And that is what Fish and Phil will figure out during the first half of the season.

They want to know who:

Buys into the system

Sacrifices stats to play winning ball

Takes care of their mind and body off the court

Pays attention during practices

Shows up to work on time ready to go every single day

Who studies voluntarily, not just during film sessions

Who learns and implements it

Who has got his teammates backs

-------------------------------

Sam, Pablo, Jose, Melo do qualify as steady guys you can count on doing their thing.

Melo as the Man has the most influence ultimately and thus most upside to improve in terms of leading by example and buying fully into a new way of playing.

-------------------------------

As for the rest, we'll find out.

Shump needs to become consistent to make the grade, but he could.

Jason needs to stay healthy to stay in the mix, but my vibe is he's a smart player and fits right into their plans and can be trusted to play within a scheme.

Acy looks like he's committed and if he is steady he could be a trusted member of the squad.

I don't expect JR, Bargs and probably not Stat to meet those standards, all for very different reasons.

JR may still show up hungover. Who knows which JR we'll get, but you cannot trust him at all. Ever. Guy is a looney tune. Comparing him to Rodman is silly IMO. Rodman was the outlier: a lunatic you could trust to produce every night.

Bargs is just not that committed IMO. I suspect he came to camp not in the condition he should have been in and he's falling behind.

Stat is committed, but he may not be able to adapt much so trusting him to play in a specific way is asking too much. He'll do what he does for as long as he stays healthy and is given time.

I think Cole is a steady person probably, yet he has never gotten enough consistent time to know how that translate on the court in terms of reliability.

We don't know about crack baby and Early yet. Maybe I missed someone.

CrushAlot wrote:I think Jason Smith becomes one of those guys and I think Hardaway is on his way to being one as well.

Jason Smith last 3yrs played only 40, 51 & 31 games

he is an injury risk.
his mins should be monitored

The evidence is already showing up in the way the team is defending already. I think once the rotation is set we'll get consistency from enough guys to be pretty good. This style of play isn't really about big performances as much as it's about a good team effort and everyone sticking to the team concept. Think Spurs in terms of nice spread out even performance from multiple guys. Everyone giving a little to the whole is what we're looking for. Not much different than what we're seeing in Preseason.

(As for the rest, we'll find out.)

The Q(X) Factor

“[Knicks team president] Phil [Jackson] is not a man of many words, but he just says he loves my energy and told me to step up and take the shots with confidence when I get them. Just do what I do."

“Just help run the offense. It’s different for everybody. It requires a lot of thinking. Making sure I’m in the right places. Making sure I’m getting my teammates open, making sure I’m active on the boards and making open shots when given."

“Not a lot of guys in the league do the things I do. I take pride in it and take pride in my defense and take some pride in being a great overall teammate."

- Quincy Acy

Watch the film...please.

TripleThreat wrote:

misterearl wrote:The players we need to win on a consistent basis .....

.... are not on the current Knicks roster.

To win consistently in the NBA, you need

1) A minimum baseline of talent ( You need a core set of ingredients to bake a cake. There are essential components on the modern NBA contenders roster that are paramount and non negotiable for success. )

2) You need players on your roster who actually fit together well. ( The Heat were a case of overwhelming talent pushing through during a lockout shortened year and just barely won another year, but lost two years in the Finals to teams who had that minimum baseline of talent, a good roster fit and played team ball. The Heat roster never fit together well and it hurt them. )

3) You need to play team basketball and buy in for the greater good of the team, not the individual. This is key from your highest paid and/or most talented players on the roster.

LONG ANTI KNICK RAMBLE

Wow Triple, am i going to have to add you to the ignore list?

TripleThreat wrote:

misterearl wrote:Did somebody say Pulitzer?

TripleThreat, in one series of paragraphs, just outperformed what every paid beat writer in the New York submits in one month.

You sir, have raised the bar for excellence in writing. "We, who are about to die, salute you."

Did somebody say Tony Robbins?

Because your weekly soft rip horse**** from some motivational infomercial isn't really going to help the Knicks win.

"...not always the most talented, but the players who show up every night prepared"

Guess what Tony Robbins, players who show up each night prepared are in good physical condition. Melo has been chronically out of shape pretty much his whole career. But you say everyone should "trust" that he will bring something positive each and every night for the Knicks?

Melo showing up out of shape is disgraceful. It's an insult to his profession, to his team, to the franchise and to all Knick fans. It's not excusable. That so many of you accept so little from the Knicks "franchise player" is honestly kind of sad.

Celebrating because the guy shows up in shape or somewhat like in shape. How sad is that. Celebrating players for the things they are supposed to do anyway as professionals. "He's says he's willing to try team ball!" Is that something really to get excited about from a 12 year veteran All Star with Team USA experience?

I don't need to raise the bar over every sportswriter in America, I just need to raise the bar over your soft serve motivational speech mush mouth horse ****.

Instead of this mythical super mojo "trust", I'd rather advocate crazy **** like floor spacing, defending the rim, transition defense, effective penetration from the point guard position, closing off passing lanes, setting hard picks, effective resource management, maximizing draft assets, mining for market inefficiencies in the 2nd round, international market and UDFAs, and on and on and on. I know, all that sounds like bat **** crazy stuff. Certainly not going to help the Knicks win over your vaunted "trust" factor. Right?

I love the Knicks, but I'm not going to put on the homer goggles and pretend that they are more right now than what they really are. I'm not going to pretend I'm looking at a steak when I'm front of a can of rotting sardines. There's a difference between hope and just outright delusion and some of you clearly don't see or understand the difference.

Anytime you want some misterearl, with your 4th rate Dale Carnegie mojo in tow, feel free to come get some.

No this is not a perfect roster. That doesn't mean that this roster can't win games. I think MOST reasonable fans would be able to see the change that is taking place. It's not complete but you can see the beginning of the process and it's been good.

1. The roster is improved. It's more balanced. It's deeper. It's not the disaster some predicted from what we've seen so far. Dalembert has looked good. Jason has looked good. Even in his one stint Bargs looked good. Cole and STAT should be able to give us good minutes. I just don't see the problem there.

2. The team defense has gotten better overall and should get better still. We couldn't defend a PnR to save our lives last year and now the defense is much more sound.

3. The offense is still developing but the improvement is already starting. The passing is improving ad should continue to improve with more work.

4. Fish is showing a good ability to get thru to his players so far. This is a major sea change going from ISO to Triangle like this. It's hard to get vets to totally change their thinking as they have to in this system. Fish has been showing good judgement in terms of his testing of the starting lineup. He said he wanted the best Defense and Offense in his starters and he hasn't been afraid to go with an unexpected group in order to do that.

5. Melo is being more of a leader and adjusting well to the new system. He's allowing Fish to get the rest of the team comfortable carrying more of the load. Melo is trying to use the offense more and looking for teammates.

The media as usual is late to the party in terms of noting the changes and they're already predicting a pretty poor season. ESPN has the Knicks going 38-44. SCHOENE has us going 40-42 after predicting 37-45 last year, which I think was a fluke, but hey... Ohm Youngmisuk is predicting 42-40. I'm still looking to see what others are predicting but for the most part the results haven't been good. I think this team is going to be in contention for the Atlantic and possibly win the div. My early prediction was for them to win 50 games and I still feel they can do that.