Knicks Morning News (2023.10.12)

1. Jalen Johnson is 21 and had a positive BPM last year

He played 99% of his minutes at PF. Guess who he’d have been playing behind? Julius Randle. Guess who else? Obi Toppin (who incidentally put up a 2.0 BPM in year 2 on a .614 TS% at 20+% usage.)

2. He is more than three years younger than Obi Toppin
Got me there! Still his offensive numbers in 2 years are not all that promising for a big, the easiest position in which to put up a positive BPM (and 0.3 is hardly a number to get excited about.)

3. He was certainly the hive mind consensus pick in that draft.

I’ll let the great Donnie Walsh speak to that one:

“Donnie Walshsays:
July 29, 2021 at 19:20
***Let’s keep note of who Knickerblogger Hive Mind would have drafted tonight when our spots come up, and compare that against the actual results.***[JK47 said this]

Hive mind all over the place this year. No one name has dominated. (Just look at Z-Man’s list: there are 19 players he’d take with the 19th pick!)”

4. Try offering Obi Toppin in a trade for Jalen Johnson and see how that goes

It definitely wouldn’t go well at this moment in time. However, iirc, at the same point in Obi’s career, the Knicks Hive Mind wanted to salary dump Julius and make Obi a full-time starter because they believed the team would win more games with an actually good player at PF instead of the most detrimental player in the NBA on the worst contract in the NBA. I would suggest that similarly, JJ is at peak value right now and Obi was traded at a rock-bottom price. So let’s check back on this.

5. You cite his TS% as the main reason when he’s not any good, conveniently leaving out his elite rebounding rate, excellent stocks rate, size, ability to switch on defense, and playmaking

And you conveniently left out that he can’t make a 3, get to the line, or make a FT once he gets there.

6. We’d be a lot better off if we had drafted Jalen Johnson rather than pissing that pick away for nothing, because Jalen Johnson is an NBA player and not a pile of ashes

Let me correct that: We’d be a tiny bit better off if we had drafted Jalen Johnson rather than losing value on the #19 pick by trading it out for a protected CHA pick which still had value (it was part of the Dejounte Murray trade) and then pissing that pick away for an overhyped lottery bust, because Jalen Johnson is an NBA player and Cam Reddish is a pile of ashes. Because we could probably get a protected first something like the one we traded the #19 pick for if we tried to trade Jalen Johnson after he sat behind Julius and Obi for 2 years.

In summary, a) we were not going to pick a guy to play behind Julius and Obi, especially a guy who was perceived to be a total head case in college, and b) nearly every available guy the KHM liked at that spot has gone on to disappoint and would hardly be a difference-maker on our current roster.

Once again, it boggles my mind how much drama would have been avoided if the Knicks had just drafted Grimes at #19 and Deuce at #21. I doubt that a single poster would still be bitching about passing over the great difference-maker Jalen Johnson.

“I mean, does it need to be said that when you’re evaluating young players, it’s important to factor in their upside? We’re only going to look at Jalen Johnson‘s present value and not his potential future value?”

I don’t think anyone is arguing that Jalen Johnson doesn’t have upside. I’m not a big fan of his, but acknowledge that he might go on to be a very valuable player if some things go right.

The main reason he fell so far in the draft is that there were serious concerns about his maturity and b-ball IQ based on hi antics in college. For that reason alone, I don’t think he fit the current FO’s “hustlebunny” MO.

But that’s more of an argument about their draft prospect evaluation skills than whether they should have made a pick or traded out.

And I think those concerns are legit, as evidenced by the fact that they saw more potential in Obi than they did in Hali.

But I don’t think anything that happened on draft day impacted our current situation all that much if at all. Even blowing the CHA pick on Cam was more of a blip than anything else. I get that theoretically, these blips add up and have a significant detrimental impact. But imho the magnitude of errors shouldn’t be artificially inflated to make sweeping judgments about the viability of the overall plan. My feeling is, get the BIG stuff right. Steal Brunson from the Mavs. Don’t do catastrophic things like trading a bunch of young players and a billion picks for Spida (whew!) Build a deep, young, balanced roster with no albatross contracts. Don’t draft the Obi’s over the Hali’s (oh well). Don’t salary-dump all-NBA-level players on good contracts. Be ready when the right opportunity knocks (not Knox!) which it eventually will.

Here’s the win total o/u vs. number of players earning $30+M ($40+M) sometime in the next 2 years for all teams projected to finish over .500:
BOS 54.5 4 (1)
MIL 53.5 3 (2)
DEN 52.5 3 (1)
PHX 51.5 3 (3)
CLE 50.5 2 (2)
PHI 48.5 3 (1)
GSW 48.5 3 (2)
LAL 47.5 2 (2)
LAC 46.5 2 (2)
NYK 45.5 1 (0)
MEM 45.5 2 (0)
DAL 45.5 2 (2)
MIN 44.5 3 (2)
MIA 44.5 2 (1)
OKC 44.5 1 (0)
NOP 44.5 3 (0)
SAC 44.5 2 (1)
ATL 41.5 1 (1)

Obviously OKC’s Presti is in the “genius” category for how he skillfully rebuilt that team, although he did start the process with some advantages. (It almost makes one want to forgive him for making maybe the dumbest decision in team-building history!)

The Knicks’ cap situation is maybe the flattest in this entire bunch. In fact, they only make the threshhold by $317K on Randle’s salary. It seems like it’s by design…for the next two years, the Knicks can match salary in a number of ways, and can put together a bunch of permutations of trade packages for whatever desireable player shakes loose. Obvioualy that is going to change in 2025 when Brunson signs an extension (I don’t think it will be for a full supermax deal, but we’ll see….him deserving one will be a good problem to have!)

My hope is that when you have 18 teams projected to have winning records, like this year, there are going to be some very big disappointments who are hitting up against their ceilings and facing the second apron that are going to be very eager to shed salary, including those of max and near-max players, rather than pay crazy tax bills and not be able to make significant roster moves.

I also wonder about how teams will deal with the expansion draft when it happens, especially if it takes place in 2025. It seems that teams might protect up to 8 players, with caveats involving expiring deals and other specific situations. Might that be a way for teams to get under the second apron? Or that might create urgency to make trades that avert losing good rotation players on good contracts for nothing? If it were today, who in the rotation would the Knicks leave unprotected?

yeah geo, I knew that…bad time for a joke. I have family and friends in Israel. No bueno.

“tho he’s not really the type to win it, put me down for jalen suggs as most improved. think he’s already in the all defense vicinity.”

If that happens, Orlando is gonna be a handful.

“…can’t imagine the nba ever let him in the building again…”

Just awful. He’s really got a screw loose.

“Apparently Ben Simmons is back to form. That would be huge for the Nets.”

Also nice to see Harry Giles getting some good run…

I looked a the box score and it seems like Ra’Anana has like 100 guys on its roster.

James Wiseman with a big game vs. Thunder…8-8, 20 and 10 in 23 minutes.