Posted by Marv:

no to mention lebron's older brother jerome totally pwns him.

Isiah's use of the MLE has been criminal

Posted by Markji:

Posted by Allanfan20:

Very interesting. Nobody has the Knicks higher than 6th, ..... The Knicks have the talent to be a 50 win team, which is top 3 in the East. It flabberghasts me how the self proclaimed optimists have such low expectations.

Maybe someone can help me out with this one, b/c it's a little confusing to me.

The Knicks have to improve a lot from last year just to make the playoffs (#8).
Last year the Knicks were 33 - 49 = .402 winning% and finished tied for 11th in the East. They have improved in the offseason but can they get it together and win consistantly? I don't think so. But I hope so mainly because I've been a Knick fan for decades and it is no fun thinking nor hoping we are not going to make the playoffs. So I optimistically picked them for 8th. But in reality, they have a long ways to go.

And "50 wins"....well, just no way!

We can't base things on the final win/loss record last year. This team was playing at the level of a team capable of being a .500 team for a good part of the season. They didn't start the year that way, but they did achieve that level of play. You have to factor in the injuries and also the fact that it was the 1st yr under Isiah. The adjustment wasn't easy and Isiah had to build the players confidence back up and establish an identity and some chemistry. He did that and now not only do we get the benefits of what was started last year, but now we've also improved the team by getting rid of guys that didn't work and adding Zach. We can reasonably expect some internal growth as well and starting the year with more chemistry from the start as opposed to last year.

As for Allanfan20's point about low expectations, you have to account for the improvement of the East when making predictions. there are more good teams now as opposed to recent seasons. Saying we have 50 win talent in THIS YEARS East would be saying a lot. You make that kind of assessment when comparing a team with the competition. It is possible for the team to achieve that many wins, but not likely. That's why there were more conservative predictions. Many tho feel the team will have a winning record, which i'm glad to see.

This team is in a good position to breakout this year. The timing is perfect. This is going to be the 2nd yr in the same system and with mostly the same key guys. You've got guys like Lee, Nate, Balk & Mardy coming into this year with a season or more under their belt. Even a guy like Jared is highly motivated to prove that he's a better player. Q may be healthier than we've seen him since he's come here (hoping this is true). We've added Zach and got rid of Francis (yeah!) and Frye. We added even more talent and now just need to refine the roster and weed out the guys who aren't strong enough or right for the team. In the end this team is LOADED with talent from top to bottom and all we need is for this team to continue to develop. I'm excited about the prospects for this team.

Some of you have Boston coming out of the East, and you can very well make an argument for that. But that doesn't necessarily mean you have to put them as #1 ranked team in the Conference, that's if we're ranking them by our predictions standings-wise.
Boston having the best record in the East by season's end is nearly impossible simply due to the fact that there is no chemistry right now, and rightfully so because they haven't played a game yet.

1) Chicago
2) Cleveland
3) Detroit
4) Boston
5) Toronto
6) Miami
7) Nets
8) Magic

9) Washington
10) New York

Posted by nixluva:

Posted by Markji:

Posted by Allanfan20:

Very interesting. Nobody has the Knicks higher than 6th, ..... The Knicks have the talent to be a 50 win team, which is top 3 in the East. It flabberghasts me how the self proclaimed optimists have such low expectations.

Maybe someone can help me out with this one, b/c it's a little confusing to me.

The Knicks have to improve a lot from last year just to make the playoffs (#8).
Last year the Knicks were 33 - 49 = .402 winning% and finished tied for 11th in the East. They have improved in the offseason but can they get it together and win consistantly? I don't think so. But I hope so mainly because I've been a Knick fan for decades and it is no fun thinking nor hoping we are not going to make the playoffs. So I optimistically picked them for 8th. But in reality, they have a long ways to go.

And "50 wins"....well, just no way!

We can't base things on the final win/loss record last year. This team was playing at the level of a team capable of being a .500 team for a good part of the season. They didn't start the year that way, but they did achieve that level of play. You have to factor in the injuries and also the fact that it was the 1st yr under Isiah. The adjustment wasn't easy and Isiah had to build the players confidence back up and establish an identity and some chemistry. He did that and now not only do we get the benefits of what was started last year, but now we've also improved the team by getting rid of guys that didn't work and adding Zach. We can reasonably expect some internal growth as well and starting the year with more chemistry from the start as opposed to last year.

As for Allanfan20's point about low expectations, you have to account for the improvement of the East when making predictions. there are more good teams now as opposed to recent seasons. Saying we have 50 win talent in THIS YEARS East would be saying a lot. You make that kind of assessment when comparing a team with the competition. It is possible for the team to achieve that many wins, but not likely. That's why there were more conservative predictions. Many tho feel the team will have a winning record, which i'm glad to see.

This team is in a good position to breakout this year. The timing is perfect. This is going to be the 2nd yr in the same system and with mostly the same key guys. You've got guys like Lee, Nate, Balk & Mardy coming into this year with a season or more under their belt. Even a guy like Jared is highly motivated to prove that he's a better player. Q may be healthier than we've seen him since he's come here (hoping this is true). We've added Zach and got rid of Francis (yeah!) and Frye. We added even more talent and now just need to refine the roster and weed out the guys who aren't strong enough or right for the team. In the end this team is LOADED with talent from top to bottom and all we need is for this team to continue to develop. I'm excited about the prospects for this team.

You STILL refuse to even acknowledge the ridiculously soft schedule that they were playing during that great .500 part of last season that you constantly bring up, out of context.

Or the Bucks, who really were killed by injuries last year.

One factor that Markji mentioned could come into play, although it's hard to evaluate in advance - young players stepping up. Can Lee be successful with the jump shot he's working on? Is Nate actually getting it and playing smart? Will Clyde be able to fix Mardy's jump shot? Will Curry play harder and smarter on the defensive end?

And there are health issues as well. Will the surgery on Q's back allow him to play consistently and without pain? Did Curry lose aignificant amount of weight? Will we avoid the rash of injuries that plagued the team last March and April?

These are things we can only speculate on right now, but we should get some answers in October and November.

Andrew, Martin, this would be a really interesting pool if you could code it up before the start of the season! See who comes in closest.

Posted by MS:

You can't put the Knicks in the top eight right now. Boston slides into the playoffs and that means who team slides out? Who is that team.

The Magic right now are better than the knicks for one reason they don't have to struggle with chemistry issues and getting people minutes. Thats a team the Knicks might be able to jump over.

The Bobcats: They are better than the knicks head to head. We couldn't guard Felton and Wallace last year, try adding Richardson into that mix, i don't care how physical our bigs are Okafur is better than curry and our bigs are going to get into foul trouble because they are lazy and don't do well against quicker team.

Detriot is in a much better position than the Knicks, they aren't as old as you think. They have Maxiell who is a beast and if he gets minutes is going an animal. Stuckey is a nice young combo guard, and Amir Johnson is going to be a monster, old the execs believe so, so i like their future frontcourt.

We don't have defenders, Marbury is average at best, Crawford can't guard as well as Zach and Eddy so how are we getting by teams?

1. Bulls
2. Detriot
3. Nets
4. Miami
5. Cleveland
6. Boston
7. Washington
8. Raptors
9.Orlando/Bobcats/Knicks

That is not being biased, because the Hawks always seem to beat us when Johnson, Smith, Childress are on the floor, and we had our lands full with the bucks when they were injured. They added Mason, a healthy simmons, a healthy frontcourt and Yi who is better than Barngani last year who was a tough cover for our bigs

The problem with our team simply put will be defense. Our offense will be slightly better than average but it won't be a league leading or Conference/Division caliber one. We don't have any two-way players to speak of with exception to maybe Zach and Lee(a stretch). We won't be stopping anyone. We don't even have any pressure players maybe Crawford(Yikes).

Posted by Allanfan20:

If we want to get our offense going with the top dogs, we're gonna need a offense setting PG who doesn't demand shooting, and actually knows what's going on, as well as a big shooting threat from midrange and long.

With that being said I don't see our offense being better than the offense of the Washington team of last yr. They scored 104pts/gm and although they were a decent team it took heroics from Arenas and Butler ton win many of their close games.