Knicks Morning News (2024.11.12)

In RJ’s defense, he has a shit team around him and is not suited for the role of #1 offensive option. I don’t miss him at all and don’t think the trade for OG was an overpay…in fact, it may have been a steal. But I wouldn’t judge RJ too harshly until Barnes and IQ are back.

I wouldn’t trade Deuce for a walking infirmary occupant. Lets see TimeLord play a couple of dozen games before even acknowledging his existence, much less consider trading our best bench piece on a ridiculously team-friendly contract for him.

Not trying to impress you with their record, only that they have played pretty well considering that they lost their long-time cornerstone and replaced him with a shitty player like Randle, despite neither Gobert or Ant playing particularly well.

But if you want to believe that our record would be worse and Minny’s would be better right now if the trade never happened based on SRS and SOS, you go right on ahead! I’m not buying it. With the caveat that it says nothing about how things will play out in the future.

“RJ Barrett with an assisted basket percentage under 40 is a legitimately terrible player. Like hopelessly bad.”

Correct. Bad role for him. And for lots of players in his salary range.

“And I think Julius Randle accomplished that for him. That’s why you and I never see eye-to-eye on Leon, and I’ve always been reluctant to give him the credit you do. Reasonable minds can disagree.”

I think there’s more than an either-or situation here, so I disagree that this is the reason why we don’t see eye-to-eye. For example, in the aftermath of 2021-22, folks here were calling for Randle to be dumped for a bag of dicks, or even at a cost. Leon deserves credit for not panicking at that point.
In a larger sense, I don’t expect perfection or anything close to it. Respectfully, I was never a fan of the catastrophizing that has taken place here regarding individual moves and non-moves. The premise that Leon somehow rode on Randle’s coattails is similarly exaggerated and simplistic. Like any POBO, Leon is what his record says he is. He took over the worst roster in the NBA that was projected to have the worst record in the NBA and had not a single player that would bring back a single unprotected pick except possibly Randle (and that is dubious.) His most important executive hires were Thibs, Aller and Perrin. Since that moment, his team has 3 playoff appearances in 4 years and is now considered to be among the NBA’s more competently run franchises.

We can argue about the utility of the OG, Mikal, and KAT trades, but at least the lens we are viewing them throw is: are we a legit contender or a step below that?

I’m good with that. I haven’t spent a single minute wondering how great life would be if we had only drafted Jalen Johnson (or Bones Hyland) or Jalen Williams (or Ousmane Dieng). The only decision I have rued as a gargantuan blunder is passing over Hali for Obi, but we wound up with a pretty good PG so even that is water under the bridge. And I was highly critical of Leon’s pursuit of Spida and think he dodged a lethal bullet there due to dumb luck.

Currently, I am ambivalent on the KAT trade and down on the Mikal trade, but feel that the jury is still out on both. So we definitely have some common ground there. But the conversation is taking place in a high-rise condo with potentially amazing views but in a cloudy location rather than a 5th floor walkup looking out at someone’s laundry.

“This is not a fact, and will never be a fact no matter how many times you say it. He took over a roster with Julius Randle, who finished 6th in MVP voting that year.”

It was a perception, shared widely here. Ask TNFH, who said that there wasn’t a single roster in the NBA he wouldn’t have traded the Knicks roster for.

No one thought of Julius Randle as an all-star, let alone an all-NBA or MVP candidate. Which is why he won “Most Improved Player.” He was acquired as a UFA the year before at a bargain price because neither the Pels or any other team thought he was worth all that much. And even then, lots of folks thought it was all empty arena noise, especially after his playoff failure.

Here was the roster that finished the season when Leon took over:
Randle
Elfrid
RJ
Harkless
Taj
Mitch
Ellington
Portis
Knox
Ntilikina
Dotson
Bullock
Trier

Look around the NBA that year and find one that was perceived to be definitely worse at that time. (Don’t bother, you won’t find one.) Even if you assumed that he would be the Randle of the two years before he got to the Knicks, he sucked in year 1 with the Knicks and there was no reason to believe that he would ever evolve into what he has become.

I think lots of excellent GMs would have sold low on Randle. Credit to Leon for not doing that, and to Thibs for bringing out the best in him.

If we are going to draw conclusions about Randle and DDV from their starts, we might as well conclude that the Bridges trade was an abject disaster and Brunson had by far a career year last year and is on the decline.

Of course, the likelihood is that all of these guys will settle in at something close to who they were the last couple of years. Right now, KB (and reddit) has more hot takes than IHOP has hot cakes.

“All of it?”

Yeah, swifty, that’s the disconnect for me. More generally, the notion that Leon doesn’t deserve any credit for “correctly” valuing a player who was a) grossly undervalued when he was a UFA, b) extended at a bargain price even though “most smart” folks here thought he should be traded at his “peak” value during the 2021 offseason or simply waited out, and crowed about it in summer 2002 after they were proven to be “correct” and c) not dumped in a fire sale as those smart folks suggested he should have been. The most important part of being a GM is player valuation, particularly in cases where the opinion of both the public and opposing GMs is not favorable. Leon did that with Randle, and also with Brunson (many thought he was an overpay at the time we wrangled him from Dallas), RJ (many here scoffed at the extension), IQ (many here felt Leon should have caved to keep him from going RFA), Mitch (many thought that by not signing him while he was coming off an injury, that we would lose him for nothing), Deuce (many thought he was not going to be good), DDV (no one out-bid us for his services and he turned into the sweetener for the KAT trade), Grimes (has not done anything since being traded) and to a lesser degree, iHart (virtually no one anticipated that he would play well enough to command $29M AAV, so a forgivable error.).

He’s had his fuck-ups as well. All of the retreads in 2021, Fournier, Kemba, etc. But to make some kind of sweeping statement that Randle all by his lonesome made an otherwise dumb Leon look smart is ludicrous.

“I’m just supposed to ignore that & grant you it was the worst roster in the NBA bc of what some pundits perceived?”

Not just some pundits. Vegas had us as the worst roster in the NBA via projected wins, and that was even after Leon hired the most win-now coach in the business.

“Leon inherited both, and an All-NBA forward on a discount contract!”

Suppose Leon opted for the full down to the studs rebuild that you and others would have preferred. What was the market price for Randle in offseason 2020? Anything close to that of an “all-NBA player”? He and his -0.3 BPM? What was his value in that moment, when no one had the crystal ball that you think a good GM should have had? Were opposing GMs (the smart ones) offering multiple unprotected firsts for him, or even one, and getting rebuffed? Seems like some smart guy like Presti or Masai should have been able to see Randle’s all-NBA future and fleeced us out of his services.

Is it possible that Thibs (you know, the guy Leon hired) said “Hey, I think we can do something with Randle as our centerpiece…” and Leon agreed?