Knicks Morning News (2023.10.08)

“You can’t compare the Garnett trade to anything happening now or ever really. Not only is the league incredibly different today in how players are acquired, but that one-sided trade was immediately panned by everyone, even to the point where people were wondering if McHale was secretly helping Ainge out. Jefferson and 2 picks might be the worst return ever for a legit 2-way star… anything like that trade is never happening again.”

And that’s the whole point, isn’t it? It’s not just about acquiring the transcendent star (or 2), it’s about how you do it. If you look back to how the championship teams did it this millenium other than the Pistons, it has been either by:
1) by drafting a superstar OUTSIDE of the tanking range (Jokic, Giannis, Kawhi, Curry, Dirk, Kobe…you can throw guys like Manu, Parker, Rondo, Klay, Draymond, etc. into this category as well)
2) signing a free agent megastar based solely on the player’s preference (LeBron 3X)
3) Making a lopsided in one’s favor trade (Garnett, Kawhi, Pau). The Celts did this again with shipping out Garnett and Pierce out and fleecing the Sixers in the #1 for #3 trade.

So the model that folks here are advocating for…trading a boatload of picks and three or four young core rotation players for a top-5 player [who is 3o years old with chronic knee issues, a checkered playoff history] to play alongside 2 excellent but outside the top 25 players in the league has NEVER worked, not once…

Does that mean that Leon’s plan sucked from the get-go?

No…it’s the execution of aspects of the plan that has sucked.

Drafting Obi over Hali was a crippling error. There was no reason to do that other than bungling incompetence at drafting. We all knew it at the time, just like we all knew that Knox was a likely bust. SAC traded Hali for a perennial all-star. We traded Obi for a shot at the next Jericho Sims.

The approach to using their draft picks has been clearly lessened the chance of landing a superstar by getting lucky. On the other hand, it has resulted in a strong rotation, a favorable cap situation, and a nice stockpile of draft assets. Have they overestimated the value of these assets in a future trade? Probably, but they are still assets.

Nevertheless, the team has a strong 9-deep rotation of players all under age 28 and many 25 or younger, with great chemistry. They also have at least 3 bench players who can fill in the rotation if a starter goes down.

If we are in some sort of mezzanine, it’s the very best seats. sort of like the midcourt first row of the 200’s at MSG. To me, those are better seats than the mid-way up lower-bowl seats on the baseline…which is where teams like Philly, Miami, Dallas, Minny, etc. are right now, even though they have top-10 players on their respective rosters.

Meanwhile the tanking teams like OKC, ORL, HOU, DET, haven’t done anything for a long time, and Memphis has its problems….is Ja a player on that level or not? When will SAS become a contender again? When will ATL, CHI, IND, SAC, BKN, WAS, CHO, POR, UTA, LAC, and NOP, who haven’t been to the finals in forever, break through?

So no, the plan was never a dumb plan…no matter what happens with Embiid. In fact, even with some blunders in execution, we’ve blown by the majority of the league in 3 short years (remembering that some prominent posters here said that we were in the very worst situation in the NBA when Leon took over and absolutely cringed when he hired Thibs.)

“The model is not a top 5 player but for the reigning MVP (and runner up the year before). I think it would have worked more than failed given the list of MVPs since 2000. So it is not that it never worked but never has been tried.”

Most here know that MVP is about as arbitrary of an award as is issued in the NBA. It’s actually surprising that folks keep using that designation to support the case for Embiid. He’s clearly not better than Jokic (not even close imho), or Giannis, or Durant if your goal is a 3-year window to win a championship, and it’s arguable that for the next 2-3 years, Steph and maybe even LeBron are better choices. Top-5 is totally fair.

“Kinda hard to find that superstar in the “non-tanking” range when you trade away your first round picks for heavily protected future picks that you intend to use in a consolidation trade that you never make”

Sure, we can keep harping on that until we are blue in the face, even though as pointed out above there is actually more evidence to support that you can win a championship without such a player than there is that trading for such a superstar at a gargantuan cost will ever lead to a championship. And we can say “never” because we are 100% (or whatever percent) sure that a better opportunity to acquire a player that makes us a legit contender will not come along in the next few years. That’s certainly a choice.

Personally, I’d rather risk not having a legit shot at winning a championship in the next 3 years and rooting for a bunch of guys like we have right now than sell the team’s ability to even play the draft pick game for the next 10 years in exchange for a 3-year window on the back of an overpaid megamerc via a strategy that has never worked, not even once.

Sadly, I think Leon & Co. are more in the “Sell the farm for Bad Knee’d Embiid” than in my camp.

ess, beyond my general feelings about specifically trading for Embiid, I can’t really agree with your analysis.

1) Re: Free Agency: Our best player was just signed as a free agent. Outlier? Sure. Can it happen again? Even if not, the power a player has if when he publicly says he will not extend with his current team is still there. Can it lower the price? Considering And it’s quite possible that Adam Silver does something in the near future to address players re-upping for enormous extensions and then demanding trades.

Re: the draft, I don’t agree with your logic. Do you think that replicas of pre-draft Giannis, Kawhi, Jokic, Steph, etc. would have been sure-fire lottery picks in last year’s draft? Is there any evidence for that?

I think such things are random and subject to statistical ups and downs over the long term. It was absolutely never a thing to count on. But you don’t have to draft a superstar. You can just draft valuable players like Quickley, Mitch, and Grimes, or you can use the picks to acquire good players on value contracts like Hart. And when the “right” trade at the “right” time for a star comes along, you make it.

I just don’t think this is the right trade or the right time.

Kawhi looks really good…

“If AD had a 9+ BPM and even Embiid’s health record, then yes”

Embiid has a 2-year streak of sub 2.0 BPM playoff performances, just unlucky I guess. Only a matter of time before he gets gets a team out of the second round even without another superstar on the roster…like he won’t ever have during any future with the Knicks. Oh wait, he actually did have a former MVP on the roster who put up a 4.1 BPM.

On the other hand, AD has never been below a 4.8 BPM in the playoffs, and posted a 5.7 BPM in a run to the WCFs last year despite an injury-plagued year and playoffs.

“Ok well Hali dropped to 12th and SGA 11th… I said late FIRST or lower, and yes, I do think players like Jokic and Jimmy Butler would be taken higher these days… not necessarily at the arbitrary “lottery” level but surely 1st round. Look at how fast Jalen Williams rose last year, for instance.”

I actually brought up guys like Giannis, Curry, Dirk, and Kawhi as well. The whole point I made is that there is still a chance to land high-end to superstar-level talent in the draft without abjectly tanking. So of Jokic and Butler would still have been taken outside the “arbitrary” lottery, it kind of suggests the same. Either way, I agree that it wasn’t a sound strategy to count on it happening, but it wasn’t back then either! Development is very hard to predict outside of the very top players like LeBron, AD, Duncan, Luka, etc. That hasn’t changed all that much.

One think I found out when I researched this was that Boston gave up what turned out to be the #6 pick in the 2009 draft to Minny as part of the Garnett trade, which Minny used to draft the immortal Jonny Flynn…one pick ahead of Steph!