Knicks Morning News (2018.05.21)

@1 – generally agree, although depending on what the scouts think of Doncic, if they think he’s a generational player, any price might be worth it. No one thinks he’s Lebron, but if you could get 85% of Lebron, wouldn’t that be player be worth Frank + 9 + 36 + next year’s top-3 protected pick?

Gonna get a couple grievances off my back right now —

1) Phil Jackson really was the worst — not just because of his smarmy arrogance (although that certainly played into it) but because he walked in feeling so entitled — basically saying that just because he won a bunch of titles as the coach of some of the best rosters in NBA history, he couldn’t be questioned. Worse, so entitled that he didn’t need to put in the work. I mean, look at the coaching “searches” he did. He basically never traveled anywhere to actually see potential draftees play. Now it turns out that his draft record is reasonably ok, but what kind of message does that send to the rest of the organization? He’s taking vacations in Montana and smoking peyote while other teams’ front offices are grinding.

NYC franchises are now led by some real grinders — Jets have McCagnan, who still lives the life of a scout. Brian Cashman, one of the most accomplished guys out there, still looks like he slept in his office 4 out of the last 5 nights (which he probably did). Perry/Mills are out there turning every last stone, interviewing 11 coaching candidates, 20 draft candidates. Most of this work is probably wasted, but putting in the work will eventually pay off.

2) Porzingis needs to just get over it. I don’t know what happened in the previous regime, but this whole thing where Fizdale has to go chasing him across Europe feels very high school. It’s a new front office — come back into the fold and start being part of the solution already. WTF does Fizdale have to meet with KP’s big brother first? Just get on the phone and figure it out.

KP can stay in Europe all he likes, but how about showing some commitment to the organization? Even verbally saying he’s excited about the new hire and working with the front office? All we hear or see from him is “I’m working on getting healthy”, “I stay out of what the front office is doing”, “I’m excited about my brand”, and “here are my youtube videos of me working out”.

Just say – “I’m ready to turn the page on the last 3 years, work with the new front office and coach to make the Knicks a perennial force for the next decade”, or “I’ve heard great things about Coach Fizdale from everyone around the league and am excited to work with him to fulfill my own and the team’s potential”.

Instead — Fizdale is going to chase him around Europe if and only if Janis says it’s ok. These guys should be meeting in the middle as equals, as partners. Instead it’s a puppy dog chasing the self-perceived hottest girl in high school. It’s freaking ridiculous, honestly.

Look KP, you’ve made your dissatisfaction known. You’ve won the power struggle multiple times over with the firing of Phil and then the firing of Hornacek. Come back to the freaking table and act like a leader of this team, regardless of your injury.

Now this could all be going on behind the scenes, but it sure doesn’t seem like it.

KP can stay in Europe all he likes, but how about showing some commitment to the organization? Even verbally saying he’s excited about the new hire and working with the front office? All we hear or see from him is “I’m working on getting healthy”, “I stay out of what the front office is doing”, “I’m excited about my brand”, and “here are my youtube videos of me working out”.

I think KP is just like every NY Knick fan who’s been burned one too many times. In the 3+ years he’s been in the league the guy has seen four different head coaches , 2 Presidents of Basketball Operations, has played with a roster where Joaquim Noah and Derrick Rose were supposed to be starters, and hasn’t been anywhere near a winning situation. Its okay for him to be a skeptic as far as I am concerned just like fans and the organization should be skeptical about aspects of his development as a longterm reliable superstar with longevity in this league.

generally agree, although depending on what the scouts think of Doncic, if they think he’s a generational player, any price might be worth it.

That’s the type of irrational, dumb thinking that has the Knicks buried under tons of basketball shit. No player in history is worth “any price”, for the simple reason you need to keep enough resources to put around the “Any Price” Star.

Do you remember Melo?

You can not compare Melo to Doncic, that’s obscene.

I’m not comparing Melo to Doncic. One is an NBA player, the other is not (yet).

The point (I thought it was obvious) is that the same line of irrational, dumb thinking was used to justify the terms of Melo’s acquisition, with catastrophic results. We should know better than that by now.

@11

lol…sad but true.

I m going on record to trade next years first swap out 9 to whoever for doncic. Historically giving up multiple firsts I had not worked out for us but getting a potential franchise player for a first to play next to Kp would be worth it .

I’m not a draft expert and I haven’t seen Doncic play but I do worry that the unknown is a huge allure to people. As a prospect he’s not without his weaknesses, according to the scouting profile. Multiple firsts/recent firsts is, in my book, what you trade for established all stars. That’s not to say there aren’t trades I would do for Doncic but I doubt Phoenix is giving up no1 for what I think would be fair value…

@2

You can argue that a triangle or triangle hybrid system can’t work anymore (which of course is the popular view and a crock of crap because even the Warriors and Spurs run triangle sets), but you certainly shouldn’t waste much time interviewing coaches that believe in a P&R dominant offense or something else you despise (which is most of them).

If you ask me, most of the coaching interviews we just did were a dog and pony show for the media and fans. At best they were trying to give some guys that want to be a coach a few headlines so we score points around the league and with their agents. They made up their mind they wanted Fizdale before the process even started. They contacted him before Hornacek was fired. The only way he wasn’t getting offered the job was if there was a serious personality conflict when they interviewed him. Phil skipped the dog and pony show and didn’t waste time on guys like Thibodeau because he knew it was not a fit. He went straight to his own coaching tree because that’s the way he wanted the team to play.

With some good coaching, better play making, and enough of a team around him to make doubling him a little more problematical, a healthy KP is going to average between 20-25 points per 36 with a TS% in the 57% -58% range while being one of the best defensive big men in the league. Eventually, he could even do a little better than that.

He is already hitting 39.5% of his 3s and around 80% of his FTs.

That alone gets you into the 60% range.

The issue has been shot distribution. He’s taking too many mid range shots and not getting enough easy shots at the basket off lobs, cuts, offensive rebounds etc.. Hopefully, Fizdale will have him taking more 3s, get his shot selection under control, and get him a few more easy baskets with the benefit of better PG play. As he gets stronger he should also be able to finish better around the basket.

KP is the least of our problems as long as he stays healthy.

Phil only interviewed people that he knew personally. That’s a pretty close-minded way to do business if you ask me, even if your intent is to just play the Triangle. Actually, he hired Hornacek, who he didn’t know, and who didn’t know the Triangle from a hole in the wall even now 2 years later. So that means he was willing to go outside his circle. If he was willing to do that, why not do a real coaching search?

The only reason he had anything to do with Hornacek is that the brain dead NY basketball media, much of the rest of the basketball media, the fans, and Melo hated him and the triangle. For better or worse he wanted Rambis to continue implementing the triangle with players that fit the system, but that was impossible if he wanted to keep his job.

That final year was one gigantic appeasement tour starting with appeasing Melo by blowing up the rebuild movement and bringing in Rose/Noah/Lee, bringing in Hornacek to run a more uptempo and traditional offense, and so on. Then by mid season he realized he had made a gigantic blunder and figured that if he was going to get fired he should at least get fired on his own terms. That’s why he brought back the triangle. He made a terrible mistake appeasing Melo and breaking up what he was doing. He made an even worse mistake thinking he could change Melo to begin with.

Phil was an old, tired, lazy, closed-minded, arrogant old man who thought he knew better than everyone else. Surprise — the league is smarter now (and he is not).

That very accurately (and depressingly) sums up the Phil Jackson era. 3 years totally wasted.

If you want to look at the bright side, if the Knicks had drafted 3rd in 2015 like they were supposed to, Phil would have definitely drafted Okafor. And that would negate the one good thing Phil did as Knicks GM which was drafting KP.

My $0.02:

I don’t believe he’s a perfect fit at all.

When I look at the Warriors and Celtics (and they’re the two model franchises right now) I see one thing in common: they both identified a player type, and that identity influenced all their player acquisition decisions. To me, a perfect fit is another versatile, two-way player like KP & Frank. Even if Trae becomes a poor man’s Damian Lillard, you have to hide him on defense and I think we’re past the point where you can win like that.

Just look at Houston. James Harden might be the most efficient offensive player on the planet, but Golden State just attacks him relentlessly on offense and Houston won’t be able to overcome that. What would an elite team do to a guy like Trae? (Probably what Houston is trying to do with Curry, but with more success.)

I mean who’s to say elite teams wouldn’t shut down the Bridges or run a guy like Carter off the floor.
We just gotta chose the best player and worry about the rest later.

Someone else but KP needs to be able to score the ball.

That very accurately (and depressingly) sums up the Phil Jackson era. 3 years totally wasted.

While Phi overall did not do a good job, they weren’t totally wasted. He did draft/acquire KP, Frank, Willy, and OQ. And to a lesser extent, Ron and Dotson.

Now, he made several really bad big decisions, too, of course, and did need to go. A gigantic missed opportunity.

Phil was not the worst. IT was.

The Knicks did not stupidly win meaningless games.

But this one IS true: Some posters here are bots.

I would love Carter and both Bridges but Trae has enough talent to singlehandedly transform our offense.

I get that we want multi positional defenders but we have a good defensive foundation with KP, Frank where those guys can cover for him.

I would love Carter and both Bridges but Trae has enough talent to singlehandedly transform our offense.

I guess what I’m pondering is if we’ve reached a point in the NBA where a player who can singlehandedly transform an offense but can’t cover a position on defense is still someone you want to build around. Does building around that kind of player ultimately limit your upside to contender (as opposed to champion)? Of course, I know we would die to be as flawed as a team that just can’t get past the Warriors. And being the 2017 Celtics would be incredible around here. But that team was always capped as an also-ran.

That final year was one gigantic appeasement tour starting with appeasing Melo

Personally, I think the appeasement tour started when he made Melo the highest paid player in the sport and one of three or so players with a full NTC. Once that decision was made, there wasn’t any coherent rebuild he could’ve started even in theory. Sure, Rose and Noah were the most egregious steps in the wrong direction, but there are countless known examples of him passing up on picks in favor of cap space that he then used to sign players who were obviously not going to be part of any “rebuild” (Afflalo, Williams, Seraphin, etc.).

The idea from the start was that the triangle would make Melo such a good player that Phil could then use his genius to build a contending core around him using the free agent market almost exclusively.

In other words, you really have to torture the facts to pretend he was even a minimally competent executive.

Trae Young and Frank Ntilikina make a ton of sense together I think. Not only that, but Trae Young would make KP dive and run the pick and roll.

I don’t think he gets passed Orlando but if he does Cleveland will take him because LeBron. Michael Porter Jr remains the most likely candidate to fall to New York.

Ayton
Bamba
Bagley
Doncic
Jackson Jr
Young
Carter Jr
Mikal Bridges
Michael Porter Jr

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. There is just so much talent in that top 8 I don’t see a team that will take a risk on Porter’s back. It only starts to make sense at pick 9 when the talent pool looks like Miles Bridges, SGA, Collin Sexton, DiVincenzo, and Kevin Knox.

for the record – if it came down to our pick and either frank or kp for doncic – i’d let kp go…

i think the chance for continued health concerns for kp is real…i hope he stays and can stay healthy, but, i’d still stick with frank…

Trae Young is going to be one of the worst defenders in the NBA. He’s destined to become the Enes Kanter version of a PG. I suppose he can evolve into a lethal scorer on a team built to mitigate his deficiencies, but the odds are that he’s going to be targeted for termination every game by opposing offenses.

I don’t think the Warriors are overloaded. They have three great players (Steph, Durant, Draymond) and two very good ones (Iggy, Klay). The rest of the team are former bums (McGee, Young) has-been role players (West, Zaza, Livingston) and decent but not special young players (Looney, Bell, McCaw, Cook.)

Young is about the same size as Conley when he came in.

Jordan Bell isn’t anything special? He had a .641 TS%, .174 WS48, .229 WP48, a 3.7 BPM and 1.2 VORP (i.e. 3.24 wins against replacement, which is absurd for a rookie in 800 minutes) as a rookie. He is the future small-ball 5 for that team and someday will likely make a DPOY case. If not for his ankle injury, he’d be an All-Rookie first-teamer (barring the “but he plays on the Dubs, too easy!” narrative, which is silly since their opponents play most games like they’re in the Finals).

If all domestic rookies are expected to struggle due to the adjustment of going from a poor, diluted basketball league to the world’s best, how do you explain why one of the best-rated draft prospects had one of the best rookie years in 2018?

Downplaying hyper-efficient “role players” is a big part of what we (i.e. you) do here, but do you really want to call Bell a decent-not-special player?

pg is the one position where size doesn’t matter at all…. in fact… size probably works against a lot of pg prospects…..

trae isn’t a stupendous defender…. but even if he’s really really bad…. pg is one position where you could get away with it… isaiah thomas and curry are examples of bad to soso defenders who have teammates that pickup the slack….

that’s not to say he’s a great pick…. but it’s infinitely more important to be good on offense as a pg than a great defender… (read: frank)…. of course you want both… but if you wanted to choose between lillard who’s all offense no defense vs marcus smart or frank…. in a vacuum there’s no universe where you would rather have the latter….

Phil is 100% smug and arrogant, there is no getting around that.

This much is definitely true.

I guess when you’ve won 13 rings as a player/coach and also played an important role in building the 2nd LA team there’s going to be an issue when utter morons in the media, fans, and players that don’t understand the game well enough to even ask the right questions let alone understand the answers are calling you an idiot and telling you what you are doing wrong.

Trae Young is going to be one of the worst defenders in the NBA. He’s destined to become the Enes Kanter version of a PG.

He will be worse than Kanter.

I think it’s fair to point out that centers put up career numbers in the Dubs’ system, but I do think there’s something to be said about a savvy coaching staff asking an offense-limited guy to do (essentially) one thing (dunk/crash the boards). There’s another thing to be said about a guy who doesn’t stray from the role and is happy to do so, and that’s Bell.

Here’s the thing about players like Bell.

You won’t win a championship or even have a very good team if you have 3 players like Bell. You need high usage efficient scorers like Curry, Durant, and Thompson. When you have enough high usage efficient scoring, then you can find players that defend, rebound, make plays, or score efficiently on low usage to complement them. At a certain point adding more scoring does not help as much as adding players that do something else at an elite level. But until you get to that point, those other players are not going to get you very far. They are the ones that help put you over the top.

For example, if we can somehow put together a team of 3 reasonably efficient high usage scorers, a player like Frank could have extraordinary value even though right now he’s a huge drag on our offense. Of course if he improves on offense and is one of the three he could be a monster.

You can get away with 1 weak link on defense, but once there are 2 of them things often seem to deteriorate fairly rapidly. Unless you are Nash, Curry, Harden or some other super elite offensive player, you are making it more difficult to build a top team with a weak link like that on the court. That goes double now because teams game plan to attack the weak links. I can’t see Young being worth it.

I might be way wrong about him, but I think I’d rather go with Burke and Frank or have Burke coming off the bench and start Frank and THJ and select one of the SFs than take Young.

Burke is probably a good comp for Young on defense, and he is pretty terrible. Unless Carter falls to 9th we’re going to be picking from a bunch of kids who all have various glaring flaws. I might lean more towards SGA if we’re picking another guard 9th, but I think it’s a reasonable spot to draft Young.

Like djphan, I think it’s very important to play Frank at the 1 next year. Since I’m also meh on Trae Young, I’m really hoping he gets drafted by someone in front of us and hope that MPJr (if healthy and good in workouts, in which case he won’t fall, lol) or Carter falls to us. I’d actually rather have Miles Bridges if it means we avoid drafting a 1 at the expense of Frank, in all honesty. If Trae Young were a can’t miss guy I’d say yeah, sure, but he’s not can’t miss. He’s a pretty volatile prospect, one that’s really hard to read as to outcomes imo.

Honestly just give me Robert Williams and call it a day if Carter is off the board. That’ll never happen though because our FO isn’t interested in taking the best prospect so much as they are interested in taking a combination of fit and reputation.

Must make you really angry to see Andre Drummond lead the league in DBPM, be 9th in VORP, 10th in WS, 2nd in DRB%, 3rd in ORB%, and 2nd in TRB%. It’s almost like these “role players” are really good at basketball.

Last I checked, Drummond’s usage was 21% (a 4-year low for him), his TS% was .555 and he’s paid the max. So what does that have to do with a rookie who just broke the 800 minute mark on a team that makes JaVale McGee look like a superstar in 600 minutes? Seriously, Jowles, I’m really starting to worry about you.

(speaking of small sample size, Drummond sure lit it up in his 131 playoff minutes. In a hypothetical playoff game vs. Houston or GSW, I wonder how long it would take for Drummond to get the Enes Kanter treatment…you know, Enes Kanter with the great rebounding stats and super-high TS%…)

Capela is far more mobile on the defensive perimeter than Drummond. And up until last year, Drummond was maybe the worst FT shooter in history. I don’t think their games are all that similar.

Is Boston just going to win every home game? So weird.

You talked a tremendous amount of shit after Drummond’s rookie year, which, I correctly argued, was historically productive.

Which you correctly argued according to your own arguments; and I think there has not been any development in those arguments to sway other posters. Perhaps you want to argue that Drummond has shared court with a historically bad team, and a historically bad coach for 6 straight years to cancel his historical greatness.

For all the flaws that PER has, I put more faith in metric that tells me that Drummond has always been the same player, with a slight increase in performance this year that makes more of his free throws, than a metric that ranked him historically great for two years (as in the best season of a center ever), then average all-star for three years, then historically great again.