knicks1248 wrote:Give me a damn break

1)Absolutely 90% of the posters on this board did not approve of the trade because it required a 1st rnd pick, which none of you were willing to give toronto AGAIN..neither was dolan.

2)lowry wasn't playing anywhere close to 1st round pick material, and to give up shump, THJ and a 1st rounder seemed like highway robbery AGAIN..favoring Toronto.

3)It's not the player it's the coach, go look at everyones numbers prior to Casey taking over as head coach, and they almost sky rocketed right after he took over (atleast derozen), which is why he wanted Bargi and calderone the fck out, they can't defend.

I would have given up those 3 in a heartbeat for lowry last year.

Its not the coach its the player(s).

Lowry has always been highly efficient the difference in Toronto is his Usage rate.

Lowry has matured as a person and that credit may deserve to partly go to the coach.

mreinman wrote:

TeamBall wrote:Don't know if anyone said this but wasn't Lowry a free agent? With our shi**y team that missed the playoffs last year, what was the incentive for Lowry to re-sign with us? Also, I remember hearing that one of the reasons Lowry stayed in Toronto was because he was told he would "run the team". He wasn't doing that here with Melo.

that was all after the fact. when the trade was discussed lowry was not planning on staying. with lowry we would have been a far less ****ty team.

mreinman wrote:

knicks1248 wrote:Give me a damn break

1)Absolutely 90% of the posters on this board did not approve of the trade because it required a 1st rnd pick, which none of you were willing to give toronto AGAIN..neither was dolan.

2)lowry wasn't playing anywhere close to 1st round pick material, and to give up shump, THJ and a 1st rounder seemed like highway robbery AGAIN..favoring Toronto.

3)It's not the player it's the coach, go look at everyones numbers prior to Casey taking over as head coach, and they almost sky rocketed right after he took over (atleast derozen), which is why he wanted Bargi and calderone the fck out, they can't defend.

I would have given up those 3 in a heartbeat for lowry last year.

Its not the coach its the player(s).

Lowry has always been highly efficient the difference in Toronto is his Usage rate.

Lowry has matured as a person and that credit may deserve to partly go to the coach.

Dude coaches system make players much much better, there's no denying that, the player you are in high school, and college, you just get better as you mature, but you don't flip your style or you will suffer (see THJ)

Imagine Ewing playing for MDA, he would be bitchn like Gasol was.. Lin has always had talent, but he excelled in MDA system. Some players like half court, some like free style, some like run and gun, some like Pnr, very few can adapt to any style. lowry is playing like a top 5 pg, and all though he has mature and brought in, that talent was always there, he was just playing in the wrong system.

It's like when you say, " I Hope Bargiani just needed a fresh start" you just hope he turns out like Lowry, Nash, ZBO, billups, guys who just fit in like a glove on their new teams and take off.

There's really no telling if Lowry would have been playing like he is now around MELO and this environment, these changes, and a bunch of 1 yr players..

knicks1248 wrote:

mreinman wrote:

knicks1248 wrote:Give me a damn break

1)Absolutely 90% of the posters on this board did not approve of the trade because it required a 1st rnd pick, which none of you were willing to give toronto AGAIN..neither was dolan.

2)lowry wasn't playing anywhere close to 1st round pick material, and to give up shump, THJ and a 1st rounder seemed like highway robbery AGAIN..favoring Toronto.

3)It's not the player it's the coach, go look at everyones numbers prior to Casey taking over as head coach, and they almost sky rocketed right after he took over (atleast derozen), which is why he wanted Bargi and calderone the fck out, they can't defend.

I would have given up those 3 in a heartbeat for lowry last year.

Its not the coach its the player(s).

Lowry has always been highly efficient the difference in Toronto is his Usage rate.

Lowry has matured as a person and that credit may deserve to partly go to the coach.

Dude coaches system make players much much better, there's no denying that, the player you are in high school, and college, you just get better as you mature, but you don't flip your style or you will suffer (see THJ)

Imagine Ewing playing for MDA, he would be bitchn like Gasol was.. Lin has always had talent, but he excelled in MDA system. Some players like half court, some like free style, some like run and gun, some like Pnr, very few can adapt to any style. lowry is playing like a top 5 pg, and all though he has mature and brought in, that talent was always there, he was just playing in the wrong system.

It's like when you say, " I Hope Bargiani just needed a fresh start" you just hope he turns out like Lowry, Nash, ZBO, billups, guys who just fit in like a glove on their new teams and take off.

There's really no telling if Lowry would have been playing like he is now around MELO and this environment, these changes, and a bunch of 1 yr players..

coaches can make a diff to some extent especially ones they have ring(s). See pop and Carlisle.

Efficiency is pretty stable. You don't really see that fluctuate that much with team or coaching changes.

How does Lowry play with Melo? I think pretty damn well.

mreinman wrote:

Bonn1997 wrote:

knicks1248 wrote:Give me a damn break

1)Absolutely 90% of the posters on this board did not approve of the trade because it required a 1st rnd pick, which none of you were willing to give toronto AGAIN..neither was dolan.

2)lowry wasn't playing anywhere close to 1st round pick material, and to give up shump, THJ and a 1st rounder seemed like highway robbery AGAIN..favoring Toronto.

3)It's not the player it's the coach, go look at everyones numbers prior to Casey taking over as head coach, and they almost sky rocketed right after he took over (atleast derozen), which is why he wanted Bargi and calderone the fck out, they can't defend.

90% is definitely an overstatement.
I remember proposing we trade Melo for Lowry and filler. We probably could have actually gotten assets (picks, young players, etc.) and Lowry in the deal.

I guess you and I were in the 10 percent.

Toronto does not trade much for Melo in my opinion since Canada Melo would probably not sell and Melo jets.

lowry did not get along with his coaches. the raptors wanted nash but colangelo also had a deal lined up for lowry. he told lowry he was going to deal for him with or without nash. if we got nash, he would be the starter and lowry would be groomed to take over after. if we didn't get nash, then he would be the man.

lowry said he was going to do his time in toronto and leave. that's what he told himself.

colangelo made casey start lowry instead of calderon b/c we wanted to move on from jose. casey loved jose and b/c of that, he butt heads with lowry. another coach lowry had issues with.

colangelo then traded away jose and lowry was given the keys. mind you, he was coming off an offseason where he had a bad stomach issue and was unable to work out and was out of shape.

season ended and colangelo was let go and ujiri got the job. prior to the 13/14 season, ujiri along with casey and a few others sat down with lowry and told him this (paraphrased) - you have all the talent. it's not a talent issue with you. it's your attitude. do you want to get paid or be known as a headcase? lowry took those words to heart and came back and became one with casey.

despite being a good soldier, the on court chemistry of the team was off b/c of rudy. team was not heading in a good direction records wise so ujiri was ready to blow it up and go after wiggins. first was the rudy deal. next up was moving lowry. that's why he was being moved - simply b/c the team was not winning and ujiri wanted to rebuild.

knicks turned down the deal.

meanwhile...the raptors started winning and lowry was playing like a leader. the team was his and he was the straw that stirs the drink. was it a contract year situation where he was playing nice? nobody knew but he was playing like a star. all of this was AFTER the knicks declined the deal. so yes, there was risk and unknown with lowry at the time of the rumored deal.

with that said, despite anything...lowry is still a player that goes balls to the wall for the team and wants to win more than anything.

come the offseason, lowry was exploring his options. but he felt the most comfortable in toronto...liked how the team was going and especially liked his place there as the leader of the team. so he re-signed to what is now a bargain deal of 4 years at $12 mil a year (especially considering that's what kemba got).

if the knicks got lowry last year, there is no doubt the team makes the playoffs. lowry is a bulldog and refuses to quit and lose. he has a close relationship to rudy (he's rudy's son's godfather) so he wasn't the alpha dog in toronto until rudy left. with the knicks, he would've had to deal with melo so i'm not sure how he would've developed BUT he still would've left everything on the court. he is a winner and is already one of the most favorite players in franchise history to raptor fans.

i can understand why the knicks passed on the deal at the time...but like everything dolan does...it turned out to be the wrong decision. for that i say thank you b/c we are not where we are as a franchise now (and where we are heading) without kyle. in the case of kyle, ujiri challenged him and he responded. and then ujiri got lucky when dolan said no. sometimes it's better to be lucky than good.

djsunyc wrote:some history with lowry...

lowry did not get along with his coaches. the raptors wanted nash but colangelo also had a deal lined up for lowry. he told lowry he was going to deal for him with or without nash. if we got nash, he would be the starter and lowry would be groomed to take over after. if we didn't get nash, then he would be the man.

lowry said he was going to do his time in toronto and leave. that's what he told himself.

colangelo made casey start lowry instead of calderon b/c we wanted to move on from jose. casey loved jose and b/c of that, he butt heads with lowry. another coach lowry had issues with.

colangelo then traded away jose and lowry was given the keys. mind you, he was coming off an offseason where he had a bad stomach issue and was unable to work out and was out of shape.

season ended and colangelo was let go and ujiri got the job. prior to the 13/14 season, ujiri along with casey and a few others sat down with lowry and told him this (paraphrased) - you have all the talent. it's not a talent issue with you. it's your attitude. do you want to get paid or be known as a headcase? lowry took those words to heart and came back and became one with casey.

despite being a good soldier, the on court chemistry of the team was off b/c of rudy. team was not heading in a good direction records wise so ujiri was ready to blow it up and go after wiggins. first was the rudy deal. next up was moving lowry. that's why he was being moved - simply b/c the team was not winning and ujiri wanted to rebuild.

knicks turned down the deal.

meanwhile...the raptors started winning and lowry was playing like a leader. the team was his and he was the straw that stirs the drink. was it a contract year situation where he was playing nice? nobody knew but he was playing like a star. all of this was AFTER the knicks declined the deal. so yes, there was risk and unknown with lowry at the time of the rumored deal.

with that said, despite anything...lowry is still a player that goes balls to the wall for the team and wants to win more than anything.

come the offseason, lowry was exploring his options. but he felt the most comfortable in toronto...liked how the team was going and especially liked his place there as the leader of the team. so he re-signed to what is now a bargain deal of 4 years at $12 mil a year (especially considering that's what kemba got).

if the knicks got lowry last year, there is no doubt the team makes the playoffs. lowry is a bulldog and refuses to quit and lose. he has a close relationship to rudy (he's rudy's son's godfather) so he wasn't the alpha dog in toronto until rudy left. with the knicks, he would've had to deal with melo so i'm not sure how he would've developed BUT he still would've left everything on the court. he is a winner and is already one of the most favorite players in franchise history to raptor fans.

i can understand why the knicks passed on the deal at the time...but like everything dolan does...it turned out to be the wrong decision. for that i say thank you b/c we are not where we are as a franchise now (and where we are heading) without kyle. in the case of kyle, ujiri challenged him and he responded. and then ujiri got lucky when dolan said no. sometimes it's better to be lucky than good.

Thanks for the recap, you filled in some blanks. I truly believed he would have struggled playing with melo under woodson, and the triangle is not his game by any stretch.

Bonn1997 wrote:

mreinman wrote:

Bonn1997 wrote:

F500ONE wrote:

mreinman wrote:This one is on Phil.

Unfortunately he hasn't impressed yet

Any exec could have come here for $60mil

Given Melo, Melo Max

For the most part make a couple mediocre trades

While sitting on hands until 2015

It's hard for me to imagine a worse GM performance so far actually. He made Melo the highest paid player on the planet and threw in a no trade clause. And he transformed a .450 team into a .250 team.

a bit too early to judge. lets see where they are at this time next season. .250 team is not a bad thing.

You could have a well-planned out tank to get a high pick like the Spurs did to get Duncan. However, it's a BAD sign if you're at .250 by accident. The problem is the same people who made the wrong decisions that led to .250 are making future decisions too. There have been plenty of instances where teams got top 5 picks, made bad choices, and got players who were awful. I'm not saying fire Phil right now. I don't think it's reasonable to put a positive spin on bad decisions and bad results though.

Abso-****ing-lutely.

Anyone who thinks that the plan this season was to tank is deluding themselves. This past offseason we had two assets that could net us good value in a trade: Tyson Chandler and Melo. We traded Tyson for 35 year-old upgrade at PG, a warm body at C, and two 2nd round picks. We resigned Melo to a near-max contract that maximizes our cap space next Summer and gave him a no-trade clause and a 15% trade kicker. Clearly, the plan was to be decent at worst this year and go into next Summer with enough cap space to sign one, maybe two, guys to max contracts and add them to our "core" of Melo, Calderon, Shumpert, and Hardaway.

That's not going to happen.

Bonn1997 wrote:You're right that it's early. I meant simply that it's hard for me to imagine the start to a GM's performance being any worse.

On the other hand, he didn't trade a bunch of cap space and two 1st round picks for Marbury and Penny Hardaway two weeks after he was hired.

We decided to rebuild. Lowrey was not the guy.

smackeddog wrote:Not trading for him was absolutely the right decision- we had to draw a line in the sand and stop trading our draft picks. It's like we're addicted to it- just one more 1st round draft pick trade! Then that's it! The main reason why we've been so bad for the past 15 years is because of all the first round picks we've traded because it seemed like a good idea at the time.

As already said, there was a high chance Lowry wouldn't have re-signed with us, especially if we'd missed the playoffs or he hadn't meshed with Melo. Or he could have gotten injured (or may get injured in the future) or Melo gets injured (likely at some point over the next 4 years) Then we'd have no pick in 2016 and no pick in 2018- and so our cycle of doom would have continued for another 4 years.

Look, I like Lowry, but it was the right decision if you take into accou the bigger picture.

I guess if you want to say what would give us the ability to put 2-3 premiere type players around melo that made sense--that this trade of a restricted number 1 was a no brainer of monumental proportions. We were done with Felton--we needed an injection at the time and the guy's play was absolutely taking off. Lowry today is at serious MVP levels. Thats why they can lose a 23 point scorer and continue to win--thats what an MVP type player does for a team. I agree w throwing picks around half haphazardly--got you all the way there. Paying what an UNRESTRICTED #1 and 2 2's for Bargs when NO ONE else was offering anything--the guy coming off two years of injury--I mean blasphemy right? Paying so may unrestricted picks for Curry again disaster. But this was not that. This was paying a restricted pick for a proven young PG who was becoming a game-changing player.