Knicks Morning News (2023.10.18)

Re: Discord, my concern is that if the traffic on this site decreases because of a shift somewhere else, KB will die a slow death. Which would be an infamnia.

“And if, god forbid, Randle goes down, we are screwed.”

Randle is an all-NBA level player, our only one. There isn’t a backup PF happy to play 10-15 mpg when Randle is healthy that can replace what he does.

We kind of saw that last year. When Randle was severely compromised by his ankle, the Knicks were not the same team. He recovered enough to at least be a factor vs. CLE, but once he re-injured the ankle in Game 5 vs. CLE, he was a shell of himself vs. Miami.

It’s certainly a fair critique to question why we brought in DDV to take Obi’s spot in the rotation. But the assumption in making decisions should be that Randle will play the 2500-3000 minutes and will be healthy for the playoffs, and that in the 10 games or so that he misses, the RJ-JHart-Sims combo will tide them over. But like any team, if one of their two best players goes down, they are screwed.*

*There are some exceptions:
CLE could probably weather losing Spida pretty well
ATL would probably be okay without DeJounte
Celts would still be tough w/o Brown
Probably some others.

OTOH the following teams are screwed if one of their best two go down:
MIL (Giannis or Lillard)
LAL (LeBron or AD)
LAC (PG or Kawhi)
PHX (KD or Booker)

“What we are saying is we don’t even have a decent backup. If Randle is unavailable we’ll pass from All NBA level to scrub level. I think that can be addressed.”

I think this remains to be seen. I think folks are possibly the effectiveness of our small lineups. Most of our smaller guys play physically bigger than they are, especially as rebounders, and DDV, JHart, IQ, Grimes and IQ are very good at blitzing ball-handlers. Those lineups are going to create some matchup problems. Also, on offense, Julius takes up a lot of space that other players can operate in, and his ball-dominant ways along with Brunson sometimes clogs things up.

So while it is certainly a net loss if Julius goes down, I don’t think a backup PF (again, who is okay with hardly playing when Julius is healthy…that’s a rare breed) is as important as it is being made out to be, nor do I think we go down to “scrub level” without him. Lots of teams have much more pronounced depth issues than the Knicks. As it stands, we don’t have enough minutes for our top 9 guys, all of whom are deserving.

“McBride just isn’t a lead guard, isn’t the kind of player who is going to probe a defense and pick apart its weaknesses. He’s a “point guard” in the way that Marcus Smart and Patrick Beverley are point guards. I think you’re asking for trouble if you’re sending that guy out there as the lead guard for extended periods of time.

DDV looked even worse as an initiator. That’s one area where we are not real deep.”

While I agree with these takes on the two players, the problem seems a bit overstated to me. Brunson and IQ are going to see the vast majority of minutes at PG and they are both fine as initiators. If one of them goes down, the other is going to play heavy minutes, and the initiating is going to be spread around a bit more to guys like Randle, RJ and JHart. Not ideal, but lots of teams have issues there. Take the Celts…if one of Jrue or DWhite go down, who is doing the initiating? Prichard? Banton? Both DDV and Deuce are at least as good as them in that role.

Also, let’s not lose sight of the fact that your “initiating” is dependent on who’s on the floor with you. For example, DDV was often out there with Mitch and Sims, both of whom are very limited targets, and with Grimes, who doesn’t really create, exacerbating his deficiencies as an initiator. Same with Deuce. And the two of them together don’t help one another in that regard.

Again, preseason means very little.

“There’s no need to bend over backward to defend the currently mismatched roster and every minor move this administration makes. I still generally like Leon and Thibs, and every team makes some suboptimal moves.”

In my case, I’m not really defending the move as much as saying a) Donte is a good player and probably on a good contract, b) let’s see how it plays out before passing judgment, and c) although it’s not what I would have done, I see the rationale behind it, especially in terms of having someone in that spot should a trade for a star require the inclusion of IQ or Grimes or both.

If your point is that it’s “suboptimal” because DDV is not a PG, or is overpaid and redundant in his role, or is replacing Obi in a sub-optimal way, fine. But there’s actually no need for the “bend over backwards” stuff.

“Luckily for the Warriors, they didn’t assume Andrew Wiggins was done improving by age 25.”

Interesting that you brought him up, since one of the few who saw potential upside in Wiggins was none other than….Tom Thibodeau! You know, the guy who coached Wiggins the year he compiled 3,048 minutes to lead the league, then 2,979 minutes in their first playoff appearance in forever. Thibs was also the guy who gave Wiggins a rookie max extension, much to the amusement of the vast majority of KB posters! Thibs also thought that Wiggins was a great acquisition by the Warriors…not to mention the lottery pick they acquired in the deal.

What is also interesting is that many here seem to feel similarly about RJ now as they did about Wiggins back then. So given how right Thibs was about Wiggins, maybe you just picked the wrong guy as the next exception to the vast majority of cases where guys don’t improve much after age 25.

Julius looks great.

Yikes

On a night when Brunson went 3-12 with 5 turnovers, Grimes went 1-4 with all zeros except 1 assist, and Deuce was absolutely awful, RJ is pretty low in the pecking order of reasons why we got our asses kicked.

The passing tonight was piss poor and the defense overall was horrendous.

I’m assuming IQ did not play due to the contract situation….any word?

IQ was in street clothes. I was right behind him about 10 rows up.