blkexec wrote:

Philc1 wrote:

Jmpasq wrote:

houston20 wrote:A cheap option would be devonte graham from pelicans hasn't played great this season but on good contract 4 years 45 million dollar contract. I would trade kemba for devonte draham and trade obi for mo bamaba .

No one else is worried about the optics of trading Kemba to future veteran free agents? I think its a bad idea.

Benching him for 10 games for no real reason didn’t help optics either

Yep...If I'm a free agent, why would I go to a team that cheers when you are winning like they won the an nba championship, and boos everybody when they lose. Todays NBA players are mentally soft and the rise of social media is only going to get worst.

Between knick fans, the media and Thibs, it's a difficult place to play. Randle was most improved and getting MVP chants to now he's getting boos and fans want to trade him. Kemba was not only benched, but removed from the rotation. Then comes back and starts killing. Letting everybody know there was no problem with his health. Of course he's out with a knee problem now, but during that run, optics didn't look so good for the knicks or Thibs. I'm ok with boos, but every player can't handle that, as we see with Randle.

So yes, I've always been worried about that. It takes a special player on KD's level to survive here. But I have faith in this FO to get it right. I'm not sure I have faith in Thibs as an NBA championship coach. I think his lack of creativity on offense mixed in with a lack of consistent offensive and defensive talent.

I think the other main issue is thibs strategy to play Randle and RJ the most minutes by any duo in the NBA. At least that was the case last year and based on stats, Randle and RJ leads the team in minutes. The problem with that is Randle and RJ are also inconsisent on offense and average to below average on defense. If you going to play somebody that many minutes, it needs to be a 2 way super star, which we don't have. Otherwise, you play your team and give the minutes to the hot hand. But thats just my inexperience observation. Sometimes is better for players to know how many minutes they will play each game, and Thibs is very consistent with that.

RJ played 38 minutes and scored 18 points. Hayward didnt have an efficient day, maybe thats becasue of RJ. But Bridges had a career day. Who was guarding him, Fournier (SMH). I'm kinda glad I didn't see this game. I might over exaggerate this lost, when in reality, we won 3 of our last 4 games. It's just the loses are so ugly, it can linger over the next several games, before the team snaps out of it and start winning again.

Sometimes you give a team something and see if they can beat you. We took Haywood away and let Miles have it. He did it.
EF has been playing better defense of late.
If last year the combo of RJ adn Randle was exceptional, what are the alternatives? OBI is limited no matter how much we love him.
Kemba came here to play. He is not under penalty, we sucked with him early on. Then he gets hurt. We signed him to play, not be a part time player. He came here under that understanding. Our reputation should be ok there. We are no squandering his career. I’d think if his agent can swing a deal we’d move him to play.
In my mind both knicks and Kemba tried to make work and its been an honest effort. I’d like to think they were upfront. Berman is a **** stirrer and likes to rile up fans.
At the same time reports that Kemba was suprised about his benching after 20 games could be true. Not sure why he’d be suprised, he sucked. Team sucked. The Tape don’t lie. Thibs seems pretty straight forward about the rules of playing.

MY take is this team is close at times to capturing last years magic and its a chemistry thing. Also not easy for RJ and Randle to know when to take charge at times. Burks has the experience to understand pace and penetration which IQ lacks. Drose is obviously a painful miss.

As fans we are learning Duece and OBI are not plug and play and are not ready for prime time. Grimes found his stroke and teams will learn what to do with him soon enough. His growth will hit walls at times but Grimes is doing great!

To go from 21 wins, to 41-31 and back to .500 feels bad but realty is we finished 16-4 last year and built an artificial high. My take is a few more games we finish last year below ATL and Miami to 6th seed which still was a great season.

That mitch is playing well and into shape halfway in is good. We have. Yoot playing, thats good. We have a 21 year old stud, thats good. Randle is what he is and for us to be really good he has to have a smaller and smaller role. That means we need to keep developing with him.

No clear path to the future. Enjoy what you can!