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Putting it Together – The 2024 NBA Trade Deadline Discussion

There are so many different possibilities for the Knicks today that I would not be surprised by a big move, a little move, or even no move at all (okay, I’d be a bit surprised by no move at all).

I think that it is clear that Rose wants to keep as much of his future assets as possible to make a godfather offer to Cleveland if they flame out in the playoffs again this year (the tricky thing is, though, what if Cleveland goes further than the Knicks? Will Mitchell still push to go to New York in that scenario?), but if he can acquire someone for a 2024 pick this year, he’ll still do it.

But who will it be?

Let’s find out…and, you know, talk about it here!

322 replies on “Putting it Together – The 2024 NBA Trade Deadline Discussion”

A little odd the Pacers willingly got worse, even if it’s not by much, for a trio of seconds. I mean they just made an all-in trade, the Hield move kind of cuts against the spirit of that.

NYK interest in Bojan Bogdanovic dates back to 2023 deadline. Sources confirm NYK has touched base w/DET on both Bogdanovic & Alec Burks. DET has been listening to teams on Bogdanovic. NYK/DET has talked about different draft compensation on Burks & Bogdanovic. Yahoo 1st on talks— Ian Begley (@IanBegley) February 8, 2024

Begley confirming the Fischer report. I would trade one of our lesser firsts for the Burksdanovic package–Bogey would be a really good get for our bench. He’s quite old so this would be something akin to “going for it,” but trading a single first to get a lot better when you have the 5th best net rating, SRS, etc. balances the competing interests perfectly well IMO.

Also Bogey has aged well and does not project to be non-NBA level talent in 1 years’ time, thus preserving some value above his expiring.

Grimes headed to Detroit. Fuck the heck?!

I was fine with Burks coming back, but why in the world would you deal Grimes for him?!

Okay Bogey better fucking be in there then…or something else that makes this make more sense.

That’d make more sense, but you’d think Shams would have mentioned Bogey, no?

B&B can both shoot the trey, so a package of both of them would be nice. We’re going to need some 3PT volatility to go our way if we’re going to make some noise.

This same reason is why I don’t love Bruce Brown for us: he’s too similar to guys we already have and play too much like Hart and McBride.

by the way can we officially say thibs hates young players

His excuses are gone

Well that’s weird. Lateral move. Grimey was never my favorite Knick but this is a head scratcher

Perhaps Grimes is hurt?

Otherwise, it just feels like fixing one problem by causing another. Let’s hope Bogey is somehow involved in the deal.

Nope, according to Woj:

The Knicks are sending Quentin Grimes and two future second-round picks to the Pistons in the Burks deal

Fuck the heck?! I just don’t get it. And I think Burks fits in well with this currently constructed team, but, like, not that well!

I mean there’s at least something missing because the salary doesn’t work straight up

I guess they could still make another move by trading Fournier. Let’s say it’s Fournier and a 1RP for Brown, now you have both Burks and Brown, probably somewhat of an upgrade to what we had previously

Perhaps Grimes is hurt?

He has a knee sprain, but you figure he could be back after the All star Break..straight up this isn’t good value for him, but we well see what else is involved

Gafford to the Mavericks for Holmes and “draft compensation.” That’s a good pickup for them if the picks aren’t too good.

The Pistons are trading Bojan Bogdanovic to the Knicks too, sources tell ESPN. Evan Fournier and Malachi Flynn will go to Detroit. https://t.co/tYqAVNQHXT— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) February 8, 2024

THERE IT IS.

God, the urge reporters have to be “first” even if the initial report is wildly misleading is so annoying.

God, the urge reporters have to be “first” even if the initial report is wildly misleading is so annoying.

So stupid, right? I mean, I don’t love this deal still, but it obviously makes a ton more sense than it did before.

oh, alright we’re getting Bojan for Fournier & evil Donte, at least it makes some sense. I still don’t think it’s a good deal but if Thibs plays Bojan it might eat some innings for us

Hmm, well that’s better. We traded one shooter for two. Bogey might be deadly off the bench if Thibs lets him play.

Also something is still being missed because we can’t aggregate Evil Donte! Is it really so much to ask to at least have, like, half the damn details down before you blast this stuff out?

The only way that the trade could work is if Grimes, Fournier and a $3M salary (Flynn?) are traded. But if Burks & Bogdonovic come to the Knicks, that’s a very good move.

Also something is still being missed because we can’t aggregate Evil Donte! Is it really so much to ask to at least have, like, half the damn details down before you blast this stuff out?

Yeah, it’s very frustrating.

Would have rather offered ATL Grimes and two first for Dejounte..was that not an option?

What’s Bojan’s contract status for next season?

He’s signed for next year on a partial guaranteed deal, so he’ll replace Fournier as the salary matcher in a big deal.

If you indulge the fantasy that Mitch could come back and everybody else would be healthy, that’s a starting lineup of Brunson-DDV-OG-Randle-Hartenstein with Burks, Bogdanovich, Hart, McBride, and Mitch as the main bench guys. Plus Precious if you need him I guess.

That kind of slaps

Woj:

Full trade, per ESPN Sources:
Knicks: Bojan Bogdanovic and Alec Burks
Pistons: Quentin Grimes, Malachi Flynn, Evan Fournier, Ryan Arcidiacono and two second-round picks.

No, not Archie!

I’ll take it. Grimes, Evan, two 2s, Arch, and evil for B&;B. Hate to lose Grimes but kept all our 1sts for an obvious upgrade on potential wins this regular season. Not sure the mechanics of how the evil trade works out, but maybe that is why there were 2 separate reports, ie, trades. Hopefully won’t be looked at too closely by the CBA gurus.

It seems the Pistons actually want Evil Donte, he’s not matching salary because we don’t need him to be–the trade works with Fournier/Grimes/Archie.

So we’re doing the main trade, and then technically giving them Evil Donte for free in a second trade.

Evil donte replaces Monte Morris…

And the Villanova boys lose there buddy

It seems the Pistons actually want Evil Donte, he’s not matching salary because we don’t need him to be–the trade works with Fournier/Grimes/Archie.

So we’re doing the main trade, and then technically giving them Evil Donte for free in a second trade.

They traded Morris and now with Burks out, they could use a backup point guard.

It’ll be hilarious if Brunson and DDV slip with the loss of Archie. “No, our source of power!”

It pretty much comes down to how you feel about using Grimes on some older vets and was there better trade use of him as an asset out there

I don’t want burks for free. The fact we are giving up Grimes makes this move inexplicable.

His 2pt% is below 40% for the 2nd time in 3 years, his shots at the rim have consistently decreased over the last 5 years and currently account for less than 7% of his shots.

I don’t put a ton of stock in +\- but he has a negative +\- on the worst team in the NBA. Somehow they have been worse in the minutes he has been in the court.

He has never been a great defender but he is now 32 and obviously slowing down. He will be replacing Grimes and is much worse defensively and not much better of a shooter.

On top of all this neither him or Bogs is a PG so they doesn’t really solve our bench problems. And Thibs trusts Burks so between him and Bogs they will invariably steal minutes from McBride and DDV.

Terrible! I hate Leon Rose. Now that McBride is probably out of the rotation we will have 0 players we drafted and not a single player on a rookie contract in the rotation.

We just got older and much worse defensively and we didn’t even solve our backup PG problem.

Trading Grimes hurts, but getting a scorer like Bojey without giving up a first is not easy to do and it’s not a pure rental.

I’m…okay with it. They’re taking this team seriously when it comes to the ability to contend this year and next, and the numbers justify that. I don’t think Grimes has the upside to really make us rue this day.

If I’m wrong, good for Grimes. But we just got a pretty decent amount better IMO, and we were already quite good.

I just hope Bogey doesn’t miss a rotation then get benched for the rest of the season

Terrible! I hate Leon Rose. Now that McBride is probably out of the rotation we will have 0 players we drafted and not a single player on a rookie contract in the rotation.

This is a Thibs issue. He clearly doesn’t like young players and the Knicks seem all in on him. I think mcbride is still the Brunson back up

Just look at the draft night …Knicks don’t even use there picks to select players anymore [ Trevor Keels was the last player to get drafted under Rose and Thibs]

The only thing that I wonder about is that this was clearly Rose looking at the situation as “What’s the best return I can get without trading any future assets that I need for my godfather offer for Mitchell this offseason?”

And, well, I don’t know if that’s the best way to look at things. Brogdon, for instance, would have been an amazing fit for this team, but he’d have cost future picks, so he wasn’t acquired. Even Brown, whatever you think of him, would have required a future first, and Leon wasn’t about to do that, so this was the best deal he could get without dealing future firsts.

And, with that in mind, it’s not terrible value, but, again, you have to keep that in mind, and should he have been keeping that in mind? Most other teams in similar situations are using their future firsts at this point. Leon isn’t because he is waiting for his godfather offer for Mitchell, but with the way that the Cavs are playing, is that deal even necessarily going to be there? And if isn’t, who are they keeping all of this powder dry for?

This is a good trade. Grimes is just another guy who we were going to have to pay him or let go to RFA. Burks and Bojan help us now and have genuine playoff equity. I doubt Grimes will ever be better than either of them over the course of his career.

Also, Mitchell will be available in the offseason after we bop them in 5 in the 2nd round 🙂

So that’s us done. Certainly not bad, addressing needs while not an obvious overpay. And they absolutely needed to do something today. Hate to lose Grimes and feel for him this season (from starter, bench, fringe rotation, injured, to worst team in the NBA).
Now put the B’s on a plane immediately because we need them for tomorrow.

It is close to 5pm over here. Shutting down for the day and treating myself to a mid week gin and tonic!

Question: Who will call the 3 second violation from now on? 😀

Hart will just use his Archie impression voice.

I think Bojan and Burks will take the place of Fournier in the stands by next year. I really don’t get it, if you want to address our ball handling in the bench, get a PG. And if you get Burks, do it without sacrificing Grimes.

Grimes is reasonably good and young, and he does not have to get better to be useful for this team. Bojan will be our weak link defensively, is starting to be often injured, and will probably be out of the league in two years. Burks is meh, does a bit of ballhandling, but barely moves the needle. Why not get Brogdon or Tyus in this case, even if you have to put one or two firsts?

Bogs also has a negative +\- for Detroit.

Neither him or Burks helped Detroit when they were on the floor and they were replacing g-league players. Neither were good defenders in their prime and they are 34 and 32 respectively.

This trade makes no sense. Grimes is gone, McBride is out of the rotation, and DDV is probably losing 10+ minutes. Both Burks and Bogs are getting at least 20 minutes a game. We are worse, we are older, and it saps our identity.

At this point in their careers I don’t think Bogs and Burks are significant upgrades over Fournier.

Every time I start to get excited about this team they do shit like this.

I was against Brown but at least he is a very good player. Instead we get two players clearly on the decline who couldn’t even improve the worst team in the NBA in the minutes they played this year.

Grimes was our 2nd or 3rd best perimeter defender and was only 23.

Grimes is reasonably good and young, and he does not have to get better to be useful for this team. Bojan will be our weak link defensively, is starting to be often injured, and will probably be out of the league in two years. Burks is meh, does a bit of ballhandling, but barely moves the needle. Why not get Brogdon or Tyus in this case, even if you have to put one or two firsts?

The move to make would have been Grimes and two first for Dejounte

Solid trade, if this team is healthy come playoff time nobody in the East will want to play them.

Grimes was our 2nd or 3rd best perimeter defender and was only 23.

Yup he was very good on defense against mitchell and butler in the playoffs

Woj is such a loser for blasting out to millions that we traded Grimes for Burks just because he heard that part first. Burks was the fuckin’ throw in! Like, do you even follow the sport? It didn’t pass a basic smell test.

Bojan is better than a lot of the players we’ve been discussing. We didn’t bring him up specifically all that much because it seemed like the Pistons were keeping him, but I prefer him to Brown and a lot of the other guys we’ve been linked to.

I mean fully healthy, we can go to war with this group. Now we just need to trade for a really good doctor.

Woj is such a loser for blasting out to millions that we traded Grimes for Burks just because he heard that part first. Burks was the fuckin’ throw in! Like, do you even follow the sport? It didn’t pass a basic smell test.

Shams did the same exact thing. They both fucked up big time.

Bojan is better than a lot of the players we’ve been discussing.

I did not like Bojan in his prime, I like him less when he will be 35 by the playoffs, sporting a -2.2 bpm on the league worst Detroit Pistons.

Now we just need to trade for a really good doctor.

Ha ha ha!! And stock up on Geritol.

I love the deal but if the Knicks are fully healthy, I see 11 players:
Starters: Brunson, DVD, OG, Randle, iHart
Bench: Deuce, Burks, Hart, Achiewa, Mitch
Bojan? The injury to OG is sounding more serious now. “Bone spur”? Move Bojan into the starting 5 at SF. How’s our defense now?

Net-net not really that great a return for Barrett, Quickley, Grimes, and Toppin, now all gone even though Thibs really doesn’t have a problem with young players and actually deep down secretly loves them.

Bogey and Burks smacks of “Thibs gets Burks, the non-Thibs faction in the FO gets Bogey, it’ll all work out.”

I feel good about this trade, and also think this implies they expect Julius back — because this is a little bit of a “go for it” this season move. The starting lineup for this team is REALLY good. The bench is very good defensively but really challenged offensively. Figure 9 man rotation in the playoffs looks like this:

Starters:
Brunson
DDV
Anunoby
Randle
Hartenstein

Bench
Hart
Bojan
Mitch
Burks or McBride

The second unit will be Burks, Hart, OG, Bojan, Mitch –> that is plenty good enough on defense, and even though Burks is not a real PG, I think that group is way better offensively than Deuce, Hart, Grimes, OG, Mitch.

Also Bojan has played a ton of 4 in the last few years – so even if Randle has a setback, at least he’s a body that has played the 4. Rebounding will be an issue with him but if he’s mostly playing with Mitch + Hart that’ll be mitigated somewhat.

I’m a little sad that Precious is prob out of rotation now… I liked what I saw from him.

We traded away Archie last year and we were… wait, I think I know why we lost to Miami

I really hope Burks and Bojan are available for tonight, because the Knicks might have to forfeit otherwise. Who can play at this point? Deuce/DDV/Hart/Precious/IHart/Sims?

I love the deal but if the Knicks are fully healthy, I see 11 players:
Starters: Brunson, DVD, OG, Randle, iHart
Bench: Deuce, Burks, Hart, Achiewa, Mitch
Bojan? The injury to OG is sounding more serious now. “Bone spur”? Move Bojan into the starting 5 at SF. How’s our defense now?

If OG is out the team is done

I think Precious is the odd man out.. Bojan gives you more offense and you have three good defenders in that 2nd unit with Mitch, Duece and Hart

I like the trade quite a bit, Bojan is an extremely good shooter who has some depth to his game, he’s surprisingly versatile in the way he scores which is what we need now. Burks is a known quantity that can handle the ball and also shoot well from 3.

Keeping all the firsts is good, and I’ve never been a big believer in Grimes so I’m fine with that. I don’t think he’s ever going to amount to much, I feel he lacks the aggressiveness necessary to be a good scorer and we won’t miss him on defense with Deuce, DDV and Hart on the roster.

It’s not a perfect move or anything but it’s an upgrade and our lineups look very good now with everyone healthy.

I’d have loved 2022-23 Bogey on this team, but he sure seems to have hit an age wall this season. It’s sort of like getting John Cusack for your movie in 2011, when he just hit the age wall.

I really hope Burks and Bojan are available for tonight, because the Knicks might have to forfeit otherwise. Who is healthy at this point

I see zero chance they play

Oh, Detroit was in Sacramento last night. They are definitely not playing tonight. We will have a Jacob Toppin sighting tonight.

I saw the trade 30 seconds ago and I’m having trouble processing lol. Probably because I’m worn out from the daily percocet since the surgery and the fact that I’m probably coming down with something.

So..this forces Thibs to go with a small 5 man bench unit until Mitch returns, no? And even then- I’m not sure he will be able to take Achiuwa out of the rotation. Thibs doesn’t do well with 10 man rotations- not many coaches do. Who gets squeezed out once Mitch returns?

At least we have veteran offense on the bench, and plenty of it. Only one PG behind Brunson now, but we all know who is gonna be the backup 1 *rolls eyes*

I just don’t know right now. The price was fine, but maybe we added too much to the rotation?

Most likely someone on the level of Burks and Bogs could have been had on the waiver wire and we gave up a good young player and 2 2nds for two players who are probably not better than Fournier at this point.

They are both declining and had negative +/-, and negative BPM, and both made the Pistons worse defensively when they were on the court.

In fact, the Pistons were 9 points worse defensively when Bogs was on the floor. The Pistons are the 2nd worst defensive team in the NBA and Bogs was their worst defender.

This trade is absolute garbage.

These players will not make us better and we gave up 3 assets for them. Plus trading away Archie and Grimes is not great for team vibes. Once we are healthy and Bogs and Burks start eating into DDV’s and Hart’s minutes while shitting the bed on defense the vibes will sour quick.

I’d have loved 2022-23 Bogey on this team, but he sure seems to have hit an age wall this season. It’s sort of like getting John Cusack for your movie in 2011, when he just hit the age wall.

I can’t say I’ve watched the Pistons much this year…hopefully no one can, but his numbers look pretty similar to last year’s no? His TS% has fallen off a bit, but I’ll still very, very gladly take a guy who can put up 22 PTS/36 with a 60% TS.

I can’t say I’ve watched the Pistons much this year…hopefully no one can, but his numbers look pretty similar to last year’s no? His TS% has fallen off a bit, but I’ll still very, very gladly take a guy who can put up 22 PTS/36 with a 60% TS.

It’s the defense. He can still shoot it with the best of him, but he can’t even fake defense anymore.

Grimes had a PER of 9.47 with a 54 TS

Young and can defend though and not a bad sniper from 3…

I think these past couple of weeks has shown there’s no such thing as having too many good players to fit into the rotation.

Grimes had a very disappointing season so far, but trading him for declining vets, and losing his defense, is neither an all in move, nor a preparation for a big trade in the offseason. I don’t like it.

I think it is preparation for a big trade, though, in the sense that they didn’t trade away any future picks. I imagine the deal will be Bogie and every pick possible for Mitchell.

@IanBegley
Told that uncertainty/concern around OG Anunoby injury has factored in to NYK’s deadline approach. Heard Anunoby had been making progress late last week but he’s missed games since then. NYK yesterday changed injury description from elbow inflammation to bone spur irritation.

Most likely someone on the level of Burks and Bogs could have been had on the waiver wire

Come on dude, where are all these waiver wire guys who consistently score 20 PPG with a .600+ TS%?

65 players in the NBA have played 500 minutes with 24% USG this year. Bogey’s TS% ranks 22nd, right in between Donovan Mitchell and Jayson Tatum.

@IanBegley
Told that uncertainty/concern around OG Anunoby injury has factored in to NYK’s deadline approach. Heard Anunoby had been making progress late last week but he’s missed games since then. NYK yesterday changed injury description from elbow inflammation to bone spur irritation.

That makes sense. So they were probably planning on not making a move at all, but now that they fear they wont’ have OG, they think they need Bogie to fill in for OG.

Wouldn’t Grimes be more interesting to the Cavs

And the Nets would come up with a better package than that

I appear to be in the minority on this one. I’m sad about losing Grimes, but I like the deal.

Bojan can flat out shoot the rock— he’s shooting .415 from 3PT on high volume and as a sniper off the bench he is probably going to cause some opponents some headaches. He scores in other ways too— gets to the FT line at a solid clip and can knock down those shots. TS+ and eFG+ over 100 every year of his career. Doesn’t defend much but we have a lot of good defenders on the team so that doesn’t worry me all that much.

I appear to be in the minority on this one. I’m sad about losing Grimes, but I like the deal.

On here it seems 50/50 , not sure about other places

It’s the defense. He can still shoot it with the best of him, but he can’t even fake defense anymore.

Hopefully there was a “what’s the god damn point” aspect to this playing for the Pistons, lord knows I wouldn’t blame him. In any event I think we’ve got the defensive personnel to make the tradeoff worth it.

Grimes might not have a ton of value in a trade but I have to think that even with us wanting to keep our powder dry for a future move he has more value in a future trade than our protected 1sts.

Most teams want some semblance of young talent with their pick package in a star trade. It was probably why we beat out the other OG suitors. Now we have absolutely nothing but mediocre picks to offer.

We are worse now and we are worse in the future and we gave up two 2nds.

Hopefully there was a “what’s the god damn point” aspect to this playing for the Pistons, lord knows I wouldn’t blame him. In any event I think we’ve got the defensive personnel to make the tradeoff worth it.

Hopefully. But he’ll be 35 by the start of the playoffs, ya know? But yes, I love how great of a shooter he is. He’d have been a perfect fit on the team last year.

Come on dude, where are all these waiver wire guys who consistently score 20 PPG with a .600+ TS%?

Fournier?

My concern about the trade is that the Knicks were keeping the bench minutes very low scoring because of the defense. Now they will need to hope to outscore the other team, because the defense will not be nearly as good. It might be ok – it brings a different look to the bench – but it is very different than the approach they had.

I also don’t think Bojan’s advantage over Grimes in TS% outweighs what he’ll give back on defense.

That said: they are undeniably a very deep team if we assume health.

Grimes might not have a ton of value in a trade but I have to think that even with us wanting to keep our powder dry for a future move he has more value in a future trade than our protected 1sts.

Most teams want some semblance of young talent with their pick package in a star trade. It was probably why we beat out the other OG suitors. Now we have absolutely nothing but mediocre picks to offer.

We are worse now and we are worse in the future and we gave up two 2nds.

If you’re willing to trade all of your future picks (plus pick swaps), that has a lot of value, no matter how good you are in the short term.

The Knicks will likely be offering their 2025 first, their 2027 first, their 2029 first, their 2031 first, plus pick swaps in 2028 and 2030. That’s a godfather offer. Plus Bogie for salary matching purposes.

Bobby Marks @BobbyMarks42:
New York has 2 open roster spots and $2.5M below the luxury tax.
Plenty of room below the first apron to sign players bought out of their contract.

Doesn’t defend much is a very generous assessment of Bogs. He makes Fournier look like prime Kawhi defensively. He might be the worst defender in the NBA this year. He is absolutely worthless on that side of the ball.

It is going to take five games to become very clear we got worse.

Somehow both Burks and Bogs were shooting over 40% from three and averaging over 20pts per 36 yet the pistons were better when they were not on the floor.

I can live with this trade I guess. It strengthens the bench short term. I don’t knoe why anyone is surprised we traded Grimes. His spot went to Donte. At least we still have our picks. No more defensive 3 seconds I guess. If we can get healthy, we will be dangerous in the playoffs. This is definitely a Thibs team now.

What’s the waiver wire? Do you mean buyout market?

Grimes was hurt and the other three traded players never played, so our lineup tonight is probably the same as our line up against Memphis.

It is going to take five games to become very clear we got worse.

Well, with the way things have been going for Knick trades in the last couple of years, I now expect Burks and Bogey to play at their best levels in years as soon as they get here.

Grimes might not have a ton of value in a trade but I have to think that even with us wanting to keep our powder dry for a future move he has more value in a future trade than our protected 1sts.

hard to know – he’s definitely taken a step back this year and on top of that is up for an extension after next year.

These moves are all about making life easier for Jalen Brunson. As DJAceNBA said on twitter, both Bojan and Burks are great above-the-break 3 point shooters. Good luck putting two on Brunson with one of those guys on the court instead of Hart or whoever.

Adding more shooting never hurts–

Knicks currently have these high-volume above average 3P shooters:
Brunson
Burks
Bojan
DDV
OG
(I’ll add Deuce here too although he’s prob out of rotation).

I think this is good. And Bojan is a better trade chip than Fournier (because he’s just a better player)

I can live with this trade I guess. It strengthens the bench short term. I don’t knoe why anyone is surprised we traded Grimes. His spot went to Donte.

Donte was starting, so there was no room for Grimes as a bench player? They got quickley out already to free up time

Grimes was hurt and the other three traded players never played, so our lineup tonight is probably the same as our line up against Memphis.

Assuming Brunson plays. Flynn was going to play those bench minutes otherwise. Deuce is probably playing 48 tonight if Brunson is out (given their rotation, they should probably just sit Brunson).

It is not the end of the world, but I’d rather stood pat. I don’t see it as a positive for these playoffs, and bad for the future.

hard to know – he’s definitely taken a step back this year and on top of that is up for an extension after next year.

I think a Rebuilding team would pay Grimes and a much older player they just won’t value as much

I appear to be in the minority on this one. I’m sad about losing Grimes, but I like the deal.

I’m with you. Grimes has really been showing that he’s capable of more since the OG trade and still is great at the PoA.

But Burks and Bojan are guys who improve an offense for a team that has more defense than it needs.

I’m not so down on Burks’s defense. He was a strong defender for us and his numbers this year may be down from a slow recovery from injury earlier this year, one that wrecked his offensive numbers.

Also, if you were Burks or Bojan would you bother playing defense on Detroit?

I mean, I wouldn’t be surprised if the next 5 games look worse than the 19 that preceded them because 1) we went 16-3 in those 19 and 2) we are fast approaching 80% of our starting lineup being injured.

But I think we’re somewhat significantly better holistically, including in the playoffs, now that we have one of the better scorers in the NBA coming off the bench. Also, Burks helps too.

I mean these guys can really cook playing off hopefully healthy Brunson and Randle, and they can also hold down bench units offensively themselves.

I’ll plant my flag on the “pro” side of the trade and see how it ages.

All of this comes down to one guy as he clearly has a strong influence on organization decisions and that’s Thibs

All young players are gone at his request which leaves his supporters out of excuses

According to the lineup data on B-Ref, which looks at the top 20 lineups in minutes played, Bogs is on 7 of the 8 worst five-man lineups Detroit marched out. He is also on 3 of the worst 6 two-man lineups and doesn’t qualify for any other two-man lineups because he has missed a lot of time due to injury.

That’s a bonus I guess. He’ll be hurt a lot so that should at least limit the damage he does to our defense.

I find it hard to believe that Thibs was pushing hard for a guy like Bojan. He’s the anti-Thibs.

I find it hard to believe that Thibs was pushing hard for a guy like Bojan. He’s the anti-Thibs.

Burks was for Thibs, Bojan was for the rest of the Knicks’ FO.

I find it hard to believe that Thibs was pushing hard for a guy like Bojan. He’s the anti-Thibs.

Rose knew he couldn’t just get back Burks who is the guy Thibs really wanted so Bojan had to be in there..it’s still a Thibs trade

Fournier has never had a season as good as Bojan, let alone today’s Fournier who has been garbage every time he plays.

Fournier has never had a season with either 20 ppg or a .600 TS%.

Fournier isn’t good now and he’s never been as good as Bojan.

I would have preferred sending out a 1RP for Brogdon and just keeping Grimey, but maybe Portland really does want to hold onto Brogdon. Who knows what they are doing over there.

We’ve been hoarding these 1RPs for a trade that never seems to materialize. I still really don’t get what the endgame is supposed to be with all of that.

We will se what happens for the rest of the deadline , but if a guy like Tyus ends up going for just 2nds and a filler..

We added two very good shooters but they will be replacing Grimes, McBride, and DDV to a lesser extent who are also all good shooters.

It’s not like we are replacing Hart, Randle, or our centers.

Our shooting will not be that much better because we are simply replacing good shooters with other good shooters. The difference is not large and will be much smaller than the drop-off we will have defensively.

We’re going to need some 3PT volatility to go our way if we’re going to make some noise.

this and high level defense are the way forward for us…so be it, roll the dice…

Our shooting will not be that much better because we are simply replacing good shooters with other good shooters. The difference is not large and will be much smaller than the drop-off we will have defensively.

I think you could argue, though, that Bojan is an elite three-point shooter.

But yes, he’ll obviously be hunted on the other end of the court, we’ll see how they handle that.

Perhaps Grimes is hurt?

seems grimes was always hurt, or close to hurt…

HE CAN NOT JUMP…that is normally not a good thing in basketball…

especially if out rebounding the other team is your thing…not to say alec is a jumper, but he can handle the ball…and there it is…

bye quentin…hi alec – welcome back…

Bogs was at one point, not long ago, a very good NBA player.

Unfortunately, we are not getting that player. The player he is now is not good. People need to stop looking at anything he did a couple years ago because he is not that guy. He is about to be 35 and can’t defend a traffic cone.

From Hollinger:

Great move for the Knicks today to get Bojan Bogdanović and Alec Burks, but New York’s Villanova contingent is going to be upset. Even if Detroit waives Ryan Arcidiacono, as seems likely, the Knicks cannot reacquire him until after July 1. Arcidiacono played at ‘Nova with fellow Knicks Jalen Brunson, Josh Hart and Donte DiVincenzo.

Just get Archie court side season tickets, and make sure they’re in close enough proximity for the refs to hear him call out the defensive 3 seconds.

The New York Knicks have acquired Bojan Bogdanovic and Alec Burks from the Detroit Pistons in exchange for guards Evan Fournier, Quentin Grimes, Malachi Flynn, Ryan Arcidiacono and two second-round picks, sources told ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski.

not really gonna miss anyone there…didn’t read it, but were there any picks moved?

Bogs was at one point, not long ago, a very good NBA player.

But his shooting is still elite. Don’t get me wrong, I also think Bojan has hit the age wall, but I think that they can cover his awful defense pretty well, and it’s always nice to have a guy the other teams have to really pay attention to (as opposed to playing off of), so I think he could help. If he is truly washed on defense, though, yes, he won’t be played by Thibs for long.

Zach Harper gives us an A, the Pistons a B:

Bogdanović is a flat-out scorer. Over his last five and a half seasons, the 34-year-old has averaged 18.2 points with 46.6/40.5/85.9 shooting splits. Bring him off the bench when Randle is healthy, and he becomes arguably the best sixth-man scorer in the NBA. If Randle misses more time than anticipated, Bogdanović can be their starting forward and provide even more spacing for guys such as Jalen Brunson to cook. This is one of the best trades the Knicks have made in the last two decades, as they get serious about a deep playoff run. Giving up Grimes is tough, but they got two very good contributors in return.

bojan can take over evian’s role on the team…

we need someone who could handle the ball for the second unit…

i kind of remember alec doing some late 4th quarter gaffes though while handling the ball, was that a thing?

Burks was for Thibs, Bojan was for the rest of the Knicks’ FO.

I get that, but we should probably then just look at Bojan as a Fournier replacement at this point, and not judge the quality of the trade on how well he plays. I don’t like the trade, because I like Grimes, but there was quite a bit of support for Burks here and elsewhere. Getting Burks can be a Thibs thing, but I think trading Grimes is as much a front office thing as a Thibs thing, if that makes sense.

They’ll both be useful while the team needs warm bodies for the next few weeks.

This is one of the best trades the Knicks have made in the last two decades,

Lol come on

thanks well-educated…

hopefully we have enough firsts to actually draft someone useful for the roster…

oh, we are about to run alec ragged…hahahahaha…

Edit: the question maybe is:

alec burks > bruce brown jr.

???

you can already tell – i do not believe bojan will have much a role for us…

i hope i am wrong…

It’s funny, I was really hot for Bojan all year until you guys convinced me that he was unplayable on defense. We shall see.

Grimes wasn’t really shooting that great this year. TS+ is 93, eFG% is 97. And that is on 15.1 USG%.

Bogs is an elite shooter but that is not enough when everything else is so bad. I think all the talking heads have not been paying much attention to Detroit. Bogs has been nearly unplayable for them. Maybe the worst defender in the NBA this year. Maybe it’s effort and for us he approaches merely bad defensively but I doubt it.

This is going to feel a lot like Kemba.

We already have two poor defenders in Randle and Brunson and now we add another in Burks and top it off with a truly bad defender in Bogs. We just got considerably worse defensively, not a little worse but much much worse.

People realize we’re going to play Bojan like 15mpg in the playoffs, if that, right?

He’s a nice depth piece who can bomb away and is also a better driver than people here seem to realize.

Grimes wasn’t really shooting that great this year. TS+ is 93, eFG% is 97. And that is on 15.1 USG%.

But shooting comes around, usually. Unless you are Landry Fields. Defense however …

Grimes wasn’t really shooting that great this year. TS+ is 93, eFG% is 97. And that is on 15.1 USG%.

His defense is still good enough were he wouldn’t be played off the court though

If we got Mitch back we could run out a bench lineup of Burks, McBride, Bojan, Hart, and Mitch. Thibs would never do that, because he always plays comically short rotations, but you can easily see how it would be possible to paper over Bojan’s poor defense.

This definitely makes us better this year but I am disappointed that we systematically eliminated every single player on the team who had upside.

There was not going to be enough minutes or money to keep Grimes happy. To me it was obvious. Bogey is going to bring the word sieve back to the KB lexicon.

His defense is still good enough were he wouldn’t be played off the court though

Yeah but the problem is we just have too many guys like that, too many defense-oriented wings who can’t generate any usage and who look godawful when you play too many of them together.

We’ve all seen the zombie lineups that have zero scorers in them, those lineups are not effective. You’re not going to do well with Grimes, McBride, Hart and Precious all out there struggling on the offensive end. You have to have at least some semblance of a scoring threat out there.

Net-net not really that great a return for Barrett, Quickley, Grimes, and Toppin, now all gone

howdy E, i hope all is well, we’re finally getting a bit of sunshine out here…more and more though – i kind of like the rain…it’s so dry out here all the time…rain feels better for the skin…

i know this isn’t fantasy league stuff…these are real human beings…

if you simply look at them as assets:

LEON IS FREAKING CRUSHING IT THIS SEASON!!!

seriously you can spin round and round and round – and not point in any other direction – than that…

it just is what it is 😛

By the way, if Mitch actually does return this season, it does not sound like they plan on having him come off of the bench (I’m sure he will for the first few games, though, of course). It just struck me as interesting how much people have him penciled into a bench role, while every indication from the Knicks is that not only will he be the starter when he returns, that they are planning on the future involving Mitch being their starting center.

Their ideal starting lineup is Brunson, Mitchell, OG, Randle and Mitch.

It doesn’t really matter if he starts or not, I just think it’s interesting that people are assuming he’s going to be coming off the bench, when I don’t think that’s actually going to be the case.

Even calling Bogey an elite “shooter,” while accurate, kind of undersells him. Dude is flat out a great scorer. He only takes 49% of his shots from 3, this is not Steve Novak. He’s a bona fide 3-level scorer.

He’s in the 83rd percentile in usage among forwards, the 74th percentile in points per shot, and the 68th percentile in AST%. He’s a damn good offensive player. This is all from just this year.

There’s a lot of hyperbole in this thread, maybe because Bogey looks kind of like my 65 year-old father, which, fair. But I think people will warm up to him.

The fine folks at r/DetroitPistons are despondent

OMG – the comments on that board are hilarious…They make this group look downright optimistic!

Guys, Grimes isn’t that good. He’s taken a step back this year and isn’t super young. His 2pa is microscopic—literally all he’s done on offense over three years is shoot threes. He does not rank well by any all in one metric, and while he’s a solid PoA defender Deuce is at least as good in that role despite the height difference. We’re sad because we drafted him, not because we actually lost a player who’s going to raise our playoff or long-term ceiling. We got better now, maintained a contract for a future trade, at marginal cost. This trade is a big win unless Burks and Bojan immediately get injured.

Detroit Pistons Reddit doesn’t like Grimes??

Best defensive guard they have

so the Nets seem to be buying

That struck me more as them just dumping a guy they weren’t bringing back next season, while Toronto wanted the cap room for this offseason. Dinwiddie was basically benched, ya know?

In three weeks everyone will be complaining that Thibs is playing Precious instead of Bojan.

We’re sad because we drafted him, not because we actually lost a player who’s going to raise our playoff or long-term ceiling

I think people are mostly upset because they dumped him off for two older vets..even if you think his long term upside isn’t great

When you think about it… we gave Detroit a great pick to take Burks… and now we’re giving up Grimes to get him back… all while on the same contract!

Obviously Noel and Bojan were involved, too.

i don’t envision watching games in the future and seeing grimes in another uni..and saying “damn…i wish we hadn’t traded that guy”….i had higher hopes for him….sayonara…

I’m in the wait and see approach, because Leon has a recent track record of trading for players that end up working out just fine. So i fear for Bojan’s defense, but maybe we’ll be just fine and his offense was what we needed. Burks, unless he has taken a step back, is a good player and he’s ready to go because he knows the team and the way we play. For me, i’d have preferred Brogdon and Grimes to Burks and Bojan, but let’s wait for them to play in actual games to see how it goes. One last thing, i’m kind of sad we only have Mitch and Deuce left from all those young guys we drafted, but as it seems we’re hoping to make noise this season, so let’s enjoy the ride.

The Knicks second team: Mitch, Precious, Bojan, Hart and Burks.
How many NBA starting lineups aren’t as good?

Wait the Mavs can trade first…they just did for PJ Washington

For some reason I thought they couldn’t until there pick to NY converted

Another thing about Bojan to add to what Noble is saying is that he is a certifiably tough motherfucker. I feel like Thibs might be more willing to abide bad defense from someone who is a badass vs someone who is, well, French.

The Knicks second team: Mitch, Precious, Bojan, Hart and Burks.
How many NBA starting lineups aren’t as good?

That team beats the wizards and the current Hornets if Lamelo doesn’t play

Grimes was scoring 17pts/36 in January and getting to the basket/FT line more often. He’d look better if we had an actual PG for the 2nd unit. He’s not a star, but he’s the guy you want to slot next to one.

The overreaction around Bojan’s defense is kinda crazy to me. The Heat made the finals with Duncan Robinson in the rotation, one of the only guys in the league who possibly can’t even guard me.

As long as he comes in and scores in the same way he did in Detroit, we’ll be fine for the 20 or so minutes he plays. He won’t get played off the court if used in the right way.

I understand people like Grimes because we all get attached to young guys we drafted, but absolutely no one outside of Knicks fans seem to hold him in high regards, every analyst I’ve seen likes the trade for the Knicks. Maybe Knicks fans know best, maybe we’re all just a bit irrationally attached to the guy.

“The overreaction around Bojan’s defense is kinda crazy to me. The Heat made the finals with Duncan Robinson in the rotation, one of the only guys in the league who possibly can’t even guard me”.

Eric > Thibs

One of these guys to me is one of the best coaches ever

The overreaction around Bojan’s defense is kinda crazy to me.

I’m not going to overreact but playing for Thibs requires defense. It’ll be interesting to see how he’s used.

Burks was for Thibs, Bojan was for the rest of the Knicks’ FO.

Oh, I don’t buy that. Whatever flaws our FO has, Leon learns from his mistakes. We saw what happened with the stupid Cam trade, and I can’t imagine the team would acquire a significant piece — while also trading away a guy Thibs has long had fondness for(*) — without having buy-in from the coach.

It also sounds like OG could be out past the All-Star break, and we simply need healthy bodies, and especially people who can take the scoring load off of Brunson, if we don’t want our guy ground into dust long before the playoffs.

(*) No, I don’t like the optics either of the team having traded almost all of its young guys in less than a year. But case by case, Quickley is the only one who I feel was a significant loss, and we got OG for him, so that’s fine. Plus, Brunson’s explosion into superstardom has accelerated the timeline. Bogey and Burks are the only two old guys on the team now, and they’re both tertiary pieces. Everybody else is mid-late 20s.

The Mavs signing Grant Williams with their full MLE and then promptly trading him and a top-2 protected pick for PJ Washington does not strike me as a great series of transactions

The only thing that I wonder about is that this was clearly Rose looking at the situation as “What’s the best return I can get without trading any future assets that I need for my godfather offer for Mitchell this offseason?”

And, well, I don’t know if that’s the best way to look at things.

I think this applied to the OG trade, as well.

If Bojan is truly unplayable in the playoffs, we can just straight up bench the dude:

Deuce, Burks, Hart, OG, Mitch/iHart

Either way, we can slot him between some of the best defenders in the league

Bogey’s been a starter practically his entire career and played starters’ minutes and now he’s going to be happy and effective coming here and playing 15-20 minutes per game?

I sure hope they talked this over with the player and his agent if that’s what they had in mind for him.

Shams Charania
@ShamsCharania

Brooklyn is finalizing a trade sending Royce O’Neale to Phoenix for salaries and three second-round picks, sources tell
@TheAthletic

Could be an interesting move on a long term outlook, Royce and Mitchell are best friends..does he not consider Brooklyn after this

Deuce, Burks, Hart, OG, Mitch/iHart

That lineup sucks, but more likely Burks is your new PG2 anyway.

While everyone is lining up to tout Leon’s record he is the one who signed both Walker and Fournier and tanked our defense two years ago. This is a lot like that. The only reason it isn’t as bad is neither Burks nor Bogs will be starting.

I am sorry but Grimes is a nice player. He was never going to be a star but he is a plus defender who can hit threes. He was also finally showing some signs of life in creating offense since the trade. Young defenders who can hit threes have value in the NBA always. It is impossible to have too many 3 and D players.

Leon didn’t want to deal with extension talk so he moved Grimes. We have now given away both Grimes and Toppin for almost nothing. Neither is a world-beater but we have felt Toppin’s absence this year and we will feel Grimes’s as well.

howdy E, i hope all is well, we’re finally getting a bit of sunshine out here…more and more though – i kind of like the rain…it’s so dry out here all the time…rain feels better for the skin…

Hey, geo — yeah much better for the skin, mine is now dried to a crisp notwithstanding all the lotion. Pebble could use some sun though …..

In three weeks everyone will be complaining that Thibs is playing Precious instead of Bojan.

I will make the craziest prediction of the day:

Before the year is over there will be people clamoring for Bojan to take minutes from Randle.

Brunson with DDV, OG, Bojan is going to be everyone’s favorite combo.

(Although if ever there was a time to play Randle at the 5, it’s now.)

We have now given away both Grimes and Toppin for almost nothing.

Obi is a one position player who can’t rebound or defend and is up for a new contract. The Obi issue was drafting him in the first place because he was CAA and ignoring better players in the draft

You could say Obi is a less talented version of Bogi

Upside

1. Over the short term we have a deeper bench and more consistent scoring/outside shooting.

2. We finally gave Fournier his freedom

3. We won’t have to negotiate with Grimes or deal with any restricted free agent issues.

4. The Bojan contract replaces the Fournier contract as salary filler in the summer or next year.

Downside

1. IMO the Knicks are still NOT a serious enough contender to be tossing aside young players with upside for old men.

2. Grimes is a solid defender and when on the court with OG (with Mitch behind them) would have been a defensive lineup to reckon with.

3. IMO Grimes’ short term shooting woes were mostly nonsensical noise.

4. IMO making moves because of injuries so they can win a few extra games is idiotic (if things like OG and Randle being hurt were considerations). We aren’t contending for anything unless those two guys are back and healthy. Who cares about a few extra wins in the regular season of we are going nowhere?

For me this trade is a small negative. We will “probably” be better for the rest of the year, but it doesn’t satisfy my criteria of being beneficial both short and long term. I say “probably” because that depends on how much the defense suffers with these other guys on the court instead of Grimes.

The only reason it isn’t as bad is neither Burks nor Bogs will be starting.

That’s…an enormous difference. This was a trade to bolster our bench scoring, not assemble our starting backcourt.

I am sorry but Grimes is a nice player. He was never going to be a star but he is a plus defender who can hit threes. He was also finally showing some signs of life in creating offense since the trade. Young defenders who can hit threes have value in the NBA always. It is impossible to have too many 3 and D players.

I agree with all of this, but since we got one of the better scorers in the NBA for him I’m going to go ahead and say we valued him properly. I would also be upset if I thought Bogey was a bum, but alas I think he is one of a relatively small number of players in the 20 PPG/60% TS club, and is thus not a bum.

We have now given away both Grimes and Toppin for almost nothing.

I hate to say it, but the Toppin trade is aging fairly well. Second-round picks seem to have gone up in value and Obi is looking like, well, a good-but-limited backup power forward. The Pacers may well let him walk, and then they’ll be the ones with egg on their face.

They are both declining and had negative +/-, and negative BPM, and both made the Pistons worse defensively when they were on the court.

I don’t know if this trade is good or not, but I’m not worried about the low plus minus. When your team loses almost all its games almost all the overall plus minuses are going to be bad.

I am a little disappointed about Grimes but it’s mostly just that he never made the leap. I can’t fault Leon for this one. We needed reinforcements.

The Mavs signing Grant Williams with their full MLE and then promptly trading him and a top-2 protected pick for PJ Washington does not strike me as a great series of transactions

When the sale of Mavs was negotiated, the buyer should have offered more money just to keep Cuban away from the team.

We’re not hybrid-ing anymore, we are clearly in the “win now” part of the curve, for better or worse.

Hah, I just realized that the first ep of Brunson and Hart’s new podcast — which they recorded days ago, if not longer — will be dropping after their guy Archie got traded away… again. And I’m sure there is gonna be a lot of Villanova talk in the premiere.

Also, Strat, is it possible to place a wager on the Knicks resigning Archie in the summer? Because it feels like the biggest lock of all time.

I’m not sure the Knicks should be done. Someone useful could shake loose in the buyout market.

Ian Begley
@IanBegley

Sixers have been engaged on acquiring big man before 3pm, per sources; also, Utah really likes Kris Dunn. Would presumably take significant package to move him. MIL is among the teams in touch with Utah on Dunn, as
@JakeLFischer
said. Asking price for Jordan Clarkson remains high

Amazing that Dunn was sitting out in free agency forever and no teams wanted him..always been an elite defender

IMO the Knicks are still NOT a serious enough contender to be tossing aside young players with upside for old men.

I said this earlier but when the numbers say you’re a top 5 team, or at least in that ballpark, it would be negligent to not consider trades in which you trade future equity for present equity.

Between aging, roster turnover, injuries, and other unexpected shit you really never know how many of those seasons you’ll have.

That doesn’t mean you throw basic analysis out the window and upgrade at all costs, but the Knicks should in fact be focused on acquisitions that make them better right now. Trading on the future upside of Quentin Grimes is a responsible, calculated risk in this context. At a certain point you have to take the numbers seriously.

I’m not sure the Knicks should be done. Someone useful could shake loose in the buyout market.

They have two open spots, but spots are only valuable if the players want to join your team

The bad +/- isn’t in comparison to the other team but compared to the other Detroit players.

When Bogs was on the court the Pistons were outscored by 13.5, when he was off the court they were outscored by 6.2. That means Bogs made the already worst team in the NBA 7.3 points worse per 100/poss.

Burks made the Pistons 1.5 points worse. Not nearly as bad but still concerning.

Both Burks and Bogs have been net-negatives this year. Maybe it changes when they get here but that seems like a risky bet.

It makes sense, role players like Burks often fall off a cliff in their 30s, better players like Bogs might hold on a bit longer but he is going to be 35 before the playoffs. A huge decline in effectiveness is not surprising.

If we’re doing the raw +/- thing, Burks made the Pistons 10.6 PTS/100 better last year. Bogey was 100% neutral last year.

So you can choose to believe both guys have absolutely fallen off a cliff over the last few months despite their other numbers being more or less consistent, or you can choose to believe this is an incredibly noisy stat under normal circumstances, and that will only be exacerbated on a mess of a team like the Pistons.

The Bucks just got Patrick Beverly that kind of helps there defense .. but why would Philly help them

Lol this thread is hilarious! I’ll weigh in later with, as usual, the correct opinion on this trade.

Shams Charania
@ShamsCharania
·

The Detroit Pistons are releasing 2021 No. 7 pick Killian Hayes, sources tell me and
@JLEdwardsIII

This guy couldn’t fit in the trade
.

Educate_the_weaksays:
February 8, 2024 at 11:35
Evil donte replaces Monte Morris…

And the Villanova boys lose there buddy

You’re educating people but you don’t know how to spell “their”? Wow.

Just look at the draft night …Knicks don’t even use there picks to select players anymore [ Trevor Keels was the last player to get drafted under Rose and Thibs]

Lordy, there it is again. It wasn’t even a typo. You actually think it’s spelled that way.

And it’s Bogdanovic, not Bogdanovich.

It’s possible they haven’t, but there’s no reason to just kneejerk assume the validity of the null hypothesis “Alec Burks and Bojan Bogdanovic haven’t fallen off a cliff this year.”

They are both aging veterans.

PJ has an EPM of negative 2.2 and he got a 1st…

Grimes EPM this season negative 0.9, Bogs negative 1.2

Well, most pundits seem to think we did very well with this deal. Bogs and Burks are fine bench parts though not too exciting. But extra 3pt shooting is always nice.

The best part?: not trading any 1sts

The worst part?: it sounds like OG (and maybe Randle/Mitch) could miss extensive time, which really kills our playoff seeding/chances.

I liked Grimes but worst case scenario, if we don’t pull the trigger on a star trade, we have two 2024 1sts to replace him with… yes, we might make a draft pick or two!

In summary, this rash of injuries means more to this year’s playoffs than any deadline trade, so we’ll just have to wait and see how that goes.

Anyone want to do a deep dive on Bojangle’s defensive ratings and ranks over the years, including this one? Got some deadlines here, but would love to read a report other than “he sucks on D.”

I think the Burks +/- stuff is probably mostly noise. He is still a huge step down defensively from Grimes but he will be useful. Overall not an improvement, but for this year a mostly lateral move. I think he is not a PG though so that problem isn’t really fixed.

I think Bogs, however, is truly shot. I might be wrong but I think he is not going to be very useful. If he is in the rotation for more than spot minutes to stretch the floor come playoff time I will be surprised, or something will have gone terribly wrong.

We sold low on Grimes but that’s also just sort of how it worked out, he’s been only intermitently good this year. I don’t really love Burks or Boj-I think they’re both too old-but they can shoot and we need some guys who can play for a month while we heal up. So if they jack up 3s and settle into giving Thibs a little more tactical flexibility and scoring off the bench I think it’s fine, we didn’t give up much to get them.

It’s possible they haven’t, but there’s no reason to just kneejerk assume the validity of the null hypothesis “Alec Burks and Bojan Bogdanovic haven’t fallen off a cliff this year.”

Sure, which is why I would make the case, one way or the other, using numbers less noisy than raw +/-.

The individual numbers both guys have put up this season have been cited extensively already. I am not seeing “fell off a cliff” in either case. I’m seeing high efficiency, high usage scoring in both cases.

I said this earlier but when the numbers say you’re a top 5 team,

IMO SRS and other such measurements like that are not any good. There are a million things models like that don’t consider.

IMO the Knicks are not a top 5 team yet.

They may have temporarily jumped the 76ers due to the Embiid injury, but healthy against healthy I’d rate Boston, Milwaukee, Philly, and Cleveland over us in the east. I’d rate Denver and the LA Clippers over us in the west. The Suns if they stay healthy are probably better than us. OKC is probably better than us, but we’d have seasoning and experience over them. The T-Wolves are in our ballpark. The Lakers are not better than us over the course of a season, but their 2 best players are both better than ours and they will be geared up to another level in meaningful games compared to how they play in the regular season.

We are good enough to compete with any of those teams, but we’d be the underdog in many of those matchups and close favorites in a couple where we’d be no lock to win.

IMO we are still an upgrade away from being a “contender”.

Didn’t we wash Cleveland last year? Isn’t Milwaukee worse on defense and coached by Doc Rivers?

I would really reserve judgment on what a +/- on the Pistons means for Bojan or Burks. on a good team (like ours), both these guys are bench players playing 15-20 min/game against backups – but on the Pistons they were basically scoring options 2 and 3 after Cade and in Bojan’s case, trying to guard the Jayson Tatums of the world.

They’re here to juice the bench offense, which is clearly what this team needs after the addition of OG. The starting lineup is REALLY good. The bench was good on D and horrendous on O (literally 0th percentile if I remember correctly!). I think this move is a good mix between keeping our powder dry for the Big Trade and giving us a little more firepower to go after this year.

+/- is very noisy but when a 34-year-old player, who was never a good defender anyway, puts up seemingly elite offensive stats but has the worst +/- on his already terrible team you have to at least take some notice.

When he is on the court the Pistons have a DRTG of 127.4 That is five and a half points worse than the worst defense in the NBA. The Pistons without him on the floor jump to 118.2 which would be 21st.

I am going back to work. What a terrible day. Hopefully, I am wrong.

There are a wide variety of takes, which is good. I personally think it was a good trade. I think we may see a jump, improvement in both Bojan and Burks’ defense. Sometimes when players go from really bad teams, one of the worst in the NBA, and come to a very good team with good defensive coaches, there defense will improve. The culture of the Pistons is just not good, and hasn’t been good. Reminds me of the Knicks from 5, 10, years ago. Also, we needed to get a good contract (Bojan’s) to trade next year. I like this trade, a lot. We will miss Grimes on defense, but if our team is healthy, we will be a very good team.

“For some reason I thought they couldn’t until there pick to NY converted”

And there it is yet again. Dumb. Yuck.

“The Bucks just got Patrick Beverly that kind of helps there defense .. but why would Philly help them”

And there it is for the fourth time. Really, really, *really* bad.

And it’s Beverley, not Beverly.

I also think Deuce will still get minutes. At least at first. He would be effective playing alongside of Burks. Deuce needs another ball handler to play with him. Burks is at least adequate at that.

Obviously, us having the 5th best SRS, net rating, etc. does not mean we are the 5th best team in the NBA. The question is do you trust those numbers enough to say we should entertain future-for-present value trades?

I don’t know how you could come to any conclusion other than yes at this point, especially considering we racked up a bunch of the data before a major trade that pretty clearly made us better.

Since I’m not blanked opposed to such trades, I think this was a good one all things considered. Yes, we traded future equity for present equity. No way around that. But I think the future equity (Grimes) has mild upside while we got somewhat substantially better in the present. It was a perfectly sensible tradeoff IMO.

geo, he’s definitely *not* well-educated.

What happened to Brother Love, by the way?

IF we can get to the playoffs healthy the starters are going to be something like:

Mitch/IHart
Randle
OG
DDV
Brunson

Randle, OG and Brunson are playing 40 minutes a night, Mitch and I Hart are playing some combination of 48 minutes of center. Depending on the matchups Josh might get some minutes from DDV, but there’s not a lot of time for Bojan and Burks and Deuce. If Bojan is getting fucking cooked by some team just bench him and ride with Josh or Precious at the 4 for like 6 minutes.

The Knicks are the 2nd best team in the East by SRS and are barely behind the Cavs in the standings despite our current raft of injuries (the Mobley and Garland injuries did not hurt the Cavs nearly as much as ours imo since Cleveland’s starting 5 is super duplicative.) The Wolves and Thunder are currently unproven in the playoffs (as a matter of fact, I think that they will be a bit exposed in the playoffs), Denver has lost some juice, the Sixers are going to drop like rocks and may have a hobbled Embiid in the playoffs, the Bucks roster is ill-conceived and poorly coached, and the Clippers can’t play defense and are perpetually one injury away from catastrophe.

The only team that looked truly difficult to beat in a 7 game series before this trade was Boston. Now, we’re just one Tatum/Brown stinker away from a finals appearance and, by hypothesis, a championship.

Think about Morey’s “5% rule” (can you make a move such that you have at least a 5% chance to win a championship this season?). By my lights, we already had at least a 5% chance of winning a championship post-OG-trade. If you think the Morey rule or something similar to it is a good team-building heuristic, then we should clearly adjust our strategy away from the future and towards the present. We have good reason to be firmly in win-now mode. Even if we didn’t have good reason to be in win-now mode, the deal was still good value in a vacuum and didn’t impact our future flexibility. To me this is as clear a win as we’ve had in a while–the biggest one since the Brunson signing.

I think it is preparation for a big trade, though, in the sense that they didn’t trade away any future picks. I imagine the deal will be Bogie and every pick possible for Mitchell.

I dunno, Brian. Any team that trades away a major star will want 1-2 young prospects with upside. We have zero of those now.

Grimes 99th percentile outcome is “solid role player.” Obviously they shopped him all around the league and this was the best offer they got, so there’s not some large opportunity cost to this move.

If you need another Quentin Grimes in the future, just go and get yourself another Quentin Grimes. They’re in Aisle 24. The Nuts and Bolts aisle.

just watching nba today….perk, windy and rj all gave the move(s) big thumbs up…fwiw…said the knicks won the day..

Lol at comments that Bojan won’t play. Stop being emotional. I bet NBA every day so I’ve watched my share of Detroit games. That guy can put the ball in the hoop. He’s going to anchor the second unit offense and get time with Brunson between OG and Randle being out. Did I want to lose Grimes? Of course not, but this team needs scoring and he’s going to give it and give it efficiently as well as take a lot of burden off Brunson for the short term with OG and Randle down.

I used to like Richard Jefferson, but he’s become a hot take guy, much like Scottie Pippen. I used to not like Kendrick Perkins, but he’s generally been making more sense lately, and doesn’t mind telling Stephen A. when he is saying something stupid (which is usually).

The Unbearable Knicksiness of Being

SRS does not consider all the injuries other teams have had over the course of the season, how depth means less in the playoffs than the regular season, how the game changes in the playoffs, how having an elite closer wins close games and other factors that come into who is actually the favorite to win a playoff contest.

SRS is just a kind quick rough estimate.

Like I said, at 100% healthy the Knicks are going to give anyone a tough time, but imo we’d be the underdog in more than 4-5 of the potential series.

I haven’t even thought about the fully healthy rotation because, well, we’re so god damn far off from having to worry about it. I mean, I’m not even including Mitch in my definition of “fully healthy” and he was making a god damn DPOY case before he went down. Things are definitely very crowded, here’s a quick stab at it:

Brunson 34/Burks 14

DDV 30/Bogey 12/Burks 6

OG 32/Bogey 8/Hart 8

Randle 34/Hart 12/OG 2

iHart 28/Precious 20

The positions are far from perfect–Bogey technically doesn’t play much SG anymore–but the minutes distributions seem more or less like what we’ll try initially whenever the time comes.

Deuce may be “situational” in Thibs parlance, but between matchups and injuries I’m sure he’ll wind up playing a bunch as long as he at least keeps shooting well. Maybe he can eat into the Burks minutes if that experiment doesn’t go so well.

Any team that trades away a major star will want 1-2 young prospects with upside. We have zero of those now.

Simple, we just draft 2 this year

July 7th – February 8th

The hybrid method is dead, long live the win now mode, in 7 months we’ve traded all our first rounders of the last 5 drafts.

I understand why they feel this is a good year to go for it, they think the East is wide open (maybe outside of the Celtics) and on paper when at full strenght we’re better and more balanced, this “new” team looks really good with a great starting-5 and good (now) well rounded bench.

At the same time, while we won this trade and we’re better in the short term, I’m sad for Grimes, I don’t like watching a 23-years old guy with some interesting skills, and still developing, traded for two declining veterans that recently made their numbers on a historically bad team (maybe they’re keeping their energy for a trade to a contender, we’ll see*).

Now the gloves are off, we “must” go deep in the playoffs, because after all this moves this time a first round exit will be a disappointing result.

And let’s hope Leon makes well with his “nuclear move”** this summer.

* I watched an unappropiate amount of Pistons games because usually their home games start earlier, Bogdanovic is still a great shooter and can score in many ways, he’ll help our bench a lot… and yes, he’s a turnstile on defense, but playing for a Champioship multiplies the effort 😉

** I’m not sure what that move will be, right now I can’t see a valuable “superstar”, not even Spida, ready to be traded or asking for a trade, but these things change rapidly.

I’ve watched my share of Detroit games. That guy can put the ball in the hoop. He’s going to anchor the second unit offense and get time with Brunson between OG and Randle being out.

that’s encouraging stuff…

Brunson 34/Burks 14

DDV 30/Bogey 12/Burks 6

OG 32/Bogey 8/Hart 8

Randle 34/Hart 12/OG 2

iHart 28/Precious 20

Bogey is not a SG, and Burks is not a PG. If you play them out of position you are going to suffer. Burks can play as a PG for the offense, but then you need to have Deuce next to him so he can be a SG defensively.

We have good defenders, we should be looking to match the speed of the opponent while matching or bringing more size. Speed/size mismatches trade defense for offense. This is usally done by going small, because teams usually have more small players than big ones. But if you go too big, you also trade defense for offense.

Having Burks or Bogey at PG and SG will have the rest of the team scrambling for position whenever they are beat on the dribble. That negates our advantage on D. Perhaps if Mitch is back you can live with Mitch covering as much of that as he can, but I don’t think iHart does the same (even if he is a great defender against opposing Cs and PFs)

Who cares if the Knicks are underdogs vs the top few teams, they have a legitimate chance at beating all of them.

I hart is better than Mitch..

Yes, if you consider defense AND offense he’s better, and in my opinion not by a small margin (I hope we’ll re-sign him).

Kispert > Burks or Bojan

Probably 🙂

Is Zach Lowe with CAA?

Yes 😀

Doogie, you’re getting kind of sloppy, their was an instance of DVD (instead of DDV) and you said nothing! 🤭 😛 😀

Obviously, us having the 5th best SRS, net rating, etc. does not mean we are the 5th best team in the NBA. The question is do you trust those numbers enough to say we should entertain future-for-present value trades?

I don’t know how you could come to any conclusion other than yes at this point, especially considering we racked up a bunch of the data before a major trade that pretty clearly made us better.

We are going to have to agree to disagree.

I think you should always be building a team with short term, medium term, and long term considerations unless a player is clearly the missing piece for a serious championship run.

With OG, we gave up two younger player with more upside than him, but he’s also young enough to be part of this team’s future for a long time (through the next contract at least). So that was fine. We got better short term without really sacrificing much medium term given the age of our other key players.

With this trade, we gave away a good young defensive player with upside for two guys that probably won’t be here next year. Burks will probably be gone and Bojan is just the substitute filler contract that Fournier represented. Now granted, I think we got better short term, but imo the injury part of the equation should not even be a consideration. We are going nowhere without a healthy Randle and OG.

So the question becomes did this trade improve our title chances enough THIS YEAR to warrant giving away Grimes for the medium and long term?

I don’t think so.

As rotten as it would have been for him, we could have kept Fournier one more year as the salary filler and stayed with Grimes. Maybe a decent player would have been available in the buyout market to at least help with the short term injury issues. If everyone doesn’t get healthy, so be it we are going nowhere this year anyway.

I don’t hate the trade. I just don’t like it even if we win a few extra regular season games because of it. I don’t think it moved the championship needle much this year.

I’m with JK here. I think you can replace Grimes’ value in the draft this offseason if the Knicks draft intelligently. Plus, you’re essentially trading one decent rotation player for two that will give you at least good depth. I won’t say the two 2nds is nothing, I just believe it’s a win that the Knicks strengthened their bench without using a 1RP.

As to what the purpose will be with the extra 1RPs? Obviously I can’t say I know for sure. But I believe it insures a good deal of future fluidity at a baseline.

Who cares if the Knicks are underdogs vs the top few teams, they have a legitimate chance at beating all of them.

They already had a legitimate chance of beating all of them before this trade IF HEALTHY. If they are not healthy, we are toast either way. So did this trade improve the chances of us winning it all this year alone (these guys will be gone next year) to warrant giving up Grimes (who is a better defender than both of them). I’m not so sure about that. It’s going to help us win regular season games this year because we are hurt now. I’m less certain about a title or long term.

I dunno, Brian. Any team that trades away a major star will want 1-2 young prospects with upside. We have zero of those now.

They’d certainly prefer them, sure, but if you overload them with picks, they’ll still take the picks (and the Knicks would presumably also trade the draft rights to some players in the 2024 Draft in the deal, as well). Houston didn’t get any players back in the Harden deal.

Basically, it’d be telling Cleveland, “Mitchell is leaving after 2024-25, wouldn’t it be better for you to get a shitload of assets to trade for a replacement star than lose him for nothing?”

Between Garland, Mobley and Allen, the Cavaliers have enough good players that they can compete without Mitchell if they flip the stuff they’d get for Mitchell for other players.

This is all predicated on Cleveland not making noise in the 2024 playoffs, of course. If they make it to the Conference Finals, I bet they keep Mitchell and just roll the dice.

I know, Cyber. I saw it. Just got distracted by work before having an opportunity to respond, and then forgot about it afterwards. 🙂

Lol at comments that Bojan won’t play. Stop being emotional. I bet NBA every day so I’ve watched my share of Detroit games. That guy can put the ball in the hoop.

I agree. Those concerns will not age well. Once people start to see how easy it is for Bojan to score, support for this trade will be overwhelming.

DJM, Brown and Brogdon all staying put it seems.

Think Toronto picks up Brown’s option and then trades him in the offseason?

I’m trying to catch up with all the trades…

Dallas made a couple of good moves, Gafford and PJ Washington are nice pieces for a team with two uber scorers/usage guys like Luka and Kyrie…

Holy shit. In-Season Tournament naming rights sold. It’s going to be the Emirates NBA Cup. That’s gross as fuck.

At some point Thibs has to try this, even though it’s completely out of character:

Brunson
DDV
OG
Bojan
Randle

Dallas being good is good for us, right? Or was that only the case last year (when they so obviously tanked), but not this year?

Emirates NBA Cup. Grossest as fuck. What were they (not) thinking?

Holy shit. In-Season Tournament naming rights sold. It’s going to be the Emirates NBA Cup. That’s gross as fuck.

Money money money…

Hilariously, Marcus Morris is going to end up in San Antonio (I’m sure they’ll buy him out, though).

The Pacers picked up Doug McDermott to replace Hield. That makes the Hield trade make a little more sense.

Strat you can’t just hand wave away the fact that Bogey is signed through next year. If he’s not on the team next year, it will almost certainly be because we made a trade for a star, in which case I don’t think anyone will be crying over Quentin Grimes.

Again, I’ll grant that it’s a short-term oriented trade in a sense. The fact that it improves our title chances this year and next was pretty clearly a factor…but it absolutely should be!

It’s always more comfortable to go for a long window approach in which you never trade away any future value, but realistically very few contenders are built that way. Painful decisions have to be made at some point, and being roughly the 5th best team in the league justifies trading away some amount of future value.

I am 100% comfortable with Quentin Grimes constituting the future value going out here, and honestly I think anyone who isn’t is endowment effecting themselves.

There was a time I was higher on him and probably would’ve been lower on this trade, but more data came in and he stagnated. Sucks, but it is what it is and it might be for the best that we got out of the Quentin Grimes business before even more data came in. Quite frankly, I think it’s more likely that in 5 years it looks kinda funny that he was the centerpiece of a semi-big trade than it is that he makes us regret the move.

Of course, it’s also possible he breaks out and we rue the day. That’s a risk you take when you’re in 5% land.

Would Dinwiddie make any sense here as a buyout guy? He could be a break in case of emergency point guard.

Dallas being good is good for us, right? Or was that only the case last year (when they so obviously tanked), but not this year?

Good but not too good, so our pick will be better 😉

P.S.
Lakers staying put makes LeBron mad?

Dallas being good is good for us, right? Or was that only the case last year (when they so obviously tanked), but not this year?

We want them as close to the 10th pick as possible without being the 10th pick. So we want them bad, but not too bad

Dallas being good is good for us, right? Or was that only the case last year (when they so obviously tanked), but not this year?

The situation is exactly the same, except for the fact that if the pick doesn’t convey this year it conveys as two seconds.

We want them to be bad, but not so bad that the pick gets protected again. Honestly though, after last year’s chicanery I’m pretty much fine with it conveying wherever as long as it conveys at all.

If I knew Dinwiddie would get bought out, I’d have argued for keeping Grimes and just grabbing him. I kinda think we grab Lowry instead.

Lakers staying put makes LeBron mad?

This summer they can trade an additional first round pick, so I think he knows they’ll get him his third star this offseason.

and yes, he’s a turnstile on defense,

Who isn’t these days, though?

There’s like 5 wings in the NBA who make a difference on defense, and we already have one of them.

Dinwiddie would make a lot of sense for us, but not for him. He’s not going to go from being a 30 MPG player to being our emergency point guard.

Dinwiddie is better than both Burks and Bogs and we could have had him for free. That is really funny. I still think we should try and grab him. He could be helpful. Less likely he comes here though since we now have less minutes to offer.

I would *love* to get Dinwiddie for free, although he’s been playing beyond beyond awful as of late. He’s got a good enough track record that kicking the tires on him would be more than worth it.

Strat you can’t just hand wave away the fact that Bogey is signed through next year. If he’s not on the team next year, it will almost certainly be because we made a trade for a star, in which case I don’t think anyone will be crying over Quentin Grimes.

As I said earlier, as cruel as it would have been, we could have kept Fournier for another year as the salary filler if we had to.

As I said earlier, as cruel as it would have been, we could have kept Fournier for another year as the salary filler if we had to.

But salary filler is not as good as a 20 PPG/60% TS NBA player!

I would *love* to get Dinwiddie for free, although he’s been playing beyond beyond awful as of late. He’s got a good enough track record that kicking the tires on him would be more than worth it.

I’m not sure what’s going on in Dallas and I already know that Cuban has made a lot of bad moves in recent years but Dinwiddie played some of the best basketball of his life in Dallas playing off Doncic. If they can get him as a buyout I think that would be a great move for them.

We aren’t contending for anything unless those two guys are back and healthy. Who cares about a few extra wins in the regular season of we are going nowhere?

OK, but assuming Randle and OG can come back, doesn’t this trade allow them both to come back when they are fully healed and not rush back because we’re losing games and risking falling into the play-in? Like now we have some reinforcements and can potentially tread water in the 3rd to 6th seed range while those dudes get healthy.

This comes back to the ole “regular season wins are meaningless” fallacy. The standings are pretty tight. Losing games we should win potentially can add up to us either missing the playoffs entirely or being in a position where we face Boston in the first round and go out early.

But salary filler is not as good as a 20 PPG/60% TS NBA player!

We are getting 1 year of a matador defender that’s a much better scorer for many years of Grimes’ good defense and upside. So how much has Bojan improved our chances of a title this year assuming we are even 100% healthy? That’s the question. The salary part would have gotten via Fournier. It’s debatable, but I’d rather have Grimes than sell at the bottom.

Losing games we should win potentially can add up to us either missing the playoffs entirely or being in a position where we face Boston in the first round and go out early.

With this particular Eastern Conference, I think the Knicks aren’t going to have to worry about playing Boston in the first round. Especially not with the freefall of the Sixers sans Embiid.

OK, but assuming Randle and OG can come back, doesn’t this trade allow them both to come back when they are fully healed and not rush back because we’re losing games and risking falling into the play-in? Like now we have some reinforcements and can potentially tread water in the 3rd to 6th seed range while those dudes get healthy.

I understand and agree with that line of reasoning.

I guess I don’t think we are as close to a serious title run as the most optimistic people here and our recent good results suggest. I think we need another more serious upgrade. That’s what I expect them to try to pull off this summer or next trade deadline.

We are getting 1 year of a matador defender that’s a much better scorer for many years of Grimes’ good defense and upside. So how much has Bojan improved our chances of a title this year assuming we are even 100% healthy?

I will repeat, Bojan Bogdanovich is signed through next season if we want him to be. He is not a rental.

Okay, here’s my take. I think it was in the same category as the OG trade…not as much of a win as that trade but a legitimate upgrade.

My two biggest disappointments this year before the OG trade were that RJ and Grimes didn’t show any improvement. Ultimately, I lost faith in either guy having much of a ceiling. RJ’s contract was an overpay, and Grimes didn’t seem to have retained the value he has at the time of the Spida deal.

So now that we are on the cusp of contending, I don’t see any objective reason to keep waiting on Grimes’ further development. Burks and Bojan are about all you could expect in return for him and a couple of seconds.

As to the firsts we didn’t squander, I think this is a reflection of the new CBA and the perils of the second apron. Draft picks have probably increased in value as low-cost ways to acquire players once the team is capped out. It’s clear that the teams holding on to players like Brogdon and DeJounte aren’t making deals unless they get firsts back in return.

So while I will miss IQ and Grimes (and even RJ and Obi) I don’t really feel badly now that they are gone, because they have been replaced by mostly rootable, or at least better, players. Bojan and Burks are not studs, but they will be just fine in limited roles.

Also, I don’t care much about our new mercs’ stats in DET. Playing with a bunch of not-so-precocious neophytes on a team that set a record for consecutive losses had to fucking suck, and it must have been an enormous struggle for them to get 100% up for those games. I think you will see a marked difference in their level of play when they get here.

Who isn’t these days, though?

There’s like 5 wings in the NBA who make a difference on defense, and we already have one of them.

Hubie, there are a lot of nuances between “turnstile” and “make a difference on defense”, how about “average” or “slightly below average”? 😉

I think he was a better defender than he was credited for when he was in Utah, he’s stronger than people thinks and he’s better watching 4s than 3s.

Anyway, he’ll be a bench player when we’re at full strength and his scoring punch will help the second unit a lot.

I know folks are ragging on Bojan’s D, but tell me, are you expecting someone like him to bust his ass on defense at nearly age 35 when boneheads like Cade, Ivey, Ausar, Killian, etc. are making it literally impossible to win no matter what you do?

Robin Lopez @rolopez42:
I enjoyed being teammates with Patrick Beverley for all of an hour and 45 minutes I’ll never forget those times

😂😂😂

It is not so much about Bojan playing good or bad defense with Detroit but about fit. Our players are overachieving because they are a good fit. We have been playing lineups where our SG-SF-PF are willing defenders and also quite switchable. That takes away the bread and butter of lot of opposing, who move the ball among their wings for a mismatch. Suddenly, everything is more difficult because they can’t get that one on one action that sets in motion the rest of the team. They have to resort to more complicated sets, and they are not used to that. That will not happen with Bojan. It is not the end of the world, we will have to send help defenders, but our opponents will be in more familiar an comfortable territory, and our advantage will have disappeared.

Reasonable point: should we have kept Grimes and instead wade into the buyout pool? Presumably Kyle Lowry? Who looked quite washed this season but is still Kyle Lowry? Or Spencer Dinwiddie?

Not reasonable point – that our 2nd unit as constituted could survive in anything resembling a playoff setting.

Again – our 2nd unit post-OG trade was basically McBride, Grimes, Hart, OG, and a center. That group had a 0th percentile offense (97) and a 100th percentile defense (90.7). Trouble is – in a playoff setting you have to imagine that offense would be like 83 ORtg and the defense, while great, would probably still be quite underwater against playoff D.

We needed more shooting. We saw that last year in the playoffs. The question is whether Thibs will ever ever take his blankee Josh Hart off the floor if teams are just ignoring him.

They have to resort to more complicated sets, and they are not used to that. That will not happen with Bojan. It is not the end of the world, we will have to send help defenders, but our opponents will be in more familiar an comfortable territory, and our advantage will have disappeared.

Guys – really — Bojan will be just fine playing 10 minutes/game in the playoffs against bench units. He is not going to be on the floor very much unless we’re way behind and needing all the shooting we can get.

Robin Lopez @rolopez42:
I enjoyed being teammates with Patrick Beverley for all of an hour and 45 minutes I’ll never forget those times

I miss RoLo so so much at times like this.

If people think Bojan, who again is averaging 20 PPG with a 60% TS, is washed, they would’ve had a grand ol’ time with Kyle Lowry.

Dinwiddie is a more intriguing option, but he’s not a scorer at all and our bench was lacking scoring. I’m not sure how far Dinwiddie’s playmaking would’ve gone whipping the ball around to Deuce McBride and Precious Achiuwa.

Besides, I don’t think sitting around and hoping, probably incorrectly in this case, someone picked us on the buyout market would’ve been a good plan, nor would it have done the current team justice.

Just got through reading the comments.. early morning here in Melbourne, aus.. we had an earthquake here and 10 hours earlier there was an earthquake in Melbourne, Florida. Spooky

Anyway, trade talk: surprised no one has mentioned the obvious. Won’t somebody think of the usage?!

Thanks Max, it was fairly deep and little way away so no issues here. We are getting them more often nowadays, but all in the 4-4.5 region.

It’s still Bogdanovic, not Bogdanovich. Can we stop playing dumb and get his name right since he’s on our team now? You can’t even really claim that this one is a Clyde thing.

BREAKING: New York Knicks F OG Anunoby had surgery to remove a loose bone fragment in his right elbow and will miss a minimum of three weeks, sources tell ESPN. Procedure is considered minor and he’s expected to resume basketball activities in three weeks. pic.twitter.com/jws9NC1s32— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) February 8, 2024

Weirdly enough, I kind of think this is good news. I found it to be somewhat relieving.

I mean, it’s not ideal, but I’ll take it over the mystery box.

Ok, at least we know now what’s going on with OG… the all star break really can’t come soon enough for this team.

I’m very excited, I think we solved the lack of scoring issue and the defense will hold up well once people are finally healthy, but like any trade obviously we’ll have to see to truly believe it.

We’re still well positioned to bring someone else on the buyout market but that is such a crapshoot generally that I’m fine if we just make no moves there too.

Sheesh what a run of bad luck… now Anounubbly is out for at least 3 weeks. I hope Bojang can adequately play SF because that’s a lot of minutes to cover.

Grimes isn’t guaranteed to have been here for many years because he has only 1 yr left on his rookie contract, not sure how much they should’ve been willing to pay him considering the real stars of the team are due to get significant raises pretty soon.

Yeah kinda relieved in a way about the OG news, he should be back in plenty of time to get back in basketball shape and be full go for the playoffs.

As I was saying yesterday, bone spurs are annoying, but at least you know what they are and you can deal with it. The mystery shit is what really worries you. You know, the elbow just being inflamed for seemingly no reason or whatever.

Last year I loved Grimes and thought he could turn into something special if he would look for his shot more when attacking closeouts, because he ALWAYS passed off his drives.

Somehow he came back this year even less aggressive. He seems afraid of the ball. It swings to him on the perimeter and he doesn’t even look at the basket; he can’t wait to hand it off to Brunson. He doesn’t shoot enough when he’s open and never attacks the rim. On fast breaks he routinely blows layups.

His age, shooting, and defense still give him upside. But his timidness on offense is disconcerting. That’s not a skill issue, it’s a mental one. I’m not sure that can be changed. Compare him to Deuce, who has very similar skills but has a much better sense of when to pass, dribble, or shoot.

Very weird season, feels like every few weeks it’s a radically different team.

“Lil’ Penny says:
February 8, 2024 at 15:55
Cunningham, Ivey, and Ausar aren’t “boneheads” or anything close.”

I am using that term in the context of them being very young and inexperienced. Is this your way of insinuating that I’m racist, like you did to Raven?

BTW didn’t you say last week that you were disappearing until the playoffs?

So who is available tonight?
iHart
JHart
Precious
DDV
Deuce
Sims
Taj
Toppin
Brown, Jr.
Washington Jr.

Is that it?

Sims is still out. Thibs said they have only 8 available players tonight, it’s his dream scenario!

Very weird season, feels like every few weeks it’s a radically different team.

Now I’m not sure who to complain about playing too many minutes. 😉

And very much hoping Bogey knocks down a three for every two that blows by him. When are the new misfit toys eligible to play?

Bojan will be just fine playing 10 minutes/game in the playoffs against bench units. He is not going to be on the floor very much unless we’re way behind and needing all the shooting we can get.

I want you all to be prepared for the day you want Bojan playing instead of Randle. It’s coming.

Can we forfait this game without playing?

If not DDV and The Hart Foundation would be better using their 6 fouls in the first quarter and taking a rest, no reason to risk further “complications”…

As soon as I saw the trade I thought it made sense for OG to have the elbow taken care of now. He was almost certainly going to have the surgery eventually so you might as well bite the bullet and do it now rather than risk having it flare up in the playoffs.
As for the trade itself: I think giving ourselves a chance for a ring this season is the right play. I hate losing Grimes (esp. on top of IQ) but DDV has played like an all-star since moving into the starting line-up and is signed for peanuts. Grimes was likely to get traded before the deadline next year so why not increase your odds for this season when we’re a KP injury away from being as good as anybody in the conference?

When are the new misfit toys eligible to play?

They should be ready for saturday’s game against the Pacers…

This feels like one of those games where at least three Knicks don’t sit the entire 2nd half.

I think this is gonna be one of those teams where everyone is just never healthy at the same time. I fully expect to lose every game until the break and can’t see us making the playoffs with a high seed the way things are going.

The Iron Law of Knicksiness states that good things can only happy to set up larger disappointments down the road. Looks like our dominant January stretch was just the setup for everyone being hurt all the time, which will compound as Thibs runs the next guy up into the ground instead of ever playing anyone at the end of the bench.

Wilbon thinks we can go to the Finals.

Sorry guys, it’s over. We can survive Cronin but this is too much.

Thanks, Max. Gonna be some weird games tonight and Sat.

Nicos! Dangerously close to mentioning the unmentionable, but I like where you’re headed. I too think KP may hook us up in the conference (though I wish him no ill).

Shhhh(this is the year)hhhhh 😉

More Pelton on the Knicks:

“Even if we don’t include the Anunoby trade, struck in late December, it’s possible no team upgraded more than the Knicks. New York was able to add a pair of quality contributors in Bojan Bogdanovic and Alec Burks, filling a long-term need for second-unit scoring and a short-term need in the frontcourt with Anunoby and All-Star Julius Randle currently sidelined by injury.

Assuming Anunoby and Randle are able to return, the Knicks go eight deep in quality rotation players, all of whom have playoff experience. They’re now overflowing with shooting around center Isaiah Hartenstein. And New York accomplished all that without surrendering a single first-round pick or hampering the team’s ability to match salary in a possible trade for a star next season.”

Is this your way of insinuating that I’m racist, like you did to Raven?

It’s my way of saying you have no clue what you’re talking about, but it sounds like you have some kind of guilty conscience about what you said, which I’ll defer to you to deal with on your own.

Wilbon thinks we can go to the Finals.

Sorry guys, it’s over. We can survive Cronin but this is too much

I’d like to bet on us but I can’t even get good odds. We’re 6-1 to win the East now.

I mean, I’m still gonna take it, but I’m not as excited as I would be if no one believed in us.

(Side note: I got the Clippers at +1000 they’re already down to +500. That’s the ish I like.)

Did we talk about this already? ESPN updated Mitch’s injury status.

Feb 6: New York plans for Robinson to start on-court activities after the All-Star break, Fred Katz of The Athletic reports.

They estimate he will return April 2.

If Mitch is healthy, and everybody else is healthy, you get this nine man playoff rotation:

Brunson, DDV, OG, Randle, Hartenstein
Burks, Bogdanovich, Hart, Robinson

Depth beyond that would be McBride, Achiuwa. You have to go all the way down to the 12th man to find the true scrubs. And I think we still might add a buyout guy. Not bad.

Well it SHOULD be Bojey, to avoid confusion with his brother.

But that’s no fun to say.

If Mitch is healthy, and everybody else is healthy, you get this nine man playoff rotation:

Brunson, DDV, OG, Randle, Hartenstein
Burks, Bogdanovich, Hart, Robinson

Depth beyond that would be McBride, Achiuwa. You have to go all the way down to the 12th man to find the true scrubs. And I think we still might add a buyout guy. Not bad.

We’ll have so many tactical options but we’ll also have the least tactically-inclined coach in the NBA.

We’ll have so many tactical options but we’ll also have the least tactically-inclined coach in the NBA.

“Play hard, make the right reads, drive and kick, spray the ball.”

Are you not entertained? Haha

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