NFT - New York Knicks 2022-23 Season

[DaveBrown74]

I know there is another Knicks thread, but it is dated. I suggest we retire it and just go with this moving forward.

Knicks are in the middle of the third period of their first preseason game of the season as I type. It's just the preseason, so it's meaningless of course, but I like what I'm seeing early. A few thoughts/observations:

-Brunson looks really good, and he's taking a lot of the pressure off of Randle to be a perimeter ballhandler. As a result, Randle only has one turnover to this point and seems to be taking better shots.

-Brunson is scoring nicely himself. Looks very deft, and, as we already know about him, he takes great care of the ball.

-Our depth has really come a long way in recent years. The fact that our bench now consists of guys like Toppin, Quickley, Hartenstein, Rose, Reddish, McBride, Sims, etc is encouraging.

-The team lacks a superstar, and it also remains to be seen how they're going to handle the Toppin/Randle minutes issue, but overall I think they're going to be a respectable team this year. 44-49 wins seems totally attainable to me.

[Philosophers]

Good idea to start a new thread Dave.  Assuming no major injuries to anyone what does Brunson have to generate for Knicks to make the playoffs?  I say 18 PPG, 7 APG and 3 rebounds per game.

[DaveBrown74]

Good idea to start a new thread Dave.  Assuming no major injuries to anyone what does Brunson have to generate for Knicks to make the playoffs?  I say 18 PPG, 7 APG and 3 rebounds per game.

Those would be great numbers for him Phil, considering they'd be better than anything he has done before. Although I have seen his numbers when Luca wasn't playing, I believe he was averaging over 20 ppg over a decent sample size.

If Brunson plays like his normal self, and the team remains reasonably healthy, I think they're definitely getting in. The Knicks are far from being a championship contender, but they're certainly playoff material. To me the Brunson addition is a big one. They're going from basically having no PG to having a pretty good one. That's a significant difference.

Tack on that guys like Barrett and Quickly are a year older and you have the potential emergence of some of these young guys like McBride and Sims, this should be a solid, very watchable team this year (unlike last year).

[Blue Fire]

McBride was electric on defense with something like 6 steals. Offense looked a little raw still though.

Brunson looked like dynamite with drives and 3s.

Barrett shot the 3 pretty good and had some nice plays.

Robinson was very active and showed a bit more refinement on a couple moves and finishes around the rim

Hartenstein showed a glimpse of a guy who could be a stretch 5 for us. Looked like a very nice complimentary piece.

[Jolly Blue Giant]

Brunson looks legit and Deuce coming off the bench looks improved. Hart looks like an interesting new piece to the puzzle. A lot of left-handed players on the Knicks (Randle, Brunson, Barrett, Hart)

Highlights of the game:

[DaveBrown74]

A few other observations (again with the very obvious caveat that this is preseason):


-Toppin actually had more minutes off the bench than Randle did as a starter (22 vs 18): Toppin only had 8 points, mainly because his three was badly off, including one air ball from the corner, but I liked seeing the 22 minutes.

-Our total turnovers number for the game was just ok (13), but we only had four from our starters, including zero from Randle. The other four starters had one each. I thought this was encouraging, especially in a first preseason game when guys are likely to be sloppier.

-I thought we played well defensively. Held Det to 41% FG and also had 14 steals (highlight was 6 from McBride). Anytime you have more steals than you do turnovers, your chances of winning go way up. Keep in mind there are plenty of turnovers that aren't steals, ie when the ball goes out of bounds.

-Barrett paced the Knicks with 21 points on 8/14 shooting, including 3/5 from three. Also had 5 boards. Did that on just 23 minutes. He looked really solid to me. Even though this is now year four, we should keep in mind he only just turned 22 this past June.

-Hartenstein had more minutes than anyone on the team with 27. He played well, though I wouldn't say he blew me away. I would have liked to see an offensive rebound or two from him if he's going to play that many minutes. One negative from last night was that between our two centers playing a total of 45 minutes, collectively they had only one offensive rebound all night. And Detroit didn't shoot very well, so it's not like there weren't opportunities. That needs to be better in my opinion.


Again, I think there were some real positive takeaways from last night. The team looks balanced to me, we finally have a point guard and a pretty good one, our bench looks deeper than it has in past years, and we do have some talent on the roster. We lack anything resembling a superstar though, which is why we're several notches below championship contender material, but this team should be a solid, reasonably competitive playoff team this year somewhere in the 4-7 seed range.

[Jolly Blue Giant]

Could be an excellent season if the starting five can get us a lead. We have a tremendous bench that should get about 20 minutes a game (Rose/Quick/Grimes/Obi/Hart) that I think is far better than most teams' benches. They "could/should" whip other teams' second string players like a rented mule and preserve (or extend) a lead until the starters come in to finish it off. Throw in Deuce, Sims, and maybe Cam if he comes around and can stay healthy...we got us a future!

Seems funny having a glut at PG (Brunson, Rose, Quick, Grimes) and a glut at Center two formidable PFs and Barrett playing SF with Reddish, Feron Hunt, and the new guy, 6'8" sharp shooter Svi Mykhailiuk (43.8% 3 pt record)

Been a long time since we had a really solid and deep bench. Now we have one 

[umassgrad]

Love to watch the footwork of Brunson and Arch around the basket. Such good coaching these guys had at Villanova, I hope Arch makes the team.

[Blue Fire]

Fred Katz
@FredKatz
·
17s
Mitchell Robinson on why he tried to add some post moves over the summer: "Because it puts pressure on the defense. They'll be like, 'Oh snap.' I'm pretty sure everybody's scouting report is just, lob, this, that and that. So, you got to add. You got to."

[Blue Fire]

On Duece 'He's a pest," Barrett said after the game. "You saw it out there today."

"Adds a lot," Quickley said. "Especially defensively. You can see him getting out in passing lanes, steals. You know he can do that. And he's added a lot to his game offensively

[Blue Fire]

https://dailyknicks.com/2022/10/05/julius-randle-notable-growth-knicks-preseason-win-ignored/amp/

[DaveBrown74]

While Brunson is not a superstar, his being there is still a game changer for this team. With no viable, healthy, true PG on the team for much of last year, Randle handled the ball way too much and consequently turned it over way too much. He also forced a lot of bad shots. My hope is that those issues will go away or at least be significantly reduced this season now that we have a legit, quality point guard. I just hope Thibs gets Toppin enough minutes for him to get into a rhythm in games. He is an explosive player.

There are two things holding this team back from being a really good team, and they are both big things:

(1) We have no proven star. With Randle, Barrett, and Brunson we have three good players, but we don't have that clear, go-to guy that you can really count on in crunch time and who can regularly get you 30 points or more.

(2) Our perimeter defense was god-awful last year and I see no reason why that will improve this year. It's all the same guys plus Brunson, who is not a good defensive PG. We have some real liabilities on this team on D, such as Fournier. Barrett and Quickley are not good either. This is likely to remain a big problem this year.

[Philosophers]

Maybe Knicks should tank for a shot at Victor Wembayana.  I mean this guy looks and smells line The Greek Freak 2.0 with even more size.  He will be the absokute #1 pick in next year's draft.  7'4" with an 82 inch wingspan and can shoot all the shots and loves gracefully to the basket.  Sign me up for some of that.  Kid sounds 100% humble too.

[DaveBrown74]

Maybe Knicks should tank for a shot at Victor Wembayana.  I mean this guy looks and smells line The Greek Freak 2.0 with even more size.  He will be the absokute #1 pick in next year's draft.  7'4" with an 82 inch wingspan and can shoot all the shots and loves gracefully to the basket.  Sign me up for some of that.  Kid sounds 100% humble too.

How would that possibly happen though? We're going to win 40 games or more this year. Decent chance we're not even in the lottery and we're certainly not going to be top 5.

[Jolly Blue Giant]

Another impressive win for the Knicks last night

Obi was unbelievable - blocks a 3pt shot, then runs the floor for a highlight reel stuff - check it out

https://twitter.com/KnicksMSGN/status/1578557293972656128