StarksEwing1 wrote:

CrushAlot wrote:^^^^Also, you have to assume that Ujiri doesn't send him to NJ and that Melo won't sign there even with the move to Brooklyn in place.

still ended up being the wrong way IMO. Im not saying we should blame him but its pretty clear he should have waited in retrospect

crzymdups wrote:

Knixkik wrote:

StarksEwing1 wrote:Here is my issue with the trade. Melo could have easily signed here as a free agent and we could have kept some of those assets or used them to get another player to pair with him. I was perfectly fine with melo coming here BUT all the dude had to do was to wait until after the season to sign with us and I guarantee things would have been better.

We were entering a lockout. No one knew what to expect. No reasonable person can expect someone to forgo that security being offered to him at that point and time for the complete unknown.

Yeah, what if the lockout determined that the value of max contracts went down to $15M per season max for three years max.

It's pretty easy for the armchair fan to say Melo should have cost himself up to $60M or something - but I bet if any of us were in the same situation, we would've done the same thing.

He worked with Denver to facilitate a trade and let them get something back. It's not his fault Dolan is a terrible negotiator and he overruled Donnie Walsh by including Mozgov and more picks.

Exactly.

ChuckBuck wrote:The trade per se didn't damage or severely set back the Knicks. The Knicks ended up in a mediocre limbo pretty much, not great but good enough to qualify for 2 postseasons.

What really killed the Knicks is using their Amnesty so early on Chauncey Billups. If they had reserved it for Amare knowing what they knew, maybe they could've taken advantage of Melo's "prime" and get him some help sooner instead of this withering broken down 31 year old version we have now.

That was certainly an issue but I think what killed us was waiving Corey Brewer and receiving nothing in return but a "thanks" from his agent Happy Walters.

Had we kept Brewer's contract on the ledger, it would've helped us to ante up the money neccesary to facilitate a better sign-and-trade than the one we executed. History showed that the Mavericks/Nuggets were more than interested in Brewer and would have been willing to offer him a multi-million, multi-year contract, which could've been combined with Turiaf's contract and cap space to accomodate Tyson Chandler's incoming salary. Doing so would've spared us from having to use the amnesty on Billups and formed an intriguing quartet of he-Melo-Amar'e-Tyson moving forward. But Donnie Walsh was a jackass with no foresight or ingenuity, so we waived Brewer and continued to commit a host of dumb decisions that ****ed Melo out of his prime.

WaltLongmire wrote:Anthony stated that he wanted to come to the Knicks...he had complete control over where he was going to play the next season.

I could be wrong...but wasn't the advantage of a sign and trade so Anthony could get an extra year on his contract...and didn't he end up opting out of that extra year to sign the contract he negotiated with Phil? Anthony would have had the same ability to sign a few contract when he did if he signed with us as a FA...No?

Even if you didn't care for the players we gave up in the trade- you could have used them as trade assets at a later point. We all know that the Cavs were willing to fork over picks for Mosgov, and Gallo could have gotten you something as well.

By the way...no guarantee that Gallo or Chandler would have gotten hurt they way they did in Denver if they had stayed with us.

Gave up our 2014 #1, which I don't think was as good of a pick as Denver hoped it would be, but it might have gotten us a decent player, or it could have been used in conjunction with a player to help the team improve.

Not sure how Denver used the 2nd Rnd picks we gave them.

Would have saved our Amnesty option- not even a need to decide on whether Billups should be amnestied because he would never have been on the team.

If I'm wrong on any of this, especially the part in bold letters, folks should let me know.

Man, we could've gotten friggin CP3. Remember that idiot Dell Demps was ready to give him up for Kevin Martin (bench player even at that point), Lamar Odom (about to fall of the map) and Luis Scola (who I don't think was ever a consistent starter after that point). When the league let Demps know he was an idiot and voided the transaction, they settled for Eric Gordon (bleh), Al-Faruq Aminu (bleh), Chris Kaman and a future pick that became Austin Rivers.

Gallo, even back then, was considered to be of the same strata as an Eric Gordon, Wilson Chandler was looking like the ultimate glue guy (i.e. better than Aminu), Mozgov was still an intriguing young talent and Raymond Felton was a candidate for Most Improved Player of the Year who had people debating whether we should've even take the gamble on a post-knee surgery CP3. Our package, without a doubt, trumped anything the Clippers were offering and could've gotten us Paul had Melo just calmed his ass down and signed with us as a free agent. But I mostly blame Donnie Walsh for a slew of bad decisions that left us strapped for assets.

Can anyone explain to me why we picked Gallinari at 6th in the 2008 draft when he was already red-flagged for his back injury and not other team from 7th to 9th demonstrated any interest in him? We easily could've traded down by picking Brook Lopez at 6th and swapping him for the Nets' 10th pick, to select Gallo, and the 21st pick to take one of Serge Ibaka, Nicolas Batum, DeAndre Jordan, Nikola Pekovic, George Hill, Goran Dragic, Courtney Lee or Ryan Anderson who the Nets did take.

Same deal with the 2009 draft. Why take Jordan Hill 9th when we clearly were not thrilled with him AND needed a PG? We should've traded down yet again to select any PG and unloaded Jared Jefferies contract in the process. And why take Toney Douglas 29th in a draft that still had Patty Mills, Danny Green, Dante Cunningham, Marcus Thornton, Chase Budinger and Jodie Meeks still on the board?

Why throw a 2012 first round pick and dump Jordan Hill, who still had potential, just to dump one extra year of Jared Jefferies' contract? We had no idea whether we'd even use that $7 million of cap space in free agency and easily could've unloaded that contract with $3 million of cash had we simply waited until the dust settled when LeBron made his decision. Remember that a bunch of teams had cap space that year and left, holding their dicks in their hand, which quickly created a sellers market.

Why take Iman Shumpert with the 17th pick in a draft where no one (aside from Phoenix) had any interest in him as a first round pick? Again, I don't mind the selection by why waste the value of the pick by selecting a guy you easily could've traded down for and recouped more assets in the process? Hell, even if you missed out on drafting him in the process, would you really have an issue picking one of the other late first round/early second picks that year: Jimmy Butler, Kenneth Faried, Nikola Mirotic, Tobias Harris, Reggie Jackson, Cory Joseph, Norris Cole, Donatas Montejunias, Chandler Parsons, Will Barton, Isaiah Thomas and Bojan Bogdanovic?

Like I intimated, Donnie Walsh destroyed this franchise. People gave him a pass though because we improved record-wise and because he seemed like everyone's loveable grandpa. But make no mistake, that man was every bit as devastating as Scott Layden...Scott just never had Carmelo Anthony and (one season of) Amar'e Stoudemire beating down his door.

NardDogNation wrote:

WaltLongmire wrote:Anthony stated that he wanted to come to the Knicks...he had complete control over where he was going to play the next season.

I could be wrong...but wasn't the advantage of a sign and trade so Anthony could get an extra year on his contract...and didn't he end up opting out of that extra year to sign the contract he negotiated with Phil? Anthony would have had the same ability to sign a few contract when he did if he signed with us as a FA...No?

Even if you didn't care for the players we gave up in the trade- you could have used them as trade assets at a later point. We all know that the Cavs were willing to fork over picks for Mosgov, and Gallo could have gotten you something as well.

By the way...no guarantee that Gallo or Chandler would have gotten hurt they way they did in Denver if they had stayed with us.

Gave up our 2014 #1, which I don't think was as good of a pick as Denver hoped it would be, but it might have gotten us a decent player, or it could have been used in conjunction with a player to help the team improve.

Not sure how Denver used the 2nd Rnd picks we gave them.

Would have saved our Amnesty option- not even a need to decide on whether Billups should be amnestied because he would never have been on the team.

If I'm wrong on any of this, especially the part in bold letters, folks should let me know.

Man, we could've gotten friggin CP3. Remember that idiot Dell Demps was ready to give him up for Kevin Martin (bench player even at that point), Lamar Odom (about to fall of the map) and Luis Scola (who I don't think was ever a consistent starter after that point). When the league let Demps know he was an idiot and voided the transaction, they settled for Eric Gordon (bleh), Al-Faruq Aminu (bleh), Chris Kaman and a future pick that became Austin Rivers.

Gallo, even back then, was considered to be of the same strata as an Eric Gordon, Wilson Chandler was looking like the ultimate glue guy (i.e. better than Aminu), Mozgov was still an intriguing young talent and Raymond Felton was a candidate for Most Improved Player of the Year who had people debating whether we should've even take the gamble on a post-knee surgery CP3. Our package, without a doubt, trumped anything the Clippers were offering and could've gotten us Paul had Melo just calmed his ass down and signed with us as a free agent. But I mostly blame Donnie Walsh for a slew of bad decisions that left us strapped for assets.

Can anyone explain to me why we picked Gallinari at 6th in the 2008 draft when he was already red-flagged for his back injury and not other team from 7th to 9th demonstrated any interest in him? We easily could've traded down by picking Brook Lopez at 6th and swapping him for the Nets' 10th pick, to select Gallo, and the 21st pick to take one of Serge Ibaka, Nicolas Batum, George Hill, Goran Dragic, Courtney Lee or Ryan Anderson who the Nets did take.

Same deal with the 2009 draft. Why take Jordan Hill 9th when we clearly were not thrilled with him AND needed a PG? We should've traded down yet again to select any PG and unloaded Jared Jefferies contract in the process. And why take Toney Douglas 29th in a draft that still had Patty Mills, Danny Green, Dante Cunningham, Marcus Thornton, Chase Budinger and Jodie Meeks still on the board?

Why throw a 2012 first round pick and dump Jordan Hill, who still had potential, just to dump one extra year of Jared Jefferies' contract? We had no idea whether we'd even use that $7 million of cap space in free agency and easily could've unloaded that contract with $3 million of cash had we simply waited until the dust settled when LeBron made his decision. Remember that a bunch of teams had cap space that year and left, holding their dicks in their hand, which quickly created a sellers market.

Why take Iman Shumpert with the 17th pick in a draft where no one (aside from Phoenix) had any interest in him as a first round pick? Again, I don't mind the selection by why waste the value of the pick by selecting a guy you easily could've traded down for and recouped more assets in the process? Hell, even if you missed out on drafting him in the process, would you really have an issue picking one of the other late first round/early second picks that year: Jimmy Butler, Kenneth Faried, Nikola Mirotic, Tobias Harris, Reggie Jackson, Cory Joseph, Norris Cole, Donatas Montejunias, Chandler Parsons, Will Barton, Isaiah Thomas and Bojan Bogdanovic?

Like I intimated, Donnie Walsh destroyed this franchise. People gave him a pass though because we improved record-wise and because he seemed like everyone's loveable grandpa. But make no mistake, that man was every bit as devastating as Scott Layden...Scott just never had Carmelo Anthony and (one season of) Amar'e Stoudemire beating down his door.

The point I was trying to make is that if Donnie Walsh knew what he was doing, we would've had more than enough assets to trade for both Melo and CP3. Entering the 2010 offseason, this should've been our team.

PG: Goran Dragic (40th pick in 2008 from trading down with the Nets), Darren Collision/Ty Lawson/Jeff Teague/Eric Maynor, Jrue Holiday (obtained from trading down in 2009)
SG: Landry Fields (rights), Jodie Meeks/Marcus Thornton/Danny Green (picked instead of Toney Douglas), Andy Rautins (rights)
SF: Wilson Chandler, Chase Budinger (2nd round pick from DET trade for giving them Eddy Curry in 2008)
PF: Danilo Gallinari, Ryan Anderson (obtained from trading down in the 2008 draft)
C: David Lee (Bird Rights), DeAndre Jordan (obtained using the DET's 29th pick in 2008- Eddy Curry deal)

Cap Space: ~$40 million

Yes, we'd still be a lottery team but there would've been an abundance of assets to make the kinds of moves we wanted to make to form our own big 3 and still have the infrastructure to surround them with competent, young, role players.

WaltLongmire wrote:

CrushAlot wrote:

WaltLongmire wrote:

Knixkik wrote:

StarksEwing1 wrote:Here is my issue with the trade. Melo could have easily signed here as a free agent and we could have kept some of those assets or used them to get another player to pair with him. I was perfectly fine with melo coming here BUT all the dude had to do was to wait until after the season to sign with us and I guarantee things would have been better.

We were entering a lockout. No one knew what to expect. No reasonable person can expect someone to forgo that security being offered to him at that point and time for the complete unknown.

Kind of a Chicken Little "the sky is falling" way of looking at things, IMO.

"The complete unknown" is a bit of a stretch...did anyone really believe that the players, owners, TV networks, and BB linked businesses were going to allow things to get out of hand and let the NBA fold?

Except that the owners were threatening to change free agency, wanted to block teams from having the ability to create super friend scenarios and make it extremely difficult for marquee free agents to leave their teams without a significant financial cost. Walt, it is similar to missing out on a retirement tier. He wanted to get his deal under the old cba. I remember at work when we were changing tiers cooperating teachers calling in sick with their student teachers as their subs so that they could get in on the previous tier. Same thing in my opinion. Melo would have given up about 25 million to leave Denver after the new cba. He didn't know that but he knew the players knew what the owners were threatening.

Anthony wanted to go East for the money though...he's in the financial center of the world, and has done quite well for himself. Not sure his branding would have done as well in Denver, and Brooklyn is still the little borough to Manhattan in terms of the NBA.

I would have called his bluff regarding going to Brooklyn, and they would not have given up anything for him if he had made it clear where he wanted to go.

By the way, did he go through the motion of visiting teams when he opted out of his first Knicks contract, or was he actually interested in playing for a little less on a better team like the Bulls? If you are to believe that his visits to teams like Houston and Chicago were legitimate, and not just for the fawning, wining and dining, then you have to admit that he was willing to take less money from them...No?

NardDogNation wrote:

blkexec wrote:The Melo trade.....The Marbury trade.

We can go on and on with this franchise.

We haven't made a decent basketball decision in a long time.

All of our decisions were driven by Dolan's goal to sell tickets.

And he figured having Phil will be another puller for ticket sales, while we tank and rebuild.

Getting Marbury (and Melo) were good moves. We screwed the pooch in the follow-through. Had we simply kept our veterans and added pieces through the draft, Marbury's tenure here would be remembered markedly different. The guy would be even more dominant in today's league that stresses drive-and-kick/pick-and-roll.

Between Knicks fans and Knicks media, Marbury would've never flourished here. Especially since Isiah was linked to the Marbury trade, and 90% of knick fans hate his ass...while the media feeds on it. We don't know how to keep good players. And we only appreciate them once they leave and flourish somewhere else. Since Marbury has his own stature, now people are saying if only we kept him? please....there were knick fans ready to boycott the garden because of Marbury / Isiah. This place was hell for him and his career. The best thing that happened to Marbury (and all the other players Isiah drafted), was to leave this cancer. How can you succeed between Dolan, the fans, the media capital of the world writing about every bad breath you take. The only way for anybody to succeed here is to draft a guy like KP, but only if he shows some promise in the first 5 games (I'm waiting to see Jerian leave the knicks and start killing somewhere else).....But soon KP will be talked about the same way and probably traded for a Durrant type player to pair with Melo's old knees. It's ashame what knick basketball has turned into and what knick fans have to go through. This is what happens when you lose for over 20 years. This is what happens when you have an owner like Dolan. You become a 20 year laughing stock franchise. I'm sure Dolan has a hat trick! Add RG3, to keep the drama going.....And tickets selling.

Yes, I can lash out at the knicks, because I'm letting out steam. When I finally log off, I'm pro knicks all day.....But it's a tough job being a knick fan. I give all real knick fan all the props.....I understand your pain. With all that said, I still blead orange and blue. Just need a bandaid to cover the wounds, so I can move on to the next game. It's like knick fans feed off of drama. I'm looking forward to the next head line that comes out of Melo, Rambis or Phils mouth.....I can't wait for another excuse. Who will Dolan over pay next? Are we finally getting a lineup change? Did we bring up Jimmer, just to keep fans interested? Knowing he will never get playing time....Maybe Jimmer is here to force Calderon to play defense in practice. Seems like it works so far.....Calderon and Gallo killed it.

blkexec wrote:

NardDogNation wrote:

blkexec wrote:The Melo trade.....The Marbury trade.

We can go on and on with this franchise.

We haven't made a decent basketball decision in a long time.

All of our decisions were driven by Dolan's goal to sell tickets.

And he figured having Phil will be another puller for ticket sales, while we tank and rebuild.

Getting Marbury (and Melo) were good moves. We screwed the pooch in the follow-through. Had we simply kept our veterans and added pieces through the draft, Marbury's tenure here would be remembered markedly different. The guy would be even more dominant in today's league that stresses drive-and-kick/pick-and-roll.

Between Knicks fans and Knicks media, Marbury would've never flourished here. Especially since Isiah was linked to the Marbury trade, and 90% of knick fans hate his ass...while the media feeds on it. We don't know how to keep good players. And we only appreciate them once they leave and flourish somewhere else. Since Marbury has his own stature, now people are saying if only we kept him? please....there were knick fans ready to boycott the garden because of Marbury / Isiah. This place was hell for him and his career. The best thing that happened to Marbury (and all the other players Isiah drafted), was to leave this cancer. How can you succeed between Dolan, the fans, the media capital of the world writing about every bad breath you take. The only way for anybody to succeed here is to draft a guy like KP, but only if he shows some promise in the first 5 games (I'm waiting to see Jerian leave the knicks and start killing somewhere else).....But soon KP will be talked about the same way and probably traded for a Durrant type player to pair with Melo's old knees. It's ashame what knick basketball has turned into and what knick fans have to go through. This is what happens when you lose for over 20 years. This is what happens when you have an owner like Dolan. You become a 20 year laughing stock franchise. I'm sure Dolan has a hat trick! Add RG3, to keep the drama going.....And tickets selling.

Yes, I can lash out at the knicks, because I'm letting out steam. When I finally log off, I'm pro knicks all day.....But it's a tough job being a knick fan. I give all real knick fan all the props.....I understand your pain. With all that said, I still blead orange and blue. Just need a bandaid to cover the wounds, so I can move on to the next game. It's like knick fans feed off of drama. I'm looking forward to the next head line that comes out of Melo, Rambis or Phils mouth.....I can't wait for another excuse. Who will Dolan over pay next? Are we finally getting a lineup change? Did we bring up Jimmer, just to keep fans interested? Knowing he will never get playing time....Maybe Jimmer is here to force Calderon to play defense in practice. Seems like it works so far.....Calderon and Gallo killed it.

The year before D'Antoni got here I was an ardent supporter of trading Marbury but only because he showed signs of decline and we clearly were moving away from him as a basketball team. Why keep the guy around, if we were not planning on utilizing him correctly? Before that though, I was a steadfast supporter of Marbury's and recognized that he was recieving unjust blame for Isiah and the team's shortcomings. That being said, it was clear that he was a piss-poor leader and people person but we could have done a better job accomodating that by not pandering to him and by bringing in/keepimg other strong vets like Jalen Rose and Kurt Thomas. But it's all water-under-the-bridge at this point.

I do feel your pain as a Knick fan obviously. It seems like we can never properly execute any team building endeavor. I was fortunate enough to be alive for the 90s Knicks but most of my life has been spent watching these bums stink up the joint. And what pains me is to see us make the same dumb mistake again, and again, and again without ever seemingly learning our lesson. We could've built two ****ing contenders by now had we not traded our picks on the likes of Antonio McDyess, Eddy Curry, (the ghost of) Tracy McGrady, Andrea Bargnani and the like!