Knicks Morning News (2019.06.26)

NEW STRATEGY:

Step 1: Use 35m cap to take bad 1 year contracts netting us 2 1st round picks.
Step 2: Trade Knox and 4 1st round picks to Wiz for Beal.
Step 3: Sign Vonleh and Kornet each at about 5m/yr.

We’d have about 50m in free cap next summer when bad 1 year contracts expire. Possible roster at end of season: Beal (28m), RJ (8M), Mitch (1.7m), 2020 pick (6m), Vonleh (5m), Kornet (5m), Trier (3m), Dotson (2m), Kadeem (2m).

Notes:
– No matching required in Beal trade since we’d be taking him into our cap space.
– Randle is a terrible defender and Vonleh nets out better player (RPM) even if salaries were equal. But at 1/3 to 1/4 of Randle’s money, Noah’s a no-brainer.
– Throw in DSJ to Beal trade if required.

Step 2: Trade Knox and 4 1st round picks to Wiz for Beal.

– Throw in DSJ to Beal trade if required

Really?

by the way no thanks on trading Knox and 4 1sts for Beal.
I like Beal a lot but he’s not really the difference maker that I would consider trading multiple 1st rounders for unless we are really ready to compete for a title. (and we’re not)

To finish off the KD thought – I’d personally put it about 50/50 that he stays with GS or comes to the Knicks. The narrative in GS really is different now, and the fact he hurt himself trying to play through an injury really has changed the fan perspective on him I think. That said, I would not be surprised at all if there is a lot of anger at the Warriors re: the achilles/calf thing.

Amare came up in the thread yesterday and I dreamed all night about bathtubs of wine. Thanks a lot.

If we don’t get something great with our free agent dollars, my and many of your preferred strategy is to roll the dollars over by signing one year contracts, or just not sign anyone. But it’s starting to sink in to me just how difficult that might be to do. For one thing, the cost of our young guys (except Robinson) will go up for the following year, thus cutting into cap space even if we sign no one. Players don’t like one year contracts either, and in this free agent market, where there are a lot of teams looking to spend, they probably don’t have to take them. They will particularly not like taking one year contracts with team options. Do we really want, for example, a high priced single year of Lance Stephenson?

Looking at it this way, signing someone like Randle to a longer contract seems like a plausible alternative. Of course, the devil is in the details.

Beal was in the nation;s capital, with former # 1 pick John Wall and near where Durant grew up and there was no real talk of him going to Washington.

Uh, he went to the Warriors. He knew he was joining GSW and didn’t want to raise the hopes of hometown fans by meeting with the Wiz.

We just got rid of Kanter why do people want Randle? There are some differences, but they’re basically the same player

I’m wary of Randle also, but they’re pretty different IMO.

First – Randle is to some degree a playmaker in his own right and has averaged ~4 assists per 36 the last several years. There are just not many frontcourt players in the league who can both score and playmake the way Randle can. (he also is a high turnover guy though).

Second – if his 3 point shooting from last year is for real, he can also play off-ball and out of the lane, which is something Kanter never could.

Third – he gets to the line like a beast — FTR 0.47 and 0.447 the last two seasons. Out of players who played >1000 minutes last year, there were only 8 players with a USG>20 who had a FTR that high – Harden, Giannis, Embiid, Montrezl, Gallinari, Nurkic, Ben Simmons, and Randle. Kanter’s career FTR is only 0.3.

That said, he pretty much has to play the 4 unless you have rim protection outside of him. He theoretically would fit well with Kornet I guess, but that isn’t a combo that can work in the playoffs for instance.

If we could get him on a non-max deal I wouldn’t be upset.

No thanks to Randle. Hell no to Beal. 4 1sts plus one or two rookies for two years before he gets maxed and stops being a value add? No fucking thank you. Maybe if we had healthy Durant and Kawhi a trade for Beal might make sense. And isn’t Beal about to get an extension, 3 years at ~33 per? Anyway, if this was a thing, it’s the damn wizards, Perry should get shitcanned if he does this deal, he should be able to fleece them.

Let’s just have some patience, enjoy watching the kids play this year. This’ll be year three of the 3-5 year rebuild. The shortcut tore in two, it happens. Back to the original plan.

And isn’t Beal about to get an extension, 3 years at ~33 per?

Not on any sites I looked at. He makes 28m in 20-21.

Anyway, if this was a thing, it’s the damn wizards, Perry should get shitcanned if he does this deal, he should be able to fleece them.

Maybe FO could get Beal for less but you have to understand why Wiz haven’t put him up for trade like Otto and entered a rebuild. It’s because nobody would go to the games or watch them on TV. He’s their star. Even Knick TV ratings plummeted last season. There’s no way Dolan/Knicks are gonna put a 20 win team on the court again and ask for patience. Result: Middling vets on short-term contracts and/or moronic signings like Randle. I’d rather have Beal and lots of cap space and all of our picks than those alternatives.

Off topic, but I will never doubt Brian Cashman again. DJ Lemahieu is playing basically the equal of Manny Machado and costs like 1/3. And then he (probably predicted well in advance) was able to steal Encarnacion for just cash, and the total cost of Lemahieu + Encarnacion is about the same as Manny or Bryce Harper alone, except you don’t have to pay them for 10 years or even 4. Cash is just incredible.

The LeMahieu move was outstanding, one of his best ever, but I fear he is building one of his patented lineups that hammer mediocre pitching but can get pitched to in the postseason.

I get that EE is better value but the baseball system doesn’t have a cap and the Yanks have astronomical revenue so production is more important than value per unit of cost. Come October I’ll take Harper over EE all day. That could be the difference between winning a World Series or not.

And choosing Happ over giving Corbin one more year was a terrible move. That and being cheap with Keuchel could potentially undo all the good of the LeMahieu signing. So yeah, I love Cashman, and the cheapness might be bc of the Steinbrenner brats, but I’m just not all in on his last 12 months.

And his managerial candidate still seems like he’ll never figure out bullpen management 101.

Yes. Beal is arguably a 2nd tier(ish) player (2B tier) and he’s young. We’d have him from age 26-31. Knox and DSJ don’t rate to be even average players and the 4 1st round picks will prob not be high picks. Beal/Mitch/RJ and some nice role players should be enough to make NYK a potential destination for a top tier player. We’d have enough cap space to take such a player directly into cap (e.g., AD bolts Lakers next summer or Giannis bolts Bucks). If trade required, we’d have some nice role players and our 1st round picks.

I like Bradley Beal but I disagree with this reasoning. I *strongly* disagree with “the 4 picks won’t be high anyway.” Where have you been the last 20 years?

And who do you think Beal is, anyway? I like him, but he’s a poor man’s Klay Thompson. He’s your 3rd best guy at best. You don’t give up a recent lottery pick and 4 firsts for a 3rd banana when you don’t have the first two.

I can tell you’re an old poster using a new name, it’s hard to figure out who. I’m sure there is some old timer who used to say stuff like “they won’t be good picks anyway.”

I wouldn’t begrudge Melo winning in LA, I’d be apoplectic if he came back to the Garden .

so frank highlighted the biggest difference between randle and kanter…. randle can pass…. and passing for a big man is actually a very good forward looking trait…..

guys like randle generally aren’t great defenders…. someone like kg is the exception…. but pf’s were traditionally known to be great offensive players but couldn’t hold down the paint like a center could… malone and barkley were examples of this but there are plenty of others….

the nba has changed….. so prior definitions don’t fit neatly but randle still scores very efficiently with very high volume and does all the other things you would look for in a traditional PF….. if you just want your pf to grab boards and sit out in the 3p land… those ryan anderson types actually do grow on trees….

if you want someone better then you’re probably waiting a long time….

Yeah, someone mentioned Melo would be a good mentor for the young guys. wtfx10

Yeah, someone mentioned Melo would be a good mentor for the young guys. wtfx10

He’d probably turn Barrett into a diva too and then he’ll demand a trade.

Strat, I kind of expected you would feel that way, because defense is a big factor in your player ratings. I like defense a lot too, but I am not convinced Randle’s will be horrible. On the Lakers at least, he was on such a horrible team defensively, it is hard to tell how good he could be on a team with a reasonably organized defense. Randle is better than Kanter already and could be much better if his three point shooting holds up. If we get him on a Kanter like contract, then we essentially replaced KP with Randle, but on a much lower salary than KP wanted, and got two first round picks along with leftover cap space.

That said, I’m not at all sure we can get Randle for that price. His free market value may be higher than that.

Yeah, the “doesn’t play defense” part of Randle’s game is not too enticing. You can survive a bad defender here and there but the Knicks are, as usual, stockpiling players who don’t defend. It’s an offensive era in the league and Randle would be the best scorer on the team by a mile, but if you’re in the bottom third of defensive teams every year you’re going to struggle to win games.

you can survive with randle as your pf defensively….. you just need good defenders around him…. the grizzlies did this for years with randolph as their pf…. gasol.. and allen and conley were the lynchpins of course but zachey as we all know isn’t exactly a stopper…. you also have amare… we all know how bad he was… but if you pair him with marion… it’s not such a bad defensive squad….

you’re relying on mitch rob developing into a defensive stalwart… which i think is very possible… and if he does that allows for some wiggle room elsewhere….

if you want some defensive stopper at the four that’s also really good offensively… i mean are we really advocating to max out draymond green or something? is that the better option here? who would this person even be?

not to be a dick but just saying you would take randle is like saying you’d accept a gift certificate to piercing pagoda if offered. to make it a meaningful statement you really have to say something like “i’d pay randle up to 4/$72 or 3/$58” or whatever if you want to be saying anything at all.

I think you need a player like Beal to attract a top tier player.

you are literally suggesting trading knox, dsj, $63 million of cap space and two first rounders for the right to pay bradley beal $28m for 1 year on an expiring deal. his 2019-20 value to the knicks would actually be negative since that team would be terrible. as one of more ardent knox/dsj pessimists here, i strongly suggest a rethink.

you are literally suggesting trading knox, dsj, $63 million of cap space and two first rounders for the right to pay bradley beal $28m for 1 year on an expiring deal. his 2019-20 value to the knicks would actually be negative since that team would be terrible. as one of more ardent knox/dsj pessimists here, i strongly suggest a rethink.

The 2 sites I looked at showed Beal signed for the next 2 seasons. There was no player option noted on either of those sites. (Spotrac and Bball insiders). If he’s got a player option, then I wouldn’t do the deal.

We take on Beal’s 28m but we are ridding ourselves of Knox and DSJ’s cap and future cap holds of any picks in bad player dump. We’d have the bad contracts on our books for 1 season no matter what we did (Beal or no Beal) if we take on 32m of bad contracts. How are you getting 63m in cap if we’re taking on expiring bad contracts no matter the scenario?

you can survive with randle as your pf defensively….. you just need good defenders around him

The “good defenders around him” part is the problem. We have RJ Barrett, Kevin Knox, Alonzo Trier, Dennis Smith Jr…

look i get that the team isn’t currently filled with the greatest defenders in the world…. but a lot of these guys won’t be on the team or they may develop into sufficient or even good defenders… i’m obviously not really counting knox…. there’s a good possibility that at least 2 out of those 4 guys won’t be on the team past next year…

and if not… you can get what you need in the draft and/or FA… signing randle or dlo… isn’t really about turning this into a winning team next year… it’s really more about year 2020, 2021 and 2022…. this wouldn’t be a finished product by any means..

the argument i’m making is that the cap space is best used to find out if the best young players in this FA class is a building block…. they might not be…. but you’re not getting those kind of guys next year or the year after for that matter…. so there’s very little opportunity cost in just trying it out….

if there’s a better deal for decent draft picks i would explore that also but i kind of doubt any decent pick that isn’t heavily protected is out there…. and if it’s not it behooves us to see if guys who easily fit age wise and on our win curve can work…. and someone like randle fits that profile…

For what it’s worth Cleaning the Glass has Randle at 70% C and 30% PF last year, with his differential being positive for the C minutes and negative for the PF minutes. According to their stats his team has been better with him at C than PF every year of his career.

That matches my eye-test which says that he’s more of an undersized C than a PF. He’s more effective offensively against Cs because he likes to use his quickness advantage to get right to the rim and draw fouls, and he’s more effective defensively against Cs (or at least the differential is less than you’d think) because even though he’s undersized, he’s really struggles when asked to guard on the perimeter (actually similiar to how Melo used to do better when asked to body up bigger guys and struggled to stay engaged and in position against smaller guys).

Maybe the 3p shooting changes the equation for him, but we’re talking about a pretty small number of makes and attempts ultimately for a guy with no track record shooting the 3 before that. And even if the shooting is real and he’s a great offensive fit at PF, you’ve still got the defensive questions. Unless his market collapses it’s a pass for me.

I don’t think there is a line of teams offering 1st round picks to get for expiring contacts of the books. Maybe for 2 year bad deals but not expiring.

This is true but I presented a specific deal yesterday featuring expiring contracts that I think has a greater than 50% chance of going through.

Yeah, Randle passes more but he turns it over more and rebounds a bit worse than Kanter. Like I said he’s not a carbon copy, but the end result is about the same

@52 I think no one talks about it because no one can come up with one single reason why Kawhi would come to the Knicks.

And of course he’s the best option, but it’s pretty clear it’s either the Clips or the Raptors.

One thing I don’t get is the ‘we have to spend 90% of the cap’ thing. It’s not true. If you don’t, you pay the difference out to your existing roster at the end of the season. No biggie. You can also take a player or sign an unsigned FA on a big deal at the FA/trade deadline and only pay them the pro rated portion of their deal for the rest of the year, but have the full deal count vs the cap. Also easy enough.

In terms of expirings for picks – there may still be some deals at the start of FA if team x gets the nod from a FA target. Crabbe (expiring) netted two 1rps for the hawks and I think snell is expiring in 2020 also?

I agree that Randle is actually an undersized C, which is partly why I said I don’t think he’s a good fit with Robinson.

Beggars can’t be choosy. We have way more space than we are probably going to need. We should try to improve the team, but I don’t think we should be giving out any 4 years deals unless the player is a really good fit long term. We don’t know that to be the case with Randle and he won’t be cheap.

Hate to say it, but I just don’t see a clear path forward. I was completely down with the KP trade, more because of his health issues (which seem likely to continue) than his value as a player (which, like Strat says, is higher than the numbers say on D). Paying him a max would have been a huge risk.

But we cleared space for an enormously superior (if older) player who now would represent similar risk. If we still signed him, would we get 80% KD? 60% KD? No one knows. Without signing him, though, we have all this space without anyone to bring in (Kawhi ain’t coming) except possibly crazy Kyrie, which doesn’t even seem likely. So without KD and Kyrie, what do you really have?

Emotionally it’s really hard to accept, but with Mitch being the only bona fide A list player (maybe RJ gets there, maybe Smith improves, maybe not), we are in a bad spot. By the time we could build a good team organically through the draft and taking on contracts for picks, the good players we’d have would be in line to get paid. As much flexibility as we have, I just don’t think there’s much margin for error.

Signing DAR to me would be an error. A max for a one-way player who doesn’t make his teammates better – that isn’t an asset, especially given the volatility of the stats that made him look good last year. Same for Randle – without the 3-pointers, he wouldn’t seem nearly so appealing. I mean, 3/$60 mil, sure, but that isn’t going to happen, not this off-season. Someone is giving him the max.

If we had Jerry West I’d be more optimistic, but we don’t. Perry can make good deals, but when there are no good deals to be made…

The best thing I can say is that with all our draft picks and cap space, we are in a good position to get lucky.

But we would actually need luck to come our way. There are no moves we can make to get there without it. Which is why it’s imperative NOT to leap at band-aids like DAR and Randle. The openness to opportunity is actually our best asset right now. (And Mitch!)

Depending on how you define Premium free agent, there might be as few as three of them on the market. Kawhi isn’t going to go anywhere that doesn’t have a shot at a championship. That leaves Kyrie and KD, which is hardly a referendum. I think the garden does still have two advantages in drawing free agents, but they aren’t big ones. One, our attendance is good and the crowd can be loud. That’s more fun than playing in front of half empty seats. Two, if you play reasonably well, you have more of a chance of being an All-Star because of the press you get and because of a larger home city to vote for you. For example, I’m not sure KP would have been an all star if he played for Memphis instead of N.Y.

Beal has two years on his deal, reports yesterday said the Wiz want to give him a 3 year max extension.

That’s even better if Wiz are willing to trade him after extension (not sure if there would be some restrictions on trading him after extension). Kinda think Beal wouldn’t mind being on Knicks after extension. We’d have him during his prime years (ages 26, 27, 28, 29, 30).

Brad Beal? kill me now

What makes anyone think Cousins and Mitch would be a nice fit? And no, you don’t want to take a guy who might end up the greatest shot blocker in NBA history and play him on the perimeter.

Kornet is okay but Randle has like 60-70 points of TS% on him at higher volume and is a better rebounder.

I can’t say it enough. Trust the Process. Do not sign anyone to big, long-term contracts (unless Kawhi, of course). Keep all the picks. Rent space to get additional picks, in particular an additional first rounder for 2020. They may have to wait until near the trade deadline to do that now, though.

This can be year two of a real rebuild (I’d say that trading KP, though they really did it to open up 2 max slots, is the start b/c of the 2 picks acquired).

The Knicks were the worst team in the NBA and have 0 young “stars.” Mitch shows a lot of promise to be one of those, and we’ll see this year. Maybe RJB. Maybe one guy from the rest (Knox, Frank, DSJ…one needs to make a leap in the Fall). Maybe no one, but play them all as much as possible. Make 4 first round picks in the next two drafts. Hey, maybe all 4 will be lottery picks!

Once you’ve got at least 2 young stars, then look at spending $ to bring someone very nice with them to go for it. But the Knicks are not there. Hopefully they will be in 2021.

@74
Probably, but they haven’t done anything real stupid since Perry got here, so until then…

But yeah, we have to hope that KD and Kawhi say, “no, thanks,” and Mills/Perry have the wisdom to punt on free agency.

RE Randle, if they sign him to play the four, then they need to trade to trade Knox. Knox on the wing is about as bad a defender as there is. Poor Mitch if he has to try to compensate for Randle, Knox, RJB, and DSJ all on the court. Just give Knox a second year…see if he fills out a bit and cuts back on all the crazy drives.

I think no one talks about it because no one can come up with one single reason why Kawhi would come to the Knicks.

And of course he’s the best option, but it’s pretty clear it’s either the Clips or the Raptors.

I think we can forget about Kawhi.

I can’t imagine why he would choose the Knicks over Toronto and the Clippers. I can’t imagine what he would want from the Knicks that he couldn’t get more of from one of the other two teams.

The opportunity to restore the glory of the franchise or liking NYC better than L.A. are the only possibilities I can think of and neither seem to matter to Kawhi as L.A. is his home town and personal glory and “legacy” don’t seem to affect the guy.

@77
There are reports that he’ll give the Knicks a meeting, I think. But yeah, seems EXTREMELY unlikely.

I want the rebuild, but I think the Knicks plan right now is to sign KD, and if a second guy won’t come right now, look to try to trade for one during the season or trade/sign next offseason. Maybe they think they can land AD next year?

Sorry Team Reality, but if you think the FO is gonna plod along with 20-30 win teams for the next 3 or 4 years, you’re even more delusional than Team Optimism and their faith in Knox, the worst defender in the entire league. Yes I’d be happy to have a top 5 SG in his prime for the next 5 years. That will increase the odds of AD or Giannis or other free agents joining this team. The team would be more attractive in general, to watch as well. Mitch/Beal/RJ/Vonleh/Kornet/2020 pick (maybe Dot and Trier), about 45m free cap in summer 2020, and all of our picks is appealing to me especially when alternatives are spending 20m/yr on one of the worst defenders in the league (Randle).

To those in angst over Knox and DSJ, what are you gonna do about their options this October? If you pick them up and they don’t improve much, you’ve got 10m cap hit the next year. Re DSJ: If you don’t pick up his option you risk losing him if he breaks out. Sorry to burden you with facts. And the picks in question rate to be 15-30 as I explained. You could put protection on the one pick which might be higher. We’d still have all of our picks.

HCJ:

It is.
Worst team in basketball after tanking for Zion.
Misses on Zion.
Clears space for KD. KD blows his achilles and the Nets appear to be a better option and a better team to land.
Hoped for World be Flat, but he’s not interested.
Kawhi is the pick of the crop, but he’s a southern Californian and would rather be with the Clips, with Lebron, AD, et al, across town.

And now people are thinking about Bradley Beale???

And then there is E’s comment about what happens when Dolan realizes not one single premium FA wants anything to do with NY.

Not sure desperation fully captures the mood. lol

any thoughts on Jonas Valanciunas next to Robinson?
fishing

Yes I’d be happy to have a top 5 SG in his prime for the next 5 years. That will increase the odds of AD or Giannis or other free agents joining this team.

Unless it leads to more losing, in which case you have a disgruntled pseudo-star whose $35M AAV contract will be oh-so-easy to move. All of this is contingent on Bradley Beal’s career .104 WS48 carrying the team to success. If it fails (which, haha, looks likely), you’ve got a big fucking logjam. Ask the current Wizards how that’s goink

I mean, I don’t even think Beal is terrible or anything, but did you guys keep up with the Wizards for the last couple of years? Is there anything suggesting that a team built around Bradley Beal would be anything better in New York then it is in Washington? I’m really confused.

There’s literally no one available in the 2020 free agency class, the best players are like Draymond Green and DeMar DeRozan. Getting Beal to setup attracting more stars in the next summer is pointless as there are no stars that are even going to be available until potentially 2021. That would mean two years of Bradley Beal heroically carrying us to the 10th seed in the east and we giving up the 9th overall pick in the lottery to Washington.

It’s just really hard to build a championship NBA team; essentially you need an elite superstar or you have no chance and even getting an elite superstar is often a matter of luck. Giannis at 15. Kawhi at 15. Steph at 7. Everyone thought Steph had a chance to be really good and kind of the same with Kawhi, but no one had them projected as ultra-franchise guys that could be the #1 guy on a championship team.

Which means that as we sit here today, the Knicks’ best shot is to have RJ Barrett turn into that guy. He could. It’s still early, but spitballing it, I’d give it a 10-20% chance. That’s at least some reason to hope and pay attention.

As to that kind of guy, it’s kind of an old-school measurement, but first and foremost — my criteria are still can the guy get a good shot off pretty much any time he wants and from there, can we see that he has a good enough shooting form that eventually those shots will start going in? Based on that, I actually give Kevin Knox a non-zero chance to be that kind of player some day. I’d put his chances at maybe 5-10%. In my book, that’s a pretty good pick at 9. Of course, he could continue to kind of inexplicably drift on that floater as he does pretty much every g/d time he shoots it, and continue to shoot mid-30s from three the rest of his career …. My hope is that the weird drifting on the floater is because he’s still young and that once he’s stronger and older he’ll have a little more lift and a little more toward-the-basket on it and that will make it a very potent weapon. It’s possible. Maybe not likely, but certainly possible. At least IMO he has the potential toolkit. Plus he could be terrific in transition once he fully develops.

DSJ can get a good shot off pretty easily, but his form is so bad that I can’t really ever envision him having an EFG% good enough to justify the high usage numbers he’d need.

It kind of looked for awhile there like we might have lucked into the guy at 4 with Porzingis, but I’m with the majority sentiment here that his body, stamina, and limitations — as well as attitude — means he’ll never get there either. Definitely happy the Knicks aren’t maxing him.

This team is miles away from basic competence. There are holes at every position and there is very little impact young talent on the roster. We’re starting with a baseline of Mitch Robinson, RJ Barrett and a bunch of guys who look quite frankly like shitty prospects.

Anybody with a shred of common sense would look at this roster and make the conclusion that the team needs to accumulate more young players and draft picks, and that it needs to forget about trying to win lots of games any time soon. It’s really fucking amazing to me that after all the years of pushing all of our chips in while holding shitty cards, people want to try it again. Trading assets for Bradley Beal and then maxing him when you have a 17-win core is a straight up Isiah Thomas move. “Those draft picks won’t even be good because the Bradley Beal Knicks will be super good” is peak Isiah Brain.

Giannis at 15. Kawhi at 15. Steph at 7. Everyone thought Steph had a chance to be really good and kind of the same with Kawhi, but no one had them projected as ultra-franchise guys that could be the #1 guy on a championship team.

This is undeniably true about Kawhi and Steph. Giannis is more nebulous — I do think people thought he was a superstar in the making. I also think those same people have a poor track record on the upside-prospect contingent, so I take any “future superstar, current project” punditry with a heaping mound of salt.

Let us not forget that the same people who picked Giannis at #15 picked Jimmer Fredette, Rashad Vaughn, Thon Maker and Jabari Parker. Maker might end up a decent pro, but the rest are busts. (Looked like Parker had a good run at WAS this year, but it’s hard to see him having a resurgence worthy of the #2 pick.)

https://www.nbadraft.net/players/giannis-adetokoubo

My dream scenario for this offseason right now is that the Knicks whiff and Dolan says fuck it I’m selling the Knicks.

@88

Kornet should play stretch 4 next to Robinson. He should start with DSJ, Barrett and Knox.

I hope they can get Kornet back on a cheap deal of some kind. A 1+1 (team option) would be nice, or a longer WHG type thing. However, mostly as a backup 4/5. Him and/or Vonleh if they can be gotten cheaply.

The only hope for Knox to maybe develop into a useful player is as a stretch four, so start him there, see if he can bulk up a bit and shoot lots of threes. He’s a bad defender anywhere, but on the wing he’s utterly hopeless.

The desperation in this thread is palpable

It is, but that’s because, as I said above, there is no real path forward. JK isn’t wrong that the best path is to hold tight and accumulate assets, but due to the changes in the draft, those assets are much more variable than they used to be. Finishing with the worst record in the league and ending up with the third pick was actually BETTER than the numbers – we beat the odds! Except that the third pick is RJ, not Zion, and we’re effed – as we would be in most drafts in terms of finding transformational talents.

My point is, signing expensive, problematic players like Randle and DAR is just stupid. As for trading for Beal, I was all for it with a win-now, KD/Kyrie-led team. Trading for him in a vacuum? Again, that’s brain-damaged. As someone said, if he’s a foundational talent, why has the Wiz sucked year after year?

So, doing something – almost anything – is a mistake. The only path with real possibility of success is to do nothing and hope for luck. If someone does need to offload salary with a pick, we want to be able to take it. If a player like Kawhi becomes available for unforeseen reasons, we want to be in a position to get him. Just because we can’t right now – because of bad luck with KD, because Kawhi is an LA dude – doesn’t mean we close the freaking window to it being possible in the future.

Talking yourself into stupid moves is an emotional response to crisis that is likely to result in further failure. DON’T DO IT! Things will still suck, but preserving optionality is better than any other path – even if it is far from positive in itself.

“DNPtilikina”

At least we’re getting some good nicknames out of all this….

It would be silly to jettison players like Knox. This is exactly what the Knicks have done in the past — send someone home instead of pumping their stats with MP and sending them to some dumb team that sees upside glimmering all over.

Problem is you have to make a decision on Knox’s 3rd year option this October. If you pick up option and he’s still the worst or one of the worst defenders in the league, you’re gonna have to attach a sweetener to get rid of him or keep him in year 3 and his cap is wasted. He’s probably at his peak trade value right now. The same is true but to a lesser extent of DSJ. No way Knicks pick up Frank’s 4th year option this October because he’s likely to be a 3&D type player; even so they’d have some rights to re-sign him and his value would probably fall in that range.

The extension would be $111M over three years (rather than 4/$194M had he snuck onto an All-NBA team), so it would be about $34M AAV. Mea culpa!

I’m interested in the progression of salaries (the cap hit or hold) after the extension. So it would go 27m, 28.5m, Year 3 ?, ? Year 4 ?, Year 5 ?. I doubt we’re gonna have any free cap after Year 3 regardless of whether we have Beal or not.

I guess the counter-point I’m trying to make to JK and the hold tight crowd is, conversely, the path they advocate for – while clearly better and smarter than the “overpay mediocrity” path – is not good in itself. With the changes to the draft, there is no Process. It doesn’t exist as a strategy anymore – especially with this team and this owner. You would have to do it for too long for the FO to survive it.

James Bron, the fact that we have to make decisions and maybe pick up options in the future is one reason it is not totally trivial to role over cap space. If there is one thing this discussion has brought home to me, it’s that Perry does not have an easy path forward despite having a lot of assets. At a minimum, we have to wait for the 30th before much happens, which is another fours days of spitballing for us.

That generally sounds fine to me
Capela could be redirected if we wanted to keep Mitch instead. Gordon is an asset as an expiring that can actually play. 1st round pick. What would be wrong with this?

(Would it be we sign Jimmy to whatever contract then trade him to Rockets?)

I actually love this idea.

Capela would have to be turned into an expiring contract for 2019-20 and return more assets with him. Gordon can either be waived (if he’s affecting the tank) or traded to a contender who needs “instant offense” (haha).

There’s no reason to pick Capela over Mitch. None whatosever. Capela should be on a team like the Warriors or Lakers. He’s 25 and an exceptional role player on a good contract. He has no business on the roster of a team well below sea level.

If there is one thing this discussion has brought home to me, it’s that Perry does not have an easy path forward despite having a lot of assets.

The problem seems to be that Perry has not yet shown that he understands how to leverage his current assets (cap space, the #3 overall pick) into better or more assets. This team has no quality players under contract at PG, SG, SF and PF. It’s unfathomable that they have not gone all-in on UDFAs and 2nd rounders.

The rest of our team are one or zero way players,

This made me laugh in real life because it’s so sad but true.

I guess the counter-point I’m trying to make to JK and the hold tight crowd is, conversely, the path they advocate for – while clearly better and smarter than the “overpay mediocrity” path – is not good in itself. With the changes to the draft, there is no Process. It doesn’t exist as a strategy anymore – especially with this team and this owner. You would have to do it for too long for the FO to survive it.

The thing that is good about the new system is that it is likely every year that a few teams will jump up. That’s why getting unprotected firsts while renting out your cap space gets you something that could be special. Scooping up unprotected lottery 1st rounders, no matter where they are, is going to be a smart thing to do when the option presents itself.

The thing that is good about the new system is that it is likely every year that a few teams will jump up. That’s why getting unprotected firsts while renting out your cap space gets you something that could be special.

I agree with this. But it takes luck – the kind of luck NO had in getting Zion, damn it! The more chances you have to get lucky, though, the better the odds.

Which is why James Bron’s trade makes even less sense: if Dallas underperforms (say, because one of their key players, like, I dunno, Porzingis gets hurt), and they end up in the lottery, even with the worst odds they could still end up with a top pick!

i think the process absolutely exists but that was a different era… not only the tanking odds changed but there’s a ton of teams with cap space now… so renting out cap space doesn’t actually net you much since the supply is much higher… back then it was a lot easier to grab premium picks for taking on multiple years of a few bad deals…. because the ONLY team doing it was the sixers and there were a ton of teams that backed themselves into salary cap hell….

with so many teams with a ton of cap space and flattened lottery odds the dynamics change…. and so the ‘process’ should change also…. you shouldn’t be afraid to go from 17 to 30 wins or so if the talent that you’re getting could possibly gain you more residual wins later on since the lottery penalty you’re getting from those marginal wins don’t hurt you as much… with those dynamics changing part of your cap is essentially a freeroll…

My dream scenario for this offseason right now is that the Knicks whiff and Dolan says fuck it I’m selling the Knicks.

This kind of porn is NSFW, don’t do that to me.

And yeah, Kornet should play the 4. He’s twenty some million cheaper than Randle for one. For two, everything JK47 said about the inadvisedness of this kind of move at this point in time.

Woj has Houston trying to ACQUIRE picks for Capella, Gordon and PJ so they can flip the lock to philly in a Butler S&T. Doing Hou a favour that large whilst giving up a pick would be a criminally stupid thing to do so I expect we’ll be seeing precisely that from the Knicks shortly…

You guys do realize that if KD doesn’t show up there’s not much out there that’s jumping to grab a piece of that 17 win 70M cap space right?
Even if you do want those mentoring vets like Vince Carter, you still have a TON of space to eat. With the 400M in cap space out there, there may not even be a ‘bad contract and picks for your space’ deal out there that’s good enough, even if the front office was interested.
If that ‘bad contract and picks for your space’ deal isn’t out there, I’d settle for (a) young upside players like Brogdon (who WILL get paid, and likely matched by a better team, probably the Bucks), (b) solid mentoring vets (like Vince Carter, Beverley (who will get paid, but likely not more than we can match- would be solid for a defensive presence and voice on the guard side), and Darren Collison (decent and hardworking PG)- all on 1+1 deals.

What’s disgusting is that we had to trade KP, but it set back the development of a decent team by two years or so. Now we basically have to tank again.

Everyone keeps talking about how the Knicks need guys who play defense but what they really need are guys who can actually make shots. The Knicks were horrible defensively last year, defensive rating was 26th out of 30 teams. But guess what, their offensive rating was 30th!! For as bad as they were defensively they were even worse offensively. They were dead last in FG% and more importantly dead last in eFG%. Defensively their rankings were mostly in the low 20’s in most categories which still sucks but there is some hope there especially with Mitch anchoring the defense. This team more than anything needs guys who can make shots at a decent efficiency.

MSG was a pretty great place to be for basketball in the 1990’s.

Depending on how free agency shakes out I imagin Perry will have us set up or close enough to set up for two maxes next summer as well, just in case AD and KD is a reasonable thing. If we have to attach a second or two to Knox or DSJ to make it work who the fuck cares? You’re talking about dropping four firsts for Beal, kneecapping our ability to add cost-controlled rookies and you’re worried about that?

Nothing will happen in free agency until KD/Kawhi/Kyrie decide. The NYK will know all this before they start renting out cap space and signing/trading players. If Kawhi and/or KD and/or Kyrie sign 1-and-1 contract(s), then yeah I think it would be better to keep cap open (no Rubio, no Beal, yes to 1 year rentals). In the more probable event that they all sign longer deals, it’s better to position the team to be able to land a single top tier guy like AD or Giannis and Beal would be better toward that end than Knox and DSJ.

never thought I’d be dreaming of a 33 win season. geez

we’ve surpassed the 33 win total six times over the last 18 seasons…

The desperation in this thread is palpable

https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0535/6917/products/Discouragement_51279547-3d37-4e08-806e-b21344883a96.jpg?v=1501475075

http://baddogneedsrottenhome.com/images/emails/522f458d99880.jpg

Still can’t get over the Bradley Beal idea. 4 picks?!

17 wins keeps coming up. Yes, 17 wins was an accurate measure of the team on the court last year. I don’t see why it’s so hard to understand that a win total that low is impossible without playing a lot of players that actively hurt your team (KNOX, Frank, Lance) and just cutting their minutes (or if you are still a believer having them improve even to replacement level) already gets you most of the way to 30 wins, before even factoring in a minutes increase/ improvement from Mitch and the actually decent players. I think many are underestimating the upside of bringing in quality players because the tank mentality has sunk in too deep, and the quality assets on this team are being written off. Sure, by bringing in good players you lose some upside in committing to fully testing whether Knox and Frank can make a jump, but it’s not like they never got a shot, we’ve seen who they are and odds are against them showing us anything different. If you can bring in players that you actually think will be productive, neither 17 wins based on giving purposely bad minute allocation nor busted picks losing playing time they don’t deserve should hold you back.

What’s disgusting is that we had to trade KP, but it set back the development of a decent team by two years or so. Now we basically have to tank again.

That’s what I’ve been saying since the day the trade happened.

Set aside all the debates about his value and injury risk. He was far and away our best two way player, furthest along in his development, and most likely to become a star.

Losing a “prospective” star means you have to replace him with a star or prospective star. We are unlikely to get that out of DSJr (though he may be a solid player some day) or either of the Dallas draft picks. So we are depending on adding a star into the cap space to replace KP (we also would have had some other cap space to add to KP). If we don’t add a star player into that KP space, we have more or less traded KP for DSJr and two mediocre 1st round picks. Lee will be coming off at the end of this year and Hardaway’s contract will slowly become less of an issue. It’s not a killer because we do have extra assets, but the whole rebuild process is about adding stars and we may come out of this a couple of years behind where we should be on the path to trying to add them.

Rumor has it that Melo will land with the Lakers – LOLOLOLOL

I’d take the Rockets assets off of their hands as long as at least 1 first round pick is attached – don’t make them ask twice. Capela and/or Tucker could be flipped for other picks/assets rather easily i would think

I think many are underestimating the upside of bringing in quality players because the tank mentality has sunk in too deep, and the quality assets on this team are being written off.

Huh? Who?

Guess what, if we kept KP and gave him a max and he sucked, we wouldn’t be rebuilding for 2 more years, we would be rebuilding until 2024. Would you guys be happier with that?

This is really what I don’t get. There’s at least 4 or 5 teams that are in a overwhelmingly better position than we are, even if we did get 2 max free agents or whatever combination of next gen Courtney Lee’s you guys love so much. What do you think is going to happen when the New York Courtney Lees don’t win a title in their four year contracts? We’re back to rebuilding.

It took the Raptors 8 seasons after Bosh left to win a title, and they made an incredible amount of really good decisions along the way. Do you trust the Dolan / Mills / Perry trifecta to stay patient and nail move after move for however many years it takes to pull off this kind of rebuild? If you do, I have very, very bad news for you. We won 30 games or so a couple of times already with veterans on the roster and it literally led to nowhere, and you guys want to run that strategy back because this time it will certainly work.

The fact that we have to take into account our front office’s stupidity and impatience for what plans are actually viable = classic Dolan’s razor.

Echoing ptmilo–saying you would sign Julius Randle is a meaningless statement. Of course there’s a price at which almost any free agent would make some sense. It comes down to the contract, and for me the contract would need to check two boxes that are very, very unlikely to coexist:

1) Low AAV–Randle is talented but ultimately has a skill set that comes cheap on the open market. Anything above $10M has a good chance of turning into an albatross.

2) Long term–this might sound counter intuitive but if we’re going to sign Randle there’s no point in only controlling him for the years we’re going to suck. A one year deal would be completely pointless, and two wouldn’t be that much better. So I’d aim for 3 or 4.

So I’d sign Randle in the event that his market completely collapses and he takes 3/$24M or something. That’s a contract that’s likely tradable at any time, to paraphrase something often hilariously repeated about Courtney Lee.

Again, I view this scenario as highly unlikely and will probably want no part of whatever contract he does end up signing.

What’s disgusting is that we had to trade KP, but it set back the development of a decent team by two years or so. Now we basically have to tank again.

How much would signing him to a 5/$158M deal set back the development of a decent team? I would say around five years. Also…what decent team was developing when KP was here?

He was far and away our best two way player, furthest along in his development, and most likely to become a star.

Nah.

Bron, are you secretly Beal’s agent? Cause this:

position the team to be able to land a single top tier guy like AD or Giannis and Beal would be better toward that end

is remarkably silly. Four 1st rounders to turn into a poor man’s Wizards in order to entice Giannis is ridiculous.

The Beal/declining Knox’s option stuff is too ridiculous for me to respond to it sounds like the kind of stuff Reub would say when he weighed in on basketball every once in a while

Knox sucks, objectively. However, his perception around the league is as a talented youngster.

Also, to clarify for possible troll James Bron, 4 picks + Knox is insane for Beal relative to the AD trade because AD is vastly better than Beal and thus should demand a more impressive haul of treasure. Lonzo, Ingram and Hart are all right but I doubt any of them become more than average starters/role players, while Knox still has that rosy glow of rookiedom to disguise his shittiness. The three picks are a high price, but for AD that makes a certain sort of sense for a team is a true contender (ie not the Lakers). I think the Pellies fleeced the Lakers, and I think trading 4 picks (which, if you’ll do some math with me, is one more than 3) for Bradley Beal would be fleecing ourselves a la Billy King.

I think my offer was fair enough, but I could be convinced to throw in a second rounder or two or a piece like DSJ.

Trading for Beal only makes sense if we have KD and can’t get Irving or Kawhi, and even then only after playing out the season to nab a high draft pick. It may be a better option to just forgo KD and double down on the rebuild, in which case Beal is pointless.

You guys are arguing why we should be happy to see Porzingis go and I am not arguing that. I’m simply saying we didn’t keep him, so we need more good players to be good and that will probably take a while. So I’m going to watch a lot more terrible Knick’s games, more than I want to.

@THCJ Mitch is a crazy good asset and if he holds up for more playing time even with conservative improvement I think him alone without the negative players gets you to 33ish wins. 35 if everything goes perfect. Dot and probably Trier project to be above replacement. Vonleh Kornet and Allen on cheap deals would be value and any improvement would up the win total. DSJ probably projects to replacement or higher, pencil him in for at least backup minutes. Everyone else was net negative so you have the cap, exceptions and vet minimums to get efficient, positive players; I think if you do it right and Mitch and whatever big production guys you bring in stay healthy, that gets you to the playoffs in the East. It doesn’t even require getting rid of the low likelihood to improve lottery picks (yes they’re young but all evidence points to bust), it just means you can’t play them if they’re hurting the team in games unless it’s garbage time. If you think that plan is likely to reduce their value then there isn’t much downside to taking whatever you can get for them right now.

The unbridled optimism combined with the “5 simple tricks to minimizing replacement-level players on the roster” makes this a very difficult read for me.

All we have to do is this:

1) Mitch plays more minutes and remains one of the best defensive players in the league, as well as being an uber-efficient dunking center.

2) Stop playing the bad players. Trier, who was a terrible player last year, is not among them. Dotson, who also played like shit, is not among them.

3) All of the players listed above play out of their minds, since if they play anything like they did last year, it’s another 17-win team.

4) Put Knox and Ntilikina into a literal trash compactor and grind them into dust. Stop thinking about the absurdity of benching two players with five total years left on their contracts — just stop playing them! You’ll be a 35-win team in no time

What are you going to get for Knox if you trade him now that’s got more upside than he does? I doubt we’d get a first round pick that wasn’t lottery protected.

The angst on this blog today is at an all-time high!

Everyone take a deep breath. The Knicks haven’t done anything monumentally stupid since Perry took over. Don’t fall for the sports media hate on the Knicks. Even if we strike out on free agents, we are in a good position going forward. Perry has been very consistent in his message about building the team slowly, not taking short cuts, setting the franchise up to be good for a long time, not a short win now window. Maybe some of the A plans are now in danger because of the KD injury but I trust Perry.

Until we do something really stupid, we should all maybe…relax?

The angst on this blog today is at an all-time high!

And you’re here to speak for Team Realist, right?

@1 – After a long day at work, when I finally get home, sit down and relax and see that post…

Step #1 – If we could do this, oh yeah. I’ll give up $35M now for 2 #1’s. (I thought you were headed in a good direction.)

Step #2 – Hard no. More like WTF? Actually, I would call that the worst move EVER by a GM in the history of all sports, all time, by far. I’m understating.

Step #3 – We can get them, or comparable players, at half that price or even at the minimum. They barely have value over replacement players (VORP). Vonleh: 0.9, Kornet: 0.5.

—
Thanks everyone for the advanced stats on Randle. You’ve got me convinced that he’s a stat compiler. However, I do believe in his 3pt production but it makes him the exact type player that I don’t want to invest cap money in. The defense is the issue.

I hate to say it, and I doubt they will, but Knox and Ntilikina have to make giant strides in their game this year. So far, they have been really bad picks. If anyone wants to point a finger at why we suck, that’s why. Do any of you think KP would have left if we hit on both of them?

If you negotiate with other teams by announcing your total strategy in advance you will get taken.

That’s not actually true. As someone who negotiated for a living for many years, I can say it’s all about leverage. Sometimes you have greater leverage in being open and public in your intent – that brings more people to the table, which creates competition, which creates the leverage. Sometimes, as with the KP trade, you keep information confidential, as the disclosure weekend your position. From my POV, saying we’re open for business in terms of cap space would be the better play.

As said, one thing I’ve found reassuring is Perry’s negotiating ability. He is solid.

Jowles, I’m here to speak for team everyone needs to calm the fuck down and take a deep breathe.

Seriously, people are doing that doomsday thing on this thread today and it ain’t healthy. Until Perry does something monumentally stupid, we should probably at this point believe him when he says he wants to build the team up the right way, not take short cuts and set the team up for long term success. Rome wasn’t built in a day and focusing on past mistakes by past regimes is stupid. Perry has been very steady since taking over. We didn’t trade away everything for AD or Chris Paul. We have cap space, draft picks and a lot of young players. This is what people have wanted for years and bitching about the fact that he didn’t trade the number three pick down for some lower picks bc you personally don’t like RJ Barrett is nitpicky at best.

About that negotiating ability. I need to rant about friggin drive time radio. Francesa was speaking as if the Nets rumors about Kyrie and Durant were just surfacing today and he basically said that failure to sign either of them for the Knicks would be a disaster. So I turned to the other station and LaGreca and company were saying how “the Knicks needed to get a 1st round pick” for KP. And then they added, “Why couldn’t the Knicks just keep him”. They also didn’t seem to know that KP’s threat was to sign with a Euro team. Sometimes you just want to pull the hair from your head. I wish I had some left 🙁

Perry has done very well, IMO, The KP trade was a huge test and I think Perry made out like a bandit. First, he removed a cancer and avoided having to overpay for an oft-injured player that hasn’t done squat and hasn’t competed on the court since February 2018. Second, he got a 21 year old point guard that was the overall #9 pick. He also got two more 1st round picks. He also got an expiring contract of D’Andre Jordan who, unlike Kanter, tutored Robinson. Third, he cleared two awful contracts. What could he have possibly done better?

A thing I think we’ve all been overlooking is we have to spend something like 50 or 60 million on players to reach the salary floor. It’s one of the reasons I’m not that opposed to overpaying for a solid vet for a year. We have to spend money.

I wouldn’t worry about the salary cap floor. Worst case scenario, they can always just pay the “penalty,” which is just paying all of the players on the team a bonus (however much it takes to get to the floor divided among all of the members of the team). The Sixers once didn’t hit the floor and everyone on the team just got a bonus. It was funny, since Jason Richardson was hurt, but still getting paid decent money on a previous mid-level contract he signed with Orlando before they traded him to the Sixers and then he got a bonus on top of that!

Player A: 6.8pts, 1.9Ast, 4.4reb, 41%fg
Player B: 12.8pts, 1.1Ast, 4.5reb, 37% fg

We knicks fans wants a rebuild but too impatience for it. We dont want to groove our your flawed players but willing to trade our future for mediocre player.

Player A is this season mvp during his rookie season. Certainly on of the worst for rookies.
Player B is our Kevin Knoxx

Getting Beal for our future means we will be the new Wizards without a superstar in Wall.

We’re in the same position we were in after trading KP–a good one. At the time people generally thought that adding a young DSJr was a good flier, grabbing two future firsts were valuable, and receiving cap flexibility was beneficial. Objectively, no trades, additions, or subtractions have been made since then with the exception of our draft picks. Our average draft position was below #3 RJ Barrett, so the Knicks came out better than expected. In short, the only reasons for the current pessimism is (1) you think KP is a superstar or (2) the myth of KD and Kyrie built an unreasonable expectation. The Knicks are in a good place. Remember how you felt after the KP trade, just look at the longterm and our future first rounders.

Capela would have to be turned into an expiring contract for 2019-20 and return more assets with him. Gordon can either be waived (if he’s affecting the tank) or traded to a contender who needs “instant offense” (haha).

I’m not sure why you have to move Capela right away if Windhorst is correct. He is as good a value of production versus salary as there is in the league.

Willis Reed and Walt Bellamy played together for 2.5 seasons before the perfect trade came along….

However…. after Horford and Kyrie leave, Boston might certainly be interested in Capela and they hold picks plus Memphis #6 top7 6 protected this year and unprotected next year.

That Windhorst deal might be the best overall play after Durant got hurt…. it would still leave you with a lot of cap space left over to do other things with…. like ask South Beach Pat if he’d like to dump Dragic and Whiteside to make a run at T. Harris…. or the clips need a landing spot for Gallo after they land Kawhi…. options abound.

Yeah, if they’re willing to take on contracts for picks, there are so many different options out there. They have so much flexibility. Let’s hope that they were just being disingenuous when they said that they were not interested in doing deals like that.

#8 and 17 wouldn’t have netted anyone good… that would have been quite disastrous in fact… there’s really no two combination of players after coby white got picked that would have equated to rj…..

Frank Isola gave me a good laugh this AM talking about Kawhi’s meeting with the Knicks. After it was mentioned that the Raptors went 17-5 without him, Isola said that Perry’s pitch should be, “Hey, Toronto won 17 games without you, but so what? WE won 17 games without you too!”

I gotta say, I’m not really into the idea of maxing Durant but it’s a hell of a lot better option than a lot of the other Plan C’s and Plan D’s I’ve been hearing.

Abso-freaking-lutely. They are so well poised here. It’s driving me nuts trying to figure out where they’re going to go next with all of this. I want to have hope here!

Yeah, if this Butler to Houston story has any traction, Perry needs to get on the phone with Morey asap. Take Capela off their hands and flip them to someone else for more assets, or even Gordon if he has a market elsewhere, which he should have. As long as Harden is great their picks will suck, but they will have a very old team that probably won’t last past 2021-22.

I have no idea why Philly would be interested in helping Houston poach their free agent in exchange for draft picks. It seems bonkers.

Actually, if you’re Philly and Butler tells you he isn’t returning no matter what, doesn’t Capela/Gordon/Tucker seem like a better offer than the picks they’d get for those guys?

They’d be halfway to Boogie/Harris, which I think we all decided was peak Knick, right?

Boogie was always destined to play for the Knicks at some point might as well get it over with.

I think we all know where this is headed, they assemble a 30 win team full of guys on 1yr deals leading to the 8th pick in the 2020 draft and next summer we’re right back where we are now.

Kornet might be better than Cousins next year so that’s not a particularly encouraging move.

It seems like Houston is auctioning Capela, not paying to get rid of him. It would probably take a 1st round pick to acquire him.

I like him, but I’ll pass.

i’m kind of shocked that folks are so resistant to acquire young players who have actually played and proven themselves to be some kind of good in this league… for the anti-randle guys…. if randle was in this year’s draft what pick would he have gone? what pick would you have picked him? surely in the first round right? probably even in the top 10 too?

even if you do count the money that randle might get… are you acquiring the approximate pick that would have gone before him for that kind of money?

i think there’s a lot of folks who have a particular vision of what a basketball team looks like and how each player is supposed to fill out a role…. and i think that’s fine… but that’s very ‘in the box’ kind of thinking…. and you really only should get to that point when you actually have talent… and talent can come in all shapes and sizes and a lot of times it can work in ways you don’t expect… that’s one of the main ways you can outperform… if you think like everyone else… like every position needs to hit 3s kind of thinking… then you’re artificially restricting the kind of team that you can build… and you’re very likely to underperform… because other teams have better access to that kind of talent because they already have it….

there’s lots of ways to succeed as a team in this league…. but it really all starts with talent…. and i’m not saying randle is a sure thing… but he’s def not a sure bust… i think he’s shown enough that he can add something to a team and he’s young enough to add something to his game also….

this old way of thinking of stockpiling assets by renting out cap space and acquiring picks… that’s very novel… but that’s also a very dated concept that you’re gonna fleece some team this way… who’s giving up a top 10 pick? meanwhile i’m pretty sure randle would have been a top 10 pick in this draft also… and russell for that matter.. and that’s the reason why they…

I can’t get too mad at a one year deal

I’d be more mad at a one-year deal. What would be the point?

What’s the point of any of this, really? The front office doesn’t know what they’re doing. I’m just happy with anything that doesn’t fuck the team up long term

What’s the point of any of this, really? The front office doesn’t know what they’re doing. I’m just happy with anything that doesn’t fuck the team up long term

I totally get where you’re coming from on that, but I’m not quite yet prepared to simply root for them to not fuck things up that badly. Not yet, at least!

Two-time NBA Finals MVP Kawhi Leonard will certainly not be remembered as the guy who “rode Duncan/Manu/Parker.” There are few players that need to win a championship with the Knicks to cement their legacy less than Kawhi Leonard.

The report on considering Boogie is being blown way out of proportion.

(1) The Knicks saying they’d consider Boogie is a completely meaningless statement. If they didn’t “consider” him they wouldn’t be doing a good job, even for a 1yr max.

(2) Signing Boogie for the max presents a decent opportunity to flip him to a contender and pick up some young pieces/picks. With the Warriors running on fumes/injured the NBA is wide open for the first time in awhile, we will see teams be more aggressive in pursuing players at the trade deadline.

(3) The flattened lottery odds made a huge difference this year. Even if we do tank and get the worst record our average projected draft slot is not going to net us a surefire franchise changing player.

(4) League perception of team talent matters. The league is currently being driven by stars who choose where they want to play, making yourself a more attractive destination for free agents is a good idea. Players want to play for teams that show they’re already good or starting to create some buzz. For example, if the Knicks had a better record than the Nets last year do you think Kyrie (and therefore KD) would be as likely to sign with the Nets?

Completely unrelated, Ignas Brazdeikis reminds me of a stronger Mindaugas Kuzminskas which isn’t a bad player. Mindaugas would always get great post position after a cut to the basket and then miss the layup. I don’t think Ignas will miss the layup. On the other hand maybe my brain shouldn’t be watching youtube highlights of draft picks at 1am and just decided to come up with another white guy with a weird name…

I said

Deserved or not that’s his legacy.

He’s a legit great player but winning a championship in NY would dwarf anything he’s accomplished so far in terms of his legacy. That should be our pitch to free agents.