12/16/2024 10:53:42
12/16/2024 09:43:09
12/16/2024 10:08:05
12/16/2024 08:16:49
12/16/2024 06:47:05
12/16/2024 06:20:36
12/16/2024 05:48:06
12/16/2024 05:56:08
12/16/2024 05:07:00
12/16/2024 05:03:41
12/16/2024 04:46:00
12/16/2024 04:05:55
12/16/2024 04:11:00
12/16/2024 04:05:49
12/16/2024 04:26:11
12/16/2024 03:32:45
12/16/2024 03:12:16
12/16/2024 03:28:55
12/16/2024 01:51:15
12/16/2024 01:51:15
104 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2024.12.16)”
The gif we have all been waiting for…
https://x.com/knicksmuse/status/1868465921846575576?s=46
Bridges was very good last night. I will take it.
Brunson was superb
As someone pointed out on the game thread, Bridge’s POA D was vastly better ( albeit against Suggs) and he did not die on every screen. If he continues this trend there is reason for cautious optimism. OTOH, OG seemed discombobulated on offense last night. He seems to struggle when he shoots contested 3’s and still doesn’t finish at the hoop well.
From an Athletic article (Edwards) about the game last night:
“Towns seeks out Wagner after the final buzzer. The two embrace after going at it over the last 48 minutes. All is good.”
Always impressed when sports stars are better people than I am.
KAT is just really freaking good. He got 22 and 22 like it was nothing, even while being mugged by the hateable Mo Wagner.
Not to diminish Bridges’ D, but I once saw Suggs go 4 for 19 in the layup line.
Two things can be true: Bridges was much better at getting around screens and making life difficult for the opposing teams’ lead ballhandler, and said lead ballhandler has many nights where he can’t throw the ball into the ocean.
Baby steps. We probably won’t see the fully-realized version of this squad until next season, since Leon will have an easier time adding one or two depth pieces over the summer. But if Bridges goes back to being his Phoenix-level defensive self, and Brunson and KAT continue this chemistry, we will hopefully get a more consistently entertaining product.
I know it’s hard for some people here to accept but Knicks don’t have to win the championship this season, their window is open for a few years.
Yeah, the team is very good but maybe not great and we will be dealing with that for the foreseeable future.
I know “Jalen Brunson is good” is not a novel take, but every now and again you just have to marvel at the guy. He’s looking at his 3rd consecutive career year. We’re lucky to have him, and I bet he’s got his next matchup with Dyson Daniels circled on the calendar.
Also, I still don’t know how we wound up with Towns. I liked Randle and DDV a lot but we’re winning that trade by a landslide.
The non-Mikal aspects of the team are sturdy as hell, so at this point we basically go as far as he takes us, which is why this season has been a little underwhelming. I suppose the remaining X-factors are how much he continues to improve, how much internal improvement we can generate elsewhere, the Mitch wild card, and any potential trades. The range of potential outcomes still feels pretty large.
@Alan, I understand why you aspired to the above as I feel the same way, but the bar can be set higher than the above. Maybe, ECF if Mitch unGodots himself and everything else falls in line.
I really liked that this was the first grit win I can remember this year. We got smacked around, and we got in the trenches with them and fought back, upped our intensity to match theirs pretty much across the board. I’d like to think that was a lesson learned, we’ll see…
“The range of potential outcomes still feels pretty large.”
Agree but with an important caveat—Leon, and probably Thibs, have enough good will banked that downside outcomes can be fixed by an astute trade that looks bad optically. We are not Morey in Philly or Horst in Milwaukee (or when Dolan told Isiaih to coach his assembled roster).
The season has also been a little underwhelming because of OG Anunoby — a negative-BPM player — just as the post-Covid seasons with a quality nucleus for Raptors fans pretty consistently underwhelmed and disappointed.
In terms of the window and BBA’s comment, I mean sure, in theory — but they still have to decide what to do with Mikal, who’s contract runs only another season and a half. Maxing him I assume second aprons everything for the indefinite future, and he isn’t a max player. It’s not as though everything’s locked-in peachy with this nucleus for a long window.
If Jimmy Butler is somehow available to the Knicks, we know Thibs would want him and either Mikal or OG could go out the door for him and it would be significant talent accretion and pretty clearly something you do. (*) But most likely all the stuff about Riley “really liking” those guys was just smokescreen and market-generating puffery.
(*) Small mention of the possibility in today’s NY Post.
Edit: (for Doogie)—hate the guy so much that spelling his name correctly is a bridge too far
In terms of last night’s game, Orlando didn’t have their two best players and, given the context of the schedule addition, Pidto on PBP, and all the rest, it had the feel of about as jerry-rigged and saccharine as any association game you’ll see.
The test was last Tuesday night in Madison Square Garden. They didn’t pass. Last night’s game didn’t move the needle on this fundamental.
I ain’t reading all that
I’m happy for you though
or sorry that happened
Also hard pass on spending assets to reunite old man Jimmy Butler with Towns
Butler wants the Mavs, Warriors, Rockets, or Suns, and they can have him, as far as I’m concerned.
He is one tough little bastard too, last night Suggs was trying to intimidate (?) him by harassing him full court, and Brunson just kept plowing ahead while Suggs hacked and whacked him. Jalen looked at the refs like really?
Also, trivia question – name one Knick who has drawn a charge this season not named Jalen Brunson?
Knicks have come a pretty long way when a 16-10 start with a +6.5 net rating feels underwhelming.
Not really understanding why we’d want 35-year-old Jimmy Butler who basically plays ~60 games per season and is not available for the playoffs these days.
Brunson is better than I thought he would be. Only a little, though!
KAT is better than I thought he would be. Only a litle, though!
Mikal is worse than I thought he would be. Only a little bit more than a little, though!
Our record is worse than I thought it would be. Only a little, though!
“Knicks have come a pretty long way when a 16-10 start with a +6.5 net rating feels underwhelming.”
Hence the definition of being all-in. When you have a stack of draft picks still left no matter what happens, there’s less anxiety when you get a shitty card on the turn.
Huh?
In terms of why you’d want him, the obvious answer is that he’s really, really good. (He also does actual “winning things” that lead to actual team success, as opposed to imaginary or fictitious ones.)
This shouldn’t really need to be re-litigated, but whatever. If people want to dream of a world where Mikal Bridges and OG Anunoby are really swell and great and just need time to gel and adapt, and Jimmy Butler sucks, well … it’s a free country.
Yeah, that sequence last night when Suggs fouled out, he had about three clear fouls on Brunson in a row and the Captain just plowed through it all.
His stepback three this year has been awesome, someone had a good tweet about that.
And his touch around the hoop has reemerged after being awol the first ten games.
It’s incredible to have two offensive players of this caliber on the team. We haven’t watched players who can do this in decades. Melo was like a pale facsimile of this.
It feels kind of middling but I am still going to enjoy it.
Someone on the radio mentioned that the teams who have traded for aging superstars on megadeals are not faring particularly well. Lakers, Suns, Sixers, Bucks, Clips…
Let’s not become one of them.
Be the change you want to see in the world
Weirdly OG had the best ORtg on the team last night at 120 despite being kinda awful (No idea what that fadeaway 3 at the end of the quarter was)
Partly it’s that Achiuwa didn’t look much better, but I think speaks more to how much better 5 out is. OG struggled but they still need to keep a man on him.
Mikal was great, though it did help that the Knicks had 4 guys in the paint on basically every possession.
no interest in Jimmy Butler, not that we could actually trade for him anyway.
I think we saw last night, even in small sample size, that the offense really suffers when we play 2 bigs and Hart is on the floor. Precious + KAT + 3 of Brunson, Deuce, Mikal, OG, Cam Payne works. When Hart is there too, it doesn’t work. The most valuable thing Hart does on defense is rebound the ball, and on offense he is valuable as a do-everything connector — but with him and Precious out there the spacing is just bad.
CTG splits – small samples:
KAT+Precious, Hart OFF -> 113.8 ORtg, 103.2 DRtg
KAT+Precious, Hart ON -> 91.4 ORtg, 73.5 (!) DRtg – only 35 possessions
I guessed Kolek then looked it up. He has not drawn one.
There’s 5 non-Brunson charges drawn by 5 different players. Brunson has 11.
Payne?
I’m pretty sure KAT drew a charge earlier this season too.
Yup!
I keep thinking our team knows they’re better than (most of) the opponents and are just “cruising” until the playoffs, or maybe a little earlier… last 10? 20 games?
Not seeing KAT? That is like the opposite of tunnel vision, right? 😀
KAT is not one of them
I’m not saying that Butler sucks, or even that he’s washed (at least probably not). I just don’t think that he fits our timing or what we are trying to do. YMMV, and I respect that.
It would be hilarious if we reunited Thibs, KAT and Butler
He’s been pretty bad since that break out game.
It was reported that Thibs told him him to be more aggressive and shoot more 3s, including from areas he tended to avoid in the past, but IMO his shot selection has been horrid lately and the results show it. He has to relax and go back to taking just the good ones.
Every time he has the ball going to the basket I know there are two major possibilities.
1. He dunks it.
2. He throws up some wild out of control crap.
If it’s #2, I cringe or laugh depending on the circumstances and hope he gets the foul call.
Butler would be a horrible move for us.
First, there’s the whole history with KAT. Maybe KAT has let it go but would you really take that chance?
Second, he’s OLD and has not had the best injury history lately. I know, I know! Sometimes OG and KAT get injured too! Doesn’t mean we should take our chances on a dude who is 7 or 8 years and INCREASE our injury risk.
Butler is a move for The Lakers or Golden State or Clippers or some other aging team that is trying to squeeze out one more desperate run before doing a rebuild.
We are not there. Honestly, any talk of moving Mikal or OG is THE definition of a desperate, win now move.
Yes, we’re in our window. But we’re a youngish team still. Our window is 2 to 3 years minimum. The most obvious problems are 1) the need for a good back up center 2) the need for a stretch 4 and 3) Mikal not being great so far.
Butler doesn’t solve 1 or 2 and 3 is something that has already gotten better in the last 10 games.
One of the strengths of this team is that one of Towns, Brunson, Bridges or OG can have a bad night or series of bad nights and we still win a lot of those games.
Mikal has been excellent lately.
Maybe we were getting a little too picky about his POA defense.
There are a few Gs that are so fast and so good, pretty much no one can keep them in front of them.
I am fully expecting that as soon as it becomes kosher, DDV is gonna be back in the fold. I don’t know how, but somehow it will happen.
Seeing how they’re all-in, that’s probably not such a good thing.
The lack of skill and talent in the 3/4 guys in whom a ton of money is locked up. (*)
That’s it. All other problems are far distant from that.
Those positions/roles have to be upgraded significantly for this team to seriously contend.
(*) Technically, the money doesn’t have to be locked up in Mikal — but if he’s not moved for a quality piece that will permit face-saving, like Jimmy Butler, it almost certainly will be.
With the way he’s playing Minnesota would probably love it if DDV was back with the Knicks tomorrow. Of course I’m sure he’ll have his best game of the season on Thursday.
Disagree. I think the lack of playable big men outside of KAT is a bigger problem. OG has been great, for the most part, and Mikal is slowly getting better.
Atlanta is a great example. They scored 108 points. Not exactly lighting it up. They killed us on the boards, though. Hart might be a great rebounder for his size but size matters when it comes to rebounding. OG should be a 3, not a 4. Sims is not a great back up option. Precious is more of a 4 than a 5. Mitch is hurt. I don’t think we need to start Mitch and KAT when Mitch (finally) comes back (if he does), but we need that big man who can snag boards option bad. And also rim protection.
I think this is a bigger issue than the made up issue of OG and Mikal not being good.
Mikal is back over league average in TS% once you remove his 6 heaves. He’s also below his career 3p% at ~35% this season, even after removing his heaves.
He has a .608 TS% on 19.7% usage over the last 10 games while shooting 39% from 3. He has 3ast to 1.5 TOs in that span.
This is the player I expected to get, even when I had questions about his defense.
On the flip side, OG has a .521 TS% and is shooting 29% from 3 in that same 10 game span. That span includes his 40pt game.
Dropping that game off the end, in his last 9 games OG is shooting 23.6% from 3 with a .463 TS%.
The harder thing for some people to accept is that this team hasn’t actually opened a championship window.
The harder thing for some people to accept is that this team hasn’t actually opened a championship window
Nice sound bite. But wtf, especially on this site.
Really tired of people telling others that they have not “accepted”something that they are debating.
I know I’m an asshole and everything, but this should not be a highly controversial take. We have a third of a season’s worth of data now. We are barely on a 50-win pace with the 4th easiest schedule and most of our good opponents missing one or more of their best players while we’ve largely been healthy. Also they had the best player in the world, which enabled them to punch above their weight simply by increasing his minutes. We have no such extra gear.
We are sitting at 4.8 SRS. In the last 10 years the average SRS of a league champion has been 6.92, and all but the 2023 Nuggets had higher SRS than us. That Nuggets team is notable for having arguably the easiest path to the championship in history, with no opponent having more than 45 wins and a Finals matchup against an 8th seed.
The team is mid. If we have any championship equity it’s well under 5% and only figures to get lower as multiple good young teams gear up to overtake us and the currently great teams figure to stay great throughout our “window.”
I have accepted that the hide posters extension isn’t available for mobile.
Anyway, good that Mikal is showing signs of life, really interested to see what the team will be like with mitch, but it seems further and further away.
So..by now we have a pretty good idea of what this team is gonna be. Here’s where Thibs has to prove he really is a great coach. Again.
With Achiuwa back, we can see him tinkering with how to get more physical in the frontcourt. I imagine that will be easier once Mitch is back. But we may have to trade him for another physical rebounder who has a history of scoring some. Someone like Valančiūnas. But the team can cross that bridge when/if they get to it. Looking at the team as is- Westchester included- Thibs should be able to work with this team defensively without sacrificing too much offense. He’s just gonna have to stretch to a 9 or 10 man rotation to do it. He just has to build a good to great defense around an outstanding free safety type and Bridges at the POA, for better or worse. KAT can play physical in the paint, and has fairly good defensive chops- just maybe not the defensive awareness Thibs loves. That’s fine. He also has Hart as another rebounder with the ability to bring Achiuwa(or Mitch) in to help KAT fight every team’s bigs when we need more size in the frontcourt. I don’t recommend that he fucks with that starting 5 at all. He just needs to shave some OG and Hart minutes when he wants to put more size in to help KAT. That’s fine too.
Now our bench is where it gets a little tricky. Assuming we keep Mitch, we have very little offense and alot of defense with a 2nd unit of Mitch/Achiuwa/Deuce/Payne. We are gonna have to rely heavily on our backup guards to pull this off and still have a halfway decent offense on that 2nd unit. This is where Shamet comes in. He can help with his defensive intensity and shooting. He will be a much better option than Matt Ryan, albeit shorter. Ideally, Mitch comes back in time for us to be able to move him for a guy like Valančiūnas- as Washington is clearly a horrible tanking team, and will be Valančiūnas or not.
I suppose we need to see Achiuwa once he’s back in rhythm, but whatever the team is gonna do to help Thibs build a defense he can trust without losing offense- they should probably make that move way before the trade deadline. Nevertheless, I think Thibs can do it, but he’s gonna have to break his mold. Or at least break a small piece off of it and trust the intensity we’ve seen from KAT to make up for some of what he’s used to
The possibility of this core group winning a championship rested on the strength of the all-in move. We made the all-in move for Mikal Bridges. Not great. Even the platonic ideal of Mikal Bridges wasn’t the player you make your all-in move for.
It’s just very difficult to Hybrid Method your way to a title. It can be done, but you give yourself a longer window and higher upside with the Asset Collection Method. Usually you gotta get your superstars in the draft. We haven’t valued draft picks very highly. We’re still doing pretty good, but I’d say the odds of the Jalen Brunson-KAT-Bridges-OG core winning a championship are vanishingly low.
We should be solid contenders for the next few years, but Leon Rose is not good enough at this to win a championship.
It ain’t over till it’s over.
How did you fail to notice I was quoting someone?
Anyway this team doesn’t have “a 2-3 year window” in a league where the Celtics and Thunder exist. Moves still need to be made to open the window.
It’s not even that, it’s that teams like CLE/HOU/ORL/MEM/DAL are already better than us with their cores of developing young talent that will only continue to improve. Being about the 8th best team in the league is an express ticket to No Championship Equity Town.
Even my biggest hater and I seem to pretty much agree on the merits here. The Hybrid Method is categorically inferior because even when executed fairly well, it has zero margin for error and loses handily to traditional rebuilds based around the drafting and developing elite talent. The current CBA only weakens Hybrid teams further by crippling their already limited flexibility, while the OKCs of the world just get better and better into infinity.
None of those teams – even Cleveland – are ever going to put real daylight between them and us. The Magic, in particular, have a lot of work to do before they pass us in the pecking order.
The only thing that matters when you’re talking about “a window” is the gulf in class between us and Boston.
In order to understand why the Knicks have gone all-in on these 2 wings, we need to recognize the importance of RAPM. RAPM is the stat that almost every AIO is measured against. Generally speaking, other AIO stats aim to weed out noise and stabilize faster than RAPM, effectively reaching the same conclusions as RAPM, just faster. It’s the bar against which all other metrics are measured.
But what good is RAPM if we can’t bank on it translating from the computer to my the court? Well, let’s look at Jrue Holiday as the proof in the pudding. If you take a look at his BPM, you’d think he was a well-above average player but not quite a superstar. And that’s why it seemed crazy in 2020 when Milwaukee gave up five 1sts for his services. He had a 1.8 BPM the previous season.
Of course, we all know that Milwaukee won a title his first year. So where did RAPM have him? He was the 11th best player in the league by 4yr RAPM and has stayed below 15th since then. He’s currently 6th.
So, let’s look at where OG & Mikal put us if we use RAPM, which is perhaps picking up on something that BPM is missing (for the billionth time, it misses a lot).
OG is a great player by almost all AIO stats. He is currently 25th in time decay RAPM and 42nd by 4yr RAPM. Note that even by the 4yr number he’s not far off from his contract, which is the 37th most expensive in the league by AAV. Looks like he’s a good player.
Mikal is a bit more complicated. After his horrific year in Brooklyn, his time decay RAPM is down to 86th. Isolating his last 2yrs, including the ~half season on the Suns, Mikal was 214th in the league. That’s bad. However, as most would assume, he was significantly better prior to that stint… and really just the past year. Using Mikal’s 3yr RAPM ending with the season before he went to the Nets, Mikal was the 15th best player in the league. If that’s the player he is (I’m skeptical) then 5 picks is great value for him.
Of course, I’m cherry picking the one time I use 3yr RAPM as he drops to 40th by 4yr if we end during that same season before climbing to 30th following his miracle half season with the Nets. Still, a pretty darn good player and maybe something more.
All this to say that if Mikal can get back to his pre-Brooklyn self, or really just before his last season self, by returning to a more suitable role, we could find ourselves with 4 top-30 players. I don’t know, but that seems like a contender based on cold, unfeeling stats that aren’t garbage.
In theory, they could flip one (or more) of these guys for something better — but the odds of that are very low. And they’ve vastly lowered the odds of getting something like a Tony Parker late in the first round by trading away almost all of their ones.
(We’ve done this to death already, but the “sophisticated” AIOs overrate players like OG by overvaluing the things he does well or ok (defense/kind of not missing shots), and undervaluing the things he doesn’t do well (pretty much everything else). There’s no serious sense in which he’s a top-30 player in the league. The entire enterprise of obsessing about acquiring and investing in him was badly misguided.)
The only thing between us and serious contender status is that we lost I-Hart for nothing. Otherwise, no one in the league would want any part of us in the playoffs.
In fact, if we had a healthy Mitch at 100% for a full playoff run I’m not sure there’s anyone better than us right now other than a fully healthy Boston team. But that Boston team is on the short list of all time great NBA teams.
So is the standard of success suddenly “an all time great team”.
IMO that preposterous.
The loss of I-Hart had nothing to do with the method of rebuild.
You can consider it a management error for not signing him to a longer deal (assuming that was even possible) or you can say a player we considered part of the long term core wildly outperformed expectations when Mitch got hurt and left us for a bag we were not allowed to match.
Wait until OKC has to start choosing who to pay and who not to pay and tries to keep their elite status going with younger recent draft picks as a few of the others leave for bigger paydays OKC won’t match.
Boston owes $219M in tax next year before re-signing Horford. Their core probably doesn’t survive the off-season.
I-Hart was actually pretty poor in last years playoffs, particularly in the last few games versus Indiana. He basically couldn’t cover Embiid.
All this stuff about the “missing piece” who’s going to make an outsized difference — Precious, Mitch, iHart — is just wistfulness about the disappointment of this nucleus and their underachievement. Understandable reaction, but it should be understood for what it really is.
In management/Leon terms they pretty much knew they weren’t going to resign i-Hart when they (1) traded for OG and in fact knew they weren’t going to resign him when they (2) traded for Mikal; and (3) traded for KAT. Nothing about this rested on iHart being around.
Sorry but this just doesn’t make sense.
Take CLE for example. Do you dispute that they are better than us right now?
Evan Mobley is a 23 yo, former no.3 overall pick DPOY candidate whose AIOs have marched steadily upward every season like we wish RJ Barrett’s had. Do you not expect him to continue to improve? If he is a 3 BPM guy now, what should we expect him to be at 26, when every other core player on CLE will still be in their prime?
If he develops into an All-NBA player as is pretty likely, how does that not put “daylight” between us and a team that is already better?
Not only that, Holiday and Horford are at the age where they are going to be slowly decining. So whatever Boston was, they are going to be inching downard going forward with two key players.
I like your analysis, EB.* And I really like our top 4 (even Bridges). We need to round it out with a trade, though. We’re like the Celtics without Porzingis and Horford.
* Edited to specify I meant your RAPM post; I find your assumption about the Celtics going into cost-cutting mode this summer a little far-fetched. I have a hard time imagining anyone would want to shell out $6BN to be hated.
No one can cover Embiid. He’s an MVP caliber player.
Last time I looked the Knicks were 16-10. That’s a 50-51 win pace. They are playing at an 18-8 level based on SRS. That’s a 56-57 win pace. They are doing that despite having several new pieces trying to fit together and despite not having a legitimate backup C or the type of PF they need next to Towns.
We know (and I’m pretty sure they know) they may need to make another move because it looks like Mitch is not going to be reliable.
However, they are not out of ammo. They have the Wizards protected pick, 2nd rounders and each of the young players they drafted (all looking like they have some potential) as assets in a trade or as players that can fill roles later in the season and beyond. Sims may also be an asset.
The Knicks have to decide whether to pay Mikal.
“They are not out of ammo. They have the Wizards protected pick, other 2nd rounders ”
They have one of their own and one of Minnesota’s second-rounders through 2031.
They have very little ammo left, certainly nothing like the ammo their peer group and soon to be peers possess. It’s going to be very hard for them to really improve; certainly, they have a far lower chance of it than their peers.
I’d flip OG for Butler in a heartbeat, that would improve things greatly — but I doubt Riley would do that. Maybe not exactly this, but something like this is what they’re going to need.
Good argument EB! Even if this team doesn’t win a championship, they are probably good enough to be a 50ish win team for the next 3 or 4 years. As a lifelong Knicks fan, I’ll take it!
Actually, I stand corrected — they do have some twos coming in from other teams through 2031. A couple will probably be extinguished, but they do have more than just the two I mentioned.(*) My bad. I was looking at their own, only.
They still don’t have very much draft capital through 2031. They’ve spent almost all of it already.
(*) And of course the Wiz fugazi 1 will very likely wind up conveying as 2s, which will add to the 2 chest.
3 years is a long time in the NBA. We have one player on our roster who was on the team 3 years ago.
I really like the Cavs, Pags. But no amount of development from Evan Mobley is going to put them out of our reach.
Brunson and Towns are both pretty awesome. We can hang with all the other incomplete NBA teams.
I think looking at the 26 games we have played and assuming we are at our peak seems shortsighted. We are still gelling and Thibs is not fast to adapt, though he has surprised me over the last year or so in his willingness to adapt at least a little. As long as Thibs is willing to keep making adjustments and Robinson is healthy at some point we should have some unrealized upside.
(I am not fully convinced Thibs is the correct coach for this team I am willing to give him the season to see if he can make positive adjustments.)
Also since we do not have a top 5 player, fringe contender is largely our ceiling. Historically 90%+ of all NBA champions have had a top 3-5 player. There are outliers, like Boston last year, but they got really lucky so unless another top 15 player falls into our lap, much like Jrue did with Boston we are not going to be a tier one contender but I think we are a tier two contender, even if we have not quite played to that level yet this year.
Our bench needs help. Sims needs to be traded, even if we have to attach a sweetener and Ryan should be waived. Since we are locked at 14 salaries and two of those are rookies that should not play much we cannot afford other dead spots on our roster.
I am still a huge proponent of trying to sign Reed and I think Okeke would fill a need that Shamet or Walker IV wouldn’t fill so he would be my other free agent choice. Though Walker IV would also be good and Shamet would be solid if he is ever healthy this season.
Our defense has improved right in time for our shooting and rebounding to shit the bed. Lets see if we can get those back before we panic.
Those 2 Washington 2nd’s look like they will be pretty valuable assuming they will still suck.
This team is definitely one move away, and that move most likely has to involve Bridges. We’re never gonna get back what we paid for him, but maybe we can get another impactful player to replace what we thought he’d be. Or maybe we can find a 4 who shoots well and plays defense? I dunno. It’s probably easier to go with what we have and count on Bridges really being what he was before he got here. Maybe he realizes he can still be a great 2 way player on this team and not have the offensive responsibility he had in Brooklyn. Sometimes it feels like he and OG are fighting for shots..at least in their heads. OG wants to prove he can score and Bridges wants to prove he’s worth the 5 picks. Whatever it is, they need to figure it out. In a hurry lol
I don’t think we’re at our peak but I do think the fatal flaws of this particular group have been revealed.
I happen to think it’s a really easy fix, though.
We have 6 championship-caliber players and all you have to do is look at the depth chart of those 6 players at their best position and the solution is screamingly obvious:
1 Brunson
2 Bridges, Hart, McBride
3 Anunoby
4
5 Towns
You can call Towns a 4 or a 5, it doesn’t matter. Leon has to trade a 2 for a big, and he has to crush the trade like the Celtics did when they traded Smart for Porzingis.
Then we’ll have a window.
If they flipped OG for Butler I’d never watch another Knicks game.
I’d assume the real owner is Woody Johnson and they are doomed for far beyond my life expetancy.
Butler is 35, often injured and very close to an inevitable steep decline. OG is 27 and will be good for years to come. Why would they want to turn a 3-4 year window into a 1 year window with the one player that may give us fewer games than OG and that is not even a better fit even if he’s a still a better player when healthy?
That’s a harder than diamonds “NO” for me.
Sims needs to be traded? Sure…….I don’t disagree, but I have no idea where a market for him would come from. Other teams wouldn’t have any interest in him for the same reasons that we don’t. It’s not like we don’t need a center…….and we still don’t want him.
without even knowing the profession, I have a feeling this is a commonly used phrase…
According to Forbes, Boston had $457M in revenue last season. If you add Boston’s projected Tax to their Player Salary, they already owe $445M with 3 more roster spots to fill and a pretty hefty multiplier.
Maybe the new owner doesn’t care because they’re loaded or figures they make up the difference in the long run, but the team is losing money until you cut ties with someone in the core.
Maybe it doesn’t happen, but a lot of owners could prefer to generate income.
If not next year, KPs deal expires the year after.
Jimmy Butler is still playing well this season, but he’s 35 and Father Time remains undefeated. There’s some sort of “we need more scoring from the wings” nonsense theme that E likes to endlessly flog, but we’re already a top offense so that just honestly seems kind of weird at this point. What we would really need is Isaiah Hartenstein or a reasonable facsimile thereof, because it is defense that needs to be upgraded. We can already score pretty good.
While I’ve been an early advocate for that, the slick thing to do is probably to trade Hart while his value is at all-time high and bank on Bridges returning to form. Hart is going to be 31 years old by next year’s playoffs. This is the smart time to sell.
He just turned 35 and he’s obviously not what he was at his very peak — no one is — but he’s a 5 BPM player, .644 TS%, gets to the line a ton, turns it up in the playoffs. He’s a way better player than OG.
I’m not sure what you mean about “fit” since you allude practically every day to the need to move OG to a different position.
“There’s some sort of “we need more scoring from the wings” nonsense theme that E likes to endlessly flog,”
My “theme” is the same as yours — their nucleus isn’t skilled enough or talented enough to seriously contend. Getting Butler changes that materially.
They don’t have the assets to get a guy who’s both (1) really good at a Butler level; and (2) not past his prime. I see no purpose to waiting around for something that they have no ability to make happen or in pretending that’s some kind of real alternative.
They’re all-in. They shouldn’t be, but they are.
Most business owners don’t mind hemorrhaging money for the first few years. The Arod group in Minnesota is different because they’re leveraged to the hilt. I would imagine the NBA is going to vet the sale of the Celtics more thoroughly, though. Whoever buys this team probably doesn’t isn’t going to be desperate for cash.
Another thing to keep in mind is the Celtics are still pretty loaded with picks. If Jrue Holliday gets old they can trade 3 firsts for Dyson Daniels.
jimmy gots bags…a baggage man…
what I wanna see is more fiesty mikal, offensively and defensively…
a couple of people have already posted it, and it seems true: mikal performs well and the team performs well…
At this stage of his career I’m not completely convinced Butler is the two-way kind of star the Knicks would truly need to contend. What they really need most is a guy who is a major impact defender who doesn’t hurt the spacing and can provide some boxscore stuffing other than scoring.
Butler isn’t really the kind of shooter you’d like, and wouldn’t solve the main problem we have, which is interior defense. Then there is the issue of his age. There’s a non-zero chance this is his last big season. He’s rapidly approaching the cliff. He’s beating the odds so far, and his game has aged well up to age 35, but that’s not a risk I’d love to take.
Ask any Heat fan, they will tell you that Butler has lost a step on defense, mainly because he is always at least somewhat hobbled. He’s a tough SOB no doubt, but there are only so many miles left in him.
Jimmy Butler? Huck the feck we talking about?
With a healthy Mitch we would probably be a 53-55 win team. Worse teams than that have won titles, with some good luck.
I can’t get worlked up about how we aren’t true contenders. I have followed fucking miserable teams for long enough….
Then there’s a group talking about one thing and another group talking about a completely different thing.
E just re-branded himself as a group.
“Then there’s a group talking about one thing and another group talking about a completely different thing.”
Exactly! I’ve never been championship or bust. I’m very happy as a fan and shareholder with what Leon has done.
Knicks are 3rd in offense, 16th in defense. Identify the problem.
The fact Shamet is already back on the court bodes well I assume. How long was Randle rehabbing?
from end of January to sometime in April, I think? Maybe 10 weeks?
LOL
I’m with Owen and gkhenman about our contender status. The fact that we have a chance to win the championship, even if it’s a small chance, is a lot better than we were used to the last two decades. For now, this is all i can ask for.
RIP OAKAAK Dick Van Arsdale, a member of the earliest Knicks team I remember rooting for. Also first I remember having a twin brother in the NBA. Good player, 3X all-star with the expansion Suns! Even though he was picked in the second round, he was 13th to be drafted, so I guess he was a lottery pick?
I am such a bad person – how can I feel good about the fact that RJ’s last second dagger got rendered irrelevant by an even later three from the bulls
It’s sports fandom. It’s allowed.
Butler auditioning for us with 35/19/10 tonight. Don’t fall for it.
Don’t fall for one of the best players of his generation playing well. It’s an apparition.
We’re not on his preferred list anyway.
Yeah, it’s funny, the Knicks were on it back when he was younger and the Knicks were terrible. He’s an odd one, that’s why I love him.