Douglas
Gay
LeBron
Gallo
Camby or other shot blocking center

Douglas
McGrady (signed for minimum)/Walker
LeBron
Lee or Boozer
Camby or other shot blocking center

Which would you choose?

TMS wrote:if Lebron is amenable to come play in NY w/o another max FA signing, then i'd like to surround him with defensive minded players in free agency... we have enough supplementary scorers on the roster to put up enough offense with Gallo, Wilson & TD if u have Lebron... if u can split the remainder of the cap on guys like Manu & Brendan Haywood, i'd prefer that over signing Amare or D Lee to a big money extension... obviously MDA would go a different route, but that's what i'd go with.

C - Haywood
PF - Gallo
SF - Lebron
SG - Wilson
PG - TD
6 - Manu
7 - Walker
8 - 2nd round pick F/C
9 - Sergio or 2nd round pick PG

That's a good line-up. Is Haywood available this year? Where's Gallo in the second line-up? But TD as starting PG may be premature after just 5 games? Lets see the rest of the games this season.

I would LOVE to have Manu G, we could only be so lucky! Lebron, Camby, Manu on the same team! One of the cleverest players in the game, even at this age he can take over games from time to time.

Ray Allen
Walker
Gallo
Douglas
Adam Morrison

White - Chandler - Gay - LeBron - Varnado - a wingspan wet dream

I don't believe LeBron would come here without star #2, but this would be something like a rich man's Sacramento Kings.

Paladin55 wrote:

1 wrote:Which player would you want to sign for a salary that pays 10 million next year? The options seems to be Lee, Gay, and Boozer. That would leave enough money to sign a shot blocking center like Camby for around 5 million. Obviously, this would be Lebron's choice but it seems that if he signs, but for now the potential lineups are:

Douglas
Gay
LeBron
Gallo
Camby or other shot blocking center

Douglas
McGrady (signed for minimum)/Walker
LeBron
Lee or Boozer
Camby or other shot blocking center

Which would you choose?

The second lineup does not have a 3 pt shooter other than Douglas. IMO you need two shooters in your lineup if you have Lebron on your team. Gives people for Lebron to kick it out to and it opens up the middle. Whether or not you think Gallo is the guy you want taking the open Js is one thing, but you need some jump shooters with better than midrange ability on a Lebron team.

u bring up a good point there but you could always have Gallo come off the bench as your 6th man in the second scenario... i doubt we'd be able to get Rudy Gay regardless tho w/him being a RFA... a max offer for him would amount to $12 mil in the 1st year of his deal, which they could probably swing over the longterm with Zach's contract coming off the books after next season.

s3231 wrote:

TMS wrote:if Lebron is amenable to come play in NY w/o another max FA signing, then i'd like to surround him with defensive minded players in free agency... we have enough supplementary scorers on the roster to put up enough offense with Gallo, Wilson & TD if u have Lebron... if u can split the remainder of the cap on guys like Manu & Brendan Haywood, i'd prefer that over signing Amare or D Lee to a big money extension... obviously MDA would go a different route, but that's what i'd go with.

C - Haywood
PF - Gallo
SF - Lebron
SG - Wilson
PG - TD
6 - Manu
7 - Walker
8 - 2nd round pick F/C
9 - Sergio or 2nd round pick PG

Keep in mind, Washington's interior defense gave up a very high FG% inside the paint when Haywood was there (may have even been the highest). So I'm not convinced that Haywood is as great of a defender as people think he is. On top of that, there was a research paper done at the MIT Sloan conference that showed his blocks aren't really as valuable as they look either:

http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/14032/the-value-of-a-blocked-shot

I think the big problem with the above lineup though is we wouldn't have enough consistent scorers on offense (just LeBron and Manu at this point) and would have to bank on Gallo and/or Chandler improving a lot by next season.

That is a lot to depend on because our defense with the above lineup would need to be ELITE to make the Knicks a contender and I don't see it with that lineup.

I think we would be better off signing an Amare or Lee in that situation which would at least take our offense to a high level. You can always trade for defensive-minded role players afterwards. It would cost a lot more to trade for someone like Lee or Amare though, so why not just sign one of them outright?

i hate the idea of Lee as my starting 5... don't want to see that under any circumstances... Lee at the 4 i'm cool with but we'll still need a legitimate sized C that can produce... Lee's been playing out on the perimeter a lot more which leaves our rebounding down low somewhat exposed on the offensive glass... if that's how u want to use your 4, u can have Gallo playing that role next season & have a guy who can pull down boards underneath... Haywood is an excellent offensive rebounder & getting second chance points is always important... i think if u have a guy like Lebron, all u really need is a few guys on the perimeter that can knock down J's in terms of offense... TD is capable of dribble penetration too if u need it & Gallo & Wilson are steadily improving every year... i don't think they'd need to take that huge of a jump next year to be viable second & third scoring options to Lebron in a winning formula... plus u have Manu who is a proven key contributor on championship calibre teams... it might not be a championship calibre roster that i posted above, but i think it has more overall balance & depth than one with Lee or Amare playing out of the 5 spot... what would we have left to trade for those defensive minded players anyway? Wilson, Gallo & TD are our only young assets remaining & all 3 of them i'd want to hold onto cuz they actually play defense.