ESOMKnicks wrote:Layden was very much a part of the problem. He was the one who started the mediocrities with idiot contracts trend, when he brought in the likes of Howard Eisley and Shandon Anderson.

We tilt towards blame if it matters? But if you must, and it’s obvious it was a mistake, but perhaps go back to the moment in time before you had hindsight and look at what was on the table at that time and the success they had elsewhere. Similar to the kind of “Hey, Fred Van Vleet Fleet Street” would be awesome here. Like playing with all stars as role player does not matter. eisley and ANderson had Stockton and Malone along with others.
They were experienced role players we bought in to rebuild and perhaps start drafting players and build that base we very much need now. Not as saviors. It sucked. They sucked. It did not work. I get it. MIlls tried with Randle, Elf, Portis, Gibson, etc..........Can’t just have yoot. Fiz was the wrong guy. MIller was better. Back before Layden Knicks had not been drafting as we sold our picks but about the time he was fired we had expiring contracts and picks. Not exactly a formula guaranteed for success and I’m not going to say Layden would have turned it around as he had the task we are all too familiar with. Isiah went “win now” and it was awful. Basically 18 years later we are in about he same place that Layden was fired under. We have far more youth Now and our picks with cap space. We need Veteran presence as did Layden. Eisley and Anderson were not special but they were solid.
Kenny smith stated the obvious. We have been here before. Blame Grunwald, GRunFeld, Layden, Isiah, Donnie, Phil, Mills, and it don’t change a thing. This is about a new era and let’s not kid ourselves there will be a crossroad of adversity which all rebuilds have to decide. We are here because we have not taken the right turn. Great men, countries, and sports teams are defined what they do when challenged. Sometimes its defined by a bounce on the rim like Toronto had when Kawahi shot took them to the finals AND GSW Lost two HOF in the series. Sixers advance they are likely the champs and we hail Toronto for the effort but really it was JUST ANOTHER conference finals loss as they had under Derozen. Toronto because it has a long culture of doing well and patience now back fills with Siakim and doing quite well. Long time before we get there if we ever do.
Dolan has no track record of succeeding so its hard fo him to be patient and its why he panics. Again, easy to type but we have to build a base. Pelicans sustained because they moved Davis well. With KP breaking and he used his leverage against us when he was hurt we got screwed. Don’t matter as its in the past but it counts as to how we got here again. Mills is gone and a whole new era of coaches and executives now exist.

Uptown wrote:These two quotes stood out to me...

“There’s people who are losing and there’s people who are building,” Smith said. “The Knicks have lost. They’ve never built. The Knicks do not build while they lose. They just lose [while] they try to win.”

This is spot on by Kenny Smith. We never fully committed to a rebuild. 2 years ago, some fans were fooled into believing we were rebuilding, when in actuality we were just tanking for Zion and clearing the decks for KD and possibly Kyrie. Fizdale was hired because of his relationships and the fact that he may be able to recruit. Ivey was added for KD and so was Zo. When those things didn't happen, Fiz was fired not even halfway through the season and Zo was benched. Then Mills tried to trade for Russell, Rozier, etc., so the idea of the rebuild was just that. An idea embedded in fiction.

“That takes time to build culture, but you don’t usually get time in New York to do those things because people want to win and they want to win now.”

This quote was from Caron Butler and you can very easily substitute people for Dolan.

Fuck Kenny Smith

If he thinks the Knicks are doomed, why did he interview for the head coaching job before the team hired Fizdale?

The Knicks have kept their first round pick in the last four drafts.

https://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/NYK/draft.html

Knox and Frank N are not going to pan out as hoped, but all four guys were seen, given the time and place, about appropriate value for slot. Would I have picked Frank N and Knox? No, but neither deviated sharply from market value when they were selected They don't have any shockingly bad contracts, they have some overpaid power forwards but on relatively short deals. They tried to trade for more picks but the remnants of Phil Jackson's moves made that close to impossible. It sucked to eat the Noah stretch but they dumped the Lee and THJr contracts and managed to convert Morris into a first and second.

They've tried to mine the G League but that's a big miss over hit for most teams.

If they tanked for Zion, so what. That's the rational market based decision for any team in the Knicks position.

They cleared cap space ( by way of basically not self inflicting more bad contracts) for Durant and Irving? So what? It's not like there were a wealth of options otherwise. It's not like they sold prime assets to clear space, they just stop signing guys to stupid ass contracts. ( Randle isn't working out, but his contract is not the anchor like a Noah contract)

Trying to rebuild your teams assets does involve some form of tanking and clearing cap space.

What Kenny Smith is saying is the Knicks should be punished against a zero tolerance standard since they didn't hire him. That's idiotic. Teams are going to miss on picks sometimes. Who were the Knicks going to reasonably sign that wasn't a bad contract or a gross overpay? So they signed some power forwards get to the cap floor because that's the best they could do. Sometimes that's all free agency gives you.

What qualifies Kenny Smith to run a team? That he used to play? Back the **** when? If he wanted to be a head coach, then take the huge pay cut and slog it for YEARS as an assistant like everyone else. Putting in 19 hour days non stop all year round and being on the road all the time and handling a bunch of teenage *******s with gigantic checking accounts. Do like Erik Spolestra and sleep in the film room. Kenny Atkinson and Rick Carlisle and even Pop had to eat A LOT of **** before they got to be head coaches.

Pay your dues mother****er.

Take it outside the NBA, the guys here, look at your own lives. Owning a home. Trying to build a career. Trying to deal with difficult people to keep food on the table for your kids. Bet, to a man, you guys had to eat **** from time to time like everyone else. How many of you were gifted your success in life? My guess is you had to grind it out and bleed for it. So what makes The Jet so ****ing special that he gets a free pass to get a job he hasn't earned?

Jason Kidd
Mark Jackson
Kenny Smith

You know what the Knicks did get right? Not hiring a former point guard with entitlement issues and acts like a total ****.

When Kenny Smith can outrun a giraffe then I'll take his ****wit commentary seriously.

Nalod wrote:

ESOMKnicks wrote:Layden was very much a part of the problem. He was the one who started the mediocrities with idiot contracts trend, when he brought in the likes of Howard Eisley and Shandon Anderson.

Eisley and Anderson were not special but they were solid.

First and foremost, they were utterly useless to the Knicks at that time and those circumstances. Here is how the trade went down.

https://www.deseret.com/2001/8/11/19601064/eisley-anderson-in-three-team-trade

I especially like the following bits from the article.

The acquisition of Anderson and Eisley means that the Knicks, who already had a logjam at the shooting guard and small forward positions, now have a similar glut at point guard...

////Added general manager Scott Layden: "It's going to be real interesting to see how this all works out."

It did not. And it could not. There are different types of bad trades. Some of them look bad with benefit of hindsight, others stink right at the time they are made. This one was of the second - WTF! - type.

The Knicks made a lot of bad trades over the years. The Camby/Nene for McDyess trade, the trade for Marbury, the Rose+Noah trade & signing - they all proved disastrous with the benefit of hindsight, especially in terms of how dearly they have cost us in form of first round picks that we gave up. But at least there we were trading for players who had at some point been established superstars, they (notionally) put the team into some modicum of contention status, and there was a chance, albeit a slim one, that they could make the team meaningfully better. The Anderson-Eisley trade was truly pathetic in the sense that it offered ZERO upside and ZERO hope for improvement. To me that was the trade that officially signalled that the Knicks were now choosing mediocrity (not to be confused with rebuilding) and could no longer be considered an elite club. The McDyess-Camby trade may have been an attempt to bounce back on that, but the damage had already been done.

This trade, the Bargnani trade, and the Weis over Artest pick are my most hated Knick transactions of the post-Ewing era. There were many other bad trades, a lot of which were plain delusional. But these ones were plain dumb, which is worse than delusional, because delusion is sometimes still accompanied by intellect and offers hope, while dumb is hopeless.

TripleThreat wrote:

Uptown wrote:These two quotes stood out to me...

“There’s people who are losing and there’s people who are building,” Smith said. “The Knicks have lost. They’ve never built. The Knicks do not build while they lose. They just lose [while] they try to win.”

This is spot on by Kenny Smith. We never fully committed to a rebuild. 2 years ago, some fans were fooled into believing we were rebuilding, when in actuality we were just tanking for Zion and clearing the decks for KD and possibly Kyrie. Fizdale was hired because of his relationships and the fact that he may be able to recruit. Ivey was added for KD and so was Zo. When those things didn't happen, Fiz was fired not even halfway through the season and Zo was benched. Then Mills tried to trade for Russell, Rozier, etc., so the idea of the rebuild was just that. An idea embedded in fiction.

“That takes time to build culture, but you don’t usually get time in New York to do those things because people want to win and they want to win now.”

This quote was from Caron Butler and you can very easily substitute people for Dolan.

Fuck Kenny Smith

If he thinks the Knicks are doomed, why did he interview for the head coaching job before the team hired Fizdale?

The Knicks have kept their first round pick in the last four drafts.

https://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/NYK/draft.html

Knox and Frank N are not going to pan out as hoped, but all four guys were seen, given the time and place, about appropriate value for slot. Would I have picked Frank N and Knox? No, but neither deviated sharply from market value when they were selected They don't have any shockingly bad contracts, they have some overpaid power forwards but on relatively short deals. They tried to trade for more picks but the remnants of Phil Jackson's moves made that close to impossible. It sucked to eat the Noah stretch but they dumped the Lee and THJr contracts and managed to convert Morris into a first and second.

They've tried to mine the G League but that's a big miss over hit for most teams.

If they tanked for Zion, so what. That's the rational market based decision for any team in the Knicks position.

They cleared cap space ( by way of basically not self inflicting more bad contracts) for Durant and Irving? So what? It's not like there were a wealth of options otherwise. It's not like they sold prime assets to clear space, they just stop signing guys to stupid ass contracts. ( Randle isn't working out, but his contract is not the anchor like a Noah contract)

Trying to rebuild your teams assets does involve some form of tanking and clearing cap space.

What Kenny Smith is saying is the Knicks should be punished against a zero tolerance standard since they didn't hire him. That's idiotic. Teams are going to miss on picks sometimes. Who were the Knicks going to reasonably sign that wasn't a bad contract or a gross overpay? So they signed some power forwards get to the cap floor because that's the best they could do. Sometimes that's all free agency gives you.

What qualifies Kenny Smith to run a team? That he used to play? Back the **** when? If he wanted to be a head coach, then take the huge pay cut and slog it for YEARS as an assistant like everyone else. Putting in 19 hour days non stop all year round and being on the road all the time and handling a bunch of teenage *******s with gigantic checking accounts. Do like Erik Spolestra and sleep in the film room. Kenny Atkinson and Rick Carlisle and even Pop had to eat A LOT of **** before they got to be head coaches.

Pay your dues mother****er.

Take it outside the NBA, the guys here, look at your own lives. Owning a home. Trying to build a career. Trying to deal with difficult people to keep food on the table for your kids. Bet, to a man, you guys had to eat **** from time to time like everyone else. How many of you were gifted your success in life? My guess is you had to grind it out and bleed for it. So what makes The Jet so ****ing special that he gets a free pass to get a job he hasn't earned?

Jason Kidd
Mark Jackson
Kenny Smith

You know what the Knicks did get right? Not hiring a former point guard with entitlement issues and acts like a total ****.

When Kenny Smith can outrun a giraffe then I'll take his ****wit commentary seriously.

This was informative, enlightening and agreeable. Maybe even cathartic. I knew this article by Smith bothered me. Also knew these 3 coaching “candidates” always made me feel uneasy but wasn’t really sure why. You ****ing nailed it. And really, Kenny, offer up something new. Knicks suck and a bunch of well timed platitudes doesn’t mean its insightful or true. It’s just a new twist on the same tired ****.

It comes down to talent and timing and luck above all else. Over the years the Knicks have made their bed but they have also been insanely unlucky. Conversely, the lakers didnt do one ****ing thing right the the last 5-6-7 years prior to stepping in another pile of **** like only they can when Lebron slid into their coffers for NOTHING. Then they get Davis for a song and Ingram. That’s lucky. Perks of being the **** hole LA feel good franchise. Fuck them too. Sorry to digress.

Looking back at the last 5 NBA champs:
* Raptors - Yeah, I think this team did pretty well. They were a competitive team for a while with Lowry and Derozan and drafted pieces over time with some mid-late draft picks (VanVleet, Siakim, Delon Wright, Vucevic). Then bam, they gave it all up for a shot at a title last year and did it. Serious gambling but it paid off. Now they're champs, but perhaps need to start over again with Kawhi leaving - that is unless another star emerges to support Siakim (who in his own right has become a superstar!)
* Warriors - They invested in high priced free agents before they rebuilt... David Lee was a max player and he was meant to be paired with Monte Ellis. Then they hit it big with some draft picks. Curry, Thompson, and Green were by far the most impactful, Harrison Barnes not as much though early on he looked like the 1st coming of Jayson Tatum. They took their time over 4 years, built assets. Then when they added KD it was like cheat mode: on.
* Cleveland - You'd argue that this is by far the luckiest team in the NBA over the past 2 decades, yet they almost blew it. So, so many #1 overall picks. They subsequently traded away all of them eventually but I guess if it results in a championship, it's worth it!
* San Antonio - SA had an absurd dynasty led by Duncan, Ginobili and Parker (the latter two were some late draft steals) - then continued to hit in the draft with non-lottery picks in Kawhi, Danny Green, and really a whole host of pieces that really worked well in their already strong infrastructure. I think this is what you'd aim for. We'd never know, but would Leonard have evolved into a superstar had it not been for those 3 years as a mere role player on that team? (and I suppose this is why it is highly desirable to hire their assistant coaches to get insight into how and why they were successful for practically 2 decades)
* Miami - we can claim that Miami already had a transcendent star in Wade that had already won a championship.

TripleThreat wrote:Fuck Kenny Smith

If he thinks the Knicks are doomed, why did he interview for the head coaching job before the team hired Fizdale?

The Knicks have kept their first round pick in the last four drafts.

https://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/NYK/draft.html

Knox and Frank N are not going to pan out as hoped, but all four guys were seen, given the time and place, about appropriate value for slot. Would I have picked Frank N and Knox? No, but neither deviated sharply from market value when they were selected They don't have any shockingly bad contracts, they have some overpaid power forwards but on relatively short deals. They tried to trade for more picks but the remnants of Phil Jackson's moves made that close to impossible. It sucked to eat the Noah stretch but they dumped the Lee and THJr contracts and managed to convert Morris into a first and second.

They've tried to mine the G League but that's a big miss over hit for most teams.

If they tanked for Zion, so what. That's the rational market based decision for any team in the Knicks position.

They cleared cap space ( by way of basically not self inflicting more bad contracts) for Durant and Irving? So what? It's not like there were a wealth of options otherwise. It's not like they sold prime assets to clear space, they just stop signing guys to stupid ass contracts. ( Randle isn't working out, but his contract is not the anchor like a Noah contract)

Trying to rebuild your teams assets does involve some form of tanking and clearing cap space.

What Kenny Smith is saying is the Knicks should be punished against a zero tolerance standard since they didn't hire him. That's idiotic. Teams are going to miss on picks sometimes. Who were the Knicks going to reasonably sign that wasn't a bad contract or a gross overpay? So they signed some power forwards get to the cap floor because that's the best they could do. Sometimes that's all free agency gives you.

What qualifies Kenny Smith to run a team? That he used to play? Back the **** when? If he wanted to be a head coach, then take the huge pay cut and slog it for YEARS as an assistant like everyone else. Putting in 19 hour days non stop all year round and being on the road all the time and handling a bunch of teenage *******s with gigantic checking accounts. Do like Erik Spolestra and sleep in the film room. Kenny Atkinson and Rick Carlisle and even Pop had to eat A LOT of **** before they got to be head coaches.

Pay your dues mother****er.

Take it outside the NBA, the guys here, look at your own lives. Owning a home. Trying to build a career. Trying to deal with difficult people to keep food on the table for your kids. Bet, to a man, you guys had to eat **** from time to time like everyone else. How many of you were gifted your success in life? My guess is you had to grind it out and bleed for it. So what makes The Jet so ****ing special that he gets a free pass to get a job he hasn't earned?

Jason Kidd
Mark Jackson
Kenny Smith

You know what the Knicks did get right? Not hiring a former point guard with entitlement issues and acts like a total ****.

When Kenny Smith can outrun a giraffe then I'll take his ****wit commentary seriously.

I may post a "Let's talk about Andrew Yang's take...." thread just to read another Triple commentary like this one.

TheGame wrote:You are right to a point. I disagree with your suggestion that Kenny Smith has not worked hard for his position. He is the only one on that show who was not a former superstar. He had to work on his analytical ability to impress enough to make himself indispensable. Alot of guys flameout as announcers because they either don’t have the talent for it or don’t take it serious enough to put in the work. Kenny put in the work.

Absolutely love the fact someone thinks "paying dues to be an indispensable analyst" should even be in the same thought pattern as what some of these guys do to become head coaches. Thibs comes to mind.
Not quite sure where Triple said the potential giraffe runner wasn't qualified to be a talking head on the NBA's equivalent of "Stupid Family Feud - The Reality Show."

By the way, along the same thought line, where is Derek Fisher now? Oh yeah, coaching the hell out of the WNBA! Probably trying to figure out how best to get into some really alternative love triangle. At least that has got to sort of qualify as dues paying.

knicks1248 wrote:

technomaster wrote:Does any team fully commit to a rebuild and actually win? Heck, what does rebuilding mean?

Looking back at the last 5 NBA champs:
* Raptors - Yeah, I think this team did pretty well. They were a competitive team for a while with Lowry and Derozan and drafted pieces over time with some mid-late draft picks (VanVleet, Siakim, Delon Wright, Vucevic). Then bam, they gave it all up for a shot at a title last year and did it. Serious gambling but it paid off. Now they're champs, but perhaps need to start over again with Kawhi leaving - that is unless another star emerges to support Siakim (who in his own right has become a superstar!)
* Warriors - They invested in high priced free agents before they rebuilt... David Lee was a max player and he was meant to be paired with Monte Ellis. Then they hit it big with some draft picks. Curry, Thompson, and Green were by far the most impactful, Harrison Barnes not as much though early on he looked like the 1st coming of Jayson Tatum. They took their time over 4 years, built assets. Then when they added KD it was like cheat mode: on.
* Cleveland - You'd argue that this is by far the luckiest team in the NBA over the past 2 decades, yet they almost blew it. So, so many #1 overall picks. They subsequently traded away all of them eventually but I guess if it results in a championship, it's worth it!
* San Antonio - SA had an absurd dynasty led by Duncan, Ginobili and Parker (the latter two were some late draft steals) - then continued to hit in the draft with non-lottery picks in Kawhi, Danny Green, and really a whole host of pieces that really worked well in their already strong infrastructure. I think this is what you'd aim for. We'd never know, but would Leonard have evolved into a superstar had it not been for those 3 years as a mere role player on that team? (and I suppose this is why it is highly desirable to hire their assistant coaches to get insight into how and why they were successful for practically 2 decades)
* Miami - we can claim that Miami already had a transcendent star in Wade that had already won a championship.

The one thing all these teams had in common, was they all had at least 1 all star they drafted, or boarder line all star.

The knicks had that with KP, and instead of adding better talent around him, they did the exact opposite, starting out by trading Melo and drafting a project (at best) in frank..

IDK how many draft picks you have to see go to waist IN NY to realize this isn't a development market, we have never ever been good at it..

What back fired was knicks delayed resigning KP to extension to open up 10mm in more salary thinking someone could come play with him. Melo looked like crap then. Kp and Frank had some good moments his rookie year. They were .500. It was a base to build on.
The teams that draft well draft into a culture. The teams are “good” but pull up the younger players. Manu and Parker on other teams with a different coach might not have done as well. Obvious statement.

Nalod wrote:

But if you want to focus on two Utah Role players thinking they destroyed the franchise have at it. The big picture is there was lots of idiot moves to aggregate our franchise to the gutter over time.

That is not what I have been thinking or saying at all. But no point in belaboring this. Idiot moves are idiot moves, fine.

ESOMKnicks wrote:

Nalod wrote:

But if you want to focus on two Utah Role players thinking they destroyed the franchise have at it. The big picture is there was lots of idiot moves to aggregate our franchise to the gutter over time.

That is not what I have been thinking or saying at all. But no point in belaboring this. Idiot moves are idiot moves, fine.

We all tend to look at the past as a blur. you said:

The Anderson-Eisley trade was truly pathetic in the sense that it offered ZERO upside and ZERO hope for improvement.

I have studied the Layden era and might have a masters degree as a "Laydenologist". Its pretty sad. I have tried to look back at the conditions by which trades were made in the moment. Dyce was facinationg. Owners make huge financial decisons and its my opinion Dolan had a big infuence at the time on bringing him in. It not like when Knicks fired Layden team stopped doing stupid shyt. It got worse. The kid was beasting at the time and he busted his OTHER leg when he blew his ACL. That it was in a preseaosn game and playing more minutes being the fault? Blame has to go somewhere. The trade sucked. Dallas went all in on KP. Teams do this. They trade for brokern stars. If KP goes down again we look smart.
Dice was amazing.

Bargnani. I think we traded a worn out cooked Camby, Steve Novak, a 2017 second round pick and the dreaded 2016 1st rounder. Truth be told it was not a great draft and the 9th pick Jakob Proetl. not a bad player mind you, just not a franchise. Sabonis went two picks later and one has to assume we'd have ruined him before he could blossom. Draft always has a few picks one can regret after. This one really did not check too many boxes. But.....it would have been nice to see it onfold.

https://www.basketball-reference.com/draft/NBA_2016.html

IN defense of Bargnani he had a bit of a mean streak. BTw, want to have a good laugh, look at the 2006 draft. Really, After aldridge it was not pretty. Andrea was a salary dump on us. He had a "Nice NBA career, Avg 14 pts a game, 4 rebs. Lauri Markkkkken? We'll see. Andrea did not have a overall 1st pick type career. But again, neither did 9 of the top 10 either. Knicks paid for a guy that had played 66 games the previous two seasons. You stop there.
The now 34 year old Bargnani is retired, wealthy and married to his long time girl Nawa Youb:

Add knicks trading Ariza for Steve Francis. Not that Reezy was a star, but he was a very good player for a very long time! Francis was cooked when he got here.
If Larry wanted that deal you say no. I don't care whose to blame. It sucked.
Some Andrea is not reading how much we think he sucks.