Breaking: KAT to the Knicks

[E-Balla]

Donte was a bench player until Grimes finally lost the job and IQ/RJ were traded away to open up minutes for him. Even then, his minutes were sporadic until Grimes was traded. He wouldn’t have an issue with the Nova reunion if he didn’t know he was getting a reduced role. He’s the easiest piece out of all the guards to replace.

He made 3.5 3s a game at 41% in the playoffs and was 3rd in made 3s last year. You cannot "easily" replace a player that's top 5 at shooting in the NBA. That's just not how this works.

For the role he was going to fill on this team, he’s 100% replaceable. Again, he’s going to be a bench guard that was most likely going to see 15-20 minutes a game. He wasn’t replicating those numbers here.

When OG was hurt, like he is half the time, what was going to be Donte's role? Again you're assuming good health from a squad full of guys that miss 40 games a year.

[3toheadmelo]

I really don’t know how people can’t see that KAT coming here is going to help Brunson out tremendously.

We’ve seen teams do this to Jalen during the regular season, but it really gets amplified in the playoffs over a 7 game series. Teams do not care if Mitch is slipping a screen or crapping their pants at the thought of a tear-drop floater by iHart.

No one is denying his offensive talent. He is definitely going to help the offense. Though he does choke in the playoffs. It happened last year in the wcf and against the grizzlies a few years back.

The glaring concern is on the defensive end.

KAT’s defense at C

[Gravy]

Last season showed us the core of the team is Brunson, OG and Josh Hart. When those three are all healthy they can compete with anybody. A big concern I have with KAT is if he can fit with the identity of the team, if it works they will be really fun to watch.

[E-Balla]

No one is denying his offensive talent. He is definitely going to help the offense. Though he does choke in the playoffs. It happened last year in the wcf and against the grizzlies a few years back.

The glaring concern is on the defensive end.

And his health. He can't help anyone from the bench.

He played 62 games last season and came back early from a torn meniscus to play in the playoffs and iirc, played through injury during the playoffs. His health isn’t as much of a concern as some of you are making it out to be. Especially when the alternative is Randle, who missed last playoffs and was historically bad playing through injury the prior one.

He missed a quarter of last season and it's his 2nd healthiest season of the last 5 years. He's just as likely to play 30 games as he is to play 60 and that should scare you especially when we already know Mitch is missing half the season.

And why tf are you mentioning Randle? It's telling nobody can justify KAT's contract without mentioning random **** outside of KAT and his actual production to date.

[bronxknicksfan1]

He made 3.5 3s a game at 41% in the playoffs and was 3rd in made 3s last year. You cannot "easily" replace a player that's top 5 at shooting in the NBA. That's just not how this works.

For the role he was going to fill on this team, he’s 100% replaceable. Again, he’s going to be a bench guard that was most likely going to see 15-20 minutes a game. He wasn’t replicating those numbers here.

When OG was hurt, like he is half the time, what was going to be Donte's role? Again you're assuming good health from a squad full of guys that miss 40 games a year.

If OG gets hurt, we’re looking at SF/PF options. We’re not looking at another guard to cover that. If anything, that’s the depth we’re lacking and should be looking to cover now that C is taken care of.

[E-Balla]

For the role he was going to fill on this team, he’s 100% replaceable. Again, he’s going to be a bench guard that was most likely going to see 15-20 minutes a game. He wasn’t replicating those numbers here.

When OG was hurt, like he is half the time, what was going to be Donte's role? Again you're assuming good health from a squad full of guys that miss 40 games a year.

If OG gets hurt, we’re looking at SF/PF options. We’re not looking at another guard to cover that. If anything, that’s the depth we’re lacking and should be looking to cover now that C is taken care of.

We have Josh Hart, OG, and Mikal Bridges already why TF would we need MORE SF depth? Do y'all hear yourselves?

[Knick4Real]

someone pull up game 7 randle highlights?


here's the 11-2 January highlight:

Read on Twitter

It's like showing a MAGA Trump's felony convictions and asking them why do they support a criminal: crickets.

Whenever someone shows one of the many clips of Randle behaving like this and asks how can you defend this lack of effort you also hear: crickets.

Clips like this exist, yet allegedly "smart" fans actually complain that KAT is weak on defense???

He may not be the greatest defender alive, but at least he's not a traffic cone like Julius in this video.

[mpharris36]

They were probably thinking they had good size and length on the perimeter and they can just have Towns chill in the middle. It's not a bad idea.. honestly. Especially if you think they want to score a lot of points.

Scoring is what the NBA is about now. Who on Indy is some high level defender...they are dangerous because they can score a lot.

They got swept. They're not dangerous. You can't out Celtics the Celtics.

Taking advantage of KP's weak rebounding seems to be the best way to attack that squad. Strong rebounding, strong wing defenders, and a PG that can dominate seems to be the best plan of attack if you ask me.

Pacers being swept is a bit of a reach to prove a point. Pacers should have won game 1 in that series and haliburton hurt his hamstring and basically didn't play again in the series.

Also and we have strong rebounding, strong wing defenders, and and PG that can dominate...what am I missing here?

[Knicks218]

Why does everyone keep saying that DiVincenzo was only going to get 15-20 minutes a game off the bench?

If we traded Duce McBride instead of DiVincenzo than DiVincenzo would be starting with Josh Hart as our 6th man.

[Knicks218]

When OG was hurt, like he is half the time, what was going to be Donte's role? Again you're assuming good health from a squad full of guys that miss 40 games a year.

If OG gets hurt, we’re looking at SF/PF options. We’re not looking at another guard to cover that. If anything, that’s the depth we’re lacking and should be looking to cover now that C is taken care of.

We have Josh Hart, OG, and Mikal Bridges already why TF would we need MORE SF depth? Do y'all hear yourselves?

Because OG is our PF now not our SF and if OG gets hurt we are screwed.

[bronxknicksfan1]

And his health. He can't help anyone from the bench.

He played 62 games last season and came back early from a torn meniscus to play in the playoffs and iirc, played through injury during the playoffs. His health isn’t as much of a concern as some of you are making it out to be. Especially when the alternative is Randle, who missed last playoffs and was historically bad playing through injury the prior one.

He missed a quarter of last season and it's his 2nd healthiest season of the last 5 years. He's just as likely to play 30 games as he is to play 60 and that should scare you especially when we already know Mitch is missing half the season.

And why tf are you mentioning Randle? It's telling nobody can justify KAT's contract without mentioning random **** outside of KAT and his actual production to date.

KAT’s games played by year:
19-20 - 35/64
20-21 - 50/72
21-22 - 74/82
22-23 - 29/82
23/24 - 62/82

He’s played 70% or more of the games 3 of the last 5 years and played every playoff game in the last 3 years. Some of his injuries were freak injuries too (wrist injury happened on a Gobert block). Not worried about his injury history, especially since he finds his way back to the playoffs.

I mention Randle because again, that’s the alternative to KAT. No need to lose your **** over that.

[Jalen Bluntson]

Last year we had NO ONE for damn near 3 months and went from 5 seed to the 2 seed. No Mitch. No Randle. No OG. Shart on a bum achilles. Gimpy Bogs. Burks getting minutes in the playoffs. It was a train wreck and we were the second best team in the East! One game from the ECF!!

We added Mikal/Kat lost DDV/Randle. How on earth are we somehow a six seed? Laughable.

Brunson/DDV/Hart/Precious/Shart
Deuce/Burks/Bogs

Those guys played from February to April and OG/Mitch came back for round one of the playoffs and didn't survive the second round. Somehow this years team will be worse? What are we talking about about here? It's ridiculous.

Brunson/Bridges/OG/Precious/KAT
Deuce/Payne/Hart/Mitch(?)

No way is that team worse than what we had last year. I doubt they are done trying to finalize the roster either. The rest of the East is basically the same damn teams. I expect ORL to better than they were. Other than that no one really did anything to improve that much.

[3toheadmelo]

Pacers were one of the weakest teams in the playoffs. Boston embarrassed them.

[HarthorneWingo]

Last season showed us the core of the team is Brunson, OG and Josh Hart. When those three are all healthy they can compete with anybody. A big concern I have with KAT is if he can fit with the identity of the team, if it works they will be really fun to watch.

This deal doesn’t happen without Thibs’s approval

[bronxknicksfan1]

If OG gets hurt, we’re looking at SF/PF options. We’re not looking at another guard to cover that. If anything, that’s the depth we’re lacking and should be looking to cover now that C is taken care of.

We have Josh Hart, OG, and Mikal Bridges already why TF would we need MORE SF depth? Do y'all hear yourselves?

Because OG is our PF now not our SF and if OG gets hurt we are screwed.

^ this

[E-Balla]

Scoring is what the NBA is about now. Who on Indy is some high level defender...they are dangerous because they can score a lot.

They got swept. They're not dangerous. You can't out Celtics the Celtics.

Taking advantage of KP's weak rebounding seems to be the best way to attack that squad. Strong rebounding, strong wing defenders, and a PG that can dominate seems to be the best plan of attack if you ask me.

Pacers being swept is a bit of a reach to prove a point. Pacers should have won game 1 in that series and haliburton hurt his hamstring and basically didn't play again in the series.

Also and we have strong rebounding, strong wing defenders, and and PG that can dominate...what am I missing here?

We do not have strong rebounding anymore. Here's Minny's rank in defensive rebounding with KAT at C for 7 seasons:
23rd
20th
24th
27th
19th (KAT played 35 games)
24th
27th

Josh Hart is great. He's not THAT great to cover for KAT's weak rebounding.

[Nazrmohamed]

He made 3.5 3s a game at 41% in the playoffs and was 3rd in made 3s last year. You cannot "easily" replace a player that's top 5 at shooting in the NBA. That's just not how this works.

For the role he was going to fill on this team, he’s 100% replaceable. Again, he’s going to be a bench guard that was most likely going to see 15-20 minutes a game. He wasn’t replicating those numbers here.

When OG was hurt, like he is half the time, what was going to be Donte's role? Again you're assuming good health from a squad full of guys that miss 40 games a year.

When Jalen broke his hand it was Donte who was our primary ball handler. In fact he was our primary scorer at that point. But even up to that point he was very much emerging as a scorer himself. Maybe not go to scorer but for how depleted we were he feigned being a seco dary guy for a while

All Im trying to say here is I dont thi nk we're talking about a 15-20 minute scorer, ESPECIALLY in a Thibs rotation. I think he wouldve made a case for 6MOY and the guy youre responding to is underselling it. But hey, if theres one thing that Thibs never gets credit for is getting guys to outplay what you thought theyd be. We saw Deuce get better, perhaps he blows up.....perhaps Shamet has a good yr.

[Jeffrey]

Windy is saying that there's going to be a cap logjam for the next year or so cuz the TV money is going to kick in after then. Agents are somewhat worried about players that heading into free agency next summer. So for now the aprons are really locking everything up for the good teams and rebuilding ones are the few with money. I bet we could have resigned Randle for like 3 yrs 105 cuz of this.

The Nets might actually nab Brandon Ingram and Julius Randle for 35m a year. They are the only team that has significant cap space. No one is giving them max deals.

[Synciere]

For what it's worth Kevin Pelton, who does a statistical analysis and runs simulations to come up with projected standings (worth mentioning usually his predictions are accurate pre trade deadline) thinks this trade which cost a first round pick and all of our flexibility and pissed off Mitch as improving us by a whole... 0.5 wins. From an average of 44.9 wins in his simulations to 45.4 wins and 6th seed out East to 5th seed.

I mean that’s one view.

Another says we now have the third best odds of winning it all.

I’m not really a fan of this trade but let’s not skew the information in one direction.

[bronxknicksfan1]

For the role he was going to fill on this team, he’s 100% replaceable. Again, he’s going to be a bench guard that was most likely going to see 15-20 minutes a game. He wasn’t replicating those numbers here.

When OG was hurt, like he is half the time, what was going to be Donte's role? Again you're assuming good health from a squad full of guys that miss 40 games a year.

When Jalen broke his hand it was Donte who was our primary ball handler. In fact he was our primary scorer at that point. But even up to that point he was very much emerging as a scorer himself. Maybe not go to scorer but for how depleted we were he feigned being a seco dary guy for a while

All Im trying to say here is I dont thi nk we're talking about a 15-20 minute scorer, ESPECIALLY in a Thibs rotation. I think he wouldve made a case for 6MOY and the guy youre responding to is underselling it. But hey, if theres one thing that Thibs never gets credit for is getting guys to outplay what you thought theyd be. We saw Deuce get better, perhaps he blows up.....perhaps Shamet has a good yr.

I’m not underselling what Donte can do. But tell me where he was seeing the minutes? Brunson and Mikal are seeing the starting guard minutes. Deuce is taking the backup PG minutes. Hart is taking the backup SF/PF minutes. Unless Thibs is going to play small and put Donte at SF, I don’t see where he’d get more than 15-20 minutes.