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Sean's avatar

I’ve been going back and forth on the Embiid thing all year... I have a hard time seeing Philly trading him to NY no matter what happens. I agree the Knicks should go for it if the chance arises... just not sure I see it.

Also, Miami is embarrassing Boston. I hope this makes Knicks fans feel a little better. I’ve seen the takes online that the Knicks would’ve beaten Boston if only they didn’t blow it against Miami. And maybe they could have beaten Boston. But I just need to say that I think it’s somewhat delusional to think that this Knicks team - very young and in its first real playoffs run - was going to knock off a Miami team that has been in the conference finals 3 out of 4 years and now looks headed to its second finals in that span. The Heat are not a true eighth seed, they were the top seed last season and dealt with injuries all year. Additionally the Tyler Herro injury may have inadvertently unlocked another level of what that team’s true identity is and should be on defense. Spo may be the best coach of his generation. Jimmy may be the most unappreciated superstar in the league. (Speaking of Joel Embiid - imagine how he feels about THAT decision. Woof!)

There is no shame in losing to the Heat. Though I do think there is delusion in thinking we should’ve beaten them, especially with all the (Bam-induced) injuries we were dealing with. IQ before his injury looked shook against this Heat squad. Grimes had one of the great playoffs moments in Knicks history that I have seen since 1993, but it helps overshadow that even though his mere presence helped the spacing, his performance on offense was uneven at best and he was coming off his own injury (to his shooting shoulder, no less). Randle and Mitch looked limited by injury. (Though I know Randle has his growing playoffs baggage - if you look at Embiid’s playoffs struggles, maybe part of it is that big men who rely on iso spot up shooting are going to struggle against playoff defenses loaded up to stop that very thing? Embiid is certainly better than Randle, but they play a lot more similar games on offense than you might think at first blush.)

The reason I say there is delusion, and potentially dangerous delusion, in thinking we SHOULD have beaten Miami is thinking we are farther ahead than we actually are. We had a great run. But getting to the conference finals and potentially finals this far ahead of schedule I think would have had massively bad team building implications and massively bad expectation building as well. I hope Rose and co take sober stock of where we actually are and don’t agree with the hot take that we should’ve beaten Miami. You lose or you learn - we are at the point of our development arc where those lessons come in the playoffs. Rose and Co have some dangerous decisions to make this summer. I hope they aren’t fueled by the woulda coulda shoulda thoughts about Miami. To me that will lead us again to the same types of mistakes we made with the Fournier and Kemba moves. Anyway. Sorry just needed to get that off my chest.

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Jessica Elsener יסכה's avatar

Big N-O, on Jo-El from me.

Despite flashes of greatness here and there, he's injury prone, and a walking example that the "process" is NOT fit to be trusted,moreso it just plain doesn't work.

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