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Knicks Morning News (2025.02.17)
02/17/2025 09:51:19
02/17/2025 09:03:15
02/17/2025 07:17:16
02/17/2025 05:12:00
02/17/2025 04:29:47
02/17/2025 04:05:08
02/17/2025 02:15:07
02/17/2025 02:05:00
02/17/2025 02:10:00
02/17/2025 00:28:41
02/16/2025 23:05:44
96 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2025.02.17)”
The NHL all stars have been killing each other for three days. Go to a Davis Cup style of European vs North American and I bet these guys would start giving a damn. No one was ever gonna get behind “team Shaq” and “team Chuck”. There’s not enough stars for Wemby and Jokic to make French and Serbian teams but historically even a broad category like “Europe” has motivated Europeans when they’re playing Americans.
And also the European all stars would be dominant right now, which would be incredibly motivating for the Americans. Imagine a Giannis-Jokic-Wemby frontline with Luka at PG.
C’mon, Hubie, don’t be silly. They’re too weak.
And Giannis didn’t play, anyway. LeBron even bagged out after 20 years of playing.
Give Wemby $100K for each block he gets and players will start taking it pretty seriously after the 3rd block in the first 30 seconds or so
So Wemby is the only one making extra cash? Doesn’t quite seem fair. 🙂 That by itself would piss off the others.
I actually thought the basketball itself cleared a very low bar: it was a little better than the slop of the last 10-15 years.
Still wasn’t enough to keep me watching through all of the assorted stupidity though. Seriously who is the audience for all these mediocre ostentatious concerts and the like? I try to always keep in mind I’m rarely any kind of targeted demographic for a variety of reasons, but I cannot relate at all to finding any of that entertaining.
I heard someone say on sports talk radio this morning that out of the entire 3-hour telecast (was it really that long?), there were only 42 minutes of actual basketball played. That’s…….not great.
For work, I had to watch the SNL 50th anniversary special instead, which was 3 1/2 hours (with commercials included). Not all of it worked, but at least there were sketches and musical performances through almost all of it.
That was a disgrace last night…bottom line…if the players don’t give a shit…it doesn’t work…they should just name like a certain amount of guys and play a 3 on 3 tournament or something…
Why don’t they just skip the whole event and just name a midseason All-NBA first, second, and third team without going through the motions of having a game?
$$$
Hubert, I was being sarcastic…of course current players inherited a cash cow post Jordan and have raked in billions, – they must work to pay it forward instead of leaving an inferior product behind for next generation. Battles, grit, genuine dislike of opponents, rivarlies, athleticism, skill, perserverence drives interest and grows the sport.
UnRivaled, a WNBA joint just had a one on one tournament with a prize of $200K prize for the winner. The play was uneven, but the effort intense. A similar NBA tournament with a $2M prize might provoke greater effort than the ASG and certainly bring about a ton of bettors interest. Even full court 3 on 3, which is the primary UnRivaled tournament would be better than the current game.
There are some daunting obstacles to getting “true” performances in the all-star game. Most notably, the all-star level players make too much money to risk getting injured in an exhibition. But there is also the issue of much needed rest. We are in the dog days of the season, and players are banged up and tired. There is much more camaraderie between the players than there used to be. And since the Dream Team set the precedent, there are international competitions in the summer that are sort of all-star games.
I don’t see any way to fix the problem that doesn’t involve massive prize money for the winners. Like $10M each.
Attitudes are changing.
I see it in almost every sport/game I’m interested in.
A lot of people don’t care about early season games or early tournament games anymore. They certainly don’t care about a meaningless all-star game. They want to see the best against the best when a championship is on the line. An exception might be an especially great new/unique player (Wemby or Caitlin Clark), but they get bored easily and wait for the playoffs, semifinals/finals etc.. when the action picks up to tune in.
IMO, the all-star game is going to keep dying. In fact, I’m surprised it still has the kind of audience it does have.
Bo, they should put up some real NBA money. $10 million.
Maybe add some team-based quirks like the starting five of the winners get $1M each, guys 5-9 get 500K each, and split the rest between the others, including guys on the G-League shuttle.
Strat, I wonder if the All-Star Weekend is not for the actual bball fan but for the casuals and (or while) serving as a glorified networking event amongst celebs, major influencers, and deep-pocketed businesses.
When you are making $40-$60M+ per year, I don’t think $1M would make much of an impact.
An all-star player in a contract year could literally be risking over $100M
But players go all-out in the summer during international competition for a lot of different reasons, money being the least of them.
I agree, but there are always some teams getting better and some fading away. I don’t think we are done yet either.
Mitch and Precious are tradeable assets.
They’d obviously like to keep Brunson, Bridges and Hart together for awhile, but I could see one of them or either Towns or OG being traded if the right player was available.
Deuce is not untouchable.
They also have some young players that could generate interest by next year in place of 1st round picks like Kolek and maybe eventually even Dadiet. Plus, as each year passes it opens to the door to more picks being usable.
We are probably on the same page.
I’m just on different page than people that are already throwing in the towel on this team and wanting to trade Bridges, OG, Towns etc… before we see this team with Mitch and how we stack up in the playoffs. We may get KO’d in the 2nd round again and come away thinking we have the 3rd best team in the NBA and just need a few tweaks.
I think a one-on-one tournament would get players to play with real intensity as it’s all about pride then. I do struggle to imagine Jalen vs. Wemby, but it’d be fascinating. A bigger problem is the winner would need to play a bunch of games in a row. I suppose you could spread it out over a two-day weekend…
I think it was Dame Lillard who said they should have the All-Star break earlier in the season, closer to the true mid point of the season so players wouldn’t be as tired and not needing the rest as much as they do now.
We can see any one of these guys play hard anytime we want now, from anywhere in the world — as opposed to the early 80s when there were like 10 national games total and whatever your local team broadcast. To big fans like me, supply was far short of demand then; now supply is endless.
There’s just no need to pull them together to “expose them” or “to let people see the players they don’t get to see” anymore. Why do I need to see Jayson Tatum “play hard” in an exhibition when I can see him play hard for real 80+ times a year if I so choose?
That goes for every sport.
The original concept, I believe, was “see the best players play against the other best players!” But E is correct; we can get that throughout the season now with relatively easy access for most. Plus: the players palpably don’t care about the All-Star Game, so why should we? I’m kind of a LeBron apologist, but him bowing out just a few hours before the game in such a way that no one else would be able to take his spot was pretty uncool.
Yeah, I mean, I’m also cool with just letting the all star game die. It’s not like it needs to be fixed. They could probably just go back to the old way and stop talking about fixing it.
If it’s east vs west, at least you have SOME rooting interest, because presumably you’re a fan of a team that plays in one of those conferences. It’s not much, but it’s something. I can’t figure out how anybody could possibly care about Team Chuck vs Team Kenny.
Make it East vs West like in the old days, ditch all of the other nonsense and shrink the whole thing into something manageable. Less is more.
They should lean into the shmaltz even more and just drop the basketball mostly. The all stars all get bought into a poker tournament with a huge payout on the other side. Or backgammon or both… and yes, also a basketball Kumite for anyone who wants to throw their hat in the ring for “best” in the league. And darts. And billiards. Mics everywhere. Cameras everywhere. Beer pong? Maybe bring on family feud to really help us get inside these guys’ heads.
That’s the exact opposite of what they should do. But hopefully you’re just doing your regular schtick and didn’t seriously mean that, anyway, so it’s all good.
Here’s how to fix it.
Have more all-stars. Field an all-star team of 5 from each division.
Have them play in a tournament. Each game is first to 40. Winning team gets 50 million dollars (10 mil per player).
Is this really that much worse than 48min throughout a 2.5hr period? Presumably the extra half hour is more interesting than the average game’s entertainment.
kevin hart’s agent is underpaid…how that guy keeps getting gigs is a mystery to me…i think he is a comedian..but he’s not funny so its perplexing why he shows up on so much shit where they supposedly casted a comedian for the gig…
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6137644/2025/02/17/luka-doncic-trade-lakers-mavericks-nico-harrison/
Apparently, the Mavs were never going to offer Luca a max, which is why they traded him. Article also attempts to explain the thinking that caused Nico to only engage the Lakers on a package.
I think that’s closer. I also am not sure it needs fixing, as I’d prefer my team’s players (KAT and Jalen, this year) not get injured in any kind of mid-season thing that isn’t for my team. And the current version at least has the virtue of players not putting themselves in harm’s way.
That said, having the top four vote-getters choosing teams from among the 28 available players (more than currently, but 7 per team) and then having them play double-elimination, with a purse of say $5 mil per player – that would probably make for some serious entertainment.
From what I read, the “entertainment” was worse than during a regular game. I think it included some sort of salute to TNT and its broadcasters, plus a whole bunch of Kevin Hart. I agree that we were oversaturated with Kevin Hart a decade or more ago, and he’s funny for maybe five minutes at a time at a maximum.
We should try to swing a trade with Dallas in the offseason, because that is one idiotic front office.
Most of the article is consistent with what has already been said, including skepticism about giving him a long mega deal if they think he’s out of condition and leading a lifestyle that may shorten his peak.
I still think the “other” team they contacted was the Bucks because they were specifically targetting a two way big man. It was either Davis or Giannis.
I think Giannis could be in play this off season if the Bucks get KO’d early. At some point he’s going to realize that even though he may have wanted to spend his whole career there, they are YEARS away from rebulding and he doesn’t have the time.
That’s how I feel about Steve Martin, who incredibly batted lead off last night even though I don’t think he’s been funny since the 70s.
The best agent in the world has to be Woody Harrelson’s, though. I just can’t believe the economy has ever had that much natural demand for his mediocre services.
Woody is great.
Only Murders In the Building one of the funniest shows of the last decade.
I missed all the all star festivities. The only question I have is whether Mac McClung did his dunks wearing skinny jeans?
Charming, maybe, but funniest?
Upvote Steve Martin, unless he’s an asshole in real life (I haven’t heard one way or another).
Downvote Woody Harrelson. I mean, he’s OK, but not great enough to still be doing what he’s doing. What do I know, though? This is a capitalist society, so if people keep wanting to give him the roles, he should definitely keep snapping them up for as long as he can/for as long as he wants to.
Upvote Only Murders In the Building: It held me enough to watch all the way through for entertainment value, but funniest? Nah.
So I just watched the CP3-Wemby skills challenge run. Easily the best all-star weekend activity I can remember outside of Clark vs Curry and some Knicks stuff that I’m sure doesn’t matter to 99.9% of people.
Those guys are winners and the NBA absolutely should not have punished them for strategizing.
I didn’t watch season 1 or 2 of Only Murderers, but season 3 is extremely funny, some of the funniest stuff I’ve seen on TV in a long time. (Season 4, not so much).
Yeah, I can see the Wemby/CP3 thing from both sides. (By the way, I was surprised to hear that it was Wemby’s idea, and that CP3 just went along with it. I had previously assumed that it would have been the idea of “crafty veteran” CP3.) Kudos to them for finding a loophole in the rules, but don’t love that it went against the “spirit” of the competition. Maybe paradoxically, I’d probably be more on their side if the competition had more meaning, but it’s mostly just meant to be a fun sideshow-ish competition, and therefore not one worthy of circumventing. I’m surprised (but a little bit proud) that the disqualification was put through.
10 best things about all-star weekend:
-Mac McClung’s dunks
-Big O’s lifetime achievement speech
-Allie LaForce’s dress
-Steph’s 3 from halfcourt
-Brunson’s first 3 racks in the 3-pt contest
-Ernie’s poem
-Brunson and KAT stayed healthy
-SNL 50 providing a viewing alternative
-Wemby trying hard
-That it’s over
I think the ruling on CP3 et. al. was correct but imho the entire competition is so stupid (never liked it) that I couldn’t care less.
Woody was pretty damn good in Zombieland. Admittedly now a while ago.
Kevin Hart is frequently hysterically funny telling stories and giving other people shit on the Graham Norton show. Otherwise, meh.
Allie LaForce was wearing shorts.
The fact that Allie LaForce was not allowed to talk to Wemby/CP3 after they learned that they had been disqualified is the kind of bullshit that only Trump could love. She must still be insisting on using “Gulf of Mexico” instead of “Gulf of America,” even though most of those waters do not belong to us.
EDIT:
instead of “Gulf of America,” even though most of those waters do not belong to us.
TO:
instead of “Gulf of America,” since most of those waters do not belong to us.
“Allie LaForce was wearing shorts.”
She had on a sequined outfit during the 3-pt and slam-dunk contests….looked great!
Yeah, I saw her wearing a couple/few different outfits, but none of them were shorts. If she were wearing shorts, they should have let her play.
My bad, Z. Missed that.
The only things I watched are:
(1) McClung
(2) Castle (thanks Manu!)
(3) CP3-Wemby getting DQ’d
Maybe I’ve seen some other random clips scrolling through bluesky or whatever
I was having an outstanding late Valentine’s dinner at Capital Grille, so didn’t see any of All-Star Saturday Night. I didn’t think that I’d be missing anything of note, and it seems I ended up being right about that. Watched 10-15 minutes of Games 2 and 3 last night. Simply awful.
Lat injury for Frankie Montas, which will sideline him for a minimum of 6-8 weeks. Mets are officially short on arms right now. I think they should consolidate some prospects and bring in somebody who can eat innings for them, because that rotation is looking perilously thin right now.
i’d be real excited to see this play out…
that was so weak…wemby/cp3 were totally selling…i hope folks clowned them all weekend for that stunt…
since things are so different now – maybe they include only in-game dunks, show them on a screen and let the folks at home vote for it…
McClung is barely an nba player…including him smells pretty desperate…would’ve been fine with castle winning the competition if it’s gonna be “live”…
taylor rooks >>> allie laforce…
now that is a fun debate to have…
Marcus Stroman, come on down
Allie over Taylor by a mile. And I prefer brunettes to blondes.
Re the dunk contest: no people, no cars, no ladders, no teammates, no nothing. Just execute the damn dunk. And extra points for doing it the first time.
One thing you could do with the dunk contest is standardize the dunks. Here’s what I would have:
-through the legs tomahawk
-540 backwards 20 handed
-Take-off from the foul line
-bounce and catch
Then just award style/execution points, from take-off to landing. Max 2 attempts for each dunk.
Oh man. The Sly and the Family Stone doc is soooo good.
LOL. Marcus Stroman back to the Mets? Yikes.
Ah, no need to rush a trade yet, didn’t last season teach Mets fans about patience! 🙂
Cool on the SFS documentary.
NBA and NHL need to stagger their All-Star breaks. All this time without any regular season games in either league is killer.
I love Only Murders but agree with Rama that it’s more charming than hilarious. When it is funny, it’s bc Martin Short is brilliant and the supporting cast is dynamite. If you pay attention to who is actually making you laugh I’m not sure if Steve Martin fares better than Selena Gomez.
They really nailed the “visiting your sister in Long Island” episode, though. The Billy Joel door bell, the boat on blocks in the driveway… well played.
(Billy Joel is another person whose massive appeal eludes me; I can’t think of a single artist who expresses so much condescension towards his audience.)
Billy Joel came to a Pete Yorn show at Mercury Lounge once because his daughter Alexa was a fan. To get to the stage at Mercury you have to walk through the audience, so the promoter brought us by Billy’s table so he could chat with Pete for a second. We all walked by and nodded and said hello, then he said just two words: “WOW ME.” Like he wanted us to wow him.
It was weird.
I have a love/hate relationship with Billy Joel. He’s written some great tunes that I’ve really enjoyed playing keys on with various bands, but he’s also come out with complete dreck like Uptown Girl and We Didn’t Start the Fire.
And he does seem like a bit of a douche, 4 wives might be kind of revealing in that regard.
He’s as prolific as the capital grille.
I think I have allegiance to specific songs more than to artists. Billy Joel has a lot of songs that I like and a lot that I don’t, probably more of the latter.
Uptown Girl and We Didn’t Start the Fire are classics!
Big Blue A, blown away, what else do I have to say? 😉
We Didn’t Start the Fire was a finalist for Worst Song Ever.
Movin’ Out
Pressure
Scenes From An Italian Restaurant
Allentown
Vienna
The Stranger
Those are all REALLY good songs. At his best he can really write a satisfying chord progression and strong melody. McCartney-esque at his best.
At his worst, he falls back on treacly ballads and nostalgic pastiche. An Innocent Man is one of my most loathed albums ever, pure pastiche schmaltz. That has some of his biggest hits including “Uptown Girl.” That whole album is a major no-go for me.
Miami 2017
New York State of Mind
First time I heard Pressure was on the episode of the Baseball Bunch with Dan Quisenberry and Johnny Bench talking about the pressures a pitcher faces.
*Hate* We Didn’t Start the Fire. Hate Uptown Girl even more. JK’s list is a good one, though.
Not sure “prolific” works for Capital Grille. Although the food and service tend to be excellent there, the menu is overall pretty small and…….ummmmmmm…….non-prolific. The Cheesecake Factory it’s not, and thank G-d for that.
One man’s banal is another man’s date night with a card board cut out.
From a town known as Wheeling, West Virginia
Rode a boy with a six-gun in his hand
And his daring life of crime
Made him a legend in his time
East and west of the Rio Grande
“Uptown Girl” has a billion plays on Spotify, and “Vienna,” not a hit in its own time, has close to a billion. The former is a big streaming hit despite being a widely reviled and highly annoying song, and the latter is a big streaming hit for no other reason than it is a quality song. Millennials and Gen Z’s discovered it and loved it simply because it’s damn good. It wasn’t ever prominently used in a film or tv show or anything.
Rewatching Coal-miner’s Daughter. It’s another goodun’
JK there was actually an episode of Taxi (one of my favorite shows ever) called Vienna Waits where Alex and Elaine travel to Europe and the song is prevalent.
My Billy Joel faves, in no particular order:
Piano Man
Summer, Highland Falls
Captain Jack
Billy the Kid
New York State of Mind
Don’t Ask Me Why
Although somewhat schlocky for my taste, I like You’re My Home and Just The Way You Are for sentimental reasons.
Pretty much every other song is not one that would keep me from pressing the station buttons. But if they happen to be playing, I tend not to mind unless they are really terrible like Honesty.
Doogie and I can finally bond over something: our mutual hatred for Uptown Girl. I have banned it from my new apartment, which has close-enough living arrangements that I can hear what my teenagers are playing on their Alexa. There is something wrong with these kids!
(As for We Didn’t Start The Fire, I don’t have a strong opinion on that one. I didn’t start the fire, but if ha ld resulted in burning every copy of Uptown Girl that my teenagers owned, I’d have called it a wash.)
Feel quite bad for the guy with the cardboard cutout date. Very banal and boring stuff to my ears, for the most part.
Coal Miner’s Daughter: Rather than the relatively odd appearance of the immortal Levon Helm, pretty meh as meh can be. Not bad; not good. I’ve already typed more words about it here than it’s probably worth.
Having been the theme song for Bosom Buddies, I’ll always have a soft spot for My Life.
Rather hmm?
Yes, rather. Read.
The Stranger album was crazy good when it came out in ’77…Movin’ Out, Just the Way You Are and Only the Good Die Young were the big radio songs…my favorites from the album though were Vienna and Scenes from an Italian Restaurant…
fell in love with Captain Jack the first time i heard it…sounds like life growing up on Long Island…
I haven’t played The Stranger and 52nd Street in a long time, but both are cherished memories. I join in the hatred of Uptown Girl and most of that album, though. (Except the acappella piece based on a Beethoven sonata)
If I ever play out again I’d like to cover Vienna. A little high for me, but great song.
That’s one of the things I really disliked about gigging back in the day – you can’t do covers at all, even if you thoroughly reinterpret them. I’m not sure if clubs wanted to avoid the appearance of wedding bands or if they were worried about having to pay performance royalties, but it was a bummer. Occasionally we’d sneak something as an encore, but that was it.
Oh I was just marveling at the choice of words. Yelp on, Doggie.
Yep, I always knew exactly what you were doing. Thanks.
Half hour into Blue Ruin. Not sure about it one way or another yet.
Uptown Girl is down there with I Just Called to Say I Love You and If Dogs Run Free. The fact that the other two are by the two greatest singer/songwriters of their generation make them worse, so I guess it’s a saving grace for Uptown Girl that Billy Joel didn’t let any transcending greatness exacerbate the song’s putrescence.
Ditched Blue Ruin for Carnage. Weird transition.
Re-listening to If Dogs Run Free……. It’s quite…….something. What was he doing there?
Carnage was OK. I was hoping for a little better, but it was OK.