However, as we have gone all in with trading draft picks, we better come away with Lebron.

Then I would look to add depth just like guys you've posted here.

BRIGGS wrote:but if I had 34mm to spend--two of the guys coming in here next year would be Kyrylo Fesenko and C J Watson. Nice little 4 year 10mm $ deals for both--what is that 4 mm upfront of the 34 for both? I don't like the two max FA strategy unless we can get rid of Curry--and we can't[we'll I don't think we can. Every time I see Fesenko play--he impresses me. He's been underutilized--he might be the best kept secret in the NBA. I like active 7-1 300 pound players and boy do we need one. C J Watson is perhaps secret number 2. We need some young core foundation pieces to go along with a star athlete. We need young hungry inexpensive players who can play--but need the chance. I mean 10 years without a C--I think we are due.

Not with Danphoney as the head coach

franco12 wrote:

fishmike wrote:when the Knicks are 8-12 after their first 20 I can only imagine your reaction to dumping talented players and giving up draft picks to end up signing Watson and Fesenko

If the Knicks cant sign a star they will bring back Lee, sign Joe Johnson and make a play for Rubio. If Rubio isnt an option they will bring back Sergio and add some veteran size like Camby or JOneil.

Your plan B has me so excited that we gave up all those draft picks and got rid of Jordan Hill!

Honest, we are so screwed if we end up in that scenario.

franco12 wrote:

My plan B was to keep Jefferies, Hill and my draft picks, and then if I struck out, maybe resign Lee to a reasonable deal, adn start rebuilding the right way, by trying to land my franchise player like every other team- through the draft.

But Dolan is impatient, and maybe Walsh knows something.

But the direction of this franchise, I am close to becoming not a fan. And that is an interesting process.

We could have gone this route except that Jeffries and Hill were taking up nearly 10M in very coveted cap space. So coveted that if we did land a big name FA this summer we wouldn't even be able to keep David Lee after signing that player.

So we needed to do this no matter what.

Besides, you really need to look at what we sent out:

Jeffries - bum.
Hill - bum.
2011 right to swap - could prove interesting but the Rockets aren't good and we will be a better team next year as well so any swap that may happen will be negligible. Like 3-4 spots in the draft order at best. Swapping the 15th and 18th picks - something like that.
2012 pick - by now, June 2012, we will be fielding a playoff team, and possibly a very good one at that, so this pick will be quite Balkman like.

The plan was to build through free agency and not continue to try to hope we landed top draft picks and then hope those picks became franchise building blocks.

That isn't the most sound of plans...especially when you have all these super talented free agents for the taking.

We're also loaded with role players - we need STAR power. You don't get that picking in the draft where we had been the past few years - and would have most certainly continued to pick the following two years.

The stars are in free agency...they're not in #8 picks in 2011 and 2012 - which is exactly what we would be looking at - maybe worse for we would have signed someone this offseason to make us better so maybe we pick 12 or 14 or worse.

Would that have been worth giving up the chance to make a killing this summer?

I don't think so.

Cosmic wrote:

franco12 wrote:

My plan B was to keep Jefferies, Hill and my draft picks, and then if I struck out, maybe resign Lee to a reasonable deal, adn start rebuilding the right way, by trying to land my franchise player like every other team- through the draft.

But Dolan is impatient, and maybe Walsh knows something.

But the direction of this franchise, I am close to becoming not a fan. And that is an interesting process.

We could have gone this route except that Jeffries and Hill were taking up nearly 10M in very coveted cap space. So coveted that if we did land a big name FA this summer we wouldn't even be able to keep David Lee after signing that player.

So we needed to do this no matter what.

Besides, you really need to look at what we sent out:

Jeffries - bum.
Hill - bum.
2011 right to swap - could prove interesting but the Rockets aren't good and we will be a better team next year as well so any swap that may happen will be negligible. Like 3-4 spots in the draft order at best. Swapping the 15th and 18th picks - something like that.
2012 pick - by now, June 2012, we will be fielding a playoff team, and possibly a very good one at that, so this pick will be quite Balkman like.

The plan was to build through free agency and not continue to try to hope we landed top draft picks and then hope those picks became franchise building blocks.

That isn't the most sound of plans...especially when you have all these super talented free agents for the taking.

We're also loaded with role players - we need STAR power. You don't get that picking in the draft where we had been the past few years - and would have most certainly continued to pick the following two years.

The stars are in free agency...they're not in #8 picks in 2011 and 2012 - which is exactly what we would be looking at - maybe worse for we would have signed someone this offseason to make us better so maybe we pick 12 or 14 or worse.

Would that have been worth giving up the chance to make a killing this summer?

I don't think so.

We've been picking where we've been picking because Dolan had Isiah in here with a similar 'win now' mandate. Just because we can't draft good players doesn't mean we should give up trying to draft good players and build a franchise the same way every other team is building them.

To your arguement, if we strike out or come up with secondary players, we're going to be effectively capped out - will perhaps have MLE and Curry's ending contract to perhaps use- and we'll likely not be picking in a great position, but likewise, I don't see 2012 as some year we're going to be in the play offs with certainty.

TMS wrote:Plan B if we miss out on the top names in free agency is to go right back to starphuching our way in a desperate attempt at reaching the playoffs, let's be real about it... Dolan isn't gonna stand for another season of losing after all the moves we made to clear cap space to make a big splash this offseason... if Donnie's plan doesn't come to fruition, then be prepared for another 10 years of languishing in mediocrity because we're capped out with lesser stars that won't get us to top contention.

Well that is most likely. Gabriel when in Orlando kept clearing the roster space fora second run at Duncan and he really hurt that team by doing that. I don't think we do that here even though he is the orchestrator of clearing our cap.

I do think we will sign at least two players this offseason. If it's not LeBron and Bosh it's going to be Joe Johnson and someone else like Boozer's talent level. If it's not them then it'll be three third tier players - etc.

We won't stand by. We will re-sign Lee if the ultimate dream doesn't pan out. I really hope we don't re-sign Harrington out of desperation but we might.

Rodriguez and House could be retained.

But, the point in all of this is: FLEXIBILITY.

We are free to do what we want to do.

We have Plans A through Z to execute if need be. And that alone makes me comfortable about our future and I'll worry about the new team - when - it actually exists.

franco12 wrote:

We've been picking where we've been picking because Dolan had Isiah in here with a similar 'win now' mandate. Just because we can't draft good players doesn't mean we should give up trying to draft good players and build a franchise the same way every other team is building them.

To your arguement, if we strike out or come up with secondary players, we're going to be effectively capped out - will perhaps have MLE and Curry's ending contract to perhaps use- and we'll likely not be picking in a great position, but likewise, I don't see 2012 as some year we're going to be in the play offs with certainty.

No, we shouldn't give up on the draft.

But given our roster and what our W/L records would be over the next two years the chances of scoring in the draft were so very limited.

So I like trying the plan of signing free agents with cap space and forgetting about the draft this go around.

As to secondary players, sure, if we strike out on the top tier crop, we're going to sign secondary players - some of who are very good mind you, probably retain Lee, sergio, house - etc.

Sure, that's quite possible. And it'd be a better team than we have now and it'd be a better team than if we decided to keep on picking 8th or worst in the draft the next two years.

Then you take this pretty good team and apply 2011 free agents to it. Now you have a solid team.

Again, this is about OPTIONS. We have so many OPTIONS we can pursue. If one option fails it's not over we have the flexibility to try something different.

I don't care about the system---MDA has to accept a C or he should be gone. He has been bad here--as bad as any coach we have had--he has not made the team better.

If we ended up with D Lee for 10 mm and Fasenko for 2mm--we'd immediately be better and we would still have 23mm in caps space. We need a guy who can clog the lane with good size be active run the floor and be able to post up and make a few shots. This guy can do that. If they want to bring in a J Johnson as PG--that would be
K Fesenko 7-1
D Lee-6-9
D Gallnari-6-11
W Chandler 6-8
J Johnson 6-8
C J Watson 6th man
etc..yet to be determined
While it wouldnt be fun and gun--we actually could win games with good D and more balance as the biggest team in the league and have a 6th man who can shoot 46-48% in my opinion while scoring 13-15 points. Need more for the bench but have to see what is what.
I think if Lebron stays to his word about a winning situation--he's not coming here wade was never coming here and I doubt Bosh is coming here