misterearl wrote:nixluva - the picture you are painting is neither realistic or based in an honest critique of current talent on the NYK.In addition, I cannot think of a single NBA team that has purchased multiple draft picks in the last decade. Given the current economy, general managers are more accountable than ever for salary and value.
Without the orange tinted shades, lets walk through the roster together as brothers:
Fields, Douglas, Shawne Williams, Derick Brown, Amare and Carmelo are the core talent... and Derrick Brown is a question mark. The good news is that he is 6'9 and has NBA experience, however limited. But he is a yoot and we dig yoots.
That makes Six.
SIX.
Jerome Jordan has been in Europe and is currently injured. Last time we saw Andy Rautins he could not dribble a basketball in the NBA.
It is a stone cold fact that Chauncey Billups is too damn old to hold up over the 100 games on the way to the playoffs... and Ronny Turiaf, bless him, is an injury waiting to happen - only good for 11 minutes a night on a good day. Anthony Carter will make a great assistant coach.
The rest are suspect: Shelden Williams is nothing special in ANY category of production. Ditto Jared Jeffries. Roger Mason, Renaldo Balkman and Bill Walker should learn a musical instrument.
We start with six Knicks and need another (minimally) 5 to 9 serious basketball players (including three centers) to not just fill, but COMPLETE, the roster
Most good teams really only have at most 7 good core players and things fall off from there. Go thru any teams roster and look at the talent they have and you'll see that most teams aren't that deep. STAT, Melo, Fields, TD, Shawne ... We have the 17th pick and out of necessity Jerome Jordan. D. Brown is probably another young option, but we can't say how good or useful he'll be. Brown is a prospect and nothing more at this point.
In essence the Knicks did buy picks when you factor in young FA's like Timo and Shawne to go with the actual picks we had last year. If they add 2 late picks in this draft I don't see how that's farfetched given the low cost of a 2nd rd pick anyway. Is it much different than spending the money they did to get Timo?
This team is going to have some young talent, but also vets will be a huge factor. Don't look for this to necessarily become a young team again like it was before the trade. They're gonna look at some vets to make up the difference and it makes sense given that this team is going to be fighting to go deep into the playoffs from here on. The use of Vets will be an important factor in how far this team goes in the playoffs. A couple of good vets can make up the talent gap very quickly so i'm not sure what the point is that you're trying to make, but the Knicks aren't that far off from restocking this team given that they won't want a million young players anyway.
