[Posting and Toasting] – Sat, 17 Aug 2024 15:42:36 GMT
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[Posting and Toasting] – Sat, 17 Aug 2024 10:30:00 GMT
Knickslammed: Patrick Ewing SLAM No. 21 (Oct. 1997)
[Sports Illustrated] – Sat, 17 Aug 2024 11:33:02 GMT
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[Posting and Toasting] – Sat, 17 Aug 2024 16:09:11 GMT
Retro recap: Knicks 126, Supersonics 101 (10/22/69)
[Heavy.com] – Sat, 17 Aug 2024 22:05:12 GMT
Knicks Potential Isaiah Hartenstein Replacements Trade Price Doubles: Report
24 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2024.08.18)”
So far, my decision to give up on the Giants (and the NFL in general) seems wise.
On the one hand, this was pretty much 100% of our offense during the playoffs, so he better have gotten a ton of screen assists. On the other hand, the only reason we ran that many was that he was a fantastic screener and his ability as an outlet if he received the ball after the screen.
Mikal really needs a post-trade Nets season to make up for what we lost, especially with Precious likely to get the majority of the C minutes.
Does the screener need to be our C (Mitch,Precious)?
I agree with Geo and i thought this was Leon’s plan to add a good C at the deadline.
So i decided to waste some time checking if it is possible using ESPN’s Trade Machine. Well, Jonas makes 9.9M, and we can’t send less salary, so i selected to send out Precious (6M), Bates-Diop (2.65M) and Sims (2.1M).
Because Jonas isn’t available to be traded before December, i used Reed Sheppard (Rockets) that makes 10.1M.
And then the TM answered:
“The Knicks used the Non Taxpayer Mid-Level Exception or Non Taxpayer Bi-Annual Exception to sign a free agent(s) and therefore their owed tax cannot exceed $6 million at any time during the season”
Is this true? We are 2.37M above the tax now, at least that’s what the TM says.
It hasn’t updated to the new season. We used the non-taxpayer MLE last year for Donte. We aren’t even allowed to use either one of those this year.
It’s pretty annoying that they haven’t reset the league year yet since the new league year started a while ago.
I mean, not only have we not used any MLE, we’d be lowering our salary with this deal.
I would be good with Jonas
I gave up the NFL when I had kids and have no regrets
I’ve seen enough of Jonas to believe that he’d be a bad fit here. He’s a lumbering giant that is a half-step slow on everything. It’s pretty telling that there was no market for him except on a team dedicating to losing, given his credentials.
That said, the market for backups who can masquerade as a starter for long stretches in the (likely) scenario that Mitch misses lots of games is pretty thin, so if the cost is anyone outside of our top 8 plus a protected pick, then maybe I can get on board with that. At least he’s big enough to offer resistance against the likes of Embiid and Jokic, and he is an excellent defensive rebounder.
EPM had Jonas in the 6th %tile defensively last season and the 7th %tile the year before.
He is a fantastic rebounder and that fits our system, so maybe there’s some use for him if we’re desperate for size. His OEPM nearly offset the bad defense.
Weirdly, DPM has his defense as a positive and his offense as a negative. I’m inclined to believe EPM on this one.
So to make up for losing iHart we need the Bridges to replicate an extreme outlier performance relative to the other 95% of his career in which he roughly approximated prime Kawhi Leonard…
This seems incredibly unlikely, and yet I’m the unreasonable one for thinking we’ve locked in to lesser overall talent and a lower ceiling than last year?
Hard no on Jonas btw. We saw this movie with Enes Kanter and that was in a much more forgiving era for that kind of player — bigs who can’t protect the rim or defend in space are unplayable even in the regular season now.
But what realistic alternative is better? None at thus point. That’s why we fucked up. We’ve already conceded a good portion of the first season in our “window” with no center at all and it’s already looking like Mitch will not be available to start the season. Who knows if he will ever play 10+ games in a row again…
Shams:
Stein:
He doesn’t really need to be that good, but he’ll need to be a lot closer to that than to what he was last year. There’s a much bigger dropoff from iHart to Precious than from Mikal to Donte.
I’m also of the opinion that the Mikal trade was too much of an all-in unless we re-signed iHart.
That said, I think he could have another level. I’m willing to believe that Dinwiddie controlling the ball in the post-trade season was a big boon to Mikal.
Mikal’s versatility and durability will be quite valuable to us I think. The guy never misses a game and does a little bit of everything. Two-way player, can guard multiple positions, can shoot, can create, can play on-ball, is even better off-ball. Very high IQ player.
Not sure who else was going to be available in a consolidation trade, and it was time to make the consolidation trade. We’ll need to figure out a solution at C so we’re still a piece away, and that will require some creativity, but I’m looking forward to seeing what Mikal can do.
I think we have a better team now than last year in multiple ways but we are obviously weaker at C. Personally, I think a healthy I-Hart is a better fit than a healthy Mitch, but it’s really hard to measure how much we gained elsewhere relative to how much we lost at C, especially given Mitch’s health. If Mitch is healthy and 100% for most of the season, I think we’ll be fine, but it’s hard to count on that. I’m sure they would like to make a move for a quality C, but I think a deal like is going to have to wait for the deadline. On the plus side, the defense with Mitch, OG and Bridges should be able to get some stops. 🙂
I’ve mentioned this before but I’ll say it again: We had the 3rd-best O-rating in the league in 2022-23 before iHart was anything more than a cromulent backup. That team was built on rebounding (mainly offensive) and getting to the line.
Randle and Mitch would need to be 100% healthy, but if they are, I’m certain Thibs can replicate that offense again with an even better supporting cast.
Aside from health, another thing to consider is whether Mitch can stay on the floor during the playoffs. But don’t forget, iHart had his own issues in the playoffs this year, so maybe a mix of Mitch and small-ball lineups can put us over the top.
Defense is another story. Even the iHart of two years ago was a better defender than Precious. Hopefully Precious or Sims can elevate their games on that end (although having a stronger perimeter defense will help all of our centers).
In short, next year’s offense might look uglier, but it can be just as effective imo.
Hopefully we can get healthy enough where we can regularly use Mikal and OG in tandem as punishing switchable defenders. I’m hoping to not see all that much of OG at the PF or C positions. If those guys get to cook on defense at the wing positions we will be fun to watch.
My appreciation for iHart is extremely well documented and I wish we could’ve kept him. Between his screening, playmaking, and “mini-spacing” (i.e. ability to hit floaters and other shots from outside the dunker’s spot), I firmly believe his offensive contributions went well-beyond the box score.
And yet, it’s very hard to square some of the fatalism with his 12% usage rate last season. I’m not going to bother to respond to Pags doing his bit, but I think the good-faith posters who are understandably concerned about this will be pleasantly surprised by our ability to maintain a very good offense in his absence. Adding an additional bonafide, albeit low-ish end, shot creator, will do more for our offense than losing iHart will take away.
This is all predicated on Mitch’s health though–offensive rebounding still figures to be an important part of our offensive portfolio, so we’ll need center play that consistently brings it. We absolutely need to shore up the position. I just remain cautiously optimistic that between now and the deadline an opportunity to do so will arise.
“Does the screener need to be our C (Mitch,Precious)?”
No, it does not. I think that will be Randle’s job, especially in clutch time. Our centers will be in the dunker’s spot under the rim on the weak side or maybe Julius will be at Center surrounded by good shooters. We could even bring Mitch in for defensive possessions in clutch time.
Jonas Valanciunas has looked pretty washed to me for a couple of years now. It is very telling that New Orleans decided to go with no center vs. retaining him. I thought Yertseven would be a good player to take a flyer on.
The loss of iHart will be felt chiefly on the defensive side of the ball, where C has historically been the most important position. As the board knows, I’m a big fan of EPM. EPM rated iHart as one of the best defenders during the regular season while manning that most important position. Wing defenders are great, but I don’t think they’re worth more than a good C. We’re putting a lot of eggs into a basket that’s more brittle than the eggs themselves.
The other half of the equation is that iHart on a 12% usage was good enough to be, at worst, around net neutral on offense. Precious Achiuwa and Jericho Sims are not net neutral, they’re outright detriments. Just because iHart may not be an offensive superstar doesn’t mean we aren’t losing ground on offense, especially when it causes us to move our best shooter to the bench.
And maybe an opportunity does arise at the deadline. But following the Mikal trade it’s not clear to me the Knicks have the requisite purchasing power to convert the opportunity into a deal.
The C doesn’t need to be the screener, modern offenses use every player at every position as a screener. But that also means you need some clever off-ball movement or you leave the opponent’s C in perfect help position.
That is quite the false dichotomy, even for the prince of darkness. They don’t need Bridges to be anything but himself. They lost 25 minutes of excellent production from IHart and gained 35 minutes of production from Randle and Bridges which they didn’t have the last half of last season. I don’t see that swap as anything but a net big positive.
It immeasurably helps the production of the second unit having DDV and JHart not in the starting line-up assuming something like MR/Randle/Brunson/OG/Bridges and Precious/JHart/DDV/Deuce/Payne rounding out the top 10 rotation guys. Then you’ll see if Dadiet, Sims, Kolek, Hukporti, Diop can earn significant playing time with or without the absence of injuries.
Would I like to have Sven Nater as my back up 5, sure… but this roster is deep, it has a real star and a large group of B to B^+ players….
I guess we’re fully a poaching target now.
I think the strategy now is to ride with this roster for the first month or two unless a deal too good to pass up comes along. It’s not a buyer’s market right now.
Agree and I like the idea of finding out what we really have before we change it. But I’m worried the team won’t be at full strength to start getting that data until Jan.