Buying Brogdon?

As the Knicks play the Blazers, could they be facing off against a potential target?

Good morning! The Knicks look to extend their winning streak to five games tonight against the 10-25 Portland Trail Blazers. Remember the motto: Do. Not. Play. With. Your. Food.

We preview that, plus have a long discussion about Malcolm Brogdon, right now…

Game Night

TONIGHT: Blazers at Knicks, 7:30 pm, MSG

Injury Report: Deandre Ayton has missed the last seven games and is doubtful, while Jabari Walker and Matisse Thybulle each missed Sunday’s win over the Nets and are listed as questionable.

Halftime Zoom: Here’s the link for tonight.

What to watch for: Aside from getting a good look at a potential trade target (much more on that below), the Blazers’ one defensive strength just so happens to be an occasional bug-a-boo for the Knicks. Portland forces the second highest frequency of turnovers in the league behind only OKC. You’ll recall the Thunder scored 21 points off of 18 Knick turnovers in a nine-point loss. Obviously the Blazers aren’t nearly as good of a team, but this still bears watching.

When Portland has the ball, they are by far the worst shooting team in the league from the painted area, but they do rebound their misses at a high rate, so being sound on the boards will be key.

One other player to watch is undrafted rookie stretch-five Duop Reath. He’s only played 379 minutes over 23 games, but the Blazers are outscoring teams by an astounding nine points per 100 possessions in those minutes. They’re 4-5 in the nine games he’s played at least 18 minutes.

News & Notes

🏀 Congratulations to Jalen Brunson, who won his second Eastern Conference Player of the Week award this season. This is the first time that the Knicks have won three POW awards in the same season (Randle won in early December) since the 2012-13 season, when Carmelo Anthony won it four times and JR Smith won it once.

A New KFS Partnership!

As longtime readers know, it takes a lot for me to advertise a product or service in this newsletter, mostly because I think people have a right to read about the Knicks without being bombarded with nonsense. If I put my name on something, it’s because I genuinely believe in it. More importantly, it’s because I think my readers will feel the same (and as is the case today, can get an extra benefit by being a KFS subscriber).

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Sunglasses, face wash, face moisturizer, deodorant, energy shots, caffeine gummies, mouth tape (I did not know this was a thing), cologne…it’s all stuff you already use or should be using. My wife has been bugging me to moisturize for years and I never did until getting this. And you know what? It feels pretty good. And my goodness, have the energy shots come in handy while penning some recent newsletters. Even better, it’s fun to get a box and see what’s in it. It’s like Christmas every three months.

If you’re interested, visit their site, choose either an annual subscription or pay by the box, and then put in the discount code “KFS” to get $15 off. You can literally get one box and then cancel (although I doubt you will). I’m a Luxee subscriber myself, so moving forward, I’ll put an update in here every time I get a new box, and you can see if there’s anything in it that catches your eye.

OK, back to basketball. Thanks for the time, and to anyone taking the Luxee plunge, I hope you enjoy!

Buying Brogdon?

When I started digging into the possibility of the Knicks acquiring Malcolm Brogdon, there were a few numbers that jumped out at me - some good and some not to good:

• As of this past weekend, he was hitting 51.3 percent of his 80 catch & shoot 3-point attempts this season, which is tops among all players who have taken at least that many C&S 3’s this season. If the idea is to get a backup point guard who can also play minutes alongside Jalen Brunson in some alignments, this number seems significant. To that end…

• Brogdon is 6'4" and 230 pounds. That’s not quite elite positional size but it’s up there. He’s big for a point guard, and big enough to play the two. That being said…

• Last season in Boston, the Celtics gave up about four and a half more points per 100 possessions when Brogdon played shooting guard as opposed to point guard. He is at his best running the show.

• Brogdon is 31 years old and has a noted history of injuries, having missed an average of 24 games a season. More than that, something in his medical file - likely a torn elbow ligament - was enough to scare off the Los Angeles Clippers, who all but completed a deal for the combo guard over the summer. He’s already sat out seven games this year.

• The former UVA Cavalier is used to playing decent minutes. He’s averaged nearly 30 a game over the course of his career, although that is trending down. Last season in Boston, he played 26 minutes a night en route to his 6th Man of the Year win. This season he’s at 27.4, but it’s been much lower since he was moved to the bench in favor of Scoot Henderson three games ago. In those contests, he’s played 17, 16 and 22 minutes, respectively.

• The dude can still impact winning. In his 763 minutes this season, Portland has a respectably bad negative-3.3 net rating, which is best among all of their season-long rotation players. In the 937 minutes Brogdon has sat, the Blazers have been outscored by more than 10 points per 100 possessions.

• Last and certainly not least: 45 million. That’s how much money Malcolm is owed on his current contract, which pays him $22.5 mil this season and next.

Let’s start at the end, with that contract number, because it’s as big a reason the Knicks should be interested in acquiring Brogdon as any.