I can't help but think about all the championship teams in the last 2 decades, all seem to be dominatded by a veteren core, and mayby 1 or 2 young stars. I think back to when most knick fans use to complain about how old the knicks roster was, but yet we were averaging 50+ wins a season.

The rebuild mode in the NBA is so over-rated it should have some sort of cluas in he next cba. I mean when you look at how many coaches get fired, players get traded, teams lose money, and fans become disinterested in there on teams, why would any franchise owner would want to start from scratch. It takes years to develope a player in this league.

So when you guys talk about trading vets like steve and steph,Q, for the likes of young talant, think about the teams that usually win rings, Bulls, SA, Detroit, Lakers, Miami, rockets, and our own knicks, who should have had a ring in 97( if it was'nt for the suspensions, or the 99 team that loss Ewing at the wrong time.

Then think to yourself is it better to have talanted young team with plenty of depth or a well balanced team with great chemistry. I prefer the latter because no matter how talanted a team you have , it means nothing with out chemistry.
Take a look around the NBA and tell me how many players have been with the current team for more the 7 seasons ( other the TD)
you would be lucky to find 10, out of 400 players thats horrible.

This Knick roster doesnt even have a core, Steph who has only been here 3 seasons has the longest tenure, and I read a million trade ideas a week. I would prefer that every single player on my team bring something different to the table, not entirely different, but at least specialize in something.

Balkman/Lee
Nate/crawford
Steph/francis
cato/james

Fry, Q, mardy and Curry thats the only players that we have no duplicates of. And who is running a ten man roster to begin with.

Fans who like to play fantasy games are pritching for never ended changes.
They need never ending exuses.
Same actually true about some GM's, owners, coaches
They are just losers regardless of age of their players

a lot of teams hhave to rebuild at some point, you look at the Spurs and how good they are with vets, well remember how terrible they were at one point even with David Robinson? they needed to get younger and drafted Duncan. rebuilding isn't purging your roster of older players and just keeping that roster until they start winning games. you get young players, play them for a year, see which one or two who fit in and which ones don't. you keep the ones that fit, shed the ones that don't, replace them with veteran free agents, rinse,rather,repeat every season until you have something that works. eventually if everything goes right you have a balance between younger players and veterans.

spurs drafted Robinson, Duncan, Parker & Ginobili.

Lakers drafted Kobe.

Pistons- they drafted Prince and Stackhouse who turned into Rip. They drafted Hill who turned into Wallace.

In the NBA, the draft is the mechanism for building up assets.

I do think Isiah is on the right track. Lee and Frye are top notch guys and I believe that Frye can bounch back. Nate is the kind of low IQ kid we don't need.

Jeffries also can be a nice piece. And yes, I believe in Eddy and his ability to still get better.

Our problem is not far fetched regarding getting the RIGHT pieces around Eddy and those with good winning character and good basketball IQ.

My fear is we gonna Starphuch ourselves again with a max contract on the decline. We tend to overpay for these guys either in salary or in trade. Or both.

Posted by arkrud:

Bbal team is a system (at least should be) and any system required Architect and Administrator
First is assembling the team (GM) and see it in perspective to the future using his skills or skilled professionals he managed to hire. Second (Coach) is implementing and supporting the system making adjustment here and there but still in the boundaries of the system.
Club can get lucky with one guy and unlucky with another (character, personal problems, injuries, illness, etc.). But the club with the system and direction can adjust to any loss and make use of any lucky bounce.
With Spurs, pistons, Lakers, jazz, Dallas we see the result but look at what they done to get there. And this is establishing and maintaining the working system which produced wins and championships.
The failures we see in NY and elsewhere are failures of GM in first place and coach in second. Players are irrelevant. Even stars. They are actually stars only because of the system which makes them stars.

Well put. "Organizational dysfuntionality" is our trademark. In the Dolan house, we take a collectoin of raw talent and mix it in with a Larry Brown and the Ego of Isiah and produce a 23 win season. Then win 9 more games than that and call it a success. TO reward such a shallow increase we extend the architects contract.

The solution? Make a radical departure. Dolan should realize that Mills guy does very little and hire a Checketts type guy to run the garden like a business, then let that guy pick his GM to execute a plan that he decides on.

Peter Uberoth, Bill Clinton, Colin Powell, Jack Welch, Sandy Weil, or any of our dead presidents would be willing to take a 5-10 mil a year salary and oversee an entertainment company that actually has a legitimate plan to execture with substance. If your gonna Starphuch, get a real Starphucher to come in and kick some ass!

Subtance, thats what MSG needs!

Posted by tkf:

Posted by Nalod:

I do think Isiah is on the right track. Lee and Frye are top notch guys and I believe that Frye can bounch back. Nate is the kind of low IQ kid we don't need.

Jeffries also can be a nice piece. And yes, I believe in Eddy and his ability to still get better.

Our problem is not far fetched regarding getting the RIGHT pieces around Eddy and those with good winning character and good basketball IQ.

My fear is we gonna Starphuch ourselves again with a max contract on the decline. We tend to overpay for these guys either in salary or in trade. Or both.

good post nalod. One thing I must say with the curry trade, although Isiah most likely overpaid and curry is not a fan favorite around here, one thing usually holds true for guys like curry. guys who are 6'11, great athlete, with loads of upside and play center and are still very young. You have to pay! Curry was 22 when we got him, knicks had to pay, and If I were chicago I would ask a lot. The key is to stay away from giving up the farm for guys on the decline, to me that is hard to justify, especially when that one person is not going to make you a real contender...

It's not one guy - Timmy, Mo, jalen, Steve, Marbs, Rose, Big Snack, Jeffries, Q, Mohammed..., LB, Lenny... A lot of waste for such a short time. This is not even a failure - it's diagnosis... I agree that is was some hope with Stephan and still some hope with Eddy but even complete moran can do better.
There are always some hopes with young players but this all bunch was around for a while with their "potential" writtenn all over. I would say Moran who want to prove that he is the only one who understand.