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Knicks Morning News (2023.05.21)

  • Do the Cavs need an ‘enforcer’ to win in the playoffs? What is the problem? ? Terry Pluto – cleveland.com
    [news.google.com] — Sunday, May 21, 2023 5:11:00 AM

    Do the Cavs need an ‘enforcer’ to win in the playoffs? What is the problem? ? Terry Pluto  cleveland.com

  • Knicks’ Quickley, Rose Discussed in Potential Deal: Report – Heavy.com
    [news.google.com] — Saturday, May 20, 2023 11:36:00 PM

    Knicks’ Quickley, Rose Discussed in Potential Deal: Report  Heavy.com

  • NBA Rumors: Knicks Land Sixers’ James Harden In This Trade – NBA Analysis Network
    [news.google.com] — Saturday, May 20, 2023 10:21:40 PM

    NBA Rumors: Knicks Land Sixers’ James Harden In This Trade  NBA Analysis Network

  • Knicks May Revisit Trade Talks Involving Obi Toppin – Heavy.com
    [news.google.com] — Saturday, May 20, 2023 10:01:00 PM

    Knicks May Revisit Trade Talks Involving Obi Toppin  Heavy.com

  • NBA rumors: Joel Embiid trade to Knicks gets doused with cold water – ClutchPoints
    [news.google.com] — Saturday, May 20, 2023 7:01:30 PM

    NBA rumors: Joel Embiid trade to Knicks gets doused with cold water  ClutchPoints’The Guy to Watch!’: Has Knicks’ Joel Embiid Case Gotten Stronger?  Sports IllustratedKnicks Notes: Porzingis, Embiid, Trade Assets, Quickley  hoopsrumors.com

  • Knicks fans pound the table for wild Julius Randle trade after draft … – Daily Knicks
    [news.google.com] — Saturday, May 20, 2023 7:00:40 PM

    Knicks fans pound the table for wild Julius Randle trade after draft …  Daily Knicks

  • Breaking down Knicks’ possible targets, including . . . Kristaps Porzingis? – Newsday
    [news.google.com] — Saturday, May 20, 2023 6:19:03 PM

    Breaking down Knicks’ possible targets, including . . . Kristaps Porzingis?  Newsday

  • Knicks, Leon Rose facing offseason of big decisions – New York Post
    [news.google.com] — Saturday, May 20, 2023 2:56:00 PM

    Knicks, Leon Rose facing offseason of big decisions  New York Post

  • Steph Curry recalls Draft Night – “I wanted to go to New York” – Basketball Network
    [news.google.com] — Saturday, May 20, 2023 1:13:43 PM

    Steph Curry recalls Draft Night – “I wanted to go to New York”  Basketball Network

  • Sauce Gardner gifted custom Jessica Alba cleats as Knicks game saga continues – New York Post
    [news.google.com] — Saturday, May 20, 2023 11:58:00 AM

    Sauce Gardner gifted custom Jessica Alba cleats as Knicks game saga continues  New York Post

  • Knicks’ Hypothetical Blockbuster Trades to Shake Up NBA Offseason – Bleacher Report
    [news.google.com] — Saturday, May 20, 2023 11:29:00 AM

    Knicks’ Hypothetical Blockbuster Trades to Shake Up NBA Offseason  Bleacher Report

  • Carmelo Anthony reveals why he didn’t join Derrick Rose with Bulls – ClutchPoints
    [news.google.com] — Saturday, May 20, 2023 11:03:48 AM

    Carmelo Anthony reveals why he didn’t join Derrick Rose with Bulls  ClutchPoints

  • NBA Trades: 5 trade targets the New York Knicks must pursue this summer – Hoops Habit
    [news.google.com] — Saturday, May 20, 2023 10:04:02 AM

    NBA Trades: 5 trade targets the New York Knicks must pursue this summer  Hoops Habit

  • The E-Sports World’s Future Is Uncertain as Growth Stalls – The New York Times
    [news.google.com] — Saturday, May 20, 2023 10:00:12 AM

    The E-Sports World’s Future Is Uncertain as Growth Stalls  The New York Times

  • NBA insider identifies 3 likely OG Anunoby trade suitors this summer, including New York Knicks – Sportsnaut
    [news.google.com] — Saturday, May 20, 2023 9:00:00 AM

    NBA insider identifies 3 likely OG Anunoby trade suitors this summer, including New York Knicks  Sportsnaut

  • Jets’ Sauce Gardner Gifted Custom Jessica Alba Cleats After Meeting at Knicks Game – Bleacher Report
    [news.google.com] — Saturday, May 20, 2023 8:17:46 AM

    Jets’ Sauce Gardner Gifted Custom Jessica Alba Cleats After Meeting at Knicks Game  Bleacher Report

  • 3 All-in trade packages New York Knicks could make for Trae Young – Daily Knicks
    [news.google.com] — Saturday, May 20, 2023 8:00:16 AM

    3 All-in trade packages New York Knicks could make for Trae Young  Daily KnicksNBA Trades: 5 trade targets the New York Knicks must pursue this summer  Hoops HabitBreaking down the futures of every Knicks player ahead of pivotal offseason  New York Post

  • Knicks, Thunder, Magic and more NBA teams with bright futures – Deadspin
    [news.google.com] — Saturday, May 20, 2023 8:00:00 AM

    Knicks, Thunder, Magic and more NBA teams with bright futures  Deadspin

  • 208 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2023.05.21)”

    Dedicated to CDiggy! šŸ˜‰

    Since the NBA Playoffs began, 149 teams have faced a 3-0 series deficit in a seven-game postseason series. Of those teams, 14 have won at least two games while three have won three straight games to force a decisive Game 7. None have come back to win the series.

    Z-Man, you said “heā€™s a very, very good two-way player” about Jaylen Brown. I don’t usually watch the Celts, but is this a case of DBPM not capturing well the player’s defense? He has bad DBPM stats at BRef.com.

    Do you think weā€™re heading for a gentlemanā€™s sweep out West, or does LeBron want to go home now that itā€™s clearly over?

    I would think LA will try not to get swept, rather laying down at home.

    Get ready for every player in the league being linked to the Knicks in trade rumors this summer.

    Yeah, i think Lebron won’t want to go down with a sweep. And maybe even the Nuggets will respect it.

    In HoopsRumors.com:

    The Knicks could benefit from an active trade market this summer, ESPNā€™s Bobby Marks says in a conversation with New York reporters, including Ian Begley of SNY.tv. Marks believes many teams will be trying to unload pricey contracts to escape the restrictions of the new Collective Bargaining Agreement, so more talent than usual could be on the move. Marks believes only the Thunder and maybe the Jazz are in a similar position to put together a trade package to land a star.

    I don’t know if i believe it, but it can be great for the Knicks.

    EPM likes Jaylen Brown, puts him in the 90th%tile.

    RAPTOR isn’t so hot on him, a +0.6 this year. Jaylen might do poorly because Brogdon is an elite backup player, but this isn’t the only year that’s underwhelming. At least last year was good at +2.8.

    His numbers are basically the same as Randle’s except for the rebounding, and Randle gets 0.7 more ast/36. And Randle has a much, much better OBPM.

    Iā€™m feeling a lot better about my Denver bet after last night. I love that Denver team but even I wasnā€™t expecting that. Itā€™s going to be tough for me to not make some money out of this. If the Heat can get into the finals, Iā€™d be able to hedge very cheaply and win either way if I want.

    The ā€œpatientā€ Celtics are currently getting their asses kicked by the rebuilt on the fly Heat.

    What does this have to do with the price of gas? You’re not seriously comparing the work Pat Riley does to what Leon did, are you?

    You can rebuild on the fly with Jimmy Butler and Bam Adebayo. Not so much with Julius Randle and RJ Barrett.

    The challenge for Leon is that the non-shooting role players on this team bring so much else to the table. You canā€™t just replace Mitch and Hart with shooters and not lose a ton of what makes us great.

    Iā€™d feel for him if this werenā€™t the extremely-high-degree-of-difficulty path he chose to walk.

    Thatā€™s exactly why I think one of either Randle or RJ has to go. We have high level role players that are still improving but we have 3 guys in the starting lineup that canā€™t shoot. We can probably throw Mitch into the trade conversation as well, but Iā€™m reluctant to trade him for a C that can space the floor better (KAT) because I think we need Mitchā€™s defense to clean up the defensive shortcomings on the perimeter with Brunson, RJ, and Randle.

    I think maybe we should stop thinking in terms of ONE trade. The solution may be multiple trades that on a net basis improves the spacing. but without sacrificing defense or too much in terms of key role players.

    That was the entire purpose behind accumulating picks and rolling them out instead of likely drafting more role players. Picks are the currency that allow you to improve now. Teams would generally rather have picks unless you are giving up a very good player, which we donā€™t want to do unless we can replace him with something better in another trade.

    I have seen enough of Brown to conclude heā€™s more like what EPM says he is (a top-30ish player) than the what other metrics suggest. Heā€™s clearly the #2 on a perennial contender with a flawed #1 and #3. Heā€™s a very good defensive player and very versatile on both sides of the ball. Heā€™s exactly the kind of player that typical composite metrics tend to underrate.

    You can rebuild on the fly with Jimmy Butler and Bam Adebayo. Not so much with Julius Randle and RJ Barrett.

    He didnā€™t draft Butler.

    The point is heā€™s constantly looking to upgrade using every method available. Heā€™ll draft, trade, sign free agents, try to develop undrafted players into useful role players, use picks as currency etcā€¦

    The Heat are demonstrably not much better than us.

    We are younger and have more trade ammunition.

    They are simply a little ahead of us in the process.

    We have to develop young players and make a couple of good moves this off season to close the gap on the serious contenders. No guarantees. Leon could blow it, but we are positioned VERY WELL!

    The Knicks had the 8th best record in the league. They were 7th by SRS. They are one of the youngest teams in the league. They have 2 all-star caliber players on very reasonable contracts. They have all of their picks and four surplus picks. They are very well positioned to upgrade the roster this year or next. It’s a great time to be a Knicks fan!

    What Strat said!

    Considering that Leon has taken a team projected to win 22 games and transformed them into a team that is one transaction away from being a contender with one of the youngest rosters in the league, tons of draft capital, and no albatross contracts, I think this team compares quite favorably with what Pat Riley might have done if dealt the same shitty hand.

    It’s not very hard to build a middling team (which is what we are). There is a shortcut to the mezzanine, and Leon took it.

    If you don’t believe me, think about the contending teams in the NBA and try to imagine them wanting to add Julius Randle, Mitchell Robinson, Josh Hart, and RJ Barrett.

    They wouldn’t want Randle bc he’s useless without the ball and not good enough to have the ball. They wouldn’t want Mitch and Hart – even though both of them make significant positive impact – because those two would kill the spacing for their best players. And they wouldn’t want RJ because he’s bad at basketball.

    The only guys we have that a contender would want are Jalen, IQ, and Grimes.

    That’s why – to Knick fan in NJ’s point – it is harder for us than other playoff teams to improve because other teams took a better path to get here. Say what you want about Tatum and Brown but you put those two on the block and contending teams are gonna empty their chests to acquire them. They are the kinds of guys that can get you to the end.

    Our guys are not. Our guys (other than the three I mentioned) can only get you to the middle. And it’s easy to acquire those guys because the smart teams don’t want them.

    He didnā€™t draft Butler.

    Who said anything about drafting?

    The Heat are demonstrably not much better than us.

    We are younger and have more trade ammunition.

    They are simply a little ahead of us in the process.

    Dude the Heat are a thousand miles ahead of us. They have Riley, Spo, Butler, and Bam. We have Leon, Thibs, Jalen (who I love, but come on, he ain’t Jimmy), and Randle.

    Time is not the difference between us and the Heat. Time isn’t gonna make our guys as good as theirs.

    The Knicks had the 8th best record in the league. They were 7th by SRS. They are one of the youngest teams in the league. They have 2 all-star caliber players on very reasonable contracts. They have all of their picks and four surplus picks. They are very well positioned to upgrade the roster this year or next. Itā€™s a great time to be a Knicks fan!

    The Knicks got figured out 24 minutes into the second round of the playoffs.

    What are you going to believe, a season’s worth of evidence or Hubert repeating the Knicks got figured out 24 minutes into the second round for the next five months?

    “The Knicks got figured out 24 minutes into the second round of the playoffs.”

    That’s not what happened. They took Miami six games and came very close to winning game 6. Again, they are a very good young team. Will they win the title? Who knows? It’s not going to be easy, but Leon has done a good job getting them this close. It’s going to be a long summer, if all people do is shit on Rose, Thibs, and Randle for no good reason.

    We seem to be doing better than the high trade value Celtics against the Heat.

    And to be fair, our Ryan Arcidiacanos & Svi Mykhailuks might be Cody Martins, but Thibs will never let us find out.

    You can be in the top 10 and still not be a contender. This is self evident and merits no further discussion.

    Itā€™s pretty rich when the same folks who insisted that we should have beaten the Heat with the roster now insist that their roster is way better than ours.

    Oh, Hubert’s 100% right.

    The Knicks Moneyballed themselves to this position, both in terms of roster construction/shopping aisle and on-court philosophy. There’s simply no question about that. It and its downside were observed and delineated in real time.

    The only caveat and the only thing potentially taking them out of the “mezzanine” is the delta between Brunson’s perceived market value and what he actually is. The entire league undervalued Brunson (*) and Leon lucked into the delta, which he didn’t have a thing to do with.

    I disagree slightly about Hubert’s take on RJ, but no one wants Julius Randle, Mitchell Robinson, or Josh Hart. They’re all quintessential, central casting mezzanine guys. There’s a reason Julius Randle puts up numbers and gets all-NBA votes yet still has little to no marketplace.

    (*) Brunson’s almost the prototypical guy who’s going to get short shrift in the marketplace — slow, short, not a lot of assists, kind of dumpy looking. But the numbers and the profile don’t show the drive and the hidden assassin beneath.

    I think there is a consensus that we are 1 or 2 moves away from contention.

    Leon lucked into Brunson’s delta above market value. He would have signed him whether or not that delta was there. Had he been valued as the max guy he is, Leon wouldn’t have had the money.

    And now Leon’s hanging onto an ill-suited coach for the next step up. So, yeah — he isn’t a genius or anything close.

    People remember that Butler just decided to leave a team that was likely the championship favorites to go to Miami. I’m not sure why we assume Pat Riley did anything brilliant other than choose to run a team in a city with warm weather, beaches, and a great club scene.

    FAs choose their teams, Butler chose Miami & Brunson chose the Knicks.

    There’s also some players who step up in the playoffsā€”Butler, Brunson & Jamal Murrayā€”and players who underperform their regular season numbers. I’m not sure this is determinable a priori.

    Randle, barring the injury being more severe than we know, has been a guy who underperforms. If he puts up anything close to his season numbers we win that series.

    Speaking of injuries, RJ was our only starter who wasn’t injured.

    Completely different topic, I don’t know why Moneyball is a dirty word to some people.

    “And to be fair, our Ryan Arcidiacanos & Svi Mykhailuks might be Cody Martins, but Thibs will never let us find out.”

    Ryan averaged 2.8 steals per 36, and Svi shot 60% from three!

    #BallDon’tLie

    Leon lucked into Brunsonā€™s delta above market value. He would have signed him whether or not that delta was there.

    That’s quite an assumption

    What are you going to believe, a seasonā€™s worth of evidence or Hubert repeating the Knicks got figured out 24 minutes into the second round for the next five months?

    There is no difference between the two.

    The season’s worth of evidence said that we’re one of the top 8 teams in the league. It also said we have a fatal flaw (namely, we can’t shoot).

    We got to the point a top 8 team should get to, then we got figured out very quickly.

    You’re pretending the 24 minute quote suggests that our regular season success was fraudulent. It doesn’t. It merely speaks to our ability to go further with what we currently have.

    This is a point I am certain I have communicated clearly. Any further attempts to mischaracterize will be ignored.

    We seem to be in the permanent “our cup is half full,” “no, our cup is half empty” loop. Somehow it was more pleasant when we all agreed that we sucked, and just argued about which was the worst part of sucking. Gonna be a long summer…

    Changing topics, I don’t think we should move Mitch while Embiid & Jokic are in the league.

    If the goal is to win a championship, then we need an answer to those guys.

    Completely different topic, I donā€™t know why Moneyball is a dirty word to some people.

    Because it doesn’t translate to the playoffs. We’ve been through this a bunch.

    We seem to be in the permanent ā€œour cup is half full,ā€ ā€œno, our cup is half emptyā€ loop. Somehow it was more pleasant when we all agreed that we sucked, and just argued about which was the worst part of sucking. Gonna be a long summerā€¦

    It’s gonna be a longer regular season if they run back Thibs’s Moneyball ….

    Let’s all hope they don’t.

    Here we go again with the ā€œyouā€™re willfully mischaracterizing what Iā€™m sayingā€ defense mechanismā€¦

    Because it doesnā€™t translate to the playoffs. Weā€™ve been through this a bunch.

    It worked pretty well against the Cavs. And we shouldn’t assume that was the reason we lost to the Heat.

    Leon absolutely did luck into Brunson. But so what? He still deserves immense credit for 1) putting the team in position to get lucky, and 2) making the team good enough that getting lucky would make a difference.

    Pat Riley lucked into Jimmy Butler. He also lucked into Dwyane Wade and LeBron James.

    The Lakers lucked into Shaq & Kobe.

    The Celtics lucked into a stupid owner in Brooklyn handing them the picks for Tatum and Brown.

    Every single good team in the NBA got lucky.

    There are also so many teams that got lucky but remained shit.

    It is hard to build a team that can be good if it gets lucky. Leon has already done that, and he deserves immense credit for it.

    It worked pretty well against the Cavs.

    It did, but the Cavs have an overrated superstar and a mosh pit lane and stupidly DFAd one of their primary floor spacers and their two seven-footers couldn’t throw it in the ocean from six feet. Wasn’t repeatable.

    Fun and fantastic as a fan, not really much to fall back on as an armchair GM.

    Okay, but why are you certain it was the moneyball approach rather than Randle sucking? Or our entire starting lineup, save RJ, being injured? Or maybe it is Just A Grimes?

    . It and its downside were observed and delineated in real time.

    This from the fucking guy who was consistently wrong about it in real time. Incredible narratives are being written. Tell us some more about how the Knicks are factually mediocre because Vegas set the line in the 30s. They can’t moneyball and hustlebunny their way out of that.

    Okay, but why are you certain it was the moneyball approach rather than Randle sucking? Or our entire starting lineup, save RJ, being injured? Or maybe it is Just A Grimes?

    I share Hubert’s opinion that the Knicks were easily figured out early on by the Heat. As to Grimes, real time observation that his and Hart’s “hustle” became not an advantage in the least once the other teams turned it up to playoff intensity. It’s impossible to have watched that series and concluded that the Knicks “played harder” than the Heat. That regular season Moneyball advantage dissipated. As did Mitch’s offensive rebounds followed by dunks.

    The Heat planned, figured it out and negated it, and but for Butler’s bad wheel would have swept the series.

    This from the fucking guy who was consistently wrong about it in real time. Incredible narratives are being written. Tell us some more about how the Knicks are factually mediocre because Vegas set the line in the 30s. They canā€™t moneyball and hustlebunny their way out of that.

    Why do you get so emotional and bent out of shape about this stuff? It’s really not that big a deal.

    Everything can be reduced to luck if one chooses to. The Knicks took advantage of a situation by using every trick in the book to outmaneuver Cuban and any other teams that were interested in him, of which there were several.

    And Brunson is not a supermax player by any stretch. One reason we lost is because he was targeted repeatedly on D.

    I suppose itā€™s true that Butler had a bad wheel vs. every Knicks player playing on two perfectly healthy wheels.

    If I was diagnosing in real time that the Knicks problem was they weren’t playing Cam Reddish I’d stop talking about how right I was.

    Why did the Heat lose two games to the Knicks after easily figuring them out?

    Donā€™t forget that in game 6 several non-calls hurt us down the stretchā€¦

    revisiting the mj vs lebron debtae…mj woulda never let that shit happen last night on his home court….ever…someone asked lebron after that game what the difference was and he said something like “they’re role players stepped up”….what a cop out…i think he’s run out of gas…

    “Moneyball” is not an applicable term in a league that has a salary cap.

    Grimes plays because of his defense & is a threat from 3, teams guard him at the 3pt line even when he’s not shooting well. Not because he’s a “hustle bunny”.

    We’re currently leading the playoffs in ORB% and Mitch’s OREB% was actually higher against the Heat than in the regular season.

    We lost because we turned the ball over too much and nobody besides RJ & Brunson could put the ball through the hoop.

    In the regular season Mitch had a 20 orb%. The heat knew about that hustlebunny moneyball nonsense, so they easily shut down Mitch held him to19.6 orb%.

    Some absolutely hilarious takes flying around.

    For sure, having the 7th ranked SRS, beating the team with the 2nd ranked SRS in 5 games in the first round, and taking the likely Eastern conference finalist to 6 games in the 2nd round, all while being owed more first-round picks than you owe, is right there for the taking for any team that wants it!

    The only reason the Charlottes and Detroits and Washingtons of the world aren’t doing this is because they know it’s “moneyball,” and they have higher ambitions.

    Man, for all the old jokes about Team Optimism vs Team Pessimism, I genuinely believed that the “camps” really did boil down to good-faith differences in how we interpreted the Knicks’ league wide position.

    I still think that’s mostly the case, hence so many Team Pessimism veterans changing their opinions as the facts very obviously starting leading to a different conclusion.

    But it’s clear to me now that for some the Team Pessimism thing really is an identity as opposed to a rational conclusion, such that there is literally nothing that would dissuade them.

    I genuinely think we could win a championship and still hear about “moneyball” and other nonsense. I mean, we were actually kind of close this year!

    Traded vs incoming first-round picks among the final 8:

    Denver
    Traded: 2023, 2025, 2027
    Incoming: none

    Lakers
    Traded: 2024 or 2025 (NOP chooses), 2027
    Incoming: none

    Suns
    Traded: 2023, 2025, 2027, 2028 (swap), 2029
    Incoming: none

    Warriors
    Traded: 2024
    Incoming: none

    Heat
    Traded: 2025
    Incoming: none

    Celtics
    Traded: 2023, 2028 (swap)
    Incoming: none

    Sixers
    Traded: 2023, 2025, 2027
    Incoming: none

    Knicks
    Traded: 2023
    Incoming: 2024 DAL, 2024 DET, 2024 WAS, 2025 MIL

    Moneyball! Hustlebunny!

    Weā€™re currently leading the playoffs in ORB% and Mitchā€™s OREB% was actually higher against the Heat than in the regular season.

    ???

    The OREB% isn’t translating to offense the way it did in the regular season.

    The issues pre-playoffs:

    1. Bizarre way of going about generating regular season offense would go away when teams prepared for it — check.

    2. Thibs’s obsession with intangibles and hustlebunny at the 2/3 position would mean an offense-depressing lack of pop in the playoffs — check.

    3. Julius Randle’s 2021 playoff wobbles and reasonable 2023 inferences therefrom — check.

    Not even sure what the counterargument is to these obvious things.

    In terms of the future, well, that’s certainly one for debate and there’s some reasonable room for optimism. That optimism will be misplaced if they run back Thibs’s Moneyball.

    (I get the terminology objection; but 2023 NBA teams leave mezzanine players and certain on-floor things laying around, just as late 20th century baseball teams left walks laying around. The difference of course is that the 2023 NBA teams are right to do so and the baseball teams weren’t.)

    But itā€™s clear to me now that for some the Team Pessimism thing really is an identity as opposed to a rational conclusion, such that there is literally nothing that would dissuade them.

    Same thing as always — not shopping in the aisles no one else shops in, normalizing the offense and defense, a normal perspective toward draft picks.

    That’s basically it. Not really complicated.

    I see no reason for optimism running it back with Thibs. The reasons are obvious. Last season is yesterday’s news already.

    The Charlotte Hornets, who have not made the 2nd round of the playoffs since 2002, could easily have the 7th ranked SRS if they so desired.

    They’re just smart enough to avoid the hustle bunnies.

    That’s just it — the other teams aren’t targeting regular season SRS. Why would any team target such a thing? Will there be a banner-hanging at the Garden on opening day next fall?

    Grimes, real time observation that his and Hartā€™s ā€œhustleā€ became not an advantage in the least once the other teams turned it up to playoff intensity. Itā€™s impossible to have watched that series and concluded that the Knicks ā€œplayed harderā€ than the Heat. That regular season Moneyball advantage dissipated. As did Mitchā€™s offensive rebounds followed by dunks.

    This did not fucking happen. The Knicks got to the playoffs and then easily beat a higher seed. The heat did not stop the Knicks from getting offensive rebounds. You made that up.

    Right, the Wizards could assemble a team with the 7th ranked SRS that wins a playoff series tomorrow if they wanted to. They just know to avoid the hustle bunnies.

    We’re playing checkers and the Wizards are playing chess.

    The Heat stopped Mitchell Robinson from grabbing offensive rebounds and then dunking the basketball.

    Which in part is why the still-good OREB% isn’t translating to offense.

    Their offense stunk in the playoffs, and their ORat dropped like 9 per 100 possessions. Their approach definitively did not work. Can’t stop people who want to pretend otherwise, but I’d probably look in different directions w/r/t “making things up.”

    Lol a team that got to the second round and is one move away from being a contender is middling.

    Hubert, you must be physically exhausted by how far youā€™ve moved the goal posts since the season ended.

    You can list all the teams you want, TNFH. No one’s targeting regular season SRS and few if any teams are targeting getting waxed in the second round. I guess it’s good for the Knicks shitty recent history, but that’s not really germane to the discussion.

    The three pre-playoff primary worries all went check, check, and check in the playoffs. Including the hustlebunny one. Factorial.

    I swear some of yā€™all have been so beaten down by the last twenty years of being a Knicks fan you donā€™t even know how to deal with being happy so you make up excuses to complain and throw your own team, players and GM under the bus. Itā€™s ok to say weā€™re good and to be optimistic.

    There are literally four teams in the NBA who had a better outcome than us. Thatā€™s not a bad place to be starting from.

    I do think the next leapā€” from 5-8 in the league to 1-4ā€” is a difficult leap to make. There arenā€™t any obvious paths to immediate improvement from here, and just staying in that 5-8 zone is going to require no regression from Brunson and Randle, who both just had career seasons. ā€œRun it backā€ is not going to get us into that 1-4 tier, and might not even keep us in the 5-8 tier.

    But letā€™s not equate this to our usual standing in the league, which is ā€œtried and failed to make the playoffs, won 37 games and are now drafting 9th.ā€ Weā€™re in a better starting place than that. The floor is higher. We have some surplus assets (though not really all that many) and some young players who should improve (although none have cathedral ceilings).

    Weā€™re already in a better place than I thought Leon Rose would be able to take us to, so Iā€™m adjusting my priors accordingly. Next step is a doozy though.

    Easily one of the dumber hills anyone has ever died on here. The Wizards et al. have been downright desperate to just make the playoffs, yet we’re told making the playoffs, winning a series, and going to six games against the likely eventual conference champion is right there for any team that wants it. They don’t even have to go into a pick deficit, just get the hustle bunnies.

    Utter crock, just trolling.

    Anyway, something I’ve been thinking about: is there any possible way we can get our hands on Austin Reaves this offseason? I can’t believe I’m saying this but that guy would solve a lot of our problems.

    Nobody’s “denying” the Wizards/Hornets thing, and certainly not “dying on that hill.” You’re inventing and straw manning again.

    yet weā€™re told making the playoffs, winning a series, and going to six games against the likely eventual conference champion is right there for any team that wants it.

    Yeah, it basically is. Hubert covered it better than I have. And they would have been swept if the other team’s best player didn’t blow out his ankle. That team had a negative regular-season SRS and yet we’re supposed to get all excited about the Knicks’ regular-season SRS. Does not compute.

    They donā€™t even have to go into a pick deficit, just get the hustle bunnies.

    The Knicks traded a first round pick for a hustlebunny. No idea what you’re getting at here.

    I don’t think it’s arguable that the Knicks were a very good team that had a terrific season, got decently into the playoffs after nearly twenty years of drought, and should be immensely proud of what they accomplished. To argue otherwise is to troll.

    It’s also not arguable that, as is true of any team including those that win chips, the Knicks have players with obvious faults, players who struggle under specific circumstances, and players who need to develop. Seriously, you can poke a hell of a lot of holes in the Nuggets roster, too.

    I think it is fun to identify those faults and suggest ways to get better, either by improving on those actions or finding someone who’s better.

    I think it is pointless, pedantic, and well, stupid to argue that the team has capped out (in the doing well sense) and all is lost, we’re in the purgatorial mezzanine. We’re now better than the majority of professional basketball teams, and would be next year if we just ran it back. Can we also get better? Of course! Leon and company could also fuck it up and we could get worse. I’m hoping for the former, and find E’s attempt to write every other comment in every thread to be the only downside to this offseason so far.

    At it again. I donā€™t know, I am fine with the Knicks. Itā€™s true I argued for years to bottom out. I am not a fan of RJ or Randle. But the team is objectively fine. To go from this to a tank would be ridiculous.

    Jokic was bad for three quarters last night. Not sure I can remember him being ineffective in a game. Then he turns on the jets. Murray won that game.

    Bruce Brown is an interesting player in the Josh Hart role.

    Michael Porter is a really polarizing player. I think I would have very mixed feelings about him if I had to root for him all year long.

    It was a good to excellent season. A lot of fun. At this point, it’s yesterday’s news. I don’t see the purpose to burning and beating down a bunch of strawmen about the Hornets and Wizards.

    Even if you take out the “mezzanine” stuff, the underlying basketball points about Robinson, Randle, and Hart remain fully true.

    The Heat arenā€™t just going on a run, they are steamrolling the eastern bracket like we havenā€™t seen since the days when LeBronā€™s Cavs were the only good team in conference. And that is with Butler missing playoff games with an injury.

    Itā€™s hard to draw any broad conclusions from this, but it does seem to be evidential defense of the so-called hybrid approach, a method of team building where one acquires the best players that are available to them and hopes for the best. Four weeks ago they were a model example of the treadmill of mediocrity, today they are the best team in conference and itā€™s not even close.

    It will definitely be hard to become bona fide contenders. It won’t just naturally happen if we sit on our hands. We’re going to need to make smart moves, and probably get a little lucky to boot.

    But pretending our position is readily available to any NBA team is nothing short of laughable.

    We have an objectively good team and sufficient assets to make it better. That simple, nearly unfalsifiable statement does not apply to the vast majority of teams.

    Anyway, Austin Reaves. If we were to clear cap space for him, we could make the Lakers’ lives quite difficult. They could match, but his contract structure for them would be hellish–it’d be something like $11.5M AAV in the first two years, and then $37M AAV in the last two years.

    Details here: https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/lakers-austin-reaves-is-making-a-leap-but-gilbert-arenas-rule-may-make-it-hard-for-la-to-pay-him-for-it/#:~:text=Here's%20the%20good%20news%3A%20the,their%20power%20to%20do%20so.

    I imagine they’ll do whatever it takes, but man, with the new CBA kicking in that’s gonna hurt if someone throws him a max.

    The hybrid approach works if youā€™re an elite basketball mind like Pat Riley with a long track record of finding productive players who nobody else values. It might not work as well for a cat like Leon Rose who has a first round pick in the draft and is like ā€œnah none of these guys are good, I wanted Chris Duarteā€ and punts the pick.

    Leon has done better with the hybrid method than I thought he could, so a tip of the hat is in order. But itā€™s really really difficult to do what Pat Riley has been doing for 30 years. Strus and Martin and the other scrap heap guys on the Heat are the modern day equivalent of Starks and Mason. Riley is a unicorn. I donā€™t know how replicable that strategy is for mere mortals.

    I donā€™t see the purpose to burning and beating down a bunch of strawmen about the Hornets and Wizards.

    So is the Knicks’ current position readily available to these teams or not? Five minutes ago you said “yeah, it basically is.”

    I know the position you’ve chosen forces you to defend these absurd propositions, but that doesn’t mean other people are making strawman arguments when they ask if you actually believe the logical conclusions of this shit.

    The Knicks position less the Brunson delta is indeed available to any team that wants it, over the time period it took the Knicks to get it. Zero question about it. The Knicks have in fact shopped at the less picked over aisles both on and off the floor. Factorial in every respect. Like entirely.

    If that simple, purely basketball analysis is too much for the tender constitutions of some, I guess that canā€™t really be helped.

    Yeah the Knicks’ position would be a lot worse if you removed their best player from the roster and didn’t replace him, but I’m failing to see the relevance of that.

    Maybe that simple, purely basketball analysis is too much for my tender constitution.

    You donā€™t understand the Brunson delta which means you didnā€™t really read what other people wrote. Thus the straw men.

    “…you didnā€™t really read what other people wrote.”

    There’s a goal for me for the rest of the day. Or summer.

    Kinda want to see if Vogelbachā€™s SLG can dip below his weight. Getting close!

    If you get to the playoffs and realize something didn’t work, then you fix it in the offseason. All 30 teams try to fix their roster in the offseason, because all 30 teams have weaknesses. There’s nothing special in the Knicks failing.

    The Nuggets brought in KCP & Bruce Brown last offseason to bolster their defense.

    The Lakers had a crapload of problems and brought in DLo, Vanderbilt, Rui, and Malik Beasley at the deadline.

    A couple years ago the Heat saw Dragic wasn’t getting it done and got Lowry.

    This is a normal part of the process. When something doesn’t work, you learn from it and try to correct it.

    Appreciate you for that bit, Cyber!

    I do think the next leapā€” from 5-8 in the league to 1-4ā€” is a difficult leap to make.

    Usually, yes. However, with this period of parity the NBA is in right now, I donā€™t think that leap is as high as it would be in recent memory.

    Riley is a unicorn. I donā€™t know how replicable that strategy is for mere mortals.

    Riley is an absolute all-time great basketball mind. His ability to motivate is about 2nd to none. My question is, could someone execute the hybrid to 80-90% success that he has, and still build and enjoy a system (not just a year or two) whose floor is ā€œcompetent basketballā€ and ceiling is title contender?

    Iā€™m willing to step out on a ledge and say thatā€™s what Leon Rose is doing. A system that doesnā€™t rely solely on luck, but can take advantage when it arises. For example: getting that Dallas pick this year wouldā€™ve been lucky, and could have given the team a bevy of options for this draft. But because of the system theyā€™ve built, they didnā€™t need to rely on such a break.

    Two or three years ago, we wouldā€™ve all burned down MSG if the Knicks missed out on a 1RP (not ā€œincineratedā€ but flat out traded it long before the draft). Now, weā€™re basically aiight.

    We are contenders. This exact same team with internal improvement can win a championship next season. We lost 4-2 to a team thatā€™s two games away from going to the finals for the second time in four years and is destroying the 2nd seed and destroyed the 1 seed. We might end up doing better agains the heat than the bucks and Celtics. Leon didnā€™t kick into Brunson being good. He had his eyes on him for a year and Brunson did what he did this season in the playoffs last year.

    22 and 23 year old NBA players who have already shown to be key pieces on a top 8 team never get better at three point shooting, free throws, defense or decision making. It just doesnā€™t happen. But lottery teams with high lottery draft picks in their teams that have yet to actually sniff the playoffs have a much brighter future than us.

    Brunson wasn’t luck. He showed in last year’s playoffs that he could handle higher usage without a drop in efficiency, so signing Jalen was a smart gamble that paid off. Same with Hartenstein– he played so well in limited minutes for LAC that he was a very reasonable gamble, and that one paid off as well. Those were both smart moves, and when you start combining those with Leon’s well-known ability to avoid the giant blunder, you can start to get something cooking.

    What Leon hasn’t really shown is a knack for the scrap heap “take a flyer” play, the ability to find value in players that make up the back end of the roster. The back of our roster is usually populated by no-hopers. Again, I don’t mean to bash the guy, as he has far exceeded my expectations already. But that’s somewhere I think he could improve.

    Building a top 8 team is so easy but making one or two moves to make us a champion could never happen by that same GM bc itā€™s so easy to hybrid build a top 8 team.

    Can we stop with this whole hybrid bullshit? Leon didnā€™t hybrid. He just built a good team and heā€™s done it with plenty of patience. If he was inpatient we wouldnā€™t have draft picks.

    Hybrid is just another word the tankers use to disparage any approach that doesnā€™t fit their preferred method of team building that doesnā€™t actually work.

    Is Jimmy butler better now than he was at age 26 or 28?

    Nah, Brunson and Randle have totally peaked.

    Speaking of the silence from the Laker trolls, I asked Mr. #lolKnicksSupv if the following playoff averages equate a star player (since he insisted we donā€™t have one):

    27.8ppg, 5.6asst, 4.9rebs

    Yall know who those numbers belong to. I’m just still waiting for him to reply. šŸ˜‚

    The plan is not to bring them back and pray to the basketball gods. It is to bring them back because they’re y o u n g and y o u n g players get better. So the bet is the y o u n g players get better more than the one n o t so o l d player on the rotation regresses.

    Then you do the trade for a star from a position of strength.

    The Heat stopped Mitchell Robinson from grabbing offensive rebounds and then dunking the basketball.

    Which in part is why the still-good OREB% isnā€™t translating to offense.

    Their offense stunk in the playoffs, and their ORat dropped like 9 per 100 possessions. Their approach definitively did not work. Canā€™t stop people who want to pretend otherwise, but Iā€™d probably look in different directions w/r/t ā€œmaking things up.ā€

    Mitch averaged 7 points a game. The Knicks offense wasn’t good this year because Mitch was dunking a lot off offensive rebounds. His (and the team as a whole) getting offensive rebounds helped a lot, but the Heat didn’t stop that part of our offense.

    Our guys were competing, but physically compromised by the end of the Heat series (RJ was hurt too). The lack of playable bench depth is not acceptable during a playoff run. Leon and Thibs have to amend their philosophies to adjust to our new reality. Maintaining a tight rotation to foster consistent effort is fine, but letting even marginal talent rot is bad process Injuries and bench depth issues are not insurmountable obstacles.

    both sides are just making too many assumptions… but i will say that the fortunes of this franchise really hinge on randle’s fate… and him returning to all-nba caliber play was something nobody.. including the most optimistic on this board… and certainly folks in the front office.. believed….

    whether that actually continues is anyone’s guess…. but even a small step back would impact us a great deal considering how much we rely on his production… and given that we were only a 47 win team it’s not a far leap to where we were the season before….

    i wouldn’t go as far as most on team pessimist.. and i think some of the arguments chosen are a bit misplaced and easily dismissed…. but the overall sense that things that there’s a cap to all of this is generally correct….

    and again.. i’m going to bring this up as something to consider… we are very much a lot like the kings…we have a young go getter of a pg… with one of the league’s most physical and inconsistent pf’s (yes sabonis plays c for the kings)… surprising contributions from some young players around the roster…. and some premature win curve trades that happened to have worked out….

    i’m sure there’s endowment effect galore here but there’s probably a large perception gap between the two… but yea just like how bringing the band back in 2021 didn’t work out so well.. it’s goign to be a heavy lift to just repeat our success just due to the nature of volatility…. and yes we were an even younger team back then…

    and that’s not just restricted to us… just ask the hawks… grizzlies.. and twolves…

    If he was inpatient we wouldnā€™t have draft picks.

    you realize we didn’t have one the last two years right…

    walkerandbendercornerstones: “If he was inpatient we wouldnā€™t have draft picks.”
    djphan in response to walkerandbendercornerstones: “you realize we didnā€™t have one the last two years rightā€¦”

    Me now: Maybe I should be the in-patient rather than Leon Rose. I seem to be imagining things:
    Ive read days and days of posts about the fact that we traded away our draft picks the last two years ON DRAFT NIGHT rather than using those picks. How could we have traded away draft picks that we never had in the first place when those two Draft Nights came around?

    Please tell me that I wasn’t dreaming/nightmaring those days and days of posts about how we should have used those draft picks rather than trading them. Pretty please?

    No, we didnā€™t use them. Big difference. We did trade some for cap relief and Josh hart but we had one this draft until Cuban decided to tank a game for the tenth pick. But we still have lots of future picks.

    People get so bent out of shape when we donā€™t use a pick to make pick when we have a roster full of young players and lots of picks ahead of us. Itā€™s basically a form of mental illness at this point to get so upset about not using every single fucking pick in drafting someone when our two best players were signed in free agency.

    I get it. Everyone has their platonic ideal art dream where we draft and develop every single player and have lots of lottery picks that Al turn into stars so we can have a decade long window like the warriors or some shot but that basically never happens.

    walkerandbender:
    You do know that I was agreeing with you about the fact that we had picks in both drafts and then decided not to use them, right? šŸ™‚

    I was confused about djphan seeming to state that we never had them in the first place.

    all i’m saying is that you were under the impression that we had some draft picks and that rose was patient because of it… i’m just correcting that because i’m sure most folks don’t even realize that we haven’t had a pick in two years now….

    i can’t really control if you hyperventilate over a point i’m not trying to make… but i’m sure someone else might want to pick that fight with you tho…. it’s kind of ironic when we’re accusing people of mental illness over the one sentence i wrote tho huh….

    i wouldnā€™t go as far as most on team pessimist.

    There is no team pessimist. Eā€™s position and mine are not remotely similar. Just bc weā€™re both talking on the same day doesnā€™t mean weā€™re saying the same thing.

    I believe Leon was lucky to get Brunson because itā€™s extremely rare a player of his caliber becomes available due to gross mismanagement. If you disagree with me, it means you think players like Brunson are going to be available every year and all we have to do is create $20MM in cap space this year to get another one. Does anyone actually believe that?

    My position is simply that Leonā€™s path forward is harder than the average non contender. That is all.

    I don’t know if you’re referring to me or not, as I’ve never accused anyone of any mental illness. Nor would I. I was simply confused because there is a difference between having draft picks and not using them versus not having draft picks. You wrote the latter, when in fact it was the former. I think I could be excused for being confused by that, as they are not the same thing at all.

    “ā€¦. itā€™s kind of ironic when weā€™re accusing people of mental illness over the one sentence i wrote tho huhā€¦.”

    Djphan, based on the formal laws of grammar you’ve been writing that one sentence since you first began posting here!

    There are literally four teams in the NBA who had a better outcome than us. Thatā€™s not a bad place to be starting from.

    Last year there two teams that had a better outcome than the Dallas Mavericks. And they finished 7th in SRS, too. Howā€™d that turn out?

    Being 7th in SRS this year means only one thing: we were 7th in SRS this year.

    I am taking nothing away from what this team accomplished. We were legit the 7th best team in the NBA this year. Bravo!

    Now what? 7th best isnā€™t our floor. Itā€™s most likely our ceiling.

    Itā€™s not very hard to build a middling team (which is what we are). There is a shortcut to the mezzanine, and Leon took it.

    IMO, you are either too pessimistic by nature (understandable as a Knicks fan) or misunderstanding our position badly.

    I agree that it’s not hard to build a middling team by overpaying for older free agents and using your draft assets in trades. As you would probably agree, the problem is you then have no way to improve your team because no wants your contracts and you have no picks to draft or trade.

    The Knicks are in the upper middle, have 5-6 young players whose best years are ahead of them, EXCESS draft capital, two large expiring deals that can be used to match salary in a trade, and a pile of excess first rounders.

    There are lot of scenarios that can lead to the Knicks being a better team next year or at a minimum a little better and a lot deeper.

    Again, no guarantees. Rose could make a bad deal and set us back instead of moving us forward. But it’s hard to be upset about our position.

    Last year there two teams that had a better outcome than the Dallas Mavericks. And they finished 8th in SRS last year.

    The Mavericks have been dumber than a pile of rocks over the last couple of years….to OUR BENEFIT and a couple of other teams. We got Brunson from them without giving up significant assets. All we did was give up minor value to open the space for him.

    And Hubert, you’re not wrong, per se, but someone above wrote something akin to what I’m about to repeat (Noble?), which is that any NBA success is predicated on luck. The Nuggets were lucky to get Joker at 41. I mean they chose him instead of someone else at that point, which was smart I suppose, but 40 other picks were chosen ahead of him to make him available.

    And so on. You’ve go to recognize that luck just dumped something in your lap and act on it (as per Leon and Brunson), and yes the Brunson situation was due to gross mismanagement (thank you Cuban!) that doesn’t happen every day, or as you point out every year, but SOMEthing lucky and good often does.

    Keep your powder dry and your eyes peeled.

    I donā€™t know if youā€™re referring to me or not, as Iā€™ve never accused anyone of any mental illness.

    if you read through the other posts you can see who did…

    i don’t even understand what you wrote now that i’m looking at it… if you wish to clarify i can engage with you….

    Djphan, based on the formal laws of grammar youā€™ve been writing that one sentence since you first began posting here!

    and i’m very lost on this also….

    There is no team pessimist. Eā€™s position and mine are not remotely similar. Just bc weā€™re both talking on the same day doesnā€™t mean weā€™re saying the same thing.

    yes i’m capable of deciphering people’s positions than most… i try my best not to be too reductive so apologies if i am… i’m just saying i disagree with some of the points that you are making… and how you’re making them.. but not all… it’s just too much to cover them individually….

    I believe Leon was lucky to get Brunson because itā€™s extremely rare a player of his caliber becomes available due to gross mismanagement.

    There have been loads of free agent signings over the years that were franchise changing. We failed miserably for years because we were rarely good enough to attract the best ones and often made that our “all in” bet and path forward. Being a bad team and going all in on free agents is a bad idea. Keeping flexibility is always a good idea…just in case. The idea I have been promoting for years is to keep ALL OPTIONS open and not to choose one single path. That’s exactly what we’ve been doing. We’ve been developing the players we drafted, signing free agents, making trades, and using picks as trade assets. So far the inevitable mistakes have been small enough to be acceptable and outweighed by the positives. No reason to complain given all the assets we still have left.

    Last year there two teams that had a better outcome than the Dallas Mavericks. And they finished 7th in SRS, too. Howā€™d that turn out?

    Well of course if Rose does the equivalent of trading away all or most of our defense for Kyrie Irving, we could be in that boat too. But that doesnā€™t have to happen.

    weā€™re in the purgatorial mezzanine

    Itā€™s wrong to conflate my mezzanine position with Eā€™s purgatory theory.

    To be a mezzanine team means youā€™re one level below the contenders.

    So if you disagree with my characterization, then you believe there is no tier of teams above us. The Nuggets, the Heat, the Bucksā€¦ weā€™re all in the same gang. Just run it back and eventually weā€™ll win a chip with this group.

    Does anyone actually hold that position?

    Hybrid is just another word the tankers use to disparage any approach that doesnā€™t fit their preferred method of team building that doesnā€™t actually work.

    +1

    Sometimes I think a few people here are upset that we used a combination of draft, trades, free agency, and draft assets to improve and put together a good young team, with excess assets, and two large expiring contracts and it all worked instead of just being happy we took a solid approach and competent people made it work. If anything, the drat has been our weakest avenue.

    And Hubert, youā€™re not wrong, per se, but someone above wrote something akin to what Iā€™m about to repeat (Noble?), which is that any NBA success is predicated on luck.

    It was me. At 2:57pm. You are referring me to myself.

    Just run it back and eventually weā€™ll win a chip with this group.

    Does anyone actually hold that position?

    Run in back in what way? Like I don’t think there’s a glaring need to dump any of the guys on this team that got real minutes last year. That’s not because I think that’s the easy path to titletown but because I think it’s a better choice in the short term than idk, trading IQ and a bunch of picks for a guy like LaVine.

    You know, this site used to be kinda fun when we didnā€™t argue the same shit over and over and over again.

    oh god damn hubie, that may just be the funniest thing I’ve read here in a long while…

    I can’t stop laughing – what really got me was you pointing out the exact moment it occurred…

    bless you hubie…that was a good one…

    The Great Pat Riley became president of basketball operations for the Miami Heat in 1995. He didn’t get to the finals until 2006 and had one ECF appearance in that entire decade, and that was due to the BS suspensions of Ewing and others. He was a very mixed bag at the GMing thing until he drafted Dwyane Wade.

    Since then, Riley has been mostly (but far from always) brilliant. But he’s not a unicorn. He absolutely SHOULD be emulated…as Leon is clearly demonstrating…from the approach to building a roster to culture-building to keeping one’s mouth shut in the media and letting the product do the talking.

    Some of us here have stated repeatedly that there would be a learning curve for Leon, and that the chosen hybrid path is in fact modeled after Riley’s approach, and could be successful IF he sharpens his player evaluation chops, IF he avoids The Big Mistake (which he stupidly almost didn’t re: Spida) and IF he gets his share of luck (DAL falling to #11 would have been nice, but I digress…)

    And the fact that posters like TNFH and JK47 are acknowledging that Leon has the team much further along and better positioned than they anticipated is pretty cool. They’d be totally down with a smoke-and-mirrors expose if it was in any way grounded in reality.

    But it isn’t grounded in reality. It’s just petty trolling. Anyone can see right through it.

    I canā€™t wait for the puff piece about how Heat Culture never gave up on Duncan Robinson as he was the absolute worst defender in the NBA and generally useless.

    Just an insane quarter. Adam Silver would love two sweeps I bet.

    I have alot more respect for the mental toughness and maturity of the Knicks after watching Boston in this series.

    The Celticsā€™ hustle bunny act doesnā€™t translate to the playoffs

    The standards for “success” or an approach “working” are simply way too low around here. That’s probably a big part of the divide.

    Other franchises don’t wax poetic about getting waxed in the second round. I guess it’s Knicks PTSD, and I just don’t get involved in that.

    I mean, I’m a Lions fan — the worst team in professional sports. They’ve won literally one playoff game in my lifetime. (One since 1957 which is … well, it’s impossible.) I’m not going to get all excited (*) and pronounce their rebuild a “success” if they win a wild card round game this year and then lose 35-10 in the second round.

    (*) Which is to say, I’ll get excited when it’s going on — as I did for the Knicks — but then at the end, I’ll say “lots of work to still be done.” If they go 12-5 for the eighth best record in football, I’ll say the same thing.

    The Celticsā€™ hustle bunny act doesnā€™t translate to the playoffs

    It rarely does. The Knicks’ really didn’t.

    I was looking at all the team’s who had a top 10 single season SRS and then were never heard from again (spoiler: there’s a lot) when I got distracted by this…

    The Jazz were 3rd in SRS last year. They were first two years ago.

    How bad did Ainge fuck up? I think it’s pretty likely we’d be watching a Jazz-Nugget WCF this year, with the winner being favored in the finals.

    But it isnā€™t grounded in reality. Itā€™s just petty trolling. Anyone can see right through it.

    OK, Z-Man, whatever you say.

    LOL.

    The Jazz were 3rd in SRS last year.

    The Jazz were 3rd in SRS last year and broke up the team.

    No one targets regular season SRS.

    Sometimes I think a few people here are upset that we used a combination of draft, trades, free agency, and draft assets to improve and put together a good young team, with excess assets, and two large expiring contracts and it all worked instead of just being happy we took a solid approach and competent people made it work. If anything, the drat has been our weakest avenue.

    Strat, I would hope you can recall that I’ve always been the one defending your method of team building. I often pointed out the Nets and Clippers as teams using what I called the Strat method.

    This isn’t about method. That’s why it was very weird for you to come back with “Riley didn’t draft Butler.” You’re so poised to have the same argument that you’re not paying attention to what is being said.

    I like the hybrid method. I just don’t think we have the right players for it. Brunson, IQ, and Grimes are fine. I think we have to upgrade everyone else, especially Randle and RJ.

    That’s a really tall task. I’m not saying it’s impossible. It’s just harder than your average hybrid. Most hybrids start with a better core (Butler and Bam being a good example).

    OK, Z-Man, whatever you say.

    You still read Z-Man? Dude, you gotta start skipping him. I’ve been skipping him for weeks. It’s like a whole new blog.

    conley, mitchell and gobert were truly doomed in the playoffs…

    just like harris, embiid and harden have been…

    who has the most playoff games played for the knicks?

    has brunson even hit 30 games played in the post season…

    all these guys for the heat have mucho playoff experience…

    I think that’ll probably be my big take away from this post season – we need to play more in the post season…

    conley, mitchell and gobert were truly doomed in the playoffsā€¦

    They only took two swings at it.

    They lost to a full strength Clippers team once. They lost to Luka Magic the other time.

    THAT is a team that embodies what everyone here is saying, i.e. one that could have gotten over the hump with experience, internal improvement, and some moves around the edges/

    Yeah, but E, it seems like it was pretty stupid to break that team up right now, doesnā€™t it?

    Well, it’s a shockingly open year … but after catching Spida’s playoff act up close and personal this year, not really, no.

    Good argument that it was stupid, but on balance I’m a no — not stupid.

    People really need to learn the “on balance” thing. The binary thing is really tiring. OJ Fucking Simpson was able to put on a defense.

    “Team Optimism makes some good points, but on balance, I like my position better.” See? Easy.

    The silly thing is, no one except swifty thinks we are a legit contender right now. No one is saying that we have some floor next year or beyond because we took the Heat to 6 games.

    And that’s the frustrating part of this entire dialogue. Nearly everyone knows that the road ahead is slippery and littered with corpses of teams that had a magical run. I, for one, see a multitude of ways that either Leon, bad luck, or other teams improving more than we do can derail the good thing we have going.

    An if one feels that slippage is more likely than moving up the chain, or even staying where we are, that’s totally fair. There are a million reasons why it could happen. But there is no reason to make shit up just to troll the board.

    I mean, sure.

    Bam is playing out of his gourd though. Every single player on the Heat feels like they are peaking.

    At least Gabe doesnā€™t kill just us.

    The difference with Utah is that they had 2 players that had much more market value than any one player of ours. Our only all-star probably couldn’t get us a third of what Ainge got for Gobert, let alone Spida. Brunson could probably be traded for a couple of unprotected firsts, but nothing close to what Spida commanded.

    It’s like when Boston moved on from KG and Pierce, Ainge found a sucker to take those two off their hands and made hay. But even Ainge’s magic probably couldn’t squeeze much trade asset juice out of our roster.

    It’s an apples to oranges comparison.

    At least Miami wasn’t clowning and mocking the Knicks like they’re doing to the Celtics.

    And thatā€™s the frustrating part of this entire dialogue.

    Getting “frustrated” at a basketball dialogue is a you issue. Look within.

    And stop being paranoid. No one’s getting up in the morning and saying, “Oh, I’m going to go to the Knicks board and say a bunch of stuff I don’t believe just to piss off and frustrate Z-Man.”

    But there is no reason to make shit up just to troll the board.

    Nobody’s making shit up.

    SRS is basically opponent adjusted point margin and I think teams do target outscoring the other team

    The Knicks biggest problem was their free throw shooting. It was an issue all year long and if it wasn’t an issue we’d be in the conference finals right now I’d bet.

    SRS is basically opponent adjusted point margin and I think teams do target outscoring the other team

    Shitty teams, maybe. Good teams target winning playoff games.

    Getting ā€œfrustratedā€ at a basketball dialogue is a you issue. Look within.

    And stop being paranoid. No oneā€™s getting up in the morning and saying, ā€œOh, Iā€™m going to go to the Knicks board and say a bunch of stuff I donā€™t believe just to piss off and frustrate Z-Man.ā€

    Read the room, kid.

    Read the room, kid.

    Nothing to read. You said out loud that you were frustrated. It’s a weird thing to be. Look within.

    Sure they arenā€™tā€¦

    Well, you are. But nobody else really is. SRS is a silly measuring stick, but it’s certainly not “made up.”

    An if one feels that slippage is more likely than moving up the chain, or even staying where we are, thatā€™s totally fair.

    Thanks for blessing it with your stamp of approval, Z-Man — but it didn’t need it before we could say it or talk about it.

    E when you have backed yourself into arguing that good teams don’t try to outscore their opponents you should maybe rethink your contrarianism.

    “You still read Z-Man? Dude, you gotta start skipping him. Iā€™ve been skipping him for weeks. Itā€™s like a whole new blog.”

    Sure you do.

    E when you have backed yourself into arguing that good teams donā€™t try to outscore their opponents you should maybe rethink your contrarianism.

    I think when we see the 3rd ranked team in SRS break up their team, the point is pretty much made.

    The nicer thing would be for the people that brought it up just to be argumentative to have done a little research before they did. Teams don’t really pay that much attention to it when self-assessing.

    BTW I am not interested in engaging the usual trolls beyond what I have already said, perhaps too many times. šŸ™‚ TNFH and others are doing just fine.

    I don’t think one team with a good SRS breaking their team up discredits a stat. That’s a reach at best.

    BTW I am not interested in engaging the usual trolls beyond what I have already said, perhaps too many times.

    Understandable, given how little you’ve brought to the discussion. But I guess your continued tic with the word “troll” is kinda cute.

    The Celticsā€™ hustle bunny act doesnā€™t translate to the playoffs

    It rarely does. The Knicksā€™ really didnā€™t.

    Cā€™mon E, your case would stronger if you didnā€™t make statements like this. And you really saying the Knicks were so much worse in the playoffs than the Celtics, when the Celtics are getting blown away by the ahead and the Knicks gave the Heat a real fight?

    I donā€™t think one team with a good SRS breaking their team up discredits a stat.

    It’s a perfectly fine stat; it’s just not a stat that teams target. The Jazz didn’t think they were the third best team in the association just because they had the third best regular season SRS.

    “Thanks for blessing it with your stamp of approval, Z-Man ā€” but it didnā€™t need it before we could say it or talk about it.”

    Nah, you go right on ahead, like I said, I’m thoroughly enjoying the dialogue. I like talking to Trump supporters too, although I do find it frustrating when they make shit up.

    And you really saying the Knicks were so much worse in the playoffs than the Celtics, when the Celtics are getting blown away by the ahead and the Knicks gave the Heat a real fight?

    Actually, I was just tweaking TNFH, who, in trying to tweak me, apparently didn’t get the memo on the performance of the Knicks’ hustlebunnies in the playoffs.

    Nah, you go right on ahead,

    We already were.

    Soā€¦ā€¦if the Celtics implode – coach fired, Brown and Tatum at odds, players tired of Marcus Smartā€¦ā€¦and the 76ā€™ers implode – coach already fired, Harden out, Embiidā€™s terrible conditioningā€¦..the Knicks move up by default.

    So after the Celtics lost to the Warriors last year, it was ā€œ run it back, itā€™s just a matter of time before Boston gets to the promised landā€

    What a difference a year makes, now standing pat isnā€™t even remotely an option.

    Itā€™s gonna be quite an interesting offseason for Boston and Philly

    “But I guess your continued tic with the word ā€œtrollā€ is kinda cute.”

    Sorry, it’s the nicest word I could think of…

    Knicks might be sitting pretty. Interesting summer ahead.

    Boston is getting thrashed so badly I might actually listen to bill simmons podcast

    There’s going to be some major players moving this summer from the feel of this year’s playoffs. We really might snag someone great.

    Sorry, itā€™s the nicest word I could think ofā€¦

    Especially with so few to draw on.

    The Heat are destroying everyone from 3 if they weren’t shooting above their mean we’d probably be having a fat different conversation about them in general. Spo didn’t suddenly make them do that. That’s just variance going in their favor.

    “Especially with so few to draw on.”

    Yeah, hustlebunny…downright Shakespearean…

    There’s good drugs and then there is seeing Celtics get smoked..I’m ashamed at how euphoric it is for me….

    Celtics added Brogdon and Gallo in the offseason so they didn’t just stand pat. Unfortunately for them Gallo didn’t play a game for them this season.

    “No oneā€™s getting up in the morning and saying, ā€œOh, Iā€™m going to go to the Knicks board and say a bunch of stuff I donā€™t believe just to piss off and frustrate Z-Man.ā€

    Actually repeated posters have said what a sucky thread this is, largely because E won’t shut the fuck up.

    Anyone think mazzula gets another head coaching gig in the NBA ever again?

    The Jazz had run the Spida/Gobert core for several years prior to getting Conley.

    Clarkson & Gobert are 30 this year. Conley is 35. Bojan is 33.

    They had given up a number of their draft picks.

    Gobert & Spida had issues with each other.

    They were a small market team in the luxury tax.

    That team wasn’t headed in an upwards trajectory.

    For the Mavericks, they stupidly let their 2nd best player walk for nothing, dealt with injuries, and then really fell apart only after trading away every defensive player on the roster… and I still wouldn’t be surprised if they’re good in the upcoming season if they bring back Kyrie and add in some defense.

    The big story for the Finals:

    Nikola Jokic vs Nikola Jovic!!!

    Yeah, it’s really, really hard to root for the Heat, crowd and all. But somehow the Celtics are making it easy.

    for a minute, I kind of forgot what my point was šŸ˜›

    okay, fuck the jazz…forget about the jazz, forget about rudy, mike and donovan…

    I’m thinking along the lines of what jazzfunk just posted…

    oh, there’s that word jazz again, ugh, okay – we have a roster full of guys that got tested (it’s a “no pass” this time) by a team full of players with substantial post season experience…

    on top of all that – I think RJ and julius will both play better in the post season next year, barring some unfortunate health stuff…

    this post season has been a serious sad face for a lot of squads…definitely not ours though…

    The Heat crowd leaving early in a game like this is the epitome of why the only outcome that would make me happy in this series is somehow both teams losing lol.

    Happy to see Boston getting clowned on, their super unbeatable, best in the league role players getting destroyed by Gabe Vincent and Duncan Robinson. I just can’t help but love it when the Celtics are humiliated.

    Boston is getting thrashed so badly I might actually listen to bill simmons podcast

    I know just how you feel.

    By the way, his last discussion of the Celtics was after game one with Miami and he said something like he wasnā€™t too worried because he felt the Celtics just took their foot off the gas briefly because they relaxed a little too much after beating Philly in a tough seven games. That hasnā€™t aged well.

    Brown and Tatum combined: 26 points on 35 shots

    Gabe Vincent by himself: 29 points on 14 shots

    Joe Mazzulla was asked if he has lost the locker room:

    “Yeah, itā€™s why I need to be better to figure out what this team needs.”

    Why has that happened?

    “Iā€™m not sure.”

    buddy don’t even show up for game 4

    The Sixers are perry much losing Harden for next season, and the Celtics will have to make changes after this humiliation, the east might be wide open for the next couple of years… I love it.

    That Mazzula quote… Jesus. He might get fired in the locker room after game 4.

    If you told me before the playoffs that Jimmy and his undrafted boys would get 2 coaches fired and Thibs was not going to be one of them, I’d be pretty happy about it.

    Not only is the East going to be wide open, Milwaukee is the oldest team in the league and has some tough financial decisions to make. The Knicks really are well positioned.

    The Sixers are perry much losing Harden for next season, and the Celtics will have to make changes after this humiliation, the east might be wide open for the next couple of yearsā€¦ I love it.

    It was a nice 1 year reign for the Eastern Conference

    I am just going to enjoy watching Gabe Vincent destroy the Celtics

    Fucking. Owen.

    At least youā€™re working against the Cā€™s this time.

    when the Celtics are getting blown away by the ahead and the Knicks gave the Heat a real fight?

    Forget for a second that we all know Jimmy Butler missed a game and was never full strength.

    There is no transitive property in the NBA.

    The Celtics had the best SRS in the league by a wide margin and the same people who are touting our 7th best SRS think weā€™re better than the Celtics because we lost to the Heat in 6 and theyā€™re going to get swept.

    That makes sense.

    Knicks obviously need shooting but should never sacrifice defense, grit, smarts or character to get it. Best bet is to try to develop the shooting of existing players.

    I believe that Grim3s, RJ, IQ, JR and Obi could have a season where they all average 38% from three as a group. This only happens if:

    1) RJ, IQ, Randle and Brunson all make a specific point to not chuck floters or contested layups but kick out to the open shooters once the defense caves in;
    2) the first guy to receive the pass is actually often quickly passing a their good shot for a teamate wide open three. Just look at Miami how the ball moves after it comes out of the paint
    3) Above shooters spend their summers in the gym to improve their shot and put the work in.

    Randle must take the next step where he wants and learns how to effect the game without the ball in his hands like Bam Bam does. His lack of effort permiates to others…specifically, Mitch, RJ and Obi.

    In order for all this to happen, they must go through a very difficult season with a lot of personal ups and downs, emotional outbursts and difficult conversations…changing existings habits is very very hard and I don’t think that Thibs is capable of this…

    In Nov through March, every time IQ, Randle or RJ takes a poor shot early in the shot clock, dribbles for more than 15 seconds or carelesly turns the ball over, they need to get yanked and benched. Poor effort? – yanked. Film sessions have to become contentious and embarrising. Spoelstra alluded to this several times…

    Forget trades. Solve these problems and Knicks will be a handful next posteason.

    Forget for a second that we all know Jimmy Butler missed a game and was never full strength.

    There is no transitive property in the NBA.

    So did Randle but we never seem to care about that… or all the other injured Knicks… or the illegal screens that never get called… or that the even the NBA acknowledged 3 missed calls in the last 2min of game 6

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