Briefing: May 29
Knicks meet with RJ Barrett. Thinking on an Anthony Davis trade.
Good Morning,
Happy Birthday, Carmelo Anthony!
R.J. Barrett gets a taste of the New York headlines…
Barrett met with the Knicks during his agency’s Pro Day in Los Angeles:
"[Meeting with the Knicks] was great…. We had a great and honest conversation so it was good.” [SNY]
"It would be a lot of fun, playing in the Garden, the bright lights. They have so much history down there. It would be amazing." [New York Post]
“(David) Fizdale is a great coach, they have a great crew there. I know Kevin Knox and Allonzo Trier, but just to see the team that they have - we'll see what happens." [SNY]
The Knicks were one of several teams in attendance to scout the USA U-16 squad yesterday, per Andrew Slater: “Mostly drill work this morning but Jabari Smith ‘21 & Max Christie ‘21 had a strong session.”
Durant rumors: Ric Bucher says, “Kevin Durant’s house in the Bay Area is up for sale and he has purchased a place in New York.”
A Knicks fan jumped out of a plane (skydiving) as a recruiting pitch to Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving: WATCH
Thinking on an Anthony Davis trade
by Jonathan Macri
If you'd have asked me six weeks ago which topic would dominate my thinking over May and June, the merits of an Anthony Davis trade would have been pretty far down the list.
And yet...it's all that's on my mind these days.
The reason is simple: very rarely do I come across a "Should the Knicks do X?" proposal and end up genuinely on the fence about it. And this is despite wasting a lot of time and what little brain space I have on the matter.
But that's where I'm at with this AD thing. I've found myself talking up a possible trade during the last couple pods, and afterwards I've been like "Wait a minute...I'm really not sure I even want them to do this." And I'm not. All the reasons people bring up every day not to mortgage the farm are valid. He could leave in a year. He could come as a free agent if he really wants to. He's not a pristine picture of health. If they sign two max guys, they don't need to mortgage the future on top of it. Mitchell Robinson is our Lord and Savior. Can't we sign a homegrown guy to a second contract for once?
It's all legit. Every point. So why can't I get it out of my head?
Simple: he's so, so, so damn good.
Let's put all the reasons not to make a trade aside for a moment and just think about the player they'd be getting for a moment. Let's also assume they have some tacit understanding that he'll re-sign for at least 3 years. We know about the accolades - two top-five MVP finishes, three-time 1st Team All-NBA, six-time All-Star - but even those don't begin to tell the whole story.
I'm not a huge fan of alleged "catch-all" stats, because no single statistic can possibly encapsulate a player's value on the court, but if you look at several of them in unison, it can be pretty illuminating. Thankfully, we have the greatest, deepest rabbit hole in sports research at our fingertips, BasketballReference.com.
BBallRef has some great stats that have individual flaws, but collectively, paint a fairly accurate picture. We'll focus on four today: Win Shares, Win Shares per 48 minutes, Box Score Plus/Minus, and Value Over Replacement Player. The former two and latter two are each related but with slight differences. For an explanation of how to calculate each, here's a link.
So...the Brow. He's 26 years old. Using that as a filter, and comparing Davis to where other players throughout NBA history were at at the same age, we get the following rankings (minimum 200 games played):
WS: 20th
WS/48: 17th
BPM: 28th
VORP: 20th
Here's the list of other players who, at age-26, ranked at least as high on all four of those lists: Michael Jordan, Chris Paul, LeBron James, Tim Duncan and Charley Barkley.
One of those - VORP - is heavily skewed towards modern players because the league has gotten so much larger, but even if you take away that, it only adds one name to the list: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
So what does this tell us...that Anthony Davis is 6th or 7th greatest 26-year-old in the history of basketball? Of course not (although I also wouldn't completely rule it out). More instructive than who's higher than him on all the lists are the names that surround his on each one. Yeah, there's an outlier here or there, but generally speaking these are not only automatic HOF'er types, but guys who have been the best players on champions and Finals teams.
As a point of comparison - and only because people constantly use the Melo trade as a reason not to deal for Davis - here's where Anthony ranked on each list at the same age:
WS: 39th
WS/48: 292nd
BPM: 355th
VORP: 101st
Again, this isn't to disparage Melo, especially on his birthday (StayMe7o!). He was a great Knick, and damn well earned his 3rd place MVP finish in 2012-13. That they didn't do better during his time here was at least as much a reflection on the organization's choices as anything he did or didn't do.
But like many great players, prime Carmelo Anthony was someone you needed to build around in a specific way, on both ends of the court, to be successful. Anthony Davis - as these numbers make quite clear - is a different animal. He is a system unto himself. That New Orleans so spectacularly failed at team-building over the last several years isn't a reason to doubt AD's potential.
If anything, it's the opposite.
(and after all that, I'm still not convinced they should bet the farm on him.)
Remember when…
May 29, 2000: New York defeats Indiana 91-89 at MSG in Game Four of the Eastern Conference Finals to tie the series at 2-2. Larry Johnson paces the Knicks attack with 25 points, going 5-for-5 from downtown. [Vivek Dadhania with more]
May 29, 1975: Knicks select Jackson State forward Eugene Short with the ninth overall pick in the NBA Draft.
May 29, 1984: Carmelo Anthony born in Brooklyn, NY.
May 29, 1932: Hall of Famer Richie Guerin is born in The Bronx, NY.
Thanks for reading, talk to you tomorrow!