Knicks Morning News (2018.06.30)

Beasley will play elsewhere in 2018-19. He showed too many signs of maturity and the Knicks won’t give him a multi-year deal and he’ll be paid far more than anyone here thinks he’s worth. He can score. Randal is just as out-of-reach as Beasley. The other thing to understand is that every PF free agent is going to know that they’re just keeping a seat warm for KP. We go with what we have or some other D-League player. Viva la tanque.

Plus if he stays here and starts he’s going to anoint himself our number one scoring option and take 20 shots per game while taking every play at the other end as a mini vacation. Neither is exactly good for our young guys’ development.

I didn’t want Beasley last year and I still don’t want him. He outperformed his cheap contract and deserves to be rewarded somewhere, but I’d like to move on from the “no defense”, “dumb mistakes” kind of player and sign some tough vet PF that can teach the kids for a year until KP is back. No long term contracts. Also, I haven’t given up on KOQ coming back. Maybe we can split that mid level between KOQ and “whoever” in some fashion that will be keep him here for another year without committing long term yet.

Beasley didn’t outperform his contract–he’s barely above replacement level. Don’t resign him–he’s bad for the locker room, too old, and takes minutes away from the equally bad young guys who have a chance at improving.

Beasley didn’t outperform his contract–he’s barely above replacement level.

If I take this statement literally, it’s an oxymoron. Assuming you believe in the concept of a replacement level player for the NBA, then the value of a replacement level player should be league minimum salary. Beasley made league minimum, so if he’s above replacement level in performance, even if barely, he was underpaid.

Now I am not saying he should get the mid-level salary or anything like that, but his performance last year won some games for the Knicks. Teams are willing to pay more than minimum for that, and I think he will get it and probably be worth it.

Don’t resign him–he’s bad for the locker room, too old, and takes minutes away from the equally bad young guys who have a chance at improving

I don’t want him back but he’s been a great teammate wherever he’s played.

Both Beasley and Kanter are hated on quite a bit in this forum. They don’t play much defense, it’s argued. But bearing in mind that NBA games are an entertainment thing rather than life or death, I insert the point that these two guys are fun to watch. K busts his ass on the boards like no one in the League and you always know where his heart it. A B produces the most creative and crazy moves to the basket anywhere. And it’s said that both are good locker room guys. OK, winning is the main thing but watchability should be part of the equation. Sign ’em both, I say (well, K is already signed so I will alter my comment to say,”Sign Bease, quit complaining about K’s lack of defense; he’s going to rain down 3,s this year.)

So who is out there worth signing, if we aren’t going more than one year? McBuckets?

@16

One guy I’d like to see if he’s available is Montrezl Harrell. He’s probably getting a better contract elsewhere, but he produced very well for the Clippers last year and is a pretty good rebounder and finisher inside.

Otherwise just go for a veteran minimum guy like Anthony Tolliver and call it a day.

Lee is finally being shopped per David Aldridge. Pure salary dump. Hope we don’t have to give up a 2nd.

Shopping Lee makes sense on a lot more levels now.

1. Frank is going to play more SG
2. Hardaway belongs at SG
3. Knox is a legitimate SF so Lee/Hardaway can go where they belong
4. Baker is going to be healthy
5. Dotson showed he belongs at the end of the season and may wind up getting a lot of minutes

There’s no room for Lee. If we have to pay to get someone to take him that would dreadfully disappointing to me because he’s still productive, a good guy, and the salary is not that bad or long anymore.

While hyperposting I would like to suggest that if it becomes possible to steal Thomas Bryant amid the Kawhi-Lebron tumult we should try to do so

Yeah, Lee really has to go. He adds nothing to this team as currently constructed and the roster spot has to be cleared for the development of everybody else. At this point I’d be fine with giving up a future second just to dump him, at least we should have extras due to the Willy trade. It’s good news, but we’ve been hearing that he’s available since the last trade deadline and still nothing came up. I’m cautiously optimistic about it.

Yeah, Kawhi has no interest in coming here and the Knicks have no assets to send elsewhere. We’re not getting Kawhi.

So if the Lakers get Lebron and Kawhi, and we were to then take Deng’s contract and give them serviceable role players like Lee, Kanter, and/or Burke, how much more would we have to give up to get an asset like Ball or Kuzma?

Giving up a pick to get some team to take Lee??? He’s a solid player on a good contract for 2 more years.

Any contract that expires in 2020 or earlier is okay to keep in my book. Giving up any pick to clear cap space is a Knicksian error, which means it’s likely to happen.

If anything, the Knicks should be absorbing contracts and taking picks in exchange. But then again, they have $95M tied up in contracts this year and $64M next year, so, haha, probably not.

The best thing the Knicks can do right now is nothing. No paying to get rid of players please. Do due diligence. Take a great deal if it’s available. Otherwise, we are in good shape and will be in even better shape next July if we just stay where we are. Let contracts sunset. Keep ALL picks.

A lot is now on coach Fizdale. I want the answers to the burning questions this year. Is FN the answer at PG? Is Knox rotation worthy? Dotson / Baker same question. If Lee and TH2 are on the team and play, so be it. I don’t want to keep them out of the rotation arbitrarily just to lose. I’m not really on the tank team on that level. The players that deserve to play should play. The emphasis should be on the future though, so, something like what happened to Wily would be a disappointment. Let the kids play, see what you have, mix in vets, let Beasley go, Let O’Quinn go (sorry buddy, I’ll always root for you, good luck.) Just don’t “fortify” the team in a way that doesn’t help our long term prospects.

I might even give up a protected pick to do this.

absolutely not

My idea was trading away a 2021 Charlotte 2nd rounder or something like that, not a real asset, to get Lee off the team to help the tank, not trading 1sts or real assets.

With Lee gone and Kanter expiring next year we would have cap space to do exactly what we should have been doing, absorb bad contracts for assets and slowly gathering them while waiting for a good opportunity to make a move.

Any contract that expires in 2020 or earlier is okay to keep in my book. Giving up any pick to clear cap space is a Knicksian error, which means it’s likely to happen.

Exactly.

Giving up a 2nd round pick to move Lee would be a mistake. If you want to move him because he’s not going to get minutes and he’s a good guy that deserves to play on a good team, you can take back a total dreg of a player player on an expiring contract. You get the worse player but get out of the money 1 year quicker. That’s tolerable. He’s still a decent 2-way player, still has enough left in the tank to be productive for his last 2 years, and is not wildly overpaid. He would definitely help a lot of teams off the bench and some teams as a starter. Paying teams to take good players that are not wildly overpaid is not how you accumulate assets.

Pretty crazy that Durant on a 1+1 might be the best outcome for the Dubs. He’s likely to be a terrible overpay at the end of his next long contract, something like $40-45M in his age-35 season.

That’s would be quite a risk, but the way some guys are going these days 35 may be the new 30.

Having to give up a pick to get rid of Lee would be one of the worst outcomes I can imagine. First they wanted a 1st rounder for him, couldn’t get it. Now I’m sure they’d take a decent second rounder for him. Now we’re talking about giving up picks to get rid of him? Not a chance.

Knicks have to get rid of him before FA signing time next summer — we will have zero leverage with teams trading for him in that case since they know we need to get off that money. Need to move him on now or certainly before the deadline.

I still think a DJ Augustin for Courtney Lee trade would be pretty reasonable for both sides. Augustin sucks and can’t play, whereas Courtney Lee would be able to stay on the floor in just about any playoff series. Guys who can be a secondary ballhandler, have enough size to not get completely run over, and can shoot 40+% from 3 are valuable. I’d like to get a 2nd round pick back in that but honestly I’d prob do it just to get off Courtney’s 2019-20 $$ and to clear up some playing time for the kids.

A decent reason to sign Beasley if he’s willing to come just on a non-bird exception (ie. more than the minimum some other team might offer him) is that he could be a reasonable trade piece at the deadline. If Fizdale can make him shoot more 3’s, he’ll look a lot more efficient and could actually bring an asset, even if just a second rounder. Def would not give him more than a 1 year deal though.

@45

I’m wondering if having better insights into nutrition and training is allowing players so stay at their peak a little longer than the guys on that list.

NO BEASLEY.

The Beaz is the exact kind of player that gets hot from time to time and wins you meaningless games. Give the Beaz minutes to Isiah Hicks or whatever other no-hoper end-of-roster dude happens to be lurking around.

Beaz and Hardaway on the same team together gives you two guys who can do that streaky-hot, win-meaningless-games thing. You can afford one of those at the max.

This is probably correct, because this franchise has no idea what “win curve” means.

“Hey, we’re several years away, let’s sign a max contract guy who is going to steeply decline by the time those several years pass!”

It depends who it is and how old he is. Someone in their late 20s or older would not be very smart, but everyone doesn’t have to be 22 or younger.

IMO, we aren’t going to draft ourselves to serious contention from here. As soon as KP is back we are going to start winning some games. We’ll probably get a better draft pick next year than the talent warrants in the same way we did this year because KP and THJ were out, but it probably won’t be enough to get a top 5 pick. We are almost certainly going to have to trade or free agent our way into 1 or more stars the way the T-Wolves did (and will probably continue trying to do). We’ve been a year or two behind the T-Wolves because of missing picks and other errors.

Thomas Bryant just got released by the Lakers. We should give him a shot at least for summer league.

@53

This is the problem with free agents in all sports really. You’re paying for their past production. You very often pay a premium price for a player’s decline phase. There are generally only a handful of players in the league at one time who are truly worth a max contract.

If I know my New York Knicks, I know for sure they will be handing out a max contract to a guy who is really not a max contract player the absolute first time they get the chance.

I’m wondering if having better insights into nutrition and training is allowing players so stay at their peak a little longer than the guys on that list.

Maybe, but rookies are also privy to the same training and recovery. No reason to think that the young players wouldn’t get a boost from improvements in conditioning and nutrition.

If I know my New York Knicks, I know for sure they will be handing out a max contract to a guy who is really not a max contract player the absolute first time they get the chance.

Yes, I have to stop and remember that the new regime has no cap space, so we really don’t know if they won’t spend all their money on shitty veterans — or if they simply can’t.

The Knicks traded Timmeh for Jerian Grant the same year they drafted Porzingis. Then they traded Jerian for a big bag of nothing, and brought Timmeh back at an exorbitant price.

#Knicks

@58 I guess that qualifies, but they didn’t go into that draft with more than one first rounder, they made that deal on draft night (which we all thought at the time was a heist from the Hawks)

Jerian Grant got traded for Derrick Rose and the pick that eventually became Dame Dotson, and he has a shot to be a better basketball player than Jerian Grant. I’d call that series of transactions a small success considering we’d likely have paid TH2 big money anyway.

I forgot that in 2006 Isiah had #20 (Balkman) and #29 (Collins) as well.

So 5 1st round picks in 2 years could have worked out pretty well long term! (if he hadn’t given the full mid-level exception to terrible players every year and made so many shitty trades for vets and scrubs, of course)

Lakers + LeBron – Nance (lol) – Randle = 40 wins????

The Knicks have to be able to trade Lee pretty easily, he has one of the greatest contracts in the NBA.

That’s what I mean about him being a great ass-coverer. The most impressive thing about him is that he’s kept that job for, what, 18 years? That’s really impressive and I think he does it by mostly not doing anything out of the ordinary, so no one can ever say he tried and failed, ya know?

Bah god is that Mario Hezonja’s music?!

Paul George resigning with OKC I think is a bad decision. They essentially will return with the same team and get bounced again in the first round. Melo will shoot them out of games etc etc.

Mixed feelings on Herzonja. Surely we have too many wings. But Sacramento are showing interest so we’ve got to be above them right?

Dwight Howard potentially joining Golden State would be incredibly scary. Even a washed up D12.

There has to be a correlation between paying everybody market value and getting bounced in the first round. The Thunder probably have nobody on their team who gives them surplus value, and it’s one big 45 win stew.

Hezonja would be a great signing. Good low-risk move for a young player. I’d do three years $15-20m – 3rd-year team option.

Ariza to the suns a for a one year 15 mill deal.

Tolliver would be a fine one-year signing, but he’ll get better offers.

Ed Davis is a nice signing for the Nets. One year/$4.4 million. Wouldn’t have minded that for the Knicks.

Paul George re-signing with OKC. There goes the Lakers Big 3 idea for this year.
Let me get my violin out….. Finally the league mandate for everything going the Lakers way has failed.

Because of the repeater tax penalty, the Thunder currently have a tax bill of $130M. The tax bill would be the largest in NBA history.

Wow, seems like just yesterday that James L Dolan forked over $45,000,000 in taxes for the 23 games that his team won. Looks like Clay Bennet may beat the tax-dollars per victory record: a sports record I never thought would be broken.

I think one year contracts will be more common than usual this free agency period. Teams dont want to tie up cap space for next summer. That will mean there will be more dollars available next summe and salaries will go up. We have some leverage because, unlike most teams, we can offer a full mid-level. We should use it to get a good player on a one plus one where the second year is our option. It would worth paying a little more thus year to get that.

Wow, seems like just yesterday that James L Dolan forked over $45,000,000 in taxes for the 23 games that his team won. Looks like Clay Bennet may beat the tax-dollars per victory record: a sports record I never thought would be broken.

It’s obviously a lot of money and an absurd decision for everyone involved (except for Jerami Grant. That was a fine deal for him), but note that these teams should all be able to easily field $200 million payrolls, ya know?

I don’t hate the idea of Hezonja in a vacuum, but how many offense-only players is this team gonna bring in here?

I do hate the idea. It was ok having Beasley as a role player off the bench, but as starters I want as few one way players as possible.

It’s hard to get too excited by Herzonja, who made the big leap from terrible to almost mediocre this past season. On a team friendly contract he won’t hurt anybody, but if McDermott is setting a precedent for players of his ilk, I’d walk away now.

Apparently, the Warriors are thinking about him too

Dwight Howard the basketball player makes a ton of sense for almost every team, but Dwight Howard the human being is probably going to end up a Washington Wizard.

The Spurs probably should have never let Marco Belinelli leave, so it is good that they got him back. Talk about another guy who serves no point anywhere but on a good team!

Although, as I said that, what if the Spurs aren’t a good team next year? Uh oh.