Knicks Morning News (2023.11.17)

“If Zach LaVine gets traded, his representatives would prefer somewhere other than the Knicks, a source tells Stefan Bondy of The New York Post.”

Why do people say stupid things like this?

In all honestly, the Bulls would have attach picks for me to take LaVine. And if they did, he’d be our scorer off the bench. Show me any evidence he makes a team better. The team is almost always worse when he’s on the court. A couple of years, specific lineups, a certain coach could be noise. His record is not noise. He can score, but he’s not an impact player unless you are trying to tank.

It’s becoming clear that if we want to make a star trade, we’ll need to gut the roster

I have to disagree. IMO, the prices paid for Gobert and Spida have distorted people’s view on how much draft capital it takes to land stars or really solid players.

We have 4 of our own picks, a bunch of potential pick swaps, and Fournier’s contract to include in a deal before we even get to young players and the 4 protected picks from other teams. To be honest, I think we have enough to pull off a star trade and another upgrade and still have a solid team.

The problem is not our assets (though I agree I wish we had even more). The problem is a target that is both available and makes sense given our current team and needs.

I know I’m beating a dead horse, but a guy like OG playing SF/PF would immediately make us a top defense in the league, give us more length at wing, take care of the backup PF need, fit on offense, and would not totally deplete our assets.

But even if it’s not OG, the issue is not assets. IMO it’s targets. We need a player that makes the team better now and long term and addresses current needs.

It just seems inevitable that we run into the same issues in the playoffs as the Dame-McCollum Blazers or even the current Spida-Garland Cavs.

We have been on the same page with regard to Spida since the beginning.

His strategy never made sense and everyone except maybe 3 people knew it.

And a couple of serious basketball podcasters, a couple of competent TV basket analysts, and a couple of GMs that spoke off the record that all keep saying what a great position we are in asset wise.

last year we averaged 9.3 rim assists per 100, just a little below average. this number was the same with mitch or ihart. we also took about 30pct of our shots at the rim and hit a solid 65pct of them in both cases

this year, with ihart on we have taken 30pct of our shots at the rim, hitting a weak 60pct of them. on the hand we have averaged a strong 11.2 rim assists per 100.

with mitch on, we have taken 25% of our shots at the rim and hit an amazing 49.7% of them. in those minutes, we’ve averaged a mere 5.1 rim assists per 100, a similarly outlier rate.

All of that seems to argue the spacing is worse with Mitch – which of course make perfect sense.

When we first signed I-Hart one of the hopes was that he could stretch the floor a bit and create more space for Randle and RJ. It didn’t work out that way, but he has more range than Mitch.

Robert Randolph
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Detroit asked for Fournier and Duece on the call 🤔
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almost all of whom praised the incineration and we now realize that a bunch of people who thought about it for 5 seconds shouldn’t be treated as authorities on a subject….

lmao

Some of the better basketball minds available to the public understood the moves at the time, thought they were reasonable value, understood the strategy, and still love the position the Knicks are in now.

You disagree so that makes them idiots even though we still haven’t finished building the team using those excess picks?

Personally, I’m not a fan of ever giving up even pennies on the dollar in a trade like we did, but I understood the reasoning at the time and have absolutely no issue with the team we have now or its asset position.

I’m certainly not obsessing about losing a few cents on a dollar when we don’t even know how it’s all going to end yet.

My one and only consistent complaint about this team has been the spacing issues and the Randle/RJ fit if Mitch is the C. I don’t like that combination and would like to move on from Randle.

they’re not idiots for disagreeing with me… time have proved them idiots… we have a whole archive filled with really really dumb takes on that night…

I think my main take was that if you don’t see a player in the draft that fits what you need at the salary you will have to pay no one is holding a gun to your head requiring that you make a selection at that time. I still believe that. I think rolling it out or trading down are also good options.

We know their plan A is still to trade those picks for an upgrade (unfinished business). Plan B will be to draft players at a later date that they actually like. And to be clear, I’m sure if they liked someone they would have drafted him. We know they have made efforts to consolidate picks to move up to get someone they liked.

You know, it’s possible to be happy with where the team is and still speculate about further improvements. It’s also fair game to discuss where the front office has succeeded and where it has failed.

100% agree

But imo it’s not reasonable to declare something a failure while it’s still in progress. We have all our own picks, plenty of potential swaps, the Fournier contract, STILL HAVE 4 EXCESS picks, and a lot of good young players that teams around the league would be interested in. So let’s enjoy the team and see what they can do with the assets before having a panic attack because it didn’t happen yet. That’s all I am saying.

Unless someone demonstrates they can consistently outperform the draft (like 10 or more years at a minimum) you almost have to assume any one or two years results is mostly luck/noise. That’s why I rarely comment on any of the draft threads when people are focused on evaluating prospects. I know I’m not going to outperform people that have been scouting these players for many years, met them, worked them out etc… Anything I’m right about is just as likely to have been luck as anything else.