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Knicks Morning News (2025.06.15)
06/15/2025 11:00:01
06/15/2025 09:07:33
06/15/2025 09:30:00
06/15/2025 08:00:00
06/15/2025 07:50:53
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79 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2025.06.15)”
Count me in, Alan.
Can we get a good player for the taxpayer MLE at all?
Well, i guess we can bet on him playing with more fire and desire this season. We can, right?
I’m not sure there’s much out there with the MLE, and if we spend it now we’re hard capped for the season, probably at 14 players… I think there may be an argument for just giving out minimums and holding the MLE to give us an advantage in the buy-out market.
However, it’s probably worth offering it to a couple of players we think can move the dial and seeing if a chance to play real minutes on a contender is enough of a draw. One guy I wonder about is Yabusele. I think we sniffed around him at the deadline. He could conceivably start at PF, shifting OG and Mikal down a slot. Defend, shoot threes, play a bit of small ball C if needed. Played on the min last year so 3/15 might be attractive?
I also loved the suggestion of going after JJJ yesterday. But I’d love to get him WITH OG not for him. JJJ and OG at the 4/3 would be devastating. Mikal’s salary matches JJJs – it’s just a shame the shine has worn off Mikal and we don’t have anything worthwhile to package with him. I’d definitely give Mikal and a protected 1 for JJJ.
What about our old buddy Luke Kornet? Or will he command more than the TPMLE?
Also, can’t we just find this year’s Yabusele over in Europe? Cmon, Euro-KBers, give us some scouting reports!
There’s no game today? i hope the knickerblogger dads have a nice day regardless
They did when Brunson and Towns played together.
We “almost beat the Pacers” [citation needed] because of one great run in game 1 and one great run in game 3. Jalen Brunson didn’t participate in either of them.
So unless the plan is to avoid playing Jalen Brunson, I think we have to eventually square the fact that we got dominated in 5 of the 6 games when our two best players shared the court.
This isn’t a problem for Mike Brown or Taylor Jenkins to fix.
We were trying to play drop defense with KAT and Brunson on the floor. The two main requirements for a successful drop defense scheme are:
1. Rim protecting big
2. Strong point of attack defense
We didn’t have either of those things, and we ran the scheme anyway. This, to me, was the main reason to fire Thibs if you were going to fire the guy: his stubborn determination to play his preferred scheme even when the personnel didn’t allow for it. We also didn’t maximize KAT on the offensive end, as the “offense” that was run for him was usually “here’s the ball at the three point line, go make something happen big guy.”
I don’t really believe that Brunson/KAT (BrAT?) is a good enough one-two punch to lead a stars-and-scrubs kind of roster to a championship, but trying to play drop with those guys just wasn’t a very good idea. This was a poor fit of coach and personnel. Play a more switch-heavy scheme, lose the drop defense, and run an offense with more of an emphasis on perimeter shooting and you might find that KAT and Brunson actually are playable together.
Donnie Walsh said:
While I don’t think the firing of Thibs was bad business, I agree with pretty much everything else.
I will to as far as to say that this roster with another coach has a greater chance of being eliminated in the first round than getting to the conference finals again. And it has virtually zero chance of getting to the finals.
But sure, run it back! Having a really good team that gets to the playoffs every year is not the worst thing in the world. And miracles happen!
But barring significant roster developments, my money is on second round elimination.
Can we get Naz Reid, who’s a free agent, for Mikal?
Kind of strange and disappointing they don’t have a game today. These 830 pm starts are killing me.
I read Donnie’s quote from yesterday that Z-Man notes above, and I read that as a seriously good, championship caliber, but highly dysfunctional team. Which to me ultimately sits on the coach’s shoulders.
I actually don’t disagree with any of what he says, I just read it completely differently.
They did when Brunson and Towns played together.
We “almost beat the Pacers” [citation needed] because of one great run in game 1 and one great run in game 3. Jalen Brunson didn’t participate in either of them.
So unless the plan is to avoid playing Jalen Brunson, I think we have to eventually square the fact that we got dominated in 5 of the 6 games when our two best players shared the court.
This isn’t a problem for Mike Brown or Taylor Jenkins to fix.
look, i’m way less optimistic about the available 5 out lineups everyone is drooling about but the urge to learn so much from these little jiggles in tiny samples is little more than constellation naming. we shot 21% on corner threes in jalen’s minutes against the pacers. if we and indy shot either our season or career long 3pt percentages in those minutes based on: who took the shot, where it was taken from, how open it was and whether it was catch and shoot, then we actually would have come out slightly ahead in point differential. i’m not trying to say that’s definitive; shot quality is complicated and we could have had all sorts of other luck going our way that’s harder to identify.
the pacers were pretty clearly worse than the knicks in the first half of the year and also pretty clearly better in the second half. they seemed marginally better in our series but it was close. unfortunately while i think the pacers have been underrated i don’t think they are quite the typical caliber of an elite nba team, despite how incredibly competitive they’ve been against okc. so i think it’s reasonable to think we are close enough to a pacers-quality team to pray the coaching margin might matter but also be concerned that the personnel mix is still short of what you’d hope for in a fully baked product.
The degree to which the Pacers are underrated here is a joke. They beat us in every game that actually mattered (Games 2, 4, 6) and kicked our asses in the game that mattered most, Game 6. We had no answers for their high-octane play. We were a step slow on both ends. The series was not close, and it was due to personnel more than coaching. I’m literally shocked that people are arguing otherwise.
Has anyone who thinks we should have beaten the Pacers actually been watching the finals? OKC’s defensive personnel is literally miles better than ours, and they needed an MVP effort from, you know, the actual MVP (not the consolation “clutch player” thing) to avoid going down 3-1. The Pacers are battling tooth and nail with a healthy OKC team that had the best regular season SRS, point differential, and DRtg by a country mile. You know, the team that kicked our asses every which way in both regular season meetings. I can’t even imagine how hard it would have been for our team to score against them, let alone defend them with our tiny PG and our cement-footed big. They have a counter for whatever personnel package and scheme we could throw at them, and that would be true no matter who was coaching.
I’m hopeful that Leon sees things this way, because it’s glaringly obvious to anyone who doesn’t overrate our top 7 players, including our two stars.
wow bane to the magic for 4 (edit) firsts and a swap. is memphis selling now?
Obviously I disagree with pt on the larger points, but I do agree that neither the Thunder nor the Pacers are elite in a historical sense. But they (especially OKC) have avenues for improvement open to them that we clearly don’t.
Other teams will be improving as well. For example, the Pistons gave us all we could handle and will likely get better. The Cavs had terrible injury luck. The Celts might get Tatum back before playoff time. The Hawks, Magic, and Raptors are probably 2 years of smart GMing away from being really good. Who knows what Pat Riley will pull out of his ass? No matter who we hire as coach, they aren’t going to be better than Carlisle or Spo.
We have to figure out a way to counter the team size, speed, athleticism, skill and two-way play of the Thunder, Pacers, Cavs, Rockets, etc. That requires the personnel to do it. I don’t see a lot of that on our roster right now.
Three point volatility and salary cap rules have created the kind of parity we haven’t seen in the NBA in a long time. At the end of this postseason eight different teams— 27% of all teams in the NBA— will have won a title in the last eight seasons.
If you can establish a baseline of “good team” long enough, you can crest in the right season. If you have a true top 5 player like Jokic or Giannis you can fairly easily surround that guy with enough talent to win a title. We just went to the conference finals with a team that looked downright mediocre for much of the second half of the season.
The bummer about the Knicks’ situation is the lack of flexibility that Leon has created in getting us this close. It’s really hard to upgrade this group without making lateral moves, largely because we have no young players who might be able to step into larger roles. We’re relying strictly on veterans outperforming their contracts. That has gotten us pretty far, but that next step is a doozy.
I’ll be amazed if Leon has the chops to pull it off, but the guy has surprised me before.
That Magic trade does solve their shooting problem, but they still don’t have a point guard?
think you get a lot of what you need in bane if he and suggs can stay healthy. between those two and banchero/wagner, that’s a lot of handle, creation and passing. it would
be nice (for them) if franz can arrest the rapid descent in his three point form. but i think there’s a lot there now as is.
I’m guessing they view Suggs as the PG
Given the reports that Kevin Durant does not want to be traded to the Knicks and Giannis does not want to be traded anywhere, there are fewer big trade possibilities.
I still like a 3 way trade with the Hawks and Magic.
Knicks get: Suggs & Isaac (from Orlando) & 13th pick in 2025 draft (from Sacramento via Atlanta)
Hawks get: KAT
Magic get: Trae Young
Starters:
PG: Brunson
SG: Suggs
SF: Bridges
PF: OG
Center: Mitchell Robinson
Mitch & Isaac would split the center position.
Hart and McBride would be the two primary non-center subs.
The 2025 draft pick would be the 9th man.
This roster would surrounds Brunson with lots of defense.
Spacing could be an issue, because Mitch/Isaac are NOT stretch 5s.
Edit: I posted this before learning that the Magic traded KCP, Cole Anthony & lots of firsts to Memphis for Desmond Bane. This trade would give Orlando a starting PG.
Interestingly, this seems roughly the same price we paid for Mikal, since Brooklyn got no useful players, where KCP is probably worth at least a first on his own.
Alot of panic GMs working in the NBA
magic look solid now…assuming suggs can stay on the court…them and detroit will be nipping out our heels next season…
KCP looked shot last year…he seems like a throw in now…
i like how some see thibs as the sole reason we got as far as we did…I think at this point with this roster it could be any shmoe that got us this far as long as brunson was on the roster…i mean really…tom thibodeaux as the magic elixir…please…
I don’t think it’s entirely fair to say we have no young players ready for bigger roles.
We have Deuce who fits that description. He got up to 25 minutes a night last year; if his shot stabilizes you’re looking at a pretty good player.
Plenty of guys in the NBA make a 2nd or 3rd year leap, and Hukporti, Kolek, and McCullar were all on the older side as draft prospects and they all flashed this year. I don’t think we can write them off just yet either.
“i like how some see thibs as the sole reason we got as far as we did…”
Did anyone actually say this?
Pt what about the 100 game sample of watching KAT and Brunson and never thinking this was a championship caliber combination? What about the ten year sample of KAT being a fucking moron?
If you think I’m being harsh suggesting the Pacers would have beaten us 10 times out of 10, fine. I am. I happen to think this combination of Brunson & KAT is always going to get found out. It looked bad from day 1 in Boston. We did an admirable job plugging the holes but I don’t think we should commit to something that requires so much hole plugging.
I think we were much closer to losing to Detroit than to beating Indiana, so it strikes me as unwise to focus on the lucky bounces that could have gone our way.
Bane does more things well than Bridges, but I never thought of him as a defender. Maybe someone else has an opinion on that.
I can see what Orlando is doing, but that’s quite a haul for Memphis even if like the Knicks Orlando expects all the 1st rounders to be in the 20s .
“Plenty of guys in the NBA make a 2nd or 3rd year leap, and Hukporti, Kolek, and McCullar were all on the older side as draft prospects and they all flashed this year. I don’t think we can write them off just yet either.”
You left out Dadiet. I agree that all 4 of our rookies are guys who should be played next year. Dadiet showed good defensive footwork, maybe he can thrive in a Nesmith-type role one day. Kolek has to become much tougher on defense in order to be playable. McCullar fits the physical archetype if he can learn how to knock down 3’s. Huk seems like he is already a solid backup C, can he stay healthy?
I don’t think Dadiet is gonna be part of the equation next year. He’s like 3 years younger than the others and his performance at Westchester was Keelsian
i think of bane as a pretty good defender but with a low ceiling. he’s smart, plays hard, and he uses his strength well like a guard version of pj tucker. but his trex arms and so so lateral quickness means he’s never going to be anything like a stopper. given his profile and his injury history i wouldn’t be surprised to see him have to pivot all the way up to guarding 4s as he gets older.
It could be on offense, but it will inevitably lead to a mediocre defense. We are seeing first hand how important playing consistently high level defense matters in the playoffs. The Knicks played high level defense against top teams for a game here or there, but they couldn’t sustain over a series of games.
Ultimately, I think they are going to break up the Towns/Brunson marriage if they are serious about winning it all, but it may not be this year unless they can find the ideal deal(s).
Maybe we should hire D’Antoni as a consultant.
He would almost certainly get the maximum out of Brunson and Towns on offense and given what he did defensively with Amare and Nash (even worse?), he probably has some good ideas about how to handle them on defense too. Those peak Suns team were not good defensively, but they weren’t horrible either.
well…donnie for sure said something like that and you seem to be of the opinion that nobody could have taken us further (which seems real close to that) but it is moot…suggesting in the alternate reality that there wasn’t some coach given this roster that could have done better (cue the “…I said unlikely or doubtful” qualifier)…is of course, unverifiable and it also seems like a bunch of folks believe thibs was, should I say, limited in his x’s and o’s such that he capped our ceiling…anyway…i’m glad he’s gone and we have an opportunity to see what happens with this roster (hopefully ex-bridges) and a new vision…
looking back on it…i think (and thought so back then) he was solid to right the ship/get things back to respectability but he was always only gonna get it so far (cite something in his history that suggests otherwise)…time to pass the baton (and it might get dropped but c’est la vie…at least we give it a try …instead of running the wishbone offense out there again next season).
“I think we were much closer to losing to Detroit than to beating Indiana, so it strikes me as unwise to focus on the lucky bounces that could have gone our way.”
I think it’s a wash, but the point stands. The feeling from the beginning of the playoffs (if not the entire season) was that we could not get over the top without some injury luck and other kinds of luck…bad calls, lucky bounces, etc., hence the term “puncher’s chance.” Well, we had all kinds of luck going for us. Even vs. Indiana, Nesmith turned his ankle and took a couple of games to get back to full strength, yet we couldn’t take advantage.
Now folks are saying that a better coach could get us over the top…but even if you can find a better coach than Thibs (sorry, I’m not a believer in Mike Brown or Taylor Jenkins being some sort of major upgrade) you are suggesting that he can do so given the same amount of luck. But what about without the luck, or just the “chalk” amount of luck? What if Jaden Ivey and Isaiah Stewart are healthy and develop further? What if Garland and Spida are fully healthy and Mobley doesn’t sprain his ankle? What if the ref doesn’t miss a blatant Knicks foul on a corner 3?
Has anyone actually said that?
From day one everyone here agreed we weren’t deep enough at several positions and were going to have to address that THIS off season.
I think what people are saying now is that a different coach might have made lineup adjustments that would have made the Detroit series easier and possibly gotten us past the Pacer as the chips fell (which did include some good fortune injury wise).
He didn’t get fired because we lost.
He got fired because he coached in his same old stubborn way even though there was substantial evidence suggesting it wasn’t working well and he should try a couple of other things that were working better in smaller sample sizes.
“looking back on it…i think (and thought so back then) he was solid to right the ship/get things back to respectability but he was always only gonna get it so far (cite something in his history that suggests otherwise)…time to pass the baton (and it might get dropped but c’est la vie…at least we give it a try …instead of running the wishbone offense out there again next season).”
That’s fair, pepper, and as you said, there’s no way to verify how we would have done with a different coach…for example, would another coach have had us in the 5th seed by sacrificing regular season wins and then gotten us eliminated in the first round because the tweak everyone felt were neccessary didn’t actually work?
My larger point is, I never felt that this roster was a finals-level roster regardless of who was coaching, and if I had to bet going into the year, I would have definitely bet on another 2nd round exit, regardless of the coach. I personally can’t fairly say “what if” when the team got further along than nearly every prognosticator predicted all along the way. I also feel more convinced than ever that Indy is going to be very difficult to beat so long as we have both Brunson and KAT on the team,. because Carlisle is going to just adjust to whatever we employ. For example, if we tell KAT to play at the level more, he will just run actions to iso KAT on a player that will result in him getting into foul trouble. If there is more passing, there will be more turnovers and opportunities for run-outs. If we start Deuce, Indy will pull Mitch and KAT away from the basket and beat us to offensive rebounds.
The real conundrum with Indy is their passing and ball movement. Hali is as good of a passer as I have ever seen, and McConnell is super-intelligent when it comes to seeing the floor and using his speed to create imbalances from the inside out. We just don’t have the personnel to play that way, or to counter that.
“Has anyone actually said that?”
I dunno, what does it mean when folks say run it back with a new coach and some bench tweaks? What does it mean when folks say that we were close to beating Indy and a different coach would have won the series? What does it mean when folks say KAT and Brunson are compatible in a championship starting lineup if they have the right coach who knows how to use them?
I already staked out beachfront property on Dadiet Island. I’m sure Thibs would have preferred a guy like Ryan Dunn who he could have used some this past year.
Besides Anthony Edwards, the rest of the top NBA minutes accumulators, weren’t exactly lighting the playoffs on fire. We had 3 of the top 10 (Mikal, Hart and OG). Shai was 18th and Siakim was 24th. Thibs was playing mid-level talent superstar minutes and getting exactly what he deserved. A good coach uses reasonableness to build out the proper team architecture.
“From day one everyone here agreed we weren’t deep enough at several positions and were going to have to address that THIS off season.”
Even if this is true, there has been disagreement from day one on whether KAT and Brunson are compatible vs. the highest level of competition. Obviously folks continue to disagree on this. I’m a hard NO…barring a ridiculous acquisition of someone like Giannis that doesn’t kill all of our depth. That calculation is completely separate from the coaching discussion and from the bench depth discussion.
“Besides Anthony Edwards, the rest of the top NBA minutes accumulators, weren’t exactly lighting the playoffs on fire. We had 3 of the top 10 (Mikal, Hart and OG). Shai was 18th and Siakim was 24th. Thibs was playing mid-level talent superstar minutes and getting exactly what he deserved. A good coach uses reasonableness to build out the proper team architecture.”
If you want to believe that fatigue caused by excessive minutes played during the regular season was a factor in our losing to Indy, go right on ahead. We looked as fresh as daisies for the first two rounds, and didn’t look any more tired than OKC (specifically SGA) has looked in the finals.
If we looked tired vs. Indy, that would have been the case no matter what. They pick up 84 ft pretty much full time and run after every made basket or turnover. Meanwhile many of the teams that managed minutes during the regular season, e.g. Cleveland, Boston, looked more tired and had more injuries than we did.
As I said, you can’t discount the possibility that a better minutes manager would have had us in the 5th seed and losing to Indy in the first round.
Remember everyone. The Knicks got lucky beating the Celtics bc they had a few injuries but the pacers DID NOT get lucky facing a Cleveland team completely decimated by injuries.
Pretty much get that you’re a hard NO on KAT and Brunson, and I’m not exactly excited about the horse whisperers being considered at the moment, but if we kidnapped Carlisle and stapled him to the bench, I’d like our chances next year at proving you wrong…
“Remember everyone. The Knicks got lucky beating the Celtics bc they had a few injuries but the pacers DID NOT get lucky facing a Cleveland team completely decimated by injuries.”
Did anyone say that?
And if anything, considering the battle that they are giving a team that was even better than the Cavs during the regular season, the Pacers have demonstrated that they could have beaten the Cavs even without injury luck.
“Pretty much get that you’re a hard NO on KAT and Brunson, and I’m not exactly excited about the horse whisperers being considered at the moment, but if we kidnapped Carlisle and stapled him to the bench, I’d like our chances next year at proving you wrong…”
If your argument is that Carlisle is a better coach than Thibs, I’m with you. As Bum Phillips once said about a great coach, “He’ll beat your’n with his’n, then beat his’n with your’n.”
I don’t think that necessarily holds here, because I think the assumption that Thibs would coach the same way with different personnel is flawed. The Knicks had the best offense in the NBA this year until other teams caught on re: how to stop us. If Carlisle ran different schemes than Thibs with the same personnel, my guess is that teams would figure that out as well, because there are hard limitations to what you can do with KAT and Brunson on the floor, i.e. that can’t be countered with adjustments. This is especially true down the stretch of games. And if you start benching one or the other, there will be drama, even if fueled by the dumb NY media.
Even if what you say is true, where do you find a Rick Carlisle-level coach right now? He’s gonna be a fixture in Indy for the entire Brunson era, so if you’re pinning your hopes on Kidd, or Jenkins, or Brown, or Stotts, or Budz, or Bryant, I don’t see this theory ever getting tested.
I’m not quite as out as Z-Man is on BrAT, but he’s spot-on (*) with his assessment of Mitch/Hart (“fools gold”) and OG/Mikal (“low IQ’s gold?, fools platinum?). They aren’t good enough, and it’s been clear for a long before the playoffs that they aren’t. They’re going to have to be swapped out, or downgraded in the pecking order.
As to Thibs, it therefore comes down to “he didn’t do as good a job as needed with overrated personnel.” Very few NBA coaches last into their sixth season with the same team, I don’t put him in the very small “tenured” category and don’t think he’s worthy, he has some blind spots, and therefore it’s time to move to a new voice. That voice may not net-net be any better a coach than Thibs or ever get the team to or beyond the ECF, but that kind of thing happens in the NBA all the time. There’s no reason to believe this was anything beyond a puncher’s chance team with Thibs, or was ever going to be — particularly since Leon emptied the asset chest.
Detroit came as close to beating NYK as NYK came to beating Indiana.
(*) And generally doing fine objective work.
… so the realistic thing to do is turn the fools gold/platinum around BrAT (*) into something better and hope it meshes well with the new coach.
Tough task. Doable, but tough.
(*) To a degree, they’re taking it on the chin for the faults of the fools gold. If anyone honestly watches Caruso, Dort, and J-Dub do their thing on defense and sees any real resemblance to Mikal/OG/Hart, I don’t know what to tell them — other than the names of my optometrist and ophthalmologist.
Interesting thing about the Bane trade is it seems to suggest the Mikal Bridges trade set a new market level.
Sorry but I think it’s ridiculous to think a coach like Carlisle wouldn’t try to or find a way to adjust. Thibs is gone because he has one gameplan. When it works great, when it doesn’t he is slow to do anything
“Sorry but I think it’s ridiculous to think a coach like Carlisle wouldn’t try to or find a way to adjust. Thibs is gone because he has one gameplan. When it works great, when it doesn’t he is slow to do anything”
If I am coming across as saying that this is “ridiculous” I apologize, as it is just an earnest difference of opinion.
My qualm is with the assumption that whatever adjustments folks are complaining about would actually have worked in practice to the degree that it would have turned the series around, with the underlying assumption that there was not a significant issue solely based on the personnel, i.e. coach-agnostic.
Watching the way that Indiana is playing in these finals against a coach with a much better roster has only bolstered my opinion on the matter. Ironically, the same folks here who have been complaining about Thibs have been on Daigneault for not playing iHart enough.
And why did OKC win game 4? Not because of adjustments, but because the MVP overcame whatever Indiana threw at them. We couldn’t do that in game 4, or game 6, because our best player is not nearly as good as OKC’s best player on either end of the court.
And that brings up a topic that is taboo in these parts…Brunson’s vulnerabilities. By squandering all of our draft capital on a non-all-star, is there actually anything Leon can do to surround Brunson with a supporting cast that adequately protects him from becoming a liability in the biggest games vs. the best competition? He was terrible in Game 6, but the essense of Indy’s game plan was to make life hard for him on both ends. Brunson is the best Knicks player since Ewing, but he isn’t Steph Curry, and needs more help than we currently can give him. Will that change?
I think that’s an egregious overpay for Bane.
Donnie who?
I have been pretty clear that I don’t think coaching matters that much, it’s a player’s game and a player’s league.
What I did say is that firing Thibs is a bad move because no moderately ambitious substitute will take the job given then impossible standard for success that the front office is setting. (That said, it’s not that big of a difference whether you have Steve Kerr or Mark Jackson coaching this team, the roster is in the great luck phase of contention, which is a good place to be, but not gonna be coached down to the floor seats)
happy dad’s day everyone…i hope you are all able to enjoy the day with the folks you love doing stuff you enjoy 🙂
The standard of not losing the whole locker room and playing a real offense is actually pretty low.
This draft equity is likely more than the Knicks gave up for Bridges. In particular, the 2026 (best of Orlando, Phoenix or Washington) is likely to be a top 8 pick.
Bane’s a better player than Bridges by quite a bit.(*) Still probably not worth that kind of package. That said, Orlando shot the trifecta awful last year, and Bane is one of the best from distance in the association. So at least there’s a nice fit at an obvious need area.
(*) 3-ish OBPM. Other than the flukiest fluke that ever fluked BKN spring of ’23, Bridges is 0.6-ish.
I’m in full agreement with Z-Man here. Especially the last part.
I said this during the series: Thibs was a net negative in the Pacers series, but he wasn’t the reason we lost. He simply contributed to the loss.
I think he deserved to be fired for that because it was the fourth time in the playoffs he was a net negative. We’d seen enough.
But I don’t think getting rid of him is going to solve the problem. The problem is a poorly conceived, ill-fitting roster. And I actually think Thibs did a pretty good job covering up a lot of its flaws.
The next coach may have a better offense but it’s like a dike with too many holes. Fix the offense and I bet a hole that Thibs plugged well starts to leak. People think everything good is baked in, as if everything Thibs gave us is guaranteed and we’re going to have everything we had this year and a great offense. I don’t buy it.
There was an upside to all that Jalen Brunson ISO ball. It was efficient and low turnover. An egalitarian motion offense sounds nice but you’ve seen OG dribble. You’ve seen KAT think. Thibs’ offense held all that back. So maybe you get more motion but you’re going to get a lot more turnovers, too. There’s a zero sum nature to all this that people ignore.
The Bane deal kinda confuses me..or maybe I’m stubborn. I think Bane has developed into a really good player, but that feels like more of an overpay than the Bridges deal. At least we didn’t give up(in retrospect) useful players, as Bogey got hurt. Speaking of- I wonder if he’d take a minimum deal to return to the Knicks.
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(Comment addressed disappeared upon editing.)
Funny thing – Father’s Day is the same date in the U.K. as in the US but Mother’s Day isn’t. Who knows why. Happy Father’s Day everyone.
Some of our young players (Huk, Kolek, Dadiet, McCullar) might turn out to be playable, but none of them project to be good enough to take the role of one of our top 7 players, who could then be traded for something else we need. Is anybody here up for the idea of trading Mitch and giving his gig to Huk, or to moving one of Bridges/Hart/OG and giving his minutes to McCullar or Dadiet? Of course not. Those guys are all projects and there’s a good chance none of them sticks.
We have neglected the draft for too long under Rose, and that has hurt our flexibility. It really helps having rookie scale players that can give you quality minutes before they get too expensive. We hit on Deuce, but there’s really not a whole lot of promising young players in the pipeline.
So is JJJ available?
That might be the best we can do if the idea is to go forward with Towns and Brunson. Mikal’s salary is a close match to start.
I would love it if they would take Mikal for JJJ without a 1st attached, which is why I mentioned OG for JJJ yesterday
Mitch has been rumored as a trade piece multiple times.
I think Leon has to decide whether he’s staying with Towns at C, whether he thinks a 2 big man lineup can work, whether he needs a players exactly ike Mitch behind Brunson and whether he trusts that Mitch will stay healthy and can play starter minutes.
If they trade Mitch I damn sure hope the solution isn’t to give his job to Huk.
Underreported fact: KCP’s shooting fell off a cliff. He is going to be 32 next year, looks washed already, and is owed $22M/year for two years. It had to have cost two picks just to get rid of his terrible contract.
These are two separte issues.
1. I suspect close to 100% of the people here think there are issues with the skills and fit of players here now
2. That does not mean you can’t make adjustments to minutes, lineups and strategy on both sides of the ball to maximize what we do have and avoid the most negative things.
In a series that was 4-2 and a bad bounce from being 3-3 it absolutely could have been the difference.
I suspect KCP still has plenty left in the tank, just not for a team like Orlando that needed playmaking, shot creation and outside shooting and not just catch and shoot 3&D.
This draft equity is likely more than the Knicks gave up for Bridges. In particular, the 2026 (best of Orlando, Phoenix or Washington) is likely to be a top 8 pick.
the 26 isn’t the best of those 3 if either phx or wash is best and both are 1-8. in that case wash gets it, ie if the suns land 1 and wash lands 7 or vice versa, wash gets the 1 and memphis gets the 7. if wash is out of the top 8 and has to give us their pick, then memphis gets the best 2 out of their own, orlando and the suns (with the other going to charlotte).
“The standard of not losing the whole locker room and playing a real offense is actually pretty low.”
First, Thibs didn’t “lose the locker room.” Certain players were not fans, but the finger-pointing was typical after a tough loss stuff. Clearly Brunson and Hart were supportive of retaining him. Mikal probably wasn’t but he’s not the kind of player to disrupt what the coach wants to do. We have no idea who said he wouldn’t play for Thibs again. If it were Cam or Precious, who cares? If it were Bridges suggesting that he would not extend, that’s a bigger deal.
Second, the next coach has to “win” the locker room before he can lose it. Mike Brown was dismissed because he lost the locker room in Sacramento. Doesn’t seem like Taylor Jenkins had loads of support from his players when he was shitcanned even though his team was heading into the playoffs. No one was crying tears for Mike Malone. And let’s see how long the player-friendly coaches last if their teams keep getting eliminated.
The standard will be: get us to the finals. Anything significantly short of that and the players will turn on the next guy as well.
“In a series that was 4-2 and a bad bounce from being 3-3 it absolutely could have been the difference.”
It was not a bad bounce from being 3-3. It was a bad bounce from being 1-0. And even that bad bounce didn’t win the game. The team was up in overtime and blew that lead too. Even being up 1-0 doesn’t preclude Indy from winning in 6. That should be pretty obvious from the way we blew games 2, 4, and 6…all must win games for us, while Indy lost 2 games where they had a 2-game cushion and could afford to lose. They kicked our asses, and would have even if we won game 1.
“That does not mean you can’t make adjustments to minutes, lineups and strategy on both sides of the ball to maximize what we do have and avoid the most negative things.”
Read Hubert’s post above. Thibs actually did these things all season, and in the playoffs as well. He totally changed the defensive schemes vs. Boston. He made adjustments vs. Indiana. This is not to say that he coached a great series, but the better team won, and that is clear from the way Indy is a couple of plays away from being up 3-1 on the best team in the NBA.
You take on the series is silly.
The final score of 4-2 and overall point differential tell the truth.
In you world when the Pacers play well and open a big lead it counts, but if the Knicks go on a run it doesn’t count? lmao
Without that bounce, there would be no OT. It’s even possible without the missed goal tending in OT it would have changed that outcome.
In the minds of a LOT of people he did not make the most important adjustments to lineups.
Our biggest problems were defense (Towns/Brunson) and the lack of respect given to Hart’s shooting.
Deuce is better than Hart at both and would free Mikal from POA defense.
Yes, playing Deuce instead of Hart risked some other issues, but that’s why you try it in the regular season and experiment with other possibilities without Hart/Towns together and maybe less of Towns/Brunson.
He also resisted Towns and Mitch even though that was supposed to be a thing all season long until managment (and Hart) told him to try that.
I’m not sure what Memphis is thinking.
A total blowup of the team doesn’t make sense to me, but they took picks instead of players for Bane. So maybe they’ve decided to do more than just a retool or maybe they are looking for different fits.
For the Knicks to get involved it might require a 3 team trade and more than that.
The only reason I’m even thinking about it is that last year I heard the Knicks like him a lot in the same way we heard they liked OG and Bridges. In both those cases we didn’t think it could happen, but it did.
I think this is also probably right. Rick Pitino said as much. Not that anyone wanted him, but when he was asked about the job:
Remember everyone. We only beat Boston bc they were hurt but Boston didn’t win a championship last year bc every opponent they faced was dealing with major injuries.
Finally, a simile I can get behind. You did it!
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