Posted by RemBee76:

2. Isiah may not be a perfect GM (OK, that’s an understatement) but he doesn't get enough credit for turning around a big part of the losing culture of this organization...the fact that for years it treated the draft as a joke. It isn't just that people should concede that "Isiah is good at drafting", as most people do.

i think that treating the draft as a joke and the losing culture were not at all the same thing... the ewing years we by no means had a losing culture and yet we almost never used picks well. and now (as i go into a semi-runon of my own so bear with me), although i think we haven't gotten consistently good value for draft picks in trades (especially 2nd rounders), the picks we've kept have been used well, and yet i still think we have a losing culture. winning 33 games and calling it significant progress is losing culture. so is making excuses for losing seasons. not showing up against bad teams is as well. we aren't winning, and it doesn't seem to bug our players and coach enough to say we have a winning culture. and i think that's independent of how we're using our draft picks...

EDIT: complaining about other teams running up the score is losing culture.

But long after he is gone, Isiah's legacy for this franchise will be its discovery that the draft has worth for finding and building talent on the team. Sounds like a no-brainer, but the fact escaped this organization for over 25 years. Ewing, apparently, wasn’t enough.

can't disagree there. we're talking dolan here. anyone else comes in to GM for him, dolan will expect them to make good use of picks the way IT has, for all his faults elsewhere.

[Edited by - Masterplan on 06-07-2007 2:59 PM]

IT's draftingg is clearly the only thing keeping him from being run out of town. In Lee, he drafted a guy with lottery talent at the end of the first round. If Balkman makes a similar one-year improvement, we will be saying the same thing about him this time next year. Nate and Frye for all their faults have talent and both could turn into solid players. Collins looks like he has great potential. If he develops a jumpshot and some post moves, he will create all types of matchup problems for other teams and relieve the burden from Marbury to have to run the offense. Few GMs go three straight drafts with getting quality players that look like they will stick in the league for 6-7 years unless they have very high draft picks and even then, it is not guaranteed.

[Edited by - thegame on 06-07-2007 3:48 PM]

Posted by RemBee76:

Posted by Masterplan:
i think that treating the draft as a joke and the losing culture were not at all the same thing.

That’s like saying Losing and having a Losing Culture are not the same thing or related.

OK... but we're not winning. i don't think that 33/23/33 wins is proof of a losing culture - there could be plenty of other reasons to have those win totals. but it sure isn't proof of having shed a losing culture.

The biggest contributor to this team’s failures are the fact that we operated like we were surrounding a super-star with complementary talent after Ewing’s prime and even after he was no longer here. Blowing off the draft like it was just gravy was a huge part of that, if not the biggest part. Until this team started doing what the successful teams have been doing from jump, we never had any hope of changing that losing culture.

And yes, this was a problem even while “winning while never winning it all” with Ewing. How did the Spurs get the complementary talent around Duncan again?

see that's my point that you quoted above. we didn't win it all, but by NO means did we have a "losing culture." the losing was NOT tolerated, not by fans, not by ewing or the other players. players perceived as underachieving were given hell, justly or unjustly.

fast-forward to today. we cry about injuries, pat eddy curry on the back and call him an all-star while we barely sniff .500. which team had the losing culture? IMO it's clear-cut.

Yes, we are still losing, no news flash there. But we are turning it around, and the talents we have picked up in the draft are a big part of that.

no, we *may* turn this around. we definitely have the talent and potential to do so. but it's NOT the sure thing you're making it out to be. if we don't, it will be because of our losing culture and all that goes with it - entitlement, excuses, etc.

Posted by RemBee76:

Before the draft a few years ago on that fateful summer we hired Larry Brown and acquired Eddy Curry a great piece was published in the New York Times about a study that was done (can't remember if it was the author(s) themselves who did it) which ranked the NBA teams according to their draft prowess ever since the lottery came about (or possibly before).

How is that for a run-on sentence?

The ranking was done by comparing a player's draft position to how he did in the NBA, allotting the player points according to that system then looking at the teams with the most points (or something like that).

Needless to say teams like San Antonio and Dallas were near the top of the list, and probably even less surprising the Knicks were in dead last. Not even a lucky pick late in the draft until Trevor Ariza after Isiah Thomas' first full year. Imagine how that ranking would look now after Renaldo Balkman, David Lee and perhaps even Mardy Collins. Nate Robinson and Channing Frye were heralded rookies league wide last year though their stock has dropped since. I'd imagine that our hapless Knicks even moved up a few spots in that ranking.

I bring this up for two reasons...

1. Id really love if someone else could remember this study and give me enough info on it so that I could find it again.

2. Isiah may not be a perfect GM (OK, that’s an understatement) but he doesn't get enough credit for turning around a big part of the losing culture of this organization...the fact that for years it treated the draft as a joke. It isn't just that people should concede that "Isiah is good at drafting", as most people do.

But long after he is gone, Isiah's legacy for this franchise will be its discovery that the draft has worth for finding and building talent on the team. Sounds like a no-brainer, but the fact escaped this organization for over 25 years. Ewing, apparently, wasn’t enough.

And yes, I know Isiah traded picks away too. But at least they were for Eddy Curry, not Clearence Weatherspoon or a decrepit Mark Jackson.

So…any help on that article would be appreciated.

The jury's still out on these picks. Especially the acquistion of Curry. This team should've been more than a 33 win team. Thomas's credibility for 'turning it around' is in question. If the S.O.B. wouldn't of followed Layden's lead and furthered our suffering of cap relief, you know, some money in the bank to spend on a true and available superstar, we'd be in much, much better shape right now. I don't go for this. This is not any kind of improvement. We need to save our money desperately and even more desperately, we need to get rid of some of these pieces, which goes back to my first complaint about Thomas spending recklesly!. Granted, he made the best picks, in some bad spots, that he could, that he got his own self into. Which also goes to show you that he knows talent, but he has shown himself to be a horrible manager for 'positioning' to make those picks, those deals more reliable. Make no mistakes here folks. And I've said it over and over again and again 'we are dealing in peanuts here'! We aren't looking at a practical, viable future. We are making unecessary desperate moves, Layden did it, and for some reason Thomas started doing it. We have a long, long ways to go before we even have another chance to correct these errors! People here are talking about O'Neal, Artest and so on, when we should be seriously talking about Kobe, LeBron, Carmelo, Wade and so on to name a few. Thomas blew it! And guess what....we can't even make a move for O'Neal or Artest! We're a joke in the league. I hate Thomas more than I thought!!! He needs to get the hell out of NY!

And I want to remind all of you. Curry with the Knicks are 1-7 against the bulls since they sent him over. Paxon is a good actor. And the bulls have gotten nothing but better since Curry left. Remember, the first four years Curry was there, it was the same old, same old result that we are now dealing with. Unless this Knicks team can pull out 45 to 50 wins next year, I ain't buying this.

Man, you can't make a simple point on this message board without getting drenched in venom.

Sorry, but you all can’t see the forest for the trees. For the first time in over 30 years this team has built a solid core of youth primarily through the draft. You can pick apart each selection Isiah made using your patented 20/20 hindsight glasses, but it always just leaves me wishing someone could do some psychoanalysis of the self-loathing Knick Fan that consistently undervalues the players he has while coveting his neighbor’s point guard.

Even Isiah’s harshest critics have to recognize the solid work he has done in the draft, and don’t think the rest of the league hasn’t recognized Isiah’s drafting skill. Frye got all kinds of attention last year and I’m not yet convinced that he is the bust Knick fans claim (hope?) he is. Whose coach was it that said you simply can not guard Nate Robinson? Lee and Balkman are commodities other teams are asking about, and yeah, thanks to Larry Brown the Orlando Magic are now enjoying the services of Trevor Ariza.

Not enough? Time will tell, but you can’t deny that it represents a sea-change in the way the Knicks organization operates. Again, for decades we didn’t get even lucky with one late draft pick while rarely getting any value out of the draft at all. We didn’t pick up a solid guy with our late picks by accident. You have to try really hard to reach that level of drafting ineptitude and as an organization you simply can not operate that way. Thanks to Isiah we aren’t, and probably, hopefully, no longer will.

Now spit away. Good thing I brought my umbrella despite the beautiful weather outside.

Posted by RemBee76:

You can pick apart each selection Isiah made using your patented 20/20 hindsight glasses, but it always just leaves me wishing someone could do some psychoanalysis of the self-loathing Knick Fan that consistently undervalues the players he has while coveting his neighbor’s point guard.

Word...Did I say word? Word up. Word is bond. Word booty.

If we had tried to wait out the contracts we had when Isiah came here. We'd be looking at a losing team but not a guarantee of a great draft pick that could lift us up to a title contender. Even teams that are perennial losers haven't been able to get out of that hell just by being bad and drafting high. What I think Isiah's biggest problem has been is the trades and MLE that just didn't make sense. Right now tho he's stayed away from doing any of that this year. So far this summer nothing has happened so I won't assume the worst like some others have chosen to do.

No, no, no! Correct me if I'm wrong about what you saying, but what I was trying to say is 'it's not a draft pick that I'm looking at to save us. It's about while' you are drafting, and having mediocre seasons, the key is to let the contracts die out to build your cap. Once you build a substantial amount of cap, then wait' until a big time free agent player comes onto the market and make the pitch. I can almost guarantee that we can nab a few off of the market, for the simple fact that it is New York. Players are attracted to this market, because of it's storied past and the marketing potential to make more money. They will never' come here for a MLE or a few million bucks period! But then we'll really never know, because we never have any money saved to spend anyways, right?! That is the fiscally, financially right' way to do it. I hate to bring it up, but look at chicago. They kept having mediocre seasons, with high draft picks, not to mention multiple draft picks and they slowly built a core over the last several years. They kept the stadium reasonbly filled, making the profits, while putting something out there that could be at least decent, with the hopes of a bright future and keeping options opened to have a chance to have a bright future. Now they have the cap to go after that superstar. This is what I've been saying all along and will continue to say. The way the Knicks are going, we are in deep debt and to fix it, unless they start taking the lead on the above information, they will end up being even deeper in debt with these players taking full advantage of them. Houston, Luc Longley and Larry did it, there's no reason to think anyone's going to let the Knick brass off the hook, if they continue to offer these rediculous contracts to totally unproven players. Anyone one of you can tell me this is bullcrap, but you keep saying that and I'll keep putting it right in front of you. I been sayiing this **** for ten years now and I was totally right about what I been saying what would happen and it's happened and is still' happening!

Sollution:

Let these damn contracts run out! starbury, Francis, JJ1, JJ2, Q, Malik. Let these run out.

Save the damn money for future superstar purchases. Nothing less!

Keep drafting what you can get.

Keep playing the best ball the Knicks can play during the regular seasons. Remember, development is at hand with the young core.

We have a young core we can work with and if they want the money, they should be forced to prove it to earn it. Nothing less. I recently saw a quote from Jordan and I thought it was well said. He said 'you can't just bring it for a night or two, you have to bring it every night. You have to be on top of your game, every game the entire season'. What that means is 'if they cannot, then they are out'! Words for the Knicks to live by.

But talent does' count here also. Who has the talent to live by these words?

The young talent should be used in the right way also. If they don't earn it, then the brass still has an option to trade these guys. Until those big contracts are signed, the moves are easy. Keep switching out young talent for other young talent (or draft picks) until we find the right parts. If Thomas had started this kind of process when he first got here, we would be in very good shape right now. And just remember, I been saying this since Layden started, so understand that I, a few of us have learned the errors. This thing that has been going on for ten years, does not work!

What I'm saying overall is, the way the brass has been conducting business is insane! This isn't Wall Street business were you loose you shirt in one days sell. It's a damn basketball team, just like every other basketball team. We been given a cap for salaries and the highest cap of any other team. There is no' competition here. It's a no brainer. We can offer more and you have to invest it in true superstars. Here's the list of the true superstars in this NBA who are either prolific all around defenders or prolific all around scorers.

Carmelo Anthonly
Kobe Bryant
Dwayne Wade
Tim Duncan
Lebron James
We had a chance at three of these guys, but 'NO MONEY' to offer them. It was tied up in Larry and Allan.

These are the kinds of players we should've been able to go after all these years. The brass should stop playing games with our cap and start making smart moves. And the fans should start demanding this.