Knixkik wrote:Overpaying Stoudemire was justified at the time. Not so much now, but i understood it and thought it was the right move. You must overpay to get stars. The miami cop-out is the one exception to the rule.

Yes you overpay when needed, you don't overpay because that's what you are supposed to do. When you give out a third of your salary cap to one person you better make sure they can deliver. We did theexact opposite and took a huge risk. I am not averse to risks but when you take a risk you try to at least mitigate the extent of damage. What we did was make it teh maximum possible risk.

loweyecue wrote:

y2zipper wrote:

loweyecue wrote:I think we overpaid for Amare though. No team would give him a 5 year guaranteed cotract the thing he wanted most, why couldn't we give him a 80M guaranteed ocntract instead of a 100M guranteed contract? Would e have walked away from that and signed with Phx for two years?

The nature of free agency is that you overpay. That's the caviat of building a team through free agency. Walsh's plan to begin with was actually to lure LeBron James to New York and when that didn't play out, the team signed Amar'e as a pre-emptive strike to both acquire a star player and make sure that they didn't get shut out. Amar'e alone is a bad contract, but you sign him to get Carmelo to want to play here and you bring Carmelo in because then guys like Chandler and J.R. Smith then want to come in for a run at a ring. Add good drafting to that and you get Fields and Shumpert and Harrelson, and suddenly you have a good team. Dolan was right to make the Melo trade, and I don't think anyone will disagree with that now that the supporting cast has actually been replaced as we thought it would. At the end of the day, I agree with Brian Cashman's assertion that free agency is about getting the player. If he wants an extra year or an opt-out and that's the difference between getting him and not getting him, you give him what he wants.

What happens if Amar'e doesn't come to the Knicks? We're New Jersey, except without Deron Williams. So yeah, it's easy to bash the contract because Stat isn't going to be a good player in year five. It's concerning that it's only year two.

Where did you see me bash the contract? I was asking what people thought of having potentially overpaid for Amare. No one was going to give amare a 5 year guratnteed contract that much was obvious. So we didn't have bid against ourselves - but this is what the Knicks do consistently.

Free agency is about getting the player and you always overpay. This isn't the same thing as Allan Houston, where New York CLEARLY overpaid for him and big against themselves. STAT's number one priority was getting that fifth year, so you give him the fifth year so that he signs. The Suns actually offered Amar'e a five year contract worth 97 million, but the last two years of the contract weren't guaranteed.

knicks1248 wrote:

loweyecue wrote:

y2zipper wrote:

loweyecue wrote:I think we overpaid for Amare though. No team would give him a 5 year guaranteed cotract the thing he wanted most, why couldn't we give him a 80M guaranteed ocntract instead of a 100M guranteed contract? Would e have walked away from that and signed with Phx for two years?

The nature of free agency is that you overpay. That's the caviat of building a team through free agency. Walsh's plan to begin with was actually to lure LeBron James to New York and when that didn't play out, the team signed Amar'e as a pre-emptive strike to both acquire a star player and make sure that they didn't get shut out. Amar'e alone is a bad contract, but you sign him to get Carmelo to want to play here and you bring Carmelo in because then guys like Chandler and J.R. Smith then want to come in for a run at a ring. Add good drafting to that and you get Fields and Shumpert and Harrelson, and suddenly you have a good team. Dolan was right to make the Melo trade, and I don't think anyone will disagree with that now that the supporting cast has actually been replaced as we thought it would. At the end of the day, I agree with Brian Cashman's assertion that free agency is about getting the player. If he wants an extra year or an opt-out and that's the difference between getting him and not getting him, you give him what he wants.

What happens if Amar'e doesn't come to the Knicks? We're New Jersey, except without Deron Williams. So yeah, it's easy to bash the contract because Stat isn't going to be a good player in year five. It's concerning that it's only year two.

Where did you see me bash the contract? I was asking what people thought of having potentially overpaid for Amare. No one was going to give amare a 5 year guratnteed contract that much was obvious. So we didn't have bid against ourselves - but this is what the Knicks do consistently.

so what was our options at the time..please tell me..I may have miss something

Just read my post in the middle of this quoted text. Our option was to offer him less but gurantee all of it and make sure it was still way more than he would get anywhere for guaranteed two years. So a 75-80M over 5 years guranteed would have still looked better than whatever he could get for two years. It would have saved us about 4-5M per year and given us some more breathing room.

markvmc wrote:Yeah, cos this team needs a scoring no-defence playing forward. That's exactly the missing piece to our puzzle.

Isn't that what A'mare is? My argument is that with Zach and lee at least we can guarantee at least 10 rebounds a game regardless of what's happening offensively our defensively. A'mare 't brought anything. If he isn't scoring scoring he isn't a factor. At least last year he was blocking shots. Thus season he hasn't shown up.

Its an old school mentality. Rebound and play defense and you win the game. The power forward and the center anchor that. The physicality comes from your Biggs. If your Biggs are ***** the team is *****. A'mare just isn't bribing it.

Stick Zach our lee in there and we win I've battle every night. None of these Gus play any defense but at least lee and Zach mix it up and bring intangibles.

Its not an option. The Knicks NEED an active Stoudemire, the Knicks need the star he really is. He should be our second option, not an afterthought.

He better wake up from this because we really need him.