fishmike wrote:This is going to be a fun season for all the right reasons. Its going to be very exciting to see AR and Gallo playing with some real NBA talent. The only thing that worries me is AR's head. Surely some of it was Nellie but AR certainly wasnt a good soldier either.

Interesting point in the thread is where a few of us essentially opted to trust Walsh and see what happens. 2 years later I feel exactly the same way and am glad he's in charge.

most interesting thing to think about with AR is that if he had stayed in college, coming off his junior season at 6'11" 235lbs... where would he have gone in the draft? behind wall, obviously... but 2nd ahead of Turner? maybe 3rd over Cousins? certainly top 5.

this is a great find by walsh - we are basically adding a 21yr old who would be a top 5 pick if he'd been in the draft...

fishmike wrote:This is going to be a fun season for all the right reasons. Its going to be very exciting to see AR and Gallo playing with some real NBA talent. The only thing that worries me is AR's head. Surely some of it was Nellie but AR certainly wasnt a good soldier either.

Interesting point in the thread is where a few of us essentially opted to trust Walsh and see what happens. 2 years later I feel exactly the same way and am glad he's in charge.

good find here fish. i absolutely agreed with you about walsh back then and i still do today - i still feel exactly the same way about AR that i felt about him back then too. i really don't think anyone wanted AR more than briggs and i, hopefully he plays well

franco12 wrote:

crzymdups wrote:

fishmike wrote:This is going to be a fun season for all the right reasons. Its going to be very exciting to see AR and Gallo playing with some real NBA talent. The only thing that worries me is AR's head. Surely some of it was Nellie but AR certainly wasnt a good soldier either.

Interesting point in the thread is where a few of us essentially opted to trust Walsh and see what happens. 2 years later I feel exactly the same way and am glad he's in charge.

most interesting thing to think about with AR is that if he had stayed in college, coming off his junior season at 6'11" 235lbs... where would he have gone in the draft? behind wall, obviously... but 2nd ahead of Turner? maybe 3rd over Cousins? certainly top 5.

this is a great find by walsh - we are basically adding a 21yr old who would be a top 5 pick if he'd been in the draft...

almost makes up for the draft picks that have been traded away.

it makes up for the marbury pick in my mind... more than makes up for it. other than wall and turner, there is no one from this draft i'd want more than anthony randolph.

i'm not one of those people who has a problem with the 2011 pick swap (yao ming is out until january at this rate).

it kind of makes up for the 2009 draft debacle, but how nice would it be to have brandon jennings running the point on this team? ah well.

playa2 wrote:

fishmike wrote:

Posted by BRIGGS:
The one thing that does seperate Westbrook from other players is a tenacity and mental toughness it takes to be good.

which is what separates guys that become bigtime NBA players from guys that have "upside."

Randolph strikes me a little to meek for this league. A guy thats going to spend his career shooting 3's and long jumpers because he doesnt like getting tossed around in the paint. On the other hand maybe he is the next Odom.. who knows. I think what separates the talent is the drive to succeed and win and compete. Also thats a trait I dont see in very many Knick players on this roster.

[Edited by - fishmike on 26-05-2008 10:30 AM]

Fishmike are you describing Gallup or Randolph lol

how would he be describing gallo? second half of the year, i saw a lions share of gallo's offensive work coming 18 feet and in.

crzymdups wrote:

fishmike wrote:This is going to be a fun season for all the right reasons. Its going to be very exciting to see AR and Gallo playing with some real NBA talent. The only thing that worries me is AR's head. Surely some of it was Nellie but AR certainly wasnt a good soldier either.

Interesting point in the thread is where a few of us essentially opted to trust Walsh and see what happens. 2 years later I feel exactly the same way and am glad he's in charge.

most interesting thing to think about with AR is that if he had stayed in college, coming off his junior season at 6'11" 235lbs... where would he have gone in the draft? behind wall, obviously... but 2nd ahead of Turner? maybe 3rd over Cousins? certainly top 5.

this is a great find by walsh - we are basically adding a 21yr old who would be a top 5 pick if he'd been in the draft...

This is actually is how I have looked at it since we got Randolph- he was a junior who we picked up with the draft pick we gave up to Utah- and to make things even better, the extra two years in "college" were in the NBA, so he already has an idea of what it takes to play here.

When it was obvious we could not get Rose, I figured Westbrook was the way to go, and I was also interested in Love, but once those guys were off the board I looked at Gallinari as a the player I wanted, even though I have to admit that I was surprised when we took him. I was in the group who thought Randolph had maturity issues (which he might still have, to be honest) so he was not someone I looked for at #6.

In my mind the GS trade makes ups for the loss of Hill in some ways(hopefully the #1s will not come to haunt us.). We could end up with 2 of the top 6 players in that 2008 draft- which was a good one.

I also have to add that the player from last year we will regret not taking is Holiday, and not Jennings. Holiday is still young physically, but when he is fully mature he will be a stud at PG on offense and D. He is headed toward being a 20/7/7 (at least) type player who is also a lockdown PG on D.

nyk4ever wrote:

playa2 wrote:

fishmike wrote:

Posted by BRIGGS:
The one thing that does seperate Westbrook from other players is a tenacity and mental toughness it takes to be good.

which is what separates guys that become bigtime NBA players from guys that have "upside."

Randolph strikes me a little to meek for this league. A guy thats going to spend his career shooting 3's and long jumpers because he doesnt like getting tossed around in the paint. On the other hand maybe he is the next Odom.. who knows. I think what separates the talent is the drive to succeed and win and compete. Also thats a trait I dont see in very many Knick players on this roster.

[Edited by - fishmike on 26-05-2008 10:30 AM]

Fishmike are you describing Gallup or Randolph lol

how would he be describing gallo? second half of the year, i saw a lions share of gallo's offensive work coming 18 feet and in.

Hate to back up playa, but fishmike's original post- the once playa commented on was from 5/6/2008, and I seem to recall that Gallinari, as your "typical Euro," was considered too soft for the NBA by many, and seen a nothing more that a 6'10" sniper by some. The other thing is that I don't recall Randolph as being a guy who jacked up a lot of 3s in college (A quick look showed me he was 2/19 in 31 games at LSU- so there was a good reason for him not to shoot them.), so I can see the comment from 2+ years ago as being more applicable to Gallo than Randolph at the time.

Paladin55 wrote:

nyk4ever wrote:

playa2 wrote:

fishmike wrote:

Posted by BRIGGS:
The one thing that does seperate Westbrook from other players is a tenacity and mental toughness it takes to be good.

which is what separates guys that become bigtime NBA players from guys that have "upside."

Randolph strikes me a little to meek for this league. A guy thats going to spend his career shooting 3's and long jumpers because he doesnt like getting tossed around in the paint. On the other hand maybe he is the next Odom.. who knows. I think what separates the talent is the drive to succeed and win and compete. Also thats a trait I dont see in very many Knick players on this roster.

[Edited by - fishmike on 26-05-2008 10:30 AM]

Fishmike are you describing Gallup or Randolph lol

how would he be describing gallo? second half of the year, i saw a lions share of gallo's offensive work coming 18 feet and in.

Hate to back up playa, but fishmike's original post- the once playa commented on was from 5/6/2008, and I seem to recall that Gallinari, as your "typical Euro," was considered too soft for the NBA by many, and seen a nothing more that a 6'10" sniper by some. The other thing is that I don't recall Randolph as being a guy who jacked up a lot of 3s in college (A quick look showed me he was 2/19 in 31 games at LSU- so there was a good reason for him not to shoot them.), so I can see the comment from 2+ years ago as being more applicable to Gallo than Randolph at the time.

Walsh done a great job rebuilding this team, much like he rebuilt the Pacers the 2nd time. He didnt have high picks to work with, but he turned an older slower group of players into Bender, Artest, Brad Miller, Jermaine Oneil, Al Harrington and Jeff Foster. Not all those guys panned out but it was a pretty good team and without the malice in the palace they had a hight ceiling.

When you look at this Knick roster from top to bottom you see youth, size, length, skill and athleticism. You see a roster full of guys that fit into an uptempo model. We can bitch about Rautins vs. Jeremy Lin but every gm misses players and every gm makes mistakes. You have to look at a body of work and a plan and how they execute that plan. Walsh waited for 2 years and built this thing up from pretty much garbage.

CrushAlot wrote:I loved the talent in the 2008 draft and I really liked Randolph. To have two young big guys from that draft is awesome.

I had Lopez Mcgee and randolph

Juice wrote:

BRIGGS wrote:

CrushAlot wrote:I loved the talent in the 2008 draft and I really liked Randolph. To have two young big guys from that draft is awesome.

I had Lopez Mcgee and randolph

You also had Jordan and Speights but what a way to hon in on one or two a players, instead you wanted just about everyone. You also started getting last second jitters about Kevin Love. You wanted desperately to bring the kid in for a workout and if he put on a good show you wanted him as a strong consideration for our 6th pick.

I knew there were a lot of good players in that draft--that is for sure--but i did hone in on the players I talked about. If you go back I even said I thought Javalee Mcgee might end up the best player in the draft--and he want 23/ That was a very good draft for bigs

BRIGGS wrote:

Juice wrote:

BRIGGS wrote:

CrushAlot wrote:I loved the talent in the 2008 draft and I really liked Randolph. To have two young big guys from that draft is awesome.

I had Lopez Mcgee and randolph

You also had Jordan and Speights but what a way to hon in on one or two a players, instead you wanted just about everyone. You also started getting last second jitters about Kevin Love. You wanted desperately to bring the kid in for a workout and if he put on a good show you wanted him as a strong consideration for our 6th pick.

I knew there were a lot of good players in that draft--that is for sure--but i did hone in on the players I talked about. If you go back I even said I thought Javalee Mcgee might end up the best player in the draft--and he want 23/ That was a very good draft for bigs

As the thought around the time right before the draft there wouldn't be great separation of talent between picks 6 and 16 yet you practically had a conniption fit if we traded Zach and pick 6 for Evans and pick 16. Repeated on several times tons of talent would slip in that draft

A. Randolph drafted 14
McGee drafted 16
Hibbert drafted 17
Hickson drafted 18
Koufos drafted 23
Ibaka drafted 24
Jordan drafted 35

At least 4 of these 7 guys(while extremely young) have a great chance to beast

I'm not saying I'd rather have any of them over Gallo but we have no idea where Gallo would have been drafted had we given up our pick. New Jersey had him on their board but not ahead of Lopez.

- So you either had a problem settling in on talent

or

- Underestimated how deep the talent pool ran

I'll let you choose which hole to stick your head through for the guillotine or ax.