Donnie Walsh

[mercury]

The Knicks have a new style of bargaining. No longer are the Knicks the ones on the chase. Walsh's ability to be a hardline negotiator is earning the Knicks the respect that was lost during the Isiah years. Walsh refuses to make a trade or freeagent signing unless it's at the right price and truely improves the team. Before the Knicks would make horrible financial and talent decisions just to make a move.
It seems that Lee and Robinson will both have to sign the qualifying offers and both will be extremly motivated to earn a big payday. Walsh will probally look to trade both around the deadline to a desperate team who believes it's close the playoffs . Walsh is very methodical and waits for the best deal to appear then makes his move. I wish Lee wouldnt have stopped the draft night deal where Memphis was going to send the Knicks Mayo. It would be nice to have a starting lineup with Mayo, Chandler, and Gallonari.

[ReneNYG1]

DW patience is testing alot of fans who are not used to it.I'm dying here to get an outcome it's very tough for me ,hey what teeshirt do I buy,my kid got a DLee yersey I'm scared to buy any.Being a fan it's tough to have patience and I'm glad we finally got a guy like DW who does and waits for the best deal.If gets Rubio all the waiting would be worth it.

[kgooglog]

quote author=mercury board=discussion thread=200 post=1656 time=1249249181]The Knicks have a new style of bargaining. No longer are the Knicks the ones on the chase. Walsh's ability to be a hardline negotiator is earning the Knicks the respect that was lost during the Isiah years. Walsh refuses to make a trade or freeagent signing unless it's at the right price and truely improves the team. Before the Knicks would make horrible financial and talent decisions just to make a move.
It seems that Lee and Robinson will both have to sign the qualifying offers and both will be extremly motivated to earn a big payday. Walsh will probally look to trade both around the deadline to a desperate team who believes it's close the playoffs . Walsh is very methodical and waits for the best deal to appear then makes his move. I wish Lee wouldnt have stopped the draft night deal where Memphis was going to send the Knicks Mayo. It would be nice to have a starting lineup with Mayo, Chandler, and Gallonari.
[/quote]

Merc...

Kudos on an excellent post. You hit the nail on the head, for when new team presidents or GMs come up to the podium and say "I'm here to change the culture of a team", it ends up becoming just tired old rhetoric, when that person simply follows the footsteps of his predecessors.

Like Rene said, it is certainly nerve-wracking as a fan to experience this new management's methodology at work. It is easy as some folks who post on the local NY Post sports boards to simply call Donnie Walsh names and demean his methodical, hard-line approach, but this is a philosophy that works in business. Walsh is not going to be played by any player threats, agent bullying, or by fan's perceptions, since the reality is staring him in the face every day, as this man was brought in to reconstruct this franchise which, suffice to say, has become the laughingstock of the NBA. Up until now, that is.

I truly like David Lee and Nate Robinson, but the harsh reality may be that neither player fits into what Donnie is trying to do with a Knicks team that finally is approaching two years of opportunity. While we spend many hours discussing the summer of 2010 and LeBron James, D-Wade, and Bosh, there is also the following year, in which Eddy Curry's and Jared Jeffries' contracts fall off the cap, two of Zeke Thomas' mistakes which represent close to $19,000,000 of additional salary cap space. This is yet another opportunity for the Knicks to land another elite free agent. If Walsh maintains his hard-line approach, the Knicks should be able to secure a minimum of two top 10 NBA players in the span of two seasons, possibly three.

While the focus is rightfully on LeBron James in the summer of 2010 and James is not discussing any contract extensions with the Cavaliers, according to Marc Stein, NBA writer for ESPN, it seems clear that LeBron James is not interested in locking himself up to a team who lost out on acquiring Ron Artest, Trevor Ariza, and even Hakim Warrick, which, IMO, represents the franchise's inability to surround James with the talent necessary to win an NBA championship.

I don't believe that a 38 year old Shaq improves Cleveland any more than I believe David Lee is worth $12,000,000 a year. Dwight Howard cannot be stopped by O'Neal in a five or seven game series nor can a healthy Kevin Garnett be slowed down by an over the hill center whose game is based on overpowering weaker pivots in the paint area. LeBron is the NBA's best player, but Boston, Orlando, Denver, Spurs, and Detroit have improved this season. Even Toronto made extremely prudent moves which, IMO, have made Cleveland a lost cause when it comes to post-season play.

As the New York Knicks embark on their rebuilding process which I think is going quite well, considering the mess Isiah Thomas left Donnie, NY will be among the elite teams withing two years. Donnie's in the driver's seat when it comes to the team's two RFAs who may or may not, depending on their greed or agents' greed, be a part of something very special. Both David Lee and Nate Robinson can be crucial pieces to a very special period in Knicks history if they would accept that they are both role players and are not worth the monies that even better players are not receiving.

Donnie Walsh and Mike D'Antoni are hopefully on the same page when it comes to who stays and who goes on this Knicks team this year. While it would be nice to retain both Lee and Robinson, it may, in fact, be more cost effective if Donnie doesn't give either player anything more than a one year pact. It may, in fact, be in the Knicks best interests to simply sign and trade them for draft picks and "future considerations".