PG - calderon 28 minutes, grant 20 minutes
SG - afflalo 32 minutes, grant another 5 minutes at the 2, and the remaining 11 minutes likely to galloway but maybe some SASHA as well
SF - melo takes 36 minutes, with another 12 to d-will.
PF - porzingis takes 20 minutes. o’quinn takes 20 minutes. d-will at the 4 takes another 8 minutes (giving him 20 mpg, which is what he did last year)
C - ROLO takes 29 minutes. Seraphin takes 15. Porzingis takes the remaining 4.

- my assumption is guys like Lance Thomas, Admundson and Sasha were brought back because they are "professionals" (Phil has described Lance and Lou as that about 10x in the Phil Files) who will practice hard, understand the triangle, will be ready to come in and play even if they haven't played in a while, and will help in practices with spacing and teaching people the offense. i doubt those guys play much.

- i think Early and Thanasis are going to spend a lot of time for the Dub Knicks up in Westchester refining their games.

- off the bat i've given Grant 25 minutes, with most of it at the point. i could see him eating into more minutes at the 2 if either he performs better than expected or Galloway/Sasha is worse than expected.

- i tried to play things pretty close to average time last year. Calderon at 28 is a little bit less, as is Melo at 36 - since those two are getting long in the tooth i think we should lighten the loads a bit.

- as said in other posts by many different folks, we should commit to playing KP at least 20 minutes a night. here, he plays 24 minutes, with a few coming at the 5. the possibility of an up-tempo smaller unit consisting of Grant, Galloway, Early/Thanasis (if they are on the NBA roster), D-Will and KP is pretty exciting.

- i think our front line D will be a lot better than expected. RoLo's advanced stats paint him as a player pretty similar to peak Roy Hibbert - even without a ton of blocks shots he alters a lot and teams have trouble scoring in the paint on him. add KP and his 7'3 height and huge wingspan in there and its going to be very hard to finish at the hoop, which is good since we will be featuring the revolving door trio on the perimeter of Calderon, Afflalo and Melo.

BigSm00th wrote:

CrushAlot wrote:I basically agree. I hope Oquinn gets minutes at the 5. In regards to Early and Thanasis, I agree about them spending time at Westchester. I think the Knicks letting Hodges go and hiring Mike Miller from the Spurs is a good sign that they are taking player development more serious. I think Atkins is planning on spending this year in Westchester. Saunders may have a chance to beat out Thanasis. I keep thinking about Thanasis only getting 75 grand guaranteed. It is quite a change from the Knicks organization that guaranteed Chris Smith's entire contract if he was on the opening day roster. Things were really messed up that year. Not sure how Mills survived it but he seems to be Phil's right hand man now.

good point on Mills. i looked it up. according to wikipedia, Mills rejoined the Knicks on september 26, 2013. chris smith was signed on september 11, 2013.

agree on Atkins - i anticipate he'll spend the whole year in Westchester (or until he earns his way onto the big league club). hopefully he amounts to something, i like his player profile (defense minded, key player on one of the best college teams over the last two years).

wouldn't surprise me if Saunders beats out Thanasis given how raw Thanasis is.

Grant, Afflalo, Carmelo, Williams, and Rolo. Those five guys will consume at least 28 of the 48 minutes per position. It is by far our best lineup at both ends of the court, and provides matchup problems for who so ever we play. It is long, agile, powerful, fast, and loaded with shot makers. If Fisher elects to go with a different starting 5, it will highlight his poor understanding of the game and will be alarming.

i don't believe calderon should be a shoo-in as a starter, however

calderon 26 minutes
afflalo 30 minutes
carmelo 30 minutes
o'quinn 28 minutes
r.lopez 30 minutes

that's 148 minutes

bench as i see it for the remaining 92 minutes:

j. grant 22 minutes for calderon-- [8 of his minutes goes to playing with melo/lopez/afflalo]
galloway 18 minutes for afflalo
porzingis 22 minutes for melo/o'quinn [8 of his minutes goes to playing with melo/lopez/afflalo]
seraphin 18 minutes for lopez
williams 16 minutes for melo/o'quinn

early and thomas *may* beat out williams for minutes, especially thomas.
vujacic *may* beat out galloway... who the hell knows.
amundsen is there as insurance.

yes the rotation needs to be 10 deep if the starters minutes are kept low.

Knicks1969 wrote:I believe our starting line up will be:

Grant, Afflalo, Carmelo, Williams, and Rolo. Those five guys will consume at least 28 of the 48 minutes per position. It is by far our best lineup at both ends of the court, and provides matchup problems for who so ever we play. It is long, agile, powerful, fast, and loaded with shot makers. If Fisher elects to go with a different starting 5, it will highlight his poor understanding of the game and will be alarming.

Good chance of seeing that alignment although the one tweak I could see might be O'Quinn or Seraphin at the 4 alongside Melo at 3 to start the game. A little more toughness/rebounding/post offense in the starting unit, we take Melo off the bigger, more-physically imposing 4s that most teams will feature to start the game (which could help preserve him now that he's getting older and has dealt with various injuries over the past couple of seasons i.e. both shoulders, the knee, etc.) and I like D-Will as instant offense off the bench coming in for Melo. Whichever guy didn't start between O'Quinn and Seraphin (these two look very interchangeable -- interested to see who plays better) can provide the same role off the bench -- a semi-enforcer to help protect D-Will and Porzingis, a post scorer and a rebounding presence. We'll see how things shake out--Fisher's got some good options and some good combinations he can try...I'll say this -- I would've liked at least 1 more reliable guard with some versatility, feel like we overpaid RoLo by a lot (I think the $13mm+/year RoLo eats up could've been spend a little more wisely) and I would've liked to have seen them hang onto Ndour--those are my main critiques--but they really did do a good job of revamping the frontcourt (even if some of those bigs may only be here for 1 yr--D-Will, Seraphin). We had zero bigs entering the offseason. ZERO. To be fair, they said they were going to address the frontcourt and they did a pretty good job of doing just that. Gotta give credit there..

5 - Lopez
4 - Seraphin
3 - Melo
2 - Afflalo
1 - Grant
---------------------
4/5 - O'Quinn
4/5 - Porzingis
3/4 - D. Williams
2 - Sasha Vujacic
1/2 - Galloway
---------------------
Amundson
Lance Thomas
Thanasis Antetokounmpo
Saunders (if he can really shoot close to 40% from 3, at 6'5" 220 I can see the attraction)
Calderon

In this case, Early's on the outside looking in. Now I know Early's not going anywhere unless traded but who gets cut to make room? I guess one of Saunders or Vujacic who are both question marks I suppose -- both shooters, one we don't know how much he has left and the other was a minor conference college player that may not possess enough skill and athleticism for the NBA (admittedly though, I'm intrigued to see this kid play and see what we have with him). But this is why I have such a problem guaranteeing contracts and roster spots to Amundson and LT. We already passed on Ndour which I think was a mistake--I liked what I saw a lot from him. What if this Wesley Saunders is a legit player? I'd hate for him to play well and lose him because we don't have the room...I actually like Thanasis, more than most--don't want to see him cut. I wanna keep that kid and continue cultivating him...What if Sasha V. still has some gas left in the tank? Dude's really not that old and he had a good impact in the NBA not too long ago. Vujacic has a better resume than either Amundson/LT with his quality work in the Finals several years back alone + he fits a need (hard-nosed, knock-down shooting 2G off the bench) and he was a Phil favorite in LA yet he wasn't given a guaranteed spot. He was given a fair deal--a camp contract and a chance to compete for a roster spot... And this isn't even mentioning the lack of another legit 3rd string C (someone around 7') that one could argue would come in handy at some point...Still don't understand why these two guys were given preferential treatment and guarantees. The Amundson/LT guarantees just make such little sense -- neither guy was essential to bring back. They're both marginal talents and we have so much more in place on the depth chart ahead of them at the positions they each play. Every other candidate for a roster spot provides the same main qualities each is being criminally overrated for (good practice players and good locker room presence) + so much more, whether it be discernible skills we could use, more youth, more talent, etc...We could wind up letting a young, worthy and/or potentially impactful talent walk out the door here for nothing.. Because we had to have Amundson and LT?? That's hard to swallow...

Play around with the roster and tell me who you think is in and who could be out when camp breaks.

Finestrg wrote:

TPercy wrote:Pg-Caledron-24 mins Jerian Grant-24 mins
Sg: Afflalo-28 minutes Galloway -20 minutes
Sf- Melo-30 minutes Early-15 minutes Lt-3 minutes
Pf: Porzingis-20 minutes amundson-20 minutes Williams-8 minutes
Lopez-25 minutes Kyle O Quinn-15 minutes Seraphin- 8 minutes

You really think Lou Amundson gets more than double the amount of PT Seraphin and Derrick Williams get? And more mins. over Kyle O'Quinn? I'd be very surprised about that...Very surprised if Seraphin and Williams get less than 10 mins a night apiece as well.

Agree on Calderon and Grant splitting mins. at the point, even though I don't want to see Jose playing that much. And I agree that Galloway could see a lot of mins. at backup 2.

I think Derrick Williams will pick up more mins. playing some SF in addition to PF. They like that kid and want him playing.. I bet they'll give him every opportunity to succeed and will want to establish him as a primary scoring component/fairly heavy-minute rotation player right off the bat... I could see Early as the odd man out. Derrick Williams' talent level is flat out better than Early's and I think he's more versatile + Thanasis can play 3, even some 2G and his solid defense might be more worthwhile to feature over what Early brings, maybe even over another shooter in Saunders or Vujacic, esp. if TA can keep improving on the offensive end (where I don't think he's as bad as some are saying). Who knows--all just speculation at this point. Will be interesting to see how Fish narrows down his rotation by the time camp breaks and which player(s) doesn't wind up making the 15-man.

Here is the thing..
Derrick Williams SUCKS!
Ever since he came out of college he has sucked, and in my opinion he always will suck.
He is not good at anything
He can't rebound
He has poor bball IQ
Hasn't shown a shred of being a good passer
A Horrible defender
a Tweener, he is too damn slow to be a Small Forward and quite short for a power forward.
Over his career has been a mediocre shooter.
Lazy
He is a highlight dunker, that is it.
He may look maybe a little bit better in the triangle, but it isn't magical elixer, I highly doubt he will be anywhere near Quincy Acy here.

At least with Amundson I know I am getting
A TON of hard work and energy 100% of the time
decent defense
-High IQ play
-Role model in the locker room
-Terrific rebounding
Amundson may be really really offensively limited( he had 44% career FT shooting) but I will take him any day of the week over Derrick Williams. Derrick Williams really need to show he can put it together first before he gets any big minutes imo.

BigSm00th wrote:Alan Hahn agrees with my projected starting 5.

http://www.msg.com/teams/knicks/knicks-fix/home-runs-kobes-farewell-and-more-in-knicks-2015-16-schedule.html

Calderon, Afflalo, Melo, KP and RoLo makes the most sense. love the rim protection there, the length of KP plus the smarts of RoLo will make it hard for all the PGs and wings who burn our perimeter "defenders".

also like the potential for an up-tempo second unit led by Grant and Derrick.

you know that's a pretty nice idea. might as well see if the latvian can develop some chemistry with anthony within a structured offense. hell, i'd even settle for the two of them working outside the offense, like in the pierce, garnett mold.

i totally overlooked the defensive length factor of lopez and porzingis together.

thanks for sharing.

meloshouldgo wrote:

dk7th wrote:

BigSm00th wrote:Alan Hahn agrees with my projected starting 5.

http://www.msg.com/teams/knicks/knicks-fix/home-runs-kobes-farewell-and-more-in-knicks-2015-16-schedule.html

Calderon, Afflalo, Melo, KP and RoLo makes the most sense. love the rim protection there, the length of KP plus the smarts of RoLo will make it hard for all the PGs and wings who burn our perimeter "defenders".

also like the potential for an up-tempo second unit led by Grant and Derrick.

you know that's a pretty nice idea. might as well see if the latvian can develop some chemistry with anthony within a structured offense. hell, i'd even settle for the two of them working outside the offense, like in a the pierce,garnett mold.

i totally overlooked the defensive length factor of lopez and porzingis together.

thanks for sharing.

Will Melo agree to play the 3? Doesn't he want to play PF?

i am pretty sure-- that the triangle offense allows the 3,4,5 to be more interchangeable as well as the 1 & 2. odom and gasol come to mind. who else played the sf and pf on those teams?