Was it a mistake to bring in Walker and Fournier?

[moocow007]

Derozan can be better option then Fournier but it can also be true that both would be bad plans

By no means am I saying that DeRozan is the end all be all plan. But the #1 goal of this front office was to win more games than last year. Thibs got COTY, they tasted the playoffs and got embarrassed. They were looking to go forward not backwards. We all know that Thibs loves workhorses. Demar would have been a guy that would play 36min a night and could give you an element to the offense that we severely lack. Again - I agree we don’t become some legitimate contender overnight, but at least we wouldn’t be looking for the approaching deadline to already dump Fournier on some team (as if that’s going to be easy).

But this is where I also struggle. I simply cannot buy into this notion that this is all somehow apart of this master plan. That we are gonna wake up one day and be happy that Burks is getting $10 mill and Fournier is getting $18 mill because we magically flipped them in a blockbuster deal.

Burks and Fournier, or Kemba and Fournier are just the 2021 version of Courtney Lee and Tim Hardaway JR. If we Harry Potter them onto another organization get ready to give up every future 1st we have and RJ and Obi.

The Knicks are so unbelievably bad at asset management. Just because we aren’t living in the IT days where he flipped picks like it was candy doesn’t mean we are doing a good job in that department.

To add insult to injury, I just know deep down that Leon Rose is gonna be silent all year sitting at home drinking Limoncello as this massacre really unfolds.

My #1 goal would be eventually to be a contender (and I assume its the front office goal) and I dont see how Derozan gets us there now or in the future. Again, neither does Fournier so can agree he was a bad signing.

Derozan is a good player, just hard to see how we could build around Derozan/Randle and get the necessary pieces around them without moving one. Just doesnt all fit together imo.

How would a shot Walker and Fournier be better to do any of that (build around them or getting other necessary pieces)? At least with Derozan you get another top tier talent. Had Walker been that (assuming he's no longer able to be that) then absolutely the value pendulum swings the other way.

[GONYK]

Absolutely. Assuming the Knicks are looking to maximize their ability to compete and not do what I think a lot of fans want (reset/reboot/rebuild) having Derozan goes a longer way towards that...especially now we have hindsight in play.

I don't think that is the Knicks #1 goal. That's where they may be a disconnect from fan expectations.

Looking at the contracts given out, the #1 goal is maintaining cap flexibility while being competitive. I don't think maximizing the ability to compete was their priority.

There were a few avenues to do that that they didn't explore, Derozan or otherwise, if that is what they wanted.

If the goal was to maximize cap flexibility while remaining competitive why would signing clearly the most talented player on a cheap contract (Derozan) not work towards that? If Derozan got a max deal then absolutely no way. But 3 years at an AAV of $29 million is an excellent deal for someone like that. I don't think the extra $9 million per (difference between Derozan and Fournier) was such the difference value wise between what Derozan can bring from a competitive standpoint. And I would seriously doubt that if the Knicks were to shop Fournier and the Bulls Derozan that it'll be easier to move Fournier.

It's not about the value of the player, it's about the movability of the contract.

And I don't mean movability of DD vs Fournier. I mean in terms of how much modularity the contract allows you in a trade.

If we are trading for a player on a rookie SuperMax (let's say DeAaron Fox), he's making the same money as DD and Randle. The Kings don't want to do that trade straight up, and they probably don't want any big contracts at all.

Fournier at $18M gives both teams more paths to find a deal that works. You can add more young players or smaller deals to $18M without the Kings needing to expand the deal and cut into their own roster. It's also easier to facilitate larger deals with mid-size contracts.

Now, this all relies on Fournier being the guy he was in Orlando to be a palatable trade piece.

But the decision wasn't made on pure talent, which is why maximizing their window wasn't the priority. They tried to find the balance between talent and cap management.

I can promise you, if DD wanted to sign for $18-20M (which is where I hoped his market would be after a disappointing season in SAS), he would be here instead of Fournier.

[Deeeez Knicks]

Contending in the East with a duo of Randle and Derozan doesn’t sound unrealistic. It was always clear - at least to me it was - what kind of talent Derozan is. Believing we could contend with our current roster does sound like a joke though and it always did.

Dragic/Kemba, RJ, Derozan, Randle, Mitch/Noel sounds legit to me.

This team is much further away then Derozan from winning it all.

It's not about winning it all though. It about being as competitive as possible without locking up your cap or trading away your assets right?

Derozan locks our cap up and will be 34 by the end of the deal. Objectively, he looks great now but there's risk when he's 33 and 34 in this deal. More players then not start falling off in that age range. How moveable is that deal if he starts falling off? I don't think the risk is worth the reward in this case.

[moocow007]

I don't think that is the Knicks #1 goal. That's where they may be a disconnect from fan expectations.

Looking at the contracts given out, the #1 goal is maintaining cap flexibility while being competitive. I don't think maximizing the ability to compete was their priority.

There were a few avenues to do that that they didn't explore, Derozan or otherwise, if that is what they wanted.

If the goal was to maximize cap flexibility while remaining competitive why would signing clearly the most talented player on a cheap contract (Derozan) not work towards that? If Derozan got a max deal then absolutely no way. But 3 years at an AAV of $29 million is an excellent deal for someone like that. I don't think the extra $9 million per (difference between Derozan and Fournier) was such the difference value wise between what Derozan can bring from a competitive standpoint. And I would seriously doubt that if the Knicks were to shop Fournier and the Bulls Derozan that it'll be easier to move Fournier.

It's not about the value of the player, it's about the movability of the contract.

And I don't mean movability of DD vs Fournier. I mean in terms of how much modularity the contract allows you in a trade.

If we are trading for a player on a rookie SuperMax (let's say DeAaron Fox), he's making the same money as DD and Randle. The Kings don't want to do that trade straight up, and they probably don't want any big contracts at all.

Fournier at $18M gives both teams more paths to find a deal that works. You can add more young players or smaller deals to $18M without the Kings needing to expand the deal and cut into their own roster. It's also easier to facilitate larger deals with smaller contracts.

Now, this all relies on Fournier being the guy he was in Orlando to be a palatable trade piece.

But the decision wasn't made on pure talent, which is why maximizing their window wasn't the priority. They tried to find the balance between talent and cap management.

I can promise you, if DD wanted to sign for $18-20M (which is where I hoped his market would be after a disappointing season in SAS), he would be here instead of Fournier.

But movability of the contract is based on the value of the player. It's not just about literal slotting in $$$ amounts under a fixed cap. Teams can make moves to clear more cap space if the value of the player is worth it. Value is relative to the thing that is being valued not absolute. If I have $20 million in cap it doesn't mean I'm going to take Fournier over Derozan cause it's easy for me to slot Fournier's contract in. I'd rather move $9 million more off so I can slot Derozan in. Teams do this all the time for the guy they want. The Bulls did it by agreeing to trade assets to get Derozan instead of just using their cap space to sign him. Why cause their value proposition/projection/plan consisted not just of Derozan but also being able Ball.

[Deeeez Knicks]

By no means am I saying that DeRozan is the end all be all plan. But the #1 goal of this front office was to win more games than last year. Thibs got COTY, they tasted the playoffs and got embarrassed. They were looking to go forward not backwards. We all know that Thibs loves workhorses. Demar would have been a guy that would play 36min a night and could give you an element to the offense that we severely lack. Again - I agree we don’t become some legitimate contender overnight, but at least we wouldn’t be looking for the approaching deadline to already dump Fournier on some team (as if that’s going to be easy).

But this is where I also struggle. I simply cannot buy into this notion that this is all somehow apart of this master plan. That we are gonna wake up one day and be happy that Burks is getting $10 mill and Fournier is getting $18 mill because we magically flipped them in a blockbuster deal.

Burks and Fournier, or Kemba and Fournier are just the 2021 version of Courtney Lee and Tim Hardaway JR. If we Harry Potter them onto another organization get ready to give up every future 1st we have and RJ and Obi.

The Knicks are so unbelievably bad at asset management. Just because we aren’t living in the IT days where he flipped picks like it was candy doesn’t mean we are doing a good job in that department.

To add insult to injury, I just know deep down that Leon Rose is gonna be silent all year sitting at home drinking Limoncello as this massacre really unfolds.

My #1 goal would be eventually to be a contender (and I assume its the front office goal) and I dont see how Derozan gets us there now or in the future. Again, neither does Fournier so can agree he was a bad signing.

Derozan is a good player, just hard to see how we could build around Derozan/Randle and get the necessary pieces around them without moving one. Just doesnt all fit together imo.

How would a shot Walker and Fournier be better to do any of that (build around them or getting other necessary pieces)? At least with Derozan you get another top tier talent. Had Walker been that (assuming he's no longer able to be that) then absolutely the value pendulum swings the other way.

I would have preferred Derozan to Fournier...even in the offseason after we signed Fournier I said I would have rather signed Derozan for those prices

But I still think neither was the right call for the Knicks

[NoDopeOnSundays]

I would have taken Lonzo over Fournier and put him at the 2. I think that 4th year was a little too rich for our plans though.

So in my scenario, I still wasn't starting IQ, but getting a very solid perimeter defender at the 2. Evan needs to shoot much better to offset just the general energy and defense IQ brings, even when his shot is off.

I think you may end up getting your wish in a roundabout way, with Thibs staggering IQ in with the starters earlier and earlier.

I also don't think signing Kemba was bad or detrimental. The actual only downside to it is how much cache he has, so it's hard to not start him. He's a huge upgrade from Elf, but situationally, we're in the same spot where it's either start him or take him out of the rotation completely.

I do wonder if he's as washed as he seems. Things look pretty interesting when we run the offense through him.

If IQ ends up playing more then it's a failure by the front office, because the starting guard was inhouse and they didn't realize it or they let Thibs have too much say in roster moves. The plan should have been to give him the starting job and be supplemented by a veteran guard who can step in if he's having a bad go of it. So many other teams are starting good young players, the Warriors did this with Poole, the Bulls were starting Williams before he got hurt and the Sixers have just discovered that Maxey may be that dude just because they started him.

I think this comparison is happening a bit out of context. It's easier to slot a young guy into your roster, when you have a desire to win, when you have Embiid and Steph Curry, or some other franchise level talent who is doing all of the heavy lifting. It's a little harder for a team in our position to take that risk, IMO, because we have a smaller margin for error.

Also, we start RJ and play him a ton (when he's not sh*tting the bed). I see that as very similar to Patrick Williams in CHI.

I don't think we should have planned for IQ to be our starting 2G, because he's undersized and is a bit inconsistent. I do think we have the structure in place to do what you said though, since Thibs hasn't really shown any hesitation to limit Fournier's minutes. But Fournier has been an 18PPG guy on 45/40/81 splits. I think it was worth it to take the shot on him, knowing IQ was there to mop up rather than thrust IQ into the role if you didn't believe him to be ready.

But that's a question of preference I guess. It probably also comes down to whether or not you think Fournier will get better than he is right now.

Kemba is lower risk, but he was clearly washed if you just went by the last 2 seasons. His knee issues are real, and having a PG rotation as old as ours is another bad look for the front office. The plan by our front office doesn't seem to address short or long term goals much, why sign all these guys after drafting a bunch of guards? Why draft Obi and resign Randle? Nothing they do really makes much sense in regards to a plan, outside of hoping and praying someone will want to come here via trade, at which point we'll have to give up every pick for the next 8 years because nobody under the age of 25 outside of RJ is playing 30 minutes per game.

Obi vs Randle is it's own thing, so I will answer that first. I think Randle was supposed to be traded, point blank. Then he blew up and the rest is history. I also don't think they thought Obi would be that raw his rookie year. He's still developing nicely though. I would love to see his time expanded, but he still makes a ton of mistakes on D. Almost all of those late Chicago 3's were on him. So it's a balance.

I still do wonder about how far Leon and Co. would have leaned into the slide if they did trade Randle.

As for the overall plan, it's more cap management than pure roster building. Forgive me for being repetitive, but I do think things make sense if you always keep two things in mind:

1. Everyone is here to be traded.
2. Thibs has rigid roles and a 10 man rotation.

So the medium term plan is focused on the cap, not the court. It's basically an algorithmic approach to tradable assets. That's what Aller's specialty is.

They made that algorithm fit Thibs' preferences the best they could. That's why the bench replicates the starters in a few areas.

The draft is irrelevant, IMO. We drafted those guys to play after we clear out the vets via trade. They are essentially cheap FA's who are situational. We didn't draft them to play right now.

That's how I interpret what I see going on. Would I do things differently? In some areas, yes, others no. I just think it's a plan that makes sense in today's NBA where stars are always hitting the market.

Time will tell if they can ultimately execute.

That's actually the opposite, a team that's trying to contend generally won't play young players, Embiid has missed half the season and Maxey has assumed the role of number 1 or 2 option. Do you really think Thibs would be running any type of offense through Obi if Randle misses any time? We've been without our normal center rotation for a good part of the season and Obi still can't crack 30 minutes. Conversely, Charles Bassey has been getting just as many MPG for them as Obi has for us the last couple games, cue the Connor McGregor "Who the fook is that guy" gif. The Sixers are trying to stay above water, and yet they still ride their young guys because it's important to see what you have. Our team operates like it's in the hunt for the title and cannont afford to give Grimes minutes, that McBride is going to hurt is more than Kemba.


IQ being undersized for the 2 only matters if you don't have another guard next to him with size that can play make, if you do have that it allows you to put IQ on the smaller player of the opponents backcourt. That is what you do with a player like IQ, he is in the mold of Terry Rozier / Malik Monk etc type of smaller SGs, now if we had signed DeMar or Lonzo, you have our back court. DeMar is a better offensive facilitator than Kemba or Fournier, we could have easily started IQ next to him or Lonzo, because either one of those guys can take the larger 2 guard defensively, while IQ still gets to function as a SG on offense. We have no foresight and very limited innovation in our front office, the roster construction is so basic, how many guys on the team are "positionless".

[moocow007]

This team is much further away then Derozan from winning it all.

It's not about winning it all though. It about being as competitive as possible without locking up your cap or trading away your assets right?

Derozan locks our cap up and will be 34 by the end of the deal. Objectively, he looks great now but there's risk when he's 33 and 34 in this deal. More players then not start falling off in that age range. How moveable is that deal if he starts falling off? I don't think the risk is worth the reward in this case.

And what happens if Walker is shot? That's $9 million per down the tubes. And what if Fournier, who is much more reliant on the rest of his teammates and systemic help to do well doesn't fit? That's $20 million per down the tubes right? And there's a lot lot greater chance that Walker was shot and that Fournier won't be able to pan out (at least for the next couple years). Everything is a risk. Derozan at a max contract would be a huge risk. But a max contract would have been 4 years starting at $39 million...an AAV of $44 million and ending at $49 million in year 4. But what he ended up with instead was 3 years at a AAV of $27 million which ends in year 3 at $28.5 million. That 3rd year the difference between Fournier and Derozan's contract is $9.5 million. It's not earth shattering. I can easily argue that the Knicks contracts offered to their own role players were worse and more cap restrictive.

[Richard4444]

I don’t understand the argument of DeRozan and Randle being a poor long term plan when Fournier will be getting 3/54 and DeRozan will be receiving 3/82. They are quite literally both 3 years.

The real issue with the Knicks front office is that they actually believe having 2 carbon copies of every position is smart. Even Bullock bought into the whole “15 deep” nonsense last year.

Fournier/Burks is like looking in a mirror
Kemba/Rose are past their prime former all stars
Noel/Mitch are both non scoring/often injured C
Draft Obi (purely a 4) when we have Randle

I could have at least seen how sliding Devin Vassell next to RJ would have made sense in the SL/future.

But we constantly double up on role players as if that’s somehow a logical, shrewd plan.

When we end up crashing and burning we won’t be bad enough to land a Top 5 pick in the draft and we most likely won’t be good enough to even make the playoffs. Terrence Ross will be a Knick before we know it.

Derozan can be better option then Fournier but it can also be true that both would be bad plans

Agreed.

It's also the salary, not just the years. It's harder to move $30M than it is $18M, especially when trading for a MAX salary level player.

Besides, DeRozan is 3years and 100 days older than Evan. He has more minutes played and is more susceptible to a career-ending injury. If he gets washed, it would be very difficult to be moved.

[GONYK]

If the goal was to maximize cap flexibility while remaining competitive why would signing clearly the most talented player on a cheap contract (Derozan) not work towards that? If Derozan got a max deal then absolutely no way. But 3 years at an AAV of $29 million is an excellent deal for someone like that. I don't think the extra $9 million per (difference between Derozan and Fournier) was such the difference value wise between what Derozan can bring from a competitive standpoint. And I would seriously doubt that if the Knicks were to shop Fournier and the Bulls Derozan that it'll be easier to move Fournier.

It's not about the value of the player, it's about the movability of the contract.

And I don't mean movability of DD vs Fournier. I mean in terms of how much modularity the contract allows you in a trade.

If we are trading for a player on a rookie SuperMax (let's say DeAaron Fox), he's making the same money as DD and Randle. The Kings don't want to do that trade straight up, and they probably don't want any big contracts at all.

Fournier at $18M gives both teams more paths to find a deal that works. You can add more young players or smaller deals to $18M without the Kings needing to expand the deal and cut into their own roster. It's also easier to facilitate larger deals with smaller contracts.

Now, this all relies on Fournier being the guy he was in Orlando to be a palatable trade piece.

But the decision wasn't made on pure talent, which is why maximizing their window wasn't the priority. They tried to find the balance between talent and cap management.

I can promise you, if DD wanted to sign for $18-20M (which is where I hoped his market would be after a disappointing season in SAS), he would be here instead of Fournier.

But movability of the contract is based on the value of the player. It's not just about literal slotting in $$$ amounts under a fixed cap. Teams can make moves to clear more cap space if the value of the player is worth it. Value is relative to the thing that is being valued not absolute. If I have $20 million in cap it doesn't mean I'm going to take Fournier over Derozan cause it's easy for me to slot Fournier's contract in. I'd rather move $9 million more off so I can slot Derozan in. Teams do this all the time for the guy they want. The Bulls did it by agreeing to trade assets to get Derozan instead of just using their cap space to sign him. Why cause their value proposition/projection/plan consisted not just of Derozan but also being able Ball.

I mean we're talking a case by case basis, right? It's hard to know which deal you'll need which asset for and which team will be the one they are working with. A sound thought process would lead to having assets that apply to most situations.

Derozan, at 32 years old, is a player you get if you want to compete. Especially at his salary. Teams that are interested in him are not likely to be teams offloading their franchise player and looking to start over. That's not true in every case, seeing how Derozan was traded for Kawhi when Pop had much better offers on the table, but Pop had no interest in rebuilding. It's true more often than not.

Ball is a different story. I would have signed Ball over Fournier.

I don't think any of our players will get traded in isolation. They will all be part of multi-player deals. Modularity is key to those deals.

But I don't understand what the consternation is really either way. DD doesn't make us a contender. I'm not sure he's worth the risk for a team in our position. Would we be better this season? Probably, but what does being the 3rd seed instead of the 7th seed matter in the long term?

Having two players making ~$30M when neither of them are franchise level players is a little out of sequence for us.

[DickGrayson]

Not at all. We upgraded our guard positions. When they get on a hot streak, threads like this look really dramatic. No one is going to miss Payton or Bullock. We didnt get all NBA players, but Fournier and Walker on their worst days are better than Elfs best day. Were was Payton and Bullocks defense in the playoffs? They got torched and provided nothing on offense.

Dramatic fans make 15-20 games seem like 5 seasons.

This isnt the final product, but those complaining about 9 million cant come up with valid alternates without mentioning a reserve player. Knicks did what they can...99% of the forum was on board. You can pull up your post and just admit yall gave up under 20 games. Crazy.

[Deeeez Knicks]

It's not about winning it all though. It about being as competitive as possible without locking up your cap or trading away your assets right?

Derozan locks our cap up and will be 34 by the end of the deal. Objectively, he looks great now but there's risk when he's 33 and 34 in this deal. More players then not start falling off in that age range. How moveable is that deal if he starts falling off? I don't think the risk is worth the reward in this case.

And what happens if Walker is shot? That's $9 million per down the tubes. And what if Fournier, who is much more reliant on the rest of his teammates and systemic help to do well doesn't fit? That's $20 million per down the tubes right? And there's a lot lot greater chance that Walker was shot and that Fournier won't be able to pan out (at least for the next couple years). Everything is a risk. Derozan at a max contract would be a huge risk. But a max contract would have been 4 years starting at $39 million...an AAV of $44 million and ending at $49 million in year 4. But what he ended up with instead was 3 years at a AAV of $27 million which ends in year 3 at $28.5 million. That 3rd year the difference between Fournier and Derozan's contract is $9.5 million. It's not earth shattering. I can easily argue that the Knicks contracts offered to their own role players were worse and more cap restrictive.

Fournier, I agree with.

Kemba, I dont think is a big issue. $18/2 or whatever is pretty low risk.

Derozan....again he is a good player. Signing him may not have been earth shattering horrible. Just not the direction I want to see the Knicks go. Also, just dont see Randle/RJ/Derozan all coexisting and meshing well. Just seems like a clunky fit. Bulls are much more well rounded right now and playing a style that we wouldnt be able to replicate easily

[GONYK]

If IQ ends up playing more then it's a failure by the front office, because the starting guard was inhouse and they didn't realize it or they let Thibs have too much say in roster moves. The plan should have been to give him the starting job and be supplemented by a veteran guard who can step in if he's having a bad go of it. So many other teams are starting good young players, the Warriors did this with Poole, the Bulls were starting Williams before he got hurt and the Sixers have just discovered that Maxey may be that dude just because they started him.

I think this comparison is happening a bit out of context. It's easier to slot a young guy into your roster, when you have a desire to win, when you have Embiid and Steph Curry, or some other franchise level talent who is doing all of the heavy lifting. It's a little harder for a team in our position to take that risk, IMO, because we have a smaller margin for error.

Also, we start RJ and play him a ton (when he's not sh*tting the bed). I see that as very similar to Patrick Williams in CHI.

I don't think we should have planned for IQ to be our starting 2G, because he's undersized and is a bit inconsistent. I do think we have the structure in place to do what you said though, since Thibs hasn't really shown any hesitation to limit Fournier's minutes. But Fournier has been an 18PPG guy on 45/40/81 splits. I think it was worth it to take the shot on him, knowing IQ was there to mop up rather than thrust IQ into the role if you didn't believe him to be ready.

But that's a question of preference I guess. It probably also comes down to whether or not you think Fournier will get better than he is right now.

Kemba is lower risk, but he was clearly washed if you just went by the last 2 seasons. His knee issues are real, and having a PG rotation as old as ours is another bad look for the front office. The plan by our front office doesn't seem to address short or long term goals much, why sign all these guys after drafting a bunch of guards? Why draft Obi and resign Randle? Nothing they do really makes much sense in regards to a plan, outside of hoping and praying someone will want to come here via trade, at which point we'll have to give up every pick for the next 8 years because nobody under the age of 25 outside of RJ is playing 30 minutes per game.

Obi vs Randle is it's own thing, so I will answer that first. I think Randle was supposed to be traded, point blank. Then he blew up and the rest is history. I also don't think they thought Obi would be that raw his rookie year. He's still developing nicely though. I would love to see his time expanded, but he still makes a ton of mistakes on D. Almost all of those late Chicago 3's were on him. So it's a balance.

I still do wonder about how far Leon and Co. would have leaned into the slide if they did trade Randle.

As for the overall plan, it's more cap management than pure roster building. Forgive me for being repetitive, but I do think things make sense if you always keep two things in mind:

1. Everyone is here to be traded.
2. Thibs has rigid roles and a 10 man rotation.

So the medium term plan is focused on the cap, not the court. It's basically an algorithmic approach to tradable assets. That's what Aller's specialty is.

They made that algorithm fit Thibs' preferences the best they could. That's why the bench replicates the starters in a few areas.

The draft is irrelevant, IMO. We drafted those guys to play after we clear out the vets via trade. They are essentially cheap FA's who are situational. We didn't draft them to play right now.

That's how I interpret what I see going on. Would I do things differently? In some areas, yes, others no. I just think it's a plan that makes sense in today's NBA where stars are always hitting the market.

Time will tell if they can ultimately execute.

That's actually the opposite, a team that's trying to contend generally won't play young players, Embiid has missed half the season and Maxey has assumed the role of number 1 or 2 option. Do you really think Thibs would be running any type of offense through Obi if Randle misses any time? We've been without our normal center rotation for a good part of the season and Obi still can't crack 30 minutes. Conversely, Charles Bassey has been getting just as many MPG for them as Obi has for us the last couple games, cue the Connor McGregor "Who the fook is that guy" gif. The Sixers are trying to stay above water, and yet they still ride their young guys because it's important to see what you have. Our team operates like it's in the hunt for the title and cannont afford to give Grimes minutes, that McBride is going to hurt is more than Kemba.

Honest question: What choice to the Sixers have otherwise? Ben Simmons f*cked them and now they are just trying to survive. They have $33M+ tied up in a headcase who won't go near the court, so they don't have the ability to field a roster of players others than rookies and journeymen, outside of Embiid and Tobias. I don't think they are playing certain guys heavy minutes purely to see what they have. If they trade Simmons for a few quality players, I think you see the rotation shift in major ways for them.

We're making a lot of long term declarations after 15 games, which is why I can't really sign on to them. Why should guys who have been productive players for 7+ years lose their jobs after 15 games to rookies rather than be given the opportunity to figure it out? Their body of work says that they will more likely than not revert back to their career averages.

Now, if we're heading into AS break and Fournier still looks like this, then yea, that changes the math a bit. I don't know if Grimes or McBride have a path to play enough to make a difference unless you remove Kemba and Fournier from the rotation entirely.

IQ being undersized for the 2 only matters if you don't have another guard next to him with size that can play make, if you do have that it allows you to put IQ on the smaller player of the opponents backcourt. That is what you do with a player like IQ, he is in the mold of Terry Rozier / Malik Monk etc type of smaller SGs, now if we had signed DeMar or Lonzo, you have our back court. DeMar is a better offensive facilitator than Kemba or Fournier, we could have easily started IQ next to him or Lonzo, because either one of those guys can take the larger 2 guard defensively, while IQ still gets to function as a SG on offense. We have no foresight and very limited innovation in our front office, the roster construction is so basic, how many guys on the team are "positionless".

Lonzo yes, DD no, for the cap reasons I stated previously.

But we can still do what you want. I just don't think the org buys IQ in that role enough to not have serious contingencies.

The roster construction is basic because they care more about the cap than they do the product on the floor, at the moment.

[god shammgod]

gonyk looking to die on this fournier is a moveable contract hill

[NoLayupRule]

its far too early for this

Fournier is on an average contract for his skill. He provides dependable shooting even if hes slumping a little now.
Walker is here on a massive discount. there is no downside even if he doesnt play at all

we need to adjust - players and coaches - to the new backcourt and to the new offense. Or it needs to be adapted.

But signing these guys was a smart move

[GONYK]

gonyk looking to die on this fournier is a moveable contract hill

It's more like I'm on the $18M gives you significantly more options in a trade than $30M hill.

Everyone else is obsessed with making it a comparison on the players themselves, when that really isn't how the Knicks made their decision.

[god shammgod]

gonyk looking to die on this fournier is a moveable contract hill

It's more like I'm on the $18M is easier to trade than $30M hill.

Everyone else is obsessed with making it a comparison on the players themselves, when that really isn't how the Knicks made their decision.

and who can argue with the results

[GONYK]

gonyk looking to die on this fournier is a moveable contract hill

It's more like I'm on the $18M is easier to trade than $30M hill.

Everyone else is obsessed with making it a comparison on the players themselves, when that really isn't how the Knicks made their decision.

and who can argue with the results

You're straight up arguing with math

[god shammgod]

It's more like I'm on the $18M is easier to trade than $30M hill.

Everyone else is obsessed with making it a comparison on the players themselves, when that really isn't how the Knicks made their decision.

and who can argue with the results

You're straight up arguing with math

only if you believe what you're saying but i don't. i don't think many teams moving their star at the deadline or the summer are gonna be happy to pay fournier for another 2 years when they'll have no interest in him. who's more movable to a 3rd team if that team wants neither of them ?

[GONYK]

and who can argue with the results

You're straight up arguing with math

only if you believe what you're saying but i don't. i don't think many teams moving their star at the deadline or the summer are gonna be happy to pay fournier for another 2 years when they'll have no interest in him. who's more movable to a 3rd team if that team wants neither of them ?

Even if what you say is right, if I have a choice between two contracts, neither of which makes me a title contender, I'll take the smaller one. That goes double if my strategy is to eventually trade them.

Simply put, I think it's more likely that Fournier returns to his career shooting averages than I do Derozan taking a team anywhere meaningful.

[spree2kawhi]

This team is much further away then Derozan from winning it all.

It's not about winning it all though. It about being as competitive as possible without locking up your cap or trading away your assets right?

Derozan locks our cap up and will be 34 by the end of the deal. Objectively, he looks great now but there's risk when he's 33 and 34 in this deal. More players then not start falling off in that age range. How moveable is that deal if he starts falling off? I don't think the risk is worth the reward in this case.

The mid range-game will hold up fairly well and he’s ridiculously skilled. Look up at what age Kobe, KG, Pierce, LeBron, Dirk and Jordan won their championships. I’m not putting him in that category, strictly putting that age in perspective.

You’re in denial if you can’t see how bad the rest of the league currently is and how Derozan would have been a killer addition. Same goes for Beal obviously.

Edit: People have been talking Lonzo and Simmons, but it’s really time to cut that BS already. We need a 25 ppg scorer.