It's like MSG said, you people are starting to worry me, with your inability to understand others' posts. #1. I don't understand your scenario, kblack. If you'd like to repost it, with some clarifications added, I'll provide you with an answer. #2. The team we start out with in 2009 is likely the team we'll have at the end of the season, i.e. 2009-2010, for the 2010 savior to play with, after all the salary cap is being saved, and emptied out, for a big 2010 prospect. Or do you actually want us to actually build the team, comprehensively, at multiple positions?
And, for the millionth time, I'm not a Marbury lover. I didn't even care that he got waived. My issue was with how management, and D'Antoni, went about it, which I'm sure none of you agree with.
And, again, 2010 does not equal a championship, aka the "big picture." You tell me how many times a team gets a title, right after acquiring a good player. I'm interested in winning, getting to the playoffs, then adding players in areas of need, until, a year or two down the line, we're a contender.
And, as I've already said, I'm talking about pieces, not one or two players. It's unfair to blame individual players for the failures of management. If you don't give players a legitimate big man to play with, you're basically setting them up for failure: they can't expect to get all, or most, of their defensive rebounds, to get help, in an instance of being beat off the dribble, and they can't expect to stop their opponents from getting easy layups. It's a recipe for failure.
And, as for blind supporters of D'Antoni and Walsh, on this forum, unless you've coached, you don't know what the f&*k you're talking about. You have to sit next to a guy, watch how he interacts with players, whether they listen to him, how he makes decisions, when and why. You have to understand if he can strategize, in the moment, or just be a hindsight guy: many of the coaches I've known are hindsight guys, which is okay, but in the moment people are the best.
The decisions made by this 100 year old GM and D'Antoni the nepotist are poor. Will they continue making poor decisions? I don't know. Lopez shows what many of you have attributed to Gallinari, with no basis to doing so: potential, he's fundamentally sound. And no team, Whether D'Antoni's or otherwise, can without a real big man. Kobe, considered by many to be the best in the game, missed the playoffs and got swept, on a previous post-season, without Gasol. It's just logic, all you have to do is try it out.