But again, this is supposed to be a means to an end. For any of this to matter, it eventually has to translate into results. Otherwise you have something more akin to the saboteur scenario.

i think the part that you’re missing is that it already has benefited the knicks… yes if you look at purely +/- on/off court numbers and only look at it at one level then you will also draw a narrow conclusion… but there’s a reason why teams with the bad wiggins version and rj and dillon brooks and jordan clarkson and iverson and melo and all these seemingly terrible players in otherwise good offenses… produce good results for their team….

and that’s because eventually primary or secondary options get stopped and you need to turn to someone else in the offense… or just giving the ball to randle or brunson 100x a game is unsustainable from a stamina or production standpoint… and someone else needs to carry the load…. for any number of reasons you need options to turn to or else you have some guys who you don’t want the ball in their hands doing something that they’re not used to…

we had the #3 offense in the league… if rj hurt the offense… it really wasn’t by that much….. and yes being inefficient is not ideal…. but not many offenses has a 25 usg guy to turn to as a third or fourth option when guys get hurt or just not feeling it on a particular night….

the sacramento kings with the #1 offense are turning to… kevin huerter? malik monk? the cavs were giving the ball to … evan mobley? caris levert? just look around the league… not every team is made up of superfriends… the third or fourth option might be ok players in isolation but how much more confident are you giving the ball to these guys if you need to make a basket over rj? if you’re feeling a little uncomfortable answering that question that could be what your missing here….

and i’m not saying that usg by itself is the most valuable thing in the world either and that doesn’t make rj some underrated star…. it just makes him a bit better than you think it might…. and the playoffs are a very visible example where offense gets very tough to generate on most nights and you are scrambling for anybody to give you offense in any kind of way… mid range shots you’re normally screaming at folks in the reg season if they’re shooting that on a reg basis…. in these playoff games you will take anything that goes in… and those types of shots aren’t terrible…. randle shit the bed almost every game…. IQ was comatose… and we certainly were going to turn to grimes or hart to run some pnr and so in that very visible example it’s really nice to have someone to turn to for some usg when you need it…. and sometimes they can perform pretty well….

it’s not just rj either…. these seemingly terribly high usg guys tend to surprise in the playoffs…. jordan clarkson did it regularly with the jazz and bailed them out on more than one occasion because counting on only donovan mitchell to generate offense is surprisingly not gonna work all the time…

ideally yes… rj should have better efficiency…. but in an ideal world our third option would be lebron…. we don’t and where rj sits in the pecking order is not very harmful to what we’re doing considering where other teams sit in that position as well…. and if they’re better.. well they probably have a better outlook than us which is why we’re talking about upgrades to rj….

I don’t know, I dont think that will work. Who plays defense on that team?

For better or worse, I don’t think his passing, rebounding, or stocks will change much, but if he can become an average defender (maybe taking the 2nd-best wing while Grimes takes the best one), I could see him sticking around.

Basically that’s an average wing — something between Harrison Barnes and Andre Iguodala. No doubt, he has a way to go before getting to that level, but I’m just going to say it seems possible, even though that might be his ceiling.

RJ is a mezzanine player. He can soak usage but he can’t win you a championship or come close to it… yet.

Quentin Grimes types are on every or nearly every championship team. You see RJ types on few, if any, such teams.

This is why people like Grimes more than RJ. We know he’s a piece of a championship puzzle even if he’s not the most important one. RJ isn’t right now, and may never be.

Even if you trade Ayton, that’s a starting 5 of Booker/Beal/KD/anon PF/ anon C. That cannot hold defensively if there’s any defensive regression at all from KD and I think you get diminishing returns on offense from Beal as opposed to a healthyish CP3.

Miami on the other hand would be a good fit. Dump Herro plus a pick and some salary for a better guy when he’s healthy. Spend half the season load managing him while Jimmy and Bam hold down the fort, and if you’re at all lucky with injuries you’re right back in the mix in the East. Seems like a textbook Pat Riley play.

Shams: “Developing: Washington is in serious talks with two finalists – Miami and Phoenix – on a Bradley Beal trade, sources tell @TheAthletic @Stadium. The Suns have emerged as a serious threat for Beal, who holds a no-trade clause.”

How though? 🤔

but he’s right about usage… you cannot credibly generate any sort of usage in the nba unless you’re trying to intentionally sabotage the game…. most nba players cannot actually…. if you’ve ever played against a team of players much better than you… you’re going to struggle getting off a good shot….

I think we were mostly just trying to dumb down our point so Everyone could understand.

But on RJs current efficiency you’re effectively just heaving the ball at the rim for a number of possessions a game. You could take place a league average efficiency/usage player in his spot and purposely throw the ball out of bounds 5 times a game to even out the usage.

There’s some inversion point where efficiency/usage flips from negative to positive. I’d say RJ is below that line right now, but not necessarily that far below.

His offense wasn’t as much of a problem as his defense this year. If he gets back to his previous defense I’d be higher on him.

If we want more space around Robinson, we need a more face-up PF to stretch the floor and not play so much out of the high post. I think Obi might be able to be that guy but if not a more modern 3-4 is a better fit than an old-school PF like Randle.

I am okay if we stand pat but if we make the big move it should be centered around Randle more than RJ. I’m OK with both in the right circumstances.