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Knicks Morning News (2022.12.30)

  • Eastern Conference Recap, Dec. 29: The Knicks Have Fallen On Tough Times – Sports Illustrated
    [news.google.com] — Friday, December 30, 2022 7:04:02 AM

    Eastern Conference Recap, Dec. 29: The Knicks Have Fallen On Tough Times  Sports Illustrated

  • ‘Numbers don’t mean anything to me’ – Knicks coach Thibodeau unimpressed by Randle and Quickley work – Yahoo Eurosport UK
    [news.google.com] — Friday, December 30, 2022 6:57:22 AM

    ‘Numbers don’t mean anything to me’ – Knicks coach Thibodeau unimpressed by Randle and Quickley work  Yahoo Eurosport UK

  • Randle leads New York against Houston after 41-point game – KTRK-TV
    [news.google.com] — Friday, December 30, 2022 5:37:43 AM

    Randle leads New York against Houston after 41-point game  KTRK-TV

  • NBA Round-up: New York Knicks’ Julius Randle scores season-high … – Sky Sports
    [news.google.com] — Friday, December 30, 2022 2:19:04 AM

    NBA Round-up: New York Knicks’ Julius Randle scores season-high …  Sky Sports

  • Knicks’ Evan Fournier gets first minutes in weeks: ‘Tried to stay present’ – New York Post
    [news.google.com] — Friday, December 30, 2022 2:16:00 AM

    Knicks’ Evan Fournier gets first minutes in weeks: ‘Tried to stay present’  New York Post

  • Never-ending education of Quentin Grimes, Knicks’ budding stopper and floor spacer – The Athletic
    [news.google.com] — Friday, December 30, 2022 1:19:54 AM

    Never-ending education of Quentin Grimes, Knicks’ budding stopper and floor spacer  The Athletic

  • Knicks’ Julius Randle: Pours in season-high 41 points – CBS Sports
    [news.google.com] — Friday, December 30, 2022 12:51:25 AM

    Knicks’ Julius Randle: Pours in season-high 41 points  CBS Sports

  • Knicks’ Immanuel Quickley: Bounds and astounds in loss – CBS Sports
    [news.google.com] — Friday, December 30, 2022 12:48:17 AM

    Knicks’ Immanuel Quickley: Bounds and astounds in loss  CBS Sports

  • NBA Rumors: Knicks, Pacers, Jazz Favorites Westbrook Trade – NBA Analysis Network
    [news.google.com] — Friday, December 30, 2022 12:41:58 AM

    NBA Rumors: Knicks, Pacers, Jazz Favorites Westbrook Trade  NBA Analysis Network

  • Knicks drop 5th straight game after loss to rebuilding Spurs – Yahoo News
    [news.google.com] — Thursday, December 29, 2022 11:10:00 PM

    Knicks drop 5th straight game after loss to rebuilding Spurs  Yahoo News

  • Knicks: MSG fires back at James Dolan surveillance report – ClutchPoints
    [news.google.com] — Thursday, December 29, 2022 11:09:00 PM

    Knicks: MSG fires back at James Dolan surveillance report  ClutchPoints

  • Knicks crash back to .500 after falling to Spurs for fifth straight loss – New York Post
    [news.google.com] — Thursday, December 29, 2022 10:51:00 PM

    Knicks crash back to .500 after falling to Spurs for fifth straight loss  New York Post Depth and teamwork propel Spurs past reeling Knicks  Pounding The Rock Spurs 122, Knicks 115: Scenes from I don’t want to watch this team anymore  Posting and Toasting

  • Keldon Johnson with a block vs the New York Knicks – Yahoo Sports
    [news.google.com] — Thursday, December 29, 2022 10:47:00 PM

    Keldon Johnson with a block vs the New York Knicks  Yahoo Sports

  • Jeremy Sochan with a dunk vs the New York Knicks – Yahoo Sports
    [news.google.com] — Thursday, December 29, 2022 10:47:00 PM

    Jeremy Sochan with a dunk vs the New York Knicks  Yahoo Sports

  • San Antonio 122, N.Y. Knicks 115 – Thehour.com
    [news.google.com] — Thursday, December 29, 2022 10:41:39 PM

    San Antonio 122, N.Y. Knicks 115  Thehour.com

  • Texas Toasted: Knicks Drop 5th in a Row With Barrett, Brunson Out vs. Spurs – Sports Illustrated
    [news.google.com] — Thursday, December 29, 2022 10:36:46 PM

    Texas Toasted: Knicks Drop 5th in a Row With Barrett, Brunson Out vs. Spurs  Sports Illustrated

  • Knicks’ RJ Barrett out for week or more with finger laceration – NBC Sports
    [news.google.com] — Thursday, December 29, 2022 7:22:00 PM

    Knicks’ RJ Barrett out for week or more with finger laceration  NBC Sports

  • New York Knicks Stax | Agate | normantranscript.com – Norman Transcript
    [news.google.com] — Thursday, December 29, 2022 6:28:28 PM

    New York Knicks Stax | Agate | normantranscript.com  Norman Transcript

  • Knicks’ Quentin Grimes learns an important lesson from Luka Doncic’s greatest night – Empire Sports Media
    [news.google.com] — Thursday, December 29, 2022 6:19:06 PM

    Knicks’ Quentin Grimes learns an important lesson from Luka Doncic’s greatest night  Empire Sports Media

  • Did The New York Knicks Make The Same Mistake Twice? – Sports Illustrated
    [news.google.com] — Thursday, December 29, 2022 6:10:12 PM

    Did The New York Knicks Make The Same Mistake Twice?  Sports Illustrated

  • How Mavs’ Comeback Win Against Knicks Was Statistical Anomaly – Sports Illustrated
    [news.google.com] — Thursday, December 29, 2022 4:03:10 PM

    How Mavs’ Comeback Win Against Knicks Was Statistical Anomaly  Sports Illustrated

  • NBA Injury Notes: Sabonis, Knicks, Cavaliers, Sixers, DFS – Yardbarker
    [news.google.com] — Thursday, December 29, 2022 4:02:04 PM

    NBA Injury Notes: Sabonis, Knicks, Cavaliers, Sixers, DFS  Yardbarker

  • Spurs vs. Knicks: How to watch NBA online, TV channel, live stream info, game time – CBS Sports
    [news.google.com] — Thursday, December 29, 2022 4:00:34 PM

    Spurs vs. Knicks: How to watch NBA online, TV channel, live stream info, game time  CBS Sports

  • Quentin Grimes Turning Into A Crucial Piece For The Knicks – UPROXX
    [news.google.com] — Thursday, December 29, 2022 2:48:30 PM

    Quentin Grimes Turning Into A Crucial Piece For The Knicks  UPROXX

  • Knicks Injuries: RJ Barrett Out, Jalen Brunson Questionable As Texas Trip Carries On – Sports Illustrated
    [news.google.com] — Thursday, December 29, 2022 2:05:17 PM

    Knicks Injuries: RJ Barrett Out, Jalen Brunson Questionable As Texas Trip Carries On  Sports Illustrated

  • Spurs’ Devin Vassell: Out vs. Knicks – CBS Sports
    [news.google.com] — Thursday, December 29, 2022 1:37:43 PM

    Spurs’ Devin Vassell: Out vs. Knicks  CBS Sports

  • How will Knicks adjust to RJ Barrett’s injury after update? – Daily Knicks
    [news.google.com] — Thursday, December 29, 2022 12:29:00 PM

    How will Knicks adjust to RJ Barrett’s injury after update?  Daily Knicks

  • RJ Barrett injury update: Knicks wing to miss about a week with … – CBS Sports
    [news.google.com] — Thursday, December 29, 2022 11:25:00 AM

    RJ Barrett injury update: Knicks wing to miss about a week with …  CBS Sports

  • Fantasy Basketball Picks: Top DraftKings NBA DFS Targets, Values for December 29 – DraftKings Nation
    [news.google.com] — Thursday, December 29, 2022 10:13:11 AM

    Fantasy Basketball Picks: Top DraftKings NBA DFS Targets, Values for December 29  DraftKings Nation

  • What’s actually concerning about this Knicks skid – New York Post
    [news.google.com] — Thursday, December 29, 2022 8:20:00 AM

    What’s actually concerning about this Knicks skid  New York Post

  • 143 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2022.12.30)”

    There is a certain logic to blaming our European fans. I’m pretty sure Cyber skipped both the Dallas and San Antonio games. And Max skipped tonight, I think.

    LOL

    I did miss the Mavs’ game (live) too 🙂

    Texas’ games start around 2 AM here, a full game and some adrenaline means going to bed around 5:30 AM, sleep a couple of hours, maybe three, and then try to cut out every moment you can to take a nap.

    NBA League Pass has the option to hide the scores and this fantastic “all possessions” feature the allows you to watch every “real” action of a game in 35-40 minutes.
    My newly established routine include a full night of good sleep and watching “all possessions” during breakfast (without knowing the score).
    This season, aside from matinees, I’ll not watch another Knicks’ game live until the play-in/playoffs.

    I can still get mad (i.e. Dallas’ game) but at least I’m rested 😀

    You know I’m just playing, of course, and complimenting your deft contributions to the discourse. Most important is for you (and every KB-er) to live well, first. Then we can all tilt at our windmills. Sending you as much cyber-strength as I can muster through the internet’s tubes as we close out 2022.

    Yeah, i know KBA. 🙂 But they’re losing since when i stopped being here supporting the team… maybe i’m THAT important, and not Grimes! 😉 😀
    Thanks for the strength, we have a nice little community here and i see some of you as friends from the other side of the atlantic. Except Max, he is a friend from this side of the atlantic. 🙂
    And as i don’t know if i’ll be around until the game on Jan 2, i take the opportunity to wish you all a HAPPY NEW YEAR! Have fun with your families and may 2023 be a blessed year!

    If you’re just waking up and think this is the place to start, it isn’t. Go back and read the game thread. It was a group effort, but this one is definitely going in Donnie Walsh’s highlight reel.

    Ok..NOW it’s time to freak out. Now where is that other window again? LOL

    Last night was inexcusable. I don’t care who didn’t play. When I saw a starting quintet of Mitch/Randle/Grimes/Quickley/Deuce..I knew it was over. What in the entire fuck? I have been a Thibs fan since his Chicago days, but now I’m wondering if it really is time to replace him. Like, right now.

    You gotta think that Thibs has lost the locker room by now. His handling of Cam is beyond piss poor and the players have got to see and feel that. Fournier plays over Cam in a game where we have ZERO small forwards? His Cam beef has to be personal- especially considering the way he played early in the season when Grimes was out.

    I still can’t bring myself to say ‘Fire Thibs’, but dammit it’s hard to defend him right now

    Re: Yesterday’s game

    In random order:

    1. See what happens when a team is missing 3 of his top-8 rotation players (2 of them high-usage starters)?

    2. Mitch did play a domination game with Jakob Poeltl, alas he forgot the safe-word…

    3. Many thanks to Mr. Grimes for making all us believers look like idiots 🙂

    4. Yeah, great games, yeah “watch the numbers bro”, but Randle and IQ took 54 shots out of 90 (60%), with Grimes and Fournier playing the “who stands in the corner” game and cutters ignored most of the times. And Randle defense was obscene. And IQ, as usual, did his best to stuff stats (a layup with 1 second left to play, down by 9? Come on…)
    Yes, we were missing JB, we were missing RJ, but our halfcourt offense is SHIT 90% of the times. And it’ll be shit until a new coach.

    5. I wrote Fournier? Who’s this guy? Maybe the player we traded ISM for?

    6. To me D-Rose looks cooked. KB Hive’s opinion?

    They played like they were in a daze. I don’t think they recovered from the Dallas loss. I hope they snap out of it against Houston. Going 0-3 on this Texas trip against these 3 teams would be awful. Has anyone else noticed Grimes has no left hand? Good to see Evan get a little run.

    So a running hip check is worth a two-game suspension, and a punch to the back of the head that appears to have knocked out a player (aka brain trauma) is worth just one more than that? The NBA really coming down hard on… nothing:

    To me D-Rose looks cooked. KB Hive’s opinion?

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

    The multi-year contract bestowed upon him in the incompetent summer of 2021 not directly, but not indirectly either, cost them a 2022 lottery pick.

    He’s Thibs’s guy. Thibs had the juice that summer and it was an abject disaster.

    1. It’s still very tough to win games in the NBA without a real starting PG.

    2. Randle and Quick did their best to make up for missing 2 high usage starters, but those guys better get healthy quickly or we are going to keep losing. They won’t be able to sustain that.

    3. It’s still too easy for some teams to neutralize Mitch and take him out of games.

    4. The defense is a problem again. Either the league has made adjustments or these guys are getting tired. The defense is certainly not worse because we are missing Brunson and RJ.

    5. Thibs hasn’t lost the locker room.

    6. Grimes will be fine. The 3 giveth and taketh away.

    “Has anyone else noticed Grimes has no left hand? “

    He’s going to have to work on that if he wants to become a more complete player, but it’s not critical when you have Randle, RJ, and Brunson on the court to score. His job his to defend, stretch the floor, and make some plays. But with the injuries, it would help if he could do a little more.

    So Julius Randle is now at the magic 4.0 BPM mark, tied for 21st in the NBA. I’ve tried to find the element(s) that will regress to his career average(s) to lower that number. Here’s what I’ve looked at:

    -empty arenas (nope, arenas are full again)
    -unsustainable % from 3 (nope, 34% is right at his Knicks career average)
    -unsustainable shooting on long 2’s (nope, unlike his all-NBA year when he shot 41% on taking 16% of his shots from long 2 range, he’s now at 30% on 5% of his shots from there)
    -unsustainable 68% at the rim (probably not, that’s in line with his 2 beat TS% years)
    -unsustainable shooting from 3-10 feet (maybe, 52% is a career high, although it seems like the shot selection in that range is pretty comfortable)

    In any case, for now, any argument that Randle is not our best player seems steeped in something not related to the numbers, which are above and beyond what any fair-minded KBer would have set as a bar for reasonable expectations. I don’t know how anyone could possibly ask for more out of a player getting paid $23.8M this year, or why some are still itching to ditch a player at that level of production making that salary for the next 2-3 years (is it still a given that he opts in?)

    Yeah the Hayes suspension is a joke he should’ve been suspended the entire year for hitting someone in the back of the head.

    “Yes, we were missing JB, we were missing RJ, but our halfcourt offense is SHIT 90% of the times. And it’ll be shit until a new coach.”

    All offenses look like shit when you don’t have a PG or good enough outside shooting to create spacing.

    “So Julius Randle is now at the magic 4.0 BPM mark, tied for 21st in the NBA. I’ve tried to find the element(s) that will regress to his career average(s) to lower that number.”

    That shows you how meaningless these numbers are. He’s been asked to carry an unsustainable load over the last couple of games due to injuries to our other high usage scorers, including our PG, which puts the ball in his hands more. To his credit, he has played well, at least on offense. That improved his “stats”, but he’s no better now than last week and if anything the toll of having to carry the team on offense is hurting his defense which is not showing up in that same stat.

    All offenses look like shit when you don’t have a PG or good enough outside shooting to create spacing.

    Brunson has played 34 games and our halfcourt offense most of the times has been 3 players taking turn in isos.
    I-Hart was a good passer in LA, Fournier was a good “ball mover” before the Knicks.
    It’s the system, not the players.

    I’ll leave the intramural debate over team’s “best player” to those with a bigger investment in it, but I’ll simply add that Julius Randle is the quintessential — and I mean straight out of Central Casting — purgatorial asset. I don’t know that there’s been a player in my lifetime who fits the “just good enough to lose with” archetype any better.

    6. Grimes will be fine.

    Yes he will, I was joking (I should have added a smile) and I’m still a believer 🙂

    “ His Cam beef has to be personal- especially considering the way he played early in the season when Grimes was out.”

    I still think it’s very likely Cam was out partying the Saturday night before that last game on a Sunday. That was the game he played like he was in a coma. You don’t go from having enough of the coach’s trust to start and play down the stretch to the “doghouse” because of a bad game. Grimes was terrible last night but his position is not in jeopardy. You go to the doghouse for disciplinary reasons. He was probably hung over or showed up late and it may not have been the first time. Thibs is not the kind of guy that will tolerate that kind of thing if that’s what happened.

    Welcome back, Euro-KB! Stay strong and on prudent minutes restrictions.

    Speaking of: So. The Knicks are tired. Fine. A letdown after the emotional loss to Dallas. Fine. But I am concerned about exactly how that happens.

    Thibs making everyone play 40+ minutes in Dallas (even before overtime) is myopic. We’ve all said it, but if E4 is fine to play last night, he was fine to play ten minutes against Dallas. My eye test says Randle makes most of his mistakes late in games due to his frustration that accumulates with long minutes. Thibs could/should maybe *fix* that as a, you know, coach. Yes, yes, injuries blah blah (Obi, RJ, Brunson) but Thibs plays Randle and Brunson long nights even if all are healthy. Maybe that’s *why* Brunson is banged up. There is some precedent with point guards, ya know?

    And — the vaunted defense that demands Thibs’s short rotation is where exactly? Did it fall off a cliff b/c we lost the stalwart stoppers in RJ and Brunson? Are the Spurs *bettter* than the teams we beat on our little Moneyball streak? No. In fact that streak almost seems like a Skiles Effect in miniature. We go to Deuce and Grimes to get an adrenaline boost, but we run them (and Mitch) into the ground after ten games. I mean wha…?

    Generally, I’m a homer/booster/sunny fan, and I still see a lot of good in the future for the Knicks, but I said this a few days ago: Thibs may in fact be a bigger problem than we think. I credit him with developing and (finally) getting some kids in his rotation, but I just don’t see any game management or, more important, *season* management skill in this guy. And since Thibs is such a stickler for only “his guys,” he presents LRose with a time-sensitive dilemma. Does Leon draft and look to trade only for Thibs Guys who can impress his highness enough to actually play in the friggin’ games? Or do we risk getting Other Guys who might languish on the bench no matter what they do?

    We have a nice base at the moment. I’m not souring on it (even Grimes) but the next round of decisions is so important.

    IQ had a nice game?

    Maybe Mitch was tired from the minutes in Dallas but I remember he wrecked the Spurs last year in a real standout game. Disappointing line for sure last night.

    “Randle is the quintessential — and I mean straight out of Central Casting — purgatorial asset. “

    That’s because on this team he’s still the #1 option on a team without solid spacing but on a contender he’d be 2nd or 3rd option and no one would be complaining.

    The bigger issue for us long term is the fit with Mitch and defense. He’s playing out of his mind on offense and on the boards given what we are asking.

    Does Leon draft and look to trade only for Thibs Guys who can impress his highness enough to actually play in the friggin’ games?

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

    Yes, that’s exactly what he does and he’s got Thibs constantly bugging him about it and when Thibs is coming off a “Coach of the Year” season, it’s even tougher to deal with and so he just caves and you get the horrific summer of 2021.

    Draft picks have been incinerated or charred because of Thibs’s influence. Who here actually believes that Brock Aller or Walt Perrin “can’t find players at 19 or 13 who are worth the salary?”

    He can’t really work well with other people, which is why his bosses couldn’t wait to get him away from them in CHI and MIN.

    The argument of whether Julius Randle IS our best player is separate from the arguments about whether Julius Randle SHOULD BE our best player, or can Julius Randle be a Big 3 player on a contender.

    The stubborn fact remains that Randle has the 51st highest salary in the NBA this year, a figure that will probably drop lower as new contracts are signed in the next 3 years. It is disingenuous to continue to discuss him as if he is a max player who is the centerpiece of the team going forward.

    contender he’d be 2nd or 3rd option and no one would be complaining.

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

    There’s no evidence whatsoever he’s willing to, or can, play a 3rd option role — on any team, much less a contender — and tons of evidence to the contrary.

    @Z

    the argument of whether Julius Randle IS our best player is separate from the arguments about whether Julius Randle SHOULD BE our best player

    This is so on point and could nip a lot of our flame wars before they spark. NONE of us wants to see Julius hoisting that last shot. ALL of us prolly could accept Randle banging around to score 20/10/5 on good usage. We just need the other guy/s. I think even Randle is fine with that and LRose is too.

    For Thibs to shove Randle down our throats like he’s LeBron f-ing James is a travesty. Just design a better offense, you idiot-monkey, or find someone who can.

    “The stubborn fact remains

    The stubborn fact remains that Julius Randle is inherently antithetical to winning basketball.

    @E — “There’s no evidence whatsoever he’s willing to, or can, play a 3rd option role.”

    On this, we should prolly all just agree to disagree.

    PS — the first play down the floor against Dallas was a designed play post-up for Mitch. We ran it a few more times in that game. We did not do it once, not once against San Antonio. I mean wh-th-actual-F! is going on?

    @E — “There’s no evidence whatsoever he’s willing to, or can, play a 3rd option role.”

    On this, we should prolly all just agree to disagree.

    PS — the first play down the floor against Dallas was a designed play post-up for Mitch. We ran it a few more times in that game. We did not do it once, not once against San Antonio. I mean wh-th-actual-F! is going on?

    ” You go to the doghouse for disciplinary reasons. He was probably hung over or showed up late and it may not have been the first time. Thibs is not the kind of guy that will tolerate that kind of thing if that’s what happened.”

    This is most likely true and that Dallas game really put Thibs on the hot seat. The question is how long is he in the doghouse for? Permanently? If so, we need somebody to fill that role. Hunt would have been a good candidate. I don’t understand what happened there. Svi maybe?

    On this, we should prolly all just agree to disagree.

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

    More precisely, it’s certainly not 100% certain that I’m right about this, so let’s say it’s 75-25. What am I getting in return for taking a chance on the 25? It’s not as though I can’t go out and find a 3rd option who’s more suited to the role. Why am I taking the very real risk that he’s unsuitable? What am I getting in return? A relatively light contract if it pans out? Still not worth the risk.

    Once this point is reached the answer is clear — let some other team speculate on the “opportunity.” If his contract is so light, it should be reflected in the trade marketplace.

    “This is so on point and could nip a lot of our flame wars before they spark.”

    That becomes challenging when posters wilfully misrepresent opinions as facts.

    Cam; doghouse; discipline — okay, fine. But there are only two options:

    1) If Cam is an idiot but deserves to play, then, as a true leader, Thibs must give him a way to serve his sentence, forget the mistake, and get back to helping the team. Only then will the *entire group* believe there is justice.

    or

    2) Cam demanded a trade, and we’re avoiding an injury. This is the only *good* reason for him not to play.

    Of course there’s also

    3) — Cam sucks, but we’ve litigated that.

    Cam (part2) — I mean Draymond Green punched a fellow player in the friggin’ face and was back to winning games as nec. Sure, Cam is no DG (nor is he Jack Kennedy), but come on, man.

    I don’t know wtf was going on with Mitch last night, but he really was one of the main culprits in the loss. 6 rebounds and 1 block in 28 minutes, with Spurs guards waltzing to the hoop with impunity.

    If he’s not hurt then it’s really hard to explain and he better bounce back against Houston

    If you’re so Church Lady offended by a 23 year old guy partying on a December Saturday night in NYC that you can’t react any other way but cancellation, you have no business as a 2022 NBA coach.

    It’s also possible that his agent asked for a trade and they’re making sure he doesn’t get another one of his myriad of injuries before they send him elsewhere.

    Jowles, maybe Hayes deserved a longer suspension but that unprovoked flagrant hip check into the scorer’s table/bench by Wagner was about as dirty of a play as one could commit. When you do shit like that, the NBA seems to get that expecting a player not to “see red” and retaliate is probably too much of an ask. It’s sort of like when Jokic retaliated after Markieff Morris took that blatant cheap shot.

    It would be one thing if Wagner did that to someone like Draymond or Patrick Beverley or Grayson Allen. Hayes has no reputation as a cheap-shot artist and was just hustling after a loose ball.

    I don’t understand why one would worry about how Julius Randle will respond to not being one of the best players on the team (you could make a fine argument for 1st through 3rd on this year’s team, don’t care to litigate it, the margins are close).

    Right now he’s playing very well and in no way preventing us from getting a player better than him. He’s also playing in a manner that does in fact lend itself to playing with a star, but again, how about we analyze his ability to do that when we’re actually in a position to do so?

    “That shows you how meaningless these numbers are.”

    Actually it shows you that Julius Randle has been very good this year. Everyone on Earth knows that may have something to do with an adjustment in role, change in shot selection, etc.

    Him playing very well this year is not in anyway in conflict with him deploying his talents differently, even if his talent did not improve from last year’s horrific season to this year’s excellent one.

    “you could make a fine argument for 1st through 3rd on this year’s team, don’t care to litigate it, the margins are close”

    Sure, so long as you stipulate that no one who isn’t either a Mitch stan or a Randle hater would agree…

    I think what the last 4 games have exposed are the combination of the front office not using roster spots wisely and Thibs being extremely rigid is, well, quite bad. Thibs should probably have given Svi some minutes over the last 4 games, but it also feels kind of absurd complaining about Svi not getting minutes. See what I mean?

    The Cam situation is what it is. He’s about to be an RFA and he’s obviously not returning so we absolutely have to trade him to get any value at all from the whole affaire d’incinération. It makes sense not to play him under those circumstances, as bad players don’t improve their trade value by playing.

    It’s inexcusable that we seem to have so many other rostered players we won’t deploy even when we’re missing two starters, though. My preference is to use fringe roster spots to get intriguing UDFAs and the like in your building, but even if the front office just wants to fill them with the best players possible in the short-term…I mean, it’s obvious we’re not doing that. Whether we’re trying to find our Max Strus or just trying to plug some holes, get some better damn deep bench options.

    Fournier should very obviously have been given minutes the second injuries started to pile up. I have no idea what was up with his total banishment, but it was dumb.

    Yeah, Randle is not our problem (this year). And if we’re gonna parse body language or whatever soft science to make confident predictions about what Randle would or would not *accept* playing beside him, I humbly suggest that the guy who is obviously laboring through every single 4th quarter as a Knick — that guy — would gleefully accept Steph, or Kyrie, or KD, or Ja, or Luka, or SGA (oof!), or Hali (double-oof!) swishing that last shot so he does not have to.

    One thing that has remained remarkably consistent in the past 5 years is that Randle takes somewhere between 17.4 and 17.8 shots per 36. His usage has crept back up to where it has been for those years and is at what would be a career high 29.5% in 14 December games. I suppose that since he’s putting up a .605 TS% in that span, it’s not a terrible thing, but if his shooting regresses and the upward trend in his usage doesn’t, that could be something to watch.

    Jowles, maybe Hayes deserved a longer suspension but that unprovoked flagrant hip check into the scorer’s table/bench by Wagner was about as dirty of a play as one could commit. When you do shit like that, the NBA seems to get that expecting a player not to “see red” and retaliate is probably too much of an ask. It’s sort of like when Jokic retaliated after Markieff Morris took that blatant cheap shot.

    Wagner deserved his suspension — it was a dirty play.

    A punch to the back of the head is not a dirty play, it’s assault. And the NBA should not expect players to “see red.” I thought they had learned their lesson in that very city 18 years ago.

    The point of suspensions is to deter as much as, if not more than, it is to punish. The NBA just said that punching a player in the back of the head is worth 50% more than a reckless basketball act. It is a hilariously bad message to send to the rest of the players. It was a punch to the back of the head. That kind of shit gets you disqualified from a fucking boxing match.

    “Yeah, Randle is not our problem (this year). And if we’re gonna parse body language or whatever soft science to make confident predictions about what Randle would or would not *accept* playing beside him, ”

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

    It’s not just body language, although there’s certainly nothing about what he’s done as a Knick that would indicate a willingness/ability to be said secondary option.

    The Lakers had him, a secondary role was on offer at a low price, no meeting of the mind between team and player, player leaves. Either the team didn’t see much in the player in the role, the player didn’t want the role, or a combination of both. No secondary role for Julius with the team that saw him therein. Seventh pick in the draft, no extension, no resign.

    The Pelicans had him in a secondary role, he’s up again, no resign. Either the team didn’t like what it saw in a secondary role, the player didn’t want the secondary role, or a combination of both. Whatever it is, no meeting of the minds of team and player on secondary role.

    When player is free, he signs with the absolutely dreadful NY Knicks, where he clearly sees and jumps upon the freedom to chuck. Which has essentially been unchanged until present, with the exception of that very small window earlier this season where people were publishing daily usage charts and with the MSG propaganda team insisting that “Yes, Julius is willing to defer, see???”

    Now of course, he’s back up top the usage charts, isoing, faux-alphaing, and continuing to do that thing where he either plays no defense or jumps up in the air and throws the ball to the other team. Or both.

    So there’s a myriad of evidence about the role he wants and plenty of experience with teams catching his act in a secondary role.

    You are what your record says you are.

    And again, there’s no real answer to the question, “What am I getting for taking the risk that he’ll stay on form?”

    Since there’s no answer to that, and can’t be, some other team can take on the risk. I don’t want it. If I was getting something out of it, I’d take it. But I’m not.

    If his contract is really that great, it should be reflected in the trade marketplace, so even better if I want to offload the risk.

    There’s nothing to wait around for and see. Plenty has already been seen. (And none of this even gets to the petty jealousy around “RJ BARR-ETT clap clap clap-clap clap” or “OBI TOP-PIN clap clap-clap clap.”)

    Well, we know where we’re going; but we don’t know where we’ve been. And, we know what we’re knowing; but we can’t say what we’ve seen. And, we’re not little children. And we know what we want. And the future is certain, give us time to work it out.

    We’re on a road to nowhere.

    Defensively the problem last night wasn’t Randle- though it was probably his worst game on that end in awhile- the problem was our small guards got overpowered and Mitch and Hart were both a step slow. Deuce and Rose got worked and Grimes and IQ weren’t all that much better. I think they actually missed RJ defensively in this one- while he’s been terrible when matched against quick players this year Keldon Johnson is the kind of guy he guards pretty well. Offensively, if Randle or Quick didn’t do it it didn’t get done. The Fournier sighting was nice. I hope when everyone’s healthy he gets some second unit run- they could really use some shot creation in those twin tower lineups.

    “if his (Randle’s) shooting regresses and the upward trend in his usage doesn’t, that could be something to watch.”

    Arguably this is exactly the very good test of the games without RJ and Brunson. Can IQ and Grimes and Mitch(!) better replace the lost usage efficiently? IQ showed good signs in both games. Grimes and Mitch each had one good, one bad game. Tune in Saturday.

    Honestly, if our guys make shots, I really don’t think Randle gives a shit. I will (continue to) agree to disagree with E on that. At least, that is, until Thibs runs more than one play for anyone else on the court and Randle has a nervous breakdown (which I concede does have a probability above zero — Randle’s breakdown, I mean, not any new offensive plays ;-))

    “Now of course, he’s back up top the usage charts, isoing, faux-alphaing, and continuing to do that thing where he either plays no defense or jumps up in the air and throws the ball to the other team. Or both.”

    Once again, this is a wilful misrepresentation of Randle by someone who can’t separate his visceral dislike for him and his coach from reality.

    Randle in fact has totally rolled with the 1a-1b-1c hierarchy that describes this team’s offense, that is until Brunson started breaking down, and in the past two games when both Brunson and RJ were out. The drop-off from Randle-Brunson-RJ to the next level of player (other tham Mitch and his 9.7% usage) is off a cliff.

    Randle is prone to isoing. So is nearly every consistent scorer in the NBA. And when you are scoring at a 60ish TS%, that’s okay! Iso away! Brunson does plenty of iso’ing on lower efficiency and similar usage…where’s the outcry about that?

    Of the 20 players above him in BPM, 14 have a higher TOV% than Randle. And in DEC, his TOV% has actually decreased even with his higher usage.

    He is not a great defensive player, but that is true about many of the max players in #1 roles. See: Ja Morant, Devin Booker, Trae Young, Dame, Spida, DeRozan, Beal, Harden, KAT, etc. Specifically by the numbers, his DBPM is 0.0; a comparison to Jayson Tatum (0.3) Jaylen Brown (-0.4) Pascal Siakam (0.4) De’Aaron Fox (-0.4) Kuzma (-1.4) LeBron (0.2) KP (0.2) Bam (0.4) Ayton (-0.4) Wood (-0.1) would suggest that he’s kind of average, maybe slightly below. Go over to CelticsBlog and you would think Jaylen Brown is one of the worst defenders in the league. That’s what happens when you fixate on a prominent player and ignore the gaffes being committed by his teammates who blend in while guarding the guy standing in the corner or hanging his teammates out to dry by not getting over a screen or getting beat off the dribble.

    Once again, this is a wilful misrepresentation of Randle by someone who can’t separate his visceral dislike for him and his coach from reality.

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

    A “misrepresentation” is an untrue statement. Which of the things I said that you quoted is untrue?

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

    “Randle in fact has totally rolled with the 1a-1b-1c hierarchy that describes this team’s offense”

    How does rolling with a 1a-1b-1c arrangement show that you’d be ok being a 3?

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

    “He is not a great defensive player, but that is true about many of the max players in #1 roles.”

    I thought we were talking about a future hypothetical state where he wasn’t in a 1 role. Or are you actually defending him as a 1 guy? Hard to tell.

    So the question remains: Why do I want an admittedly iso-prone guy who’s admittedly not good on defense as my 3 option?

    (Assuming he’d even be ok with the role, which I’ll assume without believing for the purposes of this question.)

    Once you propose him as a 3 option, his comps aren’t 1 options anymore and I cease to care whether Devin Booker likes to iso.

    There’s zero evidence that Randle is unwilling to play as a 2nd or 3rd option to a player who is better than him. Absolutely zero.

    A team not re-signing a player is not evidence that he can’t be a 2nd or 3rd option.

    My tirade against Julius was really about yesterday’s game. He’s been painful but bearable to watch most of the season, and oftentimes played quite well on both sides of the ball.

    Yesterday he reverted (and it seems on Thib’s orders, as the other players totally acquiesced) to last year’s play. It was endless hijacking of the offense and then “saving himself” on defense as he had such an ‘important’ role on the other end.

    You’re just not going to win in today’s NBA if you play like that. Even if you’re a top 5 like Luka. At least Luka knows where his teammates are at all times — Julius would drive and spin and realize he was fucked and have nobody to pass to and hold and then jump and spin and shoot a terrible shot. The whole sequence should never happen, and it kept happening over and over.

    And then playing 4 on 5 defensively. Standing still or walking. Not a good look.

    I get he’s the main offensive threat now with the others down. But the team played really well AS A TEAM for 3 and a half quarters in Dallas.

    Anyway, I’ll try to keep my bile to myself now.

    On D — “the problem was our small guards got overpowered and Mitch and Hart were both a step slow.”

    Totally agree. So. Was it fatigue? Fine. Or are we wrong that our brand new lockdown “defensive” guards (who can’t score) and our beloved Mitch (who rarely scores) are not guarantees to be plus advantages on D for us night after night? The fact that this fiasco was against the Spurs and not a better team adds to the worry. We should have crushed them. But that’s why the sun rises, so Knicks fans can renew our optimism.

    “A “misrepresentation” is an untrue statement. Which of the things I said that you quoted is untrue?”

    A misrepresentation doesn’t have to be untrue, just misleading. You are trying to suggest that there is something innately harmful to winning in the way Randle is playing recently. Here’s what you wrote:

    “Now of course, he’s back up top the usage charts, isoing, faux-alphaing, and continuing to do that thing where he either plays no defense or jumps up in the air and throws the ball to the other team. Or both.”

    By nearly every respected metric, he’s playing at a legitimate all-star level if not all-NBA, especially recently. That’s not good enough for you on its face, nor can it possibly portend good things for the future given his contract, in your guesstimation. Is that accurate?

    “So the question remains: Why do I want an admittedly iso-prone guy who’s admittedly not good on defense as my 3 option?”

    Everyone is certainly free to want whoever they want in any position in the rotation. That doesn’t make anything you are saying more than opinion or conjecture. Which is fine, so long as you know the difference, which as a lawyer, one would expect that you do. My issue is that you are making inferences based on statements like “we have no evidence to the contrary.”

    Well we had no evidence to prove that Randle would be a 4.0 BPM player this season while posting a .590+ TS% on high usage. You certainly would have not bet on it, given your attributing virtually everything positive he did in 2020-21 to empty arenas.

    I mean obviously I think he’s antithetical to winning basketball, which I’ve said explicitly, so I’m not entirely sure an accusation of hiding the ball or rhetorical trickery works, but fair I guess.

    I think pointing to the numbers could prove a case that “this shit isn’t his fault,” which I guess I’d agree with — but that’s different than what I’m saying. I don’t really have an opinion one way or another because I don’t really care. Fault for the temporary state is basically meaningless in how we get to the future state.

    There have been plenty of all-stars who have been antithetical to winning basketball. I don’t think that shows anything.

    I’ve said since the empty building year I don’t think you can win with him in a 1 role and I don’t see anything that would lead me to change that conclusion; in fact, I’ve seen two more years of things that support it.

    I agree that he’s playing up to his contract, or even better. But my conclusion from that is that it should be reflected in the trade marketplace and if it is, it’s a perfect time to trade him. If I’ve already concluded I can’t win with him and/or I don’t want to take the risk of trying to pigeonhole him into a role I *might* be able to win with him in, what other conclusion would you expect me to come to?

    None of us have any vested interest in selling tickets or the business side of MSG — I can see them wanting to keep him around — so if you’ve concluded that he doesn’t work on the basketball side, why wait? Especially when he’s playing decent basketball.

    If you haven’t concluded that, then that’s just a difference of opinion and isn’t really going to be swayed by his BB-ref page. His problem is his niche game, willingness to fit, ability to fit, misunderstanding about his actual place in the association cosmos, bizarre propensity for wrong thing at wrong time, low BB IQ, etc. (Oh, and completely choking in the playoffs.) Just can’t get my head around any scenario where he’s a prominent feature of a real contender playing critical games in May/June. Could be wrong, but don’t think I am. In any event, there’s no real basketball risk in being wrong too early. Question is still — what am I risking missing out on if I’m wrong? A good 3 option? Ok, stipulated. I’ll take that risk.

    i don’t really know him, or know anyone whom does – but i like julius…

    passionate, testosterone fueled dude with good parents and his own nice looking family…

    drives me nuts sometimes to see him struggle with controlling his emotions and behavior, but, yeah – he seems though like a very transparent individual…

    i like his hair too, that’s some solid lettuce he’s got going on upstairs…

    watching him either take a night off on the offensive (rare) or defensive end almost every single game is a little infuriating, but, i’m good with him for as long as he’s here…

    Geo,
    Re JR. One of my students has a classmate who lives in the building that both Rose and Randle apparently do. There is a basketball court there and it’s not far from their school so they so both see Rose and Randle at the court frequently. My student has described Randle as friendly( even remembering his name), encouraging, and a ” real nice guy”. Rose has been described in the opposite way- unapproachable and sad to angry in demeanor. Take what you will from three or four encounters. My take is that people are more complicated than we make them out to be and we can’t fully and accurately extrapolate a person’s character from their behavior on a court or a blog for that matter.

    Are you sincerely asking what you’re missing out on when trading away an all-star level player on a cheap contract?

    The answer is an all-star level player on a cheap contract.

    The answer is an all-star level player on a cheap contract.

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

    Who I can’t win with in his current role. Which pretty much every Knickerblogger agrees with.

    Some other team can take the risk. And presumably, since his contract is cheap, they’ll be willing to pay a premium over all-star level.(*)

    Let’s start the process toward the future state. Time’s a-wastin’.

    (*) “Not necessarily????” Oh.

    Who I can’t win with in his current role. Which pretty much every Knickerblogger agrees with.

    Yeah, no. I recognize you’re just trolling for attention and don’t believe half the stuff you say, but just so the record is clear, I never thought we should trade Julius. His failure in the playoffs a couple years ago only exposed how badly he needed help; last year, when he was truly abysmal, he was still much better than RJ, and because it was so obvious something was wrong mentally, we wouldn’t have been able to get value in a trade anyway. I felt that resigning him at the number we did was smart, and though I was shocked how bad he was last year and hated watching him play, I wasn’t concerned, as Noble was, that he would only get worse and we needed to attach assets to get rid of him before that happened. I was willing to see what we got this year.

    What we got this year is a very good player on a plus contract. The bad attitude is gone; he seems eager to defer to good players (Brunson); he is scoring a lot of points at excellent efficiency while rebounding well and assisting very well for his position. To be clear, I don’t think he’s amazing. He has huge flaws, including Spin Cycle Mode and I’d Rather Be in Hawaii on Defense Mode. But you don’t need the “1A” and “2B” and “Fifth Tier Star” BS you spew, you need players who outperform their contracts. That basic concept seems to elude you. Getting those players is really hard to do – ideally it’s LeBron James on a rookie deal. But without tanking – which this team isn’t going to do – getting that player through the draft is very difficult, especially with the flattened odds (which have flattened the Knicks several times). And yet the draft is still better than signing free agents, who almost never outperform their contracts except when they are true max players like LeBron. You have harped on this point yourself, complaining about “mercs.” Agreed! Mercs are bad!

    But Julius isn’t a merc. And he is probably underpaid by $10 million per year or more. That’s fantastic for us. Sure, we still need a true star to contend, and Julius isn’t that star, but that’s not the point: his is a value contract, and we should be delighted he’s ours…even when he isos us into losses. We wouldn’t even be competitive in those games without him.

    As for whether I have any idea what I’m talking about, I couldn’t help enjoy this tidbit from the 2018 draft thread someone posted the other day:

    rama, king of superfluous poppycocksays:
    June 21, 2018 at 12:06
    I have a feeling SGA will emerge as the steal if this draft, a la Mitchell last year. Don’t see him going top 10, maybe not top 15, but I think in a year or two he’ll look like the 5th best prospect.

    I also have the feeling Knox will look like he shouldn’t have gone in the first round. Not Mudiay bad, but bad. So if we take him…what a letdown that would be.

    I guess I was kind of wrong…SGA is more like the 3rd best player from that draft…

    “Sure, we still need a true star to contend, and Julius isn’t that star,”

    Then you in fact agree.

    “but that’s not the point”

    Then you in fact agree, but think other considerations predominate. To me, it’s the point. To you, it isn’t. Vive la différence.

    You’re asking what you’re risking, I’m just telling you. A cheap 3rd option is valuable.

    Who I can’t win with in his current role. Which pretty much every Knickerblogger agrees with.

    If by role you mean the number 1 scorer, then yes we likely won’t win that way. If by role you mean a guy scoring efficiently on high-usage, then no we don’t agree. You can have the latter without keeping him as the former.

    Some other team can take the risk.

    That’s fine if you don’t want to take the risk. I’m just telling you the downside, which is what you asked for.

    And presumably, since his contract is cheap, they’ll be willing to pay a premium over all-star level.

    I only answered your question on the potential downside of trading him away. There’s plenty of risk to keeping him too and for the team acquiring him that will keep the price down. Everyone here acknowledges that. However, market price doesn’t factor into the value of his on court production.

    E, we can have more than one star. Some suspect you can have 5 players on the court at once.

    “If by role you mean the number 1 scorer, then yes we likely won’t win that way. ”

    That’s his current role. KB almost across the board agrees with this proposition.

    At that point, the question becomes what to do. Keeping him requires him being willing to change his game and being able to. I don’t think he can do those things. There’s plenty of evidence for that. And there’s the additional evidence of his kind of cluelessness and poor playoff response, which I think we’d all agree you don’t really want in a prominent guy in big games. So he’d have to overcome that, too. That raises the risk even more.

    Therefore, I think the team should move on. If someone thinks he can do those things, they probably won’t think the team should move on.

    “Who I can’t win with in his current role. Which pretty much every Knickerblogger agrees with.

    Some other team can take the risk….

    Keeping him requires him being willing to change his game and being able to. I don’t think he can do those things. There’s plenty of evidence for that.”

    But this again misrepresents the issue. There’s actually ZERO evidence for “that” because “that” has never happened.
    And again, saying “can’t win with in his current role” is a far different statement with “can’t win with no matter what.” Until he is on a team with better players, the latter hypothesis can’t be tested.

    You suggested that Julius would literally refuse to accept a lesser role based on the allegation that Julius signed with a shitty Knicks team in free agency so that he could experience being “the man” in New York (Is there evidence that he turned down equal or better offers on teams where he would have a secondary or tertiary role? If not, is it possible that he just took the most money offered, and if so, can anyone find fault with that?)

    You also suggested that because the Lakers (who just traded for AD) and Pelicans (who drafted Zion) were down on him because he wouldn’t accept a lesser role. Is there any evidence for that? Is it possible that they just felt that since they now had a generational talent at the same position, that they didn’t want to invest cap space in a full-time backup?

    As to what Randle would accept, there’s here’s a huge gulf between being fine with a #3 role in a big 3 and a bench role. We have zero evidence that he was even offered an opportunity to be a #3, much less whether he declined the opportunity.

    Whether he is traded or not, all he can do is be the best player he can be, which is pretty close to who he’s playing right now. In my view, to do what he’s doing in front of the same fans and media who tried to run him out of town suggests tremendous resiliency. But you prefer to view the “petty jealousy” he expressed, along with the choking vs. ATL, being given the cold shoulder by LAL and NOP, as something that makes him virtually irredeemable. It’s kind of a cold-hearted take, but obviously there’s no way to refute it until the situation presents itself.

    The guy I remember many KBers feeling roughly the same way about is Zach Randolph. Folks here couldn’t wait to get him off the team, and felt he could not accept a lesser role. Yet he later went on to Memphis and thrived in a lesser role, and is now revered there.

    E, we can have more than one star.

    Well, some would say the team already does and the other one is an actual point guard. Has Julius really deferred in any serious way to Jalen Brunson? People were posting the usage charts saying he had, and maybe he did for like ten games — but now we’re right back to square one.

    I know what the retort will be — “Well, why would he defer to an inferior player?” But that’s the problem. Who’s to say he won’t say about a clearly better player in the hypothetical future state, “That MF was 6/23 in the last game and my TS% is 582, I’m isoing next game. Fuck it.” Or says it with 4 minutes to go in a big game or playoff game and isos three straight possessions. You can’t really trust that he won’t do that and I’m not risking that either.

    I don’t think he can be remade into what’s ultimately needed for the real contending team we want. He’s fine putting up numbers in a lead role for a nothing team, but that isn’t the goal. It’s that simple. For those that don’t buy the reasoning, so be it.

    “But this again misrepresents the issue. There’s actually ZERO evidence for “that” because “that” has never happened.”

    Yes, there is. The Lakers didn’t want him in that role and neither did the Pelicans.

    If you had a teacher in for an interview and he’d worked for two other schools in five years and wasn’t re-signed, wouldn’t it be a red flag for you? It obviously would.

    Or if you had a person who’d been a supervisor of teachers and then applied for a line teaching role, wouldn’t you ask “You know this role isn’t supervisory, right? You’re going to have to answer to people, are you going to be happy doing that?” You would ask that, right? I’ve asked that question in interviews for line attorneys dozens of times. Why? Because it’s an obvious question and you obviously want to hear them out on it. Some people have good answers, others not so much. I put Julius in the “not so much” category.

    “Therefore, I think the team should move on. If someone thinks he can do those things, they probably won’t think the team should move on.”

    One thing that should be clarified is that no one on KB that I can think of is actively lobbying for us to keep Julius rather than trade him. Personally, I’m ambivalent, leaning towards wanting to trade him FOR ASSETS (certainly not at the cost of assets.) But replacing his current production at his salary will not be easy. Nor will acquiring two clearly better players for #1 and #2 roles (sorry folks, Brunson is also a #3-level player at best).

    And that’s the quandary for me…it’s not about Julius per se, but about how do we get two players better than him on the roster? One possibility if for him (or RJ, or Brunson) to play well enough to package in a trade for a disgruntled superstar. Another is to luck out in the draft. Another is to trade for an upside guy like Cam and to have him pan out. But THAT”S the hard part, not deciding whether Randle should be on the roster or not. And if it turns out that we accomplish that with Randle still on the roster, I’d be more than happy to take my chances on him bristling at a lesser role.

    Randle as the 3rd option would do the exact same thing he’s doing now, just maybe a little less. What do you think a 3rd option does?

    Randle has a usage of 27.5%, RJ 26.0%, and Brunson 25.8%. What do you think those percentages are supposed to look like?

    Randle takes 0.3 more FGA per 36 and 2.2 more 1.6 more FTAs. Brunson averages 3.4 more assists per 36, which aren’t counted in usage, so he actually spends more time initiating than Randle. Then we get to percentage of makes assisted on and it’s pretty clear that Randle defers to Brunson.

    ————————–

    If the Knicks changed absolutely nothing but replaced RJ with a high-level star, the Knicks would be near favorites. If RJ gets to around Brunson/Randle levels of production, the Knicks are a contender under your definition.

    *** I guess I was kind of wrong…SGA is more like the 3rd best player from that draft…***

    And Knox was Mudiay level bad.

    So we’ll just call you 0-2 on that one and you can play again next draft.

    “If the Knicks changed absolutely nothing but replaced RJ with a high-level star, the Knicks would be near favorites.”

    If Randle (a) accepted the de facto demotion and all it means; and (b) successfully integrated his skill set to the new role.

    In terms of usage, true contender level alphas are quite a bit higher than 27. Embiid/Giannis/Luka are over 37, Ja 34, etc. Tatum/Dame in the 31-32 range. Truly bring one of those guys in and make Julius the 3 behind another guy and Julius is seeing scraps and leftovers compared to what he’s used to. Other than on some freak outlier matchup, he’s never seeing another 4Q iso. He’s never initiating a set in any serious way. He sure as shit isn’t directing traffic and waving guys off and doing his “thing.” He’s occasionally free to probe an open lane if he can do it quickly and move the ball virtually immediately if he can’t. He ain’t gonna have Thibs to enable his bullshit. He’ll be answerable to the true star — another place he might bristle.

    And since other guys are doing the real heavy lifting on offense, he’s going to have to play real contender defense. He’s not going to be able to pull the “I’m exhausted from having to carry you MFers” routine.

    It’s a demotion. He’ll see it as a demotion. Star athletes in their prime tend not to like demotions. Theoretically manageable, too much risk for my blood.

    I would hardly hold the Lakers current braintrust up as a paragon of managerial competence in judging Randle’s value. Here’s Pelinka’s rationale, along with some reflection on that decision:

    https://www.silverscreenandroll.com/2018/7/11/17562024/la-lakers-nba-free-agency-news-julius-randle-rob-pelinka

    https://lasportshub.com/2018/12/18/los-angeles-lakers-julius-randle-mistake/

    If I were looking into hiring a teacher and knew that the teacher was let go due to budgetary reasons by an administrator with a dubious reputation, and on top of that, the school the teacher left already had the teacher’s license area shored up, I’d have no further questions about that beyond those I would have from any other candidate.

    As to the Pels, as mentioned, Randle declined a player option and took double the money from the Knicks. I don’t see how that has anything to do with staying with the Pels for a lesser role unless you have evidence that he was offered the same money, and I don’t see any evidence that the Pels would not have kept him for less money if the Knicks didn’t offer him more, or that he wouldn’t have taken the money from the Knicks if they had two superstars already on the roster.

    It’s a misrepresentation to suggest as a swipe at Randle’s game or character that the Lakers and Pelicans didn’t want him in that role without looking more deeply into the reasoning.

    thanks for sharing that Bo…interesting feedback from some random encounters…

    the thing on rose doesn’t seem surprising at all…he kind of does seem like a very introspective and morose kind of guy…

    julius often seems like a big kid himself…

    In terms of usage, true contender level alphas are quite a bit higher than 27. Embiid/Giannis/Luka are over 37, Ja 34, etc. Tatum/Dame in the 31-32 range.

    So… he’s not high-jacking the offense as if he thinks he’s a true number 1 option? Huh

    dang E, you are really deep in to julius…

    hey, let’s pick on thibs for a while, why don’t we…

    i am so ready to see him go…i don’t see a future with him…he’s signed for two more years after this season – but – let’s move on…

    probably not going to happen though until we are sitting in this same spot next year…

    “As to the Pels, as mentioned, Randle declined a player option and took double the money from the Knicks.”

    Exactly. In lieu of reupping with the Pels — they could have done it at a higher number — and playing with AD and Jrue, he came to the absolutely awful Knicks to chuck.(*)

    Red flag. Hard to see how that’s anything but “not wanting to play a secondary role.”

    In terms of the public comments, I tend to just look at the bottom line result. Either the organizations didn’t want him in a secondary role, he didn’t want to play it, or some combination of both. Doesn’t matter. Two organizations had the “Julius Randle in a secondary role” option and it wound up not happening with either.

    Doesn’t have anything to do with game or character. He’d be “applying” for a demotion. All manner of questions pose themselves in that circumstance by its nature.

    (*) Can’t remember who came up with the joke, but the 2019 Knicks’ version of “I wouldn’t want to be in any club that would take me as a member” should have been “I wouldn’t want any player who wants to play for this team.”

    E, you have as much evidence that he will do those things as I have that he won’t. I’m not sure what your point is in speculating on all the behaviors he *might* have in that situation.

    Wait. Shouldn’t we be asking Rama all kinds of questions about our futures?

    Will my wife’s flight arrive on time tonight?

    Anyone here think Carmelo Anthony would have been ok becoming a 3 option at age 28?

    And Knox was Mudiay level bad.

    So we’ll just call you 0-2 on that one and you can play again next draft.

    I thought of that, but Mudiay was really, really bad. He had no plus skill. With Knox, at least you could say he could shoot the 3 sometimes…

    If you want to check the numbers to call me on that, please do! I have my limits lol

    “I have my limits lol”

    No! LOL. Forget basketball. What about Powerball?! 😉

    Hahaha. No. British Airways.

    If the Knicks changed absolutely nothing but replaced RJ with a high-level star, the Knicks would be near favorites. If RJ gets to around Brunson/Randle levels of production, the Knicks are a contender under your definition.

    Exactly, EB. That’s why I wanted to trade RJ this summer for OG straight up – but then he was extended, so I don’t know now that we’d get much for him. Better just to hope that the occasional stretch of 10-15 excellent games becomes 70 excellent games somehow….

    I will admit that once I became a stats convert (fulled largely by this blog), I undervalued volume scoring for a while. It didn’t help that I hated Melo’s game and loved the T-1000. More recently I’ve come to see the value of what the ideal version of RJ could provide, even if his TS is never over league average. Mostly I just want him to cut down on the drives to nowhere and the turnovers. I think the turnovers are an underrecognized sin…each possession is so valuable, and he literally just throws a handful away every game….

    Speaking of which, that’s the biggest reason we lost against SA – the defense wasn’t good, but normally we dominate on the boards, and we just couldn’t seem to get it done there. You can get away with a shitty offense if you crush it on the boards and don’t turn the ball over, but we were outboarded by 10 and didn’t make up for it with turnovers. Which is also why E is so laughable about Julius – dude can board, and that is as valuable as his scoring. Don’t know what was wrong with Mitch, but I hope he’s back to his normal self soon or we’re in trouble.

    If option one was Lebron and option two was CP3, I think Melo absolutely would have been fine being option three.

    the mitch thing is weird…i mean i get that thibs “designed” our team defense with mitch in mind – but, how do we go from top 10 best to bottom 10 worse with him on/off…

    it seems one thing though is becoming more clear – hart ain’t the answer…

    it would seem odd that the fact hart’s offensive usage has declined so much would affect his defense…

    or, maybe last year was just an exceptional stat year for hart…

    As the years go by I’m beginning to think Melo might have been underrated by Knicks fans during his first few seasons in NY. I know the ending of his tenure was brutal and his mega max contract was ill conceived but he was very, very good in his first few seasons in NY prior to Phil Jackson arriving.

    We gave Melo his due.

    We also pointed out that the price to acquire him 6 months early was catastrophic.

    Leaving this here only because of the attire of the gentleman in question…

    My family and I spent much of the day walking around Manhattan. Approaching Union Square, we pass a young guy in a Knicks wool hat. He does not seem to be paying attention to anything but his phone call. And literally as he passes us, my wife and son are sure that they clearly hear the guy say “Sepinwall.”

    I… do not know what to think of that. Especially since there are only a dozen people with that name in the world.

    In hindsight was it really that catastrophic? I know the argument about playing that season out then just signing Melo in free agency but there was no guarantee that would happen plus the following offseason after the trade the Knicks were still able to sign Tyson Chandler.

    The draft picks they gave up weren’t that high, the pick they traded that screwed them was in the Bargs trade. I just don’t think in hindsight basically trading Wilson Chandler and Gallo for Melo really was that catastrophic.

    This is so on point and could nip a lot of our flame wars before they spark.

    To the contrary, KBA, it actually incited a flame war out of nothing. Literally no one was arguing the counterpoint that he rose up and smacked down.

    For the record, I do not think Julius Randle is our best player. I think Jalen Brunson is. But if there has been some long debate about this, I must have missed it.

    The draft picks they gave up weren’t that high, the pick they traded that screwed them was in the Bargs trade.

    the knicks ultimately gave up a 7 (jamal murray) and a 12 (saric) in the melo trade. they gave up a 9 (poeltl) in the bargs trade.

    ps. not sure who i disagree with on this from the thread, but i do believe that if we had a metric that estimated the slope of a player’s likely wins contribution based on how good the rest of the team was, randle’s would be atypically steep. i think there are a lot of guys you could swap him with this year that would have made us quite a bit worse without making those good teams any better. i don’t even want to name some of these uninspiring players bc i know some of you are already deep into the holiday statins.

    Yes that’s right they traded their own 1st rd pick in 2016 to Denver then traded the 2016 1st rd pick they got from Denver to Toronto for Bargs.

    I still say in hindsight looking back at the trade there was way too much criticism leveled at Melo because of it. Sadly the 54 win season has been by far the biggest highlight for this franchise in the past 22 years.

    “Anyone here think Carmelo Anthony would have been ok becoming a 3 option at age 28?”

    Anyone here think a healthy Melo at age 27 would have signed with his current team for a half-of-max extension rather than wait it out and become a UFA at the supermax?

    “To the contrary, KBA, it actually incited a flame war out of nothing.”

    Oof. Sorry, H, if I sparked anything, though the gentlemen in question need no help from me.

    Honestly, I (thought) I was merely agreeing that an argument about whether Julius Randle *should* be an Apha-#1-option-the-man-that-guy always seems to take us into a rhetorical cul-de-sac and is also not based on any assertion I’ve ever read on here, such as “If everyone would just get out of Julius Randle’s way, we could win a championship.” Literally no one thinks that, as far as I can tell, so to complain about his current play mainly on those grounds — ~ “we’ll never win as long as Randle is the alpha and he will never ever relinquish his position as the alpha” — is (to me) fundamentally misguided and different from saying things like, “I wish Randle hadn’t switched so much onto Luka towards the end of that game, because I think he got tired and made some mental mistakes down the stretch,” or even saying (here’s a freebie) “I wish Julius didn’t bring the ball up the court so often.” Now I know that last one could be critiqued by saying, “See? He wants to be the alpha.“ But it also just *might* be happening sometimes because the alternatives he/we have are Deuce McBride et al. I mean if we just take that last game as an example, by most metrics Julius Randle was by far the best player on the floor, and not necessarily because he’s an asshole who won’t listen to reason, but because he was the best one at putting the ball in the basket and getting to the ball when a basket was missed. Full stop. I mean, Randle may be (hell IS) a mercurial guy, but I choose to take my cue today especially from Geo’s radical empathy towards him (and towards everyone else).

    I mean, full disclosure: Who on this board is as good at what they dream of doing as Julius Randle is at what he dreams of doing. I am not. No way. No how.

    But, anyway, another game, another data point. Let’s mess with Texas just a little bit, please.

    8 can’t believe this opportunity has presented itself.

    Danilo Gallinari was better than Melo when the trade happened.

    We should have just kept Gallo.

    The Nuggets were a better team than us in the year after the trade.

    Throws lighter in trash can

    “To the contrary, KBA, it actually incited a flame war out of nothing. Literally no one was arguing the counterpoint that he rose up and smacked down.”

    Flame war?

    Literally no one thinks that, as far as I can tell, so to complain about his current play mainly on those grounds — ~ “we’ll never win as long as Randle is the alpha and he will never ever relinquish his position as the alpha” — is (to me) fundamentally misguided

    Sure. If someone had said that, it would have been a cogent reply. But check the thread. No one said it. At least not in the last few days.

    Instead what we had was no one arguing about anything, and then someone walking in saying “this argument is crazy, no one should think the thing that no one is saying.” And of course that’s all it takes for the other guy to pick up the imaginary argument and run with it. And now here we are spending the penultimate day of the year arguing over something pretty much everyone agrees on.

    At least we got some great Donnie Walsh jokes mixed in.

    Yet the Nuggets never won a playoff series with Gallo and wound up missing the playoffs for 5 straight years after the 2013 season. In fact the only season Gallo played in the playoffs and his team advanced out of the 1st rd was ironically in 2021 with Atlanta.

    I loved Gallo and am impressed at how efficient he’s remained throughout his entire career but Melo is a no doubt 1st ballot HOFer while Gallo has never even sniffed making an All-Star team.

    Can’t we all agree that how good a player is doesn’t have anything to do with whether you should trade him? There seem to be two relevant questions when considering whether to trade a player:

    1. Do you have insight into the player that some NBA GMs don’t, causing you to value him more or less than these other GMs?
    2. Does the player’s place on the win curve fit with your team?

    Answering those two questions will tell you whether you could end up with assets that are more valuable to your team by trading the player. What else matters? Why are we worrying about how good Randle is?

    @H — Yes, I typed it, but I’m pretty sure the below is a reasonable paraphrase for the thesis of at least one line of argument on this board, today and on many other days. Charitably speaking, it may even be correct, but I didn’t imagine it out of thin air. Nevertheless, point taken. Back to our regularly scheduled programming ….

    ****
    “we’ll never win as long as Randle is the alpha and he will never ever relinquish his position as the alpha”

    @Latke…thanks for that…I was trying to think of a way to describe the lack of relevance of that meaningless debtate but you did it nicely…

    and btw…the hanukah season always makes me think of your moniker…

    “we’ll never win as long as Randle is the alpha”

    (Virtually or literally) everyone agrees with this one.

    “he will never ever relinquish his position as the alpha”

    The thesis is a little more subtle than that. It’s that he quite probably won’t and the reward for being wrong about that isn’t close to worth the risk that you aren’t wrong.

    And yes, how “good” he is or how “good” he is compared with other Knickerbockers is completely irrelevant to the thesis.

    See, I think a way to ignite a flame war is to take gratuitous thinly-veiled shots at a poster one has a long history of problems with out of the blue in the midst of a thread where folks are exchanging views on a standing issue without any problem. But hey, that’s just me.

    Can’t we all agree

    i’m not sure i really see a whole lot of entertainment in that 😛

    The thesis is a little more subtle than that.

    yes, so subtle and insubstantial that it barely registers on any measured spectrum at all…

    saw a psychiatrist this morning…a day after my regularly scheduled therapy (yuch), same day that i gotta turn in my year end performance review (double fucking yuch)…

    gonna get prescribed a new drug – hydroxyzine…can’t wait to take it for a test run…

    yes, so subtle and insubstantial that it barely registers on any measured spectrum at all…

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

    Nice. I did in fact laugh. Not quite soda spit levels, but then again I’m not drinking soda.

    I mean we already know from this season that Randle is more than fine with Brunson sharing the spotlight. What are we even arguing about?

    BBA – Gallo missed an entire season with an injury after leading the nuggets to a better season than Melo led the Knicks to. It affected his whole career. But the idea we should have kept Gallo remains one of my favorite takes and alternate histories.

    Also, Melo made one WCF early in his career and then won a series with the Knicks. He was kind of famous for not doing much in the playoffs either. Three playoff series wins! Bad year for Lebron.

    I’ve come around to thinking that after having one of several elite level players having Melo was a solid strategy. It’s more of a punchers chance to win a la the Dirk run to the championship, but at least it’s a shot.

    Unfortunately on top of Melo not truly being the tip top tier, we gave up a lot to get him and mismanaged a lot of the follow up moves.

    Is winning 57 games and losing in the 1st rd a better season than winning 54 games and losing in the 2nd rd?

    I hate rehashing the whole Melo debate but I kinda thought about it now with the discussion about Randle and usage rates for guys like him and RJ. Again I loved Gallo as a Knick and hated having to trade him but I just don’t see how he could ever have a season like Melo had leading the league in scoring and having to burden such a huge usage rate for a team that won 54 games. It’s the old debate about high efficiency, lower usage guys maintaining that with a higher usage.

    Saying stuff like Mitch and back in the day Tyson Chandler are the best players on the Knicks is insane to me. Basketball isn’t baseball, it’s alot more complicated to compare players in basketball. Having said that I do enjoy the debates and think it’s a pretty fascinating argument.

    Winning 54 games and losing in the second round is better. There’s not that much quality difference between 54 and 57 wins. So I’ll take success in the playoffs.

    I still hate Woodson more for playing right into it, though. I think we win that series if Copeland gets 20 mins a night at the 5.

    Well, by SRS the Nuggets were solidly better.

    I think Gallo was very under appreciated before the injury and I do think trading him for Melo was a wrong turn.

    But not worth arguing about ten years later

    I also think if JR didn’t elbow Terry we probably sweep the Celtics, Melo doesn’t get his shoulder dislocated by Garnett and we go into the pacers series more rested and prepared to face them so we probably win that series too.

    the mitch thing is weird…i mean i get that thibs “designed” our team defense with mitch in mind – but, how do we go from top 10 best to bottom 10 worse with him on/off…

    it seems one thing though is becoming more clear – hart ain’t the answer…

    Noel is more in the model of Mitch, while Hart is not Mitch at all. So the old set-up was “Mitch for 24, Noel for 24…on the rare days both were healthy.” And the defense therefore remained the same. Hart isn’t Mitch, so when Mitch comes out, the defense sags mightily. And when Mitch himself has a bad game, like the San Antonio game? Holy shit, you’ve got some problems.

    Also, as we saw earlier in the season, another problem is that centers like Mitch (and Chandler before him) are much, much, much more valuable when you have guys on the perimeter who aren’t porous, as the center therefore can concentrate his own thing on defense rather than covering for his teammates. Remember how Chandler looked when he had good defenders around him 2011-12 versus how he looked in 2012-13 when he had mediocre-to-bad defenders around him. It was a glaring difference (5th best defense in the first year, 18th best the next year. Luckily, they were 3rd in offense in 2012-13).

    > Melo is a no doubt 1st ballot HOFer

    This says more about the HOF, how pundits value traditional metrics (scoring, per game), and fandom than Melo. I wonder if you gave me a list of all the 1st ballot HOFers, if I could find a worse player?

    Melo was better than Andy Phillip!

    But yeah, when you look at the first ballot guys, outside of Phillip, even the close calls are at least still arguments (Alex English, Robert Parish, Tracy McGrady).

    Here’s the list, by the way:

    George Mikan

    Ed Macauley

    Andy Phillip

    Bob Cousy

    Bob Pettit

    Bill Russell

    Elgin Baylor

    Wilt Chamberlain

    Jerry Lucas

    Oscar Robertson

    Jerry West

    Bill Bradley

    John Havlicek

    Elvin Hayes

    Julius Erving

    Bill Walton

    Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

    Alex English

    Larry Bird

    Kevin McHale

    Isiah Thomas

    Moses Malone

    Magic Johnson

    Robert Parish

    Clyde Drexler

    Charles Barkley

    Patrick Ewing

    Hakeem Olajuwon

    Michael Jordan

    David Robinson

    John Stockton

    Karl Malone

    Scottie Pippen

    Gary Payton

    Alonzo Mourning

    Dikembe Mutombo

    Yao Ming

    Shaquille O’Neal

    Allen Iverson

    Tracy McGrady

    Ray Allen

    Steve Nash

    Grant Hill

    Jason Kidd

    Kevin Garnett

    Tim Duncan

    Kobe Bryant

    Paul Pierce

    Manu Ginóbili

    I’ve been reading Dan Charnas’ book “Dilla Time” about J Dilla and I’m completely smitten. Most interesting music book I’ve read in a long time. I’ve been deep diving into Dilla’s career, trying to find every beat he ever created, and boy is that a rewarding enterprise. What a goddamn genius.

    Highly recommended for anybody with even a passing interest in hip hop history and/or music production.

    *** as he passes us, my wife and son are sure that they clearly hear the guy say “Sepinwall.” I… do not know what to think of that. Especially since there are only a dozen people with that name in the world.***

    My best guess is that it was Leon Rose wearing the Knicks hat and he was actually saying something about wanting to trade for John Wall. He probably said something like “Siri, is Rich Paul still reppin’ Wall?”, and, being a typical adolescent narcissist, your son thought Leon was talking about him.

    Watch out, Alan, you might become targeted on MSG’s cameras for eviction if you become more recognizable! “Sorry, Mr. Sepinwall, we’ve read all of your Knickerblogger comments and that’s just not going to work for us.”

    What, Clyde wasn’t first ballot?

    Not even close, oddly enough. He didn’t get in until 1987.

    Yao Ming?

    Remember, it’s not the NBA Hall of Fame, so Ming’s fame outside of the States made him a shoo-in.

    As an aside, also a general reminder that there really should be an NBA Hall of Fame.

    Crazy that Bill went in before Walt.

    Bradley is another example of the non-NBA aspects having a bigger impact. He had a really good college career at Princeton, and was even more famous making Oxford’s basketball team a real team, and then won a title in Europe and a Gold Medal. Only two players have ever won a European title, an NBA title and a Gold medal, and the other guy was also a first ballot Hall of Famer.

    But yes, in general, there should just be an NBA Hall of Fame to take those other considerations out of, you know, consideration (and by the way, Melo’s success outside of the NBA is why he was a no-brainer first ballot Hall of Famer years ago. Dude has three gold medals!!!).

    “Crazy that Bill went in before Walt.”

    Bill wasn’t half the player Clyde was, clearly. And while what I’m going to say is true, there won’t be enough “evidence” here to convince anyone who stubbornly resists it. And it’s possible you have to be at least 40 to really get this. And it is a bit of a stuffy, fussy thing and it can be resisted on that basis. And this idea won’t have anything to do with Clyde in particular.

    However ….

    The idea of training the body as well as the mind as the basis of a proper education has deep roots, going all the way back to Ancient Greece. It still had a lot of sway in America in the early 1900s — it was from that idea that in fact the concept of the “student-athlete” arose. It still had that sway, though not as much, when Bill came along. With his Princeton background and obvious real intellect and obvious high-end, though not elite, basketball talent, he really personified the classical ideal of mind and body. That buttressed his reputation by *a lot* and spilled over into misinterpeting how good a basketball player he was. But he wasn’t being viewed as solely a basketball player.

    What’s happened since then culturally? Well, first, it’s now possible and has been for decades, but not really as much so in Bill/Clyde’s era to make a massively great living focusing solely on sports. And so what happens then? People focus on sports and blow off the mind part. Perfectly understandable. Second, the culture is more obsessed about sports and more forgiving of obsessive, non-well-rounded types. Third, we had the somewhat phony denigration of the model by education professionals and anti-NCAA types. Fourth, we had companies like ESPN and the shoe companies and all the rest who took over college sports and remade them in their quasi-professional TV star image. None of those places gives a fig about the classical model, as their mass audience doesn’t give a fig either. (Which was the chicken and which the egg is up for debate.)

    So I’m not sure I really have a problem with rewarding and honoring a Bill Bradley for these non-basketball things — in fact, I might even think it’s a good thing — but, yeah, obviously in pure basketball terms he’s overrated.

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