PG: RJ Tells Chanel: “Hold My Beer” while Randle Hangs Up His Spurs

[Oscirus]

exactly. i don't know what he can do off the ball. he's not gonna catch and shoot. he's not gonna take 2 dribbles and pull up. or cut to the rim. he's not good at making quick decisions in general. he needs time to figure out what he wants to do with the ball which is why we play at the slowest pace in the league. it's hard for him to fit in. which is way i think he'll be a little hard to trade.

He'll be hard to trade cu hes at the beginning of a max contract and not making the shots he used to and his assists have gone way down. He goes back to being the triple double machine that he used to be and he'll be very tradeable but I doubt the knicks would want to trade him at that point

it's been half a season officially today. it don't seem likely that'll happen.

We're def stuck with him unless we're willing to come off some firsts. Might as well cross our fingers and hope for a miracle at this point

[NoDopeOnSundays]

The question remains with this lower usage and less touches can he be an effective player in that role? And people can not use last night as playing effective...

Nope, his game is so ball dominant and his three point shot is just gone from last season. He doesn't cut when he doesn't have the ball, he almost never spaces to the corner, he simply cannot get out the way of plays in which he doesn't have the ball constantly screening to get it back on the post. Everything about his offense is anti team game.

When the guards come back we'd be better with Obi, even with his broken shot just because he'll hustle, cut and defend.

Well he did. He had 2 very efficient years in LA and New Orleans where he rolled to the hoop and played smash mouth small ball center. AD was a good enough shooter, and he had a real PG in Jrue in NO.

The genie is out the bottle now, hard to go back to being a rollman when a coach has let you live out your LeBron dreams. Look at how much he's pouting now, imagine what that will look like when he's no longer the 1 or 2 option.

[thebuzzardman]

The touches stat for last night's game are in, and surprise surprise, IQ had as many touches as Randle who was at 67 touches for the game, he averages 77 for the season. RJ has 52 touches but the most important part is that he had 36 front court touches to Randles 37, so more of the offense went through RJ obviously. On the season RJ is at 28 front court touches per game while Randle is 4th in the league in front court touches at 48 per game and is by far the least efficient offensive player in the top 5 for that stat.


Put the ball in the guards hands more, take it out of Randles hands already.

Burks 100 touches game incoming

[thebuzzardman]

The question remains with this lower usage and less touches can he be an effective player in that role? And people can not use last night as playing effective...

Nope, his game is so ball dominant and his three point shot is just gone from last season. He doesn't cut when he doesn't have the ball, he almost never spaces to the corner, he simply cannot get out the way of plays in which he doesn't have the ball constantly screening to get it back on the post. Everything about his offense is anti team game.

When the guards come back we'd be better with Obi, even with his broken shot just because he'll hustle, cut and defend.

Well he did. He had 2 very efficient years in LA and New Orleans where he rolled to the hoop and played smash mouth small ball center. AD was a good enough shooter, and he had a real PG in Jrue in NO.

Hardly any Knick coach has used him as a small ball center, even though the Knicks centers have been offensively challenged for years now, except Kanter, and he wasn't full time anyway. And with Obi now on the team, it's even more egregious.

Not like Randle has to play 20 mpg at C, but what's wrong with 10?
Then again, I'm not an NBA coach and maybe the defense gives up 10 extra points. Still.

[K_ick_God]

The touches stat for last night's game are in, and surprise surprise, IQ had as many touches as Randle who was at 67 touches for the game, he averages 77 for the season. RJ has 52 touches but the most important part is that he had 36 front court touches to Randles 37, so more of the offense went through RJ obviously. On the season RJ is at 28 front court touches per game while Randle is 4th in the league in front court touches at 48 per game and is by far the least efficient offensive player in the top 5 for that stat.


Put the ball in the guards hands more, take it out of Randles hands already.

Burks 100 touches game incoming

100 touches, 200 dribbles, 10 misses.

He's a 100-200-10 player.

[3toheadmelo]

looks like it’s time to move on from Randle folks!!!!!

[Clyde_Style]

Two RJ Observations:

1) He’s willful. Guys get on him for getting stuffed at the rim. But tell me of any other player who would keep going to the rack like him after getting rejected? I’ll tell you. Almost none. RJ is figuring it out, but even when he gets burned he’ll still come back at you. The guy is a competitor and when he matures, tell me, how are you going to stop a guy with this kind of will? You won’t.

2) Tonight’s game was probably the best performance by a Knick in a decade or more. I know he’ll have to do the same against Golden State to be legitimized, but honestly that was star quality stuff. Randle was consistent last year and it got him the AS nod, but he was never this good. This was BASKETBALL, not just being a tough shot maker. RJ owned the floor by playing all facets of the game. IOW, if he can do this now, what could he do once he gets rolling and consistent? Maybe he can be that guy for us. It was impressive.

I wouldn't go that far but it was certainly impressive how complete RJ's performance was.

The play where he drove off the PNR, whipped a bullet pass to the corner (the right play), then immediately left the paint and relocated to the corner to provide spacing (the right play) and then hit the corner 3 (a high-percentage shot) was strikingly smart. I loved the speed at which he made every decision. Especially when you compare it with guys like Randle, who seems stuck in mud all the time and drags the team along with him seemingly all the time.

RJ's motor has always been relentless. It's something you can't take away from him, and that separates him from both the Randles and the Paytons, and the Franks and the Knoxes.

I'm not mentioning him to make him a topic of conversation, this is just me, but that's why RJ (along with Mitch) is my favorite Knick since Melo. He has heart.

Yes, Relelentless + Smarts + Consistency = Elite or even Great someday

And you can namecheck Melo all day long AFAIK. He was not my guy, but I don’t censor fan favorites. I’ll just tease the crap out of anyone stanning someone not contributing to the team’s success

[mpharris36]

The question remains with this lower usage and less touches can he be an effective player in that role? And people can not use last night as playing effective...

Nope, his game is so ball dominant and his three point shot is just gone from last season. He doesn't cut when he doesn't have the ball, he almost never spaces to the corner, he simply cannot get out the way of plays in which he doesn't have the ball constantly screening to get it back on the post. Everything about his offense is anti team game.

When the guards come back we'd be better with Obi, even with his broken shot just because he'll hustle, cut and defend.

exactly. i don't know what he can do off the ball. he's not gonna catch and shoot. he's not gonna take 2 dribbles and pull up. or cut to the rim. he's not good at making quick decisions in general. he needs time to figure out what he wants to do with the ball which is why we play at the slowest pace in the league. it's hard for him to fit in. which is way i think he'll be a little hard to trade.

I think as NDOS pointed out already its very difficult to accept a diminished role on the same team especially when you have been lauded as the star and the guy the offense runs through. He just wont be engaged enough to be in that role. He doesn't really move without the ball. Last night was a perfect example when the play wasn't ran for him he basically just jogged over to the corner and didn't move.

Its crazy to think its only been a half season since the playoff debacle...but his relationship with the fans is kinda tenuous now. So Leon might want to get proactive before it gets too bad.

[mpharris36]

looks like it’s time to move on from Randle folks!!!!!

[god shammgod]

looks like it’s time to move on from Randle folks!!!!!

melo walking into the thread all confident like this....

[3toheadmelo]

looks like it’s time to move on from Randle folks!!!!!

[3toheadmelo]

looks like it’s time to move on from Randle folks!!!!!

melo walking into the thread all confident like this....

drip crazy!

[thebuzzardman]

looks like it’s time to move on from Randle folks!!!!!

[god shammgod]

melo walking into the thread all confident like this....

drip crazy!

[mpharris36]

looks like it’s time to move on from Randle folks!!!!!

melo walking into the thread all confident like this....

Melo to Rob

[El Poochio]

Mentality Effect!!!

[El Poochio]

Chanel is the J Jonah Jameson of this board

[Clyde_Style]

I just created a franchise player.

You're welcome.

I love RJ, he just isn't good. At all.

He was by far our most important pick/player since Melo pre-knee surgery.

More important than Randle. More important than KP. More important than Ron Baker.

And we missed completely.

The most damaging side to this is we needed a point guard and Garland - whose game was perfectly tailored for the modern game - was right there for the taking. I leaned towards RJ in the end, but I don't get paid millions to make those decisions either.

This could turn out to be another one of those what if moments. Our drafting from 2017 to 2019 has set back the franchise another decade tbh.

You need to show consistency to be a franchise player.

That's what season averages (i.e., a large sample size) are there to show. And those numbers show that he hasn't been good at all this year, despite a handful of great performances.

RJ had arguably the two best games of his career in the past week, so hopefully it's a sign of things to come. But he can't follow up one good game with two stinkers every time. So let's re-assess his game in February or so.

He had never looked this comfortable as a shot creator until this Spurs game, so let's hope this game is something he can build on. It can't be understated that he's looked better without Randle on the court too.

You eat stats for breakfast so what are his last six games? Wasn’t it something like 3 good games, followed by one mediocre game with a game winning shot and then two good games again? For the NBA that’s more than a hot hand, but probably consistency even for the best players. It’s taken from an admittedly small swath of games, but he has been good for more than a week now.

[Clyde_Style]

Chanel is the J Jonah Jameson of this board

With balding pate, shoeshine mustache and sideburns too?

[Chanel Bomber]

Although all the criticism is warranted, I really hope Randle pulls it together and finish the year off strong.

He honestly didn’t have a horrible game, he moved the ball, set screens (even though they were lazy), and played better defense. Most importantly he wasn’t forcing up shots and let RJ do his thing.

In my opinion he was a net positive by staying out of the way.

I think if he had this game but didn’t come off like he was sulking and low energy it wouldn’t have been so bad.

Thibs also put him in a bad situation. No way he should be in with a 20+ lead with everything going on. Our coach has zero feel for real-time basketball.

He also has no feel for people and situations either.

Remember how he kept throwing Payton to the wolves last season, especially in the 3rd quarter?

Needless to say that I was no Payton fan, and maybe that's rich coming from me, but I hated to see Payton look broken because of the boos and the abuse on Twitter, and I blamed Thibs for it.

And he did the exact same to Randle last night.

At some point you have to read the room and protect your players. Especially when there's literally no reason to have them out there.