knicks1248 wrote:

EnySpree wrote:

CrushAlot wrote:

nixluva wrote:

CrushAlot wrote:

nixluva wrote:

CrushAlot wrote:

EnySpree wrote:I think we are doing a good job of establishing a culture. Phil wants team basketball. That's why he's pushing for system offense. He wants hard workers. Team players. It's not rocket science. It's also not a exact science.

Phil's mistakes are noted, but his positives aren't. We have a nice group players that fit the mold of hard working team players. Phil has Horny and he has his informant in Rambis... thet well sort out who's worth keeping. We have youth and we're adding to it... we're not going to sign a superstar. We are gonna have to draft or trade for one. We need to get lucky. We also probably will need to hit the jackpot on a trade somewhere down the line.

It's like a Rubix cube... at fittest it looks impossible, then all of a sudden everything opens up and you complete the puzzle. We just have to keep at it

The Knicks brought in ten new players this year. That is two thirds of the roster. Management wants to get rid of the longest tenured Knick and my guess is Sasha or KOQ isn't back. I don't know how you can establish a culture if you reset the roster every year and keep switching coaches and philosophies. Maybe this starting to happen. It hasn't happened yet under Phil.

MOST of the team is likely coming back. Also this is about the LONG TERM and not just next season. They will have some continuity next year but also an influx of LONG TERM pieces! That's the whole point of a rebuild. Younger core players that you can run with for many years!

So do we agree that there isn't and the team hasn't had continuity during Phil's first 3 yrs?

Sure! But why would you want continuity with players you don't want? You don't force things keeping players you don't want, just to say you have continuity.

Phil yr 1 cleans house and drafts KP and Willy. He tries in yr 2 to build up some value and he does and trades RoLo. Yr 3 he tries to cater to Melo and brings in some vets. However he at the same time brought in 5 rookies and kept his options open. This summer he gives up on the Melo Era and will likely bring back a good % of the roster.

you can't establish a culture if your roster is being turned over every year, you keep replacing coaches, and you keep switching systems. Hopefully the Knicks start to build a culture but nothing has been put in place for any length of time with Phil.

You are just talking and not listening. We're running the triangle but we keep switching systems? But i though everyone wanted to switch systems away from the triangle🤔.

Keep changing coaches? Fisher turned out to be a cancerous piece of ****. Rambis was just an interim. Hoenacek got fired? Who's the coach going to be? Did i miss something?

Guys are resistant to change. That would be Melo and Rose... Jennings said guys weren't playing for each other. That's a real problem, so those players will not be back next year. Isn't that how you "rebuild"? How do you rebuild if you stay the same and never improve? We need better defenders right? We need a better point guard right?

Oy vey...

but this has been the case every year since phil has been here.. Why?

Different roster same problem, why on earth do you think things will be different next yr, you don't have an ounce of proof that it will.

We did see a difference in how the team played MINUS Melo and Rose. The idea is to keep moving in that direction by adding better 2 Way Players that play Team Ball. This is pretty clear at this point.

GustavBahler wrote:

WaltLongmire wrote:Have pointed this out a few times... Phil could not do a true "strip it down" rebuild because of what past folks in his position had left him.

You can go back on your own to look at the 2014 and 2016 drafts to see what we might have ended with if Phil had all of our picks we've given away over the years... 1st and 2nd rounds.

I'm not sure he would have signed Melo if he had a full complement of picks.

Phil misused Chandler as a trade asset- maybe we could have traded him to the Cavs for the 2 #1s they gave Denver for Mosgov.

If he really didn't want JR, he should have traded him immediately- his contract had only a year left and it was only about $5M. It might have helped Hardaway, who could have emerged as more of a leader without Melo and Smith around. Maybe Shumpert even fits in a little better.

Water under the bridge, obviously, but for me the biggest issues for Phil was that he wanted the game played a certain way, was saddled with a star he probably didn't want, and was missing the draft picks which he would have benefited from if he had jettisoned Melo, Smith, and Chandler.

Disagree that JR could have been easily moved without Shumpert. He was the most toxic player in the league at the time, look back at the timeline of his antics (to put it nicely) that led up to his being traded. No one wanted anything to do with him. The only team willing to take him on was one with a player in the conversation for GOAT. Even then it took a while for JR to stay out of trouble long enough to help them win a ring. Remember that Chuck Norris like spinning backfist punch his first playoff series with the Cavs? No one wanted any of that.

Dont blame Phil for trading Hardaway either as he looked much the same as he did in NY, his first season in Atlanta. If THJ had stayed in NY another season, and played as poorly, I doubt many here would have shed a tear if he had left.

When Chandler was traded he was flu Tyson. He was throwing teammates under the bus, and leaving himself blameless. All sorts of injuries, his value was rock bottom at the time. Dont believe it was realistic to expect Phil to get DPOY prices for a player whose value was shot at the time.

Unless Dolan mandated that Phil bring Melo back for the max (with an NTC) it is 100 percent on him. No exec in the league would get a pass for making a deal like this, and neither should he. Thought it was a bad idea then.

You're right Phil couldn't do an old school, ground up, rebuild with draft picks. But he could have done a partial rebuild with cap space if Melo had walked. Doing a sign and trade, or just letting Melo, go would have given the Knicks the cap room to start a rebuild with better, younger players, while we waited to get our picks again.

We still did do a strip down rebuild every season in the sense that any player who wasn't deemed to be a "Triangle Player" was jettisoned, and that meant almost everyone. This meant looking for a very particular type of player. Harder to find as it takes several seasons to really play this system well with any consistency. This meant going through many players to find a very particular player with the right skill set.

You take away the Triangle, and its very specific demands, and you wind up with more players available, good players, who can help the team. If Jeff was allowed to run the system he wants, I doubt that players who fit would be this hard to find.

I agree with most of this. Not sure about what he could have spent with the "Melo Money". Thats what I have referred to as "Seen vs the Unseen". We know what Melo is (Seen) but we make assumptions about the other free agents (The unseen) and then in hindsight think it would have been better. This is where the Evan Turners, Landry Fields, Demarre Carroll's come into play. Good players but have to over pay to get them. The top notch guys can get similar money and go to a contender or stay home and get more money guarantee.

There has to be a momentum and a vision. I think Melo was a bridge from one era to another to sell tickets and keep interst in the team while an attempt to win while rebuilding. No GM/President will say he is doing anything but trying to win. Melo will say similar.

The hard core Phil haters bring to the table ample proof in hindsight but fail to reconstruct a time line that has the accuracy of what is unknown at the time. A team that has Felton, JR and Shump does not have an asset base to move forward with. They were stagnant talents better suited to support roles and not as primary core talents. Pairing with others is super important. Zbo matured and paired with Gasol with the right scheme was a good thing. In NY, not with MDA. Crawford as 6th man has been very effective, but not as a starter in NY. JR has a world of talent, and is perfect when kept in check by Lebron and as the 4th offensive option. Shump is a very good defender, and a great role as a 4th or 5th option depending on who is on the court. Flu Tyson lacks any offensive game that correlates with many offenses let alone what NY was going to do. All we talk about was Jose who was injured his first season here, and in his second he played but really at 7mm a year he was a good value and it was assumed Grant or Galloway would be starting.

knicks1248 wrote:

GoNyGoNyGo wrote:My idea for a rebuild for this team is this:

Remove Melo. Remove Rose.

Acquire as many young players as possible that fit your definition of a team player.

Sign 2-3 veterans (not 30 sometings but late 20 somethings) who may have won something before or have been part of a good organization.

Let simmer for 2-3 years.

So fill the team with in experience young players that don't know what the hell their doing, in a high IQ system that requires a bona fide scorer. Mean while phil racks up another 100 losses over the next 2 season to go with the 166 is already achieved in his tenure. That's what your going to tell your potential FA..

Is this really what you think Phil is doing tho? Phil said he's going to have youth and some experience.

The High IQ system part is addressed with High BBIQ players!!! That's what you saw with the kids playing. They were actually getting the hang of Jeff's coaching. With even better talent they can improve even further.

There will be progress. A a new core of the team built around young talent. That is a POSITIVE and not the negative way you're presenting it.

CrushAlot wrote:

EnySpree wrote:

CrushAlot wrote:

nixluva wrote:

CrushAlot wrote:

nixluva wrote:

CrushAlot wrote:

EnySpree wrote:I think we are doing a good job of establishing a culture. Phil wants team basketball. That's why he's pushing for system offense. He wants hard workers. Team players. It's not rocket science. It's also not a exact science.

Phil's mistakes are noted, but his positives aren't. We have a nice group players that fit the mold of hard working team players. Phil has Horny and he has his informant in Rambis... thet well sort out who's worth keeping. We have youth and we're adding to it... we're not going to sign a superstar. We are gonna have to draft or trade for one. We need to get lucky. We also probably will need to hit the jackpot on a trade somewhere down the line.

It's like a Rubix cube... at fittest it looks impossible, then all of a sudden everything opens up and you complete the puzzle. We just have to keep at it

The Knicks brought in ten new players this year. That is two thirds of the roster. Management wants to get rid of the longest tenured Knick and my guess is Sasha or KOQ isn't back. I don't know how you can establish a culture if you reset the roster every year and keep switching coaches and philosophies. Maybe this starting to happen. It hasn't happened yet under Phil.

MOST of the team is likely coming back. Also this is about the LONG TERM and not just next season. They will have some continuity next year but also an influx of LONG TERM pieces! That's the whole point of a rebuild. Younger core players that you can run with for many years!

So do we agree that there isn't and the team hasn't had continuity during Phil's first 3 yrs?

Sure! But why would you want continuity with players you don't want? You don't force things keeping players you don't want, just to say you have continuity.

Phil yr 1 cleans house and drafts KP and Willy. He tries in yr 2 to build up some value and he does and trades RoLo. Yr 3 he tries to cater to Melo and brings in some vets. However he at the same time brought in 5 rookies and kept his options open. This summer he gives up on the Melo Era and will likely bring back a good % of the roster.

you can't establish a culture if your roster is being turned over every year, you keep replacing coaches, and you keep switching systems. Hopefully the Knicks start to build a culture but nothing has been put in place for any length of time with Phil.

You are just talking and not listening. We're running the triangle but we keep switching systems? But i though everyone wanted to switch systems away from the triangle🤔.

Keep changing coaches? Fisher turned out to be a cancerous piece of ****. Rambis was just an interim. Hoenacek got fired? Who's the coach going to be? Did i miss something?

Guys are resistant to change. That would be Melo and Rose... Jennings said guys weren't playing for each other. That's a real problem, so those players will not be back next year. Isn't that how you "rebuild"? How do you rebuild if you stay the same and never improve? We need better defenders right? We need a better point guard right?

Oy vey...

Please explain how the culture was built over the past three years. Also, the triangle was brought back in February. What if Rose is resigned to be the point guard?

They got rid of Shump and JR and tanked.... got KP. Phil has since tried to add so could contribute. Nobody wants to come to the Knicks. It's not because of Phil. Historically the Knicks just could not get quality players through free agency or trade. Phil did his best picking up obscure players. Dine worked, some didn't.

As far as the triangle. This isn't football. This isn't a computer program. Basketball is 5 players. You can't play one way and then play a completely different way. The Knicks never trashed the triangle. Certain players didn't want to play that way. Whenever those certain players didn't play the other guys made the triangle look effective.

Good people that work hard and together. System basketball. That's what every tan strives for. Takes patience. Alot of phonies in the league. You gotta sort through that.

NYKBocker wrote:I actually think Phil is doing the right thing. He has a plan and he is sticking to it. I believe his plan is to rebuild via draft and get younger and try to stay competitive via signing vets that can help your team.

He got rid of players and contracts he viewed as detrimental to his plan. Tyson, Fatton, JR and Shump.
He signed players he thought would help in the win column. RoLo, Noah, KOQ
He traded for a player he thought would help in the win column. Rose.
He signed undrafted FAs that are rotational players. Kuz, Baker, etc..
He did not trade any of our 1st round picks.
He bought and collected picks in the draft.
They hit gold twice in the draft with KP and Willy.

Really, 2 things messed him up. First...the Fisher signing was bad. He was not ready.
Second was the trading for Rose.

I can't really fault him for Melo's NTC because I think Dolan has something to do with that.

NYKBocker wrote:

Bonn1997 wrote:

NYKBocker wrote:I actually think Phil is doing the right thing. He has a plan and he is sticking to it. I believe his plan is to rebuild via draft and get younger and try to stay competitive via signing vets that can help your team.

He got rid of players and contracts he viewed as detrimental to his plan. Tyson, Fatton, JR and Shump.
He signed players he thought would help in the win column. RoLo, Noah, KOQ
He traded for a player he thought would help in the win column. Rose.
He signed undrafted FAs that are rotational players. Kuz, Baker, etc..
He did not trade any of our 1st round picks.
He bought and collected picks in the draft.
They hit gold twice in the draft with KP and Willy.

Really, 2 things messed him up. First...the Fisher signing was bad. He was not ready.
Second was the trading for Rose.

I can't really fault him for Melo's NTC because I think Dolan has something to do with that.

OK but what do with Melo should have been something he discussed with Dolan before even agreeing to take the job. If Dolan said, you have to give him the biggest contract in the world and add the NTC, then that should have been a red flag. Or even he just said you have to re-sign him no matter what, that should have also been a red flag.
If I remember right, Phil and Dolan were talking for months before he was hired, right? (I'm not certain about this, though.) If so, he should have insisted that if Dolan was going to hire him, it be at least a few weeks before the trade deadline so that he can explore all options with Melo.

I think Phil's ego is so huge that he thought he can handle Melo anyway he wanted to.

I agree, I think Phil took on the gig knowing he was to give Melo what he wanted which was likely either full max, or if a big less, the NTC.
And.....Phil thought he could manage melo. Did Melo say "Phuch you and your ball movement Voodoo, im going to do my thing and you can kiss my ass"? I doubt that. Melo MIGHT have thought genuinely that he would give triangle thing a try. Maybe it was all the best intentions between Melo and Phil. No agendas. Phil has the ring cred, Melo is a star player who needs to have a winning cred. Fish as a player has a good reputation and it would be Melo's team.

What went wrong? Only thing we know is what we see and what we read, and half of that is opinion.

knicks1248 wrote:

GoNyGoNyGo wrote:My idea for a rebuild for this team is this:

Remove Melo. Remove Rose.

Acquire as many young players as possible that fit your definition of a team player.

Sign 2-3 veterans (not 30 sometings but late 20 somethings) who may have won something before or have been part of a good organization.

Let simmer for 2-3 years.

So fill the team with in experience young players that don't know what the hell their doing, in a high IQ system that requires a bona fide scorer. Mean while phil racks up another 100 losses over the next 2 season to go with the 166 is already achieved in his tenure. That's what your going to tell your potential FA..

No you find young guys that want to work and be professional. That's what you tell free agents. If they don't want to do that then we don't want them... we just keep chipping away at it

fwk00 wrote:

WaltLongmire wrote:Have pointed this out a few times... Phil could not do a true "strip it down" rebuild because of what past folks in his position had left him.

You can go back on your own to look at the 2014 and 2016 drafts to see what we might have ended with if Phil had all of our picks we've given away over the years... 1st and 2nd rounds.

I'm not sure he would have signed Melo if he had a full complement of picks.

Phil misused Chandler as a trade asset- maybe we could have traded him to the Cavs for the 2 #1s they gave Denver for Mosgov.

If he really didn't want JR, he should have traded him immediately- his contract had only a year left and it was only about $5M. It might have helped Hardaway, who could have emerged as more of a leader without Melo and Smith around. Maybe Shumpert even fits in a little better.

Water under the bridge, obviously, but for me the biggest issues for Phil was that he wanted the game played a certain way, was saddled with a star he probably didn't want, and was missing the draft picks which he would have benefited from if he had jettisoned Melo, Smith, and Chandler.

Walt, you and a few others make perfect sense. I just scratch my head when I see the same belligerent criticisms being rehashed in every imaginable and unimaginable combination of ignorance.

Phil has made controversial moves. BFD. Who's to say that everyone else's theories wouldn't have made it all worse? Magical thinking on the part of these critics has them convinced that trading Chandler, Felton, JR, and Shump should have yielded enough talent to be contending for a ring by now.

Yup...It is never a simple situation. I see mistakes Jackson made, but also see a situation he was "born" into (no draft picks).

Many here loved the Grant pick...many saw the pick of Early as a decent choice...many here had no real issues with adding Lee, Rose, Noah, and Jennings, which seemed to make us a decent team.

As mentioned, the problematic issue is the Triangle, and whether we passed on certain players because they were not Triangle suitable. I could see this angering folks, and it probably should.

Add to the Triangle matter, Phil's inability to be a good communicator and a public face for the team, and you can see why many are unhappy with him are critical of him.

WaltLongmire wrote:

GustavBahler wrote:

WaltLongmire wrote:Have pointed this out a few times... Phil could not do a true "strip it down" rebuild because of what past folks in his position had left him.

You can go back on your own to look at the 2014 and 2016 drafts to see what we might have ended with if Phil had all of our picks we've given away over the years... 1st and 2nd rounds.

I'm not sure he would have signed Melo if he had a full complement of picks.

Phil misused Chandler as a trade asset- maybe we could have traded him to the Cavs for the 2 #1s they gave Denver for Mosgov.

If he really didn't want JR, he should have traded him immediately- his contract had only a year left and it was only about $5M. It might have helped Hardaway, who could have emerged as more of a leader without Melo and Smith around. Maybe Shumpert even fits in a little better.

Water under the bridge, obviously, but for me the biggest issues for Phil was that he wanted the game played a certain way, was saddled with a star he probably didn't want, and was missing the draft picks which he would have benefited from if he had jettisoned Melo, Smith, and Chandler.

Disagree that JR could have been easily moved without Shumpert. He was the most toxic player in the league at the time, look back at the timeline of his antics (to put it nicely) that led up to his being traded. No one wanted anything to do with him. The only team willing to take him on was one with a player in the conversation for GOAT. Even then it took a while for JR to stay out of trouble long enough to help them win a ring. Remember that Chuck Norris like spinning backfist punch his first playoff series with the Cavs? No one wanted any of that.

Dont blame Phil for trading Hardaway either as he looked much the same as he did in NY, his first season in Atlanta. If THJ had stayed in NY another season, and played as poorly, I doubt many here would have shed a tear if he had left.

When Chandler was traded he was flu Tyson. He was throwing teammates under the bus, and leaving himself blameless. All sorts of injuries, his value was rock bottom at the time. Dont believe it was realistic to expect Phil to get DPOY prices for a player whose value was shot at the time.

Unless Dolan mandated that Phil bring Melo back for the max (with an NTC) it is 100 percent on him. No exec in the league would get a pass for making a deal like this, and neither should he. Thought it was a bad idea then.

You're right Phil couldn't do an old school, ground up, rebuild with draft picks. But he could have done a partial rebuild with cap space if Melo had walked. Doing a sign and trade, or just letting Melo, go would have given the Knicks the cap room to start a rebuild with better, younger players, while we waited to get our picks again.

We still did do a strip down rebuild every season in the sense that any player who wasn't deemed to be a "Triangle Player" was jettisoned, and that meant almost everyone. This meant looking for a very particular type of player. Harder to find as it takes several seasons to really play this system well with any consistency. This meant going through many players to find a very particular player with the right skill set.

You take away the Triangle, and its very specific demands, and you wind up with more players available, good players, who can help the team. If Jeff was allowed to run the system he wants, I doubt that players who fit would be this hard to find.

He could have simply waived JR and simply ate the $$- 1 yr at around $5M...not so bad. I won't condone Phil's obsession with the Triangle above all things, but JR was not only unwilling and unable to play in the system, he was also a negative influence on Hardaway and Shumpert...no? And in the background we had a player like Melo who was not willing to control Smith.

Can't remember how Fisher got along with him, but you figure that he did not appreciate him too much.

One thing about that 52 win team...we had guys who could put JR in his place and bring the best out of him. When the greybeards left JR had nobody to control him.

If Anthony was gone, maybe Chandler gives you some better play...who knows. His value was down when we traded him...why not build him up before trading him.

If you don't sign Anthony, guys like Shump and Hardaway might emerge, who knows, and maybe Hardaway takes to the Triangle without distractions like Smith around.

Big move, or non-move, though...Signing Melo to that contract...almost all moves were tied to making the Knicks a win now team, IMO.

Phil decided to do a tank early in the season. He got the best that he could. LeBron was the only person who was really able to get through to him. Woodson did at first, but by the time he left, he was phoning it in.

Dont believe it was another player though who caused THJ's game to suffer. It wasnt another player who got through to him, it was another coach. Someone who learned under Pops, who broke him down, and built him up again. Dont believe he would have turned things around here.

The rest you seem to suggest is all about Melo. The team's record without Melo in the lineup goes a long way in dispelling that notion. Players didnt suck at the time because of him. They sucked for a variety of reasons. Melo seems to be ascribed a power that seems to rival that of the gravitational force of planets.

Woodson started great when he talked about accountability (and enforced it) but that accountability gradually went out the window. The coaches who followed were worse, caca.

That and the Quixotic search for Triangle players has more to do with why things haven't improved than Melo.