to BRIGGS: I want to know what was positive about a team roster that had: eisley, anderson, travis knight, weatherspoon, and slavko vranes on it... just wondering.
The season is not a failure because I can SEE a future now. I can honestly visualize some of the young kids on our roster (ariza, craw, sweets, etc) carrying this team back to respectability. I couldn't SEE that with layden here.
And rebuilding is rebuilding. Isiah has made some mistakes, and now he has changed his plan from trying to go into the playoffs to rebuilding for now. What do you want him to do, stick to trying to win and rush houston and everyone back, play marbury 48 mpg, bench sweets, and keep going? Should he do that just to avoid more criticism that he's messed up and is going in a different direction now?
I think the job of GM of the knicks is a lot harder than anyone on this board seems to think it is... we have to compare what we have now with what we had in the past and think about if it is better or worse

positives:
the great play of marbury, crawford actually working on his shot selection, ariza and the development of sweetney..

oh and the two first round picks we have this year....

Posted by BRIGGS:

i want to know what has been positive about this year. what has he done right after spending all this $$$$.

We started off the season playing pretty well. We've seen Ariza and Sweetney show us flashes of potential. We got a young combo guard who stepped into what would have been a massive hole at SG and also solves a previous glaring weakness with backcourt ballhandling (remember Marbury getting trapped by the Nets constantly in the 04 playoffs?).

Those are some modest positives, nothing groundbreaking. They are offset and outweighed by considerable negatives, with the principles ones being:

1) Lenny as a coach. Easily Isiah's biggest mistake. Arguably, we would not have had nearly as bad of a New Year's swoon without Lenny at the helm.
2) Houston's no show. On a team starving for knockout shooting, especially in closing moments of tight games, this was a critical loss.
3) Tim Thomas's no show. TT's family tragedies rendered him impotent and ineffectual for the greater part of the season. Once again, a huge hit for a team short on perimeter talent that absolutely could not afford to lose one of its better players.

Hiring Lenny was a bad move. The two other huge downers on our season, however, have been beyond Isiah's sphere of influence. Start over the season with a mostly physically healthy Houston and a mostly mentally healthy TT, and shucks if our prospects don't look a whole lot better.

To sum up: this season has featured some modest positives, but these have been offset by huge negatives. But a large portion of the negatives are to be chalked up to bad luck, not mismanagement by Isiah. If we fail to take this into account, we will wind up being more pessimistic than we should be.

do you feel this season has been a disaster, that this was a no excuse brutal failure? or do you see something else?

I measure success or failure of actual outcomes relative to reasonable expectations of success or failure. We wind up being a lottery team instead of being a middle of the road .500 team that gets bounced early in the playoffs? Good for us, it will help us get young talent that we would've sorely needed anyway. Disappointment, yeah. Brutal failure? Brutal failure is a team that was supposed to have a great shot at the championship not making the playoffs (see Minnesota). We didn't live up to our expectations of being sacrificial playoff lambs? Color me positively crushed.

i cant really make the case for rebuilding when you make huge commitments to malik and taylor who arent exactly young players.

Our commitment to Taylor is not a large (long lasting) one. Rose's contract is a tough pill to swallow because of its length relative to our pre-existing contractual albatrosses, but it certainly does not make it impossible to continue to acquire young and talented assets.

does anyone think that we shouldve just kept Andersen as a back up player since were paying him 8mm per?

Why in the world do you care? Is the money coming out of your pocket? Anderson's only significant value to us was as a trading chip in his expiring year, and that's all we threw away by cutting him. You're of the mind that we should be developing our young talent, right? Then why keep Shamdon around only to cut into Trevor's PT? Trevor essentially brings everything Shamdon does, so you can't even argue we'd have been any better if we'd been playing him instead of Trev. Even if you suppose he'd have given us a slight edge over Ariza (it's not realistic to project anything more than a slight edge), clearly he'd been turning into a locker room cancer, which offsets any edge he might have had in terms of pure playing ability.

what do you guys feel about losing 5 games to what i would call weak teams with our whole roster intact?

I feel it's exactly what we need. We need to secure a better chance at better talent at this point more than anything else. Also, consider this:
1) if we play well to close out the season, there's no guarantee it meaningfully carries over into the next season. (See: 03/04 Knicks, 04/05 Knicks.)
2) if we don't play well to close out the season (which has been the case), there is likewise no guarantee that this effect carries over. With new talent and perhaps a new coach, and in any case a serious training camp to start the season instead of Lenny's country club, there are a lot of factors that can change the team outlook and success as early as next season.

So, is the fact that we're not playing well to close out the season particularly bothersome? It is for the immediate present, but the immediate present is a lost cause anyway. Is it bothersome for what could follow in the future? Not really; you can't reliably project much of what's happening now to what will happen next season.

Bottom line? The poor play now is not guaranteed by any stretch to have any significant impact on how we play next season, and it gives us a better draft pick going forward. If you know you're going to be abducted by aliens this summer and never see any more Knicks games for the rest of your life, then yeah, you should be pretty pissed. Otherwise, you should be glad knowing that this is what's best for the future.

excellent post, tomverve.

Posted by teslawlo:

to BRIGGS: I want to know what was positive about a team roster that had: eisley, anderson, travis knight, weatherspoon, and slavko vranes on it... just wondering.
The season is not a failure because I can SEE a future now. I can honestly visualize some of the young kids on our roster (ariza, craw, sweets, etc) carrying this team back to respectability. I couldn't SEE that with layden here.
And rebuilding is rebuilding. Isiah has made some mistakes, and now he has changed his plan from trying to go into the playoffs to rebuilding for now. What do you want him to do, stick to trying to win and rush houston and everyone back, play marbury 48 mpg, bench sweets, and keep going? Should he do that just to avoid more criticism that he's messed up and is going in a different direction now?
I think the job of GM of the knicks is a lot harder than anyone on this board seems to think it is... we have to compare what we have now with what we had in the past and think about if it is better or worse

IN case of emergency and doubt: Bring up layden, eisley, Fatspoon, anderson etc, pretend that team would still be frozen in time, ignore they won 39 games and had chemistry and pride, and ask if you still like them all still here. Expand on Marbury's as if he will lead and make those around him better, and that the future is bright.

Then expand that we really did not give up much for Marbs. Its not Isiahs fault that our back court alone exceeds the cap, but blame Layden for Alans contract. Also think that NENE would have made a big difference, and forget Camby was breaking down and needed two yeaers to get strong.

Forget this teaam will be lucky to finsish within 7 games of last years group of disfunctional idiots, blame Layden further, add a dose of Lenny (not really Isiahs fault) and ask for Herb cuz he was Patricks best friend.

Then dream how good Starks could be as coach and forget his inconsistant shooting, dumb Techs, and for gods sake don't listen to his halftime broadcasts as he really is a moron!

Just the fact that we know all we need is a shot blocking center and a replacement for Houston and we are back to being one of the top teams in the East.

Knowing that, I'm confident the knicks will fill those needs.

Bad: Lenny
Good: Ariza

That's how I see it.

[Edited by - rvhoss on 04/02/2005 02:11:51]

Lenny the great motivator...he did a fabulous job with Vince.

Atleast we aren't getting blown out. You add ONE PIECE and these losses ALL become wins.

I'm talking just one player. Could be Houston, a young rookie, or a free agent...but I'm sure that one piece will throw us over the top.

No reason we can't be the wizards.

OT: am i the only one that wants the cavs and sixers to miss out on the playoffs (I guess I'm rooting for the nets)

positives = the Knicks' season is almost over & baseball season starts tomorrow

there are lots of positives this season. tim thomas is playing better which would raise his trade stock. you can say the same bout mo taylor cuz they are both gone in this off season. ariza was a good pick. marbury has had his best year (shooting 47 %). i also think the pick-up of jackie butler was an positive. i know he hasnt proven himself yet but he averaged 21 and 12 in the cba at the age of 19. he also brought in mark aguirre that is turning sweetney into a low post beast. kurt thomas is also averaging a double double so he would make good trade bait.