Andrew wrote:Thoughts?
Issues of current concern
A) "Appeasement" in NBA history, esp in the modern era and given the marketplace environment, just tends to not work out. Dwight Howard in Orlando ( Otis Smith making bad deals to try to get him to reup) Kobe trying to force the team to get Luol Deng or move Andrew Bynum for anything else, all the way up to playing chicken in a trade demand to the Bulls. McHale under orders to give Kevin Garnett guys like Marko Jaric and Troy Hudson because Garnett wanted them. Riley digging for Shabazz Napier because LeBron demanded it. Tristan Thompson getting an outrageous deal because he shares the same agent as LBJ. Riley signing Mike Miller and paying off Haslem instead of going for a center because they were buddies with LBJ and Wade. Payton holding Seattle's Gund hostage. Danny Ferry on his knees to LBJ during the first Cavs stint. Latrell Sprewell winning an ugly war with Tim Hardaway where the last bits of RunTMC was traded off. The list is vast and painful and honestly it's just bad business. Utah had it right. Deron Williams drove Jerry Sloan out, and instead of just accepting it all and bending the knee to Williams, they dumped him in a trade. And it was his demands in NJ that created a push to make the historically bad trades with Boston to gut their team.
It just sends the wrong message. As a matter of principle, for the greater good of the franchise, I fully believe the Knicks need to trade Zinger at this years deadline.
B) Steve Mills has more incentive to make long term bad moves that might have short term payoffs, because his job is clearly on the line. When Jackson was here, Phil took all the brunt of it. If things went bad, it fell on Phil Jackson. ( And rightfully so...) But now it's all on Mills. Billy Beane said it best, the danger for any front office decision maker in pro sports is to be on the edge of keeping his job, and worrying more about keeping his job today than building the team for tomorrow. The Knicks would have been better off just dumping Mills too, and starting over in their front office. We all saw it with Mike Tannebaum and the Jets, a guy who knew he was close to getting fired and making moves to preserve his job first and foremost. Tom Coughlin was also under that kind of gun when the Giants spiraled. To make a bad long term move to get a short quick fix. ( Why care, you won't be there four years anyway...)
C) I've said this before in various threads, an early stage full on NBA rebuild job literally writes it's own script. There just aren't many mechanisms to get better so your hand is almost forced in most cases.
Yes, tanking guarantees nothing. But what other choice is there? There really is no other choice in the NBA marketplace. People point to the Spurs or Warriors, who strategically tanked for Tim Duncan and Harrison Barnes. It might not have been year after year, but every franchise faces this crossroads at some point.
Bite the bullet now. It's like a rotting tooth, just pull the f**ker out. Why sit for years and let the rot fester and drive you insane. You are going to have to pull it out anyway, might as well be now.
Hardaway JR is a complex move, in that he fits many of the checkboxes for a rebuilding team. But that poison pill makes it harder to retrade him, which needs to a critical factor in anyone the Knicks sign. Converting used cap space to assets is a positive rebuilding strategy. ( Trading Robin Lopez was not the most horrible thing in the world, what they traded him for specifically was the most horrible thing in the world. If the Knicks had managed that trade more practically, it could have ended up a net positive for the team.) The Knicks just seem to fail to do it right.
The Knicks make the simple just more insanely hard than it has to be.
There is some intern on some team just out of college who could run the Knicks better now that it has been ran in the last decade. That's how sad the situation is right now.
As Mike from Breaking Bad says, no half measures. This team, IMHO, needs to trade Zinger and gut Mills and everyone else in the front office and just start from scratch. The tooth is rotting. Just pull the damn thing out. That should be simple, but the Knicks, they just seem to embrace this bizarre masochism.
