Knicks Morning News (2018.11.08)

Derek Fisher……how do you NOT ask if you have to run the triangle, when you know the guy ran the triangle for decades, and you ran it when you played for him? texting Matt Barnes to sucker punch him.

But at this point, the stats are pretty obviously in Mudiay’s favor on both ends.

Everyone knows that Mudiay is further along with his handle and passing skills. He’s the more natural PG. The problem is he can’t defend or shoot (but is more willing to do so).

There’s nothing in Mudiay’s multi-year record that indicates he can be an NBA player other than his size, athletic ability, and some PG skills. I have no problem with trying to develop him, but one of these players is already close to being an elite defender and just needs to add a 3 pointer to be an above average NBA player. The other is bad on both sides of the ball and older.

If you want to argue that Frank would be better off playing off the ball and the Knicks should continue their search for a traditional PG, I have no issue with that. We’ll see how that work out. If you want to argue that Mudiay s the better player/prospect or better on “both” sides of the ball, that’s delusional no matter how it all turns out.

The Knicks “bottomed out to get Porzingis” by locking down their most valuable trade asset to a Mega Max extension along with a no trade clause and trading their second most valuable trade asset for Jose Calderon and Samuel Dalembart. In other words, they did not bottom out to get Porzingis, Phil Jackson just misunderstood how shitty the team was and then, when they were 5-35, he then started dealing away players (when they were already 5-35!) and then as soon as he could, he filled the team up with short term veterans and then signed a bunch of long-term free agents and traded for Derrick Rose.

I disagree with most of this, but you already know that. 🙂

Phil inherited a team with multiple missing draft picks and a several players that were immature trouble makers or that wanted out. He decided to blow it up. After seeing how bad they were later after that, he put Melo on the shelf early for surgery in order to bottom out and rebuild with a combination of the remaining 1st round draft pick (that turned out to be Porzingis), anything he could salvage or find in the 2nd round (guys like Early and Ant that didn’t pan out), and a mix of FAs, and Melo.

From there you can legitimately debate the moves.

You already know which I think were bad and which I think were just cap space rollovers or one year low risk moves that were blown out of proportion.

However, the goal was to continue using a mix of draft picks (ultimately KP, Frank, Dotson, Willy etc..), cap space (that went to Hardaway and Baker via Mills) and continue to slowly get better. That’s the way rebuilds are generally supposed to work. You are supposed to bottom out and then slowly get better. You aren’t supposed to bottom out and continue to get worse.

This team is younger and picked up some good prospects via draft, but we have no idea what Phil would have done with that same cap space or who he would have drafted or traded.

Derrick Rose 7-9 from three last night. Mudiay is bad but not as bad as I expected so far this year.

Missed the game last night. I’m curious how much, if at all, Frank influenced Trae’s poor shooting night.

From casual observation: He was all over him preventing him from being a major part of the action when he was on the court in the 1st half. He got in foul trouble and Trae also did better against him in the 2nd half. Frank looked very good last night, but he missed an easy shot near the rim and had a couple of “Frank being indecisive” TOs.

Thank you, Strato.

You can stretch as many players as you want as long as dead cap space doesn’t make up a certain percentage of the cap. I’m not sure exactly what the percentage is. Maybe 20%? Whatever it is, we’re not close. We can definitely create the room without having strip the roster.

Strat, again I have to clarify that my comment refers to only this year’s stats, which unequivocally favor Mudiay over Frank at this point, even on defense.

I’m not buying any stat that suggests Mudiay is defending better than Frank. The sample has to be too small. The eye test is far from perfect, but imo Frank is defending much better.