as much as I would love to rebuild it will never happen because there is some ridiculous notion that you can never rebuild with exciting young players in new york. If last year's team had stayed the same we would still be starting weatherspoon and eisely and Anderson and sweetney and lampe would be rotting on the bench because "we need to make the playoffs" and according to Layden and Dolan those players would get us there. I don't know who's notion it is that you can't rebuild in new york. It problably what Dolan has been led to believe and he really doesn't know enough about sports to know better. The knicks had to rebuild in order to get Patrick Ewing!

playa thats a stupid post. You cant look at the draft a year after it happens, pick the best player you could have drafted and say we screwed up.

Would it have been OK if we landed Vince Carter?

And to boot if we were to trade Marbury in a year or two we could do a hell of a lot better than Al Jefferson.

rebuilding so that we get the next Ewing would've been fine if that was what they were doing. But they weren't! they were trying to make the playoffs with KVH, eisley, anderson and weatherspoon and 2 gimps in Houston and Mcdyess! No matter who is the GM of this team unless the ownership realizes that you need to stop overpaying mediocre players just to get in the playoffs and instead start playing younger players so that you can draft a good bigman this team will not win a championship. Or you can look at Detroit...they never drafted the Wallaces, Rip and Billups. They were smart and traded for them. But in order to reach that point we have to get rid of our overpaid mediocre players!

playa... yes these ARE the bigmen we desperatly need. The only reason we need them is because we have Marbury. If its Eisley and Shandon who the hell cares?

Its not like we just needed bigs. We needed bigs, wing players, guards... we needed everything.

Now we just need bigs. One season at a time.

playa2 that's not cool to go back and look at what we could have did
of course you are going to see now what you didn't see then

also marbury is better than harrison and jefferson combined, on a bad day he is better than eisley, ward, williams and whoever you want to throw in the bunch

the bottom line is this
the kid from coney island is now a new york knickerbocker. harrison is a pacer and al is a celtic

ask a pacer and a celtic fan is they would trade either of the two for marbury

that's your homework for tonight

Posted by Andrew:

Posted by playa2:

If we would have kept that squad before Marbury trade, we could have been bad enough to have drafted AL JEFFERSON WHO BOSTON TOOK AT #15 6'10 265lb very athletic will be a star one day, DAVID HARRISON WHO INDIANA TOOK AT #30 7ft 250(Extremely athletic true center with decent all-around skills.)

First its very easy to say we would have gotten a good player, but we also could have drafted a bust.

Second...you have been one person saying Frank Williams could have lead us to a good record that year....now we would have been bad to get a high lotto pick? Pick a side.

I never said that about f.williams , this is what I said.

F. Williams(the people's champion) helped us play team ball with good chemistry and was a true pass 1st pg.

How can a team with no center not take a shot at a center in the draft are you kidding me?

How can a team with no center not take a shot at a center in the draft are you kidding me?

Oh you mean like taking Frederic Weiss over Ron Artest?

...or drafting Toronto's Araujo who might be a good player but looks years and years away from contributing.

Nope. Before we had Mutombo, Lampe, Sweetney, McDyess, Kurt Thomas, Michael Doleac and Keith Van Horn, who all had trade value. Even if we didn't trade them, we had a nice frontcourt and just needed to improve the backcourt. Whose to say we couldn't have landed Ilgauskas? Or packaged them and gotten Shaq this offseason? Who knows? In the NBA size rules, while a decent PG is a dime a dozen. Knowing that we're not winning either way for years, I keep the size. Now we've lost Mutombo, Doleac, Lampe, McDyess and Van Horn, while adding Nazr, Tim Thomas (soft L) and Jerome Williams. Clearly we replaced starters with bench-type role players. Yes, our backcourt is pretty good with Crawford and Marbury, but big deal... tell me what team is going to give up those sort of front court men? The plan should've been to built without taking apart our frontcourt and letting the youth grow into their roles (yes, I know Layden wasn't doing this properly; he was wrong too).

Here's an alternate solution for me:

1) Trade Kurt Thomas (expiring), Antonio McDyess (expiring), Howard Eisley for Jamal Crawford, Antonio Davis, Jerome Williams, first round pick (during 2003-2004 season).
2) Trade Mutombo, Harrington for Erick Dampier (during 2004 offseason).
3) Trade Michael Doleac, Joel Pryzbilla (acquired from Milwaukee for scraps), 2nd rounder for Nazr Mohammed (no need to trade Van Horn) to get Nazr). (during 2003-2004 season)
4) Trade Charlie Ward, Shandon Anderson, 2nd rounder for Penny Hardaway. (during 2003-2004 season)
5) PG slot open, Milos comes over

Starters:
C-Erick Dampier
PF-Antonio Davis
SF-Keith Van Horn
SG-Jamal Crawford
PG-Frank Williams

Bench:
C-Nazr Mohammed
C/PF-Maciej Lampe
PF-Mike Sweetney
PF/SF-Jerome Williams
SF-Trevor Ariza
SG-Allan Houston
SG/PG-Penny Hardaway
PG-Milos Vujanic

That team is considerably better and has a better future than the one we have now. We could even package a few players with a first rounder or two and continue to condense talent.