JALEN BRUNSON
The Real Deal
Relaxing everyone on the floor. Julius still makes me cringe when he hoists threes, but is faciltating, looking out for R.J. and going to the rack with some force, as befits a mass of muscle not located between his ears.
JALEN is setting the tone. SETTING AN EXAMPLE
For instance: 9-9 from the FT line. Knicks as a team were 27-28 against Indiana.
Hello. Trust we've heard the last of the Donovan Mitchell bleatings. And we still have R.J, IQ, Obi and Grimes. HELLO.
A SURFEIT OF POINT GUARDS
Brunson, Rose, Quickley, McBride [Arcidiacano?]
Interesting that at one point Thibs had IQ, Deuce, Rose, Obi and Hartenstein out on the floor at the same time.
Deuce still needs work on his shot and shot selection, but I waited the better part of a year to see him nail a pair of consecutive three pointers
CHEMISTRY
R.J. and Julius
CHEMISTRY
IQ and Obi
THREE HEADED CENTER
Mitchell [19], IH [16], Jericho [13]
Looks like Jericho WILL get some burn
CAM
Struggling with his shot, but Thibs held out hope if not a gift basket to him in his post-game, talking of
doing some other things well.
DEUCE
Has clearly gotten coach's attention. Tough. A Pest. Thibs brushed off the intimation that there was no room for Deuce in his rotation.
R.J.
Playing like he is part of a BIG THREE. Still needs to work on his midrange game and shots off the bounce, but his three looks good, and so far has been hitting his FTs.
JULIUS
Need to dial in his jumper if he is going to keep lauching threes, but he looks focused.
OBI
Thibs has been very even steven about divving up minutes at the PF spot, and notes how Obi has a ways to go on defense, but acknowledged his improvement, and spoke of the pace he has been playing with. Like Hahn said, you want minutes? DEMAND THEM.
THIBS
We'll see how his rotations shake out in the real season, but reasons to be hopeful, and you can see he has the troops' on the same page. CONTINUITY & CHEMISTRY & CORE OF YOUTH. We are defending better and playing with more pace, certainly his coach on the floor, Brunson, letting us see another side of TT.
Hey, Detroit and Indiana AIN'T MEMPHIS, so there's that. But we seem to be progressing.
BEST TRADES ARE OFTEN THE ONES YOU DO NOT MAKE
Heh
POSTSCRIPTS
Keels and Hunt look headed for Westchester.
Mykhailiuk has nice size at 6'7" and can really fucking shoot. Arcidiacono too, who also has that connection with Brunson. If I were a betting man, I'd say they are front runners, though Hunt offers additional size, athleticism AND depth at PF and SF. Remains to be seen how Cam progresses and if Thibs feels comfortable penciling him in at SF-SG-PF.
Harris and Jeffries have skills to reccommend them as well.
Interesting decisions afoot for the final two spots.
C: Robinson, Hartenstein, Sims
PF: Randle, Toppin
SF: RJ, Reddish
SG: Fournier, Grimes, Mykhailiuk
PG: Brunson, IQ, Rose, McBride, Arcidiacono