fishmike wrote:

sebstar wrote:Does anybody have any kind of explanation why we didnt draft him??????????????????????????

yes... he was very small (skinny) and coundnt shoot at all. He also played very poorly in Europe and had maturity issues (see his youtube video cursing out teams that passed on him)

What can Hill do?

sebstar wrote:

Nalod wrote:Y'all go it figured out after 4-5 games already?

I thought by most standards it takes 3 years to sort out how the players develop and evaluate the draft. But y'all figured this out in a week!

How about if Hill starts getting run in the second half of the season and does well making Dlee expendable for cap space or sign and trade?

Walsh thinks Hill can be somthing special.

Must fans really second guess every player every week that does better then our pick and microevaluate it. Im sure fans of every team does this.

Good for Skiles and Jennings that after preseason and the first week there is love. Jennings has been nothing but a horses ass verbally but at least he is letting his game do the talking now. In NY he would be in a different fishbowl with more pressure.

Funny, We blast walsh about gallo who did somting in that euro league but Jennings does little and we are ok with passing him by until his Hall of Fame status is confirmed in the first few games.

I know this is the standard "you're overreacting" response to a thread like this, but I really hope that Jennings wasnt selected for the right reasons and not 'oh, he's a street guy with attitude so we wont have an open mind about him' sort of deal.

Hill cant even get off the bench. He was horrible in summer league. What are we supposed to think?

Sebstar, the rule could have easily been do not draft a guy that dantoni might not be use to or can't deal with in the position of running the team. He already had Nate(temper) Robinson , so duhon personality was docile enough to keep the position.

McK1 wrote:who didn't develop as a pg: Barbosa - Banks - Van Exel - Duhon - Nate - Toney Douglas will be aded to the list if he and Mike are here the length of their contracts.

Leaving the folly on Nash aside (never said he wasn’t good before D’Antoni, but you simply cannot argue that the coach did not take his game to the next level) let’s look at your list:

Barbosa not a PG. Next.

Is Marcus Banks even still in the league? Yeah, a real lost talent there.

Van Exel???

Interesting that you say Duhon sucks and then put him on your list. In fact, Chris Duhon was averaging nearly 9 assists per game with 3 turnovers and shooting 42% from 3 pt land Nov-Jan before breaking down later in the season. If you are saying that you saw that he had the potential to play like that in Chicago you are lying.

Nate Robinson is not a PG. Next.

Toney Douglas? Really? Now you are really stretching.

Hill's best case is a better rebounding version or Chris Wilcox and his worst case is Ronny Turiaf

Most of us have watched enough basketball over the years to know a player that is going to excel in the league. And I just don't see anything from this kid that makes me think he isn't going to a player.

There are a lot of GMs in this league that don't know what they are doing, but because of a relationship they keep themselves in the game for a long time. I think Donnie is a good basketball mind, but I would have liked to see him be a little more aggressive and if you are going to gamble, like one poster says you don't gamble on a bigger player. It rarely pays off.

Again I think it's much easy for Gallo to excel in the euro leagues then it is for a kid that is coming out of high school. The players automattically don't like Jennings and you're playing with men that you share no common interests with in a country you don't know. Obviously NY is no bargin either but Gallo is a star off the bat regardless of what he does and the age cap is a lot smaller.

RemBee76 wrote:

McK1 wrote:who didn't develop as a pg: Barbosa - Banks - Van Exel - Duhon - Nate - Toney Douglas will be aded to the list if he and Mike are here the length of their contracts.

Leaving the folly on Nash aside (never said he wasn’t good before D’Antoni, but you simply cannot argue that the coach did not take his game to the next level) let’s look at your list:

Barbosa not a PG. Next.

Is Marcus Banks even still in the league? Yeah, a real lost talent there.

Van Exel???

Interesting that you say Duhon sucks and then put him on your list. In fact, Chris Duhon was averaging nearly 9 assists per game with 3 turnovers and shooting 42% from 3 pt land Nov-Jan before breaking down later in the season. If you are saying that you saw that he had the potential to play like that in Chicago you are lying.

Nate Robinson is not a PG. Next.

Toney Douglas? Really? Now you are really stretching.

barbosa was phx back up point guard and starter when nash didn't play, if he isn't a pg why'd MDA continue to use him as one thru his final 2 seasons there?

banks is in toronto still eating of a 6 mil per yr contract Dantoni gave him to back up Nash b/c he looked like he could play point efectively 20-25 mpg under Dwayne Casey.

nate showed he can run this team when du du went down...why no further efforts to try and develop him as the point?

van exel played for dantoni in denver b4 mda got fired and nick got traded to the mavs

du du avg'd about 5 assists in that 3 guard rotation for the bulls...he can find open shooters and here they shoot a helluva lot more than Skiles Bulls teams. he also hit a bunch of 3's there like he has here. here he sees more time and has sole control of the ball and is in a high attempt offense so his numbers inflated...as far as overall game he is still the same ****ty player.

went back n forth with this all summer...along with the debate about jennings. I don't think he'd have the early success here that he is having in Milwaukee and not because of his mouth but because of the people leading this organization from Dolan on down to D' Antoni.

Nalod wrote:
Do you think Walsh and MDA perhaps looked at his profile and deemed him a low leadership charactor (along with 12 other teams that could have taken him higher!).

jennings went 10th.

Knicks just don't feel they can afford to take a chance on anyone with maturity or work ethic issues.

Look at the trend of the 3 picks by Walsh.

Gallo - Mature for age, eats and breaths basketball.
Jordan Hill - Maturity and work ethic allowed him to rise from unknown freshman with limited bball experience to one of the best big min in NCAA as a Junior
Toney Douglas - Mature seasoned senior

I don't think they take any risk on guys like Jennings or Anthony Randolph until they feel the have enough leadership in the locker room to make sure that they can be held in check and groomed on how to be a pro the right way by the right people.

Watch the reverse layup against Detroit at about 1:30 in this video

RemBee76 wrote:

McK1 wrote:the least the knicks could do is bring in a big man coach so zero resistance doesnt end up like the prior AZ bigman bust Frye.

That bust is averaging 17-5 in Phoenix.

Look, Hill might be a player. Big men take time to develop. Sure lets evaluate him after 3 years. But the issue here is just that. We took a big man project that could take three years to look good when we needed to look like a team now. We passed on the best opportunity we’ve had yet (and may have for years) to fill the most important position in D’Antoni’s offense. We failed to get probably the best PG coach in the league a PG to coach. That’s F’d up.

It isn’t just Jennings, but Lawson, Holiday…no less than 7 point guards were picked between Hill and Douglas, any one of them with the potential to give us more under D’Antoni than Duhon is.

That is my reasoning with Hill too, why take a 3 year project at a position that for the most part is covered when we really needed a pg and sg and both were available (eg - Jennings and Derozan) and both have superstar (and flop, though doubtful) potential. And both are freshman. We went with a Junior with upside, which one can argue is taking a bigger chance. My biggest worry with Hill by the way is his BBIQ which by all accounts Derozan has and it looks like Jennings is farther along as Hill is...

Now, if Hill does develop into a center and I'm sure that is really a part of the plan then this will look good in 2 or 3 years, it's just that with trying to attract a free agent I'm surprised they didn't go with either of the two guys mentioned.

Definitely it's going to take time with Hill and Douglas and I like both guys but as others have said, we might have let the biggest upside guys slide right past us. In the end I like Hill though and see him as having lots of upside, due to his incredible improvement each year, over the last 3 years. I mean he was NOTHING coming out of high school and three years later was a top 5 pick (ok 8th, but you get the point). I do hope that we start to see him in the next month or so, at least in garbage time, to judge if he can warrant more minutes.