Knicks Morning News (2024.11.20)

I’ve been beating the drum for awhile about the Cavs being a lot better than us. Mobley is still very young and compares favorably to Kevin Garnett at the same ages. They are younger with better overall talent and depth, while being less all in than we are. Instead of being held back by JB Bickerstaff, they now have a significant coaching advantage.

Our best case is that we’re the 4th best team in the East behind BOS, CLE, and a healthy iteration of PHI. In the west, all of OKC, GSW, LAL, HOU, DEN, PHO, MIN, and DAL are significantly better than us.

Then there are teams like MIA, IND, ORL, SAC, and even ATL that are comparable.

The idea that we’re top 3 in title odds is laughable; we are very likely not top 10. ESPN’s Basketball Power Index pegs us pretty well.

Right, so every other team who is already playing worse than us has many avenues to improve, but we don’t.

This isn’t automatically false just because you don’t like it. It’s simply objectively true that we have fewer avenues to improve:

1. We’ve been pretty healthy relative to most teams on that list. Our top five players have been available, and two of them are notoriously injury-prone. Other teams discussed have had injuries to major pieces like Morant, Durant, Banchero, Bane etc. This alone accounts for a lot of CLE’s huge delta from last season.

2. We are all in from an asset standpoint, while other teams have the ability to trade future value to improve short-term.

3. All of our rotation players are more or less finished products who don’t have significant improvement upside. This has enabled CLE to pull ahead of us with even more runway for further development. Teams like ORL and HOU also have a lot of unrealized upside. Even DET might be on our heels by next season.

We’re at best the 13th best team in the NBA, with at least 12 teams being “significantly” better than us and that’s just solid basketball analysis and not crybaby horseshit.

Do you have an actual reasoned argument against anything I’ve said? If not, then maybe it is solid basketball analysis, and you crying foul because you don’t like my conclusions is the real crybaby horseshit.

Nothing I’ve said has been histrionic or uncivil. I think the team is mediocre and I’ve cited lots of evidence to support that. If you disagree, tell me why I’m wrong.

Lakers suck.

Not pictured: analysis.

Denver sucks. They should not have kicked KCP.

The supporting cast is worse but Jokic is doing 28/13/11/2.5 stocks per 36 while leading the league in 3p%. I’ll grant you that this is arguable but I’m not sure there’s an upper limit on that guy’s production.

I’m never going to worry about a team that depends on Bradley Beal.

Yes, any team that is better than us can be worse if their best players are hurt. The only Western team we can meet in the playoffs will be the best one, and if we get there even I’ll consider it a success, so I won’t dispute these too hard.

Houston doesn’t have the offense. Just stuff 5 guys in the paint.

As with Mobley and KG, compare Sengun’s numbers to Jokic at the same ages. He’s rocking 21/13/6/2.9 stocks per36 and 7.4 BPM. That would be the best season in the history of our team if sustained. There’s a shitload of other internal upside there.

It’s also true that offense is much more amenable to development than defense — just ask Kawhi Leonard.

Minn has been healthier and worse than us. Randle won’t keep shooting 38% from 3.

That’s a smaller deviation from expectation than DDV shooting 32%.

GSW won’t finish the season with opponents hitting 31.6% of their 3s. Probably won’t hit 39% themselves either.

Fair on the opponent shooting! However, 39% is far from unreasonable considering they added Buddy Hield and shot .380 and .385 the last two seasons. With SRS over 10 they are probably still a lot better than us even with opponent 3FG% normalized.

It’s also possible there are better defensive strategies against the 3-point shot than “Let the Celtics shoot 60 open 3PA and hope they miss.”

Thibs will figure out the defense, he’s still tinkering, or we’ll get Mitch back and that will fix our defense. Hell, Precious might be able to do it.

Based on what we’ve seen in Minny, fixing our defense like that will severely degrade our offense. KAT has been a nuclear weapon and is on pace for the highest BPM in franchise history. At the 4 he hasn’t really been better than Randle.

Tony Soprano: “So what’s the fuckin’ answer?”

Junior Soprano: “Who says there is one? You steer the ship the best way you know. Sometimes it’s smooth. Sometimes you hit the rocks. In the meantime, you find your pleasures where you can.”