I'm not going to go go point/counter point over this. a) I can't sustain my interest very long in pure drama, whether it's provoked by myself or otherwise, b) Your responses are so long they exceed the quote functions capacity, and c) I'd really prefer to stay on topic of the knicks.

However, lets just address one thing about this business you're going to town on regarding my use of the term "lie" vs your phrase of "making stuff up and presenting it as fact."

It's called a "paraphrase."
But, ipar·a·phrase P Pronunciation Key (pr-frz)
n.
A restatement of a text or passage in another form or other words, often to clarify meaning.

Paraphrasing involves putting a passage from source material into your own words. A paraphrase must also be attributed to the original source. Paraphrased material is usually shorter than the original passage, taking a somewhat broader segment of the source and condensing it slightly.

I think "liar" was an apt paraphrasing and condensation of your much longer attacks. You feel otherwise? That's fine, but all the rhetoric, drama and hyperbole over it rather than staying with the basketball issues these conversations are attempting to address... it's just not that compelling and only distracts from the basketball issues at hand. I stated that Brown's playbook was "not large" and evidenced that he was utilizizing but a handful of plays and your still having conniptions over it?

You don't consider my evidence compelling yet you offer little to none to substantiate your own, and then consider yourself the better man for it?

Okay, if you do then you can say I started it, at least in that thread.

You're not above punchy comments yourself, like: "Seriously, you would argue that anyone in the backcourt was a more significant contributor, or "fared better" than Marbury? That is ridiculous."

There's nothing ridiculous at all. The season started with Marbury far and away the lead PG and Jamal coming off the bench. At this point Jamal has just as good a chance at being our lead PG as Marbury. Marbury's stock has fallen while JC's has risen, therefore he's fared better.

Dogsh.t? Mental gymnastics? Easy there big fella.

And no, if you'd read what I wrote I did not say that "Brown intentionally tried to expose stars as not stars." I said that he tried to allow the veterans to be the key guys and leaders but they failed miserably, and they revealed themselves as unworthy. Which veterans, stars or high paid players do you think distinguished themselves?

Brown tried to work with a structure whereby key guys were given key roles and they were expected to be our leaders but they largely failed on virtually every significant level, with the exception of Q, who at least showed an emotional fortitude. But there was enough flexibility in his approach that the guys who weren't assigned key roles could still emerge, and the phony "stars" or "leaders" would reveal their worth for what it isn't.

BTW, if I wanted to play this ohhah style I'd say: 'show me where I said "Brown intentionally tried to expose stars as not stars." You're making stuff up!!! This is why you have no credibility and are one of the biggest exaggerators I've dealt with in a long time.'

This was a dysfunctional roster (and franchise) Brown inherited and he's resorted to some unconventional means to sort the wheat from the chaff.

Another item you seem indignant about is my use of term "coup d'etat" with regards to Marbury's resistance of Brown. Again, you just want to get bogged down in rhetoric. On some occasions i've called it a mutiny, or a resistance, or a passive-resistance, or recalcitrance.

Whatever, there's probably no term in there you will accept, but the vast majority of fans saw what Marbury was about this year and it was primarily in opposition of Brown's system in favor of his own, and to deny that as a team leader that did not drive a wedge between the team and the coach is naive at best, IMO.

Now with a wife and kid and an old house I have precious too little time for the topics at hand. If you want to continue or escalate the drama here you can, I stand by my posts and posters may judge me as they see fit.

Meanwhile I intend to put what time I do have into cracking the code of the knicks and evidencing my interpretations to the best of my ability.

My aim is to assemble them into a cogent piece with some continuity, and getting hung up in minor skirmishes over grammatical correctness only only deters from that goal.

If there were anything I'd ask of you it would be to do the same. Instead of splintering other's posts into toothpicks I'd love to read one from you that holds a linear progression of it's own and offers something to substantiate your assertions.

You might have a little more respect for my efforts after you do.

Or the least you could do would be to answer the many questions I've asked of you that you dodge while you pursue every other personal, gramatical or dramatic angle available.

Listen, I'm barely reading at this point myself, but if anyone ever finds ohhah's point please pass it along.

Fair enough NYNY.

I just find it ironic that more people who preach up-tempo don't complain that we didn't play up-tempo on the defensive end. That's what Larry wanted most of all and that's where it would have made the biggest difference.

"If you play defense for coach, he allows you to do whatever you want to do as far as running and pushing the ball," - Stephon Marbury on Larry Brown.

“This was our Summer League team out there -- think about that. They’re playing better and better. When you get that kind of effort and enthusiasm, good things will happen. Effort overcomes a lot. That’s the team of the future.” - Larry Brown on the kids outplaying the vets, and basically on the season.

That's brown describing the season for us in a nutshell. Jamal, quentin and the kids are the guys that larry feels bought in and played with effort. Over and over, those were the guys he'd put in to "up-tempo" us back into games that the veterans surrendered. It's clear as day that Marbury's moping around and never getting what anyone wants from him was dragging us down - but brown knows he's capable of what he asks of him, and that it would benefit marbury as well as the team, but Steph doesn't get that, he prefers to be "Starbury."

Listen, I'm keeping this post relatively short for now because I'm fixing to write a thesis level paper on the whole goddamn last season when I get a day to myself some dog-day in July.

Posted by oohah:

I'm not going to go go point/counter point over this. a) I can't sustain my interest very long in pure drama, whether it's provoked by myself or otherwise, b) Your responses are so long they exceed the quote functions capacity, and c) I'd really prefer to stay on topic of the knicks.

You should have done that from the beginning.

However, lets just address one thing about this business you're going to town on regarding my use of the term "lie" vs your phrase of "making stuff up and presenting it as fact."

It's called a "paraphrase."
But, ipar·a·phrase P Pronunciation Key (pr-frz)
n.
A restatement of a text or passage in another form or other words, often to clarify meaning.

Paraphrasing involves putting a passage from source material into your own words. A paraphrase must also be attributed to the original source. Paraphrased material is usually shorter than the original passage, taking a somewhat broader segment of the source and condensing it slightly.

Sorry bub, you're not condensing. You are making mountains out of molehills.

I think "liar" was an apt paraphrasing and condensation of your much longer attacks. You feel otherwise? That's fine, but all the rhetoric, drama and hyperbole over it rather than staying with the basketball issues these conversations are attempting to address... it's just not that compelling and only distracts from the basketball issues at hand. I stated that Brown's playbook was "not large" and evidenced that he was utilizizing but a handful of plays and your still having conniptions over it?

When you accuse someone of calling you a "liar" in quotes, that's what it means. And you say that I try to slither out of things? You accuse me of taking things away from basketball? GO BACK AND READ THE POSTS! YOU WERE THE FIRST ONE TO DO SO!

Goddamn already!

You don't consider my evidence compelling yet you offer little to none to substantiate your own, and then consider yourself the better man for it?

I don't know where you are going with this better man stuff. Your evidence may be compelling if you were to use it properly. It's as if you saw a guy with a slingshot and then told everybody they were armed to the teeth. Exaggeration.

Okay, if you do then you can say I started it, at least in that thread.

Yes, you started it in that thread and this thread, coming back days and days later with an erroneous quote, putting words in my mouth. You also have been responsible for all escalation of personal insult because you have been unable to defend your points with your own logic, you are simply throwing quotes out.

You're not above punchy comments yourself, like: "Seriously, you would argue that anyone in the backcourt was a more significant contributor, or "fared better" than Marbury? That is ridiculous."

I never claimed to be above punchy comments. I just don't break down into a whiny, crying mess when it happens to me. Also that was after you threw the gauntlet. But I guess you want me to be behave better than you?

There's nothing ridiculous at all. The season started with Marbury far and away the lead PG and Jamal coming off the bench. At this point Jamal has just as good a chance at being our lead PG as Marbury. Marbury's stock has fallen while JC's has risen, therefore he's fared better.

Jamal had a better season than Marbury? That is ridiculous, I'll say it again. A few good (meaningless) games and JC has emerged as a leader. That is taking things way too far.

Dogsh.t? Mental gymnastics? Easy there big fella.

Your point little guy?

And no, if you'd read what I wrote I did not say that "Brown intentionally tried to expose stars as not stars." I said that he tried to allow the veterans to be the key guys and leaders but they failed miserably, and they revealed themselves as unworthy. Which veterans, stars or high paid players do you think distinguished themselves?

I read quite well. It is you who is quite imprecise with your language. You are repurposing what you actually wrote:

Brown tried to work with a structure whereby key guys were given key roles and they were expected to be our leaders but they largely failed on virtually every significant level, with the exception of Q, who at least showed an emotional fortitude. But there was enough flexibility in his approach that the guys who weren't assigned key roles could still emerge, and the phony "stars" or "leaders" would reveal their worth for what it isn't.

Next quote:

BTW, if I wanted to play this ohhah style I'd say: 'show me where I said "Brown intentionally tried to expose stars as not stars." You're making stuff up!!! This is why you have no credibility and are one of the biggest exaggerators I've dealt with in a long time.'

Now you are just flailing. I would say no such thing. You are also ignoring this sentence you wrote:

This was a dysfunctional roster (and franchise) Brown inherited and he's resorted to some unconventional means to sort the wheat from the chaff.

Sounds intentional to me.

Another item you seem indignant about is my use of term "coup d'etat" with regards to Marbury's resistance of Brown. Again, you just want to get bogged down in rhetoric. On some occasions i've called it a mutiny, or a resistance, or a passive-resistance, or recalcitrance.

The more you write the more I think you should use a dictionary while you do. You misuse a lot of words so you probably don't know what you are saying. For instance, I am pretty sure you don't know what the dewfinition of rhetoric is, even though you are constantly spewing it.

Whatever, there's probably no term in there you will accept, but the vast majority of fans saw what Marbury was about this year and it was primarily in opposition of Brown's system in favor of his own, and to deny that as a team leader that did not drive a wedge between the team and the coach is naive at best, IMO.

Marbury drove a wedge between the team and LB? Now that beats all! Brown did that all by himself, why can't you see that?!

Now with a wife and kid and an old house I have precious too little time for the topics at hand. If you want to continue or escalate the drama here you can, I stand by my posts and posters may judge me as they see fit.

I love it! You lob the first verbal grenade, you call people "dullardly", you show up days later talking about word-eating, yet I am the one escalating. What a guy you are.

Meanwhile I intend to put what time I do have into cracking the code of the knicks and evidencing my interpretations to the best of my ability.

You see? This is what I am talking about! There is no code to crack. It really isn't that complex, but you insist on making it so.

[quote] My aim is to asse

Posted by joec32033:

Posted by Bonn1997:

Is anyone actually reading this stuff (besides Oohah and Blueseats)? I need the cliffnotes!

Cliffnotes Version: Alot of sound an fury signifying nothing.

It's absolutely amazing that you two can make the Mo Taylor man-up thread look like Kindergarten stuff....

For the record I agree with Blue....I applaud you for having poet lauret' caliber interest in this. There is alot of twisting and turning in this thread that is now seems to be boiling down to Larry's playbook had to be unquantifiably big because he was able to break it down, which is faulted logic-but hey it sounds good.

Posted by BlueSeats:

Posted by oohah:

ohhah, instead of making every post unworkably larger and larger I'd like to challenge you to reduce and simplify in order to refocus the conversation. What is your overriding theme here (between this and the other thread you've been referencing?) It appears to be "It's all Browns fault and any other assertion is absurd." Is that about the gist of it?

First of all, you have wrested the "most long-winded poster" award from me without question.

Now I'll explain to you again what my point is. The team is bad, and was going to be bad with or without LB. This is Isiah's fault, and the players fault. If Stephon Marbury is your best player then your team is probably not very good. He is an a-hole and he does not inspire his teammates to play better, or even decently in many cases. This is the same Marbury we know and don't love, he did not turn into something different this year.

But the extra-badness, I give to LB. He took a car-wreck and turned it into a pile-up. There is no way a team can perform when a coach can't make up his mind about who and how to play his team and is always engaging in antics, slamming his squad from the beginning to the end of a season. The worst thing to me is that LB seems to have had other things on his mind than winning games. I can't prove it, but it seems like it. And that is inexcusable to me.

Did the Marbury/Brown fued hurt the team? Quite likely, but there is no way to quantify it. However, I think Brown re-initiated that conflict, basically trying to step on his starting point guard's neck.

I believe that is a fair assessment.

The reason I keep talking about LB is because so many want to blame everybody but him. Trust me, if hordes of posters were lining up to exonerate Marbury or Isiah from responsibility, I would argue against that too. But that does not happen here so there is no need for me to do it.

oohah

This post I respect. I'm glad I twisted your arm for it.

Keep fooling yourself into thinking that you made me do anything.

I don't give a rat's ass whether you respect it or not.

oohah

Just can't get over yourself can you? Don't worry about memorizing this moment, just come back in a few weeks and re-read some of your own posts. I think you'll be too embarrassed to bring it up again.

Dude, you live in a world of denial. I'm not going to take the time to cut and paste the actual quotes as they are contained in this very thread. I siad Brown's playbook was not large for which you accused me of pretending to be an insider and "making stuff up and passing it off as fact." I accurately paraphrased that as calling me a liar and showed you that Brown had us operating with a "handful" of plays, and you consider that proving me wrong.

it's an impenetrable bizzarro world i have little interest in continuing with, which is probably your primary intent. Either that or an intense need to try to win a battle even if your reputation is a casualty in the cause.

Because I paraphrased you?

Let's see your examples. I suspect you're simply not used to people substantiating their assertions. Somehow i suspect in your millieu they just keep yelling louder and louder and then feel sorry for themselves.