[CBS News] — Tuesday, November 21, 2023 10:09:52 PM
Wolves’ Jaden McDaniels to miss multiple weeks after ankle sprain CBS News
[New York Post ] — Tuesday, November 21, 2023 8:59:00 PM
Knicks need to improve vs. teams with .500 or better records New York Post
[CBS Sports] — Tuesday, November 21, 2023 8:56:00 PM
Knicks’ Mitchell Robinson: Double-doubles against Minnesota CBS Sports
[Sports Illustrated] — Tuesday, November 21, 2023 7:50:16 PM
Ex Knicks Coach Woodson Toasts Dolan With ‘Love & Respect’ in … Sports Illustrated
[FOX 9 Minneapolis-St. Paul] — Tuesday, November 21, 2023 7:19:21 PM
After beating Knicks, Timberwolves give back at Second Harvest Heartland FOX 9 Minneapolis-St. Paul
[Heat Nation] — Tuesday, November 21, 2023 7:14:47 PM
Report: Miami Heat and New York Knicks linked to Bojan Bogdanovic Heat Nation
[ESPN] — Tuesday, November 21, 2023 6:09:00 PM
Timberwolves’ Jaden McDaniels has Grade 1 ankle sprain – ESPN ESPN
[Sports Illustrated] — Tuesday, November 21, 2023 5:11:32 PM
Trade Proposal Sends Former Jalen Brunson Teammate to New York Knicks Sports Illustrated
[Posting and Toasting] — Tuesday, November 21, 2023 4:00:00 PM
The New York Knick’s toxic relationship with the free-throw line Posting and Toasting
[Eurohoops] — Tuesday, November 21, 2023 3:37:00 PM
France coach Collet wants Evan Fournier to leave Knicks Eurohoops
[CBS Sports] — Tuesday, November 21, 2023 2:07:00 PM
Knicks’ James Dolan resigns from board positions, says NBA ‘neither needs nor wants’ his opinion, per report CBS Sports
[ClutchPoints] — Tuesday, November 21, 2023 2:05:06 PM
Knicks player who must be traded in 2023-24 NBA season ClutchPoints
[The Athletic] — Tuesday, November 21, 2023 1:36:23 PM
Donte DiVincenzo is taking steps (literally) toward adapting to new teammates The Athletic
[Sports Illustrated] — Tuesday, November 21, 2023 1:06:30 PM
Knicks Lawsuit: James Dolan Resigns From NBA Board of … Sports Illustrated
[ESPN] — Tuesday, November 21, 2023 12:01:00 PM
Knicks owner James Dolan resigns from NBA board committee positions – ESPN ESPNKnicks-Raptors lawsuit: New York asking for $10 million in damages, argue Adam Silver shouldn’t mediate CBS SportsKnicks’ Dolan Resigned From NBA Board Committee Positions hoopsrumors.com
[Daily Knicks] — Tuesday, November 21, 2023 11:21:19 AM
The younger Toppin shines for Knicks in G League with dominant … Daily Knicks
[CBS Sports] — Tuesday, November 21, 2023 10:15:41 AM
Knicks’ Jalen Brunson: Goes for 25 points in loss CBS Sports
[Posting and Toasting] — Tuesday, November 21, 2023 10:12:19 AM
A realistic look at the state of the Knicks Posting and Toasting
[Bleacher Report] — Tuesday, November 21, 2023 9:05:25 AM
3 Trade Targets for Knicks to Consider Before Rumor Mill Picks Up Bleacher Report
[Daily Knicks] — Tuesday, November 21, 2023 8:00:06 AM
Concerning Julius Randle clip explains why Knicks fans are frustrated Daily Knicks
90 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2023.11.22)”
I guess the in season tournament is a thing? Saw the Athletic piece saying it was working. Don’t really have the bandwidth to evaluate.
I don’t think I’d ever seen him play before. He must have been injured for the (few) Magic games I bothered watching last year. He looked surprisingly good tonight, for somebody I never hear about and basically forgot existed. Completely dominated the quarter I watched, in fact. He seems to have the floor of a Josh Hart and the ceiling of an… I don’t even know… maybe a Sidney Moncrief?
i really like suggs and i think moncrief is pretty on point. i don’t think the slow start to his career has been that much of an enigma given that he lacks many of the skills you’d typically see from a very high lead guard pick, ie he’s extremely north-south and very low on shake and fluidity with the ball. and while his shooting may be coming around, he’s not a born elite sniper. it’s tough to be that sort of player running plays on a shitty team at 20.
but he is every bit the defender it looked like he might be and then some. he’s got that marcus smart intensity without the flopping and significantly better disruption (though not the bulk). his hands are crazy. he definitely has a ceiling on offense, but he does enough well that if his shooting stays okay he can be just fine there as a high activity slasher with plus passing who can kill in transition. if his shooting is better than okay then he can still be really special.
i think he’s already a damn solid player though i worry about him getting hurt a lot the way he launches himself around the court every night.
Watched the Wolves’ game, my trends are trending but it’s only Game-14 so I shut up.
There are reasons when I say that “double meaning” games are idiotic… 😉
Adding insult to injury all the games have “double meaning” except the last, most important one.
Adam Silver and his crew of clowns need a doctor and a good one…
I’m finally watching (and enjoying) the Bill Russell documentary on Netflix. The Celtics really wanted to draft Russell so they traded up to number two and then agreed to send the Ice Capades show to Buffalo (I think that was the city) so that Buffalo would not pick Russell at number one. We have Radio City and the Rockettes. Maybe we could send to perform in OKC for a week at Christmas and get a much better draft pick
😉
I admire the effort the NBA has put around it. Changing the courts was incredibly smart. Makes you feel like something other than an NBA game in November is happening. And some of the games have been fantastic.
But it’s missing the key component that makes in-season tournaments so exciting in soccer: teams from other leagues.
The whole thing is kinda like that new “beach” they just opened on the Hudson River. It’s just the sand. Who went to a beach and said “this is great, I want to build one of these but without the ocean”? Adam Silver, apparently.
As this site’s most vocal(and perhaps only) proponent of the in season tournament I feel obligated to chime in. If the Knick’s make the final weekend (a big if at the moment) hopefully I will feel less isolated.
I think instead of creating random groups, the NBA should have used the existing divisions. This would have made the tournament much easier to follow and would have added some meaning to divisions and intensified rivalries. I also would have started the knockout round on Christmas day. Getting on national television would be a nice added incentive.
I’ll defend the IST (but they definitely need to slap a new name on it)! I think it’s been really good so far – there’s really no downside and it has given a little extra zip to a period of the NBA calendar that often feels almost like preseason part 2 with the “real” start at Christmas. There are kinks to be ironed out (keeping track of the groups is too hard, just use the divisions) but the elimination games are going to be really fun, and again, what’s the cost here? The NBA regular season product is very consistently poor, and while this isn’t my ideal fix I think it’s very clearly better than nothing.
pgs generally do take awhile to hit their stride… that’s for a variety of reasons but suggs isn’t a special case…. it’s took awhile for his outside shot to develop but looks like it might have finally arrived… that’s really all that was missing…
he is an incredible athlete and he’s just way way more than josh hart could be… he’s never really played pg for the magic… and while his dribble drive game isn’t amazing.. that’s not really his problem… he’s just very sloppy with his decisionmaking… which is evident in his turnovers but he’s also a bit of a bulldozer to the basket as well…
once that gets refined he could still.. surprisingly… have a shot at being the best guy from the draft that most close observers thought he was…
After reading hubie’s post about how those teams eliminated from the in-season tourney will get two potentially easier games on the schedule – this in-season tournament thing is starting to have a scripted pro-wrestling feel to it.
Just looking at our erratic schedule this year it feels as though scheduling is taking precedence over competition.
i don’t necessarily think it comes at absolute zero cost… there should be some attention paid to some wild starts… the rockets and the magic in particular…. along with the wolves and such…. should be getting more national attention… that’s sort of getting sucked out by people having to talk about the in-season tourney….
that sort of gets to silver’s point the other day… that he felt that basketball should be covered more like football… whereas it’s always been part of the zeitgeist to talk about it in x’s and o’s… john madden was a HUGE part of that… but for a variety of reasons basketball equivalent never took off despite having basically madden’s kindred spirit in hubie brown…
the reason it’s not is because the fans are a lot more casual but i also think the nba keeps chasing casual viewers in the hopes of attaining growth at all costs…. it’s obviously worked to an extent as the nba is popular and has grown but it’s sort of like the chicken and egg problem.. and i’m of the mind that the nba could do more to at least not constantly chase gimmicks all the time….
It might be working for players that are incentivized by extra money and it might be working for the NBA media that is trying to push it so hard for ratings, but I don’t know a single fan that gives a crap about any of it. Most of my friends don’t even know it exists. I care so little I haven’t even bothered looking at the standings or rules.
Toronto’s performance in the 1st half of the season could determine if Masai decides to blow it up or continue retooling. He’s got some big basketball and salary decisions to make and there’s a player over there we should be interested in.
I take the Cavs performance without Mitchell as more evidence that despite the occasional scoring outbursts he doesn’t have as big an impact on winning as his reputation. He’s good, but he’s not “that” good.
It’s strange that after years of bashing Scott Perry, now that he’s not with the Knicks anymore I find myself agreeing with what he’s been saying in interviews a little more.
The Silver Cup feels inevitable. Adam Silver is kinda like Costanza eating the T-Bone in the lunch meeting.
Yeah that makes a lot more sense.
I can say that for me the tournament passes at least the threshold test — the answer to the fundamental question of whether I’m more interested in these games than I otherwise would be because they’re tournament games is a solid (and unexpected) “Yes.”
So now I have at least some investment in the tournament and I can’t see any reason that won’t follow through to interest in the knockout round games and the finals.
I didn’t care at all about the Knicks game in Milwaukee being a tournament game, now I’m without question more into Friday’s game because it’s a tournament game and I’d definitely now be pretty into a Knicks run in the tournament.
One downside to this is that it’s probably going to start a trend that will spread to other sports of having “unique” courts/fields/rinks for “bigger” games. Which means Final Fours, Super Bowls, NBA Playoffs, etc.
Starting next year, they should seed and draw the groups and the knockout rounds. Of course televised.
A couple of other things I took away from the recent Scott Perry interviews were that it sounded like the Knicks may be more interested in adding a longer versatile two way player at SF (and moving RJ to SG) than going all in on a star immediately. He mentioned patience a couple of times and said he thought they should see what they could do with a group like that. He also talked about Randle. It sounded like they are very happy with Randle and unless they have some young PF they think will be better, they aren’t gong to trade him.
Following it through, I frankly see no reason the team that wins the NBA Cup shouldn’t hang a championship banner commemorating same from its arena rafters.
this “in-season tournament” is so funny
Strat, with whom is Perry is conducting these interviews? I find it a little off he has so much to say about his former job.
I’m only reading your recaps, so I can’t really form a valid opinion, but you’re giving me the sense that Perry had better ideas about what the Knicks should do than current mgmt and perhaps that’s why he didn’t last.
Heh, as someone who has written so much about that legend being nonsense, I was super irked at the Netflix documentary just repeating it as fact without even the slightest bit of “Well, I heard this from X.”
https://legendsrevealed.com/sports/2015/06/24/was-bill-russell-traded-for-the-ice-capades/
Regarding the In-Season Tournament, yeah, as soon as it was announced, I noted that the best result from a strategic standpoint was to do JUST well enough to miss the second round, as A. You’ll get your wins now and B. You’ll avoid having to play the good teams in the tournament and get to play worse teams in the other two games.
Hard to object to what’s essentially a no-cost way of injecting some life into an otherwise moribund portion of the NBA season. At a minimum, I would prefer the Knicks make it to Vegas. That alone shows some level of investment. Ratings for regular season NBA games during this portion of the year are so bad there’s basically nothing to lose.
Katz is out with a fun article on Brunson’s 3PT shooting today. Via the eye-test, he looks much more comfortable shooting various types of 3PT shots. I think there’s real improvement here. The question is whether his 2PT shooting will bounce back. Our offense hinges on that maybe more than literally anything else.
Glad to hear Sidney Moncrief’s name being brought up. For any 5-year stretch, he was one of the great 2-way shooting guards of all time.
That Bucks team, which I was lucky enough to see live at MSG, and on TV many times, was one of the more unfortunate teams in NBA history. They won over 50+ games for 7 straight years and just couldn’t get over the top.
And Moncrief was definitely the best player on those star-studded teams. He won the first two DPoY awards ever and was as high as 4th in MVP voting. He was all-NBA for 5 straight years (1X 1st team, 4X 2nd team) and all-defense 5 straight years (4X 1st team, 1X 2nd team) Then the knees started to go and that was pretty much it. The Squid had a career 50.3% FG%. a career .591 TS% (crazy high for a guard in his day)and a career 52.7 FTr (shot 83% from the line).
I don’t see Suggs ever getting to anywhere near that level as an offensive player but I guess there are some similarities.
Mitchell Robinson : Rudy Gobert :: Cincinnati Kid : Lancey Howard
I just watched the highlights of the Hawks-Pacer game. Yes, there was a lack of defense, but the shotmaking was truly spectacular. I will admit that it would have been a blast to be there.
The court was a weird color for a Hawks game…
“Katz is out with a fun article on Brunson’s 3PT shooting today.”
Strange but exciting to think that our little whirling dervish is turning himself into Duncan Robinson. It’ll be interesting to see if it sticks.
It’s strangely still painful to look at Halliburton’s lines….
The fact that people are already discussing how to game the system for the in season tournament tells you how bad it is. Again, it’s good for players looking to make more money (I don’t care). I guess it’s good for NBA media trying to generate extra interest and ratings to make more money if it helps (I don’t care). Otherwise imo it’s irrelevant nonsense. These games mean the same thing to me either way.
I haven’t watched enough of him to know, but every time I look at his lines my first thought is. “I hope he’s a terrible defender otherwise this is too painful to think about and an even bigger debacle than taking Knox over Bridges”.
“I hope he’s a terrible defender otherwise this is too painful to think about and an even bigger debacle than taking Knox over Bridges”.
It already is. Hali is an MVP candidate right now. Mikal is good, but he isn’t that. Neither is Spida.
The biggest debacles are Hali and SGA. Both of those guys will be top 5-10 players for the next decade, and it was so obvious to virtually all of us that they were better choices than Knox and Obi. At least there was some dissent about Frank, but there were also some meh to terrible picks higher on the dissenting side, like DSJ or Monk or either Collins.
To me the Frank draft was entirely forgiveable. I get that Z-man didn’t think he would be good, but the idea of a triangle point who could play defense wasn’t crazy given what else was available on the board.
But the Knox pick was in fact unforgivable. I think I’m the only one who called SGA, but most wanted Mikal and he would have been a great pick. Taking Knox when SGA was on the same team, on the basis of a 3 on 3 performance…what can you say? Obvious, and crushing. Flawed decision-making in every aspect.
But is there a word beyond “unforgivable?” Having Hali drop into our laps (a clear top 2 player in that draft) and then taking Obi–WHEN WE NEEDED A POINT GUARD–I mean, it is stupifying. I don’t get all the chatter about the incinerated pick when there’s a much worse error right freaking there. We got lucky to sneak over Brunson at a low cost, otherwise we’d still be lacking a point and the error would be even more devastating.
I think the fact that there’s more talk about the incinerated pick than all of these terrible misfires indicates that we really are a rather forgiving bunch if you try and fail to pick a good player. I say this as someone who was very low on all 3 of Frank, Knox, and Obi on their respective draft nights (highest guys on my big board were Z. Collins, Timelord, and Hali, though I likely only would’ve picked the latter if drafting specifically for the Knicks).
When you think there are no players worth picking and turn out to be laughably wrong, on the other hand, people feel pretty free to tee off on you.
We might have whiffed on Hali not only once, but twice. There is a world where it could have been Randle for Hali instead of Sabonis for Hali, right?
Or do I have the timing incorrect? (meaning that maybe Randle wasn’t an attractive trade piece for the Kings at the time that Hali was made available…….Was he Good Ju or Bad Ju at that time?)
Pacers-Hawks was a fantastic game and we will cry on Hali for his whole career.
A huge mistake is morphing into a fireable offense with every passing day.
Knox over SGA (or Mikal) was just as bad, but at least the perpetrator doesn’t have a job with our team anymore…
Anyway, Lakers and Pacers clinched the Silver Cup quarterfinals, while Detroit, Washington, Portland, Memphis and the Spurs are eliminated (see a pattern here?).
“When you think there are no players worth picking and turn out to be laughably wrong, on the other hand, people feel pretty free to tee off on you.”
I guess this is an argument that will never, ever be resolved. I will never get how anyone in their right mind would think that wasting the opportunity to make a top-10 selection after a losing season by picking Obi over Hali, or Knox over (anyone!), or Frank over (a player who wasn’t obviously a terrible choice when examining film) comes anywhere close to the error of losing some potential value by trading a pick for a probably less good pick in the future at the expense of a theoretical chance that the pick would turn out to be a stud.
It is literally one of the most confoundingly dumb statements I have ever seen defended on this site. That so much time has been wasted discussing it will never cease to amaze me.
And I beg folks to not mansplain it again.
Doogie, I’d be shocked if Sacramento valued Randle as much as Sabonis. I highly doubt we could have made that trade.
“…meaning that maybe Randle wasn’t an attractive trade piece for the Kings at the time that Hali was made available…….Was he Good Ju or Bad Ju at that time?”
I don’t think SAC valued Julius as highly as Sabonis. Still, it meant that Hali was available for the right price…and maybe we had a package that would have worked. But without evidence, it’s hard to know. So I don’t think we should count that as “missing out.” The one time we surely did miss out hurts enough for two!
Didn’t Sabonis’s father play in Sac? That may have been a factor as well.
“Didn’t Sabonis’s father play in Sac? That may have been a factor as well.”
He spent his entire NBA career in Portland, per B-R.
I was today years old when I learned Domantas Sabonis is Arvydas’ son.
(But no, Rama. Arvydas played for Portland.)
Here, let me mansplain it.
I very, very obviously was not saying that the 2021 blunder was more damaging to the team than the blown picks. There is no way to read what I wrote and come to that conclusion.
I was saying it’s more forgivable to blow a pick because you think so-and-so player is the BPA and turn it to be wrong than it is to blow a pick because you look at all the available options and say “eh, I’ll take two seconds from the Charlotte Hornets instead,” and turn out to be wrong.
https://www.nbadraft.net/players/tyrese-haliburton/
he’s ranked #1 in OBPM
love it
Man, can you imagine the arguments at a knickerblogger thanksgiving? Kinda makes me want to have one.
“…say “eh, I’ll take two seconds from the Charlotte Hornets instead,” and turn out to be wrong.”
It continues to boggle my mind that you use obviously disingenuous lines like this to describe what happened.
the reason the incinerated pick was a bigger mistake was because not even giving yourself an opportunity to make a pick for literally nothing you’re expected value is zero or very near zero…. there was no scenario where we came out ahead….
haliburton was very clearly the better prospect…. but there was a very small chance given the inherent unknowns with draft picks that obi could turn in a decent career and hali would struggle in some universe where he’s some version of lonzo ball instead…. it was a low upside and very miniscule chance but when you make the pick you give yourself that chance…. nobody takes a player with 100% certainty knowing their true outcome… some people pretend to know especially in hindsight.. and that’s how you know they don’t know anything….
the lesson here is you have to step up to the plate and at least swing…. if you don’t make your swings you’re saying you’re never going to get an opportunity to get a good ball to hit… and that’s just not going to be true in most drafts… and that’s how you doom yourself to striking out and hoping josh harts and quentin grimes and obi toppin put you on first base….
It’s very simple.
It’s good process/bad result vs bad process/bad result.
Taking the wrong guy when there’s a very good player available is a bad result, but the process is totally normal: we drafted the guy we thought was best. You may have fucked up the “guy we thought was best” part, but selecting the guy you think is best is totally normal process.
Looking at the landscape and saying “none of these guys are any good, let’s trade this pick for a worse pick” is bad process. It’s the kind of move that leaves people scratching their heads, because it doesn’t make a lot of sense.
Not complicated.
Unfortunately, the legacy with a lot of us of one of the all-time greats in Olympic and international basketball is as the unfortunate subject of one of the early cringetastic jokes in ESPN’s decline from sports network to clown show.
To wit:
“He’s not your Vydas … he’s not my Vydas … he’s Arvydas.”
the ball comparisons were pretty apt except hali had better half court game than ball.. they both had pretty low usage and there was zero indication that he had this type of scoring ability at all… he was in a pretty rigid college system so there’s definitely an aspect of where iso talent could have been hidden… but he also struggled to get past his man in a lot of instances…
he’s definitely worked at it and he was always a very smart player… and smart players figure it out… but sometimes they don’t…. he did and the rest is history.. i think most in the hali camp knew that this kind of superstardom was possible… but likely? i don’t think anyone ever went on record anywhere expecting this because this level of play is just crazy….
and that’s a testament to how hard he’s worked which is the biggest unknown when projecting players… you just don’t know what they’ll do and how hard they’ll go or if they work on the right things….
Obi over Hali is playing a solid Super Bowl but throwing a couple fourth quarter picks on bad reads to lose a winnable game.
The Incineration is doing a series of 8-balls in the hotel room the night before the Super Bowl and still being passed out drooling on the floor an hour before kickoff.
I have a dream that at some point we’ll stop talking about the incinerated pick! 😀
I truly wish that Leon had just taken Grimes at #19 and McBride at #21. No one makes much of a big deal over drafting IQ over Desmond Bane at #25 the year before, even though Bane was thought to be the better pick. Had Leon just done that, we’d still have the same roster and would not have had the protected CHA pick to squander on Cam Reddish. It would have been worth losing that protected first for the opportunity to avoid the 19th pick hysteria.
“It’s good process/bad result vs bad process/bad result.”
I’ll fix it for you:
It’s conservative process executed idiotically/unspeakably horrific and highly predictable result vs common alternative process executed suboptimally/suboptimal result (we don’t know who would have been picked, and at the time the CHA pick was far more likely to convey as a 1st than it is now due to the unforeseen Miles Bridges situation).
The level of cherrypicking, exaggeration, and hysteria generated by the #19 trade-out makes having a rational conversation about it almost impossible.
I know that this is true because I was not in favor of trading the pick and never liked that we did! It’s always been about degree, not right vs. wrong! It still is!
But hey, if folks want to console themselves in “good process/bad result” platitudes while Hali, SGA and Spida tear up the NBA, while being in mourning forever over the missed opportunity to draft Jalen Johnson and Jalen Williams, carry on!
The history of the “he’s crazy skilled but too skinny to make it” argument against draft picks is pretty dubious.
Despite the high ongoing disconnect, I think that we can agree that evaluating draft picks relative to draft slot is a process, and the FO is not particularly good at that process, whether they make a pick or trade out. That seems to have been more evident when we have actually made the picks. And the trade-downs and trade-outs have had cap considerations mixed in, while the picks made do not.
I thought he would be a Dollar Store Doncic. Tall, creative PG with matador defense who could get others involved in a spaced-out offense, but without Doncic’s top-10 all-time ceiling.
Did not think he would be on the shortlist for All-NBA First Team at the most stacked and important position in the game.
But surprises are happening all around us this year. Anyone have Porzingis at #10 in BPM through the first 14 games? Tyrese Maxey at #14 above Durant, Davis, Harden, Kyrie, Butler? Chet Holmgren breaking into the top 16? Alex Caruso and Lonnie Walker rounding out the top 19?
But Curry still stands at #5 and LeBron is #6 so some things are forever.
Nah, man. Obi was a really bad. It’s more like Kerry Collins throwing 5 picks against the Ravens.
And don’t forget Leon tried really hard to use the IQ pick to move up and take Obi higher. We were saved by the short-sightedness of other teams.
I think Rama is right. This was a much dumber and more egregious mistake than the incineration.
(FWIW I also think passing on Jalen Williams for Presti’s bag of dicks is worse than the incineration, too.)
Good process will at least occasionally bring a good result. I mean, blind squirrel finds nut and all that. Bad process rarely brings a good result.
Since you are the way you are, you’re going to dig your heels in and refute an argument that literally nobody is making in typically strident fashion, but hey, you do you.
Guess what else would have resulted in NOT drafting Hali, Spida, or SGA, Z-Man? Guess what? Bet you can’t guess.
You couldn’t have drafted those guys either if you said “ehh none of these players are any good, I’mma trade this pick for a Detroit pick that might never convey.”
At any rate, Leon Rose is quite versatile when it comes to fucking up the draft. Drafting bad players while future superstars are on the board, incinerating picks, trading lottery picks to create smidgeons of cap space… He can do it all. Truly a boxscore stuffer when it comes to fucking up the draft.
As you can see, Rama, the reason there is so much chatter about the incineration is because — remarkably — there are still people who defend it.
There is no one willing to stand up for Obi over Hali. And the fact that there is less chatter about it proves you right. It was a much bigger mistake.
Everybody plays tonight except us and the Pistons (mired in a 12-game losing streak).
The NBA hates Dolan (rightfully so) and negates us the privilege to slain another rag doll… 🙁
And making it worse is that it really isn’t a defense, it’s just more of a “why are you chuckleheads still talking about the Incineration when there are far worse things out there???”
Adding to the sneaky passive-aggressiveness of the template is its all-purposeness and lack of any guardrails or logical endpoints:
“Kids starving by the thousands in eastern Nepal and you chuckleheads are still talking about the incinerated draft pick ….”
Thanksgiving Eve basketball will always remind me of Amar’e Stoudemire swatting Stephen Jackson’s game-winning FGA in Charlotte to cap a 5 game winning streak that brought the the Knicks to .500.
The next day when I hosted Thanksgiving at my apartment I made everyone thank god for bringing us Amar’e.
Whoever implied that I am not “defending” the trade of the 19th pick is correct. I am putting it into its proper perspective. Always was. Always will be.
Things that I am also not doing:
-saying that it is always a good idea to trade out of picks
-saying that it is ever a good idea to trade out of picks when you don’t get commensurate value in return
-saying that the FO is doing a great job in getting comensurate value out of the drafts that they have participated in, whether they made picks or not (although I am saying that they’ve had both positive and negative transactions, with no absolute HRs and one particularly egregious miss).
I think when the hate boners get raging, folks lose track of what’s actually being said and not said, and don’t really care any more about having an actual discussion on the merits. Hence, there is the purposeful blurring of “defending” and “weighing”, and the conflating of “specific transaction” with “overall process.”
I believe trading out of #19 was a far less egregious error than trading the protected CHA pick for Cam Reddish. But I believe both were errors, yet I don’t think they were anywhere close to the errors that picking Obi over Hali was. I don’t see how that comes across as “defending” anything that I am being accused of defending.
While I get the arguments about the 2022 draft trade-outs, I think the silver lining is that they admitted that they totally fucked up by re-signing the mercs, and signing Kemba and Fournier, and pivoted away from that mindset. Could they have done so and preserved a lottery pick in that draft? I guess.
But that they signed Brunson and iHart for nothing but cap space and locked up Mitch on the most team friendly contract one could have imagined bought them a lot of grace from me. Just like trading a lottery-protected pick that got us a player that was critical to our best season of the millenium (when factoring in the promise of sustainability) also bought some grace.
I think the JHart contract is above market value and trading Obi for nothing was dubious, but both might work out well so whatever.
For me, the Hali whiff is in a class by itself.
Still, the FO, for all of its warts, has transformed the roster from the worst in the NBA to a top-10 rotation without tanking. So for however their draft blind spots have set things back, I’m good with where we are.
Happy Knicksgiving to All!
It feels like yesterday I was expressing shock at the Bucks having a negative 3 point differential on the season. Now they’re 10-4 and plus 3 heading into Boston for a nationally televised game. Go Giannis.
Brian, thanks very much for the link about the ice capades. I had no idea. Of course, I’d still send the Rockettes to OKC for a week to seal a deal for a hood player but it can’t happen.
The Knicksiness of the Knox over Bridges pick is that Bridges was considered the safe “high floor, low ceiling” pick as a 3&D guy. The fact that he burst through his projected ceiling so quickly made the salt sting more, especially as Knox’s projected “home run” ceiling turned out to be several feet beneath the underground bomb shelter in Bridge’s Death Valley residence.
“Bridges was considered the safe “high floor, low ceiling” pick as a 3&D guy.”
I was definitely guilty of that impression….that he has become such a good scorer is mind-boggling.
Not a good showing from the Bucks. You guys are probably not gonna get a Sam Hauser box score update tonight.
The Bucks are gonna be hampered by the fact that Middleton looks really, really, really cooked. Dame and Giannis are awesome, but how do you beat a team like Boston or Philly when you’re relying on Malik Beasley to be your third scorer?
Ha. Pop just dogged the Spurs arena for booing Kawaii. That will be a memorable one. Go Pop.
No Doogie, we whiff on Tyrese Haliburton each and every day. Day after Day.
Does anyone know the logic behind why a Championship or Bust team like the Bucks would hire a rookie coach? I can’t imagine a team playing much dumber than the Bucks did in that 3rd quarter.
I know it’s early but it feels
like Boston’s better than everyone except Denver, so I guess I have to pray for Jamal Murray’s health every day.
Meanwhile the Magic just knocked off the Nuggets.
That seemed incredibly self serving and gratuitous. It wasn’t like the crowd was really on him. It was just the standard noise every crowd makes when an opposing player is shooting free throws.
The Bucks are dumb and slow. Other than Giannis and Lillard, of course.
DAME!!!
This might have been a fake comeback but I saw enough immolation the last 20 mins to erase the feeling of Boston inevitability.
Ice Trae…I give him credit for being the man in OT after that crazy game last night.
Watching NBA Gametime. There have been a bunch of close games tonight.
The Timberwolves are handling the Sixers.
UPDATE: We in fact did not draft Tyrese Haliburton. Nor will we ever have the opportunity to draft Tyrese Haliburton in the future.
Just fucking move on already please 🙃
I mean, it is November…
I didn’t watch any games tonight because Little Women was on and I wanted to see if Greta Gerwig could take a book I found to be not very good and make something of it…and damn if she didn’t. She’s a brilliant filmmaker. 9 of 10 stars.
“Little Women”
Outstanding movie.
It gets better. At his presser, Pop’s answer for chiding the crowd:
That’s hilarious.
I’m calling a 2024 Magic / Thunder Finals right now, bookmark it!
Anybody watching Phoenix sweat it out against the Warriors G-League team right now?
+100000.
I have an important message to some people here: there’s a great place I recommend heartily for the 19th pick incineration debate. It’s called Discord. Go there! Have fun!