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89 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2023.01.04)”
I wholeheartedly agree, but Leon doesn’t. If I thought he’d actually use all the picks, I wouldn’t argue for a consolidation.
Sure, but the assets are already burning.
Imagine it’s Jan 4, 2024 and consider the most probable outcomes.
Washington missed the playoffs, so they kept their pick and now it seems unlikely to convey.
IQ and Obi are the same players, but they’re approaching RFA in 4 months.
What was once an “unprotected first round pick in the 2023 draft” is now a top 16 protected pick in some future draft.
None of those assets will be very useful in a trade for a star.
That’s an easy one.
Obi Toppin and IQ would both be unleashed immediately in a Nick Nurse offense and their stock would skyrocket.
And instead of viewing a first round pick as a burden that needs to be unloaded to curtail a “roster crunch”, he’d see it as an opportunity to draft the next OG.
Hold off on any big consolidation trades.
Trade Cam and Obi for whatever you can get before the deadline.
Keep Fournier and Rose. Both are good vets who are fine with their limited roles and I think Fournier can get some consistent second unit time now that the defense has been shored up and we know the second unit sometimes needs a scoring punch.
Don’t move RJ. Why are we so quick to want to trade him? He’s 22 years old!
I think the long play here is to role with this team and let them keep improving. Try to trade Fournier this summer when he only has one guaranteed year left. If he gets some PT the rest of the season, maybe his value is a bit higher. Or try to trade him next season sometime.
Make a draft pick this summer. Maybe do the slick Leon thing where you trade one back to pick up a future one so we keep stacking picks.
Then look to EVENTUALLY (in the next 2 to 3 seasons) move Randle. Once RJ is fully formed RJ…then you try to move Randle plus picks for a legit young star on the same timeline as RJ like say…ZION WILLIAMSON.
OG is an elite defender, which doesn’t show up in BPM, and has creation ability that doesn’t get used in Toronto.
That’s why we’d backup the truck for OG.
Ok, that’s a good answer. Elite defender is a description I can get behind. I didn’t know if his defense rated that highly.
“And instead of viewing a first round pick as a burden that needs to be unloaded to curtail a “roster crunch”, he’d see it as an opportunity to draft the next OG.”
They are evaluating players in draft and deciding whether they would rather draft an available player or roll the pick out to a future date. That’s no different than moving up or down inside the same draft looking for better value. If there isn’t anyone available that you really like, you are not required to draft someone just for the sake of drafting them. You can roll that asset out to the future and draft in the future instead.
The difference here is that they also are trying to position themselves for a future trade. So the other question they are asking is whether they are better off with player “x” in this draft or that future pick when it comes time to pull off a trade.
People can debate the value they are getting in some of these moves or whether they would have drafted someone the Knicks chose to pass on, but we always have those debates.
Strategically, there’s nothing wrong with what they doing. They are trying to get the best value they can out of the draft picks they have while simultaneously keeping themselves positioned for a big trade later.
If there’s a player they really like in the next draft, I can assure you they will draft him.
Owen, he leads the league in steals and is the guy who covers Durant, Giannis, etc.
His BPM is curiously low, though, and that merits investigation.
But he is firmly on par with Brunson, Randle, and Mitch and gives us a strong top 4. And the knock on effect is big, too. OG takes over RJ’s role, letting RJ take over Grimes’ role, letting Grimes slot into Cam’s role. That’s three might large upgrades.
And again, I can’t stress this enough:
1. Obi Toppin is on the verge of becoming worthless bc of Randle’s play and his limited role.
2. The Washington pick may never be as likely to convert as it is right now.
3. Our 2023 first round pick has much more value now as an unprotected first than it will it 6 months when it’s the 16th pick and Leon’s trying to punt it into the future.
These are not assets whose value can be retained. It’s like having two weeks vacation left at the beginning of December and your company has a no rollover policy. Use it or lose it.
We know they’re doing, Strat. They just suck at doing it. You’re basically trying to justify the challenger explosion by saying they were trying to launch a rocket into space.
A starting lineup of Brunson, OG, Grimes, Randle and Mitch would be pretty good on D. I would enjoy that.
***Given how young our guys are, I don’t see why we don’t just try to acquire a guy like [OG Anunoby] in the draft.***
I think you are underselling Anunoby a bit. I’m not sure why BPM rates him in a pedestrian fashion. By the eye test you can see him impact a game, and by the stat page you see everything you want to see: he has increased his usage every year from 12% to 22%, he has almost doubled his pts/min over his 5 seasons, he has lowered his 3PTr and increased his FTr significantly, and he shot 40% from three just one full season ago. He’s an excellent defensive player, but more than a simple 3&D guy, and he has hit big shots in the playoffs. He’s a younger iteration of Jrue Holiday, who also didn’t seem worth backing the asset truck up for at the time, but was.
This FO drafted five of the top players getting minutes this year, and signed 2 more to an extension, breaking the Charlie Ward curse. Saying they don’t value the draft is silly.
Is OG really worth Obi, IQ, and 2 1sts? His advances stats are not very impressive.
This. But apply it to cap space.
I didn’t say they don’t value the draft, DaRules.
They’re extremely selective in the draft, they’re not very good at determining who they should be selective about, and they have a penchant for panicking and making bad trades when their preferred selection isn’t available.
So three picks in the first round is not a great scenario for the front office.
I’m not going to engage in speculation on what Leon will or will not do with our 2023 draft pick and use that speculation as a basis for defending a trade. My assumption is that he will make a pick if a player he (et. al.) values at that spot more than he values whatever teambuilding maneuver he engages in.
For example, I have no idea whether Leon would have made the pick at #11 (or 13 or later with another trade-down) if Mitch decided to walk. Walker Kessler or Jalen Duren were both possibilities for replacing Mitch, but replacing him was unnecessary. Maybe Leon now has to decide whether to replace Cam, Fournier and Obi via the draft, or to use the picks to replace them. But IQ and Grimes are assets that would not be part of any package I offered for OG. And I doubt that Leon will offer RJ.
I am not worried about IQ being devalued if we keep him. He’s already arguably an elite defender and his offense is explosive but inconsistent, so there’s still room for this versatile 23yo to improve. OG (also inconsistent and now age 25) might command $30+ Million in two years and could go UFA unless we overpay him, and if he doesn’t, he wasn’t worth trading IQ for anyway. I’m guessing that IQ will be happy to take what OG is making now if offered to him. Obi is a sunk cost at this point. Let him go RFA, I doubt Masai values him beyond that.
To me, the only reason for trading multiple assets for OG is if you think he is going to be a Big 3-level player in 2 years. I don’t see that, so I’d rather wait.
What is more speculative: expecting someone to do what they’ve always done, or expecting them to do something much smarter than they’ve ever done before?
Aside from all of its issues capturing the value of elite defense, I think BPM tends to undersell talented players who don’t get to handle the ball much e.g. Brunson in Dallas. Anunoby could for example rack up more assists if given the opportunity, but the Raptors would be foolish to let him do that given Siakam, FVV, and Barnes are plainly more suited for the role. It would be good for OG’s BPM but bad for the team.
The same was true of Brunson in Dallas with regards to Luka, and Brunson’s BPM promptly went up about 300% upon going to a team in which he was the best playmaking option.
OG also doesn’t rack up many rebounds, but the Raptors’ TRB% is materially better with him on the court. That’s often a sign of a player who loses rebounds to scheme, etc. but is good at things like boxing out.
The impact-based metrics are much friendlier to OG. He’s a very good player, I think.
Having said all of that, Zach Lowe floated the Mitchell price tag for him and that would be completely insane. We’re still talking about a guy who primarily scores off assists. He can probably be the 4th-5th best player on a contender. I would offer RJ and a protected pick, maybe.
Knicks’ management keeps making decisions based on what is actually in front of them instead of relying on a general principle (like we should always draft someone as soon as possible). For example, they clearly decided they would rather have a future Milwaukee pick and the space to sign Brunson and Hartenstein than pick Duren. That required thought and dealing with who was actually available. I don’t know if that was the best decision, but I applaud them for thinking about the actual alternatives in front of them instead just saying we have to draft someone. Since they have actually gotten good value for many of the picks they have made, I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt on their overall draft strategy.
I actually think they will make picks in the upcoming draft. They are a young team, but besides Keels, who is 19, everyone else is at least 22. It would be nice to have another player or two who is younger than that and has a lot of time to develop.
The idea that our roster was too full of good players to make first-round picks was stupid when it was floated and in hindsight has been exposed as downright laughable.
We have a full team of players, some highly compensated, who do not play under any circumstances. We are *uniquely suited* to add players in the draft.
I am hoping that this becoming as obvious to everyone as it was to us posters leads to the front office taking a different approach to the draft this year.
“Knicks’ management keeps making decisions based on what is actually in front of them instead of relying on a general principle (like we should always draft someone as soon as possible).”
As Hubert has pointed out, we all understand the thought process that went into each decision.
It was just a shitty thought process that led to dumb decisions. Adhering to a crude principle like “pick the highest player left on your big board,” while far from the optimal process, would’ve let to better outcomes.
I’ve been an OG fan for years. If he’s available, we should definitely look into it. The advantage of trading for him rather than trying to draft a similar player is we already know what he can do and he fits our timeline. I can’t remember if it was Lowe or not, but I did read or hear somewhere that Masai would be looking for a D. Mitchell type package for him which to me is a nonstarter. I would reluctantly package Obi plus maybe Cam and a couple of the protected picks for him. I think IQ and Grimes are developing in very good 2 way players. I wouldn’t include either of them. I don’t see why cap space is an issue with our young guys. If they play well, pay them. Free agency is pretty dead, so we will need matching salaries if a star becomes available anyway.
I don’t think OG is on the market, but there’s this about the Raptors.
“The idea that our roster was too full of good players to make first-round picks was stupid when it was floated and in hindsight has been exposed as downright laughable.”
No matter how many times you repeat it, it doesn’t make it true. You are imposing a rationale on the FO that is total conjecture because it doesn’t fit in with your very narrow mental model. Using words like “stupid” and “laughable” doesn’t move the needle either.
Adhering to a crude principle like “pick the highest player left on your big board,” while far from the optimal process, would’ve let to better outcomes.”
…unless you have a shitty pick as the highest player on your big board, as even the best FOs do all the time. Conjecturing about who that pick could have and how we’d be in a better position had we just made the pick instead of trading out doesn’t make your assertions any more true.
Whatever, I doubt that the FO will ever conclude that it has to “think like posters on KB” to do the draft right. My guess is that they will continue to consider the opportunity cost in any transaction they make. I doubt that they are doing much pining over what might have been, other than picking Obi over Hali….they almost certainly would have been better off trading out of that pick!
As Knicks fans, do we really want this management team to answer the phone when Masai calls? Leon would be smart to let it go to voicemail.
Put differently, I think there is no worse way to waste a draft pick than to use it on a player who can never get your investment back. Obi is a classic example of that. Grimes and IQ are alternative examples.
It’s a hyper risk-averse strategy for sure, but if your draft analysis team doesn’t feel that a draftee at a given draft position is more than 50% likely to maintain that value of that draft slot, and you can’t afford a whiff given that the big moves lie ahead, it’s reasonably logical to maintain (or even increase) that value by pushing that pick out into the future. Evoking language like stupid and laughable is a bit much.
“You are imposing a rationale on the FO that is total conjecture because it doesn’t fit in with your very narrow mental model.”
I actually didn’t know this was contested. There were plenty of contemporaneous rationalizations to the effect of “well the player never would’ve been able to play for this team.”
So if this wasn’t what they thought, why did they trade the 19th pick in the 2021 draft for a heavily protected future pick that could easily become two seconds?
“…unless you have a shitty pick as the highest player on your big board, as even the best FOs do all the time.”
We’ll never know, because the front office said that *every single player* remaining in the 2021 draft was less valuable than a heavily protected future pick that could become two seconds. Whether you like it or not, they said it about Bones Hyland, they said it about Ayo Dosunmu, they said it about Herb Jones, they said it about Jalen Johnson.
Hell, unless you think they had the inside track on every pick from 20-24, they even said it about Quentin Grimes.
“Put differently, I think there is no worse way to waste a draft pick than to use it on a player who can never get your investment back.”
What about trading it for a worse pick and then trading that pick for Cam Reddish and then glueing Cam Reddish to the bench because he sucks?
In my next life my Knickerblogger handle is going to be:
Narrow Mental Model
I try not to relitigate drafts, but for those who do enjoy incineration arguments, The Athletic has a piece this week on best rookies so far. You can read it and get angry (or not so much, depending). I must admit that watching Jalen Williams dismantle the Celtics last night was fun to watch. Second rounder, too (#34).
https://theathletic.com/4049832/2023/01/04/nba-rookie-rankings-jalen-williams/
We came close to, but didn’t cave into Danny Ainge’s super-high price for Spida. So yeah I’d be OK with Leon & co taking that call.
I think you have to consider what was available in last year’s draft vs what the Knicks’ needs were (and no, we’re not barren of talent anymore). Sounds like they wanted more potential stabs at this year’s draft since they couldn’t trade up. Given where they were set to draft last year, I feel the Knicks played the percentages since they couldn’t trade up.
Right now, they’ll have two picks in the first round, and they did pretty good when they had two picks in the ’21 draft.
If the team can nab a stretch-4 or a big 3 who can shoot and defend, I think you’d have to trade Obi and forget trying to convert him into a big wing-ish guy. I’m thinking it’s better at this point to admit that, for 1.5 of the 2.5 years since Toppin was drafted, Randle has outplayed the expectations commensurate with what we and the team thought he was at the time Obi was drafted.
Listen, the idea of trusting Randle to consistently play at an All-Star level will never sit well with some folks. It’s actually a bit weird for me even to pivot to saying that Randle is the guy to stay over Obi. I just think the higher percentage play is to continue to bank on Brunson’s effect on Randle’s play and admit that we probably no longer need Toppin as Randle insurance. And there’s risk in going in that direction, sure.
***do we really want this management team to answer the phone when Masai calls? Leon would be smart to let it go to voicemail.***
That’s what Dolan had Steve Mills do the time Masai called to offer Lowry for Iman Shumpert?
We came close to, but didn’t cave into Danny Ainge’s super-high price for Spida. So yeah I’d be OK with Leon & co taking that call.
Yeah… but they offered RJ, MItch, and Obi plus 3 of our own unprotected 1st round picks. Trading anything is a game of skill. Not chance. If Doyle Brunson calls you to play poker, you’d be wise to tell him your kid has the flue and go compete vs someone else.
If the draft was held today, we’d pick 16 and 22.
Things we need:
1. Two-way wings, especially bigger wings that can defend 3/4
2. Stretch bigs
3. Backup PG
Things we don’t need:
1. Starting lead guard
2. Dunk-only defensive-oriented centers
3. Non-stretch PF
Jalen Williams was the 12th pick in the first round of this year’s draft and the guy who’s currently killing it and someone who i liked alot… we traded the 11th pick to OKC… Jaylin Williams was the second rd pick…
I think the FO’s biggest miscalculation so far is that they did not anticipate such ridiculous inflation in the trade market. If the Dejounte Murray and especially the Gobert trades had not resulted in such crazy returns for Utah, how would we feel about the draft pick maneuvering if we ended up getting Mitchell for, say, 2 unprotected 1sts, 2 protected 1sts + IQ+Obi+salary? We would’ve had Mitchell plus enough left over to either draft more players or make another star trade.
It was an ok plan, but not a realistic one now — ie. the 1st star in the door is not going to be via trade.
The conditions now are pretty surprising though — first, Randle is playing at a borderline top-20 player level – he is #20 in the NBA in BPM, #9 in the league in ESPN’s RPM, and his brain is again seemingly fully functional on top of his body. Who knows how sustainable this is, but basically he has been pretty consistently producing this entire season. Is he star #2, already in the door?
Brunson has been far better than I anticipated he would be, weird FT issues notwithstanding. Hard to know of course, but he should get some credit for Randle’s brain transplant.
Mitch has grown into the player we always knew he could be.
Grimes is way better than I thought he would be — not so much defensively or 3P shooting-wise since he was already doing that, but he is so obviously a quick processor on both sides of the ball that you can imagine his ceiling is even higher.
The real question is whether December RJ is the real RJ, whether there is more room for improvement. December RJ shooting splits = 46/42/74 with a TS of 57 on 27 usage. My inclination is that RJ and his lack of athleticism on both sides of the ball is the true cap on this team’s potential. Turn RJ + many picks into prime Paul George and this team would be a real contender.
I’m not sure if OG Anunoby is that guy, but certainly we need someone who can guard the Tatums/KDs/Lukas of the world. Grimes is amazing but too small for that.
this really should not be an argument… if you’re punting on the pick you’re saying everyone after was not going to be useful… or not as useful than what you got back… and no matter how you slice it… there are a bunch of useful players picked after the Incinerated pick…
enough useful players to say that it was a gross miscalculation because that many useful players will likely not come again in a random future draft…. it’s not like this shit came out of no where either when people on the internet who are looking at the draft in their spare time can figure this out instead of the people getting paid millions…..
“Sounds like they wanted more potential stabs at this year’s draft since they couldn’t trade up. Given where they were set to draft last year, I feel the Knicks played the percentages since they couldn’t trade up.”
how do those percentages look when the plan was to sign brunson? did they think they would be better or worse? better right? so would the draft have been so much deeper than last year’s lottery pick that a mid first pick would outperform that late lotto pick?
whatever calculations they were operating under…. it was pretty faulty… and it looks rather bad when a team exploited that thinking and getting immediate returns from that…
“We know they’re doing, Strat. They just suck at doing it. You’re basically trying to justify the challenger explosion by saying they were trying to launch a rocket into space.”
lol
I don’t like to comment too much on the draft because I don’t watch college ball until the tournament, don’t see enough of the players, and think the stats can be even more misleading than at the pro level. I add little to the conversation other than saying it’s always easier after the fact.
I’m on record having liked Haliburton. IMO that was a miss that turned out way worse than anyone could have anticipated. They also may have given up a little value here or there to position themselves for the future or a future deal (like for Brunson).
I understand what they are trying to do, realize that no one is perfect, and think the plan is still in motion. We haven’t launched the Challenger yet. 🙂
“Aside from all of its issues capturing the value of elite defense, I think BPM tends to undersell talented players who don’t get to handle the ball much e.g. Brunson in Dallas.”
This is where I’m coming from also.
I “try” to capture some of that just by watching a lot of basketball and focusing my attention on certain players and their skillsets. I think that helps. I’m not a coaching level expert on Xs and Os, but I think I do bring something to the table here or there just because my focus as a gambler is to try to figure what’s wrong with the metrics everyone else is looking at whether it’s basketball, horses, or something else.
I agree with the bulls on OG Anunoby. I think he’s better than he looks statistically.
“I think the FO’s biggest miscalculation so far is that they did not anticipate such ridiculous inflation in the trade market.”
I agree.
That Gobert trade especially really shook up the market.
“Whatever, I doubt that the FO will ever conclude that it has to “think like posters on KB” to do the draft right. My guess is that they will continue to consider the opportunity cost in any transaction they make”
That’s exactly correct.
If they make a pick, they have a player, but don’t have the pick.
If they roll the pick out, they don’t have the player, but they have the future pick.
There is no right path between those two options.
There is only the value of the player, the value of the future pick, and which positions you better to execute your plan. It depends on the player in this draft, how strong the future draft is expected to be/where the pick is likely to fall, and IMHO the fact that most teams would rather have a pick in a trade so they can make their own selection.
I think some people may be overvaluing making a selection now relative to having a draft pick in the future. Of course, that’s way harder to avoid doing after you get to see everyone play at an NBA level and see which players would have been better selections than anticipated at the time. 🙂
djphan, thanks for the correction. Like I said, I’m not much of a draftnik. And I was wondering why they spelled his name wrong in the draft list I was looking at!
From Raven’s article:
As Z-Man would say, let’s finally put to rest the crazy idea that it was a lousy draft. Instead, it was another incredibly stupid instance of Leon & Co trading a dollar for 25 cents.
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“Even something as small as $1 a month or $2.18 a month (2-18, get it?) helps.“
We have Jalen Brunson, Isaiah Hartenstein, and a future 1st. Let’s maybe not call that an incredible mistake as all 3 of those are valuable assets.
Frank, excellent post. I think it was incredibly naive to think we could trade for two stars even prior to the Gobert and Mitchell deals, but they pretty much buried the possibility.
I also agree that, as weird as it sounds, Randle is objectively playing like the first star right now. Even more so than he did in 2020-2021. 24-10-4 with a TS+ of 103 are numbers right there with a lot of players widely accepted to be stars.
To be clear, I think it would be quite unwise for the front office to operate under the assumption that we have the first star in the door because, well, we’ve seen that play before with regards to Randle.
But *IF* he’s able to keep up this level of play, and I will tepidly note it feels like what he’s doing now is more sustainable than what he was doing in 2020-2021 for a variety of reasons (e.g. doesn’t require shooting 41% from 3, doesn’t require taking and making tons of mid-rangers), that materially changes our position on the win curve.
Now they’re saying they doubt NASA will ever conclude they should have listened to the engineers who insisted they delay the launch.
(Which is exactly what NASA did, actually, but I digress.)
Strat, Z-Man,… the shuttle exploded, ok? It’s over. You lost this one, and you lost it badly. The rest of us are just waiting for Richard Feynman to explain it to you.
It continues to be deeply disingenuous when posters suggest that we needed to trade the 11th pick in a loaded draft to make room for Jalen Brunson. It is certifiably false.
Also to clarify:
-Whichever path is chosen re: drafting in a particular slot vs. trading up/down/out, there is always room for second-guessing. It comes down to correct valuation and execution. The Knicks FO have made both strong and weak moves in both scenarios. On balance, I’d call the results mixed.
In either case, valuation is key. I would agree that the Knicks have not been consistently good at valuing their picks in the top 20, whether by exercising them or trading them. The return on #19 (CHA pick) was lousy, the return on #32 (#34 and #36) was good; the return on the pick of Obi at #8 was lousy, the return on the pick of Grimes at #25 was good.
I agree with all who were pissed that they didn’t draft someone in the top 20 of the first round last year. But I thought the return on #11 was solid, and the return on #13 was utilitarian but not optimal.
I think it’s fair to claim that they overvalued the protected picks they received in terms of trade assets for a star. But I also think that some here have understated the value of those protected picks in future transactions relative to the most likely value of whatever player was selected at #11 or #13.
And now a very fun Katz piece in The Athletic about the Knicks. He points out that:
“Until last season, finishing inside the top 11 in both offensive and defensive efficiency (points scored/allowed per possession) may as well have been a prerequisite for winning a title.
That cutoff sounds gerrymandered (what contrarian thinks in a base-11 system?), but it’s not. There’s something about getting into the top 11 on both sides that vaults a team to contender status.
Heading into Wednesday’s action, only five teams occupied the top 11 in both offense and defense: the Boston Celtics, who own the best record in the NBA; the Brooklyn Nets, who have the second best; the Cleveland Cavaliers, who match elite scoring guards with physical paint presences; the New Orleans Pelicans, who are one game out of first in the Western Conference; and those pesky Knicks, who are vying for home-court advantage …
… in the Play-In Tournament.
The league’s per-possession data stretches back to the 1996-97 season. Dating back to then, the Knicks have never come close to finishing in the top 11 on both sides of the ball.”
(Spoiler alert — he doesn’t think they’re actual title contenders, just that they’re wildly unpredictable. It’s a good read.)
“It continues to be deeply disingenuous when posters suggest that we needed to trade the 11th pick in a loaded draft to make room for Jalen Brunson. It is certifiably false, and nearly everyone knows it.”
STRAW MAN ALERT: No one has argued that it was the only path to clearing enough space to acquiring Brunson. They didn’t NEED to, they just PREFERRED to rather than have dead cap or the negatives associated with other alternatives. You would have done things differently. Good for you! Doesn’t make the other way “wrong” or “bad.”
And we can continue to fantasize about how wonderful it would be to have either Jalen or Keon Johnson on our roster. In my book, they wouldn’t make an iota of difference over Cam Reddish.
Maybe that’s why I also mentioned Hartenstein and a 1st…
It remains disingenuous to ignore that part.
I didn’t think it needed to be addressed. All Leon has to show for the 13th pick in a loaded draft is iHart and a future Bucks pick. Do we really need to debate if this is bad?
Hubert, relax
“And we can continue to fantasize about how wonderful it would be to have either Jalen or Keon Johnson on our roster. In my book, they wouldn’t make an iota of difference over Cam Reddish.”
You’re gonna have to grapple with the fact that Leon Rose looked at the entire list of players available, including Ayo Dosunmu, Bones Hyland, Herb Jones, Santi Aldama (we could really use that guy right about now), and more and said “I prefer the shitty pick I will later trade for Cam Reddish to all of them.”
You don’t just get to cite the bad players picked after 19 and say the trade was thus all good and well. Rose preferred the shitty pick to *every single player available.*
It looked dumb as hell at the time, and has since been exposed as a train wreck.
It feels wrong to change the names you bring up when this discussion comes up again. Santi Aldama is a new one. The point is not that there aren’t good players out there in the later stages of the draft. It is that everyone has a hard time identifying them. If you look at any big board, there are incredible busts rated above useful players, and you have to live with that risk.
For me, the Charlotte pick was OK, the real mistake was trading it for Cam.
It’s a given that the draft is a crapshoot. It’s also a given that the price to get lucky is very low.
I agree with JK on the things we need (two-way wings, stretch bigs, backup PG). From those, what i think is more urgent is a backup PG. We can live with Quick, Fournier, Obi and Hart/Sims as the backups 2 through 5. Not at PG, as i think DRose is cooked, Deuce is a project and right now doesn’t look like a viable option, and Quick should only be used as a PG in case of emergency. He can handle it, but he is not a PG.
“It is that everyone has a hard time identifying them.”
that is the front office’s job… is to identify good players… that is how they’re performance is judged… but that’s not their mistake in this instance…
their mistake was that they looked at the totality of the talent available and basically said no to everyone…. and maybe if it was only one or two players that panned out after maybe you could give them that…. but this is a whole roster’s worth of useable to very very good players….
the biggest mistake with the kevin knox pick wasn’t just picking kevin knox… it was picking kevin knox in the face of a run on nba starters right after his name… that is downright embarrassing… and if you look at the names after 20 you’re looking at relatively the same thing….
this is not just some playing the percentages and we just lost…. they incinerated an opportunity… and it’s not like it’s their first incineration either…. or even their biggest mistake….. that would be the first second rd pick that got traded for literally nothing… and then the hali pick…. there’s no reason for them to get any sort of the benefit of the doubt… relative to the opportunities that they’ve had they’ve performed quite poorly….
things aren’t set in stone but the ink is drying and the jury is walking back to their seats….
They traded the 19th pick, which may have been bad, but they came out of that draft with Grimes, Duece, and Sims. How often do get 3 rotation players in one draft. They get an A in my book.
@cyber I think IQ is one of the better backup pg’s in the game right now. Especially with his improved defense and relatively low salary. Who would you rather have?
I think he is a SG that can share duties with another guard organizing the offense, but it’d be for the best to have a better playmaking PG as Brunson’s backup. Quick is our backup SG behind Grimes. Analyzing rosters around the league, i can only identify Devonte Graham as being expendable in New Orleans. He’s undersized, like Brunson, but i like him for the backup PG role. And he can electrify the crowd, so at MSG those moments would be amazing.
Graham Makes $11.5 mil/yr and is a career 35% 3 point shooter, same as Svi, and is a huge liability on D. Give me Duece and IQ over Graham and IQ any day.
And then came back a year later, looked at Jalen Williams, AJ Griffin, Tari Eason, Walker Kessler, Ochai Agbaji, Ousmane Dieng and said: “I think the best way use this pick is to shed an $9 million salary so I can sign Isaiah Harenstein to a two year contract even though he’s the not the kind of player my coach likes at center.”
Obi is back tonight!
Who did better outside of the lottery in the ’21 draft than the Knicks?
If they took Grimes at 19, Deuce at 21, Rokas at 32, and Sims at 58, they would have ended up with the same players minus the Charlotte pick and the whole “incineration” discussion never would have happened.
Let’s go Obi!
I wouldn’t send Deuce away, the trade would be Cam and Arcidiacono for Devonte. Cam is a sunk cost by now, and the Pels can try him out for the rest of the season. Arcidiacono only plays in garbage time.
gkhenman, how dare you take a holistic view to the draft! Real analysts nitpick each individual move!
Over/under on Obi’s dunks at 2.5. I’m taking the over. 😀
I just don’t give a shit if they fuck up a pick or not or make a mistake in a free agency signing or not if I feel like the totality of their moves are positive and the team is moving in the right direction overall, which it has been since rose took over. None of the moves they’ve made draft wise or free agent wise have fucked them ling term or prevent us from improving on what we currently have. So who honestly gives a shit?
It’s just such a boring discussion that we’ve had a thousand times. They fucked up a pick. Happens all the time. We still got grimes, sims and McBride out of that draft plus a future pick. We’re above 500 and got a roster full of young players. Stop talking about it and move on.
I mean aren’t we just tired of relitigating this? What does it prove? That you’re smarter than Leon rose?
Who the fuck cares?
The two teams who drafted right after us (Atlanta and Denver). The Rockets. The Jazz. The Thunder. The Pelicans.
Deuce and Sims are borderline NBA players. Rokas is not an NBA player. Grimes is a nice player who could have been taken in the 2nd round. This draft was not good no matter how you spin it.
Swifty, they are the 8th youngest team in the league and have the 7th best SRS in the league. They suck and are doomed forever!
“You don’t just get to cite the bad players picked after 19 and say the trade was thus all good and well. Rose preferred the shitty pick to *every single player available.*”
Actually, yes you do. What you don’t get to do is cherrypick who you think they should have picked, ignore all the bad players picked (especially the ones who were ranked higher then one’s preferred player on most draft boards and were passed over by even great front offices) and the actual odds of completely devaluing the pick at a given spot by picking a bad player, and then say “See? You blew it!” Not to mention all the other moves made on that night.
And if the job of a FO is to identify moves that they feel have the best chance of improving the team on whatever timeline they set. These fringy decisions aren’t really the big ones as far as I’m concerned, especially compared to deciding whether to not using a draft pick to panic-trade an all-star, or making sure you have the cap space to sign a possible all-star PG if the governor of his current team refuses a sign-and-trade, or having enough assets in tow in case you actually do want to go all in on an available superstar, or deciding NOT to go all in even when you can, or deciding to extend a guy who has mixed reviews in 7000 minutes on a rookie deal.
Anyway, the original point I was trying to make was that we have no idea what they will do on draft day 2023, so we shouldn’t make any assumptions. It wasn’t to relitigate any prior drafts. Positions have been pretty well articulated by now, so best to move on to the present and future.
Houston- Usman Garuba and Josh Christopher
Jazz- who did they get
Thunder- Robinson-Earl
Pelicans- Herb Jones
The Knicks got three rotation players and an extra 1st rounder. They did much better than any of those teams considering they didn’t pick until 19. That is not spin. That is factorial!
Grimes and Sims are in the top 15 bpm of that class. Grimes is 8, Sims 15. They knocked it out of the park!
Game thread? Obi!!!!
Deuce & Sims are more likely to be out of the league in 4 years than be mainstays in an NBA team’s rotation. Rokas may never be in the league. Grimes is a 3&D role player.
This is not some great haul. If we packaged all four of those guys, we wouldn’t find one team willing to give us a first round pick.
And I said Houston because they drafted Alperen Sengun outside the lottery.
Unless you draft an all-star with every selection Hubert thinks you fucked up your draft. He’s not worth reasoning with on this point.
We need a game thread so I can gloat over the Deuce Breakout Game.
We’re still riding Steve Mills’ horses, dude. Randle, Mitch, RJ.
With 5 first round picks, two prime second round picks, and over $90 million in cap space, Leon Rose has managed to add one horse. One. Single. Player. who can start on most NBA teams.
There’s your holistic view.
I don’t think the guy who said at the time that we didn’t have room on the roster for all these rookies should be lecturing anyone on who or what is reasonable….
I think Sims was the sleeper of the draft and could turn out to be a Ben Wallace type defender. We shall see.
Obi AND Clyde back. Feels good…
I respect your opinion, gkhenman, but I disagree. Sims is only in the rotation because Thibs is a dinosaur. Very few coaches in the modern NBA want someone on the court like him. Frankly I think even Ben Wallace would have a hard sticking in a rotation.
Quickley 23 and 8 assists per game over his last four games. Crappy point guard though.
We have Cam sitting out of our 9 man rotation despite having 3 rotation players injured. Am I really wrong about that?
wow that’s quite the effort….
Sure djphan, you make a decision on players at draft time and never change it. That’s why you think RJ is still a destined star and Grimes is garbage. Let’s ignore the fact Grimes looks like a younger Mikal Bridges with the numbers to back it up.
Let’s also ignore the fact that Hubert puts zero research or effort into his posts. Otherwise, he might notice that Agbaji is shooting 38.6% from the field and is older than Quentin Grimes but Grimes is only worth a 2nd round pick and Agbaji should be drafted in the lottery.
Obi & IQ are 5th & 6th in BPM from their draft year. We of course know who number 1 is… Grant Riller who has played 27 NBA minutes. Really fucked up that draft because there’s been 3 players who have put up better numbers so far.