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21 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2025.02.06)”
In order to cope with the significant jealousy I’m feeling towards the Lakers right now, I say this to myself: “At least it wasn’t to the Celtics for Jaylen Brown. Or to the Heat. Or to the Sixers. Or to the Cavs…” And I feel so much better.
Supposedly we also swapped draft rights of 29yo Mathias Lessort for the draft rights to 23yo Hugo Besson.
Hugo Besson is not nothing, meant in the literal sense. Figuratively, he’s nothing.
He’s scoring 18ppg in Turkey, bombed in SL this year, score-first chucker, and can’t play defense. Vecenie ranked him 71st in the ’22 draft and didn’t think he’d ever make it. He has a nice handle.
Various sleep-deprived trade thoughts after a great book event at The Strand (where I got to meet ThisChicanery!):
* Delon Wright isn’t the exact guy I’d have wanted to bring back for Sims, but he’s an inch taller than Shamet, the same height as Javonte Green, and I’d already happily put him in the rotation ahead of Shamet. Even though Wright’s shooting has been bad this season, and below his career norms, it’s not as if Shamet has been shooting the lights out.
* If Mark Williams is healthy, and if he starts making an effort on defense again, then this is a really annoying trade for the Laker-haters out there. Those are two pretty big ifs, though. I assume Pelinka is banking on Williams as someone who was not necessarily giving it his all — both on the court and to get onto the court — because he was on a bad team.
* I continue to not get what Masai is doing up in Toronto. He’s already committed a lot of money to a Scottie/RJ/IQ core, which so far has been underwhelming. (Albeit with IQ hurt a lot.) Now he’s brought in Ingram, who wants to get paid. Maybe there’s a market efficiency in building a team around a lot of guys who top out at fringe All-Star (though Barnes could eventually grow into more than that), but it seems an odd strategy.
Does everybody assume the Sims deal is our only move?
EB, someone in this FO seems to have a fetish for making sure that every season, we make at least one trade where we acquire the rights to some random Euro who will almost certainly never come play for us. Maybe it’s a private joke among colleagues?
Glad it went well at the Strand!
Yeah, the draft rights seem like a compulsive behavior from Aller. I guess Besson being 23 instead of 29 is something, it’s better than getting the Spurs’s assistant coach like last time we did this.
I didn’t even think to weigh in on Butler/Wiggins. Since Golden State is committed to trying to win one more for Steph, no matter what, and since Durant didn’t want to come back(*), I guess this is the Hail Mary they had to try for. Probably doesn’t work out, but Jimmy Buckets has made fools of us before. Ditto for Spo’s ability to make Wiggins look like the absolute best version of himself.
(*) So do we figure the Suns are boxed out of making any moves? Or could Durant still go to Houston or somewhere?
Besson, a scorer more than a shooter, last year helped my italian team avoid relegation and for it Hugo will always have a little spot in my heart. ❤️
Great name by the way.
Lessort played well at the Olympics and like Yabusele there we’re rumors about hm coming to the Association but at the end he stayed in Greece and he’s currently out for the season after a gruesome injury.
For this year, the major changes many teams are making may prove hard to integrate quickly. Supposedly, teams that win it all typically have significant prior experience as a team. I just don’t know how that applies to Dallas, the Lakers and Golden State. Somehow I suspect they are all still looking up at OKC.
Alan – Glad the event went well. I almost came but the fact I have never watched an episode of BCS (but want to so spoilers) and my daughter’s need to finish the 13 Curses prevented me.
Ingram is not Kuzma level for me but I can’t imagine trading for him.
Mark Williams is huge and I respect that. He’s been a bit disappointing to me, he was utterly dominant in college, but it looks like he landed in the perfect spot.
So Pelinka talks Nico out of the 2031 pick because it would have been irresponsible to include it without knowing if Luka is committed long term to LA and then immediately flips it for a C. It just gets better and better
Had a lot of fun last night! Was a great discussion and a lot of good questions from the crowd.
Don’t see the point of trading for Delon Wright. He appears to be pretty much washed and, even if he wasn’t, I don’t see what he gives us that we aren’t already getting from Deuce and Payne. Wondering if this is just to force Thibs to play Huk instead of Sims who he’s more comfortable with.
Well done Alan! 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
Quick thought on yesterday’s trades:
– Sims made little to no progress on offense in 4 years, jumping high is nice but basketball it’s another thing and I don’t know if his stonefaced behaviour, which sometimes made him look disinterested, won him points with Thibs, who likes emotional players. Plus Huk’s already better and his ceiling is higher.
I would have liked a 2nd for Jericho instead of a semi washed up journeyman but maybe Wright can spell Shamet and help us make some room under the cap for other veteran assets (waiving one of the two redundant bench guards).
– Given their situation (the multiple suspensions, Butler’s player option for next year) I think Miami did a decent job in the deal.
Spo could work his magic on Wiggins, Anderson is the perfect Heat player and you can waive Schroeder or keep and play him 10 minutes hoping for a good day.
The Warriors are desperate and they act desperate.
– Knecht was the hype of the day for some weeks and now is a trade piece, the pick and swap used in the deal is another gift Nico Harrison did to his friend Pelinka, absurd.
– Maybe now Masai needs to ask for a rule change to allow for more basketballs in play because his four “core” guys all need one in their hands to be useful.
– I liked Middleton a lot but it looks like he’s beyond cooked and he’s playing on slow motion, Kuzma isn’t a star (bad defender unconscious shooter and questionable dresser) but gives them some flexibility, he’s a scorer and they hope to be able to motivate him like LeBron did.
– Watching the Celtics and Sixers do small salary dump trades probably is another evidence about the environment the new CBA has brought.
I’m sure Toronto will be decent, but I don’t see Ingram wanting to commit long term… he’s going to have to share the ball with 3 other guys who aren’t exactly great passers and are also better with the ball in their hands in RJ, IQ and Barnes, and i feel like he brings a lot of redundant skills to this team. But i guess the price was low enough that it is worth trying and seeing how it goes.
If they can all get healthy for a long stretch they should be pretty good, but they’re 6 games out of the play-in right now, so I guess the idea is to see how it goes for this half a season and make decisions next summer.
Max, as far as I know Schroder has been rerouted to the Jazz in the trade.
Thanks Bruno, you’re right, I’m still trying to catch up after an out-of-service night 😁
I both like and don’t like the Butler trade for GSW. That team, as it was, wasn’t going anywhere. Since winning the title in 2022 they’ve won 44 and 46 games and were on pace for 41 this season. They definitely needed to do something, particularly on offense where they’re currently 19th due to being 22nd in eFG% and dead last in FTr. Butler will immediately help both of those and Curry could really use a high level scorer next to him in general.
On the other hand, it’s weird that this team which revolutionized the league with it’s 3PT shooting is apparently not a good 3pt shooting team anymore. Maybe this trade helps some of their underperforming shooters (Hield, Podz) to get back on track. They also kept their young trade assets so they can try and make another move before the day is done.
Schroeder needs to make peace with himself and accept the next step in his career: highly sought Euroleague’s star.
I don’t understand the Ingram trade at all for Toronto. What does Ingram give them that they weren’t already getting from Barnes, RJ, and Quick? Is it an experiment to see what happens when you put 4 high usage, not great offensive players on the floor together? And Toronto is giving up draft capital?
We need PoA defense and that’s what Delon brings. Unless he’s more washed than I think, and his defensive numbers say he isn’t, Delon might be our best PoA option against guards. Easily better than Hart or Deuce, probably better than Mikal unless he keeps up his recent play. He’s a budget Dyson Daniels. He merely needs to be really bad at scoring instead of atrocious.
And if Delon is completely washed, he still saves us $5K and removes an unnecessary 5th C.
I think the Butler trade was good for golden state and I predict he will get better at three point shooting with Kerr as coach.
It definitely isn’t bad for GS unless you absolutely love Wiggins (which I don’t) or Butler falls off a cliff. It’s a team that’s been treading water since winning their last title. I just don’t know how much better this makes them but I absolutely believe they’ll be better.
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