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170 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2025.07.09)”
Any predictions for our starting summer league lineup? Maybe Kolek, Dadiet, McCullar, Hukporti and another guard?
I’d be shocked if 4 of the 5 starters weren’t last year’s draft picks. Maybe MarJon Beauchamp or Anton Watson as the other starter? Though they, like Dadiet and McCullar, seem more like forwards than guards.
I saw that the Knicks G-League team signed Romeo Langford. Always thought he would pan out but the shot just never came around. He last played in the league at age 24 and is now 25, so maybe the overseas play did him some good.
I would love to see Diawara in that 5th starter spot. Throw the kid out there and let’s see what he has. Then sub Nnaji in quickly for Huk. Beauchamp doesn’t really belong in summer league and Watson looked terrible in his cameos. I suppose guys like that could help win the SL chip, but who really cares?
Last I checked, Ayton played on a team that went to the NBA finals. Were they also focused on development?
I actually like Ayton’s ability, if he can get his head screwed on straight he will massively help the Lakers. He indicated that Luka is “ripped” so there’s that. Could that team actually threaten in the West? Seems so, if LeBron doesn’t fuck it up.
Watson is supposed to be a very good defender and very switchable. You just need him out there practicing his shot.
I’d put Marjon with the starters for some more offense. None of last year’s picks project as scorers. Marjon can probably shoulder a higher usage in SL.
Another “best shape” ever July quote. Isn’t it sort of incumbent on a guy who makes 50 M/year in athletics to actually be “in shape”?
LeBron, for once in his life, has very little leverage.
They will almost certainly have a top offense if not the best in the league, but defense will be an issue and the loss of DFS doesn’t help.
Both Noble and Z-Man have made some good points. I’m not buying some of the hyperbole from Z-Man (stuff like “his floor is Cam’s ceiling” and “I expect at least what Derrick Rose gave us”) but I am persuaded by his general proposition that this will be better than I anticipate.
Since we were just coming off a deep playoff series, though, I was looking for guys who could play in those games. You may think that’s too much to expect from the vet minimum, but I don’t. The Nuggets picked up Bruce Brown for the same price and that’s a guy who can give you plus minutes at 3 positions deep in the playoffs.
I cannot anticipate ever wanting Clarkson to take the court for a single minute deep in the playoffs. Between his defense, his brain, his lack of athleticism, his shot selection, he will be the most exploitable player in an ECF or NBA finals.
I’d rather have a guy who I trust for 6 minutes in the deep playoffs than a guy who might be productive in 82 games but becomes extremely exploitable in the playoffs. And that’s why I still see the signing as a waste.
But if I adjust my expectations down to the NBA equivalent of a 5th starter who does a job, eats innings, and goes away by the time we get deep (much like Cam did), I can be persuaded by the merits of the signing.
This version of the Thunder is eventually going to become very expensive.
Here’s a more interesting way to frame it:
Last year we had Cam Payne and Delon Wright.
Cam was productive for 82 games and one playoff series, but then (unsurprisingly) became unplayable at the deeper level and had to be benched.
Wright gave us close to nothing in the regular season, but he could give us 8 minutes of solid play off the bench against the Pacers.
What role do you think is more valuable to a team trying to win a title?
I think Wright’s is, so to me it’s a mistake to use a scarce asset trying to upgrade the regular season guy instead of the playoffs guy.
Re Brown’s media platitudes, one interesting bit:
“the only semi-revealing tidbit coming in response to a question about Jalen Brunson where Brown’s answer began with “I like to play fast.”
From his lips to Jalen’s ears…
Do they still limit the number of maximums to two?
More to the point: did they just choose to pay Chet over Jalen?
Clarkson has been overhyped for virtually his entire career.
6th men of the year are typically scorers. One thing Clarkson can do is create shots and score, but he’s not particularly efficient and doesn’t play defense. IMO he’s a low basketball IQ gunner that’s going to have impactful nights in BOTH directions.
Is he better than Payne?
IMO they are cut from the same cloth in that they can both shoot you into and out of games. Clarkson can create shots in more ways than Payne. That’s what we need. I’m just not sure I want HIM to do it. IMO both are negative defenders, but Payne is midly negative, better than Clarkson defensively and has more PG skills. For the record, the Knicks were better with Payne on the floor last year. Noisy stat and lineup related, but he was a positive contributor.
Ths bottom line is that we absolutely needed scoring off the bench. They went with Clarkson because he was the best player available for what we had to offer. But the idea that going from Payne to Clarkson is going to add noticeable wins is probably lunacy.
It wasn’t long ago we had Quickley in that role – just to give you an idea of what a real 6th man of the year and plus player adding wins looks like.
We desperately need scoring off the bench, but if we already had enough, Wright would be a no brainer for me.
I’ve been thinking about how Mike Brown can maximize Anunoby and Bridges on defense. I’d have no issues with inking GP2 or Delon Wright and actually starting them next to Brunson as the POA defender. Now- it would rely on our young bigs and wings to make a little of a leap, but i’m ok with that whether Mitch starts or not. I would love for Deuce to start, but it’s a really small backcourt even though Deuce has a plus-wingspan for his height. It would also rely on either GP2 or Wright to take and make open shots. Hopefully they’d be able to capitalize on open looks.
I wouldn’t say it’s clear Wright is more valuable in a playoff setting than Clarkson, who actually has a very impressive, albeit dated, high-usage playoff record.
Obviously, the degree to which Clarkson’s playoff performances from a few years back are still relevant is very much TBD. But if he can be a bench scorer who can get off a semi-decent xPPS look when defenses are at their tightest, that’s more valuable than the Wright role.
Also we still have a vet-min slot we can, and I think given the Marcus Smart rumors, will, use on a “microwave defender.”
I don’t think Clarkson is a “sixth man” anymore… he’s a tenth man. He’s a guy you bring in for a heat check when absolutely no one else is able to get buckets and you’re desperate. We used to have a guy by the name of Ajax Bjorcks who basically held that position.
I’m also not against bringing Wright back. He does many different things as an eleventh man that could be helpful (defense, ball handling). But in an ideal world, you’re only giving those guys spot minutes at most.
If Marcus Smart gets bought out, I’d much rather get him and start him next to Brunson if he’ll take the vet minimum
“I’m not buying some of the hyperbole from Z-Man (stuff like “his floor is Cam’s ceiling” and “I expect at least what Derrick Rose gave us”) but I am persuaded by his general proposition that this will be better than I anticipate.”
I don’t think it’s hyperbole at all. Cam Payne’s ceiling was “completely unplayable in the playoffs”. He was marginally playable during the regular season…but every bit of a “vet’s minimum” player. He shot 36% from 3 and 45% from 2 and rarely got to the line. He couldn’t defend a lick. He’s at best prime Ish Smith.
Your statement about Derrick Rose’s main value being his 3pt shooting is wrong. I assume you understand that because you actually watched the games and saw him break down defenses and get to the rim on a regular basis. That’s exactly what a healthy Clarkson brings. I don’t think at his age you can fully bank on him being healthy, but it’s a very, very good bet at the vet’s minimum. Clarkson is the kind of player who can take over games on a regular basis, like any legit 6MoY candidate.
“I cannot anticipate ever wanting Clarkson to take the court for a single minute deep in the playoffs. Between his defense, his brain, his lack of athleticism, his shot selection, he will be the most exploitable player in an ECF or NBA finals.”
I think you are underrating Clarkson and overrating Brown. I like Bruce Brown, but he would be entirely redundant on this team and has a knee issue that may have sapped his athleticism. He has done nothing since that Denver series, and even that might have been an outlier performance.
Meanwhile, Clarkson definitely has flaws (he would not have been available at the minimum if he didn’t and it surprising he was available at that price anyway), but “lack of athleticism” is not one of them. He had plantar fascia surgery after trying to play through it. But he still gets excellent lift and can dunk with ease. He’s definitely more athletic than Rose was in his last stint with us, and much more likely to stay healthy.
“I’d rather have a guy who I trust for 6 minutes in the deep playoffs than a guy who might be productive in 82 games but becomes extremely exploitable in the playoffs. And that’s why I still see the signing as a waste.”
It is possible that Clarkson becomes unplayable deep in the playoffs, but no more likely than it would be for Brown, or Cam, or Delon, or Shamet. All of these guys are deeply flawed and can play themselves out of a rotation vs. a given opponent.
But only one of them is capable of singlehandedly winning you a critical playoff game when Brunson’s offense goes into the shitter like it did in game 6 vs. Indiana. I would rather have a guy like that on the minimum 7 days a week and twice on Sundays.
Hart will be our sixth man.
“…but he could give us 8 minutes of solid play off the bench against the Pacers”
In game 6 of the IND series, Delon played 11:44 and went 0-2 with 0 assists and 1 rebound and had a BPM of -10.9. The game before that he was 0-4 for 0 points with a BPM of -2.5. For the series he had a TS% of .354 on a 10% usage.
You can pick up a Delon Wright on the vet’s minimum any time. There is absolutely no value in having his take up a roster spot at the expense of a guy like Clarkson, who are usually getting payed somewhere in the MLE range. If anything, the roster spot occupied by Kolek is the wasted one. Swapping him out for Delon or Shamet or Payne would probably help the team this year. But Clarkson is almost certainly going to be better than any of them, and that goes double for the playoffs.
Isn’t Marcus Smart now just a poor man’s Miles McBride?
Seems redundant and now a downgrade.
Set free the Deuce!
i have literally never heard of 8 of the 15 players on our summer league roster ok i guess only 7 of them since i heard of luka skuka when he was mentioned here yesterday
“Hart will be our sixth man.”
I’m not so sure that there will be much daylight between Hart’s role and Clarkson’s role under Mike Brown. A lot depends on whether Brown will play Brunson and Clarkson together, or how much he plays Mikal at the 2. He might even continue to start Hart.
That’s one of the things to like about Mike Brown, nothing is all that predictable.
Huh, that’s really weird
I liked Cam but he didn’t have one good playoff series. He had one good playoff game. Or, more specifically, one great quarter in game one against Detroit where he hit a bunch of threes and basically sparked the run that won us that game.
Other than that one quarter, he was pretty worthless in the playoffs.
I’d take Delon back mainly because I think we could use some defense and traditional PG skills off the bench. With Clarkson, McBride, Yabu and possibly Hart off the bench I don’t think scoring will be an issue. It being able to throw Delin out there situationally when we need some extra defense and pg skills could be useful. Plus he did start when Brunson was out for a stretch and did well.
However, it seems like we can hold on Wright for now and see if there is a better option out there for the vet minimum.
i have never heard of yudai baba jamal bey biwali bayles jaden campbell devone grant nick jourdain lance ware a quick search yields the fact that jamal bey is the brother of saddiq bey we like to give contracts to brothers of better nba players see jacob toppin
With Clarkson we got a slightly less efficient MalcBrogdon for 1/6 of his salary.
If you don’t like that better go eat an ice-cream
It would be interesting if Brown at least experiments with a full 5-out offense starting lineup and tries Yabu at the 4 with KAT at the 5, OG at the 3, Mikal at the 2 and Brunson at the 1. Yabu as a screen-setter in the pick and pop might be dangerous. You’d be sacrificing rim protection but it might be worth it.
Your bench would be Mitch, Hart, Clarkson, and Deuce with one of the starters mixed in.
The obvious downside is bringing in Mitch after the team is in the penalty, but maybe it can work if you start Mitch in the second Q. Hopefully that run of FT shooting Mitch ended the playoffs on will continue, that would make life so much easier.
Hence my concern. Once you start Mitch, the roster optimization dominos fall by themselves for both starting and reserve units.
Hart, Deuce, Clarkson, Yabu + KAT is best bench in the eastern conference. Don’t need to go 10 deep as long as the 4 reserves average ~ 18-20 minutes. Keep Hart ~ 28-30 minutes.
starters: brunson (34) mcbride (28) anunoby (32) towns (30) robinson (24)
dynamic bench: clarkson (16) bridges (23) hart (19) yabusele (20) hukporti (14)
the rest: kolek mccullar nnaji
pg: brunson 34, mcbride 10, clarkson 4
sg: mcbride 18, bridges 18, clarkson 12
sf: anunoby 32, hart 11, bridges 5
pf: towns 30, yabusele 10, hart 8
c: robinson 24, hukporti 14, yabusele 10
The thing Delon gives us which we don’t right now is legit size at the 1. You kind of need that against teams like DET and maybe ORL. We have Brunson, Deuce, Clarkson, and Kolek, all of whom are undersized and/or defensively challenged. Smart would fit that bill, but is he ever taking the minimum to come here? Seems like he would rather go back to Boston.
Doogie, you keep posting the same minutes distribution where Bridges has 23 minutes. That is a near impossibility. It is also very unlikely that Bridges comes off the bench.
smart is only 6-3 so he is similarly undersized
Smart plays much bigger than 6’3″. If you recall, he used to defend KP when we played them back in his DPoY days.
Problem with Smart is that he’s mouthy, hot-headed, prone to bonehead plays, and injury-prone. But at the vet’s minimum he’d be a great get.
Doogie, Mikal Bridges is not coming of the bench and he’s playing ~ 34-36 minutes.
Clarkson gives you 95 TS+ scoring on 27 USG while creating his own shot about 75% of the time. That may not seem mind blowing, but last year Brunson and KAT were the only guys on the roster with a USG over 21. Payne was third on the team at 20.8.
The guy with the 95 TS+ on 27.8 USG is just a more valuable offensive player than the guy with the 92 TS+ (Payne) on 20.8 USG. It’s not a massive upgrade but it’s a slight upgrade, and the second unit should work better with a genuine high usage player soaking up middling-efficiency possessions.
re: Smart vs Wright,
Both good defenders who can’t shoot. Smart had a better career but Wright maintained his body better and may have more gas left in the tank. In limited third string seasonal minutes due to injuries, they’re both good and pretty much the same. Wright is probably a better locker room fit personality wise.
if we start brunson mcbride anunoby towns robinson how can we also start bridges it is a good problem to have but we have too many good players for all of our available rotation spots and for all of our available minutes
Deuce is simply not going to start over Bridges. End of story. Please stop bringing it up.
“It’s not a massive upgrade but it’s a slight upgrade”
I would change this to: “If it’s not a massive upgrade, it’s at least a slight upgrade.” There is a very reasonable chance that it is, in fact, a massive upgrade.
Our bench was continually brought up as being thin and weak last year, especially in the palyoffs, and Payne was a big part of that concern. I don’t hear anyone saying that right now, and it’s not solely because of Yabu vs. Precious.
many of you were saying that deuce should start and a lot of the same people were saying that mitch should start so if hart is going to the bench for mitch the question for those of you saying that deuce should start is who would be going to the bench for him
First, most folks were saying that one of them should start in place of Hart, not both in place of Hart and Bridges. Second, it doesn’t matter what any of us think. Bridges is going to start, no matter what. So is KAT, Brunson, and OG. If anyone else here doesn’t think that is as close to a fact as anything we are discussing about the future, please weigh in now. Otherwise, Doogie, you are all alone on “start Mitch and Deuce” island.
I’d start Mitch over McBride but go to that 5 man out line up early and often.
“I’d start Mitch over McBride but go to that 5 man out line up early and often.”
Do you envision a scenario where Bridges is not in the starting lineup and plays 23 mpg?
If I were Brown (I am not) i’d put Deuce in for Mitch middle-late in the first depending on penalty situation. Or maybe even not depending.
After that I’m fairly clueless, but very curious…
And re Z-Man, no. Bridges starts and gets lots of minutes. Certainly 30+. Hopefully not 38+.
Mikal is definitely starting, lol, and isn’t playing just 23 minutes. But I’d like him to not play 40 a game.
I think Mikal is going to play much better this year. Just a hunch.
Not my statement.
Yours was that “just by virtue of breaking down defenses he was our most important bench piece”, and that Clarkson can be “at least as valuable” bc he can penetrate just as well.
There’s two things I disagree with.
The first is that Derrick Rose provided us with so much more than simple dribble penetration, which I assume everyone knows and doesn’t need to be belabored.
But more importantly you seem to be using penetration as a stand in for breaking down a defense. And that’s just wrong.
When Isaiah Hartenstein sags 8 feet off of Josh Hart, and Hart responds by attacking the crowd of defenders in the paint, he has achieved penetration but he hasn’t broken down the defense. He’s actually done what they wanted.
I confess to not watching much Utah basketball the last 3 years but I suspect teams were not treating him like Derrick Rose in ‘21, a former MVP who could kill you with his shot if you gave him space and would use his high basketball IQ to make the correct decision when he reached the lane.
Hence I said Rose’s 41% was what made him important, bc when he penetrated I know it wasn’t invited. But it was hardly “the main thing he provided us”. Rose provided us with a ton, most of which has been out of Clarkson’s reach for his whole career. Hence I assume hyperbole when you suggested a 2.3 bpm version of Derrick Rose “is the least we can expect from Jordan Clarkson”, seeing as that’s actually almost three times better than what he’s produced for his career.
starters: brunson (34) bridges (30) anunoby (32) towns (30) robinson (24)
dynamic bench: deuce (21) clarkson (16) hart (19) yabusele (20) hukporti (14)
the rest: kolek mccullar nnaji
pg: brunson 34, mcbride 10, clarkson 4
sg: bridges 25, clarkson 12, mcbride 11
sf: anunoby 32, hart 11, bridges 5
pf: towns 30, yabusele 10, hart 8
c: robinson 24, hukporti 14, yabusele 10
So I did a little deeper dive into Mikal’s career shooting numbers
In 2020-2021 with Phoenix, he had his best season, posting a TS% of .667 and shooting 43% from three. But still not getting to the FT line much, 131 attempts vs. 118 this past season.
Last season with Brooklyn, he posted a TS% of .560 which was actually worse than his 2024-25 season with the Knicks (.585) He got to the line 317 times vs. last season 118.
The reason his TS% was so pedestrian his last year in Brooklyn was that his overall FG% was .436, which was the worst of his career.
So what we’re looking for from Bridges this season is better 3 point shooting, which based on his career numbers seems attainable and more FT attempts. Hopefully our new coach can figure something out with the latter, because it’s unacceptable to have a guy playing 40+ minutes a night attempt 1.4 FT a game.
The idea that he didn’t play well this year is a fantasy.
He scored 17.1 points per 36 despite being the 3a/3b option with OG and had a .591 TS% adjusted for his 0-12 heaves.
He had his 2nd highest career assists per 36
He was a starter leading +5.9 on/off
He played 82 games, the 3rd most minutes per game in the NBA, and most minutes in total
About the only knocks are that his rebounding was down a little, most likely at least partially related to playing with Hart and his defensive impact was a little lower, most likely because he was asked to guard out of position almost every night.
All that said, he may be better this year with a year under his belt with these players, a new coach and hopefully less experimentation with his form. What might also help him on defense is more time with Deuce so he can guard wings like he’s supposed to.
The only thing wrong with Bridges was fan expectations of what a 3a/3b option could do next to a PG like Brunson and C like Towns.
For the record, I am also a HUGE fan of having Deuce and Mitch on the court together. There are various possibilities for upping their minutes without starting both.
I also like Deuce with the starters (no Mitch). That frees Bridges to guard a wing and creates the 5 out that Towns excels with.
I think Hart is a better all around player than Deuce, but the specific talents on this team might make Deuce more valuable in some combinations. At the very least TRY IT!
I did say “deep playoffs.” Not every playoff team is capable of exploiting your weakness but in the deep playoffs, chances are someone is.
I’m not concerned with Jordan Clarkson against Atlanta in round 2. But I don’t want to let him handle the ball once against the OKC defense in round 4.
Cam Payne wasn’t “unplayable in the playoffs”. He single handedly won us game 1 against Detroit. He was only unplayable against Boston and Indiana, two deep playoff teams (Boston may have been a round 2 opponent but they were certainly a very serious playoff team).
“The first is that Derrick Rose provided us with so much more than simple dribble penetration, which I assume everyone knows and doesn’t need to be belabored.”
80% of his shots were 2’s. Most of those were off of dribble penetration, as few were assisted. He was largely left open on his very few 3’s, and still only hit one a game on average.
The thing he provided above that was genuine PG skills, including the high IQ required to play that position well. But without his ability to break down a defense and either get to the rim or to a shot in the short mid-range even when defenses gave him space at the 3pt line which they usually did, he would not have been nearly as effective. He was a score-first playmaking PG and did the vast majority of his scoring and playmaking inside the arc.
Clarkson is a score-first playmaking combo guard. He doesn’t have Rose’s PG skills or IQ, but he makes offenses better. Just as a reminder, TNFH posted this on 7/2:
here’s Utah’s offensive rating with Clarkson on the court for every season he’s been there, with on/off differential in parentheses:
2024-2025: 109.6 (-2.5)
2023-2024: 115.9 (-0.1)
2022-2023: 118.7 (+5.2)
2021-2022: 117.6 (+0.5)
2020-2021: 117.9 (-0.1)
and ptmilo said:
Keep in mind that these stats were better when Utah was good and worse when Utah was bad, and that Clarkson’s usage was around 27 for all of those years, and that as a 6MoY candidate and winner he played 27mpg for the #1 rated offense and #9 defense after playing 27mpg for the #3 offense and #4 defense and was hardly the reason they lost in the playoffs in either of those seasons. Clarkson was actually sensational in his most recent playoff performance but The Flame couldn’t make up for Spida getting torched by Brunson.
Now granted, we may not be getting that player…he is 3 years removed from that season…but at least there’s a reasonable chance that we are, and for the minimum, that’s the kind of chance worth taking. Unlike Rose, he didn’t cost us a thing, either in assets or on the cap sheet. He’s also back in the proper role and place in the pecking order on a very good team…kind of like Julius is now in a better role in Minny than he was here.
I also don’t know why you keep suggesting that he’s “unathletic” or “dumb.” Neither of these characterizations applied when he was in his 6MoY role on an excellent, well-coached team. It will be Brown’s responsibility to put him in positions to be successful.
It depends on your definition of 6th man.
Traditionally, the 6th man was a scorer and not just the first man off the bench (even though he was often both).
Hart will probably come off the bench first if they go with and stay with the 2 big man lineup. He’ll also play more minutes than Clarkson (I hope I’m not wrong about that), but I’d still consider Clarkson as the more traditional 6th man.
However, if Hart can up his scoring playing against bench units and someone else can pick up the slack, I’d be fine if Clarkson was a “break glass in case of emergency” scorer.
Re: Deuce and Brunson starting back court
Purely academic and not realistic due to its size + forcing Mikal and OG to move up the chain.
Mitch adds size, moves OG and Mikal to their natural spots and therefore makes everyone better on both sides of the ball. It’s literaly the first domino that optimizes the roster.
You don’t need KAT at the 5 to set him up to shoot 8-9 threes a game. Thats a fallacy. You can do that with him at the 4 with starters and @ the 5 with reserves.
And was still worth nowhere near 5 picks, to the point that he may have singlehandedly crippled our championship shot.
“Cam Payne wasn’t “unplayable in the playoffs”. He single handedly won us game 1 against Detroit.”
He then played five terrible games vs. DET, funny how you conveniently left that part out, because that would have confirmed that he was unplayable in 17 out of 18 playoff games. Sadly, Thibs kept going to him for 13 straight games of suck before dusting Delon and Shamet off.
Seems like the Cam Payne playoff bar shouldn’t be that hard for Clarkson to stumble over.
Beauty is in the eye of beholder.
Those two game winning stops against Boston putting us up 2:0 and the rest of the series against Boston would have been worth 3 of those picks alone, – if we win game one against Indiana and get to the Finals.
He was by no means bad, but Colin Sexton, Coby White, and Jordan Poole put up better numbers in every category you highlighted. It was hardly some usage/efficiency masterclass–his TS+ was 101. That doesn’t exactly blow you away, especially if we take for granted your adamant argument that he willingly downsized his role.
Still, it’d be sufficient for a “good season” if he was excellent defensively. Unfortunately he had a career low steal rate and his presence on the court barely budged our defensive rating, despite us having no backup wings.
So I’m definitely hoping he takes some more threes, makes some more threes, gets to the basket some more, gets fouled some more, and is more impactful defensively next season.
And if he hadn’t gone 9-31 in those two games, they wouldn’t have been close to begin with.
sure kat will not play exclusively at the 4:
starters: brunson (34) bridges (30) anunoby (32) towns (30) robinson (24)
dynamic bench: deuce (21) clarkson (16) hart (19) yabusele (20) hukporti (14)
the rest: kolek mccullar nnaji
pg: brunson 34, mcbride 10, clarkson 4
sg: bridges 25, clarkson 12, mcbride 11
sf: anunoby 32, hart 11, bridges 5
pf: towns 25, yabusele 15, hart 8
c: robinson 24, hukporti 14, towns 5, yabusele 5
I’m pretty confident that Mikal will play better next year. He’s smart, healthy, works hard, and has a solid all-around skillset. He needs to put on some muscle and work on attacking rather than falling away. Mike Brown should help him.
Sometimes I wonder.
Guys like Payne, Clarkson, Shamet and to a less extent Wright are supposed to be 3rd string players on decent teams that can get some run on bad teams but that should not be playing at all on serious contenders.
The only reason they are being discussed here is that we were so top heavy last year (especially with Mitch out) our bench was terrible enough to have to give them roles.
This Clarkson discussion is delusional.
If you thought Payne was a bad defender and took some dumb shots, wait until you see Clarkson play.
I say that knowing full well we are so desperate for bench scoring he’s going to have a role and there are going to be nights he’s hot and has a major impact on a game. It’s just that at the end of the day, none of these players is going to add meaningful wins relative to each other. Other than peak Wright, they are all negative players. Wright may still be a mildly plus player and imo should definitely be on this team, but he’s not the scorer we need.
Repeat after me!!
“Jordan Clarkson is a NEGATIVE player. He may just be less negattive than some of our other options. He will not add wins. He may subtract fewer”.
That’s a list of three offenses he made worse in the last 5 years. And in the one good year he was starting next to Mike Conley, who probably contributed a lot more to that +2.5 than Clarkson.
But I’ve said you’ve made a lot of good points. You have convinced me that Clarkson will be additive for 82 games and even a couple playoff rounds.
I just don’t think this team needed help to get back to the ECF. I think we’re a heavy favorite to be in the Finals and I want guys who can play when we get there. Clarkson ain’t that guy for me.
They are higher options, on bad teams, with different roles and play no defense. They are younger. So maybe they will get better. But IMO none of them is nearly as good as Bridges overall. Poole sucks!
“That’s a list of three offenses he made worse in the last 5 years.”
That’s a poor reading of those stats. In two of those years, the off-court differential was -0.1, meaning that they essentially were the same, and at a well above average PPP. I’d take that every year from my high-usage 6th man, especially when you have the #1 or #3 offense in the NBA.
If you are telling me that you wouldn’t be satisfied if our offense was 0.1 points worse with Clarkson on than with him off, I truly don’t know what to tell you.
I am also not buying your “late playoff round” stuff. Frankly, it’s the kind of argument folks have made against KAT and Brunson (and if you want to include E’s rants, about OG, Bridges, and Hart). If you’re this worried about the guy on the vet’s minimum being the difference, you might want to take a step back. Brown has bigger fish to fry.
The main concern with Clarkson is that he’s lost too much to physical decline at age 33. Again, since he’s on the vet’s minimum, this is a minimal concern, especially since plantar fascia surgery isn’t an achilles or ACL or such. Strat’s dismissiveness is pretty superficial (shocker) and hubert’s seems pretty jaded, considering that he very well could have gotten more money from another team had he waited and not cared about winning.
I’m feeling very good about him winning folks over, and if he doesn’t, the downside is tiny. Frankly, I’m not worried about what journeyman scrub is going to be best suited for giving us 8 quality minutes somewhere in the conference finals.
I’ve never distinguished between any games, much less “late” and “early” playoff rounds, in my analysis of OG/Mikal/Hart.
I do find it quite interesting indeed that much of KB is rallying around Clarkson’s (purported) ability to generate pointzzzz. Dude’s literally the paradigmatic inefficient chucker. Who can’t defend.
Correct, all 3 were tasked with taking more shots, and despite this, all 3 were more efficient than Bridges. How this reflects poorly on them vis-a-vis Bridges, I do not understand.
Let me be very clear: if your guy RJ wants to come off the bench for us at the veteran’s minimum, I would welcome that with open arms. The problem in the past is we’ve paid exorbitant prices for these kinds of usage soakers. That was dumb of us, though thankfully Masai bailed us out of one such misadventure, but it doesn’t mean these guys have no role on a good team if acquired and deployed properly.
“I’ve never distinguished between any games, much less “late” and “early” playoff rounds, in my analysis of OG/Mikal/Hart.”
Ummm, yes you have. You have said a billion times that those hustlebunny types (i.e. without RJ’s wiggle and moxie) will strand you in purgatory, which by definition means that they aren’t good enough to make you true contenders, or Tier 1, or whatever term de jour was in fashion for you, meaning that they couldn’t get you past the conference finals.
(stay tuned for the usual lipstick-on-a pig-of-a-take spin…)
“Dude’s literally the paradigmatic inefficient chucker.”
Speaking of RJ…
(I see TNFH beat me to it!)
Mikal is barely more than a bench player at this point and him and OG are now forcing a bunch of scrambling around to “put them in their right positions” after last summer’s vehement insistence that any claim that they were redundant or otherwise misplaced was nothing more than a Luddite’s inability to understand the positionless basketball of the modern NBA.
It remains the case that both were significantly oversold. Mikal’s got a contract decision coming up that most likely will be botched.
That is another good point. You’ve made quite a few and have reasonably opened my mind to the possibility that I will not hate Jordan Clarkson until we reach the NBA finals.
I’ve never said anything like this even once, much less a billion times.
The contrast between the fanboy blushing over Clarkson and the half-decade long RJ trutherism couldn’t be more stark. Kinda funny, really. But by all means carry on. The dog days of summer can use some entertainment.
“I’ve never said anything like this even once, much less a billion times.”
I’ll leave it up to our co-bloggers to judge…
“The contrast between the fanboy blushing over Clarkson and the half-decade long RJ trutherism couldn’t be more stark.”
Nor can the circumstances, role, or contract. But spin away, dude!
I will repeat, I would be happy to have either of them come off the bench for us at the veteran’s minimum!
lol one was our highest draft pick since Ewing and a guy we extended for 20 million plus a year.
The other is a vet minimum pick up.
But nice try!
There is hope in the world
Edit: just a joke, not a diss on Hubie! Z-man and Hubie breaking bread together is a Nobel effort
“You’ve made quite a few and have reasonably opened my mind to the possibility that I will not hate Jordan Clarkson until we reach the NBA finals.”
Well that was not my goal with you or any detractors. As I (and TNFH) have pointed out, it’s not really about loving or hating the player as much as it’s about risk/reward on the margins, given the current constraints. You, me, and everyone else might hate Clarkson by Christmas, or might love him despite losing in the second round, or yes, hate him in the finals. All that I’m suggesting is that there is considerable theoretical upside in the signing, and substantially more upside than there is with known vet’s minimum ceiling types like Payne, Shamet, and Wright.
It’s totally fair to be highly skeptical as to whether Clarkson will actually achieve that upside, given his age and most recent performance. But he and Brown deserve a fair look before passing judgment, and perhaps a bit of lottery-scratch-off excitement about the possibility that he will provide something that the team sorely (and perhaps fatally) lacked last year.
His salary doesn’t have anything to do with what he can do on the floor in major games for a team with high aspirations, and that’s how he’s being analyzed (favorably, to boot).
Pretty clear at this point that people were aware of (and guilty about) the Clarkson lovefest/RJ Five Years Hate … and that’s why Z-Man ultimately mentioned me in a manner obviously elicited to bring me out.
If it makes you happy, Z-Man — yes, I was thinking exactly this for several days so kudos to you for knowing it. And kudos for the guilt about it. And kudos for knowing that at some point it would have to come out into the open. You “got out ahead of the issue,” which will make the consultant/PR types happy.
What we’re left with is a 33-year-old inefficient chucker (*) who can’t really shoot the trifecta and can’t play defense. I anticipate that he’ll have some shiny moments on cold January Wednesday nights that will lead to some gauzy dreams of what might be, but come playoff time won’t really have a lot to show. Perhaps he’ll surprise.
(*) Continuing to stress the “upside” of a 33-year-old dude is certainly … something.
Yes and that 33 year old isn’t expected to start and we aren’t pining the future hopes of our franchise on his development.
We had to attach a first and IQ to RJ to get OG despite him being Canadian.
If Clarkson doesn’t work out I’d gladly welcome back RJ at the vet minimum to come off the bench.
We’re also wishcasting and theorizing about Clarkson bc he hasn’t played a single game for us. Pretty typical stuff to do in the offseason after you sign a new player. We had years of RJ’s play to base our observations on.
brice sensabaugh uta g.g. jackson mem darius bazley lal jaylen wells mem ajay mitchell okc cole swider lal tearing up summer league
The trutherism never had a single thing to do with his salary, and long predates his extension.
The “upside” is more in relation to what he can do for our team, not his upside as a player. Very different things.
Wow…really? – Some continue to suffer with the Bridges Derangment Syndrome and can’t get past the slow start, hitch, POA defense and the 5 picks. Newsflash he’s not a top 10 superstar player.
You won’t give him props for doing the job he was brought here to do?
Mikal had 14 steals, 6 blocks, 29 rebounds, 23 assists, 10 3 PFM, was a midrange assassin in game two, four and the close out game 6. Offensively and defensively literaly outplayed Brown in 4 out of 6 games & took the ball from him like he was a child at the end of game 1. Game winning & series winning plays like this is why you go get this guys.
The only thing he can “do for our team” is inefficiently chuck at age 33, play crappy defense, and shoot the trifecta poorly. That’s what he’s going to do this year, absent a black swan miracle.
That only maps as potential “upside” because the bench Leon has put together is so godawful — in large measure because of the net talent and asset outflow in the OG trade.
The idea of Jordan Clarkson bringing “upside” to, say, the 2023 playoff bench would be laughable on its face.
Bookmarking this thread!
Seeking clarification on something–are people with a .539 career TS% or below on 26% usage “inefficient chuckers?”
TILT
So a player taking up $2M in cap space is the same as a player in a similar role taking up $30M in cap space in a league with hard caps and extremely punitive aprons. Will someone else handle this one, please?
“I anticipate that he’ll have some shiny moments on cold January Wednesday nights that will lead to some gauzy dreams of what might be, but come playoff time won’t really have a lot to show. Perhaps he’ll surprise.”
Fair…this includes the most likely range of outcomes. I would be less surprised by more upside here than you…in fact, not surprised at all. But it’s totally fair to feel otherwise. At least you acknowledged that “perhaps he’ll surprise.” That’s kinda what “upside” means!
It’s very fair to put it in the “negatives” column that he had a .518 TS% on moderate usage in the playoffs.
“The trutherism never had a single thing to do with his salary, and long predates his extension.”
Before his extension kicked in, RJ never made less than $8M and came at the cost of picking someone else in that draft. He was a starter who led the team (and almost the league) in minutes.
Clarkson will be making $2M (on our books) and cost us the opportunity to roster 2 of the still available vet’s minimum guys instead of one. He will likely play 20-25 mpg off the bench at most.
WTF are you talking about?
It’s already been handled. A bunch of people are saying affirmatively that he projects to do positive things, or even substantially positive things, on the floor — including in major playoff games.
That analysis is literally entirely independent of his salary.
If the argument is something like, “well, maybe he’ll do some good things on the floor but given his age, skillset, and history he probably won’t and might even be unplayable, but what the hell, he can create a bit and was decent in the playoffs four years ago, so why not take a flyer at the vet minimum??,” fine — but that’s an entirely different argument. (*)
If that’s the argument, say so explicitly — or else drop the salary piece, because it’s irrelevant.
(*) That’s basically where I am.
Oh, thanks for clarifying, never mind about the “fair” comment.
See this is where I disagree. The whole idea that a bench desperately needs someone who can create his own shot is something I think we’ve been conditioned to think by years of watching Lou Williams types win 6MOY.
But benches don’t need shot creation, they just need a positive net rating.
The Thunder don’t have anyone who creates offense off the bench. Do they desperately need a scorer? No, because they have a bunch of great defenders who consistently create a positive net rating by generating turnovers and being a bitch to score against.
We have Mitch and Deuce on the bench. That’s a great foundation. Why do we desperately need to pair them with a scorer who blows half his defensive assignments and is going to have nights where he shoots you out of a lead?
I’d argue low-risk, low-ceiling vet minimum signings like Bruce Brown and Larry Nance Jr would have given us a better bench unit without the scoring. Even bringing back Tim Hardwaway Jr for his 8th stint in NY might have been better.
We don’t need Jordan Clarkson’s upside.
Man, are you thick. The argument is ENTIRELY about his salary relative to his potential impact. It’s ENTIRELY about taking a flyer at the vet’s minimum.
Do you think I or TNFH or anyone else would be supporting this signing if we traded Mitch and 3 second-round picks for him and picked up his $14.3M salary before he was waived?
You are so butthurt about being dead wrong re: RJ Barrett ***AT HIS SALARY*** that you will try to equate that with taking a flyer on a guy you signed at the vet’s minimum. Sorry, bud….it ain’t working.
So is Jordan Clarkson going to play positive basketball and positive playoff basketball for the New York Knickerbockers this season, or isn’t he?
If all this stat and data flinging was just a way of saying (*), “In context, he was a good use of the vet minimum,” I mean, yeah — but big deal. Who cares? The team is well beyond that kind of stuff.(**)
(*) It pretty clearly wasn’t, but I’ll go along with it.
(**) And even a good vet minimum signing isn’t going to rescue Leon’s massive blunders in the bigger transactions. One certainly hopes that isn’t the proffered idea.
but the thunder do have guys who create offense off the bench more than one of them in fact how about cason wallace isaiah joe and aaron wiggins
No, it’s not & this is the fault in analytics. In playoffs averages don’t have the same meaning as regular season. Playoff goal is not to win every game but to win 4 out of 7.
Example: In that series, game 3 and game 5 were such blow outs from the get go that individual player performances don’t have the same impact and there fore the data does not depicture.
But OK, I’ll play in your sandbox. Answer this: What was Jalen Brown’s TS% in that series? – In playoffs you don’t need a great TS%, – just better that your opponent does. The only goal is to advance.
I was brown once upon a time…the years seem to have washed me out to white now though…
heck I even gotta take vitamin d pills now just to help make up for all that lack of sunshine…
How dare Knicks fans have high expectations for the number three pick in the draft! How dare we expect him to be better than Jordan Clarkson (a second round pick fyi).
Where you go in the draft has nothing to do with how good a player you are on the floor when you start playing basketball. RJ Barrett was deemed a (irredeemably) bad basketball player on the floor by the truthers in terms of production and skillset, full stop.
All revisionism.
An awful .496, which was a huge contributor in one of the biggest upsets in recent playoff history! I’m not seeing your point at all.
Are you saying Mikal only played badly in wins, and thus his poor play didn’t contribute to us losing playoff games? That’s not true either, putting aside its very dubious relevance anyway–he put up duds in both game 4 losses in the semis and conference finals, and had a very pedestrian game 5 against Detroit.
He has a reasonable chance to contribute to more wins than the average player at the veteran’s minimum. That’s a good thing, if the opportunity cost of acquisition is “1/15 roster spots and $2.296M in salary.”
It’s damning with faint praise if the opportunity cost of acquisition is a lot higher than that e.g. the 3rd overall pick in the 2019 draft, $30M in salary, etc.
Then again, not sure why I’m wasting my time. Everyone who has so much as glanced at this board, ever, is familiar with concepts like “opportunity cost” and “production compared to salary,” and that includes you.
But since this is really funny, I’ll repeat: are people with a .539 career TS% or below on 26% usage “inefficient chuckers?”
Cason Wallace had 70% of his FGs assisted, Isaiah Joe 85%, Aaron Wiggins 70%
Ahhh Knickerblogger in mid-July. Come for the Wimbledon; stay for the flame war 😉
I don’t know if RJ is redeemable or irredeemable, but I do know that I’m not terribly fond of his basketball skillset; but E’s use of the word ‘revisionism,’ while also mysterious to me, led me to wonder who I would have taken instead of RJ, knowing what I know now. And what a shitshow that draft was. I mean, De’Andre Hunter? Darius Garland? Tyler Herro maybe? Daniel Gafford?
Given that the two generational talents have largely squandered their legacy, and then you know, RJ, 2019 feels like a warning sign for Covid that none of us heeded.
ah hubert i get it now i did not know that is what you meant by creating their own offense fair point then
Jordan Clarkson isn’t my favorite kind of player but he was very much a positive bench player for years and if he plays like when he was in his prime he will be a great signing and help us a lot. The problem is that is very much up for debate. He is 33 and combo guards that rely on attacking the basket often don’t age well and fall off a cliff when their age catches up with them.
Clarkson shot his lowest 2pt% last year (and his lowest since year 2 the year before), he also had the lowest % of his shots at the rim and lowest % of shots as dunks last year. Both by a wide margin. The Jazz have also been worse when he was on the court each of the last two years which doesn’t bode well, especially with him on an already bad team.
This could be due to a dysfunctional Jazz offense and a nagging injury or it could be the start of age related decline. Clarkson is the type of player who cannot afford much age related decline because he doesn’t have plus shooting, plus size, or plus defense to lean on and keep him a net positive.
It could work out well, but the cost of this move isn’t the salary or even the roster spot as much as his reputation will almost surely keep him in the rotation longer than it should if he is in fact a negative player. Plus it might keep us or already have kept us from signing a better player. And if he is in fact washed, all of the really good vet minimum players will be signed before we find out.
Given the gossamer heft of the “prediction,” I’m kind of wondering at this point, too.
But that said, I’ll add a necessary dose of realism — if Brown plays Clarkson a bunch of playoff minutes and he gets torched and lays brick and wildly chucks, no one here is going to go, “Oh, well, they’re just paying the vet minimum for him — no big deal.” That’s not how any of this works.
Can we just ban E, at this point I don’t care if he’s engaging in good faith (he isn’t). He derails every thread he participates in relitigating the same tired arguments and has done this for years
if mike brown plays clarkson in the playoffs and he is for example that bad that it is hurting us and he keeps playing him then we just have another thibs i suspect that if mike brown plays clarkson in the playoffs and he plays badly enough to hurt us he will be subject to a quick hook
surprised they are willing to eat the contract
Except where you go in the draft dictates how much money you make, which is important. And yes, a fan base and organization should absolutely have higher expectations for their number theee pick than they do for a second round pick veteran they pick up for the vet minimum to play off the bench.
You can tell this bc RJ started his entire tenure here in the hope that he would one day develop into a good player. That hope allowed him to get a contract extension with north of 20 million a year.
I liked the dude and wanted him to succeed but considering the TEAM success we’ve had since trading him, I don’t miss him and wonder why the fuck you keep brining him up in relation to Jordan fucking Clarkson.
You act like it’s some hypocrisy and affront to RJ’s Knicks legacy that were wishcasting scenarios for a new player on our team.
Should we stop doing that for YABU too in order to not offend precious?
Love it. Although I have trouble deciding whose name is cooler to scream out during games…Precious or Yabu?
So then why do we keep saying Jordan Clarkson cost nothing?
In a year we have real title aspirations and desperately need players who can play if we get deep in the playoffs, he cost one of the two spots we have.
That’s actually an enormous cost.
If this teams fortunes rest on a vet min player they were never a real contender to begin with.
A better argument might be, who should we have signed with the vet minimum instead of Jordan Clarkson (and Yabu)? Bearing in mind that we very much do need to take into account roles and positions, i.e. fit. We have 2 bigs, 3 wings, and 2 guards (only one of whom can really initiate the offense). So what are the better choices we should have made? And the one we still can make?
Am I the only one who is fearful for the great Jalen Williams career after reading this. 28 injections (mostly with a numbing agent, Lidocaine.)
Hoping he doesn’t end up with chronic pain in that joint,
For the old timers:
E : RJ Barrett :: Ruruland : Carmelo Anthony
Was about to say the same.
Who is the better player that we passed up to sign Clarkson? What was the opportunity cost?
Please name names.
Bruce Brown and Larry Nance both blow Clarkson out of the water for the vet min, IMHO. I also prefer Tim Hardaway Jr to Clarkson but that’s a YMMV case. If Bradley Beal signs for the vet min that’s a huge one, he’s approximately 100x better than Clarkson. And who knows who else will become available.
“The whole idea that a bench desperately needs someone who can create his own shot is something I think we’ve been conditioned to think by years of watching Lou Williams types win 6MOY.”
I don’t think this is being said as a general statement. The argument is specifically about the Knicks’ bench at the current time given the current constraints.
“But benches don’t need shot creation, they just need a positive net rating.”
This is not really a meaningful or even useful statement. Benches are not really stand-alone entities. They are mixed and matched with starters and how and how much depends on the players, the coach, the opponent, the in-game situation.
“The Thunder don’t have anyone who creates offense off the bench. Do they desperately need a scorer? No, because they have a bunch of great defenders who consistently create a positive net rating by generating turnovers and being a bitch to score against.”
The Thunder can do that “mixing and matching” is ways that most teams can’t, because they have two elite shot-creators who are two-way players, at least two DPOY-level 3-and-D players who can either start or come off the bench, two rim-protecting bigs that are also excellent in their offensive roles, and a bunch of solid 2-way role players across all positions. They can play multiple 5-out lineups without sacrificing perimeter defense or rim protection. They can go full iso mode with their two elite shot creators without sacrificing defense.
You can’t do that with KAT and Brunson as your two best players because you can’t keep the other team from scoring. So the issues vs. OKC are virtually insurmountable.
And guess what? They don’t have a single rotation player making the vet’s minimum! If their starters are assumed to be iHart, SGA, Chet, JDub, and Dort, here are the 2025-26 salaries of their bench:
Caruso: $18M
Cason: $5.8M
Wiggins: $10M
JWill: $8M
Isaiah Joe: $12M
Kenrich: $7M
Even Dieng, Topic, and Sorber are making more than Clarkson! They don’t have a single vet’s minimum on the roster!
“I’d argue low-risk, low-ceiling vet minimum signings like Bruce Brown and Larry Nance Jr would have given us a better bench unit without the scoring. Even bringing back Tim Hardaway Jr for his 8th stint in NY might have been better.”
Well I’d argue against that all day, but why bother? One of the things about guys on vet’s minimum deals is that if they are in any kind of demand they can pick their landing spot. Brown has a history in Denver. Nance Jr. has a history in Cleveland. TH2 just proved he was unplayable in the playoffs in front of your own eyes (in case you missed it, .477 TS%, -4.5 BPM).
Denver IMO is the second best team in basketball and they’re going to have two vet min guys in their rotation.
You sign Larry Nance, who exactly gives you usage off the bench? We rolling with a Josh Hart, Miles McBride, Yabusele, Larry Nance bench? Good luck ever scoring a bucket with that lineup. I think the combined usage of that group is like 60.
So then you need a different player besides Yabu in that other slot, because both of them together doesn’t make a lot of sense. Who would that player be?
Bruce Brown stunk up the league last year. He didn’t blow anybody out of the water. He had a pitiful 85 TS+ on 17.2 USG. It’s genuinely hard to find players who put up 900 worse minutes than the execrable minutes Bruce Brown put up last year.
Bradley Beal is probably going to want to play somewhere where he’s going to get to start or at least play 2400 minutes. I’d love him at the vet min too, but that was probably not gonna happen.
Z-Man you just wrote 5000 words about compatibility and it never occurred to you that the absolute last thing a team built around Brunson and KAT “desperately needs” is someone who creates offense inefficiently and who plays worse defense than both of them?
Play Tyler Kolek at PG with Deuce, Bridges, Yabu, and Mitch and I promise you won’t be wondering where the shots are coming from.
Or give me a Bruce Brown/Deuce McBride backcourt with Bridges and Yabu at forward and Mitch protecting the rim and have fun trying to score with your second unit.
“So then why do we keep saying Jordan Clarkson cost nothing?
In a year we have real title aspirations and desperately need players who can play if we get deep in the playoffs, he cost one of the two spots we have.
That’s actually an enormous cost.”
For one who characterized my takes on Clarkson as hyperbole, wtf?
“Bruce Brown and Larry Nance both blow Clarkson out of the water for the vet min, IMHO.”
It’s an opinion, and almost certainly a misguided and biased one. And a silly proposal as well, since if both of these guys actually want to play in the regular season, why the hell would they want to take the minimum to play here when they would likely be way down the depth chart? Who are they pushing out of the non-Clarkson rotation?
Your argument seems to be “take a scrub who can’t even be in the rotation on our team in case we need him to win a tough game in the finals”.
I would much prefer giving that spot to a player who can help all year in the rotation, especially if Brunson or another scorer misses time, and who I probably couldn’t usually get on a minimum deal. My strong guess is that Clarkson gave up money to sign with us. Do you disagree?
??????
That group has a combined usage of 82 and would be dreadful offensively.
“Z-Man you just wrote 5000 words about compatibility and it never occurred to you that the absolute last thing a team built around Brunson and KAT “desperately needs” is someone who creates offense inefficiently and who plays worse defense than both of them?”
Clarkson is compatible with OG, Mikal, Mitch, Deuce, Hart, Yabu, and Huk. If one or both or KAT or Brunson is off the floor, he does pretty much what they do. I am not suggesting that all three be on the floor together. But did you not notice that when Brunson needs rest and KAT is in foul trouble (which happens a lot!), we sometimes have trouble scoring, or even getting looks?
just finished the latest murderbot episode…although it’s been since forever since I’ve watched Space 1999, still can’t figure out why this new show reminds of some distant old show…maybe it’s the uniforms?
thought it might be the ” location sets”, but Space 1999 was done in “cassette futurism”, which i don’t think murderbot is…although it does give off a pretty campy vibe…
“Play Tyler Kolek at PG with Deuce, Bridges, Yabu, and Mitch and I promise you won’t be wondering where the shots are coming from.
Or give me a Bruce Brown/Deuce McBride backcourt with Bridges and Yabu at forward and Mitch protecting the rim and have fun trying to score with your second unit.”
Really, hubert, get a grip. Even your buddy JK47 is bemused.
Bruce Brown’s defense and versatility remain as useful as they were when he was a key contributor to a champion. I’ll take that guy over Jordan Clarkson any day.
The guy who thinks 33 year old Jordan Clarkson’s floor is Derrick Rose’s 2.3 bpm stint with the Knicks is in no position to be telling anyone to get a grip.
Not all minimum contracts are created equal. Just because Nance was signed for that doesn’t mean anyone could have signed him for that. He was born and raised in Cleveland, and they are the best team on paper in the east.
“But did you not notice that when Brunson needs rest and KAT is in foul trouble (which happens a lot!), we sometimes have trouble scoring, or even getting looks?”
Yeah, but it doesn’t mean that we need a guy to drive and chuck. We actually still have quite decent shooters when Jalen and KAT are out — OG, Mikal, Deuce. What we might need is someone who orchestrates, who gets those good shooters looks. You know, someone like… dare I say it… Kolek?
I mean, maybe not Kolek. But someone LIKE Kolek. Hopefully Kolek.
Cool now we can finally bench Brunson and KAT together in the playoffs.
Ha ha ha Volpe’s dad banned from Citi Field for life. What a jackass.
I don’t know how it’s possible to claim a player is “versatile” when he’s genuinely horrible on offense.
TS+ 85
eFG+ 84
USG 17.2
BPM -3.9
That is a black hole on offense. Don’t need to even pretend to ever guard that guy. He’s a fine defender and a good rebounder for a guard, but he’s a terrible offensive player.
Clarkson and Brown are both getting the minimum because they’re not very good NBA players
I mean look, there’s a really good chance Clarkson turns out to be Cam Payne level bad. He’s getting up there in years and doesn’t do much besides provide some middling efficiency scoring.
But we DID need another high usage player to eat up some possessions so we’re not watching Miles McBride fruitlessly try to create baskets. I didn’t love the signing at first but for a vet min player he’s a reasonable gamble. You’re not going to find an Armani suit on the racks at JC Penney, and Bruce Brown ain’t Armani either.
hubert and z-man do not seem to like each other what did volpes dad do he should probably be hanging out with john haliburton
“The guy who thinks 33 year old Jordan Clarkson’s floor is Derrick Rose’s 2.3 bpm stint with the Knicks is in no position to be telling anyone to get a grip.”
Yeah, the hope is that 33yo Jordan Clarkson can do pretty much what 33yo Derrick Rose did for us, which is to put up a 4.3 BPM in the playoffs, just like he did the last time he was on a playoff team and outplayed a max player on his own team that we wanted to give up a king’s ransom for. Nice thing is, we didn’t have to give up a pick or pay him 12% of the cap to find out!
I’ll gladly wager that Bruce Brown’s stats on a contender will look more like Bruce Brown’s stats on a contender than his stats on Toronto and New Orleans. Even his little stint in Indiana was pre-Siakim when they were asking him to live up to the stupid contract they gave him and be the creator he isn’t. If we’re discounting Clarkson’s putrid performance when he was tanking we should do the same for Brown.
that must be some kind of weird and wild experience, watching your child perform, while bunches and bunches of negative feedback get hurled at them, in real time…yeah, that would take a whole lot of mental prep work…there is some crazy shit that very well may happen, be prepared…
none of our yank young guys seem to be playing really well at a consistent pace…
that’s not good…covid and donnie seem to have cured me of a lot of my sports fixation…otherwise – seriously why in the hell are boone and cashman still there…
summer league wise guessing tyler and ariel (what a cool name) need to look like they don’t belong there…
more defense from tyler, more offense from ariel…
interested to see kevin mccullar Jr perform, hopefully he stands out…
any ideas on what pacome needs to do during these games, what’s a good result for pacome look like…
There’s a very good chance Brown decided that if he was going to take a minimum, it was going to be to go back to the place, and more specifically the player, that allowed him to build value initially. I’d bet a lot on that, actually.
Larry Nance didn’t play 500 minutes last year and is coming off his second right knee surgery. Overwhelmingly likely to be a wasted roster spot.
Ben R put it perfectly. The Clarkson we’ve seen in the past would be a huge help. There are also very good reasons to be skeptical that guy still exists. But the minimal risk we’re taking is well worth it—we’re talking about him returning to his Biden administration level of production, it’s not ancient history.
Today was a day I complimented him repeatedly and said he was making good points.
TNFH was correct when he pointed out how hard Z-Man is working right now to drag folks into fights. He’s like a dog in heat.
I guess I need to follow Noble’s lead and get my Hinge account up and running again to stay above the fray.
I disagree. Clarkson was waived so he gets his full salary from that contract. Whatever the Knicks pay him, Utah pays the difference to make him earn his contractual salary.
The player I would most like to see us pursue is De’Anthony Melton. If he is healthy he is a 15-20 million dollar quality player and is almost surely going to sign for a minimum contract. He is a risk since he has missed most of the last two seasons but when healthy he is one of the best defenders in the NBA and is solid offensively.
I also would love to get Boucher, he is a good floor stretching big that that is getting older but had a great year last year. He is one of those rare bigs that is both a 3pt threat and a shot blocker. He would be perfect as a 4th big off the bench.
They are minimum type signings so it’s up to them and they ultimately might not want to come here but they would have been my two minimum signings if I got to choose.
Another player I personally would have chosen over Clarkson is Chris Paul. He was still effective last year and would be a great mentor to Kolek and McBride and might even teach Brunson a thing or two.
But ultimately Clarkson isn’t a terrible gamble, if he is 95% of what he was 4-5 years ago he will be a great addition to our bench and him plus Yabusele and one of Boucher or Melton would still be a very good off-season.
If Beal shakes loose and signs for the minimum he would of course be an amazing get but I highly doubt that he is going to both be available at the minimum and want to come here.
https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/45694448/nba-free-agency-2025-tiering-pacers-celtics-knicks-every-east-team
that article does not even mention the mike brown hire
When we change the conversation to talk about the bench, if the players we signed to be our backups are good players or not, i’m a happy man. 🙂
I’d love CP3 over Clarkson but I think he would rather retire than play for the Knicks, he wants to be on the west coast because his family lives in LA
He’s made 400 million in his career he’s not looking to move his family or not see them for 3 million bucks
this is cp3s final season he will probably go to the clippers to play with bradley beal
Beal wants to play in warm weather, I don’t think New York passes the test
Also Clippers have 8 million dollars in cap space..
“TNFH was correct when he pointed out how hard Z-Man is working right now to drag folks into fights.”
So the guy in an utter panic about signing a guy on a vet’s minimum at some kind of ENORMOUS COST is claiming that someone is dragging him in to a fight. Okay.
PS I appreciate that you are being receptive to some of the points I am making. We should all listen to the essense of what each other has to say. Hubert and I have actually agreed on lots of matters of substance, both recently and even in our more contentious moments. Frankly, I don’t really have agendas against anyone that cause me to alter my opinion one way or the other, whether it’s offered by hubert, E, TNFH, or any other poster. For example, TNFH and I are actually in lock step right now on Clarkson, even after I initially reacted negatively to the move. He made some interesting counter-arguments, so I checked them out and did a bit of research, and came around to agreeing with him.
So really, cut the shit about me trying to drag folks into fights. It’s the same kind of shit that some asshole named djphan used to say. Lo and behold, I stopped responding to him and guess what? He had fights with everyone else. And when I went long periods of time without fighting with you, did hubert stop getting into fights? Fuck no.
It’s kind of narcissistic to assume that what I’m posting is intentionally to trigger you, as if no one else weighs in on the merits of what I’m saying. At least TNFH had a fair point in that I was bringing up old news re: Julius Randle’s value. The Clarkson signing just happened, and everyone is weighing in on it. No one is dragging anyone into anything. I haven’t posted a single thing on the topic that isn’t in earnest.
Yeah, I highly doubt CP3 would consider coming here. So like Nance and Brown, probably never a possibility. It’s fine to suggest you’d rather have them over Yabu and Clarkson, but aside from the argument whether that’s a smart position, it isn’t realistic.
devin booker has become the bradley beal of the phoenix suns…
they headed down south and they’re still runnin’ today,,,
This. And so choosing flawed players that fit specific needs makes plenty of sense. E.g., even if Brown is better in a vacuum (which seems dubious), what if Brunson goes down for 30 games? Clarkson seems much better suited to replace some of what we’d be missing than Brown.
So, off the topic: is Beal actually worth anything? Always hurt, doesn’t seem to impact winning…I haven’t followed the Suns at all so don’t know whether he’s still actually someone to get excited about even at the vet min.
Beal is still valuable as a scorer when he plays which isn’t often . He avg 17 points on 60 TS last season. The Suns roster was just very badly built. 2 of the big 3 were Shooting Guards.
I think he holds solid value as the 4th or 5th best player on a team
“I disagree. Clarkson was waived so he gets his full salary from that contract. Whatever the Knicks pay him, Utah pays the difference to make him earn his contractual salary.”
So a waived player can’t make more than their contract with the waiving team no matter no matter teams might pay them? So a team with cap space couldn’t tell Clarkson “Hey, we’ll pay you $3M more than the minimum to come here instead of taking the minimum somewhere else, because you are only entitled to what your existing contract pays you.” That seems weird, but everything I found seems to indicate that. Seems like that would benefit better teams with money below the second apron that can’t be outbid by teams below the cap…
Rama, I looked at Beal a week or so ago out of curiosity. Very weird history, and note that I’ve not followed him at all. Led the league 8 and 7 years ago in games (82) and minutes (7 yrs ago). That year (7 ago) scored 25 per game, then next year 30 per, then next year 31 per. Then 23, 23, 18, and last year 17. Also, after that last 82 game season, he played 57, 60, 40, 50, 53, and 53 games.
So hurt a LOT the last six seasons I guess, and a bit of a nosedive from one of the top scorers in the game to a guy who can get buckets if he’s on the court. Even the last three years his TS% was .593, .607, .598.
He’d be fun to have instead of you-know-who, but as has been mentioned it’s not going to happen, and anyway no guarantee he’d be able to play much anyway.
Thanks, Raven. I wasn’t feeling excited about getting him even for the minimum (not that it has been on the table), and that made me wonder whether I was devaluing him too much because of injuries. From that TS, I guess so? But does he still play defense? In his 50 games, would he be a plus player? It seems so, but it would be hard to find a “star” I’d be less excited to get…even for almost nothing.
Beal would be great on a minimum salary, but he is certainly going to be hired for more than that if he gets bought out by the Suns.