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74 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2025.02.06)”
In order to cope with the significant jealousy I’m feeling towards the Lakers right now, I say this to myself: “At least it wasn’t to the Celtics for Jaylen Brown. Or to the Heat. Or to the Sixers. Or to the Cavs…” And I feel so much better.
Supposedly we also swapped draft rights of 29yo Mathias Lessort for the draft rights to 23yo Hugo Besson.
Hugo Besson is not nothing, meant in the literal sense. Figuratively, he’s nothing.
He’s scoring 18ppg in Turkey, bombed in SL this year, score-first chucker, and can’t play defense. Vecenie ranked him 71st in the ’22 draft and didn’t think he’d ever make it. He has a nice handle.
Various sleep-deprived trade thoughts after a great book event at The Strand (where I got to meet ThisChicanery!):
* Delon Wright isn’t the exact guy I’d have wanted to bring back for Sims, but he’s an inch taller than Shamet, the same height as Javonte Green, and I’d already happily put him in the rotation ahead of Shamet. Even though Wright’s shooting has been bad this season, and below his career norms, it’s not as if Shamet has been shooting the lights out.
* If Mark Williams is healthy, and if he starts making an effort on defense again, then this is a really annoying trade for the Laker-haters out there. Those are two pretty big ifs, though. I assume Pelinka is banking on Williams as someone who was not necessarily giving it his all — both on the court and to get onto the court — because he was on a bad team.
* I continue to not get what Masai is doing up in Toronto. He’s already committed a lot of money to a Scottie/RJ/IQ core, which so far has been underwhelming. (Albeit with IQ hurt a lot.) Now he’s brought in Ingram, who wants to get paid. Maybe there’s a market efficiency in building a team around a lot of guys who top out at fringe All-Star (though Barnes could eventually grow into more than that), but it seems an odd strategy.
Does everybody assume the Sims deal is our only move?
EB, someone in this FO seems to have a fetish for making sure that every season, we make at least one trade where we acquire the rights to some random Euro who will almost certainly never come play for us. Maybe it’s a private joke among colleagues?
Glad it went well at the Strand!
Yeah, the draft rights seem like a compulsive behavior from Aller. I guess Besson being 23 instead of 29 is something, it’s better than getting the Spurs’s assistant coach like last time we did this.
I didn’t even think to weigh in on Butler/Wiggins. Since Golden State is committed to trying to win one more for Steph, no matter what, and since Durant didn’t want to come back(*), I guess this is the Hail Mary they had to try for. Probably doesn’t work out, but Jimmy Buckets has made fools of us before. Ditto for Spo’s ability to make Wiggins look like the absolute best version of himself.
(*) So do we figure the Suns are boxed out of making any moves? Or could Durant still go to Houston or somewhere?
Besson, a scorer more than a shooter, last year helped my italian team avoid relegation and for it Hugo will always have a little spot in my heart. ❤️
Great name by the way.
Lessort played well at the Olympics and like Yabusele there we’re rumors about hm coming to the Association but at the end he stayed in Greece and he’s currently out for the season after a gruesome injury.
For this year, the major changes many teams are making may prove hard to integrate quickly. Supposedly, teams that win it all typically have significant prior experience as a team. I just don’t know how that applies to Dallas, the Lakers and Golden State. Somehow I suspect they are all still looking up at OKC.
Alan – Glad the event went well. I almost came but the fact I have never watched an episode of BCS (but want to so spoilers) and my daughter’s need to finish the 13 Curses prevented me.
Ingram is not Kuzma level for me but I can’t imagine trading for him.
Mark Williams is huge and I respect that. He’s been a bit disappointing to me, he was utterly dominant in college, but it looks like he landed in the perfect spot.
So Pelinka talks Nico out of the 2031 pick because it would have been irresponsible to include it without knowing if Luka is committed long term to LA and then immediately flips it for a C. It just gets better and better
Had a lot of fun last night! Was a great discussion and a lot of good questions from the crowd.
Don’t see the point of trading for Delon Wright. He appears to be pretty much washed and, even if he wasn’t, I don’t see what he gives us that we aren’t already getting from Deuce and Payne. Wondering if this is just to force Thibs to play Huk instead of Sims who he’s more comfortable with.
Well done Alan! 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
Quick thought on yesterday’s trades:
– Sims made little to no progress on offense in 4 years, jumping high is nice but basketball it’s another thing and I don’t know if his stonefaced behaviour, which sometimes made him look disinterested, won him points with Thibs, who likes emotional players. Plus Huk’s already better and his ceiling is higher.
I would have liked a 2nd for Jericho instead of a semi washed up journeyman but maybe Wright can spell Shamet and help us make some room under the cap for other veteran assets (waiving one of the two redundant bench guards).
– Given their situation (the multiple suspensions, Butler’s player option for next year) I think Miami did a decent job in the deal.
Spo could work his magic on Wiggins, Anderson is the perfect Heat player and you can waive Schroeder or keep and play him 10 minutes hoping for a good day.
The Warriors are desperate and they act desperate.
– Knecht was the hype of the day for some weeks and now is a trade piece, the pick and swap used in the deal is another gift Nico Harrison did to his friend Pelinka, absurd.
– Maybe now Masai needs to ask for a rule change to allow for more basketballs in play because his four “core” guys all need one in their hands to be useful.
– I liked Middleton a lot but it looks like he’s beyond cooked and he’s playing on slow motion, Kuzma isn’t a star (bad defender unconscious shooter and questionable dresser) but gives them some flexibility, he’s a scorer and they hope to be able to motivate him like LeBron did.
– Watching the Celtics and Sixers do small salary dump trades probably is another evidence about the environment the new CBA has brought.
I’m sure Toronto will be decent, but I don’t see Ingram wanting to commit long term… he’s going to have to share the ball with 3 other guys who aren’t exactly great passers and are also better with the ball in their hands in RJ, IQ and Barnes, and i feel like he brings a lot of redundant skills to this team. But i guess the price was low enough that it is worth trying and seeing how it goes.
If they can all get healthy for a long stretch they should be pretty good, but they’re 6 games out of the play-in right now, so I guess the idea is to see how it goes for this half a season and make decisions next summer.
Max, as far as I know Schroder has been rerouted to the Jazz in the trade.
Thanks Bruno, you’re right, I’m still trying to catch up after an out-of-service night 😁
I both like and don’t like the Butler trade for GSW. That team, as it was, wasn’t going anywhere. Since winning the title in 2022 they’ve won 44 and 46 games and were on pace for 41 this season. They definitely needed to do something, particularly on offense where they’re currently 19th due to being 22nd in eFG% and dead last in FTr. Butler will immediately help both of those and Curry could really use a high level scorer next to him in general.
On the other hand, it’s weird that this team which revolutionized the league with it’s 3PT shooting is apparently not a good 3pt shooting team anymore. Maybe this trade helps some of their underperforming shooters (Hield, Podz) to get back on track. They also kept their young trade assets so they can try and make another move before the day is done.
Schroeder needs to make peace with himself and accept the next step in his career: highly sought Euroleague’s star.
I don’t understand the Ingram trade at all for Toronto. What does Ingram give them that they weren’t already getting from Barnes, RJ, and Quick? Is it an experiment to see what happens when you put 4 high usage, not great offensive players on the floor together? And Toronto is giving up draft capital?
We need PoA defense and that’s what Delon brings. Unless he’s more washed than I think, and his defensive numbers say he isn’t, Delon might be our best PoA option against guards. Easily better than Hart or Deuce, probably better than Mikal unless he keeps up his recent play. He’s a budget Dyson Daniels. He merely needs to be really bad at scoring instead of atrocious.
And if Delon is completely washed, he still saves us $5K and removes an unnecessary 5th C.
I think the Butler trade was good for golden state and I predict he will get better at three point shooting with Kerr as coach.
It definitely isn’t bad for GS unless you absolutely love Wiggins (which I don’t) or Butler falls off a cliff. It’s a team that’s been treading water since winning their last title. I just don’t know how much better this makes them but I absolutely believe they’ll be better.
the ingram trade is very confusing to me, too. i wonder what masai thinks he can sign him at? i guess you could steel man it and say he took siakam and swapped him for someone three years younger plus agbaji and ja’kobe walter (all the siakam firsts are now gone), but presumably a cheaper contract. but ingram is worse than siakam, seemingly a greater injury risk, and really doesn’t seem like even a decent fit with barnes and rj.
i can see why mark williams is tantalizing. all-time length and relative to that excellent mobility, some explosiveness and really solid touch. shot might even develop more. but i’m also very suspicious of bigs who still look so rough on defense who have a big of experience and aren’t 20. it’s not just motor — though it’s not great. he has a high center of gravity and is a very slow reactor. you can often see his head whipping back and forth, which seems like what you’re supposed to do but is often an alarm for not having a great sense of the floor. you can also see it when he sets screens, which rarely anticipate the play well. a 10′ standing reach can make up for a lot so i’m not counting him out, but i understand why charlotte would be a little worried about his outlook despite the eye-popping numbers. a big who doesn’t space and is a weak rim protector is almost always a liability even if they are a very good rebounder and inside scoring threat. obviously this is in context with his obvious injury concerns. on the other hand he’s still a big improvement over jaxson hayes when healthy.
today the things i’m watching most is gsw adding more, if cam johnson goes (okc?) and if coby white goes to orlando. seems like if you go in butler you really, really need to add shooting or a center or both to have a more sensible team. vucevic i guess is an obvious option, idk. kcp has really not pulled his weight and body white could make a huge difference to the magic. you can tell by how often they have to end up relying on cole anthony. imagine if cole anthony were really good!
At least Delon Wright is arriving at a point in the schedule where he can get a Knicks’ practice in before they play Boston.
Nah because fuck that..DOES PELINKA HAVE INCRIMINATING PICS OF EVERYONE IN THE LEAGUE?? How does he keep adding? MARK WILLIAMS?? He’s quietly good! I know AD must be big mad lol. He leaves and they finally get a 5 man
Mark Williams is a talented kid but he’s played 85 games in the last 3 years. He’s played fewer minutes this year for Charlotte than whoever Moussa Diabate is.
Why would the Bulls dump Coby White? He’s one of their only good contracts. They’re desperately trying to trade Vuc and Williams, but they probably have no takers.
As for us, we are probably done. Okeke as a 3-4 hybrid seems like a great fit for us, but who k owes if that will/can happen. Maybe we’ll dump Shamet with Wright on board and bring up Okeke?
Chet returning tomorrow for OKC, gonna be interesting to see what lineups they use with both he and iHart healthy.
Maybe Masai just lucked into Kawai and isn’t all that good. He seems to have free reign in Toronto and what has he accomplished other than running a championship team into the ground? He’s assembled a weird roster that doesn’t seem all that valuable relative to their salaries. I’m not all that high on Scottie Barnes, the shot seems to have topped out at mediocre at best and he turns the ball over a lot. RJ is RJ. IQ is overpaid and overrated. Poeltl is a garden variety C on a market-value deal and not getting any younger. Shead, Davion, Walter, and Mogbo can’t shoot and are undersized for their positions. Dick can’t play D. Ochai hasn’t really developed and is pushing 25.
And Brandon Ingram? WTF?
I forget who coined the phrase, but the Raptors seem 2 years away from being 2 years away….
you think about trading white exactly because he’s on a good contract, which ups the field of bidders. holding a good contract that will only tick down while you suck is like putting a skylight in the basement. by the time the bulls are trying to even start to compete again coby white will be a market value ufa turning 27.
I am in agreement with the sentiment that Ingram in Toronto will not work. The numbers show that their “big 4” will pass the ball, though not naturally at will. Their biggest issue is none of those guys are really shooters, and they mostly operate in the same area. Quickley is the only one you can trust to pull up from deep off the bounce and off screens, and he’s John Starks level streaky. I know Ingram’s shooting numbers look good, but it’s not his game to create space in the way Quickley’s game is. Plus he’s better from 18 feet in..like RJ and Barnes. However, I love the idea of pairing Barnes and Ingram with Quickley and Grady D in the backcourt. I wonder if they will surprise us and move off of RJ
I like Mark Williams but that was way too high of a price for him. Knecht might be a better player by himself. I mean, was Poeltl available for that price? Or less? He sure should have been, and that would have been a good deal for both teams.
Edit: I forgot that future HOFer Cam Reddish was included in the deal. Never mind!
Masai also fleeced James Dolan in the Melo deal and built a very good (not great, but very good and deep) Nuggets team. He then fleeced the Knicks again in the Bargnani trade, and made some other good moves to build that title team besides Kawhi. He sure seems to have lost his fastball, but let’s not go all revisionist history on his whole career.
Good morning, fellow Knickerbloggers!
Is the general consensus “out there” that all we’ll be doing is Wright for Sims? I don’t know whether or not to be happy, or whether I should have some sense of foreboding.
“body white” is pretty good. I liked that one. 🙂
I dunno, Doogie. Seems like that’s all we have in the clip unless there’s an upgrade over Achiuwa, Payne, or Deuce available.
Also..I missed most of the discourse last night over the Sims inclusion to the Milwaukee/Washington trade. What exactly does this do for us? All I see is we added a guard who is already behind 6 guards, as I don’t see him beating Kolek out at this stage even if Wright’s defense is worlds better
Well, fleecing Dolan wasn’t exactly rocket science. As to Kawhi, he guessed right at the perfect time and still needed a lucky bounce and two devastating injuries to key Dubs to win a chip. Definitely deserves props for that. But his pivot away from that situation has been pretty uninspired if you ask me.
I don’t mind Ingram but on a reasonable contract. And Shead looks great to me. Mogbo has skills. But they should definitely move on from Poeltl. He’s already 29… they should’ve gone for that Laker package!
And sure, the Bulls could use White to dump a terrible contract and/or get a pick, but they don’t seem to operate like that. They prefer to wait until a player has zero value before they start their bidding wars.
Also, Miami did ok considering the circumstances, but I can’t believe they didn’t get at least one young player from GS… even Moody would’ve made sense.
That Denver team post Melo trade never even got out of the 1st rd of the playoffs.
My guess is we don’t do much. We are in good company. The Celtics, The Cavs and OKC all made minor deals at the edges of their roster. It’s fine that we did the same.
Knecht is older than Williams and is probably unplayable on defense.
Masai also drafted Barnes over Suggs which at the time was a WTF. After one year of hindsight, genius move, bit less so now but still damn good. Fleecing Dolan is like beating up the class weakling who is acting like a dick. Doesn’t mean he is the strongest kid in the class, but gets your respect.
People keep talking about the number of picks Dallas brought back compared to other deals without considering that most star deals don’t include a player like Davis that is worth a boatload of picks.
The thing that suprises me is that Dallas not only traded him, but they acted like they were the distressed team that HAD TO trade him or really wanted him out. That makes no sense
“I don’t mind Ingram but on a reasonable contract.”
Ingram might be the most overrated player in the Association. He is mainly a scorer, yet has a career TS% of .561 and never a season above .587. His career BPM is 0.1. And he has never played more than 64 games in a season. His defense is spotty at best. So what is a “reasonable” contract? I would say 3 years, 24M. Anything higher than that is throwing money away.
“And Shead looks great to me.”
I like Shead and would have taken him ahead of Kolek, but he’s undersized and can’t finish or shoot 3’s. Maybe he develops, but he seems like Davion Mitchell 2.0 to me…disruptive change-of-pace bench piece but hardly a future starter on a good team.
Raps have cap room. I guess they try and rehab Ingram’s value while they can afford it and try to cash him in later for more value than they gave?
Maybe they think RJ, Scottie, and IQ are about to break out?
Maybe Masai was a one trick pony whose one pick is trading with James Dolan as much as possible and just got lucky with Kawhi?
I’m just not very high on Barnes as a player overall, I don’t see a path where he becomes a superstar. He operates well with the ball in his hands but he’s not really a passer and he’s not quick enough to get to the rim whenever he wants, so his drives are predictable, and when he doesn’t have the ball he’s not a good enough shooter to punish teams. And as he has taken a bigger role on offense he has slacked off on defense which used to be one his strengths. I think he would be great as a 3rd guy on a very good team, but I think that’s likely to be his ceiling.
I don’t think redundancy is necessarily bad, there are definitely ways to build a team where having this kind of redundancy in roles works well, but it has to make sense, and what the Raptors are building really doesn’t make sense for me right now.
“After one year of hindsight, genius move, bit less so now but still damn good.”
If Suggs keeps developing, this might turn out to be false. Orlando really misses him right now.
Mogbo and Shead are second round rookies. If they’re bad, it doesn’t mean much.
They’re also both shooting 35% in the NBA so far, which is a huge improvement for them.
Ingram seems like a candidate for the Randle/Clank trap–good enough to be a suboptimal first option, but doesn’t have a clear path to scaling his usage down on a contender. That seems to be reason the trade and prospective free agency market for him (and Randle) was cool.
That said, I don’t think it’s a bad idea to use expiring money and what I believe to be an unexciting first from the Pacers to make a talent upgrade. Ingram is a better shooter than those guys, so there might be a path for him to settle around the 20-25 USG% mark productively.
I followed Denver closed during the Gallinari/Chandler days. Based on the kind of moves Masai used to make with George Karl I felt like they were ahead of the curve in putting together teams that were efficient beyond the talent and reputation of the players.
Now it feels like he has abandoned finding players with some hidden value and is moving towards players that aren’t as good as their scoring and boxscore looks.
I don’t get it.
He has some players with upside. So maybe it will all work out. I still love healthy Quickley and think he will continue improving his PG and other skills, but other than Quickley they are all the same profile of scorers than are not efficient enough to create a high level offense and not elite at defense. He needs 2 out of 3 of RJ, Barnes and Igram to break out.
No one would even know who Knecht is if it wasn’t for that one night of insane shooting for LA that was splashed over every sports show and social media app.
Masai’s great, he just learned what all of these dudes learn, that threading the needle by retooling instead of rebuilding is darn near impossible. They all want to show how they’re smarter than the next guy. Just rebuild normally, dudes.
“Mogbo and Shead are second round rookies. If they’re bad, it doesn’t mean much.”
Agreed, and as I said, I like Shead, and Mogbo seems like a good Precious analog with maybe more upside.
They’re also both shooting 35% in the NBA so far, which is a huge improvement for them.
“They’re also both shooting 35% in the NBA so far, which is a huge improvement for them.”
35% is not very good, especially for a PG. Shead has 105 3PA thus far. However, he had 429 3PA from the shorter college line in 4 years, and hit 29.6% of those and never got above 31% for a season. Doesn’t look very promising. Mogbo only took 2 shots from 3 in college and is 10-28 this year. He certainly can develop, but again, I wouldn’t bet on it.
Ayway, my criticism is more about roster construction than about these players specifically. Masai does not seem to be building a team that is consistent with the current state of the game. Mogbo and Shead are symptomatic of that. And Ingram is hardly going to help, unless one thinks that his career shooting numbers are a mirage.
“Masai’s great, he just learned what all of these dudes learn, that threading the needle by retooling instead of rebuilding is darn near impossible.”
First, if Masai was “great,” he wouldn’t need to learn this. He’s been a GM for coming up on 15 years now.
Second, Leon Rose, with zero executive experience, just demonstrated that retooling instead of rebuilding is not only not “darn near impossible” but actually quite doable! He did it successfully, even though he made a bunch of rookie mistakes, fucked up some draft day transactions, and possibly bid against himself in trades! So whatever path Masai chose, it’s less about the choice and more about shitty execution.
In any case, if anyone started following the NBA in 2019 and ignored anything that happened before that, one would be hard pressed to consider Masai as anything but a mediocre executive. And Leon would be ranked well above him.
But why would anyone do that?
That’s fair about Masai. I really don’t like what he has done lately.
Delon is a guy who has always seemed to float slightly above the usual flotsam and jetsam. I can remember him having very good numbers coming out of college and wanting to draft him. It’s kind of interesting to see how that has carried through his career. I don’t think he can be worse than Shamet so why not.
Yeah, I don’t, either, there seemed to be a bit of a plan when he first got Barnes, but there doesn’t seem to be any real plan anymore, just a collection of mid-level dudes.
“I don’t think he [Delon Wright] can be worse than Shamet so why not.”
Based on what he’s shown this year, he actually *might* be worse than Landry Shamet, at this point. And I’ve really liked Delon Wright for quite some time, so I hope I’m wrong.
“Why not”? As always with this team, the most important question when acquiring someone is “Will Thibs ever play him?”
Barnes, Quickley, Barrett, and Ingram are all guys who have a hard time cracking the 100 barrier in both eFG+ and TS+. None of those guys are young enough that you can project a breakthrough leap from any of them. Acquiring Ingram means that the “RJ Power Forward One Weird Trick” is not going to be happening so much, and they’re going to be relying on him as a shot creator, a suboptimal role for him. Spacing seems like it’s gonna be a problem too, so welcome back to the mosh pit, RJ.
I’m having a really hard time imagining that team ever being very good offensively. That is a core four that only Isiah Thomas could love.
I have mixed feeling on Delon Wright (not that it matters if he’s useless). I will normally ignore bad shooting for a short period of time (especially if an injury or layoff was involved), but his decline started last year. Now this year he’s atrocious from everywhere. From what I gather he’s had some injuries this year and last year. So maybe he’s not as bad as he looks, but some of the reviews from the Bucks suggest he’s lost a step on D also. I guess we’ll have to see what he has left. Even if we use him in spot situations/possessions for defensive purposes it’s better than nothing. And if he turns it around, that’s great. He’ll be useful when there are injuries or against certain matchups.
I think Isiah is advising the Suns (I know I read that somewhere last year or the year before). Beal looked like an Isiah move. lmao
IQ was really good defensively in some small samples as a Knick. It was hard to know how much stock to put in that. If he isn’t a plus defender, and I don’t know he will be, that contract seems pretty mediocre. RJ my feelings about are well known but in particular I don’t think he is a good fit next to Barnes and now Ingram.
PT – That is interesting on Williams. He’s a guy I have followed through the statline but haven’t actually watched that much.
“But why would anyone do that?”
Because I think Masai’s championship in Toronto is the luckiest championship ever, and he shouldn’t be given outsized credit for it, especially since he lost Kawhi for nothing and did nothing notable with the cap space created by losing Kawhi for nothing. Sure, he fleeced Dolan in the Melo trade, and again in the Bargnani trade. But who the hell didn’t fleece Dolan when he was in meddling starfucker mode?
He had a clean slate to work with after losing Kawhi and what has he done with it? Nothing better than any middling (perhaps even bumbling) GM could have done. He certainly didn’t make a killing on either Siakam or OG. He dubbed non-spacing Barnes as a franchise player to build around and then surrounded him with non-spacing players. And now he traded some good assets for an oft-injured faux star on an expiring deal.
Meanwhile, novice Leon Rose has run rings around him, even with the constraint of being mandated to not tear it down in a situation that called for tearing it down even more than Toronto’s did…and Masai didn’t have that mandate to constrain him.
Bottom line: I hereby disavow any statements I have made in the past about wishing Dolan had offered the moon and hired Masai as our POBO.
Not sure what to think about the Knicks trade. Meh?
Mets signing Pete, finally, seems like a win win. Mets win, of course, by only being committed to 1/$30m or 2/$54m. If he opts in to that 2nd year, I guess they’d probably look to move him to DH. Now, they get a longer look at Vientos’s defense at 3b to see if he needs a long term move to 1b….also, they get to see what Ryan Clifford does in the minors this year.
For Pete, he gets two things he can hang his hat on. First, he’s the third highest paid Met. I imagine he wanted more AAV than Manaea’s $25m AAV, and he has it even if he opts in to the 2nd year. But, perhaps more importantly, he’s making more than Freddie Freeman this year and probably about the same AAV for the two year deal.
So, the Mets can get a “happy”, motivated Pete. 🙂
Pete’s a win-win-win, as there’s hardly a Mets fan out there who isn’t happy to have fatso around a little longer.
I don’t understand what Toronto is doing recently. Why Mitchell for Tucker?
It was a salary cap move. They basically bought a pick by taking Tucker’s higher salary for the rest of the season. Mitchell was going to be gone after this season either way.
Think the Masai skepticism, while warranted, is going a little far. Even if you discount bilking the Knicks twice, his resume is still pretty strong. In particular he’s hit a lot of doubles and triples with middling draft picks–he’s gotten value from Faried, OAKAAK Fournier, Poeltl, CurrentlyAKAAK Wright, CurrentlyAKAAK OG, and Siakam, all with late-ish picks. He also unearthed FVV and traded Greivis Vasquez for Norman Powell and the pick he used on OG.
He’s been able to use the surplus value he’s gotten through the draft and small trades to execute larger ones, most notably Kawhi but also now IQ and Ingram.
He’s hardly been perfect, but he’d still be pretty damn high on my list of preferred GMs because consistently getting value from the draft is an excellent trait.
Delon Wright has usually been really valued by bpm, but also has been injured a lot lately. I thought of him instead of Payne as a minimum guy backing up PG duties. Nice steal rate, is big enough to play SG, and not that old. I like the pick up, even if he doesnt pan out.
PT – That is interesting on Williams. He’s a guy I have followed through the statline but haven’t actually watched that much.
one positive i didn’t mention is that’s he definitely gotten better as a passer in the short roll this yr. for a big that’s sometimes an indicator that there is a bit more room for growth than usual.
Raven, yeah, RE Pete, there’s been lots of mocking of him for turning down the supposed 7/$158m offer a year and a half ago. He’s been labeled as a “loser” in this offseason. But, I think the Mets made him a “winner” for 1-2 years.
Which state is Toronto in again?
I guess Toronto doesn’t need two carbon copies in Mitchell and Shead, and Mitchell is expiring and they have no interest in re-signing him. PJ Tucker is also expiring (perhaps literally as well as figuratively) and Toronto is not in the tax so getting a second rounder is okay.
Meanwhile, Miami is now under the first apron, so maybe they are targeting the buyout market or will swing some sort of deal in the next 3 hours that wasn’t possible while they were over the apron.
Yeah, they must have something else planned, but I don’t even think there’s much of a buyout market this season, is there?
Should be interesting to see how Alonso’s bat plays with Soto in the lineup walking 130 times.
Another thing I like about the way the Mets are currently constructed is that they have lots of depth in the high minors in the form of young players who are just on the cusp. They have Baty and Mauricio who can play 3B, Jett Williams and Acuna who can play either middle infield position or perhaps CF, and Drew Gilbert who is another option in CF. If a starter goes down you can fill that position with a young, talented prospect who is looking to break through to MLB. Most of those guys won’t pan out, but even one or two of them sticking in the majors on a rookie contract would be really helpful.
The 26 man roster is going to be pretty crowded.
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