5 Predictions for the '22-23 Knicks (Part I)
Time to get more things wrong.
Good morning! ARE YOU READY FOR SOME BASKETBALL!!?!?!?!
No, there won’t be any actual basketball played today…or tomorrow…or at any time before next week, but at least we’ll get players and coaches for the 2022-23 Knicks talking about playing basketball, so that’s…something. My goodness, do I need the NBA back in my life. If you’re a subscriber to this newsletter, I have a feeling you may feel the same.
Since we’re almost back in the swing of things, I’m going to start winding down our “offseason” content and shifting the focus to this year’s Knicks, starting today with the first half of my annual predictions column. If you’re not fully subscribed and have been waiting for just the right time to get on board, may I recommend right now? To help nudge folks along, all this week, I’m offering annual subscriptions to the newsletter at 25 percent off. That’s $4 a month. I’ll also be sending out preview editions of all of this week’s newsletters to all free subscribers so you can get a taste of what it is we do here.
Let’s get to it.
🗣 News & Notes ✍️
🏀 The Knicks will likely hold their media day today at 9am (although they have apparently dubbed it “content day”), but it looks like Leon Rose won’t be a part of it. As has been company policy for a while now, Rose shared some thoughts on an MSG television special as opposed to sitting for questions from the assembled media. Even in this restricted format, he did share some notable thoughts, including:
There’s no added pressure on Thibs this season, who will have full autonomy with minutes and rotation decisions.
Neither Cam Reddish nor his representatives requested a trade.
Julius Randle is “a passionate player,” and he sees this as a positive thing.
Regarding Donovan Mitchell, “we made the decision to stay put & we’re thrilled with where we are.” And what message was sent to RJ Barrett by those trade talks?
Rose ended the spot with a direct-to-camera message to the fans that brought this classic Simpsons clip to my mind, but to each their own. We’ll see what the rest of media, er, content day brings to the fore.
🏀 The Knicks did some more housekeeping ahead of camp, waiving Exhibit 10 signees M.J. Walker and Quinton Rose on Friday while signing Garrison Brooks and Nuni Omot, and then promptly waiving Brooks and Omot last night before signing former Raptors G-Leaguer Jalen Harris. These “sign & immediately waive” transactions are done purely to allow New York to pay extra money to the guys that end up on their Westchester roster. They now are back at 19 filled roster spots with one camp slot still available.
🏀 The Suns and Jae Crowder have mutually agreed that the veteran forward will not report to camp as Phoenix works on finding a suitable trade destination for Crowder.
This obviously set off a new round of speculation regarding whether the Knicks and Suns might be able to find a workable deal. We’ll have to wait and see, but keep in mind that any two-team deal involving Julius Randle would be complicated. Thanks to his trade bonus and an incentive tied to making the postseason, his incoming salary would be higher for any team trading for him than it would be as outgoing salary for the Knicks, especially if the acquiring team made the playoffs last season.
🏀 Finally, CJ McCollum signed a two-year, $64 million extension with the Pelicans on top of the existing two years and $69 million remaining on his deal. Why is this notable? Aside from further proof that free agency as we knew it is dead until further notice, this deal sheds a bright light on how crazy salaries are about to get in the coming years. McCollum is certainly a top-50 NBA player (ESPN ranked him at 45 last week) but has never made an All-Star team and he just turned 31 years old. This extension is for the age-33 and 34 seasons of an undersized shooting guard, albeit one with as much pound-for-pound scoring ability as anyone in basketball.
In other words, the Knicks should feel pretty good about the deals just handed to Jalen Brunson and RJ Barrett (and probably not as worried about Randle’s extension as my handwringing would indicate).
2022-23 Season Predictions, Part I
Before we get to predictions for the upcoming season, lets take a moment to revisit my offseason predictions from mid-April:
Draft Prediction: The Knicks Trade Their Pick
Unfortunately nailed this one, although I suppose that’ll depend on how the guys picked in the 11-15 range shake out. Why do I have the distinct feeling one of them will pop? Not that the Knicks have ever misread the back half of the lottery before…
Trade Prediction: The Knicks Deal Julius Randle
I don’t think I’ve ever expended more words and podcast minutes trying to speak/write something in existence than this. As of now, it’s a miss.
Free Agency Prediction: The Knicks get Jalen Brunson
Didn’t exactly go out on a limb here. If anything, I should get half credit because I was convinced they’d acquire Brunson via sign and trade. Part of me still wonders why that’s not how it went down, but they got their guy regardless.
OK, enough about the past. Let’s get Back to the Future, hop into our trusty DeLorean, and spitball some more outcomes for the next six or seven months. These predictions will get increasingly hotter as we move along, so we’ll start with one that shouldn’t come as much of a surprise to anyone…
Prediction 1: The Knicks Make an In-Season Trade
On July 14, 2017, Scott Perry was hired as general manager of the New York Knick - a post he somehow still holds despite a complete regime change and seemingly more voices of influence added to the organization by the day. Why is that notable for this prediction? Because in every one of the seasons Perry has been at the helm, the Knicks have made an in-season trade that materially affected the team’s rotation:
February 8, 2018 - traded a 2018 2nd round pick to the Nuggets and Doug McDermott to the Mavericks for Emmanuel Mudiay
January 31, 2019 - traded Trey Burke, Tim Hardaway Jr., Courtney Lee and Kristaps Porziņģis to the Mavericks for DeAndre Jordan, Wesley Matthews, Dennis Smith Jr., and two top-10 protected firsts
February 6, 2020 - traded Marcus Morris to the Clippers for Maurice Harkless, a 1st round pick, future swap rights, and Detroit’s 2021 2nd rounder
February 8, 2021 - traded Dennis Smith Jr and a second rounder to the Pistons for Derrick Rose1
January 13, 2022 - traded Kevin Knox and a protected Charlotte 1st rounder to the Hawks for Cam Reddish, Solomon Hill and a future 2nd rounder2
This is normally where I’d point out that Perry has had a penchant for trading away players he himself had previously acquired, signed or drafted, but that would obviously be the case if he made another trade this season, as every player on New York’s roster has been obtained on his watch.
If we include Perry’s tenure with the Orlando Magic, that makes it seven consecutive seasons he’s completed a trade in January or February:
February 18, 2016 - traded Channing Frye to the Cavaliers for Jared Cunningham and a future Blazers second rounder
February 14, 2017 - Traded Serge Ibaka to the Toronto Raptors for Terrence Ross and a first round draft pick (less favorable of TOR & LAC picks)
The last time Perry didn’t help complete an in-season trade, he was involved in a major organizational shakeup of a different kind, firing Jacque Vaughn as Magic coach on February 5, 2015.
On that note, it would be incredibly easy for me to log “Tom Thibodeau gets fired before the end of the All-Star break” as one of my predictions, but I’m not sure that’s even all that bold. It’s also inextricably tied with how the team is doing. If, for instance, they get to 10 games under .500 at any point before the 60-game mark and there hasn’t been a major injury or two, he is going to get fired. Since I’m not in the business of predicting certain doom for the Knicks before the season has even begun, I’m avoiding this prediction altogether.
Back to Perry. While he may no longer be the one calling the shots (if, in fact, he ever was), the consistency of his track record seems notable. When you factor in the overstuffed rotation and the fact that the Knicks do not have what anyone would consider to be a contending roster, the likelihood of a trade is high in its own right. Perry’s tendencies are the icing on the cake.
So who gets moved? Cam Reddish is still far and away the clubhouse leader for me. He’s set to enter restricted free agency with a massive cap hold of nearly $18 million. Regardless of whether the Knicks plan to operate over or under the salary cap in the coming summer, they won’t carry Reddish on their books past the deadline unless they think there’s at least a decent chance they ink him to an extension. Right now, that feels unlikely.
You could point to the Mitchell Robinson situation last season (him remaining on the team past the trade deadline despite entering unrestricted free agency) and argue that it showed a high risk tolerance on behalf of the front office, but there are a few big differences between Mitch and Cam. Primarily, they knew Robinson was good. Second, they liked him. Third, they knew they’d be comfortable wielding their checkbook as a trump card if any hangups arose. Sure enough, they spent what it took to keep him in New York even though it was more than what many projected. There’s been zero indication of a level of faith in Reddish that would precede a similar situation. There’s certainly time for that change, but it would almost certainly take an injury or someone else getting traded for that to occur.
Not that that’s impossible. Derrick Rose is on the verge of his 34th birthday and just suffered what turned out to be a season ending injury (although he claims he’s now healthier than he has been in a while). If Rose goes down, you figure Reddish would get his rotation spot, although who knows with Deuce also waiting in the wings.
Other trade possibilities exist as well. We know they’ve already tried to move on from Fournier, and likely Randle as well. It would count as something of a surprise if both of those guys were still on the roster a year from now. I’ve already written about why we shouldn’t be shocked if Mitch is dealt. Rose, if he stays healthy, turns into an easy contract to move if the team is underperforming, as does Hartenstein. Really, I wouldn’t be surprised to see anyone on the roster get dealt besides Brunson, RJ, Grimes or Quickley.
But a trade will almost certainly go down, for obvious reasons if they’re bad, but maybe just as obvious if they’re good. The Derrick Rose trade solidified their playoff bonafides a year and a half ago, and if they’re in a similar position this season, they won’t hesitate to make another win-now transaction.
One way or another, the Perry Tradition will continue.
Prediction 2: Multiple Knicks get Votes for 6MOY…and IQ finishes in the top 3
Let’s start with the first part: It’s not uncommon for multiple players from the same team to find their way onto the 6th Man of the Year ballot, and often pretty high up.
Last season, two players from Charlotte and three players from Memphis were among the final 13 vote-getters. The year before that, Utah had both the winner and runner up, the Mavs employed the fourth and fifth place finishers, and Portland also got two on the ballot. In 2019 and 2020, the Clippers snagged two of the top three spots, while both Denver and Brooklyn also had multiple entrants in 2019. In 2018, the fifth and sixth place finishers played for Miami.
Sometimes these multiple entrant teams are among the best in the league, but certainly not always. An above-.500 record can often be enough.
So in a sense, this is a prediction about New York’s final record as much as it is about how they achieve that mark. It’s easy to envision a product that is an unpalatable mess overall but which boasts a fun and effective bench, mostly because we just saw it last season. It’s much harder to see a great Knicks season playing out that doesn’t include the reserves playing a significant role in that success. And while the events of the last month (Brooklyn sorting itself out, Cleveland getting Mitchell, and even the Pistons snagging Bogey) make an above-.500 prediction feel a bit more treacherous than it did in late July, I still think they can get there.
If they do, I’m willing to bet that Immanuel Quickley plays a massive part.
Quickley, you’ll remember, finished 10th in the voting last year - the only player from a losing team to make his way onto the final ballot. So what needs to happen for him to nudge his way into the top three, a’la Derrick Rose two years ago?
Typically the best bench scorers in the league do well in this race, but that’s not always the case. Andre Iguodala (7.6 points per game in 2017), Fred VanVleet (8.6 PPG in 2018), Joe Ingles (12.1 PPG in 2021) and Cam Johnson (12.5 PPG last season) all finished top-three while posting modest scoring outputs, but did so for teams that lead their conference in wins. Domantas Sabonis finished second in 2019 averaging just 14.1 points, but also packed 9.3 boards and 2.9 assists into just 24.8 minutes a night for the very surprising 48-34 Pacers.
The aforementioned Rose (14.7 points in 2021) and Kevin Love (13.6 points last season) also finished top-three not only because they played for the NBA’s surprise teams in those respective years, but because they were viewed as catalysts behind those turnarounds. It didn’t hurt that each had the narrative of former-All-NBA-guys-who-thrive-in-a-lesser-role behind them.
Quickley won’t have any such narrative, and he’s not going to play for a team that finishes atop its conference. His case will have to be built on a combination of robust numbers and New York being a pleasant surprise. His playing time doesn’t necessarily need to go up too much from the 23.1 minutes he just averaged, but playing at least half of every game is probably a bare minimum, as only four of 30 top-three finishers over the last 10 years saw fewer than 24 minutes a night, and none fewer than 203.
If we give him somewhere around 26-28 minutes per game, he’d be at about 13 points, four assists and three and a half rebounds if he maintained last year’s production. That’s probably not going to get it done. But 15 or 16 points, plus five dimes and four boards a night? The only 6th Man contender likely to put up those across the board stats this season is Bones Hyland, and he doesn’t have as clean a path to shots or playing time as IQ. If Quick routinely closes games for the Knicks (which is the only way he’d reach that 26-28 minutes threshold anyway) and hits some clutch shots along the way, he could be the first Knick to win this award outright since…
…the legend himself, JR Smith, a decade ago.
Wouldn’t it be a lovely time for history to repeat itself.
Stay tuned for Part II of my predictions column coming tomorrow!
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That’s it for today! If you enjoy this newsletter and like the Mets, don’t forget to subscribe to JB’s Metropolitan, or his hockey newsletter, Isles Fix. See y’all soon! #BlackLivesMatter
The Knicks later traded away Austin Rivers and Iggy Brazdeikis before the 2021 deadline, but both players were out of the rotation at the time of the deal.
The Knicks earlier traded away the rights to Louis Labeyrie and acquired Denzel Valentine in the deal that sent Rajon Rondo to Cleveland.
VanVleet, who averaged 20 minutes on the nose.
renaming media day, "content day," because of how much he hates the media is beyond petty, even for dolan.
Regarding Thibs being on the hot seat, what I will say to that is that I think that at this juncture, going in to his 3rd season, both Thibs and the front office are either going to hang together, or hang seperately. For better or for worse, their fates are linked. I don't think things will spin out of control, but let's say that they do, the history with the franchise has been a complete housecleaning. Dolan is the same as Jerry Jones, he thinks he can run the franchise better than anyone else, and he has shown extrodinary temperance over the last few years where he has let Rose and his guys run the franchise without interference. So if things go wrong, I don't see him just firing Thibs and letting the present regime pick the new coach. Under that circumstance, I think it would just be a complete housecleaning, and Dolan would probably give a blank check to whatever big name there is, and make him President of the organization. Granted, that doesn't mean that I necessarily think that would be the right thing to do under that scenario, but that's what I think would happen.