My point is isnt that this team is going to compete for a champioship, my point is isiah is not the worst gm in the league.

NBA DRAFT NET

State of the Cap: New York Knicks

2005/06 New York Knicks Payroll: $108.4 million
2005/06 Estimated NBA Salary Cap: $45 million
Roughly: $63.4 million over cap

2006/07 New York Knicks Payroll: $134 million
2006/07 Estimated NBA Salary Cap: $52 million
Roughly: $82 million over cap

Isiah and Magic
The Good: Despite the cesspool that is the Knick's salary cap situation, there are some things to feel good about. New York's rookies showed a lot of promise this year, especially their first pick, Channing Frye. The big man showed excellent scoring abilities from both inside and out and rebounded the ball pretty well. Frye established himself as the only Knick that is untouchable in trade offers. Unfortunately, the bad mojo on this team caused Channing to tear a knee ligament and miss the end of his rookie season. He was one of the few Knicks that actually earned his contract.

Even though he is a horrible shooter and doesn't pass much for a player that stands 5'9", Nate Robinson still brought a lot of energy and enthusiasm to a team that needed it. If the slam-dunk champ can polish his game and be more of a distributor, he could end up being a nice player in this league.

Allan Houston, Jalen Rose, Maurice Taylor, and Shandon Anderson all come off the salary cap after next season, potentially savings the Knicks $54 million dollars. No, that number is not a typo.

The Bad: Where do I begin? How about with one of their newest acquisitions, Eddy Curry. The center from Chicago will make just over $10 million dollars per year the next five years. For that, New York will get an underachieving post player that averages 13.8 points and 6 rebounds. Plus, he has a bad heart that could cause trouble at any time. Plus, they gave up their next two first round draft picks to get him, the first of which is likely in the top three. They don't call Isiah Thomas the best for nothing.

Next, we go to Jerome James, an even more underachieving post player. Jerome will get $6 million dollars each of the next four seasons. He averaged 9 minutes a game this year. Every basketball fan that mildly followed the NBA knew Jerome James wouldn't be worth it. Why the Knicks didn't see that is anyone's guess.

Stephon Marbury's production was down this year and his whining was way up. He averaged a career worst 6.4 assists per game and scored just 16.3 points a night, a figure he hasn't been near since his rookie season. Marbury will still get over $20 million a year for three more years no matter what happens. With a contract like that, it's a wonder that his name ever comes up in trade talks.

With slightly less whining and slightly worse stats, Steve Francis wasn't exactly the beacon of hope that New York thought he would be. I guess that's okay since he makes slightly less money than Marbury, right? ($16 million a year the next three years) Can we please stop calling this guy "The Franchise" already?

There is much more, which I will quickly go over. Quentin Richardson has four more seasons that will pay him about $8.5 million per. That is one million dollars per point on his scoring average. He also shoots a blazing 35% from the field. Malik Rose will get $6.5 and $7.1 million the next two seasons. He barely plays, logging 15 minutes a game, which is less than rookie David Lee who is paid 1/7 of what Rose is making. Jamal Crawford's deal is similar to Richardson's, with an extra year tacked on. While Jamal is the team's second leading scorer, 14 points a game and 42% shooting isn't that great. At least he has some potential to earn his contract.

The Future: After all that, I still haven't mentioned how Allan Houston, Jalen Rose, Maurice Taylor, Shandon Anderson, and Jerome Williams will count $60 million dollars against the cap combined next season. Why is that not a bad thing? Because all of it can disappear after next season. That's right, the New York Knicks have a chance to save $60 million dollars to get their payroll down to around $70 million. That is still over the cap, but its a much more manageable figure.

Is it nearly time to rejoice in the Big Apple? Not quite. Having that many expiring contracts in the hands of Isiah Thomas can only spell trouble for the Knicks. Unless Thomas changes his ways, some of those contracts are likely to be traded for more overpaid players with long-term deals. That is not what this team needs right now.

One player the Knicks would like to get rid of (at least Larry Brown does) is Stephon Marbury. At this point, I don't know who would want to trade for a player with such a bad contract and attitude. However, with the Timberwolves as desperate as they are, perhaps Isiah can convince the second worst GM in the league, Kevin McHale, to take Marbury off his hands. New York will definitely be dealing this summer, and I can't even imagine the possibilities.

The Knicks finally have a chance to drag themselves out of salary cap hell. Something tells me that simply will not happen.

Bonus Points… for… ummmm… not giving Allan Houston a contract extension?

Grade: F

Posted by martin:

Posted by izybx:

LOL Yes look at their future vs ours. We have a whole crop of players who at younger than 24 years old are alreay solid. A WHOLE GANG. You minus Carmelo and they SUCK. Our cap will be under control in a couple years, right as our youth reaches their prime. Cmon man, our future is much better than theirs

you don't win a championship without a player like Carmelo. That's it in a nutshell.

i'm not even sure DEN wins a championship w/Carmelo either... i consider Paul Pierce to be a better player than Melo anyday, & so far Boston hasn't had any luck making it to the Finals in a weaker Eastern Conference.

i think Melo's in the 2nd tier of elite players in the NBA... he's not on the level of a Lebron, D Wade, D Howard, Amare (when healthy)... i'd probably take Chris Bosh over him as well if i could choose... in fact, i'll venture to say that Chris Paul will win a championship before Carmelo does.


[Edited by - TMS on 11-17-2006 12:20 PM]

KIKI is WAY overrated! It's just so easy to pick at Isiah, but very few GM's have ever inheritd a worse team and cap situation in an unforgiving win now city like NY. The press was saying his job was near impossible when he came in. They figured it would take about 5 years just to get things cleared out and start over. People were shocked he could actually make deals for the crap we had.

This is what we had on the Roster:

Charlie Ward - 33
Clarence Weatherspoon - 33
Howard Eisley - 32
Allan Houston - 32
Kurt Thomas - 31
Shandon Anderson - 30
Othella Harrington - 30
Antonio McDyess - 29
Travis Knight - 29
Keith VanHorn - 28
Michael Doleac - 26
Frank Williams -23
Mike Sweetney - 21
Slavko Vranes - 21
Maciej Lampe - 18

so far, everything isiah has done has failed as a GM. the team has won 33 and 23 games respectively. that alone should indicate that isiah's judgement has been pretty bad.

this is HIS team right now. everybody here is HIS player. so now, we can see exactly what HIS vision is all about.

Posted by TMS:

I forget if we got a draft pick in the Mo Taylor trade that netted us any players.

Knicks gave up a second rounder.

Posted by martin:

Posted by TMS:

I forget if we got a draft pick in the Mo Taylor trade that netted us any players.

Knicks gave up a second rounder.

Ok, then add that to his list of failures.

Posted by djsunyc:

Posted by TMS:

Posted by djsunyc:

so far, everything isiah has done has failed as a GM

Q Rich - playing like an Allstar - success
David Lee, Nate Robinson, Renaldo Balkman, Mardy Collins - all promising talent picked by Isiah in the draft - successes
Malik Rose - draft pick was received in the deal that brought him here, which netted David Lee, so this would have to be considered a success

Channing Frye, Jared Jefferies & Jamal Crawford - jury's still out imo
Eddy Curry - looking more & more like a failure, but no final judgement just yet because he's still young & can improve

Marbury, Francis, Big Turd James, Penny Hardaway, Tim Thomas & Jalen Rose - disastrous failures


I forget if we got a draft pick in the Mo Taylor trade that netted us any players.


some of Isiah's moves have worked out... i can't say w/an unbiased eye that everything Isiah's done as a GM has been a failure... the record is what it is, but the future of this team looks brighter right now than it did when Layden was the GM of this team.

[Edited by - TMS on 11-17-2006 12:54 PM]

do wins matter?

isiah thomas is the president of the new york knicks. there were 14,000 people at the last game (even less that actually attended) and ZERO games on national tv. that aspect of the team also falls under his umbrella.

[Edited by - djsunyc on 11-17-2006 12:58 PM]

dj, be honest with me... do you feel more depressed about this roster right now than you did when we Layden was fired as GM? the only bright spot i could look to when Layden left was that Frank Williams was showing some promise as a PG... i didn't feel like KT was going to be an essential cog in any championship run, nor did i feel that Allan Houston or Antonio McDyess would ever return to Allstar form... the team was hopelessly capped out at that point for several years, just as they are now, but they had much older players w/no upside to improve along w/2 former Allstar players w/knees that would not allow them to be effective any longer... the Knicks now have a nice core of young players to build with to replace guys like Clarence Weatherspoon, Travis Knight, Shandon Anderson & Howard Eisley... they're just lacking that franchise guy that we haven't had since Ewing left, but that's nothing new.

I'm not trying to say Isiah's done a good job since he's been here... everyone knows how i feel about Marbury & Big Turd obviously... but he doesn't deserve all the flack he's been getting either imo... the Wins & Losses don't matter to me at this point... i care about the longterm potential to improve, & right now, i can honestly say that i like the current team's chances to improve to be better than Layden's teams ever were or had any chance of becoming.

We don't know what happened the Larry year?? How about we went 23 and fifty f'in nine. I don't care how bad Larry was, Isiah gets just as much the credit as Larry does for last year.

Posted by TMS:

Posted by djsunyc:

Posted by TMS:

Posted by djsunyc:

so far, everything isiah has done has failed as a GM

Q Rich - playing like an Allstar - success
David Lee, Nate Robinson, Renaldo Balkman, Mardy Collins - all promising talent picked by Isiah in the draft - successes
Malik Rose - draft pick was received in the deal that brought him here, which netted David Lee, so this would have to be considered a success

Channing Frye, Jared Jefferies & Jamal Crawford - jury's still out imo
Eddy Curry - looking more & more like a failure, but no final judgement just yet because he's still young & can improve

Marbury, Francis, Big Turd James, Penny Hardaway, Tim Thomas & Jalen Rose - disastrous failures


I forget if we got a draft pick in the Mo Taylor trade that netted us any players.


some of Isiah's moves have worked out... i can't say w/an unbiased eye that everything Isiah's done as a GM has been a failure... the record is what it is, but the future of this team looks brighter right now than it did when Layden was the GM of this team.

[Edited by - TMS on 11-17-2006 12:54 PM]

do wins matter?

isiah thomas is the president of the new york knicks. there were 14,000 people at the last game (even less that actually attended) and ZERO games on national tv. that aspect of the team also falls under his umbrella.

[Edited by - djsunyc on 11-17-2006 12:58 PM]

dj, be honest with me... do you feel more depressed about this roster right now than you did when we Layden was fired as GM? the only bright spot i could look to when Layden left was that Frank Williams was showing some promise as a PG... i didn't feel like KT was going to be an essential cog in any championship run, nor did i feel that Allan Houston or Antonio McDyess would ever return to Allstar form... the team was hopelessly capped out at that point for several years, just as they are now, but they had much older players w/no upside to improve along w/2 former Allstar players w/knees that would not allow them to be effective any longer... the Knicks now have a nice core of young players to build with to replace guys like Clarence Weatherspoon, Travis Knight, Shandon Anderson & Howard Eisley... they're just lacking that franchise guy that we haven't had since Ewing left, but that's nothing new.

I'm not trying to say Isiah's done a good job since he's been here... everyone knows how i feel about Marbury & Big Turd obviously... but he doesn't deserve all the flack he's been getting either imo... the Wins & Losses don't matter to me at this point... i care about the longterm potential to improve, & right now, i can honestly say that i like the current team's chances to improve to be better than Layden's teams ever were or had any chance of becoming.

i'm not comparing isiah to layden. the hobo down the block is better than layden. i'm comparing isiah to his contemporaries like paxson and dumars. neither had cap hell like isiah BUT neither took on long term contracts with the cap room they had so they kind of operated under similar constraints...building via the draft, shrewed MLE signings for cheap and shrewd deals. isiah was in a major position of weakness when he took the job BUT the plan he used definitely wasn't the best one.

we have a nice bench. but do we have a quality starting 5?