The only defense I can come up with for the Obi pick is how poorly that tier of the draft class has fared generally. Numbers 1 and 3,
Edwards and Ball, have been great. Numbers 2 and 10 ( Wiseman and Jalen
Smith) are already off their drafting team for Obi equivalent returns. The balance of the picks till 11 and 12 (three after Obi) are all guys with stats equivalent to or worse than Obis. Pat
Williams, Killian Hayes, Okoru, Okongwu, and
Avdija . Their teams still have hope for them. But None of them have really outperformed Obi so far and in any case only
Avdija was available. Vassel and Halliburton at 11 and 12 and Maxey and IQ at 21 and 25 and McDaniels and Bane at 28 and 30 are all clearly superior so far to any of those top 10 picks except
Edwards and Ball. So we were at least in good company in missing excellent players after the top 10 though we did as Jon points out at least do well enough to pick IQ.
Not overly concerned about the back up 4 but someone brought up the point that with Julius coming back from injury and JHart getting burn this summer with the USA team, I think the rotation needs fresher legs at the 4 there as those guys recover. Definitely think it's needed at the start of the season.
Jason, I think these are great points. Under perfect circumstances, Randle will play his 35+ minutes and the back-up four could be covered for 13 minutes by RJ and Hart. But what if Randle is still gimpy returning from his injury and can only play 25 minutes? What if Hart comes back exhausted from the Summer international games? What if RJ is needed elsewhere? What if there are other injuries.
It just feels irresponsible not to have a real back-up four on the roster. And I don’t think Rose or Thibs are irresponsible so there will be a trade or a signing.
Jonathan, I agree with your point about Obi bearing blame here. He certainly knew that Thibs wanted defense and rebounding in a backup 4 and never really seemed to embrace working on those areas of his game. I mean, if he could have provided some rim protection, which he should have been able to do with his freakish athletic ability, playing Obi and Randle together might have worked.
Some fans liked to complain that Thibs not holding Randle accountable (which appears to have been code for cutting his minutes and giving Obi more), but Randle's 20/10/ and 4 to 6 assists per game were constants and, more than efficiency numbers, were the key to Thibs' offensive scheme. Now, even if one believes Obi could have scored as efficiently and as prolifically as Randle, he never showed the ability to rebound, bang, facilitate or create his own offense nearly as well as Randle. So, when Thibs had to decide whether to give Obi more minutes, he wasn't likely to get more offense in those minutes and Obi had to offer something on defense to offset Randle's importance on the Offensive End. He just never did. Instead, you could see Thibs' frustration with his missed assignments, leaking out, etc., followed by Thibs pulling him from the game. I wish Obi well, but Carlisle is also a tough coach and I suspect Obi will have to play defense there as well to continue to get PT. Perhaps Carlisle's defensive scheme will fit Obi better. We will see.
You mention that the Knicks should have considered moving Obi last offseason. I think they should have tried to move him the season before when they signed Randle to the extension as that pretty much permanently blocked Obi from becoming a starter (which is what you want from a top 10 pick). Yes, he had a poor rookie season, but other teams would have been more willing to overlook that at that point. The longer he was stuck as a backup, the less he would be worth (unless he used his limited backup minutes to break out and force the Knicks or another team to see him as a star).
As for last offseason, I think they did try to move him and expected Obi to be part of a trade for DMitch. But when that deal dragged on and then died, other rosters were basically set.
I think the bigger question is why they didn't move him at the trading deadline. Detroit would likely have considered a trade straight up for Bey, for example.
We've read of alleged disagreement within the FO about Obi's value. But I wonder if that was a bit of a smokescreen to cover for the reality that there hasn't been much of a market for Obi generally.
Despite Toppin’s relatively low playing time most nights, is it fair to wonder if his presence, or the threat of what he might have one day become, pushed/motivated Randle over the last three years, and that Randle will now try less without Toppin or some other reasonably good backup 4 pushing him? I mean, we already know he gets an A for Attitude, E for Effort and T for Nice Try every single goddam time his team needs him.
Thanks for the content as usual. Just a thought about a behind the scenes look at KFS, as I have no idea how you can create so much material in a normal day. Instead of a cap or no cap, how about a Macri time or no time, as Jeremy breaks down how Jon gets 30 hours of living (family, teaching, pods, newsletter, running, sleep?) into a 24 hour day, would love to see that chart. And a trade question on the Dame front. Instead of Brooklyn being a third team as destination for Tyler Herro, how about the Knicks? Herro checks some boxes with shooting, edge, and Kentucky. Dame to Miami, RJ and Duncan Robinson plus a couple picks to Portland, and Herro to the Knicks. Works on spotrac.
This made me laugh out loud. Thank you. Fact is I don't have nearly enough time for it all, which is why I'm just getting around to this comment (checks notes) nearly 2 weeks late.
As for Herro, as much as I'd love to deep dive this in the newsletter, I don't think there's even the remotest possibility of NY getting in on this bc Riley ain't trading Herro here and NY ain't giving up a juicy 1st for Herro, which is what the reporting seems to suggest Portland really wants. I guess *maybe* the Blazers love RJ, but even then, I wonder if NY would make a move like that for a guy who doesn't defend.
The clock is certainly ticking, which seems to be why Rose is supposedly "not done yet." Or at least not done until he changes his price point in negotiations. I wonder if this is the off season where as we get closer to camp we might a little bit more caving in whether for OG or PG 13. 🤔
I think when you're a playoff team, how your summer league team performs is a lot less relavant because usually you don't have high draft picks and your rotation is fairly set so you're really looking at guys that are hoping to be G-Leaguers and work on their games there. Look at a guy like Deuce or Sims. They go back and forth between the NBA and G-League and they seem to be growing as players. Whether that will ever translate to guys who become a piece of a playoff rotation is still unknown but it has taken them a year or two in the G-League. Look at Frank and Knox and even Obi and you could say that these guys aren't bad players but they really could have been a lot lower in the draft and needed time in the G-League. Circumstance for them were that the Knicks really didn't have a good team so they got minutes in the NBA and being high picks meant there were higher expectations as well. On the plus we've got IQ, Mitch and Grimes all playing meaningful minutes which is amazing. We've got guys as of last year who it seems can all hit big shots at the end of games and I don't remember much of that at all since the Melo days. Obi was a miss for us and I'd say our draft history is still not awesome but it has gotten a whole lot better. For a team with only one top 3 pick we're doing well. Look at Houston, OKC, Detroit, Orlando, New Orleans...how many top of the lottery picks have they had and are they really any better than us? I think it says a lot about our players and our organization that we're even talking about being a 'player away' considering we've got no 'superstars' and no #1 picks and we had crazy vet contracts to unload and had no picks during all the crazy years with Isaiah and Phil and the others running the show AND the bad picks on top of it. It's really nuts that we're not still near the bottom of the league with our history.
I particularly like how Jalen Martin looked and played. Although inexperienced he has very good foot work, which makes he look more polished than he is. And the best part was his willingness to mix it up on defense. I think he will be the surprise of free agent signings, for 2023. Judging for just 2 summer league games he is already ahead of Trevor Keels. Everyone else on the summer league team is just roster filler to meet the requirements of minimum roster size.
So, the Knicks could have created capspace to sign Brunson without sacrificing the lottery pick. I'm sorry, that's malfeasance on Rose then. A few of the players that were available would have looked great in blue and orange
Fact is Thibs mis used him, he was number 8 pick, he was worth more in a future potential trade. He is young had 30 plus games. Don’t give me defense BS, he was great off bench. Randle coming off surgery? Perfect time to not burn him out. Randle out of gas at end of season.
Why have draft picks when you only trade them,
Porzingas, Nitkilina, Knox, now Toppin, all lottery picks
We could have had Mitchell, why have picks if you don’t develop them or use in trade.
The only defense I can come up with for the Obi pick is how poorly that tier of the draft class has fared generally. Numbers 1 and 3,
Edwards and Ball, have been great. Numbers 2 and 10 ( Wiseman and Jalen
Smith) are already off their drafting team for Obi equivalent returns. The balance of the picks till 11 and 12 (three after Obi) are all guys with stats equivalent to or worse than Obis. Pat
Williams, Killian Hayes, Okoru, Okongwu, and
Avdija . Their teams still have hope for them. But None of them have really outperformed Obi so far and in any case only
Avdija was available. Vassel and Halliburton at 11 and 12 and Maxey and IQ at 21 and 25 and McDaniels and Bane at 28 and 30 are all clearly superior so far to any of those top 10 picks except
Edwards and Ball. So we were at least in good company in missing excellent players after the top 10 though we did as Jon points out at least do well enough to pick IQ.
Not overly concerned about the back up 4 but someone brought up the point that with Julius coming back from injury and JHart getting burn this summer with the USA team, I think the rotation needs fresher legs at the 4 there as those guys recover. Definitely think it's needed at the start of the season.
Jason, I think these are great points. Under perfect circumstances, Randle will play his 35+ minutes and the back-up four could be covered for 13 minutes by RJ and Hart. But what if Randle is still gimpy returning from his injury and can only play 25 minutes? What if Hart comes back exhausted from the Summer international games? What if RJ is needed elsewhere? What if there are other injuries.
It just feels irresponsible not to have a real back-up four on the roster. And I don’t think Rose or Thibs are irresponsible so there will be a trade or a signing.
Jonathan, I agree with your point about Obi bearing blame here. He certainly knew that Thibs wanted defense and rebounding in a backup 4 and never really seemed to embrace working on those areas of his game. I mean, if he could have provided some rim protection, which he should have been able to do with his freakish athletic ability, playing Obi and Randle together might have worked.
Some fans liked to complain that Thibs not holding Randle accountable (which appears to have been code for cutting his minutes and giving Obi more), but Randle's 20/10/ and 4 to 6 assists per game were constants and, more than efficiency numbers, were the key to Thibs' offensive scheme. Now, even if one believes Obi could have scored as efficiently and as prolifically as Randle, he never showed the ability to rebound, bang, facilitate or create his own offense nearly as well as Randle. So, when Thibs had to decide whether to give Obi more minutes, he wasn't likely to get more offense in those minutes and Obi had to offer something on defense to offset Randle's importance on the Offensive End. He just never did. Instead, you could see Thibs' frustration with his missed assignments, leaking out, etc., followed by Thibs pulling him from the game. I wish Obi well, but Carlisle is also a tough coach and I suspect Obi will have to play defense there as well to continue to get PT. Perhaps Carlisle's defensive scheme will fit Obi better. We will see.
You mention that the Knicks should have considered moving Obi last offseason. I think they should have tried to move him the season before when they signed Randle to the extension as that pretty much permanently blocked Obi from becoming a starter (which is what you want from a top 10 pick). Yes, he had a poor rookie season, but other teams would have been more willing to overlook that at that point. The longer he was stuck as a backup, the less he would be worth (unless he used his limited backup minutes to break out and force the Knicks or another team to see him as a star).
As for last offseason, I think they did try to move him and expected Obi to be part of a trade for DMitch. But when that deal dragged on and then died, other rosters were basically set.
I think the bigger question is why they didn't move him at the trading deadline. Detroit would likely have considered a trade straight up for Bey, for example.
We've read of alleged disagreement within the FO about Obi's value. But I wonder if that was a bit of a smokescreen to cover for the reality that there hasn't been much of a market for Obi generally.
Great points all around, and I'll just add that I completely agree there wasn't much of a market for Obi.
On the bright side, the return for Obi was more than we got for Frank or Knox I guess
Despite Toppin’s relatively low playing time most nights, is it fair to wonder if his presence, or the threat of what he might have one day become, pushed/motivated Randle over the last three years, and that Randle will now try less without Toppin or some other reasonably good backup 4 pushing him? I mean, we already know he gets an A for Attitude, E for Effort and T for Nice Try every single goddam time his team needs him.
Thanks for the content as usual. Just a thought about a behind the scenes look at KFS, as I have no idea how you can create so much material in a normal day. Instead of a cap or no cap, how about a Macri time or no time, as Jeremy breaks down how Jon gets 30 hours of living (family, teaching, pods, newsletter, running, sleep?) into a 24 hour day, would love to see that chart. And a trade question on the Dame front. Instead of Brooklyn being a third team as destination for Tyler Herro, how about the Knicks? Herro checks some boxes with shooting, edge, and Kentucky. Dame to Miami, RJ and Duncan Robinson plus a couple picks to Portland, and Herro to the Knicks. Works on spotrac.
This made me laugh out loud. Thank you. Fact is I don't have nearly enough time for it all, which is why I'm just getting around to this comment (checks notes) nearly 2 weeks late.
As for Herro, as much as I'd love to deep dive this in the newsletter, I don't think there's even the remotest possibility of NY getting in on this bc Riley ain't trading Herro here and NY ain't giving up a juicy 1st for Herro, which is what the reporting seems to suggest Portland really wants. I guess *maybe* the Blazers love RJ, but even then, I wonder if NY would make a move like that for a guy who doesn't defend.
The clock is certainly ticking, which seems to be why Rose is supposedly "not done yet." Or at least not done until he changes his price point in negotiations. I wonder if this is the off season where as we get closer to camp we might a little bit more caving in whether for OG or PG 13. 🤔
I think when you're a playoff team, how your summer league team performs is a lot less relavant because usually you don't have high draft picks and your rotation is fairly set so you're really looking at guys that are hoping to be G-Leaguers and work on their games there. Look at a guy like Deuce or Sims. They go back and forth between the NBA and G-League and they seem to be growing as players. Whether that will ever translate to guys who become a piece of a playoff rotation is still unknown but it has taken them a year or two in the G-League. Look at Frank and Knox and even Obi and you could say that these guys aren't bad players but they really could have been a lot lower in the draft and needed time in the G-League. Circumstance for them were that the Knicks really didn't have a good team so they got minutes in the NBA and being high picks meant there were higher expectations as well. On the plus we've got IQ, Mitch and Grimes all playing meaningful minutes which is amazing. We've got guys as of last year who it seems can all hit big shots at the end of games and I don't remember much of that at all since the Melo days. Obi was a miss for us and I'd say our draft history is still not awesome but it has gotten a whole lot better. For a team with only one top 3 pick we're doing well. Look at Houston, OKC, Detroit, Orlando, New Orleans...how many top of the lottery picks have they had and are they really any better than us? I think it says a lot about our players and our organization that we're even talking about being a 'player away' considering we've got no 'superstars' and no #1 picks and we had crazy vet contracts to unload and had no picks during all the crazy years with Isaiah and Phil and the others running the show AND the bad picks on top of it. It's really nuts that we're not still near the bottom of the league with our history.
I particularly like how Jalen Martin looked and played. Although inexperienced he has very good foot work, which makes he look more polished than he is. And the best part was his willingness to mix it up on defense. I think he will be the surprise of free agent signings, for 2023. Judging for just 2 summer league games he is already ahead of Trevor Keels. Everyone else on the summer league team is just roster filler to meet the requirements of minimum roster size.
Correct spelling Jaylen Martin.
So, the Knicks could have created capspace to sign Brunson without sacrificing the lottery pick. I'm sorry, that's malfeasance on Rose then. A few of the players that were available would have looked great in blue and orange
Fact is Thibs mis used him, he was number 8 pick, he was worth more in a future potential trade. He is young had 30 plus games. Don’t give me defense BS, he was great off bench. Randle coming off surgery? Perfect time to not burn him out. Randle out of gas at end of season.
Why have draft picks when you only trade them,
Porzingas, Nitkilina, Knox, now Toppin, all lottery picks
We could have had Mitchell, why have picks if you don’t develop them or use in trade.
Toppin was worth more,
Robinson not he answer, nor is Deuce,
Knicks are not a better team now.