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[New York Post] – Mon, 04 Nov 2024 00:28:00 GMT
- Knicks expected to be in mix for Giannis Antetokounmpo sweepstakes
- Why Giannis Antetokounmpo’s Bucks future is being called into question amid ugly start: ‘Teams are circling’
- NBA Rumors: Knicks, Nets linked to potential Giannis trade, but is either realistic?
- Warriors linked to disgruntled superstar in latest insider report
- What becomes of Damian Lillard if Giannis Antetokounmpo’s future with Bucks is in doubt?
[New York Post] – Mon, 04 Nov 2024 00:11:00 GMT
Jalen Brunsons return to Houston a reminder of Knicks referee qualms
[Posting and Toasting] – Sun, 03 Nov 2024 11:30:00 GMT
Knicks Bulletin: My dad wouldnt start me, made me the sixth man
[Sports Illustrated] – Sun, 03 Nov 2024 22:00:00 GMT
New York Knicks Legend’s Son Described Dad’s Career in One Word
[Empire Sports Media] – Sun, 03 Nov 2024 19:52:10 GMT
Knicks backup point guard nicked up with new injury
[Empire Sports Media] – Sun, 03 Nov 2024 16:44:47 GMT
Knicks injured center throws shade at Joel Embiid
[Daily Knicks] – Sun, 03 Nov 2024 13:00:00 GMT
- Proposed trade for center would set Knicks back with key bench subtractions
- Knicks predicted to trade for $48 million former Celtics big man
- The clock is ticking on ideal Knicks trade target to relieve pressure on KAT
- Knicks Trade Pitch Moves McBride and More for $30 Million Center
- Knicks Eye Walker Kessler Amid Center Depth Issues and Trades
[The Athletic] – Mon, 04 Nov 2024 09:06:17 GMT
Knicks share origins of free-throw routines: I was watching Kobe
[Yahoo Sports] – Mon, 04 Nov 2024 08:34:12 GMT
- Knicks vs. Rockets: Start time, where to watch, what’s the latest
- Houston Rockets vs NY Knicks Prediction 11-4-24 NBA Picks | Sports Chat Place
- Top Player Prop Bets for Knicks vs. Rockets on November 4, 2024
- Rockets play the Knicks for cross-conference game
- Knicks feeling their way entering clash with inconsistent Rockets
[Sporting News] – Sun, 03 Nov 2024 14:38:13 GMT
Former Knicks lottery pick putting up All-Star numbers with new team
70 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2024.11.04)”
I get that they are ageing but the Bucks were an elite team last year until they replaced their coach. To get back to being a good team, wouldn’t it be simpler to fire Doc and see what happens rather than do a tear down?
It’s been hard to get a good feel for this team, and for the NBA in general, due to the weird opening schedule. That Celtics debacle seems like ages ago and we’ve only played 5 games. Plus the distractions of the WS and the election.
The schedule seems rather soft until around Thanksgiving and even beyond that. I would expect our record to be something like 21-10 by New Year’s.
A defining stretch of the season is from late January to mid-March, starting with a homestand vs. SAC, MEM, DEN, and LAL. Then there’s a stretch when we play BOS, IND, ATL, CHI, CLE, BOS, PHI, MEM, MIA, GSW, LAL, LAC, and SAC. Then there’s a rather stacked closing couple of weeks to end the season: PHI, CLE, ATL, PHX, BOS, DET, CLE, BKN.
It’s kind of weird to look at the schedule right from the start of the season and to see so many scheduled wins. Last year we started off 2-4, Randle was horrific, and our starting lineup only had Brunson from our current team. Then we went on a 10-3 run and all seemed well with the world. Who knew then that the team would be completely overhauled in less than a year’s time?
I am wondering about several teams that might gel as the season goes on. Can teams like the Hawks, Bulls, and Raptors become more competitive? Their rotations when healthy seem pretty good.
That would be pretty awesome. Especially if we get a Mitch bump in January.
It doesn’t seem like we have the goods to make an impact trade this winter without taking away a core piece of the team. But there’s a good chance Mitch will do for us what previous midseason additions Derrick Rose, Josh Hart, and OG Anunoby did.
Towns’ defense has been fine. It’s not a championship caliber D with him as the only big but he’s not a zero, either. If he was the second big next to Mitch, with Bridges* and OG on the wings, that has the makings of a dominant defense.
The ability to switch between Mitch and Hart depending on the matchup will be awesome. If the Celtics are going 5 out and pulling Mitch away from the rim, or the Pacers are running so fast Mitch can’t keep up, you go with Hart. If you’re facing the Orlando Magic or the Cleveland Cavaliers and you don’t want to get killed on the boards, you go with Mitch.
Then we just have to pray Mitch doesn’t get hurt again.
* I am actually more concerned with Bridges’ defense than Towns’. This has not been what I expected.
Kolek time!
What the heck is the NBA doing tonight? All 30 teams are playing, which is very cool. But none of the 15 games start at the same time: the first game (Bucks@Cavaliers) starts at 7:00, and then every 15 minutes another game starts until 10:30 is reached (Spurs@Clippers).
I do play NBA DFS pretty often, but I don’t play the way that most people play, which is to update their lineups over the course of the night at each new game-start window. This will drive them crazy. Maybe that’s the point.
“* I am actually more concerned with Bridges’ defense than Towns’. This has not been what I expected.”
I am not worried one iota about Mikal’s D, it’s a proven commodity and he is healthy and in his prime.
As to Towns, he’s certainly on track for answering all my questions about him affirmatively. Obviously the TS% will stabilize when he stops shooting 60% from 3, but the chemistry with Brunson (who will also stabilize towards his mean) has been outstanding. He’s the best defensive rebounder in the NBA (ending possessions is part of D) and his offensive rebounding has also been very good. He’s kinda doing a Jokic impression on D…meaning that it’s better than his rep would suggest..but the issues in rim protection and team defense away from the basket are very real. He was pretty meh vs. two of our main obstacles on the way to the finals (BOS and CLE) so I’m not going to go overboard with his performances vs. MIA and IND and especially DET. But the team seems to be gelling and he’s been very aggressive and physical on both ends in the wins. I’m definitely looking forward to seeing how he plays vs. Embiid, both without and with Mitch, and even with Precious, who is a better rim protector than Sims.
Meanwhile Julius Randle is sporting a .698 TS%, and RJ Barrett has a 5.7 OBPM.
Other fun facts:
-Buddy Hield and Tari Eason are #2 and #3 in BPM, both in double digits.
-OKC has 4 players in the top 10 of DBPM (Chet, Caruso, SGA, and Cason)
Clyde was asked about his Knicks Mount Rushmore, he mentioned the obvious big 3 with himself, Willis and Ewing. He debated the 4th pick between Melo, BK and a couple of his other teammates before settling on Melo.
Who should be the 4th face on a Knicks Mount Rushmore along with the obvious Top 3?
Jalen Brunson is him.
[I mean, it probably is Melo. I just have such sour feelings about his entire tenure. Maybe make it three guys from the championship teams — DeBuscchere? — plus Ewing?]
We won that last game so handliy I didn’t even realie Cam got hurt
Bernard
First step of a multi-step process. They have to add another player to a standard contract by tomorrow, but it doesn’t have to be guaranteed. So they could sign a scrub to a minimum contract for two weeks, cut him, and then hope Shamet is healed and ready to go before they are obligated to sign a 14th player again two weeks after the first guy is cut. And in the meantime, Matt Ryan will almost certainly take Hukporti’s spot as our third two-way player, along with Jacob Toppin and McCullar Jr.
Feel like this is Payne’s injury forcing our hand a bit earlier than expected. I think we had a couple more days to sign someone but we have almost zero depth right now. I’m assuming the Matt Ryan news follows shortly and that he suits up tonight.
I mean, there’s a chance they sign TJ Warren to the fill-in spot, and he plays well enough to scotch the Landry Shamet plan? We definitely need bodies — specifically, bodies that Thibs might actually play.
Apparently, I was wrong that they have to keep the 14th man signed for two weeks before they can cut him again. They can either do it after 24 hours, but possibly after three days, and then that restarts the clock for another two weeks before they have to sign somebody. And even then, we don’t have to be married to that player. We just need to have 14 players on the roster at all times for the rest of the season.
I suspect we’ll keep a couple days on the books in case we somehow manage a consolidation trade or two.
Oh boy.
Hope Pop is okay. I have great admiration for him.
If I remember correctly, even though it’s a 2-year we retain Hukporti’s full bird rights because we drafted him, right? In other words, there’s no iHart scenario here…
Pop is 75. I can’t imagine getting out of bed at 75, much less coaching an NBA franchise. Hoping he’s okay. As with Z-Man, huge admiration.
My Dad is 91 and still largely takes care of himself—I can’t imagine it, either. Neither one of us is coaching an NBA franchise.
As always, click and read Begley: https://sny.tv/articles/knicks-notes-karl-anthony-towns-more-involved-roster-moves
There’s a scenario in which Embiid and George come back healthy and we forget about it. But it does look like Philly will have issues this year, and Embiid’s knee barking this early in the season cannot be good. Maxey also has had an awful start to the season.
Thanks for the Begley bit, Alan. It is reiterated by an Edwards breakdown of Jalen in the Miami game. I’ve tended to ding Jalen a bit for not being a ‘classic’ point guard with great gobs of assists, which I admit is the lazy man’s measure. But this article nicely highlights how he does all kinds of subtle things to get the team and his teammates in position to be successful.
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5886686/2024/10/31/jalen-brunson-knicks-heat-observation/
Is it, though?
If there were statistics that proved Mikal was an excellent defender, I would not be concerned.
But I’m pretty sure the statistics have always pointed to an overrated defender, and the eye test so far is backing that up.
[Early Bird, I’m tagging you in. Please tell us what the AIOs say about Mikal’s defense.]
https://x.com/TommyBeer/status/1853481600001921095?s=19
Knicks starters absolutely dominating since the Celtics debacle.
Bernard > Carmelo but I think that’s Jalen Brunson’s spot already.
AIOs with a box score component like Mikal less than DRAPM and other pure +/- metrics. Not sure why, but my guess is that Mikal is not much of a rebounder for his position, which depresses his box score rating, heavily weighted as it is to defensive rebounding.
You can see that here:
https://nbarapm-flask.replit.app/player/Mikal%20Bridges
The most relevant data point to look at, in my opinion, is his DRAPM (which still captures a player’s defensive productivity best at the cost of, inter alia, explanatoriness and a high degree of noise in small samples) from his Phoenix days, which matches his role on this team most. There, his DRAPM was very good—roughly
top 50. His defensive productivity took a hit when he was traded to Brooklyn, likely because he had to carry the offense. He may have always been a tad overrated—none of the AIOs think that he’s a DPOY candidate, which is what pundits have sometimes claimed—but in the right role he’s a very good defensive player and in my view a great complement to OG.
Carl Braun should get a few votes. He was the best player on a team that made 3 straight finals appearances.
Allan Houston is the Knicks 4th leading scorer all-time behind only the obvious Top 3.
Most the AIOs have Mikal as a slightly above average defender, not an elite one. DARKO has him as a negative. They pretty much all agree that his defensive value peaked several years ago and has been dropping ever since.
Looking through the AIOs, I think this pattern is somewhat common. Player comes into the league with great athleticism. Player relies solely on athletic gifts. Player is labeled a great defender. Athleticism fades and skill/awareness doesn’t increase. People don’t notice and player retains defensive rep. People think Dejounte Murray is still good at defense.
I suspect this happened to Bridges. He’s not an elite athlete but has enough length that he didn’t need to go beyond his natural instincts. Could also be an increased focus on offense.
All the caveats everyone already knows apply.
The answer to this is dead simple. David Lee.
How about Al Harrington!
I’ve watched some film breakdown of Mikal’s D. Most of the positives involve:
-ability to defend without fouling
-ability to cover ground…he is routinely among the leaders in distance covered on defense per game
-ability to get skinny around screens
-ability to keep ball-side arm up
-amount of time guarding opponent’s best offensive player
-transition defense
I think there are probably some adjustments going on, team defense is probably something that takes time to sort out. His defensive rep is well-earned and there’s no physical reason to believe that he’s fallen off.
That’s interesting, Alecto. I looked up some random wings on DRAPM and so far have found it to be wildly inconsistent.
Take OG’s rankings, for instance:
’24 – 5th
’23 – 156th
’22 – 100th
’21 – 19th
’20 – 256th
’19 – 172nd
Donte was ranked 21st once, and in the top 100 2 other times, before seeming to quit on defense and slip into the 300s for three consecutive years.
It only ranks 2 of Bridges’ 6 seasons highly and actually has half of them outside the top 200.
Josh Hart’s range is as wide as his shooting % (as high as 40th & as low as 458th).
I would not expect that much variance from wing defenders year to year.
It does consistently have RJ Barrett ranked in the 500s, though, I gotta give it credit for that.
Not clear if it’s with the two-way slot Huk vacated (my guess) or a non-guaranteed traditional spot, but looking forward to the Novak flashbacks.
It has to be the two-way spot, I think, Noble, if only because it’s a loophole that allows us to have Ryan and Shamet — or Ryan and another veteran, if the team decides Shamet can’t be waited on any longer.
Though there is also this option, which might be the most streamlined and would, I think, give Ryan a bit more money:
Seems to me that DRAPM does not really pass the smell test. It ranks SGA as consistently one of the lousier defensive players in the NBA (e.g. much worse than Jalen Brunson), while it has Nurkic as a better defensive center than iHart.
Individual defensive is just very tough to measure. I think it takes studying game film on a very intensive level to truly understand an individual’s defensive ability, and even then, one has to know what a player does compared to what his role is in the coach’s defensive game plan. There is also the degree to which an opposing offense specifically targets an individual defender in their offensive game plan, and the adjustments teams make that might create imbalances that impact other teammates.
Mikal may not be an all-NBA defender, but he’s very, very good. His defense should be among the least of our worries.
OTOH, I think the narrative that OG and Mikal are going to be the key to beating the Celts because they can defend Tatum and Brown is misguided. There’s a lot more to it than that.
There’s so much nuance to defense in the NBA that it’s difficult to pin it down with boxscore metrics and on-off numbers.
They have it nailed pretty well in MLB now, because the batted ball data that is now available is so detailed. Before that, the defensive metrics in baseball were mostly meaningless. It’s going to take a similar breakthrough in basketball to get reliable defensive metrics I think.
It’s fascinating that, in the early going, Towns has been great, and yet his greatness has pretty much nullified Brunson’s status as an MVP candidate.
Remains to be seen, Brian. Jalen also had what I’ll kindly call the Newborn Kid Effect to start the season. If he keeps churning out 36-pt games, people may start to take notice again. Also, if we go on a win streak (from my keyboard to god’s eyes…).
Seems to me that DRAPM does not really pass the smell test. It ranks SGA as consistently one of the lousier defensive players in the NBA (e.g. much worse than Jalen Brunson).
well, not really. sga’s drapm ranked very poorly earlier in his career, but above average two years ago and elite last year. over the prior two year combined, his drapm is 25th to 30th best in the nba depending on methodology.
This may be an unpopular way to measure defense amomg stats oriented fans, but I think what other players (and coaches) are saying should carry a lot of weight.
If the best offensive players are saying “so and so gives me a tough time” or ” so and so is a great defender”, it’s probably as accurate as anything you are going to get from the numbers or watching games.
To a large extent, reputations come from what the payers and coaches think and say. They have live experience and watch as much game film as anyone. Errors are more common as a player ages because reputatons tend to fade slower than reflexes, speed, effort etc..
As far as Mikal goes, I think you should just draw a line through everything that happaned in Brooklyn. The team sucked, at a certain point they were tanking, and Mikal was carrying a huge load on offense which had to impact his ability to focus on defense. He wasn’t even trying.
A couple of things:
First, it’s best to ignore single-year data with RAPM. It’s very noisy in smaller samples, and really needs 3+ seasons to separate the signal from the noise, iirc (subject to correction by ptmilo.) So, if you’re looking at season-to-season DRAPM, it’s not going to tell you much. Also, it’s not going to tell you why anyone is good at defense, since it’s a pure +/- metric. But what it does do, unlike standard +/- (and box-score-only metrics), is do a pretty good job correcting for multicolineraity (e.g., lineup variation), making it the best statistical guide we have to capturing past defensive productivity, at least over larger samples. It’s only a descriptive metric, however, so you shouldn’t necessarily expect it to generalize out of sample. Time-Decay DRAPM and 3-year DRAPM (which are multiyear RAPM metrics that weight towards recent performance) like Mikal’s defense, having him anywhere from 50 – 75. So, a pretty good but not great wing defender.
Second, two year defensive-factor RAPM, under the ‘defense’ tab–which is what I think you’re both (Hubert and Z-Man) referring to–is something different from DRAPM simpliciter or time-decay or 3-year DRAPM. It looks like an attempt to break down DRAPM with some additional data to show how players perform over a two year sample relative to some hand-picked important defensive factors (team TS%, turnover%, and rebound%). I would take those results with a grain of salt, as they’re trying to do something slightly different than normal DRAPM metrics, from the look of it.
Shai is an interesting case. DEPM loves him, having him as a top 10 defender. But the rest of the AIO metrics think he’s merely good-to-very-good at defense, not elite. And time-decay and 3-year DRAPM share in that consensus, so I don’t think it’s crazy to think that Shai is being overrated, maybe. I haven’t watched enough actual tape of him to judge his defense myself, but someone asked something like this question on the OKC Reddit, and opinions of the Thunder-faithful are mixed:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Thunder/comments/18u9e0w/is_epm_right_about_shais_defense/
In any case, every statistical metric is going to have some head scratchers, so I don’t think it’s particularly useful as a test of a metric to find one guy who is “obviously” good at defense that grades poorly–or vice versa. It’s about how it matches the whole dataset you give it, rather than any particular subset of it. And, after all, it’s not as if the eye test doesn’t have this problem, too.
“well, not really. sga’s drapm ranked very poorly earlier in his career, but above average two years ago and elite last year. over the prior two year combined, his drapm is 25th to 30th best in the nba depending on methodology.”
Maybe that is the disconnect. When I look at this page from what alecto linked above, it seems to indicate that prior to this year, SGA was ranked somewhere between 485 and 600 for all years prior to this one.
SGA had a pretty darn good defensive rep for the past 3 years, so it seemed surprising that any metric would rank him as this low. If there’s other numbers I should look at, or if I’m interpreting the data incorrectly, please enlighten me!
Other than what players say, I like to look at on/off. Since offense is measured well, defense (and other factors not measued well) should show up in long term on/off with the usual qualifiers about lineups, backups etc… If a guy is measureably terrific on offense, but his on/off stubbornly below other top offensive players over the years, that’s signaling you to take a closer look at his defense, lineups, backups, team etc… Same in reverse.
The problem with the more complex regression models is that they look at the other players on the court with you, but they can’t understand the lineup issues in terms how players fit. Player A could be very good, but maybe when combined with player B (who is also very good) the result is going to be very bad. As far as I know tegression can’t handle stuff like that and I think it’s VERY important on both sides of the ball. It requires subjective manual analysis.
Maybe that is the disconnect. When I look at this page from what alecto linked above, it seems to indicate that prior to this year, SGA was ranked somewhere between 485 and 600 for all years prior to this one.
that page is providing rolling rapms, combining 2-4 seasons for each individual year. his 22-23 single year was above average and 23-24 all defense territory and the “23-24” number you see actually combines those two years, while the 22-23 is weighed down by 21-22 (or earlier depending on the toggle).
one of the challenges with on off data, even regularized, is the inherent noise. so you often see people try to group seasons to enlarge the sample. the downside is how that shrouds changes within the sample, like aging or improvement. “time decay” rapms are one attempt to thread the needle, but there really is no easy way to avoid the conflict between confounders/noise and nonstationary (eg improving or aging) samples.
I had to check and see what year it was
in other news, I think my 65-win Thunder prediction was too conservative — my god that team is stacked
I’m guessing these DRAPM rankings don’t use qualifying criteria if they go all the way down to the 600s. Maybe the wild variance is due to the random performance of a couple hundred scrubs playing less than 200 mins?
I’m not sure what your issue is with that statement.
You can have 5 good defenders on the court together, but if no one can handle a top scoring PG or a top scoring C etc.. you’ll get killed because the opposition will target your weakness.
Regression will tell you those guys are not good on defense, but the problem is not that they aren’t good defenders as individuals. It’s that they aren’t very good when together. If you put some of those players in combinations that made sense they would rate better.
It’s more obvious when you talk about offense and our Knicks.
We all know what can happen if you have no playmaker on the court to control the ball, penetrate, pass and make plays or when no one can shoot 3s and the spacing sucks. Those individual players can be good in the right situation, but the offense will suck with that combination because of the bad fit.
Regression can understand the contribution of generally good and bad players in combinations that make sense and then isolate the impact of an individual, but it can’t understand the bad fit issues.
Who would win, a team of five Tyson chandlers or five Carmelo Anthonys?
the greatest thread in the history of KB, locked by a moderator after 12,239 pages of heated debate,
Five Josh Harrelsons, obviously. #TeamJorts
Five Cole Aldrich’s could pull off an upset.
Goddammit, BBA, that’s a better answer out of Knickerblogger lore.
I agree with you, strat, just as I agree that water is wet
I once tried to debate that Joe Dumars was clearly better than Toney Douglas on here, but ended up feeling that I’d badly lost the debate.
Houston is an odd duck of a team at the moment. The entire rotation is 21 to 23 year olds other than Fred Van Vleet and Dillon Brooks, both of whom have been awful. They have struggled mightily to throw the ball into the basket but are still holding their own on offense through a #1 ranked turnover rate and #2 ranked offensive rebounding rate. Tari Eason is racking up monster defensive numbers, with over six stocks per game. They have been poor at making threes and also defending threes.
Add this all together and they are somehow a respectable 7th in the NBA in SRS. Insert shrug emoticon here.
Watching Mikal so far this season, he dies on a lot of screens. To Strat’s point, maybe we shouldn’t be asking him to go over screens or maybe that’s par for the course in the modern NBA and I just don’t notice, but he looks really bad to me.
So far this season NBA.com’s tracking has players he’s defending shoot nearly 10%age points higher on 2pters (65.7%) and 20 percentage points higher on 3s (56%).
The 3p% won’t stay that high, but if he keeps running into screens and giving up wide open 3s it may not drop that low.
Yeah, lot of weird fits in Houston but they have a bunch of talented young guys. I wonder who they’ll wind up trading
Haynes: “Milwaukee Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo (right adductor strain) will be out tonight at Cleveland.”
Houston has made that decision already in some ways when they gave Sengun a 5 year deal and Green a 3 year deal. Sengun is who they’ll build around and Green gets this year and maybe next year to impress and show he deserves it, otherwise they’ll move on from him.
Cavs may never lose again. 🙂
In the 2:38 Garland was defended by Mikal, he went 6-6 against him. He went 6-13 against the other Knicks. Was Garland hot that game or was Mikal just really bad?
I never gave up on Tari. The flame of my love burns brighter than ever.
Lou Amundson vs Jorts vs Aldrich vs Balkman in an OAKAAK octagon no holds barred battle, who you taking?
(Leaving out Jared Jeffries, cause that guy was a trooper)
Definitely Balkman. Lot of experience with fisticuffs helps.
That’s exactly what I’m noticing, too, and I am concerned about it.