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108 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2025.06.12)”
Bennedict Mathurin 27 points on 12 shots got me rethinking my belief systems
Still laughing at this gkhenman gem from last night.
Still in shock from that game. Pacers got OKC to play like a high school team for a quarter.
Revisiting this comment from yesterday afternoon:
This sent me down a rabbit hole: In terms of dynastic teams, Pat the Rat was a Lakers assistant promoted to his first head coaching job in the NBA. Ditto Phil Jackson with the Bulls. Pop had had two assistant jobs before the Spurs hired him. Kerr had no coaching experience, though he’d been an exec. Even when you get down to guys who only won a couple of titles, Chuck Daly only had one head job prior to Detroit. Rudy T was a longtime Rockets assistant under multiple head coaches prior to getting his first head gig. Spo coached under Riley. Even our guy Red Holzman only had one NBA job, with the Hawks, before getting the Knicks gig, though he coached in Puerto Rico in between.
I’m not saying that a multi-time retread can’t take us to the next level. And if it turns out the organization just won’t consider an assistant, then I don’t hate the idea of Mike Brown, who’s won at every stop and has shown himself to be much more flexible than most coaches of his age and experience. But it sure seems as if either a hot assistant or a guy who’s only had one head job (like Jenkins) has the much higher hit rate for this kind of thing.
I must be missing something because I can’t fathom why a team would grant permission to another team to interview its head coach. It’s almost like a vote of no confidence–feel free to take him off our hands so we don’t have to pay him when we can him. For example, imagine if the Knicks hadn’t fired Thibs but gave permission to Phoenix to speak with him.
Bernie, it could be for any or all of these reasons:
1. You know your coach isn’t happy
2. You’re not 100 percent sold on your coach
3. You like your coach but think you can find a similar replacement while also getting compensation from the team your coach goes to.
Rick Carlisle.
Thanks Alan, makes sense. Still seems weird since every aspect of it is likely to get leaked to the media (in my example, Suns asked, Leon said yes, Thibs actually spoke to them, Thibs not offered the job and why, Thibs offered the job but why he turned it down, Thibs still coach but with more or less power, etc) so if you give permission, there probably is an understanding between the teams that there will be a job offer. So in the Knicks case, I assume when they asked (if true) the Mavs, Rockets, and Wolves it was sequential, not simultaneous, and if any team said yes, one of those 3 coaches would be our new HC (given Dolan’s $$$) and we would possibly be minus even more draft capital.
What’s wrong with Budenholzer? Wipe the stink off from the Phoenix experience and you have a two-time COY with a ring.
FWIW, the annual GM survey
Who is the best assistant coach in the NBA?
T-1. Sam Cassell, Boston – 17%
T-1. Micah Nori, Minnesota – 17%
3. Sean Sweeney, Dallas – 10%
T-4. Chris Quinn, Miami – 7%
T-4. Jeff Van Gundy, LA Clippers – 7%
» Also receiving votes: David Adelman, Denver; Pat Delany, Toronto; Chris DeMarco, Golden State; Lindsey Harding, L.A. Lakers; Trevor Hendry, Cleveland; Juwan Howard, Brooklyn; Royal Ivey, Houston; Jay Larranaga, LA Clippers; Josh Longstaff, Charlotte; Dale Osborne, Orlando; Jordan Ott, Cleveland; Terry Stotts, Golden State; Jay Triano, Sacramento
This head coach search is going nowhere fast. I think we’ll see some in-house coach (Bryant, Cheeks, Yoshimoto) or even (gasp) Ewing taking the helm.
There was no way this team was going to lure one of the existing coaches off another team. Leon Rose isn’t stupid enough to have put the team in this position. Thank you Jim Dolan for wrecking what should have been a somewhat satisfying off-season.
So if the Pacers beat the Thunder, can we just apologize to Thibs and hire him back?
Yes! Dallas was his 3rd HC gig when he won there in 2011. He shocked everyone back then as well, and against a would be dynasty.
I said it after the game last night, but I was so impressed with the Pacers D in the 4th quarter. They made a 68 win team look like a bunch of clowns on offense, and Chet looked like the proverbial deer in the headlights.
This series could shift on a dime; OKC may spank the Pacers in game 4, but that 4th quarter was pretty eye opening. If I was a Pacers fan, I’d be feeling pretty damn good right now.
And Frank Vogel as well.
yeah how about vogel the only place he did badly was in orlando with a bad team
Man..if Indy manages to win it, I don’t know whether to be angry as a Knicks fan or excited as a pure basketball fan. This series is weird because there are players I really like on both sides. SGA, Hartenstein, Chet, Obi, and Mathurin. Oh and the weirdest of em all because I like the player but absolutely will not root for him- Haliburton. How Indy is taking OKC away from their strengths amazes me. Carlisle is on one this series lol. Has been the entire playoffs. Salute to him
If The Pacers win this series, Carlisle immediately rises to GOAT level status for coaches, IMO.
2011 against Miami was impressive enough but to have this type of run and win another title? Impressive shit.
Johnnie Bryant not on the board. Just #noticing
anyone else previously clueless to the fact that juwan howard is on the nets staff
Watching this series, I can’t help but keep my eyes on Toppin, whose play/role solidifies in my mind why Thibs had to go. In New York, Thibs could never seemingly find playing time for Obi. Yet somehow Carlisle is getting him 19-28 minutes in the NBA Finals. Granted Toppin’s 3p% has increased since going to Indy, but IIRC in NY he really wasn’t encouraged to shoot them, and they seemed to be at awkward/desperate moments. But even then it begs the question, why couldn’t Thibs get Toppin to shoot 3s at a high rate, but Carlisle/Indy could?
Thibs is a very good coach, I won’t deny that. But I think he’s pretty much at his limit what he could achieve with this roster, or very close to it. His inability to be flexible until it was too late. How he seemingly just ignores some players or combinations and won’t find them significant playing time during the regular season. That he doesn’t experiment with different systems/ideas so he utilize them when he needs it. Thibs could win it all with this team, but not against another coach that will poke and prod against matchups and weaknesses.
If he were a chess player, he’d be one of those guys who plays gambits and sacrifices (ironic I know) and is difficult to beat if you haven’t experienced them before. But against a strong player, all those attacks are easily negated.
Definitely super impressed with Carlisle. What he has done with the likes of Nembhard, Toppin, McConnell and Nesmith (who I know rated well out of college) is super impressive.
I am rooting for OKC but last night I kind of found myself wondering, a le Donnie, why?
Indiana has been underrated all year. They were formidable last year and got better, mainly via internal development. Their pace is very tough to defend. Hali is inconsistent and does some dumb things but when he’s playing well, which is more often than not, he not only is a great shot creator but he is an elite passer who makes everyone better both in transition and in the halfcourt. He also has a knack for coming up big in big moments.
Carlisle is maximizing their ability to play in-your-face basketball at both ends. Nembhard is bigger than he looks and relentless when on the ball, Nesmith has developed into a quintessential 3-and-D wing with both quickness and strength. TJ is in everyone’s jock and is hard to keep from getting off his bread and butter pull-ups and floaters. Sheppard and Obi run the floor and defend to the best of their abilities. Turner is more than capable against iHart and Chet. Mathurin is hardly some scrub, he was drafted 6th in a pretty deep draft and was 4th in POY voting. He has elite athleticism, gets to the line, can create shots, and plays with an edge. Their biggest weakness is at backup C, but Bryant killed us in game 6 with 3 monster 3’s.
But what it comes down to is that Hali is grossly underrated. On D, while he can get overpowered, he uses his length, quickness, and anticipation very well. And on O, he’s the engine that makes everyone better with his passing and ability to get wherever he wants, and when he’s hot he’s virtually unstoppable.
Obviously game 4 is a must win for OKC, and if they lose, folks will tend to pin it on them being overrated. But I think Indy has already demonstrated that they have been unfairly slept on all year. They got off to a slow start but have dominated the league in 2025.
I agree with most of what Mike K just said. I certainly agree that he has overutilized some players and underutilized others. It’s why I think he’s comparable to Mike D’Antoni, a second-echelon coach with doghouses, blind spots, and unseemly stubbornness to modify what he does to fit the personnel.
Take Obi, for example. He is not starter material on a contending team, but he is very well suited for the energy guy off the bench on an uptempo team with pass-first PGs role. Could Thibs have utilized him better with the personnel we had while he was here? Maybe, but Obi is a perfect fit on Carlisle’s team than he was here. (BTW Mike, he had a higher 3PAr in his last year here than he did in Indy, he’s just shooting them at a higher % so you might actually credit Thibs for that development.)
You could make the same argument with Grimes and IQ, and you can argue that Thibs overutilized RJ, but in all of these cases, it wasn’t that he didn’t develop those players as much as he didn’t utilize their development at the expense of wins for the benefit of having a more “complete” team with more cards to play come playoff time.
But I think Indy’s performance in the finals strongly suggests that we have a personnel issues that transcends coaching, and we are much easier to stop than Indy is.
It’s crazy to think just a few weeks ago people were calling the Cavaliers a laughing stock because they lost to the Pacers with half their rotation injured.
I’ve been reading about how many people don’t accept being proved wrong and find reasons (excuses) why they were actually correct. Case in point, people who believe Indiana isn’t very good. Confronted with evidence that Indy is good, they say things like “it was Cleveland injuries that did them in” or “I guess OKC isn’t as good as we thought “ or “It’s all Thibs fault”
They were underrated all season because of recency bias. They got off to a bad start, but that was in large part becasue Haliburton was having back and other issues and wasn’t playing his best basketball. The question was whether he could get healthy again.
Still, I think they are overperforming their talent right now primarily due to great coaching. They played defense last night like the Knicks play defense in game 5 against them. Can they do it again?
OKC showed some vulnerabilities against Denver. To be honest, I think Denver would have won that series if they were healthy, but they were a mess. That’s why I closed out my bets, took the money and ran. I didn’t think they wree the lock everyone elss stil thought they were (including me at the start of the playoffs). They are a great defensive team, but their offense is just good. Their higher offense comes generating TOs and the high efficiency off them. If you can keep your TOs under control and have an imaginative offense you can beat them. Matching their depth also helps. ,
Begley:
————–
Idk anything about the value of preseason scrimmaging but there were certainly times the team didn’t look well prepared late game.
Obi hasn’t even played that well for the Pacers this postseason, we should all be much angrier we drafted him instead of the Halliban
Obi was Leon Rose’s original sin. Drafted over Tyrese Haliburton as part of the Friends and Family program, doghoused by the defense-first coach also hired by Rose, and then traded away for nothing to a rival franchise to do him a solid, again as part of the Friends and Family program. Obi got into the program by having Leon Rose’s son as an agent.
Now both players are helping Indiana win a title directly after both players helped Indiana defeat the Knicks.
This is not exactly what you’d call basketball best practices.
One question that has been completely avoided is what exactly do we do about the incompatibility of Josh Hart and Karl Anthony Towns? People give Thibs grief for not adjusting to the way teams defended KAT but it’s ultimately a personnel issue, not a coaching one.
The Yankees division looks quite decent now, it was like the worst division a month ago
Halliburton was the consensus guy we wanted, but Obi has proven to be a solid rotation player. The fact that we traded him to a conference rival for 2 garbage second round picks is inexcusable. I don’t know who to blame more Thibs or Rose, but it was a major unforced error. Watching him in these finals has made me happy and sick at the same time.
Josh Hart’s career 3p% is 34.2%. Can someone eli5 why he can’t sit at the three point line like everyone else? The league average was 36% last year, so he’s in the vicinity. Even if he’s slightly below average, it’s still better than whatever the hell he does on offense.
That’s a minor original sin if there is one. We’ve had worse picks with the #8.
Honestly I think Obi’s drop in value is on Thibs. Who would have traded more for him given how little he played and how out of sync he looked in the half court offense?
Start Deuce and bring Josh Hart off the bench would be the obvious alternative that Thibs never fucking tried
It’s not that he’s a horrible shooter, it’s that he is afraid to shoot them or something unless he’s on fire. He passes up the shot even when it’s conceded to him which makes him easy to defend.
Meanwhile guys like Andrew Nembhard, who shot under 30% this year, have made a bunch of huge threes this playoffs.
* Obi is at his best in transition and the Knicks current PG doesn’t like to run at all . Brunsons slow pace and ball stopping isn’t the best for Obi.
I find Josh Hart to be a confounding player who is probably best suited to a 20-25mpg bench role, and that his minutes should be varied according to who the opposing team has on the floor. But he’s the kind of player that coaches like Thibs (there are probably lots of them) just can’t keep off the floor because of all the things he does well.
That right there is as good of a reason as any to see what another coach can do to keep Hart in the proper role (or without Hart if he is traded.)
In my view, that’s not related KAT being somewhat incompatible with Brunson. But it definiitely doen’t help.
And I don’t think replacing Hart with Deuce in the starting lineup changes much. Teams will eventually adjust to that as well. Deuce is not going to become less undersized defender next to Brunson and in front of KAT, nor is he going to become a great shot creator for his size.
Trading Obi was fine, we weren’t going to pay to keep him.
Aaron Nesmith was in that draft, too. Oddly enough the Pacers didn’t even have a pick that year, having traded it for Malcolm Brogdon.
It changes everything. Deuce is far better at the PoA than Hart, and in fact far better than anyone else on the team. He allows Bridges to move from the PoA, where he sucks, to the wing, where he’s pretty good.
He’s better than Hart at creating shots anywhere except transition, and he’s light years better as a shooter. He makes us a 5-out team where every shooter commands respect and none can be sold out on. He counters the wing on KAT strategy.
It is the solution. The downside is rebounding, which we have ample evidence to show doesn’t matter much when you have a thermonuclear offense and a pretty good defense. It certainly wasn’t enough of a weakness to dismiss this approach out of hand.
Then Hart is also more effective in his optimal role as a change-of-pace guy off the bench. I really wish Thibs had tried this as a regular lineup because he’d probably still be employed and we’d probably be in the finals.
Sure Thibs should have tried it but that’s not a great solution. It’s going to create its own set of problems.
At the end of the day some of the pieces don’t fit. And we don’t have enough pieces to use any of them suboptimally.
We can’t afford to have KAT be used any way other than the way he’s most effective. And if we’re going to ask a wing stand on the 3 pt line, it shouldn’t be Josh Hart.
We can’t give away value when we’ve already given away so much.
pagucci97 wow new like button emojis
It is amazing how little we talk about the fact we could have drafted Halliburton, given our obsession with old news and given how popular he was going into that draft. He was absolutely my guy.
I don’t actually know who I would rather have, Tyrese or Jalen. Tyrese does some stuff on the court Jalen just can’t do.
This was said at the start of the Finals
https://x.com/NBA_NewYork/status/1930756373882531850
After just playing the Knicks it made me think of ..
Unless he has some Steve Sax/Ben Simmons type of yips, shouldn’t the coach make him shoot? I could have sworn I read the article on Nate Oats who said he would bench players for not taking open 3s, because how efficient it is.
Yeah, I find myself agreeing with stuff, and would happily upvote them, but can’t
I have to say, in all my years, this argument of “Firing the most successful Kincks coach in a quarter-century after he took us to the ECF was fine because we might theoretically replace him with someone better” is perhaps the perfect demonstration that no matter how “smart” fans get, we’re still all dumb as rocks.
I mean, if Thibs is to blame for Obi…does that mean Brad Stevens was to blame for Nesmith being borderline non-playable when he was in Boston?
Boston and New York will be interesting case studies in coaching next season, as Mazzula will almost certainly have a much less talented team and the Knicks will likely have a coach who isn’t as good as Thibs.
The Great Clown is 100% correct and all the lineup data supports it. Not starting or at least giving Deuce major minutes was a fatal mistake.
It’s just not a fan argument, mbunge, it’s something the Knicks did.
https://xcancel.com/KnickFilmSkool/status/1932475344940081196
Looks like Deuce was surprised as well since he kind of shaded the team in his Game 6 post game interview. I think he was one of the players who wanted Thibs gone.
No question he should have tried it.
But now it’s the offseason and we can actually fix it with trades.
Are we seriously of the opinion that a Knicks team starting Brunson and Deuce in the backcourt all year long is going to live up to that extremely limited lineup data (data which was loaded with selection bias)?
The thing Thibs should have done is not necessarily the thing Leon should do.
There is no formula for this because coaches don’t win championships, player do. Coaches only lose conference finals.
Hey cyber, do you know anything about the Wine and Book Hotel in Porto? My wife is very interested….
Good time to renew the truism that the BB-ref pages and (especially) the lineup data are downstream from player skill sets and talents.
Which is why we see, on the one hand, Matheson able to light fools up in big playoff games, … and why, on the other hand, we should be very wary of thinking replacing Josh Hart with a bench-level 6-foot combo guard who laid brick in the playoffs will do anything beyond give a short-term, small sample size jolt.
Did Deuce “lay bricks”?
He certainly played poorly against Detroit but also played really well against The Celtics. He seemed to play fine against The Pacers too.
When I first saw all the thumbs up emojis I thought every single post was getting a thumbs up.
Which on this site would be highly unlikely to say the least
Tell us, E, is Deuce a dreaded “playoff risk” like that loser Donte DiVincenzo, who never hit any shots of note in the postseason?
Leon Rose will be able to find a guy to coach the Knicks because, somewhere, there are people who like money. That said, he will struggle to poach someone who is already gainfully employed because they are already making good money and the Knicks are a place where good legacies go to die.
Larry Brown won everywhere he went at every level, but with the Knicks he was lol. Phil Jackson’s eleven rings were relegated to lolPhil. Tom Thibs defied the odds and strung together a run of successful seasons, then gets fired for losing to the lolPacers, which is basketball hubris and will deservedly set the franchise back to where it belongs: the Purgatorial Mezz.
Donnie is totally winning the breakup.
The problem with Hart isn’t that he can never play with KAT, the problem was that the coach played him 35+ minutes every game regardless of how well he was playing.
Look on the bright side. If the consensus is they are a good regular season team but too soft in the playoffs, they may be a good value bet to win it all again next year. It won’t be as attractive as this year, but they could be value again.
For Hubie’s enjoyment.
https://www.facebook.com/reel/1221878869405579
I address at least once a week and sometime multiple times on the same day.
1. You find a starting PF or SG and move Hart to the bench.
2. You ultimately trade Towns because he’s a bad defensive fit with Brunson anyway and even though Brunson is the bigger problem, he’s not going anywhere.
He’s not necessarily a starter, but I’ve been bringing up Jonathon Isaac as a good fit for a long time and he’s now available.
It was a monumental error to not at least try it when the lineup data was better with Deuce, he’s out best POA defender, putting him on the main guard would free Mikal to defend someone more appropriate and the spacing would be better.
The only argument against it is size/rebounding. That may be a legitimate concern. It would be for me, but you HAVE TO try it. If the rebounding is an issue, at least play some more minutes with Mitch, Towns, Deuce, Brunson and either OG or Bridges.
If more Deuce instead of Hart fails, so be it, but there is logic to it and some data to support trying it.
And for the record, I love Hart, but there were issues with Towns/Hart. Not doing it was the straw that broke the back in my support for Thibs. There were just too many things at that point.
Legitimate shot at both Thibs and Brunson.
That’s why they pay Leon and Aller the big bucks. 🙂 It’s their job to figure out a way out of these issues through a combination of a new coach and off season moves.
I have a feeling it’s ultimately going to come down to moving Towns, but I don’t get the feeling that’s going to happen any time soon.
I don’t know if the starting lineup with Deuce instead of Hart would’ve been/would be better for the team in the long term. Taking away the defense’s ability to sag off Hart/guard him with a center would definitely be helpful, but I’m hardly positive we would make up for the lost efficiency Hart generates in transition and with his playmaking. There would be tricky defensive matchups too.
Here’s what’s indefensible about the Thibs approach though–we didn’t even try it. When I say “I don’t know” how it would perform I’m being quite literal, because in 82 god damn regular season games the lineup wherein we simply swap Josh Hart out for McBride got 41 total minutes. This is in a season in which we had pretty damn good health luck between these guys.
There are Thibsisms I was more sympathetic to than some, but this is the kind of thing for which I won’t even entertain any excuses. The regular season is way too long, but the one silver lining there is that you have plenty of time to trot out any number of things to gather data. It’s mind boggling that we just…didn’t do that, at all.
The problem with playing every game like it’s game 7 is you give up the ability to gain potential advantages in actual game 7s.
Maybe Deuce is our best POA defender, but that would be a massive indictment of Bridges, because deploying him at the POA was not some weird Thibs hang up. That Bridges was an elite POA defender was the consensus for a very, very long time.
I’m not saying Hart can never play with KAT. I’m saying every minute that he does allows the other team to guard KAT more effectively.
Put differently: if you’re top-heavy, the top guys need to elevate each other. You can’t be thin and incompatible, at least not when you get deep in the playoffs.
If you’re sticking with KAT, it makes more sense to trade Hart for someone who can play with him rather than just relegate Josh to the bench. You need to get 35 minutes of optimal value out of that $19M.
Agree with TNFH, we just don’t know for sure how Deuce would have performed… I think that he has the length and athleticism to guard poa better than Bridges… if he runs into a bad match up, then you go to Bridges… If they can find a better option, I’m all for it, I just don’t see how with our cap situation… maybe one of the kids develops…
That Bridges article is 5 years old, I doubt if he is the same player now that he was then, especially with his minutes load. Deuce, or Shamet, or Wright, or somebody should have been utilized more.
Deuce is our best POA defender in some cases, and I think Thibs did a great job of selecting those cases well. That’s why the lineup data looked so good.
Once you start playing Deuce against Luka Doncic, James Harden, SGA, Cade Cunningham and such the numbers won’t look as pretty.
These thumbs up things on the bottom of every comment is throwing me off….
great Mike K., you have now given both E and myself something else to stress about…like the 5 minute edit timer isn’t cruel enough…
hmmmmm, how can i successfully adjust my verbiage in order to achieve maximum likeability on each and every post, we post…
it’s all a game, so why not keep score…
oh look, I can like myself…hmmmmmm. maybe i can access multiple devices and really really like myself…
oh man, wait ’til doogie sees this…it will send him in circles…
I’ve wanted a thumbs up button for a long time. I would much rather give a comment a thumbs up than just restate an opinion that someone else has already posted. I would welcome a thumbs down as well.
Testing the thumbs up:
Dolan is a terrible owner.
Addendum: attempting to figure out if a thumbs up is in agreement (should get about 75 hits) or insightful (should get the sum of zero plus Dolan people employed to lurk and intervene as needed)
why, thumb up BE 😊
Mike Brown’s offense.
https://substack.com/inbox/post/165781895?r=5jsbb9&triedRedirect=true
Addendum to the addendum: there’s yet to be a thumbs down, so it’s 75 and zero!
Googling Mike Brown, I’m surprised that he appears to be the most famous Mike Brown in the world. You’d think there would be a more famous Mike Brown, but there isn’t.
Senga to the IL with a hamstring strain, no word on the severity. Best case scenario he’s looking at a month out, don’t want to think about worst case.
Sean Manaea should be back from his rehab stint soon, and Peterson is pitching like an ace, so the Mets should be able to weather this. Hopefully he won’t miss too many starts.
Mike Brown is an interesting choice.
When he coached the Cavs the first time, I remember there was sort of this narrative that he wasn’t very good. But, obviously, you look at the record during that time and they were very good (having young Lebron helped). Got to the Finals but then couldn’t get back to the Finals and lost to Boston in the second round before Lebron bolted. Still, he coached a team that went to the finals and a team that won over 60 games.
Lakers stint was short and that Nash, Howard, Kobe trio was old and injured, so not sure you can blame Brown for their lack of success.
then one year with Cleveland and they were bad but this was post Lebron.
Then an assistant under Kerr when they were dominant. He probably learned a lot from Kerr during this time.
I’d say his Kings tenure has been pretty good, overall.
I think he might be a sneaky good choice for us. Seems like a player’s coach, has worked with top stars like Lebron, Curry and Durant. Seems to run a good offense.
And he’s not old – mid 50’s. So maybe he’s just hitting his prime as a coach?
Welcome Giggles, greetings from the other side of the atlantic. 🙂 And please don’t go back to lurking, we like to have new voices and make this community even greater. 😉
Hey, we have a LIKE button now? Maybe i should read the thread before asking things that might’ve been already answered. 😛
I was hoping this article might offer more of a side-by-side comparison of Jenkins and Brown, but alas, it doesn’t. Does anyone have some useful ideas?
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6421935/2025/06/12/knicks-coach-mike-brown-taylor-jenkins-nba/
I’m not sure who the people doing that analysis are and I didn’t watch enough Suns basketball to have a strong opinion, but I never ever thought of him as a guy I’d like to put on Trae, Shai, Morant, Fox and guys like that. He’s SG/SF that can guard those positions and many of the other PGs in the league (and still can). You don’t want him on the super quick PGs. IMO, he can still guard Lillard. The reason he was put in that position here is because Brunson can’t guard a chair.
A cogent case for Brown by walkerandbendercornerstonessays. I’m swayed.
Don’t think we can dislodge Erik Spoelstra or whatever, and all the other employed coaches have no reason to leave (Finch, Udoka) or are less desirable (Kidd).
I guess he’s now my top realistic choice.
It’s never all or nothing.
You always have to look matchups and other issues, but you have to have a coach flexible enough to try things supported by common sense – especially if the data supports it.
Practically every lineup was better with Deuce and we also know the starting lineup was weak.
It was obvious something had to change.
You can visually see that Deuce is going to do a better job guarding many PGs than Mikal, but the main reason to have him out there was not that. It was that they couldn’t stick a C on him and sag off.
That’s what was killing the spacing and giving Towns so much grief in the starting lineup.
Again, that doesn’t mean it’s going to work.
It means we 100% know for certain what a major problem was.
It means we 100% know for certain we could address the major problem by swapping Deuce and Hart.
It means we 100% know for certain there would be defensive upsides against certain POA matchups.
However, we also know there will be downsides in rebounding, size, transition etc…. that Hart does well.
I’m not sure anyone is smart enough to weigh that all out and know the answer with a super high degree of certainty. That’s why you have to try it. But if you are too stubborn to try it, well, that’s when you get fired.
He wasn’t DPOY runner up for his rim protection and rebounding
That does make more sense than my “ultimately they may have to trade Towns because it won’t work defensively with Brunson and then put Hart on the bench”. Maybe you could get a starting PF with Hart as part of the deal. However, I think trading Hart may be off the table with Brunson here. That’s the assumption I am operating under.
He also wasn’t being asked to guard the smallest quickest PGs in the league every night (because our PG can’t guard a single starting PG in the NBA), score 20+ and play 40 minutes or get trashed by the fans because Rose gave up 5 picks for him.
He’s still a VERY GOOD player.
What if we just trade the players who create the problems for players who solve them?
Mets are built to endure the inveitable pitching related injury. Its an organization that has solid depth. I just hope Senga can get well sooner than later. He’s such an effective pitcher when healthy. But McNeil coming alive has really extended this lineup. We now have the big four –Lindor, Soto, Alonso, and McNeill – working together.
I would like to keep Josh Hart and just not play him 40 minutes per game.
Need to be careful not to end up with a team full of players who don’t do all the little things.
Josh is an amazing player who was tasked with doing too much — play too many minutes, guard the wrong guys, do way too much playmaking in the halfcourt offense. But he still has a skill set that helps winning, namely being able to push pace, and being an unbelievable rebounder for his size at both ends.
I would love for Josh to get a new shooting coach and a sports psychologist if he doesn’t have one already. He’s a good enough shooter that he should be able to make other teams pay (with high volume) for leaving him open. If I were his coach (which will never happen) – if he passes up a good 3 pointer with less than say 8 seconds left on the clock and drives into no man’s land, then he comes out of the game. Players learn quickly when you pull them off the floor.
Seems amazing, and the location is perfect, right in the city center.
I just listened to a Begley interview and oh boy has he changed his tune about Dolan’s involvement. Now it’s “a Leon Rose-led decision, is the most accurate way to put it”, and “Leon Rose got this decision to the finish line is more accurate”.
He also clarified that his baseless statement that Leon would have resigned if Dolan had made this decision was actually his understanding of what would have happened at some point in 2022 when Thibs was on the hot seat, and he just assumed that since it would have happened then that it would have happened now.
I confess, I don’t like the thumbs up buttons. But given that they are there, here’s another test
James Dolan is not a terrible owner!
You may not like him as a person, and he clearly was not good in the past, but now he hires capable people and lets them do their job. Not only that, but he’s willing to spend, not just on player salaries, but on a big scouting staff, and other support. What’s so bad about that?
wait a minute now…
am i the only one who did not know that alien: covenant had 2 short-film sequels (Advent and David’s Lab – Last Signs of Life)…
also, there’s this thing called alien anthology which consists of 6 short films…
oh happy aliens loving days…
No thumbs up is the emotional equivalent of ten thumbs down.
Yeah fwiw I’ve always appreciated that this is one of the few remaining places where if you want to express yourself you need to write a sentence.
Phil won 11 rings as a coach and a player, not as an executive, at which he sucked. That was not a Knicks problem (except for hiring him).
I’m fine with Jenkins. If we are going to go for a more creative offense with Towns and Brunson, imo he’s a good choice. If we wind up with Brown, I think the team will do fine, but I’d also say it’s around even money I’m going to get banned by mid season because I’m going to be miserable. At that point I’m going to want to clean house starting World Wide Wes right down the line. I’ve seen enough of his teams to know that much. I’ll immediately start thinking about the 2030 rebuild.
We are probably around 90% on the same page.
I love most of this team, but I don’t like the fit and I’m starting to see some of the downsides to Jalen’s father being a coach and Jalen and Josh being best friends. Certain things that I would do are more difficult.
One of the weirdest, funniest plays I’ve ever seen in the Yankee game just now.
I’m all in favor giving someone up and coming a shot at head coach, but it seems clear that Knicks management doesn’t want to do that. And there is the risk that whoever you hire is incompetent at the new level. Look at this article about the Suns’ new coach. I read it thinking I would be envious of them, but for some reason I don’t understand, I came away thinking this is going to be a disaster for the Suns. Maybe it was the sheer number of platitudes quoted from the coach or maybe it was the promise of a much more hands-on owner. Did anyone else get the same impression?
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6417767/2025/06/10/suns-coach-jordan-ott-serve-phoenix-well/?source=athletic_thebounce_newsletter&campaign=13833005&userId=5989245
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