oakley was traded for camby.
starks, mills and cumming were traded for spree.
ewing was on the downside of his career.

van gundy refuses to play camby as a protest to ernie.
team underachieves and is out of the playoffs in the final month of the strike season.
checketts fires ernie.
knicks go on a run.
make the playoffs.
h20 hits game 5 runner in the lane.
knicks sweep atlanta.
running game takes over for the slow, grind it out ways of the 90's knicks.
ewing plays on torn achilles and is out for the playoffs.
van gundy is forced to give camby minutes.
camby, spree, and h20 carry us to the finals.
manage a win against a far superior spurs team and lose in the finals.

the fallout:

- van gundy is heralded as saving the season, "jeff van gundy" chants at end of atlanta series.
- ernie grunfeld fired and watches the team he put together make the finals.
- ewing's role is starting to be questioned as spree, h20, and camby took the team to the finals.
- due to his performance during these playoffs...beginning stages of $100 mil deal for h20 is in motion.
- knicks "one player away" philosophy is still in effect.

so i ask this, was that magical run for the '99 team a great season? or was it the catalyst for the downfall of the organization? h20 contract is a byproduct. ewing's role being questioned is a byproduct. jeff van gundy's rep as a top head coach is a byproduct and somewhat misplaced. the hiring of scott layden is a byproduct. the firing of dave checketts is a byproduct. so at the end of the day, everything has gone downhill from that run.

what do you guys think?

No. All the knicks had to do was let keep Ewing in his final year, instead of trading him for horrible cap unfriendly contracts (Glen Rice and the rest of them bums). Let Ewing walk and the Knicks would have been under the cap. Also, they overpaid for Houston. No one was even close to offering Houston 100mil.

I agree that the 99 season extolled a high price. It cost us Ernie for Layden, which was awful (also left us without a real GM for the 99 draft where we passed on Artest, but knowing Ernie's draft skills Artest was no given with him). I agree that we overrated JVG somewhat from that run.

But I think the main price of that run was that we were led to believe we had a "clutch" squad that could make a run anytime it got to the playoffs and that if we made the playoffs even as an 8 seed we could make a run to the Finals again when really the only reason we did so was a wacky short season. The run kept us in the "one player away" philosophy and led to the Ewing trade which is where the real downhill turn started.

It was fun while it lasted, but we paid the cost over the next five years.

In no way did our run force any of those bad decisions to happen we could have easily had that run and still not paid houston tht much not fired checkets and not traded ewing... .. . . . . . Even if u make that arguemtn, it was worth it

Posted by bigbeast:

No. All the knicks had to do was let keep Ewing in his final year, instead of trading him for horrible cap unfriendly contracts (Glen Rice and the rest of them bums). Let Ewing walk and the Knicks would have been under the cap. Also, they overpaid for Houston. No one was even close to offering Houston 100mil.

agreed. That finals run was totally worth it. We were so good that year thatwe felt we could beat the Spurs and had Ewing & LJ been healthy we would've put up a great fight.

The 99' playoffs was a "blessing".

And I don't think blessings are ever wrong.

djsunyc, why did you fail to give "L" his props for what he did in the playoffs?

Where's the love.

hahaha. LJ use to kill me when he would come on the court with "naps" on his face.

That wasn't cool, LJ. That wasn't cool man...

A series of Organizational failures let to a series of bad decisions.

Nice thread. Sounds familiar.

Even if allans contract was 30 mil less, we still way over the cap unless we let Ewing walk.

Allans contract is overrated to our demise.

Ewing trade for Rice and beans was our downfall.

Hell, we gave Shandon 20 million to walk. Thats phuched up!

Posted by jaydh:

Posted by Nalod:

Even if allans contract was 30 mil less, we still way over the cap unless we let Ewing walk.

Allans contract is overrated to our demise.

Ewing trade for Rice and beans was our downfall.

Hell, we gave Shandon 20 million to walk. Thats phuched up!

allan would have been tradable if he wasnt maxed out, thats all i was saying.

The biggest offer on the table was $50mm from Chicago. All the Knicks had to do was give him $60 but they gave him $100. Houston loves NY he wouldn't leave to go to play on the TerriBULLS which at the time they were

Posted by jaydh:

Posted by gunsnewing:

Posted by jaydh:

Posted by Nalod:

Even if allans contract was 30 mil less, we still way over the cap unless we let Ewing walk.

Allans contract is overrated to our demise.

Ewing trade for Rice and beans was our downfall.

Hell, we gave Shandon 20 million to walk. Thats phuched up!

allan would have been tradable if he wasnt maxed out, thats all i was saying.

The biggest offer on the table was $50mm from Chicago. All the Knicks had to do was give him $60 but they gave him $100. Houston loves NY he wouldn't leave to go to play on the TerriBULLS which at the time they were

i thought the pistons(the team that drafted him) offered him a $60-sumthing mil contract.

As far as I know, the rumor was that some teams, maybe Detroit, Chicago and the Clippers were set to offer around 6yrs at $72 million. 6yrs $80 million would have been fair on both sides.

Isles, how can you blame Isiah for putting every nail in the coffin when Layden traded away the Nene pick and Camby for damaged goods, signed Clarence Weatherspoon to a MLE and gave Shandon Anderson and Howard Eisley two of the most ridiculous contract extensions of all time? Not to mention his poor handling of the Sprewell situation, which, granted was not handled well by Sprewell or Dolan but good have been defused by a better GM. How can you kill Isiah for everyone pick he traded away when Layden traded away three first rounders in three years from 2000 to 2002?

I'm not saying Isiah gets a pass because Layden was so awful, but at least Isiah has brought in a Hall of Fame, high profile coach, drafted well, traded picks for actual young talent like Marbury, Curry, and he essentially got Crawford for free. He handled Houston's and JYD's retirements well so that both players are still with the organization and saved the team the maximum ammount of money possible on those two retirements. He handled the Herb Williams thing well, which could have been very ugly. Isiah has done a good job. Obviously, the results have yet to show up on the court, but I think it's ridiculous to say that adding two quality young big men in Frye and Curry and a slew of complimentary players is adding hammering the nails in our coffin. It's called giving this franchise a future. You can argue with his methods, and with the gift of hindsight pick a path that looks better now, but I think he has done a good job winning the fans back and building a young, talented team with one of the best coaches in the game leading them. In two years. Layden's first two years were spent turning Patrick Ewing into Shandon Anderson and Howard Eisley, destroying our cap for the foreseeable future and trading away every pick we ever got.