Knicks Morning News (2024.04.12)

Also, it is ridiculous that Seth Partnow buried Brunson in Tier 1C of his playoff tiers. Ridiculous.

Actually, it’s 2C, so even more ridiculous.

RJ and IQ both up from Tier 5 to 4C.

We just need to be able to stay afloat whenever Brunson sits.

A bench with one of RJ or IQ and DDV, with DJM starting, would be something like 7 or 8 to 1 to win the Larry O’B. Maybe (probably) even better odds. That was the way to play it. The draft pick hoarding and the “we’re not going to pay IQ” thing was not the way to play it.

That said, this is a quality basketball team.

Except a bench with RJ and/or IQ would mean no OG as a starter

Uh, no.

Without Randle, we all know getting to the ECF and beating Boston is a very long shot.

You don’t even need Randle anymore, really, (*) and there’s no reason to have beating Boston as a very long shot be the bar. More was possible.

(*) The lane is more open now, and JB is an on-ball superstar. Julius is essentially superfluous now and they should be looking to move him.

It’s not trolling to ask a question like “does anyone still think that OG was an overpay?” You should be a bit more careful about throwing that word around.

In context, it’s literally the virtual definition of “trolling.”

I honestly don’t know why people are so hung up on the idea, frankly.

“Given how much of a difference OG makes when he’s out there, I truly don’t get hanging on to the overpay opinion.”

Oh, I see the problem — you don’t know what the word “overpay” means.

In terms of the Falsifiable Prediction (TM), if I could be assured that there are no hidden caveats, conditions, or codicils and that I could get my money out no strings attached, I’d open a Fanduel (or whatever) account and lay some money on the Knicks at last night’s 37-1.

I’ll probably explore over the weekend.

You have legitimately pissed people off so you probably deserve a lot of flak.

Yeah, but they shouldn’t be “pissed off.” It’s a strange, authoritarian reaction. (And in basketball terms, of course wrong.)

(Plus they want my reaction, which is ultimately deep down why they do it — but that’s the trolling that dare not speak its name lol.)

You see it as rubbing your face in a piss-poor opinion.

No, I see it as the virtual definition of trolling.

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Yes but you troll pretty hard, too, don’t you think?

Actually, I don’t really see it as trolling. I just write my basketball (and occasionally other) opinions, without any real consideration of their popularity, yay or nay.

“Trolling” is an internet era term. I’m more old school than that.

You undervalued the hell out of OG, and that’s okay.

I never did anything even remotely like that. In fact, I did the opposite, saying shortly before the OG trade that I’d gladly “go to war” with a reconfigured roster conspicuously including OG and DJM.

Maybe it doesn’t bother you that you aren’t taken seriously here whatsoever, I have no idea.

The game thread random call outs (*) show the exact opposite of “not taken seriously.”

(*) The trolling that dare not speak its name.

There wasn’t a set market price that you could refer to, nor anything but your own subjective opinion on what the market was.

A better player was traded right around the same time by the same team for two 1s, a fugazi 1, and Bruce Brown. Most observers thought even that was an overpay by a small market team who hoped to get a first in advantage to resign a pending UFA — and that’s an eminently sensible opinion.

Most of the objection to the “overpay” idea here is because of the bizarre misimpression people had of both RJ Barrett’s skills and market value — what was rightly called by another poster a “hate boner.” And now that is boomeranging back on the people, like me, who had a better idea about those things and that player.

I mean if you held and/or still hold to the fatuous notion that RJ was a “salary dump” or needed appended assets to move, you’re naturally going to get the “overpay” idea completely wrong.(*)

But it was an overpay. Leon could have done a better job at the deadline and they’d be even more of a contender. If that opinion chaps, it’s not on me. Overall, he’s done a good job and like I said upthread, this is a quality basketball team.

(*) But then again, there were actually people here who thought Kristaps Porzingis was salary dumped. How that kind of thing is somehow on the people who knew better is quite the mystery. But the moral of the story is that hate boners for particular players will always get in the way of sensible analysis.

There’s no overconfidence like vapid overconfidence!!

But maybe Masai didn’t want any more firsts because he already got a few from Indiana?

Siakam was traded after OG.

But maybe Masai was thinking “I’m gonna trade OG and Pascal to kick start a rebuild and I hope to get a mix of draft picks and players out of trading both of them.

Or most likely he was thinking, “I’m gonna get as much as possible out of these two assets” and luckily for him the guy who Sam Presti took to the cleaners to get Jalen Williams was on the other end of the transaction, desperate for one of said two assets.

There’s never any specific alternative OG trade proposal, nor any reasoning as to why such a proposal would’ve been accepted,

The Siakam comp is “reasoning” as is a bunch of other stuff I’ve wrote. You’re just inventing things at this point.

Even if RJ was/is better than what he showed as a Knick, fact remains his play for the knicks was mostly not good and that lowered his value.

No, it didn’t. Premise fail.

Here’s an even more controversial idea. The trade was good for both teams and no one got fleeced. Why does every trade have to have a winner and a loser?

I don’t want my team to hold serve or break even in trades. I want my team to win trades, using smarts and leverage.

As Bondy said in the Post in the wake of the trade (and I agreed with in real KB time), it wasn’t really a talent/asset accretive move, but a repurposing move. It absolutely served its repurposing function to a T, all the credit to Leon for that, but it could have also been talent/asset accretive. It wasn’t that.

that fit has proven quite a bit more than theoretical.

It has, which is why I said that it has. The repurposing part of the trade has worked very well.

Like I said, he was a great player to get. They just paid too much to get him. Apparently this is akin to rooting against baby seals or something, but whatever.

I think it’s fair to say that in one’s opinion, Leon paid a calculated premium. It’s also fair to say that many KB haterz may have underestimated RJ’s current market value, or his potential value to us if utilized differently. However, the whole “overpay” thing is a silly, self-serving way to criticize a trade of this kind.

If you accept the first two things, then the overpay thing becomes correct, by definition.

It’s again really unclear what you’re even arguing so much about, beyond just wanting to argue. No one can really interpret your tone police/aesthetic stuff, beyond noting that this is just another episode in your long, continuing series of, “X is fair, I agree; Y is fair, I agree; but stop saying the Z that follows from X and Y the way you’re saying it.”

They overpaid for OG. You basically think so yourself. So just go with it and stop trying to police what other people say here.

I don’t accept the first two things. I merely think it’s fair to feel that way,

Doesn’t matter.

If it’s “fair to feel” that Leon paid a “calculated premium” and it’s “fair to feel” that RJ was undervalued, then by definition it’s “fair to feel” that the Knicks overpaid (and then in turn more than fair to wonder what you’re even arguing about).

Dude…premium doesn’t equal overpay (if it does….please explain that one to me)

How else would you interpret the term “premium” other than “premium to market”?

Paying a premium to market is … overpaying.

Another way to look at it is that the seller doesn’t care about how valuable the player is to you because he’s not going to be able to get that value for the player if no one bids it. The seller’s only interested in getting the most for the asset and that depends solely on the bidding for the asset.

In basketball terms, the “premium” should have been put toward other players to make the Knicks even more formidable, which is like the whole entire point of the discussion.