And now the low-post. Welcome to the low-post podcast live from an undisclosed Los Angeles hotel. Los Angeles, the weather is always beautiful, even if the teams aren't very good. The weather is nice.
We're not going to talk about either of the LA teams for a change. We're going to talk about three teams deep dive into them that we haven't hit yet and that are off to interesting starts, starting with the Dallas Mavericks, seven and five. Eighth in offense, pretty good. Ninth in defense, okay, last year, kind of doubling down on last year wasn't a fluke.
Sixth in net rating would usually portend a record a little better than seven and five. That's encouraging. Big games coming up against the Nuggets twice, the Celtics, the Bucks, and the flailing, flailing Golden State Warriors. We're going to learn a lot about the Mavericks soon.
Luca Donchich, 34 points, nine rebounds, eight assists, or maybe nine assists, eight rebounds. I don't care. It's a lot of everything on pace to break every isolation record in every database we have. Tim McMahon, how are you?
Howdy. Howdy, partners. How you doing? I'm doing well.
I'm in a good mood this morning. I can see you seem very chipper. So I guess the biggest storyline with the Mavericks so far is Luca's doing everything and we're 12 games in and there's already concern that Luca is doing everything. They have been figuring out how best to integrate Christian Wood.
Their starters around Dinwitti and Donchich have an alarming habit of all posting single-digit scoring games between zero and nine and sometimes zero is in play for one or two of them. Reggie Bullock is off to his annual, annual, annual, and Reggie Bullock forget how to shoot, start to the season. That'll come. To some degree, they made their own bed with this when they screwed up the jail and Brunson situation.
He's doing very well in New York. I don't know. This feels like team holding pattern, holding till the next move, holding till the theoretical number two guys here. But Dinwitti, Tim, 18 a game on good shooting, everything you can want from him.
Christian Wood, 16 a game on good shooting, feels like there's some meat on the bone there. If this is a holding pattern, it's a pretty good holding pattern and I saw Perk last week just right off the Mavs' first round exit. That's the ceiling for the team. That's all they are.
I'm like, I'm not doing that as long as Luca is on the team because he's that good. But I kind of don't know how to feel about them 12 games in. How should I feel about them? That's a good question.
I agree with you. You can't just assume they're a first round exit because odds are they'll have the best player in that first round series. And I can promise you this. The other playoff teams in the Western Conference aren't exactly eager to see Luca Donchich in a playoff series.
Now, there is a reasonable question of how much gas is he going to have left in the tank by the time the playoffs roll around. And he obviously got off to this crazy start. He's 30 plus points first nine games of the season. Him and Wilte are the ones who have done that.
And then they go on this back-to-back Orlando without Paulo. Washington without B.L.A.N.K.P. He stinks it up. He looks like he's just on E.
They lose both those games. He's well under 30 points shooting at 9 to 29 in one game. He's got eight to 21 with a little garbage buckets in the next game. And he's like, hey, man, we haven't even gotten that Thanksgiving yet.
Is he already running out of gas? And then he comes back to the next game and goes for a 42 point triple double. And so obviously the fact that he bounced back, he talked about he had a great recovery day. Luca's going to have to be very diligent about taking care of his body.
That means he's going to have to be very diligent about what goes into his body. What's he eating? How much is he eating? What's he drinking?
How much is he drinking? And then just the recovery, all the boots and this and that. All the hot, all the hot, tough, cold, all that kind of stuff. He's going to have to be extremely diligent because they are asking him to carry a load.
I don't want to say it's unprecedented, but it's certainly uncommon. You have to talk about Houston James Harden, pre-CP three, maybe OKC Russell Westbrook. These kind of loads. And he mentioned that they messed up the Brunswick situation.
They messed up and they could have had him on an extension. But by the time he got to free agency, that thing obviously was he was heading to New York. They weren't going to match it. They also messed up the Goron-Droggett situation.
Goron-Droggett is playing really, really well in Chicago. I'm not going to tell him, hey, Goron-Droggett would have solved everything. He'd have been a 35 minute per game guy. The Maddox didn't think he could be a 20 minute per game guy.
They basically wanted him to be a foot shorter version of Bobon. Go out to dinner with Luca, hang out, babysit a little bit. Wave a towel at the end of the bench. And every once in a while, get in the game.
He's like, nah, I've got some juice. I've still got some juice. He's showing that Chicago and they really need that third ballhander. Having said that, dinner would he has been really good.
Dinner would he also has become. And the sample size is getting big enough to where he can say, it ain't the same small sample size. He's becoming knocked down three point shooter, especially. That laser is game the other day.
He made three or four in a row right down the stretch to snatch him a little bit of a good home win there. He'll tell you, hey, early in my career, I wasn't getting these clean catch and shoot opportunities. I've always been a pretty good catch and shoot guy. Now is a great catch and shoot guy.
That's important. They need Finney Smith and Bullock to get back to being really good catch and shoot guys. Both of those guys, just like last year, are off to slow starts. They went out and they used their one chip in free agency, that taxpayer at mid-level, to upgrade the starting center position.
Oh, that upgrade was a D&PC. They had the other night. Gevel McGee's been a total bust. He's not better than Dwight Powell.
It's painfully obvious. Dwight Powell's already back in the starting lineup, which anybody who's objective can see, hey, that should be the case. That's difficult. But I agree with you that they are in terms of legit contender, it's team holding pattern.
I think you've got to hold through this year after they pay the end of the poor's youngest deal with the pick that they owe there, then they've got the full complement of picks. At some point, they've got to get a legitimate co-star. But man, when Luke is this good, when he's, hey, when Luke is in reasonable shape, they're still dangerous. They're still dangerous.
The Brunson thing is interesting is when we say they screwed up the Brunson situation, we're likely, we are talking about the fact that they didn't offer him the four-year $55 million extension in a timely enough fashion by the time it was on the table he had clearly outplayed it. And usually my brain stops there. I had a GM ask me a couple weeks ago, forget that. Why didn't they just overpay him this summer?
I mean, the cap is going up. It's not like his contract with the Nixes, like a bad contract. Why didn't they just throw $30 million at him? And you want to say, by then the bridge wasn't burned.
It was like someone had lit the match and a couple of planks were on fire and some smoke was in the air. But money talks, man. I thought, I didn't really think of that. I mean, the point is every contract I'd signed out, Tyler, here, Jordan, pool, the reaction is, well, the cap's going up.
Who cares? It's free money. Well, that's why I thought all the hullabaloo for the Brunson deal was misplaced. I thought that was totally fine for the Nixes.
I think I called it an I.B. B plus contract. Why not give him a B minus contract that you can trade down the line? I just hadn't thought of that.
Was that even on? Was that even on? I guess it was on the table. I think the Mavericks would have given that a hearing for sure.
I mean, not the Mavericks. The Brunson camp would have given that a hearing for sure. Well, and it's funny because Brunson, obviously, he had outplayed that extension by the time they put it on the table after the trade deadline. He knew that.
So he was like, no, no, we're going to hold off. You're about a month and a half too late putting that thing on the table. And so at that point, you were hearing four for 80, somewhere in that range, then the playoffs, especially the three games where Brunson just, we have 41 and 31 to lead them to wins when Luca was out with a calf strain. Now, fortunate matchup where you got to play a Utah team that wasn't exactly stout on the printer defensively.
And they've got to be watching Donate and Cleveland and being like, well, it was this effort. Whoa, man. You're pretty hard. You're really hard.
You're kind of like you got a long week span. You're tough. Who knew we've been completed for the last few years for you to do that. But hey, but no, Brunson, it was apparent after the playoffs, like this dude's getting, you know, somewhere in the nine figures.
And then Cuban, you know, he said on the record, hey, we can pay him more than anybody. Pucks his chest out. And I, you know, kind of perception was, you know, he's trying to scare teams away. I think that one of the major miscalculations they made, they did not think that the Knicks could create that kind of cap space so painlessly.
Like, you know, think the Knicks didn't give up. They actually added first round picks in the process. But you know, they thought, hey, worse comes to worst. You know, they're going to have to give us a pick to create that cap space.
No, Detroit was more than willing to help now. So I think that was a miscalculation, but they just, you know, there was this thing of, well, he's not a perfect fit with Luca. You know, he's really a point guard who's kind of figured out how to play off of Luca. It seems like the player you just described, what got to be fair enough to play off of Luca.
Wow, that's nice. I'd like to have that. I'm giving you their perspective, which I believe was absolutely wrong. You know, you're always going to have some defensive issues playing Luca with a small guard who has some limitations on that in the floor, which I would say, well, you're still the number of seven defense in the league last year, a great coaching job.
But you know, with the Finney Smith, the Bullock and Maxi Cleveland playing significant minutes and you figured that out. The one thing I don't know and we will never know is how much would it have taken to keep fronts and make the Mavericks kind of put their line in the sand at quote unquote Fred Vamp Leap Money, which you're talking, you know, five years 105, 110, somewhere in that range will obviously get 104 over four from the next. So that was never going to come close. You know, like you said, could you have gone?
And I don't remember what exactly the max number was. I want to say five years 140. I might be all I don't know because listen. He obviously has the family ties.
You know, his dad's now in the next coaching staff, the long ties to Leon Rose, who's his godfather's known Jalen literally his entire life, ripped his dad, Rick, who was Leon Rose's first client as an agent. We all know that story. The other thing though, is Jalen did see opportunity and you know, he wanted to have the ball in his hands. And I'm not saying that like as some sort of a selfish thing.
I think, you know, especially getting a taste of being the guy for those first few games in the playoffs, there's some confidence that comes on. Hey, I can do this. I got who was out of the rotation previously, like two or three playoffs ago. You couldn't get on the floor.
It was a big deal for him to do that in the playoffs. Right. The year before they yanked him, they basically binged him down the stretch and their second series against the Clippers. So, you know, was there an extension coming that summer shoot?
You know, he just basically binged in a playoff series. But so I don't know how much it would have taken for him to stay in Dallas or if it just got to a point where, hey, you know, he wanted to go to New York, he wanted to be with family and he wanted to be in a situation where he was his offense to run his team to run. Well, if they are team holding pattern this year, as we spin it back forward, that's fine. Dallas's team holding pattern still scares the hell out of pretty much everybody because of Luca being a god.
You're on the clock after this year. If this is not a multi-year holding pattern, this is this guy is this good. He's a top five player right now, at worst. He's a first team all NBA guy.
Every season he's healthy. He is a one man playoff defense scheme destroyer. Throw whatever you want at me. Second possession of it.
I've figured it out. I know how to counter it. You cannot do anything to contain me. It's just a matter of do we make enough shots and defend well enough.
You're on the clock. Let's talk about you mentioned on press. Are you want to hear some numbers? I looked up some numbers right before this.
Ready? I like numbers. The Mavericks are averaging 31 isolations per 100 possessions. The number for those are Lucas.
It's not quite that bad. I've done what he's got a few. Yeah, they would like to dance a little bit. I forgot that I'm on YouTube and so I really just saw it in shoulder.
Look at that. Hey, I'm at low. And weddings I get after it, my friend. 31 isolations per 100 possessions.
That's a Mavericks as a team. According to Second Spectrum. Number two is 23 per 100 possessions. So that eight isolation gap, that's the same as the gap between number two and number 22 in the NBA.
So they're just lapping the field in isolation. So, Lucas, 23 and a half per 100 possessions. You mentioned all his predecessors in ball dominance, the Hardins and the West Brooks and currently SGA, honestly. No one else, no one else in the entire Second Spectrum database, which goes back to 2013.
I mentioned Lucas, 23 and a half. No one else is over 19 and a half. So what he's doing is just absolutely bonkers historically. Obviously, it is not sustainable.
Obviously, this is not a model to win a championship. The question, a couple of things. Number one, the stuff it's producing is crazy. I said they're only eighth in offense.
They're first in free throw rate. I'm not sure how the hell that happened except Lucas is living at the front. Because Lucas goes to the line 12 times a game. 11 and a half an hour.
Whatever. They're taking the third most threes, the tenth most shots at the rim, put it all together. They have the best. The number one location assumed field goal percentage in the entire league.
And they're not even shooting that well. So like whatever this offense is doing, it's producing pretty much everything you want except offensive rebounds. But it's obviously not a sustainable way to win. History will tell you, unless you have Michael Jordan, even LeBron James couldn't win the whole thing at usage rates like this.
We all know that. My question for you is throw the team holding pattern aside. Team holding pattern is still trying to win. What can they do about this with the roster that they have now?
So and this gets back to you saying, hey, they're on the clock. And when you say they're on the clock, we're just talking simple NBA math. Luca is on a four year deal. Forget the player option.
It's irrelevant, right? So when you get to be halfway through that, you got two years left, we've seen, and I'm not saying he would do this, but you have to be concerned. Hey, if that trip to the West Finals where you got pretty easily dismissed by the Warriors then lost your second best player. If that's the high point of what be his first six years, does he get itchy?
Does he start, you know, angling to get somewhere where he has a chance to win a championship? You know, so that's the concern. I state that to say, I don't think the Mavericks can make any moves this year where they're given up a pick. I don't think you can make you can give up a pick as the Dallas Mavericks to make a move that makes you a little bit better.
You have to be ready to bundle those things up. You're going to have your full compliment after this year. You have to be ready to bundle those things up and go get whoever your version of Drew Hall is. The Bucks did it.
We honest, right? There was, I mean, the hype about where's your gonna go Miami? Dallas was lining up. I mean, the whole, you know, LA, the whole league was lining up ready to go after the honest.
The Bucks go get Drew Hall day and they gave up a ton of draft capital to do it. And you're honest, like, you know what, I want to championship right here. I'll sign another extension. Let's go.
Boom. The Bucks won a title. The Mavericks have to keep their picks bundled up. And so I think it's going to be difficult to find ways to upgrade this year.
No, I'm talking in-house solutions. Let's assume they do nothing. Like if this is a problem, it's on the coaching staff in the front office, but mostly the coaching staff say, but we just can't, we've identified it as a problem. All right.
So what can we do about it? Let's have a meeting like let's bring Luca in like what's our idea. I have one idea, but it's a very simple one. Okay.
I'm curious to hear your ideas because it was talk going in the season of, hey, you know, we think Josh Green can be that third ball handler. Josh Green has taken a major, major leap this year, but he, what he is, is a really good, he's hitting this three, which is a huge development. He's a really good three and D energy kind of have it creator. He's not a ball handler.
He's a quick extrapasser. Yes. Yeah. Joe Guy, cut and move the ball.
Maybe he grows into that what they're talking about, but that didn't happen right now. No. And so, I mean, I'm curious to hear what your ideas are because, and look, you've heard, like after they played the Nets, you heard KD base, say they don't have anybody else in the Ross Drew can drill you after they played the Wizards. You heard Coos must say, you know, we know they're very limited outside of Luca.
Now I will say the context on Coosma, didn't what he's brief stint in Washington did not go well. It was not popular. So I read that despite the fact that didn't what he had 30 something in that game. I read that as Coosma taken an opportunity to get another shot in at, at didn't what he but there's truth being told there.
I mean, Faku's not the guy, right? Faku is playing that he's a foot and a half short version of obon, you know, dinners with Luca, wave of towel, nice kind of locker room. Everybody likes him. Neil Aquinas, not the guy.
So I don't know, you have an idea. I'm very curious to hear it. Look, my only idea is like, it's not even really an idea. It's like there are three guys on the roster who can create their own shot, Luca, Dinwitti, and Wood.
They've played 33 minutes together the entire season. Maybe you need to play them together more and just sort of develop a little more synergy between them so that Christian Wood is not just kind of a pick and pop big when Luca's on the floor because you can do more than that. Now their mind is 12 in those 33 minutes. Obviously they're concerned about the defense no matter where they put Christian Wood at center, at power forward, teams are going after him.
His pick and roll defense isn't good enough. They're going to work the whole season on that to make sure he stays focused. He's a do his work late defender. Like he's always kind of late to get to where he needs to be at the point of attack.
When you're late like that, then you're lunge in, you're alerting, you're out of position, you're vulnerable to blow-byes. There's only just two gaps. The gaps are too big with Christian Wood, but they're going to work on that. The problem then becomes like, all right, do we want to put Cleba on the floor so we have like our defense will work?
Okay, well that's up to four and we haven't had Bullock or Fitti Smith or Hardaway. So some of our sort of steadfast wings are going to be on the floor. Or do we want to just go all in with Wood at the Five, which David hasn't been to use. Here are the numbers on that.
When it's Wood as the only big man on the floor and Luca. So you got to have Luca. They're plus 13 per hundred possessions, but they only played 78 possessions together. So clearly they're afraid to play Wood at the Five a lot.
I just feel like if this is actually a problem, this is a problem that you have identified as a not fatal, but we have to do something about this. I just think you've got to lean a little bit more into Wood. Maybe Wood at the Five, Wood, Luca, then we together and just see how bad is it actually going to get on defense? Can we survive on defense?
If it ends up being too bad, you pivot back the other way. That's the only in-house solution that I really see. Yeah, and we mentioned that road trip, which is where the two bad losses in Orlando and Washington to the plate of teams, Luca stunk it up, look at a gas. Wood didn't make that trip.
He had a little knee thing. He had a great, great, great fit trip. So like you said, one of the only other guys who created offense wasn't on the trip, and they certainly missed him. He comes back against Portland, fouls out in like 21 minutes, but I think I want to say he ended up with 17 points, and there was a lot of hard roll.
Luca fed him for three, four, five dunks in that game. You do see certainly some offensive synergy with those guys. There's been a lot of bomoning from fans and certainly people who have Christian Wood's best financial interests in mind about Wood being in the starting lineup. That's not going to happen.
Can he close games? Well, you know why you mentioned the minus 12 with Dan Wood in Luka and Wood as a trio? Minus 16 of that is in the last four minutes against Oklahoma City. And after that game, Jason and they lose that game in overtime, Wood did not play overtime by the way, so it's not like pulling him off the floor with the solution either, I'd fairness to him.
But after that game, Jason Kidd made a point to note that, hey, we tried to see Wood in the closing lineup, and as he says, it didn't go well on either end. And then he fouled out the other day against Portland, and they ended up closing with no center on the floor. They put Finney's center and they actually just kind of heated up in one bananas in one of the game. Now, it is worth noting that Nurgage didn't play in that game.
I don't know if you can do that if Nurgage is out there just stuffing 220 pound Finney Smith in the bucket every time. But yeah, they're searching there. They're searching there. They would has been very good in that bench scoring role where as you noted, most of his minutes, they are attaching him to Maxi Kleeba, right?
And that's obviously four defensive reasons. And Maxi can just be a spacer offensively in those situations. So it's really not even like you're playing two bigs together. And you can roll.
Maxi can roll too. And then the bench, which would Cleba plus 34 and 104 minutes together. That trio has been dynamite. And a lot of that is playing against other teams in the second units, but it's been a really effective group.
But, you know, again, it gets back to Maxi Kleeba has the trust of his coaching staff. He's going to be on the floor to close games the vast majority of the time. They have chosen to usually have him as the lone big and not have him with wood. And we'll see.
And the maddox have stunked. Look, they blew a 22 point second half lead. I think it was 15 and the fourth quarter against the sun's opened up the season. I just mentioned the 16 point lead they blew last four minutes against OKC teams with 16 plus point leads in the last four minutes at the time.
This is our stats information group. Obviously I didn't do this research myself. My surprise you. There were 9,975 in one over the last 25 years going to that 9,975 in one.
That matters by 9,975 in two. So they've had two. But that's pretty cool. I think if I were a Mavericks fan, I would embrace that and be like, you know what, we made some history, at least we made some history.
That's a memorable event. Right. And so you've had two massive meltdowns. You're talking about seven and five team.
So two massive meltdowns. And then three losses were just like, what in hell? You lost to the Pelicans without Zion and England. And her bad matter.
You lose to the freaking Orlando magic without Apollo. You lose to the Wizards without Biel and KP. So they've had two terrible meltdowns. Games that shouldn't even have been clutch situations that they've melted down to make clutch situations.
And then three losses against, I mean, just inexcusable. So it's a weird team. But then they and Luca is just playing at such an elite level. And you're sitting here, you're still seven and five.
You know, two guys that were huge for you in the playoffs and the whole second half of the season is three and D guys can't hit a damn three to save their lives and talking about Reggie Bullock and Dwayne Finney Smith, although Finney Smith did hit a clutch one at night. That's kind of a dagger that night against Portland. You know, it's a it's a confusing team. It is a confusing team.
Well, as I mentioned, the schedule is about to get rough. So we're going to learn a lot about them and they're going to have to play well to beat these teams if they don't. They're going to be 500 or under pretty soon. But I just think they have a pretty high floor as long as Luca is there and they're going to go on to run where they look good.
Christian Wood 16 and eight on 57% shooting overall 42% on three 64% on two. He's doing his job. Tim Hardaway Jr. is coming into form.
Josh Green is coming into form. It's going to be an interesting next couple of weeks for the Mads. We will check in after that. Who collective howdy partners ESPN calm doing it all.
Thank you, sir. It is nice to talk hoops with somebody who knows what they're talking about. They usually stick me with Wendy and Bond and so this has been an absolute pleasure. Yeah.
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And now you can check if you already have ESPN and limited as part of your TV package for no additional calls. Visit activate.esbn.com to learn how to access your account or sign up then start streaming in the ESPN app. All right, let's flip to the other side of the jail in Brunson sweepstakes. The New York knickerbockers six and seven.
Okay, you know, kind of about what we expected the next to be for a while. They were beat the bad teams, lose to the good teams. And I thought maybe that's good. The first step to organizational competence or one of them is beat the teams you should be and the next we're doing that.
Then they got roasted in Brooklyn by the under man Brooklyn Nets by a thousand points. And then on Sunday in Madison Square Garden, the self proclaimed world's greatest arena. I guess it can't proclaim itself that it's just a building but certainly proclaimed every 35 seconds on MSG's broadcast. They gave up 145 points in a regulation professional basketball game to the Oklahoma City Thunder and lost and Evan 48 played a lot down the stretch for some reason because he's not doing anything and RJ Barrett didn't play down the stretch for some reason because he's at least doing some stuff and all of a sudden six and seven feels worse than six and seven.
Here's why it feels worse than six and seven. The Knicks are 17th in offense. Okay, fine. Great offensive talent.
The Randall Barrett Robinson. That's not what happens right now but that trio continues to not be productive for spacing reasons. They're 24th in defense. That is not good enough.
And their schedule, Fred Katz from the athletic, their schedule, you know as well as I do is about to get Harry. Five games coming up out West, five in a row on the road at Utah. Oh boy, at Denver. That's not great.
At Golden State who can't win on the road but they're okay at home. At Phoenix, that seems bad. At Oklahoma City, well they just beat our ass at home. Then we come home.
That's great. Have Thanksgiving dinner. They're on Portland. They're pretty good.
Memphis. Oh boy. That seems unpleasant. Already lost to them in overtime.
At Detroit, that's a race for pre. Maybe that's the start of an easy stretch. Back home after that. Bucks, Mavs, Cabs, Hawks.
Uh oh, Fred Katz. Uh oh. How you feeling today? I'm feeling better than the Knicks.
I'm feeling great. I don't think they're feeling so good right now. I mean it's funny because if you said it started the season, the Knicks will be somewhere around 500. I'd say yeah, short.
I mean they're over under I think was 38 and a half. I think pretty much everybody had them somewhere in the realm of eighth or ninth or tenth of the eastern. I mean I wrote this morning. It's just the record is okay.
It's fine. It's about as expected but something with them just feels often and you mentioned it with the defense. I mean they're giving up more three point attempts and the second most three point makes of any team elite. They're screen defense.
Oh my goodness. I mean I'm not sure what kind of pick and roll defense Julia's Randall has been playing for a lot of this season and they're screen defense, they're communication, they're kind of attack defense. It's just been really difficult to watch. It's been really really tough and teams are just bombing against them.
Whenever someone says a team is difficult to watch or I think a team is difficult to watch. I always think back to the delightful 30 Rock bit about Tracy Jordan chasing an Oscar in a movie called Hard to Watch and I usually and I think of the movie poster Tracy Jordan starring hard to watch. New York Knicks 2022-2023 hard to watch so far. The thing that stresses you out about the defense is there's nothing in the numbers that suggests any hope for something much better than this.
You mentioned they've given up a ton of threes. This is year three in a row of them giving up a ton of threes. This is baked into how time they don't want to play. The first year, the year they got the fourth seed and got destroyed by the Hawks and the playoffs, they just got lucky that opponents missed a ton of shots.
I do think they were rotating really hard and contesting more of the right ones and leaving some bad shooters open. I think there was some skill involved in that but whatever skill was involved is not carried over while the luck has changed. They free throw rate average, they don't force turnovers. They're a terrible rebounding team and for a team that is built to play brute force basketball, they're not winning the brute force categories like rebounding and free throws.
They just don't, they're just not playing with that kind of oomph and you look at like you look at opponent shooting numbers, they're average, they're not getting like crazy unlucky from three or mid range or anything. There's nothing in the defensive dossier that suggests they're wildly better than the 24th ranked defense in the NBA. Yeah, I mean, look, part, their best hope I think is Mitchell Robinson comes back in the spring right knee that he's dealing with and just plays so well in the middle of the floor that guys just can't get to the rim. And so much of their issue is that teams get middle against them so easily.
You know, when they turn it over their transition defense, it's really a problem too. I haven't checked in a couple of games, but if you want in predictable.com as a couple of games go, I believe they have the worst defensive efficiency after committing turnovers in the NBA, like by far, they just, they aren't really getting back in transition. And that's a thing where I think is more clean up. Like you can just match up better in transition.
You can run hard and try to get the person that you're supposed to be on because the issue wasn't just fast breaks then, right? It's that you end up getting like a big against the wind or a or a or a or a small against the big and then other teams exploit that in the half court. That's how they're getting a lot of those leads too. So, so I think there are ways maybe they can climb better than 24th.
And last year, if you look at the defense talent on last year's roster, it wasn't overwhelming. And no one's no well, didn't really play much. He was supposed to be one of their best defenders and they still finished 11th in points of lapar position. So, I don't know if they're 24th.
I do think it could climb higher, but I'm not. It'll climb a little higher, but I don't. I mean, they're not, I, they're, they're might be average, right? I mean, that's what we're talking about.
They might be average. The rebounding stuff is just not excusable. It's just not excusable. And it's out everybody.
Hartenstein's a bad defensive rebounder. He's been starting for Robinson. Robinson's defensive rebound rate is pitiful. I think that's partly because he's chasing a lot of block shots.
I think he's been mostly good this year. Randall is missing way too many box outs, just lazy. Just not boxing guys out. And again, a team that wants to be a brute force team, you can't be 26th in defensive rebounding.
Offensively, they're 29th to 3 point shooting, which is really last because the Lakers are so far last that they're almost in the G League for 3 point shooting. So the Knicks are, let's just say, last in 3 point shooting. And now there's all this angst, Fred. There's angst about Tom Tippido.
There's angst about Randall. We got to trade Randall. Got to dunk for me. Everyone's just mad.
So let's start with zooming out. All this, I think the theory with Randall and despite the fact that he's been fairly productive this year, 21 and 9, 46 percent overall shooting, the 3 point shooting appears to have been a fluke two years ago. He's been fairly energetic at times defensively. He's not given the crowd the thumbs down.
That's good, sure. I think part of the trade Randall movement that's picking up steam is we now know, we always knew, but we now know that an offense built around Julius Randall taking a lot of shots and doing a lot of stuff and isolating a lot is a nice ticket to being a mediocre team. And we're sick of being a mediocre team. Well, the Knicks two off seasons ago, I liked their off season when they signed for Nie, signed Campbell Walker, Berks, Rose, all the team options, all that stuff.
I thought the Hawk series exposed the need for more ball handling, more shooting, and they kind of addressed those problems in totally non-spectacular mediocre ways that you knew. You knew the critics were like, well, they're trapping themselves in mediocrity. And my counter argument was they're not trapping themselves. They're not deluded into thinking these are the players that are taking them to 50 wins.
They're just trying to sustain the momentum that they built in this feel-good 2021 season. Keep getting a little better until a star looks at them and says, I want to go there. Well, the star looked at them and said I want to go there and they couldn't pull the freaking trigger on enough draft picks in a timely fashion. And now that star is in the MVP conversation for the Cleveland Cavaliers.
And now everyone's like, well, we got to trade Julius Randall. We're trapped into mediocrity with Julius Randall. Guess what? Everyone else in the league watches the Knicks.
They know what Julius Randall is. You're not getting anything meaningful really for Julius Randall on this kind of contract. And so that's where the Knicks are. On that sense, what's the coaching situation going to be?
Because I just read you that schedule. If they are, I don't know how many games are. Let's say I read 10 games. So they're 23 games in when that stretch is over.
If they're 8 and 15, you know, you and Begley are old colleague reported last night that the seats get in warm. That there's going to be a big change somewhere if they have more let go of the rope kind of losses. If they're 8 and 15 after 23 games or whatever it is, I don't know what the change is going to be, but something's going to change. Is it a little watch on now?
I think the watch is on. Yeah. I mean, what's so weird about the way I shouldn't even say weird, but something that's relatively unique to the way that the Knicks operate. Is a lot of places, for example, I used to cover the thunder and basically everything with the thunder is, you know, is Sam Presley down.
Right? I mean, there is collaboration or whatever you want to call it. But ultimately the decision maker and the person setting the vision is Sam Presley. And with the Knicks, they have so many different voices, right?
And so many different voices contribute to so many different decisions. And I know there are people in that front office who have wanted to move on from there for a little bit of time now. The thing is Leon Rose is one of those people who's been in his camp for a really long time. Leon is now the president of the organization.
He was tips as agents or a random basketball division of CIA, which is tips as agents. I like how, by the way, I just need to stop because we had this exact same conversation just 10 minutes ago at Tim McMahon. I like and I'm being sarcastic how the Knicks by their own doing have turned every discussion of them has to include like a three minute aside about this guy knew that guy and that guy somebody's godfather and that guy with the problem with that guy's daughter and that guy and that guy's great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather. We're at Plymouth Rock in 1620 together.
And so now as a result, Cam Redish is a Nick or so I just, it's just every time with this. But it's, look, that's that's generally how they've operated right? Like when Leon Rose took over the Knicks, who were the who were the stars that we talked about potentially coming to New York? Oh, God.
Donnie Mitchell or was Carl Anthony Jones? What did they want to come? What did they want it to come? You know the problem with their with their plan is which I would say I actually don't knock them for not doing that.
No, I was going to say let me own it because I said at the time, as everybody did, that Cleveland was well constructed to go all in with Donnie Mitchell and the Knicks were not. The Knicks were going to trade the whole house for Donnie Mitchell and have a mediocre team without a lot of tools to get the next guy. And so I got it a month or two later, it feels like I kind of would rather just have the guy and figure it especially if he wants to be here and figure it out, figure it out later. I guess I don't, it just the clock is ticking on the next move.
Well, here's the thing, Zach, you want to zoom out? Let's like really zoom out, right? So their plan has been to trade for the next star, right? They're not tanking.
Lord knows they are not tanking and they haven't cleared up the caption. I mean, they signed Mitchell Robinson long term. They signed Julius Randall long term. They extended RJ Barrett.
They signed you on a long term. They give multiple years to Evan for you. It's not like they give you one year, right? If they extend top and then quickly, they don't have cap room for a long time.
Yeah, that's it. I mean, right now, unless they can think of a new room, whatever, but if all things stay as they are, they're probably not having cap room until 2025 when everyone is going to have cap room because that's the year of the anticipated big spike. And I think if you look at it in the normal macro, not trading for Donnie Mitchell for them made sense because it would have left the cover to bear to go out and get a second star. And then you have Donnie Mitchell and not much else.
And you're still kind of in that not a contender territory, even if Donnie Mitchell makes the leap that he's making Cleveland this year. But to me, if you zoom out even more than that, my question for that for an office is, okay, your plan is clearly to trade for someone. It's not to sign someone and it's not to tank and draft a star. It's clearly to trade for the next big star.
You games that, you know, a bunch of picks and a bunch of young players was too much for Donnie Mitchell. Okay, so you're going to wait on the next step. Well, the next guy who says good or better than Donnie Mitchell is probably going to cost as much or more than Donnie Mitchell. And also having the same conversation, right?
Is there not enough left over to go get that second star? So it just seems like a conversation we're going to be having an opportunity about them. And so you have to wonder, like, is the plan of trading for the first star in the door as opposed to the second of the fair? Is that a flawed way to go about roster?
And by the way, the other possibility is that the next big star who's available is worse than Donnie Mitchell and you end up paying more for that star and I will not name names about who that might be. And by the way, Quinn Grimes had a foot injury in preseason. I don't really know what went on with that or what's going on with that. But he doesn't play.
Like the guy who was the untouchable guy is there can't get minutes. I asked him last night if his conditioning isn't there. Tim's put him in again, especially against OKC where like Josh Giddy is getting into the lane with ease. Che Gilder Salander is rocking RJ Barrett.
Like in the third quarter, they put Derek Rose on Che Gilder Salander and give him a try, Quinn Grimes, who is coming into the here. I mean, everybody expected to be their easily their best point of attack defender. And did a great job as a rookie on point guards and really stifled guys like Trey Young and all that. Like that's the guy who you put on SGA, which is one for 21 in the third quarter of the game.
And he doesn't come off the bench. He didn't go off in the 11-man rotation, by the way, which is to me just the greatest sign. I mean, they are just due for some sort of consolidation trade, like something. We would talk about a move.
Maybe they should have a missile. Maybe they should have a guitar. Maybe. But we talk about a move and you mentioned extending quickly or extending top end or any of them in the district.
You have to make a decision on your young guys or something or else you're just locking in financially to a roster that's, you know, middle end and play in levels. So like I bet you, I'm not saying it's going to come before December 15th because that's when the trade market really starts to open up. But December 15th between December 15th and February, I would bet you were going to see some sort of consolidation trade where they move off of at least one or two guys who were currently in their rotation and try to bring in something. Whether that means just bringing in picks and trying to play the other teams were taking games, which didn't really work with Mitchell, right?
Because those things were rendered mostly meaningless. They're going to get a star. What's going to get a star is their own non-reglective picks or maybe just doing a two-for-one or something like that. What a tribute to your own two-decade long run of mismanagement that you guys were going to have to trade our own picks.
People think solely of us as an organization that the only way we can get these guys is to trade our own picks. That's a tough look in the mirror moment for that team. That's right. I'm with the market, right?
Of course. The market's totally changed. I mean, you know, it's really, it gets a couple of unprotected members to the bare one. It's like the market has changed where you just have to, if you want to start, you have to give up your own unprotected picks.
And it's just the way it's going to have to go with them. The picks they have are relatively protected even though they're from some bad teams. Now you mentioned topping it quickly. Topping has done his job this year.
20 points, eight rebounds per 36 minutes. Obviously it doesn't play 36 minutes. It's much to the chagrin of almost every single next fan on Earth. 40% on threes taking nine per 36 minutes.
So all the hype, all the work, all the talk about his three-point shooting, that's real. That's legit. Quickly has been up and down particularly from long range. And you know, the bench was their salvation for the last two years.
It's not their salvation right now. They're getting outscored with quickly and topping on the floor. It looks like we're seeing kind of the end of Derek Rose as a really productive NBA player. He's not playing a lot of minutes and not producing much when he plays.
So they're trying to figure out the bench and they've tried, Randall Toppen. They've tried it now. I would still try it more. They're minus 14 in limited minutes with Randall and Toppen on the floor together at no center.
Tibbs doesn't seem to like it. He has tried it with Robinson injured and a little bit of a vacancy at center, although Jericho Sims has played a lot. I would still run with it because I just got to see more of it, but that hasn't worked. We know that the starting five is, I think the starting five will get better as they get more reps together.
So you look around like, I don't know where the salvation is going to come from, but they're a little better than this. I expect them to play a little better than this, but boy, those next 10 games are tough. Yeah, I mean, you mentioned the top and stuff, man. It is really interesting watching what is happening with them because he's better.
And it's not just people focused on, oh, if only he could shoot. It's not just any shooting. It's what he's three points shooting is now allowing him to do. They played Boston a couple of weekends ago, Zach.
He looked like like, like, bam out of Iowa going into a fake dribble handoff on Marcus Smart. When Marcus Smart had to commit to a potential shot, right? He had to. That's the defensive player of the year and he ends up just fake dribble handoff him and going straight to the rim and getting himself a little bit.
Quarterback keeper. He's one of the best quarterback keeper guys in the NBA. And to your point, that tool gets a lot more powerful when underneath it is the threat of a real shot. Totally.
And he even cuts like he's over top his greatest trait is offensively his ability to make good decisions really quickly. And when you have an offense, especially that's devoid of spacing, like the mix are, his quick decision making, whether that's screening cutting, passing, whatever, he's so unbelievably helpful. And it's opened up different kind of cuts for him. Like he had two plays where against the zone, just zone busting cuts against Detroit a couple of games ago, where he's on the right block and Fred McShine is on the left.
And he cuts around Hart and Stein, the back of the baseline, Hart and Stein screens his own man with a hammer swing. He gets two wide open corner threes out of it. It's not a thing that we saw him doing in the past. And I'm just, I mean, I know I'm in the majority here.
I'm just surprised you could take a guy number eight. He could show these legitimately developing. And you're still playing them under 20 minutes. Like you have to know how he's doing this.
Dude, he doesn't trust his defense, which I get. He's not a good defensive player or get Randall's not a good defensive player. He's okay. They're both okay.
As you're saying this, and as we're talking about how good of a three point shooter he's become, it just starts to enter my mind. And I haven't thought the only reason I haven't thought about it more is because it's implausible and they'll never do it. I do wonder what the team would look like if they just started topping at the floor and brought Randall off the bench and it's sort of like, you know, again, it never happened. It'll make all of me eight years ago.
But to replace the ball dominance with a spacing quick Twitch four, because this offense is just starved, starved for someone to get moving off the ball on the ball, I think that would probably work. I think it would probably look really good. They'll just never do it. Yeah, I know.
I honestly, it's not even worth discussing. There's there's there's no way. There's no way that that's happening. So let's discuss this is a big picture thing and that would one end with.
When I watched the Knicks, the thing I think most about is he's still only 22 years old. But I just watched an exit even in games where he's productive and he's been pretty productive. He's just everything 20 a game shooting is an what is what is RJ Barrett? Like what what is he going to be because he's not shooting it well enough anymore.
He had the same year as Randall had a crazy three point shooting year that hasn't sustained. I think he's probably better than he's shown the last two years, but maybe he's not shooting it well to be like a really great off ball player. He's not such a great on ball player that you're like, well, we're just going to build our entire offense around RJ Barrett. And obviously there's a huge middle ground between those two polls of players and that's the middle ground that he will inhabit.
I just kind of don't know what it looks like. And I was just kind of thinking really quickly in my head, can't say quickly on the next podcast, but I was thinking very fast in my head. Like, so who does that end up being in four or five years when he's in his prime? And the first name that came to my head was Jeremy Grant.
Is he just going to be, is he going to grow into like a really good third banana jack of all trades? Can do a little bit of everything like what is RJ Barrett for? I think RJ Barrett is trying to figure out when RJ Barrett is to be honest. I will say for RJ, I agree with everything you said.
I will say for him, part of the reason why I think the people with the Knicks do believe in him believe in him. And I've been a believer too. I've been like higher than consensus on RJ Barrett for sure to be clear. Yeah.
And I think part of it is because in this sounds like a cliche. It's not just the work ethic. I think there are situations where organizations were betting on the person. Like I remember, I think it was you who said when the Hornets extended Kemba Walker on that.
It was four for 48 years ago. People said it was too much. Kemba street under 40% from the field. Three one shots to be consistent.
And the Hornets were betting on the person. He was going to improve to that degree, right? And it was right. And all of a sudden that deal is looking at his extreme wins in front of it.
With Barrett, I think there's with the people who believe in him, there's a similar sort of thing. But they're also betting on the self-awareness. Like I think RJ works on the right things. One of the things that he's really focused on is decision making on his drives.
Because I think he knows that is going to be a really, really important thing. And that's going to help his percentages around. Again, he's 22. We get so fast with these guys.
Like his prime is four years away. Mm-hmm. Completely. And I think that decision making on his drives, if he gets there, he's still not there by the way.
He's better. But I think that will help his percentages. And Tim thinks this too. Even more than if he just adds some sort of high-res sort of layup package.
You know what I mean? We've seen with him the percentages around him. We're actually up this year. I don't know if he's gotten way better moves and he's more fanciful for me finishing there.
I think honestly there are just fewer crazy flailing possessions in which he just misses everything. I think that's a positive progression. The next step for him also is being able to find shooters when he gets into events. I mean, it's just so important.
But look, we talked about the lack of season. Like RJ is slasher. And this is not the type of offense that you put around him. You know?
It's not the type of offense that you put around Julius Randall. It's not type of offense that you put around Gila Brownson. Who's been fine? He's not shooting well from three, but he's shooting well from two.
He's doing his job. He's doing his job. Totally. And you want to give him, but he takes a while to get off those funky, low-post moves.
He likes to drive and then stop and then pivot. He needs that time and sneezing and gives him time. So I think it's tough to really look at RJ and say, okay, this is definitely where he's going to go. Because he's in a maybe a four-out offense.