I know playing a jack-leg NBA GM is many on here favorite past-time but IMO right now the Knicks need to sit tight and play this thing out until the draft. Then make moves accordingly b/c depending on our draft pick which will obviously affect what position we plan to draft for; so in other words if you have the possibility of getting a solid small forward then you make trades accordingly but if the Knicks fall and there are some strong centers left I would explore that as well. B/c there are no quick fix players available to turn the Knicks around. Throwing away our most talented players for mediocre or washed up players just b/c they happen to have a slightly shorter contract is not an example of intelligent design and is no better then the many bad moves Isiah has made throughout his tenure.

In term of the on-court spectrum I have no illusions about this team's potential they have major gaping holes that they need to fill on the roster but I have a hard time heralding a move that brings in players who have tons of injuries (McGrady Carter Bibby, Hughes) or plain bad players (Gadzuric, Simmons) and the possibility of a major headache like Ron Artest makes me cringe.

Experiment with different rotations hopefully the Knicks can find some happy medium, though this team most likely won’t be competing in the playoffs at least make an attempt to find out who you can work with and who should definetly go. I know many people on here have focused solely on removing Zach. But it does not seem that the Knicks will get a player in return of equal talent so why give him up when you haven’t even done one season with the guy? Sure the Curry/Zach experiment has found very little success but if you give up your leading rebounder/2nd leading scorer do you automatically assume that Curry will pick up the slack and David Lee will become a 10 board player as a starter? We all know that most of these trades haven’t included contracts that were particularly good assuming we go on the rumors. Most of these contracts we would have gotten in return are that much shorter and they involve sub-par talent or washed up talent. So this is definitely not solving any problems for us.

Jamal is just as promising as he is frustrating. IMO I don’t view Jamal as premier guard in this league nor do I think he will ever be one but I certainly would not give him up for likes of Larry Hughes. The few times that Hughes is not on the IR he’s a tweener at best not really a point guard but shots too terribly to ever be a serious shooting guard. So I’ll pass on that trade.

Our young players Balkman, Robinson, and Lee are probably career back-ups but they at least give us some semblance of bench play (which even very good teams sometimes lack). There’s minutes for all these guys to have; Lee will always get minutes whether he’s playing alongside Zach or Eddy. Outside of Jamal the Knicks don’t have a definite starting guard to play alongside of him so Nate should see big minutes on most nights. We have yet to see any of our guys at the small forward spot that should garner major minutes so Balkman should have ample of opportunity to earn minutes on a nightly basis.

See what you have to work with before you we make more desperate moves. Hopefully these guys start to compete every night whether its win/losses, garner some more confidence in themselves, their teammates, and maybe just maybe establish a tentative foundation.

I know the ramblings of a crazy women.

normally hate super long post

"Sure the Curry/Zach experiment has found very little success but if you give up your leading rebounder/2nd leading scorer do you automatically assume that Curry will pick up the slack and David Lee will become a 10 board player as a starter?"

Because Curry scored like 5 more PPG last year and David Lee averaged 10.5 rebounds coming off the bench last year.

Huh? I never said I wanted to do any of the proposed trades. But Curry/Randolph not only hasn't worked in practice- it never made sense in theory. And as to the first point- those guys have shown they are capable of doing it- so why wouldn't they do it again? It's probably a weirder hypothetical to presume their stats wouldn't improve without Randolph's presence. What kind of logic is that.

And BTW, it's not about Zach. But if you can get value, balance or cap relief for one of Curry or Zach you should try to do it.

[Edited by - vdesai on 01-18-2008 4:26 PM]

Posted by VDesai:

Huh? I never said I wanted to do any of the proposed trades. But Curry/Randolph not only hasn't worked in practice- it never made sense in theory. And as to the first point- those guys have shown they are capable of doing it- so why wouldn't they do it again? It's probably a weirder hypothetical to presume their stats wouldn't improve with Randolph's presence. What kind of logic is that.

And BTW, it's not about Zach. But if you can get value, balance or cap relief for one of Curry or Zach you should try to do it.

My last statement was more just to the general public but in terms of Curry and Zach. Look you give up Curry for what? Unless its for a shot-blocker center which I don't see most NBA teams willing to part with then why give him up for some washed up guard? Right now your not going to get equal value in terms of talent so why throw away players for cap relief unless its a expiring contract thats being offered? But giving up one of them up for a player b/c his deal is two years shorter what kinda of sense does that make the whole point which I think has been lost is to build a team NOT just save money. The Knicks are at 88 million right now you start slashing off Marbury, Jefferies, Q, Malik, James, thats over half of your cap being wasted how about we focus on that I know sounds crazy.

With respect to Curry's and Lee's stats look I don't think there is some magical wand out there that will turn Curry into this beast with Zach off the landscape. IMO I thought last year was somewhat of a fluke b/c lets face it he's a center who can't rebound and thats like having a point guard who can't handle the ball. Right now he's essentially playing with much better version of what Lee was doing. As long as Zach improves at getting the ball out more and taking smarter shots that could open up the floor for not only our guards but Curry as well. Curry's scoring numbers went down which would be expected in this type of situation just like Zach' scoring numbers are down so in the whole spectrum of things its not totally off that both of their scoring averages have decreased.

I think a big part of the reason why these two haven't worked is because of the psychological impact onto Curry's ego, lack of effort, and bad coaching. I would at least wait until the end of the season before I say there's absolutely no hope in Curry/Zach working as a tandem.


Your last statement this has been talked about ad-nauseam yet when we start talking about the next step thats when thigns get a bit hazy. Okay the Knicks manage to free up some cap space then what? You waste another season of bad basketball hoping that when the summer comes Lebron will swoop in to save the day? A lot could happen between now and 2009. And the last time the Knicks got a big free-agent was what Allan Houston? So contrary to what many fans believe players aren't exactly knocking down the Knicks door for an opportunity to play here.

It's not even about having the cap space to sign a free agent. It's about having some degree of flexibility. We can't trade anyone, we're bleeding money in luxury tax so we can't even afford to buy out a contract of a player that useless like James. Can we at least get to the point of sanity? I don't need be $30 million under and sign Rashard Lewis. I just want not be paying triple the salary of other teams for mediocrity and not be able to improve our team.

Sure we can keep giving it a shot with Zach and Curry. But if something comes along at the trade deadline that makes sense, go ahead. If its in the offseason go ahead. Don't trade them for the sake of trading them and take on more salary, but it's perfectly fine to shop them to see what you can get. Theory and practice so far seem to show us that this not a viable long term duo....so can we get something more complentary? Take a look at Chad Ford's article and what he proposes we do with Zach and Curry- its a strategy that makes sense to me.

It is almost a guarantee that the Knicks will make a trade before the deadline. He cannot help himself. He has some sort of trade impulsive syndrome. There were so many trades that did not need to be done.

I just read Ford's article and its a slightly more sophisticated version of what a ton of fans have been cooking up.

Buy-out Marbury
Trade Zach or Curry
dig out of salary cap hell
use your picks wisely

Okay this wasn't a revelation.

Jerome James and Marbury I would definetly buy out. Right there thats roughly 28 million with Jones' expiring off your cap. Assuming you make no more deals for anyone. Even with a rookie contract at most he can make what 3 million which would put us back at 63 million for our salary cap. Then the following year Malik's contract (7 mil off your cap) will be expiring which some teams might be interested in so I don't really see why this isn't a reasonable course of action. Unless I totally have this thing wrong and buy-out contracts still count against your cap which I thought they didn't but like I said I could be wrong.

[Edited by - bitty41 on 01-18-2008 5:38 PM]

Posted by VDesai:

Buying out contracts still counts against your cap.

For their duration meaning that Marbury's contract would count against us next season as well?

Okay then package Marbury's expiring with James next year why not do that and Malik's contract will still be expiring.

I think if you go to the CAP FAQ - it's only a certain percentage of salary (like 15% ?).

As for the list of players:
Tim Thomas- Zach's better can rebound and is younger
KVH- same thing for sure
Nazr Mo- was turned into draft picks- good player but neither a dominant scorer or defender
Kurt Thomas- no one wants him - not even Seatle - can't really play defense and can't really score
Lenny Wilkens - hasn't had a job since the knicks -despite all these so-called openings - like Chicago etc
Larry Brown - same thing - also he should be roasted in public for bringin James/Francis and Rose - to try and show up Isiah's bringin in Crawford/ Marbury/Curry- killed absolutely killed any cap room for us with J Rose (30 million dollars)/Antonio Davis (13 million dollars!!)
Channing Frye - a victim of the we got a get rid of Francis and we have already bought out half a dozen players from Mo Taylor/JRose/Shandon Anderson/ Wesley/ J Rose etc - if I only had 5 percent on all buy outs - I would have more bling than 50 cents !!

I am not sure Isiah's approach is correct. But I really don' think he believes in the dominant player type team. I mean the Pistons had a lot of contributors and even Isiah couldn't be considered on par with Jordan/Bird/Magic- I really think he believes that 8-10 really good guys will beat 5good guys and a superstar.

Here's the rule for buyouts...I was partially wrong before- if you agree to a buyout amount less than the value of the contract, then the value of the buyout amount counts towards the cap. But there's no way Marbury or anybody on the team will take a lesser buyout amount. Either way, the buyout counts for the length of the contract- it amortized over that term:

How do buy-outs affect a team's salary cap?

The agreed-upon buy-out amount (see question number 59) is included in the team salary instead of the salary called for in the contract. If the player had more than one season left on his contract, then the buy-out money is distributed among those seasons in proportion to the original salary. For example, say a player had three seasons remaining on his contract, with salaries of $10 million, $11 million and $12 million. The player and team agree to a buyout of $15 million. The $15 million is therefore charged to the team salary over the three seasons. Since the original contract had $33 million left to be paid, and $10 million is 30.3% of $33 million, 30.3% of the $15 million buyout, or $4.545 million, is included in the team salary in the first season following the buyout. Likewise, 33.33% of $15 million, or $5 million, is included in the team salary in the second season, and 36.36% of $15 million, or $5.455 million, is included in the team salary in the third season.

http://www.realgm.com/src_gm_resources.php