islesfan wrote:

Donnie deserves a lot of blame here. Specifically for 3 things.

1) Antoni should have NEVER been hired. I said that Day 1, just like I was right about Isiah from Day 1. Antoni and his "system" were never the right fit for New York. There was no chance for it working here and it was obvious from the start.

2) Signing Amare was a mistake. He's injury prone, expensive, untradeable and he's not someone you build around. Signing Amare was a backup plan to the backup plan. No LeBron, no Wade, sign Amare when he had no other offers. Put a solid PG with Melo and Chandler, without Amare clogging the lane waiting for anyone to pick and roll with him, drastically improves this team.

3) Ignoring the Point Guard position. The Knicks completely blew the 2009 draft by passing on Brandon Jennings, Ty Lawson and Jrue Holiday. Chris Paul and Deron Williams should have been the priority after passing on PG's in the draft. Spending all of your chips on the front court while ignoring the backcourt is shortsighted and a huge mistake.

I agree with point 1- D'Antoni was the wrong coach for NY- it was never going to end well. It set us down the wrong path and I'll be glad when he's gone. I get the thinking behind it- that players like to play for him so it might have attracted FA's, but it just meant Walsh spent his days aquiring 'D'Antoni players'.

I don't think signing Amar'e was a mistake- at some point we needed a veteran who wasn't over the hill- look at teams like the Twolves- they have lots of young talent, but without an established vet and leader, they can't make the next step. Amar'e in his first year really helped us do that.

I don't think Walsh ignored the PG spot- he just failed to do anything with it until we got Felton. I think Brandon Jennings is a scrub, so I'm not upset on missing out on him. Would of loved to have Jrue Holiday or Ty Lawson- I think what happened was Walsh had a short list of PG's, assumed that the Twolves would never pick 2 (who honestly saw that coming)- alas they did, and walsh was caught off guard, so just ended up getting a forward- big mistake, but then again it doesn't matter because we'd just have ended up trading them to Houston for cap space or to Denver for Melo.