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martin wrote:This is hard to watch

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Thibs is always talking about how one of the reasons we are having a successful season is because his players sacrifice and play for each other. Over the last 8 games or so, clearly, Payton is not playing like a player who is buying-in. He is not playing (if you want to call going through the motions playing) for his teammates and is pouting because his minutes have been sacrificed for the betterment of the team. As much film as Thibs and his staff watches, he has to see how listless Payton is. With the new beefed up Analytic department, he has to know that Payton is the only net-negative in the rotation.

Forget starting, Payton shouldn't be in the rotation! Time for Thibs to heed his own advice! It's not fair to the rest of the team who is playing every possession like its their last, meanwhile we have one player player who is going through the motions. How is he earning minutes?!

martin wrote:

Uptown wrote:Forget starting, Payton shouldn't be in the rotation! Time for Thibs to heed his own advice!

So hard to do so this time of year. Kinda wish there were 15 more games left and Luca was on bench

If Thibs is worried about disrupting the rotation, i hope he can consider starting Frank instead of Payton. Give him the first 8 minutes and just let the offense run through Julius. Just let frank disrupt the rythm of Trae and occasionally hit the 3 point shot.

With this, Thibs can still maintain his usual second unit rotation. The past month or so Payton has become unwatchable that replacing him with Frank can be looked at as a huge upgrade. I hope Thibs and the coaching staff can see it that way as well.

Nalod wrote:Truth be told, I don’t even see Payton out there until he does something good and its like “oh, thats Elf! Why everyone down on him.”...........
I know every coach on the knicks us 100x more up on what’s up than any of us even put together.
I also see we winning more with this rotation then. The “WTF” comment, might be frustration of the play and team is accountable or a build up of his play of late. Why was he so late coming back on defense? Was there no audible command to cover his guy and thus the reason for the “WTF”?
I don’t see Elf on the floor when we are blowing leads so not everything need be on him.
frank as a 8 min defensive disruptor to start wearing down Trae early is a tactic that has worked before. I think this is Elf’s job is to play hard early then sit. Might be more of him nursing an injury? Maybe his back just gives out? I’m guessing its more than “Elf sucks and coaches are blind”.

We are winning in spite of him, not because of him. This is beyond the "its working so don't mess with it" phase. Elfs play of late goes against the principles that Thibs has been preaching all year. Thibs preaches playing full 48 minute games, yet we see Elf loafing around for his 15 minutes. No other Knick does this accept for Elf? Why is this acceptable? Thibs talks about sacrificing for the team. Clearly, Elf is not happy sacrificing minutes for the betterment of the team because his play and body language say otherwise. Obi gets about 10 mins per game and its all-out hustle for every second of every minute he gets. Frank seems to play 30 seconds every other game for a key-defensive possession, and he is fighting through screens, and going all-out for the 30 seconds he gets. If anyone should be pouting on the court its Frank, especially when you consider how well he's played over the last week or so which coincides with how bad Elf has been.

This is way beyond W's and L's. This is beyond missing shots! 1 of the 15 players on the roster is clearly not buying in. This is about effort! And at this point, this is 100% on Thibs!! I can't believe an old school coach like Thibs, who is about building culture and principles is allowing this to happen!! His power over the players is the minutes he can distribute. Elf has not earned any of the minutes he is getting. ​

Yuo think the players don't notice this? Did you see Randle's reaction to Elf when he was late getting back? Both palms were facing the low-MSG ceiling and yelled something inaudible to him. There was another play in the first half when Julius was on the baseline. He threw a pass to Elf who was trotting across the lane and made a half-ass attempt to catch the pass. Because he wasn't cutting at full speed, the defender got a hand on it and knocked off Elf's leg. Randle rolled his eyes and stormed down the court. It's instances like this that can cause the coach to lose the locke room