For sake of this exercise, let's say Ntilikina.

Let Rose walk, resign Jennings to 3 years/36 mil.

Resign Baker to 4 years on a team-friendly deal, say 4 years, 8 mil.

Sign Ian Clark to 4 years/44 mil. He is a 25 year old combo guard who can shoot and has proven to be a good secondary distributor. Worst case he's a 6th man who can score and create, best case he's the answer at the SG long-term. We need to be on the lookout for young under-the-radar type players and take some gambles on them.

Sign PJ Tucker to a MLE-type deal, 2 years/18 mil approx. A vet who can defend, rebound, and play both forward positions.

Move KP to center. When we are playing bigger teams, O'Quinn, Noah, and Willy can see an increase in minutes. Develop Willy as instant bench offense i.e. Kanter, Monroe, Jefferson, etc.

C Porzingis
PF Anthony
SF Tucker
SG Lee
PG Jennings/Ntilikina split time (untilt Ntilikina is ready for more minutes)

Bench Rotation: Ntilikina, Clark (possibly supplanting Lee at SG in the future), O'Quinn, Hernangomez, Thomas

Rest of the roster: Baker, Noah, Kuz, Ndour, Plumlee, Vujacic

It's not perfect, but it's a step in the right direction considering what we are working with.

Knixkik wrote:This is assuming we are bad enough to land in the top 10 and grab a PG

For sake of this exercise, let's say Ntilikina.

Let Rose walk, resign Jennings to 3 years/36 mil.

Resign Baker to 4 years on a team-friendly deal, say 4 years, 8 mil.

Sign Ian Clark to 4 years/44 mil. He is a 25 year old combo guard who can shoot and has proven to be a good secondary distributor. Worst case he's a 6th man who can score and create, best case he's the answer at the SG long-term. We need to be on the lookout for young under-the-radar type players and take some gambles on them.

Sign PJ Tucker to a MLE-type deal, 2 years/18 mil approx. A vet who can defend, rebound, and play both forward positions.

Move KP to center. When we are playing bigger teams, O'Quinn, Noah, and Willy can see an increase in minutes. Develop Willy as instant bench offense i.e. Kanter, Monroe, Jefferson, etc.

C Porzingis
PF Anthony
SF Tucker
SG Lee
PG Jennings/Ntilikina split time (untilt Ntilikina is ready for more minutes)

Bench Rotation: Ntilikina, Clark (possibly supplanting Lee at SG in the future), O'Quinn, Hernangomez, Thomas

Rest of the roster: Baker, Noah, Kuz, Ndour, Plumlee, Vujacic

It's not perfect, but it's a step in the right direction considering what we are working with.

If i'm rebuilding i'm trading Rose for whatever young players and draft picks i can get for him and i'm icing Melo out in any way i can without making it look to bad to try to get him to waive his NTC and again trading him for young players and draft picks. Melo has to go so either take minutes away from him or do whatever is need to get him to give me a list of teams he'd accept a trade to.

NardDogNation wrote:Could we get a late 1st for Courtney Lee? Could we get an early 2nd for Lance Thomas?

Personally, I could see the Pistons giving up Stanley Johnson and filler for Lee AND Thomas, which I'd be inclined to do. Johnson may be a huge disappointment offensively but I still find myself intrigued with his potential as a point-forward and elite perimeter defender.

Knixkik wrote:

C Porzingis
PF Anthony

You can hide Zinger defensively with the "right team" and get away with it.
You can hide Melo defensively with the "right team" and get away with it.

In either of this cases, you need very specific rosters and with the cap constraints, I'm not sure it would be feasible in most cases to build a roster to hide one of them.

I see zero practical path to hide BOTH of them defensively on the same team, much less the same lineup.

In order for Zinger to play center in the NBA and without dramatically hurting his team on one end of the floor, he will need to bulk up, learn some moves to attack the basket enough to keep other teams honest and play with a very specific kind of PF like a young Taj Gibson.

Melo basically needed to play with the championship run Pistons as a rookie 6th man or needed to sign as a FA with the Bulls when they needed offense but could offer strong defense. Those were his best chances to find a fit for his skill set and limitations.

Both are PFs, and they simply cannot play well together.

I recognize Jackson took what he thought was the best player available at the 4 spot in the Zinger draft, but given Melo's clear limitations and factor in Zinger's, it was a really poor fit.

One of them has to go. Zinger is young, cost controlled and has trade value. Melo has a NTC and is going nowhere.

While it pains me to say it, this team can only truly rebuild if

A) They are willing to let Zinger suffer and wait until Melo's contract naturally expires off the roster
or
B) They trade Zinger and just start over and hope they can build a defensive team like those Bulls and Pistons mentioned before to hide Melos flaws.

You can't rebuild when you have a roster that creates more questions than answers. This is the base problem of Melo as a franchise player for the Knicks, he creates more questions than he does answers.

You would think the Knicks would have learned their lesson with Bargs, STAT and Melo ( three heavily paid PFs who didn't play defense) but no, they kept up the PF logjam even further. Shakes my damn head here.

knickstorrents wrote:How is Zinger a defensive liability again? We should be building around him and we should try to trade Melo if at all possible.

He's not. He's actually a very good defender playing out of position.

CrushAlot wrote:

Knixkik wrote:

knickstorrents wrote:How is Zinger a defensive liability again? We should be building around him and we should try to trade Melo if at all possible.

He's not. He's actually a very good defender playing out of position.

Do you think he can hold up health wise playing center?

CrushAlot wrote:

Knixkik wrote:

CrushAlot wrote:

Knixkik wrote:

knickstorrents wrote:How is Zinger a defensive liability again? We should be building around him and we should try to trade Melo if at all possible.

He's not. He's actually a very good defender playing out of position.

Do you think he can hold up health wise playing center?

Yes. Centers cover less area defensively of any position. His Achilles injury is an overuse injury. Chasing perimeter players doesn't help. At center, he will have less mileage defensively. And there aren't many bulky centers anymore. When he faces one, he can always slide to PF for some minutes, given the center depth we have. But I would say he would greatly benefit from playing closer to the basket more often.

If he could handle it would allow Melo to play the four. Organizationally it would require a big change in philosophy as the Knicks have 4 centers in addition to KP.

wargames wrote:http://www.espn.com/nba/tradeMachine?tradeId=hdkd5lu

^ make that trade but include bostons pick this year (which has the brooklyn swap to it) and Brooklyn's pick next year. Keep O'quinn, Maybe look to trade Lee for another late first rounder and start the rebuild right....

Why would the Cavs downgrade their team to do this trade? They need the spacing and rebounding from Kevin Love more than any iso scoring from Melo.