Reality Check

The Knicks hit a new low, and with it, have raised some uncomfortable (but necessary) questions.

Good morning! I hope you had a better weekend than the Knicks did. There was no shortage of excitement, but the result was more of the same: two more losses, making it three in a row and six in seven games.

I’ll have some extended thoughts on the state of the franchise below, as well as game recaps and stars (yes, a few players did earn them), but first, a reminder that if you’d like to get this newsletter every day (and really, who wouldn’t want to read about the Knicks right now), you know what to do:

Weekend Recap

Friday: Knicks 87, Raptors 90

In the latest sign of “it wasn’t just Kemba,” the Knicks went down 30-10 in this game with nothing going right at either end. That’s about when Obi Toppin checked in and gave the listless Knicks some life, scoring 10 points in a 29-9 spurt that tied the game.

Toronto reclaimed and maintained a single-digit lead for most of the rest of this one until a final push gave New York a one-point lead with under two minutes to go. After allowing a few Raptor offensive rebounds at the worst time, a Gary Trent Jr triple pushed Toronto back in front, and the Knicks couldn’t convert any of three looks in the final minute, with a Randle three that was halfway down the most excruciating of the bunch.

Sunday: Knicks 97, Bucks 112

Playing significantly shorthanded for the first time this season thanks to Obi Toppin and RJ Barrett in health and safety protocols and Alec Burks gone for personal reasons after the reported birth of a child, New York turned to Derrick Rose and rookie Quentin Grimes in the starting lineup and Kevin Knox to play a significant role. Those three did the bulk of the scoring and were responsible for 63 of New York’s 97 points, with Grimes in particular putting on a show, setting a Knick rookie record for most points in the first start of a career with 27.

Unfortunately, a few too many leaks in the damn allowed Milwaukee to execute their game plan to a T, outscoring the Knicks just from the paint (46 points) and behind the line (42 points) alone. A hot-shooting third saw New York cut the lead to nine a few times, but almost from the opening tip, this never felt like a game that was seriously in danger for the defending champs.

Defensively Challenged

Before we get to the Stars of the Game and my Monday diatribe, a quick word on something that’s been grinding my gears: New York’s top two centers. Some numbers for your perusal, courtesy of Cleaning the Glass:

That top number, for Robinson, is worse than the bottom-ranked defense in the NBA. Noel’s is equivalent to the bottom.

The eye test backs up what we’re seeing. Check out Nerlens Noel here, right before the first Toronto made basket of the game:

If there was one play on Friday that symbolized the difference between this year’s and last year’s Knicks, it was this one. Second defensive possession of the game, the team is beyond desperate for a win, and there’s your starting center, supposed lynchpin of the defense, with his hands on his knees, not in position to jump out for a contest if the ball swung to the corner.

Sure, it’s Chris Boucher, who’s hitting 18 percent from deep. But to borrow a Thibs-ism: this is the NBA; everyone’s a great player. Boucher is a 50 percent shooter from the corners and also hit over 38 percent from deep last year. If I know this stuff, so should Noel.

Fast forward to yesterday, and we got another play that was emblematic of one of New York’s major issues this season: transition defense.

After Julius makes up for one of his seven costly turnovers with a nice rejection, the ball pings around and it’s nearly five seconds before we see Robinson in the picture. Mitch, unsurprisingly, was pulled immediately after his failure to both get back in a timely manner and identify Grayson Allen as an uncovered Buck on the perimeter.

The eye test reveals that Robinson’s issues are more focused than Noel’s, with the problem areas lying in space and anytime his conditioning is tested. Noel, meanwhile, simply hasn’t been as effective across the board.

This play from Friday isn’t just on him - Randle gets faked out of his shoes, Alec Burks fails to offer even a cursory dig, and RJ does a fly by that would make Maverick proud - but Nerlens’ positioning here does no one any favors.

While neither of these guys have been anything close to what they were last season, there are some numbers that suggest perhaps we should take it slightly easier on Mitch, at least when he’s surrounded by more active perimeter defenders:

But even these numbers only help so much. As the team is currently constituted, any center is going to have to play ample minutes with substandard surrounding defenders. That Robinson can’t really make up the difference like he has in the past may not be totally his fault, but it is still hurting the team.

Something to consider as trade season approaches.

💫 Stars of the Game 💫

We’re switching it up again. As a reminder, when New York plays two, I give stars for the whole weekend and they count double. No one deserves three stars for their performance over the course of both games, so we’re going two stars a pop.

⭐️ ⭐️ Derrick Rose: The stuff he pulls out of his ass is so commonplace now, we almost take it for granted:

Rose started yesterday with Burks out and played 37 minutes, his high for this season. He was 8-for-16 for 18 points, seven assists to just two turnovers and three steals. On Friday, he had one of his more uneven games (5-for-13, 11 points, four assists, three turnovers, six boards) but still gave them 33 solid minutes. He and Quickley were the only Knicks who played both games and had a positive plus/minus (+ 1 each), except Rose played 20 more minutes.

It is par for the course for his season. He has been a plus-30 or more twice, a plus-10 or more eight times, and worse than a minus-2 only six times. New York’s best player this year, Rose just keeps on going.

⭐️ ⭐️ Quentin Grimes: Not bad for a first start, huh?

Grimes’ debut as a starter, in which he set the record for most points by a Knick in his first start, was bolstered in large part by his 3-ball, which he shot with as little hesitation as any player in a New York uniform this season. The 7-for-13 from downtown was impressive, as was the team-high 40 minutes he played, but my favorite moment of the game came early on, well before his 3rd quarter flurry of three threes in 60 seconds briefly made this a game:

One of the reasons Grimes fell in the draft was that he was looked at as strictly a 3 & D player with little juice off the bounce. This was one of a few flashes of creativity that raised my eyebrows.

There were issues, mostly with ball control (five turnovers) and defense, which was mostly just rookie stuff. He’ll be good on that end of the floor, probably sooner rather than later. In the meantime, his energy level makes up for his lack of experience. He needs time moving forward, without question, and the notion of starting him for Evan Fournier has to at least be on the table.

⭐️ ⭐️ Obi Toppin: A revelation all season long, Toppin had his best game of the year on Friday night, with 19 points and 10 rebounds. He didn’t shoot it great (just 6-for-14 overall and 1-of-5 from deep), but he was 6-of-6 from the line, which is a notable number considering he’s now 31 for his last 33 from the charity stripe. The 3-pointer has not yet come around this season, but given his free throw numbers over the last five weeks, it’s only a matter of time.

I’ll have much more on Obi tomorrow, but for now, suffice it so say we hope he gets better soon.

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Reality Check

There comes a point in every season where you know what you are as an NBA team.

For some teams, like this year’s Pistons, Thunder, Rockets and Magic, that point came before the first game is even played. For other teams who are pot committed, like this year’s Lakers, no reality check could get them to divert course. They are in it to win it, however far fetched that may seem.

But for the other 20-25 teams in the NBA universe, at some point, a decision will be made to either join the race or gear up for the next one. Sometimes, like in the case of the Pelicans, that decision gets made for you due to injury. Most of the time though, it comes from the front office, whose responsibility it is to do what is best for the long term health of the organization.

For last year’s Knicks, that point came 25 games into the season, when they sat three games under .500 with a 19th ranked net rating of negative 1.1. They were part of a group of more than half the league who sat within three games of .500 in one direction of the other, but were confident that with the addition of Derrick Rose, maybe, just maybe, they could make a run.

They really had nothing to lose. Aside from the cost being so low, the young players were seeing time regardless of which direction they went. There was also clearly something about the team that made them too competitive to engage in a true tank. They fought like hell. Might as well reward them with a point guard that at least had a chance to keep them in games. It was an easy decision, and rest was history.

Now, a little more than 10 months later, they have come to the same point in the season, except without nearly as much clarity. They are once again three games under .500, except this time after 27 games and with a worse net rating of negative 2.1, good for 23rd in the league. They’ve done this despite one of the easier schedules and some of the best luck with player availability in the league, at least until yesterday.

Since November 1 and the 5-1 start that is a distant memory, that net rating is negative 4.7. That’s ranked 24th in that time but the distance between them and the 23rd ranked Wizards (minus 3.1) is roughly the same as between the Wiz and the group of teams from 14th to 18th. In other words, New York is below the group of teams that you would conservatively call “not good but at least competitive.” Put more bluntly: since November 1, they are much closer to the tanking Rockets than Washington.

This is the reality of the situation. Just like the fact that the fast start was supported by unsustainably hot shooting¹, considering their present place in the NBA’s hierarchy is an unpleasant truth. Unlike last year, they are trending in the wrong direction, knocking on the door of a top 10 pick and a half game in front of the 13th place Pacers.

That’s not the only key difference from last year that makes their path moving forward more complicated:

• For the first time since at least 2016-17 but really since 2013-14, they came into the season with real expectations. No one would have blamed them for tanking a year ago. Now, the narrative may be quite a bit different.

• They now have some long term money on the books, with Julius Randle about to enter into a four-year extension and Evan Fournier sitting with two more years of fully guaranteed money on the books.

• The league is filled with antsy teams feeling the pressure to make a move.

Philadelphia, Portland, Sacramento and Indiana are all candidates to make big trades, and with the possible exception of the Pacers, all are looking to add talent. You can throw a few other wild card teams into the mix. Meanwhile, very few teams in the league are clear sellers, and those that are don’t have much to sell.

Which gets us back to the Knicks. I’ve written a few times recently about how they make almost too much sense as a Myles Turner destination. There will surely be opportunities to think even bigger (well, not literally bigger…Turner is pretty massive). Perhaps they find an opportunity too good to pass up.

That is one direction they could go. Like I wrote on Friday, there is a path to turning around the narrative: hang around .500 until April and then make a late run. It is the more likely scenario.

There is also another path, one Knicks fans are all too familiar with, but at the same time, aren’t really familiar with at all. New York has certainly engaged in tanking behavior before, but without a real core of young talent on the roster, and without any semblance of accountability to ensure that bad habits wouldn’t be setting in during the process.

This is different. Along with Alec Burks and Derrick Rose, Obi Toppin and Immanuel Quickley have been two of the Knicks’ four least disappointing players this season, and arguably the two most exciting. Not listed here is RJ Barrett, the theoretical young cornerstone who continues to tantalize but has yet to put it all together. What would he look like shouldering a bigger load? We have no idea. Mitchell Robinson remains, as always, intriguing in theory.

And now, after yesterday’s game, we can add Quentin Grimes to that list. It is one game, sure, but Tom Thibodeau doesn’t award 40 minutes of playing time by accident. That game was a long time coming for the rookie first rounder.

It is an interesting group filled with clearly hard workers and culture setters organizations dream of, but it is also a group without a blue chipper, which is typically a player that comes via the top of the draft.

The thought before this season was that several of these pieces, plus the appropriate accompanying salary, would be used to get said blue chip piece via trade, but once again, that theory has now officially been turned on its head. The overall team numbers speak to this reality, but if we really want to hit the nail on the head, feast your eyes here:

Thanks to above numbers, Julius Randle finds himself in the 1st percentile league-wide according to Cleaning the Glass’ on/off differential at minus 23.5. The closest “star” player to that number is De’Aaron Fox at minus 11.9.

Randle’s number should be taken with a grain of salt. Toppin has played less than half of Randle’s minutes, three quarters of which have been with Derrick Rose. He also plays almost exclusively against backups, whereas Randle plays against the best of the best, and has had to do so with the other disappointing starters².

But the numbers are so stark as to be impossible to ignore. No one thinks (or should think, at least) that the Knicks will improve if they moved on from Randle, but at this point, how much worse could it get? The question is what they’d get for him, and whether there would even be a market for his services. That is what a “tank,” at least for these Knicks, would look like.

Given how many teams are trying to win and how reasonable his contract remains even with his struggles this season (he will be about the 50th highest paid player in basketball this year and next), the bet is that there will be interest. He is by no means a bad player, just one who is miscast as a leading man away from the defense-first ecosystem that surrounded him last year. He can and will help teams win games for the foreseeable future.

Ditto for Evan Fournier, who at $18 million annually is not so prohibitive as to scare off every potential suitor (although he is by no means a positive or even a neutral asset right now, despite a respectable efficiency that is league average for his position.)

If this all feels extreme to read after a game in which three key rotation players were out, trust me, it’s more than a bit jarring to write. But again, sometimes reality is harsh. This isn’t about Sunday’s game. It’s about a sample size that is too large to ignore, and that sample size at least begs the question “should the Knicks be sellers?”

Nothing is going to happen anytime soon. By virtue of the extension he signed, Randle can’t be traded until February 3 anyway. I would bet on a Myles Turner trade well before then, which is fine for any direction they want to go. Turner is good, young, and probably fits even better with Obi Toppin than he does with Randle. I’m sure they won’t put any of their own picks on the table for Myles without significant protections.

Maybe that will get them back in the race, and if so, maybe that is for the best. After all, all this losing really, really sucks.

But everything is on the table, even things we thought were completely off the table after last year’s miraculous run. That’s what 12-15 gets you…already thinking about how New York is just 1.5 games “back” of the 6th spot in the lottery, which is half the size of the three games they are back of 6th place in the East.

It’s the harsh reality of life in the NBA, and it comes at you fast. The sooner you acknowledge the truth, the better off you’ll be. Figuring out that truth, on the other hand, well…that may not be quite so simple.

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And Finally…

The next entrant in my top 75 Knicks of all time list will have to wait ‘till tomorrow, because today’s final section is reserved for someone of slightly greater importance: my wife.

My wife and I got married seven years ago today, on December 13, 2014. We thought it would be cool to get married on the last sequentially numbered day (12/13/14) for more than 88 years, which is convenient for me because it means I never forget my anniversary.

Not that I would. The only reason you’re reading this right now is because of Dolores, who encouraged this crazy endeavor over the years even though it took hours upon hours away from our family time every day with nothing in return. Even today, I’ll be writing tomorrow’s newsletter in the hours before bedtime, and that’s after I record a podcast for Tuesday. In short, she’s the heart of Knicks Film School in more ways than one.

Happy Anniversary baby.

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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 new hockey newsletter, Isles Fix. See y’all soon! #BlackLivesMatter

1. They were second in the league in effective field goal percentage in their first six games. They are 24th since.

2. Even that deserves an asterisk. Barrett’s sample size without Randle is tiny - just 151 non-garbage time possessions- but he is a plus 13.3 in that time. Fournier’s sample size is even more negligible, just 51 possessions, and he’s dead even in that time.