Posted by MS:



Rose would save this franchise, save it, he does things better than Paul and Williams did as a freshman, did you see either of them in the national championship there first year. The kid is quick, strong, a leaper, a penetrator and unselfish.

LOL, I think going to a team that could have beat Oden and his Ohio team to make it to the final Four had a lot to do with that. Come on you can't seriously be thinking Rose is the only reason why they were in the finals.

[Edited by - anji on 04-13-2008 4:24 PM]

Posted by McK1:

I've been a Steph detractor for years but that didn't blind me to the fact that the team had a better chance of winning with the way Steph operates in the half court vs the way Crawford does especially with the additon of Randolph.

1 of Steph's biggest strengths is his ability to get to the foul line and convert. One of Crawfords biggest flaws is he'd rather launch long jumpers than get in the lane and draw contact. It just seemed sensible to me with the bulkiest frontcourt in the league, having Steph play his way would've been alot more beneficial to controlling tempo as well as taking advantage of the fact Marbury Randolph and Curry can put teams in the penalty for 4 qtrs.

Instead he lets Crawford gun and the resultant miss 6 times outta 10 leads to more and more fastbreaks the other way as the fat boys fatigue becomes an even bigger problem than there lack of footspeed up and down the floor to begin with

Posted by djsunyc:

Posted by McK1:

I've been a Steph detractor for years but that didn't blind me to the fact that the team had a better chance of winning with the way Steph operates in the half court vs the way Crawford does especially with the additon of Randolph.

1 of Steph's biggest strengths is his ability to get to the foul line and convert. One of Crawfords biggest flaws is he'd rather launch long jumpers than get in the lane and draw contact. It just seemed sensible to me with the bulkiest frontcourt in the league, having Steph play his way would've been alot more beneficial to controlling tempo as well as taking advantage of the fact Marbury Randolph and Curry can put teams in the penalty for 4 qtrs.

Instead he lets Crawford gun and the resultant miss 6 times outta 10 leads to more and more fastbreaks the other way as the fat boys fatigue becomes an even bigger problem than there lack of footspeed up and down the floor to begin with

i agree with this. the steph trade didn't ruin the franchise. bringing steph in brought a high quality talent and there's always a chance to win with someone that has that talent level. it's everything isiah did AFTER the steph trade that killed the franchise. crawford was brought in to be a 6th man, then when h20 went down, he made crawford the starter. it's now 2008 and crawford is still ideally suit to be a 6th man. i don't like steph, never did but he DID sacrifice alot of his game after the LB year and then felt isiah was throwing him under the bus this year so he left.

brooklyn vs. chicago...brooklyn wins...brooklyn wins...

Posted by McK1:

Posted by TrueBlue:

Posted by djsunyc:

Posted by McK1:

I've been a Steph detractor for years but that didn't blind me to the fact that the team had a better chance of winning with the way Steph operates in the half court vs the way Crawford does especially with the additon of Randolph.

1 of Steph's biggest strengths is his ability to get to the foul line and convert. One of Crawfords biggest flaws is he'd rather launch long jumpers than get in the lane and draw contact. It just seemed sensible to me with the bulkiest frontcourt in the league, having Steph play his way would've been alot more beneficial to controlling tempo as well as taking advantage of the fact Marbury Randolph and Curry can put teams in the penalty for 4 qtrs.

Instead he lets Crawford gun and the resultant miss 6 times outta 10 leads to more and more fastbreaks the other way as the fat boys fatigue becomes an even bigger problem than there lack of footspeed up and down the floor to begin with

i agree with this. the steph trade didn't ruin the franchise. bringing steph in brought a high quality talent and there's always a chance to win with someone that has that talent level. it's everything isiah did AFTER the steph trade that killed the franchise. crawford was brought in to be a 6th man, then when h20 went down, he made crawford the starter. it's now 2008 and crawford is still ideally suit to be a 6th man. i don't like steph, never did but he DID sacrifice alot of his game after the LB year and then felt isiah was throwing him under the bus this year so he left.

brooklyn vs. chicago...brooklyn wins...brooklyn wins...

When you bring in a big name/talent an organization shouldn't have to stress on each move afterwards.

this statement makes absolutely zero sense. tell that to KG, Lebron, and a slew of others...

Lenny found a formula to make the Steph thing winnable. Play him with Frank Williams at least 25 mpg. That freed up Steph to do what he does and the team needed most from him, be aggressive looking for his shot especially in the fourth. Plus Steph was way better at guarding the 2 than the 1. Then after the 04 season what does that idiot Thomas do, he trades Frank Williams for Crawford.

that was the beginning of the END. Steph had no idea how to play with a guy like Crawford and I don't fault him for that cuz in 6 seasons no coach nor 5 has figured out how to play with Crawford...

you keep Frank and sign a guy like Raja to the MLE instead of trading for Jamal and signing Jerome freaking James and NY's fortunes would've been much better despite Steph's negative qualities

[Edited by - McK1 on 13-04-2008 9:15 PM]

Last time I checked Lebron has been getting his teams to the playoffs with essentially a team of misfits. 3yrs in a row with a Finals appearance mind you. K.G. for the majority of his career got his teams to the playoffs with essentially a team of misfits. Using Marbury's half season of success as a means to judge what he ultimately could have become here is a little naive. Marbury should make other players better not have all other 4 players around him, make him a better player.

Posted by McK1:

the whole point is it matters who you put around whomever you decide is your cornerstone. KG for all his greatness couldn't turn a team in which his pg was Marcus Banks and other option on offense Ricky Davis into a play-off participant.

Isiah paid a king's ransom for Marbury with full knowledge of his flaws. He owed it to the franchise, the fans, and to Steph, to put a team around him that would play to his strengths. Isiah otoh brought in guys that made Stephs weaknesses all the more prevalent solely because he had a hard on for them since his days as coach of the Pacers.

K.G. was in surrender mode once Banks and Ricky arrived.

My whole point is Marbury is an extremely flawed cornerstone. So trading for him was his first mistake. I already pointed out Marbury had some pieces around him that were better suited to his game but he pitted himself against such players. And if this is the protocol to follow well at this point I guess we should bring in players to build around Curry. He paid a King's ransom for him also.

Posted by djsunyc:

Posted by McK1:

I've been a Steph detractor for years but that didn't blind me to the fact that the team had a better chance of winning with the way Steph operates in the half court vs the way Crawford does especially with the additon of Randolph.

1 of Steph's biggest strengths is his ability to get to the foul line and convert. One of Crawfords biggest flaws is he'd rather launch long jumpers than get in the lane and draw contact. It just seemed sensible to me with the bulkiest frontcourt in the league, having Steph play his way would've been alot more beneficial to controlling tempo as well as taking advantage of the fact Marbury Randolph and Curry can put teams in the penalty for 4 qtrs.

Instead he lets Crawford gun and the resultant miss 6 times outta 10 leads to more and more fastbreaks the other way as the fat boys fatigue becomes an even bigger problem than there lack of footspeed up and down the floor to begin with

i agree with this. the steph trade didn't ruin the franchise. bringing steph in brought a high quality talent and there's always a chance to win with someone that has that talent level. it's everything isiah did AFTER the steph trade that killed the franchise. crawford was brought in to be a 6th man, then when h20 went down, he made crawford the starter. it's now 2008 and crawford is still ideally suit to be a 6th man. i don't like steph, never did but he DID sacrifice alot of his game after the LB year and then felt isiah was throwing him under the bus this year so he left.

brooklyn vs. chicago...brooklyn wins...brooklyn wins...

Posted by TMS:

Posted by McK1:

the whole point is it matters who you put around whomever you decide is your cornerstone. KG for all his greatness couldn't turn a team in which his pg was Marcus Banks and other option on offense Ricky Davis into a play-off participant.

Isiah paid a king's ransom for Marbury with full knowledge of his flaws. He owed it to the franchise, the fans, and to Steph, to put a team around him that would play to his strengths. Isiah otoh brought in guys that made Stephs weaknesses all the more prevalent solely because he had a hard on for them since his days as coach of the Pacers.

to be fair, at first the team WAS being constructed around Marbury's game... the plan was to have a Marbury & Houston tandem in the backcourt, but then Houston's knees would not allow him to return so he then made the move to go after Jamal... when that failed he kept trying to make bandaid moves & fix on the fly w/players that didn't address any of the glaring weaknesses this team needed to be filled & hitched his wagon to the Curry train, which failed again to deliver what he wanted... more trades to add longterm salary in Jalen Rose, Steve Francis, etc. & still no positive results, but unlike any other sensible GM who would realize the problem wasn't going to be fixed by making such deals he then goes ahead & makes the Zach Randolph trade to add even more longterm cap & screw our longterm future even worse than it already was.

Houston's knees aside...what about Crawford's game said trade the only other point guard on the roster, give him a max deal, so to pair him with Steph? his numbers his last year as a Bull were ATROCIOUS. I remember the game at the Garden where he went something like 4 - 20. The sad part about it was his last 9 misses were all bricks from deep. Never once did a light bulb go on and say GET CLOSER to the rim or better yet PASS the ball. That was in 2004. It is now 2008 and we still have the same complaints about Crawford.

F THE CIRCUMSTANCES, that trade was 10 x's worse than the Marbury trade and was the beginning of the end.

The fact that he has yet to be benched nor totally roasted in the papers says alot about his juice card. He may not listen to a game coach but he responds to PR coaching very well. In fact the only media around here that ever took Isiah to task over Crawford were Mike and the Mad Dog which is a win for IT and Crawford since the average fan hates them anyway

[Edited by - McK1 on 14-04-2008 08:09 AM]

Posted by Anji:

^^^ Guy what are you talking about??? Larry Brown put Crawford on the bench for all but the last two weeks of the season. And Isiah put JC on the Bench for the first 30 or so games last year. And you have no idea what a Max contract is if you think Jamal Crawford ha one.

Posted by TMS:

Posted by McK1:

the whole point is it matters who you put around whomever you decide is your cornerstone. KG for all his greatness couldn't turn a team in which his pg was Marcus Banks and other option on offense Ricky Davis into a play-off participant.

Isiah paid a king's ransom for Marbury with full knowledge of his flaws. He owed it to the franchise, the fans, and to Steph, to put a team around him that would play to his strengths. Isiah otoh brought in guys that made Stephs weaknesses all the more prevalent solely because he had a hard on for them since his days as coach of the Pacers.

to be fair, at first the team WAS being constructed around Marbury's game... the plan was to have a Marbury & Houston tandem in the backcourt, but then Houston's knees would not allow him to return so he then made the move to go after Jamal... when that failed he kept trying to make bandaid moves & fix on the fly w/players that didn't address any of the glaring weaknesses this team needed to be filled & hitched his wagon to the Curry train, which failed again to deliver what he wanted... more trades to add longterm salary in Jalen Rose, Steve Francis, etc. & still no positive results, but unlike any other sensible GM who would realize the problem wasn't going to be fixed by making such deals he then goes ahead & makes the Zach Randolph trade to add even more longterm cap & screw our longterm future even worse than it already was.

Do you agree it shouldn't have been as difficult to build around a player like Steph who supposedly had all this greatness with his 20/8? Appears to me Marbury was a very difficult player to build around and the team had to find perfect 10 matches at every position in order for it to work.

Name players Marbury has made better in his career. I can't think of a single one. Isn't this one of the main responsibilities coming from this position?

I think it's somewhat simple IMO, most would agree if we had Nash, Paul, Kidd, Deron, or even Parker on this team instead of Marbury we'd be better. Of course we'd still have a limited ceiling because the other players are extremely flawed but we'd be a better team.