The 2022 New York Knicks: Kemba Comes Home

[bigeastbumrush]

Re: The 2022 New York Knicks: Kemba Comes Home

I was actually looking at the PnR stats the other day and there's some interesting stuff in there.

Kemba is 3rd on the team generating .95 Points per Possesssion, good for the 73 percentile.
IQ is 2nd at 1.02 PPP, 85th percentile (he was previously in the 90s before the Atlanta game).

Number 1? Alec Burks, at 1.13 PPP, 94.6 percentile.

Thanks.

Burks is doing it mostly against a team’s 2nd unit.

I’m just not agreeing with the move because as bad as Kemba has been, he is not the problem.

RJ has regressed. That’s not Kemba’s fault.
Fournier has been bad. Again not Kemba’s fault. FWIW I’m more optimistic that Fournier will snap out of it than RJ.

Randle messes everything up. The offense has no flow. It becomes either a chuck or a turnover.

Either turn the keys over to IQ and see what happens or leave things as they are and let them play out of it.

Publicly taking a starter completely out of the rotation is crazy.

BOTP hinted that Kemba refused to play the Atlanta game. That’s the only reason I can see taking such extreme action as this.

[Hassan Darkside]

Re: The 2022 New York Knicks: Kemba Comes Home

A statistical summary of why the Knicks are pulling Kemba Walker from the rotation:

Knicks have the best defense in the league when he’s on the bench (99.0 DRtg) & are dead last (116.3 DRtg) when he’s on the floor.

They are 27th in offense with him playing, 9th with him off.

^I think that sums it up well.

The larger issue is that Kemba's style of play just doesn't fit with the team he's on and a lot of that has to do with having a ball-dominant PF that likes to score out of Isos, but they're not benching Randle. I'm skeptical of the Burks fit too because he won't get to do as much creating as he does on the second unit, since they actually share the ball.

Fournier has been breaking out of his slump so I'm not as concerned about him, but I don't see this helping RJ out very much. I wonder if Thibs plays him with the second unit more.

[bigeastbumrush]

Re: The 2022 New York Knicks: Kemba Comes Home

^I think that sums it up well.

The larger issue is that Kemba's style of play just doesn't fit with the team he's on and a lot of that has to do with having a ball-dominant PF that likes to score out of Isos, but they're not benching Randle. I'm skeptical of the Burks fit too because he won't get to do as much creating as he does on the second unit, since they actually share the ball.

Fournier has been breaking out of his slump so I'm not as concerned about him, but I don't see this helping RJ out very much. I wonder if Thibs plays him with the second unit more.

And the team has blown so many 4th quarter leads while Kemba has been on the bench.

I can’t deny the stats. And Kemba has been bad.

But Thibs got this wrong IMO. Bench the guy. Cut his minutes. But to say that he’s not even capable as a backup in this league is crazy.

I’ll gladly be proven wrong. But Randle is going to be a disaster going forward.

[DieHardYankee26]

Re: The 2022 New York Knicks: Kemba Comes Home

He could probably be a backup somewhere else, but he can’t play the 2 next to D Rose, and we already know we need him with the second unit. It’s just a bad fit.

[bigeastbumrush]

Re: The 2022 New York Knicks: Kemba Comes Home

He could probably be a backup somewhere else, but he can’t play the 2 next to D Rose, and we already know we need him with the second unit. It’s just a bad fit.

But Elf fit because he played defense?

Thibs has no idea what he’s doing. He cares more about keeping the 2nd unit in tact than actually addressing what’s really wrong with the starters as a whole.

[DieHardYankee26]

The 2022 New York Knicks: Kemba Comes Home

I don’t disagree with Elf and thought he should’ve been replaced way before he was, but I don’t think we need to make the same mistake again just to maintain consistency or whatever. There’s nothing that can really be done about Randle.

[bigeastbumrush]

Re: The 2022 New York Knicks: Kemba Comes Home

There’s nothing that can really be done about Randle.

And here lies the problem.

Everyone can see it but is unwilling to do anything about it.

Banish Kemba though.

[DieHardYankee26]

Re: The 2022 New York Knicks: Kemba Comes Home

Hey, I tried to tell y'all we should just trade him and go back to the draft but you told me we're a playoff team going forward. This is your playoff team.

[bigeastbumrush]

Re: The 2022 New York Knicks: Kemba Comes Home

Hey, I tried to tell y'all we should just trade him and go back to the draft but you told me we're a playoff team going forward. This is your playoff team.

LOL

I thought the staff would look at what happened in the Atlanta series and realize that you simply cannot run ANY offense through that dude and therefore make changes to how we do things.

I still think he should’ve been re-signed and I’m glad we got him for cheap.

But yeah this is essentially the same damn team. I said at the start of the year we can’t win a first round series.

[Hassan Darkside]

Re: The 2022 New York Knicks: Kemba Comes Home

Quickley got 38 minutes last night, which is a good sign.

In defense of Thibs, he's stubborn but not stupid. He knows that Quickley-Rose backcourt has been one of the most productive lineups in the NBA since acquiring Rose last year and is hesitant to disrupt that.

Thibs said in the press conference that he considered bringing Kemba off the bench but it didn't make sense to play 3 small guards together which was also confirmation that he didn't want to continue to take away from Quickley. That's one thing the Kemba acquisition did--added 25 unproductive minutes to the PG position forcing Quickley to play strictly the 2 off the bench.

I don't think the Elf comparison is a good one either because when you look back at our roster from last year, our point guard options were Peyton, IQ, Frank, DSJ, and Rivers prior to the Rose acquisition, all equally flawed players. Frank also had his chance to start while Elf was battling that hamstring injury and was extremely unimpressive.

[bigeastbumrush]

The 2022 New York Knicks: Kemba Comes Home

Kinda doesn’t matter to me anymore.

Elf wasn’t benched nor taken out of the rotation until the playoffs in spite of his hampering the starting unit for an entire season.

Obi got a robust 12 minutes last night.

[Hassan Darkside]

Re: The 2022 New York Knicks: Kemba Comes Home

Well RJ woke up last night, 7/8 from three. We'll see if it continues or is just an aberration.

[DieHardYankee26]

Re: The 2022 New York Knicks: Kemba Comes Home

Yeah, if he can just get back to shooting like he did towards the end of last year it would be a big help for the offense. Dude just can’t finish for **** though, it’s crazy to me. He has absolutely no touch at the rim.

They gotta stop playing and just name me GM already

https://twitter.com/DrewHanlen/status/1468623203928969216

[bigeastbumrush]

Re: The 2022 New York Knicks: Kemba Comes Home

Yeah, if he can just get back to shooting like he did towards the end of last year it would be a big help for the offense. Dude just can’t finish for **** though, it’s crazy to me. He has absolutely no touch at the rim.

They gotta stop playing and just name me GM already


https://twitter.com/DrewHanlen/statu...23203928969216

As GM, give me all the moves you make and a starting lineup.

[DieHardYankee26]

Re: The 2022 New York Knicks: Kemba Comes Home

At this point I wouldn’t even take the job because there’s so much mediocrity tied up long term there’s not really any moves to make. I can’t see anyone traded for value except for D Rose. I was worried when Randle didn’t bet on himself that we should’ve bet against him, but if anyone offered us anything for him I’d seriously consider it. My moves would’ve been made to get to the top of the lottery instead of being the first team knocked out of the playoffs. Looking at the standings, are we better than any of the 10 teams ahead of us in the East right now?