Well, I was looking at a stat (actually researching and building one) of how many first round and under twenty picks in the last ten or more years, successful teams have compiled and I found a few interesting things indeed.

It was starting to appear that the more successful teams had picked up players (including drafting what they' could) who had been drafted under 20 in past drafts and how successful teams had later acquired them through trades or free agency. Detroit appeared to be most notorious with this stat. And that's not an across the board guarantee formula of success, but noticible and worth mentioning.

What I think isiah has been trying to do is basically the same thing. We have Zach who was drafted 19th, Fred Jones who was drafted 14th, Quentin was drafted 18th, Jared Jeffries was drafted 11th, Crawford was drafted 8th, Curry was drafted 4th and starbury was also drafted 4th.

You'd think we'd have a well qualified and cmpetetive team with those kinds of players, coming out of college with those kinds of medals and being ranked under 20 in the league. But first off, Curry came out of high school, so he never earned his stripes and was drafted I think mainly for his size. Starbury was drafted high because of his skill, but his character either wasn't taken into consideration or it was really unknown at the time. So far, two very questionable high pick drafts right there.

And it's not to say that other teams have been completely successful with their pick up either, but have been successful mainly from this kind of development of team success and then a few other reasons. For instance, Boston has two 5th picks and a 10th, in Garnett, Allen and Pierce. San Antonio has one of the greatest players of all time in Duncan who was a #1, but went in a different direction by looking deeper outside of the borders, picking two Argentinians, one picked up at 57th, because he was a unknown that only the Spurs had followed, picked up undrafted Bowen and found a Tony Parker at #28 in the draft. So two stark contrast of building a team right there and obviousl, for the Spurs, phenominal scouting.

It appears that the only one's that where worth their draft positions was Crawford and on. The way Crawford can score points, I'd say was about a #8 pick, and a #8 probably for questionable defense which is apparent now. So with that said, I think it shows and probably can be used to explain why isiah took them in the first place. I beleive this is a part of how he was trying to put a team together. The only problem was 'it was the wrong high drafted players to put together'.

Nough said on that subject.

Now, with the article above, I have made the statement that I would believe that isiah would be gone 'when I see it'. And right now, it's looking more and more like we ain't gonna see it. At least not real soon.

What I see coming out of all of this is an even bigger mess then what has been deemed to end soon. I can very much see something like happened to the Yankees orgainzation back around 1990, when the commisioner finally stepped in and took the team away from George Stienbrenner. And it was key to their success as he later learnedl, as he was much more hands off and the team finally had a chance to make the right moves of personnel and find the right people to help them win again.

I sincerely see this happening with the Knicks, and I don't see dolan budging on making big changes, just like Stern said. So it may indeed take Stern to step in and do something about it himself and possibly prey this team away from dolan for a while to make that change.

All in all, I just don't see change coming soon. The fact that dolan only reached out to Walsh and no one else, tells me that if dolan has to bring in a GM, he probably wants to make sure that he brings in someone he can control and continue to call the shots that it turns out has been obviouse. Even stated in the article above about how Walsh is concerned about having control, that is a clear cut sign of continued medling and internal problems. A GM is supposed' to be the one to call the shots on moves anyway. That's susposed to be their job. So if Walsh didn't end up coming in, then I would sight that as the main problem.

I just don't believe real change is coming, not unless I actually see it in print with my own two eyes. And the only one taking advantage of this is the Post, to sell a few more newspapers.









[Edited by - 4949 on 03-30-2008 08:41 AM]

[Edited by - 4949 on 03-30-2008 08:46 AM]

Posted by GKFv2:

Billy King built the current 76ers.

He did and they are currently playoff bound right?

The guy is too conservative for me but that's what a lot of us want anyway. He's a likeable dude too. He wouldnt be a vagina like Layden or a soft spoken freak like Isiah. At the very least, King knows how to build around key players. He tried to with philly, and actually did a decent job with the iverson trade. Things take time. We all thought it was a silly trade but again that team is better then ours.

Whoever comes......if its King so be it. Just as long as they do the right thing by us.

Posted by GKFv2:

Billy King built the current 76ers.

His last couple major moves were under the guidance of Larry Brown don't forget that. Namely the Andre Miller trade and acquiring Reggie Evans. He also helped him on the 07 draft. Ed Stefanski also orchestrated the Korver for Giricek trade, which enabled the Sixers to develop their other players. This trade really is what catapulted the Sixers run because it helped balance their play according to their roster. Billy King hasn't been good at all.

[Edited by - TrueBlue on 03-30-2008 1:25 PM]