TMS wrote:

Finestrg wrote:

TMS wrote:look on the bright side Finest... there's always the Joe Johnson & David Lee plan, how can you not get excited about that?

LOL. I'm not feeling Joe Johnson at all man. For some reason, and I know I'm in the minority, Lee & Rudy Gay appeals to me somewhat. You plug Hassan Whiteside into the mix there along with an ever improving Gallo, that's not bad man..Not Lebron or Bosh obviously, but not half bad.

that still won't win you any titles... i'm not interested in putting together "not bad" type rosters at this point... we sacrificed 2 seasons without even trying to improve this roster for the sole purpose of hitting a grand slam in the summer of 2010... that's what we were all sold on... that's what i fully expect.

we sacrificed two seasons to clean the slate and get under the cap. donnie tried to rebuild using lottery picks, he just didn't get lucky in the draft.

donnie has said all along that this is about cleaning up the cap and giving us a chance to rebuild from the ground up.

if they sign joe johnson and amar'e or joe johnson and david lee and our cap is crippled again, obviously i won't be happy. but i'm willing to give donnie the next month or so to show us what all this was for.

crzymdups wrote:

BRIGGS wrote:

crzymdups wrote:

BRIGGS wrote:
and honestly--take a look at the roster there--would that be more attractive to Lebron? Is David Lee Jordan Hill Hassan Whiteside and Jared Jefferies better than just adding chris Bosh??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????/ come on!!!

no, it's not. chris bosh and jerome jordan is better than dlee/whiteside/jordan hill.

no jerome jordan comes in on both equations

why would they spend $2M to acquire a pick for whiteside and then another $1M to acquire a pick for jordan? i think your logic is a little faulty there.

Difference between 33 and 44..Make some sense to me...Just my 2 cents, but like I said earlier, I would've went up to $3M for that pick if need be and possibly a 2nd rounder in some capacity to boot...Sacramento had a hell of a pick slip to them -- in order to get them to deal him, we probably would've had to come hard and aggressive (even though a lot of teams passed him up in the 1st round, I'd be willing to bet a lot of teams still called in to inquire if he was available once the Kings took him at 33)...What can I tell ya, I wanted Whiteside man. It wasn't like he went in the lottery (I'm the cukoo who picked him 6th in our draft -- LOL ), he was right there at 33 man...Arm's length...And we did nothing to get him...Like Paladin said before, true we don't really know everything Donnie has been working on even on draft night, but I'd be willing to bet that if there was any dialogue between us and Sac regarding Whiteside we would've heard about it...We heard nothing..

TMS wrote:

crzymdups wrote:donnie has said all along that this is about cleaning up the cap and giving us a chance to rebuild from the ground up.

no, actually he's said all along that this is about being players in free agency in 2010... if his main concern was building back from the ground up using draft picks he wouldn't have just given away the rights to our next 2 in order to clear $9M off the cap... this is about going all in for Lebron, Wade, Bosh, Amare... this is not about rebuilding... get it straight.

um, yes, it's about rebuilding. rebuilding through free agency.

Finestrg wrote:

TMS wrote:

Finestrg wrote:

TMS wrote:look on the bright side Finest... there's always the Joe Johnson & David Lee plan, how can you not get excited about that?

LOL. I'm not feeling Joe Johnson at all man. For some reason, and I know I'm in the minority, Lee & Rudy Gay appeals to me somewhat. You plug Hassan Whiteside into the mix there along with an ever improving Gallo, that's not bad man..Not Lebron or Bosh obviously, but not half bad.

that still won't win you any titles... i'm not interested in putting together "not bad" type rosters at this point... we sacrificed 2 seasons without even trying to improve this roster for the sole purpose of hitting a grand slam in the summer of 2010... that's what we were all sold on... that's what i fully expect.

I hear ya brother, but what are we gonna do?? Doesn't look good for us right now to land the two big fish. You bet your ass it's disappointing but what are we gonna do??? I'm starting to formulate my plan as if Lebron and Bosh turn us down..Their backup plan appears to be JJ/Amar'e and I'm not interested in that..Just my measly two cents again, but I like Gay and our own David Lee over an overrated Joe Johnson (and overpayed by the time we get done with him) and Amar'e with his injury history (the last thing I'd ever want to do is make an Antonio McDyess type of move again, not for this type of money)..To me Lee & Gay are the better buys.

BRIGGS wrote:

Garcia and Whiteside are totally different players? Like i said who was the last freshmen that you can remember that lead the NCAA in blocked shots but also could hit the 12 footer with good form and owned post up moves though limited @ an athletc 7 feet?

I guess you don't understand that the reason why we sck is because we put very little to no emphasis on D+R Whiteside to me represented a great defenseive prospect who had nice offensive upside.

The reason why these players FA wont com here is because they see this---the Knicks don't care about 60% of the game---they only care about 3 pt shooting and passing the ball.

Not saying they are the same player, only that they are not the type of players you would expect Walsh and MDA to look at. Garcia does not seem to fit the template for high IQ players team oriented players that Donnie and MDA seem to be looking for, although he has pretty good ability, but was asked in anyway. Whiteside does not seem to fit the template either, and neither did Alabi, it would seem, although they seem to like Jordan's game, and therefore bought him from the Bucks.

We also signed Lyons from Missouri to our SL squad- another interesting PF type with some skills and some limitations.

Childs2Dudley wrote:If we fail with this plan, forget about Dolan ever getting under the cap again. He'll see the plan failed and go back to the Isiah Era starphuck ways to win. Don't think Dolan will wait around for future cap room.

I think like any GM DW had some slip ups, but not any one mistake that permanently doomed us. J. Hill Vs. Jennings doesn't doom the franchise to failure. He still got to where he wanted to get. The most cap space and some promising young talent. We have to wait to see if he can swing a Sign & Trade as well, to really enhance our chances in the FA market. DW has steered this franchise very well in terms of setting us up for the future.

knicks1248 wrote:Every think of the asking price for some of this trades that you guys are mentioning..Should we belive that eddy curry/chandler/douglas is package worthy of paul, collison, or ellis.

You think ernie would have taken curry of our hands for there #1... i don't ever see him doing any business with NY as long as Dolan is running the show.

It's been said over and over that the rest of the league (with the exception of a few) thinks the knicks remainding roster sucks..We went into last season banking on gallo/chnadler having a break out season, and they didn't..They were ok and showed signs, but obvious they really didn't get no one's attention.

Your saying walsh should have been more aggressive in his movements...yeah right...what part of his 20 year career has he ever been aggressive.

Gallo and Chan did impress the league with their play, but I think not having a floor leader is what held them back the most.

DW is a conservative GM in every respect. This has been the most radical he's ever been. Going all in on the FA market was a very non traditional and risky move. Not many would do such a thing, so it's hard to DW wasn't aggressive. He was calculating in how aggressive he's been. He's pushed every chip in at the poker table and then walked over to another table and bet it all on black at the same time. He's been very aggressive this year.

Solace wrote:Is it okay if we halt the negativity for just a few days until we have some insight into how this will pan out? The constant negativity over fear of the unknown is getting a little stale. If we don't get one of LeBron, Wade or Bosh, it's a fail. Period. That being said, the hammer has not fallen yet. On the same token, there's no need to backtrack and lower our expectations either. Just wait and see what happens.

If we build a decent team that will be a solid playoff team, but not a real threat to go to the finals, I think we can agree that the Knicks will be improved and more exciting. Still, it will not have met the ultimate goals and, in that regard, it will be a failure.

No, it's not okay. We like negativity.

Solace wrote:

BasketballJones wrote:

Solace wrote:Is it okay if we halt the negativity for just a few days until we have some insight into how this will pan out? The constant negativity over fear of the unknown is getting a little stale. If we don't get one of LeBron, Wade or Bosh, it's a fail. Period. That being said, the hammer has not fallen yet. On the same token, there's no need to backtrack and lower our expectations either. Just wait and see what happens.

If we build a decent team that will be a solid playoff team, but not a real threat to go to the finals, I think we can agree that the Knicks will be improved and more exciting. Still, it will not have met the ultimate goals and, in that regard, it will be a failure.

No, it's not okay. We like negativity.

My bad.

I thought you liked Pringles.

Why should I like him?

Solace wrote:

BasketballJones wrote:

Solace wrote:

BasketballJones wrote:

Solace wrote:Is it okay if we halt the negativity for just a few days until we have some insight into how this will pan out? The constant negativity over fear of the unknown is getting a little stale. If we don't get one of LeBron, Wade or Bosh, it's a fail. Period. That being said, the hammer has not fallen yet. On the same token, there's no need to backtrack and lower our expectations either. Just wait and see what happens.

If we build a decent team that will be a solid playoff team, but not a real threat to go to the finals, I think we can agree that the Knicks will be improved and more exciting. Still, it will not have met the ultimate goals and, in that regard, it will be a failure.

No, it's not okay. We like negativity.

My bad.

I thought you liked Pringles.

Why should I like him?

No, I meant the chips.

Oh the chips. I really hate them. They're not even made with real potatoes. The potatoes are dried, reconstituted and formed into those chips that fit in the can. Yuck!

1). Chicago got the young talent in place to attract LeBron (Rose, Noah, etc.).

2). Make the playoffs in the 2 seasons leading up to free agency.

3). Clear enough cap space to make a run at a couple of big-time FAs.

Long story short, the Bulls may have done a better job of preparing for this than we did.

With that said, still think Donnie had the right plan in place. I think he's done a decent job that could have been great had things gone a certain (e.g. Had we gotten Steph Curry). Even if we don't get LeBron and Bosh, we can still do some good things with the flexibility.