Off-Season Keepers and Additions

MSGhobo247

Rotation player
even with Dirk, Mavericks lost their identity. Kidd orchestrated that team offensively and defensively.

Kidd has digressed, but not enough for us to give up on him. Plus his contract doesn't expire.

He's a great 2nd/3rd string PG.

Pablo is staying him here too.

It's best if we package Felton/Chandler to free up some cap space and draft a rookie PG to learn under Kidd/Prigioni. That'll be the most ideal situation for us.

We're wasting time and money with Felton. He's already shown what he's capable of us and has played to his limit. Felton played the worst defense all season long and turned it up for the series against the Celtics. Offensively, most of the time he doesn't know when the score or pass...his passing creativity is limited. We need a Rubio type facilitator and a Kemba Walker type creator.

Knicks trade
Tyson Chandler
Raymond Felton
Earl Barron
2013 #24 pick(draft Tony Mitchell)
2014 first round pick

OKC trades
Kendrick Perkins
Serge Ibaka
Thabo Sefalosha
2013 #12 pick (Draft Schroeder)

OKC
Westbrook/Felton/Fisher
Martin/Jackson/Lamb
Durant/Brewer/Jones III
Collison/Mitchell/Orton
Chandler/Thabeet/Barron

Knicks

Prigioni/Schroeder/Kidd
Shumpert/Sefalosha
Anthony/Copeland/Novak
Martin/Stoudimire
Ibaka/Camby/Perkins

I really like the idea of Ibaka and Martin on the court at the same time but removing Felton and leaving Pablo and Kidd to run the team for 82 games leads to another season falling short. Neither one of those guys can do it all season long in terms of getting inside the defense and creating for others(while being a threat themselves & guarding CP3, DWill, even George Hill) over the long run... that leads to relying on Shump and Melo to do a lot of playmaking and as we've seen this can become repetitive after a while with Woodson in control.

Maybe idk enough about this Schroeder kid but from the small bit of video i've seen on him he has potential and reminds me of a sloppier Rondo with a slightly better jump shot.

The point of this offseason is to make Melo's job easier. We need a balanced attack from ALL ANGLES. Look at Indiana... Quick young PGs... aggressive "put your head down and go" SG's... One SF who plays on all sides of the ball (scores, rebounds, assist, steals), A bully PF and an oversized Center who merely has to be tall and somewhat coordinated.

I really like this trade and lineup but the PG's gotta go or set up in a way where Pablo is our second or third option. Otherwise you gotta hope Shump becomes an agressive monster and Cope turns into a Mini-Melo.
 
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metrocard

Legend
I believe Pablo > Felton, Pablo in his 2nd year in the NBA, you will see him make a lot more passes with confidence and take more open shots. That would compliment Melo more than Felton's indecisiveness.

In addition, Pablo is about 10 levels above Felton on defense. Added to the fact Pablo starting, Knicks have their best winning %.

How often do we see Pablo communicate with the guys? It's all the time, especially on defense.

Felton tends to get lazy on both sides of the ball and disappears. Felton is a capable of scoring 20 points and getting 8 assist, but his consistency and tendency levels are low...it's always been like that since his rookie season in Charlotte.

Felton is a rental player...not a guy who would fit in a championship formula....let's be honest with ourselves...what is Felton's major role? It's definitely not the floor general because he doesn't possess those type of offensive skills. He isn't Tony Parker. How would Felton fit on a team like the Spurs? or even Miami even though they have PG's lesser in talent, but how would Felton fit? His spot up shooting is average. His defense is poor. He's best attribute is driving to the basket, would Miami use that option over superstars like 6"8 260 lb LeBron or 6"4 220 Wade driving to the basket? Felton isn't even a great finisher, so why are we settling for average? Why do we ignore these things and just accept Felton to be the answer because he has this undeserved label as a "tough gritty New York style" PG. Felton is a country boy...theres nothing NY about him.

Difference between Prigioni and Felton is that Prigioni is miles ahead in terms of basketball awareness, on ball defense, playing the passing lanes, passing and court vision. Pablo is a better spot up shooter and he's better at hitting 3's off the pick and roll. Prigioni will get better coming into his 2nd year in the NBA being more familiar with the pace and rules.

Bottomline is that:

Felton's aggressive "pitbull style" isn't really that good. His other attributes are too average or too poor (defense, passing)
 
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MSGhobo247

Rotation player
I too think Pablo is better then Felton and I'm down with that idea if Pablo was 26 but he's 36. I don't care how great of shape you are in 82 games is a marathon and Pablo will need more rest then say a Wall, Curry, Kyrie, Lin, Westbrook, DWILL, and CP3. Not only does he have to get through the regular season but he has to play his BEST ball at the end. Don't mistake small burst of Pablo vs. large runs of Pablo... that can be two different players.

I'm not trying to defend Felton but I just think we are undervaluing what he brings to the team. I remember numerous stretches in games where I'm going off on Pablo and Kidd because they would go over the screen and stop because that was all the defense was allowing and they didn't have the speed to beat the next defender. Felton brought that.

I'm not saying that Felton is the answer and I agree that he doesn't fit in a championship equation but nor does Pablo being the starting PG of ANY team in the USA. There are a lot of up and coming PGs in this league who will be wanting out of their ****ty teams in those ****ty cities. If our only shot at them is to wait a little longer then I'll do it because winning a championship is a process.

All I'm saying is Pablo can't do right now what you are asking of him and we should wait for the batch of young stud PG's who are chomping at the bits for a change of scenery. That should be our biggest priority then getting healthy bigs.
 
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metrocard

Legend
Prigioni can do it, he's got the year experience of NBA play under his belt, plus over 15 years of professional ball...he can easily hold down a 28 minute starting PG role and have a young kid like Larkin or Schroeder come off the bench and display their talents. Our goal is to win, but in wining you need to grow as a team and develop your players.

You can't win by recycling used and washed up players, players need to develop (Gasol, George) for your team to reach elite status.

Shumpert is just one guy we're hoping to reach that level...but we could definitely use more, why not use the draft? The draft gave us guys like David Lee, Nate Robinson, Trevor Ariza...the NBA draft is probably the most important part of the season that can make a team and turn their franchise into a stronger direction.

Knicks are only squatting 200lbs right now. The can only squat 400 and over unless they make bigger moves for now and into the future.
 

Kidd Karma

Benchwarmer
Kidd has been miscast, he's a 2 guard, he needs 2 players on the floor who can penetrate and finish. He needs an eraser in Chandler defensively and a ball hawk like Iman. We got Melo and partial of Felton, when those 2 can open up the floor, Kidd gets a lot of room to spot up. when a team disciplined like Indy stays at home on spot up shooters, while funneling drivers into Hibbert, it makes it difficult for us to drive and kick. Defensively Kidd is shot one on one, but if he's on the wing on a spot up shooter, he'll gamble, read offenses and jump passing lanes, creating havoc in offensive systems, but if he has to guard the point he'll get killed. 26 minutes is too much for Kidd average wise, he needs to be around 15 or so. Similar to how the Mavs used Stevenson in the championship year, Stevenson would start the halves and just lock someone down for about 8 minutes a half. Kidd needs to see similar minutes, a big bunch with the proper personnel along side him. He's not versatile enough any more to be a stop gap. At this point, it's much better to trade Kidd/Camby for pennies on the dollar, get a couple live bodies into NY, then it is to work Kidd in for 25 minutes a night. Kidd was brought in to provide influence on Melo, and to a lesser extent JR, but when the chips were laid, it was a failed task. We had a great start of the season, but a combination of injuries, advanced scouting report and an inability to adjust to defenses, ie Indy's goal to stop 3 point attempts. You need a counter punch and Woodson never figured it out.
 
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