Bonn1997 wrote:

BRIGGS wrote:We gave up a lot to trade for Carmelo and seemed to acquiese to his desires while here.
I think he owes the Knicks to be reasonable and open up the process of a trade for him the Knicks and especially the fans.
He seems a bit hypocritical using "family" as excuse while he spent the season cheating on his wife while saying family is why he wanted to remain. It's time to allow the Knicks to move on and for you to find a new avenue in your life

Players don't owe the fans anything beyond what the contract says. This is an instance where I'll fully side with Melo. Players put their bodies on the line and experience pain and injury from work to an extent few Americans do. They also have a rare, unreplaceable set of skills. The compensation for that is a generous contract (usually in terms of money but in Melo's case it was the assurance that he could stay with the Knicks and stay in NYC for 5 years). I'd never leave the city I'd settled down in just because other people wanted me to. If he wants to be a selfless superhuman (or just wants to leave), fine, but he shouldn't be expected to be. When Phil gave Melo the contract in 2014, he was giving Melo the right to play here as long as he wants to (through 2019) regardless of anyone else's desires. The problem is the contract Phil and Dolan gave him. Melo has every right legally and ethically to accept the compensation for putting his body on the line (money and staying in the city) that Phil and Dolan guaranteed him.

This is the NBA not the NFL, the whole "putting your body on the line" argument doesn't carry the same weight, and I'm not sure how it fits into the discussion of whether or not melo should stay or go anyway. I applaud you for efforts trying to make a dream job earning 25 million a year to play a game sound like some type of hardship, but no one can feel too bad for a guy in melo's professional position. There's nothing heroic about what melo is doing. You're right we can't force him to leave and this is on phil for granting him the NTC in the first place. People expect Melo to move on because most of us can see that a move to a contender is the best thing for his career and for knick fans, but if melo prioritizes lifestyle comfort over a winning professional career then that's his perogative. Just don't expect the fans to be happy about that when they've spent time and money watching the team lose year after year with melo at the helm.

EnySpree wrote:Melos infidelity has nothing to do with basketball. He's done enough in the basketball sense that has screwed us noire than anything. At some point, you gotta buy in, lead your team and play hard on both ends. That's what we want and need from every player. Melo is no different. If he can't get down with that he should go

It's not the infidelity for me, it's the bulls***! Don't spend months bulls***ing me, I just find it annoying!

HofstraBBall wrote:

smackeddog wrote:

BRIGGS wrote:We gave up a lot to trade for Carmelo and seemed to acquiese to his desires while here.
I think he owes the Knicks to be reasonable and open up the process of a trade for him the Knicks and especially the fans.
He seems a bit hypocritical using "family" as excuse while he spent the season cheating on his wife while saying family is why he wanted to remain. It's time to allow the Knicks to move on and for you to find a new avenue in your life

Melo cares only about melo- all that crap all year about wanting to do what's best for his family while he was having an affair and impregnating another woman (which meant he was cheating on his wife while having unprotected sex- great thing to do to your wife). He will never do us a favor by widening the list of teams he'd go to.

No one should/could agree with the choices he made in his personal life. But to bring that into a conversation about basketball is questionable and low grade. Imo.

As for what he should do.... He will do what everyone here, every other NBA player and the rest of the world would do, if in his position. They would do what's best for them. The idea that players owe fans anything is short sighted and popular only to selfish fanatics who think the world revolves around their need for affirmation.

As much as I feel Melo was not to blame for our incompetence. It is time to move on. And although it is no secret that I do not feel Phil is the answer, what he said was fair and concise. "He has a NTC" so it's up to him. Think Melo will see that it's best for him in a place he can win and that place is not here

The reason I bring it was because all year melo played the victim and said how his family came first and he had to do right by them- and it was total garbage! I've always had a thing about bare faced lying, I know it's my stuff, but I will say there is no way he'll widen the number of teams he'll be traded to just to help us, he'll only go where he wants to go or he'll stay here whether we want him to or not. I'd love to get Winslow from miami, but all were going to get at best is Rivers

Dagger wrote:

Bonn1997 wrote:

Dagger wrote:

Bonn1997 wrote:

BRIGGS wrote:We gave up a lot to trade for Carmelo and seemed to acquiese to his desires while here.
I think he owes the Knicks to be reasonable and open up the process of a trade for him the Knicks and especially the fans.
He seems a bit hypocritical using "family" as excuse while he spent the season cheating on his wife while saying family is why he wanted to remain. It's time to allow the Knicks to move on and for you to find a new avenue in your life

Players don't owe the fans anything beyond what the contract says. This is an instance where I'll fully side with Melo. Players put their bodies on the line and experience pain and injury from work to an extent few Americans do. They also have a rare, unreplaceable set of skills. The compensation for that is a generous contract (usually in terms of money but in Melo's case it was the assurance that he could stay with the Knicks and stay in NYC for 5 years). I'd never leave the city I'd settled down in just because other people wanted me to. If he wants to be a selfless superhuman (or just wants to leave), fine, but he shouldn't be expected to be. When Phil gave Melo the contract in 2014, he was giving Melo the right to play here as long as he wants to (through 2019) regardless of anyone else's desires. The problem is the contract Phil and Dolan gave him. Melo has every right legally and ethically to accept the compensation for putting his body on the line (money and staying in the city) that Phil and Dolan guaranteed him.

This is the NBA not the NFL, the whole "putting your body on the line" argument doesn't carry the same weight, and I'm not sure how it fits into the discussion of whether or not melo should stay or go anyway. I applaud you for efforts trying to make a dream job earning 25 million a year to play a game sound like some type of hardship, but no one can feel too bad for a guy in melo's professional position. There's nothing heroic about what melo is doing. You're right we can't force him to leave and this is on phil for granting him the NTC in the first place. People expect Melo to move on because most of us can see that a move to a contender is the best thing for his career and for knick fans, but if melo prioritizes lifestyle comfort over a winning professional career then that's his perogative. Just don't expect the fans to be happy about that when they've spent time and money watching the team lose year after year with melo at the helm.

What does that even mean? Any sport where you can tear your ACL or destroy all your cartilage is putting your body on the line.
I didn't say fans should be happy about the Melo situation. It sucks. I didn't say anything about heroes either. I actually said the superhuman (or heroic) selfless thing to do would be to waive the NTC.
Regardless, this is a mere tangent. Even if you feel these guys aren't putting their bodies on the line, the compensation for the pain and the rare unreplaceable talent these guys have is large contracts (and an NTC if the player can get it put in). It's a simple legal agreement. The ethically questionable part of this is expecting a player to give up part of the compensation the employer agreed to in the contract even though the player didn't violate his contract.

No one is expecting Melo to do anything. Fans and the GM want Melo to waive the NTC, obviously he is not obligated to do so. I agree that melo and players like him garner their large contracts with a scarce skillset and that the NTC is something that Melo has earned as part of his contract.

As far as the influence of injury risk in the formulation of an NBA contract, I do not think it is a significant factor, as I am of the opinion that the great majority of peopple, if they possessed the requisite talent to be an NBA player, would happily join the league knowing full well the potential for injury that decision can bring. I could tear my ACL playing tennis tomorrow, yet I will still play, and no one has to pay me a dime! I brought up the NFL in my previous response as an example of a league where I feel that injury risk would be a much larger consideration in contract negotiations. If there is a history of many NBA players developing life-long debilitating injuries as a direct result of their participation in the NBA, then I am not aware of it.

Yes, waiving the NTC would be asking Melo to give up a privilege he is legally entitled to, but the 15% trade kicker contingency is compensation for him doing so. I personally do not feel that asking melo to waive his NTC given the circumstances surrounding the team is asking too much. I do not expect him to waive it in adherence to some notion that he "owes" the team anything, but I would certainly appreciate if he did.

fwk00 wrote:

Bonn1997 wrote:

BRIGGS wrote:We gave up a lot to trade for Carmelo and seemed to acquiese to his desires while here.
I think he owes the Knicks to be reasonable and open up the process of a trade for him the Knicks and especially the fans.
He seems a bit hypocritical using "family" as excuse while he spent the season cheating on his wife while saying family is why he wanted to remain. It's time to allow the Knicks to move on and for you to find a new avenue in your life

Players don't owe the fans anything beyond what the contract says. This is an instance where I'll fully side with Melo. Players put their bodies on the line and experience pain and injury from work to an extent few Americans do. They also have a rare, unreplaceable set of skills. The compensation for that is a generous contract (usually in terms of money but in Melo's case it was the assurance that he could stay with the Knicks and stay in NYC for 5 years). I'd never leave the city I'd settled down in just because other people wanted me to. If he wants to be a selfless superhuman (or just wants to leave), fine, but he shouldn't be expected to be. When Phil gave Melo the contract in 2014, he was giving Melo the right to play here as long as he wants to (through 2019) regardless of anyone else's desires. The problem is the contract Phil and Dolan gave him. Melo has every right legally and ethically to accept the compensation for putting his body on the line (money and staying in the city) that Phil and Dolan guaranteed him.

This is not true in any way shape or form. The money fans spend on these athletes and their attendant endorsements obligate these athletes far more than any contract does. The Solipsism that Melo [and many other like personalities] demonstrate is a belief that the world revolves around themselves. In sports this is antithetical to what is expected of you with rare, formal exception.

Fans invest their integrity in supporting these players without any contract involved. The local sports hero becomes emblematic of a city, a sports culture, and a financial engine. To claim that once a contract is signed its a matter of doing the minimum and taking advantage of loopholes at every opportunity.

And the problem with the NTC discussions is that many pundits are taking the phrase far too literally.

There's a subtext to the exchanges Melo and Phil are engaged in both publicly and privately.

In this case, Melo asked for a NTC as much for security (that the Knicks couldn't arbitrarily trade him) as well as holding a killswitch on any trade that was not to his liking. So when Phil talks about the NTC, he's saying to Melo, "Look we tried and its not working - its time for us to talk about where you want to go."

When Melo speaks he's saying, "Are you sure there's nothing else we can do to win now?" Implicit in this question is the subliminal message, "Trade the pick and get me an alpha dog to play alongside. The only future I care about is the next few years."

And the answer is obvious and public. When the top draft prospects are interviewed they talk about playing with Porzingis and not Melo. For the first time in generations, the Knicks are building a long term future.

The worth of the NTC lies only in Melo's applying it to name desirable destinations. Staying in NY would be a painful mistake.

The other part about staying in NY being painful for Melo - That just depends on what's important to him.

fishmike wrote:

EnySpree wrote:

knicks1248 wrote:

HofstraBBall wrote:Nothing wrong with what he said.

He has everybody doing the job he supposed to be doing, as if he's the one grooming Mills,allan, and gaines, when he's the one with no experience. Even if that is the case, which it certainly looks like it, Mills was more responsible for most (if not all) our FA signings, then he's ass should be fired.

Since Mills is a Dolan guy, there's no way phil can even fire MILLs or Allan. Phil is responsible for Kurt, JH and Gains and a couple of other no names on the coaching staff. Until that front office is all on the same page, and are not forced to be on the same page, we are going to be a team of utter confusion.

It's like dolan can hire anyone of us to run the franchise, but make sure you keep allan and mills happy, despite them doing stupid sht

You like to say things as if they are facts and they are just thoughts in your imagination.

daily. He's constantly hitting us up with facts constructed from several of his opinions.

Is is not a fact that Mills and allan where here before phil, is it not a fact that phil hired gaines, rambis, and JH, is it not a fact that dolan and Allan have a very good relationship, as well as Mills, is it not a fact that gains does all the scouting, is it not a fact that GMs around the league don't hear form phil, is it not a fact that phils stated MILLs would be the primary GUY when it comes to FA, is it not a fact that Rambis and phil are buddies, and rambis out of the NBA until phil call him

I guess im imagining this

knicks1248 wrote:

fishmike wrote:

EnySpree wrote:

knicks1248 wrote:

HofstraBBall wrote:Nothing wrong with what he said.

He has everybody doing the job he supposed to be doing, as if he's the one grooming Mills,allan, and gaines, when he's the one with no experience. Even if that is the case, which it certainly looks like it, Mills was more responsible for most (if not all) our FA signings, then he's ass should be fired.

Since Mills is a Dolan guy, there's no way phil can even fire MILLs or Allan. Phil is responsible for Kurt, JH and Gains and a couple of other no names on the coaching staff. Until that front office is all on the same page, and are not forced to be on the same page, we are going to be a team of utter confusion.

It's like dolan can hire anyone of us to run the franchise, but make sure you keep allan and mills happy, despite them doing stupid sht

You like to say things as if they are facts and they are just thoughts in your imagination.

daily. He's constantly hitting us up with facts constructed from several of his opinions.

Is is not a fact that Mills and allan where here before phil, is it not a fact that phil hired gaines, rambis, and JH, is it not a fact that dolan and Allan have a very good relationship, as well as Mills, is it not a fact that gains does all the scouting, is it not a fact that GMs around the league don't hear form phil, is it not a fact that phils stated MILLs would be the primary GUY when it comes to FA, is it not a fact that Rambis and phil are buddies, and rambis out of the NBA until phil call him

I guess im imagining this

Its a fact Mills is the GM. He's the guy to call.
Its a fact Mills was bought back less than 6 months before Phil was hired.
Its a fact you state stuff you don't know anytyhing about other than it was written about by a writer and written once. You perpetuate things things as if they are on going and not fluid.
Its a fact that Many Gm's and Presidents were former players, and former coach's. Riley had no experience as a GM before he took over the Heat. Just as a player and coach. Red Auerbach was coach for a very long time before he kicked himself upstairs. The whole no experience thing is over done in my opinion. He has spend his whole adult life in the NBA as a player, assistant and as coach. He has been around winning organizations as a coach. He knows what he wants to do. The question is can it happen.
Kurt other than a bad stint as head coach of Wolves, a situation he admits was stupid to take, what has he done prior to the knicks other than be a player that won chips, was assistant GM on a champoinship team, and an assistant coach on a championship team. Is that so bad?

Gains does "ALL" the scouting? Back that up.

Nalod wrote:

knicks1248 wrote:

fishmike wrote:

EnySpree wrote:

knicks1248 wrote:

HofstraBBall wrote:Nothing wrong with what he said.

He has everybody doing the job he supposed to be doing, as if he's the one grooming Mills,allan, and gaines, when he's the one with no experience. Even if that is the case, which it certainly looks like it, Mills was more responsible for most (if not all) our FA signings, then he's ass should be fired.

Since Mills is a Dolan guy, there's no way phil can even fire MILLs or Allan. Phil is responsible for Kurt, JH and Gains and a couple of other no names on the coaching staff. Until that front office is all on the same page, and are not forced to be on the same page, we are going to be a team of utter confusion.

It's like dolan can hire anyone of us to run the franchise, but make sure you keep allan and mills happy, despite them doing stupid sht

You like to say things as if they are facts and they are just thoughts in your imagination.

daily. He's constantly hitting us up with facts constructed from several of his opinions.

Is is not a fact that Mills and allan where here before phil, is it not a fact that phil hired gaines, rambis, and JH, is it not a fact that dolan and Allan have a very good relationship, as well as Mills, is it not a fact that gains does all the scouting, is it not a fact that GMs around the league don't hear form phil, is it not a fact that phils stated MILLs would be the primary GUY when it comes to FA, is it not a fact that Rambis and phil are buddies, and rambis out of the NBA until phil call him

I guess im imagining this

Its a fact Mills is the GM. He's the guy to call.
Its a fact Mills was bought back less than 6 months before Phil was hired.
Its a fact you state stuff you don't know anytyhing about other than it was written about by a writer and written once. You perpetuate things things as if they are on going and not fluid.
Its a fact that Many Gm's and Presidents were former players, and former coach's. Riley had no experience as a GM before he took over the Heat. Just as a player and coach. Red Auerbach was coach for a very long time before he kicked himself upstairs. The whole no experience thing is over done in my opinion. He has spend his whole adult life in the NBA as a player, assistant and as coach. He has been around winning organizations as a coach. He knows what he wants to do. The question is can it happen.
Kurt other than a bad stint as head coach of Wolves, a situation he admits was stupid to take, what has he done prior to the knicks other than be a player that won chips, was assistant GM on a champoinship team, and an assistant coach on a championship team. Is that so bad?

Gains does "ALL" the scouting? Back that up.

Stuff like what? the knicks suck, and have been really bad under phil period.. im not making that up..lol, and until that changes, the blame game is across the board.. Players, coaches, president, ownwer.

WTF are we debating..it is what it is..

fwk00 wrote:While all the attention is on what Phil has said about Melo, ignored is the fact that Phil has spoken plenty about the front-court. And you have to read between the lines a bit but he has sounded very happy with the players he has. When he's talked about the draft he mentions the back-court and swing positions.

All of this sounds reasonable and intuitive but is it intended to throw other teams off the mark? I could see the Knicks making some very unpredictable choices with their picks. It could also mean that trade candidates will not include the existing Front-court contingent.

Bonn1997 wrote:

BRIGGS wrote:If Melo doesnt play ball--let him collect his checks at home for the next two years. Lets see his next contact after that.

You mean bench or suspend him because he won't waive the NTC that we gave him? Oh man, we're already the laughing stock of the league and are not the kind of team good FAs take seriously. Don't make it worse.