(Wednesday, March 07, 2018 3:23:58 PM)
The Knicks’ three young guards were struggling so badly against Portland Tuesday night that Jeff Hornacek said they were considering bringing in Jarrett Jack.
(Wednesday, March 07, 2018 11:08:45 PM)
PORTLAND, Ore. — Despite a 1-13 stretch, Tim Hardaway Jr. said Jeff Hornacek is still coaching his butt off. It seems to have rubbed off on Hardaway, who’s been the Knicks’ best player by far since the All-Star break, shooting 50 percent and averaging 20.1 points his past seven games. Hornacek has cited Hardaway for…
(Wednesday, March 07, 2018 2:57:47 PM)
PORTLAND, Ore. — Much to the chagrin of the New York Lottery Police, the Knicks have lost 13 of 14 games and are 1-5 since the All-Star break, but haven’t gained a single ping pong ball. If the NBA’s draft lottery had been held Wednesday, the Knicks would have been the ninth seed — just…
(Wednesday, March 07, 2018 1:02:04 PM)
PORTLAND – Emmanuel Mudiay took to the weight room. Rookie Frank Ntilikina took to philosophy. This was late Tuesday in the Moda Center locker room after the French-speaking backcourt mates finished their first start together as Knicks — a 111-87 shredding to the Blazers. It went poorly for both, though Ntilikina was better than Mudiay,…
(Wednesday, March 07, 2018 7:46:23 AM)
Bulls executive vice president John Paxson says the team will no longer rest Robin Lopez or Justin Holiday after receiving a reminder from the league office about player rest and tanking. Paxson says the league communicated with the team after the All-Star break about those two players and their diminishing roles. Lopez has missed the…
(Wednesday, March 07, 2018 11:40:41 AM)
Amid the Knicks’ struggles this season, C Enes Kanter has been putting up career numbers. That is why him opting out of his current deal may not be that far of a stretch after the season.
(Wednesday, March 07, 2018 10:10:25 AM)
Jeff Hornacek thought mixing up his lineup would spark a change in his team. Too bad Trail Blazers PG Damian Lillard didn’t care who was on the floor.
[NYTimes] Keeping Score: The Nets Aren’t Good, but Shouldn’t They Be a Lot Worse? (Wednesday, March 07, 2018 7:13:56 PM)
Their most productive player this season has been Spencer Dinwiddie. The story of this team is overachievement.
114 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2018.03.08)”
Speaking of tanking next year, isn’t next lottery (2019 draft) the 1st year of the new flattened lottery odds? So sure we could tank but this sort of lines up with our “hover around .500 for the first 1/2 of the season, then suck thereafter” strategy.
From yesterday…
Brian said:
and
Strato said:
Here’s my concern. Add those three statements up, then divide by Mills and Perry, and I think the logical thing to expect is that the Knicks spend this offseason acquiring expensive talent so that we can be 19-31 when Porzingis returns instead of 10-40.
I absolutely expect us to find a way to do long term damage this summer in a foolish effort to be the 8th worst team in the league next year instead of the worst.
They can’t possible win many games with this roster and without KP (who clearly has value beyond his .106 ws/48 as Kanter has less value dictated by his .203 and without viable cap space. They are screwed next year and every effort should be done to denude the team of any mid career asset or worse.
It is obvious to everyone here…. how can it not be to management.
They even have a real excuse…..
Bob, I can totally see management thinking “we just need to hang around for a few months and hope that our superstar comes back in January” and handing out a Lance Thomas-like deal to some overrated veteran.
Can you confidently tell me it’s unlikely they think that?
I don’t think they will knowingly hand out a bad contract just to remain competitive. However, I do think they are going to try to make the team better. So I could easily see them making some kind of deal that’s not in our best long term interests. Fortunately, they don’t have the space next year to do any serious damage. The worst case scenario would probably be overpaying to keep O’Quinn, adding something small that’s a bad value, and making a bad deal for Lee.
without KP (who clearly has value beyond his .106 ws/48 as Kanter has less value dictated by his .203
This is why Z-Man’s jeremiad against Frank is so hilarious. The missing value is, duh, defense. KP is good at it, and Frank is in fact good at it, and it does have a meaningful impact on the game. While plus/minus is the dirtiest stat possible, it still tells you something very basic: when this player is on the floor, his team scores more points. It doesn’t say why, how, or who is creating that positive result, but the fact that Frank is almost always positive and Kanter is almost always negative tells you something. One plays D, the other does not.
KP did a lot of bad things on offense. He was often inefficient, bad at passing, thought he was a 3 who could drive, etc. And on defense he didn’t close out well, sometimes got lost on screens, etc. But this team can’t win without him. Why? Defense. His impact simply isn’t being measured well. Nor is Frank’s.
If KP comes back healthy – The Big If – then it’s his D and Frank’s that would be the foundation of something to build on.
Look for NBC or Fallon to get some kind of special deal with MSG or the Knicks over the next couple years. This is just like when Dolan’s crappy band somehow landed a gig opening for the Eagles on tour. Everyone was like, how did that happen? Then the Knicks started mysteriously signing every CAA client on earth, including the immortal Chris Smith. And wouldn’t you know it, CAA represents the Eagles. What a coincidence! So we know that Dolan is only too happy to sell out the Knicks to artificially boost his pathetic rock star fantasies.
If I were Mills, I’d encourage Kanter to explore the market, resign KOQ for 4 years $40 mil, trade Lee for picks or an expiring, draft Bridges (assuming our slot stays where it is), and pray like hell KP recovers to full health…slowly. Make another good draft choice next year, decide what to do with Noah after next season, and hey – maybe we end up with a pretty good team in 2020.
That is all do-able.
I should add, keep Horns for now, hire really good development coaches, and keep giving Mudiay all the minutes this year and next.
The Knicks are broken and I’m sick of it. I can’t even watch. It makes my eyes hurt. Z-Man was right. Ntilikina is a minor league ball player right now. Maybe he has a future but there’s no now there. All that losing and the reward is a raw 19 year old non difference maker.
The NBA is broken too. A hard cap and guaranteed contracts is not a good mix. The present draft is making a mockery of competitive balance. Wow, we lose 13 of 14 and still end up #9. The tank squad is getting their wish and it still doesn’t matter. We’ll welcome another unready 19 year old in June and I’ll fall for it again. Screw me once, shame on you. Screw me how many times?….unbelievable.
Now, watch, we’ll make a trade, get rid of assets and draft picks, free up cap space and who will we sign? You guessed it…Isiah Thomas. I can see the press conference now. NY basketball is back!
The new lottery system is supposed to flat out the top 3 teams, and ensure the worst team gets at least the 5th pick. So there will still be value for being terrible, just a bit less.
I’m with Rama’s plan, maybe I wish O’Quinn would take less (or a 3 year deal with NO PLAYER OPTIONS PLEASE) and well, I think Kanter is also tradeable if it comes down to it. The 2019 offseason will have interesting free agents and there will be teams interested in big expirals on a rental for a good player.
@6
+1
@8
I like your plan, but I think we can get KOQ back for less. He loves NY and being close to his mom and there isn’t much of a market for Cs like him.
You can do a lot of damage with the full MLE. Jerome James and Jared Jefferies come to mind. I’m pretty sure we weren’t a taxpayer this year, so we can hand out a 4 year, $36 million contract to pretty much anyone.
Let’s not forget this team was doing a fine job of losing with KP. It’s not that defense isn’t being measured well. The fact that we played 65% of our first 30 games at home and then that flipped is what isn’t being measured well.
We were 6-18 with Kristaps in the lineup from the day the home/road splits started evening out to the day he got injured. This would have been a very bad team if he stayed healthy.
One can never say never but there are a number of problems with that perverted line of thinking:
The Knicks are 2-14 when KP doesn’t dress this year…. sort of hard to rationalize “hanging around the first 40 games waiting for a rushed back and minute restricted KP to make them a good team.
KP’s people (family) can’t possibly want any part of anything other than delaying his return to optimize his huge earn coming up. That’s why I am guessing HIS recovery timetable at the earliest should coincide with the last 10 or so games to show off a buffed and fresh KP after 14 months of rehab.
The history of ACL repairs in 7’3” humans probably has an “LOL sample size” ring to it 🙂 I wouldn’t be surprised if he sat out the entire season and I would actually recommend it if I was his adviser.
Trying to dress up this line up w/o KP next season is sort of putting whipped cream on dog poo….. it doesn’t do too much for the taste, ya know…..
I agree with all your points, Bob.
But this is a team that just traded for Mudiay and is starting him at PG. So I can see them thinking “we’re 2-14 without KP, so we need to get better. Get Kenavious Caldwell-Pope’s agent on the line!”
I think KP’s WS/48 was very accurate this year. When it was really high, they were winning. When it sucked, they sucked.
His defense is good enough to get him to .100, which IS a good player overall. He just needs to get his offense working to be a great player.
I get really pissed off at KP when he hoists up those contested 18 foot turnarounds, and his softness under the basket is also annoying, but I really want to see him with a top PG and a coach who can figure out how to best utilize him. Can any of you remember many plays this year where KP caught a lob and dunked it? There never seem to be any easy hoops for him, and some of that is on the coach and some on our lousy PG’s.
You put KP on a hypothetical team with Paul or Harden as the PG and Pop as the coach, and he’d be in big man heaven.
It’s not against Frank. It’s against those who overhyped his performance and potential, and underhyped the red flags in his game before and after the draft.
I think Frank will be an NBA rotation player at worst, i.e. not a bust in the purest sense of the word. I am fairly certain that he will ever be a #1 or #2 level player, and I have serious concerns about him being a plus starter on a contending team. I have consistently thought that it was a terrible idea to draft him where we did. Nothing I have seen this year has changed my mind, and until I see something that does, I’ll keep stating what is becoming increasingly apparent to others (like JK47) which is first and foremost, that he is surely not the long-term answer at PG, and that he should play 30+ minutes a game in the G-League until he dominates down there like Trey Burke and Jeremy Lin did. If he stays up here, his offense won’t develop and might actually get hindered. He clearly can’t play vs. NBA-caliber defenders at this time.
Frank may as well retire right now. It’s all downhill for the youngest rotation player in the league.
Derrick Rose to Minnesota lol. Thibs is gonna finish him off for good.
Now there’s an intelligent response!
One thing that I think we forget is Frank was injured this summer and did not get to play in the summer league. That probably set him back as the summer league is good warm up for the big boys (kind of a step up from the D-League but not as good as the pro’s obviously). He should get a chance to play the summer league this year. A summer of hitting the weight room and development will do Frank a world of good. FRANKLY, I love the kid and I love his game and the potential that is there. He’s a rookie and the youngest player in the league right now. A player like him isn’t going to come out of the gate and dominate and I don’t know if he’ll ever be that type of player. But he’s a smart player and good on defense. If he puts on some muscle he’s gonna be able to check 4s on defense and having that type of versatility on defense is very important in the modern NBA. The offense will come in time.
Yes, the team’s defense sucks without Porzingis, but we also gave our best perimeter defender’s (Ron Baker) minutes to two guy who play no defense whatsoever.
jer·e·mi·ad
?jer??m??d/ noun
a long, mournful complaint or lamentation; a list of woes.
That’s a good one.
I think there’s some reason for optimism with frank…. and i think there’s some progress being made….
with pg’s… esp tall pg’s… you really shouldn’t eject until you absolutely have to…. but frank does need to fix that inside scoring problem probably as soon as next year… that should at least make him a bad backup quality pg which deserves further consideration….
you don’t want to have a spencer dinwiddie situation….
I stand corrected. I didn’t think we could offer that much with the MLE.
yeah, new lotto system doesn’t mean much. It changes the odds of getting a top 3 pick, but 4-30 are still in the order of record, and there’s still a huge difference between picking 4th and picking like 12th. That said, the Knicks I think will be really terrible next season no matter what they do short of trading picks for a star. We’re essentially going to be the same team as this year since it seems like the team is gearing up to maximize cap room in summer 2019 by potentially stretching Noah. Can’t do that and sign any long term contracts this summer.
Frank Ntilikina should absolutely be playing in the G League, and he’s not a point guard. The NBA is going towards a farm system, and if we drafted Frank Ntilikina in 2027 instead of 2017, he would have been leading Westchester in minutes played this year and we’d have been excited about our French combo guard to be called up at the start of next season. You can’t develop good habits under duress, and you can’t develop without a lot of playing time. Frank should be holding G League point guards to 7 points a night and averaging 6+ assists and rebounds a night.
Perry mentioned that he was eying the 2019 FA class after KP’s injury. Problem is we’re going to be bad no matter so no decent FA is gonna come here next offseason.
Personally, I rate KP as better than his WS .10.
I think he’s a net plus on offense despite his bad shot selection and lack of play making ability at this stage and a big net plus on defense. IMO, his help defense and rim protection has a LOT of value even though he occasionally gets beat by smaller quicker PFs.
@25 I thought he spelled jihad wrong.
Don’t get worked up over Zmans Frank posts. He’s just getting a kick out of possibly being right for the first time. Just remember all of his posts in a few years when Frank is dominating on defense and shooting 40% from 3 while Dennis Smith is in China.
@29
I tend to agree with your second claim, but not so much with the first.
Earlier someone said sign OQ to a 4/$40m contract. I wouldn’t do that coming off of probably his best season ever (after finally getting into good shape for a contract year), and on a team that is not going to be decent for at least 2-3 more years… Now, if he’ll come back for 3 years and less $$, then…
Aren’t you doing the reverse of giving him too much credit for the period when we were playing a lot of home games by focusing on the catch up period?
It’s hard to control for changes in schedule strength, home/away, and injuries unless you have a spreadsheet with all that info and team ratings. I used to have that available when I was gambling on a lot of games, but I don’t have one for this season.
For me, it’s easier to say we are a dreadful 2-14 without him. I have to believe that if we had our best defender and best all around scorer we’d probably have won a few extra games. How much he’s worth is the debatable part. It depends on which model you are using. Wins Produced thinks we would be better with Lance Thomas or Michael Beasley starting than we are with him. lol
Awful lot of animosity on this board over Frank. They’re just opinions. No need to hate each other for them.
#MFGA
(make Frank great again) 🙂
I’m pretty sure I read something from Kevin Pelton recently that stated definitively NBA players improve based on age regardless of how much playing time they get. They were discussing Brandon Ingram, I believe. His point was that a 20 year old player is likely to improve when he becomes a 21 year old player regardless of how many minutes he had the previous year.
I will see if I can find the article.
Found it…
There’s a little more to it than that, though. Whole article is here:
http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/22091087/kevin-pelton-weekly-mailbag-including-yearly-player-development
It’s just weird to me that we’re still complaining about Frank when the Knicks started probably the two worst starters in the entire league last game with Mudiay and Thomas.
Everybody gets the “oh but his team sucks!” treatment and yet the 19 year old french dude drafted by the single worst organisation in the league in terms of development needs to be good in year 1 while playing with this amazingly talented roster with high caliber veteran presence.
I get if you feel it was a waste of a pick because you actually wanted Dennis Smith Jr, oops sorry, Donovan Mitchell, and that games are only played on offense, but I’d still rather play the guy and see if he can develop against all odds before we give up on another young player before his contract is halfway done.
As long as there’s a target to maximize draft odds, there will be tanking. If anything, flattening the top 3 means that there are more teams within range of maximum odds, so there could be more pressure to drop in the standings. The Knicks are, what, #8, but just a few games out of a top-3 slot? There should be zero tolerance for winning at this point — every game should be an L. The incentive still exists, so the teams still tank. It’s an awful strategy for the NBA and it needs to be fixed.
Adam Silver has mostly been a great commissioner — that national anthem response was not ideal, despite its “permissiveness” — but threatening teams for exploiting weaknesses in the system that your organization and only your organization created? That’s bullshit. The NBA has no party to blame but itself.
Let’s see, I turn 60 next month, what are the odds of me being alive at 78…?
PS you obviously have memory loss issues, I have said repeatedly that once DSjr refused the physical, that was grounds not to draft him.
I don’t think so. My point is that we were never actually good, or close to being good. I attribute the dropoff in our record mostly to the schedule evening out, not Porzingis’ injury.
Maybe we’d be 4-12. There’s no doubt he’s our best defender (I think Beasley is probably a better all around scorer, though). I just don’t think he’d be making much of a difference now the way he was playing before he got hurt. As soon as we fell out of the playoff race (and we were pretty much out when he got hurt) our losses were naturally going to begin to mount.
I don’t think so
@ 39 -its just hilarious. People scream about rebuilding but then give up on Frank when he’s the youngest player in the league. Their idea of a “rebuild” is to magically draft ready made superstars and find all the “hidden gems” of the D-League who magically come to the team ready to play.
They even give up on Mudiay bc of his stats in Denver and how bad he has played so far for us forgetting that he’s ON A BRAND NEW TEAM WITH NEW TEAMMATES. These aren’t robots that you can just plug into a team and they immediately know all of their teammates tendencies, favorite spots to shoot from, etc. It actually takes time to build on court chemistry between players.
In essence the team we are fielding right now is a very different team than the one we had the first half of the season. Our starting PG is no longer playing minutes and yes, Jarret Jack is not some great PG but he was a steady veteran presence who knew how to run an offense and how to get players the ball in their spots. And also no KP! So basically we are without our starting PG, our starting PF and our back up SF. So not only is Mudiay thrust onto a new team but everyone’s roles on that team are different now. Beasley sucks now because he’s starting not because he is a worse player than he was when he was backing up KP and doing a great job. That’s his role. Kanter is still the starting Center but now he’s going to look worse on defense because he doesn’t have KP there with him patrolling the paint. Everything is out of whack and we’re giving major minutes to new players (Mudiay and Williams), more minutes to frank and guys like Beasley are playing new roles.
People on this blog LOVE IT when the knicks lose bc it allows them to indulge in all of their LOLKNICKS WE’RE SO INCOMPETENT tendencies. Our situation is no different than it was before KP went down. If you look long term we’re in a good spot. Theres work to do of course but its not as dire as everyone is making it out to be.
I’m not complaining about Frank and I’m one of his stronger supporters on the board. I think he’s a guy who will eventually be an excellent defensive player who fills the box score and never takes a bad shot (think 2013 Jason Kidd except younger and more athletic). I just think that he’d be better off working on a move or two in the G League than he’d be trying to break down an NBA defense at the moment. I’ve been noticing some improvements in his handle though. That’s nice to see.
And the team is going to look awful bc not only is it a new team but its not like this new line up has had a few weeks of practice or a training camp to get on the same page. They are in essence starting over 2/3 of the way through the season. They are getting in practices and film and stuff so it should get better but its also so late in the game and they’re going to face teams who have been playing together all season. Its gonna be ugly. That doesn’t change the long term outlook of our franchise or make Perry (or Horns for that matter) an idiot.
Long term we have KP, Frank, Hardaway, 2019 1st round, 202 1st round, second round picks, possibly Ron, Burke and Dotson and Williams. That’s a lot of youth. We can consider keeping Kanter, KQ, Beasley if we want. We’ll have cap space from Lee, Thomas and Noah and that cap space will be opening up around the time KP is coming back to full strength. There’s so much work to do but we are not as screwed as everyone is making it out to be.
@41
And yet nothing about Smith’s numbers this year has anything to do with him not being healthy, he’s played almost the entire season. Before the medical thing, i.e assuming both Smith and Mitchell were equally healthy, you wanted Smith.
The thing about the rebuild, swift, is that those aren’t the same people you’re talking about. I’m perfectly fine with a huge rebuild and fine with Frank sucking for 2 years or maybe even 3 if he shows signs. The ones dismissing Frank and wanting to see results now are not necessarily the same people who want a full rebuild.
I want a complete full rebuild no matter how many years it takes, I really don’t care. I just know it won’t happen under Dolan because he’ll never hire people competent enough to realize and execute what this franchise needs. I’m with Jowles on this that next year is simply going to be what every year has been for the Knicks in so long, another bullshit year with no hope. I’m just a bit more optimistic that these clowns might stumble upon a stud in the draft if they fuck up their stupid plans to compete more than expected.
I made this point a few weeks ago… Yankees fans are likely going to be more patient with Miguel Andujar and Glyber Torres than Knicks fans are with Frank. It makes no sense that a team who is nowhere close to having their window open is this impatient. All we have is time.
Obviously Frank is very young and still has lots of time to develop, and he certainly has basketball talent– he does certain things well. But that handle is SO BRUTAL. It’s an eyesore. I cringe when the guy tries to put the ball on the deck. Good ballhandlers do it so effortlessly, and Frank… well, let’s just say Frank’s not a natural in that regard. I’ve seen enough of him now where I can say I’d be surprised if he sticks in the NBA as a point.
Also, saying “Frank might not make it as a PG” is not the same as dismissing Frank. The things that he does well, or could potentially do well, are valuable. A two-guard who plays lockdown defense, generates lots of steals, can knock down 3’s, is a willing and effective passer… that’s a good player.
That’s actually a good reason to give up on Mudiay.
Just because you should have patience with a 19 year old prospect in his rookie year doesn’t mean you should ignore overwhelming evidence in the case of a 3rd year guard.
I’m going to keep repeating this, but NBA teams have no incentive to try to win once it’s obvious that they’re not going to make the playoffs, and this would be true if draft order was entirely random. Once you realistically can’t make the playoffs, you should focus on developing players and experimenting with G league guys/end of bench players, weird lineup combinations etc. Why should Robin Lopez be playing now for the Bulls?
I’m a glass half full guy but the Knicks have exactly one league average starting NBA player on their roster and he has a shredded ACL and stands 7 foot 3 inches. No one else is an above average NBA starter. Do they have picks and next one is certain to be top 3, sure and a few players with some potential, but they need to hit home runs with the next two drafts and that’s factorial….
Sorry, I spaced out. Kanter is obviously our best scorer.
@39 predictable.
I hope you outlast Dolan by at least 5 years so you have a shot at seeing another championship.
I’m on the fence about Frank in the D league. (Or G league, whatever.) It was obviously what Trey needed, but a first year PG coming over from France…would he have gotten what he needed running a bunch of scrubs and journeymen? His game is not like Trey’s; he never would be dominant in the G league, no matter how much better he got, because of the kind of player he is.
Overall, I kind of think it was better to have him with the Knicks, even if just to get exposure to the league and what’s expected of him. If he is the smart, dedicated worker everyone says he is – and that’s the source of a lot of my optimism – he’ll come back with an improved game, knowing what it takes for him to succeed at this level.
O’Quinn is an above average NBA center, although we don’t start him. Kanter might be above average. If Trey Burke keeps scoring like this he’s probably above average too. Tim Hardaway shooting 3’s at his career average is overpaid, but most likely he’s above average too.
The problem with the Knicks overall, as it has been for many years is that we don’t have any star level players. Our players who might be above average next year aren’t likely to be far above average. We haven’t since guys like that since we shipped out Tyson and/or Melo’s legs went. And we’ve also give a lot of minutes to guys who are significantly below average, like McBuckets, Thomas, Beasley, Ntilikina, and Jack.
I don’t see what Frank can gain by playing in the G League right now.
Just throw him in the fire and make him improve his handle/get stronger in the offseason.
Is “improving your handle” even a thing? “Handle” seems like almost an innate trait, like you should be able to handle the ball after you’ve played a couple thousand minutes of competitive basketball. How much improvement in Frank’s handle are we expecting to be seeing? He’s played over 2,000 minutes of pro ball at this point. Are there notable examples of point guards who radically improved their handle at age 20? Maybe there are, I don’t know.
i am bound and determined to keep things on a positive note today regarding my beloved new york knickerbockers…to which i would like to add to this discussion _____________________…
no one is getting off easy by kicking the bucket too early…as loyal knick fans – we may all be destined to suffer and live through this entire century…or, at least at the very minimum the next 50 years or so 🙂
Kawhi Leonard isn’t a point guard but he obviously improved his ability to generate offense for himself in isolation over time. When he came into the league over half his 2 pt bakets were assisted and last year it was 38%.
Point guards? I don’t know. 6’5″ is huge for a point guard, so there isn’t a great sample of guys to look at, and it’s pretty unusual to even try to play a guy at point guard who can’t get to the rim.
@59 Not PG’s but Beal and Mcollum have improved their handles a ton off the top of my head.
He’s like 6’6-6’7 now so a secondary ball handler at SG looks like his future role.
@59
How can it not be? It’s handling a basketball, just like shooting it involves a mechanical motion that you practice millions of times until it mostly becomes good habits and muscle memory. Kevin Durant himself is a very well reported example of a guy who had pretty mediocre handle and become a master on it with training. Frank was fine in the u18s with his handle against bad defenses and never had to do it much on his team, it’s understandable that he has more issues with it than AAU superstars who have had the ball in his hands for entire games since they started playing basketball as children. There’s a difference between something more instinctive, like court vision or positioning, and automatic / muscle memory stuff like shooting form or ball handling etc.
Before Z-Man rants about people comparing Ntilikina to Kevin Durant, I’ll just point out it’s the most well reported case I remembered and it obviously means nothing about whether Ntilikina will ever develop a good handle, it’s just a case in point that it is, in my view, a skill that can be worked on. If he’s going to work on it with good results? I have no idea.
Also DeRozan inproved his handle a ton since coming in.
Frank has a high floor because he clearly has the tools and instincts to be an All-NBA defender down the road. But yeah, you watch him play for 30 seconds and his ballhandling just makes you scratch your head. I do think that’s something that can improve. He’s so bad I have to think there is upside but at the same time you don’t really see an abundance of fast-twitch there and his center of gravity isn’t changing.
I am still all in on Frank though. Just crazy to give up on him for at least another 18 months. Just playing defense like he can makes him a rare commodity.
you can improve your handle like you can improve most repetitive skills in the nba… but like most any other skill it takes a lot longer to get from bad to good than it is for good to great… also being bad at something might mean you just don’t have the capacity to get great….
i don’t think frank is necessarily bad but he does have bad habits which may or may not be fixable… he’s too upright… he’s a little sloppy… he has very pedestrian dribble moves… but i think some of those are fixable and can be approved upon….
Frank could improve his handle, but if he’s still growing that might limit it. Hey, if the guy ends up 6’6″ or 6’7″ and can guard anyone from 1-3, maybe even some 4s in certain switches, that’s cool.
However, yeah, the rest of this year and next, let him play the 1 a lot and lets see. Mudiay seems to have an okay handle but very poor decision making and a badly broken shot.
I’m waiting hopefully that he starts making more shots. If he can at least be a good shooter and good defender of anyone from 1-3, that’s pretty valuable.
Derrick Rose to sign with the Timberwolves – LOL
Stick a fork in him, He’s Done!
Everyone seems to know that except Rose and Thibs. Good luck….
is he really growing? That’s official?
I disagree, but it’s a matter of definitions that reasonable people will disagree about.
I fully understand that the object of the game is to score efficiently. Kanter does that better than anyone on the team on decent volume. But he does it with one basic skill.
He posts up, gets offensive rebounds, and scores around the basket. I’m not diminishing that talent. He does it very well. Guys like Shaq became all time greats doing that (albeit way better and while drawing double and triple teams). Still, there is a huge difference between a guy that can score in the post, from mid range, from beyond the arc, trailing, spotting up, and off the dribble like KP and a guy like Kanter.
Steve Novak was way more efficient than KP too, but few would argue he was a better scorer. He could shoot 3s when wide open, but he was easily shut down by any team that focused on him.
KP is our #1 option. If Kanter was asked to do KP’s job it would be comical.
So who is actually the better scorer?
IMO, Kanter does a much better job being a role player playing behind KP when he has a good matchup than KP does being the #1 option. But KP is the better scorer because he can score effectively in many more ways on higher usage. He just has to become more effective in that role so he adds more value.
Derrick Rose to the Wolves means that we can cross yet another coach off of the “knows what he’s doing” list. Maybe he’ll end up on the Spurs, Raptors, Rockets, Sixers and Celtics over the next few years so I confirm that there are literally no smart people in the NBA.
Really? Trey Burke today is an above average NBA starter? KOQ who has logged 384 NBA games and started 54 of them for 2 of the most horrible NBA franchises. Couldn’t beat out Robin Lopez? Has never played more than 17.2 minutes a game in 6 NBA seasons mostly against other back ups.. This is an above average NBA starter.
off the top of my head Cousins, KAT , De Andre, Embiid, Horford, LMA, Jokic, Love, Gobert , Drummond, Capella, Adams, Whiteside, Gasol, Turner.
THJR a league average starter? He isn’t a league average player and barely was that last season in ATL
You swappin any of the above centers for Kanter?
The Knicks are completely devoid of starting talent.
O’Quinn is having a hell of a season, and if he plays like this consistently I do think he’s capable of starting. However, most of the impressive stuff has come from his really good offensive efficiency, which is a huge outlier for his career. He has a .632 ts% now, when he had around a .550 mark very consistently through his entire career. Every other number is pretty much in line with his usual numbers.
So yeah, I don’t know, really.
Bob, horrible NBA franchises are horrible because they suck at evaluating NBA players.
Also, “starting” talent is fairly meaningless. Good NBA teams are good because, generally, they have 2-3 significantly above average players. The Knicks have none. Kyle OQuinn could easily be the starting center for the warriors, and he’d be the starting center for one of the best teams in NBA history.
What makes it a ridiculous comparison is that a) Kevin Durant was a sensational, dominant college player as a freshman, 2) he’s a forward who could not really play PG with his current handle, and 3) he would be a dominant offensive force in the NBA even without much improvement in his college-level handle because he can score in 1000 different ways and is taller and longer than nearly everyone who guards him.
But you go right on ahead thinking that Frank is the exception to the general rule that players almost never improve their handle from his pretty shitty starting point (for a PG or combo guard) to quality PG-level at his age. I would say that his current handle is below average even for an NBA shooting guard, let alone a PG.
And more generally, here’s a billion guys in college, G-League, overseas, etc. who are only one or two skills away from being NBA players who work their asses off pursuing that dream of a roster spot and a 7-digit salary, and still never develop enough to make the leap.
Yes, it’s possible but highly improbable that he improves his handle all that much. And that’s far from his only issue.
Funny story about the Derrick Rose signing: My friend’s girlfriend is a huge Jimmy Butler fan so last night they flew in to Minnesota for the game tonight (I know he’s hurt, as do they. Sucks for them.)
Anyway, as they’re checking in to their hotel (apparently it’s connected to or next door to the arena) who do they see in the lobby…Derrick Rose and Coach Thibs. I think they said what’s up to Rose but didn’t take any photos with him. Mind you, this is before the news broke this morning. So apparently my buddy got the scoop on Woj. 🙂
I hope you enjoy the irony of this comment as much as I do : )
http://knickerblogger.net/2011-report-card-carmelo-anthony/#comment-346486
I’m in the camp that thinks Ntilikina is a terrible PG, shows no signs of developing better than his peers, and probably has Andre Roberson as a ceiling (which would be okay, honestly), but also is the 2nd-youngest player in the league and is under contract for three more seasons, so I’m somewhere in the middle of this stupid mudslinging…
but I really like that comment.
When I first read this comment, I honestly thought it was a Jowles troll job. Are we really reopening the Tyson vs. Melo debate? And good God, do we really want to invite Zingis-Melo comparisons in a defense of KP?
If only Frankie could dribble and drive like THCJ can archive search….
“But you go right on ahead thinking that Frank is the exception to the general rule that players almost never improve their handle from his pretty shitty starting point”
See Z-Man, that’s why I constantly respond to what you write. When have I said I think he’ll be the exception? Where have I compared him to Durant? You’re really so adamant about being right in this discussion that you can’t understand the difference between an example: “Durant did this, so theres one case where it happened” and a comparison “Ntilikina is similar to Durant so he can do it”?
I’m honestly asking and I wrote this on the original post because every single time you do the same shit. No matter how many times me or everybody else says they’re doubtful about Ntilikina, they’re not seeing the improvement we would have liked but we’re hopeful it could be better, you go on this rants trying to shove in everyone’s faces how much you were right in wanting Smith, oh no, Mitchell all along. Please.
Frank is 19. He might have not even stopped growing. The idea that he can’t improve his dribbling is pretty unconvincing.
Kanter’s problem as an offensive player is that he can’t or doesn’t pass. He can generate good offense for himself, but not for anyone esle. (Which isn’t bad, obviously, but does limit his value in ways that are hard to notice)
Kanter would have be to Karl Malone on offense to make him an above average nba starter. The Knicks are -20/100 this year when Kanter is on the court without KP, giving up 1.24 per possession. this is a guy who has a role to play with the right teammates against the right opponents and that’s it. That’s a very modest amount of value and he would be insane to opt out.
Strat has gone full 180 on KP in two months. I remember during a Bulls game you said he reminded you of bargnani and it made sense that Phil wanted to replace him with Lauri Markkanen, who was a better rookie than KP. Absence and hearts and all that, I guess.
I’m pretty sure there’s plenty of players who came into the league and improved their handle from good to great or from bad to good see: every top 20 player in the league who plays 1-3, basically. Steph, Harden, LeBron, KD, Giannis, Oladipo, Kawhi, even Otto Porter.
It’s so obviously possible that the fact that we’re debating whether or not it’s a live option for Frank is comical. And there’s no point in debating about whether or not is likely as there’s no way to fix the probabilities, so it’s really idle speculation. Give him plenty of minutes at PG and see who’s right. That’s the only way to determine it.
I’m still down with “Throw him out there at the 1 as much as possible over the last 20 games.”
He kind of is. Malone shot a little more, but he was less efficient. (granted it was a different NBA, so it’s possible Malone was more efficient relative to his peers). Age 25 Kanter has a 123 ORtg, Age 25 Malone had a 115 ORtg. Kanter gets more offensive rebounds and turns it over less. The only part of the game Malone was vastly superior to Kanter on offense was at getting fouled.
@84
I haven’t done a full 180 on KP, but I do think he’s better than some people here think. The focus is often on his mediocre TS%, but he could easily improve that with very minor tweaks and a smaller role than he was forcing upon himself. I’m not too big on expecting players to change, but at times his shot selection was so atrocious it was clearly hurting his stats and the team. But he was starting to figure it out and change a little before he got hurt.
Markkaanen had a rough February, but I think you can still make a reasonable case that he’s as good or better on offense and on the boards than KP was as a rookie. I don’t get to see him play nearly as much, but I doubt he’s as good on defense. I find KP incredibly frustrating. IMO he is immensely talented on both sides of the ball, but his basketball IQ and decision making is still at around a rookie level. It holds him back. On his bad nights, I’m prone to hyberbole like comparing him to Bargnani. 🙂
Jonathan Macri
@JCMacriNBA
3h3 hours ago
Today marks one month since the #Knicks played their 1st game w/o Kristaps Porzingis. Our positive stat of the day reflects just how impactful a defensive force he is:
NY def rating when KP went down: 14th in the NBA
NY def rating since: 30th
(There are 30 teams in the NBA)
@85
So you’re comparing Frank to Steph, Harden, LeBron, KD, Giannis, Oladipo, Kawhi, and Otto Porter??????????????????
Jokes aside, just start him and keep the ball in his hands and sit Mudiay on the bench to keep him fresh for when we really need a clutch loss.
Karl Malone is one of the greatest players in NBA history.
Enes Kanter would be an excellent backup C on a contending team and is a decent starter on a team like the Knicks, but he stat stuffs on the boards and is more of a liability on defense than he is an asset on offense. He’s virtually unplayable against some matchups.
If peak Karl Malone was available as a free agent right now he’d get 30 max contract offers.
If Enes Kanter opts out late this year he’ll come crawling back to the Knicks looking for a long term deal. Enes Kanter is probably not as good as O’Quinn when you consider defense and we couldn’t even get a decent pick for O’Quinn.
Malone was way better than Enes Kanter. But at age 25 he was not much better on offense than Enes Kanter, and he was also getting set up by one of the 3 or 4 best point guards whoever lived instead of Jarret Jack and friends.
markannen is not good.. he is channing frye and the coming years will make that abundantly clear….
Marvin Bagley looked like a #1 pick today. He’s Amare 2.0.
Mo Bamba is moving like he’s underwater tonight
I thought the kid at Arizona was supposed to be Amare 2.0
Speaking of stratomatic 180s, the man hated the melo trade when it happened. Just kept blasting it.
It’s ok though:)
Out of 1700 minutes in that rookie season, Shump played 22% of those minutes at PG.
http://www.82games.com/1112/11NYK5.HTM
I don’t know whether that is “significant” minutes in your book. And I didn’t say he’d be good (at least not in that quote 😉
But I’ll admit that I have learned a lot since then mainly as a result of this site, and it was misguided to think that Shump might ever improve his PG skills much, or his finishing. Very, very few players make a significant jump in those kinds of critical skill categories. Most “big” improvements are in things like shooting the corner 3 (Bruce Bowen) or making uncontested mid-range elbow jumpers (Noah for a while) or improving FT% (David Lee). But instinctive, hand-eye, fast-twitch stuff rarely improves enough to change positions, no matter how hard a guy works at itespecially going down from 5-4, 4-3, 3-2, etc. Maybe the best example is Kawhi, who even Jowles would admit improved way beyond anyone’s expectations in multiple areas. But saying Kevin Durant improved his handle so maybe Frank can too is way too lazy of a statement for this site.
Yay Nets!
Man, Melo can’t play well even on a blowout against the Suns. His ts% is down to .504, a career low even considering his awful rookie year, and he’s averaging 1.5 assists per 36 which I had to double check to see if it was the correct number. Unbelievable.
G State started the game 0 for 12, lost Steph with an ankle injury a cpl of minutes in, and still scored 28 in 1st quarter. And Durant is blocking shots like Mutombo.
This ain’t right.
michael porter jr debut.. well not really but the most extended action he’s seen….
he looked bad… i have no idea who told him to try and come back…
The same guy who wants him to slip to the Knicks.
This disgruntled Miami fan would draft Theo Pinson in the second round in a heartbeat.
GSW should be worried about Steph hurting his ankle every few games.
A healthy Curry is worth much more than home-court. The Warriors should shut him down until the postseason, and even then he should be on a minutes restriction until the Houston series.
Another amazing Players Tribune piece, this one by Steve Francis.
Hope Steve is doing well for himself.
How many though have gone from “atrocious” to “good enough to play PG in the NBA?” We’re talking a massive improvement that Frank would need to make. His handle is that bad.
Frank doesn’t have to play point guard, though. If he turns out to be a good point guard I’ll be surprised, but he could wind up as a SG or SF-hes 6’5″ or 6’6″ with a huge wingspan and by the time he’s 23 he could be 20-30lbs heavier
I have no problem with him playing the point during these tank years. I’d rather have him end up as an off-ball wing who can put it on the floor when he absolutely needs to than an outmatched too-tall, turnover-prone PG a la Mudiay/Wroten/MCW who belongs, at best, in the CBL.
Yeah, I mean, this is basically what I’m saying. Seems like it might be a waste of time trying to develop this dude into a point guard, and it might be pretty misguided to think of him as the point guard of the future. I can see him developing into a Scottie Pippen-type player, a guy who is a major pain in the ass on defense, can knock down perimeter shots and give you some secondary playmaking.
I mean, whatever, try him out at point guard for a while I guess, but it just seems like there’s a different and better path available for the kid.
Ummmm…. all 30 franchises had a shot at him and none other than the Knicks thought he was worthy of $ 3,000,000 a year, so no one thought he was a starting caliber player other than LOL Phil..
And , of course you never addressed your original point about him being better than average starter. I listed 15 centers who are demonstrably better, thusly he can’t possible be a better than average starter. I could have listed others quite easily.
And of course, then you went to the tried and true straw man argument saying GS could win a championship with KOQ starting. Wonderful!!!! They would likely be the favorite to win the title with Luke Kornet starting FFS!
Neither of which have the slightest to do with whether KOQ is an above average NBA starter…………
I get why people that focus almost entirely on efficiency think that, but I disagree. Malone’s role was much larger than just scoring under the basket like Kanter.
Part of the “formula” for evaluating a player’s contribution and skill has to be usage and role. It’s understood that the defense is going to force the offense into some shots it would rather not take. Someone has to take those lower efficiency shots. If they were distributed somewhat equally among each of the players, they could be ignored. But to some degree they are distributed according to each player’s skill at making them. Kanter takes almost none of them because he’d make them at such a low rate it would become a terrible shot and instead of just one the team would prefer not to take. So his efficiency is not comparable to someone with a more complete game taking a wider variety of shots “out of necessity”.
On the flip side, there are some players that make bad decisions and take some bad shots by choice. Those are the guys that should be penalized a bit extra for their lower efficiency.
As far as I can tell, there is no easy way to measure all these things. All you can do is watch how often a player is forcing up some garbage when he didn’t have to take vs. a player being called upon to create a difficult shot because he had to. Then you can sort of weigh it all in your evaluation.