G-Dennis Smith Jr.
G-Allonzo Trier
G-Damyean Dotson

SF-Kevin Knox
PF- ???
C-Mitchell Robinson
Re-sign DeAndre Jordan to be starter-center
Plus trade Lance Thomas ASAP

Free Agents: Durant? Kawhi? Klay? Butler? Middleton?

All Im going to say on this subject, until we hear something more definitive.

Kemet wrote:Here are the nine (9) Knicks Keepers .. Future Star Point-Forward RJ Barrett !!!

PG-Frank Ntilikina
PG-Kadeem Allen

G-Dennis Smith Jr.
G-Allonzo Trier
G-Damyean Dotson

SF-Kevin Knox
PF- ???
C-Mitchell Robinson
Re-sign DeAndre Jordan to be starter-center
Plus trade Lance Thomas ASAP

Free Agents: Durant? Kawhi? Klay? Butler? Middleton?

That’s almost 2/3 of a team that won 17 games. I’m not against signing DJ at the MLE if we sign superstars like Durant or Kawhi. I am pretty dead-set against trading Barrett or Ja. I am dead-set against trading Mitch for now. I would trade anyone else on the roster though.

I addressed it once on facebook somewhere. The idea of trading the 3rd pick for anything Cleveland has to offer is laughable. If they want RJ that bad, they can make a deal with Memphis and I’ll be more than thrilled to take Ja.

Uptown wrote:

franco12 wrote:I want no part of Anthony Davis. Unless we're absorbing his salary and not matching assets out, and he is a one of two stars we're acquiring this summer, the assets out is absurd.

Honest, if we just get KD, I'll be happy.

Why would KD come here by himself? He's going to leave the best team in the NBA to join the worse?

Management has to make moves with their brains not their hearts! Fans are in love with the idea of watching our draft picks grow and are hopeful they develop into all stars and hall of fame players that they probably will never become.

I'm all in on Barrett and am hopeful we select him...However, if you are telling me we can get Anthony Davis (one of the top 5 talents in the league) for our prospects and we get to keep Robinson!! You have to pull the trigger!!

It’s actually not thinking with our hearts at all. If it’s JUST KD, who is showing his signs of high mileage, and we trade everyone for AD, who has his own history, then you are actually handcuffing the team pretty badly. It doesn’t promise you a championship. Even if Irving comes. That’s 3 players with injury histories. All 3 have mileage. One is a headcase. One is sensitive as all fudge and has no clue what he’s walking into with the NY media. One hasn’t proven jack-sheot in the playoffs. None of their games really compliment each other. Plus, our history suggests that trading all or most assets accomplishes nothing. OK though. I guess you can call that “Thinking with our hearts.”

NYKBocker wrote:I hope they have learned from our past mistakes. The Melo trade really depleted our cupboard. Trading for AD would be in the same ilk. I say draft RJ. Try to sign KD and if it means signing Kyrie then so be it. If we can't sign KD then go to plan B. Which to me is still drafting RJ then with the way we are built right now, we would need a PF and another shooter. I would try to get Tobias Harris and Middleton.

Not the same, AD is a much better player than Melo!!! What is your goal? If its to have a legit shot and winning a chip, you go all in for AD, if we land Durant and Kyrie. If the goal it make the playoffs and maybe make it to the second round one of these years, then sign Middleton and Harris.

NardDogNation wrote:

jskinny35 wrote:Actually you don't pull the trigger if it empties your depth, significantly reduces your youth, eliminates any financial flexibility and you don't know how things are going to play out... all for acquiring a great talent (AD) but it can't be an extreme approach (you loose any leverage to make a solid deal). You can't fall in love with a player (eg Melo) and need to have multiple options whenever possible. Was happy to hear the FO talk about plan a, b, c, d, etc... just hope they really mean it and will follow through

What depth? We won 17 games!

Would you be interested in trading all our contracts for AD AND Jrue Holiday? That would only be $52 million or so of a $109 million cap. I think that offers quite a bit of wiggle room to build a roster around using cap space and allows us to avoid signing a cancer like Kyrie.

This!!! I get the emotional attachment to our draft picks and homegrown talent. Also, I'm as a big a Barrett supporter on this board. But, if we can get AD for some combo of DSJ, Knox, RJ, and Dallas pick, you have to pull the trigger!

jskinny35 wrote:There's no emotional attachment (Uptown) - I don't really care for Knox as he's a chucker (so far) and Frank hasn't shown much. Not sure DSJr will put it all together despite his athleticism... I do value Mitch and think he would be a great fit next to KD (better then AD b/c he doesn't need the ball and focused on defense and rebounding). I actually like AD but he will be a free agent this year so giving up multiple picks, young talent, etc doesn't seem wise to me.

As for our depth/bench (NardDogNation) - we lose it if we go all in on 3 max guys - we're basically filling the roster with vet minimums... I'd rather have Knox off the bench and think players like Trier and DSJr will be more likely to pass and play hard b/c there's stars setting and example and playing ahead of them. Also think it's very risky to place so much money into any 3 guys. With 2 max guys you can field a bench and retain some flexibility, not withstanding the possible chemistry issues, injuries that are usually part of the game.

Everything is risk assessment - with 2 max guys you're hoping that one of your young players turns into a very good/all-star player. Right now it looks like RJ may have the most potential, although I do think Mitch is starter-material and Knox could possibly learn/develop from watching KD for the next two years. Your guys plan to go "all in" has no backup plan - what if Kyrie continues to get injured? KD's minor injury is the start of more problems as he's over 30 now? AD is probably the lowest risk of the three - but then I wonder about chemistry issues with 3 guys used to scoring 20-25 points per game.

With the Heat - Bosh and Wade both adjusted/sacrificed significantly to make it work. Maybe they all do here - but if they don't... you've lost multiple 1st round picks, some young players that were high draft picks and are only 1-2 years into the league (could develop), and you're basically stuck until their 4-5 year contract ends... I'm placing my bets on 1 out of 3-4 top 10 picks working out and if I'm wrong at least they don't cost much. And you can continue drafting and developing - something I can't believe (after all the years of suffering through starphucking) we all aren't excited to try a diff approach. No Shortcuts!!

Anthony Davis won't be a free agent until NEXT season at the earliest (if he chooses to exercise his player option). That aside, there is absolutely NO chance the Pelicans allow this situation to get that far without having traded him. Davis has made his intentions clear and they will not risk losing him for nothing after what has happened to CLE with LeBron (2×) and OKC with Durant. Those events have promoted every team since to honor trade requests by their franchise player including the Pacers with PG13, the Cavs with Kyrie Irving, the Bulls/Wolves with Butler, the Spurs with Kawhi and the Kings with Cousins. Needless to say Davis will be moved this summer, so the only way to get him is to trade for him. And I think we should.

I also think your reasoning is flawed when it comes to our youth. They were all lottery picks (save Mitchell), who were drafted for their potential to be franchise cornerstones and not bit-players. Unfortunately, all that and the development it would entail is incongruent with a team that already has their best case scenarios on it i.e. Kevin Durant and Anthony Davis. It's like asking prime-Carmelo Anthony to try to marginalize his skillset to be prime-Kyle Korver; we saw a model of how that worked out in both OKC and HOU. If our aspiration is to shift to a veteran-core of superstars, the best decision we can make is to trade the youth before they are forced into specialist roles they were never intended to be, that will plummet their trade value (and confidence).

jskinny35 wrote:There's no emotional attachment (Uptown) - I don't really care for Knox as he's a chucker (so far) and Frank hasn't shown much. Not sure DSJr will put it all together despite his athleticism... I do value Mitch and think he would be a great fit next to KD (better then AD b/c he doesn't need the ball and focused on defense and rebounding). I actually like AD but he will be a free agent this year so giving up multiple picks, young talent, etc doesn't seem wise to me.

As for our depth/bench (NardDogNation) - we lose it if we go all in on 3 max guys - we're basically filling the roster with vet minimums... I'd rather have Knox off the bench and think players like Trier and DSJr will be more likely to pass and play hard b/c there's stars setting and example and playing ahead of them. Also think it's very risky to place so much money into any 3 guys. With 2 max guys you can field a bench and retain some flexibility, not withstanding the possible chemistry issues, injuries that are usually part of the game.

Everything is risk assessment - with 2 max guys you're hoping that one of your young players turns into a very good/all-star player. Right now it looks like RJ may have the most potential, although I do think Mitch is starter-material and Knox could possibly learn/develop from watching KD for the next two years. Your guys plan to go "all in" has no backup plan - what if Kyrie continues to get injured? KD's minor injury is the start of more problems as he's over 30 now? AD is probably the lowest risk of the three - but then I wonder about chemistry issues with 3 guys used to scoring 20-25 points per game.

With the Heat - Bosh and Wade both adjusted/sacrificed significantly to make it work. Maybe they all do here - but if they don't... you've lost multiple 1st round picks, some young players that were high draft picks and are only 1-2 years into the league (could develop), and you're basically stuck until their 4-5 year contract ends... I'm placing my bets on 1 out of 3-4 top 10 picks working out and if I'm wrong at least they don't cost much. And you can continue drafting and developing - something I can't believe (after all the years of suffering through starphucking) we all aren't excited to try a diff approach. No Shortcuts!!

This is a bit of a segue but...

People speak of the Knicks being incompetent but never really articulate how or the reasons why. I think our managerial staff over the past 10-20 years has a checkered pass- some wins, some loses- but the common thread I've observed is their inability to develop a coherent, long-term plan. Year-to-year there seems to be these radical shifts where one minute we're trying to compete, the next we're trying to develop talent, followed by us dumping all those players on a fatally flawed star who we have no assets to build around. That is then followed by us scapegoating said star and repeating the process all over again.

If we had a modicum of common sense, we should be operating more as a small-market team. We should ALWAYS have cap flexibility/space, leveraging it when we can to acquire bloated contracts with picks attached to them. The goal then should be on collecting as many of those picks as possible to draft nothing but low-ceiling, high-floor specialists that resemble what the Pacers or Clippers have. Once the bulk of a rotation is established, that is when we should use our big market resources/lure to try and sign superstars/stars who inevitably become unrestricted free agents and want a change of scenery. Those superstars + a rotation of 5-7 role players on rookie deals is how you build a title contender. Why we've never attempted this strategy is beyond me.

That was one of the major issues I had with Donnie Walsh. Sure, cap space is nice but what was he building beyond that and -more importantly- at what expense?!?! He ended up using a bunch of future picks to unload heftier contracts only to have next to nothing on the roster and no player to spend the money on.

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