[hoopsrumors.com] – Sun, 28 Jul 2024 19:51:00 GMT
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- Knicks achieve highest preseason win total in two decades
[Posting and Toasting] – Sun, 28 Jul 2024 10:45:55 GMT
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[NBC Sports Bay Area] – Mon, 29 Jul 2024 08:10:35 GMT
- Why Draymond believes Brunson followed his lead by taking discount
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[Sports Illustrated] – Sun, 28 Jul 2024 13:00:01 GMT
New York Knicks Land Spurs Young Star in Ultimate Re-Draft
[Daily Knicks] – Sun, 28 Jul 2024 21:00:02 GMT
Knicks fans question Tyus Jones-Suns signing after New York’s previous interest
[Basketball Network] – Sun, 28 Jul 2024 19:02:10 GMT
Dominique Wilkins on why Bernard King was the hardest player to guard: “He was the only guy that made me nervous”
[Basketball Network] – Sun, 28 Jul 2024 10:15:00 GMT
“He wakes me up with a phone call at 8 a.m.” – When Antonio McDyess called Isiah Thomas “sneaky” for trading him from New York
[Posting and Toasting] – Mon, 29 Jul 2024 10:37:17 GMT
Knicks Media Roundup: Diesel hating, Dray on discounts, Spicy rhymes
56 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2024.07.29)”
Apparently, his shameless gunning in summer league appealed to at least one team.
Well if you’ve got Frank you need someone to compensate
My guess is that the Knicks played him a lot with the idea that he might get himself signed with another pro team. There isn’t room on the Knicks roster for him this year, so in a way they did him a favor.
It’s a bit of that and a bit of the thing where his usage, however ridiculously inefficient though it was, allows everybody else on the roster to slot into the appropriate roles for their respective skillsets and stages of development. But, yeah, Leon has a reputation at this point for doing right by the guys on the roster and helping them get to good situations if it’s not working here.
Olympic Basketball seems so much less interesting to me now than it did when we were sending college teams over, now it seems like a barnstorming exhibition, almost like watching the Harlem Globetrotters. Maybe the USA-Canada-Spain games will have a little juice.
“Maybe the USA-Canada-Spain games will have a little juice.”
I meant USA-Canada-France games, Spain doesn’t look great.
Chase Budinger is a volleyball wonder now. Fun to watch.
France would be really scary if Embiid did go there. Maybe there’s not enough minutes for Gobert/Wemby/Embiid but still. I’d love to see them field all 3 together just to see what happens. We’ll see if any of this year’s rookies live up to their draft slots.
Canada is scary if Toronto RJ is real. They need a C upgrade though.
Spain seems like they’re washed. No more Gasol brothers.
I think any team with several legit NBA players can win in a single elimination, and this USA team seems sort of disjointed. Plus, the home crowd should help France. If it happens, I’m rooting for a very competitive game more than for a USA win.
I was kind of hoping for Boston to start slow and be disinterested by January but this benching of Tatum is not good for anyone, especially EC teams.
The disrespect could ignite a fire under Celtics, like it did for the Wariors after their first ring, when they were disrespected and then tortured the whole league in the subsequent 2015-16 season.
Anyone else share my concern?
Director, a very real concern. Of course it was just one game, Tatum would have to be ‘disrespected’ throughout to really get him riled up. But if that does happen it could be a problem. You never want extraordinary athletes to be pissed off, especially when you have to compete against them.
If Boston crushes next season it won’t be because Tatum was dissed by Kerr….
Correct. Tatum isn’t really made of “that stuff,” which has been the knock against him all along.
this is a good thread because kd is saying interesting basketball things. i think his main point resonates as good pushback against the tendency to mistake mere configuration for aesthetic enjoyment. but i strongly suspect that if enough precision was added he would fall far from the consensus of what fanatics would prefer from the optimal mix of improvisation, structure and theory (in the chess sense). i doubt this is a coincidence given that he is the best of all time at certain things and not others.
https://x.com/TylerRelph10/status/1817676895242387530
if you’re not great at twitter the key tweets are:
Kevin Durant
@KDTrey5
The beauty of basketball is not callin all them sets but playing off instincts and lettin the talent dictate the game..gettin out in transition, driving and kicking, playing random basketball. U want a trick play every possession like it’s football. That’s not why our game is beautiful
and
Kevin Durant
@KDTrey5
·
1h
Random basketball!! U not comprehending what I’m saying. U can RANDOMLY set a screen, RANDOMLY back cut, RANDOMLY make a pass to the open man. Focus on what I’m saying
and
Kevin Durant
@KDTrey5
·
56m
Who said X’s and O’s don’t belong in the game??? u assumed I’m thinking this because I said play more random basketball. That’s yall problem, you think u so smart…
I don’t, Director.
Not only that, I feel the complete opposite: this olympic team has begun to sow the seeds of dissension that will lead to the Celtics becoming unglued by what Pat Riley called “the disease of more”.
I loved seeing Jaylen Brown meltdown over Derrick White’s selection. It was perfect.
And now that Tatum is being benched while Holiday and White are elevated… we couldn’t ask for anything more. The lines have been drawn. Let the petty jealousy begin.
The only thing we need now is a prolonged Horford injury during Porzingis’ prolonged absence. At age 38, it’s a good bet to happen.
Bet the under on Boston. Thank me later.
I bet Josh Hart would be great at volleyball. I don’t even think he’d need a learning curve other than serving. Just throw him out there and let him get his cardio.
I have hard time believing there’s going to be a problem between Tatum and Brown over the Olympics. If something like this was going on internally, I could definitely see problems developing, but not when they are both getting snubbed in different ways by Kerr and the Olympic team. If anything, I think they are going to bond more. I also don’t think either will hold it against Holiday or White since they have completely different roles.
IMO injuries and a couple of players beginning the downside of their careers are way more likely to derail the Cs and open the door for us.
We have our own injury issues to worry about, especially with Mitch and the steep dropoff at backup C. At least if OG is out, Mikal can fill the gap better than last year and DDV or Hart can move back into the starting lineup. We can live with that for awhile.
Hi friends, longtime listener, first time(ish) caller. Fan since the 94 finals run, super psyched about the upcoming season, so of course I’m going to make my blog debut by…asking about the Utah Jazz?
But seriously, given that the Lauri situation is probably the most pressing topic in the league right now, I’m wondering a couple of things:
1) What would you all do if you were in Ainge’s shoes (so not necessarily what you think Ainge will do)? Make a deal now even if it’s not perfect, or hold on to him and risk the extra wins costing you Cooper Flagg?
2) While I don’t think there’s any question that Danny got amazing value for Gobert and Spida, does anybody else wonder if they would have been better off keeping them given the current level of parity in the league? That team as it stood wasn’t going to win a title, but looking back, it also seemed within normal “weird lucky stuff happens in the NBA all the time” bounds of getting there. Kind of like the Dirk Mavs teams.
Anyway, let’s go Knicks!
Mortimer!
I don’t know on the second. As to the first, the flattened lottery odds complicate pretty much every tanking decision. We saw first-hand what happened in the one year we actively tanked. And then this year we saw Atlanta win the lottery after making the play-in. So trying to lose every single game possible no longer has the value it used to. Ainge may think that as long as he finishes in the lottery, he has a shot at Flagg or one of the other studs of this class.
ETA: And Zach Lowe made a convincing argument that if Ainge can dump some combo of Sexton, Collins, and Clarkson, then the team around Lauri will be so green that it won’t really matter that he’s still around. They’ll lose a lot with such a roster.
One way to tell the Yankees have a weird roster situation is like a week ago we had a series against the Mets and were mostly healthy. Our lead off and clean up hitters from that series have since been DFA’d. This might be normal for a shitty team but we at least nominally have a shot at the best record in baseball.
These are intriguing, fun questions. Post more often!
1) as long as Lauri is willing to extend, I wouldn’t be in any particular rush to trade him. His trade value sure as hell ain’t going anywhere, and like Alan said with the flattened lottery odds there’s hardly see an impetus to take a suboptimal deal. If they trade some of the other guys and engage in the normal second-half chicanery they can probably have pretty good lottery odds regardless.
2) this is the first time I’ve heard anyone ask this, but it’s definitely a worthwhile question. I guess another way to put it is would the Jazz trade the Mitchell/Gobert team, warts and all, for their current situation? I still probably lean towards the trades being the correct moves, but their path back to the a team of that caliber is pretty murky.
They’ve got plenty of draft capital, but both Cleveland and Minnesota project to be pretty good for a while so it’s kind of a quantity over quality situation. As we know damn well, that means any trade for a star is going to be an “empty the coffers” situation.
Does their current team + a high pick or two + a trade of that nature = better than the Gobert/Mitchell version?
Who ever thought that the likes of *Lauri Markkanen* would hold off an entire NBA off season, thus making this forum super boring in the meantime? I mean, the dude is good and all, but not good enough to seemingly put a hold on absolutely everything!
The men’s Olympic gymnastics overall was pretty thrilling today.
Well hello, Mortimer.
What Durant calls “random basketball” is what we call mastery.
Welcome Mortimer, are you related to Col. Douglas Mortimer of For a Few Dollaars More?
Couple of things:
-The Donovan Mitchell trade was a win because he got back a budding all-star in his young prime and a solid rotation guard plus a bunch. The pick haul is great as well, but it now looks like if Mitchell extends, the 3 first rounders will all be outside the lottery (or in the very bottom of it if CLE gets knocked out of the play-in) and the swaps will be useless. But even so, Mitchell was starting to look disgruntled, and is probably overrated, i.e. not worth the megamax deal it will soon take to keep him.
The Gobert deal was a much bigger net win. He got back Walker Kessler, and the 2023 pick turned into Keyonte George. He also got back some assets for the players he got in the deal. And although the 2025 pick looks lousy, the 2027 and 2029 picks are possibly going to be worth something as teams in the West mature and catch up/pass the TWolves. I know Gobert is great and all for what he does, but he has some flaws as well and is getting paid more than he is worth.
So I’d say he did the right thing in both cases, and can probably use the assets to build something akin to a contender in multiple ways, including just keeping Markkanen.
Danny Ainge is a pain in the ass. 😉
KD is weird
That pommel horse routine was really exciting. Olympics have been great.
I saw someone mention the possibility of Ainge reversing course and potentially trading for Ingram. With Ingram and Markkanen he’d have a pretty start to an acclerated rebuild and probably have plenty of firepower left.
Hey Mortimer!
I think an underrated part of the Gobert and DMitch trade decision was the age of their supporting cast. They relied pretty heavily on Bojan (32), Ingles(34), and Conley(32). They ended up trading Ingles that last season, I believe because he was going to be out the rest of the way. Even Gobert and Clarkson were about to turn 30. If they didn’t end it then time would have done the job for them.
You misread me. The Celtics problem won’t be the Olympics, it will be “the disease of more”.
Brown is already showing us how susceptible he is to it.
And I think if Tatum is embarrassed on this stage it’s more likely to make him insecure than it is to make him dominant. I still don’t think much of Tatum’s mental makeup; he doesn’t strike me as capable of a revenge tour.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
This. So much this.
I still don’t see it.
They did an incredible job of sharing the ball this year and not worrying about individual stats. I don’t think they are going get selfish in terms of basketball on the court now. I think Brown’s reaction is mostly about getting respect. First he got passed up for all NBA. Then he got passed up for the Olympics after being MVP of the finals. I’d feel disrespected also, but I don’t think it’s going to change the way he plays other than make him more motivated to improve and prove everyone wrong.
That’s exactly it, though. You want to prove something individually. “I should be on the Olympics. I should be all NBA.” How do you prove that? By taking more shots. But it’s zero sum. So now you got someone getting less. And so it begins.
If Tatum feels disrespected and he wants to do the same, all the better.
Or you say what your publicist tells you to say. Lots of different ways fellas try to show big dick energy.
I might no longer hate this Yankees team.
The men’s skateboard final was epic…the announcer said it was the highest level he had ever seen at a street style competition…
On another note…the usa women’s rugby team is fun…
Ahhh…the BBA jinx…now we have to guess which bullpen guy will cough it up…
5th Olympics for Uber-twunk Tom Daley! And a silver to boot.
And that last supper 😉
Good evening, Clarence! What is an Uber-twunk?
Tonight’s Yankees lineup was the first one that didn’t make my eyes bleed in a while. Still need to throw together a whole ass bullpen though.
“ Twunk. A twink who has hit the gym and mainlined enough protein to bulk up morphs into what is known as a “twunk.” How this is different from a gym rat is anyone’s guess”
According to an internet look up a twunk is a young man with a twink face and a hunk body. I assume Uber means exceptionally so.
I don’t know how the New York Yankees’ starting catcher has managed to fly under the radar but Austin Wells is damn good
Wells being a legit middle of the order bat as a Catcher is very impressive. When Trevino returns it needs to be for 1 or 2 games per week.
Wells was a 1st rd pick based on his hitting. He’s always hit in the minors so it was just a matter of him being able to stick at Catcher.
All rise
Next time Judge and Brunson hang they can bond over getting MVP chants in Philly
Gat dang it. Y’all have sold the Yankees underdog story. Now I have to watch. May my marriage endure.
Brunson might currently be the most popular athlete in NY cause the Knicks are the only team that is loved by all New Yorkers but Judge is by far the best athlete in NY and it’s not really close.
“Judge is by far the best athlete in NY and it’s not really close.”
His pretty large sample of postseason numbers would beg to differ…
The data don’t describe potential, just performance. He’s certainly an Olympian. Perhaps tragic.
In 44 playoff games Judge has 13 HRs and a .772 OPS, certainly not as good as his regular season numbers and he’s had some brutal series’ but he’s not exactly Pirates Bonds either.
If he played for the Mets he wouldn’t have poor postseason numbers since he’d never play in October…
Compared to his 1.000 regular season OPS, .772 is hardly impressive. In his last 4 postseasons (26 games), Judge has had OPS’s of .743, .663., .500, and .490. Postseason-level pitching staffs seem to know what to do with that enormous strike zone of his. In 2017, arguably his best postseason, he still struck out 27 times in 48 at bats.
The best example is 2022, when had one of the great offensive seasons of all time, then had a postseason that made playoff Julius Randle look like Michael Jordan.
Maybe he turns it around this year, but his strike zone ain’t getting any smaller. If I were a Yankees fan, I’d vastly prefer to have Soto up in a big spot in the playoffs.
And true, the Yanks have made it to the postseason way more than the Mets, or any other team for that matter. I also concede that with Judge in the regular season lineup instead of Alonso, we’d probably have been there a bit more often. But being that it’s only Steve Cohen’s 4th season, I like out chances to go toe-to-toe with them going forward.
Pt, my takeaway was that it looks easy to a genius, but it takes maturity to understand why others don’t see the game the way you do and therefore need guidelines (plays). KD should try some other activities seriously – it humbles you when you experience averageness. I bet Jordan gets it. Like, I could sit down and play the piano when I was but a wee lad, without instruction, yet when I tried to pick up guitar I had to put it down again in defeat. Most shit is hard for most people, and if you’re lucky you get gifted in one area (or maybe a couple if the genes oblige), but you should not expect others to experience the felicities of the same gifts.
You could argue that all those guys are so gifted that they should be genii at what they do, but counterpoint: JR Smith.
Welcome, Morty! Good questions. Personally I think it’s better to pick a lane and get the hell in it. Sure the lottery odds have flattened, but it’s still prudent to get the best odds you can if you aren’t on your way to contending. Ainge has already blown some opportunities, for no particularly good reason. Yes you can get unlucky, but at least give yourself a shot.
Markcannon is young enough to keep, so if Ainge goes the other way (getting what he can for the other pieces), I’d be behind that. Where he is now, though, if I were a Jazz fan, would drive me crazy.
Trading Mitchell and/or Gobert was necessary, though, because they hated each other. Seems to me he could have kept one and had a good team, but maybe the Gobert offer was just too good to pass up and he changed direction. But then he needed to keep going.