newyorknewyork wrote:All front offices have missteps.

Masi Ujiri overpaid Carroll. Haven't really hit on his draft picks. Yet is able to win because of players on his roster before he got there like Derozen, Lowry, Valanciunas. And he wanted to trade Lowry for a future draft pick before Lowry took off as a star. Lowry may walk as a FA.

Cuban overpaid Parsons, Matthews, Barnes traded away all their draft picks over the years and are on the decline missing playoffs this past year with Dirk declining rapidly not able to save them.

You could probably find a way to **** on every executive in the NBA except the Warriors.

At the end of the day the Knicks have cap flexibility, 3 nice prospects in KP, Willy, Frank and all their draft picks going forward. Need another blue chip prospect and a solid role player to add to that going into the 2018-2019 season(season after next). In the meantime watch KP, Willy take another step forward and Frank get accustomed to the league. Hopefully have some pleasant surprises like Dotson become a real contributor core role player.

I knew Masi Ujiri........and Phil Jackson is no Masi Ujiri.

HofstraBBall wrote:

newyorknewyork wrote:All front offices have missteps.

Masi Ujiri overpaid Carroll. Haven't really hit on his draft picks. Yet is able to win because of players on his roster before he got there like Derozen, Lowry, Valanciunas. And he wanted to trade Lowry for a future draft pick before Lowry took off as a star. Lowry may walk as a FA.

Cuban overpaid Parsons, Matthews, Barnes traded away all their draft picks over the years and are on the decline missing playoffs this past year with Dirk declining rapidly not able to save them.

You could probably find a way to **** on every executive in the NBA except the Warriors.

At the end of the day the Knicks have cap flexibility, 3 nice prospects in KP, Willy, Frank and all their draft picks going forward. Need another blue chip prospect and a solid role player to add to that going into the 2018-2019 season(season after next). In the meantime watch KP, Willy take another step forward and Frank get accustomed to the league. Hopefully have some pleasant surprises like Dotson become a real contributor core role player.

I knew Masi Ujiri........and Phil Jackson is no Masi Ujiri.

Let's see what we have in this Summer League. It should be very interesting to watch. This years team is loaded with talent relative to last year.

HofstraBBall wrote:

newyorknewyork wrote:All front offices have missteps.

Masi Ujiri overpaid Carroll. Haven't really hit on his draft picks. Yet is able to win because of players on his roster before he got there like Derozen, Lowry, Valanciunas. And he wanted to trade Lowry for a future draft pick before Lowry took off as a star. Lowry may walk as a FA.

Cuban overpaid Parsons, Matthews, Barnes traded away all their draft picks over the years and are on the decline missing playoffs this past year with Dirk declining rapidly not able to save them.

You could probably find a way to **** on every executive in the NBA except the Warriors.

At the end of the day the Knicks have cap flexibility, 3 nice prospects in KP, Willy, Frank and all their draft picks going forward. Need another blue chip prospect and a solid role player to add to that going into the 2018-2019 season(season after next). In the meantime watch KP, Willy take another step forward and Frank get accustomed to the league. Hopefully have some pleasant surprises like Dotson become a real contributor core role player.

I knew Masi Ujiri........and Phil Jackson is no Masi Ujiri.

Point being as good as Masi Ujiri is he still has his mistakes. His best players weren't acquired by him in Toronto.

Uptown wrote:

newyorknewyork wrote:All front offices have missteps.

Masi Ujiri overpaid Carroll. Haven't really hit on his draft picks. Yet is able to win because of players on his roster before he got there like Derozen, Lowry, Valanciunas. And he wanted to trade Lowry for a future draft pick before Lowry took off as a star. Lowry may walk as a FA.

Cuban overpaid Parsons, Matthews, Barnes traded away all their draft picks over the years and are on the decline missing playoffs this past year with Dirk declining rapidly not able to save them.

You could probably find a way to **** on every executive in the NBA except the Warriors.

At the end of the day the Knicks have cap flexibility, 3 nice prospects in KP, Willy, Frank and all their draft picks going forward. Need another blue chip prospect and a solid role player to add to that going into the 2018-2019 season(season after next). In the meantime watch KP, Willy take another step forward and Frank get accustomed to the league. Hopefully have some pleasant surprises like Dotson become a real contributor core role player.

This is true...most franchise do have mis-steps. However, I'm pretty sure most if not all of those execs ain't calling out their star player via twitter and then at press-conferences. Most of those execs ain't trying to coach the team, either. You can't have as many missteps as phil has had and lose 166-170 games over a 3 yr stretch without being called-out constantly.

Add to that the fact that phil was celebrated as the best coach in the history of the game and now is in foreign territory as a prez. People questioned whether a coach who had been away from the game for yrs, and at 70 yrs old could do a job he had never done before, and if he would be committed to the job and according to his record, and lack of the culture he promised, he is failing, miserably right now.

I do like the KP pick. Willy was a nice find. I don't mind Frank, but I didn't like him at 8. I just wish he would stop meddling, let the coach coach as he see's fit, quit with the mind games through social media and continue to build with youth. And establish the culture he promised.

I have no problem with people critiquing Phil's missteps. I didn't like the Tyson trade, or the Lopez signing, or the Noah signing.

Phil calling out Melo via twitter and press conferences don't really have the same impact on me as they do you. Saying the ball is sticking and stopping to much and the ball movement isn't fluid is a simple observation to me. Maybe if they(Melo & Rose) took heed and listened they would have won more games and thus used their skills to eliminate any potential dysfunction caused by them playing selfishly.

There also isn't any real evidence that he is stepping on JH toes other than people pushing a narrative. JH has come out and stated exactly what happen last season which made perfect sense. Jackson hired JH due to wanting someone he could be in sync with and there is nothing out there that demonstrates that JH and Phil aren't or haven't been in sync. But there is plenty out there that demonstrates that Melo and Rose haven't been in sync with JH and Phil.

Frank wasn't lasting past 9. If we trade down the team at 8 wants Smith or Frank. If Smith is off the board at 8. Dallas takes him at 9. Frank is exactly the type of player we need regardless who the Prez or GM or coach is. Cares about playing defense yet also has all the tools to play great defense. Can knock down 3s and plays unselfishly looking to create first. Between supposed work ethic, IQ, professional approach, experience in a pro league since he was 16-17, competitiveness, and team first attitude. These are all attributes that should weigh waaaaay more than ability to score a lot of points.

Sinix wrote:Didn't read past the first line. What do we have with Phil to justify the future being bright? Try all our future draft picks and good young talent drafted over the past few seasons. That's literally all he's had to do to do a passable job and he's done it. Everything else is window dressing.

CrushAlot wrote:

Sinix wrote:Didn't read past the first line. What do we have with Phil to justify the future being bright? Try all our future draft picks and good young talent drafted over the past few seasons. That's literally all he's had to do to do a passable job and he's done it. Everything else is window dressing.

The first pick he would have been allowed to trade is the 2018 pick. Also, didn't Dolan say no more trading picks when the Knicks didn't trade for Lowry?

You can't trade back to back future first round picks. So after the 2016 draft passed the Knicks were free to trade away their 2017 pick. Knicks also could draft and trade away the draft pick. Meaning the Knicks could have drafted KP and traded him for Demarcus Cousins if they wanted to.

http://www.espn.com/new-york/nba/story/_/id/8058726/phil-jackson-says-coach-clumsy-new-york-knicks-team

"Carmelo has to be a better passer. And the ball can't stop every time it hits his hands. They need to have someone come in that can kinda blend that group together."

The thing is Phil has talked to Melo in private and in public. Melo is the one who refused to listen. Not only that but Melo staged a Mutiny of sorts which wasn't appreciated by Phil who gave him what he wanted in his contract and promised Phil he would buy in.

Interview with Phil Jackson Sep 2th 2014
http://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/phil-jackson-on-carmelo-anthony-the-ball-cant-stop/

Q: How and why will the triangle offense make Carmelo a better player?

A: It’ll give him opportunity to be a passer, a rebounder, and probably easier spots to score from than he’s had before. I think. I hope that’s true for a lot of the players.

Q: Hawks GM Danny Ferry recently made comments about Carmelo in which he reportedly said: “He can shoot the [bleep] out of it, but he screws you up in other ways. So is he really worth $20 million? I would argue if he plays the right way, absolutely.
”
A: I think there’s probably 15 players in the NBA that are very similar position. I don’t know if all of ’em are paid $20 million, but the coaches and GMs are talking about it in those type of terms — how much does this guy hurt your team, or hurt the game flow because he’s trying to score. The attempt to score, the need to score, the pressure that he feels he has to score. … Does he take away from the team game? That’s what Danny’s talking about there. And that’s where Carmelo’s gonna move forward this year in that situation — the ball can’t stop. The ball has to continually move. It moves, or goes to the hoop on a shot or a drive or something like that. In our offense, that’s part of the process of getting players to play in that rhythm.

Q: And Jordan had to make that adjustment too, right?

A: Michael had to be able to share the ball, other people had to get shots, only so many shots available out there. And when someone’s taking 27 a game or something? 25 a game, that’s maybe a third of the shots. That can’t happen in basketball.

Q: Is Carmelo on board with this?

A: All we talked about in our negotiation was, “I’d like not to have to feel like I have to carry the load to score every night.” He wants some help.

Dec 7th 2016 Phil Jackson interview. Knicks 12-9

"He can play that role that Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant played," Jackson said. "That's a perfect spot for him, to be in that isolated position on the weak side. Because it's an overload offense and there's a weak-side man that always has an advantage if the ball is swung.
"Carmelo, a lot of times, wants to hold the ball longer than -- we have a rule, if you hold a pass two seconds, you benefit the defense. So he has a little bit of a tendency to hold the ball for three, four, five seconds, then everybody comes to a stop. That is one of the things we work with. But he has adjusted to it, he knows what it can do and he's willing to see its success."

Tracy Wolfson then brought up the fact that Anthony attracts a lot of criticism, asking Jackson if he thinks the star forward is misunderstood.

"Carmelo's genuinely a solid person, a citizen, I think," Jackson said. "He has good intentions. I think some of the things that come along with him, I always say I can go back to [Syracuse coach Jim] Boeheim and say that was the zone that he played in college. But that's just a joke I have with him. The aspect of learning in the NBA and developing habits become entrenched, and sometimes you have to break those habits to change your manner of playing, and I think that's one of the things he's had to do with this new group of guys. It's a little bit different. He doesn't have sole possession of the offense. There are other people that are involved in the offense, and he embraces that. But then you still have habits you have to break, and I think that's one of the things. Defensively, we've talked to him a lot about movement and that aspect of -- we're now into high-performance things, where we have cameras that can legislate or watch movement on the court all the time -- each have, you can go back and check that. We're trying to get him to get more active as a defensive player. That's one of the things that I think is noticeable, that he has changed. And we're liking that."

We've heard this stuff before from Jackson, and that's precisely why it's interesting. In an HBO interview all the way back in 2012, Jackson said that Anthony "has to be a better passer" and "the ball can't stop every time it hits his hands." After becoming the president of the Knicks in March 2014 and re-signing Anthony that summer, Jackson again said "the ball has to continually move" when discussing how Anthony can get better.
If this sounds bad, it's because, to a large extent, Anthony is who he is. He's always been much more comfortable with the ball in his hands than without it, and he likes to size up the defense, take a few dribbles and attack guys one-on-one. Jackson is totally correct that these are his habits, but it's hard to get one of the best isolation scorers on the planet to approach offense differently.

The good news: It's not like Jackson never butted heads with Jordan or Bryant on this very same issue. The stars want their offensive freedom, and Jackson wants discipline within the confines of the triangle. The partnership worked best when they found some sort of balance, and that's all that New York can hope for.
Also, thanks to those SportVU cameras Jackson was talking about, we have access to some data on this, which shows that Anthony has indeed cut down on his dribbling somewhat since Jackson showed up.

For reference, Bryant held the ball for an average of 3.35 seconds with 2.19 dribbles per touch during his farewell tour last season, and Klay Thompson is holding the ball for an average of 1.85 seconds with 1.19 dribbles per touch this year. All of these stats are courtesy of NBA.com.

Post all star quotes you are stating is at minimal Feb 23rd. Which the Knicks were 23-35. After starting 11-9 the first month ended up 12-26 the rest of the way until the all star break. Claiming that he undermined JH isn't JH words but the opinion of the writer of the article. Get JH's quotes which I will look up again when I get a chance. He stated himself that they lost discipline during the season. That they tried to do many different things to get back on track when they started losing which is what cause confusion. So they got back to the triangle looking to get back to the base and build up again from there. Which matches up with the timeline and the win loss record. From JH's words the lesson they learned is they can't half ass the triangle. That it could work if they are committed to it first and then expand on it after they master the principals of ball and player movement. From JH himself he gave a understandable explanation to what happen and nothing coming from his own words implied that he was being undermined. That narrative is strictly from a writers influence.

Uptown you also critized Phil for bringing in Rose. That even though he brings playmaking ability at a higher level then Calderon that he didn't play defense and wasn't a pass first guard. That he was a character issue that went AWOL. But then when Phil drafts a squeeky clean prospect that plays defense, and is pass first and has absolutely no baggage. You prefer the player who has a ton of baggage, from injuries, to character concerns, to rating extremely poor defensively in college. All because he has more talent to score the basketball ala Derek Rose.

Yet if he did draft Smith over Frank and he got injured. You would be the first to claim well Phil knew his injury history so he is an idiot for taking him. Or if his character issues did become a problem. That Phil knew of his character issues so he is an idiot for taking him. That if Smith struggled defensively... There is plenty of proof that Mavs were extremely interested in taking Frank at 9. From Cuban flying to France with Nelson to meet him personally. To them hiring his coach from overseas to coach their summer league team. To the numerous articles displaying Mavs interest in him which was discussed on this board. There is a reason Frank is a lottery prospect and Hart was a 2nd round prospect. There is also a reason Smith wasn't able to convince Philly to take him at 3 over trading all those assets to move up for Fultz. Frank could be for us what Kawhi is for the Spurs. Lock down defender that excels to superstar within Spurs system due to the high efficient shots he is able to get within the system.

newyorknewyork wrote:

Interview with Phil Jackson Sep 2th 2014
http://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/phil-jackson-on-carmelo-anthony-the-ball-cant-stop/

Q: How and why will the triangle offense make Carmelo a better player?

A: It’ll give him opportunity to be a passer, a rebounder, and probably easier spots to score from than he’s had before. I think. I hope that’s true for a lot of the players.

Q: Hawks GM Danny Ferry recently made comments about Carmelo in which he reportedly said: “He can shoot the [bleep] out of it, but he screws you up in other ways. So is he really worth $20 million? I would argue if he plays the right way, absolutely.
”
A: I think there’s probably 15 players in the NBA that are very similar position. I don’t know if all of ’em are paid $20 million, but the coaches and GMs are talking about it in those type of terms — how much does this guy hurt your team, or hurt the game flow because he’s trying to score. The attempt to score, the need to score, the pressure that he feels he has to score. … Does he take away from the team game? That’s what Danny’s talking about there. And that’s where Carmelo’s gonna move forward this year in that situation — the ball can’t stop. The ball has to continually move. It moves, or goes to the hoop on a shot or a drive or something like that. In our offense, that’s part of the process of getting players to play in that rhythm.

Q: And Jordan had to make that adjustment too, right?

A: Michael had to be able to share the ball, other people had to get shots, only so many shots available out there. And when someone’s taking 27 a game or something? 25 a game, that’s maybe a third of the shots. That can’t happen in basketball.

Q: Is Carmelo on board with this?

A: All we talked about in our negotiation was, “I’d like not to have to feel like I have to carry the load to score every night.” He wants some help.

Dec 7th 2016 Phil Jackson interview. Knicks 12-9

"He can play that role that Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant played," Jackson said. "That's a perfect spot for him, to be in that isolated position on the weak side. Because it's an overload offense and there's a weak-side man that always has an advantage if the ball is swung.
"Carmelo, a lot of times, wants to hold the ball longer than -- we have a rule, if you hold a pass two seconds, you benefit the defense. So he has a little bit of a tendency to hold the ball for three, four, five seconds, then everybody comes to a stop. That is one of the things we work with. But he has adjusted to it, he knows what it can do and he's willing to see its success."

Tracy Wolfson then brought up the fact that Anthony attracts a lot of criticism, asking Jackson if he thinks the star forward is misunderstood.

"Carmelo's genuinely a solid person, a citizen, I think," Jackson said. "He has good intentions. I think some of the things that come along with him, I always say I can go back to [Syracuse coach Jim] Boeheim and say that was the zone that he played in college. But that's just a joke I have with him. The aspect of learning in the NBA and developing habits become entrenched, and sometimes you have to break those habits to change your manner of playing, and I think that's one of the things he's had to do with this new group of guys. It's a little bit different. He doesn't have sole possession of the offense. There are other people that are involved in the offense, and he embraces that. But then you still have habits you have to break, and I think that's one of the things. Defensively, we've talked to him a lot about movement and that aspect of -- we're now into high-performance things, where we have cameras that can legislate or watch movement on the court all the time -- each have, you can go back and check that. We're trying to get him to get more active as a defensive player. That's one of the things that I think is noticeable, that he has changed. And we're liking that."

We've heard this stuff before from Jackson, and that's precisely why it's interesting. In an HBO interview all the way back in 2012, Jackson said that Anthony "has to be a better passer" and "the ball can't stop every time it hits his hands." After becoming the president of the Knicks in March 2014 and re-signing Anthony that summer, Jackson again said "the ball has to continually move" when discussing how Anthony can get better.
If this sounds bad, it's because, to a large extent, Anthony is who he is. He's always been much more comfortable with the ball in his hands than without it, and he likes to size up the defense, take a few dribbles and attack guys one-on-one. Jackson is totally correct that these are his habits, but it's hard to get one of the best isolation scorers on the planet to approach offense differently.

The good news: It's not like Jackson never butted heads with Jordan or Bryant on this very same issue. The stars want their offensive freedom, and Jackson wants discipline within the confines of the triangle. The partnership worked best when they found some sort of balance, and that's all that New York can hope for.
Also, thanks to those SportVU cameras Jackson was talking about, we have access to some data on this, which shows that Anthony has indeed cut down on his dribbling somewhat since Jackson showed up.

For reference, Bryant held the ball for an average of 3.35 seconds with 2.19 dribbles per touch during his farewell tour last season, and Klay Thompson is holding the ball for an average of 1.85 seconds with 1.19 dribbles per touch this year. All of these stats are courtesy of NBA.com.

Post all star quotes you are stating is at minimal Feb 23rd. Which the Knicks were 23-35. After starting 11-9 the first month ended up 12-26 the rest of the way until the all star break. Claiming that he undermined JH isn't JH words but the opinion of the writer of the article. Get JH's quotes which I will look up again when I get a chance. He stated himself that they lost discipline during the season. That they tried to do many different things to get back on track when they started losing which is what cause confusion. So they got back to the triangle looking to get back to the base and build up again from there. Which matches up with the timeline and the win loss record. From JH's words the lesson they learned is they can't half ass the triangle. That it could work if they are committed to it first and then expand on it after they master the principals of ball and player movement. From JH itself he gave a understandable explanation to what happen and nothing coming from his own words implied that he was being undermined. That narrative is strictly from a writers influence.

Uptown you also critized Phil for bringing in Rose. That even though he brings playmaking ability at a higher level then Calderon that he didn't play defense and wasn't a pass first guard. That he was a character issue that went AWOL. But then when Phil drafts a squeeky clean prospect that plays defense, and is pass first and has absolutely no baggage. You prefer the player who has a ton of baggage, from injuries, to character concerns, to rating extremely poor defensively in college. All because he has more talent to score the basketball ala Derek Rose.

Yet if he did draft Smith over Frank and he got injured. You would be the first to claim well Phil knew his injury history so he is an idiot for taking him. Or if his character issues did become a problem. That Phil knew of his character issues so he is an idiot for taking him. That if Smith struggled defensively... There is plenty of proof that Mavs were extremely interested in taking Frank at 9. From Cuban flying to France with Nelson to meet him personally. To them hiring his coach from overseas to coach their summer league team. To the numerous articles displaying Mavs interest in him which was discussed on this board. There is a reason Frank is a lottery prospect and Hart was a 2nd round prospect. There is also a reason Smith wasn't able to convince Philly to take him at 3 over trading all those assets to move up for Fultz. Frank could be for us what Kawhi is for the Spurs. Lock down defender that excels to superstar within Spurs system due to the high efficient shots he is able to get within the system.

Sounds like someone Phil had pegged from the start, yet he still gave him a max deal with an NTC. I dont agree with your view of Anthony, I believe he has made more of an effort to be that player than you give him credit. Dont believe most ball stoppers can lead the team in assists in a season, in spite of not being a guard. But lets say every negative thing everyone has said about Melo is true. Who gave him that deal with an NTC again?

In the end it comes back to who made that decision. I have heard on this board more than once that Phil had no choice but to give Melo that deal, let alone any deal. Letting Melo walk would have sent a very strong statement about culture change.

Phil talked about changing the culture, but his first big move was signing someone he believed even before taking the job was antithetical to that culture. Who gave him that deal with NTC again?

It takes two to Tango, and Phil was more than a willing dance partner. Seems disingenuous to put it all on Melo. Phil made that decision, and now he is facing the consequences for that decision.

newyorknewyork wrote:That interview posted from Dec 7th caused a big stir. Because all that was headlined in follow up was how Carmelo holds the ball to long yet after you actually read the context of it was just Phil talking basketball and gave Melo plenty of compliments. And it was a question asked to him by Tracy Wolfson and not him going out of his way to bash Carmelo.

The sad thing is the Media has been successful in hyping up this narrative of Phil vs Melo. Phil's coming at this from a Pure basketball perspective. The problem is Melo and KP think they know better than Phil. We don't need them to be bucking the system! We need the team's best players to fully BUY IN.

The KP thing is really crazy cuz he's just a kid that has no idea how much he doesn't know about running a team. These Media DUMBASSES think they know basketball and how you bring the best out of a team but they don't know JACK! Phil has not been wrong about Melo and he can help KP like he helped other NBA greats reach the pinnacle. But you've gotta listen first.

TripleThreat wrote:

Nalod wrote:Hindsight brilliance.

Let melo walk for nothing. inept. Keep him, same thing.
Win now without giving up future is what Phil tried to do. do it better meant give up picks and end up in nowhere land for a while.
Try to win now with Monk or Smith, might be the same. MIGHT.
Go long with young guys, haters still hate.

No middle ground with you hater guys. You buying it and love it.
Nobody is happy, but fire phil gives you what instead? Conceptual hope. Nothing more.

To me, "middle ground" is seeing that Phil Jackson has been mediocre and the Knicks simply need more than mediocre. The baseproblem with most of these threads is they only assign Jackson into either good or bad territories, when it's not that simple. He's done some positive things. He's done some negative things. The issue is the Knicks simply cannot afford a first time team runner who needs a sharp learning curve in a situation with such a razor thin margin of error from previous regimes.

Stuck with STAT, Bargs and other dead weight and only having 1 first round pick in three years is not his fault.

Taking existing problems and making them worse is his fault. If you have to trade Chandler, then you have to trade Chandler. I think it's unreasonable to expect he'd make a Billy Beane style heist of another team all the time. I think it's fair though to assess that he should not start adding more problems to the ones he inherited. Getting Calderon was a bad market based decision. Calderon was a self inflicted mess the Knicks didn't need.

He moved Shumpert and JR Smith. OK, they have to go, I can see that. And he did so without taking in any bad contracts. Except one of the throw in players in the deal, Lance Thomas, he signed a 12th man with rotation player money. He created his own bad contract.

Robin Lopez was a good signing and a good market based decision. Trading him for Rose was self inflicting a new problem while removing a player who offered solutions. To compensate, Noah was signed, making more problems out of the newly created problem.

Where Jackson has failed is he takes a bad situation he inherited ( not his fault) and compounded it by making many of those situations worse ( totally his own damn fault)

I do not expect the Knicks to win every decision and be mistake free. I do think it's reasonable to ask of the Knicks and their team runner

A) Don't make existing problems worse.
B) Don't create new problems out of nowhere, don't self inflict more harm onto the roster
C) Make the best market based decision possible ( an early stage NBA rebuild literally writes its own script)

Knicks need better than mediocre.

Dolan has no one to blame but himself. Getting Jackson to run this team in the first place was a poor market based decision.

A) He had no previous experience running an NBA team in this format
B) He was never groomed for the job
C) He had preexisting enemies from around the league and the media from his coaching days
D) He was going to push a complicated and controversial offense onto a struggling team devoid of talent
E) If he succeeded or failed, he was 70+ and could not offer the Knicks a long future in the role

This didn't have to be this hard. Jackson could have taken a figurehead role like Jerry West did with the Warriors, hired a young well groomed GM candidate from a winning franchise, traded Melo and everything else he could move, right at the start, and tanked and tanked and try to build through the draft.

Just play the right way and don't make things harder for yourself than it all has to be.

That is actually pretty simple and the Knicks just can't seem to do those two damn simple things.

There's always politics and other considerations that influence what seem like simple decisions. It's never just cut and dry. Mistakes were made but going into year 4 the path forward is clearer.

I think you make great points but in truth there are very few Prez/GM's doing a better than mediocre job. I expect that from here on Phil will have much clearer decisions to make and he did put this team on a path to build that is clear and executable.

There's no great pressure to make rash decisions at this point. The most important thing is getting KP back in the fold and happy. Then developing these young players.