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Knicks Morning News (2025.06.25)
06/25/2025 11:00:00
06/25/2025 11:00:00
06/25/2025 08:30:01
06/25/2025 07:33:59
06/25/2025 00:28:00
06/24/2025 22:49:00
06/24/2025 22:57:41
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73 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2025.06.25)”
I have no draft opinions other than that Cooper Flagg is good and Ace Bailey will disappoint whoever drafts him greatly.
You would think artists have the least to worry about from AI but my sitcom writer friend would beg to differ.
Scissored in my Chevy? It kind of works. Can’t deny it.
Mitch was drafted 36th, a few picks after Brunson and one pick ahead of Gary Trent Jr. OAKAAK Shake Milton was, however, drafted in the 50s that year, so…
– Let’s not forget our top 7 also includes our own 2nd rounder Miles McBride! And that our first round picks over that span includes Toppin, Grimes, Knox, etc.
– Interested to see what the Nets do with their FIVE first rounders.
Macri’s newsletter this morning (which I won’t link to as it seems to take people directly to my CV) makes a point I’ve been struggling with.
I’ve periodically jumped on the ‘assists’ bandwagon, really just a proxy for moving the ball (‘the beautiful game’). But whenever I go to find data to prove my point that the Knicks suck at this, it turns out most stats have us in the upper-middle of various assist stats. Macri points out we have more players with more games of six assists or more than most other teams. And in fact, for the season we averaged a tad over my own mythological 27 assists per game!
So why do so many of us feel we need another floor general on the team (Kolek, anyone?). I’m going to quote a section from the newsletter here. In short, what it suggests is maybe we don’t need to pass the ball more (we do), we need to re-think our shot distribution and how we get them.
Which is a strong argument to run it back but do it all differently.
“According to Cleaning the Glass, New York’s postseason effective field goal percentage ranked 11th of 16 playoff teams. They were pretty good from the midrange (6th best among 20 postseason teams) but bad to dreadful from everywhere else:
• 14th out of 20 from deep
• 16th out of 20 on long twos
• 17th out of 20 at the rim
Did the Knicks not make shots in the playoffs because they took too many tough attempts? Did they simply miss shots they should have made? Or are they just not that good of a shooting team?
From January 1 until the end of the regular season, New York’s once vaunted offense ranked 20th in the league in effective field goal percentage. That seems ridiculously low given their talent, but it also makes sense when you consider that no team attempted a lower percentage of their shots from deep after January 1. That trend continued in the postseason, when the Knicks’ 3-point attempt rate was lower than any postseason team besides Houston. It’s impossible to win in the league today if you a) top out as a mediocre defense, b) don’t take threes and c) don’t make the ones you take (New York hit just below 35 percent from deep in the playoffs, good for 10th best among 16 teams). From this perspective, it’s kind of a miracle they got as far as they did.”
Things AI helped me with:
* Write business emails based on bullet points I provided, in the tone I requested.
* Write code, and SQL queries based on requirements.
* Teach me the overall architecture of developing an AI agent over a large dataset. The question and answer format was very helpful.
* Find a hotel in Stockholm based on my touristic preferences. Did a better than airbnb or booking.com. Same, re the dialog.
* Provide basic information on people I was curious about.
* Search the details of the first time Jrue Holiday was traded to Portland.
Things AI failed me at:
* Edit a literary text (shitty advise).
* Research that involved actual knowledge of actual books, rather than their plot synopsis.
* Find out which players were traded twice to the same team in the NBA.
Perusing players drafted in the 50s since 1980. Over 400 players. Top of the list is Manu. Next is Isaiah Thomas. Our very own Anthony Mason (and regrettably our briefly own Shandon Anderson). Almost Knick coach Steve Kerr and actual Knick coach Kurt Rambis (didn’t know we drafted Kurt, cut him and then he signed with the Lakers). About 20 others who had good solid careers. Better hit rate than I would have thought.
Our season is tough to evaluate as a whole because there were periods when the ball was moving well, we were piling up assists and the offense looked good and there were periods when imo we did way too much dribbling and isolation. Some of that almost has to be how we were defended early in the season vs later, but some of it on the players and Thibs. For example, I thought the ball moved better when Brunson was out and OG and Mikal stepped up. The offense was missing our #1 scorer (and closer) but it didn’t drop off a cliff because we were doing some other things better.
I think if we can get Brunson to buy into believing the offense will be more efficient if the ball moves even if he scores less, we’ll go back to being a very efficient offense. But that also requires good coaching. We aren’t playing a game of hot potato. The movement of the ball and players, the spacing etc.. has to be purposeful so it leads to higher quality shots because the defense eventually makes a mistake.
I had a sudden jolt of optimism about a potentially incredible fringe move: I think we can get Al Horford.
The Celtics aren’t going to be offering a lot of money bc they have to stay under the apron. But more importantly they aren’t offering much of an opportunity. They’re taking a gap year. And this could be the last year of his career. Why would he want to sign up for that?
New York is a great place for him to finish. He’s the perfect fit here. He fits seemlessly next to KAT or Mitch. And without Thibs around to grind his knees into dust winning that all important second game of a back to back against the Wizards, we can afford to use him very sparingly so he can save himself for a playoff run.
Get it done, Leon.
1. Mikal is now eligible for an extension.
It will be interesting to see what happens.
2. Mike Brown is supposedly the leader for the coaching gig going into the clublhouse.
I’m not a huge Jason Kidd fan. I guess the offense will be a little more creative with him instead of Thibs and he did coach the Mavs to a very good defense even with Doncic on the court, but he’s not exactly what I had in mind for bringing in new fresh creative thinking.
That said, if the choice is between whether Kid gets an extension in Dallas or comes to NY and Mike Brown, I hope Kidd doesn’t get that extension. I’d way rather have Kidd. Mike Brown is a very good coach. He’ll get the team to play hard and get us to the playoffs, but he’s not going to be the kind if innovative coach that’s going to get the most out of this offense. IMO he’s another variation of Thibs in that he’s got a high floor, but the ceiling is not high enough. I think he would be a mistake.
I’d still WAY rather gamble on Taylor Jenkins.
I’ve seen that mentioned a few times. It would be a great move, but he’s going to be a hot ticket. He may outside our budget.
I enjoyed watching these NBA finals because they were ultra-competitive for the most part and both teams played good, clean, hard basketball.
That said, after much reflection, I think it was a second-rate matchup compared to the all-time great teams. The comparisons of OKC to all-time great defensive teams seems pretty far-fetched to me because Indiana is hardly an all-time great offensive team and they pushed OKC to 7 games, and might not have won if Hali stayed healthy. And obviously OKC’s offense is nothing to write home about.
My sense is that the truly great modern teams…Bird’s Celtics, Magic’s Lakers, Jordan’s Bulls, Kobe/Shaq’s Lakers, Duncan’s Spurs, LeBron’s Heat, Steph/Durant’s Warriors…would have wiped the floor with either of these teams, and that lots of teams who lost in the finals to those teams would have beaten OKC handily.
Folks can point to OKC’s regular season record and stats, but the trend towards parity and lack of big-3 superteams has diluted the meaning of those stats. SGA is good, but more of a faux MVP and probably not destined to be a top-20 player of all time. JDub is an excellent #2, he ain’t Pippin, or McHale, or Wade, or Kobe. Chet and iHart are very good, but what would they do with Shaq, or Duncan, or Kareem, or McHale/Parish?
OKC is a worthy champion and they will only get better, so this is just an opinion about this year and their current team. My opinion might change if they go on a dynastic run and face better competition. But for now, I think their success is more about the current NBA and less about actual greatness.
horford would be a great get what can we realistically offer them still would like for us to consider kelly olynyk re mike brown being the leader in the clubhouse where are you getting that information from
Maybe they want Mikal Bridges back
lmao 😉
I thought about this, then remembered LA needs a center. It’s now 100% guaranteed he goes to the Lakers, because that’s just how things work.
Also, I think Boston is now under the 2nd apron and maybe they consider bringing him back.
I agree with Z-Man’s analysis of OKC. Their defense is very good and they have good depth, but I don’t think they are an all time great team. Their high quality offense is dependent on the defense generating TOs. They are a very worthy champion. Now if they get further internal development, we may have to revisit that conversation in the future.
Yeah, I don’t think Horford is gonna disrupt his life to chase money at age 39, my guess is that he signs a low-level extension, maybe even a 1-year deal to be the team’s old head to the up-and-coming players.
OKC is nowhere near close to an all time great team. We can revisit in 5 years. Thanks.
For what it’s worth, I believe it’s been reported before that KAT and Horford have an excellent relationship and are friends, with KAT seeing him as a kind of mentor back in their days on the Dominican team in FIBA. I doubt that’s going to overtly affect his decision making but it could potentially make a difference.
I would love to add Horford… Don’t look now Cyber, but Queta is at the top of the C’s depth chart… OKC is still very young, they could end up stringing together 2 or 3 Chips…
You make an excellent point.
This one not as much. I can’t claim to know Al Horford but I think coming here to play an important role on the court and in the locker room for a team with aspiration is a more attractive proposition to a 39 year old than playing meaningless basketball for a team taking a gap year, even if it pays marginally less.
This is the kind of high impact fringe move that would get me excited. I don’t know how many other ones exist.
Last year, the Pacers had the 2nd highest offensive rating of all-time with basically the same roster. They were 9th this year, which isn’t bad and 0.3 points behind the top playoff offensive rating, excluding Cleveland who beat the crap out of Miami in a way that makes the Globetrotters vs Generals look like it’s down to the wire.
hell i would be ecstatic if we could have a homecoming with luke kornet they probably do not want to pay both him and horford
I’m just thinking that he’s won a championship already, has lived in Boston 7 of the last 9 years and moving is a pain in the ass, especially when you only need to wait a year to be back in contention. If Boston antes up, maybe that plays a factor.
Either way, I’d love to grab him.
I’d also be happy with Kornet, I’m honestly skeptical we can afford him.
part of me wants to add the obvious question about why boston would want to help us out of all teams but it has already happened twice with toronto and the nets so maybe lightning strikes thrice
I would love a Dominican frontcourt although Horford is getting up there. He’s always been one of my favorite players though and he’d be a great fit here or anywhere.
Those are some interesting numbers Raven. Kind of confirms how we all feel about things. How do we get back to the offense we had the first few months? And keep everyone happy.
We abused Kornet in the playoffs this year but sure.
I’m more into Horford who can play either big spot cromulently. Don’t you think he’ll get more than the TPMLE, though?
I’ve periodically jumped on the ‘assists’ bandwagon, really just a proxy for moving the ball (‘the beautiful game’). But whenever I go to find data to prove my point that the Knicks suck at this, it turns out most stats have us in the upper-middle of various assist stats.
true in the regular season (even for the most part in the second half), but passing effectiveness definitely cliff dove in the playoffs. a lot of that is because defenses are better and play harder. league ast/100 went from 26.8 in reg season to 23.6 in the playoffs. but ours dropped from 28.2 to 20.7. we played three pretty good defenses, but there were a lot of good defense in the playoffs. i think the story does come down to more than missed shots or even the drastic change in competition.
one factor was playing mitch a lot more. mitch isn’t just one of the least involved passers in the league, he’s also one of the least utilized pass catchers. he only received 4.1 assists per 100 in 370 playoff minutes. that’s off the charts low. i-hart: 11.6. gobert: 7.1 jarrett allen: 14.2. OG, Mikal and KAT combined to throw 4 assists to Mitch in the entire postseason. obviously mitch was historic on the orb, so this cost doesn’t come without its offensive benefits.
we also completely lost KAT as a passer. he went from 4.3 ast / 100 in the regular season to an anemic 1.9 /100 in the postseason. this isn’t just lower than guys like ihart (4.8) and duren (5.0). It’s lower than zubac (3.3), allen (2.3), turner (2.3) and wendell carter (2.0). in the regular season, kat averaged 7.4 assist per 100 to just mikal, og and jalen. in the playoffs it plunged to 2.6. kat had 4 assists to jalen in 493 playoff minutes. that’s fewer than kawhi had to kris dunn. and as is more commonly recognized, jalen’s assists to kat also dropped precipitously, from 6.6 per 100 in the regular season to 4.1 in the playoffs. how much of this is about kat and jalen synergy, playcalling, overall personnel or kat himself is, i think, hard.
deuce and payne were relegated to basically being small 2s, instead of a tweener and backup pg respectively, which didn’t help but is something that happens to a lot of bench guards in the playoffs.
i don’t these those outcomes are overly probative as to what really “caused” the drop-off. we all saw defenses lean harder into leaving josh, but also the team looked much worse in playing swing-swing when he tried to use josh as the short roll playmaker. quick decisions, good passing, shooting and relentless movement are like the matrix of features that make up non-superstar scoring. in the playoffs, the maximum total weakness you can get away with from that amalgam goes way up, and we put a lot of otherwise very good players together who are pretty weak at one or more of those things.
Horford isn’t hitting those dagger 3’s with the same consistency anymore, but would still be a good get.
I don’t you think you can let him play out the year bc if he makes good and some team like San Antonio gets his attention and he leaves, this turns this from one of the worst basketball trades ever into something closer to the sale of Manhattan island to the Dutch.
Great corner Leon painted himself into.
How was Toronto not very good with Siakam, OG and VanVleet on the same team?
The alternative is trading him, but I don’t think we’d get back a player of equal value with his own value somewhat diminished by perceptions that he had a disapppointing year.
We could also combine him with Mitch and make a bigger splash.
None of those all-time great teams, Z-Man, were all-time great teams after they won their first title.
If OKC continues to wrack up regular seasons where they win 60 plus games and win 2 or 3 more titles in the next 5 or 6 years, then they will absolutely be worthy of being mentioned with those teams.
OKC is SUPER young, too. Younger than any of those teams.
I would rather trade Mikal than extend him or lose him for nothing, and I even like the guy. Getting back a cromulent rotation piece and maybe a pick or two would suffice for me.
Horford is a nice idea but, man, he is old.
If he’s our stretch 4 of the bench who adds depth to our team and is an upgrade over Precious, cool. But as a starter (even part-time?), I just don’t know if we should go that route. He is super smart, though, but looking at The Pacers and OKC…these are young, athletic teams that can run up and down the floor.
If anything I think we should be looking to shore up our bench with young, diamond in the rough types, who have yet to achieve their potential. These are riskier moves but higher reward. IE, find our next iHart (but add a team option on that third year, Leon!)
Our team is not old but we’re not young either. And while I think we can play faster and more up tempo than we did under thibs, we aren’t running anyone out of the gym.
“Last year, the Pacers had the 2nd highest offensive rating of all-time with basically the same roster. They were 9th this year, which isn’t bad and 0.3 points behind the top playoff offensive rating, excluding Cleveland who beat the crap out of Miami in a way that makes the Globetrotters vs Generals look like it’s down to the wire.”
Speaking strictly from my very well educated gut, I think today’s ORtg stats are wildly inflated by a number of factors. Teams play to the way the game is played in their respective eras. But if you want to believe that a team whose 3 best players are Hali, Siakam, and Turner are better offensive teams than Magic, Kareem and Worthy, or Bird, Parish, and McHale, or LeBron, Wade, Bosh, or Duncan, Parker, Manu, or Steph, Durant, Klay…more power to you!
I think we all see him as a backup that should play limited minutes – except for Thibs who would play him 40 minutes and Isola who would agree with Thibs . 😉
Many said you couldn’t get anything for Jrue Holiday or Kristaps Porzingis. But Brad Stephens moved them both within 2 days of the season ending.
Mikal Bridges doesn’t suck, he just isn’t what we need.
A good GM could trade Mikal Bridges today and make the Knicks better. Is Leon Rose a good GM? I highly doubt it. But we’ll see.
If he’s not good, what is he then? I’m not trying to start a fight but what is your standard? 4 playoff appearances in 5 years, 3 straight trips to the 2nd round and first conference finals for the franchise in 25 years. Two all-star starters on the roster.
The bar seems awfully high, hubs!
And Barnes.
Yes, very good question. I seem to have remembered someone else asking this, too — I think we might be getting somewhere.
In re Mikal: Isola tweeted this morning that he’s being discussed with other teams along with Mitch in possible trades.
How was Toronto not very good with Siakam, OG and VanVleet on the same team?
the thing is they kind of were. little known fact is that lineups with the 3 of them together in the post kawhi years were over plus 6 in 3700 minutes, which is like a 56 win run rate. if you only include the lineups where masai managed to pair them with a decent center, which was only like 1/3 of the total, they were an insane plus 10.
Basic.
Offenses today are more effective. That doesn’t mean they’re more skilled.
Similarly, OKC is certainly world-class in terms of output versus peer class. That’s what net, SRS, ORat, DRat measure. Again, effective. Not necessarily skilled.
(FWIW, I personally think Jalen Williams is just as good as Pippen. Pippen actually was something of a bricklayer, as his internals re shooting that we saw the other day help show. Pippen may have been a *slightly* better defender, but J-Dub is outstanding on the defensive end. SGA/J-Dub are a very worthy 1-2. I do agree that they start to fray a bit against the best of their predecessors when we get to 3 on down.)
I atually feel much better now. For a moment there, I thought my model of thinking on player value had a major bug. 😉 It probably still does, but ignorance is bliss.
I thought Leon was good until the Mikal Bridges trade, which may be the worst trade in franchise history
Not going to go through the whole list, but just picking ’21-’22 at random:
Siakam/FVV/OG: 764 minutes, net 6.2
Siakam/FVV/Trent, Jr.: 1128 minutes, net 6.0
Siakam/FVV/Precious: 532 minutes, net 7.6
Siakam/FVV/Boucher: 474 minutes, net 9.5.
Leon’s connections were a critical factor in bringing in Jalen Brunson and JB very well might not have been here without that factor.
Ex-that, he’s sub-replacement level.
Looking at the last 4 seasons they played together:
– Siakam/FVV/Boucher with OG was +15 in 400 min
– Siakam/FVV/Boucher w/o OG was +3.83 in 900 min
– Trio and no Boucher +5
– Siakam/FVV/Precious with OG was +16
– Siakam/FVV/Precious w/o OG was +3
– Trio and no Precious + 5
– Siakam/FVV/Trent with OG +1
– Siakam/FVV/Trent w/o OG +4
– Trio and no Trent +8
Dumping Thibs for Mike Brown would be such a hilariously silly move. But hey, maybe it’d work out!
I’d be extremely reluctant to trade Mitch. In fact I’d be looking to extend him at something like 3 years, $30M, which would make his total contract equal to TJ McConnell’s 4 year/$44M deal. If we locked him into that 18mpg role off the bench at that price with our training staff, we should have an outstanding 6th man at a good price for many years to come.
One of the smart things about the Pacers is they never fall into that stupid trap with McConnell that the Knicks did during the playoffs with Mitch: “We look really good when he plays 20 minutes, we should try playing him 30!” No, you should be thankful that you get 20 outstanding minutes off the bench and do something else to fix your starting lineup.
With Mitch and Deuce on the bench, all you need is a couple of vet minimum guys, maybe a draft pick or two, and you have a solid 5 man unit for less than $25M. That is a winning formula. Keep it.
The losing formula is the starting lineup of Brunson, Hart, Bridges, KAT, and OG. That’s where your trade should come from.
Brunson is untouchable.
OG, overpaid as he is, is the last guy I’d want to trade.
KAT is the most complicated of them all.
To me it comes down to Hart or Bridges.
Leon’s mission is to find a good trade for one of those guys that balances out the lineup, like when Stephens turned Marcus Smart into Porzingis and a pick.
no others interested in olynyk could be cheap also maybe nick richards also maybe mark williams if charlotte drafts another center
Hubs,
I get where you are coming from with Mitch. However, his game changing performances in the playoffs and also good contract might make him our best trade chip right now if we want to bring back something useful somewhere else. I’m torn. If only he could shoot like 75 percent from the line.
I wouldn’t mind Olynyk on a cheap deal, he’s a useful piece and should be at bare minimum playable alongside KAT.
I’m glad I’m not the only one that sees it that way. But I also read that Brown has a good relationship with Leon and WWW.
None of those Cs are free agents and I wouldn’t want to give up anything for Richards or Olynyk.
Olynyk is a solid backup but makes $13M a year, which is not a great use of money.
Richards is still awful. 873rd in 4yr-DRAPM.
Mark Williams is going to be expensive unless the Lakers found something really bad in his physical, then you probably don’t want him anyway.
i love mitch too much i admit the homegrown thing and the fact that he has been with us for his whole career has kind of captured me i understand that this kind of sentimentality could lead to short sighted thinking and opportunities missed but i also think that he is a key to our defense along with og and deuce
almost every time I see him play, I think he’s just lucky a bunch, with shooting, any kind of defensive effort – pretty much everything…
maybe it’s his stoner haircut…I’m not sure…
each stop (he’s gotta be on like his 8th team at least) he seems to play pretty good…
unlike mitch or huk, kelly can shoot the ball – sort of well at times from outside…
haven’t looked at his stat page, will if we bring him on board…
mark williams averaged 15 and 11 and 62.5 percent shooting in 28 minutes per game in the 21 games he played in after the lakers rescinded the trade i still think there is something fishy going on there and they decided against moving knecht it was convenient to blame a failed physical but yes i would bang on the table more for olynyk or kornet than i would for williams
Okay, then he’s in the last year of his rookie contract after a season of 20 & 13.7 per 36. I have no idea what we’re trading for him.
I get that we’re all down on Mikal Bridges but he can easily back more in a trade than Mitch.
Josh Hart will take a little more work, but that’s what good GMs do.
Every single summer the Celtics get exactly what they want at the price they want.
It’s a broad market. There are 29 other GMs, not all of them need guys who can win at the deepest level. Don’t be lazy, run it back, and expect magic.
This is a league that’s desperate for wings. You’ve got three of them that don’t fit well together. Work the 29 other GMs and trade one to make the team better.
The way I see it we have 3/5 of a championship lineup in Brunson, OG, KAT (KAT is debatable but let’s give him the benefit of the doubt). We have a championship caliber bench if Deuce and Mitch are there with some solid vet mins.
Hart and Bridges are suspect.
Hart is a really nice player who becomes a liability the deeper into the playoffs you get. Luckily there’s probably 20+ teams that don’t expect to get deep in the playoffs, so make a trade with one of them.
The NBA’s not an efficient market. Find the sucker for once instead of being him.
FFS the Celtics just got a 36 win team who hardly sniffed the 10th seed to take a terrible vet contract off their hands!
Two years ago they got Porzingis and picks for Marcus Smart!
Last summer the Hawks turned Dejounte Murray into Dyson Daniels, Larry Nance, and two first round picks!
The Nets got five first round picks for Mikal Bridges!!!!
This is a trade market that proves over and over that everything is possible.
The Lakers just got Luka Doncic for Anthony Davis, but people sit here and act like Leon Rose can’t expect to get anything good for Mikal Bridges.
Come on. The trades are out there. He just sucks at finding them.
great points hubert thank you
I think it’s a lot easier to trade players when you’re not trying to improve the team and just want to cut salary.
“until the Mikal Bridges trade, which may be the worst trade in franchise history”
Hopefully not. Because if it has a couple of iterations to run, can challenge Pat for Glen Rice as the absolute worst to sink a franchise.
This is a horrible example. The league orchestrated this trade!
Mikal deal also has a LONG way to go just to get ahead of the Eddy Curry trade. Even though the pick cost was lower, Curry was a bad player, and the picks both wound up being valuable lottery picks. There’s a chance we could give up a lottery pick or two to Brooklyn, but this team has a much higher floor than the Zeke squad.
shall i even utter the name joakim noah not a trade but still a killer at 4 years 72M oh and hi mr. bargnani
any reason we are not talking frank vogel or nick nurse i know that we hated nurse as coach of the sixers in last years playoffs but sometimes the guy we hate on other teams is the guy that we want in our own building i think of tj mcconnell the same way
Nurse is still the Sixers coach.
I think we’ll extend Mikal and Mitch, that’s just my gut feeling. Rose will probably try to assuage Mikal with a player-friendly coach and a stronger role description and then sign him at not exactly a discount but something less than insane.
Also, I prefer Borrego or Nori to the retread guys, but that’s just me.
nurse still being the sixers coach has never stopped us from asking before lol how about vogel
other guy in charlotte karlo matkovic 15 and 10 per 36 mins .574 FG .675 2 pt FG .619 eFG
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