You guys get so worked up about these trivial moves like signing Vujacic. This season is about developing Porzingis and Grant. Literally almost every scenario turns out great if these two guys prove themselves to be the future of this team and literally almost every scenario turns out miserable if both these guys are busts.
Complain all you want about overpaying for Lopez. He is a guy who I like everything about except his price tag, which is a refreshing change with this team.
O'Quinn was a good signing. He is going to bust heads next to Porzingis in the 2nd unit, if we decide to go that route.
Affalo is a decent low risk, high reward signing. I wouldn't get too excited about him, but he literally was the 'best' we were going to do in this free agency period given our miserable last season.
Complain all you want about the Derrick Williams signing...because, y'know, it's a probably a bad signing. Oh well.
This season is also about Melo. Can we commit to the rebuild and trade him to improve the future or do we continue to hold onto this idea that we can somehow build a 'championship' team around him?
At least this season should be more interesting than the last one. Not about to get all upset about Vujacic and a couple partially guaranteed undrafted players.
I think we're in agreement that this season is going to be about finding out whether Zinger and Grant have the goods to quickly develop into NBA starters putting up double/doubles for the Knicks.
The difference is I didn't expect the worst season in Knicks history with Phil Jackson on board and fans like myself were targeting this season with the cap space as an off season that the Knicks would make real progress in regaining respectability.
You're in the patience camp looking at the Knicks as a 3 year and beyond team to become a playoff contender and longer to contend for a championship. A lot of Knicks fans had higher expectations for the teams esp. this off-season, if the signings don't pan out this year and Williams is a bust, Lopez is stout defensively but doesn't pick up his career scoring numbers on a team that needs his scoring and O'Quinn remains the career backup he was in Orlando then you can start writing off next year when the Knicks don't have a first round pick and not enough cap space to sign a Kevin Durant.
I didn't see much progress this off-season with these signings, real disappointing when you look back at when Dolan signed Phil Jackson to that huge contract to run the Knicks calling him the smartest guy he had talked to about bball. ESPN ran this article about the Knicks off-season signings and I've been waiting for the annual ESPN computer rankings that turned out to be too optimistic about last season when they predicted that the Knicks would not have a .500 record but would still make the playoffs in a weak EC. The article gives you a glimpse of what the ESPN computer predictions are going to say and I don't think they'll be predicting playoffs for them.
[h=3]A Knicks Rebound in Free Agency?[/h]
The Knicks have been aggressive suitors in the summer free agency market, inking six players to new contracts. Unfortunately, only one of them is projected to create any real surplus value, while two deals rate as big overpays. The other three are basically a wash.
Let's start with the good news. Kyle O'Quinn looks like a potential steal at $11.74 million for three years (with a fourth-year player option). The athletic rim protector spent his first three seasons as a backup big for Orlando. But with his improving offensive game and respectable RPM impact (+0.45), O'Quinn could conceivably emerge as a quality starter for New York. But even if he becomes nothing more than a 20-minutes-per-game rotation big, he'll still generate $12 million in projected surplus value for the Knicks.
Unfortunately, O'Quinn is most effective at the center position, the same spot now occupied by
Robin Lopez, whom the team just signed at a cost of over $12 million per year. Lopez is a quality big -- a much better defender than his brother Brook, though less skilled offensively -- and he's probably worthy of his new contract. But at a predicted RPM impact of only +1.5 next season, with some expected age-related decline thereafter, the 27-year-old rates as merely a break-even signee in surplus value terms.
By far the team's worst signings are those of
Arron Afflalo ($16 million) and
Derrick Williams ($10 million), both of whom are projected to contribute at below replacement level due to particularly poor defensive play. While Afflalo was once regarded as a lockdown perimeter defender, advanced metrics -- especially RPM -- suggest that his impact in recent seasons has been a decidedly negative.
To summarize: Despite the Knicks' smart pickup of Kyle O'Quinn, the team is projected at a net -$22 million in surplus value from their six free agent transactions. In other words, they likely overspent for the modest infusion of talent they acquired. In so doing, they made little apparent progress on the path back toward NBA respectability.
