holfresh wrote:

ok
According to SAS, Carmelo says he wants to play in NY...Carmelo was offered 65 mil over three years and turned it down...

Well after what we watched go on this early summer I'm more inclined to sit back and wait rather than expect the next big FA to be our big catch. I don't want to watch all year long praying for Melo in 11 as we all did the past TWO years hoping for TWO of these guys to join us this summer.

Solace wrote:

Bonn1997 wrote:He "cleaned up the mess" by giving up a lottery pick an 3 1st round draft picks (with the result so far being simply that we were in a position to offer $100 million to Amare). Does that really deserve so much credit?

I think you're conveniently ignoring some other steps in the cleanup process. That's not a very good summary of the actual results. That being said, I think it's fair to argue the Jordan Hill part. Look, that only happens if we were sure we had LeBron. Obviously, we were sure, but the information was bad. I don't fault him for going all out because of the confidence. The Jordan Hill trade obviously did not work out. In retrospect, I think everyone would like to undo that trade. On the flipside, Jordan Hill was traded because he's only going to be a marginal NBA player, unfortunately. I'm not going to advocate losing picks for nothing (except when they clear cap room like Miami did AND it actually works in getting a star player like LeBron). However, I think it's fair to say that Donnie did a lot more good than harm and so far, we're in great position for 2011. It's not plan A, but it's something relevant, because other Knicks GMs have completely folded when plan A didn't work.

holfresh wrote:If the Knicks misses this chance to land Carmelo after he said he wants to be here, it's unforgivable...Donnie failed in closing the deal...FAILED!!!, let's not forget that...

Dude..relax.

You seem like the same guy who'd be like

" Donnie Walsh should have done whatever it took to clear cap space for TWO max FAs not just ONE. He has failed."

I wouldn't mind him staying on as President and hiring Kevin Pritchard as GM. Only because Pritchard ain't bad at all (vs. grossly incompetent like a LOT of GMs in the league), he's available and he's young. DW is retiring soon anyway.

GodSaveTheKnicks wrote:

holfresh wrote:If the Knicks misses this chance to land Carmelo after he said he wants to be here, it's unforgivable...Donnie failed in closing the deal...FAILED!!!, let's not forget that...

Dude..relax.

You seem like the same guy who'd be like

" Donnie Walsh should have done whatever it took to clear cap space for TWO max FAs not just ONE. He has failed."

I wouldn't mind him staying on as President and hiring Kevin Pritchard as GM. Only because Pritchard ain't bad at all (vs. grossly incompetent like a LOT of GMs in the league), he's available and he's young. DW is retiring soon anyway.

NO...People here know I was calling for Donnie's head after he traded the picks...

Yep, he's made some mistakes, but he is wise and knows what he's doing, and I think a lot of GM's around the league and players have a great deal of respect for him. Having said that I think it was his plan all along to leave after this free agency thing was over- I think he set his last task as being trying to save the Knicks and bring in Lebron, and then would retire and hand things over to a new GM (remember all the interviews he carried out last year?). It's a shame- I hope his health problems aren't serious, but come on some of you, have a bit of respect for him.

holfresh wrote:If the Knicks misses this chance to land Carmelo after he said he wants to be here, it's unforgivable...Donnie failed in closing the deal...FAILED!!!, let's not forget that...

SAS a few days ago said he personally heard players say the would come to NY if Isiah was here...He said the players didn't blame Isiah for the Knicks debacle...Clearly, they want people they can relate to...Donnie went to the interview in a wheelchair...How does a 69 yr old community pick guy relate to today's players...Doesn't bode well for the virility of the Knicks does it...Carmelo is on deck can he close the deal...Dolan had others trying to close it for him...

There, I fixed your post.

James did what he did because he is a coward. The only way Walsh could have gotten him to NYC would have been to strip the team down even more than he did so we could offer max type contracts to all 3 players. The deciding factor was that Wade was in Miami and the Heat were willing to completely strip down their roster, in a way that I don't think any of us have ever seen before, in order to accommodate James, Wade, and Bosh.

This is a very troll-like thread, by the way. I don't recall seeing your name on any posts leading up to last night, or during last night. I don't think you have said a thing that is not regurgitated "info" that was put out a long time ago by certain people.

I think people would react differently to a well thought out thread on this topic, but I am afraid that you are not the kind of guy able to carry the weight of rational thought or argument when you write.

Walsh, for a guy who is temporarily in a wheelchair, has show some surprising agility during all of this. We picked up Amare, then made a deal to add more cap space and get a #2 pick for him, he immediately made a very good deal with GS after Princess James made his "decision," trading a guy, Lee, who was not going to be on our team, for 3 good players, one of whom has the kind of raw potential we have not seen around here for a long time, if at ever, has our cap situation set up so we are able to offer Anthony a good contract next year, and you know he is going to do more in the upcoming weeks to fill the team with players who can contribute.

If you hear Walsh talk, you know that he will be bringing someone else in to run the show within the next few years. He was brought in here to be a fixer with no thought to him being some 10 year fixture at the job.

We are in a better position as a team than when Walsh got here. Our oldest player is not even 28, we have cap space flexibility, and I think the feeling around the league is that we are in the conversation again when you talk about teams with a good future. I don't like everything Walsh has done, but I see a team that is going to improve this year, and be in the mix to get some major pieces that just may allow us to be players come playoff time.

Perhaps your "wheelchair" is you own mind. You have your own little issues, some axes to grind, and I'm sure some demons that are haunting you daily, and maybe this is why you would post this kind of drivel. Nothing you have said here gives me any indication that you understand how far the team has come in the last 2 years. There have been some bumps in the road, but if you cannot see the improvement, you have a problem with facing reality, and may need some kind of mental tune-up.

smackeddog wrote:I've been suspecting his health is a lot worse than they make out- why would someone who has refused to have a needed hip op for 2 years because it would hinder his work, suddenly have an op to remove bone spurs in his neck, which would leave him in a wheelchair whilst trying to recruit LBJ? I find this sudden criticism of Donnie pretty sickening- he worked his backside off to try and achieve what we all wanted- he's carried on working as hard as he can despite his health problems. Yep he's made mistakes, but ehn it looked like we might sign Lebron everyone was singing his praises. The truth is a 'young go getter' GM would not have got Lebron, because it's pretty obvious those 3 free agents had this hook up planned years ago- it's why they signed 3 year deals, it's why they had secret dinners before free agency began. Lebron had no intention of coming here- he just liked the attention- thats not Donnie's fault.

Yep, he's made some mistakes, but he is wise and knows what he's doing, and I think a lot of GM's around the league and players have a great deal of respect for him. Having said that I think it was his plan all along to leave after this free agency thing was over- I think he set his last task as being trying to save the Knicks and bring in Lebron, and then would retire and hand things over to a new GM (remember all the interviews he carried out last year?). It's a shame- I hope his health problems aren't serious, but come on some of you, have a bit of respect for him.

Solace wrote:

Bonn1997 wrote:

Solace wrote:

Bonn1997 wrote:He "cleaned up the mess" by giving up a lottery pick an 3 1st round draft picks (with the result so far being simply that we were in a position to offer $100 million to Amare). Does that really deserve so much credit?

I think you're conveniently ignoring some other steps in the cleanup process. That's not a very good summary of the actual results. That being said, I think it's fair to argue the Jordan Hill part. Look, that only happens if we were sure we had LeBron. Obviously, we were sure, but the information was bad. I don't fault him for going all out because of the confidence. The Jordan Hill trade obviously did not work out. In retrospect, I think everyone would like to undo that trade. On the flipside, Jordan Hill was traded because he's only going to be a marginal NBA player, unfortunately. I'm not going to advocate losing picks for nothing (except when they clear cap room like Miami did AND it actually works in getting a star player like LeBron). However, I think it's fair to say that Donnie did a lot more good than harm and so far, we're in great position for 2011. It's not plan A, but it's something relevant, because other Knicks GMs have completely folded when plan A didn't work.

My bad that I was off by a pick like Cosmic pointed out. Any other good that he's done--and I'll give credit for the Randolph trade--were not dependent on the 2010 cap space plan. They could have been done without the 2010 cap space plan. I was posting a summary of the 2010 cap space plan (not Walsh overall) and I don't see how it's inaccurate (with the exception of mistakenly adding a pick to what we gave up). I think it would have been fully accurate to say that the 2010 cap space plan has resulted in giving up a player we drafted in the lottery, 1 1st round pick outright, trading down in another 1st round for the benefit of the opportunity to offer Amare $100 mil. That may change if we add more. We may also get to sign someone like Mike Miller for $50 mil in which case that would have to be added to our half of the equation. It still doesn't look to me like the 2010 cap space plan worked out impressively.

Well, as Cosmic pointed out, you were off by three, not one. Jordan Hill was a pick, but they traded for a player, not a pick. I seriously doubt if the Rockets had the #8 pick that they would've taken Jordan Hill. I could be wrong, but I doubt it. He's a player that a lot of people don't think all that highly of. So, take that for what it's worth. The second pick is a swap, and Cosmic has pointed out numerous times, there's a good chance that a swap won't even happen. If it does, okay, we won't be dropping very many slots. So, there's one pick that we're actually giving up, not three. I think the price of that trade is very overrated. If Jordan Hill was all he was cracked up to be, we wouldn't need to have added the swap and the pick.

That being said, would I like to undo the trade, since it effectively gave us little result? Sure. However, it was a high reward potential, relatively low risk trade. Let's not paint it like we mortgaged the entire franchise on it. The move itself was a failure, but not a colossal failure. This move in of itself, probably will be a blip on the radar and not a significant factor in how the Knicks do going forward.

As for the overall 2010 cap space plan, let's be fair for a moment. It worked out just fine. Amare is better than everything we gave up, combined. With Amare, we will have the best team we've had since Jeff Van Gundy was coaching. That's just a fact. The Jordan Hill trade did not work out, but it's hard to reasonably criticize too heavily for taking that risk when the stakes were as high as they were. We will move forward.

Three?! I was off by one. When you swap you ARE giving up a pick, and you get a lower one back. And Hill was Walsh's lottery pick. I think we have quite different views of Amare and Lee. I think Briggs is right, and the stat analyses that have been posted comparing Lee and Amare give a reasonable impression of both. I like Amare I don't think a team that needs to do serious long-term rebuilding should be giving him a $100 mil contract.

BlueSeats wrote:Having to call on Isiah is the peak of desperation and shows little faith in your existing personnel to attract and inspire.

I don't know how it exactly went down but I thought it was more like this:

donnie was frustrated that he couldn't get through to LeBron team about whether or not they were in the running. Nada, no return calls, etc. Isiah, who is close to one of the inner circle (not Lebron or Mav) offered to see if he could help out and contact. he couldn't either. end of story.

martin wrote:

BlueSeats wrote:Having to call on Isiah is the peak of desperation and shows little faith in your existing personnel to attract and inspire.

I don't know how it exactly went down but I thought it was more like this:

donnie was frustrated that he couldn't get through to LeBron team about whether or not they were in the running. Nada, no return calls, etc. Isiah, who is close to one of the inner circle (not Lebron or Mav) offered to see if he could help out and contact. he couldn't either. end of story.

I wonder if Riley had Stand Van Gundy reaching out to LeBron too.

oohah wrote:I swear to god the posters on Ultimate Knicks are hilarious. You can't admit it is raining even though you are soaking wet. The Knicks are bad, at best mediocre. The plan to land LeBron failed. The Knicks don't have many assets to improve with going forward.

You guys remind me of George Bush while the economy is tanking: "I believe the economy is strong".

A) No, it wasn't strong! And B) the Knicks are not a good team. It did not work out. Trying to pretend it worked out, and pinning your hopes on D'Antoni, Gallinari, Stoudemire, Anthony Randolph, Toney Douglas (Who I really like), and whatever other players happen to sign is just silly.

The plan was to become a contender. Right now the Knicks, if all goes well, are at best the 7th best team in the East. Enjoy your plate of mediocrity! Yummy! That is what we suffered for?

***

Let me break it down for you so you can understand. It is all about wins. Just look at the wins. Past wins and prospective future wins. That is what LeBron and the other free agents who care about winning did. Stoudemire is all about the money and he simply took the best offer anyone was willing to give him.

***

You guys love to rag on Holfresh. But he is right time and again and you are wrong time and again. See then statements above by Holfresh? That is reality. I'm going to hang out with Holfresh in reality-land. Maybe you should take a break from fantasy-land and come join us over here? Or do you prefer to believe Gallinari and Stoudemire are going to tear up the NBA?

oohah

your underlying assumption is wrong. The plan was to build a contender by way of cap space and flexibility. The first target/goal of that plan was LeBron and a second max guy next to him.

We missed on LeBron and still have flexibility and cap space to build a contender.