Official Immanuel Quickley Thread

[MEDIC]

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Great video that another poster shared on how IQ impacts things defensively. I saw much of this last night. He may not be an elite POA defender, but has a very high defensive IQ. He is quick at reading the offense & is able to beat players & the ball to the spot. He is a great team defender. He might even be the best one on the team.

Now.....it's up to Darko to get the most out of these guys defensively, which means prioritizing defense, & implementing a defensive system that allows them to succeed.

If you have a SL of:

IQ
Barrett
Ochai (POA defender)
Scottie
Poeltl

Barret is the weakest defender in that lineup, but you can hide him a little better. Give him a very strict role in the defensive scheme.

If this group can stay healthy for the rest of the season, I think we see a massive uptick offensively and defensively.

[LoveMyRaps]

His off-season training videos had me so hyped.

Could see the improvement last night. His passing, his explosiveness, his quickness... everything seems to have improved.

And you could tell his conditioning still isn't quite there... he was breathing HARD in the first quarter. Makes last night performance even more impressive all things considered.

[LoveMyRaps]

Not sure why people view Quick as some sort of liability on defense.
I think he can be a very solid, Rondo-lite defender.

[mademan]

my god do people read? Who called IQ a bad defender? i said he's neuralish while suffering the same problem all small guards have, which is their size.

It's the rare guard that can overcome that, and IQ being a neutral defensive impact player is more than fine.

[Vampirate]

It's literally impossible to draw any real conclusions on IQ at this point in time tbh.

[Psubs]

It's literally impossible to draw any real conclusions on IQ at this point in time tbh.

Really? The assessment after last season is confirmed.

He might be more of a positive than even Fox and won't be needing max money.

[Vampirate]

It's literally impossible to draw any real conclusions on IQ at this point in time tbh.

Really? The assessment after last season is confirmed.

He might be more of a positive than even Fox and won't be needing max money.

1. He was always a decent midrange shooter, but last season was one of his lowest shooting percentages from 3-16 feet.

2. The questions on him were going from super 6th man to star.

3. He's only played 4 games this year and 44 total games for us. Small sample size.

[kalel123]

I'm not yet sold on Quickley on the defensive side because he's not that strong of a POA defender as noted already but also because I don't believe Darko is capable of setting up good enough team defensive schemes to succeed. We'll see. I'd give Darko one more year to work things out once we have more talent (hopefully) but not very optimistic he will at this point.

My only problem with Quickley at this point is his ability to stay healthy. He's been in and out of lineup ever since he got here for whatever reason and this time around, he's been out extra long. He needs to stay relatively healthy for remainder of this season and next IMO or we might have to ask if he's injury prone player we wasted money on.

[positivetension]

My only problem with Quickley at this point is his ability to stay healthy. He's been in and out of lineup ever since he got here for whatever reason and this time around, he's been out extra long. He needs to stay relatively healthy for remainder of this season and next IMO or we might have to ask if he's injury prone player we wasted money on.

I think they held him out longer because that injury takes time to fully heal. No point rushing him back to throw up bricks.

[PushDaRock]

It's literally impossible to draw any real conclusions on IQ at this point in time tbh.

Really? The assessment after last season is confirmed.

He might be more of a positive than even Fox and won't be needing max money.

1. He was always a decent midrange shooter, but last season was one of his lowest shooting percentages from 3-16 feet.

2. The questions on him were going from super 6th man to star.

3. He's only played 4 games this year and 44 total games for us. Small sample size.

21.7 ppg 5 rpg 4.9 apg on 58.9 TS% in 27 games starting as a Knick

His advanced numbers in New York were excellent as well. All indications are that he's a very good player and looks capable of taking another jump in his game.

[PushDaRock]

Another misread of the market by this management team. Should’ve signed him right after they traded for him. New York didn’t want to give him his number… That number was not 30 million. He would’ve taken his number at that time - which is now, no longer his number.

Even Pelton at ESPN is driving up Quickley’s price. Has him the #4 overall free agent. Right behind Maxey.
https://www.espn.com/nba/insider/story/_/id/40223930/nba-free-agency-2024-ranking-top-20-players-available

What makes you think he would have taken the 25m with us that he wanted in the offseason? He had already increased his value by putting up the same 15 ppg on better efficiency in less minutes with the Knicks. He was coming in here with a chance to start, play big minutes and put up some big numbers. What incentive would he have to take an extension when the expectation would be that he increases his value and production with more opportunity here?

The only misread is on RealGM, as usual. IQ's "massive contract" is misunderstood. It's a rare flat-value deal, meaning he gets $32.5M every year with no increases. This season, that's 23.12% of the cap, in the last year it's down to 15.8% of the cap.

It's the Raptors good fortune that the Knicks had just signed Brunson and it didn't make sense to throw another ~$30M at IQ (also the Raps good fortune that RJ was included and showed everybody that having him and Randle compete for the same space just limited his potential).

I don't think IQ would have been available for trade at all if he were on almost every other team. If Brunson wasn't on that team, they would have been happy to have IQ as their starter and paid him.

[mademan]

If IQ's play from the Knicks can scale up, he's an all-star and probably our best player right now.

[Ell Curry]

I genuinely don't understand how so much of this board seems to have come to the conclusion that IQ + RJ were similar assets/targets in the OG trade.

IQ is at least an average defender for his role as a starting PG (because so many of them are awful, it's hard to be small and also you have to be highly skilled or an elite thinker offensively and there just aren't many guys who have those qualities and can guard). RJ isn't.

IQ gets up tons of 3s, which every team needs these days and a team with Barnes as a top 2 or 3 option will need. RJ doesn't.

Masai gave IQ big money. RJ hasn't been traded, which is something, but it's not the same as being handed a long-term deal.

I'd put Quickley's odds of starting opening night of the 2027-28 season here at like 80% and Barrett at like 30%.

I would bet a decent sum of money that the starting 5 in the medium term is thought of in house as:

IQ- 2025 pick - ???? - Barnes - Poeltl

and the big questions this summer are:

1) Who do we draft this year. We'll draft BPA, but as long as we get a top 7 pick or so that will probably be a 2 or 3 and we'll figure out the fit around Quickley-SG-Flagg-Barnes-C or Quickley-Harper-SF-Barnes-C or Quickley-Edgecombe-SF-Barnes-C or Quickley-Jakucionis-SF-Barnes-C or whatever.

Would be annoying to draft a 1 who can't play with IQ, which is I guess someone short who can't guard 2s and isn't an elite shooter, but that's really only a prospect like Scoot or Derrick Rose and there isn't one like that high in this draft (maybe Traore is the first and Fears or Fland is small for a 2), Harper is big, the others should be able to shoot, Edgecombe is a 2 guard.

Fears is the one guy I could really see being BPA if we're around #8 or #9 and we pick him and a Quickley trade in the future becomes plausible, if they can't fit well together.

2) Evaluating whether RJ is someone you - and I'm listing these in order of probability:

A) trade when the first good offer comes in
-See point B below, but if we can get a first from someone and a similar length contract, or even a shorter one.

B) hang onto looking for a trade when he's expiring and can be flipped for a better player with some picks and maybe a Walter, Agbaji or Dick attached if we end up with a 2 guard type this draft. Presumably this is whichever of the 2 + 3 spots we don't add in the draft, and it might just have to be the best 3+D wing we can get if we add an offensively gifted, meh defensive prospect in the draft, like the Knicks overpaying for Mikal Bridges or that type of thing. So as an example, something like an expiring RJ + Dick/Walter + 2 firsts for Trey Murphy at the 2026-27 deadline if the Pels are a mess at that point, for this sort of team:

Poeltl-2026 1st
Barnes-Mogbo
Murphy-Agbaji
2025 1st-Walter or Dick
Quickley-2026 Pacers 1st

C) Extend for similar money and squeeze him in as the 4th most expensive player and make our 6th man who might eventually get traded, as the cap goes up and 25M a year is closer to what like 19-20M is right now, which seems like average "4th best player" money.

D) Can develop a bit later than most players, turn the corner and get to adequate on defence and become a starter.

[Psubs]

It's literally impossible to draw any real conclusions on IQ at this point in time tbh.

Really? The assessment after last season is confirmed.

He might be more of a positive than even Fox and won't be needing max money.

1. He was always a decent midrange shooter, but last season was one of his lowest shooting percentages from 3-16 feet.

2. The questions on him were going from super 6th man to star.

3. He's only played 4 games this year and 44 total games for us. Small sample size.

You have to just "see" it.

Remember when there were talks to trade Lowry for Maxey and people wanted more added. I was totally good straight up or even giving a 2nd pick.

[djsunyc]

how far away is IQ from trae? could he get into that area of impact?

[ArthurVandelay]

how far away is IQ from trae? could he get into that area of impact?

Trae-lite with better percentages and fewer turnovers is a pretty darn good player imo

[pilkoids]

how far away is IQ from trae? could he get into that area of impact?

Trae-lite with better percentages and fewer turnovers is a pretty darn good player imo

IQ doesn't have Trae's gravity yet, which itself is Steph-lite

[gp2015]

how far away is IQ from trae? could he get into that area of impact?

Let's not compare him to Trae. Trae is a low efficiency, no defense, empty stats player.

I'm hoping IQ will be a better overall player, even if he's not as good offensively.

[pingpongrac]

how far away is IQ from trae? could he get into that area of impact?

Let's not compare him to Trae. Trae is a low efficiency, no defense, empty stats player.

I'm hoping IQ will be a better overall player, even if he's not as good offensively.

I’m not sure how you can call Trae an inefficient player when he’s at 58 TS% while averaging 25 PPG for his career thus far. That is really good for a player of his size and position — especially on high volume — and even in a down year so far he’s at 56 TS%. He turns the ball over a lot (2nd most in the NBA this season), but he also leads the league in assists by a wide margin (2.3 more than Jokic and Cade who are 2 and 3). The big issue with Trae has always been on the defensive end, but he has been only a slightly negative impact player on that end the past few seasons.

When it comes to Quickley, he’s probably never going to reach Trae’s level on the offensive end because he doesn’t have the same playmaking abilities. I think he can be a really good player that gives you 20/5/7 type numbers in his prime while holding his own on the defensive end though which would be a really good #3. He’s probably our 2nd best player now, so it’s been wild to me that so many people were trashing his game/predicting that Shead and/or Mitchell could replace him.

[Psubs]

how far away is IQ from trae? could he get into that area of impact?

Let's not compare him to Trae. Trae is a low efficiency, no defense, empty stats player.

I'm hoping IQ will be a better overall player, even if he's not as good offensively.

I’m not sure how you can call Trae an inefficient player when he’s at 58 TS% while averaging 25 PPG for his career thus far. That is really good for a player of his size and position — especially on high volume — and even in a down year so far he’s at 56 TS%. He turns the ball over a lot (2nd most in the NBA this season), but he also leads the league in assists by a wide margin (2.3 more than Jokic and Cade who are 2 and 3). The big issue with Trae has always been on the defensive end, but he has been only a slightly negative impact player on that end the past few seasons.

When it comes to Quickley, he’s probably never going to reach Trae’s level on the offensive end because he doesn’t have the same playmaking abilities. I think he can be a really good player that gives you 20/5/7 type numbers in his prime while holding his own on the defensive end though which would be a really good #3. He’s probably our 2nd best player now, so it’s been wild to me that so many people were trashing his game/predicting that Shead and/or Mitchell could replace him.

I've been the biggest proponent of Shead but only said that Shead makes Mitchell expendable already (since the 1st month of the season). I don't think anyone has claimed more than that. Maybe those that want to replace IQ to tank for Harper. Who says that Harper will be significantly better than IQ? I think only Flagg might be better than anyone on our roster.