[New York Post] – Mon, 12 Feb 2024 01:38:00 GMT
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[Daily Knicks] – Sun, 11 Feb 2024 13:00:02 GMT
Will Knicks regret trading RJ Barrett, Immanuel Quickley, and Quentin Grimes?
[The Ringer] – Mon, 12 Feb 2024 08:09:25 GMT
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[sny.tv] – Sun, 11 Feb 2024 15:02:55 GMT
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136 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2024.02.12)”
“He was already better than that last year! He was good.”
He was better than this year, but not all that good…
“No, he didn’t create even then…”
Well that’s what we are kinda referring to when we say he wasn’t all that good…
“…but had higher usage”
Did you look at the numbers before you said that? Last year he had a 14.4% usage, which is lower that this year’s 15.1% and his rookie year’s 15.1%. His usage had not budged from “paltry” in 3 seasons.
“…and better offensive numbers and to my eyes was playing better D.”
I agree…he was better overall last year than this year. Which is why I keep saying that he regressed.
“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.”
It’s true that he was a starter on a playoff team. In that role, he put up a .452 TS% on 11.2% usage, shot 24.3% from 3, and posted a -2.4 BPM.
The recent Knick that Grimes reminds me most of is another recent playoff starter, Reggie Bullock….who also started in 18 playoff games for Dallas last year and actually played pretty well! I think Grimes can eventually be somewhat better than that, but not much, and not this year or next. At the end of the day, that’s not the kind of ceiling I’m going to get bent out of shape about missing out on.
As to Bojan and Burks, I’m not as giddy about acquiring them as some of the media guys, but feel a LOT better about our bench depth going in to the playoffs this year than I did before the trade and neither guy has any bearing on our prospects in the years to come. Barring a tradeout, we should be able to find a Grimes-level player or better in the draft easily enough, or by packaging a pick or two. I mean, how hard was it to find Donte? Or Burks? Or Grimes himself?
Z-Man is doing a very commendable job describing a hustlebunny on whom Thibs significantly over-relied in last years’ playoffs, thus materially lowering the team’s playoff ceiling.
Will he have the power of his … cough … convictions and actually say so? Or will he forever remain the fan who will never real-time fade Thibs and Leon, but will merely find and lose favor with players in perfect 4/4 time with Thibs and Leon?
We shall see!
“Z-Man is doing a very commendable job describing a hustlebunny on whom Thibs significantly over-relied in last years’ playoffs, thus materially lowering the team’s playoff ceiling.
Will he have the power of his … cough … convictions and actually say so? Or will he forever remain the fan who will never real-time fade Thibs and Leon, but will merely find and lose favor with players in perfect 4/4 time with Thibs and Leon?
We shall see!”
Nice try, E.
Grimes has not developed as well as hoped, but he was still a solid pick at #25 (and would have been at #19 as well.) I don’t blame Thibs one bit for running him out there in last year’s playoffs, given the roster he had to work with. I did NOT like that Thibs banished Fournier like he did, and said so many times.
As I said yesterday, you (and others) deserve credit for predicting that Grimes would not develop as I and many others (including Thibs, I would guess) had hoped. Score one for E! Now if only you could balance that out by admitting that you have been utterly wrong about nearly everything else you have posted, all while having scores of posters begging other posters to ignore your trolling, I’ll give you credit for that as well! Not gonna happen though, is it?
We often talk about incinerating picks (when we are actually at worst giving up pennies on the dollar for better long term positioning), but why use or trade a pick to get a Grimes level player back when you already have him?
That’s a legitimate question about this trade.
The answer is we added need scoring off the bench for our playoff run and to keep us competitive now while we have some injuries.
But is that really a good answer for long term thinkers?
Bojan is 34 and plays no defense. The best long term case for adding him is that we can use his salary in a trade. The thing is, we already had Fournier for that.
Burks is 32, may have slowed down on defense and will be a free agent next year.
So what we are really saying is that we did this trade mostly for short term benefit – as in THIS YEAR.
So now the question is are we really legitimate title contenders now?
Does that chance make it worthwhile to give up a young useful role player that defends well for a few months of better scoring off the bench?
IMO, if you think we aren’t actually serious contenders yet, this trade doesn’t make much sense (unless you are doing it because you already know you aren’t paying Grimes and also want to give Fournier a break).
We’d have to incinerate a pick to get a young Grimes level 3&D type player back for the long term once these older guys are gone.
Odd as it sounds, I’m not really concerned about what happens with this team between the deadline and the all star break. There’s jelling that needs to happen, guys who need rest, and I trust Thibs to integrate Bojan and Burks fairly quickly. He may make a questionable rotation decision here and there, and go heavy on minutes unnecessarily sometimes- but for the most part, Thibs has been coaching his ass off this season. So it probably goes without being said, but I’m excited for when Randle and Anunoby are back. Then, if Mitch makes his way back, that would be icing on the cake. So I’m more than good with being patient while we take a few lumps until things are back to normal. We’re good enough to not consistently play bad basketball while guys are out. Thibs has already shown that he can coach more than 100% out of these guys to win games when big pieces are missing. I’ll still watch tonight and Wednesday though lol
Who says his development is over?
He’s 23.
One reason he’s having a down year is that at this stage he’s just a 3&D+ type player that was not getting enough opportunities with the starters because we had 3 ball dominant players taking turns creating for themselves. We also had a glut at the SG/SF position with the addition of DDV that was impacting his minutes. The starters were not a good fit for him or even J-Hart. That’s why both complained. And the minutes issue we discussed at the start of the season. That was relieved a bit when they did the consolidation trade.
I think we know what Grimes is.
He’s a very good perimeter defender that can shoot 3s and get to the basket or make a play here or there if given a steady role and opportunity. At 23, I think it’s better than 50-50 he’ll get better for Detroit with a better opportunity. But I don’t necessarily think it was wise to for us to give up on him for two old guys if we are thinking long term.
“The best long term case for adding him is that we can use his salary in a trade. The thing is, we already had Fournier for that.”
We only had Fournier for that if we went right to the edge of what is ethical. I commend the FO for not acting like Daryl Morey.
E used to regularly accuse everyone but him of being way, way too high on Quentin Grimes. His problem was when asked to provide even a single example of this phenomenon, he was unable.
This is just a continuation of that shtick, with the added annoyance of him accusing anyone who supported the Bojan/Burks trade of hypocrisy based on his completely made up idea that they used to be a major Grimes booster.
I standby my characterization of Grimes from the thread linked above: “very solid, low-usage/high-efficiency two way way player…” who is much better than the apple of E’s eye Cam Reddish.
There is nothing inconsistent about thinking a trade of that player for a Bogey and Burks is good.
Also, Fournier had zero trade value and was never going to play, whereas Bojan was coveted and he will almost certainly play. Now if he goes all Fournier and Thibs benches him, then it is at least only for a short while. It would have been downright nasty to pick up Fournier’s option at this point.
Bogey is good and Fournier is bad. I don’t think that’s a difference that can be hand waved away when you’re trying to contend.
It’s not even accurate to say their salaries alone are equally beneficial, because a team would obviously be more willing to take back Bogey, who is a good NBA player, than Fournier, who is on his way to Europe.
So whether we keep the player or trade the player, Bogey >>> Fournier.
1) it’s 100% reasonable based on the empirics to say we’re “contenders” in at least some sense this year
2) I need you to acknowledge, just once so I know I don’t have to keep repeating it to you, that Bogey is signed through 2024-2025
Strat, when you select a player with your draft pick it’s not incineration it’s using it.
TNFH of course said far more than just that about QG (*), but even at that, it’s very much an open question whether this was adequate return for a 23 year old “very solid low usage/high efficiency two way player.”
(*) Including stalkingly fighting any remote suggestion that QG was a hustlebunny whom Thibs was relying on too much. When it mattered, in real-time, that idea was literally never let go without a knockdown, drag out. If only KB had a button that could be pressed to indicate, “I don’t really believe this; I’m just saying it to win an internet fight.”
What are we thinking in terms of the potential return of our injured army?
I’d be quite happy if OG is back on March 3rd against the Cavs (too optimistic?), and Mitch/Randle in mid-to-late March (March 23rd after the long West Coast trip?).
Of course I did, which is why it will be so easy for E to post one (1) example.
Just to be clear, Strat, it is your assertion that this team is in a better position now than it would be if we had selected Jalen Johnson and Jalen Williams. That’s the shit you’re trying to sell today?
I tend to be the most optimistic person on this board but here’s a surprise. I’m skeptical of this trade.
I think getting Burks would have been enough and probably would have just cost us Fournier and a second round pick. And we could have resigned him for a big one year deal to use as an expiring next year if we wanted to do that.
I’m skeptical that we’re contenders this year, mainly because of the injuries. And while I’m very happy we got OG and realize that at some point you move from “team on the rise with lots of young players” to contenders who go all in, I’m still very sad that we now have NO young players left except for Sims and McBride, arguably the two players out of our young crew with the least upside.
I generally support Leon but we shall have to see on this one. I think he might have pulled the trigger too soon on this trade. Maybe he’s super confident Randle, OG, Mitch, etc…will all be back and rust free for the playoffs, I’m more skeptical, especially with Randle.
There’s been missteps along the way. I mean if RJ doesn’t get that huge contract, we could probably send him, Fournier and pick for OG and could have kept IQ.
I guess the flip side for me is we are still very well positioned to make that star trade with picks and probably still have some left over to draft new players. But I am a little sad that basically all of our youth is gone and I just don’t know about Bojan. We also really need a center and that was not addressed at all with this trade.
Hey E, did you read down that thread and notice that I was actually sort of moderating on behalf of your negative takes on Grimes? And that everything I am saying now is dead-on consistent with how I felt then?
Z–man says:
May 11, 2023 at 19:08
As much as I am not enamored with E, I think it’s fair to point out that we are not particularly strong at the 2 as contending teams go….As to Grimes, he’s 23 and still developing. There are things he can add to his game this next offseason and beyond. Just like RJ has added things to his game. We’d be better off with a stud as our starting 2, and Grimes is not one of those, at least not yet. But those guys are crazy expensive….you aren’t getting MJ or Kobe or Dwyane or Klay or Booker or Brown (or one-way scorers like CJ or Spida or even Jordan Poole) unless you sell the entire farm.
But that’s okay! Let’s see what we have in Grimes when he works this offseason to add more stuff to his offensive game. I truly see a path for him to increase his usage at decent efficiency, but agree with E that it’s far from a sure thing.”
Well, now we are here, and he has worked on those things and….nothing. Alas…
I wonder if Evan is going to get any minutes on Detroit or if he’ll just be out of the league next year.
Simple question, Z-Man — was Thibs wrong in structuring the roster to depend as much as he did in the playoffs on Quentin Grimes and Josh Hart at the wing positions?
Because none of this is only about the players and was never pitched as such.
(If yes, then you should have agreed with that at the time; if no, then all of the stuff you say now is just after the fact and meaningless.)
Being a bad defender and not playing defense are two different things.
Jalen Brunson is a bad defender, but he always tries, Bad Julius doesn’t play defense because he doesn’t give a fuck (Good Julius is an average or slightly above average defender).
Bojan is a bad defender because he’s slow footed and not athletic*, not because he doesn’t try.
While we wait (next summer or next season) to use the salary in a trade, the two situation aren’t the same because:
– One will play (now and for the foreseeable future), the other spent the last 15 months exiled in Siberia.
– One would be happy to have his option for next year guaranteed, the other accepted the trade like it was a presidential pardon.
– Guaranteeing Fournier’s option for next year would have been cruel, shameful and (very) close to mobbing, I would have hate Leon.
* But he’s deceptively strong and can hold his own against 4s…
It always goes back to the conspiracy theory
Bojan is a stretch 4 now, that is a big difference from someone like Fournier. Bojan absolutely fills a huge need on this roster.
OK, so it’s “Thibs didn’t really like QG and Josh Hart, but what’s a guy gonna do???”
LOL.
I’d recommend at least trying to at least come off as serious.
Knicks could use some injury luck tonight. Sengun and FVV are both day to day and didn’t play their last game.
When the media praises Leon Rose, they are giving him credit for everything he has done since Jalen Brunson. And he deserves every bit of that praise, because he’s done a good job since then.
What they are not doing is validating every stupid decision he made before then. Those decisions were still stupid andthey are still consequential. Because this is a nice little team, but it’s not nearly as good as it would be if Leon didn’t make the stupid mistakes we rightfully called him out on. And it probably never will be.
Ah, we’ve retreated from “the only reason Quentin Grimes was on the roster instead of a better player at the same cost was because of Tom Thibodeau” to the characteristically vague, meaningless “Tom Thibodeau liked Quentin Grimes.”
I’m the one who erred here. I am hereby reaffirming my commitment to ignoring E posts without a falsifiable statement.
So your standard for a GM is what? Perfection?
Seems like a pretty high bar.
FVV is already ruled out for tonight.
Nah, Swift. I’m saying “We got Bojan & Burks…. I TOLD YOU THE INCINERATION DIDN’T MATTER!” is a pretty stupid take.
You think there were Blazers fans gloating about the Sam Bowie pick when Portland made the finals in ’90?
I had missed the injury report. Whitmore and Tari Eason (their other good defender I think) also out. Knicks have a good chance…
I actually think getting Burks and keeping Grimes would’ve been, to use one of our favorite words, kinda redundant. Bojan fills a very specific and quite frankly right now much needed role as the stretch 4 who can play SF occasionally. But he’s a big time efficient scorer which in the long run should pay huge dividends for this team down the stretch and into the playoffs.
The Pistons traded (in & out): Burks, Bojan, Fontecchio, Grimes, Fournier, Flynn, Morris, Milton, Troy Brown, Knox, Muscala, Bagley, Livers.
Then, post trade deadline, they waived Killian Hayes, Joe Harris, Danuel House, Danilo Gallinari and Ryan Arcidiacono.
And signed Tosan Evbuomwan on a 10-day.
They need a new revolving door in the FO’s office!
Cam Whitmore looks exactly like the guy who fell too far that everyone said he was during the draft. Never bet against Villanova guys apparently.
As pertains to this argument, I am Team TNFH, and I am also ready for the all star break.
Is Thibs even going to close with Bogey once the roster is all back? That’s the indispensable threshold question.
Why is the narrative that Burks is washed? He’s played 1 game for us and scored 22pts in 22min. Why don’t we talk about that?
He got injured after the first 4 games this season, played like crap for 2 months, but in his last 20 games he has a .656 TS% on 25% USG. Burks can flat out score.
On the year he is shooting 40.6% on 9.9 3pa/36… that’s not far behind Donte. This is why the pundits like getting Burks.
Burks is clearly better than Josh Hart, but we’ll have to see whether Thibs sees it that way — or whether he goes hustlebunny again like he did last spring. Very much an open question.
Is there even room for Josh Hart in a proper playoff rotation this spring, assuming full health? Not sure I’m seeing it.
Mitch/Hart
Julius
OG
DDV
JB
I assume that’s our ideal full strength lineup.
I’m assuming Thibs is going with Burks as PG2 and will cut Deuce’s playoff minutes to next to none, so maybe Josh fits in a small bit there. But even that isn’t really mandatory.
I assume Thibs will play Burks and Hart together off the bench, the player who will probably lose his minutes when everyone is healthy is Deuce.
Josh Hart is the backup small forward, he has been all year long.
Thibs is obviously at practices, he says (and I believe it) that they track performance at practices, and he’s notorious for playing to win every game and yet some people here seem to think that Fournier can still shoot and score as well as Bogdonovic? Thibs surely already knows from practice data that Fournier can’t do it anymore. Detroit fans think Bogdonovic was good and wonder what their management was doing. At a certain point the evidence is overwhelming that Bogdanovic is a useful player, but Fournier mostly no longer is.
In Detroit’s defense, they were playing better and showing signs they might end up with more wins than Washington or Charlotte. I suspect management didn’t want two players clearly not in their long term plans possibly messing with their currently excellent draft position. They got a young player and picks in return. Good for them.
People think because Fournier was the best player on shitty Orlando teams 2 years before he became a Knick that he must still be good. Those teams sucked and he was younger then anyways.
Boston didn’t want him back when we signed him. I was hopeful and he did shoot well his first year with his but he had an entire season as our starting SG and we were not good that year. The following season the second he was taken out of the starting line up, the team got better and he could not/would not accept a diminished bench role. I’m not suggesting Fournier pouted because I think he took this whole thing reasonably well, but he just might be one of those dudes that can’t come of the bench and still play well. Every single time since he left the rotation last season he got a chance to play, he shot poorly, which is his only “good” attribute.
I mean, it just didn’t work out. It is what it is. Why does it have to be someone’s fault?
I am not getting the “hustlebunny” wording/meaning…
never really thought of a rabbit/bunny hustling…
mostly just think of them eating, having sex, and being cute…
unless a “bunny” in this case is something altogether different…could be that I guess…
rabbits do kind of look like they’d taste good though…only tried one once…
it was some kind of training exercise where we had to kill a rabbit and chicken and cook it out on a fire in the woods…
not the best setting for a gourmet meal…
yeah, rabbits don’t really “hustle”…it’s more like they scurry about, like a rodent…
you know, now that I think of it – I think hustlebunny is just some made up word…
not falling for it, nope…
“I tend to be the most optimistic person on this board…”
Swifty, I am not sure you are and may be selling yourself short (eg, predicting 47-49 wins, with Brian at 53, Jazzfunk at 51, myself, EB, and Bo at 50). What you do, instead, is put forth an optimistic case in the face of either a bad defeat or a slew of negative posts. (well ok, after a huge win there may be an OTT post or 2). Your take on the trade is valid and not at all “surprising”. For myself, hated to lose Grimes, not because I saw a lot of upside but because we were selling low. But I look at the trade in the prism of “we’ve got to move Fournier” and “we’ve got to get 2nd unit playmaking” and it is not bad. And unlike with drafts, we have no idea what other options if any were on the table.
This is the team’s biggest concern after player health.
On Saturday, for instance, Josh Hart was the worst player on the basketball court (again) and Alec Burks was having an excellent game but it was 36 mins for Hart, 22 for Burks.
It was just one game, though. We’ll see how it goes. But Thibs doesn’t have any excuses this spring. Leon got him the horses.
Bojan should at least help us out during the rest of the regular season, which will be important for seeding. He may (or may not) help much in the playoffs. I think that will depend on matchups, team health, and the size of the rotation (8-9 players). I could see Bojan playing spot minutes in the playoffs, but not getting a lot of regular time. Which is fine. I am OK with that. He could potentially still be valuable during the regular season and his contract is for next year too.
Josh Hart is struggling recently, especially with his shooting. I think he is doing too much jump passing too. That is leading to turnovers. I think he is most effective playing around 25ish minutes a game. But, you need the team to be at full health for that.
I think OG is the glue to this team. He really raises our team defense since he can cover multiple top players and positions. Then other players can go back to their usual roles.
Bunnies hustled in Watership Down to escape predators.
Fievel, the rat, hustled a few times — most famously when he went west.
So historically, from a fiction perspective of course, rodents do display accounts of hustling.
The bunny family from the Looney Toons also played in a few important basketball games to save the world from aliens.
I think arg can guard fours, but the rest of his game seems to suffer when he does that (except his fast breaks)
I just assumed he confused Playboy with Hustler. Playboy is the one with the bunnies.
AFKAKBPR, totally with you on bunnies hustling, as anyone who’s had a dog go after one can attest. And yes rats can hustle, as shown under my birdfeeder these last few weeks, to my neighbors’ great discontent. They can literally disappear in an eyeblink.
But bunnies are not rodents. Completely different evolutionary lineages. They’re lagomorphs.
Edit: And tip o’ the cap to EB for further on viva la difference…
It’s hard to judge this team until it’s at full strength because everything being said now is theoretical but it will be interesting to see how Thibs plays the rotation. As mentioned before Leon got him the players for a deep run – it’s on him to get it right. Good coaches figure out the best mix of players in the flow of the game.
If I had to guess, the standard stretch run minute allocation will go more or less like this (maybe take a few minutes from OG and Randle, who will be recovering from injuries, and give them to Hart/Bojan):
Brunson – 38 min
DDV – 32 min
OG – 38 min
Randle – 36 min
Centers – 48 min
Burks – 14 min
Hart – 18 min
Bojan – 16 min
“Simple question, Z-Man — was Thibs wrong in structuring the roster to depend as much as he did in the playoffs on Quentin Grimes and Josh Hart at the wing positions?”
I don’t think last year’s roster was a contending-level roster. Never did. I also don’t think that Thibs “structured” the roster…that’s not his job, and I have been pretty adamant since he was hired that he should have zero influence over roster construction…and 100% influence over which players play when and for how long. So in that sense, your question doesn’t make sense to me.
I think that Leon and Co. are a) committed to a Riley-esque variation of the hybrid method, and b) trying to build a Riley-esque team culture. I think Leon feels that Thibs is a good coach for establishing that culture and winning as much as possible now while making prudent future-based transactions. I think that drafting Grimes and trading for Hart (along with drafting IQ and Deuce, signing Brunson, DDV and iHart, and trading for OG) are consistent with that methodology.
I don’t have any real problem with the way that Thibs used Grimes and Hart in last year’s playoffs. As I indicated back then, I hoped that Grimes would blossom into something better this year. He had every chance to do that, including being handed a starting job over a couple of better players at the start of the season. It hasn’t worked out.
And now that the team’s roster has been upgraded with the acquisitions of long-term pieces DDV and OG, I think that Leon has properly valued Grimes as having a lower ceiling than hoped, and decided that it would be worth moving him. While I’m not 100% sold on Bojan or Burks being difference-makers, I generally don’t find it wise to take on, like, every analyst who has weighed in, even the haters and doubters. The move has been as universally praised as any Leon Rose transaction…maybe even more than the Brunson signing, who at least a few folks out there thought was an overpay.
Yeah, except that doesn’t equate with what happened last spring, or the reason they’re a (fringy, but real) contender now — the fact that Jalen Brunson is at (or extremely near) tentpole status.
I’ll remind again — everyone is beating the drum about their net rating and SRS this year, and last spring they beat the team with the second highest (by quite a distance) SRS in five games. After the first two games of the Miami series, their championship odds in Vegas were at or better than they are now.
They didn’t become a contender because they acquired Donte Divencenzo and OG Anunoby. That’s not how this works.
“Yeah, except that doesn’t equate with what happened last spring, or the reason they’re a (fringy, but real) contender now — the fact that Jalen Brunson is at (or extremely near) tentpole status.
I’ll remind you again — everyone is beating the drum about their net rating and SRS this year, and last spring they beat the team with the second highest (by quite a distance) SRS in five games. After the first two games of the Miami series, their championship odds in Vegas were at or better than they are now.
They didn’t become a contender because they acquired Donte Divencenzo and OG Anunoby. That’s not how this works.”
This is a bunch of word vomit from a guy who thought Cam Reddish and RJ Barrett were the kinds of players we should hang our hat on. Please try to make some sense.
What part didn’t you understand? It’s standard English, with a series of relatively short declarative sentences.
The Heat are pretty screwed now, aren’t they? Richardson is out for a while, and Rozier’s status doesn’t look good at all. They might need to go look for a PG on the scrap heap.
The basketball part is going great, so i’m only here for the hustlebunny theories. 😀
To be a contender, I think you need a high regular season SRS to demonstrate the capacity to win it all. But in the postseason, roster construction takes on a new level of importance. Cleveland was doomed by their poor spacing and their inability to field a competent SF to correct the issue.
Of course there are other factors, coaching Xs & Os and the capacity to adapt are more relevant. There was one solid analysis I watched showing how Jarrett Allen over-helped, allowing Mitch to get rebounding position and absolutely dominate the game on the boards in a way I’ve never seen. Either the coach or Allen himself was unable to adapt. Or the obvious example of Spo confounding Randle. And it wasn’t just Spo, but the personnel who could shift in and out of coverages with ease.
They lost a lot of valuable players in the offseason while a couple others have seemingly aged out of NBA relevance. I never want to play them in the postseason, but I don’t know that they make it.
It’s a good proxy, but in any event once you whack a high SRS team in five playoff games that’s an ample substitute for whatever deficiencies you might have had in your regular season net/SRS. (Plus, didn’t you do a bunch of work showing how high the Knick net/SRS was after the Josh Hart trade?)
My guess is it’s the same as before the injuries:
Devo gets 22, Josh gets 36, Burks & Bojan get whatever is left.
I am not expecting Thibs to change his stripes.
We had a chance, but injuries piled up against Cleveland and the Heat.
In spite of your hate for Grimes, he was the perfect player to solve our shooting woes in the 2nd round and may have, if it weren’t for a shoulder injury. Even then Grimes should’ve played, as the RJ/Hart lineups were a flop.
Assuming Mitch and iHart are fully healthy and ready to go, we may be understimating Achiuwa’s playoff role. Knowing Thibs, Achiuwa will play more than Bojan backing Randle at the 4. For this reason, I hate that we sold/gave up on Gim3s at the lowest point in his young career.
I get the value of Bojan’s contract but I would have much rather gave up Fournier + Detroit first Leon owns and a decent 2nd rounder for that contract and held on to Gim3s.
Energizer Bunny?
Sounds like you’re saying they were a contender that got derailed by injuries, EB. The numbers post-Hart (if memory serves) and post-CLE certainly back that up.
Didn’t Bugs Bunny hustle a lot?
DDV is playing more minutes than Hart since Grimes got injured (he is second in the team for minutes), and Hart is only playing as much because they guy who plays his position is injured.
Even if you think that Thibs will revert to his ways once everyone is healthy, the data doesn’t bear this out. In January, so basically post-OG trade and pre-OG injury, Hart played 29.5 minutes/game and DDV played 27.
I’m all for playing DDV more, but you are mischaracterizing what Thibs has done.
Basically, since DDV exploded Thibs has given him the minutes.
Don’t know how to check…how many wins did I predict. Just curious.
I thought they had a shot at the title, not necessarily a good one. I don’t think beating Cleveland proved it.
We shouldn’t equate beating a team with a high SRS to having a high SRS ourselves. One doesn’t follow from the other.
I got you:
https://knickerblogger.net/2023/10/24/the-how-many-wins-will-the-knicks-have-in-2023-24-prediction-thread/
Once we are healthy it looks like our bench will go from McBride, Grimes, Hart, Center to Burks, Bojan, Hart, Center which is not an improvement. It has slightly more offense but it goes from being an elite defensive unit to an absolute seive.
We needed some help off the bench and we should have gotten it through a smaller trade or free agency, but this change is too much. The loss in defense by trading Grimes and then playing both McBride and Hart less is huge. We could have gotten enough offense in our bench rotations by simply making sure one of DDV or Brunson was on the floor at all times.
We needed help, especially with the injuries but there were less nuclear options. We could have added just Burks and kept Grimes, we could have traded Fournier and a couple 2nds for a true PG like Jones or Morris, or even moved Fournier for Dinwiddie, or if we really wanted to shake things up more we could have made a play for a better player all-around player like Brown or Brogdon.
This swing was too big and for the wrong players and I think it will backfire badly. I know I am on an island but I think Bojan is much more of a liability than a benefit at this point in his career and I personally hate Burks’s game. He throws up 2-3 just horrible 2-point shots every game, just wasted possessions and it is maddening. I know he is still efficient and still a decent player but I find him pretty hard to watch and I personally don’t think he is really an upgrade over Grimes. And, we could have had both pretty easily anyway.
Thanks EB…you ROCK!! – I really feel good about myself now….
Let’s say Bojan is as bad at defense as you say, Thibs has no mandate to play him. So we went from Deuce, Grimes, Hart, Center to Deuce, Burks, Hart, Center. Is this worse? I don’t think so, but hey i’m a Burks fan so maybe i’m biased but i think we got better. And Bojan can play if he’s being more productive on offense than what he gives back on defense. You’ll see when he’s hot, and draining 3P after 3P, that he is a good guy to have. And we managed to turn Fournier’s money, a player probably seen as washed by the league’s GMs, into Bojan, a player that can help if the situation is right. It’s not only money to match salaries, he can be useful. We had competition to get Bojan, so there’s interest in him around the league.
Hustle Bunnies are relentless
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvfbzwNzaWs
Hustle Bunnies are good
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugIj3bzis1k
Long Live Hustle Bunnies!
😀
It appears that Quentin Grimes should have run on Duracell.
I am not.
Donte exploded on day 1. He didn’t get the minutes until OG and Randle went down, and he only got them because the injuries to the two forwards meant Hart didn’t have time to play guard.
The data does bear this out. You’re counting a game where Hart got 0 minutes because he was injured.
– There were 13 games this year where Brunson, DDV, OG, Randle, and Hart were available (i.e. when we were at full strength).
– During these game DDV had already established a BPM of 4.0 and Josh Hart was carrying a -0.8 BPM and an eFG% south of 50%.
– Hart averaged 28 mpg, Devo averaged 24, because Thibs was benching Devo and shoehorning Hart into SG to give him more minutes.
Bojan and Burks is such a massive upgrade on offense over Grimes and Deuce it can’t be overstated enough.
“He throws up 2-3 just horrible 2-point shots every game, just wasted possessions and it is maddening.”
This is true for Randle and Brunson as well, and was especially true for RJ. One person it was not true for was Quentin Grimes, who averaged less than two 2pt shots (1.6 to be exact) per game. It should also be noted that Burks gets to the line very often on his 2pt attempts (career .359 FTr and in that range in last few years) and hits over 80% from the line.
So why do you expect Hart to play 36 mpg when the rotation is even more crowded, and he no longer plays as backup PF? This is literally what you said earlier:
It’s also interesting that you don’t mention Grimes at all – DDV was sharing minutes with him, not primarily with Hart.
I have Grimes remorse, too, but that feels like a mighty big improvement to me.
I like Burks and Deuce a lot more than Deuce and Grimes.
Come playoffs, Deuce can’t be a PG and Grimes can’t play without a distributor.
I wish we could have gotten Brogdon. Then we could have kept Grimes. But this is better than what we had.
Ruing the loss of Grimes is prospect hugging/endowment effect imo.
In a year, he will either be on an extension (cf Payton Pritchard @ 4 yrs/$30 million), or a pending RFA.
By definition, players cannot realize their present and future values simultaneously. The present and future values of a player are separate attributes and should be evaluated that way.
Along those lines, the present value of Grimes has to be weighed against what Burks (who I am considering as his 1:1 replacement) can give you in the 2024 regular season and playoffs.
The future value of Grimes is one mystery box against another. The Grimes mystery box contains the likelihood of his further development and the contract he gets. The not-Grimes mystery box contains the alternative player (draft pick, McBride, MLE options, Burks extension). I’m not saying the Burks extension is preferable to Grimes but it is a non-zero chance and should be accounted for.
With what we have seen, both from Grimes and from Thibs’ deployment of him, I’m comfortable with the not-Grimes mystery box for future value and the Burks over Grimes for now.
Well, to be frank, I didn’t look at the data until you challenged me. I knew Hart was playing more but I didn’t know by how much.
I supposed 30 mpg then, is the fear. But the idea is still the same: I am afraid Josh Hart will play over better players because Thibs has shown a tendency to do it.
Sorry, but it never made sense that someone would think that Hart would play 36 mpg in a full rotation. So I’ll just ascribe this to the usual over-dramatization that goes in this board.
Hart will go back to playing 20-25 min a night if that. It will be fine.
But Josh Hart has never averaged 20-25 min a night. He’s averaged 30 as a Knick. 32 in the playoffs.
A little weird you’re mocking me for saying 36 and then you’re throwing out 20. I guess I’ll just ascribe it to the usual over-dramatization of this board.
Z-Man – if Brunson or Randle shot less than 40% from 2 they would also drive me crazy. But they don’t. Burks has a horrible 2pt% and has for most of his career and he has only gotten worse.
But even with that, I acknowledge that Burks is a perfectly decent player and will have value for us even if he is fairly mediocre. Getting him while not my preference was fine. We could have easily gotten him without including Grimes.
The misstep was including Grimes and bringing back Bojan. That will not look good and we will all be pretty sad when he isn’t even playing in the playoffs or even worse actively hurting us.
Or even better could have brought in a player that is better than all three like Jones, Morris, Brogdon, or Brown. And in many of those scenarios we could have still kept Grimes and even probably added Burks as well.
The Knicks were never a contending team last year, except in the most agenda-driven mind on this board. The “but hey, we beat the team with the second-highest SRS, therefore we were actually a contender” is utter nonsense. If anything, we earned a favorable playoff draw and beat the only team in the top 4 we were probably capable of beating in the first round, meaning that I think we would have surely lost to the Celts, Sixers, Bucks, and Heat. We quite possibly might have lost to the Hawks
That they convincingly beat a young, inexperienced, and not well-coached Cavs team really says nothing more than just that. Our current team is much, much better than last year’s team IF, IF, IF it can ever get reasonably healthy.
It should be a sizable leap forward on offense from Deuce & Grimes to Bojan & Burks. I’m not sure why it would only be ‘slight’ based on the numbers.
I’m also not sure I’d call a defense with Mitch/iHart and Hart a sieve. Thibs can always stagger the rotation so OG plays next to Bojan more often. Is Burks even that bad of a defender?
Our defense will definitely be worse — Deuce/Grimes/Hart/iHart was a ridiculously loaded defense — but that doesn’t mean it’ll be worse overall.
It’s not clear we could have. We don’t know what pricetag those players carried. Most of those moves also lose Fournier’s salary from the books.
It sucks we moved Grimes, but we have a shot at a title this year and the team needed offense.
Take it up with EB, then.
Objectively, you’re simply wrong. They were 7th in the league in net rating for the year, 6th post-Hart trade, beat the team with the second-best SRS in five playoff games, had better odds in Vegas to win the championship than they do now. (*) Had the tentpole that makes them a contender and said tentpole badly outplayed the Cavs’ best player. Etc., etc.
All you’re doing is question begging and harrumphing. That’s not analysis or objectivity.
(*) Yes, I know that factors in the fact that they were actually five games closer to the chip than they are now.
That team had the second-best SRS in the association in last year’s regular season. Either SRS matters, or it doesn’t.(*) Everything else is just your subjective whim, which really doesn’t mean much.
(*) Meaning the objective people on the board aren’t real accepting of your “the Cavs had a great SRS but were never contenders, but the Knicks SRS shows they are contenders.”
Well… I guess I don’t know basketball… but to be fair, if you google “Are bunnies” the first autofill is rodents!
It’s funny, I think that this year’s team is a contender when healthy, but part of that is because one of the best teams in the East is very much not healthy, and I doubt they will be this season.
Hield is a perfect fit for that Sixers team…with Embiid playing. Without Embiid, that team is garbage. It’s like taking Ewing off of the 1996-97 Knicks. The whole team is built around him. That’s why the 1997-98 Knicks are so amazing, as Oakley was a fucking hero filling in for Ewing. That playoff win was astonishing.
Or, I guess you could say it’s taking Brunson off of this Knicks team.
If all of the teams are healthy, I think the Knicks need that third star, and if they get him, they’d be possibly the best team in the East. That’s how well OG has fit in here. We all knew OG was the perfect fit, but I don’t think anyone knew just how perfect the fit would be. Damn, it was amazing!
OG and Mitch/iHart plus Randle, Brunson and Mitchell? That’s a balanced winner right there.
We need the Cavs to suck in the playoffs this year again.
But that’s exactly the thing: the 2023-24 Knicks are not the 2022-23 Knicks. Hart averaged 32 in the playoffs primarily because (i) the non-center bench was IQ (before his injury), Grimes, Obi; (ii) he had a .650 TS% against the Cavs, thus justifying his playing time; and (iii) Randle and IQ got injured (and IQ was ineffective when healthy), which increased his minutes.
Hart was 2nd in total minutes played against the Cavs when he was excellent, and 5th in total minutes played against the Heat despite the injuries that happened in that series. Contrary to popular belief, Grimes played more than Hart in that series (and shot worse, rebounded less, assisted less, and turned the ball over more).
The 2023-24 team is nothing like that. Burks has more size than IQ, so Thibs will be less likely to want to play a larger guy as much as last year. He also likes his veterans. Between Burks playing the 1/2; DDV being excellent; OG hopefully playing a ton of minutes; Bojan being the back up 4, and Precious being an emergency 4 if needed, it’s just significantly more likely that Hart plays 20-25 min than 36. It’s not over dramatization (also because it has not happened yet, contrary to assertions about how much Hart has actually played).
I just lost a long post to the false allegation that I wasn’t logged in so here it is in bullet point form:
-The argument that we traded too much future value in Grimes for Bogey’s present value is eminently reasonable.
-The reason I fall on the other side is because I think the argument underrates Bogey’s present value offensively–Bogey’s usage:efficiency ratio is in the ballpark of Paul George’s.
-Due to the massive difference between that kind of offensive prowess and that which Quentin Grimes brings to the table, I do not buy for one second that Bogey gives it all back on defense–our fully healthy personnel covers for that difference in a way they could not for the offensive difference. This is why we went to great lengths to acquire OG Anunoby, who was solidly in the DPOY conversation before he went down.
-You can still argue we gave up too much, but I think Grimes’ ceiling is too low to make that argument. The move came with championship upside and a downside of losing Quentin Grimes for nothing. The latter would suck! But fearing it doesn’t justify not availing yourself of that upside. His ceiling isn’t high enough.
-EB is right that we actually have no idea if there was a “Burks only” option.
In terms of defense, last year’s Knicks were first in the association in playoff defense. They had plenty of ability to “cover” any problems caused by a bad defender. There’s no sense in which that was a problem that needed solving.
What’s the point of this, you might ask? Well at least one point is that OG Anunoby is going to have to sink or swim on his own production, rather than as the solution to a problem. (I’m sure other points can be made, but that’s certainly one.)
So Dinwiddie was waived, Schröder was traded for just cap relief, and Morris was moved for a 2030 2nd round pick so we know they were all available for nothing but Fournier and a 2nd. Burks might have been released if he wasn’t traded and definitely could have been gotten without Grimes.
As for Brown, Brogdon, and Jones I do t know the exact price they would have cost but it didn’t seem high and it is likely Grimes, Fournier, and two 2nds or Fournier and a protected 1st would have probably gotten at least one of them done.
All of those are better than what we did.
Hell, doing nothing but maybe flipping Fournier for a non expiring like Bertans and scouring the waiver wire would have been better in my opinion.
My own opinion is that the Knicks overpaid for OG (*) and then had to scramble to repair the deficiency the overpay left and that ultimately led to the Grimes trade. One of Barrett or Quickley should have remained behind and then there would have been no deficiency and no problem to solve.(**)
Still could work out, but not handled that well from an asset management perspective. Even less so if Bogey and Burks turn out to be mere 15-20 minute bench pieces as KB consensus seems to project.
(*) Although he’s very good!
(**) And then Grimes should have been moved with draft picks to ATL for DJM and the Knicks would then have a very formidable roster. What they have now is not as good as that would have been.
Higher than 50-50. The Pistons moved on from pretty much all their veterans and acquired Fontecchio pre-deadline and then played him 32 minutes in his first game.
That said, I don’t have a problem giving up at least some value to get him. He’s materially better than Josh Hart.
You misread what I wrote but independent of that you’re still wrong.
1) when the Knicks traded for OG they had the 20th ranked defense in the NBA. “That doesn’t matter because of 11 playoff games last season” is, well, certainly a take, but not a good one. It needed fixing.
2) what I wrote was that getting OG allows us to play more offense-first players like Bogey without suffering a defensive drop off.
I believe Brogdon is out for several weeks with an injury right now.
Also, the fact that these guys weren’t traded at all probably indicates that their price was too high.
TNFH – That is all perfectly fair. It all comes down to Bojan’s value. If he is very good and brings real value this season and in the playoffs then I believe the trade is defendable. Even if that’s the case, I still think we could have gotten enough to improve without giving up Grimes’s small amount of upside and future production. I think keeping future value is more important than slightly moving the needle this season. But if Bojan is good then the trade goes from horrible to just not a move I would have preferred.
It is really that simple. If Bojan isn’t completely shot and is still an above-average player then it’s fine I guess. I just don’t believe that is the case. We shall see. For the Knicks sake I hope I am wrong.
It didn’t, because it was a short term trend in the middle of December and they had the same players who’ve played great team defense in the past. Over the course of full seasons, good basketball teams go on runs and things fix themselves. (See, e.g., the Cleveland Cavaliers)
It was basically Thibs obsessing about a two-inch grease stain on the linoleum behind the refrigerator six weeks before the dinner party.
Unproven.
Our second unit had ZERO shot creation. None. The best creator on it was Deuce McBride. That was just not going to be tenable. You could see how badly that post-IQ bench unit stunk out the joint, it was obvious.
Now we have not one but two perfectly good shot creators, both of whom are also excellent spot up shooters from 3PT. And keep in mind, the bench unit is mostly going to be going up against the other team’s bench. You don’t need five lockdown defenders coming off the bench, it’s better to have a balanced and versatile bench.
The Knicks were 19th in defense last season and were 20th before the OG trade. The 11 game playoffs small sample size doesn’t offset the other 110 games.
The playoffs are different games. Already established.
hopefully i didn’t miss anything too momentous in between this post and now – i just gotta say:
raven, this better be be googleable:
They’re lagomorphs
that sounds so fake…
edit: okay then, give the rabbit it’s stew…
i think if you cook them right they’d be tasty…
Well if the playoffs showed us anything is that the Knicks desperately needed better shooting which is where OG, DDV, Bojan and Burks come into play. This year’s team doesn’t lose to the Heat last season.
With a healthy Randle at normal production, normal production from IQ, and Thibs not playing Grimes and Hart way too many minutes, last year’s team would have beat the Heat. (They probably should have anyway.)
Just a laughable argument. The Heat had the 6th best offense in the playoffs last year, and that was through 23 games, not 11.
They now sit at 22nd and traded an unprotected first-round pick for Terry Rozier to address it.
Little did they know, their offense was actually perfectly fine!
oh, and job done well KBPR with the archival footage of those cute critters being – industrious…
i willfully and half-heartedly: concede the point…
although, grimes did a lot less jumping this year than in the past…not to spread too idle of gossip – i thought something was wrong with his back, and both legs had lost strength…
maybe cuz i feel like i’m always falling part, i just figure everyone else is falling apart too…
gravity, friction – the whole life “cycle” thing…hard to imagine anyone making it out of here alive…
The idea that Grimes and Hart played too much in the Heat series is really funny when you remember that IQ missed half of it. E wanted DaQuan Jeffries out there.
Uh, yeah, if you run 23rd on O in the regular season but are confident enough to wait until it gets to 6th in the playoffs, your O is perfectly fine.
The Heat’s offense was 23rd in the regular season and they made the Finals. That standing alone proves what I’m saying.(*)
(And I thought you weren’t going to respond to me.)
(*) And their 2022-23 regular season SRS was actually negative. Guess what — that didn’t mean anything either.
forget it
TNFH would be well-served to step back and ponder the truism that the playoff-caliber teams don’t really care about the regular season that much, and absolutely don’t sit and target the regular season metrics he thinks for some reason are massively critical. (He is confusing his (laudable) interest in the regular season and the data and metrics it generates with the franchises’ interest.)
The Miami Heat are not targeting their regular season SRS. They didn’t last year. They aren’t this year. They aren’t targeting their regular season net rating. They have bigger rabbits … er … fish to fry.
Which is why we see huge amounts of regular season rest, load management, personal days, going through the motions on getaway days, and all the rest. Turn on the average NBA game, even the national ones, and you have probably a 50% chance (probably less) of even seeing the full allotment of both teams’ best players. Nothing much of value can be read into granular differences in regular season metrics between the teams we all know are good.
I don’t know why anyone is taking serious the comments of a person who claimed RJ was good because he has moxie.
If we had just traded Fournier for Burks we’d have risked having nothing left to trade if Burks didn’t resign. It was the same with Tyus Jones. We needed Bojan’s contract otherwise we would have had to stand pat.
With all these injuries, the Miami Heat could really use someone like Kyle Lowry.
I think it would have been simple to extend Burks, Hubie. No one balks at $20 mil when the alternative is the mid-level at best.
That said, I’m only mildly disappointed. Ben is a lot darker about it. I just think the Bojan piece isn’t compelling, because he’s too old and realistically we are too banged up to make a run this year. It’s as much about Randle’s shoulder and iHart’s Achilles and Mitch’s foot as it is about the trade itself. But I hope to be wrong.
Either way, just being clear that it’s not a Hali over Obi blunder, or giving Kemba two years blunder, or something like that. Just a mistake that could still work out ok.
Miami might not even make the playoffs this season. Shit last season they got destroyed in the 1st play in game and trailed the fucking Bulls with 3 mins left in the 8th place game. They are worse this season and I can easily see them losing to Orlando/Indiana and Atlanta in the play in to miss the playoffs completely.
The Heat are the hustlebunniest franchise in the National Basketball Association. They write that shit down on the court.
Vecenie in the Atlantic (read, subscribe) had a good piece in Grimes in Detroit. Said he was the best asset traded at the deadline:
So, yeah, not an ideal trade for me. But I hear the comments not only about Bojan being a stretch 4 and how that can help us, but also about Grimes needing to be paid soon. I just think people forgot what an impact he made last year – forgot mostly because DDV has been excellent.
Looks like big Hart got treatment and they decided to keep him out again which seems like the smart outcome to me. Jericho is a go.
I agree Grimes was essential for us last year, but I also think the fact that DDV’s excellent play has made some people forget that is pretty telling.
Put another way, the fact that we have DDV, who is only 27 (as of a few days ago) himself and realistically can’t play with Grimes for long stretches, signed for the foreseeable future should have made us more willing to trade Grimes for someone who can contribute more in the present. That’s just straightforward asset management.
Whether Burksdonavich is a sufficient return is a fair question. I’m a somewhat tepid yes on it because 1) I seem to be higher on both those guys than many here and 2) I just don’t see Grimes making us rue the day.
We already had Deuce and Hart in the “defensive-oriented guard/wing” category and Deuce can replicate Grimes’ game reasonably well. In fact I’d say Deuce’s emergence as a perfectly fine bench piece made Grimes expendable. They’re the same age and I don’t see any clear evidence that Grimes is a far better player.
You maybe get a little more POA defense and length with Grimes, but that’s about it.
It’s clearly “Burksdonavic,” not “Burksdonavich.” Sheeeesh. 🙂
I don’t think it was all part of the Heat’s grand plan to back into the 8th seed, lose the play-in game to the 7th seed, then go into nuclear-hustlebunny mode to cruise to the NBA finals. If it was their plan, and they try to repeat it, they will likely fail. (They were a few bounces away from not making the playoffs at all last year, which renders the philosophy of phoning in regular season games not very sound in and of itself).
Even if Grimes is redundant, a bit of redundancy is good, we are feeling that lack right now. Even if we are simply planning on letting Grimes walk, having him next year on a cheap contract, even if he is the 10th or 11th man, is valuable. You cannot have too many wings that play good defense and can shoot 3s.
We still could have added Burks either by sending Fournier or by cobbling together matching money with Flynn, Archie, and Sims. If we had sent out Fournier we could resign Burks at a 1+1 contract for $15+ mil to keep the soup cooking. If we didn’t we could have traded Fournier for a longer contract like Bertans or Schröder.
A bit of redundancy isn’t really all that great when you’re watching a Miles McBride/Quentin Grimes/Josh Hart/Precious Achiuwa/Jericho Sims lineup try to score a basket. I don’t care how good the defense of that lineup is, that lineup is getting its ass kicked because it doesn’t have a prayer or ever scoring a basket.
The bench situation before the trade was hideous. I don’t know why Detroit would have been interested in the Archie/Flynn/Sims package because all of those guys stink and aren’t any better than the dreck Detroit already sends out there. Maybe the pile of salary matching garbage plus a couple of seconds could have brought back Burks, maybe not.
This is way more digital ink spilled over Quentin Grimes than is really necessary.
JK – Hart/Precious/Center should never happen, especially with two defensive low usage guards. The problem with that lineup is that Grimes is the best offensive player on the court and three players are no threat from 3. That should never happen. That’s on Thibs not Grimes.
But McBride/DDV/Grimes/Hart/Center is pretty good. Feel free to add in Burks. Then we have more offense.
No need to send out Grimes. Are you telling me Fournier plus two 2nds for Burks doesn’t get it done?
I’ve seen enough of that lineup as of late. It’s not a functioning NBA offense if the threes don’t fall. DDV is the only guy who can get his own shot and he’s streaky when the offense runs through him.
Hey, don’t be talking smack about our new Deuce McBrunson.
Doug – That lineup has played a total of 22 minutes together all season and was +19.2 pts per/100poss in that time. There is no way to know if that lineup is good or bad and no way you could have seen enough of it to make a real judgement.