an nba basketball season is a total of 82 games, considering after losses the general feeling the day after – that’s around maybe a 100 days of knick loss woes…you know there’s only 365 of them each year…

no thank you, let’s hold off on trading anyone part of the current rotation…

no so much fun to watch 82 game seasons that top out at some low 20 win total…

i am digging this seven game win streak…we haven’t loss a game in over 2 weeks…not bad…not bad at all…

Well, the current version was smart enough to not let his team fall into purgatory

I would argue losing year after year is THE definition of purgatory.

I love how people think being a bad team with a lot of picks or lottery players on their team somehow guarantees some bright championship filled season.

Presti deserves his share of praise, but he committed one of the worst unforced errors in modern NBA history.

Top 8 & 9 protections aren’t too difficult to outplay, although I guess you could have those teams lean into tanking if they can save a 1st.

I suspect Detroit’s pick conveys as their young players improve.

I’m definitely a lot more concerned about Washington. I don’t know how easy it’ll be to blow up with Beal signed through 2027 at $50M per year (if we really want to talk about worst contract…) but they’re just so bad every year.

On the other hand, the Milwaukee pick should convey pretty easily so we shouldn’t be down any 1sts on net.

Swift, constant blatant mischaracterization of other posters’ positions does little to help us navigate disagreements productively.

No one thinks a full rebuild like OKC’s “guarantees some bright championship filled season.”

There are certainly people who think such a rebuild provides a team with a better chance to eventually contend than a strategy that eschews some number of future assets in order to remain competitive-but-not-contending.

That’s the debate–which strategy is more likely to be successful? Neither is guaranteed to succeed nor doomed to fail, nor has anyone ever said as much. If you think our strategy is more likely to yield contention than OKC’s, argue that much more narrow point.

“On the other hand, the Milwaukee pick should convey pretty easily so we shouldn’t be down any 1sts on net.”

that should be a relief considering we traded a lottery pick!

“Top 8 & 9 protections aren’t too difficult to outplay, although I guess you could have those teams lean into tanking if they can save a 1st.”

This is what I’m worried about, if 2026 and 2027 come around and neither team is good they’ll start to see the light at the end of the tunnel and and secure these picks.

We can very easily get Harrison Barnes’d.

I love how people think being a bad team with a lot of picks or lottery players on their team somehow guarantees some bright championship filled season.

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

Seeing how you weren’t really keen on the Knicks trading for Zion Williamson, that will have to be kept in mind, but which of the Knicks players would you not trade one-for-one for:

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander
Josh Giddey
(A healthy) Chet Holmgren
Chet Holmgren right now.

“Using whatever site you used to get that information, what do you find is the highest-performing five-man rotation out of the guys that we are actually playing now?”

It’s the starters!

Brunson-RJ-Grimes-Randle-Mitch is +12.5 in 478 possessions. That’s a 75th percentile net rating.

I have been boning up on my medieval theology and this is not the first time that people have discussed purgatory being a recent invention….

Look, we are way better off than we were at any point in the last twenty years. We have good young players and we have picks.

Some think Randle is an appropriate cornerstone and think RJ will be. Others remain skeptical.

Everyone knows where I stand on that. Still, there are at least five players on this team I really like watching and think could be useful pieces on the kind of team I have spent 20 years hoping we would build. It could be better but it’s not unsalvegeable.

Look, we are way better off than we were at any point in the last twenty years.

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

And that perception is distorting perceptions. The past doesn’t have anything to do with the reality of where you currently stand. It’s a completely sunk cost.

The DET and WAS picks have decent value specifically because of their uncertainty of where/if they will convey over a period of years. That was clear when the CHA pick was used in the Murray deal. And why the DAL pick we own this year was valuable even with the protections. It’s less about likelihood and more about possibilities over an uncertain future. They probably have enough value to trade for a prospect, or to serve as a facilitating piece in a bigger trade. I doubt that we hold on to either pick long enough to convey.

I’ve repeated it many times and it fell on deaf ears most times, but it’s never been about being pessimistic, but much more about projections and actual production.

Did I hate the -0.3 BPM Randle we got on his first season? You can bet I did. Do I like the 3.2 BPM Randle we’re seeing now? Of course I do. It’s never been about Randle himself, it’s about his actual production and whether that’s likely to be sustainable or not.

I’ll be pessimistic when the team is producing badly and the future looks bleak; I’m still not convinced about the future of this team because I think most of our key pieces have a limited ceiling (specially Randle and RJ, but to a certain extent Brunson too is probably close to being in his peak production wise considering his age and the mileage he came into the league with). But at the end of the day, production on the court and possible upside are the only things that matter to me.

So to summarize, the production on the court part has been pretty decent, above average and encouraging in the sense that it’s been on an upwards trend; the upside part is still iffy mostly because I don’t think we have any potential superstar on the roster, but it’s certainly better than what it’s been for a long time.

Every single GM in the association can see the same things about those picks that we see. No one is going to be conned.

If we can hold on to the 6th seed, that’s no purgatory. We’d be in the playoffs, and if the opponent can be one of the two teams (Cavs and Nets) fighting for the 3rd seed, it’d be an amazing series. My preference would be the Cavs, because a motivated Donovan Mitchell against an energized MSG crowd would probably bring the best out of the two teams. Otoh a full series playing at home (Nets) would be really cool too.
But i agree we should pump the breaks, because any game now the winning streak will be over and we don’t know if the current pace (.567) is sustainable.

Presti deserves his share of praise, but he committed one of the worst unforced errors in modern NBA history.

It doesn’t sound like it was unforced, though, no? Didn’t management force it on him? I assume he would have gladly just kept Harden if he had his druthers. And once it was clear he “had” to trade him, the offers were naturally not going to be great, as Harden wasn’t yet, like, KG or whoever (and KG didn’t even get a particularly great haul). The market for star players sure has gone up a lot in recent years. That same Harden trade probably has a couple more firsts attached to it if it happened today.

And that perception is distorting perceptions.

It works both ways, though. The past being so awful can make team optimist absolutely giddy with the current state of affairs. This would be what team pessimist would call “settling.”

But also the past 20 years can make team pessimist overly skeptical that good things can continue to happen. They will assume our young players won’t get any better. They will assume we won’t make another draft pick that outperforms where it’s picked. They’ll assume we won’t be able to shake a star free from another team. Twenty years of suckiness can make people think being pessimistic is the right choice because it’s safe and it sucks to get your hope up.

But hope is what keeps us alive people!

A trade that might make sense for both teams but would probably upset both fan bases: RJ Barrett for OG Anunoby.

I don’t know about the fan base, but the announcers on the Raptors broadcast are always praising RJ, and for them he’s a hometown kid. Maybe both clubs would be thrilled about the swap.

@ BernieErnie on point 😉

If basketball purgatory is analogous to theological purgatory, three aspects of the latter are relevant: you can go up but never down, it is meant to be temporary not permanent and when you go up it is to heaven.

By roughly the time he comes back from his injury, Obi Toppin is going to be 25 years old.

He was drafted “old,” Grimes was drafted “old-ish” if not “old,” etc. They didn’t draft anyone at all with another lottery pick. Leon, Thibs, or Leon/Thibs just haven’t taken any kind of swing at talent that carried any kind of risk. They had a very brief fling with Reddish, too late on his rookie contract, and he was actually showing some signs, but even that couldn’t be stomached.

Unless I start seeing some real evidence to the contrary, no other conclusion is reasonable than that they’re purgatorial in their basketball nature.

But also the past 20 years can make team pessimist overly skeptical that good things can continue to happen. They will assume our young players won’t get any better.

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

Except that really isn’t it at all. The young players are low ceiling and don’t project to anything like guys that play important roles on contenders, with RJ Barrett being the one guy with a small-ish chance to prove otherwise. That observation has nothing to do with Knick fandom but instead watching the players play.

Geo I hear ya… but I have more PTSD related palpitations when watching ball-dribblers than watching some young guys play with energy and lose. I didn’t even say get rid of Brunson, who’s clearly a vet.. just the dudes that play like it’s 2003..

Brian, we’ll never know how much resistance Presti put up. Until then, he has to own it, at least in my book.

We just witnessed some members of Congress lose their jobs, even putting their safety at risk, for not bowing to pressure to do the wrong thing. If you don’t have the fortitude to say “That’s wrong and stupid, I’m not doing it, and if you want to do it, you’ll have to get someone else to be your shill….” then you own it.

@ TNFH —

… everything is a datapoint of *some* kind so it’s totally fair to ponder the ways in which priors may have shifted based on the beginning of the first 30 games of this season, and to a lesser extent the last 7 games.

I love/respect the nuance of the above. IMO last year was hellish mostly because Thibs refused to seek data on his young players. This season is the opposite. Bizarro-Thibs In The Beard is somehow doing exactly what we screamed about. I mean *Sims* is playing.

The result is good. Is it sustainable? Who knows. But we’re (finally) getting the data. And, win or lose, playoffs or no, from most of us LRose prolly has the benefit of the doubt for one more round of “big” deals. All will be revealed.

The young players are low ceiling and don’t project to anything like guys that play important roles on contenders

That’s, like, your opinion, man.

Grimes has started in a total of what, 20 games in his NBA career? McBride has only gotten PT in the last 2 weeks. Same for Sims. What makes you so sure these 3 players are “low ceiling”? Because they were drafted later? Bc they weren’t 19 when they were drafted?

I guess Jimmy Butler should have just accepted his low ceiling future as a rotation player, right?

You seem to think you have the future figured out for all of our players. When, in face, you don’t know jack shit about how high these kids can fly. None of us do.

I’m definitely a lot more concerned about Washington. I don’t know how easy it’ll be to blow up with Beal signed through 2027 at $50M per year (if we really want to talk about worst contract…) but they’re just so bad every year.

You mean future hall-of-famer KP can’t drag his team to a record better than pick 13 for three consecutive seasons?

“And that perception is distorting perceptions. The past doesn’t have anything to do with the reality of where you currently stand. It’s a completely sunk cost“

There was a time when we were so bad there was literally no way out for years. I don’t really disagree with the points you have made but I think we are clearly closer to something good than we were before.

It requires a fairly unlikely breakout from RJ, or trading him, but if we were getting .150 or 3 bpm from that roster spot we would be getting in range of something meaningful.

You seem to think you have the future figured out for all of our players. When, in face, you don’t know jack shit about how high these kids can fly. None of us do.

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

Well, no, we all — or most of us — can make pretty reasonable projections about these guys’ ceilings and mine are eminently reasonable. I’m pretty sure I actually do have a pretty good take on how high Obi Toppin and Quentin Grimes and Immanuel Quickley can “fly.”

It’s impossible to have a rational argument with “Who knows *how* good Quentin Grimes and Obi Toppin can be?” or “Nikola Jokic was drafted 43rd, if the Knicks could just do that, they could be contenders.” If you want to just sit around and hope for those things and call the rest of us meanies for wanting to do something more sensible, that’s your prerogative.

I’m an English major, and just wondering why everyone keeps using the term “pump the breaks” as opposed to “pump the brakes”

Ok carry on…..

It requires a fairly unlikely breakout from RJ, or trading him, but if we were getting .150 or 3 bpm from that roster spot we would be getting in range of something meaningful.

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

This was the best hope for escape at the start of the season, and it remains the best hope for escape now. All the rest, honestly, is pretty much noise. If RJ makes The Leap — which he still could do — this whole situation looks entirely different.

In terms of the other stuff, it’s a little bizarre that I’m somehow the board pessimist and post-coital limp dishtowel when I’m still optimistic about people like RJ and Reddish. There’s all manner of bile and pessimism on the board; it just gets primarily aimed at Barrett and Reddish instead of other, better targets.

Consensus!

I am higher on Grimes and Quickley than you. Seeing Grimes on the top 50 on EPM, a statistic I don’t understand, really sent a shot of adrenaline racing through my system.

Although it has Dillon Brooks above him.

Nic Claxton appears to be having a terrific season too. Cam Johnson also.

And d-mar, thank you

Ok carry on…..

Hahaha, you’re right. I felt something was wrong, but i was typing super fast and didn’t even bother to read the comment after posting… i’m a Knicks fan, my confidence is sky high right now, so i’ll blame it on the Knicks! 😀

Knickerblogging in a second or third language has always seemed miraculous. I wish our other favorite Italian would resurface.

Sorry Owen, but Cam Johnson has played 8 of the Suns 30 games, his last game was november 5th, EPM* does not have minimum requirements? 🙂

* What’s EPM anyway? 😀

I wish our other favorite Italian would resurface.

Me too. How are you, Farfa? Are you still reading our eternal debate of optimism against pessimism, like Connor McLeod against The Kurgan in The Highlander?

A debate which, as it should be for a war of religion, increasingly resembles the 30 Years War…

I wonder what those who say that our young guys have low ceilings would have said about 23yo Jalen Brunson’s ceiling in his second year when he was putting up a -0.9 BPM in 18 mpg…

(although I do vaguely recollect someone wishing that we insisted on Brunson rather than DSJ in the KP trade….)

Grimes missed a bunch of games too. I don’t know what the statistic is but if DRed likes it, and it likes Grimes as much as I do, then I think it’s great. 🙂

Grimes is putting up numbers almost identical to Mikal Bridges’s sophomore year, except Grimes is a year younger than Mikal was.

And you might say, well wait, Bridges is better known for his defense! But Mikal was able to increase his usage from 12.7% to 17.4%.

Even if you think Grimes’s defense isn’t quite as good as Bridges’s, few people would say a high-level defender scoring an efficient 15 or 16 points a game is a low ceiling except in the strictest sense.

(although I do vaguely recollect someone wishing that we insisted on Brunson rather than DSJ in the KP trade….)

Brunson always had a small fanbase here, but for the Mavs his name was a non starter (and that simple fact already said us a lot) plus DSJ had his triple-double against us just before the trade…

For health safety it’s better avoid to think about the Hawks series with him in place of Elf…

Haha, I still love how fucking stupid the Mavericks were with how they handled Brunson. What a fucking bunch of dummies.

I can usually at least see where E is coming from but the Grimes stuff makes no sense to me. I mean him and Cam had similar volume scoring stats, but E appears to prefer Cam because he has higher usage.

In other words, E’s primary beef with Grimes seems to be that he does not miss enough shots.

Haha, I still love how fucking stupid the Mavericks were with how they handled Brunson. What a fucking bunch of dummies.

Imagine what would have happened to this blog if our FO blew a free agency this way… 😀

It’s just not useful to put arbitrary ceilings on players as a way to put a ceiling on this team’s future prospects. Literally no one here thinks that this team is a finished product. There’s tons of work to do. We are scarcely two years out from Leon’s first roster move. In that time, we’ve gone from Vegas projecting us to having the worst record in the NBA to a having sustainable competitive team on the floor every night where the oldest rotation players are 28 and 26 and the other 8 guys are young guys with at least some upside, plus all of our picks, extra picks, and no contracts paying over 20% of the cap. The performance this year thus far is beyond what some on Team I’ve Seen Enough expected. Shouldn’t that be enough to throw some cold water on the continual stream of apocalyptic hot takes?

E’s primary beef with Grimes is that he’s A Thibs Guy.

Even though the Milwaukee pick is very likely worse than the lotto pick the Knicks gave up, the potential added value of two extra picks, or even just one, is pretty big.

And if those don’t convert as 1sts you get three 2nds, two of which we know will be fairly early:

(1) 31-39 in 2027

(2) 31-38 in 2026

(3) Wizards 2027 (anywhere 31-60, but if bottom 8 in 2026 probably on the higher end)

I’d still give each pick a 60ish % chance of converting, higher for Detroit.

Shouldn’t that be enough to throw some cold water on the continual stream of apocalyptic hot takes?

Some of us are still saying everything is fine even when the sky is falling down on us, and some are still predicting rain even when it’s a sunny day with no clouds on the horizon. I don’t think this is going to change anytime soon. 😉 😛

“Even though I don’t know whether it was forced or not, it is still one of the worst unforced errors in history” is almost worth getting into a discussion about (but I’ve learned over the years not to get into a fight with a hangin’ judge over the preponderance of innocent until proven guilty:)

Imagine what would have happened to this blog if our FO blew a free agency this way… 😀

Oh man, it’d have been insane.

Oh man, it’d have been insane.

1000+ comment thread? 😀

Loving Cronin’s heel turn

I was always infatuated with Brunson but I admit it was more a result of me watching a lot of his big college games at Villanova and thinking that he was just one of those guys who wins games, it was more of an irrational soft spot than true analysis. Obviously as he progressed and showed similar skills in the NBA I was very into the idea of getting him.

I just think this roster has limited upside because I don’t see a future superstar amongst the players, and every roster without a future superstar is inherently limited in upside. But of course there’s plenty of incremental improvements these players can make reasonably, and that’s exciting enough for me for now. We’ll cross the bridge into talking about contending when and if we get there.

E’s primary beef with Grimes is that he’s A Thibs Guy.

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

It’s a beef with Thibs, not Grimes — but basically, yeah. I see him as a Moneyball guy along the lines of thought that Hubert started the other day and as I wrote earlier.

Thibs is great at picking up the quarters other people leave around because the other people are trying to find dollar bills and five-dollar bills and want to avoid purgatory. Hubert put that down to intent; I’m not quite there yet, but I’m warming to it. Even Mitch lurking around for offensive rebounds at the cost of clogging the lane can be seen in this vein, including in the asset procurement sense.

If you ran 10,000 simulations of purgatorial teams, there’s no doubt that Thibs would add wins to baseline in a statistically significant way. If you need a guy to win games at the top end of the purgatorial range, he’s your guy. Hard to do any better if that’s your goal.

The Mavs looked incompetent from the day they prematurely blew up the championship team until they moved up to draft Doncic. Then they did enough smart things to think they understood how to build around Doncic. But since then it has been a nightmare of incompetence. They should probably blow it up and start over with Doncic, Josh Green, Jaden Hardy, Frank and whatever they can get for DFS, Wood, Dinwiddie, Kleber, Bullock, and Powell, but now even Kleber may be out for the season. So they can’t do anything with him. They are also stuck with THJr, McGee, and Bertans. What a mess even though they have a great player to start the rebuild….that they probably won’t do.

1000+ comment thread? 😀

Probably split into two 500 comment threads.

It’s just not useful to put arbitrary ceilings on players as a way to put a ceiling on this team’s future prospects.

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

Literally no one is doing this. No one is saying, “I want to argue on the internet that the Knicks have a low ceiling, therefore I’m going to go on the internet and argue that Quentin Grimes has a low ceiling even though I don’t believe he does.

Nor is there anything “arbitrary” about the concept of a player’s “ceiling.”

Wait a second — the Mavericks should blow things up but … the Knicks shouldn’t?

That’s an ethos anyway, I suppose.

“Djphan’s post is a good addendum to mine in that it’s certainly not a given that the Knicks can keep up their pace from games, even if we think there are unrepresentative bad samples in there. It’s a perfectly open question.”

I agree with that, but it represents a movement of the goal post.

The goal this year was to be a .500 team with Brunson showing he could be a solid starting PG , Randle turning it around enough to potentially be moved in a trade, and some upside from RJ.

Right now they are exceeding the goal, but that’s doesn’t mean it’s sustainable or that the goal won’t be achieved if they wind up at .500.

Some people are just moving the goal post because of the recent good play. They’ll probably also start whining the moment we inevitably lose 3-4 in row and 6 of 8 at some other point.

We are pleasantly surprised by this recent play and hope it is sustainable and demonstrates we are better than we thought, but .500 is not a failure.

The Mavs looked incompetent from the day they prematurely blew up the championship team until they moved up to draft Doncic.

Do you think they really would have had a chance at repeating? That team was ooooooooooold. Even with letting Tyson Chandler go, their top players, minutes-wise, of the following season were:

33
33
33
38
35

That’s crazy, right?

The goal this year was to be a .500 team with Brunson showing he could be a solid starting PG , Randle turning it around enough to potentially be moved in a trade, and some upside from RJ.

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

This is just like Swifty universalizing his definition of purgatory, only this time with a “goal.”

Who pronounced that “the goal”?

and some upside from RJ

I’m going to use the challenge on this. 😛

E, can you tell me which east teams are in purgatory? Or it’s only the Knicks?

“Wait a second — the Mavericks should blow things up but … the Knicks shouldn’t?”

Much different situations.

1. The Mavs have multiple players approaching or over 30 that were critical to their success last year and still critical now.

2. They have multiple bad contracts that can’t be moved without attaching an asset.

3. They have 1 young player besides Doncic that could be moved in a trade to attempt a significant upgrade (Josh Green), but they are so barren of upside they can’t afford to do it.

4. They are missing one 1st round pick that goes to NY.

5. They are capped out.

They don’t have a bad team, but they probably exceeded their talent in last year’s playoffs, lost Brunson for nothing, added a bad contract in McGee, and now have Kleber hurt. They aren’t going to win it all this year and it’s hard to find near term upside. It’s actually easier to find downside until they clear out some of this mess over the next couple of years. So maybe they should just start now.

“Do you think they really would have had a chance at repeating?”

I think they had at least one more year. Both Chandler and Kidd were productive for another year in NY and I think Kidd would have hung around a year longer. I bet if you asked him, he’d tell you he made a mistake.

“Who pronounced that “the goal”?”

The consensus of almost everyone was a little less than .500 plus or minus a little. Given the season we had last year, what exactly should the goal have been that didn’t involve hallucinogenics. 🙂

Washington and Chicago are both in purgatory. I’ll go through the rest and report back if I see others.

Washington’s a textbook example. Never really bottomed out enough to get a high pick but were never remotely a contender and wound up in the last several drafts with:

Rui Hachimura
Deni Avidja
Johnny Davis
Cory Kispert
Troy Brown

Yuck.

Bradley Beal is better than the Knicks best player — absent an RJ breakout — and still this. Definite warning shot for the Knicks.

There’s a big asterisk even with them though. If they continue to fade badly, they have a chance to get a high lottery pick in a great draft and that guy could then put them right back out of purgatory right away. No hope of that for the Knicks.

Chicago is also, mostly because of Lonzo’s apparently shot knee. Their top three assets — Vuc, DeRozan, LaVine — have more trade/asset value than the Knicks top three. Another warning shot for the Knicks. (That said, they still owe ORL another top 5 protected 1 and the Knicks aren’t saddled with anything like that.)

Miami could be said to be hovering around purgatory, but they still strike me as a tough playoff out. Reassess after this year. Could be time for a reboot for them, too.

BKN, MIL, PHI, CLE are actual contenders so they can’t qualify. IND will probably fade to good lottery pick but in any event have two young guys who will probably be an ultra-elite backcourt in 3 years or so, and NYK has nothing remotely like that. (I have Matheson pegged as a superstar-in-waiting. Barely 20 years old and can get to the rack at will and is organized and strong once he gets there and is already making routine parades to the free throw line. And has a great outside shot with a lot of lift. I’d give up anyone on the Knicks for him without blinking an eye. Hali is of course known to one and all around here. In addition to being really, really good, they’re both really, really long. They’re going to be a fantastic backcourt, maybe the best in the entire association. I’d give up the entire Knicks roster for them lol.)

E, comparing Beal and Randle, Beal does shoot better and have more assists but Randle gets many more rebounds and their all in one stats are very close. Randle is actually better on WS/48, BPM and VORP so far this year. Randle is a year younger and makes much less money (and doesn’t have a no trade clause). It’s not clear cut at all the Beal is better than the Knicks best player. Personally, I’d rather have Randle.

That’s fair, plus Beal’s contact weighs down his asset value.

The Knicks are better off than the Wiz at this point and I wouldn’t trade places with them. Still the caveat that they might have a high lottery pick in a great draft. We’ll see.

Chicago is also, mostly because of Lonzo’s apparently shot knee. Their top three assets — Vuc, DeRozan, LaVine — have more trade/asset value than the Knicks top three

These assets are a league average 32 year old center, a guy who doesn’t appear to be recovered from injury who is owed 128 million dollars the next 3 seasons, and DeRozan, who is probably valuable to the right team.

Thanks for your detailed answer, the part i was more curious about was the teams above purgatory (contenders?). You named “BKN, MIL, PHI, CLE” but it’s missing the top team (BOS), so we have 5 teams. And MIA is still a “tough playoff out”, so that’s 6 teams. At least 2 won’t make it to the 2nd round. If they are a tough playoff out they aren’t in purgatory, so if the Knicks force a game 7 on the 1st round, will they be out of purgatory as a tough playoff out?

“(I have Matheson pegged as a superstar-in-waiting…….”

I’m guessing that you mean Bennedict Mathurin. Just because Clyde gets names wrong doesn’t mean that we need to carry it over here (unless, of course, we are specifically writing about the fact that Clyde got it wrong).

“Miami could be said to be hovering around purgatory.”

And, also, Miami just last year was a shot away from the Finals — a/k/a an actual contender

This really isn’t such a pedantic exercise, or a Cartesian set of proofs. If Miami goes out with a whimper in the first round this year, it might be time for a reboot. But they have a whole lot more anti-purgatorial equity built up than a team that’s sucked for basically 23 years straight and still really doesn’t have any high-ceiling guy on the roster.

Worst off in the east in terms of true contention likelihood in near/medium term window are WAS and CHI. NYK third. NYK “above” CHI because CHI still owes a top 5 protected 1.

If Cleveland loses three games they’ll be in purgatory. Philly is only half a game away rom purgatory. The nets are two games away from purgatory.

Half of the league is in purgatory! Why do we even watch the NBA with all of these teams I. Purgatory!!!!

Did we ever learn about why Markelle Fultz’s shot broke?

Swift that’s kind of an annoying response to what was a pretty thoughtful post from E

No I don’t think we did.

We never did, but I hear tell that Fultz’s shot is no longer broken. Does this mean that we should have bought low on him?

Nah, probably not, not even in retrospect.

If basketball purgatory is analogous to theological purgatory, three aspects of the latter are relevant: you can go up but never down, it is meant to be temporary not permanent and when you go up it is to heaven.

Ergo, being in purgatory is a desired outcome.

well said…

Swift, constant blatant mischaracterization of other posters’ positions does little to help us navigate disagreements productively.

navigate disagreements productively, I like that…I’m using it on the kids…

It’s a beef with Thibs, not Grimes — but basically, yeah. I see him as a Moneyball guy along the lines of thought that Hubert started the other day and as I wrote earlier.

Thibs is great at picking up the quarters other people leave around because the other people are trying to find dollar bills and five-dollar bills and want to avoid purgatory. Hubert put that down to intent;

I…. don’t think I said this?

It doesn’t sound like anything I remember thinking.

The moneyball thing was just this:

Is it a good strategy, when you don’t have one of the games elite players, to build a defense that…

1) has elite rim protection
2) relies on shooting volatility

Grimes had nothing to do with it. I don’t think Grimes has top-4 potential, but I do think he could become the best 5th option in the league. That seems like a great outcome to me.

The whole idea of labeling team in this matter seems intellectually lazy. There’s no need to create a subjectively defined box and then shoehorn teams into it. Every team’s situation is different enough to consider separately. The Knicks situation is nothing like the Bulls or Wizards or Heat or Pacers or Hornets or Raptors, so why try to parse out who falls under the same heading? Can anyone predict with any confidence where any of these teams will be in 3, 4, 5 years?

Fultz’ shot is still broken, he’s basically just stopped shooting threes entirely after hitting 52/126 in college.

There were rumors about an ATV accident prior to his rookie year. It’s never been confirmed but there’s a lot of smoke there IIRC. A bad shoulder injury would explain a lot, especially if there’s nerve damage.

Re: purgatory, just like my beloved Two Players with a 4+ BPM Principle there will always be exceptions and the like, but a decent definition could be something like 3 consecutive years with 0% chance to win a title, and <5% chance at the #1 overall pick.

By that definition, we're there. I think it's a fair characterization, but I do feel better about our chances of getting out of purgatory than I did 30 games ago.

Haha, I still love how fucking stupid the Mavericks were with how they handled Brunson. What a fucking bunch of dummies.

agree…not sure what it does to our pick, but not particularly rooting for them to start playing well…

reminds me again of thinking we were gonna lose mitch…very happy that didn’t happen…

mitch can’t dominate around the rim every game, but it was fun to see – I think it was hield – throw the ball way high up on the backboard just to avoid mitch…

It’s an extension of the Moneyball idea you raised. Same principle.

“I don’t think Grimes has top-4 potential, but I do think he could become the best 5th options in the league.”

Then honestly he’s basically a non-factor, barely worth bringing up. A 5th option isn’t worth any discussion energy, in either direction, other than maybe in terms of asset procurement philosophy. Get me stars at 1/2/3 and the 5th option will take care of itself.

when reading through a thread, does anyone else ever get the feeling they’re witnessing some albert & costello routine…

“There’s no need to create a subjectively defined box and then shoehorn teams into it.”

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

NBA basketball fans have known about the no-mans-land we’re talking about for decades and decades. It’s the furthest thing from a “subjectively defined box” imaginable. Everyone who doesn’t have some other agenda, emotional or otherwise, knows fully well what it is.

“The Knicks situation is nothing like the Bulls or Wizards”

The three situations are, in fact, very similar. Far more similar than different.

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

“so why try to parse out who falls under the same heading?”

Because I wanted to and someone asked me about it? The bigger question is why you continue to object so routinely and vociferously to people discussing things in the way they want to.

538’s ELO model gives us a 5% chance of winning the finals, which sounds preposterous to me, but who am I to argue with math

Some people are just moving the goal post because of the recent good play. They’ll probably also start whining the moment we inevitably lose 3-4 in row and 6 of 8 at some other point.

Let the record show that nearly all the “whining” when we were struggling early in the season came from members of Team Optimist. The rest of us had nothing to complain about bc we weren’t the ones expecting the Knicks to be good!

E – I think you are underrating Grimes. I think he could end up a solid third or fourth best player.

Going to enjoy the honeymoon phase but I would afree it’s too early to tell what he will be.

Giannis on the other hand. Guy is 7 foot and jumps like Nate Robinson

https://twitter.com/thehoopcentral/status/1605018036628381696?s=46&t=AlhnlplNrdqw22zYFUsFZw

Although, wow, what a line from Valenciunas. Not sure I have ever seen thst before.

A few days ago Strat was ready fire everyone at MSG down to the beer vendors over their treatment of Cam Reddish

If this was 2017-18 Wizardblogger and you went on and said the team was in purgatory, you’d have gotten laughed out of the room — and rightfully so. They’d just beaten the Hawks in the first round in 6, and taken the Celtics to 7 in the second round behind 26 year old former 1OA John Wall, 23 year old former 3OA Bradley Beal, he of the 600+ TS% and three playoff games over 30 points against the Celtics, and 23 year old former 3OA Otto Porter, with 21 year old Kelly Oubre Jr. in reserve.

But even with all that high-ceiling young talent, it didn’t work out and now here they are, less than five years later, a purgatorial disaster. Which just goes to show just how hard it is to contend in this league. It’s really, really hard.

Then honestly he’s basically a non-factor, barely worth bringing up. A 5th option isn’t worth any discussion energy, in either direction, other than maybe in terms of asset procurement philosophy. Get me stars at 1/2/3 and the 5th option will take care of itself.

I couldn’t disagree more. Strong five-man units are the backbone of every good team, and every team that’s tried this stars and scrubs thing has fallen because of their 4th/5th/6th guys.

If the Knicks ever seriously fail in anything important for want of a proper 5th option, give me a shout and I’ll send you a bottle of anything of your choice. Just not going to concern myself with it at this distant remove.

If the board insists on a “Well, we’ve got our fifth option under control now, times are good, we’re on our way!!!” thing, then fine — I’ll cry uncle.

E, look at how much better Brunson, Barrett, Randle, and Mitch are with Grimes than they were with Fournier or Cam. The 5th guy, aka the glue guy, is huge. He can make the sum greater than its parts.

“…but a decent definition could be something like 3 consecutive years with 0% chance to win a title, and <5% chance at the #1 overall pick."

I don't agree with either part of this definition. I'm not sure you do either.

You just said yourself that the Knicks may now be one star player away from being a contender, which is a huge unanticipated jump from your previous position. And they did that with hardly any impact on their ability to make moves in the future. So we are now maybe one move away from having more than a 0% chance of winning a title, and we have the assets and cap situation where such a move is possible. So the whole 0% thing seems pretty arbitrary.

As to the 5% chance of a #1 overall pick for years? You just said that you are worried that the DET pick won’t convey by 2027!!! In other words, It’s possible that their fans might endure 5 more years of abject losing?! That’s not purgatory?!

reminds me again of thinking we were gonna lose mitch…very happy that didn’t happen…

It was very similar to the Mitch situation, but even dumber. Dude was asking them to sign him to a below market extension! He was asking them! And they told him no because they were still debating whether to try to trade him for a star, which was a preposterous notion at the time. Asking them to lock him down at below market! And they said no! It was insanely stupid. I love that it blew up in their faces. It’s delicious. It’s like Cartman slurping up Scott Tenorman’s tears! Yes, yes, the tears of unfathomable Dallas stupidity!

E,

You bringing up the wizards is interesting. Young team that had two all stars and was in the rise making the second round and now they’re in fre fall.

So why not just enjoy the ride? If it’s so hard, neigh, almost impossible to build a contender, then why not just let your team be good and see if they can do it or get close instead of having to prematurely label them as being in purgatory and stupid for even trying instead of blowing I up and sucking g for god knows how long in the skin hope they’ll drag the next Lebron, they won’t get hurt, and that star will stick sound long enough for the team to build around them?

I have no idea if we can become contenders. What I do know is we’re full of young players who can get better, we got no real bad contracts and we got a lot of picks in front us and we’re probably making the playoffs. That’s great! Why say oh they’re in purgatory or this young player has a hard ceiling and will never help this team go to the next level?

It just seems so fatalistic and pointless to me to think that way about a team when we’re actually good.

People are free to discuss whatever they want, no matter how pointless.

The term “purgatory” has been used for many years to describe the situation NBA franchises have found themselves in. Mostly it has been used to define teams that were capped out and all in, like the Bulls or Wiz. Some agenda-driven posters like to extend that definition to teams whose FO they have written off, even when there is very real and ample possibility for further improvement.

In my opinion, the current Knicks situation is nothing at all like the current situations that WAS and CHI are in. It’s hard to have a serious conversation with anyone who thinks they are comparable.

Well, Portland just snatched defeat from the jaws of victory

I should also say that had we done the Spida deal, then yeah, that would have been purgatorial, by Dante’s or any other definition.

If team pessimist wants something legitimate to worry about, the Mavs lost again and DFS got hurt and may be out for 10 or more games.

That Mavs pick we are owed is starting to look at risk for the next draft. With Kleber out for the season, DFS out, and very little flexibility, if the Mavs keep losing it would not shock me if Cuban went into early tank mode if things don’t turn around fairly soon just to have that pick this year. If Doncic misses some games with an injury they might be the worst team in the NBA with what’s left over.

“A few days ago Strat was ready fire everyone at MSG down to the beer vendors over their treatment of Cam Reddish”

I haven’t changed any of my opinions on the subject.

1. IMO the deal for Cam (also got a 2nd rounder) was fine (assuming you were writing off Knox completely).

2. However, if you are going to give up that asset for Cam, you have to be on the same page as coach and play him. I was more than willing to grant Thibs some flexibility to work him in slowly. But all reports suggested he didn’t want him. That’s an issue.

3. During the period Cam was starting this year, imo he was outplaying RJ on both sides of the ball. He got hurt, came back, had a couple of subpar games and was sent to Siberia. There are starters on this team that have had subpar years, and ahem, subpar careers, that have been given a longer leash.

4. #3 affirms that Thibs is not a Cam fan. He had a way shorter leash with Cam than he’s had with other players. I’ll even accept that. He may see things in practice or know things I don’t know. But it clearly demonstrates Thibs was not on the same page as management.

All the above screams they mishandled the Cam deal badly and probably blew some asset value. We’ll see if they can get anything for him before determining how much value they blew.

Personally, I still think Cam has the talent to become a solid player. He’s gotten better every year. He even showed he’s capable of defending OK when he wants this year. So blowing some asset value on a player I’d like to keep developing pisses me off.

Absolutely none of that has anything to do with how I feel about the team we have now and it’s prospects going forward. I like this team.

I’m coming late to the party, but I have really enjoyed today’s thread.

I just want to say Presti made the Chandler trade, but had to pivot to Perkins when he failed his physical. He also was forced to Harden because ownership was in an Enron like situation with a company called Chesapeake Energy. Better ownership and a better team Doctor and we might be talking about them as a dynasty, rather than the Warriors.

I’m so used to “Markaten” that when I watch the Jazz play and the announcers call him Markannen it throws me off. I’m sure “Matheson” will be next. I love how Clyde ignores his various partner’s gently trying to correct him.

We still have 50+ tilts. I hope Cam gets another shot. He certainly can be a useful piece at the back of the rotation.

We only have one negative bpm player in the starting lineup and his bpm is lower than Cam’s.

On NBA 2K23, the Current Version of Mitchell Robinson has an Overall 2K Rating of 81 with a Defensive Anchor Build. He has a total of 6 Badges.

not sure what a Defensive Anchor Build is, it sounds very legit though…

Re Presti and Harden trade:

“It doesn’t sound like it was unforced, though, no? Didn’t management force it on him? I assume he would have gladly just kept Harden if he had his druthers. And once it was clear he “had” to trade him, the offers were naturally not going to be great, as Harden wasn’t yet, like, KG or whoever (and KG didn’t even get a particularly great haul). The market for star players sure has gone up a lot in recent years. That same Harden trade probably has a couple more firsts attached to it if it happened today.”

“He also was forced to trade Harden because ownership was in an Enron like situation with a company called Chesapeake Energy. Better ownership and a better team Doctor and we might be talking about them as a dynasty, rather than the Warriors.”

I read a bunch of articles and saw no evidence of Presti being forced to do or not do anything. Seems like it was Presti’s call. Happy to read anything anyone can provide beyond unfounded rumors and innuendo.

Here’s some representative articles I found:

https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/keeping-harden-was-the-plan-but-sam-presti-and-the-thunder-had-plan-b/

https://www.si.com/nba/2012/10/28/thunder-gm-sam-presti-breaks-down-his-trade-of-james-harden-to-rockets

I’ve seen that someone is asking how I’m doing 🙂

Let’s just say that physically I’m in the best shape of my life (just like 90% of NBA players at the beginning of every single season), mentally I’m serene, but time management wise I’m just all over the place thanks to a horrific workload in the last two years.

That said, if everything goes right I hope I’ll be able to be back (or just to ride shotgun to my fellow mamma mia Max) around February-March, because I’ve so many new things to write about while waxing poetic about bad Julius blunders.

PS: I always read KB!

Valenciunas had 32 at the half and finished with 37.

That article says they tried hard to keep him.

FARFA!

Glad to hear you are well! We will soldier on without you a little bit longer but the site is not the same without all our eurobloggers.

Recent Posts

Recent Comments

Archives

224 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2022.12.19)”