he was having a good year before julius went out, but since them he’s at a whole other level…

On the Knicks he was generally playing in lineups that lacked space (in part because of his own inconsistent outside shooting) being asked to create for himself. So whatever he was in NY, he was almost certainly better than that and still young enough to get better.

For years I was saying he wasn’t a good fit with Randle/Mitch. One of either Randle or RJ had to go. I was saying that forever, not just in terms of the better spacing and defense the Knicks needed, but because it was not ideal for either of them.

The debate to me was always are we better off with the better player now (Randle) or the better player 3-4 years from now as RJ peaks and Randle declines. Management went for the accelerated timeline and brought in the perfect player for the starting lineup. RJ is being used better in Toronto, but imo his inconsistent outside shot and defense is still going to be an issue, at least for awhile.

What’s your theory about RJ, Z-Man? Are you with E on this one? RJ always had moxie, he was just held back because of the Thibs mosh pit? Surely you’re not going to agree with E that Tom Thibodeau egregiously misused such a killer asset.

crazy fun fight…

i didn’t get the main card (it shows up in about 3 weeks on espn +, and i’m trying to be somewhat more fiscally responsible these days) – but from just looking at the “boxscore” it looks like justin gaethje and max holloway did not disappoint – they never do…

interesting that there are no nba games today…tomorrow is going to be HUGE!!!

Edit: oh yeah, i was wrong on RJ for a good while…what finally got me was when i started paying attention to just how damn slow he was on defense – and how terrible he was trying to get his own shot…

it’s good to see he’s doing less of the shot creation thing these days…

hopefully julius increases his assisted field goal rate also…that would be great…

just noticed we’re on espn in the morning…oh yeah…

Caruana lost to Hikaru. Since I am rooting for one of the two to win the tournament, but lean Caruana, I’m not happy. I can live with anything other than Nepo.

I think a healthy 76ers team would have a decent chance to go to the finals, but given Embiid’s knees it’s probably better than 50% he breaks down in one of the series. I’d love to see a series where KP tries to guard Embiid 🤪or a final with Embiid vs Jokic.

I haven’t been looking at all the possibilities but If Embiid is hurting, I’d rather play the 76ers. If he’s healthy I’d rather play the Heat.

With Randle I think we’d be the favorite over everyone except the Celtics, but without Randle we have little margin for error against quite a few teams.

Pretty good stuff.

RJ Barrett had 35 pts and 11 rebounds on 13-18 shooting against the Heat last night. What the hell happened this guy!?

His new team got him to stop trying to create his own shot so often. That’s one of the reasons, at least.

RJ as a Knick, assisted 2PT FG%:
35
35
39
42
53

RJ as a Raptor, assisted 2PT FG%
62

So almost 2/3 of his 2PT buckets are assisted now. I think this, combined with removing him from the “three lefties” configuration and good old fashioned age-based improvement just from being in the league for a while is the explanation.

We were using him all wrong here, but that said it’s not like RJ is standing on the precipice of stardom. He’s still not much of a defender and his strong play in Toronto has only earned him a 0.1 BPM during his time there. He hasn’t risen up much in the EPM rankings since joining the Raptors either, I think he’s something like 144th in the league.

Shooting guards that don’t create their own offense and aren’t a plus defensively have limited value. We were definitely jamming the square peg into the round hole with him, trying to make him into something he wasn’t, so he looked worse here than he actually is.