thebuzzardman wrote:B8RcDeMktfxC wrote:The roster in comparison to last year is
Morris <--> Toppin
Portis <--> Spellman
Gibson <--> Noel
---
Ellington <--> Rivers
Dotson <--> Burks
Trier <--> Quickley
Allen <--> Evans
Of course Obi has "potential", but the forwards were clearly better, man for man, in last year's iteration of this one-year-deals scheme.
The guards seem a wash to me. Although I'm interested in Quickley's numbers, even I would contest that 3pt shot, let alone someone like Frank.
Burks is widely touted as the starting SG. He's spent less than 20% of his career games as a starter. Most of those were in the two brief months he was on the rancid Cleveland team in 2018-2019 (in exactly December 2018 and January 2019), where he started about 25/35 games, and on the overwhelmed-by-injuries GSW 2019-2020 (where he again started less than 50% of 40something games). (He also played 20 something games for Utah at the start of his 4th year - age 23 - before he began a series of injury plagued seasons that would have had most of the posters here sneering at him as never going to be fit to play a full season in the league.) If he's the starter, this year's NYK sucks.
/spoiler/ NYK 2020-2021 does in fact suck //spoiler/
I think the guards this year are better in all around ability. Which makes them better than last year. By a LITTLE.
With Morris, last year's forwards are better, easily. Without him, I think it's a wash, but only if Obi develops sooner than later. Also this year's group is more athletic. IF Obi progresses quickly, SLIGHT edge this year.
Weird, but I think there is a marginal upgrade in talent, but it exists, but a better upgrade in fit, other than Randle/Obi being redundant.
We can quibble about the guards' numbers and projections.
My overall take is that this year's cohort is somewhat worse from 3pt range but better at extraneous creation inside the arc. It doesn't really matter that much, but my view is that RJ, in particular, needs 3pt shooting more than whatever spacing is created moves inside the arc.
However, that's probably unimportant on the non-micro scale of things, and I understand your argument.
Obviously, Noel completely removes any possibility of there not being someone parked next to the hoop if he and Mitch split the 48 minutes at C - which also doesn't help spacing, but ...
However, you can't wash away Mook's contribution at forward. The Fizz-Knicks went 4-18 with Mook shooting 42% from 3pt and putting up xpts and yrebs... i don't really recall but we can look it up. That's the comparison.
Now, of course, Fizz was a fraud and Thibbs is a competent coach (at the very least). So obviously the 2019-2020 Knick wouldn't start 4-18 if Thibbs had been coaching them. So, I expect this year's results to be considerably better ... at least as far as they are determined by the coaching.
On the other hand, whilst it is always the case that some teams improve and some teams regress from season to season, most of the teams which were worse than the Knicks, particularly in the East, have made moves that ought to/they hope will improve them substantially this year, whilst the Knicks really, really haven't.
So, results-wise I don't hold out much hope for improvement. (Which is fine ... #teamtank.)
However, my main doubt is that the roster construction is completely wrong in terms of the types of player. Moreover, I don't see what the Knicks gain if they surprise everyone and make the playoffs as a 30-32 #8 seed. (Or 26-36 #10 seed and play in.) How does that help? At least with the Nets there was the skeleton of the team that made the playoffs - maybe missing a few bones (D'AR) but recognizable. The Knicks will retain literally no one, except possibly Randle, and Mitch-RJ-Obi-Imma.
RIP mags
