You're not seriously trying to re-start this debate, are you?

Yes. If you want to call it a debate.

All right--if you want to re-start it, then yes, I think Sloan would at least play Malone a lot at center with Lee on the court, if not actually starting both. I'd play my best 5 and make the other team adjust to my players. I'd venture to say that Malone can guard any of those players you listed better than they can guard him and certainly better than Mark Eaton or Greg Ostertag could guard them. You don't still claim you'd start Ostertag over Lee, do you? I'm in disbelief and I need you to re-state it at least eight more times!

Dude, now I know for a fact that you either have never seen or do not recall Mark Eaton well. All the star centers back in the day said he was the toughest center in the NBA to score on. He made the all star team on his defense in '88, which wasn't even his best statistical season. He averaged 35 MPG based on his defensive abilities alone. So when you say that Malone could have guarded a center better than Eaton, you are so far out in left field that I can't quantify it.

Malone Could guard centers as well as Ostertag? The whole reason that Ostertag played was so he could guard Centers instead of Malone! And Ostertag averaged 1.7 blocks for his career, including 4 seasons where he averaged more than 2! That was playing about half the game. And when Sloan took out Ostertag, he did not play Malone out of position at center, he played Antoine Carr, or Greg Foster, or Thurl Bailey, or James Donaldson or....in other words, he played real centers at center, he did not play Malone at center, we don't have to speculate, we know this for fact.

And Sloan would not play a skinny PF like Lee at center. If Lee played with Malone at any point of Malone's career, he would see most of his minutes as Malone's backup, or Backing up the SF, and maybe very few minutes at center when all the real centers were in foul trouble.

Mark Eaton Career:

1982-83  	26  	UTA  	NBA  	81  	32  	18.9  	1.8  	4.4  	.414  	0.0  	0.0  	.000  	0.7  	1.1  	.656  	1.1  	4.6  	5.7  	1.4  	0.3  	3.4  	1.7  	3.2  	4.3
1983-84 	27 	UTA 	NBA 	82 	78 	26.1 	2.4 	5.1 	.466 	0.0 	0.0 	.000 	0.9 	1.5 	.593 	1.8 	5.5 	7.3 	1.4 	0.3 	4.3 	1.2 	3.7 	5.6
1984-85 	28 	UTA 	NBA 	82 	82 	34.3 	3.7 	8.2 	.449 	0.0 	0.0 		2.3 	3.3 	.712 	2.5 	8.8 	11.3 	1.5 	0.4 	5.6 	2.5 	3.8 	9.7
1985-86 	29 	UTA 	NBA 	80 	80 	31.9 	3.5 	7.4 	.470 	0.0 	0.0 		1.5 	2.5 	.604 	2.2 	6.3 	8.4 	1.3 	0.4 	4.6 	2.0 	3.5 	8.5
1986-87 	30 	UTA 	NBA 	79 	79 	31.7 	3.0 	7.4 	.400 	0.0 	0.0 		1.8 	2.7 	.657 	2.7 	6.2 	8.8 	1.3 	0.5 	4.1 	1.8 	3.5 	7.7
1987-88 	31 	UTA 	NBA 	82 	82 	33.3 	2.8 	6.6 	.418 	0.0 	0.0 		1.5 	2.3 	.623 	2.8 	5.9 	8.7 	0.7 	0.5 	3.7 	1.6 	3.9 	7.0
1988-89 	32 	UTA 	NBA 	82 	82 	35.5 	2.3 	5.0 	.462 	0.0 	0.0 		1.6 	2.4 	.660 	2.8 	7.5 	10.3 	1.0 	0.5 	3.8 	1.7 	3.5 	6.2
1989-90 	33 	UTA 	NBA 	82 	82 	27.8 	1.9 	3.7 	.527 	0.0 	0.0 		1.0 	1.4 	.669 	2.1 	5.2 	7.3 	0.5 	0.4 	2.5 	0.9 	2.9 	4.8
1990-91 	34 	UTA 	NBA 	80 	80 	32.3 	2.1 	3.7 	.579 	0.0 	0.0 		0.9 	1.4 	.634 	2.3 	6.1 	8.3 	0.6 	0.5 	2.4 	1.2 	3.7 	5.1
1991-92 	35 	UTA 	NBA 	81 	81 	25.0 	1.3 	3.0 	.446 	0.0 	0.0 		0.6 	1.1 	.598 	1.9 	4.2 	6.1 	0.5 	0.4 	2.5 	0.7 	3.0 	3.3
1992-93 	36 	UTA 	NBA 	64 	57 	17.3 	1.1 	2.0 	.546 	0.0 	0.0 		0.5 	0.8 	.700 	1.1 	3.0 	4.1 	0.3 	0.3 	1.2 	0.7 	2.2 	2.8
Career 			NBA 	875 	815 	28.8 	2.4 	5.2 	.458 	0.0 	0.0 	.000 	1.2 	1.9 	.649 	2.1 	5.8 	7.9 	1.0 	0.4 	3.5 	1.5 	3.4 	6.0

Karl Malone can guard centers as well as Mark Eaton...Cripes!

oohah

Posted by Bonn1997:

I just remember that he was white and looked funny.

You shouldn't be allowed to wear purple knee braces. I'd rather just risk injury anyway.

Posted by bitty41:

The thing you can blame Zach for is being one of the 10 worst defensive big men in the NBA. That is the other factor that seriously harms his value.

I don't know if I agree with that considering that there is a lot of horrible defense being played in the NBA. Then again I can't say with absolute certainty that is true or not b/c I don't watch every NBA game.

Frankly, the cap element annoyed me, too, at the time, only because we had an (albeit it small, with Isiah at the helm) chance of being under the cap earlier. The Zach acquisition pushed that back yet again, just as Isiah's acquisitions of guys like Marbury, Crawford, Francis and Rose did. Make sense, bitty?

I admit im not a salary capologist lol. But I've said this to TMS and a few other times couldn't the Knicks very well still be under the cap theoretically come the 2010 season which is roughly the same time period it would have been had the Knicks kept Francis? As long as you don't do anything crazy between now and then, with a good draft pick (who'll be making less then 3 million) they could be in a pretty good situation in terms of cap. Or am I not seeing something.

The $58 mil figure in 2010 (which would have been $42 mil wo/ Zach) assumes that they will not keep Lee, Nate, Balkman, Chandler, or Collins. All of those players have either team options or qualifying offers (which aren't counted in calculating future salaries). Those players plus our 1st rd picks will probably put us around $75 mil. Then the inevitable continued starphucking will probably put us around $130 mil.


[Edited by - bonn1997 on 02-04-2008 8:43 PM]

Posted by bitty41:

Bonn

Damn how low do you want the cap lol? But my point is: that the Knicks will be in control of their situation meaning that you just don't have all this money being sucked up one way or another which is currently the situation. They'll have the choice about how much they want to push their cap they're just aren't stuck with nowhere to go. Which is what many people on here make it out to be. 58 million to start off (not counting any other extensions) is still not a bad starting point.

They could have given out extensions to players worth giving them to (at least Lee and Balkman and Nate if he matures) and still been below that $58 mil figure.

Bonn

Are you serious there is not one team in the NBA who has a salary cap of 42 million besides the Knicks can sign all those guys (even though Lee is the only one I would break my back to sign) to whatever extensions they want. Again I ask you would you be complaining if the Knicks doled out a 12 million dollar a year extension to Lee thus hurting our cap?

Posted by bitty41:

Bonn

Are you serious there is not one team in the NBA who has a salary cap of 42 million besides the Knicks can sign all those guys (even though Lee is the only one I would break my back to sign) to whatever extensions they want. Again I ask you would you be complaining if the Knicks doled out a 12 million dollar a year extension to Lee thus hurting our cap?

Teams don't have different salary caps. Do you mean a $42 mil payroll (not salary cap)?
The payroll surely would be above $42 mil but they'd be getting a lot more out of it. They could extend Lee and Balkman, and use the MLE each year on good role players and still be below that $58 mil figure instead of having fat Zach and NOT having Lee and MLE signings. I can't answer the question about Lee without knowing how he progresses over the next two years but I would rather have him now than Zach and I think all GMs other than Isiah would.

Posted by Bonn1997:

Well if Eaton was as great as you're saying then I'd probably start him. I barely remember the guy. I just remember that he was white and looked funny and remember that wasn't good enough for me to remember anything else about him. You still didn't answer my question, though: Would you start Ostertag or Lee? I answered your question all 12 times you asked it!

[Edited by - bonn1997 on 02-04-2008 8:14 PM]

Actually your answer was move Malone to center. But jerry Sloan answered it too. Karl Malone Barely ever played center in his career.

When you have one of the best PF's of all time, you don't move him over to center to make minutes for david Lee. You don't slide John Stockton to shooting guard to make minutes for Jordan Farmar either. You play the greatest players at their positions at their positions, you don't move them over for role players.

To answer the second scenario: Do you start David Lee over Ostertag? Starting Lee over Ostertag would mean Lee plays center, and that would not happen. Ostertag was a stiff, but he played d, averaging 1.7 blocks for his career. More importantly, he is a legitimate NBA center whereas David Lee is physically a tweener of SF/PF, though he plays like a PF/C. Lee can't guard the centers that Ostertag guarded. Jerry Sloan played players at their proper positions.

David Lee would probably have averaged 20 MPG on the Jazz, backing up Malone and guys like Bryon Houston at SF. He wouild get some spot minutes at center when Osterfag was in foul trouble.

That is reality.

RE: Eaton He wasn't so great but he was very tough defensively, he was big as hell and he knew how to block shots.

oohah


[Edited by - oohah on 04-02-2008 9:52 PM]

Posted by oohah:

Posted by Bonn1997:

Well if Eaton was as great as you're saying then I'd probably start him. I barely remember the guy. I just remember that he was white and looked funny and remember that wasn't good enough for me to remember anything else about him. You still didn't answer my question, though: Would you start Ostertag or Lee? I answered your question all 12 times you asked it!

[Edited by - bonn1997 on 02-04-2008 8:14 PM]

Actually your answer was move Malone to center. But jerry Sloan answered it too. Karl Malone Barely ever played center in his career.

When you have one of the best PF's of all time, you don't move him over to center to make minutes for david Lee. You don't slide John Stockton to shooting guard to make minutes for Jordan Farmar either. You play the greatest players at their positions at their positions, you don't move them over for role players.

To answer the second scenario: Do you start David Lee over Ostertag? Starting Lee over Ostertag would mean Lee plays center, and that would not happen. Ostertag was a stiff, but he played d, averaging 1.7 blocks for his career. More importantly, he is a legitimate NBA center whereas David Lee is physically a tweener of SF/PF, though he plays like a PF/C. Lee can't guard the centers that Ostertag guarded. Jerry Sloan played players at their proper positions.

David Lee would probably have averaged 20 MPG on the Jazz, backing up Malone and guys like Bryon Houston at SF. He wouild get some spot minutes at center when Osterfag was in foul trouble.

That is reality.

RE: Eaton He wasn't so great but he was very tough defensively, he was big as hell and he knew how to block shots.

oohah


[Edited by - oohah on 04-02-2008 9:52 PM]

Well you can't say Sloan played players at their natural positions and say Lee would get many of his minutes at backup SF and C (along with PF). As for Malone at C: Plenty of teams move their PFs to C for portions of the games. That's the norm now for the good, 2 way PFs and if Sloan did it, he'd just be ahead of his time. Lee's good enough to play more than 20 mpg and I think he'd get killed by SFs (far more so than Malone would get beaten by backup Cs, who can't even score anyway).

[Edited by - Bonn1997 on 02-05-2008 07:21 AM]

Where did I say I wanted it at $42 mil? (Or what do you mean by "this unreasonably low level" if you don't mean the $42 mil figure?)

First off I was semi-joking but was just making the point that even at the 58 million (minus the extensions of our young guys) thats not a terrible figure in the scheme of things. At that point the Knicks will be at least in control of their situation. Meaning that if they that they had an serious chance at a major free-agent they would be in a position to control where they want to go in terms of cap. Like I said to Solace other then David Lee the rest of our young players I would be willing to part with if the Knicks had a big-time player in their sights.

I even said "The payroll surely would be above $42 mil." This is like the TMS posts yesterday where it took him 10 posts to portray one very simple message!

I understand your message very clearly but I think you guys are exaggerating just a tad bit when saying that a cap is completely destroyed because of Zach's deal. When in reality if the Knicks hired someone very displined, smart, savy as their next (though I have very little hope of this happening) the Knicks could still be in a relatively decent situation come 2010? Thats really what my question boiled down to is it or is it not possible come 2010 for the Knicks to have their cap at a reasonable level I understand all the variables but if the Knicks cap was even at 70 million thats not terrible its not under and there would still be room to trim off even more cap.

I think the problem is that you've made up your mind that Zach's contract is killing us and there is no room in your brain for any other possibilities.

If Lee keeps up this level, then I think several teams would give him more than an MLE contract and probably about $8 to 9 mil/season (which is what I'd offer him). And I don't think any team (other than the Knicks) would offer Zach that much money as an FA because of all his character problems and selfishness on offense.

I agree Lee is worth more then a MLE but do even have an orginal thought anymore about Randolph you were at least more funny when you called him fat.