Silverfuel wrote:

eViL wrote:

Silverfuel wrote:

eViL wrote:

Silverfuel wrote:I see what you tried to do there. But sorry, its not going to work. We know the following, without the Melo trade you had one team and with the Melo team you have the present team.

you can't freeze time and say that if there was no trade, that's all the team would have been. that makes no sense.

Who is freezing time? You can only compare facts not compare facts and speculation because speculation will always look better. I will specualte we could have waited till this offseason and signed Dwill and Dwight and paired them up with Kevin Durant!

my point is you can't compare. your facts have no opposite counterpart to compare to. the team today would be completely different if there were no trade. the only true way to compare would be to compare the team today v. the alternate reality team where the trade didn't occur but subsequent moves that we can't accurately predict did occur.

that's why i'm focusing on performance. if the team performs well and wins in the next few seasons, it's a good trade. until then, juries out.

No man, thats not true. You don't want to compare last years team because you know it is not as good but that is all you can compare it to. I am not sure what you mean by no opposite counterpart but I think what you mean is your version of how he team would be built didn't happen so you cannot bring that up in this conversation. Thats true.

Regarding the team performance, if you relistically think we are getting out of the first round and competing in the second I think you will be disappointed. I think this team is too injury riddled for that this year.

P.S: Try to make it to the next meetup to chill with the crew. CashMoney and ramtour420 are hillarious. And the other regulars are fun to chill with.

yeah, the last two meetups i was out of town. maybe one more will go down and i'll be around. no more trips planned for a while.

back to my point:

i just think it's unfair to compare the team pre-trade v. the team today. the team pre-trade had assets that could have materialized in different ways that we have no idea how to quantify.

of course the team today is better than the pre-trade team. the team today not only has the possible benefit of the trade, but also the benefit of a draft and free agent acquisitions.

eViL wrote:

Silverfuel wrote:

eViL wrote:

Silverfuel wrote:

eViL wrote:

Silverfuel wrote:I see what you tried to do there. But sorry, its not going to work. We know the following, without the Melo trade you had one team and with the Melo team you have the present team.

you can't freeze time and say that if there was no trade, that's all the team would have been. that makes no sense.

Who is freezing time? You can only compare facts not compare facts and speculation because speculation will always look better. I will specualte we could have waited till this offseason and signed Dwill and Dwight and paired them up with Kevin Durant!

my point is you can't compare. your facts have no opposite counterpart to compare to. the team today would be completely different if there were no trade. the only true way to compare would be to compare the team today v. the alternate reality team where the trade didn't occur but subsequent moves that we can't accurately predict did occur.

that's why i'm focusing on performance. if the team performs well and wins in the next few seasons, it's a good trade. until then, juries out.

No man, thats not true. You don't want to compare last years team because you know it is not as good but that is all you can compare it to. I am not sure what you mean by no opposite counterpart but I think what you mean is your version of how he team would be built didn't happen so you cannot bring that up in this conversation. Thats true.

Regarding the team performance, if you relistically think we are getting out of the first round and competing in the second I think you will be disappointed. I think this team is too injury riddled for that this year.

P.S: Try to make it to the next meetup to chill with the crew. CashMoney and ramtour420 are hillarious. And the other regulars are fun to chill with.

yeah, the last two meetups i was out of town. maybe one more will go down and i'll be around. no more trips planned for a while.

back to my point:

i just think it's unfair to compare the team pre-trade v. the team today. the team pre-trade had assets that could have materialized in different ways that we have no idea how to quantify.

of course the team today is better than the pre-trade team. the team today not only has the possible benefit of the trade, but also the benefit of a draft and free agent acquisitions.

Silverfuel wrote:

yeah, the last two meetups i was out of town. maybe one more will go down and i'll be around. no more trips planned for a while.

back to my point:

i just think it's unfair to compare the team pre-trade v. the team today. the team pre-trade had assets that could have materialized in different ways that we have no idea how to quantify.

of course the team today is better than the pre-trade team. the team today not only has the possible benefit of the trade, but also the benefit of a draft and free agent acquisitions.

It's realistic. It's unfair to you because you didn't want to trade for Melo and had a different vision for the team but that is not fair to the rest of us who didn't share you vision.

man, i don't know what to say. i feel like i've tried to explain myself a bunch of times already.

let's examine what are you comparing here:

Team A. NY Knicks of today 3/30/12 (aka post-trade Knicks)

- vs -

Team B. NY Knicks of last year (pre-trade team)

the problem in comparing these two entities is that Team A has had the benefit of adding additional peices which helped Team A improve in addition to whatever benefits the trade may have had.

whereas, Team B still had many assets (in the form of draft picks, players, cap space, exceptions) which it could have used to improve and we will never know how those assets would have been used. by your comparison, you are basically wiping out the value of those assets despite the fact that you seem to be completely confident that we traded many of those assets to improve the team. can we at least agree that you think those assets are valuable?

if we can agree that those assets were valuable then it's very possible that Team B could have used those assets to improve itself in different ways. maybe they could have gotten more value. maybe they couldn't. we'll never know.

my main idea here is that there is no way to fairly compare Team A and Team B without knowing what Team B would have done to this point.

this is why i'm focusing on performance. if you don't think today's team is a win-now team then what are they? and let's also remember that the point of the trade is not to make Team A better than Team B. that is, actually, largely irrelevant. the point of the trade was to make Team A better than the other teams in the league. Team A and Team B are never going to play each other. so i'm judging the trade by Team A's performance against the competition it's facing.

i know you disagree with the benchmark i set. i'd like to know what you think a satisfactory end to this season will be.

if Team A never gets past the second round in the next four seasons, was it a good trade? i'd say no.

Silverfuel wrote:Allright evil, I gotta go hit the bars. I will get back to you tomorrow. Happy Friday bro, Go NY!!

you too bro. catch you at the next get-together.

Bonn1997 wrote:

eViL wrote:

Silverfuel wrote:

yeah, the last two meetups i was out of town. maybe one more will go down and i'll be around. no more trips planned for a while.

back to my point:

i just think it's unfair to compare the team pre-trade v. the team today. the team pre-trade had assets that could have materialized in different ways that we have no idea how to quantify.

of course the team today is better than the pre-trade team. the team today not only has the possible benefit of the trade, but also the benefit of a draft and free agent acquisitions.

It's realistic. It's unfair to you because you didn't want to trade for Melo and had a different vision for the team but that is not fair to the rest of us who didn't share you vision.

man, i don't know what to say. i feel like i've tried to explain myself a bunch of times already.

let's examine what are you comparing here:

Team A. NY Knicks of today 3/30/12 (aka post-trade Knicks)

- vs -

Team B. NY Knicks of last year (pre-trade team)

the problem in comparing these two entities is that Team A has had the benefit of adding additional peices which helped Team A improve in addition to whatever benefits the trade may have had.

whereas, Team B still had many assets (in the form of draft picks, players, cap space, exceptions) which it could have used to improve and we will never know how those assets would have been used. by your comparison, you are basically wiping out the value of those assets despite the fact that you seem to be completely confident that we traded many of those assets to improve the team. can we at least agree that you think those assets are valuable?

if we can agree that those assets were valuable then it's very possible that Team B could have used those assets to improve itself in different ways. maybe they could have gotten more value. maybe they couldn't. we'll never know.

my main idea here is that there is no way to fairly compare Team A and Team B without knowing what Team B would have done to this point.

this is why i'm focusing on performance. if you don't think today's team is a win-now team then what are they? and let's also remember that the point of the trade is not to make Team A better than Team B. that is, actually, largely irrelevant. the point of the trade was to make Team A better than the other teams in the league. Team A and Team B are never going to play each other. so i'm judging the trade by Team A's performance against the competition it's facing.

i know you disagree with the benchmark i set. i'd like to know what you think a satisfactory end to this season will be.

if Team A never gets past the second round in the next four seasons, was it a good trade? i'd say no.

You've explained it very well. It's not worth the effort you're putting into it though.

Silverfuel wrote:

eViL wrote:it's not just about my vision. that was more of a tongue in cheek post anyway. i was just trying to drive in my point that evaluating the trade by comparison to the old team was not a fair measure. my whole point was that the speculating would be out of control and that the better way to measure the trade would be the success of the team after the trade.

i'm sorry. maybe i overreacted to the Toronto loss, but this team got scraped. i'm glad they bounced back. don't act like you didn't see that 3rd quarter and wonder if this team was gonna revert back to the same old ****.

if you think this season doesn't count -- i'll give you that. reasonable minds can differ. i'm not ready to throw this season away. so i think it counts.

what do you consider success for this team now and in the future? i think it's fair to say if the team is successful the trade worked. only question is: how do you define success?

I think next year (with a healthy Amare) we compete with Chicago and Miami and make a run at the Eastern Conference Finals. That is atleast Game 7 2nd round.

i'd take that for next year. i also think we gotta get at least one ECF appearance in the next 4 years. maybe not this year or next year, but in Melo's 3rd and 4th full years here we need to really contend (i.e. at least ECF).

gunsnewing wrote:We are winning the East this year. Chicago & Miami will have no answer for our depth. Its not even going to be close actually! Oh and thats with or without Amare!

if that's the case then the Melo deal is a 100% success. that would be so hype!!

gunsnewing wrote:I'm serious I think the team may even be better without Amare and Melo playing the 4 and causing all kinds of matchup problems. We may not have Smith and Novak next year so the time to make that run is now! If Amare gets back then great just gotta hope him and Melo can coexist at a high level if not then I think they can win it all without him. We have the depth all we have to do is keep playing top notch D and come playoff time we can beat Miami & OKC. Not the least worried about Chicago in the playoffs. If not for Dantoni we would've swept them this year. They don't stand a chance against our deep roster. We should be right up there with the leagues best if we didn't wait til the last 3rd of the season to push MDA out and promote Woodson.

Really pulling for Woody and this team for all the damage MDA had done. Just repeated foul up after repeated foul up. I honestly believe Melo is the one reason to suggest for Lin to come off the bench. It's just blatantly obvious now. The $22million man had to say something to the stubborn inflexible coach to peel Lin's rear off the bench for the NJ game. Without Lin's temporary Linsanity, maybe MDA gets fired earlier, and we find our winning groove earlier with Woody, instead of hemorraghing losses to incompetent coaching.