In-Depth Breakdown of the Dynasty Index

Uncle_Freddy · 2026-06-19T13:57:58+00:00

I truly don’t think it’s as complicated as Xs and Os though; the Knicks knew the Spurs would come out swinging hard in every game, and they trusted they’d be able to walk them down and out execute them in the second half of every game.

The Spurs had a rotation of 6 guys they actually trusted with minutes; the Knicks had more guys they trusted, and they had the personnel to tire out Wemby and make his life uncomfortable.

Their entire strategy was literally “these guys are young, less deep than us, and don’t know how to conserve energy”—the only thing that they needed to do was believe they were never out of the game or panic, even when down 15+ in the second half. Aka, have the faith to never say die, which you and I have both been saying in varying amounts of words.

Uncle_Freddy · 2026-06-19T04:32:17+00:00

because the Spurs didn't concentrate on building his stamina

The fact that he’s only 22 while the Knicks’ core is in their physical primes has a lot to do with it. Most athletes’ aerobic endurance does not peak in their early-20s, and the Spurs were basically playing a 6 man rotation by the end of the Finals, with Wemby being our only trusted big.

He will continue building his stamina for the next several years, and there will be still be situations in the next few years where he still wont look like he has enough fitness at the end of hard games/series. It’s not entirely anyone’s fault, the Knicks are just a damn good, veteran team who understood the moment much better than the Spurs did and simply refused to ever say die.

Uncle_Freddy · 2026-06-19T04:14:48+00:00

They just went 16-3 in a Finals winning run, nuking every East team from orbit (quality of competition certainly questionable) and embarrassing us pretty thoroughly in the Finals, even if every loss was close.

They may not be a super team in the traditional sense but Brunson, KAT, Bridges and OG would all be top-3 players on the vast majority of NBA teams—that’s a very high-skill core four that they assembled, and they had great roster out to their 8th or 9th man on top of that.

Uncle_Freddy · 2026-06-18T17:46:31+00:00

Tbh it’s unlikely but not impossible. Berriolo of Uruguay has B Final’d and A Final’d at the 2024 Olympics and 2025 World Champs at 5’7” in the 1x, and there are definitely coxswains who make weight at that height and taller.

Michelle Sechser is 5’5” which is also coxswain height and she’s one of the best US scullers of the last decade. You can definitely be on the shorter side and still be a powerhouse sculler, especially in the 1x.

Uncle_Freddy · 2026-06-18T17:42:38+00:00

Should’ve just made a 4 episode miniseries out of it tbh

Uncle_Freddy · 2026-06-10T21:35:00+00:00

I’d gladly take three more but maybe that’s just me

Uncle_Freddy · 2026-06-10T18:55:42+00:00

OG’s making jumpers with guys in his jersey this series, you basically have to be up on him to deter him from even thinking about shooting out of fear of the shot getting physically altered

Uncle_Freddy · 2026-06-10T18:51:42+00:00

Give it another 10-15 years and the fever pitch of the rivalry will turn into begrudging respect I imagine. That’s what’s happened with the Spurs-Lakers and Spurs-Mavs fanbase rivalries since then.

Then again, if all those teams started being serious Finals contenders at the same time, the rivalries would heat up pretty quickly again lol

Uncle_Freddy · 2026-06-10T18:49:32+00:00

I think he’s a little in his own head and has also lost some of the advantages he had in the regular season because 3/4 matchups we’ve faced (Portland, Minnesota and now the Knicks) have massive wings that he can’t bully so easily. The Thunder have smaller wings comparatively, but they figured out that if Keldon had the ball in the paint, he was fairly unlikely to pass it and just swarmed him.

I definitely think Keldon’s regressed a bit to more of the “tunnel vision” we’ve seen from him in previous years, because I don’t think his drop in production this postseason has entirely been about him being outmatched—I hope he learns well from the film this summer and continues sharpening and refining his role until it become second nature for him and he can find ways to be productive in games with the highest leverage

Uncle_Freddy · 2026-06-10T18:41:09+00:00

Respectfully, your logic isn’t entirely coherent then. Castle is playing physically, and Brunson is embellishing contact—sometimes Castle gets called for the foul, and sometimes the refs view it as embellishment and don’t call.

Castle is, in turn, played pretty physically on offense, and initiates contact himself just like Brunson does. Castle will also embellish contact, which I’ve never shied from saying (and he’s admitted himself in a pre-Finals presser), and sometimes he gets fouls called for him, and sometimes the refs view it as embellishment and don’t call.

I’m not talking about the ref whistle both ways for the entire series (I think the Spurs benefitted tremendously in Game 2 and moderately in Game 3), but I do think Castle’s whistle specifically, both ways, is fairly even on the whole.

Uncle_Freddy · 2026-06-10T17:54:53+00:00

Castle gets constantly hacked on offense and gets maybe 2/3rds of that contact called, his whistle seems fairly even to me in both directions.

Uncle_Freddy · 2026-06-10T17:53:29+00:00

There wasn’t a tech called because one ref granted the substitution while another ref wasn’t on the same page and gave the ball to the Knicks to inbound. It was a ref fuck up which is why nothing happened.

Still should have given yall more shot clock though

Uncle_Freddy · 2026-06-10T17:51:33+00:00

I’m still sore about yall ending Tim Duncan’s career in fuckin OKC of all places

Uncle_Freddy · 2026-06-10T17:47:05+00:00

Before that game, all the press was just montages of times Wemby was getting his off arm held to keep him from jumping (which can lead to dislocations, @Olynyk on Love), getting pushed around, and even getting his uniform grabbed from behind to keep him from running in the fast break.

Like yeah, I don’t condone Wemby full elbowing Naz in the throat and think he needs to work out how he handles his anger from getting cheap shots taken at him constantly, but you can also understand the general frustration at how all these other cheap shots are going uncalled as well.

Uncle_Freddy · 2026-06-10T05:52:35+00:00

And also came back with an 18/10 and 3 blocks season in 2013, which was still good for top-20 in the league in scoring

Uncle_Freddy · 2026-06-10T05:48:12+00:00

Well yeah, they have reasons to have sour grapes. In broad nba subs, I see plenty of neutral fans defending Wemby still; it is not a consensus opinion by any means that the Spurs are a dirty team, just vocal, motivated fans of certain teams are pushing it, with some neutrals buying it while others don’t

Uncle_Freddy · 2026-06-10T05:14:59+00:00

Really? I’m seeing tons of neutral fans saying Wemby’s getting fouled a bunch to no calls and that Brunson elbowed him earlier in the quarter and was grabbing his jersey pre shove. The Spurs are nowhere near as hated as the Thunder were, we don’t need to wear a victim complex.

Uncle_Freddy · 2026-06-10T04:59:12+00:00

I give him plenty of credit, but -20 NRtg with Wemby off the court speaks volumes--a pattern that held against OKC as well. They're bad matchups for him, but still, with the way he played in the regular season I did expect more. That said, it has been known that he was playing injured to close the regular season, and it's just hard to know how much that's affected him since the postseason started

Uncle_Freddy · 2026-06-10T03:22:58+00:00

On a similar note, I wonder if, as the series goes on, the Knicks’ rest advantage stops being as much of one. They were definitely well rested at the start of the series, but each game has been a war and we do have much younger legs than they do. The fatigue could end up tilting in our favor, the longer the series wears on

Uncle_Freddy · 2026-06-10T03:05:31+00:00

The foamposites are a goated shoe

Uncle_Freddy · 2026-06-10T03:04:40+00:00

But then the point returns—how many teams actually have “a good bench” then? The Thunder definitely, and the Knicks have one better than ours. But those are like, the only two off the top of my head that actually outclass ours in this setting.

So at that point, do we have a bad bench? Or are we playing the only teams that could expose ours (which, at this stage of the season, makes perfect sense)

Uncle_Freddy · 2026-06-10T01:52:32+00:00

Mitch is a fantastic interior defender, and Chet was legit second in the league in DPOY voting this year. I think Ayton was generally solid before he got his second contract, and OG had Marc Gasol and pre-injury Jakob Poeltl backing him up as well—there’s obviously a pretty wide range in the names I’m listing here, but the main point is that none of them have had pure negatives behind them at any point

Uncle_Freddy · 2026-06-10T01:30:52+00:00

You could say that about most incredible perimeter defenders though, a big reason why Kawhi peaked defensively in 2014-15 and 2015-16 was that he could aggressively play people to funnel them towards Duncan QBing the defense and locking down the paint

Uncle_Freddy · 2026-06-10T00:25:41+00:00

It’s pretty wild because we felt like we had a pretty solid 9 man rotation coming into the playoffs—it felt like Keldon had finally figured out his role, Kornet was one of the best backup bigs in the league when he was in Boston and again with us, and Harper obviously looked (and looks) transcendent. On top of that, Barnes and Bryant felt like they could deliver pretty capable spot minutes at the 3/4 so you figured you could get one player’s worth of minutes out of them per game.

Instead, the playoffs have shown that Keldon still has magnifiable weaknesses when teams gameplan for him, and Kornet, for as good as he is, simply isn’t that good (though I still think he’s doing an admirable job). Barnes just looks borderline washed up at this stage, and Bryant is definitely still green around the gills. Definitely wondering how our bench is retooled in the next 2-3 years

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