Posted by kam77:

My simple post was: The Curry trade was not reason to fire Isiah. You then asked me if "Isiah is the only GM who could have brought Curry here" which is not what i said at all.

I felt like you were twisting what i said. Thats where the 'annoying' question comment came from.

But how do we play this pose a question game.. its your conjecture on what you think some other GM would have done. So instead of asking me, go ahead and say what you want to say.

I would have done this to get Curry
I would have then gotten this player to complement him etc. etc.

Instead you're throwing Isiah in my face. I don't have to LOVE everything Isiah does to continue supporting the direction of the team. I don't want another GM to come in here, scrap the whole team again, and start over. Do you? I just want the knicks to build intelligently from here on out on top of what has already been built.

If you want to convince me Isiah isn't the GM to take us to the NEXT level, i can get with that.

But Curry I don't fault him for, you don't get a shot at a lottery #4 pick every year. When you can get the dominant low force in the paint, you do it and ask questions later. We weren't in position to take a pass on Eddy.

I would have offered Eddy a 6 year MLE with an option to opt out asap. No team was willing to pay him andn Chicago offered him 20mm$ to retire. I would have offered Chicago NOTHING.

How many Dolan mandates were there? By the time they traded for Curry, Isiah was already talking about rebuilding around the 3 draft picks from the summer before.

Posted by kam77:

Overpaying for someone to come to New York is nothing new. And anyway, the difference between Eddy make 6 mil per year and him making 10 mil per year isn't the difference between being under the cap or not and it also doesn't make Eddy any more tradable either if teams are scared off from his heart condition they won't even offer 1 million.

And wasn't the old critique not about the money we're paying him but about the picks we gave up? these gripes keep changing it seems.

I like curry--- personally it's OK by me if he isnt the best shot blocker etc.. as long as he can give me 25 points at nearly 60% Im living with that. It was the dumb-arse negotiation that still irks me.

I think people credit Zach more than they credit Eddy. Both of them have the potential to be dominating the game. It's up to their effort. You've got to want it. And when you're young, you don't understand what it takes. As these guys enter their PRIME (for big men that comes in the late 20s usually) we'll see the damage they inflict on opponents increase. Thats what i think anyway.

Isiah is the first REAL coach NOT treating eddy like a baby.

Larry Brown treated Curry like a baby???

i seem to remember LB wanted to do the exact same thing Isiah's done by making Curry the main option, but couldn't get Marbury to buy into the notion of becoming the 2nd option on offense & blamed his struggles on the system that LB was trying to run... now all of a sudden Marbury has taken to the role & excelled at it under Isiah... for this Isiah deserves credit for knowing how to handle Marbury, but the premise was the same, & IMO Marbury deserves a huge part of the blame for wasting a year complaining about the system when it was the right idea all along.

ok, that's fair martin... but the premise remains the same... Isiah is doing exactly what LB wanted to do last season, but he's having better success because he convinced Marbury to buy into it... Marbury was struggling at the beginning of this season too, but to his credit he didn't use the system as an excuse & he fought through it this year.

Posted by TMS:

ok, that's fair martin... but the premise remains the same... Isiah is doing exactly what LB wanted to do last season, but he's having better success because he convinced Marbury to buy into it... Marbury was struggling at the beginning of this season too, but to his credit he didn't use the system as an excuse & he fought through it this year.

true, true. Part of LB's job is to convince each player to buy into his concept, how much convincing he has to do is a big gray area. Old school approach: Do it my way and don't complain. New school: coddle the players more and try to mix in your demands the best you can. One may also add that if Isiah had LBs back throughout the process, ie Isiah tells Marbury to work his ass off for LB, then it may have been easier for LB.

Early this year I thought that Marbury was dogging it a little... remember when he was benched for those 2 turnovers and/or was otherwise just sitting on the perimeter doing nothing or not shooting for a whole game at a time? Marb is a little thick/stubborn for his own good. Low BB IQ.

Curry not being ready definatly was the main purpose of Marbury not buying in. In the begining of the season last yr all the players were doing exactly what LB wanted effort wise. Remember preseason they played great defense had like one of the best averages when it came to pts against. Curry being a foul and turn over prone absolutly made players impatient and sour on the plan on offense which lead to TO which lead to many many more possesions for opponents which lead to blowouts. Then there is the quitting and lack of effort mixed him and you end up giving up 70pts in a half to the Wizards.

Also maybe if LB showed he had his players back even though he was a my way or the high way coach he would have gotten more out of his players. Yes if Isiah would have had LBs back then im sure the players would probably listen. Then again if LB didn't try and steal Isiah job and disrespect him by making deals behind Isiahs back maybe Isiah would have backed Brown more.

In the end neither Marbury, Brown, or Isiah did what they should have done. You can't pin it on Marbury, Brown or Isiah as if any one of them would have done the right thing then things would have been different.

Martin - the fine balancing you reference is a historic problem in New York with the Knicks. Even Holzman and Donovan battled. sheesh. Van Gundy had Ernie wacked. When have the NYK front office, scouting and coaching staff ever been on the same page for more than a moment?

Organizational support - for now it seems Dolan supports Mills. Isiah is here until the season is over if he stays to his word. Is Senior Vice President, Basketball Operations Glen Grunwald is a figurehead or the next in line?

Player makeup - missing an Allan Houston, 78 year-old Dikembe's finger wagging and a Rick Brunson's intuition ... with just a skotch more offense please.

Leaders - Frye and Lee will be co-captains next year

Communication - difficult to gauge from the cheap seats and I don't trust the second-hand news from the bitter beat writers

yeah

the nice thing about Sheed is that his one-day layout in Atlnata in a Hawks uniform taught him to be thankful for being included on a winning roster. The Pistons had a system of veterans in place that even Sheed had to get in line behind and behave.