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Knicks Morning News (2024.08.15)


  • Knicks Mailbag: Julius Randle update; another center coming? – sny.tv
    [sny.tv] – Wed, 14 Aug 2024 17:48:47 GMT
    1. Knicks Mailbag: Julius Randle update; another center coming?
    2. Submit questions for Fred Katz’s Knicks offseason mailbag
    3. Knicks get mixed bag of Julius Randle, Mitchell Robinson injury timelines
    4. 2 Knicks Key Players Could Miss Start of Training Camp: Report


  • Knicks bring back Jacob Toppin on two-way contract – New York Post
    [New York Post] – Thu, 15 Aug 2024 00:41:00 GMT
    1. Knicks bring back Jacob Toppin on two-way contract
    2. New York Knicks Officially Announce Roster Move
    3. Knicks sign forward Jacob Toppin to two-way contract
    4. Knicks Re-Sign Jacob Toppin To Two-Way Deal
    5. Jacob Toppin signs two-way deal with Knicks


  • Why Knicks’ Precious Achiuwa could be more than just trade bait – New York Daily News
    [New York Daily News] – Wed, 14 Aug 2024 21:15:43 GMT
    1. Why Knicks’ Precious Achiuwa could be more than just trade bait
    2. Grade the Trade: Knicks acquire polarizing NBA champion in mock proposal
    3. 3 Knicks who could be on a new team by the 2024 trade deadline


  • Knicks Teammate Disgusted By Brunson’s ‘Mr. New York’ Title – Sports Illustrated
    [Sports Illustrated] – Wed, 14 Aug 2024 17:00:01 GMT
    1. Knicks Teammate Disgusted By Brunson’s ‘Mr. New York’ Title
    2. Knicks’ Jalen Brunson gets new nickname, jersey from Manchester City
    3. Manchester City Gifts Jalen Brunson Custom Jersey
    4. Jalen Brunson & Josh Hart roast each other over Knicks guard’s custom Manchester City jersey pic
    5. Manchester City Gifts Jalen Brunson Custom Jersey: New York Knicks Tracker


  • NBA’s best 2024 offseason moves by team: Celtics, Knicks, Sixers among top 10 – The Athletic – The New York Times
    [The New York Times] – Thu, 15 Aug 2024 09:33:55 GMT

    NBA’s best 2024 offseason moves by team: Celtics, Knicks, Sixers among top 10 – The Athletic


  • ‘I Stayed a Professional’: Jayson Tatum on Olympics – Athlon Sports
    [Athlon Sports] – Thu, 15 Aug 2024 05:42:04 GMT
    1. ‘I Stayed a Professional’: Jayson Tatum on Olympics
    2. Tatum: Limited role in Paris won’t affect call on ’28
    3. Stephen A slams Kerr’s egregious’ choice to bench Tatum in Olympics
    4. Can USA Basketball mend fences with Tatum, get younger for L.A. 2028?
    5. Kerr says Tatums minutes at Paris Olympics come down to a mathematical logjam

  • 76 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2024.08.15)”

    Well, shit, Julius at the 5 just might work. He’s done it before (in New Orleans). Do we know whether or not he embraced that role? If I remember correctly, he actually played it pretty well, but of course that was a totally different line-up than what we have.

    Randle has played 17 percent of his NBA minutes at Center, and even in that one season in New Orleans he only played 26 percent of his minutes at Center.

    Like Fred points out in the mailbag, Julius would only be playing center on offense. OG would be the defensive 5 in lineups without Mitch or Precious. (And maybe even ones with Precious on the court, since Precious is more valuable switching than he is protecting the rim.) A healthy OG (knock wood) just gives us so many lineup options we never had before under Thibs.

    Knicks also listed as having the fourth-best off-season. Which, okay.

    Not that I put much weight on these, tho the ranking of 4th is pretty remarkable since 1st place went to the team that swiped iHart from us, and 7th place went to the team we sent future assets for MB.

    But overall I put high marks on the off-season, in large part because the all-in moves we made (which I like) still leaves us with some flexibility to tinker under the new CBA.

    Okay guys, we’ll give this a try. I’m gonna only try to post as Doogie for the rest of the weekend. See how it goes. It’s been exhausting.

    Four of the teams in the tip ten off season are in our division (Boston, Philadelphia, Brooklyn and us).

    LOL
    You’re going to post *as* me? You mean that you’re going to attempt (badly) to impersonate me? I don’t think you’re going to be able to do it that well, but kudos in advance for the attempt. Rest assured that I will *never* attempt to re-create your types of posts as my own. I couldn’t even write that stuff, in good conscience. 🙂

    And you’re going to do it for “the rest of the weekend”? That’s a bit curious, as the weekend hasn’t even begun yet! (That’s how you do it, Clarence Beeks! Hope it helps. 🙂 )

    Hope you have a great weekend, Clarence Beeks et al.!

    Boston only made it because they did not lose anyone (resigned, extended). So it is not really a list of which team “improved” in the off-season.

    Then I’m thinking that maybe we didn’t get “dinged” enough for losing Hartenstein. It was a big deal with big ramifications that we’ve only partially mitigated, to this point.

    If you hadn’t already guessed. I am Downtown Doogie Brown. Clarence is on hiatus. Ciao Bellos and Bellas.

    Who’s “Clarence”? And why are you posting about him? I want to post only about basketball, instead of being unwillingly forced to post inane questions about non-basketball topics that everyone else knows the answer to.

    (C’mon Clarence, this is way too easy…)

    Oh so you’re the yellow Doogie? That’s very disappointing. I noticed the change of style and pace, which would have been great comedy for him, but if it’s you not so much.

    Although good for your comic duo to start impersonating each other. I think it should come with pictures too.

    “Ciao Bellos and Bellas.”

    Truly awful start, Clarence Beeks. I would never write anything like that.

    And sorry, darules. I’ve already said that there is no way I’m going to attempt to impersonate Clarence Beeks. The stuff he posts about—crap he eats all over town, farting in airports, and sexual exploits (and for the record, I wish that Jowles wouldn’t post about that, either) both past and present, just to name a few topics—is just not my thing at all. You’ll have to rely on him for that when he returns. 🙂

    I’m pretty certain that “Bellos and Bellas” should not be capitalized. I mean, they’re not proper nouns or titles. When I text good morning to my girlfriend, I write “Good morning, sweetheart,” not “Good morning, Sweetheart.” She’s very much a sweetheart, but it’s not her given name. 🙂

    I think the offensive potential of Brunson-DDV-Bridges-OG-Randle is too tantalizing for even Thibs to pass up. I couldn’t get too worked up about his reluctance to use Obi/Randle lineups because Obi and Randle’s iffy shooting made the defensive tradeoff a perfectly legitimate question, but I mean, the guys we have now should be able to put up video game offensive numbers, and maybe even hold their own defensively.

    I will say for the record that if Thibs doesn’t give that lineup a nice, long look during the regular season, that will be an inexcusable failure of experimentation.

    Again, would Randle be amenable to that? Also, we would probably be vulnerable against true 7-footers.

    This blog is like 80% unreadable bullshit now occasionally interrupted by a post about something interesting

    Yeah, I’m bordering on ending my tenture here. For somebody who is not a knick fan, this blog needs to really carry a lot of peripherals for me. For, like, 15 years, it has done that and so much more. But a certain poster who just doesn’t understanding this place at all has decided to dominate it for no plausible reason. It’s just not fun here these days, which is a shame. Love you guys. (Almost all of you, at least).

    I will say for the record that if Thibs doesn’t give that lineup a nice, long look during the regular season, that will be an inexcusable failure of experimentation.

    I agree on this. And, as in that Athletic piece, I’m curious to see if OG defending opposing 5s can be a clear advantage for us (assuming his body holds up).

    My eye test recalls OG did well against Embiid. In theory, I also like him against Porzingis, but who would give him the most trouble? Jokic obvs, but Wemby? Actually, I don’t think so.

    Or maybe the better question is What opposing combo of 4/5 would make the small OG/Randle lineup sweat the most?

    Again, would Randle be amenable to that? Also, we would probably be vulnerable against true 7-footers.

    As Alan said, he’s not guarding 7fters, he’s guarding PFs. OG Anunoby is guarding most of the Cs like he did against Philly.

    I usually wouldn’t advocate for banning someone who didn’t say anything particularly offensive, but the layout of the site makes using tons of posts to say nothing remotely interesting very detrimental to the experience. Something to consider.

    Otherwise, we may just have to muster up the best collective shadow ban in Knickerblogger history.

    Not sure what your beef is. When folks post about basketball topics, I respond on those basketball topics if I have anything to post about them. When folks post about non-basketball topics, I respond on those non-basketball topics if I have anything to post about them. Just like the rest of you do. Again, not sure what the issue is. LOL

    I don’t think OG can or should bang with the best centers in the game for long stretches, but he’s got the strength and smarts to keep them in check for a bit while we score a fuck ton of points.

    The rebounding is probably more of a concern than what the handful of elite centers could do against OG. Would need a lot from Randle on that front.

    Donny, do you feel out of your element?

    I actually spent about ten minutes on GIPHY trying to find the perfect Big Lebowski gif for the summer doldrums.

    I found the perfect live shot of Clarence and DDB and I can’t get it to paste.

    It’s actually amazing how many gifs from that movie are applicable to our current state of stagnation.

    It happens every year. This too shall pass.

    Apropos of absolutely nothing, did I ever tell you all I went to school with Donnie Trump Jr? Was not in the top half of his class I can safely report. Wasn’t a bad kid, just spoiled, and we all felt sorry for him honestly.

    “Apropos of absolutely nothing, did I ever tell you all I went to school with Donnie Trump Jr? Was not in the top half of his class I can safely report. Wasn’t a bad kid, just spoiled, and we all felt sorry for him honestly.”

    I would feel more sorry for him if his sickness wasn’t used to take other people down with him.

    “I usually wouldn’t advocate for banning someone who didn’t say anything particularly offensive, but the layout of the site makes using tons of posts to say nothing remotely interesting very detrimental to the experience. Something to consider.”

    Lots of people post lots of things about topics that are not remotely interesting to me. Again, the topics of bad food, flatulence, and sexual trysts are not why I come to a basketball blog. But you seem fine with those “not remotely interesting” (or in any way relevant) topics…….so they’re either all OK, or none of them are. My vote would be for none of them to be OK, but I defer to the masses. In doing so, I reserve the right to respond to posts on topics that I wish were not being discussed. <shrug>

    “Not sure what your beef is.”

    Doogie, just wondering…were you the spectrum-y kid in middle school who raised his hand like 50 times a lesson?

    “Doogie, just wondering…were you the spectrum-y kid in middle school who raised his hand like 50 times a lesson?”

    Nope, not on the spectrum in any way (neither then nor now), nor someone who raised my hand an awful lot. Sorry that your armchair behind-the-screen diagnosis and guesses are so way off. 🙂

    “Sorry that your armchair behind-the-screen diagnosis and guesses are so way off.”

    Thing is, nearly every kid in that genre had zero awareness that they were doing anything of the kind. They also had no understanding of why other kids were annoyed by them, or why they would be the object of scorn or ridicule.

    Do you remember encountering such a kid in middle school? Whatever you were or weren’t then, that’s who you are here.*

    *If other posters disagree with this assessment, please let me know. I’ll be happy to retract.

    Doogie, that diagnosis is not way off; he, and I, are telling you honestly, without personal animus, you are killing the conversation. If indeed you aren’t on the spectrum, please consider that and practice empathy for those of us who don’t need grammatical corrections (on a blog for Chrissake), who don’t ask questions that are easily answered with a ten-second web search, and who don’t value pedantry when all we’re trying to do is figure out how bad our center situation is.

    You do ask bball questions and talk hoop. That’s absolutely true. Those posts would be more valued if they weren’t intercut with dozens of absolutely pointless effluvium. Instead of countering my point, please consider it, again, with empathy and openness, and patience.

    It probably won’t be a one-size-fits-all answer, Z-man. Some people here don’t like me, while others certainly do (and have told me so). But negativity on any forum such as this always comes from the most vociferous and most frequent posters—others just don’t care enough to comment on it, in most cases.

    There’s a difference between doing things such as posting your personal musings to no one in particular–like Geo and Clarence do–and commenting upon every single grammatical “error” or referential ambiguity. The former is mostly harmless, usually does not clutter a thread, and is at least occasionally fun and interesting. The latter actually does not contribute to any discussion and is objectively more distracting and irritating than Clarence asking whether Harbison is good on chips–especially with the frequency with which the grammar trolling occurs. There’s off-topic discussion that is good and off-topic discussion that is bad. Posting ‘Yay’ , or being deliberately obtuse, or…etc. is dangerously close to posting spam.

    Similarly, commenting negatively on others interests–such as video games–or calling someone sexually depraved is not something that has a place on this forum. If you don’t like a post, pass over it in silence, unless there is a legitimate dialectical reason to bring it up. Or, engage in the conversation proper without being needlessly judgmental. Don’t say Harbison is disgusting (it obviously isn’t to anyone whose palate is reasonably well-developed), just mention that you think your preferred cheese is perfectly cromulent on chips and be on your merry way. It is as simple–and as easy (or hard)–as that.

    Or tell someone to drink bleach, which is at least entertaining!

    At least the WNBA is off break so I can watch some New York Basketball again!

    This site is a precious oasis of interesting discussions in the wasteland of social media. I’m not generally a fan of gatekeeping, but a more active curation here is probably better than losing long time posters for the sake of the world’s most oblivious pedant.

    Yes, using the word “depraved” is certainly something that I regret—please accept this as my apology for that, Clarence Beeks. I don’t really care what people do in private, and that being the case I should have been much more careful about not sounding judgmental about it. But I really prefer not to hear about *anything* sexual (or even about other bodily functions) on here…….that part is definitely true, and is something I feel strongly enough about to say so. It’s just inappropriate in so many ways, and I imagine that there are hundreds of other forums or blogs where those types of things would be welcomed and valued. And for the record, I am not a “_______-phobe” about *anything*, and I’m actually not a bad guy. My girlfriend loves me, my manager thinks I’m awesome at my job, and people who actually know me think that I’m funny and engaging.

    As far as the rest…….points taken, rama and EBKB.

    The Doogie with the yellow avatar is Clarence Beaks, who is now imitating The Real Doogie (TM). He’s doing a good job on the content but the style and energy are completely off.

    Anyway this is amusing to me but it is also annoying, and probably offensive to the original poster. Maybe enough.

    I’m actually not a bad guy. My girlfriend loves me, my manager thinks I’m awesome at my job, and people who actually know me think that I’m funny and engaging.

    I’m not disputing any of this, but it literally doesn’t matter in the context of an internet blog if you consistently annoy everyone else here.

    Doogie, I say this with love, but the combination of anal & banal at high volume is a lethal mixture. I’m more partial than most to trollish pedantry, but I think there is a reason you’re getting even more pushback than other trolls such as Beeks, E, or even myself: you really seem to have a tough time grasping why you annoy people!

    For the rest of us, I think we know it’s a vice or a bad habit. Are you being purposefully obtuse when you say you don’t get it?

    I will say a couple of things on this broader subject:

    Certain posters are either unable or unwilling to recognize the ways in which their posting behavior — whether it’s basketball-related or not — annoys large swaths of the community. Attempting to convince them of the wrongness of their style, or their substance, will not only accomplish nothing, but it will only increase the percentage of any given thread that is devoted to one or more of these posters. If someone is annoying you with what they’re repeatedly saying, or how they’re saying it, the best way I would suggest to respond is to not respond at all. Either don’t comment yourself at all, or don’t reply directly to their comments, try changing the subject, or approaching one of the day’s topics from another angle, whatever. When you engage with someone who seems like a troll — whether that person is trying to be a troll or not — you have already lost, because you’re wasting both your time and the time of everybody else here. Ignore the posters or subjects you don’t like, or don’t care about, and try to be the change you want in the world.

    That’s how I try to live online, anyway, even if I don’t always succeed.

    And speaking of which, Macri’s got Tim McMahon on today’s pod, and they obviously talk a fair amount about the end of Brunson’s tenure in Dallas. Which I believe is Knicks-related?

    The Doogie with the yellow avatar is Clarence Beaks, who is now imitating The Real Doogie (TM). He’s doing a good job on the content but the style and energy are completely off.

    Wait, what? Every post by Doogie in this thread has the yellow avatar… Has Beeks stolen Doogie’s identity here?

    Can anyone confirm that Doogie is alive and that Beeks isn’t wearing a suit made from his skin IRL?

    Yeah, I was going to say, as an early Doogie critic, the best option is just to ignore his posts. Just scroll right past.

    Couldn’t have put it better than Alecto, and I’ll just add that off-topic posts are hardly the problem. They’ve always had their time and place here, and always will. Sometimes I find them funny, interesting, and/or entertaining and engage with them, other times I don’t and they’re easy to ignore.

    The problem are posts that contribute absolutely nothing to a discourse of any kind, basketball related or not. Painfully pedantic (and oftentimes dubiously applied) spelling and grammar corrections and posts demanding someone clarify a reference it takes 5 seconds to Google fall into this category.

    I don’t keep a running list of the worst management decisions but not resigning Brunson is definitely in the top 5%.

    I guess they just thought he was too ball dominant to play next to Luka long term. And then they went and signed Kyrie.

    Has Cuban owned it?

    I think the offensive potential of Brunson-DDV-Bridges-OG-Randle is too tantalizing for even Thibs to pass up.

    Maybe later down the road when he gets brave but for now you can bet on Thibs to hedge and include Josh Hart in a small lineup.

    In Thibs’ small brain over simplified world, the delta of 5 rebound > 10% increase in 3pt fg shooting. Assuming 5 atempts per game then, 5 rebounds > 1.5 points.

    I don’t keep a running list of the worst management decisions but not resigning Brunson is definitely in the top 5%

    Sorta disagree. Their post season a year removed takes them out of the list. Not getting any assets for him is the bigger issue once they decided to move on. Perhaps places them back into the 5% list.

    PS. Also was trying to sell the team and all-Stars matter

    This blog is like 80% unreadable bullshit now occasionally interrupted by a post about something interesting

    It sucks I keep seeing a lot of comments to a post and I think something happened and it’s just the same accounts doing their weird bits

    My eye test recalls OG did well against Embiid

    He did, but that was late in games where Embiid was exhausted and possibly still somewhat injured, and it involved a lot of doubling with Precious. If we’re playing Randle at center on offense the answer on the other end probably isn’t going to generally be just put OG on the other teams center.

    The Doogie with the yellow avatar is Clarence Beaks, who is now imitating The Real Doogie (TM). He’s doing a good job on the content but the style and energy are completely off.

    Anyway this is amusing to me but it is also annoying, and probably offensive to the original poster. Maybe enough.

    I don’t think this is true. If you go back to a thread from, let’s say June, the new yellow avatar is on Doogie’s comments there too. It looks like a simple change of avatar to me.

    Randle when focused is ok defensively, but if you have OG defending Cs he’ll need help, and that’s not Randle. Maybe if Hart is in the lineup too, he can help OG and it can work. I agree with Noble, it’ll be an “inexcusable failure of experimentation” if Thibs doesn’t try the small ball lineup with Randle, but i’m not so high as you guys on the results.

    Can anyone confirm that Doogie is alive and that Beeks isn’t wearing a suit made from his skin IRL?

    Holy Jame Gumb moth pupa!

    My biggest gripe with Doogie’s shtick is that he acts all outraged about off-topic posts, but then he writes some of the most inane and half-hearted attempts at basketball discussion. Sheeeesh, it is August, there will be barely anything interesting (and basketball related) happening til preseason, let people talk about anything else.

    Doogie, I didn’t mind it much when the pedantry happened once in a while, but threads have become oversaturated with these posts and the responses to them. I don’t have anything against you, but it’s time to let it go.

    Anyway, that’s my 2 cents and I’ll leave it at that.

    Randle when focused is ok defensively, but if you have OG defending Cs he’ll need help, and that’s not Randle. Maybe if Hart is in the lineup too, he can help OG and it can work. I agree with Noble, it’ll be an “inexcusable failure of experimentation” if Thibs doesn’t try the small ball lineup with Randle, but i’m not so high as you guys on the results.

    Between Mikal, OG, Hart, Deuce, and Donte, whoever plays C should have one of the easiest jobs in the NBA anchoring the Knicks defense. If nobody gets to the paint, then the C doesn’t have to do anything! Of course, I still don’t trust Randle to do anything when we do need a help defender.

    Just switch everything and don’t worry about defensive positions on the 2nd unit.

    I am holding out some (not a lot, but definitely some) hope that Jericho Sims is going to be a significanty improved version of himself this season. He has a real opportunity to win the backup “big” C job. Maybe some of OG and Bridges will rub off on him, and he has a healthy offseason to work his ass off.

    Do we have the best defensive wing tandem in the league? Who is better?

    Brown-Tatum (or replace one with White)?
    Caruso-Dort?
    Herb-Trey Murphy?
    McDaniels-Ant?

    Somebody else?

    If nobody gets to the paint, then the C doesn’t have to do anything!

    Haha. This is exactly my hope for Randle at the 5. I also hope he’s watching some tape right now of iHart’s best passing from last year (or Jokic or or or).

    Do we have the best defensive wing tandem in the league?

    Yes! But the caveat is: if OG is healthy.

    Yes! But the caveat is: if OG is healthy.

    Yeah, any strategy aside, this is gonna be the story: the health of Mitch, Randle, and OG.

    I am making my daily prayer sacrifices, but I suspect the gods have their own agendas.

    Yes! But the caveat is: if OG is healthy

    At least Hart/Bridges isn’t half bad either

    It seems clear that we’re going to go into the season with this team and, if necessary, shop for another center like Valanciunas or Capela before the deadline when teams start tanking, so I refuse to worry about it.

    I had read an article somewhere saying we might have an eye on valanciunas, I think that would be a pretty good get for us…

    doing some cool basketball stuff with the boys…last year their mom moved them into a sports academy for school (before last year I had no idea it was even a thing)…

    this summer the school is having some open “runs” for grades 9th and below…

    as you can imagine things are a little chaotic with the 7th graders and below – holy cow though, the freaking 8th and 9th graders though: passing, cutting, looking really smooth out there…

    very cool to see the young kids playing ball the right way – no holding the ball forever and chucking away from waaay outside…

    very cool to watch…

    Apropos of absolutely nothing, did I ever tell you all I went to school with Donnie Trump Jr? Was not in the top half of his class I can safely report. Wasn’t a bad kid, just spoiled, and we all felt sorry for him honestly.

    A downside to naming my handle after our former POBO has been the association with other Donnies. Alas.

    Also, before I assumed the ID of Donnie Walsh, I posted as somebody else in these parts. That character knew you briefly while you were in high school, so I know you didn’t go to that school with DTjr. Or college. So, that leaves grade school. My father’s alma mater a long time ago. Nice.

    My good buddy out here in LA was in Ivanka’s class at Choate. Said she was a perfectly nice, quiet person.

    Anybody know Eric from childhood? Care to report?

    alright donnie, it’s been a long day – but are you saying you went to high school with owen…

    that’s a small world…

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