Cosmic wrote:

Panos wrote:

Not at all. Will we or will we not have the ability to sign a max free agent with or without this trade?

Without this trade all we can do is add one max player to the mess you see, AND, be unable to retain David Lee because we'd only have about 7M left to play with.

When a max FA sees this roster they won't want to come here.

When a max FA sees a clean slate roster and is being told he can pair up with another max FA with the promise of adding a third very good player the following summer to form a powerful trio - your chances of landing that "one max" go up infinitely.

Not doing this trade makes the chance of signing any max FA very hard to do.

Doing this trade makes it much easier for TWO max FAs to pair up together - or one max FA and two very solid FAs.

COSMIC

THANK YOU! Why dont people understand this? Its really the only way.

Cosmic wrote:

Panos wrote:

Not at all. Will we or will we not have the ability to sign a max free agent with or without this trade?

Without this trade all we can do is add one max player to the mess you see, AND, be unable to retain David Lee because we'd only have about 7M left to play with.

When a max FA sees this roster they won't want to come here.

When a max FA sees a clean slate roster and is being told he can pair up with another max FA with the promise of adding a third very good player the following summer to form a powerful trio - your chances of landing that "one max" go up infinitely.

Not doing this trade makes the chance of signing any max FA very hard to do.

Doing this trade makes it much easier for TWO max FAs to pair up together - or one max FA and two very solid FAs.

All of this may be true. I'll grant you all of it.
But then sell it on those merits.
Don't sit there and warp the truth and say that we're not giving up 2 potential lottery picks if it all fails.
Don't say it wer're replacing our pick with the Celtics pick.
Cuz that's all propaganda, salesmanship.
Just say that's a risk you're willing to live with.

Allanfan20 wrote:

eViL wrote:

sebstar wrote:Some of ya'll need to be easy on the '2012 pick wont matter because we'll be good by then' talk.

That was the EXACT same thinking behind the Eddy Curry deal.

truth. what if we make two huge signings and one guy goes down for the year with a freak injury and we end up sucking despite the offseason plan working? there is never a good time to send unprotected picks.

That's another excellent point. Never thought of that one.

Yeah, nobody gave a damn about those picks Isiah was giving away because we all thought we'd at least be a 40-45 win team with Eddy, Jamal, and Marbury...

nixluva wrote:This is what irks me. Walsh came here with a pretty solid record and league wide respect. We haven't had a GM with his resume in a long time. People want to ascribe our other lousy GM's poor decision making onto Walsh as if he's some scrub that never made a good trade before or build a winning team before. DW is not Isiah or Layden. The guy is patient and thorough. He just doesn't strike me as a fool.

All of this stuff is a gamble. People talk about the picks like there a LOCK to always turn out good. REALLY? How many #1 overall picks have flopped? Quite a few. How many times has the team with the top pick in the draft lost it due to the lottery? It's happened enough to be really annoying for the teams that lost it and proves that it's not a lock. Sure we could end up with no one, but our chances are much higher if we can sign to Max players. I'd put our chances at over 90% if we have the cap space to bring in two guys. They would look at it as a chance to come to the best city and win big. All they have to do is show them a Yankee Championship parade down the canyon of heroes and I think we'll get our men.

Dude, you're missing the point.
The point is, just admit that we are indeed trading these assets and don't just waive your hands in the air like they don't exist.