Posted by BRIGGS:
Posted by Bippity10:
Briggs is the most depressing person I've ever been associated with
I'm quite affable:) But I can't stand by after 8 years and say golly jeez with this continued incompetence. Forget bad luck--we've been materially incompetent and as a die hard fan for almost 35 years---with all of this money spent in the best city in the world--Im sick of the disgrace that is going on. We shouldve never hired a 67 YO GM and we were not ready for a Dantoni coach when we really have to rip it up. Even I was mystified by 4-2 but reality is it's jumpshooting and when you live with the jumpshot as your main weapon--you have no chance.
You're way too extreme in this post and on the board lately IMO. First I can understand your overall frustration - we're all in the same boat here. We're all frustrated and annoyed with the situation. But what the last decade has shown me, if nothing else, is that there's a way to do things in the NBA and a way not to. I'm finally confident that we're on the right path. Let's look at the overall outlook on some things you've brought up recently:
BUILDING THE TEAM - I'm 100% confident we're finally approaching things the right way. Collectively we've all been waiting to get this thing straightened out for the longest time and God knows it can't come soon enough, but one thing is crystal clear in my eyes - you can't build a team in the NBA by constantly compounding your mistakes by adding 'marginal' or at best 'decent' or even 'above average' talent for astronomical money. Throwing money at the problem, unless you're getting star talent that automatically gets you to the next level, just doesn't work. The exception to the rule is Boston, but let's look at how they did it exactly - first they had the superstar already in place they chose to build around in Paul Pierce and we haven't had anything even close to that since Sprewell/Houston (Pierce is even better than both of those guys btw). Now in the meantime, they drafted a good young PG in Rondo (who's better than any PG we've drafted since Mark Jackson), acquired or had some other good role players in place already (Perkins, Powe and House - size inside and clutch shooting) and finally they amassed some real young blue chip assets that almost every team in the league coveted right off the bat, namely Al Jefferson and Jeff Green. That's how they pulled off what they did and won the championship. They had the one perineal all-star still in his prime as the centerpiece and they flipped some A+ young talent they had already in place and through the draft into an instant contender and eventual word champion. Risky and not exactly textbook but it worked. Impossible to expect the Knicks to have success doing the same thing - not only do we not have the Paul Pierce to be the main cog (Randolph and Crawford are decent players but neither veteran has ever even made an all-star team - neither player is hardly 'that man' you'd choose to build around) but we haven't even come close to developing the future star like Al Jefferson - Lee, Nate and Chandler are a few maybes and show flashes but I think we all know we don't have the next Al Jefferson here. Boston had the balls and the resources to pull off what amounted to a couple of PACKAGE A type moves (Garnett/Allen) while as it stands right now, we might be able to pull off PACKAGE B stuff like getting Vince Carter or PACKAGE C type things like getting Gerald Wallace and that hardly puts us where we need to be. Point is this is a critical time for us right now - do we panic and make moves to win a few more ball games to insure a playoff berth or do we finally show the patience to stand pat, develop our existing youth to the max while we remain mindful of the cap and re-tool and build this thing the right way? Checketts/Grunfeld toward the end of their reign, and Layden and Isiah later have proven that adding expensive/costly layers of mediocrity on top of existing mediocrity just doesn't work. If you want to be sick of something, be sick of that - I know I am. By the summer of 2011 (only 2+ seasons away), not only will Steph, Q-Brick, Malik and Jerome James be distant memories but Zach, Curry, Craw and Jeffries all come off the cap as well. That's great roster turnover in the near future to look forward too that will help us immensely.
HIRING JOHN GABRIEL - I've read where you've thoroughly trashed this move before but like I said earlier, I fail to see the colossal mistake we made. Walsh and D'Antoni are the major decision makers for the team and I don't see that changing anytime soon. My feeling is that Gabriel's input on player decisions will be negligible at best. Even so, if you look over his track record, it's not as bad as you make it sound:
- He's the 1999 executive of the year for the Orlando Magic.
- In 1999 he hired Doc Rivers to coach the Magic, basically a team of no-names, that went on to win 41 games. Rivers eventually wins coach of the year.
- Darrell Armstrong continues to develops into a strong PG and leader under his watch.
- With a ton of cap space at his disposal the following year, he pursues Grant Hill, Tracy McGrady and Tim Duncan hard, landing Hill and McGrady. Hill never heals as expected from his ankle injury from the previous year's playoffs while with Detroit and plays only 4 games. The move ends up being a mistake but it's tough to completely vilify Gabriel here IMO - he did everything you would expect from your GM at the time. He was aggressive and went after the best players available (much like Danny Ainge did last year with the Celtics - Ainge did it via trades, only difference), getting 2 of the 3 (Duncan chose to stay in SA). He had a window and he went for it - hard to fault him. Remember Gabriel's not a doctor, he obviously got duped somewhat by the Magic medical staff at the time and unfortunately it falls in his lap. Injuries are a funny thing, as we've found out many times. What if Ewing was 100% in the '94 finals - do we beat Houston? What if Ewing doesn't get hurt in 1999 and we had him to go up against Timmy & The Admiral - do we beat SA? What if McDyess never got hurt and we got the 'Dyess we all knew from Denver after we traded for him? What if Penny Hardaway didn't break down shortly after Jason Kidd urged Phoenix to trade for him in 2000? What if Amare doesn't go down in '05/'06? Injuries make or break a lot of things and can really derail a team - as a result, sometimes heads roll for the people in charge. McGrady, meanwhile, really blossomed and becomes one of the better players in the league making the all-star and 2nd all-NBA teams. McGrady continues to play at top performance throughout his career with the Magic.
- Responsible for drafting Mike Miller who goes on to win the 2001 rookie of the year award.
- Makes only one questionable trade that I recall in 2002-03: trading Mike Miller to Memphis for Drew Gooden. Sound thinking at the time though - Orlando needed to get over the hump and already had a nice perimeter game in place led by McGrady, Armstrong and Pat Garrity so they chose to dangle Miller for some inside help - unfortunately Gooden, who was and still is serviceable, wasn't really what they thought or needed. Hindsight's always 20/20 but they probably should've got more for Mike Miller. McGrady does get 1st team all-NBA honors though and the Magic push the Pistons to a 7th game in the conference semis, eventually losing the series in 7.
- Goes out and adds two decent pieces in 2003-04 to get T-Mac some help - Juwan Howard and Tyrone Lue - but gets canned (along with proven coach Doc Rivers) that season after the team goes through the crazy 19-game losing streak.
DONNIE WALSH - Decent track record for the Pacers. Teams were always competitive and well put together. Takes the Knick job & right away establishes a clear plan of what he wishes to accomplish (goal of clearing cap space soon - shooting for the 2010 FA class if possible - while establishing 'a winning culture' and a competitive team ASAP). The Gallinari draft pick stings a lot right now (I think Gallo was more a Walsh guy than anyone else) because it appears he wasn't right when we drafted him, then he injuries himself in the summer then never recovers after all the time off. However, we're a team that's going nowhere right now so if you look at it that way, we can wait another year if need be to see if in fact Gallo was the best player available at 6. Let's be realistic - it's not like loosing Gallo cost us a trip to the finals here this season. We're still in flux and will be for a few more years. People need to relax and come in off the ledge - the Knicks and Walsh need to take care of this Gallinari situation the right way now - keep the fans up to speed on what's going on with him and if it's serious tell us. If it's bad send him to the best back doctor in America (someone else on another thread recommended this and I agree). If he requires surgery, get the surgery. The bottom line is getting this kid 100% and if it means next year, then it's next year. I'm 100% confident they drafted a very talented player, we just gotta get him right now. Unfortunately we might have to wait until next year to see it and that's just the reality of the situation now. That's fine with me, if he's what they think and what I think he might be, he's worth waiting for....I think the big plus right now is he's being patient with the Zach Randolph situation and not jumping at the first bad opportunity that comes along to get rid of him. I'm actually amazed at his patience. He's determined to make the best deal he can for the guy not allowing another team to rape this franchise in the process. In the meantime, Zach is playing like an all-star and his value should maintain or even rise as he keeps putting up the numbers and the contract continues to diminish. And he can't be blamed for this Marbury sideshow IMO - I think he wanted to play him to get his value up to see if they could trade him for a temporary player/players with a one or two year deal only D'Antoni chose not play him. I think behind closed doors he wouldn't be against the buy-out unlike what he's said, but once Marbury popped off & said he wouldn't take a penny less, Walsh countered with the 'I don't do buy-outs anyway.' The whole Marbury thing's one big moot point, but I did like how shrewd Walsh chose to handle it, as if saying, "I'm in control of this team, Stephon, not you." Let's not forget, all indications are the guy had a great trade in place with Memphis on draft night (Lee for the 5th pick) until Lee and his agent nixed it. Since then I think his patience on the David Lee contract extention has been noteworthy - can you imagine how we'd feel right now if he caved in and gave Lee $10 min. per or more?? He's not worth that, not right now anyway... The only thing I would've done differently - I would've been a little more active looking at some of the league-minimum options out there that Walsh had available to him at one point or another this off-season/pre-season that would've really balanced out this roster a little better on the cheap (Justin Williams, Gerald Green), but for the players we're talking about, that's hardly even a criticism. Also, I fail to see why his age is even an issue. I mean we're not exactly talking about John McCain taking over the country here with Sarah Palin waiting in the wings if something happened to him (thank God that whole situation worked its way out btw). If anything it shows Walsh's wisdom and experience, time on the job - you talk like it's a detriment. I think it's a big time positive - this guy has a wealth of knowledge and experience to offer this franchise, not to mention he's got the respect of every NBA executive and coach out there. In a short period of time this guy's shown me a lot. I'm more than comfortable with him at the controls. Let's give him some time...
MIKE D'ANTONI - Has done the best job with this core of players out of anyone involved the past few years, even better than the team's architect, Isiah Thomas. Didn't understand the hiring at first myself, but the bottom line is that he plays a fun brand of basketball, he gets the most out of his players and the key moving forward - PLAYERS WANT TO COME AND PLAY FOR HIM!!! That's all you need to know when pondering whether or not we made the right choice with him as head coach.
[Edited by - finestrg on 11-13-2008 02:06 AM]
