[CBS Sports] – Tue, 26 Dec 2023 14:25:00 GMT
NBA Power Rankings: Knicks, Heat in top 10 after Christmas, Suns fall amid Kevin Durant’s rumored discontent
[New York Post] – Wed, 27 Dec 2023 03:36:00 GMT
Knicks’ Immanuel Quickley seeing diminished playing time despite impressive play
[CBS Sports] – Tue, 26 Dec 2023 14:31:00 GMT
NBA Christmas Day scores, takeaways: Luka Doncic deserves more MVP buzz; Knicks’ Jalen Brunson dissects Bucks
[Posting and Toasting] – Tue, 26 Dec 2023 14:00:00 GMT
REPORT: Bostons interest in Kelly Olynyk and obstacles to a Knicks Dejounte Murray trade
[New York Post] – Wed, 27 Dec 2023 05:16:00 GMT
- Knicks performing better than expected, but daunting stretch doesn’t get easier
- Knicks Notes: Elite Opponents, Barrett, Skapintsev, G League Showcase
- The Knicks Are a Superstar Away From Greatness
- Here’s why the Knicks’ defense has collapsed, and what they can do to fix it
- 25 games in, Knicks regressing defensively at inopportune moment
[Sports Illustrated] – Tue, 26 Dec 2023 21:55:33 GMT
Damian Lillard’s Instagram Post After Bucks-Knicks Game
[Bleacher Report] – Tue, 26 Dec 2023 20:16:58 GMT
- Knicks’ Julius Randle Says NY Has Been ‘Most Challenging’ Place to Play in His Career
- Julius Randle wants ‘nothing more’ than to win championship with Knicks
- Julius Randle: ‘There’s nothing more that I want to do other than win a championship here in New York’
- Julius Randle drops eye-opening take on Knicks’ championship aspirations
- Immanuel Quickley: GOT A DUB IN THE GARDEN ON
[New York Daily News] – Tue, 26 Dec 2023 15:00:44 GMT
Power Ranking the Knicks’ collection of Draft Assets
[Raptors Rapture] – Tue, 26 Dec 2023 16:30:00 GMT
- Immanuel Quickley rumors likely takes Raptors out of trade discussions with Knicks
- Knicks Rumors: Immanuel Quickley’s Name ‘Virtually Absent’ in NBA Trade Talks
- 3 Early predictions for Knicks at the NBA Trade Deadline
- Knicks reportedly open to trading away high-scoring guard
- Immanuel Quickley Seeking $25M Per Season In Restricted Free Agency
[The Athletic] – Tue, 26 Dec 2023 15:08:17 GMT
- Bucks familiar defensive flaws return in Christmas loss to Knicks: Well learn from it
- Giannis Antetokounmpo pens heartwarming Christmas message after loss to the New York Knicks
- Adrian Griffin Speaks Out On One Area That ‘Really Hurt’ Milwaukee Bucks Against Knicks
- Giannis Antetokounmpo reveals Bucks’ fatal flaw in loss to Knicks
- Bucks’ Giannis Antetokounmpo: Scores 32 points in loss
[Winners and Whiners] – Tue, 26 Dec 2023 22:15:35 GMT
New York Knicks vs. Oklahoma City Thunder Prediction, Preview, and Odds – 12-27-2023
[Hoops Hype] – Wed, 27 Dec 2023 08:32:47 GMT
Knicks vs. Thunder: Start time, where to watch, what’s the latest
128 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2023.12.27)”
Random thoughts around the Association:
– I’d swap RJ for Cade in a split second.
– NBA has no relegations, but if a team win less than 15-games (20%) it should lose its lottery pick.
– It looks like Andre Drummond could still be useful in the right night.
– I hope Ja has learned something this time.
– My italian team tried hard to sign Duop Reath this summer, before he hooked up with the Blazers. I finally understand why.
Yeah the pistons situation is an embarrassment to the league at this point. How you gonna reward that with a number one pick? The league is literally wasting the first five years of some of the top prospects on garbage franchises that no one wants to watch.
Don’t need to argue with me about that. I’ve been heading the dump RJ team since before we drafted him. If we traded him for literally anything and moved IQ and Josh Hart to the starting lineup I think we’d improve the team by at least 5 wins.
Found this Rit Holtzman tweet interesting
https://twitter.com/benritholtznba/status/1739650419100442982?s=46&t=0wqff4cNt-sCGcDs-uMExw
On Macri’s podcast today, Fred Katz suggested the reason Quickley’s minutes have been capped is that Thibs basically divides all the guys in the rotation who aren’t Julius or a center into two groups (these are his words, not Thibs’ terminology):
1)The “big smalls” of RJ and Hart, whom
Thibs trusts to guard bigger players;
2)The regular smalls: Brunson, DDV, Quickley, Grimes
And the team’s net rating without one of the big smalls on the court is -20 or something like that. So Fred assumes that Thibs — who is obsessed with lineup data — just doesn’t want to go to relatively small lineups where it’s, say, Brunson, IQ, DDV, Julius, and a center. And short of cutting, say, Grimes out of the rotation altogether, it only leaves so much time for the small guys who aren’t Brunson.
Fred said he’s going to ask Thibs about this at next media availability, so maybe we’ll get more clarity. But that’s his theory.
Found this Rit Holtzman tweet interesting
oh did you jan? didn’t seem to twitch a flipping eyebrow when cindy made the identical point but with a defter hand on the overfit sauce last week.
since the hart trade, lineups with iq and hart plus at least one of randle or brunson have played 1257 possessions (627 minutes) with a gaudy +17.2/100 net rating.
https://knickerblogger.net/2023/12/22/knicks-morning-news-2023-12-22/#comment-875160
True shooting percentages, 2023 playoffs:
Julius Randle — .485
Josh Hart — .550 (splits of 415/238/538 against Miami)
Immanuel Quickley — .481.
So this isn’t deemed “all about me,” a reread of JK’s post yesterday about other teams turning on the jets in the playoffs versus Thibs treating every game like Game 7 is probably in order.
The real divide here is between people with the bigger picture in view and people who want to pore through the arcana of Wednesdays in December and to and fro on the ups and downs of such.
THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH THE LATTER AND NO CRITICISM IS IN ORDER FOR THE LATTER AND NONE IS BEING MADE. It’s just not really an eyes-on-the-prize perspective, and for every celebratory tweet about Wednesday nights in February and December, there’s a “yeah, but” easily attached.
My humble apologies Peter, I should have told you you are wonderful too….
There needs to be an IQ category where somebody named IQ plays 30mpg
And the team’s net rating without one of the big smalls on the court is -20 or something like that. So Fred assumes that Thibs — who is obsessed with lineup data — just doesn’t want to go to relatively small lineups where it’s, say, Brunson, IQ, DDV, Julius, and a center. And short of cutting, say, Grimes out of the rotation altogether, it only leaves so much time for the small guys who aren’t Brunson.
as a good lineup data obsessive thibs surely knows that those lineups (no hart, no rj, but also no garbage time guys like windler or jefferies) have played a total of 88 minutes together during which opponents shot over 43% from deep while the nyk shot 32%. and he also knows, of course, that last season lineups with none of hart/rj/reddish played 890 minutes together at +6.8 / 100, including a modern day spartan defensive rating of 108.
DDV with 3.0 bpm and .693 ts. Maybe he’s worth the 11m a year he’s getting?
Trade Grimes & ??? for Bitadze. Orlando desperately needs shooting.
Trade literally anyone not named Brunson if it gets IQ more playing time for us.
Dejounte Murray’s defense doesn’t show up in the all-in-ones. He’s somewhere between okay and terrible by them.
Several Hawks fans seem pretty disappointed in his defense too based on Reddit and some random YouTube video I found
If Thibs is a lineup data obsessive why doesn’t he play this lineup combo more?
Katz, Macri, Bondy and the rest are awesome and do awesome work. Click on them and support them at every opportunity.
Their job is to generate engagement and cover the entire season day by day. They do it extremely well. Engagement is typically generated more by positivity and there are certainly positive things to be found in the Knicks and various players/lineups. They don’t have the luxury of saying, “When Randle and Quickley produce in the playoffs, wake me,” and then jetting to St. Barts for the winter. If they did, they’d be fired.
People like Danny Ainge do have that luxury and in fact focus on that far more than the day-to-day arcana. Danny Ainge broke up a team that was back to back 1st/3rd in SRS and 1st/3rd in net rating in ’21 and ’22, solely because of playoff performance.
“THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH THE LATTER AND NO CRITICISM IS IN ORDER FOR THE LATTER AND NONE IS BEING MADE. It’s just not really an eyes-on-the-prize perspective, and for every celebratory tweet about Wednesday nights in February and December, there’s a “yeah, but” easily attached.”
This might be your most idiotic, self-serving post ever. Do you actually think that there is anyone here who doesn’t know this? Please reveal the names of the posters who think that this is a finished product that doesn’t need further work to advance beyond the second round of the playoffs unless a substantial amount of luck intervenes.
That’s not the issue, though, is it? You just have some sort of fetish for repeating the same “yeah, but…” shit over and over, like a spoiled child banging a loud drum during an otherwise enjoyable get-together. Randle this, Thibs that, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM…
And you enjoy that, don’t you? Except in brief moments of clarity when you self-limited to 5 posts a thread, you have been as predictable of a word-geyser as as Old Faithful.
There’s no such thing as “Hey, life isn’t perfect, but let’s enjoy these good Knicks times for now and accept that Dolan is the governor, Leon is the POBO, Thibs is the coach, and Randle is a 35mpg featured player” without reminding everyone for the gazillionth time that you want those things changed and that we will likely never win a championship without the change that you want. No matter how much you stamp your feet and rage about it, it ain’t changing any time soon.
Let me clue you in, bud. There is still AMPLE room for heated disagreement and dissention within that context! About things that are actually within the realm of possibility, and that don’t depend on daily regurgitation of points already made countless times! Try it sometime!
Your “context” is boring and unrealistic and regurgitative.
Regular season lineup data about Josh Hart and Immanuel Quickley? Why? If it’s going to be churned out, over and over and over again, at least commit to a conclusion. Is it meant to show that those lineups can win in the playoffs? What’s the point of it?
If the 80/20 Mitch theorem depends on signing a 30yo C and hoping he has a breakout season, then I’ll pass. Congrats to Drummond tho, great game
We know there’s a lot of noise in on/off and lineup data, but Quickley has rated well consistently over his career and Hart has been good overall and very good for NY. Some of that is probably due to both being starter caliber players coming off the bench, but both have looked good against starters and closing also. That combination has also been excellent. So if the coach is obsessed with net ratings, lineup data etc… you would think he’d try various lineups with those two even though he’s reluctant to go too small except in some situations. Maybe some lineups with those two but no Brunson also look good. I haven’t checked.
Or — far more likely — Thibs in fact isn’t obsessed with lineup data, or is only obsessed with it when it proves things he gets to without it.
“Danny Ainge broke up a team that was back to back 1st/3rd in SRS and 1st/3rd in net rating in ’21 and ’22, solely because of playoff performance.”
So the answer to all of our problems is to fire Leon and hire Danny Ainge? Or is it to demand that Leon behave like Danny Ainge, or else?
You mean sell off Randle, Brunson, RJ, IQ, Mitch, and the rest to the highest bidders and start drafting the shit out of the lottery?
Sounds exciting! When do you expect this to happen? No need to be specific, how about to the nearest decade?
“Your “context” is boring and unrealistic and regurgitative.”
Reality be that way sometimes…
My answer is to pay closer attention to playoff performance. The Danny Ainge example shows its importance, and how it isn’t necessarily tied to the regular season. He’s the last in a long line of association GMs who think similarly.(*)
There are other answers, but that will suffice for now.
(*) How does that apply in the middle of the regular season? Well, here’s one way. IQ’s playoff performance standing alone is enough to hesitate about his contract extension and expanding his role.
Drummond would be a perfectly fine backup. I mean the bar is being better than Taj Gibson or Simms.
No, and I’ve never suggested anything like that — at least not as a first, second, or third option.
Giannis-a so called 2x MVP-had a 525 TS percentage in the playoffs last year. Yeah, he was good a few years ago but he doesn’t fit the modern game because he can’t space out the floor. If the Bucks weren’t so obsessed with hustling for regular season “wins” they would move on and get some picks to spend on guys who can jump really high.
“Or — far more likely — Thibs in fact isn’t obsessed with lineup data, or is only obsessed with it when it proves things he gets to without it.”
So is it your opinion that we would have a record better than 17-12 if we had a coach that was obsessed with lineup data? That’s interesting! I mean it! Because swapping out Thibs for another coach is something that is within the realm of possibilities if the FO concludes that this team is woefully underperforming…which seemed reasonably close to happening back around this time last year.
Weirdly, the team loses the guy that many folks here think is the most indispensable player on the team, the guy on which the entire defensive scheme depends on, and yet in what might be the most brutal stretch of the season, the team went 5-3 without him, and with a coach who can’t figure out which lineups work and which ones don’t.
Sounds like this team is a coaching change away from being a true contender!
The Thunder are a very bad defensive rebounding team, should be interesting to see if we can out physical them tonight. It’s a shame we don’t have Mitch he would probably be way too big for them to handle.
“(*) How does that apply in the middle of the regular season? Well, here’s one way. IQ’s playoff performance standing alone is enough to hesitate about his contract extension and expanding his role.”
Wait, now I’m confused…you are saying that by hesitating on IQ’s extension and role, the Knicks FO and Thibs are actually modeling what you want them to model? Well, shit, then…we’re good!
“No, and I’ve never suggested anything like that — at least not as a first, second, or third option.”
See, that’s the issue, isn’t it? Your takes are sort of all over the place. We should be like Ainge, but we shouldn’t really be like Ainge…which one is it?
That’s not uncommon.
Yes!
If something makes sense basketball wise and the short term data supports it, I would keep doing it.
It’s when something makes sense basketball wise but the data doesn’t support it or something doesn’t make sense basketball wise but the data supports it that it gets trickier. IMO, that requires some extra digging and maybe just some gut feel and experimentation. Thibs seems too stubborn.
“The Thunder are a very bad defensive rebounding team, should be interesting to see if we can out physical them tonight. It’s a shame we don’t have Mitch he would probably be way too big for them to handle.”
They are on a b2b with travel and coming off a very nice win. But they’re young and it probably won’t affect them that much…
As to Mitch, we haven’t fared very well with him in games that involve stretch 5’s, and Chet has become quite the stretch 5. But the key tonight will be whether we can defend SGA…and keep guys like Jalen Williams and Isaiah Joe from going off.
B2B for OKC after an exciting win over Minnesota. I wonder if Brunson can hold his own against Shai.
OKC should probably think about trading for someone like Drummond
“OKC should probably think about trading for someone like Drummond”
Agreed…but with Vuc down for a bit, it would essentially mean a pivot to a tank. Is CHI ready to do that given their recent winning ways?
Z-Man, stop taking the bait. You should know better by now.
Seems like we match up fairly well with OKC even without Mitch. Hopefully Grimes or whoever can slow down Shai and force his supporting cast to beat us.
“Z-Man, stop taking the bait. You should know better by now.”
Must be the residual principal in me that believes that there’s hope for everyone…
Speaking of which, I’ve taken a 6-week leave replacement position at an “alternative” public high school as a biology and forensics teacher. The pay is essentially minimum wage but I’m thinking of it as sort of a paid internship in a place that really needs more than just a typical day-to-day sub. Should be interesting to be back in the classroom in a school other than the one I worked at for 30 years.
Basically everything E has hung his hat on the last few years has gone to shit, so he’s just going to pound the table about Randle’s 510 playoff minutes from now until the playoffs.
If/when the playoffs come, he’s not even going to predict any particular level of performance from Randle because he avoids falsifiable predictions like the plague after getting burned by Frank Ntilikina, Cam Reddish, and the 2022-2023 New York Knicks. This is why everyone is an idiot for not believing in RJ Barrett…but E will not actually say he thinks RJ Barrett will amount to anything in particular.
Unless he’s going to start putting some skin in the game, he’s probably best left ignored.
Thank you, TNFH, for helping me to better understand that which I often find confusing…
It’s not just Randle.
The team’s ORat has fallen from the regular season to the playoffs by 7.1 (2021) and 8.9 (2023) under Thibs. (The 2023 decline, pace TNFH, was predicted, in some degree of detail.)
Okay, E.
On a different topic, from The Athletic’s ranking of shooting teams:
13. New York Knicks | Average rank: 15.4
2022 rank: 30th
Greatest strength: Eighth in 3s percentage
Greatest weakness: 26th in free-throw percentage
Analysis: Look how far the Knicks have come. Last season, New York improved from 34.5 percent 3s before the All-Star break to 37.6 percent after. This season, the Knicks are up to 37.8 percent 3s, while their best player (Jalen Brunson) shoots 45.4 percent from 3 above the break. The Knicks are a bottom-five free-throw shooting team, although improvement may come there due to the unfortunate circumstances of center Mitchell Robinson’s season-threatening injury.
I doubt that Mitch’s absence will make much difference in FT% because a) he didn’t get to the line all that much and ) iHart isn’t great either, nor is Sims.
However, Julius has dramatically improved after a slow start, and I believe that other guys (except RJ) were a bit off for a while. So if the current trends hold, that should be cause for optimism. (pt is that reasonable?). I do think the 3pt% is sustainable because there will be some regression to the mean in both directions from different players (e.g RJ and Brunson cancelling each other out).
but I keep reading the Knicks have no spacing?
I don’t know Danny Ainge or what goes on in his head, but I do know that he didn’t break the the Jazz up based on a non-random 15 game sample. Mitchell and Gobert played over 40 playoff games together during a 5 years span.
that whole ‘improved’ word is doing a lot of heavy lifting…. it’s also probably the biggest reason to worry going forward actually.. we’ve been sustaining ok offense on the backs of brunson and rj/donte’s 3pt shooting….. rj’s already regressed but donte has gotten scorching hot to make up for it so we haven’t really felt it in our offense… but as soon as that stops going in at absurd rates… our offense will feel it… and more than likely tank….
the question is whether or not brunson can sustain 45 vs 41-42%s…. i don’t think he can given his ft% which point to a more career 3pt% than some true breakthrough… but if he is a 45% 3pt shooter than he’s def taken another leap… we’re still not anywhere near samples to draw a significant signal tho….
our defense has already regressed in the turnover dept and with mitch out… our dreb% has also tanked along with it…. that’s mostly the difference between sims/taj and mitch so barring a trade.. i dont think that improves and we’re going to be swimming in the back half of the drating dept all season….
DJ, agree with your three analysis, but Grimes, JHart, and Randle are all slightly to fairly below their career three percentages, so if/when Brunson comes back to the mean a bit their potential improvements might help offset that.
On the other hand, Deuce is shooting 41% — finally. Give the man some run!
Good point djphan, but remember, Randle is also way below his career 3pt% average as is Grimes to a lesser extent.
As you know, there’s a ton of variance with 3pt shooting, which is why board-gobbler Mitch was such a great thing for the O.
Clearly I’m not a huge believer in him, but if RJ can go back to *consistently* drawing fouls with his new free throw stroke, that could provide us with another weapon to sustain our above-average scoring.
But alas, it’s the defense that probably deserves more scrutiny…
EDIT: beat me to the punch, Raven
Between Drummond, DReath, Bamba, Biyombo, and Bitzdale there was a lot of 80/20ing going on last night.
yea of course there’s a whole lot of things that are not going ot be where they are but in totality…. our 3pt% last year was 19th at .354 and that was with josh hart doing his best steph curry impersonation for half the season… we are currently at .376…
would you bet that we’ll be better or worse? and so if we’re worse… what effect do you think that will have on the offense?
Z-man, congrats on taking the temp teaching position! I did that for 3 months a year after I retired, to help my previous high school out.
I’m glad I did, but about halfway through it I totally remembered why I retired in the first place (essay and paper grading fatigue as an English teacher) and turned down another interim position a year later.
🙂
His prediction that our offense would drop from 3rd in the NBA to dead last in the playoffs turned up pretty well.
His belief in the ISM over a complex system of funnels has been validated.
And as best I can tell, Leon hasn’t broken through the glass ceiling yet.
E’s a little bit out there, I admit, but you guys have a very unhealthy obsession with him. It’s like Trump Derangement Syndrome redirected to a quirky Knicks fan.
You know you could just ignore him, right? I’ve ignored Z-Man for over 6 months now, and that guy posts 1,000 times more than E.
I think the Trump Derangement Syndrome analogy is quite apropos, especially considering that the source of the analogy is the intellectual and moral equivalent of those who use that phrase to parody those with the gall to criticize Trump for stinking up the discourse in our country on a daily basis, mostly by making shit up.
Z-Man read one of Hubert’s posts!!
It’s a Festivus miracle!
Did E predict, before the playoffs, that our offense would rank dead last in the playoffs?
Since you won’t just let this drop, as several have suggested be done:
I don’t remember saying “dead last.” I certainly might have, but don’t remember it. I do however remember saying two things:
1. The offense was based on Moneyball principles and very likely would not perform the same way or really even close in the playoffs.
Check.
2. Thibs was lowering the team’s playoff ceiling by absurdly depending on his low-ceiling hustlebunnies — and we know who they are — which significantly threated the team’s offensive and overall playoff potential.
Spot-on double check.
If you insist on re-litigating these things that obviously happened and were predicted, you’re going to have to do it ex parte.
In terms of the future, the same issues are still there.
E, you should know by now that I read everyone’s posts.
Despite everyone else being convinced that the Knicks were locks for the finals, E correctly predicted that they would likely fail to get there. And that we won’t get there this year either. What a genius!
You did make a specific prediction about the playoffs, but it was that we wouldn’t win a round.
What moneyball principles?
guys if we’re going to audit putative prescience i would suggest we focus on this
i think the plausible guy i would be most excited to see us trade up for is sengun.
https://knickerblogger.net/2021/06/27/cbs-sports-knicks-tom-thibodeau-says-team-will-prioritize-shooting-and-our-offense-in-offseason/#comment-756611
He looked great last night.
Not to boast, but back in May, I accurately predicted I would not receive a Christmas bonus, and lo and behold…
Is regurgitative what my daughter would call a sparkle word?
Been trying to decide all day.
Everyone performs worse in the playoffs in the long run. Another Berri finding!
Looks like Aaron Gordon avoids defenders better than he avoids dogs.
Not gonna lie, though, the misplaced apostrophe in E’s moniker is really driving me insane. I’m on the verge of becoming deranged myself.
Can’t you just fix it? Why must you flaunt it so?
don’t you mfers get it he’s omitting the e so you can’t
A team’s overall 3 point percentage is not a stand in for offensive spacing.
Spacing is determined by the number of players you put on the court who can shoot. If Jalen Brunson and DDV are hitting 45% of their shots and they’re playing with RJ Barrett, Julius Randle, and Mitchell Robinson, that’s a poorly spaced floor.
The evidence of a well spaced floor is a team’s two-point percentage. When you have to guard the perimeter, there are easier shots closer to the rim.
The Knicks, of course, are 28th in 2P%… because we have horrible spacing… a truth which is self evident.
We’re 7th in the league in frequency of attempting open 2 point shots and we’re in the bottom half of the league in attempting contested and tightly contested 2 point shots because we have no spacing?
“Not gonna lie, though, the misplaced apostrophe in E’s moniker is really driving me insane. I’m on the verge of becoming deranged myself.”
I commented on this several days ago, as it was driving me kind of crazy, as well (to the surprise of no one). But at the same time I also had to admit: Although the actual correct place for the apostrophe is between the “I” and the second “L” (so as to replace the elided “TT,” instead of where it is to replace the elided silent “E” at the end of the word), that is only correct in “generic” circumstances. But we are talking about a proper noun here, and those can be styled however the named person (or in this case the manufacturer) wants it to be. And although I found *one* “Li’l Penny” item on ebay, the vast, vast majority of items were found to be “Lil’ Penny” items. Annoying, but true. I somehow doubt that E looked this up to ensure that he was using it the way that the manufacturer did, so he ended up styling it correctly by mistake.
Over the last 3 years we’ve finished 29th, 30th, and 18th in 2P%. This year we’re 28th. You seem to be suggesting it’s because we’re missing wide-open bunnies. I don’t buy that, and I don’t think anyone who’s watched us would, either. What are we counting here, Mitch putbacks? Long 2PAs?
A friend of mine in the racing world is a passionate Thunder fan. He has season tickets. We were just talking about the game and he told me to expect the Thunder to play really small at times. If they do, we’ll see how Thibs adjusts and whether he breaks out a smaller productive lineup.
We are the sixth worst team in the league at making open 2 point shots and 10th worst at making wide open 2 point shots, and we attempt more open/wide open 2 point shots than average. idk maybe we need a new theory
What the hell are the actual definitions of “open” and “wide open”?
To the extent our two point shooting is bad it’s mostly down to RJ and Burnson. RJ is just not a good offensive player, he’s never been. He’s less bad than he used to be, but he’s still awful anywhere between the 3 point line and the rim. Brunson got off to a bad start but has been excellent lately, and he’s been a fairly good 2 point shooter his whole career. We’ll probably wind up closer to 18th than 28th.
open is closest defender 4-6 feet, wide open is 6+. It’s public tracking data, so it’s probably not that great, but it’s better than gibbering about moneyball and just saying our spacing is bad because we have bad spacing.
Why is Cam Reddish still getting trashed?
He has a significant role on a Laker team that just won the in-season tournament. He’s shooting worse this year after several years of steady improvement in his efficiency, but he’s still contributing enough on defense to keep that role and be a net positive on the floor.
It’s a matter of what you consider to be a success. Being a starter on a good team that doesn’t need you to be a significant scorer is fine as long as you are handling your role on defense. Not everyone is going to be an all-star.
There’s still time for him to improve further (or go down in flames again), but he seems to be maturing and is at least playing OK now.
Kevin Durant is one of the greatest players in NBA history, but boy, it is shocking just much of a tool he is, right? Lies about never wanting to come to New York, forces his way to Phoenix, then whines that the obvious problems that were going to be there in Phoenix are there, he’s just such a tool.
IMO spacing is something you can try to derive from data, but you mostly see it. When teams are sagging off shooters to help because they aren’t afraid to give away an open look from outside, the spacing is not good.
We see that when Randle, RJ or Brunson try to get to the basket. A second defender is often in the area helping either because Mitch is not a threat other than the lob or they are leaving RJ or Hart wide open or someone is sagging off Randle etc…
Not every team is going to have 5 solid 3 point shooters on the court, but imo our team 3p% is not necessarily an indication of good spacing. The difference between 40% and 45% for a player or two is not as helpful as having MORE players that can’t be left open.
Yeah, no. You’re throwing a ten at a pair of aces and saying “I win”.
Four seasons worth of bad 2P% is still the prevailing data here. You have a long way to go to prove that we’ve actually been generating wide open easy shots and missing them at an historic rate.
If this data is even accurate, it likely suggests we take a lot of long 2’s. Long 2’s tend to be wide open because the defense wants you to shoot them. They are bad shots, and the product of poor spacing.
Of course we are good at getting offensive rebounds. Those putbacks probably count as open. But again, not the product of good spacing.
Last year we were fine. We don’t have elfrid Payton anymore. We’ve had an excellent offense for like 110 games. Does it even matter how good or bad the spacing is? I know complaining is what we’re used to but some of you cannot seem to accept we’re rooting for a good team
I agree.
I don’t know what the Suns were/are thinking, but they took a very good team with some upside and turned it into a bit of a mess. I’m not sure I like the Durant deal they did, let alone adding Beal.
It seems like Durant is in some kind of panicked state where he feels like he has to lead a team to the championship outside of Golden State or he’s never going to get the credit he believes he deserves. That goes double after also bailing out on a very good Thunder team. In his mind the clock is probably ticking on his legacy.
Either way is considered to be fine. Also, this is a BLOG, gentlemen, not the Declaration of Independence.
tracking data is notoriously very volatile.. due to small samples and imprecise measurements… these wide open shots that are being tracked… the league leader only has 144 attempts… and yes the knicks are shooting about average… but they also have a below average number of frequency… but again you can’t derive much from this data and you can’t make any inferences from it…
it’s noise…
Cam Reddish is arguably having the worst season of his career while the Lakers are 16-15 with a negative point differential. They’ve been tinkering with their starting lineup and rotations but if they want to seriously improve they need to start giving Cam DNP-CDs.
Yeah, no one’s doing that. The spacing is bad because we consistently play 2-4 players at a time who can’t shoot. And the evidence of our bad spacing is our terrible 2P% over 3+ seasons.
Your counter, amazingly, is that we’ve just been missing wide open bunnies for the last 4 years. Really? You watch the Knicks, and you think our problem is we get all these easy shots and don’t make them?
And he’s too stupid to realize what coming here and leading the Knicks to a championship would have done for his legacy.
But it’s not too late ….
Same thing as now, he panicked when he got hurt and felt he couldn’t force Irving to follow him to the Knicks. Then lied about it after the fact. “No, no, I was never coming to the Knicks.” Dude, please.
https://nypost.com/2023/12/27/sports/knicks-star-search-hits-rich-paul-roadblock-they-must-solve-fast/
Any normal and sane owner/front office would take Paul’s suggestion of a sitdown and sit down with him and kiss his … er … ring.
Sounds like the whole thing is easily fixable, but the Knicks will probably find some way to f it up.
Does it seem like the Knicks ever get easy baskets? Doesn’t seem like it to me. We don’t get lots of ball movement, we’re near the bottom of the league in dunks, near the bottom of the league in layups, next to last in assisted 2-pointers…
We don’t turn it over a lot and we rebound a lot of our misses, but we very rarely get easy buckets.
who cares what we were shooting 4 years ago? Our PGs were Elfrid Payton and fucking Frank Ntilikina. The offense doesn’t suck anymore, I don’t know why that makes you mad.
Two things: BBA beat me to it, but Cam sucks. He’s playing in his lane for the most part, which is a tiny skinny little lane, because LeBron would kill him if he tried going outside it. But his TS% is .515, his OBPM is -3.9, his FG% is 39.8%, and he’s 30.1% from three. I could go on, but by virtually every metric he’s not really an NBA player, much less a starter. But the Lakers have three starters, and everyone else is trash.
Just a thought, but ‘the spacing is bad’ can be flipped on its head. Three of the five starters spend most of their time iso’ing into the paint, RJ going left to the rim (to get blocked) over and over, Randle and Brunson spinning in there over and over. Without (young) Klay and Curry in the corners, not sure any team would do anything but clog and wait.
And yet we’re still 10th in offensive efficiency.
We get to the line a lot, those are easy buckets. There’s more than one way to the mountaintop.
Cam Reddish is stinking out the joint again and the Lakers have a mediocre record despite an 8+ BPM season from LeBron and a 5+ BPM season from AD. They’d be a dangerous team if they could surround that chrome and leather with some competent nuts and bolts, but alas their nuts and bolts suck the big one.
Cam gets minutes because the other wings they have are somehow even worse than Cam. It would be hard to imagine a more favorable environment for Cam and he still blows.
Ehh we’re about league average in FT/FGA. We’re crummy at actually making the free throws once we get to the line.
Okay, we have no spacing, nobody can shoot, we don’t get to the rim, can’t generate FTs, can’t shoot FTs, RJ stinks, Randle is in steep decline, Mitch is useless on the rare occasions he’s healthy, we are running a moneyball gimmick offense from the stone age and yet we’ve had a very good offense for 110 games.
If an offense doesn’t translate to the playoffs, it’s hard to really call it a good offense.
(Thibs’s offense on his last playoff team prior to the Knicks also had a big drop in efficiency come playoff time — minus 6.4 versus the regular season.)
The offense won a series and took the ECF champs to 6 games (game was basically tied with like a minute left in game 6). And that was with our second best player hurt and our 6th man being AWOL and also hurt.
Our offense is not the problem. It’s crazy we keep debating this when the obvious area we need to fix is defense. Of course the spacing could be better but it’s not as awful as some people act like it is. The defense is where we have more issues. Why aren’t we talking about that?
And yes, Hubs. RJ has been missing wide open shots for five seasons now.
The offense lost 9.1 points of efficiency from the regular season to the playoffs.
why?
Every team has strengths and weaknesses. Spacing is not our strong suit, but is the answer “Hey, bring on Bones Hyland…that’ll open things up!”?
We are a rugged, relentless, iso-heavy team that bludgeons (Julius, RJ) and carves up (Brunson, IQ, Hart) opponents in the paint and on the boards, and we have enough 3-pt shooting and transition baskets to fill in the gaps. Offensive rebounding is a strength, and it helps, but we are more than capable of winning games when our rebounding is just okay. We generally create space from the inside out. On defense, rim protection, pressure at the point of attack, and off-ball help are our strengths. We have enough of that stuff to overcome our shortage of defensive length/atleticism.
At the end of the day, we are winning because we are scoring more points than we give up. It’s really that simple. Saying that we need better spacing is like saying to the Heat that they need more rebounding. Or to the Kings that they need more rim protection. Or that the Cavs need more 3pt shooting. Or the Bucks need more point-of-attack/perimeter defense. Or the Mavs need to shoot fewer 3’s and attack the rim more. All winning teams, all with deficits…that would be solved with….better players!
And that’s what the Knicks need…better players. There are lots of types of players that can help us….whether via increased spacing, better perimeter defensive length, better pull-up shooting, better passing, etc.
I wonder what kind of season we would be having if we went “not really all in” on KP and Jrue…seems like they could have been had, and a starting lineup of KP, Julius, RJ/Hart, Jrue, and Brunson would have been pretty formidable.
Most likely for much the same reason the 2021 Knicks lost 7.1 points of efficiency and the 2018 Timberwolves with Jimmy Butler and Karl-Anthony Towns lost 6.4.
Primarily some combination of (1) It’s now Game 7 for everyone, not just Thibs’s team; (2) Thibs’s offense is gimmicky and/or easy to figure out, the other team figures it out and Thibs gets out game-coached and/or out-adjusted and/or outplanned; and (3) Not understanding that it’s now Game 7 for everyone, Thibs plays the wrong personnel the wrong amount of minutes and/or with the wrong players.
There’s also likely some degree of certain of the players not being fully cut out for playoff basketball.
So a combination of factors, in different amounts at different times, but with a consistent theme. The guy started Elfrid Fucking Payton in two playoff games.
We’re an above average offense despite not getting very many easy buckets, because we’re good at getting extra possessions. We don’t turn it over a lot, and we get lots of offensive rebounds. This really doesn’t seem very controversial at all. It has been pretty consistent since Jalen Brunson arrived.
Do we have good spacing? Not really. Are we an above average offense? Yes, we rank 10th. Not turning the ball over and getting lots of offensive rebounds are desirable things.
JK47 and BBA
I disagree on Cam.
I don’t pay much attention to stats like BPM, WS48 etc..
In the real world he was slowly becoming a more efficient player on decent usage (.500; .488; .543; and .561 last year). The thing that made him unplayable in the past was his defense and low BB IQ. He was virtually clueless and constantly getting lost. He would also do dumb things on offense trying to force shots.
IMO, he has made a solid turnaround defensively to the point he’s arguably a plus on that side. And since the team has Lebron and AD, he doesn’t have to score. So he’s not committing the types of low IQ TOs he’s made in the past trying to be a scorer.
He’s doing what he’s supposed to do on that team, but imo the boxscore stats are not capturing the improvement.
It would be nice if he could get his TS% back into the 56% range like last year, but his usage is way down and it’s still early in the season. I think it’s more likely he’ll shoot better before it’s all over. He’s making noticeable progress this year.
And they get an added boost because the other teams don’t fully prepare for that unique mix in the regular season, but that boost goes away entirely in the playoffs when the other teams prepare with everything they have. Nate McMillan had it figured out before the first Knick playoff possession and that never changed.
We have the 5th best offense in the league since djphan last predicted it would fall off.
Of course we’ve had some shooting luck in that time frame. So if we lower our 3p% to league average over that span, we fall all the way to 8th. We’ll just assume the teams ahead of us keep shooting 40% from 3 all year and not adjust those.
Again. The Lakers are getting outstanding production from LeBron and Davis, and Russell has been decent. Yet their offense sucks, because they are relying on jabronis like Cam Reddish to provide competent play. A task at which those players are failing.
Cam is just another one of those Frank Ntilikina type players who you like because he allegedly has some sort of ineffable magic that can only be appreciated by the oh so smart but he’s killing their offense. He’s barely playable, and absolutely should not be getting as many minutes as he does.
The Lakers are the 24th ranked offense. That ain’t gonna cut it. Cam and his complete inability to throw a ball into a basket is a big reason why they’re a poor offense.
Speaking of the Lakers, talk about a team with bad spacing…
We shouldn’t speak poorly about Cam, he was a big reason why the Knicks won at the Lakers last week so if anything we should be thanking him!
Extra possessions via offensive rebounds, avoiding TOs, causing extra TO etc.. are all very good things, but in the playoffs there will be matchups or adjustments where the possession advantage we have most nights in the regular season gets mitigated or eliminated and we are going to have to make buckets.
We have a good team and good offense.
I think these conversations about spacing, lineups and trades are areas we can theoretically improve to get from the mezzanine to courtside (or whatever is better than mezzanine), especially when the top teams expose weaknesses in the playoffs.
In all seriousness I understand where Strat is coming from with his affinity for guys like Frank, I grew up with the 90’s Knicks and loving defense and unselfish players more than guys who only tries to score.
But fact is in today’s NBA there isn’t much value in defense first guys with very low usage because there’s just too much scoring. Guys like Frank and the theoretical good version of Cam are just not that playable for any extended minutes.
do you think the 2018 Timberwolves and the 2023 Knicks were running the same offense? Because they were not. The Twovles passed a lot more, did not shoot 3s at all, and were pretty much the best interior scoring team in the NBA. The narrative at the time was that Thibs had been passed by in the modern NBA, he didn’t understand you needed to shoot 3s. (the main problem with that team is they sucked on defense and then ran into one of the better teams in recent NBA history in the playoffs)
Doesn’t scoring overall always go down in the playoffs even in today’s NBA?
Overall ORat in the 2023 playoffs was down 1.4 from the regular season.
That doesn’t necessarily mean offense is “harder” in the postseason, though it could mean that; more likely it means better true offenses and teams reveal themselves more in the postseason.
Cam is not as impactful as Frank in multiple ways. Frank’s development and NBA career were both probably ended by constant injuries.
Cam is a negative on offense, but the stats you are looking at don’t capture defense well. That’s just a reality everyone agrees about.
To the extent they do capture it, they capture it incorrectly to the point the models don’t weigh the impact of offense vs. defense correctly. In some theoretical future where defense is measured as well as offense, imo the regression models will show that defense matters more than those same models are showing now.
Miami was an elite team at forcing turnovers last year, #2 in the league. So I don’t know how much it was that they had a specific game plan to beat us. They were just very good at neutralizing one of our main strengths because forcing turnovers was one of THEIR main strengths.
We won all of the Four Factors against them except turnovers.
What is the gimmick?
This thread is threatening to become the MAGA convention of false narratives.
I’m sad that we won’t see Chet go against Mitch. That would have been fun.
Edit: I see Oklahoma has almost twice the blocks per game as the Knicks. Over/under on Chet blocking RJ? 2.5?
I read somewhere last week that the #1 offensive rating team 10 years ago (believe it was the Clippers) would be something like the 25th ranked offense today. Defense in today’s NBA is virtually impossible to play especially on the perimeter, to be a wing player you have to be able to play offense.
Guys like Marcus Smart didn’t become as valuable as they are until they became decent 3pt shooters where they weren’t totally negative players on offense. There is no room in today’s NBA for guys like Frank unless you’re a tanking team and don’t care about winning games.
Never said we had a bad offense. Said we had bad spacing.
We have a pretty good offense… largely because Jalen Brunson is a god… not because we have good spacing.
When iHart grabs an offensive rebound, for instance, that’s good offense, not good spacing.
Knicks played the Heat with a hobbling Randle who missed Game 1 and no IQ for the final 3 games of the series is kinda important context too.
All else being equal I’d way rather have 5 guys that can score also.
But there are only so many shots. I’d rather have the ball in the hands of my best scorers most all the time and have 1-2 guys on the court that are elite in other ways. If those 1-2 guys can score better it won’t add much value because their usage will automatically be low given the ball is in the hands of the best players most of the time. However, if they are elite defenders, can make plays, move the ball, and at least hit an open shot, I think they’ll add more. But of course they have to hit open shots. Frank and Cam have yet to show they can do that.
Does it matter if it’s a game plan or a matchup issue?
Both are a problem unless you have the ability or versatility to adjust.
What BBA says about defense in the modern era is, unfortunately, true.
and if you give us our 3pt% from last year we have the 16th ranked offense…
premature victory laps never made anyone look silly….
Kinda unfair to compare the current Knicks to last season’s version because adding DDV is a big difference in the 3pt shooting plus Brunson upping his 3pt attempts is also a huge benefit to this season’s team.
If we dumbly assume that our 3p% will be the same as last year, we’d still be 12th since your prediction.
If all our overperforming players underperform and our underperforming players continue to underperform, then I agree our offense will be terrible.