[CBS Sports] – Thu, 03 Oct 2024 13:23:02 GMT
2024 NBA offseason grades, player movement: Knicks go all in with massive trades, Lakers don’t move the needle
[New York Post] – Thu, 03 Oct 2024 14:56:00 GMT
Knicks’ Karl-Anthony Towns opens up on Jordyn Woods relationship, cheating rumors
[New York Post] – Thu, 03 Oct 2024 21:48:00 GMT
- Karl-Anthony Towns bland nature is a perfect Knicks fit
- NBA Insider Rips Notion Karl-Anthony Towns is ‘Soft,’ Says Knicks Star Has ‘Finesse’
- Person who works closely with Karl-Anthony Towns: Finesse player? Yes. Soft player? No
- Chicago Blackhawks surround Connor Bedard with more offensive talent for his second NHL season
- Karl-Anthony Towns is in a different stratosphere when it comes to stretching the floor
[New York Post] – Fri, 04 Oct 2024 00:56:15 GMT
- Julius Randle makes telling wanted comment after Knicks trade
- Julius Randle calls trade to Minnesota a breath of fresh air
- Knicks acquire Karl-Anthony Towns in 3-team trade
- Souhan: If Julius Randle is happy, Timberwolves will thrive
- After ‘shocking’ trade, Julius Randle’s wife pleasantly surprised by ‘gorgeous’ Minnesota
[New York Daily News] – Thu, 03 Oct 2024 21:42:52 GMT
Homecoming: Karl-Anthony Towns hopes to amplify Knicks title hopes
[Sports Illustrated] – Thu, 03 Oct 2024 16:30:11 GMT
New York Knicks Legend Returns to Coaching
[Empire Sports Media] – Thu, 03 Oct 2024 17:02:17 GMT
- Knicks bench went from stacked to questionable overnight
- The case for the Knicks to start McBrunson
- So, what about the bench?
- New York Knicks Should Still Sign Center Despite Blockbuster Trade
- Knicks Face Key Roster Issues Following Karl-Anthony Towns Trade
[NJ.com] – Fri, 04 Oct 2024 10:34:00 GMT
Karl-Anthony Towns says previous relationship with Tom Thibodeau gives Knicks a head start
123 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2024.10.04)”
Well done Mets!
Old horse Quintana’s gutsy performance, Pete Alonso’s historical homer, an engaging game and a great sport moment.
Meanwhile, just for curiosity neither Frank (18 mins, 3 pts, 1-2 3FG, 1 DREB, -9 in a loss) nor Rokas (15 mins, 4 pts, 2-3 2FG, 0-2 3FG, 1 DREB, 2 AST, -11 in a win) had good games in Euroleague first round, both came out of the bench.
RE: Precious
My expectations about him are low and that’s a good thing because he could surprise me.
I still think he’s a good athletic player/energy guy with a low BB-IQ (due in part by his late start in playing basketball).
On defense he’s better at switching (because there he needs to stay alert) than in drop coverage where he’s prone to let his mind wanders.
On offense I view him strictly as a garbage-collector (putbacks, offensive rebounds, target to penetrate-and-drops, running the lanes faster than his opponent) than as a “modern” shooter/stretcher.
To me he’s an okay backup “4” who can play spot minutes at the “5” against specific lineups (he’s 6’8″ for god’s sake).
All in all a useful piece who provides a little flexibility off the bench and will play a lot until Mitch is hurt but should be back to at a 10-12 MPG max when Mitch’ll be back.
I’ll be very pleased, and I could change my opinion, if after a summer of work he’d show improvements in his shooting.
I keep thinking about how we went from reasonably deep post-Mikal trade to seeming paper thin post-KAT trade, when it was essentially a 2-for-1 trade. Eventually, I realized that 1)Most of the time when we were talking about our depth this summer, it was with the assumption that Mitch would be ready to start the season, and 2)While nobody expected Keita Bates-Diop to be in the rotation, he seemed like a pretty good, and flexible, in case of emergency guy, with size. So we traded two rotation players for one, another of our rotation guys is out for months, and most of our remaining deep bench guys are small.
Another big factor is it put Hart in the starting lineup. When he’s your 6th man your depth feels great bc he’s always available and can back up 3 positions.
On paper we are thin, but not in a way that worries me. Even without Mitch, we go 9 deep with guys who can give us somewhat reliable minutes. There will be vet’s minimum guys to be had…we’re auditioning Shamet, Warren, and Okeke as we speak. We also have four rookies who might develop or who can be traded for a cheap depth piece.
That said, losing DDV will definitely hurt. It’s really hard to find guys that good for that cheap.
It will take time before I’m completely sold on the KAT deal.
Can you believe that we’ll be watching Knicks basketball on Sunday? Are the Mets, Yanks, Jets and Giants all playing too?
I am also not worried about how thin we are in that we have a lot of flexibility with the roster–outside of JB (and Mitch) everyone in the rotation can play at least 2 positions. Onus is on Thibs to make the adjustments as needs arise.
Just start Deuce
Getting to know the team! 🧡💙
https://x.com/sny_knicks/status/1841919813486104774
our depth will really bark if injuries hit. especially while mitch is out (and still on the team), if, say, og or kat go out for few weeks it’ll be a grind to get enough quality rotation minutes. last year was a different story until the whole fucking team got hurt in the playoffs.
Pags is back to pessimism, Hubert says we’ll never win, so i think all is where it should be! Let’s enjoy this (hopefully) great season!
Just to check how bad is our bench now, how’s the Celtics bench? Is it a lot better than ours?
““Hart is no longer a synedoche…”
Where’s Doogie when you need him?”
Yeah, I saw “synedoche,” just as I saw “I can’t see how this isn’t going to make the Knicks offense much better.” I’ve just been asked to keep it to myself.
(By the way, the film named “Synecdoche, New York,” which takes place in Schenectady and stars Philip Seymour Hoffman, is kind of interesting.)
I do not. I say the job isn’t done yet. We are still one move away.
The core four is strong but clearly missing one piece. If we can paper-clip trade for a 5th starter without losing Josh Hart as the 6th man then we can stand in front of the Mission Accomplished banner.
Alternatively, a magical development from Precious Achiuwa would do the job, too.
We’re clearly more vulnerable to injuries than we were at the start of last year, when we were 11-12 deep with maybe the best bench in the league*.
Thibs likes to go 9-deep and depth with him was always a bit “underused” until injuries force him to do something different, but last year it saved us for most of the season.
This year’s starting five is better (in spacing, shooting and defensive flexibility), but we’ll need all our atropaic abilities, gestures and procedures to help…
Luckily here at KB we have a fair bunch of different cultural traditions to draw from 😀
* Here’s the lineup in the first game of the 23-24 season.
Starters: JB, Grimes, RJ, Julius, Mitch;
Bench (used): I-Hart, J-Hart, DDV, IQ;
Bench (not used): Deuce, Fournier, Sims.
What makes the roster thin isn’t the roster itself. It’s the lack of draft assets and tradable contracts with which to swing an emergency trade.
It is the roster itself, in the sense that, in OG, KAT, and Mitch, we have three rotation players — two of them starters — with spotty injury histories, so some of the end of the benchers are going to have to play. But it’s also, as you say, the fact that the tradable asset war chest is largely, but not entirely, depleted. We do also have draft rights to Rokas and James Nnaji. Which may not be much, but could be used in lieu of/addition to second round picks to lubricate a depth trade when the time comes.
Right, Alan. I’m mainly referring to my level of concern about it. It was crazy that we built a deep roster and hoarded picks at the same time for so long, only to shoot the whole load in the Mikal trade. I suppose I’d feel better about it if I was super-confident in the KAT trade being a win, but I’m still kinda queasy about it. It definitely made us thinner, and I’m grappling with whether it made us better. I found Macri’s interview with the Minny guy very unsettling, on top of not really liking KAT’s game for years and always being against trading for him.
I’ll feel better (I hope!) when I see how Captain Jalen finesses a more mature KAT into his best self, as opposed to Jimmy and Thibs humiliating a younger KAT.
Ewing is officially back in the Knicks organization.
We might not have as many nuts and bolts, but we upgraded the chrome and leather.
It’s easier to find the former.
I really think TJ Warren will be found money if he stays healthy. He’s always been a great scoring wing and could soften the loss of Donte to a degree.
Way too much whining about the end of bench players.
“Yeah, I saw “synedoche,” just as I saw “I can’t see how this isn’t going to make the Knicks offense much better.” I’ve just been asked to keep it to myself.”
FWIW, I will say again that I truly appreciate that you have adjusted your posting. I can’t speak for others, but for me it makes a big difference. Thanks!
I remember when the Celts built their Big 3 of Pierce-KG-Allen, there were massive concerns about their depth. Of course, Rondo was essentially a rookie and no one appreciated how good he would become. Then guys like Perk, Posey, PJ Brown, Big Baby, House, Cassell, Powe, Tony Allen, etc. all stepped up. Hopefully the same thing will happen here.
Al’s right. The roster isn’t thin. It is unbalanced. We actually need to do another consolidation trade.
IMO the roster is only thing if you think none of the rookies, camp invites, etc…can step up into a limited bench role.
I actually think the key to our depth is going to be Sims. If he truly can step up to the point where he’s a serviceable full-time back up Center, it solves A LOT of our depth problems.
I think the good news is that Hart and Mikal can usually handle a big work load and also can play 3 positions. OG we have to be more careful with but he can also play 3, potentially 4 positions.
But Sims and, also, Precious, are the 2 that need to step up. If they both can do that (and McBride continues to improve) then I think our depth is less of an issue.
I still would like another big on the roster.
I wish I had more faith in Sims, Swifty. He just has shown only that he can jump very high and is pretty switchable on defense. Maybe he has another Deuce-level gear, but I dunno.
I’d feel better if we had a more reliable emergency big or a more reliable tall backup wing. In that respect, I really hope TJ Warren improbably outplays Landry Shamet in preseason. Because OG will definitely miss games, Deuce is 6’1″, and I’d rather avoid making Josh Hart over-Hart himself too often.
I think it’s possible that Hukporti could surpass Sims on the depth chart fairly soon.
Huk’s strengths are playing in drop coverage and setting screens, two things that we really need in a big. Sims struggles in both areas.
I checked a random box score from the Heat-Thunder Finals in 2012. After the big 3 and the other 2 starters, Chalmers and Battier, here was the minutes distribution –
Mike Miller 23:14
Norris Cole 16:40
Udonis Haslem 10:34
No one else on the roster played more than 4 minutes
I know we’re not the Heatles, but the point is we’re making way too big a deal about bench depth. It’s gonna be all about health going into the playoffs, if we’re close to 100%, the only bench guys that’ll see significant minutes are Deuce and maybe Precious
When we get to the playoffs our bench will be Deuce + Mitch and honestly that’s enough.
If we could somehow consolidate Deuce, Precious, Dadiet, and the WAS pick for a forward who balances the starting lineup, then our bench would be Hart & Mitch with maybe 3 minutes of Payne, and that would be awesome.
I like our starting team and think we’ll eventually get the bench where it needs to be, but the more I think about the entire offseason the more I wonder how well we did asset wise.
I’m not talking about our record this year compared to last year because there are a million moving parts.
I’m saying we lost I-Hart, Randle, DDV and a boatload of picks for KAT and Bridges.
It feels like because of the way we can rearrange the pieces, we have a better team.
1. Towns > I-Hart
2. Bridges > DDV
3. We lose Randle, but Towns & Bridges give us back all the scoring we lose at likely more efficient levels as a team and Josh Hart gives us back some of the lost rebounding and playmaking like he did in the payoffs when Randle was out.
4. We lose a little depth by moving Josh Hart (or whoever) into the starting lineup.
(we added a some rookies and Payne which will definitely help)
Overall IMO we are a better team, but damn we gave up a TON of picks for what might not turn out to be huge upgrade over last year’s fully healthy team.
Losing I-Hart for nothing was a pretty devastating blow to our overall asset position even though we came out of it with a better team.
I think we are sleeping on both Hukporti and Kolek a bit too much when it comes to depth. Both may become very useful this season even if not at the very start.
I worry less about the depth situation because they way I see it, we’re out of the “building for the regular season” phase and deeply into the “building for the playoffs” moment, where rotations are shorter. Our main objective this season to me is obviously building chemistry and landing on the best rotations, but also to make sure everyone is healthy for the playoffs, which will be a challenge Thibs will have to manage. I’d gladly take the 3rd or 4th seed in the east if it means everyone, OG, KAT and Mitch specially, arrive ready for the playoffs.
I’m very confident, when I look at the matchups around the league I think the Knicks have built a team that can handle pretty much anyone, a fully healthy Boston is still the obvious hardest challenge but even against them we have the pieces, and specially the wing defenders, to match-up with them. Philly might be the harder challenge if Embiid is healthy and Mitch isn’t, but I’m not too worried about this one bad scenario. Everyone else doesn’t scare me, I’m confident we’re better than Milwaukee, Indiana and everyone else in the east.
Since we have KAT now I’d forgotten about iHart…
Are you guys sure Mikal is a natural 2, and not a 3? Can he guard the quick 2s? Hasn’t he been a 3 for most of his career? I feel like we have two players whose best position is 3 going to play the 2 and the 4. This is why the roster feels thin.
Me too but the one thing that gives me hope about Sims this season is that it is his first off season where he isn’t rehabbing an injury and supposedly he’s been putting in the work. He doesn’t need to turn into Hakeem out there. Just make some across the board baseline improvments.
I think Precious has a much higher chance of a jump forward. He has shown flashes and he’s still relatively young.
I also think Deuce could continue to improve.
People are underestimating our improvement. It may not seem like much – is Mikal more than 10% better than DDV? KAT more than 10% better than Julius? – but such are the marginal improvements you need to go from potential contender to contender.
As JK says, it’s easier to find nuts and bolts than chrome and leather.
That’s not to say I’m confident about the season – we really are vulnerable to injury, especially before Mitch returns. But it’s hard to imagine a scenario where, if healthy, we’re aren’t in the ECF against the Celtics finding out exactly what it takes to beat them.
Did you guys not watch OG and see how physically huge and long he is? He wreaks more havoc when he doesn’t have to defend the primary ball handler on the perimeter, I think PF might actually be his better position.
Mikal is definitely equally capable at the 2 or 3, at least I think so.
He can add a few little moves in the post, but that won’t help him guard in space. Since that’s the most important thing for an offensively limited center, I’m not optimistic he’ll contribute.
Precious is another story. If not getting a real offer this off season has given him religion, and that leads to consistent focus, he could make a BIG difference.
“but also to make sure everyone is healthy for the playoffs, which will be a challenge Thibs will have to manage”
+100%. On paper we have the talent and roster flexibility to go toe to toe with every other elite team. But we need to be healthy and at the right time. Winning each game is not the priority. Can Thibs accept this is as crucial of a question as any for this season.
I actually thought Sims was pretty good defending in space. Less so in pnr drop coverage iirc. Am I wrong about this?
Thibs is probably going to play OG, KAT and Brunson 40 minutes and Josh Hart 45 minutes on opening night.
Yeah, Thibs really has to be careful. I hope he learned how critical it is keep the deep bench ready and keep the starters healthy at the same time. But at 66 I don’t have much faith in that old dog learning new tricks.
And this is the real underlying worry when we talk about depth.
you just gotta hope that last season made it clear to him and also Leon and him have talked about it.
The best thing would be for our starting 5 to gel quickly and smash some teams early in the season. Win like 15 out of our first 20 games and clearly establish ourselves as an elite team. I think if we can do that, Thibs can maybe relax a little bit and not grind dudes down.
IF you think about last season, we were like a barely over 500 team till the OG trade, then went nuclear for a month, were then 500 after OG and Randle got hurt and finished stronger to grab 50 wins. But it was a TOUGH 50 wins.
So for me it’s how we get those 50 (or more wins). If we match the same win total but it’s because we rack up a bunch of early season wins and then coast a bit the rest of the way before tuning up for the playoffs, I am MORE than fine with that.
In his bald head he justifies it as it’s important that we beat the Celtics on opening night to set the tone for the season. Therefore, it’s a must win game.
If OG is a strong 4 and Mikal a strong 2, this roster is not thin. McBride, Payne and Kolek are adequate bench guards, and Precious, Sims and in time Mitch are adequate bench bigs. Keep everyone involved and healthy for the playoffs, and we’re good.
Instead of trading deuce for a forward just play deuce at the 2
Mikal better defending down. He’s going to defend Maxey, Dame, and Hali. Of course, we’ll be switching our wings around a lot, so it’ll probably depend on the matchup more than anything. He’s been listed as the 3 but teams cross match all the time and he usually guards the best opposing player.
OG is the size of a lot of modern 4s. There’s a couple giants he’ll need to contend with, but this is a guy who has been deployed against Embiid and Jokic. We can always swap KAT onto a 4 and use OG as help since C’s can’t post for crap anymore.
The position designations between OG/Hart/Mikal is largely arbitrary anyways. They’ll defend based on the matchups, OG & Mikal will take the toughest assignments and Hart will take whoever is leftover before we hide Brunson on the weakest link.
I think we’ll need him to be the primary defender against some of the elite, bigger wings, but I agree. With Towns at C, we’ll need his help defense.
Re: Thibs.
Think Randle is a type of a big statbox but inneficient star player whose ideal role in basketball is to take a lottery team and get them into playoffs. There is a lot of value in this space and therefore he’s next contract will reflect it and with his expected longevity he may end up having a borderline hall of fame career. Therefore I thought he completed his mission, did his job in NY very well and should be congratulated and appreciated.
I always looked at Thibs as the Randle equivalent to coaching. He too will take a dysfuctional culture, create good habits and build a competative playoff team. There is nothing revolutionary or brilliant in his overall strategic planning or game management. It’s basically go with what is tried and true, instead of disrupt with out of box thinking or a creative solution. Lastly, Thibs is often a few possesions late with his substitutions which is often a difference in the final two rounds of the playoffs.
Leon has proved he has huge balls with these last three trades. Think this will be Thibs last season to show he’s a championship caliber coach before he gets the Marc Jackson treatment.
The best thing about the Hart / Mikal / OG trio is that all of them can be effective defenders off the ball too. What I’m hoping is the best form of this team is a team that creates turnovers and runs in transition, and Hart and OG are extremely good at crowding passing lanes and helping on ball handlers. It’s gonna be a nightmare for perimeter focused teams when their ball handler gets picked up by Mikal with Hart and OG roaming and ready to close lanes.
I think that’s gonna be this team’s identity, and it should work very well against every team that doesn’t have a Jokic or Embiid. And the best thing is that when we have go go half court we have Jalen Brunson and at least 3 above average shooters around him at all times, with one of them an elite stretch 5 in KAT who’s a threat from everywhere.
I understand discussing the flaws of the roster, but I’m personally more excited to see those strengths in display.
Pascal Siakim fucked OG up in the playoffs.
I tried to post the video but it’s stuck in moderation bc of all the links.
Suffice to say, we do not want OG guarding bigs like Siakim, Banchero, Holmgren, or Randle. It’s a waste of $40M.
It wasn’t pretty.
I do think he’ll be able to guard a few of those guys to better effect. Ideally, Thibs will be willing to use Precious in that matchup or swap OG & KATs assignments.
OG only played in games 1, 2 and game 7 where he was a shell of himself. Not sure I’d draw any conclusions about his ability to guard Siakam based on that
Siakam in the first 2 games of the series scored 33 pts on 15 for 34 shooting…
Also just noting that Pascal had six and a half years of practicing with and against OG.
Yeah, but he was 0-11 on open fast breaks where he bricked the dunk. When guarded he was 15 for 23.
Just to get back to a discussion from yesterday re: Donte vs. Mikal.
I think that Donte has transformed himself into a significantly better pure 3pt shooter than Mikal, and I don’t think it’s particularly close.
For Mikal’s first 4 years in PHX, he has a ridiculously low usage rate for a player at his position. He peaked at 15%. He was assisted on 72% of his 2’s and 98% of his 3’s. 50% of his 3’s were literally “stand in the corner” 3’s. He shot 41% on those, with a lousy rookie year and a great 3rd year. In his 5th year, he started using more possessions, almost entirely by taking more 2’s. His % of corner 3’s went down a bit once he went over to BKN but he still shot around 40% of his 3’s from there. Since his overall 3pt% was 37%. clearly he was nothing special above the break. OTOH, Donte shot 40% from 3 on much higher volume, and he only shot 23% of his shots from there with GSW and 25% with us. His 3pt% from above the break had to be significantly higher than Mikal’s, and his percentage of assisted 2’s and 3’s was lower than it was for Mikal in PHX. He had a much higher USG% with us last year than Mikal ever did in PHX, 5 more FGA per 36 than Mikal averaged in PHX.
So the question becomes: how real is Mikal’s 900 BKN minutes in 2022-23? Because he pretty much regressed in 2023-24….37% from 3 and 49% from 2. If that’s the real Mikal, we dramatically overpaid for him.
Now I have faith that much of what we saw from Mikal during the 900 BKN minutes in 2023 were for real. But I am even more confident that DDV’s shooting last year was totally for real and would have continued. I think he learned stuff from Steph and Klay that impacted his shooting in a sustainable way.
Mikal is clearly the better all-around player on both ends…he’s very good from both 3 and from 2 in a mid-high usage role, and is one of the best defenders in the NBA. But he is not an analog for Donte’s pure 3pt shooting. And we got Donte for nothing and paid a king’s ransom for Mikal.
So it will take some convincing for me to believe that the trades were fully worth it, with more trepidation about the KAT trade but still concern about using all of our pick stash for Mikal and the domino effect on future flexibility. Right now I’m definitely optimistic, but with some reservations.
Some of you guys are trying really hard to look for things to still complain about…
Try not to get too excited
Try not to get too excited
Fuck it
Something special is brewing. Look at the mix of team staff and players. Think of the possibilities..
These are the guys KAT can pull from:
1. Mark Bryant
2. Othella Harrington
3. Ewing in an unspecified team role.
Meanwhile- Brunson, Deuce, and Kolek have Mo Cheeks to gather position-specific knowledge from.
And Dice(excellent at film breakdown)and Rick Brunson(being a defensive specialist in his playing days when he actually got on the court) to coordinate perimeter defense for Bridges, Anunoby, and Hart.
Listen..if Achiuwa sticks as a switching 4/5 in this rotation and Mitch stays or Leon can replace him with a comparable 5- this team will be better than maybe we all think. The ceiling will be super high for sure.
BigBlue,
I’m one of hte most optimistic guys o here. It’s not complaining for me. I’m just anxious to see it all play out and now that we’re close to being contenders (I would say we are) it’s about probing for any weaknesses we do have and seeing how we can address them. That also gets harder to do.
Fun with false equivalencies: While I’m among the more nervous here about our depth right now, I’d still rather give up pretty much every tradeable asset we have to wind up with a team that starts Jalen Brunson, Mikal Bridges, OG Anunoby, Josh Hart, and Karl Anthony-Towns than give up the great majority of our tradeable assets for a team that starts latter-day Chauncey Billups, post-injury Landry Fields, Carmelo Anthony, the disintegrating knees of Amar’e Stoudemire, and the incredulous Ronny Turiaf.
Why are you anxious? You should be excited to see how it plays out! This team is gonna win 55-60 games and has a legit chance at winning the championship. Putting a team that is capable of doing that should be the goal, not putting together some theoretical perfect team with no flaws.
Of course the Knicks have some depth issues but Bridges and KAT are massive upgrades, even Bobby Marks who isn’t quick to praise the Knicks said they might now have the best starting lineup in the NBA.
Anxious is probably the wrong word. Just excited and hoping for the best. But I don’t think bringing up depth issues is being negative.
I don’t think we are “complaining” (save for Pagliacci 🙂 ) and I understand that we have some players with a suspect injury history, but depth is a problem for all the top teams.
They’re basically all top-heavy, took away one or two of their best players from any of them and they’re fucked up, at the end of the day luck always plays a big part in crowning the champions.
Between rookies and minimum contract veterans our bench will be okay, it’s up to the coach to use it and minimize the “consumption risk”.
The feat is to navigate through the grinds of the regular season, even losing some winnable games, to be healthy for the playoffs, let’s hope last season had taught something.
I’m thrilled to watch this team play.
One thing I have learned from being on this site and from thinking a lot about basketball is that role and usage pattern matters a lot.
Mikal was asked to carry the bulk of the offensive load in Brooklyn. He led the team in field goal attempts, assists and three point attempts, and he used one out of four possessions when he was on the floor. He also played a shit ton of minutes, 2800+. That was good for fourth in the league in minutes played.
He will absolutely NOT have to do that for the Knicks. He is going to have a radically different usage profile, as he is the clear #3 scorer on the team. He is also not automatically going to be drawing the most difficult possible defensive assignment, as he now has OG Anunoby flanking him.
My personal belief is that we’ll see a more productive season from Mikal based on him being used in a way that more suits his skills. As a lead guard who is tasked with being the alpha dog and main source of offense on a team, he is not great. He is ill suited for that role. As a #3 scorer who can give you some additional playmaking, and who can concentrate on taking GOOD shots, he seems ideally suited.
Fit, role, and usage pattern all matter, and Mikal is set up to succeed here. It would not surprise me in the least to see him creep back up to .400 behind the arc for all of these reasons.
Patrick Ewing.
Patrick Ewing rejoins the organization on the same day this is announced:
A healthy McCullar would seem to be fine emergency wing depth. We just have to keep waiting to find out if/when he can be healthy.
We could definitely benefit from an extra rotation caliber player, but I’m not super concerned about the depth because we have something we didn’t have last year (much to my chagrin), which is a plethora of innings eaters.
If Payne, Shamet, and Sims get playoff minutes, something has gone horribly wrong. But they can get you through significant portions of the regular season if there are injuries to our main guys. Our top 6 is so good we can sustain a short-term injury or two and still beat most teams using these guys.
Come playoff time, no one really uses more than 8 guys anyway, and plenty of teams drop to the 6-7 range. We’ll go as far as Brunson, Mikal, OG, Hart, KAT, Mitch, Deuce, and some combination of Kolek/Precious/Mystery Guy Who Emerges take us.
I was expecting this basic response; that’s why I posted the videos.
We put Hart on Siakim as much as we could bc Siakim was dominating OG when he had the matchup.
I looked at every shot to confirm my memory was accurate. It was.
https://videos.nba.com/nba/pbp/media/2024/05/06/0042300211/286/d523510a-b05b-003b-46b0-37bde5e1a1de_1280x720.mp4
I think I can only post one without getting moderated.
^ They’re all like that
I don’t think Mikal vs DDV is the right comparison, they’re going to have very different roles here IMO. DDV was dynamite as a spot-up shooter, and did incorporate a reliable pull-up eventually, but still largely scored off assists. When he was forced to create due to injuries/general personnel challenges, he struggled.
Mikal almost certainly isn’t going to be a DDV level flamethrower, but he is a much better shot creator and can thus relieve pressure from our primary shot creators in a way DDV couldn’t.
I think the relevant comparison in terms of role is DDV vs Deuce. I don’t think Deuce will be as good in the DDV role as DDV, but he should be able to be a reasonable facsimile such that the additional shot creation pencils out positively for us.
No one is complaining.
Some of us are talking about problems that still need to be solved.
Alan, got a chuckle from your false equivalency.
Also, nice John Amos piece.
Posting not because it fits one narrative or the other, in fact it’s kind of ambiguous on that front, but because it’s a little (mostly meaningless IMO) data on something being discussed.
Siakam while guarded by OG in the playoffs: 22 points, 11-18 shooting. No FTAs.
It’s fair to be concerned about depth when we lost a lineup’s worth of players to injury last season. We also have a coach best known for grinding his players down to a pulp, especially when he doesn’t trust the backups.
https://videos.nba.com/nba/pbp/media/2024/05/06/0042300211/271/0e96740d-ff17-ba5f-2837-e0a37f9728df_1280x720.mp4
Here’s another one that’s indicative of the 8 more that are stuck in moderation. You can see how feeble his resistance is to the shoulder in his chest.
He’s actually better against bigger guys like Embiid where he can use leverage.
I have always been much more of a “guys are what they are regardless of their role, teammates coach” etc….
But Bridges feels like an exception to that rule. He really had one of the most dramatic change of circumstances you can imagine.
While I won’t abandon my prior I think there is a very solid chance for Bridges to be much much better this year.
Two things:
1) there’s been some insinuation that we “gave up” IHart (and his mom), Jules and DDV + the picks for Mikal and KAT. That’s intellectually dishonest. IHart wasn’t part of any value that we traded away. He was gone.
2) Siakam definitely gave OG a hard time in the post. When he tried to drive it was different. I would absolutely switch KAT into Siakam and OG on to Turner. No way Siakam can post the 7’ KAT. He may try to pull him away and take him off the dribble instead. Then you send early help. Siakam is not a great passer off the dribble.
Jayson Stark does a frequently amusing, sometimes irritating Weird and Wild baseball column for The Athletic. He did a pretty good job describing just how unlikely and borderline unique Alonso’s homer yesterday was.
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5818665/2024/10/04/pete-alonso-home-run-mets-brewers-history/
Nope. It was just as easy.
https://videos.nba.com/nba/pbp/media/2024/05/06/0042300211/612/f7ecb17a-d27e-5d85-83ea-c9eeb6b56b04_1280x720.mp4
Look, this is just one matchup, but I think there’s enough visual evidence here to throw “actually I think PF is OG’s best defensive position” in the garbage.
lol, it’s going to be a long season
I think his injury in march (?) was a bone bruise, I have no idea how long those usually take to heal, but it does seem like this is slow healing.
Whoa, Kodai Senga is starting game one of the division series for the Mets. Huge shot in the arm for them if they can get some innings out of him in the postseason
We have four really really good to great players to watch though. When was the last time a Knicks fan could say that?
It’s kind of amazing. I am sure it will all go to shit but things are really different from 2005.
that’s the spirit
Probably weird to hear this from me, but there isn’t even close to enough evidence here to draw such a strong conclusion, visual or otherwise.
This is an unreasonably pessimistic take based on a tiny sample size where OG is visibly playing excellent defense and never commits a foul. Siakam putting up a merely good .612 TS% in a stretch against OG without drawing a single foul is hardly devastating, and may be well above his expectation in that matchup.
Good players will hit tough shots sometimes, even against great defense — recall how Brunson roasted the likes of Jrue Holiday, Alex Caruso, and our boy Bridges down the stretch of last season.
So Siakam is abusing OG to get into a better position, but then once OG tries to poke the ball away and fails, he gives up on the possession and let’s Siakam get an easy shot. That is not a match up issue. It looks like a motivation, or lack of energy issue. Just bad defense all around.
A quick look through of a couple matchups and OG seems to get the best of Paolo and Giannis but struggled against Randle. Of course he wasnt necessarily the primary defender all the time, though he did seem to be against Giannis.
Of course he’d also guard guys like Jamal Murray. Positional listings are overrated.
The only thing that should be thrown to the garbage are Hubert’s hot takes!
Al, you came on and said “you guys are all underestimating OG don’t you remember how dominant he was playing PF in the playoffs” and I’m showing you video evidence of what we actually saw.
I don’t have a take here. The thing you think happened didn’t happen.
It’s ok, man. I have a faulty memory, too.
You don’t think there was a “phone it in” factor working playing for a hapless team/organization?
That’s not at all what I said but whatever makes you feel smarter! This was the exact comment:
“Did you guys not watch OG and see how physically huge and long he is? He wreaks more havoc when he doesn’t have to defend the primary ball handler on the perimeter, I think PF might actually be his better position.”
I still stand 100% behind that comment. The best lineup the Knicks can put out is OG at PF not Precious or even Mitch at 5 with KAT at PF. The best Knicks lineup is the Big 4 with Hart or Deuce. There will definitely be times where Precious or especially Mitch would be great with the Big 4 and I’m sure we’ll so plenty of those lineups and rightfully so.
Also OG at PF is by far the best lineup from an offensive standpoint, all the talk about OG is about his defense but his offense and spacing he provides is also a huge advantage for the Knicks and is one of the reasons he is getting paid 40m.
Shoots 61% on 18 attempts vs OG, he shoots 25% on 16 attempts vs everyone else.
But that doesn’t refute the take that OG was a dominant defender at PF in the playoffs.
Okayyyyyy.
Time is a flat circle.
Unfortunately Siakam had his best games of the series in Games 3-7 when the Pacers won 4 out of 5 and probably the biggest reason that occurred was because the Knicks didn’t have OG.
What are you talking about? He shot 57-108 for the series. If he shot 11-18 vs. OG then he shot 46/90 for the rest, so 51%.
Plus all his FTA came against non OG defenders, so the TS% gap would have been smaller. Then there’s the fact we went 1-4 without him…
OG scored 41 pts in the first 2 games of the series despite missing the 4th quarter in Game 2 after getting hurt but he didn’t do it by posting up Siakam so it didn’t matter.
The 2 games OG played, where everything was the same except OG vs Hart. Using the other games introduces differentiating factors you can’t control for.
Harping on the first 2 games of the series in which the Knicks won and OG outplayed Siakam is an interesting hill to die on especially considering how the rest of the series went after OG got hurt but hey at least takes like this make this site entertaining!
I always thought it would be nice to have him and Mitch and just gamble that they would take turns getting hurt
Small sample size theater?
Al, you’ve introduced like 12 straw man arguments since I provided evidence that OG did not “wreak havoc” covering PFs in the postseason.
I also like him in the free safety role but that has nothing to do with being a PF it’s just something you get to do when the other team starts Kelly Oubre, Tobias Harris, and the corpse of Kyle Lowry.
Hubert you really have a reading comprehension problem.
With a side of arbitrary endpoints to wash it down!
Nope, it was 100% of the minutes OG played Siakim (excl game 7 for obvious reasons) where only a single variable could be changed. A difference of 61% vs 25% on 34 shots is, in fact, a large enough sample to conclude that OG had unique problems defending Siakim.
It absolutely isn’t. A two game sample holds very little meaning in any basketball context, let alone to draw such a granular conclusion as this.
I don’t don’t know how much it matters but I’m glad Jalen is captain and helping to set the tone for this mostly new group. Getting the best out of a bunch of elite players when there are big (sensitive?) personalities and bullies on the team seems like it might be tricky. Whether it’s a big deal or not, at least it can’t hurt when your best guy and nominal leader is so damn committed and smart and even-tempered and ultra competitive.
KAT posted a pic of him giving a hug to Ewing and it looked like it was from practice today.
We had a C problem, but now Leon has brought in a all star C and… a HoF C (Ewing) !! 😀
I was already very optimistic about this season (if OG doesn’t have to defend Siakam, of course), but Leon made it even more perfect by bringing in my favorite player and one of the reasons i’m a Knicks fan! This is our time, i can feel it!
I think Ewing unfortunately doesn’t work as they are hard capped at the second apron.
CBS sports says the Knicks have shown “real internal interest” in (drumroll) Marcus Smart!
He probably played power forward for his east-texas high school team. Why not?
Why do we want Marcus Smart when our needs are on the wing and in the frontcourt, while we have about a half dozen point guards?
This management team seems to go after layers they think are good even if we already have other good players at the same position.
No way we are going after Marcus Smart. No way. Not at $20M AAV
Getting Smart would be, well, not smart. I’d honestly rather go with Deuce.
Marcus Dumb?
Marcus Frivolous?
Marcus Redundant?
Marcus Somewhat Intelligent?
Leon Smart.
I don’t get it, is there even a feasible trade for Marcus Smart that wouldn’t put them over the second apron (they are currently hard capped at the second apron following the Towns trade)?
Not saying whether it would be a good or bad idea (it would be a bad idea), but could it even feasibly be done? I am sure Memphis would trade him right now for Deuce, whatever pick the Knicks can still trade, and filler, but is that even possible?
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