Knicks Morning News (2019.01.27)

  • [NYPost] Trey Burke begins showcase stretch as Knicks explore trade
    (Saturday, January 26, 2019 2:53:41 PM)

    Trey Burke admits he’s old by current Knicks standards, but not by his own. In fact, the 26-year-old point guard said he has not yet hit his prime. After not playing in four straight games and eight of the past 13, Burke only got on the Barclays Center court Friday against the Nets because starter…

  • [NYPost] Knicks need to hope Fizdale is right as dysfunction rises
    (Saturday, January 26, 2019 11:28:48 AM)

    Knicks coach David Fizdale has denied he’s tanking, and now he denies the team’s embarrassing 10-37 record is setting up a losing culture. “Most winning cultures start with getting your butt kicked first,’’ Fizdale said after Friday’s 109-99 defeat to the injury-wracked Nets at Barclays Center. Fizdale’s motives — emphasizing player development over the won-loss…

  • [SNY Knicks] WATCH: Potential Knicks target Zion Williamson slams vicious alley-oop
    (Saturday, January 26, 2019 3:17:48 PM)

    Zion Williamson delivers a flashy dunk but also finishes with a strong performance in another Duke win.

  • [SNY Knicks] Did Frank Ntilikina’s foul trouble hurt chances for another Knicks start?
    (Saturday, January 26, 2019 11:48:51 AM)

    The Knicks’ starting lineup Friday night had some confusion leading up to the game, as Emmanuel Mudiay’s shoulder injury left a void at point guard. And head coach David Fizdale wouldn’t name his replacement, waiting until starting lineups were announced instead.

  • 38 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2019.01.27)”

    I know no one wants Tim Hardaway. I get that he’s about as good as Jamal Crawford was at his age, but with a bigger contact. But is there even a tiny chance Indy would want to trade Tyreke Evans for him (and maybe some small assets) in order to replace the loss of Oladipo’s scoring?

    I can’t think of the Pacers making a big free agent signing in the past 25 years, so to me it’s fair to say they aren’t hoarding cap space for a big signing (granted, they would be better off using cap space for several role players than THJ).

    I guess I’m just looking for hope. 🙂

    Saw a stat last night that there are only 3 seasons all time where a player has 14+ FGA and is shooting under 40% from the field. Tim Hardaway Jr is on track to have the 4th season. Nobody is trading for that guy.

    @2 – Oof, that is bad… it does, however, look like Crawford also did that TWICE, in ’03-04 and ’04-05 and came very close to doing it a couple more times. We did manage to trade him for Al Harrington.

    I’m playing devil’s advocate in addition to being hopeful. You never wake up thinking that Jamal Crawford will be the basis of an argument that day, yet here we are.

    Let’s not discuss Jamal. We have iso zo now. Let’s fofure out how to get Evans here.

    Would Indy want that contract,?
    Dipo will be back and they can put him as 6th man where he belongs.

    I like Timmy on okc because he can create his own shot. Those are the type of players to surround Russ. But they have no expirings.

    Saw a stat last night that there are only 3 seasons all time where a player has 14+ FGA and is shooting under 40% from the field.

    i can well actually this one without even dragging my ass to bref. this is obviously not even close to true.

    The Cavs are five-point underdogs against the 11-38 Bulls. This is appointment viewing. Huge tank implications. Hey Tristan Thompson, does the East still go through Cleveland?

    Not sure if I’d rather see the Bulls gain a game to lock us at #2, or the Cavs win a game (because they could very well lose the next 31).

    i can well actually this one without even dragging my ass to bref. this is obviously not even close to true.

    There are 59 such seasons (17 of those seasons were by players who missed over half their teams’ games), and three of them — including Hardaway’s 2019 — were Knicks.

    @6 funny, I was just going over today’s games and wondering the same thing. I guess I’m leaning towards rooting for the Bulls but am fine either way. I also think that the Suns are catching the Lakers at the right time and could win, but I worry that the Heat are vulnerable and we could win.

    I really hate rooting for losses. The final minutes of the Wiz loss had me all twisted up in knots. The only team I just can’t ever hope to lose to is the Celts. Yet it might be that win earlier in the year that costs up a spot in the lottery.

    As someone who had high hopes for Burke going into the season, I’m kinda glad that he’s getting a shot to play and that we don’t have to stomach Mudiay for a few games. However, Burke could actually win a close game single-handedly like he did vs. the Celts, so hopefully Fiz will handle with care.

    I’m also rooting for Chicago. I guess it’s a psychological tendency towards securing a position, rather than going all in. Interesting that Jowles and Z-Man feel the same.

    Is Love coming back this year?

    I always root for wins vs. the Lakers and Celtics. L’s against the 27 other teams.

    Burke’s continued stupid shot selection doesn’t say a lot for our coaching staff tbh. 1st in the league in unassisted 2pt shots attempted!

    i don’t think either has a decent chance of being above average, but if i had to pick who had a better shot of being at least a little useful to a good team I’d take burke over mudiay

    I read yesterday that he’s moving really well but no timetable for return yet.

    Thanks.

    Love will put a dent in their tank, so I’m hoping it’s soon. The Cavs are ridiculously bad but we really only need a few surprise wins out of him to stay competitive for #1. Since this big 1-18 streak began, they’ve lost by an average of 16 points per game, though… maybe I’m being too optimistic.

    I think they have four games remaining against tank teams. Hopefully teams like the Clips, Kings, Spurs and Hornets are fighting for playoff position at season’s end.

    i’m trying to figure out what 2nd round picks we have next year
    -Looks like we have Houston’s, from the Prigs trade
    -Looks like Orlando has the right to swap with us, from the O’Quinn deal
    -Looks like we have Clevelands, from the JR trade. SO: Orlando gets that, we have ours.
    -I can’t figure out if we traded our pick to Philly, which was then traded to the Nets, or if we still have it

    So, Orlando’s is like 7th pick, Houston’s is like 22nd.
    Trying to see if we have enough to trade up to another 1st round pick, or to attach to help get Lee out of here.

    We have more than one second rounder?

    Draftnet has Ja ahead of Zion . Who’s writing this stuff

    @14, totally agree. Burke isn’t a genius out there but he’s both more skilled and headier than Mudiay, and will probably cost less as well. While I’m all in on the tank, this is a time for Burke to demonstrate that he’s a better piece going forward than Mudiay, if only just to protect us from Mudiay.

    The other consideration is whether we draft a PG based on our final draft position. I like Morant maybe at #2 (still not sure about how much I like Barrett) but definitely at #3 or below. I doubt that he’s still on the board after #5, so if we get screwed as always by the ping pong balls and wind up somewhere between 6 and 8 (I really can’t see us dropping lower than 7, but even at the #1 and #2 lottery spots, picking 5 or 6 essentially a coin flip) then who do you go for?

    The three guys I’d avoid like the plague in the top 7 are Hachimura, Reddish and Bol.

    @16 we play the Cavs twice in Feb: 2/11 and 2/28. It will be hard to lose both of those, especially since we already lost to them once. Maybe if we play Knox, Hez, Mudiay, Frank and Lance for 48 minutes each in both games?

    I wouldn’t group bol with hachimura and cam. Bol is a legit injury concern at his height.

    If we miss on Zion and Morant, I guess I’d go for Jarrett Culver or De’Andre Hunter if we fall closer to 8th or 9th.

    Culver is a very intriguing prospect, he seems to be a very good defender for his position, is shooting 38% from 3 and is a very good rebounder for his size. I’d be fine with taking him over Barrett and definitely over Reddish at this point.

    @17 to simplify we have the rockets 2nd and that’s it.

    we lost ours in the horrible outlaw salary dump and gave swap rates in other deals such that we end up with the rockets as long as it’s worse than orlando and the cavs.

    Reddish shouldn’t even be in the lottery discussion anymore. I’m amazed that pundits and analysts are still projecting him in the top 5 despite him being virtually useless at everything but steals. I would exploit the fuck out of that pick at #4 though. If someone inexplicably wants him that bad, they can pay for the privilege.

    ptmilo, thanks, you are right.
    wow, so Brooklyn has their 1st, denver’s first, then our 2nd.

    Agree on Reddish. Top 5 prospects shouldn’t be going 1-11 against Georgia Tech. The guy has a 49% ts%. It’s really insane how bad he’s been.

    Re the conversation last night about Okafor, Faried and the fact you can only have one big man out there. The game against the Nets was a good example of the limits of positionless basketball. We got outrebounded 60-33 and they had 12 more offensive boards than us. Everyone in the NBA says you don’t need tall guys anymore but when you don’t have a low-skill rebound Hoover stealing his teammate’s boards some strange things can happen, like Ed Davis putting up 17 and 16 on 6-8 shooting (with no turnovers.)

    I guess I am still a David Berri, “short supply of tall people” guy deep down.

    We’re a lock for a bottom 4 record, meaning we can’t fall lower than 8th in the draft, and have a 98% chance of finishing in the top 7.

    I think we should root for Cleveland tonight. They are truly hot garbage, but Love should win a couple games for them unless he’s a complete shell. That keeps us in the mix for #1.

    Now, cue the THJ not streak to drop us to 4!

    I don’t think it’s viable to end with a worst record than Cleveland, Love might help a bit but they’re just so damn bad and who knows how he’ll play when he comes back.

    The priority should really be locking the 3rd worst record, that’s viable and it’s believable that the Suns and or Bulls could finish better than us. Anything better than that is a bonus.

    You can get away with guys like Okafor and Faried on O but not on D. Kanter is a much, much better offensive player than either of those guys and even he is an iffy proposition on a good team. When you are a big who can neither defend in space nor protect the rim nor guard the post, there’s no place for you in today’s NBA, certainly not at a 8-digit salary.

    i don’t think either has a decent chance of being above average, but if i had to pick who had a better shot of being at least a little useful to a good team I’d take burke over mudiay

    It’s not even close. Burke doesn’t really kill you out there. He’s not good, but he’s closer to being average than Mudiay is.

    Faried became overpaid after his rookie contract, but it is undeniably obvious now that his rookie-scale contract was one of the best values of the decade. $6.2M over 4 years, about 25 Win Shares or 8.0 VORP (21.6 wins).

    You’d be hard pressed to find a Knicks player who gave that kind of raw production over four years, much less at $1.6M AAV.

    Faried was great value at that time on that deal, although as we know, WS fails to hold players accountable for defense (see: Enes Kanter) so even then he was overrated, as evidenced by that ill-advised $50 mill deal Denver gave him.

    In retrospect, while Faried was statistically the better pick, I doubt that drafting him over Shump would have mattered much one way or the other. I also doubt that Faried would ever have had as much value to a finals team as Shump did to the Cavs.

    From earlier, the Hardaway Jr stat was 16 FGA, under 40% from the field, and minimum 60 games played. Sorry, guys.

    You’d be hard pressed to find a Knicks player who gave that kind of raw production over four years, much less at $1.6M AAV.

    well i mean the funny things is the knicks have like the world’s most perfect analog in david lee

    well i mean the funny things is the knicks have like the world’s most perfect analog in david lee

    I’m not sure that David Lee was ever good enough to be on a contender. A guy that bad at defense — you let him walk and it’s like addition by subtraction. All stat-padding. Shame he never got a chance to play for a playoff team.

    I keep dreaming about the Porzingis, Durant, Williamson front court. I can’t wait for that dream to die during the draft lottery.

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