I won't say the teams need to built around him because he should be the beta dog, not the alpha but, this team needs to cut or buy out kidd if he refuses to retire, find a team to move Camby to and sign a legit 2guard.

I think this year we saw the upside and downside of packing the roster with old guys. There was time this year when Jason Kidd was the most valuable Knick. Come playoffs you groan everytime he shoots.

Where I am getting at is where to go from here?

For me I think we need to add as many players into the pipeline we can. We have one prospect on the roster and thats Shump. After that what? Cope? Its terrible.

People hate on Tony Douglas, and he didn pan out as a great player or even starter but he's found a nice bench role in the league. We need picks like that. Guys who can come in and play right away. Landry Fields is a good example. Wilson Chandler was a nice low pick w/ upside. David Lee blossomed... we have had the young talent. We just need more of it and a little patience to develop it.

If it was my I would load this roster with as many prospects as I can. Ride out the next two years and re-evaluate. If we are status quo good chance I let Melo/Chandler/Amare/Camby/Kidd/etc just come off the books and reboot. We could afford two max guys (again). Lets pick better next time

fishmike wrote:I said other. He's our best player without question. He's an every year all star. His teams are gonna give 50ish wins and playoffs every year. He's also flawed, easy to defend in the halfcourt iso-heavy playoffs and from my point of view not a player who can carry a team in the postseason.

I think this year we saw the upside and downside of packing the roster with old guys. There was time this year when Jason Kidd was the most valuable Knick. Come playoffs you groan everytime he shoots.

Where I am getting at is where to go from here?

For me I think we need to add as many players into the pipeline we can. We have one prospect on the roster and thats Shump. After that what? Cope? Its terrible.

People hate on Tony Douglas, and he didn pan out as a great player or even starter but he's found a nice bench role in the league. We need picks like that. Guys who can come in and play right away. Landry Fields is a good example. Wilson Chandler was a nice low pick w/ upside. David Lee blossomed... we have had the young talent. We just need more of it and a little patience to develop it.

If it was my I would load this roster with as many prospects as I can. Ride out the next two years and re-evaluate. If we are status quo good chance I let Melo/Chandler/Amare/Camby/Kidd/etc just come off the books and reboot. We could afford two max guys (again). Lets pick better next time

In contrast, I think you could build a very strong foundation with the assets you get from trading Melo and Chandler and also have lots of cap room in 2015. It would be great to have the opportunity to build around a very good, healthy, versatile 23 year old like Houston chose to do. You have such a bigger window.

jrodmc wrote:

Bonn1997 wrote:

fishmike wrote:I said other. He's our best player without question. He's an every year all star. His teams are gonna give 50ish wins and playoffs every year. He's also flawed, easy to defend in the halfcourt iso-heavy playoffs and from my point of view not a player who can carry a team in the postseason.

I think this year we saw the upside and downside of packing the roster with old guys. There was time this year when Jason Kidd was the most valuable Knick. Come playoffs you groan everytime he shoots.

Where I am getting at is where to go from here?

For me I think we need to add as many players into the pipeline we can. We have one prospect on the roster and thats Shump. After that what? Cope? Its terrible.

People hate on Tony Douglas, and he didn pan out as a great player or even starter but he's found a nice bench role in the league. We need picks like that. Guys who can come in and play right away. Landry Fields is a good example. Wilson Chandler was a nice low pick w/ upside. David Lee blossomed... we have had the young talent. We just need more of it and a little patience to develop it.

If it was my I would load this roster with as many prospects as I can. Ride out the next two years and re-evaluate. If we are status quo good chance I let Melo/Chandler/Amare/Camby/Kidd/etc just come off the books and reboot. We could afford two max guys (again). Lets pick better next time

I can understand that and it might work out well. If a) Melo ages well, b) Melo is willing to share the ball more, and either c) we attract some great FAs in 2015 or we get extremely lucky with a prospect we select, it could workout great. I'm harsh on Melo but I'm not convinced that that would be a bad idea believe it or not. I think it has a low probability of working though - there are many low probability "if"s.

In contrast, I think you could build a very strong foundation with the assets you get from trading Melo and Chandler and also have lots of cap room in 2015.

A strong foundation built around $100mil in broken glass knees? Really?

Tyson might get moved, but I don't know what you get back in "assets" at this point for him.
I think we should all get comfortable with the idea that we are riding Melo out. It obviously isn't going to be all that long now, as another few seasons playing PF and he should be toast.

I'd still take these past three seasons over the first half of 2010, and the few seasons before when we were building cap space and gathering "assets".

toad wrote:Nothing, really. Give Woody a chance to do better with a healthy Tyson, whatever minutes you get out of Amar'e. Hopefully Shump gets better than we even project. Add small pieces. Don't add long contracts to go for a short term fix. See where we're at in a couple of years.

Isn't that option B in my poll?

jrodmc wrote:

Bonn1997 wrote:

fishmike wrote:I said other. He's our best player without question. He's an every year all star. His teams are gonna give 50ish wins and playoffs every year. He's also flawed, easy to defend in the halfcourt iso-heavy playoffs and from my point of view not a player who can carry a team in the postseason.

I think this year we saw the upside and downside of packing the roster with old guys. There was time this year when Jason Kidd was the most valuable Knick. Come playoffs you groan everytime he shoots.

Where I am getting at is where to go from here?

For me I think we need to add as many players into the pipeline we can. We have one prospect on the roster and thats Shump. After that what? Cope? Its terrible.

People hate on Tony Douglas, and he didn pan out as a great player or even starter but he's found a nice bench role in the league. We need picks like that. Guys who can come in and play right away. Landry Fields is a good example. Wilson Chandler was a nice low pick w/ upside. David Lee blossomed... we have had the young talent. We just need more of it and a little patience to develop it.

If it was my I would load this roster with as many prospects as I can. Ride out the next two years and re-evaluate. If we are status quo good chance I let Melo/Chandler/Amare/Camby/Kidd/etc just come off the books and reboot. We could afford two max guys (again). Lets pick better next time

I can understand that and it might work out well. If a) Melo ages well, b) Melo is willing to share the ball more, and either c) we attract some great FAs in 2015 or we get extremely lucky with a prospect we select, it could workout great. I'm harsh on Melo but I'm not convinced that that would be a bad idea believe it or not. I think it has a low probability of working though - there are many low probability "if"s.

In contrast, I think you could build a very strong foundation with the assets you get from trading Melo and Chandler and also have lots of cap room in 2015.

A strong foundation built around $100mil in broken glass knees? Really?

Tyson might get moved, but I don't know what you get back in "assets" at this point for him.
I think we should all get comfortable with the idea that we are riding Melo out. It obviously isn't going to be all that long now, as another few seasons playing PF and he should be toast.

I'd still take these past three seasons over the first half of 2010, and the few seasons before when we were building cap space and gathering "assets".

Nalod wrote:Can't trade him now just because we did not win a championship!

WE have not even fully paid for him! We swap picks next year, (no biggie) and they get our 2016 pick out right!

Its like trading in a car when you owe on it. Rollover the balance but you never get a head that way do you?

ON the other hand its not like we have youths to promote or Euro's stashed either.

I don't mind 50 win teams and even getting bounced as long as we are developing and not decaying.

Its not that I am a rabid Mooby suck up, but lets not over react and treat this like a video game.

that's exactly what dolan did in bringing in melo in the first place. and over walsh's misgivings.

toad wrote:

Bonn1997 wrote:

toad wrote:Nothing, really. Give Woody a chance to do better with a healthy Tyson, whatever minutes you get out of Amar'e. Hopefully Shump gets better than we even project. Add small pieces. Don't add long contracts to go for a short term fix. See where we're at in a couple of years.

Isn't that option B in my poll?

Is it? I thought it would be pretty clear to everyone that this is not really a contending team as constructed. In order to build around him would necessitate getting more talent before his contract is up, which would probably mean taking on some bad contracts and clearing out what little assets we currently have. I'm more and more inclined to not "build around" Melo. Let the contracts run out and see what we have.