(Monday, October 29, 2018 8:40:00 PM)
Rasheed Wallace’s mentorship paid dividends for Mitchell Robinson.
The 20-year-old rookie center had the best game of his short NBA career in Monday’s 115-96 victory over the Nets, collecting 11 points on 5-of-5 shooting with a couple highlight dunks.
Wallace, the former All-Star and NBA champion,…
(Monday, October 29, 2018 7:10:00 PM)
Tim Hardaway Jr.’s lip was busted and bleeding, courtesy of an elbow he absorbed while successfully taking a charge.
Inside the locker room, a doctor glued it back together and Hardaway Jr. returned to carry the Knicks to a 115-96 victory Monday over the Nets. It snapped the team’s five-game losing…
[Sports Illustrated] Three at 3: Underdog Nets Offer Great Value Against Knicks (Monday, October 29, 2018 2:30:52 PM)
The Nets thrive against uptempo teams and should be able to contain the Kevin Knox-less Knicks. Sports Illustrated analyzes that matchup and more in the Three at 3.
[NYTimes] Warriors 149, Bulls 124: Golden State’s Klay Thompson Sets 3-Pointer Record in Blowout Win (Tuesday, October 30, 2018 3:47:36 AM)
The Warriors guard hit 14 3-pointers against the Bulls, topping a record set by his teammate Stephen Curry in 2016.
(Monday, October 29, 2018 10:05:30 PM)
Tim Hardaway Jr. and Mitchell Robinson combined for 15 points during a key 23-6 run in the third quarter to lead the Knicks to a 115-96 win over the Nets on Monday.
(Monday, October 29, 2018 8:21:16 PM)
Knicks head coach David Fizdale brought in former player Rasheed Wallace to practice and hopes the former NBA champion can help rookie Mitchell Robinson become a more vocal player.
(Monday, October 29, 2018 5:11:36 PM)
The Knicks look to avenge their 107-105 loss to Brooklyn and snap their five-game losing streak when they host the Nets at Madison Square Garden on Monday night.
(Monday, October 29, 2018 7:53:17 PM)
Not even a swollen, stitched-up lip could stop Tim Hardaway Jr. from lighting it up again. The Knicks’ new go-to scorer, who took an elbow to the mouth from Rondae Hollis-Jefferson in the first half in drawing a charge, finished with 25 points, eight assists and five rebounds in the club’s 115-96 Garden win Monday…
(Monday, October 29, 2018 7:03:20 PM)
Rasheed Wallace may or may not be a long-term coaching consultant for the Knicks, but he’s certainly worth keeping around for the time being, especially if he continues to have the impact he has had so far. The former Knick and world champion with the Pistons spent the last few days working with project center…
(Monday, October 29, 2018 6:06:45 PM)
The Mitchell Robinson-Enes Kanter center tag team was a winning tandem Monday as the Knicks broke their five-game schneid. But everything is not all hunky dory in Knicks center-land despite the pair’s effectiveness against the Nets. Despite David Fizdale’s decree the Knicks aren’t “hunting for victories’’ by virtue of their youthful starting lineup, they managed…
(Monday, October 29, 2018 5:03:03 PM)
Though it’s before Halloween, Knicks coach David Fizdale already is not all caught up with “hunting for wins’’ and wasn’t concerned about matching up best for the Nets. That, in a nutshell, is why Fizdale didn’t budge and stuck with his baby starting lineup that had rookie project Mitchell Robinson at center and Enes Kanter…
(Monday, October 29, 2018 3:51:35 PM)
Kevin Knox, looking limber during pregame workouts while launching 3-pointers Monday at the Garden, is getting close to making his return. Indications are the rookie lottery pick, who injured his ankle on Oct. 20 against the Celtics, may be cleared for his first practice Tuesday. Though it’s a near certainty he won’t return Wednesday versus…
68 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2018.10.30)”
Berman:
Yeah, this could get ugly. I like Kanter, but dudes who have an overinflated sense of their own abilities can cause big problems when they’re treated at their actual ability level. (See also a certain jab-stepping, compression sleeve-wearing getter of pointz.)
Might be best to waive Enes at the trade deadline if there are no takers. That would give Luke a chance – the second unit would have a very different look. Burke/Kornet in PnPop would be interesting and Kornet would give some spacing which would open up driving lanes for Trier/Knox.
Projecting to next year, maybe Mitch plays 30mpg at center and KP 10mpg at center/20mpg at PF. That leaves just 8 minutes at center to fill. I don’t think Enes would be interested. Vonleh, however, would be perfect at 8mpg at center and could also take some minutes at PF if he keeps up his solid play. His advanced stats are waaay higher than previous seasons. They rate to regress some but much of what he’s doing looks sustainable – I mean it’s not like he’s hitting 3’s out there. His dime%, shot blocking, and defense have improved since last season and his turnover rate is lowest in his career (though just 1% better than last season).
The next important decision Fiz and FO will have to make is whether to send Trier to G League starting Nov 3. He’s the type of player where G League wouldn’t help his development. He’d put up scoring numbers there but he needs to focus more on his defense and dishing and ways of scoring against NBA caliber talent. The second unit on the NBA Knicks would be much better in that regard. Use up all of his allocated minutes for the next 1-2 months and then convert his contract and cut Baker to free up spot.
Great use of Sheed. How many times does a team carry a lousy or washed up player for their “veteran leadership”, and we as fans say to just hire them as a coach and let somebody good play.
Another positive baby step.
Good points, Zanzibar. Trier, like Dotson needs big club experience. If Dotson remained in the G-League we would not be seeing the all-around growth in his game that has flowered because of his continued NBA exposure. Trier would be the alpha shot maker on a minor league team and his evolution as an NBA player on both sides of the ball would be slowed. Baker is not an NBA player.
I have no illusions about the Knicks becoming a decent team for a few years, but it’s refreshing to lose with young players vs losing with a bunch of incapable mercenaries. And, no, we do not have much talent – playing or coaching.
Why are we sending Trier to the G-league?? Don’t we just have an open spot for him. Re: Noah got cut
CTC
Great line from Doncic against the Spurs last night outside of his 6 turnovers. Reminds me so much of Manu, just a little bigger and a little less explosive. Has a really exquisite floater.
Gee, the vet that started the season off so well gets benched so the raw kid can get some development minutes and we suddenly have the potential for a problem in the locker room.
Who would have guessed that?
Not that it matters much one way or the other because we were probably going to move on from Kanter anyway, but this is how you potentially screw up the value of the player if he asks for a trade and you feel obliged to make a move at the wrong time and for the wrong return.
@7
No, the Knicks still have 15 players plus Trier and Hicks as the 2 two-way slots.
Mudiay is the obvious choice, Trier has already won his minutes anyway.
Yes, this is what will ruin the prodigious trade value of Enes Kanter.
Kanter at is max trade value would net like two second rounders at the most. I doubt that has changed.
Kanter is just one in a long line of blunders by Knicks management. He has no trade value, given his salary. Can’t wait to see Kanter, Lee and Hardaway leave.
Wow, yeah that line from Doncic is great. That’s a rookie! Turnovers are horrendous but he’s 19. If this board had a rookie who could put up 31 points on 18 shots…
Best case for the Mavs is to tank like a mother fucker this year, convince Harrison Barnes that he can get another max from another team if he declines his player option, keep their 2019 pick for one of the studs up top, and roll into the next decade fully retooled. Doncic will be a Mav for the next decade and that’s fucking annoying.
He’s got such a slippery quality out there, he eels his way to the basket. It shouldn’t work but it clearly does.
Do you think Doncic is better than Ntilikina? 😉
It’s not about a roster spot. Courtney’s due to return and there will be a logjam at the 2. I prefer Trier get the bulk of the minutes instead of sending him to the G League. At this stage, I’d add a 2nd round pick as a sweetener to try to unload Courtney to some team. I’d also look at moving on from Lance by trade deadline. Don’t know if CBA permits us to do some type of buyout where we’re able to shed that 1m guaranteed of Lance’s contract next season. IMO this should the minutes priority:
1: Frank/Burke/Mudiay
2: Timmy/Trier/Courtney
3: Dot/Knox/Hezonja/Lance
4: Vonleh/Knox/Hezonja/Lance
5: Mitch/Enes/Kornet
Cool article from NC about the optimal distribution between two and three-pointers:
https://fansided.com/2018/10/22/nylon-calculus-shot-selection-3-pointers-constraints/
Upshot of the article is that while 3’s are incredibly valuable, a team that only shot 3s vs. a team that had a healthy mix (mostly 3s, some 2s) would have a slightly lower PP100Ps.
Frank Ntilikina now has a TS% of .523 and an eFG% of .500, probably all due to his 40% 3PT mark on 4 attempts a game. He’s gone from putrid to playable offensively, and that’s a plus.
If we do end up trading Enes Kanter, I hope it’s for pick between 25 and 40 and not something disastrous like John Wall.
Note for English Knick – If you’re interested, I found a single article from The Guardian that briefly discusses several cases of people being imprisoned for nasty/offensive social media posts. It’s nice that it’s summed up in one article. I’d be interested in your take; i’ll post it if you want to read it.
If Frank is Andre Roberson with a 3 pt shot and some play making ability, I’d be happy while hoping for more.
Do you think water is wet?
He started off well offensively, but as per usual his garbage defense was an easy target for other teams. If Kanter wants to get back into the starting lineup he should try to not be complete trash on defense, something he’s struggled to achieve throughout his NBA career.
Is Klay Thompson better than Tim Hardaway Jr.?
Is water wet? amirite?
The thing about Doncic that I got from watching those games is that his numbers are suffering a bit from the Mavs having zero decent shooters. Of course during an entire season this tends to even out, but it’s hard to watch him dishing out passes to open guys like Matthews and DSJ and see the bricks flying.
@ 14 – ?????????
This is the weirdest statement ever.
Kanter was acquired in the Melo trade. He wasn’t signed by the Knicks. He had to be included in a Melo trade bc Melo’s salary is so high they needed a player to at least come close to matching that. Unless you think Ryan Anderson would have been so much better.
That Melo trade got us Robinson. Kanter, even with his recent gripping, has been WAY better than Melo last year and this year. Seriously, would you like to watch this team WITHOUT Robinson, surrounded by an even worse Melo? Talk about depressing.
So how exactly is Kanter in the long line of “Knicks mistakes” if he was part of a trade that fixed a huge mistake by The Knicks?
I mean, yeah…he’s gonna be pissed. He’s started the whole time he’s been here. But if the Knicks play better with him on the bench he can’t exactly justify his attitude for long. Plus, he’s gonna get his minutes.
Mitchell’s minutes have zero to do with Kanter’s minutes, let’s not start a fake narrative. Last night Kanter played 26 minutes which is exactly the same amount of minutes he averaged last season (25.7) when he was super happy and professing his love for the Knicks. If he can’t understand his defense sucks and this team was on a 4 game losing streak and the coach felt like changing some stuff around, while keeping his minutes intact, well then it’s his problem.
If he’s complaining about wanting more minutes then start playing defense and he’ll get them. If it’s just the ego trip of wanting to see his name on the starting five, then he can FOH.
@27 Don’t bother with the troll.
@15, Jowles – didn’t the Mavs trade their 2019 pick unprotected for Doncic? So they can’t really tank…
Knicks got rid of their mistake (Melo) by inheriting the other team’s mistake (Kanter). At his salary, he is a mistake. As are Hardaway, Noah, Thomas, Baker, Lee, etc.
A long line of mistakes.
Doncic’s line is amazing for a veteran let alone a 20 year old player. He’s going to be so special on offense. That defense leaves something to be desired but it seems like barely anyone’s playing defense at the PG position in this league anymore.
@21 – by all means, post the link, I’ll definitely read it – would be interested to know more.
Water is liquid and can make things wet….lol…I also think Ntilikina sucks.
Ntilikina is good at defense but who cares?
@35
So was Shumpert.
Ntilikina, when seen and judged as a ‘whole’, is not very impressive. I think he is one of those players without a clear position or strength: he is not good enough to be a point guard and not good enough to be a shooting guard, either.
Now, I wish time proves me wrong, but he is just as promising as Shumpert was at that time. We know the outcome.
Z-Man, you changed your name? LOL.
@36 what an embarassingly dumb post.
@30
The pick Dallas sent is top 5 protected for the next two seasons, then top 3 and finally unprotected in 2022.
Dallas could be a fit for Courtney Lee. I never liked DSjr, and don’t think he’s a great fit with Luka, but there’s enough talent there with DJ and even Barnes that they aren’t likely to get a high draft position this year, so they may as well play for something, maybe make the playoffs in Dirk’s last season. I’d take a 2022 second round pick.
Unfortunately you’d probably have to give one, not take one.
I would call Washington and see if they’d do Rivers for Lee straight up and then just waive Rivers.
@English. Ok, let me know what you think
https://www.theguardian.com/law/2014/jun/13/jail-someone-for-being-offensive-twitter-facebook
I liked the trade but it leaves Washington without a back up point guard
Well it’s not like they had a backup PG with Austin Rivers either…
Just offer them one Mudiay, I’m sure they can’t refuse that.
Being a fan of Baker’s defensive grit, I kinda wish there was a way to get him on the G league team to see if there’s any growth in him. Especially now that we have a Trier and a Dotson to develop in the rotation. But the smart thing to do would be to waive him and move on from the erroneous contract. It’s kinda weird how Baker may be a better player than Mudiay, but Mudiay has more value to the team because can “push the pace and penetrate”
Ron Baker is 25. There’s no growth there.
I love Ron and think he’s a plus defender, but we aren’t gonna be kicking ourselves for our mistake if we let him go.
That said, if it’s really about merit, we’d still be cutting Mudiay.
Poor Mudiay- he played two minutes last night and I’m not sure he ever touched the ball but his OBPM is already -4.5!
The Knicks can afford to keep Vonleh, no?
It depends on whether we sign a max free agent or not, I guess. Without Bird rights, we can’t go over the cap to re-sign him. Obviously, I’d rather have Durant, but Vonleh returning even on a small contract is very much Plan B.
What I mean is that unlike, say, Hezonja, they could get max cap room even while keeping Vonleh’s cap hold, right? They wouldn’t be able to give him much of a raise, but they wouldn’t automatically lose him due to his cap hold.
As it stands, Vonleh is a player that we should not think about cutting. He just turned 23, his true shooting is above .600 (bound to come back down), and his rebounding, defense, and assist rate for his position can’t be ignored. He’s a younger O’Quinn.
Plus he’s a power-forward, and unless you count Lance or Knox, we have none.
Mudiay<<<<Lance<<<Baker<Hezonja<Kanter
It also kinda depends on the Porzingis situation, when they re-sign him and for how much. Assuming he gets a max and Lance is waived, so he counts for only 1 million, it should be possible to add a max guy and give him a contract too.
I’m not sure if that benefit comes with players signed to one-year deals. I know Burke’s cap hold is $2.3mm but we have his bird rights. Do we have Vonleh’s?
EDIT: I don’t have a cleaning the glass subscription but I know they have info on player’s cap holds.
The Knicks do not have Bird Rights on Vonleh, but his cap hold is only 120% of his current salary, which is the NBA minimum. So we’d be talking about losing $1 million (his cap hold minus the minimum cap hold) of cap space. That shouldn’t really matter, right? The issue is whether you think Vonleh will get offers for more than the room exception, which they would have available to use on him.
If you think he’ll get more than the room (which can be a minimum of 1 year/$4.6 million and a maximum of 2 years/$9.4 million), then yeah, they’d lose him. I don’t think he will be able to get that, so I think that they can keep him.
Cap holds are separate from Bird rights, if I understand things correctly. That his cap hold will be so small is definitely an advantage. This year’s small contract means his cap hold for next year will be small enough that we won’t have to renounce him to create max room if we have the ability to sign a max free agent. But if we wind up using all of our free cap space on Durant or someone like that, we also won’t have the ability to go over the cap to sign Vonleh to a new deal. He’d have to either take a minimum salary, or we’d have to use part of whatever exceptions are available to us next year. It’s not out of the realm of possibility; it’s just trickier than it would be if Perry had gotten him to agree to a 1-and-1 contract with a team option for the second year. Whereas with Burke, we have Early Bird rights in addition to him having a small cap hold (albeit not as small as Vonleh’s), so we have more flexibility to retain him if the FO wants to.
Boggles my mind that KOQ can’t see the floor on a playoff team. Are we the only people in the world who know that O’Quinn is amazing?
I’ve always been Team Optimist but I’m pretty ecstatic right now. The Nets are not good but a win that comes because of our young guys playing well is a pretty amazing feeling. We’ve got a lot of potential on this squad. Frank, Robinson, Knox, Trier, KP…then you got Vonleh, Timmy…Timmy is playing pretty good right now, no? And he’s still pretty young. No reason he can’t be a part of the core for the remainder of his contract or if he keeps it up, we might be able to include him in a trade for someone else. Oh, and Dotson.
Again, trying not to get too excited. Its just the Nets…but the fact that we had that nice 3 and a half quarters against The Warriors and then beat the Nets with this new starting 5…its promising, no? Even an old curmudgeon like Jowles has to be a little bit encouraged, no?
@ 59 – remember though that KQ was very up and down his first year here with us. Maybe not getting an offer from The Knicks and having to go to a new team made him lose focus a bit. Plus The Pacers are a much better team than us.
I may be missing something, but what good is holding on to his cap hold without his bird rights? You can’t go over the cap to re-sign him (like you can by holding onto Porzingis or Burke’s cap hold), so you might as well just renounce him and take the space.
If you give Vonleh a one-year deal at the room after using the cap hold, then you have Early Bird rights for him for the following season, and you could then pay him the mid-level.
But yes, if you renounce him, you could still give him a two-year room exception deal and get the same basic benefit.
@61
His per 36 numbers are currently 25/15/6 on 66 TS%. Granted it’s a 40 min sample, but he clearly merits time on a playoff team over at least Domantas Sabonis (who has also been good.) He’s probably the best big on the team.
Gotcha. Then I think I’d rather have the extra $1mm in space and sign him with the room if I really wanted him. Seems like forfeiting space for no reason.
McMillan has some weird ass rotations. In the game against Portland he played Bogdanovic for 37 minutes even though he was shooting poorly, then Young and Turner for 31 and then had Sabonis take all the minutes as the only backup big (with Leaf getting 4 minutes). It really just makes no sense.
That quote from Fiz about TH2 shows that he gets it. He’s not gonna just call him the leader because of his paycheck. He’s gonna make everyone earn their keep. Putting Kanter on the bench is another example. If you’re a walking minus number you’re gonna need to take responsibility for that. He’s playing young guys, rewarding DEFENSE, and the team is much more competitive than years past. That and he’s not overvaluing wins (I can’t believe I just wrote that). He’s establishing habits and a culture.
I think we’re headed to a great draft pick and I think Fiz is gonna keep KP’s feet on the ground when he comes back. Two excellent players plus what we have may mean that next year we start sniffing playoffs.
We also are in position to add FA’s this summer. I think that’s where we’ll truly see if we’re headed in the right direction. My hope is not to give a max unless it’s KD. Otherwise, make some value signings and put the money back in your pocket. Accept incremental improvement.
Boy, TOR is very good. What an upgrade with Leonard. That whole rotation falls into place now. Siakam is sick as an energy do everything defender and finisher. Lowery looks more comfortable as a true 2nd option. Would not be surprised to see them in the finals at all.