PG: Knicks vs ATL

[Jalen Bluntson]

I stand by what I said, we lost because of Brunson. That’s not even so much an insult on him but an acknowledgement of how much we rely on him playing at a superstar level. If he plays like Elfrid Payton and goes 5-15 as he did last night we just aren’t winning many games, especially with his defensive liability. We could afford for another player to have an off night as long as Brunson is playing at a high level and someone else can pick up the slack but if he has an off night we’re pretty much screwed. So hopefully he stops coasting and flips the switch by the end of the season

The team shot 26% from three. 60% from the line. The bench scored 14 pts. OG was far worse than Jalen was. We couldn't stop a nose bleed in the second half. Sure. Makes sense. We lost because Jalen last night.

I get the rest of your post but, last night was team/coaching loss and no one player gets the blame. Everyone choked that game away and, Atlanta is actually a solid team who didn't play much better and barely won.

We lost that game in the third qtr. They came out with adjustments and we didn't make any. That's where we lost the game. That's coaching. Cokehead vs the Penguin. They exposed our weaknesses and we didn't adjust to switching on defense. We also didn't attack their defensive weakness on offense. Coaching lost that game and the players performed poorly as a result. Final answer. It definitely wasn't Brunson who lost us that game. That's silly.

[ScienceOfLosing]

BITCH!!!

Probably blackmailed at something similar to a Diddy or Epstein way.
Really, too much money involved to think refs are not (at times) compromised, blackmailed, leveraged or the like.

She'd be wearing a strap on at a Diddly party, for sure

Sometimes your mindreading abilities make me uncomfortable.

[Jalen Bluntson]

I hope you and your family are good too. Whatever you're going through, know you're good peoples.

I agree with the general sentiment about defense but Randle and Divo didn't defend. They were defensive weak links.

So it's not about swapping Randle/Divo for KAT/Mikal. There's no dropoff there.

We lost our defense when iHart walked for nothing and our boy Mitch suffered a setback in his recovery.

My guess is the FO thought acquiring Mikal could offset that loss and bring elite perimeter defense in addition to OG. The issue is Mikal is not elite, and in fact looks pretty average. So getting him didn't mitigate the loss of iHart and Mitch.

Correct me if I am wrong but, Mikal was traded for before Shart decided to leave. What they knew behind the scenes I won't claim to know but, we still had Randle and DDV and Shart was still undecided when we made the Mikal trade. Not sure they were thinking Mikal could make up the difference defensively at that point. Not sure Mitch was expected to miss half the season either.

They could have hoped for a Thibs rotation of:
Brunson/Deuce
Mikal/DDV
OG/Hart
Randle
Shart/Mitch

That's what many of us wanted/expected too at the end of last season and right after the trade. Run it back with Mikal.

Then the rumblings of losing Shart happened and Randle wouldn't extend. Here we are wishing we had last year's team with Mikal or, at least this year's team with Shart/healthy Mitch.

Brunson/Payne
Mikal/Deuce
OG/Hart
KAT
Shart/Mitch

What fun that would be. Same basic identity as last year but way more efficient and better on defense.

Oh well. Looks like we need to find that rim protector somehow. Thibs can't win without one.

I think they knew they had no chance to keep Shartovic. They probably would've trade for Mikal regardless. You make a good point with the timeline but I think they were bracing for the possibility of him leaving.

Fair enough. Even without Shart, I don't know that they expected Mitch to miss half the season either. A healthy Mitch doing Mitch things would be a big help obviously.

Who do you think we need to get to fix this team? Mitch healthy is a pipe dream. We need his replacement or something similar. Thibs can't work without it apparently.

[robillionaire]

I stand by what I said, we lost because of Brunson. That’s not even so much an insult on him but an acknowledgement of how much we rely on him playing at a superstar level. If he plays like Elfrid Payton and goes 5-15 as he did last night we just aren’t winning many games, especially with his defensive liability. We could afford for another player to have an off night as long as Brunson is playing at a high level and someone else can pick up the slack but if he has an off night we’re pretty much screwed. So hopefully he stops coasting and flips the switch by the end of the season

The team shot 26% from three. 60% from the line. The bench scored 14 pts. OG was far worse than Jalen was. We couldn't stop a nose bleed in the second half. Sure. Makes sense. We lost because Jalen last night.

I get the rest of your post but, last night was team/coaching loss and no one player gets the blame. Everyone choked that game away and, Atlanta is actually a solid team who didn't play much better and barely won.

We lost that game in the third qtr. They came out with adjustments and we didn't make any. That's where we lost the game. That's coaching. Cokehead vs the Penguin. They exposed our weaknesses and we didn't adjust to switching on defense. We also didn't attack their defensive weakness on offense. Coaching lost that game and the players performed poorly as a result. Final answer. It definitely wasn't Brunson who lost us that game. That's silly.

Can the coach make Brunson not get locked up by some guy I’ve never heard of? OG carries the defense so even if he has an off shooting night he’s still contributing something towards a positive or at minimum a neutral that’s the good thing about a two way player.

[Jalen Bluntson]

Probably blackmailed at something similar to a Diddy or Epstein way.
Really, too much money involved to think refs are not (at times) compromised, blackmailed, leveraged or the like.

She'd be wearing a strap on at a Diddly party, for sure

Sometimes your mindreading abilities make me uncomfortable.

It's not mind reading. You both know what goes on at Diddy parties. I have seen you both there!

[3toheadmelo]

And iHart and to a lesser extent Mitch (and later Precious). And neither can play for us.

We were beating teams primarily with our defense and offensive rebounding last year. These areas of the game were our primary competitive advantages, with Brunson. The stats from last year are quite loud and clear about this. And our centers were the key to this.

Neither Randle nor Divo helped in those departments.

The dropoff in performance stems primarily from losing iHart and Mitch, not from swapping Randle and Divo for KAT. Not to mention, KAT's performing at a higher level than both of those Minnesota guys this season.

But we still have the 6th best net rating in the NBA so I think way too early to panic. They need to find some consistency but I expect them to win 50 games this year.

Eye test shows me that we miss Randle’s playmaking and gravity. Nobody can really create for our team besides Brunson. Randle was our de facto PG for the past years with Brunson. Brunson is struggling a bit trying to find that balance between scoring and playmaking.
Ihart is good, but he played awful in the post season. We could’ve replaced him with Nick Richards and ran it back.

What’s our net rating against teams that have a winning record?

We have the second best offense in the NBA, right behind Cleveland.

We certainly don't miss Randle's offense. Our offense is elite.

Where we suffered a loss was on defense and Randle was not a good defender for us. iHart and Mitch were the foundational pieces of our defense and one walked for nothing while the other's injured.

You're trying to put a square peg in a round hole with your Randle argument. It simply doesn't add up.

You’re over exaggerating Ihart’s impact a lot. His defense didn’t hold up at all in the post season. All we had to do was trade for a replacement like Nick Richards.

Our offense is a struggle against teams that switch. We saw how bad our offense was last night when nobody could create.

Our defense is substantially worse with KAT at the 5 which is why I didn’t want us to do this trade. We never had the issue with Randle here.

We have a pretty awful record against winning teams this season. Our net rating is boosted from beating up bad teams. What’s our net rating against winning teams?

[robillionaire]

Eye test shows me that we miss Randle’s playmaking and gravity. Nobody can really create for our team besides Brunson. Randle was our de facto PG for the past years with Brunson. Brunson is struggling a bit trying to find that balance between scoring and playmaking.
Ihart is good, but he played awful in the post season. We could’ve replaced him with Nick Richards and ran it back.

What’s our net rating against teams that have a winning record?

We have the second best offense in the NBA, right behind Cleveland.

We certainly don't miss Randle's offense. Our offense is elite.

Where we suffered a loss was on defense and Randle was not a good defender for us. iHart and Mitch were the foundational pieces of our defense and one walked for nothing while the other's injured.

You're trying to put a square peg in a round hole with your Randle argument. It simply doesn't add up.

You’re over exaggerating Ihart’s impact a lot. His defense didn’t hold up at all in the post season. All we had to do was trade for a replacement like Nick Richards.

Our offense is a struggle against teams that switch. We saw how bad our offense was last night when nobody could create.

Our defense is substantially worse with KAT at the 5 which is why I didn’t want us to do this trade. We never had the issue with Randle here.

We have a pretty awful record against winning teams this season. Our net rating is boosted from beating up bad teams. What’s our net rating against winning teams?

We are still going to make a trade. Idk if it will be for Richards himself but it will be for a similar mold of player. My speculation at least. There’s also always the possibility they really do think Mitch will come back and fill that role without a trade but there’s been enough rumors around these guys that I expect a trade

[KnixinSix]

Eye test shows me that we miss Randle’s playmaking and gravity. Nobody can really create for our team besides Brunson. Randle was our de facto PG for the past years with Brunson. Brunson is struggling a bit trying to find that balance between scoring and playmaking.
Ihart is good, but he played awful in the post season. We could’ve replaced him with Nick Richards and ran it back.

What’s our net rating against teams that have a winning record?

We have the second best offense in the NBA, right behind Cleveland.

We certainly don't miss Randle's offense. Our offense is elite.

Where we suffered a loss was on defense and Randle was not a good defender for us. iHart and Mitch were the foundational pieces of our defense and one walked for nothing while the other's injured.

You're trying to put a square peg in a round hole with your Randle argument. It simply doesn't add up.

You’re over exaggerating Ihart’s impact a lot. His defense didn’t hold up at all in the post season. All we had to do was trade for a replacement like Nick Richards.

Our offense is a struggle against teams that switch. We saw how bad our offense was last night when nobody could create.

Our defense is substantially worse with KAT at the 5 which is why I didn’t want us to do this trade. We never had the issue with Randle here.

We have a pretty awful record against winning teams this season. Our net rating is boosted from beating up bad teams. What’s our net rating against winning teams?

In a thibodeau system the value of an elite protecting five is huge end of story

[Jalen Bluntson]

I stand by what I said, we lost because of Brunson. That’s not even so much an insult on him but an acknowledgement of how much we rely on him playing at a superstar level. If he plays like Elfrid Payton and goes 5-15 as he did last night we just aren’t winning many games, especially with his defensive liability. We could afford for another player to have an off night as long as Brunson is playing at a high level and someone else can pick up the slack but if he has an off night we’re pretty much screwed. So hopefully he stops coasting and flips the switch by the end of the season

The team shot 26% from three. 60% from the line. The bench scored 14 pts. OG was far worse than Jalen was. We couldn't stop a nose bleed in the second half. Sure. Makes sense. We lost because Jalen last night.

I get the rest of your post but, last night was team/coaching loss and no one player gets the blame. Everyone choked that game away and, Atlanta is actually a solid team who didn't play much better and barely won.

We lost that game in the third qtr. They came out with adjustments and we didn't make any. That's where we lost the game. That's coaching. Cokehead vs the Penguin. They exposed our weaknesses and we didn't adjust to switching on defense. We also didn't attack their defensive weakness on offense. Coaching lost that game and the players performed poorly as a result. Final answer. It definitely wasn't Brunson who lost us that game. That's silly.

Can the coach make Brunson not get locked up by some guy I’ve never heard of? OG carries the defense so even if he has an off shooting night he’s still contributing something towards a positive or at minimum a neutral that’s the good thing about a two way player.

No. When you go 5-17 and 1-9 your defense doesn't excuse you from a loss. How many of those missed shots were passes from Brunson? He hits 3 and we're having a different discussion. Why? Brunson would have had have had 11+ assists and we win because Brunson was doing more when he is having an off shooting night. See how that works? The HC got exposed. The team shoot like **** and couldn't hit a FT either. It was a coaching loss that led to a team loss.

[Chanel Bomber]

Eye test shows me that we miss Randle’s playmaking and gravity. Nobody can really create for our team besides Brunson. Randle was our de facto PG for the past years with Brunson. Brunson is struggling a bit trying to find that balance between scoring and playmaking.
Ihart is good, but he played awful in the post season. We could’ve replaced him with Nick Richards and ran it back.

What’s our net rating against teams that have a winning record?

We have the second best offense in the NBA, right behind Cleveland.

We certainly don't miss Randle's offense. Our offense is elite.

Where we suffered a loss was on defense and Randle was not a good defender for us. iHart and Mitch were the foundational pieces of our defense and one walked for nothing while the other's injured.

You're trying to put a square peg in a round hole with your Randle argument. It simply doesn't add up.

You’re over exaggerating Ihart’s impact a lot. His defense didn’t hold up at all in the post season. All we had to do was trade for a replacement like Nick Richards.

Our offense is a struggle against teams that switch. We saw how bad our offense was last night when nobody could create.

Our defense is substantially worse with KAT at the 5 which is why I didn’t want us to do this trade. We never had the issue with Randle here.

We have a pretty awful record against winning teams this season. Our net rating is boosted from beating up bad teams. What’s our net rating against winning teams?

iHart's had a significant impact last year and he had a +11.0 on/off per 100 possessions in the playoffs. He struggled towards the end of the Pacers series - likely because he was gassed - but he played well overall in the postseason.

Our offense is elite and better than last year's. Sure we may not be as good vs switching teams but this is a high-powered offense.

I'm not going to make calculations for you bro if you want to prove a point you're gonna have to use your own calculator you lazy mf

[KnixinSix]

The team shot 26% from three. 60% from the line. The bench scored 14 pts. OG was far worse than Jalen was. We couldn't stop a nose bleed in the second half. Sure. Makes sense. We lost because Jalen last night.

I get the rest of your post but, last night was team/coaching loss and no one player gets the blame. Everyone choked that game away and, Atlanta is actually a solid team who didn't play much better and barely won.

We lost that game in the third qtr. They came out with adjustments and we didn't make any. That's where we lost the game. That's coaching. Cokehead vs the Penguin. They exposed our weaknesses and we didn't adjust to switching on defense. We also didn't attack their defensive weakness on offense. Coaching lost that game and the players performed poorly as a result. Final answer. It definitely wasn't Brunson who lost us that game. That's silly.

Can the coach make Brunson not get locked up by some guy I’ve never heard of? OG carries the defense so even if he has an off shooting night he’s still contributing something towards a positive or at minimum a neutral that’s the good thing about a two way player.

No. When you go 5-17 and 1-9 your defense doesn't excuse you from a loss. How many of those missed shots were passes from Brunson? He hits 3 and we're having a different discussion. Why? Brunson would have had have had 11+ assists and we win because Brunson was doing more when he is having an off shooting night. See how that works? The HC got exposed. The team shoot like **** and couldn't hit a FT either. It was a coaching loss that led to a team loss.

A thibodeau coached team that relies more on offense than defense is asking for trouble.

[3toheadmelo]

We have the second best offense in the NBA, right behind Cleveland.

We certainly don't miss Randle's offense. Our offense is elite.

Where we suffered a loss was on defense and Randle was not a good defender for us. iHart and Mitch were the foundational pieces of our defense and one walked for nothing while the other's injured.

You're trying to put a square peg in a round hole with your Randle argument. It simply doesn't add up.

You’re over exaggerating Ihart’s impact a lot. His defense didn’t hold up at all in the post season. All we had to do was trade for a replacement like Nick Richards.

Our offense is a struggle against teams that switch. We saw how bad our offense was last night when nobody could create.

Our defense is substantially worse with KAT at the 5 which is why I didn’t want us to do this trade. We never had the issue with Randle here.

We have a pretty awful record against winning teams this season. Our net rating is boosted from beating up bad teams. What’s our net rating against winning teams?

iHart's had a significant impact last year and he had a +11.0 on/off per 100 possessions in the playoffs. He struggled towards the end of the Pacers series - likely because he was gassed - but he played well overall in the postseason.

Our offense is elite and better than last year's. Sure we may not be as good vs switching teams but this is a high-powered offense.

I'm not going to make calculations for you bro if you want to prove a point you're gonna have to use your own calculator you lazy mf

Mf you the one posting our net ratings I want to know what it is against winning teams because I know it has to be bad

Until we start beating teams with a winning record im going to be very skeptical of this team’s ceiling. That’s just how I feel man

[Buttah304]

Randle AND Nick Richards

Over the last two seasons Nick Richards DFG% <6 feet is hovering around 63% on average which is entering Poetl, Vuc and Jalen Duren levels.

Pairing with Randle with Richards and the inevitable DDV regression would have comfortably put us at 12-13 at best this year through 25 games.

Minny was 20-5, I repeat 20-5 through their first twenty five games last year. They are 12-11 this season.

Something tells me they made a trade but I can’t recall who left and what they got back

[Jalen Bluntson]

Can the coach make Brunson not get locked up by some guy I’ve never heard of? OG carries the defense so even if he has an off shooting night he’s still contributing something towards a positive or at minimum a neutral that’s the good thing about a two way player.

No. When you go 5-17 and 1-9 your defense doesn't excuse you from a loss. How many of those missed shots were passes from Brunson? He hits 3 and we're having a different discussion. Why? Brunson would have had have had 11+ assists and we win because Brunson was doing more when he is having an off shooting night. See how that works? The HC got exposed. The team shoot like **** and couldn't hit a FT either. It was a coaching loss that led to a team loss.

A thibodeau coached team that relies more on offense than defense is asking for trouble.

What's your point? Brunson did NOT cost us that game last night. It was coaching and a team loss as a result. No single player shoulders the blame. Period. They came out and attacked our drop coverage over and over and took the game away. We did nothing different than we did in the first half. That's when we lost he game.

Could Jalen have played better? Sure. So could the entire team. 26% from 3. Brunson shot 2-6 33%. 60% from the line. Brunson went 2-3. The bench scored 14 pts. So did Brunson by himself. Brunson went 5-15/2-6. OG went 5-17/1-9. Brunson had 4 boards and 8 assist. OG had 3/1. Perhaps he cost us the game? No.

[Chanel Bomber]

Correct me if I am wrong but, Mikal was traded for before Shart decided to leave. What they knew behind the scenes I won't claim to know but, we still had Randle and DDV and Shart was still undecided when we made the Mikal trade. Not sure they were thinking Mikal could make up the difference defensively at that point. Not sure Mitch was expected to miss half the season either.

They could have hoped for a Thibs rotation of:
Brunson/Deuce
Mikal/DDV
OG/Hart
Randle
Shart/Mitch

That's what many of us wanted/expected too at the end of last season and right after the trade. Run it back with Mikal.

Then the rumblings of losing Shart happened and Randle wouldn't extend. Here we are wishing we had last year's team with Mikal or, at least this year's team with Shart/healthy Mitch.

Brunson/Payne
Mikal/Deuce
OG/Hart
KAT
Shart/Mitch

What fun that would be. Same basic identity as last year but way more efficient and better on defense.

Oh well. Looks like we need to find that rim protector somehow. Thibs can't win without one.

I think they knew they had no chance to keep Shartovic. They probably would've trade for Mikal regardless. You make a good point with the timeline but I think they were bracing for the possibility of him leaving.

Fair enough. Even without Shart, I don't know that they expected Mitch to miss half the season either. A healthy Mitch doing Mitch things would be a big help obviously.

Who do you think we need to get to fix this team? Mitch healthy is a pipe dream. We need his replacement or something similar. Thibs can't work without it apparently.

I think this is a better team than people (or their record) make it out to be, so I think we need to be patient.

Our biggest flaw is our lack of depth so I would make a move on the fringes to bolster our bench.

Our starters have a +6.3 net rating in 418 minutes.

My favorite lineup - the starters with McBride in for Mikal - has a +31.6 net rating (in 44 minutes - obviously due for regression over a larger sample).

Our top-6 is fine but until Precious/Mitch get up to speed there's a significant dropoff from 6 to 7.

The Knicks have the assets to make a deal. Decent value with the Detroit pick and possibly Dadiet. Some salary mass with Mitch and/or Precious. Just a reliable bench player would I think be of immense value to the team.

[KnixinSix]

No. When you go 5-17 and 1-9 your defense doesn't excuse you from a loss. How many of those missed shots were passes from Brunson? He hits 3 and we're having a different discussion. Why? Brunson would have had have had 11+ assists and we win because Brunson was doing more when he is having an off shooting night. See how that works? The HC got exposed. The team shoot like **** and couldn't hit a FT either. It was a coaching loss that led to a team loss.

A thibodeau coached team that relies more on offense than defense is asking for trouble.

What's your point? Brunson did NOT cost us that game last night. It was coaching and a team loss as a result. No single player shoulders the blame. Period. They came out and attacked our drop coverage over and over and took the game away. We did nothing different than we did in the first half. That's when we lost he game.

Could Jalen have played better? Sure. So could the entire team. 26% from 3. Brunson shot 2-6 33%. 60% from the line. Brunson went 2-3. The bench scored 14 pts. So did Brunson by himself. Brunson went 5-15/2-6. OG went 5-17/1-9. Brunson had 4 boards and 8 assist. OG had 3/1. Perhaps he cost us the game? No.

The point is there is so many greater things in this picture. There will be a multitude of reasons we can attribute to each loss when you look at them individually. But the biggest overarching factor by far is that without that elite rim protecting 5 like we had for Thibs basically every single year this team is missing a huge part of what makes his preffered system work.

[RHODEY]

A lot of good insight here.

Watch on YouTube

[Chanel Bomber]

You’re over exaggerating Ihart’s impact a lot. His defense didn’t hold up at all in the post season. All we had to do was trade for a replacement like Nick Richards.

Our offense is a struggle against teams that switch. We saw how bad our offense was last night when nobody could create.

Our defense is substantially worse with KAT at the 5 which is why I didn’t want us to do this trade. We never had the issue with Randle here.

We have a pretty awful record against winning teams this season. Our net rating is boosted from beating up bad teams. What’s our net rating against winning teams?

iHart's had a significant impact last year and he had a +11.0 on/off per 100 possessions in the playoffs. He struggled towards the end of the Pacers series - likely because he was gassed - but he played well overall in the postseason.

Our offense is elite and better than last year's. Sure we may not be as good vs switching teams but this is a high-powered offense.

I'm not going to make calculations for you bro if you want to prove a point you're gonna have to use your own calculator you lazy mf

Mf you the one posting our net ratings I want to know what it is against winning teams because I know it has to be bad

Until we start beating teams with a winning record im going to be very skeptical of this team’s ceiling. That’s just how I feel man

We have a 5-5 record against winning teams. I'm not looking up our net rating against those teams - this is your argument, you go and make it

I think it's fine to be skeptical of this team's ceiling. Where you're losing me (and basically everybody here) is when you see causation between the KAT trade and our record (which isn't even bad to begin with).

The Knicks took a step back from last year but there was a lot of movement beyond the KAT trade that can explain it. And the impact metrics from last year and this year suggest that the biggest loss in value from last season was iHart, not Randle.

The Wolves took a MAJOR step back from last year - far worse than us - and they made no other significant change in personnel besides the KAT trade.

[Jalen Bluntson]

I think they knew they had no chance to keep Shartovic. They probably would've trade for Mikal regardless. You make a good point with the timeline but I think they were bracing for the possibility of him leaving.

Fair enough. Even without Shart, I don't know that they expected Mitch to miss half the season either. A healthy Mitch doing Mitch things would be a big help obviously.

Who do you think we need to get to fix this team? Mitch healthy is a pipe dream. We need his replacement or something similar. Thibs can't work without it apparently.

I think this is a better team than people (or their record) make it out to be, so I think we need to be patient.

Our biggest flaw is our lack of depth so I would make a move on the fringes to bolster our bench.

Our starters have a +6.3 net rating in 418 minutes.

My favorite lineup - the starters with McBride in for Mikal - has a +31.6 net rating (in 44 minutes - obviously due for regression over a larger sample).

Our top-6 is fine but until Precious/Mitch get up to speed there's a significant dropoff from 6 to 7.

The Knicks have the assets to make a deal. Decent value with the Detroit pick and possibly Dadiet. Some salary mass with Mitch and/or Precious. Just a reliable bench player would I think be of immense value to the team.

I think our biggest flaw is our HC. Lack of depth due to injury is also a problem but, he does nothing to help that either.

Fully healthy I think we could run with the best of them. Mitch being fully healthy is the risk. Otherwise I completely agree that a minor fringe move would be all it really took. Mitch is more than a minor move because we need HIM or a Shart type player to really be the best team Thibs could coach. Again...biggest flaw.

Kessler for rookies and the WAS pick makes the most sense to me. I agree with Knixinsix/others there 100%. Would Ainge oblige? Precious for a rim protector in his price range type deal? Keeping Mitch while doing either of those trades would be ideal to me. Precious/Mitch trade? That's another option. We are not handcuffed at all.

I think the team would perform better if the HC wasn't so stubborn. I think we need to build more depth as well because Mitch is a potato chip and Precious is gone after this year. We have options but, ultimately we will have to make more moves

[kNicksGmen]

Eye test shows me that we miss Randle’s playmaking and gravity. Nobody can really create for our team besides Brunson. Randle was our de facto PG for the past years with Brunson. Brunson is struggling a bit trying to find that balance between scoring and playmaking.
Ihart is good, but he played awful in the post season. We could’ve replaced him with Nick Richards and ran it back.

What’s our net rating against teams that have a winning record?

We have the second best offense in the NBA, right behind Cleveland.

We certainly don't miss Randle's offense. Our offense is elite.

Where we suffered a loss was on defense and Randle was not a good defender for us. iHart and Mitch were the foundational pieces of our defense and one walked for nothing while the other's injured.

You're trying to put a square peg in a round hole with your Randle argument. It simply doesn't add up.

You’re over exaggerating Ihart’s impact a lot. His defense didn’t hold up at all in the post season. All we had to do was trade for a replacement like Nick Richards.

Our offense is a struggle against teams that switch. We saw how bad our offense was last night when nobody could create.

Our defense is substantially worse with KAT at the 5 which is why I didn’t want us to do this trade. We never had the issue with Randle here.

We have a pretty awful record against winning teams this season. Our net rating is boosted from beating up bad teams. What’s our net rating against winning teams?

ihart's defense and screening/diving on offense can't be understated. all the advanced stats showed it and the eye test matched. he is an elite rim protecting, rebounding, screening big with smarts and great hands. there's a reason OKC paid him what they did. he's pretty much a perfect non-star center.

i do agree we miss randle's creation when the basic thibs actions get shut down by switching defenses. brunson can't even beat his man off the dribble these days. for all of randle's flaws his gravity did generate looks.