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Knicks Morning News (2025.06.17)
06/17/2025 11:00:00
06/17/2025 11:00:07
06/17/2025 11:00:02
06/17/2025 08:32:45
06/17/2025 03:48:00
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108 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2025.06.17)”
all is right with the world this morning
Watching last night, it seems to me the area we are lacking in is collective athleticism and quickness.
I think selling high on Josh Hart should be a priority. He’ll be 31 in next year’s playoffs. He’s played 2700 minutes a year since coming over here. He currently has two years and a team option at a good price. Scour the league for the next Dyson Daniels on a desperate team.
You aren’t wrong about our team but would like to point out that getting rid of Josh Hart makes our team less athletic and quick. He’s literally the only guy on the team who pushes the pace right now. He also skies high for rebounds, etc.
Put another way. You could swap him out for one of OKC’s players and he would fit right in.
I still go back to the idea that we should be looking to move Hart to the bench by upgrading the starting line up with a stretch 4 who can rebound/defend. Those dudes are not easy to find especially with our limited resources but if we could do that without getting rid of our core 7 guys, we would be in much better shape. Hart for 25 to 28 minutes off the bench can be a wrecking ball with the second unit.
Is Dadiet athletic and/or quick? I’m still not sure he’s ready to leap to real rotation minutes yet. I’m just thinking about the end of benchers. Kolek is crafty but not athletic. Hukporti? McCullar?
I guess the argument there, though, is that yes, he would play on OKC, but he would be interchangeable with guys like Cason Wallace and Aaron Wiggins, while making more per year than both of those two guys combined.
I disagree. Thought he was half a step behind the Pacers all series on defense and wasn’t a good option to guard anyone. He was too slow for the guards, too small for Siakim.
I agree he would be great on the bench but that would require us to have a viable starting F and I don’t see how we get one of those. I’d rather have the viable starter than the super sub.
Yes, but some of that was from playing too many minutes, no?
He was fantastic against Detroit and Boston.
I’m just worried we’re suffering from recency bias with Hart bc he had a one poor series. Didn’t he play pretty well against the Pacers last year (for the first 5 games at least?)
He was quite poor against Miami in 2023 as well.
Sure.
He’s a role player, though. Role players don’t play well in every single playoff series. Hell, stars don’t always play well in every single playoff series. Lebron has shat the bed multiple times throughout his career in certain playoff series. Butler was just a no-show against Minnesota. It happens. It seems unfair to hold Hart to some standard of playing well in every single playoff series when he’s supposed to be a role player, not a star.
I’m not makin excuses for the guy. He might be our best trade chip to reconfigure the team in a way that makes the most sense. Just think a lot of this comes from his current outsized role on our team.
I’m not really thinking about his play, E. I’m just thinking his athleticism is likely to decline soon and I want to get ahead of it the way the Celtics did when they sold high on Marcus Smart.
Josh hasn’t been deployed as anything resembling a “role player” since he became a Knick. Thibs kept him just under 30 mpg that Miami series because he didn’t play well; other than that he’s averaging something like 38 mpg in the playoffs. He played over 46 mpg in the Philly series.
In terms of the bigger picture, not many around these parts want to come to terms with it (*), but they’ve really barely moved the needle in the last two years. Team two years ago had 48 Pythag wins, 3rd in offense, 7th in SRS, top playoff defense in the association; this year’s team had 51 pythag wins, 5th in offense, 9th in SRS, meh playoff defense. One extra round this year, but Randle’s ankle was shredded during the 2023 spring.
For the amount of frontloading of assets that was done into 2025, that’s nowhere near a big enough delta.(**)
That’s the true big picture. It’s gonna be tough from here. Fingers crossed.
(*) Or it gets attributed to the wrong thing(s).
(**) If it’s really even a delta at all.
It would be fantastic if Huk, Kolek, Dadiet, and McCullar take a leap next season. Unfortunately, the only ones I’m sure that has the work ethic to do it are Kolek and McCullar. I have faith that Huk can because he got early experience and Thibs seemed to trust him a little. Dadiet is still the unknown after a season. Outside of that, I hope we bring Wright back and maybe sign 2 vet minimum rotation guys like Bogey and Horford if they want to ring chase. Or what about Looney? Is he a FA this year? If he is, could we get him for the minimum?
no on bogey looney sure horford even more sure
The only reason I’d be interested in Bogey is we need a bigger, more reliable shooter and scorer on the bench than Shamet. And honestly, Shamet probably played his way out of our price range anyway
1. A starter or 6th man who plays heavy minutes is still be a role player. A role player is anyone who isn’t a star.
2. I don’t know if you heard, but Thibs got fired.
And that, Mr. Rose, is why you need multiple players on rookie contracts who the coach will actually work into games.
This actually works as a vote for correcting the Mikal Bridges trade.
As you know, ATL quickly pivoted after they saw that Dejounte Murray wasn’t working with his good buddy Trae, so they bit the bullet and flipped him for a Dyson package after the season, making the best of a bad situation. Sound familiar?
Although I also agree with all your points re: Hart.
I recognize my Hukporti love last season was partly a schtick. but I also think he’s the only real NBA-ready guy of the bunch. He clearly showed he could play with the big boys during that stint before the injury, and he was getting to the point where he wasn’t being embarrassed defensively. I think there’s a real role or him right off the bat, at least for spot minutes (10-15). If we role it back, it’s another way for more KAT at the four.
We all know Kolek is polished, we all know he’s exploitable. How much so is the question, it’ll be interesting to watch.
Dadiet and McCullar are like raw beef to me. Maybe one or the other has worked tirelessly on various parts of his game over the offseason and comes in ready to cook. I’d be very pleasantly surprised. Maybe amazed.
Wiggins isn’t on a rookie contract, but the point still stands.
I remember looking at the post-Isiah payroll and just scratching my head as to how to fix it back in the day. Looking at this OKC spreadsheet is like looking at Botticelli’s Birth of Venus.
Yes, it does sound a little familiar to me.
Agree with Raven on the rooks. Not a terrible group, but hard to imagine too much coming from them beyond Huk and maybe spot minutes from Kolek.
Since I advocated for trading up to get Daniels but would have been happy with Eason, maybe Bridges for Eason + filler? Houston isn’t desperate, but Bridges would be good for them.
Edit: that’s acknowledging a pretty big mistake on our part trading for Mikal in the first place, but a trade would help our cap and give us a bigger, better defender who might with better with KAT/JB.
Man if we fire Thibs and then trade Hart and Mikal in the same off season? Plus potentially move Daddy away from the bench? Brunson might not be happy with all that!
I am curious how many folks on team run-it-back-with-a-new-coach are closely watching these finals. When I watch these games and imagine an egalitarian motion Knicks offense going against this Thunder defense there’s a turnover counter in my head and it never stops ticking up. I can’t escape the irony that low-risk Thibs ball is actually the best way to beat this team.
But that’s the whole thing with basketball these days: to win four rounds now you need to play different styles. That’s why Thibs was a problem, and why the smart teams are moving away from top heavy and moving towards versatility.
One of my first posts was about the Isiah payroll (mixed with their draft picks at the time), and how it just clearly meant that they literally couldn’t be fixed for years. Then it finally was fixed, and they promptly blew all of their flexibility on Melo.
…or, we can consider how to make our ‘top heavy’ (i.e., decent and highly skilled four starters) learn how to play in more diverse styles over the year so they can switch into different systems once the playoffs start.
Honestly Hubs, I don’t know if that would work. Maybe they’re all just calcified skill players with little flexibility. Not convinced, and why the ‘right’ coach is so important (and unlikely?).
Listened to a little bit of media and I have to say it sure seems like Halliburton did an effective job protecting his legacy by really selling that injury. Credit to Kendrick Perkins who pointed out he was playing terribly before he fell down, that he looked scared the whole night, and that he has major history of no showing in big games.
Neither he nor I am suggesting he faked the injury. Sure he got hurt and was a little gimpy but was it any different than the injuries Mitchell and Mobley and Garland played through, or KAT’s hand and knee? This was a Tyrese Halliburton No Show Game in which he got injured at some point, not a game where Poor Tyrese couldn’t play bc he was injured.
Yours truly,
Bitter & Disgruntled
brunson on thibs getting canned i do not like it but it is a business brunson on mikal getting traded i understand it is a business brunson on hart getting trade aw hell naw hart on his dad being removed from the bench aw hell naw i did not give you a 110 million dollar discount for this
I wonder if these anti-big market rule changes are going to bite the NBA in the ass eventually… I haven’t been watching the finals, but how has viewership been overall this year? I mean, LA and NY still have good teams at least.
MLB is sort of the opposite, which should be nice if you follow a big market team.
Why would anyone be amazed that a guy who doesn’t turn 20 til next month and was highly regarded by the guys who have made some pretty good picks in the 25-35 range (when give the chance) will improve? The only things I know about the guy are:
For a teenager he already has an NBA type body and better than average athleticism.
Excellent shooting form.
Not ready to play major minutes last season and lost 2 months mid season with a toe injury.
None of the “draft experts” thought him a reach at his spot, understanding he was a project.
I understand New Yorkers are a little impetuous, but how about giving the fellow a little chance to marinate?
I really don’t get how you can see that and can’t also see that we had lots of flexibility how to play that the coach didn’t access and that’s why we could actually be in the finals now instead of Indiana. Your posts yesterday make it seem like this group is hopeless, when in fact we could mix and match quite a bit.
IMO, they shouldn’t do too much until they make a decision on whether the Towns/Brunson combo can work defensively with Towns at C or in a consistent 2 big man lineup with him at PF?
I think the answer to that depends on the matchups – which probably translates to “no” because sooner of later we are going to come up against team that takes advantage of us because we either have two weak defensive links on the court together or some kind of other unbalanced lineup to protect them.
There are some guys in this league that overall have a lot of value, but they lack certain qualities that make it necessary to find very specific players to put with them.
We have TWO players like that.
With Brunson, the ideal is to have someone like Mitch behind him at C with other good defenders next to him.
With Towns, the ideal is to have a good perimeter defenders (especially POA) and possibly a good rim protecting PF next to him.
It’s really tough to find the unicorn type players we need to make that combination work on defense.
I’m getting the feeling they are going to run it back with a few tweaks on the bench and a new coach and see what they have. Hopefully, the new coach will give the young players enough minutes to both develop and enhance their trade value.
I look for the next big decision after coach to occur at the trade deadline unless something they can’t pass up happens now. At that point they should know what they want to do with Towns/Brunson and hopefully 1-2 of the young players will look like an asset instead of a throw in.
Hopeless is a bit strong, Rama, but I don’t think we have the horses for this kind of basketball.
What is this untapped flexibility you speak of? 5 out? With Deuce guarding the 6’6” SGA… With Mikal & OG needing to end possessions by outrebounding Jalen Williams & Chet Holmgren… I don’t need to see that, I trust Thibs on that. The man was stubborn but not stupid.
OKC has their entire roster under contract for next season, plus they will add Nikola Topic, who was one of the best prospects in last year’s draft and missed this season due to injury. They’ll have the #15 and #24 picks in this year’s draft. Next year they are owed the firsts of Philly and Utah in addition to their own pick. In 2027 they have their own pick, Denver’s pick, plus swap rights with the Clippers.
And of course they have tons of useful young players on their roster that they can use in trades as those players begin to get more expensive.
We have one player on a good salary, a bunch of guys on market value contracts, one player in the rotation under the age of 25, and have traded away every first round pick that wasn’t nailed down by the Stepien Rule.
Not trying to be a pessimist here, but I’m having a hard time seeing how we’re supposed to keep up with those guys.
Oh Bob, as always you delight in rushing to mis-judgement! There’s no impetuousness about my opinion on our baby wings. I’d be shocked if they’re ready for prime time this coming year. Doesn’t mean they’re not great ball players with all-star careers ahead of the both of them. Just, well, probably not next year. May they surprise me!
Do you think Thibs did a good job mixing and matching? The KAT+defenders lineup played really well and won us one game, and it was an accident due to foul trouble. And yes, going 5-out would have made sense situationally – especially with Turner off the floor, which happened a few times because of foul trouble. Thibs finally went to the 2-big lineup after we were down 2-0 and consistently being outrebounded. (We also lost the TO battle, so rebounds were even more important in a possession-based game, and yet it took Hart saying something to make it happen!)
This is starting to be a complaint about Thibs, but the point is that while many of our players are limited (bad defender, bad creator, too passive), they each also have great strengths, and rather than play to those strengths, Thibs kept throwing rock. I agree the Pacers are more balanced – so then don’t play their game and instead leverage our greater strengths and make them adjust to us. KAT is far better on offense than anyone they have; put out players who complement it. Mitch gets all the boards; use him when we have fewer shooters and need that. They put a small on KAT? Bring in Deuce for Josh and punish them. No, we aren’t well-balanced, and yes, JB and KAT together are a problem on defense – so work around that with your lineups and schemes, stagger their time, make sure Mitch is available if both are on, etc.
Our players were generally more limited but also more effective in their two dimensions. It takes great coaching to work around that – but we had just enough to make it possible, and we didn’t get to see an optimal version of it.
Probably can’t, but we can aim to make the Finals for a few years and hope for some luck. I’d take that.
Bridges to Houston has a lot of potential, and that is why I am rooting hard for someone else to get Kevin Durant.
Houston was always high on Bridges. Reportedly they were the team driving up his price.
I think there’s enough “lol Knicks” going around that teams will think “they just didn’t know how to use him, Thibs was too rigid, we’ll fix him” enough to keep a lot of his value.
The problem is that Houston GM is a shark. He’d probably take Leon to the cleaners in a trade.
I assume other GMs around the league just watched Mikal Bridges play a soft brand of low-impact basketball for 3000 minutes and aren’t too keen to give up valuable pieces to import his particular brand of aggressive mediocrity to their own rosters.
He’ll probably end up extending here on a contract that will make us all howl in agony.
So who do we like in the 2nd round of the draft? Do we target Ryan Nembhard to continue the Knicks tradition of having the lesser brother?
I like Micah Peavy, though his wingspan worries me at that height
I don’t know, he played 2,854 minutes of low impact basketball the year before and there was a major bidding war for his services bc everyone made excuses for it. Happened with Murray, too. I don’t think value dissipates quickly.
No but that doesn’t mean mixing and matching is the right answer.
What makes more sense if your 5 best players get outscored all the time?
A. Hire a coach who will play his inferior players more.
B. Get a mix of 5 best players who outscore their opponents.
“Not trying to be a pessimist here, but I’m having a hard time seeing how we’re supposed to keep up with those guys.”
I thought this was very interesting. I would add: What team is equipped (draft capital, salary outlook, current very good roster)? San Antonio? Houston? Is anyone sitting as pretty as OKC?
Players don’t all bring the same things to the table.
In some all in one metric world where we are discussing who is the better player, Josh Hart is better than Deuce. But if what Deuce brings to the table compliments the other 4 players better against this matchup, Deuce should be playing more minutes.
That’s what Thibs did wrong.
I get your point that we may need to improve the team also, but I think oor biggest problem is not lack of talent. It’s a mismatch of talent.
Is it possible that part of the reason the starters were being outscored is because the offense was a single Brunson/Hart P&R followed by Brunson isoing?
Someone on Twitter made an excellent point about part of how players are valued these days. He said teams pay close attention to how hard it will be to incorporate a player into what you are already doing.
They pay a premium for players that are easy to fit in vs. players that are tougher to build with.
I think Bridges would still generate a lot of interest around the NBA.
We won’t recover what we paid because part of what we paid was related to his attractive contract at that time and part was related to the assumption that most of the picks we gave up will be in the 20s, but I think we could still get a nice haul for two-way easy to plug in wing that was overused and misued as a POA defender by the Knicks.
I think it’s 100% true that plug and play guys are extremely valued by the NBA in terms of assets, which is why Bane (probably THE top plug and play guy out there) got such a haul. I just wonder if Bridges hurt his “plug and play” rep a bit here with the Knicks. OG was a true “plug and play,” so he maintained all of his value, but I think Bridges might have hurt it some by appearing a bit out of sorts as the #3/4 guy on offense. Desmond Bane is going to adjust to whatever you ask from him on offense. Bridges didn’t seem to do that.
What makes more sense if your 5 best players get outscored all the time?
C. Hire a coach who will play his players more cleverly.
(creating the binary of ‘play the crappy players more’ vs ‘get better players’ misses a pretty broad range of other options, sir…)
It certainly is TC, I’ll grant you that.
Are you watching this series, though? I’m already looking at the next problem: we don’t have enough depth & athleticism to win these kinds of games. And our holes are too easy to exploit.
I’m watching the game highlights from last night and I’m looking at a Thunder unit with Wallace, Dort, Hartenstein, Caruso and Jalen Williams. Who do you even target, there? And that’s without Chet or SGA, each of whom could slide in for any of them and maintain an unattackable five-man defensive squad. Looks like a damn All-Defensive team.
The only thing that can stop a Thunder dynasty is the CBA. This team may have been pressed at times in these playoffs, but this is only the start of their reign. Crazy depth.
We “plug and played” him here, and… well the results speak for themselves. He didn’t fit into our system, which is kind of the opposite of “plug and play.”
There simply is no clever coaching solution to Brunson’s defense, KAT’s defense, OG’s dribbling, Hart’s shooting, Deuce’s height, Mitch’s free throws, and Mikal’s general underwhelmingness, sir.
If you want to build around Brunson & KAT, I think you have to trade Mikal & Hart for as many young athletic wings as you can. Surround the sieves with an army of attacking defenders who can rebound and shoot. You’re still a long shot but you have a shot.
eschewing the draft, drafting poorly when we don’t poo poo it (and don’t point to our 2nd round success as indicative of nailing it) and trading development assets for whatever….usually doesn’t bode well (probably not coincidentally, the rangers are a few years ahead of us in the same issue manifesting itself) and having a coach who is not, um, very imaginative…leaves us here…
I think right now, and I agree, watching the athleticism on display in this final is eye opening vis a vis our roster, Leon really has to thread the slimmest needle holes…so does his couterpart with the rangers…we need some manna from heaven…
And of course the other solution is to just quit this while you’re ahead and go back to the formula you should have been patient with in the first place.
Which means what? Blowing it up and trading away KAT, Brunson and everyone else so we can start tanking again?
I’m not sure what people expected from Bridges. Other than having a bit of an off year from 3, imo he played very well. Hopefully he irons out his form this summer and raises his 3p% and TS% a bit closer to .60%.
If he played like the Suns version, even though he would have been more efficient, people would have whined he’s just a low usage 4th option that only shoots when he’s wide open.
If he played like the Nets version, that would have been idiotic because we have two much better scorers on the team whose usage should be higher than his.
The only semi problem was balancing him and OG. With Brunson dominating the ball, one of either Bridges or OG is going to be the 4th option almost every night depending on matchups and who has it going. That means one will give you very little (and of course hear the wrath of the fans).
People keep focusing on Bridges but he’s the least of our problems.
Our problems are in order.
1. Brunson can’t guard a chair.
2. Towns is a midly negative defender and a bad fit with Brunson
3. Hart and Towns together create some problems on offense.
4. OG is not a good enough rebounder to be the PF
5. We need some bench help
These are the problems that force us to take the least bad option in some of our decisions.
1. We use Mikal as the POA defender because of Brunson but lose his strength as a switchable wing defender.
2. We use Mitch and Towns together to get better defense because the Brunson and Towns combo is so bad, but we lose spacing and don’t have someone behind them.
3. We start Hart to get his rebounding because OG is not a good enough rebounder at the PF position, but that hurts the spacing.
None of this has anything to do with Bridges.
If we didn’t have all these other issues, Bridges would be starting SG, do an excellent job guarding wings, switching etc.. provide enough scoring and playmaking (when required) and do it all efficiently enough to be an excellent 3a option along with OG as 3b.
We have to fix the bad combos, not trade Bridges.
Trade Towns?
Trade for a starting PF that can rebound, defend the paint and hits 3s to put next to Towns?
Trade for a wing that can shoot, put Hart on the bench and go all in on offense?
None of these are easy.
The easiest path is trading KAT!
I like KAT a lot. Personally, I think Brunson is the bigger problem. He’s a great scorer and closer, but he can’t guard anyone and his ball domination HURTS the offense in other ways. But Brunson isn’t going anywhere. So just start looking for a trade for KAT or for a PF to pair with him and give that a try.
Like I said, I think they are going to wait and see what a new coach can do with this talent until at least the deadline, but ultimately I think they are going to have to trade Towns if they are serious about a championship. IMO that combo is not going to work.
I don’t think this is about putting our rookies in and just having them play better.
It’s more like putting them into a situation where they can succeed. And if they don’t fit 100% into Thibs’ rigid systems, then they won’t play. That’s the problem they had this season.
They need a coach who can see what they do well, and intentionally put them into those spaces where they can thrive – or design ones for them. What rotations work for them? Where can we make the most of their skills? How do we hide their weaknesses?
Of all the candidates, I’m hoping we sign Mike Brown to be our coach. I live in the Bay Area. I’ve gotten to see how he’s able to adapt his coaching to the talent on the roster – especially in Sacramento, where they played so differently than his Cleveland teams. His Warriors defenses were outstanding as well.
Jenkins plays a lot of guys, which is okay, but his offense is eerily similar to Thibs’. I’m not sure how creative he actually is other than with his rotations – which would be helpful, IMHO.
Yeah Mike Brown seems like an obvious choice who might, nevertheless, be sneaky good. I think he’s underrated by some in the mainstream media. He also seems like a players coach.
if the Knicks had just won in 5 this board would still be an endless fantasy GM circlejerk, and probably during the trophy ceremony
the eastern conference finals or the championship
When you account for both how good they are now and their asset chest, OKC is light years ahead of everyone else in the NBA. You could absolutely argue that the optimal play is to play dead and collect assets for a while on this basis, and I might not even disagree.
But I mean, the Pacers aren’t light years ahead of us and have played a very competitive series against them. If you have a team that can feasibly make the finals, you have a much better shot at a championship in the next 20 years by continuing to try to build on it than you do by starting a rebuild, even a well-executed one.
I was deluded enough to think he might not have a career low FTr (by a lot–13th percentile among forwards, 18th among wings), might average more than 3.1 TRB/36, might shoot better than 30.5% from above the break, might not be in the 34th percentile among forwards and 21st percentile among wings in 3PAr, and might not have his supporters talking about how he was actually never supposed to be a point of attack defender after he underwhelmed in that area.
Other than that stuff though, yeah, not sure what people are upset about.
let us pray for mike brown i have been convinced that he is the better choice for us than taylor jenkins who would be an ok consolation prize if brown does not want it he seems to be interested though because he is interviewing
I do appreciate that I think Mike Brown could probably beat up Rick Brunson push comes to shove, so there’s that.
Comment of the thread!
assuming the new coach wants his own staff….does that mean he or she would/could 86 brunson sr?
no whoever comes in must be made to understand that the elder brunson is not going anywhere if that is not acceptable then no job offer
Are you Rick Brunson, lol.
I would be shocked if a coach would be cool with that set up. Thibs probably was because he was an assistant under Van Gundy when Rick was a player and has known both of them for a long time. But considering the gossip in the media about some players not liking him on the bench and also the DDV incident in pre-season, I would would actually not want a coach who would be ok with Rick remaining on the bench.
The problem isn’t that Mikal was bad. The problem was that he was mind numbingly mediocre.
It’s very odd to me that we are even having this discussion. We all just watched a 3000 minute sample of the guy playing the most utterly generic basketball humanly imaginable. He was not a difference maker on either end, and there should be no question that a player of his impact could have been acquired for a third of the price. He’s like opportunity cost gained sentience and did nothing but shoot 15 foot fadeaway jumpers.
And I would be furious with someone who shitcanned my dad. Like, forever.
I guess “Come play with dad!” got us Jalen, but now you reap what you sow…
Jalen is a big boy. His dad can run the G-League or the summer camp or whatever.
I guess all teams coddle their superstars to some degree but it’s a very weird dynamic and if Jalen is truly the leader he likes to act like he is, he can take one for the team, can’t he?
It’s odd to me that you think a new coach/system, playing in a contract year, etc…couldn’t make a difference in his play.
How many times have we seen players have down years only to then have career years? This shit happens all the time.
I think Mikal’s biggest issue is that he occupies the midrange, which is basically Brunson’s territory. We saw him play a lot better when Brunson was out (also similar to Murray when Trae was out), so I’m not sure there’s an easy solution to them working it out on offense. Maybe a ball-motion offense would do the trick, but I can’t imagine it without seeing those players do it first. I don’t think it’s an impossible task and, yes, maybe Mike Brown is the guy to install that, so we could just run it back with tweaks and Brown. But if Mitch can’t play in that offense, can a defense with KAT at the 5 possibly work? Again, who knows.
i’d like to see mikal play the 2, have his usage go up…let jalen play off the ball more this upcoming season (except for the last 5 minutes of the 4th – just give him the ball and get out the way)…
jalen and mikal could provide some defensive backcourt issues…hopefully OG and mitch can help cover up some of those issues…
also want to see KAT’s usage from the top of the key go up, we were doing all this wonderful cutting with KAT dropping dimes all over the place, and then we stopped……
basically keep jalen off the ball for a good 38 out of 48 minutes…
why i’m wishing – get all our starters down to about 34 minutes or less a game…
yeah, i’m starting to like the sound of giving mike brown a try…surely that means we are about to pick someone else…
i’ve gotten over the notion of giving the job to some first time coach…we are in win now mode…that’s not a risk i would expect leon to take either…
Maybe, but he’s also the most tradeable
If the Knicks fire Rick Brunson they should replace him with John Haliburton.
Can teams trade Dads?
next season the eastern conference may do what the west did this year and have the top six teams all around 50 wins…
i’m almost kind of hoping detroit lands someone impactful this off season…
Would be interesting to get some detailed points of view from legit coaches (not candidates) on the systems and tactics they would deploy to maximize the current roster.
Mike K – bring back the guest blogger?!
why on earth would you want detroit to get someone impactful and leapfrog us
This is crazy take, brother. The best Knicks player in at least 25 years is NOT the biggest problem we have.
TNFH,
With the Thunder in the West, you play to win the conference and hope they get picked off or come in banged up or just play a dogshit series the way they have in their two losses.
The Pacers (largely Haliburton) were inexplicably bad in the beginning of the season and are a far better team than their SRS or win totals suggest — but still not a perennial conference favorite the way the Cavs and Warriors were during that rivalry. They’re Haliburton and team of strong role players who could win a ring but never make an All-NBA team (with respect to Siakam, who will not make one again).
Cavs are strong but clearly show weakness in some matchups. Celtics are about to pay Tatum a billion dollars to rehab the worst injury a basketball player can reasonably have. The Magic aren’t anywhere close to contending. Fuck Trae Young.
Knicks are in a great position given that there’s an all-time roster absolutely stacked with trade assets on the other side of the Mississippi.
IMO you find the right coach and ride this roster until it fails in the first round.
detroit and orlando both have a shot at leapfrogging us…i don’t think boston is going to be all that bad, if not top four, top six at least…cavs are still really good…
even after having them eliminate us two seasons in a row, and the fact they are still playing – i’m not really all that sold on the pacers next season…
they’re like the heat or hawks, sure they can get lucky, but not top four…with or without giannis, bucks and the bulls are both play in type teams…
ha, i guess the sixers will be somewhere around the play in if embiid is back…ha, what a terrible process that turned out to be…
The thumbs are anonymous but for the record I thumbsed Jowles’ take.
This is a reasonable take. Could Mikal play better? Maybe.
But the idea that he has trade value because he’s “plug and play” doesn’t really hold water. Can’t play with somebody else who occupies the midrange, can’t really play POA defense, isn’t big/strong enough to guard bigger wings… I mean, that sounds like a situational player.
Considering his contract situation in which he will soon need to be extended, he doesn’t seem like a great trade asset to me.
It’s actually two down years in a row for Bridges now. And 6,000 minutes of mediocre basketball. He already went to a new coach/system and it didn’t make a difference.
He and Hart both strike me as assets likely to depreciate in the next 12 months. Sell high on both and fix the roster imbalance.
I don’t think so. This is what you wrote that I disagree with:
I happen to disagree with your opinion. Is that OK? How is disagreeing with someone’s opinion “rushing to misjudgment?” And how are you so positive it is a misjudgment? Just curious.
Bob, what are you even talking about? You accused me of saying a 20-year-old isn’t going to improve.
You
Actually
Said
That.
Then you accused me, admittedly the general ‘me’ (those like me, although I never said what you accused me of saying) of being impetuous.
I said I didn’t see either of them improving enough to get regular playing time next year. You can disagree with that! Be my guest, and may you be right! I hope so!
But don’t stuff words I never said into my mouth and then accuse me of being impetuous. Fuck you.
For those playing their cards at home, here’s what Bob said after I surmised I’d be surprised if they improved enough to get regular playing time next year:
“Why would anyone be amazed that a guy who doesn’t turn 20 til next month and was highly regarded by the guys who have made some pretty good picks in the 25-35 range (when give the chance) will improve?”
Bold is mine, as it is where to took things out of context, I’d argue on purpose as it’s his schtick, and ran with it.
“There simply is no clever coaching solution to Brunson’s defense, KAT’s defense, OG’s dribbling, Hart’s shooting, Deuce’s height, Mitch’s free throws, and Mikal’s general underwhelmingness, sir.”
Agree with the statement., because it contains the word simply. As luck would have it, we are interviewing clever candidates who have years of experience demonstrating that they can deal with these issues. We need to choose the best one, not throw in the towel because to get to the next level is not simple.
it gets mean around here awful quick
Well that’s great news. I thought we were just interviewing Mike Brown and Taylor Jenkins.
Who are these clever geniuses? I definitely want the one who can make Deuce taller.
1. playing Bridges at the POA is not something we were forced into doing, it’s one of the things we got him to do. It’s what he’s supposed to be good at.
2. We almost never did this. I’m not sure why, maybe because we never really got to practice it
3. OG is not a good rebounder for a power forward, but Bridges is also a terrible rebounder. His lack of a 3 outside of the corners and his unwillingness to attack the rim also don’t help the offensive spacing.
If he wasn’t a guy you traded a haul of picks for he was fine, maybe a league average player, but also the worst of our starters by a good margin.
Man, this KD thing… it almost feels like a Knicks fidelity test.
– KD actually wants the Knicks and can somewhat control his fate
– Phoenix is only getting lackluster offers and actually prefers win-now players in return
– We have a flawed roster, yet players Phoenix needs (defensive wings, a center)
– KD can still actually play
I’m actually surprised we’re resisting like this, especially since they could have Mike Brown try to recreate a KD Warriors team with JB as Steph and KAT as his mobile, passing big.
I think it’s a combination of overconfidence (they seem to think they already put a championship team together and Thibs fucked it up) and Dolan holding a grudge.
They don’t want a 37 year old..
nor do i
I remember when you guys didn’t want Jimmy Butler this summer bc he was 35 and then he went and had a 4.9 bpm season.
Y’all have a history of not understanding outliers.
It’s pretty likely 37 year old Kevin Durant will have a higher bpm next year than OG, Mikal, and Hart combined.
i get what you are saying but i am just not sure that kd is one of those outliers like lebron is when you give up what we would have to give up to get him you kind of have to be sure
Just for the record, I didn’t address “they”, I addressed Dadiet, singularly.
It isn’t “schtick” to have an opinion that a teenager who was drafted by guys who have been successful when allowed to draft in that range would improve a bunch. End of story.
Bob, if you’d wanted to say “I disagree, I think Dadiet has a good chance to break out next year, because skinny teen/bow to authority” (yanking your chain there a bit) — that’d be great, your lips to god’s ears. But you didn’t say that.
You said I said he’d never improve. Which is crap of the foulest order.
*I* said I didn’t think he’d improve enough to be useful next year. I hope I’m wrong. I get just a tinge of Knox from him, which admittedly might be PTSD.
Anyone think starting Knox as a rookie for 57 games was a great moment for Knicksiness? That year was incredible.
For every Jimmy Butler there’s a Paul George meeting the cliff at just about the time you’d expect. People here wanted Paul George last year too, and he seems utterly washed at 34.
Durant has already made it past age 34 without falling entirely off the cliff, but he’s getting ever so slightly closer to that edge. FTr was well below his career norm last year, he missed 1/4 of the season, and he had the worst rebounding rate of his career. Those are all things that suggest a decline in athleticism, normal for a 36 year old.
He’s a special player, so maybe he holds that off for a year or two. But also, maybe not. Another dip in athleticism or production, even a small one, and that’s a trade you’re gonna regret.
Sounds like Toronto is offering the ex-Knick platter + Poeltl + #9 for KD… that’s not bad I suppose. Not great but not bad.
Butler also shat the bed in the playoffs against the twolves when Steph went down.
No one’s just handing this team a two-way guy in his prime with a high-level pristine BB-ref page, so risks are going to have to be taken.
You can take the age risk (Durant, Butler, etc.), or you can take something more like the “efficiency” risk with a young, highly-skilled player with an imperfect BB-ref page. Jalen Green sounds like he might shake loose from Phoenix if they make the Durant trade with Houston; if you can interest them in their old friend Mikal, that’s something you do in a heartbeat. Many other possibilities of this archetype present themselves (but of course many or most of them aren’t in network for Leon’s PPO, sigh.)
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