Point Guard		Jose Calderon		Pablo Prigioni		Shane Larkin
Shooting Guard		J.R. Smith		Tim Hardaway Jr.        Iman Shumpert
Small Forward		Carmelo Anthony		Cleanthony Early	Travis Outlaw
Power Forward		Amar'e Stoudemire	Andrea Bargnani		Quincy Acy
Center			Jason Smith		Samuel Dalembert	Cole Aldrich

This is just a guess of one likely depth chart and not my answer to solving the problem. It's really crazy how much things have changed and how much is the same. I don't envy Fish having to decide on his lineups and rotation. Let's just hope he doesn't pull a Woody when it comes to this roster. He won't have to burn anyone out that's for sure. Who Starts? Who's 1st off the bench? Who's minutes will be cut?

I like an 8 man + rotation with some balance... 8 guys who pretty interchangable, the + would be an extra big guy.

If I had a plan for the season it would be like this:
PG Calderon
SG JR
SF Shumpert
PF Melo
C Dalembert
bench: Amare, Larkin, THjr and whoever wins the extra bigs minutes be it Bargs, Smith or Cole

My thinking is this:
The bench unit fits together well, and is (obviously) a scoring group. The starters are about spacing and the Knicks have played very well wit that smaller line up.

My goal is to pump and dump Shump while still winning games. I would to trade him asap for the first team willing to give me a first rounder, be it future or next year.

When Shump is gone those minutes are up for grabs to whoever earns them. Maybe even Acy starts like Brewer did a few years ago. Fisher will work that out.

blkexec wrote:The problem Fisher has is who can stay motivated without getting much playing time and who cant. That's the issue with a full team of average to above average players.

I still believe this season is a tryout for role players and who will be part of the knicks future championship team.

Moving forward the team is Melo/Calderon and your hoping that Larkin/THjr/Early emerge as good core rotation guys.

chewy wrote:I say start Amare. If u want him to play his best he needs to start. Need to add plays that will have caldron n amare in a p n r. That's amare type of PG

STAT will do fine whether starting or off the bench IMO. As for adding PnR plays, that's not how the Triangle works. You really don't have to call a PnR, it happens depending on what the defense does. The Triangle is option one but if the defense overplays that then you get into the second option which is the Pinch Post and that is a 2 man game. You get to work a PnR if the defense closes off the hand off to the PG drive. It would seem more likely that Melo will be the guy in the Pinch post option and STAT would be in the 1st option Post position in the Triangle. They'll switch up of course, but my guess is there will be more PnR options for Melo than STAT.

yellowboy90 wrote:

fishmike wrote:I get wanting JR gone, but he's a very good player. If Fisher can get from him what Woody did two years ago he will help a lot. These guys are pretty good motivaters

I disagree with this. Jr needs to go back to being a role player unless Phisher can reach him in a way no other coach has. I like him as a starter without the ball in his hands and the duty of being the number one option on the floor. Let him play the role THjr did in the summer except Jr can rebound,pass, and defend at a higher level. Jr is a fantastic catch and shoot player all his career so the triangle should be a fit but I just hope the cutting will help him attack the basket more.

Woody enable him and gave him too much freedom.

JR has a chance to really shine in this offense. Those cuts, Dribble Hand Offs and open lanes to attack the basket can add to his catch and shoot game. The most beautiful thing is that JR doesn't have to dribble the ball to be effective. That's the biggest change that he has to get used to.

Woody's issue was that his offense left too much in the hands of low IQ BB players. You can't have JR end up with the ball and no idea what he should do. In the Triangle they drill the decisions that each player has to make when they get the ball in a given spot. Players KNOW that they have to wait for a player to cut or come around a screen. They have rules for what to do if the defense doubles. It's just a more structured offense and less is left up to the players to just make up stuff. The idea is not the hold the ball for more than 2 seconds and definitely not to pound the ball making juke moves as JR is known to do. That will be beat out of him by Fish and Phil.

PassTheBall wrote:I would like to see this lineup get a chance:

Starting Lineup:

C - Bargnani
PF/SF - Melo
SF/SG - Shumpert
SF/SG - JR Smith
PG - Calderon

Second Unit

C - Dalembert/Aldrich
PF/SF - Stat/Acy
SF - Early/Outlaw
SG - THJ
PG - Larkin/Prigioni

It's possible. It looks like you forgot about Jason Smith, who I think they feel strong about. Fish will have to experiment and see how that unit performs on both ends. It's really a tough thing to find a lineup that should work well on both ends. It looks like some of these players who probably feel they should play may be disappointed.

nixluva wrote:

yellowboy90 wrote:

fishmike wrote:I get wanting JR gone, but he's a very good player. If Fisher can get from him what Woody did two years ago he will help a lot. These guys are pretty good motivaters

I disagree with this. Jr needs to go back to being a role player unless Phisher can reach him in a way no other coach has. I like him as a starter without the ball in his hands and the duty of being the number one option on the floor. Let him play the role THjr did in the summer except Jr can rebound,pass, and defend at a higher level. Jr is a fantastic catch and shoot player all his career so the triangle should be a fit but I just hope the cutting will help him attack the basket more.

Woody enable him and gave him too much freedom.

JR has a chance to really shine in this offense. Those cuts, Dribble Hand Offs and open lanes to attack the basket can add to his catch and shoot game. The most beautiful thing is that JR doesn't have to dribble the ball to be effective. That's the biggest change that he has to get used to.

Woody's issue was that his offense left too much in the hands of low IQ BB players. You can't have JR end up with the ball and no idea what he should do. In the Triangle they drill the decisions that each player has to make when they get the ball in a given spot. Players KNOW that they have to wait for a player to cut or come around a screen. They have rules for what to do if the defense doubles. It's just a more structured offense and less is left up to the players to just make up stuff. The idea is not the hold the ball for more than 2 seconds and definitely not to pound the ball making juke moves as JR is known to do. That will be beat out of him by Fish and Phil.

Jr's problem last season was that he stop taking it to the hole, probably because of the knee, when he started to come around, he was getting 5 to 6 FTA.

In fact I was so furious with the jump shots from the entire team, it made want to set up a meeting with woody in a baltimore ally

yellowboy90 wrote:

fishmike wrote:I get wanting JR gone, but he's a very good player. If Fisher can get from him what Woody did two years ago he will help a lot. These guys are pretty good motivaters

I disagree with this. Jr needs to go back to being a role player unless Phisher can reach him in a way no other coach has. I like him as a starter without the ball in his hands and the duty of being the number one option on the floor. Let him play the role THjr did in the summer except Jr can rebound,pass, and defend at a higher level. Jr is a fantastic catch and shoot player all his career so the triangle should be a fit but I just hope the cutting will help him attack the basket more.

Woody enable him and gave him too much freedom.

If JR (god this kinda hurts) is playing in the system he's the 2nd best player on this team. We have seen him sustain that for a year under woody. Unfortunatly he didnt sustain it in the playoffs and that Pacer's series was a travesty. If there is a guy Fish needs to take under his wing and keep centered its JR. We will see, but there is huge room for improvement from this player from last year to this. How to get it from him is the question. Agree?

smackeddog wrote:The thing that bothers me is the Amar'e/Bargs duo. I like Amar'e, I hate Bargs, but the two of them together are a disaster. Its the one thing that's getting me down about this team.

As for the rest- keep Prigs as injury reserve, never play Travis Outlaw- if Early isn't ready to be back up then play Shump/Tim/JR at SF for stretches.

Players I'm looking forward to watching at training camp and preseason- Jason Smith, Cole and Acy- they can fight it out to see who deserves minutes.

I think you start Amre and let bargs back him up, no sense having 2 suspect defenders trying to control the paint.

Here's where we suffer, guards have been breaking us down like chop fish, our PnR defense has been brutal, even with tyson chandler

The most evident was the game last season in which jarret jack had a blast, lets not forget this funny ass sht

It's really the defensive philosophy, more than it's the actual player, low IQ players need system basketball.

You can just tell no ones on the same page, and no ones communicating until it's too late.

fishmike wrote:

yellowboy90 wrote:

fishmike wrote:I get wanting JR gone, but he's a very good player. If Fisher can get from him what Woody did two years ago he will help a lot. These guys are pretty good motivaters

I disagree with this. Jr needs to go back to being a role player unless Phisher can reach him in a way no other coach has. I like him as a starter without the ball in his hands and the duty of being the number one option on the floor. Let him play the role THjr did in the summer except Jr can rebound,pass, and defend at a higher level. Jr is a fantastic catch and shoot player all his career so the triangle should be a fit but I just hope the cutting will help him attack the basket more.

Woody enable him and gave him too much freedom.

I dont really mean expanding JR's role, rather I mean keeping him focused. Yes he was the #2 scorer on that 54 win team, but what I really mean is just a smart JR for 30 mimutes a night. He's a willing defender, passer and obvious scorer. When he's playing in a team concept he's really really good in pretty much every way. He's a very versatile player. When things arent going well he tends to revert to trying to chuck us back into games, and in turn he chucks us out of them.

If JR (god this kinda hurts) is playing in the system he's the 2nd best player on this team. We have seen him sustain that for a year under woody. Unfortunatly he didnt sustain it in the playoffs and that Pacer's series was a travesty. If there is a guy Fish needs to take under his wing and keep centered its JR. We will see, but there is huge room for improvement from this player from last year to this. How to get it from him is the question. Agree?

This video breaks down the offense and how players have to execute for it to work. This is what Fish will be drilling over and over with our players to get them to have the right spacing, footwork, timing and decision making.