Nazr showed flashes of being a good offensive center- had some big games where he shot 7 of 9 for 20pts.

consistency is a problem for a lot of players.

I don't mind having Nazr as my starting center

the key will be Lenny getting the most out of all the players on a regular basis.

Plus- I am afraid if we had gotten Damps (for anything but the MLE), we would have regretted it- maybe not this year, but next year or the year after- part way through his contract, we'd be talking about what an underacheiver he is and how we all wish we had shandon anderson again instead.

Baker, Nazr, Sweets, KT & JYD aren't such a bad front line- they don't have to be pretty, they just need to perform up to their respective talents and abilities.

Naz is a back-up plain and simple, he is never going to be a "starter", he is the charlie ward of the Knicks, starter by default. He is not a good shot blocker, not quick on his feets, and has limited range, and is not overpowering anyone. So how is he going to emerge. Plain and Simple he is not, we should start Kurt at Center and bring Naz off the bench

i think we could do much worse than nazr/vin or nazr/vin/kurt combo at center. is it ideal, of course not, but i don't think we should all hang our heads. it's going to be a FUN season with the new players and of course the development of sweetney.

Posted by djsunyc:

i think we could do much worse than nazr/vin or nazr/vin/kurt combo at center. is it ideal, of course not, but i don't think we should all hang our heads. it's going to be a FUN season with the new players and of course the development of sweetney.

true. If we don't spend our days lpoking at he dark side of the coin, we've a lot to be happy about. I can't wait to see this season starting.

nazr would've been a nice center to have if we still had the defense of rebounding of oakley at the PF position. i think nazr is a more than adequate offensive center BUT the team need is defense at this position. i would trade him for gadzuric right now. hell, i would move him AND ariza for dalembert right now.

Nazr defense needs a lot of work. He has poor positioning and is a lousy shot blocker. He is however a very capable offensive threat. I think his deficiencies can be hidden by using zone defense. I think we need to play zone against Shaq anyways.

Now that Shaq is back in the east, we need to pick up some bangers to foul Shaq.

Not a fan of Nazr because of his defense, which, imo, is attrocious. It's not just the lack of shotblocking. I've never seen a big man fight so little for post position (except maybe Fugazy). He gives up the block, then has nothing to offer to stop any kind of decent post moves. Hey, I hope he proves me wrong, but I'm expecting to see KT and Baker or KT and Sweets starting by the end of the season, which wouldn't be good for the team long-term, because I'd rather Nazr develop into something more than he is now or at least show some trade value.

wait- who was our center before Nazr got here?

Its not like we traded a Patrick Ewing in his prime for Nazr.

Did anyone see Parcells comment about the media thinking that he could just dial 1-800-get-a-quarterback?

I say the same thing- what is isiah supposed to do?

You all bash Nazr as if we could just go get someone better?

And as far as facing Shaq- they're not in our division so- what, we have to play him 4x per year and we should just give up our whole roster to get Dampier who I am sorry isn't that great just so we have some big body to through Shaq's way?

If I had had to pick between Crawford and Dampier- I am taking Crawford every day.

And I think that was the choice Isiah had to make.

So, do I trade everything I have for a 30 year old underacheiving big who might be an albatross in 2 years, or do I take a flyer on a young, high scoring back court player who's scored 50Pts in an NBA game?

thats it and this is an ok place to be considering where we were this time last year.