[news.google.com] — Tuesday, June 13, 2023 7:00:00 AM
Suggested trade sees Bulls ditch Zach LaVine for former top 3 pick USA Today
[news.google.com] — Tuesday, June 13, 2023 5:40:12 AM
Top Knicks Trade Offer To Land Sixers’ Joel Embiid Yardbarker
[news.google.com] — Tuesday, June 13, 2023 4:30:00 AM
“More rings than the Knicks in the last 50 years” – NBA fans are in shambles after Ish Smith wins his first title in 13 years Sportskeeda
[news.google.com] — Tuesday, June 13, 2023 12:51:36 AM
Top Knicks Trade Offer To Land Sixers’ Joel Embiid NBA Analysis Network
[news.google.com] — Tuesday, June 13, 2023 12:07:29 AM
ESPN’s Mike Breen calls his 100th NBA Finals broadcast in Game 5 NBA.com
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Nuggets Douse Heat in Game 5, Win 2023 NBA Finals Sports Illustrated
[news.google.com] — Monday, June 12, 2023 11:07:00 PM
NBA rumors: Knicks slapped with harsh Julius Randle trade reality ClutchPoints
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Ranking: The easiest paths to the title in NBA history Yahoo Sports
[news.google.com] — Monday, June 12, 2023 10:50:40 PM
‘Love You Guys!’: Knicks Josh Hart Reveals Sons’ Names Sports Illustrated
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[news.google.com] — Monday, June 12, 2023 5:14:47 PM
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Knicks-Donovan Mitchell trade chatter clearly has Cavaliers fans worried Daily Knicks
[news.google.com] — Monday, June 12, 2023 3:21:59 PM
New York Knicks’ Three-Point Shooting ‘Doomed’ 2023 Playoff Run Sports Illustrated
[news.google.com] — Monday, June 12, 2023 3:15:58 PM
Knicks’ Rising Guard Names Favorite Game of Entire Career Heavy.com
[news.google.com] — Monday, June 12, 2023 2:01:04 PM
Former Knicks Target ‘Could Be Had in the Right Deal’ Heavy.com
[news.google.com] — Monday, June 12, 2023 11:45:36 AM
Knicks and Donovan Mitchell pairing might not be dead: Report AMNY
[news.google.com] — Monday, June 12, 2023 11:43:00 AM
Does Donovan Mitchell want to join the New York Knicks? Hey, Chris! cleveland.com
[news.google.com] — Monday, June 12, 2023 10:46:10 AM
NBA rumors: Knicks could land another Villanova alum in free agency FanSided
[news.google.com] — Monday, June 12, 2023 8:49:57 AM
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Does a Kyle Kuzma trade make sense for the Knicks? Posting and Toasting
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10 Biggest offseason blunders in New York Knicks history Daily Knicks
117 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2023.06.13)”
The Athletic layoffs such but are sadly unsurprising given the state of media in the 21st century. [This is your friendly reminder to actually click on the links people drop here if you want to support your favorite Knicks writers.]
But I don’t think this means we’re going to lose Katz. Athletic has already started moving away from assigning beat writers to every NBA/MLB/NFL/NHL team, but they’ve made sure to have at least one person, if not two or three, covering the big market ones that generate a lot of traffic. Lindsay Adler left The Athletic to go to the Wall Street Journal, and The Athletic replaced her with two Yankee beat writers. It feels like the Lakers have a half dozen people writing about them daily.
Knicks For Clicks will be helpful to us in this case.
Offseason is here! (not really!)
A very good season for the Knicks and a good season for the NBA.
I’m happy for Denver, Jokic is great, the Heat’s cinderella run was nice.
I’m with Brian on the new CBA, I can’t understand why the players accepted a deal that’s going to squeeze many of them (yes, the salary cap will raise, but they made a deal to smooth and avoid a one year spike).
It’ll be hard, given the penalties for tax payers, to build teams with 2, let alone 3, max-players. The time for the “easy” max are over and even trading mistakes and albatross contracts will become harder.
On the other hand, drafting well to get good players at a lower (and controlled) cost could be more valuable than ever.
I’m very curious to see how teams will react to the new rules… and how the Knicks will manage re-signings/extensions with IQ and J-Hart.
Apparently the athletic didn’t even have a nuggets writer this year.
The other question is why teams agreed to a deal that is going to make it so much harder to build/maintain contenders. Yes, ultimately the decision is made by the owners, who want profits above all else. And maybe this eventually leads to a repression of salaries, especially for middle-class guys like Josh Hart. But I think we are going to see a lot of POBO pain over the next few years. And at least some of the owners want to win at least as much as they want to make money.
Facts! – been a long time since I had this much fun rooting for this team & watching Brooklyn burn from within…
@ Hubert, – you said Brooklyn needs a PG…well, Ben’s cap space let’s them sign FVV and its only day one of free agent dominos falling. Not sure how/why you believe that Brooklyn doesn’t benefit from cap space.
I agree, it’s nice that Nuggets and Jokic get their first ring. A Knicks cinderella run would’ve been a lot nicer, but i liked our season a lot. Baby steps.
My favorite aspects of this season:
-Knicks being both good and well-positioned to get better, thanks to whiffing on Spida
-Rooting for Jalen Brunson
-Celts being eliminated again
-Nets eating the KD-Kyrie maneuver with nothing to show for it
-All of the teams that made splashy win-now moves being eliminated early in the playoffs
I think trading with The Nets isn’t likely not because of what we can offer but because they are the crosstown rivals and I think it is very true that they don’t want to help us win a championship and further cement The Knicks as NYC’s team.
That being said, a forward looking GM and owner would realize that assembling a super team blew up in their face and even when they had Durant, Harden and Kyrie they still weren’t as popular as The Knicks. Yet before that, when they were a young, up and coming team with rootable players they developed themselves, people were starting to like them. And a smart GM and owner would realize they could trade Bridges for a boatload of picks and cap space and The Knicks would have a few years of dominating but The Nets could slowly build a fun, rootable good team themselves and in a few years The Knicks might be peaking out and there could be a real crosstown rivalry with them being the up and coming team.
Then again, Mikal Bridges seems like a super nice, rootable dude…so in addition to him being a really good player that they might be able to build around, he’s the exact kind of rootable dude you want on your team.
So yeah, I don’t see it happening. But my god Mikal Bridges would be perfect.
WHY THE FUCK DID WE DRAFT KEVIN KNOX!!!!!
Also, holy shit if Bridges could join The Knicks and then Brunson, Bridges and Hart are part of a team that wins a title. They would probably all end up in the Hall of Fame cause can you think of any other trio that’s won an NCAA and NBA title together?
I think CBA is run by the smaller markets, and yet again they managed to set rules that’ll make it very hard to spend money. I’m pretty sure Dolan, Lacob, Buss, Balmer didn’t want this deal. And maybe a few others, but the league has 30 teams and they’re a minority. We just have to adapt and try to make the best of it. Maybe our “low value” protected draft picks will actually have value now.
FVV is an interesting player. I wonder what his next contract will look like. He’s a solid 2-way smallish PG but his TS% has never gotten out of the .550’s.
Lakers, Warriors, Spurs, Rockets, Mavs… hadn’t occurred to me, but yes.
IMO the Nets are likely to try to do exactly what we are doing. They don’t have a real team yet. They have assets from the trades that don’t create a coherent team. From what they have, they’ll select the players they want to move forward with and players they can use to trade for picks or quality players that fit to add to the core. They are in very good shape to turn that team around quickly if they are competent.
Mikal Bridges is young. He may not have even peaked yet. He’s a core piece for them going forward.
Or we could just sign Donte Divincenzo or bring back Ryan Arcidiacano, but I doubt those two make the hall
I think trading with The Nets isn’t likely not because of what we can offer but because they are the crosstown rivals and I think it is very true that they don’t want to help us win a championship and further cement The Knicks as NYC’s team.
We did trade a certain P. Jackson to the Nets, so there is precedent.
I am fully with Alan on Bridges. Less worthy of discussion than Frank Ntilikina’s potential. We can make fun of the “rivalry” all we want (and to be sure, it ain’t exactly storied), but these guys are not trading with each other.
Macri’s newsletter today brings up an interesting point. The new CBA may shake loose more arguably-a-star-but-also-probably-overpaid types than usual. The question the Knicks should ask about these guys (e.g. LaVine, Beal, KAT) might be whether they could be flipped again as part of a package for a a more true blue star type down the road.
Their discounted price could allow us to utilize them as a rental star of sorts. This allows us to improve while still maintaining the ability to trade for a bona fide star if the opportunity arises, as opposed to just waiting around hoping the latter actually happens.
Trying to guess which one our FO might prefer, is Zachary a biblical name? 😀
Alan, I’m sure you are right that the Athletic will keep a Knicks beat writer, but that doesn’t mean the Times won’t change the way the Athletic approaches sports news. I grew up in NYC and I’ve been reading the Times for many years. It’s excellent at many things, but as it changed from a printed paper to a National brand they gave up their local sports beat writers and started to focus on sort of big picture sports stories instead of the nitty gritty. Their announcement makes it seem like they want to have the athletic do more of the big picture stuff. We will see if the Athletic’s nitty gritty sports coverage survives in full if the Times changes the overall focus.
One of the links above is from a Bulls’ blog on USA Today and i think at that price LaVine comes quite cheap.
i’m just glad jokic didn’t immediately retire.
denver won the finals hitting only 8+ threes per game. less than the 2008 celtics and the 1995 rockets. very few teams in modern history have a playoff net rating advantage 5+ points better than the next highest team. historical standouts are the 14 spurs and the 91 bulls. nuggets obviously aren’t that sort of team and had a favorable path, but they were the best team this year by a big margin.
the aaron gordon trade was a huge winner for denver and fit them incredibly well. since the gordon trade the nuggets are 14.3/100 in the regular season and playoffs when jokic/murray/gordon all play, and only +8 with jokic and murray sans gordon. but the big lesson nba teams should be learning here is that if you’re on the clock in round 2 and a top 10 all time player is available you should totally go for it.
If Bulls fans are happy to make that trade for Lavine, I suspect they don’t like him much and that we won’t like him much either.
And it shows Barrett has value. That article didn’t say a word about his contract.
@cyber From nameberry.com:
“The name Zachary is boy’s name of Hebrew origin meaning “the Lord has remembered”.
It’s a no brainer!
That trade seems … commensurate. I don’t specially like Zach, I worry about his defense, and I believe he is still an injury risk (perhaps because of his style of play, in addition to his somewhat overblown injury history), but that trade leaves our options open for a future trade for a star if needed. And Zach definitely has upside. I’d still see if OG, Paul George, Mikal Bridges, Brandon Ingram or Bogdan Bogdanovic are available first.
Beale-ial and Beale-zebub are both biblical names. Perhaps not the most auspicious
For that price you get LaVine and also go after those guys.
I do think they’re being overly pessimistic about LaVine’s value, or overly optimistic about RJ. They cite RJs shooting and defense as a selling point.
They cite RJs shooting… as a selling point.
And it is ppg! Time to move on.
If the Bulls offer us that trade we need to fax it into the league office before Arturas Karnisovas ends his bender
There are several reasons why that sort of Zach LaVine deal makes sense, but there is still the issue of his bloated contract. I’d make the deal because it is a great value swap on its face but would still have a bit of queasiness about it.
I would definitely rather have Lavine than RJ.
PT – Aaron Gordon really made me do a double take watching him all playoffs. He seemed so ineffectual his first few years. He was like a different player these olayoffs.
Aaron Gordon has been fantastic all year:
+4.4 EPM (94th %tile)
+2.7 RAPTOR
+2.1 BPM (w/negative DBPM, which isn’t on him)
The Nuggets don’t have the best players (outside Jokic) but they fit perfectly around Jokic. I forget who said it, but some writer said it’s like he was built in a lab to play with Jokic.
I don’t consider Murray an elite PG, even after his playoff run, but he’s an ideal partner for Jokic in the PnR.
Gordon seems a classic example of a guy who was not at all suited to be a team’s alpha, but is perfect as its top role player. In Orlando, the offense had to showcase him. In Denver, he just has to play strong defense and take what the defense gives him while the other team is busy trying to stop Joker and Murray.
Also, am I still allowed to cry over Murray being taken with our 2016 draft pick? Or not, because our stupid FO probably would have traded out of the draft anyway for Bargs?
(As a reminder: Denver had swap rights with us that year, which we gave them because nobody could imagine us being a perennial lottery team in the Melo era. So the Murray pick was our pick, which Denver swapped for. We then traded Denver’s pick for Bargs.)
You need adequate playmaking, but there is no rule on how to accomplish that. You can get it with a traditional PG, multiple playmakers, or a unique F or C.
If you get it via a position other than PG, then you don’t need a traditional PG. Instead, you should probably try to find a G that is just as good overall as some high level playmaking PG, but that has other excess skills that complement the playmaker better.
The one problem I’ve found with the non PG approach is that there aren’t many high level F or C playmakers. If you build a team around a player like that, he can become overly critical to the team. It becomes a problem if he gets hurt or needs a rest. It’s easy to find a backup PG to run your traditional PG offense for awhile. It’s not so easy to find a backup C or F to run your offense. If you try to run it with a backup PG, it changes the roles of everyone in the starting unit. That can be a problem.
Other than some theoretical value from just what’s in the boxscore, can anyone find me solid evidence that LaVine actually makes the Bulls better?
“Also, am I still allowed to cry over Murray being taken with our 2016 draft pick?”
Alan, you may cry over all our first-round draft picks going back to 1988 or so, with the exception of David Lee in 2005 and Gallinari in 2008 (and our swapping Bolmaro for Quickley in 2020). What a shitshow. I’m starting to think we should incinerate all our first rounders, forever.
And yeah, I’m including KP in there. Because he didn’t really work out either, did he…
So yeah, now I’m in favor of putting all our first rounders+ into a godfather offer for Mikal. They won’t go for it, but we should try. Nothing better to do with them.
If the Knicks can’t get Scoot, I’d also greatly favor trading into the high end of the draft to get one of my very early season favorites brought up on Knickerbloger way back when — Anthony Black. Great defender, great court vision, high BBall IQ, tall enough to see over most defenses, terrific all-around player. Mocked now around 5 or 6 — which means you probably can’t get him with the probably-available Indiana pick at 7. If he’s still on the board at 7, I’m all over Indiana trying to get them to move the pick.
Much prefer a trade for a potential superstar 19 year old than the Zach LaVines of the world.
Adding Lavine is pretty much the exact worse thing to do with the new CBA. He just makes too much money. This CBA changes everything. You can’t just stack a bunch of players together.
There’s no purpose to be served by giving up real assets to add Zach LaVine to this team.
Without using stats, you want me to find evidence that a player is good?
Idk, he’s got that dawg in him 🤷
I think Lavine is a talented player, but just too much money.
What is Indy’s asking price?
As Cyber alluded to, this is the work of the small market cartel that runs the league. They’re going to benefit tremendously.
Uh, no, I didn’t. Maybe E did. I own everything he ever said now.
You’re suggesting Brooklyn would trade Mikal Bridges… to the Knicks… to unload Ben Simmons’ salary so they could overpay FVV?
Really?
Yeah, the on/off numbers don’t support the theory, Bulls are +0.2 with LaVine on the floor and +4.9 when he’s off. And while doing this search, i’ve got sad… RJ is 312 out of 321 players that played at least 1500 possessions.
https://stats.inpredictable.com/nba/onoff.php?season=2022&pos=ALL&team=ALL&po=0&frdt=2022-10-18&todt=2023-06-12&mpos=1500&rate=per&sort=dff_om&order=DESC&grp=7
Also, player salary is still highly dependent on Dolan’s willingness to pay the tax. Arguably we should load up on as much salary as possible prior to Brunson & IQ re-upping.
It’s not too pressing at the moment, but it becomes a consideration immediately before players re-up.
After hitting the 2nd apron we can only make trades for smaller salaries, not bigger ones (unless it’s within 10% I think?) If we take on a couple big contracts it potentially gives us greater flexibility once we exceed the 2nd apron.
If we offer every single asset, the chances of Brooklyn trading us Bridges are slim.
If you want to fuck around, don’t even bother.
Yeah, a large part of the LaVine argument rests on RJ being worse by every metric. RJ is somewhere between bad and near league worst, mostly due to his defense.
So the argument goes, why not make a massive offensive upgrade by getting LaVine?
Starting in 2024-25, the salaries have to match to the fucking penny and you can’t combine salaries for trades (so it has to be one player making X salary for one other player making X salary). I’m telling you, this is a nuclear option by the league. It’s crazy.
I do agree that it makes sense for the Knicks to try to get a big salary guy before the second apron locks in, but because of that, it means that whoever you get has to be, like, really good. Is that Towns? Maybe. It sure ain’t LaVine (and I think LaVine is a talented player, but come on, it’s some crazy money).
Jokic’s brother lifting him up like a little kid during the celebrations after the game, and Nicola with his legs floating in the air laying his head on his brother’s shoulder and closing his eyes, relaxing for a moment, must be the most incredible, moving moment in the history of the NBA. Disney style, maybe, but at the current state of the world at large I’ll take it.
that’s not good news on zach…honestly, just watching him play he seems to put out more consistent effort now…
good news on RJ, if he’s that bad – stats and eye test attest- hopefully his minutes are easily upgradeable – like just take him out of the rotation, let quik start, and add in literally anyone else but him…
I guess I’m not a believer in playoff RJ…
I’m also a bit less committed to mitch, he gets a lot of rebounds because he’s almost always around the rim – cuz he can’t fucking shoot the ball, not even a hook, dribbles to the rim twice a season…can’t zubac at least shoot a little…
I thought ihart was supposed to be able to shoot a little bit, wasn’t that a thing before here…
My wife told me that she rarely relates to sports stuff, but she was delighted by a clip of Jokic in the press conference finding out that he has to stick around in Denver for the parade on Thursday, and the look on his face as he says, “Wha? No, I am going to go home” was so endearing.
I don’t know, Cyber, that bottom-of-the-barrel list is sort of fun. Jeff Green sucks, who knew? Poku is the actual absolute worst! And Simone Fontecchio is actually not a woman gymnast. All kinds of gold in there.
This sums it up nicely:
This is crazy.
This may lead to collusion among agents and players to try to negotiate salaries that match better across the the league.
That would be two teams over the apron trading with each other, which I guess it was going to be a rare occurrence anyway, and you could always route some salary to a 3rd team for the purposes of receiving less salary than you are sending out.
I believe exact matching is only required for two teams over the 2nd apron, which is a consequence of saying neither can take on more salary than they send out.
You are allowed to use stats, just not the boxscore metrics.
On/Off paints a terrible picture. There is a lot of noise in that stat and it’s also dependent on who the backup is, but he’s terrible on that metric. Maybe there are lineup issues that account for it, but I don’t see anything obvious. All I see is a guy that looks like a terrific scorer from the boxscore and watching games whose team plays worse when he’s on the court.
Yeah, that’s fair to note. You can’t take back more salary than you’re trading if you’re a second apron team, but teams below it can still deal with those teams with more flexibility. But basically, it’s a sign that you don’t want to over the second apron, ya know? Or, if you’re going to go over the second apron, you have to be prepared to win with that specific team that you’re going over the second apron with.
So adding big money contracts, which used to be a case of, “Eh, it’s not ideal, but it’s doable” are no longer doable in the same way.
EPM and RAPTOR both rate LaVine as a positive, with EPM putting him in the 91st %tile.
I suspect LaVine’s net negative on/off stems from Chicago playing 3 good offensive players who are all terrible on defense. If you sit any 1 of them, their defense dramatically improves while their offense stays about the same. All 3 have a negative on/off with defense being the major component. Vuc was by far the worst in defensive on/off.
And the flip side is that RJ had a -10.0 net rating, which dwarfs LaVine’s -4.0
Yeah, it’s not necessarily what you want to do but it might offer flexibility if you still have assets to sweeten a deal.
It’s certainly not a right now concern, it’s only a call to make immediately before we re-up with Brunson/IQ to go over the 2nd apron. And you’re right, it still may not be worthwhile.
I think the teams most affected would be teams that behave like Cuban’s Mavericks (through the 2000s) and Ballmer’s Clippers, which kept a high payroll and kept trading players, usually for higher salaries and longer contracts, as a way of having a competitive advantage.
We still don’t have high salaried contracts for the sake of it, and I think we should have some wiggle room up until next Brunson’s extension. By that extension we would be effectively commited to the team at that point, and we would need to add whatever pieces before. We then would have to keep that team until the wheels fall off, or we tear it apart and rebuild while some players are still in their prime.
My question, what are other alternative paths to contention? Or in other words, how do you cheat the cap? Because I see the following possibilities.
1) True max players: Which we currently don’t have and are difficult to obtain.
2) Undervalued players: Which Brunson might be one, and Bridges might be another, but seems unlikely to be traded here.
3) Rookie prodigies: Which we don’t have, and are difficult to obtain if the rest of the team does not suck
4) Going above the apron while the rest of the league won’t.
For me, option number 4 is not that bad, as long as they try for option number 2 first. I don’t see number 1 being available, and for number 3 well, I guess we could find the next Jokic in the 2nd round.
Cyber, did you note that if you go to the front of the class on that list, the top three regulars (not counting guys like Boban and, um, Trevelin Queen), are Joker, Aaron Gordon, and Michael Porter Jr.?
I don’t think teams will stop going over the apron, they’ll just piece things together so that when they decide to do it, they’re, like, firmly ready to compete. Look at the Bucks. They could bring back this exact same roster and be ready to compete next year, right? They don’t need to make any additional moves. The Nuggets, as well, can bring back this same squad and be a title contender (they’ll need to hope someone can step up for Bruce Brown, but otherwise, they’re very complete). As you note, the teams that are really fucked are the ones with big salaries and yet not really there yet. The Clippers are probably the most notable example. They have all these big salaries and yet are not that good. Ballmer would have gladly keep spending to improve, and now he can’t. The Mavericks look like they might need to just outright rebuild around Doncic at this point with the new rules.
How the CBA applies to the Knicks is just that we’ve all been waiting (Leon Rose, included) for the big move to push them into title contention. It used to be that you could just re-sign everybody and just, essentially, kick the can down the road. Now, with the new rules, there’s much more of a deadline for when they have to lock their shit down, and who they lock it down for now is even more important than before. Before, I would have been fine with a Zach LaVine deal (while not liking it), because, whatever, they could still add to that team even if they added LaVine and his ginormous salary. Now, though, adding LaVine brings you pretty freaking close to being locked in (not literally over, but pretty close), and you’re still not a title contender, sooo….what do you do?
This new CBA complicates Rose’s plans for the Knicks a lot.
The “good” thing is that it also fucks over the teams that have been planning things well for years, like Presti, because now he knows even if he nails all of his picks, he’ll still be sort of screwed when they all become max players (if they do so), as it used to be that you could wait till they were all ready to go, spend money on a free agent, and then max everyone out and add midlevel guys as the years went by. You can’t do that anymore.
I think where I differ from a lot of people is that I believe we’re title contenders already.
Our net rating indicates that we were contenders and one of the best teams in the league post-Cam Reddish, even before the Hart trade.
On the season as a whole our net-rating was 0.4 behind Denver, and Denver didn’t make the big shakeups we did.
If either Randle or IQ don’t suck, we likely beat the Heat. If we field enough shooters, we likely beat the Heat.
We destroyed the Cavs who were one of the best teams in the league.
We beat a lot of contenders during the regular season.
We’re not as far away as people think.
Sure, if you think Brunson/IQ, Grimes/Hart, LaVine, Randle and Mitch/iHart is winning a title, then fair enough. I disagree, but if you think that’s the case, then I get why you’d be cool with it.
From the players’ perspective, a bunch of them just got de facto non-trade clauses added to their contracts.
It’s fair to say, though, that this is only for teams over the second apron. It is still a major deal (the amount of star trades in the past couple of years that would never have happened with this rule is staggering), but I don’t mean to over-exaggerate how big of a deal it is.
The current roster isn’t good enough to be a 2nd apron team. Which means hard decisions are going to have to be made, which will instead likely be punted or ignored.
They either need to take a swing at a big star now, pronto or … gulp … tear it down. Running it all back until the roster becomes 2nd apron expensive is not a proper option.
Yeah, I think that’s fair (even the advocates for LaVine seem to concede that, right?), and I think Rose knows it, too. I imagine we will see a big deal. The only question is…who will it be?
The cleanest path to taking the next step — or, at least, to avoiding the Plexiglass Principle — is to upgrade at small forward. But the only guy who is a perfect fit is on a team that will never trade him to us. And then you get into dudes like OG and LaVine who will cost a ton in assets and/or cap dollars, and probably aren’t enough to put us over the top into genuine title contention(*). It’s going to be a very tricky offseason for Leon’s team of rivals.
(*) Repeating a question I asked Cyber a week or two ago: in the impossible (repeat: impossible) world where we are able to acquire Mikal Bridges without giving up anyone from our current rotation other than RJ and maybe Obi, does he make us an instant title contender? Or would we still need another piece in addition to him?
Josh Hart does not work for the Knicks under the new CBA. Nor does Obi Toppin.
(Nor does not having a single rookie scale guy from either the 2022 or 2023 drafts (probably re 2023), but that’s a rabbit hole there’s no purpose in going down, since it’s not really the point although it kinda is.)
I do think a theoretical Bridges for RJ/Obi deal makes the Knicks title contenders, yes. Bridges it the real deal. A genuine two-way star (which, again, is why the Nets aren’t trading him).
Agreed on a re-signed Obi. You 100% cannot re-sign Obi (unless you’ve traded Randle, of course). Hart, though, I think is fine to re-sign. He doesn’t knock them even into the first apron, right?
One of the weird things about the new CBA that I brought up a while back – is there a single team in the NBA where Bradley Beal’s insane contract could actually make sense?
The new CBA makes getting surplus value from guys on rookie scale deals even more important. Leon’s feckless and reckless approach to the draft won’t work anymore.
Wouldn’t that mean that their future picks have more trade value now, though? The Dallas, Milwaukee and Detroit ones, in particular.
Concur, and I would think the best thing would be for them to vest after you hit the 2nd apron. They should, if the other teams are smart which they are, have higher value net-net under the new CBA.
The best way to think about it seems to be that once you hit the 2nd apron, all you can do is draft. (Though there will be imaginative things done to involve third and fourth non-apron teams.)
Going into the 2nd apron with a strong bench already established should be an emphasis for teams.
Hart was a fine acquisition for this reason and will be fine on his new contract.
Sure, if you can get a guy on a rookie deal, then you’re set. But if your draft gamble doesn’t pay off, then you’re stuck with a weak bench and no good remedies.
I dont think there was a sane team that would’ve taken his contract before the new CBA. Plenty of teams lack sanity though.
so i had some time to digest the cba… and i don’t really think it’s all that different than before like everyone is making it out to be… it changes one key thing though and that you can’t be like the warriors and continually add vets to an already stacked team and it’s much more punishing to go all-in because of that….
but besides that yes.. being a second apron team is something you want to avoid… but it’s also relatively easy to avoid it because
1) all teams will have a lot more money to play with and
2) it was pretty difficult to get into the second apron unless you were already planning to contend with a heavy payroll…. only two teams would have hit the second apron and that’s golden state and the clips and they probably could have avoided it with some advanced planning and their team probably wouldn’t be materially different….
as for what it means for the knicks… absolutely zero has changed…. we were talking about lavine when ball’s knee news broke during the trade deadline and we’re still talking about him…. the hart and iq contracts should be scrutinized a bit more but since second rd banners fly forever we’re probably going to be handswatting whatever they wind up with anyway all summer…
so yea… don’t get too worked up… it’s more of tilt than any sort of sea change happening….
people still have to think that they will convert as 1sts sometime in their nba life in order to be valued as such..
I don’t think it’s possible to predict with any kind of accuracy what the new CBA will mean going forward, especially in terms of how it will play into a given team’s current situation. Some contenders as currently constructed, like the Nuggets, will have massive decisions to make going forward. So will lots of other teams. The science is yet to develop in terms of optimal resource allocation.
That said, I feel pretty optimistic about the Knicks in their current situation. First, there is Jalen Brunson. He seem totally invested in being here and doing whatever he needs to do to build a championship-level team. He’s like the anti-Melo in that regard, and the worrying about his next contract representing some kind of deadline seems overstated to me on a number of levels. Second, there isn’t a single player on the books that will earn more than $32M on his current deal, especially Julius. So a max player can be added to this roster without going over the second apron even if Julius is kept, and easily if either he or RJ is part of the deal. Third, if we lock in players like IQ, iHart, JHart and Grimes (and maybe even Obi) to reasonable deals, it’s possible that those guys become exactly the kinds of players that other teams are seeking out as matching salary in a star trade. Fourth, as Brian pointed out, both our protected and our unprotected draft picks, and possibly Rokas, become more valuable in facilitating trades in a hard cap climate. Fifth, we have an owner that is more likely to tolerate the tax implications if it means building a legit contender.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, we have an exceptional capologist in Brock Aller who understands this shit better than almost anyone. (iirc, there was some maneuvering this past offseason that was like 10s of dollars away from some unwanted threshold.) While the path that Leon chooses is not purely on his influence, I don’t think anything is being done willy-nilly.
the contract isn’t good.. but there’s a lot more money going into the cap now and into the future… licensing money now is going to add anywhere from 2-5mm per team annually that wasn’t there before at all..
and then you have big tech jumping into sports rights bidding wars as well as generating new revenue streams (e.g vision pro courtside seats)… some of these cap projections might look very conservative and all these legacy contracts might be dwarfed in a couple of years…
so it might look unpalatable now but i anticipate that these things are not going to be totally unmovable in the future…. which is why i think going after them now if they come cheaply might be a low risk move….
Doc Rivers sure loves to do anything but take responsibility for anything he’s done as a coach.
On the season as a whole our net-rating was 0.4 behind Denver, and Denver didn’t make the big shakeups we did.
this particular slice of evidence is tenuous. denver’s regular season net rating was significantly affected by minutes from players who aren’t part of the playoff nuggets. if you allow only the 8 guys from their playoff rotation, they played 1679 regular season minutes and were +13.3/100. if you do the same for us (using the obvious 9 guys including obi) we were +6.04/100. impressive, but a different galaxy.
it was a great year, but if i ran the knicks i would make decisions that implicitly assumed we have a very (very) low chance at contention with the current roster. but yes everyone’s trade ideas still suck.
“Doc Rivers sure loves to do anything but take responsibility for anything he’s done as a coach.”
I like Doc for the way he projects as a person, but grew tired of his act a long, long time ago. He has ridden that one championship run into the ground.
“it was a great year, but if i ran the knicks i would make decisions that implicitly assumed we have a very (very) low chance at contention with the current roster. but yes everyone’s trade ideas still suck.”
Totally agree with this (including the part about trade ideas lol), although I think that they shouldn’t be in such a state of urgency that they make a big splash just for the veneer of being a contender. I really want to see what goes on with all the “disappointed” teams and their rosters…it feels like a number of GMs are starting to feel some pressure to “do something” and that a patient approach, even out to offseason ’24, might be able to capitalize on that.
That makes more sense. Do you know where the Knicks rank compared to other playoff teams? Also what does it look like without RJ? Or I can look it up, I just don’t know what site gives that data.
‘Repeating a question I asked Cyber a week or two ago’
I’m with Brian, I think Mikal makes the Knicks a real contender. We might still get chewed up by the Nuggets, but we’d have a real chance to play for all the marbles.
Which is why the front office should be locked in a room until they figure out how to pull off the impossible.
And I’m with ptmilo that all the other trade ideas suck.
Hollinger did something like this, the Knicks ended up 10th. Miami was 13th. Cleveland was 7th. Denver was 3rd (tops in the West).
A team that has an amnesty left?
I think my answer was that we’d be contenders if we got Mikal, although i was advocating that we still need a superstar, i think Mikal is so perfect for us that we’d be contenders even though Mikal is not a superstar (at least for now).
If you set the possessions to 1500, KCP is 6th. Four players in the first 6 of the list.
https://stats.inpredictable.com/nba/onoff.php?season=2022&pos=ALL&team=ALL&po=0&frdt=2022-10-18&todt=2023-06-12&mpos=1500&rate=per&sort=dff_om&order=DESC&grp=1
I’m going to guess this is because they share the floor for a large percentage of their minutes (Murray is 34th too)
On the Knicks, Hart was 7th. He was 37th on Portland.
IQ is 41st
The flip side is that every good pick he makes won’t automatically expect a max on their second contract just because they’re good.
The whole “default to the max” thing has been the bane of the NBA for decades. Now if you’re Presti, you can actually afford to play hard ball with someone like Josh Giddy because it’s not like half the league is gonna be lining up to max that guy.
People say this kills the middle class. I disagree. I think it just creates a new middle class. Instead of the middle class being a bunch of schmucks like Nic Batum, the middle class is gonna be guys like Zach Lavine and Rudy Gobert. These guys won’t get stupid 50mm contracts anymore.
Then all the Harts and the IQs of the world are going to be making mid-level money instead of stupid money.
Everything is going to make a lot more sense.
This is, essentially, the Isiah Doctrine all over again.
Somebody should check my math, but if you assume Hart gets an $18M AAV descending deal and the cap rises 10% every year, then by year 4 Hart is basically making MLE money.
Doc Rivers was one of the most primed “future coaches” I’ve ever seen. He and Battier and Kevin Johnson. KJ decided to be a mayor instead. Doc fizzled. And I don’t know what the hell Battier’s been doing post-retirement. That guy should be president by now by his early career projections. He better get going…
the new cba does squeeze the middle class a tad…. contenders were bidding up various role players as they had little room to maneuver with the cap and got them through exceptions and the buyout market… it was designed to prevent the clips and warriors from getting guys like divicenzo and morris.. and so there will be less teams vying for their services…
the middle class has always been under threat which is why the mle exists so that not every team goes with the stars and scrubs approach… that is the most efficient strategy with the way the talent distribution exists….
but again… that’s only a concern aroudn the edges…. if every team smartens up the mle and not just the handful of analytically oriented front offices.. then that would collapse the middle class but i don’t think the cba changes would cause that….
and presti has gone through this before… he knows what’s up… he just made one wrong choice that cost him a title… but instead he had to settle for multiple wcf trips and perennial contender status…. he’s not screwed by any stretch…. he will pay who he needs to pay and get whatever he needs by flicking off the heap of draft picks that he has left… the cba doesn’t change his ability to do any of that…. in fact having clay bennet not being able to pay a second apron team is safe to say… not one of the problems he will ever have to face….
After hitting post I had had the sudden memory of Doc and KJ getting into the biggest brawl my young eyes had ever seen. How awesome that two goody-two-shoes were at the epicenter of this…
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=x4tSkSlsZ2c
This is a nice long thread to wake up to. I have two comments on stuff above. For those wondering how could the players agree to such a CBA, they did actually get paid more money in return. Some revenue was added to the definition of basketball revenue so the players’ 51% share got a little bigger. As I recall though, it wasn’t a big bump relative to what they already get.
And two, I agree it’s bad the Knicks don’t have a pick this year, but to be fair to management, they were probably counting on getting the Mavericks pick when they traded our own pick for Josh Hart. That was certainly a fair expectation. The Mavericks were 30 and 26 at the time.
That makes more sense. Do you know where the Knicks rank compared to other playoff teams? Also what does it look like without RJ? Or I can look it up, I just don’t know what site gives that data.
you can play with it here
https://tinyurl.com/bdfsvb2e
How is Scherzer getting lit up by this Yankees lineup?
Shane Battier, together with his wife Heidi, founded The Battier Take Charge Foundation in 2010. With a strong presence in Miami, Houston, and Battier’s hometown of Detroit, the organization aims to provide resources for the development and education of under-served youth. The Foundation has awarded $1.5M in college scholarships to date.
On February 16, 2017, Battier re-joined the Heat in their front office, as the director of basketball development and analytics.
On June 30, 2021, Battier joined the board of directors at Yext.
On December 1, 2021, it was announced that Battier, along with former NBA players Baron Davis and Metta Sandiford-Artest, has joined an investing group to launch East Asia Super League.
But by far the best factoids are that his kids are named Zeke and Eloise.
I like the framework of this analogy, but it needs a little work.
You can still have a steak with an app and sides and dessert.
But you can’t have steak and lobster, with an app and sides and dessert.
Which is great, because steak and lobster is gluttonous AF. Hell some greedy MFs had steak, lobster, and duck. And the Warriors had all three AND they ordered another steak!!!
And the whole damn time we’re sitting here eating maple syrup sandwiches.
I fucking love this CBA. Give me some steak. We already got the app and sides.
I don’t think there is anyone on the planet that is worse at their job than Boone.
I’d take a long hard look at the guy who hired Boone and gave him an extension.
The Boone extension, btw, reminds me of the second time Cashman traded for Javier Vazquez.
This guy never sees his own mistakes because his arrogance has no limit.
I blame Hal for most of the problems. I mean read his quotes from today, it’s all about being OK with a possible salary cap and talking about how much money they’ve lost past few years cause of Covid.
He still talks about how he believed in the past they shouldn’t need a 200m payroll to win a championship and now the number is 300m. I mean shit his dad was running 200m payrolls in the early 2000’s yet in 2017 the Yankees reset their luxury tax by having a payroll below 200m.
I’m not saying Hal is cheap but he runs the Yankees as a business and doesn’t seem to really care about winning championships, he just wants to be good enough where they at least make the playoffs every year without blowing up the payroll. His mindset is the total opposite of his dad.
So who are the star options this offseason? I’ll put them out there so we can see if any actually make sense:
1. Kristaps
2. Towns
3. James Harden
4. Zach LaVine
5. DeMar DeRozan
6. Paul George
7. Jaylen Brown
8. Brad Beal
9. Brandon Ingram
10. Chris Paul
Please discuss…
man, mike king has that I’m about to get lit up look about him…
edit: or not 🙂
Boone is a genius!
Kristaps and Towns both make some sense as they have a reasonable way to be better than the guy they would be replacing (some combination of Mitch & Randle) but they both have some real downside too.
Either of the Bulls guys instead of RJ is the easiest short term swing there. They were both much better than RJ last year. DeMar has the much better contract for a sort term play, but is dangerously old and idk what to make of Zach’s knees.
Harden and PG can’t hold up for a season and Harden has terrible vibes. Jaylen Brown doesn’t seem like a realistic get, Paul isn’t coming to the Knicks if he can just go to LA, Ingram I don’t really like as a player and Beale is maybe washed and might have the worst contract in the league.
Thanks pt
Looks like the Knicks without RJ are +17. But that’s not terribly indicative of how we’d perform.
The most frequent RJ lineup is +7.20 while the most frequent non-RJ lineup is +4.41 in the regular season (IQ replacing RJ).
The gap does close if we include the playoffs for a larger sample, with the non-RJ lineup jumping up to +6.46 and the RJ lineup having a smaller increase to +7.71.
And we should probably weigh the most frequent lineups more heavily because those would be disproportionately used if RJ wasn’t on the team. Plus a lot of non-RJ lineups are just going to be IQ & Hart beating the snot out of backups.
Don’t know if there’s much to take away from this data other than RJ is pretty good with the starters but pretty much every other lineup configuration he played in was terrible. He’s -3.99 in lineups that aren’t the starting lineup (I think I queried that correctly).
Unfortunately he played 2200 minutes outside the starting lineup and only 600min in it. So maybe there is a lot to gain there if somebody cares enough to do the math.
call me crazy – crazy – but I don’t really think we need to acquire a star to contend…
we need a healthy brunson and for julius to figure himself out…
I think we just need to work on our small forward and non offensive threat whatsoever center situation…
wow, just saw a highlight of gary sanchez in a padres uniform, who looked like he was in great shape…
every time he would run to first you never knew if his hamstrings would survive the trip intact…