Knicks Morning News (2023.09.25)

Re-post:
I’m going to make a bold prediction:

In 2023-24, Julius Randle is going to have the best year of his career.

I am basing this prediction on the premise that his career trajectory has been upward for the last 4 years, and that 2021-22 was an outlier. He is in the midst of his physical prime and has enough experience to have figured out how to be efficient at high usage. He will be playing with the best supporting cast of his career. He’s overcome the enormous obstacle of being pilloried by both Knicks fans and the NY media. He has a bigger chip on his shoulder than ever because even with him being compromised by injury and largely terrible in the playoffs, he saw how far the team might have gone if he played like he did before getting hurt. Jalen Brunson is the perfect PG for him, Josh Hart is another role model, and all of the young players inproving around him will bring out the best in him as a player and teammate. And the nonsense about Obi not getting enough minutes will not be a distraction.

The benchmark: surpassing last year’s OBPM of 3.9

In his newsletter, Macri mentioned among his 10 things he’s most looking forward to is Mitch hitting the 80 game mark this season. While that would be awesome, it’s probably not happening.

What could happen though is Mitch getting even better than he was last year. He should continue to lead the leage in OReb%, but there is still substantial room for improvement in his DReb%. Last year, even though he was at a career high of 20%, he was only tied for 44th in the league, on a par with guys like John Collins, Lauri Markaten, and below guys like KP and Deni Avdija. There is no way that iHart and Randle should have more DRebs per 36 than him. Hopefully it’s a point of emphasis for him this offseason. That and taking 5000 FTs a day.

“Statements like this always make me laugh. So if The Nets beat The Bucks then they for sure win the next 2 rounds?”

The larger point is, what’s the fucking difference? The Nets had Durant, Kyrie, and James Harden all in their primes and never got out of the second round. And the minute things started going south, every one of them couldn’t get out of Brooklyn fast enough, despite management going to the ends of the earth to find a way to keep them aboard without destroying the future of the franchise. Those stars dropped Brooklyn like a bad habit. In other words, it took a couple of years of premature playoff exits for those guys, especially Durant, to conclude that the Nets weren’t cool. Yet even after decades of dysfunction and losing, guys like Donovan Mitchell think it would be pretty cool playing for the Knicks. I didn’t hear much about him wanting to play in Brooklyn.

Thanks cgreene. Hopefuly we can quickly move on to matters of actual substance.

Beyond the obvious “go where the most money is” stuff, there are actual legitimate reasons why players might prefer one team over another. One is “home town” kind of stuff. Another is a team’s storied history. Another is marketing opportunities. Another is lifestyle preference. Another is financials above and beyond salary figure, e.g. no state income tax. Another is competency of management. Another is fit with the current team. Another is potential of short-term team success. Another is coach and playing style. Another is family considerations.

My guess is that the quality of the practice facility and the type of windows it has and the location relative to the arena is down at the bottom of the list of dealbreakers. All of the facilities have state of the art equipment. It’s right there with the quality of the food served at team meals, which I would guess is at least pretty good everywhere. Or the color of the team’s uniform. Or it’s mascot.

At the time of the KD-Kyrie thing, I think there were a number of factors that led to them choosing the Nets over the Knicks. The biggest factor by far was probably that it was later reported that the Knicks (i.e. Dolan himself) would not offer a max deal to KD due to concerns about his injury. A distant second to that was the fact that the Nets had built a more talented roster than the Knicks had at the time. Third was the fact that even beyond the hesitancy to max KD, the Knicks has been and still had the aura a clown show, starting with Dolan and extending to the FO and coach. The Nets had an aire of competence about them, having pivoted skillfully into an intelligent rebuild after the Pierce-Garnett era.

Everything after that was just beckground noise in comparison. I’d agree that some of those secondary considerations didn’t help, but KD was not going to go for getting nickeled and dimed on a deal when the Nets offered him a full max with no conditions.

But in terms of today’s discussion, we’re talking about trades, and it is certainly fair to conclude that opposing teams aren’t just going to roll over to a player’s demands to be traded one place or another. I would agree that if the offer from the Nets tops the offer from the Knicks, and the player considers both of them equally in terms of a landing spot, that the Knicks don’t have any sort of built-in advantage. It would probably come down to how the team would look after a trade in terms of getting a deal done. Case in point: Donovan Mitchell made no secret about the fact that he preferred the Knicks. Ainge simply didn’t care and demanded his price. The Cavs met it because they felt they had enough left over post-trade to build a contender. The Knicks would not meet it because they would not had enough left. The same is true for Cronin and the Lillard situation, and for Harden and the Clippers situation.

As such, the only leverage Giannis has in pushing for a trade to a specific location is to make it clear that he will not extend with the acquiring team no matter what unless it’s his preferred team. And there is no reason to believe that the Knicks are his preferred team right now.

But beyond that, we have not only been reasonably successful on the court and competently managed during the Leon regime, we have a deep roster without any long-term albatrosses and a nice enough portfolio of future draft picks to entice a superstar that wants a strong post-trade situation. A player like Giannis is not going to want to come here if we are stripped to the bone after a trade Thay goes for us and for the Nets. Without that leverage of Giannis expressing a strong preference, either situation is likely enough. Where the team practices will have zero to do with it.

“Hey Jets fans, you guys can have Jimmy Garoppolo if you want. Or as I call him, Janeane Garofalo.

I’ll even throw in Josh McDaniels AND his visor”

Anything is better than what we have.

https://www.nj.com/sports/2023/09/knicks-coach-tom-thibodeau-gives-update-on-julius-randles-ankle-recovery.html

As a perfect follow-up to my opening post in this thread, check out the video clip in the X…Julius looks very ready!

“I am wondering if Mitch doesn’t do great in defensive rebounds because he defends shooters aggressively and goes for blocks too, so that he’s not perfectly positioned for a rebound. If so, that seems fine to me since we have other guys who can pick up the rebounding slack.”

In looking at the defensive rebounding leaderboard, I see the big, burly, non-shotblockers like Jonas V, Jokic, Vuc, Sabonis at the top, but Giannis is tied with Sabonis, and other shotblockers like Gobert, Capela, Kessler, Turner, Claxton, and Allen have higher DReb%s than Mitch. It’s true that Mitch plays with good rebounders like Randle and Hart, but 4.9 DRebs per game (6.5 per 36) seems hella low to me for a guy with his size, strength and athleticism. It’s not like he’s getting out in transition like Obi or anything.

Also, we were 2nd in OReb% and 9th in DReb%. Seems like a reason for that differential has a lot to do with Mitch being so great on the offensive boards and not so much on the defensive boards.

And if Julius is leaving his guy to pursue DRebs, maybe that’s a problem as well.

“I am sorry to see Keels go. I have been beating the drum for him and was disappointed with the Knicks signing what’s his name instead of Keels. Keels was much better in summer league this year than last year and was still only 19. I think he’s going to come back to haunt the Knicks.”

I get that Keels is young but he just lacks the critical skills that a player his size needs to have. If the FO feels that he’s at best 3-4 years out, I personally feel no reason to be all that attached to him.

That’s funny! May I ask what that character means? (or maybe I shouldn’t…)

I don’t think Keels is particularly adept at ball-handling (he has no left hand whatsoever), or creating (strictly a straight-line driver) or shooting, or high-level passing. Defensively, he gets caught up on screens and can’t stay in front of quicker players. He’s big and tough for a guard, but the skill development is nowhere near where it needs to be to have a shot at playing meaningful minutes on a NBA playoff-level team any time soon.

The fact that he was in terrible shape at Duke with a ridiculously high percentage of body fat kinda turned me off as well. Even now he doesn’t look particularly cut…which would be less of an issue if he was a better shooter, driver, or ball-handler.