And that's not counting Rose or Jennings in the $76M. The $76M doesn't count the rookie salary of our new draft pick, either, so we might be
looking at more like $21-24M to actually spend.

It's about enough to get one good player. But a guy like Chris Paul, for instance, will probably get over $30M in the new cap.

We have $24M tied up next season in Noah and Lance... would be nice to move one or both of them, if possible.

Thank god we have our pick, it's really the only cost effective way to get good talent at this point.

Jae Crowder got 5 years for 35 million from Boston. That's going to look like an even bigger bargain than it is right now.

Robin Lopez got 12 a year, which is dirt cheap by next year with the cap going up. Of course the Knicks traded him for a broken down mental midget of a point guard who abandoned his team.

The Knicks best window to maximize the growing cap was two offseasons ago. That was the time to project bargains and undervalued players and lock them in and take a risk on their upside. If they offered 40 million to Crowder, would he have taken it? 8 million AAV for a young lock down wing is a steal.

Knicks had their chance and didn't maximize it, where they did maximize it ( signing Robin Lopez), they found a way to shoot themselves in the foot anyway. The Bulls must be laughing all the way to the bank now. They got a starting center, a team player, on a good contract, for an aging injury prone PG who was disruptive to their team.

It's like some bizarre porn movie where a husband lets another dude rail his wife in front of him and thanks him for it afterwards. In this case, the Bulls are the other dude, the Knicks are the beta simpering husband and the Knicks dignity/hope for opportunity is the "wife"

sidneydeane wrote:

TripleThreat wrote:IMHO, the issue is not just how much open space the Knicks have this offseason, it's how the managed the last two offseason with the understanding the cap would go up and some contracts would look like huge bargains in a relative sense very quickly.

Jae Crowder got 5 years for 35 million from Boston. That's going to look like an even bigger bargain than it is right now.

Robin Lopez got 12 a year, which is dirt cheap by next year with the cap going up. Of course the Knicks traded him for a broken down mental midget of a point guard who abandoned his team.

The Knicks best window to maximize the growing cap was two offseasons ago. That was the time to project bargains and undervalued players and lock them in and take a risk on their upside. If they offered 40 million to Crowder, would he have taken it? 8 million AAV for a young lock down wing is a steal.

Knicks had their chance and didn't maximize it, where they did maximize it ( signing Robin Lopez), they found a way to shoot themselves in the foot anyway. The Bulls must be laughing all the way to the bank now. They got a starting center, a team player, on a good contract, for an aging injury prone PG who was disruptive to their team.

It's like some bizarre porn movie where a husband lets another dude rail his wife in front of him and thanks him for it afterwards. In this case, the Bulls are the other dude, the Knicks are the beta simpering husband and the Knicks dignity/hope for opportunity is the "wife"

Pretty sure when we did the rose trade everybody was loving it for the knicks. We aren't winning now, its not because of rose, and we want KP at centre anyway so rolo was no big loss. Noah's contract is going to and already is causing the most problems

A lot of people on this board loved the moves we make before they play but when those players and the team isn't playing well they love to come back on here talking about how those moves they loved 3 months ago sucked after the fact. Phil did a good job of putting plenty of talent on this team and there's zero way for him or anyone to predict what's happening now so you can't just come back on here now and say those moves were bad.

D.Rose
J.Noah
B.Jennings
C.Lee
These are talented players and we should be a much better team when you put these guys with Melo and KP and this is without even talking about all the young talent Phil got us.

newyorker4ever wrote:Phil did a good job of putting plenty of talent on this team and there's zero way for him or anyone to predict what's happening now so you can't just come back on here now and say those moves were bad.

D.Rose
J.Noah
B.Jennings
C.Lee
These are talented players and we should be a much better team when you put these guys with Melo and KP and this is without even talking about all the young talent Phil got us.

Jennings was a value signing

Noah was an aging player with an extensive injury history. He signed with the Knicks because no one else would give him a four year deal at that AAV. It was a high risk move and likely to blow up on the team sooner than later.

Rose has an extensive injury history, carries a massive salary, had clear problems with his personality on his last team, has off the court problems, can't hit a three point shot, showed issues with defense in Chicago. It was a high risk move and likely to blow up in the teams face. Rose also cost the Knicks valuable assets

Lee has always been a useful piece but not a core piece you can build around on the wing. He came like Noah, because the Knicks paid him more and gave him a longer deal than anyone else.

Sure mouthpieces and people in Dolan's pocket or CAA's pocket will push positive press on these moves. But these were high risk moves with a low chance of long term gain for the Knicks.

Others discussed the drawbacks of these players, but many simply didn't want to listen.

If Rose, Noah and Lee were so valuable, other teams, teams that WIN CONSISTENTLY would have chased them. But thats why those teams win CONSISTENTLY, they didn't chase them.

Jennings was a good medium risk/high reward signing. That doesn't wash out the rest of the bad offseason in free agency.

TripleThreat wrote:

smackeddog wrote:Free agency is not as important as it used to be.

It's not important if you are talking about big ticket franchise guys in their prime.

Guys like Jae Crowder, Robin Lopez, Will Barton, Ed Davis, Isiah Thomas 2, Robert Covington and Kent Bazemore on his first contract ( 2 years like 4 million total) etc are guys where its massively important.

There are value guys out there with long term upside who might have given the Knick a chance if the Knicks simply outbid other teams.

The old Cleveland Indians locked down Kenny Lofton, Jim Thome, Albert Belle, etc when they were young but bet on their upside. They missed on some other guys, but part of the process is projecting into the future and seeing talent that hasn't had the time or opportunity to blossom yet.

FA can be a wasteland, but their is ALWAYS VALUE if you dig hard enough and are smart enough. The Knicks FO just wasn't smart enough. This is the price of having a first time running a whole team 70 year old in charge.

But getting those good value pieces now, keeps the team mediocre- we need a top pick or two first, once we've drafted another high player or two, then we can start thinking about free agency and cap space- we have a year or two and even then won't need $20mil free.