Knicks Morning News (2024.06.21)

“Re Giddey’s improved FT shooting. I’d be concerned that his improvement is random variance just because he takes so few FT. He took a Jared Jeffries-esque 1.6 FTA/game this season. If he has missed 10 more FT he would have been at least season’s percentage, missing 12 more would’ve put him back at his rookie year percentage. Of course, it does work the other way as well.”

I, for one, don’t place a lot of stock in the FT vs. 3PT shot thing. There’s enough variance to take it with a grain of salt.

The larger point is that all three of Giddey’s %s (2, 3, FT) have improved each year. He also improved on his in-season percentages in the playoffs (.537/.353/.875.) Has he topped out? He doesn’t turn 22 for another 4 months. I’ll take the over.

BTW DRed, Chicago is not getting one year of Giddey. They are getting one year of him at $8.3M and the opportunity to match any offer he might get as a RFA. No one here was bailing on IQ after he put up 13 games and 252 minutes of playoff vomit at ages 23-24 and folks here were ready to throw $25-30M AAV at him to keep him in the fold. Is IQ a better bet than Giddey? Maybe, maybe not.

One thing that hasn’t been mentioned about Caruso is that up until the last two years he seem to be pretty injury prone, and then he again seem injured going into the playoffs. He only has one year left on his current deal, is he going to get overpaid for his age 31+ seasons?

I also think that folks should hesitate a bit before coronating OKC as inevitable western conference champs. I expect that Memphis will be roaring back, Denver will rebound, Minnesota will learn from the Dallas series and upgrade, and of course, Dallas proved that they belong in the conversation. Even a sleeper team like the Dubs, Lakers, Suns, Kings could make noise.

Here’s the quote from the realgm.com article:

Windhorst said that the focus shouldn’t just be on cap space teams for George as a free agent. Instead, he said it’s more likely that George will opt-in and request a trade, if he’s leaving the Clippers this offseason. The maneuver is similar to the one Chris Paul utilized in 2017 to join the Houston Rockets. This strategy would increase the pool of teams that could acquire the veteran wing, beyond just the handful of cap space teams this summer. The Philadelphia 76ers, who have cap space, are believed to be moving onto options beyond George.

The Clippers also reportedly don’t believe that George wants to leave Los Angeles. They are believed to have offered a similar deal to the three-year, below-max extension worth $152 million over three seasons that Kawhi Leonard signed with the team during last season. George is eligible for up to a four-year, $221.1 million deal with the Clippers.

The New York Knicks could be a team with the assets to pull off a trade for George, which Windhorst explained during an appearance later in the morning on First Take.

“They’ve got a whole bevy of trades that they can make with their draft picks, plus they have tradable pieces on their roster,” said Windhorst. “Their front office has done a great job to do this, specifically Bojan Bogdanovich, who has a team option for around $20 million in his contract. They could pick that up and use it with the draft picks as a big trade piece. You could add another big piece there.

“That’s why people are talking about the possibility of Paul George going to the Knicks. The Knicks, if Paul George wanted it, could manufacture a trade without too much sweat and still keep their core pieces together.”

For the record, I’m lukewarm on the PG13 idea. He’s up there in years and injury is always a concern with him. But the idealized version of him, if it could be done without including any of IHart, OG, Brunson, and Julius makes our starting lineup pretty freaking awesome in theory, and having DDV, Hart, and fill in the blanks on the bench would be sufficient. But I am not jonesing for that at all…and it is definitely not a long-term solution.