Knicks Morning News (2025.02.24)

I think the comparison of Thibs and D’Antoni is valid…in fact, I’ve repeatedly made that comparison since he was hired. Both are rigid, both have doghouses, both ride their starters (remember when D’Antoni rode Lin “like Secretariat” until he ran him into the ground?) And both don’t give a shit about what the media or fans, or even their own front office, thinks.

However, it seems to me that these panicky conversations are becoming pretty unhinged. I am not buying into the narrative that our players are disproportionately gassed or dinged up due to heavy minutes, especially after hearing that they practice less intensely than other teams. I am also not buying into the puddle-in-the-street shallow narrative that Thibs is a shitty X’s and O’s coach who is grinding out wins by playing his starters against other team’s scrubs. I agree that he leaves starters in too much, but there are many games where that has nothing to do with the outcome of the game relative to what other coaches do, e.g. he’ll pull the starters with 2 minutes left instead of 6 in a 20-pt blowout.

In fact, if anything, the team should more banged up and be losing more, especially if the starters are too worn out to compete.

And again, this team has had one of the weakest benches in the NBA over the course of this season. Deuce is decent but undersized. Payne is okay. Precious is just as often bad as good, but he did help Thibs weather the OG injury. Sims and Huk are replacement level. Shamet is both shitty and undersized, although playing a bit better lately. I don’t know if any coach who cares about winning is going to give tons of minutes to those players other than Deuce, and even he’s been injured.

If folks want to conclude that there’s an enormous difference between playing 37mpg like Mikal and Hart, and playing 35-36mpg like Brown and Tatum, or 36mpg like Murray and Jokic, or Durant and Booker, and DeRozan and Sabonis, whatever. Our two stars, KAT and Brunson, are playing 35mpg, pretty close to where all the other all-NBA players are playing, e.g. Shai, Giannis, Hali, Bam, Powell, Harden, LeBron (actually higher) , AD are all at 34. There is zero reason why they should be more gassed or banged up than those guys.

“For all of the splitting hairs, we seem to be at kind of a consensus in general. The team is good, not great, probably in the next tier below the real contenders. There are some fit issues and the coach/personnel match does not seem to be ideal.

Best quick fix would probably be to try to trade Mikal for a solid serviceable rim protecting big who can start and play heavy minutes. Move KAT to PF, OG to SF. Maybe you flip some other pieces (Mitch, young guys) for a 3 and D type shooting guard.

I don’t really like Mikal as a long term piece, I am just really not seeing the charm in his game after watching an awful lot of his play. He has his moments and he’s durable, but there’s nothing about his game that says to me that he’s a special player. If they can get something of value for him, they should move him.”

This seems like a much more level-headed post, and while I might disagree on trading Mikal, at least until I see how much of a difference Mitch makes, I agree with most everything else.

I have never been a proponent of hiring, or of keeping Thibs, and have no special allegiance to him. If he got fired tomorrow, or this offseason, or next year, whatever. For me, it’s way more about Leon and his last three transactions. Switching to a less polarizing coach would be nice, but it won’t change the fundamentals…and could just as likely have a negative impact as a positive one.

“That seems to be the problem because anyone else can.”

Our record is inflated by “smoke and mirrors” and “One Weird Trick” and “hack.”

Yet with the same X’s and O’s, but better minutes management, our record would be the same.

Yep, I’m having a hard time seeing how both of these statements can be true at the same time.

Hubert, I’m comparing the Knicks to teams with the same records and asking you and JK to tell me what you think would happen if the coaches were switched around. Meaning, if Thibs did his “smoke and mirrors One Weird Trick hack’ thing with those rosters and those coaches did whatever they do with our roster.

You might want to consider that we kicked those teams asses this season. Was that due to the whole samowth thing? Better roster? X’s and O’s?

Roberta Flack is iconic.

JK, what is tedious is your constant kvetching about minutes and calling it One Weird Trick or a hack. You say our record is over inflated, and that in reality Memphis and Denver are better than us, except for that crazy hack that Thibs pulls.

And by extension, you are saying that those teams will have some hidden gear to go to because they don’t do that.

Yeah, that seems pretty controversial to me. In fact, it seems like pure speculation, to put it kindly.

I think the KAT trade was a no-brainer, considering the circumstances. But the real value is in the trade value that KAT has compared to Randle and DDV.

Maybe you can build a true championship level team around a Brunson-KAT core, but I’m not seeing how we get there from here. Not without a bunch of picks. I don’t think either Mikal or OG gets you all that much, or enough to justify replacing them. It wont really solve the problem.

I think one of Brunson or KAT has to go, and Brunson is not going anywhere.

I think the whole “extra gear”theory is dubious. There are myriad reasons why teams win or lose in the playoffs. How many minutes starters played in the regular season is probably very low on the list, beyond what it says about players 6-8 in the rotation. For example, last year, the Nuggets didn’t have another gear to go to because their bench sucked while Minny’s was deep. OKC lost last year despite their depth.

The Celtics and Cavs are miles ahead of us today bc they didn’t accept being as far off the pace as we currently are.

Wrong.

Boston fired a hall of fame GM and traded their captain to get better.

Correct, after years of trying to make it work.

Cleveland fired an excellent basketball coach to get better.

Not really. Bickerstaff lost in the playoffs twice to lower seeds with a largely intact team. Atkinson may not be all that good either, no playoff record to speak of. The jury is out. In any case, if Atkinson is any part of the reason why Cleveland is so good, it contradicts your point about JBB.

But we’re supposed to stay locked in to Mikal Bridges, Karl-Anthony Towns, and Thibs… all because Isiah Thomas was a bad GM and Dolan let him run the team for a decade.

Did Raven, or anyone else, actually say that? That’s certainly not how I read it. He’s calling for patience. Sounds like Team We’ve Seen Enough has risen from the ashes.

This team can win 50 games with Jalen Brunson, Josh Hart, and 10 league-average players.

Wrong. Like trolling-level wrong.

I think that most of us are in agreement that all options for improving the team should be on the table, yet also understand that certain options are probably off the table so long as Leon is the POBO, first and foremost, trading Brunson.

I think most of us would be fine with moving on from Thibs, although there is not a consensus about how that will work out aside from the obvious change for change’s sake. It’s the simplest major change to make, and he does have annoying tendencies.

I think most of us agree that KAT’s defense at C is a significant problem vs. elite teams, especially the Celtics. There is disagreement with whether to ride it out with him and put better defensive players around him, or to trade him for either better 2-way players or assets or cap space or something. But it appears that no one is so attached to OG, Mikal, or anyone not named Brunson, that they would be devastated if one or more of them were traded.

I think most of us feel that a healthy Mitch can make a big difference, but there is not agreement on how much of one and/or against which teams.