[New York Post] – Sun, 22 Sep 2024 16:46:00 GMT
- Rebecca Haarlow leaves Knicks MSG Network job after nine years
- NBA reporter suddenly QUITS her sideline role after nine years: ‘I’ll forever be a fan’
- Knicks TV reporter Haarlow leaving MSG Networks
- New York Knicks Long-Time Sideline Reporter Leaving MSG Network
- Knicks sideline reporter Rebecca Haarlow leaving MSG
[Sports Illustrated] – Sun, 22 Sep 2024 11:00:00 GMT
- Insider: Knicks Could Have Option in Former Top Pick
- What are the Knicks options if they go chasing after another big man?
- Knicks land Blazers star center in recent mock trade proposal
- New York Knicks to Be Patient With Mitchell Robinson
- $133 Million Center Named as Knicks Potential Isaiah Hartenstein Replacement: Report
[Daily Knicks] – Sun, 22 Sep 2024 12:00:00 GMT
- Former NBA executive slams Knicks for double-edged sword offseason move
- Knicks ripped for handing out $212.5 million contract extension
- NBA Analyst Rips Knicks’ OG Anunoby Contract
- Duality of OG Anunoby’s Contract
- Knicks Wing Urged Not to Pull a Jalen Brunson Stunt
82 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2024.09.23)”
Man it’s hard to believe that Rebecca Harlow was on the sidelines for 9 years
13x longer than the don nelson era.
Is she taking Wally? 😉
Pulling for the Mets this week. Acuña has been wearing a belt with a hole spacing design that I invented and it makes it extra special as a Mets fan!
Just one minute there, Knickelbacker. First, nice to hear from you. Second, are you a tailor? Fashion designer? There’s a backstory I’d like to hear…
I invented a style of weightlifting belt about 6 years ago, got patented and all that, teamed up with a great American made weightlifting belt company (Pioneer) and has done well in the powerlifting world. We recently adapted it to pants belts and are pushing it in the baseball world. Amazingly, we have about 40 MLB players wearing it this year! Acuña and Alex Young in the Mets. Trevino and Dominguez on the Yankees.
apparently mitch is not expected back until december january per yaron weitzman
OMG I just saw the news. Where’s Pagliacci?! We need a massive freakout up in here.
This is is not good news. We were already suspect at backup and now we know we won’t have our injury prone starter for several months. We need a trade or upside surprise from someone.
That’s not surprising; we knew it months ago. It is only confirmation, and maybe slightly worse in that it could be January. It’s why we were talking about center options – especially without Randle at the start of the season. So as said, we won’t have a good first month or two, but NONE OF IT MATTERS IF WE’RE HEALTHY FOR THE PLAYOFFS.
C’mon, we’re better than this.
It could be good news. Randle is expected back later than anticipated, as well. Maybe all these doctors we hired in the offseason are exerting their influence and putting together plans to make sure our injured players don’t hurry themselves back and get reinjured by a certain maniac who thinks “cleared by medical” equals “good to play 44 minutes in both legs of a back-to-back.”
sort of sounds like we don’t have any centers to start the season…
wow, may not really have an effective starting five until the all-star break…
It could be good news, part 2: necessity is the mother of invention, and forcing Thibs to experiment early in the season will give him some good data points for later on.
hubert gets fired.
great news hon! my boss isn’t as dumb as we thought.
Every game Mitch plays is an opportunity for calamity. So the way I see it, the fewer he plays, the better.
The important thing is what kinds of activities he’s prevented from doing. The dude was huffing and puffing the last time we saw him.
If this means he showing up 10 pounds overweight, then we’re probably fucked. Hopefully this is part of a plan to get him back in shape before he returns.
rama,
I think you are being a little too rosy.
We were worried about the C position because we lost I-Hart and Mitch is a known injury risk. We knew we needed an especially good backup given Mitch’s injury history. But finding a legit backup/starter type didn’t seem urgent because it was assumed Mitch was making progress and would return early in the season and work his way into shape. This is no longer injury risk. It’s reality.
Right now, I would say we don’t have a legitmate starter or backup C to start the season. If Mitch is delayed until January, we are talking about February (or maybe even March) until he’s in top shape assuming he can even stay healthy.
A big part of what has made our offense pretty good has been OREBs, especially from the C position. We no longer have that level of OREBing. Maybe with OG and Mikal on the perimeter we are less reliant on defense from the C, but we are still going to have some serious trouble against some matchups.
This is a serious problem. We either have to find a way to add a legitimate C (not some filler nonsense that often gets tossed around) or get a huge upside surprise from someone already on the team if we want to be a serious contender.
Maybe Mitch will come back and be fine, but we are way past the point of hope. This was suppposed to be the year we finally have a complete team and can make a run. But we do not have a complete team now. We are missing a starting C and a good enough backup.
I mean, it’s not good. It can’t be good. No gilding this lily.
Mitch sitting out most of the season and ramping up for the playoffs is ideal. Unfortunately it took a serious injury to make it happen.
I like Achiuwa as a backup C, but this is asking a lot of him.
The bigger problem is Sims & Hukporti looked somewhere between bad and awful based on the last time I saw them. I want to experiment with Randle at C, not be forced into it.
Owen: this can’t be good
EB: this is ideal
Love it.
Ultimately I think we need a little more context. If it’s part of a grander plan to keep Mitch healthy for the entire season, I love it. If the dude can’t run til Christmas and is getting out of shape, we’re in trouble.
Hubert’s points about forced experimentation and built-in rest for Mitch are well taken, but I can’t come around to “good news” while staring down the prospect of Jericho Sims starting against the Celtics on opening night.
Or maybe it’ll be Precious, which is probably my preference. Either way, I continue to think we can put up a pretty good regular season record in the absence of Mitch. But if he’s not fully healthy, as in ready to play 30+ minutes every night, in the playoffs, I think we have a conference finals ceiling.
In James Edwards III’s first piece on the Knicks beat (I think), he says we’re interested in Isaiah Stewart: https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5788827/2024/09/23/knicks-mitchell-robinson-ankle-injury/
KP is out for the first couple of months too, I think Sims and Precious can deal with the corpse of Al Horford and Luke Kornet on opening night.
DeMarcus Cousins is available
Guys,
Are we talking about having a good team that makes the playoffs and gives us some fun or we talking about being on the list of 5-6 teams that are serious contenders?
We’ve been building this team brick by brick, position by positon for a few years now. We finally had all the pieces, but we lost I-Hart and now we can say Mitch is no longer just an injury “risk”, he’s unreliable.
In fact it would not shock me if this news came out today because he had a setback!!!
Even if Mitch comes back, it’s not like he’s some perfect C anyway. He doesn’t help the spacing and he can’t make free throws at all. There are too many negatives and question marks. We can’t waste the prime years of the players we have now. We have to make a SERIOUS move even if means giving up a young player like Dadiet, a pick and filler (unless they know something I don’t). The time is NOW starting this year! We have 4 solid starters and a deep good bench! It’s NOW!
I still have a Jalen Duren dream so it’s nice that we’re talking to the Pistons.
It probably takes Donte not Deuce to pry Duren, though.
The trade deadline is February 6th so seems certainly within the realm of possibility that we may not get to see the full team at all before that (or maybe only very briefly) which is only going to make it trickier figuring out what to do about the C position at that time. I’m just not sure it’s going to be possible to put full faith in Mitch not just coming back but giving you 100% through the playoffs if it’s sight unseen.
The other thing to consider is that it is highly unlikely that Randle starts the season as All-NBA Randle, as we’ve seen in previous injury iterations. So it may well be a bit of a slog to start the season. But what’s important is how we end it, which remains to be seen…
This is a team that’s going to make the playoffs and give us some fun. It will contend in the broad sense. It’s top 5 or 6 for sure. But top 1? It really has very little chance barring an unexpected trade or total dominance from the small lineups.
I’m telling you: last year’s team had greater championship potential. This year’s team has a greater long-term outlook because of Bridges but the center position is like a Thermal Exhaust Port the size of the Grand Canyon.
Which is why I am saying we have to go all in on a legt C, if not now, at the deadline.
No team is looking to gift the Knicks a Center right now. The Knicks will need to remain patient until they can get one at a decent cost.
Centers will hit the market when teams eventually start tanking..
I bet they nab Stewart. He can play both PF or C and is a NY native. Plus, I think he has a little room for improvement. Also, it gives us a “tough guy” we can use for hard fouls in the playoffs.
He’s definitely undersized, but he’s not a stiff.
I’ve already processed this. This has been the expectation for months, but we’re in the usual cycle of:
Pagliacci recognizes how shitty things are ->
Everyone calls Pagliacci hysterical ->
The other shoe drops ->
Others finally see the light and realize we’re fucked.
This was exactly the cycle with iHart’s departure, on which everyone but me somehow was fitted with blinders the minute we gotBridges.
For those who have missed all my posts on the topic: We are a donut team and do not have an NBA starting center. We had one of the best last season and lost him for nothing. As a result we are a significantly worse team. We spent every resource we had on a decent wing who will never be an All-Star when we already had a bunch of those. We had no plan to replace our top 10 starting C at any point, and still do not.
Our backup C, Mitch, is significantly less good than our starter to begin with. Effectively, he has already missed half the season, and his best case scenario is once again ~40 games played. I’d bet my left nut against him being available and healthy for the playoffs.
Since we have locked in to this ~47 win team with no avenues to fix the gaping hole in the middle, we may not have to worry about the playoffs much, because we’ll be a play-in team. We’ve already squandered year 1 of our all in windows. From here our talent base gets a little worse every year as the core exits their prime years, and we are very likely looking at zero championship equity until the next rebuild. Again.
We’re at the beginning of a window, not the end.
I do not think this team can win a championship this year but I think it can win 55 games and make the ECF. How about we do that first, go all in later?
I’m surprised to see this level of cope from you, Hubie. If your NBA starting C requires a grand plan to keep him healthy for an entire season which literally involves him not being healthy for half the entire season, that’s plan isn’t really grand, and you don’t really have an NBA starting C.
That corpse of Al Horford would easily be the 2nd best big on our team, and torches us every single time we play them.
Going all in isn’t worth much when you lost 99% of your chips in the previous hand. We don’t have the assets to get a legit C without significantly weakening the core. The only moves we can make now are lateral.
There is no good news in having an injury prone player whose injury put him on the shelf for 5 months, played a couple of weeks, reinjured the same area, had a timetable for re-eval which showed slower improvement than hoped for, and now is out for another 7 months. Silver linings perhaps in that we are forced to field non Mitch lineups but I am not betting on this making Mitch a healthy playoff beast.
Pags,
We have Deuce, Dadiet, the two protected 1st rounders from Det and Was (I suspect both teams might be interested in getting them back), filler contracts and one of our own distant future 1st round picks that can be traded without doing any serious near term damage.
That should be more than enough to land a quality C.
The real issue is that everyone knows this team is on the cusp of contention if it lands a starting C. So everyone is going to be looking to pillage us.
This is exactly what I don’t want to do.
This team is not an Isaiah Stewart away from winning the title and we’re too low on assets to make moves that don’t push the needle.
This team needs a full blown Hartenstein replacement, and that’s going to require patience. In the meantime, it’s going to be the most fun team we’ve ever had.
With a legit starting C, the window would be open this year. That doesn’t mean we’d be the favorite to win it all. That would probably be Boston or OKC, but we’d be one of the teams that could given them hell and pull off an upset if the ball bounce the right way. IMO, we have to strike!
We’ve expended every asset we have. The window will close when the core exits their prime in 3 years or so. That being so, the fact that it isn’t even open yet is a huge problem. This news means that it pretty much can’t open until 2025-2026. Conceding a third of our window to poor planning is catastrophic, and there’s no reason to believe this won’t happen again for next season.
This is the team. We’re not winning 55 games with 80% of our center minutes on the year going to replacement level players or below and our most notable strength as a team (rebounding) turned into a gaping weakness. We’ll be fighting for a play-in spot and first round exit.
join a USTA mixed doubles tennis team out of Lake Oswego, OR and you’ll be surrounded by Harlows
We have Deuce, Dadiet, the two protected 1st rounders from Det and Was (I suspect both teams might be interested in getting them back), filler contracts and one of our own distant future 1st round picks that can be traded without doing any serious near term damage.
The real issue is that everyone knows this team is on the cusp of contention if it lands a starting C. So everyone is going to be looking to pillage us.
Of course they do, but it’s much easier to get an advantageous deal from a desperate team. Maybe desperate is too strong of a word, but imo there’s no way Leon is going to be willing to throw away this year looking for the perfect deal at C. If he sees the right player, he’s going to overpay if he has to just like he did in the Bridges deal and with OG’s salary.
And if there is one, we should go all in. I mean, we’re 95% in after the Bridges trade anyway.
I’m just saying be patient with that last 5%. It’s more important to get the right guy than to get someone right now.
OT
What Gukesh Dommaraju is doing in the chess world at 18 is pretty amazing.
All of you are vastly underestimating the greatness of Jericho Sims and Ariel Hukporti. We’ll be just fine.
What’s the o/u on how long before we hear our first Hukin’ and jivin’ from Clyde?
All those years of overpaying have caught up to him, though. Now if a center comes to market he probably can’t win a bidding war with another Center-hungry team like the Pelicans. And all those terrible draft trades you didn’t think mattered, they are currently what stands between us and the team you’re so desperate for. Funny how that worked out, innit?
On FanDuel we’re currently tied with the Sixers for 3rd best title odds so everyone who knows we actually suck can get very wealthy
“What’s the o/u on how long before we hear our first Hukin’ and jivin’ from Clyde?”
Hopefully never, as it might very possibly have its origins in Black slave culture. Probably best avoided, just in case.
What we really need is a starting center, not a backup center. Mitch should be the backup center if and when he ever gets healthy enough to play.
I’d favor a Jalen Duren package, and I think we wouldn’t miss DDV all that much if he was the centerpiece of that deal. Donte is a nice player, but you can simply make McBride the backup 3-point specialist 2-guard, and let Kolek and Payne battle it out for the backup PG spot. Deuce isn’t as good as Donte, but Thibs could probably develop Duren into a very useful defensive player.
Duren has not been a very good defensive player to this point in his career, but he’s still very young (next year is his age 21 season) and he clearly has the physical tools to compete on the defensive end.
“Hopefully never, as it might very possibly have its origins in Black slave culture. Probably best avoided, just in case.”
Yeah, probably shouldn’t have gone there. Although it wouldn’t surprise me.
I think Knickerblogger is alot more worried about the Center position than the Knicks are.
I really don’t see the Pistons trading Duren, and Stewart seems unlikely, too, since we would have to trade Mitch to make the money work, which doesn’t make sense.
I still think Kessler would be the best fit, but it would cost us: Probably Dadiet and McBride.
I’d be on board with Deuce and Dadiet for Kessler, and I really like Deuce. But we need Kessler more than we need Deuce right now in order to fill out our roster at a position of need. I doubt Kessler can be had that cheaply from Ainge, though. I’d love Duren, but doubt we could get him—I’d be willing to lose Randle for him, though. And I don’t want to consider breaking up the ‘Nova Quad just yet. One of the non-boxscore things that we have over most other teams is the chemistry/friendship of having all of those guys together.
Totally agree with JK. Mitch should be considered the backup, not the starter.
The Pistons aren’t smart so you never know. And they desperately need shooting.
I don’t think Dadiet and McBride come close to getting us the kind of center we need, though.
With Mitch and Randle I was more expecting like missing the first 2-3 weeks. Mitch not back until December kind of sucks.
Beef Stew would not be my first choice, although it’s probably hard to figure out how good complimentary players on that wreck of a Pistons team are.
You know what I really, really, really, really wish? That we had simply drafted Kyle Filipowski (even with that odd girlfriend situation). I like our front office, but I’m still annoyed that they didn’t hedge against losing Hartenstein when they had to know that it was a distinct possibility. There was definitely opportunity cost there.
Also wish we’d kept Skapintsev around.
Our resident Duren skeptic is ptmilo, which sucks because he’s good at this shit.
I love the kid. He’s a beast on the boards and he can make plays with the ball. But it would be tough to trade Donte for him if he can’t protect the rim.
Knicks beat Denver by 38 last season with Sims and Precious playing Center.
I am pretty confident our in house options are better than Skapintsev, who didn’t exactly standout as a 26 year-old summer league player.
There’s always a price that makes sense, but I’m not sure how many centers have gone from having Duren’s poor defensive instincts as a young player to being a plus on that end. Seems like a tall order such that I’d hold on to our remaining ammo, considering what I think he’d cost.
I’m as antsy as the next guy for answers here but I happen to think wait-and-see is the best approach. We can win plenty of games with our all-hands-on-deck approach at center and see what materializes by the deadline, and after it on the buyout market. I’d hate to use finite resources, whether it’s the TPMLE or draft capital, on a middling option only to see someone like Capela become available later. We don’t have to panic.
The right center to complete this team is also dependent to a significant degree on whether Randle is a part of the long-term core or they see him as more expendable and plan to pivot to a more “modern” look with OG at the PF at some point. If Randle is playing the PF I think they could really use somebody at C who can stretch the floor a little rather than a pure paint player; I have questions about whether he’s good enough but Stewart would be a stylistic fit for this at least. If Randle is out and you’re playing more of a pure perimeter player in that slot that’s less of a concern.
Keeping in mind that 1)I hate hate hate hate blind calls to authority; and 2)The record of our front office has not been so spotless as to automatically give them the benefit of the doubt on every decision…
…whatever wholly legitimate criticisms can made of the Rose administration, it has never struck me as a group of people with their heads in the sand. They had to know going into the offseason that iHart had a good chance of being out of their CBA-mandated price range. They could not possibly have been out of the loop on Mitch’s injury recovery. And yet despite this, they did not draft a center earlier than Ariel Hukporti. They did not trade for a center. They did not sign any new centers, and while they brought back Precious, the contract suggests that he was re-signed in order to be traded later.
So we are left with four possibilities, which have some overlap between them:
1. Contrary to their usual MO, they were completely blindsided by one or both of the iHart and Mitch issues;
2. They know they need to add another center and simply didn’t like any of the available options in the draft or FA (though as we’ve seen before with various incinerations, they have been known to underestimate potential talent fits);
3. They know they need to add another center but have an eye on one or more players whom they don’t expect to become available until closer to the trade deadline, and are willing to bide their time with Precious/Simms/smallball until they can make said deal; or
4. Thibs has really gone all-in on smallball and no longer cares about his 48 minutes of rim protection religion.
One thing I find myself increasingly curious about is what kind of center the Knicks want. When I see them interested in a Walker Kessler or an Isaiah Stewart, for instance, it makes me wonder if they actually prioritize replacing the unexpected gifts of Isaiah Hartenstein or are content going back to the Mitch & Noel template of elite rim protection combined with 4-on-5 offense.
Another thing I wonder is what happens if a stretch 5 becomes available? Would we want to pivot from crashing the offensive boards?
How? AFAIK you can’t bet against us winning the championships, and if you could, the payout would be very low betting on an extremely likely event.
Am I gonna get rich betting $1,000,000 to win $50k?
Well Pags you did say we’re locked in to a 47 win core, so please keep us posted on the absolute fortune you’re going to make taking the under on 53.5 at +104!
We didn’t necessarily overpay for OG trade wise. We overpaid financially to lock him in. The gap between what we paid him and what he’s probably worth didn’t really impact the situation we are in now.
IMO all the pick issues we debated endlessly were pennies on the dollar at the time that some people made too big a deal about.
Overpaying for Bridges is the one that has had some impact. It would be nice if we had 1 extra 1st rounder to work with. Unlilke some, I suspect they thought they were getting the final piece to the puzzle at the time and felt like they had to make that deal.
My feeling is they knew there was some risk of losing I-Hart but thought they were more likely to keep him and they knew Mitch was an injury risk, but they expected him back for the start of the season or close. Both went against them. Now it’s time to figure out what to do next.
I agree with JK47 that we should consider Mitch the backup and look for a starting C. We can deal with Mitch’s injury woes if he’s the backup, but not if he’s the starter. Plus like I said, given the questions about spacing and FTs, he’s not ideal anyway. That was one reason I thought he might eventually be traded, but that was in the days I expected to keep I-Hart.
When we finally made a trade for a C someone we like is going to go. I expect it to be Deuce, but we may have to include Dadiet. I would keep Kolek out of it because imo we need a real backup PG more than we need Deuce (though I love Deuce).
Honestly find out very strange that nothing has changed and people suddenly freaked out. They said two months ago that Much wouldn’t be ready at the start of the season. So that was probably December. Now it may be January. So?
Again, as I wrote two months ago, we won’t be much better than .500 the first couple of months. Even if Julius is back in November he’s going to suck for a few weeks or more. January was always the beginning of finding out what we might really look like.
Nothing has changed.
As I’ve also written, DDV is a fantastic asset and will bring us a center of we really can’t figure out how to win without one. Every team in the league would want him at that salary, and we would be fine without him. And if we are that bad that we need to trade him for a starter, the Nova Corps will understand.
so good to finally have something to bitch about…
this new competent front office management style has been cramping my grinch flow…
Something may have changed.
1. We didn’t know when Mitch would be back. No one did. The hope was for sometime in November or early December. Now it could late January for all we know. That’s on bad end of the range of possibilties.
2. More important, Mitch sounded optimistic on IG recently. Today we find out it might be January. I think that at least hints that he had a setback. If it was a setback, that’s huge.
I would do all I could to avoid trading DDV for a C.
IMO, he’s the ideal 6th man.
He also showed he can be part of the starting lineup and do fine in case OG goes down for awhile. Of course we could put Hart in the starting lineup also if OG goes down, but DDV’s value as a floor spacer and 6th man that can score under pressure is pretty significant.
You have to give something to get something, but we don’t need a superstar C. We need a legit starting C and I think we can get that without including DDV.
Wasting assets for a backup C would be dumb. And we aren’t going to get a starter without including value. That’s either Randle or DDV.
Randle, then.
New thread
I agree on wasting assets for a backup C. I hate most of the names being thrown around by the media other than Kessler.
I think we should be able to get Kessler without including DDV and certainly not Randle. The thing that makes it more difficult is dealing with Ainge who knows the position we are in and will try to squeeze us for every last drop of blood, especially with the Pelicans potentially interested.
Again, IMO we don’t need a star C. We have our scoring, playmaking, perimeter defense, closer, 6th man and depth. We just need a legit starting C that defends, protects the paint and is efficient on lower volume.
Kessler can rebound, defend, protect the paint very well and score efficiently around the basket. He can even shoot in the 5-10 foot range a bit. He’s also very young and will grow with Thibs. That’s the primary target unless they have an even better idea.
IMO we have the assets to trade without disrupting the main pieces. Ainge is the devil. Dealing with the devil is a problem.
So we can make the trade or not? You seem to be contradicting yourself. If you think he would accept a trade without main pieces, tell us what that trade is.
With almost anyone else, we could make the trade and both sides would probably feel good about it.
With Ainge, we can make the trade but we may not feel so good about it.
It could mean Deuce, Dadiet and a protected 1st rounder (and filler players). The story was some team offered 2 1st rounders and was rebuffed. Not sure what kind of 1st rounders.
So you think Ainge is the devil but he’ll accept that trade?
It sounds to me like Ainge wants the equivalent of 3 first rounders.
To me that’s too much for a player that admittedly is a good prospect, but that was drafted 22nd and wasn’t even a consistent starter on a bad team like Utah.
Dadiet was drafted in the 1st round. He is very young with some potential. We aren’t putting a lot of value on him now because we are in win now mode and he’ll have no role here now, but to a rebuilding team there’s going to be some interest. I have no desire to trade him. He could easily be part of the longer term future here. We need some peices like that given we don’t have a lot of picks left.
Deuce was drated early in the 2nd round, but he has shown he can play effectively in the playoffs.
Add in a 1st rounder.
I’m not sure if that’s enough for Ainge. I guess it depends on the 1st rounder we include. But that’s pretty close to 3 meh 1st rounders and a lot to give up for a guy whose not 100% certain to be a high quality starter at C.
I don’t think there’s any chance Ainge accepts that trade. Which is why we haven’t already made it.
It’s a seller’s market. We are waiting because we have to, not because we want to.