i told u guys at the trade deadline that both guys should be traded for extra 1st round picks so that we'd have some pieces to either use in a draft night trade, move up in the lottery, or use to address holes in the roster, & i was pretty much lambasted... now we're seeing kids like Griffin & Derozan looking like future superstars, & w/o those extra picks to parlay w/our own we have much less of a shot to move up in the draft to take a prospect w/that type of potential, or even to make a draft night trade for an already established NBA player.

we're gonna be stuck w/either having to pay over market value to sign Lee & Nate to albatross contracts that will be difficult to move in future years, or watching them leave NY for nothing in return... hate to belabor the point, but i did tell u so.

You were right. Congratulations

[Edited by - basketballjones on 03-18-2009 23:39]

i've been saying that letting them go for nothing is a stupid move & Donnie would be a fool to let that happen... but still that's not gonna make his job any easier now that Lee & Nate pretty much control their own destinies after having put up stats all year long... if we try to sign & trade these guys after we match other teams' offers we still run the risk of having them signed up to over market value contracts that not many teams will want to take on... that's the same kinda problem we've had w/so many other players that have come & gone from here over the past several years.

if we had traded them at the deadline like i was advocating we should we could have had 3 lottery picks in this year's draft to make some significant moves with on Draft Night, or at the very least 2 top 10 lottery picks & another pick in the middle of the 1st round... u wanna tell me that wouldn't give Donnie some great ammo to work some big deals with this offseason?... i don't believe for a second that this is a terrible draft... there are kids coming out this year that IMO can really help this team & be just as good if not better than either Lee or Nate, & a few that have real genuine superstar potential, something neither Lee nor Nate possess... kids with that type of potential are the ones we really need to focus on targetting & making moves to align ourselves to be in a position to acquire... players like Lee & Nate, while talented as they may be, are replaceable IMO.

like i've been saying, if u can sign those guys up to below market value contracts, all power to u, but ur being naive if u think that's gonna happen at this point if u ask me... & w/Donnie's main focus being on preserving cap flexibility in 2010, it's beginning to look more & more possible that he could very well end up letting 1 or both these guys to walk for nothing if the prospect of matching their offers from other teams will hamper our longterm flexibility past the point where he's willing to go.

it's like my worse fears may be coming true this year... we finish w/just enough of a good record to end up w/a crappy lottery pick & end up missing out on all the best prospects, but yet just enough of a bad record to end up just missing out on making it into the playoffs... that dreaded no man's limbo that no team ever wants to find itself in, & that the Knicks have seemingly found themselves in more times than i care to remember over the years.

Posted by Marv:

Posted by TMS:

it's like my worse fears may be coming true this year

it could be worse . . .

you could have switched over and become a RAPTORS fan this year!!!!!

raptor fans are morons....

Lost opportunity... move on. In this case, I'd just sign Nate and Lee to qualifying offers and then let them walk the season after. Get cheap labor from them and they can go earn a contract to go play in Golden State or Memphis or something... because there is NO WAY IN HELL I want either to be a part of the long term. Nate cares more about being KryptoNate--oh, the things he learned from StarBury!!--and Lee cares more about padding his stats than playing defense.

I care more about the jersey than they do... and i refuse to support either. Fuck these guys... I've snapped. Enough is enough, don't let the door hit you on the way out

Posted by MS:

Nate

24.5pts 5.5ass since the Allstar break. He should have been signed before the season to a mid-level extension

Nate, the quintessential Good Stats, Bad Team player. Same with Lee. The two of them are Shareef Adbur Rahims.

Papabear Says

You know I've been listening to some of you guys being cridical about Nate and Lee. Now I see there is some truth to what you are saying. Nate is a talented player but Nate is about Nate. Last night he only had 2 assists in thie whole game. Lee for every rebound he gets and every point he gets he gives up that many to the opposing team. I've seen enough. Yes I would like to see them back but a record we have this season we have a bunch of ego maniacs. Thats what you get when you have a run and gun team. Shoot first and hope that the opposing miss on the other end. We only win games if the opposing team have a bad shooting night or thier star player is down.

Stuck with nothing these guys are still tradeable before the whole QO or Extension talks begin. There will be a draft day trade with at least one of Lee or Nate. I'm starting to really wonder if either is someone you want to keep especially at the price tags they may command. Are they better served being used to rid us of Curry and Jeffries? Maybe so. Maybe we should have done the Kenny Thomas / Nate-Jeffries deal. Then you'd just be mulling the age old Curry-Lee for 2010s+a pick type scenario.

Walsh won't overpay for these guys and they're both able to be had if another team makes Walsh a good offer and takes one of our 2011s off our hands with them. I wouldn't be concerned at this point.

Posted by franco12:

Dude- you don't hate to say it, because you've pretty much been saying the same thing, over and over again.

yeah, i have been saying the same thing over & over again, because in my heart i believe that was the right move all along... & now it's looking more & more like what i had suggested earlier in the season was the right direction to go in... otherwise we shoulda done what King1's been suggesting all along & sign both those guys to low market contracts after last season... right now i get more the feeling that we backed ourselves into a corner w/these 2 guys by not acting on those 2 opportunities earlier... i hope i'm wrong, believe me... there's nothing i wanna see less than for my concerns to be realized... i don't take personal satisfaction saying I Told You So at the expense of the longterm future of this franchise like some others might around here, trust me on that one.

It would be hard as hell to turn Lee or Nate into Griffin. I'm not that sold on guys that make late season surges, like Derozan, be that as it may we can still swing a deal on draft night to grab him if you dangle either Nate or Lee. Especially Lee.

I wouldnt lose my mind over this. Nate and Lee are two of the better assets in the league.

Posted by sebstar:

on most mock drafts, they still have Derozan going in the mid-round.

yeah, but on those same mock draft sites he was a pre-season top-5 pick... last year DeAndre Jordan was a the third overall on nbadraft.net and DX. What happens is people get excited about young, athletic guys, and then when they play like young, inexperienced guys they get penalized.

The potential is there with DeRozan. The Knicks don't have a pick next year... so I'm all about swinging for the fences. He was great in the Pac-10 tourney