Knicks Morning News (2019.05.20)

Sounds like Frankie’s on the block for a late first, and they’ve already spoken with Alexander-Walker.

Frank for a 1st would be a coup

I believe Frank will be better this year, but probably not for us. He still has potential, but even if he is better, he’s not the sort of player Knick’s management likes. He is very unlikely to be great, even if better, so it’s not a catastrophe if he goes.

Frank is a 36% 3-pt shot away from being a valuable player.

If history repeats itself, Mills will sign Frank for $18 million a year when he becomes a free agent.

Jowles, are you on the Tacko train yet?

In this draft, you could do a lot worse with a mid-to-late second.

I would not be surprised if we got a late first/early 2nd for Frank.
1. He’s still just 20 and was a top-ten pick.
2. You could excuse other teams for thinking the Knicks have screwed him up thus far.
3. A lot of teams could use a good, switchable, situational defender (that can pass pretty well) to come in and lock down wings while giving the starters a breather (10-15 min a game?)
You could probably get a vet defender a little cheaper than him, but the minor potential is worth a #25 – #50 pick and the extra salary, especially to a team that just needs another luxury piece or two. I could see the Warriors doing it if they have the cap space.

Yeah, I’d probably pass on his in the late first just because of team need, and he’s not likely to be even close to a Boban, who is supremely productive but I admit unplayable against modern lineups with like 4 wings.

I would be much more inclined to pick up a high-production upperclassman (no projects, please) in the late 20s than take a guy who absolutely cannot play next to Mitch. At this point, I would not draft another center unless he were a Towns-level talent with excellent trade value. The team needs ball handlers and wings.

I’m typically a BPA guy for Knicks drafting, but that’s mostly because the Knicks never have enough good players to draft on positional fit over pure production.

I could see the Warriors doing it if they have the cap space.

Call me crazy, but there is no way in hell that the Warriors are trading for a guard or wing who can’t handle or shoot the ball. You can get away with being a poor shooter (Dray, Iguodala) if you are a master of transition offense or motion passing. You can get away with having a mediocre handle (Klay) if you can shoot. You can’t lack both of those things in their offense. They’d basically be getting a worse version of Pat McCaw. Far worse, and McCaw isn’t very good to begin with.

Good thing we have the 31st pick so we can take a flyer on a guy that falls like Mitch! Oh wait.

UGH. When are we officially done with issues caused directly by Phil? When Joakim comes off the books? When we stop re-signing Lance Thomas to be a veteran presence?

Great move by me last night sticking with Raps/Bucks instead of Game of Thrones. I’m really proud of that decision.

Budenholzer is fucking ruthless, man. This is the playoffs for relentless trapping. Siakim finally made the Bucks pay for it. My man Danny Green looks washed.

I’m happy I have 8-1 odds on the Bucks but I can’t see this working against the Warriors. There’s no reward for getting the ball out of Curry or Durant’s hands, it just goes to the other guy.

I’m trying to figure out who would want Ntilikina.

Anyone who is a sucker for lottery pedigree is the only answer I can come up with.

I’m trying to figure out who would want Ntilikina.

I mean, for a late second rounder? I guess a lot of teams, even if Frank sucks. Everyone loves a redemption arc. A few might try to see if it works for them (spoiler: it won’t).

Look, the kid is still 20 years old and we talk about him as if his complete and total failure in the NBA has already been determined. We might not be on the reasonable side of this argument.

There are probably teams willing to take a flier on him, especially if they trust their player development system. Brooklyn, for instance, makes sense. They have the 27th pick (from Denver) and the 31st pick (from us). Those seem too high. But Frank and a future 2nd for one of those picks seems reasonable.

Frank will never be an NBA player. Not every 20-year-old improves enough to be a starter. He never should have been in the league to begin with.

If you look at it from a pure value standpoint, he’s probably as likely to succeed as most new second picks would be, but he does cost more than them. From the Knicks point of view a late second pick is probably just buyable. It’s also not worth much to them because it’s not much more likely to produce value than just finding a free agent. So I don’t see why they would do that deal. An early second rounder would be worth it, but I don’t see that happening.

Frank’s TS% is somewhat misleading.

Here we go.

Frank is being badly misused. Last year they were trying to develop him and make him into a more aggressive player that penetrates, scores, and makes plays off the dribble. That’s kind of like asking Steve Novak to create for himself and shoot off the dribble or asking Mitchell to start shooting turn around off balance jumpers from mid range. It’s going wreak havoc on their efficiency because they don’t have that skill at an adequate level to even consider it

Frank can never fail, he can only be failed

As the guy who was crucified here for having the temerity to insist that Frank never was and will never be a PG, I still believe he can be a valuable player in the correct role, specifically as a 3-and-D low-usage opportunistic wing. He’s two years ahead of where Andre Roberson and Shump were when they came into the league and he has similarities to both. I’t trade him for a 1st in a heartbeat and probably for a low 2nd. I’d also dump his salary for a more promising young player. But I’m also cool with giving him one more chance without any illusion that he should play a single minute as a lead guard.

I’d be fine with sticking with Frank if they weren’t going into “Win now” mode this upcoming season. Since they are, they probably might as well trade him for cap purposes. $5 million can buy you a couple of decent back of the rotation veteran players. You know, guys you could get by doubling the vet minimum. Or one better than back of the rotation veteran players.

Someone out there thinks they can tu ry n Frank around. The question is how desperate are they for that attempt? Not very.

On the other hand, the Knicks need to dump Frank’s salary to keep Trier. You’ll likely see the Knicks give up another asset–a 2nd round pick–just to have another team take Frank into their cap space. The Knicks have no leverage for this trade.

If you think Frank is divisive on this blog, you should read the thread about him possibly getting traded on P & T!

I think people who defend Frank are in love with the idea of Frank. And the idea of Frank is quite intriguing. A super lanky elite defender who can guard 4 positions, plays team oriented ball and can cover PG duties.

The problem is that besides the defense, he’s shown really nothing else. I want to like Frank so much. He seems like a geniunely really nice kid and I do think injuries and confidence have held him back. Maybe he can have more success on a team like The Spurs. Maybe he can turn into a serviceable NBA player in 3 or 4 years. But I think its time to cut our losses. Not every draft pick is going to turn out good. Its just the reality of the draft.

If we can get a late first round or early second round pick, I think we go for it.

And it just brings me back to my recent mode of thinking about how it might be easier for teams to draft good players later in the draft these days cause you don’t have to take someone because they’re a consensus top pick. You can go for upperclassmen who are more polished or risky dues with homerun potential like Mitch.

But you can’t have him driving and shooting mid range, posting up smaller players, creating off the dribble etc.. like last year and expect his TS% to rise to adequate levels given where he is now. That was a total shit show and misuse by Fizdale and Knicks in his developmen

This year Frank increased his percentage of 3PA (.314 to .408), drastically cut down on 16<3 shots (.268 to .121), and cut down a bit on his shots at the rim (.174 to .152). It sounds like to this extent this misuse took place, it wasn't even significant enough to tangibly register.

I'm not gonna get on you too much because, to be honest, it also felt to me like he was taking more kind of pseudo isolation shots this year. It ain't in the numbers though. During his rookie season, it was common to see people complaining that his role wasn't expansive enough (“he’s just sitting in the corner!”). Occam’s Razor suggests we have a bad player on our hands, regardless of his role.

And that is the biggest risk we face as a organization long term. Not specific to Frank, but in general with all our young players.

We only have one young player who is worth caring about. We didn’t tank hard enough for too long, and so now we have a cupboard with one asset in it. Maybe we’ll add a second asset in this year’s draft.

We should have been collecting assets instead of investing resources in the Arron Afflalos and Joakim Noahs of the world, then maybe we would have more than one decent young player on the roster, and it might make sense to be concerned about the team’s young core. But we didn’t, so ther is no young core to speak of, so if you have to “start from scratch” it shouldn’t take too long to get back to where we are right now.

@43

If I was Frank’s agent I’d try to convince him to ask for a trade. His career would be better served in a patient organization like the Spurs or Raptors. He’d at least have a chance to fulfill his potential. He’s being ruined in NY so far.

In NY talk they talk a good game about defense, building the right way, not taking any short cuts etc.. but the team, media, and fans have the patience of a fruit fly.

If he loves NY, the Nets would also be a good place to go fro development, but I doubt we’ll trade with the Nets. I have a feeling he’s going to wind up in Dallas or Philadelphia where there seems to be some interest.

3-4 years of Durant will be the best basketball we’ve seen since Ewing left. Why are we complaining about it?

Plus, we have a surplus of 1st round picks coming in and Mitch. Our future seems fine to me.

We only have one young player who is worth caring about.

I might be alone but I am optimistic Knox will improve next year.

If I was Frank’s agent I’d try to convince him to ask for a trade. His career would be better served in a patient organization like the Spurs or Raptors. He’d at least have a chance to fulfill his potential. He’s being ruined in NY so far.

Strat’s fan fiction where there are all these contenders just dying to get a taste of Frank Ntilikina is one of his more entertaining things.

In any lottery system there is no guarantee you select first or get a good player most of the time. That why’s takes so long to build that way (that and waiting for teenagers to get good)

With a few less Courtney Lee-fueled marginal wins we might have De’Aaron Fox instead of Frank and Wendell Carter instead of Knox. Then, perhaps, we could have a real conversation about this trade off. We didn’t though, so the only thing worth debating is whether or not we should trade the guy we found in the second round. The other guys are bums.

So derozan was mentioned as a comp for barrett yesterday and i think that’s an ok comp… but comps are going to be hard since there hasn’t been many freshman who fit his profile exactly…. and that’s basically a SF who both scores very well with an inconsistent jumper.. and passes very well but also a bit deficient defensively….

i looked across a number of categories to see what the possibilities are.. i went as far back as 1990 and looked at SG/SFs picked in the first round with freshman year stat lines with the following benchmarks:

2p fg%> .500
pts p40 > 20.0
reb p40 > 7.0
asts p40 > 3.0
stls + blks < 2.0
ft% < 70%

nobody fit that profile exactly but there's a bunch who came close and they're listed below…. i put them into percentiles based on their career outcomes… but this is a back of the napkin modeling so take it with some grain of salt…

0-20% percentile
Low – derrick williams
High – jeff green

this what a bust outcome looks like… if rj doesn't pass/handle well and if his scoring doesn't develop then you're looking at a journey man type… mind you both of these guys are nba players so you should have some level of comfort that he won't be a frank/knox type of pick.. but if barrett doesn't improve at all then his career will sorta look like these guys…

20-80%
Low – jalen rose
Jason richardson
Richard jefferson
High – steve smith

this is where we get into the bulk of the likely outcomes… here you start to get an idea of what the upside is if barrett's game develops well… if his shot materializes the upside is steve smith… if he tempers his usage he's probably jefferson… if the shot doesn't come and he keeps shooting and missing then he's probably rose/jrich.. You might think this list isn't all that sexy but this is actually pretty solid considering that he showed a lot more scoring ability than these guys at the same age and hence some upside left… and that’s:

I think everyone is wrong about Barrett. He hit all of Ed Weiland’s benchmarks for being a good SF prospect, no red flags. I would love his defensive numbers and 3pt% to be higher but if they were he’d be taken number 2 or even be in the conversation for #1. I very much like Ed Weiland’s work around the draft and he says the things you look for in a small forward are:
2pt%: < 50% – RJ – 52.9%
3pt% < 30% – RJ – 30.8%
Pts: < 18 – RJ – 25.7
ASB: < 5 – RJ – 6.4
Ast/TO: < 0.6 – RJ – 1.33

The only benchmark he barely passed was 3pt% but he easily hit all the other as a young freshman in the ACC. On top of that his pts greatly exceeded the benchmark and Weiland said that his biggest surprise when doing the research was that scoring frequently in college is more an indicator of success that scoring efficiently.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-to-look-for-in-an-nba-draft-prospect/

@18

Frank’s problem is that he’s an INFP.

As an ENTJ, I’m not shy about saying that you’re probably right and that he needs to develop a pair!

Implode is more like it. Maybe what we’re seeing is what happens when they blow up?

As the guy who was crucified here for having the temerity to insist that Frank never was and will never be a PG, I still believe he can be a valuable player in the correct role, specifically as a 3-and-D low-usage opportunistic wing. He’s two years ahead of where Andre Roberson and Shump were when they came into the league and he has similarities to both.

Roberson is an interesting comp – my sense is that Frank is not nearly as big as Roberson, and so prob would still be overmatched against the monster 3/4 hybrid wing players that everyone needs to stop (ie. Lebron, Giannis, Durant, etc). Not only is he not as big as Roberson, he’s not as good as Roberson defensively either. No doubt Frank is better at ballhandling and shooting that Roberson (or at least has a lot more potential there), but Roberson is great on cuts and around the rim, whereas Frank is basically allergic to the restricted area.

Yeah i put down LRMaM and Aminu precisely because they are defense first, barely acceptable shooters — I kinda see that as Frank’s most likely successful outcome. Aminu is making $7.5MM/year which is probably a fair deal for both sides. Mbah a moute has pretty much been a vet’s minimum guy. So just looking at it money-ball style, there’s not that much to be lost by just letting Frank go – it’s not like he’s any sort of bargain on a rookie contract. In fact, the guy who will likely replace him (Kadeem Allen) in the rotation is better AND cheaper.

In NY talk they talk a good game about defense, building the right way, not taking any short cuts etc.. but the team, media, and fans have the patience of a fruit fly.

1) The franchise has been helmed by morons for two decades. The best executive of the bunch — Donnie Walsh — traded four players and four draft picks for Carmelo Anthony and an end-of-career ex-star who was amnestied for no good reason at all.

In other words, he [Jim Dolan] called me at a certain point… he was out there, and I was reading about it and all that… and he said ‘Well here’s what it’s gonna take, and I don’t think it’ll get done if you don’t do this.’ And it was the deal kinda that got done. And he said – might’ve been the same or another phone call – and he said, ‘Look Donnie, I’m not a basketball guy. I can’t make this decision. So this is your decision.’ And I said ‘Ok, I wanna call Mike D’Antoni.’ Mike didn’t really wanna do it either. And I thought, “We’re never gonna get a guy like Carmelo Anthony if we don’t do this deal… and so I’m gonna do it.” And I made up my mind. I kinda knew I’d have to give up Gallinari, who I loved, and Wilson Chandler who I loved too. I thought any deal we were gonna do to get Carmelo that was gonna happen. But I didn’t like giving up Moz, and I didn’t like giving up, uh… the little point guard.

Read that shit again, because those are the words of the smartest roster manager we’ve had up until the current regime. “The little point guard,” indeed.

2) The media is composed of blowhards, idiots and blowhard idiots. They’re meaningless.

3) The fan consensus is also irrelevant, if not imaginary. It is, however, sick of losing.

Ntilikina showed no improvement whatsoever this year and continues to be perhaps the single worst player in the NBA over the last two years. There is no reason to be patient with his development when it’s abundantly clear that he’s…

…not even NBDL-worthy.

Certain people think they can coach instincts and ball skills like it’s tying one’s shoes. If the strategy is to sign 18-year-old abject, indisputably-terrible scrubs and give them two full contracts before their prime years, all in the hopes that by year 10 they’re actually good, the strategy is fucked up beyond repair. Rookie contracts are too valuable (see: Pascal Siakam) to waste on four years of 17-win-contributor production.

It’s becoming more and more clear that older, already-developed players are likely the new market inefficiency (outside of #1 picks gifted to grifting franchises like New Orleans and Cleveland) and yet we’re still here trying to figure out if a career .430 TS% shooter (2610 minutes played) will someday be worthy of his third contract extension.

What if, like, we actually try to draft and sign good, productive players instead of squinting at the dumpster fire and calling it a space heater?

“If they had properly tanked and we had Fox and Doncic on the team what you’re saying would make sense.”

Think about that for a minute – ouch!

The refs sure were whistle happy last night. In between whistles there was actually an exciting game taking place. These have been some of the most exciting NBA playoffs in recent memory. Lot’s of OT games.

“If Frank just adds a three point shot and fixes his dribble a little he’ll be good.”

Okay, sure! That is probably true. The problem is, you can say those things about any shitty, failed prospect. If any player stops being shitty at the things at which they are shitty, then yes, that player will improve! It’s meaningless. With this mindset there is no such thing as a young player without promise.

And sure, guards take longer to develop. And Frank is young. Those are variables that need to be factored in. But he is still terrible compared to other guards his age. He is like a 21 year old who is hitting .220 in low A ball. Sure, he’s only 21, but there are other 21 year olds that are raking in AA. Odds are that the kid hitting .220 in low A is not going to be a better player than the kid the same age who is mashing in AA.

Dallas and Orlando are pretty much on record wanting Frank and there were reports out of Philly yesterday that were tossing out ideas for which picks they could give up to get him. There’s interest from people that value his defense and that are willing to try to develop his offense over several years.

Do you have a source for any of this? I just searched and the only thing I could find was this Sixers blog talking about how the Sixers should not trade for Frank due to all of the obvious reasons (and they weren’t responding to any particular rumor).

Maybe the Nets will give us the Travis Outlaw/Wear Bear/Save James Dolan A Few Dollars pick back for Frank Nitti!

If you were to dream up an unrealistic scenario in which Frank becomes an impact player, it might not even be the one most often thrown out there. 3-and-D wings are being phased out of the playoffs at this point. But he is 6’6 and allegedly has playmaking skills. He can defend the post very well. If I were Frank, I’d focus on becoming a better rebounder and try to turn myself into the poor man’s Draymond Green. The mentality gap between the two seems impossible to bridge, though.

Frank averages one dunk per 326 minutes played. Lots of upside.

Do you have a source for any of this? I just searched and the only thing I could find was this Sixers blog talking about how the Sixers should not trade for Frank due to all of the obvious reasons (and they weren’t responding to any particular rumor).

There was “blue checkmark” source out of Philly that was retweeted that was talking about possible picks that could be used, but I’m not going to spend a lot of time looking for it. They may be related.

I would allege that Grunwald, not Walsh was our best recent GM.

The Bargnani trade happened under Grunwald. I needn’t say more.

3p shooting is very volatile…. it’s volatile even with nba usage…. and it’s even more volatile when college players are shooting ~50-100 in a season…. it’s not indicative of much which is why ppl look at ft%… smith and jefferson didn’t have <70% their freshman years but they each shot sub 70% later in their college careers…. i don't know why you want to handwave everything else based on one metric when they're pretty similar all things considered…

and i don't know what you're reading… but barrett can hit a jumpshot… he's not shaq where he's getting all his numbers in the paint… it's just not consistent and he has a shot selection problem… he has a low release point.. it's a bit slow… it's a bit flat.. but it's not like that all the time… his problem is consistency… and consistency on a jumpshot isn't the most impossible thing to develop… it's actually the one skill if you had to choose to be deficient in to bet on developing….

not so optimistic the blazers can win one this series…

Occam’s Razor sez Frank just sucks

Definitely a major error on the part of Frank’s agent that he wasn’t able to hack basketballreference.com and thus give his client some trade value

3p shooting is very volatile

This is true but you fail to look at his complete outside shooting profile: 3FG%, FT%, spot-up%, off-the dribble%. When someone is lousy or meh at ALL of them, that’s very relevant for an SG/SF. You also didn’t include turnovers. It appears you are cherry-picking stats to place him in the best possible light. TBH, I’d place more weight on Frank’s and Z-man’s predictable optimistic post-draft takes that he’s got the heart of a lion and a Einsteinian IQ than a flawed stats review.

Like I wrote a couple of days ago, I could be encouraged – indeed want to be encouraged – if somebody presented some more compelling stats. At the moment, it looks like the main argument is that he’s got an NBA physique and he scores. But then I look at these Synergy stats as of 3/16:
HC offense: 54th percentile
Spotup: 53rd percentile
ISO: 26-60, 59th percentile
PnR: 65th percentile
Cuts: 20th percentile
Off screens: 12-37, 20th percentile
Handoffs: 14-41, 30th percentile
Finishing at rim: 53%, 45th percentile

He should start by deleting BPM, WS48, PER and all the other garbage “all in one” stats and show highlights of his defense on Harden and say “this can be yours every night” if you would just stop trying to turn him into a scorer. Go get Durant and no defense Irving for that. 🙂

Yes, Frank Ntilikina’s agent should brag about how James Harden averages a mere 43/7/7 with a 60% TS against his client.

One thing’s for sure: if you stick Frank on James Harden, Harden is not scoring a SINGLE POINT above 61!

Frank was set back by both injuries and a management change. He can still be a good player. The team played more smoothly with him on the floor as point guard. But Fizdale was willing to go with a defense first lineup for only four or five games the entire season. So Frank was forced to switch positions. He also lost time to offense first point guards that weren’t any better than him. They just had different flaws than him. That’s a lot to put on a very young sophomore player.

@100, pretty sure you got Tyreke and RJ’s stl+blk numbers backwards. RJ’s stl numbers are worrisome for a 2-guard. Unless a pace adjustment really boosts RJs numbers, the Weiland system mentioned above should put a giant red flag on Barrett for that.

Anyway, it’s not that RJ is a terrible prospect. Its that RJ looks a lot like a high scoring, low-efficiency player who can’t play defense, but will get paid because he’s still young and was drafted high.

Furthermore, the #3 pick this year saddles us with a player who has negligible value over the next string of picks. We won the right to pay RJ Barrett more money for a similar level of projected value as the 4 or 5 picks. RJ has more perceived value than Culver and likely makes a better trade candidate than his actual value projects.

I dunno, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck. RJ sure does look like an inefficient volume scorer who doesn’t really defend enough, and I’m not really moved by the “Steve Nash’s godson” intangibles stuff.

I’d be looking to trade him, or the pick, or whatever.

in case you need a laugh – here’s the magic interview from espn’s “first take” this morning…it’s some great stuff…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffERoFUVE8M

https://www.instagram.com/p/BxsrxInhePN/?igshid=2jnb3i0a2da

I present this without comment

https://www.instagram.com/p/BxsrxInhePN/?igshid=2jnb3i0a2da

I present this without comment

Damn, he really shook that cone!

@104

But that’s the thing, man. We didn’t “process” and tank. We’ve kept attempting to compete, landing high picks only to the extent that said attempts have been spectacular failures. We only bottomed out this year because KP’s injury pretty much forced our hand.

Moreover, the process is only half about losing games – it’s also about using cap room to accumulate assets in return for taking other teams’ bad contracts. This is how the Nets have made so much progress out of Billy King-induced purgatory despite a lack of picks, and it’s something we’ve failed to do. Instead, our cap space has done to bad contracts for mediocre vets that have weakened our stock of draft assets.

I’m in favor of a trade because instead of adding RJ to to the promising young core we’d likely have if we’d picked higher in the years since drafting KP, we’re adding him to a promising second rounder and a bunch of prospects ranging from mediocre to terrible. Since the cupboard is so bare, there isn’t much opportunity cost to going into full-on win-now mode around a pair of superstars, if we can get them.

If we’d landed Zion I would be 100% against a trade, because I think he’s a LeBron caliber prospect and a player like that on a rookie contract is literally priceless, the most valuable asset there can be in the NBA.

If I thought the possibility of us actually doing a proper process was on the table, I’d actually rather we do that than go full win-now, because I don’t think we’ll be able to assemble a true contender around KD/Kyrie before they become bad contracts. Even with the lotto odds, I think the process is still a rational strategy for a team with infinite resources like us, because it caps how far you can fall in the draft. History has shown our FO to be incapable planning such a long-term strategy, however, let alone actually executing it, so I’m all aboard the KD/Kyrie/Beal train.

@106

I agree with most of what you say here, but regarding Lonzo Ball, I don’t think his shooting in the NBA could have been predicted just by differences in shot selection. He shot 67% on free throws in college, better than RJ. His nosedive to a DeAndre Jordan-like 44% from the stripe over 2 NBA seasons has to be more than just variance; it seems like one of those Marquelle Fultz-esque mental or biomechanical things.

I know we didn’t process but we did bottom out this year with the worst record in the league and # 3 was a very likely outcome and now we are basically all wanting to trade away the consensus 3rd best prospect in the draft bc he doesn’t fit some people’s statistical profile of what a good player is. RJ Barret could easily turn into an all star and from what I can read, the biggest knock people have on him is that he’s not a great shooter. Other than that, the other knocks are efficiency, which is tied into shooting, and that he might not be great at defense, although he isn’t a bad defender.

Why not draft him, let him be the back up for KD and learn on the job? That way if he does turn out to be good, we got a nice young player on a rookie contract with his bird rights who will sign his second contract when KD and Irving are old?

Also, semi related. If Philly tops out as a 50 win team that gets to the second round, would that make the process worth it? Cause that might be where they’re headed….

I am definitely in the keep Barrett and most of our youth camp. We could jettison them all and get more productive veterans but they would all have zero upside and be hired guns simply chasing a ring, or we could sign Durant and Irving and try and build a longterm thinking team that is just as interested at winning next year as building a team that can win over the next decade. Even if that team is a bit worse over the next couple years keeping our young players and hoping a couple of them turn into productive starters that we can both be invested in and can keep for a long time is much preferable to bringing in a bunch of solid but unexciting veterans to chase a title as fast as possible.

I might be the only one but I didn’t really like the 2012 Knicks. I liked Pablo and Chandler and maybe Novak and Copeland a bit, but t wasn’t very fun to root for and completely collapsed after one year. If we trade away all our youth chasing the Covingtons of the world we might be better next year but we will have a very empty cupboard in three or four years when Durant starts to decline.

Keep Barrett, Knox, Frank, and Smith Jr. and see if any of them continue to develop. They are all still under 21 and long way from showing us their longterm value.

1) Steph Curry has 25 points at the half with 9 FGA. That is insane.

2) Part of me thinks RJ Barrett and Mitchell Robinson on $10M AAV over the next three years is an unbelievable value, but then the other part of me thinks it would literal insanity to not add prime Anthony Davis if we’re going all in on a championship. I’m pretty sure I’m RJ Barrett’s biggest fan on Knickerblogger and if push came to shove, I would not trade our young guys for Anthony Davis. I don’t think you can make a poor decision either way, though.

Reminder that nominally serious folks in the media ran countless articles asking if Austin Romine should start over Gary Sanchez last season, basically because Sanchez got injured once

and, couldn’t really “catch” the ball, or, run to first…

I think a lot of this was related to the lingering groin injury. He also had god awful BABIP luck last year, which as you can see is turning around as expected. Between that and the injuries, I think people lost their damn minds over a frustrating but easily explainable bump in the road in an otherwise awesome career.

Thompson’s D really is good. He may be one-dimensional on offense, but he fits so well with what his team needs.

Yikes, you have to feel some sympathy for the fans of whoever is up against the Warriors when their big 3 are intact. It must feel like the way it felt when we’d meet the MJ Bulls in the playoffs. Even if it looks like things are going well, you just know in the back of your mind, there is no f’ing way.

Portland blew 17 point leads in game 2, 3 and 4, they really only got themselves to blame.

I’m not saying it’s easy to maintain leads against the Warriors, but they had plenty of chances and gave them up every single time. They scored 16 points in the 4th against the Warriors without Iguodala and Durant, playing Alonzo McKinnie in crunch time, that’s just not acceptable.

It just goes to show how top heavy the West actually is, with the 3rd through 8th teams besides Houston and GSW being complete non-threats in the playoffs, and Houston themselves is clearly a step below the Warriors anyway. I just want this damn Warriors team to go away, I can’t stand dynasties.

Thompson’s D really is good. He may be one-dimensional on offense, but he fits so well with what his team needs.

In the playoffs this year, Thompson hasn’t even been one-dimensional on offense. He’s shot terribly except for a handful of games. Granted, 2 of those games were the last 2 against Houston and were stellar, but most the time he’s shooting a sub 50TS%.