Posted by oohah:

I'm pretty beat, maybe I'll pick this up in more detail tomorrow.

In brief I see improvement in some measures, but nothing that exceeds my expectations, and nothing that allays my larger fears for our future.

My problem with the issue is it's all in comparison to last year, which is a hideous baseline to begin with. I understand it is a context given by Dolan, but it makes things that are still bad seem better. It's like a doctor telling me the good news is I no longer have cancer, but now I have polio.

I hear you. But like it or not, last year did happen. I don't think that was the real team though, I think that is part of your point. I feel the same way. To me last year was lost to limbo, purgatory, or something like that.

That's why all I want from them this year is what I expected from them last year.

Funny stuff with the Cancer Vs. Polio. If you found out you had Polio instead of cancer, you'd jump for joy! (At least try to.) Then you would wonder why you had polio in 2006!

G'night Mate.

oohah

I agree. To me last year did not happen in the sense that all I want from the team is that they improve to the point that we expected last year. Last year we expected them to make the playoffs as a 7th or 8th seed or get fairly close to making the playoffs (finish 9th). If they accomplish that this year, then I would be inclined to say that the team has progressed as expected. This team has had to overcome alot. Starting the season getting booed at home is a tough thing for a young team and this team has overcome it. The boos are dying down and Marbury seems to have found most of his game, which is huge for this team. Cuury and Lee are playing well and Frye has found his game also. The team just needs to grow to the point where it stops beating itself and forces the other team to beat it.

Posted by Panos:

My question to all the homers is, what is your absolute minimum acceptable win total for this year. Nevermind the feel good stuff. Isiah has had 3 full years. By the end of the season it will be 3 1/2. He's had his "time" to put it all together. What is the number of wins this year that if he does not achieve, you would stick to at the end and say, "ok, he failed, time to go."

No fudging. If you say 35, and he gets 34, no retractions, you have to stick by it. I just want it on record. Hand your ass out there.

Personally, considering the year before he came on they won 37 and the year he came on he won 39 I hardly think it is unfair to say that if they cannot win 37 games this year he has built a Frankenstein of a payroll for nothing, and it would be TIME TO GO. In fact, I think that's generous.



[Edited by - panos on 12-21-2006 06:53 AM]

Posted by oohah:

I'm not sure what you are looking for in an answer that you haven't already gotten.

I'd like to know:

Is the team building cohesion over the beginning of this season? Are they making progress in that way?

Are the young individual players on whom we are to build for the future making progress?

Is the team showing more heart and resiliency as the season passes?

I think the answers to those questions are yes.

I don't think you have answered that for me, not that you have to, but I would like to know your opinion.

oohah

I would have to say most of those are no. Most of the cohesion has come from injuries forcing Francis and Frye out of the SL and Lee into it. I may have mentioned once or twice that Curry/Frye are a bad pairing because of the D and rebounding, but Lee fits in quite well there.

Heart? Did you watch the first half last night? Knicks come off an inspiring win against Utah and have ZERO energy in that first half. If it was any team but the lowly cats we would have been down 30 easy. The resent trend of coming out with zero heart and falling behind by double digits continues.

As for the young guys there's more wrong than right

Nate is still out of control and makes boneheaded plays. Forget about the fight, I'm talking about the dumb fouls and getting calls like goal tending on fast break shots that arent going in. Of course Isiah just puts him back in so why stop?

Because of Curry, Frye has been reduced to a catch and shoot bigman. Hey, we replaced KT... only without the defense and rebounding

Curry is the worst defensive player I have ever seen as a starter on the Knicks

Crawford's shot selection is... (insert vomit picture)

Lee and Balkman have been great. Both are pretty bad on offense but do so many other things (including attack the offensive glass) that it doesnt matter. Lee's rebounding is getting near elite status very quickly and Balkman's D, rebounding and ability to push the ball is very impressive. Nothing bad to say there.

We are a bottom tier team. We have a terrible w/l record. We repeatedly spot opposing teams large leads because of lack of effort. We are poorly coached. We have too many average players on this roster. Aside from that, yea... we are looking pretty good.

Posted by Solace:

Posted by oohah:

I think the Knicks have made evident progress.

Last year at the 28 game mark the Knicks were 7-21. This year they are 11-17. The Knicks have won over 50% more games over the same period of time.

In fairness, if you go back to last season, the mystical 6 game winning streak happened right then, and we wound up at 13-21. Furthermore, last year we were horrible, and as many informed us, LB held us back, so clearly it's not unreasonable to hold us to being *expected* to being better than last year, is it? Being on par for 32 wins (we won 33 two years ago)... I can't call that evident progress.

The last two games have been exciting, but evident progress to me would be a playoff birth. Considering how much talent the people on this board say we have, that should be a pretty achievable goal, no?