EnySpree wrote:Am I missing anything?
One of the most difficult things for the average sports fan to do when they "love" a team/franchise is to be rational about their team and to be objective about their team.
The other issue is that, and this is bemoaned in the modern workplace pretty much everywhere in America, is the general lack of logic/critical thinking skills associated with proactively finding solutions to problems and managing expectations.
It's easy to cherry pick one thing i.e. Hardaway Jr is getting paid at X scale relative to his "peers" It's another to say his previous stint in NY was pretty horrible, he's been a deficient player for longer than a competent one, he only had a moderate half season good stretch in a career year with a team basically gutted in Atlanta.
It's easy to say FrankN is getting lots of praise. It's another to point out he's still a teenager and rookies tend to struggle in their first year and he's still a crap shoot.
It's easy to say the Knicks did X this offseason. It's another to say no team in the NBA is static in place while the Knicks are trying to improve. Lots of teams got better as well. You can't just build against the version of yourself in the past, you have to build with actual competition in mind, they aren't standing still waiting for you to catch up.
This is where the term "homer" comes from, and is used. A sports fan who is irrational about his home team to the point where objective reality doesn't matter anymore.
I LOVE the Knicks. I want them to win. I however cannot just brush away the parts about the Knicks that are not going to help them this season and in the future.
In general, it comes down to this - Teams who make the best market based decision, against current trends and given the changes in the cap and structure and rules of the league, will tend to succeed more than not. Succeed meaning an opportunity to win, not a guarantee. Teams who do this are dispassionate about resource management, but are passionate about loving the game itself. There is a HUGE difference. Homers are usually never dispassionate about resource management. If they don't like how they "feel" ( a classical woman trait no less) then everyone else is wrong.
From a resource management perspective, the "game" doesn't care how anyone feels. The market place doesn't care how anyone feels.
People accused Daryl Morey of starting a trend to dehumanize people and players as "assets and pieces" when that's exactly what they are from a market based perspective.
There are lots of NBA analysts who are dispassionate about the market place, but lots of homers don't want to listen to them. Knicks season long projections went up not long ago, and these have been relatively accurate, to a plus/minus level close to reality, for a long time. And yet some people here will still try to deny them.
You are "missing" a lot. Like Briggs, nixluva, knicks1248 and some others, you are missing out on understanding why NBA front offices will tend, the functional ones, to make the decisions that they do against the marketplace. The resource management side to this game, to all of sports, is actually pretty fascinating. And yet many willfully don't give a ****. Some are simply incapable. You are probably more of the latter, but a good dose of the former. I appreciate you love the Knicks. But generally watching your cognitive dissonance over time actually makes me feel a bit sorry for you.