[New York Post] – Wed, 10 Jan 2024 03:25:00 GMT
- OG Anunoby’s incredible Knicks start rolls on with rout of Trail Blazers for fifth straight win
- Ian Begley loved OG Anunoby’s offensive explosion in Knicks’ big win over Blazers | Sportsnite | SNY
- Knicks 112-84 Trail Blazers (Jan 9, 2024) Game Recap
- OG Anunoby Shines with 23 Points vs Portland
- You’re allowed to enjoy re-energized Knicks even if there is more roster work to do
[Andscape] – Tue, 09 Jan 2024 15:35:55 GMT
- Toronto Raptors forward RJ Barrett is home after trade from New York Knicks
- RJ Barrett proud of Knicks tenure: ‘Helped build something in New York’
- RJ Barrett opens up on his tenure with the Knicks
- Raptors’ RJ Barrett ‘Didn’t See’ Knicks Trade Coming: ‘I Was So Confused’
- Looking back, Barrett is proud of what he did in a Knicks uniform. I helped build something in Ne
[CBS Sports] – Tue, 09 Jan 2024 13:41:16 GMT
NBA Power Rankings: Knicks on the rise after big trade, Bucks in free fall, Mavericks crack top five
[Posting and Toasting] – Tue, 09 Jan 2024 12:00:00 GMT
Knicks and Jazz destined to make a trade? NBA Insiders think so
[Posting and Toasting] – Tue, 09 Jan 2024 21:00:00 GMT
- Knicks (Cant) Part with I-Hart?
- Isaiah Hartenstein’s emergence makes for interesting free agency
- Knicks Urged to Trade for $40 Million Big Man as Isaiah Hartenstein Backup
- Is Isaiah Hartenstein New York Knicks’ Next Best Trade Asset?
- NBA Rumors: 3 Eastern Conference Teams Have Upcoming Decisions On A Trio Of Young Big Men
[New York Post] – Wed, 10 Jan 2024 07:58:00 GMT
Knicks’ Jalen Brunson building All-Star case after winning second Player of Week award
[Posting and Toasting] – Tue, 09 Jan 2024 18:00:00 GMT
- Will the Knicks take advantage of the soft schedule ahead of them?
- Surging Knicks’ resiliency allows them to thrive despite daunting schedule
- Preview of the Knicks week, Jan. 7-13
[CBS Sports] – Tue, 09 Jan 2024 21:25:00 GMT
NBA picks: Knicks’ Julius Randle tops trio of strong daily fantasy plays for Tuesday
[The Ringer] – Tue, 09 Jan 2024 17:07:44 GMT
Best Player Props for January 9
[The Philadelphia Inquirer] – Tue, 09 Jan 2024 22:56:37 GMT
Sixers will be without Joel Embiid and Robert Covington in Wednesday’s meeting with Atlanta
[New York Daily News] – Wed, 10 Jan 2024 00:47:15 GMT
Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups: Knicks can be elite contender without a superstar
[Heavy.com] – Tue, 09 Jan 2024 16:59:18 GMT
Knicks Urged to Trade for Ex-Tom Thibodeau PG as Jalen Brunsons Backup
[Heavy.com] – Tue, 09 Jan 2024 16:09:06 GMT
NBA Insider Shares Insight on OG Anunobys Next Contract
163 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2024.01.10)”
In his five games for TOR, RJ is averaging 24-8-4 per 36 on a .700 TS%. IQ is at 22-6-7 per 36 and shooting 46% from 3.
Meanwhile, that bum OG is averaging 15-5-1 on less than 15% usage.
We wuz robbed!
Thinking about this incredible in-season turnover. It feels unprecedented to me.
The Grimes to DDV upgrade was big.
The Mitch to iHart upgrade has been a shocking revelation (to me, at least).
And of course the RJ to OG upgrade, given how bad RJ was for us, almost feels like adding LeBron James in his prime.
In fact, you could even make case that we started with Bad Randle and thanks to these floor-spacing moves we have upgraded to Best Randle Ever.
The longer we get this version of Randle, the more it seems possible that we might have a teeny-tiny title window right now, and maybe giving up a real pick for Brogdon makes sense (especially if we can nab that center, too).
I was talking about the possibility of going 16-0 in January last night… if we get over the hump in Dallas tomorrow, I suspect we’ll have clear sailing to the unpredictable RJ/IQ revenge game. Then there’s two big challenges at home vs Denver & Miami.
at Dallas
at Memphis
Orlando
Houston
Washington
Toronto
at Brooklyn
Denver
Miami
at Charlotte
Utah
At minimum I think we’re looking at a 13-3 month, with even better results possible. This will make things quite interesting by the trade deadline.
Macri touched on this last night – how the cumulative effect of RJ’s and IQ’s hero ball approach caused the other players to become less engaged. In RJ’s case, they were watching a player with tunnel vision, but whose inconsistency was always present. There is a freedom of movement and lightness now. OG plays the right way.
Agree. Only eye test (on my end) but — We are not winning because one new guy has arrived to pour in pointz night after night. Rather, the whole team is cutting and passing like we’ve never seen. It’s baffling and delightful all at once.
At this point it was really just a win-win trade, both teams got what they needed and are better as a result.
We have so many good defenders that it gets a lot easier to dominate bad teams, and the ball is moving very well on offense.
Rare to find a trade where both teams and their respective fan bases are extremely happy with the outcome. I have no doubt IQ will continue to shine and RJ will become very frustrating to Toronto fans, but man – this NYK team looks so good right now. We’ve played a couple bad teams back-to-back, but absolutely blowing out teams night after night… wow.
We have a net rating of +19.8 since the OG trade, which includes a 6 point win over the #1 team in the western conference on day 1 – a game in which OG had no idea what he was doing on the court. We had an 18 point lead in that game, was never within a 1 possession game in the 2nd half although it got a little hairy mid 4th quarter.
Small sample size disclaimer of course, but I find lineup dynamics so interesting – how taking one guy out and putting a different guy in has changed everything for everyone in that lineup. I think we all knew that RJ was inefficient, but going from 25 usage bad shooting RJ to 15 usage better shooting OG has supercharged that starting group.
I was thinking yesterday about what move we could make (even superstar-wise) that could reliably improve that lineup — with the caveats that Brunson and the just-acquired OG are definitely not going anywhere.
In terms of players who could conceivably be available for trade this season – who could you replace DDV with — a player with a 64 TS on 18.7 usage, 1.9 steals per 36, and who seemingly does exactly what you need from that SG spot — that we think would make this team meaningfully better? What PF could we trade for that would be better than Randle? What available center is better than Hartenstein?
My answer for inseason trade is– no one.
In the offseason – I suppose Booker, Zion, Durant, and Embiid are the ones. In terms of Booker/Durant – seeing how PHX’s season is going with 3 high-usage “stars” should give pause unless Randle is going out in trade. Zion vs Randle is an interesting conversation – not totally clear whether that would be an upgrade in terms of contract + reliability / injury history. Embiid… that’s a tough call. Contract/age/injuries and the fact you’d have to center the entire offense around him… I actually am not sure about that.
Maybe the best path forward is not to find our “superstar” but to find our next best approximation of Quickley – a guy who can seamlessly play with starters/backups but would be comfortable playing 20-25 min/night. That’s a hard person to find.
Isn’t it weird how the stats can’t quantify the OG effect, but the eye test can? On the surface, you would think a 2 way player that averages 15ppg as a starter wouldn’t make the offense better. We knew the defense would improve, but no one can convince me the Knicks would play this well on offense by replacing Quickley and RJ in the rotation with OG and Achiuwa. And if you try..YOUSE A DAMN LIE! BARS! LOL
Seriously though, OG has made more of a difference than the best case scenario in my mind. And the icing on the cake has been Grimes and Deuce finding their confidence on that 2nd unit- though I’d still like a true scoring option on the bench to be safe.
On the flipside of the trade, RJ and Quickley have been playing as good as I thought they would be in different roles. They seem free now, and I don’t know how to feel about that. I’m certainly happy about OG as a Knick though.
On to Dallas!
You never want to overreact to a dominant win over a godawful team. That said, the style and effectiveness of play has been pretty consistent since OG got here. It feels like the trade has had a series of cascading effects on the team. The two biggest:
1. OG is as advertised as a one-on-one and help defender. This puts every other non-center on the roster into their proper roles on that side of the ball: DDV can focus more on disrupting passing lanes, JHart can guard the second best wing or guard on the floor (most of them much closer to his height, rather than dudes who can just shoot over him), Randle just has to make an effort on that end (which he mostly is), etc.
2. The ball movement — and, just as importantly, the off-ball movement — has been wonderful. At times, we’re maybe guilty of overpassing, but having OG, DDV, and JHart all constantly cutting has really opened up the offense. It’s no longer just about Julius or Jalen having to go 1-on-1 (or 1-on-3) on every possession, but about setting guys up for the right shot. Julius didn’t have the most efficient game last night, but he passed the ball a lot, and seems to trust the guys on the floor with him more than he ever did when he had to play alongside RJ. It turns out that having three different guys who like to play hero ball in the same lineup — one of whom is wildly inconsistent from night to night — is not the ideal way to build an offense.
I think Booker would fit nicely. He has kind of transformed his game these past two seasons. He is fifth in the league in assist percentage (36%), and is not as ball dominant as before.
A nice little subplot to the season is that every game is meaningful–55% of the season left and we are 2 back from the 3rd seed yet 1 game ahead of being the 9th seed
Toronto’s defense has been awful since the trade.
The trade has given us two dimensions that we sorely lacked:
1. SIZE, SIZE, SIZE!!! We now have a starting 5 with only one “undersized” player (Brunson). RJ is a very average-sized 3 whose lack of elite athleticism made him play smaller than his 6’6″ on D, while OG not only plays much bigger than his 6’7″ but has the lateral quickness to defend smaller, quicker players on the perimeter that RJ did not. The coverage of passing lanes with any 2 of OG, DDV, and Hart is far, far better than it was with RJ out there because he focused on just staying in front of his man and rarely got deflections or steals. Teams now have to deal with trying to run an offense when OG is hounding their #1 option and DDV is getting handsy both on and off the ball. That takes a huge burden off of space cadet Randle and li’l Jalen, and frees iHart up for blocking shots and getting defensive rebounds.
2. Spacing! OG is an elite shooter from the corner. He has a very simple stroke with a pretty high release point that doesn’t seem as prone to inconsistency as RJ’s funky-looking shot. He won’t give you the attack-the-rim stuff that RJ did but you can just transfer that usage to Julius and Brunson without really losing anything. In fact, OG seems to have a nose for the basket when he’s off the ball on the interior and creates enough space with simple moves to dunk balls that RJ would have blocked.
I don’t think OG’s impact and fit on both ends can be overstated. He’s like Ron Artest on the Lakers, Draymond on the Dubs, etc…the individual box score stats don’t tell the whole story.
The Knicks are back to 7th in SRS. They have played a harder schedule than the Bucks and Philly. I think they could fight for the 2 or 3 seed if things go right.
I’ll admit I never understood the obsession with getting OG. I’d check the box scores every night and be like “so?”
But he is truly a revelation, a Swiss Army knife who has raised the level of this team exponentially at both ends of the floor.
As our very own Ephus would say….
Btw..I hate the Heat, but I’m not a hater. So salute to Spo for getting that much deserved bag! He’s the NBA’s Redman. Crazy dope but still somehow underappreciated and deserves to be in the GOAT conversation for all the tremendously consistent work He’s put in over all of these years
Also..OG hasn’t even settled in yet. Sheeeeesh!
Another rag doll another laughter, good job!
It’s really a refreshing feeling, knowing that we will crush lousy teams after years of disappointing trap games…
And it was a good night for our main guys to have a meh game, the supporting cast worked perfectly.
No 4th quarter minutes for JB, Julius, I-Hart and DDV, someone has to check Thibs, he’s clearly feverish (I read somewhere it was the lowest total of 4th quarter’s minutes he gave to his starters in his whole career).
The trade worked perfectly for us, OG’s two-way impact is undeniable.
The is finally rational with every player falling in his right slot, and with the added value of a top defender who can guard 1-4 and makes hiding JB a little easier.
The movement on offense was already slightly better with I-Hart in the starting lineup (before the trade), OG gives us more spacing and he moves a lot so now it’s a whole different music.
I think what is always kind of missing from the equation, too, is the relationship between defense and offense in basketball. It’s not like football or baseball where the defense and offense are basically completely separate from each other (especially in baseball).
If you consistently get stops and rebounds on the defensive end, you’re getting the ball with the other team not set on defense and running back. This gives you an advantage for a few seconds as you bring the ball up the court. It’s not a fast break, per say, but you have a little window there to get the offense going before the set their defense. Then, of course, if you get more steals and cause more turnovers, you’re getting easy fast break/transition points, which count as offense but were caused by the defense. There is also the impossible to quantify morale boost of stopping teams on defense that I imagine spills over to offense. You and your teammates work together to get stops on defense I imagine then it’s easier (and probably totally subconscious too) to share/pass/cut on offense. There’s a synergy there.
A lot of this is sports psychobabble but nevertheless there is truth to it. When teams give up lots of points on offense, maybe they have the individual talent to still score on offense, but those points come harder and the team as a whole is demoralized more to where selfish play becomes more likely.
Hubs, I also think we have a small window right now to win it all. It sounds crazy to say and obviously beating up on the Blazers doesn’t make us contenders. But the numbers overall are eye popping and the difference on both ends of the ball is striking.
We’re in 2004 Pistons territory here where we don’t have a top 5 or top 10 player but we’ve got two dudes who are top 20ish and a roster full of like top 50ish players.
I do think a really good 6th man and a back up Center and we could compete for a title THIS season.
Do we play Boston or Denver before the trade deadline?
DBPM seems to support the notion that our defense is for real.
iHart 2.3
DDV 1.6
OG 1.6
JHart 1.3
Deuce 1.2
Grimes 0.7
Randle (-0.3), Brunson (-0.5) and Precious (-0.5) are all slightly negative, but hardly enough to significantly drag down the defense.
https://twitter.com/TheDunkCentral/status/1744971561239486760
Darko bringing the heat
I think we’re getting a bit ahead of ourselves if we’re talking about competing for titles. Teams often get a jolt when a trade happens, and this is sort of the dog days for lots of teams around the league. I’m gonna wait until we’ve taken a lap around the league and the changes are baked in before chiseling away at our ceiling.
But at the very least, this team has more ways to win, and more ways to get significantly better, than it did a week ago.
Happy for Spo, he deserved it.
And Darko’s right, they were hosed, home cooking at his best.
This is exactly my disorder at the moment. I look around the league, and I think we can compete on any given night with the elite teams. I’ve always been in favor of incremental improvement each year, but now I start to wonder (unjustifiably?) if there is one last move Leon can make to put us over the top.
Every minute of the day: Maybe this is the year. It can’t be. It could be. No way. And yet ….
Aside from the OG addition, the other things that can’t be underestimated in terms of changes since opening night –> DDV and Hartenstein’s effects on the offense (aside from OG addition).
JB+JR but no DDV no IHart no OG –> ORtg 115
JB+JR + DDV + IHart no OG -> ORtg 124
Ball movement is just much better with DDV and iHart compared with QG and Mitch.
As might be expected, the major difference with addition of OG = defense.
JB+JR+DDV+iHart no OG -> DRtg 124.2
JR+JR+DDV+iHart+OG –> DRtg 106.3
A single player changing the DRtg by -18 is insane.
Unreal impact on the defensive end.
(ORtg goes from 124->126 adding OG to JB/JR/DDV/iHart)
One other thing that the trade did was solidify the DDV for Obi swap-out one of the best moves of the Leon era. Not only is DDV by far the better player, it is the main reason why IQ was 100% expendable in securing a rare 2-way like OG from a shrewd customer like Ujiri.
Yeah, eye-test says ball movement and Swifty’s this:
Yes, and — This only works if we are *looking for that advantage. In the past, there were many defensive stops after which Randle loped up the floor with no intention of pushing the action. Even IQ slowed down the ball at times, poking and looking for his spot. RJ certainly. But now all of DDV, iHart, OG, Hart, Deuce, and Grimes are seeking advantage. Add to this that they are all better passers/cutters than Randle, RJ, maybe even Mitch and IQ. Even Brunson is making “prettier” passes in the open floor that are not merely the result of “drive and kick.” It’s a joy to behold.
PS — the caveat (of course) is that there will absolutely be nights in our future when all of that same group — DDV, iHart, OG, Hart, Deuce, Grimes — won’t be able to hit a barn with a jumper. But until then …. 😉
There’s a reason I’ve been clamoring for OG non stop for a long time.
Defense, ball movement and spacing are all mis-measured, underrated or both by the commonly available stats.
When you swap OG and RJ, you are getting much better defense, much better spacing, and much better ball movement on top of more efficient scoring. In our case we also got someone that could play backup PF effectively.
I wish RJ well. Maybe he’ll play better with a little less pressure, especially if he’s guarded by smaller players and can finish better. But the move from RJ to OG was monstrous when you understand their actual values.
The big loss was obviously Quickley because his value is also understated by boxscore stats.
All I know is that if we’re still in the mezzanine, we’re like first row center court seats on the aisle. The seats have nice cushions and cup holders and we’re getting food and drinks delivered to our seats.
Knicks now 15-1 against teams under .500. Credit to Thibs. This team doesn’t sleepwalk, ever. They don’t always look great but they ALWAYS show up.
These “mezzanine-wins” are so boring now they don’t even deserve recaps from Max 😉
Reporters asked Hartenstein about OG last night and he said something like “he makes my life a lot easier.”
Hartenstein is the goalkeeper of the defense, the last line of defense. Of course the goalkeeper is going to look a lot better if he’s surrounded by better defensemen. The eye test says we’re doing a much better job of preventing dribble penetration and getting into passing lanes since we acquired the long, versatile, handsy defensive stopper. The keeper doesn’t have to make as many difficult saves.
By the way, what happened to that “E” guy? I hope he’s okay.
Memphis played last night in Dallas without Ja and JJ yet they blew out the Mavs. Next 2 games should be interesting for the Knicks.
Yes, or perhaps the libero.
Yes KBA, they’re so predictable I rather sleep and watch them later (using the useful “all possessions” feature on NBA League Pass), when it’s usually too late for recaps… 🤓
Shout out to the late “Kaiser” Franz Beckenbauer, the greatest “libero” ever…
@Max — Haha. I totally get it. Kind of a minutes restriction. As long as you’re fit for the playoffs 😉
EDIT: Yes, the Kaiser has been on my mind. RIP.
Things that would make me extremely happy.
Getting to 50 wins.
Getting the 3rd seed.
Drawing Miami in the first round and pummeling the shit out of them.
Getting to the Conference Finals.
The last one is the most important thing to me. We got to the second round last year. We got to the second round during the 54 win season. But we have not made the conference finals since the year 2000 and getting to the Conference Finals would solidify us as being BACK.
Haha that Darko video…
He’s kind of giving an angry Andy Kaufmann vibe.
You and everyone else who even loosely follows the New York Knicks!
A lot of great commentary this morning as usual–worth taking a second to appreciate that the smartest commentary about one of the most valuable sports franchises on planet Earth can be found on an obscure forum from the early aughts–but I think Alan in particular nailed what I’m seeing.
Without OG, everyone on the roster felt just a bit overtasked defensively. DDV, Grimes, and Hart often found themselves with the toughest POA and/or wing assignments, which isn’t their strength. RJ had to guard players much more mobile than him. Quickley did yeoman’s work at the POA but wasn’t particularly switchable, and the center had to do, well, everything.
With OG doing an impeccable job on the other team’s best perimeter threat regardless of position, everyone else can do what they do best.
The ball movement speaks for itself. I have never seen this many successful cuts. Everyone is moving without the ball with intention and our playmakers, and we have many, are finding them.
My one concern is fatigue/injury related. So far just mostly giving Brunson and Randle the extra usage that went out the door has worked swimmingly, but I would like to try to get through the regular season without giving those guys game 7 minutes/usage all the time. Hartenstein could use a blow too, obviously.
Maybe that’s OG gradually expanding his role, maybe that’s a trade(s), maybe both.
I said something to this effect a couple of days ago— adding OG allowed everybody else to move to the right one step on the defensive spectrum. It’s kind of a baseball term really but I think it applies here. Now you don’t have Grimes or DDV as the main POA defender, those guys are now secondary defenders who can focus more on jumping passing lanes etc.
It really doesn’t matter who the other team’s alpha is, OG can guard them all.
I normally try to avoid judging anyone for their posting habits. We all lead busy lives and lord knows I wouldn’t want anyone drawing any inferences from me being AWOL for a few busy days or a vacation or whatever.
But man, when the pattern is this stark it sure does make you wonder! This is Knickerblogger, so maybe someone can get the numbers on a certain someone’s posting volume the day after losses compared to wins.
It’s a shame, because like I said before this really is such a thoughtful community and people honestly reflecting on what they got wrong, why they got something wrong, how it might change their views going forward, etc. makes for interesting commentary.
Also DiVincenzo really deserves a lot of credit for how well we’ve been playing. I loved the signing at the time but I was a bit scared, as many people were, that his shooting numbers would fall off compared to his season in Golden State… not only did that not happen but he’s shooting even better.
It’s one thing to have a hustle guy who can play the right way and do the little things, but doesn’t add much else; when said hustle guy also shoots 43% from 3 on top of all the little things, he’s a fantastic player.
Noble, there was one other time where I jokingly accused the person in question of running away and hiding during a winning streak where his bete noirs Julius Randle and Josh Hart were playing well. Turns out he was sick at the time. So I’m not going to make snap judgments again.
That said, if they only return after we lose — and, in particular, if we lose because Julius played poorly — then, well, you know.
Oh Noble, don’t poke the troll. Like the absence of RJ and his infuriating play, it’s something of a blessing.
Great line for RJ last night. I feel comfortable in the knowledge that no matter how hot he runs on offense he will never be a good defender.
OG is special on that end.
https://streamable.com/f2mon9
Darko Rajaković on the 23-to-2 free throw disparity in the 4th quarter last night is amazing.
How big is that fine going to be? Setting the over/under at 25k.
My biggest concern is Cinderella at midnight.
1. There’s no tape on this team right now. We’re surprising people. What happens when Spo or the Celtics or someone gets enough tape and figures something out to slow us down? Adjusting to adjustments
has never been Thibs’ strong suit.
2. This is the best Julius Randle ever. He is almost single-handedly taking over RJ’s USG and he’s crushing it. But less than two months ago we were applauding his teammates for freezing him out of close games. If he regresses even a little, things will look a lot different.
I feel some of this, too. Knicks Imposter Syndrome?
Yes. Hypothetical: How best to slow us down? I still feel Randle and Brunson score in very predictable/stoppable ways. Since Randle easily gets frustrated and can derail an entire game by himself, that’s where I would go first. Muscle him.
Well, if we face the Celtics and they figure us out, I think the biggest issue is that they’re just a more talented team. As good as the Knicks have been, at the end of the day we all understand that the Celtics are still a better team simply because of their talent, and that Milwaukee is also probably better still. I’d say we’re about on the same level as the Sixers and the Heat, even though the Sixers have a potentially higher ceiling and the Heat are always scary to play against in a 7 game series.
I don’t think our wins have been due to some unsustainable development or some gimmick that teams will just figure out and we’re done, the win conditions for this team are still pretty much the same as before, play defense all 48 minutes, rebound well, Brundle creating most of the shots and that’s it.
Are we good enough to a level where real contenders can’t make enough adjustments to beat us? Probably no. So that’s something we’ve gotta live with for now.
While I’m no Spo (plus one), it’ll be hard to gameplan for our team right now because our killer iso players are perfectly balanced by our outside shooting, along with our cutting and passing.
It’s interesting to look at our three-point shooting right now:
Randle – 29.3% (I’d expect that to go up)
Brunson – 42.6% (probably will come down a bit)
Divo – 43.9% (also probably will come down a bit)
OG – 45.5% (tiny sample size, also coming down)
Grimes – 38.6% (seems about right, could even creep up)
JHart – 33.3% (seems about right, could even creep up)
Deuce – 48.6% (seems wildly unsustainable, but fun!)
So we could definitely lose a few games when random shitty shooting from a number of players simultaneously helps folks revert to the mean. But that’s unlikely to happen a lot.
Figure out how to fuck with Randle (because you can’t do shit about Brunson).
The guy is literally playing like a superstar. History suggests he can be slowed down. But he keeps coming back better, so we’ll see.
Yeah, what gives me hope is the sheer number of players on your list. They can’t *all go cold, right? Right? RIGHT?! Hahaha.
We’ll know for sure what the possible ceiling of this team could be once the trade deadline has passed. Very curious to see if they make any more trades in the next month.
Well we’re probably not going to be racking up a +20 net rating forever but this sure looks like a solid, well-balanced team on both sides of the ball.
And while the fears of a regression to the mean with 3 point shooting are valid, the Knicks are steadily moving up the rankings in 2pt%, up to 20th now in the league after lingering at the very bottom of the league for much of the season.
I must say I did not have “Donte DiVincenzo is 1st on the team and 4th in the league among shooting guards in BPM roughly halfway through the season” on my bingo card.
KBA, I think the more important aspect is that we have three choices now. When our shooting went cold before, it was Randle driving into a collapsing defense, RJ driving into a collapsing defense, and Brunson twirling like a top, surrounded by a collapsing defense. Now we suddenly have cutters cutting (and passers passing, thank you iHart), which I think is huge. I do think it’s going to be unlikely that with the number of shooters the odds of everyone going cold at the same time is not likely to happen all that often, but having a third way to score (and having a lock-down defense to keep things close when people go cold) is huge.
@Raven. Okay, thanks. When you put it that way, I feel safe enough to go outside 😉
Enjoy the day, comrades. Onward!
I think the OG trade also helped with opening the doors for Grimes and McBride. They both seem to be playing in the flow of the offense. Shots are being spread around very well. I love our defense when Miles, Hart and OG are on the court together. Lots of flying around and contesting shots.
Grimey has been nothing short of brilliant since the trade.
How brilliant? He has a .659 TS% on a very un-Grimey-like 22.2 USG%.
Before the trade, my man had converted a whopping TWO free throws all season long. He was an inexplicable 2-6 from the free throw line through 32 games. In the last five games he’s 7-7. Still not a blistering FT rate, but it’s obvious that he has become a much more useful player since the trade.
I mean, I would be shocked if the Celtics didn’t beat us in a series, tape or no tape. I don’t think anyone believes we are true blue contenders today.
What I personally think is we might be in the tier just below that, and still have the clear ability to continue upgrading. That’s what’s exciting.
Didn’t the Knicks win 9 in a row following the Hart trade last year, moving from a sub .500 team to a top-5 team in the East? And before that, didn’t the Knicks go from being a sub .500 team to a top-5 team in the East upon acquiring Derrick Rose? These OG results are just par for a management team that understands how to reach the ceiling. My bet, the Knicks end as a top-5 team in the East. But it probably won’t be enough to keep the E’s away for good, because the ceiling just isn’t high enough yet.
Totally agree with both Donnie and Noble in their perspectives, but I’ll just add that we now have a puncher’s chance, which didn’t really feel right earlier. We could still lose in the first round, like the Bucks did last year, but we could also get into the finals, like the Heat did last year.
Josh Hart shooting 52% from 3 for two months was fairly easy to write off.
This feels much different to me bc the OG trade doesn’t stand alone. We went from Brundle with RJ, Grimes, and Mitch to Brundle with OG, DDV, and iHart. And nothing (other than maybe DDV turning into Klay Thompson) feels unsustainable.
The only ceiling now is Randle and he’s doing his best to raise it.
It isn’t easy to gameplan against a team that surrounds its offensive tentpoles with 3&D+ players, it’s why those players are such a hot commodity. You either double and hope the shooters miss or you don’t double and hope the stars have a bad game.
But I think the best way to beat the Knicks is the same as before, don’t let Randle get deep post position and force him to make the right read out of several different coverages. The big difference is that you’re going to be punished harder for helping off OG than for RJ.
I might be getting carried away but I actually think we can beat the Celtics in a 7 game series.
The way to hurt Randle is to change up the coverages and confuse him so he doesn’t know where and when the double teams are coming from and spins into them, then he gets frustrated.
I’m on team trade the farm for Mikal. He fits this whole thing like a glove and now the Nets know he’s not a 1a franchise cornerstone. They may be willing to deal. If we give them a boatload of picks they could be the new OKC. Let Simmons expire, maybe keep Claxton. Burn it down.
EDIT: ditto Early Bird
I think the Celtics have too much quality at the starting 5 if they stay healthy, I think they’re a finals team unless they really choke or some other team puts together a perfect playoff run. I think we could beat them, but it would take 4 perfect games in a 7 game series where we’ll be on the road most likely.
Mikal Bridges isn’t going to have as much impact as you think bc DDV is figuratively on fire. He’d also diminish Hart’s playing time, as well.
I’ve thrown out a lot of trades recently and I’ve been convinced by the likes of Noble, Alan, and others that the only thing that makes sense now is a Brogdon type and a backup C.
That’s the thing… I think they’re going to choke…Tatum, Brown… it’s in their DNA.
Celts vs. Knicks post Mitch and post trade:
Starters:
KP vs. iHart Advantage: Celts
Defense/rebounding is on iHart’s side. However, KP’s floor-spacing is for real, which drags iHart away from the rim.
Tatum vs. Randle Advantage: Celts
Tatum is the better player overall and unstoppable when he gets it going, but if Randle plays like he’s playing now, I’d hate to be the one guarding him. He is physically punishing defenders.
Brown vs. OG Advantage: Knicks
Brown has some RJ in him but he’s also very athletic and a switchable defender. But OG is a much better answer than RJ in terms of benefits beyond the individual matchup.
DDV vs. Jrue Advantage: Celts
I know Jrue is all-world defensively and has championship experience as a #2 and 2-way leader, but DDV is playing at such a high level that it’s tough to call Jrue the more impactful player right now. Still, Jrue has the pedigree and the numbers.
White vs. Brunson Advantage: Even
As great as White is playing on both ends, Brunson is the higher-usage player and will get you more than he gives up.
Horford/Hauser/Prichard/Kornet or Brissettt vs. Achiuwa/Hart/Grimes/Deuce Advantage: Knicks by a hair
Both teams need work here.
I’d say that the gap in starting lineups has narrowed, but also the gap between the benches has narrowed.
At the end of the day, it comes down to whether the Knicks can defend both the perimeter and the paint at the same time, with Brunson being the weak link who will likely be exploited. I could see DDV getting posted up by either C’s starting guard as well, as well as hurt on switches. But having OG means less rotating that results in open 3’s. I can’t wait to see how much difference he makes, since each of the first 3 games seemed to come down to not being able to keep up at the arc.
The offense has been amazing for a month now – plenty of time for teams to see tape – coinciding with when Grimes left the starting lineup and DDV entered it on 12/8. Our offensive rating before 12/8 was 115, from 12/8-12/30 (preOG) was 120.9, and out offensive rating after 12/30 (post-OG) is 120 also. What’s really changed is the defense. The team DRtg from 12/8->12/30 was 123 (!) and since the OG trade has been 100 (!!). (all #s per NBA stats site).
Pre 12/8 -> ORtg 115.5, DRtg 111.9
12/8-1230 preOG -> Ortg 120.9, DRtg 123.1
Post OG –> ORtg 120, DRtg 100
To recap – IMO the offense has been amazing since DDV and iHart entered the starting lineup. Initially the defense suffered greatly (probably due to Mitch being out right around the same time). Now with OG the offense has remained excellent and the defense has gone to a completely different level.
The questions with the Celtics are:
(1) Who do you want Brunson guarding?
(2) How do we deal with a stretch 5?
Re: Celts vs. Knicks pre-trade, if you take KP vs. iHart out of the equation, I don’t think we had a single defensive matchup in the starting lineup that was in our favor, so without rim protection, a breakdown of one sort or another was inevitable.
Now, OG will play either Tatum or Brown, and while no one can stop Tatum when he goes nuclear like he did in the second game, at least you have someone with a fighting chance to hold him to 35 instead of 48, while there are fewer uncontested 3’s when folks have to help whoever is getting burned by JT.
In terms of stretch 5 that was Mitch’s kryptonite. With OG in the mix and IHart I think we will be better at guarding that than we were in the past.
White vs Brunson is not a draw. If it is we are dead meat.
I’m loading up on the intangibles here, but I think we’re tougher than Boston. I think we have a decisive coaching advantage. And I like Clutch Brunson more than Clutch Tatum.
I’ve watched that team choke so many times. Like, 9-42 in game 7 vs Miami after you clawed back from 0-3? No. I am not buying them. I don’t believe they have it in them.
“White vs Brunson is not a draw. If it is we are dead meat.”
Well then we’re dead meat.
The problem wasn’t Mitch couldn’t guard the stretch 5. It was that no one could protect the rim when he did.
This is probably going to still be our biggest weakness, but since the whole defense is no longer predicated on Mitch covering for everyone we might be able to use crisp rotations to compensate.
i guess the we made it energy is unambiguous now…
the 3pt shooting is going to come down.. i’ve been saying that for awhile but it’s really hard for us to be shooting like this.. esp with this usg distribution… doing it for this long is not some odd thing but doing it for a whole season would be…odds are against.. donte and brunson being the biggest regression candidates…
that’s a relatively small thing compared to the bigger difference and fueling this win streak is the defense…. that’s been unexpected… we’re giving up 100 pts per 100… like there really isn’t anything else to talk about… some of that is noise… lot of bunny’s not going in for the other team… but we are also making some of that happen… we’re a top rebounding team….
and an underrated aspect has been brunson’s defense… and not just drawing charges altho that’s a big part of it but opponents are not shooting well vs him… 2nd on the team during this win streak… of course most of that is jumpshots just like with how IQ appeared to be a top defender but a lot of that ‘luck’ is rubbing off on brunson… and the results are what they are… having that continue … we’ll see…
the big story is ihart and how good he is… it needs to happen for more than 5 games but the difference between him being ben wallace or just what he was before is the difference between a 19th ranked defense we were last year or a top 5 defense…. or what we were before and how we appear now…. that’s basically the whole ballgame of whether all of this is sustainable or not…. or whether this is the defensive equivalent of linsanity….
When you’re 5-0 and winning by 21.2ppg, of course some things are going to come down.
But the fact that we are even capable of it says a lot. I don’t think “we made it” by any means, but this is awesome.
Question being, even with some regression (respect, DJPhan), has this team nevertheless reached a new level of quality which is stable?
I think yes, and I was high (or “high”) on this team at beginning of year (50+wins).
Now it’s just shocking to me that Mitch goes down, and *yet I have even higher hopes for the season. I don’t think I’m alone.
The NBA is a bit like professional boxing. If it’s a close call, you can expect politics to impact the result once in awhile whether it’s star calls or foul count.
The league has preferences for who it wants to win based on future money generation. They obviously want LA and Lebron to be in the playoffs.
They shouldn’t fine him for telling the truth. If anything he was too controlled. I would have preferred he called them out fully and said the game was essentially as close to rigged as you can get without actually rigging it. Of course that kind of truth telling would get him in a world of trouble.
We are one game off a 50-win pace as it is as and all indicators post OG trade are as ridiculously positive as they can possibly be. I feel like I’m in crazyland! No one has meaningfully challenged us since our very first game against Minny, and it is legitimate that the balance of our schedule will be significantly easier than the early half.
As much as it pains me to walk back my pessimism, I hereby revise my win projection from 45 to 52.
We are the Knicks, so something terrible has to happen pretty soon — this enjoyable sentiment all feels deeply wrong and uncomfortable for me on some level.
We’re allowing almost 7 fewer 3s per 100 possessions compared to before the trade. That’s 23rd in the league pre-trade, 2nd post-trade.
Our DRtg post-trade is over 7 points better than the next team. We can regress in several areas and still be excellent.
We have 2 convincing victories against contenders, demolishing their 1st and 3rd ranked defenses.
Have we made it? TBD, but you can’t fault Knicks fans for being excited about the Knicks right now.
The thing with the Boston matchup is that there is a distinct possibility that they will not be fully healthy, considering their personnel. If KP or Jrue go down as they sometimes do, all of a sudden you have a series.
dj has to remain skeptical since he predicted the Knicks were gonna be a sub .500 team after the trade…
That 3pt defense stat is not surprising, the Knicks are no longer constantly getting broken down off the dribble and having to over help like crazy which is what leads to a ton of the 3pt attempts the Knicks used to regularly allow.
This is more or less a requirement; they are just too stacked with talent and flawlessly constructed. KP is a perfect fit and Derrick White is pretty much the best two-way SG in the league right now. There’s nowhere to hide Brunson on defense and we don’t have a clear advantage at any position. Their bench is also amazing — Horford would be the best big on our team.
We would really need everything to break our way to have a shot to win.
As a card-carrying troll in good standing, we don’t want to be this way. We just need to be shown real hope, for which all of us has a different yardstick. For the time being, my standard has been met. Until that happens, we can only stick to our convictions.
I know he’s supposed to be my alter ego, but I do wonder about the absence of E in this interesting time in the NYK storyline…
regression doesn’t work like this.. you’re assuming we’re just awesome and with just a small regression we’ll be fine… when our defense regressed it was a comingling of small factors that led to a huge drop in our defense… TOV% and rebounding… what led to a huge increase? a small jump in TOV% and a big jump in rebounding….
these differences amount to fractions of points a game to about a few points per game which is why regression from donte’s 3pt shooting alone.. costs you anywhere from 1.0 to 4.0 per 100…. which is rather big relative to any single factor…. and in the grand scheme of things is also simultaneously rather small….
that’s not to say even over whole seasons you get perfect distributions of these things either… but reasonable expectations would normalize a bunch of these factors … as opposed to ‘well let’s just shave off a few pts from our drtg and call it a day’….
what part of what i wrote was skepticism?
Here we go. Yay.
I dunno, Jrue Holliday seems like a pretty good place to me.
why would this pain you?
DJ, it wasn’t me!
Let’s see. We’ve hired one of the best coaches in the NBA. And we’ve kept him on board even when we struggled, for now his 4th season.
We still have an excess of draft picks.
We have ZERO bad contracts on our books (ok, Fournier but he’s expiring).
We still have a young roster.
we have 2 all-star level players, one of whom is a 2 time all NBA player. And both are on some of the best value contracts in the league.
We’ve made the playoffs 2 out of the last 3 seasons (after missing the playoffs for close to a decade). And we won our first series since 2013!
What else do The Knicks need to show you! Let go of your Knicks PTSD. IT will be ok, I promise! I know they’ve hurt you before but they’ve changed their ways!
Not sure if you mean it’s perfect for BOS or for us. If you’re saying it’s perfect for BOS, I agree.
If for us, how do you figure? Jrue is tall/long, smart, and a competent shooter. Brunson has scored 21 ppg on under 50% TS in in our 3 games against BOS this year.
In the same way standing up feels uncomfortable after you’ve been in a coma. My optimism muscles have atrophied after 30 years of pessimism being consistently reinforced.
I was looking through old threads in 2022 to find comments where I explained why I was so passionate about trading RJ for OG, but with so much of the site archived couldn’t find them. I did find the above nugget from dj, though. It was “clear” to most on the board at the time that Julius needed to be traded at almost any cost*, but the difference is that since then some like noble have acknowledged they were wrong and others like dj continue to insist that we just don’t understand their superior wisdom. I say this in all humility, as someone who has made plenty of dumb suggestions (especially as an early adherent to WoW): dj, it would do you well to be more skeptical of your own positions more, to look back at statements and evaluate them in the context of how they have evolved, to, in short, learn. I’ve certainly learned a tremendous amount from this board over the last decade, and yet I know that I still don’t really know. Was I right that OG would work? Sure. But I might be wrong that RJ will never be more than an unreliable usage soaker. Was I right that SGA would be the steal of the draft with superstar potential? Sure, but I was wrong that WCS was a better bet than KP (ha!). And so on. We don’t have total access to perfect stats, and perfect stats that capture every interaction effect don’t exist anyway, so there’s no shame in acknowledging that usage is more important than you thought, or that a player was capable of growth, etc. One isn’t a good scientist, leader, or thinker if one can’t discard a faulty hypothesis or revise an opinion. It’s ok, really.
*My favorite comment in one thread was noble saying a proposed trade of Randle for Gordon Hayward and PJ Washington et alia would never fly because Washington was clearly the best player in the deal. Ouch. Not giving you a hard time, noble, it was just funny. It’s sports; without the emotion it wouldn’t be fun!
Also, Boston is obviously better, but we’d have a puncher’s chance because they just aren’t that smart. Like Hubert, I’ve seen that team choke too often to completely believe. I trust Brunson late game much more than I trust Tatum, talent gulf be damned.
Lol
Their bench is also amazing — Horford would be the best big on our team.
Lol
Was just thinking that. Horford would be the best big on our bench. But I might be the best big on our bench if I could sit there. And I’m six feet tall…
Fair enough.
Kawhi got his bag from the Clips so that pipe dream is kaput…of course, now that we have OG the GOAT it was unnecessary anyway!
Maybe I value stretch 5’s more than others do but Horford is putting 4 BPM (equal to Brunson) and it’s not a fluke, he’s been over 3 for the last 4 seasons. Plus he always destroys us. I love iHart’s recent stretch and Horford is certainly declining but he’s going to have to sustain this for awhile longer before we start valuing him over guys who have made All-Star teams and continue to play at that approximate level…
Randle bouncing back so strongly from 2021-2022 really is something to behold. That kind of thing happens fairly frequently in baseball because season-to-season production is so luck dependent, but it’s gotta be exceedingly rare in the NBA for a guy to sandwich a genuinely god awful season in between two deserving all-NBA years without injury playing a major role.
You don’t need everything to break your way to beat Boston. You hope Brown blasts off one game and Porzingis blasts off another game and try to win two of the other five. This is hardly outside the realm of possibility. As in it’s going to happen.
I think we’re good enough that it’s worth it to spend some assets to shore up the bench unit. I wouldn’t do anything crazy, but something like Brogdon and Drummond would really give us a lot of depth. Right now we have the two strong bench players in Grimes and Hart, but Precious looks like he should be getting DNPs. Deuce has been playing his butt off but I do think we need an offensive-oriented player for the bench.
Brunson, DDV, OG, Randle, Hartenstein, Brogdon, McBride, Grimes, Hart, Drummond… that’s 10 good basketball players right there.
Re; matching up against Boston – we know Tatum’s gonna get his (most nights) Brown is inconsistent, and KP can kill you from the 3 point line, but the guy that scares me the most is Derrick White, who has somehow morphed into one of the best 2 way players in the NBA.
He will definitely show up in the playoffs.
We more or less know what happened in 21-22.
The Hawks wrote the playbook for how to stop Randle in the playoffs the prior year when he had little scoring and playmaking help. We got so desperate at one point we were playing Burks at PG.
The move to Brunson the following year had a huge impact both on the team and Randle because we went from a major weakness at PG to a strength and took some of the pressure off Randle to do everything against defenses that were very focused on stopping him. They had to worry about Brunson too.
i’m sorry what?
i’m not in the prediction game… just because i get things right or wrong doens’t mean anything about what i do to me… it means nothing… i do my draft work here and elsewhere is not just about posting my big board but the whole lead up to that throughout the year…
i rarely just say one thing and leave it at that… mostly because i’m not interested in one way conversations… but also to show fucking shmoes like you will do everything they can to paint it in the most negative light possible… i’ll show my work… and you can engage on any of the thousand threads i leave for you to engage with… and to show the logic that i follow… that’s still not enough for you….
if you’re really all about learning and admitting fault or whatever.. then you can start by figuring out how digging deep into the archives of kb for an out of context quote means to the point you’re trying to make about me….
“doens’t mean anything about what i do to me”
*doesn’t
What do you do to you? Actually, please don’t answer that.
The RJ vs. Randle debate is still not over.
The evidence that I was correct in saying that one of them had to go because of the spacing, lack of ball movement etc.. is growing with the addition of OG.
But the Randle vs. RJ debate was whether we would be better off being better now (Randle) or positioned better 2-3 years from now (RJ peaking).
Randle is as good as he’s is going to get at 29 and at a minimum is a question mark under playoff pressure. In 2-3 years he’ll be 31-32 and at the start of his decline where RJ will be just reaching his peak. So the question is which of those scenarios gives you the best chance to contend. Obviously, a lot of that depends on how RJ develops. We don’t have that answer yet. But I’d be willing to say that if we traded Randle for OG and slotted RJ at SG with new found space and ball movement he’d be playing a little better for us.
We all have our crosses to bear. It looks like mine is going to be Obi…
I still can’t believe we went from some of the darkest most pessimistic threads about how we were building the team and whether we were stuck at some middle tier with no way to land anyone meaningful in trades to speculating about whether we can beat Boston now. 😉
There’s also the uncomfortable fact that RJ has looked light-years better in TOR than he ever has here, with that whole 24/8/4 per-36 on Jokic-like TS% and all.
Did Darko find some brilliant way to unlock his latent superstar potential?
Did our poorly spaced ISO attack hold him back despite infinite minutes and shots?
Or is this just an unprecedented stretch of good RJ soon to regress to the net negative mean?
@Strat +1 to your last post. That’s why I’m a bit nervous Leon is going “all in” now-ish.
I’m not sure Toronto would have taken Randle instead of RJ, but it’s an interesting hypothetical. Maybe RJ is a tease and is never as good as Randle, but maybe RJ gets close enough, while remaining 5/6 years younger, closer in age to our upcoming picks.
Five games is a tiny sample, but you could probably pick on some thing by studying film. But even that is not all that helpful until there are enough reps against enough teams to draw a conclusion.
One thing we know is that we have previously struggled against teams with elite length and 2-way stretch 5’s, like OKC and BOS. It remains to be seen whether that problem has been mitigated.
but also to show fucking shmoes like you
Geeze, let it go.
I’m glad that folks are slowly catching on…
BREAKING NEWS:
The Knicks were denied their 7.8M “disabled player exception” request because the evaluators think Mitchell Robinson COULD BE BACK LATER IN THE SEASON.
That’s huge.
Having Mitch in the playoffs, even from the bench (as I’d like them to do), could make a lot of difference.
Can’t believe what I’m reading today. What have you all done to the traumatized, pesimist obsessed Knickerbloggers?
Let’s all take chill pill, please. We’re not going 16:0 or 15:1 in January, we’re not going to finals, EC finals…damn, slow your roll. I’ve been one of the most optimistic, pro Leon, trust me he’ll get OG gusy here, but… damn…today… I’m just a not drinking the cool aid and it don’t make me hater.
RJ and IQ have put up good numbers so far but the defense for Toronto has been awful since the trade. It wasn’t very good before and losing Poetl to injury doesn’t help but the Lakers who have a horrible offense were lighting them up last night.
I’m with you Director, I’ve always maintained the Knicks were gonna win around 48 games and obviously that hasn’t changed for me, although I now believe it might be possible to get 50 wins and maybe the 3rd seed if Philly implodes a bit.
But yeah getting past the 2nd rd would be a massive achievement for this group.
Sounds like we might get Mitch back. Putting aside all the tough questions about who starts, what we’ll do at center moving forward, etc. that would be unambiguously awesome for our chances this season.
This fucking shmoe has been right a lot more times than you about the Knicks. So maybe your methodology is shit? And as said, I wasn’t looking for your quotes to use against you, I was checking to see what I said about OG. I saw a lot of comments during that search, but it struck me how consistently wrong you were. Notable, given your penchant for coming in and telling everyone who doesn’t agree with you that “if you keep trying, you’ll figure it out.” I don’t know how that level of condescension is helpful in any dialogue, but perhaps it makes you feel better about your usually incorrect opinions?
I like contrary thinking. I like challenging the conventional wisdom. I don’t like it when people who do it treat those who disagree as simpletons and later refuse to acknowledge they were wrong anyway.
Let me rephrase, if we take a big step back defensively we’d still be the number 1 defense. If we took an absolutely massive step back defensively, we could still be a top-10 defense over the last 5 teams.
Could we regress back to the worst defense in the league? Sure, it’s been a small sample. But sometimes adding an All-Defense player to your team does make your defense better.
Every time? I want to know the name of that disease! 🤔
Please click on the link, you’ll be happy you did it! 😊
https://twitter.com/NBA_NewYork/status/1745171073073557769
BREAKING NEWS #2
Luka Doncic is OUT tomorrow against the Knicks.
And now go back to BREAKING NEWS #1 and rejoice 😉
Man, if Mitch came back we’d only really need him to play like 15-18 minutes a game, then that bench unit would be just monstrous defensively.
I say Kyrie gets 60, and the Mavs just break 80 as a team.
the fact that this matters to you more than actually engaging in the discussion is what wooshes you…
do you know why nobody cares about your ‘brilliant sga call’ in that draft? because you were never around during the season to talk about it… you showed up during draft time and proclaimed that you were the only one who knew about sga… meanwhile there was already constant discussion about him from numerous close followers during the draft during the season….
if being right all the time matters to you.. great.. you get the knickerblogger trophy… others… and maybe it’s not too many others now.. actually want to have an exchange…
there’s so many people here who say they love contrarian thinking and alternative views but then don’t even participate in any of the discussions while they’re only interaction with it is to make fun of the people engaging in it… it’d be weird if it wasn’t so common….
Missing Luka and Ja back to back. It’s the Knicks’ year.
Stylin’ and beguilin’ 😉
again this is the first problem… you’re assuming that our true skill level is where we are now… and that a regression FROM THERE is tolerable.. of course that’s true… i would take a regression from this level too….
the problem is that we’re probably not at this level…. what level are we? we don’t know… just like donte being a 45% 3pt shooter is not really true… if he’s really a 36% shooter like his career going forward then he’s nowhere near the kind of shooter we think he is… same thing goes for our defense…. our opp efg% is 48%… on no earth will that remain true… so it’s going to go down..
how far down depends on a number of factors… but assuming this is the baseline from which we regress is the incorrect assumption…. you’re going to regress from a much lower level….
Denying the Injury Exemption because Mitch could theoretically return this season really isn’t all that great news. I mean, it’s better than knowing he’s definitely out for the season, but there’s a reason the Knicks went for the exemption, which is that they are pretty confident Mitch is not coming back. That a doctor thinks it is theoretically possible isn’t a huge change in the situation (but yes, it’s nice to hear that it is at least theoretically possible).
The amount of breaks the Knicks have been getting the last week with other team’s star players all getting hurt is…very unnerving. It feels like some sort of sick trap to trick me into getting my hopes up (oh, who am I kidding, my hopes are already all the way up, the 53 win tracker is back tomorrow night).
For what’s worth Mitch will be re-evaluated around mid-february.
The trade deadline is february 8th.
If they trade for a backup-C we could probably deduce Mitch will not be back, if they don’t who knows…
It’s also possible that they were trying to be shrewd, clever, slick and take a shot at the exception even though they knew they were unlikely to get it.
Oh, yeah, Director?
I had my doubts that Mitch was truly out for the season. It always felt like they were trying to pull a fast one to me.
My dad bought me a pair of blue suede Clyde Puma’s when I was in fourth grade. I felt like the coolest kid in town. That picture brought back great memories of my childhood.
Engagement is when you tell other people what they think, apparently
The original guidance from the Knicks was NOT that Mitch would be out for the entire season. It was that he would be re-evaluated in 8-10 weeks. It was after they filed for the exception that the media and injury reports were all changed to say he was out for the season, but the Knicks never officially changed their guidance.
I think filing the exception was more of a “just in case he can’t make it back” we should file and see if we can get it.
I think Luka came down with OGitis.
” just like donte being a 45% 3pt shooter is not really true…”
Well it’s not really true because he’s LITERALLY shooting 43.9%.
I’m so glad Doogie is on Team KB… and Dua…
Victor Wembenyama has played 13 minutes so far and he has 14 points, 11 rebounds, and 6 assists. That’s sick.
Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?
That’s a quick triple double
New Orleans scored 46 on Golden State in the first quarter. Steph just looks sad at this point.
Biyombo was just released by Memphis. Maybe he would be a cromulent backup until Mitch gets back?
My guess is we will be 10-0 post trade heading into the RJ/IQ revenge game, which we will probably win, and then we’ll be 12-0 this year when Denver comes to town.
16-0 January is tough but if I set the over/under at 13.5 wins how many of you would honestly bet under?
I’m here trying to will Atlanta into beating Philly but they are terrible. That defense is something else – Maxey just managed to get two unopposed dunks in half court in crunch time.
Relevant: he’s being guarded by Murray.
Maxey is going off
Jalen Johnson….i.e., the prince who was promised…looks good tonight
Sad to see you don’t really get it. It doesn’t! I am not right all the time and it wouldn’t matter if I were! I like learning! When you make mistakes, get things wrong, it’s ok to acknowledge, revise, try again. You should check that out sometime. Could change your life.
Hubie, I’d bet the under. We’re cooking right now, but Orlando, Denver, Dallas, Houston and Miami will all be tests of one kind or another. I doubt we drop 4 of those but we could drop 3.
I guess RJ really was just young. It makes sense that he came of age quickly in Canada. There they call your day of birth your “first birthday” (duh), so he gained a year instantly. (He also probably likes watching the water go the wrong way around the toilet when he flushes).
But the requirements are so strenuous that it is pointless to file unless you think you have a realistic shot at getting it approved. I think Mitch is still almost assuredly done for the season. But hey, I would love to be wrong!
If Kevin Knox turns out to be Scottie Pippen II then I’ll be Right all the time!
Till then i retain my humility in sports predictions!
Despite the Heavy Work Schedule I’m still watching every knicks game a few hours after their ending and feel the basketball nirvana!
If Thibs had made a Bulls Contender that missed heavy contention mainly to injuries then i guess he could Do it again here. Have a little more faith in coach and you might be rewarded soon!
Hey, KYN!