[New York Post] – Sat, 09 Dec 2023 22:47:00 GMT
- Jalen Brunson injury threatens to make treacherous Knicks stretch that much harder
- NBA Rumors: Jalen Brunson, Kyrie Irving, Anthony Edwards, & Joel Embiid Injury Updates, Plus More
- New York Notes: Brunson, Grimes, Barrett, Sharpe, Simmons
- Jalen Brunson injured in garbage time, but Tom Thibodeau has no regrets
- Mindless Tom Thibodeau decision makes another Knicks loss that much more painful
[New York Post] – Sat, 09 Dec 2023 06:51:39 GMT
- Knicks’ Quentin Grimes has solid night after demotion to second unit
- Quentin Grimes, benched and in line with the company message
- Knicks’ Quentin Grimes shows improvement in new bench role against Celtics
- Knicks benching disgruntled starting guard
- Quentin Grimes struggles spark Knicks starting lineup debate: ‘We got to get him to play better’
[Celtics Blog] – Sat, 09 Dec 2023 20:00:00 GMT
Al Horford passes first test of Celtics new roster challenges in win over Knicks
[New York Post] – Sun, 10 Dec 2023 07:50:00 GMT
- Knicks defense has take turn for the worse: ‘intensity’ missing
- The Knicks struggle against top teams: Is this the reason?
[Hoops Hype] – Sat, 09 Dec 2023 13:47:10 GMT
- RJ Barrett addresses Knicks trade rumors
- What if Knicks don’t need to add another star?
- RJ Barrett Defends Knicks amid Calls for Star Trade: ‘We Do Very Well for Ourselves’
- Knicks push back on scathing ‘middle’ critique: ‘Do very well for ourselves’
- The Knicks Merely Being Solid Is No Mans Land
[RealGM.com] – Sat, 09 Dec 2023 15:47:00 GMT
- Teams Waiting To See If Knicks Will Trade Immanuel Quickley
- Would Knicks include Immanuel Quickley in trade at deadline?
- Knicks’ Struggles Could Finally Lead to Immanuel Quickley Trade
- Knicks getting interest on young point guards trade availability
- Two teams reportedly want to ‘swipe’ star PG from Knicks
[Daily Knicks] – Sat, 09 Dec 2023 22:00:00 GMT
Zion Williamson gives Knicks another reason not to trade for him
[Hoops Hype] – Sat, 09 Dec 2023 13:38:55 GMT
- Knicks no longer interested in Karl-Anthony Towns?
- Knicks Haven’t Made An Offer For Karl-Anthony Towns
- Karl-Anthony Towns Trade Rumors: Knicks ‘Checked in,’ Never Made Offer to T-Wolves
[Sports Illustrated] – Sun, 10 Dec 2023 04:26:08 GMT
Knicks Ex Obi Toppin, Pacers Lose In-Season Tournament Final vs. Lakers
62 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2023.12.10)”
Strat said:
and it’s hard to escape the irony of Cam Reddish performing the severely limited role no one wants to fill in Thibs offense.
Couple of thoughts about Cam.
1. You can lead a horse to water but you can’t force it to drink. NBA players are the most athletic and talented dudes in the world and were the absolute best at the game at every level until they reach the NBA. For many of these dudes it is extremely difficult for them to accept a reduced role especially when they’re young. Cam doing “well” in LA most likely has very little to do with Thibs “failing” and more likely is a result of him finally realizing that he has to accept that role if he wants to continue to have a career. Also LeBron has this effect on people. I’m sure seeing this generation’s goat at age 40 still put in the work and seeing how much better he is than everyone else is humbling.
2. Can has only been in LA for not even half a season. Good for him and maybe it sticks but let’s check back in towards the end of the season to see if he’s still accepting this new reduced role.
Cam played good defense, and took mostly good shots towards the end of his time as a rotation player in NY. They should have kept him (I think they could have added Hart just for the 1st that was part of that deal).
Cam is just another example of what we have known for a long time…that a transcendent player can make even a shitty player look useful.
Obi is a less glaring example…he was a decent player here but is far more useful alongside a player like Haliburton.
For all of Brunson’s gifts, he isn’t one of those guys like LeBron, Hali, Jokic, and going back, Russell, Magic, Bird, etc. that make the players around them substantially better. It would be nice to have one of those guys someday. Clyde was probably the closest. Maybe the moribund version of Jason Kidd for a hot second.
We better be ready for the Raptors tonight because it’s unlikely they are going to shoot as badly from 3 this time around.
Thibs loves his safe hustlebunnies.
“We better be ready for the Raptors tonight because it’s unlikely they are going to shoot as badly from 3 this time around.”
Probably more important that we are ready for them tomorrow night…but yeah.
LeBron taking Cam under his wing probably saved his career.
Raptors on Monday. They are a poor shooting team. That’s not going to change. I just hope Brunson is 100%.
I meant Cam’s career, not Lebron’s.
There was a substantial stretch where IMO he was clearly outplaying RJ. He got hurt, rushed back, had a terrible game and that was it. He always had the physical tools to be a good defender, but he was inconsistent for NY and still had that “I’m a star mentality” that lead to some bad decisions on offense. The team was better with Grimes.
I’m not sure how best to handle young players like him and Obi. They are dissatisfied with their role, have enough talent to think they may eventually become a very useful player, you don’t necessarily want to pay them, but their trade value slowly gets diminished by the role you have them in.
Damn, no basketball today! I hate the IST. 😉
There’s a difference between poor and putrid. They were putrid against us and I don’t think it was our stellar defense. 😉
The league is scattered with good players we’ve let slip through our finers in some form or fashion and y’all are talking about a guy averaging 7/3/1 with a .540 TS% because LeBron says nice things about him. Those look like hustlebunny numbers to me, except Cam often forgets to do the “hustle” part.
Both Obi and Cam seem like exactly the same players they were in NYC but Cam is trying on defense.
The more things change…
Cam has shrunk his usage down to sub-Tyson Chandler levels and he’s rocking an 89 eFG+ and a 94 TS+. In short, he is still a brutal offensive player.
Good for him that he has found a role where his job is to be tall and play defense. You can get away with a guy like that if you have a couple of Hall of Famers in your lineup. You can also find players like Cam on the scrap heap, which is where the Lakers found Cam.
“I’m not sure how best to handle young players like him and Obi. They are dissatisfied with their role, have enough talent to think they may eventually become a very useful player, you don’t necessarily want to pay them, but their trade value slowly gets diminished by the role you have them in.”
If you draft a player at number 8, you have to exhaust all possibilities before trading them for protected seconds in ’28 and ’29 while they are still in on their rookie deal. They kept Frank and Knox for all 4 years for God’s sake. The list of players that they have drafted, signed or traded for that did not suit Thibs is getting pretty long. I hope the front office has learned what the Goldilocks Thibs type of players are. He is a solid, but limited coach. I think that he has done well enough to get an extension. I don’t know if he is good enough to win a title.
Obi is being utilized somewhat similarly but his outcomes are quite different…in fact, unpreditable from game to game…in IND’s super-high-octane offense. He’s getting better looks and scoring more efficiently, and his defense is less of an issue because IND doesn’t really try to stop opponents as much as outscore them. Beyond Hali , IND seems to mix and match in shifts, and Obi’s minutes are all over the place depending on situations and matchups, as opposed to a fixed 15-ish mph as Randle’s backup.
Obi leads the NBA in 2PT% at .775.
Somehow I think we could have used a guy like that.
Thibs doesn’t really like IQ that much either.
He’s a stubborn guy and I’m not exactly sure what’s being gained by continuing to cater to him — at least in terms of winning championships.
I agree. This was not a criticism of Thibs. It took LeBron James, arguably the alpha male of mankind, to get Cam to accept such a limited role.
The point here is that Thibs has a role in his offense that is so limited no one can reasonably be expected to ably fill it except someone like Cam.
Cam wouldn’t play on the Knicks and players of his quality are available whenever we want them. He did look good last night and his defense has been good this year, but as usual the actual numbers don’t match the aesthetics and we’ll see how long the defense lasts with him getting ~5 shots a game. Total non-story as it relates to the Knicks.
We definitely bungled Obi start-to-finish. Shouldn’t have drafted him, and once we did we left a lot of meat on the bone. The guy has serious limitations, but is an obviously good offensive player. He’s looking pretty vindicated in his gripes about his role here.
I think what you’re saying Z-man is Carlisle is a better coach than Thibs. He is doing exactly what a coach is supposed to do. Thibs to his credit has definitely gotten the Knicks to a level that I previously said I would be happy with, but now I’m starting to want more. A better coach might be the answer.
Part of the problem is that the roster is now too Thibs-friendly to just can Thibs and hope for a quick turnaround. Bring in a new coach and we still have zero centers with any range, and too many low-usage defense-oriented players.
You’d need at least somewhat of a makeover of the roster as well. Which I’m not against!
We keep talking about Fournier-ing Grimes for the kind of usage Cam has right now and Cam isnt even nominally spacing the floor shooting 31% from 3.
“The list of players that they have drafted, signed or traded for that did not suit Thibs is getting pretty long. I hope the front office has learned what the Goldilocks Thibs type of players are. He is a solid, but limited coach. I think that he has done well enough to get an extension. I don’t know if he is good enough to win a title.”
Virtually any coach is good enough to win a title if that coach has the right players. Thibs is certainly good enough, and better than many.
However, I agree that concerns about the kind of players that Thibs prefers, as well as his playing style and demeanor, is a limiting factor. For example, I believe that there are very few coaches in the NBA that would have done to Fournier what Thibs did. He’s a useful player.
In that regard, Thibs and D’Antoni are cut from the same cloth. They are rigid, stubborn, and intolerant of criticism. They are not good at adapting to personnel that doesn’t fit their preferred scheme and style.
And as such, it is certainly fair to point out the gap between coaches like them and guys like Spo, Kerr, Pop, and probably Carlisle, who are more willing and able to adapt their preferred tendencies to the personnel on the team.
As such, it’s also reasonable to feel that Leon’s friendship with Thibs is a minus. By any fair standard, Thibs has done an awesome job of extracting maximum wins from a second-rate roster. For the last three years, that has been a welcome change. The Knicks have expectations now, they are no longer the laughingstock clown show of the pre-Leon years. That is HUGE!!!
But what now? I would say that under different FO/POBO, Thibs would be one prolonged losing streak away from getting fired. But because of his friendship with Leon, it will probably take more than that. Leon would have to come to the realization that building a roster in Thibs’ image is counterproductive to further improvement.
That said, there are some signs that point to his days being numbered. More players griping, including high-character team guys like Josh Hart, players like Obi and Cam being “useful” on winning teams, players like LaVine saying he doesn’t want to play for the coach who traded him for a more Thibs-like player, perceptions of a feud between him and the now-emerging KAT, the clearer delineation between the Knicks and true contending teams like BOS and MIL, the emergence of young, exciting, uptempo teams like IND, OKC, HOU, ORL…
It seems like it’s only a matter of time before those things add up to the point where Thibs is let go…unless he continues to get this roster to overachieve. Anything less than another trip to the second round will not bode well for him, and even then it will depend on how bad the team loses, and to what opponent. Getting swept by the Celts or Bucks is probably more tolerable than losing to PHI, ATL, CLE, IND or MIA in 6.
I don’t see it happening anytime soon, but I think Bryant would be a good choice to replace Thibs. I’m sure he would keep a lot of the existing systems in place, but also has the ability to relate to players. I think that is one of Thibs biggest blind spots.
“We keep talking about Fournier-ing Grimes for the kind of usage Cam has right now and Cam isnt even nominally spacing the floor shooting 31% from 3.”
Grimes is frustrated and unhappy. He has 3 guys on the team now who essentially play the same position and already have long term contracts. Unless they trade RJ, Grimes is toast. The handwriting is on the wall. I don’t see a role for him long term.
@Z-man I agree 100% with your last post, but it is a roster that Thibs stubborness created.
“I think what you’re saying Z-man is Carlisle is a better coach than Thibs. He is doing exactly what a coach is supposed to do.”
If more adaptable to a given roster means better, then yes. But if your goal is to win the maximum amount of games with a given roster, without regard to who plays how many minutes or what’s best in the long term, Thibs is at least as good. I don’t think Carlisle would be a lock to get the rosters Thibs coached to the playoffs in 2020-12, or to the second round in 2022-23. And I think that success was incredibly valuable in re-branding the 20+ years of shit-show. But Carlisle is better for the long haul. Case-in-point: IND is not playing his preferred style, but he rolls with it because he recognizes Hali’s gifts and defers to them. Not sure Thibs would know quite how to do that.
But that is literally the role Thibs asked Obi, Hart, and Grimes to fill.
Then we’d be wise to stop using first round picks and free agent dollars to fill the role.
Thibs had the same role in Chicago, too. They used Ronnie Brewer and Kyle Korver (back when he was young and cheap) for it.
RE: Cam vs. Grimes, it’s really apples vs. oranges. Grimes was drafted here, was the apple of this coach’s eye, and has been receiving 2+ years of accolades for his play and potential. Cam, not so much.
You know what is being gained: he has a high floor.
We will never suck under him. Dolan won’t be embarrassed.
He is job security for Leon. If Mills and Perry had hired him instead of Fiz they’d still be here and would have lifetime extensions.
Right. So why are we talking about Cam like he’s doing something worth missing? We didn’t miss on anything and he still hasn’t proven that he can space the floor.
Cam has a lower usage than when he was pouting under Thibs. Thibs has his problems, but Cam was a Cam issue.
Can you tell me what this list is of players we’ve had that thibs doesn’t like that is so long?
Cam, Obi and Fournier. Is three a long list? That’s not even one player per season he’s been here. Obi is the only one on that list that I think you can make a justifiable case for pining over.
Unless you’re counting washed kemba and elf and Noel? So any player we ever get if they eventually don’t work out it’s bc thibs is stubborn and doesn’t like them.
I guess a coach should just play players no matter what.
I mean why did we even get rid of frank and Knox!
Yes thibs hates IQ! Which is why he always played and even closes games!
Honestly do people even give what they write half a second of thought before they post comment?
I guess when you lose two games on the road against two of the best teams in the league it’s time to fire the coach and question every roster move we’ve ever made.
God some of y’all have the thinnest skin ever. Would hate to be in the trenches with you.
It’s not just Cam. It’s Cam, Obi, Fournier, Kemba, Grimes, Rose…
Are they all the problem or is it Thibs? That is a long enough list to at least ask the question. Think about the cost of acquiring and then jettisoning all those players. Is Thibs a team player, who puts the organization first?
We’re not in the trenches. This is a basketball blog, where we talk about basketball. Did anyone say Thibs hates these guys? He is good at getting the most out of a 9 or 10 man rotation. Being a great NBA coach requires more than that though. Managing Egos, developing young players, and keeping guy who are not in the rotation ready to come in when needed are all skills that he has shown to be lacking in.
Donte makes 8% of the cap.
Korver made 8.6% of the cap both years in Chicago.
Ronnie Brewer made 8.2% and 8.1% while shooting 25% from 3.
And Cam still sucks. That’s why we’re considering perma-benching a player on similar usage who can actually shoot.
At Thibs’ media availability today, he said Brunson’s ankle is fine, and he should be good to go tomorrow. Mitch, on the other hand, needs more tests, and Thibs wouldn’t commit to whether this could be a long-term injury.
Sigh. I love Hartenstein, but so much of what we do on both ends is predicated on Mitch that this could get ugly if he’s out a while.
Fournier started for an entire season. Walker was washed. Grimes replaced Fournier in the starting line up!
Rose played huge minutes for us off the bench after he was traded to us! Then he got hurt and missed almost an entire season and when he came back he sucked but he still got a chance to be in the rotation.
So now any player that has ever been in the Knicks tmrotatiin but then loses a spot or eventually leaves the team is bc thibs doesn’t like them and they aren’t his type of player?
I mean if this is the bar then we should be a 50 win team with elf, Knox, and frank right? Leon literally shouldn’t have to get any new players ever bc a good coach would be able to turn a rotation with elf, frank and Knox into a title contender!
I’m not sure why you’re so worked up about this and making these extreme comments that no one is saying. Thibs is a decent coach who gives the team a “high floor”. He also has obvious flaws that probably limit the teams upside. I think this is the KB consensus.
Choice A: the current state of affairs within their life makes daily survival a breeze – so why not get worked up over some nonsense. It probably feels emotional cathartic.
Choice B: the current state of affairs within their life makes daily survival a thin edge – so, what better way to blow off some steam then by fucking with strangers on the internet. Shit, it’s better than road ragin’, right.
What do you think g-man 🙂 ?
eddit: yeah, i am on drugs, so you can stop thinking that…
The 3 most likely scenarios of Thibs being canned are:
-The worst–team sub-par performance, loses the locker room gossip.etc.
-The really disappointing–team doesn’t improve, no star trade, Leon, Wes, et al relieved, new FO in place goes in a different direction.
-The best–team talent (likely boosted with the star trade) needs a more modern dynamic offensive mindset.
No idea which will happen, but always thought that if the team reaches the real elite, the most likely casualty would be Thibs.
“Sigh. I love Hartenstein, but so much of what we do on both ends is predicated on Mitch that this could get ugly if he’s out a while.”
If that happens, it will be interesting to see whether Thibs just goes to iHart and Sims, or if he goes with at least some small ball with a Julius-RJ-Josh Hart front line.
I don’t know Geo. I think we all have our own triggers. Mine are Obi, Mitch, and the ’96 Spurs. I like to come here to talk about the Knicks as an escape from the real world, but I’m never really angry about any of it. It’s a game and the organization has no idea what I think. Nor does anyone really care.
“If that happens, it will be interesting to see whether Thibs just goes to iHart and Sims, or if he goes with at least some small ball with a Julius-RJ-Josh Hart front line.”
Julius is such a low effort guy on defense that there is no way they could ever play him at the five in our scheme. Carlisle sometimes uses at the five, but that is in a pressing type defensive with no rim protection at all.
Carlisle sometimes uses at the five, but that is in a pressing type defensive with no rim protection at all.
I think Thibs asks his players to work extremely hard in practice and then play with playoff level intensity almost every night. That wins some extra games in the regular season, but can wear on players. He also seems to develop favorites, but it’s not always based on effort, defense, offense or any other factor. Some guys can get away with almost anything and some guys can’t make a single mistake without getting yanked. That kind of thing will get players pissed off.
I think all of this is why so many players don’t want to play for him.
I loved the hire and think he’s winning more games with this team than just about anyone else could, but the warts are starting to show more often.
I’m not sure why guys like Obi and Cam get dismissed so easily.
1. We all want to sign super stars and all-stars, but not every player you sign, draft or trade for is going to be a star. The question to ask is whether the player can have a useful roll on a contending team and how much is he going to cost.
2. Both those guys are playing an important role on teams that at this stage are better than the Knicks. Neither is expensive. Cam was cheap.
3. Both are young enough to think the best could be ahead for them if they remain healthy and work hard. Neither of those is ever a guarantee. Loads of young players have their development stalled by misuse, injuries, or an unwillingness to work. But they are both young enough to get better and play bigger roles even if they aren’t stars.
You need guys like that too.
Our personnel with Donte here and RJ playing better defense could manage a better 5-out unit featuring Randle at C. But the 4 smalls need to be damn near perfect. No way you can run Brunson with that team. It’d be fun to see them go small for a bit, but it’s 100% going to be Sims.
This will probably be it. It feels dumb that we never run real actions for Grimes or Donte off the ball. We literally just needed to set a single back pick to get Grimes his first wide open 3 last game.
You don’t even need to run as much action for Grimes as we did last game. A couple extra back picks once in a while for an extra open 3 makes a difference and takes some pressure off Brunson and Randle.
I half wonder if the 1st unit doesn’t do it because Randle is too dumb to run anything other than iso.
LeBron has done well finding athletic, eye-test friendly ex-Knick busts, reducing their usage to nothing, and turning them into coattail champions. He did it with Shumpert, and now he’s doing it with Reddish. (Somehow Qyntel Woods missed his calling.)
It’s not necessarily that we dismissed their talent, tCam and Obi didn’t fit here. We don’t have minutes for them, we have other young players and other potential roleplayers who do fit Thibs’s schemes don’t complain, and both of their deals were up after the seasons we moved them.
For instance, LA can afford to have Cam shoot 31% from 3 because they feature shooters at every other position in their starting lineup. We saw what having bad wing shooters looked like in the playoffs last year.
For Obi, Indy plays a style suited for The Gazelle. They play at the fastest pace in the league, has a PG suited to run, and feature Turner as a stretch 5—it’s a stampeding offense that fits Obi perfectly. On the other hand, the Knicks play at the slowest pace, with a slow PG, and has the most rim bound C in the league. Also, we needed cap space for Donte who provides the defense and shooting that Obi doesn’t.
Players on the scrapheap are there for a reason, and if they succeed it’s great, but you don’t always find them.
The Cavs tried to scrapheap together their SF position and it failed miserably in the playoffs. Okoro got ignored on offense, LeVert got blown by on defense, it was a mess. Cam seems like a good candidate to go the way of Okoro in the playoffs with his current level of shooting (though his ft% indicates he might turn that around at some point).
The reason you pay Donte is that you know he has the skills necessary to succeed in the playoffs. Why hinge a shot at a title, however unlikely, on a chance you don’t need to take?
Outside of your stars, you want to fill the roster with 3&D players, ideally ones who can also drive, that’s Donte. He has no readily apparent liability that will get him played off the floor or that will lose you a series in the way Duncan Robinson might if he’s forced to guard Derrick White 20mpg.
Brunson hasn’t exactly shown any genius at running sets- he’s a shoot first, shoot second, dump it off if he hasn’t got anything type of point. He’s really good at it- a better option than Randle for sure- but he’s not making anyone better. Randle was better with Brunson off the floor last year and I don’t think he helps RJ much either other than by drawing defensive attention himself. He hasn’t helped Mitch or Grimes at all. He never turns the ball over but sometimes you have to make a risky pass or two to keep defenses honest, something Brunson rarely does. He’s got a great feel for creating his own shot but not much of one creating for others. I’d rather see Brunson average 20 and 8 and getting other guys better shots than have him average 25 and 6 trading iso’s with Randle but I don’t think that’s his game. Maybe that’s all on Thibs but I think iso offense plays to Brunson’s strengths as much as it does to Randle’s.
Brunson and Hart were hanging out with a former Villanova player who just happens to be 6’ 7” and can also hit the 3. Is Saddiq Bey a target?
Yeah, we can always improve, but the truth is that our offense is clearly better this year. The ball is moving better, outside shooting is better, isos are there but at a lower level, assists are up, however slightly. There is no problem with isolating and penetrating provided that you make good quick decisions with the ball and ‘spray it out’ when needed, as Thibs likes to say. The recent blowouts have to do with defending breakdowns or simply lack of effort, not with poor offense. Part of the problem are the so-called stretch-fives, but only part. The Knicks have been kind of timid defensively for long stretches. They don’t pressure the ball, easily get blown by, can be slow on rotations, fail to anticipate the next pass and ‘fly with the ball,’ and so on. Both Bucks and Celts got numerous open 3s against us that should not have been allowed. You can’t do that against teams that have good shooters one through five. Defense is not just about talent; it is about individual and team effort, and will which you have to impose upon your opponent.
“Obi leads the NBA in 2PT% at .775.
Somehow I think we could have used a guy like Hali who could turn a scrub into a guy who rarely misses on dunks he gets via great passes from maybe the best passer in the NBA.
fify
It’s so funny when we all want them to pick the same guy, and that guy becomes a superstar and they…don’t pick him.
It’s really sad, but drafting isn’t easy. A lot of teams passed on Haliburton, SGA, Mitchell etc… I would love to know why we didn’t Hali though.
Bold statement Nicos. I don’t know, it doesn’t feel correct.
I think Jalen helps to define player roles on the court. I think he also reduces turnovers. Plus, I feel like he brings confidence to many around him.
The Phoenix Suns were one of them. Coming out of the bubble where they went undefeated, before the Chris Paul trade.
Instead of going the Paul route they could have had a Haliburton/Booker backcourt with Mikal Bridges on the wing, all their picks, and tons of cap space.
Instead they drafted…. Jalen Smith…who is actually on Indiana like Obi, which is kinda weird. I suppose Deni Avdija is next.
I distinctly remember the Knicks not even working Hali out before the draft… he was I think the only player projected in our range that we didn’t meet with. Dolan’s razor was working overtime on that one.
as far as the knicks and fucking up the draft goes…as the Mandalorian says – “this is the way”
Mitch is out tonight. Again, damn curious how a system that’s more than ever designed largely around one guy functions without that guy, even in the short term.
Damn, I’m curious too, but I don’t actually want to see, if you know what I mean