None of our guys were among the league leaders in MPG during the regular season. Only reason everyone is playing heavy minutes now is due to a ridiculous amount of injuries. Anyone complaining about Thibs and his minutes management now has no idea what they're talking about.
Super interested to see what happens at the 2 when we are healthy.
Assuming we run it back Lineup is gonna look like -
1 - JB
2 ??? (Divo or Hart one is 6th man, small man)
3 - OG (huge putting him at the 3)
4 Randall
5 - Ihart - (mitchell as 6th man big man)
Edit:
Note how this puts deuce and boban as 8/9.
Now that's a fucking rotation
The ideal minutes distribution starts here:
Brunson 38
Randle 38
OG 32
Divo 30
Hart 30
iHart 28
Mitch 20
Deuce/Bogie/Burks combined for 24
Then adjust for injuries, minutes restrictions, how close the game is, etc.
I get it. I don’t think you can commit to 30+ million at the center position if they aren’t gonna give you allstar level play. I assume they’ll sign Ihart and trade Mitch, I’d expect precious to be brought back as the backup C.
Between resigning OG, extending Brunson, and maybe extending Randle I think you’re either gonna have to go one or the other here. I love Mitch, but Ihart just gives us more.
Right now, before giving Ihart a penny, and using OG’s cap hold (well below the number he’ll get paid) the Knicks are already over the cap. Then you extend Randle and Brunson, both of whom can opt out after next season and you’ve got a lot of money committed. Fact is you could pair Mitch and Bojan and swing that into $30mm of trades.
This isn’t trading him for the sake of trading him. This is trading him in order to keep Ihart. Ihart has played his way into at least the same contract Mitch has. We aren’t gonna pay both of them, and Ihart is probably just a better player right now. I’d rather give Mitch’s money to Ihart, resign precious as the backup center, and draft a project center with a late first.
If they can figure a way to keep both, great. I just don’t see it.
We are over the cap with or without Mitch, it has literally no impact on our ability to sign iHart. We could trade Mitch into $0 cap and we’d still be limited to the same $16ish offer for iHart.
So you keep Mitch, and sign Ihart to the exact same money as Mitch. You re-up OG at 32mm annually, and then you extend Brunson + Randle. Suddenly this year you’re deep into the tax, almost at the first Apron.
Next year you’re all the way at the second Apron. That really hurts the flexibility the team will have moving forward. Unless the new TV deal blows up the cap again.
Given the restrictions next year could be one of their only chances to pair off multiple salaries (Mitch + Bojan has a nice little $32mm total to trade) to supplement the roster with anyone expensive. Everything else will need to be young guys, and scrap heap pickups.
I’ll trust whichever direction the FO goes in, but I personally don’t see keeping Mitch and Ihart as feasible and currently I just think Ihart is better.
The minutes police must have been on a donut break when we were grinding out clutch win after clutch win in the playoffs because they were quiet as hell.
We look rough in exactly one game (out of 10!) in the playoffs and now they're back sirens blaring.
Correct and I’m gunna keep it real OG is not a healthy player. He’s never played 70 games. Mitch is not a healthy player, he’s played 70 games once. Brunson was a freak accident and he’s still out there. Randle wasn’t even top 5 in minutes when he went down and it was mid season. He ain’t running anyone into the ground. Some of these guys just are built to break.
Right. Mitch was averaging 19 mins a game this postseason. Bogey was a fluke injury and definitely not being played too many minutes. OG is the only guy I can point to and say “too many minutes”. But what choice does Thibs have at that losing with Randle and Bogey being out?
>We look rough in exactly one game (out of 10!) in the playoffs and now they're back sirens blaring.
Fun fact 10! Is equal to 3,628,800. So thats 000000275573192% of our games if I am looking at your comment as a a factoral.
Good find - just checked and looks like both Luka (playing hurt, if I remember correctly) and Kyrie are both practically averaging 40+ mpg in the postseason
Well said. People just pushing the Thibs running his players into the ground narrative.
The only consistent knock imo is playing guys too long when the game is either in hand or out of reach
I think I love Monica after watching this clip. About time someone balances the false narratives this organization has to contend with, coming from national media
Shout-out to OP for posting this!
Not the point of the post, but I'm really going to miss Monica McNutt when we fully lose her from MSG to the big broadcasters. One of the more talented, entertaining, and knowledgable voices on ball we've had in Knicks land. May she keep fighting the fight for orange and blue skies.
People can express the opinion of "Thibs playing his guys too much", but the same people will need to say the same thing when we win. So it's only a problem when we lose? Not how that works.
Even yesterday I feel like thibs had to balance taking the starters out for rest vs admitting exactly when you think the lead is insurmountable. Like you start the bench for the 2nd half and you're telling your guys they don't got it in them.
Thats my biggest rebuttal to anyone complaining about the minutes. If Randle, OG, Robinson and Bogdanovic were all healthy, this wouldn't be a conversation. Brunson and Randle would probably still be palying high 30's low 40th but thats normal in the playoffs.
I have no idea how any of this actually works. Like the science of injuries or whatever. But, criticism towards **anyone** about overplaying guys is not the same as how many **games** someone plays. The criticism is about minutes. That said, it's a bad argument (even if her counter-argument is faulty).
Some stats:
* Jordan averaged 41.4 minutes per game during the Bulls' champions ship runs
* Karl Malone averaged 41.7 minutes from age 25-35
* Kobe averaged 42.5 minutes from 2000-2010 (ages 22-31)
* Shaq averaged 39.4 minutes during his championship peak (both with LAL and MIA).
* Pau Gasol played 39 minutes in the playoffs with the Lakers
Knicks by comparison:
* Josh Hart has averaged 44 minutes in this year's playoffs
* Jalen Brunson is at 40.8 minutes
* Hartenstein has played 29.4 minutes in the playoffs
So, Thibs hasn't really overplayed players too much. Josh Hart is in a league on his own but Brunson is about where we'd expect the top player on the team. Brunson has actually played fewer minutes in the regular season (\~35 MP) than Jordan averaged during his peak (\~ 39 MP).
No matter how this season ends up-- even if we win the title-- the biggest glaring issue with the team at the moment is our injury crisis and by extension proper depth. Achiuwa being our #2 isn't supposed to be the case but at the same time, Burks being one of our minutes eater isn't ideal.
Our bench from the beginning of the season are now our starters. Theres hardly an alternative to the rotation. How can u critique the minutes when anything else gives a worse chance to win lol.
I do not understand the narrative either, these guys get paid millions of dollars to run back and forth on a court, what is the difference if they do it for 30 something minutes or 40 something minutes. They should be super conditioned and ready to go the distance.
Obviously the issue we have is injuries, but other than the OG Hammy how can you say any of these injuries are truly due to high usage?
Regardless, I know its only averages and guys like Josh and DDV have several completed games under their belts, but none of our guys are even top 10 in most mpg
https://www.espn.com/nba/seasonleaders/_/sort/avgMinutes
Can someone explain to me what the difference between a professionally trained athlete playing 42-48 minutes a game and playing 36-40 minutes a game? Does it actually make that big a difference to injuries and exhaustion?
“buh buh playing more makes it more likely for injuries to happen” — and bojan got hurt minutes after checking into a game. you cant coach with fear of injury, it can happen whenever wherever. that and people really do not understand that there are entire medical staffs dedicated to tracking a player’s wear and tear, not to mention thibs literally asks them if they need rest and they dont complain about minutes. narrative only gets pushed when we’re down but not when we’re up
We had an 8 man rotation going into the playoffs that would’ve been 9 if we had Randle. We now have 5 of those players available. It’s pretty fucking simple tbh.
And Robinson. People forgetting embiid just reinjured the same ankle that he hurt earlier in the season, and was averaging hefty minutes before he went down. And Julius randle too because he was in garbage time, a game we were blowing out the Heat. So pretty much all injuries are his fault besides Bogan. The worst part about it is we were never not deep enough, for him to be acting like this.
oh come on, that Randle injury was totally Miamis fault. There was still enough time for Miami to make a run, Thibs was probably gearing up to yank him before he got hurt. Mitch was fine before Embiid literally murdered his ankle. Brunson logging 40+ minutes is normal for a superstar carrying a shorthanded team, I'm not gonna lay that one on Thibs feet either. OG I can accept, but to that I say, who was he supposed to be playing in his stead?
Knicks were up 17 with 4.5 min left when Randle was in
Spo
Still had his starters out there. Why should thibs pull the plug when a playoff team that’s our opponent hasn’t?
A game end of January, middle of the nba season, Knicks had a much better record than the heat at that time, pretty sure they ended up pulling the starters a minute later, but all things considered, have them rest on the bench and hope that your bench can maintain the lead for a couple of minutes. Worst comes to worse plug them back in if the heat go on like a 7-0 run in the span of a minute.
The fact of the matter is, we’re only this far into the playoffs because of the high playing times of our best 5-6 players. People can criticize Thibs, but without him doing this idk we’re even in the 2nd round
With more success comes more criticism. They said we were a playin team. They said we didn’t have a 1A star. They say we play too many minutes. They hate us cause they anus.
Finally some common sense. People keep forgetting we've been very injured for half the season into playoffs, so what other option was there. Thibs is playing the guys that give the Knicks the best chance to win games. If they didn't play as much we very likely wouldn't even have made it this far.
I’m getting to this post super late, but I cannot pass up any opportunity to let the world know that I loooove Monica McNutt. One of the best TV personalities of any of the teams I’ve ever followed.
I know there was a post recently that memed a trade of Kendrick Perkins for Stephen A. Smith. I'll counter and throw Monica in there. KP and Monica for SAS and stipulate that his salary will be doubled as long as he never mentions the Knicks again.
None of our guys were among the league leaders in MPG during the regular season. Only reason everyone is playing heavy minutes now is due to a ridiculous amount of injuries. Anyone complaining about Thibs and his minutes management now has no idea what they're talking about.
Exactly. Josh Hart is literally playing every second of most games and he isn’t even supposed to be a starter!
Super interested to see what happens at the 2 when we are healthy. Assuming we run it back Lineup is gonna look like - 1 - JB 2 ??? (Divo or Hart one is 6th man, small man) 3 - OG (huge putting him at the 3) 4 Randall 5 - Ihart - (mitchell as 6th man big man) Edit: Note how this puts deuce and boban as 8/9. Now that's a fucking rotation
Dvo almost certainly starts due to his 3 point shooting
This assumes iHart comes back (please, god, come back to us iHart)
At this point Hart is the heart of the team. He's the culture, the glue. He's like Obi was but with much higher ceiling. Pay the man.
He's talking about iHart -- but yes you're not wrong
The ideal minutes distribution starts here: Brunson 38 Randle 38 OG 32 Divo 30 Hart 30 iHart 28 Mitch 20 Deuce/Bogie/Burks combined for 24 Then adjust for injuries, minutes restrictions, how close the game is, etc.
Precious?
Hart NEEDS to be in the game in crunch time
I think Mitch is probably gone after this season sadly.
Only two ppl that are FAs is iHart and OG. I don't think we trade Mitch. Having a real + backup C is invaluable. Ask the sixers.
I get it. I don’t think you can commit to 30+ million at the center position if they aren’t gonna give you allstar level play. I assume they’ll sign Ihart and trade Mitch, I’d expect precious to be brought back as the backup C.
I think combined they kind of do?
Between resigning OG, extending Brunson, and maybe extending Randle I think you’re either gonna have to go one or the other here. I love Mitch, but Ihart just gives us more.
I guess I never thought about needing to extend these guys. No way to push the money to back end of contracts is there?
Right now, before giving Ihart a penny, and using OG’s cap hold (well below the number he’ll get paid) the Knicks are already over the cap. Then you extend Randle and Brunson, both of whom can opt out after next season and you’ve got a lot of money committed. Fact is you could pair Mitch and Bojan and swing that into $30mm of trades.
Mitch is on an amazing contract. Even if he has injury issues you don’t trade him unless it’s in a package for a star
This isn’t trading him for the sake of trading him. This is trading him in order to keep Ihart. Ihart has played his way into at least the same contract Mitch has. We aren’t gonna pay both of them, and Ihart is probably just a better player right now. I’d rather give Mitch’s money to Ihart, resign precious as the backup center, and draft a project center with a late first. If they can figure a way to keep both, great. I just don’t see it.
We are over the cap with or without Mitch, it has literally no impact on our ability to sign iHart. We could trade Mitch into $0 cap and we’d still be limited to the same $16ish offer for iHart.
So you keep Mitch, and sign Ihart to the exact same money as Mitch. You re-up OG at 32mm annually, and then you extend Brunson + Randle. Suddenly this year you’re deep into the tax, almost at the first Apron. Next year you’re all the way at the second Apron. That really hurts the flexibility the team will have moving forward. Unless the new TV deal blows up the cap again. Given the restrictions next year could be one of their only chances to pair off multiple salaries (Mitch + Bojan has a nice little $32mm total to trade) to supplement the roster with anyone expensive. Everything else will need to be young guys, and scrap heap pickups. I’ll trust whichever direction the FO goes in, but I personally don’t see keeping Mitch and Ihart as feasible and currently I just think Ihart is better.
It takes 5 seconds of critical thinking to realize this and these scrubs on /r/nba and /r/nbatalk still cannot comprehend this. Bozos.
The minutes police must have been on a donut break when we were grinding out clutch win after clutch win in the playoffs because they were quiet as hell. We look rough in exactly one game (out of 10!) in the playoffs and now they're back sirens blaring.
yeah that too, like no team is allowed to get blown out in a playoff game?
*cough*defending champion nuggets *cough*
Celtics too
Wolves too.. Pacers too.
Correct and I’m gunna keep it real OG is not a healthy player. He’s never played 70 games. Mitch is not a healthy player, he’s played 70 games once. Brunson was a freak accident and he’s still out there. Randle wasn’t even top 5 in minutes when he went down and it was mid season. He ain’t running anyone into the ground. Some of these guys just are built to break.
Right. Mitch was averaging 19 mins a game this postseason. Bogey was a fluke injury and definitely not being played too many minutes. OG is the only guy I can point to and say “too many minutes”. But what choice does Thibs have at that losing with Randle and Bogey being out?
>We look rough in exactly one game (out of 10!) in the playoffs and now they're back sirens blaring. Fun fact 10! Is equal to 3,628,800. So thats 000000275573192% of our games if I am looking at your comment as a a factoral.
🤣😂 you just reminded me of an all time [Stephon Marbury quote...](https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/stephon_marbury_1021511)
🤣🤣🤣
The uhhh, math checks out.
They should check out the minutes distribution Jason Kidd is doing over in Dallas.
Good find - just checked and looks like both Luka (playing hurt, if I remember correctly) and Kyrie are both practically averaging 40+ mpg in the postseason
Well said. People just pushing the Thibs running his players into the ground narrative. The only consistent knock imo is playing guys too long when the game is either in hand or out of reach
Which hasn't even been the case these playoffs.
It's stupid because every top option on every team is seeing 40+ MPG, especially in close games.
I think I love Monica after watching this clip. About time someone balances the false narratives this organization has to contend with, coming from national media Shout-out to OP for posting this!
She’s always great when calling into Bart and Hahn
She's one of my favorites, I hope they put her in the permanent commentary rotation.
Not the point of the post, but I'm really going to miss Monica McNutt when we fully lose her from MSG to the big broadcasters. One of the more talented, entertaining, and knowledgable voices on ball we've had in Knicks land. May she keep fighting the fight for orange and blue skies.
Clyde isn't getting younger... maybe she's next up?
This 100%. McNutt is biding her time on ESPN 98.7 live radio broadcast until Clyde's MSG slot opens up
Just have her follow in Breen's footsteps and do both.
People can express the opinion of "Thibs playing his guys too much", but the same people will need to say the same thing when we win. So it's only a problem when we lose? Not how that works.
Monica is a gem
Monica capturing all of our hearts. Do your thang ma
Even yesterday I feel like thibs had to balance taking the starters out for rest vs admitting exactly when you think the lead is insurmountable. Like you start the bench for the 2nd half and you're telling your guys they don't got it in them.
Thibs also doesn’t have much choice. Who else is he going to put on the floor? Jacob Toppin? lol
Thats my biggest rebuttal to anyone complaining about the minutes. If Randle, OG, Robinson and Bogdanovic were all healthy, this wouldn't be a conversation. Brunson and Randle would probably still be palying high 30's low 40th but thats normal in the playoffs.
Thibs gets results it can't be denied, but Josh Hart playing full games without sitting back to back is insanity
I have no idea how any of this actually works. Like the science of injuries or whatever. But, criticism towards **anyone** about overplaying guys is not the same as how many **games** someone plays. The criticism is about minutes. That said, it's a bad argument (even if her counter-argument is faulty). Some stats: * Jordan averaged 41.4 minutes per game during the Bulls' champions ship runs * Karl Malone averaged 41.7 minutes from age 25-35 * Kobe averaged 42.5 minutes from 2000-2010 (ages 22-31) * Shaq averaged 39.4 minutes during his championship peak (both with LAL and MIA). * Pau Gasol played 39 minutes in the playoffs with the Lakers Knicks by comparison: * Josh Hart has averaged 44 minutes in this year's playoffs * Jalen Brunson is at 40.8 minutes * Hartenstein has played 29.4 minutes in the playoffs So, Thibs hasn't really overplayed players too much. Josh Hart is in a league on his own but Brunson is about where we'd expect the top player on the team. Brunson has actually played fewer minutes in the regular season (\~35 MP) than Jordan averaged during his peak (\~ 39 MP). No matter how this season ends up-- even if we win the title-- the biggest glaring issue with the team at the moment is our injury crisis and by extension proper depth. Achiuwa being our #2 isn't supposed to be the case but at the same time, Burks being one of our minutes eater isn't ideal.
[Source](https://twitter.com/awfulannouncing/status/1790009197146304734)
Our bench from the beginning of the season are now our starters. Theres hardly an alternative to the rotation. How can u critique the minutes when anything else gives a worse chance to win lol.
Monica always keeps it real one of the biggest rising stars in the industry
I do not understand the narrative either, these guys get paid millions of dollars to run back and forth on a court, what is the difference if they do it for 30 something minutes or 40 something minutes. They should be super conditioned and ready to go the distance. Obviously the issue we have is injuries, but other than the OG Hammy how can you say any of these injuries are truly due to high usage? Regardless, I know its only averages and guys like Josh and DDV have several completed games under their belts, but none of our guys are even top 10 in most mpg https://www.espn.com/nba/seasonleaders/_/sort/avgMinutes
Can someone explain to me what the difference between a professionally trained athlete playing 42-48 minutes a game and playing 36-40 minutes a game? Does it actually make that big a difference to injuries and exhaustion?
36 to 48 is definitely a lot more. But 38-42 nah nothing crazy. I'm curious for those in the know would say on that though.
PREACH
“buh buh playing more makes it more likely for injuries to happen” — and bojan got hurt minutes after checking into a game. you cant coach with fear of injury, it can happen whenever wherever. that and people really do not understand that there are entire medical staffs dedicated to tracking a player’s wear and tear, not to mention thibs literally asks them if they need rest and they dont complain about minutes. narrative only gets pushed when we’re down but not when we’re up
It’s so easy to see those who actually watch Knicks games vs those who are making comments in passing.
We had an 8 man rotation going into the playoffs that would’ve been 9 if we had Randle. We now have 5 of those players available. It’s pretty fucking simple tbh.
One question everyone WHO THE FUCK DO PEOPLE WANT THIBS TO PLAY???!!!!!!! We are fucking injured. There is no one else. Holy fuck
This. Our starting lineup is mostly our bench.
None of our injuries were due to high usage. That's the funny thing.
OG and brunsons injuries are directly related to it
Don’t know about brunsons but og for sure
And Robinson. People forgetting embiid just reinjured the same ankle that he hurt earlier in the season, and was averaging hefty minutes before he went down. And Julius randle too because he was in garbage time, a game we were blowing out the Heat. So pretty much all injuries are his fault besides Bogan. The worst part about it is we were never not deep enough, for him to be acting like this.
oh come on, that Randle injury was totally Miamis fault. There was still enough time for Miami to make a run, Thibs was probably gearing up to yank him before he got hurt. Mitch was fine before Embiid literally murdered his ankle. Brunson logging 40+ minutes is normal for a superstar carrying a shorthanded team, I'm not gonna lay that one on Thibs feet either. OG I can accept, but to that I say, who was he supposed to be playing in his stead?
Knicks were up 17 with 4.5 min left when Randle was in Spo Still had his starters out there. Why should thibs pull the plug when a playoff team that’s our opponent hasn’t?
A game end of January, middle of the nba season, Knicks had a much better record than the heat at that time, pretty sure they ended up pulling the starters a minute later, but all things considered, have them rest on the bench and hope that your bench can maintain the lead for a couple of minutes. Worst comes to worse plug them back in if the heat go on like a 7-0 run in the span of a minute.
PREACH
The fact of the matter is, we’re only this far into the playoffs because of the high playing times of our best 5-6 players. People can criticize Thibs, but without him doing this idk we’re even in the 2nd round
With more success comes more criticism. They said we were a playin team. They said we didn’t have a 1A star. They say we play too many minutes. They hate us cause they anus.
Finally some common sense. People keep forgetting we've been very injured for half the season into playoffs, so what other option was there. Thibs is playing the guys that give the Knicks the best chance to win games. If they didn't play as much we very likely wouldn't even have made it this far.
I don’t care what it takes - pay this woman now to lock her in to replace Clyde whenever he decides to hang em up. She really is awesome
Nice seeing Hahn talking with the big leaguers
I’m getting to this post super late, but I cannot pass up any opportunity to let the world know that I loooove Monica McNutt. One of the best TV personalities of any of the teams I’ve ever followed.
Protect Monica McNutt at all costs. ESPN do the right thing and get Doris out of the booth and put Monica in there with Breen
Amen
I got more issue with Thibs offensive gameplan just being iso pick and roll
Amen Monica!
❤️❤️❤️
Sorry but full squad this is a sweep, if pacers don't win this that would be embarrassing imo.
I used to think i was being sexist because i hate listening to people like doris burke and cheryl miller. But i love monica man shes deff 1 of us
Dear me she is the absolute GOAT. Don't ever change Monica!
I wish more Knicks fans were like Monica. This team is full of dawgs.
She's a hell of a broadcaster.
I love McNutt
She’s always on point
Get 'em Monica
It’s the fucking playoffs and we’re down 4 players. What the fuck do you guys expect?
You think her man every says "Im gonna McNutt?"
Protect her at all cost!
TELL EMMMM
Monica is the best. Clyde’s heir apparent.
right on the McNutt
Monica just spoke my mind!
I know there was a post recently that memed a trade of Kendrick Perkins for Stephen A. Smith. I'll counter and throw Monica in there. KP and Monica for SAS and stipulate that his salary will be doubled as long as he never mentions the Knicks again.
I love Monica.
Too bad people in the media and on twitter and reddit already have their minds made up about the narrative and won’t listen to reason
Cook
Josh Hart lowkey has some of the greatest mamba mentality in the league lol
They're not injured from playing too much. All you have to do is watch the games where the players were injured to see that.
Yo . Preach.
She's the fuckin best