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He def benefiting from a freestyle offense and being paired with players not aggressively seeking their shot. Tim is a nut...
Official 2019 NYK offseason thread. Brooklyn knick fans check in
- Thread in 'Sports & Training' Thread starter Started by pr0phecy718,
- Start date
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Point is he got better from last year. Lots of his shots he’s making this year, and certain ways he’s finishing at the rim he wasn’t able to last year. Small sample size and I’m sure his percentages will only decrease as a current #1 option, nonetheless he still got better.
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NEW YORK — Back in November 2015, the Thunder’s eighth game of Kevin Durant’s final season was in Washington, D.C., his hometown, and at that exact moment, the buzziest threat to steal Durant away.
The season before, the Wizards crowd unveiled a KD2DC campaign during the Thunder’s lone trip — shirts, hats, signs, chants — asking Durant to come home for good. That, people predicted, was only an appetizer. Just wait for this night, D.C.’s final chance to recruit him in person. The begging would be bigger, the pleading louder.
But then, two nights before the game, Durant poured cold water on their unrealistic flames. He went on record with a stern quote, paraphrased like this: Cheer your own team, not me. He called the previous season’s reception “disrespectful” to give to an opposing player.
So the Wizards crowd, conflicted and confused, barfed out a mix of reluctant claps and half-hearted boos. Durant played well early, tweaked his hamstring before halftime, left the game and wasn’t available to reporters afterward. The Thunder won by 24 and then skipped town — an antsy organization, frightened by every speck of KD free agency chatter, was relieved to have sidestepped the biggest hurdle.
That night’s 2018 parallel came on Friday in New York City. Three years later, the Knicks play the role of desperate Eastern Conference franchise dreaming of Durant in their jersey. The Warriors are now the incumbent protector, but do so in a very different, more relaxed way than the Thunder.
Back then, the OKC brass fist-pumped the schedule makers. They were elated to get the D.C. trip out of the way early. Durant’s impending free agency loomed over the franchise like a storm cloud. Certain hot spot cities made it feel like a hurricane.
That’s not the feeling around these Warriors. When chatting with some of the franchise’s luminaries on Friday night in Madison Square Garden, no one sounded eager for the New York City weekend to end. There was even a slight bit of disappointment that one of their favorite trips on the calendar would be scratched off before the season was two weeks old.
Durant’s free agency? Oh, yeah, that’ll be a fun little subplot tonight, won’t it?
“Seen any good signs?” one front office exec asked pregame.
I’d spotted a few, the most curious one halfway up Section 105. It was four emojis, all scribbled in color: ‘Snake + Statue of Liberty + Trophy = Goat.’
“I’m not sure that one’s gonna help,” he laughed.
That’s a constant theme around these Warriors: Humor to defuse tension. Durant’s free agency future is a serious threat to this dynasty. Everyone is curious to see what he’ll do. It’ll affect the life path of many of his teammates. They monitor the breadcrumbs as closely as anyone.
Around the Thunder, it was a taboo topic — always there but hardly touched. Around these Warriors, it freely pops up at any moment, occasionally weaponized into a joke, like when Durant got to the Garden on Friday night and Andre Iguodala had a message for him.
“Welcome home,” Iguodala joked.
“Gotta inject some humor because there’s so much seriousness involved,” Shaun Livingston said. “Inject some humor, take some edge off.”
“I think it’s different because our team, we don’t give into (the chatter),” Iguodala said. “It’s like, whatever. We actually have fun with it.”
When you’ve won three titles, including one before Durant even arrived, it’s much easier to deploy that strategy. Your place in NBA lore is secure. Three years back, the Thunder was trying to desperately cling onto Durant before an era that should’ve produced multiple championships crumbled into a title-less pile of regret. That’s a different level of stress.
“Either way it goes, he’s our brother,” Livingston said. “Whatever happens, happens. He knows that. Then that allows him to be comfortable. Because if you look at it the other way, there’s a lot of stress.”
The other difference: The Warriors in zero way fear the Knicks in these sweepstakes. Durant may decide to go to New York in July. They know that. The buzz is legitimate. The connections are there. His business manager, Rich Kleiman, is a New York-based Knicks fan with dreams of working in their front office one day. Royal Ivey, perhaps Durant’s best friend, is on David Fizdale’s coaching staff.
But in all aspects of basketball success and organizational management, the areas in which the Warriors can control, they are superior.
Durant has keenly tracked LeBron James’ blockbuster move to Los Angeles. “LA Bron,” Durant called him in the locker room the other day, while watching the end of the Lakers’ overtime game against the Spurs. He finds the idea of linking personal brand with mega city an appealing power move by a guy he believes to be his basketball peer.
Which better informs any fascination Durant may have with bringing his brand to New York City, showcasing himself regularly at the Garden, just as LeBron did in Los Angeles, lured by the Hollywood business opportunities and the Staples Center stage, not the dudes who would surround him in the starting lineup.
But the comparison to LeBron’s move has its snags. The Lakers’ roster, while flawed, has better upside than the Knicks current situation. Kristaps Porzingis, a theoretical co-star to Durant, is both unproven and still months away from a return after last season’s ACL tear.
Beyond him, Kevin Knox is intriguing (but also currently hurt), Frank Ntilikina isn’t a notable name, Tim Hardaway Jr. is locked into $18 million the next couple seasons and the rest of the roster is loaded with expendable fill-ins who got 41 Durant points plopped on their head during Friday’s 28-point Warriors win. Also: Joakim Noah’s stretched-out mega contract will ding the Knicks’ books for $6.4 million the next three seasons, despite his unemployment. That severely limits the amount of talent they could add around Durant.
Then there’s the other side of LeBron’s departure, in comparison. LeBron left an aging, stale ship in Cleveland that had clearly run its course. If Durant left the Warriors, he’d be walking away from an in-progress dynasty and a locker room that, at least for now, appears to be in a rosy place.
Plus it’s not exactly like the Knicks had a sparkling couple of days of in-city recruitment. Durant arrived to a hastily drawn billboard near MSG asking him to make “NY Sports Great Again,” depicting Durant as a cartoon that had the Warriors’ locker room snickering.
“Game of Zones had better drawings,” one player joked.
“(PR man) Raymond (Ridder) told me that was Clarence Weatherspoon: Knicks No. 35,” coach Steve Kerr said. “I didn’t know it was Kevin.”
Said Durant: “I don’t really know how to feel about that type of stuff. It’s cool. No disrespect, but I’m not really impressed with that type of stuff.”
That answer was part of a pretty tame session with New York reporters, when Durant mostly brushed off free agency questions and was also hit with one about an insult from Knicks legend and current play-by-play man Walt Frazier, who earlier this year said Durant’s career legacy had an “asterisk” because of how he won his titles.
“Hell yeah, (I heard about it), of course. You hear about all that stuff,” Durant said. “But I don’t even know what that means. I know I’m nice when I play. I’m nice. He knows that, too.”
Durant and the Warriors still have two days left in the city. They play in Brooklyn on Sunday, but are staying in Manhattan. They have a practice on Saturday. Durant will again be available to area reporters. Maybe the chatter will continue. Maybe the recruitment is ongoing behind the scenes, somewhere within the bustling nightlife.
But the Warriors don’t seem too concerned.
“I ain’t got that much time left to worry about stuff like that,” Iguodala said.
The season before, the Wizards crowd unveiled a KD2DC campaign during the Thunder’s lone trip — shirts, hats, signs, chants — asking Durant to come home for good. That, people predicted, was only an appetizer. Just wait for this night, D.C.’s final chance to recruit him in person. The begging would be bigger, the pleading louder.
But then, two nights before the game, Durant poured cold water on their unrealistic flames. He went on record with a stern quote, paraphrased like this: Cheer your own team, not me. He called the previous season’s reception “disrespectful” to give to an opposing player.
So the Wizards crowd, conflicted and confused, barfed out a mix of reluctant claps and half-hearted boos. Durant played well early, tweaked his hamstring before halftime, left the game and wasn’t available to reporters afterward. The Thunder won by 24 and then skipped town — an antsy organization, frightened by every speck of KD free agency chatter, was relieved to have sidestepped the biggest hurdle.
That night’s 2018 parallel came on Friday in New York City. Three years later, the Knicks play the role of desperate Eastern Conference franchise dreaming of Durant in their jersey. The Warriors are now the incumbent protector, but do so in a very different, more relaxed way than the Thunder.
Back then, the OKC brass fist-pumped the schedule makers. They were elated to get the D.C. trip out of the way early. Durant’s impending free agency loomed over the franchise like a storm cloud. Certain hot spot cities made it feel like a hurricane.
That’s not the feeling around these Warriors. When chatting with some of the franchise’s luminaries on Friday night in Madison Square Garden, no one sounded eager for the New York City weekend to end. There was even a slight bit of disappointment that one of their favorite trips on the calendar would be scratched off before the season was two weeks old.
Durant’s free agency? Oh, yeah, that’ll be a fun little subplot tonight, won’t it?
“Seen any good signs?” one front office exec asked pregame.
I’d spotted a few, the most curious one halfway up Section 105. It was four emojis, all scribbled in color: ‘Snake + Statue of Liberty + Trophy = Goat.’
“I’m not sure that one’s gonna help,” he laughed.
That’s a constant theme around these Warriors: Humor to defuse tension. Durant’s free agency future is a serious threat to this dynasty. Everyone is curious to see what he’ll do. It’ll affect the life path of many of his teammates. They monitor the breadcrumbs as closely as anyone.
Around the Thunder, it was a taboo topic — always there but hardly touched. Around these Warriors, it freely pops up at any moment, occasionally weaponized into a joke, like when Durant got to the Garden on Friday night and Andre Iguodala had a message for him.
“Welcome home,” Iguodala joked.
“Gotta inject some humor because there’s so much seriousness involved,” Shaun Livingston said. “Inject some humor, take some edge off.”
“I think it’s different because our team, we don’t give into (the chatter),” Iguodala said. “It’s like, whatever. We actually have fun with it.”
When you’ve won three titles, including one before Durant even arrived, it’s much easier to deploy that strategy. Your place in NBA lore is secure. Three years back, the Thunder was trying to desperately cling onto Durant before an era that should’ve produced multiple championships crumbled into a title-less pile of regret. That’s a different level of stress.
“Either way it goes, he’s our brother,” Livingston said. “Whatever happens, happens. He knows that. Then that allows him to be comfortable. Because if you look at it the other way, there’s a lot of stress.”
The other difference: The Warriors in zero way fear the Knicks in these sweepstakes. Durant may decide to go to New York in July. They know that. The buzz is legitimate. The connections are there. His business manager, Rich Kleiman, is a New York-based Knicks fan with dreams of working in their front office one day. Royal Ivey, perhaps Durant’s best friend, is on David Fizdale’s coaching staff.
But in all aspects of basketball success and organizational management, the areas in which the Warriors can control, they are superior.
Durant has keenly tracked LeBron James’ blockbuster move to Los Angeles. “LA Bron,” Durant called him in the locker room the other day, while watching the end of the Lakers’ overtime game against the Spurs. He finds the idea of linking personal brand with mega city an appealing power move by a guy he believes to be his basketball peer.
Which better informs any fascination Durant may have with bringing his brand to New York City, showcasing himself regularly at the Garden, just as LeBron did in Los Angeles, lured by the Hollywood business opportunities and the Staples Center stage, not the dudes who would surround him in the starting lineup.
But the comparison to LeBron’s move has its snags. The Lakers’ roster, while flawed, has better upside than the Knicks current situation. Kristaps Porzingis, a theoretical co-star to Durant, is both unproven and still months away from a return after last season’s ACL tear.
Beyond him, Kevin Knox is intriguing (but also currently hurt), Frank Ntilikina isn’t a notable name, Tim Hardaway Jr. is locked into $18 million the next couple seasons and the rest of the roster is loaded with expendable fill-ins who got 41 Durant points plopped on their head during Friday’s 28-point Warriors win. Also: Joakim Noah’s stretched-out mega contract will ding the Knicks’ books for $6.4 million the next three seasons, despite his unemployment. That severely limits the amount of talent they could add around Durant.
Then there’s the other side of LeBron’s departure, in comparison. LeBron left an aging, stale ship in Cleveland that had clearly run its course. If Durant left the Warriors, he’d be walking away from an in-progress dynasty and a locker room that, at least for now, appears to be in a rosy place.
Plus it’s not exactly like the Knicks had a sparkling couple of days of in-city recruitment. Durant arrived to a hastily drawn billboard near MSG asking him to make “NY Sports Great Again,” depicting Durant as a cartoon that had the Warriors’ locker room snickering.
“Game of Zones had better drawings,” one player joked.
“(PR man) Raymond (Ridder) told me that was Clarence Weatherspoon: Knicks No. 35,” coach Steve Kerr said. “I didn’t know it was Kevin.”
Said Durant: “I don’t really know how to feel about that type of stuff. It’s cool. No disrespect, but I’m not really impressed with that type of stuff.”
That answer was part of a pretty tame session with New York reporters, when Durant mostly brushed off free agency questions and was also hit with one about an insult from Knicks legend and current play-by-play man Walt Frazier, who earlier this year said Durant’s career legacy had an “asterisk” because of how he won his titles.
“Hell yeah, (I heard about it), of course. You hear about all that stuff,” Durant said. “But I don’t even know what that means. I know I’m nice when I play. I’m nice. He knows that, too.”
Durant and the Warriors still have two days left in the city. They play in Brooklyn on Sunday, but are staying in Manhattan. They have a practice on Saturday. Durant will again be available to area reporters. Maybe the chatter will continue. Maybe the recruitment is ongoing behind the scenes, somewhere within the bustling nightlife.
But the Warriors don’t seem too concerned.
“I ain’t got that much time left to worry about stuff like that,” Iguodala said.
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Kanter/Lee will be dealt at the deadline. His pouting about being benched in the post game is absolutely ridiculous. Son you play well on offense and offense only get the **** out of here
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I don't see how they move Kanter without taking a long contract back. He's like 20 Mil. Now if they wanted to move him for a pick and a long contract sure, but he's stuck here until the end of the season
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Kanter could kick rocks. Last season he went on a lil thing about how development should be for the G League. He's obviously not happy about how things might go and never someone I considered a leader.
Anyone see the dynamic between Tim and Fiz vs Fiz and the rest of the players?
Seems like he has no ability to discipline Tim.
Anyone see the dynamic between Tim and Fiz vs Fiz and the rest of the players?
Seems like he has no ability to discipline Tim.
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Shouldn't be too hard to move an expiring to a fringe contender. Ironically OKC and Utah could use his services again
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Kanter knew what he was in for when he opted in. Don't like him complaining about a bench role at all.
Embrace it & prove why you belong in the starting lineup again.
Embrace it & prove why you belong in the starting lineup again.
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Tim is a number #3 masquerading as a #1 due to KP's absence. He legit has free reign to do whatever he wants whenever he wants and unfortunately for us is the only player on the team who can consistently create his own shot and knock down the 3. He looked way more tolerable in the new starting lineup and should never share the floor with Burke ever again.. coach seems to understand that you have to pick your battles wisely and he's not the one to piss of.. YET. Kanter and Burke are already showing disdain for being bench so it makes absolutely no sense to get on the bad side of your only veteran left who just happens to be your #1 option right now. Fiz ain't dumb
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|A-Man|
formerly atgd7154xbbxmz
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Didn't watch post game interviews. Who was pouting? Lee or Kanter? Lee a week or two ago was saying he was fine in any role for the team.
Kanter seems like the kinda ***** to whine about that Noah style.
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Lee cool. I'm talking about Anus Kanter
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This article talks about how great it would be for his brand to be in NY and completely ignores that the warriors are opening a new stadium with Chase in San "Billionaires everywhere" Francisco. NY doesn't have an automatic edge in helping him make money at all.
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"*****lina, *****lina, is that how you pronounce it ? "
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YO
SHEED AINT NEVER TOLD NO LIE
SHEED AINT NEVER TOLD NO LIE
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Lmao
Sheed rocking long shorts or short pants?
Sheed rocking long shorts or short pants?
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Seems like a large part of why Mitch doesnt see much floor time (aside from inexperience) is his lack of vocality on the court. The big man is the one who dictates the defense, usually because they have the best vantage points.
My Q is, how do you guys think this will ho down? He seems to be a quiet by nature type of guy. Not that you have to be prime Tyson Chandler loud but theres a certain level of communication that has to be acheived.
Hopefully this comes naturally as he feels more comfortable on the court and builds trust with his teammates.
Offensively, its there. The angles that our guards hit him with passes need to be more deceptive but he also has to be in better position to receive the pass. His jumper also needs to open up.
I really think his development is key in helping KP . If Mitch could switch out onto guards (KPs main defensive weakness imo), all the while control the paint and rebound , that future frontcourt looks good.
I think its important for the young guys to all feel that they make an impact on the game and feel as much of a leader as anyone, But to me, KP is still the cornerstone and the talent needs to develop but also fit the mold where he can acheive and help acheive.
Unless we sign a crazy free agent this offseason.
My Q is, how do you guys think this will ho down? He seems to be a quiet by nature type of guy. Not that you have to be prime Tyson Chandler loud but theres a certain level of communication that has to be acheived.
Hopefully this comes naturally as he feels more comfortable on the court and builds trust with his teammates.
Offensively, its there. The angles that our guards hit him with passes need to be more deceptive but he also has to be in better position to receive the pass. His jumper also needs to open up.
I really think his development is key in helping KP . If Mitch could switch out onto guards (KPs main defensive weakness imo), all the while control the paint and rebound , that future frontcourt looks good.
I think its important for the young guys to all feel that they make an impact on the game and feel as much of a leader as anyone, But to me, KP is still the cornerstone and the talent needs to develop but also fit the mold where he can acheive and help acheive.
Unless we sign a crazy free agent this offseason.
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he's still a rook, so i'm not concerned with his lack of being vocal just yet. plus, he didn't even play in college. he's definitely raw, but the defensive fundamentals are there. i'm excited for his development more than Knox tbh.
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he's a rookie...
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Quick Rant: Is Steven A ever going to go to a decent barber?! I get anxiety every time I look at his cut.
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