dk7th wrote:

TeamBall wrote:

dk7th wrote:

TeamBall wrote:

dk7th wrote:talent or skill? can't leave out mindset either.

durant has enjoyed a steady trend upwards his entire career in terms of scoring efficiency as well as playmaking. we have all read that this is what he wanted to work on and we have all heard jvg say many times "see, this is what he needs to do to make that next step-- be a playmaker for others." it has been said when we see durant in the lane drawing contact and trying to put up a little contested 5-7 footer instead of finding an open teammate, be it a cutter or a perimeter guy. part of the challenge is his leaving his feet, and really only lebron james has been able to get away with that. still, durant WANTS to be make those plays. the issue is court vision as well, of course.

if durant can learn to find someone more and more in those situations instead of trying to draw a foul (which is a good alternative in terms of TS% as it is) then he will eventually be able to challenge lebron james for the most part. where he will likely fall short is as a defender compared with lebron james.

carmelo anthony? we have witnessed no such steady trend upwards. his game has remained the same-- stagnant really.

people want to always place responsibility on carmelo anthony's "supporting casts" but you can't keep using that excuse year after year without also acknowledging that this guy's game really has not gotten any better year after year either.

some people want to say that melo has been to the playoffs every year whereas durant missed the first two years. who has had the better career? who has evolved?

DK, my thing is that Melo is what he is and we all know what he is. He scores. Hes not Lebron. Hes not Durant. I dont get why get so surprised when he doesnt put up their stats. Are you expecting him to become as good as they are?

not everybody knows that, teamball, including and especially carmelo anthony!

i never expected him to become as good which is why i maintained from the very beginning that it would not be good to acquire him through a trade. free agency okay but not a trade. he needs to have better players than the knicks can provide and the knicks have not been in a position to provide such players since the trade itself. and lets leave specific names out of this for a change-- it's the principal of the thing.

he is a secondary player not a primary one.

Isn't that you sort of agreeing with the "Melo needs more help" argument?

not in the least. the first sentence (edit: the sentence before the one bolded) states why. sure... he didn't trade himself here... but he was a player in that event and therefore responsible for the state of the team to a significant extent. he is blithely unaware of his limitations and it seems he has too many fans who mirror his blithe unawareness.

TeamBall wrote:

knickscity wrote:

smackeddog wrote:Out of curiosity, if you put Melo on the thunder and Durant on the Knicks, how does each team do?

We play Miami in the ECF last season....Okc doesnt make the finals the year before.

Durant takes a back seat to an inferior player, so that player can grow into being great, which westbrook has done.

In turn that made both of them great.

I'll ask you....would melo do that?

Who would Durant take a backseat to on this Knicks team thats gonna grow into being great?

in melo's i certainly dont mean allow someone to possess the ball and take more shots, but i do mean melo needs to scale back so others can scale up.

yellowboy90 wrote:

knickscity wrote:

yellowboy90 wrote:

knickscity wrote:

smackeddog wrote:

Bonn1997 wrote:

smackeddog wrote:Why do people say Melo sucks because he's not as good as two of the best players in the nba, Durant and Lebron, as if thats proof!? Ridiculous.

It's amazing we've gone 72-34 with such a terrible coach and franchise player.

We are a glorified version of the Hawks of the past decade - a good team that won't win a championship and probably won't ever make it out of the 2nd round. Some people would prefer to rebuild until we have a championship contending core. Others just want a fun competitive team. Maybe that answers your question.

I think this rebuild obsession is getting stale- how many championships have the Thunder won? They're about to start declining slightly, in my opinion.

I honestly would rather remain competitive and try and get better every year, and work at it than deliberately suck, in the hope you get a top pick, in the hope its a good draft, in the hope the player pans out, in the hope you can build a team around them , but at the same time they're not too good in their first season so that you suck enough in the hope that you can then draft another player the following year, in the hope that it's a good draft, in the hope that player develops, in the hope they complement the first player, in the hope you can surround them, with the right pieces, in the hope that you keep the team together, in the hope they don't get injured, in the hope they win a championship.

I don't like this newish mentality that it's better not to try, or that there's something wrong with always making the playoffs- imagine if back in the 90s we decided not to bother and tank in the hope maybe we get lucky and draft a player to complement Ewing.

Even though the Thunder is an exception, i hope you're not seriously saying you wouldnt want their success.

The Thunder's "decline" is no worse than our present best, and their "decline" is cba inflicted and their location.

The dont trade harden if they were in nyc.....the again NY fans are patient enough to have a team suck for a minute, which all the champs have done.

Boston was terrible for a minute...Miami was as well, all the contenders took a step back to develop at least one player.

But anyway, the thing with the draft is most champions have a drafted piece that makes impact, as do the contenders.

As a fan I do hope Shumpert can make that elevation....the drafted piece.

That's not entirely true. It is more owner related than CBA related. They still have their amnesty to use but I guess they will let that run out. They could have easily kept Harden and amnestied Perkins. They could have re-signed Martin but they let him go, so they lose a chip that they got in the Harden trade. They are what about 5 million under the tax apron. Guess who fits if they amnestied Perkins?

it's primarily cba related, the tax penalties is what prevented them from keeping harden not the salaries themselves, and using the amnesty means they still have to pay perkins...once again cba related and alot to ask of a small market team.

They made a choice between harden and ibaka, and may have made the wrong choice, perkins has nothing to do with it.

It's easy to not have the checkbook and say what an owner should do.

hell, i want the Knicks to buy out amare and stretch his dough, but it's not my money.

Perkins has everything to do with it because they are paying 8 million plus to a guy who does nothing for them. His production could have been duplicated by another player giving them the opportunity to keep Harden. They just made a bad decision it had nothing to do with the CBA. They thought they could duplicate Harden's production and impact but they should have tried to duplicate Perkins impact. At the very least they could have extended Harden/S&T him this summer.

what they could have done vs what they did is cba related.

But either way, their teams success in the least is ours at it's best.

knickscity wrote:

nixluva wrote:All Melo needs is a little help. Imagine if we had another offensive player who could score from anywhere on the court and shoot over just about anyone. Andrea is that kind of player and he's not broken.
These are some games from the time right after AB came back after an elbow issue last year. Please look at these relatively short videos and you can see that even not 100% AB is able to do things none of our other bigs can do. He's a serious problem on PnP and he's more quick and agile than some of use realize. Next to Melo he'll be very good.

Can i see the playoff footage?

No specific comments on any of the games I posted? You had the Celtics and Pacers to look at. I would like for you to look at the Pacers games in particular and see how lost the Pacer bigs are out away from the basket against AB!!! They don't want to come out and when they do they look scared to commit. This what AB brings to the table that will have an effect on teams with big defenders inside.

Also remember AB isn't 100% at the time of these games.

knickscity wrote:

TeamBall wrote:

knickscity wrote:

smackeddog wrote:Out of curiosity, if you put Melo on the thunder and Durant on the Knicks, how does each team do?

We play Miami in the ECF last season....Okc doesnt make the finals the year before.

Durant takes a back seat to an inferior player, so that player can grow into being great, which westbrook has done.

In turn that made both of them great.

I'll ask you....would melo do that?

Who would Durant take a backseat to on this Knicks team thats gonna grow into being great?

He has to take the back seat first, Westbrook wasnt the player he is now prior to the league.

in melo's i certainly dont mean allow someone to possess the ball and take more shots, but i do mean melo needs to scale back so others can scale up.

What does this even mean???

People are still in engaging this backwards mumbo jumbo???

Melo is bad, end of story......until he is good.

yellowboy90 wrote:

knickscity wrote:

nixluva wrote:

knickscity wrote:

nixluva wrote:All Melo needs is a little help. Imagine if we had another offensive player who could score from anywhere on the court and shoot over just about anyone. Andrea is that kind of player and he's not broken.
These are some games from the time right after AB came back after an elbow issue last year. Please look at these relatively short videos and you can see that even not 100% AB is able to do things none of our other bigs can do. He's a serious problem on PnP and he's more quick and agile than some of use realize. Next to Melo he'll be very good.

Can i see the playoff footage?

No specific comments on any of the games I posted? You had the Celtics and Pacers to look at. I would like for you to look at the Pacers games in particular and see how lost the Pacer bigs are out away from the basket against AB!!! They don't want to come out and when they do they look scared to commit. This what AB brings to the table that will have an effect on teams with big defenders inside.

Also remember AB isn't 100% at the time of these games.

they dont want to come out by design, they know bargnani at best only hits 45%.

The pacers aren't concerned with what Bargnani MIGHT do.....the video isnt impressive.

Wanna impress me...attack where you stand.

Notice how boozer isnt trying to take Hibbert out of the paint....he attacks him, and that's how you beat him.

The 1:30 mark of the posted video by Nix gives an idea of what you are looking for even though it's on the quicker Mahimi. Maybe Hibbert just stays back though.

The Pacers will have a much tougher time guarding this team with AB and Melo in there. They won't be able to just focus on Melo and get away with hit. Shots are open the Knicks just need to hit them. JR had open shots, Kidd had open shots, Prigs... When Shump got hot it exposed the Pacers packing the paint and that's the reason the Knicks added more shooting with THJ, Beno and AB. They can give the team just the punch they need. Beno isn't a great shooter but he's better than Kidd.

nixluva wrote:

yellowboy90 wrote:

knickscity wrote:

nixluva wrote:

knickscity wrote:

nixluva wrote:All Melo needs is a little help. Imagine if we had another offensive player who could score from anywhere on the court and shoot over just about anyone. Andrea is that kind of player and he's not broken.
These are some games from the time right after AB came back after an elbow issue last year. Please look at these relatively short videos and you can see that even not 100% AB is able to do things none of our other bigs can do. He's a serious problem on PnP and he's more quick and agile than some of use realize. Next to Melo he'll be very good.

Can i see the playoff footage?

No specific comments on any of the games I posted? You had the Celtics and Pacers to look at. I would like for you to look at the Pacers games in particular and see how lost the Pacer bigs are out away from the basket against AB!!! They don't want to come out and when they do they look scared to commit. This what AB brings to the table that will have an effect on teams with big defenders inside.

Also remember AB isn't 100% at the time of these games.

they dont want to come out by design, they know bargnani at best only hits 45%.

The pacers aren't concerned with what Bargnani MIGHT do.....the video isnt impressive.

Wanna impress me...attack where you stand.

Notice how boozer isnt trying to take Hibbert out of the paint....he attacks him, and that's how you beat him.

The 1:30 mark of the posted video by Nix gives an idea of what you are looking for even though it's on the quicker Mahimi. Maybe Hibbert just stays back though.

EXACTLY! Also in the vid I posted you can see how lame the Pacer bigs look out away from the basket. Their bigs are afraid to close out hard cuz they know AB is able to pump fake and drive right by them. West gets abused, Mahinmi too. They won't be able to just pack the paint and efectively stop the knicks. Also Knickscity, you're nuts if you think AB hitting at 45% is bad from midrange. The thing is that he's more than capable of hitting for more with another top player like Melo on the floor.

The Pacers will have a much tougher time guarding this team with AB and Melo in there. They won't be able to just focus on Melo and get away with hit. Shots are open the Knicks just need to hit them. JR had open shots, Kidd had open shots, Prigs... When Shump got hot it exposed the Pacers packing the paint and that's the reason the Knicks added more shooting with THJ, Beno and AB. They can give the team just the punch they need. Beno isn't a great shooter but he's better than Kidd.

Despite Beno's inconsistent outside shot he is a very consistent mid range shooter. If that continues this year that could bode very well against the kind of hang back in the restricted zone D Hibbert plays. Beno will not have to attack the rim he can come off the screen for a jumper. This is very different than Felton/Kidd/Prigs. Felton would take those shots but was not consistent at making them or very good at finishing at the rim. Kidd was a spot up shooter period and when he did run the PnR it was pass all the way after he stepped pass the arch. Prigs the same as Kidd although he was a better shooter from three of the dribble than Kidd. Maybe he expands his game now that he has a season under his belt.

So I look forward to what Beno can do. If my memory is right he seems to shoot the 3 better with the more attempts he gets. He will probably be able to get the most attempts of his career here. I just hope his shooting numbers get back to what it was in Sac with the assist numbers he had in Orlando.

dk7th wrote:

TeamBall wrote:

dk7th wrote:

TeamBall wrote:

dk7th wrote:

TeamBall wrote:

dk7th wrote:talent or skill? can't leave out mindset either.

durant has enjoyed a steady trend upwards his entire career in terms of scoring efficiency as well as playmaking. we have all read that this is what he wanted to work on and we have all heard jvg say many times "see, this is what he needs to do to make that next step-- be a playmaker for others." it has been said when we see durant in the lane drawing contact and trying to put up a little contested 5-7 footer instead of finding an open teammate, be it a cutter or a perimeter guy. part of the challenge is his leaving his feet, and really only lebron james has been able to get away with that. still, durant WANTS to be make those plays. the issue is court vision as well, of course.

if durant can learn to find someone more and more in those situations instead of trying to draw a foul (which is a good alternative in terms of TS% as it is) then he will eventually be able to challenge lebron james for the most part. where he will likely fall short is as a defender compared with lebron james.

carmelo anthony? we have witnessed no such steady trend upwards. his game has remained the same-- stagnant really.

people want to always place responsibility on carmelo anthony's "supporting casts" but you can't keep using that excuse year after year without also acknowledging that this guy's game really has not gotten any better year after year either.

some people want to say that melo has been to the playoffs every year whereas durant missed the first two years. who has had the better career? who has evolved?

DK, my thing is that Melo is what he is and we all know what he is. He scores. Hes not Lebron. Hes not Durant. I dont get why get so surprised when he doesnt put up their stats. Are you expecting him to become as good as they are?

not everybody knows that, teamball, including and especially carmelo anthony!

i never expected him to become as good which is why i maintained from the very beginning that it would not be good to acquire him through a trade. free agency okay but not a trade. he needs to have better players than the knicks can provide and the knicks have not been in a position to provide such players since the trade itself. and lets leave specific names out of this for a change-- it's the principal of the thing.

he is a secondary player not a primary one.

Isn't that you sort of agreeing with the "Melo needs more help" argument?

not in the least. the first sentence (edit: the sentence before the one bolded) states why. sure... he didn't trade himself here... but he was a player in that event and therefore responsible for the state of the team to a significant extent. he is blithely unaware of his limitations and it seems he has too many fans who mirror his blithe unawareness.

Fans here? I havent seen anyone here put him in Lebron status. Now Durant maybe but I cant remember any specific threads. For the record, I put Durant above Melo.
Now if youre talking about casual fans then they just know what the media tells them.

fans who constantly whine that he needs more help are mirroring his blithe unawareness.
fans who constantly whine that his "supporting cast didn't step up" mirror this blithe unawareness.
fans who maintain that melo did his job but others fell short mirror this blithe unawareness.

if you mow your lawn and you find a car... you might be a redneck.
if you have a bathtub in your front yard and a transmission in your bathroom... you might be a redneck.
if your beltbuckle is bigger than your head... you might be a redneck.
if you're too drunk to fish... you might be a redneck.
if you need a pair of shoes and a flashlight to go to the bathroom at night... you might be a redneck.
if one of the windows of your vehicle is a hefty bag... you might be a redneck.
if you refer to your wife and your mother-in-law as "dual air bags"... you might be a redneck.
if your mother-in-law refuses to remove the marlboro from her lips as she is telling the highway patrolman to kiss her ***... you might be a redneck.

You own a home that is mobile and 5 cars that aren't

The taillight covers of your car are made of red tape.

You consider the fifth grade your senior year.

The rear tires on your car are at least twice as wide as the front ones.