Macri’s Missives: Point guard pontifications
Macri’s Missives is a weekly column published on The Strickland where Jonathan Macri has a candid email exchange with a guest. Think of it like a written podcast. This week, Macri is joined by our very own Prez to get into the weeds of the point guards potentially available to the Knicks in the first round of the 2020 draft.
On Tue, Oct 6, 2020 at 8:07 PM Jonathan Macri wrote:
Yoooooooo, PREZ BABY!
Can you feel it? Sneaking up on you, making your fanny a little hot around the edges?
That's right... it's draft time, baby! We're now less than six weeks from the big night, which means it's draft hot take season.
I'm not usually one for hot takes, but I've thought about and overthought about this draft so many times that I feel like every new thought I have is a hot take.
Here's my latest one, and I'm curious to get your thoughts (and also hear of any hot takes you have simmering on the back burner): would it be the worst thing if the Knicks ended up with Tyrese Haliburton at No. 8?
(This trade up nonsense is a bridge too far. But if we stop looking at Hali as the point guard of the future, and merely as a smart, unselfish, versatile ball mover who's an exquisite passer and plus shooter that will improve a team from Day One, is it an easier sell?)
On Tue, Oct 6, 2020 at 10:15 PM Prez wrote:
MAC-TRUCK THROUGH MY HOUSE'S FRONT WINDOW, that's what Hali at eight would be for me. I don't think it is a hot take to say I would detest that pick. It's not even about Haliburton — who will be a fine NBA player — it's about the front office. Picking Haliburton would be the billionth instance of the Knicks drafting a player and setting him up to fail. He's not a point guard. He's a 2 with great passing skills. The hottest take I am willing to offer re: Haliburton is that he can and likely will get better at getting into the paint, if only because (as we've seen with Frank) he has nowhere to go but up in that regard. Even if he does, it's still a ridiculous pick to me.
Would it be THE WORST? No; Obi Toppin, James Wiseman, and Cole Anthony would leave me more disappointed among guys who theoretically could go at eight. Hali is fourth right behind those guys, though, for me personally.
This is the part where, as contractually obligated, I remind readers that I, Prez, truly believe that Grant Riller is worthy of a top-10 pick if a franchise is especially thirsty for a lead ball handler/point guard (and for some reason also hates Killian Hayes).
On Wed, Oct 7, 2020 at 8:54 AM Jonathan Macri wrote:
See this is why I knew I could count on you... I throw one thing in your direction and you throw like five different things back in mine.
I want to get back to Riller in a bit, because I think he's a fascinating prospect that not nearly enough people are considering as a worthy pickup for the Knicks. I also want to touch on Cole, because I feel he is the Rorschach test for Knick fans at this point.
Staying on Hali though: we agree, 100% — he's not a point guard. Or at least not a point guard who should be playing big minutes on a team without a really good wing engine/initiator.
Here's my devil's advocate argument: assuming Hayes is gone (we can also talk more about him if you like), how is picking Hali definitively worse than taking Vassell (who I'd want, for the record), or Okoro, or Pat Williams, or anyone else that isn't a potential primary ball handler down the line? They're all essentially wings (Williams skirts the line, but just go with it), which we're agreeing Hali is as well, and they all have disparate strengths, weaknesses, ceilings, and floors, which we could of course quibble over.
My point is that all of these guys are not going to be nearly as successful as they could be without a primary on the roster to help them, so where's the explicit downside in taking Hali that doesn't exist with any of the other names? And, related: if they traded for Chris Paul, how much would it change your opinion on taking Haliburton (although I should note Ian Begley's recent report here in which he seems to doubt the team would trade for Paul if it ended up taking a point guard at eight)?
On Wed, Oct 7, 2020 at 9:33 AM Prez wrote:
I did not elaborate on my distaste for one Tyrese Haliburton, merely expelled it in your general direction, forgive my haste.
[inhales deeply]
I think your framing up of Tyrese as one of many wings with different strengths and weaknesses actually makes a ton of sense, especially if we take off our Knicks hats and just speak generally — some teams may prefer a wing who can spot up very well and pass very well instead of, say, Okoro or Vassell, because of the way their team is constructed. Sensible! That is exactly how Haliburton should be viewed. If I am a team like the Hawks, Wizards, or Suns, my question is: how can I creatively mitigate his weaknesses and amplify his strengths? Those teams can push him far down the ball-handling totem pole, let him attack bent defenses with passing, spot him up in 4-point range, Kristaps and Covington style, etc... is that a better proposition than Okoro or Vassell or Pat Will? Maybe, maybe not.
That being said, let's get specific: his particular talents at the wing do not include (at least not yet) getting into the lane, shooting off the dribble or off movement AT ALL, or being very switchable. With someone like Okoro or Vassell, you see how they neatly fit into playoff wing archetypes — switchable plus-defenders who can shoot off catch or off dribble (in the case of DV) or seriously defend big wings (in the case of Okoro) and be a force in the paint on offense. For Hali, the picture is muddied, because there aren't many precedents for him — so it is possible that he could work in a playoff setting and we just haven't seen it, to be fair. But... there is a risk that we also haven't seen it because it isn't tenable.
Players who you can game plan for easily are food for competitive teams, and the game plan would be clear for Hali: deny him spot up opportunities, make him put it on the floor, and you have eliminated his scoring threats and can cover him one-on-one easily. On the other end, you target him on defense, as he is too slow too guard many NBA point guards one-on-one, and too lithe to guard wings one-on-one.
Unlike other wing prospects, the paths to him fixing those flaws is pretty complex: does he change his jumper form to be more of an off-the-dribble threat when it works so well spotting up? Working on handle is important, but that is generally acknowledged to be a 2-3 year process, without any guarantee that it even works. Defensively, he already has put on 25 lbs over the last two years; how likely is he to put on 25 more?
Putting our Knicks Hat back on, we have the additional risk of an empty point guard slot serving as a very clear path to setting him up for failure. It would exacerbate his weaknesses and mitigate his strengths. So on the whole, I think his development is a bit more of an uphill battle, and he requires perhaps as much bespoke roster construction as someone like RJ Barrett without nearly the same upside, which is why I am not a fan.
[exhales]
As for CP3's impact, having a ball-dominant guard is exactly what you want for Haliburton. The problem is, you're drafting the eighth pick presumably for more than 2021 and 2022! Picking for fit on a bad team is usually a shaky proposition, but picking for fit on a bad team with a guy who's old and might be hurt and only around for two years is just flat out crazy.
On Wed, Oct 7, 2020 at 1:27 PM Jonathan Macri wrote:
I'll tell you, sometimes I want to print out something a hoops head has written and frame it, just because the analysis is so spot on. This exploration of Hali qualifies.
I'll just add that I usually come away with one or two big takeaways when I first watch full games of a prospect. For Obi, it was, "my god, advanced NBA offenses are going to murder him." With Cole it was, "my goodness, this person is really not putting his team in the best position to succeed." And with Hali, it was, "whhhhheeerrre exactly is this dude's handle???" Thinking of him against top-notch ball pressure honestly gave me flashbacks of Jeremy Lin against the Heat. So yeah... everything you said.
As to the last point on CP3 and the point guard situation, I guess that's a good transition to my next hot take that really isn't a take, because I'm on the fence. As you know from our convos, I'm high on Killian Hayes, but there's something nagging at me, and I think it has to do with his lack of athleticism/burst and wondering if we can possibly know whether that's going to have a small impact, medium impact, or huge impact on his long-term ceiling.
On a related note, I am now all in on Devin Vassell. He's moved ahead of Okoro for me (although I'd be perfectly happy with either guy), just because I'm convinced that he is going to help teams win for a long, long time.
This has me pondering a philosophical quandary: is there, like, one efficient way to have the ceiling/floor conversation, or do we (as you did with Hali) just need to analyze each situation as it comes?
On Wed, Oct 7, 2020 at 4:36 PM Prez wrote:
Analyzing analysis: and now we have stepped into the realm of meta draft talk. STEP INTO MY OFFICE, GOOD SIR.
Looking for trends is important, but looking case by case is also important. I personally think wings and bigs are much easier to fit into existing archetypes than guards, which is why guys like Vassell and Okoro are comfort food for a Knick draftnik's soul.
In the recent piece which I tag-teamed with Tyrese on point guards and Killian, for example, we noted that picking a point guard at No. 8 and him being good from the get-go would essentially be unprecedented in the last decade — pretty much no point guards have done that. BUT, we also noted that there is nothing inherently magical about the eighth slot separating it from the sixth or seventh, and nothing magical about the data set from the last 10 years vs. the year before that (2009) where Jrue Holiday, Ty Lawson, and Jeff Teague were picked in the teens.
A good front office would conclude betting on Killian's upside at eight is still a smart move despite that, if you believe he is being underrated by multiple front offices. I mean, it's ok to put NBA staffs on a pedestal to a degree — Walt Perrin is brilliant — but twenty-one teams passed on Brandon Clarke last year. That's a pretty objective scathing indictment on league-wide competence to some degree.
Not that I want to give you, a teacher, some homework, but I really recommend this recent piece by Will Morris, co-captain of #RillerHive. He takes a deep dive into what statistical indicators might be forewarning success or failure for collegiate guards. The TL;DR is that guards with a high rate of unassisted makes at the rim coupled with at least OK perimeter shooting are very likely to find NBA success (Hi, Grant Riller and Kira Lewis) unless you absolutely can't shoot, are tiny, or both.
For players with only OK rates of unassisted makes at the rim (Hi Ant-man, Cole Anthony, Ty Terry, Ty Maxey, Malachi Flynn, and Tre Jones) they can still be solid or even great so long as the guard isn't short with mediocre athleticism. Does that short/mediocre athleticism describe most of the guards in this class? Yes, yes it does. And even those guys can still be OK in certain situations, so it's not a bulletproof rule or anything — but it's a notable meta-analysis.
So from one lawyer to another, a cop-out answer: look for trends, but don't rely on them.
On Wed, Oct 7, 2020 at 7:42 PM Jonathan Macri wrote:
Man, you give me stuff to think about...
OK, so it sounds like you'd be OK with the Knicks taking Killian at eight, BUT that your preference would be Vass or Okoro at eight and either getting Riller at 27, or using 38 and 27 (or maybe 27 and a better asset, if it took that) to move up and grab Kira.
On the Kira front, I did your homework (I am nothing if not a good student), and this paragraph stood out:
I question whether or not Kira has what it takes to be THE lead guard on a good NBA team. He has the body of Ja Morant and De'Aaron Fox, but not an ounce of their vertical explosiveness. Regardless, Kira is a lottery-level prospect. Even if he doesn't become a high-volume initiator, his spot-up shooting and first step off the catch will make him a lethal off-ball player.
On Wed, Oct 7, 2020 at 9:11 PM Prez wrote:
I feel like whenever I talk about Riller I have to caveat myself in all manner of ways, because there's no universe where he is taken in the top 15, let alone top 10. Despite being incredibly high on Riller, Killian is still the No. 2 guy on my board, so my preference at eight remains taking him if he is available regardless of who the Knicks could get at 27. As AMAZING as Vassell/Riller at 8/27 would be, you know what would be MORE amazing to me? Killian/Riller! I really don't think the Knicks are in a position to quibble about too many lead ball handlers, especially given 1) Frank's ability to man the wing spot, 2) Killian and Frank both being able to play either guard on defense, 3) the proliferation of multi-creator lineups and lastly 4) Riller's experience playing the 2 and being a pretty good spot-up shooter. JUST GIMME THE BEST PLAYERS, MACRI!
I am a little lower on Kira than Killian and Riller for the reasons Will articulated. For Kira, you are projecting passable scoring at the rim and projecting solid midrange shooting and projecting more consistent defense. With Killian, you're pretty much projecting better spot-up shooting and that's it, everything else is already there. With Riller, you're projecting... more consistent effort on defense, and maybe some slightly improved passing — all the other bomb-ass skills are already there.
That being said, any combination of Kira, Killian, Vass, Riller, and to a lesser extent Okoro would have me pretty excited. I really am a big fan of all of them, and we can split hairs about each, but to me, every prospect has a probability of outcomes depending on how various skills develop (or not), and these guys all have outcomes that are within range of each other for the most part. Any of them being the best or worst of the group wouldn't be THAT big of a surprise for me.
Your questions. I'll give you (AND OUR BEAUTIFUL READERS) a preview of my annual disrespectful comparisons article, with what I have for Riller's comps (most would say these are optimistic, but I mean what I say):
High-end Outcome: Ground-bound Donny Mitchell
Middle-tier Outcome: Young and Old Eric Gordon combined
Low-end Outcome: Less Fashionable Jordan Clarkson
Is Riller gonna be more like young or old Eric Gordon? Yes.
Old Eric Gordon had about half the vert of young, springy EG. Young EG was actually a free throw magnet, hard to keep out of the lane because of his ridiculous first step and compact strong frame. Neither Eric Gordon was ever gonna be an inspiring defender. Young Eric Gordon was making the transition from a 2 guard who can pass to a point guard before getting hurt. Old Eric Gordon had a renaissance in Houston, where he increased his 3-point rate to something more befitting a shooter of his caliber (maybe too high, lol).
If he doesn't hit, the most likely reason is pretty obvious: he shows up in the NBA vs. elite athletes and is a Trae/Sexton-level defender, without Trae-level offense and passing (or the benefit of development years ahead of him, which is about all Sexton has going for him if you ask me). His passing regresses, and he spends years bouncing around as a bench microwave scorer.
On Thu, Oct 8, 2020 at 11:45 AM Jonathan Macri wrote:
Gotta say man, you are thorough as shit. And damn precise at that. I have a few thoughts to finish us up:
- Boy would it be fucking stupid of them to pass on Killian if he's there. Like, I don't know how I'd go about defending the front office if they did such a thing, absent them acquiring a) acquiring a long-term lead initiator by other means or b) swiping Vass or Okoro at eight and then somehow coming out with Kira later.
- From what I've seen of Riller, the young/old Eric Gordon comp is spot on. I keep going back to the mega-mock-draft pod I did with like half of Draft Twitter for the Hoops Spy podcast a month or so ago, and I asked everyone where Riller would go in this draft if he were 20 years old. The answers ranged from late lottery to top-five. To me, that says you're getting a really useful player, and honestly, if someone could explain to me why Cole Anthony is a definitively better prospect than Riller, I'd be all ears.
- Speaking of Cole, I'm INCREDIBLY happy to see the report that just broke as we've been doing this exchange, which is that the Knicks are basically out on him. This isn't to say there's no world where he becomes a helpful NBA player, because I actually think there is. But there are so many red flags generally, as well as red flags specifically for his fit with the Knicks, and if they picked him, I'd be convinced that their thought process behind this draft was fucked.
(Now watch this report be nothing but a smoke screen and they take him at eight.)
On Thu, Oct 8, 2020 at 11:59 AM Prez wrote:
I wouldn't be surprised if Cole drops to one of the teams where he actually fits seamlessly — the Bucks, Mavs, Clippers, Nuggets, etc. — in which case we'd be in for a fun round of "HOW DID THEY PASS ON HIM" in 2023. But alas, those columns would be less commonplace so long as whoever we passed on him for turned out halfway decent. I really do think this is an easy draft for Leon and friends all things considered... guess we'll see.
Six weeks... six weeks... six weeks...
