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Isaiah Thomas to the Lakers
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TripleThreat
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2/11/2018  6:00 PM
Chandler wrote:I'm expecting serious tension between IT and lakers. Car wreck

I have the strange feeling we'll all learn that there are very few teams/systems (maybe just the celts) that can extract value out of IT


I doubt it.

Chris Bosh
Kevin Love
Kyrie Irving
Erik Spolestra
Mike Brown
David Blatt
Danny Ferry

There's a whole list of guys out there, when things are going bad for LBJ and he feels the media heat, where they just get hatcheted in the open press. Notice Tristan Thompson, who is just plain dogging it, and on a horrible Klutch Sports contract, gets nowhere near the battering that some of these other guys do in the press.

Kevin Durant, Nick Young, David West, Zaza Pachulia, JaVale McGee, Omri Casspi, Shaun Livingston

There's a whole list of guys who took way less than market potential to go to or stay with the Warriors. Notice no one is clamoring to play with LBJ. The book is out on him and Rich Paul, they will gut you in the press.

IT2 is not a horrible player. He's been productive nearly his entire time in the NBA. He's clearly still hurt now. Is he worth a max contract now? No, but he's still a very good player but has a ton of questions. He can create his own shot, and as much as LBJ wants to hatchet him, the problem is LBJ can't play actual free flowing team basketball. He needs shooters around him and at least one other player who can create his own shot to trade off going into isolation.

You can't blame IT2 for every last bit of trouble he had on the Cavs. LBJ is the common denominator there.

AUTOADVERT
Bretrobert1
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2/11/2018  8:04 PM
In response to triple threat, what player in today’s game-that plays for a competitive team-doesn’t need shooters and at least one other person who can get their own shot?
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Chandler
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2/12/2018  11:15 AM
TripleThreat wrote:
Chandler wrote:I'm expecting serious tension between IT and lakers. Car wreck

I have the strange feeling we'll all learn that there are very few teams/systems (maybe just the celts) that can extract value out of IT


I doubt it.

Chris Bosh
Kevin Love
Kyrie Irving
Erik Spolestra
Mike Brown
David Blatt
Danny Ferry

There's a whole list of guys out there, when things are going bad for LBJ and he feels the media heat, where they just get hatcheted in the open press. Notice Tristan Thompson, who is just plain dogging it, and on a horrible Klutch Sports contract, gets nowhere near the battering that some of these other guys do in the press.

Kevin Durant, Nick Young, David West, Zaza Pachulia, JaVale McGee, Omri Casspi, Shaun Livingston

There's a whole list of guys who took way less than market potential to go to or stay with the Warriors. Notice no one is clamoring to play with LBJ. The book is out on him and Rich Paul, they will gut you in the press.

IT2 is not a horrible player. He's been productive nearly his entire time in the NBA. He's clearly still hurt now. Is he worth a max contract now? No, but he's still a very good player but has a ton of questions. He can create his own shot, and as much as LBJ wants to hatchet him, the problem is LBJ can't play actual free flowing team basketball. He needs shooters around him and at least one other player who can create his own shot to trade off going into isolation.

You can't blame IT2 for every last bit of trouble he had on the Cavs. LBJ is the common denominator there.

Not disagreeing about LBJ. I do see tension between IT and Ball and the lakers (and their direction [if they truly have one]). It was crazy how the Celts got so much out of IT

(5)(5)
BRIGGS
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2/13/2018  12:06 AM
Isiaih Thomas is 5X better than any Knicks guard--its not close. All of those posts killing IT were foolish--the guy came off a bad injury and he was in a tough situation. IF he is healthy--we dont have 1 guard even light years close to him.
RIP Crushalot😞
martin
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2/13/2018  12:14 AM
BRIGGS wrote:Isiaih Thomas is 5X better than any Knicks guard--its not close. All of those posts killing IT were foolish--the guy came off a bad injury and he was in a tough situation. IF he is healthy--we dont have 1 guard even light years close to him.

And yet, even if IT were to come back near healthy, it would be unwise for the Knicks to offer him a contract.

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BRIGGS
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2/13/2018  1:00 AM
martin wrote:
BRIGGS wrote:Isiaih Thomas is 5X better than any Knicks guard--its not close. All of those posts killing IT were foolish--the guy came off a bad injury and he was in a tough situation. IF he is healthy--we dont have 1 guard even light years close to him.

And yet, even if IT were to come back near healthy, it would be unwise for the Knicks to offer him a contract.

Maybe so--but if he ends the season looking like "Boston IT2" Id still think hard about giving him a 2 year deal with a team option for 3. If we can get some mature athletic players out of the draft--we already have Kanter Lee KP THJ--I Thomas on the right team in the east playing the right way is a whole boatload better than what we watch. If it doesnt work we have our picks. Relying on 20 year old PGs doesnt work in the NBA unless its a unique player.

RIP Crushalot😞
martin
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2/13/2018  1:03 AM
BRIGGS wrote:
martin wrote:
BRIGGS wrote:Isiaih Thomas is 5X better than any Knicks guard--its not close. All of those posts killing IT were foolish--the guy came off a bad injury and he was in a tough situation. IF he is healthy--we dont have 1 guard even light years close to him.

And yet, even if IT were to come back near healthy, it would be unwise for the Knicks to offer him a contract.

Maybe so--but if he ends the season looking like "Boston IT2" Id still think hard about giving him a 2 year deal with a team option for 3. If we can get some mature athletic players out of the draft--we already have Kanter Lee KP THJ--I Thomas on the right team in the east playing the right way is a whole boatload better than what we watch. If it doesnt work we have our picks. Relying on 20 year old PGs doesnt work in the NBA unless its a unique player.

To what end, besides a short term fluff of maybe a 40+ win season and AT BEST a first round exit?

Give the draft picks and young guys burn, tank hard til KP comes back, come back strong in 2019.

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BRIGGS
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2/13/2018  1:17 AM
martin wrote:
BRIGGS wrote:
martin wrote:
BRIGGS wrote:Isiaih Thomas is 5X better than any Knicks guard--its not close. All of those posts killing IT were foolish--the guy came off a bad injury and he was in a tough situation. IF he is healthy--we dont have 1 guard even light years close to him.

And yet, even if IT were to come back near healthy, it would be unwise for the Knicks to offer him a contract.

Maybe so--but if he ends the season looking like "Boston IT2" Id still think hard about giving him a 2 year deal with a team option for 3. If we can get some mature athletic players out of the draft--we already have Kanter Lee KP THJ--I Thomas on the right team in the east playing the right way is a whole boatload better than what we watch. If it doesnt work we have our picks. Relying on 20 year old PGs doesnt work in the NBA unless its a unique player.

To what end, besides a short term fluff of maybe a 40+ win season and AT BEST a first round exit?

Give the draft picks and young guys burn, tank hard til KP comes back, come back strong in 2019.

Well the draft is important--that certainly is step 1.

RIP Crushalot😞
TripleThreat
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2/13/2018  10:40 AM
Bretrobert1 wrote:In response to triple threat, what player in today’s game-that plays for a competitive team-doesn’t need shooters and at least one other person who can get their own shot?


There are some unpleasant distinctions in LBJ's game. Unfortunately the "Nike narrative" demands only sports pundits to talk about how awesome he is all the time ( while he travels with his crab dribble relentlessly)

First, he is a truly one in a generation player. No doubt. No one should be that big and move that fast and be that strong all at once. His teammate, Big Z, said it best, the guy is literally a video game character. No one can take that from him.

However, he is "offensively dominant", he is not however "offensively complete" Melo is actually offensively complete from a skill set standpoint. Inside, outside, left hand, right hand, low post, transition, mid range, half court set, long range from three, above the rim. Pure mechanics on every level. Pure footwork on offense that came naturally to him. Melo was built to score a basketball. Melo however could only be offensively dominant in spurts. Maybe in streaks of games or quarters, but never like LBJ could. When I say offensively dominant, I mean a player who can impose their will on the other team, even when the other team knows what is coming and does everything to sell out to stop it.

LBJ, for all his dominance, is not a complete player when compared to the elite group of modern era players around his generation. This is of course relative. His "weaknesses" though don't stop his dominance most of the time. He's that much better from a physical/athletic standpoint than most other NBA players. But his offensive style, the only way he can play and the only way he wants to play, becomes problematic deep in the playoffs.

He's not an elite three point shooter. He's not an elite free throw shooter. He has some pretty bad shot selection at times. He freezes out his teammates far too often. The reality is he makes certain "type" of players better but also certain types of players worse. Most NBA players need to get into their offensive rhythm. They can't just keep sitting around behind the three point line twiddling their thumbs for 6-9 minute stretches, let LBJ charge into 4 defenders, then get a pass sometimes with 4 seconds left and be expected to hit a three point shot.

He's not easy to defend, but he's not impossible to neutralize. There is a difference. The reason why he needs shooters is in part because he's not a great long range shooter. But he needs the type of shooters who can bail him out when he's forced to pass while functioning with being frozen out for long stretches of the game. He needs another shot creator because as the playoffs get deeper, defenses sell out to stop LBJ from attack the rim, betting on his non elite free throw shooting and that he's not an elite long range gunner himself, and the only offensive hope then is to have another Cavs/formerly Heat player score in isolation because the defense would rather let Irving/Love/Wade/Bosh get clean looks. The methodology being those guys can't torch you all by themselves consistently. (Irving might be the on/off exception there)

Other teams do need shot creators and long range gunners. But the cream of the crop teams, the better ones, are NOT RELIANT ON ONE STYLE OF OFFENSE AS THEIR ONLY FORM OF OFFENSE. It's why LBJ lost to the Mavs, the Spurs and the Warriors. Free flowing offenses that let the game/situation dictate the offensive tempo and push/pull.

This is why Spolestra was almost fired. He wanted LBJ to play a more free flowing/passing oriented type offense. Instead he had to make a deal with the devil. (LBJ could do whatever he wanted offensively, as long as he played Spolestras style of defense)

How LBJ plays is effective against marginal teams. Fringe playoff teams. Eastern cannon fodder. It doesn't work very well against the elite teams.

No one plays HARDER than LBJ. He burns the candle at both ends ( mostly because he's a lousy de facto GM) But plenty of teams PLAY SMARTER. The common complaint is he does it all by himself and he doesn't get much help. Well if you freeze your team mates out and kill their offensive flow/rhythm, what do you think is going to happen?

Steph Curry makes EVERYONE around him better. He makes the game easier for himself, not harder. He could be ball dominant to his own detriment, but he make a good decision when needed and passes the ball. Sadly LBJ would still "get his" if he played a more open balanced type of team ball. But maybe his fragile ass ego can't handle that.

Not the same situation, but look how so many former Thunder players are thriving away from Westbrook. LBJ makes his team better (via overwhelming individual talent), he doesn't however make all his teammates better (because you can't win alone, esp not against the elite teams deep in the playoffs), there's a difference.

Nalod
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2/13/2018  10:58 AM
Melo is fundamentally sound offensively compared to Lebron who is still a beast.
Triple, Good take.
Its not that LeBron does not work hard, he does. Westbrook is a similar and might be a "baby Lebron". Kid is a physical beast. They are exploding athletes.
Jordan was here too. He got better fundamentally as he got older.
KD and Melo are not as gifted but fundamentally sounder. Harden is in this space too.
Curry and Cp3 have a sort of instinct for time and space of the game and use all their tools to the best of their ability. Jordan and Lebron have some of this as well.
I'd say Lebron a bit more with his court vision where Jordan was a fundamentally better shooter.
TripleThreat
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2/13/2018  2:01 PM
Nalod wrote:I'd say Lebron a bit more with his court vision where Jordan was a fundamentally better shooter.


LBJ is actually not a high IQ type player.

He's called one because it appears the game "slows down for him"

An example of a high IQ player was Joe Montana. He was not, by a large margin, a physically gifted athlete in terms of professional football players. Esp not standing next to Steve Young ( who could have easily played other skill positions on the field) Montana's ability to process information at game speed beyond most QB1s meant he was not overwhelmed by the pace of the game itself. He could see where someone like Jerry Rice or John Taylor would separate on the field before it happened. The game "slowed down" for him.

LBJ has the game slow down for him because he's so much faster, stronger and athletic compared to top tier elite athletes.

His footwork is inconsistent. He doesn't have a versatile low post game. He's not an elite three point shooter. He's not an elite free throw shooter. His shot selection is kind of baffling at times. His shooting mechanics are inconsistent and sometimes appears broken. He's just so physically overwhelming and his Nike endorsed ref looking the other way BS means he's close to unstoppable.

LBJ would never let a guy like Robert Horry aka "Big Shot Rob" or a Steve Kerr fire daggers in critical moments. This is why the Spurs killed the Heat in the playoffs. Their team had deeper rotation guys in critical situations all season long, so in the playoffs, they were attuned and confident to step up and produce.

His style of play requires another team mate who can trade off series of going into mind boggling isolation. Just like Westbrook, the team is designed around his style of play, instead of highlighting his strengths to supercharge a true team environment on the court.

He wouldn't have to work so hard if he wasn't such a ****ty de facto GM.
He wouldn't have to work so hard if he didn't rely on hero ball when that just doesn't work in the Finals anymore. The teams in front of him are too good, too balanced, too deep to try to run them over.

The most bizarre narrative in all of this is Wade never changed his game. At all. And the Heat suffered. LBJ tried to revolt and get Spolestra fired and didn't want to change his game either. And the Heat suffered. The guy getting battered in the press, Chris Bosh, did the most to change his game to cover the flaws of the other two. He made dramatic changes. Mid career. He played center and he spaced the floor and developed a three point shot. But LBJ threw him under the bus like all the rest.

He really is an idiot. But if you sell lots of Nikes, everyone will blow you anyway.

Isaiah Thomas to the Lakers

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