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62 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2024.12.24)”
It looks like Payne wants to keep his minutes. I don’t see how Shamet cracks the rotation unless someone gets injured.
Before Shamet and then Precious got hurt, Thibs was running out a four-man bench unit for substantial minutes in each preseason game. I have to believe that was the plan going into the season. I would hope he will return to this, with one of KAT, OG, or Mikal playing with the bench mob. On the other hand, one beat writer I talked to speculated that the injuries forced Thibs to always have at least two starters on the court at a time, that he clearly liked that, and that it’s difficult to do that with a nine-man rotation versus an eight-man one. So… we’ll see?
Hollinger on the G-League showcase: https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6017271/2024/12/24/nba-g-league-showcase-takeaways-hollinger/
FWIW, Dadiet hasn’t looked terrible the few times we’ve had to play him in non-garbage minutes. But he also hasn’t looked like a revelation, either. Happy to let him get lots of run in Westchester for a while. And, barring either an injury or a trade that sends out Deuce or another guard, I assume we’ll have to wait til next year to find out if Kolek is a AAAA player, or if he can do it in the show.
Does Dadiet play good defense?
Having seen what end of bench players do on the G League seems like a bad sign…
Not that he matters much…
My feel about Dadiet is that he needs development on his body still, whenever he plays i get the same feeling I had with Knox, that he’s not athletic enough and his skills are still underdeveloped.
He’s really really young so that’s to be expected, and he’s shown some nice touch on his shots, but it’ll definitely take some years before he’s a contributor at NBA level.
Dadiet looks to be playing alright in the G league but not making 3s
Honestly, the best he has looked when I’ve seen him as an emergency rotation player has been on defense. He’s had several possessions where he made life very difficult for his man, to the point where the Garden crowd has roared its approval of him. On offense, he either can’t do much yet against grown men or simply hasn’t been asked to. Tiniest of sample sizes, obviously, but given that his rep was as a promising scorer who had to work on every other aspect of his game, his defensive stoutness has been a pleasant surprise.
He isn’t supposed to be good on defense based on the scouting reports.
I wouldn’t worry about his play too much yet. Toppin last year went from scoring 15ppg in the Showcase to 20ppg in the regular season.
He’s also been predominantly an off-ball player. He should benefit from consistently running with the g-league squad.
The G-League seems to have improved in general, maybe because the NBA is saturated with talent, expanded rosters, and the 3 2-way deals per team are keeping players in the US rather than overseas leagues.
I bought 2 cheap tickets for the New Year’s Day matinee at the Westchester County Center, hopefully some of the rooks play and I can give a first-hand scouting report on both them and level of play in the league.
Good win yesterday, Poeltl is important for the Raptors but when the Bucks sans Giannis and Dame are winning and Orlando beat the Celtics despite missing Paolo and the Wagner Brothers I don’t give a fuck if the other teams miss players.
Re: Dadiet
I agree with Alan, he’s looked better than advertised on defense (the scouting reports were very low).
He’ll be 19 until July, he’s still filling his body, he has to adjust to another country, the different three-point line… and playing for Thibs! 😀
Maybe he’s another Kevin Knox, maybe he’s a useful player down the road, it took two years (age-21 and age-22 season) for Deuce to become a regular and win Thibs’ faith, I think we need a little bit of patience with a teenager.
I’d WAY rather Dadiet look good on defense than the other way around for now. His offense will probably come around given that’s primarily why he was drafted. We don’t need a guy that can knock down 3s but is a chair on defense. In the few minutes I’ve seen with the Knicks he looked way better on D than I feared. I took that as a great sign.
Dadiet could never be another Kevin Knox because we didn’t pass up the next SGA to draft him at #9. Or the guy we just spent 5 firsts to acquire. Or the key piece in the KAT trade. Or our best player.
Yeah, even if someone from the bottom of the lottery, or in the second round, winds up having a substantially better career than Pacome, you can’t feel bad about a flyer being taken with the 25th pick of what was unanimously considered to be a weak, thin draft.
Yeah, I’m fine if we end up with Kevin Knox as the 25th pick in an underwhelming draft who then takes a pay cut that allows us to squeeze under the 2nd apron. Knox wouldn’t have been so terrible a pick there. Hopefully he’s better than that though.
I’d like for Kolek to prove he can play as an NBA PG this year. At this rate Payne may outplay our ability to re-sign him. Payne probably crashes back to Earth, but it’d be nice to feel like we can trust Kolek to take the reins.
The OG/mike encounters in the post game interviews have been so wholesome.
Just to be clear,
my comparison to Kevin Knox was only intended as “young player who never developed, out of the League at age 25”, with no reference to draft position or anything else.
Surprisingly, we’re only 3 games behind the Celtics. Of course, they have the luxury of resting guys routinely, but it sorta bit them in the ass last night when they rested Tatum and lost to the depleted Magic.
Games like last night (and 2 games against the Wiz later this month) I wonder if it might be a good opportunity to rest KAT, but unfortunately that’ll never happen with Thibs
Dunk Counter:
OG last night: 4
RJ season: 10
Oh, my Kevin Knox comp was more regarding his athletic skills so far, with the caveat that Dadiet is super young and has a lot of time to work on that. I don’t think he is Kevin Knox. Knox also had huge issues with his decision making, effort, basketball IQ that we haven’t seen on Dadiet. He’s just a teenager who isn’t ready physically for the NBA and that’s completely fine.
Cam Payne flipped the game last night, we can’t ask him to do it every night but he’s been a fantastic signing so far…
Yeah, I guess I’m trying to say I agree that he’s like Knox but I’m okay with that. I even think he has some of the same awkwardness in his movements at times like his limbs are too long for his brain to understand.
Today’s what-the-hell target suggestions:
Deni Avdija
Jake LaRavia
Mason Plumlee
Dadiet has showed enough on both ends for optimism. Seems well on the way to being a useful NBA player. Good feet on D. Silky stroke from 3. Uses both hands attacking the rim. Some midrange and floater aptitude. All good signs for a 19yo with good size. He needs massive strength and conditioning work, still has kid muscles and baby fat. But I definitely see a player in there.
Knox’s problem was never effort. He was just slow in the mind and uncoordinated in the body. Some guys just don’t have it. Of course, most of us saw that at draft time.
I love Avdija and LaRavia but might be too good for Memphis or Portland to make them available (it’s getting annoying how often I write that about young Memphis players).
My impression is that Plumlee is cooked, but maybe he’s better than Sims.
Apparently Plumlee’s BKRef page lists his hand as “
RightLeft”I never understood the fascination with this guy. He is 24 and is 8200 minutes into his career and tell me a single thing he does remotely well that you can hang your hat on and build a career around.
He’s on a new 4 year 55 M contract. DDV is on a 4 year 50m contract. I don’t see the value in him unless he somehow goes supernova, quite unexpectedly.
“Cam Payne flipped the game last night, we can’t ask him to do it every night but he’s been a fantastic signing so far…”
Absolutely! Funny thing is that he’s doing what he’s done in other stops, yet no team seems to have had a use for him. Bad for him and them, good for us!
“…you can’t feel bad about a flyer being taken with the 25th pick of what was unanimously considered to be a weak, thin draft.”
I wonder if when all is said and done this draft turns out to be much stronger and deeper than folks thought it would be.
The fact that Payne is so close to Shamet and Mikal may help us keep him if we want, assuming he’s still viewed as a minimum guy (or slightly more) by the rest of the league. It’s not like he’s been a revelation this year. He’s doing what he always does, but just doing it for our guys for once, as Z-man says.
Without digging too much through the underlying numbers, Payne currently has a 1.9 OBPM shooting 42% from 3.
His career high was for Phoenix in the 2020-21 season with a 2.1 OBPM in a little over 1000 minutes while shooting 44% from 3.
In every other year that he’s played more than 10 games he’s had a negative OBPM.
So while he’s shown he can do this across a full season before, I don’t think we can say this is what he’s always done.
The Dunc’d On podcast has a new free episode out entitled 15 in 60 (the Eastern conference). They spend the first ten minutes discussing the Knicks and it’s worth listening to. They discuss mostly whether the Knicks are true contenders (and not totally negatively) and discussing the recent game with the Timberwolves, including a surprising stat about Randle’s defense.
Answering my own implied question, the
RightLeft handedness is from Plumlee injuring his dominant hand and finding out he’s better shooting lefty, which he does now.“So while he’s shown he can do this across a full season before, I don’t think we can say this is what he’s always done.”
…which is why I said “he’s doing what he’s done in other stops” rather than “he’s doing what he’s always done.” He looked pretty useful in 3 of his last 4 playoff runs, including against us last year.
Seems like it’s all about whether the 3 is falling for him. If not, he’s clearly a net negative player. Either way, good locker room/cheerleader type vets are always nice to have on the bench.
the real dash cam anomaly has been suddenly leading the entire league in assist to turnovers. i didn’t know it was even legal for tyus jones to not have the lead. he has 11 tovs all year. jericho sims has 15! there is an obscure stat called tov adj efg% which says: what is your teammates’ efg% on your potential assists adjusted downward for bad pass turnovers. cam payne’s is 87%!! (jokic 61%, luka 62%, jalen 63%, trae 56%).
sadly, i’m gonna guess this long-runs like most election year cam payne promises. but it definitely hasn’t been business as usual for him.
Yeah, his 1 ast/36 also jumped out to me, which is about half what it is during the rest of his career. Facially, it seems to be the big difference between this year and last year when he shot a still very good 39% from 3, had 0.7 fewer asts/36, and yet had a -0.5 OBPM playing for two teams. His 1.8 TOs/36 were his career low up to that point.
Very interesting take, pt. It kinda does seem like good things happen whenever he has the ball in his hands, unsustainably so.
The eye test suggests that he’s a pretty frisky defender, likes to mix it up. Not sure if it’s effective, but he’s definitely not a complete zero there.
BTW, your numbers re: KAT + Gobert vs. KAT – Gobert left out one pertinent fact in the context of the debate…that even when KAT was not on the floor with Gobert he was playing the 4, presumably next to Naz.
Thibs hates TOVs so maybe Payne is just adapting to his offensive philosophy. Ironically, I have never seen more bad passes from our starters than I have this year, but we are generating so many assists that it isn’t hurting us. Also seems like it’s mostly a first quarter thing.
As usual in laughed, with the caveat that I am sure pt is aware of the literature indicating that contrary to conventional wisdom politicians do tend to at least pursue their most ardent campaign promises.
There’s so little data on Dadiet all I can really say is my subjective take is he looks a little more fluid, broadly defined, than Knox, who often looked like a really tall, skinny accountant who was dropped into the NBA. It’ll probably be 2+ years before we see anything from him though, if we ever do.
OG continues to have an amazing sense of humor regarding the timing of his explosions. I would say that someone should post unconvincing victory laps more often, but alas, I do not want that to happen. Hopefully OG can start exploding more sans bad knickerblogger post motivation.
EB, if I came on too strong re: winning the KAT trade, apologies. While I stand by my feeling that the trade is an unquestionable win for a number of reasons regardless of how Thibs deploys KAT, I agree that there are pros and cons to both positions and there are ways for the team to be as successful with KAT at the 5 as at the 4. My hope is that when Mitch returns (or when we acquire a bonafide rim protecting 7 footer) Thibs experiments with both configurations and we get a better handle on what works best on this particular team, or whether the answer varies with the competition. For example, what works best vs. CLE may not work as well vs. BOS.
No worries. KAT will still be very good either way, but I’d like to see just how good he is there first. Ultimately, if DDV keeps playing like crap, we’ll win the trade either way.
We all expected the offense to be special with KAT but it really is getting ridiculous. I think we are near the best offense in NBA history?
We had a very good offense two seasons ago- 2nd in offensive efficiency if I remember correctly. But we just did not have the ability to absolutely bury teams like we have been doing. I mean we scored EIGHTY-ONE points in the 2nd and 3rd quarters yesterday with our leading scorer having a really off night! We scored 72 points in the 2nd and 3rd quarter on the road against the league’s #5 defense (Minnesota). What world is this that I am living in?!
I agree. It’s strange after so many years of building around pointz types to find us suddenly in possession of a level 20 offense.
And coached by Thibs to boot. It’s pretty bizarre.
(Throwing in a D&D reference for my son)
Thibs is obviously an offensive genius!
When Thibs was hired and everyone assumed he would fix the defense, a bunch of analytics types wrote columns about how his Minnesota teams were actually good on offense and meh on defense.
From Tommy Beer:
Mikal Bridges in December:
🏀+150 (highest plus/minus in the NBA)
🏀19 corner three-pointers (most in the NBA)
🏀 396 minutes (most in the NBA)
🏀 Only player in the league shooting above 55% from the floor and above 40% from three-point range
I was never a huge Payne fan. I always saw him as a streaky shoot first scoring G that handles well enough to use as a PG also given his size. To me, he’s a mediocre 6th man. If he’s hot he can change the energy and help you win a game, but if he’s not he can shoot you out of one. For us he’s been shooting well enough to make a positive contribution and be better than I expected. It’s hard to not like him so far, but it’s a long season and if he’s throwing up endless bricks in the playoffs and costs us a game I won’t be shocked.
Well Payne definitely almost cost us in the playoffs last year…
Can someone please tell me whether Mikal is shooting better with his new shooting form or whether he reverted back to the old one?
But that’s why contenders need guys like Payne and Shamet, because they are not going to shy away from the moment and are going to just play their game. They’re guys you put in for 5 minutes in a hard game and let them take 2 or 3 shots and see if they got it that night, and if they don’t you just bench them.
I think Payne is more useful than just this role, he can create a bit for others and he’s a heads up player who can make some plays and bother people defensively depending on the matchup, he’s not just a heat check guy. But every playoff team can use guys like them.
Me neither, 95% of his shoot/pass decisions are the opposite I’d do.
He’s basically the “Anti-Max” player 😀
But he won me over (even if I know he’s walking a tight rope end could cost us games) with his pesty defense, endless energy and absolute fearlessness, kind of an IQ on steoid at 1/10 of the price… 😉
That’s exactly how I feel.
He takes a lot of shots that make me cringe, but he has some qualities I think are important for an deal 6th man to have and so far he’s been a terrific value. My trust level is just not very high…at least yet.
What with Towns passing over the top and the teams collective willingness to cut I’m really looking forward to a little backdoor Santa tomorrow.
The prices for tix for tomorrow’s game are through the roof…Wembymania has arrived!
Really looking forward to this matchup. Don’t look now but the Spurs are above .500 in the loaded WC. This will be a good test.
Payne on a vet min was a steal the moment it was announced, and he’s been terrific. The guy has played 7500 competent minutes in the NBA and is perfectly cast as a backup PG. We haven’t had a good backup PG in so long I think I forgot what they look like.
His game LOOKS funky, but the guy gets results. Always has. He’s a career .373 3pt shooter, averages 6.6 assists per 36 over his career, and he competes on defense. His career eFG+ and TS+ are a little low but he’s also creating most of his own offense.
No complaints from me. He has done everything you’d expect him to do and more. He’s having a career year so far so he’s a good bet to regress to the mean a little, but he was a great get at the vet min.
Matt Ryan is back! (On a 2 way). Boo buie is gone
What was your favorite part of the Boo Buie era?
Probably remembering there’s a guy called Boo Buie
You didn’t overthink things, DRed. That’s why I respect you and supported you for GM for so long.
Pesonally, I think it’s just a matter of time before Kolek takes over as the regular backup PG and guys like Payne, Deuce and Shamet are competing for roles as score first Gs off the bench because that’s what they are. I’m not really sure why Thibs hasn’t used him a little more, but he may not be ready defensively. IMO he’s a true PG and already way better as a playmaker that can also shoot the 3.
Match-ups will be interesting. With 5 shooters on the floor Wemby won’t be able to hang around the rim hunting blocks.
Will OG get the defensive match up?
“Personally, I think it’s just a matter of time before Kolek takes over as the regular backup PG”
Not gonna happen this year unless Payne goes down with injury, and even then Thibs would just make Deuce the backup PG. So if by “a matter of time” you mean this year, I couldn’t disagree more.
“…guys like Payne, Deuce and Shamet are competing for roles as score first Gs off the bench because that’s what they are.”
Deuce is in the running for 6MoY (he won’t win, but still…) so he isn’t competing with anyone for anything, he has the job locked up. He is also way ahead of Kolek in the backup PG dept. Kolek is a rookie who can’t physically hang with NBA players yet, if ever. Shamet might get some minutes as a small-ball 3 but he isn’t gonna displace Deuce.
“Will OG get the defensive match up?”
I think KAT mostly guards him but he’ll have lots of help…
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