Allanfan20 wrote:NardDogNation wrote:Gudris wrote:..KP never got injured? Just wondering
We'd be a threadmill team: too good to ever get the much needed lottery talent to win with KP but too cap-locked to get elite level free agents. It's clear to me that KP being injured offered the opportunity for us to take one step backward, in order to take two forward. I think it remains to be seen if we'll maximize this opportunity though; I still don't have the confidence in our front office to do the right thing. Time will tell.
But hopefully they've figured out the underlying issues with KP that has contributed to a host of knick-knack injuries on the left side of his body. If they haven't, be prepared for him to continue to have his play decline as the season progresses with the possibility of catastrophic injuries occuring.
That’s the ONLY reason I would be willing to trade him and even that’s really risky. Now you are blowing away that one sure sexy reason for free agents to come here because it’s not a sure thing that Zion comes.
Then what? It’s just another rebuilding year next year unless you struck gold in the KP trade... which is doubtful.
I was a proponent of trading KP for the right deal, ever since the 2017 draft due to his filmsy health.
My target would've been the Celtics who were on the cusps of trading for Kyrie, signing Gordon Hayward and were (and still are) targeting a 3rd star using their remaining draft assets. My ask back then was the no.1 overall pick, Jaylen Brown, Terry Rozier and a pick swap with the Lakers' 2018 first round pick, which they had possession of. I think that would've been reasonable for them considering how close to a finished product they were (Eastern Conference finalists the year before) and because they still had the means to improve their team after the fact.
Whereas the worst case scenario from our perspective would've been us losing a generational talent (KP) for a bunch of complimentary role players. But the lottery pedigree of the proposed talent involved was enough of a hedge for me to take the chance and be confident they'd be good enough to be a perennial 6th-8th seed. And at the end of the day, that- and the oodles of cap space we'd have by having so many rotation-level players on their rookie contracts- is all we'd really need to attract a star via free agency to then push us over the top. Considering how attractive MSG and NYC has been to superstars in the past, I've never understood why the Knicks have not been more willing to build their team through this approach. Teams like the Pelicans and Grizzlies have to tank for the right draft to get a superstar; all we've really had to do is have a halfway competent team and some goddamn cap space and yet we continue to tie up resources in THJr's and the Joakim Noah's of the world.
Though I digress....
As we know, those Celtic players have formed the backbone of a franchise that made it all the way to the Eastern Conference Finals (san Kyrie and Hayward). We'd be Finals contenders on the basis of this trade alone, had we not put all our eggs in the Kristaps Porzingis basket....and still have a ridiculous amount of cap space to build around them....
Needless to say, that ship has sailed and the success of our franchise rests entirely on a player that has proven to be brittle and is due a max contract extension. I might be a pessimist but even the optimist amongst us must recognize that KP could become the next Yao or Amar'e at any moment; leaving us capped out with no means to improve the roster around him via free agency or with trade assets.
1/9/2019 10:49 AM