Cohen is such a monster for making this presentation. If you have time and want to get in the weeds, listen to each segment—-it’s like a 5+ hour work.
TL; DW?
RJ, Obi, Fournier, Wiz protected 1st and NYK unprotected ’24 first for Lavine. Slightly superior defender to RJ, worlds better offensively in every way, most particularly as a pull up 3pt shooter.
Package ducks Bulls under the tax.
Longer view is that the org goes from RJ–Lavine–star—player, moves the team incrementally toward that end.
Also profiles Lavine as the guard version of an efficient Julius.
What say yall?
by Struggle2Real
12 Comments
No
Lavine’s elite offensive game I think has been masked by a combination of:
1. Bad teams overall
2. His ACL tear (although he is coming off a 77 games played season)
3. Inconsistent defense, which probably is being generous
Probably in that order.
There were a total of 10 guys last year who scored 24 PPG, > 46% overall and > 38% from 3. Lavine was one of them. Brunson actually was another.
I think he solves a massive need for the team in terms of shot creation and shooting, and overall was a better defender than RJ.
He is NOT someone you give the godfather offer to, but I’d absolutely trade RJ, a pick or two, and maybe Obi.
As long as we don’t give up anything crazy (RJ, Obi and no unprotected pick more than a year out). I wouldn’t be opposed to Zach.
He is an elite shooter that this team needs. I just don’t trust his health, defense and actual impact on winning. Doubt he’s available this offseason though because the Bulls are committed to mediocrity and them blowing it up now would be such a huge stain on that front office.
I’d prefer to run this team back one more time to get some more information on players (was RJ’s postseason legit, can Randle and IQ play in the playoffs, will Grimes take a leap?). And I think this team could be scary with a full season of continuity.
Lavine is just Obi with playing time.
I will be sick if this is the “BIG” move we’ve been working towards the last few years.
Really great watch if u have the time but basically say how the stats show how disappointing RJ has been this entire season. Just about regressed in every metric but did play better in the playoffs. The main point to me was how the Knicks should have their sights on Lavine who’s a flawed star player but has has potential to be better.
Nah, Lavine could stay where he’s at. Imo he would have been a good addition before we acquired brunson. But those two together don’t seem like a good fit, especially defensively. Lavine is not a good defender at all. Somehow worse than RJ, who at least has been better in that regard in the past And did show up for the team defensively during this seasons playoff run. Also Lavine makes entirely too much money. Between 40-50 mil every year on his contract. It’s prob going to cost you more to pay him than RJ and IQ combined. I don’t understand the fascination w players like Lavine and Kat who make an absorbent amount of money and don’t win big games.
I want LaVine but he might be a mid-season trade. We still don’t know what direction the Bulls are going in and due to their lack of draft capital from the Vuc trade, they might stubbornly run it back.
It might take another mediocre season for the Bulls to ship out LaVine.
But if you get LaVine without shipping out IQ or Grimes, you absolutely do it. You might need more than 1 FRP to pull it off tho.
Thanks for posting this, I posted a bit of the theory in the daily but didn’t make it to what their package would be.
My thought: I’m thinking back to when Thibs first got hired, he talked about those high value shots: free throws, corner 3s. RJ’s benefit to the offense is his driving, he generates a shitton of drives and we know how important his FT shooting is to his success. I need some advanced stats on number of drives per game, shot type comparison, plays ran, etc. but the FTs per game generated between RJ and Zach are close (no need to talk about the gap in FT%), add in how from the corner 3 ZL is lifetime 44.5 and 48.3% (compared to RJ, 37.8 and 34.3, even in comparison to Spida…38.6 and 40.8, and for fun, Jaylen 35.8 and 43.5).
The hope is that RJ becomes a comparable offensive producer to Zach, but honestly, the way it gets done is likely strikingly different. Zach’s shooting is too far ahead and fits needs we have. If we’re talking about championship level construction, Brunson and Lavine seem like a 1A/1B offensive punch at bare minimum, defensive issues are there, and I don’t think Randle is the right third piece, but offensively…it aligns things with the starting unit this season and you get two guys who can produce in a bunch of different systems.
Lavine is the perfect fit.
If we got Lavine im sure thibs could get Randle to play consistent defensively now that his load is lower offensively.
First of all, I gotta say that I hate how convincing Jeremy Cohen is LOL. The way he presents it, a Lavine trade makes a lot of sense, but I hate to admit it because I really love RJ and Obi and want to see them here long term. It’s obvious that we have to move either RJ or Randle, and I would rather trade Randle. RJ showed some really great flashes during the playoffs and he’s still so young, I want to see if he can continue to grow.
There are two follow-up questions I would want to ask him:
1. The whole “Cap Or No Cap” is framed as what you think the Knicks *will* do based on what they’ve done in the past. If you were the owner, president, GM of the Knicks, what would you *want* to do?
2. Trading RJ+Obi for Lavine opens up a hole at the backup PF position and leaves the Knicks with just enough room to sign someone with the MLE and stay under the tax. Which MLE player do the Knicks sign to fill that backup PF spot?
We need to stay the hell away from Zach.