Official NY Knicks 2019 Training Camp thread

Two weeks until training camp, and the unofficial start of the 2019-2020 season!

The Knicks open the preseason Oct. 7 and the regular season Oct. 23 in San Antonio.

Teams can carry up to 20 players on their roster through the preseason before paring it down to 15 by Opening Night,

??????????-

While he was out recruiting on Monday afternoon, Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski received a text message from Knicks coach David Fizdale.

Fizdale, who is about to enter his second season at the helm of the Knicks, wanted to invite Coach K to Knicks training camp, which begins Oct. 1 in Greenburgh, N.Y. Krzyzewski, of course, coached R.J. Barrett, the Knicks rookie and the No. 3 pick in the NBA Draft. Barrett signed a four-year, $35.6 million rookie contract with the Knicks this summer.

?While we were sitting here, I got a text from him inviting me to come for any part of their training camp, which is a nice thing,? Coach K told me Monday as he sat watching A.J. Griffin, a junior forward from White Plains (N.Y.) Archbishop Stepinac High School, who is the son of Toronto Raptors assistant Adrian Griffin.

Coach K said it was ?smart? of Fizdale to invite him to camp but isn?t sure if he?ll be able to attend.

?I don?t know if I can do that, we?re in practice,? Coach K said.

Duke is set to play Kansas at Madison Square Garden on Nov. 5 in the Champions Classic in a twinbill that also features Michigan State against Kentucky, so it?s possible Coach K could check in with Barrett and the Knicks then. (The Knicks play in Detroit Nov. 6.)

Krzyzewski has gotten to know Fizdale, who went 17-65 in his first season with the Knicks, and said, ?I think a lot of him.?

As for Barrett, Coach K thinks the 6-foot-7 Canadian left-hander will adjust well to the bright lights of the big city.

?The main thing is he seems like he really loves New York,? said Coach K, whose Duke team featuring Barrett and current New Orleans Pelicans rookie and No. 1 pick Zion Williamson lost to Michigan in the Elite Eight of the NCAA Tournament.

?He?s acclimated himself, he hasn?t hidden. He?s been out there, shown how much he loves to be there and he?s embraced the city instead of being fearful. I think that puts him in a great place, that doesn?t surprise me. He?s going to be comfortable and Fiz will do a great job of getting him comfortable.?

????????

DSJ E-Peyt Allen
Ntilikina Ellington Trier Dotson
RJ Knox Izzy +5 Dudes
Randle Morris Portis Bullock INJ
Mrob Taj

we have a lot of players which have high potential, all young, all have the underdog mentality and want to prove that they are not a bad team..... do we have a plan to make them coexist together and be better? if we do I think we will have a very nice season and the games will be fun to watch..... if we go back to our old ways then we stop watching mid of the season like the previous so many years....
I am hyped about DSJ after they are saying his shot is much better now, also Mrob and RJ..... I still hope Nits will turn into something special, he has all the tools, but not the mentality so far....

What was Fizdale thinking? There was no way Duke coach Krzyzewski were gonna come to a Knicks training-camp LMAO.
If the 2017 NBA draft 2nd pick Marvin Bagley III would've stayed another year at Duke, coach Krzyzewski would've been waving the 2019 NCAA Championship trophy throughout this summer, plus Zion would've been the 2nd pick of the 2019 NBA draft.

Well, the Knicks will have some veteran players in training-camp to evolve around all their raw young-core players on the roster.
I'm not to optimistic bout the Knicks upcoming season for reason of the Knicks did not upgrade their coaching-staff in the offseason, plus the Knicks have a (70%) majority of PROJECT players on the upcoming season roster. The Knicks FA signings of Payton & Portis are project players too.

I can only hope the Knicks could make their first priority at day one of training-camp of getting players on the same-page on both sides of the court (ball-movement & defense). This way we could experiment & test different lineups during scrimmage games and the preseason games, instead of throughout the 82 regular-season games.

Got a BIG QUESTION?
What in the hell does Fiz need a underachieving/no coaching(This what I see of Coach K) College coach to come to an Knicks training camp? Why?? He coaches COLLEGE!!! Not a believer or fan of Coach K hype. Can he coach without all the Ref. calls(ask Central Florida)? This is another example of what is wrong with Fiz as a coach. If Fiz is going to ask a college coach it should have been John Calipari. He should be adding to his coaching staff Akeem Olajuwon or Kevin Garnett and Adrian Dantley. He got a coaching staff full of guard coaches...not a big man coach among the whole bunch.
*Have you ever notice Fiz expression after a time-out... It like 'What in hell do I do now'. Same expression I see on Coach K when the game it tight.
Why would you draft RJB if you have Knox? Two #1 picks at the same position in back to back years. In this past year weak draft. SERIOUSLY!!
Why would you trade up to draft Izzy(another player that need the ball...like Trier)? Million buck trade, huh.
Why would you complicate PG position with DSJ and Payton?
Why do you think that Frank is a SG? No where in any GOOD coaches brain that knows BB would think that Frank is a SG. Why does Fiz think so??
Why do you let Kornet walk and sign a 35 year old T. Gibson? What kind of sense does this make?? NONE

If he smart...starting lineup:
Frank - PG
Dotson - SG
Knox - SF
Randle - PF
Robinson - C.

Jonathan Givony came out with his 2020 mock draft and he has the Knicks picking Lamelo Ball with the 3rd pick which implies that he thinks we are crap again this year, got to think that since he works for ESPN the yearly ESPN team prediction also won’t be too kind to the Knicks. Might be another disappointing season though I said on paper we would wind up last in our division so deep down I didn’t have high expectations for the team.

Bad thing about blowing your wad on a collection of guys that don’t get you 30 wins is you don’t have cap space to absorb contracts for draft assets like Hinkie did with the Sixers. That’s what the process was all about, get as many picks as you can and expect that one becomes your franchise player.

Looks like Perry wants to use the guys he signed to be role models for the young guys and maybe get a shot at AD next year, he could have done that a lot cheaper by signing guys like IT, Melo, JJ if that’s the plan instead of paying big bucks for a guy like Taj albeit only for one year deals.

NBA scouts are taken with the Lamelo’s play in the Australian Pro League, kid must have something with 27 NBA scouts watching a game he played in.

tiger0330 said:

Jonathan Givony came out with his 2020 mock draft and he has the Knicks picking Lamelo Ball with the 3rd pick which implies that he thinks we are crap again this year, got to think that since he works for ESPN the yearly ESPN team prediction also won?t be too kind to the Knicks. Might be another disappointing season though I said on paper we would wind up last in our division so deep down I didn?t have high expectations for the team.

Bad thing about blowing your wad on a collection of guys that don?t get you 30 wins is you don?t have cap space to absorb contracts for draft assets like Hinkie did with the Sixers. That?s what the process was all about, get as many picks as you can and expect that one becomes your franchise player.

Looks like Perry wants to use the guys he signed to be role models for the young guys and maybe get a shot at AD next year, he could have done that a lot cheaper by signing guys like IT, Melo, JJ if that?s the plan instead of paying big bucks for a guy like Taj albeit only for one year deals.

NBA scouts are taken with the Lamelo?s play in the Australian Pro League, kid must have something with 27 NBA scouts watching a game he played in.

Click to expand...

Most of our contracts are expiring deals, so in theory we could get picks by exchanging them for bad multi year deals. Whether we want to do that or our front office is even capable of doing that is a different question.

If RJ, DSJ, MRob and/or some of our other young guys take a big step forward this year, I can live with being a bottom tier team again.

It?a very early, but LaMelo could be on a trajectory to be the #1 pick. Crazy.

Dark Raider said:

Got a BIG QUESTION?
What in the hell does Fiz need a underachieving/no coaching(This what I see of Coach K) College coach to come to an Knicks training camp? Why?? He coaches COLLEGE!!! Not a believer or fan of Coach K hype. Can he coach without all the Ref. calls(ask Central Florida)? This is another example of what is wrong with Fiz as a coach. If Fiz is going to ask a college coach it should have been John Calipari. He should be adding to his coaching staff Akeem Olajuwon or Kevin Garnett and Adrian Dantley. He got a coaching staff full of guard coaches...not a big man coach among the whole bunch.
*Have you ever notice Fiz expression after a time-out... It like 'What in hell do I do now'. Same expression I see on Coach K when the game it tight.
Why would you draft RJB if you have Knox? Two #1 picks at the same position in back to back years. In this past year weak draft. SERIOUSLY!!
Why would you trade up to draft Izzy(another player that need the ball...like Trier)? Million buck trade, huh.
Why would you complicate PG position with DSJ and Payton?
Why do you think that Frank is a SG? No where in any GOOD coaches brain that knows BB would think that Frank is a SG. Why does Fiz think so??
Why do you let Kornet walk and sign a 35 year old T. Gibson? What kind of sense does this make?? NONE

If he smart...starting lineup:
Frank - PG
Dotson - SG
Knox - SF
Randle - PF
Robinson - C.

Click to expand...

A lot of people think Nits position is at SG.The kid doesn't have the handle needed at PG imo, he does have court vision like RJ but I wouldn't have RJ being anything other than a secondary ball handler like he did for Duke.

tiger0330 said:

A lot of people think Nits position is at SG.The kid doesn't have the handle needed at PG imo, he does have court vision like RJ but I wouldn't have RJ being anything other than a secondary ball handler like he did for Duke.

Click to expand...

In the upcoming season I'm hoping to see a lot of playing-time minute from a wing trio-lineup of Frank, Dotson, and RJ Barrett as a 2nd-unit cleanup-trio. It would be great to add Taj Gibson & Morris to the trio small-ball lineup to create several ways of scoring in transition, and half-court offense.

Kiyaman said:

In the upcoming season I'm hoping to see a lot of playing-time minute from a wing trio-lineup of Frank, Dotson, and RJ Barrett as a 2nd-unit cleanup-trio. It would be great to add Taj Gibson & Morris to the trio small-ball lineup to create several ways of scoring in transition, and half-court offense.

Click to expand...

Pretty sure you get to see that lineup quite often this season. Doesn’t strike fear in me if I’m the opposing coach though, more and more it seems the consensus is this is another rebuilding year for the Knicks despite some positive comments and predictions for the playoffs by our guys.

tiger0330 said:

Pretty sure you get to see that lineup quite often this season. Doesn’t strike fear in me if I’m the opposing coach though, more and more it seems the consensus is this is another rebuilding year for the Knicks despite some positive comments and predictions for the playoffs by our guys.

Click to expand...

The Knicks previous 5 season showed no effort from the organization in rebuilding the Knicks into a .500 winning team.

The Knicks previous 82 game performance of a offense/defense isolation system did not teach any of the full roster of young-core players how to perform TOGETHER on any side of the court. The Knicks offense & defense as a team were embarrassing!
Yes! The upcoming season Knicks will (still) be in their first season of rebuilding the Knicks into a .500 team, having a full roster of one or two year contract.

Media day, the start of the new season. No surprises during media day like predictions of the playoffs from the Knicks brass or whether they're going to pick up Nits option this Oct.

I am tired of Mills spin, that this was the Knicks plan on signing this group of guys in FA, esp. looking at the Taj signing, Taj would be the last guy that the Knicks should have signed. I did like the Randal signing, good young player that could still grow into a great player, a signing unlike signing Taj. Picking up Morris was good also but the one year deal tells you he won't be around next season.

We may wind up with a slightly less than middling team that wins 30 games and gets the 10th pick in the draft and while I want a winning season maybe it would be better if we should have gone all in on the tank again and preserved cap space to get another top 5 pick in next year's draft instead of signing this group of guys. It's done so my expectations are we put out a competitive product that plays hard every night to win some games.

Fiz has a low bar, said his talent was upgraded this year so he should easily exceed the 17 wins he achieved last year. ESPN in the summer after FA predicted the Knicks would be last in the East and if the Knicks finish last the Knicks should be looking for a new coach for next season.

I posted a picture of KD and Kyrie in Nets uni’s before FA and said if that happened they should fire Mills. Tired of Mills BS w/o results.

Thanks is for sharing!

Yeah, the moment they stretched Noah and decided not to extend an offer to KP, this time last season, they already envisioned a 2019 free agent run.... I bet this was, in part, why Perry and Fiz were hired.

I?m sure they had a plan to sign these guys, but only as a fallback Plan-B scenario.

I am fine wasting the money bc it?s nothing long term.... we needed to bring in some guys to give the kids some leadership and talent on the court.

I mean, how can you truly evaluate Knits and DSJ and the rest when they are surrounded by D-League types and the Lance Thomas?s of the world.

Plus, how long can we endure Mills, Perry, and Fiz. They need to start setting the foundation or it?s time to move on, right?

Time to sink or swim... Ball kid and young Anthony are the prized jewels in upcoming draft... nothing to tank over. Plus, tanking for the season only made sense bc we lost KP and had little cap room.

Heading into his sixth NBA season, Julius Randle is excited to be playing for the Knicks. It will be Randle's first season with New York, after signing a three-year $63 million contract with the team over the summer. He spent his first four years with the Los Angeles Lakers and the 2018-2019 season with the New Orleans Pelicans.

Randle acknowledged that he's going to be a leader with his new team, and is focused on helping center Mitchell Robinson take a leap forward in his second season in the league.

"That was one of the things I talked to Fiz about, that I was extremely excited about. Mitch has no clue how talented he is, how good he can be," Randle said. "Me being a leader of this team, I'm definitely going to push him, to try to maximize his potential. That's a kid I'm extremely excited to play with day in and day out."

"For me, it'll be fun. He's so long, so athletic, that you can really get into guys on the defensive end of the floor. And you know you got that guy behind you," Randle said.

https://www.sny.tv/knicks/news/knic...thats-a-kid-im-excited-to-play-with/310983436

"Free agency is a process that there's certain parts of it you can't control," Mills said. "We had a plan in place, we had a roster that we thought we could end up with and the guys that you're going to meet later on today, those are guys that were part of what we planned on doing."

It was also a plan that owner James Dolan did review before Mills and Perry went out to execute it.

"Jim knew we were going to have a successful free agency period, and we feel like we did that," Mills explained. "He was on board with what we were doing and one of the rosters that he saw well in advance of free agency looks like one we're going to put out on the floor this year."

It may not be the ideal roster, but the Knicks gave themselves tons of flexibility by signing players like Bobby Portis, Marcus Morris, Wayne Ellington and others to two-year deals with only one year guaranteed. Only Julius Randle, their biggest signing among the lot, has more than one year guaranteed and his three-year deal has two years guaranteed.

However, Mills admitted there were players that could have filled one of the two max slots the Knicks had that were interested in the team, but didn't fit what they wanted to build in New York.

"There were a lot of max-type players that we could have met with that were interested in coming here," Perry said. "We had a certain way we wanted to build this team and this is how we chose to build it."

mafra said:

"Free agency is a process that there's certain parts of it you can't control," Mills said. "We had a plan in place, we had a roster that we thought we could end up with and the guys that you're going to meet later on today, those are guys that were part of what we planned on doing."

It was also a plan that owner James Dolan did review before Mills and Perry went out to execute it.

"Jim knew we were going to have a successful free agency period, and we feel like we did that," Mills explained. "He was on board with what we were doing and one of the rosters that he saw well in advance of free agency looks like one we're going to put out on the floor this year."

It may not be the ideal roster, but the Knicks gave themselves tons of flexibility by signing players like Bobby Portis, Marcus Morris, Wayne Ellington and others to two-year deals with only one year guaranteed. Only Julius Randle, their biggest signing among the lot, has more than one year guaranteed and his three-year deal has two years guaranteed.

However, Mills admitted there were players that could have filled one of the two max slots the Knicks had that were interested in the team, but didn't fit what they wanted to build in New York.

"There were a lot of max-type players that we could have met with that were interested in coming here," Perry said. "We had a certain way we wanted to build this team and this is how we chose to build it."

Click to expand...

This is what I mean about Mills, I doubt any max guys, Kemba, Harris etc. ever wanted to meet with Mills. Load of BS like his ?guys notice we?re a front office of African Americans, and want to sign with us?. I?d rather have a GM like the new guy down in DC, that said ?look we?re rebuilding this year? than feed the fans a continuous line of BS.

Hey tiger,
Who was it that said Mills and Perry was trying to act like they were inner city African American during an interview? Trying to talk all ghetto with the black players. Was it D. Jordan??

I am so glad to see that their are Knick fans that are tired of this B.S.

They still have a Phil Jackson complex. They have never won championship or built a team in their current position. They are in over their heads and they need to go. There was no PLAN B or C or D.... If so then why did you run and hind the whole summer until now.

Do you really think Dolan was on board with this Titanic Plan?? Mr. Dolan getin your private jet and go to Jackson Hole and beg if you have to for Phil to come back. Then go to L.A. and talk with Magic Johnson about join Phil. Then go by C. Gaines house and see if he interested in a comeback.

Gentlemen...I know of no other way to save us(The Team and Fans). Again, if anybody get a better solution(that includes a real Knick) then I'm all ears.

Dark Raider said:

Hey tiger,
Who was it that said Mills and Perry was trying to act like they were inner city African American during an interview? Trying to talk all ghetto with the black players. Was it D. Jordan??

I am so glad to see that their are Knick fans that are tired of this B.S.

They still have a Phil Jackson complex. They have never won championship or built a team in their current position. They are in over their heads and they need to go. There was no PLAN B or C or D.... If so then why did you run and hind the whole summer until now.

Do you really think Dolan was on board with this Titanic Plan?? Mr. Dolan getin your private jet and go to Jackson Hole and beg if you have to for Phil to come back. Then go to L.A. and talk with Magic Johnson about join Phil. Then go by C. Gaines house and see if he interested in a comeback.

Gentlemen...I know of no other way to save us(The Team and Fans). Again, if anybody get a better solution(that includes a real Knick) then I'm all ears.

Click to expand...

I never heard that, hard to believe that the Princeton educated Mills would stoop to that. Let's see how the season goes, if we can exceed expectations and contend for a playoff spot, even if we don't make the playoffs and finish 9th in the EC. I'll forgive Mills for his spin and say the guys we picked up gave us a successful season.

This is end of line for Mills-Perry-Fiz... another disaster of a year, with nothing to redeem the future of this roster, then Dolan better wipe slate clean and start anew.

Mills spoiled KP era and will do same to RJ if allowed. He?s a talented survivor but not a competent skills evaluator

tiger0330 said:

I never heard that, hard to believe that the Princeton educated Mills would stoop to that. Let's see how the season goes, if we can exceed expectations and contend for a playoff spot, even if we don't make the playoffs and finish 9th in the EC. I'll forgive Mills for his spin and say the guys we picked up gave us a successful season.

Click to expand...

Mill's has been a loyal CEO of running all the shows yearly in MSG since the 1990's.
Mills has the same B.Ball IQ as owner Dolan ???

The Knicks success will come from a strategic head-coach that could reach the players on committing to a same-page system.