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76 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2024.10.25)”
Didn’t watch the game but I have thoughts on this in general.
Raw +/- is largely meaningless. Sometimes people will say “they were -2 when he played and +10 when he sat” as if it’s some kind of indictment of the player. But what if you’re playing a team with a great starting lineup and a bad bench?
If you’re -2 against a lineup that’s normally +8, you’ve done a great job and you may have neutralized the other team’s best advantage.
Imagine if someone played the January Knicks last year and they were -2 against the Brunson-Donte-OG-Randle-Hartenstein group, and his backup was +8 against our bench. The absolutely wrong conclusion is “they played better without him” when he played to a draw against a lineup that was blowing people out by 20 pts.
Sometimes the hardest part of the game is playing other teams best units to a draw or a slight minus.
Bottom line… it was a bad trade… we’ll see it play out now… slowly and painfully
If KAT struggles tonight after Randle’s bravura performance last night, this site gonna blow up.
Yes it’s always best to make the judgment on these trades after 1 game. Great analysis
Randle is a good player. But we already knew that.
Edwards deep dive on the changes to Mikal’s shot, Mikal’s history of tweaking his form, why Thibs (and Edwards) aren’t worried about the current issues, etc: https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5869463/2024/10/25/mikal-bridges-knicks-shot-nba/?source=emp_shared_article
Yes, single game plus minus is a completely meaningless stat. I hate when people use it.
I don’t think we can accurately judge the trade after 1 game. But let’s not act like all three players don’t have a track record. KAT is who he is. He’s not going to change his game much at this stage in his career. Neither is Randle.
The question is: will Randle “at his best” be enough (if at all) worse than KAT to justify including DDV, who is on one of the best contracts in the NBA, in the trade?
Against many teams, the answer is probably yes. But against the very best teams? Particularly the Celtics?
I personally don’t think so. And I think some of that played into the ass-kicking we took the other night.
I think it was a reasonable strategic move, and one that opens up better possibilities in the future. KAT will maintain his trade value for the next couple of years, and positions the Knicks much better for a future trade of substance than keeping and extending Randle on a $40M AAV d3al would have. But in terms of the team on the floor this year, I see it as a more of lateral move at best.
Macri summed it up on his podcast. First, the Celts top 5 (six if you include KP) are switchable. We saw that when they were switching Jrue and White onto KAT with no real problem. Second, the idea that Mikal and OG are going to make up for the defensive weaknesses of KAT and Brunson does not hold water. Sure, the Celts aren’t going to shoot 60% from 3, but let’s not act like they can’t score in other ways. They are not the D’Antoni Rockets. All 5 starters are 3-level scorers with good size for their position. All five can rebound reasonably well for their position. Three of their starters are all-defense level and the other two are solid. There is no player that you can play off of. And when one of Tatum or Brown has it going, they are not going to be stopped by anyone. That’s why they are max players. Maybe somewhat overpaid, but still pretty legit.
The sheer math does not favor the Knicks. We need for them to be cold and for our guys to be hot to have any chance to win, and that’s just not promising heading into a 7-game series.
My feeling is that the only chance to beat them in the playoffs is for them to have bad injury luck. We just don’t match up.
Sorry if that sober take offends anyone, but it is what it is. Not that this is doom and gloom, though. We are probably going to have the most fun as fans that we’ve had since the Ewing days. Lots of deep playoff runs, and a legit chance to break through every year if enough things go right. And still under the second apron, meaning that this isn’t a finished product (the Celts pretty much are.) That’s good enough for me for now!
KAT still seems like he’s in shock*. We shouldn’t underestimate the human element of it. From his perspective, he just got fired from a job he loved and while he has to deal with the emotions surrounding that he also has to learn new teammates, a new system, and a new role. That’s a lot for a young man who seems like a highly sensitive person and has been bravely open about his mental health. It would not surprise me if we don’t see the true impact of this trade until next year, after he’s had an offseason to process everything.
All that to say is I’ve decided to withhold judgment on him til his second season. Especially after I admittedly overreacted to the opening tip of the season. (I watched it again yesterday and BBA was right: Horford simply stole it.)
* I’m basing that mostly on his media appearances, particularly the ones I keep seeing on instagram from his podcast episode with Josh & Jalen. And honestly Josh Hart seems still in shock, too. Yesterday he said with real remorse: “If Donte were still here, we could have been four musketeers for halloween.” That’s just one of the comments he’s made revealing a deep level of disappointment. Others have already mentioned “this is all Zay’s [Hartenstein] fault.”
I think all these guys are struggling to process this. And honestly Thibs is probably the unhappiest guy of the bunch! He’ll never come out and say it but he loved his team’s defense and now he’s got to start all over again. And it’s fucking KAT, not Kemba Walker, so it’s not like he can just bench him.
Randle had a great game, but it was a very close game between two above average Western Conference teams, neither of which come close to the Celtics. Plus, Sacto isn’t exactly a stalwart defensive team, especially after adding DeRozan.
But I will say, if Randle can maintain that excellent 3pt shooting, it will be a great trade for the Wolves.
I keep on saying this but if you’re upset with losing DDV then you should have been upset with the Bridges trade, not the KAT trade. Once we traded for Bridges, most of the minutes for DDV dried up. Assuming we didn’t make the KAT trade, and that the team is healthy, how many minutes was DDV going to play?
1) Randle is a good player who will have many good games for the Timberwolves, but they squeaked out a win against a play-in team at best .
2) Watching OKC last night, they should make the finals this year. Every player who gets playing time can defend and score. They are going to be a machine.
I simply brought it up last night because I glanced at the box score and was wondering if anyone watching the game noticed he was playing poorly on defense or something, sheesh…
If my mother had balls, she’d be my father. Randle shot 5-6 from three last night. He has shot 33% from 3 in 2232 attempts.
I am assuming improved shooting is HIGHLY unlikely.
Randle is an excellent player. It is a fair discussion to question whether KAT >/</= Randle plus DDV. Whether Randle's 3 ball is going to improve even to league average is possible, but not really a reasonable discussion.
“I keep on saying this but if you’re upset with losing DDV then you should have been upset with the Bridges trade, not the KAT trade.”
I do think we overpaid for Mikal. However once that trade was made, the team could be evaluated for what it was then. The question became: were we better post-Mikal and pre-KAT than we are post-KAT? I think it’s a very debatable question, and I personally would not have made the trade, nor am I happy that we did at this point. Still keeping an open mind, but would rather have not done it.
“Once we traded for Bridges, most of the minutes for DDV dried up. Assuming we didn’t make the KAT trade, and that the team is healthy, how many minutes was DDV going to play?”
He would have played 20+ minutes a night, and more when OG or someone eventually went down. And there was the anticipation of more minutes via some form of death lineup with Randle at the 5. I would like to have seen that before pulling the trigger on this trade.
Suggesting that DDV would somehow have been marginalized seems like an odd argument to me. He was a two-way player with good positional size and one of the best 3pt shooters in the NBA. He’d have a chance to be a 6MoY candidate. If anyone was going to get marginalized, it would have been Deuce or Hart. In fact, I think Hart would have been our most redundant player prior to the trade.
Very true Chicanery, but I thought it would have been Deuce who was the odd man out.
Do a minutes breakdown to show where they are coming from. DDV has played 3/4 of his minutes at 2 with most of the rest of his minutes at 3. He hasn’t played any significant 1 since his rookie year.
Fuck small sample size caveats!
Let’s take some absolute conclusions after the first three days of the season!
– No one talks about Donte’s decline after his 3-14 3FG in the first two games? He’s a scrub!
– We were used to have two mediocre defenders in our lineup, the difference is that now one of them is our presumed center, the fulcrum of Thibs’ defensive philosophy, instead of the power forward*, an higher task to counter, maybe an impossible one.
– If injuries don’t struck no one is close to the Celtics in the East, they’re two tiers above everyone else. In the West? Maybe OKC can compete with them.
– J-Hart is right, Benedict Hartenstein fucked our season.
– The Denver Nuggets are toasted.
– Wemby’s a fraud.
In which of the above statements I truly believe? It’s yours to guess! 😀
* Hachimura’s comments about Julius’ defense after the first game were maybe too candid, but not exactly a novelty.
IMO, Leon made this move not so much because he fully believed it would take us to the next level but more out of necessity because iHart left. This is where Hart’s comments are correct.
Leon blew the picks on Mikal. The idea was to add Mikal to the January Knicks and then Mitch would come back at some point and we’d have the best defense in the NBA with plenty of offensive fire power to compete with anyone.
Then OKC made a truly ridiculous offer to iHart. I think if OKC offers him 20 million vs. 30 million, iHart declines.
So now we lost our starting center and it’s clear Mitch isn’t coming back for awhile. Our strength from the beginning of last season is now a huge weakness.
Throw in Randle’s unwillingness to sign a team friendly extension again and I think Leon felt he had to make this move. Yes, on paper KAT at the 5 is an upgrade and the potential long term ceiling could be higher But I think if iHart comes back, Leon is willing to let it ride and deal with Randle’s extension in the summer (by either giving him one or engineering some sort of sign and trade).
His hand was kind of forced.
But guys, seriously. Boston is like REALLY good. And it was ring night and we literally have a completely new starting 5. It’s ok. And it will be ok if we lose to the Pacers and Cleveland too.
If we’re 5 or 6 games under 500 20 games into the season, then we worry. But if we’re 500ish the first 20 games, we’ll be fine. Thibs always figures it out.
That being said, KAT is going to have to show something, especially at home games.
For all the talk about Mikal’s shot, the thing I’ll be watching more closely tonight is his POA defense. He was awful in the first game. Mikal being a good POA defender is the main reason they felt they needed to upgrade from Donte. It’s just one game, and guarding Tatum is not easy – and probably should not have been his assignment – but it is something to watch. I assume he will be on Haliburton tonight with OG on Siakam, and I hope we see a bit of a rebound.
I don’t buy that Leon was surprised at IHart leaving. The reports about IHart being likely to leave came out like 15 minutes after the Mikal trade was announced.
The KAT trade was likely triggered by Mitch’s recovery not really progressing, and by whatever extension talks they may have had with Julius showing that he would be unlikely to stay in the team beyond this year. They traded contract uncertainty for contract certainty and to fill a position of need, and DDV was the cost of it.
I also thought his defense was a lot more worrying. It was bad. He needs to get over screens, especially with Sims and KAT dropping deep.
I was skeptical about his defensive value when we signed him, but even this was abysmal compared to what I expected.
I never said he was surprised. I guess I mean he was hoping iHart would stay and thought the odds were decent unless someone made a truly ridiculous offer, which someone did. I think this was plan B.
I guess you could argue then he shouldn’t have traded for Mikal, which is valid. But I think he wanted the two amazing wing defenders with iHart and Mitch as the centers, DDV and McBride and Hart off the bench. It would have been glorious. Sigh.
I’ve been pushing the idea that you can get away with one weak defender on the court, but with more than one defender it has a compounding effect. In other words -1 + -1 does not equal -2. It equals -3.
That may be especially true when the two -1 players are your PG and C because the opposing team can create a lot of mismatches.
I think we have to acknowledge that we have some issues on defense, but we also had some issues on defense with Randle. However, imo our offense will take a noticeable step forward. So on a net basis we should be better once the chemistry improves.
We’ll see what Thibs does on the defensive side. He may make some strategic adjustments or we may eventually play Mitch or Towns and Mitch together against certain matchups. I don’t think panic is in order.
As far as Boston goes, they were one of the all time great NBA teams last year. We have to stop comparing ourselves to them. It’s going to be hard for anyone to be better than them. What we have to hope is that Holiday and Horford start slowing down given their age and that we can at least narrow the gap enough to be in a position to pull off an upset, if not this year, then maybe going forward.
I think Mikal’s defense is very good when he focuses on that side of the ball. It seemed like last year and in his run the previous year with the Nets it took a noticeable step backwards, but I thought that was because the team sucked. He didn’t care as much and he was being asked to take on a much bigger role on offense. He’s still a young guy and hasn’t had any injuries we can use as a reason he might have slowed down. I think he’ll be fine.
C: Mitch24 Precious 16 Randle 8
PF: Randle 26 OG 14 Hart 8
SF: OG 16 Hart 20 Mikal 12
SG: Mikal 20 DDV 24 Deuce 4
PG: Brunson 34 Deuce 14
Total minutes:
Randle 34
Brunson 34
Mikal 32
OG 30
Hart 28
Mitch 24
DDV 24
Deuce 18
Precious 16
It should be noted that Leon did NOT want to include Donte in the trade. It was insisted upon by Minny, for good reason.
“However, imo our offense will take a noticeable step forward.”
I guess this is where I disagree. I don’t think our offense is any better, and may in fact be worse.
“As far as Boston goes, they were one of the all time great NBA teams last year. We have to stop comparing ourselves to them. It’s going to be hard for anyone to be better than them. What we have to hope is that Holiday and Horford start slowing down given their age and that we can at least narrow the gap enough to be in a position to pull off an upset, if not this year, then maybe going forward.”
No one is panicking, but they are in fact the measuring stick, much like the Jordan Bulls were the measuring stick in the 1990’s. It really comes down to them being the main obstacles in the path to the finals, and it feels a lot like the LeBron roadblock. Waiting for players like Jrue to age out is a fool’s errand.
The question is if we didn’t get Mikal would Minny have accepted a Randle, Mitch plus picks trade for KAT?
I think it’s debatable. DDV was the true get for them and they aren’t trying to rebuild with a lot of late first round picks. Although I guess if we threw like 4 or 5 of them at them like we did with the Nets for Mikal it might have been hard for them to say no. But they would have no use for Mitch, especially still injured.
So I don’t know if they do that deal regardless of whether we got Mikal and blew our picks or not.
Or should we have just bitten the bullet and dealt with Ainge and overpaid for Kessler with a bunch of picks?
The most annoying part of the iHart leaving is that OKC doesn’t even need him. It’s such a turning point for this franchise.
I think the offense will be better – specifically, that they will have a better ORtg. But I also think the shape of the offense will change, and so it will be better in more conventional ways (by being more efficient rather than winning possession battles). And perhaps that different shape will be more useful in the playoffs, when teams can at times take away some of the rebounding advantages that the Knicks had. The half court offense was painfully difficult both against the Sixers and the Pacers.
According to Shams Minny had no interest in Mitch. Maybe they make the deal if you include some unprotected 1st, but that would be an overpay and leaves the Knicks without any rim protection in the near future.
This season is all about Thibs. Everything we need this team to be starts with him. He’s got a tough enough task, even without taking into consideration some of the solutions may be outside his current comfort zone. I think he will eventually succeed but foresee some rocky patches and perhaps a casualty or two along the way. I am going to reserve judgment until about January.
This is irritating. It was obvious to me months before the end of the season that iHart’s market would be a lot more than we could afford. I was beating the drum that he was as good as gone and every response was polyanna-ish gaslighting. DPOY level defenders who are pluses on offense are REALLY valuable! iHart was 2nd in DEPM and 5th in EPM! Guys like Quickley and Jalen Suggs are worth $30M plus in today’s league. There was simply no universe in which we were keeping him at ~$17M. None.
https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/41982945/how-revamped-new-york-knicks-unlock-new-levels-jalen-brunson-game
Wealth inequality in the NBA works much like it does in the real world. When Ducati gives away free motorcycles it gives them to George Clooney and Brad Pitt, not some douchebag who needs a motorcycle. Teams that our asset billionaires can take our stuff even if they don’t value it nearly as highly.
Yeah, the iHart thing sucked but it was inevitable.
Look, Leon built the pre-Mikal team by, as JK47 et. al. repeatedly put it, being very risk-averse. But, as TNFH et. al. often said, the clock on the second apron was ticking. I don’t blame Leon one bit for feeling like it was now or never in terms of making the big, bold swings. I also don’t dispute anyone who says that waiting around would possibly backfire as Randle might have left for nothing or become a negative asset on a bloated contract. And in standing pat, the team simply was not going to compete with the C’s.
While I have my concerns about KAT, I can squint and see a world where he gets into top shape, becomes a better defender and iso scorer, and overperforms my current expectations. I can also squint and see a world where Mikal blossoms into a 2-way star, maybe not on Tatum or Brown’s level but close, and on a bargain contract. So I can see a rose-colored scenario unfolding.
But the guy who kind of rankles me is Josh Hart. My Celtics fanatic friend compares him to Marcus Smart’s role on the pre-Jrue C’s, and I think the comparison has validity. Hart is a guy that is just good enough for both Thibs and fans to love him, but who has some major warts that can be very costly at critical times. And I think that the next logical move is to replace Hart with a better, more consistent player, the way the Celts replaced Smart with Jrue. The problem is that a) Jrue’s don’t come along every day, nor are they affordable when they do come along, especially when you don’t have any first rounders; and b) we need more of a stud 2-way forward, and those guys are also really to find at the price we can play.
But I do think that ultimately the answer for us is to package Hart with any of Mitch, Precious, and the rookies to make our top-6 more competitive with the Celts, Thunder, and maybe some others. You might have to consider including Deuce if it’s for the right player. More generally, I think we’re still one move away unless maybe Dadiet unexpectedly becomes a total stud.
From that ESPN Story
This is dumb revisionism.
Bill Simmons mentioned something on his podcast I’ve been unwilling to say out loud: Ben Simmons would be a great flier for this team.
Bill doesn’t seem to understand the buyout rules, though. We can’t get him this year. Would have to work out a MLE type deal next year.
I don’t think anyone should be surprised that MIkal’s defense has been underwhelming. He hasn’t been great defensively since PHX, years ago. I wonder if his dedication to the whole iron man thing hasn’t induced him to play through injuries to his detriment.
In any case, there’s no evidence from the last couple of years that he’s a significantly better defender than, say, Hart. I put a lot of stock in DEPM because of all the defensive metrics, it hardly ever produces results that fail the laugh test. It had Mikal 104th last season. For comparison:
2nd iHart
6th OG
25th Mitch
~90th Hart (don’t remember exactly)
195th KAT
200th or so Randle
256th DDV
270th or so Brunson
Mikal is better than our bad defenders, but not close to guys like OG, Caruso, Suggs, etc.
We seem to be coming around to the realization that he was nowhere near the price paid, and we’d be much much better off having stuck with DDV and kept our picks.
How the hell is it revisionism? It’s exactly what happened and my line on iHart was 100% consistent between then and now that he had all-star level value and was worth far more than ~$20m.
Revisionism is the idea that OKC’s offer was some kind of outlier and us retaining him was ever reasonably possible. Some other team would have ponied up if guys like Claxton were getting $25M.
Everybody except E was worried Hartenstein had priced himself out of our range. We didn’t all agree, but had discussed it all year.
One of my first reactions to us signing Hartenstein 2 years ago was that we wouldn’t be able to afford him with only our early Bird rights.
Get over yourself. You didn’t invent pessimism, you invented a myth of KBer Pollyanna-ism.
My strongest opinion on the 2024-2025 Knicks so far is they should’ve taken more care to avoid scheduling games that overlap with the World Series. For everything else…just need more data.
The very, very early returns on Mikal have been quite underwhelming compared to the price we paid. It’s certainly not out of the question that the trade doesn’t age well–we need him to be a bona fide shot creator and disruptive POA + wing defender. It’s a tall order and he’s supposed to be one of the relatively few NBA players who can meet it.
But it is just never really wise to draw sweeping conclusions after game 1.
I agree with Z-man’s take on Hart. If the goal is a thoroughly modern offense, then he’s kind of standing in the way of that.
Maybe he can still thrive as a Jack-of-all-trades bench guy, but we should, in theory, have six guys who play before him who can shoot.
It think it’s obvious that Deuce is moving up the food chain and even Precious is showing signs of having worked on his shot. This is still a far cry from what the Celtics have, but it’s a solid start, and maybe one of the rookies can make a big leap by next year to fill one of those roles. We’ll see.
I guess my subtext here is that we are still a longer term project. In 2 or 3 years we might be in a much better position with more continuity, more seasoned rookies, and Jrue and Horford aging out. But we also have to hope that young teams like Orlando don’t leapfrog us.
Yeah, ess…not panicking that we fucked up, just that we are clearly not as good as the C’s yet. In order to make the finals in the next 2 years, either a) Leon needs to make another plus move, b) some players have to unexpectedly over-perform, or c) we have to get lucky with injuries. Maybe a, b, and c all need to happen.
But whatever happens, this is the best sustainable team situation we have had since the ’90s. Even if we top out as something less than NBA champions, it’s a great place to be. Think of the great teams from the 80’s and 90’s that just fell a bit short…Knicks, Sonics, Jazz, Blazers, Pacers, Hawks, Bucks…just to be back in that class again is pretty awesome! And who knows? You gotta be in it to win it!
after the pacers tonight we have the cavs on monday…challenging start to the season…
I’m going to go even smaller sample size on Bridges and focus on his 3rd quarter, where he scored in a variety of ways – taking it to the basket, pull up jumpers and 3 point shots.
He does need to pick it up a notch on D, especially fighting over screens. But I’m not gonna judge him based on the Celtics game, if they missed a normal number of 3’s we probably wouldn’t even be talking about it.
We gave up 5 first round picks and 3 of our 8 best players to compete for a title during Boston’s window. We absolutely must compare ourselves to them. Admittedly not on night 1, but they are the benchmark.
We easily could have (and perhaps should have) just brought everyone back and taken this defeatist attitude today while remaining loaded to make moves when they begin to decline. But Leon in his infinite wisdom decided to go all in against 4-of-a-kind.
I’m going to organize some thoughts on this and get some more data before proverbially running off with the proverbial mouth.
That said, there are some easy ones that have essentially no chance of being changed (or wrong) and one of those is that they badly overpaid in aggregate for the three new big pieces. They didn’t just pay retail, they paid luxury retail.
No conclusion or implication beyond that is made or intended.
I’m not sure how anyone can think that.
1. Towns is a more efficient scorer than Randle even though they score in different ways.
2. DDV is a better 3 point shooter than Bridges, but Bridges is the better all around more versatile scorer.
3. The spacing is going to be way better.
4. The P&R and P & Pop chemistry between Brunson and Towns already looks promising.
People forget that the championship Bulls teams reinvented themselves a couple of times. They lost BJ Armstrong, Horace Grant and Cartwright. Kukoc, Kerr, Harper and Rodman came later. They successfully navigated those changes, but that doesn’t mean the Celtics will.
Age is a factor.
They have two key pieces on the downside even if both seem to still have something left. Take away Horford and when Holiday loses a step on defense (which he will soon) we are right there with them even without any rookie upsides or trades that improve us.
Our goal should be to be put together as good a team as we possibly can and not worry about Boston, OKC and Dallas etc…
Shit happens every season. Players have down years. Players get hurt. Salaries get so oppressive teams allow key role players to leave. There are upsets.
Denver looked incredible when they won the championship. Now the supporting cast is suspect and I’m not even sure they are still a top 3 team in the west. Things will change, including NY making more moves or getting an upside jump from someone.
We are very close to having a good enough team to beat anyone even if they are still a bit better.
If you thought that heading into the off-season Leon and the Knicks should go all in around their tent pole superstar Jalen Bronson you should probably not criticize them for going all in. Did they get the right mix of guys? I guess we’ll see, but they broadly did what you wanted
“1. Towns is a more efficient scorer than Randle even though they score in different ways.”
Yeah, but he’s a different kind of scorer. I think Randle’s physicality and creating ability is going to be sorely missed, and KAT’s accuracy from 3 will be less impactful, especially given the loss of DDV to get him.
“2. DDV is a better 3 point shooter than Bridges, but Bridges is the better all around more versatile scorer.”
Yeah, but the “pull up from anywhere” threat is super-valuable…see GSW and Klay Thompson. Neither KAT nor Bridges gives you that.
“3. The spacing is going to be way better.”
Against a lot of teams, this will be true. But against elite defenses, having two guys you absolutely have to double-team is critical. Randle was one of those kinds of guys. Now, no one other than Brunson is that guy, and even he can be somewhat contained by elite defensive length.
“4. The P&R and P & Pop chemistry between Brunson and Towns already looks promising.”
I’m not buying it until it becomes a defense-bending force against elite defensive teams. And even then, let’s see how the Towns-Brunson tandem defends against other PG-C P&R and P & pop combos, like Jrue/White and KP/Horford, or Maxey and Embiid, or Dame and Giannis, or Shai and Chet, or Hailburton and Turner, or Murray and Jokic.
This team just isn’t going to be quite the same kind of team as the team we had last year, and it’s probably worth waiting a minute to see if it’s going to pan out into something better. The platonic ideal version of this team beats you with high eFG%, quality volume 3-point shooting, and enough defense to compete on the other end. It may take a healthy(ish) Mitch to really unlock that potential, but a Brunson-Bridges-OG-KAT-Mitch lineup, with Hart, McBride, Achiuwa, and Payne/Kolek as the key bench pieces would probably do a fair amount of damage.
That’s how I see the team in the long term– KAT at the 4, Mitch playing drop defense at the 5. Four good shooters on the offensive end, and three strong defenders plus a very tall guy on the defensive end. Plenty of flexibility with the talented two-way wings and Towns being able to play multiple positions. Enough quality to throw plenty of different looks at opponents. Jericho Sims anchored to the bench.
Marc Stein
@TheSteinLine
Yeah, but we’re not going to do that.
“That’s how I see the team in the long term– KAT at the 4, Mitch playing drop defense at the 5. Four good shooters on the offensive end, and three strong defenders plus a very tall guy on the defensive end. Plenty of flexibility with the talented two-way wings and Towns being able to play multiple positions. Enough quality to throw plenty of different looks at opponents. Jericho Sims anchored to the bench.”
I largely saw this as the best path as well, but met considerable resistance here from folks who believe that KAT is more effective as a 5 than a 4.
Even so, when you play Mitch at the 5 (if he ever gets healthy) you lose the 5-out look in a major way, and you further marginalize Hart, which I’ll believe Thibs will do that when I see it. That’s why I see Mitch + Hart’s salary as the pivotal pieces for a better starting big to put on the floor with KAT. Not that Leon should do that right away, or even this year, but ultimately that might be what has to happen, especially if the rookies develop.
That’s what I immediately thought after the trade, but was convinced by everyone that KAT was acquired to play center. I think by the time Mitch comes back we’ll have had enough of KAT as a 5 (and the Knicks will be saying the plan all along was to have him as a 4).
You wonder how that works against the Celtics, though. Can Towns guard Jayson Tatum?
Any NBA podcast enjoyers here? I listen to quite a few and wonder if I’m missing anything.
I like Bill Simmons a lot, despite the unfortunate fact that he’s a Boston guy. He always elevates his guests (like Russilo, who I find totally loathsome on his own); only real downside is when he monologues or talks NFL / MMA bullshit.
Mismatch was probably my #2 NBA pod but Kevin O’Connor moved to Yahoo and it feels very different this season. It wasn’t always THAT great to begin with, but I enjoyed the interplay between KOC and Chris Vernon.
Six Trophies has grown on me a lot; I find Jason Concepcion to be fucking hilarious but he is definitely not for everybody.
Zach Lowe can be good situationally but it often depends on the guests / topics.
Not a fan of the Ringer NBA show though I often am fine with those guys as guests on Simmons… on their own, meh.
Old Man and the Three was terrible with Redick, they’re rebooting it with an Obama guest spot which is … sort of intriguing? Probably still garbage!
Anything I should check out? Not really keen on Knicks-focused pods… I hate having spoilers in my podcast feed since I like to watch after the fact a lot.
Thinking Basketball is worth checking out. Ben Taylor seems like a genuinely smart guy who watches a ton of basketball and can have some good insights. The problem is neither him nor his co-host are particularly charismatic.
Apparently KAT did a decent job on Durant, but maybe that’s overblown. So Tatum is kinda that kind of player and if KAT can get a bit lighter on his feet, maybe he can use his length to mitigate his lack of lateral quickness. At the end of the day, Tatum is pretty much unguardable one-on-one when he gets it going, so why waste an elite wing defender on him? The key is to keep the other guys from going off.
The Celtics and Wolves went to OT both times they had KAT available last year. I don’t know who guarded whom but Tatum went off in both games. (Gobert didn’t play one of the games, so I’d guess Karl played Center for at least a good chunk of that one)
You can’t punt 3 years until Boston declines just because they look unbeatable, especially when you have Brunson in his prime. Shit happens in the NBA, and dynasties are not pre-ordained. If you have the right personnel, you need to put yourself in the best position to contend. Morey at the Rockets didn’t punt because arguably the best team ever was in their conference.
I second Thinking Basketball as very insightful and also as very difficult to listen to at times.
Vecenie’s Game Theory Podcast has been my go-to.
G-League draft speculation!
Dunc’d on Basketball and Knicks Film School are 2 good ones.
Dunc’d on gives you a nice broad coverage of the league, but nate duncan is a blowhard and danny leroux hedges everything he says like 4 different ways. They do have some interesting guests sometimes, definitely worth a listen to see if you like it more than I do.
There’s an abyss between punting and trading every asset that isn’t nailed to the floor, and it’s ludicrous to suggest the Knicks somehow would’ve been punting on this season if they didn’t give up five picks for Mikal Bridges.
The Rockets competed during the Warriors era but they never sold out to do so. They stole James Harden and Chris Paul.
We traded the farm. And in so doing we made the Celtics the benchmark. If we’re two tiers below them now, that’s a real problem, not something to casually brush off.
Brother you wanted to trade 6 firsts and McBride for Bridges. Some shittier picks, but a more valuable rotation player. The Knicks more or less did what you wanted, give it a half season.
one huge positive – we are a very living in the moment group…reflecting briefly on the past, bit of contemplation for the future…
feeling ever every game/quarter/possession to the max…
yep, and here we go with game 2 of the nba season – not an easy task, particularly for a group of new-to-each-other players against a team that can get up and down the court, with a few real good starters, and a few more real good role players…
and to make matters more scintillating – game one of the most important games in the last decade and a half for the yanks…
medication time…
Thank you Nurse Ratchet! I should start listening to this in the morning before I take my own.
Bizarrely, it sounds like that while that is definitely true (that Minny insisted on Donte, the Knicks weren’t initially willing to do so), it was the Detroit fake first that was the final stumbling point. The Knicks had apparently agreed to Randle and Donte a week or so before the deal got done, but Minny insisted on the Detroit fake first, as well, and the Knicks finally gave it.
Who would have ever thought that that pick would have been a sticking point?!
howdy g-man…been thinking of you…beautiful soundtrack, listening to it now, like bluegrass stuff…
i listen to a bunch of slow instrumental music…lots of ocean waves, babbling brooks, waterfall – slow beaches are just the bomb…like a soft metronome…
i have one of those bamboo waterfall things (saw it in kill bill), i know it probably drives the neighbors crazy…got some of those singing bowls too, don’t use them as frequently as i probably should…
birds are cool too, particularly the rain forest ones…
real is always better…
green noise works well also…ha, i keep fans on all the time around me…hadn’t really thought about why i do that…
getting from point a to point b in the most pleasant way possible, at times 🙂
I’m hanging in there Geo. Next Wednesday is the big day for me. I’m just trying to relax and think positive thoughts.
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