[Basketball Network] — Friday, November 10, 2023 2:47:37 AM
Gilbert Arenas says Miami wasn’t LeBron James’ first choice in 2010 … Basketball Network
[New York Post ] — Thursday, November 9, 2023 9:51:00 PM
Knicks’ offense is showing what it’s capable of New York Post
[New York Post ] — Thursday, November 9, 2023 7:25:44 PM
Julius Randle was hurt during early struggles ? and resisted Knicks’ attempts to rest him New York Post Knicks’ Julius Randle was ‘operating at about 70 percent’ to begin season: report sny.tvNew York Knicks Regretting Obi Toppin Trade? Sports Illustrated
[Bleacher Report] — Thursday, November 9, 2023 7:00:00 PM
Knicks Rumors: Julius Randle Ignored Team’s Calls to Rest amid Ankle Injury Bleacher Report
[ClutchPoints] — Thursday, November 9, 2023 6:54:57 PM
NBA rumors: Knicks’ Julius Randle ‘resisting’ rest despite ankle issues ClutchPoints
[Sports Illustrated] — Thursday, November 9, 2023 6:28:14 PM
New York Knicks Regretting Obi Toppin Trade? Sports IllustratedReport: Julius Randle played hurt, “resisted to rest” Posting and ToastingTom Thibodeau sounds like he’s out of excuses for Julius Randle’s Knicks slump New York Post
[Posting and Toasting] — Thursday, November 9, 2023 6:23:36 PM
Taking a deeper look at Quentin Grimes’ slow start Posting and Toasting
[New York Post ] — Thursday, November 9, 2023 4:00:00 PM
Inside the system providing the Knicks next wave of analytics New York Post
[Pounding The Rock ] — Thursday, November 9, 2023 3:43:31 PM
Balancing expectations for Victor Wembanyama and the young Spurs Pounding The Rock
[OCRegister] — Thursday, November 9, 2023 3:06:54 PM
Clippers center Mason Plumlee out at least 2 months OCRegister
[FOX Sports] — Thursday, November 9, 2023 2:51:01 PM
Victor Wembanyama struggles, finishes with 14 points in loss vs … FOX Sports
[Heavy.com] — Thursday, November 9, 2023 2:47:30 PM
Mitchell Robinson Magnanimous in Victory Over Victor Wembanyama Heavy.com
[The Cold Wire] — Thursday, November 9, 2023 2:27:12 PM
Knicks Veteran Proved He Was Ready To Stop Victor Wembanyama The Cold Wire
[Posting and Toasting] — Thursday, November 9, 2023 2:00:00 PM
The Knicktion section is open for all your New York Knicks fan-fics Posting and Toasting
[sny.tv] — Thursday, November 9, 2023 12:34:00 PM
Mitchell Robinson, Victor Wembanyama, Julius Randle, and more … sny.tv
[Sports Illustrated] — Thursday, November 9, 2023 12:20:29 PM
New York Knicks’ Mitchell Robinson Humble After Victor Wembanyama Shutdown Sports Illustrated
[FantasyPros] — Thursday, November 9, 2023 11:45:00 AM
Keldon Johnson scores nine points in loss to the Knicks FantasyPros
[FantasyPros] — Thursday, November 9, 2023 11:45:00 AM
Victor Wembanyama scores 14 points in loss to the Knicks FantasyPros
[FantasyPros] — Thursday, November 9, 2023 11:43:00 AM
Jeremy Sochan scores 16 points in loss to the Knicks FantasyPros
[FantasyPros] — Thursday, November 9, 2023 11:43:00 AM
Zach Collins scores 11 points in loss to the Knicks FantasyPros
[The Athletic] — Thursday, November 9, 2023 10:43:49 AM
Knicks’ Mitchell Robinson is taking over the paint ? and he’s not giving it back The Athletic
[Queens Chronicle] — Thursday, November 9, 2023 10:30:00 AM
Knicks’ Willis Reed: ‘O Captain, our Captain!’ | | qchron.com Queens Chronicle
[NBA.com] — Thursday, November 9, 2023 9:25:27 AM
NBA Starting 5, Nov. 9: Embiid, Sixers move to No. 1 in East NBA.com
[Bleacher Report] — Thursday, November 9, 2023 9:01:01 AM
Decisions the Knicks Should Already Regret from This Past Offseason Bleacher Report
[Daily Knicks] — Thursday, November 9, 2023 8:00:50 AM
ESPN excluding Knicks’ RJ Barrett in ranking makes sense, but not … Daily Knicks
69 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2023.11.10)”
Macri answered my “who’s the player comp for an RJ who stays good?” question in today’s newsletter, and his suggestion was Michael Finley.
Finley has a weird collection of similarity scores himself: https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/f/finlemi01.html#all_sims
Finley was more of a big super-athletic 2 who could play the 3. ( I know he played the 3 a lot, but still…) RJ is a pure 3 who can play small-ball 4. He’s only going to fill out more. That’s why I think guys like Mark Aguirre are better upside comps. Big, strong, 6’6”-ish below the rim 3’s with some guard skills and range.
Finley was a slam-dunk participant… not a very good one, but still! RJ is not that.
Finley was also pretty good steals in his heyday. RJ… not so much yet…we’ll see…
I would love if Finley is the correct comp, if only because he was traded for a young Jason Kidd
My Corey Maggette nonsense notwithstanding, it’s really hard to find a good comp for RJ because of his utter lack of athleticism, his apathy towards pizzazz and his sturdy frame.
Hello Farfa!
And thanks Z-Man for last game’s recap, I felt less guilty 😉
I’m finally free and ready for a weekend of basketball and we won’t be playing until sunday afternoon?
NBA’s schedule maker needs a round of concussion protocols checks…
Watched the last two games and my personal “no hot takes” rule’s still active, but it looks optimism really exudes for the vast majority of the blog.
Not wanting to rain on anyone’s parade, but while I’ve seen some heartwarming good signs (RJ’s sustained good play*, Mitch’s defensive dominance**, IQ’s perfect “Sweet Lou with defense” performances, I-Hart’s display of skills and inexhaustible energy) I’ll be more cautious to go “full contenders” after victories against a team in complete flux*** and another who, before our game, was 29th in defense and 30th in defense against 3PT.
So far record-wise we are exactly where I thought we’d be (the only games I had wrong were the B2B with the Cavs, which I had in reverse) and I fully expect us to crash the Hornets sunday.
You can’t get 47 wins without bludgeoning the scrubs! 🙂
And by the way, those Pacers are dangerous and a lot of fun…
Let’s Go Knicks!
* And FT shooting!
** And thorough ass-whupping of Wemby
*** And early candidate, according to pundits, for disappointment of the year
So if the team thought Randle should rest, and Randle thought his ankle was bothering him, and he sucked when he was playing, why was he out there so much?
Lines up strongly with the eye test.
It makes me pretty upset that we’re running him out there like this.
He could get back to full health faster by resting. Playing through injury increases the risk that he never gets to full health this year. And resting him gives us opportunity to experiment with different lineup solutions that could pay dividends down the line.
This all strikes me as very short sighted and foolish, particularly the part where we traded him backup for nothing helpful.
Just for curiosity, I looked up the CARMELO player similarities for RJ. I’m not sure that program knows what it is doing. The top comp is Michael Beasley and the second one is Bernard King. Now that is a real gulf in comparisons.
Not to defend Randle too much, but he does have that play through injuries mentality. I’m sure he also wants to win. Maybe if we had a real backup PF he would have felt less compelled to try to play at less than 100%.
Letting Randle play through his injuries is like letting someone come to the office when they have covid.
Get some rest, dude. Help out later.
I commend Julius for his willingness to play at limited capacity.
He’s the only one who’s not responsible, these kind of decisions are in the hands of the FO (who didn’t deliver a capable backup at his position) and the coach (who’s impervious on this subject).
P.S.
Nice camparison Hubert! 🙂
Oddly enough, I’m not a huge fan of after-the-fact, backchannel excuses, but you guys do you!
Nah, we’re only playing the part, we know it’s a Post’s scam 😉
Fans in Indiana are calling for Obi to be moved to a bench role.
He’d be perfect for our bench. Oh wait…
If Randle has to take games off, RJ will face a serious test. I’d be very curious to see if he becomes old RJ again, tries to take over and shoots 10 of 28 or something like it.
Otoh if he stays within himself with Randle out, that’s when I’ll know he’s for real.
If Randle sits, I think you bring IQ into the starting lineup and move RJ to the 4.
Deuce is the 9th man instead of awkwardly playing Sims & Hartenstein together.
Welcome back, Farfa! ☺️
Randle ain’t sitting.
I don’t know if it is an incompetent medical team, a Dolanesque PR control of disseminating injury reports, or some combination or dysfunction between the two–but I would take a “Julius was at 70%” report with a high degree of scepticism. Never heard a peep about his surgery and recovery affecting the new season, or his recovery slower than planned, or his pain, even when he became the worst starter in the NBA. But only now that he has rebounded, so to speak, do we get a “health-related” explanation.
arthroscopic surgery is not nothing but it’s a very standard relatively minimally invasive procedure that takes at most a month to recover from and that’s usually the end of it… it’s usually taking care of minor impingement… bone spurs and the like…. it’s a cleanup procedure…
if this really is true that he still has pain 4-5 months afterwards…. that’s not an excuse… that is very alarming which means whatever they did in the summer did not work and he will most likely go under the knife again….
let’s just hope this is someone covering for him because if he’s really 70% at this point then he’s not gonna get much better without missing significant time…..
Yep, being 70% this far out from arthroscopic ankle surgery is not a good sign in the least.
Knowing the Knicks, he probably irreparably damaged it trying to push through the playoffs and will never be the same
That got dark fast
Yeah, daylight savings ended a week ago
Nothing like some poorly informed speculation to brighten up the mood…
Didn’t realize we don’t play until Sunday, what a weird schedule
A quick google search says his type of surgery takes 4 to 6 weeks for Robert but that’s for regular people not professional athletes. He had to sit on his butt for maybe up to six weeks which would be mid July. Then he probably was only able to do light workouts at first for a few weeks. He probably didn’t get back to full work outs till august at the earliest.
I don’t know. But I’m not taking this to mean he’s 30 percent still injured. I think it’s more that he’s healed for a regular person but for an NBA athlete he was at 70 percent of his ability. He probably isn’t as in good of shape as he normally would be going into the season.
Either way it’s nice we have a few days here before the next game. But yeah, FO probably should have planned for this a little better with at least another vet minimum PF guy to fill in like Taj.
I wondef if Leon didn’t want to grab Taj bc he knew thibs would play him way more minutes than he deserves and would go to him instead of DDV or Hart, etc. But Taj on the bench in case randle is hurt or hart is getting abused would be nice. Taj even spreads the floor a little bit with some corner threes now.
But yeah, FO probably should have planned for this a little better
enough fucking whining about jalen johnson swifty
Woj says Time Lord is going to have season-ending knee surgery. That reduces the value of the combined Dame/Jrue packages that Portland got, if only because they can’t now flip RWIII this season to a contender. But I assume they want to give Ayton as many reps as possible, anyway.
We don’t play until sunday!? And because of that i’m trying to guess what we’ll be talking about… we already talked about the 19th pick / Jalen Johnson… sorry Alan, i think we’ll be talking about Vildoza and the playoffs! 😀
Frank is still at least 2 weeks away from his return from injury (ducks and runs) 🙂
I do assume Randle will be fine unless we get an update saying the opposite.
Normal recovery is a couple months it looks like, but that’s not really meant for professional athletes it’s meant for people who lift boxes or play golf on the weekend using a cart.
And whatever your opinion of Randle, he does work his ass off during the offseason. He probably relies on that as a big edge of other guys. Might be a bad sign for this season, but shouldn’t be a long-term thing and he should get better over the course of the season.
I think Randle being at 70% or whatever to start the season is just part of the rehab process, don’t think it means he was dealing with pain or anything. The shorter training camp and preseason meant less time to fully get back into basketball shape. The last 2 games physically have been night and day from the first 6 games which probably means he’s getting closer to feeling 100%.
Here’s an out of left field comp for RJ, how about Bonzi Wells!? Although the Corey Maggette comp I think is very good.
Wasn’t Corey Maggette on the Knicks for like a minute…….literally? Oh, wait…….that was Cuttino Mobley. Same initials; different dude.
Mobley never played for the Knicks cause of the heart condition they discovered right after the trade correct?
LOL
Given that we’re in a nasty bit of between-game doldrums, if anyone just wants to roll around in some Mitch Love (highly recommended for the good feelings it engenders), Fred Katz’s latest is a pleasant dose of catnip.
https://theathletic.com/5048154/2023/11/09/mitchell-robinson-knicks-paint/
I do love the nascent conversation about Mitch being one of the very best defenders in the NBA. Gobert still has an edge I guess but DPOY isn’t out of the conversation and that would be an amazing outcome for a kid who a lot of people weren’t sure about for a long time.
Some names of note in this Beer tweet. I won’t say the name myself though. I watched enough Harry Potter…
https://twitter.com/tommybeer/status/1723078459633614851?s=46&t=0wqff4cNt-sCGcDs-uMExw
Who needs Embiid when we have RJ, eh.
Glad we didn’t make THAT trade.
Here’s a direct quote from Julius about how the ankle feels:
https://twitter.com/FredKatz/status/1723055912208748904
He’s such a different defender than when he came into the league as a pogo stick trying to get 10 blocks a game.
If the Knicks can finish in the top-5 in defense, he’s probably got a pretty good shot. But it’s a long season.
If I recall correctly, one of Randle’s quotes from that Post article was “I have my own science.” Haha.
I do think there’s some lack of conditioning involved. By all accounts Randle is a relentless gym rat all summer long, every summer. This time, he couldn’t do the same. He’ll get there, I think.
Katz has a brief article out today about how often we’re going to the Randle/Mitch PNR. I’ve long said we should go to this way, way more than we were—no point in having a skilled-but-flawed player like Randle if we’re not going to seek to exploit the “skilled” part of the equation. It’s a lot to handle for opposing defenses, and I hope we keep it up all year.
https://theathletic.com/5051516/2023/11/10/julius-randle-mitchell-robinson-screens-knicks/
He’s such a different defender than when he came into the league as a pogo stick trying to get 10 blocks a game.
almost unrecognizable. mitch blocked 40 3pa his first two years in the league. he has 3 since the beginning of last season.
btw only one player has blocked more than 3 3pa ytd. he has 6. wanna guess who?
Wemby
Just saw on Twitter that today is the 4 year anniversary of Steve Mills holding an impromptu press conference after Knicks started the season 2-8. We’ve come a pretty long way since then…
What? Randle didn’t admit to being in irreversible physical decline? The nerve!
Mills will be the next CFO of the sphere
they’re playing basket-ball, they’re playing basket-ball 🏀 …2 buffalo gals go around the outside, ’round the outside, ’round the outside
any good games on tonight?
so excited – i’m doing the turkey this year…oh yeah baste baby baste…
it’s been forever since i’ve cooked a bird…gonna spend the day with ma and her neighbors next door – awesome family, truly blessed to have them living next to mom…
it’s funny, they’re originally from china, so we did this big thanksgiving a few years ago – their two kids were not feeling the food, at all… i don’t think they’re folks were to crazy about it either 😊
we’ll see how their taste buds are liking things this turkey day…
interesting quote from julius, thanks al…
he always sounds so defensive and angry…i wonder if that’s just with the media…
of course it comes across as insecure…
i can not think of another player that goes after the refs, and stays after them all game long like julius does…
it’s a little scary at times…like he’s totally lost in the moment…beyond reason…
fire is fuel though…it just is…hopefully he continues to work on managing his emotions…
someone else already said it a little earlier – yep, i too am riding the julius roller coaster ’til the wheels fall off the track…
A very long way. Our starters that night were guys like Julius Randle, RJ Barrett, and Mitchell Robinson. Full credit to Leon for the massive overhaul.
we are all flawed noble…that is the truth…
Omg that Celtics court is hideous!
jalen duren obviously has a ton going for
him, but one thing i haven’t seen improve yet is his defensive feel. i’m suspicious of him ever being a legit 5 on d, though he’s very young.
Tatum just ignited like an Icelandic volcano.
i may just watch every single spurs game this season…
i haven’t watched a thunder game yet this year…i see they play the kings later, that should be a good game…
not a fan of the spurs uni’s tonight…i keep thinking they’re the rockets with that red…
edit: just checked the rockets game – same color scheme…sengun is good, really really good…
kinda seems like brad stevens pulled the pin on both smart and rw3 before he tossed ’em
Classic Celtics skullduggery
This guy Brooks on Houston is a real jerk off…
Nice that they play Ozzy at the rockets game…
Pelicans have no vet leadership
Given our next game, first this fucking Hayward guy goes for 27 with 9 assists and 6 rebounds.
Also, this Nick Richards character goes 5-5 in 15 minutes with a bunch of foul shots for 15 points with 6 rebounds, yet somehow still manages a minus 12. In a win.
Meanwhile, Mark Williams gets 24 rebounds with 21 points.
“Meanwhile, Mark Williams gets 24 rebounds with 21 points”
…and with 15 ORebs, and in 30 minutes…that’s insane!
Cam Rubbish had a good game for LA.