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100 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2022.12.20)”
Ciao Farfa! š
It’s great to read from you again, I’m glad everything’s okay (except for the workload) and I hope you’ll soon find time to pleasure us again with your fantastic writing.
Meanwhile, if you’re intentions are to go back undercover for the short term, happy holidays!
So all we have to do is say his name for him to appear?
Farfa!
PS autocorrect tried to change your name to Farts.
Farfa, glad to hear you are alive and well! Workload to rough to post here? Now THAT’S purgatory!
Hubie Hypothetical for the dayā¦
Letās say this season goes well. We win 47 games, lose in the first round to the Sixers in 7 games behind a powerhouse Joel Embiid performance.
The summer comes and LeBron wants to play for the Knicks. The Lakers are amenable to letting us keep our core guys in exchange for future assets.
The trade for 38 year old LeBron James is IQ, Obi, and 4 unprotected Knicks picks (2024, 2026, 2028, 2030). So weāre keeping RJ, Grimes, and we have the opportunity to add two picks in this summerās draft.
Do you make that trade?
Thereās a lot to mine here:
The first thing is LeBron. How long do you think he can remain on Mount Olympus?
If you are in on LeBron, then itās about this core. Do you think Brunson, Barrett, Grimes, Randle, and Mitch, supported by Deuce, iHart, two rookies, and ring chasers could win a chip before LeBron faded? (Evan & Rose had to go to make cap room, but we were able to bring Cam back on a one year deal).
If the answer to that question is yes, are you willing to sell the future in the form of 4 unprotected firsts for our best chance at one chip?
If the answer to that question is no, then whatās the point of staying committed to them? They may be young but we pretty much know who these guys are.
And finally, we have to consider CDiggy and his marriage. Could it survive if the Knicks donāt win a chip and the next Lakers dynasty is built on our draft picks?
Anyone want to re-examine Scottie Barnes as a future star? Thus far this year he’s posting a .519 TS%, a WS48 of .056 and a BPM of -0.7.
Meanwhile, the Raptors are at 13-18 despite an expected W/L of 16-15. They’re a dangerous team on paper but are clearly having a tough time getting over the top against better teams lately. Some things stood out in looking at their team stats.
-25th in pace…seems odd for such an athletic team
-28th in both eFG% and opponent’s eFG%…not a winning formula
Hopefully they will not choose Wednesday night to bust out of their 6-game funk…we’ll be on the tail end of a B2B, albeit at home. Should be an interesting matchup…Brunson vs. FVV, Randle vs. Siakam, RJ vs. Barnes…they don’t seem to have an answer for Mitch…should be a competitive game!
So basically our starting-5 will be JB-Grimes-LBJ-Julius-Mitch
with RJ as the pricey 6th man and Deuce, I-Hart (for 1 season), Sims, this year 1st rounders plus the mid-level to cover the bench.
Two bullets (maybe three if you’re optimistic) to try to win it all.
I’d do it.*
* In the environment that you described (47 wins and a hard fought 1st round exit).
P.S.
I doubt LBJ will ever leave LA.
The answer is that there are way too many unknowns to say yes.
First, let’s dispense with the Grimes thing. Keeping Grimes is irrelevant to the scenario, losing Obi and IQ is irrelevant to the scenario. All three are easily replaceable if you have a serious chip chasing team.
That still leaves at least two problems:
1. Will Randle adjust appropriately to the new situation. It’s not remotely “fatalistic” to wonder. He’s never played under any real pressure and the one time he did, he melted. And that’s just his makeup. How will his iso-heavy game adapt? Huge question. Will he still want to take “his turn” on big possessions and jump up in the air and throw the ball to the other team or, even worse, wave everyone away and pull the bullshit that he pulled at the end of CHI I? Don’t trust his adaptation for a second.
And we’ve seen his neediness and jealousy at work with the fans’ admiration for Barrett and Toppin. It’s Melo-esque with Lin, if not worse.
2. Would a LBJ team want a lane-clogging center like Mitch? As I started to sketch out yesterday, I see Mitch as a Moneyball guy. The vast majority of teams don’t care about the offensive rebounds his hovering gets him; they care about clearing out the lane for their offense more generally. Thibs/Leon take those offensive rebounds — the quarters other teams leave laying on the ground — because they don’t care about purgatory. They’re almost the quintessential purgatorial asset. How well would an LBJ take to torching his man only to find Timelord waiting for him because Mitch is hanging around the rim to get offensive boards? How well in pure basketball terms would that work?
I’d rather just stay patient and modernize things. Open lane, normal defense, no empty calorie “point forward.” I don’t think porting 38-year-old LBJ here is a championship team. That said, make it two ones and maybe I sit up and take interest. Four? No way.
Thanks Z-Man, I totally forgot it’ll be a B2B for us! š
(and OG could be back…)
Thatās another thingā¦ we could probably afford to let LeBron miss half the season if he wanted to. We donāt need to win 60 games, just make the playoffs and have him fresh. It would probably extend his career.
E, LeBron would likely loaf on the perimeter during the regular season, resting his body for the playoffs. That would solve a lot of the Randle/Mitch issues.
And then in the playoffs Mitchās role would probably reduce and the team would go with a death lineup of Brunson Barrett Grimes Randle LeBron.
Thibs might not even be there. The jury is out on whether or not he has the emotional stability to withstand not being able to play LeBron 45 minutes a night on back-to-backs in January.
3. Would LBJ want Tom Thibodeau coaching the team?
The basic point here is that everything changes once you get into the kind of expectations and demands that would come with an all-in roll of the dice with an aging LeBron James. He then becomes the de facto GM and to a great degree, coach.
“That article says they tried hard to keep him.”
It also says that they were far apart on terms. Presti would not go above 4/$60 and didn’t even offer that. He tried to have his cake and eat it too. Harden wasn’t interested. Presti ultimately determined that it would be better to trade him for what he got than risk losing him for nothing.
There is no indication that Presti was pressured by management to lowball Harden against his will.
My answer swings from “I don’t care at all” to “Hell yeah!”, I don’t see this as a “problem”.
LBJ GMing worries me more.
LeBron’s gonna be 38 in 10 days. So we’d be talking a 39.5 year old LBJ against prime Giannis and prime Tatum/Brown and a slightly-past-prime but still really good Durant in the East.
Not feeling it. Sorry.
If we are trading RJ for him Iād be fine with that.I donāt think IQ and grimes are irrelevant but we have discussed thst.
I donāt know what happened with Harden. But my sense at the time was that he wanted out. He didnāt want to be the third musketeer.
Farfa is the Fox’s Ubet for the KB Egg Cream …. Max and Cyber are the pretzels that stir it.
LeBron’s already starting to age. Yes, he had a ridiculously good season at 37, but …
TS% down from 619 to 560
BPM down from 7.7 to 4.8
WS/48 down from 172 to 110
“Old man” injuries still trending up.
Can’t see that really reversing in any serious way.
Father Time. Undefeated.
PS autocorrect tried to change your name to Farts.
——————————————————
Sadly, I know. When I started playing pc games online, I stuck to my preferred nickname, until pretty much everyone was calling me Farts/Fartgun. It got a little annoying š
Here, instead, I proudly wear my autocorrected farts on my sleeve.
I’m not fond of Presti but I remember every podcast host I followed at the time saying that OKC doesn’t want to pay the (just revised) luxury tax.
Again, I don’t give a fuck about Presti and it doesn’t mean that they could not have found a solution, only that Presti had limits within which to move.
https://hoopshabit.com/2022/10/10/harden-trade-cost-okc-thunder/
A couple of interesting snippets from the link:
“there was a new collective bargaining agreement that increased the luxury tax. Previously, teams could essentially spend whatever they wanted to, so long as they were willing to write a check for the amount, they were over the tax threshold.
With the new luxury tax, for every $5 million over the tax threshold, the tax rate increases, costing teams way more than before, particularly with the repeater tax. ”
And a League’s decision I forgot:
“the NBAās decision to retroactively bump Kevin Durant up to the newly created rookie max, caused the Oklahoma City Thunder to be concerned about having a consistent luxury tax-paying team.”
I don’t do it.
Mainly because I don’t think Lebron really has it anymore. I think he’s been coasting on reputation. He got a ring in 2020 because of the pandemic. I’m not one of those people who says that championship doesn’t count. It does. And if anything, the bubble conditions I think presented their own mental challenges for those teams.
But there is also no doubt in my mind that Lebron benefitted from having March to July off because of the pandemic and was able to go into the bubble super rested and fresh.
He’s coasted in the regular season for awhile, which makes sense considering how many years he’s gone deep in the playoffs. But I think now he’s secretly cooked. Of course, he’s the GOAT, so he can still have good games and maybe even a string of games. But I wouldn’t trust Lebron to put together a full run of elite Lebron through 4 rounds of playoffs without getting gassed or injured.
So no. I would not do it.
And also, fuck Lebron. Not really. But seriously, the dude scorned us in 2010. So now we want to give up young players and kickstart the Laker’s rebuild for them all for the carcass of LBJ?
Nah.
My immediate superstar want is Shai. Longshot, I know. But he would be ideal. After that, I’m holding tight for another season or two, letting this team grow and looking to trade Randle for Zion in a season or two when he inevitably wants out of NO bc they can never keep nice things.
That SGA buzzer beater against Portland was SOOO smooth
He would have lit up MSG on a nightly basis )-:
“I read a bunch of articles and saw no evidence of Presti being forced to do or not do anything. Seems like it was Prestiās call. Happy to read anything anyone can provide beyond unfounded rumors and innuendo.”
I don’t have time this morning, but if you look up Aubrey McClendon, who was the principal owner, you will see what I’m talking about. His demise was hardly an unfounded rumor. The team was not going to be able to pay those three guys. What about the Chandler trade? Did you find anything on that?
LeBron coming to the Knicks now: Shades of Jordan on the Wizards. Interesting, and with fun glimpses of past glory, but in the end mostly empty calories.
Don’t forget: If we get LeBron, we also get Bronny. Unfortunately, it is more likely that Bryce is the son that we (and everyone else) will end up coveting more.
Also, I know championships are forever and the Knicks haven’t had one in 50 years and whatever, if we won one I’m sure I’d be happy.
But god it would suck to finally win a championship with Lebron at age 40 or whatever. The narrative would be all about him and how he’s getting his last title, the GOAT, how he finally brought a title to The Knicks….yada, yada, yada. The fact that the Knicks finally won a title after 50 years, finally became respectable and good enough to get someone like Lebron to come here, etc…that would all be buried under the Lebron lovefest.
I’m not a complete hater. Lebron is the GOAT of this generation. I don’t get caught up in the Jordan vs. Lebron debates. Both are all time greats and I think you can make legitimate arguments for both. I would just hate to have our one title in forever be because of Lebron. And it would only be one title, if that. Then we’d suck again because not only would we trade all our picks to the Lakers to get him but I guarantee you once he was here, he’d want to trade away our other young players to get vets to help him ring chase.
I don’t know. I want a title. I really do. But what I want more than anything is sustained excellence from this franchise.
walkerandbendercornerstones,
Agree.
Lebron to the Knicks is a “no” for me.
I’d way rather develop the young players we have, add via draft, and make trades when necessary to try to build a team that will be competitive for a longer time.
Assuming for the sake of argument, that LBJ would still have enough to help the remaining squad win a CHP, I’d still pass. I’d prefer to have a more sustainable shot at being a perennial contender( eg pre-blow up Jazz) rather than a one-and-done CHP. This is sort of what the Lakers did in getting AD. Of course, the big assumptions ( issues) with this hypothetical are would traded pieces be sufficient to get us into the status of contender for ECF, something we have been debating for a minute, as well as does LBJ has enough left to drag the team to the CHP.
The LBJ chip ship has sailed. Bon Voyage!
LBJ: Nope.
Ciao, Farfa!
Farfa, itās nice to hear from you
I wouldnāt do the deal for LeBron at all. Heās too old already for that deal. But anyway, heās signing up one year at a time at this point so basically every summer heās a free agent or can be if he opts out. You canāt trade for him; heāll only go where he wants to be. I think heāll stay in LA or go as a free agent wherever his son ends up.
For the record, I’d be just fine if we never traded an unprotecteed first round pick ever again.
But if we do, let it never be for a 38yo diva who publicly spurned us.
And that goes for you too, KD.
I have witnessed two Knicks championships in my lifetime, so I totally get that my stance might be a bit different than the younger folks here…
heās signing up one year at a time at this point so basically every summer heās a free agent
Now if LBJ wants to come here for the mid level exception as a free agent, that’s a different story.
LeBron wants to play with Bronny. That’s his last real goal (other than potentially winning one more championship). So whoever drafts Bronny will likely get LBJ for a year.
I can see that I erred by making the price too high. Unprotected pick from 2024-2030 would likely net a star in his prime, not just a two year rental.
HAHAHAAA… My wife doesn’t pay close enough attention to such nuances like “draft picks” for things to be that level of insufferable.
The much more accurate question is: could CDiggy survive at his job for the next five years if the next Lakers dynasty was built on Knicks draft picks?
Alan wrote: “LeBron wants to play with Bronny. Thatās his last real goal (other than potentially winning one more championship). So whoever drafts Bronny will likely get LBJ for a year.”
I actually believe that other than playing with one or both of his sons, LBJ’s last real goal is to pass Kareem on the all-time scoring list…….even moreso than winning one more championship.
Lebron makes 44 million a year. Obi & IQ make 7 million. That trade is not going to work.
Even if it magically did, Lebron’s probably not good enough anymore to make us a strong contender and he’s definitely no longer physically reliable.
lebron is old but old for him would be like 30 for just about anyone else… when you’re that good the age curve provides for a much longer runway and a much softer landing… i would bet on at least 3 more years of doing what he’s doing now and possibly longer than that health permitting…
so i think if you’re ok with backing up the truck for someone like damian lillard you should be ok with doing the same for lebron… i don’t think i would do that tho since if you’re unloading that many picks you should be shooting for conf finals at the minimum and i think it would be at best 50/50 to get out of the first rd….
Yeah, Lebron looks like he’s slowing down quite a bit this year. I’d want a couple more upgrades before chasing Lebron. He could easily be a star level player for quite a bit but it’s a pretty big gamble at that price.
Drafting Bronny is the real play.
Bronny doesn’t look like an NBA player to my deeply ignorant eyes. I’m interested to see where he would go in the draft if he was obviously a fringey player.
so i think if youāre ok with backing up the truck for someone like damian lillard you should be ok with doing the same for lebron
I wouldn’t want to do that for Lillard either. No to Lebron. No to AD. No to Lillard. No to Curry. No to Durant. No to Kawhi. No to PG13. No to CP3. No to Draymond or Klay. No to Butler. No to Harden. No to Kyrie.
All of these players are at the end of their prime or already past it and would cost us way too much in salary and/or assets to acquire.
If we’re going to find a star it needs to be Giannis, Jokic, Ja, Zion, maybe Embiid, Tatum, Doncic, Shai, Booker, etc.
Right on cue, here’s a RealGM article to follow up my post on the Raptors:
https://basketball.realgm.com/analysis/269736/Raptors-And-Knicks-Ships-Passing-In-The-Middle-Of-The-Easts-Night
“…maybe Embiid, Tatum, Doncic, Shai, Booker, etc….”
“…maybe Embiid, Tatum, Doncic, Shai, Booker, etc…”
I am not a fan of the possibility of an Embiid deal. The knees and the current NBA make me think that he will never hoist a trophy as the best and highest paid player on a team.
ā But god it would suck to finally win a championshipā¦ā
Merits of the LeBron debate aside, I cannot abide any sentence that begins this way as it relates to the New York Knicks.
I am not a fan of the possibility of an Embiid deal.
Me neither. That’s why I said “maybe”
One player I’d happy to give up unprotected picks to acquire is Jaylen Brown. His contract is expiring next year. Obviously the Celts love him and can pay him more than anyone else. But if they fall short again this year, might he want to get out from Jayson Tatum’s shadow and become the best player on our team?
One player Iād happy to give up unprotected picks to acquire is Jaylen Brown
Yeah, that would be dope. Would also be fun to give Boston the Mavericks Brunson treatment and steal one of their best players. Plus, Thibs would LOVE him.
I’d love to hate the Knicks even more, so yes, let’s trade for Jaylen Brown
Has there been no discussion of Wally being a total dickhead about Tyrese Haliburton, apparently because he’s getting All-Star hype and Brunson isn’t? What a fucking clown!
What did Wally say?
Clyde is going to retire sometime and if we get some mediocre company man who knows how to pronounce peopleās names I will be seriously unhappy. Wally would be fine in Cleveland but no way he can carry the torch for the GOAT.
Wally called Hali an ” All-Star wannabe”.
Wally sucks.
Wally called Hali an ā All-Star wannabeā.
That’s gotta be a direct command from MSG higher up’s to downplay how bad they missed on Obi over Hali.
And the problem is how easily Wally goes along. Pure shill.
I never mentioned the Wally / Haliburton thing because I just immediately see anything Wally says as irrelevant and simply pandering towards keeping his job in Dolan’s payroll. Just harsh and unnecessary and stupid.
Ciao Farfa, molto buono sapere che stai bene, nonostante il superlavoro! š
Cyber, the pretzel. Sounds cool, i’ll take it. š
No Lebron, please. In 2010 i wanted him, not anymore. I want to win with guys that want to play here.
Defense is like a line in football. You can have 3 great lineman but if you have 2 terrible ones it doesn’t matter and the line will be terrible. Likewise you can have 3 great defenders but if you have two bad defenders it doesn’t matter.
Thibs removed Evian from the lineup the defense got better with Cam. But when he removed Cam (who is capable but lacks focus) and inserted Grim3s, – defense got really good. When he swapped Rose with Deuce and then later Obi with Simms, – the defense became elite. Defensive schematics are exactly the same. Its just players executing better.
It’s not fair to the rest of the of the rotation players to give ALL the flowers to Deuce and Grimes for recent defensive prowess.
“Iād love to hate the Knicks even more, so yes, letās trade for Jaylen Brown”
I don’t have a problem with Jaylen Brown, seems like he fucked up the Kyrie situation but nothing I found unforgivable to the point that I wouldn’t want him on my team.
“Ciao Farfa, molto buono sapere che stai bene, nonostante il superlavoro! š”
C’mon cyber, don’t you know that Farfa doesnt understand Portuguese?
I want to win with guys that want to play here.
This is one of the reasons why I don’t want to trade Randle.
Look, what happened between him and the fans last season was not cool. He shouldn’t have let it get to him and he took it too far.
But he signed with us as a free agent when we were at our absolute lowest. And even after last season, with the fans booing him nightly, he didn’t ask for a trade this off season.
I mean, he could have easily said “you know what. Fuck these fans. I took this team to the playoffs and made second team all NBA and the second we struggle you boo me. I’m not playing another game until I’m traded.”
Plenty of NBA players have pulled this kind of stunt. Ben Simmons refused to play (And still got paid) for a year until Philly traded him.
But he didn’t do that. He took responsibility for letting it get out of hand and vowed to work on his own personal struggles and has now come back and is as good as he was 2 seasons ago.
I get not trusting it can last because he’s up and down season to season. But I tend to believe that the team had huge expectations last year, Kemba made things worse when he was supposed to make it better, and Randle took a lot of the blame for the team struggling even though he wasn’t the only reason why. And that got to him. Maybe in some people’s eyes that makes him weak. To me, it just makes him human. And the fact that he’s stayed put and decided to work on himself to bounce back…I admire that.
Clyde to Wally is a worse dropoff than Ewing to Bob Thornton
Suns being sold for over 4 billion. Robert Sarver can cry into an unfathomable pile of money.
LOL
Per my last email, I said we would have included Evan and Rose to make it work.
Evan = 18.8
DRose = 15.6
Obi = 6.8
IQ = 4.1
Total = 45.3
The Suns being sold for $4B shows you why Steve Cohen doesnāt care about spending an extra couple of hundred million here or there.
The 2023 Mets arenāt necessarily going to be an unstoppable juggernaut, but heās going to field nothing but contending teams from now on. It is truly a good time to be a Mets fan.
swifty I agree that it was really hard for Randle to get from where he was last year to where he seems to be right now. He deserves all the credit for that, and the rewards that come with it. I had no problem with keeping him, at the very least to rebuild his value as a trade asset, but also as a part of the team going forward.
Seems like some still hate having him on the team, some are sort of lukewarm i.e more resigned to it than anything else, and some find him a rootable feel-good story. I’m mostly in the third camp, although if he got traded in a fair deal that improved the team, I wouldn’t be upset. But replacing a player the caliber of this year’s Randle at his AAV is not easy.
And who knows? Maybe overcoming the huge obstacles he faced last year will make it less likely that he will regress for mental reasons…maybe not. For me, he’s more than earned that chance and I feel good about trusting him again.
Count me out on age 39 LeBron. Too Knicksy.
Hey, i can debate almost everything about the Knicks here at KB, but not Clyde being replaced by Wally. That i’ll refuse. And i don’t even want to imagine having to endure an 82 game season of Wally’s comments. I’m still hopeful they’ll find a better replacement when the times comes, which i hope is still far away.
https://agaunews.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/mcduck-BG01.jpg
My two daughters love Clyde so freakin’ much that I’m worried about their mental health if/when he up and leaves.
And it wouldn’t be so bad for me if someone like John Andariese was waiting in the wings. But Wally?! God help us!
My thoughts on my own hypothetical:
LeBron is an apex human being. I said the same thing about Chris Paul when no one wanted to touch him: when it comes to GOATs, I’m not afraid to be left holding the bag. With proper rest management, I would expect two peak springs out of him.
I also see the league being totally wide open those two seasons.
The thing I get caught on is: could this cast even do it?
LeBron is the co-GOAT in part because (like MJ) he can get everyone from JR Smith to Mo Williams to become their best self. So I would make the trade (minus the 2030 pick; 4 picks was a little nuts), because I’d expect LBJ to unlock another level for RJ and Randle, and I think he’d deliver the chip.
And as we always say when we defend a bad trade: the Knicks are unlikely to draft anyone good with those picks anyway š
I wish Wally and Rebecca the bestā¦.
Lebron on a veteran minimum would be fine.
Thibs made the obvious move. If you have three guys who shoot as much as JJRJ you need to go all defense. Its obvious but he did it and it worked really well. So I give him credit for that.
Something seems very fishy about this Suns deal. The buyer owns a controversial mortgage company that went public through SPACs. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s trying to get into the cartel before his net worth plummets.
Or maybe he just wants the tax write-off to cover his SPAC.
Would anyone being interested in doing a KB meetup for the Raptors game tomorrow? I would be!
https://sports.yahoo.com/the-knicks-are-playing-good-basketball-again-so-how-are-they-doing-it-193839288.html
Good article on the Knicks by Dan Devine at Yahoo Sports.
I mean, I sort of get it, like Hahn. He mostly sold out, too, but hell, man, it’s really good money! š
Iām mostly in the third camp, although if he got traded in a fair deal that improved the team, I wouldnāt be upset. But replacing a player the caliber of this yearās Randle at his AAV is not easy.
Me too. And I think a lot of people really underestimate how hard it is to get a guy like Randle on this team. Some posters act like it’s easy to get 20 and 10 on a nightly basis.
Wally was pissed because Hali stiffed Rebecca on her interview request
TUKB – I’ve been hoping for a meetup, but I’m flying to Florida tomorrow to spend the holidays with my mom. Bummer!
If the Suns are worth 4 billion why don’t the steinbrenners sell the Yankees already instead of trying to make money off the team
Because then he wouldn’t get to own the Yankees any more. Owning a team is really cool when it doesn’t cost you any of your personal money to run it. Hal makes money as the Yankees owner, so I don’t think he’ll ever sell.
IHM strikes again. Really a major theme of the season.
The Yankees have to be close to the best asset in professional sports. I mean, who wants to live in Dallas? If they arenāt inflation proof I donāt know what is. And it has to be a fun thing to own.
All signs pointing to a Warriors victory
Katz:
When discussing the best lineups in the NBA, the Knicksā starters must be mentioned.
The numbers are jarring: 17 lineups in the league have played at least 150 minutes this season. New Yorkās starters (Jalen Brunson, Quentin Grimes, Barrett, Julius Randle and Robinson) have the fourth-best point differential per possession. The only lineups that are better belong to the Golden State Warriors, whose starters still eviscerate teams; the Boston Celtics, who are arguably the title favorites; and the Denver Nuggets, another title contender.
During the seven-game win streak, the lineupās success has been extreme. Over these seven games, the Knicksā starters have been the NBAās best lineup, and New York is riding them. The first unit is a plus-59 since the win over the Cleveland Cavaliers that kick-started this heater, easily the best figure in the league over this time. The starters are outscoring opponents by almost 22 points per 100 possessions.
Itās been pure dominance.
Wally calling anyone a wannabe All Star is hilarious considering how hard KG carried him to his only All Star game.
Count me out on Lebron unless he comes pretty cheap. He’s pretty obviously slowing down and he’s never healthy. He’s pretty far from the player that can carry a team to a deep playoff run basically on his own.
Obimuse (?) on Grimes
https://twitter.com/obimuse/status/1605298347870507025?s=46&t=XfFkw58GX7IUEueC55VBdA
And I’m the only one that wants to add LBJ* (currently 18th in BPM) to that group, my island is really small š
* At Hubert’s cost
I’m flying back east in an hour. Would love to meet up with some people.
Out of town but up for something in 23
https://nypost.com/2022/12/20/new-york-knicks-2022-23-nba-finals-odds-and-playoff-update/
The numbers are great, with the caveat of let’s see what happens when we play a bunch of teams with their usual starting lineups intact. Still, awesome to contemplate that we are just mauling other team’s starters with what will likely be our starting lineup for the rest of the season, barring injury of course.
beating up on bad teams is what good teams do. If you go 500ish against other good teams and wax the bad ones you will have a good record. The rest of the league is playing teams with guys missing too. The no Stephs crushed Toronto in Toronto on Sunday.
Smart money in Vegas knows the score.
In terms of the thought of biases or inertia with priors, doesn’t happen. I’m a Lions fan (*) and their hot streak has made them 12th overall in Vegas to win the Super Bowl. Two months ago, they were 1-6.
(*) Yes, the Knicks and Lions. And a just turned 18-year-old who became the same. No, I haven’t yet been brought up on child abuse charges, but sometimes the wheels of justice move slowly. On the sporting side, it just goes to show how important drafting is. The Lions, after decades, finally seem to have found a GM who knows what he’s doing. He had an excellent first draft in 2021. He hit the 2022 draft out of the stadium. And now they get the Rams 1 next year, just as the Rams have fallen off a cliff.
That post article was dumb. The books have moved our win total up 4 games so far, which is maybe a bit conservative but seems reasonable. I’m probably higher on this team than a bunch of this board but I wouldn’t bet on them winning more than like 46 games.
Are the odds still really long we win the title or the Atlantic division? Of course, the Celtics and Philly & the Nets are still probably better than us (I mean the Celtics obviously are). We should be long shots.
Interesting that the Knicks are on a 7 game streak, the Nets have won 6 in a row and Philly is up to 5 consecutive. The east is hot man
All I know is I’m lovin’ this stretch of purgatory. Especially now that I know it’s a place to reset and retool until it’s time to ascend to heaven. What’s not to like…
Now THAT explains an awful lot.
One of the few franchises who has the divine right to be more pessimistic than us.
Itās gonna be OK, E.
(Sidebar: one of our menās basketball assistant coaches is a Lions fan and Detroit native. If you watch Last Chance U you may know it is lol)