But do you not think we are in a better position now?

We have something to offer these big time FA this summer. We can give Bron
something no other team can give him. A max contract and the right to pick any
other MAX guy out there.

This is the most amazing FA class of all time!!

Even if we miss out on Lebron (which I don't believe we will!!) we can do Amare
Joe Johnson...... Re-sign T-mac on the cheap!!

Or Bosh Re-sign Lee and McFisheyes!!

Or Joe Johnson - Boozer resign McFisheyes sign and trade Lee!!

Or wait one Year and try for Mello and CP3!!

Or a hundred different scenarios!!

We traded picks yes!! We have drafted 1 allstar since Mark J ...... David Lee!!

There will be a ton of Allstars available this summer!!

crzymdups wrote:

TMS wrote:bro, Fishlips' sucktitude is besides the point... i'm #1 on his hater's list on these forums, u should know this by now... & Jordan Hill's value is not the only consideration in this discussion... we're talking about 2011 swap rights with only top 1 protection & a 2012 pick outright with only top 5, meanwhile CHI gets to only give up a pair of 2nd rounders & top 10 protection on swap rights to dump their albatross... it just never ceases to amaze me how we consistently seem to get fleeced in every single trade we make while other teams make deals that seem equitable to me.

it's very rare that i'm as down on a trade as i am on this one... the only other times i've been this trepidacious about a deal or signing we made was when we traded for Antonio McDyess, traded for Zach Randolph & signed Big Turd James dude... i didn't like the Tim Thomas trade either but i wasn't outraged by it... at least we didn't give up any future assets to get him, it was a lateral trade off... even when we traded for Dinglebury, Steve Francis, Jalen Rose, Mo Taylor, Q Rich, Jamal & Eddy Curry, i tried to be optimistic & kept an open mind... i am NOT one to emotionally react to trades for no reason... i think my record speaks for itself i try to be as fair as i can & as patient as i can when it comes to trades, signings & draft selections, but this trade we made just really reeks of us getting hosed big time to me... i hope i'm wrong.

well, i hope you are wrong, too. we did get held up a little - because everyone KNEW we needed to move Jeffries. Houston's GM was the one guy smart enough to say, "okay, i'll take jeffries, but here's what i need..."

but this has been the gamble, the philosophy the whole time - break down the team, go for broke in 2010. if we strike out on the big three, there are still all-star caliber players like joe johnson and rudy gay to go for and we can clean out the old and bring in new players. honestly, that makes me excited. i think it's a good plan and we've all said for years it has needed to happen.

draft picks are weird - you need to catch lightning in a bottle with them. we haven't done that since the mark jackson/rod strickland days. that hasn't worked all decade for us. so, we get to try free agency. i don't think it's short-sighted and i think there is a big chance we'll be happy by the end of july.

Amen!!

TMS wrote:

crzymdups wrote:but this has been the gamble, the philosophy the whole time - break down the team, go for broke in 2010. if we strike out on the big three, there are still all-star caliber players like joe johnson and rudy gay to go for and we can clean out the old and bring in new players. honestly, that makes me excited. i think it's a good plan and we've all said for years it has needed to happen.

i don't think that's been the philosophy at all this whole time... DW has consistently maintainted it's not all about just 1 guy we wanna get in FA this summer, but now w/this trade there's no disputing it, it's Lebron or bust for the Knicks... if we unloaded all these assets to sign Joe Johnson or Rudy Gay in free agency it's a huge FAIL on DW's part, i'm sorry... for all our sakes, let's hope Lebron & either Wade or Bosh are wearing orange & blue this summer.

this is the whole point though - it is not about one player.

give joe johnson 5yrs $80M, first year $14M. give rudy gay 5yrs $70M, first year $12M. give david lee 6yrs $60M first year $8M. we can afford to sign all three. all three are all-star caliber 20ppg guys who bring other things to the table.

it's not about one guy. it's about flexibility to build a team.

crzymdups wrote:

TMS wrote:

crzymdups wrote:but this has been the gamble, the philosophy the whole time - break down the team, go for broke in 2010. if we strike out on the big three, there are still all-star caliber players like joe johnson and rudy gay to go for and we can clean out the old and bring in new players. honestly, that makes me excited. i think it's a good plan and we've all said for years it has needed to happen.

i don't think that's been the philosophy at all this whole time... DW has consistently maintainted it's not all about just 1 guy we wanna get in FA this summer, but now w/this trade there's no disputing it, it's Lebron or bust for the Knicks... if we unloaded all these assets to sign Joe Johnson or Rudy Gay in free agency it's a huge FAIL on DW's part, i'm sorry... for all our sakes, let's hope Lebron & either Wade or Bosh are wearing orange & blue this summer.

this is the whole point though - it is not about one player.

give joe johnson 5yrs $80M, first year $14M. give rudy gay 5yrs $70M, first year $12M. give david lee 6yrs $60M first year $8M. we can afford to sign all three. all three are all-star caliber 20ppg guys who bring other things to the table.

it's not about one guy. it's about flexibility to build a team.

Joe Johnson, Rudy Gay & David Lee warrants Donnie Walsh's dismissal after making this trade in my eyes... this is for 2 of the top FA's this summer, not for the 2nd & 3rd tier guys.

eViL wrote:

TMS wrote:

eViL wrote:

TMS wrote:the principle of the matter is we could have seeked other options to dump Fishlips

but we didn't because......????

i dunno, why don't u tell me????

well, you are the one suggesting that we could have done other deals. if so, why didn't we? and how can you state, as fact, that we didn't seek other options?

i said we could have seeked out other options... i never said there were other offers on the table for us to dump Fishlips' contract... & i have to assume that if MIL was willing to take back John freakin Salmons, 2 second rounders & swap rights protected to 10, that we could have trumped that offer w/o having to give up as much as we did to HOU in this trade.

Childs2Dudley wrote:You're arguing that we could have made this trade by substituting Jeffries and Hill for Salmons. I disagree. You disagree with me.

The bottom line is that I highly doubt Donnie didn't shop Jared Jeffries to every team in the NBA. And I highly doubt he didn't include Hill in those discussions either. Why would he haggle over draft picks with Houston for 3 days if he didn't have to give them up? You're really reaching to think that Donnie purposely made this deal with something better out there. He isn't Isiah.

you're right, what reason would i have to doubt Donnie Walsh? afterall he did sign such invaluable veterans like Anthony Roberson, Jonathan Bender & Chris Duhon in his time here... & in case u missed it, i never said i knew there was some better standing offer out there... i said he could have seeked out better options & we could easily have offered up a better package than the one MIL got from CHI w/o having to give up everything we did in the HOU trade... allowing MIL to have their choice of who to send back in the deal & simply getting back better protection on the swap rights than #1 even is a better deal for MIL... at least we'd be holding onto our 2012 pick... hell throw them some cash to offset Fishlips' salary if you must... risking the franchise' future on a hope & a prayer that Lebron & Wade are both signing here this summer is irresponsible IMO... u never wanna toss away future draft picks like this with only top 5 protection... we're paying for that this year if you hadn't noticed.

TMS wrote:

Childs2Dudley wrote:You're arguing that we could have made this trade by substituting Jeffries and Hill for Salmons. I disagree. You disagree with me.

The bottom line is that I highly doubt Donnie didn't shop Jared Jeffries to every team in the NBA. And I highly doubt he didn't include Hill in those discussions either. Why would he haggle over draft picks with Houston for 3 days if he didn't have to give them up? You're really reaching to think that Donnie purposely made this deal with something better out there. He isn't Isiah.

you're right, what reason would i have to doubt Donnie Walsh? afterall he did sign such invaluable veterans like Anthony Roberson, Jonathan Bender & Chris Duhon in his time here... & in case u missed it, i never said i knew there was some better standing offer out there... i said he could have seeked out better options & we could easily have offered up a better package than the one MIL got from CHI w/o having to give up everything we did in the HOU trade... allowing MIL to have their choice of who to send back in the deal & simply getting back better protection on the swap rights than #1 even is a better deal for MIL... at least we'd be holding onto our 2012 pick... hell throw them some cash to offset Fishlips' salary if you must... risking the franchise' future on a hope & a prayer that Lebron & Wade are both signing here this summer is irresponsible IMO... u never wanna toss away future draft picks like this with only top 5 protection... we're paying for that this year if you hadn't noticed.

So what you're basically saying is that you have nothing to go on that Donnie didn't look at every opportunity to trade Jeffries and that you're just going by your assumption...

I'm not sure if you read or not, but there were articles out there for months, or even years since Walsh took over, that had the Knicks shopping Jeffries and Curry to everyone with absolutely no luck. I'm sure at some point Walsh decided to add in Hill into his package to attract a team and I'm sure that nobody wanted Jeffries at that point either. Do I know? No, not for sure. But it's much more likely that he DID do that according to everything we've read than that he didn't do that.

I think to compare 1 year, minimum end of the bench signings like Bender and Roberson to this is a guy heavily overreaching. every GM signs crappy players to fill his roster. He didn't give these guys big deals and they were never intended to be in the rotation, despite D'Antoni deciding that Bender deserved minutes. Bender goes way back with Walsh so he gave him a shot at a comeback. Walsh doesn't tell the coach who to play or else you would have seen Hill play minutes a long time ago.

I'm not really going to go back and forth. You have your opinion on Donnie and it's been made up from before this trade. This trade probably just set you off more. You don't like the deal, but I think it was a necessary risk considering we would have wasted 2 years for max cap room for 1 guy and end up signing nobody of note. This gives us a good chance to still set out to do the original 2010 plan. This is the best free agent class of all time. We can agree to disagree on all this. I will just end on re-stating my original point: it is wrong to think Donnie Walsh did not exhaust all options on this and to use end of the bench meaningless signings and the signing of a stop-gap PG to back up your point. That is not evidence of not exhausting options.

TMS wrote:

umynot wrote:We gave up What?

Hill?....... He has done nothing!!

i'm sure the same things were said about Jermaine O'Neal when he was traded... i'm glad you know for certain that a kid who's only played 24 games at the NBA level is already a bust... maybe you ought to take over the drafting duties for the NY Knicks

Hill was never given a chance to do anything because the coach was playing Jeffries to pump up his trade value and to chase the dream of the playoffs. Hill didn't get a fair shot here despite being the 8th in the draft on a team that loses 63% of their games. D'Antoni devalued Hill because he doesn't play rookies and he doesn't play big men. In my opinion he really doesn't coach but that is for a different thread. If Hill had been brought along properly Walsh might not have had to include the 2012 pick or he might have gotten back more.

CrushAlot wrote:

TMS wrote:

umynot wrote:We gave up What?

Hill?....... He has done nothing!!

i'm sure the same things were said about Jermaine O'Neal when he was traded... i'm glad you know for certain that a kid who's only played 24 games at the NBA level is already a bust... maybe you ought to take over the drafting duties for the NY Knicks

Hill was never given a chance to do anything because the coach was playing Jeffries to pump up his trade value and to chase the dream of the playoffs. Hill didn't get a fair shot here despite being the 8th in the draft on a team that loses 63% of their games. D'Antoni devalued Hill because he doesn't play rookies and he doesn't play big men. In my opinion he really doesn't coach but that is for a different thread. If Hill had been brought along properly Walsh might not have had to include the 2012 pick or he might have gotten back more.

Agreed... that's been my stance on this all year long... not giving this kid run this season has been MDA's single biggest failing as far as i'm concerned... all those minutes we gave Fishlips resulted in us sucking this year anyway & added absolutely nothing to his "trade value", meanwhile it completely devalued our own #8 lottery selection from the past draft... what a damn waste.