Knicks Morning News (2025.01.07)

“Max says:
January 7, 2025 at 02:32
Now you’re just trolling.

Nah, I’m deferring to Breen who called him “Carter” all night long…”

Nope, still don’t know who “Carter” is…….well, not who he *is*, but who Breen was referencing in that manner. It cannot be assumed that everyone on this forum is watching every game. 🙂

Ruh roh. DDV is starting in Minneapolis now. 31 minutes, 15 points, 9 rebounds, and 3-for-8 from 3. I guess he’s a point guard now, too. Conley isn’t injured. Julius with a classic 2-for-10 night for 5 points. Maybe they can’t both play well on the same night.

Doogie, are you serious?

My “live comment” was about a dumb turnover by Orlando’s Wendell Carter (Jr.).
Where’s the problem?

Because I wasn’t watching the game, so it was totally out of context. So yes, I was serious. As I said, it cannot be assumed that everyone on here is tuned in to every game, and thus comments should be contextualized. Or did I miss the edict stating that everyone reading a game thread on here *must* also be watching the associated game simultaneously? 🙂

I was working on my laptop in my office. Both of my televisions are in completely separate rooms. I don’t want to carry my laptop around between rooms. This is easy to understand. LOL

I think I’ve figured it out. It all comes down to the fact that Doogie thinks you should only post from a computer, like it’s 2003 and not 2024.

and thus comments should be contextualized.

During a game thread where we write, mostly short messages, mere seconds after the actions happen?

We were playing the Orlando Magic and you, a poster on a blog of basketball maniacs, couldn’t connect the dot about a “Carter” (he’s not a star, but he’s a well known player)?

I don’t know (and I don’t care) about people’s opinion of you in your real life but I know how you sound on this blog: an insufferable petulant asshole.

Yeah, I know who Carter is……. I just didn’t know that it was who you were referencing. And yes, I do post from my phone sometimes, and when I do, I fix the autocorrect errors introduced by it. Last night I just happened to be on my laptop.

I don’t really care if you think that I’m insufferable, petulant, an asshole, or any combination of those things, as I rest easy that I’m none of those things.

This is actually slightly better than reading about last night’s game.

This is actually slightly better than reading about last night’s game.

The team looked tired, miserable, and scared. In this kind of game you need your hungry bench guys come in and change the momentum, but somehow the veteran coach doesn’t get it.

LOL, hubert.

Doogie, please fucking stop being so obtuse!

Are we able to sign Okeke or Warren to 10-day contracts now? That would be one way to get a look at them.

OK. And everyone else can stop intentionally misspelling players’ names. Deal. 🙂

I wasn’t watching the game, so it was totally out of context. So yes, I was serious.

If that’s the case, how come you didn’t ask who Mosconi is?

I’ve been pretty reluctant to criticize Thibs this year. I understand darules’ point: every now and then you have to let the young bucks out of the barn and last night seemed like a good time to do it.

But let’s look at it a little deeper:

– Dadiet is not NBA ready. He’s struggling in Westchester.

– Tyler Kolek can play but Brunson and Payne were both available.

– Hukporti looks lively but Precious and Sims were available and it’s not like either of them are worn down.

I get the frustration with Thibs but all you have to do is look at the depth chart of guys who are either legit NBA players or playable rookies:

1 Brunson, Payne, Kolek
2 Bridges, Hart, McBride
3 Anunoby
4
5 Towns, Achiuwa*, Sims, Hukporti

This was all obvious when the season began and the lot of you were screaming at people (mostly me) for not being patient enough. No amount of patience or gelling is going to fix this roster’s terrible lack of depth & balance.

* I know Achiuwa is a natural 4 but with Towns out he’s a 5; you simply cannot play Achiuwa with Sims. Even with him at 4 the balance is still fucked.

“I don’t really care if you think that I’m insufferable, petulant, an asshole, or any combination of those things, as I rest easy that I’m none of those things.”

The very essense of being an insufferable, petulant asshole is not really caring one is an insufferable, petulant asshole.

This coming from a guy who is universally beloved outside of this blog. If you don’t believe me, just ask him!

Isn’t McCullar a four. I mean not that he’s played a lick, but ESPN claims he’s back soon. I know I’m dreaming here.

Jaylin Brunson
Carl Anfernee Townes
OMG Anunoby
Mikel Bridges
Josh Heart
Myles McBride
Ban Doogie
Cameroon Pain
Jeriko Sims
Pervis Achiuwa
Pacôme Djenon Dadiet

Hubs, I think you’re mostly right but I think a lot of this is stemming from Towns getting hurt when we’re down 13 with 90 seconds left on a back to back. It felt like D Rose (obviously not that severe).

It’s the overall short sightedness.

Here is what is weird to me. The first year thibs was here, we were not expected to make the playoffs but we grinded out as a 500 team most of the season and then made a push at the end once we got Rose. Thibs played a mostly 9 or 10 man rotation that season (next man up).

The next year, we regress. But Thibs still plays a 9 or 10 man rotation.

The next year we get Brunson and really take a leap forward but that leap begins when Thibs permanently shortens the rotation to 9 people. Even after we acquire Hart by sending out a player who was not in the rotation, Thibs keeps the 9 man rotation, pushing Deuce out even though inserting Deuce into the rotation was part of what shored up our defense that season and turned things around. And even when he’s called to play when there’s an injury and he does well, the second that injured player returns, he goes back out.

OK, fine. We win our first playoff series in almost a decade. It’s all good.

Last season, we bring basically the exact same team back. Deuce has a summer of development. You would think Thibs would think “OK, now I have a full training camp, Deuce is a year older…I can go back to a 10 man.” NOPE. Again a 9 man rotation.

Then the team gets decimated with injuries but we get through it (for the most part) and the team again gets to the 2nd round but basically falls apart with injuries.

OK, so we’re all thinking get Randle healthy, we’ll come back with the same team and be stronger cause we’ve added Bridges to the mix. Only iHart leaves and Mitch is still injured. So Leon has to make a move to get a center. He pulls off a brilliant trade for Towns but it’s a 2 for 1.

The rotation is going to be thin. We knew this. But honestly, there is no reason not to have a 9 man when healthy once Precious returned even without Mitch or Shamet.

Brunson/Payne
Mikal/Deuce
Josh
OG/Precious
KAT/Sims

I get there are issues playing Sims and Precious together. I get that Kolek, Dadiet and huk are raw and maybe not ready (though I think Kolek is ready to at least not fuck things up).

But he’s tightening the minutes on top of shortening the rotation. It’s fucking insanity.

It’s like the better we get, the more narrow minded he gets. He was ok with a bigger rotation when we weren’t as good but now that we’re actually pretty good he doesn’t trust the bench AT ALL.

Yes, Deuce is out. But give me a fucking break, man. Play Kolek. Try Huk for a few minutes. Give Payne and Precious and Shamet a few more minutes.

This isn’t difficult.

Because I wasn’t watching the game, so it was totally out of context

Well then, maybe the god damn game thread wasn’t the place for a level of pedantry I previously thought was unattainable, even for you. Maybe you could’ve just lived with the fact that you would’ve understood “Carter” referred to “Carter Jr.” (often referred to colloquially without the suffix) had you been watching the game.

Anyway, you’ve been here a while but I still eagerly await your first interesting post. Looking forward to it!

I basically like Thibs and have come to accept his blind spots, but part of being a good coach is managing the whole roster. If he can’t find spot minutes for guys and have them somewhat ready, then he is failing at that part of the job. We have this problem every year. It needs to be addressed.

McCullar is a 6’6″ wing. He was a tough defender at Kansas. He might be useful if he can get healthy. Then again, Toppin always looks solid on the defensive side of the ball.

Doogie’s act … or “Carmelo Anthony 2014 versus Cole Aldrich 2016, who ya takin’???” and “anyone can get shots off and generate usage at the association level”??

Hmmm, let me ponder for a bit.

“If that’s the case, how come you didn’t ask who Mosconi is?”

Because I never saw anyone mention him. That’s probably the most important reason. I don’t read everything that everyone types over the course of a game thread.

And you’re an idiot 10 times over, Donnie. LOL

Ban me for what, exactly? I’ve *literally* done nothing wrong. 🙂

“Anyway, you’ve been here a while but I still eagerly await your first interesting post. Looking forward to it!”

I have plenty of interesting posts. You can read, right? LOL

Maybe KAT is the only “irreplaceable” player on the actual roster?
The fall from him to Sims/Precious/Huk is huge.

JB’s bad shooting slump from deep (5-39 in his last 8 games) isn’t helping, nor is OG (13-42 in his last 8) but I find yesterday’s perma-benching of Kolek disappointing, considering Payne’s play.
And if I need to play two bigs, with Precious at the “4” I’d rather try some minutes of Huk, Jericho is a total zero on offense.

The rookies actually did their part in the few games when they were used outside of garbage time (Hukporti in november vs the Nets and december vs Detroit, Kolek recently vs Utah).

Couldn’t watch the game again. Thought this Tommy Beer tweet about second half performances in the last three games was interesting.

https://x.com/TommyBeer/status/1876649972168319417

Last night was a stinker for sure, but big picture it didn’t really tell non-resisters anything we don’t already know; that said, there’s probably a cohort of people who aren’t already out on Thibs that might be using it as a data point for their considerations and evaluations and it certainly wasn’t a data point in his favor.

My two random takeaways are that it was interesting to watch a team play actual, no bullshit great perimeter defense and contrast that with the Knicks and I also found it rather comical that the Knicks for whatever reason got the idea in their head that Tristen da Silva on OG Anunoby was some kind of massive pro-Knicks mismatch, so much so that they force-fed iso’d it on a possession with like three minutes to go in the game — with predictable results.

Doogie’s posts are extremely interesting! If you don’t believe me, just ask him!

Isaiah Stewart still wouldn’t be a bad guy to get our hands on.

“Doogie’s posts are extremely interesting! If you don’t believe me, just ask him!”

Correct! Thank you so much, Z-man!

none of us are perfect…

one of my flaws comes out in to plain view when someone irks me…

my default grievance devolves in to one or more of three main issues: either someone is Lazy, Stupid or Fat…

i have had this thought about thibs in the past, but, more and more I am pretty certain thibs is simple minded…

not necessarily stupid, just very limited in his ability to reason and put shit together…

FIRE THIBS!!!

Edit: oh yeah, wouldn’t hurt thibs to get on the treadmill a bit more…needs to stop worrying so much about his failing hair follicles and their color, and get himself in better shape…

short sighted and simple minded…

someone else already mentioned it, but it is like thibs thinks he found some secret cheat code by playing his starters more minutes…

no chance of beating the thunder on friday; however there is now the very real possibility of us losing to the raptors…

Okay, Raven’s grades for the game:

OG: D
Invisible Man. Shot was garbage, neither created for himself or for others, basically stood in the corner like an early career Grimes. Defense didn’t seem egregious, but was also not notable as it sometimes can be.

Hart: B
Want to rag on the guy, but that might be my mood – 15-14 double-double is pretty Hartistic. Often felt like the only Knick who wasn’t playing while drugged.

Sims: C
Fairly cromulent game as a center, pulling down 11 rebounds in under 30 minutes, but GET A BABY HOOKSHOT FOR GOD’S SAKE! His desperation to not score has reached epic proportions. The entire Garden was yelling at him.

Bridges: B
Generally decent game, and the only guy who seemed to know where the bucket was (outside of Payne who knew where it was but couldn’t hit it).

Brunson: F
Yeah, an F. He scored over 20 in some of the most painful, irksome shooting of the year. It was like watching a tiny version of Julius Randle, ball-stopping of epic proportions where the entire rest of the team stopped moving entirely while Randle – I mean Brunson – dribbled and dribbled. What he needed to do was have over 20 assists. When your team’s energy sucks, and you’re the point guard, and the captain, your job is to get the others going, not try to win the game all by yourself.

Precious: C
I want to crap on the guy, but he was 5-6. He was also -14, worst on the team, which felt like had to do a lot with poor defensive decision-making, allowing free paths to the basket for the Magic, especially in the fourth.

Shamet: D
A husk. A shell. He did play some pesky defense, so there’s that, but 0-3 in 20 minutes isn’t going to cut it for a key bench piece. Which I think he is not. In his defense, he was the only positive +/-, at +1.

Payne: D
Also pesky defense (why did we not go after the Magic on defense until the game was over?), but pretty useless otherwise, and his unconscious shooting is wearing thin.

Thibs: F
A real Thibs loss in my book. The team had no energy to start, the team had no energy to end. “The coach has no impact” argument got a strong data point last night. Two starters well over 40 minutes, two starters at 35. Eight man rotation. Nothing new tried (see Huk, Kolek). He could have written his plan on a napkin and given it to an assistant and stayed home watching “Friends” and eating donuts. A real failure of creativity and leadership.

On-on…

Definitely Day’Ron Sharpe. 6-foot-9, 265. Last night had 16 points and 13 rebounds (9 offensive) on 8-for-13 shooting in 22 minutes.

1/3 of the posts here today are spam garbage trolling.

Getting near critical mass here. This is like MySpace in 2014

Maybe KAT is the only “irreplaceable” player on the actual roster?
The fall from him to Sims/Precious/Huk is huge.

We’ve known for awhile we need a legitmate backup C.

The hope was Mitch would be back and in shape by now, but that didn’t work out.

The next best hope was Hukporti would develop during the season and be ready to take that spot by the all-star break. That’s not working out so far either.

We have a few weeks until the trade deadline to see what happens with Mitch. I’m sure Leon knows we have an issue.

JB’s bad shooting slump from deep (5-39 in his last 8 games) isn’t helping, nor is OG (13-42 in his last 8) but I find yesterday’s perma-benching of Kolek disappointing, considering Payne’s play.

They are dead tired. They won’t say it out loud and throw Thibs under the bus in the same way he won’t blame any individual player for a loss. But they are obviously tired. It’s criminal that Kolek is not getting minutes with Deuce out. I don’t care if his defense is weak. I’d rather him get the experience and not kill our players.

The problem is Thibs in incapable of thinking past the current game.

He simply does not understand that the team is better off with 48 wins in the regular season and being fresh and healthy at the start of the playoffs than winning 54 games and having Towns, OG and Brunson nursing injuries and even Mikal and Hart tired.

The only solution is to have a team so deep in talent that even an idiot-savant like Thibs plays 10 guys and gives star players a game off here or there when they are tired or nursing something minor.

Since that’s not going to happen, we have to hope Leon pulls a rabbit out of the hat and somehow adds at least one player besides Mitch that can play or we are going to limp into the playoffs and probably get knocked out early.

“1/3 of the posts here today are spam garbage trolling.
Getting near critical mass here. This is like MySpace in 2014”

For sure, JK. For sure. I never had a MySpace account, but I can imagine.

Hell, Dwight Powell is probably pretty cheap.

Serious question: The trade machine says that the Knicks can’t make one-for-one trades even when the player traded makes more money than the player coming in. Is that accurate? I’m not seeing anything in the apron restrictions indicating that.

I get that they’re hard-capped at an apron — second as best I can tell (Sportrac) — and that carries some restrictions with it, but how is that implicated when they’re reducing salary in a plain vanilla two-team, one-for-one trade?

I like Walker Kessler and all, but I did not have him as the boyfriend of Miss America on my bingo card. We’ll just leave it at that.

I don’t think the minutes was the issue last night. Hart played the most and was fine, even good. Mikal played about as much and was also fine, even good. Jalen and OG played 35, which seems about right to me, and they were not good. Then add only having third and fourth string centers available, and that’s the game. Put Precious and Sims together and I still don’t think you have a cromulent NBA player.

Doogie, every time you post something ridiculous from now on I’m going to armchair psychoanalyze you.

Have you ever considered that you might have OCD? Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a mental health condition that causes people to experience recurring thoughts and repetitive behaviors:

Obsessions: Uncontrollable and irrational thoughts that can cause anxiety

Compulsions: Repetitive actions that people feel they must perform to relieve the distress caused by their obsessions

Btw, OCD and Autism are often found together, so maybe get those both checked on.

I don’t think the minutes was the issue last night.

It’s a cumulative thing.

Play Kolek

I agree, we’re probably at a point where if the team needs a spark Thibs should try Kolek & Hukporti, even if just for the energy shift. Things felt stale last night.

That’s more of a tactical adjustment than a rotation thing, though. You’re not expanding the rotation to play Kolek, you’re benching Payne for him.

The trade that made the most sense to the fellas at KFS was essentially a swap of Sims and a 2nd or two for Alek Borks.

I suppose I like the idea of getting another scoring bench piece who we know Thibs will play. And it will knock Shamet down the pecking order, which I like. Plus, it seems unlikely we’re going to retain Sims after this season anyway. But it’s also unlikely we resign Borks after this season, so you’re essentially giving up 2nds for a half-season rental.

I assume you don’t do that trade until Mitch is deemed healthy, but then your rotation would look like:

Brunson, Payne
Bridges, Deuce, Borks
Hart, Bridges, Borks
OG, Precious
KAT, Mitch

That’s ten deep with guys Thibs has been known to play. I’m not sure we can realistically do much better than that for this season.

I agree, we’re probably at a point where if the team needs a spark Thibs should try Kolek & Hukporti, even if just for the energy shift. Things felt stale last night, like a bunch of workers showing up on a Monday who didn’t want to be there.

This correctly-stated psychological phenomena is a massive reason why we see things like the “January Knicks.” (And when the staleness is broken up by a trade, as in January 2024, you then get the added phenomena of the employees turning up the effort to make sure they aren’t next.)

Not practicing at all and playing everyone extra has a downside when it comes to bench players being ready and confident to step in an hold down the fort when starters call in sick.

Simms catching DNPs for a month and then Thibs says “lace them up, you’re starting tonight” 2 hours before the tipoff. That’s definitively not a best practice. Unless of course, Thibs has a preverbial cheat code.

“Doogie, every time you post something ridiculous from now on I’m going to armchair psychoanalyze you.”

Feel free. Do what you have to do. I didn’t read the rest of your post after your first sentence, regardless. And you’re an idiot four times over for intentionally misspelling Alec Burks’ name four times when you know perfectly well how to spell it. Pretending to be even dumber than you actually are is not a great look.

The trade that made the most sense to the fellas at KFS was essentially a swap of Sims and a 2nd or two for Alek Borks.

Fails according to the trade machine. Machine must have done gone broked.

Last night specifically, they kept trapping JB and forcing him into tough shots because they dared Simms, Precious and Hart to make threes. Thibs lack of quick thinking and in game adjustments was on full display.

Favorite bit today (so far, it’s early):

“I didn’t read the rest of your post after your first sentence, regardless. And you’re an idiot four times over for intentionally misspelling Alec Burks’ name four times”

Someone’s lying…

It’s a cumulative thing.

Exactly. It’s both cumulative physical exhaustion over time and also not allowing minor ailments to heal properly. Brunson is almost certainly playing at less than 100%. It would not surpise me if OG is also. On the one hand you don’t want soft players, but on the other hand, when you are tired and hurting a little, you should take a game off. Towns should probably take another game off.

“Someone’s lying…”

Possibly, but if so, it isn’t me. The idiotic “Borks” post was a totally different one that starting out talking about armchair psychoanalysis. I did read the Borks post, but did not read anything after the first sentence of the armchair psychoanalysis post.

Guys just so you know your posts about Doogie are just as much fun to read as his.

actually hubie, it helps me stop thinking about what a fat lazy-minded dumb ass thibs is right now…

no doubt if the front office were to speak with him regarding rotation minutes he would obviously be extremely defensive and stubborn (fear and insecurity, plus he may just not be that bright) – but i would expect him to go to the other extreme…

simply to try and prove his own point…no muy bueno…

“Guys just so you know your posts about Doogie are just as much fun to read as his.”

LOL I know, right?!?

You just know Precious is gonna figure out how to shoot as soon as he leaves

I asked about 10-day contracts earlier. Does anyone know the answer? Can we use them to try out Warren and or Okeke?

i understand the source is not one you would normally trust…

however doogie, as someone who has been sick enough (from a mental health perspective) more than once during this lifetime to not even realize or want to acknowledge any illness on my behalf – at some point the notion of being the best you hopefully takes root…

it should be like a survival instinct…or simply the desire for personal continuous process improvement…

none of us are finished products…

what’s wrong with being a better version of yourself…it’s not only possible, it should be preferable…

or, you can just fuss and fight with strangers on the internet…

not a good solution…not good for your health…or, some of the other folks here…

to me it’s entertaining, but that is being selfish on my part…what is important though is your health…

enough honest actors have indicated that you may need some assistance…

don’t be stubborn like thibs…figure out if there is something off, and try to fix it…

I’m good, geo; thanks. At least yours comes from a good place and is worth a read.

Every game the other team plays their bench twice as many minutes as we do. Then lo and behold, in the fourth quarter we play like dog shit. OG Anunoby has pretty much been Luol Deng’d.

Don’t worry though, once all the guys get hurt we’ll have the kind of scrappy underdog team that Thibs loves. Get Taj and BullOCK on the phone, we’re gonna need them. Getting the band back together, y’all.

@gkhenman

10-days contracts just started and we could use them to sign someone, but our space under the 2nd apron is very tight.

The issue, at least for me, is simple:
are we sure Thibs would use the new player(s)?
Because signing them and keeping them on the bench flanking Kolek is only a waste of money.

For further info:
https://www.hoopsrumors.com/2025/01/salaries-for-10-day-contracts-in-2024-25.html

Edit: we currently have just one open roster spot right?

That’s pretty simple to fix. Get Thibs’ buy-in that he will utilize the news players *prior to* acquiring them.

I asked about 10-day contracts earlier. Does anyone know the answer? Can we use them to try out Warren and or Okeke?

We can, but we would have to wait longer to sign a player to a rest of season contract. A 10-day uses up $120K of our remaining $535K.

Hypothetically this could prevent us from making a consolidation trade because we wouldn’t be able to get back to the 14-player minimum. As things stand now, we’d need to clear $90K at the deadline and use our remaining 14 days below the 14-player minimum to make a trade work that results in a 13-player roster.

Yes, we have 1 roster spot open. I was thinking give one of them a shot and then the other. That would get us a look at both of them before the trade deadline.

I don’t think we’ll need a 15th man unless 10 men get hurt.

Unless we get an injury exception. Maybe now that we’re good, the NBA would grant us one.

I’d also like to point out that we chose to sign Matt Ryan to an NBA contract over TJ Warren. We may have done that because TJ is an injury-risk and we can’t cut players who are injured, even if they’re on a non-guaranteed deal, but it’s also possible that the team doesn’t think they need him.

Edit: we currently have just one open roster spot right?

Correct.

Unless we get an injury exception. Maybe now that we’re good, the NBA would grant us one.

We can use the disabled player exception if we have a season-ending injury and manage to apply for the exception within the next 8 days. After the 15th we’re shit out of luck.

We can use the hardship exception if we have 3 or more players who, due to injury, have missed the last 3 games and are expected to be out at least 2 more weeks.

We needed shooting last night, maybe Ryan could have given us a spark. It doesn’t matter who is on the roster if the coach won’t use them.

That’s pretty simple to fix. Get Thibs’ buy-in that he will utilize the news players *prior to* acquiring them.

News players? NEWS PLAYERS!? WHAT THE FUCK!?

Are we to believe the New York Knickerbockers are some sort of team of newspaper salesboys in newsie hats? How could anyone possibly understand what you meant with such careless writing!? Have you no decency?

Typo on your phone!? I don’t want to hear it! Get thee to a fucking LAPTOP! How DARE you pollute our board with this filth? We CANNOT POSSIBLY understand what you might have meant there and I’ve no choice but to HARP on this repeatedly for about the next five posts, you sociopath!

If anyone was curious, in the most recent Westchester game:

Warren 32/7/4/1/1 on 12-23 from the field, 7-12 from deep, 1-2 from the line.

Okeke 20/10/8 with 4 stls and 1 block but needed 20 shots and had 3 TOs.

Dadiet 11/4/4 with 2 stls in 34min, 1-5 from deep, and a team-leading +15 for whatever that’s worth. Nobody else had a +/- over 8.

The game was 149 – 145. So, despite the solid looking stock numbers, if you’re wondering how any of the individual players did on defense, the answer is bad.

FWIW, Damion Baugh had a Westchester record-tying 21 assists a couple games ago.

pags, arises to leap for the low hanging fruit of the day…

i can only imagine your joy and excitement when you read that post…big ol’ smile, huh…

too funny pags…

you know, I used to scour the web trying to find a suitable point guard for our eternally pont guard-less team…

we need to start discussing thibs replacements pags – ASAP 😊

Weirdly pollyanna-ish piece by James Edwards about the Knicks in The Athletic. Nice to read some positivity, but it’s like he didn’t watch any of the last few games. Is that you, Swift?

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6037960/2025/01/07/knicks-predictions-jalen-brunson-karl-anthony-towns-2025/

I think Edwards III is spot on in his latest article. This is not a chase-the-championship year for the Knicks, it’s an assessment year.

1. The Knicks won’t make a trade of significance until the summer — at the earliest

My gut has told me, and continues to tell me, that New York will use this entire season as an evaluation period. If it comes with a trip to the Eastern Conference finals or beyond, great. However, it feels right now that the Knicks will reassess and make significant tweaks around the margins after the season.

I don’t necessarily think that is the route they want to take, though. It’s the situation they find themselves in with so much money tied to the starters, as well as Mitchell Robinson, the only other player with a hefty contract, possibly not playing in a game before the Feb. 6 trade deadline. The long-term injury to Robinson has New York in a bit of a jam. If healthy, the team very much could use his services as an elite rim protector and lob threat. They could use the depth. With that said, the team also has to strongly consider drawing a line in the sand for a player who is rarely available.

The biggest assessment has to be Mitch. If he comes back and can stay healthy it’s massive for next year. And if he can’t, then we can use him as an expiring salary with no regrets.

All these trades where we send him out rarely bring back someone better than a healthy Mitch. We don’t have a real chance at the title this year, so the benefit of giving up on him in the next month doesn’t seem worth it.

We don’t have a real chance at the title this year,

Can you define “real chance at a title”? – anything over 10%?

What if Vegas says we do, if healthy? – Shoudn’t the goal be to:

a) maximize the odds of staying healthy
b) win a 1st and 2nd quarter in January
c) risk of loosing a game when you’re up 18+ with 7 minutes left
d) play starters till the end just to see if we can come back when down 14 with 5 minute left?

“News players? NEWS PLAYERS!? WHAT THE FUCK!?

Are we to believe the New York Knickerbockers are some sort of team of newspaper salesboys in newsie hats? How could anyone possibly understand what you meant with such careless writing!? Have you no decency?

Typo on your phone!? I don’t want to hear it! Get thee to a fucking LAPTOP! How DARE you pollute our board with this filth? We CANNOT POSSIBLY understand what you might have meant there and I’ve no choice but to HARP on this repeatedly for about the next five posts, you sociopath!”

Nice try, Pags, but I’m not the one who originally typed it at 12:21 p.m. prior to editing it. Write to Max about it, if you so choose. He fixed it when he saw my response. 🙂

I wasn’t on my phone. I was already on my laptop. LOL

This is not a chase-the-championship year for the Knicks, it’s an assessment year.

Can you “assess” players and rotations on first 32 minutes played or the real “assesment juice” is between 32 and 45? – because that’s when shit really gets puched back.

I wasn’t intentionally misspelling with no purpose, as you guys so often do. I was using the same parlance that Max used so as to clarify my response to his original post, so it had a purpose.

Can you define “real chance at a title”? – anything over 10%?

We have no chance. I’m not trying to be a dick but come on. It’s a fun team that cannot possibly go 82 games and four rounds.

hard to imagine the front office isn’t getting bombarded from all sides with this minutes/refusal to develop and play the roster issue…

it is very hard to imagine a discussion about this issue with thibs in the room wouldn’t get heated…

maybe guitar jmmy will reappear to save us…or make things much worse most likely…

Fact:
this particularly constructed roster does not need a coach like thibs…

made worse by the fact we’ve recently run in to two young outstanding coaches…

Guys just so you know your posts about Doogie are just as much fun to read as his.

C’mon, Hubert. “OMG Anunoby” may not be my greatest work, but you have to admit it’s more entertaining than carrying the “who’s the Carter on the Orlando Magic roster, I honestly don’t know” schtick onto a 2nd consecutive thread.

“C’mon, Hubert. “OMG Anunoby” may not be my greatest work, but you have to admit it’s more entertaining than carrying the “who’s the Carter on the Orlando Magic roster, I honestly don’t know” schtick onto a 2nd consecutive thread.”

I really *didn’t* know, so it wasn’t any kind of schtick. I wasn’t watching the game, and I already explained that. If you could read and comprehend sentences in English, you’d already know that. I carried it forward to the next thread because no one responded on the original thread. Others do that all the time, so it is accepted forum protocol that I can follow if I so choose, as well.

And “OMG Anunoby,” while idiotic because it was intentionally misspelled, otherwise wasn’t all that bad of an attempt.

Your first guess was Jimmy Carter, even though he is dead. That’s not a schtick?

I smiled at OMG Anunoby.

zion back on the court against the wolves…

saw some recent 4th quarter wolves highlights, julius wasn’t on the floor…ant was going to the rim a lot…

That wasn’t a guess, and I didn’t present it as one. I basically said that I knew that he could *not* have been referencing Jimmy Carter, as he is now dead. So no, not a schtick. Still an attempt to get an actual answer as to the person being referenced.

Carter is turning over in his grave over how stupid this convo is

If you weren’t watching the game then why are you even commenting on the game thread and calling people out for not being ultra clear and specific about who they’re talking about.

The game thread is a GAME THREAD. You don’t see me posting during it that much because I do not like to be on my device and posting during games and/or I may not be watching it. Why would anyone who is live commenting about the game have to be super specific about what/who they’re talking about?

Are you going to start calling people out for posting “That was not a foul” without them specifically describing which play it was where the foul occurred?

honestly dude, lighten the fuck up.

“Carter is turning over in his grave over how stupid this convo is”

As he probably should be.

@w&bc: #LOL

That Edwards piece didn’t seem so Pollyanna-ish to me. The only really bold positive thing he said was that the Knicks will be a #1 seed next season, which isn’t a huge claim considering they’re currently the #3 seed, and they might be able to add a player to this current squad in the offseason.

That Edwards piece didn’t seem so Pollyanna-ish to me. The only really bold positive thing he said was that the Knicks will be a #1 seed next season, which isn’t a huge claim considering they’re currently the #3 seed, and they might be able to add a player to this current squad in the offseason.

This is a gargantuan claim. The Celtics and Cavs are both light years better than us now while also having more depth, assets to improve, and internal upside. Just how are we going to pull ahead?

The Celtics have Holiday and Horford aging, true, but guys like Kornet and Pritchard are showing up with higher BPM than Brunson. The Cavs are significantly better now than the best teams in the history of our franchise and huge upside from Mobley’s continued improvement as well as incredible depth (their top 8 players are all positive BPM vs. only 5 for us).

Just how are we going to bridge this enormous gap? Keep in mind that our current record/SRS is heavily inflated by our easy schedule, injury luck, and Thibs’ strategy of maximizing short-term wins by using an NBA Finals game 7 rotation even in blowouts against the dregs of the league…

It’s far more realistic to project that these teams will pull further away from us, and that young teams like ORL/ATL/IND will overtake us within our “window.”

Carter is turning over in his grave over how stupid this convo is

OMG Wendell Carter Jr. died?!?

OMG Wendell Carter Jr. died?!?

Maybe he does sleep in a grave, but is not dead. Why do you think he is dead? Thas was not implied in the context!

LOL well played, ess-dog.

It doesn’t work, hubert, because in this case we actually *did* say that we were referencing Jimmy. In last night’s case, it wasn’t entirely clear that Wendell was being referenced:

Donnie Walsh says:
January 7, 2025 at 14:33
Your first guess was Jimmy Carter, even though he is dead. That’s not a schtick?

Btw, the start date for 10-day contracts just passed, and there’s roughly a month til the trade deadline. Leon can theoretically sign TJ Warren for 20 days in a row before having to sign him to a contract, and he probably should before another team does. Seems like it would be worth it, at least to help bridge the gap until Mitch gets back. If he sucks, we don’t sign him. If he’s great, we trade Sims or whoever into cap space and bring him on board.

From the article linked by Max about ten-day contracts:

Because the NBA doesn’t want teams to avoid signing veteran players in favor of cheaper, younger options, the league reimburses clubs who sign veterans with three or more years of service to 10-day, minimum-salary contracts.

If this is what the NBA wants they should also reduce the cap hit to the rookie minimum for signing veterans to ten day contracts

This is a gargantuan claim. The Celtics and Cavs are both light years better than us now while also having more depth, assets to improve, and internal upside. Just how are we going to pull ahead?

The Celtics current roster does not have upside.

It has downside.

Holiday and Horford are both key pieces and are both old.

Porzingis is coming off another significant injury and may be getting to the point where he’s starting to decline athletically enough for it to impact more than just his development like when he was young. So far, he has not looked as good this year as he did for the Wizards and Celtics over the last 2 years. It could be rust, but it could be the start of his decline.

Nice to read some positivity, but it’s like he didn’t watch any of the last few games.

OKC – I thought we played great in the OKC game. They were at home and wore us down late. We had the lead until about 4 minutes left. I thought that game did a lot of prove our starters are as good as anyone in the league.

Chicago – That was a B2B on the road after a really tough game in OKC that I predicted we would likely lose. We were dead tired, didn’t defend the 3 point line well and they got hot.

Orlando – I expected us to play better than we did, but the dropoff from Towns to Sims has to be in the top 10 of negative replacements in the NBA (if not #1). It puts a lot of pressure on Brunson to score and kills all the spacing. Plus we still look exhausted.

I’d just throwout the entire sequence in terms of meaning anything about our prospects other than saying if Thibs doesn’t change it’s probably just a matter of time before Towns, OG and maybe Brunson all break down.

The dropoff from OG to Precious would be pretty troublesome, as well, especially in a playoffs series.

We are not built to withstand tweaks.

Porzingis is coming off another significant injury and may be getting to the point where he’s starting to decline athletically enough for it to impact more than just his development like when he was young. So far, he has not looked as good this year as he did for the Wizards and Celtics over the last 2 years. It could be rust, but it could be the start of his decline.

KP is the same age as Towns and has played more games over the past three seasons. They cruised to the championship last year mostly without him whereas without KAT we got crushed by ORL sans their 4 best players on our home court with them on a B2B. We are far more vulnerable to KAT’s injury risk/decline than BOS is to KP’s.

Did you miss the part about how Holiday’s backup is putting up better BPM than Jalen Brunson? That’s called upside.

Our man in Horford’s role is Mitch, who is likely even closer to terminal decline/retirement than Horford is.

I’d just throwout the entire sequence in terms of meaning anything about our prospects other than saying if Thibs doesn’t change it’s probably just a matter of time before Towns, OG and maybe Brunson all break down.

So going 24-10 against the dregs of the NBA while redlining our starters totally counts, while getting badly exposed in our first mildly challenging stretch of the season isn’t meaningful?

Do you engage in this kind of motivated reasoning in your gambling ventures or did you forget to take off your orange & blue colored glasses?

This is a gargantuan claim. The Celtics and Cavs are both light years better than us now while also having more depth, assets to improve, and internal upside. Just how are we going to pull ahead?

Agreed. Cleveland is way better than I thought they would be but they pretty clearly are this good and I don’t see why they would be significantly worse next year. Boston is basically a superteam and both teams should expect to win 60 games barring major injuries. I like this team but I can’t imagine winning 60 games.

Could you have imagined winning 60 games prior to us losing these last three? We were on a 58-win pace before that occurred.

Could you have imagined winning 60 games prior to us losing these last three? We were on a 58-win pace before that occurred.

We were only on a 58-win pace with every possible factor inflating our nominal record:

-Played against the weakest schedule in the entire league
-Played rotations shorter than most coaches would play in a Game 7
-Generally good injury luck on our part with only the perpetually injured Mitch missing time
-Generally bad injury luck on our opponents’ part

With those conditions a 60-win team should be on a 70+ win pace, like CLE is. Our expectation is closer to the 40’s than the 60’s.

We have been distributing minutes like it’s Game 7 of the Finals all season long, and we have played the second weakest schedule in the NBA. There’s something pretty fugazy about our record.

DFS for d-lo was a great move for the lakers…need to go look to see whatever happened to vanderbilt, if he’s supposed to return this season…

just checked, vanderbilt is practicing with the team again and getting closer to returning…

As bad as we’ve looked, watching the Mavs on offense without Doncic and Irving is pretty hilarious. Area 51.

As bad as we’ve looked, watching the Mavs on offense without Doncic and Irving is pretty hilarious. Area 51.

It wasn’t that hilarious when they owned our full strength, Game 7 of the finals rotation back in November

It wasn’t that hilarious when they owned our full strength, Game 7 of the finals rotation back in November

You mean a few days after the season began and we had 2 new starters? Sure.

You mean a few days after the season began and we had 2 new starters? Sure.

No, I mean 35 days after the season began, in our 18th game. You know, over 20% of the way into the season.

Is having two new starters more debilitating than missing two superstars, one of whom would easily be the best player in the history of our franchise?

I vote this thread as Most Tiresome Thread of the New Year.

It is early…

Raven, I am reading a book about fairies to my daughter, she is obsessed, and a main character is named Raven.

Raven is well known in the fey realm for sidestepping, avoiding, and ignoring trolls.

Many people on this blog have not read the 13 Curses, apparently.

Well…our boy grimes is going off tonight

The relatively healthy Suns list to Charlotte tonight. Something is wrong in Phoenix.

wow, zion looks really slimmed down…hopefully it helps to keep him healthy and playing…

Well…our boy grimes is going off tonight

Not surprised, he stepped up a lot when we needed usage

Feels bad to realize that 2025 Quentin Grimes would be our best wing but we traded him gor nothing and spent 5 1rp on a shittier version of him

If you wade through the dreck at this blog, like 20% of it is still pretty good

Owen, nice to hear you doing right for your little girl. Tell her Raven thinks her dad is very smart for pointing out how we are supposed to sidestep and ignore trolls. Raven needs to work on that.

that would be hilarious if someone took the time and set up posting stats…

total thread posts, individual posts, basketball versus non basketball posts, so on and so on…

that would be neat…

I vowed after the loss last night that I would stay off Knickerblogger today, and after quickly skimming through the 122 posts I’m so glad I kept that promise to myself

watching hawks/jazz…utah seems much better than a 9 win team…

Just putting this here

Only the Timberwolves have lost less player minutes than us. Sure its going to stay that way

That number ignores Mitch and Landry.

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