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145 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2024.02.27)”
From NYP:
That was my take in the moment, and in watching the better angle afterwards. I thought the argument that “Thompson didn’t have possession and the contact was incidental” was questionable at best. The whole concept of “loose ball foul” is about plays like that…I don’t think it is legal to cut someone off like that, crash into him, and rip the ball away when they are clearly about to gain possession of the ball. The phrasing that “Thompson gets to the ball first, and then was deprived of the opportunity to gain possession of the ball” seems accurate to me. In other words, if the foul actually was called and it was reviewed, the call would have stood. So Williams has a legit gripe and I don’t blame him for going ballistic.
In that sense, it MORE than cancels out the HOU game because that call would have just sent the game into overtime while this one literally gave us a win at DET’s expense. The bottom line is, we fully deserved to lose both games because we made bonehead plays at the end. Meaning that I kinda still think that Brunson dumbly fouled Green on that heave, despite what the refs said afterwards.
I agree 1000%. You can’t recklessly tackle someone like a linebacker and protest that you’re “first on the ball”…
Watching the game this morning without knowing the score I was expecting a whistle both on DDV’s TO/STL and on the previous J-Hart’s steal on Fontecchio and I was already cussing at a dumb loss against the Pistons… 🙂
Anyway reading the Hive’s comment on the foul after the game has been a blast 😀
A lot of bad luck evened out last night.
Well that was an exciting game and is a pretty good barometer of where the Knicks are as a team right now missing Randle and OG. All in all we traded IQ/RJ/Grimes out of our rotation and have only Burks and Bojan to show for it right now. Bojan will be fine eventually. I am a bit worried about Burks, who has been absolutely horrendous. his FG% in the restricted area since the trade has been — checks notes – 16.7%?!!? on obviously small volume but these are not shots that are juuuuuust rimming out – they are literally bricks that miss by feet. And he has a 1:2 assist-turnover ratio right now.
On top of that, Hartenstein is not playing at the level he was before the Achilles issue, and we’re still missing Mitch.
we just need to survive for the next 5-6 games until hopefully OG is back. That will bring order to the universe again. Then Mitch/Randle back, and we can go back to litigating who should be the 9th man playing 11 min/game as opposed to singing the praises of Precious Achiuwa playing 42 min.
Upcoming schedule:
2/27 -> Pelicans at home
2/29 -> Warriors at home
3/3 -> Cavs on road
3/5 -> Hawks at home
3/8 -> Magic at home
If we can somehow go 2-3 over that stretch (very much not a given) and get OG back for the 76ers back-to-back 3/10 and 3/12, I think that should be considered a miracle. If I had to put $, I think we can win the Hawks game but otherwise will lose the rest.
Quick thought on the post-ASG games so far:
– Health is the only thing that matters.
OG’s return will be huge, Julius and Mitch will probably need more time.
Until then we have to scratch any win we could, especially at home, no matter how.
The team that beat Philly and forced Tatum to play 43 minutes can win many games, last night’s one can lose them all.
– Before the TDL I was scared at trading for Burks.
PG-Burks’ PTSD still wreck my nerves and I was afraid about giving one of his toys back to Thibs*.
Even if I know he can score (on the “right” night) his play since the trade has done nothing to make me feel otherwise. Too many careless turnovers, dumb shots, be- happy-we’re-going-to-a-picnic moments and he’s still a (negative) threat on inbounds plays…
Now he’s going to score 35 against the Pels 🙂
– On the other hand I was positive about Bojan and I still think he can be useful when/if we’ll be at full strenght, even if I’m not sure him and Thibs will ever be on the same wave-lenght…
– Precious has shown much more than expected, now I’m starting to hope we don’t try to ride him too much.
He could be another nice piece in the toolbox come playoffs time**.
– I’m very angry about Fournier’s booing, really classless.
And why? Because he accepted an exile to Siberia without punching Thibs in the face?
He’s not a defender, he’s slow, but he always tries and did behave like a pro for two and a half years.
He doesn’t deserve it, shame on whoever did it.
– After sleeping for three quarters Grimes did enough to give ammunitions to the trade critics.
I understand it, to ship him away still stings…
And he was a bad whistle away from scoring the winning basket!
* Achiuwa is his new shiny toy, Burks is the old comfortable one…
** I close my eyes and think about this roster at full strenght with Spo on the bench… please let an old man dream… 😉
We can’t complain about Burks missing layups without pointing the finger at Precious. His finishing is ATROCIOUS. He’s Jared Jeffries out there, flinging the ball in the general direction of the rim.
An underappreciated part of our offensive struggles.
We truly need an “offensive coordinator” for this team. The numbers may say we are a average-to-above-average offense but too many times our offense goes through stretches of stagnation and often it’s not a result of the opposing defense but the lack of a plan or set. Mix it up, use Bogi in the post, run Brunson off-the-ball etc. I thought our offense those last few minutes of the game was extremely poor.
Another concerning issue is the lack of calls the Knicks are getting (save for the missed loose ball foul but sry if I don’t have sympathy). We were getting to the line at a good rate earlier in the season but lately refs are holding their whistle when Knicks drive (particularly Brunson). Maybe the Randle effect? We are a much more jump shooting team in his absence.
But questioning the pundits about the trade is just like questioning global warming.
Thibs is very conservative, so I think it’s going to take some time to get Bogey and Burks fully worked into the rotation with defined roles. The jury is out on the trade until we’re reasonably healthy and guys aren’t miscast (such as stretch-4 Precious Achiuwa.) We shouldn’t expect the returns on this trade to be instant; these sorts of things take time to gel.
I’m not worried yet, though so far both Burks and Bogey have been disappointing. I fully expect they’ll be ready to contribute come the playoffs, however. And good Burks/Bogey is a far more useful duo than good Grimes/Flynn.
Knicks are up to 6th in offensive rating…
I have not noticed this. he is shooting 70.6% in the restricted area and shooting 62% of this shots there (although he has been horrendous outside of the RA). I don’t think we can be anything but more than happy with how Precious has played since the trade. He was meant to be a 9th-10th man and a break glass in case of emergency PF/C and instead has played a gazillion minutes guarding the other team’s best player at times.
Bojan as a Knick is shooting 45% from 3pt range with a 59% TS%, he’s scoring 14 PPG in 24 mins.
He’s been exactly what they needed, Burks on the other hand has been God awful.
Writ large, they didn’t get enough back for Barrett (*)/Quickley/Grimes/Toppin.
Thibs has all his boys now and, as per previous form, he’s running them into the ground. We’ll see how it goes.
(*) Who has performed much as predicted once he escaped Thibs’s mosh pit and my turn/your turn/I get your backwash offense.
We’re missing 3 of our 4 best players
Immanuel Quickley misses the mosh pit apparently. Donte Divincenzo for some reason has no problem with the mosh pit. Must be a fan of Pantera or something.
Lil’ Pennysays:
February 27, 2024 at 09:09
But questioning the pundits about the trade is just like questioning global warming.
I need to disagree with this. Just because a “pundit” has an opinion doesn’t make them correct (e.g., Stephen A. Smith is a “pundit” and his opinions on the whole pretty much suck). It’s very easy to disagree with pundits, as they are only spitting opinions instead of facts, no matter how they couch them.
I think we needed someone who the coach trusted enough to play more minutes. These two center lineups we’re going with are too offensively challenged. And if Bojan is only playing 19-22 mins now while everyone is hurt, it stands to reason he’ll be in Siberia when everyone gets back.
Yeah there has been a couple of games where I wished he’d play more if anything just to have his shooting threat on the court but I was surprised to see he was averaging 24mpg, thought it was closer to 20mpg.
With everyone healthy I figure his mpg would be around 20 so 24 right now is not that bad but until OG and/or Randle return I wouldn’t mind seeing his mins creep closer to 30.
Everything they’re getting from Bogie, they could have gotten from Fournier. (*) That’s an infinitesimal upgrade at most.
(*) .661 TS%, .455 from downtown in five games since his escape.
No. But this is true of Burks, unfortunately.
Wait, what? Evan and Bojan have played to a draw since the trade? Jesus.
Well, I think we all knew at the time Bojan might not be a guy Thibs trusts. It will be interesting to see what happens when OG comes back. Precious, OG, and Hart could cover all the forward minutes and Bojan may be out of the rotation.
On the eve of his free agency in 2021, there’s little doubt Evan was the preferable sign to Bogie. Equal if not better numbers, three years younger.
The only question is how much of Evan’s falloff at a young age is path-dependent and there’s no real reason to think the answer isn’t “a lot.”
The Knicks use Bojan as a PF. He’s here because Randle is hurt.
If everyone is healthy, he’s Thibs’s 11th man. He’s the new Fournier.
BC and I both said on trade day that Thibs got his guy in Burks, the non-Thibs faction of the FO got their guy in Bogie. That’s still correct. Unfortunately for that faction, Thibs controls the minutes.
Precious isn’t bad as a backup 4 who can get some garbage buckets off the bench but there’s a reason players like him aren’t coveted. The old fashioned big booty 4 who doesn’t have shooting range is kind of like the Spin Doctors of the NBA. Was once very popular but nobody really plays in that style anymore. Still, he IS found money, because he’d be perfectly acceptable and useful if he was in the proper role.
I was shocked by that tasteless display.
He has to hate NY at this point.
If anything, he should have been cheered for accepting his banishment to Siberia without making it a major locker room problem. He expressed his frustration in an interview or two, but mostly kept quiet and cheered for the team while his career was going up in flames.
He is what he is. He can still play. He just can’t play next to Brunson for Thibs.
And long term, the Pistons got the best overall two way player and two 2nd rounders.
They actually should be the Knickerblogger permanent house band:
And if you like to talk for hours
Just go ahead now!!!
What we really needed was a backup PG that could penetrate and score a bit, not a shooter that eats Swiss cheese while dressed as a matador.
any analysis right now of this current roster is rather meaningless (unless the injured dudes don’t make it back and we have to go to war with this motley crue)…it’s just a patchwork of chicken wire and gum..people in roles that weren’t meant for them…
… Little Miss, Little Miss, Little Miss can’t be wrong
Ain’t nobody gonna bow no more when you sound your gong
Little Miss, Little Miss, Little Miss can’t be wrong
What’cha gonna do to get into another one of these rock ‘n’ roll songs?
What does everybody here think the trade market for Quentin Grimes actually was? Rose seemed to shop him aggressively, yet interest in him seemed to be relatively mild.
Why such little interest around the league in Quentin Grimes? Could it possibly be that some of us here are being influenced by the endowment effect, and are valuing Quentin Grimes more than actual NBA GMs, who aren’t subject to this effect? Just asking questions here.
This is for the most part entirely fair. It unfortunately doesn’t apply to Burks, who was brought in specifically to provide shooting and playmaking to a bench unit struggling mightily in the absence of Immanuel Quickley. He’s in the exact role the team wants him to play at full health, and he’s playing that role very poorly. We still have no real backup PG. Even if one appears in the buyout market, I doubt the team (or, at least, its coach) would even be inclined to sign and integrate such a player at this late date.
They could have and should have come out of this deadline with Dejounte Murray on the team.
Burks is in a shooting slump.
I liked the Dejounte idea more than most, but I don’t think I would have liked the price. They damn sure weren’t getting him for Quentin Grimes and two second rounders. It probably would have required an all-in kind of package.
I do like him as a player, and would have been okay with something like Grimes and two firsts, which is way more than most people here would probably find acceptable. Problem is, the cost was probably even more than that.
the concept of quentin grimes and two 2nd rd picks having meaningful value is weak…if you accept that…then the return seems fair…
The Bogie to Fournier comparison is just plain stupid. Fournier was going to be traded because we decided not to be pricks and pick up his option. He also plays SG which is not a position of weakness for the team. We traded him for a player who is signed for next year (preserving cap space) who plays PF which is a position of weakness. Fournier takes DDV minutes, Bogie takes Precious minutes. Even if they have the same stats, they are not the same.
Happy to listen to the debate whether or not the whole trade made sense, but don’t parse it up incorrectly to drive an agenda.
Can you post said prediction? I don’t recall you making one, but do recall you saying you were out on RJ Barrett a few months ago.
I think/hope alec is just playing bad at the moment…
hopefully he gets it together at some point…
no doubt I expected more from him since the trade…
If the Knicks understood the timetable on Randle to be end of regular season at best and OG to be out another 2-3 weeks (according to Shams this morning) and Mitch a complete maybe if at all then they played the deadline totally wrong and should have kept Grimes and the 2 2nds and picked up someone off the scrap heap or made an even more aggressive deal for Brogdon or DJM if they wanted to go all in. They tried to thread the needle and brought in guys that don’t move the needle and lost assets. Bojan and Burke were bench pieces to fill small holes not guys that will have any meaningful effect on playoff outcomes if anything more than as role players. Nothing horrendous that effects our multi year prognosis but 24 seems shot
just saw that the Spin Doctors are from New York…
for some reason I thought they were from Georgia…must be confusing them with some other band..
Edit: ah, it’s the Georgia Satellites I get them confused with…
I get that it sucks to wait around, but I don’t think there’s much to be gleaned about the trade after 6 games. It’s all still TBD. Alvin Bricks is sucking, but in the 43 games prior to these 6 he had a .581 TS% so I think some patience is in order. Bogey is playing to the back of his basketball card–20 PTS/36, 59% TS.
I am concerned that Thibs, due to his predilections, is not going to strike the right balance between Bogey and Precious. It’s definitely something to watch. Ultimately though I don’t have a hardcore grievance about him working Bogey in a bit slowly as long as he deploys him sensibly once things are more settled.
But the problem is Thibs has Spin Doctors on repeat even after we handed him… I can’t come up with a musical analogy for Bojan, you do it…
Our offense down the stretch was all Brunson hero ball. The reason Thompson stole that ball from Donte in the first place is because he knew where Brunson was and he knew he didn’t have to guard Precious.
There’s a lot of things not worth analyzing right now. But Thibs’ thumbing his nose at Leon’s trade by playing the modern-day Taj over Bojan when our end-of-game offense is so bad even the Pistons can figure it out is definitely one of the things that is.
I agree, Hubert. There’s too much Precious out there right now. He’s badly exposed as a 40 MPG workhorse.
The lack of synergy between Rose and Thibs is a sneaky weakness of the organization.
This is wrong for a lot of reasons, but something that’s flown under the radar, and it cuts against my priors on the trade, is Indiana probably couldn’t have gotten two seconds for Obi this past deadline. That was the going rate for players more coveted than him.
I think Grimes will fall into the same category–useful player but too easily replaceable to really miss. I’m not confident about that though, and he can prove me wrong.
Ultimately, I remain happy that Leon took seriously the impetus to trade some future equity to bolster a team the empirics say is a fringe contender. I’ll tip my cap to Grimes if he makes us rue the day, but on the season he’s being outproduced by Deuce McBride so we’re decidedly not there yet.
“The lack of synergy between Rose and Thibs is a sneaky weakness of the organization.”
You get what you get with Thibs, and what you don’t get with Thibs is a guy who plays nice in the sandbox with others.
Alec Burks, not Alvin Bricks.
My theory on Precious is that he is by and large the same player he has always been, but people are tricked by the fact that he is accumulating raw stats by playing 40+ min a game. I thought this would be conventional wisdom, but it looks like it’s a hot take for some reason.
And my thought on the trade deadline is that the Burkenson/Bojanovic trade was at best suboptimal, but there were no optimal trades out there, so I don’t blame the FO for trying to address what had been a clear weakness even in the otherworldly January run: lack of efficient bench scoring. One of them is delivering exactly what we expected (efficient scoring and subpar defense), the other is in a tough stretch. But looking at the trades that were actually made – which I think is a good heuristic to identify who was available – and there are not really any other players that would have been meaningfully more useful.
“My theory on Precious is that he is by and large the same player he has always been, but people are tricked by the fact that he is accumulating raw stats by playing 40+ min a game. I thought this would be conventional wisdom, but it looks like it’s a hot take for some reason.”
Per 36, Precious is scoring materially fewer points and gathering 0.1 TRB more as a Knick than his career averages.
TOR 23-24, per 36 — 15.9 points, 11.2 rebounds, 3.6 assists, 1.0 BLK.
NYK 23-24, per 36 — 11.1 points, 10.3 rebounds, 1.3 assists, 1.5 BLK.
His higher production is virtually entirely a higher minutes illusion. Stated honestly, he’s been less productive as a Knick. (I guess technically, he’s been more efficient on way less usage, but so what.)
It’s probably because there are many players who couldn’t accumulate the raw stats that Precious is, even given 40 minutes per night…….at least not on a (relatively) consistent basis as Precious has been doing. I wasn’t a Precious fan in his previous stops in Miami and Toronto, but he’s shown me a little something. I obviously disagree with E here, but that’s OK.
Burks, not Burkenson.
Precious has done a good job playing within himself for NY. He had a 21% usage in Toronto and it’s been 13% for NY. There’s just no way he should ever have a usage of 21% in the NBA.
He’s played laudable defense against some difficult opponents at both the 4 & 5.
He’s also kept up a similar rebound rate despite playing the majority of his NY minutes at the 4. In Toronto he played nearly all his minutes at the 5.
We opened for those guys back in the day. They were dicks. Same era also opened for Blues Traveler, and they were great. NYC in the 90s was fun.
Precious has been a revelation simply in that he can play. I really thought he’d be a 0. But he’s fine at 10-15 mpg as a backup 4. With shooters around him.
One of the first tours I ever did was opening for Blues Traveler. It was an odd fit since we were not a jam band at all and their audience did not love us.
They were complete sweethearts though. It was a relatively small tour as it was 2001 and they were past their prime, playing theater-sized venues, but the best feature of the tour was that they brought their own catering with them, had ovens and pots and pans in road cases. They didn’t need to, but they fed us awesome home cooked meals every day. Class acts all around.
Precious played 33 minutes last night. iHart is limited. We don’t have great options.
I have been waffling back and forth on Bogey and Burks. Even if they don’t work out, I will say it was a good use of assets for this year and we still have more than enough surplus picks and salary flexibility for the future. If I am not mistaken, we also have Burks Bird Rights which could be valuable this off season depending on whatever moves we make.
Precious’ Knicks ORB% would be a career high, as would his TS% (though it’s still unacceptable for a low-usage big). I think the bigger deal is his defense, he’s proven capable of defending multiple positions fairly well.
He’s been a surprisingly good addition all things considered…which is to say he’s earned a look as a 10-15 minute backup, bruiser-type PF.
When OG gets back, we should swap Precious for Bogey in the starting lineup since we’ll have more size and defensive stoutness to cover for him. It’s just hard to know what to make of the rotations right now, so I think something of a pass is in order as long as we win the games we should.
I agree with the sentiment but what about the execution?
I’m not sure that Burks is better than Grimes right now.
And now that Evan is out of Siberia it kinda looks like he could have given us a lot of what Bojan does. Not to mention the growing sense that Bojan himself may be headed to Siberia soon.
Did we actually get better or did Leon just waste capital to make lateral moves because his coach is inflexible?
Put some respect on Albert Bork’s name.
Thank you!! – Been saying this since day one of the trade. Bojan will be a DNP – coaches decision in the playoffs. Book it.
Knicks gave up Grim3s plus 2 picks for his contract. Leon’s worst move since RJs extension.
Some interesting takes today.
I’ve been pleased with Precious. He started out Atrocious, missing bunnies, but he’s been good around the rim both offensively and defensively since then despite being ‘small’ for the role of rim protector/runner.
Not sure why the angst about Thibs and Bogey. It feels to me like he’s been playing roughly the right amount given he’s new and is a bit of a sieve on defense. He played a lot more yesterday than Thib’s purported toy Burkenstock, like a third again more minutes. Which seems right given that the latter is sucking right now.
And for the record, Doogie makes me laugh. It’s a trifle chilling to think that maybe he’s not doing it partially tongue-in-cheek, given that he’s show no sense of humor on comments back at him, but I will continue to presume because it’s way better that way.
And multiple openers for Blues Travelers among Team KB is bizarre and delightful.
The Grimes issue was the same as the Quickley issue – really good players but stuck behind other players that are probably better (Brunson/IQ and DDV/Grimes). Both Grimes and Quickley will deservedly be looking for big $$ that the Knicks will have trouble justifying if they are bench players, even if really good bench players.
One measure of how well Leon and co have done is that nearly everyone on this team pre-deadline was underpaid in terms of production (with the notable exception of RJ):
Brunson – underpaid
Randle – underpaid
IQ: underpaid
Hartenstein – underpaid
Mitch: fairly paid
Hart: fairly-to-slightly overpaid probably
Grimes: underpaid
Eventually all the underpaid people will ask to be fairly paid to overpaid, and this was all for a team that probably topped out in the 2nd round. It was unsustainable. So IQ and Grimes had to go before we either lost them for nothing (IQ in free agency with a big offer sheet) or further lost value (Grimes if he continued playing poorly and as he moved closer to extension decision-time).
Leon turned them into OG – a perfect fit with Randle/Brunson and salary filler (Burks and Bojan, although Bojan has value beyond just being salary filler) that could provide more playmaking/offense for the 2nd unit which had really been struggling without Quickley.
The ceiling of this team is a lot higher now. It just feels bad right now because Randle/OG/Mitch are hurt. Once they’re back and the end of bench players cna return to their rightful spots, we’ll remember how great this team was in January. I can guarantee you the Celtics do NOT want to face a full-strength Knicks team in the 2nd round…
Frank, you’ve got to post more.
I think Frank nails it. Something I was saying for a while as I was losing patience with the pre-Brunson, sit-around-and-wait-to-trade-for-a-star approach is that in the NBA assets can depreciate just as easily as they can appreciate. Grimes was awesome to have as a bona fide rotation caliber SG making $2M AAV, but he wasn’t always going to be that.
IQ and Grimes were threatening to burn holes in our pocket before too long, and we turned them into some damn good players who fit the team better.
We’ve just got to pump the brakes.
IMO there are two values.
1. Intrinsic value – I think he was worth a mid to late 1st rounder
2. Market Value – I think the market was at least two 2nd rounders
IMO, the difference was the result of a drop in his production this year playing with an even more aggressive Brunson and Randle and RJ . I think his shot selection also deteriorated a bit. When he did finally get the ball he sometimes forced a bad shot. That was probably because he didn’t know when he’d see it again.
If you want to put some of the blame on his lack of aggression, that’s fine. He was passive at times and tended to defer.
Those 3 guys play the same way. They are score first players that start with the intention of creating something for themselves and often take tough shots rather than passing. They dominate the ball on some possessions and get assists when they pass out of double teams.
Grimes should do better where he is now.
The argument that keeping IQ and Grimes would have been too expensive is legitimate, but only OG is a damn good player (we’ll see how expensive he is). Burks and Bojan are one way old men.
So to be clear, you guys made sweeping and definitive statements about Evan being too washed to play based on the 39 minutes he appeared this season. And you determined that conclusion to be unassailable.
But now that there’s more information, we’ve just got to pump the brakes? How does that work?
Frank with the post of the day already
i believe by definition…intrinsic value (unless you have your own definition) is the value solely to the holder of the asset and market value (well…that is self explanatory)…so not sure that intrinsic value matters at all…except in the eye of the beholder but other market participants don’t/shouldn’t give a crap about intrinsic value….
I have seen some companies make buy/sell decisions on their intrinsic value (of their asset) but that is a organizational policy and has little relationship/meaning to the other side when they are doing a deal…
Funny that we opened for BT on the way up and you opened for them on the way down, JK. The fact they were good dudes in both circumstances says a lot. And they’re pretty good pool players, too.
Bojan’s career TS% is .595 and Fournier’s is .563, so I don’t think that Fournier could’ve given us “a lot of” what Bojan does.
Do I think that Thibs could’ve found a place for Fourier’s shot creation if he’d been willing to experiment with lineups in the regular season more? Yes. Could we have run our bench offense through Fournier during this injury plagued stretch like we’ve done with Bojan a few times now? I really doubt it.
Bodganovic and Fournier are both sieves, but Thibs seems to like that Bojan is at least a big and strong sieve. You can hide him in more places than Fournier, like on a slow big.
I’m not sure why we’re lumping the Grimes & IQ transactions together. IQ was due a huge raise next year and was traded for one of the best defenders in the league. Grimes was on his rookie contract another year and was traded for assets with a lot more questions attached to them.
Frank definitely brought the heat today.
Either Trae or Murray is very likely to be traded in the off season (or next trade deadline) because both are PGs who maximize their production with the ball in their hands. They are both very good players but not a good fit. Why should we repeat the failed experiment in Atlanta in NY by pairing Murray and Brunson?
I do think it’s legit to say Evan is a 2 and Bogey plays the 3-4, which is a huge difference on this team, especially without Julius. We need a 3-4, we didn’t/don’t need a 2.
And whoever was booing Evan sucks.
That’s better than I thought. He just looks like a complete stiff. Every driving layup is like an uncoordinated middle schooler. He’s shooting 26% from 3-10 feet, which matches the eye test.
Precious is the golden boy today because he came out of purgatory to fill a gaping rotation hole with passable defense. Come playoff time though, he shouldn’t play more than spot minutes.
I’m with Noble, i think Alex Burkina-Faso will be a lot better than he has been in these first few games, but hey we all know KBers won’t kick small sample sizes to the curb, right?
There’s a difference between being a bad defender and not having a clue how to play defense, and that’s the difference between Evan and Bojan. No wonder Thibs prefers Bojan.
I was defining intrinsic value in this case to mean “if everyone was fully informed and objective”.
I think Grimes’s market value is below that IV because he didn’t take the hoped for step forward, but part of that was due to circumstances on the Knicks (the glut at his position and playing with ball dominant players) that not everyone around the league fully appreciates right now. So what I expect to happen (and could obviously be wrong) is that he’s going to get more minutes, higher usage, and have more impact in Detroit and his market value will eventually rise BACK to reflect the reality of his underlying ability like when Ainge was interested.
Grimes got valued as a 1st round pick otherwise we wouldn’t have Bojan right now
Yeah, there’s no reason whatsoever to boo Evan, he played his part, accepted his role, even when he had no role. If not cheer him, at least don’t boo him.
The entire Fournier experience was one to forget. First he plays such poor defense that he can’t start, then he gets stuck in the doghouse when he actually should have been playing, and finally gets booed by classless fans for no good reason. I felt bad for him.
Hopefully he still has some good years left.
100%
The logic holds for IQ. It does not hold for Grimes.
Good point
I’m glad that Fournier has the freedom now to come off the bench and shoots whenever he wants without worrying about how bad defensively he is since he’s playing for the worst team in the NBA who are 0-5 in the games Fournier has played.
The name correcting bit is hilarious. Up there with more cowbell and Lucy and Ethel working in the chocolate factory.
What makes it truly a work of performance art, though, is that not only is Doogie’s handle, itself, a bastardization of somebody else’s name, but her one claim to fame was creating a catchphrase when she accidentally read the cue-card holder’s T-shirt instead of the cue card.
Grimes shot horrible in his 1st game with Detroit and was scoreless thru the first 3 quarters last night. We’ve seen him have hot quarters before, good for him to have that good a 4th quarter against the Knicks but he is what he is, nothing has changed and we’re not gonna look back and think much of his trade same as trading away Obi.
I agree with this.
The problem is that’s quite a drop from what was expected.
The other problem is I find it a little worrisome that coach prefers Precious over Bojan to this degree.
I don’t believe I ever made such statements. I think Thibs’ perma-benching of Fournier has been vindicated by the subsequent results, and the back of Bogey’s basketball card is a lot better than Fournier’s. So even if Fournier has something left (TBD), the trade still made a lot of sense. I don’t know how much more to it there is than that.
I’m fairly tepidly pro-trade. It was something of a short-position on Grimes’ long-term outlook that I ultimately agree with, but not with the utmost confidence.
But for the love of god I find the Bogey: Good Player denialism so bizarre. I can only surmise it has something to do with the fact that he looks like a stressed out dad, which is fair enough, but it is hard to be a high-usage, high-volume scorer in the NBA!
For the past 3 seasons, 96 players have played 1,500+ minutes with a USG% of 22+. Bogey’s TS% ranks 19th among them. During this time he has an identical TS% and USG% to James Harden.
I don’t need a lecture in his flaws, but we need to permanently do away with the idea that this guy was on his way out of the league before we traded Quentin Grimes for him.
Bogey is one of the better scorers in the NBA.
Bojan was getting killed defensively and on the boards last night, that’s why Precious came back in. It’s possible that Bojan is unplayable in the playoffs even against backups.
Intrinsic vs. market value
There is such thing as historical context in valuation of anything. Asset market price can be devalued or hyped based on the surrounding narrative.
Market was clearly undevaluing Grimes future production becuase of a recent slump and narrative on his limitations. This is usually a good time to buy and not sell.
Obi and IQ played behind All-NBA players.
OG is 10X RJ as a fit and basketball player.
DDV is on a super hot streak but was called out by Jaylen Brown as too small and weak to guard him at the point of attack last Saturday.
Big difference.
Not Albert Bork or Burkenstein, but Alec Burks. And I’m not actually *correcting* anyone, because everyone who is misspelling his name knows full well how to spell it the right way. And tongue-in-cheek? Sure. LOL 🙂
“her one claim to fame was creating a catchphrase when she accidentally read the cue-card holder’s T-shirt instead of the cue card.” Huh? Whose claim to fame is that? Lucy and/or Ethel? Suddenly you’re talking about someone of the female persuasion without any callback to who is being mentioned. Maybe I missed it. Ah, well. 🙂
“Downtown Doogie Brown” comes largely and directly from “Downtown Freddie Brown” of the Seattle SuperSonics. His playing days were from 1971 through 1984.
CC: Thibs, pls.
I was confused, as well. But don’t worry I went down the internet rabbit hole so you didn’t have to:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zAWdMYQ7Q0&themeRefresh=1
This is dumber than dispelling Burks’ name on purpose you know.
Hubert IV didn’t know what you meant, either, and he’s clearly a smart dude. (And it’s definitely not dumber than spelling something incorrectly *on purpose* and repeatedly.)
My moniker on here never had anything to do with Downtown Julie Brown, and Hubert sending that clip (thank you!!!) accounted for the first time I’ve thought about her existence in decades. She’s definitely better-looking than Fred Brown, though.
Misspelling, not dispelling. But you already know that. Maybe. (Or maybe not. 🙂 )
Grimes is a fine player. No better, no worse. At this moment at least. Maybe he improves a little this year and next, but finding a Grimes type player shouldn’t be that difficult, whether that is in the draft or free agency. The Bojan hate is strange. Burks too. They are adjusting to the team, and they are playing bigger roles than they will play once players start to come back. Putting people in different roles can impact their performance. Also, Evan is not nearly as good as Bojan. Bojan has been a great shooter and scorer for years now, including this year.
I like Precious too. He is a solid backup that has been filling in as a starter playing huge minutes. He is young enough that maybe he develops a little more. But, if we keep him I like him as a backup 4 and third string 5. That is valuable in a modern NBA where backups are needed, especially for the regular season.
Hubert, I think your worry about Precious over Bogey is unfounded. Bogey is newer and still needs working in, and he’s a 3-4, while Precious is a 4-5, so Precious plays when spelling iHart, who himself is being worked back in, as well as when boards/defense are more of a concern than hurling threes from afar. That may well change as iHart gets his wind back (we all done with the ‘Isaiah is a disaster’ moaning from that first game? Let’s remember this when OG comes back, as well as Randle, much less Mitch), but I also think EB nailed it that Bogey may be bench-ridden for the playoffs unless we’re really stuck offensively. I’m not sure that’d be a bad thing, but let’s see…
Totally agree that it’s an open question whether Thibs can extract the value we need from Bogey to justify the trade. I think the analysis of that can begin in earnest when OG gets back, though data points from before then aren’t useless.
I agree and these nuances are why I was unambiguously pro-OG trade while only tepidly pro-Bogey trade.
That said, the two situations aren’t wholly dissimilar. It was becoming clear, in light of DDV absorbing Steph’s powers, that us allocating a lot of money to Quentin Grimes would be a suboptimal use of resources such that we probably weren’t going to do it.
It’s quite possible that if we waited for a better return to trade him for than Bogey, we would’ve wound up with an Obi-esque return. It’s not like he was going to improve his value much playing behind DDV.
It was a calculated risk and I don’t blame anyone for coming out on the other side. We’ll see what Bogey (and Alfred Bamonte) can do for us basketball wise and/or as an asset.
I think it’s a fair question whether keeping Grimes and the 2nds would’ve been worth the dropoff between Bojan to Fournier. I think I may have written a post about it weeks ago, but giving Fournier a shot to be a playmaker on the 2nd unit was IMO worth a shot. You could’ve run Deuce/Hart/Fournier/OG/Sims and the defense would’ve been fine.
That unit didn’t need a “good” offense – it just needed to be a “not disastrous” offense, and if anything can be said about Fournier, it’s that he can be a big part of a “not disastrous” offense.
What the trade did do was take a $19MM nonproductive roster-spot (Fournier) into a similarly-sized productive roster spot (Bojan) + Burks at the cost of Grimes + picks. It definitely wasn’t a no-brainer move but
I think when the 2nd unit is Deuce + Hart + Bojan + OG + Hartenstein/Mitch it is going to look a lot better than when Bojan and Burks are both overextended in their on-court roles…
And in playoff mode, the 2nd unit will probably be Brunson + Hart + Bojan + OG + iHart/Mitch, with Brunson coming out with 4 min left in the first and Randle mostly running the offense from minutes 8-12 in the first). That second unit is going to be unbelievable.
(man does Burks look terrible – not a coincidence that I didn’t have him in any of the healthy rotations)
how was this factoid derived? this comment and strat’s are grounded in the market being imperfect (lack of data, people observing things and not interpreting them properly, etc)…i guess you draw this conclusion by saying grimes + 2 picks > bojan/burks and whatever else we got….as that is only way to support it (and how is that is proven…other than saying don’t worry five years from now he’s going to be awesome and the present value of that awesomeness is 2x what we got)…otherwise…it was two evenly informed parties exchanging assets and generally…unless there was any duress involved…assumption is that equal value was given/received…
fwiw…i think the deal was solely about getting a few players that had a higher probabiliity of executing in a playoff game…grimes disappearing/invisble man act was too much of a common occurence…and i think Leon viewed the two B’s as a tighter dispersion of outcomes when the games got tough (not saying that was accurate)..but that is how I interpreted the move…
Alec Burks, not Alfred Bamonte. 🙂
Keep going with it. I promise you that my playfully “correcting” it is *so* much more bothersome to you than the original misspellings are to me.
and thanks guys – I wish I could post more but work crazy then home life even crazier…
Bogey is miscast, badly, as a full-time or mostly full-time Thibs 4. If that was the plan, it was doomed from the start.
It just never stops huh?
Can one of our resident doctors translate this Brunson injury?
“Can one of our resident doctors translate this Brunson injury?”
Taking 26 charges is maybe suboptimal for your team’s best player.
(Not to mention 1,000 smacks to the head.)
I’m officially buying up Alessandro Bronson stock on the Knickerblogger market. I think we’ll be happy to have him if/when the rotations are more normal and his role adjusted accordingly.
Alec Burks, not Alessandro Bronson.
The thing about Anthony Bonner is that he was never really that good on the Knicks.
Correct. Bonner only averaged 4.5 points per game for the Knicks, while Alec Burks has averaged 12.0 points per game. However, Bonner shot 52% from the field while Burks has only shot 40%.
Bonner also had lots of cool dunks, at a time when the team basically had nobody else who dunked in games. Alfred Burkhalter doesn’t offer such aesthetic pleasures.
The “cervical” part refers to the cervical spine in the neck. Think of lower back spasms, transfer it up to the neck, and that’s what he has. Is it “better” than lower back spasms? Probably not. Is it “worse”? Probably not.
But Alfred Burkhalter doesn’t exist in terms of being an NBA basketball player, so that’s probably a lot of the reason why. 🙂
As to Alfred E. Neuman, we haven’t even come to the challenging part, which is when Thibs plays him at point over Deuce in playoff games.
He’s decent at Mad, but not so much at being a point guard in the NBA…….which is why he isn’t one.
So he has that in common with Alec Burks.
Only dunk I remember from Bonner was in Game 3 of the Finals vs Houston.
“So he has that in common with Alec Burks.”
Correct.
As for Alexei Burgos’ struggles integrating into the lineup… what, me worry?
Maybe it means the organization is wisely practicing load management to protect its assets.
Alec Burks, not Alexei Burgos.
I’m in agreement with Hubert: the Brunson and I-Hart injury reports definitely feel load-managey, likely in preparation for a very important early March, where we play the Cavs, Hawks, Magic, and Sixers.
I agree that Brunson is probably just getting rested, but the iHart stuff, while it is possible that it is rest, as well, it also just sounds like an injury that is simply going to linger all season long.
The two minute report said the refs missed two calls that would have gone against Detroit last night so they can stop crying about being robbed.
Grimes had an entire year before his contract would become a problem. That was not something we had to solve at this trade deadline. Also, people keep building the: “why are people upset we traded Grimes he’s not that good” straw man. No one is saying Grimes is some special player and is irreplaceable. The argument is that he is useful and we traded him and two seconds to get players that didn’t solve our problems and are not really much of an upgrade if one at all.
We went into the trade deadline with an elite defensive bench that had two very good three-point shooters, a Swiss army knife forward, a good center, and a huge hole at PG.
We exited the trade deadline with a mediocre defensive bench, that has three very good three-point shooters, a Swiss army knife forward, a good center, and still a huge hole at PG.
We didn’t solve anything.
And as for stretching the floor, over the last three years, Grimes has shot the same amount of threes per/36 (slightly more actually) than both Bojan and Burks and only shot them 2.5% (37.9%vs40.2%vs40.4%) worse. That is it. The elite three-point shooting we brought in to replace Grimes is only 2.5% better.
And to do this we lost 2 2nds, got older, got worse on defense, and did not even address the real problem our bench had which was a backup PG that could let Brunson get some rest and organize the bench’s offense.
This is why I am upset. It has nothing to do with some super high opinion of Grimes. If we had traded him for Brogdon or Murray or Jones I would have been disappointed but I would have understood and it would have at least made us better in at least the short term.
In a year I am pretty sure this trade is going to be indefensible, not because Grimes is some all-star but because we gave away assets and youth for mediocre players that solved nothing.
Grimes and a couple of 2nd rd picks aren’t exactly huge assets.
It’s all becoming quite clear now. After our January the only sufficiently Knicksy outcome was:
-We get a bunch of injuries
-Management overestimates our readiness to contend and pulls the trigger on another trade of future value for present
-The present value returned in said trade turns out to be equal or less than the present value we traded away while also hurting our future positioning
-We continue to accumulate injuries faster than we can recover from them
Culiminating in an early playoff exit, first round on the high end and play-in on the low end.
if our future was so precarious…that it hinged on the quentin grimes trade…we got bigger problems..
Brunson and iHart are out tonight. This season has gone from one of the funnest in recent memory to Yankees Opening Day can’t get here soon enough.
This ignores a giant elephant in the room, which is that almost 100% of Grimes’ 3-pointers are assisted.
Assisted 3P%, last three years:
Grimes 97.8%
Bojan 87.8%
Burks 74.3%
Grimes pretty much never shoots anything that isn’t a spot-up. Bogey shoots a lot of them too, but Grimes is almost at 100% for his career. His ability to shoot a pull-up or shoot off the bounce is non-existent.
The differences in 2 pointers are even more stark:
Grimes 74.7%
Bojan 55.8%
Burks 40.7%
Your overall shooting numbers are going to look a lot better if you never shoot unless it’s a wide open spot-up.
I actually think failing to get a backup for Brunson is probably going to hurt us even more than trading Grimes. Ultimately Grimes is replaceable, it’s just a high-volume three-point shooting wing that plays very good defense is a player that every team wants and you cannot have too many. That is a loss even if it’s not a monumental one.
The backup PG situation is much worse. We had opportunities to solve that problem not only for this year but possibly for the next couple as well and we failed.
None of the rumored decent PG options were traded except for Rozier and he’s been awful for the Heat so far.
this shit is so tedious, we’re not playing well because people are hurt. Keeping Grimes (who has missed most of the games since he was traded) would not have helped at all, and if the team is healthy he’s not that valuable
@CGreene’s point (way) above is a strong one IMO, that Leon may have miscalculated the injury timetable and the pressing need to make this move. If our main guys don’t come back, there is/was no need for Bojan. But, if they do come back, I can see him winning some playoff games for us. I’m on the “risk is worth it” side of this.
@Ben R, I totally agree with your frustration about getting no PG, but I must point out that getting no real point guard in any trade or draft is just Knicks business as usual. It took a decade or more to get Brunson, so I suspect we’ll only get a competent PG for the 2nd unit sometime around the All Star break 2030, taking roughly half the time to find roughly half the quality player.
That is a fair point but I think that is also due to role. In Thibs’s offense, some players create, and some players are created for. We will see where Bojan falls in that spectrum and if he still has much shot creation left in the tank. As for Burks, I want none of his created offense. He might shoot 60% of his 2’s unassisted but he also shoots under 40% from 2 and is an absolute trainwreck when he isn’t simply catching and shooting.
Plus for the first time, Grimes was actually creating offense from 2 in January and looked like he might be more than just a catch-and-shoot player. (Though this very much remains to be seen)
RJ could create a lot of bad shots too and it drove us all mad. Burks is largely the same but even worse.
Monte Morris (traded for a 2030 2nd), Schroder (traded for expiring salary), and Dinwiddie (waived after the deadline) were all moved and would all be very good backup 15 minute a game PGs for us and would most certainly be better than PG Burks.
Plus everyone knows Brogdon, Murray, and Jones were available for a modest price. Most likely one 1st for Brogdon, two 1sts for Murray, and two 2nds or one bad 1st for Jones.
Yes, but more valuable than Burks or Bojan. That is the point. Our new players aren’t even helping us when we are banged up and will be even less helpful when we are healthy. Burks doesn’t belong in a playoff rotation and we will see about Bojan.
We know Grimes would be valuable, because we saw it all last year, even if he would be our 8th man and only play for 15 minutes a game in the playoffs. I am unsure if Bojan will be better and I am sure Burks won’t. Both won’t be in the rotation if we are healthy and frankly, neither might at this rate.
Hopefully this is just a punt of a game we were probably going to lose even with those guys playing. I’ve been hoping for more of that kind of thing while we’re this beat up—our chances against good teams are low to begin with, avoiding further injuries should be the priority.
But who knows, with how things have gone this year I’m half-expecting Brunson to be day-to-day for a few months.
I just really want to know if Thibs is going to start Deuce or… Doris Burke at the point tonight.
And I’m going to have to miss the first quarter. Someone note the starting five in the game thread, I’ll catch up…
The more distant future is obviously a separate question, but in the 2024 playoffs I would much, much, much rather have Bogey than Quentin Grimes. We’ve got guys who can defend tough wings already. What we desperately need are guys who can take some offensive pressure off Brunson.
This. And I think Leon thinks Burks is an obvious upgrade over Flynn in the same context. Both for pennies on the dollar. Time will tell.
You just can’t look at these guys in a vacuum. Grimes really wasn’t all that useful to us, because:
1. His skill set is pretty capably replaced by McBride
2. His low-usage tendencies means we had to run units out there where like every single guy had a sub-15 USG%
3. Those units were unplayable
In a vacuum, you could make the argument that Grimes is more valuable in the short term than a guy like Bogdanovic, but in reality he wasn’t helping us all that much because of the context of the team. Bojan’s not a point guard but dude has a .600 TS% on 24 USG%. That is far, far more valuable on offense than a guy with a .543 TS% on 15 USG%, especially considering we have loads of players who already do the low-usage defense-oriented thing.
Burks has stunk, I will grant you that. That part of the trade is not working out so far.