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87 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2023.01.23)”
Will Randle and/or Brunson be all stars if the team keeps losing spots in the standings?
Nope and it’s not just spots in the standings. The idea was that their play has improved the team from last year…but last year after 48 games we were 23-25.
Unfortunately cyber, neither guy is gonna make it- even though they are deserving of those spots. They have been better than a few players who will probably get voted in ahead of them because the voting structure is still stupid. I propose a 55/45 split where the coaches, media and players votes account for 55% and the fans account for 45%. That feels like it would balance out the “popularity contest” aspect of the voting. To make up for the fans vote being weighted less, the split voting should account for 10 spots, and the other 2 should be decided by the fans. I think it makes for a nice story if for example, a beloved player is retiring or on his last legs. Or if a deserving player is likely to get snubbed.
On to the coach. I’m a Thibs supporter, but he doesn’t escape my criticism. I will always say I’m a fan, but if he’s not doing the job- he needs to go. That said..there is no defending Thibs for yesterday. Obi was the most engaged and effective that he’s been since returning from injury, and you only give him 11 minutes? I don’t give a flying fuck what kind of numbers Randle was putting up- FIND A WAY TO USE OBI WHEN HE HAS IT GOING! Especially against a team that doesn’t play a true Center. Both Hartenstein and Fournier played more minutes than Obi..while Obi was the most effective player out of the 3.
Nah bruh..this ain’t it. The decision to play Obi yesterday would have been too easy to make and too much like right..but ohhhhhh no..Thibs had to template coach again. WTF? Does he not feel the rhythm of the game? He can’t possibly be that out of touch. If he truly is..fire him immediately. He is coaching like he knows he’s a dead man walking and he wants to die on his shield. Just stupid. It does not help his resume, the players, or the organization. I am thisclose to letting go of the rope with Thibs..I really am
We all knew coming into the season that this would likely be around a .500 team. But the way in which they’re doing it is so strange and frustrating, with all these streaks where they either look really solidly built (albeit not a contender) or like an utter mess that should be blown up.
Playing Obi so little last night, when he finally was hot after such a brutal stretch, is professional malpractice on the part of Thibs.
Leon has to make a trade soon. A roster with two guys (Svi and Ryan) not good enough to play, one guy (Cam) Thibs will never play, one guy (Evan) who will play in emergencies but really doesn’t fit with the rest of the team, and one guy (Rose) who may also play in emergencies but appears utterly cooked, is not built to withstand injuries — especially when several guys in the rotation like iHart and Deuce are contributing so little at one or both ends.
As I’ve said 1,000 times, Thibs isn’t obsessed with winning any more than every other coach. He’s just obsessed with rigidity, and it makes him incapable of reading a game and adjusting to what’s in front of him.
Erik Spoelstra is obsessed with winning. That’s why he’s always trying new things to find an edge. Thibs is just Rock. Rock. Rock. Rock.
So almost everyone Leon has acquired is worthless. But we should let him keep trying.
I don’t want this guy trading one single asset for this team. We’re already using a 6 man rotation to cover up his ineptitude. I see no reason to waste the future on it.
Hubert, I think you have to accept that we are stuck with Leon for at least another season after this one, if not two.
Also, not that I am in any way a fan of his or his team-building philosophy, but the guy also brought in Brunson, IQ, and Grimes, traded for DRose in a season where Rose arguably turned out to be our most important player, etc. He’s made some absolutely maddening moves, but they haven’t all been useless.
Obviously, not having Mitch and Quick was part of the problem against Toronto last night, but something else is going on lately. The defense is lacking energy and urgency or teams are finding ways to attack it and move the ball to beat it.
Hubert,
At this point I think issue with Cam is almost certainly personal. Thibs went from trusting him to close to games to putting him in jail. IMO that doesn’t happen because a player had one bad game. Either Cam did something wrong (hungover, late to practice etc…..) or they had some harsh words, but imo this is not just about basketball.
Poindexter, you must be Thibs’ last supporter, you hang in there because he needs you! 😉 😀
Hey, what do you mean? I’m also (Indie) Rock. (Alternative) Rock. (Punk) Rock. 😀
Yeah, and we don’t know if we should feel optimistic because of the former, or pessimistic because of the latter. I will call it The yoyo season. 😉
At this point I think issue with Cam is almost certainly personal. Thibs went from trusting him to close to games to putting him in jail. IMO that doesn’t happen because a player had one bad game. Either Cam did something wrong (hungover, late to practice etc…..) or they had some harsh words, but imo this is not just about basketball.
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Almost certainly true. This kind of conflict and inability to get along with other people and to always have some kind of problem with them — be they “subordinates,” colleagues, or more senior management — has been a consistent theme of Thibs’s career from Day One.
I’m not remotely seeing what you get in exchange for all that drama and baggage.
I agree with Strat that Cam doesn’t play for reasons beyond basketball. With the way Fournier was playing yesterday (very bad), there was no way Cam could play worse. He didn’t play because Thibs is not going to play him at all. Let’s just trade him and move on.
And what about Thibs? Are we stuck with him too, for the time being?
It’s hard to assemble a long-term winner when you handle the draft as poorly as Leon has. We gave away two first round picks and got pretty much nothing in return, and whiffed on a lottery pick since he’s been here. His record with free agents is, shall we say, a mixed bag at best.
We’re in year three of the experiment and almost half of the roster can’t get on the floor. There have been some moves that have panned out, which is why we’re not terrible, but Leon Rose is the road to mediocrity.
When everybody is healthy and Randle is playing like an All-Star, the team is pretty fun. When a couple of guys go down with injuries, it becomes clear very quickly what a smoke and mirrors act we’re doing here. Thibs probably saved his job going to a playoff rotation in December but that is proving to be unsustainable.
Alan, I’m not saying we should fire him (although I would be elated if we did).
I just believe we just need to let this team be for 82 games and see who they are at the end of it. If this roster is good, it will be revealed. If this roster is rotten, that will show, too, and then we can reassess.
Right now Thibs is using a band aid (the 6 man rotation) on a bullet wound (Leon’s roster). He can’t do that forever.
At the end of the day, this is a sub-par roster in the current EC. Let’s give BOS, MIL, BKN, CLE and PHI a bye and just consider how to compare to the following teams that are battling for 6-12 position: MIA, ATL, CHI, IND, CHI, WAS, TOR. Where do we have a major advantage over any of those rosters? Either in our “stars”, the rest of the starting lineup, 6th man, rest of bench…in each category we are at best slightly better than any of our competitors and often much worse.
We have 34 games left. We’ll likely go at best 4-8 in the next 12, which will bring us to the ASB and should have Mitch back after that. That would bring us to 29-31 with 22 games left. Looking at the schedule, seems like going 12-10 is a best case scenario if we are healthy and without major roster moves before the deadline. That would make us 41-41.
This is at best a .500 team as currently constructed. And it’s quite possible that the Vegas 38.5 number and an 11th place finish rears its head by March.
Sorry to be all Debbie Downer, but that’s what it looks like from here. Hope I’m wrong!
And Steve Mills brought in Randle, Mitch, and Barrett. 3 years ago. Plus he acquired the draft picks that were used for IQ and Grimes in the Morris & Porzingis trades, respectively.
I didn’t think it was possible to ride Steve Mills’ coattails, but here we are with one good player Leon has acquired without help from his predecessor in three seasons.
It’s impossible to deny: we’re only half decent because of Mills and Perry.
So it appears that Jonathan Isaac is going to try to play basketball again today. I can’t think of any player who missed over 2 1/2 years and came back any good. Even Bernard with his endless rehab wasn’t out that long. Curious to see if Isaac, who was establishing himself as a consistently dominant presence, is able to just pick up where he left off, back when my kids were still kids and I had hair.
[edit to add: I didn’t realize that Isaac tore his hamstring while recovering from a broken ACL. Makes me wonder whether his faith was tested at all. Maybe Jesus wanted him to take that knee after all?]
As to long-term projections, I’m less down on the way they have handled the past 3 drafts than many here, and am still patiently awaiting opening day 2023 to pass judgment on this FO. There will be a lot of disappointment across the league after this season and I am predicting a very active off-season where lots of big names will change teams. The Core 6 we are playing now are pretty good. If a big name or two is added, things can change rapidly.
But if we go into next season with a similar roster and the same coach, I’ll be very disappointed.
“And Steve Mills brought in Randle, Mitch, and Barrett. 3 years ago. Plus he acquired the draft picks that were used for IQ and Grimes in the Morris & Porzingis trades, respectively.”
Are you saying that you have to be patient before fully assessing a FO?
Overall, I think Thibs is doing an excellent job this season. I actually don’t criticize Thibs; I criticize the crazy things people give him credit for.
Like “Thibs is obsessed with winning” more than any other NBA coach.
Like this insane idea that the Knicks defense is good not because Mitch is excellent (in fact, “Mitch is stupid”, we’ve been told). It’s because Thibs knows all the strengths and weaknesses of every shooter in the NBA and has created a “notoriously complex system” that “funnels” 3PAs to spots where shooters are bad at making them.
Thibs is a fine coach doing a fine job. He’s just not the Messiah some people make him out to be.
It’s been lamented on this site many times, but drafting SGA in 2018 instead of Kevin Knox would have completely altered the trajectory of this franchise. SGA is now a bona fide superstar (might be better than Ja) and we’d be a perennial playoff team with him on the roster
It’s the mistake that keeps on gut punching….
D-Mar – We don’t dwell on old mistakes around here. Just not what we do.
@Donnie: Maybe Klay Thompson? He didn’t play in 2019-20 and 2020-21, and he missed the first 38 games of the 2021-22 season. And in the end of his returning season he was a NBA Champion! 😉
I hope you’re right, but do you feel confident that Leon can pull it off?
Not at all. Steve Mills sucked. I’m saying that Leon has done a worse job than a guy who did a terrible job.
The best thing Leon did (for himself, anyway) is hire Thibs bc Thibs is disaster insurance. It doesn’t matter what crap you give him, he’ll never let your team be embarrassing like Fizdale’s.
I stuck up for Thibs yesterday, and I should clarify that while I do believe Thibs is a good coach in a vacuum, he’s a terrible fit for this team. Thibs is a coach that can get a maxed out team to overachieve in the RS with great defense and thereby get better playoff seeing.
However, Thibs is a terrible coach for this team because he ends up aligning perfectly with Dolan’s purgatorial imperatives. We’d be better served by minimizing instead of maximizing wins so that we can maximize our chances at drafting the kind of elite talent we’ve managed to avoid for the last 50 years. For the longterm perspective, I’d rather have Fizdale.
Ooo, Pagliacci, how fleeting are our memories. Fitz was a moronic embarrassment. Sure we’d lose a ton more games with him on the sidelines, but I for one would have to not only stop watching but stop reading (and probably take a year off this site) if he were there. Maybe that’d be the best thing for the team’s future, but it’d be sad.
Plus the damage he could do might be long-lasting in the locker room. And we’d probably get the 4th pick in a three-man lottery and end up with Kevin Knox III.
The struggle I’ve been having with this season is that we so easily could have ~10 more wins (and similarly less losses). Those wins might be all Thibsian smoke and mirrors, but it would surely be a different view of things so much further up the hill. Instead we’ve found fascinating and infuriating ways to lose, over and over again.
I’m kind of okay with a team that falls behind by 10 and struggles hard to lose by 10. I am not okay with a team that gets up by 20 and loses by 10. It’s still a .500 team, but one that grinds my molars.
Yesterday i forgot to answer your comment, so here it goes… Welcome Pagliacci, and very good that you decided to join the party and contribute to the discussion. 🙂 You’re now in the run for KB rookie of the year! 😀
I feel exactly the same…
Plus, I wanted Thibs fired a year ago and I’m looking ahead to the day he go away but Fizdale no, with his dungeons and “eat what you kill” and other nonsenses. Fizdale just no.
Does anyone have Fubo TV? If so, do you recommend it? I’m still looking for a way to watch Knicks games while I’m in the US.
IMHO the best coach for a rebuilding team is a young, promising assistant from another team who will be thrilled to coach whatever personnel he has and not get whiny and stubborn, unlike retreads like Thibs and D’Antoni. Sadly, that involves too much risk for Leon.
No more lurking for you, Pagliacci. You write too well to lurk.
My vote is still on Becky. Let’s make history.
I don’t like Rui Hachimura much, but 3 second-round picks? I would’ve considered meeting that price. I guess we’re low on seconds after we had to use them all to dump Alec Burks, who we now want back.
The rumors about Grayson Allen are rubbing me the wrong way…
Rui isn’t all that good and plays the same position, back-up to Randle, that Obi does, and Obi’s not allowed more than 11 minutes on the court. Outside of re-arranging the deck chairs, I don’t see that changing the Titanic’s path at all, plus even less Obi, which is even more depressing.
As has been said, what we need is a rangy, long wing who can hit threes and play D, or an explosive (preferably over 6′ 3″) point guard who can also play D. You know, like Haliburton (sob).
Both would make me a little sad as most of my current enjoyment, if I can stretch the term, is watching our bevy of little guys (Grimes, IQ, Deuce) scurry about doing cool things, and they’d be on the sidelines. But still, if we’re actually doing a trade to improve the team rather than just to make a trade, those are our immediate needs.
Speaking of enjoyment, I mostly just watched Sims last night. He’s not always in the right position, but goddamn it he’s entertaining.
Have to agree with Hubert on Thibs. He is just stubborn and inflexible to a fault. Banishing Cam is really mind boggling to me. They are paying him $5 million a year and he could help the team especially on defense. A better coach would just discipline him and move on. Didn’t Svi start for Toronto parts of last season? If you don’t think he can play, why is he on the roster? Can he be that much worse than Duece?
Grayson Allen? I just threw up my lunch a little.
Now that would be the cherry on top of the incinerate gate.
Just thinking about how we would justify rooting for Grayson.
Grayson Allen’s a turd.
I have the impression that benching Reddish, Rose, Fournier and even Obi has more to do with trade talks rather than Thibs’ schemes.
Avoiding injuries and letting opposing managers dream big instead of exposing players’ weaknesses is a possibility imo
I hope Mike Breen reads this blog. Spot on take here about the foul on RJ in the last Raps game.
https://twitter.com/TheKnicksWall/status/1617318618878087168
“Does anyone have Fubo TV? If so, do you recommend it? I’m still looking for a way to watch Knicks games while I’m in the US.”
I use it, and it’s fine. I think the price has gone up a bit, and I don’t watch much else on there except for some college games. But the service and picture is nice. Also, you can pause your subscription during the entire offseason, which is very nice.
Grayson Allen gives me Danny Ainge (the player) vibes. No thanks.
(that said, like Ainge, he’s a pretty good player)
Rui is a good move by the Lakers, nice backup PF and emergency starter if AD tweaks his musculature again
can’t think of my most despised knick player in my entire fandom…but grayson allen would be by far the most if he ever came here….what a pos that guy is ….
The scheme of dropping and giving up the midrange on the PnR or a skip pass for a contested three doesn’t work now that Mitch is out for a prolonged period of time. Especially, with players like Murray/Young and FVV orchestrating the point of attack. If we don’t switch a lot more, we will be out of the pay-in tournament by Valentine Day.
Also, limiting Randle dribbling and posting, removing green light to chuck low percentage shots for both RJ and IQ is on Thibs too. Sit them when they make these poor decisions otherwise they’re never going to learn. Not about the offense, (we score enough points) its that these turnovers, bad decisions and long rebounds usually lead to fast break points on the other side. Also, its OK to sit Randle on a night he’s struggling with both decision making and shooting to play a hot Obi an extra 8-10 minutes.
We may have two All-Stars, two do it all versatile Swiss Army knives in IQ and RJ, two elite high level specialty role players that fit in perfectly in Mitch and Grimes. Two elite open floor running type finishers in Obi and Cam. In other words, this team is better than .500 as a collection of talent. Coaching matters more than ever nowdays as the league has become smarter and more efficient, the difference in winning/loosing is often in small details and quick decision making.
When was the last time we can say that we won becuase Thibs put on a coaching master class? – or even a junior level coaching clinic?
Agree with both your points, Z–Man (and sign of the apocalypse, in agreement with E, too!).
Rui made no sense for the Knicks, makes decent sense for the Lakers.
I don’t even know what to think about this line:
“Here’s every player who ranks above Randle in real plus-minus wins: Tatum, Luka, Jokic, and LeBron.”
I’ve always like Rui, but does that mean AD is coming back to play center? Why trade for a backup 4 otherwise when you could’ve gotten better shooters/defenders than Rui?
ess, because Rui is cheap, available and expiring. This is totally a win-now build-a-bench move.
The Grayson Allen stuff is silly because, whether you want to root for him or not, he’s a key rotation player for one of the best teams in the NBA. The fact that the Knicks have been asking for him in Cam trades is effectively meaningless. They’re not dealing him for Cam.
Don’t get me wrong, I bet Allen does get traded, but in a deal for a clear upgrade, not for Cam Reddish.
I have the impression that benching Reddish, Rose, Fournier and even Obi has more to do with trade talks rather than Thibs’ schemes. Avoiding injuries and letting opposing managers dream big instead of exposing players’ weaknesses is a possibility imo
make enough qwertys and every possible take will exist somewhere
deandre ayton has fewer blocks than kyrie and has made fewer free throws than new friend of the show grayson allen. it feels like an under-reported cba story that he might be on strike.
“Here’s every player who ranks above Randle in real plus-minus wins: Tatum, Luka, Jokic, and LeBron.”
I know Randle has warts but is there a player who has burned more calories on the court this year? (cue the empty calorie remarks…)
Seriously, the lazy closeouts and other bloopers are glaring, but Randle is running and muscling his ass off mostly all game, every game…and never, ever begs out for that load management bullshit (except for last year’s phony thigh injury to give Obi minutes.)
I wish they would rest him more because his shooting has definitely dropped off, but in 11 January games the guy is averaging 25-15-5 in over 38 mpg.
Every game AD has started this season, he has started at center. He’s definitely the center (although i suspect we’ll see some Twin Towers lineups in the game with him and Bryant sharing the court). So adding a guy who can hit threes to play the four makes sense, I think. Especially since they will have his cap hold so they can go out, sign a big free agent with Westbrook’s money and then resign Rui.
IIRC, Steve Mills was fired precisely because he refused to trade Marcus Morris for the pick that became IQ.
It’s not that Thibs has a 9-man rotation. It’s that Thibs has a 6-man rotation with 3 interchangeable scrubs at the 7-9 spots but he refuses to “interchange” them no matter what the game situation.
Maybe there’s some truth to the “don’t play him until after the trade deadline” angle, but it’s not like you’d be risking some massive return on Cam or Rose.
I remember people arguing that we shouldn’t trade Morris for a pick. Which seems, still, like one of the craziest positions ever taken on this board.
If Thibs was The coach who fell to earth right before this season I’d say that benching Rose and co could be normal.
But knowing “Knicks-Thibs” pretty well don’t allow me to believe that he just ignores his favourite DRose while also benches his last season 18m-starter-shooting guard and his 2 heavily played during the start of the season ultra athletic wings…
I mean…Really?
cyber,
Regardless of what the picture says..I am secretly Jonathan Macri in my support of Thibs LOL
LOL
No Durant for the Nets game and there’s at least a legit chance they miss Tatum and Mitchell.
Thanks Ess-dog
Mitchell was just upgraded to probable for tomorrow.
Hartenstein is going to be critical in this stretch with Mitch out. He’s pretty much the only player on the team I expected more from than he’s delivering. Everyone else is either performing to my expectations or exceeding them. He’s not the defender I thought he’d be and so far we have him shooting floaters because they tend to lead to more OREBs, but he hasn’t been any good at them. At some point you have to throw in the towel on a strategy when player doesn’t have the skillset. I wish I had seen more of him last year so I’d have a stronger opinion on what he should be doing in these lineups, but I’m pretty sure floaters isn’t it.
“If Thibs was The coach who fell to earth right before this season I’d say that benching Rose and co could be normal.”
I’m in the minority. I think Rose still has something left. It was fairly likely it was going to take him a little time to get rolling this year after missing so much time last year. But he wasn’t getting consistent enough minutes this year and then was benched.
I think one of two things is going to happen.
Either they are going to trade him to contender or Thibs plan all along was to save him for a bench role at the end of the season. I have to think he’s going to be paroled very soon if he doesn’t get traded.
This ATL-CHI game is entertaining…
Man, the Bulls really turned on the injury to Lonzo Ball. They were seriously, like, the #1 team in the East when he got hurt, and they’ve been under .500 since. Just crazy.
Yeah, but they looked really good tonight. Patrick Williams and Caruso were big time.
That’s what I mean, though, if they still had Ball, I think they might be a legit contender. Without him, they’re not awful, but man, all that wasted potential, and it also kind of irks me to see a GM make a bold move and have it all fall apart over an injury to a young guy. It’s just sad to see, especially since I’m such a big fan of GMs making bold moves.
What’s the knicksiest outcome for the season? Lose the play-in game while the lolKings go to the finals?
I think the Knickiest outcome would be to miss the play-in game by a game, but still being ahead of the the two Western Conference teams that lose in the play-in games, so only getting the #12 pick.
And trading a 1st away for a vet to do it
Actually, correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t there a scenario where the Knicks can be tied with the #9 and #10 seeds, but miss the play-in game due to a tie-breaker? And then if those two teams both miss the playoffs, the Knicks would split the lottery balls three-way with those two other teams, but then there would be a series of coin flips to see who is “officially” the #12 pick, the #13 pick and the #14 pick, and so the Knicks could theoretically lose both of those coin flips and pick #14 (if the Eastern Conference teams all finish ahead of the Western Conference play-in teams).
There’s still a Knicksier outcome available!
….And for Thibs to get a 5-year extension…
Yeah, losing Ball in such a strange manner is crazy weird. He’s exactly what they would need to be a serious contender. But even without him, they seem to have a better roster than their record. Not that LaVine seems healthier and there’s more daylight between now and that dustup with Donovan, I could see the going on a run and ending up in the 6 seed…they are only 3 games out!
And that’s the thing…there isn’t a whole lot of daylight between the rosters of the Heat, Hawks, Bulls and probably the Raptors. On paper, they should take the 6-9 seeds…I kind of felt that way going into the season and now that we lost Mitch for this key stretch it seems like we will be right where we were widely predicted to be….fighting WAS for that 10 seed.
This year’s Raptors team reminds me a lot of the 2020-21 team, where everything went wrong and they missed the play-in game with a team that was clearly better than its record. They then followed that up with 48 wins the following year. I think they’ll end up pivoting to next year soon, hoping to do well in this nice upcoming draft, and we’ll see a similar return for Toronto next year (their recent results have also shown the importance of Barnes not being actively shitty like he has been for a large amount of this season so far).
I am not saying that the Knicks will be much higher than #10, but I still think the Knicks are going to safely end up in the Top 10. Especially with the Pacers freefalling.
By the way, hilariously, the Knicks have recently moved up the rankings on offense! They’re now juuuuuuuuuuuust barely #5 (it’s essentially a tie, but still, they’re #5).
Defense, though, is down to a literal tie for #13.
Which is especially hilarious when you look at scores like 133-100, 147-127, and 150-130 (all last night, and all in regulation).
I think we’re better than we look right now, and we’re also worse than we look when we are on a long winning streak. I think i saw some comment on how we could reach the Cavs during one of the winning streaks. We’re not that good. But we’re not as bad as we look right now. That’s it.
I think we have good players 1 to 6, the starters plus IQ. We just need to wait for a trade that turns 2 of these players (and a lot of picks) in 1 superstar, and we might have something here. Will that superstar be available and can we win the sweepstakes to get him? That’s the question we don’t know the answer yet.
Just as an example, everybody here was saying Fox was a bad player to build around and that the Kings should tear it down again and tank. They made a trade for Sabonis and that seems to have stabilize them. We just need to not panic. I would prefer if we did a proper rebuild, but right now the plan is underway and we must keep trying to get the star that we lack.
And we’re already assuming we’ll go down like a rock, but we’re still 7th and i’m hopeful the team can surprise again. A win tonight, meaning that we’d win the regular season series against the Cavs, is exactly what we need to build confidence. I believe we can do it, who’s with me?
Anyone want to a good use of the term purgatory, this article is a nice example.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2023/01/24/wizards-trade-rui-hachimura/
And Cyber, we can beat ANYone.
For 2-3 quarters…
Almost there then. 😉 We’re good for 3 quarters, we need to improve and do it the whole game. But to do that i think we need a closer/clutch player. Maybe in the summer we can get that guy.