[Preseason] NY Knicks VS Houston Rockets 10/9/2017

[nazrmohamed]

Probably not. And I don't wanna say Frank can't be a great player but I think its safe to admit hes never gonna be a go to player. Idk if his abilities limit him from being that you're of player but Idk that he has the mindset.

For me it's like even if Phil stayed and Frank fit in as a triangle guard, if a triangle guard is defined as a PG who isnt an attacker, doesnt look to be the primary playmaker and acts as a role player then why not just draft a non pg at that spot and then trade for a late first rounder where you can find that guy. Take Patrick Beverly. I thought hed be the perfect triangle PG. Hes a good player and by now everyone respects him as a player....... but they wouldn't take him at 8. If you're in the lottery you should be looking for your top 2 scorers or top defender. Frank may have a case for top defender but note that when I say that I mean a defensive general. Someone whose defense can influence others, not great defender on an island like even say Tony Allen. That's why typically Cs get picked that high. Where you are the linchpin. Idk that pg does that.

Now that don't mean that my argument opens the doir for Monk or Mitchell discussions. But come the F on. Dennis Smith wouldve done wonders for this team. We could've drafted the next Barron Davis.

[Championship 16/17]

There is no more triangle, and Patrick Beverley sucks. I believe in Frank and I'm willing to wait two years and deal with the growing pains. This trend of scoring PG will eventually shift to pass first PG, and Frank will spear head that trend. DSJ is a dime a dozen in the NBA, and with knee issues he will eventually cause him not to have a long career. Frank is different, and with the right coach and system in place starting in 2 years, he will be remembered. Frank is a nice piece, so is KP, who is also starting to NOT look like the main guy. And I'm okay of both not turning out to be. Hopefully our 2018 pick will be.

[spree#8]

Probably not. And I don't wanna say Frank can't be a great player but I think its safe to admit hes never gonna be a go to player. Idk if his abilities limit him from being that you're of player but Idk that he has the mindset.

For me it's like even if Phil stayed and Frank fit in as a triangle guard, if a triangle guard is defined as a PG who isnt an attacker, doesnt look to be the primary playmaker and acts as a role player then why not just draft a non pg at that spot and then trade for a late first rounder where you can find that guy. Take Patrick Beverly. I thought hed be the perfect triangle PG. Hes a good player and by now everyone respects him as a player....... but they wouldn't take him at 8. If you're in the lottery you should be looking for your top 2 scorers or top defender. Frank may have a case for top defender but note that when I say that I mean a defensive general. Someone whose defense can influence others, not great defender on an island like even say Tony Allen. That's why typically Cs get picked that high. Where you are the linchpin. Idk that pg does that.

Now that don't mean that my argument opens the doir for Monk or Mitchell discussions. But come the F on. Dennis Smith wouldve done wonders for this team. We could've drafted the next Barron Davis.

This will be an interesting post to look at in 3 to 4 years. I think you are sleeping big time on Ntilikina's potential. Knicks wouldn't have taken him if they didn't believe he would become a better player than Smith long-term. Phil knows talent, so please stop the stupid triangle argument (which BTW had nothing to do with draftexpress rating him between 5 and 10 basically all year). Ntilikina is a special talent and has nothing to do with a second rounder like Patrick Beverley. Of course our scouts can be wrong, but lately the international scouting has been very solid, so I give them the benefit of the doubt. There was a case to be made for Ntilikina having more upside, so I will patiently watch the next three to four years to see if our brass was right. I am pretty sure they had a guy like Antetokounmpo (who started averaging under 7 PPG in his first year) in the back of their mind instead of a guy like Beverley. A big point guard who can defend anyone and will develop into a go-to guy on offense. If you had watched his role for the French youth teams, you know that he has it in him.

[shakespeare]

I don't understand why Patrick Beverley is so disrespected in this thread to prove or attempt to prove a point about Ntili. Why do we as Knick fans do such a thing? On one hand, we're hoping Ntili becomes a strong defensive presence yet overly criticize Beverley who actually made First-Team All-Defensive this past season. Where's the logic?

I saw in another thread where Smith and Monk were overly criticized, although both players are having solid preseasons, unlike Ntili. Jeff Van Gundy, arguably the last best coach in New York, said he believes Monk can be a masterful scorer. Nicolas Batum said Monk reminds him of CJ McCollum.

And I'm not saying this cause I preferred Monk. New York drafted Ntili, so I'm rolling with Ntili. But anyone who says they see star potential in Ntili at this point is lying to themselves, cause I've seen nothing thus far to indicate he'll be a star in this league. My fingers are crossed that he'll eventually develop his potential, but, at this point, which is too early to tell, can I honestly say that I believe Ntili will be a star player?

Um, no.

[Don Che]

shakes....we saw 18 minutes of Frank

Monk and Smith played all games and if im not mistaken looked a lil lost in the first game or 2...PLUS they played in the USA..weve been able to see these kids play since they were 15.

Frank is the unknown..didnt play SL....played 18 minutes in preseason so essentially you saying "i havent seen enough for him to be star" can also be said that no one has seen enough to know if he'd be horrible either. None of us know.

Just enjoy it because sooner or later win/lose/draw we will all know. No reason to be so negative(not at you but overall) about the unknown.

[shakespeare]

I know Bleacher Report receives thumbs down on this site, but here's their NBA comparison for the Top 30 picks of the NBA Draft. https://www.google.com/amp/s/syndicatio ... t.amp.html

A long tweener guard from overseas who's a rough-around-the-edges playmaker? Dante Exum has to be the comparison.

Except, no.

Frank Ntilikina has more in common with Avery Bradley than Exum. The Frenchman is taller and longer, but he'll join the NBA ranks fulfilling a similar purpose.

Ntilikina isn't an official point guard, even though he's listed as one. He spends a lot of time playing off the rock, which means we can't fault him for his modest assist numbers but also cannot ticket him for instant floor-general duty.

Bradley began his Boston Celtics tenure in a pickle. He's since settled in as a situational attacker, emergency playmaker and dead-eye catch-and-fire assassin. Ntilikina can be a better version of this player if everything goes right. He shot 43.1 percent from deep on 51 attempts for Strasbourg in 2016-17 and should be able to stack up defensively with everyone from point guards to small forwards.

Ntili is compared to Avery Bradley.
Smith is compared to Eric Bledsoe.
Monk is compared to Zach Lavine.

I'll be satisfied if Ntili becomes a taller version of Bradley. To me, it's talent and skills and the situation that each player is placed that ultimately decides the level of success in the league anyway.

[taowave]

Barring injuries,I just dont see Frank having near the upside of Smith.

Smith is a dynamic athletic freak who is skilled as well...

Frank laacks supreme athleticism,and only time will tell what intangibles he possess..maybe he has Mark Jackson/John Stockton court vision. Perhaps he can posses Currys shooting skill. Thats hard to judge,but I think his lack of athleticism puts him slightly behind the 8 ball..

As for the Greek Freak,I dont see how Frank enters that conversation other than a large wingspan..There are biomechanical reasons for the Greek being a freak

Early in the 2012-13 season, 18-year-old Giannis Antetokounmpo landed on the radar of NBA scouts, shrouded in mystery. He didn't attend the combine or team workouts, so he had never been extensively measured. He had played mostly in Greece's youth system and second-tier pro league, so no one could agree on how he'd best be used in the NBA. There was only one consensus: His body was among the best scouts had ever seen.

The Bucks drafted Antetokounmpo 15th overall that year, feeling he combined big-man length with the agility of an elite guard­. Their instincts were quickly proved right: Thanks to his unique biomechanical and physiological qualities, he is one of just three players in the past decade to average 15 points, 7 rebounds, 2.5 assists and 1 block per game in his age-21 season.

To understand how Antetokounmpo's form gives way to function, we recently spent a day measuring the 6-foot-11 forward, then asked Marcus Elliott, M.D., the founder of P3 Applied Sports Science, a training center that specializes in advanced athlete assessment, to help break him down. Welcome to our tour of the NBA's ideal body.

WINGSPAN: Basketball is a game of angles; a defender isn't so much guarding his man as he is reducing the size of his angle to drive to the basket or pass to teammates. That's where wingspan factors in for Antetokounmpo, whose outstretched arms measure 7-foot-3, 4 inches more than his height. "If you have long arms, it allows you to get places faster, without having to move your feet or your center of mass," Elliott says. Antetokounmpo ranks in the top 10 in rebound rate among small forwards. The leader? Quincy Acy, whose wingspan is 9 inches longer than his height.

LATERAL MOVEMENT: "To be a great lateral mover in the NBA, you've got to have great hips," Elliott says. "That means high force, very stable and flexible." That can be challenging for an NBA big man, who can rarely get his hips low enough to create the lateral force to move like a wing player. But Antetokounmpo isn't a typical big man. He displays great hip extension and high abduction and adduction velocities, which means he's able to handle lateral motion (say, sliding side to side while defending a ball handler) faster than other athletes his size.

HEIGHT: "When we first drafted Giannis, we measured him at 6-foot-8½," Bucks GM John Hammond says. But at midseason, the Bucks' strength and conditioning coach walked into Hammond's office. "He told me, 'The kid is still growing and I don't think he's done.'" By season's end, he was 6-11. Even more remarkable is that the basketball gods gifted Antetokounmpo those extra 2½ inches of height without exacting any payment. The 6-11 Giannis is every bit as stable and agile as the shorter version. If he remains at the small forward position, he'll do so as the tallest wing in the league.

LEAN MUSCLE: Over the past 18 months, Antetokounmpo has put on an impressive amount of muscle-his weight went from 196 pounds on draft day to 222 this season. But, crucially, he's managed to do it without bulking up. "To be big is one thing, but to have muscles that are tuned to their optimal characteristics is another," says Troy Flanagan, Ph.D., the Bucks' director of performance. All that lean muscle mass allows him to generate force quickly, which gives him the agility and explosiveness that the NBA game demands.

CORE: Typically, in players of Antetokounmpo's length and power, sports scientists see core instability, but this is yet another area in which the big Greek resembles more compact players. Other long players will have stability in the sagittal plane (which divides the trunk down the middle) but not in their frontal or horizontal planes. Antetokounmpo checks all boxes. The result? The aerobatic ability to dribble the length of the floor, elevate for a rebound, fly laterally through the air for an alley-oop-all complex movements that originate from the core.

HANDS: The length of the average adult male hand, measured from the tip of the thumb to the tip of the pinkie, is 7.4 inches. For Antetokounmpo, it's 12 inches. (For reference, Kawhi Leonard's hand is 11.25 inches, and LeBron James' is 9.25.) The breadth of Antetokounmpo's hands enables him to get a strong "pinch grip" on a 29.5-inch basketball (what's commonly known as palming). Not only does palming the ball allow Antetokounmpo to gain maximum control, but by virtue of making the ball an extension of his arm, he effectively gains 2 more inches in height.


LAUNCH POWER: Sports scientists obsess about an athlete's ability to transfer energy from his landing into his next liftoff. A typical athlete needs time to regather and unwind before his body can generate the energy to get off the ground again. "Giannis doesn't have that," Elliott says. "His system can handle those giant forces. He's coming down at high velocity, and he doesn't resist it ... he's able to [turn it into] an advantage." One of the hallmarks of athleticism, transferring energy is what allows Antetokounmpo to bounce around the floor like he's on a pogo stick.


ACHILLES: The Bucks measured Antetokounmpo's Achilles tendon from the back of the heel to the belly of the calf, and, at 13.5 inches (almost double the length of the average adult male's), well: "I have never seen an Achilles like his," Flanagan says. Many sports scientists believe a long Achilles means more efficient storage and release of elastic energy. That translates to acceleration and explosive movement-exactly the sort of traits that enable Antetokounmpo to, oh, say, burst almost the entire length of the floor in two dribbles. (Seriously. Google it.) So much for Antetokounmpo's having an Achilles' heel.

This will be an interesting post to look at in 3 to 4 years. I think you are sleeping big time on Ntilikina's potential. Knicks wouldn't have taken him if they didn't believe he would become a better player than Smith long-term. Phil knows talent, so please stop the stupid triangle argument (which BTW had nothing to do with draftexpress rating him between 5 and 10 basically all year). Ntilikina is a special talent and has nothing to do with a second rounder like Patrick Beverley. Of course our scouts can be wrong, but lately the international scouting has been very solid, so I give them the benefit of the doubt. There was a case to be made for Ntilikina having more upside, so I will patiently watch the next three to four years to see if our brass was right. I am pretty sure they had a guy like Antetokounmpo (who started averaging under 7 PPG in his first year) in the back of their mind instead of a guy like Beverley. A big point guard who can defend anyone and will develop into a go-to guy on offense. If you had watched his role for the French youth teams, you know that he has it in him.

[shakespeare]

Just enjoy it because sooner or later win/lose/draw we will all know. No reason to be so negative (not at you but overall) about the unknown.

AGREED. Not negative, cause I really hope Ntili becomes a presence in this league. I'm good with the Ntili pick. But you said it best: At this point, good or bad, his "presence" is relatively unknown.

Fingers crossed.

[shakespeare]

Tao. I was scared for New York to draft Smith. Those serious knee injuries scare me. One day he may become a star in the league, who knows, but, if I were a GM, the previous knee injury would've scared me away.

I would've taken either Monk or Ntili at 8th. I wish we'd better postioned ourselves for the draft and had the opportunity to pick Fox.

[taowave]

The ACL thing scared me as well..

I think his upside is higher than Franks,but the injury factor is a concern..

Another thing is,Frank never trained or conditioned previous to his arrival here...

Hopefully he can be a solid 6'6" 215-220 when all is said and done..

Tao. I was scared for New York to draft Smith. Those serious knee injuries scare me. One day he may become a star in the league, who knows, but, if I were a GM, the previous knee injury would've scared me away.

I would've taken either Monk or Ntili at 8th. I wish we'd better postioned ourselves for the draft and had the opportunity to pick Fox.

[spree#8]

The big upside has nothing to do with athleticism, it has all to do with his potential to become a real two-way-player. Great on offense, but higher upside on defense is the case that is made for Ntilikina. Good feet, great wingspan, great vision, good shooter are the things that stand out.

[spree#8]

The ACL thing scared me as well..

I think his upside is higher than Franks,but the injury factor is a concern..

Another thing is,Frank never trained or conditioned previous to his arrival here...

Hopefully he can be a solid 6'6" 215-220 when all is said and done..

Where do you get stuff like that? I'm pretty sure his training was fine in France.

[spree#8]

Regarding my mentioning of the Greek Freak: slow start into the league, really blossoming once he knew everything he can do with his tools. A big guy for a player that can play PG. Frank's 7 feet wingspan will be freakish at the PG spot once the game slows done for him in a few years. He could be another guy that can defend the best opposing player from 1-3, so I'm really excited how he evolves. A similar development cycle doesn't mean that Frank suddenly has to jump over everyone.

[taowave]

Spree,did you see his body when he arrived here?It's obvious he did no strength training.

With Frank, we really like what we're seeing in these pickup games,” coach Jeff Hornacek said. “He's getting better and better every day. He's never had any strength training, he's just basically been playing. He's a young kid, 19 years old. He's got long arms. …We’ll just have to see going through training camp and preseason how it all shakes out.”

Where do you get stuff like that? I'm pretty sure his training was fine in France.

[taowave]

Spree,he is going to have to develop above average athleticism if he wants to be special defensively.Not saying he can't or won't as he's only 19,but he's going to have to develop physically and athletically.He needs to be a more explosive athlete.

Regarding my mentioning of the Greek Freak: slow start into the league, really blossoming once he knew everything he can do with his tools. A big guy for a player that can play PG. Frank's 7 feet wingspan will be freakish at the PG spot once the game slows done for him in a few years. He could be another guy that can defend the best opposing player from 1-3, so I'm really excited how he evolves. A similar development cycle doesn't mean that Frank suddenly has to jump over everyone.