SergioNYK wrote:I purposely skip preseason cause it doesn't mean anything but saw the highlights and good stuff from Deuce, Shamet, Kolek and Payne. Depth is a question mark entering the season so good start.

Depth is a concern mostly because we're starting a man down at center (Mitch) - but the acquisition of Towns really shored that up because of his positional versatility. Heck, starting with the OG/Achiuwa trade, we've really become extremely versatile.

In recent years, we had been deep, but what I'll call "tandem" deep. Let's take Mitch and Hartenstein - you could only have one of them on the floor at a time. Or Randle & Obi. Let's recall that we started out last season with absurd depth at the wing position, which ultimately was a terrible logjam of RJ/Grimes/Quickley/DiVincenzo/Hart/McBride all vying for minutes, and few of them getting adequate mins to get into a groove. You can be too deep if you can't decide which player has the "hot hand". You end up wasting a few offensive positions to see if they're hot, and if they're not instantly hot, it's probably almost time to bring the starter back in anyway. Too much depth showed - most of the members of this group performed at a much lower level than expectations.

This season we're in a new world where Thibs can be extremely flexible with who plays and can offer up a lot of different looks. On offense, practically everyone can shoot, so worst case an "out of position" offensive player can park in the corner and still be an asset, or pair up in a pick and roll.

OG, Bridges, Hart, Achiuwa can be assigned to play defense on most 2-4's, and sometimes 1's and 5's depending on the match up. It's pretty cool.

What shooting and versatile defense does is allow our team to stagger rotations and get away from a Hockey style "line" mentality (ie starting 5, next 5 mentality). You can stagger breaks and can always have 2-3 starters in the game. That keeps a level of continuity on the floor at all times.

technomaster wrote:

SergioNYK wrote:I purposely skip preseason cause it doesn't mean anything but saw the highlights and good stuff from Deuce, Shamet, Kolek and Payne. Depth is a question mark entering the season so good start.

Depth is a concern mostly because we're starting a man down at center (Mitch) - but the acquisition of Towns really shored that up because of his positional versatility. Heck, starting with the OG/Achiuwa trade, we've really become extremely versatile.

In recent years, we had been deep, but what I'll call "tandem" deep. Let's take Mitch and Hartenstein - you could only have one of them on the floor at a time. Or Randle & Obi. Let's recall that we started out last season with absurd depth at the wing position, which ultimately was a terrible logjam of RJ/Grimes/Quickley/DiVincenzo/Hart/McBride all vying for minutes, and few of them getting adequate mins to get into a groove. You can be too deep if you can't decide which player has the "hot hand". You end up wasting a few offensive positions to see if they're hot, and if they're not instantly hot, it's probably almost time to bring the starter back in anyway. Too much depth showed - most of the members of this group performed at a much lower level than expectations.

This season we're in a new world where Thibs can be extremely flexible with who plays and can offer up a lot of different looks. On offense, practically everyone can shoot, so worst case an "out of position" offensive player can park in the corner and still be an asset, or pair up in a pick and roll.

OG, Bridges, Hart, Achiuwa can be assigned to play defense on most 2-4's, and sometimes 1's and 5's depending on the match up. It's pretty cool.

What shooting and versatile defense does is allow our team to stagger rotations and get away from a Hockey style "line" mentality (ie starting 5, next 5 mentality). You can stagger breaks and can always have 2-3 starters in the game. That keeps a level of continuity on the floor at all times.

One way to combat our lack of depth at backup forward would be, in the event of an OG injury for example, to start Precious next to KAT and go big. Then have Sims fill Precious role. So yes, KAT's versatility and ability to play 4 is probably a big understated when it comes to the depth police at backup forward.

SergioNYK wrote:I purposely skip preseason cause it doesn't mean anything but saw the highlights and good stuff from Deuce, Shamet, Kolek and Payne. Depth is a question mark entering the season so good start.

I see you are on the lowering the blood pressure plan too. Good times

martin wrote:

DLeethal wrote:I think Cam was probably assured the backup spot. Deuce is going to get a lot of mins this year and will play with Brunson. Payne/Kolek are really jockeying for Brunson's backup 12-15 minutes. I gotta say last year we saw our team fall of a cliff when Brunson sat. Payne looks like he can keep us afloat in those minutes. So does Kolek, obviously, and then some.

Deuce looks like he's going to be Quickly of 2 years ago for us. A guy who can play 25-30 mins, backup Brunson some, play with Brunson some, step up and score a ton of points when Brunson is out, close out games when he's hot etc.

100% agreed on all of this.

I think there is a scenario where Brunson is hurt for like 10-15 games for the season, Cam steps in and that's when Tyler gets his shot. Rookies always hit the wall and whatnot, so you start him doing Gleague reps in Westchester when he can just like Deuce in the early days. He will get his chance later in the year. Do wonder if Cam will get a lot of reps with most of the starters too in anticipation of this, might as well.

This will keep Deuce in his best role too, defending and shooting.

I will say, Thibs historically has been pretty good about giving the young guys a shot when they deserved it. Quickley, Grimes, Deuce were all late picks that impressed Thibs early and found rotation mins almost instantly. Grimes beat out Fournier etc...

So I will leave the door open for Kolek to win the job but it seems like it's Payne's to lose right now. Will be very interesting to see if Thibs adjusts anything next preseason game to show what he might be thinking.

PLUS... the idea of him sitting out as a contract negotiation ploy is a thing of the past now that's slated to be a 1/4 billionaire.

If anything, the move to get Bridges was the key depth contingency plan for OG's healthy.

Pre-KAT trade, I thought that there'd be very little difference between a healthy Knicks team 1) with just DiVo vs 2) with DiVo AND Bridges. You'd have more talent to deploy, but you'd have a bit of a logjam effect similar to last season where almost all of our wings were underperforming to start the year. (The addition of DiVincenzo probably hurt Grimes' trade value A LOT, after he was starting to look like a legit NBA starting SG to finish off 2022-2023 and drew trade interest during that off-season)

In the end, Bridges can do a lot of what OG can do (albeit defend bigs less effectively, but quick guards more effectively). Both in the lineup makes us terrifying, one in the line

Trading DiVo away opens up healthier minutes for our rotation players, with or without a healthy OG.

(on another note, Josh Hart was already a direct sub, better in some ways, compared to the version of RJ that was a Knick. RJ on the Raptors is hella confident, finds his spots, and shoots/finishes/rebounds/passes like a superstar)

martin wrote:

DLeethal wrote:

martin wrote:

DLeethal wrote:I think Cam was probably assured the backup spot. Deuce is going to get a lot of mins this year and will play with Brunson. Payne/Kolek are really jockeying for Brunson's backup 12-15 minutes. I gotta say last year we saw our team fall of a cliff when Brunson sat. Payne looks like he can keep us afloat in those minutes. So does Kolek, obviously, and then some.

Deuce looks like he's going to be Quickly of 2 years ago for us. A guy who can play 25-30 mins, backup Brunson some, play with Brunson some, step up and score a ton of points when Brunson is out, close out games when he's hot etc.

100% agreed on all of this.

I think there is a scenario where Brunson is hurt for like 10-15 games for the season, Cam steps in and that's when Tyler gets his shot. Rookies always hit the wall and whatnot, so you start him doing Gleague reps in Westchester when he can just like Deuce in the early days. He will get his chance later in the year. Do wonder if Cam will get a lot of reps with most of the starters too in anticipation of this, might as well.

This will keep Deuce in his best role too, defending and shooting.

I will say, Thibs historically has been pretty good about giving the young guys a shot when they deserved it. Quickley, Grimes, Deuce were all late picks that impressed Thibs early and found rotation mins almost instantly. Grimes beat out Fournier etc...

So I will leave the door open for Kolek to win the job but it seems like it's Payne's to lose right now. Will be very interesting to see if Thibs adjusts anything next preseason game to show what he might be thinking.

Yup but Knicks are now mostly out of dev mode and full on into Championship mode and favor the later first.

Kolek and Dadiet will get lots of reps in the G league along with the 2 way guys. We are going to need these guys in the incubator getting reps. Westchester is going to have a decent squad this season

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SergioNYK wrote:

martin wrote:

SergioNYK wrote:I purposely skip preseason cause it doesn't mean anything but saw the highlights and good stuff from Deuce, Shamet, Kolek and Payne. Depth is a question mark entering the season so good start.

I see you are on the lowering the blood pressure plan too. Good times

I'll take it a step further and be the first here to say we are winning the championship this season!

What are you trying to give me a heart attack!?

It'll be one or the other