Around the NBA:2025-6

[Wolvesfan21]

I think the biggest take away is….fire Finch? Right?

They're not winning the title with Thibs, just like we won't with Finch. Sorry Finchie, you're cooked.

Ha, I’m in your head! (Taps head)
Thanks for playing the game

This isn't a game, well it is. But for these guys it's their life.

Does Ant really want his legacy to be, he was talented and skilled, But...

It's time for the entire organization and fanbase to step the eff up. Coaches, players, fans. Everyone.

[BeenLurkin]

I'm curious about something. Why didn't Brunson go into the Spurs huddle with 8 minutes left and congratulate them?

Because Finch was throwing in the towel by pulling all the starters... Place blame where you will.

Any excuse to rip Ant…must have kicked the guys dog or something.

[AbeVigodaLive]

I'm curious about something. Why didn't Brunson go into the Spurs huddle with 8 minutes left and congratulate them?

Because Finch was throwing in the towel by pulling all the starters... Place blame where you will.

Any excuse to rip Ant…must have kicked the guys dog or something.

Probably tried to impregnate the dog, too.

[Monster]

Because Finch was throwing in the towel by pulling all the starters... Place blame where you will.

Any excuse to rip Ant…must have kicked the guys dog or something.

Probably tried to impregnate the dog, too.

Let's revisit these situations.

With 8 mins left in this game the Knicks were down 15 points. They started the 4th quarter down 15 points after easily winning the 3rd quarter by 12 points to close the gap in the game.

When Edwards checked out the Wolves were down 33. The Wolves started the 4th down 26 after the Spurs had won the 3rd quarter by 13 points. The Spurs extended the lead to 33 when the Wolves decided to waive the white flag.

[Coolbreeze44]

Yeah, I took a shot at Ant. Was it the exact same situation, of course not. But if I'm not going to balance the Ant ball sucking on this board, who is? Don't take it too seriously.

I do want to give kudos to all of you who provided really good analysis on the aftermath of this game. Kek and Abe were especially good reads. Well done.

[BeenLurkin]

Any excuse to rip Ant…must have kicked the guys dog or something.

Probably tried to impregnate the dog, too.

Let's revisit these situations.

With 8 mins left in this game the Knicks were down 15 points. They started the 4th quarter down 15 points after easily winning the 3rd quarter by 12 points to close the gap in the game.

When Edwards checked out the Wolves were down 33. The Wolves started the 4th down 26 after the Spurs had won the 3rd quarter by 13 points. The Spurs extended the lead to 33 when the Wolves decided to waive the white flag.

Don’t forget Ants injury status and lack or Donte. The Knicks missing anyone of importance? Wolves have a few epic playoff comebacks in their history as well. Just wasn’t our year. Roster will change, coach won’t this offseason. Young guys will improve. The rest of the league will react. Let’s see how much fun we can have with next years version! At least the jerseys will be fantastic.

[Lipoli390]

Series not over yet but don’t know what to really take away from this series or the Knicks run in general.

No player in the Knicks starting 5 was drafted by the team

Brunson a year ago was said can’t win a title because he is too small and those players can’t get it done in the league anymore at their best.

Brunson is probably going to be the best player on a championship team that is not a consensus top 10 player in the NBA for the first time since the 2004 pistons.

They traded 4 first round picks for a glorified role player in Mikal Bridges who is averaging 9/4/3 in the finals.

Kat is probably one of the most polarizing players in league history. Finals MVP favorite after 2 games then to no show the next 2 (due to foul trouble that had been a big part of Kat story of his career). And reports of the Knicks going to trade him this offseason win or lose

They play a center that can’t stretch the floor at all what is a dying breed in the NBA.

They fired their head coach after making the ECF last year to hire a guy in brown I don’t think any of his previous teams would consider him a good coach. After they struck out on multiple options before settling for Brown.

Their superstar purposely took significantly less money something no super star does. While the team still employees his father like an AAU coach though 2 coaching regimes after multiple sexual assault accusations including friends of people on this board. Who knows if Brunson is getting paid under the table though his dad. Like the pay cut Jalen Brunson took just does not happen in the nba or in any professional sport really.

Their owner is considered one of the worst owners in sports and their guy making the basketball decisions was a control freak who got fired for sleeping with co workers with the wolves.

The Knicks traded 6 first round picks for their starting lineup.

Also OG Anunoby is a stud

What a unique team that goes against recent trends in nba history. Not sure what to take from it

Great post, Kek! Although, I’ll note that Mitchell Robinson was actually drafted by the Knicks in 2018 and KAT is actually their starting center with Robinson coming off the bench. I also think it’s not quite accurate to label Bridges a “glorified role player.” Yes, he’s not putting up impressive numbers in the Finals, but he was very good all season - playing as a starter and averaging 33 minutes per game while scoring 14.4 points on 49% FG shooting (37% from behind the arc). You can call him a role player I guess, but “glorified” is an unfair pejorative in this context.

I think your question was intended to be rhetorical but I’ll give the obvious answer anyway: Nothing generally. This is one of those anomalies in sports, as in life, that just happens. It would be a big mistake to use it as a model or example of how to do things.

However, I do think there are maybe three lessons we can take from the Knicks roster construction:

1. Lesson #1: You win with rotation players who are all in their 20s (maybe a couple in their very early 30s). As Charles Barkley has said a number of times: “It’s a young man’s game.” It’s a combination of relying on players at the top of their games physically and also to some extent being of a similar age. All the Knicks’ rotation players were acquired when in their late 20s and the two oldest players in their rotation right now are still only 30 while the majority are 27-29 years old (unless you include Clarkson, who is 33). Bridges was acquired at 28 and is now 29. Brunson was acquired at 26 and is now 29. Anunoby was acquired at 26 and is now 28 KAT was acquired at 29 and is now 30, Hart was acquired at age 27 and is now 30. Alvarado was acquired at 28 less than a year ago. Shamet was acquired at 27 and is now 28. The Knicks actually drafted Mitchell Robinson with the 36th pick in 2018. Of course the next two best teams - the Spurs and OKC - are even younger than the Knicks. The Spurs’ rotation includes Fox at age 28 and Kornet at age 30; the other rotation guys are all ages 21-26. OKC has only one rotation player over 30 - Caruso at age 32 - and their three best players are SGA (27), Jalen Willams (25), and Holmgren (24).

2. Lesson #2: You win when your best players are tough-minded. You have to give the Knicks front office credit for the types of players they’ve acquired. Yes, they acquired physically talented players, but just as importantly they acquired players who are generally tough-minded - especially Brunson, OG and Hart. I guess KAT is an exception. . But your core can have a great but generally weak-minded player like KAT if you surround him with core guys like Brunson, OG and Hart.

3. Lesson #3. You need roster depth to win. The Knicks, OKC and Spurs all have pretty deep rotations. The days are long gone (if they ever existed) when you can just rely on two or three core guys with three more good supported role players.

Lip, I disagree on two out of three points.

On #1 - I agree that your top two guys probably need to be 33 or less, but after that, all bets are off (and even then we have a couple of fairly recent exceptions in Steph Curry and LeBron James both being 34 and 35 respectively when they won their last titles as the #1 guy). There have been plenty of really critical rotation guys well into their 30s on title teams.

On #3 - Are the Knicks deep? No so sure...you're deep until you're not I guess. Shamet and McBride have been awful in this series. The Knicks have no one like Alex Caruso or Dylan Harper coming off their bench. Both those guys are game-changers in different ways. I don't even think they have someone as good as Naz Reid was for us in this year's playoffs.

Regarding #1, Steph and LeBron, like MJ before them, are unique. But more importantly, I didn’t say you can’t win with a rotation player in his mid 30s. But when we look at the final four playoff teams this year and look at teams that have been making it to finals recently, their key rotation players, especially their two or three best players, have been predominantly in their 20s with maybe one or two in their early 30s - more the former than latter. That shouldn’t be surprising. Players are generally in their prime peak in their late 20s, sometimes extending into their early 30s. So we should expect teams with rotations largely in that age range to be more successful. There are always exceptions but those exceptions don’t change the general rule.

Regarding #3, I agree the Spurs have better depth than the Knicks. But I think the Knicks have very good depth. Yes, they might not have a bench player as good as Naz, but I think their talent runs pretty deep with Hart, Robinson and Shamet among others coming off the bench. I wouldn’t say the team with the most depth wins. If that were true, then OKC would be in the finals. My point is that all these top team have good depth, suggesting that depth is important to contending for a championship. I don’t think lack of depth was the Wolves main problem last season, but I’d still like to see the Wolves enter next season with a stronger bench - which might happen just through the development of TSJ, Beringer and Rocco. But we’ll also be hurting from the absence of Donte.

So I’ll stand by my points 1 and 3.

[Lipoli390]

Abe's Next Day Real-Time Recollection Review:

- The two quick fouls on Towns... "Those are clear fouls!" Fair enough... at the same time, with everything NOT called in this series (and the playoffs in general) getting called for BOTH of those fouls 70 seconds into a game to arguably the most important player for the Knicks... is an NBA choice.

- No dog in this fight, but the officiating in this game was really weird. The Knicks had about 3x as many FTAs as the Spurs in the 1st half and yet you could highlight like 5 calls or non-calls that went against the Knicks.

- And the Spurs were scorching hot at the same time.

- Wemby is a bit of an instigator, isn't he? We've seen the physical plays throughout the playoffs (and the NBA's cataract-riddled eye toward them), but then we see him taunting Robinson running down the court to try to incite a reaction from him, to celebrating it afterwards.

Is there a sooner-than-expected villain arc coming for the really tall Frenchman, or do people find him likable?

- Part of me was wondering "C'mon now, this Dylan Harper is going to be a star stuff seems premature." Then, I keep watching him play and ... well... damn. He's good.

- OG Anunoby just made big shots at big moments. Repeatedly. And then, his end-of-the-game exploits on both ends were historic.

- Wembanyama has struggled in the clutch in multiple games this series. He was 3 - 14 fg in the 2nd half of this game, going 2 - 9 fg and 1 - 4 fta in the 4th quarter.

And yet, Fox will take the lion's share of the blame. If it's starting to seem like I'm not a big Wembanyama fan... well...

- Speaking of Fox, it seemed like the Spurs were like "Here, you do it" late in this one with Fox at the controls. It was a mixed bag, but definitely pretty rough. As for the "dumbest play in NBA Finals history" ... I think I mostly disagree.

It comes down to this:

11 seconds left... have Fox take a contested layup at the rim to go up 3.
8 seconds left... have Fox shoot 2 free throws to go up 2 or 3.

Fox's decision was nothing like JR Smith or even Magic Johnson in 1984 who got the ball with 7 seconds left in a tie game and just ran out the clock without taking a shot. But in today's social media world, we're going to call it the "worst ever" for engagement.

- Brunson is a bad, bad man. (Meanwhile, his dad is a bad, bad man in an entirely unrelated way.)

- The Knicks are a tough, resilient team. They just refused to concede much at all.

- The emotions for Game 5 will be key. Can the Spurs bounce back? Will the Knicks feel like it's already over after all the celebrating?

- The celebrities. Ugh. I mentioned there'd be a shelf life with this stuff. And Taylor Swift basically put her signature bottle of rotting cabbage all over that shelf.

I don't mind Taylor Swift. She's fine as far as popstars go. But last night was so fabricated and so dictated by her handlers that it was near embarrassing levels. Here's how it went down in the PR/media/agent handers room.

1. "Hey Taylor, being seen at a Knicks game is the hottest thing in Celebrityville right now."
2. "Plus, we want to reframe your current image. NO TRAVIS! You see, your next iteration is as an adult girly girl type."
3. "Let's put you with two 'girlfriends'... hey, we also manage the Haim girls, so we'll use them. Besides, they're not prettier than you and Margita is past her prime, so it's the perfect opportunity for you to look like the lead cool girl!"
4. "Here', wear this obviously contrived t-shirt to get more attention and draw eyeballs."
5. "Most importantly, VERY important, this is the introduction to the 'New Fun Flirty Taylor' stage of your career, so make sure you vamp it up for the cameras like never before. More winks! Blow a kiss! Take photos! Act overly excited about a sport you have shown no previously connection to for a team you know nothing about. Perfect!"

I found it insufferable.

- At the same time, I couldn't help but go back and watch big moments of the comeback... just to see Larry David's reactions. He's so connected to his tv character at this point, so intertwined, that I kept thinking it was the character in the front row. I kept imagining the interactions he was having with the players, waitstaff, officials, et al during the game. And also wondering if Towns was going to pull a Curb Your Enthusiasm moment and trip over his feet in the front row and destroy his knee.

Anyway, put on some Curb music and rewatch the final few minutes while just watching Larry David. It's worth it.

One of the best posts I’ve ever read on this board! And your take on Taylor Swift is so spot on!!

[Monster]

Great post, Kek! Although, I’ll note that Mitchell Robinson was actually drafted by the Knicks in 2018 and KAT is actually their starting center with Robinson coming off the bench. I also think it’s not quite accurate to label Bridges a “glorified role player.” Yes, he’s not putting up impressive numbers in the Finals, but he was very good all season - playing as a starter and averaging 33 minutes per game while scoring 14.4 points on 49% FG shooting (37% from behind the arc). You can call him a role player I guess, but “glorified” is an unfair pejorative in this context.

I think your question was intended to be rhetorical but I’ll give the obvious answer anyway: Nothing generally. This is one of those anomalies in sports, as in life, that just happens. It would be a big mistake to use it as a model or example of how to do things.

However, I do think there are maybe three lessons we can take from the Knicks roster construction:

1. Lesson #1: You win with rotation players who are all in their 20s (maybe a couple in their very early 30s). As Charles Barkley has said a number of times: “It’s a young man’s game.” It’s a combination of relying on players at the top of their games physically and also to some extent being of a similar age. All the Knicks’ rotation players were acquired when in their late 20s and the two oldest players in their rotation right now are still only 30 while the majority are 27-29 years old (unless you include Clarkson, who is 33). Bridges was acquired at 28 and is now 29. Brunson was acquired at 26 and is now 29. Anunoby was acquired at 26 and is now 28 KAT was acquired at 29 and is now 30, Hart was acquired at age 27 and is now 30. Alvarado was acquired at 28 less than a year ago. Shamet was acquired at 27 and is now 28. The Knicks actually drafted Mitchell Robinson with the 36th pick in 2018. Of course the next two best teams - the Spurs and OKC - are even younger than the Knicks. The Spurs’ rotation includes Fox at age 28 and Kornet at age 30; the other rotation guys are all ages 21-26. OKC has only one rotation player over 30 - Caruso at age 32 - and their three best players are SGA (27), Jalen Willams (25), and Holmgren (24).

2. Lesson #2: You win when your best players are tough-minded. You have to give the Knicks front office credit for the types of players they’ve acquired. Yes, they acquired physically talented players, but just as importantly they acquired players who are generally tough-minded - especially Brunson, OG and Hart. I guess KAT is an exception. . But your core can have a great but generally weak-minded player like KAT if you surround him with core guys like Brunson, OG and Hart.

3. Lesson #3. You need roster depth to win. The Knicks, OKC and Spurs all have pretty deep rotations. The days are long gone (if they ever existed) when you can just rely on two or three core guys with three more good supported role players.

Lip, I disagree on two out of three points.

On #1 - I agree that your top two guys probably need to be 33 or less, but after that, all bets are off (and even then we have a couple of fairly recent exceptions in Steph Curry and LeBron James both being 34 and 35 respectively when they won their last titles as the #1 guy). There have been plenty of really critical rotation guys well into their 30s on title teams.

On #3 - Are the Knicks deep? No so sure...you're deep until you're not I guess. Shamet and McBride have been awful in this series. The Knicks have no one like Alex Caruso or Dylan Harper coming off their bench. Both those guys are game-changers in different ways. I don't even think they have someone as good as Naz Reid was for us in this year's playoffs.

Regarding #1, Steph and LeBron, like MJ before them, are unique. But more importantly, I didn’t say you can’t win with a rotation player in his mid 30s. But when we look at the final four playoff teams this year and look at teams that have been making it to finals recently, their key rotation players, especially their two or three best players, have been predominantly in their 20s with maybe one or two in their early 30s - more the former than latter. That shouldn’t be surprising. Players are generally in their prime peak in their late 20s, sometimes extending into their early 30s. So we should expect teams with rotations largely in that age range to be more successful. There are always exceptions but those exceptions don’t change the general rule.

Regarding #3, I agree the Spurs have better depth than the Knicks. But I think the Knicks have very good depth. Yes, they might not have a bench player as good as Naz, but I think their talent runs pretty deep with Hart, Robinson and Shamet among others coming off the bench. I wouldn’t say the team with the most depth wins. If that were true, then OKC would be in the finals. My point is that all these top team have good depth, suggesting that depth is important to contending for a championship. I don’t think lack of depth was the Wolves main problem last season, but I’d still like to see the Wolves enter next season with a stronger bench - which might happen just through the development of TSJ, Beringer and Rocco. But we’ll also be hurting from the absence of Donte.

So I’ll stand by my points 1 and 3.

I'll just add that it's the Finals so teams may not play bench guys a whole lot but how much depth do you need when other than Harper the Spurs bench does so little? I mean Mitchell Robinson is averaging slightly more points per game in the series than Keldon Johnson. Lol

[Q-is-here]

Great post, Kek! Although, I’ll note that Mitchell Robinson was actually drafted by the Knicks in 2018 and KAT is actually their starting center with Robinson coming off the bench. I also think it’s not quite accurate to label Bridges a “glorified role player.” Yes, he’s not putting up impressive numbers in the Finals, but he was very good all season - playing as a starter and averaging 33 minutes per game while scoring 14.4 points on 49% FG shooting (37% from behind the arc). You can call him a role player I guess, but “glorified” is an unfair pejorative in this context.

I think your question was intended to be rhetorical but I’ll give the obvious answer anyway: Nothing generally. This is one of those anomalies in sports, as in life, that just happens. It would be a big mistake to use it as a model or example of how to do things.

However, I do think there are maybe three lessons we can take from the Knicks roster construction:

1. Lesson #1: You win with rotation players who are all in their 20s (maybe a couple in their very early 30s). As Charles Barkley has said a number of times: “It’s a young man’s game.” It’s a combination of relying on players at the top of their games physically and also to some extent being of a similar age. All the Knicks’ rotation players were acquired when in their late 20s and the two oldest players in their rotation right now are still only 30 while the majority are 27-29 years old (unless you include Clarkson, who is 33). Bridges was acquired at 28 and is now 29. Brunson was acquired at 26 and is now 29. Anunoby was acquired at 26 and is now 28 KAT was acquired at 29 and is now 30, Hart was acquired at age 27 and is now 30. Alvarado was acquired at 28 less than a year ago. Shamet was acquired at 27 and is now 28. The Knicks actually drafted Mitchell Robinson with the 36th pick in 2018. Of course the next two best teams - the Spurs and OKC - are even younger than the Knicks. The Spurs’ rotation includes Fox at age 28 and Kornet at age 30; the other rotation guys are all ages 21-26. OKC has only one rotation player over 30 - Caruso at age 32 - and their three best players are SGA (27), Jalen Willams (25), and Holmgren (24).

2. Lesson #2: You win when your best players are tough-minded. You have to give the Knicks front office credit for the types of players they’ve acquired. Yes, they acquired physically talented players, but just as importantly they acquired players who are generally tough-minded - especially Brunson, OG and Hart. I guess KAT is an exception. . But your core can have a great but generally weak-minded player like KAT if you surround him with core guys like Brunson, OG and Hart.

3. Lesson #3. You need roster depth to win. The Knicks, OKC and Spurs all have pretty deep rotations. The days are long gone (if they ever existed) when you can just rely on two or three core guys with three more good supported role players.

Lip, I disagree on two out of three points.

On #1 - I agree that your top two guys probably need to be 33 or less, but after that, all bets are off (and even then we have a couple of fairly recent exceptions in Steph Curry and LeBron James both being 34 and 35 respectively when they won their last titles as the #1 guy). There have been plenty of really critical rotation guys well into their 30s on title teams.

On #3 - Are the Knicks deep? No so sure...you're deep until you're not I guess. Shamet and McBride have been awful in this series. The Knicks have no one like Alex Caruso or Dylan Harper coming off their bench. Both those guys are game-changers in different ways. I don't even think they have someone as good as Naz Reid was for us in this year's playoffs.

Regarding #1, Steph and LeBron, like MJ before them, are unique. But more importantly, I didn’t say you can’t win with a rotation player in his mid 30s. But when we look at the final four playoff teams this year and look at teams that have been making it to finals recently, their key rotation players, especially their two or three best players, have been predominantly in their 20s with maybe one or two in their early 30s - more the former than latter. That shouldn’t be surprising. Players are generally in their prime peak in their late 20s, sometimes extending into their early 30s. So we should expect teams with rotations largely in that age range to be more successful. There are always exceptions but those exceptions don’t change the general rule.

Regarding #3, I agree the Spurs have better depth than the Knicks. But I think the Knicks have very good depth. Yes, they might not have a bench player as good as Naz, but I think their talent runs pretty deep with Hart, Robinson and Shamet among others coming off the bench. I wouldn’t say the team with the most depth wins. If that were true, then OKC would be in the finals. My point is that all these top team have good depth, suggesting that depth is important to contending for a championship. I don’t think lack of depth was the Wolves main problem last season, but I’d still like to see the Wolves enter next season with a stronger bench - which might happen just through the development of TSJ, Beringer and Rocco. But we’ll also be hurting from the absence of Donte.

So I’ll stand by my points 1 and 3.

Lip, Hart starts for the Knicks! The Knicks bench is an assortment of hard-working, but very mediocre players.

I do think part of "depth" may simply be a coach's willingness to play more guys. That is one big change Mike Brown made and it appears to have paid off with a healthy starting 5 that can execute down the stretch. Thibs smh.....