there are some things that are constants no matter what and the biggest one is that you don't win titles, you don't play for titles unless you have a franchise stud.

we do not have one.

for those that constantly defend isiah's moves or preach to be patient, i ask you this:

1. how are we going to get one?
2. do you see a plan in place that will help us obtain one?
3. do you feel one of our young guys will become that?

if you're not going to get under the cap, and if you trade away future higher picks, then where are we getting this player?

you know my answers to those questions. i don't think we are hence why i'm so critical of isiah thomas. we are running around in circles and building towards mediocrity.

only team that did anything significant in the past 20 years without a franchise stud were the pistons, and you know who was coaching them.

courtesy of drj at realgm:

Yes, the method is simple:

1. Stockpile first rounders when possible (especially unprotected firsts)
2. Tank
3. Open cap space when elite players come on the market, so you can offer LeBron a max contract (which he might actually take) instead of a pathetic MLE contract (which he would laugh at)

This method (were it not for the Curry trade) would have given us a shot at Oden in this upcoming draft, can still give us a shot at OJ Mayo in the 2008 draft, and will give us a shot at LeBron in 2009 FA.

This is 3 chances at a possible championship caliber player in 3 years.

Here's a stat to digest slowly:
40 of the past 50 NBA championships have been won by a team with an all-time top 20 player. Of the remaining 10 championships, 8 have been won by a team with an all-time 21-52 player, and only 2 (Seattle 79 and Detroit 04) have been won by a team led by a player with an all-time 53-83 ranking.

Conclusion:
If you want to build a champion, you need to do whatever it takes (tanking, opening capspace) to get an all-time NBA great (as in top 50 ever). If you are doing anything else you are kidding yourself. Right now we are kidding ourselves.

fans have lost sight on the ultimate goal. the goal is to build towards a title. at this point, since layden beat us down so bad, anything semi positive gets people excited. so we're getting some sizzle...younger players, more dunks and highlights, but are we on the path towards building a team for a title?

imho, no, we are not. so we can sit here and enjoy the ride, or cut this out right now and get somebody in here that will build towards one.

isiah traded 2 #1's b/c he thought marbury was that guy. then he traded away 2 more #1's b/c he thought curry was that guy.

there's a way to do it and we're not doing it.

when teams rebuild, they do it via the draft and shedding salary. why? b/c until you find a superstar, you must keep your options open. now let's say we drafted lebron. then who cares about cap space? the guy is a superstar so you must do everything in your power to surround him with the best players regardless of cost. so you go over the cap to bring in better players.

but if you don't have lebron, then what's the point in being over the cap?

there's a ceiling to this team, whether some want to believe it or not. and our future options to siginificantly add to it are almost nonexistant.

look at orlando - they drafted dwight. drafted jameer. and dumped francis. they have something special in dwight but realize that if he doesn't pan out to becoming a "special" tim duncan type guy, you still need to keep options open to helping him out. that's why they're trying to get under the cap so they can sign a stud sg next summer.

but we can't do that. our only real way of getting better talent (outside of the draft) is by using expirings...and isiah used them on the wrong players.

we need to bring in a guy that understands this and will plan for this.

if all isiah did was draft and use the MLE, this is what we would've looked like in terms of youth:

2004 #1, 2004 #2, 2004 MLE, 2005 #1, 2005 #2, 2005 MLE, 2006 #1, 2006 #2, 2006 MLE

that's NINE young players right there (not including the jackie butler's, qyntel woods, etc.)

and we would've been over $20 mil under the cap this upcoming summer.

but what we have are 8 or so young players, none of which are "special" without any cap space to help them.

so when i criticize isiah, i have a sound philosophy as to why i don't think he's doing a good job for us. but my standards are trying to build towards a title, not just become a decent team that's 1 or 2 rounds in the playoffs and out. it's coming on 40 years since the last title.

I am not going to get into going through the whole IT bantor, but rather respond to your franchise topic

Curry is the franchise, you might not like him at the moment, but you have to recognize him skill set and assume that as a player he will improve as further realizes his potential. People grow into franchise players, very few come into the league with the label and actually live up to it. Looking at the situation the team is in right now, I am not that worried, the Free agent market in the next 3 or 4 years will be loaded with guys. Everyone that signed a 3 yr ext are possible targets for our team. If the team progresses we could get one of these fancy players either in FA straight up or sign and trade.
I can see your argument of not throwing the franchise label on curry yet, but when will you do so. If we get him a play defense slightly better, he needs the tag. He improves on his free throw shooting and he is somewhere around 24ppg. Surround him with good solid help defenders like lee and roaming shot blocker and you have a team. We are building from the inside in.

Posted by Michael6835:

I am not going to get into going through the whole IT bantor, but rather respond to your franchise topic

Curry is the franchise, you might not like him at the moment, but you have to recognize him skill set and assume that as a player he will improve as further realizes his potential. People grow into franchise players, very few come into the league with the label and actually live up to it. Looking at the situation the team is in right now, I am not that worried, the Free agent market in the next 3 or 4 years will be loaded with guys. Everyone that signed a 3 yr ext are possible targets for our team. If the team progresses we could get one of these fancy players either in FA straight up or sign and trade.
I can see your argument of not throwing the franchise label on curry yet, but when will you do so. If we get him a play defense slightly better, he needs the tag. He improves on his free throw shooting and he is somewhere around 24ppg. Surround him with good solid help defenders like lee and roaming shot blocker and you have a team. We are building from the inside in.

you're saying curry is OUR franchise player.
sure, i agree with that.
but in the context of the nba, he is not a franchise stud.

h20 was our franchise player in 2003. but was he a franchise stud?

curry can score 5 feet and in. and i would say 60% of those baskets are alleyoops. but he brings nothing...absolutely nothing on the other end. it's mind boggling how bad he is over there.

if you have faith that he can carry this team and make everyone else better then cool mike.

but i don't.

Curry is 1/2 franchise, David Lee is the perfect complimentary player. We are one true Franchise player away. So until the Marbury, Francis off the world are off this team and we commit to getting under the cap after 2009. Trade Frye, Q, Crawford, Nate for expiring contracts and away we go. That would be a plan. Isiah's plan changes weekly

excuse my typing, I'm to lazy to go back and correct the typos. plus i'm multitasking here. :)

Posted by Michael6835:

Curry is the closest thing we have right now. The fact that you guys refuse to give him the benefit of the doubt with regards to developing is beyond me. Did we know that Ewing, Wilt, Robinson, Hakeem at 23-24 would be top 50 ? If you say yes, then you are not looking objectively. The answer is no, lets see when he is 30 if he got what it takes to be a part of this list. I agree his is nowhere close the greats, but how many big men are ? Can you tell me that Joneal, Bosh,Howard, will be part of the next "great list" ? If you can, then you must be know miss cleo. (btw Duncan will be on that list)

ewing was a close to a lock as possible. as was hakeem (who was drafted ahead of jordan).

come on man, look at their #'s, especially defensively.

bosh and howard? too early to tell but their teams didn't go crazy spending. they are dumping contracts (jrose and francis) so they can get them help. but bosh and howard are >>> curry. it's not all about scoring you know.

This is something that I have been harping on for a while now. I'm not sure how we are going to get a franchise player because 1. we have no draft picks this year and 2. the team we currently have is good enough to keep us out of the Top3 picks but not good enough to even get out of the lottery every year.

Eddy Curry is a nice offensive player but he is absolutely NOWHERE close to being a franchise player. You can't be a franchise player when you only do ONE thing. Eddy scores. From your franchise player you need him to do multiple things.

As I said, I have no idea how we are getting one now but I have 0 confidence in Isiah Thomas being the guy who tries to get us our franchise player. I'd prefer a new GM comes in here and tries to move either Frye or Lee in a package and see what we can get back. Typically, the only way you get a franchise player is by drafting him in one of the top3 picks but that isn't going to happen anytime soon here with Dolan adamant about not being horrible enough for that to happen.

I really think we're in a bad spot.

wow... 'Eddy Curry is the C equivalent of Hubert Davis'... now i've heard everything... let's trade him for an expiring contract... he's wasting space on our roster.

The greats were different, you saw what you were getting back in the 80s with most people completing close to 4yrs. The knicks just got curry a year ago, he is improving, they realize they need to surround him with talent to compliment him, If we sit tight and let people expire in 3 or 4 years the team will be in a decent situation salary wise. I know its not all about scoring, but to say that Curry will never be a decent defender is just labeling him. The thing with NY fans is we want instant gratification, which is why the whole rebuilding talk i here from some is a joke. You want to get a franchise player, you have one with tremndous upside to be that guy. You don't like him now because his defense is weak so you totally dismiss what he brings to the offensive end. You talk about his defense, you can get great supporting defenders, his defense should improve along with his rebounding over time. What he has on the offensive side is raw talent which no one else in the league possesses. The greatest defender in the league right now can not contain Eddy Curry. You put a balanced roster on the floor to accomodate him and you have a good team. Its not that hard, you get some people who can shoot the 3 and spread the floor and who know how to rebound and block shots. (which by the way is improving each game and which any team would be willing to live with) Any team would want curry, the reason we ended up with him was because we were willing to roll the dice.

Posted by Allanfan20:

To me, saying "Curry is the closest thing to a franchise player we've had in years, or we have now" is pretty much saying "Curry is NOT a franchise player." To me, a franchise player doesn't even have many question marks, and you know he's gonna produce a great impact on both sides of the floor. We know Shaq, Ewing, Garnett, Tim Duncan, Hakeem, Karl Malone, Robinson, Wilt, Jabar, Moses Malone, Dr. J and Reed were going to do a hell of a lot more than hold their own on defense and if they couldn't score, they sure as in hell would be doing other things.

All of those guys were monsters coming out. To think Curry is anywhere close to them, to me, is assinine. He's not even nearly as dominant, scoring wise, as they were, and that's pretty much all he does right now.

Therefore, if we're gonna call him our franchise player, go right ahead, but you had BETTER get some helluva good players surrounding him or else we wont be going to any championship game anytime soon.

omg, at age 23 all of these guys were dominant stars ? We knew they were going to be great or special ? Your operating on the basis that we have scene their careers, we know how good they were. But I find it hard to believe that looking at the list everyone was kick ass coming out. Garnett for one took a few years, Curry is 23-24, so your telling me that in the next 6 yrs when he is 30 he will never improve ? This is it for him ? Can you say that for any player out now, if the answer is yes then you are psychic. He is early to tag him with the franchise tag, did we tag Kg when he first came in with the franchise tag? No they grow into that role, as a team executive you build your team around your most dominant player. Whether you like it or not, this makes him the franchise. Right now, if you remove the heart condition and the salary that we pay him, I can say with a certainty man teams would try to get him.

(Maybe that makes me psychic too, but I have a strong feeling teams like EC and what he could possibly do for their team)

[Edited by - Michael6835 on 01-05-2007 11:17 AM]

Posted by Michael6835:

The greats were different, you saw what you were getting back in the 80s with most people completing close to 4yrs. The knicks just got curry a year ago, he is improving, they realize they need to surround him with talent to compliment him, If we sit tight and let people expire in 3 or 4 years the team will be in a decent situation salary wise. I know its not all about scoring, but to say that Curry will never be a decent defender is just labeling him. The thing with NY fans is we want instant gratification, which is why the whole rebuilding talk i here from some is a joke. You want to get a franchise player, you have one with tremndous upside to be that guy. You don't like him now because his defense is weak so you totally dismiss what he brings to the offensive end. You talk about his defense, you can get great supporting defenders, his defense should improve along with his rebounding over time. What he has on the offensive side is raw talent which no one else in the league possesses. The greatest defender in the league right now can not contain Eddy Curry. You put a balanced roster on the floor to accomodate him and you have a good team. Its not that hard, you get some people who can shoot the 3 and spread the floor and who know how to rebound and block shots. (which by the way is improving each game and which any team would be willing to live with) Any team would want curry, the reason we ended up with him was because we were willing to roll the dice.

My friend, the bolded parts are the keys. First off, you officially separated Curry from the greats in your first like, and that's the whole point. It's been proven you NEED one. Whether it's a big like the guys I mentioned, or a guard who can take over whenever he wants.

Second off, you say lets get great players to compliment him, but you also have to remember, for Curry, we're getting those players to pick him up. The franchise player is supposed to pick up the complimentary players. That's the whole problem with Curry.

Stop shooting low with the word decent. If Curry is gonna become a decent defender, then he's not a franchise player. If the team gets in a decent situation, anywhere, then we're nowhere near to become a championship contender. We need to put ourselves in a great position to get a franchise player. How do you think that will happen? Curry needs to be a GREAT defender to even be labelled "Franchise." Do you think he'll be great?

And to address another one of your points, Eddie Curry sure as in hell does have a lot of trouble with certain people guarding him. He killed Ben Wallace, and Emeka, but what happens when Dwight Howard comes to town? What happens when that stopper is there? What else will he do?

Please spare me the headaches.

[Edited by - Allanfan20 on 01-05-2007 11:22 AM]