Isiah inherited a bad sitution, salary wise. There's no way he could've waited it out and "rebuilt" in a traditional sense.
Dolan has supported Isiah 110% and he agreed to let Sather tear down the Rangers. Given that, there might have been a possibility if Isiah had felt it was necessary.
Trading TT for KVH is a wash, both guys stink and are overpaid. Both have long contracts. Too bad Sprewell isn't here and his contract would be expiring.
KVH has been injured most of the season, yet has still impacted games far more than TT has. That aspect of the trade has been an unmitigated disaster. Spree's selfish and immature nature has come back to life in Minnesota. We have enough SGs on this team. (or at least we did)
He had to re-sign KT because he still had value. Now, he must trade him. KT serves no purpose on this team. He cannot jump, he doesn't go to the line. Fantastic, he runs a great pick and roll with Marbury. I want my power forward to get rebounds, play good defense, and get putbacks, not take 18' jumpers. The KT extension will only be wise if Isiah can pawn KT off for younger players.
Not sure about that right now. At the time it looked good, but his contract is not very appealing to potential interested parties. He's a role player, yet the last year of his contract has him get paid $8m. And that's 3 years away. To trade him it looks like we'd have to accept less. Something I'm sure dido would accept. Not sure Isiah would though. It'd be admitting a mistake.
Houston stinks, his knee's are shot. He's done. Let's not include him in any plans. Hopefully he retires.
At this point anything he gives is a bonus. So much for all the 3 guard set hype.
The Crawford trade was a coup, in my opinion. Of course perimeter players are going to look poor on defense when they have two big men playing behind them who's combined vertical is probably less than a foot. Crawford is instant offense, he's 24, and they got JYD in the deal, a perfect 6th or 7th man. They gave up four crappy players to get a young player like Crawford. He and Marbury form a great backcourt. Putting the right players behind them would improve their defense and improve this team.
#1: We only gave up 3 crappy players. Frank Williams was not a crappy player. He is defensively better than Marbs and Craw, and would have solved our glaring weakness at the backup PG position.
#2: Marbury and Craw make a nice offensive backcourt, but they have got to be one of the worst defensive backcourts in the league. With no good defensive players watching their back, they're getting killed everynight.
Nazr Mohammed is putting up good numbers and has a good contract. He should be traded immediately to a contender for younger pieces.
A nice asset but not sure what he'd bring back. He isn't really anything more than a very good role player. Any deal in which he can bring back a legitimate 7 footer with potential needs to be done.
Mike Sweetney is very up and down. He needs to get in shape and prove he can stay out of foul trouble. If he can, I think he has potential to grow. If not, I think he'll be a great backup PF.
His one drawback I have always maintained is his lack of height. He isn't athletic enough to make up for it. A loss of weight might help in that regard, but it might not help him turn into what we are looking for. At this point if he can be packaged with Nazy to get a big man, then it just needs to be done.
Let Tim Thomas and Penny Hardaway expire, don't trade them for garbage like Chris Webber or Jalen Rose. Just let them go away.
A big man is a bigman, and if either of these two contracts can be used to get one, it just has to be done, because there is no moving forward until we have one.
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That should be the Isiah Plan. Wait out or weed out the junk, keep the young talent, and make smart moves. Did anyone really expect anything significant from the Knicks this year?
We need bigs at any cost. If we can get something resembling a good 5 and 4s, other things will fall into place. We can then let contracts expire, build through the draft, maybe eventually get under the cap etc. But the longer we wait, the longer it will take for us to succeed.
Hunter is nice, and guys like him need to be overpaid for in today's NBA. The full MLE seems a bit much, but I'm sure other teams might offer it, so we ought to too. It'd be great to land Bogut, but we'd have to be very lucky to do so. On the roster, the only untouchable I see is Ariza. The plan should be to spare no cost in getting young bigs with potential, while trying to add younger players in other positions with smaller contracts. That will ensure this team has a future.
[Edited by - nykdunk on 02/01/2005 10:14:29]
