Knicks Morning News (2023.12.06)

New York @ Milwaukee L 122-146 Record 12-8 (Ousted from the Silver Cup)

Whoa, whoa, whoa, what a rough drubbing…

When a team has a nice winning record and good fancy stats, a loss on the road in early december against a true contender (albeit in a supposed “playoffs atmosphere”) shouldn’t be counted as a sign of future gloom & doom.

At the same time, there were trends during this 20-game span that yesterday’s loss reinforced and I think it’s time to talk about them.

But first a quick look at the game:

– The Bucks scored 37-38-37-34. They shot 23-38 (60.5%) from 3 and 32-53 (60.3%) from 2.
You can blame Katz for jinxing it with his piece about the Knicks’ defense.
Or you can watch the previous 19 games to count the open looks we conceded every game, the ugliness of our transition defense and hope our guys will work on it.
Or you can believe that before the game we were the first defense in the league and this was just a random misstep.
(I know exactly what every one of you will do 😉 )

– “Three-pointers” is the name of the modern game (alas), it’s the big equalizer, the secret weapon which makes every lead uncertain, no matter how wide.
And still we took only 3 3-points shots in the 3rd quarter (when the Bucks broke the game open) and 23 total in the game.

– We wasted probably the best half in Julius’ career. He hit all his shots, basically never forced his isos, let the game come to him and even put up a solid defensive effort (transition D notwithstanding).
The second half, despite the numbers, wasn’t even close, especially on defense (he started jogging back leisurely basically from the first play of the 3rd). Still he was by far our best player yesterday (even with his team-worst -21).

– Mitch had a stinker, RJ’s back to being RJ, JB was barely average for his standards, IQ didn’t make an impact from the bench and Grimes is a ghost (and the last victim of corneritis).
We need everyone to be razor sharp to compete against the cream of the league, it wasn’t the right night. Make no drama go back to work.

Next: friday night in Boston, with a chance to raise our head or to mumble about how great is to reach the final bracket of the Silver Cup.

GRADES:

Brunson C-
A couple of promising early shots, then his 3-point shot was badly missed and he clanked 3 FTs. Hounded by Beasley, he looked somewhat out of sort.

Randle A-
All-NBA* all-around first half (25 points, 9-9 FG, 4 AST), regression was expected, offensive numbers remained sneaky solid (16 points, 5-10, 1 AST), defense collapsed. 6 rebounds are a surprise.

* Honest question on the subject: does anyone think he was the Knicks best player last year?

Barrett C+
More REBs than Randle (8) is a news in itself. The bad news is that he’s still battling migraines, yikes.

Robinson D
Lopez schooled him well beyond the numbers.

Grimes D
I’m very happy he finally showed some balls pouting about his role and Thibs (well known) double standards.
Now Quentin it’s time to show them on the floor, one shot in 19 minutes is too little for a statue, let alone for a “shooting” guard.
Quick note about his defense in the game: to me he was solid enough one-on-one but had issues fighting over screens.

Quickley C-
It looks like the backstory about his contract demands has sapped his strenght.
For a coincedence ( 😉 ) since that news broke Thibs has kept his minutes under-20 for three straight games…

Hart B
Hard to question him, he did all the things a glue guy must do.

Hartenstein B
In my opinion he had a far better game than Mitch, Thibs disagreed.

Donte DiVincenzo C
Not every night is career night. But I still love him.

Thibs C
IQ, DDV, Grimes all under-20 minutes in the game, I’m the only one who’s surprised?
Packing the paint is the mantra, Unfortunately the Bucks are 43-77 (55.8%) from three in 2 games against us. Just bad luck?

MY TAKES AT THE 20-GAMES MARK

12-8 Isn’t something to sneeze at, more or less what I expected before the season (+1 game difference at this point of the season), so I’m happy so far.

Still, when I look closer, some shine goes away:

– We focused on continuity, roster and coaching familiarity. Those gave us an advantage in the early goings but it’s an edge that lose its value with every game played.
The two games against the Bucks (who changed their skin jumping from JRue to Dame) are an example: the 6th game of the season was very close, yesterday it wasn’t.
Friday’s game in Boston is another litmus test: the Celts are a different team with JRue and KP instead of Smart and RWIII (and Brogdon), we were hosed by the refs in a close game in the season opener, we kept pace until halftime in the 10th game of the season before losing clearly, we’ll see what friday will bring.

– Our record is good.
At the same time, we’re 10-0 against sub .500 teams* and 2-8 against the rest**.
Does that mean we’re a bad team?

My answer is no.
We’re good team, a tier or two below the contenders.
We can beat anyone in a single game, we can probably beat or play close in a 7-games series with most of the League, we can’t win a 7-game series with the true cream of the crop***.

To me we’re a 7-12 ranking team, and we’re playoffs bound (I’ll be disappointd if we wouldn’t).

There a many things I’d like to be different (FO’s choices, roster construction, style of play) but personally, I’d take 10 seasons of 44-48 wins with some meaningful games in april and may over the clown show we’ve been for almost 20 years (the Isiah Years, the Phil Years, The Fizdale Years) any day of the week.

But if the target is becoming a contender, then the current team has a ceiling.
To go there we need changes, we need more quality in our starting lineup, we need to trade for better players at the top (our Bench Mob is very very good).

* The 10-0 includes 6-0 against Charlotte (we beat them 3 times, by 22,14 and 24 points, never facing them at full roster), Washington (+21) , San Antonio (+21) and Detroit (currently in a 17-games losing streak, we slip away with a 6-points home win).

** We lost to the the Suns without KD (and starters Beal and Allen) and barely survived the Heat with a hobbled Butler (and already missing Herro and Duncan and with Bam banged up).

*** Assuming both teams are fully healty, injuries easily change the outcome.

– We count on “internal progress” and so far the results are at best mixed:

Mitch’s a good and useful player who can be exposed in matchups (and he’s shooting FTS at a 38.9% clip)

RJ started well then migraines struck and it’s a bad customer. Right now he’s basically back to same-old RJ.

IQ’s progress is evident but continuity still isn’t where he needs to be. He still gonna get a lot of money though.

I like Grimes and I expected a jump from him this year. Thank heaven I never bet on my teams or my players or I should live under a bridge right now…

Deuce’s better than last year but he barely plays, Sims doesn’t play at all.

– Grimes pouted about his role and the way the coach manages him, a week or so after J-Hart said some candid things about his backup-PF role.
Maybe it’s nothing or maybe there something fishy in Denmark.
My take is that trade season is coming…

P.S.
Sorry for the spelling and grammar mistakes, I’m in a hurry today 😀

Back in my younger days we used to throw spontaneous bonfires on the beach in montauk. One time we ended up with 10 girls and 3 dudes. Normally an attractive woman would leave that situation, but the power of the bonfire is special. You’re on the beach, the moon is rising over the ocean, and also you walked like 10 minutes in the sand carrying your heels… so instead of leaving, the girls decided to wage a war with each other over which one of them could get the 3 men who were there. Me and my friend Mike were the fortunate beneficiaries of this. But the third guy, Lucas, somehow ended up alone at sunrise cleaning up the bonfire because he couldn’t close despite having 7 aggressive suitors leftover.

All this is to say that last night was a bonfire on the beach in Montauk, and Quentin Grimes is Lucas.

He belongs next to Fournier in the doghouse.

Knicks are 0-4 vs Boston and Milwaukee, 12-4 vs rest of the NBA.

Honestly, more concerning than the loss is another player complaining about his role and usage.

I’m very happy he finally showed some balls pouting about his role and Thibs (well known) double standards.

I’m a bit torn on this. Both Grimes and Hart have now spoken out about their role in the offense. And Obi did last year, as well. All three had reason to feel aggrieved. After all, our offense looks like something a kindergarten teacher came up with.

But this is what Thibs said after Hart complained:

there really hasn’t been a change [in Hart’s role]. To be honest, his usage is up. He’s handling the ball more. The way he’s being used is not any different than last year. He’s pushing the ball in transition. He hasn’t shot the three as well as he did last year. But he’s open, he can’t hesitate. He’s got to shoot it

I sympathize with their complaint but I side with Thibs here. Shoot the damn ball.

I mentioned last night after the Grimes nonsense, Thibs specifically has mentioned many times in post-game press conferences that guys need to shoot when they’re open. After the Toronto game when asked about DDV he mentioned how he never hesitates to shoot and is always aggressive. After Hart’s complaining he’s been much more aggressive and gone back to looking like his older self, maybe Grimes needs to STFU and pay attention to what his coach is saying and watching how the backup guards play when they’re on the court.

I’m mostly going to repeat what I said last night.

1. Lopez effectively took Mitch out of the game

2. Grimes was a zero on offense even if he played good D. I’m glad he’s frustrated with his role, but it’s on him too. You have to move to get open and you can’t play hot potato on the rare occasions you do get the ball.

3. RJ is more or less being mildly better version of old RJ

4. Despite the great shooting, Randle lead the team with 4 TOs and a -21 on/off. IMO that’s not an accident folks. The shots he takes are going exist whether he’s in the game or not. For him to add value, he has to be MUCH more efficient than the alternatives to make up for the extra TOs, extra lapses on defense, ball stopping, and slower overall play. He shot as well as is humanly possible last night and they still didn’t do better when he was on the court.

If anyone knows where to get the data, I’d like to see what the Knicks average pace is with Randle on and off the court. I think the ability to play fast (on both sides) is something I may be underrating.

It’s time for Thibs to come out of his coma and play Quickley and Brunson together or start DDV instead of Grimes until we make a trade.

Can it be more obvious we can’t have Mitch and Grimes doing nothing and RJ being RJ as our starting lineup?

The gap between us and the Bucks is not as large as it looked. Maybe our 3 point defense wasn’t ideal, but no one is going to shoot like that on a sustainable basis.

All this is to say that last night was a bonfire on the beach in Montauk, and Quentin Grimes is Lucas.

“You know, either you’re an athlete, or you’re not an athlete. Actually I am; I’m an athlete. I just don’t like to get caught up in that stuff, I think it’s superficial.”

I’m mostly going to repeat what I said last night.

strat you finally found your lossless compression algorithm

Grimes shoots when he’s open. The issue with him is that he’s too passive, and when he doesn’t have an open shot he immediately passes the ball back. Like Strat said, he needs to improve his handle, and also he needs to move without the ball a lot, and I mean a lot more.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, I’m going to put a fair amount of the blame here on Leon. You know who your coach is. You know what his offense needs. There are tons of corner 3 specialists out there to be had. Get him what he needs instead of making him force Josh Hart and Obi Tobbin into a role that makes no sense for them.

And while we laugh about redundancy every time DDV has a good game, but it seems like the guard crunch has made Grimes mighty insecure. That’s not unusual if you’re young, haven’t been paid, and you see your employer spend big money on someone who plays your position.

As a kid when I lived in NY we went to Montauk for a weekend and I almost drowned twice, hated water ever since!

If anyone knows where to get the data, I’d like to see what the Knicks average pace is with Randle on and off the court. I think the ability to play fast (on both sides) is something I may be underrating.

I found it. There’s almost no difference. We play very slow either way.

You know, either you’re an athlete, or you’re not an athlete. Actually I am; I’m an athlete. I just don’t like to get caught up in that stuff, I think it’s superficial

A late nomination for 80s sports movies.

If anyone knows where to get the data, I’d like to see what the Knicks average pace is with Randle on and off the court. I think the ability to play fast (on both sides) is something I may be underrating.

i’ll do you one better because all you casuals constantly get pace wrong. the usual pace stats suck because (1) they don’t separate offensive and defensive speed of play (2) they artificially slow pace when you offensive rebounds are higher.

in many cases time to shoot is more useful. how long before the first shot? for example, the knicks are not actually last in average time to shoot. we are 27th, at 12.3 seconds, vs and average of 11.8. but…this is because we are actually a decent transition team. after a made shot or a defensive rebound, we are last again. cry more. (btw, our defensive pace is, in this sense, slower than our offensive pace. teams shoot at 11.9 seconds against us, which is 7th slowest but also close to average. after a made shot or defensive rebound, our defensive pace is average. )

i don’t have on-off time to shoot, but i do have on-off with regular offense-only pace. our offensive pace with randle on is 15.7 seconds, 7th slowest of 394 recorded players (mitch is 2nd at 15.9). with randle off it is 14.7 seconds. our defensive paced with randle on is 14.0 seconds, and 14.6 seconds with randle off.

the biggest “differential” for us on offense is actually jalen, who is 15.9 v 14.3, third biggest delta in the league. that difference would bring us from by slowest offense in the nba but almost a full second to average. players who speed us up, relatively speaking are, ihart, quickley and rj. rj is notable bc he plays so much with the shuffle bunch, but these are also small samples.

first 10 games

pts per 100 off: 111.88
pts per 100 def: 108.23
fg% at rim: 54.04%
freq at rim: 26.11%

next 10 games
pts per 100 off: 119.52
pts per 100 def: 116.16
fg% at rim: 63.14%
freq at rim: 28.72%

i’ll do you one better because all you casuals constantly get pace wrong. the usual pace stats suck because (1) they don’t separate offensive and defensive speed of play (

Below is the data I was looking at. It seems to separate offense and defense and on/off. I was really only interested in offensive pace. I think the ability play fast is probably underrated because not everyone can do it even if the coach wants to play fast. Just as interesting is ball holding and surveying the floor. It often leads to a time crunch and bad shot.

https://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/NYK/2024/on-off/

Randle was -21 because he played the most minutes out of anyone on the team. He played 37 minutes. The next highest minutes total was Brunson at 34 (who had the second lowest +/- at -14.

Randle was the only one who showed up last night. So Brunson gets a pass even though he was 0-5 from 3 point land and 10-22 overall?

By the way, our starting Power Forward averages more assists per game than our starting Point Guard. But hey, it’s cool when Brunson ISO’s all game because he’s little and he looks good doing it.

Last night proved to me that this team will only go so far with Brunson as it’s starting PG. He is not a true PG. He is a huge liability on defense and will never be able to stop the Dame’s of the world. Randle at least can play dudes like Giannis and Tatum to a draw.

I’m joking, of course. I love Brunson. but the double standard is fucking ridiculous. Randle was the only one who showed up last night. If he didn’t play as well as he did in the first half, we would have been hosed even earlier.

strat you can’t use bref for pace for unless you just want the crudest estimate. pbpstats and inpredictable are good tho, check those out.

The best takeaway from last night is that Randle looks to be back to his all-NBA self. That’s four dominant games in a row, the last two against TOR’s length and the Giannis-Lopez combo.
Right now, Randle and Brunson are our best players by a pretty significant margin. But they are several steps below Giannis and Dame. So everything after that is sort of hit-and-miss. Lopez is too much for Mitch, he totally neutralizes him. RJ is not going to be effective when Giannis and Lopez are lurking at the rim, especially if he’s not hitting 3’s. Beasley was an excellent acquisition, he’s who we hoped Grimes would become, a guy who had the footwork to shake loose from 3 and knock shots down.

We probably have a slight edge on the bench, but so long as one of Giannis or Dame is on the court, it doesn’t matter much. Now that Middleton is back and rounding into some kind of shape, and they are building chemistry with Dame vs. a completely different kind of player Jrue, it’s clear that we don’t have answers to the several ways they can beat us when they are healthy beyond hoping they miss a lot.

I’m expecting us to go 0-5 against them, hopefully I’m wrong but they are just a lot better than us. Which is fine for now, but if we want to get to the next level, it’s a huge jump.

There was never much there with Grimes. He’s not as good as Hart, Quickley, Barrett, or DiVincenzo and there’s really no reason at this point he should even be in the rotation.

Strat, criticizing Randle based on his +/- last night is really petty. It seems like you have a deep-seated antipathy towards him, which is understandable given his issues. But come on, he was fucking awesome last night, 41 points on 19 shots should be enough for you to give it a rest for one night, especially on the heels of being named PoTW, and especially ESPECIALLY after you set the pregame bar at “just showing up.”

Yeah lo and behold all the people saying Middleton was washed were wrong. He just…and I know this is a shocker for a lot of people to hear…just needed some time to return to his old self after coming back from the injury.

I know this is a REALLY controversial thing to say here. That athletes, who use their bodies to play sports, aren’t going to play as well when they return from an injury or surgery and that it sometimes takes time for them to recover and return to form.

The Bucks are Celtics are clearly the cream of the crop in the East. Barring injuries, they will be facing each other in the ECF.

We are the next tier down. I think any of the other teams like Philly, Indiana, The Heat, Orlando (we’ll see about them), etc…we can compete with them and beat them in a series.

Strat, criticizing Randle based on his +/- last night is really petty.

It’s not petty in the least. It’s an imperfect but decent measure of empty calories.

Julius Randle is just good enough to not really win with. That’s his niche.

When he’s “on” they often lose and when he’s not fully on, he’s terrible on defense and turns the ball over too much and is otherwise pouty and disengaged. Even when he’s “on” he’s lackluster on defense. Doesn’t work.

It will be interesting to see how Thibs handles the Grimes outburst. I’m guessing that it will be one of two options: keeping him in the starting lineup and running some plays for him, or swapping him out with DDV and seeing if he can be more effective coming off the bench and playing mostly with more willing passers like IQ, JHart and iHart. I personally would opt for door #2.

I’m not sure that Grimes is really a problem – if he’s not producing, we have other players to slot in. Nor, obviously, is Randle a problem, at least when he’s playing like that. Phenomenally efficient, a willing passer, acceptable on D.

But 1) were can’t survive against top tier teams if Brunson isn’t at his best, and

2) I’m pretty concerned at this point that against the best centers (Lopez, Bam, KP) Mitch is totally neutered. If he doesn’t dominate that matchup, it’s a problem.

Plus/minus is crude and noisy, but not so crude and noisy it explains being the worst plus/minus of the starters despite having one of the best shooting nights of his entire career. It screams something else is going on that’s not being captured by boxscore metrics especially when his entire career on/off is telling you the same thing.

It’s simple. I have nothing against Randle.

I defended him against skepticism when we signed him.

I defended him when his stats were down because we had no PG at all and he was asked to do too much.

But imo the reality is his boxscore “stats” overrate his contribution to winning and he doesn’t fit well with Mitch and RJ. IMO, the problem is bad TOs, defensive lapses, ball holding and things like that. Something has to give and IMO it should be Randle.

Not to take away from the great team that Milwaukee is..but they aren’t THAT much better than our Knicks. Giannis deserves credit for playing even harder after he landed on Randle’s foot and still being able to do Giannis things. But let’s be honest here- we were a step slow on defense all night. We definitely shit the bed. The offense was fine even with Brunson missing 3’s and Quickley taking bad shots. Well..it was good enough to beat Milwaukee had we played any real defense. Even Mitch wasn’t his effective self. So once our 3rd quarter demons popped up again, it was easy money for the Bucks. I don’t know whether or not it was rust from not playing since Friday, but we looked like the Pacers on defense. The Bucks are better, but this was a game that we could have won if the team played like normal. The guys’ll regroup and play better on Friday

2) I’m pretty concerned at this point that against the best centers (Lopez, Bam, KP) Mitch is totally neutered. If he doesn’t dominate that matchup, it’s a problem.

If he’s not getting offensive rebounds he’s a zero on offense.

How can that work when Grimes is also currently a zero on offense and RJ is not especially efficient?

That means both Brunson and Randle have to be close to perfect on those nights.

We need more punch in the starting lineup on those nights.

If he’s not getting offensive rebounds he’s a zero on offense.

The whole Moneyball approach has a natural ceiling, which we see every time they play a decent team.

Reboot needed.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, I’m going to put a fair amount of the blame here on Leon.

here’s our minutes distribution again compared to last year:

name 23/22
brunson 35.5/35
randle 35.1/35.5
barrett 29.5/33.9
robinson 29.8/27
hart 28.6/30
quickley 24.2/28.9
grimes 22.9/29.9
hartenstein 17/19.8

Grimes is the biggest loser in the minutes crunch… with Donte in direct competition for his minutes… but everyone on the bench is losing minutes with Donte’s presence… i am actually surprised Grimes has been making noise before quickley considering IQ’s RFA status… but Grimes also isn’t too far behind considering his competition already has a long term deal… people hate losing what they already hav.e.. just signing good players doesn’t come for free….

i also have some nice beachfront property on grimes getting fournier’ed island if anyone is interested… noble’s about to finish furnishing it for everyone but might take a week or so to wrap up…

“It’s not petty in the least. It’s an imperfect but decent measure of empty calories.”

It might be the single most arbitrary in-game box score statistic. Drawing any conclusions from it in a vacuum is dumb.

“Julius Randle is just good enough to not really win with. That’s his niche.”

To win what with? A championship? With him as the centerpiece? Agreed. To win against a team like the Bucks when his 8 rotation mates don’t show up, and they shoot 60% from 3? Also agree.

“When he’s “on” they often lose and when he’s not fully on, he’s terrible on defense and turns the ball over too much and is otherwise pouty and disengaged. Even when he’s “on” he’s lackluster on defense. Doesn’t work.”

So when he’s on and we lose, like we did last night, it has nothing to do with the other 8 guys in the rotation? Like his lackluster defense is the reason that the Bucks shot 60% from 3, while Knicks not named Julius Randle shot 5-21, including Brunson’s 0-5?

Randle had very little to do with why we got blown out last night. Only the most prejudiced, agenda-driven haters would pin this loss on him. If your point is that he wasn’t as good as Giannis last night, that’s fair. But he held his own, which is all I can ask from a guy making the 48th highest salary when he’s going against a 2X MVP and perennial DPoY candidate.

To win what with? A championship? With him as the centerpiece? Agreed.

Then there’s really no need for victory lapping when he has a good offensive night in a blowout loss.

(He doesn’t really fit as a secondary piece on a championship team, either, but that’s a different conversation.)

Plus/minus is crude and noisy, but not so crude and noisy it explains being the worst plus/minus of the starters despite having one of the best shooting nights of his entire career. It screams something else is going on that’s not being captured by boxscore metrics..

Not sure what this means. The Knicks lost by 24 points. He played a team high 37 minutes at -21. The box score metrics showed he scored very efficiently, had a good amount of assists, had a too-high 4 turnovers, and so-so rebounds. The total box score package demonstrated he played well and was accurate. I disagree with Z-man’s interpretation that to use his +/- last night as petty. Rather it is just wrong–his play had nothing to do with why we lost last night.

The Bucks after trading for Lillard were considered favorites to win it all, after a somewhat slow start they’re beginning to play like they were expected to. There’s no need to over analyze last night, arguably the best team in the NBA shot lights out at home. Just move on to the next game which unfortunately is at Boston lol.

“Plus/minus is crude and noisy, but not so crude and noisy it explains being the worst plus/minus of the starters despite having one of the best shooting nights of his entire career. It screams something else is going on that’s not being captured by boxscore metrics especially when his entire career on/off is telling you the same thing.”

This is pure, unadulterated bullshit.

What last night’s plus/minus tells you is that he played the most minutes the players on the floor with him mostly didn’t show up. As great as Randle was, he and Giannis pretty much cancelled each other out. It was up to the rest of the Knicks to outplay the rest of Bucks, and no one else showed up. We got killed in every other matchup.

There have been and will be lots of opportunities to fairly get on Randle’s case. Las night was not one of them.

“Then there’s really no need for victory lapping when he has a good offensive night in a blowout loss.”

Defending him against unfair criticism on a night of an awesome performance is not the same as victory lapping. Is your head up your ass so far that you can’t see the difference?

There have been and will be lots of opportunities to fairly get on Randle’s case. Las night was not one of them.

He’s not good enough to play the role he wants and have his team beat the better teams in the association. That’s the big picture, strategic bottom line.

I don’t see the point in quibbling over what blame is attributed to what players when they inevitably lose those games.

how is it that you guys know and state that you are well aware how noisy +/- stats are yet continue to use it to try and tell us something?

if something is pretty volatile it doesn’t mean you can glean something from a small sample and something bigger in a bigger sample… you can’t glean ANYTHING from a noisy sample…. there’s no signal in a noisy sample… you are looking for sailboats in the clouds…. this shit is fake news… stop it…

Defending him against unfair criticism on a night of an awesome performance is not the same as victory lapping.

The criticism isn’t “unfair.” We’re all just done with him as the centerpiece and we don’t care when he “plays well” in a blowout loss.

He wasn’t “awesome” last night. His team lost by 20+.

Randle got off to a truly miserable start this season but let’s get real, he is one of the better players on the team. In fact, he’s still pretty clearly the second best player on the team.

If your argument is that Julius Randle sucks, then your argument really is that the Knicks suck. If the claim here is that Julius Randle is a loser who only does loser basketball things, then you might want to look in the direction of Leon Rose and Tom Thibodeau, who have executed the vaunted hybrid method by building around this natural born loser.

E’s position here is at least consistent. Strat’s is incoherent. We’re built around a terrible player who does nothing but lose you games, but somehow we’re also doing a fine job of executing the most bestest of all basketball roster building strategies.

Not sure what this means.

What it means is that if you were playing great like the boxscore suggests Randle was last night, all else being equal, the team should have outperformed in your minutes.

Yet the team generally performed better when Randle was off the court last night.

That makes no sense because it’s kind of extreme.

It was probably “mostly” random noise, but when you have a career’s worth of data that looks similar (on/off worse than boxscore stats suggest it should be), you have to start looking at why.

With most players it’s defense.

IMO that’s often the case with Randle too.

In Randle’s case it’s also the extra occasional foolish TO.

Extra TOs are a killer. They often lead to easy baskets and it’s also really tough to be efficient enough as a scorer to make up for extra TOs.

Do I think Randle was bad last night?

NO

I think he wasn’t nearly as good as his boxscore stats suggest he was just as is typically the case.

I’m making the case that he’s the guy we should be trying to move.

“I disagree with Z-man’s interpretation that to use his +/- last night as petty. Rather it is just wrong–his play had nothing to do with why we lost last night.”

We all know how strat and E feel about Randle. I used the term petty because it is purposefully wrong, not simply naive or a faulty interpretation.

“…we don’t care when he “plays well” in a blowout loss.”

Fine. That’s different than not acknowledging that he played well when he plays well. Last night he played well. Full stop.

I assume if TMac was here during his prime he would’ve been labeled a loser since his teams never won a playoff series, at least Randle made it to the 2nd rd last season and will most likely do so again this season.

E’s position here is at least consistent. Strat’s is incoherent. We’re built around a terrible player who does nothing but lose you games, but somehow we’re also doing a fine job of executing the most bestest of all basketball roster building strategies.

The only thing that is incoherent is your description of what I’m saying.

Randle can be a good player, have been worth signing to begin with, not as good as his boxscore stats suggest, a bad fit with RJ and Mitch, and the player we should be trying to move now all at the same time.

We are learning as we get to see areas of Mitch’s and RJ’s game develop (or in this case not develop). So we should adjust. I’ve been saying for awhile now that those 3 guys are a bad fit and one of them has to go. I am simply making the case lately it should be Randle because he’s not as good as he looks from the boxscore. If we replaced him, we would not lose as much as people think and might even improve with a gut that contributes less to the boxscore but fits better.

Thibs must be the greatest coach in history for getting all of these bad players and losers into the 2nd rd of the playoffs last season…

also on the subject of samples… to give an idea how unstable even things like off/def/net rtg are this early in the season…. our ‘top 5’ defense dropped 4 spots to #8 in one game…. and we can expect it to possibly drop further once other numbers start stabilizing but if i had to bet i think we’re still somewhere between 8-12…

the offense has much further to drop…. and going to determine how far we go this season…. randle’s play is encouraging but he along with the rest of the team still has much to prove themselves especially as the schedule gets tougher this month….

We all know how strat and E feel about Randle. I used the term petty because it is purposefully wrong, not simply naive or a faulty interpretation.

You know full well that I know that one of night of plus minus typically means almost nothing. But IMO when you put up a boxscore line that extreme and the team still underperforms when you are on the court it’s evidence of something beyond noise when it’s also part of a long term pattern of underperforming the boxscore. It wasn’t purposely wrong or faulty. It was another example of a long term pattern.

Strat, sorry but you are really full of shit today. Here’s what you said yesterday:

It’s not the playoffs, but I’m looking forward to seeing what Randle can do in a more important game against a tough matchup while he’s healthy and playing well. There are no excuses. If he contributes to winning as much as his boxscore stats suggest, then he has to start showing it before we waste any more playoff runs with the sub par version that shows up half the time and in the playoffs….I’m not expecting Randle to outplay Giannis. I’m expecting him to show up on both sides and play well. He better do that much.

And now you’re saying “Well, he scored 41 points on 19 shots, got Giannis into foul trouble, made some great individual plays on both ends (remember that save to DDV when the game was close? Or that strip of Giannis on a post-up?), but he didn’t do enough because of his plus-minus? Even as you just admitted “You know full well that I know that one of night of plus minus typically means almost nothing.”?

Can we move the goalposts any more than you just did?!

Plus/minus is crude and noisy, but not so crude and noisy it explains being the worst plus/minus of the starters despite having one of the best shooting nights of his entire career. It screams something else is going on that’s not being captured by boxscore metrics..

It’s not petty in the least. It’s an imperfect but decent measure of empty calories.

you guys are out your minds. randle was ridiculously good last night. don’t be fooled by the fact that the impossibly noisy short sample results happened to confirmed your priors. it’s hard to express in words how quantitatively worthless single game plus minus is. if you start with some analog take about a game, add to it a useful take about long run rapm, you still add infinitesimally little information by knowing the single game plus minus. don’t let the numbers beat you. they live for that shit.

Randle is actually a BETTER player than his boxscore stats suggest, because we’re asking him to be a do-it-all forward like a prime LeBron James instead of using him the way he should be used, which is as a third option. He leads the team in assists because we ask him to be a primary initiator on offense. Gee, what do you know, it also turns out he turns the ball over a lot. Fuck that guy for not being LeBron James!

How’d the team play when they froze Randle out the last six minutes of the Miami Cup game at the Garden?

He leads the team in assists because we ask him to be a primary initiator on offense.

Is he being asked to do that, or does he just do it? I’m not sure that’s clear.

Thibs just kisses his ass no matter what he does, so we can’t read anything into anything just based on that.

Of all the days to have another Randle debate not sure after last night’s game is an appropriate time.

This is like the inverse of the Frank Ntilikina argument, employing the same tactic of using a statistic the same way an alcoholic uses a lamppost: for support, not illumination.

Frank has good on/off numbers so he’s a net winning player. Randle has bad on/off numbers so he’s a net losing player. No noise in there. No siree. Nothing more to see here folks, my preconceived narrative is validated by a screamingly noisy statistic. Something something horses.

Brunson shoots inefficiently and goes 0-5 from 3.
RJ has another inefficient shooting night.
Mitch gets thoroughly outplayed by Lopez.
IQ does very little off the bench.

RANDLE SUCKS!

He leads the team in assists because we ask him to be a primary initiator on offense.

Because our “Point Guard” isn’t really a point guard but an undersized combo guard.

i think if you put randle as a third option it could actually work out well but you still need a coach that can help put him in those better opportunities…

in thibs’ offense he would just play the RJ role which is just doing what he does now but iso’ing slightly less… or maybe not even less at all who knows….

We’ve been a top offense for the last year and a quarter, we’ll be fine on offense. Maybe we don’t finish as high this year because we started so putrid, but it isn’t anything to worry about.

“Is he being asked to do that, or does he just do it? I’m not sure that’s clear.

Thibs just kisses his ass no matter what he does, so we can’t read anything into anything just based on that.”

You’re talking about RJ Barrett, right?

Is he being asked to do that, or does he just do it? I’m not sure that’s clear.

Have you watched the New York Knicks play basketball? They favor a style of play called “isolation” and also like to employ lineups in which 40% of the players shoot the ball only as a last resort.

LeBron James instead of using him the way he should be used, which is as a third option.

Yeah, but that’s still the same problem it’s been since he got here:

If he’s just going to be a third option, there are far better candidates for that role than him.

The Randle Problem has always been that he’s not good enough for the role he’s assumed/wants on the one hand, and that on the other hand putting him in the right role puts him behind better candidates in the association pecking order.

Which means the entire project simply … can’t work.

Nothing has changed on that front since he got here. His history here goes back to David Fizdale. Which is why the “Oh, Julius played great last night!!!” stuff is so meh inducing.

Trying to make hay out of Randle’s raw +/- last night might be the worst use of statistics in the history of Knickerblogger. He was the only reason any of us even kept the game in the second half. Anyone engaging in this is providing a service for the rest of us, as we now know we can safely ignore any of their Randle opinions moving forward. I believe this is why the phrase “hate boner” exists.

Are there larger questions about whether Randle can be a high-usage player on a contender? Obviously, but why the hell are we worried about those before we reach the point where we’re a contender but for Julius Randle? Right now we’re trying to win as many games as possible and Randle helps us do that. Quibble with that goal if you want, but that is above Julius Randle’s head.

Re: Grimes, I’m pretty much in full “suck it up buttercup” mode. He is in the exact same starting lineup he was in last year when he established himself as an intriguing young player. I don’t buy that we’re doing anything new from an Xs and Os perspective that is further marginalizing him. He never seems interested in doing anything particularly threatening with the ball. Maybe he just can’t, in which case he has no business complaining about his role. Maybe he can, in which case he should go ahead and do those things. There’s an obvious need for additional shot creation that’s all his to seize.

Strat, sorry but you are really full of shit today. Here’s what you said yesterday:

I have no problem saying “he showed up with the best version of himself” last night.

And as usual, he made a couple boneheaded TOs and missed a few defensive assignments that lessened his contribution relative to the more obvious boxscore numbers and it’s reflected to some degree in his on/off.

All the Randle criticism stuff is so meh inducing…

Right now we’re trying to win as many games as possible and Randle helps us do that.

Assuming this unproven assertion is true, it’s true in large measure because they’ve decided to field a roster with no backup 4.

They played perfectly fine without him in the Miami game. Yes, I know — “small sample” yadda yadda.

And as usual, he made a couple boneheaded TOs and missed a few defensive assignments that lessened his contribution relative to the more obvious boxscore numbers and it’s reflected to some degree in his on/off.

Indisputable.

Brunson shoots inefficiently and goes 0-5 from 3.
RJ has another inefficient shooting night.
Mitch gets thoroughly outplayed by Lopez.
IQ does very little off the bench.

RANDLE SUCKS!

When I say Randle sucks let me know.

It’s all you guys that are moving the goal post compared to what I am saying.

I’m saying Randle is a bad fit and whatever his boxscore says his contribution to winning is, it’s actually less than that as reflected by his career on/off relative to his boxscore. And I’m also giving reasons why I think that’s the case, but there could others that I am not seeing

He played one of his greatest games as a Knick in terms of shooting last night and we still underpeformed while he was on the court. That’s actually pretty hard to do even with a noisy stat.

There is no take more vapid than “we should trade Randle.” It’s unfalsifiable, because if you aren’t willing to say who and/or what we should get in return, and whether it’s actually realistic to get those players or things, you’re just saying “hot take: Leon Rose should make a move that improves the team.” Wow, you shouldn’t give out these opinions for free!

No one thinks Randle is untouchable. Not even close. We should trade him tomorrow if there’s a deal that makes sense.

Name the damn deal that makes sense from a short, medium, or long-term perspective. At least try, otherwise you are wasting precious Knickerblogger bandwith.

Randle is actually a BETTER player than his boxscore stats suggest, because we’re asking him to be a do-it-all forward like a prime LeBron James instead of using him the way he should be used, which is as a third option.

think you are kind of wrong that randle would be a great third option. one the quandaries with randle as a player is that there are tons of guys with much inferior skill levels who might nonetheless be a more useful tertiary option on a good team.

he’s a guy that provides some spacing relative to his skill set, but as a pure spacer isn’t great. he is a plus passer in many contexts but a below average passer in a quick offensive flow, which is the far more common action when you’re not a 1 or 2. he’s movement without the ball is subpar. his defense can be a liability. these are the things you need most from your third option. teams good enough to have a creator — and that’s what he’s best at — like randle as their third option usually don’t benefit that much from having their third option actually create, except in fairly niche situations — and you are giving up too much for that benefit relative to guys who have far less ability to create wins for mediocre teams and thus cost less.

guys like randle, or derozan, or mark aguirre, or even laMarcus aldridge, they are good and useful players in many contexts but they lose a lot of relative value when they aren’t a focal point.

All you have to look at in last night’s box score is 7 for 23 and 23 for 38. Those were the 3pt numbers for the Knicks and Bucks. That’s the game right there.

“In fact, he’s still pretty clearly the second best player on the team.”

I think there is very little daylight between Randle and Brunson in this regard. They are both somewhere around the 10th best players at their respective positions, with an enormous gap between them and the top 2-3 players.

Last night it wasn’t Randle or Brunson that got exposed. It’s our #3-#9 players, a couple of whom have been called our best or second best players here on KB, and about one of whom it was posited “I don’t care about his flaws.”

This team needs better players at the starting 2, 3, and 5 than we have right now. Even if you replaced Randle and Brunson with Giannis and Lillard, this is not a championship supporting cast.

Name the damn deal that makes sense from a short, medium, or long-term perspective. At least try, otherwise you are wasting precious Knickerblogger bandwith.

They need to get out of the Moneyball, iso business and into the modern NBA. That involves trading Randle. He doesn’t have a lot of market value, unfortunately, given his niche game. They’re going to have to bite the bullet on that delta.

Some people are just completely committed to abusing a practically meaningless statistic and they are just going to continue to do that.

But I’ll play though. RJ Barrett is crushing it in on/off this year. Has the best on/off numbers on the team. Is he a secretly brilliant player or is that primarily noise? I mean, he has to be better than Jalen Brunson, amirite? It couldn’t possibly at all have anything to do with the other players with whom he shares the floor, correct?

Why aren’t we talking more about the transcendent, all-NBA level play and smashing breakout season of our superstar guard RJ Barrett?

Assuming this unproven assertion is true, it’s true in large measure because they’ve decided to field a roster with no backup 4.

Utter crock. We’d be better without Julius Randle if we had a…backup 4? Is this backup 4 Giannis Antetokounmpo?

Again, I know it’s fun to spout of the vaguest possible takes because you can never be verifiably wrong, but it doesn’t contribute anything to the discussion. Name the gettable “backup 4” that renders our roster better sans Randle.

He played one of his greatest games as a Knick in terms of shooting last night and we still underpeformed while he was on the court. That’s actually pretty hard to do even with a noisy stat.

Incredibly easy to do, incredibly common phenomenon.

What did it say about Steph Curry when he put up 50-9-6 on 60/64/100 shooting splits in an 11-point loss and was a -14 for the game?

How about when he put up another 50 with an .840 TS%, and was -11? Is Steph Curry an empty calories guy?

It took me 15 seconds to find these examples, and there are many, many more because what you’re trying to do here is completely useless.

Frank has good on/off numbers so he’s a net winning player. Randle has bad on/off numbers so he’s a net losing player. No noise in there.

I’ll explain it again.

Maybe after 100 times it will make sense.

1. Frank contributes more to winning than his obvious boxscore numbers as reflected by raw on/off relative to boxscore and explained by defense, ball movement, ability to switch etc…

2. Randle contributes less to winning than his obvious boxscore numbers as reflected by raw on/off relative to boxscore and explained by extra TOs, defensive lapses, ball holding etc…

3. Randle contributes massively more to winning than Frank.

All three of those can and imo are true.

There are explanations for the exact on/off numbers like how good the team was, whether the player played with the starters or bench and how good each was, who the substitutes were, what lineups he played in, were the lineups appropriate for his skillset etc… I try to look at those things.

But just as a general rule, on/off over period of years will give you a pretty good clue as to who is better or worse than the boxscore indicates without getting into more complicated adjusted plus minus that often use the boxscore and can’t get into specific lineup issues.

They need to get out of the Moneyball, iso business and into the modern NBA. That involves trading Randle.

I’m sorry I ever accused you of spouting off unfalsifiable vapidness

This team needs better players at the starting 2, 3, and 5 than we have right now.

You can win with Barrett as a starting wing, although he can certainly be improved on. Grimes has no business anywhere near the starting lineup. Mitch is the third rail around here and it’s obvious that a lot of Z-Man’s commentary about Randle is his way of passively aggressively going after Mitch. Beyond my Moneyball comments, I’m not getting involved in that.

But I’ll play though. RJ Barrett is crushing it in on/off this year. Has the best on/off numbers on the team. Is he a secretly brilliant player or is that primarily noise?

He was playing very well early in the season and had a very high on/off. It started to drop as soon as he started playing more ordinary. His overall career on/off is horrible and imo reflects that he was bad on defense also.

This year’s sample is still way too small to know how much reflects noise and how much reflects actual better overall play this year, but I think he’s playing better overall this year, if not lately.

think you are kind of wrong that randle would be a great third option. one the quandaries with randle as a player is that there are tons of guys with much inferior skill levels who might nonetheless be a more useful tertiary option on a good team.

I do think this is valid. One can reasonably argue that Randle’s skillset places him in an awkward space where he’s not adaptable enough to be a 3rd/4th option, but not talented enough to be a 2nd option. Someone like Aaron Gordon is, I think, less “talented” than Randle, but probably has more championship equity because if you build a good roster his fit is seamless.

But this specific team has not reached a place where you can discuss the Gordon/Randle tradeoff. This specific team would be worse with Aaron Gordon, I am nearly certain of that.

Again, if/when we get to a place where Randle should be relegated to 3rd/4th option on the merits, this becomes a relevant discussion. For now, it’s academic.

You can win with Barrett as a starting wing

You can win what, exactly?

I do think this is valid. One can reasonably argue that Randle’s skillset places him in an awkward space where he’s not adaptable enough to be a 3rd/4th option, but not talented enough to be a 2nd option.

Then we all agree. While we might not agree on this part, it’s been this way since Fiz.

But this specific team has not reached a place where you can discuss the Gordon/Randle tradeoff. This specific team would be worse with Aaron Gordon, I am nearly certain of that.

They’re going to have to get “worse” before they get better. Unless they get lucky, which is possible.

But just as a general rule, on/off over period of years will give you a pretty good clue as to who is better or worse than the boxscore indicates without getting into more complicated adjusted plus minus that often use the boxscore and can’t get into specific lineup issues.

See, this is where your argument disintegrates entirely. Bigger sample sizes don’t bring more clarity to on/off numbers, because each time you add to the sample, you are also adding more noise along with signal.

Signal-to-noise ratio is an important concept in music recording. Let’s say I am recording a guitar, and the amplifier is not loud enough when I record it. I have to compensate for that by either turning up the microphone preamp quite a bit, or by turning the volume fader up all the way after the guitar is recorded. The result is that I’m introducing noise: you will be hearing a lot of hiss along with your guitar tone.

If I repeat this process twenty times, I’m just increasing the noise every time. The guitar isn’t getting any louder relative to the hiss, because each iteration of it just adds more hiss. Twenty tracks of noisy, badly recorded guitar summed together don’t sound any better or provide any more clarity than one track of it.

I don’t really agree, pt. Even if Randle’s role change post-Brunson is not all that pronounced, it is enough to suggest that he can be better in a tertiary role than what you are laying out. His rebounding and physicality are both elite. His defense is more inconsistent than a chronic liability. His passing is complicated by his role and might be better with more spacing. Put him on a 5-out team like the Celts with KP, Tatum, Brown and White on the floor with him (Tatum slides to the 3 and Brown to the 2) and he’d be just fine as a #3-ish option.

Of the examples you mentioned, Mark Aguirre is an interesting analog. Did he really lose any value on the Pistons? They won two rings with him in precisely that role, which he took over from Adrian Dantley.

“I’ll explain it again. 2+2=5

Maybe after 100 times it will make sense.”

‘It’s not petty in the least. It’s an imperfect but decent measure of empty calories.’

Meanwhile, our stud Grimes had the second best plus-minus on the team, right behind Sims. so there, all you haters!

“You can win with Barrett as a starting wing, although he can certainly be improved on. Grimes has no business anywhere near the starting lineup. Mitch is the third rail around here and it’s obvious that a lot of Z-Man’s commentary about Randle is his way of passively aggressively going after Mitch. Beyond my Moneyball comments, I’m not getting involved in that.”

I’m not as out on Barrett as others, but he is currently a bottom-10 (at best) starting wing in the NBA, and probably bottom 5 among playoff-level teams.

I don’t need to be passive aggressive about Mitch. He’s is a top-15 starting C on a great contract, arguably as high as 8th or so. But he is woefully overmatched by the best bigs and puts even more pressure on the other starters to be diverse scorers, and is therefore not a good fit for a team that starts the likes of RJ and Grimes. Given the ease of finding guys like Walker Kessler, Mark Williams, Isiah Hartenstein, etc., he might be the guy to cash in for a better fit with Brunson and Randle. Ironically, KP might have been the guy to go after, although lo and behold, he’s hurt again!

Like Obi, Grimes (and Mitch) would be better off with a guy like Hali running the show (to be fair, who wouldn’t be?). Both guys are not well-suited to excel in a stagnant offense. He’s just a particularly bad fit with the offense and personnel on this team. I do think he could be a valuable bench piece.

Yeah, using plus/minus to draw a general conclusion in any one game is about as bad as declaring that a pitcher in MLB who give up up 2 runs in a single inning of work sucks. Now, if the guy continues to give up runs at a high rate over more and more innings, okay, you may have something.

Randle’s just a crappy defender most of the time, but he’s one of the two most essential guys on the team. I still wonder how often his defensive lapses are mental (pouting or just general confusion with the scheme) or physical, esp. on nights when he has to carry the load on offense and has to expend so much energy doing so. Last night seems to suggest the latter, but by itself probably does not explain the -21.

The Bucks were on fire.

and is therefore not a good fit for a team that starts the likes of RJ and Grimes.

He really isn’t that good a fit for any team in the modern NBA. He’s a lane clogger nonpareil.

“is about as bad as declaring that a pitcher in MLB who give up up 2 runs in a single inning of work sucks”

In this case it would be like a guy who hit 4 home runs in 5 at-bats being blamed for his team losing 20-4.

IQ has struggled the last few games, but I don’t like that he is averaging close to the same amount of minutes he did in his second season. 24 minutes this year, and 23 his second season. He is almost 5 minutes less than last year. I feel like IQ needs to play 28-32 each game.

There is no take more vapid than “we should trade Randle.” It’s unfalsifiable, because if you aren’t willing to say who and/or what we should get in return, and whether it’s actually realistic to get those players or things, you’re just saying “hot take: Leon Rose should make a move that improves the team.” Wow, you shouldn’t give out these opinions for free!

This is the crux of the problem.

1. There haven’t even been rumors the Knicks have considered trading Randle over the last 2-3 years. Perry was just on a podcast saying they should keep him. If you want to improve the team, you first have to realize which player you should be trying to move and then see what the market is. I don’t know what the market is, but this is my best guess.

2. Randle is a 2 time all star, 2 time all nba player, on what should be considered an attractive salary for someone like that, and just had one of the best shooting nights of his career against the Bucks on national TV in a meaningful game.

A. If Leon Rose got on the phone this morning and said, “I’ll give you Randle and Fournier for player X”.

Opposing GM: Click

B. If Leon Rose got on the phone this morning and said, “I’ll give you Randle, Fournier, and an unprotected 1st rounder for player X”.

Opposing GM: “Leon, we both know Randle is a ball stopper, gives you inconsistent effort on defense, makes several bad decisions with the ball every night, and is subject to mood swings. He’s not as good as his accolades or stats. You’ll have to do better than that”.

Call the next GM

Go to A.

Yeah, using plus/minus to draw a general conclusion in any one game is about as bad as declaring that a pitcher in MLB who give up up 2 runs in a single inning of work sucks.

Except nobody did that.

I referred to a single game where he had perhaps the greatest shooting performance of his career along with an entire career of similar evidence suggesting his contribution to winning is less than it looks.

Somehow the “ball stopper” leads the team in assists.

If you haven’t noticed, ball stopping is a big part of what we do around here. We’re not going to kick ball stopping to the curb.

This team’s strategy is to iso the opponent to death. That is the plan. It’s just SO ODD to me that a power forward who leads the team in assists gets called out for “ball stopping” when that is the actual, literal style of play the coach prefers.

Of the examples you mentioned, Mark Aguirre is an interesting analog. Did he really lose any value on the Pistons?

the things is, aguirre replaced dantley, who was an even more extreme version of that sort of player. those pistons are also a sort of hard cases make bad law team in many ways, able to run both the microwave and aguirre out there as luxury understudies. i don’t even think aguirre started in the second playoff run iirc. but i am also definitely not saying it is impossible for a player like randle to be useful on a contender.

If you can’t complain about Thibs and Rose because they aren’t going anywhere and you can’t complain about Randle because he’s just doing what Thibs and Rose want … that kinda asphyxiates the potential topics of conversation, does it not?

I don’t think you need a “pure point-guard” in 2023. Brunson being considered a combo guard is fine. I think you just need a few ball handlers and movement. You don’t need someone who just dribbles and passes. I think Brunson fits what the modern game has become.

I referred to a single game where he had perhaps the greatest shooting performance of his career along with an entire career of similar evidence suggesting his contribution to winning is less than it looks.

start what you’re failing to concede is that the plus/minus from the single game itself is not any evidence whatever. it is like losing on a powerball ticket and proclaiming you have helped confirm your hypothesis that powerball is a bad investment. i can point to many many games where julius has shitty numbers but a great plus minus. they are similarly *not* contra evidence. just imagine confirmation bias is a mainstream media conspiracy.

See, this is where your argument disintegrates entirely. Bigger sample sizes don’t bring more clarity to on/off numbers, because each time you add to the sample, you are also adding more noise along with signal.

I disagree.

The more years you look at, the greater variety of teams, coaches, teammates, lineups and assignments the player has typically had. That tends to even out all the things that can distort smaller samples.

IMO, good analysis will also always require a subjective component where you notice things like injury years, young player development, older player decline, how good the team was, starter or bench, and other year specific things that may have caused an aberration. But if you do that imo on/off helps you get at the things that are NOT in the boxscore.

Adjusted on/off was supposed to do that much better, but these days most of the adjusted on/off models have become black boxes that still have some noise. Some try to remove the noise by also incorporating boxscore data (which improves the overall results but misses some of the very things I would be looking for). Some use guesstimates of player quality typically based on boxscore. They can’t get at lineup and role analysis etc…

If you are looking for one number that gets you the answer, IMO it doesn’t exist and it 100% certainly isn’t on/off. But imo on/off helps get at what’s not in the boxscore if you are willing to take the time to dig a little.

Sounds like the Soto deal is almost done. I will miss King but I am more excited about the Yankees than I have been in a long time.

Call the next GM

Go to A.

This beautifully written drama did not do any of the things a non-vapid “trade Randle” take should do, such as “say what players and/or picks he feasibly can and should be traded for.”

If you can’t complain about Thibs and Rose because they aren’t going anywhere and you can’t complain about Randle because he’s just doing what Thibs and Rose want … that kinda asphyxiates the potential topics of conversation, does it not?

Who is policing complaints about any of these guys? We complain about all of them, all the time.

“Julius Randle’s raw +/- was negative in one of the best games any Knick has had this season” is just a very dump complaint.

See, this is where your argument disintegrates entirely. Bigger sample sizes don’t bring more clarity to on/off numbers, because each time you add to the sample, you are also adding more noise along with signal.

this is not true

It’s unfalsifiable, because if you aren’t willing to say who and/or what we should get in return, and whether it’s actually realistic to get those players or things, you’re just saying “hot take: Leon Rose should make a move that improves the team.”

He should be shopped and the best offer accepted that fits into the broader strategic goal of modernizing and rightfitting the offense and defense. There might not even be immediate improvement from the trade.

“He really isn’t that good a fit for any team in the modern NBA. He’s a lane clogger nonpareil.”

This is an overstatement. He is elite at a couple of things, and if you have the right team around him he’s a fine fit. But he’s certainly not untouchable, and is actually a very valuable trade chip.

The point being that it’s a lot easier to find a replacement for Mitch’s role, or to modify that role altogether after replacing, than it is to replace Randle or Brunson or to modify their roles after replacing them. Elite iso scorers with other important skills are very hard to come by, especially at their salaries. Extremely low-usage shot-blocking offensive rebounding bigs are much easier to find.

So I would be fine with trading Mitch plus a non-starter plus a pick or two for a more effective starting 2 or 3, and worry about filling the starting 5-spot last. Hartenstein would do just fine as an interim. So would someone available with this year’s draft picks.

‘If you can’t complain about Thibs and Rose because they aren’t going anywhere and you can’t complain about Randle because he’s just doing what Thibs and Rose want … that kinda asphyxiates the potential topics of conversation, does it not?’

Only if you believe ‘complain’ and ‘conversation’ are synonyms.

Kind of glad you’re not my life partner…

He is elite at a couple of things, and if you have the right team around him he’s a fine fit.

No one should do anything trying to fit a team around Mitch. Or Randle. They’re guys you get rid of because they don’t fit, not guys you work to fit things around.

Can’t really be any more clear than that. (And as to Randle, even though it’s a disputatious bunch, there’s actually general Knickerblogger agreement about this. There isn’t as to Mitch.)

The only thing Randle’s +/- last night tells us is that Milwaukee hit a ton of threes when he was on the court.

In fact, given how many threes they hit, I’d argue that the expected +/- for Randle was approximately -40. The fact that he was only -15 shows you how great he actually played.

So I would be fine with trading Mitch plus a non-starter plus a pick or two for a more effective starting 2 or 3

That package isn’t going to bring that in.

“If you can’t complain about Thibs and Rose because they aren’t going anywhere and you can’t complain about Randle because he’s just doing what Thibs and Rose want … that kinda asphyxiates the potential topics of conversation, does it not?”

Right, because the conversation grinds to a screeching halt when you predictably disappear after a Knicks win.

Right, because the conversation grinds to a screeching halt when you predictably disappear after a Knicks win.

You mean like after the Miami win when everyone was ecstatic that they didn’t give Julius the ball at all the entire last six minutes and still performed great?

“That package isn’t going to bring that in.”

Certainly not if Reese Bobby is the opposing GM…

He should be shopped and the best offer accepted that fits into the broader strategic goal of modernizing and rightfitting the offense and defense.

Again, “we should trade Randle for a package that benefits us” does not advance any discussion in anyway. No one thinks trading Randle is a non-starter, so by definition everyone agrees. Yes, the Knicks should try to get better.

Who and/or what should we trade him for, and how would this serve the goal of “modernizing” the offense and defense?

strat what you’re failing to concede is that the plus/minus from the single game itself is not any evidence whatever.

I stated above “You know full well that I know that one of night of plus minus typically means almost nothing”

IMO it might mean something (albeit very small) when you had the greatest shooting performance of your career on solid usage. That should have heavily biased your time on the floor positively instead of negatively.

At the very least you should ask, WTF happened?

Well, imo what happened was mostly noise (the Bucks shot well even when Randle had nothing to do with it) and the same kind of bad TOs, ball holding, and missed defensive assignments (mostly in the 2nd half) biasing it in the negative direction that have typically contributed to Randle’s career of weak on/off.

And to be clear, I never said he had a bad game. He had close to a peak Randle game. IMO, peak Randle is almost never as good as it looks.

Why do we have to always find something to complain about when we are finally rooting for a good team?

TNFH I’ve been refreshing my Twitter feed all day waiting for official confirmation that the Soto trade has been finalized lol.

Wow, I picked the wrong day to get up late.

I thought most of the talk around here would be about how our league-leading defense is all smoke and mirrors, but I guess we’ll be serving up the Randle Special all week…

I really don’t want to get into Randle, who played very well, but this stood out:

guys like randle, or derozan, or mark aguirre, or even laMarcus aldridge, they are good and useful players in many contexts but they lose a lot of relative value when they aren’t a focal point.

Randle’s definitely a “jack of all trades, master of none” type, but that doesn’t have to be a bad thing. I still think he flourishes as a 3rd or 4th option who has the ability to lead the team in scoring on any random night. That’s a good player at his price.

As for Grimes, it seems like he’s being used exactly as Thibs wants him to be used. No one is running plays for Grimes. He’s the outlet guy who puts up threes when RJ/Randle/Brunson get cut off on drives. Oh, and he plays excellent defense on the opponent’s best guard.

So what’s the problem? Well, our guys were simply feasting inside in the first half, and everyone, including Grimes, was either passing up threes or missing their threes. So there was not really a need to pass out to Grimes in this game.

I’ve been hard on Thibs in the past, but I really don’t blame him this time. It’s actually kind of funny because the Lakers now seem to be using Reddish in the “Grimes” role… and they love him for it. He’s been defending like a madman (when not injured) but has been consistently putting up 5 and 3 point games.

Honestly, I think the league, which was already a “stars” league, is leaning even more towards a “scorers plus everyone else” model, with the everyone else providing needed 3pt shooting/passing/defense.

To sum up, it’s just interesting to see… I’m not guessing if it’s the right way to play or not or how good we are. But I don’t think Thibs is wrong on this and hope Grimes gets his shot back soon.

Thanks, Max! Love the re-cap.

All the Randle criticism stuff is so meh inducing…

Yes. Randle can be infuriating, but last night was not his fault at all. Using the eye test or whatever stats one wishes to quote, Julius effectively played (All World) Giannis to a draw. We were lucky to have him.

Unfortunately, not one of Brunson, Grimes, IQ, Devo, or RJ could hit a three pointer to save their lives — 3/18 — and all of them (plus Mitch) were (predictably?) outclassed by better players. Brunson usually plays better, so we can set that aside, maybe, but one of those other guys must (regularly) give us an advantage. Some here think/hope one guy may yet step up. Many more do not think this is likely. The readiness is all.

As for the complaints about playing time, Grimes and Hart are prolly saying exactly what Obi had to say: it’s not the minutes themselves but rather what they are instructed to do, i.e. “go stand in the corner.” But that’s the Thibs Offense. If we know it, they must.

So, yes, Grimes — grow up — take your coach at his word and let the ball fly every time you get it, because you are only gonna get it when someone else is doubled and is “spraying the damn ball.” Obi started shooting every touch by the end of his time here, alternating UFOs and swishes. Grimes is supposed to shoot better. Show us.

And from the department of boring and painfully unverifiable armchair psychology: I would bet that Julius, after playing the best 1st half of his entire life, was prolly a bit irritated by Thibs presumably screaming in the locker room about all the defensive lapses. In fact I would bet the whole team was.

The score was 75-72 at half and Brunson had just come *this close* to tying it at the buzzer. It was a thrilling game, national TV, elimination, playoff atmosphere, etc. But coming out for Q3, it seemed all our guys had their heads down, and their joyful running stopped short. Maybe the Bucks simply blew past us bc they can, but maybe also Thibs is a bit of a buzzkill? Or maybe I’m hallucinating? Odds?

On to Friday!

Again, “we should trade Randle for a package that benefits us” does not advance any discussion in anyway. No one thinks trading Randle is a non-starter, so by definition everyone agrees. Yes, the Knicks should try to get better.

But I just said it might not make them immediately better.

Who and/or what should we trade him for, and how would this serve the goal of “modernizing” the offense and defense?

There’s no need to put modernizing in scare quotes; everyone knows what it means.

I’d have to know what his market value actually is before I can give names. It might wind up being draft choices. If I give names, what will commence is criticism that his market value is being misjudged/underestimated, and I’m not particularly interested in that discussion.(*) The strategic/big picture observations should suffice.

(*) Certainly two of the frequently mentioned KB names — Mikal and OG — are interesting. It would take multiple 1s in addition to Randle to get Mikal. If the question is whether I’d do that, the answer is yes. Same answer for Markaten. Two guys from last year’s draft who have been downsized a bit are also intriguing — those being Ivey and Matheson. If we’re talking young guys, if Orlando would send me back Anthony Black, I’d be interested. In terms of strategy, rather than tactics, if I can both get rid of Randle and fill in the dearth of U-21/22 guys resulting from the charring/incineration of first round draft picks in each of the last three drafts, that would be an objective.

Of course, none of these trades are going to happen, so it’s a bit academic.

This beautifully written drama did not do any of the things a non-vapid “trade Randle” take should do, such as “say what players and/or picks he feasibly can and should be traded for.”

I don’t know what the market is.

I am simply saying we could theoretically trade Mitch, RJ, or Randle to solve one issue I’ve been complaining about for awhile with the team. I’ve tossed around trading all 3 at one time or another, but I am now firmly in the trade Randle category as my preference.

Of course it’s a hell of lot tougher when you don’t have a backup PF you can temporarily slide into the starting lineup for awhile. It means you have to trade PF for PF (almost impossible) or make multiple trades.

One possibility would be a consolidation trade for a starting caliber PF and a Randle trade for a wing.

Again, I don’t know who is available or what the market is for any of these players.

I don’t know what the market is.

Exactly.

Would OKC give me back the Jalen Williams I should have already had? OK, done, I’ll take him. ATL, Jalen Johnson? OK, done, I’ll take him.

Jalen Johnson and Dejounte Murray for Randle and an unprotected one and one of the protected 1s? Done.

Well, imo what happened was mostly noise (the Bucks shot well even when Randle had nothing to do with it) and the same kind of bad TOs, ball holding, and missed defensive assignments (mostly in the 2nd half) biasing it in the negative direction that have typically contributed to Randle’s career of weak on/off.

okay this may not be gta6 but it’s a at least two solid copies of gta3. surely the best we all deserve.

just note that since you still want to keep a toe in the pond of the small sample pool, you have to eliminate the stuff above about holding the ball and turnovers. the knicks had an offensive rating over 122 with randle in yesterday, a great number, and 112 with him off. that despite his teammates shooting 16pct from three with him on. his adjusted offensive rating was 134. so even n equals 1 calculus actually confirms randle’s awesome box score on that end.

But I just said it might not make them immediately better.

Which is why you need to outline the package that “benefits us,” not “improves our win total immediately.” Thus far you’ve been unable to do either.

There’s no need to put modernizing in scare quotes; everyone knows what it means.

I don’t, actually. We’re 10th in overall 3PT makes and 4th in corner 3PT frequency. Seems modern. To me, our flaws stem from the personnel, not the strategy.

I’d have to know what his market value actually is before I can give names. It might wind up being draft choices. If I give names, what will commence is criticism that his market value is being misjudged/underestimated, and I’m not particularly interested in that discussion.(*) The strategic/big picture observations should suffice.

“We should trade Randle for a package that benefits us” is not a “strategic/big picture observation.” It is a declaration that one is a Knicks fan who wants the Knicks to do things that benefit the Knicks. It says nothing about Randle, or anything else really.

A Randle trade is highly unlikely to make the Knicks better in the short-term, because why would anyone trade us a superior player(s) for Randle?

So you have to outline a “one step back to take two steps forward package. Then you run into the conundrum wherein teams with high quality draft picks are mostly uninterested the wins Randle could add, and teams interested in the wins he could add tend to have low quality draft picks.

Are you saying we should trade him for 2-3 ~25th picks, as team that already has a bunch of picks more or less of that quality?

“Randle stinks, but there is a trade package available for him that would benefit us” is looking like a tough needle to thread!

Then you run into the conundrum wherein teams with high quality draft picks are mostly uninterested the wins Randle could add, and teams interested in the wins he could add tend to have low quality draft picks.

The problem is that the other GMs know he doesn’t really add wins. What good team is he going to add wins to? Find me one, and maybe there’s a fit. If you can’t find one then … well … we have our answer as to his actual quality.

I don’t, actually. We’re 10th in overall 3PT makes and 4th in corner 3PT frequency. Seems modern.

Then you must not watch the games.

GTA 4 is the best GTA.

“We should trade Randle for a package that benefits us” is not a “strategic/big picture observation.”

It’s exactly what it is.

And I listed a bunch of names.

just note that since you still want to keep a toe in the pond of the small sample pool, you have to eliminate the stuff above about holding the ball and turnovers. the knicks had an offensive rating over 122 with randle in yesterday, a great number, and 112 with him off. that despite his teammates shooting 16pct from three with him on. his adjusted offensive rating was 134. so even n equals 1 calculus actually confirms randle’s awesome box score on that end.

Again, you can have a peak Randle game and it not be as great overall as it looks.

The problem we (or I) had today is that people seem to think I am saying he wasn’t good last might or we lost last night because he had a bad on/off or that I picked a bad day to talk about moving him again. The first two are not true. The 3rd probably is. That was the best version of Randle and we lost because the Bucks were unsustainably hot from 3.

If I just would have said, Randle was excellent, but not as good as it looks because he had a few bad TOs and defensive lapses instead of talking about how things like contribute to on/off and don’t get noticed as much, I’d be on the horse racing forum by now arguing about how computer assisted wagering is killing horse racing. 😉 I’m on my way now. Big symposium on it yesterday.

TNFH now has the opportunity to play GM. He can find a team, any team, that he thinks Randle would fit on and improve and make a trade offer to get him. In addition to being an interesting parlor game, it will give him (and us) the opportunity to get the true gauge of what he thinks of Randle as a player.

It sure beats the back and forth we’ve seen where, within a month or so, he’s swung from wanting to trade Randle for anything not nailed down to now defending him against all criticism.

So make an offer.

but not as good as it looks because he had a few bad TOs and defensive lapses

This happens literally every game, even the ones he facially plays bad in.

seeing as how Randle is on a collision course to split the difference between last year and the year before… we may actually make it halfway to the Frank Ntlikina wars by years end…. a mighty accomplishment…

I’m on my way now. Big symposium on it yesterday.

enjoy strat. but remember it was only one symposium, so it may have been tiny.

Literally every player on the team every game has a few mental lapses or a bad defensive possession or two. Yet Randle is held up to some standard where if he has one play on defense where the opposing player blows by him, he somehow sucks on defense.

Meanwhile Brunson is a literal turnstile on D. RJ never shoots efficiently. Grimes doesn’t shoot at all and Mitch shoots under 40% from the FT line. Yet Randle is the one “we can’t build around.”

I swear. This dude came here when we sucked, has made 2 all-star teams, helped us get to the playoffs twice and resigned on a super team friendly deal and some fans just can’t get over the fact that he sometimes looks moody or got mad at the fans when they spent half a season booing him because the team was struggling.

He’s literally one of the best players we’ve had since the 90s and he cost us no picks, just salary, and people constantly want to shit on him for not being peak Lebron or Giannis.

If prime aged Wilt Chamberlain showed up to your park and was teamed up with 4 greedy chuckers, and played 5 prime Steph Curry’s. Wilt would probably have awesome individual stats, but he would lose by a mile and his +/- would be like -30.

Did that -30 mean he had a bad game?

Did that -30 mean he had a bad game?

He didn’t have a “bad game,” but it was just more empty calories. It always is. With Julius, there’s *always something.*

The one game plus-minus was just the venting of the part of the fanbase who sees him clearly for what he is. (And the purgatory, of which he’s the face, for what it is.) It wasn’t meant to be taken hyper-literally.

Still waiting on the trade offers. Anyone actually want Julius?

The whole Moneyball approach has a natural ceiling, which we see every time they play a decent team.

Hard disagree. I’m very confident that many of the best teams in the league are using analytics.

I also don’t think the Knicks are.

https://www.nbastuffer.com/analytics101/nba-teams-that-have-analytics-department/

https://www.reveliolabs.com/news/business/which-nba-team-is-the-most-data-driven/

Then you must not watch the games.

You don’t see this one in the wild so often anymore, given that it has come to signify a concession that its proponent has no real rejoinder.

I will reiterate that I am not sure what kind of “modernization” you have in mind given that our 3PT frequency very much aligns with our personnel.

Maybe you want our 14th ranked isolation frequency percentage to go down?

And I listed a bunch of names.

You certainly listed a bunch of names! What you did not do is say “the Knicks should offer Julius Randle for [X] package, and [Y] team might accept the offer for [Z] reasons.” Without something like that, it’s just “the Knicks should make a trade that benefits them.”

He can find a team, any team, that he thinks Randle would fit on and improve and make a trade offer to get him.

I mean, plenty of teams would take Randle in a fake world where the Knicks are looking to dump him for nothing. Are you asking me which teams those are, or are you asking me to put together a package that makes sense for the Knicks as well? Because my very point is that the latter is hard to do, which is why you refuse to do it despite saying there is obviously such a deal on the table.

So we’ve reached some kind of absurd endpoint where the argument is that Randle seemingly NEVER has a good game. Even when he had an objectively awesome fucking game.

I don’t even really love him as a player but this shit is getting ridiculous.

I will reiterate that I am not sure what kind of “modernization” you have in mind given that our 3PT frequency very much aligns with our personnel.

You really have no idea what the term “modern” offense means?

You certainly listed a bunch of names! What you did not do is say “the Knicks should offer Julius Randle for [X] package, and [Y] team might accept the offer for [Z] reasons.”

Nice shifty lawyer goalpost move with the brand new last clause/requirement.

And I literally proposed a trade.

Are you asking me which teams those are, or are you asking me to put together a package that makes sense for the Knicks as well?

I’m asking you to play GM on any team in the association and see if the team would want Randle and at what price and then make a trade proposal you think a capable GM on the Knicks (I’ll play that one and the board can join in at their leisure) would bite on to make a Randle trade.

The exercise isn’t one of speculating on what the actual Knicks would and wouldn’t do. We know the answer to that, and it’s boring.

Randle is a maddening player and last night was a great example of that. When Randle is aggressive and decisive on offense he is extremely hard to stop and can be quite a weapon, but other times his effort seems to lapse and he settles for bad jumpers and lazy passes, all while slowing the offense to a glacial pace. Defensively, he can play great on-ball defense even against the best players in the league as shown by a couple of really nice defensive possessions against Giannis last night. But again, his focus and effort often lapse and he is caught ball-watching and is slow to rotate or recover to a shooter.

This creates a player that when he is good he is every bit the all-star, all-nba player that earned those awards but when he is bad he both hijacks the offense and undermines the defense.

There are two things to do with a player like Randle. One is to move on from him the second you find a good offer and make his inconsistency someone else’s problem, and the second is to have a coach that holds him accountable every time his effort or focus begins to lapse and hope his bad habits are fixable.

Unfortunately, our management seems to have no desire to move Randle and our coach has no desire to hold him accountable. So it seems we will keep seeing Randle’s Jekyll and Hyde act and it will consistently keep us from taking the next step.

I still cannot believe, especially after last night’s game, that the focus here is 90% on Randle…

I still cannot believe, especially after last night’s game, that the focus here is 90% on Randle…

Right? IQ was invisible last night. So was the rest of the bench for the most part. Brunson was 0-5 from 3 and took 22 shots to score 25 points.

Grimes was invisible.

RJ was inefficient.

Mitch got schooled by Lopez.

But Randle put up “empty stats.” Never mind the fact that we were only down 3 at halftime despite The Bucks scoring 75 points because Randle was absolutely amazing. Bucks adjusted their defense in the second half but none of the rest of our players stepped up to help Randle out. I guess Randle is to blame for not putting up another 30 in the second half. IF only he had scored 60 and had 16 assists. But he didn’t so his points were “empty.” Absolute bullshit.

I’d add a third to @BenR’s two options, which I think is actually Leon’s intention: Find (or groom) someone as good or better than Randle, so we don’t rely on him so much. In fact, I think Randle would *love* another guy to help him carry our water.

Lost in all this is that we scored 122 points. A cursory look at the box score would suggest good nights for all our guys, including someone like Brunson whom I feel should have done more. The other guys were just better.

We’re drilling down here below cursory looks, which is fun, but the Bucks were supposed to beat us. If we had won, it would have been a chest-beating moment. But listen to Giannis after the game. He was like, “Yeah, we took care of business, I’m kind of bummed to go to Vegas actually, because I like to spend time with my family.” (yawn).

And +1 to ess-dog’s comment.

Julius is the face of purgatory. So when we inevitably lose to one of the teams that cold-water-to-the-face remind us of that status, in this market and with this fanbase, Julius is going to hear about it.

It’s inevitable.

Whether Julius happened to have a good game, bad game, whatever, is beside the point.

Let’s do a thought experiment: let’s say we had a magic wand and could trade Quentin Grimes for Giannis. Or trade Grimes for Doncic. Or Mitch for Embiid. You get the idea. A legit star player.

Would we be a contender? Even with “the face of purgatory” Julius Randle as our third best player? Sure we would. It’s silly to suggest otherwise.

Julius is paid like a #3, and would be just fine as a #3.

I don’t agree that Julius either (1) would; or (2) could accept just being a true #3. If those fantasy trades could be made, I’d repurpose Julius as 3 into something else. His act wouldn’t be worth the risk. I don’t need him deciding out of the blue that its his turn with 3 minutes to go in a big game, getting cut off, and then jumping in the air and throwing the ball to the other team.

And all of that is aside from the basketball fit. And the playoff whiffs. WAY too risky.

He just doesn’t really work. Harsh, but true. Also one fan’s opinion, but if I had to venture, I’d venture that’s the perception around the association. If this were the 80s when teams had a hard time getting paid fans to the games and you needed a “name” and stats to sell tickets, he might be your guy. But not now.

After last night’s loss the Knicks are on pace to win 49.2 games this year, a couple more than last year. Just saying.

Here’s a trade that helps the team: Randle for the most draft equity anyone will give us.

Then repeat for Brunson, RJ, IQ. Brunson and IQ might actually yield substantial return.

Then, tank for five years. Even if we draft the next Michael Jordan in year 2, stay disciplined and continue to trade current assets for future value until we are asset-rich.

OKC sucked for 5 years like 20 years ago and it directly led to them being asset billionaires for basically the rest of my lifetime. PHI sucked for years and are still contenders near a decade later despite literal sabotage by Bryan Colangelo. BOS’ contender status is a direct result of their fire sale of their old championship core. SAS is deliberately tanking this year with Sochan at PG because they know the biggest mistake they can make with Wemby is trying to win too soon, like NOP did with Davis. This is what smart teams in the NBA do: give themselves enough chances to get lucky. What they don’t do is try to win after drafting one top-5 guy and hoping he’ll pan out.

This is actually the shortest and most reliable path to get out of the zero championship equity deadzone we find ourselves in, now and for the foreseeable future. We can say Dolan won’t go for it, but then we need to acknowledge that any other strategy is a compromise, and ownership is really what cripples this team’s future.

It’s just immutable in basketball that the broad middle class of the league — teams between top 5 and bottom 5, have very little hope unless they have significant room for internal growth or a massive daft asset base. We don’t, because our top-end talent are flawed borderline all-stars and the supporting pieces are borderline unplayable (Mitch can’t make a FT and is punked by any modern big, Grimes is the worst scoring SG in the league). 3/5 of our starting lineup are arguably the worst offensive starter at their position in the entire league.

Unfortunately, what we’ll actually do is wallow in mediocrity for another five years before going half-assed accidental tank -> half-assed “hybrid” rebuild towards another perennial 5th-10th seed.

Just to change the topic (futile, I know), I find Mitch to be really unusual. Against middling talent he absolutely WRECKS teams, but if it’s a big, smart dude (e.g., Brook) or a stretch 5 (e.g., KP, Brook), he’s rendered close to useless.

I still love him and would rather have him than most of the centers around the league, but that last part is a real problem.

So, i initially looked at the thread because i wanted to talk about zakk wylde appearing at the pomona glass house tonight to play black sabbath stuff (“zakk sabbath”)…

no doubt it’s gonna be a great show…i don’t know though, already had a bunch of excitement today…that could be a little too much…

ANYWAYS – then as i’m perusing through the thread i happen upon dear ‘ol milo calling me/us “casuals”…

i would just like to point out the antonym for “casual” in this sense is fanatic…

when you get in to it – not exactly an endearing term…

so yeah, take that motherfucker…just kidding, maybe, i don’t know, slightly, it was therapy day…

Just to change the topic (futile, I know), I find Mitch to be really unusual. Against middling talent he absolutely WRECKS teams, but if it’s a big, smart dude (e.g., Brook) or a stretch 5 (e.g., KP, Brook), he’s rendered close to useless.

I still love him and would rather have him than most of the centers around the league, but that last part is a real problem.

I think you’re on to something important here — Mitch is probably more of a limiting factor on this team than our inadequate top end talent. He pretty much has to be DPOY to make up for his complete uselessness on offense now that he’s developed into the worst free throw shooter of all time.

Unfortunately, he’s absolutely helpless against any big with range, which is exactly what just about every good team in our conference has: KP/Horford, Lopez, Embiid, Myles Turner, Bam…

Even in the west, Jokic, Davis, Holmgren, Wemby, Sabonis…. On balance I don’t think he’s a top 15 starting center in the league because other bigs with his profile, like Gobert or Capela, can give you something on offense. There just isn’t room for a Ben Wallace type starting C in the modern NBA.

You really have no idea what the term “modern” offense means?

I have no idea what it means in the context of a team that is clearly shooting threes at what is at least close to the maximum level justified by its personnel.

If you’re going to make repeated reference to the term, define it.

And I literally proposed a trade.

You “proposed” one trade that is obviously not legal (a straight swap for Jalen Williams, who makes $4.3M), and another that Atlanta would obviously not accept–why in the world would they trade Murray and Johnson for Randle? What goal of theirs does this serve?

This is why your position is untenable. You’re trying to say that Randle has no value to a contender, and also that we should trade Randle to a contender for value.

Contrary to your laughable assertion that I am “defending him against all criticism,” I am perfectly willing to say that Randle has less trade value than most incumbent all-NBA players due to all the fit issues we’re discussing. For that reason I don’t go around saying that everyone who doesn’t want to trade him is an idiot, because the beneficial trade is pretty damn hard to put together as evidenced by your repeated refusal and failed attempts to do it.

I’m asking you to play GM on any team in the association and see if the team would want Randle and at what price and then make a trade proposal you think a capable GM on the Knicks (I’ll play that one and the board can join in at their leisure) would bite on to make a Randle trade.

Again, I am the one telling you that this is in fact extraordinarily difficult to do, and thus it may well be the case that the best thing the Knicks can do with Randle is continue to allow him to rack up wins for them until further notice.

yeah…grimes gets about 10 more games max and after that…saynoara…

as far as mitch…really down on him…although the effort to get him involved seems weak at best…he’s gotta be better to justify the minutes…

we needs a few crafty moves but to rejigger this roster…i’m not holding my breath…

@geo…what is the one sabbath tune you really want to hear tonight?

Re Mitch: I actually think he should be *more* physical against those players mentioned with superior skills. Last night, he had only 2 PF despite the Bucks basically having their way. Mitch may be too cautious in such games, due to foul trouble in the past, especially since iHart is a good backup.

It may sound all “1990s-Knicks,” but some rougher stuff might have helped us last night. Example, in the first half Randle looked like he was bullying Giannis into fouling out, but then …

hey pepper, I hope you’re well…man, I’m twisted on this – it turns out I kind of need to head in the direction to visit the boys…I’m just not sure my nerves are up for it though…

i usually have to plan social stuff out in advance…I don’t know man…

honestly – i can’t think of a single song name from sabbath…I know though I’ll recognize a bunch of the music…

it’s gonna be some serious heavy metal action…that almost always feels good for the soul…

Again, I am the one telling you that this is in fact extraordinarily difficult to do,

So no team wants Randle? You can’t come up with a single proposal?

The delta between a player’s numbers and actual market value is probably the best example/definition of “empty calories.” So we’ve come full circle.

Re Mitch: I actually think he should be *more* physical against those players mentioned with superior skills. Last night, he had only 2 PF despite the Bucks basically having their way. Mitch may be too cautious in such games, due to foul trouble in the past, especially since iHart is a good backup.

I don’t think it’s a matter of physicality… if he’s being physical against Brook Lopez when he’s out at the 3pt line stretching the floor, the damage is done — he’s not protecting the rim against Giannis and Lillard’s forays. The Bucks get massive value on offense even if Lopez never gets a shot off, as evidenced by him going 1/4 from three while the entire rest of the team torched us.

This is why stretch bigs are the meta in today’s NBA — the only real counter is to have your own stretch big or exploit them on the other end. When Mitch is neutralized on defense like this, he becomes unplayable because he might be the worst offensive player in the league. This has been seen time and again with guys like DeAndre Jordan or Drummond becoming totally unplayable in competitive scenarios like the playoffs.

To sum it up, the problem with Mitch is that he’s the ideal purgatorial big man, good against the bad teams, but a lamb to the slaughter against the good ones. Unsurprisingly, our record tracks with that.

So no team wants Randle? You can’t come up with a single proposal?

Once again, it is not hard to find a team that “wants Randle.” It is hard to do what you are pretending is easy to do, which is find a team that wants Randle and will compensate the Knicks such that the trade makes sense for the Knicks.

For this reason, it is pointless to spout off about how we should trade him all the time absent a proposal.

@geo…what is the one sabbath tune you really want to hear tonight?

😉

If you’re going to make repeated reference to the term, define it.

I was in the middle of a boring meeting and couldn’t get to this in the last one, but a modern offense includes and is pretty much defined by a lane that’s open most/all of the time, a lot of ball movement, and a stretch 5. Pick and rolls are done with a lot of open floor separating the screener/ball handler from the other three players.

Five-out is a frequent go-to set. Isolation is extremely limited in favor of open floor and ball movement.

Nice, KBA. Even I know that one…

Hey, to totally change the subject, I barely pay any attention to baseball anymore, and certainly not the Yankees (I’d say I’m a Mets fan but that would no longer be the truth), but I went onto the Boston Globe to see what they had to say about this Verdugo character, who I’d never heard of (I have a subscription to the paper as I sometimes have to go to Boston for work, and I like to know what’s up when I go). They said this:

Verdugo, whose makeup has been questioned throughout his career, was benched twice by manager Alex Cora for lack of hustle on the field and showing up late to the clubhouse. Nevertheless, Verdugo remained an integral piece in the outfield, finishing second in Gold Glove voting for American League right fielders.

yes, pagliacci, I agree with you that a stretch 5 is gonna expose Mitch, but I’m unwilling to say there’s no adjustment at all against some teams.

(IMO) a shooter like KP is more likely to torch us from deep than Lopez (1/4 last night from three). So I’d rather we switch, let Lopez shoot whatever he wants, and have Mitch spend three more crushing fouls on stopping Giannis.

Once again, it is not hard to find a team that “wants Randle.”

Then find one and tell us.

It is hard to do what you are pretending is easy to do, which is find a team that wants Randle and will compensate the Knicks such that the trade makes sense for the Knicks.

I’m not “pretending” anything of the sort, or was that what I wrote.

Find a team that you think would want Randle and make an opening offer for him.

If the answer is something like, “Well I can’t really find one that’s a fit and that would offer much for him,” then now you know why a bunch of us complain about him a lot. (As if it was even a mystery to begin with.)

but a modern offense includes and is pretty much defined by a lane that’s open most/all of the time, a lot of ball movement, and a stretch 5. Pick and rolls are done with a lot of open floor separating the screener/ball handler from the other three players.

This all seems arbitrary. “Ball movement” is a means to an end, and that end is an efficient offense. Just tossing the ball around for the sake of doing so doesn’t seem beneficial. There’s certainly no clear correlation between the number of passes a team makes per game and their offensive standing.

Is Julius Randle somehow preventing us from acquiring a stretch 5? Is there some example of there being a good stretch 5 available that we passed on, because of Julius Randle?

We have the 5th highest pick-and-roll frequency in the NBA.

Overall I see no evidence Julius Randle prevents us from doing any of these “modern things,” putting aside the question of whether they even correlate with offensive success (which is dubious in many cases).

The problem with our offense is that we don’t have enough players who can score efficiently without needing to be set up by a teammate. Not that it isn’t “modern.”

@geo…not so good today…woke up feeling funky …did the rapid test and got the dreaded double pink line…given my wife is immunocomprised…i had to go to a hotel to hunker down…not sure if you been to Berkeley …but i am on University Ave and my window faces the street…feels like i am living on the freeway…

anyway…enjoy the show…i would like to hear Sweet Leaf…if I was going…

If the answer is something like, “Well I can’t really find one that’s a fit and that would offer much for him,” then now you know why a bunch of us complain about him a lot. (As if it was even a mystery to begin with.)

Have you twisted yourself into agreeing with the proposition that it doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense for the Knicks to actively pursue a Randle trade?

This all seems arbitrary.

It’s not.

“Ball movement” is a means to an end, and that end is an efficient offense.

The end is an efficient offense at all times and in all places against all teams.

Is Julius Randle somehow preventing us from acquiring a stretch 5?

Actually, yes. In lieu of putting together a modern offense, they’ve put together an iso-heavy offense to serve Julius Randle’s “skill set.” That offense is better served by a basket-hanging 5, particularly given the number of shots Julius Randle misses and the number of shots that an offense with Julius Randle in such a prominent role will miss.

The problem with our offense is that we don’t have enough players who can score efficiently without needing to be set up by a teammate.

You’re misreading the causal arrow. The pre-modern offense is impacting the efficiency with which the players are seen to be scoring.

Have you twisted yourself into agreeing with the proposition that it doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense for the Knicks to actively pursue a Randle trade?

It makes perfect sense for them to trade him and move on from his empty calories. (*) I’m more puzzled with the pushback that he’s empty calories when by every measurement — including yours — he is.

You don’t seem to be willing/able to commit to a team that would want him at any price.

He’s on waivers. Who claims him? Anyone?

(*) I said early on in this that they should just shop him and take the best offer.

He’s on waivers. Who claims him? Anyone?

This is unserious

This is unserious

It’s a way to at least get some start on potential trade partners in your eyes.

Who would want him if he was available for nothing? (*) Give us the list. It’s not really that hard.

Who would want Giannis Antentokounmpo if he was on waivers?

Every team in the league.

(*) It’s also entirely serious because at various times, including like a month ago, you yourself have written as if the Knicks would have to attach assets to move him. This reduces the cost from that.

god damn pepper, sorry to hear that, particularly with the serious family situation…

went to berkeley once to visit a friend, felt like a pretty crowded place…

if you feel comfortable with it, hopefully the paxlovid/remdisivir stuff helps speed it up…i tested negative today since first getting it around nov. 20…started paxlovid on nov. 24…

not sure if you’ve had it before, but – my symptoms were pretty similar to the first: head cold, digestive issues…this time i also got a toothache for a few days…who fucking knows right…

the kids mom has this herculean immune system, very impressive…mine works well for a while, but, things go to shit health-wise all at once every few months…fuck it…

take care, focus on your health as much as possible…

as much as i would like to say hi to the boys, then go enjoy the show with friends…i don’t really feel as settled as i would like…therapy day fucks me up pretty good…on top of that, i stopped by the warehouse (where i used to work) to drop off the money for the Tool tickets my buddy picked up for me…i still got unresolved business with my old company…

i’m feeling a bit overwhelmed to be honest…i don’t know…

last thought for this – it’s funny pepper, what it takes for me to get myself “right” to even go do some social shit like this – it ain’t really even right for me to be driving…what i used to need to do to be able to show up at work…’sober ain’t us’ 😛

i don’t know man….maybe if you just push yourself to get there and once hear you the intro to War Pigs….all might feel right in the world (ok…maybe a bit of microdosing might help too)

We lost because the Bucks made like 2/3 of their 3s. I know someone said that if they shot 40% we still would have lost, but that might not be true. We certainly would have been in the game until the end.

Unfortunately, he’s absolutely helpless against any big with range

Lopez going 1-4 from three for 9 points and 8 boards is hardly rendering Mitch useless. I know iHart helped, but Mitch has enough quicks to cover in space… at least more than the average center.

His offense is more of an issue. He used to get more lobs, but maybe teams are taking that threat away? He has to force bigs, at least a little, to guard him or else things will get tricky for the rest of the lineup.

Actually if they’d shot 40% from three we would have been tied at 122-all.

Which means we’re just as good as a good Bucks team.

Just not as good as a good Bucks team that shoots 60% from three on heavy volume.

So no more pearl clutching.

Lopez going 1-4 from three for 9 points and 8 boards is hardly rendering Mitch useless. I know iHart helped, but Mitch has enough quicks to cover in space… at least more than the average center.

We rely on Mitch to do a lot more defensively than just guarding one shooter. When he has to guard a shooter he isn’t protecting the paint and covering for Brunson, RJ, and Randle. Taking Mitch out of the paint effectively neuters our entire defense.

The Bucks shot great from three but they also shot over 60% from 2pt range for 48 minutes. That’s not just luck.

Which means we’re just as good as a good Bucks team.

Just not as good as a good Bucks team that shoots 60% from three on heavy volume.

So no more pearl clutching.

This assumes that in the long run we’ll shoot as well as the Bucks, but that’s a complete fallacy. We are the worst %efg team in the entire league. We are 26th in TS% and the Bucks are 2nd.

The expected scenario is for them to score much more efficiently than we do. If you take away their shooting above their expectation, you have to take away the fact that we also did by going 56% from 2 and 88% on FTs.

Before the game with the Bucks, I read John Hollinger’s prediction that we might do better than expected since he didn’t expect the Bucks could shoot lights out from three like they did in the first game against us this season. But they did shoot lights out from three again and we lost because of it. Two times in a row is probably not just the ISM taking a day off. My question is why do the Bucks shoot threes so well against us?

I mean we’ve seen playoff games in recent years even in the conference finals and finals where one team destroys the other team cause they hit 70 percent of their threes and the other team hits 20 percent. And then the same thing happens in reverse the next game. So I think keeping that in mind is super important. Not that we should have beaten them but in today’s NBA teams can look unbeatable when they hit that many threes.

There’s also a cascading effect when a team hits so many threes. If they hit 5 less that doesn’t mean we’d have loss by just 15 less. Do we get long rebounds on those misses and score an easy bucket in transition? Their defense doesn’t get set, etc. The more you hits threes the more it cascades. It’s one of the reasons why I kind of find all of the three point shooting so annoying.

When he has to guard a shooter he isn’t protecting the paint and covering for Brunson, RJ, and Randle.

Sounds like that’s more on the other guys then.

hang in there pepper. rode the pink wave twice, both were shit.

Sounds like that’s more on the other guys then.

That’s true in a formalistic sense, but every defense needs rim protection help because no one defender can consistently stop elite scorers in the NBA. If we somehow had defenders that could do this it would only decrease Mitch’s value because we wouldn’t need one of the main things he does.

The problem is that Mitch’s defensive contributions have to be elite for him to be playable at all because he’s a huge net negative on offense when he isn’t pulling down offensive rebounds at a prime Rodman rate.

To answer E’s persistent question, the teams that would trade for Randle are probably the bottom feeders of the league who want to stop being atrocious and don’t care if they give themselves a glass ceiling: Detroit, Chicago, Washington. Randle was Leon’s ticket to the mezzanine, he could do the same for them.

Mitch’s defensive contributions have to be elite for him to be playable at all because he’s a huge net negative on offense when he isn’t pulling down offensive rebounds at a prime Rodman rate.

This is really the crux. I wish Thibs called Mitch’s number in pnr more often, to at least keep the opposing defender honest, but that doesn’t seem to mesh with “drive and spray.”

After reading the full court transcript, I have ruled that having a bunch of lawyers litigate whether Randle is good or bad is boring. I hold you all in contempt.

Dumb dumb dumb. You think Pat Riley, for just one example, wouldn’t be delighted to trade Duncan Robinson for Randle? Miami is not a bottom feeder. Not gonna waste any more time than that on one of the least good faith arguments I’ve seen here.

As for Mitch, after being the one to raise the concern that he hasn’t been dominant in certain matches, I’m thinking that concern is overstated. We were very efficient on O last night, so he didn’t hurt, and the problem on D was getting destroyed from 3, which isn’t on him. I don’t have it in me to rewatch, but I do know that Grimes kept Dame in check. So that’s mostly Brunson and RJ.

Who would want him if he was available for nothing?

Pretty much every team in the league would take him. No brainer. I can’t think of any teams actually that wouldn’t want Julius Randle for free.

you’re probably already asleep E for east coaster….i’m curious – what sort of circumstances would it take for a meeting you might attend to be “exciting”?

I was in the middle of a boring meeting

Edit: let me guess, i meeting where other people are speaking 🙂

Another edit: not sure how i missed this, but: B-I-N-G-O

After reading the full court transcript, I have ruled that having a bunch of lawyers litigate whether Randle is good or bad is boring. I hold you all in contempt.

The best teams in the NBA make about 41 or 42% of their wide open 3 point attempts. I’m not saying we played good defense, I am saying a team hitting 60% of their 3s is not normal and it’s what made this game a blowout instead of a normal loss (or maybe even a tight win)

I hear you, DRed, but was there anything that enabled then to shoot that well? Wide open time after time? Because they’ve done it against us twice, so I’m wondering if we’re going under screens or what… I watched most of the game, but was too shell -shocked in the second half to really see it.

What I want to know is how empty stats are counted. Like when Randle scored thirty in the first half and we were only down a few points or even ahead, were those empty stats? Or were only the points in the second half empty? Or are all of the points retroactively decided by the NBA board of directors as being empty because we lost.

Is there an advanced metric for this?

What I want to know is how empty stats are counted.

I’m guessing: Stats are empty if we lose. Full if we win 😉

juan soto’s a yank…

In typical Cashman fashion…he gave up a bunch of young pitching talent…for a dude on the last yr of his deal…how he still has a job is mind boggling

Soto is not just a dude, he’s the best left handed hitter in baseball who’s only 25yo. King is the best pitcher of the group and he’s already 28yo with a poor injury history.

This was the Yankees finally going back to being the Evil Empire and its about damn time. Now go sign Yamamoto!

“rode the pink wave twice”

You guys are talking about this like it’s a bad thing. I have no idea what it means in your context, but it sounds pretty good with the context that I am attaching to it.

I thought it meant getting COVID

The best exchange saved for last. And a perfect metaphor for much of this thread.

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