Arm Chair Quarterback - what should we do now?

mdelton

Rookie
Like all loyal Knick fans I am deeply frustrated. Since I sit here powerless to do anything here is what I would do if I were the Knicks organization.

#1 - Say goodbye to Isiah.

Isiah was a great player, and not too bad of a coach. However, he has been a distater as a President and GM (Ernie Grunfeld where are you when we need you). The only move that I feel Isiah has made that has been good for the Knicks is to move a bunch of the dead wood (Charlie Ward, Howard Eisley, and Antonio McDyess) for Stephan Marbury. While Stephan has fallen short in his career of becoming the point guard we all hoped he would, he is still a great player. And while some of you may say that McDyess is playing well in Detroit, he is only a role player off the bench and he has a lot of help, he is not capable of being the main guy anymore. All the other moves have essentially been a wash.
I fear that out of despiration, he is now ready to trade our younger players to obtain players that are good in name only and in reality they are out of gas such as theo Ratliff. I do like Theo, but he is injury prone and at 33 is on the downside of his career with three big years remaining on his deal.
Actually I do like the recent deal for Jalen Rose. I am not sure if this is Larry's deal or Isiah's but Jalen can still play serious offense. and when Steph is back will allow the Knicks to spread the defense better.

#2 Set the lineup and rotation
My starting lineup would now be:
Steph at the point when he returns
Jalen at the point until steph returns. Jalen is not a natural point, but he is more reliable at that spot than Crawford or Robinson. When steph gets back I move Jalen to the two or three.
David Lee at the three (note that the six game winning streak the Knicks had, David Lee started all six games). He is one of the only guys on the team that does a lot of important things without the ball. Note that he gets more than half his points with putbacks and followups on others shots. Whether he does most of his minutes at the three or 4 does not matter, what does matter is that he is a good influence on the floor and he steadies the team.
Channing Frye starts at the 4. Let him develop.
Eddy Curry at the 5. I hire a personal trainer to live with Curry and get his butt in shape.
Off the bench
Qyntel Woods (a Larry Brown pickup, not Isiah).
Malik rose - good ballplayer, smart, good efender, but does not really fit in Larry's scheme. however, he is a good guy to put in at the end of halfs and the end of games when you have to shut other teams down.
Jackie Butler - is becoming a serviceable backup center.
Mo Taylor - trying hard to change his game and adjust, not bad offensively, but I would rather see Frye and Lee get his minutes, let them develop.
I would use Nate at the two of the bench, his style of play is distruptive to other teams.

#3 Trade Crawford/Ariza and if anyone will take James....
Jamal Crawford can be an offensive machine. Earlier this year I though that he was making improvements in his game, taking fewer shots and improving his shot selection, however, he makes really bad decisions with the ball at critiacal moments. Also, other teams have figured him out, he can jack up the long ball but his drives are not as effective becasue teams have learned he can only go to his right.
Ariza, has talent, I love his hustle, those tow things make him tradeable, with only so many mniutes to go around, I would choose to give them to Qyntel Woods, David Lee and of course Jalen Rose, does not leave any for poor Trevor.[hr:4798db4d58]
 

H20 OFFdaHizZLe

Benchwarmer
i don't understand how u can put nate robinson at the 2 off the bench with his height...how in the world would he defend a 6'6 shooting guard???
it would make sense if jalen rose was playin point at the same time nate was playin sg cuz then they can switch their man on defense....but other than that, impossible
 

mdelton

Rookie
Nate at the 2

I agree it is hard to see why I would put Nate at the 2. I love his talent but I am not sure where I would put him because he plays more like a two and he is not under control enough to play point
 

donchris

Next season, keep waiting
OK, normally I'd chew you out for dogging Isiah Thomas like that but I'm going to respect your opinion. It seems alot of people share your views yet I happen to think you and they are all wrong. The fact is for some strange reason New Yorkers love Allen Houston, yet his contract is the sole reason for this disaster you see before you today. I created a topic that no one really responded too. It's called Cap Salary Hell or Salary Cap Hell, I forget. At any rate it explained the salary cap which is currently 46.5 million. The ny knicks are at 106 million as of this year. 20 Million of that 106 goes to the newly retired Allan Houston and 20 million more goes to him next year. So when people say get rid of Thomas it really doesn't make much sense. Dolian did the right thing by getting rid of our last GM Scot Layden. Thomas got rid of alot of guys but they all sucked. Even Muhammad is a role player now and he was the very best out of all the guys Thomas got rid of. Let's face it Thomas is the captain of a sinking ship. This is a rebuilding faze and it takes patience. Right now the best thing for you newby's to do is to stop reading the NY Post and understand rebuilding takes time.
 

mdelton

Rookie
response to salary cap hell

I agree that Isiah inherited a bad situation, Houston's salary and all. However, being at the cap does not matter unless you are so far under it that you can sign some free agents.
I still credit Isiah for getting Marbury here in exchange for esentailly junk. Like him or not he is better than what we had and is stil a great player. The problem is that everyone when they say point guard, wants Jason Kidd or Steve Nash, those two are the ONLY traditional playmaking point guards in the league. Every other point guard is flawed by comparison.
But let's get back to Isiah. Yes he inherited a bad roster with bad contracts, and he did what he could to improve it by getting Larry Brown. But, let's look at a few of the other deals he has made;
Way overpaying for Jamal Crawford.
Giving away too mucn to a center no one wanted in Jerome James who is being paid $29MM over the next six years to eat Krispy Kremes.
Paying up too much for Eddie Curry and giving away unprotected draft picks in the process. Now I think Curry has great potential offensively, but he is out of shape, has the heart issue, and plays horrible defense.
Now the Knicks were already over the cap when Isiah got here and were not going to get anywhere near it for several years, so why not spend more, NY has the money. But overpaying for players no one else wants is not helping anything.
Brown and Isiah. Despite their intial public lovefest for each other, two alpha dogs like that can not co-exist.
In my opinion, Scott Layden was the worst GM ever. Best one we ever had was Ernie Grunfeld.
 
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