Knicks Morning News (2018.04.16)

I really hope Blatt gets the job. He seems to win wherever he goes. He even got Cleveland to the finals despite problems with Lebron.

Aside from LeBron James, David Blatt is universally regarded as an incredibly smart, versatile, and tough coach who brought multiple overachieving teams to success, including an Israeli team overmatched like crazy. He runs Princeton, pick and roll, iso, and every other system, according to the strengths of his lineup, and switches mid-game.

We can do so much worse than him. If he didn’t have a prior NBA stint poisoned by the world’s greatest player, he’d be top of my list. I actually think he still is. If the choice is between Mark Jackson, Mike Woodson, JVG, and Blatt, I think I’d be equally happy with the latter two.

Well there is no way that Blatt is going to get the job if Dolan thinks that he has any shot at all to get LeBron. I can only hope that everyone in the front office are aware that LeBron is not coming here. That said, I like Blatt from a player development stand point. He may or may not be a good coach for the Knicks long term but he is a good coach to help a young team to learn how to play the game as a team. Mark Jackson has shown no ability to develop players. Woodson is a big no way, all the Knicks are going to do with Woodson as coach is run a bunch of ISOs. If the Knicks don’t get Blatt then I would like to see Stackhouse as the coach.

The Knicks will get Lebron when he is 41 after his second ACL surgery.

I’d be fine with giving Blatt a shot but not being able to get out of the way of your ego to work with Lebron seems like a pretty big red flag.

It’s hard to judge a season and a half of basketball, an issue that applies to both Blatt and Fizdale, but especially Blatt because it’s unclear how much he was able to transmit to the court. Maybe their respective problems with Gasol and Lebron are red flags but they might be just yellow flags. Those guys can both be idiosyncratically difficult.

One thing seems clear irrespective of the similar coarse grained outcomes in the win loss column. Blatt is a much much better X and O coach than Lue/Lebron and if he were in charge he would never stick Lebron out there with so little shooting as has commonly been the case this year. He damn well would not be starting Jeff Green. I’m not sure about Blatt but he is clearly a thinking basketball mind who hasn’t watched the game pass him by, and he doesn’t seem to be a George Karl level prick. I think he seems like a reasonable choice.

Lue taking over and winning the finals over GS had nothing to do with him being better than Blatt and had everything to do with Draymond Green being suspended. That was an awesome finals and I was happy for cleveland but they got VERY lucky in that series.

That’s not what I said. I never mentioned where they were born. I mentioned where KP and Frank actually played and the coach/player culture being something they are used to and Blatt’s historical ability to communicate with Euro players. Lebron didn’t want any coach that would do things differently than what he wanted. Lebron is a great player and seemingly a good guy. But he is a prima donna of massive proportions. I believe the other players lashed out bc they were following his lead. If he had liked Blatt they would have been fine. Also Blatt was hired before Lebron decided to come back for the explicit purposes of a rebuild. So all of a sudden Blatt was faced with a massively different dynamic than what he had accepted and probably prepared for. I would imagine he would not have even been a candidate for that job had Lebron chosen to come back prior to the Blatt’s hiring. The job of coaching Lebron at this point in his career is simply and only ego management. The GM job is way more important. I.e. getting him the right players. Riley was able to persuade him to listen to Spoelstra. Riley had enough cred to get them there. KP is not Lebron.

If are looking for a reason that JVG would want to coach the Knicks, just look at Jackson and how much money he got from Dolan. Add in the thumb in the eye aspect of Dolan hiring him after he fired him and if he were to come back and eventually start winning with NY, he would be truly the only successful coach that the Knicks have had since Riley. It would be an ego thing for JVG to come back and after taking Dolan’s money he can always go back to the booth.

Blatt was brought in to develop a young team and then Lebron happened. KP is a bit of a diva himself but I think he’ll let Blatt coach a few crossovers/ISO’s out of him.

my biggest takeaway from the games yesterday is the biggest reason Rose has been a horrible defender is that he normally doesn’t try. the difference in his effort last night vs what we saw every night last year was as visceral as anyone I can remember outside of superstars. it’s not that was a great defender last night as he got beat and made a couple of big mistakes but he was a world apart from being one the dregs of the league. Maybe this was already obvious to everyone else but I actually thought he was mostly trying until now.

My order of preference is Blatt, Fizdale, Van Gundy. Why are they interviewing so many people? They must have an idea of who they want already.

Didn’t Blatt fuck up something stupid in the playoffs? Like not knowing how many timeouts they had or something. I don’t think it was a huge deal but I remember thinking he didn’t seem to be as good of a game coach as people made him out to be.

@23
They might want to claim “due diligence” and all that. Not later have to answer questions to the media like, “Why didn’t you at least interview Van Gundy/Jackson/etc. when he was available?”

Woodson, though? That seems to come from way out of left field.

Picking up the thread from yesterday, I’m not sure why a lack of players in Minnesota who can make an entry pass should suddenly show up in the playoffs and not before

That’s a good question. Perhaps is has to do with the way Houston was defending vs. the way other teams defend Minny. Houston was switching a LOT and creating a lot of those mistmatches that Minny was not trying to take advantage of. Perhaps they don’t get those mismatches as often against other teams so it wasn’t as noticeable.

To me, there’s a clear two-tiers of coaches here:
Tier 1: Van Gundy, Fizdale, Blatt, Stackhouse, any of Popovich’s guys (MESSINA PLZ)
Tier 2: Mark Jackson, Woodson, other idiots

@30. Thanks. I thought it was an issue of LeBron, like all new GM’s, wanting to bring in his own guy.

i always thought that excuse about entry passes was a huge cop out…. yes entry passes are sometimes difficult but it is a basic pass that you can iron out during practice….

the cop out is because you have a bunch of folks who are shooting way too much for their skill level… namely wiggins and crawford.. but now it’s drose also…. and it’s a coverup to excuse the kind of behavior that has had towns be an afterthought in that offense….

I would like Van Gundy first and Blatt second, but I’d be happy with giving Fizdale or Stackhouse a shot as well.

Wasn’t it because he spent most of his time in leagues that had more timeouts?

I don’t think I’ve seen this suggested anywhere yet, but is it possible they’re interviewing Woodson as an assistant coach? Or is that just a dumb suggestion since any head coach would want to bring/choose their own assistant coaches?

What’s the story with Fizdale’s feud with Gasol? Is it something that could be a repeat problem for Fizdale?

(BTW, if we hire him, the NY tabloids will go nuts for his wife. She’s gorgeous.)

The Knicks will get Lebron when he is 41 after his second ACL surgery.

His record as a player/GM suggests he’s MSG management material. Future President of Basketball Operations.

It speaks to my expectations that I’ll be fine, even happy, with any non-Mark Jackson announcement.

As I typed that, I realized the Knicks could very easily turn it into a Monkey’s Paw situation on me with Isiah Thomas or Mike Woodson redux.

@IanBegley
4m4 minutes ago

The Knicks have not shown any interest in Jeff Van Gundy as a candidate for their head-coaching position at this point, league sources told ESPN. Full story coming.

But Mike Woodson tho.

Honestly the JVG thing has always seemed like more of a half-baked fantasy than something with any chance of actually coming to pass. He has been out of coaching for more than a decade at this point and has surely had opportunities during that time to get back in – opportunities that on logic alone you’d have to assume were probably at least as good as the current Knicks situation. I imagine once you step outside the coaching bubble a bit it probably becomes apparent that for the most part being on ESPN is the way better gig. You still make great money and get to be affiliated with the league, but without 1/10th of the work, the stress or the criticism. I know which job I’d rather have.

The Knicks have not shown any interest in Jeff Van Gundy as a candidate for their head-coaching position at this point, league sources told ESPN. Full story coming.

Both Isola and Berman reported that Mills/Perry reached out to JVG’s representatives. So somebody has their facts wrong.

Anyway, I’m not as high on JVG as a lot of people are. He’s been out of the game a looong time. His teams had a style of play that looks nothing like the modern NBA. And he recently said that tanking was a scandal, not a strategy. Which means he would not be down for a proper rebuild. I’d rather have Wright or Fizdale.

One thing that may only interest me — Mills has called Dolan “Jim” more than once in press conferences, whereas in the past I believe pretty much everyone else was forced to call him “Mr. Dolan”.

Re: JVG – the question is whether he is the type of person to be able to adapt to the “new NBA”. Is he Phil Jackson and Kurt Rambis, forever thinking that the way things were done in 2000 will still work now? Or does he adapt, like Pop or Spoelstra or Belichick or whoever? I tend to think he is the latter given how much time he’s spent at Sloan and by what he says on shows like the Lowe Post etc.

He is a great basketball mind that inspired undying loyalty from his players, and showed undying loyalty to him (well, until he quit lol). I would feel fully comfortable going into a playoff series with JVG and putting him up against any coach out there, trusting him that he can go adjustment for adjustment with the best of them. Can you say the same about Fizdale, Mark Jackson, Stackhouse, or whoever else they’re throwing around out there? Woodson for God’s sake?!

And re: tanking – tanking IS a scandal precisely because it IS a strategy. It is a stain on any competitive sport, and unfortunately it’s taken over every sport. As long as there is any incentive for losing, people will lose on purpose, which undermines the whole concept of competitive sports.

Mark Jackson and Mike Woodson would almost certainly be career ending injuries for Frank Ntilikina.

I don’t want Mark Jackson, either. But I think we’ve gone a little too far. He did play a significant, positive role in player development on that Warriors team. He’s got a low ceiling and you know it would end badly, but he’s not a career-ending injury for young players.

“I probably wouldn’t like my game as a coach,” said Stackhouse

That’s pretty self-aware. While part of me is screaming that it’s going to be Mark Jackson and I’ll have reasons to hate this team even more, I am for the moment choosing to view it as, “Look how many good options we have! Each with their own strengths and abilities!”

I mean, really. It’s possible Blatt, Fizdale,Stackhouse, and JvG could fail, but each is likely to be average to above-average. That’s not so bad!

I probably love the draft as much as anybody here, but re: “The Process” I think it’s a load of bullshit. The 76ers tanked 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017 and ended up with Noel, Embiid, Saric, Covington, Okafor, Simmons, and Fultz. People are clamoring over how effective the strategy was but what’s lost on people is the time Embiid and Simmons spent on the DL. We don’t know how well the strategy would have worked if Embiid and Simmons were healthy, and on top of that the executive who was in charge of the Process got fired.

The Knicks aren’t a bottom five team in this year’s draft because Porzingis was too good a draft pick. That’s hardly an indictment on our front office and scouting department. Dame Dotson rebounds well, defends well, and has a eFG% above .500. Playing him big minutes down the stretch blew our draft position. Frank Ntilikina’s defense on some of the league’s marquee talent won us some games early on. The Knicks exhibited the ability to find cheap guys in Troy Williams, Trey Burke, Michael Beasley, and Luke Kornet who can all contribute to winning basketball. I firmly believe that good organizations pick up the parts they’re given and make them work. The best teams in the NBA this year were Houston and Toronto. The last time either of those teams made a top 5 selection was 2011, and that was Toronto with JV (who isn’t even the franchise player). Toronto didn’t even recruit free agents; they did it all by consistently winning trades and keeping guys in their building. Houston won a bunch of trades and drafted Clint Capela with the 25th overall pick in the 2014 NBA Draft.

My point is to say that willfully tanking multiple seasons is a skill-less proposition and that good organizations draft well regardless of where they pick and then develop talent. What Philly did is overblown due to injuries making their talent look worse and the NBA won’t even allow an executive to repeat what happened.

Forgive me if we’ve already discussed this, but did anyone read Morey’s AMA on Reddit? I’m not sure what I enjoyed most: him saying that there was a common denominator in all of the Knicks’ failures, claiming that basketball and pro League of Legends had strategic crossover, or that Hinkie isn’t blackballed but waiting for the right opportunity. Truly a breath of fresh air from a senior executive in an industry known for banal platitudes.

Thanks for the heads up. I always enjoy reading what Morey has to say. Unfortunately, I think if he comes to MSG he may get dragged out in cuffs like Charles Oakley. 🙂

I see no reason why Hinkie can’t come back. He’ll just never be allowed to do what he did last time given he was run out of town over it and the rules are evolving to reduce the probability of it happening again.

Blatt was hired prior to Lebron home coming. He was there for player development and then it changed to say hail to the king.

@66

Yeah this is stupid. The process was designed precisely because Hinkie understood the draft is not a guaranteed thing, so you do need more chances at top picks to eventually make it work.

People keep talking that they got lucky Embiid didn’t play so they got Simmons, but they conveniently ignore the times they got unlucky. They went 50% on top draft picks before Fultz and are still in a fantastic place because they rebuilt properly and made the necessary moves.

Meanwhile the honorable Knicks have 2 guy with potential upside to show for the same amount of years sucking completely.

I can’t believe we’re actually still questioning Philadelphia and what they did at this point. Despite a lot going wrong in the plans the process worked incredibly well and has built a potential east juggernaut.

It’s funny that the same people that think there’s no difference between drafting 1st or 8th because the the draft is a “crapshoot” are attributing Philly’s success to Embiid getting injured and allowing them to draft Simmons 1st. What Philly shows is that building through top picks is more valuable than the bs winning culture arguments and that talent trumps “doing things the right way”.

Mark me as a skeptic of the Process, but it’s hard to argue with the result considering we are now looking at a 52 win team with home court advantage. Credit should also go to Brown. Not sure there are too many coaches who would have been willing to out their reputation on the line to take that many loses and losing seasons.

Good to know I’m a mouth breather.

First of all, going 50% on draft picks at the top of the lottery is not bad luck. If your entire process is based around the draft, you need to have one of the best scouting departments in the entire league. Otherwise, you end up looking like a mouth breather for taking Jahlil Okafor over Kristaps Porzingis. It was reported at the time that the 76ers drafted Jahlil Okafor just so the Knicks wouldn’t take him. It also doesn’t help that Philly’s medical staff is probably the worst in the entire league, but we should process that information differently I guess. What Philadelphia did worked for them, and there’s no questioning that. The issue is how repeatable The Process is as a strategy to build a team, and I don’t think we’ll ever see it again. Teams aren’t giving you 1st round picks to pay Nik Stauskas anymore, and lottery odds flatten after this season. You could draft Michael Porter Jr and rehab him all year to increase your chances at Cam Reddish and RJ Barrett, but you need to have good developmental infrastructure in your building. I will always believe it is a better strategy to field the best team possible at the intersection of talent, youth, and payroll. Don’t hand out dumb contracts, don’t trade 1st round draft picks, and have a first class scouting department. That’s how you find Donovan Mitchell at 13, Jimmy Butler at pick 30, Draymond Green at 35, Nikola Jokic at 41, and so on. It’s how you avoid being the Kings and the Knicks.

Except that the Knicks and the Kings have been trying to avoid being the Knicks and the Kings for a decade now and it hasn’t worked.

Steve Clifford apparently loved Mitchell and wanted to draft him, but the Hornets management liked Monk better. If they had drafted Mitchell and Monk fell to Utah, would Utah still be “well managed”? Or just another team who drafted a forgettable player in the late lottery and lacks talent to compete?

Yet it’s easy to conveniently ignore that the overwhelming majority of top stars in the league were drafted in the top 5 or close to it and the Sixers might have two of the future ones, while the Knicks, Hornets, Pistons, Kings have been trying to build “correctly” and find their Giannis or Kawhi in the late lottery for a decade with zero success, because it’s so damn easy to find this sort of talent and these teams are just stupid and shit.

But, don’t you dislike losing, especially to that degree? Aren’t you tired of losing?

@75

Everybody does and I’m sure Sixers fans were as tired of the losing as anyone would be.

While we, Knicks fans, have endured like 15 losing seasons in 18 years while trying to win… Sacramento hasn’t been to the playoffs in 12 years.

I hate losing, but I would 100% every time trade losing badly 4 years in a row for a 52 win team with at least two elite talents under 23 (too early to tell with Fultz) + cap space than lose slightly less badly for 15 out of 18 years and be on the route to lose slightly bad again for next year.

You anti-tank guys always try to make it seem like we enjoy the intentional losing or some shit. Nobody does, it’s ridiculous and it’s a disgrace. But as the NBA is currently constructed it’s far better of a strategy than winning 7 more meaningless games while you draft 9-12 every year.

@76

Yeah, and the one FA who started the season with them is Redick, a proven veteran who people said was the exact type of player who wouldn’t ever choose to join a “losing culture” team, and they got him by having so much cap space they could heavily overpay him for one year just for the sake of it. That’s also a direct result of not wasting cap space on veterans who won’t move the needle and focusing on rookie contracts and efficient bargains which was a huge part of the process.

One caveat… should they win >20 games rolling out 2018 picks, Trey, Dotson, Frank, Kornet. Mudiay, Hicks, Baker THJr and Williams big minutes

Oh, absolutely true. If you put together a super-young team and you catch lightning in a bottle, then that’s great, too. It’s all about putting together a good team. If the young guys somehow turn good all at once, then that’s totally fine, too.

The killer thing is exactly as you noted, winning games due to guys who won’t be here when the young guys mature. It’s just a total waste. That is precisely what the Kings have done for years and it’s what the Knicks have also done and it is so, so stupid.

Jarett Jack likely cost us Luka Doncic. I will never forgive him for that.

Yeah, not commiting is a major issue. As soon as Porzingis went down the plan should have been to immediately change gears and tank.

But the issues came from before that. The Knicks ultimately came into the season with a roster that was never going to outtank Phoenix or Memphis or even Dallas and Atlanta, and that’s because they either refused to deal O’Quinn and Lee or had no offers (which I highly doubt), signed Hardaway Jr for no reason at all and instead of filling the last roster spots with young players right away decided to go with Beasley and Jack.

If we had gone the Bulls route, we would have traded at least one of O’Quinn and Lee and went for Dotson, Kornet and Hicks instead of the veterans for the last roster spots, and then tanking for a top pick was a real possibility. But from what happened with the Knicks and how he managed the situation in Sacramento, it just doesn’t seem to be the way Perry works.