newyorknewyork wrote:I would like for us to land Dakari Johnson.

Kentucky is going to have three 7 footers on their roster next year...their incoming freshman Karl Towns looks like Patrick Ewing to me a little. Dakari and that other kid Willie look like they need to stay in school 4 years. Towns is a one and done.

TripleThreat wrote:IMHO, the issue with centers is often they take years to develop.

There are still a lot of young centers that end up getting max offers from their drafting teams for their 2nd contract on potential alone, simply because it's commonly accepted that many bigs take time to acclimate to the NBA game/speed/competition.

Marc Gasol was an interesting case, while he had a lot of problems/questions early on, he did have the benefit of playing against his brother Pau a lot, which I think was critical for his development. I think the problem with high upside rookie bigs is they spend college playing against inferior competition. It's just tough for most young college centers to find good talent to challenge them consistently ( how else do you get better?)

Someone I thought the Knicks should have targeted last year or the year before was John Henson. There are times that NBA teams have a pretty good young prospect, but their team is too loaded in front of them with contract heavy players or the team just plays a little too well to easily get young guys critical rotation minutes ( i.e. the Thunder, where Steven Adams, Jeremy Lamb and Perry Jones would have gotten much more playing time on another team. Or Montejuanas of the Rockets. )

Getting a young big with potential off another loaded roster is something I wish the Knicks would do, in conjuction with drafting a few and see how they pan out, however odds are, the Knicks won't have the assets. The benefit of getting a guy in Year 2 versus a rookie is that you might maximize Melo's prime a little better that way. But odds are, any drafted big, in most cases, won't develop fully until the Knicks core players now are outside their best opportunity window.

TheKnicks are going to be in a disasterous situation next year when all of their bigs become free agents.We take this for granted--but it could be a realty none of our 5 guys will be back. Drafting a quality young big--even if they can only contribute becomes a necessity both short and long term. The team cannot afford to pass up a quality young big man that is salary restricted for 4 years. Even if we signed a big man with big $$ FA we would still need additional big men. This year its almost a lock that we will go big unless someone is too good to pass up.

only big 4s that can stretch the ball

I see him setting up the summer with a blockbuster move, in 2015 summer, using the 2015 draft rights, in addition to a 2018+ 1st rounder

or

2 2nd/3rd tier's like Millsap/Al Jefferson

for either 1 ALL STAR caliber player, like Durant/Noah *only with them pulling a CA and/or Kevin Love to come to NYK, though asking CA to recruit, especially if OKC/Bull's do not live up to expectations

same with Lebron *though unlikely with the talent they have assembled on top of trio of Irving/Lebron/Love*

3rd Tier, 6th/7th man roles, and are playing as the 4th/5th options at times, and possibly the 3rd options at most at times, playing as ROLE players but are much better than that
then Triston Thompson is a bit undersized but has decent athleticism and is like David Lee, he has the ability to shoot/finish with both hands and is very ambidextrious
Dion Waiters is a scorer, he no longer has to worry about facilitating with Lebron and will have the shooters to allow him to spread the floor out, allowing him to penetrate almost every play or leave someone with WIDE OPEN SHOTS, he still has amazing speed/quickess with a decent handle/athleticism/strength and the ability to FINISH and score

with role players in Varejo possibly returning to the 10pts, 15reb + with Kevin Love every night, along with Lebron/Triston Thompson with some tough DEF/REB's
Add in Mike Miller and likely Ray Allen to spread the floor, with WIDE OPEN SHOTS, with the big 3 getting all the attention and still Waiters/Triston Thompson to work with
Joe Harris *rookie, one of the better shooters in the draft* and James Jones

Marion still doing the dirty work as a good 1v1 defender and solid help defender at the SF/PF position

Young Development projects
====================================
Malcolym Thomas could learn, develop much with Lebron/Shawn Marion to help guide him

Development ROOKS
But the development of Dwight Powell as a backup PF/C that is extremely athletic, has a good shooting stroke, and a decent post game, as their "development ROOK"
Joe Harris at G, one of the better pure shooters in the entire draft

The rest include

Brendan Haywood
Matthew Dellavedova
Erik Murphy
Alex Kirk

Point of me talking so much about Cleveland because I believe we are trying to build a contender and they will surely be the TOP team in the East
Bulls and Bobcats could both be up there as well with their new acquisitions and returns

The same reason why Kevin Love was traded despite the "POTENTIAL" of #1 draft pick in Wiggons, the team is BUILT to win NOW, and like Lebron/CA has a time expiration before they regress

Also by making a trade or 2, it will allow us to go OVER the cap, therefore having the full 5m MLE (which will be nearly 6m by next year) With the full MLE, it could be used for 1 3rd tier player or 2, maybe 3 solid role players
Though the Bi Annual Exemption would be closer to 2.8m-3m, next season and could acquire a solid player with that type of money and then having the full MLE the following year

I see Phil Jackson looking for either 1 or 2 players, following the starphuq plan, utilizing all the cap space we can in 2015 before CA's salary continues to rise, making it tougher
Though there are no "WORTHY" max players left in my opinion that are realistically attainable with Aldridge like resigning that are UFA's
The only 2 players I see worth using both of our 1st round draft picks on (2015 and 2018+) possibly even slightly more are Durant and Noah, they are totally worth the money in the Triangle as well

gunsnewing wrote:

IronWillGiroud wrote:there are no more centers in the world,

only big 4s that can stretch the ball

Or eat it like Pekovic

pekovic melo bledsoe calderon = chip