And ESPN.com quoted an insider as confirming the Paul toast and adding "Those [three] guys want to beat the three guys in Miami."

Last month, Paul said, "My first choice is to be in New Orleans. I just want to make sure we're committed to winning. If we're not committed to winning and trying to get better so we can contend with the Lakers, the Celtics and all these other top teams, then I'm open to being traded."

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/sports/knicks/paul_out_effort_EcyvQVSiHUEs2x3BguzHoM?CMP=OTC-rss&FEEDNAME=#ixzz0uVRJYq5s

smackeddog wrote:I'm not a fan of this super team business- if we got CP and Carmelo that means 2 more franchises are down the crapper- Denver, and New Orleans, which means along with Cleveland and Toronto that means this offseason would have killed 4 franchises (5 if you include the Suns)- it's just not right. I prefer it if teams have a maximum of 2 established stars, because then there is a decent spread throughout the league, and it also means that there's enough cap space etc to build a decent team around them. Though Heat Vs Knicks would be very exciting to watch, what about the rest of the year?

Since when did we start worrying about other teams you think the Celtics and Lakers were thinking about Knicks when they were raising the trophy. Did you forget all the favors the Knicks have done for other teams we allowed them to dump their terrible signings on us for about a decade now. The Knicks were known as the destination where bad contracts went to die. One thing I don't do is think of the NBA as one team at a time I think of it as one giant entity where teams do one another favors. Don't think that NO and Denver won't be compensated they will be. They will get players and picks for the trades they make. Its not a LeBron situation where he leaves his team high and dry although Cavs were able to work some picks out of his leaving.

playa2 wrote:

smackeddog wrote:I'm not a fan of this super team business- if we got CP and Carmelo that means 2 more franchises are down the crapper- Denver, and New Orleans, which means along with Cleveland and Toronto that means this offseason would have killed 4 franchises (5 if you include the Suns)- it's just not right. I prefer it if teams have a maximum of 2 established stars, because then there is a decent spread throughout the league, and it also means that there's enough cap space etc to build a decent team around them. Though Heat Vs Knicks would be very exciting to watch, what about the rest of the year?

I FEEL YOU SMACKEDOGG, but isn't that why you pay scouts and Gm's to find young talent as cheap as possible ? I 'm under the impression more pressure should be put on the owners to sac up and be thankful they have a superstar to build around them and keep them on the team. If not you are telling the fans , just come to the games, good players will come to play us but we aren't paying for them to play for us ourselves.

haha, that was the bullets/blizzards for over 20 years. they sold ticket packages based on who the opponent was over who played on the team. ***come see the bulls play the bullets***

knickstorrents wrote:Asking on a forum like this will skew your results... I think many fans who show up to the stadiums aren't hardcore... they are there because their friend bought them tickets, or through work, or some other random reason.... on a per-year basis, owners make money primarily through ticket sales and to me it's not clear owners look at team ownership as a cash flow business... I think owners look to make money from selling their team after a few years/decades of ownership.

I think there's a lot of ways to skin the cat, a few mega teams is good because then you have promotional value of those teams that can cross over into other sports. There are many non-nba sports fans who followed nba free agency and will now watch at least a few Heat games because they are curious. This can be good. Now, whether this outweighs the harm of destroying the cleveland and toronto fan base is not clear (but I think it helped the league more than hurt it).

To me, the heyday of the NBA was the Magic vs. Bird rivalry during the 80's. During that time most players went to 4 years of college so you had rivalries develop in college first, then continue in the NBA. I think the issue is that the general talent level of the league has been diluted because of more teams, and it has also declined because there is less schooling. I think we need to increase the age limit even further to increase the general level of play. With the way the league is now we need at least 2 birds and 2 magics for the amount of teams we have. I'm not sure with the way the draft works, that talent has enough time to develop to create those types of players.

Knickstorrents, I agree with half of what you are saying, the other half I don't and here's why.

What I agree with is your point emphasizing the need for rivalries, but should they start in the amateur status or professional ? The league league has been diluted by ownwers who aren''t there to win but just make money whether they win or not. Top draft pick usually ends up with teams with poor records so the talent is there, but do the owners choose to build around it ?

If we had less franchise's and got rid of the teams where the owners aren't fielding together teams that are really trying to win, the league would become that much better.

Example look at Oklahoma City Thunder, with the right ownership and GM in place, they took a floundering franchise and put together a young team that com petes every night will be ready to challenge in the playoffs real soon.

This is the model franchise in the NBA and how it should be done. Get rid of the fake owners and franchise's and build up the D.league with hungry players then it won't matter how long they stay in college, the D-league will be worth seeing again , while College ball will become truly what it WAS MEANT TO BE an AMATEUR sport for fun with many players who will never arrive in the NBA and their destination will be overseas or a stint in the D-LEAGUE.