[Posting and Toasting] – Tue, 10 Sep 2024 11:00:00 GMT
- REPORT: Knicks monitoring Trail Blazers center Robert Williams III
- Windhorst: Blazers Robert Williams III is Very Tradable
- NBA Rumors: Celtics Rival Eyeing Very Tradable Robert Williams
- Biggest Celtics rival could trade for former Boston DPOY candidate
- Trail Blazers could be open to trading former Celtics big man
[New York Daily News] – Tue, 10 Sep 2024 15:19:33 GMT
James Dolan’s letter to Board of Governors challenged NBA expense level: sources
[Daily Knicks] – Tue, 10 Sep 2024 12:00:02 GMT
Recent report fuels fire about rival New York Knicks star playing for Nets
22 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2024.09.11)”
There are no facts that support the apron is why Paul George left the Clippers no matter how many times you say it.
More importantly, Paul George is a bad example of the apron suppressing player salary because Paul George received a max contract.
The one thing I will concede about Paul George is that he was perceived as a legit short-term final piece to a championship puzzle. Morey drastically overpaid for PG13 because he was under immense pressure to do something to appease Joel Embiid, somewhat similarly to how the Bucks’ braintrust drastically overpaid for Lillard to appease Giannis. No team thinks of Julius Randle as that guy.
Still, we are talking about a gaping chasm between salaries. Randle at $40M AAV for his age 30-34 years is at worst a market-level deal for his production and at best a terrific bargain. If PG13’s knees act up (or Embiid’s for that matter), the last two years of that contract are going to be hard to swallow. Lillard has a player option for 2026-27 for $63M, his age 36 season.
As a follow-up, the guy who Leon perceived as the final piece in that sense is not really one guy, but a tag-team of OG and Mikal, especially the latter. That’s $70+M AAV, 4 unprotected picks, an essentially unprotected pick, an unprotected pick swap, two promising young players and a great second rounder for those two plus Precious and KBD. It was less appeasement and more dodge the aprons, but essentially the same sort of desperation. I like the Knicks’ version better. Randle is more of a “keep things intact” maneuver, with less urgency in the moment. But as the season goes on, that urgency will build.
If we go back to last summer, who would NOT HAVE SIGNED UP for Leon delivering two championship caliber two way wings in OG and Mikal (everyone said those teams would not trade with NY) + dump RJ (addition by subtraction) and then extend and get JB to forfeit $133M immediately after his first All-Star and 2nd team All-NBA season + deliver us a super exciting 50 win season with an awesome mini playoff run while injury plagued the entire 2nd half of the season?
Come on man…
Lets give Leon his flowers. In Kobe’s words, “job is not finished” but respect and admiration have definitively been earned.
Macri did his final draft What If? newsletter this morning, once again revisiting the unfortunate business with Kevin Knox, but also one I’d forgotten about: Shump Shump over Jimmy Buckets. Because all of the focus at the time was how we were two spots away from taking Kawhi (whom the FO reportedly wanted), and because it took Butler a while to become the well-rounded monster he is now, it’s one that’s never had the obvious sting of Jordan Hill, Frank, or Knox. (It also helped that Shumpert was a competent role player, even if he never fulfilled the upside we all dreamed of.)
The job would have been essentially finished had we kept I-Hart. We need a legit starting C with some skills on offense. That loss still pains me.
Director, not sure if it came across that way, but I am in full agreement with you…which is why I said “I like the Knicks’ version better.”
I don’t think it’s wrong to have an opinion on whether certain moves were overpays or just unsound…as an example, I think Ben R was right and I (and most professional pundits) was wrong about the soundness of the Grimes for Bojan/Burks trade, even though the consequences were not enough to care deeply about.
Leon took over a dumpster fire of a franchise with a roster predicted to finish with the worst record in the NBA and in 4 years built a potentially perennial 50+ win team without tanking, hitting the second apron, or signing an MVP-level free agent (Brunson is great but let’s not put him in the category of Jokic, Giannis, Embiid, Durant, etc.) or finding one of those in the draft. He’s had plenty of questionable (if not outright just plain bad) decisions, but considering that he had zero prior experience in the role, he has done an outstanding job overall, one that many if not most GMs would be happy to have on their resume. It’s nice to see that all but a couple of skeptics have come around to appreciating the job he’s done.
Just realzed RB III is only 6’9”. Come on, man…
Re: iHart, it feels really shitty that we lost him, but as far as Leon is concerned, I can’t really fault him for not foreseeing that someone would be willing to pay him upwards $30M a year and I would not have felt great about signing him to that deal via going into the second apron. Should Leon have paid him more with a team option for year 3? Sure, in hindsight. But knowing that he could offer iHart $18M AAV probably seemed sufficient for a 24-year-old backup who had been in the league for 4 years on 4 different teams. Just one of those things.
Did he do What If Phil drafted Jokic instead of Early?
He’d still be cashing Dolan checks and we’d all be triangle disciples right now.
Zman, appreciate you brother. All good. Our views are mostly the same, – barely any variance.
I’m just very optimistic by nature and Leon has given us a lot to be excited about. This team of dawgs is super easy to root for. Other than Randle and Mikal (#7 and #10), all of them were a late 1st or 2nd round picks.
Strat, my Dad build us a house doing 90%+ of the work all by himself over three years, while working a full time job. He took 5 days off and for two of them he was sick. My Mom during the move in day, with all our family there helping, was really pissed at him becuase he forgot to install a bathroom door knob…
Back up center is a doorknob to a house when building a championship team. Dont believe me, just pull the back up centers of the last 15 champions and see for yoruself.
Wild stat of the day: OnlyFans creators made more money than all NBA players combined last year.
Here is a list of backup centers for the last 20 NBA champions (2004–2023):
2023 – Denver Nuggets: DeAndre Jordan, Zeke Nnaji
2022 – Golden State Warriors: Nemanja Bjelica, Kevon Looney (Looney played both starter and backup roles at times)
2021 – Milwaukee Bucks: Bobby Portis, Thanasis Antetokounmpo (Giannis played as a small-ball center too)
2020 – Los Angeles Lakers: Dwight Howard
2019 – Toronto Raptors: Serge Ibaka
2018 – Golden State Warriors: JaVale McGee
2017 – Golden State Warriors: JaVale McGee
2016 – Cleveland Cavaliers: Timofey Mozgov
2015 – Golden State Warriors: Festus Ezeli
2014 – San Antonio Spurs: Aron Baynes
2013 – Miami Heat: Chris Andersen (Birdman)
2012 – Miami Heat: Chris Andersen, Joel Anthony
2011 – Dallas Mavericks: Brendan Haywood
2010 – Los Angeles Lakers: DJ Mbenga, Josh Powell
2009 – Los Angeles Lakers: DJ Mbenga, Josh Powell
2008 – Boston Celtics: P.J. Brown
2007 – San Antonio Spurs: Fabricio Oberto
2006 – Miami Heat: Alonzo Mourning
2005 – San Antonio Spurs: Nazr Mohammed
2004 – Detroit Pistons: Mehmet Okur, Elden Campbell
I think we need a starting C.
I’m not buying Mitch as reliable enough or skilled enough on offense to provide the necessary spacing. If he’s ready and in shape, he’s not going to be a liability, but I think if we want to contend, we need a healthy more skilled C.
💐💐💐
If we had iHart, the debate would be about Brunson’s backups. Are Deuce, Payne and Kolek enough or should we get a better player and then the team will be perfect? But then, there’d be something else to improve. There’s always something missing because it’s highly rare to build perfect teams, but Leon has done a fantastic job building a team very close to it.
Let’s enjoy the ride, and don’t worry too much because Leon probably has a plan to address our (very few) weaknesses.
It’s really great to feel this way, i used to waste a lot of time thinking about what the Knicks could do to improve because the management seemed clueless, but with Leon i know he’ll do even better than what i can come up with. As Director said, getting OG and Mikal is huge and we should be ecstatic. I never thought we had a chance and Leon got it done. There’s not a lot more i can say, i trust the man now and feel that we’re finally in good hands.
I would love to be able to agree with Director on the doorknob analogy, as well, but “I think we need a starting C. I’m not buying Mitch as reliable enough or skilled enough on offense to provide the necessary spacing. If he’s ready and in shape, he’s not going to be a liability, but I think if we want to contend, we need a healthy more skilled C.”
This. So much this.
I once had to subscribe to a number of only fans accounts for… ahem, research. I believe that.
Wow, I just randomly realized that the answer to this “what it” is that Phil probably would’ve traded young Jimmy Butler to Cleveland instead of Shump, and the league would’ve turned into LeBron and Butler vs Steph and Durant.
The answer to these things is never “and then it worked out great for the Knicks”, you know?
The Knicks took time to develop Shumpert, he just didn’t progress much and it was coming on time to pay him. Butler improved a lot in his first three years and had already played in an all star game by the time Shump was traded. I doubt he would have been a salary dump, even by Phil logic.
Yeah, Phil was awful, but he wasn’t “trading Jimmy Butler to dump JR Smith’s salary” awful.