Gallo, Chandler, & Douglas are the only ones who have been with the knicks for more than 1/2 a season.

Add Amare, Felton, Randolph, Turiaf, Azubuke, Mason, Mozgov, Walker
+ possible contributions from Fields, Ewing Jr, Raudins, and maybe Curry

This team has a completely different makeup and balance.
Even if only a small percentage of our young talent maximize their potential we still have many weapons to get the job done on any given night.

I don't think you can use the win/loss stats from previous years to judge what we are putting on the court this season.
We are more balanced and have more depth than anytime in recent memory, since the Knicks were a powerhouse in the 90s.

CrushAlot wrote:

martin wrote:

CrushAlot wrote:D'Antoni is a flawed coach in my opinion. People can change and I hope that is the case for him. However, he was flawed just based on his one sided approach to basketball. Remember the Suns traded Rondo because D'Antoni didn't think he could use him because he couldn't shoot. His philosophy has been used in the past and has never won a championship. His difficulties with communication, game planning, coaching young players and guys that might need an authority figure, and his rigidity have doomed him to not be successful unless he is blessed to have comparable talent to his rosters when he won in Phoenix. D'Antoni did speak against Marion after the Shaq trade and said that Marion did not know how good his situation was in Phoenix before he left. I think the same could be said for D'Antoni. Gentry and Don Nelson have been good coaches when Nash ran their team as well. D'Antoni may never have the opportunity to have a roster that can overcome all of his short comings like the Nash led Suns did. His ego and rigidity caused him to move to NY. His flaws that were covered in Phoenix by Nash and others may very well doom him in NY. He needs to do some winning without Nash for the first time in his coaching career this season.

I couldn't read past that. Rondo pick was traded cause Savor didn't want to pay luxury tax. Kinda the reason PHO traded a lot of their other picks.

Here is the rest.

His philosophy has been used in the past and has never won a championship. His difficulties with communication, game planning, coaching young players and guys that might need an authority figure, and his rigidity have doomed him to not be successful unless he is blessed to have comparable talent to his rosters when he won in Phoenix. D'Antoni did speak against Marion after the Shaq trade and said that Marion did not know how good his situation was in Phoenix before he left. I think the same could be said for D'Antoni. Gentry and Don Nelson have been good coaches when Nash ran their team as well. D'Antoni may never have the opportunity to have a roster that can overcome all of his short comings like the Nash led Suns did. His ego and rigidity caused him to move to NY. His flaws that were covered in Phoenix by Nash and others may very well doom him in NY. He needs to do some winning without Nash for the first time in his coaching career this season

This Knicks roster allows MDA to have great flexibility, and he should have the tools to deal with most opposing lineups.

Too many variables to look at here, but I think MDA is desperate for another shooter with distance, be it Mason, Azubuike, or whomever.

Amare and Felton find amore, Gallo starts to dance with the stars, Chandler finds that elusive comfort zone without the narcotics, and Randolph realizes that he doesn't have to be the man to be a man and contribute to a team's success. Douglas will disrupt, Fields will show some flash, Mosguv will be the bull in the China shop, and Turiaf will lead the Knicks' group hug and make us one big happy family.

If our team chemistry evolves we can upset our way out of the first round, but whatever happens, opposing teams and their fans are going to realize that we have a team that is not going to be pushed around.

Childs2Dudley wrote:

subzero0 wrote:At best 39-43. Just good enough to get knocked out in the first round of the playoffs.

This team cant match up with most of the teams in the NBA. Sorry guys, but its the truth.

We should bring back Isiah, Zach, and Crawford to make you happy.

No, maybe we should bring back Chris Childs and Chris Dudley right?

Alright, let me make something clear, I did not and never have advocated keeping Isiah, Zach, and Crawford over good moves that will make us championship contenders. You seem to have a short memory Dud, I explained myself in this thread (http://www.ultimateknicks.com/forum/topic.asp?t=35950&page=2). Maybe you should give it a read.

Here is an excerpt.
"The difference here is that many of you are talking about just making the playoff and that you guys believe is progress. But I am telling you it is not. It really is only doing more damage than good. To build a team that will challenge for a championship year after year you have to have start with a good foundation. You try to get a top lottery pick. After you get the lottery pick you build around that player with free agency, doing this allows you to keep your costs down and attract the free agents. What we are seeing this summer is akin to the Layden years where we continually went to the playoffs only to be ousted each year. Some of the time not even going to the playoffs. I realize that this plan is scary because if we don't hit our mark and get that top lottery player than we have to scrap everything and try again. That is true, but it is also necessary to build a championship dynasty. This Knicks roster is not as good as some of you guys think it is. I dont see this team beating many other NBA teams. I am sorry if you disagree but this is my opinion."

...

"I have stated that I disagreed with the trades of Zach Randolph and Jamal Crawford because they were not getting any picks in return. Trading those two players in and of themselves never has mattered to me. The fact remains though that without getting picks back for those players we have made some serious errors.
Very plainly, I had no problem with trading away those players as long as we were getting picks back in return. Just trading them for cap space, trading down AFAIK, is always a bad move."

Picks would have come in handy right about now, no?

Childs2Dudley wrote:

AnubisADL wrote:33 wins.

That much?

I'm going with 20 wins.

20 wins this year actually sounds reasonable. I may have to adjust my prediction.

CrushAlot wrote:

subzero0 wrote:

Childs2Dudley wrote:

subzero0 wrote:At best 39-43. Just good enough to get knocked out in the first round of the playoffs.

This team cant match up with most of the teams in the NBA. Sorry guys, but its the truth.

We should bring back Isiah, Zach, and Crawford to make you happy.

No, maybe we should bring back Chris Childs and Chris Dudley right?

Alright, let me make something clear, I did not and never have advocated keeping Isiah, Zach, and Crawford over good moves that will make us championship contenders. You seem to have a short memory Dud, I explained myself in this thread (http://www.ultimateknicks.com/forum/topic.asp?t=35950&page=2). Maybe you should give it a read.

Here is an excerpt.
"The difference here is that many of you are talking about just making the playoff and that you guys believe is progress. But I am telling you it is not. It really is only doing more damage than good. To build a team that will challenge for a championship year after year you have to have start with a good foundation. You try to get a top lottery pick. After you get the lottery pick you build around that player with free agency, doing this allows you to keep your costs down and attract the free agents. What we are seeing this summer is akin to the Layden years where we continually went to the playoffs only to be ousted each year. Some of the time not even going to the playoffs. I realize that this plan is scary because if we don't hit our mark and get that top lottery player than we have to scrap everything and try again. That is true, but it is also necessary to build a championship dynasty. This Knicks roster is not as good as some of you guys think it is. I dont see this team beating many other NBA teams. I am sorry if you disagree but this is my opinion."

...

"I have stated that I disagreed with the trades of Zach Randolph and Jamal Crawford because they were not getting any picks in return. Trading those two players in and of themselves never has mattered to me. The fact remains though that without getting picks back for those players we have made some serious errors.
Very plainly, I had no problem with trading away those players as long as we were getting picks back in return. Just trading them for cap space, trading down AFAIK, is always a bad move."

Picks would have come in handy right about now, no?

In regards to picks for Zach and Jamaal I think you need to remember how horrible those contracts were. There were rumors that the Knicks were going to trade the 6th pick in the 08 draft along with Randolph just to get out from his contract. There might not have been much to it but that was what was reported. I think you keep Zach and Jamaal if you are trying to win now or if you don't think that you are going to be a player in the 2010 free agency market. I think the obvious issue with some of the moves that were made getting ready for this past off season was that everyone knew what the Knick plan was and took advantage of the team in every transaction they made during that time. I think the Lee sign and trade was the first move Walsh made where he was back in the position of being a gm trying to create a winner as opposed to creating a team that had cap flexibility. I found the plan to be pretty basic and frustrating at times especially the T-Mac trade. However, to Walsh's credit he had a plan, and made the most of it when his plan a didn't work out.

yeah... now it seems as though the Knicks could have gotten more for both, but at the time, they were the, uh, linchpins on an excruciatingly bad team. And like you said it was no mystery what the Knicks were going to try and do, and transactions were priced accordingly.

jazz74 wrote:i am going to say, with the team currently constructed, a 40 win season and 8th seed playoff berth at best imo. listen, we have a talented team but a VERY young team with a roster of unproven players who most have been on teams who were awful. it is hard to get rid of losing habits and the only people who wont have that is stoudamire and felton. even turiaf has been on a losing team for too long and probably developed the losing habits. i think we will struggle in the middle of the season and then have a strong march and april to make the playoffs. stoudamire will avg around 24 ppg and felton will avg 8 apg and top ten in that dept. gallo will avg 19ppg and second leading scorer. randolph will have a solid year but not a HUGE year like everyone thinks: 14ppg 8 rpg.

I think your prediction isn't taking into account that the chemistry of this group is likely to develop as the season moves along and that is likely to bring a good deal of improvement. Amar'e, Gallo, Chan & Felton are ready right now to lead the team every night. The rest of the guys filling in should be able to play their roles well enough for this team to be over .500.

AR, TD & Mosgov will have to being a lot of energy and hustle to augment what we get from our starters. AR & Mosgov are really going to have to show some solid development, cuz we're going to need their contributions. IMO Timo is gonna get as many minutes as he can get before fouling out, cuz we NEED him out there. He was such a big pickup by Donnie. His presence and ability to contribute changes our team from avg. to one of the big teams in the East. We can actually play 48 minutes with 3 near 7'ers on the floor at the same time. Any Combo of Amar'e, Gallo, AR, Timo & Turiaf. In the end I think PE Jr. won't make the team cuz S. Williams has a bit more size. We don't need PE Jr., but we could use another big body over the course of 82.

TMS wrote:

knicks1248 wrote:Lot of contradictions on this thread...look at us now

a lot of expectations have been exceeded up to this point, there's no denying it... i fail to see how someone's projection before the season even began can be considered as a contradiction though... did u expect this team to look this good so fast, & even if u did, how can you say it's a contradiction to think they wouldn't before the outcome was even known?

I just think he chose the wrong word to make his point. What has happened is that a lot of guys had that poor prediction based on the Knicks poor past and not based on solid BB rationale. This is what I felt back then and I still feel that there are some just waiting for the other shoe to drop so they can jump back in and bash the team. You have to at least have a good sound BB reason for making your predictions. IMO most of the negative stuff wasn't really supported by anything but pessimism based on the failures of the past.

TMS wrote:

nixluva wrote:

TMS wrote:

knicks1248 wrote:Lot of contradictions on this thread...look at us now

a lot of expectations have been exceeded up to this point, there's no denying it... i fail to see how someone's projection before the season even began can be considered as a contradiction though... did u expect this team to look this good so fast, & even if u did, how can you say it's a contradiction to think they wouldn't before the outcome was even known?

I just think he chose the wrong word to make his point. What has happened is that a lot of guys had that poor prediction based on the Knicks poor past and not based on solid BB rationale. This is what I felt back then and I still feel that there are some just waiting for the other shoe to drop so they can jump back in and bash the team. You have to at least have a good sound BB reason for making your predictions. IMO most of the negative stuff wasn't really supported by anything but pessimism based on the failures of the past.

look, we're currently in the midst of an awesome win streak so everyone's flying high... if we go through another 6 game losing streak, things can change in a hurry... i don't expect for that to happen because i do see a change in the overall mindset of this team, but this team hasn't achieved anything just yet... let's see them get to the playoffs as a high seed before we pull the I Told You So cards... i have no problem admitting i was wrong for projecting 41 wins if they get there, but it's still a little early for anyone to be patting themselves on the back on this one.

It's not patting on the back if you're talking about seeing things happen that you expected to see from this team. That has nothing to do with the final result. Just an observation that the team is doing things the way we wanted to see them playing.