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132 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2023.09.27)”
The price for Dame Lillard is so damn reasonable that it’s beginning to make me want to get in on him. The Heat’s best offer is Tyler Herro and mediocre picks. The Celtics are building shit around Malcolm Brogdon and Robert Williams. And the Raptors are supposedly the front runners with a package that doesn’t include Scottie Barnes.
This is price suppression of the highest order.
We could sit here in the 46-50 win corridor for the next two years, hoping we get the opportunity to trade for a superstar before Brunson’s extension kicks in, and then hoping we have enough left over to be a contender…
Or we could cash in our Jalen Brunson chips and swing now: a three team trade where Brunson goes out to get Portland whatever it wants and we end up with Lillard while we keep most of (if not all) our excess picks to make the moves necessary to finish the job.
We’d probably have a two year title window in what is probably a very good time to have a two year title window.
Whatever the merits of your proposal Hubert, Leon is too risk averse to double down by converting his signature move into a potentially bigger signature move.
If you’re risk averse, a guy who already misses 15-20 games per year and is now 33 years old is probably a guy you want no part of.
Still, if the offers for Lillard remain low ball, maybe Rose will at least kick the tires. Would he dare consider a diminutive Brunson/Lillard starting backcourt?
It’s the same old story. A team signs a star to an expensive max contract, but circumstances change. Then the team is shocked, shocked at the low trade offers they receive for a very expensive older player.
We’re not gonna do it, but Dame is a lot better than Brunson
The reason the price is low is because Lillard is 33 and soon to be receiving $62 mil a year. That will be an untradable contract. The only move that would make sense is what you propose – Brunson for him (plus Fournier and picks, probably). There is no way in hell Leon would trade the guy he’s building around.
I love Dame but trading for Dame reeks of mid-aughts thinking. I am not saying it’s Starbury and Melo all over again but I am not not saying that either.
Would we include Brunson Sr. and the Villanova bros. in that trade scenario?
“I love Dame but trading for Dame reeks of mid-aughts thinking. I am not saying it’s Starbury and Melo all over again but I am not not saying that either.”
I like this too much to correct it.
Good, because there’s nothing to correct.
“not not” is definitely incorrect. One possible correction is “I am not necessarily saying that it’s Starbury and Melo all over again, but it could be.”
It isn’t incorrect, actually. Colloquial usage is widely acceptable, but beyond that, the point of grammar is for clear communication. It’s absolutely clear what Owen is saying. Your pedantry is not precision of thought or expression, it’s some sort of tedious act intended to confer authority upon yourself where you have none. I suggest you gracefully retire your self-appointed role and perhaps contribute something of actual value.
This is more of a slow offseason thought exercise than a recommendation to Leon. I would never expect him to consider it.
A laudatory piece about the Rose regime for a fairly sophisticated audience ( not KBers):
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/09/the-new-york-knicks-are-being-weirdly-smart-about-the-future.html
I stand by IQ, Mitch, QG and my idiosyncratic grammatical choices.
Call me crazy, but i wouldn’t trade Brunson even if we’re getting Dame back. Maybe i get too attached to our (good) players…
Multiple things can be true:
1. Dame is substantially better than Brunson.
2. Dame is substantially older, more expensive, and injury-prone than Brunson.
3. Even if Dame doesn’t cost a fortune in trade capital, he will eat a fair amount into our war chest, making it harder to follow up with another trade.
4. Dame’s contract will become onerous in a hurry, and could all but cripple us by the end of it.
If the entire rest of the team felt like it could win a title if we simply swapped Brunson and some picks out for Dame, I’d consider it. I don’t think that’s the case, much as I like our team.
I saw it as cold-hearted Masai Ujiri thinking, like when the dude traded a franchise icon for a one-year window because fluky circumstances made the market values Kawhi Leonard and DeMar DeRozan reasonably close.
I agree with Alan.
dame is a lot like cp3 in the sense that he’s so good that the glidepath to where he starts becoming a liability is very very long…. he probably has another 5 years being a good to very good starter and probably another 2-3 as an all-nba type player…. and he doesn’t have any of the hamstring lower leg injuries concerns that cp3 had…
like cp3 he’s one of the best shooters in the league….. and that skill alone helps shorter players age incredibly well because you can slowly move some shots off the ball and to the assisted category and actually make your shot profile easier as you do less things with the ball….
there are other reasons not to trade for dame… mainly for the cap efficiency of brunson’s deal and converting dame into an actual window… but thinking like it’s a lolknicks kind of deal is not it…. dame is still one of the best players in the league and should be amongst its best for a good while longer….
Not if you’re trading Brunson. Jalen Brunson is much more valuable than the lowball packages Miami, Toronto, and Boston are throwing together. That’s the whole idea here. Buy low, sell high, profit. Then take the war chest that we didn’t have to deplete and use it to fix the rest of the roster (like RJ Barrett and three picks for someone much better than RJ Barrett).
I’d trade Brunson for Dame, but only if it was a 3 team trade that brought Frank back to the Knicks to play defense next to him and we slid Grimes to SF. OK, so I’m drinking early today. 🙂
LOL I was never planning on correcting it until I was goaded into it by being told that it was actually correct. I liked the colloquial language, which is exactly why I was not going to correct it in the first place. 🙂
And in terms of whether or not colloquialisms are appropriate for clear communication, it depends on the audience. It might be OK here (which is another reason that I was fine with it), but that’s not what you said—you made a blanket statment that it is always OK, which is untrue. Colloquialisms are not acceptable in formal communications.
Is this where you offer us great odds on a bet, like where we put up $2500 to get $10 that no, 41-year-old Damian Lillard will not in fact be a very good starter?
the team that actually should get in on this dame talk is okc…. they have a real chance to make huge noise this year and they don’t have all the time in the world before all these guys start needing extensions…. a lot hinges on holmgren and whether he’s actually real or not but a lineup of
dame
sga
williams
giddey
holmgren
i mean that has a real shot at wcf this year… it’s not even much of a gamble since but presti really needs to cash in on those picks very soon as they’re already experiencing a roster crunch since they’re doing too much of a good job hording good players…. it’s a freeroll sending out 4 picks for dame that’s way better than anyone else is offering…
It is these freaky moments that you have to capitalize on to turn two paper clips into a new home. $20mm in cap space becomes Jalen Brunson becomes Dame Lillard in 13 months… that is not some mid-aughts Isaih Thomas timeline.
last i checked dame was starting this season at 33…. and yea if you give me 2 to 1 odds on dame getting an all-nba team at 35 i might actually take that…. steph curry just made one at 35 and he had way more injury concerns leading into this season….
i don’t know where 41 came from… but i imagine if you keep thinking about fake arguments… you might keep thinking they’re ridiculous… that’s no way to live life brah….
LOL
Trading Brunson for Dame is not
You have to factor in a player’s deal and his age, not just his ability. Say Dame is a 9 in ability, a 5 in age, and 2 in contract…and say Brunson is a 6 in ability, 6 in age, and 9 in contract. That’s 16 vs 21, with Brunson being much more valuable on his contract at his age relative to Dame. Not only is that not buying low, it’s plain bad value.
Now, you could certainly say that those 3 factors should not be weighed equally. I agree. But they all should be considered, and I don’t think ability is twice as important as age or contract. A great player at $62 mil is much harder to build around than a great player at $28 mil. A great player at 33 has much less value than a great player at 28. Much less than value than a GOOD player at those numbers? Maybe not “much less,” but it certainly isn’t buying low.
Sorry for using your own words:
Though I see what you meant was the periods were contiguous, not consecutive. I added 5 and 3 to get 41, but you meant 5 years, with a subset of those years being at a higher level. So a 38-year-old Dame would be a “very good starter.” Somewhat dubious, but not totally insane.
Your OKC idea is interesting, though. They do have a weird problem of having too many picks to roster.
yes… sorry for the confusion… i should’ve added a ‘with’… i certainly did not mean that dame is going to be an all-nba guy at 40…
the point being is that these guys are on a whole separate age curve from your typical player… steph curry just made all-nba at 35 even with a majory injury at age 31….
dame is not on steph’s level… but he’s right below it…. this is not bradley beal… nor is he even close to being in danger of it any time soon…. this is not even like an anthony davis or kawhi leonard where they have huge injury concerns….
would people really also dismiss grabbing steph curry at age 32 as well? because he’s an undersized guard that doesn’t defend and he’s going to crumble any second? come on… this is the reddit take… i expect much better from you guys…
They’re factored in. They’re literally the only things that make this possible.
What you have to factor in is that the greatness of Brunson’s deal is will expire very soon. When he’s making $40mm plus, you’re not going to be able to trade him for one of the greatest guards to ever play the game.
That deal is the greatest asset the Knicks own. It would be smart to cash in on it.
It’s not like we have 8 year of Jalen Brunson on a great deal, you know? When Dame is making $65mm, Jalen’s probably gonna be making $60mm.* He’ll still be younger but I wouldn’t count on him being better.
* Jalen’s contract coincides with the NBA deal, i.e. the league will be in its new economy when he becomes a free agent.
I don’t think CP3 is a good comp for Lillard. I think the lesson there was that his decidedly terrestrial brand of ball based on strength and savvy could actually age pretty well. Not sure I feel the same about Lillard.
But the bottom line to me is that it’s a pretty giant gamble when we seem to be in a decent spot. I’d rather try for Giannis or someone close to their prime if we go the superstar route.
is also the greatest asset the Knicks own, by far
Great point and should be the start of the debate. I take the opposite side and think of the Warriors, recalling an article that it was possible because Steph signed a contract that he massively outperformed (because he overcame his foot problems). Having a real star on a below value contract is worth keeping than selling high if your front office goes all in. Think Leon will and believe Brunson is that star.
spicy rama today…loving it…i hope all is well for you rama 🙂
dames’ a great personality with an excellent game…i kind of feel like though his personality/marketability is baked in to his contract…
maybe he was worth his salary in portland, not here though…
let toronto drive up the price and cost whomever acquires him even more assets…if dame’s coming east – hopefully it ain’t to make another team better than us…
It is. I’m just spitballing the math, though, and I think the odds favor the gamble.
Dame is the bird in the hand. Giannis and Embiid are the two in the bush.
But Bernie, the Warriors slow played Steph’s contract, stayed under the cap, and capitalized on it when they acquired Iguadola to be the final piece. Leon already used up that surplus value just to get us where we are now, which is about a mile short of the 2015 Warriors. There’s no other way to capitalize.
I don’t do that trade for another reason.
Team culture.
Dame is a great player and probably a great teammate too. But Josh Hart resigned with us and we got DDV in free agency partly because of the Villanova/Brunson connection. You would almost have to trade those dudes in separate deals as I think it could upset the locker room getting rid of the leader of the team.
I also think that while cold blooded moves are smart they are also very risky. How does it look to the rest of the roster or other players in a league to see a team trade away their best player who just delivered out best season. It kind of sends the message that Leon is a money ball GM who takes zero consideration to the feelings of the players. We shouldn’t base decisions on the feelings of players but we also shouldn’t ignore it.
It would be different if Dame was 28 or 29 and not 33 but then again, this proposed trade wouldn’t be possible if Dame was 5 years younger. For that reason, I take the worse player who is still VERY good but who is younger and on a much cheaper deal.
Yes, his next contract is gonna be big. He’ll also still be in his 20’s when that contract starts and Randle will be ending his contract. We have a chance here to be good for the next few years in the Brunson/Randle era and then transition to the Brunson/whoever is next era and be good for like the next 6 or 7 years. Trading that for a couple of years of Dame? I don’t know. Seems VERY risky.
This is entirely academic, we aren’t trading Jalen Brunson, but I wouldn’t do it even straight up.
I would simply prefer to roster Brunson making ~$26M than Lillard making over $50M AAV. The reasons for this are fairly obvious–age, cap flexibility, etc. I don’t want to all of the sudden be confined to a ~2 year window.
Lillard is easily better than Brunson, and that’s saying a lot because Brunson is excellent. We’d project to be very, very good if we made the trade. I’m not saying it’s an easy question.
But he’s also at the age where basically any year could be the start of a steep decline, and it’s not like we’d be the title favorites.
I admit it’s a bird in the hand vs two in the bush situation, but all things considered, including just how much I personally like Jalen Brunson, I’ll risk going for the bush.
I probably would’ve worded it a bit more nicely but I do agree with the sentiment.
It’s a Knicks discussion board, not a court filing. People come here to momentarily escape life’s real stressors. What Owen said was perfectly comprehensible and the colloquial wording made it funnier.
Respectfully, buzz off.
P.S. Markkaten
I already said (twice now) that I actually enjoyed Owen’s original colloquial writing. We’re actually in agreement here. :0)
I am not too concerned about the criticism and not not not annoyed. Moving on….
I just don’t think Dame is likely to be good enough to make this worth it. There seems to be a trend across many sports of star athletes maintaining performance deep into their thirties but I don’t see Dame being the Tom Brady of the NBA.
That’s great! Because there was literally no criticism of you, at least not not not coming from me.
okay owen, i’m no math professor – but i’m pretty sure you can’t use the same word three times in a row…
two, maybe two and a half at the most…
WOJ BOMB
Well now our 2025 MIL pick sucks 🙁
Mother fucker.
WHAT!?!?!?
i like it…
This kind of proves the point of the exercise. Lillard is a big gamble. But waiting is an even bigger one.
Immediate take:
Bucks A+
Blazers C-
Suns D
Ok, Dame, facilitating a trade for him, and G-man out of reach.
Is that the best Portland could do? I guess they really like Ayton, but wow…
any idea what the blazers get?
can we have jrue
The Bucks gave up:
Jrue Holliday
Grayson Allen
1 first round pick (2029, unprotected)
2 pick swaps (2028, 2030)
You can wait a lifetime and you won’t find a better deal than that.
Great deal for all involved (I think Nurk, if healthy, is a really good fit for the Suns, and Allen is a nice get too) time to trade RJ and a first for Jrue
Could we kick the tires on Drue to slot him at the 2?
(I didn’t mean that to rhyme on purpose, lol)
I like Jrue Holiday, but every time he’s traded he’s valued so much more highly than I would think. This makes little sense to me from the Blazers’ end unless you think he’s nearly Dame’s equivalent.
I don’t even like Ayton much, but I’m all the way out on giving up on him for what looks like regular season depth and a creaky Nurkic.
No-brainer of the century for the Bucks.
A much better package for Portland than what Miami was offering. (Fuck Miami.) it means the Giannis dream is almost certainly dead, though. But what can you do?
If I’m the Clippers, I offer every pick I have for Jrue and Jerami.
But yes, I guess depending on what they flip Jrue for, it’s not a terrible deal for Portland… I just thought it would look more pick-heavy, but they got decent value.
It’s a big hit to Milwaukee’s perimeter D, but I guess they were willing to take that risk in order to keep Giannis.
Phoenix: I don’t love Nurkic, but he improves the D, and the trade gives them some semblance of a bench at least.
Jrue is an elite player. The difference isn’t as big between the 2 as most think, still a big upgrade.
thanks hubie…
started thinking about money the other day…thought about you…right now though still trying to stay calm and keep my blood sugar low…
spending a lot of time/effort towards being dad…it’s a heavy load for me at times…the kids are all in with me though…all for one, one for all…gave em all safe phrases to settle me when I begin to tilt…
i need to get back to therapy at some point soon…i can meditate okay now…i’m still way close to the beginning of this thing though to try to go it alone…
definitely don’t want to start over with a new therapist…just the thought of that is so daunting…
i feel like the doc and myself were able to make steady progress together…i feel way better equipped anyways…
i hope you are well hubie 🙂
Between Jrue and Dame? The difference is enormous. And I love Jrue, and echo everyone who thinks we should be trying to get him. But come on. We’re talking about a 7 BPM player vs a 3.
Jrue for RJ + one of the protected picks?
that sounds like a great deal…doesn’t add help to the front court…
we need help in the front court…
Jrue is massively underrated by boxscore metrics. You can see it in pretty much any advanced metric that incorporates things outside the boxscore. RAPM loved Jrue when he was traded to Milwaukee, he was something like top-10 every year and I think I’m being conservative with that guess. DARKO flat out likes Jrue more than Dame
Jrue is great but don’t forget: he’s also 33. The cliff is there for him just as much as it is for Dame.
I would be 200% with that- even at the cost of Grimes or Quickley. I see 1 major problem with getting him. I think on paper, Portland has a GOOD squad. Scoot is the truth and they have a post scorer to put shooters around in Ayton. So, if Sharpe takes the next step most people expect him to take and Grant can pull opposing PF’s out of the paint consistently- they have a pretty good squad. Portland’s in a good spot even if Jrue doesn’t wanna stay there. I don’t know how they would feel about Quickley or Grimes plus Fournier and a pick for Jrue though. OTOH..if Jrue stays, they can move Simons for a bigger wing like OG or a do it all forward like Isaac. They have options.
But man! I would live to have Jrue next to Brunson. We can afford to go after him because of our guard depth. It’s not the superstar move..but it would put us over the C’s for sure. Top 2 team in the East depending on what Philly does. Maybe #1. I’m sure Dame and Giannis are going to be amazing as a duo, but what do they have outside of that? Meaning- who’s gonna play perimeter defense?
Yes, please! Make a play for Jrue
I think EPM does a great job at accounting for non-box score contributions and it ranked Jrue 22nd last year. That’s definitely very good…but Dame was 3rd!
There’s also the fact that Jrue has badly underperformed in the playoffs for a while now. Make of that what you will I guess but it’s, well, not ideal.
I was about to post earlier that Dame make a lot more sense for teams that already have a superstar like MIL, MIA or PHI. Gotta figure the Bucks are gonna be pretty tough to beat for a few years.
Jrue would seem to be a perfect fit for us, so yeah, sign me up for that even in light of his relatively advanced age.
jrue is good but his inconsistent offensive production season to season and game to game is what costs you playoff series… dame is on another level and that dependable scoring output and the ability to carry for an entire series is what separates him….
they are the same age… what everyone thinks dame is in danger of… applies much more to jrue who only very recently became a good offensive player.. outside the confines of the bucks offense and giannis it’s quite possible he falls off quite dramatically…
outstanding deal for the bucks…. and actually pretty happy for giannis….
Mostly agree with dj, really nice gamble for the Bucks. If Dame is anywhere close to what he was last year they are going to be much better and more versatile on offense.
Jrue would certainly fit with our guys who can’t shoot
Jrue Holiday gets no respect. Jrue is elite defensively and very good on offense. Dame plays only one side. It wouldn’t shock me if the Bucks are WORSE after this trade. Our Bucks pick is starting to look sweeeet.
If I was Pat Riley I’d immediately go after Jrue. He’d wind up with the best defense in the NBA and more than enough scoring.
He just got traded as a centerpiece for Damian Lillard.
I think the big question is exactly what is Phoenix doing? I’m not sure Nurkic is enough of an upgrade defensively to justify the move. Should save them a little money though and they now have extra bench bodies to throw around when the inevitable big 3 injuries come. They definitely took the biggest gamble in this trade
The Bucks gave up a 2029 1st rounder and some swaps with it. So they obviously think they are going to be much better with Dame than Jrue. They will better offensively, but whether they will be better overall is highly questionable imo. imo Jrue is wildly underrated in overall impact on winning. And I’m not bashing Dame. I think he’s a great offensive player. But he’s great on one side and a negative on the other. Jrue is great on one side and very good on the other.
I love our Bucks pick.
This experiment is 50-50 to fail badly and result in an eventual Buck blowup.
Dear Leon,
DO NOT TRADE that BUCKS PICK!!!!!
Signed
STRAT
Nice trade. Makes me happy in a variety of ways.
MIL was gonna be tough to beat this year anyway. If Dame does have 3 good years in him, they still have to deal with Lopez’s inevitable decline. Our window could open in a couple years.
Heat didn’t get him, won’t now get Giannis, cupboard is bare. No window.
Masai won’t be able to build anything threatening us for awhile. Barring a shocker, he needs to rebuild, not retool.
kinda wonder if the warriors might be tempted to try to finish off the second timeline once and for all and flip cp3 and some combo of kuminga/moody/pick for jrue. like a nostalgic attempt at an iggy reboot.
If I’m Milwaukee I might see what I can get for Middleton. They don’t need to rely on his shot creation with Dame there, obviously difficult to flip him for another win now player, but there might be something out there
Since the Finals were pretty much out of reach for 2024, Dame to Bucks is probably a best case considering the other EC destinations. Miami scrambling, Toronto reeling, Boston denying .
If Miami can add Jrue instead, they will have the makings of the best defense in the NBA. Jrue, Butler and Bam will score enough. Jrue would also help cover for Herro’s bad defense if he winds up staying. I’m not sure what the salaries look like. I haven’t gotten that far, but if Miami could get into position to bid for Dame, they can get into position for bid for Jrue.
When can Jrue be traded?
agree that it’s a good move for the bucks…
also agree that it has like a 40% chance to lead to them out of the playoffs after the second round…
i think scoot and ayton are going to play well together…i like this move for portland – forget a thousand draft picks, acquire good players…
the deal actually turned out the worst as it could for the knicks…. not only does it make our mil pick worse… along with shutting down any giannis talk.. as much of a pipe dream as that was.. but now holiday is probably on the move too….
and everyone who was in on dame will absolutely be players in that chase… plus a lot more… like a team like the sixers and boston might never have had a chance at dame but they have a puncher’s chance at a holiday deal…. a team like the raptors are now frontrunners with a haul of og and gradey dick not being enough for dame but probably fine for jrue… miami very much in play also altho probably far behind…
when your whole strategy is to go after a star but not actually deal for any stars when they are available… that is not a good thing for us…. especially when those other stars having a high likelihood of teaming up with those stars that you’re fantasizing about and pushing you further down the totem pole…
I’m not sure what Toronto is doing. Masai seems like he’s on the 50 yard line on whether he should retool this team a bit or blow it up and go young. He has plenty of time. They aren’t old. But he has some big decisions to make on salary.
Your assumption is that the Bucks are going to be better with Dame than with Holiday and Grayson Allen (I like Grayson Allen) over the next few years and that will keep Giansis happy. I’m a lot less sure about that than you are. I’m calling it 50-50 that this trade makes them a bit worse overall (they be better offensively), he gets frustrated, and the team ultimately decides to cash their chips, get a bunch of picks, and start over.
Feels like we are primed for some vintage “those of us who really know how basketball works,” takes.
They also traded a million picks to get Jrue a few years ago. I think he gets plenty of respect. But the bucks just lost in the first round and needed to shake things up. I get why they’re making this move. Of course it’s risky. You never quite know how moves like this will turn out. I remember everyone thinking Detroit got the better deal getting AI for Billups and Billups was exactly what Melo needed and AI was cooked when he got to Detroit.
Fucking Musk ruined Twitter so much that I can’t even fucking find the trade details in the first, like, 50 tweets on the subject. EDITED TO ADD: One of the craziest thing both on nuTwitter and on Facebook is that posts with links get buried, so sites are now doing this nonsense where the “news” is just an image with no link, and the image is literally, like, “Dame traded in blockbuster deal!” Just nonsense.
So if Giannis is off the table and Embiid isn’t going anywhere, what is the next superstar for us to hope for?
I still think just being a good team until Mikal Bridges can join us is the patient move to make. He’s right across town. You know he’s gonna be going to Knicks games supporting his old teammates when The Nets are off and if we’re winning games while The Nets are struggling…he’s gonna be the guy most likely to want to come here. NOVA CONNECTION!
Fixed that unfortunate Bridges typo for ya. 😉
I think it’s more about offense vs. defense.
IMO defense gets underrated.
Lillard is clearly the much superior offensive player and will create loads of space for Giannis. But this is an exceptional situation. We aren’t comparing two guys that are similar on defense where the difference on offense swamps whatever difference there is on defense. Jrue may be the best defensive guard in the entire NBA and Lillard is a negative on that side. The difference on defense may be greater than the difference on offense. It’s not like the Bucks were terrible on offense last year. They were 6th last year. So maybe they’ll be 1st or 2nd this year, but the defense might drop into the teens and their ability to lock down late, come from behind, and win close games will also be diminished.
I disagree (which is rare with us).
IMO, the Bucks were best team in the east the last 3 years when healthy (including this year). They got derailed by injuries the last two years. Middleton was out last year for most of the playoffs and Giannis missed games and was less than 100% this year. That’s why they lost. What they needed was good health.
They are making this move to appease Giannis who was making it known it he would leave if he didn’t sense a commitment to winning a title.
Personally, I’m not sure this was the right move.
I think this has all or nothing written all over it which imo is great for the Knicks. If this move fails, they are getting older and out of bullets.
What I don’t get is why does Phoenix want Allen? Are they going to flip him? He doesn’t seem to have a role on the team.
The “trending” and search functions always sucked.
I go to the timeline of the person I think will have the info I’m looking for and will usually find what I need and some other interesting links in the responses – which are better prioritized now (though still not good enough).
I just go to straight to Shams and Woj and I find whatever I need on trades.
There are X/Twitter users, then there’s ex-Twitter users
I jumped ship when the site crashed on the first day of NBA free agency
If there’s any team who can withstand losing Jrue’s defense it’s the team with Antetokounmpo & Lopez in the paint
Though, note, that it does not work as well with Thanasis and Robin.
Okay, so now obviously the Heat need to trade for Jrue, right? But Portland won’t trade with them directly after the Dame nonsense, so I wonder how Riley will pull it off.
The Heat are in some major danger without Dame on the team. Who is even their rotation right now?
Herro/Lowry/Richardson/Shitty Robinson/Butler/Martin/Highsmith/Love/Bam?
That is shitty.
Generally agreed, but boy, their perimeter defense dropped like a ton without Jrue. Connaughton is now their best defender, and Connaughton isn’t even particularly good. I think they make another deal to get a better defender at the 1/2 in there. Basically go with two 1s, as Dame is basically a short 2 anyways.
Pretty sure there was never a good time to be on twitter. I bounced in early 2014 after 8 months of @’ing Mike Woodson.
Will Jimmy Butler accusing the Bucks of tampering have any legs? I’m guessing “no.”
I used to get made fun of by some friends for not having a Twitter account. Now I’m pretty proud of that…
🙂
Maybe so but I am very happy they didn’t do that Heat trade. That would have felt worse.
Yeah, I think that’s where I’m at. This deal is not good for the Knicks, but the Bucks would have been better than the Knicks anyways (that said, you look at the Bucks in the playoffs and it really did feel like their one big hole was a go-to perimeter scorer, and this solves that perfectly) and Dame to the Heat would have made them one of the best teams in the league, so this only improves a team that was going to better than the Knicks anyways, while weakening a team poised to leapfrog the Knicks and is now instead behind them (losing Gabe Vincent and Max Strus and only adding Josh Richardson is not a good situation for Miami).
I may wind up being very wrong, but I think we are going to see games where Dame gets targeted and more games where opposing guards go off. I also think the Bucks will no longer consistently grind out those close come from behind wins down the stretch with lockdown defense against top teams. They’ll have the #1 or #2 offense in the league, still be Ok defensively (teens?), and still be one of the favorites in the east, but this is not the move I would have made if I was them. I think they already had the best team in the east and just needed to remain healthy or add depth. Now I think they are more all or nothing, which I see as a positive for gambling on that future pick.
Jrue is the same age as Dame, though. So it’s not like Jrue was some big part of their future in a way that Dame won’t be.
I agree that Miami is not as good as last year right now, but you have to think that Riley has a plan B to upgrade. He may target Jrue or may have someone else in mind, but he’ll do something before the deadline if not now.
I’m thinking of it as bird in the hand vs. two in the bush.
IMO, when healthy, the Bucks were already the best team in the east. IMO, they just needed to tweak.
That’s bird in hand.
They are going for two in the bush with this trade for Dame.
I see some potential that adding Dame and losing Holiday and Grayson will not work out as well as they are hoping. I think anything that raises the probability of the Bucks having a disappointing season also raises the probability of blowing it up sooner compared to keeping the same core and just tweaking.
The potential is obviously there, but I don’t think it’s that likely. Again, look at the Bucks in last year’s playoffs, and even the last couple of years. The biggest problem they’ve had is that Giannis, as good as he is, isn’t the type of guy who is going to be a go-to perimeter scorer, and you often need those in big games. Middleton served in that role when they won the title (and Holliday chipped in, as well), but he’s a shell of his former self. Now they have one of the best perimeter scorers in the game. Allen’s replaced pretty easily by Beasley. They have two of the best defenders in the NBA in the interior with Giannis and Lopez. They only need to add a PatBev-type guy and they’ll be very well set up.
The old Bucks just lost to the #8 seed in the playoffs (and they lost games that Giannis was healthy in, too). I think they “needed” to make a change.
seems like the bucks have given giannis everything he wants at every step of the way…
smart move by them…i’m definitely gonna tune in to their games to see what it looks like…
As an aside, I’m just happy there’s something to fucking really talk about for the first time in many weeks. 😀
even though i think the booker/beal/durant combo is doomed to fail…i think the suns did good getting allen and johnson…
i know his numbers are okay, but i’ve never thought much of nurkic…
plus now they’re not paying ayton way more money than he’s worth…
this a good trade for all three clubs…i don’t expect jrue to stay in portland, hopefully he stays in the west…
The year before last the Bucks didn’t lose to Boston because Boston was better than them. They lost because Middleton was out.
Last year they didn’t lose to Miami because Miami was better than them. They lost because Giannis got hurt, missed a couple of games, and then played at less than 100%. He was still hurting a little this summer which is why he didn’t play in FIBA.
If you think Middleton is done, then maybe the move makes sense for them in purely basketball terms and to appease Giannis for now, but I think their defense is going to take a noticeable step back.
I’m beginning to think this is, in fact, the best case scenario for us.
1. He didn’t go to Miami. That’s a huge win.
2. They traded Dame to a team he didn’t want to go to. I’m sure he’ll be professional for now, but it’s very possible (maybe even probable) he wants out after 1 season and Milwaukee is auctioning off both these guys next summer en route to a rebuild.
from the bucks’ perspective – great opportunity…definite risks…i’m curious to see how they play…
i don’t know much about andrian griffin, their coach, but wow, he’s got several really talented players to work with…
i hope they, along with every other team in the league – beat up on boston and miami all season…
those two have been way too successful lately in the playoffs…
i hope the pistons are terrible again…
Or
Just imagine they get knocked out in the 1st or 2nd round with no real excuse. We don’t even know what the rest of the east will look like by the time the trade deadline passes and the playoffs come up.
Is that so hard to imagine?
Then they look like an older team without enough assets to take the next step. That’s exactly what we want Giannis and Lillard to be thinking. We want them to think they have no where to go from here.
I think this is very possible.
But I also think the Bucks are much better next year than they would have been with Jrue & Allen.
Colin Kaepernick wants to play for the Jets. The Jets should try him out. I know we are rightfully discussing Lillard to the Bucks now, but this is also news worth noting.
1. the Bucks will be better for this, not worse.
2. the president of the Bucks used to work for the Knicks. Should have kept him.
I think the Bucks are now the odds-on favorite in the East unless Dame really falls off a cliff. Jrue is very good, but has sucked offensively in the playoffs for a while now. Dame is one of the best offensive players of all time. That’s not going to happen to him. This was the no-brainer to end all no-brainers–Dame ranked higher than Giannis in EPM last year.
On Windhorst’s reaction pod, the hosts all agreed the Knicks might look to pursue Jrue and the consensus was they could get him while still maintaining enough juice for an Embiid trade.
I’m hoping Jrue winds up in the west because I don’t want to face the Heat with Bam, Butler and Jrue or 76ers with Embiid, Jrue, and Maxey. And God forbid the Celtics figure out a way to land him.
No one thinks he is serious. Even if he is, he hasn’t played in a bunch of years and looked early washed before the layoff.
On a basketball note, Katz just published another article on mailbag questions. The most interesting part to me was on the possibility of a ten man rotation. Katz thinks this isn’t very likely but that if it does happen it’s more likely that Sims is the tenth man than Deuce.
https://theathletic.com/4905243/2023/09/27/knicks-rotation-julius-randle-buddy-hield/
100%
I fully understand why all the “experts” think this is a no brainer. They value offense over defense, Dame is incredible on offense, and Dame will provide more space to Giannis. But those same experts often can’t figure out why a team loaded with offensive talent that’s getting a little older can’t get over the hump.
Dame is a negative defender that will get targeted in the playoffs.
That means the Bucks are going from an elite defender that will occasionally disrupt the opposing team’s entire offense by neutralizing their best scoring/playmaking guard to a guy that will be targeted by that very same guy.
The Bucks are also getting older.
The Bucks were serious contenders either way but imo this trade is a lot closer than the “experts” think.
If they are a heavy favorite to win it all, I’ll be keying against them with my wagers. IMO they don’t deserve to be much lower in odds than a few other teams in both the east and west.
Assuming Dame wants to be there. All I’m saying is maybe a year from now he doesn’t.
Lopez will be 36. Middleton is always hurt. Who knows what supporting pieces they can find.
I can see Dame & Giannis giving this a year, being great for a year, and then both wanting to move on.
There’s two things here:
Are the Bucks better off? Of course they are. I am not buying any of Strat’s “but Jrue is close when you count defense” stuff. This is a home run for the Bucks.
But I am buying the possibility that one year from now Dame and Giannis want to leave. This is a forced marriage. I wouldn’t be surprised if each of them wants to pick their own bride next summer.
Where is anyone seeing forced marriage? I was reading all over these 2 guys love each other and wanted to play together.
Thank you. I was beginning to think I’d lost my mind, considering the reaction here. This is great, people! The Bucks are awesome now and maybe another year. But Lopez and Middleton will certainly be cooked in 2 years if they aren’t already, and 35yo Dame isn’t gonna be enough to compensate. Giannis may enjoy another title or two, but sticking around after that? I don’t see it.
Meanwhile, at I said, Tor and Miami don’t get Dame. Miami isn’t gonna get Jrue either. Neither becomes a threat.
In 2 years it’s gonna be Boston, us, and Cleveland, and even that depends on KP staying healthy and Donovan sticking around. 50/50 on both, imo.
Just to be clear, as various comments seem to differ, although Miami was Dame’s main choice, he’s made it clear he’s very excited to go to the Bucks (and why not). Barring injury(s), I find it hard to imagine them not playing in the finals. I do not see this collapsing after one year. Maybe two, but I’d still be surprised.
As for why, this from The Athletic: “Good luck with that pick-and-roll coverage, Rest of Earth.”
Milwaukee is top heavy but also very old, so if even like Brook Lopez loses a step on defense they could underperform what they look like now on paper.
The Lillard that I have rooted for for the past many years is one of the most professional players I’ve ever seen. He played alongside a lot of very weak players in Portland and didn’t complain.
In fact, here’s a fun list. See if you can guess what it is:
Wesley Matthews
Ed Davis
Mason Plumlee
Mo Harkless
Jusuf Nurkic
Hassan whiteside
CJ McCollum
Josh Hart
Drew Eubanks
If you answered “Blazers that had the 2nd highest BPMs each year that Lillard led the team” then YOU WIN!!!!
Seriously, if Steph Curry’s best teammates in Golden State were Drew Eubanks, Mo Harkless, and Mason Plumlee how many championship rings would he have today?
I suspect Lillard will be all-in in Wisconsin, sharing a court with easily his best teammate ever. His shoulders are going to be nice and rested all year not having to carry a team single-handedly.
I love that this Dame news is totally pushing Fournier’s whining out of the spotlight. No one even cares. And I don’t even think Fournier is being ridiculous or anything like that. Yeah, the situation sucks for him, but them’s the breaks when you sign guaranteed contracts, dude.