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[news.google.com] — Wednesday, February 22, 2023 11:15:00 PM
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[news.google.com] — Wednesday, February 22, 2023 3:21:52 PM
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81 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2023.02.23)”
I’ll repeat what I said at the end of the last thread.
I’ve definitely lost faith in RJ turning into a really good or even good player. But I am still willing to be patient with that process and see how it plays out before we look to dump him in a trade. He was looking pretty good there for a stretch of games before the hand injury.
But I have gained a lot more faith in IQ possibly becoming an all-star caliber player. The improvements he has made this year in all aspects of the game is really impressive. He has turned into a true two way player. He’s been putting together a string of games for awhile now where he gets 10 to 16 points off the bench fairly efficiently while also providing elite defense, great rebounding for his position and nice playmaking. And his work ethic and drive and IQ (see what I did there) appears to be off the charts. He might be Thibs’ next Butler. A guy drafted later who just really buys into Thibs philosophy and work ethic and becomes really good because of it. So no way I include IQ in any trade unless it is for a legit superstar in their prime. I think this kid could be the real deal.
Grimes I am less beholden too but I also think he is just scratching the surface of his potential. Keep in mind, Grimes hardly got any PT his rookie year until mid December and then only played for like what, a month or 6 weeks before he got hurt? So this is really his first full season and he’s starting and guarding the opposing team’s best perimeter player every night. So I would also be really hesitant to include him in a trade but more willing than IQ.
All that being said. No way I trade for Lavine. NO FUCKING WAY.
If that is our best option, just keep building. Maybe RJ has topped out and that would be a real shame that would make it harder for us to get better. But I don’t think so. And I am very confident IQ and Grimes have a lot more game in them.
We don’t even know what a full season of this roster with Hart looks like. And I trust Leon and company to find another Hart type deal out there either in free agency or in a similar trade next year. If we hate RJ’s current deal, we will absolutely hate Lavine’s salary on this team. What is to stop him from turning into the next Fournier on our team but much worse because he costs like 40 million a year. NO FUCKING WAY.
On his mailbag podcast yesterday, Macri discussed the following conundrum:
1)If RJ continues to play the way he has for the rest of the season — and if, as a result, Thibs is finally willing to consistently sit him down during crunch time in favor of some combo of Hart, IQ, and Grimes — the rest of the league is not going to value him as anything but salary filler in a star trade, or perhaps as a real buy-low candidate.
2)If RJ balls out — as he often has in the later phases of seasons — then the FO may once again convince itself that this is the real RJ, and that he should be part of the core rather than the centerpiece of an attempt to get an upgrade.
In other words, he has replaced Julius as the heart of the Mike K roster-building conundrum. The hope is that this front office — which, other than Scott Perry, had nothing to do with bringing RJ onto the team — is not blinded by love for his former top prospect status, and would view a late season burst just as an excuse to get better value for him in a trade.
We shall see. But at the moment, it feels like we have entered worst case scenario for the guy, especially given that his extension is about to kick in.
I don’t know where this idea that RJ finishes strong has come from. Over his last 20 games last season, he averaged over 20ppg but he did that shooting 42/30/76 from 2/3/FT and a 49.5TS%: https://stathead.com/tiny/1uz2o
The year before he wasn’t worse but it doesn’t stand out from how he played the rest of the season: https://stathead.com/tiny/SG1P6
Same thing with his rookie year: https://stathead.com/tiny/7sGgX
Consider me corrected, then. The narrative has definitely been that RJ starts seasons terribly and then is much better in the second half.
Meanwhile, Shams says the Hawks are already in negotiations with Quin Snyder to replace McMillan. That would suck. He can really coach.
we are absolutely trying to look for a significant upgrade…. that’s been the whole plan.. we’ve incinerated picks for the pleasure of dreaming of various stars that would be exchanged for those picks….
with the contract situation of this squad…. if we don’t make a deal within the next calendar year… it’s not going to be fournier’s contract outgoing… it’s going to have to be RJ regardless of how good he is unless he overtakes randle or brunson … that more than anything is going to prevent any dumping of RJ for scraps kind of deal which wasn’t going to be a good idea in any case…
there really isn’t any conundrum… we’re hunting for a star and that star is coming this season or next season or never… and RJ is going to lose his role… be shipped out… or remain on this team…. the decision is really going to be made for us once someone shakes loose and becomes available….
he’s finished strong(er) the other two years…
But Alan, the Julius conundrum is looking pretty illogical at this point. Which I said it was at the time. I don’t think the “dilemma” take was ever appropriate. Once he was paid, there was no downside to him playing well, i.e. like he did in 2020-21. None. Fabricating that take is borne out of cynicism with regard to the management team. You are assuming that no matter what happened, management would fuck it up.
The other underlying assumption in both cases is that it would be best for the player to not be on the roster. So now I ask you: what is the current downside of having this version of Randle on the roster? I don’t see one at all. Opinions vary, of course….just ask E! But I don’t buy it.
Same is true of RJ. I don’t see a world where him playing well could possibly be viewed as a negative. So the problem of the FO potentially seeing RJ as a “part of the core” is a made-up problem, a spin on a desireable outcome that again assumes the management team will screw things up, or is grounded in an assumption that RJ will likely never be a positive contributer to winning.
There certainly IS downside to overpaying for someone based on either a limited or otherwise suspect sample of play. That horse is already out of the barn in RJ’s case…he’s already been paid. So when that decision was made, the worst possible outcome would be for him to be devalued as an asset due to poor play leading to losses, benching, etc. Turning it into some kind of lose-lose situation? Please.
we’re hunting for a star.
Which is fine. But KAT and Lavine are not stars.
ThisChicanery,
I agree with you.
I think the idea that he’s a slow starter comes from spin that Thibs has been using to defend him. The one thing that’s been consistent about RJ is that he’s inconsistent throughout a season.
IMO, there’s more going on than just randomness in his shooting even though that’s part it.
Sometimes you have great matchup and feel great mentally and physically. That’s when you should be aggressive.
Sometimes the defender has your number and for any number of personal or physical reasons you feel like crap. That’s when you should back off a little.
With RJ, the worse he’s playing, the more aggressive he seems to get. It’s like he’s out to prove something. That contributes to his volatility.
He behaves like he’s Kevin Durant or Steph Curry when he’s not even an average NBA shooter, let alone a great one.
There was a lot of banter on NBA Radio about the problems in ATL being grounded in Trae Young being disliked by everyone on his team and his coaches, and that Nate took the fall, i.e. Trae is a coach-killer.
In any case, I am so glad that we don’t have to root for him.
There’s buzz about Ime Udoka being considered for the ATL coaching job.
“we’re hunting for a star.”
I’d settle for a very solid two way starting SF and continued upside from whoever is left out of Quick, Grimes, Obi, I-Hart, Deuce, RJ, Sims, Mitch, and any draft picks we make next year. (We better keep Quick and Grimes unless it’s a superstar). Depending on who we give up, I think that could be a 50 win team next year.
The Julius conundrum was unique because his shitty play was complemented by an even shittier attitude. The conundrum was that if he plays better we will keep him but we are still stuck with the shitty attitude.
All we want is RJ to improve as a player, no different than wanting Obi to improve as a player. And if they don’t improve their minutes will be cut, and their value as a trade asset will decline, albeit moreso in RJ’s case given the length of his contract.
I think RJ has taken on more significance in our minds because we tanked to get him while KP was out. We had high hopes of getting a star out of that draft. It’s one thing to blow a later lottery pick (which we’ve mastered). It’s another to blow the 3rd pick. If he worked out and was on a clear path to becoming a two way all star, we would be in a GREAT position right now, but so far not so good. Then of course we had to either pay him or trade him before we really knew what we had. Fortunately, we didn’t max him. It is what it is. You keep moving forward hoping he gets better (and he will) but at the same time if the right deal comes up you move him because he’s not going to be some kind of #1 option star.
“The conundrum was that if he plays better we will keep him but we are still stuck with the shitty attitude.”
But why was it a given that his attitude wouldn’t change? Or that if his attitude didn’t change, we’d be stuck with him? That’s my problem with the so-called conundrum. It is indicative of a fixed mindset about both Julius and management.
I’m unmoved by the “RJ played well in X number of games” argument. You can take just about any player who gets regular minutes, assign arbitrary endpoints to the best part of his season, and say “hey look he was good in these games, if he could just sustain that he’d be good all the time!” It’s not like the light is coming on for him, and he’s having a breakthrough, then forgetting whatever it was that caused him to have the breakthrough. It’s just simple variance.
RJ’s lack of development is in some ways just kind of weird. He seems to have good intangibles, and the flaws in his game seem at least somewhat fixable, but the numbers never budge.
It is indicative of a fixed mindset about both Julius and management.
I honestly don’t know if it was a fixed mindset or just looking at the situation and forming an opinion. I was probably one of the more vocal “just get Julius off the team” posters because I didn’t see how his attitude would change in New York (convinced he would continue to get booed and was too sensitive to shake it off) and I thought management (Thibs) didn’t hold him accountable enough. Very happy to take the L.
I would like RJ to play great. And then I would like us to trade him. For a better player who is not KAT or Lavine.
but we are still stuck with the shitty attitude.
Is RJ’s attitude “shitty?”
His body language and demeanor hasn’t been great recently but he’s also struggling.
JK, for me, it’s about the length of the period between the endpoints and the age and role of the player.
22yo RJ Barrett had a stretch of 30 consecutive games, from the last week in November through the first game of February, which is well more than a third of a season, where he posted a TS% in the high .560’s on high usage and minutes. Yes, the endpoints are arbitrary, but that’s still a long, consecutive stretch.
The dropoff in his defensive play is very concerning, and I don’t know what he needs to do (that he actually can do) to improve on that end. Sooner or later, Thibs is going to have to reckon with that, especially with Hart and Grimes as alternatives.
But at age 22, the offense just needs to stabilize in that .560+ TS% range that it stayed in for 30 games and then modestly improve from there as he matures and works on his game in the offseason.
I totally get the skepticism about whether he will ever stabilize on offense or improve on defense. It could definitely be wishful thinking on my part. But the long periods of sustained (and I think sustainable) strong-ish play from a 22 yo gives me at least some reason for optimism. As with Julius, I don’t buy into the “fixed mindset” theory, especially with a young kid like him. He’s been spoiled thus far, and it may take some time to unspoil him.
RJ just wants his 20 pointz per game. If his efficiency sucks because he sucks that night, then he will just take more shots. That’s all there is to know about him. Oh, and he just realized better defense won’t get him to 20 points any faster, so he stopped doing that.
If we could somehow package RJ and Randle (who is not a player to build a modern team around) for some kind of young superstar talent, we should do it asap, both are likely at their peak values right now.
And hire Quinn!
“I honestly don’t know if it was a fixed mindset or just looking at the situation and forming an opinion.”
Forming an opinion about the most likely outcome and wanting the player gone based on that opinion is one thing. Totally reasonable.
Framing a situation such that there are only two possible outcomes and both are bad is, in my opinion, grounded in false assumptions.
I think with RJ, while he isn’t surly like Julius, there is a concern that he has a “bad” attitude with regard to shot selection and decision-making on the court, along with some effort issues, and that he’s been spoiled by Thibs by not being sufficiently held accountable. I agree with all that. What I disagree with is the assumption that a) it’s not a correctable problem, or b) that Thibs will not sufficiently address it going forward in a way that makes RJ understand the need for corrective measures.
Z-Man
“JK, for me, it’s about the length of the period between the endpoints and the age and role of the player….”
I agree with almost all your thinking
But assuming RJ improves, what is he?
He’s not tall/long/quick enough to guard some of the elite SFs we are inevitably going to face in the playoffs and he won’t be enough of an offensive threat to live with the defensive issues like we do with say Brunson who’s high IQ and shooting carries the team at times.
Maybe he really belongs at SG, but I think he’s going to have quickness issues against the best SGs.
What it looks like he’s going to become is an OK offensive player that’s also OK on defense. He’ll be a jack of all trades but master of none.
IMO, what we need is an elite defender that’s at least good on offense or an elite offensive player that’s at least good on defense. Naturally, if we get a great two way player that’s even better, but IMO we need someone that moves the needle significantly on one side without sacrificing the other side (as LaVine and Towns would do on defense)
I don’t see RJ as ever becoming a top notch player on either side. He’ll be a good player, but not what I see as filling our needs. And I have been one his defenders from the draft through year 3. He has no excuses left. We have the PG, plenty of scoring options, and a little better spacing. Randle turned the corner like I expected he would with Brunson. RJ has not.
I can’t stop thinking of the character Daniel when I think of RJ. Nice kid, dealing with some shit, not a good attitude to enable him to work through his problems. He needs a Mr. Miyagi to ‘wax on, wax off’ him into learning how to deal with adversity.
In this case, it’s ‘pass on, D up.’
I’d love to see the FO get super ballsy and try a 3 teamer with RJ to get a star using a possible disgruntled player. KAT comes to mind as Minny won’t get anything of value back for Gobert and I think that team belongs to Edwards now. But no..not KAT coming to NY. KAT getting to LA somehow and one of PG or Kawhi coming to the Knicks. Or a similar move. Maybe someone like Siakam or LaVine shakes loose and we can re-route them somewhere else. Something. Somehow. At least try something ballsy with all these assets. I am comfortable with moving forward with a core of Mitch/Brunson/Randle/Grimes/Hart/Quickley to add to. Mitch can even be moved if absolutely necessary.
How? In 2021, his TS% over his final 20 was 53.9% vs 53.5% for the whole season. He averaged the same points, assists, steals, and blocks with a slight decrease in rebounds and TOs.
The issue with RJ remains the same, in that there’s not a single elite quality about him that can make us optimistic towards the future.
I can be optimistic about LaMelo Ball eventually becoming a star because he’s a sublime passer, I can be optimistic about Paolo Banchero because he’s great at getting to the line, I can be optimistic about Anthony Edwards because he has elite athleticism, and so on. That’s how very young players show superstar potential, there’s always at least something there that is clearly very above average, the guy might never figure it out, but if they do, they have a least one or two areas in the game they can excel on.
RJ is not athletic enough and he’s not close to elite on any of the crucial skills required, shooting, passing, defending or rebounding. So what’s the path towards superstardom here? Just hoping at ages 23-26 he suddenly becomes elite at one of those things at least despite showing no signs of any of that in 4 years? And 20 ppg at .560 ts%, even if that went for an entire season, is not an answer. That is scoring output that could be enough for a star player if he excels anywhere else, but that’s not the case.
I hope he turns it around and gets better, at least good enough to command a nice value on a trade, but I still have no hopes.
NBA.com has the Knicks as the eighth best team in the league. That’s is nice, but color me skeptical
https://www.nba.com/news/power-rankings-2022-23-week-19
Even the “good” RJ stretches are nothing special, or even good for that matter. If your *best* 30 game stretches consist of below league-average scoring efficiency on high volume and just about nothing else, that’s damning.
In the fake world where RJ was actually doing that over a full season we could have interesting conversations about the value of that kind of player, but we don’t have to bother because RJ is only sparingly that kind of player. Over the course of full seasons he’s just been unambiguously bad.
I agree with Z-Man that there’s nothing left to do but hope he plays well at this point, but I’m just not seeing it. He’ll have his stretches–he is RJ “13 game stretches” Barrett after all–but the counterbalancing stretches never seem to go anywhere.
I wouldn’t trade him for literally nothing because it’s not like doing so would open serious flexibility for us anyway, but I’d jump at the chance to offload him for basically any kind of asset. Have a feeling that contract is going to be on some lists before too long. Easily the biggest error this front office has made given that it was totally unforced.
Randle (who is not a player to build a modern team around)
What does this even mean? Like, honestly. He scores efficiently, draws fouls a lot and shoots FT’s at a decent rate. He rebounds like a beast. He can be a plus defender. He draws double teams and gets assists and for a PF, he shoots the 3ball well enough. Why is the current version of Randle with a good PG like Brunson not a guy you can build a team around?
But KAT and Lavine are not stars.
KAT was basically 85% of Jokic a couple years ago. A complete offensive dynamo as a big. And then covid happened and his mom died and he got sick and hurt and the wheels came off. But he’s still 27, and the reason he hasn’t been that good this season is that he’s a career 40% 3 point shooter making 32% of his 3s. This would probably be a good time to buy low on KAT, with the big caveat being you can buy low on him but he’s still on a huge contract so it’s not exactly getting value.
Randle is not a plus defender and I don’t accept that he “can be a plus defender.” You are or you are not. He is not.
There are plenty of teams that have been good with this player type. Any team with Chuck, Dirk, or Amare. I don’t think Karl Malone was a great defender. But it’s not optimal team building.
I dissent on KAT because of this same issue. He’d be an upgrade on Randle probably if he can bounce back, which I think he will, but if one of your bigs is a sieve it causes a cascade of problems across your roster.
Randle is a way better defender than Amare or Dirk were. Chuck was a good defender.
Dirk won a ring. Chuck and Malone both went to the Finals (Malone twice) and lost to the greatest player of all time.
You’re examples prove to me that you can win a ring with Randle, not that you can’t.
And Randle is a way better defender than Amare or Dirk.
I understood Mike’s conundrum to be that some front offices are either so vulnerable or so foolish that good luck can’t be cashed in on. It presupposes the idea that foresight is the key ingredient to successful GMing. YOu have to trade away players while their value is inflated and trade for players whose value will rise.
You will fail to do this if your job security is weak because you will be fired before the future proves you right. You’re stuck at best doing nothing and at worst mortgaging the future for a short term win boost.
You will also fail at your job if you simply aren’t capable of looking beyond the surface level of things. YOu lack foresight. THis might be because you aren’t smart or because you are afraid or trusting of public opinion, which with sports fans is always rosy colored. YOu can’t trade Randle when he’s playing well because he won’t get worse. You can’t trade him when he’s playing badly, because he’ll come out of it and improve his value. Reality is always less appealing than the fantasizing sports fans indulge in, and a real life trade will force reality onto fans, which is angering. IT will also anger the entire sports media that caters to emotional fans. THe only moves that appeal to fantasizing sports fans involve trading abstract assets like young players or picks.
SO if your GM is caught up in this way of viewing their team, as James Dolan himself seems to be, they will never act with foresight, and all successful moves will be only a product of random chance. Fortunately, when dealing with humans, especially younger ones, there is a lot of randomness.
Edit to add: when the entire marketplace is skewed by these pressures, it puts the rewards even more on the foresighted GMs. SO many GMs are concerned about their jobs or caught up in the media’s views. IF you can take advantage of them, there’s a lot to plunder.
DRed, the rest of the league doesn’t seem to know that KAT and LaVine aren’t stars yet lol
Does everyone know that Karl Malone had a child with a 13 year old when he was 20? Was that common knowledge during his playing career? I had no idea until yesterday.
I don’t think Randle is better than Dirk or Amare on defense. I don’t remember Chuck being good on defense either. Dude was like 6’4. Someone will supply the answer but obviously all those guys were way better on offense.
Randle when he’s focused can play some solid defense on his man-he’s nimble for his size and really strong, but he is and always has been an awful rim protector, so he’s basically never going to be a plus defender as a big.
I think even the most staunch RJ fans would agree that the superstar ship has sailed. The question now is “What is the path towards him becoming a useful NBA starter?” Or, at least, a good Sixth Man.
https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/b/barrerj01/splits/
ts% pre-asb – .509
ts% post-asb – .529
I am delighted if somewhat bemused that we are comparing Julius Randle to three NBA hall of famers and a fourth player with an estimated 73% chance of getting in.
It seems there are no roster adds for the Knicks yet
Amar’e and Dirk were terrible defenders for different reasons: Amar’e had all the athleticism in the world but had awful instincts and so his only value-add on the defensive end was weak-side shot blocking. But that’s not so useful when you’re late rotating half the time. Dirk was a terrible defender because he’s slow-footed and large, and so would just get burned. Randle doesn’t really have either of these problems. I think he rates as a slightly below-average defender at worst. The issue with Randle isn’t that he lacks instincts or athleticism, but that he sometimes totally dogs it, effort-wise (and he can’t play drop coverage to save his life.)
When he’s engaged he’s switchable and usually makes the right defensive decision, which is more than can be said for Amar’e or Dirk. And he’s a hellacious defensive rebounder. The actual worst defender in the starting 5 is, who else, RJ Barrett, and we’d be defensively so much better off if Hart was in his place. We can’t do that though, since that would tank RJ’s value (and probably his attitude.)
KAT at his worst is still a 5bpm player…. probably the top shooting big in all of the association… and maybe you dont think he’s a star and that could be true but if you’re going to be waiting for something BETTER than him… then you’re probably going to be waiting forever….
i dont think he’s going to be available since the best course would be to run it back and hope for better health for KAT and others….
***Hawks are already in negotiations with Quin Snyder to replace McMillan. That would suck. He can really coach.***
I guess Hawks fans are about to enjoy the Snyder bump, which is what they used to call the McMillan bump.
I think trading for KAT–even if we keep Randle–is not a bad idea at all (if he’s gettable below his MSRP.) There are going to be defensive issues with such a big rotation, but I think it’s more than offset by the offensive gains that having a true stretch 5 would give us. It would also allow us to bring Mitch off the bench to mix and match with Randle and Towns at the 4 to shore up the defense when we don’t need a ton of offensive firepower. The main risk with Towns is his health, since he’s injured fairly often.
If the price for Towns was two firsts, Fournier, Obi, and RJ, I’d pull the trigger.
Then the rotation is basically:
JB
Grimes
Hart
Randle
KAT/Mitch
Bench:
IQ
Deuce
MLE SF/PF (Yuta? Grant Williams?)
Randle/KAT staggered/MLE SF/PF
Mitch/Hart
That’s a deep team that has a lot of different offensive and defensive looks it can throw at you. The problem with such a team is that there’s no one lineup that is fully balanced that will get crunch-time minutes (since one of KAT, Randle, or Mitch will have to sit unless Randle can play SF, which I imagine he can’t do.)
Again, if there’s a better star trade in the offing, I’d wait for that one. But if there doesn’t seem to be one forthcoming, you could do worse than trading for KAT (assuming you know that he and Thibs can bury the hatchet.)
power forwards have historically been ‘bigs who don’t protect the rim’…. and hence poor defenders… they do have rim protection responsibilities… even today… it’s not as much as centers do given the propensity for PF’s to be planted further away from the basket…. but they’re kind of like the second basemen of basketball…
so maybe randle does have lapses and things but other pf’s on other teams have just as many problems… the threshold for defense at the pf spot is judged a bit differently…
going by different metrics randle probably rates from slightly below to about avg… so it’s not a slam dunk that he’s just terrible… he rebounds well and that’s generally been enough to get around average defensively in a lot of instances… it’s just he gives that back in other areas… particularly his lack of ability to get to balls (steals/blocks) and the various lapses he has….
I am not comparing Randle to those guys. Just making the point that the offensive threshold you have to clear to be a championship quality cornerstone as a bad defense PF is exceptionally high.
Having Randle and KAT on the team together seems like the kind of chemistry experiment which blows up the school lab.
Fair enough, Owen, and your chemistry experiment analogy is funny. Cuz it’s probably true.
It’s also funny that Statmuse has Randle as the second-best defensive power forward in the league in 2021-2022, based on DRTG. Garbage in, garbage out…?
https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/best-power-forward-defensive-rating-2022
I mean, maybe I am wrong about Randle’s defense. it’s not awful. It’s better than John Collins, another good offensive PF who can’t play defense. But after three years of obsessing about it I am unlikely to be moved on this point.
DRed was not wrong about Bronny. I guess I don’t see how we get him though if he goes top 10. Getting comped to Jrue and Melton because his defense is excellent apparently, per Givony.
Owen, if it makes you feel any better, my eye test agrees with you. I haven’t done a lot of Randle-watching on D since there are so many of his teammates that are much more fun to watch (I miss you Deuce…), but it seems like a lot of times the other team will make a basket and I’ll notice Julius just standing on Randle Island, not near anyone else. I’m no expert, but that doesn’t seem right…
Randle Island is a good place to play D, if you’re trying to keep Queens from scoring on East Harlem.
KAT and LaVine are both stars. They just can’t be on a team that already has Randle & Brunson playing “defense”.
Lavine’s real issues are his injury history and his contract. The contract issue mostly depends on an owner’s willingness to pay the luxury tax.
I dunno, doesn’t it seem like signing your relatively high second-round pick to a 10-day (which will presumably be followed by a few more 10-days, and then a full-season deal later) suggests that the organization isn’t especially high on said pick?
Although has anybody taken lower than Keels done anything of note yet?
I think Brock is doing his cap tricks.
The Knicks are really close to the tax limit and 10-days contracts to rookies are the cheapest (61.500 dollars)…
And maybe letting his 2-way spot open, they can make some little savings too…
P.S.
For instance, signing Will Barton to a minimum contract would’ve paid him the pro-rated of 2.9M, while signing him to a 10-day would cost 175K.
Ringer says we have a 5% chance of winning a title this year and is projecting us to finish as a 5 seed with 45 wins.
https://nbarankings.theringer.com/odds-machine
5% is a little high but 45 wins is a probable scenerio.
Doing cap tricks makes sense. It’s interesting that Keels got the deal instead of Jeffries. My impression is that Jeffries was putting up very good numbers in G league
5% seems quite high
Jeffries would probably count as a 3-years player (he did play 47 games in 3 seasons before this one) so his 10-days would’ve cost nearly two times Keels’ (115K).
Brock’s tricks 😉
Edit:
Because of different lenght in the season’s “calendar days”, this year 10-days values are a little smaller:
Keels 59K
Jeffries 110K
Burton 167K
Good point
They actually can fit two players if they want to. But I assume there are tax reasons not to do that, at least not right away.
Is it Friday night yet? – This break was way too long for me.
Maybe they can squeeze the little extra space from signing Keels instead of Jeffries to sign an older.
Knicks could intend to sign Keels to a longer term deal after the 10-day.
5% is a little high but 45 wins is a probable scenerio.
great news for the ringer. it can buy all the nyk futures it wants at 160-1.
what a ridiculous block on embiid by jjj
Every time I watch Philly its a struggle like this. I have a hard time seeing them go all the way. Which I guess means I am becoming an eye test guy in my dotage.
***Every time I watch Philly it’s a struggle like this. I have a hard time seeing them go all the way.***
I’m not watching, but I see that Morant and JJJ are a combined 1-10, yet Philly still trails them by 10 at the half, so I think I get what you are saying.
This season is the ultimate refutation of the eye test for me. I’ve watched the majority of most games, and if I didn’t know any numbers I would never in a thousand years have guessed that we are the 7th best team in the NBA (per SRS). And I’d never in a million years have guessed that we have the 6th best offense.
Maybe Thibs is onto something with this team, this anachronism from a time that never was. In a league where most teams have conceded offensive rebounding, we dominate the boards. In a league where efficient scoring is off the charts, we get by on the sneaky benefit of an iso-heavy offense: ball security. Maybe it’s gimmickry, but so was pace-and-space until it wasn’t.
Our defense figures to improve once we get Mitch back, and Hart can only help on that end. I agree with the sentiment others have expressed that we might have the potential to be good enough that starting one of the worst players in the league in RJ becomes truly untenable. Surely, if we are looking like a 50+ win team, even our FO will be forced to value a possible second playoff round over saving face?
Embiid wants to join the block party
Pedro Pascal is buying the rights to the Santa Aldama biopic
This Roddy guy making a contribution tonight.
I don’t understand the Grizzlies. A lot of the time it feels like they have the wrong guys taking the shots.
This was an incredibly ugly game and then an incredibly exciting one. What a finish.
Embiid is crazy good.
Man, what a game!
Bane with some shocking bricks on that last possession. He was absolute water in the first half!
Memphis melting down….which is a concern with them I guess…
Arciacanado started tonight…and already pulled down 5 boards…cam also in the starting lineup…
Re: the Knicks 5% chance to win the championship, my son put it into perspective: “If someone told me I could bet $5 and win $1 billion if the Knicks win it all, I’d rather keep my $5…”
https://twitter.com/ACE_ZULLO/status/1626760612129783809?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1626760612129783809%7Ctwgr%5Ee05b943ffd1ec3795290730c9852fac230cb2248%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.postingandtoasting.com%2F2023%2F2%2F23%2F23609744%2Fthe-knicks-signed-trevor-keels-to-a-10-day-contract
DJ
@ACE_ZULLO
Haven’t seen a second of tape but NYK rookie Trevor Keels has been picking it up after a slow start in the G-League:
Last 10 Games *averages
17.1 pts | 4 reb | 4 assists | 1 steal
47% FG | 40% 3pt | 78% FT
G-League stats are hard to contextualize but nice to see improvement
Last edited
8:48 PM · Feb 17, 2023
Are they tanking?
This game tonight is as much of a “must win” road game as we’ve had all season. BKN, ATL and TOR don’t look ready to tank so this would be a bad time to let go of the rope. Mitch should be back, my guess is that he will play 20 or so minutes. There is a nice chemistry thing going on so I’m fairly optimistic that they will take care of business.
Unfortunately I will have to follow these next two games on my phone. It’s a double whammy after such a long break and that these games are so critical.
Arcidiacono had a pretty good line with 9 points on 8 shots, 6 rebounds and 6 assists and a plus minus of minus three which was good considering the final game score. Reddish scored well but had a terrible plus minus.