Been gone a while, no time to read up on all thats happening, but we seem to give up on the present, and bank emotionally on the draft, and what Isiah can do next.

Isiah did create a buzz and we are better than we were pre Isiah.

But our future is limited. Look at the bulls, They are so young, and have so much upside. Krause's blue print did not work, but Paxon's got a very young team that might make noise in the next few years.

My point, I am amazed over the short attention span of supporters who are bailing on this team. Why? Not cuz they are bailing, cuz they actually bought into the buzz!

Thud! That is a word I have used at seasons beginnig that could happen if the team fell. This team is a .500 team hitting injuries.

This is a team made up of underacheiveing overpaid players we took back for financial considerations.

Is this the back bone of a championship team? No!

While we will shed some of the contracts, other teams also get better! Its not like they just sit idle.

I said it under "nedyal", and say it again, at the Garden its about competing for your entertainment dollar! This team is very transparent in quality and up until now they did a good job hiding their charater. Penny is selfish, and TT only plays for himself, then the team. Way to go.

Penny for Jalen Rose? That is a rumor I hope does not come to fruition.

18 games and the media is bailing on Allan? Seems a little quick. But I understand! The buzz of his return has not led to the desired result. Who's fault is it? Inflated expectations? Or the media looking to create a story?

Crawford is rusty, his play yesterday gets a pass.

Did I read that Fat Curry only had 3 rebounds yesterday? Thats pretty bad!

Could be worse. Anybody see T-mac s game last nite? The guy is a total clown, he shoots and shoots, then throws a pass that mutumbo should have gotten had he cut to the basket instead of clearing out for another of T-macs shots, and then T-mac goes off on him!

T-mac then gets the ball and does this cool looking thru the leg dribble 5-6 times and then launches a shot from the top of the key and gets nothing but air. Then bitches to ref about it being blocked.
The guy just does not get it.

There is truth in hope for our team, and there is truth with those who think Dolan is schtupping us with the glamor of Isiah and all those trades and rumors. At the end of the day, we MIGHT not be all tthat much better than we were with Layden. I am speaking about record wise. I am speaking about our bloated payroll. I think on paper we look much better, but we as fans tend to overvalue our roster.

If Marbury turns into one of these grumpy spoiled stars who cares more about other things than what we fans care about, then we have truly been taken!


What we hope, and what is real, just might not converge!

total truth in hating!!! The Knicks have had numberous games where they have been blown out after the sound of the buzzer, games they look lost and like they arent trying on D, games where they dont know what to do in crunchtime. This team has been bad to watch and maybe some of the expectation were too high.

There was a chance that this team could play well because it has some firepower.

Overall I'm still happy, because I look at this current team and the I see a bunch of guys that fit into long term plan. Marbury, Crawford, Sweetney and Ariza all look like a good pieces moving forward. JYD and Nazr are also nice role players or trade bait.

Before Isiah came I'm not sure we had ONE guy you could look at and consider part of the future. Lampe and Sweetney? Please, they were looking at the year on IR before Isiah got here. My god people (myself included) were putting line ups together with Milos Vujanic as the starting PG.

Contrary to Brigg's comments we are NOT in exactly the same place we were with Layden

this is a good thread and i hope it gets more attention and that people comment on it.

at the Garden its about competing for your entertainment dollar!

Thats the danger with the Dolan's and there is nothing Isiah can do about it. I am almost sure that Isiah had no choice but to go after Vince Carter because he would fill the Dolans pockets even more. I am also sure that if Isiah has a choice to get a flashy player or a player that will help the Knicks win something, he will be forced to get the flashy player. Dolan wants to get into the playoffs, get the playoff money. He does not care about championships.

I think Zeke will try as much as he can to bring in players that will help us win again but not if he is over ruled by Dolan. I am not excusing Zeke but I think the Knicks will not be able to win a championship unless Jim Dolan changes or the Knicks get an owner that wants to win a championship.

what isiah does with penny and tim will really tell if we're really rebuilding or "starphucking"

This is also very true. Isiah was brought into a really horrible situation and I think he has done great job so far. Assuming he is making the decisions without being directed by Dolan in anyway, the Penny and Timmy deals will tell us what Isiah really wants to do with the Knicks.

The problem is the expectations. Last year we did not expect anything good, so every time they won a game, it was nice suprise.

This year they were supposed to win about 43 games, and at the worst be a .500 team. Now that they are in playa's words, giving us less then anybody could possibly imagine in there worst nightmare, like Nalod says, the thud has come down.

The team is hard to watch, as coaching idiocy and consistent lack of effort all over the court is the most frustrating thing for a fan.

If they just lost because they were simply bad, like back in Layden's days, it would not be such a big deal. Now that they loose because of an obvious lack of effort, and senile Lenny who is asleep on the bench, it is terribe.

I would also like to know what the heck are Thomas's prized assistants doing. Why are we only blaiming idiotic moves on Lenny, when he has like 3-4 asistaant coaches who have been hand picked for him by Thomas? Would they be morons too?

All in all, all thats left to look forward to this year is the draft. Even if we soemhow luck into the playoffs due to the horrific division that we are in, I'd rather miss the playoffs and get a lottery pick then get humiliated again in the 1st round.

So all this loosing is not so bad. First of all it gives a chance to pick up an impact big with a lottery pikc. Second of all it wards of "we are one player from title contention" trades like the one for Rose or some other overpaid shmuck.

I will still rant and rave come postgame of yet another terrible loss, but when in your senses, there is really no drama here, we are fighting to make the playoffs just to loose in 1st round, big freakin deal. Just watch Sweetney and Ariza develop, enjoy Craw's crossovers, and Marbury drives to the basket. This team is entertaining sometimes, even when they loose. Root for TT to break a leg, for KT to get hurt so Sweetney starts, and make bets on how long before Houston's kneeds explode on the court lol. Have fun and just enjoy bball.

Sim... great post, I agree 100% and the "one player away" thing is on the money. I still think we wind up over .500

It only took Lenny 30 games to bench TT. I'm thinking after 50 we might finally see Sweetney get a start. Time will tell... a broken TT leg would be nice. UGGH

I was hoping for a 45win season and we Houston & Crawford were healthy and TT continued to play the way he did last yr we would be. But I definatly knew that this wasn't a contender or one player away. We brought in Marbury then Crawford & Ariza and we are developing Sweetney basically in a 1 yr span. So I will look to there development and hope we can continue to build and build and build. Losing might actually help us in the long run if it keeps Zeke focused on rebuilding and adding young players the way he was last season/offseason.

Even though ewing got all the money(in his day) like KG we had to wait to long to add pieces to make us contend for a title.

That's the same interpretation I have for Stephon. He's an awesome player but right now he's at the stage Ewing and KG were at before they got the final pieces necessary to make their teams championship contenders.

PLaya,
Don't use the Ewing years as the model. That was short term Starphuching at its best. We dumped Rod Strickland (charactor) and Mark Jax (too slow?) and never had a true point leader. Harper was a hard nose player, but not the leader.

X-man, Charles smith, were all past prime when they got here. Oak was a great role player promoted to prime time and he was ok, but the offense suffered. We asked Patrick to do too much, and he loved it.

Never any home grown talent. Starks and Mase were talented, but volitile charactors. Larry was past his prime and hurt many years, and While Spree was our best player, him and Allan never really blended well. Camby was always hurt. He had great moments, but would have been a great forward than carry the center burdan.

All old news, but I bring it up that because those days were similar to now, except we were contenders becasue we had a Superstar big man.

Patrick was a true superstar. One of the all time great centers, an offensive force, was never given the PROPER support. Mutts like Starks and Mase in clutch moments melted, and other past prime players like Kiki, Rolando, cheeks, etc. were costly additions.

We were profitable by going to the conf. finals back then. That is how that team was constructed. Fans were content and paid up big time. The ewing departure was miss-orchestrated by Checketts/Ernie/Layden with trying to bring in a front line of Mutumbo-rice-Baker front line. That trade got busted, and thus was incomplete. Seems like Layden was never able to drop the other shoe and the teams were fundamentally incomplete. I think dolan was diricting him in many directions and he was not strong enough to stand up and build it thru the draft as was his strength. Personally I think he was doomed for many reasons, and I lay blame mostly on those three in charge in tandem for a hosts of reasons, but mostly on Dolan for being the captain of the ship.

Isiah has delivered an entertaining bunch but they are in cold terms: overpaid losers. His experiment of taking Marbury under his wing is still very very early in the game, but its been a year and while Marbs is putting up nice stats, and words, Its unclear if he can develope into a true leader. His history is not of winning, but of the prima-donna megamillion superstar. I do hope Isiah can convert him! This is paramount. The Rookies are very encouraging. something we have not seen in almost 20 years! Sweets is still a year or so away from really knowing if he can handle it, and Trevor likley 2 years.

For change to happen, we must "solve the problems at a higher level of thinking than that in which created it"-Einstien.

My worry is we took on more salary and that puts pressure on keeping the buzz going. At some point we must stop Starphuching and just develope the talent to either keep, or enrich thru trades.

That means no Jalen Rose, or CWebb! Those guys give us instant gradification, but no real future. Its tough to not want those guys and get that quick buzz. Cwebb has Brad miller, or has had Divacs to pass with he could play. Cwebb will have who? And he is big bucks, and his history is not exactly pristine either! In college, Golden State, the Wizards he had done zip! Those sacramento teams were very talented! The supporting cast was excellent! But they could not do it! Im not happy wanting to be like the Kings, that were like the knicks in the 1990s! Good, but not good enough!

Winning the east is profitable, but unless we can really win a championship, I am just not interested. We have the money, we just need the patience! We can outspend any team, but we can't field a team because we are always chasing our tails! Mark Cuban has not yet put together the formula, but he is building thru young players and not willing to overspend in some areas.

[quote]
Posted by Nalod:

PLaya,
Don't use the Ewing years as the model. That was short term Starphuching at its best. We dumped Rod Strickland (charactor) and Mark Jax (too slow?) and never had a true point leader. Harper was a hard nose player, but not the leader.




I will still use the Ewing yrs as a model, you call it star phuching, but remember we already had a center in place who was #1 low post threat that commanded a double team #2 shotblocking.


Marbury does not give you those qualities to build around.
You can't put role players around a Franchise pg and expect to produce.

But you can put role players around a Franchise center who did what EWING OR a DUNCAN could do.

fishmike that's the same thing i was thinking while eating my breakfast burrito

some people are so caught up in this rebuilding thing but ultimately have to realize that there is only 1 true way to rebuild so if the knicks are not doing that then

they are not rebuilding. they can call it what they want-rebuilding on the fly, getting younger and more athletic, etc

but what team in the league isn't signing draft picks and trading and etc. etc.

what is really funny are the ones that have begun to realize that isiah "tricked" them

[Edited by - bigpimpin on 01/19/2005 11:18:09]

Posted by fishmike:

why are people so hung on building around Marbury? I think we got him because he was the best player available at the time.

I don't have the time, but I wish someone would go back to the draft and see what biggs were available in the draft the last two yrs.

Knowing we weren't going to win a title anyway, lets see what we could have got in lottery the last two seasons along with Dice deal coming off the books.