Allanfan20 wrote:

Moonangie wrote:Impossible to say due to variables...

• How will Randle adapt to not having ball and how well will he play?


• Does Jalen take the next step as the primary PG?


• Will we have DRose off the bench?


• Do we have Grimes in starting unit? If not, who'll anchor our perimeter defense...RJ?


• Does RJ take a next step, especially with improved shooting?


• And lots of other open questions...

But my guess (barring unforeseen injuries or trades) is this squad at least makes the play-in.

I am actually not yet convinced that Randles’ role will change. Thibs seems to show a lot of unwarranted loyalty to JR so for what we know, he could say “Julius, no worries. You go out there and do you.”

He was allowed to do whatever he wanted last year, why not again this year?

When Randle was with the Lakers & Pelicans he played with true point guards in Lonzo Ball & Jrue Holiday and played well for a young player. He can certainly go back playing off the ball with a true point guard again. We cannot dismiss the fact that he had a washed up Kemba Walker and an injured Derrick Rose last season.

wargames wrote:I actually think they win 50+ games. The lack of a PG killed them more than the outside shooting.

franco12 wrote:

Kemet wrote:
Having a healthy D.Rose leadership, along with Brunson & Quickley creativeness in the 48 min rotation.
The Knicks may play above .500 B-ball however, head coach Thibs strategy will never make it to the 2nd round of a playoff in the New NBA. Look at Thibs postseason career at making it pass the first round in the old NBA .. No coaching strategy in a series !!!

I don't think that is why Thibs struggles in the post season - and very few coaches have winning records in the post season.

It's not strategy, though that could be part of it- I think he grinds guys so hard during the regular season that they have no extra gear when they get there, and other teams do.

It's a little bit of both. It's like pulling teeth to get Thibs to make adjustments unless there's an injury. He has it in him. He took an offensive minded Wolves team to the playoffs. He also did with Chicago teams. But, again, he was kinda forced to do things like ride high with Nate Robinson because of injuries. On the flip side, he does get max intensity from his players during the regular and you can argue that's the first step toward culture building

Kemet wrote:
Having a healthy D.Rose leadership, along with Brunson & Quickley creativeness in the 48 min rotation.
The Knicks may play above .500 B-ball however, head coach Thibs strategy will never make it to the 2nd round of a playoff in the New NBA. Look at Thibs postseason career at making it pass the first round in the old NBA .. No coaching strategy in a series !!!

I think Thibs is a great coach in the regular season and actually gets more wins out of a team then most coaches, but come playoffs he doesn’t adjust his strategy. Can he hire JVG for the playoffs as his right hand man lol?!

The key points are:

Defense- can we get our defense to top 5? I think we can with our current roster plus Thibs.

Shooting efficiency- YES! We are gonna see shooting efficiency go up because we now have a legit full time facilitator in Brunson and that’s what killed us last season, having the ball run through Randle.

Bench- top 5 bench in the NBA, yes I definitely think so. I think the bench is so underrated in the league and you see this with teams trying to get those superstars at the expense of the bench and we have seen that you can’t win a championship without a bench.

Youth/energy- Rose, Fournier are the only players over 26 on this roster, and Rose can still run. We have 15 players that can run out of the gym and cause problems for the opposing team, how will they keep up with us? I wanna see more fast breaking and fast paced balling.

Point Guard position- Having two vets (Brunson plays with the experience of someone way older) will definitely make up for the lack of experience due to our age and with Brunson he can be the go to guy at the end of games but the maturity to pass the ball at crucial moments to win a game. Him and Rose will be the glue to hold it all together.

Randle- i think Randle will improve, I don’t think Brunson will allow him to play like he played last year and having Brunson will lower Randle time of possessions.

Even though on paper there are a lot of other teams better then us, like I said Thibs defense plus our unlimited energy from our youth and bench I can see us finishing 48-34.

BigDaddyG wrote:

franco12 wrote:

Kemet wrote:
Having a healthy D.Rose leadership, along with Brunson & Quickley creativeness in the 48 min rotation.
The Knicks may play above .500 B-ball however, head coach Thibs strategy will never make it to the 2nd round of a playoff in the New NBA. Look at Thibs postseason career at making it pass the first round in the old NBA .. No coaching strategy in a series !!!

I don't think that is why Thibs struggles in the post season - and very few coaches have winning records in the post season.

It's not strategy, though that could be part of it- I think he grinds guys so hard during the regular season that they have no extra gear when they get there, and other teams do.

It's a little bit of both. It's like pulling teeth to get Thibs to make adjustments unless there's an injury. He has it in him. He took an offensive minded Wolves team to the playoffs. He also did with Chicago teams. But, again, he was kinda forced to do things like ride high with Nate Robinson because of injuries. On the flip side, he does get max intensity from his players during the regular and you can argue that's the first step toward culture building

I love the imaginary narratives that folks run with... closest thing to an upset was losing the 4-5 first round match up where Wall/Beal went off and earned contracts that would look good lol

There is no flip side. Only the bold. When he's getting beat by Xs and Os we can talk.

First real coach we've had since Riley

TLover wrote:

Allanfan20 wrote:

Moonangie wrote:Impossible to say due to variables...

• How will Randle adapt to not having ball and how well will he play?


• Does Jalen take the next step as the primary PG?


• Will we have DRose off the bench?


• Do we have Grimes in starting unit? If not, who'll anchor our perimeter defense...RJ?


• Does RJ take a next step, especially with improved shooting?


• And lots of other open questions...

But my guess (barring unforeseen injuries or trades) is this squad at least makes the play-in.

I am actually not yet convinced that Randles’ role will change. Thibs seems to show a lot of unwarranted loyalty to JR so for what we know, he could say “Julius, no worries. You go out there and do you.”

He was allowed to do whatever he wanted last year, why not again this year?

When Randle was with the Lakers & Pelicans he played with true point guards in Lonzo Ball & Jrue Holiday and played well for a young player. He can certainly go back playing off the ball with a true point guard again. We cannot dismiss the fact that he had a washed up Kemba Walker and an injured Derrick Rose last season.

Good points. Feel everyone is ignoring that Randle has produced for years. Including last year. Brunson should keep him from bringing ball up the floor and will get him a lot more looks at the post, where he is a beast.

I think the biggest question in terms of record will be how strong the East will be. Which is what I brought up before last year's start. Think the East got a little bit weaker. Imo. We have also definitely improved. We are an impact player or two from truly competing deep in the playoffs but think that we can get 50 wins. We had major roster issues last year and won 37 in a strong East.