ON THE DETERIORATION OF VIBES

Here are some brief thoughts about this season in advance of the trade deadline. If you guys like this, let me know, and maybe I’ll make it a regular thing.

This season has been difficult to process. Thibs’ rotations. Randle’s willful surliness. The team that won our hearts last year with a Cinderella playoff push has lost our hearts just as quickly. One thing is clear to me: the lows this year feel so low only because the highs last year were so high.

As Jonathan Macri and others were apt to point out, we were right to enjoy last year as much as we did as it happened, because no season would feel quite as sweet as a season in which a team with little expectations vastly outperformed those expectations.

And yet, given that, how should we process this season, which has been an utter slog to watch as a fan? As some point out, our winning percentage is close, more or less, to where it was before the Derrick Rose trade of last season; after that trade, as we know, wins were aplenty and vibes were at an all-time high. This year, Derrick Rose has been sidelined for several weeks, and it was largely during his absence that the vibes deteriorated. Yet the idea that the addition of Rose will somehow spark a sequel to our Cinderella story of last year feels like a facile, false hope.

I’m not in the business of selling hollow optimism to fellow fans. In order to process something, one must be honest with oneself about the reality of their situation. The reality is that this year isn’t all bad. Here are some positives, to get them out of the way:

-Quentin Grimes. In a normal, down year for Knick fans, Quentin Grimes’ potential would be all that we fans talked about. With Grimes, we have a rookie who is a readymade 3&D role player with ballhandling and passing upside. If this were a 17-win season, we would be insufferable in our projections of his NBA future.

-RJ Barrett. Throughout the year, RJ Barrett has had several “Proof of Concept” games: the concept being the downhill playmaking and shooting wing that can be the focal point of a good team’s offense. Yet in the past, RJ’s “Proof of Concept” games were not strung together on a consistent basis. For every great game, there was at least one mediocre game, and at least one terrible game soon to follow. Now, in the faltering of Randle’s confidence, RJ seems to have seized the opportunity to take his place as our team’s best player. And, as many fans like to point out, he’s only 21.

If you are the type of person who likes to only focus on the positives, you can stop reading now, because the purpose of this article is to process the season so far as a whole, and now I must discuss some other things.

Randle’s attitude has been one of the most enigmatic storylines I’ve followed as a Knick fan. As we do not have access to Randle, as fans, we have no real way of knowing what has caused his steep regression both as a player and a team leader, and yet, it is the single most dominant takeaway from each game. We are left wondering how Randle, who was so steadfast and brilliant last year, could just simply not seem to care anymore. Thus, “Guess What’s Bothering Randle” has been the game after the game many of us are forced to play as we process what just happened.

The truth is, unless there is some expose written about Randle’s personal life, or we hear from Randle himself, there is no way of knowing why the man who wrote about his personal growth so eloquently in a Player’s Tribune article last year has reversed his trajectory, and abandoned his priorities.

I maintain that trading Randle while his value is at its lowest point over the last year and a half, is a bad idea. Those who like to cite Obi’s efficiency as a player and his per 36 minutes would be in for a sour surprise if Obi was abruptly promoted to starter and had to mix it up with the Anthony Davises of the world instead of the Dean Wades.

Like it or not, Julius Randle is still one of the better Power Forwards in the league, regardless of his decreased efficiency, and it makes no sense to trade that player for Harrison Barnes and scraps. Julius Randle is a part of our future until we can trade him for a better player, because given what we know about them, this Front Office and Head Coach are not willing to pivot toward intentional losses.

That brings us to Tom Thibodeau. As many have mentioned, Thibs’ in-game decision making has, at times, been maddening. On top of that, he has apparently lost the ability to motivate the player he plays most, Julius Randle. I personally questioned his decision to suddenly cut Kemba Walker out of the rotation without attempting to find a different role for him. Thibs’ rigid approach to building a winning system by keeping players in sharply defined roles and basing their playing time on their performance in unseen practices has frustrated fans who would like a more flexible coach. That frustration is perfectly valid, given that the very best coaches in the league seem to adapt their gameplan to every matchup individually, and Thibs seems to approach every matchup in the same way.

Thibs does not adapt his coaching style to players; he asks players to adapt to him. These types of coaches are often pejoratively called “system coaches.” However, if you give a system coach a LeBron James or a Giannis Antetokounmpo to base their system around, they can give you a chance to win a championship. But when there is no gravitational force, their centripetal system has nothing to revolve around. This can at times look like competing for wins, competing to stay in the middle; simply trying to scratch and claw for a playoff or play-in spot and a guaranteed exit before the second round.

During our recent tanking year, we Knicks fans breathed a sigh of relief through gritted teeth that we finally exited that middle “below average” area. 17 wins was better than 35, by our estimation, given the success stories of tanking teams like the Thunder and the Sixers.

Two years ago, when Thibs was hired, many feared that we were re-committed to the middle. Thibs’ reputation was one of trying to eke out every win: if he was going to develop players, it was going to be development within a role that could help his veteran players win games. We groaned at the idea that he would roll with uninspiring veterans like Julius Randle over our recent lottery picks. And we were exactly right to fear that.

And yet, we won. We won so much that we bought in. Maybe Thibs was right: competing for wins over all else was possibly the best approach. We cited the growth of RJ Barrett and Mitchell Robinson in their roles, even as we complained about Thibs’ commitment to playing Elfrid Payton in his. When the wins are stacking up, it’s almost impossible not to buy in. Who wants to sit in the corner and “well actually,” their team’s success?

But what we experienced was an outlier overperformance within Thibs’ system, and our shift in mindset has not caught up to that reality. This season hasn’t been all that much different than the knee-jerk fears we experienced when Thibs was hired. In fact, in a comic I made before the season last year, “004 – A Knicksmas Carol,” I projected that we would receive the tenth pick in the draft. If the current season ended today, and we didn’t fall or rise in the lottery, we would receive the tenth pick.

We committed, with Thibs and the rest, to the idea of being competitive and respectable, and yet it feels like we are competing for nothing and no one respects us. When one buys into competing, one can’t allow oneself to feel hope and joy over Quentin Grimes’ scoring 15 efficient points in a loss, because moral victories are not real victories.

And once upon a time, moral victories were enough to get Knicks fans through the losses. In winning last year, we have lost the strongest coping mechanism to deal with the losses this year.

All this to say that in advance of the trade deadline, I would like the Front Office to choose a direction. If that’s pushing some chips in on Jalen Brunson or other win-now additions, I support it. If that’s selling off pieces like Alec Burks to make room for our young players, I would support that. But whatever the Front Office does, I want them to make a choice and not to hedge, because the most loyal fan base in the world deserves a team with strong leadership and a clear idea of where we’re going.

But let’s be honest, Knicks fandom is a cross between a conveyor belt and a treadmill. Reluctantly we’ll trudge along as it takes us wherever it’s going.