[New York Post] – Tue, 19 Dec 2023 11:50:19 GMT
- Julius Randle, gritty Knicks edge out Lakers to cap successful trip out West
- Knicks vs Lakers live stream: How to watch the NBA game for free
- LeBron James Made Los Angeles Lakers History – Fastbreak on FanNation
- Julius Randle, Jalen Brunson deliver huge games as Knicks hold off Lakers
- Knicks 114, Lakers 109: Take a bow, iHart.
[Silver Screen and Roll] – Tue, 19 Dec 2023 20:23:52 GMT
- Lakers Rumors: NBA reportedly pressured Lakers to raise IST banner
- Lakers unveil in-season tournament championship banner in brief ceremony at Crypto.com Arena
- LA Lakers unveil In-Season Tournament Championship banner but the New York Knicks spoil the party
- Lakers raise In-Season Tournament banner ahead of Knicks matchup
- Lakers hang a modest banner to celebrate their victory in the NBA’s first In-Season Tournament
[Sports Illustrated] – Tue, 19 Dec 2023 17:30:49 GMT
- What Can Make the Knicks Real Contenders
- Knicks struggling to defend anyone without Mitchell Robinson with no clear solution
- 25 games in, Knicks regressing defensively at inopportune moment
- Knicks need to return to defensive roots to reestablish identity
- Power Rankings: Knicks Rising After Win Over Lakers?
[New York Post] – Wed, 20 Dec 2023 00:31:00 GMT
- Knicks enter ‘rivalry’ game with Nets in a very different position this time around
- Brooklyn Nets Return Home, Seeking Victory Against Tough New York Knicks
- Knicks vs Nets Prediction – NBA Picks 12/20/23
- New York Knicks vs. Brooklyn Nets odds, picks and predictions
- New York Knicks vs Brooklyn Nets Prediction, 12/20/2023 Preview and Pick
[SB Nation] – Tue, 19 Dec 2023 19:17:54 GMT
- Huge dog at Lakers game with courtside seats is perfect in every way
- Why was there an 80-pound dog sitting courtside at Lakers game next to Kevin Bacon?
- How ‘Brodie The Goldendoodle’ landed courtside at Knicks-Lakers
- Kevin Bacon and wife Kyra Sedgwick share courtside seats with dog influencer Brodie the Golden Doodle at star-
- Instagram-Famous Dog Fetches Courtside Seat At Lakers Game, Dances His Tail Off!
[New York Post] – Tue, 19 Dec 2023 23:32:00 GMT
- Julius Randle is doing far more than just showing up these days
- How Knicks turned Julius Randle’s season around by letting him be him
- On target: Julius Randle’s passing is hitting new levels for Knicks
- Randle Makes New York Knicks History in Loss to Jazz
- Knicks’ Julius Randle: Scores 23 points in win
[sny.tv] – Tue, 19 Dec 2023 14:00:00 GMT
It’s time for the Knicks to start Immanuel Quickley
[hoopsrumors.com] – Tue, 19 Dec 2023 22:03:00 GMT
- Knicks Notes: Sims, Centers, Reddish, Hart
- Assessing the Knicks massive frontcourt depth issue
- Knicks’ center problem exposed during five-game road trip
- Basketball Pickups: Okay, now it’s Isaiah Hartenstein time
- Jericho Sims (ankle) questionable for Knicks Wednesday
[Bleacher Report] – Tue, 19 Dec 2023 12:35:23 GMT
Lakers Fans Demand Trade to Get LeBron James Help After Triple-Double, Loss to Knicks
[New York Post] – Tue, 19 Dec 2023 11:58:00 GMT
Lakers’ Cam Reddish is keeping time with Knicks in the past: ‘Nothing for you’
[PR Newswire] – Tue, 19 Dec 2023 14:00:00 GMT
OURA NAMED OFFICIAL PARTNER OF THE NEW YORK KNICKS
[NBA.com] – Tue, 19 Dec 2023 07:07:30 GMT
New York Knicks vs Los Angeles Lakers Dec 18, 2023 Game Summary
121 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2023.12.20)”
New thread early! How exciting! What dead horses will be beaten today?
If RJ tried to put ketchup on his morning bacon, egg, and cheese, do we think he’d hit the roll?
LOL, Lil’ Penny. But it also raises an important question for any of our members who, like me, have ever resided in the Garden State: Do you call it a Taylor ham and egg sandwich, or a pork roll sandwich?
Pork roll, egg, and cheese. I won’t stand for any taylor ham nonsense,
What are we going to do at the 5 if Sims has to sit for a few? This is where not having a true 4/5 at the back of the roster comes back to bite us. No disrespect to Taj, but we can’t rely on him splitting minutes with Hartenstein until our centers get healthy. It’s either gonna end with Taj or Hartenstein playing too many minutes, and that doesn’t help us. Bol Bol is not playing, we can steal him for a song and throw him in the mix until Mitch and Sims are healthy. Go ahead and bite the bullet on Fournier and waive him- no one’s gonna trade for him anyway, unless a star breaks loose and we need the salary. But I don’t see it happening unless we REALLY want Donovan. But even that, with what we have to offer, is gonna cost too many picks. So set Fournier free and add another big like Bol and keep him and Taj at the end of the bench when our bags get healthy. Seems reasonable to me
…or Kelly Olynyk but we’d have to keep him in the rotation once Mitch is healthy
rj career (pts are per 100):
with mitch: 27.2pts, TS 52.1%, 2pt fg% 46.7%, rim fg% 57.9%, min 4023
w/o mitch: 26.9pts, TS 51.6%, 2pt fg% 45.5%, rim fg% 55.02%, min 5666
Yesterday’s thread was wow, 250 comments, what happened, ah, nothing 95% empty calories E-troll bs. What a waste of a fun win over LeBron.
I’d take a flyer on Bol Bol but I don’t think Thibs will.
Tarrytown Dispatch: Thibs ran a hard practice on offense yesterday:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NksZr2UxdH4
2023-24 kobe assist snapshot (defined as percentage of missed 2pa converted either as putbacks or unassisted within 3 seconds of miss):
franz wagner: 11.5%
siakam: 12.1%
brunson: 8.5%
RJ: 8.1%
Cunningham: 8.1%
Pt pardon me for asking you to be my personal AI but can you pull the kobe assist data for the knicks last year? Director had a reasonable point, and I am curious to see who contributed most to our OREB success.
Poindexter, for better or worse, I’m pretty sure the answer is Taj.
Kobe assists are a big part of the Knick offense, no question, but a few observations:
1. The “core” Kobe assist is a guy driving into the paint, drawing the man of a strong offensive rebounder, getting it up to the rim, and the offensive rebounder getting a far easier offensive rebound than he otherwise would because the driver pulled his man away. That is without question a positive play by the driver, even though his formal accounts show only a miss.(*)
This happens very frequently with the Knicks, from all indications on purpose and by design.
2. A general perimeter missed shot followed by a putback is technically a Kobe assist, but that’s way more random and there’s really no cause and effect between shooter and rebounder.
3. I wouldn’t call a Siakim rebounding his own putback miss and putting that back in a Kobe assist, though it’s certainly a positive play. If a Siakim grabs a tough offensive rebound in traffic and misses because two-plus guys surround him, leaving another offensive rebounder in the clear as a result, see 1.
(*) As strat counsels us, we have to look beyond the surface data.
Yeah, assuming his play against the Lakers was him not being in full game shape, as opposed to him just being cooked, Taj can be a decent stopgap, assuming iHart is going to play heavy minutes until Mitch gets back. Frankly, I feel more comfortable with a healthy Taj than with Sims. He’s a nice story as a 58th pick who actually looks like he belongs on a basketball court. But other than his switchability and his vertical leap, his skills are either extremely modest or non-existent. He’s not young, either, so it’s not like there’s more there that hasn’t been unlocked yet. A stone-faced pogo stick is what he is. Whereas Taj can actually do things on offense and is craftier on defense, even if he’s less physically imposing.
And if there are nights when iHart is in foul trouble and Taj is gassed? Then you play Sims. He should always be a team’s third-string, in-case-of-emergency center, not an actual rotation player.
Yeah, and my guess is that Brunson and Barrett accounted for the vast majority of these drives last year.
And I’m thinking of this in context of a potential Bojan trade… which I’m not just randomly banging the drum for… the guy is very much on the block and Leon is very much the kind of GM who likes to trade draft capital for mid season improvements… I’d put the odds that we make that trade this year at 30%.
Noble and others raised the point yesterday that if we get Bojan we must get rid of RJ. That made no sense to me. Bojan strikes me as the near perfect *attainable* wing partner for Barrett. He provides the shooting we desperately need with perimeter playmaking we sorely lack. And when the ball gets kicked around to an open RJ… well I was mostly thinking of how he’s not a good spot shooter and he’s not good at converting his drives, either… but I kinda forgot about the whole Kobe assist thing… it kinda makes RJ getting the ball as the last option reasonably appealing… and it almost makes me thing this could potentially be a damn good offense.
I think it’s quite obvious by now I love taking swings in the draft and I hated giving up a swing for Josh Hart last year, but after a couple impressive wins out west and emerging evidence that Julius isn’t going to be his bad self all year, my emotion mind is overcoming my logic mind and making me open to the idea of trading a first round pick to make this team better.
Pt pardon me for asking you to be my personal AI but can you pull the kobe assist data for the knicks last year?
last year, randle was 7.9%, brunson was 7.6%, RJ was 7.5%.
knicks offensive reb% on missed 2pa since beg of 2022-23:
rj on: 37.09%
rj off: 38.39%
rj/mitch: 39.55%
rj/no mitch: 35.15%
mitch/ no rj: 46.24%
knicks offensive reb% on missed rim att:
rj on: 43.54%
rj off: 44.95%
Thanks, Chat GPT.
pt those are interesting numbers…how do they compare with other similar high-usage players? Just a couple of examples for reference would be great, or maybe a league average?
Also need “success rate.”
Player X and Player Y each get the ball 10 times at the trifecta line with 5 seconds on the shot clock as backwash after a teammate says “nah” after an iso foray.
Each tries ten times to get to the rim and get the ball up on the rim reboundable. (Or, preferably, in the basket.)
Player X does it successfully 9 times. Player Y does it successfully 2 times.
Player X is obviously more useful and successful at the task, but OReb% isn’t going to tell us anything about that.
99% sure E just changed his name to Lil Penny but I also think he did it because he knows he caused too much trouble yesterday and he wants to start over, so I’m going to allow it.
With a new name comes responsibility, though. Alison Mosshart didn’t just go to Dead Weather and keep singing Kills songs, you know? Keep your voice but change your tune.
My previous name was weird and stupid so I rebranded. I’m working on getting an ad patch, but so far no luck.
Probably the funniest and most worrying thing about the Boston Celtics is that their two best players this season have been Derrick White and Mr. November, alias Kristaps Porzingis.
I don’t think they’re going to be nearly the juggernaut they currently are come playoff time if that trend holds…
It’s quite the luxury to replace the second best percentage offensive rebounder in the NBA (Capela is first right now) with the 4th best in iHart. In a strange way I feel like I miss iHart the 18mpg reserve than I miss Mitch the 30mpg starter. In other words, the dropoff for me isn’t Mitch vs. iHart, it’s Mitch vs. Sims/Taj.
Meaning, I wonder what the impact on the team would be if we started iHart over Mitch and/or reversed (or at least balanced) their minutes allocations…I think they are very close and interchangeable.
Writ large, I’d say the process has led to understanding, increased knowledge, and a general meeting of the minds and consensus. (Your last substantive post was spot-on.)
I wonder if he made it a full-time quest if ptmilo could uncover RJ’s magical powers that are only visible to one enlightened KB poster that make him more valuable to the team than the 2X all-NBA guy making the same-ish money.
On that note, I wonder how many times Julius looked at RJ and thought “How the fuck is this scrub making only $5M a year less than me?”
Also, I think we’re basically in the same position as we were at the beginning of the season, that is, fringe contenders. We’ve dropped a bit in the SRS standings, but by my lights were the 4th best team in either conference in terms of playoff equity. I simply don’t trust the Magic or Rockets to replicate their regular season performance in the playoff environment given their youth, and I don’t trust the Clippers to be healthy. So, in terms of playoff equity, that leaves only 6 teams clearly ahead of us:
Boston (a juggernaut, but see my last comment and Nicos in the last thread…)
Phily (my choice for the championship if you made me choose today)
Milwaukee (coming around but defense is a major question mark)
OKC (really good, but young)
Minnesota (great team)
Denver (great team)
That’s not the worst position to be in, though it does make me wonder what sort of trade puts us in the conversation with the genuine contenders listed above. Bojan would be nice but with limited upside, OG would be nicer but too costly, Mitchell would be nicest in spite of the very real roster issues he would create. That said, whatever trade ends up happening, solving this roster construction puzzle is going to be a tough ask for Leon.
Alecto, I’m more confident in the Clips staying reasonably healthy than you are and would include them in that mix. I’m less confident in OKC keeping it going. the Pels are very tough when healthy. Memphis looked like a different team with Ja out there. And who knows with the Suns and Warriors?
But this road trip was very encouraging. Let’s see if we can go 4-3 in this next 7-game stretch, that would bode very well for the rest of both the pre- and post- Mitch return games…
pt those are interesting numbers…how do they compare with other similar high-usage players? Just a couple of examples for reference would be great, or maybe a league average?
if you mean putbacks as a % of missed 2pa in 2022-23, some higher % high usage, higher % players include kyle kuzma (10%), trae (8.6%), ja (9.1%), rwb (8.6%), jordan clarkson (10.4%), quickley (11.2%); guys like siakam, wagner, jalen green, giddy, mikal, cj mccollum all fell in the brunson/randle/rj 6-8% range. the knicks as a whole averaged 8.0%.
bonus material
for the entire 2022-23 season, how many times did an rj miss at the rim result in a teammate putback? 12
for the entire 2022-23 season, how many times did an rj miss at the rim result in any teammate bucket of any kind? 18
@Z,
I agree that there are different ways you can slice this up, but I see us as roughly in the same tier as the Clips, Suns, Lakers, and maybe the Warriors as fringe contenders. I’m a bit lower on Memphis unless Ja is totally transformative and likewise with the Pelicans unless Zion manages to remember how to play basketball.
If the Knicks aren’t rebounding a higher percentage of 2 point misses, the clogged lane really isn’t “paying for itself” at all making its scrapping even more imperative. (Pending any data on their 3 pt OReb percentage.)
I like your post, Unbearable, but share a different opinion and would like to explain why…
I’m not with you here. I think we’re frisky and we’re entertaining. But we’re not even on the fringe and that’s because we can’t shoot.
Which brings me to:
See this differently. Shooting provides unlimited upside.
No matter what we do, we’re going to face superior teams in the playoffs, right? We can’t, in the course of the next two months, build a team that’s better than Boston or Milwaukee or even Philadelphia.
But what we can do is build a team that has the potential to beat superior teams. And you do that by acquiring shooting.
Introduce lights out shooting and you introduce volatility and standard deviation. This is how you beat a better team.
I actually don’t think he would be nice than Bojan. He’s a more well rounded player and he would raise our floor but you’re not going to beat the Bucks with a higher floor. You need the higher ceiling that you can get from two weeks of lights out shooting and well spaced floor.
Hard disagree. Everything Mitchell adds he takes from Brunson and Quickley. The net is a lot less than the gross.
Brunson and Randle on their best days can do some real nasty shit. We just saw them do it. But we make it really hard for them to have their best days in the playoffs. Get Bojan, space the floor, and there’s a chance we can see the best versions on Brunson and Randle come spring. THAT is a fringe contender.
I’d do the Bojan trade with some trepidation that they tried a very similar player in Fournier for pretty much that exact role and it didn’t take.
tl;dr => don’t think about trades that will make us a top 5 team, think about trades that could create enough volatility for us to beat a top 5 team.
The volatility thing is exactly why Thibs shouldn’t have relied so heavily on the low ceiling hustlebunnies in the Miami series. That’s exactly the opposite of what you want to do.
Lil Penny I have seen Bojan play a lot of playoff games and he is just a much tougher dude than Evan Fournier. I know he doesn’t play D but he’s big, nasty, and Bosnian. I think that will be enough for Thibs.
No. Stop. Old song. No one wants to hear it. Play something new.
That’s an interesting argument, Hubie. And it’s the kind of trade this FO might make. So you’re making me feel less frustrated with it in advance.
Ok add “they shouldn’t do that this year”
so is the basis of this theorem…that if you do the construction of the roster with more volatility in outcomes (re: winning the title) and if you simulate those outcomes under both ways that you will find more instances of winning the title with the higher volatility vs the plain old top 5 contender roster that has less “volatility”?
while likely hard to prove…seems like the difference would be minimal…but perhaps you are saying it is easier to do the high vol roster and get the same probability?
Not exactly. The “plain old top 5 contender roster” is still the best way to go. I’m just saying we’re not going to build that in the next two months, so what’s the optimal strategy for beating better teams? Volatility.
As for proving it, I know Gladwell wrote about it in Outliers. I think it’s fairly accepted wisdom, though, that shooting lots of threes is the best way to beat a better team. I’m not inventing anything.
its also an optimal strategy for losing to lesser teams, i.e, first round knockout…
The reason a Bojan/RJ pairing doesn’t make a ton of sense is because RJ is not the kind of guy whose role can be pared down in a sensible way. He doesn’t have the tertiary skills for that–he’s not a good 3PT shooter, cutter, etc. What does a pared down RJ look like?
It’s a lot easier to imagine a world where, say, Randle limits himself to the things he’s clearly good at, because he’s clearly good at a lot of things. This was the LAL/NOP version of Randle, basically.
RJ’s “best” skill is usage soaking i.e. taking a lot of shots at efficiency levels that are theoretically better than they’d be with those shots redistributed (I’m not saying RJ specifically does this, though I think the question is fair to debate and is the angle I’d go with if I were an RJ stan, this is just the idea of usage soaking in general).
If he’s not soaking up usage anymore, what exactly is he doing?
Nothing more than a gut feeling combined with some tea leaf reading: I think Leon Rose’s “all in” team will feature both Bogey and Mitchell.
It’s “li’l,” not “lil’.” The elision is for the two letter “T”s in the middle of the word, not for the silent “E” at the end of it.
And while it’s true that when used for Penny Hardaway’s miniature doppelganger “lil'” was more often used than “li’l,” that doesn’t make it any more correct and I wouldn’t use the opinions of marketers as “the correct way to go.” Lastly, they weren’t even consistent with their own stupid moniker: I also see some “Li’l Penny” items advertised on ebay.
In our case, though? We have a pretty strong foundation. I don’t see dropping DDV for Bojan making us any more vulnerable to an upset.
we’re currently 12th in 3PA and 6th in 3pt %, I don’t think outside shooting is really a problem. We are pretty good at generating points off turnovers. We are very bad at 2pt%, and we are 2nd to last in 2pt shots off assists. So our iso heavy offense is not getting it done this season as well as it did last year. This might just get better as the year goes on, Randle and JB were really, really bad at the start of the season. Our defense has been nose diving lately though-I guess some of that is down to Mitch getting hurt, but we’d been giving up a lot of points in the games before he went down as well.
In basketball terms, if you’re more talented than the other teams you want certainty and less risk/volatility; if you’re less talented, you want more volatility, though it comes with the risk of flaming out as pepper noted.
Very good chance. Bogey is gonna be pricey once the Pistons put him up for auction. Wouldn’t shock me at all if he pulled in two unprotected 1s. The Knicks maybe have a slight advantage with the Pistons fugazi pick in that it can marginally help the Pistons to get it back.
I’d much prefer the Zion path, but it’s clear that the Knicks do not have the same risk tolerance I have.
Also probably worth pointing out we’re up to 10th in the league in offensive rating, which is good, not bad. Pretending this team is bad seems to have become a big part of what we do around here for some reason and it’s pretty fucking annoying.
I was thinking exactly the same but with much less usage and time spent on the court. Maybe 9 minutes a half. He becomes the guy who we take out for Quickley.
The Knicks were better than the Heat, so maybe that’s one problem with your theory. The other is that the shooters Thibs wasn’t playing were an injured Immanuel Quickley and Evan Fournier, who is not particularly good at playing NBA basketball.
Yeah but Jalen Brunson’s shooting doesn’t create space for Jalen Brunson. You get that, right?
We’re very clearly talking about this team today as if it is good but deficient.
You are pretending that people are pretending it’s bad just so you can get worked up.
i mean we have a good offense
The thing about volatility isn’t about increasing probability per se as it is a about decreasing the clustering of outcomes in the probability space. If you live and die by the 3—a la the Paul/Harden Rockets who nearly eliminated the KD Warriors—then you just alter the distribution range of outcomes without necessarily changing the overall probability of winning the series (since you presumably increase your chances of losing just as much as your winning other things being equal.)
Say you could choose between a probability interval of 0-10% chance to win the championship (with equal probability within the interval of 0, 1, 2% etc.) or a certain 5%. They’re equal in expected probability of winning (5%) but the outcome range of the former is wider than the latter. Worse teams want to maximize volatility because they lack talent, whereas better teams want to minimize volatility so they can leverage their superior players.
Now, Hubert’s argument is something like this: if you trade for Bojan as opposed to OG, you may not increase your absolute probability to win a chip in the former case, but you will increase the volatility, and that should outweigh the “safe” probability increase that OG provides. I don’t think this is right (I think you should simply maximize your chances, at least in the abstract/without filling out the scenario more) but I can understand it, especially if your approach is risk-friendly.
Paging PT to make sure I made the point correctly 🙃
Just for the record, the only player I obsess about is Deuce. I do rag on RJ a fair bit, but only because he consistently does stupid so very well. It’s an outrage to my eyes, like Randle in his bad year or earlier this season. Sure, he’s also one of the more inefficient players in pro basketball, which just makes me sad. But it’s the glaring mind farts that make me write shit. Clean that up and I’d write about him as much as I do about JHart, which is not much at all.
Macri apparently so annoyed by the thread yesterday that he actually said some nice things about Barrett today. Thought I’d mention that.
And Doogie, your schtick is infinitely better. You’re regularly funny, if not always intentionally (hard to say, like if Sims were a standup comic). Others are only funny if you think it’s amusing to watch someone troll the thread to bend it to be all about him for the entire day.
Actually I don’t think OG provides a probability increase at all. If the Knicks trade for OG Anunoby, our championship odds are as close to zero as they are now.
I think OG increases our probability of winning 48 games. I think he’d increase our probability of beating the Orlando Magic. But we’re still overmatched vs Boston and Milwaukee.
He’s a “nut and bolt” kinda guy, to borrow JK47’s term. He does nothing for me, and I’d rather take swings in the draft.
There’s no reason to accept that volatility if you can hedge or eliminate it and someone smart is going to Moneyball that someday. At some level of 2 production and consistency, the risk-adjusted TS% boost you get from jacking a bunch of threes goes away and the assets that get you there will be undervalued while your competitors continue to bid up the prices of assets to deploy in a naturally volatile strategy.(*)
Book it.
(*) The true probability of an 0-27 run from three, or something like it, in a big game is understated in the marketplace. That risk should absolutely be hedged.
Don’t shoot lots of 3s because the Rockets lost in 7 games against a team that started 4 prime hall of fame players (including 2 of the 5 best players in the league) is a weird takeaway from that year
Thanks, Raven. I actually *do* care about the stuff I post about, so it’s less schtick and more “odd things that Doogie cares about that most people do not.” But at least it’s real and true and sincere and genuine. 🙂
Honestly, is there any realistic trade that increases our championship odds? We’re a pretty good team that with minor improvements could be a consistent high 40/low 50 win team but I’m struggling to see how we can realistically become a high 50 win team.
hi milo…do you have any stories you’d like to share?
that was a good one doogie: elision…i always thought of it as speaking in a phonetic manner…didn’t know about that word elision though…
I’m not being a smarta$$ when I ask this question: Are we talking about Bogdanovic (Pistons) or Bogdanovic (Hawks)? I think we’re talking about Bojan on the Pistons, but would just like to confirm. (Interestingly, the two Bogeys kind of played against each other on Monday night…….well, their *teams* did…….but Hawks Bogey was out with an injury (which really is kind of rare for him).
And, yes, I missed closing out my main parenthetical phrase that had a sub-parenthetical phrase within it with a close parens. To be correct, my sub-parenthetical phrase should have really been enclosed by brackets instead of parens, which may partly be why I missed closing out the main.
I flog myself and will lose sleep tonight over this. (OK, I might lose sleep tonight, but hopefully it will be because I will be with New Lady Doogie, and not because of paren/bracket issues.)
It’s definitely Bojan on the Pistons.
Doogie I have typed “Bojan” every time precisely so that you would not come on here and tell me I was being unclear!
I, too, was confused by the introduction of “Bogey”, but I’m assuming we all mean Bojan of the Pistons.
we’re still talking about the 0-for-27 streak, but no one’s talking about how the Mavs scored 30 straight points against the 2nd-place Thunder this month
here’s what the Thunder did to get there
missed layup
turnover
turnover
turnover
missed 3
missed 3
missed paint 2
missed layup
turnover
missed 3
missed layup
missed 3
turnover
so what I’m gleaning here is that NBA teams should not only avoid building around the deep ball, but they should also stop dribbling, passing, shooting short 2s and going for layups
am I being understood here
this isn’t really true… it’s about expected value… and you increase expected value by increasing your edge (high skill players… gameplanning)…
playing in a ‘volatile’ way doesn’t increase your probability of winning… but jacking up 3s… can sometimes mitigate some of your opponents edge depending on the matchup.. say for example if they have a bunch of 7 ft’ers that eat you alive inside….
3s are inherently volatile… but taking certain 3s by certain players can mitigate that… also all things are not always equal…. people can be hurt… or pressing… or tired or any number of things that can impact things that you can’t really measure….
shootings 3s got houston to within a game of beating the best team of all-time…. there was a confluence of events that involved using a volatile strategy that got them there and they just hit the other end of it…. that’s all that is…
volatility inherently implies that its unpredictable.. you can control what you can control… but which way the ball bounces you have little effect….
No one anywhere in anything accepts volatility that can be hedged. (Other than idiots, I guess, but the marketplace winds up weeding them out.)
Honestly I was more surprised by your use of ellipses — two times! — in a parenthetical phrase that had a sub-parenthetical phrase. You were just really cutting loose.
Not really.
Path 1 gives you a 25% chance to win four playoff series and a championship and a 75% chance to win zero series.
Path 2 gives you a 100% chance of winning one playoff series.
Same expected value — one playoff series win. But one clearly better choice.
Unhedged.
Whatever TS% resulted from their strategy wasn’t their “true” TS% if it carried within it the very real possibility of an 0-27 run in the very biggest game of the year.
And with that, I see that I’ve unexpectedly apparently hit yet another Knickerblogger sacred cow third rail and will therefore now depart the stage. I guess it beats stepping on a surprise land mine.
Oh no are we not going to get the math you used to determine the very real probability of a team going 0-27!! Where are we going to get bad faith arguments in favor of volatility and against it in the same thread???
no it’s not the same expected value… path 2 has a 0% chance of winning a championship… at least you’re implying that…
path 1 is… not zero…
The way you combat “volatility” is to have one or two ATG great players in your lineup and just beating your opponent into submission with the brute force of that player’s greatness. This is how most teams win chips. They have Jokic or LeBron or Steph or Giannis or some such.
When you try to do it with a fugazi ATG guy like Jayson Tatum it doesn’t really work as good. You might sneak a chip that way. Trying to do it with a couple of 4 BPM guys and some nuts and bolts doesn’t work at all.
None of these moves we are talking about— Bojan, OG, et al— bring the Knicks any closer to true contention. There’s only so much you can improve by swapping out 0-1 BPM type players.
Sims is out for 1-2 weeks. Taj better be in shape, fast.
Hi, I’m new here and have a question: Does anyone know what Hubert thought on Beaujawn are?
Geez. Really, we should cut one or two guys from the end of the bench and sign Bol Bol and/or Kenneth Lofton Jr.
We should sign Bol Bol and Lofton, play them together at all times and call them Fun House Mirror
I’d sign up for lofton instead of starting Taj for 2 weeks
Taj getting minutes is depressing
We should sign Bol Bol and Lofton, play them together at all times and call them Fun House Mirror
rake and the fatman
What is Mo Bamba doing these days? He’s rotting on the Sixers bench averaging 4 points and 2.5 rebounds in 6 minutes per game.
Go get ‘im, Leon!!!!!!!
I do think swapping RJ for OG would make the Knicks meaningfully better (say 3-5 wins). I would do it straight up no problem but that’s probably not what toronto wants and I think JKs argument about title chances is worth considering when it comes to how much more it would take
You’re 100% right.
But Bojan, I think, does a few things:
1. He makes us a lot more fun.
2. He knocks RJ down a rung.
3. He gives us a puncher’s chance in the second round against Boston or Milwaukee.
That’s it. Josh Hart did less, and almost everyone loved that move.
I think OG, FWIW, does none of those things. He’s a suped up Quentin Grimes with a stupid price tag.
Telling Randle to “pass the fvcking ball?”
Taj is probably wondering what he got himself into at his age for just a minimum salary.
Suped up Quentin Grimes would be a very good playerthough. I agree about the likely price tag
I agree he wouldn’t have a huge impact on our title chances, but I would do it anyway. I think we should do anything that makes us better now and also improves the long term. If course, price if part of that equation, but if we had OG we’d add defense, wing size, and even spacing a bit. Then perhaps the next move puts us into serious contention.
OG is like a career 40 percent 3 point shooter and one of the best defending wings in the league. Replacing RJ with him would raise our floor and ceiling.
Hubs, I get what you’re saying about introducing volatility into a playoff series, but OG is just as good of a 3 point shooter as Bojan and would in theory play way more minutes.
IMO, worrying about what specific move gives us the best chance this season is not the right way to think about this. Just continue to build the team. Make a move that addresses our biggest weakness and try to improve the team. Worrying about how we specifically can match up against Boston or The Bucks is silly when you aren’t at full contender status yet. The goal is to get to that level or near it and then we can make a move like that.
Of course, OG might cost us a lot more so maybe Bojan is the best move to make right now.
Also, sign me up for getting the Center kid from Iowa who is currently 3rrd or 4th on the depth chart in Minny. He can be had for cheap probably and is on a team that isn’t in our division or conference (and doesn’t have Ainge as a GM) so they probably won’t try to screw us. He’s a 2 time big ten player of the year and a guy who played all 4 years in college. Dudes like that get drafted late because they’re not athletic and older but he seems like a thibs type of smart/hustle player who could play 10 off the bench for us. and could have a higher ceiling than most.
And our biggest weakness right now (outside of having no bigs lol) is DEFENSE. We need to improve our defense, specifically our perimeter and point of attack defense.
Kid from Iowa = Luka Garza. Definitely worth a flier.
No one liked my Mo Bamba idea? He’s a little bit more proven in the pros.
OG could cost so much it takes us out of any possible star deal later. That’s something to consider. But I don’t really see the point behind Bojan. Unlike OG who will make us better now and is young enough to be part of the long term plan and potential championship window, Bojan would make us better now but probably won’t be around long enough to matter. I don’t want to give up assets for the last puff of a spent cigar.
Chrome and leather (TM) needed.
Not sure why OG is so expenive now…I get Massaii hard ball reputtion but hes bout to let both OG and Siakam walk on July 1st. You’d think the owners would expect him to have learnd his lesson with FVV.
Also, there is no ability to bluff. Everyone know who is agent is. Leon will know every team that’s interested and every offer available even before it gets to Massai because OG has to agree to extend at least in principle. If anyone is going to trade for a player entering free agency in 6 months. Massai knows that Leon can just sit tight and sign OG for free on July 1st.
https://nypost.com/2023/12/20/sports/cavaliers-not-ready-to-trade-donovan-mitchell-with-knicks-lurking/
Leon can move RJ to an under the cap rebuild team like Detroit for two future top 10 protected 1RPs and sign OG for free.
Donovan Mitchell was massively outplayed by RJ Barrett (and a bunch of other people) in last year’s playoffs and would be coming to a team whose offense is essentially proven to turf non-centers’ TS and 2P percentages.
I wasn’t that interested in him before last year’s playoff whiff and I’m even less interested in him now. Paying auction retail for him is senseless. If somehow he can be gotten at wholesale, maybe.
The fundamental question I raised about him last time was “If Utah wants to move on from him because he and the team don’t sufficiently deliver in the playoffs, then why do I want him??”(*)
And then he whiffed again in the playoffs last spring.
(*) Not that it really matters, but the response to that question was essentially what we can shorthand refer to as, “The Usual.”
I want no part of Mitchell….
Can he? I’m usually pretty good at figuring out player value and mock trades but I have no idea what RJ’s value around the league might be.
The Cavs should fire their coach and see if someone new can get more out of their current roster, which has some weird fits but a lot of talent. They can trade guys next year if they need to. Maybe trade Allen if you can get something interesting back for him-he’s a very nice player but a pretty good center is not all that hard to get if you need one.
He’s (probably) the best big wing defender on the market who is good enough on offense to not hurt your team on that end. He obviously isn’t a long term acquisition, but the list of playoff teams who could use a big wing defender who can also play some offense is long
If you go back and look at Mitchell’s performance against the Knicks he had a brilliant game 1, he was good in game 2 and game 5, was mediocre in game 3 and fucking awful in game 4. RJ was bad the first two games and pretty good the last 3.
Mitchell has scored 30 or more points 20 times in a playoff game out of the 45 he’s played in. RJ has scored 30 or more points 19 times in his NBA career. There are some very good reasons Mitchell might be a bad fit for this Knicks team, but if you think RJ Barrett is better than him you should just stop talking about basketball.
https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/39141447/2023-24-nba-power-rankings-embiid-clippers-click-knicks-hit-their-stride
…
Rj Barrett can’t hold Mitchell’s jock strap…
He TS’d 519 in five playoff games that his team lost to a lower seed.
After being traded because of playoff underachievement.
Thanks, but no thanks.
I don’t care about his pointzzzz. Or the Knickerblogger RJ Barrett obsession.
RJ Barrett was better than him in last year’s playoffs, full stop.
I get that but how much would anyone pay for an OG rental, – if he tells you point blank, “I’m signing with NY in July”?
I get the exact value uncertainity too…Leon got two 2nds for Obi. Even if he gets one pick for RJ. It’s still a free OG + one 2RP.
CAA meddling is why Dolan hired Leon. This is a plus. Massai is the fool here.
So the question remains on Spida:
If he was moved on from by his team because of playoff underachievement, and had yet another playoff whiff so bad that he was clearly outplayed in the playoff season by a guy who sucks … then why do I want him?
(We don’t even need to get into the TS/2PT% clogged lane turfing issue.)
oh you don’t care about points, you like RJ for his robust non-scoring game? wow, so enlightened, unlike those stupid kinckerbloggers. you should find a site with a bunch of guys as brilliant as you to post on
Or people could not cite inefficient pointzzz scored by another guy just to obsessively try to show that Barrett sucks. That’s probably a better and easier idea.
I don’t buy the more volatility strategy for NBA playoff games. The chances are at best 50% for the volatility gods to be in your favor in your first playoff series. The next series chances are similar so you have a 50% times 50% chance of both series going your way or 25%. Extrapolating to four series your chances are one in sixteen. And all this is assuming that the volatility swings are big enough to win four games of a series, which won’t be the case many times. I just don’t see it. It’s much more likely the volatility gods will cause you to crash out ignominiously. It’s much better to just be reasonably good, play hard and see if the other gets injured or has a bad streak. Of course, if you just want to win one play-in game volatility could get you there.
I don’t even think RJ sucks, he’s just clearly not as good as Donovan Mitchell. Please stop posting here.
Seriously, dude — no one ever said he was. Literally ever. Why do you lose your shit over this stuff?
RJ Barrett isn’t as good as Donovan Mitchell. Happy now?
Put this thread out of it’s misery…get that game thread going
I would say it’s far from obvious RJ had the superior playoffs. His efficiency was obviously better, but his usage was a lot lower.
In other words, he low ceiling hustle bunnied his way to a better TS%.
How do you defend anybody if the backcourt is Jalen Brunson and Donovan Mitchell? I like Spida but there are some pretty obvious issues of fit there.