Knicks Morning News (2025.11.24)

Huk Huk!

Too early?

Interesting numbers on Mitch yesterday. It’s crazy it’s been that long since he had three assisted buckets in a game.

What I notice about Mitch is how much bigger and stronger he is than when he came into the league. He was like a coat hanger to start, rangy, highly mobile, and electric off the floor.

He’s a very different player now. I still love him but he absolutely has pulled back on defense to avoid fouls and his agility is less than what it was. You can’t move him in the paint though and he sets a good screen too as noted.

I still think he’s a stud and that we could use him more as a rim runner. I wish the new physique allowed him to stay healthy. Hasn’t worked so far.

I think with OG and Bridges out there Mitch makes a formidable defensive trio. Maybe the numbers don’t back it up but OG at least is the kind of defender I always wanted to see Mitch play with.

I still am hopeful Mitch will have the moment I think he deserves.

The more I think about it, the more I think the Towns/Brunson pairing is not going to work. The defensive issues are obvious, but I don’t think I’ve been considering the possibilty that the reason Towns struggles at times is that he’s not as effective on offense at PF. That was something I thought was a risk when they tried it in Minnesota. He did well, but I think getting to NY and at first playing C is where he revealed that’s he’s probably more effective at C.

The sample size is teeny tiny (41 minutes), but it’s true that OG/Mikal/Mitch has been an excellent trio on defense this year. 101.2 defensive rating. Including last year, we have 196 minutes and a 107 defensive rating, which is still very good.

Not much to say about this other than we need to hope Mitch is healthy and effective. I’m reasonably optimistic he’ll round into form if healthy and what we’re seeing this season is his typical re-conditioning after a layoff, but it sure was nice having iHart and thus not being so reliant on a guy who is equal parts lovable and unreliable.

Fix the Early Bird rules!

Stat of the day: through 18 games, SGA is rocking a .671 TS%, which for a guard is just ridiculous.

Trade Towns.

There are some players that are so bad defensively it’s hard to build a team around them that’s good enough defensively to win a championship. We have two of them in Towns and Brunson and a couple of other players that are traffic cones coming off the bench.

We are going to win plenty of games with our offensive talent, but imo we aren’t going to beat top two-way teams.

I think we may need to make a major move at the deadline if we are serious about a title run.

“The more I think about it, the more I think the Towns/Brunson pairing is not going to work.”

Should have been pretty obvious from the start. The odds of winning a championship with those two as our “best” players are very, um, not good.

And I will re-iterate: it’s not just KAT per se, it’s KAT at 35% of the cap. Even when you even account for Brunson’s “discount”, since both Mikal and OG are overpaid, there is no way to fill out a roster with the complementary pieces you need to make that duo work at a championship level, or to acquire a MVP-type to relegate KAT to third banana, epsecially when you need to bench him for defensive purposes.

The sooner KAT is traded, the better. But who the hell wants him at the price that would make trading him worthwhile? I mean, what “star” could you get in return for him? Someone like AD? Ja? LaMelo? Sabonis? Embiid? Markaten?

Maybe Minny would package Rudy and Donte for him?

Maybe Minny would package Rudy and Donte for him?

That’s not funny.

The idea that KAT is at the root of our defensive issues is tempting based on my eye test, but stubbornly hard to substantiate.

For the duration of his Knicks tenure, our defensive rating is 115.6 with him on and 112.9 with him off, which seems to lend some credence to the idea, but…

With KAT on and Brunson off, we’re at a solid 113.3, and before anyone asks, some of the obvious explanations can be ruled out.

For example, add “Mitch off” to the “KAT on, Brunson off” combination, and we drop down to 112.5 (1,206 minutes).

Hell, add “OG off” to all of that, and…we’re at 111.6 (495 minutes).

Don’t ask me what to make of it, and there are obviously some small samples here. I will say these are not the kind of numbers you typically see when someone is a well-known defensive disaster at center, so I’d be wary of making a trade for the sake of doing so, thinking it’ll cure our defensive woes.

KAT’s 4yr RAPM is 0.1, which isn’t great for a C but a huge step up from earlier in his career. I do think it may be related to Rudy Gobert somehow but in theory it controls for that.

His defensive rebounding probably makes up for a good number of defensive mistakes. Mitch on the other hand isn’t a great defensive rebounder and is recovering from injury more often than he’s healthy

The way this team was built, “contend for a title” was not a very realistic outcome. We did it by acquiring established players. The problem with building that way is that it’s very difficult to get surplus value out of your roster spots. Everybody knows what KAT is worth, and Mikal Bridges, and OG Anunoby, and Josh Hart, and so on. So you pay market value for those players and it is reflected in your salary cap numbers.

We got surplus value out of Jalen Brunson, and that has carried us very far. You can hope that some big ticket players like KAT and OG and Mikal have big, productive years, and you can squeeze some surplus value out of them that way. Maybe some of your cheaper role players are particularly productive in their roles. You can certainly put a good team together this way.

But winning a title this way really requires a lot of things to go right and very little to go wrong. The Pacers almost sorta pulled this off last year, but they also had Nesmith giving them tremendous value on an $11M contract and guys like Mathurin and Nembhard contributing on rookie deals. And they still weren’t good enough to beat the team who had a guy with the 11.5 BPM.

We don’t have a mega-star who can do most of the lifting that is required to win a title, nor do we have highly productive players on bargain contracts picking up the slack. We have a lot of good players on market value contracts, plus Brunson who gives substantial surplus value.

I don’t think there’s a very good way to rearrange these particular deck chairs in a way that’s going to result in a true title contender. And if there was a way to rearrange the chairs, Leon Rose doesn’t seem to be the guy who can do the rearranging. What we have is a good team that is one of the better teams in the East at full strength, but has an expiration date on it and a small window that is rapidly closing, as the younger teams in the conference figure to improve and leapfrog us.

Trade KAT? Okay, sure! Now, who wants KAT? What can you get in return for him given the league’s Byzantine salary cap rules? We seem to have a very low degree of flexibility, so really how do you even make something happen with KAT’s contract?

Since we’re talking about centers and defense (Huk Huk!), this about someone’s inexplicably favorite center:

“Queta has solidified himself as Boston’s starting center. And that’s a good thing, because the Celtics allow 20 fewer points per 100 possessions when Queta is on the floor. He does the big man things well as a rebounder and shot blocker, but he is also good at defending the pick-and-roll and holding up on an island.”

2

The word is that the Mavericks are having a hard time trading Anthony Davis, and that their dreams of acquiring a big package for him don’t seem to be materializing. He’s 32 and hurt all the time and will make a disgusting $65M at age 34.

So maybe you could get that guy. It doesn’t work straight up in the trade machine but their salaries are close.

I think Brunson has been worse than KAT on defense.

But what would be the point of AD? He’s hurt all the time and is paid more than KAT! He’s theoretically a better two way player but that theory is so far from reality these days it would not be worth it. He never wants to play center either.

queta only played 6 minutes yesterday did he get hurt

We should probably inquire after Ben Simmons later in the season.

The Knickiest thing possible would be a trade for AD.

A major issue with KAT is his lack of a whistle that a player of his caliber should have. I don’t think we’re having this discussion if he had 3/4 of the Embiid whistle.

I still think we’re the best team in the east by a smaller and smaller margin than I had us in the beginning of the year, but we all said that this is a playoffs team not a regular season team and we have more than a punchers chance of making it to the finals to get absolutely dogwalked by OKC while they prepare to draft another generational talent this year

The thing about AD is that *****when healthy***** he is one of the very best 2-way players in the NBA. But for all KAT’s flaws, I’d anchor my ship to him over AD because there’s a very high probability that KAT will be in the lineup come playoff time. With AD, or Embiid, or Kawhi, it’s more like that guy Dyson in Terminator 2 holding the button on that detonator as he’s bleeding out.

I sort of (but not completely) agree with the take above, mainly because Leon had the team in a very solid (not ideal, but solid) position when the OG move was made. From then on, we went from a good but not great team with flexibility and trade assets to a somewhat better but still not great team with no flexibility or trade assets. We shot the entire load on KAT, Bridges, and a couple of months of Bojan and Bupkis.

Should have been pretty obvious from the start. The odds of winning a championship with those two as our “best” players are very, um, not good.

I’m talking about strictly from a defensive perspective.

I think the offense with those two as #1 and #2 is fine.

I expressed concerns about it defensively from day 1, but I wanted to give the Mitch/Towns combination some time before declaring “this won’t work” because the defense in Minnesota was good with the Gobert/Towns combo. Then again they didn’t have a cone like Brunson on the court.

I never liked the Gobert/Towns combo on offense because I thought Towns would suffer offensively from having Gobert inside. It worked better than I thought, but at this point I’m pretty convinced Towns is better on offense at C than PF with a guy like Gobert or Mitch inside.

So our choice is put Towns at PF with Mitch at C to try to protect both him and Brunson, but accept that he may struggle more often on offense or get the most out of him on offense at C and watch players blow by Brunson and Hart and Towns not be in position or incapable of protecting the rim.

I don’t like any of that. IMO, we need a top 10 defense or better and I don’t see it with these players.

I have always maintained that one of 2024 three picks needs to become a hyper-efficient, low-volume solid rotation player + Deuce to take the next step. Neither of these things materializing is a structural problem, injuries of Shamet and OG brings this to light so we’re now talking about trading KAT for ….by the statiscial laws, – KAT’s 3 point shooting will revert back to mean which will result in a hot multi week shooting streak and 30+ games. That will cover up things like stupid fouls and missing defensive assignments.

doesn’t feel like KAT is the problem, his defense this year kind of looks okay – as long as he’s not taking a nap under the basket (actually in there with the camera folks and fans) and not making it back on defense…

jalen does the same thing to us on occasion…

maybe our ceiling in higher now, but I kind of liked us more as a defensive oriented squad…

truth is, for where we our with this particular season’s team it feels all about playoff performance…

maybe watching the sausage being made isn’t so much fun so far this season…who knows, maybe come january/february things look better out on the court…

to add to the current discontent, mo looked pretty bad last game – it is hard for me to imagine huk playing any worse than either mo or yabu…

The way this team was built, “contend for a title” was not a very realistic outcome. We did it by acquiring established players. The problem with building that way is that it’s very difficult to get surplus value out of your roster spots.

I agree with what you are saying about it being hard to get surplus value trading for establlished players, but I don’t think that’s what screwed us up a bit.

IMO this is completely different team with I-Hart.

It’s hard to rewrite history because a lot of things would haved changed if we could have kept him, but that was a major asset blow and team fit blow. It still would have required other moves, but I think even though IMO Towns > Randle, Towns is a more problematical fit with Brunson.

“I think the offense with those two as #1 and #2 is fine.”

I’m not sure what you mean by “fine,” but it clearly doesn’t mean “great” or “best in the NBA.” In fact, we’re seeing that they are not all that hard to game plan against if you have a long, athletic, defensive team. At best, I’d call it “explosive but inconsistent.”

I’ll admit that I’m a bit of a knee jerk Brunson defender, but I’m still waiting for a list of All Star PG’s that are also great defenders.

And I’m not saying Jalen is a good defender or even just below average, but in today’s NBA it’s so difficult to defend from the guard position when every possession is a high screen and roll. He does get lost on those types of possessions because of his size, but it also doesn’t help when KAT is in the lineup providing zero rim protection or help defense.

definitely more problematical

I expressed concerns about it defensively from day 1, but I wanted to give the Mitch/Towns combination some time before declaring “this won’t work” because the defense in Minnesota was good with the Gobert/Towns combo. Then again they didn’t have a cone like Brunson on the court AND GOBERT IS A WAY BETTER PLAYER THAN MITCH.

fify

What is annoying me is that teams have been guarding KAT will smaller players since he sits on the perimeter on offense and either shoots or drives. With is shot now off it forces him to be erratic in decision making. Run some action to where he catches the pass near the basket and punishes people inside during 2nd quarter when JB sits.

Same with Josh Hart guarded by stiffer centers…run simple dribble hand offs where Hart is moving and let his momentum, athletic and elite finishing ability at the rim create high percentage shots and offensive rebounds for us. Most of the time its the winger that guarding KAT trying to challenge him at the rim after he gets passed the center. At worst, he can hit Deuce or Mikal for open threes.

Need to force teams out of this coverage.

The idea that KAT is at the root of our defensive issues is tempting based on my eye test, but stubbornly hard to substantiate.

I pefer to look at on/off and lineups rather than defensive rating, but there’s not a lot of evidence there either.

What I would say is that IMO the defensive problem is KAT at C with Brunson. KAT a PF is probably better, but then we lose a little from KAT on offense relative to him playing C. The latter is the point I am making today.

On defense what I repeatedly see is Brunson or Hart getting blown by and KAT is nowhere to be found. That’s just not going to work.

If it’s not in the data yet it will be eventually.

IMO you need either great perimeter defense or great interior defense (obviously if you have both that’s even better).

My original contention was that OG, Bridges and Hart would be good enough defensively to somewhat make up for Towns at C and Brunson, but I was clearly wrong. I overrated Hart’s perimeter defense (or he has slowed down a little) and to a lesser extent, Bridges has more trouble with the small guards at this age so it’s tougher to use him at the POA defender.

I’m focusing entirely on defense. I think we need a top 10 defense or better and I’m having a tough ime seeing that as possible with this group.

So imo someone has to be traded. I’m Ianding on Towns. That doesn’t mean I am right, but personally I don’t have a better idea.

I’d still also take a shot with Deuce starting.

I think missing OG takes a lot of our offense out of the paint, which is hurting us more than expected.

Our non-Cs have a combined 16 dunks. OG has 19. (KAT has 17 and Mitch has 12).

OG is 2nd in makes per game within 5ft (after Towns).

There’s a lot that OG adds , especially this year when both the offense and defense has largely features our 2 starting wings.

I’m not sure what you mean by “fine,” but it clearly doesn’t mean “great” or “best in the NBA.” In fact, we’re seeing that they are not all that hard to game plan against if you have a long, athletic, defensive team. At best, I’d call it “explosive but inconsistent.”

IMO, we have a ton of talent on offense when healthy. We have a top 3 offense right now despite injuries and working through all the coaching changes. IMO, the offense is good enough to win a title. Our defense was not good last year and it’s 19th right now. Even if you want to tweak it up because OG missed some games, that’s not good enough.

The platonic ideal of AG would be perfect.

The reality of AD is a woof.

Well since OG is also overpaid and injury-prone, maybe he’s the guy Leon should build a trade for AD around….

(just kidding. no I’m not. yes I am.)

One of the offenses ahead of us is Houston who I don’t think will keep shooting 42% from 3.

On the flip side, OKC has also passed us (only by 0.1) and Jalen Williams hasn’t played a game yet.

All the teams clearly better than us are in the western conference. We absolutely are title contenders this year even if it’s by default.

I truly brought up the above idea in jest, but then went on to read this in Heavy:

Anthony Davis Trade Rumors
While dealing with injuries of their own, the Knicks remain linked to an injury-prone star: 10-time All-Star Anthony Davis.

According to SNY’s Ian Begley, the Knicks are among the teams expected to explore Davis’ availability if the Dallas Mavericks move forward with trade discussions following their rocky start.

“If Dallas is offering Davis at a below-market cost, I’m sure the Knicks will at least give the move some thought,” Begley wrote.

A potential Knicks package would likely have to include contracts such as Robinson and Anunoby — or, if negotiations escalate, Karl-Anthony Towns, whose salary structure aligns with a blockbuster deal.

Next 2 games might not be as easy as the standings suggest but just win both of them to go 11-6 heading into Thanksgiving and hope OG returns soon thereafter.

they still weren’t good enough to beat the team who had a guy with the 11.5 BPM

Yes they were!

Fairly hard no on AD. It’s just swapping one set of problems for another — in this case, constantly injured and unavailable, old, doesn’t want to play center, shoots .295 from three (KAT’s at .398).

Yes they were!

(Checks basketball-reference.com)

Nuh-uhhh!

I’m a “no” on AD as well, but given our lack of flexibility, that’s the kind of player you’d be getting back for KAT.

“they still weren’t good enough to beat the team who had a guy with the 11.5 BPM
Yes they were!”

clearly not the way one would know this is because they couldnt and didnt

Kon Knueppel is shooting the rock like fucking peak Steph Curry.

Mitch is out tonight, I expect final score to be Knicks 150 Nets 145.

Well I might actually get my wish to find out how bad Huk actually is.

I do pray it’s not 40 minutes of Yabujelly.

You guys are forgetting that the series was tied, and the game was tied, when they lost God’s anointed favorite son to a career threatening injury. There was nothing in their team-building process that precluded them from hoisting a banner at the Fieldhouse. They could have won if the final 40 minutes of a 5000+ minute season had gone even the slightest bit differently.

I’m with Donnie on this one. Alas, we’ll never know for sure, other than they had already beaten OKC 3 times and were one win away, and in a closeout game anything could happen. Unfortunately for Donnie, it happened to Hali.

PS fuck Hali and fuck the Pacers.

“You guys are forgetting that the series was tied, and the game was tied, when they lost God’s anointed favorite son to a career threatening injury. There was nothing in their team-building process that precluded them from hoisting a banner at the Fieldhouse. They could have won if the final 40 minutes of a 5000+ minute season had gone even the slightest bit differently.”

didnt forget just know that injuries are a part of the game that all teams deal with and the best ones can overcome them “could have won if” can be said about 50 percent of the time when a team loses “we could have won if wed only scored a few more points or stopped them one or two more times”