TMS wrote:

GodSaveTheKnicks wrote:i think it's a lot easier to poo-poo the fishlips trade now then it was in the past. if you were against it from the beginning, good for you. i don't even remember what my stance on the trade was but i do remember thinking we paid a ridiculously high price for cap space.
i'm pretty sure i said i was in favor of just letting fishlips expire and keeping hill/draft picks.

but you know that if we don't make that trade there would have been a huge outcry from a lot of people on this board that we blew our chance to sign Lebron/Wade/Bosh/etc because we weren't willing to part with crappy (their words not mine) Jordan Hill and some draft picks that could be complete busts blablabla.

the basic logic seemed to be you do whatever it takes to have a chance at getting elite talent.

the only change from the stance used to justify the Jefferies trade and the current pro-Melo camp is that people are advocating that you do what it takes to trade for an actual player vs doing what it takes for the CHANCE to sign a player.

i agree with you that in this case..most of us know what we're getting in Melo: 1 of the top 3 scorers in the game. but there is also a risk in that we don't really know what we're giving up.

we could be giving up some solid role player types in Gallo, Randolph, etc.

we could be giving up future all stars, we could be giving up scrubs.

what bothers me most about this whole debate is:

1. People acting like they KNOW what Gallo/Randolph will become and speaking from a position of utter certainty and authority to the point where anyone who doesn't want to trade their left testicle for Melo is just ridiculous. (you are one of the more rational pro-Melo posters)

2. Talking about Melo as one of the top players in the game when he's really one of the top scorers in the game. There is a pretty big difference between the 2. I would think you agree with me on this one since you just referred to Melo as one of the top 3 scorers in the game..not one of the top 3 players.

I'd give up almost anything for one of the top 3 players in the game. It's debatable as to what a top scorer is really worth. Also, there's substantial statistical evidence that even in the one thing he's considered to be really great at Melo isn't really even that efficient of a scorer. Have you read this stuff and what do you think about it? Did your perception of what Melo was worth change at all after reading? Going into this offseason I thought getting Melo was a no brainer. After all this debate and information has come out, I'm no longer anywhere near certain he would be the best way to use a long term max contract on.

3. As stated earlier, the perception that Melo could be had if Walsh just put a good enough offer on the table. It seems like the Nuggets aren't really in any sort of rush to oblige Melo and ship him to NY. The most substantial trade rumour involved the Nets. The amount of debate on whether we should include both Gallo/AR in a trade has reached ridiculous levels considering no one knows if Denver would even take that package if it was offered. It really looks to me like they'd rather trade for a ton of other players over anyone we have on our team.

Maybe we should offer them Amare?

for the record i was dead set against making the Fishlips/TMac trade from the very beginning & everyone who was posting here before the summer knows it... this is not hindsight justifying... i would have been willing to give up Jordan Hill OR a future pick, not both to dump Fishlips' contract... on top of both we also gave up swap rights for another pick, a move that ended up biting us in the butt when we did that for the Curry trade... to free up $9M in cap space i felt that was way too much & have never waivered from that stance even when the rumors were heating up about Lebron wanting to come to NY, because that's all they ever were, rumors... we never heard anything come out of Lebron's mouth about him coming to NY... i was as hopeful as anyone but let's face it, we all got played & Donnie got played bigtime.

when i say Melo is a top flight scorer i also mean that he is a top flight player as well... definitely not top 3 overall but certainly in my top 10... when is the last time this franchise was able to trade for a top 10 player in the NBA? i don't remember one ever since i've been following this team... some people thought we were trading for one when we got Stephon Marbury & Isiah sold us all on that idea, but that obviously didn't turn out well for us... no one has to sell me on the idea that Melo's a top 10 guy, i already know.

& i dunno if you were being facetious or not, but i don't see any possible sense behind offering Amare for Melo... that defeats the whole purpose of targetting Melo to begin with... the goal is to bring in another superstar to play with the one we already have... some guys around here don't seem to consider Melo to be a superstar but to me he is one of the best in the game... if not on Kevin Durant's level, then certainly right there with him... it boggles my mind how devalued Melo has become in people's eyes all of a sudden now that we're talking about giving away assets to attain him... if we were having this discussion last year at this time the same people would be saying this team could offer absolutely nothing to DEN for their franchise stud.

What are you basing your opinion on that Melo is a top flight player? Again a lot of people have made some pretty convincing cases that Melo is not even that legendary at scoring let alone in his overall game. I know my last post was pretty long but I ask again have you read this ?:

http://dberri.wordpress.com/2010/10/01/what-carmelo-anthony-might-cost-the-bulls-besides-money/

Again, before Melo coming to the Knicks was a realistic possiblity I pretty much viewed Melo the way you did. I saw what he did in the Dance at Syracuse. I saw him go mano y mano against Lebron and Kobe and nail beautiful jumpers with a hand in his face, i saw his strong drives to the hoops and putbacks of his own rebounds, i saw his post game.

My eyes told me this guy was something special. But reading these guys and looking at the hard #s has cast some pretty serious doubt on what my eyes are telling me. Doubts based on logic and some pretty hard evidence. Advanced statistical analysis is still a pretty young field and it's much easier to do in baseball where a hitter is really deciding what happens at the plate to way more of an extent than in basketball where it's a bit harder to separate a player from the other 9 guys on the court affecting what he does. So obviously the stats guys could be off. But I just want to know if you read it..what do you think?

I wasn't really being facetious.

Let's say I 100% agree with you that Melo is the best FA we'll be able to land in this decade and just below Lebron/healthy Chris Paul/Durant/Kobe/Wade/Dwight Howard etc...

Given that he is a top 10 NBA player, it doesn't really seem like the Knicks will be able to outbid a lot of other teams trade offers.

The only chance we have is due to the fact that it appears Melo really really wants to be Knick.

If he'll accept playing elsewhere we don't really have a shot.

If he won't accept playing elsewhere...why give up assets for someone we'll be able to sign as a FA to a ridiculously loaded team with:

PG: Felton, Douglas
SG: Buike, Mason, Rautins
SF: Melo, Gallo, Chandler, Walker, Fields
PF: Amare, Randolph
C: Moz, Turiaf

Obviously there's a glut of SFs which puts us in a pretty nice position to trade anyone other than
Amare or Melo for an upgrade at C, or SG or PG...

or in a pipe dream scenario we could possibly land a

Chris Paul

orrrr..

Plan B:

Maybe use Gallo or AR in a package to get Marc Gasol or something??

by next season we should have a much better idea of what their value is. This may be great if they've played their way into higher value or horrible if this season exposes them and reduces their trade value.

Either way I don't see the need for us to really debate whether we should trade for Melo anymore and we can all focus on making fun of Eddy Curry and adding to the legend of Mozgov.

I've heard he wrestled a bear into submission and used to ride the bear around his village as a 15 year old.

TMS wrote:i am not one to put much value in those types of things... i trust my eyes... what i see is a go to guy who can carry your team in crunchtime... i see a guy who gave Kobe Bryant all he could handle in the WCF... i see a guy who would make the Knicks a much more attractive destination for other players to come to... & i see a guy who combined with Amare would give us the most potent 1-2 combo we've ever had since i've been following this team... i don't need to look up a buncha stats & read a whole lotta articles written by stat geeks who think they know the game better than anyone else.

Last night was a perfect example of why this roster CANNOT win 40, 45, 50, 53 games. We don't have a 4th quarter go-to scorer. In the final 5 minutes, teams cannot run plays every single time down the court. You need a scorer who can isolate and get his own shot or draw double teams on the perimeter. Amar'e Stoudemire is a beast but he's a big and needs someone to get him the ball in position to score. This is why we NEED Carmelo Anthony. Not Marc Gasol or Anthony Randolph!