[Reuters.com] — Monday, November 13, 2023 7:21:00 AM
Now back on track, Celtics brace for Knicks Reuters.com
[Pickswise] — Monday, November 13, 2023 5:45:00 AM
NBA New York Knicks vs Boston Celtics same game parlay picks … Pickswise
[Hardwood Houdini] — Monday, November 13, 2023 4:30:34 AM
Two-time All-NBA star’s message to Boston Celtics ahead of second matchup Hardwood Houdini
[Hoops Hype] — Monday, November 13, 2023 3:30:40 AM
Knicks vs. Celtics: Start time, where to watch, what’s the latest Hoops Hype
[KAIT] — Monday, November 13, 2023 1:39:00 AM
How to Watch the NBA on Monday: TV Channel, Game Times and … KAIT
[Athlon Sports] — Sunday, November 12, 2023 7:42:26 PM
Celtics vs. Knicks NBA Betting Preview for November 13 Athlon Sports
[Sports Illustrated] — Sunday, November 12, 2023 7:22:34 PM
Celtics Center Ruled Out for Monday’s Game vs. Knicks Sports Illustrated
[Heavy.com] — Sunday, November 12, 2023 6:19:14 PM
Tom Thibodeau Got Jokes After Knicks Blow Out Hornets Heavy.com
[sny.tv] — Sunday, November 12, 2023 5:47:49 PM
In better rhythm, RJ Barrett off to career-best start for Knicks sny.tv
[New York Post ] — Sunday, November 12, 2023 5:21:48 PM
Knicks trounce Hornets to complete dominant homestand New York Post New York Knicks vs Boston Celtics Prediction, 11/13/2023 Preview and Pick Doc’s SportsCeltics vs. Knicks prediction, odds, line, start time: 2023 NBA picks, Nov. 13 best bets from proven model CBS Sports
[New York Daily News] — Sunday, November 12, 2023 4:18:38 PM
Knicks’ Tom Thibodeau on playing starters late in blowouts: ‘I’ve seen 13 points in 35 seconds’ New York Daily News
[hoopsrumors.com] — Sunday, November 12, 2023 3:50:00 PM
Knicks Notes: Quickley, Thibodeau, DiVincenzo, Second Unit hoopsrumors.com
[NBA.com] — Sunday, November 12, 2023 3:01:38 PM
Knicks and HUB International Announce First “City Spirit” Award … NBA.com
[Yahoo Finance UK] — Sunday, November 12, 2023 2:44:28 PM
Knicks record season-highs in points, shooting percentage in 129-107 win over Hornets Yahoo Finance UK
[CT Insider] — Sunday, November 12, 2023 2:31:54 PM
N.Y. Knicks 129, Charlotte 107 CT Insider
[Sports Illustrated] — Sunday, November 12, 2023 2:23:13 PM
New York Knicks Have a Ball vs. LaMelo Ball, Swat Charlotte Hornets Sports Illustrated
[CBS Sports] — Sunday, November 12, 2023 1:20:25 PM
New York Knicks vs. Charlotte Hornets: How to watch, schedule, live stream info, start time, TV channel CBS Sports
[Sports Illustrated] — Sunday, November 12, 2023 1:12:16 PM
76ers’ Kelly Oubre Breaks Ribs in Car Accident Sports Illustrated
[Sports Illustrated] — Sunday, November 12, 2023 12:20:28 PM
How Mitchell Robinson Snapped Julius Randle’s Early Woes Sports Illustrated
[NBA.com] — Sunday, November 12, 2023 12:00:00 PM
Charlotte Hornets vs New York Knicks Nov 12, 2023 Game Summary NBA.com
[Yardbarker] — Sunday, November 12, 2023 11:49:39 AM
Hornets Starting Five vs. New York Knicks Yardbarker
[NBA.com] — Sunday, November 12, 2023 11:16:39 AM
Charlotte Hornets vs New York Knicks Nov 12, 2023 Box Scores NBA.comKnicks trounce Hornets to complete dominant homestand New York Post Celtics vs. Knicks prediction, odds, line, start time: 2023 NBA picks, Nov. 13 best bets from proven model CBS Sports
[sny.tv] — Sunday, November 12, 2023 10:22:44 AM
Is RJ Barrett’s hot start to the 2023-24 Knicks season sustainable? sny.tv
[Sports Illustrated] — Sunday, November 12, 2023 9:30:27 AM
How to Watch & Listen to Hornets at Knicks Sports Illustrated
[Daily Knicks] — Sunday, November 12, 2023 8:00:40 AM
WFAN ripping Gregg Popovich after Knicks game adds to New York … Daily Knicks
92 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2023.11.13)”
New York vs Charlotte W 129-107 Record 5-4
A couple of easy home wins against inferior teams are just what the doctor ordered before a long and condensed stretch on the road (5 games in 8 days).
In an unusually frisky matinee we took care of the Hornets in a business like way and were able to rest our main players for tonight match against the Celtics (Ju & JB 27 minutes, Mitch 24, sore-knee RJ 31).
Next: a B2B in Boston against rested contender. A nice way to know where we are in the totem pole.
Thoughts:
– The way we rolled over SA and CHA is a good sign, we used to lower our play to match the competition.
– Few players can get away with so many high difficult degree choices as Julius do. Maybe I’ll never love his play, but I think his sheer talent is through the roof.
– In the last few games I’ve found myself eager for the moment Thibs would unleash the Gnomeball lineup. I love the way IQ, DDV, I-Hart and J-Hart mesh especially with RJ as the 5th man. Energy, movement, selflessness, a pleasure to watch.
– While our stars had a slow start, the complementary players are doing really well and our bench is probably the league’s best.
– The Hornets were missing Rozier (their top scorer so far), Lonzo Ball can be the funniest player to watch these days and some of their young guys will learn. They gave up early yesterday but beware saturday’s game in Charlotte.
Play(s) Of The Game:
The game went smooth so there’s no dramatic game-changing play to point to but…
2nd 4:26 Mitchell Robinson makes layup (Julius Randle assists) CHA 43 NY 56
A post play for Mitch. And he scored! A once in a season fever dream or harbinger of things to come?
Stats Of The Game:
129. Knicks season high in points.
22-8. NYK lead in fastbreak points.
20-30 (66.6%) Knicks’ FTs. Didn’t matter this time but…
Grades:
Brunson A-
He did enough in the 1st quarter to put the game in the right direction (13 points, 5-7 FG) then played only 16 minutes. Only 1 assist and I’m scared every time he tries to earn a charge on defense.
Randle A-
It looks like the arrow is pointing up, albeit slowly. Very good 3rd quarter (13 points, 4-5 FG) and he sits all the 4th.
Barrett A-
7th game of the year for him, please, don’t say anything.
Grimes B-
So far in the season the quitier of the youngsters.
Robinson A-
A day in the office, he’s rounding into the type of player we dreamed of (and what a great conctract!). Now, for those free throws…
Quickley A
6MOTY runner up is ready to take home the award this year. I’m more impressed with the 9:1 AST:TO and willingness to create for others than with his points. A sizzling stretch so far for a notorius slow starter.
Hart B-
He’s not at his best but it doesn’t matter for now.
Hartenstein B+
+24 in 18 minutes isn’t too bad. I hope he likes New York and our cameraderie because otherwise he’ll be a starter somewhere next year…
DDV B-
He’s good and we knew it. I’m a bit surprised he went mad bomber in the non competitive 4th qrt (and missed all his threes)
Arcidiacono/Jeffries/Mc Bride/Sims NA
From -4 (Archie) to -6 (Sims) to -7 (Deuce, Jeffries), I know NYC has a trash problem but please try to be a better Garbage Squad next time.
Thibs A-
Easy game easy win, but it was a matinee and he did probably check his players’ curfew because they were ready to play.
I’m gonna go out on a limb here and suggest that Pistons ownership and Troy Weaver probably didn’t think Monty Williams’s first big act was gonna be burying Jaden Ivey.
A hugely important question prompted by a brief discussion on Macri’s postgame pod: What current NBA team has the best collection of names? The listener was arguing for the Hornets, thanks to LaMelo Ball, Ish Smith, JT Thor, and, especially, Leaky Black.
Our list of biblical names isn’t quite s strong without Obadiah Toppin. Anyone want to nominate either us or another team over Charlotte?
Toronto.
Grady Dick is in a league of his own.
Then add Precious, Malachi, Markquis (with the “k”), Thaddeus, Otto, Pascal… and OG stands for Ogugua 😀
Kevin Knox:
MIN FG 3PT FT OREB DREB REB AST STL BLK TO PF +/- PTS
24 7-8 4-5 0-0 0 3 3 1 1 0 0 2 -3 18
I’ll never get that to align correctly, but you’ll figure it out. Basically 18 points and 3 rebounds on 7-of-8 from the field (4-of-5 from 3 and 3-of-3 from 2…..3-on-3, anyone? 🙂 ) in 24 minutes as the first dude off the bench for the Pistons.
And I’m not really bemoaning or suggesting anything. I know that he did this in Portland sometimes and then regressed back to himself. Maybe there is something there. Just sayin’.
Still a bit too early for me for any kind of conclusions, but if both RJ Barrett and Alexis Lafreniere are making The Leap, all of a sudden the winter at MSG becomes much more interesting.
There were nights on our team when Knox’s jumper looked as wet and perfect as anything this side of the Splash Brothers. They were unfortunately rare, and the rest of his game was so terrible and uncoordinated that it wasn’t worth playing him to wait for one of those infrequent hot shooting nights. (Steve Novak was similarly bad at the non-shooting parts of the game, but when you put him in, you knew he was going to shoot well from downtown on almost every night.)
If Knox can find more consistency in his shooting, then there’s a role for him in the NBA, even if his huge deficits in athleticism, instincts, and processing speed are likely to consign him to be a back of the rotation player at best.
Again, seemed like a nice, hard-working kid. I wish him the best. Had he stayed at Kentucky another year, and/or had he landed on a team that wasn’t a massive shitshow like we were in the Fizdale era, maybe his career goes differently. But I also think there are fundamental and deep limitations to his game that would be apparent no matter the context.
The most fundamental problem with Kevin Knox is that he isn’t Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.
Or Mikal Bridges. Or a non-abusive trash person version of Miles Bridges. Or Michael Porter Jr. Or our guy Donte DiVincenzo. Or Kevin Huerter. Or Grayson Allen. Or Anfernee Simons. Or Jalen freaking Brunson.
We could have taken almost anybody else available in that draft, and even if we bemoaned passing over SGA or Mikal, we at least could console ourselves with having a functional NBA player, and perhaps a lot more than that. Instead, we got a giraffe on roller skates.
On other pleasing news, Clips are 0-4 with Harden, Sixers 6-0 without. The System was a -28 in his last game, Clips +24 without him.
I’m looking at the list and I do not have time to list all the players better than Knox… But:
32: Jevon Carter
34: Devonte Graham
36: Mitchell Robinson
37: Gary Trent, jr
41 Jarred Vanderbilt
42: Bruce Brown
46: DeAnthony Melton
47: Svi Mykhaulik
48: Bates-Diop
54: Shake Milton
There’s more too
It’s kinda funny that some folks are suggesting that Monty is doing a bad job in DET. First, they are in the midst of a multi-year rebuild which involves a) tanking and b) absorbing contracts to acquire draft picks. Second, they have a very young team where players have been given too much too early and need some discipline, including Ivey. Third, they have been bitten by the injury/illness bug early on. Burks, Bogey, Duren, and Ivey have all missed time.
The best thing that could happen to DET this year is to acquire another top-5 pick while developing their young guys. Monty is a fine coach for what they have going right now. I think they will be much improved as the year goes on and will win a bunch of trap games, but still a top of the lottery team. It’s also possible that they deal Burks and Bogey for draft assets at the deadline.
They aren’t run by Presti, that’s for sure. But they aren’t floundering either. It’s a pretty sensible tank job.
Does anyone here still think that acquiring Harden on the cheap would have been a good idea?
The one thing I really don’t get about DET is why they keep drafting 6’5″-6’7″ guys who have some all-around skills but can’t shoot…Killian Hayes, Jaden Ivey, and now Ausar Thompson. Maybe they should consider that shooting 3’s is pretty important in today’s NBA…
Don’t forget Cade!!
“Don’t forget Cade!!”
Geez, he’s like the big kahuna of bricklayers!
We’ve got an excellent 6.33 SRS so far this season. Unfortunately, Boston is currently over 16
At least Ausar Thompson projects to be a top tier defender, but Detroit got really unlucky two drafts in a row landing the 5th pick and it shows.
It’s tough because Cunningham has had many injuries and he’s been asked to do a lot on a bad team when he himself hasn’t shown much progression at all since he got drafted, and it gets amplified by Monty refusing to let the Killian Hayes experiment go while benching Ivey, who can at least shoot.
They need more talent so they should be going for another top pick in next year’s draft, but it’s reportedly a weak draft and what happens when they get bad lottery luck again and draft 5th and there’s no one there? Out of all the young teams in the league I think they’re in the worst position, even behind Charlotte who should be more competitive when they’re healthy.
I was thinking that also yesterday if both rj and lafreniere play to their draft promise…both teams have a different persona….but…its early…we can dream
I mean, we aren’t as good as BOS right now. Their top 6 is the best in the NBA except for maybe Denver, who is only better due largely to Jokic being the best player of our time. Derrick White is very underrated. So a road loss to them isn’t really a big deal. I do like our chances, though.
BTW, KP is having an all-star starter kind of year so far. Obviously Embiid is a lock for starting C but KP is the second-best big in the EC right now. There’s a lot of season left and his durability is a continual question mark, but if he keeps playing like this, C’s fans are going to be very happy. I still think they are one injury to any of their top-6 away from being very vulnerable in the playoffs as currently constructed because their 7-9 guys suck.
probably the stickiest part of the early going is our defense… #4 at the moment and while it probably won’t be that high it has a good chance at finishing top 10… the biggest difference is the turnover game… and donte’s biggest impact is probably felt here… definitely some early season sample artifacts (mitch 1.8 stls per 36.. isaiah 3.2) but we were 25th in tov% last year and any improvement can lead to a sizeable gain on that side of the ball…
individually tho i think there’s just a lot of unsustainable shooting going around… especially from RJ and IQ so i have a lot of discomfort on what happens to our offense once they start stabilizing but better starting hot than not….
Randle’s issues are not going away (he got blocked again for 19)…. so that 25% 2pt number has and will steadily go up but i have severe doubts it will get over 50% on the season… the other number to watch is his ft% … which has absolutely nothing to do with his ankle… but also relates to his 3pt and midrange shots… definitely need to wait more on those numbers to get an adequate sample but it also needs to get better…
If the Clippers continue to suck do they blow it up, and if so, do we go after PG13 or Kawhi?
Both big injury risks obviously but at some point we’re gonna have to pull the trigger on a star trade and I don’t know who else is going to shake loose in the next few years.
the rebuild is going to take awhile because cade wasn’t the unanimous caliber #1 pick everyone thought he was…. the comfort in groupthink loses again… cade will be fine but detroit needs more than fine…
ausar is a real find tho…. and where they are in the win curve they shouldn’t really be concerned about fit or spacing or whatever.. they just need to find as many difference makers as they can…
nothing is happening with the clippers for awhile… they are probably going to stick with whoever until the absolute end… they are opening their new stadium next year so blowing it up isn’t an option…
This seems backwards to me. We’re experiencing a lot of shooting that is unsustainably BAD. Brunson, Randle, Robinson, and Hart are all substantially off their normal eFG% mark and you’d expect all of those guys to improve quite a bit. I’d think that would more than offset the potential regression to the mean of RJ and Quickley.
We’re not a great shooting team but we’re probably not “29th in eFG%” bad.
Speaking about the Rangers, I’m amazed by how Laviolette changed their approach to faceoffs and how a team that for years has been bad at that is now a force when the puck drops…
considering kevin knox and where he was picked and considering who was picked behind him… and considering who was also playing on the same team and very very obviously better than him… with no hindsight necessary….
was kevin knox the worst knick draft pick ever?
i dont think it’s close!
“If the Clippers continue to suck do they blow it up, and if so, do we go after PG13 or Kawhi?
Both big injury risks obviously but at some point we’re gonna have to pull the trigger on a star trade and I don’t know who else is going to shake loose in the next few years.”
It’s a pretty big if. I know they have been a mess since acquiring Harden, but that will get better once he gets back into shape and they figure it out. But I do think that there will be some tension because of PG13 and Kawhi both having player options. It would be insanity to give them max extensions, so it becomes a question of how much they would be willing to compromise to stay with a team that has almost no shot of winning a championship?
No one knows what Kawhi is thinking, so I wouldn’t venture a guess as to what he decides to do, barring an insane supermax offer from the Clips. If he DOES become available and is reasonably healthy, then you have to at least kick the tires.
Sasser & Duren have looked pretty good for Detroit so far
Harden is still a productive player, but I’m not so sure he added as much value to that Clippers team as he would somewhere else.
The 76ers look good. Once I saw how good Maxey looked the first couple of games, I knew they were going to be very good despite losing Harden. Embiid is the #1, Maxey was clearly breaking out into a legit #2 and Harris is a solid #3. After that all you need are some role players and depth. Maybe they aren’t quite deep enough yet, but they have a few vets that will help and will probably add more before the deadline.
The Knicks are outperforming my fears so far. When RJ is shooting well it changes his efficiency, the efficiency of the team, and also makes it a bit easier for everyone else. He’s not going to keep shooting like this, but as long as he’s competent it’s going to help. I love the way Quickley is playing also. We needed a couple of players to take a noticeable step forward and we seem to have exactly that.
i think there’s good reason for those percentages to be more sticky than the former… considering they are all bad because they are shooting badly near the rim … rim shots are less luck based than say… 3pt’ers or midrange shots…. and it’s a factor that EVERYONE has similar issues… it means we are getting a lot more resistance at the rim than normal…
all that can change.. and yes percentages aren’t going to suck this bad… but do you expect those to be exactly the same or better than last year? remains to be seen.. but i think probably not without big changes/adjustments… and there’s some variance on tipped balls to consider so there’s obviously SOME luck involved.. but i think the majority of it is something strategic and organic that won’t change much without serious adjustments….
and yes it can change… every team adjusts things throughout the season… good players adapt… and so that’s how you tell you have a good player…. they have diverse enough skillsets to adjust to their environment…. brunson likely has other things in his bag to goto if his floater game is getting contested more… but everyone else has giant question marks if their rim opportunities are getting denied…
we’ll just have to see where things end up….
Never believed in Cade. College numbers just weren’t good enough to justify the hype.
Ausar somehow has a 46% ts%. Not sure how I feel about that.
Overall, I feel very good about how the team looks. The shape of their performance is a little different than I expected but overall they kind of are what we thought they were.
Yeah, the Pistons have what might be an intractable issue which is that Cade Cunningham just might be the worst player selected in the top 6 of the draft in which they took him #1 overall. That doesn’t have to be a death knell if you recognize it quickly and pivot, but they seem pretty dedicated to building the team around him. That usually comes with a lot of money too.
It can work out if he has a…*gulp* RJ Barrett-esque late-early career leap, but I think it’s insane they’re marginalizing Ivey nominally for Cade’s sake.
Just for the record, RJ is having a much better year than Zion Williamson so far and Morant is still not even playing.
I’d be shocked if the Clippers open their new arena in the first year of a rebuild. I know their big 2/3 are free agents, but they all stand to get more from the Clippers than they’d get from anyone else so I think they’ll work it out. It might not be the most rational choice, but I’m pretty certain they at least give it one year in the new arena.
Chicago on the other hand is a total mess, so they might go full firesale. We’ve talked a lot about LaVine, but a DeRozan rental would be a little interesting no? Before anyone yells at me, this comes with all the obvious caveats about the extremely limited price we should be willing to pay for rentals.
But if we can sustain a top 5-7 net rating, it’d be fun to add a guy like him.
Apologies for the barrage, but does anyone else feel like Quickley’s season is flying under the radar? RJ has understandably gotten most of the attention because, well, it’s something of a surprise that he’s playing well, but IQ is averaging 23/6/5 per-36 with a .611 TS% and leading the team in BPM.
There’ll definitely be some regression in his floater-range and mid-range percentages, but we shouldn’t discount the possibility that he’s simply one of the best players in the NBA from those areas such that the regression won’t be as swift as you expect from most players.
I get the rationale(s) behind not starting him and don’t think it’s an outrageous decision, but at a certain point you just have to give this guy every single minute he can handle.
I agree on the Bulls. They are an obvious candidate to blow it up. They looked good when Lonzo was defending at a high level, running the offense, and hitting 3s. But Lonzo’s injury derailed any chance they had to be good in this cycle. They should just totally blow it up and try to get some assets for a rebuild while they still can.
I’ve been the one pushing hardest for Quickley to start since before the season even started, but I’ve softened my position. The reason I wanted him starting was that RJ has been a weak link on both sides of the ball. So why not start Quickley at SG, move Grimes to SF, and move RJ to the bench? That would have theoretically improved the offense, defense, and spacing in the starting lineup and maybe even helped RJ’s efficiency playing against bench players. But now that RJ is playing so well, my complaint is more about Quickley’s minutes than whether he’s starting or coming off the bench. We can revisit this again as we see more of RJ.
It might not be fair to overweight the playoffs but in those 11 games were unfathomably bad in eFG% and through 9 now we look exactly the same.
If the strat narrative (which is what I’m calling the idea that teams are copying the adjustments made against us in the playoffs) is accurate, we might actually be this bad. It has been 20 games now.
On the other hand… Julius Randle was legitimately injured for all 20 of those games… it’s entirely possible he rounds into form and this all goes away.
I don’t have any sense of where it’s heading, though, so I’m not making a call. I’m just going to sit back, watch, and hope.
(And one thing I hope to see is IQ replacing Grimes in the starting lineup ASAP. That could be a big difference maker.)
The public perception of IQ is a bit of a mystery.
I honestly think he is the best player on the team right now and it might not be all that close. I don’t think that’s a general view, even if he is an obvious fan favorite.
I can’t really explain the minute allocation other than in a conspiratorial way, like Thibs and the FO have decided to manage the hype around him, to keep his value down.
Which is crazy talk. But he is playing great like he generally does. It’s hard to understand why he isn’t getting all he can eat.
It might not have been outrageous two weeks ago but both IQ (with his stellar play) and Grimes (with his ghost impression) are making it look that way now.
We’re not too far away from Elfriid Payton starting over Derrick Rose with these two.
Next five road games:
0:5 – Fire Thibs and/or Trade everyone
1:4 – Poor Outcome
2:3 – Baseline
3:2 – Exceed Expectations
4:1 – Outstanding Outcome
5:0 – Championship Level
I’m going with 4:1
yeah Max…imagine that…practicing face offs actually matters…
I still don’t believe what RJ is doing but if he keeps doing it…this is a different club….it’s like he took some better decision making pill laced with a sharpshooter elixir…
“Just for the record, RJ is having a much better year than Zion Williamson so far and Morant is still not even playing.”
I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that this will be my favorite line from this thread.
I haven’t been a fan of replacing Grimes with Quickley in the starting lineup because we already have Brunson, Randle, and RJ as high usage scorers in the starting lineup. I’m not sure how much adding Quickley to that group actually helps the offense. I think it would mostly just shift the usage around a bit. As long as Grimes defends at a high level, makes some plays and hits opens 3s I think we are OK with him starting. Of course, if he can do more when he has a good matchup or the play calls for it, that’s even better. Quickley for RJ makes more sense because we’d be swapping scorers, but like I just said, with RJ playing so well I’ve gone silent on that rant for awhile.
I’m not out on Cade, he’s been inconsistent but there’s a lot to be excited about. I can see him being similar to RJ in that it will take some time to figure it out.
Manu came off the bench for multiple Spurs championships. He played over 30mpg only twice in his career.
IQ is fine off the bench. He should get 4-5 more minutes than he currently does, but there’s no reason to start him. There’s still only one ball and I suspect he’s not a significantly better midrange shooter than Chris Paul.
If anything, Grimes should continue starting but with reduced minutes for him and/or Hart and/or DDV
Neither seems like a top 10 player anymore, and they’re old. Pass on both.
RJ’s shot seems much more fluid and low variability (trademarked by ptmilo) than previously. Maybe he really fixed it.
I think that as long as Thibs is willing to finish games with IQ, like Manu used to do for the Spurs, I’m fine with the way things are. Let him torch bench lineups and keep him at the end of games when we need more options offensively.
Cade actually played pretty well after the all-star break his rookie year. The main issue for him on offense was his 3pt shot, but he’s an 80+% FT shooter if that means anything and he gets to the line pretty well. The defense is terrible but is that etched in stone or is he just not physically ready for the NBA?
RJ is not going to shoot 50% from 3 and IQ is not going to shoot 60% on his non-rim attempts…. they both barely have 100 shot attempts total so way too soon to draw any conclusions on those kinds of shot attempts which are going to take awhile to stabilize… i’d be a lot more encouraged in fact if they shot a bit lower on those….
brunson and randle by comparison have 150+ attempts…
I’m fine with Grimes starting. I think we’re getting a bit carried away when we start making comparisons to Manu, but the concept of having him finish games after leading the bench mob for the first 3 quarters is pretty sound. This way he’s not starting as 3rd or 4th fiddle and rather hits the ground immediately as the #1 guy. Seems pretty ideal to me, at least for now.
I don’t care too much about start vs. bench but I do think the way they’re using IQ right now just puts too low a ceiling on his minutes. He’s not getting into most games until there’s ~4 minutes left in the first quarter which obviously puts a hard cap on his minutes in the low 30s and that’s only with two very long stints; realistically that’s not how Thibs is going to use him most games and so his season high in minutes is 28, which is just clearly too low.
If you look at last season it’s a lot of the same story, and only his stint in the starting lineup dragged his overall minute average up to a reasonable level (14 of his 15 highest minute games were as a starter). I don’t think they need to make him a starter necessarily, they could just have him check in several minutes earlier but they do need to start thinking of him as a guy who should be in the high 20s in minutes every night and in the mid-30s on nights when he has it going.
Thibs and Knicks priority is to win games and not to maximize IQs potential, trade or his free agent value. Thibs gives him the greenlight to shoot every time down the court in his current role. Maybe its his sweet spot and his efficiency declines with higher usage.
As a fan, I don’t care how much money he makes or how many minutes he plays…if Leon resigns him for $60M, its better than $100M which is better than $135M. Fans will never know the salary/extension negotiation details, – so its silly to speculate or worry. Just don’t lose him for nothing and we’re good.
I think there’s a fair case that IQ gets more minutes at Grimes’ expense. No matter, though. It’s early, we’re healthy, and there are some grueling stretches coming up where Brunson is going to need some breathers. IQ will get his.
Clips are removing Bones Hyland from their rotation. Familiar story by now.
https://theathletic.com/5058281/2023/11/13/pistons-cade-cunningham-bulls/?redirected=1&access_token=11195730
This article from The Athletic touches on Cade and the challenges he has faced thus far this year:
i was gonna write something, but – you all have it rolling along smoothly today 🙂
names are just names but – every since seeing pulp fiction like 4 times in the theater – i so much wanted to name a child julien/julius/jules…just so as i could call them jewels…
i’m encouraged for this evening – not to say i think we’ll win, i think we are going to compete HARD this game…
i think that because we “potentially” can send 5 or 6 guys a night at a team, that will play hard…
oh yeah, that’s what i was really thinking (i just made everything else up right now) – getting ready to make the switch to raw freeze dried food for the dog…my thought was – shit, things go real wrong, not a bad thing to have a few bags of those around the house…
yeah, that’s what i was really thinking about…i just had no one else to tell it to…thank you…
Interesting we have to go on the road to play the Celtics on a back to back. I see the agenda.
Cunningham has 3k minutes in the NBA and he’s sucked the whole time and the only thing he’s improved is is FTr. He might just be bad.
I wholeheartedly disagree. This isn’t like adding Bradley Beal to Kevin Durant and Devon Booker. Our offense sucks. Putting our best offensive player with the other good offensive players is going to help.
hi darules, i hope yourself and the family are all fine…
i have a question please…if you were to pick an avatar for your self – what would it be?
i find myself reading your posts a bunch – not that i don’t read it all (i usually do 😮 ), it’s nice though to visually queue (fuck you for being so persistent livia) on an avatar – even cooler if it tells a thing about a person…
hopefully i’m not being weird…
Our offense is up to 15th, we have a good team that is hidden by a tough schedule and whatever the fuck was going on with Julius at the start of the year.
We’re not doing that, though.
In close games… he sat the final 7 minutes against the Clips, he sat the final 6 minutes vs the Bucks, he sat the final 5 minutes vs the Hawks.
He did play down the stretch vs Cleveland (when RJ was out) and against Boston in the opener.
It’s still early, but so far Thibs prefers to both start and finish close games without Quickley.
I should have clarified… our shooting sucks. Our offense is surprisingly good for a team that can’t shoot.
“Cunningham has 3k minutes in the NBA and he’s sucked the whole time”
As I pointed out, this isn’t really true true. As a 20yo rookie he had a good stretch after the all-star break. His TS was only .530 (which it took Jrue Holiday 8 years to reach and was about what DeMar Derozan averaged for his entire Raptors career, but I digress…) but otherwise he was pretty impressive…21pts, 5.7 rebs, 6.5 assists, 30% usage.
But hey, this is KB, where RJ Barrett was given up for dead at age 21. So sure, Cade might just be bad. Or he might just be good. We’ll see.
Pretty useless comparison given how the league average TS% has skyrocketed. Both Holiday and DeRozan had a significantly higher TS+ as rookies than Cade has ever mustered.
That’s not to say Cade is doomed, but he hasn’t even hit RJ Barrett’s career-high 94 TS+. I don’t think it’s ever going to happen for him as a primary scorer.
I love how the hot takes about the NBA are flying right now. How many seasons will it take before folks learn that the first 20 or so games are like an extended preseason period? None of the early season results mean all that much until teams have been around the league a bit, lineups settle in, and there is ample film for effective game-planning. For now, teams are either figuring it out, or taking advantage of other teams figuring it out.
Case in point: Last year the Jazz started off 10-3 but went 27-42 after that and finished the season at 37-45. Meanwhile the Lakers started off 2-10 and then went 42-29 on their way to the conference finals.
Hey geo, I’m glad you’re reading my posts! I’ll think of an avatar.
ts+ was never a good metric and i always had a huge problem with folks using it…. this isn’t like baseball where the ball dimensions and field dynamics heavily influence the run scoring environment… whether the ball goes in the hoop is totally up to the player.. the rise in ts% is heavily influenced by people taking and hitting more 3s along with the rise ftr…
the absolute numbers are more telling than ts+…. derozan absolutely improved his shooting a HUGE deal even tho his ts+ barely moved from below and above average…. where they fall relative to the league is beyond what a player can control…. and rj barrett is on his way to proving that you can absolutely improve hugely on a poor nominal rates by improving in absolute terms in his shooting….
ts+.. and hell even ts% overall …. is not a good forward looking metric… it does absolutely tell you something about a player right now.. but a lot of that is so noisy that it has very little bearing on what that player will become in the future…. you’re sort of looking at what rj is doing as proof that burying guys with low ts+ is very very premature….
I agree that TS+ doesn’t do much as a forward looking metric. Projecting future production requires a much more granular breakdown of a players’ strengths and weaknesses.
I was just talking about how productive Cade Cunningham has been, which TS+ does in fact shed light on.
I disagree that TS+ isn’t useful just because the rules and/or dimensions of the court don’t change. When the offensive rating a team needs to succeed in the NBA goes up, the TS% a player needs to hit to be productive goes up with it. This is quite simple, and is the reason Cade’s 22.5 PPG with a 50% TS aren’t good now even though they would’ve been dynamite in 1960.
“Pretty useless comparison given how the league average TS% has skyrocketed. Both Holiday and DeRozan had a significantly higher TS+ as rookies than Cade has ever mustered.
That’s not to say Cade is doomed, but he hasn’t even hit RJ Barrett’s career-high 94 TS+. I don’t think it’s ever going to happen for him as a primary scorer.”
This is interesting, coming from someone who essentially wrote off RJ two years ago…seems now like maybe that was a bit premature, no?
I seem to recall that you have often cited the strong link between teenage FT% (Cade shot 85% in college and is at 85% as a pro) and “eventual” 3pt% as a pro. Since Cade is literally 23 games removed from his rookie season and is coming off of a serious leg injury, maybe we should cut him some slack and assume that his 3pt shot will eventually come around?
I hear you on Beal. I agree it would help. It’s the degree I question.
Ultimately, I think Grimes is going to very efficient on low usage. So some of what Quickley would do as a starter would just replace what Grimes would do without a gain in efficiency. The rest of his usage would come from what Brunson, Randle and RJ are doing. He will probably be more efficient than them as a group, but shifting shots from Brunson to Quickley is probably not adding much and the extent of the gain from shifting a few shots from Randle and RJ depends on what they do the rest of the way. I’m not sure what to expect from either.
IMO, you generally don’t need 4 scorers on the court, especially since spacing is our problem and Grimes already creates space with his quick release.
Now if we were talking about adding Quickley and replacing the RJ we saw last year, imo that would make a huge difference because we’d getting better spacing and replacing high usage/low efficiency with high usage/high efficiency.
Speaking of early season hot takes (which I thoroughly enjoy), this via an Athletic bit is a stupendous takedown of someone we all love and respect:
https://twitter.com/yungmustard23/status/1723162048618434895?s=46&t=e7I8PbVWq4zfBeCX2NrI8w
If we have to wait 20 games to say anything is meaningful in this NBA season, which seems highly reasonable, we should have to wait 40 games before deciding anything has changed with RJ.
I pray it has though, in the non-religious sort of way.
You need to stop doing this thing where you pretend I said something, because you would prefer to argue against the fake thing instead of anything I have actually said.
I have made it painstakingly clear every time this has come up that I have not written off RJ Barrett, would not trade him in a salary dump, and while I struggle to envision his role on a contender I do think he’ll become a useful player to some extent.
It took me 30 seconds to find this thread, from almost exactly two years ago in fact, in which I say RJ has shown “a lot of really good signs” despite not being productive in a vacuum. Maybe do the same before you purport to quote someone.
Again, is this supposed to be a response to anything I have actually said, or a response to something you’re pretending I said so you can dunk on the fake thing? The only projection I made is that it’s not going to happen for Cade as “primary scorer,” which is similar to what I have said about RJ and I stand by it in both cases.
With Houston playing so well you have ask is Alperen Şengün a budding superstar C?
lol
I think we know his 3p% will decline. But even if you recalculate his TS% using a more normalized 3p% in the 35% range, he’s still being mildly more efficient than he was due to his improved FT shooting (which is something he supposedly worked on).
His decision making also looks better.
I feel fairly confident he’s taken a step forward. He’s very unlikely to be as good as he looks so far, but it still may be a clear step up.
Let’s hope!
Scratch that, taking that post down because my first one went through, but I fear deleting the post entirely because apparently that can have consequences…
you can totally pray to an object of “worship”, not just to a deity/deities…
i see RJ’s performance this season more as found money we spent 4 years looking for…
not to be like all white mediterranean folks look alike, he kind of reminded me of pau though…
Sengun is an offensive maestro and has been pretty much since day 1, though obviously he’s gotten even better. The question with him has always been whether he can stay on the court defensively as a 6’9″ pure center.
The very early returns this season indicate he’s figured some things out on that end, and also that he’s reaching “figure the defense out later” level good on offense anyway.
This Rockets team is…fascinating. There’s probably some offensive regression coming, definitely for Dillon Brooks anyway, but nothing looks truly kooky right now. Maybe I’ll write some fan fiction wherein they have a roster crunch and we steal Tari Eason for a second round pick.
I will die before I admit Dillon Brooks is a good offensive player
Well, if you asked LeBron or Steph, I think they’d say he’s an extremely offensive player
@geo:
“names are just names but – every since seeing pulp fiction like 4 times in the theater – i so much wanted to name a child julien/julius/jules…just so as i could call them jewels…”
Why wouldn’t you just name a child Jewels so that you could call them Jewels? Seems like the easier, more straightforward path, eh?
d-mar – you never miss!
I will say re RJ, his on-off numbers this season are absolutely stellar. Even a skeptic like me has to take notice.
I agree with your principles but I don’t think the final picture would look like this. You see it as swapping usage from one iso guy to another. I see it as the solution to an iso-heavy offense.
The best Knicks offense of my lifetime involved two PGs: Ray Felton and either Pablo Prigioni or Jason Kidd. I’m imagining that with Brunson and IQ, while Randle and RJ play poor man’s Melo and JR.
What I love about adding IQ to the starters is the fact that between him, Brunson, Randle, and RJ, everyone on the floor can handle the ball. I don’t see it as four scorers, as see it as a potentially beautiful motion offense. I imagine Brunson getting trapped and then IQ running a two-man game with Randle or RJ on the other side of the floor and that just being unstoppable with a man adavantage. Then I imagine Brunson never getting trapped because the alternative is so deadly.
There’s so much potential.
Jokic 13-26 36 points, 21 boards and 11 assists
Sengun 9-18 23 points, 8 boards and 5 assists
that’s some real master vs apprentice shit
I remember how obvious it was that the FO wanted Maxey in the 2020 draft. IQ is a hell of a consolation prize, though. And I’d be fascinated to see how Quickley did if they were to swap teams and/or usage levels.
Berman Formerly of the Post trying to stir the pot regarding Zion and the Knicks: https://twitter.com/NYPost_Berman/status/1724197657558581543
Go get Zion.
^^^^^^^^^^^^
No, thank you.