1999 wrote:Lol, with all due respect this is ridiculous. Frank is not a child. This is a professional league not a rec league. Fiz doesn’t OWE Frank anything. This is the divide right here between us high on Frank and those of us not so high on him. Stop coddling him. Can you imagine how you would feel as a teammate who worked hard on his game all summer that you have to sit because your teammates family came to watch him play? Do you see how that sounds?
I agree with all of this. I think the "his mom was in town" argument takes away from much points about why Frank should/shouldn't play. It's kind of reminiscent of when Larry Brown was playing starting units based on hometown players. Just feels juvenile.
1999 wrote:Do you see the position that puts fiz in as coach? He’s the coach of the Knicks, not Franks personal coach. Therefore it is up to Frank to figure it out. Lastly, we can debate about whether fiz put Frank in the best situation to maximize his talent, I can respect that argument even if I disagree.
Absolutely and I think THIS is where the discussions should reside. I think there's a big difference between coddling and putting a player in the best position to succeed. I also feel that Frank HASN'T been put in the best position to succeed. For one, his role on the court has been the least consistent.
- He's been the starting PG, offball guard and floor spacing SF at points of this season over 35 games (sometimes switching roles back and forth in a game); for someone that young and raw, I don't think that's the most conducive way to build a reliable NBA skillset.
- The only five man unit so far to both play significant minutes (94) and post a positive net rating is still the Frank/THJ/Dot/Vonleh/Mitch crew that Fiz broke up and has not gone back to since. 94 minutes might still look low to some but consider it's the third most any five man line-up has played together...we really haven't had much consistency as a whole. Either way, if we're looking to maximize Frank's utility; you'd hope that Fiz might go back to what was most effective in the past (from a team efficacy standpoint at minimum).
- And just to add; I'm all for putting certain players in a position to succeed over others. Those being the youngest guys with the highest value contracts long term. Knox, Mitch, Frank, Trier and Dot; I want to focus on developing those guys' identities because we'll get the most bang for our buck. That doesn't mean we just toss out anything to do with Vonleh or Mudiay's recent success or other guys either; but on cost-benefit, those dudes playing well means they cost more in the offseason or go to a different team. So I'm more concerned with the prospects whose futures are completely in our own control. This is
nuanced though and I feel like I should stress that. I'm a fan of the "eat what you kill mantra" as long as we apply it to everybody (we're not) and as long as we use it to encourage the right kind of play (debatable especially if we look at where the team resides in terms of defense and efficiency relative to everyone else in the league and also relative to last year with a coach everyone agrees SUCKED).
1999 wrote:However, even when Frank was getting 30 mins a game his play wasn’t all that inspiring. So that leads me to believe like many others that Frank just isn’t very good right now and I’ll trust the coach to do what it takes to reach him rather than expect him to give frank UNDESERVED minutes.
And this is fair but I have a question. Who does deserve those minutes and why? Mudiay is playing well at PG for sure; no one else is. Burke has been bad offensively, worse defensively. Trier's PG experiment was a massive flop. Baker's gone. At SG, Tim's been taking the most shots on the team at efficiency levels that are as low as Frank's over a significant chunk of recent games and playing over 30 minutes during that stretch.
My point here isn't that Frank's been good. It's that no matter what rotation we go with, some guys are getting undeserved minutes. This isn't even about maximizing Frank any more; it's about keeping the same energy when Burke's last 8 games have come with an 18% from the field or Tim's last 15 coming with 34% from the field. Burke's last DNP batch was sparked by injury not poor play; Timmy is playing huge minutes while hurt. Given the circumstances, my main thought here isn't anything too extreme either. It's just this:
Fiz could find Frank some minutes if he made it a point to and it wouldn't hurt the team or come at the expense of a more deserving performer.
