"the smartest thing to do is rebuild and make a conscious effort to radically reduce payroll to the point where we see flexibilty in the future."

Again... I'm not disagreeing here, and I have no doubt this will be our course of action, maybe just not right away. That fact is no matter what happenes we are stuck for 3-4 years with a group of overpaid veterans, that arent getting traded for anything besides more of the same.

At this point the logical course of action is aquire a reasonable pick here or there. Maybe Nazr and a #2 for a #1 in the 15-18 range.. something like that. This is not a reach. Then just continue to draft and let the insane contracts killing the payroll go away. Those roles will be replaced by players like Frank, Dermaar, and Sweetney.

If we have a chance to use expiring contracts to get a real stud or elite player we can afford to that because we are MSG. But unless that comes along you can be sure Houston, Shandon, TT, Penny, Deke, Harrington, Moochie either WONT be here or will be signed for a much reduced rate, like Reggie Miller was in Indy.

If I had a quarter for every time we had this conversation...

you don't rely solely on picks for your future, if you take a look at the past 10 years drafts, if you take the top 20 picks about 7-9 pan out into regular everyday NBA players that are still playing today. Out of those 9 you average perhaps 3-4 decent role players, 3-5 good players and 2-3 stars/superstars. So in any given year if you have a top 20 pick your odds of landing a STAR/SUPERSTAR are about 10-15%.

So yeah... let's tear EVERYTHING down and if we draft for the next 5 years we'll have a VERY GOOD CHANCE of landing 1 STAR/SUPERSTAR!

BUT, in the meantime let's not sign Marbury cause he's too old (27, in 12 years he'll be 39!!!), hold our breathes for Milos (cause he is DEFINITELY BETTER THEN MARBURY OR KIDD OR PAYTON OR BIBBY OR PARKER...etc) and imagine if we had McDyess, how on earth did we cope with the loss of 22mpg 6.9ppg 6.1rpg?, how bout Magic Lampe? we shall all see the folly of our stupid trade once this guy blossoms(just like Weiss did!) and we can't forget about Weatherspoon and Eisley aka the DYNAMIC DUO.

And I am no accountant but how can you get under the cap when you pay Houston the max and have all these other overpaid players for the next how many years?

I think Isiah made trading look so easy that we all have started to believe that we could and should have gotten "more" or gave up "less". This is all Layden's and fat b*tch Dolan's fault. You don't tear down everything in big market cities you add and take away piece by piece and this is what Isiah is doing.

the last time the knicks rebuilt through the draft

ie cartwright ewing wilkins jackson anthony etc.. laid the foundation for 15 years of playoffs--having the ability to win it all any year getting to the 7th game of the finals

it cost us 120MM dollars for that one piece you are talking about. its not a good business model and by the way marbury is signed for 5 more years at the second tier max


no drafting alone is not the whole way you build a team but its a proven fact beyond a shadow of a doubt thats its the best way

people bring up chicago yeha they had it right or atleast on track and they decided themsleves to scrap Elton Brand Ron Artest and Brad Miller they had it right and truly scrwd up. if they had kept their players, they could be the cream of the crop in the east.

Posted by BRIGGS:

the last time the knicks rebuilt through the draft

ie cartwright ewing wilkins jackson anthony etc.. laid the foundation for 15 years of playoffs--having the ability to win it all any year getting to the 7th game of the finals

it cost us 120MM dollars for that one piece you are talking about. its not a good business model and by the way marbury is signed for 5 more years at the second tier max


no drafting alone is not the whole way you build a team but its a proven fact beyond a shadow of a doubt thats its the best way

people bring up chicago yeha they had it right or atleast on track and they decided themsleves to scrap Elton Brand Ron Artest and Brad Miller they had it right and truly scrwd up. if they had kept their players, they could be the cream of the crop in the east.

we can bring up chicago, clippers, hawks and grizzles ( how many years past before they made the playoffs?). the fact remains that rebuilding is a MAJOR risk especially if we have peices already to compete in the future. what do you want, briggs? trade marbury and if we are lucky stink for only 5 more years? when you said yourself all we need is an athletic big man and a slashing two guard. health is also a big issue. you complain about tim thomas but i would rather have him than half of the starting small forwards in the league because he is young and athletic, traits that you covet, briggs. i can not understand the change in attitude because of a playoff series.

Posted by NYKDUNK:

"I don't care about Vujanic. OK, that's beside the point."

I could care less if Knicks fans don't care about him, but I am concerned that IT didn't care about him. He is going to be a very good player. He was included as a "throw in" in that deal. Had he not been thrown in, it may have been a fair trade.

You can't tell me that we've won any of these deals IT has made.

KVH/Doleac for TT/Nazr?

It is funny how a lot of guys in here have picked apart Briggs and his crazy argument and yet he still continues without addressing their issues, but I will add my 2 cents..

Briggs. first of all you act as if steph who just turned 27 is old. do you know how old Kidd was when the nets got him? he was 28 going on 29 soon, and the nets were talking about building around him. Heck even the sonics were still talking about building around payton when he was 32, so please cut it out with the picks and HS crap. Great PG's are at a premium, and when you can get one.. GET HIM.. now as far as the rebuilding goes, let me ask you, have you seen josh smith or Dwight Howard play? I have, I live in Atlanta and have seen Howard play, and let me tell you, He is no where as good as chris bosh is, and I still think bosh needed another year of college!!! At least... do you think the bulls are happy with the development of Curry and chandler? huh? right now they are looking at mid level veterans in return for chandler.... The NBA is a mans league, you win with guys who are ready to play in this league, not guys who may be good 4 years down the road... this is a forula for futility!!!!! I don't see why anyone would wish for the pre-Trade knicks, that team was dead in the water, if you think that having Steph, TT, Frankie, Sweetney,Dermarr, Nazr, is not a good core of guys to build around and use as trade bait(with the exception of steph) then you are nuts... All I keep hearing briggs is this rebuilding crap, but you not given a realistic argument to support that....

ill try to explain it again slowly

we have no post player
we are a slow older team
our other core player is 34 and could be washed up by injury and if nothing else is going to be on the serious downside regression due to aging and injury combination
we have been absolutely destroyed by a team that wasnt even playing well, has no good post players and we have been embarrassed and outclassed
stephon marbury IS NOT a franchise player that can carry a team, he's not even a franchise player IMHO hes a great player--but clearly he is not even in the same league as guys like duncan kobe etc.. hes a tier below those guys
the only way to straighten this ship as formulated is to bring in a franchise type big man and i dont think we have a chance to do it.
this team isnt going to work even with tweaking because its beyond that

this is NOT even a playoff caliber team those who keep confusing the dismal east and our 39 wins as acheivment are kidding themselves

we have no style of play when i went to NJ this was evident very clear from the stands NO style of play very slow way to much isolation


guess what? the players we have arent going to get any faster jump any higher or really get any better for the most part this summer


you say we just need to put the right guys around marbury--number 1 marbury is NOT jason kidd hes not even close IMHO jason kid is more like a point forward because he can rebound like a big SF+ he's much faster with the ball marbury is more of a smallish 2G who plays the point and dribbles way to much

how are we going to put talent like RJ kenyone martin and kittles around Marbury in the next few years--answer we cant and we wont.


my conclusion is we reckognize this NOW, that we have tried to avoid rebuilding and its failed. the answer is to formulate a rebuilding plan, a new style of play and aggresively pursue it. this shouldve been done 5 years ago--the nuggets were bad for a couple of year and now have carmelo anthony for the next 15 years
we have to bite the bullet we have to be real the bottom line is we need to start over unless you can figure out a way to get a franchise big man very quickly.

any which way you look at it its going to take years to fix, but at the end of the day IF we go young we will still be young when we blossom again---by the time this team gets good IF ever it will be close toa rebuilding cycle again.

[ what has he done? he has spent 140mm$ that is 140mmm dollars and given up multiple assets and we still are so far from being good its scary. i guess at 140mm dollars a year to buy players we could be contenders with a 225 mm $ payroll+ a 175mm $ luxury tax payment. good business model-- at this rate spike will be paying 10 grand a game to see 44 wins in 3 years.

you see this was done, cooked the last stand at the ok corral was lost when mcdyess 's knee popped in the exhibition season.


man i must be watching a different channel or i mustve missed the meadowlands and landed some place else. please help me here we arent playing the wash wizards any more--we arent finishing with 20 games against tanking opponents. deal with the reality that more than likely h20 will never be the same and look at what we have on the court oops there goes kenyon flying over the 30mm $ extension man KT again for a facial slam oops there goes another 3 on 1 break for a lay up watch the games son and tell me if it is not worthy of smoking the whole gig and starting new. marbury for 3 clank dikembe gets another shot blocked by a 6 footer how much more evidence do you need to know we are a dead team? we made the playoffs because we outspent the other brutal eastern teams by double thats it bottom line

Briggs, can you offer some solutions?? Saying to trade in the lotto to get JR Smith and Josh Smith is like saying "Well if only the Knicks could get Duncan and Garnett." We've been through how they've traded most of their pieces away, what are you going to give up? Othella Harrington? Come on.

You and the lottery, man. Did you ever realize there are guys who come out of college and DON'T make an impact in the pros. Not everything has to be torn down. We know the Knicks aren't as good as the Nets and we all know they spend "140mm$ that is 140mmm dollars". Who cares what the number is? Let Dolan pay the luxury tax, I hate the guy anyway.

YOUNG GUYS: Marbury, TThomas, Sweetney, Johnson, Williams, Mohammed.

Out of those guys, I'd say you could easily move all but Marbury.

What was in the NY Post a few weeks ago? How the Bulls want to deal Eddy Curry and Jamal Crawford for guys with work ethic and what not. Why is that not feasible to say theres a chance they trade for Curry or Crawford or both, and they have a resurgence in NY. Did you see the Marbury trade coming? Neither did I.

Things will be done. Clearly Isiah has a plan for rebuilding after acquiring a bunch of younger players, but his stubborn boss wants him to make the playoffs every year, so he's being forced to do that as well, if he didn't, he'd get fired.

You want rebuilding, my god I can't imagine what you'd be like with that. What happens when Josh Smith gets abused by Bruce Bowen and shoots 0 for 10? Trade him? Cut him? Rebuild all over again? What about when JR Smith goes up for a dunk and gets blocked by Ben Wallace? Wheres that athleticism now? Do you trade him?

What if you are Dallas in 98 and take Tractor Traylor over Dirk or Paul Pierce? What about Philly in 97, who passed on McGrady? Or the handful of teams who didn't take Kobe.

Not every single lotto pick, though I'm sure you'll refute this, becomes Michael Jordan.

What do the Knicks do with Allan Houston tied up until 07, Penny til 06, Marbury til 09, TThomas til 06, Anderson til 98, Kurt till god konws when with his new contract, Mohammed til 06, and Norris til 07. You can't rebuild man, I'm sorry. You can't rebuild in the way you want to, when you have SEVEN big contracts on your payroll. Rebuilding is done in three ways: trades, FA signings, and the draft. Dolan, from a sheer money perspective which you care so much about, can not have all that invested and not make the playoffs. So they make the playoffs and get bad draft positions. Since they're over the cap FA signings are essentially out of the question, barring a possible MLE like Stro Swift. So you're left with trades.

You can't go to the draft at this point. Five years ago, before they traded Ewing, was the time. Let his contract run out, let a few others run out, they'd have money to sign FAs and they'd be in the lotto for a few years. Unfortunately they traded for Glen Rice, and turned that into Shandon Anderson and Howard Eisley. Unfortuanately Clarence Weatherspoon was signed, etc. But at this point, with 7 big contracts, you can't start from scratch. Nobody will take those contracts, and you can't rebuild. That's just the way it is.

let me start off by stating once again I havent seen a player with josh smith's talent and athletiscm package since dominique wilkins. JR is not Josh, but he also shows elite athletiscm--BUT with skill sets i.e the ability to really shoot the ball--the ability to get to the basket of the dribble and finish over anyone. I go back and look at players like gerald wallace deshaun stevenson who had similar athletic prowless--but not built solidly like JR--but they dont have the shooting ability that he has now at 18 years old. Not even close---this kid made a mockery of the 3 point contest blowing away everyone, then brought into the games with a beautiful fundamental stroke and a great deal of strength behind the jumper. Josh to me is the same caliber of athlete as amare but from the 3 spot.


it's a blueprint of building a team based on elite athletiscm combined with fundamental skills and these two kids are both tough hombres, these guys are NO eddie curry's.

Im willing to trade the boat here marbury sweetney ending contracts whatever it takes and begin the foundation from there. Next year we begin to piece together the 4-5 with the goal of having real solid and size in the frontcourt, It can be done this organization can do it and every single knick fan would be better off if we did. Its going to take biting a bullet-weve already spent the money so its already done. If you can tell me we are getting Tim Duncan to go along with what we have then stay pat--otherwise rebuild it from the ground up.

For those who think getting starbury is rebuilding no it's not--hes been on 4 teams already hes gone through 2 ankle surgeries--thats not rebuilding--retreads like nazr TT vin baker is NOT rebuilding it's called band aid patch work and it does not work

it's a blueprint of building a team based on elite athletiscm combined with fundamental skills and these two kids are both tough hombres, these guys are NO eddie curry's.

Which has worked for who? The only team I can think of that worked for was Chi with Jordan and Pippen and those two were college superstars, not HS kids.

If Nazr is traded for a draft pick are we rebuilding then?

You have no way of knowing if he's just another Deshawn Stevenson who averaged 25 points, 10 rebs, 7 assists, 3 blocks and could play PG or SG. He dominated the McD game and has a 40' vert leap. Hey.. maybe he yet puts it together yet. How do you know Josh Smith wants to lift weights? How do you know he's not the next Dermaar Johnson?

Oh wait.. because you have seen him and he's the best since Wilkins.