Philc1 wrote:

martin wrote:

Philc1 wrote:

BigDaddyG wrote:

Philc1 wrote:I guess RJ is the only nba player not allowed to get sick. Kyrie, KD and Kawahi can take off on entire regular seasons with vaccine boycotts and made up injuries

Yeah, but look at the way Nets fans are crapping on Ben Simmons. The guys you mentioned perform. RJ performs sometimes. Ben Simmons just sucks. If RJ wants the same benefit of the doubt as Kawhi, then he needs to start performing consistently.

RJ has been good overall. Just not great. Knicks fans have been burned by so many dud first round picks last 30+ years (we had a lot of busts even going back to the Grunfeld/Riley days) they are trying to will RJ into busthood

Good at what? Volume shooting at low eFG%? Going to his left?

Literally, what is RJ good at that would add up to an overall good? I need someone to help define and explain that.

He’s so far averaged 15 and 6 for his career. Overall fg% has been 40%. Decent defender. The team has gone from laughing stock of the nba to playoffs and competitive since he’s been here. I know you hate the guy because he was the third overall pick but fact is he’s the second best player from that draft after Ja. Call me when Zion plays an entire season

https://www.nba.com/news/2019-nba-draft-results-picks-1-60

Right now RJ has opportunity and potential but he hasn’t used the opportunity to explore his potential. He’s essentially the same skill set player he was he came into the league as. It’s frustrating. By the end of this year, he may not even be the best player on this team from that draft. But scroll through the rest of the list and tell me that their are no other player La that would come first in a re-draft.

Something isn’t working. I want to believe in Barrett but he isn’t taking the next step. I was adamant that he should get the primary scoring role and it hasn’t really worked. I’m pretty much at the blow it up phase of the conversation. Reset the roster.

EwingsGlass wrote:

Philc1 wrote:

martin wrote:

Philc1 wrote:

BigDaddyG wrote:

Philc1 wrote:I guess RJ is the only nba player not allowed to get sick. Kyrie, KD and Kawahi can take off on entire regular seasons with vaccine boycotts and made up injuries

Yeah, but look at the way Nets fans are crapping on Ben Simmons. The guys you mentioned perform. RJ performs sometimes. Ben Simmons just sucks. If RJ wants the same benefit of the doubt as Kawhi, then he needs to start performing consistently.

RJ has been good overall. Just not great. Knicks fans have been burned by so many dud first round picks last 30+ years (we had a lot of busts even going back to the Grunfeld/Riley days) they are trying to will RJ into busthood

Good at what? Volume shooting at low eFG%? Going to his left?

Literally, what is RJ good at that would add up to an overall good? I need someone to help define and explain that.

He’s so far averaged 15 and 6 for his career. Overall fg% has been 40%. Decent defender. The team has gone from laughing stock of the nba to playoffs and competitive since he’s been here. I know you hate the guy because he was the third overall pick but fact is he’s the second best player from that draft after Ja. Call me when Zion plays an entire season

https://www.nba.com/news/2019-nba-draft-results-picks-1-60

Right now RJ has opportunity and potential but he hasn’t used the opportunity to explore his potential. He’s essentially the same skill set player he was he came into the league as. It’s frustrating. By the end of this year, he may not even be the best player on this team from that draft. But scroll through the rest of the list and tell me that their are no other player La that would come first in a re-draft.

Something isn’t working. I want to believe in Barrett but he isn’t taking the next step. I was adamant that he should get the primary scoring role and it hasn’t really worked. I’m pretty much at the blow it up phase of the conversation. Reset the roster.

RJ has been scouted to the point where (for his sake) they need something new to write about his game. A player who is scouting RJ for a future matchup. Is reading a short list of things to worry about.

As far as RJ's NBA career goes its "expand or die". "Die" with 100 million, so Im not shedding any tears. Especially if RJ doesnt expand his game.

The Nuggets game RJ suckered his defender by going left, and switching hands, and spinning right for the floater. Thats the kind of move that will make it harder for scouts to pigeonhole RJ's game.

martin wrote:Pretty tidy summation from Marci, one portion of article: https://knicksfilmschool.substack.com/p/road-woes

RJ Uh Oh

Those of you with photographic memories will recall I used this same heading several weeks ago, when the Knicks were sitting at 2-1 but saw their face of the franchise struggling out of the gate. In that letter, in which I largely critiqued RJ’s lack of passing in the early going, I pointed out how Barrett had the lowest efficiency of 79 players who had played at least 100 non-garbage time minutes in the young season. To update that stat, he’s now 297th out of 329 qualifying players. So that’s…something.

But it also doesn’t tell the full story of why RJ Barrett is currently killing the New York Knicks. Of all the players with a lower overall efficiency than RJ, only one - Charlotte’s Terry Rozier - has a higher usage rate than Barrett, and at least Rozier accounts for nearly a quarter of his team’s assists when he’s on the court. RJ is only good for about an eighth of New York’s dimes when he plays.

And that’s just on offense. Defensively, it might be even worse. In the 135 minutes Barrett has been on the court during this four-game road trip, the Knicks are giving up 117.9 points per 100 possessions. In the 57 minutes he’s sat, that number drops to 90.5 - a staggering difference for a player whose stability is supposed to be tied to his consistency on this end of the floor.

Of course, anyone who watches the Knicks knows that he’s far from the only culprit. After briefly playing with the ferocity of Dennis Rodman against the Nuggets, Julius Randle wormed his way beneath the soil and is back to his old tricks.

Tweet was deleted or there was problem with the URL:

https://twitter.com/BenRitholtzNBA/status/1594461709871288321

Randle’s gross inconsistency (and to be clear, this is one of at least a dozen fairly egregious effort/awareness issues we saw from Julius last night) is not only why it’s hard to blame any other player for New York’s woes, but why it’s hard to get excited about watching this team in general. You take the life of your sports fandom in your hands every night…am I getting maximum effort today? Passable effort? Negative effort? And if so, will we be able to withstand it? The whole thing makes you yearn for a team that’s probably worse in the aggregate but isn’t so bipolar as to induce hair loss by game 30.

But the Randle discussion is old hat. We know that for every Denver game, there will be an effort like last night, and probably more. Any suggestion that the Knicks need to move on from Julius in order to make any progress is stale by this point. The cat has long since left the bag.

This RJ thing, though…this is fresh, and not in a good way. Yes, the efficiency issues have been there since he entered the league, but there was always an assumption of growth in several key areas that would at least mitigate the lack of top-tier shot-making. It’s coming, his supporters would say, buoyed by his demeanor and dedication to being great.

Now, that once steely demeanor only conveys one emotion: defeat.

Out of the 972 blocks he’s had over the course of his career, I’m not sure Bismack Biyombo has ever had one come so easy. There is precisely zero chance this shot goes down.

It goes directly to the point of my column after three games: RJ’s stagnation as someone who makes other players around him better has been downright alarming (and from the look of his face after this swat, he knows it).

Barrett is now averaging 3.1 assists per 36 minutes, which is the exact same number as he averaged last season…which is the same as the number he averaged the year before that…which is a tenth of an assist higher than he averaged the year before that. It’s not that he can’t do better; we know he can. We just aren’t seeing it, and too often, it results in hopeless looks like this one.

The same goes for the defense:

This isn’t Devin Booker or Chris Paul taking RJ off the dribble; it’s Josh Freaking Okogie. He makes one move and completely throws Barrett off balance.

If you make an NBA player’s life this easy, they’re going to take advantage, whether it’s an All-Star or a guy just trying to hang onto a roster spot.

Fast forward to the early third quarter, and we had another moment that nearly caused Thibs to pop a blood vessel:

Truthfully, I’m not sure what Thibodeau is most peeved at: the initial Mikal Bridges blow-by that necessitated the Grimes help, the late reaction by RJ to recover to Booker, or the fact that Barrett failed to put a hand up until the shot had left the hands of last year’s All-NBA 1st teamer. All are worthy contenders.

Is this all still the result of a sickness that has now lasted a week? Perhaps that’s some of it, but the season-long tape of RJ’s defense - not to mention the fact that New York’s defense is about 10 points per 100 possessions stingier without Barrett on the court through 17 games - would like a word with that argument.

But much of that can be blamed on Randle, without whom RJ’s defensive on/off stats improve markedly3. I also wonder about his current physical makeup, and whether he's carrying too much weight to be able to move effectively on the perimeter against the guards and wings he's tasked with guarding on any given night.

But even if the defense comes around, the offensive question marks still remain. And we’re not just talking about four games either.

I can't stop thinking what we might have signed RJ to if we had waited until he is was an RFA. I think very similar numbers too Mitch. I'm not bagging on the FO, but sometimes they outsmart themselves. No one was offering RJ 25M per.

TPercy wrote:I mean the difference between Simons and RJ last night was astounding. The list goes on, but the biggest difference was in shot creation. Simmons knew how to get to his spots. He’s still a bit of a chucker but the talent is there but you just don’t see it with RJ. Dude needs the perfect plays for him to make an impact.

Signing RJ was like buying a tech stock in January. Smh

#knickfanmisery

When he drives it really can be a high percentage shot if he had elite athleticism (vs just strength) - but he doesn't. He likely did well in college because the help defenders vs pros bigs are at a very different level. Guys like Jimmy Butler and Maggette use to mostly use their physical strength to penetrate so it can be done but he needs to start experimenting. I'm less concerned with his putrid outside shooting because I think that will come around.

I do still feel the lack of spacing issue doesn't help or play to his strengths since he is a very streaky shooter and likes to drive to the rim a lot. That said, he's missing point blank bank layups so there's probably something more to it. If he's sick the coach should not play him and let him regain his health. If it's mental he will have to play through it. Either way this can't really continue long-term so hope he gets it together sometime soon.

(and yes I still think we need to move on from Randle)

Tweet was deleted or there was problem with the URL:

https://twitter.com/Tom_Piccolo/status/1596331670541860864

HofstraBBall wrote:

martin wrote:This is a basic high school level read and it's awful if you can't do this in college to say anything about the NBA

Tweet was deleted or there was problem with the URL:

https://twitter.com/Tom_Piccolo/status/1596331670541860864

You are being too tough on him. He only had three other better options.

His career is seemingly on a glide path to be off the team before his contract is over.

Part of me doesn't trust that Thibs is helping RJ's development.

The other part of me is starting to see that RJ just isn't that good.

I hope that part of his struggles this year is about owning his outrageous contract. Imagine getting paid that kind of money, and thinking your honestly not that much better than Fournier!