Posted by EnySpree:

Stfu.

Oh just to let you know that wasn't directed towards anyone. That was directed to the reply to topic tab.

Posted by Solace:

Posted by nixluva:

You've got to be kidding me! I don't think it's in anyway clear cut that losing a bunch of key players is EVER good. The argument is wether it makes a difference when the injuries are spread out or come all together at one time. In our case it's clear that you don't want to have all of the injuries at the same time. As for this seasons slow start, the knicks started off slow due to a lack of cohesion and a tough opening schedule. I don't think anyone predicted that the team would come out of the gates blazing, with a new coach and system and coming off of the disaster that was last year.

Now I do expect that the team should start of better next year, having at least gone thru a season together under this system and thus not having to start from scratch. I think we come out of this year having a good feeling about Steph, Curry, Lee, Balkman and Collins. If both Q and Jamal heal well, both of them showed themselves to be good contributors this year too. I liked how Q was playing before his back started acting up. We tend to forget all of these things because of how things have gone recently.

The team responded well after the brawl and suspensions. They've also fought hard with all of these key players injured. Those are good positives. Still some of us want to harp on the actual number of wins and losses as if that's what was most important this year. NOT for this developing team. I would've loved for them to reach .500, but more important to me is how the team grows and I like the culture that they've developed of fighting hard. They have bonded this year and we really needed for this team to actually look like a team for a change. Those are some of the things that we accomplished this year.

Too sugarcoated. The initial post was that .500 was attainable minus the injuries. Tough sell, since we weren't there with almost all of our key players healthy. Do we win a few extra games over the course of a season if everyone is healthy? Most likely. But we have a long way to go. Right now, the fact that we're threatening to threaten to be a .500 team means we have a long way to go for respectability... it's not a given, and possibly no better than a 20% chance that we're a .500 team next year.
[Edited by - Solace on Apr 01 2007 10:39 PM]

Posted by Masterplan:

i don't buy the big injury excuses.

for one, steve francis is terrible. claiming his injuries hurt us is ridiculous. he simply doesn't help this team, and calling him a starter or one of our top players is grasping at straws. (p.s. i don't feel the same about jamal.)

in general, i think the arguments along the lines that we lost "X of our Y best players" reflect a poorly constructed roster. talent is not our team's problem. it's that that talent is redundant and incompatible. our worse players are arguably better contributors than our starters (btw, everyone forgets that jerome james was out- he was a starter wasn't he?).

having jamal david and Q down now hurts. especially given how crummy the East's borderline playoff teams are, with those guys healthy we should be in the playoffs. however, when we did have them healthy we were struggling to actually look like a good team. we were dropping winnable games and couldn't string together any real number of wins in a row (while teams like philly and boston were on 7 game streaks). i said it was a problem; apologists said there was time, that there were no "must win" games. then by a roll of the injury dice we lose key contributors.

it would be nice to start the season with our entire roster intact. likewise, to close it the same way. and to play the whole season that way. but it's simply not going to happen. and i don't think this team made the most of the chances it had when it did have everyone (give or take) together.

i say, maybe we shouldn't have ****ed around all season worrying about who was making the all-star team or who was in the running for sixth man or who was getting an extension or what the hell evident progress means. if the playoffs mattered all that much, then play to win. let the wins make those points for you.

Posted by nixluva:

If someone brings up MIami, the injuries they had this year and how they survived them, then they are comparing the Knicks to the Heat.

In terms of my personal predictions for the team, I don't recall saying 45-50 wins. That's not the point anyway. The thing is that things didn't go perfectly. Steph and Frye slumped to start the year, Francis wasn't right either and Jared was hurt. Right there this team was in trouble cuz the opening schedule wasn't easy. We needed everyone and everything to be running optimally. Again an adjustment period was to be expected even if the team was fully healthy. I think most of us felt the team would start slow and pick up their play as the season went along.

The thing is that the final results of this year aren't the MOST important thing. The growth of the young players on this team is the most important thing. Then i'd say next is evaluating who we can rely on and who needs to go. What we need to change to make this team better. This season wasn't about a finished product. It's about starting to get this team going in the right direction. I think we made some progress in that regard. As for the injuries, It certainly messed up the growth process in terms of the TEAM. We will never know how this team would've responded over this important stretch, because of the injuries. It would've been helpful to learn those things. Just judging from how Isiah has been coaching the guys left and how hard they've played, I tend to think we would've done much better.

Again you can't use Dallas or Miami as an example, cuz we haven't even approached their level of success yet. How about we come back to some level of reason and accept that this team was trying to go from one of the worst in the league to a decent team. Maybe make the playoffs and take if from there. No one was saying we'd be a top team in the league inside of one year. That being the case losing the guys we did was a huge loss for this team. I hope they can still pull off a major upset and get into the playoffs.

Posted by TMS:

this team was barely mediocre even w/all its players healthy... we have mismatching parts that don't fit well together... that's the reason we're losing games... we need to balance out the team & create an identity... if we're going to be an inside out team, we need to focus on putting our guys who can play that style the best in more significant roles... if we're going to be a guard dominated perimeter scoring team, then we need to get rid of the lumbering guys who can't run the floor & bring in more shooters.

Posted by Bippity10:

The difference between a balanced team and an unbalanced one.

Balanced team: loses anyone but their star, they drop in talent when they go to their bench but they can continue to play a similar style to what they were playing before. If the players out force them to play a different style they have a team that can make an adjustment on the fly to a new style. Conversations include "we gutted out a win" and "we need to learn how to win under these circumstances"

Unbalanced team: Loses players to injury. Immediately changes style of play. Star player is affected by style change but team has no choice becasue this is the only way they can play. In the end confusion and excuses take over. Conversations are limited to "we are losing because of injuries"

Trimming the fat and balancing the roster is the single most important thing we can do. It is more important than adding talent. There is a reason why the old guys at the YMCA who can't run or jump win the league every year. While the athletic superstars struggle. Balance!