martin wrote:subzero0 wrote:...also remember this. Walsh took the very first trades that came across his desk and took anything he can find because he was scrambling to get room for LeBron James. So don't tell me these were the best trades that would ever have been available. Thats just untrue, Im sorry but it is. Summer of LeBron was just a horrible plan, it really was.
The net effect was Amare and Melo. Certainly didn't hit jackpot, but you would rather roll with Jamal and ZBo?
Walsh certainly gambled, no one doubts that. He tried to fast-track new era. Zbo has turned out to be a better player than he was in NY, but recall that this is his first playoffs since and there was good indication that he as a player could have gone south ala Curry. Jamal never showed that he could do much to put a dent in anything but a .500 team if he was the starting SG. Knicks would have hovered around .500 and had pick 12-17 every other year... and then what?
We keep both and hear a million quotes about LeBron saying that he would certainly have been temped by coming to NY but he couldn't because they didn't have cap space so he chose MIA. Same from Wade and Bosh and Amare and Melo.
Ok, you have hit on something that is interesting here. There seems to be a belief that if a good player is playing well on a bad team then the player is not good and thus should be moved. Again, I am not saying that Walsh should not have moved those players, I am saying that those players were moved without consideration for the draft but instead for cap space which I uphold is wrong. However, when it comes to the point that if a good player is playing well on a bad team then the player is not good I take exception with this. Allow me to explain. Lets talk a little about just Zach Randolph for an example.
When Zach Randloph was here he averaged 20.5ppg and 12.5rpg. But many found this to be inefficient. You yourself here say that "there was good indication that he as a player could have gone south". Absolutely not, no way. Zach Randolph playing for the Grizzles, the same team the Spurs are having all kinds of trouble with now, this season averaged 20.1 and 12.2. Yea, not all that different is it? Do you remember when people were saying that Michael Jordan would never play for a winner? Kind of hard to remember that now what with all the championships and all. And yet there continues to be this line of thought that suggests that a good player playing well on a bad team means that the player is not good. This is a false assumption. Anyone who knows basketball knows this maybe even without really realizing it. When you play a pickup game would you not pick one of the best players on the court because the team he was just on lost? Think about it.
That is the background, but lets get back to the point at hand. To be honest with you I would rather have Amare and Carmelo, but I would have rather had them with a young championship level player to which we owned his bird rights. In this way we would have completed the first part of building a championship level team. The second part would be gathering the role players with the rest of the money left. But now we cannot do this. We have to sign three max level players an almost impossible task now, almost certainly even more difficult after the salary meetings this summer. And even if somehow, someway, the Knicks manage to sign another max player they will only be able to pay role players peanuts. This is why building with first a championship level draft pick with rights and then adding to that player with free agency works and building free agency first does not. You wont have enough room in the cap. It would be too hard to find the right combination of that last max level player and role players by the time your other championship level players become too old and infirmed. Do you understand what I am saying?
