meloanyk wrote:Rather have Johnson than Leslie. Johnson is arguably as good as Martin and may be more durable
Agreed. Leslie's a project that's far off from contributing -- nice athleticism with some upside but let's be honest here, he's 3 years away from NBA ball minimum. We might be good enough to play for a chip now -- gonna have to wait and see but on paper, this is as good a team as we've assembled in quite some time... It'd be great if we could stash Leslie in Europe like some have suggested but I don't even know if that's possible. He makes very little sense on this team, no sense occupying a roster spot. Shit, if we want a SF that's very young with promise, Luke Babbitt's out there and he's 10X the player Leslie is.. Back to Ivan Johnson -- here's a guy that's battle tested and ready to go at the NBA level. This dude ain't no goon -- he's a good player!! He's a regular rotation player at the NBA level with his toughness and surprisingly decent skill level (he's a 4 but I still maintain he's got enough skill to play some 3 in the NBA). And I agree he's got more game and more to give than K-Mart at this point. He'd definitely be ahead of K-Mart in my rotation. We don't owe K-mart anything -- Johnson's a better player and should be ahead of him in any NBA rotation. I also think he's got more game than Jeremy Tyler at this point who is, let's be honest again, maybe a little further along than CJ Leslie but pretty far off himself.
At this point -- we probably have enough guard play (sorry Toure Murry) -- find a way to add Ivan Johnson and Earl Barron (who I like better than Hadaddi) TOGETHER for frontcourt insurance and let's roll.
Honestly, if they wanted to max opportunity on what's left to chose from (considering player skill level/readiness to contribute at the NBA level and team need) -- I'd cut Leslie and Tyler (we wouldn't we cutting Dominique Wilkins and Karl Malone here -- the chances of these 2 players turning into those 2 are so remote it's not even funny) and with a total of 3 open spots, sign Luke Babbitt, Ivan Johnson AND Earl Barron --OR-- Babbitt, Barron and Toure Murry. That's what I'd do -- will never happen though...And Briggs is right -- no way Chris Smith makes this team. If that happens, I'm gonna hurl. If that happens and we did it to appease JR and get him to sign out of desperation/necessity, I want someone from the Knicks to show me who offered JR more than we did. I don't think he got an offer north of what we offered him, last year neither. If they wanna give Chris Smith an office job, fine, I have no problem with that -- and Chris and pappa Earl should be thankful for that btw -- but no way should he occupy a roster spot. That's just crazy! An NBA roster needs to be reserved for the best players a GM can get his hands on, 1-15, esp. on a team that could very well be on the cusp of something special and needs all the quality depth team mgmt. can get their hands on. Period. Unless the Knicks can make a case that they were backed into a corner and had no choice but to offer something unusual like that in order to cement a deal. Even then I wouldn't do it, I would've been OK with letting JR walk, but at least I can understand it better. I don't think that's the case here at all -- who out there had a concrete deal on the table north of what we offered? Answer: no one!
8/19/2013 2:30 PM