nba off season 2024 bud 2 suns etc

The worst kept secret in the NBA 🤫 pic.twitter.com/NVMcKZzG1t

— Tony Pesta (@Tony_Pesta) July 2, 2024

lol

PG to philly is the perfect sixers era morey move in that people can talk about how he flipped this asset for that asset and then got this other asset meanwhile the pot at the end of the rainbow is a 34 year old with a checkered playoff history and nobody seems convinced that they're even that much closer to a title, relatively speaking

knicks roster still feels pretty incomplete to me w/ hartenstein leaving. they're gonna need to find a starting center by the trade deadline imo, i think this past year showed that even when robinson is healthy you want another borderline starter behind him. right now i think they could fall into the t wolves trap of building a team specifically to win one match up but then running into a different match up that they can't counter

that might be true, but I don’t think the east is deep enough for it to matter like it may have for the wolves

knicks can always play small re matchups both randle and og are pretty hefty dudes, robinsons health is obvs a concern but carrying two starting quality centers isnt really a thing in todays nba, regardless the knicks dont have the resources to do it, robinson and sims seems fine + they can pick up a cheap third/second string guy

saric might be nice for them

https://bleacherreport.com/articles/10126970-nba-rumors-demar-derozan-linked-to-heat-amid-lakers-buzz-in-free-agency

lakers twitter in shambles rn

knicks can always play small re matchups both randle and og are pretty hefty dudes, robinsons health is obvs a concern but carrying two starting quality centers isnt really a thing in todays nba, regardless the knicks dont have the resources to do it, robinson and sims seems fine + they can pick up a cheap third/second string guy

philly has the same high-risk high-reward issues they’ve always had, as you correctly pointed out earlier. I don’t think it’s worth fretting about matchups with a team as unproven and liable to fall apart as they are.

milwaukee…yeah I just don’t see it. I think their run as serious contenders is probably over. they’re so old and rickety.

cleveland and orlando are the teams that normally you’d think are next up, but I think the talent gulf between the celtics/knicks/healthy sixers is so wide that I doubt it’ll matter.

that said the knicks obviously are going to look to shore up their big rotation in some way between now and the buyout deadline next year. I just don’t see how you can look at the trajectory of this team and not feel encouraged. then again, maybe they just get steamrolled by the celtics, no shame in that

thing id be worried about were i the knicks is not having an legit second option/enough on ball juice, theyve got brunson who is great obvs but after that its kinda dicey, feel like the best version of this team is elite defense and really good team offense/ball movement, think even then theyd have to get lucky to beat the celtics

knicks reportedly looking into walker kessler, which means mitch rob would likely be on the way out? (also deuce mcbride, probably)

i don't think philly or milwaukee need to be contenders to present issues for the knicks. very possible they see one of those teams in round 1. i'm not saying that it's some no doubt fatal flaw for the knics but in a 7 game series giannis, lopez, and portis would have some advantages over the knicks current bigs

do the knicks have anything left to trade for kessler

my overall point is just that if we are entering a parity driven era where the playoffs are decided as much by match ups as they are by pure talent than gearing yourself up to beat one certain type of team potentially leaves you vulnerable to being deficient in a different, unforeseen match up. we just saw this play out very visibly

do the knicks have anything left to trade for kessler

― lag∞n, Tuesday, July 2, 2024 2:32 PM (fifteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

mitch rob, mcbride, s&t precious, and they still somehow have lots of picks to trade

also feel like if you're gonna lean into playing small then you need a big who can shoot and also hold up on defense either in switches or at the rim, their only candidate for that role right now is randle i'm not sure he can check either box let alone both. they have plenty of time to figure out the right mix of bigs, i just don't think this is it

but i agree with j0rdan, embiid lit the knicks on fire during his minutes once mitch rob went down. and it’ll be hard for them to maintain their identity as a hard nosed rebounding team with their current big rotation

i still don't understand what happened w/ kessler where he was this undiscovered crown jewel of the trade future DPOY etc and then this year barely saw increased playing time and is now apparently on the trade block

it sounded like utah wasn’t happy with his effort, the S word was thrown around

shitty?

not really specific to kessler per se, but i think the post-apron world is one in which teams crave low-cost production, and rookies are (potentially) that for 4 years, but then you have to make real decisions once that four years is up and that usually means a big extension and now you're committed. utah has too much talent atm to tank, but they're not good. you'd rather, i guess, trade kessler before he's due a raise and then hit reset on some new rookie(s) next year or two.

i think ainge is just always willing to accept an overpay and hes thinking theres some sort of mania going on so hes putting it out there that jazz guys are available but really the situation is the same as always if youre willing to pay a premium hes willing to talk

my overall point is just that if we are entering a parity driven era where the playoffs are decided as much by match ups as they are by pure talent than gearing yourself up to beat one certain type of team potentially leaves you vulnerable to being deficient in a different, unforeseen match up. we just saw this play out very visibly

― slob wizard (J0rdan S.), Tuesday, July 2, 2024 3:45 PM (twenty-two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I don’t think the knicks are constructed to beat a certain matchup though, I think they’re pretty well-rounded! they may themselves have matchup issues if they don’t bolster their bigs (though again, I think they will), but you just can’t account for every possible matchup and still build a team under the current cap structure (unless you’re the celtics maybe). and re: joe’s question about secondary playmaking, I think that’s the bet they’re placing on mikal bridges — probably miscast as a #1 option but a much better fit as a clear #2.

at the end of the day I think the knicks roster got better and you can come up with all sorts of matchup questions for any team, but I just don’t think it’s worth worrying about those specifics too much in july. so much about those teams whose matchups are in question could change between now and then

i still don't understand what happened w/ kessler where he was this undiscovered crown jewel of the trade future DPOY etc and then this year barely saw increased playing time and is now apparently on the trade block

― slob wizard (J0rdan S.), Tuesday, July 2, 2024 3:52 PM (twenty-three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I haven’t looked too deeply into it but my guess is it’s 1) a character/coachability thing and/or 2) the internal metrics teams have are lower on him than the publicly available stuff

i dont think bridges is close to a championship 2, i mean look at what this years teams had jaylen and kyrie, murray last year, and brunson isnt a dominant 1 either

it’s not worrying about specifics to say that their big rotation currently has no depth and rests very heavily on players with worrying injury history

i think the depth is fine they got two centers two 4s they just need to add some deep bench guys, the injury situation is dicy tho

regular season depth & playoff depth are two different things, also their next biggest guy (OG) is also constantly hurt

you’d still like an upgrade on jericho sims and make him the deep bench guy rather than someone they need to rely on

precious is also an unrestricted free agent, so randle might be the only 4 on the roster at the moment

unless we’re counting anunoby as the other 4, which i guess he functionally will be

yeah og is good at the 4 maybe his best spot

and yeah sims as a third center makes sense getting a second string 5 is prob easily doable

crazy that the knicks started sims at first when robinson went down last year, they didnt know what that had in ihart

k3vin's post is all "hey they got better you can't prepare for everything what are you gonna do" but the knicks were already pretty deep w/ 3 and D wing players -- OG, dante, hart is already at the point where you can patch the rest together w/ cheaper players especially in the playoffs when you need fewer guys. so the decision to place even more weight on that player type at the expense of i.e. acquiring a more dynamic scorer, shoring up/diversifying their bigs is an intentional choice and not a function of the CBA making it hard to cover all your bases

they def went deep on the big wing theory, going for more of a legit second option mightve been better, not sure who was out there tho, and you cant relly go for a guard since youve got brunson already, really good offensive centers and wings are tough to find at least ones who can defend too, maybe markkanen

is bridges good enough to be a second option? he was miscast as a #1 in bk but i kinda feel like he can carry some offensive load as the #2

if there is roster imbalance, they at least have a surfeit of good players that could potentially be moved for a better fitting piece if the situation calls for it

brunson-bridges is not a championship level 1-2, like i said i think they could maybe work with it by playing really good team offense but idk asking bridges to create offense deep into the playoffs

a lot of this is overthinking, getting the villanova guys together was at least as much of a priority

basically everything is solved (besides how to guard giannis and embiid) by randle stepping up and being good in the playoffs

regular season randle is probably a championship level number 2, but can he do that when it really counts?

he cant do it just cause even when hes good hes not getting easy buckets everythings contested, physical, then against good playoff d those already difficult shots just become too hard

yeah randle will expect to be their second option

also og can play at the 5 for stretches. hes a big dude

don't think thibs is that kinda guy also OG is made of glass prob shouldn't be playing the 5 that much

i was on here after the trade saying i thought the framing of it as an overpay was hyperbolic so i'm not trashing the trade by any stretch i'm just saying the potential flaw in the roster construction is quite obvious

roster def has its flaws but most do, i like this knicks team theyre prob second tier contenders, they could win it all if everything breaks right, theyve also got some room to make more moves who knows what randles contract + picks could bring at the deadline

I honestly feel the biggest matchup issue with the Knicks is the doctor's office. If they're healthy and energetic they can best anyone with a bit of luck.

Still think the trade was a pick or of an overpay

Pick or two of an overpay

https://x.com/i/lists/1660029465223655433

was kinda hoping he'd come back to sa, this is a good value signing though