[news.google.com] — Friday, August 4, 2023 6:26:14 AM
NBA Rumors: Serge Ibaka, Knicks and Nets Roster Moves Yardbarker
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New York Knicks’ RJ Barrett Among NBA’s Most ‘Overrated’ Sports Illustrated
[news.google.com] — Thursday, August 3, 2023 11:13:00 PM
Knicks Sign Dmytro Skapintsev, Obadiah Noel To Exhibit 10 Deals RealGM.com
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[news.google.com] — Thursday, August 3, 2023 7:57:19 PM
Ian Begley: Knicks have the G League rights for Dmytro Skapintsev … Hoops Hype
[news.google.com] — Thursday, August 3, 2023 7:24:20 PM
Knicks sign Obadiah Noel to Exhibit 10 contract ClutchPoints
[news.google.com] — Thursday, August 3, 2023 7:02:00 PM
Knicks’ Dmytro Skapintsev: Lands with New York CBS Sports
[news.google.com] — Thursday, August 3, 2023 6:55:00 PM
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[news.google.com] — Thursday, August 3, 2023 6:26:09 PM
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[news.google.com] — Thursday, August 3, 2023 6:20:00 PM
Knicks Sign Dmytro Skapintsev to Exhibit 10 Contract NBA.com
[news.google.com] — Thursday, August 3, 2023 5:50:31 PM
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Ranking 4 perfect backcourt options to pair with Jalen Brunson long … Daily Knicks
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[news.google.com] — Thursday, August 3, 2023 3:15:24 PM
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[news.google.com] — Thursday, August 3, 2023 1:46:48 PM
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[news.google.com] — Thursday, August 3, 2023 11:00:42 AM
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[news.google.com] — Thursday, August 3, 2023 10:00:00 AM
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[news.google.com] — Thursday, August 3, 2023 9:02:23 AM
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[news.google.com] — Thursday, August 3, 2023 8:36:29 AM
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[news.google.com] — Thursday, August 3, 2023 8:20:00 AM
Rick Pitino wonders ‘what if’ Knicks coach stint lasted longer New York Post
44 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2023.08.04)”
You know it’s summer when you contemplate watching Obadiah Noel highlights
You will never convince me Obadiah Noel exists outside ChatGPT
Nice to see Skapintsev get an exhibit 10 deal as well. He can probably thank Jokic for that trend.
I understand what you are saying, but you are leaving off some of the analysis.
When you are contemplating extending a guy like RJ, that means you think there is enough upside to be willing to overpay him now for his future value. You are doing that early in part because if he has a break out year, you are going to have to pay LOT more later, especially if he goes to restricted free agency pissed off or gets an insane offer you don’t want to match. So you lock him up in the present on a deal you can live with.
Rose and Thibs were high enough on him at the time to lock him up on the deal they gave him expecting he’d take a step forward and improve his value to the Knicks and the rest of the league.
That he didn’t break out a bit last year is NEW INFORMATION.
What people here do too often (not saying you) is call out the mistakes AFTER they get to see how a draft pick or player develops, after they get to see some player get hurt, after they see how a trade works out etc…
That’s not the way it works. I’m pretty good at Powerball after I get to see the drawing . 😂
You evaluate picks, trades, salaries etc… when they happen based on the data and values available to you at the time PERIOD.
If you thought RJ was wildly overpaid and not going improve much at the time, that’s a different story. But IMO a you HAVE TO build in projections or all your very young players are going to wind up leaving.
No, Strat. We call out the mistakes in real time, and then present evidence that comes later to support their call. We do this all the time.
The one minor thing to note is that with Dmytro & ChatGPT, we have a full training camp roster
14 NBA deals
3 Two-ways
4 Exhibit 10s
Front offices are often in a position where they have a good reason to overpay someone. Mostly it happens because they have an overpaid player they cannot easily replace or they can acquire an over paid player but don’t have another way to get someone as good for his position. For example, Golden State traded Russell to Minnesota and received Wiggins in return. Then they retained Wiggins when they didn’t have too at a salary that was probably an over payment. If they had not kept Wiggins, they were so far over the cap they probably would have had to hire someone not as good at the vet minimum. Their choice was an overpaid Wiggins or a worse vet minimum player. So by overpaying Wiggins they were a better team.
Remember, for most GMs, it’s their job to put the best team possible on the floor, not to have all value contracts. If that means over paying someone they will do it. You may think RJ is overpaid and could certainly be correct. But whether he’s overpaid is not the right question. The correctly question is are they a better team with Barrett than they would be without him?
Yeah Strat, I’m on Hubie’s side on this one. To be a little more nuanced, there’s two ways to look at a decision, and they’re both perfectly valid. One is what did they know at that moment in time — which mostly can tell you something about the decision-makers. The other is how it worked out. The latter is not only valid, because you know, it’s the actual result (ptmilo’s quantum mechanics notwithstanding), but there are also critical learning opportunities (e.g., maybe don’t pick the best 3-on-3 player next time). Which can also expose poor (or good) decision-making that happened in the original moment that might otherwise be missed.
You are doing the thing wherein you explain in painstaking detail a very simple concept that everyone already understands.
Yes, there was a “risk” that if we didn’t extend RJ he would go absolutely gangbusters in 2022-2023 and get more than 4/$107M on the open market. I said as much a million times while we were debating this contemporaneously.
Two questions about this:
1) given RJ Barrett’s play through his first three seasons, as well as the 2023 cap space climate, what would you say were the chances of this occurring?
Remember, you need two different things here–the breakout AND the non-Knicks team willing to layout the offer sheet that would inevitably be matched.
2) on the extremely remote chance it did occur, would anyone associated with, or who roots for, the New York Knicks be upset that we had to pay RJ Barrett a little more, because he was really, really good?
Thing is, a player’s body of work through his first three seasons can actually give you a very strong, albeit not 100% perfect, idea of whether his fourth season will be really good and compel an opposing team to offer him more than $107M
If a player is bad through three seasons, it’s laughable to say that his fourth season also being bad is something one could only have seen with the benefit of hindsight.
For example, I would’ve bet an amount of money that I could not afford to lose that Frank Ntilikina’s fourth season would not compel an opposing team to offer him over $107M prior to Frank Ntilikina’s fourth season, based on his first three seasons.
The chances weren’t quite as remote with RJ Barrett, but the principle applies.
Damn, I used way too many words to basically just say this.
Except that we don’t base it on what they know, we base it on what we know.
It’s 20/20 hindsight to say “we should have drafted Jalen Williams,” after Jalen Williams turns out to be good, for example. Fair enough.
It’s NOT 20/20 hindsight to say “there are probably some players still available at 11 that we’re going to wish we drafted” and then that turns out to be the case.
There were several intriguing prospects available at 11 in the 2022 draft. We punted, and that looks bad now. These guys are supposed to be professionals, and are supposed to know who the good basketball players are. If you’re too risk-averse, and you’re not confident in your own ability to identify good players, you’re kinda fighting with one hand tied behind your back.
Leon’s fear of uncertainty has its benefits, but it comes with a ceiling too.
There will be good players available when we use the MIL & DET picks.
There will probably be good players available when we use the WAS pick even if it’s in the 2nd rd.
Whatever you think of the merits, moving a sure lotto pick for 3 protected picks doesn’t exactly signal a fear of uncertainty. If anything Rose seems too comfortable with uncertainty.
We punted in the sense that we deferred making a tough choice, but the reason I view it very differently from our 2021 boondoggle is we at least arguably got commensurate value for the pick.
In 2021 it barely mattered who was available (and there were good players available in any event) because we so obviously sold the pick for pennies on the dollar. The distinct possibility that the CHA pick would never convey was mentioned that night.
In 2022, we traded 11 for a bevy of picks I’ve estimated carry a median outcome of 15, 25, 35, and 35. The final haul could be better or could be worse, but everyone seems to agree on that median outcome.
There will be plenty of opportunities to create value with that haul. The 2021 pick was incinerated because we, well, incinerated the chance to create value. That’s not the case when it comes to 2022.
We’re in “win now” mode though, so I don’t really see how a handful of lower picks that may take years to convey is a better option than just manning up and drafting a guy despite the inherent uncertainty of the draft.
It seems like CYA to me more than a coherent strategy. You draft a guy who sucks, everyone remembers it. Punt the pick for “multiple firsts” that take years to convey and it seems like you’re playing some 3D chess, and eventually people forget that you traded #11 for a BOD.
We also cleared space to sign Hartenstein who is more of a win now player than any draft pick not named Jalen Williams or Walker Kessler.
The picks can also be traded in win now moves.
Conversely, we should ask how many players picked after 11 will ever be worth two 1st rd picks. Jalen and maybe 1 or 2 others?
The uncertainty is that a bad pick immediately loses value and a punted pick at least keeps some value so it postpones judgement. That seems to be the strategy. Just keep punting and that way the grade on Leon’s tenure will remain an incomplete.
He’d rather continue to have minimal value rather than risk losing that value even if hitting on a good player gives you a lot more value than a punted pick.
So instead we pay market value for our bench instead of leaning on players on their rookie contracts.
Probably not a good idea to use newspaper articles to demonstrate my point but…
In the Donovan Mitchell trade, the emphasis was on the draft picks/swaps involved, less so on the active players traded (Lauri and Sexton) and even less so on Agbaji who was just drafted (14th). Some writers said it was effectively another draft pick given up, but no one really thought that. Point being a future pick, when and where subject to uncertainty, seems to have more trade value than it should relative to the greater certainty of an actual player who has never played an NBA minute.
“In 2022, we traded 11 for a bevy of picks I’ve estimated carry a median outcome of 15, 25, 35, and 35. The final haul could be better or could be worse, but everyone seems to agree on that median outcome.”
@TNFH: 15, 25, 35, and 35. Seems like “…….35, and 35” would be the same pick twice, no?
That’s just the median estimate of where those picks might land, and as TNFH said earlier, it could pan out a little better or a little worse than that depending on when the picks convey.
I do wonder how long Leon will keep up this particular shell game… like those picks finally convey and then he just trades those picks for other protected picks that convey like four years later, and so on
The WAS pick becomes two seconds if it doesn’t convey as a first, and if it doesn’t convey as a first it means the Wizards are pretty damn bad. So their seconds would project to be in the 35 range.
plotkin going long the memes this time
Charlotte leaps past the Knicks in the standings. 🙂
They are a quite a but better than they look. Between Miles Bridges being back and La Melo being healthy plus what they added, they are not going to be an easy win this year. Last season is a toss.
Thank you for the clarification on the seemingly (but not actually) two #35 picks.
I’m calling NONSENSE.
A good percentage of the whining about draft picks, trades, and contracts occurs after people get to see the results and doesn’t include all the injuries, trades, unpredictable development and other factors that changed the values drastically since the time of the trade.
When the Knicks traded and got the Charlotte pick everyone whined, but that pick had WAY more value at that time than it ultimately did. No one predicted that Miles Bridges was going to beat up his girlfriend and LaMelo Ball was going to be out so much. Charlotte was not that bad the prior year and looked set to get better. They didn’t but that has nothing to do with the value at the time.
When they got the Wizards pick no one knew Beal, Kuzma, and KP were going to play so little time together, they would have other key injuries, tank, and then decide to blow it up this year.
I’m no RJ bull, but if he takes a even a moderate step forward that contract is going to look like a GOOD value and not a bad one. Yet people are whining even though he could just as easily have taken a step forward last year and may still take before the end of the contract.
Nerlens Noel played really well for NY the first playoff year. He had issues with his knees, but no one knew he was going to totally break down to the point his career would be close to over.
No one knew Dallas was going to blow it up for Kyrie and then tank.
I could go on.
Shit happens all the time (both good and bad) that is either unpredictable or low probability. That has nothing to do with the values at the time.
Well this is awkward:
https://basketball.realgm.com/wiretap/272668/NBPA-Denounces-Magic-Donation-To-Ron-DeSantis-PAC
i don’t agree… but EVEN IF this was the return… it’s not equal because these are not picks in the same year…. we are not getting value from the #11 pick… the #11 pick’s value is sitting in the isaiah hartenstein seat…. it’s going to take us at least a few years to get ANYTHING from it… just like how the incinerated value was going to take years to see anything if at all…. these are not desirable picks… they are questionable at best to remain as 1sts to begin with…. and the time value of picks absolutely needs to be accounted for…. you cannot just punt picks 10 years down the line and claim you got equal value because it hit the same slot….
meanwhile you do have a bevy of players accruing value right now that were absolutely available…. and maybe not picking jalen williams isn’t indicative of much by itself… but missing out out on haliburton and williams and bane and all the other choices we made do matter….
the gripe is not any of these mistakes in isolation… the gripe is the overall strategy… which we all agreed is flawed.. and this is how it manifests itself….. this should not be all that controversial…. if you forego the draft so you can pay the likes of divicenzo and hartenstein and burks and noel and walker.. then you will assuredly miss out on really good players…. if you’re not going to pick the best players anyway then that’s also an indictment…. that’s not a defense….
not very hard to understand….
Geeze, Strat….
Stuff like this has been going on for a long time.
For every employee on the left there’s an employee on the right. So almost any corporate political contribution is going to upset half the employees. It used to be way worse. I worked for companies that would pressure employees to make personal contributions to organizations they didn’t believe in. Employees were afraid if they didn’t the totalitarians in charge would hold it against them when it came time for raises, promotions, and at layoff time. This is at least ownership.
I’m in a really bad mood. I’m having a lot of personal problems with my elderly mother and special needs brother this week. I’m venting like crazy.
Yeah, used to be like that.
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/21-418_i425.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennedy_v._Bremerton_School_District
https://theathletic.com/4749896/2023/08/04/anthony-davis-lakers-extension/
Choose your preferred late 2000s AMC prestige drama meme to capture Unibrow’s feelings right now:
https://64.media.tumblr.com/78d60cc79da2fafc82953ab8d9548e6c/tumblr_inline_ntdvilU8GF1t35lbx_500.gif
or
https://media.tenor.com/asm3YUtmXBsAAAAC/money-breaking-bad.gif
Sorry man, that’s a rough week. Hope it gets better going forward 🙏
Sports Illustrated just named RJ to the most overrated team according to Big Knick Energy on Twitter.
With his injury history AD is going to be making like $2M a game by the end
“Without free throws, Barrett has scored 3,958 points on 4,157 shot attempts, or 503.4 fewer than a league-average shooter would have. The only player further below zero during his career is Russell Westbrook, who is obviously doing a lot more as a passer and rebounder than Barrett,” BR’s Andy Bailey writes. “Regarding that plus-minus impact, the Knicks are minus-1.9 points per 100 possessions with him on the floor over his four seasons, compared to plus-3.9 without him.
https://www.si.com/nba/knicks/news/new-york-knicks-rj-barrett-most-overrated-nba-dillon-brooks-houston-rockets
My favorite part is after eviscerating him, the article author goes on to say
Barrett still has a ton of potential that he has yet to reach.
What…he didn’t finish with “….and he’s still only 23!”
RJ as most over rated is an odd choice. Overrated by who? I think of someone overrated as a player that lots of people talk about how good he is, but actually isn’t so good. But all I read about RJ is that he’s overpaid. That means people consider him not worth his salary. I don’t read about how good he is anywhere. That’s kind of the opposite of over rated.
Knicks Fan, it’s a good question, but my sense (and I don’t get out much) is that there’s a whole Knicks fan base who adore RJ because he’s theirs and he averages PTzzz and anyone who can score 20 per game is a borderline all star and they don’t know what those other stat acronyms stand for. And there is probably another group of non-Knicks fans who just know he was #3 after Zion and Ja and starts for the Knicks and scores like 20 per game so he must be good.
But according to those other stat acronyms, he’s not good.
Although he is only 23!
I actually think Dillon Brooks getting the Overrated crown is weirder (RJ was runner-up). He’s considered a pesky defensive player, but I wasn’t aware that anyone thought he was a burgeoning all star. I think they’re conflating biggest asshat with most overrated in this case.
For the record, I do not think RJ is an asshat. He’s just not good.
Frank is joining the Hornets? My 16 y/o daughter will be elated. Cam Newton the super bowl year and Frank’s rookie year with the Knicks are the only jerseys she’s ever asked for.
I would love to see RJ wearing number 23 next year.
It’d be fun to rate the Top Ten Asshats in the NBA.
Glad Julius is no longer in the running. Thank you, Julius.
I presume Ja has to be #2. I love the guy, but the repetition of jaw-dropping asshattery is pretty impressive. There’s an argument he’s #1.
With a bullet?
Dillon Brooks is so deeply unlikable in a strictly basketball sense. I don’t know. That’s a tough category.
NBA players keep it pretty clean these days.
Presume you have to have Draymond in the top 10. Pretty astonishing player, but what an asshat.
I actually would have considered Jordan Poole in the competition, but it feels like getting punched in the face takes him out of the running.