knicks1248 wrote:VCoug wrote:knicks1248 wrote:gunsnewing wrote:We better be good next year since we don't have our pick again
I would like you to give me ONE TEAM (since Labrons draft) in the NBA that had a high draft pick and made it to the playoffs the very next season, or even the season after that.
Losing is a culture, a Mind set thats extremely hard to break without a leader. Losing becomes to acceptable when it's consistently done. Bringing in a high draft pick into a losing culture, breeds losing players with talent.
What phil needs to do is establish a winning culture NOW, bringing in top picks like, wiggens, parker, cousins, kyrie,ect, doesn't change the fortunes or the culture, you still end up losing.
we already have a star player on this team, so I think of the draft as selecting the right player for this team, not the most talented. I want to bring this kid into a culture that successful, positive energy, and winning mentality.
Phil needs to get on the phone, and make a trade and find someone with a more leadership mind set. You can bring talent in all day, but when you put them around low IQ players and no leader, you get 30 win seasons yr aftr yr.
You won't get a single marquee FA to sign in 2015 or 2016 and unless you over pay them like we did AMARE. Who's coming into a losing culture, with a 31 yr old star thats 2 yrs away from declining, and bunch of young players thats 3 to 5 yrs away from understanding how to win.
I would never root for my team to lose, never ever, ever....Die hard PACKERS, YANKEES, KNICKS for life.
Your first premise, that a high draft pick needs to immediately make the playoffs within the 1st two seasons, is ridiculous and one of the reasons we've been terrible for 15 years. Your second premise, that losing breeds losing, is demonstratively false. In Durant's first two seasons the team won 20 and 23 games yet they're somehow perennial title contenders. In Stephen Curry's first three seasons the team won 26, 36, and 23 games but are now a very good maybe great team. Those are just two examples but there are countless others.
What's so ridiculous, is that you just answer your own question by pointing that curry and KD did not take their team to the playoffs the first 2 season they were in the league. Whats also ridiculous is that you called out 2 players in the last 10 drafts.
I think you guys are so hung up drafting a high pick instead of the right pick, and right fit. I'll say this, it's been very few high picks that have change the direction of the franchise in a short time.
You have solid young assets right now to make a solid trade to get a better players. Your not going to keep them anyway, so why not get something for them. You can make a trade like toronto did with lowery.
They started last season in tank mode now look at them, they had derozen, we have melo.
YOU CAN NOT PUT YOUNG PLAYERS around melo or you're throwing away a $125 million and good talent. This guy is not leader, doesn't make anyone better, and is smack dead in his prime.
The idea of rebuilding through a draft with your best player in his prime, seems backwards, and destine to be another management fck up joining a long list of fck ups..
By the time EWING (99 roster) got the right squad around him, he broke down, and thats exactly what will happen with melo if you don't make moves now
It is not like you are wrong. It is just that the situation as you describe has such a low probability of working out in the tight timetable of the next two seasons, that it becomes a Catch-22. Finding the exact two Free Agent studs to put next to Melo while he can still ball to the extent we become overnight contenders is about as likely as getting struck by lightning. I have a friend who was struck by lightning, but it is still one in a thousand.
Damned if we do, damned if we don't. The problem with the Melo signing is everything has to go absolutely perfectly in the next off-season or the ability to quickly capitalize on his talents diminishes rapidly. Considering this franchise's background, regardless of Phil Jackson, expecting things to go perfectly is asking for more than I can say is even remotely a reasonable expectation.
The chances of catching lightning in a bottle is actually higher if we land in the top 3 position, because a good catch there that can contribute in their rookie season plus good strategic signings plus Thanasis and other riff-raff polished into rotation players is just as likely a formula for getting somewhere in the next two seasons.
Melo is going to break down. I'd just get used to it and stop pinning our hopes on just surrounding him with instant magical signings. It won't work IMO. It was a bad contract and they have to protect their investment by keeping him healthy whatever his level of contribution is.
Melo is now just a piece. Treating as the centerpiece, something he never was and never will be, was a bad strategy before and it has become an even worse strategy now. He's a marquee, box office scorer. Let him be that, but don't build around him at all.
Letting Melo dictate anything just feeds into the dark dream this franchise has blundered around in for 15 years. Accepting he was not a good signing and then utilizing him as a piece without regrets is the sane approach. Better to build a pipeline of talent, because if you peg everything on the next two years and it craps out which is almost certain to happen, then you're back to square one and we'll be having these same conversations in 2020.
Plan the future now, build the talent pipeline now and in 2-3 years we can be contending regardless of Melo's health or contributions. Don't do that and this will be a sorry ass team for another decade. Melo is the least of it at this point. Plan B should be full speed ahead and tanking should be the # 1 priority.
