Also, bad home losses for the T-Wolves and Spurs. We’re not the only team with the January blues.

•Allen
•Lamar

Diggs also leaves Allen and lucks into a Super Bowl

yeah trent dilfer elvis grbac and to a lesser extent kyle boller demonstrated that a while ago still helps to have a great one tho

In terms of personnel, I think he and his contract are down the list of problems the Knicks need to worry about. I think that both he and OG are somewhat overpaid but not far above market value, and there would definitely be takers for either of them on their current deals.

It’s really about what can be done to build around KAT and Brunson, given the post-Mikal asset chest. If dealing Mikal is part of that answer, so be it, but I doubt that it is.

I say it once a year, quarterbacks don’t matter. He is further proof.

As for his offense, that’s more complicated. His shot attempts and usage are down a bit from last year (which was far below the BK years), but he’s getting more assists than ever and has become more efficient.

In short, he’s becoming more like his old Phoenix self again: a third-banana 3&D wing, which is honestly fine at his salary but expensive at a 5-pick price.

Even with his recent mini-slump, Mikal is leading the team in BPM and VORP. When his extension kicks in next, he’ll be making 21% of the cap, which seems about right for his current level of production, especially considering his durability. If his production declines going forward, that’s a separate issue.

Z-man, I am not saying he is a bad player at all. That having been said, I would not solely rely only on those formal stats to evaluate him. Mamukelashvili has almost the same BPM as Brunson, Brunson is 0.4 behind Bridges, Bridges is about the same as LaMelo ball, and so on. These are weird and largely non-sensical numbers unless you integrate them into broader interpretations. Bridges has some very big shoes to fill, and not by his own fault. Even if you take BMP to be the criterion, which is in my view is wrong, he is one third of that of Giannis, yet his trade will forever carry the picks which would have been spent to get Giannis. Of course, he does not and cannot play up to this, but we know he is bad at the point of attack, disastrous in pick and roll defense, he disappears in some games, he avoids contact and can be streaky on offense, and so on. Sure, he is a very good and smart player, and some of the things he does at times are splendid. The question is whether he is a 35-40 million per-year player, which is the minimum he has to play up to, given the circumstances he is in. I hope I will be proven wrong, but I am not sure he is up to that.

We have a new coach and system this season, but Bridges is overall the same. He is who he is. It was not the coach, after all.

Last year:

OBPM: 0.4
DBPM: -0.9

This year:

OBPM: 2.2
DBPM: 1.2

That’s a 3.9 swing in BPM, so — at least when it comes to Mikal Bridges — it really was Thibs, after all.

But fixing Mikal Bridges wasn’t the core issue to begin with, so fixing him isn’t moving the needle.