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with this tweet from the man himself:
A Tim Tebow led offense would only try to score by taking 2-point shots. Its semi-hidden value would be that it gets to the line a lot.
Williams will obviously stay if the Nets get Howard. If they don't, I'd say it's 50-50 or so.
http://nba-point-forward.si.com/2011/12/01/loophole-could-get-chris-paul-to-n-y/?sct=nba_t11_a0
1. For which Knicks player is the 2011-12 season most important?
Landry Fields. He was terrific in the first half as a spot up shooter and garbage basket guy but disappeared once Melo arrived. Since he was a 2nd round draft pick, and an unexpected one at that, he's going to have to continue to prove himself. The fact that the Knicks have also been connected to a few 2/3s would also indicate they may not have all the faith in the world in his ability (or maybe it's just asset gathering for a potential trade.) Either way, I really like Fields and I hope he's able to figure it out.
2. Who is the most intriguing player on the Knicks' roster?
Iman Shumpert. If Shumpert gets off to a great start his emergence could increase the likelihood of a CP3 trade. Even outside of any potential trade, all of the reviews on Shumpert since he was drafted have been strong. Based on his twitter/social media stuff he seems to be a hard working guy with a good head on his shoulders and I'm definitely drinking the Kool-Aid. I'm hoping to see a lot of him and DWTDD playing together so we can apply some serious pressure on the wings.
3. What's the most surprising take in Hollinger's Knicks profiles?
Nothing really jumped out at me, though I think he went too easy on Jared Jeffries'...worth...as a player/human being.
4. Based on Hollinger's profiles, what do the Knicks need most?
A defensive-minded, board-crashing big. This is why despite the fact that Chris Paul is probably my second favorite active player I really wish Howard was interested in coming to NY. I think a Paul-Melo-Stat Knick team would be fun and competitive, probably reach the Conference Finals a couple times, but I just don't see enough there to win it all. I think a Howard-Melo-Stat Knick team would be terrifyingly good.
5. Will a shortened season help or hurt the Knicks?
Hurt. The one thing Mike D'antoni hates more than Nate Robinson and Anthony Randolph is playing more than 8 guys in a night. STAT isn't the picture of health, Billups is old and Melo usually misses games with minor injuries and we don't have much behind them so...I expect the compressed schedule to hurt the team.
Nothing really jumped out at me, though I think he went too easy on Jared Jeffries'...worth...as a player/human being.
He's the kind of guy that Hollinger's formula really favors - big guys who rebound ok, get blocks, and play a low amount of minutes. Their rate and efficiency stats look great, but there may be a reason they play low minutes.
I can't believe Hollinger missed this
Or any other team. So it's not that Paul is willing to take less from the Knicks, just that he's willing to risk his knee lasting the year. Any other team can still get him and then make him choose between their max offer and fifty something mil from the Knicks.
Huh?
I think he means Stoudemire.
What risk would Paul be running in that scenario?
Yes, this. Going to a young team with a wide open window and waiting to sign an extension to max out money is one thing, but the Knicks aren't exactly that. Their window might be about 4 years, but it just as easily might be THIS year.
Right, because the thing that the other owners are all going to allow is Chris Paul dictating that he go to the Knicks AND get all his money. It's not like they just eliminated about a third of the season to prevent this sort of behavior.
That's the hard part, and the obvious parallel is the Melo trade. However, the stat-head consensus is that the Knicks overpaid though, right, considering the Nuggets had little leverage? And everyone agrees the entire Knicks roster/picks available to trade (less STAT and MELO) isn't as good of a package as what they gave up for Melo, right? Whether or not it matters, the consensus here also is that CP3 is a better player than Melo (though it could be argued he might have a lower trade value due to injury concerns, however minor), right? That doesn't take into account the impact the league owning the Hornets has either (I can see arguments that the league owning the Hornets makes it more* or less** likely they'd trade CP3 to the Knicks).
Having said all that, and while still believing Paul will not be traded to the Knicks, how good is a Knicks team with STAT/Melo/Paul/filler? Are they ever better - or would be favored - than Miami? Chicago? Adding Paul still leaves the Knicks with huge defensive deficiencies (though it is probably easier to get a cheap player that specialized in defense), but they would potentially be a great offensive team, especially under D'Antoni.
*The Knicks as a great team is better for the league as a whole than having Paul in NO or somewhere else like Boston or Orlando or GS.
**The league doesn't want to be seen as supporting the "superteams" right after the lockout and the negative publicity Miami drew (counter: that attention was still good for the league, as a whole).
Edit: If Stot broke down.
But why does this mean Paul would have to be careful as far as waiting to sign an extension. Don't you just mean he has to be careful about wanting to be a Knick at all?
I was thinking the same thing when I first read about Paul's "demand." Having the first post-lockout powerplay from a player come from the team that is owned by the league is a bizarre and interesting test case. It would be pretty lousy stewardship to let him play out the year and force him to take the big pay cut. Then again, the collective ownership might be into that sort of schadenfreude. I have no idea how they'll handle it or how much autonomy Dell Demps will have in making a deal. Is his mandate for short term success to drive up the value? Selling tickets? Collecting assets? Cutting costs? All would seem plausible, and the collection of unknowns will have an awful lot to do with what he wants in a trade.
Try this
This reminds me. Has anyone here read the Shaq book? I'm almost done and he had an interesting bit on reporter coverage/anonymous sources.
Well, yes, but the new rule that you have to wait until the end of the year to sign a max extension adds a wrinkle that didn't exist before. Before this CBA, there was never a chance that he gets traded, STAT ruins his knee(s), then Paul has to decide whether he wants to sign his max extension in NY knowing the team is not a title contender. That scenario only became a possibility in the last week.
Well, yes, but the new rule that you have to wait until the end of the year to sign a max extension adds a wrinkle that didn't exist before. Before this CBA, there was never a chance that he gets traded, STAT ruins his knee(s), then Paul has to decide whether he wants to sign his max extension in NY knowing the team is not a title contender. That scenario only became a possibility in the last week.
But isn't that better for Paul than if he were to sign a max extension immediately and be locked into a far less appealing situation?
Totally. But if Orlando hasn't been able to win with Howard in the middle, why would they be able to win with STAT? Maybe Smith just thinks he needs a little more time to assemble the supporting cast.
Sure, and I'm just pointing out that this would be an odd situation, but his options aren't "force a trade to the Knicks, sign extension" or "force a trade to the Knicks, become a free agent." He could also get traded somewhere else, or take the pay cut to make sure the Knicks are going to be viable.
Hollinger said to trade Melo for Paul. That would be amazing yet totally heartless by the Knicks. I'd like to see it happen for the entertainment.
But isn't that better for Paul than if he were to sign a max extension immediately and be locked into a far less appealing situation?
The bigger risk is what if Paul rips up his knee? Then he's out $70+ million.
Which is probably why I think Hollinger discounted this. I assume he's expecting the players to act totally rational (it's better to get something than risk getting nothing at all), but the players are talking about not doing that.
Chuck Hayes? Chris Wilcox? Shelden Williams? Or can the Knicks afford somebody better?
We're probably just arguing over semantics at this point, but Paul better be careful, because if he demands a trade then waits to sign an extension, he's playing a dangerous game where his best teammate is an extremely volatile injury risk. reads as though the danger is in waiting to sign the extension, which I don't think is your point based on your last few posts.
EDIT: Hollinger said to trade Melo for Paul. That would be amazing yet totally heartless by the Knicks. I'd like to see it happen for the entertainment.
I would sign up for this as well. I know there is no chance the Knicks will trade Amar'e or Melo, but I really believe that a team with one of the two and either Paul or Howard and then filling out the roster is better than an Amar'e, Paul, Melo + nothing team.
I don't follow NBA analysis but is Hollinger like the Dave Cameron of basketball? This suggestion is not interesting because it's obvious (Paul is better than Melo) and not realistic (it will never happen). It's pseudo-provocative.
I agree. I think ideally I'd pair Paul and Stat (7 secs or less, part 2, with a better PG and an owner trying to win*) or Howard and Melo (not that Howard and Stat couldn't work, but I'd want Howard to have more room in the paint and Melo can score is ways that better compliment Howard). I'll go further and say any of the pairs that involve either Howard or Paul with either of the current Knicks is going to be better than Amare and Melo.
*I assume Dolan would be trying to win more than Sarver, it's not like he's going to be selling draft picks for cash.
No at all, and I don't see how knowing only that suggestion out of context even implies that*. And it's part of a larger article of 10 possible trades that involve Howard and Paul. (LINK - Insider).
The relevant excerpt:
*If anyone is the Cameron of basketball is the good Dr. Berri.
No; Hollinger would, if pressed, admit that's not a realistic scenario, where as Cameron (or at least his stereotype) would defend the poorly thought out idea to the bitter end.
That would be an awfully narrow window to win with, right? Probably the consolation prize is somehow some toher team manages to get CP3 and convince him to sign an extension.
CP3/Amare/Melo looks like an exciting team that scores in bunches and loses to the Heat (or Bulls?) in the Conference Finals every year. Am I underrating them? I suppose it also depends on the marginal moves they make. The right rebounder/shot blocker/rim protector could make a big difference, for example.
I think you're rating them exactly right and with the new CBA limitations as well as no draft picks until 2023 I don't see any other conclusion.
Gives you two years. We've seen no shortage of players that want to play in New York and also want to play with top players. The Knicks have those, so it's not like they won't be able to find more.
The difference is Nash/Fields/Shumpert/Williams/etc vs Paul & what?
that defense would be something to see.
You're right. I was referring to the reality that he almost has to wait to make it worthwhile financially, but what I said doesn't make that very clear.
That's almost the same as saying that both Paul and Howard are better than either Amare or Melo, which most people would agree with.
Am I missing something? Why on earth would Indy want to trade Darren Collison for even more cap space that they'll have trouble filling?
Also, I like the Chuck Hayes suggestion. He fits there wonderfully with his ability to guard the 4 and 5 as necessary, willingness to never shoot, and skill on the boards to compensate for STAT.
that defense would be something to see.
Hey, if you're going to do it, go all in.
Am I missing something? Why on earth would Indy want to trade Darren Collison for even more cap space that they'll have trouble filling?
Got me. He's one of the three guys on that team they should really be keeping around.
Nash is ancient and would blow something out about 2 seconds after getting off the plane in NYC.
#SteveorKevin?
Right. If Smith decides he needs to move Howard, I think his best bet is to get back a young 5 with some talent/track record (Noah, Lopez, Bynum), get some future assets, get the other team to take Turkoglu in the deal, and amnesty Arenas. History shows pretty clearly that when you trade a top big, you can't really come out ahead. Your best call is get back a young big with some skills, clear the decks, and re-structure. The offer New Jersey supposedly made is not a bad one at all, in that context. But you don't ever "win" IMO when you have to trade a guy like Dwight Howard.
No. That is why I said that I think that in the very simple terms of "How can I put myself in position to hoist the O'Brien Trophy ASAP?" OKC makes the most sense for Paul. I also think that Russell Westbrook, for all the crap he takes and with his faults, is about the best guy the Hornets can get back if they have to move Paul.
Absolutely, right down to Westbrook's destiny as a "26 points, 8 assists per game for a 34-48 team" guy.
They never had enough assets to trade for both guys. It's not like Felton or Mozgov would make or break a trade for Paul.
No, Berri is the JC Bradbury of basketball.
Yes. $3mil max incoming per year per team. So if they get $3mil in one deal, no more cash.
That kills Dallas and Portland
Do any systems like PER or Win Shares take into account assisted field goals vs. unassisted field goals?
Do any systems like PER or Win Shares take into account assisted field goals vs. unassisted field goals?
WARP includes an estimate of assisted field goal percentage, and I think Basketball-Reference.com's Win Shares does something similar. Hoopdata.com has an adjusted PER that uses the actual number.
Good call. I was thinking that Cameron is more like Henry Abbott in that they defend things they probably believe in 51% to the bitter end because it makes good copy.
Sorry, I'm not quite in full NBA mode yet, with the lockout pushing my interest in CFB and the NFL. I haven't been following closely enough to follow this whole "NYC or bust" thing for Paul and judge it with any sort of discerning eye.
EDIT: I see Robin's post quoting Zach Lowe above raises the issue: The Hornet's could be forced into a 'Melo situation if Paul refuses to suit up for a potential trade parnter. That certainly seems like a long shot to me, especially if the difference is between getting the Knicks' ish back or real assets.
too bad there's no bill james (that's no knock on dean oliver or others, mind you)
67: indeed, i thought that was a good one. (for my money, jc should be.)
if miami waives mike miller, what does it mean for a team to bid on him? is that bid a one-time fee made payable to the heat, with the heat still on the hook for the rest of his contract? or is the bid a new yearly salary that's deducted from the heat's annual payment to miller?
and if a team bids, do they get the player for a single year, or for the length of miller's remaining contract, or for some other length decided by some other mechanism?
Like I suggested, I think Westbrook takes too much crap, partly because so many people have mancrushes on Durant. Hollinger raised a point about Durant that I think gets overlooked:
Westbrook, as I said last spring, seems to me to have only adequate court vision, particularly for a 1, (he played the 2 at UCLA, remember--the NBA has been OJT for him) and he is definitely not Nash or Paul in that area. The two of them together as your key guys, combined with Westbrook's lack of a midrange game, and Durant's diffculty getting open, and some questionable tactics by Brooks...well, these things may need to be addressed to get them over the top.
But OTOH, they won 56 games and made the conference finals, and neither of these guys is 25 years old. Westbrook takes bad shots sometimes, but I think the "Westbrook is a selfish punk" card is overplayed. Hollinger on Westbrook:
I actually discussed this with Backlasher awhile back. Hollinger has created some analytical formulas and was one of the guys who popularized stathead hoopswriting on the net. He has been called the "Bill James of Basketball", which he is not. I think that would have been Dean Oliver, if Oliver had started writing an annual back in the day. But Hollinger is different than Neyer. Hollinger would be more like Neyer if he wrote the same stuff but used Pelton's, Oliver's et al formulas.
That is not meant to put either JH or RN down; I like both guys as writers.
They pay Miller whatever they bid, and Miami pays the rest. IIRC they are buying the whole contract, not just this year.
Also, if Paul is worried about branding, he needs to stop talking about this and try, if he can, to reduce the leaks and rumors if they are in fact emanating from people around him. The "my heart is in New Orleans" quote followed by successive days of "Paul demands trade" and "Paul won't force trade" are already making him look bad. People will be pissed off at him anyway, of course, if he becomes a Knick, but if he cares about his image (and I think a lot of these guys do) he needs to play the rest of this a little differently.
Not that it will matter to Dolan and whoever has his ear, but the better basketball move for the Knicks is trying to get Dwight Howard. They could -- and should -- include Stoudemire or Anthony in the deal.
You pegged me, and I will admit to that being only a semi-serious, somewhat flippant comment about Westbroook's future.
The Knicks have had issues insuring Amare's contract. I'm not sure how much trade value he has. There are pretty serious concerns about his knees going forward.
Perhaps not, but I think that assumption is, again, too linear. Paul landing on the Knicks would:
a) Make the league a lot of money/get it a lot of buzz.
b) Stoke the WE NEED A HARD CAP AND A FRANCHISE TAG TO STOP THESE SELFISH AHOLES FROM RUINING THE LEAGUE WITH THEIR SUPERTEAMS fire.
(Look, even the NBA-run team couldn't stop it)
Like I said, I think this CBA is only Phase I of what Stern, and Silver, (and the small-market owners), who I think may be commish by 2017, want to do.
If you're Michael Jordan or Herb Kohl or Robert Sarver, there is no reason for you to really give a damn about whether Paul plays for the Thunder or the Knicks or the Clippers. Paul isn't coming to YOUR team in any scenario. But if he goes to New York, that might help you get the hard cap down the line.
I may be wrong, of course. I am very cynical about the owners, perhaps excessively so.
If the Lakers WPCT approaches what it was in the SIM, Mike Brown is a genius.
As a Bulls fan, that's encouraging. Rose with a 26.5 PER, a 10.8 point win margin, 59 wins (obviously they simmed 82 game season) -- and that's without adding any help at SG.
Andrea Bargnani dropped 61 on the Celtics?
Standings-wise, assuming no major trades, there's nothing that looks wildly off to me. The Nuggets probably aren't that good. Lakers and Celtics might be a little high but not egregiously so. Fun stuff.
My read is a bit less cynical, in that I don't think the owners are nearly that united. I think there is a spectrum with no real quorum, so that Stern's hands were somewhat tied in negotiation. He had to placate (to some extent) on both sides of the hawk/dove divide. In terms of Paul, I don't think his landing on the Knicks would do much to stoke the hard cap momentum, mostly because we're six years away from any possible CBA shifts, by which point it would be ancient news. The Decision was perfect for the hawks because of who it was, but also because it happened right before the old CBA expired. In the meantime, I would expect (without any more info than you have, of course) owners to be more resistant to CP3-to-the-Knicks movement than strategic stoking of public opinion.
That makes sense, but it's too far away, I think. It would almost be like the owners trying to use Gary Payton and Karl Malone ring chasing in LA as a motivating factor this year.
I don't think I can express how much sim-schadenfreude I took out of the Knicks blowing the 3-1 series lead.
if the sixers season resembles that sim in any way (other than jodie meeks shooting 49% from beyond the arc), this year will be a bloodbath.
considering the potential improvements that can be made by young, holiday, and turner, and with the hole in the middle plugged by (crossing my fingers) an actual NBA caliber center, i'm gonna take the over on wins--even after considering that this is a 66 game season.
Yeah, they stood out as the low outlier to me. On the other hand, Minnesota finishing 3 games out of the playoffs seems too rosy.
It's been brought up countless times: nobody knows if the NBA was really losing that "300 million a year" figure that Stern threw out there. And there is no monolithic enterprise that's losing 300 million (assuming that's even close to accurate): it's certain markets. How do you solve that? Well, the obvious solution is revenue sharing. Except you have a solid block of profitable owners that don't want any part of increase revenue sharing.
Again, this is a rash oversimplification. There were plenty of owners that DID NOT WANT to lose a season and that's a large part of why a deal got done. Guess why they didn't want to lose a season -- they are making big profits.
_____________
The rest of it is entertaining, typical light-weight style Simmons analysis.
Another unflattering excerpt from the Simmons piece. I guess he doesn't understand BRI.
Simmons is, again, mirroring ownerhawk internet trolls here, combining faulty reasoning with arrogance and stupidity.
In general, negotiations use the previous contract as a starting point for talks. A cut or a giveback may be needed or reasonable--but it is still a cut or a giveback, if your side is the one getting less. Simmons, if his momentum ever slacks off at ESPN and he is still working for them on a contractual basis, may one day discover this for himself.
Essentially, my read on Simmons on this is that his own enterpreneurial success and the company he now keeps in his chosen field have badly compromised his objectivity on this issue. There is no metric that determines whether the players are "overpaid" collectively; the relationship between thenm and the league as an entity, if not any individual owner, is symbiotic, as the behavior of the two sides shows.
The owners had some leverage and they used it; the players were willing to take less, decided to take a sub-optimal but acceptable deal to start getting paid again and get back on the court. Nothing much else happened, no matter what narrative Simmons sells himself. Sorry, that's life.
____
There is going to be some increased revenue sharing--no one knows exactly how much or how it wil be set up yet, though.
There are at least two parts to it. For one, there's the part whereby he became part of the "winners" club (both through luck and talent/hard work), which has positioned him, subjectively, closer to ownership interests. You and others have made this point and I think it is worth repeating. Still, there is another part of it, which is that he seems to have a fundamental misunderstanding of the contractual relationship under the CBA. The players and owners negotiated that the players would get 57% of the BRI. Nobody held a gun to the owners' heads. In fact, it was quite the opposite. To treat the players with scorn and the owners with pity over their previous contract obscures the fact that both parties had agency in the process. Additionally, when he defaults to the "that's life, that's just how good businessmen do their job" meme, he's condescendingly insulting the union's business sense- the same union that negotiated such a good deal last time around that it nearly crushed the owners! It's not about idiot GMs overpaying free agents on a microlevel, it's about an entire league agreeing that 57% was a sustainable level, then choking on its own bad business sense.
Or it could be about the NBA as a collective funneling money into business ventures (at a current loss) to create pressure to drive down the BRI split by the time to ventures pay off.
Very true, an even more cynical view than mine, but I'll take it!
In the sim not only did they lose, but Bargnani had the worst +/- on the team!
indeed, i own stuff by both of 'em - and was reading hollinger back in his alleyoop days.
Correct. When the lockout started, he made a list of bad NBA contracts (Rashard Lewis, Eddy Curry, Andris Biedrins) etc--that totalled over 300M. Someone here--maybe it was you, actually
--pointed out then that Simmons seemingly doesn't grasp BRI.
2017 is a long way off, but I am looking at it like this:
1. Paul goes to NY or LA Clippers.
2. Howard goes to Brooklyn or LA (Lakers or Clippers). Williams goes with Howard.
3. Rose of course stays in Chicago.
4. Griffin stays with the Clippers.
5. And we have the Three MiEgos in Miami.
That puts a tremendous concentration of the top stars in NY, LA, CHI, and Miami. Durant will still be in OKC, ("the exception that proves the rule") but it is easy to picture that group of teams dividing up the trophies over the next 4-5 years, and the lead-up rhetoric in 2015-16 being "We didn't go far enough."
Also, of all the guys in that group of players, the oldest is Dwyane Wade, who is almost 30 but is certainly not an "old" player yet. No one else is even 28. And, of course, this scenario mostly ignores the Lakers. Like most Laker fans, I am not sure where the team is headed, but there are plenty of reasons to be pessimistic. Even so, they still have Kobe, Pau, Odom, and Bynum. I don't see them winning again with this group, but they still have the big payroll and will be in the mix, both conversationally and on the floor. The same goes for the Celtics, who will have cap space next year.
And, of course, if the Lakers actually land Dwight Howard (I seriously doubt it will happen, but the possibility is there) that will lead to immediate calls from all over the place for a franchise tag and a hard cap, and Bill Simmons may be leading the charge. Paul going to NY would create a lot of the same noise.
So, put that all together, and I think Stern may welcome this set of possible developments. It is not as if Paul's people making noise about NY or the Nets chasing Howard are out-of-left-field surprises.
This was on display in his last podcast with House. There's a section at the beginning where they are attempting to discuss the salary cap room for some team and Simmons says something about the cap being lower because the BRI split was lower. House then says that he thought the cap number was the same, which is more or less correct if I'm not mistaken. Either way, it's a totally separate issue from the BRI split. The ensuring discussion makes it very clear that Simmons has no real understanding of BRI, the cap, the tax or really anything about the NBA's economic system, which is why he continually conflates all the issues and makes arguments that have nothing to do with anything. I have enjoyed his work in the past, I have the Book of Basketball and liked it quite a bit, but I have really soured on him during this lockout. It's not even that he's a flack for the owners, it's that he's a flack for the owners who doesn't even know why.
In a way, I guess it sort of fits with his whole Joe AverageFan persona, because Joe AverageFan doesn't understand #### about these issues either. I don't think that's what Simmons had in mind though.
There was a similar effect with Pierce.
This is Insider, so I can't quote much, but the conclusion is basically that Rondo is not as good as Rose or Westbrook--that Rondo is more like Tony Parker.
http://insider.espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/7306324/rajon-rondo-player-build-team-nba
Upon reflection, I have decided that this is not really what I mean. Simmons obviously has reasons that he is more or less sided with the owners, and I don't doubt that they are more or less honestly held. The problem is none of his thoughts, solutions or arguments on this issue show much engagement with the actual details of the NBA's business situation and economic system. Mostly he seems to be going off of what feels like the right answer to him. Fans tend to be like this on these issues because there's no real reason for them to spend much time learning details about BRI, salary caps, CBAs etc. They tend to identify with their team first, and that seems to transfer to the owners. Also a lot of the stuff the fans say they care about, like competitive balance, is a lot easier for the owners to play to rhetorically than the players. Simmons still seems stuck in this mode to me, although Robin's points about Simmons basically being management now are also well taken.
All of that would be fine if he was just a fan, but he's one of the biggest sportswriters in the world, and possibly the most-read NBA writer. For him to put no more effort into understanding the issues than he appears to have done is just inexcusable.
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