Knicks drafted Kristaps Porzingis. When teams usually get a young franchise big, or a young talent they want to develop, 9 out of 10 times they trade away the older declining star that is hogging the ball. It's just how it works. It's almost never worked, a young draft pick coming in and a player on his couple of years. There may be some rare instances but this was definitely not the area. Kristaps is a starting 4 that can play 5. Melo's best position is 4. It will never work.
Melo played in NY under D'Antoni, Woodson and Fisher. The results were all more or less the same. He did not like D'Antoni's system. D'Antoni quit in large part because Melo did not want to move to 4 (And Amare 5) and saw the team wasn't responding to him. Woodson had one good year, and the next year was really bad. Similar to our last year. Were the results before Phil came over any better with a younger, better Melo? The answer is a big fat no.
Phil won't be with the Knicks for much longer. I can't see him be here for more than 2 more years. In that time if he changes the foundation of this franchise to being one where they have young players like Kristaps, and other players who come here drafted, and we rebuild properly, I have absolutely no problem with it.
The bottom line is if the Knicks had drafted Mudiay, they would be talking about something completely different right now. The team would still be clinging onto Melo for dear life because he's the only player they had who was any good. The fact that they got another player now, who plays virtually the same position Melo should, and that Melo has each of the last few years declined in production and shooting, it only makes it a no brainer to deal Melo.
Any GM with a smart mind deals Melo in this situation. Now I don't know if Phil's mind **** games and all the barbs in the media and all the other **** is smart. I think the right way to approach this is to talk to Melo, and work with him on a trade. That's been the big problem with this, Phil seems to love just ****ing with everyone's head, Melo's, the media's. The fans. It's pretty crazy he's doing this, but I don't know what's going on behind the scenes. Is Melo actually willing to waive his NTC? What if the only way Melo waives his NTC is if Phil mind ****s and drives him crazy through the press and all this drama? I don't know. As much as Melo has said he would consider it if they came to him, I speculate that all his actions show that he would simply say "Nah, I'm not interested in being traded".
