Posted by BRIGGS:
no, i think this is a good trade for the knicks. [if this really is true] the bottom line is the knicks want to win NOW--there is a real possibility that Allan may never be the same player and if anything happens where he cant play, having jamal is a high quality replacement. he's rangy,athletic and has tremendous talent + will take pressure off Marbury bringing the ball up. is there downsides with jamal--obviously no one wanted him that bad--even his own team--really his value is as a PG but i think if you have two guys who can play kind of a combo role that can work. it also makes a small team smaller yet makes us more athletic and sure beats watching andersen.
what you are saying is you think we can be patient and find a better deal at the deadline---i doubt it --why? we have no draft picks to trade until 2010 and there are plenty of teams with ending contracts. on top of that we would have jamal from the start of the season
if you look at the first 8 games, i mean we need to haev a full boat right from the start or we will be back treading water out of the gate again. it will be very difficult with jamal AND houston --- if we had neither we could be staring at 0-8
if we can stem the tide from the start it will give the team a lot of momentum so the beginning of this season IMHO is key.
i think getting Jamal is a positive as long as his salary is REASONABLE in line with what ginobli richardson etc.. the only thing that would bother me is giving up some kind of unprotected pick even if its 6 yeasr from now or paying jamal way over his amrket value--other than that im happy to trade what is proposed for jamal. you are not going to do much better.
Im surprised that you, who has been against the Crawford trade before, who doesn't like to get bad contracts and who likes to have flexibility to make deals for young players to help us, is in favor of this trade. What was about the Shandon deal that made you dislike it? It may have looked impossible to you, but the fact is that it was the most even deal proposed for both teams. They get Shandon? We have to tahe both bad contracts who make a bigger number. We get the best player in Craw? They get big money savings in the lots of contracts we give them, and who knows if they can transform that into a better player. The problem was that Isiah wanted to get Moochie in the deal, something that did make sense because of his final deal not being guaranteed. If you put Deke in his place you have that even trade. That would be at least a good one.
This one leaves us with practically the same team for like 2 or 3 more seasons, and thats not good for a team that, as you said in another post, is still a small one. We want to win now, thats true. But if you watch Isiah's trades carefully you will see that he is trying to do it with young vets, which tells you that he wants to win now but also knows that he needs to keep improving the team to make them contenders. One thing is to win now, we can do that as currently constructed and healthy, and another is being contenders, and for that we need a more complete team and size. By making that Crawford trade you get better now but you stay the same for a long time. By having some expiring contracts you get yourself a chance to improve the team during the year. I think its tough for our team, in the cap crisis we are, to lose all its assets and in top of that get another long bad contract is not the right step. Im not exactly thinking about deadline trades, although they are a possibility, Im thinking just about overall flexibility.
Losing all your exp. conts. is tough, but losing them without being able to at least throw in one of your bad conts. is worse. I at least liked the Shandon deal. But this one isn't good for us, and Paxson is acting like we were desperate to get him. Need a SG? Then sign White for part of the MLE and if Houston isn't there then try to survive with Penny, White and Shandon. White can score but doesn't play much defense. Houston didn't play a lot of that anyway.
