thanks for posting this martin...i agree, and it is rather interesting how the media's coverage of the trade seems to be missing this to the story
i feel like not one article i read spoke of this, mostly just how the knicks 'over reacted' to the nets move (beck) with landing bargnani or how everyone knew the raptors wanted to move him (dan devine/yahoo/ball don't lie), and all point out his decline in performance the past two years and bad d.
really?? noooo...
duh
either way i feel this is likely to be at worst a lateral move that could turn out to improve the team, and less likely hurt us in the win-loss column than we were already being faced with from the loss of some key free agents, the nets move, and the returns of d-rose and granger. some have pointed to at least novak being elite at one thing, but he couldn't even do that one thing in the playoffs for two years in a row. i was a fan of novakaine, but he was effectively neutralized against the top teams in the east when our seasons were on the line, which means for all of his ability, it went to crap when it mattered to get us to the next level.
so we lose out on perhaps better regular season play from 3, but bargnani provides a more rounded offensive game that can't be simply shut down like novak's with the collapsing perimeter d we saw, while being probably worse at defense than novak, who wasn't exactly shump out there. funny because i believe knickerblogger had an article last season claiming he is a covertly good defender based on advanced stats, showing how weaker players tried to 'take him' to the basket too much because their eyes widened when he was on defense, but they often faltered...an interesting claim to support his help in the reg season against bad teams, that won't really mean much against good teams in the playoffs. so even if bargnani also gets killed on defense, at least he's a one way player rather than a no way player that novak became.
p.s. some players do improve with age and good coaching...remember nate matador d robinsion on the knicks?? woody has improved the d of some players, if you want to give him credit (especially melo)
and cambyman...sigh...
expert nba opinion can be critiqued quite fairly, which i believe some of us are trying to do, without claiming this trade as some kind of coup for the knicks. yes, those picks could be assets to used elsewhere in deals, as could have novak and camby's deals, as some might claim, but it's hard to see where they would give us a shot at improvement or stabilizing the team in the playoffs while helping our cap position in 2015.
just to add to the critique of devine's piece when talking about 'the future':
It's true that draft picks don't always fulfill their promise; you absolutely don't have to remind Knicks fans of that. But teams that are over the salary cap and luxury tax — the Knicks are on the books for more than $77 million this year and next before this deal goes through — have precious few instruments under the new collective bargaining agreement for adding talent, let alone young, inexpensive, cost-controlled talent. The draft affords that opportunity, whether by making your own selections or by using a cache of available selections to pluck a young asset like Thomas Robinson, whom the Blazers just snagged from the Rockets for a pair of second-rounders and European prospects.
knicks fans (and nba beat writers) get this through your heads...we will likely NOT BE ACTING like any of how these smaller market teams are made anytime soon, so we have to act differently in the market...there is not just one way to make a good team...but yes, of course, the new cba does restrict the approach...
and this was that same draft process we used that netted us mozgov, priggy smalls and cope? wait...umm...
oops, we aren't really looking to the draft or internationally for developing prospects as much as for ready made players, hence hardaway jr. who appears to fall into this category as well (from what i read).
the knicks international scouting team has done very well, and strangely seems to be completely out of the conversation when some of our rotation players have come from this arena. but in a sadly typical fashion i feel many american writers only can think of the spurs as the team that does this.
i'm not even saying we can bank on the international market, but shouldn't out success there of late be included in the public discussion as well?
and if we are talking about the future, shouldn't our cap position for 2015 also be considered?
i think there's a tendency to jump on the anti-knick bandwagon, popularly, whenever it suits because it stirs **** up from our fan base who are easily the biggest followers of their team/consmuers of nba gossip/analysis, and given our history...when we don't take the 'small market approach' to making a team, even when one can read between the lines and see at least with grunwald that we are more sophisticated than that now...isiah is not running the team anymore so maybe it's get over that!
Forum Po Po and #33 for a reason...
7/2/2013 10:05 AM
