mpharris36 wrote:Knicksfan1992 wrote:mpharris36 wrote:whether its getting lucky or being good Leon has had a lot of things fall his way this year.
Brunson signing
The Donovan Mitchell deal not being completed
The trade for Reddish that didn't work out but then led to the acquisition of Hart
We are legit good now and with how good Brunson is playing and the depth of our team...you can legit say we are probably 1 piece away from being a contender.
Leon deserves credit for getting a lot of the things on the margins right. Gives you a lot more room for error on the big things and makes it easier to fix past mistakes.
Having Deuce be a competent rotation piece as a 2nd rounder allowed Thibs to drop Cam.
When Mitch goes down the Knicks can still put out a competent C rotation because he hit on Sims as a late 2nd round pick.
Having Quickley and Grimes be major parts of the rotation as late 1st round picks allowed him the ability to pivot a lot easier off of the disaster of last year because you could bank on rookie scale guys giving you solid production this year.
The Knicks of the past would have had trouble swinging a trade for Hart because we would have been too worried about our future asset pool. Now that we have young guys and a plethora of picks it makes it easier to swallow giving up a 1st this year.
Those little wins on the margins add up over time. Many teams don't hit on more than one late 1st or second round picks and Leon has hit on a few now.
I would say less Leon and more Walt Perrin. I think Obi was a Leon pick. I think the later 1st round picks where we have made a lot of headway with our Walt Perrin picks. Yes hiring Walt Perrin was a really good move from Leon...but we were pretty mid which was frustrating because it was tough to see where this was going other than hoping and praying for a star to come around.
Now the Jalen Brunson move kinda set us off. Getting him I don't know anyone who could have projected his impact on this team. He has to be one of the best guards in he entire sport and doing it with great EFF.
IQ natural development then add in the Hart trade which again has had another great impact on the team.
And Julius returning back to his form from 2 years ago.
All these factors have impacted us...I am really curious how legit this is. Are we a legit threat to a team in the playoffs? I want to believe that but only time will tell.
So far his moves this year seem to be making up for the disaster of last year with Fournier/Rose/Noel ect...and its interesting all this year was signing brunson and trusting our young players.
Hiring a good staff is why we got Leon in the 1st place IMO. He's a relationships guy. You don't get to the head of CAA without knowing some good basketball people.
Perrin may have made the scouting calls but Leon has final say at the end of the day.
We also know he's beefed up the analytics team as well which 100% factored in to the Quickley pick based on Weitzmans story a few years ago and I'm sure played a big part in targeting Grimes as well.
At the end of the day it's nice to have a baseline competent FO regardless of who really deserves credit for what