Knicks Morning News (2023.01.19)

Yeah, but I think Thibs should be fired so I don’t really care about what issues he has with players. He’s a neanderthal weirdo.

The Wiz actually looked like they had something going with a young Wall and a young Beal who not only won a series but took the Celtics to 7 in the second round — but it wound up not happening. (*) It’s hard to build an NBA contender.

(*) In terms of nomenclature, even that wasn’t really “contention,” but it’s still leaps and bounds above what the Knicks have been able to put together.

Just so it’s clear, Reddish isn’t the red line. Reddish for one of Thibs’s recycled aging mercs that he whined and cried about for months on end is the red line.

“E, there’s certainly criticism to throw at Thibs, but a red line on a trade that we ship out a player that doesn’t play and we get a player that’ll be a backup at best, i agree with Noble that is kind of strange. There’s a lot of things much more important than this to draw the line.”

It will be final confirmation that nothing is ever going to change. That’s why it will be a red line. If they cave to Thibs on this after his two-year tantrum, I’m done until there’s regime change. I have no interest in purgatory behind veterans and recycled mercs and a weirdo meddling coach and an iso-heavy primitive offense. Others’ mileage of course will vary.

We all have our memories, but I recall him getting lit up in the playoffs as Thibs got badly outcoached and then Thibs lobbying for him in the press and then whining to the press when he signed elsewhere.

He’s one of Thibs’s guys which rubs off on his reputation with me. Is what it is.

Let’s please not pretend Tom Thibodeau isn’t an obsessive personality.

Anything or anyone that shows that Tom Thibodeau has any influence on the personnel of this team is quite likely to wind up persona non grata in these parts. Again, is what it is.

The Knicks aren’t going to contend with Tom Thibodeau around and I therefore want Tom Thibodeau gone. Don’t care about his tweaks, don’t care about him “doing more with less,” don’t care about his marginal wins, don’t care about him “wisely shortening the rotation,” just don’t care. If anything, I affirmatively don’t want those things, because they block or get in the way of actual contention.

Why would a team give up a player who doesn’t suck and who has a “team-friendly contract” in exchange for a player who sucks?

Whatever delta Reggie Bullock would bring — I’ll assume without really believing that there will be one — is pointless anyway. If not counterproductive.

There is no point to these incremental improvements that bring marginal wins. None, zero, zilch, nada. (I thought there was something like at least factional KB consensus on this one.) I do agree that they serve as content and discussion fodder during a long NBA season where not a lot goes on, so let’s discuss by all means — but in basketball terms, they’re completely pointless. If not counterproductive.

“Now that bench scoring has been exposed as a desperate, desperate need, ”

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“Exposed” isn’t really it. It was *always the case* that the “nine-man rotation” was filled with mediocre or poor players and wasn’t going to work. It was never the cause of the better team play and could not have been. It is never the case that playing worse players leads to better play.

But that obvious fact was shouted down and now the down shouters have lurched into the next thing, which is that the stupid rotation — that was *always stupid* — needs augmenting.

Consistency is the better course. When you find yourself arguing that the insertion of Jericho Sims and Miles McBride into the rotation, and playing Jericho Sims and Isaiah Hartenstein together, turned an NBA team’s fortunes around, it’s best to stop and reassess.

I also think we should use this opportunity to really see what we have in Obi. Some people think we’re not utilizing his talents well while others think he’s just bad. I’m more in the former camp, but regardless let’s find out. Get him 10+ FGA per game and see what happens.

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Of course this is what they should do, but they don’t have the right head coach for such a thing.

The Mavs went to the Western Conference Finals last year. Please stop imagining that the Knicks have done something like this, or are in any danger of doing so in the foreseeable future.

Outside of fantasyland, nothing is happening here that warrants any kind of condescension toward any other organization in the association, much less one that was in the final four less than a year ago — the same organization that less than five years ago heisted away probably the best player in the league for a mere one extra unprotected one. The Knicks aren’t even the Wizards.

Nothing is happening here. No one outside small, dreamy factions of the Knicks fanbase thinks it is. There’s nothing here. Nothing’s bubbling up, they aren’t on the runway, no one is looking on with awe or wonder or fear at what the Knicks are “building.”

Not that I really care, and it could have been Father Time coming early — but D. Rose was never really the same after Thibs ran him into the ground in the Hawks series.