loweyecue wrote:

Paladin55 wrote:Hmmm... so does all this mean that we could have waited for Anthony to become a FA, kept our young team intact, and really been primed to compete against all comers next season, and also have the ability to make major deals during the draft, if Anthony and Dolan had shown patience?

Just a thought.

This is whyit's a bad idea to judge a decision with the advantge of hindsight. Decisions are made with incomplete information so it needs to be juded with he same POV. It's actually a very hard thing to do, but at least we should be cognizant of the need for it. Decisions should NOT be judged by he results they produce as counterintuitive as that sounds.

All well and good, but it was a ****ty decision at the time, too. No other way to slice it. We could've easily had Carmelo via free agency and there would've been enough cap room, barring an unrealistic drop in salary cap which half the teams in the league would've balked at.

The Knicks championship potential increased and by that, I mean, the earliest we win a championship went from 2013 to something more like 2020. Disgusted enough by Dolan's blatant mismanagement that I would stop rooting for the Knicks, if I could bare it. It was a paranoid panic move made by someone who had an itchy trigger finger, wishing for a good excuse to raise ticket prices. End of story.

At this point, now we're waiting for a Steve Nash trade to save a roster that clearly has no chance at a title.

Still I blame the greed of Melo for wanting nothing less than everything and not being patient enough to wait for the postseason to sign with the Knicks. He wasn't willing to wait and take that risk, so we ended up making the deal. In the end I don't really think it's gonna matter. I still think the Knicks are gonna end up being a contender. It's just the nature of a team that has 2 elite talents on it. IMO we can expect this team to be in the 50+ win neighborhood from here on. I TOTALLY disagree with this notion that this team has to depend on getting Nash in order to contend for a title. Neither the Bulls nor the Heat are that far ahead of the Knicks that we can't catch up to them. The Knicks already are a better offensive team then either the Bulls or Heat and now we need to build up the defensive side of the ball, which it appears the team is making moves to do.

Look if CB and STAT didn't get hurt and we had rebounding and a backup PG against the Celtics we probably beat them. It's not like we got out classed at full strength!!! Now imagine a full season with a more balanced roster and this Knicks team is gonna be a big threat next year. We need to lose that loser mentality and accept the fact that this team has some real good things in its future.

nixluva wrote:The thing is that the Owners weren't going to let on what their real goal was. There was no way to know as a player that the owners would soften their stance. Tell me when has a labor negotiation ever been that open? No the owners wanted to put fear into the hearts of the players and they did.

Still I blame the greed of Melo for wanting nothing less than everything and not being patient enough to wait for the postseason to sign with the Knicks. He wasn't willing to wait and take that risk, so we ended up making the deal. In the end I don't really think it's gonna matter. I still think the Knicks are gonna end up being a contender. It's just the nature of a team that has 2 elite talents on it. IMO we can expect this team to be in the 50+ win neighborhood from here on. I TOTALLY disagree with this notion that this team has to depend on getting Nash in order to contend for a title. Neither the Bulls nor the Heat are that far ahead of the Knicks that we can't catch up to them. The Knicks already are a better offensive team then either the Bulls or Heat and now we need to build up the defensive side of the ball, which it appears the team is making moves to do.

Look if CB and STAT didn't get hurt and we had rebounding and a backup PG against the Celtics we probably beat them. It's not like we got out classed at full strength!!! Now imagine a full season with a more balanced roster and this Knicks team is gonna be a big threat next year. We need to lose that loser mentality and accept the fact that this team has some real good things in its future.

I agree with most of this, but it's unrealistic to blame Anthony for not wanting to take less money. That's just not the way sports works. I also think it's a stretch to say that New York would have beat Boston, but they clearly were not at full strength during the playoffs and that point is well-taken.

BigSm00th wrote:regarding the knicks and whether they were stupid for making the melo deal....

here are the 2011/12 salaries of players that were on the team before the trade:
STAT: 18.2 mil
turiaf: 4.4 mil
toney D: 1.1 mil
bill walker: 0.9 mil
rautins: 0.8 mil
landry: 0.8 mil

total: 26.2 mil

ray felton: 7.5 mil (expires after next season)
the rooster: 4.2 mil
mozgov: 2.6 mil
wil the thril: 3.1 mil (RFA)
tony randolph: 2.9 mil

total: 20.3 mil

so overall the knicks would've had a cap number at 46.2 mil.

melo could've still got his 18 million a year and the knicks would come in at 64 million.

BUT....

how much will the rooster and wil sign for down the road? they may have become prohibitively expensive for the knicks to sign, especially if the "plan" all along is to get a 3rd star like CP3 or dwight or whoever.

That's still revisionist. The cap was only projected at 56-58 million, meaning Carmelo Anthony loses half or 1/3 his salary based on the information available at the time, or he can go to New Jersey and play in the market he wants to play in and make the 18 per.

loweyecue wrote:

Solace wrote:

loweyecue wrote:

Paladin55 wrote:Hmmm... so does all this mean that we could have waited for Anthony to become a FA, kept our young team intact, and really been primed to compete against all comers next season, and also have the ability to make major deals during the draft, if Anthony and Dolan had shown patience?

Just a thought.

This is whyit's a bad idea to judge a decision with the advantge of hindsight. Decisions are made with incomplete information so it needs to be juded with he same POV. It's actually a very hard thing to do, but at least we should be cognizant of the need for it. Decisions should NOT be judged by he results they produce as counterintuitive as that sounds.

All well and good, but it was a ****ty decision at the time, too. No other way to slice it. We could've easily had Carmelo via free agency and there would've been enough cap room, barring an unrealistic drop in salary cap which half the teams in the league would've balked at.

The Knicks championship potential increased and by that, I mean, the earliest we win a championship went from 2013 to something more like 2020. Disgusted enough by Dolan's blatant mismanagement that I would stop rooting for the Knicks, if I could bare it. It was a paranoid panic move made by someone who had an itchy trigger finger, wishing for a good excuse to raise ticket prices. End of story.

At this point, now we're waiting for a Steve Nash trade to save a roster that clearly has no chance at a title.

I don't know how you can make a statement like that. If I remember correctly Melo made it very clear he wanted to get paid and he was absolutely asking for the trade to happen. There was no discernible evidence that he would have risked losing money in a new CBA to come here, except unsubstantiated 4th hand rumors fed to the masses via virtual accounts on twitter. Walsh could not unilaterally decide to wait unless Melo chose to do the same.

And if we went down that route and Melo didn't come here in teh off season and instead took the money, I'll bet even money that at least half the board would be blaming Walsh for missing out again based on the outcome which was driven by a variable over which Walsh had no control.
So it really comes down to whether the deisions was a balanced decision at the time, I think Walsh wanted to male the trade and I also believe that Dolan forced him to overpay. The second part is pure speculation on my part but that's just my take on it.

loweyecue wrote:

Solace wrote:

loweyecue wrote:

Paladin55 wrote:Hmmm... so does all this mean that we could have waited for Anthony to become a FA, kept our young team intact, and really been primed to compete against all comers next season, and also have the ability to make major deals during the draft, if Anthony and Dolan had shown patience?

Just a thought.

This is whyit's a bad idea to judge a decision with the advantge of hindsight. Decisions are made with incomplete information so it needs to be juded with he same POV. It's actually a very hard thing to do, but at least we should be cognizant of the need for it. Decisions should NOT be judged by he results they produce as counterintuitive as that sounds.

All well and good, but it was a ****ty decision at the time, too. No other way to slice it. We could've easily had Carmelo via free agency and there would've been enough cap room, barring an unrealistic drop in salary cap which half the teams in the league would've balked at.

The Knicks championship potential increased and by that, I mean, the earliest we win a championship went from 2013 to something more like 2020. Disgusted enough by Dolan's blatant mismanagement that I would stop rooting for the Knicks, if I could bare it. It was a paranoid panic move made by someone who had an itchy trigger finger, wishing for a good excuse to raise ticket prices. End of story.

At this point, now we're waiting for a Steve Nash trade to save a roster that clearly has no chance at a title.

I don't know how you can make a statement like that. If I remember correctly Melo made it very clear he wanted to get paid and he was absolutely asking for the trade to happen. There was no discernible evidence that he would have risked losing money in a new CBA to come here, except unsubstantiated 4th hand rumors fed to the masses via virtual accounts on twitter. Walsh could not unilaterally decide to wait unless Melo chose to do the same.

And if we went down that route and Melo didn't come here in teh off season and instead took the money, I'll bet even money that at least half the board would be blaming Walsh for missing out again based on the outcome which was driven by a variable over which Walsh had no control.

So it really comes down to whether the deisions was a balanced decision at the time, I think Walsh wanted to male the trade and I also believe that Dolan forced him to overpay. The second part is pure speculation on my part but that's just my take on it.

Well, that's one take. I think there's a different take. Melo made his intentions crystal clear early in the season. He wanted to be a Knick; period. This message changed near the trading deadline, as I suspect, the Nuggets realized the Melo's "leaks" were destroying their potential to get value in a trade, so different information was leaked. Any info we got was via leaks, as Melo said nothing directly. However, I think what we heard early in the season was the truth and what we heard later was damage control, so the Nuggets didn't get raped in a trade.

I'm fully confident that we had Melo either way. That being said, the mentality that it was Melo or bust was foolish. Clearly, there were other players available, including Deron Williams, Marc Gasol and a bunch of studs in the 2012 offseason.

The bottom line is this: You weigh a risk-reward analysis. I think the package we gave up was too much for any player not named LeBron, Wade, Dwight Howard and a few others in that league. Carmelo is a very good player, but he's not a tier 1 superstar and we paid like that was what we were getting. Let alone that we paid like we had no leverage. That is the mistake, and the ultimate downfall of this team.

loweyecue wrote:Solace and Crush, I don't disagree. Because we don't know what really happened we can only surmise. My initial point was that the decision should not be judged based on hindsight and or our guess of what may have happened. I think we did overpay a bit. I don't buy the notion we could get people like Marc Gasol or Melo for free, everyone saw what happened to Cleveland no owner/GM is going to settle for that. Melo could just as easily be a Net. After Lebron/Wade/Dirk there are NO tier one players available anytime soon except CP3. And even that would be a crapshoot with the new CBA when it happens.
Ultimately Dolan owns the team, no owner is going to give complete control like Walsh wanted. I don't like that he interferes, but IIWII.

Sure, just a good discussion. Of the players available in the 2011 or 2012 offseasons, I would put at least Deron Williams, Dwight Howard and Chris Paul ahead of Melo, talent-wise. Gasol is, obviously, behind Melo, but he fills such a void in this league that a combination of Marc Gasol and Amar'e would've been pretty dominant. Anyway, it is what it is, but there is a precedent for star players switching teams via free agency, despite their teams best efforts. I think it will continue, if the right teams have the cap room. It's clear we could've traded for Deron Williams, instead of Melo, and he was attained for a cheaper package than what we gave up for Melo.

I would be less sour about the trade if Melo would put the off season in improving and getting in shape, however, he is more concerned about the new CBA which I don't understand because he already got his PIE...

During the season, you can see him huffing and puffing, wearing those AI arm sleaves, leg/calve warmers, and I cant help but to think of a aged Ewing.
With the weight he is now, I see a 100m injury waiting to burst. With our luck, it would be a 200m and 2 injuries away from the Knick to be screwed till 2020 by the time we can go back to where we were prior to the Melo trade....