Isiah is going to prove his worth as a coach once all of the players come back from suspensions/injuries and he has to settle on a legitimate rotation. They have now had a winning streak, certain guys have played well, and it'll be sometime in January, meaning the mix and match time of the first two months of the season have passed.

If he moves Lee out of the lineup, IMO, that is unacceptable. He's arguably the 2nd best rebounder in the conference (behind the Man Child in Orlando) and he has played FAR TOO WELL for Isiah to validate a move to the bench.

Lets not discuss what the lineup will look like (since who the hell knows what's going on Isiah's head, probably fantasies of a nude Anucha Browne Sanders), let's talk about what it should look like.

starting 5: Marbury and Q, with Jeffries, Lee, and Curry

This gives the Knicks a good balance of size, defense, and scoring. Marbury has played well of late (and I think a big reason why is Franchise being out), Q has stroked it all season, Isiah is adamant about Jeffries being the key to the Knicks defense, and the Lee/Curry combo up front has been very promising.

6th man: Crawford (arguably the best role for him due to his streakiness/ability to score in bunches).
Frye and Balkman should also see steady minutes as the 7th and 8th guys, respectively.

After that, I really have no problem if Isiah uses the contingent of Nate, Big Snacks (James), Cato, Rose, et al at varying minutes per game according to the opponent.

Francis just does not belong on this team. There is no place for him. Marbury plays better without him, Francis himself has not played well at all (clearly he is a shell of the guy with the 48' vert from Maryland), and I dont think Isiah is obligated to play him at all if its for the best of the team. Buy that bum out, or trade him for $0.10 on the dollar.

A legitimate 8-man rotation with guys at the end of the bench coming in for varying reasons, in my opinion, gives the Knicks the best chance.

[Edited by - bigsm00th on 12-24-2006 3:49 PM]

the rotation is the biggest problem IMO... We need to stop playing against other teams matchups and make other teams match up to us.

Play who we play, and keep it that way

Posted by simrud:

IT has no clue. He just throws players together and prays for the best. He is one of the worst coaches I have ever seen. The only positive is that team is scoring ok, and that with all the one dimensional offensive players we have.

He hasn't done so badly developing Curry or Lee...Plying the big lineup against Chicago wasn't bad either...'Worst' is a little strong no?

Posted by Elite:

the rotation is the biggest problem IMO... We need to stop playing against other teams matchups and make other teams match up to us.

Play who we play, and keep it that way

Bingo! Please speak to Isiah. Make other teams match up to us. If a mathup goes against us during a game thats what coachs are for. To make in game adjustments

>>We need to stop playing against other teams matchups and make other teams match up to us.

Absolutely. Which is why the flexibility of Jeffries on the defensive end is a huge plus.

I like travla's starting five with Frye as sweet-shooting sixth man until Quentin's back pain shows improvement

Posted by BigSm00th:

Isiah is going to prove his worth as a coach once all of the players come back from suspensions/injuries and he has to settle on a legitimate rotation. They have now had a winning streak, certain guys have played well, and it'll be sometime in January, meaning the mix and match time of the first two months of the season have passed.

look if you're waiting for the whole roster to be 100% you're just going to be disappointed. it's a tough game, every team has to deal with injuries and we play a lot of guys with injury/conditioning histories. we've had it rough, but a good chunk of that was our own doing with the suspensions exacerbating our shorthanded situation. i've never accepted injuries as an excuse for any team, especially not one as overstocked with redundant pieces and no franchise player like ours.

i think any team we put on the floor should be able to win, as our mini-streak showed. may even do better than when we're playing without a few people (addition by subtraction).

i don't particularly like what i'm seeing and hearing from IT the coach, but i'll give him the promised year for the team to prove something.

Apparently it should be 10 or 11 guys since we have established that an 8 man rotation will make everyone tired.

I think what helped the knicks during the 3 game win streak, wasn't the short rotation as much as not playing three gaurds at a time. Something IT should continue to avoid when his gaurds are all healthy.

if it needs to be 8 man i say:

Curry
Frye
Lee
Jamal
Stephon

Bench: Q Rich, Jeffries, Kato

With Nate playing sparingly

Posted by BigSm00th:

clearly the 8man rotation paid dividends, and IT would've had to go deeper into his bench in that last game, which was the 4th game in 5 nights (and i believe 2 of those games were OT)

You're right, there were back-to-back overtime games, the first of which was double-overtime.

oohah