5 games in: Biggest early surprises with KAT and Bridges so far

[TheGreenArrow]

Kat is the most talented knick I’ve ever seen!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And it’s not even close!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

He needs to be the #1 guy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Not Jalen “tunnel vision” Brickson!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[NoDopeOnSundays]

Mikal has been a massive disappointment on both sides of the ball, the three-point shooting was supposed to be iron clad, but this dummy decides to change his form for no apparent reason. The defense has been awful as well, he offers zero POA defense that you'd expect from the lanky skinny guy with long arms. He has the worst net rating among the starters and is the only one in the negative, albeit by a tiny amount (-0.6) but it says a lot when every other starter is clearly a positive.

His three-point shooting has been in free fall over the last 6 games he's shooting .237% from three and is starting to drive when he's wide open on above the break threes. He's only made 5 threes from outside the corner this season, and I'm almost certain all of them were momentum threes where he catches the ball moving forward and doesn't have a lot of time to think about it or set his feet. Once he sets his feet and shoots a three from outside the corner it's a rocket with no guidance.

I was hoping we'd get some version of early trade Nets Mikal where he could provide offense, but right now he looks like a Bizzaro late career Trevor Ariza that can make some middies here and there.

I was telling you it was unrealistic to expect to get early trade nets mikal. That was a fluke if I ever saw one. I watched Mikal a ton over the years on Phoenix cause Ayton was on my BAF team at that time and I never thought Mikal could be a 24 PPg scorer.

I didn't know this bozo would change his shot, maybe that's why he had such a drastic fall off between his Nets seasons, he probably tweaked his shot, lost it and was scrambling to get it back and made things worse. Here we are two seasons removed and his shot looks like a hate crime if it's not a middie.

[Fury]

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[RHODEY]

Bridges f’n sucks defensively

Such a waste of assets

LOL with yall jumping off the cliff about Mikal. Yeah he looks iffy now, but dude is still adapting. Remember how trash Ihart looked when he first got here?

[NoDopeOnSundays]

Bridges f’n sucks defensively

Such a waste of assets

LOL with yall jumping off the cliff about Mikal. Yeah he looks iffy now, but dude is still adapting. Remember how trash Ihart looked when he first got here?

These are two different situations, Ihart was a young player that never got consistent playing time until he came here, while Bridges seems to have changed his shot to become better in the mid-range and it's completely messed up his 3 point shooting. He shot poorly from three in preseason and that has continued into the season, this isn't just trying to figure out a new team, his form looks awful from three. It looked bad in videos, and the results have not been pretty, he cannot make threes outside of the corner.

[RHODEY]

Such a waste of assets

LOL with yall jumping off the cliff about Mikal. Yeah he looks iffy now, but dude is still adapting. Remember how trash Ihart looked when he first got here?

These are two different situations, Ihart was a young player that never got consistent playing time until he came here, while Bridges seems to have changed his shot to become better in the mid-range and it's completely messed up his 3 point shooting. He shot poorly from three in preseason and that has continued into the season, this isn't just trying to figure out a new team, his form looks awful from three. It looked bad in videos, and the results have not been pretty, he cannot make threes outside of the corner.

He'll get better, but overall he's not bad offensively, from 2 point range he's near automatic and giving us 16ppg on 48% shooting overall. He's got things to work on sure...but the sky isn't falling. And I dont think Ihart's and Bridges situations are different. Both are similar ages and joining new teams.
Bridges has showed he can be a stud offensively and defensively, I believe he just needs more time to put it all together.

[NoDopeOnSundays]

LOL with yall jumping off the cliff about Mikal. Yeah he looks iffy now, but dude is still adapting. Remember how trash Ihart looked when he first got here?

These are two different situations, Ihart was a young player that never got consistent playing time until he came here, while Bridges seems to have changed his shot to become better in the mid-range and it's completely messed up his 3 point shooting. He shot poorly from three in preseason and that has continued into the season, this isn't just trying to figure out a new team, his form looks awful from three. It looked bad in videos, and the results have not been pretty, he cannot make threes outside of the corner.

He'll get better, but overall he's not bad offensively, from 2 point range he's near automatic and giving us 16ppg on 48% shooting overall. He's got things to work on sure...but the sky isn't falling. And I dont think Ihart's and Bridges situations are different. Both are similar ages and joining new teams.
Bridges has showed he can be a stud offensively and defensively, I believe he just needs more time to put it all together.

He's the only starter with a net negative rating, his offense/defense has not been as good as Deuce. If Mikal isn't hitting the three at a rate he was before we're going to eventually run into trouble of playing him and Hart together. I don't care about his overall shooting percentage, he's shooting 30% on threes and 63% at the line, just as troubling he's not trying to get fouled; he has taken 11 total freethrows on the season. I get that you want to be optimistic, but this is a weird case of someone changing their shot, we can see it's ugly and the results have been ugly as well, he simply cannot make non-corner threes right now.

The assets we traded to get him he needs to be a hell of a lot more than he is right now.

[RHODEY]

These are two different situations, Ihart was a young player that never got consistent playing time until he came here, while Bridges seems to have changed his shot to become better in the mid-range and it's completely messed up his 3 point shooting. He shot poorly from three in preseason and that has continued into the season, this isn't just trying to figure out a new team, his form looks awful from three. It looked bad in videos, and the results have not been pretty, he cannot make threes outside of the corner.

He'll get better, but overall he's not bad offensively, from 2 point range he's near automatic and giving us 16ppg on 48% shooting overall. He's got things to work on sure...but the sky isn't falling. And I dont think Ihart's and Bridges situations are different. Both are similar ages and joining new teams.
Bridges has showed he can be a stud offensively and defensively, I believe he just needs more time to put it all together.

He's the only starter with a net negative rating, his offense/defense has not been as good as Deuce. If Mikal isn't hitting the three at a rate he was before we're going to eventually run into trouble of playing him and Hart together. I don't care about his overall shooting percentage, he's shooting 30% on threes and 63% at the line, just as troubling he's not trying to get fouled; he has taken 11 total freethrows on the season. I get that you want to be optimistic, but this is a weird case of someone changing their shot, we can see it's ugly and the results have been ugly as well, he simply cannot make non-corner threes right now.

The assets we traded to get him he needs to be a hell of a lot more than he is right now.

If you think this is as good as it gets for him sure I would be pissed. But he's shown he can shoot that 3 , its just not consistent right now. I'm not worried at all about his 3pt shot. If it was broken it would effect his corner 3 and his 2pt shot. He's just got to get comfortable imo. But feel free to jump out the window.

[RHODEY]

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[KnixinSix]

KAT in the Knick program is quickly proving he can do practically EVERYTHING above average to elite:

Pass, rebound, hedge/blitz defend, inside game, outside game.

The only thing is rim protection. But that in theory will come when Precious and Achiuwa will come back.