TeamBall wrote:

fishmike wrote:teamball I agree on all those. Those are the ideal scenarios. Multiple moving parts here. You must take the emotion out of it and think real world. You work for a company. At some point in the future before your 40 that job will no long be available to you. Taking less money may or may not impact your job.

How many people here would honestly walk away from more money in another good situation because their brand new boss promises things will get brighter? We ask and expect athletes to do things NONE of us would do.

Folks are under the assumption that if MElo walks there are other top tier talents just waiting to sign on under our cap space. Last time we got a broken Amare and couldnt entice Joe Johnson with a max deal.

To me the max FA thing only makes sense if you have at least one blue chip guy on a rookie contract. WE dont have anything like that. THAT would be my goal. Resign Melo, if its for max, its not my first choice but better than nada. Use Amare/Bargs/Shump to take on some bad contracts but get some picks back. Work on getting a guy or two with legit all star potential. We dont have that now. Get those guys. Then in a couple years you can let Melo and Josh Smith and Hibbert and Pau Gasol (all whatever hypotheticals) come off the books and use the cap space to add max guys NEXT to your young pipe line. Thats how you build a sustainable winner. Not the gutting the roster and hoping for a superfriends bailout when your talent cubbard is already bare. It doesnt make sense.

Agreed but I think Amare/Bargs are just virtually unmovable. I too prefer to keep Melo and the only reason I'd be wanting him to take the cut is because he said so himself.

I know that we need Melo or someone to at least attract others it's just that we also need room to sign those other people. My top preference remains to keep him though but it's tricky.

gunsnewing wrote:Give me Harden at $25m over Melo at anything over $20

Harden 25yrs old
Melo 30yrs old

Well make it happen Guns.

Rookie wrote:Anthony viewed opting in as risky at his age...agree with that. We need to stay the course and let him walk. It is the most responsible thing to do for a franchise looking to rebuild. While getting assets back would be desireable, it is a long shot. Lets enjoy some cap flexibility and develop some young players and maintain our cap flexibility.

I honestly dont want harden, boozer, gibson or anyone else we'd take back in a S&T. The only player I really like is Randle. If we could get him from the Lakers for Melo, i'd be all over that.

Or Wiggins from the Cavs. Yeah I know they are not on the list right now. Bit that's just right now.

fishmike wrote:teamball I agree on all those. Those are the ideal scenarios. Multiple moving parts here. You must take the emotion out of it and think real world. You work for a company. At some point in the future before your 40 that job will no long be available to you. Taking less money may or may not impact your job.

How many people here would honestly walk away from more money in another good situation because their brand new boss promises things will get brighter? We ask and expect athletes to do things NONE of us would do.

Folks are under the assumption that if MElo walks there are other top tier talents just waiting to sign on under our cap space. Last time we got a broken Amare and couldnt entice Joe Johnson with a max deal.

To me the max FA thing only makes sense if you have at least one blue chip guy on a rookie contract. WE dont have anything like that. THAT would be my goal. Resign Melo, if its for max, its not my first choice but better than nada. Use Amare/Bargs/Shump to take on some bad contracts but get some picks back. Work on getting a guy or two with legit all star potential. We dont have that now. Get those guys. Then in a couple years you can let Melo and Josh Smith and Hibbert and Pau Gasol (all whatever hypotheticals) come off the books and use the cap space to add max guys NEXT to your young pipe line. Thats how you build a sustainable winner. Not the gutting the roster and hoping for a superfriends bailout when your talent cubbard is already bare. It doesnt make sense.

Are you serious? Some of the most talented people sacrifice paychecks to go work for startups so they can build for a better future together. Is this news to you?

You also keep saying we won't win a title in the next 3-4 years without Melo. Are you suggesting we will win one with him? Isn't 4 years of watching him not deliver enough to understand that this is not going to work? He wants to win now, we have Amare and Bargs now. Where is the common ground between these two things? If he signs here or will be the same exact reason add last time. MONEY. And all this talk about winning would be just that. TALK.

Papabear wrote:

Rookie wrote:Anthony viewed opting in as risky at his age...agree with that. We need to stay the course and let him walk. It is the most responsible thing to do for a franchise looking to rebuild. While getting assets back would be desireable, it is a long shot. Lets enjoy some cap flexibility and develop some young players and maintain our cap flexibility.

I honestly dont want harden, boozer, gibson or anyone else we'd take back in a S&T. The only player I really like is Randle. If we could get him from the Lakers for Melo, i'd be all over that.

Papabear Says

This is why you guys are back seat GMs You are willing to give up Melo for nothing and think a star is coming to New York. Well think again. The NBA game has changed. Good players want to stick together. I remember the Patrick Ewing deal. We got rid of him for nothing and look what happened. Also other players see how New York treat their players and will think twice about coming here. Phil is depending on his scouts to bring him players because he is out of the loop. If Melo walks I want to get everything we can for him. Don't be stupid and think letting him walk for nothing is cool.

I don't want other teams leftovers in a S&T. If he resigns, great. If he resigns at a discount, better. If he wants to go somewhere else, then bye! I have no problem developing a young team and then adding FA's with responsible contracts. This whole super friends thing is out of control. There is no team loyalty anymore. If Melo wants to leave then don't expect me to be disappointed, I will continue to watch and root for the team. I even think they will be more fun to watch with more hustle and energy. I fully expect to be seeing team basketball from here on out Melo be damned, I don't think he is capable of doing that.

TeamBall wrote:

fishmike wrote:

TeamBall wrote:

fishmike wrote:teamball I agree on all those. Those are the ideal scenarios. Multiple moving parts here. You must take the emotion out of it and think real world. You work for a company. At some point in the future before your 40 that job will no long be available to you. Taking less money may or may not impact your job.

How many people here would honestly walk away from more money in another good situation because their brand new boss promises things will get brighter? We ask and expect athletes to do things NONE of us would do.

Folks are under the assumption that if MElo walks there are other top tier talents just waiting to sign on under our cap space. Last time we got a broken Amare and couldnt entice Joe Johnson with a max deal.

To me the max FA thing only makes sense if you have at least one blue chip guy on a rookie contract. WE dont have anything like that. THAT would be my goal. Resign Melo, if its for max, its not my first choice but better than nada. Use Amare/Bargs/Shump to take on some bad contracts but get some picks back. Work on getting a guy or two with legit all star potential. We dont have that now. Get those guys. Then in a couple years you can let Melo and Josh Smith and Hibbert and Pau Gasol (all whatever hypotheticals) come off the books and use the cap space to add max guys NEXT to your young pipe line. Thats how you build a sustainable winner. Not the gutting the roster and hoping for a superfriends bailout when your talent cubbard is already bare. It doesnt make sense.

Agreed but I think Amare/Bargs are just virtually unmovable. I too prefer to keep Melo and the only reason I'd be wanting him to take the cut is because he said so himself.

I know that we need Melo or someone to at least attract others it's just that we also need room to sign those other people. My top preference remains to keep him though but it's tricky.

I think Amare/Bargs will be very valuable come deadline. Remember there is a massive FA class and many teams under the cap and many more will by trying to get there. Those are big expiring contracts. We have seen teams use picks and prospects to dump salary. Being on the buying side of that is my proposition.

I think my fear is that we'll end up making some Donnie Walsh like trades out of desperation. I do want your scenario but it seems a lot easier said than done. Every team besides the Knicks seem to be part of those types of trades. Pretty annoying.

ha ha great now we dump on walsh! you are a riot!

gunsnewing wrote:Give me Harden at $25m over Melo at anything over $20

Harden 25yrs old
Melo 30yrs old

dk7th wrote:

meloshouldgo wrote:

fishmike wrote:teamball I agree on all those. Those are the ideal scenarios. Multiple moving parts here. You must take the emotion out of it and think real world. You work for a company. At some point in the future before your 40 that job will no long be available to you. Taking less money may or may not impact your job.

How many people here would honestly walk away from more money in another good situation because their brand new boss promises things will get brighter? We ask and expect athletes to do things NONE of us would do.

Folks are under the assumption that if MElo walks there are other top tier talents just waiting to sign on under our cap space. Last time we got a broken Amare and couldnt entice Joe Johnson with a max deal.

To me the max FA thing only makes sense if you have at least one blue chip guy on a rookie contract. WE dont have anything like that. THAT would be my goal. Resign Melo, if its for max, its not my first choice but better than nada. Use Amare/Bargs/Shump to take on some bad contracts but get some picks back. Work on getting a guy or two with legit all star potential. We dont have that now. Get those guys. Then in a couple years you can let Melo and Josh Smith and Hibbert and Pau Gasol (all whatever hypotheticals) come off the books and use the cap space to add max guys NEXT to your young pipe line. Thats how you build a sustainable winner. Not the gutting the roster and hoping for a superfriends bailout when your talent cubbard is already bare. It doesnt make sense.

Are you serious? Some of the most talented people sacrifice paychecks to go work for startups so they can build for a better future together. Is this news to you?

You also keep saying we won't win a title in the next 3-4 years without Melo. Are you suggesting we will win one with him? Isn't 4 years of watching him not deliver enough to understand that this is not going to work? He wants to win now, we have Amare and Bargs now. Where is the common ground between these two things? If he signs here or will be the same exact reason add last time. MONEY. And all this talk about winning would be just that. TALK.

that's why jackson will lowball the shyte out of anthony. and when i say "lowball" i mean offer him what he is truly worth to a championship cause here in ny: 12-14 million.

I am thinking Phil means more in the range of 20mil. To ask melo to take more than a 10mil less than max contract is not gonna end well. Remember up until now Melo has been ALL about the money.