Knicks Morning News (2023.02.01)

Not much to say that hasn’t already been said — purgatory.

They aren’t going to be allowed to do a teardown, which means it’s going to be “empty the draft asset chest” and in lieu of waiting around and doing it for some overrated 30 year old kinda star, I’d offer the team that gets the 2nd pick in this summer’s draft the Knicks 23 and 3 unprotected 1s for Scoot Henderson.

This team needs more than a tentpole superstar, but it desperately, desperately needs a tentpole superstar.

In terms of the relatively meaningless day-to-day:

RJ — still inefficient, still just have to wait and hope, draft pick spent/wasted on him is now a sunk cost; he’s not Zion or Ja and will never be
Grimes — at league average efficiency with 14 usage and a skillset that confirms, not an association starting 2 guard.
Randle — just when I got on the Ju train, two Bad Julius stinkers in a row. Hope this wasn’t just an all-star push.
Brunson — awesome
Thibs — time to move on, laughably awful last-second play design

I’ll let you guys get in your daily RJ bashing; as a player he drives offense at a young age which is a valuable skill and all that can be done is to wait around to see if the efficiency ever gets there. It might, it might not. I’ve made my peace with it.

It’s essentially like sitting around watching paint dry. We need something to occupy the time, sure, of course — but that’s what it is.

If the points and the wings are *that* dependent on Mitchell Robinson, then you have to wonder how good they really are on defense to begin with.

That kind of dependency on a “rim protector” — assuming the theory is even valid — won’t even survive a coaching change. To the degree it’s even a thing, it’s an unsustainable gimmick. I’m losing patience with unsustainable gimmicks.

Which makes it even more freaky and bizarre that Tom Thibodeau eschewed him his rookie year in favor of alleged defender Elfrid Payton.

It can’t be that both the wings (and Deuce McBride) are great defenders and the team’s defense collapses when they lose their starting center. That’s a logic fail.

The team’s DRat is 17th in the league now, and Cam Reddish hasn’t even the seen the floor in two months so it can’t be his fault.

The team’s D has obviously been worse since Mitch went out, but how much of that is correlation and how much is causation? If it’s all him, he’s holding together a house of cards.

Quickley could be the league’s best sixth man combo guard — that’s his role. Vinnie Johnson/Lou Williams.

This isn’t a defense of him at all, but RJ shouldn’t even *be* a small forward. He’s a 2 guard. But the Knicks have a strange coach who often does strange things.

Coaches don’t “give” usage.

He’s probably sick of Thibodeau. Who isn’t at this point?

I don’t care about his ego, I care about whether he can continue his pretty decent play at pretty high usage that he’s shown over the last 27 games. Or even improve on it. All the rest is noise.

Goalpost change. I was addressing your (TNFH) amateur psychology re the media availability, not anything on the floor. Media availability would have been a bunch of tabloid gotcha questions and swallowing words about his weirdo coach. Pointless.

Grimes would be way more fun off the bench. The bench all year should have been Grimes/Quickley/Reddish/Hartenstein/Toppin. Grimes or Quickley in for RJ or Fournier if they’re sucking. Best bench in the league. Extremely fun.

Rohan Nadkarni, excellent SI.com NBA writer, has an OGA story today about six “fun” potential destinations, ranked. Knicks rank 4. Top 3 — Grizzlies, Suns, Warriors.

“The Knicks are reportedly interested in Anunoby and have the draft capital to make things interesting. Would this be the best destination for O.G.? I would personally rather see him on a team closer to winning a championship. The strategy of trying to acquire good players is a solid one for the Knicks, though. The Jalen Brunson–led squad has been frisky, and watching Anunoby and R.J. Barrett get after it defensively would be fun. (*) Would this move get the Knicks out of the first round of the playoffs? I’m not so sure.”

(*) When we get outside various factional components of the Knick fanbase cocoon, this is in fact RJ’s reputation and it’s quite proper. An RJ/OG 2/3 combo at least gets the positions and the size/length rightsized.