[sny.tv] – Sun, 15 Sep 2024 23:34:36 GMT
Knicks sign Marcus Morris to Exhibit 9 contract as veteran forward returns to New York
[Posting and Toasting] – Sun, 15 Sep 2024 12:00:00 GMT
2024-25 Knicks Opponent: Portland Trail Blazers
[Empire Sports Media] – Sun, 15 Sep 2024 15:42:36 GMT
- Knicks’ developmental center will have a chance to steal playing time
- The Knicks have one gem bench not being talked about enough
- Will Jericho Sims, Cameron Payne, or Keita Bates-Diop Have a Role With the Knicks This Year?
- New York Knicks’ Future Unknown for Jericho Sims
- Knicks’ Future Unknown for Jericho Sims
[FanSided] – Sun, 15 Sep 2024 18:31:08 GMT
NBA Rumors: Warriors eyeing Jimmy Butler, Knicks add sharpshooter, 76ers-Clippers trade
30 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2024.09.16)”
Pretty sure Morris is garbage now and KBD is better, but who knows. Maybe KBD’s shooting is that much of a problem.
Morris could also be here for his mentorship. Pairing him with Pac Daddy makes some sense.
It’s definitely a refreshing change that, for our 15th man, we are choosing between a trio of guys who are all actual NBA players, even if they have various significant limitations (KBD can’t shoot, Shamet can’t do anything but shoot, Mook may be washed), rather than devoting multiple end-of-bench spots to nobodies who are only on the team as a favor to an agent.
I don’t have a preference among the three, because ideally none of them will have to play. (The same would go for Jericho Sims, but I’m sure he’ll play quite a bit, given Mitch’s health.) We’ll see what happens.
If iHart does get booed I’ll just make believe it was for the egg that he laid in game 7. In fact, every time it hurts that we have a hole at Center, I try to remind myself of his unhealthy tendons, 0 points in 30 minutes, and how terrible his defense was on Embiid.
I like having Mook on the bench as a veteran DAWG. Would also prefer instead of Shamet they got a multiple champion veteran who has been through a decade of playoff wars.
I thought we were getting screwed when Vorkunov similarly got promoted to a national beat, but Katz was somehow even better. What I’ve read of Edwards’ stuff has mostly been him trying to put lipstick on various pigs on behalf of the Pistons front office. I have no idea what to expect from him covering a good team.
Happy for Fred, though, but this is a bummer.
That’s a big loss, though I don’t think Katz ever intended to stay on the Knicks for too long.
Hope Edwards is another great beat writer. The Athletic has good staff for most of their stuff but I usually read the Knicks and the national writers. I’ve read articles from smaller market teams and the quality is all over the place.
They let go of a number of writers pretty recently, going from one writer per team to having the smaller market writers cover multiple teams.* Presumably the guys left are the better writers.
–
–
–
* Even before the downsize, they didn’t have a beat writer for Denver. The Jazz writer flew into Denver to cover them for the Finals, and I believe it was only the Finals.
Suprised no one picked up Jae Crowder. Comes across as a good veteran to have on a minimum deal at end of a contending team’s bench.
I believe the NBA determined that it counts as a minimum contract for salary aggregation purposes. There’s a clause somewhere in the CBA describing a minimum player that settled it.
99% sure that is correct
Bummer to lose Katz, right on the cusp of our championship season, too
Since I witnessed Pat getting booed at the end of his time in NYC (along with some really vile racist shit), I’ll believe it’s possible, but I really hope not – iHart was a gamer for us and, as Bob said, made a decision pretty much everyone else would also make.
But his tendons are why I’m not totally bummed to lose him – over/under on an Achilles injury in the next two years has to be pretty high. But he was really helpful on offense and only a step worse than Mitch on D – basically, only exposed against Embiid.
Katz has been our best beat writer since Chris Herring that’s a bummer.
Did Katz ever tell the story about Carmelo trying to convince him Joe DiMaggio was jewish?
I go back and forth between thinking about how great we’d be with him and how bad an investment he might have been.
The Thunder had such a clean sheet that they were able to structure that contract perfectly. Even if he suffers a catastrophic injury they can just use him as an expiring salary to package with all their picks and upgrade their team without losing a core member. Talk about a win-win
Katz has been awesome, so this hurts. The silver lining is I’ve read some of Edwards’ stuff, usually in the aftermath of Knicks-Pistons business, and have found him to be a good, thoughtful writer too. Also, Katz should be great on the national beat and I’m sure he’ll still opine on the Knicks often.
Macri’s newsletter today has an interesting-ish stat: in 360 possessions with Precious at the 5 and OG on the court, the Knicks had a 96.9 DRTG (and a 120.8 ORTG).
It could be that their confidence in this look is what has made the center search less urgent than we thought. This would raise some questions though:
1) is Thibs prepared to deploy what are effectively OG-at-the-five lineups in the regular season? Given the presumed toll on OG’s body I wouldn’t blame him for using it sparingly.
2) if Precious is in the fully-healthy rotation as the nominal backup 5, who gets squeezed?
Basketball’s starting soon!
I’m actually excited to have Mook back. I love him as a deep back up for Randle. He only played here for a few months in 2019-20 and hasn’t been a starter but I don’t know that he’s done. Compare 2019-20 to 2023-24 stats. Usage was the thing. His averages were virtually the same and his per games were halved.
----------MPG FG% 3pt% _FT% TRB AST SPG BLK TOV PPG
2019-20 31.2 43.8 40.8 82.3 5.0 1.4 0.8 0.5 1.6 16.7
2023-24 16.7 43.9 40.3 81.8 2.7 0.7 0.8 0.3 0.6 6.4
Morris adds grit to the Knicks. I’m not sure that he’s done.
If memory serves, the two of them were quoted as def wanting to play next to each other and recalling their good work together previously in Toronto. I hope your stats above are a harbinger of more good play this season.
In per 36 terms, his points scored fell from a career-high in 2020 of 19.2 to 13.2 in 2024, the worst since his rookie season.
Defensively, he doesn’t seem capable of moving quick enough.
Looking at Mook’s stats the last few years it’s hard to shake the conclusion his skillset has been reduced to “being tall and shooting 3s.” That also might be enough to be a cromulent 14-15th man.
Indeed his Pts per 36 fell in 5 years. That’s the only stat that did. And as a 3rd PF on this team, who provides toughness, that’s a nice to have.
The other thing to look at is why this team has 20 players for a 15 man roster where Thibs only plays 8 or 9 players? You have to believe that at some point there’s going to be picks and players traded for a rotational upgrade.
The power forward who plays like a small forward/shooting guard archetype is one I have never been a fan of. I feel like I have harped on that for a while.
He doesn’t seem like a terrible guy at the end of the bench though.
wow to how the end of our bench has transformed…
feels like win right now mode…
season subtractions: isaiah
season additions: kolek, huk (perhaps), payne, mook, kbd, and oh yeah – mikal bridges…
kept OG…kept precious…
hopefully have a healthy julius and mitch for most of the season (the latter half if need be)…
we really need thibs to continue to adapt, particularly in regards to player health…thibs is going to have to trust his bench more than he every has…i’d be curious to see what the most bench minutes played by a thibs team has been in the past…
he needs to focus the bench on being out there each game…run it 10 deep, as long as possible…with frank, elf, evian, and a million other washed players on the bench – you gotta tighten up the rotation…made sense at the time, now the front office has successfully addressed that situation…
you can flash player injury stats all you want, and yes it is possible for teams to come back from double digits, and that is why you have a deep team…don’t wear out the guys at the top…trust the bench…
our starters our great, but – we should really excel with our second unit…
hopefully the message was sent, again and again and again, and is being relayed at this very moment – save player minutes whenever you can – everyone has been paid, or will be paid – no need to pad star player stats (well, maybe a little bit for any “awards/honors”, okay, that happens, not this year though)…
everyone starting should be on board with spending quality time on the bench, let them start each half, and finish the game…
figure out a way to sit: jalen, mikal, OG and julius for 7 or so minutes a half…hopefully we finish the season with no one averaging more than 34 minutes a game…
let’s see if that helps…as the season goes on, maybe sit some guys on back to back games and travel situations…
I might be a little more intrigued by Cooper Flagg. Although I don’t know how the hell he could have dunked that.
https://x.com/hoopmixonly/status/1835698920422261144?s=46&t=0wqff4cNt-sCGcDs-uMExw
Morris was valuable largely because of his scoring and defense. He can’t do either anymore.
His other stats may be the same, but at per 36 numbers of 6 rebs and 1.6 asts, the rest of his game was always lacking.
Maybe he has enough value being kind of big and being able to shoot, but personally I think we’re going to be disappointed in the result.
The Precious/OG combo dominated the Sixers in game 4 when Mitch was out and Hartenstein picked up 5 fouls. Thibs never went back to it the rest of the series, though, so I’m guessing he doesn’t like it.
Thibs claims to rely on lineup data, btw, but really he just uses it when it confirms his own biases. Lineup data always suggested Quickley fit better with the starters than RJ, for instance, but he always ignored it bc RJ was bigger.
My guess then is that it doesn’t matter how dominant the data is for OG and Precious. If Thibs doesn’t like it, he’ll rationalize it away.
Selling RJ required the league to believe that we believed.
It really only required *the Raptors* to believe that we believed, and it certainly didn’t hurt that he happens to be Canadian. I actually believe that the latter aspect played more of a part in us being able to dump him than the former aspect did.
Reasonable. If the only move was RJ to Toronto. Which is, possible?
I agree with what you saying, but I don’t think it’s irrational to start with a theory, try the lineup combination, and then look to see if the lineup data supports the theory.
I’m a big “fit the pieces together” guy. I probably put too much weight on that. I like to look at the lineup data also. The problem with the lineup data is small samples and opposition. But if you can make a logical basketball case for why players X and Y should fit together and then you see it working, I think you can be more confident than if it’s just a theory or just lineup data.
All that said, imo Quickley should have started over RJ. I still think there were some politics involved in keeping RJ in the starting lineup.
That’s pretty normal.
What I think Thibs is prone to, though (like in the cases of IQ & the
Precious/OG combo), is the opposite: if he believes something won’t work but the lineup data says it does work, he’ll ignore the data.