In my last thread, about half of you backed my "trade Curry" philosophy; the other half didn't.


In this thread I really want to get down to the nitty gritty.


Here's my position, and feel free to dissect it however you like; I'm just trying to smash through the homerism & Isiah-propoganda for just a sec so we can really see what's going on here:

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A.) Take a look at our salary situation. WE WON'T HAVE ANY EXPIRING CONTRACTS for the next 2 1/2 years.

That's Dolan's doing. As far as I know, he pretty much made Isiah do that. Now, my position is -- he either did that to give Zeke one final chance to see what he can do with the pieces he brought in; or because he's REALLY that incompetent that he'd have, or let have, expiring contracts bought out (for whatever reason), only to rehire Isiah and put us in the position to have to trade talent for expiring salary JUST to trade THAT for different talent to better fit around Eddy Curry.

Example: Jamal Crawford for James Posey......James Posey for Kwame Brown.

^ The idea here loosely, to get a paint "enforcer" to help out Curry. (like Grant for Shaq, Thorpe for Hakeem, Oak for Ewing, etc.)

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B.) Low post dominant scorers like Curry, ESPECIALLY ones that aren't franchise players, need a team carefully constructed around him.

What I mean is, you need your paint enforcer, your shooters, your superstar in the backcourt (otherwise Curry getting double teamed means jack), and your role players.

Look at the construction of our team:

New York Knicks           Date    # of      total 
Player                   signed   years     salary     misc          FA
Kelvin Cato ........... 10/25/06    1      minimum                  '07
Malik Rose ............  7/26/02    7    $42 million          p-opt '07
Steve Francis ......... 9/1/99,8/26/02  4+6  $14,124,582+$85mill p-opt '08
Jamal Crawford ........   8/5/04    7    $55.44 million       p-opt '09
Eddy Curry ............  10/4/05    6    $60 million          p-opt '09
Channing Frye .........   7/2/05    4    $10,138,889    rc    t-opt '09
David Lee .............   7/1/05    4     $4,566,033    rc    t-opt '09
Stephon Marbury .. 7/18/96,3/13/99,10/7/03 3+6+4 $5.67+$70.9+$76mill  '09
Quentin Richardson ....  7/29/04    6    $43.5 million        p-opt '09
Nate Robinson .........   7/2/05    4     $5,576,499    rc    t-opt '09
Renaldo Balkman .......   7/5/06    4     $5,870,217    rc    t-opt '09+10
Mardy Collins .........   7/5/06    4     $4,769,702    rc    t-opt '09+10
Jerome James ..........   8/2/05    5    $30 million                '10
Jared Jeffries ........   8/7/06    5    $30 million                '11

We have no epxiring contracts in the near future (unless we trade talent JUST to get them, which is utterly proposterous and time-consuming and just altogether kind of retarded b/c we had 2 to begin with); we won't have our draft pick until 2008; and there's basically no chance of getting under the cap........ever.


So in order to properly build around Curry, even if us fans (and Dolan) are patient and give whoever the GM is 2-3 more years to make it work.......there'd still be a ton stacked up against us.

Can we trade away our expensive talent for the proper pieces?

Can we get a superstar talent in the backcourt?

Will Curry even continue to improve?

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C.) Curry will probably finish the season scoring 20 points per game, maybe 7-7.5 rebounds, all while shooting an insane clip from the field, and probably 65% from the line.

Offensively that's very nice. Not elite, but very nice.

Then you look a little more closely, and you realize that his turnover are at a career high; his blocks are at a career low; and for all the "dominance" he exhibits on "that" end...he utterly and completely allows back on the defensive end.

Yes Curry is skinnier than I've ever seen him, and yes he's more mobile outside of the paint and he's improving slowly in general; but consider this:


Eddy plays 34 minutes a game.

NOW -- think for a second how many layups you think this man on average gives up on a nightly basis.

How many? 5?

7?

10?

MORE???


Know why guys like Mourning have such an insanely higher PER and +/- than Curry?

B/c for the time they are on the floor, they effect the game 10X more for their team.


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D.) Finally, keeping in mind the salary situation, just look at the personell.

We have about 60-70% of our salary tied up in non-franchise players that are almost exclusively better fit for an up and down tempo.

In fact there's a REASON why our performance sometimes dramatically changes when guys like Lee and Balkman are in the game...and Curry is out.

Because our team's TRUE identity is shown.

Whether you care to admit it or not - our team is a run and gun; princeton offense team.

Not because I want it to be; or because Isiah wants it to be; but simply because that's what the players we have make it.


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E.) FINAL THOUGHT:

Personally I refuse to think Dolan is a monkey.

I think he'll fire Isiah at the end of the season.


Regardless, it really comes down to this --


Is Eddy Curry SO promising, that we as fans should tolerate another 2-3 years of "searching" just to finally find the right pieces to compliment our so-called franchise Center?

Or should we just roll with the other 60-70% of the team that's suited to play a completely different style?



Your call.




[Edited by - bobs3304 on 01-31-2007 2:05 PM]


[Edited by - bobs3304 on 01-31-2007 2:08 PM]

i would trade him if i could get back something worth what we originally dealt for him.... no problemo

is Curry better than Rasheed?

Well thought out post. It just highlights the fact that Isiah tends to try to grab the best player (or coach) available at any given time without a plan for constructing a team.

It's wonderful that he replaced Eisley, Anderson & Weatherspoon with better players, but how do they fit together, and what is the team's true identity? You're saying it's run-and-gun (if you subtract curry). Or you have to go through major contortions to get the right pieces around Curry and change identities. Interesting.

But Dolan is incompetent. Most definitely. He'd re-hire Isiah for showing minor improvement and being loyal.

[Edited by - basketballjones on 01-31-2007 14:49]

And to be fair, it needs to be mentioned (in a detailed analysis like this), he draws a lot of fouls, this is not trivial and very rarely discussed. Just last night Bynum had 5 fouls in 23.17 min, this has a positive impact on the flow of the game......

Posted by nixluva:

One area that you guys failed to mention is Curry's effect on the other teams bigmen and defense.

Do people really fail to mention this? Actually this is obvious. It's what people are talking about when we say we need to build the right team around Eddie to take advantage of this, but haven't yet. But when we say that, it means we are bashing Isiah.

You guys are failing to get the point.


I'm not saying Curry isn't valuable and won't get better.


I'm saying we will most likely never have the assets to TRULY build around him.

I'd give him another year too, just to bump his value, then send him to a team that's better suited for him.


Like Atlanta or LA.

[Edited by - bobs3304 on 01-31-2007 3:27 PM]

I'm drinking a beer.

Posted by martin:

Posted by bobs3304:

I'm drinking a beer.

drink many but don't drive after

dont have a liscence .

Posted by bobs3304:

Posted by martin:

Posted by bobs3304:

I'm drinking a beer.

drink many but don't drive after

dont have a liscence .

ok then, stay away from the ugly ones then if you have too many.

lol anyway back on topic...