[news.google.com] — Monday, January 30, 2023 6:00:00 AM
Should the Cleveland Cavaliers pursue a trade for this Knicks player? King James Gospel
[news.google.com] — Sunday, January 29, 2023 10:41:00 PM
Knicks’ Tom Thibodeau urges Quentin Grimes to keep shooting despite struggles New York Post
[news.google.com] — Sunday, January 29, 2023 9:57:08 PM
BB-Great? Knicks Can Bolster Shooting With Trade For Bojan Bogdanovi? Sports Illustrated
[news.google.com] — Sunday, January 29, 2023 7:41:00 PM
Knicks looking to clean up perimeter defense after concerning outing versus Nets New York Post
[news.google.com] — Sunday, January 29, 2023 7:12:00 PM
Kevin Love scratched late against Los Angeles Clippers, will be inactive for another game cleveland.com
[news.google.com] — Sunday, January 29, 2023 6:41:17 PM
This Raptors-Knicks trade sends OG Anunoby to New York Raptors Rapture
[news.google.com] — Sunday, January 29, 2023 5:52:56 PM
LeBron James, Anthony Davis out for Lakers vs. Nets as Knicks back-to-back looms Yahoo Sports
[news.google.com] — Sunday, January 29, 2023 5:00:00 PM
Robinson’s absence proves why the New York Knicks re-signed him Daily Knicks
[news.google.com] — Sunday, January 29, 2023 10:13:22 AM
Nets 122, Knicks 115: “Sheesh” Posting and Toasting
[news.google.com] — Sunday, January 29, 2023 10:10:56 AM
Do the Knicks and Tom Thibodeau have a playoff mandate? AMNY
[news.google.com] — Sunday, January 29, 2023 8:00:00 AM
3 trades the Knicks need to make to strengthen bench unit Daily Knicks
68 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2023.01.30)”
RJ is truly a unique conundrum.
The traditional advanced metrics say he’s still a pretty below average player. But since December 1, he’s been playing extraordinarily well.
He’s improved his midrange greatly this year with that weird floater and is even starting to hit more passes.
But what is truly strange is how he has been in the 92nd percentile of shot creation at the rim over that time span. RJ really is an ELITE shot creator! (creator mind you, not finisher). That is definitely LeBron territory.
In fact, he’s also now top-ten in “Kobe assists” (joining Randle at #3!), which is a stat for amount of teammates’ made shots after a player’s misses. While much of that is clearly due to Mitch’s elite offensive rebounding, there is still a lot to be said for RJ’s ability to take his man to the rim.
And as many here have said, at only 22 years old, there is still room for him to improve his craft at the rim, especially with a master like Brunson on the team.
But his swing skill is still going to be his 3-pt shot IMO. He’s at 40% since Dec 1, and that really opens up his game.
I really hope he works on that and his finishing moves next offseason because we need him to be an efficient scorer sooner rather than later. But that said, I’m seeing hope for this kid more than I have in a long, long time.
“The Knicks have a 126 DRTG since Mitch went down. The worst team in the NBA has a 120.5 DRTG on the season.”
Of course we miss him, as we should given that we are paying him $17M this year. But that wasn’t the premise of my post. Mitch’s main replacement is probably the worst starting C in the NBA, and yet we just beat the Celts and Cavs and are 6-7 overall in games without him.
Replacing him would be a lot easier than replacing Randle, Brunson, or even IQ.
RJ is a confounding player.
Shams:
More Shams trade scuttlebutt here: https://theathletic.com/4136200/2023/01/30/nba-trade-deadline-rumors-raptors-bucks-suns-crowder/
If it is, as we’ve talked about, one or both of this year’s picks, or this year’s pick and then one of the protected picks, I’m down. But I’m not giving up a future unprotected pick for OG.
I’m surprised they are still looking at OG with RJ’s resurgence, but maybe they want to try RJ at the 2 and move Grimes to the bench?
I have actually come full circle and decided that RJ is probably better suited as a 3. Yes, he gets his shots blocked a lot, but at least he’s able to turn the corner on some 3s and likely wont be able to do that against 2s.
We really do need a shot of perimeter defense, though, but I was thinking something smaller like a Thybulle trade.
We just saw literally none of the protected picks being involved in the Knicks’ last and best offer for Mitchell (which, of course, bizarrely was not actually what they considered to be their last and best offer despite telling Utah that it was), so I would think that if they’re talking “first round picks,” they’re probably talking the Knicks’ own picks (with perhaps the Dallas pick thrown in, as well).
Honestly, I don’t think Toronto is that good and they need depth and more young players. It’s at least 50:50 Masai decides to do a tear down. But that doesn’t mean we will get Anunoby. Our management team seems unlikely to overpay and we could easily be outbid by another team.
Grimes is more of a bench player anyway, so it makes sense. I totally see why people like him and root for him, but that’s kind of what he is in cold hard fact.
RJ is very, very good at getting to the rim. As I’ve bored everyone to tears in saying, the metrics and the numbers are secondary to and downstream from the underlying skill. Looks like the numbers and metrics are starting to respond to and reflect the underlying skill that’s there.
To piggy pack onto Shams, the Raptors’ Athletic beat writer went through the four options and paths available to the team at the trade deadline. In the “tear it down” path he had OG going to the Knicks for Rose, Quickley, both 23s and an unprotected 25.
That’s too much.
That’s WAY too much. Annouby is a nice player, but 3 unprotected firsts? Cmon.
AND Quickley. Hard goddamn pass.
I wouldn’t trade Quick straight up for Anunoby.
The 3 picks and Quickley idea is a pipe dream that I have to think we’d reject out of hand. I don’t know that I’d trade Quickley alone for OG in a world where that was doable under the cap, and I like OG.
Having said that, OG would stabilize our team in some important ways and I’m not opposed to making a reasonable trade for him. Masai and I likely disagree on what’s reasonable, but I thiiiiiiiink I’d be comfortable with 2 unprotected picks as long as the only salary going out was pure filler e.g. Fournier.
My preference would be to trade RJ and nothing else for him, but I don’t think Masai goes for that.
In the “tear it down” path he had OG going to the Knicks for Rose, Quickley, both 23s and an unprotected 25.
i would consider this assault and retain counsel. fortunately i have already made inquiries after djphan suggested trading quickley for mo bamba last week.
“Replacing him would be a lot easier than replacing Randle, Brunson, or even IQ.”
Not sure this is the case. Mitch is the team leader in EPM, which Seth Partnow said on a recent Dunc’d On pod is considered the gold standard among front offices right now.
We would struggle to replace any of these guys for sure, such is the nature of a shallow team like ours. But I could see a scenario where we’d be better off accounting for the offensive dropoff associated with losing one of these guys than we are dealing with the defensive cliff-falling we’re dealing with sans Mitch.
RJ, OG and Grimes would be a pretty fantastic group of wings to move forward with in a league that keeps trending more and more towards that sort of player. Grimes would almost certainly come off the bench for now but OG can definitely play the 4 and Brunson-Grimes-RJ-OG-Mitch is a lineup that would make a lot of non-Thibs coaches salivate about a post-Randle version of this team.
now i’m really curious about what people think IQ’s market value is because apparently OG is not enough and a trade for mo bamba requires restraining orders…
is quickley going to get more than OG’s 4/72? or more than Ball’s 4/80? am i reading these comments right?
Would we include Grimes in the OG deal?
Say ‘23 unprotected, Dallas pick, Grimes and filler.
Isn’t OG essentially a rich man’s Grimes at the 3?
I’d be intrigued by both 23s and Grimes and that’s not even figuring in that they’re probably going to just somehow char one of the 23s anyway.
There are other paths to take that are probably better, but going forward with the current nucleus switching out OG for Grimes and re-signing Quickley isn’t terrible by any means.
in theoretical trades for OG.. it makes much more sense for RJ to move to the bench… it’s really hard if not impossible to support 4 guys in a lineup with usages over 20 and if you’re investing any sort of capital for OG you don’t really want to subvert your own deal by burying him and relegating him to catch and shoot opps….
but that’s what we did with our lotto pick and our second biggest fa so maybe we’re not beyond doing that again….
Quick has had such a tale of two seasons this season that it’s really hard to say what his market value is. If he ends the season with something like his current line, he’s probably an MLE guy. But in his last 20ish games he’s around 17/4/3 with a 61-62 TS%, so if he keeps doing that then sure, you’re looking at something more like the OG/Ball deals.
Just watch OG go to another team for a lesser package. I really feel like other GMs’ attitudes are “let’s first try to fleece the Knicks and then move on to different team”
I agree that at this point in his career Grimes is a backup-level player. He’s a pretty good defender and a pretty good shooter with pretty good other qualities. But starting 2 is a critical position in this league.
Personally, I’d pass on OG. Ujiri is just another version of Ainge in that he won’t make a deal that isn’t a clear winner for him.
Just stand pat unless someone else offers a lower-cost upgrade. If you are going to use major draft capital, it should be for a star, not a “sort of elite” role player like OG. Ujiri knows this, he finds guys like OG in the draft, not via lopsided trades.
Ainge tried to fleece the Knicks but wound up fleecing the Cavs even worse instead.
I wonder if the Cavs would have been better off keeping Markkanen and trading Mobley at peak value.
Masai Ujiri team building strategy:
1) Fleece Knicks
I’m pretty sure you could get Mo Bamba for a bag of peanuts. He’s getting regular DNPs on the Magic. I guess the interest in him has always been partially because he’s a NY kid but he’s a total stiff.
https://theathletic.com/4137691/2023/01/30/knicks-nba-teams-trade-deadline-targets/
Some interesting ideas in here I hadn’t seen before. I like the idea of seeing if we can squeeze a pick out of Charlotte by relieving them of Hayward.
Isaac might be available from the Magic if we want to take a gamble.
I do not want Hayward’s bad hair,
I do not want Hayward’s health scare,
I do not want Isaac ‘No Kneel.’
I do not want him – no appeal,
I do not want them Noble Man,
I do not want them please Knicks Fan,
I do not want them with some picks,
I do not want them on the Knicks!
i think it’s certainly possible that IQ gets some kind of crazy money… i mean if rozier could get 100mm so can anyone… but would i think that’s particularly smart? probably not….
which is why his market is probably like an ok bench piece… which is currently what he’s been and given his age he should get somewhere a little north of the MLE….
and him getting crazy money does hinge on whether he can maintain his floater percentage above 50% and shooting close to 40% on 3s which is driving this perception of improvement… but we have a lot more data to suggest that this stuff is a bit far from where he was without compelling evidence that he’s doing something wildly different that he’s established some new edge… all we are seeing are results in very volatile shots that are very likely driven by random chance….
from my observations it seems that collectively the board is valuing IQ like a starter… and if he is then he should be getting starter level money (and actually start)… which is probably something like the 18mm OG got and probably with cap inflation more like 20mm…. i can see the case for it but i think that’s more endowment effect than anything talking us into that given that aiming to start him next to brunson for the next four years is likely going to end up in tears…. with so many unwilling to invest into mitchell due to his size… i think most would agree with that….
my view is that he’s currently a 6-7th man type… likely will remain there due to his size and shot distributions and so you should probably pay and value him as such… thats probably in the 12-13mm range given his age and all but i mean it’s not some far fetched thing to be throwing a guy like that in there with some draft picks for a valued starter….
“I’m pretty sure you could get Mo Bamba for a bag of peanuts.”
i only suggested in a combo trade where we land OG for mitch…. you could easily throw in some picks or sub out for Isaac if that’s offensive but we’re talking about bench pieces here ….
but Bamba as an actual player has been pretty underrated and if we didn’t have Mitch he’d be a great target for us.. and if he is really available for peanuts then we should absolutely throw a few there way if they don’t want him….
I have 3 issues with RJ
1. He has no conscience. He’s going to put up his shots regardless of whether he’s feeling good or bad, they are going in or bricking, he has a good matchup or bad matchup, or whether a teammate has a much better matchup or not. He’s too about his own stats, be it 20 PPG, being an all-star etc… He has to change his mindset to being about efficiency.
2. His defense has deteriorated a lot.
3. Thibs lets him get away with #1 and #2.
The one negative about trading for OG is that Grimes will move to the bench when what it should be RJ moving to the bench.
Moving OG into the starting lineup and taking Grimes out will be a somewhat neutral defensive move. We’ll get greater length at SF, but lose the good pairing of Grimes and Brunson in the backcourt with Grimes taking the tougher assignment.
On offense, OG is going to wind up being the 4th option because RJ is not going to give up shots even though he should. So it’s questionable how much that would help relative to Grimes being 4th option.
If we started OG and Grimes, we’d suddenly have a much better defense and OG could easily slot into RJ’s 3rd option role and probably be more consistent and efficient overall. RJ on the bench with Quick would be a pretty good bench unit and RJ would probably be more efficient against backups.
This is a downside of a player getting drafted high, getting star treatment, and getting paid. Sometimes it’s harder (or close to impossible) to do the right thing until it’s so screamingly obvious, everyone wants a change.
Of course if RJ was actually playing defense and improved his shot selection “every night” I might change my mind.
Raven, you made your point very well
Quick’s improvement was fairly obvious even before he started shooting better lately. His defense has become a clear plus, he’s positioning himself better for rebounds, and he’s making plays better.
Young players generally don’t suddenly become bad shooters. Sometimes the shot distribution gets tougher because defenses are taking things away or the player is trying to expand his game, but I didn’t see that as a problem with IQ other than the rule change that made it tougher for him to draw fouls on his floater.
IMO, his better recent shooting should have been expected.
Coupled with the defense, rebounding and playmaking he’s a valuable piece. I was going crazy when they were talking about trading him for some mediocre 1st rounder. That would have been dumber than a pile of rocks.
“Isaac might be available from the Magic if we want to take a gamble.”
If we are going to gamble (I’d be in favor if he came cheaply), we should at least make sure Thibs is on board this time.
I have no idea about Bamba. He must be the world’s worst defender for his size to be so unplayable for Orlando. His boxscore numbers always seem pretty good to me.
We should have signed IQ to an extension already. He is better than RJ and when I watch him on defense I often think to myself that it’s possible he is our second best player. I mean, he isn’t. But he might be. It’s not crazy.
The starter/6th man conundrum with IQ can be summed up this way:
1)He is very clearly one of our five best/most important players, and arguably our fourth (after Randle, Mitch, and Brunson in some order); but
2)The bench doesn’t function at all without him, while we have enough firepower in JR, JB, and (on nights when he’s right) RJ to not need Quickley with that group until crunch time.
Obviously, he’s no Kevin McHale, but there have been teams in NBA history that specifically brought one of their best players off the bench to provide rotation balance.
Raven, A+. To be clear the plan would be to offload the guys we aren’t playing and still wind up with sweetener because it saves the Hornets money. Little-to-nothing to do with Hayward himself.
“and him getting crazy money does hinge on whether he can maintain his floater percentage above 50% and shooting close to 40% on 3s which is driving this perception of improvement…”
All true, which is why we should use the time we have on his rookie-scale deal to collect as much data as possible. At least for now, we’re finally doing that so we should have a decent idea at the end of the season what his baseline numbers are in these areas.
FWIW, I have more confidence than you that he might just have outlier talent from floater range. His FG% from CTG’s “short-mid” range is in the 83rd percentile, which is obviously quite high but doesn’t necessarily scream regression. Bogdan Bogdanovich for example has somewhat similar frequency/accuracy numbers from there.
The bench should have been Quickley/Grimes/Reddish/Hartenstein/Toppin all year. Starters Barrett/Brunson/Fournier/Randle/Robinson.
Quick hook on Fournier with Quickley or Grimes when things got off to shaky start, mix and match 4Q and closing depending on game state and who’s playing well. Fournier’s been hot, play him. Quickley’s been hot, play him. Grimes has been hot, play him. The hockey line rote rotations are beyond silly.
That would have been a far better team than what we had instead. It’s not even a question.
I’d pay IQ $18M. I think he gets closer to $14M though.
He defends, rebounds, passes. He can play on ball or off ball.
Most metrics I can think of value him like a starter, except RAPM which thinks he’s a star.
Jonathan Isaac? lol nah no thanks
Quickley’s a *very* good bench player to me. You certainly can start him, but I like him more in the microwave, combo guard role.
My guess is- barring a sea change in his play- they offer Quick something similar to what they offered Mitch. Whether he takes it is another story. I wouldn’t sign him to anything above 16/17m aav this off season- he doesn’t HAVE to be extended this off season.
Since we would be over the cap next year, anyway, it makes sense. I find it difficult that Hayward would get to squeeze any minutes in Thibs tight rotation. Most likely he would be glued to the bench, then play 40mpg for a week when we are missing other players, then get injured, then never play again. In any case, I would say that Hayward is a slightly better fit than Fournier for the bench, and although unlikely, recovering from injury gives him a higher upside, too. I guess Fournier would be easier to move in other deals, but those do not seem close to happening.
So, getting a pick for a move with few downsides other than Dolan’s money is ok with me.
the floater is such an interesting shot… almost like bunting or going the other way in baseball…
i’m not familiar with ctg’s(cleaningtheglass?) floorchart dataset but i am familiar with bref… the guy with the best floater of all time with both longevity.. volume and conversion is cp3… and it’s not really that close and he has a career 48% from floater range (3-10ft)… the guy who might challenge him is not someone like trae young (45%) or kyrie (43%) or someone who had the most well known floater in tony parker (46%)… (bogdan is a career 43% from floater range fwiw)
it’s tj mcconnell who shoots a career 50.7% from that range… which i find super interesting since he’s one of my favorite players….. the only reason it’s not the best is because he’s a bench guy who doesn’t play all that much and he’s played not nearly as long as cp3 but he might surpass him if he goes another 5 years at this rate…
so i can’t say for certain he’s genuinely outlier potential to that extent…. or even to cp3’s extent… but if he’s only as good a floater as parker or trae from that range… which would be amazing in its own right… he doesn’t have the other part of their box score numbers to sustain him… to the point that he looks rather trash without an all time good floater… and for his career up to this point he’s been much closer to trae/parker territory than anything resembling how he’s converting now….
for my money i wouldn’t bet on a highly volatile stat to keep moving at supreme outlier rates… we’ve gone through this before with randle’s 40% 3pt year which despite his successes this year is still very much an outlier… and that was the benefit of an entire year’s sample… and we’ve gone through this before the other way when RJ was shooting comically bad from 3 to start this year… and basically every year in his career… which btw he’s now surpassed his 3pt mark from last year….
i mean how much has anyone’s views changed on Grimes value when he’s now shooting 35.8% from 3 just because he had a cold week? we know all of these things are volatile but we rarely treat is as such… i’m as guilty as the next guy.. places like las vegas and the stock market were built around these human conditions… but we should try to catch ourselves or else we’re just chasing lines on a chart….
How much value do you think Quickley loses if he shoots, say, last year’s 42% from 3-10 though? I don’t think it’s some devastating drop off. He takes 21% of his shots from that range, which is a lot relatively speaking but doesn’t lend itself to a 9% drop off tanking his general efficiency.
There’s also some reason to believe his true talent 3PT% is higher than the current .345 figure, though a lot of that is TBD since his best year was the empty-gyms year.
Quickley shoots way more normal two feet jump-stop jumpers from that 3-10 range than he did before about a month into this season. It’s not all floaters anymore, probably more like 70/30 floaters.
“It’s not all floaters anymore, probably more like 70/30 floaters.”
That has been a nice change…he’s actually shooting a normal in your face jumper in that range…not sure what happened/light bulb went on…but he seems very confident with it…good weapon for him if he can continue to get it off…
well for one his ts% would revert to RJ levels (54%) which was where it was when we last talked about it a few weeks ago…. and last i checked it was an almost unanimous thing that RJ was trash based largely off of his TS.. we have absolutely not given IQ anything resembling that treatment….. and some of it is fair since they came with wildly different expectations… but you know some of it isn’t….
and you know some of other stuff might pop up…. for the first month or two IQ was almost putting up westbrook rebounding #s too… but that has now normalized… i think what we’re seeing has a chance to be real.. but i would bet it’s just a normal in season variation….
“Quickley shoots way more normal two feet jump-stop jumpers from that 3-10 range”
i’m not sure if you realize how short 10 ft is but it’s very very difficult to shoot jumpers from that range that isn’t a turnaround fadeaway or a pullup transition jumper…
I played organized competitive basketball for several years. I’m familiar with a 10 foot jumper. With the more modern open lane they’re way easier to shoot “normally” than they even used to be. It’s a dribble or two past your man. Quentin Grimes should develop the skill for when he beats his man running out for a trifecta close out. He doesn’t appear to have it at all now.
Three feet, yeah, quite a bit tougher, but I wasn’t really addressing that distance.
IQ would be at RJ levels of TS% but with:
* fewer assisted makes
* better passing
* better steal rate
* better on ball defense
* better off ball defense
* fewer TOs
* virtually identical block & reb rates as a guard
* ability to run the point or play off ball
* ability to pull up from 3
IQ adds more value in every other part of the game other than raw point totals and usage.
RJs usage and point totals mean a lot, and he’s a solid passer and rebounder, it’s just that IQ is very good at almost every part of the game and so he’s less dependent on scoring efficiency than RJ.
E and others, I still play in a league (over 45), though I am the ancient mariner (66). IQ’s floater is pretty good and so is his three, but perhaps after faking a three, “with a dribble or two past [his] man”, he could angle out and maybe utilize glass, where he could shoot at a higher angle. I see Randle making this shot. As a general matter, I don’t see our boys using glass near enough.
“Jonathan Isaac? lol nah no thanks”
Do you hate him or his game?
I like his game a lot if he can stay healthy and develop. That risk is why I’d insist he come cheaply.
The floater is an integral part of the Thibs offense. Floaters produce short rebounds and draw defensive attention in the paint, which in turn leads to more offensive rebounds and consequently more putbacks and/or second opportunities that extend possessions. Randle and RJ have worked on their floater game as well. Benjy at KFS expounded on this in a recent pod, and it made total sense. That may be the single biggest reason why we miss Mitch.
That said, it’s even better when you make the floater on the first opportunity, but the larger point is that its effectiveness goes beyond making and missing them.
BTW one of the things that drives me nuts is when RJ (or Randle or IQ) make a stupid drive and wind up on the ground or in the stands while the opposing team runs a 5-on-4 break leading to an open transition 3, a layup, a dunk, a shooting foul…the take-foul rule change has made those plays even more devastating, as lots of take fouls were specifically taken to stop those transition baskets. Not sure if our guys have gotten the memo on that…
it’s funny, i’ll skim through a thread, maybe copy something or another i wanna respond to or compliment (like your thing Raven, that was beautiful) – and then i’ll happen upon some semi-coherent scribblings of master E…
and, suddenly i feel ultra compelled to respond that crazy motherfucker…oh bless you bless you bless you E…
i wonder how much you drive the people around you crazy… a bit of both bane and boon i imagine…
anywho – so my point was gonna be – you always kind of make yourself seem like you suck(ed) at basketball…
that ain’t really true though is it E, you really had a little bit of game at some point, didn’t you…
I laughed out loud.
I’m way too past my prime to get into caliber, but can fairly and honestly report that I’ve made both floaters and 10 foot jump stop Js in front of paying customers ….
It all varies by player of course, but typically a J will be more accurate than a floater, but you should be able to get a floater off more quickly because you can shoot it on the way up. Hartenstein kind of combines the two with his push shot off two feet … it isn’t really a floater but he shoots it on the way up so it gets off quicker and is tougher to block.
The “leaner” is probably better than both in that area because you can avoid the defense better, lean sideways, etc., and more creatively.
Time has left a lot of this stuff in the rear view mirror in the modern association. It’s *way* more now shooting the three and going all the way to the rack and either scoring or drawing fouls.
just had this discussion recently, 60 this summer…been telling folks for a few years though that i was about 60…
if you are out there risking life and limb bending down frequently to pick up a ball up off the ground – you don’t really feel that “old” do you…
i think most on here are basketball junkies who played and watched more than a normal person should…which is why i always identifed with this tune (one of many highlights on this album)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlhWPVJNAOo
the bar for IQ is higher because his upside is muted.. he does all of this so much better than RJ right now yet he is sitting in favor of him and to everyone outside of KB it makes sense because it’s the same rationale for playing the kids…. marginal wins now don’t matter much… and so you play the kids over vets if the difference isn’t much since you develop for future wins that might be worth more than wins now… when you’re picking between two kids it’s the same rationale… you’re picking the guy with the potential for higher returns later almost every time…
is IQ’s upside so huge that we’re looking at mitchell… beal… and mcollum level’s of upside? or are we looking more like rozier.. lou williams and devonte graham? i happen to think it’s the latter but if you think it’s the former then he should absolutely be starting and getting the 26mm that RJ got… but i think the case for that is pretty muted… and i don’t think anyone thinks his upside is quite that high….
and if that’s the case then that difference in production now doesn’t matter that much… after another year or two it will start mattering a lot more so it’s not insignificant but that’s why there isn’t much mystery behind how nba teams treat guys like RJ and someone like IQ… IQ’s profile is well established and unless something crazy happens the base case is that he’ll be a somewhat useful but disposable piece even with this recent hot streak… RJ is not quite there yet whether you view that as fair or unfair….
i so thought dj phan was about to confess to a wicked handle and a wet shot from like 30 feet or so…
Nope…he was team statistician…moneyball guy before there was such thing as a moneyball guy…
Vahgner twins look pretty solid tonight…Das is gut!
I thought the pro game might be a little too fast for Banchero to shine, but at this point I think it’s safe to say I appear to have underestimated him…
+100
I don’t know in the USA, but here once upon a time they use to teach you that the closer you move to the basket the easier it is to use glass to score. Good times…
Wizards on a 6 game win streak and taken control of 9th place. A couple play-in wins separate us from another chance to turn a pick into a future protected 1st.
Wizards first win in San Antonio since… 1999 !? I don’t know how many articles that would be, if it was the Knicks on such a long drought.