Next 51 games: 18-4.2-3.7, 47/40/81 shooting splits”

“for IQ it’s a similar story.. i think noble pointed out how IQ was bad for most of the year and then he got hot.. and that’s true…”

The Persian woman who is 43 and a hottie of all hotties, and closer to my son’s age (31) than my own (59). Life is good.

She’s young, hot, and likes having her spelling corrected? Don’t blow this.

I somewhat agree with all the points you made. I have said many times that he has an “ugly” game, compared to, say, Melo. He’s lefty, his shot is funky looking, he’s not particularly telegenic, etc. and he’s even uglier (basketball speaking) when he goes into hero ball mode, and even worse when he fails in that mode.

But what has bugged me is when folks say ridiculous stuff like the team would be better if Obi took his place, or that he’s physically in decline, or that he was unlikely to ever be all-star level again after 2020-21 because there will never be empty gyms again, or that he should be traded for peanuts, or even worse, with assets attached. Obviously those things were difficult to rebut in real time at this point last year, but time has revealed those takes for what they were. And I’m not saying that there wasn’t data to support those takes. Only that the data was interpreted in the most jaded possible way, and that some of that tendency was rooted in the points you made above.

ha g-man…it sounds like you have truly adapted with the times 🙂

I think one of the reasons Julius is such a lightning rod is because of his style of play, which leads to a wide range of perceptions about him.

He has the perception of being on-again, off-again (Good and Bad Julius), whether within a game, over a stretch of games, or even from season to season.

He’s not terribly graceful. Of the all-NBA power players, people like Giannis and LeBron have a beauty to their power, an inevitability when they go to the hole. I tend to hold my breath when Julius drives.

This extends to his outside shooting, which is often of high difficulty with multiple players draped on him. Again, with Steph and Dame it’s inevitable, while a Julius spin-and-shoot in traffic does not feel that way, despite it often going in.

I think this leads to people underappreciating Julius because of the aesthetics, which really isn’t fair (except perhaps for the first bit).

I’m expecting Julius to be on par with last year, as I am working to release my PTSD from his turnover-laden point-forward time (with Elf) and his meltdown season. I expect to be holding my breath a lot, but I also expect good things to happen.

Yeah but I truly think there is something different about the Knicks, especially now. They had been so bad for so long, and yet one good season and the national media, particularly guys like Stephen A. Smith, pump them up way beyond, say, Minny or Utah or other smaller market teams. Clearly, Julius was the face of the 2020-21 team, and he and Brunson were the dynamic duo last year. In 2022-23, he was pretty legit. He was 24th in BPM and a bunch of the guys above him either missed a bunch of games (e.g. Kawhi, AD, KD), played for lottery teams (e.g. Hali, KP, Markaten) or were unlikeable (Kyrie, Harden).