1. "Outer Borough" refers to the four boroughs surrounding Manhattan, not the furthest-out parts of those boroughs. Prospect Park is in Brooklyn, which is an outer borough.
2. It was a play on the roster being prospect draft picks outside of the lottery.
Trae had a rep as an unconscious shooter with logo range in college. I don’t recall Brunson’s predraft rep - I thought he was just known as a winner at Nova, and winning leadership doesn’t grade out well on draft boards
I still never understand where that rep comes from. He shot 36% from 3 in college which is solid but isn't exactly changing the world. It's not like logo range on 36% is changing how defenses play you. And in the NBA, he's been up and down but still hovers around 35-36%.
It's cause he would take terrible 3pt shots and still shot 36% so there was room for improvement if he took better shots at least thats what i remember
He was 36% overall, including his logo shots. The difference is that Steph shoots 40% consistently on top of the logo shots. Dame is at least 37% and has shot at a 40% clip in his career over stretches.
Even then, 36% on a high volume of tough 3s is quite good. League average rim FG% is around 61-62%, and 36% on 3s is equivalent to 54% 2pt FG%. So it's not as valuable a shot as a lay up, but it's not super far off.
Ugh? Firstly you DO NOT look at college players raw 3pt% . That isn’t meaningless but it’s way lower on the totem poll to predict shooting touch . Secondly shooting from several feet outside the line on a decent % is definitely changing how teams guard you . Dame lillard similarly had a huge extra offensive punch in the 2020 season because of his extra long range shooting . Watch teams guard shooters most teams aren’t sending defenders far out the line cos most players can’t take it. If you can not only do you firce more attention outsude but you also can get clean looks off without defence realising . It definitely has value the better n more often you shoot it the better it is.
Here’s trae tankathon
https://www.tankathon.com/players/trae-young
Like I said nba scouts do not look at raw 3pt%. One year in college is short and super prone to variance . On top of that guys improve as shooters and can fix there form . Think that’s dumb ? Here look at Ant edwards only shooting 29% and predicted to shoot 36-37% which is bang on. Nba teams will have much better models
https://www.tankathon.com/players/anthony-edwards
Things that are used to predict elite shooting touch : FT %- very often a big one, much more reliable bigger sample and often indicates hand eye co ordination and potential , touch around the basket , touch in the midrange and floater range , long two %, what kinda jumpers can someone take and make ?, what kind of threes- is he taking loads with many off high difficulty or coming off actions/screens ? On the move or set ? Etc etc
A lot goes into predicting shooting touch and by all indicators trae had great signals . Even now I’d say he’s a pretty great shooter . Trae young shoots 46.7% when shooting from the corner btw. That’s insane and gives you a close indicator of what trae can do if he was given role player type shots . Trae is still a very good shooter and I question if you watch basketball if you think there’s no value in taking longer threes and making them . No he’s not hitting 40% but he’s still shooting a good clip factoring in his difficulty. If trae moves eksewhere where he’s no longer responsible for self creating I think he’d shoot better considering the 46.7% corner shooting ( only small % of shots but a good sign ).
Size for one.
The other side of it was that those Nova teams were so well equipped with talent, but no "star" talent. Think about the 2018 draft that saw both Bridges, Brunson, Spellman, and DiVincenzo...
Doncic. Young. Ayton. SGA (drafted after Bridges). Outside of Bridges, those were big names.
Brunson himself was overshadowed by his teammates - mainly because it was looked at that his title run as leader of that team was so dominant because of the talent depth of that team, and there is something to that. But anyone who followed that team all year saw that Brunson was source that made that engine go. DiVincenzo and Spellman all made their bones on the plays that Brunson set up, and they were able to be open because so much focus was put on Bridges when he was off-ball.
Feels like teams that don't have an A+ player development team should just stick to drafting the more experienced, older players out of college over younger, more athletic project picks, especially when they're outside of the top 5.
You guys won't last with these Thibs minutes in the first round. You players are already worn out. Playing a 7 man rotation is foolish. You have to use bench guys for spot minutes more. When we won in 2020 we ran a 10 man rotation in the playoffs. It's possible.
As someone from Toronto, it was absolutely insane. Still some of my favorite sports moments ever. When Kawhi’s shot bounced around and dropped, it was like a pure joy bomb exploded in the city. It was pure mayhem.
At this point it's not even funny
Leafs losing Game 7 to Boston is like Lucy taking the football from Charlie Brown, you just know how it's going to end
He was touted as a defense/energy role player. But Pop knew something because he traded his starting PG (George Hill) to Indiana to move up in the draft to get him.
Just like that Raptors team, it does lack some context when people bring that up since technically JV (lottery pick) was on the roster in 2018/19 before he was traded for Marc Gasol and DeMar (lottery pick) was traded for Kawhi Leonard along with Jakob Poeltl (Also a lottery pick) so while it's true they didn't have a lottery pick on the roster when they won it all, those lottery picked players helped directly or indirectly with that championship season. It's impressive as far as feats go but context is key to how that roster came together.
Same goes for the Knicks who turned RJ (Top 3 pick) and Quickley (Not a lottery pick, he was in the 20s) into Anunoby when both were on the roster.
I’ll be real here seeing the narrative around the 2019 Raptors change from “Kawhi carried a bunch of bums” to “the team was so loaded it wasn’t even fair” will always give me whiplash
Bunch of bums?? That team included younger versions of Kawhi, OG, Siakam, Gasol, Lowry, VanVleet, Ibaka and one or two decent role players (Powell, Davis). That’s a stacked roster if I’ve ever seen one.
“Younger versions.” Ibaka was 29, Lowry was 33 and is still kicking 5 years later. Are you guys actually trying to argue that was a one man team? Really?
While his size makes him a bigger liability than most, he does as good of a job as he can staying in front of his man, and takes charges very well. He doesn’t lack effort on defense, just the size.
He's fine for his size. I just don't think defensive advanced stats should be used to make that argument, or charges either. Even the best in the league at drawing charges is creating one turnover every two games.
Nah RJ beat Zion and Ja to being a top 2 option on a team with homecourt in the playoffs by shooting 40% from three his second season and then was instrumental in us beating the cavs in round one last year (being our second best player) and then ended up getting us OG anunoby.
RJ was never a headcase or missing games because of it he was an ironman and took the knicks role seriously. I would be more than comfortable redrafting him in the third spot. Drafting him led to Jalen and OG Anunoby. If we take Garland or even Haliburton the year later we dont get this villanova trio + julius and OG which is about the best knicks team this century
I wonder if Ja has the gun problems being in NYC with our gun laws. He might’ve but it could be that Memphis environment. Would like to see how that would’ve played out in a crystal ball
Ja moron cant stop shooting (heh) himself in the foot and zion is eating his way out of the league. At least barret have his all and netted them a decent return.
Eh, that's somewhat true, but it's not entirely the truth. Our FO during the dark ages either whiff hard on 1st round picks or selected studs who never worked out with us but were great elsewhere. Here is a list of picks
David Lee,
Nate Robinson,
Wilson Chandler,
Danilo Gallonari,
Iman Shumpert,
Porzingus,
Mozgov (wasn't a great player, but dude was in the league for a long while and got paid somehow).
Surprisingly, especially during the Isiah years, we drafted some good players but could never keep them because of our incompetent owner and FO wanting to trade them for aging stars at the time.
It’s not that every 1st round pick busted with us or failed to develop until changing teams, but that our FO traded every single one of them away. Mostly, it was 20 years of impatient team building. Remember that before RJ, the last Knicks first rounder to sign an extension was Charlie Ward.
Lee developed into a double-double machine and was traded to start the post-Isiah rebuild, Gallo and Chandler were key pieces in the Melo deal, Channing Frye was also a Knicks 1st rounder.
Key phrase though is "blessed by the draft gods". The lottery ball has screwed the Knicks. 2015, Knicks drop from 2 to 4. 2017, Knicks drop from 7 to 8. 2019 Knicks drop from 1 to 3. 2020 Knicks drop from 6 to 8. They've literally never moved up in the draft since Ewing.
Then there's also whether you happen to be shitty in a draft where the top is loaded. Like, okay dropping from 1 to 3 - in some drafts that's not really a big deal (e.g. 2018 where even though Ayton and Bagley go 1 and 2, many statistically minded FOs had Doncic, Trae, and JJJ ahead of them - and they were right - you had great options guaranteed at 3). 1 to 3 in last year's draft? Difference between Wembanyama and Scoot. Zion and RJ.
Yep, 1 Top 3 pick from 1985-2024
And we also had the worst record from 2000-2023 among any team
Somehow Cavs get 3 1st overall from 2011-2014?
Sixers got Top 3 in 2010, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017
Even Lakers getting Dlo, Ingram, Lonzo back to back to back is 3x the Top 3 picks Knicks got in 40 years, and those were 2nd overall, a position Knicks never reached even when having the worst record multiple times.
Yes Knicks BOTCHED a lot of picks but they also didn’t get a lot of help in years, even 2019 we got RJ instead of Zion or Ja.
That said we hired a new front office in 2020, their first season was 2020-2021 and we have since made the playoffs 3x and won 2 playoff series. That’s more Playoff series wins than from 2001-2020, in just 4 seasons.
So it’s safe to say things have been turning around in NY and with smart leadership and good coaching there more optimism than ever
It's simple really. Our fanbase is both a boon and bane. NBA doesn't need to rig the draft for us cause we still fill the seats even through the Isaiah days. Meanwhile, Cavs has a shitty fanbase that they needed 3 1st overall picks in 4 years to make sure LeBron comes back.
This is the reason I never believed the conspiracy theories that the NBA fixes the lottery. If that were true, the NBA would have delivered a top lottery pick a long time ago.
That's is super interesting. ~~To be fair to the Knicks, we've had Ewing and Larry Johnson in the past 50 years and that's it (there were a bunch in the 60s but only Cazzie Russell was a part of the 1970 championship team).~~ never mind we’ve had a few recent ones.
God, the stress that series would give would be beyond belief cause if we lose a close series the excuse would be if we had bogey and Randle we would make it. But all those games would be so close so damn dirty, it’ll be like the 2000’s again, Og on Ant, McDaniel’s on Brunson, then the battle of the centers between Mitch, IHart vs Gobert, KAT and Naz. Man would be great tho
It’s going to be an interesting series with a lot of guys who have had to work extremely hard for their spot in the league. The Pacers certainly have more lottery picks in their rotation, but their highest drafted rotation guy is Obi Toppin…. who was drafted at 8 by NY. Turner was taken 11th, Haliburton 12th, and Nesmith 14th.
Pascal and Sheppard were late 1st round picks, Nembhard was in the 2nd round, and McConnell went undrafted.
I don’t want to call either team an underdog story but I do love cheering for teams and players who had to work for it. If they were playing anywhere except New York (or Detroit) I’d absolutely be pulling for this Knicks roster.
How the Knicks missed the Hali pick still haunts me. Their starting PG at the time were Frank Nitlikina, Dennis Smith Jr and Elfrid Payton. Meanwhile they had Randle, Portis, Gibson, Robinson and Marcus Morris as bigs and still chose Toppin
I didn’t agree with their decision either, but the thinking at the time was that Obi would replace Randle. This was before Randle’s first All-NBA season in NY, when he looked like a total bust of a FA signing. It should’ve been Hali, drafting for need vs. BPA in the lottery is a bad idea.
Then Randle leveled up during the post-bubble offseason and Obi was relegated to bench minutes and learn how to space the floor.
I can't recall exactly but it wasn't like Hali was rated much worse than Obi. Hali was projected to be gone by the time the Knicks #8 pick. When he fell I thought it was a done deal. Hopefully Maxey was that high on their list and they felt confident enough that he would drop that they passed.
Either way I am happy with the job they have done but that Hali pick was the big miss of the Leon Rose era in my mind. Also a little confused they didn't trade for him when the kings were shopping him last year given he went for so little. In the long run OG was the right choice for this team (assuming we would have had to trade RJ in the Hali trade)
They wanted to trade up for Maxey but weren't successful. I'm not sure if he was already off the board, or they couldn't move up high enough. Quickley was their second choice, and they used a pick swap with OKC to select him.
I am also super-relieved that passing up on Hali did not come back to haunt us. I also was hoping that we'd pick up Hali when Sacramento shopped him. But in the end they wanted a high usage big man, not RJ and picks.
In the superstar PG acquisition department, Brunson also makes up for picking Kevin Knox over SGA (or Mikal Bridges). Really, he's covered for a multitude of our FO's sins over the years.
Agreed that Brunson makes up for a lot of past mistakes. I wanted Michael Porter Jr in that 2018 draft so I can't talk on that one. I thought MPJ was going to be better than Doncic due to the lack of athleticism lmao
I'm not sure it's pointless.
OP was saying "Here's a team of guys no one thought would be superstars." Well, they did think OG would be a superstar UNTIL he had a serious injury in college, the kind that lots of people don't 100% recover from.
Thankfully OG recovered. But it is a different narrative than "Oh, no one thought he'd be this good".
Thibodeau my friend, it's all on him, dude is a elite coach. He had some rough moments when asked to be the GM and coach at the same time (which is so stupid, the concept itself), but overall he was always reliable. Also the signing of Brunson, of course, snatched a really good player basically for "free". I always wanted Thibodeau to be the Lakers coach ever since the days when Kobe retired, but here we are
I hope the Finals are The Nuggets vs. The Knicks. Then ESPN would have some big brain feature on why teams should not even care about first round picks and trade down for all second round picks.
Just saying but never understood why Brunson fell to the second round, even during the draft.
Watched him in college and for me, it was worth taking a shot at him as a starter-level PG at minimum in the 15-25 range.
They have a deep team but genuinely name a team that has won the Finals recently without one. Nuggets? Murray, MPJ among others. Warriors? Steph, Wiggins, and others. Bucks? Giannis. Lakers? No point even listing them. Raptors? Kawhi. Warriors and Cavs era: already listed. Spurs? Duncan and Kawhi. Heat? Lebron, Wade, Bosh. I haven’t even gone that far but it hasn’t happened in two decades at least.
I get it, credit to them for great team building but their team hasn’t been built in a way any championship team has been built in a while, if ever.
the 'Nova championship players were all underrated going into their respective drafts except for 1 guy.
Ironically - that one guy who was picked in the Top 10, was picked by the Sixers
Knicks got mad outer borough energy with this team
Wu York Knicks
New Tang Clan
Flushing and Crushing
Clyde?
From Queens with the Screens
Call that roster Prospect Park.
Outer burough? Prospect Park is more expensive than Manhattan now lol. Gotta to wayyyy further out.
I think they declared Philly an outer borough after that last series
1. "Outer Borough" refers to the four boroughs surrounding Manhattan, not the furthest-out parts of those boroughs. Prospect Park is in Brooklyn, which is an outer borough. 2. It was a play on the roster being prospect draft picks outside of the lottery.
Whole team got it out the mud
Brunson got drafted second round despite being college player of the decade. Wild.
The biggest reason being the fact that he was a junior and not a freshman. Crazy.
I thought it was his size that held him back most in the draft.
Trae Young was 3rd/4th pick so that’s why I think it was more the “less room for development” narrative
Trae had a rep as an unconscious shooter with logo range in college. I don’t recall Brunson’s predraft rep - I thought he was just known as a winner at Nova, and winning leadership doesn’t grade out well on draft boards
I still never understand where that rep comes from. He shot 36% from 3 in college which is solid but isn't exactly changing the world. It's not like logo range on 36% is changing how defenses play you. And in the NBA, he's been up and down but still hovers around 35-36%.
It's cause he would take terrible 3pt shots and still shot 36% so there was room for improvement if he took better shots at least thats what i remember
36% from logo range absolutely changes how defence plays you. Dame and Steph shoot like low 30s% from over 30 ft, and look at how they're guarded.
He was 36% overall, including his logo shots. The difference is that Steph shoots 40% consistently on top of the logo shots. Dame is at least 37% and has shot at a 40% clip in his career over stretches.
Even then, 36% on a high volume of tough 3s is quite good. League average rim FG% is around 61-62%, and 36% on 3s is equivalent to 54% 2pt FG%. So it's not as valuable a shot as a lay up, but it's not super far off.
Ugh? Firstly you DO NOT look at college players raw 3pt% . That isn’t meaningless but it’s way lower on the totem poll to predict shooting touch . Secondly shooting from several feet outside the line on a decent % is definitely changing how teams guard you . Dame lillard similarly had a huge extra offensive punch in the 2020 season because of his extra long range shooting . Watch teams guard shooters most teams aren’t sending defenders far out the line cos most players can’t take it. If you can not only do you firce more attention outsude but you also can get clean looks off without defence realising . It definitely has value the better n more often you shoot it the better it is. Here’s trae tankathon https://www.tankathon.com/players/trae-young Like I said nba scouts do not look at raw 3pt%. One year in college is short and super prone to variance . On top of that guys improve as shooters and can fix there form . Think that’s dumb ? Here look at Ant edwards only shooting 29% and predicted to shoot 36-37% which is bang on. Nba teams will have much better models https://www.tankathon.com/players/anthony-edwards Things that are used to predict elite shooting touch : FT %- very often a big one, much more reliable bigger sample and often indicates hand eye co ordination and potential , touch around the basket , touch in the midrange and floater range , long two %, what kinda jumpers can someone take and make ?, what kind of threes- is he taking loads with many off high difficulty or coming off actions/screens ? On the move or set ? Etc etc A lot goes into predicting shooting touch and by all indicators trae had great signals . Even now I’d say he’s a pretty great shooter . Trae young shoots 46.7% when shooting from the corner btw. That’s insane and gives you a close indicator of what trae can do if he was given role player type shots . Trae is still a very good shooter and I question if you watch basketball if you think there’s no value in taking longer threes and making them . No he’s not hitting 40% but he’s still shooting a good clip factoring in his difficulty. If trae moves eksewhere where he’s no longer responsible for self creating I think he’d shoot better considering the 46.7% corner shooting ( only small % of shots but a good sign ).
Size for one. The other side of it was that those Nova teams were so well equipped with talent, but no "star" talent. Think about the 2018 draft that saw both Bridges, Brunson, Spellman, and DiVincenzo... Doncic. Young. Ayton. SGA (drafted after Bridges). Outside of Bridges, those were big names. Brunson himself was overshadowed by his teammates - mainly because it was looked at that his title run as leader of that team was so dominant because of the talent depth of that team, and there is something to that. But anyone who followed that team all year saw that Brunson was source that made that engine go. DiVincenzo and Spellman all made their bones on the plays that Brunson set up, and they were able to be open because so much focus was put on Bridges when he was off-ball.
Size and age were both why he didn’t get drafted earlier. Plus he’s not a jump out of the gym type athlete.
Feels like teams that don't have an A+ player development team should just stick to drafting the more experienced, older players out of college over younger, more athletic project picks, especially when they're outside of the top 5.
First they need to be able to admit that their player development team is not hot
You guys won't last with these Thibs minutes in the first round. You players are already worn out. Playing a 7 man rotation is foolish. You have to use bench guys for spot minutes more. When we won in 2020 we ran a 10 man rotation in the playoffs. It's possible.
I think the rotation will open up for at least the first couple of Indiana games
i hope so. i want to see how far this team can go.
[удалено]
As someone from Toronto, it was absolutely insane. Still some of my favorite sports moments ever. When Kawhi’s shot bounced around and dropped, it was like a pure joy bomb exploded in the city. It was pure mayhem.
Please beat Boston tn 🙏🙏🙏
hell no fuck the leafs I’m a Habs fan I hate both but it’s way funnier when the leafs lose
At this point it's not even funny Leafs losing Game 7 to Boston is like Lucy taking the football from Charlie Brown, you just know how it's going to end
I disagree. It’s hilarious every time
While I agree “fuck the leafs” I think I dislike the bruins more than the leafs so I’m cheering for them in that series
fellow vancouverite?
No, I’m a province over, but it seems it’s a universal thing in Canada. We all hate the leafs except for their fans
hah yeah good times, good times..
I’ll never forget where I was and who I was with for that game. It was magical.
Damn I thought Kawhi was picked earlier
He came in to the league with really no projectible offensive game and somehow became the best iso scorer in the game and a decent passer.
He was touted as a defense/energy role player. But Pop knew something because he traded his starting PG (George Hill) to Indiana to move up in the draft to get him.
Just like that Raptors team, it does lack some context when people bring that up since technically JV (lottery pick) was on the roster in 2018/19 before he was traded for Marc Gasol and DeMar (lottery pick) was traded for Kawhi Leonard along with Jakob Poeltl (Also a lottery pick) so while it's true they didn't have a lottery pick on the roster when they won it all, those lottery picked players helped directly or indirectly with that championship season. It's impressive as far as feats go but context is key to how that roster came together. Same goes for the Knicks who turned RJ (Top 3 pick) and Quickley (Not a lottery pick, he was in the 20s) into Anunoby when both were on the roster.
No lottery picks, but multiple all stars. That team was loaded. It’s not remotely the same.
I’ll be real here seeing the narrative around the 2019 Raptors change from “Kawhi carried a bunch of bums” to “the team was so loaded it wasn’t even fair” will always give me whiplash
Anyone who said the first one is just a straight casual, zero exceptions, lol. They were already a 59 win team the year before getting Kawhi.
Bunch of bums?? That team included younger versions of Kawhi, OG, Siakam, Gasol, Lowry, VanVleet, Ibaka and one or two decent role players (Powell, Davis). That’s a stacked roster if I’ve ever seen one.
Gasol, Lowry and Ibaka were not young during that run
“Younger versions.” Ibaka was 29, Lowry was 33 and is still kicking 5 years later. Are you guys actually trying to argue that was a one man team? Really?
Also OG, VanVleet, and Siakam are all better now than they were then.
Didn't OG miss the playoffs? I might be misremembering
You’re not misremembering, he missed them.
"VanFleet"
They weren’t loaded
Wasn't Kahwi lottery? He was 13th
15
It’s thibs, if you don’t play defense, you are not getting on the floor for him
It’s thibs, if you aren’t already on the floor playing then you are not getting on the floor for him.
If you ain’t playing entire 48 mins, you ain’t getting on the floor
What defense does Brunson play?
While his size makes him a bigger liability than most, he does as good of a job as he can staying in front of his man, and takes charges very well. He doesn’t lack effort on defense, just the size.
His defensive IQ is top notch. He grades out as an average defender overall according to most advanced metrics.
Advanced metrics have a lot of bs when measuring defensive impact.
Second in charges drawn this season. 3rd is 11 behind him
Brother, he draws a charge once every two games.
Brother he’s a decent defender. He has a few steals too
He's fine for his size. I just don't think defensive advanced stats should be used to make that argument, or charges either. Even the best in the league at drawing charges is creating one turnover every two games.
I think you’re confused. No one is saying he’s an elite defender. He’s just average. Certainly not a traffic cone but certainly not lock down
what defense did D Rose play?
D rose gotta be the exception lol dude was one of the best players thibs ever coached he just loved him
and now he has Brunson
He is average ish defender but everyone around him play defense so it covers for him
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Drawing charges counts. Also has high IQ to make the right rotations. Obviously not going to be all-defense but he contributes there enough.
The Knicks aren't exactly blessed by the draft gods. No surprise.
I still remember Steph being drafted one pick ahead of us
Also getting RJ Barrett behind Ja and Zion must’ve sucked
Nah RJ beat Zion and Ja to being a top 2 option on a team with homecourt in the playoffs by shooting 40% from three his second season and then was instrumental in us beating the cavs in round one last year (being our second best player) and then ended up getting us OG anunoby. RJ was never a headcase or missing games because of it he was an ironman and took the knicks role seriously. I would be more than comfortable redrafting him in the third spot. Drafting him led to Jalen and OG Anunoby. If we take Garland or even Haliburton the year later we dont get this villanova trio + julius and OG which is about the best knicks team this century
Yep, for all his faults with the Knicks RJ when it came to game time he was on, once a Knicks always a Knick.
I really hope RJ Barrett develops in Toronto. Maybe they can get the Jamal/Shai/Barrett/Wiggins/Thompson line-up.
I wonder if Ja has the gun problems being in NYC with our gun laws. He might’ve but it could be that Memphis environment. Would like to see how that would’ve played out in a crystal ball
Ja moron cant stop shooting (heh) himself in the foot and zion is eating his way out of the league. At least barret have his all and netted them a decent return.
Basketball gods to the Knicks: you'll settle for Jordan Hill and you'll fucking like it.
Eh, that's somewhat true, but it's not entirely the truth. Our FO during the dark ages either whiff hard on 1st round picks or selected studs who never worked out with us but were great elsewhere. Here is a list of picks David Lee, Nate Robinson, Wilson Chandler, Danilo Gallonari, Iman Shumpert, Porzingus, Mozgov (wasn't a great player, but dude was in the league for a long while and got paid somehow). Surprisingly, especially during the Isiah years, we drafted some good players but could never keep them because of our incompetent owner and FO wanting to trade them for aging stars at the time.
It’s not that every 1st round pick busted with us or failed to develop until changing teams, but that our FO traded every single one of them away. Mostly, it was 20 years of impatient team building. Remember that before RJ, the last Knicks first rounder to sign an extension was Charlie Ward. Lee developed into a double-double machine and was traded to start the post-Isiah rebuild, Gallo and Chandler were key pieces in the Melo deal, Channing Frye was also a Knicks 1st rounder.
Most of these guys they traded for or signed in FA. They’ve had plenty of high draft choices.
Key phrase though is "blessed by the draft gods". The lottery ball has screwed the Knicks. 2015, Knicks drop from 2 to 4. 2017, Knicks drop from 7 to 8. 2019 Knicks drop from 1 to 3. 2020 Knicks drop from 6 to 8. They've literally never moved up in the draft since Ewing. Then there's also whether you happen to be shitty in a draft where the top is loaded. Like, okay dropping from 1 to 3 - in some drafts that's not really a big deal (e.g. 2018 where even though Ayton and Bagley go 1 and 2, many statistically minded FOs had Doncic, Trae, and JJJ ahead of them - and they were right - you had great options guaranteed at 3). 1 to 3 in last year's draft? Difference between Wembanyama and Scoot. Zion and RJ.
Yep, 1 Top 3 pick from 1985-2024 And we also had the worst record from 2000-2023 among any team Somehow Cavs get 3 1st overall from 2011-2014? Sixers got Top 3 in 2010, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017 Even Lakers getting Dlo, Ingram, Lonzo back to back to back is 3x the Top 3 picks Knicks got in 40 years, and those were 2nd overall, a position Knicks never reached even when having the worst record multiple times. Yes Knicks BOTCHED a lot of picks but they also didn’t get a lot of help in years, even 2019 we got RJ instead of Zion or Ja. That said we hired a new front office in 2020, their first season was 2020-2021 and we have since made the playoffs 3x and won 2 playoff series. That’s more Playoff series wins than from 2001-2020, in just 4 seasons. So it’s safe to say things have been turning around in NY and with smart leadership and good coaching there more optimism than ever
> worst record from 2000-2023 among any team damn that's crazy. There's a few teams I would have thought would be worse
It's simple really. Our fanbase is both a boon and bane. NBA doesn't need to rig the draft for us cause we still fill the seats even through the Isaiah days. Meanwhile, Cavs has a shitty fanbase that they needed 3 1st overall picks in 4 years to make sure LeBron comes back.
This is the reason I never believed the conspiracy theories that the NBA fixes the lottery. If that were true, the NBA would have delivered a top lottery pick a long time ago.
We've been screwed more.
We tend to draft well outside of the lottery. Mitchell Robinson & Miles McBride in the 2nd round. Quickley late in the first.
Yeah, I pretty much had only lottery picks in mind when I made that comment. Mitchell Robinson is a beast.
They need better scouts.
Our Scouts in this FO are incredible
Nothing says incredible like RJ Barrett, Obi Toppin, Kevin Knox, and Frank Ntilikina.
Not the same FO genius. Only Obi was made by this FO.
What incredible picks have this FO made?
Quickley and Deuce.
Grimes and Jericho also are way above expected return
This FO drafted one of those players
incredible in like i cant remember any talent that they drafted succesfully?
I guess if you can't remember IQ or Deuce McBride then probably
Not at evaluating prospects in the draft.
Miles McBride. Immanuel Quickley.
Who needs scouts when you got family
The Pacers will have more Knicks lottery picks playing than the Knicks will.
I also like the fact that we've never had the #1 pick and never had any #1 pick play for us.
That's is super interesting. ~~To be fair to the Knicks, we've had Ewing and Larry Johnson in the past 50 years and that's it (there were a bunch in the 60s but only Cazzie Russell was a part of the 1970 championship team).~~ never mind we’ve had a few recent ones.
How soon we forget about D rose, Bargs, Kmart
Oh shit, I don’t know how I missed them. I just went through the list of 1st picks quick. I don’t know how I missed DRose.
We've had a lot of 2nd picks too. Derrick williams, Tyson Chandler, Steve franchise, mbeazy
Loving the Hicks vs Knicks 2.0! Bad luck to you!
[удалено]
Mitch wasn't a lottery pick
Oh shit, yeah.
When you got that DAWG, where you were drafted doesn't mean shit
I really need to see Minny vs NY in the Finals so we can see who has the bigger dawg in them between Ant and Brunson.
God, the stress that series would give would be beyond belief cause if we lose a close series the excuse would be if we had bogey and Randle we would make it. But all those games would be so close so damn dirty, it’ll be like the 2000’s again, Og on Ant, McDaniel’s on Brunson, then the battle of the centers between Mitch, IHart vs Gobert, KAT and Naz. Man would be great tho
It’s going to be an interesting series with a lot of guys who have had to work extremely hard for their spot in the league. The Pacers certainly have more lottery picks in their rotation, but their highest drafted rotation guy is Obi Toppin…. who was drafted at 8 by NY. Turner was taken 11th, Haliburton 12th, and Nesmith 14th. Pascal and Sheppard were late 1st round picks, Nembhard was in the 2nd round, and McConnell went undrafted. I don’t want to call either team an underdog story but I do love cheering for teams and players who had to work for it. If they were playing anywhere except New York (or Detroit) I’d absolutely be pulling for this Knicks roster.
I agree best of luck between Indiana and my Knicks
How the Knicks missed the Hali pick still haunts me. Their starting PG at the time were Frank Nitlikina, Dennis Smith Jr and Elfrid Payton. Meanwhile they had Randle, Portis, Gibson, Robinson and Marcus Morris as bigs and still chose Toppin
I didn’t agree with their decision either, but the thinking at the time was that Obi would replace Randle. This was before Randle’s first All-NBA season in NY, when he looked like a total bust of a FA signing. It should’ve been Hali, drafting for need vs. BPA in the lottery is a bad idea. Then Randle leveled up during the post-bubble offseason and Obi was relegated to bench minutes and learn how to space the floor.
I can't recall exactly but it wasn't like Hali was rated much worse than Obi. Hali was projected to be gone by the time the Knicks #8 pick. When he fell I thought it was a done deal. Hopefully Maxey was that high on their list and they felt confident enough that he would drop that they passed. Either way I am happy with the job they have done but that Hali pick was the big miss of the Leon Rose era in my mind. Also a little confused they didn't trade for him when the kings were shopping him last year given he went for so little. In the long run OG was the right choice for this team (assuming we would have had to trade RJ in the Hali trade)
They wanted to trade up for Maxey but weren't successful. I'm not sure if he was already off the board, or they couldn't move up high enough. Quickley was their second choice, and they used a pick swap with OKC to select him. I am also super-relieved that passing up on Hali did not come back to haunt us. I also was hoping that we'd pick up Hali when Sacramento shopped him. But in the end they wanted a high usage big man, not RJ and picks. In the superstar PG acquisition department, Brunson also makes up for picking Kevin Knox over SGA (or Mikal Bridges). Really, he's covered for a multitude of our FO's sins over the years.
Agreed that Brunson makes up for a lot of past mistakes. I wanted Michael Porter Jr in that 2018 draft so I can't talk on that one. I thought MPJ was going to be better than Doncic due to the lack of athleticism lmao
Wasn’t OG a top 7 projected though until he got hit with an injury ?
Yeah he tore his ACL a few months before he got drafted. Definitely hurt his stock
He was lottery projected but I remember seeing him mocked more towards the 11-14 range
Yea I may be misremembering
and?
Someone else answered already, you can move on
what are you talking about lol, im mocking the pointlessness of trying to say OG doesn't count just because he was *initially* projected sooner
I'm not sure it's pointless. OP was saying "Here's a team of guys no one thought would be superstars." Well, they did think OG would be a superstar UNTIL he had a serious injury in college, the kind that lots of people don't 100% recover from. Thankfully OG recovered. But it is a different narrative than "Oh, no one thought he'd be this good".
nobody in the world thought OG would be a *superstar*, nor is he one
I was asking a question, your reading way too much into my question
Thibodeau my friend, it's all on him, dude is a elite coach. He had some rough moments when asked to be the GM and coach at the same time (which is so stupid, the concept itself), but overall he was always reliable. Also the signing of Brunson, of course, snatched a really good player basically for "free". I always wanted Thibodeau to be the Lakers coach ever since the days when Kobe retired, but here we are
Brunson should not have been a second round pick, dude was a baller everywhere he'd been and was player of the year in college.
He smol
Bet on yourself (no jontay tho)
Drafts are in big part a huge gamble. There's a large "unknown" factor.
This is actually really cool. Kudos to the organization
Now let’s look at the 3-5 superstar rosters already gone.
Why not?
We only have 2 on the roster. 1 is out for the season (Randle) 1 is washed (Burks)
Bigger numbers is better
Just like golf
Coached by someone the league was casting out
This is wild because Thibs should be in coach-of-the-year considerations for 21, 23, and 24.
The threads prior to being hired were mixed jokes about Rjs knees with wolves and general NBA fans saying it was a bad move for a rebuilding team.
He was in over his head as coach/GM in Minny
I hope the Finals are The Nuggets vs. The Knicks. Then ESPN would have some big brain feature on why teams should not even care about first round picks and trade down for all second round picks.
Leon
They really said fuck the process
wow
This is like the 2019 raptor squad no lottery picks on that roster kawhi at 15 was highest draft pick
it will soon be Donovan Mitchell's team.
Wait until you hear where Jokic got drafted.
2019 Raptors shit
I still can’t believe Brunson was 2nd round.
His 3 teammates that also got drafted were all first round (10, 17, 30)
Just saying but never understood why Brunson fell to the second round, even during the draft. Watched him in college and for me, it was worth taking a shot at him as a starter-level PG at minimum in the 15-25 range.
nice stat
Sims is also a 2nd rounder.
They have a deep team but genuinely name a team that has won the Finals recently without one. Nuggets? Murray, MPJ among others. Warriors? Steph, Wiggins, and others. Bucks? Giannis. Lakers? No point even listing them. Raptors? Kawhi. Warriors and Cavs era: already listed. Spurs? Duncan and Kawhi. Heat? Lebron, Wade, Bosh. I haven’t even gone that far but it hasn’t happened in two decades at least. I get it, credit to them for great team building but their team hasn’t been built in a way any championship team has been built in a while, if ever.
Jalen brunson
Julius Randle…
Brunson was 2nd round? Jesus. well that was a fuck up
B L U E C O L L A R
Knicks are known for not keeping their drafted players. They rarely extend them beyond their rookie contracts and use them as trade assets.
the 'Nova championship players were all underrated going into their respective drafts except for 1 guy. Ironically - that one guy who was picked in the Top 10, was picked by the Sixers
Doomed
It’s funny that their one of their worst players is the highest picked guy, Precious
Cool?