Posted by Uptown:

Posted by McK1:

Posted by TMS:

Posted by McK1:

the whole point is it matters who you put around whomever you decide is your cornerstone. KG for all his greatness couldn't turn a team in which his pg was Marcus Banks and other option on offense Ricky Davis into a play-off participant.

Isiah paid a king's ransom for Marbury with full knowledge of his flaws. He owed it to the franchise, the fans, and to Steph, to put a team around him that would play to his strengths. Isiah otoh brought in guys that made Stephs weaknesses all the more prevalent solely because he had a hard on for them since his days as coach of the Pacers.

to be fair, at first the team WAS being constructed around Marbury's game... the plan was to have a Marbury & Houston tandem in the backcourt, but then Houston's knees would not allow him to return so he then made the move to go after Jamal... when that failed he kept trying to make bandaid moves & fix on the fly w/players that didn't address any of the glaring weaknesses this team needed to be filled & hitched his wagon to the Curry train, which failed again to deliver what he wanted... more trades to add longterm salary in Jalen Rose, Steve Francis, etc. & still no positive results, but unlike any other sensible GM who would realize the problem wasn't going to be fixed by making such deals he then goes ahead & makes the Zach Randolph trade to add even more longterm cap & screw our longterm future even worse than it already was.

Houston's knees aside...what about Crawford's game said trade the only other point guard on the roster, give him a max deal, so to pair him with Steph? his numbers his last year as a Bull were ATROCIOUS. I remember the game at the Garden where he went something like 4 - 20. The sad part about it was his last 9 misses were all bricks from deep. Never once did a light bulb go on and say GET CLOSER to the rim or better yet PASS the ball. That was in 2004. It is now 2008 and we still have the same complaints about Crawford.

F THE CIRCUMSTANCES, that trade was 10 x's worse than the Marbury trade and was the beginning of the end.

The fact that he has yet to be benched nor totally roasted in the papers says alot about his juice card. He may not listen to a game coach but he responds to PR coaching very well. In fact the only media around here that ever took Isiah to task over Crawford were Mike and the Mad Dog which is a win for IT and Crawford since the average fan hates them anyway

[Edited by - McK1 on 14-04-2008 08:09 AM]

Can't argue with any of this......

Anji just rebutted that one pretty well actually... Jamal isn't the reason this team went down the tubes & he's not a horrible player contrary to what McK1 may think... Isiah made a mess of the roster w/his lack of concern to build team balance & commit to a logical rebuilding plan... Jamal's contract is also not the main cause of our cap woes right now, it's Zach's.

Posted by TrueBlue:

Posted by TMS:

Posted by McK1:

the whole point is it matters who you put around whomever you decide is your cornerstone. KG for all his greatness couldn't turn a team in which his pg was Marcus Banks and other option on offense Ricky Davis into a play-off participant.

Isiah paid a king's ransom for Marbury with full knowledge of his flaws. He owed it to the franchise, the fans, and to Steph, to put a team around him that would play to his strengths. Isiah otoh brought in guys that made Stephs weaknesses all the more prevalent solely because he had a hard on for them since his days as coach of the Pacers.

to be fair, at first the team WAS being constructed around Marbury's game... the plan was to have a Marbury & Houston tandem in the backcourt, but then Houston's knees would not allow him to return so he then made the move to go after Jamal... when that failed he kept trying to make bandaid moves & fix on the fly w/players that didn't address any of the glaring weaknesses this team needed to be filled & hitched his wagon to the Curry train, which failed again to deliver what he wanted... more trades to add longterm salary in Jalen Rose, Steve Francis, etc. & still no positive results, but unlike any other sensible GM who would realize the problem wasn't going to be fixed by making such deals he then goes ahead & makes the Zach Randolph trade to add even more longterm cap & screw our longterm future even worse than it already was.

Do you agree it shouldn't have been as difficult to build around a player like Steph who supposedly had all this greatness with his 20/8? Appears to me Marbury was a very difficult player to build around and the team had to find perfect 10 matches at every position in order for it to work.

Name players Marbury has made better in his career. I can't think of a single one. Isn't this one of the main responsibilities coming from this position?

I think it's somewhat simple IMO, most would agree if we had Nash, Paul, Kidd, Deron, or even Parker on this team instead of Marbury we'd be better. Of course we'd still have a limited ceiling because the other players are extremely flawed but we'd be a better team.

TB, i don't disagree w/any of that... at first i was hyped about the Marbury trade but that excitement quickly faded after he started acting like a fool once KVH got traded for Tiny Tim w/his grand predictions of how he's gonna play like the Starbury of old & get his 20 & 8 with 4 dimes & be the best PG in the NBA... u can't build around a player like this & expect any longterm positive results, a lesson learned the hard way by this franchise & its fans alike.

as for guys like Tony Parker, i had him ranked over Steph on my PG's rankings a couple years ago when Bonn posted that comparison thread & people thought i was nuts... the guy benefits greatly by playing alongside Duncan obviously, but there's no question in my mind that if u replaced Marbury w/Parker on this team over the past few years we'd be a much better team right now.