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Knicks Morning News (2025.06.19)
06/19/2025 11:00:01
06/19/2025 11:00:03
06/19/2025 09:01:42
06/19/2025 09:39:34
06/19/2025 00:28:00
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64 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2025.06.19)”
Thanks pepper for posting the strickland article in yesterday’s thread. As I am in the JohnLocke camp (run it back with a new coach plus tinker with the bench) and the article is supportive of this, I disagree with one of the major premises–that Leon has turned the FO into an analytical powerhouse (to quote: “On the front office side of things, he turned a standard operation with strong scouts into an analytics juggernaut made up of multiple coaching analytics staffers and data product engineers, as well as a data scientist and separate player and film analytics staffers.”) and thus all the moves they look at are “following the numbers”. If that were the case there wouldn’t be this overarching bias against using draft picks to actually draft people. I am not saying that bias is stupid, but you do that in large part because you don’t trust your analytical output.
“If that were the case there wouldn’t be this overarching bias against using draft picks to actually draft people. I am not saying that bias is stupid, but you do that in large part because you don’t trust your analytical output.”
These decisions have not been made in a vacuum. Brock Aller has factored the cap considerations of draft slots into the team-building calculus.
I continue to believe, for example, that the “incineration” was a cap-based decision. Has the Knicks simply drafted Deuce McBride at #19 and Quentin Grimes at #21, there would have been far less controversy about that draft because no one would have been able to prove that those two players would have been available at those slots, and winding up with two rotation players at those original spots should always be considered a win. (This is separate from the question of who the Knicks should have actually picked at #19 and #21).
But the Knicks can hardly be credited with maximizing draft capital. While they have been extremely clever in staying under the second apron while acquiring two arguably max-level players and two highly valued wings, there is no question that they bled away opportunities to acquire and appropriately utilize players on rookie contracts. Everyone at the management level, from Thibs to Leon, has had a hand in that shortcoming.
But the most egregious blunder of all will continue to be the Mikal Bridges trade, partly because of the overpay, but more importantly for emptying the draft asset chest before the team could truly be called a finished product, even with the unexpectedly low cost of acquiring KAT. Having even one of those unprotected picks in the hopper would have made a huge difference.
So while I am optimistic by nature, I just don’t see much of a championship future with this roster and asset chest. I don’t see another coach changing that, beyond exposing flaws in the roster that Thibs glossed over. The good news is that by then, the 2033 pick will free up, and we’ll have more information on whether any of the rookies are keepers. The bad news is that the second apron will make extending Mikal while keeping everyone else happy and improving the bench a dicey proposition.
“I don’t see another coach changing that, beyond exposing flaws in the roster that Thibs glossed over.”
We very well may be in agreement on this, other than our starting points are different. Do I think with a new coach and the same roster we win during this window? Highly unlikely. But run it back so we have more information.
I want a new coach with a new system that highlights–or more accurately pinpoints–how we can improve the roster. And then we act on it, however painful or controversial that may be. This sequence seems more logical and should produce a better outcome than trying to simultaneously change the roster and implement a new system. And that is also why I am in favour of a proven retread versus an up and coming assistant since we don’t have the luxury of taking the risk that the assistant is not up to the task or needs some time to get acclimated to HC duties including gaining the respect of the locker room.
How tall is Trey Lyles and how many rebounds did he average? Just curious
Hollinger: https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6433149/2025/06/19/nba-free-agency-2025-jonathan-kuminga-josh-giddey/
The guys he lists as candidates for the taxpayer exception or vets minimum, who don’t have a team option or some other reason why they’re probably not signable:
Jake LaRavia
Dalano Banton
Taurean Prince
Talen Horton-Tucker
Amir Coffey
Jae’Sean Tate
Javonte Green
Torrey Craig
Kevin Knox(!)
Doug McDermott
Kessler Edwards
Cam Reddish(!)
Chuma Okeke(!)
dunno how tall lyles is he may be undersized but he only shoots about 34 percent from 3 and probably only around 8 rebs per 36
probably only laravia and banton are interesting at all sf is not what we need we need a 4 more n likely peferably 1 who plays a lil defense
What a load of bollocks.
Leon is clearly spending a lot of Dolan dollars on PR this summer.
There are certainly things you can give Leon credit for but “winning the margins” is not one of them. We bleed value in almost every transaction. There are too many L’s in the margins to count, but I’ll try:
the Obi pick, the Obi trade, the 33rd pick punt, the 19th pick punt, wasting a pick on Rokas, the cam trade, the Fournier contract, the Rose contract, the Kemba contract, the Noel contract, trading a lottery pick for a poor return, the player-friendly Hartenstein contract, OG’s exorbitant extension, Mikal’s exorbitant price tag, trading out of the 24th pick, drafting Dadiet over Filipowski to save a marginal amount of money, punting on the 38th pick.
The Margins vs Leon is like watching the Thunder when they go on one of their runs, and the shill who let this be published in his name should be ashamed.
This is why a discusison of what Leon thought at the time is critical to evaluating whether it made sense to overpay for Bridges.
IMO, I-Hart, Randle, OG, Bridges, Brunson, J-Hart, DDV, Deuce and Mitch IS a finished product with Kolek, Dadiet, Huk and McCullar as longer term development players. There was also the potential to trade any number of those guys to upgrade a position or make a change if required.
If he thought I-Hart might get a deal above what NY could pay, but was told I-Hart would stay if it was even close that allows you to go all in on what you think is the final piece.
If he knew OKC was going to blow the Knicks offer out of the water and make it impossible for I-Hart to stay, it made no sense to empty the tank when you need a replacement C. It makes so little sense, I’m willing to think he was fairly sure I-Hart was coming back because he was told by his agent he was coming back. No one expected a huge overpay for I-Hart to blow up the plan.
After that, it’s a debate about whether Towns was the right piece. He’s cleary an upgrade over Randle, but that left us without a rim protecting C behind Brunson (with Mitch out) and a lack of depth because DDV had to be included. He also could have punted the first half of the season trying to find a different star and just used Simms or some other cheap C for awhile until a better fit was available.
Virtually everything we have been debating all season is because I-Hart left for nothing.
BernieErnie, while I’m sort or resigned to thinking that Leon will take this approach, and will root hard for it to work, I am not a fan of it. I’m pretty entrenched in the camp that doesn’t believe in the Brunson-KAT pairing.
There were reports that players were frustrated with KAT on the defensive end, and I don’t think that had much to do with Thibs’ coaching. Another coach might mitigate some of his issues by utilizing different coverages more often (or at all) than Thibs did, but my guess is that good coaches will adjust to whatever is tried over a 7-game series. I don’t think that any tweaks to free up KAT on offense will overcome this. I just don’t see him being able to physically keep up with the multiple fast-paced actions executed by the most skilled, athletic, and well-coached teams.
He’s not Enes Kanter, but he’s not Jokic either. He and Brunson on the floor is a simple riddle to solve at the championship level.
I am reminded of the scene in the movie Titanic where the architect, Thomas Andrews exclaims “Not five!” to mean that the ship could stay afloat with four aft compartments flooded, but not five, and that it was a “mathematical certainty” that Titanic would sink.
In this case, Leon should exclaim “Not two!” While it is not a mathematical certainty by any means, there is an extreme likelihood that one of the four teams the Knicks will face on a championship run will figure out how to sink us.
I think the time to cash in on KAT is now. Find a GM dumb enough to believe that KAT is the missing piece of their puzzle, and paper-clip the shit out of him to build something with a higher ceiling in the next 2 years.
“If he knew OKC was going to blow the Knicks offer out of the water and make it impossible for I-Hart to stay, it made no sense to empty the tank when you need a replacement C. It makes so little sense, I’m willing to think he was fairly sure I-Hart was coming back because he was told by his agent he was coming back. No one expected a huge overpay for I-Hart to blow up the plan.”
It was pretty damn obvious to everyone that there was a strong possibility of getting outbid for iHart, being that Leon could only offer 4/$72M. If Leon based his entire stratey on assuming that iHart would be retained, he’s a moron and should have been fired immediately. But I truly doubt that he was that stupid.
A much more likely scenario is that he kind of knew he had KAT in the bag, and felt that a) KAT was wayyyy better than iHart as a starting C and b) Mitch would be back sooner than he ultimately was, i.e. that losing iHart would not be a big deal. He might have also thought that acquiring Mikal’s defense would in some way make up for losing iHart’s defense. This was also faulty calculus, but not objectively stupid.
Even the KAT trade we lost in the margins, as we traded that Detroit pick when it was valued as a second that was unlikely to convert and turned into the 17th pick in a loaded draft.
The margins are undefeated against Leon Rose.
I also think Leon has to reckon with the Mitch dilemma. I strongly feel that Mitch is analytics-based fool’s gold. He’s obviously an incredible bargain on his expiring deal, but between his strong-ish showing in the playoffs vs. limitations and health concerns, this might be the perfect time to sell high on him.
To me this suggests the team generated tons of *in season* data, likely showing how Thibs might coach “better” by following the numbers — diff lineups, etc.
If so, the Knicks are prolly looking for a coach who wants to use that kind of useful data posted often here (but not be me).
i do not know that any coach wants to be you even tho you seem like a nice guy
“Win the margins” looks like this:
You give up 5 firsts for Mikal Bridges, but the picks are
– NY ‘24 1st
– MIL ‘25 1st
– NY ‘26 1st
– NY ‘28 1st
– either the WAS or DET pick
Instead Brooklyn dominated the margins. They didn’t just get five first round picks for Mikal. They took Leon’s five most valuable picks, leaving him with two ‘24 picks he didn’t want to use and tying his hands for two years when he desperately needs the freedom to trade picks.
Leon has literally sacrificed the margins on purpose to bring in the top-heavy Friends and Family.
I mean, I get that human beings and their lives are more than just cold, objective rationality — but that purports to be cold, objective rationality and it’s one of the dumbest things imaginable. It would be better if the pretense of rationalism was simply dispensed with ex ante and the fandom and all the projection that entails freely admitted. No apologies are owed for it.
+1, couldn’t agree more. Textbook example of the “efficiency” obsession and the fact that everything he can do has an easily visualized data piece appended to it — the “rebound,” the “blocked shot” — while everything he can’t do — basketball skills — doesn’t.
They absolutely should sell him.
Chiming in to say the Strickland article was a really great piece of process analysis.
Hubs, a lot of your errors were only errors in hindsight and were moves at the time that people largely were ok with.
Prime example was bringing back Noel and Rose after the we here season. They were resigned on reasonable contracts that were pretty short contracts too. Yes both were “older” but no one could foresee that Noel would promptly get injured and miss the entire next season and that Derrick rose would immediately turn into a pumpkin. Same with the Kemba deal. It wasn’t some huge long contract. He was signed as a stop gap and people were largely ecstatic about it. Again I don’t think anyone quite realized how washed he was.
… useful data posted here (but not *by me).
😉
You keep missing the most important part.
We here had a good line on what I-Hart was worth from Marks and others.
We knew there was interest from OKC and they might offer more.
I-Hart himself strongly hinted in an interview around mid season that if the difference was smaller he would have stayed. Leon had to know that from his agent.
So to think he was leaving, it wasn’t enough to know that OKC or someone else might offer more. You had to know they would blow us out of the water by so much that he had no choice but to take the bag even though he loved NY and wanted to stay.
That was very far from certain. No one I know anywhere suggested that OKC wanted him so badly they would blow the Knicks offer out of the water with a huge overpay. He significatly overpaid.
Just pointing out that the analytics analytic doesn’t say anything whatsoever about experts and data on college and the draft…
Just sayin. Maybe something they should look into.
There were many threads here in which we rationalized all the reasons Hartenstein was going to stay.
His girlfriend is a model and wants to be in New York!
OKC has Chet, they don’t need a center!
If the front office was acted like a bunch of deluded fanboys like all of us were on here, that does not seem like a great sign.
Hubert was predicting iHart was going to get outbid for months and he was right. I imagine the Knicks were disappointed but also not shocked when it happened. I mean they made him their best possible offer and he said I’m going to try free agency
and now he is likely to win an nba championship so there is that
i will be over there in about an hour and a half
One of Leon’s category value-adds as an agent barely removed from the business should be being able to glean the marketplace for free agents, including his own. If he can’t even manage that, then ….
E, who are the good and valuable players on this team?
Follow up question: which players are most responsible for the Knicks making it to the ECF?
Your analysis here makes it seem like you believe almost every player on the team is bad or suboptimal, and that the coach was also bad. How did we make it as far as we did?
Easily answerable: Brunson and Towns both had all-NBA seasons and are all-NBA caliber players in terms of underlying skillsets.
It’s no great surprise that teams with two of those guys will make an ECF, particularly with the injuries the Pistons and Celtics had.
That said, they only pythag’d 51 wins and SRS’d ninth. If you don’t have PTSD, that’s really not all that impressive when you have two all-NBA guys. When you’ve dumped almost the entire asset chest to do it, it’s even worse.
What most people are doing here in the aftermath is blaming the two all-NBA guys for the failures of their supporting cast. At its extreme, some are even saying one or both should be moved to better bring out the talents of the OG Anunobys (*) and the Mikal Bridgeses (**) of the world. That’s of course completely backwards. Those guys serve BrAT, not vice versa.
(*) Oh, he can’t guard 4s and they need a new power forward who can? Who knew?!?!?!?!
(**) Oh, he can’t really guard the ball or the point of attack? Who knew!?!?!?
nnaji is only 20 years old was playing in europe at 15 all luka like and he is every inch a center and no relation to zeke of the nuggies
Ok here’s another question.
Brunson and KAT are universally regarded as terrible defensive players. The Knicks played these guys a lot of minutes, yet were an average NBA defensive team. This despite, in your opinion, OG and Mikal also not being good defenders.
I mean, SOMEBODY had to be playing some defense somewhere, right? To what and who do you attribute the Knicks league average defensive rating?
we can pick up jock landale clone lachlan olbrich from australia in the draft
That’s not my opinion. OG’s a good defender, though not as good as his fanboy reputation. He just can’t “guard 1 through 5” as the fanboys insisted. (*) Mikal’s ok.
My overall opinion of OG’s is that he’s a very good role player. Near the top of his bucket. But people overrate that bucket as against the higher-up bucket(s) of the skilled players. That misapprehension of the relative impacts of the buckets is where the analysis starts going awry. That’s not even OG-specific, though he’s kind of an archetype of his bucket.
I disagree that Brunson and Towns are “terrible” defenders. Towns played on the top defense in the association last year. Brunson played on the top playoff defense in the association in 2023, and was saddled with two other allegedly “terrible” defenders in RJ Barrett and Obi Toppin. In fact, the 2023 playoff team violated Strat’s famous “rule of 2s” in virtually every way.
So there’s misapprehension about some things, and a lot of question begging going on. I’d suggest a re-evaluation of priors.
(*) And he’s not fantastic in rotations and processing. But he’s very, very good in his limited box against defined offensive guys.
Doogie, above and beyond the sociopathic stuff you’ve started posting, why in gods green earth would anyone want a Jock Landale clone?
“i will be over there in about an hour and a half’
Just stop that shit.
a trade involving james nnaji when he was 13 years old how is that even possible:
June 21, 2018: Traded by the Detroit Pistons (as a future 2023 2nd round draft pick) with a 2021 2nd round draft pick (Jeremiah Robinson-Earl was later selected) to the Philadelphia 76ers for Khyri Thomas.
You’re hearing this more and more
After watching closely JerSims game you start realising that Elite Athleticism aint the first thing that matters in Centers.
I like Nnaji’s footwork/positioning on this video below. He may be useful.
https://youtu.be/gNdokjkPW8E?si=rHfyBTCQUbPg52nK
E back to his old self. Only the axe being ground has changed.
We made 4 draft picks last year.
It’s not unusual or strange to trade draft picks for win now moves.
It never makes sense to spend 5 picks on a guy worth 1.
You insisted that the pick was a 2nd rounder. Other people didn’t.
who do we think are the three current knicks who play the best defense i will say mitch deuce og in that order any other ideas
Yeah it’s those three, plus maybe Delon
Not that he was coming here, but now he’s really not coming here. But I’m sure his agent is happy with Leon today.
Vecenie’s scouting report in 2023 was basically that Nnaji had an elite combo of size/athleticism but was insanely raw.
He mentions Mitch, Whiteside, Gafford, and Capela as raw players who were able to become good starters. He also says that Nnaji was even rawer than those guys.
I’m not sure he’s the guy we need right now, but there could be something very good in Nnaji.
Leon is getting coaches paid this offseason
Feel like this is lowkey why he did this in the first place. Leon’s not an idiot, especially with $ and people. He knows teams aren’t going to just hand over good coaches, but he also knows that giving coaches a bargaining chip will get you in their good graces.
“Feel like this is lowkey why he did this in the first place. Leon’s not an idiot, especially with $ and people. He knows teams aren’t going to just hand over good coaches, but he also knows that giving coaches a bargaining chip will get you in their good graces.”
ess-dog, have continued to scratch my head as to why he is doing this since everyone will say no, either because they want to keep their coach, or they want to get rid of him and now can get an asset, and in the process he looks directionless. Your answer has stopped the scratching…at least for now!
Dolan’s most likely behind the attempted big-footing of other teams’ coaches.
I hear Dolan is also responsible for some of those tariffs. Also the latest ‘razor throat’ covid variety.
Sorry, should have caveated with “mostly likely.”
the last several years it’s been hit and miss on actually reading all the different books I’ve ordered…
recently picked up a copy of the Handmaid’s Tale after watching a couple of episodes of the show…something about the whole concept of the work though turned me off and i never even got started on the book…
saw another title I recognized from going over top sci-fi lists recently which looks like AppleTV is making it in to a show…
just started but it seems like the Murderbot Diaries are a heck of a fun story…
Even if you’re right (and I don’t think you are) it egregiously false to call them wins in hindsight.
Also egregiously false is this flat out lie:
Julius Randle was a latent all nba forward who single handedly increased his value tenfold.
And far from a smudge he inherited the most cap space in the NBA by a massive margin. They had under $45M used of a $109M in cap space.
The whole article is factually inaccurate. It is ghostwritten PR. If you can’t see that you flunk media literacy.
Was watching some clips of KAT playing defense that DJ Zullo posted, and yeah, he sucks on D.
Mitch can do many different things on defense. He’s a complete defender.
“Was watching some clips of KAT playing defense that DJ Zullo posted, and yeah, he sucks on D.”
But wait, he was part of the best defense in the NBA last year!!!
(E also thinks that if someone takes a dump in a solid gold toilet, the dump becomes worth its weight in gold.)
I think some of you still don’t get what likely happened with I-Hart.
The difference between what the Knicks offered and what OKC offered is HUGE.
They offered him 14.5 million more guaranteed money over 3 years and then when he’s a free agent again, he can add to that significantly in the 4th year. He’s a young improving player. That could easily be another 30 million or more in the 4th year. He might wind up making 45-50+ million more.
So ask yourself this.
If all they had to do was beat the Knicks offer, why did they totally blow us out of the water and significantly overpay relative to what salary experts were saying he was worth?
Are they crazy? I don’t think so.
IMO the answer to that is fairly obvious.
It’s because I-Hart was going to stay in NY even if OKC offered more money. He wanted to play in NY. Leon almost certainly knew that and his agent certainly told OKC that.
I-Hart himself strongly suggested that mid season in an interview.
But what happened is that OKC viewed him as a kind of final piece to the puzzle and said “Screw it, just pay him whatever it’s going to take to get him here”.
Everyone knew that OKC was interested. It was widely reported.
Everyone knew that OKC could and would offer more. It was widely reported.
NO ONE said they would be willing to overpay him by a huge amount to get him out of NY when his preference was NY and he was willing to stay for less.
I don’t, for a minute, think Leon thought he’d be able to retain Hartenstein. We all knew he was gone. The money difference was always going to be too much, especially after the playoff run.
I’m in the camp of Leon trading for Bridges with the idea that Mitch would be back earlier, but when they received word he’d be back later, Thibs convinced him that they couldn’t live without a center, so they traded for KAT. (Plus, they were skeptical of Randle meshing with this squad).
And now, he’s stuck. And the only real move for him is with a new coach with a different philosophy, one that fits or can adapt to the team he squished together (instead of the pre-KAT-trade one that was finely-tuned for Thibs’ philosophies).
OKC is paying iHart almost $30m a year to play 28 minutes a game.
That’s Jrue Holiday/Khris Middleton/Porzingis money.
When has Leon extracted an extra anything? He has been the extractee in literally every transaction.
Moreover this is common knowledge. When you see something like that in an article that is not just false but the opposite of what’s always happened, your antenna should go up immediately.
Like when we were the highest offer on the market for Isaiah Hartenstein?
This one is just galling. We passed on at least 5 guys who could help us more than Dadiet. This MF really calls it a win that we don’t have Jaylen Wells or Kyle Filipowski bc they wouldn’t have signed for less than 100%?
This article is an insult to its readers’ intelligence.
I enjoy it when Hubert’s ire matches the smell test…
I can’t even get through it bc every paragraph is more galling than the next!!!
Look at this one:
🤯🤯🤯🤯
I feel like I’m reading an article about all the great things Donald Trump has done for the Mexican communities in Los Angeles.
And then he calls this a win:
Oh yeah, that worked out great. Thanks, Leon. 🤦🏻♂️
Leon should have walked away from the Bridges negotiations with at an absolute bare minimum floor Whitehead, and most likely someone like Claxton. Cam Johnson is probably a stretch, but certainly Leon should have asked.
He just never negotiates hard on behalf of his team. There’s always some weird angle, be it whether the guy is in-network or the silly “hoarding” (*) of draft picks for a “superstar.” That Strickland article, yeah — abject embarrassment.
In terms of the other thing, there’s no logical sense in which Isaiah Hartenstein’s presence on this team makes Mikal Bridges worth five ones. This is another in the now long line of attributing magical mystical fairy dust properties to him and OG. “Mikal is the perfect fit with _____.” “OG does winning things.” Yadda, yadda.
Neither of them do those things. They’re just regular basketball players, just like all the regular basketball players in the association that like those other regular basketball players can fairly be judged by what they personally can do on the basketball court. Mikal’s in particular at this point just a generic 3&D wing who if anything is harder, not easier, to fit into what a team is trying to do — as we saw in stark terms this season. (For pretty simple reasons: If you’re a 3&D wing who doesn’t 3 very well and doesn’t D very well, you’re going to be a tough “fit.”)
(*) Sarcastic scare quotes because he didn’t really in fact hoard them, instead giving a bunch of them away — e.g., the Incineration.
If you think the Knicks when healthy last year were a legitimate title contender than signing Hartenstein was an obvious win. He was a big part of that. Even if you don’t he pretty objectively outplayed his contract
You don’t trade a lottery pick (Jalen Williams) to clear a few million dollars to facilitate signing a guy in free agency and then not buy his Bird rights.
Clear, unequivocal loss and in no sense can it be sanely be played as a savvy “win at the margins.”
He got taken to the cleaners in that trade and the guy who took him to the cleaners now has the player Leon machinated and prestidigitated to get. Brutal.
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