Fan round table:What's it gonna take?

[jbnewyork162]

Calling all Knicks board members:

I call on all of us to examine what it will take for us to get out of this decade long drought of disaster. Please sound off because even though its early in the season and we will have all this money next season and all this is only the cherry on top of the most disastrous cake in sports. Only the Raiders and Cubs have it worse.

Is it this system? Is it Walsh? Is it D'antoni? Will Lebron be enough? Should we have signed Jennings and Sessions for future PG blood? Will we f**k up the cap room we will have by signing thee wrong free agents?

Let's look deeper than the present and examine the past and also the near future and really dissect what the hell is wrong with the New York Knicks.

I for one, have come up with a trail of throwing the wrong money to the wrong people as well as bad karma after the Ewing era to just any excuse that I can come up with but I just don't get it, and I need my brothers to talk about it for a minute. I look forward to the commentary.

Who has any theories or ideas? What is wrong with the whole body of work that is the Knicks both in our future strategy and our past even before we sucked the last 9? Why couldn't tradition be carried on from Oak and LJ and Houston and Ewing and Starks and Sprewell?



-Jason

[jbaer10314]

Personally, I blame the MSG peanut vendors.

[dk7th]

Nov 8, 2009 6:45:51 GMT -5 jbnewyork162 said:

Calling all Knicks board members:

I call on all of us to examine what it will take for us to get out of this decade long drought of disaster. Please sound off because even though its early in the season and we will have all this money next season and all this is only the cherry on top of the most disastrous cake in sports. Only the Raiders and Cubs have it worse.

Is it this system? Is it Walsh? Is it D'antoni? Will Lebron be enough? Should we have signed Jennings and Sessions for future PG blood? Will we f**k up the cap room we will have by signing thee wrong free agents?

Let's look deeper than the present and examine the past and also the near future and really dissect what the hell is wrong with the New York Knicks.

I for one, have come up with a trail of throwing the wrong money to the wrong people as well as bad karma after the Ewing era to just any excuse that I can come up with but I just don't get it, and I need my brothers to talk about it for a minute. I look forward to the commentary.

Who has any theories or ideas? What is wrong with the whole body of work that is the Knicks both in our future strategy and our past even before we sucked the last 9? Why couldn't tradition be carried on from Oak and LJ and Houston and Ewing and Starks and Sprewell?



-Jason

jason i wrote a post about a month ago after the first preseason game that i thought would be useful to re-examine, so i have quoted some of the relevant passages:

gallinari is definitely going to be a terrific playmaker. i think he's capable of 14 points and 6 or 7 assists.... but what won't show up in the box score is his ability to keep the offense flowing and in a good rhythm, and his ability to stretch defenses where the opponent will have to send a bigger player out of the lane to guard him-- creating slashing and cutting opportunities for harrington, robinson, and chandler.
this leads to a crucial question: can these three players learn to pass to an open man once defenses converge? if they can then the knicks will be very hard to stop because they will have something other than the duhon/lee pick and roll to work with.

i appreciate the effort that harrington is trying to make to justify his future with the knicks, but i do not think he is suited to the role of leader. he would do so much better to simply focus on setting a good example defensively, improving his shot selection, and making good passes instead of holding on to the ball. that would be actions speaking louder than words. he still looked a bit trigger happy but luckily his shot was falling on sunday. what happens when he has a real defender in his face? i also noticed that gallinari did not look very appreciatively when harrington was "mentoring" him. there could be potential conflict between those two.

i really like toney douglas-- he brings a defensive intensity and good energy with him, and the fact that he wants to defend is a sign of leadership-- and leadership is something the knicks need real bad. so far as his offense i think he will perform better once he shakes off the nerves and sees the floor better.

i am still hoping for a rotation of lee, gallinari, milicic, duhon, chandler with douglas, robinson/(hughes), harrington. i'll be shocked if jeffries earns a spot, or hill.


the overarching problem the knicks have suffered from is a lack of leadership. this of course starts at the top with dolan, through the general manager and the coach and finally down to the players. if you recall i made the ame argument when we were all on the aol message board concerning dolan, isiah thomas, and marbury. i believe the metaphor i used was that dolan was the root cause, whereas isiah was the stem, and marbury the flower, ie the most obvious agent to point the finger at. the three formed an unholy alliance because all three are deeply flawed men with no genuine leadership qualities. as the greeks say "like attracts like."

but to be honest, patrick ewing and allan houston were not leaders either. oakley in his own irascible way was. i did not have a problem with trading ewing away when the knicks had the chance and, because he was not the clutch player that everyone so wanted him to be, i thought it would have been better to trade him when he still had real value. i know many knick fans would wish to excoriate me or call me blasphemous for asserting that, but i call 'em as i sees 'em. ewing was overrated. his ego was bigger than his game. allan houston and 100 million was a complete disaster and as i have said many times over the years i literally stopped following the knicks when that contract was signed. this isn't karma in the ewing instance it was poor judgement and timing. same with houston. 100 million for a soft jumpshooter with creaky knees. WOW

harrington said he wanted to lead. i tried to be nice about it but how has that panned out? i don't want to be petty and say "i told you so" so instead i will simply say that a poster can be measured by how well he can predict the future because it is not only a question of basketball savvy but also a better insight into human nature.

look at it this way: dolan is a boy. scott layden is a boy. isiah thomas is a boy. stephon marbury is a boy. they're psychologically stunted. iverson the same. harrington the same. ewing and shaq are interesting case studies as is bryant but if i had to guess i would say that they too are boys.

in other words in order to lead you must be an adult, not merely "the man" but A man.

this leads to lebron james. he is a leader. this shows that leadership is not only or merely a function of age, since you and i both know in our travels that there are older men we have met who are immature boys and there are younger men we have met who are unmistakably mature men. trouble starts when you mistake one for the other but as i said "like attracts like" and now a useful corollary is "like RECOGNIZES like."

so when you look back to the end of the cleveland game think about the two knicks that lebron james spoke to: danilo gallinari and toney douglas. somehow by the end of this season the knicks must be able to look to gallinari and douglas as the putative leaders on this team.

how this is to come about is fraught with complexity because d'antoni is not much of a leader either and i do not think most of the veterans on the knicks are willing to step aside and be led by douglas and gallinari. if they had their heads screwed on straight and their false pride and ego in check, meaning they would be more concerned with winning than "losing face" they would but we are talking about flawed human beings. in an ideal world d'antoni would have a team meeting and name douglas and allinari co-captains and let the chips fall where they may concerning the classic "disgruntled" players fallout. but then d'antoni should be able to bench those players he perceives as not allowing his captains to lead.

the knicks do have talent. they are capable of winning 42 games. if they had leadership they would not be getting blown out but staying close even in a losing effort.

if they want to win 42 games the reins of the team must first be found and then handed over to douglas and gallinari. this means douglas must start and defend the position, not "run the offense" since he isn't quite ready to do so. the offense must run "through" gallinari much in the same way paul pierce and an orlando magic-turkoglu run/ran their offense without a genuine orchestrating point guard.

i am disappointed and puzzled by duhon falling so far off of his last season's first 40 games standards. i also frown upon his freezing gallinari out. that speaks to a lack of character.

douglas and gallinari in the backcourt with lee, milicic, and chandler up front.

[irish2u2]

Part of the problem has been the organization's history of buying/trading rather than developing. The Knicks are the organization that found and developed John Starks and Anthony Mason and turned them into major contributors on a perennial playoff team. What have we done lately?

We can lament about players we didn't draft but what have we done with the guys we did draft?

I understand what Walsh is doing. He didn't sign Sessions because of the cap ramifications for next summer. He had a figure in mind and Sessions and his people wanted more. In the end, though we don't feel that way now, it might be a very smart decision. Sometimes the best deal is the one you walk away from and this is one of those times.

Brandon Jennings may have had decent numbers last night (he also had 5 turnovers and so far he is shooting 43% for the season) but I still don't like him personally nor do I feel his game fits. He's a Kenny Anderson type PG. He has ability but he also thinks of himself first and he has some serious maturity issues. In the end I see another drama king. Been there. Done that. Bought out another contract therefore paying for a player NOT to play for the Knicks.

No thanks. Jordan Hill has upside. He works hard. He has some skills and he isn't a tweener. He's got an NBA body and NBA athleticism. We may find down the road that a guy like Atlanta's Jeff Teague or Indian's Tyler Hansbrough may have been the hidden gems of this draft (or not ; ) but that's hindsight and we know what they say about hindsight, right? ; )

If we want to win games there is one path. We have already discussed that and it involves playing guys who are vets and also in contract years.

If we want to develop players who can fit a playoff-type team there is another path. Myself I choose the latter. I give Gallinari, Chandler, Milicic, Douglas, Landry and Hill all the minutes they can handle. I make sure we have the kind of staff that can instruct and prepare these young players. The only other Knick we likely keep (aside from those we contractually may have to keep) is David Lee. That's 7 players. Sign two franchise type players and you have a rotation. Maybe a real good rotation if the youngsters progress fast enough.

We will never know till we try and for us to try D'Antoni has to feel like Dolan isn't perring over his shoulder wondering why we are getting clobbered. He has to have some time and grace and maybe we prosper as a result.

[jbnewyork162]

Dk7th you bring up a great point. Same with Irish.

Adding my two cents to thee Douglas, Gallo combo of future leaders, we need to allow Jordan Hill to succeed of fail with minutes. He is a 6th overall and although i want him to earn it by having Jeffries in all the time and who knows if anyone wants to trade for him, let's let Hill either be able to grow or fail.

Irish is right in the fact that we used to find homegrown talent, and to me with all the great basketball players that havee come from NY, most were never represented here in this uniform.

I disagree that Ewing was not a leaddeer becausee there are different types. Vocal and ones that lead by example and he was the latter. He was the top overall pick for us in envelope-gate wheen he was drafted and because of the fact he never got to play with Bernard King or the fact they traded away Mark ackson too quick or should havee then signed Larry Brown to coach them, your view on Ewing and most of his detractors would be different. Ewing's zero rings is the reason why people think he is overrated and the all time leader in points, assists, rebounds and steals for a franchise is NOT overrated.

Now you can make an argument that we should have traded him to get better but you dont trade one of the 50 greatest players for the crap we got in return and no multiple picks or anything like that in return. Shaq even past his prime kept getting traded for allstars or picks or at least three good players that could help the opposite teaam who got rid of him. Why didnt we?

Anyway, considering I dont think Lebron alone will be a factor and we will be undermanned or forced to go right back over the cap this summer to fill a roster of players we plan on NOT reesigning for other elite and probably David Lee, then where does this leadership start if the coach, the GM, the witless Owner and the assistant coaches arent going anywhere. Last season we had a record 6 assistant and none of them specialized in anything.

I feel our fandom is being tested every year and if it wasnt for the fact that we are going to have enough money to at least get a taste of superstars on our team since the Walt and Redd days I might have just stop being interested in the Knicks, if there was no light at the end of the tunnel. There is so my love for the Knicks brand, notice i didnt say team, continues. But could you imagine iff we did spend money to get players of value here like the Redskins and the Raiders do and still got blown out by 20 points or still barely made the 8th seed. Thats my biggest fear for next summer, if it just doesnt work out for whomever signs here and they dont want to RE-SIGN with us after a 3 or 4 year deal.

Cause lets face it Lebron to protect his brand is not signing with these Knicks for anything more then 3 or 4 years. And we gotta do the same convincing that the Cavs have to do to keep him if he comes here and I really dont want a Lebron rental to be honest. I want his jersey retired here, period.

[jbaer10314]

<< Part of the problem has been the organization's history of buying/trading rather than developing. The Knicks are the organization that found and developed John Starks and Anthony Mason and turned them into major contributors on a perennial playoff team. What have we done lately?

We can lament about players we didn't draft but what have we done with the guys we did draft?

I understand what Walsh is doing. He didn't sign Sessions because of the cap ramifications for next summer. He had a figure in mind and Sessions and his people wanted more. In the end, though we don't feel that way now, it might be a very smart decision. Sometimes the best deal is the one you walk away from and this is one of those times.

Brandon Jennings may have had decent numbers last night (he also had 5 turnovers and so far he is shooting 43% for the season) but I still don't like him personally nor do I feel his game fits. He's a Kenny Anderson type PG. He has ability but he also thinks of himself first and he has some serious maturity issues. In the end I see another drama king. Been there. Done that. Bought out another contract therefore paying for a player NOT to play for the Knicks.

No thanks. Jordan Hill has upside. He works hard. He has some skills and he isn't a tweener. He's got an NBA body and NBA athleticism. We may find down the road that a guy like Atlanta's Jeff Teague or Indian's Tyler Hansbrough may have been the hidden gems of this draft (or not ; ) but that's hindsight and we know what they say about hindsight, right? ; )

If we want to win games there is one path. We have already discussed that and it involves playing guys who are vets and also in contract years.

If we want to develop players who can fit a playoff-type team there is another path. Myself I choose the latter. I give Gallinari, Chandler, Milicic, Douglas, Landry and Hill all the minutes they can handle. I make sure we have the kind of staff that can instruct and prepare these young players. The only other Knick we likely keep (aside from those we contractually may have to keep) is David Lee. That's 7 players. Sign two franchise type players and you have a rotation. Maybe a real good rotation if the youngsters progress fast enough.

We will never know till we try and for us to try D'Antoni has to feel like Dolan isn't perring over his shoulder wondering why we are getting clobbered. He has to have some time and grace and maybe we prosper as a result. >>

Well put, Bill. I complained for years about how we quit on our younger players, and now we're seeing what happens when we plug the holes with washed-up veterans. I hope this a lesson to both the organization and its fans.

[jbnewyork162]

Well Jbaer,

I beat this drum all the time with two frontcourt guys we gave away and honestly there would be no Jeffries nor a Curry if there still was a Camby and a Nene here but that is something I know nobody wants to hear right now.

We could have developed them to contribute wins to our team instead of the Nuggets. The domino effect has never been right since because Camby for all of his early injuries got it right health and effeciency wise the year after he left NY, BUT he was supposed to be Ewing successor. That is why we traded Oakley for him. We traded our old defensive horse for young one and we blew it.

Back to the present though........................




-Jason

[ironman95]

We could have made two small moves, that would have made this team a lot better. First draft Budinger instead of Douglas. Douglas may work out, but Budinger IS working out fine for the Rockets. Second, having not signed Sessions, we should have signed Carlos Arroyo. He was there for the asking, playing in Europe last year. Now you've got that wing player who can knock down the three consistently to go with Gallinari, and a distributor, who's maybe even a little better than Duhon. I think Donnie was asleep at the wheel with Arroyo, who looked really good 3 years ago in Orlando.

[jbaer10314]

<< I beat this drum all the time with two frontcourt guys we gave away and honestly there would be no Jeffries nor a Curry if there still was a Camby and a Nene here but that is something I know nobody wants to hear right now.

We could have developed them to contribute wins to our team instead of the Nuggets. The domino effect has never been right since because Camby for all of his early injuries got it right health and effeciency wise the year after he left NY, BUT he was supposed to be Ewing successor. That is why we traded Oakley for him. We traded our old defensive horse for young one and we blew it. >>

An interesting thought, Jason. But this is also another example of the knee-jerk mentality our front office is infected with. Make a mistake, and fix it by getting rid of it. Sounds an awful lot like my job search for the last 12 years...

[ironman95]

The mistakes made that I can remember were first not keeping Ewing, making a really bad deal to get rid of him. Second of course is Camby, probably seen as injury prone, is why he is gone. Third is, I believe a Larry Brown thing of getting rid of Ariza before allowing him to reach his potential. Would we rather have Ariza, Chandler or Harrington? I vote for Ariza.

[irish2u2]

I'm in no rush to judge a draft 7 games into the season. I like Budinger but I would hardly re-visit the draft now to get him instead of Douglas. They are very, very different players. Down the road the need for a defensive minded combo guard like Douglas might outweigh the need for a good shooting swingman especially if a potentially better alternative already on the team continues to improve. That would be Wilson Chandler who is a better defender and rebounder, bigger, more athletic (though Budinger is a good athlete) and already in his 3rd year in the league and only a year older than Budinger.

While I'm in no rush to judge rookies after 7 games I am equally hesitant to judge Chandler 7 games into a major position switch. That said of course I take Ariza but in 2 years who knows? Ariza has had 5 years to grow into the player he is today. Given the same time frame who knows what Chandler might be able to do. Frankly, I'd be comfortable with either and wish we had both. ; )

BTW, I have no idea if this is true but the word is Arroyo can be a bit of a head case and lockerroom lawyer. That may be the reason we did not sign him even for a year. Plus we have Duhon and another career backup guard only retards the growth of Toney Douglas.

[daglazer]

Nov 8, 2009 6:45:51 GMT -5 jbnewyork162 said:

Calling all Knicks board members:

I call on all of us to examine what it will take for us to get out of this decade long drought of disaster. Please sound off because even though its early in the season and we will have all this money next season and all this is only the cherry on top of the most disastrous cake in sports. Only the Raiders and Cubs have it worse.

Is it this system? Is it Walsh? Is it D'antoni? Will Lebron be enough? Should we have signed Jennings and Sessions for future PG blood? Will we f**k up the cap room we will have by signing thee wrong free agents?

Let's look deeper than the present and examine the past and also the near future and really dissect what the hell is wrong with the New York Knicks.

I for one, have come up with a trail of throwing the wrong money to the wrong people as well as bad karma after the Ewing era to just any excuse that I can come up with but I just don't get it, and I need my brothers to talk about it for a minute. I look forward to the commentary.

Who has any theories or ideas? What is wrong with the whole body of work that is the Knicks both in our future strategy and our past even before we sucked the last 9? Why couldn't tradition be carried on from Oak and LJ and Houston and Ewing and Starks and Sprewell?



-Jason

The past is easy enough to explain. The root problem is Dolan. JVG hated him and quit rather than deal with him. Once JVG left, Layden had no guiding philosophy to follow and meandered into a major mess.

Dolan is a fool so he was sweet talked into Isiah and failed to realize what a disaster he was until Stern forced him to fire him.

Personally, I believe that almost any philosophy can work in basketball as long as you have the right players to play it. The D'Antoni system is basically the system used by the Lakers in the 80's. Walsh is trying to find players that will fit that system. Since Walsh did a solid job with the Pacers, he should get at least another 2 years to see if his plan will work.

The good news with the current set up is that if we fail to land Lebron or Wade. We can choose to suck in 2011, get a top pick and then go after Melo and Chris Paul because then we will have enough cap room to sign as many max contracts as we want. The Celtics showed every player that if you bring two established stars together with a quality 3rd player, you can win.

So, my prescription is to start Jordan Hill at center. He will have trouble with strength, bu he has the necessary size and athleticism to play the position. He can block shots which will help defensively and he does have a good jumper. Lee moves to PF where he is a better fit on both offense and defense.

Gallinari and Chandler start at the wings. Offensively Gallo is the 2 and Chandler the 3, but on defense it is reversed. Harrington is instant offense off the bench. Hughes gets real minutes off the bench at the 2 because he is the only natural 2 on the roster.

Douglas starts at the point. He can run an offense and the more he plays, the better his offense will get. He needs major minutes and Duhon is not the long term answer. Duhon becomes the bench player that he was meant to be.

By the end of the season, we will have a good idea about the abilities of all four of our young players: Gallinari, Hill, Chandler and Douglas. Thus, when we go recruiting for free agents, we know who to pursue.

Personally, I would pursue Lebron and Joe Johnson. Johnson got his big money and got to be the top dog. I would bet that he would want a chance to win and he would know that he could do that with Lebron. I would then re-sign David Lee and feel comfortable going to war with a lineup of Douglas, Johnson, Lebron, Lee, Hill with Gallinari as instant offense off the bench. There would be solid length and defense on the team, plus it would be able to really run the D'Antoni system the way it was meant to be run.

[irish2u2]

DA

I like your thinking especially the part about LeBron and Joe Johnson. That would be something and it would take the pressure off Gallinari trying to be the #2 scorer. LeBron helps our defense and rebounding up front while Johnson is a combo guard who has the size to help on the boards, is a good passer and knows the system.

I'd try to keep Milicic and Duhon another year. I'd do whatever to get rid of Jefferies and Curry.

The big key is Lee. He is the perfect player for the system with LeBron and Johnson and if my understanding is correct there is a way to keep him and go over the cap after we make our FA moves while under the cap.

The IQ of this Knicks team would be extremely high.

[ironman95]

I like all the ideas in the last two posts of DA and Bill. Bring on LeBron and Johnson, keep Milicic and Duhon for 1 more year, then Curry's and Jeffries contracts are gone. Try and keep Lee because he is the perfect complement to those two, and can play center in a pinch. Not that I want to see that. Johnson is the 2, LeBron is the 2-3-4, and he seems to thrive in any of those roles. Still a point guard and a center from excellence, unless Douglas and/or Hill develop, and hopefully they will. I still see Hill as a PF, but his superior athleticism to Lee, makes him the center by default if nothing else. Douglas seems to be coming around more now too, and Hill and Landry are getting some burn. As far as sleepers in the draft: there can be quite a few from Budinger, to Blair, to Jerebko and Meeks; all taken in the 2nd round. I probably left out a few too. Last year Morrow came out of nowhere. This year...........??

[daglazer]

One other thing, next year's draft is supposed to be very deep. We can probably buy a pick in the 20's for 3M and still get a quality role player.