Fishmike,
Without the fabulous "high upside" selections of Vujanic and Lampe (and the Camby/McDyess trade, Eisley acquisition and re-signing of Ward), we wouldn't have gotten Marbury. And without FW, Mutombo, Harrington (three guys signed by Layden) we wouldn't have gotten Crawford...
I dunno, it's a little bit backwards, but while everyone here seems to think that Layden amassed a bunch of junk (I still contend that LJ's unexpected retirement broke our backs (not just his!!), it certainly seems as if that junk was enough to get us a couple of quality players.
A year later, and maybe we'll get an idea of what we gave up to get Marbury. Here are my predictions for 2004-2005:
Eisley will barely get any minutes behind Nash and the young guys.
Charlie Ward will be starting PG for Houston, or at least playing 25+mpg for them.
McDyess will play 25+mpg for the Pistons, who'll make good use of his recovered knee and make up for the loss of Corliss/Okur. 12ppg/7rpg.
Lampe will play... but much less than you'd think based on his summer league performances. 12mpg, won't get off the bench in about 30 games. 6ppg/3rpg, 40% from the field, 22% from 3pt range. :)
No. 16 draft pick (SG Kirk Snyder, on Utah) will play 15mpg, 5ppg.
This of course is in exchange for:
Marbury 18.5ppg/10apg (sacrificing his scoring to nurture Crawford)
Penny 15mpg 8ppg/2apg/1.5rpg
Knicks make it to the 2nd round of the playoffs... beyond that, who knows... :)
Not dissin' DerMarr, but I think a developmental wing player is the least of our needs right now. We're well-stocked at the position with veterans (Houston/Penny/TT/Shandon) and young players (Crawford/Ariza)-- tho you'd think TT could play some PF, and Crawford/Penny can play some PG. The Knicks could definitely use a 3rd PG behind Moochie, so it remains to be seen if Penny/Crawford can fit that role.
Penny and Moochie look like trade bait to me... so it really opens the door for Barrett at some point during the season.
Posted by fishmike:
The last guy gave us Lampe, Sweetney, Vujanic, Frank Williams, and Vranes... come on. :) I'm actually surprised that IT doesn't want to trade Sweetney--- after all, he's not part of his legacy.
Lampe/Sweetney/Vranes all came in the last year and Sweetney got picked because nobody was biting on Layden's bad trades. Vranes wasnt a basketball player, Vujanic will never play in the NBA and in Layden's 5 years as GM of the Knicks the only guy he drafted that ever got off IR was Frank, and as much as I love Frank his biggest accomplishment was beating out Ward and Eisley (it only took 2 years).
