Knicks Morning News (2018.01.20)

Just woke up. Tough win. Really need to stop doing that.

Kemba Walker is not that good. If he was, his team would be doing better. He’s a shoot-first, no-D undersized combo guard playing PG. He’s a career 35% 3-pt shooter. I’m from the Bronx, but would prefer to root for him from afar. Hard pass, especially since Burke looks like he can play the Kemba role reasonably well at a fraction of the cost.

Perfect time to send Frank down to the G-League to work on his putrid offensive game and see what Burke can do with his minutes. He can’t suck any worse than Frank has lately (negative game scores in 7 of his last 10 games.)

@4 yeah, that Batum contract is god-awful, what were the Hornets thinking? I would stay away from Charlotte unless they make some kind of stupid Isiah-like offer. MKG is a terrible offensive player, I’d rather roll with Lance at that spot. Marvin Williams is not my cup of tea either, he doesn’t rebound, pass or defend, which is not what you look for in a low-usage relatively efficient scorer at the PF spot.

Wanting Lance Thomas over literally anybody but JR Smith’s brother is an indictment on one’s ability to evaluate basketball talent. You don’t want Lance Thomas, who has a lower eFG% and TS% than MKG. MKG can’t shoot threes but he won’t be on the floor for 27 minutes and the most meaningful thing that he does is get 3 fouls. Lance Thomas is the definition of burning minutes.

MKG right now is a buy low candidate for a guy who is the substitute teacher version of Shawn Marion. You’re talking about a guy who is a career average 8.3 rebounds/36, plays great defense, and doesn’t need plays called for him. I’d offer O’Quinn, McDermott, and Lance Thomas and see if they bite. Two expiring contracts and a tank specialist.

We’re at least two years away from contention,
play the youngs, slowly clear the books,
don’t take bad contracts, don’t trade just for the sake of it,
don’t overpay, don’t take other teams’ mistakes,
trade for picks, trade for picks, trade for picks,
scout G-League and Europe for lottery tickets.

I think Trey Burke, Frank Ntilikina, MKG, TH2, Kanter, Hernangomez, and KP is a great group of guys to go forward with. Timmy Jr is developing into an above average offensive threat, MKG is already a great defender and those two guys give us positional versatility as they can play the 2/3 and 3/4. You’re essentially putting your franchise in the hands of KP gaining and keeping weight/stamina and Frank’s ability to shoot, but dammit I’m ready to commit to a group that won’t be carried by Courtney Lee, Michael Beasley, and Jarret Jack.

Two years away from contention? It is to laugh.

The senseless accumulation of empty calorie wins (i.e. the one last night) continues to degrade the only hope the Ixnays may have had of becoming a serious playah in the East. Absent the (admittedly remote) possibility of a high draft pick who might one day become a transcendent talent, there is absolutely no one currently on this roster who will move the needle much. Shit be bleak.

And it will only get bleaker once the ink is dry on Kristaps “2 Rebounds” Bargnani’s impending max contract.

@15 I said “at least 2 years”, could be 3,4,5… My point is that we’re not in a hurry to get “the right” player for the Finals (a là Cavs), so there’s no need to do something stupid just to do it.

The Knicks record with a starting lineup of Kanter, KP, THJ, Lee, and Jack is something like 12-3 or 12-4. We have played a LOT of games with either THJ, KP, or Kanter out.

Let’s speculate.

1. Lee is traded, we move THJ to SG where he belongs, and he inches forward again.

2. KP takes anther small step forward next year

3. Frank comes back next year, filled out, a bit/stronger, and has improved his handle and outside shot a little. He wins the starting job from Burke.

4. We either draft or trade for a legitimate starting SF (using Lee, O’Quinn, or next year’s pick ).

5. Willy wins the starting job from Kanter.

With the improvement I am projecting I think that’s a playoff team next year with enough youth to still get a lot better while we wait for some cap space to bring in another all star or get lucky in the draft. It’s not hopeless. You need time and some luck to become a serious contender. A couple of players have to break out a little and we have to add solid players into the gaping holes.

If we eventually play KP at the 5 more often, MKG is the kind of player you would want to pair him with. He’s a defender that can rebound. That’s what you need with KP at the 5. At one point I thought he was going to become a star player, but he never really developed after the injuries. So at this point I’d have to say “no” at the price. I don’t think he’d a bad piece to have on this team if he was cheaper. It’s the price that’s a problem.

It’s also possible that we will be looking to land a dynamic SF in this year’s draft. Hopefully we find a taker for Kanter, get assets for O’Quinn and Lee, ditch Beasley and Jack, and play KP,TH2, Willy, Dotson, Frank, Baker, Burke, McDermott, any young pieces we get back in trades, and unfortunately resign ourselves to letting Lance and Noah eat up cap until their contracts expire.

I think there is a trade with Charlotte that can be beneficial but not giving up our pick. Our cap space is pretty shot with Noah, THJ, and KP’s impending deal that we could just go all in on no cap space.

Something along the lines of:
Lee, Thomas, O’Quinn to Cleveland
Shumpert, Thomas, Kanter to Charlotte
Batum, MKG, Walker, Osman to NY

No picks moved except maybe the Chicago pick to Charlotte.

That trade gets Charlotte a lot of future cap space (especially since Shumpert and Kanter could opt out), improves Cleveland without costing them a pick and gets us a lot of quality, although grossly overpaid players.

@22.

imo, he’s not good enough to be worth locking up that much salary for 3 more years.

Here’s a better way to ask the question.

Is he the guy you want to go to war with long term as your starting SF that can play some PF with KP?

I think we have to fill that SF slot with an ALL STAR somehow. We can throw cheaper players and short term contracts into that slot for a couple of years while we search for what we need. That’s kind of what Phil was doing with players like Afflalo, Derrick Williams etc.. There was never any chance those guys were going to be our long term solution.

We have to use cap space and other means to fill it with guys that are place holders while we try to find the permanent solution via draft, FA, or trade.

If you could make the case that he’d be easy to trade later at 13m, then I wouldn’t have much of a problem with it. But that doesn’t seem to be the case.

Making trades that should improve a 32 win roster to 34 wins is a big part of what we do here.

I would like MKG at a Lance like contract, but he’s overpaid for a guy who has an injury history and literally can’t shoot threes. I would like Kemba for free, but he’s going to cost picks and demand a max or near max contract, so no. Let’s just not touch Charlotte at all unless they offer first rounders please.

We could literally just put Dotson at sf and get similar production to MKG, I’m guessing.

I don’t want anything Charlotte has, but you know we’re trading for Kemba… it’s the fate of this franchise to always make dumb, starry-eyed pick ups just like that.

Mark my words and buckle up.

The New Math:

7 feet + 3 inches = 2 rebounds

There is absolutely no evidence that MKG is “an off season away from hitting the right corner 3 at a respectable enough rate.” It’s a ridiculous statement to make. He has never hit more than 3 treys in a year, and is 0-2 this year. He’s had 6 off-seasons to work on that shot. If it happens, it would be against very steep odds. If you acquire him, the assumption has to be that he will not be able to shoot 3’s from the corner or anywhere else, and that anything you get from 3 is an unexpected cherry on top.

Man, I’d be thrilled if we got Mikal Bridges in this year’s draft.

I’m speaking from my own (albeit brief) film evaluation of MKG where he’s knocking down jumpshots from just inside the right corner 3. One more off season and he should be able to shoot that specific shot consistently.

And apparently the Hornets are interested in engaging the Knicks in a Kemba Walker deal lol. If it’s anything other than “here, take Kemba Walker and one of our other bad deals for a collection of expiring contracts” then I don’t want to be bothered.

http://www.espn.com/nba/tradeMachine?tradeId=yc7s5c43

That’s the only trade I’m willing to make, and they can have a 2nd round pick if they ask nicely. This is a good chance to see if Mills/Perry is a competent group or if they’re bogus.

Let’s just not touch Charlotte at all unless they offer first rounders please.

The one good thing about dealing with Charlotte is that there almost as stupid as we are.

Kemba Walker is not that good. If he was, his team would be doing better.

It’s hard to imagine a trade for Kemba that would make sense for us. That aside, a strong argument can be made that Kemba is being underrated here. At a minimum, the above angle is not good evidence since Charlotte has actually been an excellent team (+5.5/100) with Kemba on the floor this year (and each of the prior two years). The nature of stats today is that we’re often either stuck with summary advance stats that are inherently overgeneralized/opaque or very narrow constituent stats like TS%. The case I want to make is solely about Kemba’s offensive efficiency as a scorer. I’ll compare him to Dwight Howard’s scoring efficiency this year because the comparison is interesting.

Both guys have average TS% and so average points per shot (PPS) of around 1.1. I’m going to ignore some typical adjustments that would, in this case, favor Kemba. For example, how much (if at all) more useful is it to have average efficiency amid high usage? Instead I just want to focus on turnovers and how sharply they can affect a typical TS% comparison.

Dwight averages 4.5 TO per 100 shot attempts. Using the same league average logic embedded in PPS, we can subtract the average league TO rates given Dwight’s shooting and assist usage. “Bad Pass” Turnovers average 23% of assists. Dwight gets 2 AST per 100 shots, so we can absolve him of .23*2 = 0.46 AST/100 from his passing. All other (non Bad Pass) TOs average 10% of adjusted shot attempts. Dwight gets 20.5 adjusted shots / 100, so he gets absolved of 2.05 additional TOs. So Dwight’s expected TO/100 is 2.51 compared to 4.5. That means he needs to be penalized for those 2/100 above the average you’d see from a player with his scoring and assist profile. Here’s a simple way to estimate that penalty (cont.)

A turnover is much worse than a missed shot. A missed shot on average has around a 25% chance of generating an offense rebound. If a possession is worth about 1.1 per shot, then a missed loses 75% of that possession or about .83. A turnover loses all of it. Second, turnovers lead to much higher opponent TS% than both made and missed shots. Estimates tend to give about a .2 PPS disadvantage after a turnover, leading to about 1.3 PPS (reminder PPS is not quite the same as PPP). So a TO can be said to cost the full 1.1 PPS plus another .2 defensive disadvantage. This means it is about 1.56X (1.3/.83) worse than a missed shot. So we can ask: what would TS/PPS look like if the player missed 1.56 adjusted shots for every turnover above average?

For Howard, that’s 2.0*1.56=3.12 additional shots. So his new PPS goes from 22.7/20.5 to 22.7/ 23.62 = 0.96. This is well below average and equates to a TS of 48%. In contrast, Kemba averages 7.5 AST per 100 and 2.63 TOS and 25.13 shot attempts. He gets absolved from .23 * 7.5 = 1.73 Bad Pass TOs and .1 * 25.13 = 2.51 other TOs, a total of 4.24. So he generates 4.24 – 2.63 = 1.61 fewer TOs per usage than average. This is as if he missed 1.61 * 1.56 = 2.51 fewer shots. That leads to an adjusted PPS of 27.7/22.6 = 1.22, or a TS of 61%. Suddenly Kemba looks very efficient on high usage and Dwight looks pretty inefficient.

Of course this totally ignores key parts of Dwight’s game like Rebounding and Defense; it’s not meant to be a full comparison (note it also ignores the value of Kemba’s assists despite using assists in the TO calculation). But this is a big deal that I think is easily brushed aside bc it’s hard to integrate TOs with passing and TS%. I think it explains a lot of why Charlotte has for three years been so much better offensively with Kemba on the court, while Dwight’s offensive impact has been less obvious.

There is absolutely no evidence that MKG is “an off season away from hitting the right corner 3 at a respectable enough rate.” It’s a ridiculous statement to make. He has never hit more than 3 treys in a year, and is 0-2 this year. He’s had 6 off-seasons to work on that shot. If it happens, it would be against very steep odds. If you acquire him, the assumption has to be that he will not be able to shoot 3’s from the corner or anywhere else, and that anything you get from 3 is an unexpected cherry on top.

Who is this person calling himself Z-man?

Seriously — 1.5% of MKG’s shots have been three-pointers. I had to get to his BBRef page to make sure he was the 6’7″ wing that I remembered him being. I knew the jumper was horrific-looking, but I had no idea he was basically Andre Drummond from deep.

Watching that game last night it was very obvious KP needs to get stronger. He was getting pushed around all night. Even the announcers were commenting on how often he falls down after even the smallest bumps by another player. That shouldn’t happen to franchise players.

Lee played very well on both ends. Hopefully some team with a need at 2 guard and a spare first rounder was watching.

I’m warming up to THJR, he looked confident and had a good shooting night from 3 point land.

He even looked engaged on defense. Those 2 missed free throws down the stretch were unfortunate.

Agree with the sentiment above, Trey Burke looks to be able to play the Kemba Walker role at a fraction of the price. At least based on last night, I haven’t seen him play all that much.

KP’s rebounding problem is that he has a high center of gravity, a low motor, weak hands, and he gets thrown around like a rag doll. He’s a long way away from improving in that regard. His best “quick fix” would be to get the kind of tip-out rebounds that Chandler used to excel at, and to study film of a physically similar good rebounder like a young Pau Gasol. KP seems to have major fast-twitch issues right now, which might explain why he gets so many rebounds taken away from him even when he seems to have good position.

I know what you are saying and mentioned that stuff. I’m adding something he can fix right now.

Watch him closely on every defensive possession (and even some on offense). He literally stands there watching Kanter/O’Quinn. He defers and expects them to get the rebound as if it’s not his job.

Then when he plays the 5 and Kanter/O’Quinn are not there, he’s still deferring, but it’s to Beasley or whoever else happens to playing the 4 at the time. The difference is that those guys are not going to secure the rebound at the 4 nearly as much as Kanter and O’Quinn do at the 5.

Part of it is literally a mental, effort, habit, role thing. It’s his job but he doesn’t know it.

Someone has to tell him, “You are at the 5 now. Don’t stand around like a big jerk hoping Beasley or some other smaller guy gets the rebound. Go after it you big dummy!”

strat, I don’t think KP “defers” as much as he is just slow on the uptake and has all the other issues I mentioned. AD gets plenty of rebounds with monster rebounder Cousins generally near the basket. KP just doesn’t have a nose for the ball, and it takes him a while to get himself going. Shorter guys outmuscle and outhustle him all the time. Trevor Booker was a particularly egregious example, he seemed to beat KP to the spot every time and even when he didn’t he would just rip the ball out of KP’s hands.

It really depends what your goal is re: Kemba. If your goal is to watch a decent team, trade for him. If you’re in the KNicks front office and are just looking at ways to maximize your team’s revenue, Kemba’s a smart guy to get since he’ll get the team up into the 40s in wins. If you want the team to be more than forgettable though, you should be terrified of a trade for him.

After a minute or so of college basketball I’m pretty confident Trae Young is trash

@ Ben R

The Knicks should be less averse to taking bad contracts, but they should only do it if it helps the team. I’m not sure how Walker really helps them in any kinda sustainable way. Like, if we could trade Lance Thomas for Kemba Walker on the condition that we couldn’t trade Walker ever, I think it’d actually lead to fewer total wins over the next, say, 6 years than keeping Lance. Kemba will put us in the playoffs next year and possibly this year as well, and then he’ll be a free agent, and we’ll have to ask whether we want to give a 29 year old an expensive multi-year contract. Either we do, and he probably declines markedly by year 2 (PGs in general have shorter careers, and those who rely on quickness and driving ability have the shortest of the group).

So we get 2 seasons of more wins and probably by year three, the cost in terms of developing young guys and having worse picks probably has the team worse off than if it hadn’t made the trade.

https://www.hoopsrumors.com/2018/01/hornets-hoping-to-engage-knicks-in-walker-talks.html

It’s coming, to quote someone:

“At my command unleash Perry-Hell”

I remember hearing folks say it was a sure thing that we were gonna make Kurt Rambis the coach. Then there was certainty that we were gonna re-sign Rose to a multi year deal. And now we’re sure gonna overpay for Kemba and then lock him in till he’s old and gray on a 5-year max extension.

But hey, all’s well here at KB!

And now we’re sure gonna overpay for Kemba and then lock him in till he’s old and gray on a 5-year max extension.

Great sense of humor you got there, pally.

I will confess I do not know for sure that the Knicks will give a max contract extension. Totally busted! Hahahaha, you got me!

Yesterdays game day thread someone said Donovan Mitchell isn’t anything special or good? LOLOLOL

Probably the same people who don’t think Boogie Cousins is a good player

That was me, and Boogie is a good player, but he’s not as good as people think because he does lots of bad things to go along with the good things. He leads the league in turnovers and fouls.

Oh, was that you, JK? Sorry, I thought it was someone else.

I don’t think OKC got fleeced. It was a pretty even trade and it got Russ to commit

I see no reason to not believe in Scott Perry so far. Let’s let him get passed a trade deadline, an NBA draft, and a free agency period before we decide he’s a bum.

Orlando and the Kings don’t make me super optimistic

Isn’t someone gonna say the Thunder have figured it out (for the 20th time)?

Perry does not have a record that inspires a lot of confidence. The fact that he was hired by Mills is a check mark in the negative column. But he won the Melo deal. That was a decent accomplishment given there were only few teams to work with. He also didn’t do a bad job picking up some cheap pieces to fill out the team like Beasley, Burke, and Jack. I’m willing to give him some time before I start yapping.

I was just thinking about the Cavs. I think I can honestly say I would rather be in our position than theirs. They are old, horrid on defense, not good enough to seriously contend anymore, and a long way away from rebuilding. I’m not even sure they can make a trade that gives them a serious chance.

Thomas is terrific on offense but terrible on defense.
Shumpert is terrible.
JR Smith is terrible.
Love is a good all around player, but he’s not a defender.
Wade, Rose, Calderon, Frye, and Korver are all washed.
Tristan Thompson is not the same player he was.
I guess Jeff Green is having a decent year, but come on.
OK, I like Crowder as a role player but even he’s not having as good a year as in Boston.

They should probably tank and trade Lebron. lol

@80 only if you assume that he’s done developing at age 22. For me, it’s an open question.