I really question if we've been in a true rebuild mode. I think rebuilding has played an equal to lesser part of the overall goal to make the team competitive. The patch up jobs have failed simply because I believe there hasn't been any clear cut planning. Has there been a real plan in place and if so how long has it been in motion? Let's go with the assumption it's yr 3 we're on in the rebuild plan so often the age of the team is what many point to.

I guess we'd have to look at the summer of the 05-06 season when Curry was signed and the team added Lee, Frye, and Nate as the supposed starting rebuild process. I have a problem with those who believe this. Certain things don't add up. One of them being why did the team hire Larry Brown if it was that far away from being competitive(5yrs)? Rebuilding teams makes sure their top rookies, young players receive adequate and consistent playing time. LB never liked playing young players. Rebuilding teams are resigned to the fact they'll lose plenty of games. Yet with our Knicks we saw an agenda that didn't match the usual rebuild patient process. Antonio Davis, Jalen Rose, Mo Taylor, Steve Francis were all getting heavy minutes over many of the younger players while the team was playing poorly, so obviously there must have been a different expectation in place. An expectation of winning games. How many rebuild teams including their fan base feel their team is one of the better teams in the conferences or Divisions? Yet with some of our fans they believe certain fans need to be patient with the team while at the same giving projections of season success such as placing them as a 5th 6th 7th 8th best team in their conference or thinking the team's winning range can be 43-50wins/season.

How fans feel a team such as ours who has as much depth and talent as any team in the league 1-12 the past 3yrs be in yr 3 of a 5yr rebuild plan?


Have Atlanta Hawk, PDX, Bobcat, Bucks, Hornet fans been expecting 43-50wins/season and 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th seeds the past 2-3yrs?


Why have we traded or thinking about trading away so many lottery picks/young players if we're rebuilding?



[Edited by - TrueBlue on 10-06-2007 9:00 PM]

Why is this so hard to understand?

1. This is NOT a traditional rebuild. That's always been clear. We've retained vets and have grafted in about 2-3 rooks each of the last 3 offseasons.
When you think of a traditional, back up the truck rebuild you rarely have any vets of real consequence. You usually base the team off of a big Lottery pick
or 2 and go from there. This was clearly a rebuild on the fly and we got our big young talent in trades and the draft. Zach, Curry, Lee, Jared, Nate, Balkman, Mardy, Chandler, Morris and possibly Nichols or Jordan. Is that not enough youth? Depending upon what Isiah decides to do, we could have 9-11 guys 26 or younger. Then you've still got Jamal and Q in their primes at 27 yrs old. That's not bad at all.

2. LB is the one who bucked the plan. He had his own agenda. So you can't count his actions in with the way things were supposed to go. Even with a rebuild it's still gonna be an effort to try and win, since the young guys have to learn how to win. Vets can help in the process, along with the youth. With all the guys you brought up, Antonio Davis, Jalen Rose, Mo Taylor and Steve Francis, none of them are still here!!! So really what's the point. In the process of making moves to change your team any number of players will come and go, but in the end we have a much younger roster with better talent.

3. The expectations have been what they are. For whatever reasons we fell short as have many other rebuilding teams. We failed to reach the expectations for the LB season, but I think part of that was his sabotage. We all know what happened last year. Going into yr 3 of this current process, I think we're set to realize better results
than in the last 2 years of this current direction. There's no disputing that this current path started with Curry, Lee etc. These guys and the other young players are developing to the point where we can expect better production as a team. So we'll see how that turns out this year.

Its not about picks lost or vets signed and sent away. It's about who is on the team now and going forward. The result is a younger and better team. Just how good we'll have to see.

Posted by arkrud:

The ownership of the team was never interested in winning the chip and the goal was to have competitive team to help selling the Garden.
So why to have any kind of rebuild - "traditional" or "regular" whatever hell this means.
And organization failed with doing this. Team was NOT competitive for almost 10 years.
We do have Zach, Curry, Lee, Jared, Nate, Balkman, Mardy, Chandler, Morris and possibly Nichols or Jordan as a side result of the digging in the NBA garbage. Sometimes you can find some diamonds.
Did we? This is to be seen.
Does it worth the money paid? Not even close. Even complete idiot can do better investments.

COME ON ARKRUD!!! You can't look at what Isiah's done over the last 3 offseasons and not see that there was a change in direction. Don't bring up the last 10 years. That has nothing to do with what is going on here since 2005. I also wouldn't call the players we have NBA garbage. You have nothing to back that up with. If you look at where many of our players stand, they're not at the garbage level in terms of talent. We have to get out of the gutter in terms of team play, but the talent isn't garbage.

Money isn't part of the equation either. It doesn't matter how much you spend. Only the results matter. If we spent 40 mil with a bunch of kids and still lost that doesn't make the situation any different. Isiah has made mistakes. Expensive mistakes, but he's not the only GM to ever do that. All that matters now is that he completes this current roster and as coach, gets them to execute at a higher level. If he does that then all of this chatter will die down. It's not even close to bad situation that get's painted in NY.