some of y’all worry a bit too much at times…definitely think waaaay too much about basketball 🙂

shit, i read most of it though, so…

sound therapy, intentional breathing, and counting (one one-thousand, two one-thousand, three one-thousand, etc.) works best for me to manage anxious feelings…

out doing some gardening today…all geared up in compression gear, brace and whatnot…

something about the feel and smell of healthy dirt just does it for me, to that point – salinas, california has some of the prettiest dirt on earth…more than once i’ve pulled over by a farm around highway 68 just to get a closer look…

gotta be honest, these days i’ll need to rest up a day or two after spending some hours digging around in dirt…

i think about doc bob (knick fan in celtic land) a lot…the years and miles on the road, just amaze me…like those monks in what was once tibet, sitting out in the snow with no worries and just the power of their mind…

plus 60 now, my body definitely feeling different…late 40’s noticed the aging stuff, 60 +, and it is present daily…

i have no idea how the knicks are going to perform game to game…usually in the past, good or bad, i had an idea…

right now we are a little better than a .500 club…so good wins and bad losses here they come…

the fixation on mikal is: necessary 😛

took a moment to think of the right word…

dude is not smooth and silky, he’s sleepy and slow…shorten his rotation minutes and give him caffeine…

maybe never going to the rim, or really bumping in to other players much, is how he stays healthy enough to play game after game…

This is a good thread on the decline of Mikal’s defense.

https://x.com/_analyKnicks/status/1862967974186860769

I’ve mentioned Mikal’s defensive decline and speculated on his athletic decline as well. It’s a real kick in the pants that Grimes ranks 7th in screen navigation. Deuce ranking 2nd should expedite Mikal’s move to the bench.

Weird that Mikal was actually pretty good against ball screens last year, unless it’s a scheme issue.

You’ll get a lot of argument around here on that one from “January Knicks” devotees.

It’s a piss poor argument with no I Hart or Mitch or Precious. Imagine the defense and offense with Randle at the 5 for 40 MPG…

That’s actually quite lame. Should have been taken into account pre-trade (if it was said pre-trade.)

I believe it was said after the trade but before the season started. He was basically echoing what a lot of two way stars have said about the impact of getting the toughest defensive assignments and also being asked to carry a big burden on offense. It’s really tough.

But it’s the 5 unprotected picks (including MIL’s pick in that context) and the pick swap for a non-superstar that dwarfs every prior blunder, even drafting Obi over Hali. There is no justification for such a trade, zero. There must have been, or will be, many ways to use those picks that made more sense. THAT’S what I call an incineration!

I don’t think anyone anywhere would argue that the Bridges trade was good value (even before what we’ve seen so far), but it was a defensible trade IF we were getting the Mikal we thought we or at least they thought we were getting.

Focusing on value is part of how you accumulate the assets you need to eventually put the best possible player at each position. That’s the early part of the process whether you are rebuilding via draft or via draft, free agency and trade.

Once you’ve accumulated enough of those assets and ultimately a few “core players” your standards for value can start declining. At that point you are focused almost exclusively on finding the best possible player available for the remaining positions you need.

At that point, the core was Mitch, Randle, OG, DDV and Brunson.

Upgrading DDV to Mikal was projected to take us to another level because imo and most other opinions Mikal was clearly the better two way player over his career. They overpaid to do it, but they thought that was close to the final piece.

What happened after was Mitch had a setback, they desperately needed a C, have always been interested in Towns anyway and made that move to upgrade C.

The combination of Mikal’s defense falling off a cliff and putting Towns at C created a “fit” problem defensively. That’s where we are now. What they did is defensible. It just didn’t work because Mikal’s defense has been bad. But we still have to get a look at the team when Precious and Mitch are back and we can hope Mikal’s defensive struggles can be worked out. If not, we have an issue.

Fewer minutes might have a positive impact on both his shot and defense.
(…)
Deuce is doing a terrific job. So it might be a double benefit. Deuce is playing better than Bridges anyway and Bridges may improve.

I agree, but i don’t think Thibs will do it. I think he believes in what Mikal is working on and also thinks that the most he plays through it the better. I guess we’ll have to endure this and hope for the best.
Right now, our games are really annoying to watch. I don’t like the games even when we win. LOL. I miss last year’s team. Although we knew we didn’t have a good chance to go far in the postseason, those games were epic.

He’s on record BEFORE all this saying on some podcast that when he increased his role on offense it was tough to keep defending at the same level.

That’s actually quite lame. Should have been taken into account pre-trade (if it was said pre-trade.)

Given what we’ve seen of Mikal’s D, one naturally wonders if his rep on that end has been inflated since the get-go. Or, as is quite possible, he’s materially declined athletically, and with the decline has gone the D. It of course is Leon’s job to try to anticipate these things, though it isn’t always easy.

I’m going to try to refresh everyone’s memory on thiis. I may not have perfect recall on this, but this is what I remember.

Add to what you wrote, “He expressed some marginal disdain at being stuck in the corner, and Thibs put him in the doghouse, and then he was traded.”

Thibs’s emotional volatility on the matter was no good. Overly reliant on the hustlebunny Quentin brought, including in the playoffs, then chateau bow-wow, all in the span of a few basketball weeks.