What does an RJ extension look like?

[Jalen Bluntson]

I want him to get $2 more than it would take to watch Chanel and Jimmit implode!!!

[Jalen Bluntson]

I voted STFU and leave because that's funny but, don't offer him shyt until next year. 3/57 incentive laden.

[Bob Ross]

The amount of RJ slander in here is outrageous.

[Jalen Bluntson]

The amount of RJ slander in here is outrageous.

Yes

[HarthorneWingo]

RJ's shooting 30% on pull-up jump shots. Facts.

[nedleeds]

Or, he could have a career arc like Victor Oladipo

If Oladipo's athleticism, first step and burst at age 21 was an 8/10, what do you put RJ's at?

He's 6'6", he doesn't need Oladipo's athleticism, he needs Jimmy Butler weight, getting bigger & stronger and up to 230lbs would be just as beneficial, but yall are obsessed with athleticism in a league where the best young perimeter player can't jump over a phone book.

I mean. We wouldn't be obsessed with RJ's athleticism if he could shoot. Or had an elite handle. But to be an athletic C- and one of the 25 worst shooters who is allowed to shoot is not a great combination. Especially with a looming extension from a clownworld front office.

[dakomish23]

The amount of RJ slander in here is outrageous.

Meanwhile the best basketball analyst in the game actually thinks he’s good.

Read on Twitter

It’s mostly an overlap between ppl hating on him still that also called him a bust. Some of the ppl who know better will ignore all context and would rather stay entrenched in their opinion. Some of the ppl are bandwagon folks who will fall in and out of love with him.

[DowNY]

If RJ had a flashy crossover or was a high flying dunker his 20/6/3 at 21 years old would have Knicks fans creaming themselves nonstop but since he isn't that there is a lukewarm feeling towards his upside.

I'd settle for not the one of the worst 25 shooters who play in the league and can jump over a phone book actually. My standards are very reasonable.

https://youtu.be/TAsQh07_kNo

You must be old where the phone books were like the size of a bicycle or something

[NoDopeOnSundays]

The amount of RJ slander in here is outrageous.

Meanwhile the best basketball analyst in the game actually thinks he’s good.

Read on Twitter

It’s mostly an overlap between ppl hating on him still that also called him a bust. Some of the ppl who know better will ignore all context and would rather stay entrenched in their opinion. Some of the ppl are bandwagon folks who will fall in and out of love with him.

This is really the strangest thing about RJ, I listen to a lot of basketball podcasts, a lot of them aren't even Knicks focused, and across the board all these different basketball minds, analysts, coaches, etc all like RJ. Yet, I come here, and it's bizzarro world.

[thebuzzardman]

The amount of RJ slander in here is outrageous.

Meanwhile the best basketball analyst in the game actually thinks he’s good.

Read on Twitter

It’s mostly an overlap between ppl hating on him still that also called him a bust. Some of the ppl who know better will ignore all context and would rather stay entrenched in their opinion. Some of the ppl are bandwagon folks who will fall in and out of love with him.

This is really the strangest thing about RJ, I listen to a lot of basketball podcasts, a lot of them aren't even Knicks focused, and across the board all these different basketball minds, analysts, coaches, etc all like RJ. Yet, I come here, and it's bizzarro world.

He wasn't instantly Ja or Lebron, so he sucks.

[Spree2Houston]

Watch on YouTube

[Bob Ross]

He's produced more than Zion

[Deeeez Knicks]

The amount of RJ slander in here is outrageous.

Meanwhile the best basketball analyst in the game actually thinks he’s good.

Read on Twitter

It’s mostly an overlap between ppl hating on him still that also called him a bust. Some of the ppl who know better will ignore all context and would rather stay entrenched in their opinion. Some of the ppl are bandwagon folks who will fall in and out of love with him.

This is really the strangest thing about RJ, I listen to a lot of basketball podcasts, a lot of them aren't even Knicks focused, and across the board all these different basketball minds, analysts, coaches, etc all like RJ. Yet, I come here, and it's bizzarro world.

Yea, I don’t get all the slander.

[F N 11]

RJ is a stud

[Gravy]

RJ is in the most disliked category of Knicks players; not bad enough to tank and not a star. Same as Randle, Brunson, Timmy, Fournier etc. The perception would change under different circumstances, its like if the Grizzlies drafted JJJ and did not luck into Brooks and Morant. We asking RJ to carry the franchise when that's beyond his ability.

[Chanel Bomber]

Isolation is just one aspect of defense. You can't just use one playtype of defense, which in RJ's case comprised of 59 tracked possessions, which account for less than 2% of all the defensive possessions he was involved in. There is more to defense than isolation defense. To conclude that RJ is a good defender based on those 59 possessions is cherry-picking.

Why are you still harping on isolation defense, when I already said I never checked Huerters, because I know it's awful and you know it's awful which is why you're doing your best attempt to devalue it. Even if you throw out isolation defense RJ has the edge in more advanced defensive categories, the ones you use all the time. Huerter is not as good of a defender as RJ, you can try and "Well actually" your way out of it, but that's just the cold hard fact.

All statistics are not created equal. You have to know what they say. Net rating is a team-oriented statistic, not an impact metric. You play with bad defensive players, you will have a bad defensive rating, even if you are a good defensive player yourself (unless you are a transformative defensive player like Rudy Gobert who makes up for your teammates deficiencies). Stats like RAPTOR and RAPM are much more complex and attempt to extract all the noise that affect more basic stats like defensive rating, which is not meant to evaluate defensive impact to begin with.

I couldn't care less about whether or not it's basic, RJ has a better one . The fact you're trying this hard to devalue it, just as you are with isolation defense is because you and I both know your "RJ isn't a better defender than Huerter" argument goes up in smoke. You want me to stop the count, sorry Chanel, we count all the votes.

So no, I'm not choosing the statistics that I like to support my position.

You are though, you've had two paragraphs worth of explaining why you don't want to count it. I'm counting it, just like you're ducking my PJ Tucker question.

Brown's TS might have been comparable to RJ's in a vacuum but league-average has increased since. That means with a similar percentage, RJ was much less efficient relative to the league than Brown was years prior. That's why I look at league-adjusted TS% when comparing individual seasons from different years/eras. Brown was a 98 in TS+ as a rookie. RJ a 94 in TS+ as a sophomore. 98 was Brown's worst career mark. 94 was RJ's best career mark. You can find those figures in the adjusted shooting section in basketball-reference. Brown's scoring efficiency was always close to or above league-average. That has not been the case for RJ.

You're splitting hairs here, a 98 and 94 is such a inconsequential difference. I know without a shadow of a doubt you would have been saying Brown isn't worth 4 years $100 million if he were a Knick, you would have been talking about how his numbers are on par with Jeff Greens or something along those lines and fair value for Jaylen would be $12 million per. Their advanced stats are hilariously close through their first 3 years, with RJ being a full year younger than Brown was. You cannot convince me you were sold on Brown between 2017-2019.

Wiggins played very well in the Finals and ranks as one of the fairly rare historical outliers of a player who was incredibly inefficient to start his career, yet was the second or third best player in a series for a championship team. These outliers mostly become #3 options (KCP, Toine, Jrue). And it's only just a possibility - a lot of guys who started this inefficient never adjust to that role, or have this sort of success. I think if RJ is gonna become one of those players, he will likely fit the KCP-Toine mold, or Jrue without the defense. I don't think RJ has the athletic tools to ever be able to finish or defend like Wiggins or Brown for that matter.

Or, he could have a career arc like Victor Oladipo, if it weren't for the injuries Oladipo would make for a number 2, maybe he's like Kyle Lowry who didn't even come into his own until he was 26 years old. There are far more players out there than just Toine, Jrue and KCP. RJ being high character with a good work ethic is why I think he can become a more efficient player, if he were someone like Kevin Porter I'd be saying to trade him immediately, because attitude does go a long way.

Also, I see you refuse to answer whether or not RJ would have impacted game 7 more than PJ Tucker, who was -16 in 17 minutes, 0-3 with 2 turnovers, they got absolutely nothing from a starter in a 4 point loss. That is 3 or 4 times I've asked you, and 3-4 times you have avoided answering, I'm not going to continue this without an answer. I want to see just how much you're willing to spin this, your refusal to answer makes me laugh too, cause I know it would hurt your soul to have to say RJ would in fact score more than 0 pts, which is more than someone who is supposedly better than him.

You are the one who harps on isolation defense as some sort of evidence that RJ is a good or decent defender. I don't. I merely push back on the idea that you can infer from isolation numbers that a player is a good or a bad defender. There are different metrics to measure the latter, which encompass all the defensive possessions and not just a select few.

It's not true that RJ scores higher than Huerter in most advanced impact metrics. Defensive rating is not an advanced stat that is meant to assess a player's individual defense, and never has been. It just tells you how well a team performed defensively with a certain player on the court. If you're a bad defender who's surrounded by 4 good defenders, you're going to have a better defensive rating than a good defender surrounded by 4 bad defenders.

If Miami put RJ in Tucker's role, they might not have made it to a game 7 of the ECF. In fact, they probably wouldn't have. Miami needed Tucker's elite defense and his elite 3-point shooting to get this far in the playoffs. RJ provides neither. I have seen RJ suck in the playoffs in a much earlier round, against much worse defense, by the way, so I'm not interested in hypothesizing what he would have done in Tucker's role in a game 7 of the ECF - you don't have the answer, and I don't have the answer. You act like this has happened and your position is somehow validated by it. It's not, because this argument is based on pure fiction.

About Brown, it is a consequential difference when you consider that 98 was Brown's worst-career mark and 94 was RJ's best, which he achieved in a more limited role.

Lowry has been efficient since he entered the league. If you think RJ can be an unathletic Oladipo, sure, be my guest. I don't value Oladipo, so I really dgaf.

[Chanel Bomber]

37% fg from your starting PG is still terrible. No fault of Burks. He just is not a good starting PG. That is not an excuse, but a fact.

In terms of featured options, Knicks don’t really have a good one so agree there. But someone has to take the load so it fell on Randle and RJ who were our 2 most talented players….sad, but true. This is also where having no PG hurts a lot. Knicks just didn’t have a good team and had maybe the worse PG play in the league. They also had some of the worse #1 option in the league so agree with that too.

I agree, he should be scaled back from where he was at the end of the season, but I am also ok with him taking on that role because we didnt have anything else going and might as well. For stretchs, he actually played really well which seems to be ignored. But consistency is very important and he fell off a little at the end. RJ needs to be more consistent but thats ok.

For RJ, no doubt he needs to play better and everyone will say that. Just improving the roster alone won’t fix all his problems. Both can be true. Roster had a lot of issues last year and RJ also needs to play better too.

Burks's FG% was driven by the fact that more than half of his shot attempts were 3s. It naturally trended towards his 3P%. So his FG% was misleading at face value. He was obviously sub-optimal as a starting point guard if you want RJ and Randle to be finishers. He was a solid point guard if you want them to initiate. Which I think goes back to my confusion about what people (not necessarily you - just in general) want from the Knicks regarding RJ. Do they want him to be set up and finish plays, or do they want him to create?

The Knicks could've gone more to Fournier, or IQ, who are both more talented as shot creators. The team suffered from its overall lack of talent, I agree. But they could have run a more equalitarian offense.

As you said, you can make a case for running this experiment in his 3rd year, considering how shambolic that season was at the team level. But now we have the results. We can make an informed decision about whether or not this experiment was worth it, or a failure. Everything points towards the latter. So my suggestion would be to scale down his role, hold him accountable in year 4, judge him by his defensive impact and his efficiency as a scorer (since he doesn't really pass the ball), and then offer him a contract that more or less reflects the value of his contributions (if you don't trade him over the summer).

I agree that RJ would've played marginally better with a better roster around him. You can say that about his teammates as well though. But I think your take is reasonable.

Which I think goes back to my confusion about what people (not necessarily you - just in general) want from the Knicks regarding RJ. Do they want him to be set up and finish plays, or do they want him to create?.

I can't speak to others, but I want RJ doing a little bit of both. Its about finding the right balance between creating and finishing. Ideally he is not the primary guy and we have someone to at least run the offense as a PG. You still need secondary playmakers and that is where RJ fits in better as secondary guy that can do a bit of everything.

Brunson shouldnt be a primary guy either, but at least he gives the Knicks another option and is someone that can run the offense which takes pressure off. He should help create and facilitate for others. Now, I am not a fan of the overall vision, but Brunson in a vacuum is an upgrade at PG and should help the offense, everyone included.

But lets be real...If we are calling for the more Fournier that just proves the point that the Knicks were pretty sad. PJ Tucker, or Royce O'Neal would not be any good either if we put the ball in there hands.

Just the way the Knicks were set up someone had to take those inefficient shots and be the creator...take the hit for the team. That was RJ and Randle...they also happened to help open up shots for Fournier and Burks. Take away RJ and Randle and put the ball more in Burks, Fournier, Royce O'neal, PJ Tuckers, etc hands and their efficiency would drop a lot. It already dropped for Burks as I pointed out.

Like I have been saying though, RJ needs to improve. Its just that this roster was far from ideal for really anyone to succeed.

Yeah, absolutely.

There's no doubt that it's a poorly-constructed roster (or rather starting line-up) that affects every player operating within it, outside of the bench, which has driven whatever success the Knicks have had in the last two years. To your point, regardless of how good or not they are individually, RJ and Randle just don't fit together, and they are not going to succeed together.

But I would add that some were eager to take on that responsibility, and it seems to have given them a false sense of how good they are. Which is always a worry when you empower players too early. It's not a secret (literally) RJ wanted to get to 20 ppg, so I doubt he actually perceived his usage as a burden or as "taking the hit for the team". Neither did Randle. They both see their usage as validation of their talent, or as a self-fulfilling prophecy. Which is why their role needs to be scaled down, especially now that the Knicks have a proper point guard. They were not held accountable this past season - they need to be.

The Knicks have a track record of empowering players because they are a desperate organization that keeps missing on stars so they artificially create them to have something to show for. These players then predictably become entitled and selfish. It started with Melo, which was fine for the first 4 years before he was completely washed, which then became a problem. It continued with KP. Then Randle. Then RJ.

[NoDopeOnSundays]

If Miami put RJ in Tucker's role, they might not have made it to a game 7 of the ECF. In fact, they probably wouldn't have. Miami needed Tucker's elite defense and his elite 3-point shooting to get this far in the playoffs. RJ provides neither. I have seen RJ suck in the playoffs in a much earlier round, against much worse defense, by the way, so I'm not interested in hypothesizing what he would have done in Tucker's role in a game 7 of the ECF - you don't have the answer, and I don't have the answer. You act like this has happened and your position is somehow validated by it. It's not, because this argument is based on pure fiction.

RJ wouldn't be in PJ's role, he would be another scoring option they desperately needed, it's why the corpse of Oladipo is on the team to begin with and played 32 mins in a game 7. PJ Tucker was -4.9 for the series, he was -16 in 17 minutes of a game 7. This is one of the more embarrassing levels of hate I have seen, trying to pass this off as analysis is laughable, RJ "sucked" in the series against the Hawks, and yet scored 17 in Game 5 and wasn't on a near -1 point per minute basis, nor did he have a donut. This is a new low Chanel, you took several days of ducking the question to begin with, just to come back with this. Incredible.

Like I said, I'd respect it more if you were like Jimmit and said "**** RJ". We're done here.

[Chanel Bomber]

The amount of RJ slander in here is outrageous.

Meanwhile the best basketball analyst in the game actually thinks he’s good.

Read on Twitter

It’s mostly an overlap between ppl hating on him still that also called him a bust. Some of the ppl who know better will ignore all context and would rather stay entrenched in their opinion. Some of the ppl are bandwagon folks who will fall in and out of love with him.

This is really the strangest thing about RJ, I listen to a lot of basketball podcasts, a lot of them aren't even Knicks focused, and across the board all these different basketball minds, analysts, coaches, etc all like RJ. Yet, I come here, and it's bizzarro world.

Everybody loved Randle last year.

And everybody loved KP.

You of all people, as somebody who remained skeptical of Randle while he was being serenaded by the entire basketball world, should know that an opinion isn't necessarily true because it is held by many.

[NoDopeOnSundays]

Meanwhile the best basketball analyst in the game actually thinks he’s good.

Read on Twitter

It’s mostly an overlap between ppl hating on him still that also called him a bust. Some of the ppl who know better will ignore all context and would rather stay entrenched in their opinion. Some of the ppl are bandwagon folks who will fall in and out of love with him.

This is really the strangest thing about RJ, I listen to a lot of basketball podcasts, a lot of them aren't even Knicks focused, and across the board all these different basketball minds, analysts, coaches, etc all like RJ. Yet, I come here, and it's bizzarro world.

Everybody loved Randle last year.

And everybody loved KP.

You of all people, as somebody who remained skeptical of Randle while he was being serenaded by the entire basketball world, should know that an opinion isn't necessarily true because it is held by many.

Unlike you, I'm not dogmatic in my beliefs, I actually think Randle can have a bounce back year this year because of the rule changes.

You gonna get RJ replies on my time now, that despicable ducking done with the PJ Tucker question has opened my eyes.