Paulo Alves

The Knicks are good, but I'm expecting the Knicks and the Hornets game to be both coin flips, especially since, to quote the great Kevin Durant, the Hornets have such a better young core than us.

So, you know, got to take them seriously as well.

So I'm expecting a coin flip game with both of them and hopefully we win one of the coin flips.

I think you're asking two different questions.

I do think that the season being a success or not is a different question from, am I comfortable just running it back next season?

I think the season can not be a success.

And we still think that come the end of the season, running it back is still the best course of action or running it back with slight changes, you know, maybe consolidate a couple of role players or whatever it might be.

So as far as the season being a success, to me, for the season to be a success, you need to outperform what I would expect would be a linear progression from last season with the guys we had last season.

Because with what we had last season, we would have higher upside.

long term than with what we have this I think that's while I do not think that we have shortened our window with the KD trade we did market a little bit of upside via a top 10 pick or 10th pick and you know giving up on Dylan Green as much as he hasn't necessarily proven thus far to be anything better than what we saw

he still had upside, or at least more upside than in KD long-term, which is not hard.

So I do think that linear progression will tell you, or reasonable progression will tell you that next season you could get to round two, because I did think that we could get to round two last season.

A couple of things went our way that day.

So what successful season would be to me, either going seven with Denver or OKC in round two,

or making the West Conference Finals, if your round two opponent is the Spurs.

If it's the Spurs, I don't see, I just don't see the... The reason I would be okay losing to 7 to the Nuggets is, okay, they've been there, they've done that, they're experienced.

You know, there's no shame in losing to top 10 player of all time in his prime, Nikola Jokic, with a pretty good surrounding cast around him.

So if it's to the Nuggets, I'm okay losing in seven in round two.

If it's to the Spurs, a successful season is making the Western Conference Finals.

Losing to the Spurs in round two, to me, is not a successful season.