[news.google.com] — Saturday, February 18, 2023 7:22:00 AM
MSG, Knicks and Rangers boss James Dolan looking for love on Raya New York Post
[news.google.com] — Saturday, February 18, 2023 4:47:09 AM
Qatar and Abu Dhabi Investment Groups Target NBA Team New … Sportsmanor
[news.google.com] — Saturday, February 18, 2023 2:19:00 AM
Knicks’ Quentin Grimes shows out at Rising Stars game with red-hot shooting New York Post Knicks’ Quentin Grimes shines at Rising Stars Game but Team Joakim loses to Team Pau in Finals Yahoo SportsQuentin Grimes has great perspective on reduced role after Josh Hart trade Daily Knicks
[news.google.com] — Friday, February 17, 2023 10:09:00 PM
Jalen Brunson must be foundation of Knicks’ championship plans New York Post
[news.google.com] — Friday, February 17, 2023 8:47:53 PM
Tight Playoff Race Puts Pressure On Knicks & Kings Forbes
[news.google.com] — Friday, February 17, 2023 8:23:00 PM
Knicks All-Star Break Notes: Josh Hart’s start, analyzing the front office, and inconsistent RJ Barrett Yahoo Sports
[news.google.com] — Friday, February 17, 2023 6:35:12 PM
Why You’ll Be ‘Wowed’ By Knicks’ Jericho Sims at Dunk Contest Sports Illustrated
[news.google.com] — Friday, February 17, 2023 6:34:55 PM
Knicks: Josh Hart trade draws brutally honest reaction from Quentin Grimes ClutchPoints
[news.google.com] — Friday, February 17, 2023 6:13:25 PM
Knicks: Jericho Sims’ NBA Dunk Contest hype train is in full throttle ClutchPoints
[news.google.com] — Friday, February 17, 2023 5:05:05 PM
Knicks Ponder Making DaQuan Jeffries a Main-Roster Player Heavy.com
[news.google.com] — Friday, February 17, 2023 4:29:43 PM
The Knicks won 2019. Twice. Suck it, haters Posting and Toasting
[news.google.com] — Friday, February 17, 2023 4:00:53 PM
Knicks Land Heat’s Jimmy Butler In Bold Trade Scenario NBA Analysis Network
[news.google.com] — Friday, February 17, 2023 3:57:01 PM
Report: Knicks mull converting Daquan Jeffries 2-way contract to standard deal Empire Sports Media
[news.google.com] — Friday, February 17, 2023 2:33:43 PM
Evaluating how Josh Hart has played for the Knicks thus far | The Putback with Ian Begley Yahoo Sports
[news.google.com] — Friday, February 17, 2023 11:07:42 AM
Could Knicks Fill Roster Through ‘Internal’ Means? Sports Illustrated
[news.google.com] — Friday, February 17, 2023 10:00:00 AM
Knicks News: Could Mitchell Robinson return after All-Star break? Daily Knicks
[news.google.com] — Friday, February 17, 2023 9:06:07 AM
Julius Randle won’t stop taking 3-pointers now and that’s exactly how the Knicks want it The Athletic
[news.google.com] — Friday, February 17, 2023 9:02:27 AM
Leon Rose Has the Knicks Set Up Now and For the Future The Knicks Wall
[news.google.com] — Friday, February 17, 2023 8:00:00 AM
3 players Knicks should avoid signing in buyout market Daily Knicks
37 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2023.02.18)”
Grimes robbed of the MVP.
It was surprisingly fun to watch. I have been pretty vocal about his potential since the summer – higher ceiling than RJ because of his athleticism, defense, and shooting – but I’ve worried a little lately. As Raven said (I think) on the last game thread, he’s rushing a bit. Game hasn’t yet slowed down for him. Once it does, he’s going to be excellent. He’s more than a glue guy.
I’m not in the fake trades market, but this morning I woke up with a crazy idea and I like to be insulted on this blog 🙂
Summer sign & trade with Washington:
NY get Kyle Kuzma (who will opt out of his contract and re-sign with WAS)
WAS get Obi Toppin, Evan Fournier and we can give them back their 1st if it doesn’t come to fruition this year.
It can work if Kuzma’s salary is around 25-26M (Fournier and Obi are signed for 25.7M next year).
Knicks depth chart*:
PG: JB, IQ, Deuce
SG: RJ, Grimes, IQ, J-Hart
SF: Kuzma, J-Hart, RJ, Grimes
PF: Julius, Kuzma, J-Hart, RJ, I-Hart
C: Mitch. I-Hart, Jericho
* You can add whoever with the Dallas’ 1st and put Glue in the starting 5 instead of RJ if you wish 🙂
Fournier is exiled, Obi is the backup “4” (Thibs will never use him at “3” or “5”) while Kuzma is 6’9″, can play “3” or “4” and if he’ll buy in the “culture” has the tools to be a solid defender.
Lot of flexibility, lot of different looks and still many players left if the trade for a “real” star present himself…
But I doubt WAS will do it so my dream will never come true…
Now I duck and brace for the stones 😉
Kuzma seems more redundant with Randle than anything, Max. At least based on me watching him in our games against WAS this year. We need an approximation of Mikal at the 3, ideally.
Why not the actual Mikal? The Nets have a lot of wings. I know they don’t like to trade with us, but we have draft picks and they don’t.
It’ll never happen, but we would actually make decent trade partners, considering our respective strengths and weaknesses.
I get the objections.
Mikal will be perfect but I don’t know if the Nets will trade him to us (they have picks now, from other teams 🙂 )
OG is the next in line but he will cost a lot.
Kuzma is fast enough to play the “3” and be an improvement over RJ at the position.
If we don’t get a strong defender at the 3, then I’d support trading for Kuzma. He fills the same role as RJ, he’s just better at it right now.
We probably trade RJ in that situation, so we need to figure out a destination for him.
I’m not sure WAS makes that move without a little more. They seem to value Kuzma quite a bit. His ceiling may also be a little on the low side for me.
I honestly wonder if the plan this offseason will be to trade Obi and put Hart at the 4 during the 10 minutes Randle sits. Minutes-wise you can accommodate RJ/Hart/Grimes/IQ better.
I still believe Grimes can up his usage significantly. He can launch his 3 over most defenders. He was able to do it in college. Hopefully he comes back rejuvenated after the break.
He looks like he hasn’t been setting his feet recently. He did in the RS games.
max i hate that deal for both teams, which usually means it’s a decent pitch. the wiz love kuzma and would hang up on that offer unless kuzma was adamant on leaving and they had no other option. if you want to trade for kuzma you should pretend he’s mikal for trade value purposes, bc that’s how tommy sheppard thinks of him. i also think he’s as pretty shitty fit for us and it’s a very bad bet that thibs will turn a 12K minutes guy into a plus wing defender. thibs’ defensive magic isn’t really about elevating bad defenders into good ones. he didn’t do it with notoriously poor defenders like KAT and fournier; randle is pretty much who he’s always been on defense and wiggins has been better with GSW than he was with minny. his best trait is still tolerably efficient shot creation and that’s the last thing we need.
the discount bin guy that would fit better with us while being more realistic is probably deni. obviously this only exacerbates our shooting issues, so it’s also a pretty flawed fit, but at least he is a legit big wing defender. i don’t think they would do deni for obi, since obi would smell so much like a rui replacement (underperforming lottery tweener forward heading into rfa) and they just gave him away. but i wanted to at least bring it up to annoy the knickerblogger obi contingent.
There’s a reason why Ainge preferred Grimes to anything else we offered for Mitchell. As demonstrated with Markkanen and Kessler, he has an excellent eye for young talent.
Among the things I am thankful for every day is that Leon & Co. didn’t bungle their way into outbidding CLE for Spida. It is very cool that we are pretty exciting with our current roster and have enough trade capital to make another jump or two IF we are patient and opportunistic, as we were at this deadline. Given all of the consternation about Leon, Thibs, Randle and to a lesser degree RJ, this is like a 90th percentile outcome, with RJ being the only fly in the ointment.
another unrealistic offseason trade target is grant williams. he’s about to get overpaid as an rfa and the celtics have tax issues plus a lot of depth. but he would fill multiple roles for us, because not only can get guard some big wings well, but he is more tolerable in short stints than, say, obi as a faux 5 if thibs ever tries shrooms and we decide to run 5 out with randle for 12 minutes a game. and he’s a real shooter, career 44% from the corner. this team could really use a pj tucker type, although williams probably still falls short of our ideal wing stopper archetype.
I looked at Grant Williams compared to Obi on basketball reference. The comparison is odd. Williams has a better win share but a worse PER. His rebound percentages are actually worse than Obi’s, but he shoots better. Also he is 6’6” compared to Obi’s 6’9”. Even though he is listed as a power forward he seems more like a small forward. A nice shooting small forward is a nice thing to have but if you trade Obi for him, who’s our backup four? I really don’t see Thibs wanting to go that small with his bench.
https://stathead.com/basketball/pcm_finder.cgi?request=1&sum=0&player_id1=willigr01&p1yrfrom=2023&player_id2=toppiob01&p2yrfrom=2023
All that said, how we finish these last 22 games will define the season. Here is how I see things likely going.
Scheduled losses:
BOS
@BOS
@LAC
@LAL (hard to imagine beating them with their deadline upgrades)
DEN
@CLE
Scheduled wins:
CHA
@ORL
HOU
@IND
WAS
IND
The rest of the schedule seems like we have a chance to win every game anc could go 8-2 but should go no worse than 4-6:
@WAS
NOP
BKN
@MIA
@SAC
@POR
MIN
@MIA
MIA
@NOP
So that’s a range of 14-8 on the high end (47-35) and 10-12 on the low end (43-39) with a median outcome of 12-10 (45-37).
Honestly, at this point I’d find any outcome less than 45 wins disappointing. That would mean we finished these last 22 games at .500 or worse, and it feels like we are positioned to do better than that.
That said, I’m hopeful that we can pull out a couple of wins from that “scheduled loss” list. Beating Boston in one of those 2 games would be an awesome start to this home stretch!
As much as I dislike RJ’s game, idk if it makes sense to trade him for a minor upgrade.
I’m on the fence with OG because he’s a great defender, but Kuz is not enough of an upgrade in my eyes, nor is Grant Williams really.
After all, RJ is (you know how old) and should at least improve some. Plus, now we have Hart to keep him in check.
But, in short, it’s less about giving away RJ in a down year than it is dumping more draft capital to get a slight upgrade when we already gave up a pick to get Hart.
So yeah, I’d like to see how far this team can go before swinging the bat again.
I looked at Grant Williams compared to Obi on basketball reference. The comparison is odd. Williams has a better win share but a worse PER. His rebound percentages are actually worse than Obi’s, but he shoots better. Also he is 6’6” compared to Obi’s 6’9”. Even though he is listed as a power forward he seems more like a small forward. A nice shooting small forward is a nice thing to have but if you trade Obi for him, who’s our backup four? I really don’t see Thibs wanting to go that small with his bench.
basketball reference is like your diary. it flatters you and shames you. grant is a plus defender and obi is not. he plays a ton of minutes defending 4s, he’s quite good at it a la pj.
This has been a pretty gratifying season. I’m getting to see players develop that the organization brought in. We never saw what would have happened had we kept Jeremy Lin or countless others. Maybe it would have fizzled. Maybe Obi does. But, for once, I’m happy to gamble on our own players as opposed to someone else’s.
If we’re going to punt on offense for a guy like Deni, I’d prefer going after Justice Winslow in free agency. He’d save us the trade compensation, I assume we could grab him for less than the full MLE.
I like Grant Williams (i.e. I hate him because he’s a Celtic and good). He’s a bit of a hothead but a very strong bench piece, both figuratively and literally.
I just don’t see the Celts letting him go. He’s played really well when he started and is vital to their rotation. It will all boil down to what Williams wants to get paid vs. how much Stevens can get for him in a trade. I doubt that they can get back commensurate value for a 24yo PJ Tucker clone.
“We never saw what would have happened had we kept Jeremy Lin or countless others.”
Well, we sort of did based on how they fared after they left. To be fair, only a couple of guys we let go did as well as feared: Trevor Ariza is at the top of that list, maybe David Lee, Doug Christie, Matt Barnes. Most of the others were disappointing, and some were unloaded at peak value, e.g. Landry Fields.
@NBA_University
Quentin Grimes is in the 99th percentile of defensive matchup-difficulty. Yet, he allows only 0.68 ppp when guarding ISOs. Dudes are shooting 27.8% (!!!) against him in ISO. Also insanely versatile, guards:
PG—28.3% of the time
SG—32.2%
SF—16.6%
PF—15.6%
C—7.3%
Elite defender
The other thing about Grant Williams is that he’s averaging 27mpg with the Celts. If he came here, Thibs would have some tough decisions to make regarding playing time (I think pt was alluding to that but my universal translator needs batteries…)
I like Grant Williams (i.e. I hate him because he’s a Celtic and good). He’s a bit of a hothead but a very strong bench piece, both figuratively and literally.
I just don’t see the Celts letting him go. He’s played really well when he started and is vital to their rotation. It will all boil down to what Williams wants to get paid vs. how much Stevens can get for him in a trade. I doubt that they can get back commensurate value for a 24yo PJ Tucker clone.
yeah i agree with this. i find incessant complainers like him pretty annoying to watch, and not just for opponents. the celtics are going to pay a huge tax bill this year for the first time in while, and now that they’ve extended horford, williams will put them well into the tax next year. this would put them on the brink of the repeater tax (3 of 4 yrs in the tax),which could result in some crazy future bills depending on the next cba. they have historically been more reticent to really gush than the lacobs and ballmers of the world. still, though, seems pretty unlikely.
okay this is admittedly a bit curated but still just heart thumpingly awesome. here’s a complete list of players in nba history who have ever had a 20 game span of 30 pts/g, 60%+ TS, 5+ ast/g and sub 2 tov/g:
jalen brunson
We’ll feel better about the Brunson all-star snub when he wins MVP
Somewhat suprised at the number of players of made All NBA without making the all star game.
https://www.justallstar.com/nba-all-star-game/player-lists/all-nba-team-players-who-did-not-play-nba-all-star-game/
I’m not at all upset that Brunson was not named an all-star. I long ago stopped caring about such things. I’m just happy he’s here providing the best PG play the Knicks have had in a very long time.
Hopefully he can use the break to rest for the stretch run. If he is upset by the snub, then maybe use it to have an extra incentive to excel the rest of this season and get the Knicks to the #5 seed.
I’d say Brunson might make the All-NBA team as a make-up call, but it’d be very difficult to keep these guys off:
* Lillard
* Doncic
* Donovan Mitchell
* Shai
* Morant
That leaves Brunson, Hali, Curry (he might not play enough), and Harden.
Making the all-star game doesn’t matter to us, but it’s nice for the players to be recognized for their play.
“Well, we sort of did based on how they fared after they left.”
Ha. I guess so. But I’m still pissed about Rod Strickland! I also think, maybe Gallinari could have had a better career with good player development and better injury luck. Either way, I think we have a more patient organization and I’m happy to see what happens to these guys while they are in a Knick uniform. Even the guys that are struggling (RJ). I’m glad they’re still on the team. We’re six games over so, overall, the organization is pushing the right buttons imho
“But I’m still pissed about Rod Strickland!”
lol I HATED that trade! And yeah, Gallo is another good “what if…” embedded in the whole Melo fiasco.
So yes, I’m glad we are being more patient with developing the young guys even though we’re on the “win now” path. They all seem like nice kids to boot.
And yet in a strange way, it kinda is. He turned Cam & Evan into Josh Hart by refusing to play them.
Over/under on Sims changing expression during the dunk contest?
Doesn’t seem to have the showman vibe. But when you have the third highest vert on record and are 6-10 you are in carnival show territory.
I love Grimes. I believe in Grimes despite the slump.
Obi has always been about the fun value because I don’t think he can guard a fire hydrant. In a lost season I would have been happier to watch him play than most but it’s not a lost season.
LOL, Hubert.
New thread for the various all star contests tonight?
I’m predicting that Jericho will do things that mere humans couldn’t do…
Owen, I think if Sims could go through the entire contest without smiling or otherwise changing his countenance, it would be better showmanship than any jumping he might do. They’d have to come up with a nickname, like Stone Cold Sims or something.
Stone Cold Sims is a winner.
New thread is up