EwingPSD wrote:

martin wrote:

EwingPSD wrote:

martin wrote:

EwingPSD wrote:

blkexec wrote:

Chandler wrote:Obi played soft. All his dunks seemed to be leak outs and back cuts. Someone standing in front of him and he got awkward and soft

no tenacity on D or the boards at either end.

not a good character trait for a Thibs team especially for a PF

He seemed like a great guy though and I hope he does well, but i see why the Knicks decided to move on

I agree. My issue is asset management. He’s the 8th pick and the best we can get in return is two heavily protected 2nds? Gotta believe there was a better deal if we waited. But at this point it’s spilled milk. Hope he dunks on everybody and he’s a regular on espn highlights. The better he plays the more fans will say we screwed up with Obi. I don’t see how we come out winners.

He plays terrible and people will point to the knicks evaluation team.
He plays great and people will point to Rose and company for bad asset management.

Between Obi and this new rotation, there will be plenty of hate threads popping up all season. Just adds to the typical drama Knick fans are used to.

DDV success will help minimize Obi drama.

playing guys like Nerlene Noel over a promising young guy you invested in a lottery pick during a losing season is almost certainly to lead to negative outcomes. The Knicks deserve some criticism in this case and they deserve it regardless of how he plays in Indy.

Nerlene Noel was not taking minutes away from Obi. Randle was.

At least get it right.

Sure he was. Julius Randle played 40% of his minutes as a small ball center prior to coming to NY. Obi and Julius never share the court for 200 mins in a season over 3 years. Thibs needs to play traditional 5 at all times including playing guys like Noel during a losing season definitely limited Toppins' opportunity.

That's some new age thinking right there.

Are you talking about Obi's first year where he looked like a deer looking at headlights and Randle was god-like at PF and the team was on some sort of deep playoff team mirage or the next year where Noel only played 25 games?

You got it so twisted up that playing 2 different players out of their norm positions is your base of reasoning of a good start to Obi's minutes.

What are you talking about? There is nothing "new age" about not needing to play a traditional 5 100% of the time. Obi played pretty well after the first couple of months in his rookie season. The Knicks got smacked in the playoffs when Randle couldn't deal with spacing issues created by our paint-bound centers. We continued to play paint-bound centers all 48 mins while the Hawks played John Collins at the backup 5. In year two we never tried them together or reduced Julius' mins despite the losing record, Toppin playing well, and Julius struggling. This year we lost to the Heat b/c the playoff offense collapsed again. Negative spacing created by always playing a paint-bound center was again an issue. The fact that Heat played Kevin Love as a backup center didn't change anything for Thibs. Obi Toppin was never going to play 30-plus minutes a night here if Randle was seen as the cornerstone. There was definitely room to explore him in a larger role though and he probably would have been under just about any other coach. .

Hindsight can create all kinds of context. You may be correct, but we just don't know. Randle denied OBI ascension. Why not celebrate Randle to that that two time all NBA and Allstar level? You still sore about the Atl series? Ok. Last year? Dude was hurt. Do you know who did not rise to the occasion and fill the role? Obi. Do you need someone to blame for this? Thibs? The coaches? Obi? Its on all of them. Remember, he was national player of the year. They did not have a NCAA Tournament. It just stopped and the draft was two weeks before the season started in October of 2020. Does that matter? Yes. Does it still suck? Sure.
Haliburton went 12th. Truth be told, James wiseman 2nd? Patrick Williams 4th, Okongwu 6th, Killian Hayes 7th, Avdija 9th, Jalen smith, 10th.......look it up. That draft was wack! Quick at 25th was great though. Bane at 30th. Every draft has plenty of misses by teams. Maybe obi was seen as really safe pick in a crazy time.
Perhaps if another team drafted him besides one coached by Thibs he'd have succeeded? Its possible, but not a lock.

As for Randle playing small ball center? Was that in Nola? Or the Lakers? Who was coaching, how did it go? Who was on the floor when that happened. That year Jules Played 73 games. Anthony Davis played 56. Okafor started 24 games that year at Center. He played 60.
Jrue Holiday was on that team as was.......Elfrid Payton! LOL.......

EwingPSD wrote:

martin wrote:

EwingPSD wrote:

martin wrote:

EwingPSD wrote:

blkexec wrote:

Chandler wrote:Obi played soft. All his dunks seemed to be leak outs and back cuts. Someone standing in front of him and he got awkward and soft

no tenacity on D or the boards at either end.

not a good character trait for a Thibs team especially for a PF

He seemed like a great guy though and I hope he does well, but i see why the Knicks decided to move on

I agree. My issue is asset management. He’s the 8th pick and the best we can get in return is two heavily protected 2nds? Gotta believe there was a better deal if we waited. But at this point it’s spilled milk. Hope he dunks on everybody and he’s a regular on espn highlights. The better he plays the more fans will say we screwed up with Obi. I don’t see how we come out winners.

He plays terrible and people will point to the knicks evaluation team.
He plays great and people will point to Rose and company for bad asset management.

Between Obi and this new rotation, there will be plenty of hate threads popping up all season. Just adds to the typical drama Knick fans are used to.

DDV success will help minimize Obi drama.

playing guys like Nerlene Noel over a promising young guy you invested in a lottery pick during a losing season is almost certainly to lead to negative outcomes. The Knicks deserve some criticism in this case and they deserve it regardless of how he plays in Indy.

Nerlene Noel was not taking minutes away from Obi. Randle was.

At least get it right.

Sure he was. Julius Randle played 40% of his minutes as a small ball center prior to coming to NY. Obi and Julius never share the court for 200 mins in a season over 3 years. Thibs needs to play traditional 5 at all times including playing guys like Noel during a losing season definitely limited Toppins' opportunity.

That's some new age thinking right there.

Are you talking about Obi's first year where he looked like a deer looking at headlights and Randle was god-like at PF and the team was on some sort of deep playoff team mirage or the next year where Noel only played 25 games?

You got it so twisted up that playing 2 different players out of their norm positions is your base of reasoning of a good start to Obi's minutes.

What are you talking about? There is nothing "new age" about not needing to play a traditional 5 100% of the time. Obi played pretty well after the first couple of months in his rookie season. The Knicks got smacked in the playoffs when Randle couldn't deal with spacing issues created by our paint-bound centers. We continued to play paint-bound centers all 48 mins while the Hawks played John Collins at the backup 5. In year two we never tried them together or reduced Julius' mins despite the losing record, Toppin playing well, and Julius struggling. This year we lost to the Heat b/c the playoff offense collapsed again. Negative spacing created by always playing a paint-bound center was again an issue. The fact that Heat played Kevin Love as a backup center didn't change anything for Thibs. Obi Toppin was never going to play 30-plus minutes a night here if Randle was seen as the cornerstone. There was definitely room to explore him in a larger role though and he probably would have been under just about any other coach. .

Both Randle and Obi are not good defenders. Poor help defenders. Obi is a poor rebounder. Coaches typically do not force bad situational lineups just to get an underperforming player minutes. That's straight dumb. Thinking that Obi played well after the first couple of months of his rookie season is full on denial.

Carry on with your hope and dreams of making those 2 work in a small ball lineup for the sake of getting one of those guys minutes.

Thinking that Noel, who played 25 games in Obi's second year, was taking away minutes from him is legit stupid.

This is the NBA life. And in NBA life, you need to grab minutes by performing well. This ain't Kindergarten with participation trophies.

He is competing for the string job in Indy on a pretty good team next to a good center. He can earn it and keep it. If so, he will go into restricted FA with a nice abilty to bid up his salary. If not, he should stay in the league for while. Hell, Knox and Frank still linger!!!!!

EwingPSD wrote:

martin wrote:

EwingPSD wrote:

martin wrote:

EwingPSD wrote:

martin wrote:

EwingPSD wrote:

blkexec wrote:

Chandler wrote:Obi played soft. All his dunks seemed to be leak outs and back cuts. Someone standing in front of him and he got awkward and soft

no tenacity on D or the boards at either end.

not a good character trait for a Thibs team especially for a PF

He seemed like a great guy though and I hope he does well, but i see why the Knicks decided to move on

I agree. My issue is asset management. He’s the 8th pick and the best we can get in return is two heavily protected 2nds? Gotta believe there was a better deal if we waited. But at this point it’s spilled milk. Hope he dunks on everybody and he’s a regular on espn highlights. The better he plays the more fans will say we screwed up with Obi. I don’t see how we come out winners.

He plays terrible and people will point to the knicks evaluation team.
He plays great and people will point to Rose and company for bad asset management.

Between Obi and this new rotation, there will be plenty of hate threads popping up all season. Just adds to the typical drama Knick fans are used to.

DDV success will help minimize Obi drama.

playing guys like Nerlene Noel over a promising young guy you invested in a lottery pick during a losing season is almost certainly to lead to negative outcomes. The Knicks deserve some criticism in this case and they deserve it regardless of how he plays in Indy.

Nerlene Noel was not taking minutes away from Obi. Randle was.

At least get it right.

Sure he was. Julius Randle played 40% of his minutes as a small ball center prior to coming to NY. Obi and Julius never share the court for 200 mins in a season over 3 years. Thibs needs to play traditional 5 at all times including playing guys like Noel during a losing season definitely limited Toppins' opportunity.

That's some new age thinking right there.

Are you talking about Obi's first year where he looked like a deer looking at headlights and Randle was god-like at PF and the team was on some sort of deep playoff team mirage or the next year where Noel only played 25 games?

You got it so twisted up that playing 2 different players out of their norm positions is your base of reasoning of a good start to Obi's minutes.

What are you talking about? There is nothing "new age" about not needing to play a traditional 5 100% of the time. Obi played pretty well after the first couple of months in his rookie season. The Knicks got smacked in the playoffs when Randle couldn't deal with spacing issues created by our paint-bound centers. We continued to play paint-bound centers all 48 mins while the Hawks played John Collins at the backup 5. In year two we never tried them together or reduced Julius' mins despite the losing record, Toppin playing well, and Julius struggling. This year we lost to the Heat b/c the playoff offense collapsed again. Negative spacing created by always playing a paint-bound center was again an issue. The fact that Heat played Kevin Love as a backup center didn't change anything for Thibs. Obi Toppin was never going to play 30-plus minutes a night here if Randle was seen as the cornerstone. There was definitely room to explore him in a larger role though and he probably would have been under just about any other coach. .

Both Randle and Obi are not good defenders. Poor help defenders. Obi is a poor rebounder. Coaches typically do not force bad situational lineups just to get an underperforming player minutes. That's straight dumb. Thinking that Obi played well after the first couple of months of his rookie season is full on denial.

Carry on with your hope and dreams of making those 2 work in a small ball lineup for the sake of getting one of those guys minutes.

Thinking that Noel, who played 25 games in Obi's second year, was taking away minutes from him is legit stupid.

This is the NBA life. And in NBA life, you need to grab minutes by performing well. This ain't Kindergarten with participation trophies.

It's not a bad lineup, he rarely "underperformed", and he finished his rookie year well. Noel did take minutes from him as did "Noel types" (like Taj Gibson). Thinking all of Toppins minutes had to be directly linked to Julius and they both could only play PF is ****ing dumb. Have a good one

Obi's whole professional career is an under performance.

You are looking at this with the perspective of only how to get Obi some extra minutes without consideration of anything else.

Extremely short sighted with little regard for reality.

martin wrote:

EwingPSD wrote:

martin wrote:

EwingPSD wrote:

martin wrote:

EwingPSD wrote:

martin wrote:

EwingPSD wrote:

blkexec wrote:

Chandler wrote:Obi played soft. All his dunks seemed to be leak outs and back cuts. Someone standing in front of him and he got awkward and soft

no tenacity on D or the boards at either end.

not a good character trait for a Thibs team especially for a PF

He seemed like a great guy though and I hope he does well, but i see why the Knicks decided to move on

I agree. My issue is asset management. He’s the 8th pick and the best we can get in return is two heavily protected 2nds? Gotta believe there was a better deal if we waited. But at this point it’s spilled milk. Hope he dunks on everybody and he’s a regular on espn highlights. The better he plays the more fans will say we screwed up with Obi. I don’t see how we come out winners.

He plays terrible and people will point to the knicks evaluation team.
He plays great and people will point to Rose and company for bad asset management.

Between Obi and this new rotation, there will be plenty of hate threads popping up all season. Just adds to the typical drama Knick fans are used to.

DDV success will help minimize Obi drama.

playing guys like Nerlene Noel over a promising young guy you invested in a lottery pick during a losing season is almost certainly to lead to negative outcomes. The Knicks deserve some criticism in this case and they deserve it regardless of how he plays in Indy.

Nerlene Noel was not taking minutes away from Obi. Randle was.

At least get it right.

Sure he was. Julius Randle played 40% of his minutes as a small ball center prior to coming to NY. Obi and Julius never share the court for 200 mins in a season over 3 years. Thibs needs to play traditional 5 at all times including playing guys like Noel during a losing season definitely limited Toppins' opportunity.

That's some new age thinking right there.

Are you talking about Obi's first year where he looked like a deer looking at headlights and Randle was god-like at PF and the team was on some sort of deep playoff team mirage or the next year where Noel only played 25 games?

You got it so twisted up that playing 2 different players out of their norm positions is your base of reasoning of a good start to Obi's minutes.

What are you talking about? There is nothing "new age" about not needing to play a traditional 5 100% of the time. Obi played pretty well after the first couple of months in his rookie season. The Knicks got smacked in the playoffs when Randle couldn't deal with spacing issues created by our paint-bound centers. We continued to play paint-bound centers all 48 mins while the Hawks played John Collins at the backup 5. In year two we never tried them together or reduced Julius' mins despite the losing record, Toppin playing well, and Julius struggling. This year we lost to the Heat b/c the playoff offense collapsed again. Negative spacing created by always playing a paint-bound center was again an issue. The fact that Heat played Kevin Love as a backup center didn't change anything for Thibs. Obi Toppin was never going to play 30-plus minutes a night here if Randle was seen as the cornerstone. There was definitely room to explore him in a larger role though and he probably would have been under just about any other coach. .

Both Randle and Obi are not good defenders. Poor help defenders. Obi is a poor rebounder. Coaches typically do not force bad situational lineups just to get an underperforming player minutes. That's straight dumb. Thinking that Obi played well after the first couple of months of his rookie season is full on denial.

Carry on with your hope and dreams of making those 2 work in a small ball lineup for the sake of getting one of those guys minutes.

Thinking that Noel, who played 25 games in Obi's second year, was taking away minutes from him is legit stupid.

This is the NBA life. And in NBA life, you need to grab minutes by performing well. This ain't Kindergarten with participation trophies.

It's not a bad lineup, he rarely "underperformed", and he finished his rookie year well. Noel did take minutes from him as did "Noel types" (like Taj Gibson). Thinking all of Toppins minutes had to be directly linked to Julius and they both could only play PF is ****ing dumb. Have a good one

Obi's whole professional career is an under performance.

You are looking at this with the perspective of only how to get Obi some extra minutes without consideration of anything else.

Extremely short sighted with little regard for reality.

Tweet was deleted or there was problem with the URL:

https://www.twitter.com/xavierjdesigns/status/1621251032566140928

He had a very very good 2nd year and was never given opportunity despite the teams struggles. He also started this season very strong and had a similar experience. Overall Obi’s play was somewhat disappointing this year but he still scored at about average efficiency and shot very well at high volume from 3 for most of the year. He had a massive dip in Feb/March that brought him down to 34% (league average) My view is based on what happens when he plays. He's shown himself to be a very capable scorer and a good offensive player. What happened when he played more also makes a compelling case (this small sample includes garbage time games, regular games, and a couple of playoff games). His professional career to this point has been a case of mismanagement.

Obi dunked a lot in his second year so it is no surprise his efficiency numbers were really good. By his 3rd year, he barely made it to the rim compared to other years.

Obi couldn't garner a first round pick in a trade or I'm sure the Knicks would have traded him to a team that offered anywhere near that. We can make some easy inferences about what other teams thought of both his performance and his potential.

Hopefully things work out for him in Indy.

Philc1 wrote:

FrenchKnicks wrote:I still don’t get it. Was that trade needed to get DiVincenzo ?
Was there a huge conflit with the coach or the front office after the playoffs ?
How did we end up getting ONLY a couple of 2nd rounders for a guy capable of scoring 35 when given the opportunity ?
Sorry this is old news but I was waiting for something else to happen at the PF spot for tahr trade to make sense… still waiting really.

Stupid trade caused by CAA conflict of interest. Obi needs to have a big season to get his next contract. Pacers are in full rebuild mode so he will get big minutes there probably average a double double

Meanwhile we have no depth at PF now

Real GM has sam rose as his agent at CAA. Same for his brother.
How is it a conflict?

EwingsGlass wrote:I think that spot on the Pacers is gonna be amazing for him. Pacers are putting together a really solid squad. I could see them competing this year.

I’m assuming this statement was made without watching any preseason games. You would think after being in Thibs system, his defense should’ve improved by now. Let’s hope he does better than this.

I mean this is from the Lakers broadcast, they didn't even include CAM as a notable addition. That's how little people think of him. And yet, there were legit calls to fire Thibs, the most successful coach we've had in probably decades, over CAM freakin Reddish. Think about how crazy that is.

https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fiv4xocplf3ub1.jpg

The CAM trade was a bad one but it was a sunk cost. The Obi pick was a bad pick but it was also a sunk cost. Maybe Obi carves out a nice career, but there are already twitter threads about how bad his defense is. He's 25 years old, a 4 year pro, a 4 year college player, and a 19 year old rookie is already outplaying him in IND.

at the end of the day lets trust Thibs because he's given us no reason not to right now. Nitpicking over fringe role players is silly, we have 5 top 100 ranked players on ESPN, most in the NBA. There's no room here for fringe players.

Nalod wrote:Cam is the same player he was in college. Very inconsistent. Difference is he was athletically superior than most in Div. 1 NCAA ball. Might say the same for RJ also but he does that at a high level. Cam has yet to string a season together.
Its why RJ has the big bag and Cam none.
If we signed Obi it prevents future opportunties in the future.

For me, I’d go a little further in their differences.

RJ is very good at being a professional. He has put the work in on his body. He puts in the work to add to his game. His attitude is that he wants to succeed and is willing to do anything to do so. He is obviously a very good teammate. All of those things matter.

Cam is probably more talented in just raw ability but seems to lack the know how and work ethic to fulfill what he has been given. Those things matter.

One has $100M guaranteed coming to him, the other does not.