[Merged] Kristaps Porzingis is Going to Become a Perennial All-Star

[Don Che]

Spree we both agree with Kanter but that is...technically still in limbo which is why i said its a question

KP is still young and he isnt the problem...its not as if we had Lebron James right now i'd say...PACK IT UP BOYS WE GOT A RING COMING!!!!.....lmao abs not you still need to build a championship caliber team before you start tackling your best player esp if hes not the problem.

[H20Knick]

Its good to have you back. I'm just pissed you let me twist in the wind out there like the lone tanker out here. Actually rebound was there a bit too but he wants to go firing everybody.

I actually like this team, I like the different fits we have. I like that they work hard despite KPs words. I feel like he could've just not opened his mouth while actually being slightly lazier and nobody wouldve noticed. But he had to open his big mouth so there ya go.

But I don't think this team is that bad, I just don't think they're any good which to me is the worst thing we could be right now. I 100% expected us to have the worst record in this league while watching KP and Frank stat stuff. Now that I know what we're capable of there's really nothing else for this team to prove. I wouldn't be mad if Jeff said. " okok KP, you're tired? Then why don't you have a seat".

I think it's time to set ourselves up to draft where we need to. Spree already showed us that we're broke. WE CANT AFFORD FAs. So the draft is the only way to significantly improve our team. And if we tank while keeping this team together, then I feel even better about next season. We've shown that healthy we could be a .500 team. So imagine next year and Frank has s year under his belt, KP has another off-season weight regiment, Hardaway is healthy and Porter is now on the team, Bagley, Ayton, Djoncic. Even Mikal Bridges who I thought of as a "fit" player is playing himself out of where we are drafting.


I'm sorry folks, I'm rooting for losses.

Sorry I left you to fend for yourself Nazr. I knew you could handle it though. A top pick is the ultimate goal. I'm sure the Denver Nuggets would trade "winning" the melo trade and making the playoffs the following years for an actual championship foundation.

But anyway, we put unnecessary pressure on this team by having these ridiculous playoff expectations and funny thing I knew it would happen. We didn't associate having a 54 win season if it meant losing in the second round, you think 2 yrs from now people are gonna remember that we acted like try hard and still missed the playoffs? You think fans, and I'm not talking other teams laughing fans, I mean our fans. You think those fans are gonna treat you like these hero overachiever. In fact the opposite happens. Because they smell a little success the narrative shifts to Horniceks rotations. His managing of the 4rth quarter. Now KP isn't a leader, isn't a star (not saying you said this h20). Look how quickly we go from overachieving lottery team, to underachieving near playoff team.

And I predicted it. We're supposed to suck folks. No guilt. We traded our star player and promoted our rookie contract stud. As H20 said, let's not put him in the same position as Melo and simply hope he's more unselfish. He needs help and I'd prefer if that help were peers rather than elder role players

THIS. What is it all for? Everyone wants to build a winning culture and win now because apparently making the playoffs this year is going to make our young prospects into championship caliber sages on its own. I can think of so many teams that made the playoffs once or twice and never saw it again (Steph made the playoffs when he got here too, you know.). I can think of so many teams that were 8-5 seeds over and over and over and over and over again. I know that a top 5 pick improves the roster. If not directly, then in a trade down the line. But these wins. These moral victories are just going to add pressure that this roster and coaching staff won't be able to handle. Of EVERYTHING i see here, people blaming the coach or the players for losses is probably what bothers me the most. The majority of this board predicted less than 30 wins. Why are people surprised when we lose? The roster was built for tanking

[H20Knick]

First of all, excellent post H20! Thanks for the work you put in there.

But: as a guy who has a lot to do with statistics at work and who has followed the NBA for a long time I would like to suggest some adjustments to your analysis. Of course identifying the right components to compare players with is the critical part for your analysis leading to the right conclusions and I don't think that you have chosen the optimal stats to compare number one options on championship teams. My list would compile just the following four stats:

1) PPG. Self explanatory, because your number one option has to be an elite scorer.
2) TS%: forget about eFG% or any other percentage. There is only one percentage that matters and that's true shooting percentage, because it tells you exactly how efficient a player scores, while everything else tells you more about the "how" but not the "how good". Again pretty easy to understand why we need this stat: your number one option has to be one of the most efficient scorers in the playoffs to be able to lead you to the promised land.
3) PER: instead of looking at RPG or APG or ... in addition to points, the inclusion of PER is the best choice when you want to look at the question whether a player contributes besides scoring for you. That he does is very important, but what exactly he contributes in addition? Not so much. It's easy to put an elite rebounder besides your top gun if needed or an elite shot creator if that's what is missing.
4) MPG: if your number one is doing well in the above three stat categories, what you now want is that guy being able to do that for 38-40 MPG. Often teams are playing well above the plus in plus/minus-stats with their top gun on the court, but struggle with that guy on the bench. So of course you want your top gun to be able to be your workhorse that stabilizes everything you do.

Now we should also compare KP to the relevant guys, number ones (and twos or threes - if we want to argue that KP is more like that): Jordan, Pippen, Duncan, Robinson, O'Neal, Bryant, Parker, Billups, Wallace, Ginobili, Wade, Garnett, Pierce, Allen, P. Gasol, Nowitzki, James, Bosh, Leonard, Curry, Irving, Durant.

I'm not saying, that the result will be much different - so again I applaud your effort - I'm just saying that we have to identify the right characteristics of a number one option first. The statistician would test all variables whether the contribution is statistically significant in comparison to other players in the league, but of course I agree that a simple "eye test" could be enough for our purposes.

I would throw usage out, because if you are a high scorer at an efficient true shooting percentage and have a high PER, I doubt that usage will add any valuable information. It is also a tricky variable, because an efficient scorer with a high usage is great for your team, while an inefficient one with a high usage is bad. So the algebraic sign (plus or minus) is unclear.

eFG% gets thrown out, because it just isn't a good statistic and we have THE one real shooting percentage as a stat available in TS%.

RPG, APG get thrown out, because they are position biased - although I agree that KP has to improve in both categories. An asterisk: if you put weaknesses of KP in, but leave strengths (like BPG) out, that is a reason for a statistical analysis to be criticized. But instead of putting more variables in, I think as mentioned focusing on PER is enough to get a picture whether someone contributes across the board or not.

DWS/DBPM/VORP get thrown out, because all stats that measure win shares or defensive impact etc. are good stats to look at after the fact that your team has won a lot, but are IMO very weak when it comes to explain that said success.

Just my 50 cents on this. So if your modeling is not too time consuming, I would be very interested to see the results of a component analysis with just those four stats and among the mentioned players. Of course it can also be interesting to add some players that are considered future number ones (like you did).

All great points Spree! I knew you would get a kick out of it. I really picked the stats I did because I have zero idea what to look for. The first thing that came to my head is "really good players do multiple things well. I look at a guy like Dirk and compare him to KP and the things that stand out the most to me are the minutes and the rebounding. There are lots of bigs who defend and rebound. There are lots of bigs who shoot a high percentage and rebound. But there arent a lot of bigs who score a LOT of points at a high percentage AND rebound, so that's why I added rpg. Then I look back at people's complaints about Melo. He doesn't pass. Then I think about Duncan and Lebron, two guys that were great passers at their position. I always thought that was a key attribute to their success, so that's why I added in rebis. With eFG vs TS, it's an argument that will never die. I don't really love either stat. My problem with TS% is that it can penalize guys who draw a lot of fouls but aren't great free throw shooters and it protects bigs that are poor free throw shooters but don't get to the line. I'd rather you go to the line and miss free throws, because it puts your team in the bonus and it puts defenders in foul trouble. I could address this by using TS% AND FTApg. But that was my logic, and it was really tied to shaq and duncan, which is funny because I eventually decided not to include shaq because his last title as a main attraction was too long ago. I don't think there are any good defensive stats, really. It's such a team issue. Steals are had by bad defenders who gamble (sorry allen iverson. you will always be my hometown hero but youre the poster child for this) and a lot of blocks are picked up by help defenders benefiting from someone else's exceptional man-to-man defense. So, I just went with DWS and DBPM because I knew that if I didn't add a defensive metric, every melo hater would come in here and have an aneurism. VORP, who doesn't like VORP!? Anyway, like you said, DWS, DBPM, and VORP are all very team dependent and team success dependent, but I liked it here because I wanted to see if the data would sort itself out because a lot of these guys saw success in year 3.

Duncan won 48 games, was already a 2x 1st team all NBA player, and already had been Finals MVP.
Dirk won 53 games that year.
Lebron won 50 games and finished 2nd team all NBA.
Kawhi won 62 games and was the Finals MVP and all-nba 2nd team defense in his 3rd year.
Durant won 50 games and was 1st team all NBA in his 3rd year.
DWade won 52 games, was Finals MVP in his 3rd year, was all-nba 2nd team defense and 2nd team all nba overall in his 3rd year.
Curry's team won 23 games but he only played in 26 games that season (they were 13-13 over those 26 games. the next year, they won 47).

So with the exception of the guy that was injured, if you look at recent "best players on championship teams", half of them had won a Finals MVP by year 3, all but 1 of them had made an all nba team, and that 1 guy was the one guy who didn't reach the mountaintop until the twilight of his career.

Melo: 44-38, all nba 3rd team in his 3rd year
Amare: 62-20, all nba 2nd team in his 3rd year
Bosh: 27-55t t
Love: 17-65
Davis: 45-37, all nba 1st team in his 3rd year, 2nd team all defense in his 3rd year
Giannis: 33-49

So. you could argue that the one thing the "best players on championship teams" have in common is that they won early. Kobe's 3rd season was a lockout year, 31-19, which would extrapolate to 51 wins in a 82 game season. Winning early doesn't mean that you'll win eventually, obviously. But it may be a mandatory qualification. We always argue that players get taken into different environments and it determines how they turn out. True. It could also be that these guys are so transcendent that they go to teams and just make them good. It could also be.... San Antonio, Dallas, Miami, Seattle, Los Angeles... with the exception of Dallas, all of those franchises were accustomed to winning and were generally well run. Cuban came in and laid that groundwork with Dallas before Dirk got to year 3.

This could mean two things. If the Knicks don't win 50 games, Kristaps doens't look like he could take us to the promised land because he's not good enough... or it doesn't matter how good the prospect is, the Knicks don't know how to put their prospects in position to succeed so they will never be successful until NYKFP buys the team and runs the organization.

In hindsight, a lot of people were on that "if kristaps makes the Knicks good next year, we will believe in him" camp. Then the excuses for why that wasn't feasible came out. Then those excuses lit up the eyes of those who just wanted more prospects, starting the tank movement, which really just represents a fresh 3 year clock on the next knicks savior. Maybe we need to reconsider all of that. Maybe that's what Mills and Perry are doing. Maybe they gave KP just enough talent where the future best players on championship teams would be able to get them to 50 wins. And they want to see if he delivers. If he fails, they will look find ways to move up in the draft or tank the following season. If he succeeds, they will stay the course and add pieces around him. This has been an enlightening rant for me. I will see how it plays out

But yeah! i'll run the analysis your way and see how it looks when I get some time.

[H20Knick]

ppl are really going over the top with this.

if KP the best player or second best player of a great team what does it matter...hes a part of our future regardless and if he leaves..that would set us back another 2015 year to land a guy in that talent level.

ppl said the same things about Ewing...all ppl did was complain and harp on the things he couldnt do....till he left and everyone jocked him ever since.

posts like H20's and some others here is exactly why the media thinks you cant rebuild here. Why cant we just let the year play out....and make the best basketball decisions from there.

oh and lets be clear...Lebron/KD are all time talents..if your waiting for that type of talent...go to sleep and wake up in 10 years when some bionic kid is killin the game and pray we land him....I'd throw Ben Simmons in that boat also. huge fan of his

and lets take a look at Curry who is...the greatest shooter of all time...what was he doing at 22?...hmm lets see...19/6 and a 112 defensive rating....did the warriors complain and throw him out of town because he wasnt the messiah?...no...they ran its course...took the hits...and drafted the pieces to match Curry, Klay is a top 5 shooter in the NBA imo. Is Curry the messiah? not in the SLIGHTEST but what did the Warriors do? they slowly built a team around him and took his greatest skill(shooting) and put passers/defenders all over him so make him the best player on the best team in regular season history. But is Curry on Lebrons level? nope...KD's level? not at all..i think if u put Curry on worst team in the NBA today and he'd drop 25-30 and lose.... there are only 2 tops 4 players that can single handedly take a team to the playoffs alone. KP isnt those guys but teams win big...lets just continue building...if a player comes along and is better than KP..wonderful if a player comes along that matches KP...still wonderful

That's what I don't get with you. It's this "if a player comes along" mentality. Players don't just come along. You can't just sit on your thumbs and get players. You trade for players. You trade for picks. You put yourself in a position to get a better pick. You can argue "draymond green fell to the 2nd round", well if I had the 15th pick I could've drafted him early. Or if you had the 15th pick and knew he was going to fall you could trade your 15th pick for the 20th pick an the 30th pick, and look, you've gotten more players.

Just letting the year play out isn't much of a strategy. It shows lack of foresight. Courtney Lee's value is higher than its ever going to be. Can you get a pick for him if you trade him right now? Kanter's is too. Do you keep Kanter or do you trade him at the deadline? What do you do with KOQ? He will never really get you much in return. Do you just let him go so that you can see what Willy actually has? Does Willy have any value left at this point? Could he gain value if we played him instead of Noah who is untradable and KOQ who has never been a hot asset on the trade rumor mill? All the Knicks seem to do is sit back and wait. One mid lottery pick a year isn't going to get it done. The overall goal for the knicks is not to make the playoffs. It's to win a championship. They are not easy to get.

And since i'm here, no one said anything about trading KP. I didn't even want to trade him for Kyrie and I think Kyrie is a better player. Im just saying i'm not building around him. I don't know why that doesn't register. You can build with him. You just can't build around him. Steph Curry came in the league as a tweener guard playing next to another tweener guard in Monta Ellis. Curry was also made of glass and the Warriors wanted consistency so they replaced Monta Ellis with a better defending, more traditional 2 guard in Klay Thompson. I.e., they basically told Steph he was going to be the PG whether it was his natural position or not (note. he was not the point guard at Davidson). Then they got lucky that Draymond turned out to be a stud because Harrison Barnes, the heir apparent to the 3 spot for them, did not. Speaking of Barnes, why add Iguodala to a team loaded with SFs? Hell, the Warriors had two really good bigs in Bogut and Lee until they realized what year it was. They are literally a case study of adding talent with total disregard for fit and complementarity. Who neeeeeeds a center? Who neeeeeds a traditional PF? We have 3 SFs so let's just play Draymond at Center even though we have 4 centers, play Barnes at the 3, and then let Iguodala play the 2 when Klay is on the bench. In fact, let's just stop calling these things positions. People on this forum balk when Lee and Hardaway play together and then want to talk about the Warriors lol. OKAY.

[spree#8]

All great points Spree! I knew you would get a kick out of it. I really picked the stats I did because I have zero idea what to look for. The first thing that came to my head is "really good players do multiple things well. I look at a guy like Dirk and compare him to KP and the things that stand out the most to me are the minutes and the rebounding. There are lots of bigs who defend and rebound. There are lots of bigs who shoot a high percentage and rebound. But there arent a lot of bigs who score a LOT of points at a high percentage AND rebound, so that's why I added rpg. Then I look back at people's complaints about Melo. He doesn't pass. Then I think about Duncan and Lebron, two guys that were great passers at their position. I always thought that was a key attribute to their success, so that's why I added in rebis. With eFG vs TS, it's an argument that will never die. I don't really love either stat. My problem with TS% is that it can penalize guys who draw a lot of fouls but aren't great free throw shooters and it protects bigs that are poor free throw shooters but don't get to the line. I'd rather you go to the line and miss free throws, because it puts your team in the bonus and it puts defenders in foul trouble. I could address this by using TS% AND FTApg. But that was my logic, and it was really tied to shaq and duncan, which is funny because I eventually decided not to include shaq because his last title as a main attraction was too long ago. I don't think there are any good defensive stats, really. It's such a team issue. Steals are had by bad defenders who gamble (sorry allen iverson. you will always be my hometown hero but youre the poster child for this) and a lot of blocks are picked up by help defenders benefiting from someone else's exceptional man-to-man defense. So, I just went with DWS and DBPM because I knew that if I didn't add a defensive metric, every melo hater would come in here and have an aneurism. VORP, who doesn't like VORP!? Anyway, like you said, DWS, DBPM, and VORP are all very team dependent and team success dependent, but I liked it here because I wanted to see if the data would sort itself out because a lot of these guys saw success in year 3.

Duncan won 48 games, was already a 2x 1st team all NBA player, and already had been Finals MVP.
Dirk won 53 games that year.
Lebron won 50 games and finished 2nd team all NBA.
Kawhi won 62 games and was the Finals MVP and all-nba 2nd team defense in his 3rd year.
Durant won 50 games and was 1st team all NBA in his 3rd year.
DWade won 52 games, was Finals MVP in his 3rd year, was all-nba 2nd team defense and 2nd team all nba overall in his 3rd year.
Curry's team won 23 games but he only played in 26 games that season (they were 13-13 over those 26 games. the next year, they won 47).

So with the exception of the guy that was injured, if you look at recent "best players on championship teams", half of them had won a Finals MVP by year 3, all but 1 of them had made an all nba team, and that 1 guy was the one guy who didn't reach the mountaintop until the twilight of his career.

Melo: 44-38, all nba 3rd team in his 3rd year
Amare: 62-20, all nba 2nd team in his 3rd year
Bosh: 27-55t t
Love: 17-65
Davis: 45-37, all nba 1st team in his 3rd year, 2nd team all defense in his 3rd year
Giannis: 33-49

So. you could argue that the one thing the "best players on championship teams" have in common is that they won early. Kobe's 3rd season was a lockout year, 31-19, which would extrapolate to 51 wins in a 82 game season. Winning early doesn't mean that you'll win eventually, obviously. But it may be a mandatory qualification. We always argue that players get taken into different environments and it determines how they turn out. True. It could also be that these guys are so transcendent that they go to teams and just make them good. It could also be.... San Antonio, Dallas, Miami, Seattle, Los Angeles... with the exception of Dallas, all of those franchises were accustomed to winning and were generally well run. Cuban came in and laid that groundwork with Dallas before Dirk got to year 3.

This could mean two things. If the Knicks don't win 50 games, Kristaps doens't look like he could take us to the promised land because he's not good enough... or it doesn't matter how good the prospect is, the Knicks don't know how to put their prospects in position to succeed so they will never be successful until NYKFP buys the team and runs the organization.

In hindsight, a lot of people were on that "if kristaps makes the Knicks good next year, we will believe in him" camp. Then the excuses for why that wasn't feasible came out. Then those excuses lit up the eyes of those who just wanted more prospects, starting the tank movement, which really just represents a fresh 3 year clock on the next knicks savior. Maybe we need to reconsider all of that. Maybe that's what Mills and Perry are doing. Maybe they gave KP just enough talent where the future best players on championship teams would be able to get them to 50 wins. And they want to see if he delivers. If he fails, they will look find ways to move up in the draft or tank the following season. If he succeeds, they will stay the course and add pieces around him. This has been an enlightening rant for me. I will see how it plays out

But yeah! i'll run the analysis your way and see how it looks when I get some time.

Cool, looking forward to the latter bold part. I highlighted the first thing, because I'm basically in that camp. IMO the talent of the roster is 26-30 wins worthy (and we get back right on track in the hard part of the schedule now), but if we somehow win 42 games, that would be a huge accomplishment and mean that KP is further along than I expected. At the start of the season KP looked that way, now it looks more like we will indeed land at or under 30 again (with the 30 still my highest prediction yet). I just think that a team with KP in year 3 would definitely in every situation be better than some of the other young teams, so I don't lose any sleep about not tanking on purpose. 6-10 still looks like the most likeliest to me and a better pick even being possible would mean that KP is way worse than thought.

So I relax. I have fun with our home wins and don't lose sleep now that the (for me) expected losing starts. And I'm fine with Hornacek trying to get the most out of the roster he got handed, before he turns to the youth once we are ten games under or so.

[big_j_NY]

Damn H20, you're making shakes actually take his time to make a response to your post, I have yet to hear anything back from him (unless he is also taking his own personal hiatus from the site)..............he usually responds at least damn near immediately after you make a post of that level

[nazrmohamed]

And if you're not gonna get draft picks I'd at least like to get rookie contract prospects. Not that he's gonna change the world but I thought McDermott was a good find in the Melo trade. I'd be interested in finding more guys like that and those are the glue guys, the role players while we use our pick for a stud.

[ISIAH_THOMAS]

[ISIAH_THOMAS]

Another dog shit game

[H20Knick]

KRISSY FRANCHISE LOL!!!!

[taowave]

Guy is now all catch and shoot ,would be pick and rolll if we actually had a PG.

He is abysmal in iso,and management is doing him no Favors with Jack and Frank

[taowave]

Interesting read on KP

Patrick Smith/Getty Images
What's Wrong with Kristaps Porzingis?
YARON WEITZMAN
JANUARY 05, 2018
Three months ago, Kristaps Porzingis heard the chants: "M-V-P." Of course, such songs are not exactly rare at Madison Square Garden, where end-of-bench reserves like Ron Baker have received such praise.

At the time, the notion of Porzingis as an MVP candidate didn't seem absurd. He was dropping 30 seemingly every night on an array of feathery jumpers and highlight-reel dunks. He was leading the New York Knicks to impressive victories over playoff stalwarts like the Toronto Raptors and Cleveland Cavaliers.

Porzingis was bigger and stronger and better than ever. He was fulfilling his unicorn potential.

At least, that's how things seemed in November. Since then, not so much. The Knicks have dropped 13 of their last 21 games. More worrisome: Porzingis has transformed from basketball god into a less-efficient version of Carmelo Anthony, the star the Knicks sent to Oklahoma City over the summer so that Porzingis could take the reins.


Porzingis is shooting an ugly 39.9 percent over his last 15 games. He looks befuddled and overmatched. On Wednesday, after another Knicks loss dropped them two games below .500, he confessed to feeling exhausted.

"I'm tired. I'm tired. I'm so tired right now," he told reporters. "I have one day now to rest my legs and then get back and play better and have more energy and also try and bring the team's energy up."

Not exactly encouraging words to hear with four months left in the season.

All of this begs the following questions: What's the reason for this regression, and is there a way for Porzingis to defeat it and rediscover his dominance?

Opponents have adjusted the way they defend the Knicks' star. They recognized his limitations and spotted opportunities to coax him into low-percentage shots.

"Teams are smart; if a guy's killing the league they start paying more attention to him," says an Eastern Conference scout.

Porzingis doesn't read the floor well. Only three players with at least 500 minutes played this year have a lower assist rate relative to how much offense they create, according to Cleaning the Glass. He shoots the ball nearly every time he touches it and leads the league in shots per 36 minutes. He's most comfortable operating from a stationary position in the mid-range and takes more long two-pointers than 95 percent of the league, per Cleaning the Glass.

Not only are these his greatest weaknesses. They're also flaws that make him predictable and easy to defend.

How do you slow a scorer with sticky hands? Send extra bodies at him.

"Teams know he's going to shoot because he's a poor passer," the scout says. This additional defender won't dart over until Porzingis initiates a move. Often playing with his head down, the 22-year-old is frequently caught off guard.



"Something we have to look at, something we have to deal with and learn from," Knicks head coach Jeff Hornacek told reporters this week. "They'll switch a small guy off, and we try to throw it to him and they get into his knees and come from the weak side on his dribble. Maybe we shouldn't settle for looking for him there, swing it to the other side and let the play happen."

Ball movement would be a smart antidote to some of these issues, but it wouldn't solve them all. It goes back to the way Porzingis gets his points, even when he's rolling. He rarely attacks the rim and prefers to work from the mid-range.

Opponents, most of whom these days live behind the three-point line or at the rim, will accept him jacking contested 18-footers over defenders, even if he does tower over most of them.

"He takes a lot of bad shots," said the scout. "Teams know he'll force it."

Case in point: only 26 players have taken more shots out of isolation this season. Yet Porzingis has only scored on such looks 36 percent of the time, placing him in the 24th percentile, according to NBA.com.

Porzingis' poor decision-making isn't the only cause for this horrid stretch. He's one of just two shot-creators on his team. The other, Tim Hardaway Jr., has missed the past month due to a mysterious leg injury. Hardaway's presence on the floor would no doubt release some of the pressure squeezing Porzingis.

He's also not getting all the help he could from Hornacek. Porzingis spends the majority of his floor time playing alongside multiple non-shooters. He rarely plays center (only 12 percent of his minutes have been as the lone big man) and is usually flanked by starting point guard Jarrett Jack, who's shot just 27.9 percent from deep. These lineups feature no spacing, making it both more difficult for Porzingis to read the floor and providing him less room to operate in when he does drive.

This doesn't mean Porzingis needs to play exclusively at the 5. Despite some of the fan clamoring, there are good reasons to ease his transition into what will likely be his long-term position. For one, he prefers to play 4. Also, the season's not even at its halfway mark and he's already dealing with injuries to an elbow, shoulder, knee and ankle; there's no reason to force him to bang with bruisers more than needed.

Yet, extra minutes with more stretchy lineups could create all sorts of options for Porzingis and the offense and have a trickle-down effect on the rest of the game. Maybe, for example, the extra spacing cajoles and extra pass out of Porzingis, which leads to an extra made jumper. Late in the game, a defender will have that in the back of his mind when deciding how aggressively to help.

Getting the ball to Porzingis in the flow of the offense, and especially behind the three-point line, could also boost his cold shooting. He's drilled a solid 38.7 percent of his catch-and-shoot triples this season. More jumpers out of pick-and-pops would be a nice way to get Porzingis some cleaner looks without expending energy working for position.



But those are all minor details. The onus, in the end, will be on Porzingis and whether he can make the necessary adjustments. He doesn't have to fire LeBron-like crosscourt passes to defeat double teams; a simple pass to the top of the key, which could then be slung to the far corner, would suffice. That Porzingis has dished out just nine secondary assists all season is symbolic of the issues at play.

The scary part is that many basketball observers believe that feel for the game is mostly inherited as opposed to taught. But there are examples in the league of players who developed feel, from Kevin Durant to John Wall to, more recently, Joel Embiid.

Porzingis has already proved himself as an All-Star-level scorer. But for the Knicks to ever become contenders, he'll have to be more.

The good news is that the fixes are obvious. The question is whether he can make them.

[Don Che]

H20, my aproach is to evaluate at the end of the year or when it is clear we are out of the playoffs.

Kanter/Lee/Kyle are not spring chickens to the NBA...teams know what they are so assuming we are going to trade them for "assets" while i get it in theory...i just find that to be unrealistic. We always have players who have career years here and plummit somewhere else...today the NBA is more about fit (outside of the real studs of the NBA). So that whole notion of trading all of our players for this mystical thing that will save us down the line..I just dont see it happening. Especially when KP wants to see us have some stability and a sign of success before he commits long term(i dont blame him). If thats the case then.... trading everyone around him(which we've basically done every year hes been in the NBA) isnt the the smartest way to do that...and lets just say we lose and lose BIG...it doesnt guarantee the top 3 picks and this draft doesnt have the Lebron/KD level of talent that you wish for.

Now lets discuss KP and your verbiage of build with or build around...KP is a part of our plans moving forward...building either getting a great Center or PF...doesnt matter as long as we surround him with a plus rebounders/defenders/passers as you need on all championship caliber teams. Every great player on great teams had other ppl on their team that did things better than they did or very similar. Lebron/Wade Pippen/Jordan Curry/Klay all you can argue are similar players to eachother so I dont see how building with or around is different. Either way you get the best talent that fits your style of play and with Frank/KP as our main pieces we could draft at ANY position because those 2 can defend multiple positions. When i hear buid around im thinking ...if you see a PF..you dont draft him strictly because of KP and i dont think we are in that frame of mind...i just think that guy is gonna have to be very unique for it all work together..we basically need a defensive minded unicorn to go alongside KP at this point(in which I dont see defense has his weakness but its what i settle first before offense, hes been our best star player defender since spreewell).

You mention being a championship team...as if it doesnt involve progress. As if every championship caliber team didnt take hits down the line and just jumped to stardom the Warriors selected in the lottery 3 times in a row and hit big 2/3 and got a diamond in the second round, we are in the same boat minus the year we traded our pick away, if Frank becomes the real deal it changes everything. Curry was in the lottery/then playoff team/ then championship caliber team. Its all about taking steps in the right direction. They had 2 bigs Bogut/Lee and if im not mistaken Lee got hurt....Dray took the spot and thats what sealed its fate and Dray was in his 2nd or 3rd year in the league i think so it wasnt overnight taking the world by storm. Warriors pick player the same way the Spurs do...you prioritize defense/passing/IQ....and you think it was all by accident but your taking away a lot of credit to the Warriors they were smart enough to know that Curry isnt a pick and roll PG like Nash ONLY...they knew that while he is good passer ...you put him in a situation to come off the ball on a stint and not defend the best offensive player on the other team...incomes that perfect supporting cast...Iggy/Dray/Livingston allow Curry to really be the SG for a large part of the game so theres a balance of fully maximizing his greatest talent it wasnt like "take all talent and throw it at a wall" approach it was thought out but it takes TIME to build that. The roster wasnt fully done when Curry was 22 and it isnt fully done now that KP is 22. We will be around the 10-15 range and thats if we dont flat out give up after this month is over...so we are in a good place to pick up the next piece to the puzzle.

we need to build a team with passing/defense being high on the list and have players do what they do best while hiding what the can't. Frank needs more athletes with him and shooters/finishers since he's more of a passing PG at this stage but isnt adept at getting to the paint but hits the open 3 better at this point. KP needs offense created for him meaning he needs to finish plays and not iso too much and have him defend the rim as much as possible. He can start the game defending a 4...but we need to get rid of all these bigs and get 2 cerebral 4's off the bench to open things as the game goes on.

[H20Knick]

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/kr ... :frontpage

JAN. 18, 2018 AT 1:59 PM

Kristaps Porzingis Is Doing His Best Carmelo Anthony Impression
His shot selection is eerily similar to that of his former teammate.
By Chris Herring


Kristaps Porzingis has dramatically increased his volume of low-quality shots. JIM MCISAAC / GETTY IMAGES
When the Knicks finally traded Carmelo Anthony last offseason, both he and the organization itself viewed it as an opportunity to get out from under a cloud. With the Oklahoma City deal, Melo joined a contending team that already had two All-Stars and left the club that fumbled his prime — one that then gladly handed the keys to the franchise to 22-year-old Kristaps Porzingis.

For awhile, that experiment was going swimmingly. Porzingis averaged 30 points per contest through his first 11 outings of the season, a highly impressive, if clearly unsustainable, rate. Yet that hot start to the campaign probably camouflaged something that’s come into clearer focus as both the big man and his team have cooled down: For all the trouble New York went through to move on from Anthony and his ball-dominant tendencies, Porzingis launches many of the same heavily contested shots that prompted so much head-scratching and frustration among Knicks fans.


Going into the Knicks’ nationally televised game in Utah Friday, Porzingis has taken far more heavily contested jumpshots than any other NBA player this season. The majority of those attempts come from the antiquated midrange part of the floor, where New York continues to take more shots than any other team despite the firing of team president Phil Jackson, who insisted on using an unpopular triangle offense. Porzingis takes more than seven shots a game from midrange, the NBA’s second-highest mark; more than Anthony, who considers that area his sweet spot. Perhaps most eye-opening of all: according to Second Spectrum data, Porzingis is tied for the league’s fourth-lowest1 quantified Shot Quality (qSQ), which measures the likelihood of a shot going in if taken by an average player. To put that into context, last season, Porzingis ranked 71st-lowest in the NBA by this measure, while Anthony had the NBA’s fourth-lowest shot quality profile during 2016-17.

In other words: Kristaps Porzingis’s shot selection has essentially morphed into Carmelo Anthony’s.

Porzingis has vaulted up the bad-shot leaderboard
Lowest-ranked players in quantified Shot Quality (qSQ) in 2017-18 and how those players ranked a year ago

2017-18 2016-17
PLAYER SHOT QUALITY RANK (LOWEST) SHOT QUALITY RANK (LOWEST)
DeMar DeRozan 43.8% 1 42.2% 1
Jamal Crawford 43.9 2 43.5 2
Jarrett Jack* 44.8 3 — —
Kristaps Porzingis 45.6 4 48.8 71
Devin Booker 45.6 5 46.0 12
* No rank for 2016-17 due to injury

qSQ measures the likelihood of a shot going in if taken by an average player; minimum 300 shots.

SOURCE: SECOND SPECTRUM

“The stars in this league take tougher shots because defenses are focused on them. He’s 22, he’s going through that for the first time, and teams are gearing up on him, and not letting him spin or get a clear opportunity to pass the ball,” Knicks coach Jeff Hornacek told me before a recent game.

Without Anthony to worry about, defenses have aggressively seized on Porzingis. A little more than halfway through the season, he’s already been double-teamed in the post 79 times (about twice a game), the fourth-highest total in the NBA and more than he faced during his first two seasons combined, according to Second Spectrum. This effectively is a way of daring him to make a quick, accurate pass to the right man — which is not his strength.

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Porzingis turns the ball over nearly twice as often as he records an assist, and averages fewer assists per game than any of the other players who rank among the NBA’s top 10 in post-ups. If opponents don’t double him, they will often crowd him on the catch, force him to put the ball on the floor, and bring a help defender so he’s forced to see two bodies.


The latter strategy, in particular, has worked well since Porzingis still lacks the physicality he needs to push some defenders — even small guards, who give up 6 or 7 inches — off their square.

In theory, you could argue that Porzingis is better equipped to take the sorts of shots Anthony did because of how much taller he is, giving him clearer looks at the basket. But despite being the NBA’s tallest player,2 Porzingis’s midrange jumpers have been blocked more often than anyone else in the league. (Anthony is tied for third.) The budding star has an unusually low average release point of just over 9 feet on his midrange attempts, the third-lowest among the league’s 46 volume shooters,3 according to an analysis run by senior data analyst Matt Scott of STATS SportVU at FiveThirtyEight’s request.

Porzingis is the first to acknowledge that he began rushing his offense too much after the blistering pace he set to begin the season. “I think now I’m starting to realize it doesn’t need to be that way,” he told ESPN’s Ian Begley. “I can just let the game flow and see what happens. I can make the right play and not force and try to get those numbers.”

No one would be foolish enough to write off Porzingis at this juncture, for his Melo-like shot selection or any other reason. This is his first year as the primary option — he wasn’t even the second banana last season, when both Anthony and Derrick Rose averaged more shot attempts per game — and aside from Tim Hardaway, Jr.,4 he has no other teammate that qualifies as a true playmaker. He plays within the offense more than Anthony did. (Almost two-thirds of Porzingis’s 2-point baskets are assisted, while just under a third of Anthony’s 2-pointers in New York were.) And Porzingis provides enormous value as a rim protector, even when he’s not doing well on offense.

Similar to Anthony, Porzingis can be lethal when teammates get him the ball in scenarios that allow him to make quick decisions off the catch. Hornacek’s best weapon to do that — playing Porzingis at center as part of a five-out lineup — deserves more spin, and would help things flow a bit more. Outside of that, the Knicks have been good at setting up these looks in transition, when Porzingis is trailing a play and can simply square up to shoot from the top of the key. Porzingis posts a whopping 56.7 percent effective field-goal rate when he shoots within two seconds of getting the ball, a rate that puts him in the same stratosphere as Kevin Durant or Anthony Davis as far as efficiency is concerned. But he becomes the equivalent of one of the two or three worst shooters in basketball, around 40 percent, when he attempts a shot after holding it for any more than two seconds. (More evidence of this: his 0.73 points per possession in one-on-one situations rank last among the 33 NBA players who isolate at least twice a game.5)

New York’s made an effort to run plays for Porzingis — they run about 19 off-ball screens for him per 100 possessions, according to Second Spectrum, up from 10 last year — though it doesn’t always result in a touch, because of all the defensive attention he’s facing. “Even if I’m not open, it means someone else is open,” Porzingis said. “When we’re in movement, those are good plays for us.”

This maturation process — figuring out how to create separation when defenses load up on a single player — was the one Anthony spent the most time helping Porzingis with early in his career.

The pair often played one-on-one at practice, and every couple minutes, Porzingis would stop the game to ask Anthony for advice with certain moves. “[Working with him] has been fun,” Anthony told me back in 2015. “For me, it’s knowing that one day I’ll be gone, and somebody else will be here. And he’s the future.”

For New York’s future to be brighter than its cloudy past, they’ll need Porzingis to navigate this stretch and learn how to find better shots than the ones Anthony feasted on as a Knick.

i told you so. porzingis offensively is melo 2.0

except melo's TS%, ppg, and apg were better in his 3rd year

[Koopa Troopa]

He just isnt exerting any effort on offense. He just turns and shoots and prays his arms hit the defenders. He doesnt back anybody down anymore like he did in month 1.

This playstyle also helps him avoid learning how to deal with double teams. It also helps him avoid learning how to pass.

[taowave]

That's why its maddening when people refer to him as a unicorn. He's not in the same league as the true Unicorns,AD,Durant and Greek Freak.

KP lacks elite athleticism,and I call bullshit on his supposed 36 inch vertical.His strength is clearly lacking,and he is currently unable to beat fours off the dribble.

The guy is best suited to play the 5,but he's soft.Doesnt want to bang,it's too tiring..

He's a decent 3 point shooter for a 7'3" guy,and could be a very good shot blocker..

A solid PG will make him shine,as he fares well on catch and shoots..

At some point,he's going to have to develop some go to moves to be special.

[nazrmohamed]

Sooooo, inside he's double teamed and taking midrange shots are bad shots. Are we saying he should only focus on 3 of shots? Cause that can be arranged but then people would complain about that.

We were a one trick pony of an offensive team. Ed everybody knew where the ball was going. Our Pgs either suck cuz they're old or suck cuz they're not ready yet. Our coaching is average and our entire play style resembles not one other team. Definitely KP must improve but like Anthony the statistic nobody ever wants to talk about is we're always one injury away from being a predictable one man show, and that show is always gonna get bashed.

I find these things inconclusive until we have enough talent. And don't say real stars blah blah blah, cuz they all play together. Multiple players at the top tier of thier class, playing together. I know one way we can homegrown our own but it'll take allot more losing and allot more bashing in the process.

It was educational though. Gotta pass more than you turn the ball over, no matter what. The other thing KPs gotta do is rebound and set real screens. He'll never be efficient setting weak screens and nobody talks about it. You become open every time.

[spree#8]

We should relax. That's all. Lots of room for improvement.

[Don Che]

i mean...we are naming a lot of things wrong with this guy and he is 22...and possibly an all star this year...just sayin

[Ari_Ingus]

...first sign of autism, and this is funny, comparing Melo at 3rd year and KP at 3rd year...One was born in US the other was playing in Euro. Not talking about their difference in size and muscles.
The second sign of autism is saying that it will be just Melo 2.0, come on, Melo still thinks ISO is the best way of playing at the end of career while KP understand it in first half-year as main man and the IQ and thinking in general is NOT The same.
Also saying that KP had Melo. GUess what ? MELO HAD KP. He had some one to pass the ball, he just chosed not too. Some of you have noticed, maybe, me bashing KP for ISO play (just like I did with Melo) but so often when KP decides to pass the shot to some G league player next to him who doesnt hit the rim and only then all you can think of - well if thats the shot teammates make then at least let KP hit. His teammates are shit atm besides Tim (and some of you might know how much i hate that guy).

To be honest I could go on but my 2 year old is pulling me by hand.

In one sentence, KP and Melo are two completely different players, humans, personalities. The one tried to do everything by himself, was not so much in winning than in business the other is all about winning but just have to learn and get some decent teammates. Good thing is that he indeed learns.

I`m not saying KP is better than Melo or anything, i dont think he is an all star starter atm, but give him time to build muscle, build confidence (which Melo didn`t lack even when shooting 2-20), learn to be the first man and he will show you what he is really capable of. I`m sure he have the potential to be 30+ points per game guy and excellent defender.

It`s silly some of you write him off, like league have ever seen such player and could compare to some one and try to make judgement based on that