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New York Knicks Stax | National Sports | bdtonline.com Bluefield Daily Telegraph
71 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2023.02.21)”
Don’t have much to say during this break, so i’ve just come here to see who took the reigns during this time! š
Ok, ok, jokes aside, is there any news on Mitch?
Mitch should be back “after the break,” but don’t know if that’s Thursday or some small number of games after that.
In other news, I’m still surprised the Cavs bought out Love. Did it save them a lot of $$? Because even the chance he helps a conference rival seems less than ideal…
Or they feel he’s lost so much they don’t need to worry? They do see him in practice and such – but he looked like he could still contribute to me.
Love was out with an injury for a while and the Cavs did great in his absence. So maybe they figured he wouldnāt get minutes any more and did him a solid by buying him out so he can go elsewhere and get playing time
Quote from Fred Katz in today’s Athletic re Mitch’s return
” We still donāt know Robinsonās exact return date. He hasnāt played since sustaining the injury on Jan. 18 and undergoing surgery shortly after, but he could be cleared for contact not long after the All-Star break. Once heās back, the Knicks might have something.”
Sounds like his return is a bit off since he’ll have to practice before playing in actual games.
He’ll have to practice a bit, but with a finger injury I figure he’s still doing cardio and won’t take too long getting back up to speed.
He doesn’t exactly need to memorize the playbook either, he pretty much just stands under the basket on both ends
The only important thing we learned from the all star game is that you can’t leave Jason Tatum open on threes. Period. Him prepping for the three point contest and bringing it into the game was a great use of the time. Scary…
Jaylen Brown looked great too. Celtics look good to win it all. I hope I’m wrong lol.
Re: Mitch
One thing that still irks me about the FO is the silence on injuries. Remember 2 years ago when he broke his foot?–didn’t rule him out for the regular season, didn’t rule him out for the playoffs, and still couldn’t take contact prior to training camp. Or “slight foot soreness” walking boot Grimes? But hope he is close to full recovery.
“Jaylen Brown looked great too. Celtics look good to win it all. I hope Iām wrong lol.”
Come on, Dan, we know Vermonters are all closet Celts fans…
I feel confident that Mitch will be available on Friday.
Fun Katz notebook: https://theathletic.com/4235358/2023/02/21/knicks-julius-randle-quentin-grimes-thoughts/
I particularly like the bit about Randle’s bullet cross-court passes. It’s a high risk play that has mostly worked very well, and an instance where the potential reward is worth that risk. Unlike when he used to spin into trouble on half the plays. This version of Randle is, dare I say, fun?
Apparently Wemby is 7’4 without shoes on now.
It would be be fun if he joined the Toon Army in Orlando.
Alan beat me to posting the Katz article so I’ll just echo his recommendation. It’s a reminder of some of the little things that make this team charming and fun while we deal with our withdrawal symptoms.
The Grimes bit is particularly interesting because djphan and some others have raised the very valid concern that his value is heavily tied to his volatile 3PT shooting.
Interestingly, in Grimes’ last 13 games in which he’s shooting .284 from 3, he’s still managed a .531 TS%. That’s obviously not good, but it’s not completely unplayable by the standards of someone in a deep shooting slump. Just by the eye-test, this seems largely due to the cuts referenced in the article.
Hopefully in the 2nd half his shooting bounces back and we really have a stew.
Hey since it’s slow, I want to bring a topic up that has been coming up recently. I think with optimism about the team generally high, most folks believe that adding a top 20ish talent to the team could potentially vault us into top 4 in the East.
I agree with this sentiment, so i pulled the top 30 guys on the ringer’s top 100 players. I am not trying to debate this list i.e. order or if they belong , just wanted a generic top 30 to see who is most likely available as a target and would fit with the team to get us into that top 4 status next season.
Jokic
Giannis
Luka
Steph
KD
Embid
Tatum
Lebron
Kawai
Shai
Booker
Dame
Mitchell
Ja
Zion
AD
Jimmy
PG13
Tyresse
Harden
Pascal
Jaylen
Sabonis
Kyrie
Bam
Trae
Fox
AD
Garland
Lauri
Of that list i think the guys below are potentially gettable depending on how the rest of the season plays out or if they ask for a trade.
Embid
Kawai
Dame
AD
Jimmy
PG13
Pascal
Jaylen
Kyrie
Bam
Trae
Lauri
Of the above list, i think only think the following give us a chance to reach that status and a lot of them have some serious health concerns that would lead us not wanting to trade the boat for them.
Embid
Kawai
Dame
AD
Jimmy
PG13
Pascal
Jaylen
Bam
We are very lucky to have Fred Katz as our The Athletic beat writer. Vorkunov was very good, but FK is in a class by himself. Hope he sticks around for a long while, but wouldn’t be surprised if he’d offered a bigger, pricier gig in short order. Plus he is not a Knicks fan, so no sentimental attachment to weigh down any opportunistic decisions.
Grimes and IQ are so fucking valuable and watchable that I don’t want them traded for pretty much anyone. Including Donovan Mitchell. There is still a ton of untapped 2-way potential there, and they complement Brunson and Randle so well.
He alludes to Obi being the weak link in the rotation, which is not surprising given his limitations. In a sense, he’s sort of the X-factor for us when we’re healthy. Julius is going to need some rest in these ames down the stretch. Thibs seems amenable to going with Obi for as long as his unit maintains or grows a lead. If he can consistently merit 8 solid minutes in the second half of games, that would have very positive repercussions.
And how cool is it that Julius plays as hard as he does for as long as he does without ever asking out for load management? I mean it sucks for Obi but on the other hand we never really *depend* on Obi playing well, beyond the breather it gives Randle. I know some would like to see Randle take some games off so that we could see what Obi could do in a bigger role, but I’m convinced that he would eventually lose minutes to RJ, Hart, and even Sims due to his issues with being targeted on D.
I feel like Jaylen might be the ideal target. By giving him an under-market deal, Boston has made it difficult to extend him later. There have already been some rumblings that they may need to trade him to avoid just losing him in free agency. He would cost an enormous amount, but would also solve a whole lot of our problems on both ends.
“Of the above list, i think only think the following give us a chance to reach that status and a lot of them have some serious health concerns that would lead us not wanting to trade the boat for them.
Embid
Kawai
Dame
AD
Jimmy
PG13
Pascal
Jaylen
Bam”
I doubt that Bam or Brown are gettable so I will eliminate them from my consideration.
I also don’t want to target 1) unrootable primadonnas 2) guys that will cost us our most rootable players (Brunson, IQ, Grimes), 3) major injury/age concerns at top dollar.
Nobody on the above list falls into category 1.
In category 2, I would put Embiid, Dame, Jimmy, and probably Siakam. Obviously Bam and Brown would also fall into this category.
In category 3, I would put AD, Kawhi, and PG13. This is the most intriguing group for me. I think any one of them IF HEALTHY would make us a contender. Yet each one is a monster gamble to miss a zillion games.
Personally I’d rather just ride with this team until a hugely opportunistic move comes along. Sign Hart to a market-level deal in the offseason, and either make a pick or trade up in the draft, and hold off until someone becomes available on the cheap. Keep hitting doubles.
***I feel like Jaylen might be the ideal targetā¦ there have already been some rumblings that they may need to trade him to avoid just losing him in free agency.***
Doesnāt that make him a less than ideal target, then?
i think some question marks for the second half are going to be tied to 3pt shooting .. in particular with Randle and to a lesser extent Grimes and RJ… and also to what extent Hart is just going to start launching from 3 compared to previous stops…. all of those are going to be key to how well we finish….
I’d be utterly shocked if the Celts part with Brown. You simply can’t replace an all-NBA caliber 2-way player like him. So long as they keep Brown and Tatum they will be able to piece together a 50+ win team. Unless things get ugly, I think that Boston will politely refuse to give in to any trade demands and will offer him more than he can get elsewhere.
i dont think any of those guys are going to be very available over the next couple of years…. PG and kawhi seem like they might but they both have ties to LA and southern california area and ballmer is not just going to ok a teardown willy nilly…. AD probably isn’t going anywhere as long as Lebron is in LA…
if Dame hasn’t moved by now i’m not sure if it will ever happen but my money is on him out of everyone especially since the billups experiment doesn’t seem to be working… but that poses some issues for us since he overlaps with our best player already…. and so you have to ask yourself if you would do a brunson+picks for dame swap… my guess is no and i think the front office thinks roughly the same…
jaylen brown is interesting but there’s going to be problems dealing within the division if he is even interested in leaving… and there’s very real kyrie potential once he gets his next bag which would leave me hesitant to invest…. i don’t view him as particularly great either….
and that’s also part of the reason why you might have to look at names like Lavine and OG… guys you will have to gamble to return to form or make the leap… since the established top tier guys are looking unlikely to move….
things may happen… but there’s also going to be other suitors and depending on who they are we might not even have enough….
Jaylen Brown is a good player but I don’t think he’s in the class of guys that would put us over the top. Both Randle and Brunson have outplayed him this year.
In a trade scenario, which is already far-fetched because of the division, we’d almost definitely have to pay as if he’s in that class. So I’m out on that.
The version of Kawhi that plays basketball games is, IMO, the singe best fit for this roster in the league. I feel like that barely needs elaboration–look at all of our weaknesses and then look at the things Kawhi Leonard is good at. If he becomes available we pretty much have to enter the sweepstakes.
The LaVine smoke seems real and my guess is we hear a lot about it in the offseason.
For all of the risks associated with him, as djphan points out there are also risks associated with sitting around and waiting for the perfect target. Guys lose value as years go by on their contracts, draft picks get incinerated, etc.
LaVine got off to a terrible start but is rounding into form, fits our timetable pretty well, and is at least a decent fit. If we replaced RJ with him I think we’d get a whole lot better. Still probably not good enough to contend, but arguably within striking distance of the 5% rule.
“Jaylen Brown is a good player but I donāt think heās in the class of guys that would put us over the top.”
I agree, but he’d make an immense difference if you simply replaced RJ with him. I also think that he is underrated by most advanced metrics. But in any case, I agree that he’s not a player for us to pursue, although I feel that way solely due to the cost.
“The version of Kawhi that plays basketball games is, IMO, the singe best fit for this roster in the league. I feel like that barely needs elaborationālook at all of our weaknesses and then look at the things Kawhi Leonard is good at. If he becomes available we pretty much have to enter the sweepstakes.”
Again, it’s the cost that would make or break the decision. His injury history and age absolutely has to be factored into the cost. But a healthy Kawhi is still a top-10 difference-maker in this league, and yes, a perfect fit.
Zachary does just work with the 1600s Obadiah, Immanuel, Jericho, Isaiah lineup. Although I do wish it were Zachariah.
So I’m not fond of LaVine, but I guess I won’t be too adamantly against getting him.
In other insane, tragic news, the possible #3 overall pick is now deeply implicated in a murder: https://www.al.com/news/2023/02/darius-miles-texted-brandon-miller-to-bring-gun-used-to-kill-jamea-jonae-harris-police-testify.html
I want absolutely no part of LaVine. He gets paid way to much for an exclusively one-way player. His career WS48 is .077 and topped out at .138. He cracked a BPM of 4.0 once and got paid, but has been on the decline since…and his career BPM after 17,000 minutes is 0.5, and at 0.9 this year when his team really needed him to step up.
Additionally, an important consideration for acquiring any players going forward is how long you expect Thibs to be the coach. Bringing on players with chronically arthritic knees is a bad idea in general, but even more so with a coach who doesn’t believe in load management. And Fournier being benched solely for defensive shortcomings doesn’t bode well for a Thibs-LaVine match, especially considering that Thibs shipped him out of Minny in the Jimmy Buttler trade.
The hardest of passes for me.
Hard no on Lavine also. Although he is better than I thought he would be, which I always have to note as an early dissenter.
Trading RJ for anything of value seems like a great idea if we want to be a 50 win team and a true contender next year. I don’t think it will happen.
I don’t really know what the Knicks should do in the offseason but that’s not my job.
RJ Hampton was just released by Orlandoā¦ I think we were interested in him during his draft, so maybe we will check him out? Not sure if itās much of a move either way, but he seems worth some sort of flier at his age.
Re: LaVine, Iāve never been a fan, but after watching the trajectory of Devin Booker, I could maybe be convinced that heās hasnāt been in the right situation yetā¦ but, I mean, he has played for Thibs before with less than ideal results. But if they are even considering him, Iām gonna assume Thibs has signed off.
Was gonna ask the same thing, ess-dog. I haven’t looked at his numbers at all, but I recall him playing well against us at least once. Wouldn’t be terrible if we could promote DaQuan Jeffries to the main squad and try out Hampton on a two-way in Westchester for the rest of the year.
i think everyone’s going to have live with the Lavine chatter this offseason… given that Ball’s rehab has suffered another setback i imagine they start thinking real hard about another teardown or people get fired and a teardown is forced….
hampton’s worth a look but you have to be cautious with rebuilding teams letting go of guys like this… usually means they’re damaged goods one way or another…. but sometimes you wind up with kevin porter or christian wood and actually get something that could be interesting….
Whenever I watched RJ Hampton I felt like I was watching one of the absolute worst players in the league, just absolutely atrocious decision making, he plays like a worse Cam Reddish, refuses to ever pass or rebound or do anything other than shoot, plus he was released by Orlando of all teams.
I guess you could throw him at Westchester and see what he’s got in the G-League but I’m not sure he’s even worthy of that.
Obviously not the most important thing, but this Brandon Miller situation creates a pretty insane situation for his NBA stock.
Heās immensely talented, has no criminal record, and everyone knows he provided the gun used to murder a woman.
Again, the most important thing here is that a mother was senselessly murdered. The details make it seem like this boiled down to a guy getting rejected, which is horrific and all too common.
But I can’t help but wonder how NBA teams will handle this. You could tell me his stock doesn’t budge (currently the consensus #3 overall pick and challenging for #2) or that he isn’t drafted at all and I could see either scenario.
brandon miller has been shooting up boards… but i don’t really think much of him as an actual prospect outside of this whole mess he’s in….. at best he might turn into a bobby portis type but going purely by the numbers he falls short of that and he’s much less active from the eye test…
brandon miller is a lot like jabari smith last year except much worse…. maybe the situation is sort of like allen iverson who probably had the most pre-draft hype and questions about a crazy situation…. but the situations sound completely different aside from that…
I can’t believe anyone is even considering Lavine. AAV of $43 mil, bad on defense, huge chance he misses a season’s worth of games or more during his contract… What’s not to love?
Smdh
I’m just glad that Hart is Josh not Joshua, lest he have to fit the battle of Jericho. Which would be bad for locker room culture.
I’m here all week, guys…
I donāt think Jeffries or Hampton will be on the roster until Thursday. I read that The Knicks are one player below the minimum roster number since the trade for Hunt. But they donāt have to do it until Thursday. If they add two minimum salary players before the twenty third they will bump into the luxury tax. But if they wait until the 23rd, they will stay barely below the tax because the new salary will count against the salary cap in a prorated manner. Waiting until then will get them paid the something like $13M payment for non luxury tax teams. Adding them to the roster a day earlier will put them into the luxury tax. Itās amazing how close they seem to be calculating stuff.
A competent front office is a big step forward for us, despite incineration issues
Sounds like Hampton signed with Detroit
I think there’s a pretty good chance Towns will be available in the off season and be willing to come to NY. Towns and Gobert are an awkward fit. Once Towns is back, if they don’t look good together the T-Wolves may decide to put Towns on the market, recover all the picks and players they gave up for Gobert and still have a pretty good team. They are playing OK now and Gobert looks pretty good.
Three problems with that.
1. They won’t watch Mitch if they already have Gobert
2. Do we want a highly efficient scoring C backing up Brunson, Randle etc… on defense?
3. Thibs and Towns supposedly did not exactly have a love affair.
I’m really worried about LaVine. There’s too much smoke about our interest for it to not be legit. I even read that Thibs likes him. He’s a good scorer, but I don’t see any evidence he contributes to winning as much as his reputation, he’s an injury risk, defense is very suspect, and the salary is very high. I’m a pretty hard “no” on LaVine. But he fits the profile of the kind of player the Knicks tend to overrate. ugh
Adrian Wojnarowski
@wojespn
The Atlanta Hawks dismissed coach Nate McMillan, sources tell ESPN.
Towns and Randle would be a perfect fit.
I heard things in the past suggesting that Leon believed he could get KAT whenever Minnesota imploded, and that perhaps Randle would be the big salary piece moved for KAT, along with a million picks. But this was back when Randle wasn’t playing very well. Now he’s kicking ass again, while it’s getting late early for the notion of KAT being a winning basketball player, as opposed to a good stats/bad team guy who plays no defense.
On pure talent and offensive versatility, he’s better than Julius. But I think I might prefer this current version of Julius to him, and I can’t imagine them co-existing in the same starting lineup.
By god is that Joe Prunty’s music?!?!
Yeah, I was kidding. We’d of course have to trade Randle for Towns. I also think I might be against that just based on contracts.
I have no idea who Prunty is. Country and Western star of the 50’s?
Prunty coached the Bucks for a month or two a few years ago after they fired J Kidd.
Someone on Posting & Toasting was making a pitch for Will Barton a week or two ago.
I would think the idea behind acquiring Lavine would be that he wouldn’t cost a giant pile of assets, because that contract is pretty gnarly, to use a California word. Hell, the Bulls should be GIVING assets to get rid of that thing.
“Come on, Dan, we know Vermonters are all closet Celts fansā¦”
Ha. No. It’s a living hell, lol. From Queens born and raised. High School on 77th Street in Manhattan. Here I sit in the land of the Celts, Pats and Sox being owned year after year. NYC has to get it’s shit together, lol
Jesus please no Will Barton, he was always bad but at least in Denver he shot at somewhat close to league average, now he’s 32, still terrible and shot a .500 ts% for the Wizards of all teams. I would genuinely take pretty much any random guy from the G League over him.
“I would think the idea behind acquiring Lavine would be that he wouldnāt cost a giant pile of assets, because that contract is pretty gnarly, to use a California word. Hell, the Bulls should be GIVING assets to get rid of that thing.”
There is zero chance that Zach LaVine is ever worth anywhere close to his contract. Zero.
However, there is a very significant non-zero chance that Zach LaVine becomes the single most untradable albatross in the NBA.
I wouldn’t touch that without a couple of unprotected firsts coming back, and then would still have to think about it.
wait what, I thought gnarly was some surfer term for something that was wild and cool…
I’m giving up on this slang stuff…I’m just too old for it now…
and yeah, heck no to lavine…waaay too much money for a one way player…
I really hope synder doesn’t coach the hawks…I think he would get them playing a lot better than they have…
sad news about lonzo ball…hopefully he can get himself healthy at some point…
RE: KAT and LaVine, I know that coaching and team culture should not get in the way of teambuilding in a vacuum, but I just don’t believe in those guys at their respective salaries. Let some other team overpay for them.
I hope we keep acquiring the Brunsons and Harts of the world at moderately low cost and wait for a team to blink. Not all GMs are Ainge or Masai.
Is PJ Washington a possibility? I like his game. What would it take to pry him loose from Charlotte? Am I overrating him?
I agree about Lonzo, but I also think it might mean Chicago is going to race for the bottom now instead trying for the playoffs
If we’re talking about role players for next season, one guy I’d love to get is Terance Mann. I think the Clippers situation is stunting his development a bit, with his minutes fluctuating a lot depending on Leonard, George and the Clippers health situation, but he has shown dependable defense and good efficiency shooting the ball, plus some promise as a secondary ball handler here and there.
The issue really is that he’s on a super cheap contract (2 more years after this one at 10 million AAV) and the Clippers have really no reason to let him go unless he asks out or the price is high, but he’s the type of player I’d be looking at if the front office isn’t looking for a big splash.
Will Barton would be a great addition for the people out there that are nostalgic for the Jamal Crawford era at msg.
Because I get most of my world news from an antiquated basketball fan-blog, I was unaware that the Alabama menās basketball team had recently committed first degree murder. Wow, what a weird story that was to read (per TNFHās post earlier). The motive they are going with is āwe were drunkā? Does that still fly in Alabama in the 21st century? Wow.
The way this will probably play out as far as the Knicks go is that this guy Brandon Millerās draft stick will fall and he will be drafted by Portland with our protected pick and will, or course, become a super-duper star and make the Blazers the new Warriors. (The Knicks lose again, all due to a little murder.)
[duplicative post deleted]
[edited to add: although it was a pretty good post, maybe it deserved a re-run]
this feels like a good time to do confessions…
donnie was kind enough to kick things off above, I’ll go next – I’ve started working from my bed…
only going in to the office for meetings…I’m just sick and tired of going to the workstation i set up in the boys’ room (they’re only here on the weekends)…
did a meeting today in bed, just blurred the background…
I feel like I’ve hit a new stride in nearly giving up on work…good news is – I’m more productive than I have been in a good while…actually on the way to catching back up…
got a 45 to 50 hour a week job, and been having trouble putting in more than 40…and those are not exactly 40 incredibly industrious weekly hours…
bad news, my bed is starting to smell of desperation…
***my bed is starting to smell of desperationā¦***
Which reminds meā¦ did your expensive date finally leave, Hubert?
When a player like Will Barton is available as a waiver wire addition, it means he is d-o-n done.
holy cow – just looked at the yamaava schedule the early part of the year…
oh shit – they got missy elliott scheduled…as much as i’m not crazy about the venue – i’d really like to listen and watch her perform…tix go on sale 2/27…yeah, i’m gonna have to see that one…
janet jackson going for $500, dave mathews going for $1,000…no thanks…
Bruno, i think LAC let go of Wall and Jackson exactly to name Mann the starter at PG. Last (important) game before the break confirms this, as Lue used a playoff like 9-man rotation, with Mann, PG, Kawhi, Morris and Zubac as the starters. Bones and Gordon came off the bench with Batum and Plumlee. I think they’re betting on Mann having potential to improve, just as you, meaning they won’t let him go in the summer and he won’t ask out now that he is a starter. But hey, they’re the Clippers so probably a 1st round exit will make everyone not named Kawhi and PG available. LOL
If you’re productive then it won’t matter how you do it, right? But do you go out to take some fresh air? That is if we can call fresh air to what we’re doing to the planet, of course. š But you know what i mean. Still have the dog to go take a walk? That’s a good way to have the habit to go out for a bit, the dog needs it and he will remind us of it. š
Thinking about Nate McMillan, I realized one thing about the Knicks has not changed. Getting blown out by the Knicks is very bad for your coaching career.