Berman doing a little more work for Mills, throwing Fizdale under the bus a little more after the bus left the station weeks ago:
There are still some excuses you can offer David Fizdale.
The last five games he coached with the Knicks, he faced title contenders in Philly, Boston, Toronto, Milwaukee and Denver. Fizdale did not have starting point guard Elfrid Payton, part of the recent resurgence, for 17 straight games.
And while Fizdale has gotten rousing support from the coaching fraternity, the old Bill Parcells adage is never false: You are what your record says you are.
After gaining revenge on the depleted Wizards in Washington Saturday to close out 2019, Miller stands at 5-6 – already one more victory this season than the 4-18 Fizdale.
All those coaches/ex-coaches who killed the Knicks for firing Fizdale — Rick Carlisle, Steve Kerr, Gregg Popovich, Erik Spoelstra, Stan Van Gundy — are eating New Year’s Eve crow.
Only Jeff Van Gundy was sharp enough to acknowledge Miller as a shrewd basketball lifer deserving a crack at age 55.
“Mike just wants to focus on basketball,” one NBA executive in touch with Knicks brass said. “David is a lot about the glitz and glamour. He may have created some self-created distractions.”
It’d sure be swell if Randle could just be the guy I really liked on the Lakers a couple of years ago. I thought he’d be a nice pick-up then and then he did even better in New Orleans. Then he came here and was horrendous. If he keeps playing like he has lately, though, I’d gladly stick with him (although, if a team wanted to make a compelling offer for him, I’d obviously still listen if I were the Knicks) and see if he can be part of the next good Knicks team in a couple of years.
196 replies on “NY Post: How Knicks’ Mike Miller is making David Fizdale defenders look bad”
The schedule, the addition of Payton, and even randomness in shot making (Randall is suddenly hotter from 3) are all a factor in the team’s record under Miller vs Fizdale. It’s hard to know how much each is worth.
To me though, it “seems” like the team is passing better (not just Payton), moving better, doing fewer strategically silly things like driving into double teams and turning the ball over or forcing a bad shot, coming up with better plays out of timeouts and adjusting better strategically to the matchups and what’s going on the court.
So even though Miller has a few tailwinds assisting him, I still think he’s probably doing a better job.
all that criticism for the fizdale firing had very little to do with david fizdale himself. charming as he is…
once you stop coaching the knicks, chances are very good you won’t be head coaching anywhere else for a while…only thing we do worse than drafting, trading, shoot the basketball from inside the arc, selecting free agents – is pick good coaches…
people in the league, around the league do not seem to think very highly of either mills or dolan…
any and every chance the media, or different folks in the league get the chance to poop our way…
If Frank could be as confident and relaxed on the court during the game as he is on the FT line, he would get better results. I guess he’s getting better, but you can still see the indecisiveness and lack of confidence in some of his strokes during the game.
The good news is that if he’s a legit 80% FT shooter now (or better), he’s making progress.
Now he just has to hit the wide opens 3s often enough that they have to cover him tighter. Then maybe the percentage will dip a little again, but he might be able to drive a little more instead of passing sideways so often.
Who could possibly imagine he’d be the designated FT shooter on technical fouls?
He’s done that a least twice for Miller that I can recall.
He’s doing 90% of what Fiz did. He dropped the 10% that was egregious, ergo he is already demonstrably better.
We can’t overstate how bad of a coach Fizdale was, though. He’s not a useful benchmark at all.
I’m open to giving Miller more time but I expect a greater sample size and a less favorable schedule will broadly expose his limitations, most of which are already obvious to most observers.
broadly speaking what do you think Miller’s limitations are?
Mike Miller’s biggest limitations are the piece of shit roster he inherited and the dysfunctional organization he works for. Considering he’s working under those serious limitations I think he’s doing a fine job and deserves a longer look. He has already demonstrated that he is a lot better than Fizdale. The team is playing harder and smarter and that is factorial.
Fizdale sucked, but this is mostly just a schedule illusion and some marginal tweaks to the offense, including a few more corner 3s and some small sample size. There’s nothing material to be read into the coaching change. Fizdale sucked, nothing Miller has done would warrant giving him the job without a complete search. They lost at home to the Wiz G-League team.
OK, boomer.
rating knick coaches of recent memory: worse to not too bad at all
1). rambis
2). fizdale
2). horny
3). fischer
4). miller
5). woodson
6) d’antoni
Most of his limitations are already obvious to most observers. You are obviously in the very small minority of observers to whom these limitations are not yet obvious.
Miller is basically the guy in the red shirt on Star Trek. I wouldn’t get too attached, he ain’t gonna be here long
We should all chip in to buy Mills a red shirt.
It’s early but my impression of him now is a caretaker who is running almost everything Fizdale ran but benefiting from a few things:
1. A regression from Randle
2. Mediocre PG play (a massive upgrade from Frank)
3. A favorable schedule
4. The usual uptick in effort that tends to follow a coach getting fired. And this is heightened bc of how toxic Mills and perry let it get around here after that 10 game press conference.
He has a basic competence that is refreshing around here. But two things stand out to me as harbingers of inadequacy:
1. The three PG rotation and the absurd way he’s fumbled with the backup minutes
2. His ongoing commitment to the three big lineup.
Any good coach, IMHO, would not be messing around with either of those things. If Dave Joerger, for example, showed up tomorrow I expect the first thing he would do is replace one big with a shooter. That’s a basic sign of quality to me. If you look at this team and say “we need what Bobby Portis brings to the table more than we need the required floor spacing of a modern NBA offense”, I’ll question how good you are.
I’m also discouraged by how much he rides the stopgap veterans. There is no sign of the developmental guru some were expecting.
His commitment to the power forwards and his shoehorning of all the PGs suggest he’s likely a company man.
He has no history, no track record, no identify, no philosophy. I’m happy to give him time, but he’s 55 years old and looking at his track record doesn’t reveal a commitment to anything.
There’s just not much here. He’s on a nice run but there are a litany of outside factors contributing to it. We all knew Mills was timing it this way.
All signs point to this guy being a big ol’ nothing burger like Don Chaney and Herb Williams.
The sheer fact miller has players making smarter b-ball decisions makes him legit.
I got a question; how tough do you have to be at age 55 watching the guy you work under make obscene blunders like making randle the center of the offense while you sit in the wings knowing better ?!?
My point being that the stupid is gone … miller is the real deal imho.
Let’s see what he can do!
ah, the bad ‘ol don chaney days…who knew those would be the good times…
I remember herb williams being the first person (other than cheech and chong) I ever associated cannabis with…hey look, it’s herb…
“Smoking herb” Williams .. monicker amongst my small pot smoking Knick fans circle at the time
THjr just pulled a hammie…
I have a question for you:
When your top 10 guys are Frank, Barrett, Ellington, Dotson, Morris, Randle, Knox, Portis, Gibson, and Robinson, how do you manage that?
Barrett is the closest thing to a creator of those ten people and he’s a 19 year old rookie.
I really hate me some Fiz and running the offense through Randle was not effective, but it really did seem like a product of circumstance. What was the alternative?
Are you kidding?
Ask this question, because asking the right question is all it’s about, what was fiz thinking when he decided after an entire offseason no less, to make trier his starting pg or better yet what was the plan if randle pointforward failed? Neither makes sense.
You have to tip your cap to Mills. He has played this to perfection. We all said it at the time but he really set Fizdale up to be the scapegoat with great skill and precision. If only he could run a basketball team as expertly as he covers up for his own failure.
OUCH! Luka’s coconut is gonna hurt tomorrow!
@6 pretty much sums it up. Fiz didn’t do himself any favors with the platitudes and such. No matter, it’s best to have a more anonymous guy anyway. If Miller falters, bring in the next anonymous guy. Better off having someone with low expectations who’s disposable than a savior or a systems guy. If Budz had been hired instead of Fiz, the team would still have sucked and he’d be on the chopping block. If Kerr were hired instead of Fisher, he’d have been long fired by now (he said it himself) and maybe coaching the Suns.
Bobby Portis is, unfortunately, one of the best 3 point shooters on the Knicks. I doubt Miller is a particularly good coach but it’s not like he’s got a lot to work with here. If he doesn’t play the mediocre vets the team is going to lose all it’s games-we have only one young player who is any good and the front office clearly wants the team to try to win games
I know most of us are all bent out of shape that we drafted Knox over SGA, but has anyone noticed that Shai’s advanced stats aren’t all that great (or improved from last year) and that the gap between him and Knox has narrowed quite a bit? And that Knox is nearly a full year younger?
Obviously you trade Knox for SGA in a heartbeat, but at least there’s some indication that it isn’t as lopsided as once thought…
There is no anti Miller vitriol. He’s a perfectly fine interim coach. There’s just a couple of voices (Berman, Z-Man) who seem to have been fooled by the smoke and mirrors trap Mills laid for the simple minded fans (and owner).
I mean, we were 7 points better than a G League team the other night. There’s no turnaround here. There’s no great reclamation work from coach Miller.We remain a shit team on both sides of the ball, just happen to be having a brief uptick.
Guess which genius posted this on the day that Fizdale was hired?
Wow, sick burn.
You seem like a nice fellow, Z-Man, albeit one who is clearly desperate to be validated by Jowles and others. I’m not quite sure how to engage you when you’re talking about my intelligence. It’s a dick move to wave my ivy league degree in the face of the village idiot. It’s a bit like picking on Benji Compson, if you know what I mean (and I’m sure you dont).
Maybe stick to basketball and kissing other posters’ asses and put your personal vendetta aside. Rest well knowing you made me act like an asshole. Fortunately, I don’t give a fuck.
Haha, not really an act, is it? Frankly, you don’t seem like a nice fellow to me. A nice fellow would not have gratuitously played the race card like you did, only an actual thin-skinned asshole who ran out of ways to defend himself logically.
I don’t give a shit if anyone here disagrees with me on any opinion I have when the sample size is too small to make a definitive judgment. If you had just said “hey, I think you’re a bit over the top, I don’t see much different x’s and o’s wise between him and Fiz” and followed up with the same reasons, we could have had a civil conversation. But you turned it into a condescending rant, saying stuff like “…this is some Stratomatic-on-Porzinigis-level world building…Steve Mills would be proud that there are people who think this…Everything else is either fantasy and conjecture or undeniably false.”
There was no need for that. It was a fucking opinion based on 10 games. There’s only one likely reason you were an asshole about it…because you’re an asshole. No acting was necessary.
I brought up your brilliant quote from the day that Fiz was hired to remind you that you were drinking the Mills kool aid at that time despite Mills’ long record of manipulation and incompetence. You also thought Fiz was a “good, perfectly adequate coach” despite the fact that he flamed out in Memphis with a far better roster than this one. And you’re just as likely to be wrong about Miller as you were about Fiz and Mills/Perry. So who the fuck are you to be jumping ugly with anyone about a premature rosy assessment of a coach? Oh, never mind, I already answered that.
I beseech thee both to chill
I’m pretty sure I was the first one anywhere to call Fizdale out as a snake oil salesman. That was probably early last year. I can smell BS a mile away.
I don’t get that feeling from Miller.
To me, it’s way too early to decide much about him because he didn’t have a training camp to implement what he might want to do. Any changes he makes are going to come slowly over the course of the season. So far though, they seem to be for the better.
I sort of agree with Hubert on the inadequacies (there’s a rarity lol), but I’m not sure of the solutions.
1. The big man lineup is not a good idea, but right after the off season signings everyone that knows these players well was screaming about the team construction. There aren’t many good lineups.
2. The 3 PG rotation is idiotic, but primarily because DSJr is in it.
Forget about my personal views on his basketball IQ, temperament and probability of improving relative to Frank (which have been consistent since the day of the trade when I was already down on him). He’s been absolutely horrible. The only reason he’s playing at all is because he was part of the KP trade.
If he earns minutes in practice by outplaying Kadeem Allen, then he should be the backup on the nights Frank or Payton are hurt. Long term, if they don’t want to give up on him, I can handle that. I could easily be wrong about a very young guy with that much athletic ability, but stop playing him. He’s terrible and imo has other attitude issues.
It’s 90-percent-plus a schedule illusion, and most of the rest is just the typical new coach bounce. People are seeing things that aren’t really there and pointing to small sample size-ish things that may be pure coincidence. Miller doesn’t even have anything like Fizdale’s two Dallas wins to point to. He’s beaten G-State, Sacto ex-Fox, Wiz G-League, Atlanta ex-Collins, and BKN ex-Kyrie/LeVert. He’s lost at home to Wiz G-League plus Beal. He’s gotten blown out by Miami, Milwaukee, and Portland.
The offense still runs through Randle and Morris isos. They don’t switch as much on D, but there’s no reason to believe that rather than the schedule has led to the “improvement.” Correlation does not equal causation.
There’s just nothing really there. There are some tougher games coming up which gives him a chance to change that. I doubt he will, but we’ll see. As the saying goes, that’s why they play the games.
With all due respect to everyone here, while I may be way more bullish on KP’s value than virtually everyone here, my views on his value are more in line with most top coaches, scouts, basketball analysts and former high level players.
That view is pretty basic.
His value is greater than what is captured by boxcsore metrics like WS48, BPM, Wins Produced etc.. that are popular here because some of the things he does especially well that have value are not among the stats used in those models or captured correctly at the individual player level.
I’m also of the opinion that at age 22 (when he went down) he was especially weak physically and raw in his development and understanding of how to maximize his offensive talent. So there is a lot of upside if he can stay healthy, get stronger (which he is beginning to do) and get the coaching he needs to learn how to play correctly (which I think he will get over time from Carlisle).
I could easily be wrong about him long term (especially if he gets hurt again). Time will tell. But he’s 100% definitely better than the consensus here and if he becomes a really solid two way player and #2 option for Dallas, he was easily worth that contract.
My perspective on this is that they idea that you can go back and look at 1976 box score archives and come up with valuable “advanced metrics” from that is highly misguided. If the metrics and the models purport to be able to do that, it’s a standalone dealbreaker for me. Once the deal is broken, I quickly move on without looking back. So if someone insists to me that Frank Ntilikina or Kristaps Porzingis are bad because they don’t score so well on a metric that insists on being able to accurately and pinpointedly rate 1976 Ricky Sobers and Sidney Wicks, the correct reaction is to kind of nod and keep walking.
how is it any closer between sga and knox? there is a chasm between those two which will continue to widen….
Ahem
The key part of this is There aren’t many good lineups.
The team’s best 5 players are Mitch, Randle, Morris, Gibson and Payton. That’s pretty indisputable, statistically or otherwise. Any coach that is trying to win (and do you think a 55yo in his first NBA gig isn’t going to put winning at the top of the list?) is going to play his best players as much as possible, given obvious limitations e.g Randle, Mitch and Portis together makes less sense. Portis’s minutes should mostly depend on whether Mitch is in foul trouble.
You can call Morris a big, a PF, whatever, but on this team he’s playing 81% of his minutes at SF and doing it better on both ends than anyone else on the team could. There’s nothing wrong with having him, Mitch and Randle on the floor together. They’re all mobile enough to play reasonably well against smaller lineups on D (as are Portis and Taj) and can punish smaller lineups on the offensive end and the boards.
We’re not bad because of the big 3 lineup. We’re bad because our guards and wings are all either bad at shooting (Payton, Frank, RJ) defending (Trier, Ellington) or both (Smith Jr., Knox). Dotson is the closest thing to a competent 2-way small wing we have. Maybe Bullock becomes an option in a smaller lineup configuration, but then you have to play either Morris, Mitch or Randle less minutes. Alternatively, it might be best (in terms of wins, not player development) for Bullock to take minutes away from RJ and Dotson.
Against better teams, the so-called 3-big strategy is more viable than playing any 3 of our horrifically overmatched smaller guys together. Against bad teams, well, 5-6 in the last 11 is about as good as any coach playing any system would have done with this team.
The comment was made before last night’s SGA monster game stats were added, but even with that bounce:
2018-19
TS%: SGA +.079
WS48: SGA +.104
BPM: SGA +5.7
2019-20
TS%: SGA +.044
WS48: SGA +.054
BPM: SGA +1.5
And he’s a full year older. Sure, SGA is far more likely to turn out to be a better player, but he’s not lighting the world on fire yet. He’s sporting a .499 eFG%, a -1.2 BPM and a .091 WS48.
I do agree that Miller (or any coach in his situation, including Fiz) has to pay at least some attention to placating the front office, i.e. playing some guys more than in a vacuum. DSjr is clearly someone who fits into that category. It’s not like the PGs ahead of him are tearing it up, but he is really, really bad. I can’t imagine that Miller thinks deep down that DSjr is a good player or a long-term piece at this point.
He drew first blood, not me…
Sorry for the posting binge…I’m killing time before a routine medical screening procedure later today and haven’t eaten solid since forever.
Between Fizdale and Miller, they have played DSJ enough and it’s clear that Payton and Ntilikina are better. Our front office may be color blind, metaphorically, but this is black and white. I would be really surprised if Miller got pushback for not playing Payton. I think he tried him out at first, because as a new coach he gave players a clean slate, but gave up after DSJ lost a game for him.
for an age 21 season sga is pretty much lighting the world on fire…. the advanced stats haven’t really been all that great fwd looking metrics but you can slice it up to see if a player is making sticky progress….
and between sga and knox it’s simple… sga has maintained great shooting efficiency on an increased usage while knox had to decrease his usage to get to a much lower efficiency…. and if you look at their shot mix sga’s is much higher in 2p land which means it’s much much more sustainable when knox has to go much further out to get his….
the advanced stats are meant to give you a quick look at what happened…. and the only reason it appears that knox is closing the gap is because knox was already coming from a very low output already…. however knox is the one who is approaching his ceiling even though he is younger while sga has much longer runway….
there isn’t any precedent for a guy who shoots 50% of his shots from 3 and shooting as bad as knox has from 2 carving out anything other than a bench role in the nba… meanwhile sga already plays a much larger role and playing starter minutes and still lapping knox a few times over….
it’s not close now and likely will never be….
I’d say the body language did him in more than his bad numbers and atrocious +/-
Anyway I think we can bet 50$ we’ve seen the last of DSJ in a Knick uniform.
randle + mitch under fiz (185 minutes ) -17.9 net rating
randle + mitch under miller (149 minutes) +10.3
a few things about that…
1) there were a lot of people in the camp that randle + mitch would never work based on a month of lineup data… including zach lowe…. if you really want a young team in ny…. you should probably give them more than a month to figure things out….
2) i don’t attribute that to miller at all… if there’s a singular reason i would give it to payton and also randle shooting better helps too…
3) i think that does give some more proof that the key to having two paint oriented bigs work well together is having a pg.. or a primary ballhandler… to create scoring opportunities where space sometimes doesn’t allow for it to happen other ways.. it also helps if one of the bigs is a willing passer…. one thing to keep an eye on is if randle can start doing more interior passing… both in motion and in a high-low game… something memphis did with zbo and gasol to great success….
mitch on the low block near the rim is untapped and definitely worth exploring as it can unlock more usage out of his already hyper efficient game….
From your mouth to every GM in the NBA’s ears.
Nobody, and I do mean nobody, on this board has ever suggested you can learn all you need to know about a player from looking at all-in-ones. You guys continue to wail on this straw man because it’s all you have left in arguing that Frank Ntilikina doesn’t suck, or that Kristaps Porzingis would’ve made sense at $31M AAV on the Knicks.
What people do suggest is that they can be decent estimates of a player’s overall value, and if you’re suggesting they’re off by ridiculous orders of magnitude (i.e. enough to make Frank Ntilikina an NBA rotation player, or Kristaps Porzingis a worthy max player) the burden of proof is on you.
This is backed up by their fairly strong correlation with team success (notice how neither of you could point to a good team with the current iteration of Frank Ntilikina in its rotation), and their pretty damn good job at predicting which free agent signings will work out, and which ones won’t.
Anyway, if you check out r/Mavericks you’ll see that the vaunted “mainstream” opinion on Porzingis’ value may be starting to shift after he laid another egg offensively and got roasted by the likes of JaVale McGee and Dwight Howard all night (I watched the game and seriously these dudes had like 4+ uncontested dunks each on his ass).
Seems possible that, as has been the case in every other season of his career, he’s getting worse, not better, as the season progresses.
SGA is universes better than Knox by every metric, and the metrics probably undersell the difference (SGA is mostly an SG this years and the metrics are roughest on them). What the hell are we talking about?
here’s another look at the draft before the new year… my top 10:
1) Anthony Edwards – he’s made the adjustment on his 2p shooting and now he’s one of the best sg prospects ever…. he’s still behind dwyane wade but that’s about it and he’s not too far off at that…
2) Onyeka Okongwu
3) James Wiseman
4) Vernon Carey – it will be interesting to see if we have the #2 or 3 pick… all of these guys don’t really fit next to mitch… wiseman may have the best jumper and a smoother game… okongwu is the most physically imposing and most dominant defensively… carey has the most developed low post game… they are all very very good though and we do have to consider picking them even with the presence of mitch…
5) Killian Hayes – he’s now the best pg…
6) Obi Toppin – shawn marion clone …. there were doubts on level of comp but he’s performed well against better teams this year….. he slides right in a modern pf spot but i think he can do well as a sf also…
7) Aaron Nesmith – the shots are falling and still hasn’t stopped…. he came in with a lot of promise last year and didn’t deliver… this year he’s really blossomed… he’s very dependent on his 3-ball which limits his upside but his overall game is good enough to think it’s a feature and not a bug….
8) Tyrese Halliburton
9) Isaac Okoro – he was always a good defensive guy but the main question has been offense… his upside is limited there but there’s some hope he can be efficient if at low usage…
10) Nico Mannion
Not true. He has maintained slightly below league average TS% and his eFG% is well below league average this year (and down from last year.)
Melo would agree wholeheartedly with this.
Why is that the only reason? Why can’t part of the reason be that Knox came from a very low output because he was a year younger? Or had more to learn and work on? Or that SGA has not improved as much as he should have? Or that he’s been surrounded by better players? Or that he’s played for better coaches?
How do you know this? Why is Knox approaching his ceiling? How do we know that SGA isn’t approaching his ceiling?
There are only 13 players ever with a 3PAr at .500 or above at age 20 or younger in significant minutes. nearly all of those seasons came in the last couple of years. The sample size is too small for any talk of precedent. Also, just 5 years ago, the league-wide average 3PAr was .268. This year it’s at .381. Shooting more 3’s and less 2’s is actually a good thing. And cutting his usage while marginally increasing his per 36 assists, steals and blocks while cutting his tov’s demonstrates that he is coachable.
So the Giants kept Shurmur long enough for him to lame-duck fuck them out of the #2 pick? That’s amazing.
Quoth Shurmur, on tanking:
“I’m incapable of waiting for a second marshmallow.”
“Yeah, I took the marshmallow. There will be more marshmallows, I’m sure.”
“I don’t think anything but the marshmallow in front of me. Sure, maybe if I don’t take this one, there will be 1,000 marshmallows for me in the next room. But I don’t worry about that.”
“Not sure if I mentioned this, but I am incapable of not eating this marshmallow in front of me.”
“Literally cannot help myself. And my superiors are helpless all the same.”
“Did I mention that there will be more marshmallows?”
yep, top 4 pick is nice, but, that skins game alone should have cost gettleman his job…
@48
http://bkref.com/tiny/9fXU0
SGA is clearly better in a more prominent role, but I don’t see the “universes” of difference in their per 36 and advanced stats. And it’s rare that we point out positional differences in metrics like BPM and VORP, where SGA is better, but hardly by “universes,” especially considering that he’s a year older.
Again, I’d trade Knox for SGA in a heartbeat, but haven’t given up hope that Knox can be better than most here thought at draft time and after last year’s debacle season.
All I know is that if you take a lot of shots and miss a lot of them that is bad. That is a big part of KP’s game: high usage, low efficiency. It’s been that way his whole career and it’s not trending in some positive direction. Maybe when he “gets stronger” or whatever he will start to put up good efficiency numbers. But I don’t need no all in one stats to tell me that a dude who scores 17 points on 18 FGA all the time is not a max contract player. That’s a player who is wasting valuable possessions.
I’m sure he does lots of other magical things that don’t show up in box scores but dude misses a gang of shots.
@43
Wow, what a fall. I was never very hopeful about him as I recall reading about him sulking/milking injury in Dallas, but I’m a bit surprised at how dramatic his fall from “grace” has been. FWIW, if the Knicks keep him, I’d still like to see him get consistent backup PG minutes for awhile and Frank go to backup SG.
I’m all for tanking and continuing to let the kids play. But it’s very possible that DSJ pretty much hates coming off the bench.
Gallinari and Knox were somewhat comparable in season 2 except that Gallinari shot significantly better at all 3 levels. They had similar per 36 shot distribution and almost identical per 36 rebounding, assist, block, steal, tov and pf numbers. I’m not sure whether Knox can improve his shooting efficiency, but that’s what is key for him in becoming that kind of player. Easier said than done, but at least Knox’s mechanics look pretty good and he seems to be a willing, coachable kid.
DSjr and his shitty attitude are buying a ticket for the Trey Burke Express. Next stop: G-League
That is encouraging given that Knox is one year younger than Gallinari was in his second season
over the holidays ma told me she got in to an argument with someone while she was picking up the honey baked ham (i love honey baked hams :)…mom’s pushing 80, and she’s always been the type to speak her mind, be it in public or private…
what i tried to tell her though was that her focus when out in public or engaging with others should be to minimize her interaction time with “crazy” (any one she doesn’t get along with) people…if there’s someone rubbing you the wrong way – why bother inviting them into your life even more…
mom understood what i was saying, and, to her credit simply admitted to the fact that she can’t control herself in that regard…always on a crusade and ready to engage with others on any level…
no doubt in my mind that both yourself and hubert got your shit together and more importantly have folks in your life that care about you…
for me it kind of all goes back to something i learned back in the 90’s reference leadership – the whole 10 to 20% of your employees will cause you 80 to 90% of your headaches – the leadership point being that you should pretty much just write them off and make sure you focus on the greater majority of folks getting shit done the right way…dealing with fucked up people is just a waste of time…
not to imply either of you are fucked up in any way – point being is to use the energy you spend on others in a more productive manner…
steps down off of soapbox…and, back to work…
30 guards have a ts over 55% and usg > 20% this year… that includes the best players in the nba.. sga is the youngest of that group…
i know this because sga has been better than knox at every age.. you cannot explain away bad play from purely their play environment.. there’s a bare minimum level of play you can demonstrate irregardless of where you are.. and knox has had plenty of minutes to demonstrate that and he hasn’t… they were even on the same team and it was very clear that sga was better..
anything could happen but it’s not like knox is gonna turn into kevin durant.. you don’t need tremendous samples to make that conclusion..
just because teams have gotten more 3p happy doesn’t change the basis of how players develop… there have been 41 seasons of players age 24 and younger with a 3pr > 30 and 2p% less than 43%.. the very best of those players were covington.. mirotic.. mashburn.. and korver while literally everyone else has done squat in the nba..
the repeat offenders? stanley johnson… casey jacobsen.. hollis thompson… dermar johnson… and yes knox is closer to that second group than the first one.. because surprise knox is also a repeat offender and the #s at the same age are similar..
if you want to make the argument that he’s closer to the first group then ok… but you’re gonna have to make the argument that knox will close the massive gap in shooting and secondary stats… when he couldn’t perform as well as they…
cont’d…
mashburn was much much better at kentucky…. mirotic was one of the best euro players when he was knox’s age… and korver was a better shooter than knox in diapers…. covington you might have a case but knox never put up the defensive #s that covington has in any year….
i wouldn’t close the book on knox but his outlook isn’t good unless something changes drastically… what he’s doing this year is not it….
oh yeah – what’s the world coming to when jowles is playing peacekeeper…
you’re getting old jowles…either that or lady jowles is softening you up with all that fine teepee living and you’re becoming “civilized” 🙂
[Josey and Lone Watie are relaxing after Moonlight has cooked for them]
Lone Watie : That meal was damn good. I’m gonna take up teepee livin’ if it’s like this. You know she thinks I’m some kind of a Cherokee chief.
Josey Wales : I wonder where she ever got that idea.
okay, this has nothing to do with anything – but, just cuz i have a low amount of impulse control – i’m gonna leave this here because it makes me smile:
Has Anthony Edwards actually figured out his 2PT shot or are we talking small sample theater? I see a big, definitive statement off the back of three decent (2PT) shooting games in December.
He strikes me as a guy who everyone’s in love with because of size and athleticism.
JJ Barea is a tough motherfucker.
Just read on RealGM
“Several teams have inquired about DSmithJ”
I had to google ‘several’ and ‘inquired’ for secret meanings to make sure that i got it right.
oh yeah – what’s the world coming to when jowles is playing peacekeeper…
Sign of the Apocalypse
it’s funny…after reading the exchange between the two – i was thinking: ouch, maybe i should tell them the ma story…immediately after that thought though i considered just how sharp witted z-man and hubert are and told myself – self – best to stay out the middle of that particular conflict, less you wanna take some collateral damage…
jowles to the rescue…
most importantly – hope shit goes smooth with the doc today z-man…
@63
His 2pt% is a red flag but his other predictive numbers are p close to very very good for a sg. He can get to the rim very easily as well and finish in different ways and his pull up looks pretty nice. The percentages themselves aren’t encouraging but the way he plays indicates he can actually grow in that area (unlike Knox, who you could tell would never be a good two pt shooter with his awful and awkward floater game). So yes a size and athleticism thing but also the problems he has actually seem fixable.
My latest homespun philosophy:
You can’t choose between being smart or dumb and you can’t do much about it….
Being kind or being a dick to one another is definitely a matter of choice.
Choose Love !
everything in college is small sample… the best players don’t even crack 1000 minutes… you don’t need tremendous samples to know a good player is good tho…. there’s very little volatility with dominant players… kyrie only played a quarter of the season and that was enough to be the consensus #1 pick… if you stick lebron james in the ncaa right now he’s not gonna need 3000+ minutes to show that he’s good like some of the guys we have on the knicks…..
with edwards… his improvement has come in only one month of play but you also have a total sample of 100 shots on the season…. this month accounts for a big portion of his year…. i wouldn’t get anchored on what happened in the early stretch of the year because that’s obviously a smaller sample than what you have in totality.. and in totality it looks fine and lines up with his other great numbers and what you see on the eye test… a guy who has a good maybe not great handle… physically dominant and is able to leverage that in multiple ways on the court…. his shot selection needs work and he’s not michael jordan or anything but he’s also not like colin sexton ….
there’s more confidence that this is closer to his true level….
yeah, easy to say when you’re sitting in some small cafe in sitia, overlooking the beautiful mediterranean, while munching away on some delicious souvlaki…
much in the way bobneptune will always live in neptune city, nj, and grocer owns a deli in queens and serves some of the best sandwiches in the city – knew your knicks will forever and always be chilling at a cafe by the water with nothing but time and a lovely day to enjoy…
yeah, at this point in my knickerblogger life – i’ve built backstories for most of you…
oh sorry, were we supposed to be talking about basketball…
Yeah, things get testy, even personal IMHO, here, from time to time. Such is life.
But, at least there’s not a pretty steady diet of sexism and homophobia/gay bashing that I’ve seen on some other sports forums.
I’m kind of enjoying the Knox debate. A break from the endless Frank stuff.
Maybe I haven’t watched him enough, but why is Anthony Edwards such an all-world prospect again? I know he’s a tremendous athlete, but none of his all-in-one or shooting numbers jump out as special. Even his ft% is pretty average. I know his team sucks —is this why?
It will be really tricky if Wiseman is on the board and we’re picking. He looks like a can’t-miss prospect in an area where we have little need… but I’m also not sold on any of the guards in this draft. I’m a fan of Obi “Wan” Toppin, but he doesn’t seem like a “Mills guy,” sadly.
And as for Knox… I think he actually projects as a useful Morris/Portis-type, but he needs to keep filling out to play the 4 eventually. Maybe by next year? I definitely think Knox and Frank can become useful low-end starters/bench players, but the question is will they be worth the money they’re making at those positions once they’re in their 5th year in the league and finally producing compared to a decent g-league call-up? Seems doubtful.
@geo
Make it:
Athens/Inside house, gazing room walls and listening to Symphony 41 on vinyl by Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Karl Bohm alongside my 8months cat Pookie while outside is raining slightly and freezing mildly.
Sorry to destroy the greek stereotypes one by one but we had pizzas today and no coffee at all !
I think this year is the year that Porzingis will finally be exposed. On the Knicks, you could blame his poor hand-eye coordination on the lack of competent PG play, lack of offensive system, lack of spacing, lack of double-teams drawn away from him, lack of whatever else you can vaguely point to (or invent) re: institutional failure.
This year, he is playing next to what looks like a perfect marriage of James Harden and Larry Bird, in a 20-year-old’s body. No one save Doncic is taking shots from him; they have a cast of outstanding role players (and THJ). They have Rick Carlisle, whatever that’s worth. His TS% should be .600, not .500, should he actually be the shooter that I’ve been told he is for so many years.
The question I have is whether the Mavs will figure it out, and what they’ll get back for him in the event that they realize that he has little significant change to his impact metrics over four NBA seasons. Or whether they will tie Doncic’s fate — multiple MVPs and title runs included — to his.
Like his game or not, we have Knox. He’s not going to be a star, but a role player may be within reach. I’ll take any player improvement from him, even if it’s just realizing he’s not the focal point of the offense. Longterm I don’t think he’s likely to be a rotation player.
Knox needs to make a jump at some point (maybe a few), but that doesn’t need to be this year. I’ll take any improvement at all from him.
@ geo
Talking about imagined backstories, I have a friend,who’s an ace at coding. I asked him if he can create voices for all the major KB posters, so it can be turned into a podcast and eventually a cartoon.
btw, from a mostly lurker pov, you are one of the linchpins of this site.
KPs value is on defense. His offense continues to be a negative, even more so since there’s so many better offensive players on the Mavs.
Those who know me for a long time on this site know that I’m quick to apologize when deservedly (even if harshly) called out, and quick to forgive when I call others out and they apologize. A few days ago, I was unnecessarily dismissive of bobneptune, he told me to stick it, and I apologized because he was right. I got into it with Jowles a long while back, took it too far, and was told to drink bleach. I realized I was wrong and apologized.
Some posters here have very little capacity for self-reflection. They get nasty for no reason, and when you come back at them, rather than apologize, they escalate, even resorting to slinging accusations of misogyny, racism, homophobia, etc. I have zero tolerance for that.
Thanks for asking, geo…all good, glad I don’t have to drink that godawful prep for another 5 years!
As tnfh noted above, Porzingis looked terrible on D last night against Howard and McGee, and of course, Davis. He’s a formidable shot-blocker but looked like an Enes Kanter-level decision maker in help situations. He gets “length” rebounds but usually gets boxed out. And on offense, not only can he be single-teamed, he can be single-teamed by a much shorter defender.
But I think the Mavs will give him a pass on this year for all the obvious reasons. Next year will be key for him.
Porzingis’ intangibles are not great. He’s a low IQ player as far as I’m concerned. He misses lots of shots because he takes dumb low-percentage shots all the time. He’s a good-not-great perimeter shooter and he’s allergic to passing.
Also, it really shouldn’t take five seasons or whatever for a 7’3” big to develop. Guards, sure, they’re slower to develop but most bigs who are gonna be good are already good by Porzingis’ age. This is his age 24 season: Anthony Davis was already destroying the league at age 24. Ditto Joel Embiid. At some point the excuses are gonna run out.
From Mavs Moneyball blog:
A buddy of mine told me, I think back in 2013, that you shouldn’t argue with a crazy person because from a distance, it’s hard to tell who’s who. I’m not saying either (or any) of you are crazy (I missed the exchange anyway, and don’t have any popcorn in the house) but I think the saying goes for any vociferous argument at all.
Of course, let’s see how I practice what I preach the next time someone asserts that, say, Rudy Giuliani is a brilliant, scrupulous, articulate man with many important, ethical and legal things to do for the American people. Or maybe that Vladimir Putin is a champion of Western democracy and anti-corruption efforts. Or that the current President is incapable of telling a lie.
at the beginning, and end, of the day – we’re all just monkey’s flinging poo at one another 🙂
awwww, bo…thank you sir…i’m not sure exactly when, but, i think it was during one of our conversations about either books or movies that i realized there was a lot more to this site and the people involved than just basketball/knick analysis…
the knicks suck, but – most of the folks whom share here definitely do not…we’re fortunate to have a diverse group of posters from all over the world kicking in here to commiserate with one another about the team…
sometimes it’s best for myself to just put off thinking about the team and focus on what’s best about the site: the people…
for the record, i have a deep and monotone voice – i don’t exactly sound like lurch – but, you rang?
you fucking muppets sure get introspective when statler and waldorf are fighting
As a lurker here for a very long time, let me say that this is one of my favorite things about the blog. I moved to the hinterlands to procreate many years ago, and I miss this sort of dialogue the way I miss NYC bagels and pizza. It took me years to learn how to speak suburb.
curse you for making me look up who the hell statler and waldorf are…
nice pipe…
Put THAT in ur kazoo and smoke it…
@87
I once planned to do that! How did it go?
🙂
It was good. My wife was born and raised on Manhattan, but followed me over the bridge despite her better instincts. I just could not figure out how I might raise a child there, so she had to learn to drive at 38. We are not so far away. My daughter took me to a game for my 60th so she could cheer Giannis . I spent three days in museums, galleries and absolutely stuffed myself on NYC pizza and bagels. Also- get to Mercado Little Spain if you are a carnivore. Miss the city.
Now I’m starving for another taste of NYC
You can watch a game for 5 minutes with Knox and SGA in it and know the deal. One is good. He makes smart plays and has an obvious great feel for the game. The other is bad. He misses the rim on layups and shoots air ball 3’s all the time. The guys he guards go right by him. He makes no smart plays. It does not matter that the bad one is 1 year younger than the good one. This is simple and the massive gap between them as basketball players will never change.
Isn’t that not how we do things here?
Why are we expanding the search to 24 year olds? Knox turned 20 just 4 months ago. His shot distribution may be substantially different in 2-4 years. Or his 2-pt % can go up to 45%. Other parts of his game might develop as well.
for the moment, i’m going to roll with the glass half full on kevin…it’s so hard to evaluate anyone wearing a knicks uniform, particularly players that haven’t played for another team…not too hard to recall how we “developed” kevin last year…
i’m encouraged by his blocks, and, the fact that he’s at least starting to draw fouls as he stumbles his way toward the rim…
honestly, that may have been the worst coaching ever with a young player – a little bit like what we seem to be doing with RJ this year…
That same G-League team that beat us once and almost twice just kicked Miami’s ass…
just a matter of picking the right 4 guys off the street…
the thing about knox is that he’s just so damn bad on defense and in general his reaction time always looks like a week slower than anyone else on the court. those aren’t really the things that tend to improve with age. i mean it’s not like gallo was a good defender or a lightning quick cutter but he never looked like he was on radio delay out there. it just seems like even if knox gets his 3s up to 36-40pct and gets strong enough to take a little contact he still tops out as a pretty uninteresting player off the rookie scale.
he kind of reminds if hezonja in the sense that he looks like a guy who should be the best player in a much worse league. i actually think knox has really good vision, he occasionally makes really nice passes out of nowhere, and in the rare situation he’s throwing an outlet he looks like phil simms. but he just doesn’t seem like he’ll ever be able to keep up with the speed of the game well enough to get much use out of that skill.
What’s funny about the Wizard win is that it was the four guys off of the street who won the game! Beal almost shot Washington out of that game.
pt, that is fair, I agree the game often looks too fast for him. I’m not so sure that it will always be. He may be just a slow, steady learner that has to build a game one brick at a time. If he were not improved at all from last year, I’d be more inclined to give up on him. Let’s see how the year ends, especially if Morris is traded.
@91
I’m not a New Yorker, but my wife and I are planning a 4-5 stay in Manhattan this coming May. We’ll try to check out Mercado Little Spain. Thanks!
That’s why Knox should play the 4. He should look less out of place there, obviously needs to rebound better.
Knox kinda looks like a teen who just finished a growth spurt and hasn’t quite figured out how to move his newly elongated limbs.
He probably washes out of the league, but shooters have value. Hezonja comp is a good description.
IT had a bad game for them tonight…mahinmi though has been playing great for them…
they got a couple of other young guys playing well…
okay, if this was a card game, I’d turn in DSJ for sure, probably trier, frank and kevin too for a chance at something/someone else…
not kadeem allen, maybe wooten, haven’t seen iggy play, but, from what you all say, sounds like he’s really bad on defense…
hopefully there’s a chance to get someone promising in exchange for one of our vets…
Melo watch is on…
Dealing with Dolan owning the Knicks and now with Mara/Tisch destroying the Giants the past few years I want to apologize to Hal Steinbrenner for complaining about the way he runs the Yankees. I wish he and Cashman could run all 3 franchises.
Being the nerd I am, this gave me an idea for Fizdale Magic: The Gathering
Re: the whole KP thing, Carlisle, and the NBA media.
Seth Partnow tweeted this:
when I replied at him that the Mavs are worse offensively with Porzingis on the court, he said something about ORAPM and other “more advanced” +/- stats and how it’s more likely than not he is a positive factor for the Mavs (he has since deleted the tweet which is interesting). Funny thing is he has a negative ORPM. And KP’s ORAPM is actually not very good even if positive. (and btw, color me skeptical of this particular stat which has Ben McLemore (#1!) and Jabari Parker (#10) as 2 of the top 10 ORAPM players in the league).
If I am Dallas, I’m saying all the things Carlisle is saying to stay on KP/Janis’s good side, but what if KP is just not that good a shooter? If you include the international line, KP has shot 35.7% on about 1150 3PAs, and more worrisome, in 3 of his 4 seasons, he’s only shot about 37% on WIDE OPEN 3’s (6+ feet open) — he shot 46.3% wide open in his last Knicks year. Teams are definitely going to guard him with a guard or wing in the playoffs, live with lightly-moderately contested 3’s, and/or believe that their guard will be able to tempt him into inefficient post-ups.
In this article, Partnow compares KP’s effect to Lopez’s effect (actually somewhat unfavorably since by ORAPM Lopez is better than KP)… which is maybe not the exact argument an analytics guy wants to make since Lopez makes about 1/2 what KP does, is as good a rim protector, and is a great post-up player if you try and put a guard on him.
Anyway, glad we did not max him.
(teams will guard him with a wing and then switch the Luka/KP pick and roll that is)
btw I generally like Jonathan Macri and his KFS podcast, but what kind of crazy stuff was he saying on the last podcast about sending DSJ + 2 first round picks to the Lakers for Kuzma + filler?!
Or sending DSJ + Morris + 1 first round pick for Kuzma + filler?
First of all, no one is even sure if Kuzma is good.
He’s already 24 and has not even sniffed a WS/48 close to 0.100.
He’s playing with Lebron James and has a TS of only 54, which honestly is hard to do.
He’s notoriously bad on defense.
Second – he was talking about some 4 for 2 trade — and if you’re an actual media member (which he is now), you have to know that the Knicks would have to create 2 roster spots to do that, meaning waiving 2 of the current players.
I mean seriously, if you’re going to present a trade possibility seriously on a popular podcast, don’t you have to actually think about it?
That trade as presented would be on the level of the Ron Baker contract, which to this point still represents possibly the worst contract in the history of the NBA.
I wonder if this team would make a run at VanVleet next year? He would help this group a lot, plus I don’t think there’s any way the Pels let Ingram walk.
It’s almost as though other things than the individual talents of the players on your team help win basketball games . . . who knew?
I’m quite sure Kuzma is terrible and want nothing to do with him.
I use 10 Dolan Dollar Mana to summon Emmanuel Mudiay- a 1/1 that inflicts 3 damage to myself each turn, but I tell my opponent he’s actually a 5/5.
Kuzma’s offense and rebounding numbers look remarkably similar to Knox’s but with better 2pt shooting.
Kuzma is better on defense than Knox. Kuz definitely isn’t good at defense, Knox is just an abject disaster on that end. Even on D I have to think Kuz benefits a lot from having LBJ, AD, Howard, Bradley, etc. instead of Bobby Portis and co.
Moreover, Kuzma is another PF. Can it get even more stupid than this?
Interesting viewpoint on Miller
Why exactly would we be trying to help the Lakers? Giving up picks…for Kuzma? WTF?
Not gonna happen.
Morris straight up for Kuzma IFF it’s the deadline and we get no better offers, only because Morris is a FA after this year.
I’m a little disappointed with Knox’s progress this year. After last year I was still pushing the idea that he had a pretty clear path to becoming a decent role player – the 3 point shot looked like it could become a strength for him and big wings who can shoot 3s are an extremely valued commodity even with many other limitations. Last year’s team was about the least healthy ecosystem possible for a player like that who should be (especially at such a young age) a very dependent player (i.e. his only job on offense should be to shoot open and semi-open 3s) – the kill what you eat mentality and complete lack of creation on the rest of the roster was just a disaster.
This year the biggest change has been that the ecosystem really is healthier and it has improved his shot mix significantly. His usage is down to a much healthier level; his percentage of assisted buckets is up significantly; he’s taking fewer midrangers (particularly unassisted ones); and more 3s (particularly corner 3s). All of that is exactly the steps I wanted from him and it has clearly made him a significantly less negative player, and yet his eFG has gone from 44% to 46%. He really needs the shooting to be the skill that carries the rest of his game and the ball just isn’t going in enough for him. Obviously there’s still plenty of room for improvement in terms of getting him better shots, but the fact that real strides in that direction haven’t helped his efficiency much is discouraging me right now.
Knox is actually shooting better above the break than from the corner (by quite a bit). He and Morris are the only Knicks decent at shooting from there.
Just to keep piling on the Knox disappointment, Mike Porter Jr. looks like he’s breaking out already, shooting 8-10 in his first start the other night.
Yet it feels good to know that Knox would crush him at 3-on-3!
The injury risk with MPJ is the only reason he fell, w/o it he might have been a top 3 pick. A good pick for the Nuggets who could afford the risk.
@Z-Man… bad teams are the ones that need risk. Good teams want guaranteed production, even if that production may be less.
I completely agree that bad teams should be risk-seeking, but I also agree with Z-man that it’s pretty clear that they usually aren’t. The reason being that the bad teams generally have management that is on the hot seat and trying not to get fired which makes them way more risk averse than they should be. That was really the core insight of the process Sixers, that there was a big edge to be gained by managing a bad team optimally for the long-term rather than to avoid getting fired. And Hinkie was fired despite doing an indisputably fantastic job setting them up in the long-term, so…I guess you can see why other management teams don’t act that way.
So really in my opinion the correct statement is “A good pick for the Nuggets GM, who could afford the risk”.
@ 124 I don’t know about that. The flip is good teams are already good and can take a chance. If it fails they will still, in theory, be good. Bad teams can’t afford to let a draft go to waste and need solid NBA rotation players. YMMV and we may just be looking at the opposite sides of the same coin.
According to this report MPJ had a herniated disk and it takes about 2 years after the surgery for the athlete to return to full form. There’s some risk for a recurrence, but it looks like it’s not a high risk (10-12% over 5-10 year period)
I know during the draft, I wanted the Knicks to take him (especially since we had no shot at Doncic and I didn’t view Ayton or Young as having a higher ceiling) and just stash him for a year. But I can definitely see a team not wanting to take the risk of having a player not produce for a year and if he gets injured again be out for however long it would take to heal from the second surgery.
I’m not familiar with some of the stats you were quoting, but I’m sure like all other measurements they are missing relevant info and have some flaws.
What we do know is that KP was showing steady progress as a 3 point shooter in NY before he went down. He was close to 40% that last year despite some terrible shot selection as the clueless #1 option. Maybe that was an slight upside aberration, but it still represented progress.
I’m not sure how “wide open” 3s are measured, but if you watch KP every night, you’ll see that some of the those supposedly wide open 3s he’s taking now are from 6-7 feet or more more past the 3 point line. I have no clue why Carlisle allows KP to take those shots. It probably has to do with generating even greater space, but it sure isn’t helping his 3p% this year.
1. There’s no question he’s not shooting as well this year as he has in the past. His 3p%, FT%, and mid range game are all down from his averages let alone his peak (mid range is laughably poor).
2. There’s no question he’s stronger & finishing & rebounding better, (especially when Doncic is out). KP tends to defer marginal rebounds. If he gets the rebound, he just gives it to Doncic anyway. That’s probably a strategy choice.
The main issue is how much of his shooting funk this year is related to the layoff/injury, how much is random noise, how much is new system, and how much is just him.
Since I predicted here at the start of the season he would probably start off terribly due to the very long layoff and get better (the reverse of previous years), to me the jury is still out, but I expect better.
I watched MPJ in one game this season and he seemed pretty impressive basketball wise but also seemed to me pretty slim and fragile as a young antilope.
Idk….
I ll keep believing in Knox becoming Baby Pippen one glorious day !
Last one.
And if you read my analysis carefully, you’ll see I’m being quite balanced and fair.
IMO, KP could easily be a guy that shoots above average from 3s (like 37-40%), finishes very well at the rim on lobs, cuts, OREB putbacks, and occasional drives, and shoots 80% from the FT line.
That’s 3 very good efficient scoring skills that also add spacing value. He’s already basically done all that in a bad situation in NY. It was the bad shot selection and the bad conditions in NY that prevented better efficiency than 54% TS (or thereabouts).
Dallas is already addressing that by reducing his mid range game and expanding his 3p game. That’s exactly what I was screaming for when he was on the Knicks (as was Haralabos Voulgaris even before he was with Dallas and loved KP’s game).
If you want to look at his first 20-30 games for a new team, in a new system, coming off a 2 year layoff and conclude “this is what KP is because he’s now 24” , you could be right, but I think that’s probably very premature. It’s more or less wishful thinking on the part of Knicks fans that are praying he doesn’t improve off his form at 22 with the Knicks when he was still a weak and raw player that was not being used correctly given his body and skillset.
Strat, a lot of your projections about KP are very much like ruruland’s projections of Carmelo Anthony. The big leap to .600 TS% is right around the corner, the boxscore doesn’t reflect his value, once he’s healthy he’ll be more efficient, if you cherry pick some arbitrary endpoints he’s actually very efficient, his mere presence on the floor makes his teammates better and so on.
You’re the ruruland of Kristaps Porzingis. You’re a stan. It’s a little weird.
I was looking at league wide 4 factor ranks to see what makes the mavs offense so good and I was shocked to see the New York Knicks were 7th in the entire national basketball association at FTA rate. Pity we’re the worst free throw shooting team in the league.
Well, I agree and disagree.
1. I thought ruruland was way over the top on Melo, but correct that he had a little more value than the favored basketball models here suggested.
2. We’ve already seen what KP could do at age 22. IMO, he also had greater value than the boxscore models suggest. That’s a far cry from calling him a star or superstar or something.
(It’s basically the inverse of guys like Kanter and others that often look good on those models but can’t make it off the bench for multiple great coaches. No model is perfect. The boxscore models don’t include everything that has positive or negative value and they can’t handle some aspects of role, system, coaching, teammates etc… So you sort of have to know which profiles tend to get overrated or underrated by each model and why).
I am simply adding 1 thing to the KP analysis.
The dude came into the league as a project as a 7′ 3″ 200 pound toothpick. He was getting better, but missed 1 1/2 years of prime development time due to a very serious injury.
I’m not projecting super star status or a 60% TS%.
I’m saying he’s stronger now, changing his game in a way I think will be more effective, but the layoff is probably a factor in the results. So don’t jump to conclusions and don’t look at BPM and WS/48 if you want to understand his value. IMO, as bad as he has been on offense this year, he’s still a net plus player. If he recovers his shooting and puts it all together over the next year or two he’s going to be a very good player for many years.
Dred, I don’t know the answer, but I’ll guess anyway that Randle and Robinson are a significant part of that. They both get to the line a lot and aren’t good free throw shooters.
I thank you for the entertainment you provide and wish you a happy new year oh great and good Knickerbloggers.
I am unworthy but I will add one thing I’ve learned since I began posting here when David Lee was fighting for a starting job.
That is, David Lee was always David Lee. Efficient around the hoop, good motor but he never became a stopper on defense. He looked great for GSW but then Kerr replaced Jackson, Draymond replaced David Lee and the rest is history.
So it will be with Frank, Knox and KP. Many are called, few are chosen.
In tennis, if you expect to win Wimbledon you better be Novak Djokovich. Otherwise it will take a fluke. If Novak turns his ankle then maybe Nadal is feeling frisky. Thinking Knox ever becomes an all star is like betting on David Ferrer to win Wimbledon.
Some days on the cape the surf is so bad there’s just no getting outside. You might think you can if you try again but the waves are too big and the break too chaotic. These are the metaphorical seas that the Knicks are swimming in.
Ujiri, Riley, POP, these guys are worth a draft pick because they know who to value. Sitting dissecting flawed players hoping for improvement is a flawed premise.
RJ also takes 4 FTs a game and is shooting around 55%.
All young players have flaws. No “kid” coming out of college, the G league, Europe or anywhere else is guaranteed to be anything no matter what they look like at 18-19. What the great managers do is recognize the physical potential, work ethic, basketball IQ, and other attributes of success that make it more or less likely that player will achieve his potential (whether that is high level role player or superstar). Then they actually develop those players correctly and use them properly within a team concept.
When Giannis entered the league there were Too Many fellow citizens from Greece who were predicting that he will fail cause he didn’t have a shoot, he wasn’t strong enough, he wasn’t blah blah blah and bla blah blah blah….
Watching Giannis making a coast to coast dunk after grabbing a board i saw GREATNESS >>> if only he managed to STAY HEALTHY & WORK HIS ASS OFF.
I’ve seen Knox making a few impressive shit btw…
Someone on Twitter mentioned the other day that RJ is shooting 41% on corner 3pters. That was encouraging to read and it looks like under Miller he has the ball in his hands alot less but seems to be spotting up from 3pt range more.
@135…good stuff dan, a bit of harsh reality, but, it sounds pretty accurate…it’s tough though – it’s easy to get kind of emotionally invested in the team’s young players…so much promise, so much potential, it’s easy to project positive stuff on to them…and, to make matters even tougher – frank, kevin, RJ seem like really good young men…
And the beat goes on, the beat goes on
stopped doing new year’s resolutions a while back…did do a little better this year though on some stuff i’ve been meaning to get around to like: start yoga, work a few more hours (anything after 40 a week seems like madness to me personally), get out the house and go to some more concerts…
usually one of my resolutions in the past was to lose some weight…lost about 10 pounds this year – the irony in that being at the age i’m at now – losing weight for no obvious reason actually caused me some concern and made me wonder if there was something wrong with my health 🙂
turns out my appetite just ain’t what it once was and i’m just eating less…
didn’t do so great with taking more trips …kind of failed at walking more also…
Drums keep pounding a rhythm to the brain
gonna try to re-focus on taking trips and walking more this year, and, get a new gig at work…i like the company, just tired of my role (moving widgets from point a to point b)…the thought of doing the same work for the next nine years or so (until i retire) is a little depressing…got an idea of the team i’d like to join (they deal in education/training), done some preliminary work towards that end, just got to make it happen now…also need to try and re-focus on money more…i enjoy investing, doing the research and picking stuff, watching the results…money just doesn’t motivate me as it once did, so it’s a challenge to put the needed time in to it…the longer i put it off though, the more of an issue it’ll be when i do retire…
seeing how i now live vicariously through so many of you here – was just curious if there were some things that you all might be focusing on this year…
La de da de de, la de da de da
Warriors are trying to steal KATowns from our hands !!!!
looks like mister bullock is a go for his first game of the season…it’ll be interesting to see who’s minutes he absorbs…
Knox may be one of the best 500 players in the world, but when he’s near the bottom of that list, and playing against the top 90%, he’s not going to help win contests very much. He could go to the CBA and win the MVP next year. Instead, for a good reason, he will stay in the NBA and have a chasm to close to catch up to peers like Doncic, to say nothing of the two-way superstars like Kawhi, Davis and Giannis.
KP wasn’t approaching 40% 3pt shooting. Steady progress in 3p% isn’t a thing. It has to be the most volatile stat in basketball. KP fluked into hitting a high % like Randle did last year and Morris is this year.
Happy new year, KBers! Sorry to disappoint you geo, but no sandwiches. It’s short for the grocer of despair.
Happy New 2020 !
First and foremost, wishing you all at KB a joyous, safe and reflective New Year! (And New Decade!) I truly have been enriched by our discourse here, well beyond basketball.
Knox is likely to be lousy forever, but he is still only 20.3 years old.
not to get all weird, but, one of the best things i heard anywhere from anyone all year was when your shared your thoughts about your trip with your son down the coast…
i never before really understood or appreciated the perspective of a parent in regards to their child…i see my god kids all the time, so, i never really miss them that much…
reading your words though helped me to better understand how i can be a bit of a better son to my own mom (whom more than deserves it)…it gave me a better understanding of what’s most important to her – time together…the joy in your words from the time spent with your son definitely made an impact on me…
Can you please tell this to Portland cyclists? Motherfuckers are biking at all hours wearing all black, earbuds in, no helmet, minimal lights. Drives me fucking crazy, especially as a former cyclist myself. (I realized I liked about a dozen of my hobbies better than having a high chance of serious injury every time I went out.)
Happy New Year everyone. You’re my favorite group of people on the internet.
Should inept man’gement be forgot
And never brought to mind
Should Jimmy Dolan choke on dirt
And auld lang syne
For auld lang syne, my Knickerbloggers,
For auld lang syne,
We’ll take another lott’ry bust yet,
For auld lang syne.
We long have toiled upon this blog,
And built a Mitch Lob shrine,
And harangue the Frank apologists,
Since auld lang syne.
We few have yearned for late-round picks,
Thus gloom in summertime.
But e’er we’re in the lottery,
Since auld lang syne.
And hark! A coach of modest lot,
No wife described as “dime.”
Who cares, long as he play the kids,
For auld lang syne.
And surely we are damned to stay
Fans of this team maligned,
So join with me to swig some bleach
For auld lang syne.
Happy New Year to everyone at KB! It’s been a fun year (in spite of the Knicks)
nice THCJ…
geo, thank you for those timely and thoughtful words. They mean so much more than you know. Fwiw, your mom should be very proud to have raised a son as noble and kind as you are.
Hats off, THCJ. And cheers Mr. K for keeping the lights on around here.
Happy new year, my Knickerbrethren! As long as the Dickensian Dolan haunts us, we will all be like prison lifers knifing each other over cigarette butts and other such commodities. The endless threads on Frank, or Knox or Dizfail or Phil are merely the manifestations of street urchins pressing their noses against the candy store window.
The new year is a blank slate, so be merry and of good cheer, my Knickerbrethren, fight your baser natures and be optimistic, at least for 1 day. God rest ye merry, Knickerbloggers!
Welcome 2020! May this decade bring the Knicks more success than the 2010’s (or 2000’s or…)
Happy New Year All! The Knicks will be crap but looking forward to the big double double double on KB….
Happy new year, everyone!
Me and the fiancee flew to Florida and surprised my dad and grandma (sidebar: grandma had been living in her Fordham Hill apt for almost 40 years but is now too old to be completely independent, so she just moved in with dad and his wife in FL).
I’ve said this before: this is the best sports blog in the world. I’ll go out on a limb and say that I pray this decade sees our beloved team return to championship-level basketball.
Very few joys in this world would best seeing the Knicks raise the Larry O’Brien trophy in their hands.
Happy New Year everyone! Let’s hope 2020 brings us competent basketball.
Happy New Year!! Hopefully 2020 brings the Knicks another Top 3 lottery pick and the Yankees a World Series title.
From NYPost:
Doncic was 3/16 from 3 last night. He’s 3 for his last 22.
His 3p% is down to .316% (and it wasn’t good before this stretch).
Good thing he has a lot of space to operate on most nights and can get into the paint, finish closer to the basket, and draw fouls. Otherwise we may have to lend Frank to Dallas to be a shooting instructor and teach him how and when NOT to shoot 3s.
Seriously, as great as this kid can be, he throws up so much garbage and forces so many bad passes it’s ridiculous. And now teams are learning to get more physical with him when he comes inside to wear him down. He better learn how to play basketball before he gets himself hurt.
Happy New Year everyone!
Not good.
He’s been struggling with this on and off for the last few weeks. I’ve seen him wincing in pain a few times and favoring one side, but they’ve been keeping it kind of quiet.
It’s just not a good sign for this to be an issue 2 years in a row, especially when he spent so much time in France in the off season working on strengthening the area .
Kadeem probably gets the minutes at backup PG again.
It’ll be interesting to see if/how they use Bullock.
Happy New Year everyone!
I am rooting for 2 things tonight..
Melo playing well and a Knicks win. Don’t know if that’s possible, but I’m still rooting for it. Not gonna lie, this Melo story is a good one. It’s really hard not to root for him right now. I wonder if Whiteside should still start when Jurkic comes back. Not because Whiteside is better (he clearly isn’t), but Melo has a stranglehold on the starting PF spot and Whiteside’s defense and rebounding is a better fit next to Melo- they just need a good defender at SF. Mook would be a good fit..but what could they send us?
Dennis Smith Jr.’s basketball IQ listed as questionable for tonight’s game.
watched some of the portland game against the suns the other day, melo looks about the same, only somehow even slower…
hope randall puts up another 30 on him…
Yes, we know, Strat. The 20–year old with the .600 TS% on 36.9 USG is so very deeply flawed. You are very smart and edgy for pointing this out. His 24-year old Latvian teammate though who misses hella shots all the time is where it’s at though.
Yeah if Doncic keeps this up he’ll become as bad as that overrated greek kid
He is a prodigious scorer at the rim, Giannis-like. Shooting 75.5% from 0-3, while Giannis is at 78.6%, a staggering number for such a high usage. When LeBron went full bulldozer point forward in Miami, attacking the rim, he shot between 74% and 79% at the rim. Harden, known for his incredible creativity off the glass and the finger roll, has never broken 72%
The guy has something that you cannot teach. I’d be worried about the 3PT% if he weren’t so deadly on the drive.
Yeah, but Strat’s point is that without KP’s amazing floor spacing, Luka would never be able to get to the rim.
That’s why the Mavs lost without Kristaps last night-Maxi Kleber took 9 3s but nobody respected him and Luka was only 9-13 on 2pt shots.
How is marijuana not legal in NY yet…or anywhere?
Oddly, I find it not hard at all….
Political ratf*ckery. Over 60% of voters want it legalized in NJ yet somehow the state legislature can’t seem to get it done.
I’m currently on vacation in Montral. The legal shops here have been eye-opening. Makes no sense why we can’t have that in NJ.
Jealous of all you KBloggers in legal states.
it is legal…medical cannabis use is approved in new york…getting a “rec” (physician’s recommendation) is probably pretty darn easy and discreet…sleep or pain aid is fairly common…
out here in cali they have “farmer’s markets”, instead of tomatoes and strawberries folks sell weed, by the hefty bag…
big thing at the moment though is “pre-rolls”, which is basically about 3 grams or so of flower wrapped in either tobacco or cannabis leaf, rolled and dipped in cannabis oil and sprinkled with kief…you can also sprinkle some shatter or wax on the flower before rolling it…
basically, take a couple of puffs, and, you’re good for awhile…
the other big thing is vaping – although serious medical concerns regarding its health safety have been raised…
basically the thc extraction process can involve chemicals that are dangerous to inhale…
same thing with edibles, you need to be cautious when purchasing those too…
about a month ago went to one of those “markets” and someone was selling kief zones (an ounce) for $60…I nearly broke down in tears…I’m kicking myself for only picking up one…I could bathe in kief all day long…
don’t judge 🙂
Living in Colorado, it’s funny that you can’t just walk into a dispensary and buy it. I forget that’s not a thing sometimes.
There are certainly reasons to legalize it, racial justice principally, but I view the prospect of full legalization with great unease.
I know a few people whose lives were completely wrecked by heavy marijuana use in their youth, to the point of permanent long term mental impairment. IMO, no one with a developing brain should use marijuana and I know the scientific evidence backs that up.
You also should not be smoking marijuana if you have any family history of schizophrenia or other mental illness. Marijuana is a major risk factor for psychosis and making someone with mental illness psychotic can have very dangerous consequences. There are plenty of medical studies showing this as well.
I would readily admit that your garden variety marijuana user (I have never used any recreational drugs) will go through their whole life without any severe adverse consequences. While there is less data out there than you would think it would also really surprise me if the overall impact was worse than alcohol. Alcohol, when you count all the costs, is pretty terrible.
But that said, I view it as pretty shocking that so many people think we ought to embark on a government promoted experiment in marijuana use. Especially since the product itself has changed so much. As Geo noted, we aren’t talking about a baby boomer 2% thc joint. With wax and shatter we are talking about synthetic products that can be 90% thc, unimaginably potent products whose long term consequences have never been studied and probably could not be done so ethically.
Finally, the whole idea of marijuana as medicine, beyond palliative care, just seems totally bogus. This is a smaller issue but it bugs me the way marijuana advocates seem to pitch weed as something that might be good for just about anything that ails you, even including cancer.
As always, I hope to be wrong about my KB opinions.
David Stern passed away…
On a happier note, I hope you all had a great NYE and we all have an awesome year!
here’s the deal…it’s a burgeoning business, incredible amount of cash involved – and that’s the problem…it’s a cash only business…
got to regulate it’s access, distribution and sale – federally…
you have to get the banks involved, to continue to do business like this just invites crime, corruption and even more cheating on your taxes…
I’m not sure what it will take to remove it off the schedule 1 list…the sooner the better…
not to get too off off topic, but, there’s lots of dangerous stuff going on in the world…extended survival is not always guaranteed…sooner or later something is gonna end this party train…
weed may not be addictive, but, it sure does slip easily in to a daily routine…
Eating too much edible is the WORST.
One time I had to do a long haul flight, LAX to Paris, and I ate a weed lollipop without really considering whether it was a reasonable dose. I mean, it was a lollipop! It’d chill me out on the flight I thought.
The first inkling of trouble came about a half hour after I ate it. I started getting a searing pain in my side that felt like some sort or major organ failure. So that wasn’t great. It was an intense, lingering pain. Then I started panicking, like actually felt like I was gonna die right there at LAX. I started going through the seven stages of grief. There was no way I was gonna ask for medical help, I was way too panicked and paranoid.
I got on the flight and neither the pain nor the panic went away for hours. I should point out that I was far from a novice marijuana user at the time, this was a solid 20+ years into my weed career.
Watch the doses on those edibles, kids! That shit will fuck you up, and not in a good way!
I agree with this. My question would be whether the absence of marijuana would have left a vacuum for which another, perhaps worse drug would have filled. My friends who were battling demons were looking for anything to ease whatever pain they were in. If it weren’t weed, I could see it being glue, duster, or whatever else they could get their hands on. I suspect this because they were generally the ones who went through a coke phase in their early college years, graduating to benzos and RX opioids, and, when the money ran out, heroin.
Since I learned the difference between sativa and indica, my approach has completely changed. Indica helps my sleep, my mood and my stress levels. Might my short-term memory be slipping a little faster than it would have? Sure. But my doctor marvels at my lack of family-inherited diseases and conditions, and I attribute that to a combination of stress relief activities, including the use of THC. Do I think it cures diseases? Hell no. But it can help diminish any mild anxiety I’m experiencing in a way that I find both helpful and relatively safe. I certainly would prefer it to a Xanax/Ativan RX.
cont.
Why take drugs if you’re a knicks fan ?
I don’t get it.
Seems redundant.
my 2nd post is in purgatory, like our federal legalization debate
Yeah, mine too…
Mike Miller says Carmelo Anthony still has a lot left in the tank. I wonder if he gets how clever this statement really is…
I said a variant of the C word
this C word sounds like “minimal”
RIP Stern, but I still hated the enforcement of the stupid leaving the bench rule…all Ewing did was take a few steps forward…could have made an interpretation there….alas, spilt milk
Owen, I agree with your concerns but think it should be legal anyway. It’s far less detrimental to society than alcohol (and possibly tobacco if you count all of the misery and medical costs from the diseases it causes.) Maybe the dosages should be capped or whatever, which is easier when it’s legal and regulated. Bottom line is, in virtually any state, anyone who wants to smoke/use marijuana can get it, and illegal status has hardly deterred youngsters from indulging, including in the super-potent stuff. Now that 11 states are fully legal, the horse is kinda out of the barn anyway.
@192 got it, had to remove _riminalization
And yeah, it’s very much a utilitarian approach on this. Minimize harm — legalize now.
I don’t disagree with any of that. But to go from that reality all the way to the gov’t sanctioning, regulating, and profiting from the sale of marijuana seems a big leap. I think as a society we should make it clear that there is a big difference between using low potency and high potency and a big difference between using it when you are young and using it when you are a mature adult. And we shouldn’t soft sell the fact there is a small minority of users who will have highly adverse reactions, and not the bad plane flight variety. (btw, I have so many friends with bad edibles stories. Like more bad stories than good.)
Not that I would ever judge a Knicks fan who popped an edible…