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Finestrg wrote:

nixluva wrote:We have more money to spend!!! Phil has done a good job so far. Solid if not spectacular players. We needed reliable pros.

Wow, really?? I don't feel that way at all. Without one of the top FAs, my expectations for the team have done a complete 180. Now instead of thinking competitive team & playoffs, I'll have to condition myself to just be content watching guys like Porzingis, Grant and whatever other promising youngsters we can bring in develop for the future. That'll be fun and rewarding in of itself but man, with $27mm in cap space, I was hoping Phil could've put together a much better team than what this is shaping up to be..

CrushAlot wrote:

BRIGGS wrote:

CrushAlot wrote:Wow. The Lakers are in a tough spot.

I like what the Lakers have in Russell and Clarkson in the backcourt and Randall will be good upfront--there all 19-21 years old. Lakers have a great core there--I would say better than the Knicks. They have the same problem we have--they have an unrestricted pick in 2016 so losing does not do much. We have Lopez but lets not act like we just acquired Hakeem there. Lopez is a 10-7 C.

I just don't ever remember them being rejected like this. Has to be eye opening for them.

In some ways if you take a road that says Im getting this player or I dont care is not a wrong mentality. For all of this sht Philly does they dont have a core NEARLY as good as the Lakers. Also they have two more rookies that can fit in--Kupchak has done very well drafting. The Lakers are in a good spot. Their building a ten year run there--its building up. I think they need to get through Kobe's last year. Save the cash dont use it to use it.

CrushAlot wrote:It will be interesting to see what the terms are of Lopez's contract. Afflalo's is set up so the Knicks have cap space next year.

Was reading it's a 1-yr deal. Have to see if that's true.

CrushAlot wrote:

Finestrg wrote:And what happened to making Enes Kanter an offer? You don't make that guy an offer before sinking $13mm into Robin Lopez?

That is puzzling. OKC was supposed to be negotiating a new deal with him yesterday and then nothing came of it. I do think they would probably match an offer sheet.

Its pretty smart to be patient and let the $ dry up in their position.

BRIGGS wrote:

CrushAlot wrote:

BRIGGS wrote:

CrushAlot wrote:Wow. The Lakers are in a tough spot.

I like what the Lakers have in Russell and Clarkson in the backcourt and Randall will be good upfront--there all 19-21 years old. Lakers have a great core there--I would say better than the Knicks. They have the same problem we have--they have an unrestricted pick in 2016 so losing does not do much. We have Lopez but lets not act like we just acquired Hakeem there. Lopez is a 10-7 C.

I just don't ever remember them being rejected like this. Has to be eye opening for them.

In some ways if you take a road that says Im getting this player or I dont care is not a wrong mentality. For all of this sht Philly does they dont have a core NEARLY as good as the Lakers. Also they have two more rookies that can fit in--Kupchak has done very well drafting. The Lakers are in a good spot. Their building a ten year run there--its building up. I think they need to get through Kobe's last year. Save the cash dont use it to use it.

CrushAlot wrote:

Finestrg wrote:What a bizarre-ass off-season. LOVED the draft but it's been followed up by the most lackluster, head-scratching FA period a team with cap space could possibly have...There's still time to salvage it I guess but man I swear, I don't get what they're doing at all. Robin Lopez? $12-13mm? Really??? I just don't see this move for the life of me. $12mm for Robin Lopez SINKS any chance we have of doing anything else significant at this point.. There was no rhyme or reason to anything they did or tried to do. They locked in Aaron Afflalo thinking that along with Melo and Porzingis, it would help lure Greg Monroe. It didn't. The man chose the Milwaukee Bucks over us... The Melo factor was non-existent here in FA btw... Who cares that Melo was already here? None of these FA do, I can tell you that!! Now we're stuck with Afflalo and I bet Phil deep down wishes he could have that back--so that's minus 8mm off the cap right there. Now we're at $19mm...Then they have a sit-down with LaMarcus Aldridge cancelled outright (how embarrassing is that?) because they want the guy to play C and apparently refuse to budge off the idea (how it reads to me)...I mean how 'bout a "well, that's not set in stone of course. Let's meet and we can talk about it"?? Now in a panic move, we go out and give RoLo $12-13mm which, as it turns out, probably should've been our very first move -- if we had gotten Lopez first, we could've sat down with Aldridge (or Monroe first I suppose) and talked the PF spot exclusively with each player, and thus had a much better shot at either guy. These guy's are both scoring 4s--they don't want to play the 5 and don't belong playing the 5 (I had Alexis Ajinca picked out for my starting C over a month ago). Amar'e took one for the team and did it but did he really want to play the 5 when he was here? No, he didn't. He was outspoken against it in fact...Now we bring in Lopez on top of Afflalo -- that's 8 + 12-13 = $21mm, only approx. $6mm left to spend now. You wanna tell me the plan now is to conserve the rest for the following off-season--nah, don't buy it. That was never their plan. They were talking to max FAs only hours ago.

I don't even care for Robin Lopez to be honest. He's a capable defensive backup 5 that we gave starter money to, albeit for 1 yr I understand, but the dollar amount just torpedoed any chance we have of doing anything else significant... For the money--I would've preferred Kosta Koufos--at least you can reason that KK still has untapped offensive ability that could still be developed (I would've saw to it if I were Phil and Fish). The college version of Kosta Koufos was a DAMN GOOD player, much better than what he's settled for being in the pro game thusfar. I would've preferred Koufos over RoLo myself and we couldn't even do that. I mean Jordan Bachnyski's out there and we're bringing in this Ovidijus Galdikas for SL -- two big Cs who in all likelihood, could've given us everything Robin Lopez will wind up giving us, probably more...No need to give RoLo $13mm now--that should've been our very first move, pre-Afflalo, to lure LMA or GM. SMH man...

At this point with the leftover cash--I'm hoping for Alexey Shved and Derrick Williams. And even that feels like a **** up because Shved was supposed to be an extra piece we had on the back burner that we supposedly were planning to exceed the cap to bring back after at least one tier 1 guy was in the fold. Could still try to sign Shved in that manner I guess...Jesus, what a mess. Just comes across like they didn't have a solid plan at all. Everything should've flowed much better, like dominos -- move B needed to come first (the lure for move A), then A, then the C/D moves...We went out and overpaid for a C/D guy first, then B and now there can be no A... This is why I would've looked to hook up multiple FAs all at once on one conference call or one of the first sit-downs...I was calling for that weeks ago because I was fearing they wouldn't have a proper plan in place and you know what, I was right--it doesn't look like they did.

Raise your hand if Aaron Afflalo and Robin Lopez gets your juices flowing, if that's the FA you envisioned with $27mm in cap room. Exactly...

I just read Isola's article and I am not a fan of his but he is right when he says David Falk would get Monroe a max deal and Phil failed when he didn't offer it. Conflicting reports about that but Wojo, Hahn, Herring etc. are all saying Monroe wasn't offered a max deal. If Monroe was lost because of that you have to give Phil a D- for free agency.

However, IF MONROE really wanted to go to New York, he would have gave Phil Jackson at least a chance to match...
Unless the Affalo signing turned him off as he wanted another TOP tier guy to join him

RonRon wrote:

CrushAlot wrote:

Finestrg wrote:What a bizarre-ass off-season. LOVED the draft but it's been followed up by the most lackluster, head-scratching FA period a team with cap space could possibly have...There's still time to salvage it I guess but man I swear, I don't get what they're doing at all. Robin Lopez? $12-13mm? Really??? I just don't see this move for the life of me. $12mm for Robin Lopez SINKS any chance we have of doing anything else significant at this point.. There was no rhyme or reason to anything they did or tried to do. They locked in Aaron Afflalo thinking that along with Melo and Porzingis, it would help lure Greg Monroe. It didn't. The man chose the Milwaukee Bucks over us... The Melo factor was non-existent here in FA btw... Who cares that Melo was already here? None of these FA do, I can tell you that!! Now we're stuck with Afflalo and I bet Phil deep down wishes he could have that back--so that's minus 8mm off the cap right there. Now we're at $19mm...Then they have a sit-down with LaMarcus Aldridge cancelled outright (how embarrassing is that?) because they want the guy to play C and apparently refuse to budge off the idea (how it reads to me)...I mean how 'bout a "well, that's not set in stone of course. Let's meet and we can talk about it"?? Now in a panic move, we go out and give RoLo $12-13mm which, as it turns out, probably should've been our very first move -- if we had gotten Lopez first, we could've sat down with Aldridge (or Monroe first I suppose) and talked the PF spot exclusively with each player, and thus had a much better shot at either guy. These guy's are both scoring 4s--they don't want to play the 5 and don't belong playing the 5 (I had Alexis Ajinca picked out for my starting C over a month ago). Amar'e took one for the team and did it but did he really want to play the 5 when he was here? No, he didn't. He was outspoken against it in fact...Now we bring in Lopez on top of Afflalo -- that's 8 + 12-13 = $21mm, only approx. $6mm left to spend now. You wanna tell me the plan now is to conserve the rest for the following off-season--nah, don't buy it. That was never their plan. They were talking to max FAs only hours ago.

I don't even care for Robin Lopez to be honest. He's a capable defensive backup 5 that we gave starter money to, albeit for 1 yr I understand, but the dollar amount just torpedoed any chance we have of doing anything else significant... For the money--I would've preferred Kosta Koufos--at least you can reason that KK still has untapped offensive ability that could still be developed (I would've saw to it if I were Phil and Fish). The college version of Kosta Koufos was a DAMN GOOD player, much better than what he's settled for being in the pro game thusfar. I would've preferred Koufos over RoLo myself and we couldn't even do that. I mean Jordan Bachnyski's out there and we're bringing in this Ovidijus Galdikas for SL -- two big Cs who in all likelihood, could've given us everything Robin Lopez will wind up giving us, probably more...No need to give RoLo $13mm now--that should've been our very first move, pre-Afflalo, to lure LMA or GM. SMH man...

At this point with the leftover cash--I'm hoping for Alexey Shved and Derrick Williams. And even that feels like a **** up because Shved was supposed to be an extra piece we had on the back burner that we supposedly were planning to exceed the cap to bring back after at least one tier 1 guy was in the fold. Could still try to sign Shved in that manner I guess...Jesus, what a mess. Just comes across like they didn't have a solid plan at all. Everything should've flowed much better, like dominos -- move B needed to come first (the lure for move A), then A, then the C/D moves...We went out and overpaid for a C/D guy first, then B and now there can be no A... This is why I would've looked to hook up multiple FAs all at once on one conference call or one of the first sit-downs...I was calling for that weeks ago because I was fearing they wouldn't have a proper plan in place and you know what, I was right--it doesn't look like they did.

Raise your hand if Aaron Afflalo and Robin Lopez gets your juices flowing, if that's the FA you envisioned with $27mm in cap room. Exactly...

I just read Isola's article and I am not a fan of his but he is right when he says David Falk would get Monroe a max deal and Phil failed when he didn't offer it. Conflicting reports about that but Wojo, Hahn, Herring etc. are all saying Monroe wasn't offered a max deal. If Monroe was lost because of that you have to give Phil a D- for free agency.

However, IF MONROE really wanted to go to New York, he would have gave Phil Jackson at least a chance to match...
Unless the Affalo signing turned him off as he wanted another TOP tier guy to join him

To me, the Afflalo move was done for two reasons: (1) to appease Melo by bringing in his friend and (2) to possibly lure Monroe here--maybe his name came up in the Monroe sit-down. I don't think Phil was really behind it either way and probably wishes he had it back. If we had saved that money, we could've signed Lopez first, got someone to play C and do some dirty work, and then sat down with Monroe and Aldridge and discussed playing the 4 spot exclusively with either guy. That should've been the play...Tough to get on Phil 100% on this I guess--by the time he figured this out, it was too late. And then there was no guarantee either guy would've seen RoLo as that much of a big-time piece to come play with anyway. Now with Afflalo and RoLo, our big moves are complete and there is no more shot at a type A FA, only 1 or 2 C/D moves left to make before considering the league minimum alternatives we can exceed the cap to add anyway. At this point I'm most excited about adding a potential jewel league-minimum guy or 2 (Maurice Ndour maybe, etc.). What does that tell ya?? A guy like that should've been icing on the cake...Not the free agency I planned on have here at all. It's very disappointing, esp. after such a productive draft.

I wonder what Stephen A Smith thinks of these moves -- Afflalo and Lopez. He hated the draft--imagine how he feels about these lackluster FA moves? That fool probably had a coronary on his vacation by now. LOL.