Vmart wrote:Next year Amare will play 75 games and average 30+ minutes. It's contract year and players tend to play through their injuries and push through. Amare has been pretty much been resting it up for his final year of contract.

You have a very inresting point

Remeber JR won 6th man of the yr (contract yr),then came into the season after inking his deal, out of shape, lazy and careless. remember D lee made the all star team (contract yr)

So should phil lose the temptation of trading these players knowing there probably coming to camp in the best shape of their careers and focus..

If we finish next season on a high note, suddenly were the most attractive franchise in the NBA.

I think phil know this too, notice how he singled out felton as the primary trading canidate, one of the only players on the roster with an extra yr

The Knicks won just 37 games last season. They don’t have a draft pick -- yet -- and don’t have any cap space to chase free agents.

So, there’s a theory out there that the Knicks will have to suffer through another year of mediocrity in 2014-15 while they wait to rebuild in the summer of 2015.

Jackson
Jackson
Phil Jackson doesn’t necessarily subscribe to that theory.

The Knicks president said last week that if the team re-signs Carmelo Anthony, he thinks the 'Bockers can be back in contention in the Eastern Conference next season.

“I do. I think it has to have kind of a refreshed attitude,” Jackson said. “I think they call it a beginner mind. Needs a beginner mind to start over again. In the process to bond together, that’s what teams do that are successful and come back with ‘OK we can do this. We can collectively get ourselves back on the same page, same breath and same idea of selfless behavior, whatever our roles and get out there and play the game that’s competitive.’ There should be ample opportunity for this team to come back into competition next year.”

On one hand, Jackson said what you would expect him to say here. Of course he’s not going to say that the Knicks can’t compete next season.

But on the other hand, there is a reason for the Knicks fans to be optimistic about 2014-15: just call it the Phil Jackson effect.

Jackson has had an immediate impact in the first season of his previous two NBA jobs.

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In the season before he took over as head coach of the Bulls, Chicago went 47-35. In Jackson’s first season on the bench, the Bulls improved to 55-27.

In the season before Jackson took over in Los Angeles, the Lakers went 31-19. In their first season with Jackson on the bench, Los Angeles finished 67-15 – an increase in winning percentage of 19 percent over the previous season.

Of course, Jackson was coaching those teams. In all likelihood, he won't be coaching the Knicks next season -- his first full term as president of the Knicks.

Jackson, it should be noted, also had Michael Jordan in Chicago and Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant in Los Angeles.

Putting the obvious differences between Jackson's previous jobs and his Knicks gig aside, there’s another reason for the Zen Master to be optimistic about the Knicks next year: the weakened state of the Eastern Conference.

For much of last season, many of the Eastern Conference “contenders” were hovering around .500.

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The third and fourth seeds in the East -– Toronto and Chicago –- finished with 48 wins. That total would have been good enough for a ninth-place finish in the Western Conference.

So the Knicks will be competing against the weaker of the two NBA conferences next year.

Of course, plenty can happen between late June and opening night. So it’s pointless to try to project the Knicks’ roster as it stands today against other teams in the Eastern Conference.

But even if the roster remains largely intact, there’s reason to think the Knicks will be better than the 37-win output they produced last season.

New York was heavily impacted by injury last year. Tyson Chandler was limited to 55 games due to various injuries, including a broken leg. Raymond Felton missed 17 games due to injury. And J.R. Smith missed the first five games of the season due to a violation of the league’s substance-abuse policy and then needed time to fully recover from offseason knee surgery.

So if the Knicks can avoid those health issues and re-sign Anthony, there’s a reason to believe in Jackson’s optimism.

nyk4ever wrote:while i think it's a good point, it almost makes it sound like amear has been dogging it, which i don't think he is. hopefully whoever coaches this team just gives amear the ability to play a bunch of a minutes and if he does, he'll be productive.

Good point. Wasn't Stat's choice to have his minutes restricted, in fact it pissed him off. I do agree with Vmart that being in a contract year should give Amar'e some added incentive to prove that he isn't over the hill just yet.

Amare is great but what he says and what actually happens are two things. He'll tell us how great he feels, how great shape he is in, how great his back is, how great everything is, but it isn't. Its the NBA, they tell us what we want to hear.

His reduced minutes and bringing him along slowly last year could have been a big factor in why he finished strong. In years previous he was breaking down.

fishmike wrote:Does anyone work harder than this guy? Most would have retired. What he does or doesnt accomplish will have nothing to do with it being a contract year.

Contract year comes into everything. Players want their contract years to be spectacular. While Amare is the embodiment of persistence, playing for a new contract is motivating especially for players that are persistent as Amare more so.

fishmike wrote:Does anyone work harder than this guy? Most would have retired. What he does or doesnt accomplish will have nothing to do with it being a contract year.

Yeah he really kills it out there especially on the defensive end

knicks1248 wrote:

Dagger wrote:If amare truly has his heart set on playing in Israel after next year he doesn't need to impress anyone.

I seriously doubt he goes to Israel if he knows he can win ring in 2 to 3 season..

He bought a farm in the Hudson Valley. He's not going to Israel. Hopefully, he will play for a low contract with the Knicks, since most teams will not risk paying him real $$ given his health issues. I'd take him as backup PF for $3-4mil/yr for 3 years, team option in third. Otherwise he can take his chances.