Posted by djsunyc:
to hypothetically talk about a healthy dice is kinda like hypothetically talking about a healthy h20/marbury pairing since h20 already had microfracture before isiah joined the team.

it's all valid for discussion. However, and you know more about knees than any of us so I think you will agree, the chance of a younger Dyess making a full recovery from a fluke blown knee accident was far greater than the older Houston recovering from a congenital proclivity for early cartilage loss resulting in deficient cartilage in both knees.

Posted by djsunyc:

Posted by BlueSeats:

Posted by nyvector16:

I think the greatest problem we have is we are relying too much on the mediocre talent of Jeffries and Jones to be the glue for our defensive sets when in reality they are as much a liability as anyone else on the floor and probably more so as their man does not have to expend any energy on defense. I wrote something in another thread that I think applies here...

If Nichols gets cut for Fred Jones I will really really be disappointed in Isiah. I've been rooting for this team and this coach/president the last 3 years but all the patience in the world has run out. Produce this season, make the playoffs or leave without any excuses. Fred Jones is a liability on offense. His man can float away from him and create havoc for our cutters and double team our interior guys without having to pay for it as the guy can only do one thing... drive to the basket and try to produce from blank range. As far as I'm concerned he is a Jeffries clone for the 2 spot. An idiot that you hope at least contributes some kind of positivity for the team. Both are lost on offense and in reality also lost on D. The illustion that they are defensive stoppers because of their sever limitations on offense is just infuriating. Jeffries takes minutes away from Balkman, Q, Chandler, and to some extent Lee. Jones takes minutes away from Crawford, Nate, Q, and worst of all a roster spot for Nichols.

If we got rid of both Jeffries and Jones it would be addition by subtraction. And if IT cannot recognize what is actually hindering this team then he needs to go to. I'll wait at least until we have 20 games of regular season games under our belt before I call for his head.... but the season as it stands is looking dimmer and dimmer the more playing time Jones and Jeffries get.

Until we stop covering for these guy's deficiencies we will not be able to move forward as a team. The Chemistry is beeing affected by their deficiencies. I'm not saying that we would be winning these games without them. What I am saying is if we had Chandler or Nichols in there getting their minuites we would be in a much better position going forward. Not to mention Jones is 6'2" with no offense and suspect defense and Nichols is 6'8", plays the same position and has shown promise at becoming a decent defender. I really hope this situation gets settled soon.

You know, among some coaches in the league there is this desire to have a bunch of 6'9 tweener guys with multiple skill sets who can be used at various positions as mix-n-match interchangeable parts. Scottie Pippin as the point forward is probably the prototypical example. Amare Stoudamire at center is another. Lebron and Kobe are guys capable of playing 3 or 4 different positions for stretches of a game.

The thought is if you can put enough of these guys on the floor at once you will confound the opposItion with mismatches as multiple positions. Your "SG" might be oversized and to tall for them while at the same time your "PF" is undersized but too fast and athletic.

I think this is the direction Isiah would like to go with guys like Chandler, Jeffries, Balkman, Lee, etc. and to a lesser extent smaller combo-tweeners like Crawford and Q. The problem is that you need guys with multiple intelligences out there to carry it off. Simply having the right size and athleticism isn't sufficient. You need two-way players with high bball IQ who are very fundamentally sound, otherwise you just have a lot of misdirected energy, and you become the team who is mismatched by superior skills and/or execution.

So who are the heads out there and who has the fundamentally sound skill sets? If your interchangeable parts don't provide it then your "pure" players certainly better. I don't really see the smarts or the fundamentals from any position or player on the floor (unless it's a rookie who I'm just not up to speed with as yet.)

the 6'9 philosophy is the one being utilized by billy knight in atlanta : diaw, childress, smith, marvin, trade for joe johnson, shelden, horford

Posted by RemBee76:

Right, DJ, Dice plays well under monitored back-up minutes then breaks promptly when given a green light from Don Chaney.

I have a hard time thinking Denver gives up their all-star PF for an untested draft pick and Marcus Camby if they don't think Dice's health was a "gamble".

He was broken goods, we wouldn't have had him if he wasn't. Which is why speculating on what we would have if he was healthy is, to use Blue's word, fallacious.

Posted by Masterplan:

i think the appropriate word is "counterfactual," for what it's worth

Posted by BRIGGS:

The only defense we have now is the post game interview

Posted by BRIGGS:

Posted by oohah:

If a hypothetical if \"Dice Was Here during Layden\" argument is valid, I think an \"If Allan Houston Was Here during Isiah\" argument is equally valid, isn\'t it?

oohah

At that point Mcdyess was only 27 years old. There was a risk and the risk came true. Houston is 36 now--33 when IT got here and the team was bad--Houston wouldn\'t have made that much difference. Mcdyess was a 20-12-3 player--add in Mutumbo and that is a pretty formidable defense flanked by good perimeter defense. The only defense we have now is the post game interview

I think you are incorrect about the difference Houston would have made. If he was healthy enough to play, he would have made a big improvement over Crawford or Q at SG. Houston was playing great in his last full season.

Anyway, IT inherited Houston. Dice was maybe the worst trade in the past 20 years, Camby and a pick (Nene) for nothing at all. The Ewing trade is right there, but only because of money, Ewing was totally shot when he was traded.

oohah

Posted by RemBee76:

Posted by BlueSeats:
Now, if by some chance he was predisposed to another fluke injury to the opposite knee, it's highly unlikely Denver would have known that.

In a previous life I was a fact-checker.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D03EFDA113AF937A25753C1A9649C8B63

This is the third injury the 6-foot-9, 245-pound McDyess has had to his left knee, and all have had some connection to the patella area. --NYTimes

I remember an interview with Dice making some snide comment about the irony of Denver's Camby going down with an injury, right before he himself experienced his season ender.

He, apparently, thought he was traded because Denver felt he was too much of an injury risk.

The Knicks (see LJ) have never been known to do their due diligence in this regard.

And yes, I did see Dice in pre-season, and like every other Knick fan I was saying "If Dice stays healthy, we might make some noise."

Joke is on us.

Okay, my bad, I thought he had just one knee injury in Denver, not two. Good job.

Posted by RemBee76:

Yes, and to the same knee.

Sorry to be a stickler, but I happen to dislike the implication that Layden was just the victim of a "freak" injury. Layden took a bad risk, and it proved to be so.

I also really dislike it when the same people who take Isiah to task for looking for quick fixes feel Layden's was somehow justifiable.