News & Blogs
Knicks’ Jalen Brunson injures right ankle for second time this season – The New York Times
Knicks’ Jalen Brunson seen walking without a boot or crutches after ankle injury vs. Kings – SNY
Kings 112, Knicks 101: Sucking in Sacramento – Posting & Toasting
Knicks Bulletin: ‘I mean, what are we in the East? Second?’ – Posting & Toasting
Knicks struggle offensively, miss 33 three-pointers in 112-101 loss to Kings – SNY
One Knicks play from a bad loss to the Kings sums up what’s concerning in New York – The New York Times
Knicks VS Warriors – Knick of Time
Knicks at Warriors – Recap & Reaction | POSTGAME SHOW | Knicks Film School – Knicks Film School
KNICKS at WARRIORS | FULL GAME HIGHLIGHTS | January 15, 2026 – NBA
Knicks Coach Mike Brown RIPS Karl Anthony Towns’ Effort! – Knicks Fan TV
YT News
123 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2026.01.16)”
Was at the game in GS and man, the dead KAT bounce was rough to see after the 1st Q.
Never got to see Steph play in person so that was something. Dude still is an absolute killer. Plus their stadium is super nice.
Now my problem here with the KAT experience:
The defensive scheme obviously was figured out and teams are taking advantage (same happened to OKC). The boys are hedging the ball way too much & KAT is either too slow or refuses to come out to cover the open three on the backside.
He looked lethargic & now has the yips and forgot how to shoot, so now teams can crowd the paint.
This plus his awful whistle has me questioning: if he’s not hitting 3s to space the floor, he’s not rotating out on D, he’s not getting foul calls on the crazy drives to the basket, whats the point?
If I was offered Bam for KAT straight up I’d take it.
Bare with me, this is tough. As much of a fan as I am of KAT’s game at that size, I see it clearly. He’s a better fit in Thibs’ system than he is in Brown’s system- which is crazy because Brown likes to use pace and space in a more consistent way than Thibs did. I think Brown is coaching him up in that system, but it’s probably not simple enough for Towns to naturally take to. Towns CAN do it, he’s just inconsistent with it. His whole career, he’s had coaches simplify what he does and he’s gotten used to it and can’t adjust. It shows up in his effort. I mean- the man can get 20 and 10 in his sleep. So the fact that he can’t consistently give effort under a player’s coach like Brown is baffling. KAT needed Thibs. So I say..today..right this minute..send him to Sacto for Sabonis and Saric, and hope we can keep Mitch healthy. Or..make a 2nd trade involving Yabusele and Dadiet for a backup big that can step in when Mitch is out so Huk won’t have to start. But Towns is not good enough in this system and it’s getting close to being to late to adjust and make a run.
Damn
It absolutely sucks for me to be ready so soon to wash my hands of KAT, but I just KNEW we’d beat Dream in the finals because outside of the Dream/Ewing matchup, we had the tougher team and better coaching. So while the window is wide open, we HAVE TO get this championship as far as I’m concerned.
not sure that it makes us tougher plus sabonis and saric have played 16 games this season—combined
I’d still rather roll the dice on Sabonis at the 4 in this system- on both ends. Isn’t he due to come back this week? Saric we don’t need, other than to make the trade plausible and to avoid giving up picks
then wed definitely need another center mich is great but cannot be relied upon
lets all say it again in unison hartenshtein ruined everything
The most depressing thing is seeing the difference in b-ball IQ between KAT and Draymond/Jimmy/Curry.
pretty stark
Absolutely
Guaranteed contracts:
LA Dodgers: $2,114,037,500
San Diego: $1,266,675,000
Toronto: $1,250,387,500
NY Mets: $1,140,550,000
Philadelphia: $865,173,963
NY Yankees: $789,162,500
Boston: $670,035,000
A couple things
1. The defense didn’t somehow improve with Brunson sitting
2. Since the New Year the Knicks have the second worst defense rating in the league . Only Utah is ahead
3. When Brunson went out last season , this same Knick starting unit was among the best in the league on defense with Deuce at PG and Towns at the 5 so I’m not really interested in any excuses for Brown if Brunson remains out a little longer.
4. Nobody on the Knicks stood up for KAT last night as he is being trolled by Green . Green even trashed talked him to the bench . Mike Brown dapping it up and laughing with Green at the end of the game is a terrible look for a coach who is suppose to leading the team and trying to improve current relationships on his team.
With the $64M signing bonus, the Dodgers are paying Tucker $124M to play baseball for them this year. He was a 4.5 WAR player. That’s $27.5M per WAR.
He can opt out after two years. If he opts out they will have paid him $184M for two seasons, or $92M per year.
The defense was not good last year and our off season moves made it worse. Is anyone shocked it has been so bad lately?
I’m all for experimentation and adjusting to matchups, but Brown puts some strange lineups out there that intuitively make no sense to me and then do poorly. If he’s are going to try something, it should at least make sense.
We didn’t get much of a contribution from the bench on offense.
Hart is a good passer, but when Brunson is out Kolek should be playing more. He’s not a scorer like Brunson. He has to be out there with enough shooting and offense to take advantage of what he does well, otherwise what’s the point. But IMO we need to continue developing him.
Seems like the Dodgers don’t give a sweet rat’s ass about some X dollars/WAR formula. For better or for worse.
The defense was tied for 13th in def rating last season . This season it’s at 18 .
mike brown are trying lots of things now but the more things he tries the more things arent working
Also not sure about using Yabusele. In his 4 minutes last night he was a minus 9. Just let Hukporti play when Mitch isn’t available. Hukporti has one of the best defensive EPM on the team. He can also bring some much needed toughness
Well yeah Bob, the whole point is that they DON’T care.
It’s getting worse.
Yeah it’s worse under Brown . He plays to many crazy lineups
The whole point of bringing in Yabu was to improve the spacing and offense relative to Precious. Defensively, imo, at best they are wash, but I’d prefer Precious. The fact that Yabu is still not giving us what we need on offense leaves us with a bigger hole than we had with Precious. I’m not even sure Yabu can be moved without adding something in. I was in favor of the move. So I was wrong also, but I still don’t understand why he’s struggling.
Sabonis who can’t space the court and is a bad defender , add in Mitch and Hart. I don’t see how this makes the team better. In the end if you can’t get a proper KAT deal that makes the team better the coach needs to go .
Their business model works. According to Forbes year over year the Dodgers franchise value increased 27%. They shouldn’t care about it.
Good for the Dodgers. It’s good for baseball to have a dominant bully like this with a target it on it’s back. And they are spending the kind of money fans should be excited about.
Love to know what the actual ROI from the owner’s perspective is.
As a Yankees fan, I don’t mind the Dodgers at all. I’m just mad that the Yankees have committed 1/3 of what they have. It’s kind of insane.
I also do find it funny that for a country that screams communism at any mildly progressive idea (sorry, I know, no politics), people really have an issue with capitalism in this small baseball cartel.
Fat horses can’t run fast and neither can fat hoopsters. https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1092976905707200
I get why fans of other teams whose owners don’t spend money and show zero desire to compete would be angry , but on the flip side the commish must like it because the Dodgers bring great ratings with the super team.
Everyone is piling on KAT while ignoring that Brown inherited a team that went to the ECF and brought back all of its core guys while strengthening the bench and somehow we seem to be going backwards.
Say what you want about Thibs but his teams fucking competed on the road and if we lost, he was fucking mad about it.
Now maybe it was, indeed, time to move on from him. But Brown seems like too soft of a guy, IMO. And also, maybe a bit passive aggressive. Take away his record getting to coach PEAK Lebron and is he even that good? Thibs rings blood out of a stone every season, no matter what players he has.
I mean we’re all blaming Yabu too but like KAT and Yabu are both huge disappointments. Couldn’t that be Brown’s fault?
brown can only ring so much out of yaboo it just seems more and more that his good stats from last season were likely a product of getting extra minutes on a tanking team
^^ Agree, Brown is getting away too easy at the moment .Also agree on his coaching resume . It looks like a career boost from getting the Kings to the playoffs which is a big achievement, but he also wasn’t this teams first choice. They basically backed into him.
Towns has his issues, but he was clearly more connected under Thibs.
All I know is that we competed hard out of the gate and got a big lead. Then Brown put Yabu and Clarkson in, we began hemorrhaging points like a stoved-in boat takes on water because Yabu and Clarkson, while also having our offense screech to a standstill, and for what felt like a full quarter (was it really only four minutes???) Brown just let it happen.
It was four of the most excruciating minutes I’ve watched since, oh I don’t know, the Kings game. Took all the wind out of our sails, gave Golden State confidence that they could kick our asses, and the rest was history.
I can blame Yabu for being fat, slow, and unathletic, and I can blame Clarkson for being clueless on defense, but I can’t blame them for being on the court. That fault lies elsewhere.
Clarkson minus 18 in 18 minutes
But points . Brown might just be blinded by offense and zero care about the other side of the court.
Each time Thibs lost in playoffs they were a higher seed and were out played because he put so much focus on regular season.
The team Thibs lost to last season might have won the Finals if their superstar doesn’t go down with a season ending injury.
One thing stated above about Brown is that he can’t get his team to compete on the road. Not a good sign .
but we wanted a team that cared less about the regular season and then excelled in the playoffs because of more experimentation and less minutes per player in the regular season weve got the first half of that and we have to wait and see about the second half lets also not forget that we are definitely not having the injury luck this season that we did last season
The Dodgers are going to end up out-galaxy braining themselves when there’s a massive work stoppage, a cancellation of the 2027 season, and then a hard salary cap when baseball resumes in 2028.
The upcoming work stoppage and nobody most likely competing with the Doyers might be why some teams like the Yankees (shocking) aren’t spending any money.
the doyers have been very very good for several seasons now one can complain about their methods but certainly not about their results
I see a lot of Thibs nostalgia going on here lately, this is natural to feel since we look horrible at the moment but it is not wise to over-index to the coaching change, which is ultimately lateral. The main explanation for why we currently look the way we do is KAT. And the main reason KAT is playing worse is not some “new system”; it’s because KAT has forgotten how to play basketball and somehow has gotten even worse on defense. He’s clearly now in his head about it and because he’s mentally soft he can’t play through it. If he keeps it up he must be traded.
Brown maybe plays with lineups too much and certainly isn’t Spo-level, but I still prefer him to Thibs, who left far too much money on the table at every crucial juncture, was not widely loved, and was a mediocre tactician to boot.
Yea..Yabu’s definitely miscast as a small ball 5. He looks more and more like a one position player this season. I’m too lazy to go back and look, but someone her brought up that Yabusele might have looked so good last season because Philly had no other consistent options for much of the season outside of Maxey. So with a green light and nothing but space to operate, he looked good as a small ball 5 when he had to play there. No pressure and nothing to lose for him. This year, there’s pressure and a more defined but smaller role. He’s struggling with it for sure. I’m floored by how bad his conditioning looks this season compared to last season. Even as a PF only, he should be great for us on that second unit. Or..maybe it’s hard for him to find a rhythm with Clarkson and Deuce mostly playing well and Shamet being as good as he was before the injury. I wonder if Brown is also asking him to learn what he’s asking KAT to learn. If so, that probably wasn’t a good idea from jump. Yabusele just cannot play C most nights
Holy shit! The apple fritter at Mary Lee’s Doughnuts in Baton Rouge is nonpareil.
I know no one wants to hear Yankees fans complain, but it really is mind boggling to be passing on these short term deals in Judge’s prime.
When we were passing on Machado, Harper et al. there was at least a sliver of truth in the idea that those contracts can backfire. But contracts like the ones Tucker and Bichette got would be utter no brainers, and us not signing them really does come down to Hal being cheap even in the short-term.
I’m well aware we still have one of the highest payrolls, though we’re now solidly in a distinct “non-Dodgers division” as far as that goes, but it’s weird as a Yankee fan to see the team operating like one of the many teams relying entirely on postseason variance to win a World Series.
Mets sign Bo Bichette, who as a hitter might be a better fit for them than Tucker, as Bichette is a RH bat. Bichette is also two years younger than Tucker and will cost $18M less in salary. Not sure what the signing bonus situation is.
The only question is where he’ll play defensively. He’s a poor shortstop but the Mets don’t need him to play there because of Lindor. Marcus Siemen’s value (what little of it there is) comes from his ability to play a gold glove caliber 2B, so you have to figure he’s staying there, so the Mets will have to figure out what to do with Brett Baty and Bichette defensively, with one of them possibly moving to the outfield.
Forget about the defense, Mets to ink Bo Bichette to 3 yr deal. 126MM
Im guessing Bichette plays 3rd and maybe they try Baty in LF. still not a great defensive upgrade
So we have 7 games left in January, 5 of them at home
Suns, Mavs, Nets, Sixers, Kings, Raptors, Blazers
If we don’t go at least 5-2 in that stretch (assuming Brunson plays) then it’s really time to push the panic button
Onto my Mets temporarily..
I wanted Tucker because he’s really good on both sides of the ball when healthy. But not at anywhere nearer what the Dodgers are paying him. I’m not sure what it means for the infield, but I wanted Bo Bichette before we traded for Semien, so that’s a good pivot. I know Bichette can play third if he wants it, but I think he’d be better at 2nd than 3rd. So..does this move Baty to 1st? I like that idea about as much as I like Polanco at 1st. I’d rather stick Vientos there and have him learn it. The Mets are now a middle infield heavy team and I don’t know what they do with that. I do think they absolutely have to go hard after Bellinger now. Who cares about the years? He’s great in left and more than good enough at 1st. Just get it done
The idea that we lost to The Pacers last year because 3 months earlier Thibs played the starters a few too many minutes in a regular season game is so dumb.
The Knicks went into last year’s playoffs 100% healthy. They had multiple days off before the first round began and had at least one day off between each playoff game. Not to mention multiple days off between the first and second round and the second round and conference finals.
We can blame Thibs for losing to The Pacers but the idea that they were “tired” from accumulating too many regular season minutes is fucking absurd.
The minutes thing was about injuries. Players don’t get cumulative fatigue from playing too much basketball unless it’s a back to back or 4 games in 5 days type situation. If they aren’t hurt and they have a day or two off in between games, they aren’t going to not run as fast because they played too many minutes during the regular season. This is bunk pseudo-science.
As a lifelong Dodgers fan, I have to say I’m not that crazy about this Tucker thing. The ‘96-‘98 Yanks were a lot more magical than the ‘99-‘00 Yanks; and the ‘15-‘16 Warriors were a lot more exciting to root for than the Durant years. It’s one thing to build a great team and ride it, but when it starts to reek of avarice, the best days are gone.
This is exactly what I saw, and it was very disheartening. I guess Brown is still giving these guys chances, but I think they should be out of chances at this point. I’d rather roll with the young energetic guys even if they aren’t perfect or ready. Yabu and Clarkson aren’t cutting it.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Bichette plays mostly 3rd with spot duty at other infield positions and some DHing. The trick will be keeping him healthy, as he has been pretty banged up over the last couple of years. Very solid bat, the kind that hopefully works against good pitching.
Solid pitching, 9 tough outs, and some kids to dream on is all I’m hoping for.
Bichette career high in Homeruns is 29. He should hit for a higher avg, but not going to make up the power lost with Pete.
So much for David Stearns’s “run prevention.”
Just another reminder that the top baseball (*) guy will always be #2 on the org chart, behind the owner. Dolan can withstand fan outcry and often even belligerently fades it; Uncle Stevie can’t.
(*) Basketball, football, hockey ….
Giving a guy effectively two player option years really isn’t that fiscally responsible (or smart), either. If he outperforms, he walks after a year; if he stinks you have to overpay him for another two years.(*) Doesn’t really make sense to buy a 28 year old on spec; either buy him or don’t.
It’s not quite at the level of Leon not understanding the value of iHart’s Bird Rights, but it’s in the same vein.
(*) And even worse if there’s a salary cap when he becomes dead or partially dead money.
The “kids to dream on” part is significant for the Mets. They’re in a better position than some people think because they have a lot of talented prospects in AAA and AA who could contribute meaningfully soon. In fact this is the best blend of pitching and hitting prospects I recall the Mets controlling at one time since probably the 1980’s.
There’s some thought that the team might trade Baty, but I’d hold onto him as insurance for Marcus Semien. Semien was not really brought in for baseball reasons, he was acquired to dump Brandon Nimmo’s godawful contract (that was set to run for FIVE more seasons). If Semien stinks, I don’t think the Mets would hesitate to bench him, as they have many other options at 2B, including moving Bichette there and playing Baty at 3B. Some of those good prospects I mentioned above are also infielders, so if some of those guys pan out, that makes everything easier.
Semien is probably going to become a salary black hole, but he’ll be a 2-3 year black hole instead of a 4-5 year black hole like Nimmo.
Not sure why i’m going to make this my first post since it reiterates what a lot of you said but i was at the game and in the 2nd quarter you felt the knicks lose their spirit. i was with my 5 year old and left before half to get her in bed on time but there was no need to stay anyways. they were absolutely out hustled, out muscled and out coached.
i get the sense that this team thinks it can put it together a complete game whenever it wants. it’s just being good right now isn’t important enough.
Or, if one of your blue chip prospects like AJ Ewing or Jett Williams turns into a 4 WAR player, you thank Bo Bichette for plugging a hole for a year and send him on his merry way. Or, if he stinks and one of your blue chip prospects like AJ Ewing or Jett Williams turns into a 4 WAR player, you cut his playing time and pay those guys a minimum salary while Bichette’s contract runs out.
If Bichette stinks and none of the prospects pans out, well, then you gotta spend some more money. But the Mets are operating from a position of having legitimate talent in their high minors.
The main criticism I have of Stearns is that he doesn’t seem to see the value of pitchers who can eat innings. He tried to stitch together a staff full of five-and-dive guys and that worked for about a half season until it didn’t. He hasn’t really addressed that problem this offseason. The Bichette contract, I have no problem with at all. Bichette is a low variance player– he has an elite hit tool and is only 27. He’s at low risk of falling off a cliff. He’s somewhat injury prone and that’s a concern, but he’s similar in overall value to Tucker.
And it’s fucking brilliant. The Yankees would have given him an 8 year deal with lower AAV to minimize their tax bill and then trotted out his useless corpse for the last 5 years of the deal (see LeMahieu, Hicks, Ellsbury, and probably Bellinger).
Who cares about dollars per WAR? $92M to make the gap between you and every other team in baseball that much bigger = Insert Don-Draper-that’s-what-the -money-is-for gif.
Meanwhile Hal’s getting 3.35% APY in his savings account, and folks will say it was random when the Dodgers win the next World Series.
I loved Pete and wish him well. That said, I also watched him go through lots of “automatic out” stretches.
Bichette seems like he strikes out a lot and doesn’t walk very much, which seem like negatives for a guy that doesn’t hit a ton of HRs. Beyond that, I like guys that don’t hit into double plays and that get runners in from 3rd with less than 2 outs. Not sure how he measures up there.
The bench is almost certainly weaker with Clarkson & Yabu than with Cam Payne & Precious
You can probably get Teoscar for cheap now and if I’m Cashman, I’m thinking that’s probably a better option than Bellinger at Boras dollars — and not just because Teoscar hits right-handed.
I was listening to Max Kellerman when he was a guest of Bill Simmons – didn’t know who he was and loved the chat with Bill – and he made an argument that I probably would have hated if I heard it on sports radio, but that finally connected with me.
The Yankees are SUPPOSED to outspend everybody to get the blue chip guys. Hal acts like just another “regular billionaire” team owner, and as a Yankees fan, it’s frustrating to have the expectation of what the Yankees used to be run into the reality of what the Yankees currently are. Good enough to make the playoffs every year, not good enough to actually win it all. And sure, every year there’s a team or two that outperforms their own modest expectations and gets hot at the right time, somehow this doesn’t seem to ever be the Yankees… and as someone who was around for the late 90s/early 00s dynasty, I feel genuinely a bit embarassed to complain about the Yankees not being the Evil Empire anymore… but really, we’re just another “average good” team and it’s kind of a bummer. Maybe we’ll win the WS this year? Probably not.
Anyway, it is ABSURD how much more payroll the Dodgers are carrying compared to everyone else. And yet, they probably get away with it because they’re like the de facto MLB team of Japan?
(As an aside, I do not enjoy Kellerman’s podcast with Rich Paul – Bill is the Jokic of sports opinionators, he just makes everybody better)
(scratch that, Conforto was only a one year deal)
This is a fundamental misunderstanding of the continuity formula, Swift.
It isn’t continuity = improvement.
It’s continuity + cohesion = improvement.
But continuity + friction is literally the formula for starting a fire.
These pieces don’t fit, and the more time they spend together, the worse it will get.
Think of KAT and the rest of the team like Doogie and you guys. Did continuous grammar policing make things better or lead to an eruption?
OG blowing up at KAT on the bench was like when Donnie Walsh promised to quit the blog is he didn’t stop.
And that Katz article where anonymous Knicks took turns shitting on KAT was like Doogie’s ban. It should have been the end, but he’s still here.
Continuity is making things worse for this team, not better.
BTW, is the Trent Tucker rule the Knicks most significant contribution to the sport over the last 40 years? OG’s 3 getting wiped off the board due to the presence of a timing mechanism precise to 1/10 of a second was definitely just one of many reasons we lost last night.
One problem with clocks is how rigid they are. While I love how objective truth governs the game of tennis – without needing a clock (*) – the cold reality of a timer expiring rarely gets me excited. Sure, buzzer beaters are great, but after-the-fact overturned shots that are “close enough”? These should only be overturnable if they happen at the expiration of a quarter or game. FWIW, I also am happy to make the unpopular argument that offsides should not be challengeable in hockey – if it was close enough to allow a team to gain zone entry in realtime, it was good enough. Especially when the goal was scored 30 seconds later.
* – the one clock in the game – the serve clock – is not treated as iron-fisted law, more of a “general suggestion” to keep the game moving, and it seems likely that it has actually made the sport slower in the aggregate. Thank God for the Australian Open beginning this weekend, just in time to paper over the doldrums of the NBA season.
(And if you like tennis and want to play an upset prediction game I made, visit upsetgame.com and give it a shot)
The Yankees led MLB in runs scored last season. If Bellinger resigns spending 60M per year on a corner outfielder or 40M for a lousy fielding infielder seems silly.
“Suns, Mavs, Nets, Sixers, Kings, Raptors, Blazers
If we don’t go at least 5-2 in that stretch (assuming Brunson plays) then it’s really time to push the panic button”
and why exactly are we assuming that brunson plays?
RE: Mets
I am such a big fan of Acuna, Mauricio and Jett Williams. Benge and Ewing are on my radar too but they’re still a little too green IMO. But again..these middle infield heavy ass Mets. Maybe the mad scientist inside David Stearns can concoct a good roster out of this situation
You keep bringing up this incident but teammates in high pressure situations will blow up at each other all the time and it’s not a big deal most of the time.
I remember watching something about the Kobe Pau Gasol Lakers when they repeated and how there was a literal fist fight at a practice between Lamar Odom and someone else. Didn’t stop them from winning a title.
Now if OG and KAT are going at it game after game, that’s a different issue. But one incident of a player getting mad at another player in a high pressure playoff game because that player missed an assignment or something means next to nothing, IMO.
I do think overall you’re probably right that that pieces don’t fit. But that should only matter once we get to the playoffs. Losing to the fucking Kings after several days rest, even with Brunson getting hurt early, should not happen. And the team has been on a serious slide for almost a month now. And this team, under Brown, can’t seem to win on the road to save their life.
Something is up. Maybe KAT is being a little b*tch and needs to just man up. Or maybe Brown has alienated him and isn’t really communicating with him.
Were we saying that three weeks ago?
It’s not lost on me, however, that if we were going to fire Thibs and replace him with Brown, we probably should have just brought back Precious on another vet minimum deal because he might actually do really well in this system.
easy to say now
Hey Library, good to e-meet you.
Interesting in-person take on the game, thanks.
I also want to just give some props to OG, who as the game progressed, clearly decided he was GOING TO DIE ON THIS HILL.
Unfortunately the hill was made up of the corpses of his teammates.
I want to see the Knicks go to a solid nine-man rotation once Jalen is back — Brunson, Hart, KAT, OG, Bridges, Mitch, Deuce, Shamet, and Kolek, with Huk getting minutes when Mitch is out. Give Diawara some spot run if you need a bit of length on the second team and both OG and Mikal need a breather.
Nobody else should get in the game unless it’s the end of a laugher.
Definitely agree with this. It’s been nice that Brown has given some of the young guys more minutes but his line-ups and rotations have been a bit whackadoodle. Some of this is because of injuries. But he seems to be over-correcting at times from Thibs playing the starters 40 minutes a night and only having an 8 man rotation.
I’ve been saying Yabu & Clarkson were going to be downgrades since the end of preseason.
Cam Payne played really well for us during the regular season.
Bichette could literally not take the field and still win us more games than Volpe/Caballero, but more broadly, signing Bellinger for something like 6/$180M as opposed to Tucker for 4/$240M is a perfect illustration of everything wrong with the Hal Yankees.
We are a high-payroll team 100% of the time that is also just cheap enough to ensure we have more dead money on our books than the Dodgers. We never commit to a rebuild, but also will seemingly never have the #1 payroll in the league ever again. One or the other allow for any number of coherent team-building strategies, but the combination of the two leads to a lot of suboptimal transactions.
We could easily absolutely pound Judge’s prime, and even allow Hal to make up the money with some genuine down years after. But Hal would rather be good enough in Judge’s prime while never allowing the luxury tax bill to get too expensive in any given year.
Thankfully Aaron Judge is so fucking good at baseball a lot of these issues are papered over, but from 2013 to 2016 we got a look at how the modern Yankees operate when they have neither the Core Four + A-Rod nor Aaron Judge, and it wasn’t pretty. I have a feeling we’re in for some dark times when Aaron Judge stops being the best baseball player on the planet.
I saw that, too, but was a little less enamored as it appeared to be more related to getting knocked in the face by that bs Podz “rebound” attempt.
The Yanks have an absurdly good rotation. If they sign Belli and he is around the same level as last year, they’ll be in a position of strength to make more summer moves. Especially with more pitching coming on.
Judge is severely underpaid.
If you are looking at the Yankees regular season and saying they scored a lot of runs so they should just run it again hasn’t been watching the Yankees playoffs the past 8 or so years.
I mean Max Fried and Rodon crapping the bed didn’t help in the playoffs
I figured Yankees will just run it back in 2026 which I wasn’t thrilled with but whatever. Bring back Cody, hopefully Cole is back by mid-season, make the usual trade deadline upgrades that should’ve been done during the offseason, win 94 games and see how the chips fall in October.
Pretty much. I don’t think $60m/yr for Tucker would have been the solution.
Swift, if you recall the Katz article, it wasn’t a one time thing. We saw the tip of the iceberg:
More importantly, this is not the first team to have had enough with KAT. Two iterations of the Minnesota Timberwolves couldn’t suffer him, either (they took his side over Jimmy Butler the first time and surely regret it).
I’m certainly open to the idea of us trading KAT. I’ve agreed with the assertion that you can’t have 2 starts be negative defenders, especially your two “best” players and especially the 1 and 5.
But I’m asserting that while KAT might be the problem, Brown might also be the problem. And maybe Thibs knew how to mitigate KAT’s defensive deficiencies to some degree while also getting the most out of him offensively.
Some are still pretending that’s random.
The good things about crazy high annual averages are that (i) they are not my money; and (ii) the contracts end quickly, and you can then give crazy high annual averages to other good players.
Re Brown; I think the 9 man rotation is the best play here, agreed walker. We had guys step up (kolek & clarkson) when we needed them but at the end of the day Yabu is at basketball terrorist level & id much rather have Diawara try to play the 5 than him.
I said it earlier, if KAT isn’t hitting 3s hes not offsetting his Defensive shortcomings. At least JB is a killer on offense and tries to play D (badly but he tries).
Sigh. Why must I have to do this.
New York Yankees, ranking out playoff teams in wRC+, by year:
2018: 4th
2019: 1st
2020: 1st
2021: 7th
2022: 10th
2023: N/A
2024: 1st
2025: 4th
That’s three times in those eight years that they led all playoff teams in wRC+, two times where they stunk, two times where they were mid but not terrible, and one year where they missed the playoffs.
Didn’t watch the last 2 games as out west the games are too late for me. Reading both game threads it looks like we’re still in the same funk as the previous games. 🙁
When we were playing the game on December 31, i was already in 2026, so my record this year is 2-7 !? Oof!
I could use a winning streak right about… NOW!
I can’t imagine a world where we end up with Ja or JJJ but can’t help daydreaming about it… then again, who would’ve thought we needed Sprewell with Houston and Starks on the team?
Cyber, yesterday’s game, we played the first quarter like a juggernaut. Then we went back to playing like we were in Sacramento.
DS, Sprewell was widely liked and very smart, he just lost it and did an extremely dumb thing. Ja is a highly talented and hyper-narcissistic idiot.
I remember there being a passage in “Blood in the Garden” about Knicks management meeting with Sprewell and connecting with him; I think at the time there was greater concern about a dog mauling his 4 year-old than the Carlisemo incident.
What’s Morant’s problem?
leon go get luka garza please get luka garza we deserve our very own luka
Better one quarter than none. 😉 So we just need to do it for a longer period of time, and if we don’t at least we should do it in reverse, start slow and improve during the game to then end it like a juggernaut in the 4th, that might work better. 🙂
wouldnt work better were not built to come from behind like we were last year
I will say, at least we showed signs of life yesterday. But Brown needs to be careful with those shitty lineup decisions.
A 9-man rotation would be great, but that kinda has to include Huk since Mitch can’t play two games in a row and Yabu sucks.
Playing conservative lineups for a while wouldn’t be the worst thing. Using our usual starting five (JB, Mikal, Hart, OG, KAT) plus Deuce, Mitch, Huk, and Shamet might seem a bit unusual, but it makes the most sense since KAT also plays the 4. Kolek, Clarkson et al can be used as injury insurance, which we will need often I assume.
ess-dog, I agree, Huk takes Mitch’s minutes when he’s not playing, which is often. But I’d still roll Kolek out for regular minutes, though. Just always surround him with shooters, because his own shooting is suspect but his passing is elite. Putting him out there with Clarkson and Yabu was criminal yesterday.
Basically every time Brown thinks Hmm, maybe I’ll put Yabu in, he should put in Huk. Huk can’t shoot threes, but it turns out neither can Yabu. Huk CAN rebound like a fiend and block shots, neither of which Yabu can do. Huk can also jump and run the court, other things absent in Yabu’s quiver.
As for Kolek, he needs seasoning, we need more floor generals. It’s a win-win.
“A 9-man rotation would be great, but that kinda has to include Huk since Mitch can’t play two games in a row and Yabu sucks.”
mitch has played two games in a row 21 times this season including playing six in a row once five in a row twice and four in a row twice hes played in 28 of our 41 games which is 68 percent of them
Because you don’t pay attention every time I explain to you the noise in those numbers.
The argument is not that they can’t hit “in the playoffs” or “in the clutch”.
The argument is that “their cost-cutting, position-punting, free-swinging, mistake-punishing lineups are predictably bad against playoff teams with good pitching.”
Not every playoff team has good pitching. That’s why I’ve consistently broken it down by team instead of year.
2019 vs Minnesota: 147 wRC+
2019 vs Houston: 78 wRC+
That’s not random.
Aggregating the two of them to say their offense was great in 2019 is a bold-faced lie.
And 2024 isthe year that proves my point: the year they spent on Soto was the year their lineup didn’t fail.
I’m responding to this quote. “Hasn’t been watching the Yankees playoffs the past 8 or so years.”
Yankees. Playoffs. Eight years. Pretty unambiguous.
37.5% of the time in those eight years they led the playoffs in wRC+. But sure, let’s go ahead and move the goalposts to “only against certain teams.”
The Dodgers had an 81 wRC+ against the Blue Jays in the World Series. Struggled to hit Blue Jay pitching the entire series. Guess how the Yankees hit against that same Toronto pitching staff? They had a 103 wRC+ in their series loss to the Blue Jays.
The Yankees lost to the Blue Jays because their pitching failed them: they allowed a whopping 168 wRC+ to Toronto hitters. But they hit Blue Jay pitching better than the Dodgers did.
“Yes, but only in certain games” and on and on. How wafer thin are we going to slice this?
To me. the Knicks issue isn’t that Kat sucks, because of course he doesn’t. The issue is that the current recipe makes a good, but not a great stew, which is our fair and earned expectation. Here, the stew is made with two very great offensive one-way players, who play lots of minutes, but are not the least bit competent defensively and certainly do not complement one another. Also, there is no overriding identity to this team unless it is that if we score more points we win. The coach has some culpability here. Who are the Knicks? I have been a big fan for almost 60 years, but do not generally enjoy watching this team as there is little synergy, a lot of bitching and little BBIQ. Don’t mean to be a downer and will probably watch every game anyway, but with that trademarked NY low expectations.
too funny…did you come up with that one on your own, or see it used some where else…
either way – pretty damn hilarious…
except the part about it being true
No one’s moving the goalposts, man. When someone says the Yankees can’t hit in the playoffs they’re not talking the two game series against the Cleveland Indians in the bullshit 2020 tournament.
That’s probably why they spent $92M on Kyle Tucker. Which — again — is the whole point:
If you can’t hit good pitching you should spend money to buy good hitters.
Mookie Betts underperforming is random but Trent Grisham underperforming is predictable.
I’m a referee and normally try to cut NBA refs some slack, but that call on the play where Podzienski flew into the lane on a free throw attempt and literally jumped on top of OG? And then the refs confer and decide it was a “normal basketball play” and just called Podz for a lane violation?
That’s indefensible, I have no idea how they came to that conclusion.
As an aside, I used to ride with a guy who had a mildly raked Harley that wasn’t very fast, circa 1990. At the time, I was riding a very quick Japanese bike which handled far better and had more hp than the Harley. We were riding south down the Cross Island Pkwy approaching the Southern State east, which is a very tight turn, and we began racing. He kicked my ass, plain and simple. Later when I asked him how he beat me, he said, “Simple, I out-balls you”, which he did. The version of the Knicks will never out-balls anyone other than the lowest echelon. Mase says, “so sad”.
Okay, but your argument is that systematically the Yankees only have “good at hitting bad pitchers” hitters, while the Dodgers have “good at hitting good pitchers” hitters. Yet the Yankees outhit the Dodgers against the very same opponent in series that happened one week apart.
Which is it? Did the Dodgers hit worse than the Yankees because of randomness? Or did they not actually have better hitters in the first place?
I know what I’m going with. It was a tiny sample size in both cases. The Yankees weren’t necessarily a better hitting team, they just did better in that small sample size, because there is a shit ton of variance in baseball playoff series. Which has been my point since the very beginning.
I’m pretty sure the pitching led by Gil, Rodon and Freid immolating with an assist from the bullpen giving up 29 runs in the first 3 games was the major problem. Then in game 4 when Schlitter pitched well through 6 Jazz kicked a DP ball that led to 2 unearned runs.
Wayloncash, your comment about no identity made me ponder. For me a lot of teams that I consider to have an ‘identity’ are often either grit and grind types or defense-focused (the two often coming in a single package). Not a lot of teams come with an offense-first identity, maybe peak Warriors but they had a few identities (Draymond helping in that regard).
Right now our identity is inconsistency, and poor defense. Those aren’t great hooks to hang your hat on.
Yeah Raven, the team is ponderous. Not being tethered in tight to a particular attack and pursuing slavish adherence to only one strategy is fine for a young developing team or a really top shelf team after an existential injury. However, it is totally dude uncool for a serious relatively healthy second year team that fancies themselves as ‘players’ (in the sense of the word that means tier one). The Knicks are rudderless and also soft. Exhibit “A”, Mikal, who is really skilled, yet one of the softest high end nba players I have ever seen, and I’m freaking old. He avoids contact consistently which perhaps is the primary reason for his euphemistic iron man rep. Oak weeps.
I am grasping for a rosy take on the team’s current struggles.
Thibs never asked players to do what they were not able to do. He game-planned to player’s strengths, so long as those strenghs fit within his rigid, conservative system. For example, Mikal might not have been happy with aspects of Thibs’ coaching, but at least he could capably do all the things Thibs wanted him to do.
Brown is asking players to do more, to be more thoughtful and creative, and his system requires players to do things that they might not be comfortable doing. He’s asking KAT to be something he has never been…a primary creator and passing hub.
I know I’m not saying this elegantly, but the hope is that once they fight through the frustration during these dog, they will be better off for it and have a more versatile toolkit in the playoffs for Brown to employ. In short, these are growing pains.
Now do I actually believe anything I just said? Probably not.
We just had a one point slam event where Alcaraz and Sinner failed to reach the finals.
Sports are random. Especially baseball.
Definitely team JK on this.
Fire Joe Morgan.
You’re putting words in my mouth about the Dodgers.
I don’t think they’re better than the Yankees bc they hit good pitching. I think they’re better than the Yankees bc when they’re hitters aren’t hitting they still do everything else you need to do to win games (baserunning, putting the ball in play, good defense, etc), whereas when the Yankees don’t hit they strike out 15 times and self immolate in the field and on the basepaths.
I know everyone’s offense goes down in the playoffs. Even the ‘98 & ‘99 Yankees struggled to hit in October. They won the ‘98 ALDS bc their #9 hitter and a September call up carried Knoblauch, Jeter, and Bernie, who couldn’t hit for shit.
I’m not saying random shit doesn’t happen all the time. I’m saying these cheap ass, cost cutting lineups turning into hopeless, free swinging whiff machines against every good pitching staff they face in October is absolutely not one of those random things.
And you’re basically telling me that because random things happen, everything that happens is random.
The same applies to the team as a whole. Earlier in the season, I was wondering where Plan B is. I recently started discerning there isn’t even a Plan A to begin with. The team seams lost and helpless, without adjustable game strategy both on offense as well as defense.
I’m slightly amused by the criticism of Brown, because… What did you expect? He installed a better offense, more fluid, with more options. Less Brunson-heliocentric, more flexible. He’s doing what everyone asked for, playing more people and limiting the minutes of starters. He’s treating the regular season like an opportunity to learn and to teach, prioritizing growth over wins. WE ALL WANTED THIS! We’ve seen zone, we’ve seen more switching on D, we’ve seen an increased 3-point rate… I mean, this was what we hoped for from any new coach.
Yeah, some of his rotations are a bit random. No, Yabu should not be playing over Huk or maybe even over Diawara. But it’s defensible, given what Yabu was supposed to be and what he’s being paid. We’ve seen that in competition, Brown tightened the rotation; it looked more Thibsean. But that was appropriate for the moment – and doing (most of) the other stuff he’s doing is appropriate for these moments: mid-season road trips, relatively inconsequential games.
I don’t think he’s a mastermind technician, but in general we are where I hoped we’d be, with lots of time to still figure it all out. (Though KAT has lost me because of his lack of heart.)
Last thing I’ll say, then I’ll leave it:
Do you think this was random?
That’s not obviously the result of a small sample size to you? The Yankees hit like Joe DiMaggio against Minnesota but like Rey Ordonez against Houston? Houston’s pitching was THAT much better? How did the Yankees ever beat a good pitcher in the regular season?
This just isn’t how things work. The delta between the quality of pitching from Houston to Minnesota in 2019 is just not that large.
It was fairly large, as Houston’s team R/G allowed was almost a run lower than Minnesota’s. So it’s not surprising that the Yankees would hit Minnesota better.
Just not “double the wRC+” better. That’s variance.
Let’s do a thought experiment.
Let’s pretend the ALDS isn’t a best of five series and the ALCS isn’t best of seven. Let’s pretend each is a 31 game series. You need to win 16 games to win the series.
Do you think the Yankees’ wRC+ splits against those teams would be so large if those were both best-of-31 series?
I don’t. I think those would regress to the mean. They’d get closer to 100 against both teams. They’d probably still hit Minnesota better, as Houston had better pitching, but the gap would close substantially.
Meanwhile, Randle’s doing some good work against Houston (Minny is up by 4 in Q3).
Cavs might have a secret weapon
His numbers look solid for the season
rama, I agree with the spirit of what you are saying, but the other side of the argument is that Thibs’ rigid approach was rooted in masking our deficiencies, whereas Brown’s approach exposes them. For example, maybe Thibs eshewed zone defense because our players were not well-suited to play it effectively.
I’m not saying this is true, just pointing it out as a possible counter-argument.
Thibs has a high floor but I think also a lower ceiling. Brown may have a higher seeling but a lower floor. We shall see.