Its time for the Knicks to make a move on Randle before its too late.

[thebuzzardman]

So, the biggest drop for Randle is on 3 pointers.

The Knicks moved on from Elf because he wasn't an offensive threat, same for Bullocks.
The replacements were/are Walker and Fournier. We know about the defensive hit.
Fournier hits 3's at or above Bullocks rate, plus he can drive it SOME, hit a lay up or midrange.
Kemba can drive it, but is this version of Kemba really a drive and kick PG that gets the defense moving? He can certainly space the floor with 3's.

I wonder if Randle would do better with a guard that collapsed the defense a bit more, left him more open on 3's in general.
You know, like McBride and Rose.
Except, probably, once RJ and IQ are back, McBride probably won't play, along with Grimes.

[thebuzzardman]

Knicks need to trade two out of four of Mitch, Noel, Taj, Sims.

There are only so many no offense, bench C's a team should carry. Getting a C who can shoot a bit should help Randle. Getting rid of most of the rim runners might force Thibs to play Randle and Obi more, even though it's not all that good defensively.

I realize these two goals are in conflict, but for god's sake, does every Knick offense have to be the Knicks playing 3 on 5 or 4 on 5?

[Chanel Bomber]

So, the biggest drop for Randle is on 3 pointers.

The Knicks moved on from Elf because he wasn't an offensive threat, same for Bullocks.
The replacements were/are Walker and Fournier. We know about the defensive hit.
Fournier hits 3's at or above Bullocks rate, plus he can drive it SOME, hit a lay up or midrange.
Kemba can drive it, but is this version of Kemba really a drive and kick PG that gets the defense moving? He can certainly space the floor with 3's.

I wonder if Randle would do better with a guard that collapsed the defense a bit more, left him more open on 3's in general.
You know, like McBride and Rose.
Except, probably, once RJ and IQ are back, McBride probably won't play, along with Grimes.

It's clear Randle can't be your ISO go-to-guy a la Dirk/Kawhi. He showed flashes last season, but once the smoke was clear, the numbers were too unflattering to be a realistic proposition. Which is fine, obviously.

So the question is what is his best role on a good team?

I see two possibilities, personally:

1. Pick-and-roll roll man: Randle becomes a power PNR player a la late 90s Karl Malone (albeit a poor man's Malone). Two roadblocks: Randle doesn't like to play fast, and has a tendency to turn PNRs into ISOs. And Randle doesn't have great length or athleticism, which explains why his finishing isn't overly impressive. So he's probably a middling option here, if not subpar.

2. Off-ball player who can create in a pinch: Randle becomes primarily a cutter and spot-up shooter, who spaces the floor for the main action, and every now and then creates as a tertiary option when the team needs him to or to exploit mismatches.

I think the latter is more realistic, but he'd need to shoot better than 35% from to be really effective in that role.

[Clyde_Style]

You should go over there and kick their 1.4 billion asses.

I mean, I could get all nationalistic and want our country to kick their countries ass, but the last administration did a bang up job telling me that the government, and I would have to assume by extension the military, since it is part of the government, is in thrall to evil pineal gland eating pedophiles, so I don't feel comfortable backing any plan against China, since it's suspect and run by evil people.
Maybe...like, the Hungarians and Polish and Russians might want a crack at them. Maybe they'll take foreign recruits! The French do, but...it's the French.

Preach!

I say let’s wipe out Canada next

Only if it's a peer to peer, grassroots populist uprising, with no leaders, where all the good people coalesce into a motivated army which then overthrows the evil Socialist Canadians. Then I'm all for it.

As long as they all voluntarily get tested for covid before going into battle this sounds great

[mpharris36]

it might already be too late...

[mpharris36]

Watch on YouTube

oof

[thebuzzardman]

Preach!

I say let’s wipe out Canada next

Only if it's a peer to peer, grassroots populist uprising, with no leaders, where all the good people coalesce into a motivated army which then overthrows the evil Socialist Canadians. Then I'm all for it.

As long as they all voluntarily get tested for covid before going into battle this sounds great

Oh dear. The army has already split into factions.

[K_ick_God]

We got the shiny new toy KP and everybody wanted Melo to never touch the ball again even going so far to boo when they passed him the ball. I don’t feel bad for him but for all we know behind the scenes he advised guys to stay away too with the way he was unceremoniously forced out

Guess what, if KP or Randle were really good, you wouldn't even be talking about the background gossip. Great players aren't held back by situations or soap opera. Randle isn't good. He had one good season of shooting 3's, his jumper fails the eye test and the stats test, his decisions are dubious. He's a very strong and fairly agile big man who can shoot off balance shots and make them. The rest is not good and unlike Melo, he really can't make them consistently.

KP and Randle are not superstars but were good enough to make an all star team and win some games (KP pre-ACL) and Randle last year. They aren’t great players but starting caliber role players with upside to be borderline all star reserve if their team is winning. So good to have in place as a 2nd or 3rd option if you can get a real star in. Not good enough to be 1st options on consistently winning teams or to win in the playoffs as a first option. But very few players are

I think RJ is a better second or third guy than either KP or Randle.

[NYKat]

there's nobody on the roster worth building around. nobody. and that's the point. people want to watch the kids because at least they play hard and watching them get better, or not, is at least interesting. the vets provide nothing of interest to watch whatsoever. and if you do just play the kids you'll likely lose more and maybe, just maybe, you'll find someone worth building around in the draft.

Right… it’s always the philosophical choice of prioritizing development (and tanking) over competitiveness (and culture)

I’d rather prioritize competitiveness, and I feel like we could have fielded a competitive team, if the we didn’t make panic decisions 20 games into the season…

Having said that, I think we all wanna see the kids get at some fair minutes I don’t think anyone prefers watching Thibs play an 8 man rotation of vets for 42 minutes, while guys like Obi and Grimes get single digit minutes so I’m kind of out on the coaching staff right now

you lost me here. benching kemba ruined our chance to be competitive ? that's an opinion but there's no proof of that. we were bad with him and without him. outside of the 5-1 start, it's been consistently bad. if you wanna say he was somewhat scapegoated, i won't really argue because most of the team is playing bad and it didn't get better without him. but i don't think he still being in the rotation was changing anything. because most of the team is still playing bad. and they still would be if he was playing.

So I like strongly disagree that we were bad with him, we were a .500 team, which IMO was acceptable in the improved East, with a two new starters.

Only after he got benched, we had a our first 3 game losing streak, our defense got worse, our record got worse. So that decision was a categorical failure.

But you illustrate another point about this fanbase, this board was acting like the sky was falling when we were hovering around .500, with Knicks fans if you aren’t overachieving then you’re automatically undeachieving …there’s like no inbetween

[VirginiaKnickFan]

Knicks need to trade two out of four of Mitch, Noel, Taj, Sims.

There are only so many no offense, bench C's a team should carry. Getting a C who can shoot a bit should help Randle. Getting rid of most of the rim runners might force Thibs to play Randle and Obi more, even though it's not all that good defensively.

I realize these two goals are in conflict, but for god's sake, does every Knick offense have to be the Knicks playing 3 on 5 or 4 on 5?

Agreed, Myles Turner says hi.

[Clyde_Style]

I mean anyone who looked at the numbers objectively last season would've realized that last season's success had more to do with Derrick Rose than Julius Randle.

Why was Randle overhyped as the face of the franchise's revival then?

1. Randle was a starter and Rose came off the bench
2. Randle was 26 and Rose was 32

Knicks fans bought the Randle hype based on the fact that he was younger. It's more convenient to believe that a 26-year-old is driving your success than a 32-year old. It means you have a bright future ahead.

I swear I'm gonna bang my head against the wall the next time I hear people mention how Randle was an All-NBA player last year. He didn't deserve to be. It means nothing besides purely perception.

At least don't try to take guys achievement from last year if you can't accept that then your a very little angry person.

Sent from my HD1905 using Tapatalk

Ok

They assume you’re a very little person. Perhaps you’re a massive angry person. I don’t think they thought this through

[Clyde_Style]

Right… it’s always the philosophical choice of prioritizing development (and tanking) over competitiveness (and culture)

I’d rather prioritize competitiveness, and I feel like we could have fielded a competitive team, if the we didn’t make panic decisions 20 games into the season…

Having said that, I think we all wanna see the kids get at some fair minutes I don’t think anyone prefers watching Thibs play an 8 man rotation of vets for 42 minutes, while guys like Obi and Grimes get single digit minutes so I’m kind of out on the coaching staff right now

you lost me here. benching kemba ruined our chance to be competitive ? that's an opinion but there's no proof of that. we were bad with him and without him. outside of the 5-1 start, it's been consistently bad. if you wanna say he was somewhat scapegoated, i won't really argue because most of the team is playing bad and it didn't get better without him. but i don't think he still being in the rotation was changing anything. because most of the team is still playing bad. and they still would be if he was playing.

So I like strongly disagree that we were bad with him, we were a .500 team, which IMO was acceptable in the improved East, with a two new starters.

Only after he got benched, we had a our first 3 game losing streak, our defense got worse, our record got worse. So that decision was a categorical failure.

But you illustrate another point about this fanbase, this board was acting like the sky was falling when we were hovering around .500, with Knicks fans if you aren’t overachieving then you’re automatically undeachieving …there’s like no inbetween

Let’s not pretend the criticisms made when we were .500 this season were not on the money. They were were just as true then as they are now. We were ahead of you and you’re the one catching up

[knickstape4ever]

if you can't build around Julius as the #1 (which you can't because he's not a #1 or #2), and you can't add 2 stars, might as well trade him, focus on developing the young players and getting better draft position so that we can maybe get a star that way

[K_ick_God]

I’m just quoting this to state I agree with the Frank Ntilikina part. LOL

Fan base wants to be patient for obvious bums like Frank or even Knox but turn on legends like Melo or kids that show promise like RJ & Quickley. Just weird.

This fanbase just prefers youth and unproven talent (see:Jeremy Lin)

We’re doing it now with the McBrides and Grimes acting like we should build the franchise around them…

The problem is these players look good until the league has a sample size large enough to figure them out, only then do we see if they’re any good

there's nobody on the roster worth building around. nobody. and that's the point. people want to watch the kids because at least they play hard and watching them get better, or not, is at least interesting. the vets provide nothing of interest to watch whatsoever. and if you do just play the kids you'll likely lose more and maybe, just maybe, you'll find someone worth building around in the draft.

Not to go after any one person, but rather to join this debate vigorously, who did the Heat "build around" to get to this point?

I'm not sure there's great evidence for needing a person to build around to get there. It definitely will make things easier if you find a great player, it will cover up a lot, but who did the Heat build on?

For the sake of clarity, you do think Ben Simmons is someone to build on, and I don't really disagree with that completely. By stats and profile, it seems a slam dunk that KAT is someone to build on. Doesn't appear to be the case.

My point is just that you can identify certain young guys, we may have them, to check enough boxes that you can add one big piece or grow that piece (like Bam) to get to (near) the top.

[Clyde_Style]

This fanbase just prefers youth and unproven talent (see:Jeremy Lin)

We’re doing it now with the McBrides and Grimes acting like we should build the franchise around them…

The problem is these players look good until the league has a sample size large enough to figure them out, only then do we see if they’re any good

there's nobody on the roster worth building around. nobody. and that's the point. people want to watch the kids because at least they play hard and watching them get better, or not, is at least interesting. the vets provide nothing of interest to watch whatsoever. and if you do just play the kids you'll likely lose more and maybe, just maybe, you'll find someone worth building around in the draft.

Not to go after any one person, but rather to join this debate vigorously, who did the Heat "build around" to get to this point?

I'm not sure there's great evidence for needing a person to build around to get there. It definitely will make things easier if you find a great player, it will cover up a lot, but who did the Heat build on?

For the sake of clarity, you do think Ben Simmons is someone to build on, and I don't really disagree with that completely. By stats and profile, it seems a slam dunk that KAT is someone to build on. Doesn't appear to be the case.

My point is just that you can identify certain young guys, we may have them, to check enough boxes that you can add one big piece or grow that piece (like Bam) to get to (near) the top.

Yes, you just keep growing your talent base until it either gels as a contender or it is the foundation to which you do add that X factor player. The Heat made a run after they added Jimmy.

It rarely works the other way around where you acquire a superstar and then get the rest of the talent to surround them. That seems to be the fantasy many have, but in reality you have to have some semblance of a functional organization and a handful of decent players already.

[duetta]

Knicks need to trade two out of four of Mitch, Noel, Taj, Sims.

There are only so many no offense, bench C's a team should carry. Getting a C who can shoot a bit should help Randle. Getting rid of most of the rim runners might force Thibs to play Randle and Obi more, even though it's not all that good defensively.

I realize these two goals are in conflict, but for god's sake, does every Knick offense have to be the Knicks playing 3 on 5 or 4 on 5?

Keep Sims. He's the youngest and cheapest of the three players under 30.

[Marty McFly]

if you can't build around Julius as the #1 (which you can't because he's not a #1 or #2), and you can't add 2 stars, might as well trade him, focus on developing the young players and getting better draft position so that we can maybe get a star that way

I mean, this is team Tank's reasoning for tanking. why is it that all of a sudden so many people have come to this realization?

all of a sudden people are perplexed as to why paying a #3 option before you're sure you have your #1 and #2 options on the team is illogical, in a team sport where shrewd cap management is a necessity to building a team that can thrive.

[god shammgod]

if you can't build around Julius as the #1 (which you can't because he's not a #1 or #2), and you can't add 2 stars, might as well trade him, focus on developing the young players and getting better draft position so that we can maybe get a star that way

I mean, this is team Tank's reasoning for tanking. why is it that all of a sudden so many people have come to this realization?

all of a sudden people are perplexed as to why paying a #3 option before you're sure you have your #1 and #2 options on the team is illogical, in a team sport where shrewd cap management is a necessity to building a team that can thrive.

they believed we would at least be .500. and somehow that makes this all make sense when even if we were it still wouldn't.

[evevale]

Watch on YouTube

oof

Jeremy Cohen gave his gameball to Covid for this week I just adore him.

[NYKat]

you lost me here. benching kemba ruined our chance to be competitive ? that's an opinion but there's no proof of that. we were bad with him and without him. outside of the 5-1 start, it's been consistently bad. if you wanna say he was somewhat scapegoated, i won't really argue because most of the team is playing bad and it didn't get better without him. but i don't think he still being in the rotation was changing anything. because most of the team is still playing bad. and they still would be if he was playing.

So I like strongly disagree that we were bad with him, we were a .500 team, which IMO was acceptable in the improved East, with a two new starters.

Only after defhe got benched, we had a our first 3 game losing streak, our defense got worse, our record got worse. So that decision was a categorical failure.

But you illustrate another point about this fanbase, this board was acting like the sky was falling when we were hovering around .500, with Knicks fans if you aren’t overachieving then you’re automatically undeachieving …there’s like no inbetween

Let’s not pretend the criticisms made when we were .500 this season were not on the money. They were were just as true then as they are now. We were ahead of you and you’re the one catching up

Look, we weren’t world beaters with Kemba in the starting lineup but the criticisms were overblown, there small signs of chemistry developing, IMO

We can speculate all day about whether we would still have our current record if Kemba stayed in the lineup but the fact of the matter is we got worse with the decision to remove him completely from the rotation.