[New York Post] – Sun, 11 Feb 2024 10:29:00 GMT
- Knicks laugh as Obi Toppin’s showboating dunk goes horribly wrong
- Toppin Posts Career Night For Westchester After Dunk Contest Reveal
- Knicks’ Jacob Toppin scores first two NBA points in career on dunk
- Watch: Former Knick Obi Toppin makes blooper reel to delight of MSG crowd
- Ex-Knick Obi Toppin gets pleasant reception from Garden faithful
[New York Post] – Sun, 11 Feb 2024 08:19:00 GMT
Hornets’ Kyle Lowry agrees to buyout, reaches $2.8M deal with 76ers
[Posting and Toasting] – Sat, 10 Feb 2024 18:00:00 GMT
Who can the New York Knicks target in the buyout market?
[New York Post] – Sun, 11 Feb 2024 03:09:00 GMT
- Depleted Knicks fall to Pacers in Bojan Bogdanovic, Alec Burks NY debuts
- Pacers 125-111 Knicks (Feb 10, 2024) Game Recap
- Game Preview: New York Knicks vs Indiana Pacers, February 10, 2024
- Game Preview: Pacers at Knicks
- Knicks takeaways from Saturday’s 125-111 loss to Pacers, including supporting cast no help for Jalen Brunson
[New York Post] – Sun, 11 Feb 2024 00:39:00 GMT
- Jalen Brunson returns to lineup in style after injury scare in major Knicks boost
- Memphis Grizzlies vs New York Knicks Feb 6, 2024 Box Scores
- Jalen Brunson’s Current Injury Status For Pacers-Knicks Game
- Knicks’ Jalen Brunson avoids severe ankle sprain after scare vs. Grizzlies, per report
- Is Jalen Brunson playing tonight? Latest injury update for Knicks vs Pacers Feb. 10
[ClutchPoints] – Sat, 10 Feb 2024 18:55:57 GMT
Knicks: Draymond Green hesitant to call New York a contender
[Sir Charles in Charge] – Sat, 10 Feb 2024 13:00:15 GMT
NBA Power Rankings: New York Knicks the favorites after bold trade deadline moves?
[Sports Illustrated] – Sun, 11 Feb 2024 00:35:40 GMT
Indiana Pacers And New York Knicks Injury Reports
[Daily Mail] – Sun, 11 Feb 2024 08:03:27 GMT
Law & Order star Christopher Meloni, 62, and wife of nearly 29 years Sherman Williams, 64, enjoy rare outing t
109 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2024.02.11)”
Just to clarify, I don’t think Grimes was as much overrated as just disappointing. I was hoping to see more from him beyond catch and shoot 3’s and straight line drives and dump offs, and he wasn’t even that good at those things. When he complained about his role and then moved to the 2nd unit, you saw how stark the difference was between him and Donte. Whatever Grimes gives you extra at the point of attack doesn’t make up for what you lose in shot creation.
Does he have potential to get better? Of course! But he clearly is not a win-now playoff rotation player, certainly not the way he has played this year. A guy like him has to make 40+% of his threes at more than a 15% usage to be valuable enough to wait on. He hasn’t had a single month this season of over 40% shooting. Now that Donte has entrenched himself above Grimes in the pecking order, I don’t think it’s a bad decision to swap him out for two guys who are much more reliable veteran scorers, and in Burks’ case, a decent enough defender, and to take another stab or two at a young guy with upside in the upcoming draft.
Was at the game last night, a few things:
-TJ McConnell, Knicks Killer, strikes again
-Isaiah Stewart looked pretty good!
-Obi’s missed dunk got an unbelievable reaction! But he got revenge with those two 3’s
-the 4th quarter was the deadest I’ve heard MSG in a while.
Recap:
The rest is silence.
Grimes is a much better defender than Donte this season, but clearly didn’t fit in the first unit.
He’s upped his usage considerably on the 2nd unit post-IQ/RJ and regained his ability to attack the basket but has seen a dip in efficiency. Part of the dip may be 3pt variance, but another part is taking more stepback 3s and playing off curls.
Perhaps overlooked is his shooting splits. He’s hitting 40% of 3s from the left corner but only 36% above the break don’t think that’s a bad percentage per se, but as a shooting specialist I’d guess it should be higher. His percentages were similar last year. This seems fixable long-term.
I do wonder if we’d have traded someone else if anyone else were tradable.
Did a reporter ask Thibs about playing Brunson and DDV in a 20 point blowout with 4 minutes left? I am legitimately curious to hear his explanation. Does he think we had a chance to win the game? Did he want to get them reps? Does he think playing has no correlation with getting injured?
Explain it to me, Thibs. I really want to know the justification.
I’m also thinking Grimes might’ve been more valuable to the Knicks till OG returns. Brunson gives you enough offense on his own to win every night (though it might kill him) and I’m not convinced Hart is the defensive stopper we need. Long-term a stopper of Grimes’s quality may be a waste against 2nd units.
Of course, I may be overreacting to one game against the best offense in the league with Taj at C.
Fwiw, Precious at the 4 against Siakam was a reasonable call. He shut him down last time. I didn’t really want to see Hart or Bogey try to cover him.
Unfortunately we didn’t have any of our other 3 Cs available who are in NBA shape.
“Grimes is a much better defender than Donte this season, but clearly didn’t fit in the first unit.”
I totally disagree with that statement. Wait, are you using EPM? The stat that says that Max Strus and Dean Wade are two of the best defensive players in the NBA?
What about DBPM? Donte is at 1.2 while Grimes is 0.5.
And it’s not just that he isn’t shooting well. He does nothing else at all on offense. He doesn’t pass and doesn’t get to the line. He is as much of a one-trick pony as there was on this team.
Hart’s shooting is really a problem right now.
Which means that the exact same player doing the exact same things on the court will have a lower EPM if he plays for a bad team than if he plays for a good team.
Or, if that player’s EPM is deemed to stay the same (*), the other players on the team will have their EPMs adjusted to adjust for the overall quality of the team and their EPMs will be lower solely because of team quality.
Return to sender.
(*) As it should be.
I don’t think Mitch going down was the only reason the defense dropped off a cliff in December. Once we got another PoA defender in OG we became an excellent defense again, even without Mitch.
DBPM is completely useless, it’s basically just modified boxscore stats. He gets credit for jumping passing lanes and minimal penalty for missing and leaving his man wide open.
Donte is a good defender off-ball, not at the PoA against stars.
Doesn’t really seem like an issue here since Donte & Grimes are on the same team and have been used in almost the exact same role.
“I don’t think Mitch going down was the only reason the defense dropped off a cliff in December. Once we got another PoA defender in OG we became an excellent defense again, even without Mitch.”
And you are convinced that the Donte for Grimes swap was the reason for that? When 3 of your main minutes-getters at that time were RJ, Randle, and Brunson? And you essentially replaced Mitch with Sims and Taj?
Taj made me sad but it’s J-Hart’s offensive wasteland (he even missed some easy layups yesterday and did look completely lost) that depressed me the most, followed by Deuce being burned by McConnell over and over in classic man-to-man defense.
I totally get people’s frustration with Thibs, I’m as disgusted as anyone, but there’s really nothing we can do, the man is a maniac and we were lucky yesterday that no one get injured (or re-injured) at the end of the game, but he’s not going away, we have to live with those fears for the foreseeable future.
Health is the real problem, I’ve no problem going to war with this roster at full strenght (or close to), but right now we’re missing all our size and strenght, the frontcourt is dramatically depleted, rim protection is non-existent and we’d rather re-sign Taj to another 10-days than sign Biyombo on the buyout market (he went to OKC yesterday).
I hate the ASG but this year I’m happy for the break…
The memory-holing of Quentin Grimes is quite something to behold.
Or, as they say, “Once a Knick, Never a Knick.”
I was less worried about Brunson, who only tweaked his ankle and was probably fine after his rest, and more about Donte. He looks pretty beat up.
McConnell is a very good offensive player inside the arc. His TS% isn’t that high because he’s not a 3pt shooter at all, but he’s very quick and crafty. He makes a lot of good defenders look bad.
Those are the same 3 players Grimes played with when he was starting. Hartenstein started the majority of December games and closed with Donte in the ones he didn’t.
We gave up 123 ppg in the iHart started games.
The team was very clearly better off with Donte starting, but not because of his defense.
Cleveland’s defense has been on par with our own the last month, and that’s without Mobley. Jarrett Allen is great but he’s not doing it by himself.
Outside of those 2 it strikes me as a pretty accurate list of elite defensive players.
“Sims must have one helluva illness to be out this long.”
He smiled and his face broke.
I would rest DDV, J-Hart and Brunson until the all star, and definitely I would pull Brunson and DDV for the last 4 minutes. But maybe Thibs leaving them in is part of the culture that has the team fighting and never quitting.
He’s gambling on their health, which sucks, but it’s also the team’s identity.
Can’t we get a better C than Taj on a 10-day contract? There’s Kai Jones or Tony Bradley available. Our defense falls down if we don’t have a rim-protecting C because players are used to funnel the opposing player to the middle, where the C will make it hard to score. Would McConnell score at will with iHart or Mitch? Of course not! Deuce did ok staying with McConnell but every time the help didn’t come, and so he scored. We need a better defensive C while we wait for iHart and Sims to be good to go.
I don’t think you’re understanding this correctly. If a player’s EPM stays the same between two teams of differing quality, the fact that the worse players on the team will have lower EPMs is not some arbitrary “adjustment.” It’s an obviously accurate reflection of the fact that they must be worse! How could they not be, given that Player A’s production hasn’t changed one iota in this example?
If you look at the EPM leaderboards, you’ll see that while there’s definitely a correlation with overall team quality (makes sense, given that there is in fact a correlation between having good players and being a good team), it’s hardly impossible to have a high EPM with a middling team. It usually just means your teammates aren’t very good, which, yeah! That aligns perfectly with conventional wisdom.
Yeah, heck, Marcus Morris at C would probably be an improvement over Taj (but let’s not do that).
We should at least give Dmytro Skapintsev from Westchester another shot
There are definitely better options than Taj out there just because that bar is the floor, and watching Brunson out there in garbage time last night was like watching a horror movie. I just wanted it to be done. Ridiculous decision.
The pickings are quite slim, but what’s Nerlens up to these days?
If all you are doing is allocating a team’s net among its components — which is what’s happening — you aren’t even telling us anything.(*)
What we want to know is whether Max Strus and Dean Wade are helping cause the excellent Cavs’ defenses … or whether they just happen to be fortunately along for the ride. (**)
(*) It isn’t even telling us that “you can have an excellent defense even if you play Max Strus and Dean Wade.” It’s only telling us “you can have an excellent defense if you play Max Strus and Dean Wade … if you also have and play Evan Mobley, Jarrett Allen, Isaac Okoro, Donovan Mitchell, etc.” That’s a meaningless observation. We can already see that.
(**) Or some combination thereof and if so, in what rough percentages.
I was in and out of the game last night, but I saw enough of the above to make me sad.
Deuce was once our “lock down” defender, no? Now he’s trying to be Vinnie Johnson. Maybe that’s okay if he can reliably pour in 15-20, but I’d like him to stop the other guy *some of the time.
Didn’t see enough of Bobo to get a real feel for his game, but let’s hope 3/10 in 33 minutes is an aberration.
This isn’t what EPM is doing. You might want to read the rest of the article.
Woof
Easy to interpret. A team’s net rating is getting allocated to its component parts.
I don’t need to know Dean Wade’s defensive contributions to the Cavs, although that’s interesting I guess. I need to know what Dean Wade’s doings on the defensive end of the floor will contribute to any team.
We’re going to lose some games until we get guys back, it is what it is at this point. We’re down 3 centers, an all star, and our best perimeter defender and we’re working 2 new guys into the mix (or 1.5 maybe).
There are a lot facets to defense. IMO Grimes is better defending on the perimeter than DDV and probably the better defender overall.
My major point was not about who is the better all around player between Grimes and DDV. DDV is the better overall player now and we needed his extra scoring in the starting lineup.
It was that we traded a good young perimeter defender away while our best perimeter defender is out for a month, brought in one bad defender and one suspect one to replace him, all while one of our defensive Cs is out for awhile and the other is struggling with injures. So while we may have addressed the bench scoring problem, it won’t shock me if the defense takes a hit without Grimes both short and long term.
I’m just less bullish on this trade short and long term than the media and most fans.
I also think OG, Grimes and Mitch/I-Hart would have developed into a killer defensive threesome. So I’m sorry we didn’t get to see that on the occasions we need stops.
Stats matter a lot, but IMO NONE of those all in one metrics is very good. The game is too complex to capture all the nuances of style, how pieces fit together, role, coaching strategies etc…
From the article if you read past the first paragraph:
I feel the same way, and think that Grimes had enough upside in offense to merit keeping him. Fournier plus a second for Burks was the trade. QG for Bojan was a mistake. The only way that won’t be true is if 1) Bojan plays a meaningful role in winning a championship this year, and 2) he is used in a good all-in star trade before the next deadline.
And even then, there’s a 10% chance Grimes breaks out as a star himself in the next two years, in which case it probably still was a mistake. Grimes hasn’t been good this year, but he’s a young player with upside and we traded him for a matching salary.
All this pearl clutching about Thibs’ minutes allocations is absurd. These are world-class athletes. They would rather be exercising at top speed than doing anything else, and little nagging injuries won’t stop them. Plus, most of us have forgotten what it’s like having a 25-year-old body… I seem to remember it being pretty awesome.
The Hawks won with an 8-man rotation last night, and I don’t see anyone giving a shit. And sure, I would like it if any of the few youngsters we have left could get more run, but I can’t get on Thibs’ ass for actually trying to win the game.
Obviously no one wants more guys to get hurt, but you can’t play like you’re scared to get injured… that’s basically the opposite of competing.
“And even then, there’s a 10% chance Grimes breaks out as a star himself in the next two years, in which case it probably still was a mistake. Grimes hasn’t been good this year, but he’s a young player with upside and we traded him for a matching salary.”
Make that a <1% chance. Grimes does not have any realistic pathway to becoming a star. He's almost 24 and is in his third season, and has yet to post a positive BPM. One can reasonably argue that his ceiling is a solid 3-and-D small wing who can be a fringe starter on a good team. But he has very serious offensive limitations…no wiggle, no left hand, limited ball skills, limited ability to get open off the ball, limited ability to finish….and he hasn't improved one iota in any of those areas from his rookie year…in fact, he may have regressed. It's like Landry Fields all over again.
I'd be pretty surprised if he ever becomes a player that could get you more than a heavily protected 1st in a trade, and even that is a stretch. And that's pretty much in line with the thinking of all the "smart" analysts who judged this trade. At least with the OG trade there was some concern that they gave up a potential star in IQ. No one seems to be expressing that here.
I do feel there is a pretty hard shift in the way people talk about Grimes. He was our best non-center defender last year. In fact, last year, he had the hardest defensive assignments of any player in the NBA and held his own. If you are a plus defender, which he is, all you have to be is passable from 3, which he is more than, to be in most team’s playoff rotation. Even if he never improves, which is unlikely, he is a good playoff bench player right now.
What our bench needed was a player who could score outside of their “lane”. Thibs had so conditioned Grimes and McBride to really stay in their role that both were having trouble stretching their game. It was improving and I personally think they would have figured it out. It seemed Grimes already was, he had been steadily getting more aggressive since the OG trade, and before his injury was starting to look good. I believe our bench would have come around and one thing I would have loved to see was DDV with the bench unit. That would have given the bench a scorer who can be a primary initiator, at least in stretches. In fact, we should stagger DDV and Brunson so one is always on the floor.
We had the tools to fix our issues in-house and instead, we got new, probably worse tools. If we had just added Burks or a player like him to give the team more options and kept Grimes then it would have been fine. But shaking up the rotation of a team playing extremely well seems like a huge mistake especially when both players we got are marginal at best and both are clearly in the decline phase of their careers. The injuries will pass and we will be worse once that happens than we would have been with no trade.
TNFH – In a previous thread you had apologized for maybe sounding like a dick about one of my takes and it is no problem. I was being a bit hyperbolic about Bojan vs Gallo. I know Gallo has fallen off more than Bojan, though he was a much superior player in his prime, it’s just I think he could have given us most of what Bojan provides at zero cost. My main point was that I don’t think either player really belongs on the court in the playoffs if you can help it. Both are huge defensive liabilities and if that is where you are forced to turn to get a bit of offensive pop off of the bench there are real structural problems with your team.
It’s funny how the same arguments being made about Obi (e.g. it was Thibs’ fault that he never developed) are resurfacing with Grimes. Well now that Obi is under a very, very different coach, how’s he doing? He’s back to being a <20mpg energy guy off the bench after the team realized he wasn't a starting caliber PF and used assets to acquire one.
And just like Obi, Grimes is what he is…a decent 7th-9th man in a deep rotation, but in no shape, manner or form a quality starting 2-guard. And just like Obi, any good team that is forced to start him will be continually looking to replace him. Players like that are a dime a dozen.
“Both are huge defensive liabilities and if that is where you are forced to turn to get a bit of offensive pop off of the bench there are real structural problems with your team.”
Lots of contending teams employ a 3pt specialist of the bench at the expense of some defense. Duncan Robinson, Kyle Korver, JJ Redick, etc. are all good examples. The nice thing about our team is that you can vary Bojan’s minutes situationally.
Nice to see all you guys admitting E got the Grimes thing right last year.
Wait, didn’t you say about a million times that Quentin Grimes was a low-ceiling hustlebunny who wasn’t very good? I remember this clearly because actually that was pretty much my opinion of Quentin Grimes.
So now it’s a sad thing that he’s gone? This is why people get annoyed with you, you don’t approach conversations in good faith. But I guess that’s the point, right? Annoying people is a feature, not a bug, of the E experience.
“Hustlebunny” is/was a dig at Thibs as much as Grimes/Hart — more really.
My opinion of Grimes was different than the vast majority of KB opinion — though as JK notes, he had him pegged, too. It was also different than Thibs’s opinion, the front office’s opinion, and the opinion of most “smart” pundits.
I wanted the FO, therefore, to realize *that* value when they put him on the market. I don’t think they did. It’s obviously possible that he never really had that value.
And net-net, I’m still of the opinion that OG and the two bench parts isn’t really that great a return for the three young players who went out, who were not so long ago talked about and rightly so as legitimate potential pieces for an actual real life tentpole trade. (One of whom was actually dubbed “untouchable” in such a potental trade.)
(It’s also weird that Thibs turned on him on a dime like that, but no need opening up that can of worms.)
I’m pretty sure he was dismissing the idea that it’s a sad thing Grimes is gone, JK.
And the irony I highlighted is that everyone who called him a troll last year for suggesting Grimes is no big deal is now saying Grimes is no big deal.
The dust has settled and Immanuel Quickley, Quentin Grimes, RJ Barrett, and Obi Toppin brought back OG Anunoby, Alec Burks, Bojan Bogdonovic and Previous, Jr. Achiuwa. (*)
Had that trade been made last summer or the summer before, no KBer and no “smart national pundit” would have been saying, “Oh, yeah, awesome job Knicks!!!” Those were the pieces that were supposed to bring in, with a sprinkle of draft picks of whatever size, a tentpole.
(*) The idea that Thibs doesn’t really care for young players was also mocked and ridiculed and n some quarters called “trollish” but yet here we are and — poof! — all the young players are gone.
36 god-awful offensive minutes for Hart last night. And over half of them with Taj!
How in god’s name are you supposed to keep up with the Pacers like that? That’s what “waving a white flag” looks like, not playing your starters sensible minutes. You play Taj & Hart together for 40% of the game, you’re giving your team zero chance.
Even Clyde is starting to call it out now. There was a play yesterday where Hart passed up an open three (shocker) and Clyde aptly said “Josh Hart isn’t even looking at the basket”.
Yet the Knicks are demonstrably far better since those trades, and have been playing serious contender-level ball since the OG trade was made.
It’s almost like Leon Rose is better at this than “national pundits.”
I’m pretty sure that most meaningful stats (other than usage based stats) are easier to achieve on good teams.
A year ago, Grimes was a very young guy with potential to improve. Just like IQ was as a sophomore. And RJ. And Obi.
Of those four, only IQ actually improved by a considerable amount. The rest just kind of topped out.
I, for one, hoped that a full offseason working on his flaws and an opportunity to start the season as the team’s full-time starting 2 guard (unlike in 2022 when Fournier was in that role) would result in a much better outcome that what I have seen this year. And that’s the way it is with prospects. Some develop (IQ, Mitch, Brunson, iHart) and some don’t (RJ, Grimes, Obi, Cam). You can’t win ’em all!
And once it is clear that they are not going to develop much further, at least not for years, it’s best to swap them out if a decent opportunity arises before you either get nothing for them (e.g. Obi) or overpay them relative to their production (e.g. RJ). That’s kind of what happened here.
For E and anyone else who saw this coming before the rest of the crowd, kudos!
But the whole thing about Thibs not liking young players is pretty rich, considering that he played RJ like 10,000 minutes even though he shat the bed, and that Mitch, IQ, Grimes, and Obi saw plenty of court time before they were 23 years old. And he’s given Deuce every opportunity to win a job, with very mixed results.
How are we defining “contender-level ball”? I ask because (a) I’m curious and we should define terms if possible; and (b) last spring the “old” Knicks played the second-ranked SRS team in the association and waxed them in five playoff games. Was the team that waxed the second-rated SRS team playing “contender-level ball”? Sure seems like they were to me. If we’re going to laud the Knicks’ current regular season SRS as meaningful and important, we have to do the same thing for last year’s Cavs.
It’s not just the players who need the All-Star break, I think we all need it too lol
E you have a winning position (that Grimes was nothing special) and a losing position (that Leon cant build a contender). Stick with the winner!
Like, if grimes nothing special, how can turning him into Burks & Bojan be anything less than spectacular work from Leon?
The problem right now is Thibs, not Leon. He ran the team into the ground in January and he’s making incredibly questionable decisions on a regular basis.
My position is more that last spring’s team was a contender. (*)
Leon’s built a contender; I long ago conceded that one. What I haven’t really conceded, because I don’t believe it, is that it wouldn’t be even more of one if he’d gotten a better return for the “Young Four.”
(*) Waxed the 2nd rated SRS team in five notwithstanding injuries, got themselves to around 15-1 (maybe even 12-1, can’t remember) in Vegas to win the whole thing during the Miami series. The Larry O’B, while not likely, was at least imaginable. That was pretty much the united consensus. The real time archives will confirm.
Grimes is a good player. So are Burks & Bogey. This isn’t rocket science.
Burks & Bogey fit what this team needs (bench scoring) more than Grimes does.
Never’s a long time, but I’ll never not believe he didn’t royally fuck up a winnable Miami series. But I’m moving on. He’s got another shot.
All I know is that right now it’s kind of pointless to argue about any of this stuff bc we can’t expect this team to win most of the games when they’re missing Randle, OG and all three of our starting centers plus Brunson and Hart are banged up.
This team needs a break bad.
The young four wasn’t very good, though. I think you’ll find that most of us are pleased as punch with the return.
The Young Four wasn’t that good, and if it was obvious to me it was probably obvious to NBA GMs as well.
That was not a good enough core to build around, and it was not a good enough core to bring in a tent pole player. Generally opposing teams are not going to be very enthusiastic about giving you their chrome and leather for your nuts and bolts.
Brunson’s the tentpole. That’s why they’re a contender. He’s been on the cusp of that class for awhile now, including last spring when he massively outplayed Spida, and at least IMO has now reached that class. He can beat another tentpole in a playoff series. Everything else flows from that. This isn’t the ’04 Pistons; it’s the 88-90 Pistons. Brunson is Isiah, not Billups.
That still doesn’t mean you don’t surround him with the best players you can.
In any event, the young guys are all gone now, the playoffs will be starting soon, and we’ll see how it all shakes out. They have a shot.
People acting like OG isn’t a great player are weird
Why not just play our best 5 guys 48 minutes every game for the whole season then?
Obviously there is a point at which fatigue decreases effectiveness and increases injury risk regardless of your athletic prowess.
As long as Thibs is pushing players over universally recognized limits and we’re dealing with the expected consequences of such recklessness, you’re going to hear about it.
If we were sitting here fully healthy, you’d be right to call it “pearl clutching.” But we are decimated with injuries, just like Thibs old Bulls teams used to be. You can claim coincidence or randomness all you want but not everyone’s gonna buy it.
“This isn’t the ’04 Pistons; it’s the 88-90 Pistons. Brunson is Isiah, not Billups.”
A bit slow on the draw, E…I made this exact comparison over a week ago:
I never made that argument about Obi. Grimes is a different player. I am on record as saying that including him in the trade was a mistake, even if his ceiling is what he has already been, in his second NBA season: a superb defender who is very good from 3.
I have been modestly encouraged by some of the smart people like Early Bird saying the trade is fine, but being painted with the “all the people who loved Obi are now saying the same thing about Grimes” brush is offensive and condescending. I never said that about Obi, and in fact argued that people were not appreciating what Julius provided to the offense and he shouldn’t be traded.
Boston and Miami – KP injured his leg and now Rozier seems to have a pretty terrible knee injury. If only Thibs wasn’t running them into the ground.
Either way, we’ll see in two years. I’d be happy to be wrong.
And now Jaylen Brown just tried to remove Duncan Robinson’s arm from its socket.
KP is back though. Apparently he’s indestructible now.
rama, come on, I said “the same arguments” and didn’t single out you or any other poster. And without a doubt, those arguments were made over and over again by a bunch of posters. I stand by my general criticism of making excuses for any of our recent young players based on Thibs somehow holding them back and not utilizing them correctly, whether it’s Obi, Grimes, IQ or RJ. Grimes regressing this year is on Grimes. He was handed a starting job over both DDV and IQ and he couldn’t handle it.
I was not gung-ho about the Grimes trade, mostly because we lost defense and got older in exchange for short term help on offense. That’s just intrinsically a type of trade I don’t like. But I’m not thinking trade was a bad deal either. I really liked Grimes for a long time and figured this past off season his offense would take a leap. For whatever reason, it didn’t. And this season he wasn’t very good and he was beaten out by Divo for the starting spot. He’s still a useful player and he will fit well on Detroit, but I’m no longer expecting big leaps from him, which makes him tradeable in my mind.
The Knicks needed another four and they got one in Bogdanovic and they needed someone to replace Grimes’ role and they got Burks. It’s not perfect but the Knicks will limp through their injuries a little better and probably be a little stronger at the end of the season. That’s a fair trade.
The Rozier trade, for which the Heat earned massive media praise, has been terrible for Miami.
Jimmy Butler was given the day off for personal reasons. Both teams used ten players. No one even played 40 minutes!
Obviously this was a full blown tankathon game. Just two teams with no culture waving the white flag at each other. Alas, someone had to win even though neither team cared enough to try.
I want to see Thibs coach the all-star game and have him run guys 40min and bench others for not playing defense.
I should also mention that I’ve been as wrong as anyone on Grimes. I really thought he would develop more and faster than he has.
And I might be wrong again! Some guys are late bloomers! Like our very own Alec Burks!
I just don’t think Grimes is the kind of player you wait on, given that this team is a fringe contender looking to improve right now. It’s certainly fine to feel that you would rather have traded him plus picks for someone better if such a deal was out there, or not traded him at all. Given what ultimately shook out around the league on deadline day, I’m more than okay with it.
anyone think the niners have a chance today?
me neither…
The only thing similar about Grimes and Obi is that both were young cost-controlled players who were helpful bench pieces who got traded for bad assets. Grimes is much more valuable than Obi because he fills a much more valuable role, is younger, and has more time left on his contract.
But this season has absolutely born out that maybe keeping Obi would have been smart. We could have really used his production since the injuries and those of us who hated it, hated it because we got two bad 2nds instead of keeping him and having useful depth. It wasn’t out of some dream he’d become some star. And we didn’t need to move him out to sign DDV, we could have moved out Archie, Sims, and DaQuan and created enough cap room to sign DDV. Trading Obi wasn’t some huge mistake, it was just an unforced error where we gave away cost-controlled depth we could have really used for 2 bad 2nd round picks.
As for Grimes, it is a totally different thing. The main one is that you don’t need to wish cast on Grimes for him to be useful. He already is, and if he never improves he is still a player that would fit on every bench in the NBA as a 7th or 8th man. We traded away a valuable bench piece, not simply depth, but someone who could help us win games and play a real role when we are fully healthy. I have not heard anyone saying we traded away a future star or even a starter. The reason this trade is terrible is because we traded away a good player making very little money both this season and next for two players that are both worse. Worse now and most definitely worse later.
Players of Burks’s and Bojan’s quality are always coming available after the trade deadline on the waiver wire or if we really wanted Burks we could have gotten him and kept Grimes.
But better than that we could have made a move that filled a real need like Morris or Jones. Even moves for players I didn’t want like Brogdon and Brown would have been much better because at least those players are good.
Burks is too much of a wild card that “creates” offense to the tune of a 38% 2pt% and high turnovers. I was so relieved when we moved him so Thibs wouldn’t be able to keep playing him over better players and yet here he is again. He is not a terrible bench piece, he is perfectly adequate, but he is a step down from Grimes.
Bojan on the other hand, is cooked and is a huge liability that will not help us win games and every minute he steals from Hart, Precious, McBride, DDV, or even Burks will make the team worse.
We got worse and threatened the vibes and the identity of this team. Before the trade, every player except Brunson and Randle were gritty defenders who hustled their asses off and now we added two aging vets that are as far from gritty defenders as you can get.
Tatum played 39 mins, White 38 and Brown 37. 10 men played for Boston with Brissett and Kornet each playing 2 mins.
Herro played 39 mins, 10 men played for the Heat with Orlando Robinson playing less than a minute and Josh Richardson played a whopping 7 mins.
This Thibs minutes played obsession is getting beyond fucking tiresome.
I’m not convinced Bojey is either cooked or even not useful…
it’s hard to really know the other players on teams so well…even when teams play against us, I’m mostly focused on our players…
I can’t remember whom it was, but, they said they were a frequent better and therefore had watched a lot of pistons’ games this year…
they were pretty confident he could help us…
shoot, after just one game in a knicks’ uniform – he at least has me curious and just a bit hopeful…
do you remember the last time alec played for us…
I mostly remember thibs using him as a point guard, and not being too happy about it…
I also kind of remember some late game gaffes…
it seemed most often though that he played well for us…
I probably need to pore over both bogeys and alec’s stat page to see what their numbers say…
my fingers are crossed that bogey can get his own shot, and hit them…
I’m interested to see how much of josh’s and donte’s minutes, particularly end of game, alec picks up…
again, need to look, but I wonder how similar alec’s and quik’s numbers are this year…
Spotrac has us at $2.4M under the luxury tax with 2 open roster slots to fill. It would have been difficult to keep Obi.
as an aside for the day, I love westerns…watch a bunch of them…
caught a new one on prime, Surrounded…it had a black female lead…which is very unique, first time I can remember that…
I’m sure there are others I’m unfamiliar with, but I can only recall a few westerns with black leads…
cleavon little with Blazing Saddles, one of the absolute weirdest westerns ever (okay Cat Ballou, didn’t like it though)…Blazing Saddles is brilliant…
mario van peebles with Posse, fun one back in the early 90’s..donald glover with Silverado, good movie, great overall cast…
the more recent ones with jamie fox in Django, great start, okayish second half…samuel jackson in the Hateful 8, super duper fun film, both in the coach and then the cabin…
the best thing about Surrounded – it was a really good western…beautifully shot…it could have used some more landscape shots maybe but, solid solid action throughout…
also caught Bone Tomahawk and The Homesman recently…both also good westerns…
I just wish hilary swank didn’t always make me wanna cry so much…
is the game ever gonna start today…
oh man, it did start…
Geo, you a fan of The Wild Bunch? That’s my favorite western
Obi’s contract is 6,803,012 the combined contracts of Archie, Sims, and Jeffries were 5,967,038. So keeping him wouldn’t have put us into the luxury tax. The other money doesn’t matter because the MLE doesn’t change until you are over the tax, the only thing that mattered was avoiding the luxury tax.
the director’s cut – yes sir…
movie making wise – that was a glimpse of the future…that slo-mo finale…
an old and a bit bitter william holden…
I just loved the way he portrayed a chaotic good character…
Who’s side are you on? I am on my side.
oh yeah, a raunchy ernest borgnine too, the bath scene is hilarious…
And what I find tiresome is watching Taj Gibson play center because Thibs played Mitch repeatedly on a bad foot and then he started playing iHart entire halves at a time with no rest until he got a bad foot and then he continued to play him on said bad foot.
You might as well start skipping posts because as long as half the team is injured, Thibs is gonna get called out when behaves like a maniac.
I saw it in 70mm at the Castro Theater in SF when I was a young person. One of my favorite moviegoing experiences ever
“But this season has absolutely born out that maybe keeping Obi would have been smart.”
If anything, it has borne out the opposite. Like Grimes, he is a dime a dozen, which was reflected in the return we got for him (i.e. zilch.)
“The reason this trade is terrible is because we traded away a good player making very little money both this season and next for two players that are both worse.”
I’ll side with the 99% of the world that vehemently disagrees with this. Grimes is overrated on D and terrible on O. I doubt that a single coach in the NBA who is trying to win would play him over either Burks or Bojan.
“Grimes is much more valuable than Obi because he fills a much more valuable role, is younger, and has more time left on his contract.”
A quarter is a lot more valuable than a dime, but neither one is particularly valuable.
“We got worse and threatened the vibes and the identity of this team.”
I’ll trust Thibs on maintaining the identity of the team. I mean, when you’re saying that “other than Brunson and Randle…” as if they are end-of-th-bench scrubs, you kinda lost me.
I give you credit for sticking to your guns when every serious pundit vehemently disagrees with this assessment of the trade. And should you turn out to be correct, I will certainly take the L. Let’s see what happens.
that would be spectacular in a theater…sound and sight…
by any chance, are you watching the game?
there are these folks in all black, intercedimg in the game, interacting with players – like security sort of…during some scuffles between players…
I know I have never seen that before…ever…I don’t know, maybe I’m just really high, seeing things…
I don’t know that running a roster with only 2 Cs — one of them Mitch — is going to be the windfall of depth you think it is.
We wouldn’t run only two centers. We could have immediately resigned sims or honestly not even cut him because we were not that close to the luxury tax. I was only using the example to show moving Obi had nothing to do with DDV.
It seems like Obi would have been handy in many of these more recent games. He might be replaceable but we certainly failed to replace him.
As for Grimes, Z-Man you have the most pessimistic view of Grimes of anyone including the pundits who loved the trade. Most liked the trade because they like Bojan not because they thought Grimes was trash. Most people think he’s at least a solid rotation player even if many think that’s all he is.
My problem isn’t moving Grimes it’s getting bad players for him. If we had moved him for Brogdon, Brown, or Jones I wouldn’t be happy but I’d be okay with it. We gave him away for one mediocre player and one terrible one.
Eli Manning would’ve scored a TD instead of settling for the FG and going to OT…
This game is going to break the ratings books
Salary doesn’t stay static over the course of the season. You want flexibility to add more salary via trade or free agency. You make small moves to cover for players that get injured during the year (hi, Taj 👋) or when a guy you want hits waivers. It’s not about getting close to the cap without going over, it’s about giving yourself the room to operate without any onerous constraints.
How dumb would it be for a superstar to finally come available but we lost out because Obi Toppin caused us to hit the hard cap?
I didn’t say Grimes is trash. I said he’s not as good right now as either Bojan or Burks, that his ceiling is a decent bench piece, and that he has been bad this year, as indicated by his -1.6 BPM.
You said: “…you don’t need to wish cast on Grimes for him to be useful. He already is, and if he never improves he is still a player that would fit on every bench in the NBA as a 7th or 8th man.”
This is simply not true. If he plays the way he’s played this year, he will not be an NBA rotation player for long. His TS% “improved” to .557 in December and .563 in January, but the problem is, league average TS% is .583. Any team with a guard like that in their rotation will be looking to upgrade, even if it’s a 7th or 8th man.
Mahomes is the Michael Jordan of football, just crushes the spirit of the opposition.
Fuxking choking teams
The niners needed to crush them in the first half, but they left a lot of points on the field
Pretty pretty pretty good
Mahomes just passed Eli Manning with his 3rd Super Bowl MVP.
Andy Reid going to hang it up now?
If Andy Reid hangs around longer it could be him and not Belichick who breaks Shula’s wins record.
Interesting factoid: Steve Spagnuola is the first coordinator to win four super bowls.
I guess the 4th quarter and OT made up for the first 3 quarters. But not my favorite game.
https://www.threads.net/@angry_staffer/post/C3O7s4_IeGu/
Mahomes 3 titles
Curry 4
Lebron 4
Possible Mahomes ends on top
Grimes had a bad first couple months this year. Sometimes that happens with young players. If that is the entire dataset then you could be pretty pessimistic on Grimes but he had 2900 minutes before that. The bad play in November and December look more like the outlier, especially when you consider his better play in January and the two years prior.
If you want to compare BPM and TS%.
For their careers:
BPM:
Grimes -0.5
Bojan -0.8
Burks -0.4
TS%
Grimes 58.9%
Bojan 59.5%
Burks 54.6%
This year and last year:
BPM
Grimes -0.6
Bojan -0.2
Burks 0.5
TS%
Grimes 59.5%
Bojan 61.7%
Burks 59.4%
Add to that, that Grimes is a much better defender than both and on the upswing of his career and Burks and Bojan are on the downswing and neither really feels like much of an upgrade.
What’s their usage?
Can’t kick field goals against mahomes
75% of Grimes’ 2PT field goals and 96% of his 3PT field goals were assisted baskets. Those are very high numbers. He creates zero offense for himself and really can’t (or doesn’t) do anything offensively except shoot spot-ups.
He hasn’t even shot all that well on the spot-ups and also never gets to the FT line. Add it all up and that comes out to a 93 TS+ on 15 USG%.
That is some terrible offensive play, worse than it looks on the surface. He’s supposed to be a floor spacer, but he shoots right at league average on 3-pointers despite almost every single one of those being an assisted basket.
He’s probably capable of playing better than that, but he has been pretty dreadful on offense this year.
Grimes has been a disappointment this year, and if it turns out to be a harbinger of a Landry-like decline, I’ll take the L. But as for this
He was already better than that last year! He was good. No, he didn’t create even then, but had higher usage and better offensive numbers and to my eyes was playing better D. I don’t know what happened with him, but if forced to bet, would bet on that guy – a starter on a playoff team – being closer to the real guy than the first few months of this year.
I’m proud to say that I don’t know who Mahones is. I’ve never heard of the name in my life. (If only I could say the same for that Jordan fellow…)
Moved over to new thread…