Lampe as a rookie should have gotten more play. F-Will as a rookie should have gotten more play. Sweetney as a rookie should have gotten more play. Ariza as a rookie should have gotten more play.

But the truth is under Brown 3 rookies simultaneously got more play than any one of those other guys got under OTHER coaches.

Posted by BlueSeats:

Posted by Rich:

Posted by BlueSeats:

Posted by Rich:

IMO, that he didn't play the young players on a team going nowhere is a damning indictment.

Think isiah, even last year, had no interest in trying to justify his payroll and traded draft picks?

Dont' you think he had a countervailing interest in proving that the players he drafted should get more minutes,

Not last year. We were expected to be a playoff bound team last year because of our veterans, not because of our rookies. so the kids got more burn than many had expected.

And also keep in mind, that some of the minutes the drafted players did not get were going to other youthful players with promise, like Woods and Butler.

I thought the best way to meet the twin goals of developing players and to make the playoffs was to take your lumps with them early, particularly Frye, so that by January they would be ready to contribute toward a playoff run. That didn't happen. As I said, Larry never used them in a way that would enable them to know their roles.

and that Curry should have been given the opportunity to play with foul trouble?

When curry's game is on a he's a valuable tool. when it's off I'd much rather have AD, Malik or Butler in there. Last year was Eddy's 5th in the league, not his first, so we're not talking about letting him play thru rookie mistakes, where talking about him not showing up.


[Edited by - blueseats on 11-24-2006 12:23 AM]

We disagree. Neither AD nor Malik give you enough to offset the goal of developing Curry, which seemed a more realistic possiblity last season than it may right now.

Posted by BlueSeats:

Lampe as a rookie should have gotten more play. F-Will as a rookie should have gotten more play. Sweetney as a rookie should have gotten more play. Ariza as a rookie should have gotten more play.

But the truth is under Brown 3 rookies simultaneously got more play than any one of those other guys got under OTHER coaches.

Again, it's not only the aggregate minutes, it's the usage pattern.

The same thing happens with the Rangers:

MSG: Sports are different here.

Posted by Rich:

Posted by SeatsBlue:

Posted by Rich:

Posted by martin:

Posted by Rich:

Posted by SeatsBlue:

Posted by Rich:

Posted by SeatsBlue:

Posted by Rich:

But for the last game, the players are playing with a lot more heart for Isiah than they did for the fraud.

I disagree otherwise we wouldn't see the quick pulling of the starters for the bench players. The last few games have proven the players overall are spoiled, non team-goal oriented, passionless, BUMS.

[Edited by - SeatsBlue on 11-23-2006 10:34 PM]

That the bench players have been effective and playing with heart (and the team back into games) is more than happened last year.

When LB played the bench players they played hard he just didnt play the young players more. Mo Taylor, and Malik played tough off the bench.

IMO, that he didn't play the young players on a team going nowhere is a damning indictment.

Rich, how can you say he LB didn't play the young players. Lee, Nate, Frye - 3 ROOKIES - got minutes compared to the rest of the rookie class. AND they duplicated positions the Knicks has OTHER players worthy of minutes. Your argument doesn't play.

Because he would play them and then bury them, and then play them again. They have said that the jerking around was a hinderance to their development.

So why is Curry still terrible, why was Frye almost burried on the bench during second half of games?

Curry has a low hoops IQ and a seemingly questionable dedication to the game.

Frye. You mean this year? He needed to regain his confidence after the surgery and being Browned out by Larry. He seems to be back and ready to be what we thought he would. As someone mentioned in another thread, his post up moves agaisnt KG were impressive.

Zeke said and I quote "This team will go as far as Curry goes". Oh and Balkman is being jerked around BTW.

Rich, there was no stability last year. No doubt. You just have to consider the complexity of the situation. We had a gargantuan payroll of name-brand players with playoff experience (Marbury, AD, Richardson, Francis, Rose, Taylor and Malik.) Add in guys hotly pursued by Isiah, like Crawford, Curry, and james, and you have the components of what was SUPPOSED to be a competitive squad.

The rookies were not expected to provide leadership and carry this team, and for Brown to feature them, at the expense of the overpaid and overrated veteran cast that isiah had assembled would have been an embarrassment to Isiah and Dolan.

If the team had performed to isiah's expectations the defined and consistent roles for the kids would have been consistent bench players. It was because the veterans failed so miserably that Brown needed to occassionally elevate these guys to starting roles, but those starts should be seen as an opportunity for them, if not a "gift", rather than what should have been expected. But when those opportunities still did not yield benefits similar opportunities where extended to others. Sometimes it was back to veterans, sometimes it was to other "kids" like Butler and Woods.

In the end, between egos, poor play, injuries, power struggles, mutinies, etc, the entire year was upside down. to somehow expect all that to ultimately favor three particular rookies is unrealistic. We see the same things playing out this year too, and if it all comes out to the advantage of Lee, Frye and Nate it will likely be for no other reason than because we the fans demand it.

Posted by BlueSeats:

Posted by Rich:
Frye. You mean this year? He needed to regain his confidence after the surgery ...

What surgery? He had a hyper extended knee, he said he was 100% back in summer league in June. Claiming he began this season still "damaged" by inconsistent PT does not speak well for his mental toughness.

My bad. The injury. You can be 100% physically, but sometimes it does take a little time to regain the confidence (or maybe trust is the right word) that you can do the things you did before the injury.

Posted by Rich:

Posted by BlueSeats:

Posted by Rich:
Frye. You mean this year? He needed to regain his confidence after the surgery ...

What surgery? He had a hyper extended knee, he said he was 100% back in summer league in June. Claiming he began this season still "damaged" by inconsistent PT does not speak well for his mental toughness.

My bad. The injury. You can be 100% physically, but sometimes it does take a little time to regain the confidence (or maybe trust is the right word) that you can do the things you did before the injury.

That's fine. Clearly something got in his head. But to think it goes back to February of last year rather than events more recent seems speculative at best. The problem with your argument that Larry did it to him, and therefore he's still shaken by events that happened as far back as February or so, suggests he's mentally fragile - which is like opening a Pandora's box, because then we might exect many re-occurrences over the course of a career.

Why do I say all this? Because everyone else on the team went through the same inconsistencies last year but few came into the season still rattled. In fact most came in charged up and on a mission.

So lets hope it was the knee, even though I don't believe it was.

Posted by BlueSeats:

Posted by Rich:

Posted by BlueSeats:

Posted by Rich:
Frye. You mean this year? He needed to regain his confidence after the surgery ...

What surgery? He had a hyper extended knee, he said he was 100% back in summer league in June. Claiming he began this season still "damaged" by inconsistent PT does not speak well for his mental toughness.

My bad. The injury. You can be 100% physically, but sometimes it does take a little time to regain the confidence (or maybe trust is the right word) that you can do the things you did before the injury.

That's fine. Clearly something got in his head. But to think it goes back to February of last year rather than events more recent seems speculative at best. The problem with your argument that Larry did it to him, and therefore he's still shaken by events that happened as far back as February or so, suggests he's mentally fragile - which is like opening a Pandora's box, because then we might exect many re-occurrences over the course of a career.

Why do I say all this? Because everyone else on the team went through the same inconsistencies last year but few came into the season still rattled. In fact most came in charged up and on a mission.

So lets hope it was the knee, even though I don't believe it was.

I think it was a combination. From mid-season until the day he was injured, his game was never at the same level it was earlier in the season. So when he finally got back on the court in an NBA game, not only did he have to regain the confidence in his knee, he had to regain his shooting rhythm, and he had to remember that he was the player he was before he was jerked around by the HoF coach.

Granted, he should have been strong enough to withstand Larry's attempts to break him down before he would supposedly build him back up, but he wasn't.

Posted by Rich:

Posted by SeatsBlue:

Posted by Rich:

Posted by SeatsBlue:

Posted by Rich:

Posted by martin:

Posted by Rich:

Posted by SeatsBlue:

Posted by Rich:

Posted by SeatsBlue:

Posted by Rich:

But for the last game, the players are playing with a lot more heart for Isiah than they did for the fraud.

I disagree otherwise we wouldn't see the quick pulling of the starters for the bench players. The last few games have proven the players overall are spoiled, non team-goal oriented, passionless, BUMS.

[Edited by - SeatsBlue on 11-23-2006 10:34 PM]

That the bench players have been effective and playing with heart (and the team back into games) is more than happened last year.

When LB played the bench players they played hard he just didnt play the young players more. Mo Taylor, and Malik played tough off the bench.

IMO, that he didn't play the young players on a team going nowhere is a damning indictment.

Rich, how can you say he LB didn't play the young players. Lee, Nate, Frye - 3 ROOKIES - got minutes compared to the rest of the rookie class. AND they duplicated positions the Knicks has OTHER players worthy of minutes. Your argument doesn't play.

Because he would play them and then bury them, and then play them again. They have said that the jerking around was a hinderance to their development.

So why is Curry still terrible, why was Frye almost burried on the bench during second half of games?

Curry has a low hoops IQ and a seemingly questionable dedication to the game.

Frye. You mean this year? He needed to regain his confidence after the surgery and being Browned out by Larry. He seems to be back and ready to be what we thought he would. As someone mentioned in another thread, his post up moves agaisnt KG were impressive.

Zeke said and I quote "This team will go as far as Curry goes". Oh and Balkman is being jerked around BTW.

And the Curry trade may well turn out to be Isiah's undoing. Balkman has gotten less minutes recently, but in fairness, Isiah said before the season that he probably wouldn't be getting too many minutes, at least early in the season.

This really looks symetrical. Cool!

Posted by Bonn1997:

I gotta agree with Rich here. I don't get why people keep emphasizing that Lee, Frye, Nate were rookies. Your year in the league shouldn't be what determines your playing time. What you can do on the court should be. You don't give rookies (or anyone) free minutes but they earned much more time than the veterans and much more time than they were actually given.

Thats a completely idealistic statement that I'm sure everyone can agree on, in the idealistic sense, but it ignores the political realities of things like payroll, ego, and the expectations of the guys paying the bills. And even with all that Frye and Nate got the 4th and 5th most minutes on the team, and thats with Frye missing major minutes to injury.

Back to politics, it's no different now. So far this year Fyre is 5th in total minutes (down a notch) and Nate is 7th. If frye continues to struggle he might drop even lower. So these guys roles are dropping in a relative sense, and that's with less veteran competition this year.

The outcome of these guys careers really wont be determined by how consistent their rookie minutes were. Look at Balkman. Whatever one may think of him, does he seem the type who's career will be determined by amount or consistency of minutes this year? I don't think so, he doesn't seem that fragile. His career seems more dependent on developing a midrange shot, and that's usually handled in practice and the off-season. But his head seems like it will always be in it, unlike some others.

IMO people want to attribute things that are particular to a given player to something that happened last year, when those same occurrences had no recognizable affect on other players.

It's like eating at a restaurant and seeing a friend have an allergic reaction to something, but no one knows what. Someone arbitrarily declares it's a reaction to nuts, and then declares that no restaurant should ever be allowed to cook with nuts.

A) we don't really know it was the nuts.
B) even if it was the nuts we shouldn't generalize the issue and apply it to everyone. not everyone will be allergic to nuts.
C) the choice to serve nuts or not may be political, like if the restaurant is known for nuts and is even called "The Nut House"

And yet, will all of that, in an idealistic world we can say, restaurants should not serve people food they are allergic to. Easy to say, harder to do, and it might all be irrelevant to the reaction in question.

Anyway, I think the attitudes of the veterans who surround these guys will have a far greater impact on their heads and ultimate development, and that's where the political realities creep back in. Isiah has brought all of them here. Lets hope he can do a better job of managing egos and attitudes this year than last, while also keeping an eye on minutes for these guys.

Posted by BlueSeats:

Posted by Bonn1997:

I gotta agree with Rich here. I don't get why people keep emphasizing that Lee, Frye, Nate were rookies. Your year in the league shouldn't be what determines your playing time. What you can do on the court should be. You don't give rookies (or anyone) free minutes but they earned much more time than the veterans and much more time than they were actually given.

Thats a completely idealistic statement that I'm sure everyone can agree on, in the idealistic sense, but it ignores the political realities of things like payroll, ego, and the expectations of the guys paying the bills. And even with all that Frye and Nate got the 4th and 5th most minutes on the team, and thats with Frye missing major minutes to injury.

Back to politics, it's no different now. So far this year Fyre is 5th in total minutes (down a notch) and Nate is 7th. If frye continues to struggle he might drop even lower. So these guys roles are dropping in a relative sense, and that's with less veteran competition this year.

The outcome of these guys careers really wont be determined by how consistent their rookie minutes were. Look at Balkman. Whatever one may think of him, does he seem the type who's career will be determined by amount or consistency of minutes this year? I don't think so, he doesn't seem that fragile. His career seems more dependent on developing a midrange shot, and that's usually handled in practice and the off-season. But his head seems like it will always be in it, unlike some others.

IMO people want to attribute things that are particular to a given player to something that happened last year, when those same occurrences had no recognizable affect on other players.

It's like eating at a restaurant and seeing a friend have an allergic reaction to something, but no one knows what. Someone arbitrarily declares it's a reaction to nuts, and then declares that no restaurant should ever be allowed to cook with nuts.

A) we don't really know it was the nuts.
B) even if it was the nuts we shouldn't generalize the issue and apply it to everyone. not everyone will be allergic to nuts.
C) the choice to serve nuts or not may be political, like if the restaurant is known for nuts and is even called "The Nut House"

And yet, will all of that, in an idealistic world we can say, restaurants should not serve people food they are allergic to. Easy to say, harder to do, and it might all be irrelevant to the reaction in question.

Anyway, I think the attitudes of the veterans who surround these guys will have a far greater impact on their heads and ultimate development, and that's where the political realities creep back in. Isiah has brought all of them here. Lets hope he can do a better job of managing egos and attitudes this year than last, while also keeping an eye on minutes for these guys.

which is exactly what Isiah is dealing with now. Explain why you best frontcourt defender, rebounder and FG% leader cant break 25 minutes a game. Politics, payroll, ego, investment... its not as simple like in college where a stud like Noah can get benched on a whim. Nate has been the best of Crawford/Francis/Marbury yet he's still 4th in that rotation.



[Edited by - fishmike on 11-24-2006 12:19 PM]