The Final Season Where We Hope The Knicks Tank In Order To Get A Great Draft Pick Tips Off Tonight!
Now THAT is how you get a fanbase excited for a season! While Greenie and Smitty have visions of NBA championships dancing in their heads, I’m out here trying to sell hope to a fanbase that cowers in fear whenever that four-letter word in mentioned because hope is usually the last feeling that runs through our bodies before the basketball gods swing the sword through our necks out of the blue.
Ooof that was a really dark way to start the blog. Positive vibes only from here on out. Actually lets get noted Knicks fan and blowhard Stephen A. Smith’s take on how he feels about the upcoming season.
Okay, positive vibes only starting……
NOW!!!
– After a Summer League that had us inducting multiple rookies into Springfield, the Kevin Knox hype train slowed down a bit in the preseason, which is probably the best for all parties involved. While I didn’t actually think he could become an All NBA player in his rookie season because he had a couple of awesome dunks and heat checks, I also wasn’t going to say he definitely couldn’t. Averaging 8/6/4 in the preseason brought expectations about to where they should be while also shutting up the fucking idiots that booed him on draft night. Is this me spinzoning those preseason numbers? Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe fuck yourself.
– The Mitchell Robinson hype train took a hit as well as it went under repair like countless subway trains in the city. Again, there is still a chance he is Hassan Whiteside without the off court issues. Or he is Hassan Whiteside with the off court issues as evidenced by his decision to go to Western Kentucky then ghost from Western Kentucky right as the season started. Regardless, Mitchell Robinson has done shit on defense that has jumped off the screen and caused him to become the player Knicks fans will bother other fan bases with when they tweet out every highlight he does while Kristaps Porzingis is recovering from a torn ACL. But still, plays like this are extremely impressive. Hopefully they keep coming once the games start counting.
– Speaking of Kristaps, I hope the Knicks take their time with him and allow him to rest up while also piling up the losses necessary for a good spot in the lottery. Granted you would think any team with a brain would do that with such an important franchise player. But regardless of the seemingly smart moves the Knicks have made as of late, they are still the fucking Knicks owned by James Dolan. Never let your guard down.
– Allonzo Trier had #KnicksTwitter feeling itself a couple of times this preseason. It’s always nice to have a talented player with a chip on his shoulder looking to prove something. I also don’t have enough room to believe in 3 rookies panning out for the Knicks, but I’m happy Trier is here for what it’s worth.
– I’m not sure if it’s just me, but I feel like Frank Ntilikina has been a Knick for like three seasons already. Nope, he had a pretty uneventful rookie season where he didn’t show much on offense but is a goddamn nightmare of opposing teams on defense since he can guard multiple positions with his Mr. Fantastic arms. Knicks fans didn’t think he got enough burn last year during a lost season and they (us) were probably right. Luckily Coach Fiz is throwing him into the fire right off the bat.
More on who liked that post later. But I do like Frankie as a nightmare defender for other teams to deal with, even if his offensive game doesn’t develop. Then again, he is 20 years old and only in his 2nd year in the NBA. Lets all agree that the jury is out on whether he can become better on that end of the floor. The most important thing is that we know he won’t take any shit from anyone. Anybody that tries to push LeBron out of the way after he disparaged your good name by saying Dennis Smith Jr. should have been drafted in your spot is cool with me.
– I never had any hate in my heart for Jeff Hornacek because hating someone as vanilla as Jeff Hornacek just seems weird. But I am stoked to have a coach with the approval rating and coolness factor of David Fizdale. Lets watch the “Take that for data” video and imagine the media feeding frenzy Fiz would create if he does this in New York.
Lets also pray that Fiz and the front office is smart enough not to try to win the games in April that we always win that ends up bumping us back like 3 spots in the lottery.
– I feel like every season the Knicks start out decent, everything is going fine, and then our season ends on Christmas Day after our guts get ripped out. Luckily I don’t think we will be good enough for us to build ourselves up too highly. But since the NBA Gods put us on Christmas Day during what everyone is expecting to be Giannis’ MVP season, we can expect all the hype before and during the game to be a full blown knob job. I hope whoever ESPN’s D crew is are ready to answer the Greek Freak’s bell.
– I don’t really have much to say about veterans like Courtney Lee, Tim Hardaway Jr. and Enes Kanter other than I hope they play well enough to give themselves some trade value so the Knicks can move them and build something for the future with Frankie, Knox, Porzingis, Robinson, and whoever takes that max contract slot but not well enough that the Knicks contend for the 8 seed in a season where they will not win the title and instead should be tanking for the first pick.
– The NBA instituting the new lottery rules making it not worth to tank as much during the year where the Knicks best player will be out at least half the season is so Knicks I want to cry and maybe throw up a little.
The NBA Board of Governors today approved changes to the NBA Draft Lottery system that will reduce the odds so that the teams with the three worst records will share the same chance of receiving the No. 1 overall draft pick. The modifications to the NBA Draft Lottery will be implemented for the 2019 NBA Draft. Under the revamped format, the NBA Draft Lottery will ensure that the team with the worst record will receive no worse than the fifth pick. In the current lottery system, which will remain in place for the 2018 NBA Draft, the team with the worst record picks no lower than fourth.
The new system will level the odds at the top of the NBA Draft Lottery so that the teams with the three worst regular-season records will each have a 14 percent chance of winning the lottery. In the current structure, the top seed has 25 percent of the lottery odds, the second seed has 19.9 percent and the third seed has 15.6 percent. The odds for the remaining participants in the 14-team lottery will be reduced gradually after the top three. For instance, the difference in lottery odds between the first three seeds (14 percent) and the fourth seed (12.5 percent) will be 1.5 percent. The difference between the fourth seed and the fifth seed (10.5 percent) will be 2 percent, and the difference between the fifth seed and the sixth seed (9 percent) will be 1.5 percent.
– Even though I am praying for a tank, I honestly don’t know if there is a specific player I want yet other than who Reags tells me. RJ Barrett seems like a fine young man. Cam Reddish could be a stud. And I have loved Zion Williamson ever since I saw him dunking on scared high school kids a decade ago. And that’s just Duke’s three best freshmen. I guess the Warriors broke all of basketball instead of just the NBA?
– Speaking of the Warriors, I am rooting for them to dominate this season. Like dominate like no team, including the Warriors, have ever done. 74 wins, a title, no bullshit along the way that has people calling for asterisks. I want a clean title so Kevin Durant feels like he has nothing left to prove there and at least has the thought go through his head of trying to save the biggest joke franchise in the NBA this century from despair under James Dolan.
Sorry, I started getting dark again there. Here are two videos to get you hyped for what feels like a weird season.
Oh yeah and I can’t forget Mrs. Fizz!