TripleThreat wrote:The Knicks don't just need QUALITY, they also NEED IT IN QUANTITY. There is no real practical use of the current asset base over the next four years that will make the Knicks a winning team in any combination of draft and free agency. They can fill the team with cheaper fringe guys, who are cheaper for a reason. And as the cap goes up ( that would be your next argument) while that would give the Knicks more operating room, it also gives OTHER TEAMS MORE MONEY TO RETAIN THEIR EXISTING DEPTH, thus choking out the potential back end/Tier 3 and Tier 4 free agency pool in the first place.

The ENTIRE Hawks starting unit costs about 36-37 million. Compared to Melo's salary alone, and you are going to sit there and say the Knicks can emulate the Hawks team and how they were built? Are you really going to try to shove that crap down our throats here?

You keeps posting in a manner that suggests that you think it's impossible for the Knicks to build a winning team. You keep writing very long posts but they're not necessary to answer the real issues. The key players that the Hawks have, besides Horford and Teague, who make the most difference to their success are bolded below.

Al Horford	C	$12,000,000   Carmelo Anthony   SF  $22,875,000
Paul Millsap	PF	$9,500,000    Jose Calderon     PG  $7,402,812
Jeff Teague	PG	$8,000,000    Tim Hardaway Jr.  SG  $1,304,520
Kyle Korver	SF	$6,253,521    Quincy Acy        SF  $1,181,348
Thabo Sefolosha	SG	$4,150,000    Travis Wear       PF  $1,045,059
Mike Scott	PF	$3,333,333    Cleanthony Early  SF  $845,059
DeMarre Carroll	SF	$2,442,455    Langston Galloway PG  $845,059
Shelvin Mack	PG	$2,433,333    
Kent Bazemore	SG	$2,000,000
Elton Brand	PF	$2,000,000
Adreian Payne	PF	$1,855,320
Dennis Schröder	PG	$1,690,680
John Jenkins	SG	$1,312,920
Pero Antic	PF	$1,250,000
Mike Muscala	PF	$816,482

You are making it sound as if the Knicks have no chance to find similarly impactful players between the Draft and Free Agency. It doesn't have to happen all at once either. A lot can get done between now and next years Trade Deadline. You just pointed out that the Hawks starting unit only costs $36 mil or so. It would seem to me that the challenge for Phil is to make the most judicious use of his $30 mil of cap space that he can. It will start with the Draft where he will get one cost effective player at the least. Who knows if he can get another pick or find an undrafted gem as he did this year with Galloway.

I'm not the one making ridiculous claims in this case. What you're suggesting is that the Hawks could put together a roster finding cheap talent but that the Knicks can't find any cheap talent as well. IMO nothing prevents the Knicks from finding players who can contribute meaningfully but at a lower cost.

A real-time look at the 2015 salary cap totals for each NBA team, including estimated cap space.
                                Active  Guard           Forward         Center          Total           Cap 
Rank    Team                    Players Cap             Cap             Cap             Cap             Type
1	Philadelphia 76ers	9	$4,578,394	$5,474,162	$8,084,760	20,363,723	Max
2	Portland Trail Blazers	7	$9,879,187	$12,235,750	$8,091,879	30,206,816	Hard
3	Boston Celtics	        9	$13,858,493	$15,800,625	$4,782,135	34,441,253	Hard
4	New York Knicks	        6	$11,286,963	$23,720,059	$0	        37,233,429	Max
5	San Antonio Spurs	5	$17,016,447	$1,142,880	$16,000,000	41,239,312	Max
6	Atlanta Hawks	        10	$18,196,733	$11,965,928	$12,000,000	42,162,661	Hard
7	Detroit Pistons	        9	$21,351,316	$8,770,964	$3,272,090	42,338,016	Max
8	Dallas Mavericks	8	$17,671,035	$25,640,495	$0	        44,258,806	Max

The Knicks are going to be one of only a few teams with a ton of cap space to work with. The Knicks won't need 15 great players in order to form a winning team. They need to upgrade the talent and put together a better fitting team with fewer holes and fewer one way players. Phil will also need to try and start to rebuild his assets in the form of picks, but if he can't then he needs to improve the scouting and use of undrafted player pools. So far he's showing signs of doing that already.

Once again i'm not saying success is guaranteed!!! People need to stop saying that i'm saying this, cuz I have never said that. I'm saying that there is a good chance of success if Phil makes smart moves. He's not totally devoid of avenues to rebuild this team.

Bonn1997 wrote:I think you're misreading people's comments if you think they're saying success is impossible. Improbable would be a more appropriate word.

Millsap $9.5m, Korver $6.3m, Carroll $2.4m and Schroder $1.7m are very key parts of the teams role players who've helped them succeed. None of those players are on very tough contracts. Korver, Carroll and Schroder in particular have very reasonable contracts. It's up to Phil to find relative bargains where he can.

What the Knicks need is a few frontline talents who can help bring this all together. Some of the Role players we have and are developing aren't bad. They would look a lot better with some key starter level players mixed in. With the draft and $30 mil in cap space there's no reason Phil can't bring in some front line talent this summer. A top draft pick and 3 solid FA's is not impossible or improbable IMO.

Bonn1997 wrote:

nixluva wrote:

Bonn1997 wrote:I think you're misreading people's comments if you think they're saying success is impossible. Improbable would be a more appropriate word.

That's just the thing, it's not improbable. That also suggests that it's not likely to happen as opposed to there being a good chance that Phil can improve the roster. With a smart use of his draft pick and cap space. If he's saying that i'm suggesting he can fix every problem in one fell swoop then yes that's not a practical view. No one is suggesting that the team will be a perfect match for what the Hawks have done in one offseason. However, major improvement can be made.

Millsap $9.5m, Korver $6.3m, Carroll $2.4m and Schroder $1.7m are very key parts of the teams role players who've helped them succeed. None of those players are on very tough contracts. Korver, Carroll and Schroder in particular have very reasonable contracts. It's up to Phil to find relative bargains where he can.

What the Knicks need is a few frontline talents who can help bring this all together. Some of the Role players we have and are developing aren't bad. They would look a lot better with some key starter level players mixed in. With the draft and $30 mil in cap space there's no reason Phil can't bring in some front line talent this summer. A top draft pick and 3 solid FA's is not impossible or improbable IMO.

-OK, then we can at least have a productive discussion if you stop discussing what's impossible and start discussing in terms of probability. It would still help if you stopped using statements like "improve the roster" and said what bar you're using IMO. I want a team that can at least contend for a championship, which would mean multiple 50 win seasons and some conference finals, or better.
-No one is saying Phil can't "improve the roster." There's really only one direction to go at this point.
-We've basically used up more than half the cap space on the remnants of this .200 team. *If* Phil hits 100% on the remaining cap room - if *all* of it is as cost effective as the Hawks' figures you're citing, then we're in excellent shape. However, the odds of any one signing working out that well are iffy even if you're using the best available metrics to make decisions. The odds of every decision working out that well are really bad.
-I'm not sure you're appreciating that the probability of many independent events all happening is a multiplicative function. How many major decisions do you think Phil has upcoming and how likely to work out do you think each one is? I'll say five decisions and generously give a 75% chance for each. That still gives about an 80% of it not working out. It's true that this multiplicative process describes the odds for all teams. However, they have much more room for error than we do since we have more than half the cap space tied up on the remnants of this .200 team (and they have more future picks than we do). Given how badly Phil's decisions panned out so far, I might have put the # at more like 25% for each decision, which then puts the overall odds at 1 in ten thousand. We're better off hoping that Durant comes and bails us out IMO.

I do not believe that you factored in the power of prayer.

Bonn1997 wrote:

nixluva wrote:

Bonn1997 wrote:I think you're misreading people's comments if you think they're saying success is impossible. Improbable would be a more appropriate word.

That's just the thing, it's not improbable. That also suggests that it's not likely to happen as opposed to there being a good chance that Phil can improve the roster. With a smart use of his draft pick and cap space. If he's saying that i'm suggesting he can fix every problem in one fell swoop then yes that's not a practical view. No one is suggesting that the team will be a perfect match for what the Hawks have done in one offseason. However, major improvement can be made.

Millsap $9.5m, Korver $6.3m, Carroll $2.4m and Schroder $1.7m are very key parts of the teams role players who've helped them succeed. None of those players are on very tough contracts. Korver, Carroll and Schroder in particular have very reasonable contracts. It's up to Phil to find relative bargains where he can.

What the Knicks need is a few frontline talents who can help bring this all together. Some of the Role players we have and are developing aren't bad. They would look a lot better with some key starter level players mixed in. With the draft and $30 mil in cap space there's no reason Phil can't bring in some front line talent this summer. A top draft pick and 3 solid FA's is not impossible or improbable IMO.

-OK, then we can at least have a productive discussion if you stop discussing what's impossible and start discussing in terms of probability. It would still help if you stopped using statements like "improve the roster" and said what bar you're using IMO. I want a team that can at least contend for a championship, which would mean multiple 50 win seasons and some conference finals, or better.
-No one is saying Phil can't "improve the roster." There's really only one direction to go at this point.
-We've basically used up more than half the cap space on the remnants of this .200 team. *If* Phil hits 100% on the remaining cap room - if *all* of it is as cost effective as the Hawks' figures you're citing, then we're in excellent shape. However, the odds of any one signing working out that well are iffy even if you're using the best available metrics to make decisions. The odds of every decision working out that well are really bad.
-I'm not sure you're appreciating that the probability of many independent events all happening is a multiplicative function. How many major decisions do you think Phil has upcoming and how likely to work out do you think each one is? I'll say five decisions and generously give a 75% chance for each. That still gives about an 80% of it not working out. It's true that this multiplicative process describes the odds for all teams. However, they have much more room for error than we do since we have more than half the cap space tied up on the remnants of this .200 team (and they have more future picks than we do). Given how badly Phil's decisions panned out so far, I might have put the # at more like 25% for each decision, which then puts the overall odds at 1 in ten thousand. We're better off hoping that Durant comes and bails us out IMO.

I never said it was going to be easy. Simply said it's not impossible and I don't believe it's improbable either. This is a process. It's the beginning of a process to put a team together that makes sense. We can't look down on improvement simply because it's not immediately a finals contender. There doesn't have to be an instant title team built this summer. 1st step is to be smart and make basketball decisions.

The process started with getting rid of players that didn't fit and developing some role players who do fit. It continues with having a possible Top 5 Draft Pick and adding perhaps 3 solid FA's to the team. From there on Phil can reassess the team based on how they play next year.

For sure no one predicted that the Hawks would be this good coming into the season. They were 1 win better than the Knicks last year. They didn't add Lebron. They got healthy and continued their development. This Knicks team is not completely starting from scratch. They also have to continue to find and develop young talent. We don't have a legit starting 5 and so that's the goal. 5 guys who can play well as a team on both ends. We've got serious holes so looking for 2 way players is paramount. That's Phil's task and he's got some decent means to get the job done. Not the best assets but he has to make what he does have count.