For all the flaws with Rose and Melo culture wise, the way they can play selfishly, they are also still damn good players. Rose is impossible to stop from driving by you. Melo is still a great post up mid-wing or elbow player and has a good outside jump shot. Neither player can win as the man on the team, but both are still capable of all-star level play at what they do. Will it be easy to find talent like this? Not so much. Kristaps is a great talent. We know what he is capable of and we know he has to work on his post game and rolling harder to the basket after setting screens. He will get better with time.

So now it comes to this. Lets assume we keep KP, Melo and Rose. Because still on paper talet wise, that is incredible talent to work with. What should be done around those guys?

Here's the conundrum.

If we keep Rose and Melo, I think Horny has to go. He just can not get enough out of these guys. His style does not suit Rose. Rose needs a defensive minded head coach who will encourage the team to play around Rose/Melo/KP. We have to let Horny go, and we have to completely change the supporting cast around the big 3 towards players like O'Quinn. Players that play hard defensively, are physical, challenge everything and are threats as spot up shooters or when open.

It's a bit of a conundrum, because the hardest thing to get in the league is talent. To have three players like KP, Rose and Melo is a strong position to start from. What could be needed is a coachiing change and to find better defensive role players around them. More O'Quinn type of players. Courtney Lee's defense has been underwhelming. Noah is a one way threat.

Could this team's best bet be simply to change coaches, shuffle the role players around and try again? We'll be adding a lottery pick to our team and that's youth we really need next year. Melo is old, but he can score with ease.

Part of me says blow it up. I am infuriated. When I calm down I tend to see how hard it is to get talent like Rose, Melo, KP on the same team. With the right head coach and right defensive minded role players, this team could still do major damage.

The alternative is to let Rose go, and to trade Melo. Which is blowing it up. I'm fine with that. However it won't happen easily. Melo is seemingly hell bent on retiring a Knick. He's practically given up hope of a ring even with his talk about having won Olympic medals proving his championship pedigree. So any rebuild can't really happen until Melo decides to waive his NTC. If Melo is a Knick, then you might as well try to win because there just isn't going to be any true re-building. You try to draft well you try to keep your younger players and develop them. Sort of like Phil has already.

However a coaching change is a must if we are keeping Rose and Melo. One could argue considering Fisher got fired last year, with a lesser team and much more depleted roster, that this current stretch should have Horny fired. How does a team with Calderon, Afflalo and Lopez defend better with Melo/KP than with Rose/Lee/Noah. Noah and Lee have good standing as defenders. It has to be something where the players are simply not responding to the coaches and that Horny may not have a good defensive vision for the team.

Knixkik wrote:Seems like it's best to move on from Rose. I would rather just keep Jennings as a stopgap. It's all about building around Porzingis. For all of Rose's talents, he's not a great fit with Porzingis, and his attitude is clearly counter-productive to building the culture we want here.

Hard to build around Porzingis so long as Anthony is around. Anthony has a NTC. He won't go anywhere. He's too happy living in NY. He
wants to retire a Knick, and although that may not happen, he certainly won't waive his NTC. If you're keeping Anthony, you may as well try to win as many games as possible, because if he plays 70 or more games a season, the Knicks will win 25+ of them. That's just the way it is.

Anthony has 2 more years left on his contract after this one. After that, Knicks can truly reform the team around KP and any other goods draft picks they have made in that time. Until then, I don't see what else we can do but to try and win the most games possible and have a coaching staff in place that thrives with Anthony.

Vmart wrote:I am at a loss what makes them good players? They can't win, they put themselves over the team. One guy goes AWOL and the other thinks he is good but the honest truth is he is shooting below 43%. He doesn't make his team better he is just a volume shooter and his numbers are inflated.

The Knicks are stuck with this until Melo moves on. Which won't be for 2 more years. In the mean time, you need to try different things maybe to win. This coaching staff was good for offense, but very bad for defense. May want to try bringing in a defensive minded coaching staff. Horny's teams in Pheonix didn't defend either.

Best case for us Melo waives his NTC and we truly re-build, KP becomes the man now, he gets more chances and despite losing much more like Towns and others are, he also gets rewarded at year's end with some elite young drafted talent that can partner with him in their prime. However that scenario is not plausible because Melo won't waive his NTC. So with Melo, here's the conundrum. Do you keep Rose and try to win with a different group of role players and coaching staff? I don't see any other solutions until Melo waives his NTC or his contract expires. Earliest we can truly rebuild around KP is 2019.

He's still a good player who could bring something. However he's nowhere near a 20 millions player, mind a max one.
If he wants more or another team makes a better offer, farewell.

NYKBocker wrote:

Knixkik wrote:

nyknickzingis wrote:

Knixkik wrote:Seems like it's best to move on from Rose. I would rather just keep Jennings as a stopgap. It's all about building around Porzingis. For all of Rose's talents, he's not a great fit with Porzingis, and his attitude is clearly counter-productive to building the culture we want here.

I am fully on board with moving on from Rose. I have been advocating that for over a week now before this whole AWOL stuff even transpired. However what happens without Rose and still having Anthony? Are the Knicks better? Not really. Are they bad enough that they can go and get another KP type of talent up high in the draft? No.

Hard to build around Porzingis so long as Anthony is around. Anthony has a NTC. He won't go anywhere. He's too happy living in NY. He
wants to retire a Knick, and although that may not happen, he certainly won't waive his NTC. If you're keeping Anthony, you may as well try to win as many games as possible, because if he plays 70 or more games a season, the Knicks will win 25+ of them. That's just the way it is.

Anthony has 2 more years left on his contract after this one. After that, Knicks can truly reform the team around KP and any other goods draft picks they have made in that time. Until then, I don't see what else we can do but to try and win the most games possible and have a coaching staff in place that thrives with Anthony.

At the very least, Melo has proven to be a good fit with Porzingis. He looks for him, and has maintained a big brother role. Having Melo is not the end of the world. He can provide help on the offensive end. I would love to see this team with KP at center, Melo at the 4, and a bigger combo forward who can provide defense and rebounding. I think it would make a world of difference.

This is my thinking as well. Rose has to go but Melo is fine with KP. The only way I trade away Melo is for Blake Griffin. Honestly, I think that is the only place he would agree to be traded to. We need a Derrick McKey type player to play alongside Melo. Right now, I think Luol Deng is the only player that comes to mind.

Vmart wrote:I am at a loss what makes them good players? They can't win, they put themselves over the team. One guy goes AWOL and the other thinks he is good but the honest truth is he is shooting below 43%. He doesn't make his team better he is just a volume shooter and his numbers are inflated.

arkrud wrote:Culture and system makes NBA team a contender.
Players are as good as they fit into both.
Granted you need talent but there is a lot of talent in NBA and more coming at every draft.
Both Melo and Rose should win and make team a contender when they fit the system and culture.
But both of them are not capable individuals to recognize how and where they have to play to be successful and make team succeed.
The system and culture Phis and Horny trying to build is not for Melo and Rose type of players.
It demanded leadership, bbal IQ, character, team first attitude, sacrifice.
They both are in wrong place.
Phil is making everything possible to setup things to indirectly send them clear message that they need to move on.
Lets see if they can get the memo...