Bonn1997 wrote:y2zipper wrote:meloanyk wrote:djsunyc wrote:meloanyk wrote:The trade with Toronto should be revisited, Shump and Felton going for Lowry. Everyone keeps harping about Shump's good D and our poor pg D but Lowry is just as good or better defending ones as Shumpert is defending twos and Lowry can actually score and pass some.
raptors are not trading lowry to the knicks unless a pick is involved.
The rumored deal was Shumpert (or a first rd pick or THJ) , Felton and Artest for Lowry. It was supposedly squashed by Dolan. Shumpert's play since especially his shot is destroying his trade value and Im certainly questioning whether he will ever realize his potential. Very few play f/t two in NBA if you cant shoot. Lowry may only be a mid tier pt but he fits a need more than Shumpert does at this point. Problably still win East with him.
The rumor was 2 of Shump/THJ/1st round pick with Felton and Metta. That's why it was squashed. The price is too high for a rental on Lowry.
No one would do the deal as a rental. You do it only if you get a commitment from Lowry's camp. Don't forget they'd be taking back $20 mil in fringe NBA players.
OK, what then? Lowry get's resigned to a full MLE-type deal, we give Melo the moon & the stars and then what, championship? I just don't see it for this particular group. Not anymore. I think it might be time for a full blown dismantling. If we get this guy and lock him up long-term, even with Melo this team falls short of a championship. The evidence is how they've played this year. I don't care how weak the East is -- that's not what they should be looking at. Build a team that's good enough to compete for a chip regardless of what conference we play in. The idea's to beat a team from the West -- would be nice to have home court in that scenario...How'd the '99 Knicks look in the championship round against the Spurs? You start focusing on how weak the East is, then it's all about a patch job and a cobble-together, not about seriously building a real winner and sustaining the winning culture for awhile...We've seen all this before. Hey they tried man -- Amar'e got hurt and will never be the same again. That really killed it for us. Best thing at this time might be to break it all down and start fresh -- bring in a smart/patient GM that's up for the task, a young coach who's down with developing young players, then sell off all the major parts while they still have value, hopefully restock the cupboard with the same amount of draft picks we lost over the last few years and go from there..
BTW, if you're Lowry and you're on the verge of getting dealt to possibly the worst team in the sport why would you commit to automatically staying here so far in advance, even before playing one game here? Melo's out there talking about looking forward to free agency and testing the waters but this guy's supposed to commit to staying long-term w/o even playing one game here? I just don't see that happening. Lowry's having his best season as a pro -- he's gonna want to test the waters himself and pick the most desirable place to play. Plus, this guy might be looking for more than the MLE -- what if he continues to finish strong and asks for $7-8mm per? How could we even afford that? We'd have the guy for half a season -- would we even have his early Bird rights, Bird rights? Do we inherit that from Toronto? Does Toronto even have those rights? How long has he played there? This is only his second season there, no? So what, an early Bird raise is as high as we could go? Not sure about this..
