Posted by BRIGGS:

Posted by Rich:

Posted by simrud:

Why do you bother addressing the IT crew after losses? Don't you know they only come out after wins.

I think Isiah is doing a below average job, but I also think that he gets too much blame given the mess he inherited and the constraints imposed by the owner he has to work for.

Either way, I'm here whether the Knicks win or lose.

what constraints are those--the guy has spent 500mm$ how much more latitude canb one person have--the guy has had NO RESTRAINT on his ability to bring in players. There are teams with less than 1/3 of our payroll.

The constraints, or lack thereof, and the mission statement, however nonsensical, are set at the discretion of the owner.

As has been said previously, Dolan, in his own words, said at the press conference that announced Isiah's hiring, that the goal of the franchise, although cap-strapped and talent-deficient, was to make the playoffs that year.

Now one can argue that no GM with integrity should have taken the job under those ridiculous conditions, which is a proposition with which I would agree, but obviously, that's naive.

In light of the foregoing, it's hardly unsurprising that Isiah made the Marbury trade when he did, who he hoped to pair with Houston, assuming that the doctors told him that was going to fully heal in the foreseeable future. So he set out to build around them, trying to trade for Rasheed, but he failed.

That is the point at which I think it's fair to condemn him. He needed to change course and blow up the team. Instead he traded too many expiring contracts for players with ridiculous remaining years on their contracts, and draft picks that were too low to yield impact players.

I think it's likely that the Francis and J Rose trades were made at Larry's behest, but he definitely gave up too much for Curry given the objective negotiating positions of the Knicks and Bulls, even if the arc of Curry's career continues to ascend and the Bulls don't get Oden.

As I have said before, hold him accountable, i.e., fire him, but I have no confidence that Mills, the teflon clown, or Dolan, the little prince, will right the ship by hiring a GM with an established track record of winning, and give him a mission statement that emphasizes basketball considerations over financial ones.

People often use Houston's poor health as some form of excuse for Isiah's backwards rebuild, but I don't see how choosing to essentially build around an ailing ~32 yr old Houston was any wiser than choosing to build around a much younger busted kneed McDyess.

Embarking the team on an extremely expensive course of adding a 100M contract and giving up two 1st round picks for a fragile minded combo-guard who turns teammates off, after just one week on the job and limited knowledge of the condition of his team was imprudent and disasterous.

But none of that mattered in Isiah's mind. He was intent on churning the entire roster over in the least amount of time possible. Ditto the medical staff, trainers, broadcasters, marketing department, and for all we know, janitorial department.

Sure Dolan wanted a quick fix, but I've seen nothing in Isiah's MO to assume he'd have advised or preferred a slower or more measured approach.

Posted by BRIGGS:

with the hype starting with Mr IT. We are one player away from the championship? Or is the team that consistently finds themselves down20+. It is what it is. And you can also see where a guy with a frame like foster oneal chris dudley type build will give curry problems. When he cant overpower someone hes not the same player. I don't know, but the play does the talking for me and it was a HORRIBLE homestand and now that we play tougher opponents the talent discrepency is pretty big.

I still like the team for the most part. I watched the game and we got beat for two reasons: 1) our perimeter defense was terrible (zone will not work consistently against a team that can shot and understands have to cut effectively to beat the zone and Ind. was definitely prepared for our zone); and 2) when things were starting to go bad, we had no leader on the floor to pull the team together. It was a tough loss against a solid playoff team. However, I still like the young nucleus of this team. I still think we are two good trades or FA signings away from having a solid playoff them.

Lee, Balkman, Curry, Q, Jeffries, Fyre, and Nate all are showing that they can play in this league and have the mental toughness to be part of a playoff team. Our problems are that Marbury, Francis, and to a lesser extent Crawford are our top perimeter guards and none of them play with a high understanding of how to win basketball games and run a team. Marbury has the talent and most of the skills but does not have the tangibe leadership qualities needed, Crawford I think can be a leader but makes too many bad decisions with the basketball and cannot be trusted at this point to run a playoff contending team, and Francis is a mix of both but not quite what I would call an ideal floor general. If you add a Steve Nash or Jason Kidd (or even a Chris Paul or T.J. Ford type player) to this team to run the point and you bring in a young shot-blocking defensive PF, I think this team could become a solid playoff caliber team in a short period of time, i.e. 1 to 2 more years. Lee, Fyre, Nate, Balkman, and Curry still need to mature and learn more about the game, but it is clear that Curry, Lee, and to a lesser extent Nate and Frye (although he got off to a slow start) have improved from last year and appear to have the work ethic (except maybe Curry but hopefully he has matured) to continue to improve. Balkman is a solid rookie and Jeffires and Q are young talented players.

Three years ago when IT started we were a 33 win team with a bunch of aging players, no real star, and heading nowhere. This season we look like we will be a 33 win team, with at least one potential allstar, and several 26 and under talent that will continue to improve. Admittedly, this team has a long way to go as yesterday showed and we need to make a few more trades and/or signings before I would say the roster is balanced, but I don't think it is a situation in which we are years away and need an entire roster turnover. That is why I am not going to get overly down on every single loss. This is a process. We got beat yesterday because Ind. game planned for our zone and to stop Curry. To me, that is a good thing. It took us 20 games to finally figure out what type of team we want to be. Other teams now recognize that if you let Curry control the paint, the Knicks can beat you, so they are going to game plan for that. Now what we have to do is figure out how to run our offense even when other teams that have the personnel to matchup with Curry are going to focus on stopping his lowpost game. That is the next step. All I want to see is that the team learns from the Ind. game and grows in its ability to execute the offense against a tough defense and that Curry learns how to be effective even when he is constantly double-teamed. Again, it is a process of growing when you have a young team. But I still think we are only 1 or 2 players away from balancing out our roster and 1 or 2 years away from our young players gaining enough experience to start playing playoff caliber basketball. That is why I don't blowup after every loss.

[Edited by - TheGAme on 12-16-2006 12:08 PM]

Except he makes like $5 to $7 million per year, right?

That's more than I make.