07/10/2025 11:00:00
07/10/2025 10:20:00
07/10/2025 10:30:00
07/10/2025 09:00:00
07/10/2025 03:41:22
07/10/2025 04:00:00
07/10/2025 02:51:11
07/10/2025 01:54:30
07/10/2025 01:06:11
07/10/2025 01:07:02
07/10/2025 01:22:33
07/10/2025 00:55:16
07/09/2025 23:46:32
07/09/2025 23:36:32
07/09/2025 23:36:32
108 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2025.07.10)”
5th article is a new low on the click-bait front. Despite the headline, don’t bother clicking. Half way into the article there is a statement “This is a prediction not a report” Not a single “source” or “insider” cited.
Who cares about clickbait? Summer league is here!
Huk Huk!
I’ll be in Montauk for an anniversary weekend and will have to miss SL game 1, but very excited to find out whether any of the kids are making visible progress.
Kolek needs to get down and dirty. He has to work on his TJ McConnell “pest” game. Then spend the next 3 months in martial arts boot camp.
Ariel needs to FHuk those scrubs up without fouling. Stay healthy, bit guy!
Dadiet needs to pleut les trois and d up.
McCullar needs to put up Josh Hart stats.
Nnaji needs to block and dunk everything in sight.
Diawara needs to spread his 7’4″ wings.
I learned from Macri’s summer league primer that Diawara and Yabu share an agent. Honestly, using the 50th pick to grease those wheels a bit, knowing you already had a deal with your actual guy in Pate, would be a well above average use of a late second rounder. Not saying that’s what happened. Also not not saying that’s what happened. Suffice to say I’d be happy to be wrong about this but I’m far from certain Diawara was drafted because Walt Perrin thinks he’ll be a good NBA player one day.
I want no fewer than 10 Kolek-to-Nnaji lobs. In game 1.
I’m wondering what the delta was between Diawara and the consensus stash at that point.
Between Marjon and McCullar, who I’m betting are about as good or better than most of this year’s remaining picks, there’s only one 2-way slot left. Watson or Pate (I’m guessing Pate) seem like a reasonable use vs any other pick in the 50s. So you’re left with a stash.
What you’re describing is probably what happened with Kolek/Dadiet. They probably had a higher grade on Kolek but figured they could get him in round 2.
Saw Kenyon Martin was talking on a podcast about how the dynamics of youth basketball have changed so much from say 25 years ago. So much money is required, kind of like with baseball, that the talent distribution skews a lot more than ever before towards middle class and wealthier kids and especially kids with parents with NBA backgrounds who obviously have genetics on their side too.
It’s something I have noted in the past but appears like it’s becoming more of consensus opinion.
I’m a little upset that my google news feed (personal & this one) keeps posting these fake articles with clickbait titles. My google news has been telling me the Knicks have traded KAT for days now. I’m starting to hide news sources in the hopes they’ll go away.
the fake news and headlines is only going to get worse and worse and worse and worse we are only at the bottom of the iceberg not the tip it seems like over the past six months or so everything has ramped up on this crap to the nth degree
I’m confused; isn’t our first summer league game Friday night not Thursday night? That is tomorrow night, not tonight?
This is correct. I hadn’t looked at the schedule until now.
yeah our first game is tomorrow night but this location of summer league begins tonight three games have already been played elsewhere utah i think
weird that jameer nelson jr. is playing in summer league now seems like nelson sr. was just playing
Borrego is staying in NOLA. So Brown still needs an offensive coordinator of some kind.
I’ve seen two distinct arguments about Jordan Clarkson seem to get thrown together.
One is that he’s a decent signing at the vet min. Compelling cases have been made, most notably by Noble & Z-Man, and even I have come around to accept the logic.
But the second argument folks are making is “this team desperately needs a player like Clarkson”, and IMO no compelling case has been made to support this. People have just been throwing out USG numbers.
Back when we first got rid of RJ we had a bench made up exclusively of low usage players. Deuce, Grimes, Hart, and Precious had a total usage of 58.5%, and they outscored opponents by 238 points when they were on the bench before Hart went into the starting lineup. And that number went up to 339 points after the first two games it took to gel.
(And the irony is back then everyone was talking about how we desperately needed a scorer off the bench, too! Even with a killer net rating, people wanted us to give up a pick for Malcolm Brogdon.)
I think it is very wrong that we desperately need inefficient usage soakers on the bench. Staggering a starter (Bridges or Towns) with quality low USG players like we did in ‘24, like we did in the ECF, and like the Thunder do currently strikes me as a much better solution than letting Jordan Clarkson cook.
yeah i gave up on the idea of us getting borrego when those reports came out right when brown was hired it is too bad as he would have been great to have on our bench next to brown totally understandable why nola will not just let us poach him if he is under contract with them
again i trust mike brown to yank clarkson or any other player in any game where they are not helping us on the court he will likely have a quicker hook than starters who are not playing particularly well but hopefully brown will also know when to give those guys a breather too
remember how thibs always said that he let the game tell him what to do but then he never actually did that he would either wait too long to make in-game adjustments or he would not make them at all i am hoping that mike brown will *actually* let the game tell him what to do and then actually do those things
in the world of video gaming this is described as being a feature and not at all a bug…
the constant craving of conflict must be fed, algorithms and ai will make sure none go hungry…
The starters obviously have to be better and more efficient scorers than the bench scorers, but you need “enough” efficient scoring power on the bench too. It doesn’t really matter much if it’s players 6-10 or you use 1-2 of the starters also, but if you use the starters, then you are diluting the minutes your very best players are together.
oh yeah, back to the tv talk, ran in to another great “couple’s viewing” programming thing…from back some years ago…
I had tried the show once or twice when it was current, seemed silly at the time, fresh view of it now…add Animal Kingdom to your must see boob tube time with another…similar to the recent Paradise show there’s enough appeal (storied sex and violence) to attract a wide range of viewers…
Smoke is another show (newer one) which is fun to watch together…
ha, starting to put together a list of partner viewing shows…
I’m not sure what you’re looking at but this combination of players got 77 total minutes together and sucked in those minutes (112 offensive rating, 120 defensive rating). Seems like even an inefficient usage soaker might’ve helped indeed.
The word “desperately” is doing a lot of work there. We didn’t have a high usage bench soaker last year, and we did pretty good. Now we have one. If Clarkson plays even as well as he did last year (which wasn’t that great) it’ll be a nice thing to have, as the player he’ll be replacing is Cam Payne, and 2024-2025 Clarkson is a more useful player than Payne.
Clarkson doesn’t make us drastically better, but does give us a dimension we didn’t have.
Mikal had a .560 TS% on 24% usage in Brooklyn. It’s far from elite but his TS% was better than all but 1 of Clarkson’s seasons and frequently much better.
If Mikal can’t usage soak on the 2nd unit, he won’t be worth anything near what we paid.
Maybe Clarkson’s drive and kick game unlocks Mikal, but 2nd unit duties should really be Mikal + one of Brunson/KAT.
I think we also need to probably reevaluate the term “inefficient chucker” here. Clarkson had a 95 TS+ last year. That’s the same as the “new and improved” RJ Barrett that has apparently been such a fine player for the Toronto Raptors. Clarkson’s scoring profile is actually better than RJ’s, as he manages his 95 TS+ with a lower assisted basket percentage.
RJ is a box score stuffer so he’s a better player. He also costs $28M per year. So we’re getting basically just the scoring component of the Toronto RJ— similar usage and efficiency but with more shot creation— for like 1/10th of the price.
Is it the greatest signing in world history? No. Is it reasonable? Seems reasonable to me.
Yeah I don’t think RJ would be a good bench usage soaker in the Clarkson mold, since he’s at his best when being set up by others. His ISO PPP last year was 0.86, so the idea that he’s a True Hooper who’s disrespected by the nerds is pretty dubious
Eye test-wise, bench units when Deuce was the primary playmaker looked awful on offense last season. They just couldn’t get anything going. The Kat/Deuce/Shamet/Delon group that Thibs finally unveiled in the Indiana series was more promising, but on the whole this roster is screaming for somebody off the bench who can break down an opposing defense and make things happen for himself and others. That should be Mikal; part of the point of giving up so much for him was the idea that he’d be the focal point of the second unit offense. And maybe that can still be the case; the Kings podcaster that was on the latest Knicks Film School episode pointed to Mikal specifically as a guy who would really benefit from the kind of offense Brown ran in Sacramento. But if Brown doesn’t unlock that part of Bridges’ game, then we need a guy like the good version of Clarkson in the rotation. Does that version still exist? We’ll find out.
You’re isolating the minutes when all four were in the court together, as if it’s a hockey line. I’m including their net rating when one or more of them played with the starters. You play two guys with three starters, three guys with two starters, etc.
You don’t need to build a unique 5 man unit. They didn’t need a usage soaker bc they usually had Randle or Brunson. Which we can replicate with Brunson, Towns, and maybe Bridges.
I said “maybe Bridges” but honestly it’s more “ideally Bridges”. This is presumably why we paid such a high price for him. Hopefully Brown creates a better role for him and he proves his worth in it.
Same with Tyler Kolek. If he can’t be trusted to run a second unit for 6-8 mins a night in the regular season he’s probably not worth a roster spot.
Owen, I don’t know if you saw the article in the NY Times today about how private equity firms are all in on the youth sports business
I’m sure that will end well )-:
Well, if every bench player needs to be handheld by a high usage starter that seriously limits how much rest you can get your high usage starters. The idea behind getting someone like Clarkson is it allows you to put up not-terrible offensive numbers even when all your high usage starters are resting. It’s mathematically very hard to get them in the 32 MPG range if you can’t do that.
Whether Clarkson has more utility than that, e.g. whether he can man units that are affirmatively good, is very much TBD. I’m skeptical, but wouldn’t rule it out. That’s what will determine whether he’s a playoff caliber player or a guy you can use to beat Washington in January.
I’d love to get Coach Bud. If Vogel had to take the associate job in Dallas, that might be Bud’s market too (one ring, loss of Suns’ job). Google says Bud and Brown were on Pop’s bench together. It also says he’s an Arizonian, so he might not care to move to Westchester.
Clarkson is a min wage end of bench player who won’t play any significant minutes to materially effect more that 1% of games played next year.
Are we that bored that we need to waste time going down a rabbit hole on a guy like this?
Let’s at least switch to Yabu…he at least has some enigma left in his game. Plus he’s name much cooler….YABU
Who do you think is in the rotation?
We have some arrangement of these players (not necessarily these positions, just easier to list):
Brunson
Mikal/Deuce
Hart
OG/Yabusele
KAT/Mitch
Presumably we’ll have more than 8 players.
hmmmmm, not really getting a strong sense of joy and fulfillment coming from your comment regarding the discourse direction of today’s (and yesterday’s, and the day before’s) discussion director…
embrace the off-season – seize the opportunity to put forth some interesting thought or analysis you may or may not have regarding basketball, and yeah life too…
and see if you can get anyone to follow…cause otherwise you are simply some crazy person talking to one’s self…
which may or may not beat talking about jordan clarkson some more…summer league starts tomorrow for us 😊
It really doesn’t, though. We just saw it in the ECF. We didn’t have to stretch KAT and Brunson when we benched high USG Cam to roll with the low USG quartet of Deuce, Shamet, Delon, Mitch/Hart on the bench. In fact it turned out KAT with 4 low USG guys was actually our best lineup.
9 man rotations with staggered starters are completely normal.
A more interesting (and less tread out recently) topic is whether Mikal Bridges can actually do what we got him for next year.
Bridges and Brunson were supposed to be a better version of Brunson and Randle, i.e. a primary and secondary ballhandler/playmaker. But we saw nothing last year that made us think that can happen. Truthfully we saw nothing the year before in Brooklyn, either. It was just that one brief stretch after he was traded.
Have we accepted that he just isn’t that guy, or could it have just been Thibs’ uncreative offense? I’m hopelessly optimistic it’s the latter but I don’t feel great about it.
And don’t we kinda have to make that determination now? Because if we let him play without an extension, and he is that guy, we’re fucked. And if we give him an extension now and he isn’t that guy, we’re also fucked.
It really does seem like Delon (who can play the 1 and 3) fits like a glove in that 9th man spot, which would leave Kolek and Clarkson to fight for the 10th. I like that rotation a lot better than one where Clarkson is in the Derrick Rose/Immanuel Quickely role.
I’ve heard folks mention GPII, as well. If he’s available at the minimum that would be even better.
Ben R’s Melton idea sounds great in theory but I’m not sure you can count on his health. Same with M Smart.
Fact. I’m with you on this Hubert. This roster will be optimized playing 9 & adding a few extra minutes to each reserve instead of playing 10.
Thanks Geo…appreciate the post. Story of my life. Always needed guard rails.
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
Everyone knows I’m not a fan of AIO stats because they fail to capture coaching, lineup, system and the more subtle things going on in a game, but it might be worth taking a took at EPM for Payne and Clarkson for last year if you like that stat and think Clarkson is an upgrade.
I hadn’t looked at it yet while making the case that Payne was more effective than given credit for and Clarkson was a negative player, but even I was shocked.
my list of our most impactful players (lists are good, because gathering data and analyzing it seems too work like):
– jalen
– KAT
– OG
– mitch
– mikal
– deuce
– josh
– yabu
– clarkson
why bother listing a tenth, yep jordan is pretty far down on the list…
OG and Mikal played some of their best ball of the season in the 15 games Brunson was out.
Maybe that was a fluke, but maybe they could handle 2nd unit duties without Clarkson.
They had a 118 ORtg and 100 Drtg together through 163 minutes when playing without KAT and Brunson. You’d think Thibs would’ve at least tried that configuration a bit more.
To put a finer point on it, it is literally impossible for 3 things to happen:
1) both Brunson and KAT play 32 minutes in a game
2) one or both of them is on the floor at all times
3) they overlap for at least 20 minutes (I mean, the whole idea here is to play them together)
That’s why I brought up Mikal Bridges. You need three guys to make the math work, and that’s why we got Bridges. Are we going with Clarkson bc we’ve kicked that idea to the curb? If so, there are some logical next steps.
for last season i have payne at #201 overall #40 pg clarkson at #230 overall #49 pg or #48 sg yabusele at #235 overall #29 pf shamet at #334 overall #79 sg
i want two of mitch og and deuce to be on the floor at all times is that possible
Mikal looked decent in the rare occasions when he was asked to create offense last year. It just happened very rarely.
The pitiful FTr to me is kind of a proxy for his shot creation abilities. If you’re leaning on him as the main shot creator with the second unit, and he’s averaging like one free throw attempt every other game, by nature he’s not putting a whole lot of pressure on the defense.
His FTr last year was less than half of his normal number. So he should definitely be able to improve on that. He played in an extremely passive way last year, to the point where it was downright weird.
I think you’re overthinking this. We’re “going with” Clarkson on a veteran’s minimum salary because there’s a reasonable chance he provides bench production that makes that a bargain. There’s also a reasonable chance he doesn’t, in which case we can pivot to staggering or making further acquisitions.
It’s worth noting that Clarkson can of course play with some starters too, especially given his penchant for finding open shooters in the corner and OG and Mikal’s proficiency from there.
We are of course hoping the starting lineup is actually good this year, meaning we want to limit the extent to which we absolutely have to stagger. Even if all Clarkson amounts to is a guy who lets us shave some minutes off the starters until playoff time without losing too many extra games, that would be a great ROI.
i have clarkson pegged for ~16 mpg
Not unusual. I am currently overthinking approximately one dozen things, and focusing on this is a pleasant distraction.
I do think it makes a big difference if we got Clarkson to be the 10th man or 6th. Those of us agitated by the signing are concerned he’ll be the latter.
If Clarkson plays even as well as he did last year (which wasn’t that great) it’ll be a nice thing to have, as the player he’ll be replacing is Cam Payne, and 2024-2025 Clarkson is a more useful player than Payne.
i think it’s a decent low stakes bet that clarkson is more likely to be useful next year. but last year? payne was better.
I don’t think Payne really was better. Lower TS+ on lower USG. Comparable AST%, slight edge to Payne but not enough to make up for Clarkson’s usage/efficiency edge.
So first of all, I am grooving at being in Hubert’s camp a lot in the last 36 hours. Not a place I’ve spent long hours in, but very much enjoying it.
Second, just want to second (or third, as I’ve noted it before, as have others) the bit about Mikal and OG doing exceptionally well when Jalen was out last year. There was something working then, not sure I can put my finger on it but hoping Brown can.
Didn’t see him play for the Nets, but last year’s Mikal gives me no sense that he can be an offensive initiator, or even all that much of a creator. Eye test, but my memory of when he was playing well was when he was the recipient of good ball movement. Which is fine, although this also gets to why folks were saying things got paralyzed when Deuce was trying to initiate (sorry Deuce).
Also why I said I hoped Kolek isn’t still largely worthless, as he’d be rather perfect in that initiator role. The thing I’ll be watching hardest during summer league games.
Clarkson could do that, too, but only if he in fact passed out to the corners and didn’t spend an inordinate amount of time throwing up missed bunnies in traffic instead.
Oh. Did you happen to eat the chocolate? If so you may not want to drive.
Honestly, I don’t get why there is any argument whatsoever about signing Jordan Clarkson to a veterans minimum deal. I mean, we’re not that far removed from Tibbs permanently benching Evan Fournier and Kemba Walker who made $30 million combined.
You can quibble about how and how much he should be used. But that’s Mike Brown’s job. If he plays the way he did last year, he should get less minutes. If he plays the way he did when he was six man of the year, he should get more minutes. It’s pretty simple.
What I vehemently object to, is the notion that any of the other scrubs who were available are in any way a better gamble than he is. He definitely fills a void that we have, at least as well as any other player out there would fill any void that we have.
To put it differently, if you’re worried about how and how much he is going to be used, you were showing a lack of faith in Mike Brown. Which would be more worthy argument than the ones being made about Jordan Clarkson.
I don’t think Payne really was better. Lower TS+ on lower USG. Comparable AST%, slight edge to Payne but not enough to make up for Clarkson’s usage/efficiency edge.
i think it’s easy to overlook the turnover factor. clarkson has become incredibly sloppy, which will hopefully revert in a more serious context. payne was the opposite.
look at it this way: assign to clarkson payne’s overall 25% tov/ast ratio and assume the residual goes into his shot creation. that adds 1.9 possessions to his shot attempts. quantify this by multiplying each tov poss by 1.25 to turn it into a shot attempt, so 2.4 additional shots.
ignore the 3pt shooting, which was almost literally identical in volume, unassisted proportion and %. so you’re left with cam giving you a .508 TS on his 2pas plus FTs, 7.2 pts per 36 and 7.1 attempts.
now what is clarkson’s marginal ts (excess tov adjusted) on his incremental usage? 5.9 pts on 7.36 attempt for a .40 TS. pretty obviously a marginal negative. and that’s before considering cam being the less shitty defender of the two. clarkson has more upside but he’s been shit these last two years.
He only has 8 guys who can definitely play in the NBA right now besides Clarkson. 9 if you want to be charitable about Huk.
This definitely a Leon thing, not a Mike Brown thing.
i hope clarkson plays enough to justify us arguing about him for three days how about we talk about our even better acquisition of guerschon yabusele
Who is playing if not Clarkson?
Of course the roster is a Leon thing. And if none of Huk, Kolek, or Dadiet are NBA players, that’s big time a Leon thing. But Mike Brown has to play the cards he was dealt. If Clarkson plays dumbly and/or badly, Brown has to bench him.
But if anyone thinks that swapping out any of the non-star buyout vet’s min guys for Clarkson would amount to anything more than a band-aid on a gaping axe wound, they are not being serious. Or any two vs. one + Clarkson. Hubert is correct in that there’s a good chance that one of the vets’ minimum guys will need to be in the rotation at some point, so including the deep playoffs. As I showed yesterday by posting the salaries of OKC’s top 12, they have no players from the picked over bin. We have a bench full of them, and have to because our starters and top two bench players eat up the entire cap.
clarkson definitely should be playing to the tune of about 16 minutes per game when i said that i hope he plays enough to justify us spending all of this time on him i was more writing to the folks who seem to think he should be a 5-8 minutes or only at the end of blowouts break glass in case of emergency kind of guy if he only plays 5-8 minutes then we have all been wasting an inordinate amount of time discussing him i would really like to know what folks think of yabu too
Wow, I wrote that and then ten mins later it sunk in.
We’re trying to win an NBA title with 9 professional basketball players, one of whom is Jordan Clarkson.
We’ve had like 15 top 40 picks in the Leon era, too. We should be overflowing with depth.
Spot on. Unless our picks show they belong by the trade deadline, the last reserve piece will be added.
Just adding up their skills alone and my instincts, Kolek & McCulum have the highest probability of surprising on the upside this season. Dadier has highest ceiling but needs more time to cook. Ariel and Mohammad are clueless big athletic bodies.
If none of them can play, they will be replaced by someone who can.
Also, if we have any 3 out of 8 players out at the same time, we’re a ~ .500 team at best. Those genius Dallas trainers need to stay busy.
I had high hopes for Mikal last season and he was a disappointment. If contract year Mikal can’t be a lot better than last season, i don’t know if i want that guy to stick around. We played great when he played great, and we (mostly) played bad when he played bad. We get what we expect, or close to it, from the other guys, Mikal has to step up, he isn’t close to what we expect. I hope the ironman record isn’t behind this.
we are not the only team who is in a world of hurt if we have injury issues an argument could be made that we would be worse off than most because of depth issues but i think our depth is already better than last years our newfound sort of better depth should ostensibly help in the injury department too as we will have even more ability not to play our starters ~40 minutes per game if we have other guys on the bench (hart yabu deuce clarkson huk) who can hold the fort down if need be
Hey Geo, love is in the air? Tell me more about it. 🙂
We tried to win a championship last year with 7 guys plus Payne, Precious, Shamet, and Wright, none of whom belong in a championship rotation. The rest of the bench were rookies and a 90 year old.
And yet, it was our top 7 who tapped out. The remaining 10% of the salary sheet didn’t matter much.
zman i cannot tell if you are agreeing or disagreeing with my last statement about having more depth than last season then again maybe you were not responding to that in the first place
Huk is far from clueless and is my #1 vote for regular rotation yute. Kolek is my #2 high hope because we arguably need his skillset (imagined or otherwise) the most, fingers tightly crossed.
I got no clue re McCullar, and Dadiet is at least a year away, if ever.
And yeah, there are very few teams that could lose 3 out of 8 regular rotation players and not crumble. Maybe three? That’s good teams, lots of bad teams could lose 3 out of 8 and stull suck.
Yes, but all of the guys last year were NBA-level players. It’s not clear how many NBA-level players are on this roster. Right now I’m only sure of 8, which isn’t a full rotation.
The only way to add depth now is to do something with one the two bloated salaries: KAT and OG. It’s hard to trade KAT for a similar player at half the cost (well played, Minnesota) but not OG.
I highlighted that Michael Porter Jr trade recently because I think that’s where we might be headed with OG next summer when we get access to our 2033 pick. Something like OG and our pick for Trey Murphy would net a similar (arguably better) player and save us $14M, which would enable us to turn OG into 3 or 4 guys without sacrificing top end quality.
It’s a shame we couldn’t have done it this year with Cam Johnson. I still can’t believe Denver got that trade done.
It’s always a good idea to get players cheaply, but we are way beyond the point where “bargain” matters much. That was key a few years ago. We are at the point where we are addressing needs that take us from very good to serious contender. It just so happens all we can afford is cheap, but good backup players are sometimes available cheaply. Clarkson is not a good player.
If anyone is arguing that a healthy Jordan Clarkson is not an NBA-level player while Precious, Payne, Wright, or Shamet are, they should be summarily banned. It would surpass the Randle hot takes in summer 2022 in vapidity.
Here it is for all you EPM fans.
EPM last year
Payne
Offense +.6
Defense +.6
EPM +1.3
Clarkson
Offense -.5
Defense -1.2
EPM -1.6
Clarkson played with a plantar fascia injury that occurred in November and required season-ending surgery. He was also on a terrible tanking team.
Clarkson will very likely be very close to the player he was at age 29, just like Lou Williams was and Jamal Crawford was. There really shouldn’t be much doubt about that. He doesn’t have arthritic knees or a torn Achilles, nor is he dependent on elite athleticism (although I’m pretty sure some folks here are gonna be surprised by how athletic he is.)
There is no question in my mind that our 1-9 rotation is better than last year’s. None whatsoever.
Clarkson was an NBA player 2 years ago.
I’m not convinced a declining, high TO player past 30 with a .520 TS% and bottom-20 defender (including scrubs like Kolek) is an NBA player.
I’m not convinced this is a case of bad team + injury instead of a 32yo who can’t hack it anymore. He was bad the last 2 years, not just last year.
If he’s healthy and plays better for us, then it’s not an issue, but he hasn’t played well in a couple years and that’s a red flag.
You’ve been trying to make the case him for days. Why I don’t know.
The probability that Clarkson is going to move the needle in a noticeable way is very low. He should have been a one day discussion that ended in “he can score and at least he’s cheap”. Then we should have moved on to Yabu.
Yabu might actually play an important role at two positions and wind up being a pretty important upgrade given Precious was not productive in similar roles last year. I was always hopeful with Precious, but he was BAD last year. If Yabu winds up being a plus, that’s going to be significant. Negative to positive even in a backup role is worth wins.
Clarkson in not a kid anymore. He missed a lot of games over the last 3 years. Last year he played 37.
The probability we are getting the very best version of Clarkson is pretty low and IMO that version was always overrated to begin with because he’s a negative defender and always has been.
More likely, we are getting a declining volume scorer that’s not efficient and that’s a negative defender. But at least he’s cheap.
When players of Clarkson’s very obvious skills and ability fall off a cliff at age 33, there is almost always an underlying cause. No such cause exists for Clarkson, not yet, anyway.
OTOH, we have HARD EVIDENCE that Payne is unplayable in the playoffs. We have HARD EVIDENCE that Nance Jr. has knee issues. And we have HARD EVIDENCE that our bench fucking sucked last year, including vs. Indiana in the games that mattered most. (And please stop with the what if Thibs used Shamet and Delon earlier nonsense. They fucking suck, and if they didn’t, someone else would have signed them by now.)
howdy cyber, checking in on the Porto weather scene in a moment…some family is looking to try out a spot south of you as an alternative spot to spend their time…word gets around, you are in a particularly beautiful part of the world…
fortunately I have an engineering background, so it’s all situations looking for solutions…now that I don’t react to about everything with anger I’m able to focus in better on my relationships…figure out what it is I want, how can I get it while adding value to my partner’s experience…
i’m sure z-man and others have already figured out it’s super important to support a partner that’s working…so work preparation, even more importantly work transition (try to help them get out of WORK MODE)…
main reason i went back to therapy was that I couldn’t focus on simple fitness routines, my mind was spinning too much…challenge being: i’ve surrounded myself with love, and it’s just a lot of – feeling like getting caught in a whirlwind, getting dragged along, and losing track of where I was heading…i go in stasis mode sometimes around others, hide away, wait things out…
gotta fight the feeling it’s a better solution to go it alone as much as possible…repetition, faith and a sense of humor are helping me a bunch following this other path…
thank you so much for asking cyber, I hope you’re having an enjoyable day, and the chance to spend it as you wish 🫡
Strat is about as right here as he was about Phil and Frank.
Dropping in on the fly to note that I’m old enough to remember when KB thought anyone could generate usage.
I love Z-Man dying on the Jordan Clarkson hill. Not sure why, but it’s fun.
On the other hand, I pray he’s right. I’m an atheist, but happy to give it a shot.
Two folks that I am 100% behind to prove any doubters wrong are geo and Clarkson.
Clarkson’s minutes have declined the last 4 years because he keeps getting hurt and his 2fg% is dropping. He’s not falling off a cliff, he’s been on a downward trend for a couple years.
I wouldn’t be surprised if he has a couple more in him, but I wouldn’t be surprised if this is his last year either.
The cool thing for Flame is that he is going to ignite the Mecca on a regular basis. I truly can’t wait.
On a personal note, it’s my 32nd anniversary and I’m on the deck of my oceanfront room in Montauk watching the waves roll in sipping a beverage while my beloved gets gussied up. Will soon be in a restaurant where the prices are inflated more than my Clarkson takes. I’ll leave it here. Cheers!
Not many teams have more than “8 NBA players.” Cleveland has eight and then two more in the form of Larry Nance and Lonzo Ball, who are held together with Scotch tape. They went for the “injury risk” model with their #9 and #10 guys. Orlando has eight and then a couple of guys on rookie contracts who have been quite bad so far in their careers, so they’re using the “hope
for internal improvement” model. We’re doing the “guy that has one usable skill” model. We will likely still pick up one more vet min player, so we’re not quite done yet. If you prefer the injury risk model, that’s fine. There’s a good chance those guys are in street clothes when the playoffs roll around, but it’s a reasonable gamble.
It’s just not that easy to squeeze ten good players in there with the cap rules the way that they are. There are maybe a couple of teams in the whole league that have more than 8 quality players.
I feel like we’re not giving enough credit to “beat Washington in January” guys. Most players are going to miss time in a season, and not having good options – in this case, for initiating the offense – can mean losing games you need to win. Even if Mikal should be plan B, which is a reasonable argument, he wasn’t consistent last year, and not having a plan C (especially if we trade him at the deadline) would leave us underpowered. So I do think a player like Clarkson is necessary, exactly because of January against the Wizards and not necessarily in the playoffs.
I often do
The ones competing for a title do.
The Thunder are an anomaly but Houston had to give away Cam Whitmore and Jock Landale because they didn’t have room. I’d kill for either of those guys.
The Nuggets now have 9 quality veteran NBA players plus a pair of first round picks in Holmes and Strawther that seem NBA ready.
The Clippers second 5 is Kris Dunn, Bogdan, John Collins, Nic Batum, and Brook Lopez.
I wish folks would go back and read the comments they made during game threads, especially about our bench.
I wish the Knicks had Clarkson during the 2024 playoffs.
So does TJ McConnell’s agent.
It’s a reasonable argument, Rama, but it assumes that beating the Wizards in January is important. And it kinda isn’t.
That was Thibs’ doom. He killed to get those wins and then year after year he lost to an 8 seed, a 6 seed, and a 4 seed… teams who didn’t give a shit about beating the Wizards in January.
The Pacers didn’t even give a shit about winning game 81 this year when we were in a tailspin and they had a real shot at the 3 seed. They rested everyone.
I mentioned this ongoing Clarkson debate to my Clippers fan friend, who said:
When I mentioned my belief that we have no one on the bench who can create a shot for himself or others, he wrote:
Dunn is penciled in as a starter for the Clippers. Their depth is Bogdan, Collins, Lopez, and 37 year old Nic Batum. That’s not a whole lot deeper than NYK. I’d say McBride, Yabu, Hart, and Clarkson gives that group a run for its money, and we’re still likely to sign another guy.
Houston is one of the deeper teams in the league, so fair enough there.
Alan, that makes me very sad, and exactly defines why I’m not dying on the Clarkson hill.
I think there’s a good chance Clarkson is washed and won’t play all that much but if he was goofy the last couple years because the Jazz weren’t trying to win and he’s decent, then he can eat some minutes in the regular season. Which is what you spent the last 2 years begging Thibs to do. If you don’t want to kill your team to beat the Wizards in November you play Jordan Clarkson for 20 minutes and see what happesn
ESPN hyped up the Flagg vs Bronny matchup tonight and they wind up shooting a combined 7 for 29. Flagg shot 5 for 21, Bronny shot his usual 2 for 8.
I don’t see why “can’t create a shot for anyone else” is a big problem. Clarkson is a single-use, niche player. That’s what you typically get from a vet min guy. If he had another skill to go along with his soakage, he’d cost more than the vet min.
We still have one more vet min slot. Maybe Gary Payton II: Electric Boogaloo might be willing to come chase a ring. OAKAAK faves Alex Burps, Delon Wright, and Landry “Not Fields” Shamet are still out there.
Most of these other contenders have no depth because they had no picks. They had to trade them all to become a contender.
The Clippers have had 2 picks in the top 40 the last 5 years. The Cavs and Nuggets have had 4.
Leon had 13!
That’s the second most picks in the entire NBA over that period. Only Sam Presti had more, and he had just one more (14). (The Rockets did it with just 8.)
We should be teeming with a pipeline talent like the Thunder and Rockets, not scraping the bottom of the barrel like the Clippers and Cavs.
We couldn’t afford those picks
Also those picks weren’t very good, (compare the Rockets who had 4 top 5 picks the last 5 years while the Knicks had zero) the only way it works is if you do the thing where we make the perfect pick and then somehow keep losing the same number of games year after year despite picking the perfect player every time
ESPN listed a “player to watch” in summer league for the ach team. For the Knicks:
See https://global.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/45690165/2025-nba-summer-league-top-players-all-30-teams-cooper-flagg-bronny-james-ace-bailey