Posted by Marv:

I gotta think the drafting business is tougher than it looks. aldridge was heavily frowned upon coming out of college, seen as channing frye redux. maybe eventually he'll be exposed as charles smith part II as dj says, but for the moment he looks like a collasol error by paxson. a couple of years ago frye looked for 25 games like the next knick all-star. now he couldn't caddy for mike doleac.

l look at it this way - if joe dumars, my favorite gm, could screw the pooch so badly as to take darko over wade, bosh and melo, then any great talent evaluator can be fooled at any time when looking at a college, HS or foreigb player. it's a matter of the ratio of right to wrong evaluations that you make.

I would agree. Often GM's are only remembered for the good picks and you tend to forget the bad ones that they all have. In the case of Pax tho he was held out like he was smarter than most and so forth. He had this plan and knew what he was doing. So it's only fair that people would take shots now with the team having failed to cash in on the many opportunities they've had to finish the job.

Posted by nixluva:

Posted by Marv:

I gotta think the drafting business is tougher than it looks. aldridge was heavily frowned upon coming out of college, seen as channing frye redux. maybe eventually he'll be exposed as charles smith part II as dj says, but for the moment he looks like a collasol error by paxson. a couple of years ago frye looked for 25 games like the next knick all-star. now he couldn't caddy for mike doleac.

l look at it this way - if joe dumars, my favorite gm, could screw the pooch so badly as to take darko over wade, bosh and melo, then any great talent evaluator can be fooled at any time when looking at a college, HS or foreigb player. it's a matter of the ratio of right to wrong evaluations that you make.

I would agree. Often GM's are only remembered for the good picks and you tend to forget the bad ones that they all have. In the case of Pax tho he was held out like he was smarter than most and so forth. He had this plan and knew what he was doing. So it's only fair that people would take shots now with the team having failed to cash in on the many opportunities they've had to finish the job.

That's fine. But they put themselves in the position to finish the job, due in large part to the Curry trade.

Hey, I'm not against draft picks, and I understand that Isiah as GM -- if he had the picks -- could have drafted other players besides Ty Thomas, but for Isiah's drafting ability which has been pretty good with late picks, he is a risk taker and likes to stand ou by going against the grain. As some have suggested, this may be an ego thing, and I have always agreed with the notion that this does not always pay dividends.

When he had his one lotto pick Isiah took Frye, who was not even considered a top pick until after workouts and draft camps. Based on my own biased view and limited knowledge I was for us taking Bynum, and not too excited about the pick. I gave Isiah the benefit of the doubt then, and Channing did well his first season, so I supported his progress for a while to give him a full shot, until it became pretty darn clear he was not going to step up.

But that's not even the point. I think it's fair to criticize Isiah for overusing his risk taking tactics, and see that he may have done the same with that #2 pick.

The reality is that Isiah was our GM, and if he was picking I doubt he would have taken Roy since even the next year he didn't want to take Marcus Williams in the next draft with Steph being our point guard. Now that's something also worth criticizing, but Isiah clearly had faith in converting Marbury into the player he expected him to be. Isiah also gambled in that the word out of the 2006 draft was that it was deep but not as top heavy, so he got the extra late pick from Toronto/Denver where we got Balkman and then Collins with our pick from the Spurs.

So, in a way these are indictments of Isiah, but it also doesn't mean that the trade for Eddy was necessarily as disastrous as contended. Sure, our record is bad, and it would be great to have Aldridge/Roy/Gay, but we don't even know if Isiah would have drafted them in the first place, and Chicago -- a team supposedly good at assessing young talent with their roster -- picked Ty Thomas, and Isiah drafted Chandler and traded for Randolph when we were already filled at both positions, so why might he not draft someone like Ty Thomas who is a carbon copy of the types of players Isiah drafted. Ironically enough, someone like Thomas might be good with someone like Curry (not that both together is even logically possible).

That leads to the another important point. We also might be singing a different tune if we had more players that actually help mask Eddy's weaknesses and complimented his strengths -- since we focus the offense around him. Maybe if we ran more offensive schemes that have shown some success (like letting Crawford drive and create) we also might see more positives, but we don't do that. This also implies a critique of Isiah's coaching, which I believe is fair.

http://www.nbadraft.net/2006draftgrades001.asp

(Portland) Grade: B "Aldridge is a solid offensive player, but lacks the toughness to live up to the hype."

(Chicago) Grade: A "They got the player they had targeted all along in hybrid forward T2, who has a legit chance to be the best player from this year's draft class...The deal sending Eddy Curry and the right to sign him to a fat contract to New York is working out to perfection."

[Edited by - PresIke on 11-25-2007 1:20 PM]

[Edited by - PresIke on 11-25-2007 1:21 PM]

The player I would make a serious run at is Memphis Grizzlies big man Pau Gasol, a player the Bulls were interested in last season. The Grizzlies aren't shopping him right now, but they probably can be persuaded to make a deal because the team is losing, fans aren't filling the FedEx Forum and Gasol is owed a lot of money in the next four years.

I still wouldn't trade Deng, the player the Grizzlies wanted last season, but I'd make it clear that anyone else -- including Hinrich and Gordon -- could be had in the right deal.

If the Grizzlies don't bite, I'd turn my attention to Indiana Pacers forward Jermaine O'Neal. The Pacers might not want to make a major deal with a Central Division rival, but I'm sure they'd pull the trigger if the Bulls made an offer they couldn't refuse.

If neither of those scenarios worked out, I'd contact the struggling New York Knicks about reacquiring Eddy Curry.

http://www.suntimes.com/sports/jackson/665865,CST-SPT-jax25.article

Posted by Bonn1997:

Posted by Marv:

I gotta think the drafting business is tougher than it looks. aldridge was heavily frowned upon coming out of college, seen as channing frye redux. maybe eventually he'll be exposed as charles smith part II as dj says, but for the moment he looks like a collasol error by paxson. a couple of years ago frye looked for 25 games like the next knick all-star. now he couldn't caddy for mike doleac.

l look at it this way - if joe dumars, my favorite gm, could screw the pooch so badly as to take darko over wade, bosh and melo, then any great talent evaluator can be fooled at any time when looking at a college, HS or foreigb player. it's a matter of the ratio of right to wrong evaluations that you make.

Oh I think drafting is extremely hard and involves a lot of luck. The real question is do you gamble on two lottery picks in a season when guys like Aldridge, Gay, Thomas, and Roy are available and then in the next season when Oden, Horford, and Durant are coming out or do you gamble on a player who hadn't shown much besides good low post single coverage scoring after 4 years of experience? Being a good GM is not about always making the right decision; it's about *gambling intelligently.* Briggs and many others were right at the time (when I was wrong because I desperately wanted to believe in Eddy) that giving up potential lottery picks for Curry was a big mistake.

If you are referring to Isiah's gamble, in fairness it should be mentioned that I doubt he thought we'd be in the lottery both years.

The whole thing amounts to a broken record.

Posted by djsunyc:

Posted by PresIke:

I like Zach, but it is worth wondering if we can really be successful with a PF/C lineup that doesn't defend well or block shots. I think Zach has shown he can be a better help defender, and his rebounding helps, but those other areas are a problem. One wonders if we had guards who were strong defensively if we could survive more with a Zach-Eddy frontcourt.

let's put it this way, eddy is shooting 60% from the field from down low.

instead of going after jeffries with the MLE in 2006, what if we signed anthony parker? or we used the MLE on mo pete this summer?
instead of going after zach, let's say we traded for jrich...and then signed someone like brian skinner or made a deal for kenny thomas...

this team would've been so much better...and those moves are totally realistic. but no, we have to go trade for zach b/c oh my gosh, he's a 20/10 player.

yea. I agree, the thing with eddy, is that he is an efficient offensive player, and dominant once he catches the ball 10 feet and in... The Knicks IMO could have used guys like Mo pete(who also defends) and hell even a kenny thomas at PF would have made sense. These guys would have easily understood their roles, and have a history of fufilling such roles...
The zach randolph deal was another one of Isiahs star phuchs!( as nalod would put it). He could sell the 20/10 bs, but a lot of fans noticed that zach stats didn't translate to wins in portland and wondered how that would change here..

Posted by tkf:

Posted by djsunyc:

Posted by PresIke:

I like Zach, but it is worth wondering if we can really be successful with a PF/C lineup that doesn't defend well or block shots. I think Zach has shown he can be a better help defender, and his rebounding helps, but those other areas are a problem. One wonders if we had guards who were strong defensively if we could survive more with a Zach-Eddy frontcourt.

let's put it this way, eddy is shooting 60% from the field from down low.

instead of going after jeffries with the MLE in 2006, what if we signed anthony parker? or we used the MLE on mo pete this summer?
instead of going after zach, let's say we traded for jrich...and then signed someone like brian skinner or made a deal for kenny thomas...

this team would've been so much better...and those moves are totally realistic. but no, we have to go trade for zach b/c oh my gosh, he's a 20/10 player.

yea. I agree, the thing with eddy, is that he is an efficient offensive player, and dominant once he catches the ball 10 feet and in... The Knicks IMO could have used guys like Mo pete(who also defends) and hell even a kenny thomas at PF would have made sense. These guys would have easily understood their roles, and have a history of fufilling such roles...
The zach randolph deal was another one of Isiahs star phuchs!( as nalod would put it). He could sell the 20/10 bs, but a lot of fans noticed that zach stats didn't translate to wins in portland and wondered how that would change here..

The question for me is what would the Knicks have gotten out of Francis/Frye that would have been better than Randolph? No one was taking Francis, so who could we have gotten for Frye? Isiah missed the boat at the beginning of Frye's first year. He definitely was too tangled and distracted with LB but he was at all the home games peeking out of the tunnel or whatever. He should have noticed Frye and traded him when his value was high and/or listened to LB about what he was suggesting and seeing in practice.

Now, you still can get high value for Randolph in a trade. Low post, scoring PF's are still a minimum in this league, but the hard part is that Isiah needs to pump his value while playing him next to Curry. Difficult.

The Bulls have been playing without a solid front court player for almost 3yrs and they've performed better than this. They didn't make the most of the EY trade but the most damaging effect thus far on their season were the Kobe rumors/trade, if you get involved in trade discussions for a Superstar/Once in a lifetime player you better be prepared to go "ALL-IN" or don't bother at all. Paxson *****footed around on that issue also throwing salt on the situation making it worse by not extending Gordon nor Deng accordingly. This is what has hurt them most, not the EY trade.


I bet we wish we had all of our first round draft picks since acquiring EY!

[Edited by - TrueBlue on 11-25-2007 6:34 PM]

I think that Zach and Curry will eventually be a dynamite duo. We're not seeing the best of either guy with the guards we have right now. I like what we have in Zach, Curry, Lee, Balk, Jared and from what i've seen Chandler. They're not our problem and I think we're far superior to Chi in those areas. The guards tho is the only thing that holds us back IMO. We got good value in both deals for Curry and Zach and you can win with those guys if you have good guards that complement them.