NY Post: Knicks hire Kentucky’s Kenny Payne as first addition to Tom Thibodeau’s staff

I always get a little queasy when a guy gets promoted for his ability to motivate and forge relationships with no mention of his actual coaching acumen. I’ve always been a major skeptic of Kentucky basketball as I find they’re rarely a well coached group, and I don’t know how much development guys can do in a program as one-and-done candidates. Color me skeptical, but we shall see. I’d have much rather taken a guy from Villanova, Wichita State, or even Duke.

The Glass Half Rebuilt:
I always get a little queasy when a guy gets promoted for his ability to motivate and forge relationships with no mention of his actual coaching acumen. I’ve always been a major skeptic of Kentucky basketball as I find they’re rarely a well coached group, and I don’t know how much development guys can do in a program as one-and-done candidates. Color me skeptical, but we shall see. I’d have much rather taken a guy from Villanova, Wichita State, or even Duke.

I agree with you to an extent, but the NBA is largely a “do superstars want to play for you” league. If Rose can make the Knicks appealing then it’s worth it.

Plus one of the knocks on Thibs from his Minn tenure was player buy-in. If Payne can improve that he’ll be worth it.

Also I don’t read player-relationships as excluding the ability to be an excellent coach. On the contrary, I think connecting with players and getting them to to trust your adjustments goes a long way to improvement. You can pretty much copy/paste form improvement and drills.

Is is fair to say that this is another very logical move by Rose? That he has yet to make a move that is befuddling or that reeks of inexperience?

BC, remember our convo about how Kamala was as predictable as Thibs?

Brian Cronin:
Harris gets the VP nod. The VP search turned out like the Knicks HC search. A whole lot of names and they went with the person we knew they’d go with back in March.

I like it. Let’s get the monster out of office first and then we can get to work on a more progressive agenda second.

Z-man:
Is is fair to say that this is another very logical move by Rose? That he has yet to make a move that is befuddling or that reeks of inexperience?

Part of me wonders if Rose just has the connections to build a hype machine for his tenure regardless of the underlying talent.

None of this means much until we see what he does with the players. He has an open checkbook for the coaching staff, that’s not the case with players.

None of this means much until we see what he does with the players. He has an open checkbook for the coaching staff, that’s not the case with players.

I disagree. No matter what he does with players, unless he pulls off a miracle trade or signing, the Knicks are going to have a lot of young players at least some of whom need to get better for the Knicks to thrive.

I think you can both say, “Their hires so far have been logical picks” and also “Their player choices will say a lot more about the front office than anyone else they’ve hired so far.”

Well there have been 3 low-level personnel moves…Trier, Pinson, Harper…all are defensible, although I liked Trier.

swiftandabundant:
Early bird…come on now?

You have no way to tell if they’re any good?

Thibs is one of the most accomplished coaches in the NBA. Payne has worked at the top basketball program in the NCAA.

Sometimes when people have good coaching records and work for good programs its because they’re actually….good.

I’m specifically not talking about Thibs.

When someone says x is a great capologist or so-and-so is a great minor component of this organization, I have no idea how you evaluate those statements. Generally there’s a press release saying they’re good and we just accept it.

i feel like we won the kenny payne sweepstakes…of course i didn’t know there was a kenny payne sweepstakes until a couple of days ago, but still, good job working with the press and good hire by rose…

hopefully we’re going to move past the point of imagining the big superstar agent coming to sign with the knicks…sadly little has been said by some of the new folks to dispute that notion (fuck you steve stoute), but, some of the hirings seem to indicate an emphasis on scouting and player development – although to be honest, we did have openings after firing previous folks…there’s not much chance when can do much worse in those areas than what we’ve accomplished recently…

a lot of the teams within the bubble have acquired their players other than luring them in as free agents…

yes way big negative is our owner, really big positive though is we’re not strapped for cash…which means we can have good people and systems in place…

Honestly I am still hoping beyond hope that we find a superstar or two (or at least really good players like Mitch) via the draft like most contenders do. I thought we finally had that in KP when he went on that November rampage….alas.

Let’s just develop what we have, make smart draft picks with the 10 picks in the next 4 drafts and low-level acquisitions, and stay away from the starf**king for a bit. I am dying to see who we pick this year.

Dame is absolutely torching Dallas

you think???

orrrrrr, was that some subtle sarcasm that wasn’t really subtle at all…

yeah, if you’re counting the top one hundred fuckups since the turn of the millennium for the new york knicks – kp has definitely got a spot…

at this point, i don’t really hold any grudges against him…if anything i’m a little upset at luka for doing luka kind of things this year (and probably next) to dampen the value on those draft picks we got for kp…

he did give us a brief period of hope and respite…i wish kp well…as long as his interests don’t conflict with ours…

The Honorable Cock Jowles: weird how you didn’t have a whole lot to say about his 9-24 game against the Bucks

He was having a good game that day, but imo he wore down late. I mentioned it a few days ago. I don’t think he can play 36 or more minutes a night and be as effective as he would be per minute if he played around 25-30. It’s not obvious to me if it’s a pacing issue, a conditioning issue, or related to his anemia condition. However, I see the pattern way too often for it to be random. He looks great in stretches and then he looks dead tired in stretches. It’s usually late in the game, but sometimes it’s after expending energy on both sides for a few possessions at any point in the game. He wouldn’t be the first big man with stamina issues, but he’ll have to learn how to pace himself better so he can come with big plays when it matters down the stretch if he can’t get in better shape.

I can’t explain it, but the part in KP’s hair fills me with rage.

Stan Van G has been very critical of Porzingis’ defense in the pick and roll.

And Lillard is ridiculous.

All Melo needed was an elite point guard!

I looked at the box score. He actually had two assists, not a ton, but not zero.

As chairman of the RJ Barrett Fan Club, I would be ELATED to see Memphis and New Orleans miss the play in game.

This is the kind of stuff I disagree with.

You’re, what? 60? 65? Why don’t you watch a few more decades of basketball before you start opining about a game you lack any real understanding of. The trick is, you have to watch the game with your eyes, and use your memory to contrast plays with one another. Then, you use your brain to interpret what happened on the court however I want. I learned that from Albert Spalding. Complete nonsense of course, Spalding was notorious for being an idiot. I once watched him spend 12 minutes trying to go out the in door. I was seven. Made a lasting impression, I tell you what.

I mean, you probably never even met James Naismith! I shook the man’s hand. He was coming out of the bushes behind Tim’s Soda & Ice Cream, he’d just taken a piss. He had hoary hands, covered in thick calluses. Hands that would rip the skin off your penis if you jacked off. Just a great man. Introduced me to my first wife. She wasn’t a very good cook but she was an excellent statistician. She invented writing down how many shots players took.

I used to babysit Tex Winter, now he had a fine basketball mind, even at a very young age! He explained tanking as a strategy to me when he was seven years old. He also loved pineapple on his pizza. I tried to get him into rutabaga instead like a normal person but it didn’t work. We lost touch when he started working with that young jackass Jackson. I hope he grew out of the pineapple thing.

That’s good for the Grizzlies, who have to win their next game which is against Milwaukee.

I am so confused as to how the #8 team is going to be decided. I can’t even find a cheat sheet online that I can follow.

***I don’t think it’s that complicated but I’m not sure. I believe that if the 9th seed is within 4 games of the 8th seed they’ll have a 1 game playoff to decide who makes the playoffs as the 8th seed. If the 9th seed is more than 4 games out then it nothing special happens…***

But there are 6 teams within 4 games of the 8th seed. Do they all playoff this weekend? Or is it just the two teams closest to the 8th seed? What if multiple teams tie for 8th and 9th? (4 teams are basically tied for the 8th/9th spot right now)

(Meanwhile, the Lakers sit with their feet up watching all their potential opponents beating each other up all week?)

“weird how you didn’t have a whole lot to say about his 9-24 game against the Bucks“

Porzingis 2019-2020 stats:

20 points and 9.5 rebounds at just under 32 minutes a game with an efg% of 49.6% at 24 years old.

I kind of think it’s way past time to give up on the delusion the Zingis trade was anything other than a disaster. The Knicks don’t have one player on the roster right now who legitimately looks like they’ll be as good as Porzingis is going to be. The Knicks could use all their picks in the next several drafts and not get a player as good as Porzingis is going to be.

Which isn’t to say that NOT giving all the money to a guy who’ll probably need to be babied like Joel Embiid while never being close to as good was actually a terrible decision. But trading that guy for what the Knicks got? Yeah, that was a terrible decision,

Mike

20 points and 9.5 rebounds at just under 32 minutes a game with an efg% of 49.6% at 24 years old.

League average eFG% this year is .529. The team with the worst eFG% in the league this year is the Golden State Warriors (!) and theirs is .497, a tick higher than KP’s.

Your shit ass 2019-2020 New York Knicks had a .501 eFG%. That’s right, if you took this year’s Kristaps Porzingis and put him on this year’s 2019-2020 Knicks, he’d actually DRAG DOWN their team eFG%.

He does some other things and yes he’d be our best player, but bragging about KP’s eFG% is like saying “You should see this 2006 Toyota Tercel I have, it can go FORTY MILES PER HOUR.”

oops, I’m sorry grocer…your words stuck me in a stupor for a moment 🙂

Here is the play-in scenario explained.

Porzingis 2019-2020 stats:

20 points and 9.5 rebounds at just under 32 minutes a game with an efg% of 49.6% at 24 years old.

25 should be the beginning of a player’s prime. You keep acting like he’s still the 21-year-old who made a significant stride in his sophomore year.

I kind of think it’s way past time to give up on the delusion the Zingis trade was anything other than a disaster. The Knicks don’t have one player on the roster right now who legitimately looks like they’ll be as good as Porzingis is going to be. The Knicks could use all their picks in the next several drafts and not get a player as good as Porzingis is going to be.

Porzingis is still shooting worse than league average TS%. He has a -29.0 TSAdd and has a 95 eFG+ this year. Out of ten players who have played 1,000+ minutes for the Mavs this year, Porzingis ranks NINTH in TS%. And this is your superstar? Or are we still using the phrase “going to be” on a player who’s of the age (24-25) when players tend to start winning their MVP awards? (Giannis, LeBron, Durant, Iverson, Duncan, Jordan)

Look, if you want to point to him being an anchor on the league’s 17th-ranked defense, I’ll give that to you. What a guy! But the reason that the Mavs have the league’s best ORtg (I can no longer look up historic team ORtg data, thanks BBRef you fucking assholes) is decidedly not Porzingis.

Which isn’t to say that NOT giving all the money to a guy who’ll probably need to be babied like Joel Embiid while never being close to as good was actually a terrible decision. But trading that guy for what the Knicks got? Yeah, that was a terrible decision,

We’ve litigated this way too much for me to spend time on, but simply not giving injured Porzingis $158M over five years was a coup. Dennis Smith Jr. is a terrible basketball player and the picks won’t amount to all that much.

Bam Adebayo? Jowles wants us to draft an undersized center who can’t shoot lol, we have too many guys already who can’t shoot

Bam really is Julius Randle if Julius Randle were good.

***Here is the play-in scenario explained.***

Apparently, I have to pay $5.99 to read that explanation. (I’d rather spend that on getting Jowles a stathead account I think)

Okay, I deep dived. (I really want to understand this because for the first time ever, some of my kids are really enjoying watching the NBA and I want to be able to explain this to them, to keep their interest up:)

*it appears that only two teams will compete in the 1 or 2 game playoff this weekend, even with 4 teams within the margin to force a playoff.

*portland will make it unless they lose and everybody else wins.

*if memphis wins they are in the weekend play-in regardless of what other teams do.

*phoenix needs to win and have either memphis or portland lose.

*san antonio needs to win and have everybody else lose.

*the “#8” seed needs to win one game to remain as the 8th seed; the “#9” seed needs to win two games to become the 8th seed.

(It’s kind of cool that nobody is playing each other, so there are 4 games worth watching tomorrow. Good scheduling, NBA bot!

Bam was a 65% FT shooter who shot 32% on attempts not at the rim in Kentucky. No more guys who can’t shoot!

Elfrid was Gary without the..well..everything

I hate to think of what kind of number Mike would demand for something that spits out gobs of free cash flow like Knickerblogger. He’s like the Scrooge McDuck of basketball bloggers.

We picked Mitch in the second round and historically, as inept as we’ve been in the 21st century, we’ve actually done a decent job of finding value later in the draft. So those Mavs picks should hopefully yield some good players for us. Next year’s draft is supposed to be deep too.

The Porzingis situation is pretty simple. Giving an injury prone, full-of-mostly-unrealized-potential enormous guy 5/$156M is a a pretty big risk.

You’re in a good position to assume that risk if you have one of the best players in the league making 3/$26M from 2019-2020 to 2021-2022. You’re not in a good position to assume that risk if you have one certifiably good player on your roster who plays the same position as Porzinigs. It made perfect sense for the Knicks to offload that risk to the Mavs.

And we got rid of Timmy’s stupid contract. The fact we didn’t do anything with the cap space doesn’t mean it was bad to get it. If Dallas does well in the playoffs I wonder if he’ll be tempted to opt out?

IMO, giving up picks or trade value (we did the latter with KP) to get rid of bad contracts and open cap space is usually a bad idea unless you have some immediate use for that cap space that puts you in a better position.

We moved Lee/Hardaway and stretched Noah all to gain immediate cap space and did nothing worthwhile with it. Lee’s contract is over now. Noah’s would be over, Hardaway is overpaid but he’s not crippling and he has only 1 more year to go. Noah is still on the books for 2 more years now. lmao

Had we just traded KP to maximize player and asset value back we would have gotten way more DSJr and two future Dallas non lottery picks.

We were going nowhere anyway because the rebuild was years away from yielding anything. So we should have just eaten the bad leftover Phil contracts and suffered with Hardaway for one more year.

Of course the smarter thing to do would have been to try to work things out with KP unless a fabulous deal was available (like Phil considered and rejected), but KP already saw that Mills and Perry were incompetent. That added to the Phil dysfunction with Melo that had already upset him. It wouldn’t have been easy, but it would have been far from impossible to bring him back into fold. Then we’d have KP, Robinson, Frank, RJ, Knox (should be Mikal), a lottery pick this year, and continue on in great shape with some good defenders and scorers and a ton of upside.

You didn’t have to be especially smart to do any of this.

You just had to not be foolish and delusion enough to think stars were going to come to a shitty team and organization in free agency.

The Honorable Cock Jowles:
Larry Hughes was the Stephon Marbury of Toney Douglases

I just read this with no context and my beer came through my nose
I want the bumper sticker!

Literally the day of the trade, I said the salary dumps were suboptimal if we prioritized them over picks but also that we could potentially recoup that lost value by taking on salary dumps if we missed out on KD, Kyrie, etc.

Sure enough, those opportunities presented themselves. Iggy and Harkless each fetched a first and those trades didn’t even happen until we were already spurned. If we had taken them on, the KP return would’ve effectively included two extra firsts.

I don’t need to fill in anyone here on what happened instead, but that’s a separate issue from the trade itself. It could’ve brought back four firsts.

thenoblefacehumper: Sure enough, those opportunities presented themselves. Iggy and Harkless each fetched a first and those trades didn’t even happen until we were already spurned. If we had taken them on, the KP return would’ve effectively included two extra firsts.

We got a first for Harkless anyways (plus some) and there’s no way that GSW were trading Iggy to us after we announced to everyone that we tampered with KD.

thenoblefacehumper:
Literally the day of the trade, I said the salary dumps were suboptimal if we prioritized them over picks but also that we could potentially recoup that lost value by taking on salary dumps if we missed out on KD, Kyrie, etc.

Sure enough, those opportunities presented themselves. Iggy and Harkless each fetched a first and those trades didn’t even happen until we were already spurned. If we had taken them on, the KP return would’ve effectively included two extra firsts.

I don’t need to fill in anyone here on what happened instead, but that’s a separate issue from the trade itself. It could’ve brought back four firsts.

We don’t get a first for Morris if we have KP, TH, and Lee, so it’s fair to consider that part of what we got in that trade.

We’re also going to have $50mm in cap space this year that would have gone to to Hardaway and Porzingis.

Randle is kind of a bum but he’s also part of what we got with the space.

In all, we got DS Jr, two firsts from Dallas, one first from LA, Randle, and plenty of cap space this summer for dumping KP, TH, and Lee.

The jury is still out.

Jowles I was gonna say something but couldn’t decide between moronic and moronical.

I was bored …assuming the likely scenario in the trades was getting a pick in the 20-30 range …here is what having a 1st round pick in between 20-30 got you over the last decade (2019 to follow)…purely eyeball:
1. Seems like the higher % of decent guys in this grouping has been in the last few years
2. The more fucked up your last name spelling is…doesn’t translate well into making an NBA roster
3. Butler, Siakam and Gobert stand out as the best picks in this esteemed group
4. doesn’t bode well for us

2010
James Anderson
Craig Brackings
Elliot Wiliams
Trevor Booker
Damion James
Dominique Jones
Quincy Pondexter
Jordan Crawford
Greivis Vasquez
Daniel Orton

2011
Donata Motiejunas
Nolan Smith
Kenneth Faried
Nikola Miortic
Reggie Jackson
Marshon Brooks
Jordan Hamilton
JaJuan Johnson
Norris Cole
Cory Joseph
Jimmy Butler

2012
Evan Fournier
Jared Sullnger
Fab Melo
John Jenkins
Jared Cunningham
Tony Wroten
Miles Plumlee
Arnett Moultrie
Perry Jones II
Marquis Teague
Festus Ezeli

2013
Tony Snell
Gorgui Dieng
Mason Plumlee
Solomon Hill
Tim Hardaway Jr
Reggie Bullock
Andre Roberson
Rudy Gobert
Livio Jean-Charles
Archie Goodwin
Nemanja Nedovic

2014
Bruno Caboclo
Mitch Mcgary
Jordan Adams
Rodney Hood
Shabbaz Napier
Clint Capela
PJ Hairston
Bogdan Bogdanovic
CJ Wilcox
Josh Huestis
Kyle Anderson

2015
Delon Wright
Justin Anderson
Bobby Portis
Rondae Hollis-Jefferson
Tyus Jones
Jarell Martin
Nikola Milutinov
Larry Nance Jr.
RJ Hunter
Chris McCullough
Kevon Looney

2016
Caris LeVert
Deandre Bembry
Malachai Richardons
Ante Zizic
Timothe Luwawa-Cabarrot
Brice Johnson
Furkan Korkkmaz
Pascal Siakam
Skal Labissiere
Dejounte Murray
Damian Jones

2017
Harry Giles III
Terrance Ferguson
Jarrett Allen
OG Anunoby
Tlyler Lydon
Anzejs Pasecniks
Caleb Swanigan
Kyle Kuzma
Tony Bradley
Derrick White
Josh Hart

2018
Josh Okogie
Grayson Allen
Chandler Hutchinson
Aaron…

thenoblefacehumper: We got a first plus some for Morris (completely by accident every step of the way, but whatever) who we could’ve signed even if we took on Harkless and Iggy.

Morris was the last one signed, so practically speaking I don’t think it’s true we could get Iggy, Morris, & Harkless. If we took either one on, we wouldn’t have signed Morris.

If we don’t trade for Harkless, we get a lesser return because it means a team gave up a more valuable asset.

I’m not sure what else LAC would have been willing to trade or what salaries would match up, it was going to be difficult to fit him in. Part of the return was the 2 LA teams bidding against each other because they’re directly competing against each other for a championship and for marketshare. Without Harkless, LAC doesn’t bid up the price and we don’t get the same return.

The actual real-world situation clearly shows GSW didn’t care that much about securing Iggy a buyout and if they did they’d still trade him to the Grizzlies who I’m sure would still love the free 1st.

Pepper, I pretended I was an expansion team and could pick from that list of 20-30 draftees, and it turns out you can field a damn good team. What I found interesting is that while it might struggle a bit to score (in fact not so much, but you pointed out about the only three players with any real scoring/ptz capacity), but damn you can field an effing great defensive team, from Gobert to Matisse and on. Which suggests what a team might want to focus on in that range — the rainmakers are gone, look for the defensive stalwarts.

No unicorns, but there are Clarkes and Thybulles and OGs, seemingly every year. I’m no draft expert, but I can’t believe someone with time on their hands (or an actual job being paid to do this eight hours a day five days a week) couldn’t find some kind of similarities that make these non-unicorn solid role players pop up.

Donnie Walsh:
PG Murray
SG Butler
SF Siakam
PF Capela
C Gobert

Bench: Bogdanovic, Hart, Anunoby, Jones, Nance, Allen

That’s a ECF team in the east.

Perry Jones II
Livio Jean-charles
Neamanja Nedovic
Daniel Orton
Anzejs Pasecniks

bench: Malakai Richardsons, Bruno Caboclo, Fab Melo, Mifondu Kabenegel and everyone’s favorite Dzanan Musa

That’s a last place team in the intramural league at the college I went to…seems like it is just as likely to get this haul as the eCF squad…

You can hold yourself back from the sufferings of the world, that is something you are free to do and it accords with your nature, but perhaps this very holding back is the one suffering you could avoid.

the end…although, i’m not sure exactly what kafta meant by: “it accords with your nature”…not sure if he was being specific towards a person or just generalizing about humanity in that statement…

one of my favorite series finales ever…despite all the grimness and unpleasant reality portrayed throughout the show, pretty upbeat season finales and series finale…

i did take note of which version of way down in a hole was used towards the end of the series finale…

no doubt within the next few years i’ll go back through the show one more time…

pt why arbitrarily cut things off at #30? The point is more about who might be available, not who has been selected.

Picking a guy slated to go #40 or later at #25 is rarely crucified for being a “reach” (Bruno Caboclo aside) because the expectation is that the pick is a long shot to be a top of the rotation player in the NBA. And guys like Bol, Harrell, Mitch, Jokic, etc. are available in the mid-20’s pretty much every year, regardless of where they eventually get picked. That’s where scouting comes in. Here are guys who were picked later than #30 (most in the top 40) that became decent NBA players, or look to be on their way there;

2010
Whiteside
Bjelica
Fields
Stephenson

2011
Isaiah T
Parsons
Bertans
Bojan

2012
Draymond
Middleton
Crowder

2013
Muscala
Ennis
Crabbe

2014
Jokic
Powell
Dinwiddie
Clarkson
Jerami G
Joe Harris

2015
Montrezl
Josh R
Richaun H
Norman P
Pat C

2016
Brogdan
Zubac

2017
Monte M
T Bryant
Jordan Bell

2018
Mitch
Devonte
Brunson
Shake
Diallo
(more to cone)

2019
Bol
(too early to tell on others)

Is anyone else intrigued by Abdoulaye N’Doye as a 2nd round reach? Anyone have any euro intel on him? He seems like a crafty driver, creative passer, and good outside shooter with nice size/length. Is there a catch besides that he’s 22?

Raven, I really like your observation and strategy of drafting for defense late in the first round.

Brian Cronin: Lowry was acquired with a top ten pick and Gasol was acquired for Jonas Valanciunas, who was a top five pick by Toronto.

And last year, of course, Kawhi was acquired for DeMar DeRozan, who was a top ten pick by Toronto, and Jakob Pöltl, who was a top ten pick by Toronto (via the amazing Bargs trade).

Toronto has obviously done a marvelous job with drafting and developing players with late draft picks. It’s probably the main reason why they’re so good. Just noting that they used a few significant early draft picks along the way, as well.

Very fair points. Once players are good, draft position is irrelevant. But the larger point is that you can assemble a contender solely with players drafted at #23 and below, i.e. there’s good players to be had down there if you can recognize them and having as many picks at that level as possible is a good thing…especially when you also have a lottery pick.

Accident or not, I think you also have to include the Clippers pick we got for Morris in the KP haul. So in a way, we actually got 3 first round picks out of the KP trade.

Seems too obvious. Better to wait till he figures out he can hit 40% of his threes and then negotiate.

But seriously, I don’t know the details either. As a second rounder isn’t he mostly unrestricted after his deal ends? How does that work?

“Once players are good, draft position is irrelevant.”

Agree.
Lottery Pick’s value is higher before the draft(especially if the team sucks or if the draft class is considered talented) but “changes” accordingly players’ performances.

Deeefense: It’s an advantage to have more picks to a large extent because it’s easier to get lucky with more picks, just as it’s more likely you’ll win $500 with scratch offs if you buy 1000 tickets instead of 1.

If there was solid evidence that the draft order was very inefficient, assembling great scouts and talent evaluators would add enormous value. But I think to a large extent the draft IS relatively efficient and what appears to smart or foolish drafting is often actually just random distributions of good or bad luck (with a few exceptions that probably add or subtract a little value)

I do believe there’s a more obvious difference in developing players and fitting them together well.

If the Knicks and Raptors swapped picks. I’d be willing to bet the current Knicks players would be further along in Toronto than they are in NY and vice versa.

In addition, when you accumulate picks to either try to improve your luck or facilitate a deal, you are almost always giving something up to get them and it might be a better player or a player that could have facilitated a deal to move up to get an even better player.Picks don’t come for free.

Most of this is either stoopid obvious or mindless blather based on gut feelings.

There is evidence that some teams know how to spot talent do better lower in the draft than other teams. SA is the quintessential bargain hunter, they haven’t drafted in the lottery in like forever. As shown above, Toronto found Siakam, OG and FVV who were there for the taking and hardly unknowns. If you can reduce the odds via scouting, you can land a rotation player down in the draft pretty much every year. It’s almost a certainty that good players will be available in our lower

The Knicks actually have been pretty good in this regard. Finding Dotson, Mitch, and Trier are good examples. The jury is out on Iggy and Wooten. We’ve just been objectively terrible with some of our lottery picks.

***SA is the quintessential bargain hunter, they haven’t drafted in the lottery in like forever.***

Indiana also hasn’t drafted in the top-10 in over 30 years now, and they’ve played in 8 ECF and 1 NBA Finals during that time.

But to Strat’s point, he is right that if you graph the draft results based on the the quality of the NBA player, it would probably look a lot like a y = 1/x curve, which is what you would expect it to look like if the draft was efficient.

But to Strat’s greater point, because of the efficiency of draft position, that is why teams should tank, which he says they shouldn’t do.

Just quickly eyeballing pt’s and my lists, it seems that the odds of landing a rotation player in the bottom 40 picks in the draft are somewhere between 15-20%. If you shrink that to the middle 20 picks (#21-40) the odds are somewhere around 25-30%. Considering how bad some of the decisions teams with poor talent evaluators make, I see no reason to believe that excellent evaluators can’t up those odds to 50%, meaning that the chances would be good that they can get at least one rotation player. It doesn’t have to be a star, just a guy who can defend or shoot.

I would also say that talent evaluation is far more important than player development. SA or Toronto would NEVER have drafted Knox or Ntilikina where the Knicks did. Many/most of us here knew that they were dumb picks at the time. So the whole “if they were on a different team” scenario is laughably inane on its face. It’s way more important to draft actually good players than to develop them correctly. Mitch was never going to be bad, and Knox and Ntilikina never were going to be good, no matter who drafted them.

ptmilo:
Just quickly eyeballing pt’s and my lists

eyeballs are dangerous things

love,

pepper

some eyeballs are more equal than others…

But seriously, I don’t know the details either. As a second rounder isn’t he mostly unrestricted after his deal ends? How does that work?

knicks will have a choice in the summer of 2021 (or whenever next season ends, i guess). they can refuse robinson’s cheap 4th year option and either (1) extend him for up to 25% vet max (2) make him an immediate RFA and match any offer sheet OR (1) exercise his 4th year option and he become unrestricted in the summer of 22. there is an option here where you sign him to a deal that decline precipitously after a big year 1, like robert covington got.

they still get a low cap hold in the summer of 2021, even if they decline the option and sign him to big money, but obviously they give up the low cap hold they also would have had in the summer of 2022.

ptmilo:
But seriously, I don’t know the details either. As a second rounder isn’t he mostly unrestricted after his deal ends? How does that work?

knicks will have a choice in the summer of 2021 (or whenever next season ends, i guess).they can refuse robinson’s cheap 4th year optionand either (1) extend him for up to 25% vet max (2) make him an immediate RFA and match any offer sheet OR (1) exercise his 4th year option and he become unrestricted in the summer of 22.there is an option here where you sign him to a deal that decline precipitously after a big year 1, like robert covington got.

they still get a low cap hold in the summer of 2021, even if they decline the option and sign him to big money, but obviously they give up the low cap hold they also would have had in the summer of 2022.

Is this sort of like the Hassan Whiteside situation with the Heat?

Its not laughably inane. I didn’t say Knox and Frank would be good players on other teams (although Frank might be a lot better, just sayin’). I was focusing on later picks, not lottery picks, because that is what we were talking about. And my point is that player development and talent evaluation go hand and hand. So when we, as Knicks fans, constantly lament about “oh we coulda drafted this player or that player who was drafted later than our pick” it misses the forest for the trees. Of course you can pick lottery players who are busts every year and say “that was a dumb pick” the same way you can pick late first round picks and say “wow, that was a great pick.” But over time, a good franchise that has good scouts, good player development, good coaches and a team that wins more games than it loses…over time those franchises are going to make “good picks” more than they make “bad picks.” It all goes hand in hand. Having lots of draft picks (all over the draft) alone doesn’t guarantee any of the players you pick will be good, even if it increases your odds a bit. Having good scouts doesn’t do any good if you have no picks or no player development.

Yeah, that makes sense re Mitch.

I don’t know how the Knicks will screw it up next year but they will find a way.

thanks as always MVP (most valuable poster) pt.

swiftandabundant: And my point is that player development and talent evaluation go hand and hand.

Sure, but I believe that player development is far more consistent across the league than talent evaluation. It is far less likely that a team at the low end of player development will screw up a good player than that a team with lousy talent evaluation will turn lousy players into good ones.

It doesn’t take genius to figure out what players need to work on and get guys to work on those things with him. And if a player has a hard ceiling on a skill, no amount of player development will change that. Amare is a good example. He worked his ass off in trying to improve his defense and offense. The offense worked, the defense didn’t. With Shump, it was the opposite.

Ron Baker and Jimmer Fredette are not out of the league because of bad player development.

Pascal Siakam and Draymond Green didn’t become stars because of good player development.

Scouting and talent evaluation is way more important and responsible for successful roster construction than player development. Teams with good scouting personnel (and a FO who listens to them) wouldn’t have touched Frank or Knox with a ten-foot pole.

Knew Your Nicks:
Calling “player’s development” far less important than talent evaluation is like trying to prove that all schools are equal and it’s the student’s “fire and desire” that counts mostly…

One of the dumber comparisons you’ve ever made, and that’s saying something! In your analogy, we’re talking about MIT’s PhD program, not a generic K-12 public school. At the highest levels of academia, recruitment is way more important than development. If MIT recruited the intellectual equivalents of Frank and Knox, they’d fall off the elite academic institutions list in a hurry, no matter who the faculty and no matter how much fire and desire they had.

I mean, I agree that no amount of player development will turn a bad player into a good one and that in some skill areas, a player only has a certain ceiling (Amare with defense).

But I think a bad franchise without good player development can screw up plenty of good prospects and I think Hardaway is a good example. He was bad here. Then he went to Atlanta and Bud helped him get better. Then he came her and was bad again (more the role he was given than development…which at that point was probably done for the most part for him). Then he goes to Dallas with Doncic and suddenly looks good again.

I put player development hand in hand with role/system. You need all of it.

I guess I harp on this because I believe Rose understands this and its why we’re seeing him hire Payne, that scout dude, an analytics guy, a cap guy, etc.

Just having a ton of picks might increase your odds and if you luck out and get Kawhi late in the first round, that can change your franchise (although SA did a great job developing him, no?) But just having more picks by itself won’t be enough for us to turn it around. We gotta make the right picks and then develop them.

If Fizdale stayed here another 2 years we could easily squander Mitch or RJ’s talent. They’d then be busts/dissappointments.

Good stuff. Rather than weigh in on one side or another, I’m going to wimp out and pass on an article. I think there’s as much crap in here as good points, but points of possible interest are the description of Devin’s development work (development!); the attempts to find the right teammates around him, culminating in Cam Johnson (fit!); plus the discussion of draft-time decisions (drafting the right player!). All the different topics swirling around this thread.
https://www.theringer.com/nba/2020/8/13/21365383/phoenix-suns-team-building-cam-johnson-james-jones
Not actually sure there’s any lesson in here, but some food for thought.

KnickfaninNJ: This is very unlikely to be true.If you posit that the overall distribution of athletic talent in society is normally distributed and the NBA has the best players available, then the player talent distribution in the NBA should be shaped like the tail end of a distribution which is very non normal in shape.

not sure about that…that tail is the tail of a broader population/sample size…if that tail now becomes your entire population…you have a new curve relative to whatever you are measuring, i.e., NBA level skill…if you argue that it is not normally distributed population then yes…the curve looks different…but if in general you agree that of the NBA player pool most are equal in skill with outliers (lebron, giannies on the up side and knox and dsj on the downside)…then it will look like a normally distributed curve…

Rookies of the year going down like crap in the toilet (MCW) and Totally Unknowns becoming All NBAers (Ben Wallace) prove that talent evaluation can be extremely fluid and prediction sometimes rely on luck and other times on knowledge or experience.
Calling Talent Evaluation far more critical than Development don’t seem provable to me.

I remember at least one poster here is a Suns fan who posted the Suns tales of woe recently (of which there were many). You might be interested in Zach Lowe’s latest podcast which focuses a lot on the Suns. He had some longtime Suns beat writer to talk to. He asked the writer why the Suns were so much better in the bubble. The guy said he thought their bench was much better now. They used to hav a terrible bench, but now it’s good.

Yeah, PHX is a very exciting young team.

with phx up big vs dallas i’m guessing they sit luka in the second half to seal it

KnickfaninNJ:
I should add that if you look at scatter plots of NBA stats, for example the one of performance of players versus salary That someone recently posted a link to, it’s obvious that player results aren’t normally distributed.

That is a different correlation…stats to pay…for your argument to hold it would have to be proven that pay correlates to performance, i.e., see Allen Crabbe, andrew wiggins, terry rozier…

but if you argue that “results” aren’t normally distributed…it depends on how you define results…

my point is that if you take the 400 or so NBA roster guys and take 40 all stars/all pro, etc. and 40 real scrubs than the rest are fairly evenly distributed in terms of talent or skill set (some good at some things and some good at others)…

Thank God for the Unexpected

If talent evaluation was a sure thing and development was almost the same on every team and had the same effect on any player it’s very possible that the game’s predictability would have killed the Fun of the game.

Too bad it can’t be Phoenix vs Portland this weekend.

Knew Your Nicks: If talent evaluation was a sure thing and development was almost the same on every team and had the same effect on any player it’s very possible that the game’s predictability would have killed the Fun of the game.

The point is that talent evaluation is the most statistically variable aspect of team-building. SA had very little to do with Kawhi becoming an all-time great player, but they knew he was the best player available when they drafted him. Other teams passed him over for lesser players.

@jowles
I’m not trying to defend the ROY award but to show that players have “Ups and Downs” during their careers according to injuries, bad habits, motivations, revelations and other non predictable factors.
That’s why I’m saying that talent evaluation is extremely fluid.

@Zman
If SA was so great on talent evaluation don’t you think it would have grabbed also Giannis, Jokic, even Doncic and other unknown euro/international “sleepers” the way they did it on Kawhi ?

Com on zman…
Let’s be honest here
If you give your trusted pg-GHill to get Kawhi
You can find something to give to get generational talents…

That’s why I’m saying that:
Talent evaluation don’t seem far more crucial than player’s development.
If the Most Knowledgeable Teams of the league can’t spot up the best “hidden” talents and grab them, then who can?
Maybe the luckiest “gambling” teams ?

Popovich on the playoff streak ending:

“That’s fake news. That’s total fake news! Lots of guys have been telling me the streak hasn’t ended! I talk to people all the time. They call me. They tell me, ‘Pop, the streak didn’t end! It didn’t end!'”

Gotta love Pop!

I really want to like Lillard, and I know he’s as professional as they come and works harder than anybody, but every time I watch him play I feel my Marbury ptsd kick in.

Jacques Vaughan….Kenny who?

I was still in college in San Antonio the last time the Spurs didn’t make the playoffs-that’s a long time ago.

They should do the bubble every year-66 regular season games, take like 2 weeks off, the contenders go into the bubble, and then back to their home cities for the playoffs. Obviously would never happen, but this was a fun format.

Garrett Temple gets three steps in the bubble. How the hell has that guy had a 10 year career.

People have been saying it for years but the Bubble has really brought into high relief how uncompetitive and low stakes the NBA regular season is. Nothing profound about that of course but I do hope something comes of this.

After Portland won I allowed myself to feel real joy at Carmelo having absolutely bricked a wide open three that would have iced the game.

And thus ends Sunsanity.

I’m going to be really annoyed when things go back to the old norm instead of a new and improved future. The NBA needs more competition. The first 66 games should be for the “bubble round qualification,” and then the delete eight go and play for different incentives like a lock to pick in the top 3 depending on their records in that 16 game period. The other 22 teams have a 16 game finish to their season, but no cupcake games against 22 win teams, and then a play-in for the 7th and 8th seeds (7v10 and 8v9, like who doesn’t want to see Dallas vs Phoenix/Portland in a play in series?). The two teams who finish 11th in their respective conferences get thrown into the lottery with no chance to pick in the top 5 but maybe they can’t pick worse than 10th or something.

The NBA needs to do a better job of incentivizing competition and the old system doesn’t help at all.

Too bad it can’t be Phoenix vs Portland this weekend.

I can’t remember if monty turned us down, or we passed on him…good for him for finding and helping to build a good developing situation in phoenix…they got really good wing play throughout the restart…

ayton looks a lot more active now…devin booker is trying hard to be like james harden…

man, harden is gonna end up being one of the best players of his generation – and i’m not that big a fan of that style of extreme ball dominant player…I’m still adjusting to 35′ plus casual shot attempts…it just looks really diiferent…

I’m not that familiar with the grizz, how big a deal is it that memphis lost jackson? didn’t that just give clarke a chance in the starting unit…

I’m excited to see ja play this weekend…he looks ready for primetime…

if it happens, i think portland can definitely win one or two against the lakers…

it’ll be fun to watch AD and whiteside match up around the rim…

a fig infused old fashioned

that sounds pretty darn tasty…

The next time some skeptic says there no evidence of alien visitation I’m going to show him a Damian Lilliard highlight reel.

Devon Booker has gone from very talented good young player that advanced metrics hated, to very talented very good young player player that advanced metrics didn’t like much, to legitimate #1 option on a good team that advanced metrics are finally realizing may be pretty good. lmao

I’m happy he they finally finally have a few guys on the team that try to play defense and can do other things (like Rubio and Bridges) and a few solid veterans that know how to play basketball to help the young guys. They have a nice mix and should continue to get better once they finally break through and get playoff experience.

Bulls fired Jim Boylen.

The Bulls should hire Mike Miller or Woodson- save us some pressure on the staff. Both of those guys deserve a larger role than they will get on the Knicks bench if they both end up on Thibs’ staff. Honestly, I think both coaches would do well with Chicago’s roster. Woody hasn’t actually signed yet, right? He should totally go for the Chicago job. And before anyone says Atkinson, I kinda hope and expect Walton to be let go in Sacto in favor of Atkinson

It’s my 34th birthday today, and so we are making these:

https://smittenkitchen.com/2018/07/bourbon-peach-smash/

PEAK LEO, BISHES, LOOK AT ME LOOK AT ME I AM IMPORTANT

Happy birthday, Jowles, Leo King of Knickerblogger.

until tomorrow

ptmilo:
Happy birthday, Jowles, Leo King of Knickerblogger.

until tomorrow

there can be only one

it’s incredibly challenging to convincingly measure (as opposed to intuit) how important organizational factors are to player development vs. the counterfactual. somewhat recently, a clever method — previously used to estimate managerial relevance (as opposed to randomness) — was applied to sports, including the nba. it told a fairly compelling story that coaches matter much more than previous research surmised, based upon the distribution of correlations vs the distribution expected under the null hypothesis of irrelevance. it was certainly much better thought out than the existing literature, which was full of potential holes. but this study was about whether differences in coaches (NBA included but across all sports) mattered to team results, an easier question to answer. so for the purposes of this conversation it still comes entirely down to the morris and lopez brothers.

http://www.sloansportsconference.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Do-Coaches-Matter.pdf

so for the purposes of this conversation it still comes entirely down to the morris and lopez brothers.

And even then, so many confounding variables

The Honorable Cock Jowles:
https://imgur.com/a/k3wKJqp

This is my latest. If I put fruit on pizza, Katie will murder me. I’d guess that I’ve made about 150 pizzas since last March, and only three of them had toppings. A couple pesto tomato slice pies, and one with prosciutto. We keep it simple.

My wife has long refused to eat pizzas with anything but meat on them. However, I finally got her into Margherita Pizza. A local mom and pop place makes a pretty good one, and I’m working on making better ones here at home, too that I can customize a bit with bell pepper and, sometimes, pineapple or jalapenos on my half.

We’re Leos — passionate, brave, and loyal. Even to the friggin Knicks…

you guys are not alone…had mine a couple of weeks back…leos really are the best 🙂

hey wetbandit, i hope things are smoothing out for you at work 🙂

Happy Birthday THCJ, all KBers shoule have some THC via a J in your honor tonight.

Also, splurged on an ENVO n95 mask and I’m so much happier and more comfortable. If you find yourself needing to wear an n95 for more than a couple hours a day, I’d invest in one. A constant headache can seriously affect your mood.

wetbandit:
Happy birthday Jowles, even if you are the sole reason I have to minimize my screen at work when someone’s passing (come on man, I think people suspect I’m a pornophile)
This is weird, my birthday was on 8/1. Why are so many of us Leos? Loyalty? Crap? Higher chances of being conceived in October with the start of the season, when hopes are high for the only time?

I’ve always found it a bit interesting that most Leos are probably conceived between Halloween and Thanksgiving…FWIW

Also, this is for alsep, if he’s lurking today:

Sure, we break some balls here tonight, but I go way back. In light of recent library closures, it’s an honor to be joined by this book… AND NOT SOME KINDLE-ASS, BEZOS-LOVIN’ EBOOKS LIKE THE ONES I’VE HAD TO READ FOR THE LAST FOUR MONTHS. THEY SHOULD FUCKIN’ DIE.

No dude, your name has “cock” in it

I guess my name and Lady Jowles have something in common – ayyyyyyyy

wetbandit:
Also, splurged on an ENVO n95 mask and I’m so much happier and more comfortable. If you find yourself needing to wear an n95 for more than a couple hours a day, I’d invest in one. A constant headache can seriously affect your mood.

Hate to say this but the Enzo mask has a filter and nobody should be using a mask with a filter. These masks were designed to stop particulate from being breathed in (like on a construction site) but don’t stop particles from being breathed out and expelled into the surrounding air. Most of the point of wearing a mask is to stop your own breath/saliva/droplets from expelling into the air around you. If you’re wearing a mask with a filter, an Enzo mask or something else, and you’re sick then you’re spreading virus around and not doing anything to stop it.

Enjoy, Jowles! It’s the best thing I’ve been a part of writing. And maybe the best thing I will be a part of writing.

Alan:
Enjoy, Jowles! It’s the best thing I’ve been a part of writing. And maybe the best thing I will be a part of writing.

Come on, alsep, there has to be a best-seller embedded somewhere in your KB life…it’s pretty mind-boggling how many eggheads are wasting brain power here rather than working on nuclear fusion reactors or something easier to solve than how to fix the Knicks.

Huh, I always had THCJ pegged as a good amount older. Wisdom with regards to the effects of bleach consumption beyond his years, I guess.

Anyway, happy birthday! That pizza looks ridiculously good.

Huh, I always had THCJ pegged as a good amount older. Wisdom with regards to the effects of bleach consumption beyond his years, I guess.

I look 25 tops, so it’s even weirder. People ask what my wife and I do for fun, and it reads like a list of real middle-age/geriatric stuff: read, cook, bake, play Scrabble, race each other with the Friday through Sunday NYT crosswords (every week, in pen, and she did last Saturday’s in like 12 minutes, so I lose about 97% of the time, no lie), play chess, work out, go on long walks, and innumerable orgies while under heavy doses of medical-grade THC.

I was broke as hell, overworked and living with my folks (nice people, but kill me) during grad school, which was the peak “drink bleach” phase of the THCJ avatar. Now that I have some money and a kick-ass wife, things are a bit easier on my nerves.

Except with bobneptune, cuz, y’know, fuck that guy.

When Jowles first started posting here some 10 years ago, I imagined him as a Hector Hammond type — part loser in his parents’ basement, part super genius with a humongous brain. I guess I was kind of right on both counts, though I didn’t guess that he was a child. That does fill in the missing pieces, though 🙂

Happy birthday, Your Honor! I’ve enjoyed our thoroughly modern relationship over the past decade.

Late to the party as usual — Happy B-day Jowles. I was going to vehemently disagree with Z-Man’s advice (breed late, after you’ve gotten all the stupid, dangerous, low-paying wanderlust shit out of your system, just stay in tip-top shape because you really can’t let your kid outrace you or beat you up until they’re at least 13), but since you’ve self-identified as geriatric, I guess breed at will.

Happy Birthday THCJ!
I’m wishing you to always be the best version of yourself. Even as a Knicks fan which makes it more tough!

just stay in tip-top shape because you really can’t let your kid outrace you or beat you up until they’re at least 13

so very true…i remember about a decade ago having to tell god daughter when she was around 8 to start pulling her punches a bit when we would play fight, that was a bit humbling…she had a pretty solid punch though…

thankfully godson doesn’t have quite the level of aggression his sis did…he’s nine now though and yeah, depending on the distance – he can out run me…life is cruel…

delicious looking crust on that pizza jowles…

I know i can’t prove it but I’m damn sure that if Knox was drafted by SA 6yrs ago he would lead the Raptors to an easy Back to Back championship this year!

Knew Your Nicks:
Seriously now i think that if Frank can be considered as a pretty good defender in a shitty team like the Knicks he could possibly be a “MSmart 2” in a BStevens team.
I don’t know if its called development, right fit, healthy environment or whatever else but I’d bet money on it that would happen naturally.

take it ez on the ouzo bro…

Happy Birthday, THCJ!

i have no idea how well this will translate – but: vólta méchri na pésoun oi trochoí

oh yeah, and the reason being: to ávrio den échei yposchetheí

“i have no idea how well this will translate – but: vólta méchri na pésoun oi trochoí”

Yuria sta paliouria!

“oh yeah, and the reason being: to ávrio den échei yposchetheí”

‘Tomorrow never knows’ by the Beatles is my preferred song on my funeral.
Loudly!

The Honorable Cock Jowles:
I’ve been listening to nothing but Revolver through White Album lately. Sgt. Pepper’s really is a revelation. All of those albums, from Meet the Beatles through Abbey Road, are fantastic, but SPLHCB is on a different plane (even if Revolver was the Great Leap Forward).

ditto…siriusxm has a beatles only channel and they did a few fan’s top 100 weekends….some really good shit in there…

tomorrow never knows…a very nice and comforting thought for the day…

hmmmm, seems the beatles will join me here at work for a while 🙂

From Loudersound:

Roger Waters Was Stunned First Hearing Beatles Sgt Pepper’s

“Pink Floyd recorded debut album Piper At The Gates Of Dawn in London’s Abbey Road Studios, while the Fab Four worked on their iconic 1967 album in the next room.

But Floyd didn’t hear it until they were touring the UK as part of a package tour headed by Jimi Hendrix and also featuring The Move, The Nice, Amen Corner and Eire Apparent.

Waters tells KLCS: “I remember pulling the car over into a lay-by, and we sat and listened. Somebody played the whole thing on the radio. I remember sitting in this old beat-up Zephyr 4, just completely stunned.

“I learned a lot from protest music when I was a young teenager. But I learned from John Lennon, Paul McCartney and George Harrison that it was okay for us to write about our lives, what we felt, to express ourselves.”

Vlade out in Sacramento. Dumars in as the interim GM. Shit, one of the few teams dumber than the Knicks making a move.

Brian Cronin:
Vlade out in Sacramento. Dumars in as the interim GM. Shit, one of the few teams dumber than the Knicks making a move.

shit…there goes my bogdanovic pipe dream

***All of those albums, from Meet the Beatles through Abbey Road, are fantastic***

Blah.

with crushed ice in a cheap plastic glass…

The Honorable Cock Jowles: Thanks to all for putting up with me over the years. Except Z-man.

You’re welcome. And have a very happy birthday.

Donnie Walsh:
***All of those albums, from Meet the Beatles through Abbey Road, are fantastic***
Blah.

the worst

Is it confirmed that Divac was the one who advocated for Bagley over Doncic? What a franchise-crippling mistake. He deserved to be fired.

Fave ballads:

Norwegian Wood
If I Fell
Blackbird
Julia
Long and Winding Road

Z-man:
Fave ballads:

Norwegian Wood
If I Fell
Blackbird
Julia
Long and Winding Road

6-10

Norwegian wood
ballad of john and yoko
let it be
day tripper
and i love her

This is my latest. If I put fruit on pizza, Katie will murder me. I’d guess that I’ve made about 150 pizzas since last March, and only three of them had toppings. A couple pesto + tomato slice pies, and one with prosciutto. We keep it simple.

What if I told you tomato was a fruit

yeah…I am not big on liquor…I was making my own “salsa borracha” and using tequila and OJ and since I had leftover tequila…I googled some simple cocktails with reposado…i am mainly beer and wine…in fact…in honor of jowles’ bday…I am now cracking open a Golden Ale from Portlands’ own Breakside Brewery…my favorite brewery up there….

tauchman just missed a huge tater…

bye bye gardy time…frazier needs to be playing every day…tauchman is a more than capable 4th outfielder…actually, capable of every day play…

i don’t know, i get he’s got a really good glove and has a good on base percentage – but, seems hicks is hurt a lot and doesn’t really hit for power or average…

if he can stay healthy, it should be frazier’s time now and tauchman should stay in the lineup…

i need to check on andujar and see if he’s getting a chance to play at all, and where are they using him…

Nice try Morpheus but I’m gonna take the blue pill

Everyone knows tomatoes are animal protein

Z-man:
My wife just whipped up eggplant parm, broccoli rabe, spaghetti and Zurro’s italian bread (if you’re from the Bronx or Westchester, you know what I’m talking about.) Sounds simple but I guarantee that in a cookoff of just these items with y’all she’d kick your asses. Her Italian family had such a refined sense of how to make simple dishes, and she has taken it to another level via cooking shows and passion.

She would appreciate Jowles’ pizza.

damn…that sounds good…last night I made Sicilian grilled swordfish, rigatoni al limone and some roasted parmesan broccoli…also simple dishes…I would like to go head to head against her in the cookoff once the pandemic is over…i have not done eggplant parm but many trays of chicken and veal over the past 5 months…

re: tequila, I’m sipping Dulce Vida blanco on the rocks, and hitting the dab pen in Jowles’ honor.

Z-man:
re: tequila, I’m sipping Dulce Vida blanco on the rocks, and hitting the dab pen in Jowles’ honor.

que bueno…disfrutalo…

The key to good-tasting food is salt and a lot of weed

The party doesn’t get started til sundown, old man

My 4 factors for healthy relationships/parenthood
(Work in progress)
1 satisfactory sex for both partners
2 trust one another
3 same priorities in life
4 feeling good and ready to share the good feeling with more human beings

…we had to walk 5 miles, in the snow, barefoot, to the bodega….uphill, both ways…

HBD Jowles, gonna eat a an edible in your honor.

1 satisfactory sex for both partners
2 trust one another
3 same priorities in life
4 feeling good and ready to share the good feeling with more human beings

check x 4

HAPPY BIRTHDAY PTMILO YOU WILY FREAK

***\who hurt you***

Um, the Knicks

***I say have kids early. A- there’s a lot of physical labor that’s easier and almost thoughtless when you’re younger and damn hard when you’re older, B- there’s a healthy amount of love introduced into your life that just ups the level of happiness in your life, kind of like reading a book for the second time and realizing there’s just so much good shit there that you didn’t know existed- it just paints the whole world differently, and better; C- when they’re past the very young years, and it will take time until your last one passes that threshold, you can kind of sit back, enjoy things like early grandfatherhood***

I had kids in my 20s, 30s, and 40s. Though I may not have the energy I used to have, I feel like I am a much better father now than I was back then. (I guess I’m like the Jacque Vaughn of fathers — better with age).

I honestly can’t imagine marriage, or even bachelorhood, without kids. Even the ones that drive me in-fucking-sane (which is almost all of them between the ages of 13-20… was I really a teenager once??)

Imma need one of you better informed folks here to educate me because I’m obviously late to this party- who is this Poku that I’m suddenly hearing about? I just read an article suggesting the Knicks draft him in the 6-10 range!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY PTMILO YOU WILY FREAK

out of sample proof that local renaissance stan will always be a tenderfoot to me. take that for data.

Happy Birthday Jowles.

34 years ago I was probably in a bar somewhere watching a Knicks game whining about something management was doing wrong. 🙂

Dallas vs. Clippers should be a very good test for Doncic, especially when/if Beverly comes back and they up their overall defense even more. The Clippers are smart enough to get physical with Doncic when he comes into the paint. They will try to wear him down during games and over the course of the series. They’ll try to force him into taking bad shots outside and making bad passes from inside. To me, on paper, it looks like a horrible matchup for the Mavs. George and Leonard are going to have a party against Dallas’s non existent wing defense. If Doncic or KP do anything special over the course of the entire series I’ll be surprised and impressed.

Five days to the draft lottery. Preparing for another guts-ripped-out outcome…

The Gardner/Hicks/Tauchman/Frazier situation is tricky.

Under normal circumstances I’d say Gardner has more than earned the right to work his way out of an early season slump (started a bit slow last year before putting up a great year), but with everything accelerated this season it’s hard to say.

I still think the Hicks contract is great and if need be will be movable at any time (shout out to Courtney Lee), but Tauchman sure seems legit. Cashman can’t keep up with his own success when it comes to finding productive players on the scrap heap.

Frazier has teased us before so I’d like to see more from him before saying we need to prioritize getting him ABs.

JK47:
Best Beatles solo albums:

1. All Things Must Pass
2. Ram
3. Plastic Ono Band
4. Imagine
5. Band On The Run

my top 5 solo singles (one for each)

lennon – (1a) working class hero/ (1b) cold turkey
mccartney – maybe i’m amazed (live)
harrison – would say my sweet lord but too controversial- so what is life
ringo – it don’t come easy

and my favorite rendition (actually this is just the Prince solo at the end) of guitar gently weeps…check out how he tosses the guitar at the end..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efhlDbZ4SmY

Gentry let go. I bet they go for Kidd or Atkinson. Atkinson would benefit Zion tremendously with his game shape demands. Gentry just doesn’t strike me as the personality type that will stay on Zion about his diet and workouts. Not sure Gentry lands another HC job after this.

Z-man:
Any fans of the great Johnny Cash’s version of the great Kris Kristofferson’s Sunday Morning Coming Down?
There was some talk a while ago about a mt Rushmore of songwriters. Kristofferson probably deserves a spot up there. And Dee Dee Ramone
Dylan and lou are automatics

When I was a teenager I had the last 8 track player in America in my car. The let it be album and Beatles ‘65 were heavy in the rotation and they’re still my favorites today. Can’t make a case for either as the best Beatles album though

NEw Orleans probably wishes they had Monty Williams back, but he probably just secured his Suns job for a while. I didn’t read the entire Sloane article on coach effects, but I read the beginning of it and one they said rings true, changing coaches can make you worse just as easily as it can make you better.

This Anderson character is fascinating — he really is Slo-Mo. Gives me hope for our own slo-mo RJ…

That drive and layup by Morant a few plays back was absolutely beautiful.

And then of course Clarke blows his assignment and gives up an alley-oop. Nurkic is really good.

Ja Morant would look like Elfrid Payton if he was a on a team where Julius Randle and Bobby Portis are your definition of floor spacing. Leave RJ out of this, please.

Also, Bubble NBA is so much better than Spring basketball in the NBA. I hope they apply a lot of what made the bubble a great product to the 82 game schedule.

God I wish we had traded down and picked up Clarke.

I can’t believe no one here thought Brandon Clarke would be good.

Z-man:
I can’t believe no one here thought Brandon Clarke would be good.

Too many people here get distracted by counting stats and highlights on youtube. We definitely need a more analytical approach to discussing basketball on this forum.

CJ running amok on Ja

Melo bricking all game, hits a dagger.

Too many people here get distracted by counting stats and highlights on youtube. We definitely need a more analytical approach to discussing basketball on this forum.

Dare I say we need to start looking at advanced metrics, like PER and EFF.

B. Clarke -27

C. Anthony -4

Take that for data!

What do people here think about Brandon Ingram after the season he just had? Worth making a poison pill offer sheet to?

Definitely. The problem is that they’ll just match it right away.

Brian Cronin: What’s funny is that NOLA would have been a good gig for Thibs, too.

I was against hiring Thibs and wanted to keep Miller around for another year. But now that we hired him, I’m feeling better about it. I think this a really good situation for him because Mitch is a perfect Thibs-style player and there are low expectations. He is also a NY-type guy.

But yeah, NO is way more ready to win than we are. And the Cajun name would have gone over well in Big Easy.

Ingram’s gonna get the max and they’re just going to have to hope he keeps developing into a star. Solid performance this year.

Well, at least until Dame’s extension kicks in….then they’re fucked!

I liked that Blazer team last year before Nurkik got hurt. They were more balanced with Aminu and Harkless instead of Melo. They probably needed another scorer like Melo, but Nurkik was building towards becoming a more consistent 3rd option. I guess it worked out OK because Aminu was hurt most of the year and I’m hoping we keep Harkless. But they have serious issues on defense that imo weren’t as nearly as bad with Aminu and Harkless.

Prozingis made 2nd team “all bubble”.

He had a great run. over 30 points, well over 60% TS%, and close to 10 rebounds

Z-man:
I think the Lakers have lots of problems and Portland will take them deep.

They haven’t looked good but I can’t tell if James is just coasting a little in these meaningless games or actually hurting a little. They have other injuries too.

When you have James and Davis you really don’t “need” a solid consistent 3rd option, but it’s way better if you do. They need someone else to step up from time to time.

I like this Portland team, but if they don’t play defense and LA is 100% playing both sides, Lilliard is going to have to be magical.

Clint Frazier might be here to stay this time around huh

I don’t follow Baseball much, so I had to look up Miller and Frazier. When I did I had a Basketball thought. Frazier was drafted at nineteen and no one expected him to play big league ball right away. The Yankees traded for him when he was twenty three and still didn’t expect him to play right away. The Knicks draft players at those ages and if they are not impact players right away, they are bums. It makes me want to have more patience with our young players; not just Ntilikina, who comes to mind right away, but Barrett, Smith, Iggy, Wooten and others.

Donnie I’m not sure if Knicks management can do anything better than be patient at this point given that the one draft pick that they clearly did well on, KP, was traded for mostly future potential, which kind of set our path unless we hit it big in the free agent market which is a Knicks’ fairy tale.

If Dolan bought the Mets do you think that would bring them better management?

I would add that the 40 spots on a baseball roster are comparable to the fifteen on a basketball one. In baseball you need nine or ten pitchers in the regular rotation plus eight non pitching starters for a total of 17 or 18 players. Adding in a few players that are regular subs, like pinch hitters or a second catcher gets you to twenty player or half the roster. That’s similar to the eight active players out of fifteen total in the NBA.

KP’s been the 4th-most efficient high-volume scorer in the bubble, says Draft Express. Neat!

BC, how about a new thread for playoff predictions?