The Daily Thread is down for a while while Mike cooks up a new script so posting this to save some scrolling.
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The Daily Thread is down for a while while Mike cooks up a new script so posting this to save some scrolling.
48 replies on “Fresh Thread”
Repost:
They definitely need to do something about the reward for success being a tougher schedule. There are plenty of options in that regard that should be easy enough.
Besides that though, I think it’s been a real success so far. You have to remember that to casual fans the pre-Christmas NBA is basically spring training. The IST has already managed to provide some extra intrigue and we haven’t even hit the knockout stage yet.
I mean, anything that makes players take the regular season more seriously is good. I had no problem with guys trying to win by 30 instead of 25 last night–the NBA should strive to put on a good product for 48 minutes a night. This is why I also support a complete decoupling of record and draft position. We should have a system that incentivizes as much high-quality basketball as possible.
As long as we have foul-and-pray at the end of close games, the NBA will have a shitty product.
The NBA just needs a slight uptick, or even a numbers neutral selling point to up the next TV contract a few million dollars.
It’s not about the fans, it’s about selling the tournament to TV execs.
On a side note, MLB could absolutely use some mid-season tournament… and end season tournament… and early season tournament.
They should randomly scramble teams for 20 games a year or have the all-stars do a fantasy draft and play with those teams for half a season.
Baseball is $#@!-ing boring.
Winner of the IST gets one more home game during the playoffs (in any round of their choosing).
Imagine Knicks were the lower seed in the ECF but won the IST and could take back home court advantage in a series.
That could actually be a HUGE motivation for teams.
I’m here for fresh threads
There could be a couple things that would increase competition.
The winner gets an extra pick between the 1st and 2nd rounds.
The winner gets to add 5-8 wins to their record for playoff seeding, maybe the runners-up add 2-3 wins.
The winning team pays no luxury tax and has their bill reset.
The conference of the winning team gets home-court advantage in the finals.
Also, I think the IST should be where the NBA can further test the Elam ending. It would make the games feel quite different and hopefully start gaining real traction.
Here’s a fun one.
Winning team gets to amnesty one contract!
Winning team gets another full mid level exception to use next off season regardless of their cap space situation.
it’s not so much the next tv contract… the nfl is selling bespoke packages to places like Amazon.. they just did a whole black friday special… the IST games are already being sold on hbo max i believe… so it’s really upping the value of a portion of games.. making gourmet soup out of old halibut as bourdain would put it….
i for one think the quality of games are already pretty high.. at least at the start of the season… people used to think.. or maybe they still do… that teams don’t really try that hard but the beginning of the season is where all the excitement usually is… players and fans still have hope… defense is actually pretty good.. you get some really good high quality games…
where the quality dramatically suffers is towards the end of the season… where theo pinson is able to post triple doubles against an nba lineup…. where teams start tanking in earnest… players sit out with minor injuries…. stars resting for the playoffs…. it’s glorified gleague games for half of the nba after the allstar break….
if quality of play is the focus they need to focus on that problem.. the beginning of the season already has a number of developing storylines… like the wolves.. rockets… and magic… and we hardly hear about it because we’re talking about how this all works…
don’t like it…
I do think all of these ideas would have to be in addition to the cash prize. I do think for the players the money is the main thing they care about and honestly, I like that some of the lesser paid players could in theory get a really nice bonus.
The incentives that are franchise based probably wouldn’t matter to the players. Maybe some playoff seeding would for some teams, but I think a lot of things that would create fan or front office/ownership interest wouldn’t really matter to the guys on the court.
DRed,
Yeah that is why I think any of these extra incentives would have to be in addition to the cash prize.
I was just listening to NBA radio and it was pointed out that having starters playing in a blowout, not only to keep from losing but to pile up points, is dangerous. Can you imagine if Brunson blew out his knee in the last 2 minutes of a 30+point blowout because they needed a few more points to make the cut?
It seems that there needs to be a better mechanism for tiebreaking…something that has no connection to point totals.
To be fair, Thibs would’ve played our starters till the 2min mark regardless
These guys have played so much basketball in their lives. I don’t think a couple extra games matters. Unless someone gets hurt. In which case it makes all the difference.
I like the way you put that. You are such a wordsmith at times. It’s neat when you sneak that stuff in to your writing.
Definitely agree with your point reference the early storyline of the season being the success of the rockets/wolves/magic.
This tourney is drowning out all other stuff.
One of the things the nba does best is promote it’s players. This thing is something else.
It’s okay. I’m just generally not a big fan though of having something sold to me in such an aggressive manner.
I thought you were generally pro Thibs?
Personally, I didn’t mind watching IQ and Brunson pile on garbage time points against Charlotte bc fuck them for playing Mile Bridges.
Mike Breen missed it initially when bridges went to the line for a foul shot.
Breen thought the crowd was booing julius for his apathetic defense. After a moment though he recalled the domestic violence situation.
The last 2 games of the group stage was alot of fun, I found myself alot more invested in it than I anticipated. Fuck the tougher schedule too, bring on the Bucks!
There’s not much of a point in trying to project our chances in a single game, but the Bucks generally are looking pretty shaky and that’s relevant to us for a few reasons.
Without any other information, if you told me we have the very lightly protected 2025 1RP of the team with the 9th best SRS that also happens to be one of the oldest teams in the league, I’d consider that a pretty nice thing to have.
In the early going, Dame’s been more good than great. Hard to imagine more time will help them with that, and they obviously don’t have much room to maneuver this offseason.
The 2022 draft haul probably won’t age well because Cade Cunningham is a tank weapon the likes of which we’ve never seen and the Wizards are the Wizards, but the Bucks might hand us #17 or so. Would be cool.
I saw on Twitter that if the season ended today Knicks would have picks 20, 23, 31 and 38 in the 2024 draft. Let’s guess how many of them are incinerated!
I agree with this.
In fact, I said the same thing maybe a year ago. I threw out a unique insight a few times and noticed the same point show up in an article in one of the major NY papers right after I said it here. Coincidence is always a possibility, but it didn’t feel like it at the time. It may happen to other people here too, but I wouldn’t notice.
Everyone laughed at me at the time, but there are a LOT of good discussions here. I suspect a few people covering the Knicks probably read this board. If they come across something they can use, they do some research, put their own spin on it, and run with it.
I think it’s almost a mortal lock they make at least one 1st round pick this year unless they come up with a star deal. This team has some holes (like a backup PF and 3rd string PG) that could potentially be filled via draft. I think they planned on drafting someone last year even after they used a pick to get Hart, but then Dallas fell apart and tanked.
If Toronto is worried, they may be willing to move him.
Remember what I said after the Bucks traded for Dame…
There’s a good chance this doesn’t work out and Giannis ends up on the trading block anyway.
Of course I had no idea their coach would be so amenable to this plan. They probably fire him and turn it around under a new guy, but still if I’m Giannis I’m not exactly thrilled with the idea of finishing my career with these guys.
People say that Gyalwa Rinpoche is not only a knick’s fan but follows the convo flow here at KB to achieve true enlightenment.
Totally understandable.
https://twitter.com/KnicksMuse/status/1729884269466845379
Is upward pick incineration a thing?
Scotto says multiple teams are monitoring Quickley hoping for a trade by the deadline. Also says he wanted 25 mil per while the Knicks came in around 18 mil.
Sigh.
1. That’s just for this year’s draft.
2. We have Scott Perry to thank for it.
My bad… I thought the Detroit pick was from the Marcus Morris trade… get ready for me to heap some praise on Leon… The same night that he incinerated the 19th pick, he traded the 21st pick (Dallas) for the 25th pick (Grimes) and Detroit’s 2024 2nd round pick, which is probably going to be the first pick in the second round this year. That turned out to be a great trade!
Now he just has to not incinerate the 31st pick.
Are we really supposed to know who the fuck Gyalwa Rinpoche is without having to look him or her up? I thought the name was an anagram or something.
Dude, don’t rail at us about your own ignorance of Tibetan Buddhism.
I actually met the Dalai Lama once. He was giggly.
I guess if you see the words stealth parity or sneak parity in the press about the IST the author might have been reading this blog.
“Dude, don’t rail at us about your own ignorance of Tibetan Buddhism.”
LOL 🙂
I bet if you tried to trade that collection of picks for the actual 5th pick the other team would just hang up on you.
Did anyone else not know that Dante Exum was back in the league and playing ~11 minutes per game off the bench for the Mavs? The last time he was seen was three seasons ago when he logged six games for Cleveland. In his previous eight seasons in the NBA prior to this one, he averaged ~31 games per season (5.7 ppg career average on .407 shooting from the field). Talk about rising from the ashes.
Just taking a cursory look, I don’t think the tankathon rankings consider replacement player values.
I’d rather have 1 great player than 3-4 good players.
Tankathon also references the 82games research which is incredibly old and probably outdated at this point.
that’s pretty cute that you guys think we’re going to make a pick in this draft let alone 4….
The Bucks have shown some weakness, but they are still 13-5 and only a game out of being in 1st place in the entire association. They’ve won 8 out of their last 10 and Lillard has returned to being a top-10 player over the past few weeks. No victory laps yet, Dude Who Now Has His Shit Together.
We made 4 picks a few years ago. And I agree with Strat that they expected to make a pick last year and didn’t believe a team left by Doncic would fail to make the playoffs.
Two seasons then he asks out. That’s my call.
You’re right about this year, though. They’re gonna be fine. I think the coach was a terrible mistake, though.
Since my Windows PC died, I spent a good chunk of the day re-writing the knicks news bot in bash/python from powershell. We’ll know tomorrow morning if it worked.
Fingers crossed.
Alan, if you get the chance please shake Spencer Ackerman’s hand for me: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/henry-kissinger-war-criminal-dead-1234804748/
Thanks Mike K, as always!
I think it’s inevitable that we go to Vegas. Mitch’s rebounding just hit the jackpot!
OReb%: 20.6 DReb% 20.6 TReb% 20.6
On KFS, there was a brief discussion of Kyle Kuzma as a possible trade target. I’m not a fan per se, his diva side is kind of a turn-off and he isn’t as good of a shooter as his rep would suggest. But his physical/skill profile suggests that he’d be a perfect replacement for Grimes, and his length would give us some versatility that we currently don’t have against larger lineups. He’s on a relatively team-friendly descending contract. Obviously the right price is paramount. Thoughts?
Jokic casually dropping a 32/10/15 with 0 turnovers game. I’ve seen a few better basketball players in my life but the list is getting shorter
It’s been a rocky start for him for sure, but presumably coaches can develop their games too. Also, it seems that if the Bucks trade for a cheap defensive 2 guard, their major weakness is cured. A Caruso/Thybulle/Okogie/Payton II/Delon Wright/Kenrich Williams type player. (It’s maybe even a perfect storm situation where Frank Ntilikina finally makes strat’s long bet pay off:)