Knicks Insider: "All Things Knicks"

Article from The Athletic on what they think our future roster will look like. I said we would pick up Reggie’s option because he was a value contract, hard to find 39% 3 pt shooters for 4M. He didn’t shoot well this year but like the article says his career numbers are better and he should be better next year. DSJ another guy I said should be gone, him and the Knicks are wishing for a change of scenery for him.

The Knicks 2019-20 season is suspended, along with the rest of the NBA, but the point to look to the future had long since passed for this team. Maybe it was when the club fired its head coach in December or its team president in February or even when Leon Rose was officially named president this month. Rose will have many hard choices ahead of him, including how to build out his roster.
He inherits a clean cap sheet and a trove of future picks. Acquiring new and better players will be difficult, but he can pretty much take this roster whichever way he pleases.
To take a look at how this might play out, The Athletic tried to project the rosters for the next few Knicks seasons, taking educated guesses at what the turnover would be from year to year.
Knicks 2020-21 Roster Projection

GUARD	WING	BIG		UNKNOWN
Frank Ntilikina	RJ Barrett	Mitchell Robinson		2020 NYK lottery pick
Elfrid Payton	Ignas Brazdeikis	Julius Randle		2020 LAC pick
	Kevin Knox			2020 CHA 2nd round pick player
	Reggie Bullock	Kenny Wooten (2-way)

The most glaring omission from next year's roster is probably Dennis Smith Jr. Considering his play this season and the Knicks' current point guard situation, the presumption is that the Knicks trade Smith, maybe getting a protected second-round pick of some sort, but mostly to get rid of the contract and start over. Frank Ntilikina returns, but it's not as if the position is his. Three of the top seven players in Sam Vecenie's latest big board are point guards. Tyrese Haliburton is at No. 11. The Knicks are going to be picking top eight, most likely, so they should probably have at least one of those point guards to choose from. It wouldn't be surprising if Rose went with that position as his first draft pick, considering both need and talent.
Kevin Knox returns, entering Year 3. But the Knicks will have to pick up his fourth-year option by the end of October. That will be interesting to watch. Rose did not draft Knox. We don't know how much of the front office staff Rose will retain. But Rose is close to Kentucky coach John Calipari and Calipari has been adamant that Knox is a long-term project. We also don't know yet what kind of players and styles Rose prefers to even know if that's the type of player he'd want to continue to wait on. The assumption here is that he will.
Julius Randle is back. He's had a rocky first season with the Knicks, but maybe he'll become a secondary option depending on what the Knicks do in free agency, taking away some of the concerns about him. With so few teams projected to have lots of cap space this offseason, it also makes it less likely another team can deal for him and the remainder of his contract.
Retaining Reggie Bullock would be a smart decision by the new front office. He'll make a little more than $4 million next season and is a very good shooter on the wing who also played diligent defense this year. Granted, his shooting numbers this season — 40 percent from the field and 33 percent on 3s — are poor, but his season began Jan. 1 and it would be fair to bet on his career-long sample size, rather than just a few months. His contract is small enough that it's not that much of a risk to bring him back. There's also a good argument for retaining Wayne Ellington. The Knicks will need wing shooting next season, and Ellington is a career 38 percent shooter despite diminished numbers (35 percent) this season. He'll make $8 million next year if the Knicks pick up his team option. Lineups with Ellington and Bullock on the floor this season averaged 111.2 points per 100 possession in 179 possessions.
Knicks 2021-22 Roster Projection

GUARDS	WINGS	BIGS		UNKNOWN
	RJ Barrett	Mitchell Robinson		2020 NYK lottery pick
	Kevin Knox			2020 LAC pick
				2020 CHA 2nd round pick
				2021 DAL pick
				2021 CHA 2nd round pick

The Knicks will get another infusion of talent in the 2021 draft, where they'll have two first-round picks again. If they make those two picks, along with their 2020 picks, that will make for a very young roster in 2021, with at least five players in their first three seasons — not including the second-round pick the Knicks own this offseason and Ignas Brazdeikis. Finding playing time for all of them will be difficult if Rose intends for the Knicks to be somewhere near .500 sooner than later. That may force a trade of the picks or of a young player, so it's conceivable that the Knicks wouldn't make all four first-round picks they own over the next two years. If that happens, there's a logic to the 2021 first-rounder being traded. Ostensibly, the Knicks would be further in their rebuild, perhaps with a pick in the mid-to-late lottery in a year that won't include high school players. Instead of putting another rookie on the depth chart, Rose can use that as an asset to take on a veteran player ahead of next offseason as a final push to make the team competitive in free agency. It will probably be harder to get much for a lottery pick this offseason if the consensus is that this draft is weaker compared to other years.
The presumption here is that Ntilikina will be onto another team in 2021, with his contract running out and the Knicks unwilling to give him an extension. That leaves Knox as the next in line to get a rookie extension for the Knicks for the first time since Charlie Ward. The Knicks would have to decide on that extension on Knox by what is Oct. 31. of his fourth season, though the schedules could all change by then.
The Knicks can take an out on Randle's contract next offseason, eating $4 million, if they haven't traded him by then. In this scenario, Rose would have put his imprint on the roster by now, with only three players remaining from the Steve Mills/Scott Perry tenure. The summer of 2021 will be especially interesting to watch, and there's no predicting how that will go.
Knicks 2022-23 Roster Projection

GUARD	WING	BIG		UNKNOWN
	RJ Barrett	Mitchell Robinson		2020 NYK lottery pick
				2020 LAC pick
				2020 CHA 2nd round pick
				2021 DAL pick
				2021 CHA 2nd round pick
				2022 NYK pick

Frankly, the confidence level on this depth chart can't be too high. It's too far out. But if we're doing this thing then might as well try to do it as honestly as possibly. Barrett remains on the team in his fourth NBA season. This is the year the Knicks will have to decide whether to give him a rookie extension deal.
Knox is on to somewhere else. He took some steps forward but the Knicks didn't want to pay him, even though he will be just 23 years old at the start of his fifth season. By then, Rose has brought in his own group of young players, pushing Knox down the depth chart.
Robinson remains and gets a lucrative extension. The big question here is when this decision gets made. The Knicks will have to decide on how and whether to pay Robinson by the 2021 offseason, after his third season. If he gets to free agency after his full four-year rookie contract is up then he'll be an unrestricted free agent, which allows any team to make a splashy offer for him. Will these future Knicks want to commit a big salary (assuming Robinson's growth remains linear and upward) to a center who can't create for himself? There's also a good-faith incentive to pay Robinson during the 2021 offseason because he's outplayed his rookie contract and the Knicks could reward him for that by locking in big money earlier (they have team options for the last two years of his contract, each at less than $2 million per season). It wouldn't be shocking if the Knicks don't bring back Robinson, deciding not to devote a huge contract to him and to the position. Or their cap sheet could be in such a place that they can't really afford it, either. If they decide Robinson isn't a part of their long-term plan then the Knicks would be better off trading him next offseason instead of letting him hit the market.

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Two months ago, college basketball guru Dick Vitale lobbied on his Twitter account for Rick Pitino to land the Knicks job.

Iona got there first. Despite Pitino?s baggage from an NCAA-related FBI investigation, a Knicks redux wouldn?t have been such an oddball choice.

After all, Pitino was ahead of his time in the NBA when guiding the Knicks for two seasons from 1987-89.

Pitino?s Knicks were a backcourt-pressing, 3-point crazy club at a time when the long ball was not trumpeted by the analytics cognoscenti, because they predated it. Pitino?s Knicks made the playoffs each season.

?It was an exciting time, a chance to play a different style,?? said NBA?s disciplinarian chief, Kiki Vandeweghe, who was traded to the Knicks during Pitino?s second Garden season. ?At that point it was different from anyone else. It was a pressing style. That was hard to play against because nobody was prepared for it and we shot a lot of 3-point shots. Everyone had the green light. It was a physically demanding, but exciting style.?

Pitino, the New York native who was hired by Iona on March 14, broke a four-year Knicks playoff drought by winning 22 of the team?s final 37 games in 1988 to squeak by into the playoffs.

In Pitino?s second season, the Knicks amassed 52 wins, including 26 straight at home. Pitino?s record stood at 90-74 (.549) before a falling-out with former general manager Al Bianchi led him to flee for Kentucky.

Stu Jackson, now a Big East executive, was Pitino?s top assistant, coming to the Knicks with him from Providence.

?Rick changed the culture and more importantly the style of play,?? Jackson told The Post. ?For all the things that are Rick, I always felt that one of his best qualities was as an innovator. I go back to Providence ? one of the first collegiate teams to take advantage of volume 3-point shooting. When he came to the Knicks he brought that style. At that time, it was unheard of in the NBA, as well as pressing for 48 minutes.??

The Knicks still had a young low-post center on the roster in Patrick Ewing, but he was surrounded by what became known as ?The Bomb Squad? featuring Johnny Newman, Mark Jackson, Rod Strickland, Trent Tucker and Gerald Wilkins.

The ?Bomb Squad?? even posed for a promotional poster alongside an old military plane.

?I remember vividly when we were at Providence ? a staff meeting in the sauna at Alumni Hall at Providence,?? Jackson added. ?Rick let the staff know we were going to lead the country in 3-point shooting attempts. We mapped out the mathematics on a magnetic board during our meeting. Fast forward to the Knicks. There wasn?t a question we were going to employ that type of offensive style in attempt to be more efficient than other teams in the NBA.?

The Knicks launched 567 3-pointers in Pitino?s first season, breaking the franchise record by nearly 200 attempts. In his second season, Pitino?s 52-win club doubled down, hurling up 1,147 3-point attempts.

Pitino?s Knicks knocked off the 76ers in the first round of the playoffs in 1989, then lost to Michael Jordan?s Bulls in Round 2.

Instead of the start of something sustainable, the relationship between Pitino and Bianchi, always strained, became untenable. The theory was Bianchi never wanted to hire Pitino and had been strong-armed into it by Garden chief Jack Diller.

?We were keenly aware of the rift that had developed,?? Jackson said. ?A rift between two highly successful people. Bianchi?s long-storied, successful history in the NBA. Al was very much a traditionalist. Rick was somewhat a newbie. Those two people [and] personalities don?t necessarily mix. And some friction developed.??

?The players knew,?? Vandeweghe said. ?It wasn?t a perfect relationship ? we didn?t know the extent.??

Pitino moved onto Kentucky, returned to the NBA with the Celtics, then went back to college at Louisville before winding up in Greece after the NCAA falling-out.

Now he?s back in the metro area. All the while, he kept his Knicks season tickets.

?I don?t think there?s any question he?ll create more interest around the program,?? said Jackson, who took over for Pitino after he resigned. ?By virtue of who he is, but more important he?ll do a great job of recruiting, the schedule and coaching that basketball team, keeping them in the NCAA tournament for years to come.??

Rick Pitino?s Knicks teams embraced the 3-pointer almost two decades before it revolutionized the game. Here?s a look at some of those sharpshooting Knicks teams? achievements:

The 1988-89 Knicks recorded 386 3-pointers made ? an NBA record by 115. It stood until broken in 1993 by the Suns.
That club launched 1,147 3-point attempts ? also an NBA record at the time.
Prior to 1988-89, no NBA team ever had three players with 50-plus 3-pointers made. The Pitino Knicks had four ? Trent Tucker (118), Johnny Newman (97), Mark Jackson (81) and Gerald Wilkins (51).
On Dec. 8 of that season, the Knicks nailed a then-NBA record 11 3-pointers versus Milwaukee.

(I found out after the Philly series my mom had tix to one of the games but left it at work).

Pitino’s career has been a disaster, going from a boy wonder NBA Coach to coaching Iona College of all places. Not sure where it went wrong for him as far as the NBA but like Avery Johnson once he left the NBA fraternity they weren’t letting him back.

Mark Jackson might be on the same persona non grata path though he still gets interviews.

Article from The Athletic discussing the Knicks. They don’t discuss the cap, which I hear will be lower because of Corona and even before Corona, the loss of revenue from China. Might not be a bad thing that the Knicks won’t have as much money to spend because as Hollinger says, 30 year old vets are not where the Knicks should be spending their money like they did this season.


State of the Knicks: What the future looks like, from a former NBA exec

By Mike Vorkunov and John Hollinger Apr 6, 2020

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Editor’s note: We want to get a good idea of where Knicks fans stand after so much turnover in the organization this season. We need your help. Please fill out our questionnaire here to let us know the state of the fan base.
The state of the NBA is simple. The league, like every other sport, is frozen in carbonite for the forseeable future. Everything has slowed to a crawl as teams, players and fans wait to know what the next step will be.
But what is the state of the Knicks? That’s a more complex question. They are in the midst of (coming off?) their seventh straight losing season.
There’s already been a lot of turnover in the front office and at head coach. But that’s a backwards-looking perspective. To take a look into the present and future, The Athletic’s Knicks beat writer Mike Vorkunov and NBA columnist and former Grizzlies executive John Hollinger discussed what the future entails for the organization. Just two Jersey guys talking basketball.
Vorkunov: Hi, John. What a world we’re living in. I figured the best way to get through it is by talking about the Knicks. It’s been quite a year for them. The one question I’ve been thinking about lately when considering the Knicks is: What is the state of the Knicks? They have so much uncertainty at the moment that it seems impossible to draw any conclusions. The team president is a blank slate. The coach is to-be-determined. Who knows who the GM will be. The roster seems like an Etch-a-Sketch. So, let me pose that overarching question to you: What is the state of the Knicks?
Hollinger: Things are bad enough already. Now, on top of everything else, you want to talk about the Knicks?
As you mention, there is a lot of uncertainty. We don’t know how Leon Rose will fare in his new role as team president. We don’t know who the coach will be. We don’t really even know who will be on the team next year, apart from RJ Barrett and Mitchell Robinson.
The things we do know, unfortunately, aren’t very encouraging: That James Dolan still owns the team and is still capable of meddling at the absolute worst moment, and that the team is largely devoid of the caliber of young talent that would provide some encouragement about the near future. Rose and Co. need to make a lot of crucial decisions over the next two summers, and will need to nail most of them to have any chance of pulling this team out of the doldrums.
So, what’s the state of the Knicks? Discouraging. They still have some positives — cap room, draft picks, the lure of the market for free agents — but they’ve had these positives for years and have yet to take advantage.
Vorkunov: I was texting someone the other day and was just like, “Hey, I’ll even take a Knicks-Pistons game right now to cover.” And I was literally covering one of those last month and it felt interminable. Then again, this actually is interminable for the time being.
I guess discouraging is a very strong euphemism on your part based on some other things you’ve written about the Knicks this season. The Rose hire is the big wild card in all this. He was a very successful agent. He has lots of relationships across the league and maybe those are things that can be leveraged now. But also, who knows how he’ll be as a front office head? It was odd to me that the Knicks just bypassed looking for an NBA executive to lead them and went the agent route, though the logic I’ve heard is that Dolan was intrigued by the success of similar agent-driven models in Los Angeles and Golden State. That logic, of course, has its holes.
In addition to asking you what you think of the Rose hire, I’m asking you to put on your front office executive hat again for a moment. What is it like entering a front office at a time like this one for the Knicks, when there are so many important decisions to make in front of you, but then also having to do it for the first time working on the team side of things?
Hollinger: Regarding Rose, the Knicks seemed to place the “what?” before the “who?” In other words, they decided to pick from a specific vat based one inarguable success (Bob Myers) and one arguable one (Rob Pelinka), while ignoring the other assorted failures from that same vat. (Does the name Lon Babby ring a bell?) Was it too hard to just get some highly qualified candidates from a variety of backgrounds and then figure out which one fit the best?
Your question is a good one because I walked into a somewhat similar situation in Memphis. The general manager at the time was actually another former agent (Jason Levien), and we had to figure out fairly immediately how to get the team under the luxury tax — the season was already well underway when I was hired.
Rose’s entree is somewhat easier on one level — he has this whole hiatus to figure out a strategy, for instance, and an entire offseason cycle to execute it. But on another level, it’s much more challenging. Our team in Memphis was good; we just had to make a couple trades to ensure that it could continue operating at that level. The Knicks have to find a bunch of good players and a coach. Rose and Co. have to circle their wagons on the draft with a late start and, because of the novel coronavirus, will potentially have little ability to catch up via workouts and the combine. They have to navigate a difficult free agent market, figure out how much powder to burn and how much to save for 2021, and make some tough evaluations on the Knicks’ recent draft picks. There is a lot of work to do here.
Vorkunov: How much will this indefinite suspension hinder Rose’s coaching search? He was going to use the last month and a half of the season to basically audit the organization. That’s kind of had to stop. Because there remains the chance that the season will still restart, I’d assume he can’t begin a full-on coaching search for two reasons: 1) it would be a bad look to undermine Mike Miller, who has done a good job as interim, and then Miller has to go back to coaching the team if there is again a 2019-20 season; 2) because all other coaching candidates who are employed are also in this purgatory where they probably can’t go into full coaching candidate mode. Which just leaves the unemployed coaches to vet in full.
Aside from the names thrown out there — Tom Thibodeau, Kenny Atkinson — does any coach strike you as the right one for the Knicks? Or are Thibs and Atkinson convincing answers? Is it too easy to assume he’ll pull someone from CAA’s list of coaching clients?
Hollinger: It’s pretty consistent to see guys in a new situation go with what’s familiar, so it would not be shocking at all to see them keep the coaching search in the CAA family — especially given the Knicks’ history. Additionally, there’s a non-zero chance that Rose had done significant work on this front before the hiatus happened, as it seems highly unlikely he was planning on keeping Miller beyond this season.
The Knicks will be in a similar situation to a lot of teams — stuck in purgatory while they wait to see what happens with this season, and not really jonesing to hire and pay a new coach while everything is shuttered. They will likely need to move quickly during a shortened offseason. For this reason, I think very few coaching jobs will change hands league-wide. Again, this will go much more easily if Rose has done some of the legwork.
Thibodeau certainly has the most brand-name cachet and might be one of the few with enough juice to stand up to Dolan (although that got him in trouble in Minnesota), but his win-now mentality is an odd fit with a rebuilding team. Atkinson might pair better with the Knicks’ current place in the food chain, but that assessment would require the type of honesty before the mirror that this organization has always lacked.
As far as auditing the rest of the organization, that task just became significantly more difficult and may have to wait for another offseason. Or he just has to make some quick decisions based on small samples of information. I don’t envy his task on that front, especially if he has to navigate around entrenched, protected Dolan sycophants.
Vorkunov: So when you look at this current Knicks roster, consider their cap sheet and their assets (the latter two are actually in a good place), what would be the approach you take? Do you try to make the 2020-21 season (in whatever shape that is) as another rebuilding/facelift season and wait until the summer of 2021 for big moves? Or try to act faster and shoot for bigger moves now?
Is that thinking too far ahead because of what we don’t know with where the cap will be? That could have a big impact, I would think, on what the Knicks or any other team will do depending on how far it drops. They were supposed to be one of the few teams with cap space this summer. Now, who knows?
Hollinger: The Knicks should have cap space no matter what; the cap would have to shrink by a preposterously large amount for them to be shut out of max-ish room. Under current numbers, they can get to $38 million if they end up with the sixth pick in the draft and cut all the non-guaranteed flotsam from last summer’s weirdness except Reggie Bullock; that number shifts if they luck into a higher pick or if the cap number goes down, but they still will have more than enough room to make moves.
The more operative question is what they could potentially do with it. With no major free agents likely to be available, they’re likely better off using this offseason to target some young pieces at lower price points and save their powder for next summer.
Even if the Knicks spend a bit this summer, they can remain in a position to have a max cap room slot available next summer, although it may involve waiving Julius Randle (only $1.8 million of his $19 million for 2021-22 is guaranteed) and/or declining Kevin Knox’s $5.8 million fourth-year option (he’d been, um, not good).
That said, the one expensive guy I wonder about New York targeting would be Fred VanVleet, who is young enough at 26 that he can still be part of whatever they build in a couple years, but in the short term plugs their biggest weakness with a real point guard who can be a team leader. Is that worth $20 million a year? I’m not sure, but that’s probably what it costs.
Otherwise, I think the Knicks should swim in the value end of the pool, targeting younger players in the $5 million to $10 million range who can fit in around the (hopefully) stars they nab in the draft or free agency over the next couple years. They have to be self-aware enough to understand that they probably will be bad in 2020-21, but may have an opportunity to be good a year later if they play their cards correctly.
Vorkunov: You’re right, the Knicks will have money regardless. They need to upgrade at every position but especially to get a playmaker, someone who can make that happen. VanVleet would be a great addition because he has a lot of the tangibles and intangibles the Knicks need. Is that worth $18 million to 20 million a year? I also wonder what he will be like outside of the Toronto ecosystem. Am I giving too much credit to the Raptors for his success and not enough to the player there?
Which free agents do you think they should target this offseason? I’m thinking of guys like VanVleet and Christian Wood and Davis Bertans (who could be a very good fit next to Mitchell Robinson) on the higher end of the pay scale. The concern there is that the Knicks pay them a lot and then they’re in a position they’re not ready for in terms of load and responsibility — i.e. the Julius Randle problem. Danilo Gallinari seems like he could be a good fit if the price is right and he wants to go back to New York, though he’d be 32 at the start of next season.
Hollinger: I just don’t think paying for a guy like Gallo makes sense for the Knicks, unless it’s a Marcus Morris special where they give him a one-year deal and try to flip him again in February. Otherwise they need to be thinking about their 2022 and 2023 teams.
I think Washington is extremely committed to keeping Bertans and will match even quasi-reasonable offers, but Wood is an interesting one. The question is whether his presence along with Randle would blunt Robinson’s opportunities. From an age perspective, he’s the right type of player, but need-wise the Knicks have to get some perimeter players.
A coupe of unsexy, relatively inexpensive options who are still in their mid-20s would be Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Michael Carter-Williams. Carter-Williams has been through a lot, but quietly just put together a really good season in Orlando and has become much more comfortable playing off the ball. Caldwell-Pope would give the Knicks a 3-and-D wing, basically offering a much, much better version of Damyean Dotson.
A few other interesting options in the $10 million to $20 millions range would be Bogdan Bogdanovic, Jordan Clarkson and Jerami Grant. Grant has a player option with Denver and may not opt out, but is a natural four so he would have fewer logistical issues fitting with Randle and Robinson. Bogdanovic may be the best fit, but he is restricted and the Kings can match any offer, plus the Kings made a couple trades in February seemingly designed to allow them to match. Clarkson is more of a pure gunner, which doesn’t sound great given what is already there, but his pure scoring ability may be too tempting to pass up on a team that struggles so much offensively — and he’d be easy to slot into a long-term sixth man role while the team progresses up the food chain.
Vorkunov: I just checked and Carter-Williams is 28 years old. I am shocked by that. Bogdanovic would be what the Knicks need, but it does seem like Sacramento intends to keep him unless the Knicks really splash the pot. A big question for Rose will be what to do with Randle. As long as he’s on the team, he will take up minutes and possessions. He’s best as a five, but then that takes time from Robinson and they’re not a great fit together. He does essentially become an expiring contract next season with a small guaranteed payout for 2021-22, but becomes more expensive if/when the cap retracts.
The problem with the 2019 offseason spending spree was that the Knicks didn’t really add anyone who could be a long-term piece and also brought in six guys who immediately had to think about free agency again because they were all on team options or non-fully guaranteed second years of their contracts. It would probably behoove them to avoid that again this upcoming offseason.
I’ve thought that one way they could get immediate help was to trade their lottery pick for a veteran this offseason. They should obviously wait out the lottery to see where it’ll land, but this has been presented as a weak draft relative to other years and the Knicks do need some player certainty at some point instead of stacking lottery picks onto each other that go nowhere. What do you think of that idea? Is it crazy? Trading away first-round picks is what got the Knicks into so much trouble in the first place (granted it was for, like, Andrea Bargnani). Do you think any vets might come available this summer that would make something like that worth considering and not a reckless future-for-now trade?
Hollinger: I think trading a high pick for a veteran is almost certainly the wrong move. Trading a high-pick for a 24-year-old about to enter his prime? That’s a different story. What if the Knicks ended up with a blah pick in this draft (say, five to eight) and a team called with a fairly good, young player who is signed for multiple seasons. Depending on the player and the exact structure of the trade, that’s an option the Knicks will have to look at.
But I also think every Knicks fans is getting the shakes reading this, because this team has been so destructively impatient so many times already. If they’re going to trade the pick, they better get something good out of it, and it better be long-term good and not just a quick sugar high.
Again, this is where honesty before the mirror is key. The Knicks have to be OK with the fact that they will probably suck next year. That’s the first step in the rebuild: Understanding where you are and what it will take to get anywhere important down the road. If it’s just quick fixes so they can win 30 games instead of 23, that doesn’t move the needle at all for the seasons after this coming one.
Your point about a team full of one-and-done contracts is well taken, though. The league is moving more in this direction, but even so, this season’s Knicks are a pretty extreme example. I do think the Knicks can help themselves by identifying a few players who can be potential core pieces, even if they aren’t as starters, and allowing them to operate with a bit more security.
Vorkunov: Your point that it would have to be someone in their mid-20s is important. Trading for a vet 30 and older would be confusing unless they really wanted to beef up in free agency with short-term signings and chase the No. 8 next season. In which case, ehhhh.
OK, John, where do you stand on RJ Barrett? What do the Knicks have in Barrett and how do you think that projects going forward? Because to me, it’s pretty important for a franchise to know if its lottery pick is a future All-Star or good starter or less than that.
Hollinger: Great question, and the truth is they might not know the answer for a while. The biggest question is how his shooting will develop. Obviously Barrett is a big wing who can bully his way to the rim and draw fouls, but that is of limited utility if he is going to shoot 61.4 percent from the stripe.
Similarly, it’s going to be a lot harder for him to get all the way to the rim if nobody respects his perimeter game. This season, Barrett made 32 percent of his 3s on low volume and was even worse when he ventured inside the arc — he converted only 27.3 percent of his attempts between 3 feet and the 3-point line. Yikes.
Barrett needs that stuff because he’s not a freak athlete; he’s big and can get his way to the cup, but he’s not dunking on people’s heads once he gets there and has trouble exploding over bigs. If opponents have to guard him honestly, he has enough handle and physical force to beat them off the dribble, but not if they’re standing inside the charge circle waiting on him.
Barrett has to improve in other areas, too — he can get tunnel vision when he goes to the basket and miss open teammates, and you’d like to see more energy from him at the defensive end of the floor.
But primarily, the question with Barrett is going to be about whether he’s good enough offensively to put the ball in his hands as a primary initiator. And that story will depend largely on how his shooting develops. Obviously his rookie season didn’t offer a lot of promise in that regard, but he’s also just 19 years old. Some players are able to make significant strides as shooter over the course of their careers; some others can’t. The Knicks’ No. 1 player development goal over the next two seasons has to be straightening out Barrett’s shot; unfortunately they’re going to lose a big chunk of the coming offseason that could be spent working toward that goal.
So my answer is that we don’t know yet, and we might not know for a while. His rookie year wasn’t great, but it wasn’t bad enough to dismiss the possibility of his becoming a star; it also wasn’t good enough to make that outcome seem particularly likely. It just leaves another question mark hanging over the rebuild.
Vorkunov: The shooting is going to be a huge question for him. I think it’s the dominant concern about him because it could determine what his eventual career path will be. I don’t know how much shooting can improve over the course of a career. Maybe you have some historical data on that or even how to set expectations on where he could plausibly rise to over the next five or six years. I do think he does enough other things well — he’s a bull getting to the basket, though his finishing there is an issue (91st percentile among wings in percentage of shots at the rim and 21st percentile in shooting percentage there, per Cleaning The Glass); he showed some capacity as a playmaker, he was feisty on defense, and he’s got some savvy — to think his floor is as a starter in the NBA and we’ll see what his ceiling is.
I don’t think the Knicks served him well this season because they often played him in a crowded offense where he was sometimes literally begging for the ball and had little to no spacing to help hide his deficiencies and open up the floor for him. On the relatively few occasions when the Knicks went smaller and played four out, Barrett looked good running the pick-and-roll. To get back to an earlier question, I think part of their offseason plan should be building a roster that can help Barrett, instead of making things harder for him. To me, that’s part of that player development goal you mentioned.
He and Mitchell Robinson, and Kevin Knox and Frank Ntilikina are kind of the bedrock of the franchise at this point. So their development and growth are kind of important for the Knicks.
Hollinger: That’s pretty much where they are. Your point about putting Barrett in position to succeed by putting the right players around him is well-taken, and the Knicks clearly didn’t put much thought into the moves a year ago. If they can surround him with shooting instead of trying to construct a 1997 beastball Dream Team, it should give the Knicks a much better picture of where Barrett stands.
Robinson is another non-shooter, so if you’re going to make it work with him and Barrett, the other players on the court have to be able to stroke it. And those two are pretty much it as far as a definable core. Knox and Ntilikina will probably get more chances because they were lottery picks, but if they were second-rounders, they’d be gone faster than you can say Hernangomez. The only other kinda maybe possible long-term piece is Elfrid Payton, who wasn’t bad last year, is 26, and could be retained (he has a lightly guaranteed deal), but he adds to their spacing woes and I don’t see him as a starter on a good team.
Coming full circle, that’s why Rose has such a huge challenge ahead of him. He only has two real pieces right now, and we still don’t know what those pieces are long-term.

Oakley, the longtime former Knick who hasn?t been back at the Garden since his infamous arrest there in February of 2017, said he wanted to ?smack? Bernard King and faulted Patrick Ewing?s lack of leadership for the team never being able to win a title in his day.

?He never put us on his back like he should have because every adversity he ducked away from,? Oakley said of Ewing on CBS Sports Radio. ?He gave the same f?king answer after every 82 games of the year.?

Oakley, 56, called Ewing ?high maintenance? and said everything revolved around the Hall of Fame player who now coaches at Georgetown.

You got to be special to play with Patrick,? Oakley said. ?You had to do so much out of your ordinary just to be on the team, and that hurt us sometimes. As a team, we?re supposed to be close and together. It wasn?t that. We had to make sure he was happy. He didn?t care if we [were] happy or not. That?s a sad situation, and I see why the Knicks won?t give him a job. He treated them bad ? inside out. Chris [Childs] will tell you. He was tough to play with, but he wasn?t no problem to me because I understand. ?Mase? [Anthony Mason] had a problem with it because Mase always hollered and cussed at him.?

?I just don?t want to be around these guys,? Oakley said. ?A lot of guys I played with, I just lost respect for them because I went to war for them. I protected them, from Patrick on down. Patrick just spoke up two weeks ago about this. But I could have gotten sentenced in jail for 20 years. Three years later, it?s over with really. It?s a PR stunt.?

Childs made similar sentiments recently, calling Sprewell ?a pawn,? in the long-standing feud. As for King, he told Oakley his wife wanted to go to a game, and that was why he was in attendance that night. Oakley hasn?t forgiven him.

?I wanted to smack Bernard. Serious,? he said. ?I lost so much respect for him. I can?t even speak to him.?

https://www.google.com/amp/s/nypost...wing-bernard-king-to-knicks-enemies-list/amp/

NY Post

Brock Aller, a longtime fixture for Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert, is close to joining president Leon Rose in the Knicks front office as vice president of strategy, according to an NBA source.

Aller was financial planner/capologist with Cleveland, but a source said he?ll be ?more than a capologist?? under Rose. However, Aller is not the GM ? a basketball-intensive position that remains up in the air.

Another person familiar with the situation said Aller would be regarded as sort of a ?chief of staff?? who would aid Rose in future hirings such as GM and in running finances.


CBS Sports

Even if his title is unsettled, his role with the team is not. Aller will be New York's capologist, a role he excelled in with Cleveland. Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert called Aller "one of the finer capologists in the league" in a 2017 interview with Cleveland.com, and the reputation is warranted.
The cap gymnastics necessary to facilitate not only LeBron James' 2014 return to Cleveland, but building a championship-caliber roster around him, were remarkable and unmatched to this day. The 2014-15 Cavaliers were the first and only team in NBA history to sign a max free agent and pay the luxury tax in the same season, and it was largely thanks to the machinations of Aller and David Griffin.
Creating the cap space to sign James outright was made possible through a three-team trade that dumped the contracts of Jarrett Jack, Tyler Zeller and Sergey Karasev, but the true marvel was their mid-season trade for Timofey Mozgov. As Brian Windhorst covered in great detail in 2014, Cleveland executed a number of step-ladder trades over the course of around three months in order to create a trade exception big enough to absorb Mozgov. In essence, they traded multiple small salaries for a single, bigger one (Keith Bogans) that they could later dump on a team with cap space (the Philadelphia 76ers) in order to create a vacant cap slot with which to acquire Mozgov.

That sort of creativity is prized in a cap-obsessed modern NBA. While the Knicks are in rebuilding mode right now, they surely expect to compete for top veteran talent in the near future, and fitting all of that talent under one roof is a challenge the Knicks have struggled with for years. Now they have one of the NBA's brightest financial minds to help them do so moving forward.

Brock Aller never heard of the guy, thought Griff and Koby were behind those deals but you need a guy like Aller or Bobby Marks who was rumored as a guy tabbed for the GM role. I’d like to see Rose hire his first staff member soon and getting a guy like Aller would fit in without rocking the boat. Heard Robinson is looking to go back to the Bucks or take some college coaching job so he knows the handwriting is on the wall for him.

NY Post

Knicks legend Walt Frazier doesn?t remember making this remark about Michael Jordan in 1984, but he isn?t surprised he did.

During ?The Last Dance?? ESPN documentary premiere Sunday, a snippet showed Frazier opining about Jordan after he was drafted by the Bulls with the No. 3 pick.

?He?s not 7 foot. So he?s not going to carry a team in the NBA,? Frazier said in the decades-old clip.

Frazier?s remark proved errant and gained buzz on social media. The longtime MSG Network broadcaster, who recently turned 75, defended the sentiment and still won?t name Jordan ?The GOAT.??

?Early on, I wasn?t that familiar with him in college,?? Frazier told The Post in a phone interview Tuesday from his Harlem residence. ?Anyone who plays for Dean Smith, he holds them back. Vince Carter, (James) Worthy. You never know the versatility of these guys when they play for North Carolina. He keeps them in a team system. No one knew he was going to do what he did.?


Frazier, who 50 years ago helped lead the Knicks to their first title, still was skeptical six seasons into Jordan?s career, when he had zero rings.

?He broke his foot (his second season), I was like, I don?t know,?? Frazier recalled. ?And he was having trouble and complaining because he couldn?t beat the Pistons (1987-88, 1988-89, 1989-90). He was crying he thought the general manager didn?t know what he was doing. That was when I still wasn?t sure if he?d be able to carry a team and make the next step. Then all of a sudden it happened.?

Indeed, Jordan unleashed his fury on the Knicks ? with Frazier in the broadcast booth. Frazier says he hasn?t watched the documentary.

?I?m in enough pain with the coronavirus ? I didn?t want to watch Jordan,?? Frazier said.

Asked if he now considers Jordan the greatest of all time, Frazier stopped short.

?I always ask what?s the criteria when you say the greatest ever,?? Frazier said. ?If it?s Superman, it?s Wilt Chamberlain. I have (Kareem) Abdul-Jabbar as a career-leading scorer. Versatility is Oscar Robertson. Winning is Bill Russell. Those are the four guys. Actually I?d say Wilt Chamberlain because when we played in the ?70s and flied commercial, you go through the airport and people would say either ?Are you a Globetrotter or Wilt Chamberlain?? That?s all the people knew.??

Frazier also cited rule changes designed to limit Chamberlain, who famously dumped 100 points on the Knicks.

?There were only two players they ever changed the rules for in pro basketball ? George Mikan, and Wilt Chamberlain ? widening the lane for them,?? Frazier said. ?The two guys they had to neutralize by changing some aspect of the game. If not for Chamberlain, nobody would?ve heard of any of us. I don?t know if there would?ve been an NBA. If not for Wilt and Bill Russell. I don?t know if the NBA would?ve made it.

?I would find it hard to say Mike. Mike is right there with those guys, but if I had to pick, it would be Chamberlain.??

???

The irony here is that MJ got over the top bc of dismal NYK decisions. We traded 2 lottery picks in 1987 for vet role players who were gone within 1 year.... One of those picks was used to select Scottie Pippen and the other could?ve fetched Reggie Miller (CHI would get Pippen and Horace Grant in this draft). And, we dealt Cartwright for Oakley.

Pippen, Grant, Cartwright all could?ve been playing with Ewing, although Reggie would?ve been even better (than Grant).

Brock Aller looks like a done deal according to this. Seems the guy is a genius when it comes to the CBA and creating cap space, surprised I’ve never heard of the guy.
[h=1]Leon Rose makes his first hire for the Knicks front office. What comes next?
[/h]

By Mike Vorkunov Apr 21, 2020

5

[FONT=&quot]Leon Rose has been silent since he stepped into his role as Knicks team president March 2. He eschewed a news conference and instead settled into what was supposed to be a quiet audit of the organization. In the 51 days since, he has not spoken publicly or made any changes to the team he now oversees. That will change soon.
The Knicks will add Brock Aller to their front office in the near future, league sources confirmed, marking the first hire of the Rose regime. Aller has been the Cavaliers’ senior director of basketball operations for the past three seasons after joining their front office in 2013-14. Aller was responsible for handling the salary cap and strategic planning in Cleveland. “He’s a pretty versatile guy,” said one person with knowledge of his role with that franchise.
While Aller’s title with the Knicks is not yet determined, he will be a high-ranking official involved in building the team’s strategy. He will serve as a prominent voice for Rose as the former agent runs a team for the first time. The two share a pre-existing relationship. The New York Daily News was the first to report that the Knicks and Aller had entered into contract negotiations, while Sirius XM reported a deal was near.
Aller is the first change for the Knicks front office as Rose moves to remodel it in his image, but how different it will look is uncertain. General manager Scott Perry remains with the Knicks and could stay on past this season. The Knicks had been in a holding pattern since the suspension of the NBA season. Some members of the organization had not heard from Rose until he was officially hired — there was about a month’s lag between when the news emerged of his agreeing to take the job and his stepping into the role — and he wanted to use his first few weeks to learn more about the franchise. That process was impeded when the season stopped suddenly March 11.
That prudence by Rose has seen the Knicks act slowly in this down period. The Bulls pushed aside their lead executives and finished a search for their replacements in roughly 10 days earlier this month. Artūras Karnišovas, Chicago’s new executive vice president of basketball operations, has already brought two more people into his refurbished front office.
Aller will offer a new voice and perspective to the Knicks. He worked for Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert for 10 years as a liaison between the business and basketball departments, and he also worked with the other companies Gilbert ran. For years, he was part of what former Cavaliers GM David Griffin called his “nerd cave,” working as part of a group responsible for coming up with ideas to let Cleveland operate under the salary cap as they regularly pushed against its ceiling while chasing a title with LeBron James. Gilbert credited Aller for an instrumental role in the Knicks-Cavaliers trade that brought Iman Shumpert and JR Smith to Cleveland.
“He’s probably one of the finer capologists in the league,” Gilbert told Cleveland.com in 2017 while announcing a promotion for Aller. “He knows more about the cap than probably PricewaterhouseCoopers knows about the IRS code. He lives with the cap, with the collective bargaining agreement. He comes up with ideas on things that the league has never heard of, they have to go into their committees to check if it’s OK or not. He’s sort of a savant with this. He’s a space creator.”
It remains to be seen whether this is the first step in Rose’s remodeling of the Knicks front office or whether he makes small adjustments. The Knicks already have a director of basketball strategy, Michael Arcieri, who was hired after Perry became GM in 2017. He brought a slew of new people to the organization — assistant GM Gerald Madkins, VP of player development Craig Robinson, director of player personnel Harold Ellis — while the Knicks retained the basketball operations infrastructure that had been in place under former team president Phil Jackson and GM Steve Mills.
The Knicks enter this offseason with a significant amount of cap space — one of the largest totals in the league — and a bevy of difficult choices. They maintain an open cap sheet and have seven first-round picks over the next four years, flexibility and assets procured by the current front office. But they will need to build from the ground up after a seventh consecutive losing season and few definitive foundational pieces. The roster could see major turnover again, and Rose could start mostly anew in his first full season as president.




[/FONT]

Rose was able to bring in one of the top capologists as his first hire. Let?s hope he does same with GM and HC. That should change things...

tiger0330 said:

Today is a supposedly the day that Rose starts as team Pres. Knicks PR department needs to be better at getting important announcements like this communicated. One thing I heard was is he intends to take his time before making any changes of personnel, personally think that's a bad decision. The Knicks are obviously dysfunctional and need a major reorganization, heads should roll before the end of the month so they can get on with the business of the draft, coaching change and the new GM. If he wants to leave the Westchester team alone fine or the assistants coaches and make Miller the lead assistant fine but naming the new GM and new coach puts Rose's stamp on the team. He's got to have an idea about who he wants in those 2 jobs.

Click to expand...

Read that Perry is going to run the draft and I?ve been saying that Knicks front office was fat and over staffed and in need of reorganization and it looks like Roses first hire Aller has the authority to do it. Robinson should be the first guy to go, the player development guy should be an assistant coach in the trenches traveling with the team not a wearing a suit with an office in Penn Pl. Not sure what Allan Houston brings to the table other than being a favorite of Dolan but I?d consider parting ways with him as a departure from the incompetence of the Knicks since he?s been here rather than promoting him as has been reported. Too many guys with fancy titles in that front office that Mills has hired that need to go as hinted below.

NBA sources believe teams will tighten their belts on the size of front-office staffs. Sources have indicated Aller will look to reconfigure and even streamline the Knicks? massive scouting/basketball operations department.

The Bulls have hired their new GM, what's taking Rose so long to hire ours?

https://www.si.com/nba/knicks/news/knicks-starting-five-chris-molicki

This is basically my ideal Offseason moves but I would draft Haliburton

Wargames said:

https://www.si.com/nba/knicks/news/knicks-starting-five-chris-molicki

This is basically my ideal Offseason moves but I would draft Haliburton

Click to expand...

I like the plan. All season long we were getting outgunned by superior shooting teams and I even pleaded to start Bullock over RJ when he came back from injury, he was disappointing though falling well short of his career 39% 3 pt shooting pct. People talking about bringing in CP3 but we should be looking to do what this article says, building a team with guys entering their prime and not in the twilight of their careers like CP3. Good and bad in these short term contracts the Knicks have been signing, I'm tired of turning over most of the team every season, lets sign guys like Wood and Bertans to multi year deals instead of these one year deals we're doing.

I've been pleading for a change in the offensive philosophy all season as well citing the analytics of the game, avg 36% shooting from beyond the arc is the equivalent of 54% pct 2 pt shooting well above the typical under 50% shooting pre 2000 NBA. DAL and the Bucks are having great success playing this modern era game, don't listen to these old timers that say they would beat today's teams, the numbers and rule changes say otherwise.

tiger0330 said:

I like the plan. All season long we were getting outgunned by superior shooting teams and I even pleaded to start Bullock over RJ when he came back from injury, he was disappointing though falling well short of his career 39% 3 pt shooting pct. People talking about bringing in CP3 but we should be looking to do what this article says, building a team with guys entering their prime and not in the twilight of their careers like CP3. Good and bad in these short term contracts the Knicks have been signing, I'm tired of turning over most of the team every season, lets sign guys like Wood and Bertans to multi year deals instead of these one year deals we're doing.

I've been pleading for a change in the offensive philosophy all season as well citing the analytics of the game, avg 36% shooting from beyond the arc is the equivalent of 54% pct 2 pt shooting well above the typical under 50% shooting pre 2000 NBA. DAL and the Bucks are having great success playing this modern era game, don't listen to these old timers that say they would beat today's teams, the numbers and rule changes say otherwise.

Click to expand...

Actually I am really ok with Bertans getting that 1+1 deal. 2021 FA is the best FA in maybe in the last 4 years. I really want the Knicks to throw a ton of money at someone like Hayward or Oladipo to come to NY and be the lead scorer. Both of them have injury concerns.... but with the youth on the team developing its ok to go a little bit older to see if we can start getting them into the playoffs.

Yes, I like pairing Woods with MRob. I think it?s a better fit. Harris or Bertrans or any shooter. And, yes, let?s target a lead scorer who fits in with this roster. Hire Thibs.

Hey, Knicks might be a playoff team!

? The Knicks could break their six-season playoff drought after all in a post-coronavirus restart scenario ? but it would come with an asterisk.

According to a source, one of the many plans of an NBA restart is having additional teams not mathematically eliminated from the playoffs stage a short play-in tournament in July to advance to an expanded playoff.

One instance is teams ranked nine through 12 in each conference staging a four-team single-elimination tournament. The winner of that event gets the right to play the current No. 8 seed to get the final spot inside the formal 16-team playoff.?

Lol.

Bobby Marks, ESPN?s cap guru, predicts NBA free agency this summer will ?slow to a crawl? and all players with opt-outs in their contracts will choose to opt in.

That?s one economic fallout from the potentially massive salary-cap reduction because of the season?s March 11 shutdown.

If all players are forced to opt in, that means Anthony Davis returns to the Lakers for another season and will be eligible for free agency in 2021. That?s a good thing for the Knicks as Davis likely will be more amenable to moving on as LeBron James turns 37.

?I think we will go 29-for-29 on player options picked up,?? Marks told The Post.

Marks, the former Nets capologist, penned a salary-cap thesis piece for ESPN in which he sought ideas from agents and team executives.

?If I was the Knicks I would want the cap and tax to crash,?? Marks told The Post. ?It would give them a huge advantage. They can collect the tax money and also have flexibility while few do.??

https://www.google.com/amp/s/nypost...dge-in-nbas-coronavirus-salary-cap-chaos/amp/

CR won?t stop defending his buddy?s stint in NYC.... even tho it sent the org back a decade hiring the snobbish snoozer...

?Carmelo undercut him, telling [Kristaps] Porzingis not to say anything in public about how good the triangle was,?? Rosen said. ?Carmelo refused to run the triangle ? which is why Phil re-signed him: There was a lot of pressure from [owner James] Dolan. But if Carmelo would?ve run the triangle, he?d be open on the weakside.

?He?d have to pass and do this and run around, but he?d ultimately have a whole side wide open ? 16-17 feet away from the basket. The defense would be too far away to double. He?d have open jump shots and was one or two dribbles from the basket. He?d be a killer. He?d be Michael Jordan. He?d be unstoppable. But Melo was catch and shoot and didn?t want to do other things.??

https://nypost.com/2020/05/16/late-...medium=site buttons&utm_campaign=site buttons