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134 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2025.01.06)”
Thibs is who he is. This is a historic offense when healthy and Thibs is no slouch on defense.
As long as we have Brunson and Towns healthy for the playoffs and at least 2 of 3 of Mikal/OG/Hart we have a puncher’s chance at a title. A fantastically well-run team is one that can be top-5 for a multi-year window. This team is a super fun and rootable team. I’m in love, but I’m also a glass half full kind of guy.
Let’s take stock of where we are in terms of statistical and real world performance Towns is top 10+. Brunson is top 30, but obviously better real world. OG is top 40, but better since statistics don’t capture his defense. Hart is top 25 statistically, which is insane and probably not sustainable. Mikal , even with a shit start to the season is top 60 statistically and top 30 over the past month. Duce is a great 6th man over the past 2 years but in a bit of a slump. Mitch is a wild card. I’m very happy with Payne — he’s a poor man’s TJ at a fraction of the salary.
Pretty, pretty good.
Okay, so we all agree the minutes thing has become a problem. And we all understand that Thibs is incapable of change on this front, at least when it comes to playing guys he doesn’t think will help the team win a game on a given night. We have seen gladly him run both 9-man and 10-man rotations when he has a deeper roster than the one in front of him. We know he trusts his starters. We know he trusts Deuce. Precious, Payne, and Shamet all seem like guys he’s playing because he has no other options, and has them on the shortest of leashes.
So if we aren’t just punting on the season and accepting a first or second round playoff exit while waiting for the apron restrictions to lessen, Leon, Brock Aller, and company have to find a way to bring in at least one more guy, if not two, whom Thibs will actually play, while staying under the second apron, dealing with the restrictions of being over the first apron, and working with the following assets:
1)Mitch (but really, Mitch’s contract)
2)Precious (ditto)
3)A 2030 pick swap (and also a 2026 pick swap, but that has minimal value at best)
4)The fugazi Wizards pick (which is really two seconds, albeit two seconds that should be pretty high in that round)
5)Two second rounders apiece in the 2025-28 drafts
6)Tyler Kolek
7)Pacome Dadiet
8)Various players on minimum/rookie contracts
So it’s time to make like the NASA ground crew having to make a square peg fit in a round hole in Apollo 13, gentlemen. Your Challenge of the Day is to find a realistic deal that solves our depth problem and doesn’t violate the new CBA. Good luck.
Oh, FFS: the Giants just announced that they are keeping both Schoen and Daboll. I guess it ultimately doesn’t matter, since the real problem is John Mara, and he can’t be fired. But still.
Alan, while I love armchair GMing (not), I think the argument here is how to deal with what we have.
The Knicks stormed back last night with Payne and Shamet on the floor. Admittedly it was KAT playing superman, but still. It was clearly a thing.
Rules like play that group more. Especially on back-to-backs. If you’re up 20 with five minutes to go, put in Kolek and Huk and some others. If you’re down 20 with three minutes to go, do the same.
These are tweaks, not wholesale cultural aberrations. I don’t think this will fix everything that’s problematic, but at least then we can focus on some of the other things and stop fixating on minutes, which I find irritating.
Raven, I look at that as an aberration. The roster has always had to be Thibs-proofed. Once upon a time, that meant getting rid of middling-to-bad veteran security blankets so he wouldn’t play them ahead of the kids. Now it means getting him some more veterans he will actually play, over the generally bad veterans he currently has who are occasionally capable of good play in short bursts. Over time, the risk is too great that one or all three of Payne or Precious or Shamet will have a bad first half, and Thibs will go iron man in the second half, risking injury. Deuce’s return will definitely help, but we need at least seven guys who are firmly in the Circle of Trust, and then we can live with a handful of sketchier vets.
When Mitch comes back we will have 7 guys in the circle of trust. While there are a few trades I could come up with to add one player to that group, most aren’t really credible, and none are for a 3, which is/will be our position of most need. So… Gotta run with what we got, I think.
Can Mitch be trusted to stay healthy even once he’s back? And also, he doesn’t solve the problem of the 1-4 guys playing too many minutes, because I suspect Thibs is much less likely to play him and KAT together than he has with KAT and Precious (a more versatile and switchable defender).
No one will want to here this but here’s the honest response:
That’s a fair question, but it’s not really *the* question, which is more instead “How are you going to take this truncated and deracinated asset chest and not only catch but pass by your competitor peer group, all of whom in addition to having better rosters have far more copious asset chests.”
Leon pretty much burned all the assets. That simply has to be faced. He can tinker around the edges, but the best that can really be done is hope for some kind of highly unlikely miracle. Maybe a coaching change could be some kind of miracle spark to move the needle up enough. Probably not, but it’s probably worth a try.
Trading all those assets for OG Anunoby, Mikal Bridges, and two years of Isaiah Hartenstein (*) simply was not good enough. Doesn’t mean the games aren’t compelling, doesn’t mean it’s not a quality team that can look excellent at times, doesn’t mean we can’t hope … but that’s the cold reality. And, pretty much alone amongst the major sports, the NBA basketball pecking order is a matter of cold reality.
(*) Sam Presti, who took Leon to the cleaners on draft night 2022, now has *both* Jalen Williams and Isaiah Hartenstein. That’s schemeil/schlimazel territory for Leon.
“Putting the minutes distribution aside for a minute, I think falling apart in the 3rd and 4th quarters can definitely be attributed to coaching. I’d be more worried that Thibs was generally out-coached the last two games than who played how many minutes.”
I dunno, this would imply that if the coaches were switched, the outcome would have been different. I think OKC beat us because they have at least a much deeper team, and their starting lineup is at least competitive with ours, if not actually better. They just laid the hammer down on Boston the same way they did to us, was that due to coaching as well? As to the Chicago game, I don’t think it was a case of “Let Coby White shoot.” Our starters, especially Brunson, had no legs on the 2nd night of a B2B after leaving it all on the court vs. OKC. My issue with the coaching there is that it was pretty predictable, so maybe play the scrubs more, or even rest Brunson completely. But then you are virtually guaranteeing a loss. Thibs doesn’t do that, like, ever.
These next 2 games are very important. Friday vs. OKC will likely be another playoff intensity game, so it would be great to be somewhat fresh going in, but Orlando might have Banchero back and the Raptors are getting healthy. So I expect the minutes police to be out in force.
I refuse to believe this.
Leon got us Brunson and on a contract that was the best value in the NBA. He then got him to re-sign on a great value contract.
He signed iHart. He traded for Josh Hart. Hell, even a small move like the DRose move turned out to be a huge boost to our team that season.
He can find us one more dude. DRose cost us a few second rounders. Hart cost us Cam and a late first round pick.
He’s going to figure something out.
My thought is we bet on Mitch to come back. That solves our bigs problem and then Leon focus on getting us a scoring wing to shore up the bench.
He’s got a move up his sleeve we don’t see coming. And it’s going to be a lowkey huge move that will take us to the top.
There is certainly an element of the fanbase who similarly will.
All the people complaining about the minutes over the weekend are conveniently leaving out a pretty important fact that Deuce was out.
Payne should definitely play more, he can be annoying but he’s fine enough. I think Precious too, is at least a cromulent rotation player. Shamet is dicier. Can we afford to bring TJ up from Westchester?
It’s one thing to play your guys heavy minutes when it’s needed. But to play them too many minutes when the game is under complete control is fuckery of a different kind. I love Thibs as Knicks coach, but that is starting to wear very thin. You can’t definitively say playing KAT heavy minutes led to his injury, but you can’t definitively say that it hasn’t. What makes the minute distribution disturbing, is Thibs believes it helps the chemistry between the starters. While that may be true, you still can’t afford to have tunnel vision with that. There is no need for the starters to be still in the game with 2 minutes left of a blowouts. There is also no need to have an 8 man rotation before March. This is the time to get in game reps to the guys you don’t trust as much so that they can be valuable for you down the stretch when that inevitable war of attrition sets in.
I’m somewhere in between E and swifty on this one. I think Leon has done an amazing job of executing the hybrid rebuild. Just not a perfect one. The one “egregious blunder” that I still can’t wrap my head around is the Mikal trade. I love Mikal’s game and it’s water under the bridge, so it’s spilt milk at this point. But it isn’t just that the cost was exorbitant, it’s that it left us bereft of the most fungible of all trade assets…the unprotected first. But then Leon pulled off the KAT deal without including a single unprotected first rounder…which seemed impossible until it happened. This suggests that when Leon is boxed into bargain-hunting and can no longer bid against himself, he can still get stuff done.
Seriously, E, if I told you after the Bridges trade, hey, don’t worry, Leon is gonna offer Minny Randle, DDV, and a fugazi 1st for KAT and Minny is gonna say yes, would you have believed it? I sure wouldn’t have.
And if that deal was out there, others will be out there as well.
I thought Shamet looked pretty good vs. Chicago. Undersized but scrappy, sneaky-good athleticism, stroke looks good. He could definitely play more.
I agree that the Chicago game was somewhat a schedule loss. It seems ridic that the league can’t figure out how to avoid b2bs completely, but whatever.
I do think Thibs was outmaneuvered in OKC though. He didn’t have a secondary game plan once they shut down the offense… how about setting more picks, for instance, to free Brunson at half court or get KAT open at the 3pt line? Is that solely due to exhaustion?
I remember a time, not so far ago, when Thibs’ mantra was “next man up”.
I’m not an expert in basketball rules, but I think you’re not forbidden to play another player when one is injured (does Orlando play only 1 player because 4 starters are out?).
“These next 2 games are very important. Friday vs. OKC will likely be another playoff intensity game, so it would be great to be somewhat fresh going in, but Orlando might have Banchero back and the Raptors are getting healthy. So I expect the minutes police to be out in force.”
Not sure why you think Banchero might be back. He’s firmly listed as “out” with no firm timetable for return, at the moment.
As far as adding another player(s), I have to believe we have an unspoken deal with Okeke and Warren, otherwise, why would they stick around the g-league for this long? There are below-the-cap teams that could afford their vet min salaries… wouldn’t they want to start making $3 mil asap?
“I do think Thibs was outmaneuvered in OKC though. He didn’t have a secondary game plan once they shut down the offense… how about setting more picks, for instance, to free Brunson at half court or get KAT open at the 3pt line? Is that solely due to exhaustion?”
OKC has the best defense in the NBA by a pretty wide margin. Part of having the best defense is to be able to take away whatever an offense is trying to run. The thing is, every defense tries to do that, but you need the personnel to pull it off. They just held the defending champs to 15 in the 3rd and 12 in the 4th. You don’t think Joe Mazzulla tried a bunch of different things?
The good news is that Thibs has game film to study to maybe find some cracks in that defense. But he has his work cut out for him. They are really, really good.
Trades like that would involve Anunoby, Bridges, or even Towns and/or Brunson — which would be an interesting conversation — but I didn’t really understand the question or the conversation to be aimed in that direction, but instead in the direction of moves along the margin.
Mikal is probably still movable given his high-quality contract, Anunoby not so much given his bloated one (*); Towns/Brunson would have very high value. Given his conflicts and down-home affinities, I can’t see Leon trying to move either of the latter.(**)
(*) Both Mikal and OG are still negative BPM players, although Mikal has at least crawled into positive OBPM territory. OG’s still negative offensively. I hope the idea of OG being some kind of unicorn defender — which never passed muster upon review of his career — has passed with the admission through Katz (or Edwards, can’t remember) that the Knicks don’t really have an elite on-ball defender and that OG is seen more as a free safety. He would be tough to move, but it might be worth a try.
(**) After all the dust is settled, it is still the case that Leon had a conflict of interest in the OG deal that would not have been allowed in a senior executive in the corporate world or government. The result showed and shows. He didn’t really represent the Knicks in the transaction, but was instead what we would refer to as “counsel to the deal.”
“Not sure why you think Banchero might be back. He’s firmly listed as “out” with no firm timetable for return, at the moment.”
My bad, I had read some stuff saying that he might be available tonight but I guess not. Suggs is out as well, so they are very depleted. In other words, all of our starters will play 40+ minutes unless we are up 50 with less than 6 minutes left.
Is Reggie Bullock still a free agent?
The answer is for Mitch to get healthy. He’s injury prone, but it’s not like he’s dead. He’ll come back and we’ll see where he can get to this year.
People here have a tendency of talking about players as if every injury is career ending. Posters were talking about Randle’s shoulder like he’d never play more than 5 consecutive games without dislocating it again, but he’s having his most efficient year scoring since before his Knicks tenure. So why should we assume Mitch’s career is over?
Mitch solves our defensive issues. He solves our wing shortage. He solves our size problem. He does everything we need except shoot well, and if his lack of shooting means he doesn’t fit then it becomes an issue you fix in the off-season.
Watching the reply from a few days ago, I think KAT was slightly limping at one point in the 4th against OKC. I’d definitely rest him tonight.
Also on that 4th quarter, the Knicks did look gassed, and many of their shots were short. It was an excellent game, and OKC out hustled them big time when it mattered.
Strange but true, Reggie Bullock owns an island in Belize he named Bullock Island:
https://remaxbelizerealestate.com/belize/reggie-bullock-nba-player-belize-private-island-tour/
“Trades like that would involve Anunoby, Bridges, or even Towns and/or Brunson — which would be an interesting conversation — but I didn’t really understand the question or the conversation to be aimed in that direction, but instead in the direction of moves along the margin.”
Way to skirt a simple yes or no question. I’ll assume that the answer is yes and that you agree that Leon absolutely fleeced the Wolves.
As to the magnitude of that deal vs. what is being discussed here today, the point is that deals can materialize out of nowhere between now and the deadline. Even with our limited assets, good stuff can happen. We don’t need another KAT, or Brunson, or Mikal, or OG. We need another Josh Hart-level player, and we have the assets to get that kind of deal done.
How do you figure that?
If you play KAT and Mitch together, you free up OG to play more at the 3. And you should do it, for the simple reason that we should play our best players as many minutes as possible and Mitch is one of our best players.
We are in a little bit of a gully but I still think we are what we thought we were. Playing a road B2B is silly.
I am in general agreement about Thibs, I said it when we hired him. It is what it is – not ideal. It puts stress on the players. It makes the team look a little better than it is. And it risks alienating players.
That said, the players seem to love him and we haven’t had too many injury issues yet. Hopefully Mitch can get back and Deuce can stay healthy, along with our core 5.
Hell of a win for OKC. You look at the roster and it’s got one name brand player basically. Holding the fully fit Celtics to 27 points in a half is unbelievably impressive. Seriously, can anyone tell me anything substantive about Cason Wallace?
Josh Hart’s as good or better than OG, so the concept that there aren’t enough assets to get an OG but there are to get a Josh Hart doesn’t really compute.
One guy who is clearly going to be available is Cam Johnson, who would be a great get — but I doubt the Nets would take OG for him. Obviously they aren’t going to take Mikal back.
And obviously Jimmy Butler is going to be traded. The Knicks should be all over that, offering up OG or Mikal as the “centerpiece” — but again I doubt the Heat would take OG’s contract back. Maybe Mikal.
If they want to get to the next level, those are the kind of moves it entails.
I don’t know that Thibs will do it. Maybe for what, 5-10 minutes a game? Also it exposes us on the perimeter, doesn’t it.
“Josh Hart’s as good or better than OG, so the concept that there aren’t enough assets to get an OG but there are to get a Josh Hart doesn’t really compute.”
Predictable response. Also skirts the issue. The point is, we don’t need another starter. We need a strong role player to solidify our bench. The Josh Hart transaction served exactly that purpose. When he was acquired, he came off the bench in all but 1 of the 25 remaining games. Ignoring your (totally incorrect) feelings about OG, do you agree that there are enough assets to find another Josh Hart-level player without including any of our current top-6 players?
E’s transition from sneering at Josh Hart as a hustlebunny to now holding up Josh Hart as a vastly superior player to OG is perhaps my favorite of his maneuvers. Just wonderful, wonderful stuff.
And that’s incorrect. Material improvement on OG and Mikal is not only possible, but necessary.
If you’re saying the bench is really thin and needs reinforcements, that part’s entirely correct — but that was a natural and predictable (and predicted) result of Leon’s asset burning.
So the question remains, can the bench be significantly improved without trading any of our top 6 players?
If there’s one thing Thibs loves it’s rim protection, and you can’t protect the rim with KAT at C. So what is it that makes us think he won’t play Mitch with KAT, is it just his refusal to play 2 bigs now? Giving Precious Achiuwa and Jericho Sims extra minutes over Hart is a very different proposition than doing the same for Mitch.
KAT played PF for last year’s #1 defense, and I’d rather be exposed on the perimeter than exposed in the paint.
i thought it was hilarious that the pats let go of their coach immediately after winning a game that screwed up their draft position…
it may have been coming anyways, but, it was like: you dumb ass, you were supposed to lose that game…
we shall see how pick number 3 works out…
“My bad, I had read some stuff saying that he might be available tonight but I guess not. Suggs is out as well, so they are very depleted. In other words, all of our starters will play 40+ minutes unless we are up 50 with less than 6 minutes left.”
Well, you were quite prescient and became more right. Things have changed since the short time since we had that exchange this morning. Both Banchero and Suggs have been moved from “out” to “doubtful,” which in NBA Injury Report parlance means that it is highly, highly unlikely that either one of them play tonight. But they’re definitely getting much closer.
It seems like we’ve played Orlando like seven times already this season (although I know of course that it’s not the case). We have gotten lucky with their unfortunate injury situation, thus far.
“KAT played PF for last year’s #1 defense, and I’d rather be exposed on the perimeter than exposed in the paint.”
I might *generally* agree with that, but we lose games largely based on our inability to protect the perimeter (see our last two games with Aaron Wiggins and the 9-for-11-from-three Coby White).
Z-Man, you’re aware that it’s possible to get both front-line players and bench reinforcements in the same transaction?
Do OG or Bridges have any trade value in your eyes? I hope you’re not suggesting that they’re both “too good” to be traded, or even worse, that OG “does winning things” and so should be untouchable.
Leon should be reaching out constantly seeing what he can get for those guys. That might include the “bench reinforcements” you’re talking about. There are at least two really good players, one a superstar, about to be traded. Cam Johnson, given his contract, is one of the best assets in the association. Where’s Leon?
Knicks are actually 10th in 2pt FG% allowed, problem is they’re 25th in 3pt FG%.
at this point I’m starting to think the magic are due to win against us soon…
injuries and all…
It isn’t 2002 anymore. Even bad teams could close that gap in 90 seconds.
OMG, we lost to the best team in the NBA in their building and an average team the next night and there’s seriously a discussion about Bridges or OG’s trade value?
Blow it up!
Not blow it up. Improve
Oh, I should mention that as good as he’s become and the good contract he’s on makes Josh Hart potentially someone that could bring or help bring quality back. Put him in with OG and Bridges.
Knicks should offer New Orleans both OG and Bridges to see if they’d be willing to trade them Dejounte Murray.
LOL!
The Knicks won’t win too many games with the opponents shooting 45-50% while they shoot below 35%. My hot take is that these two games were basically about 3 pt variance more than anything else. It always looks worse than it is when it’s happening (and the Knicks continue to over-help too much), but there are heaps of evidence that show that these things have a way of reverting to the mean. I’m annoyed but not worried.
The minutes thing is a problem and needs to be fixed, but its consequences are not why they lost these games.
Leon admittedly didn’t assemble the Ntilikina-Dejounte Murray-RJ Barrett-Cam Reddish superteam that was within our grasp, but I still think he did a good enough job for us to contend if we continue to play our cards right.
I’ve said before what EB said above: putting aside the health concerns for a second, the attainable NBA player this team could most use is…Mitchell Robinson. We have middling rebounding and rim protection numbers, and have enough high-quality shot creation to make up for a low-usage guy in basically any lineup configuration. Mitchell Robinson is what the doctor ordered.
Of course, there’s no such thing as “putting aside the health concerns” for longer than the second I asked for when it comes to Mitch. Still, unless the medical staff thinks he’s truly a lost cause, I remain partial to the upside play. We can always trade his salary up until the 2026 deadline if he just can’t make it happen.
As for possible targets, Royce O’Neal would be interesting for us and doable with Precious + 2 minimums (we’d have to rope in a third-team, figure out draft compensation, etc. but the salary framework checks out). The Suns are a complete shit show and should blow this whole thing up ASAP, but they probably won’t.
E, I don’t disagree that no one on our team should theoretically be “untouchable.” But we are so far afield from any speculative transactions you might whip up in your one-track mind that I should probably give up on having a serious conversation with you on what is possible given the obvious realities.
It isn’t made any easier when you bring up Cam Johnson or Jimmy Butler as trade options when we both know that those trades just aren’t going to happen.
Why is it so hard for you to stipulate that we know how you feel about all the parties involved and what you would do if you owned the team? Why do you feel that it is necessary to inject those feelings into every post you make? It really dumbs down the conversation.
Since today’s early thread is all about trading Knicks for whatever, anyone have access to ESPN Insider? Apparently there’s a column on one player who could/should be traded for every NBA team, and wondering who they picked for the Knicks.
https://www.espn.com/nba/insider/story/_/id/43298903/nba-trade-deadline-2025-player-watch-all-30-teams
they picked the one and only Mitchell Robinson..
Bullock was actually a guy I thought about yesterday with this discussion.
He’s 33. He seems to be a pretty up and down player but when he’s up, he’s a good defender who can hit the 3.
He’s the definition of a limited 3 and D guy but IMO, he could be a minutes soaker. And that’s really what we’re looking for.
It’s not about finding some game changer off the bench (though we should look for that too). Right now, though, it’s about some bench pieces thibs will trust to play 20ish a game.
“My hot take is that these two games were basically about 3 pt variance more than anything else.”
Couldn’t disagree more about the OKC game. They defended the 3pt line better and got better looks than we did.
Everything old is new again. Macri and Jeremy Cohen did a long podcast about guys we could potentially trade for, and Cohen’s best answer was Doogie’s favorite player in the Notional Basketball Associative himself, Alva Shirks.
Notional. Nice. 🙂
Alphonso Blumenstein would be a nice get for Sims and nominal draft compensation, but Jeremy’s proposal rang a bit too much like Pat Riley doing the Knicks a solid, and I share Macri’s skepticism on that front.
How are two players who are virtually certain to literally be traded in the next few weeks, “speculative transactions”?
Are you saying that Leon isn’t going to participate for whatever reason? OK, if that’s what you’re saying, then he’s going about this whole thing all wrong. Wouldn’t you agree?
Dorian Finney-Smith fits the bill of what strat and others are describing very well and he was moved recently. Nothing speculative there, either. Was Leon involved?
(It should be noted that Leon’s conflict continues, inasmuch as if he moved OG, he’d be doing bad by his kid’s client and therefore by his kid. No reason at all to trust that not entering Leon’s personal calculus.)
More idiocy. 🙂
“Are you saying that Leon isn’t going to participate for whatever reason? OK, if that’s what you’re saying, then he’s going about this whole thing all wrong. Wouldn’t you agree?”
No, what I’m saying is that a) he won’t go after Cam Johnson because Cam Johnson would not be an upgrade over any of the players it would cost to get him, and b) he won’t go after Jimmy Butler because he is an overpriced, oft-injured and probably close to washed up locker room cancer. You can disagree with this reasoning, but I personally would want no part of either guy at the price they will command.
“Dorian Finney-Smith fits the bill of what strat and others are describing very well and he was moved recently. Nothing speculative there, either. Was Leon involved?”
We don’t know if Leon checked in or not, but what could we have offered that would top what the Lakers gave up, factoring in cap constraints?
Going back to the idea of losing after being up a lot with five minutes to go when you put in the bench, this just in:
‘It may seem like comebacks from double-digit leads are common these days, but through Sunday, teams are 458-141 (.765) in games in which they held a double-digit lead. That includes a 326-111 mark (.746) when holding a double-digit lead at any point in the first half.
With the league-wide 3-point rate continuing to climb, it would seem that quarter-to-quarter variance is much bigger now than it was 10 or 20 years ago. But that .765 winning percentage in games led by double-digits isn’t a huge drop from 2014-15 (.789) or 2004-05 (.794).’
Doesn’t directly answer the question, but it’s an interesting data point.
Thibs played Alfred E. Neuman 13.5 minutes per game last year, and DNP’d him several times.
Then that starts to answer the question of whether a decent added piece is available with Leon’s depleted asset chest and bloated cap sheet.
OK, then — the answer is that you really don’t know much about Cam Johnson. Or Leon doesn’t. Got it. Kind of what I figured, honestly.
I mean, yeah, why go out and get a long 4 BPM wing? Especially when you have two major minute wings at negative BPM. Yeah — makes no sense. Especially when he’s got three postseasons left on his contract making half what your negative BPM wing’s making.
“Then that starts to answer the question of whether a decent added piece is available with Leon’s depleted asset chest and bloated cap sheet.”
No, it means that Leon wasn’t in the utterly desperate situation that the Lakers are to vastly overpay for a particular guy. And that’s the benefit of being in the Knicks’ situation right now. They actually don’t have to do anything desperate because they don’t have a declining 40yo as their player-GM.
There will be much better opportunities than grossly overpaying for the likes of DFS between now and the deadline.
And yet *more* idiocy. LOL
VPN outside of the U.S. and try again. For the Knicks they picked Mitch.
Jonas Valanciunis? Maybe we should trade for someone who doesn’t suck instead.
(not knocking you da rules)
“OK, then — the answer is that you really don’t know much about Cam Johnson. Or Leon doesn’t. Got it. Kind of what I figured, honestly.
I mean, yeah, why get a 4 BPM player? Especially when you have two major minute wings at negative BPM. Yeah — makes no sense.”
Cam Johnson is a terrible defender and a one-dimensional offensive player. Brooklyn is rebuilding and looking for picks. We have none to offer. He’s signed to a below-market contract for the next few years, so they are under no pressure to deal him, and can wait until someone throws a Mikal Bridges-level overpay at them. Overpaying for him will not make us better, either in the dhort or long term.
Raven — I think that a team that goes up 20 usually wins because they are, usually, the better team. There is, obviously, a point in which putting scrubs in is safe, but it’s not really clear what that time is without having to sweat.
I’m sure Okeke or Warren would take their first offer. We won’t be able to sign both of them.
“either in the dhort or long term.”
Still stuck on Luguentz, I see…
Can we stop with the posts where we post a stat about a player that someone has proposed we get in a limited bench role and then say “he sucks.”
Unless you’re talking about a 6th Man of the Year winner or Ginobli, we aren’t talking about dudes that are going to have eye popping stats. These are regular season minute soakers whose job is to come in and play while starters rest and not shit the bed.
Also, if you’re looking at a starter for a currently bad team, their advanced stats are not going to be great. But if you’re proposing we get that starter from a bad team and move him to a bench role, their advanced stats as a starter on said shitty team are basically meaningless since their usage and role will completely change.
I mean, did Bobby Porter put up eye popping advanced stats when he played for us? Does that mean it was dumb for The Bucks to get him?
“did Bobby Porter put up eye popping advanced stats”
In fact yes, he did — have you seen Bobby Portis’s face?
Okay, E. Put together a trade in the trade machine for Cam Johnson. Let’s see you make that work in a way that makes sense for all parties. Go ahead, we’ll wait. Show your work and explain why a rebuilding team like Brooklyn would accept our trade package for Cam Johnson.
Once you fail to do that, please find some other way to waste everybody’s time.
lol sure am!
Lol, touche.
E, I know you get confused, but it’s not Cam Reddish who plays for the Nets.
““either in the dhort or long term.”
Still stuck on Luguentz, I see…”
Even I left that one alone. 🙂
E can’t pine away for Cam Reddish anymore, because it would mean acting like he never thought Josh Hart was the greatest thing since sliced bread. E has always been at war with Eastasia.
We could probably get Dejounte Murray for a bag of slightly used jockstraps. Maybe Leon should get on that one. Remember him, Dejounte Murray? Man, we’d be killing it if we had that guy!
NBA trade machine says we have a trade exception from Malachi Flynn worth 3.9 million – that’s enough to trade for a minimum guy unless I’m mistaken, right?
I actually think E was right that the Knicks should have traded for Dejounte Murray, so that they could then flip him for Dyson Daniels. He would have been great!
A huge percentage of our asset issue is that we lost I-Hart for nothing.
The OG trade was fine. Maybe he’s a slight overpay now, but that’s not the problem.
The Bridges trade was an overpay, but part of that was that he is on a very attractive contract. That was part of the premium price.
It’s hard to know how it would have all shook out if I-Hart didn’t leave in free agency. Maybe there would have been a 3 team trade that sent
I-Hart out, landed Towns here, but brought back a solid bench piece to replace DD (or DDV could have stayed). There’s too many moving parts and potential moving parts to know, but that was the main blow. He was a valuable asset and we got nothing for him.
We technically have that trade exception and maybe one other, Kaminari, but we’re not allowed to use them, because we’re over the first apron.
My hopes of trading a second round pick for the vaunted Cam Reddish have once again been dashed. Sorry E – I tried…
Jeremy Cohen made the same point today, Strat. It’s one of the few times in the Rose administration where we haven’t been able to get some kind of asset for a player on his way out the door. (Elric Borque was another.) But the nature of the Early Bird trap we wound up in made that impossible, since iHart was only going to leave to make more money, and we couldn’t give him that much money in a sign-and-trade.
I’ve been saying it for a quite awhile.
IMO we spend too much time talking about OG and Mikal (especially since Mikal is playing so well now) and not enough just coming to terms with the fact that I-Hart played so well once Mitch got hurt, he played himself off the Knicks and there was nothing we could do about it.
I’m not sure if there’s anyone to blame for that because I don’t know what I-Hart’s orginal contract negotiation with the Knicks was like.
Could we have locked him in longer?
I don’t know.
I just know that was the development that hurt the rebuild most. It wasn’t OG or Mikal.
Out for Magic tonight: Banchero, Suggs, Harris, and both Wagners.
In for the Magic tonight: Scotty Scrubb, Gerry Geeleeg, Tommy Twelthman
Get ready for the Mac McClung game.
The Mac McClung Game?
Damn you, Donnie! I lost time looking up to see whether he was still alive…
Who are we kidding? It’s going to be another Goga game, *especially* if KAT is out!
One nice thing about a Knicks team that wins a lot more than it loses is we get way fewer E posts.
LOL d-mar
Reserve minutes required to keep Brunson, OG and KAT @ 33min & Mikal and Hart @ 38 min total is 65.
Deuce 30
Precious/Mitch 15
Payne/Kolek 10
Shamet/Warren 10
This is not rocket science and you can’t tell me that these veterans backups who used to be starters on playoff level teams can’t hold down the fort against other backups for 5 or 7 minutes per half on consistent basis. He’s even cut Deuce minutes when he was off or missed a couple of defensive assignments.
Sure the delta dropoff between Kat and Precious and between Brunson and Payne is material and its tempting to cheat a minute here and there but a manager must resist the urge of short term gain. There can be short term variances of foul trouble, match ups or injuries. This is not an over reaction but a structural management problem.
Thibs manages KAT the same way he manages Mitch. This is why he can’t have nice things.
Three trades that fit Alan’s criteria:
Jericho Sims straight up for Torrey Craig, a perfectly cromulent veteran wing currently languishing on the bench in Chicago. Would immediately enter Thibs’ circle of trust.
Jericho Sims for Javonte Green, also a perfectly cromulent but somewhat less seasoned wing languishing on the bench in New Orleans. Hustlebunny guy who would more than likely enter Thibs’ circle of trust.
Sims for Josh Richardson. Again, a cromulent bench wing. This one is less likely than the others simply for the fact that the Heat are not obviously rebuilding despite trading Butler and therefore may want to hang onto the salary for trade matching purposes.
All three could be had for Sims and a single second, likely. Or even Sims + cash considerations. All three are good enough to make our bench a little deeper and play spot minutes, or fill in more substantially when injuries occur.
There are other trades for other players that make sense but are more substantial, involving either Mitch or Precious. Assuming we don’t want to rock the boat too much, these three trades are probably our best options for tinkering at the margins.
Shams:
This is the exact problem I pegged after the first week of the season and the only solution is still the same: trade Mikal Bridges in a 1-for-2 or 1-for-3 reverse consolidation trade.
It was never about his poor shooting. He’s the only guy we can afford to lose that has enough value to raise our ceiling.
Or we can keep him and, like you said, accept our place as a highly entertaining mezzanine team.
TJ Warren is absolutely tearing up the G-League, which I don’t put any stock in at all except for the fact that it might indicate he’s not completely physically washed.
At the moment, we can’t sign him until sometime in March since the prorated minimum would take us over the second apron until then. If we make a trade at/by the deadline that lowers our payroll a little, that timeline would move up a bit. It could move up to right after the trade is made/the deadline, depending on the numbers.
It’s possible we have a wink-wink deal with him in place that has thus far prevented him from catching on somewhere else, though that’s anyone’s guess.
It’s annoying being hard-capped because you have to resent the fact that Jericho Sims is being paid all of $2.1M.
I’ve said it before but it bears repeating: if your rebuild is derailed by one of the players you’ve taken a flier on becoming or revealing himself to be unexpectedly awesome, you fucked up the rebuild by failing to give yourself the ability to realize the upside on your moves.
Everything about our current inexorable trajectory towards being all in but just short of true contention flows from iHart.
The fact that OKC got him is just galling. I am honestly convinced that the next 5 years will show them to be the greatest team of all time. Their foundational trio would be the best PG, wing, and big in the history of our franchise, respectively. Every player is elite defensively. Their 6th through 10th rotation guys could all credibly start for us. They don’t have a single weakness and they’re all either young with massive upside or already MVP level.
SGA is modern day Michael Jordan and Williams is modern Pippen. We don’t have a single advantage anywhere:
SGA >> Brunson
Holmgren > Towns
Williams >> Bridges
Dort/Caruso > OG/Hart
Their 50 other quality 3&D wings >> our bench
They don’t play a single player over 35 MPG. Only one plays over 33, and only three play over 30 (one of them, iHart, will play less when Chet returns). If they played a rotation like ours they are a 75 win team. We’ve never seen anything like it and they will only get better.
I don’t think we can get Craig or Richardson, because as best I can tell the difference between their salaries and Sims’ would take us over the second apron, and we’d be sending out less money than we’d be taking back even if that weren’t true.
Important caveat: these days everything I say about the NBA salary cap is with low-confidence.
As much as I don’t mind trading Sims, that leaves Precious as the only backup C (and he’s really more of a PF). We’ll need another center from somewhere because Hukporti doesn’t Look ready.
@TNFH
I thought so to, but all three trades went through the Fanspo trade machine (which includes apron information) without a hitch. Obviously the trade machine is not infallible, but I am not an expert enough capologist to know when it’s wrong. Paging EB or milo.
@Ess
These trades also allegedly work with Dadiet or Kolek. Personally, I trust Hukporti about as much as I trust Sims, since Sims is awful. Though the real question is whether Thibs would.
The alternative to not trading Bridges is we have a lot of fun the next two years even though we’ll never win the chip and we cross our fingers that Kolek, Dadiet, Hukporti develop and that we get lucky on the fringes. Then in two years when we can trade our 2033 pick maybe Leon can finish the job.
I’ve already accepted this is the path we’re on.
Jowles, this clown is doing your schtick.
So I went to see if I could find TJ Warren’s stats in the G League and some AI jumped in and told me this, which seemed a bit presumptuous:
“Warren is on a tear for Westchester this season. Per Knicks Muse, the NC State legend is averaging 25.1 points, 6.7 rebounds, 3.6 assists, and 1.9 steals per game on a stellar 51.8 percent shooting from the field in the G League. He is everything that the Knicks need right now.”
https://www.basketball-reference.com/gleague/players/w/warretj01d.html
Allen Iverson got this one right!
Dunno why I’m bothering to respond but Chet is not better than KAT and Dort/Caruso is definitely nowhere close to being better than Hart/OG.
Since he already shocked the shit out of me with the KAT trade (i.e. that he traded DDV before the ‘Nova boys played a single game) I don’t really put anything past Leon. In fact, I’d be rather surprised if all of our starting 5 are still on the team in 2 years.
Basically what Hubert said, with the slight caveat of doing not a reverse consolidation trade with Mikal or OG but instead simply trading them for a better player. Each should be offered for Butler, e.g., whether Miami would bite I’m not sure. Probably not, maybe on Mikal. There’s no point in waiting for a miracle, and really no time inasmuch as Mikal’s contract is up after next year.
The rebuild was tanked by the draft night 2022 disaster, and the OG/Mikal trades. Ranger fans have a similar narrative (and debate) about the Ranger rebuild and the better message boards have vigorous and honest discussions thereof with multiple perspectives honestly chewed over. Many hold it to have been rushed, and the Knick one was similarly rushed.
I’ll throw out one guy that’s bound to be divisive but I would pretty happy to get:
Russell Westbrook is a one-man bench.
He doesn’t solve our height issue, which is really our #1 problem, but he can eat a lot of innings for you while the starters rest.
Denver kind of needs him but if anything happens to Porter or Murray and they fall out of the race I can see a trade coming together.
lol that’s not a slight caveat that’s a whole different proposal!
Both involve moving on from the acquired players soon.
I did it. I assembled the DrEam TEam. Dynasty, commence.
so wait, that deal would increase our win total by a game…
Maybe Melo can get in shape and come out of retirement.
EPM has Holmgren in the 95th percentile in a small sample size. Based on last year’s sample he is projected at 98th percentile.
KAT is 96thpercentile. KAT is in his prime and Chet is 21. If we offered KAT for Chet + bad contracts we’d be laughed out of the room. Chet is better than KAT. Very soon he will be a LOT better.
Dort is 82nd percentile.
Caruso is 69th percentile in only 398 minutes played shooting ~100 points below his career TS%. Incorporating larger samples he is projected at 86th percentile.
OG is 78th percentile and Hard is 83rd. Their wings are better than ours.
These aren’t controversial hot takes I’m serving up, this is borne out by the most respected AIO metric available today. We don’t have an advantage anywhere against OKC. I’m not sure any team does other than SAS and DEN at the C spot (for now) and MIL at PF.
For fuck’s sake, they have 4 of the top 6 defenders in the league!
This is so fucking funny. Good job!
Denver is 20-14 and have the best player on the planet. Why would they make any trade that didn’t upgrade their roster?
@Swift If Melo can average 16, 9, and 6 per 36 like Westbrook currently is, let’s sign him up.
@Noble they’re 2 games out of 9th in the West, hence why I said “if they fall out of the race.” They have a lot of injury prone guys on their team. If Murray and Porter go down maybe they look to next year and take the draft compensation.
I guess to really complete the drEam tEam we’d have to see how much it would take to buyout Partizan’s 6th man.
“most respected AIO metric” is funny
sounds like dancing about architecture
isn’t this what r-squared is for?
A lot of panicking. If OKC is the greatest team of all-time, there’s not much to do about it. No GM is overcoming that asset chest anytime soon, regardless of the moves they make. If it comes to pass, all there is to do is hope we sell Brunson & KAT near their peak to accumulate the draft capital necessary to compete with Presti in the future. It won’t much matter what we do now, will do next year or did do last year.
Cope I guess but it’s not like EPM is hallucinating. The team’s on-court performance is exactly what EPM predicts it would be based on the players.
Sorry but when have we as a franchise ever sold high on anything? We buy high. Sometimes in the Leon era we at least buy low. But we always, always, always sell low on everything, ever. We’ll ride Brunson & Towns into the ground and be an assetless/pickless tanking team before 2030.
EPM riffs off team on-court performance significantly more than predicting it.
Sorry I can’t hear you over your selective use of BPM to argue for Cam Johnson but mysterious unwillingness to use it for RJ Barrett.
Still waiting on that feasible Cam Johnson-To-Knicks trade idea
Have at it:
https://www.espn.com/nba/trademachine
Anunoby isn’t eligible to be traded until January 15. Check back in with me then.
In any event, it’s bizarre to defend against Leon’s dissipation of assets with “don’t talk about really good, available players who are really hard to the Knicks to acquire because Leon dissipated all the assets.”
Writ large, to move the needle up where most (not all) of us want it to go means trading Anunoby, Bridges, Brunson or Towns for better players. That’s what happens when you singe the asset chest. If you like those four dudes for their own sake and are happy with quality basketball short of contention, you’ll enjoy watching them.(*) But that isn’t the audience I’m addressing.
(*) At least until Mikal’s contract runs out after next year.
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