2015 NY Knicks offseason thread, Los Almighty appreciation thread

i've been a big melo fan since cuse so I'm always gonna support him but yeah i dont get the hate. he is who he is. he used to be immature but he's been pretty respectable in NY.
 
I mean, if you're okay with winning 45 games this is fine.

But trying to put the pieces around him while he's in his 14th, 15th, 16th seasons seems like a waste when Curry, Harden, Davis,
Durant, Westbrook etc are all out there and better and 5 years younger. Plus we still play in the same conference as LeBron.

A semi-rebuild around him gets us nowhere.
 
a complete rebuild when we give away a 2016 top 5 pick doesn't help us either. we're in a bind and the best chance to win now is with the guy. it's 4 years, if things go to plan this next draft pick will take the torch from him and help us progress further while melo becomes a 2nd option.
 
melo even said hes willing to become the second option to our pick this year, if they actually become the franchise player
 
Al3xis said:
Building a franchise around a 31 year old who can't stay healthy is a mistake.

Putting all of your eggs in the basket which contains the best player in the last 20 years at 25 years old is something I'll always live with. Donnie didn't ignore the draft, either. He was one spot away from having Steph Curry. Those are the breaks.
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Wtf is the difference anyway? We might be building the franchise around Melo but we are not putting all our eggs in his basket. We are using him to carry the team for a couple of seasons more, attract top tier free agents, and hopefully pass the torch to our up and coming draft pick when the time is right.

Seriously what would the Knicks have gained from not signing Melo? A better draft pick? We have the second best odds? A little more cap space? We already have practically more than we will be able to use this summer and if you are going to go after free agents you want a player like Melo (who would have gotten max dollars by a number of other teams btw) here to recruit them.

It was 2 seasons ago where the Knicks won 54 games with Melo as the clear face/leader of the franchise. Tyson also played at an all-star level but Melo was the clear face of the team and his secondary scoring option was JR ******* Smith. Melo is definitely good enough to be The Paul Pierce of this team if we could surround him with talent. With Melo on board and the cap space we have at our disposal over the next 2 summers we have enough to surround Melo with the pieces necessary to contend in the East. I truly believe that.

Signing Melo was absolutely the smart play. It didnt effect our draft stock this season (honestly a major concern of mine) it didnt significantly hurt our cap space and it gives us a centerpiece that will give marquee free agents a reason to play here. You surround Melo with some marquee talent and you still have that top draft pick hopefully developing into the next in line, that is better than ANY scenario that involves losing Melo.

Lets say the Knicks let Melo walk last summer. Now the Knicks still have the same exact draft chances as we currently have with Melo (great). So we get our shot at a franchise player that as it turns out we already have without losing Melo and having Melo takes pressure off whoever that player is in the immediate future.

Then u can make the argument that letting Melo go would save us cap space. Great. The Knicks would have $60 ******* million to spend this summer on who exactly? Nobody is leaving their contending teams to sign with the baron waste land that is the NY Knicks if we only had an unproven rookie to hype up in our free agency pitch. But now? With melo and phil jackson and the draft pick and the eastern conference and NYC and MSG, the Knicks are an intriguing team to alot of these players. Dont fool yourself otherwise. The Knicks will be players in free agency this summer.

Then lastly lets say the Knicks strike out in free agency sans Melo and go into next year basically only with our lotto pick, more unproven draft picks, and a **** load of cap space we couldnt use on anyone worthwhile. Not the worst thing in the world I would say with a legitimate shot for #KnicksTank part 2 and surround out unnamed top pick with another blue chipper kind of like OKC did with Durant/Westbrook/Harden/Ibaka. Oh wait a second. ****! The Knicks dont have their own pick next season because of the ******* Bargnani deal!

So in this hypothetical situation the Knicks would have nobody but their top pick on their team and then have to endure another season of atrocious basketball like we just suffered through, only in this case we wouldn't even have our own ******* draft pick. That sounds ******* Awful. Absolutely miserable but that is what you are asking for in the hypothetical world without Melo on the Knicks. Good luck with that bro, ill meet you over there.

And you know what the worst part about that already terrible hypothetical is? That the Knicks would inevitably start doing the kind of **** you wanted to avoid by not signing Melo to begin with. With all sorts of cap space to boot but not able to convince any marquee players to leave their contending teams without someone like Melo to market, and no first round pick to make tanking worthwhile again, the Melo-less Knicks would inevitably resort to throwing large sums of $ that we have lying around to players who arent worth it just to get out of the cellar, creating a whole new era of mediocrity. More Amare Stoudemire type deals just like Walsh got because that is what you get when you go to free agency with cash but no players.

Enter real world for a second again, the Knicks have the same top draft pick they would of had without Melo right now and they still have enough cap space to go after the big dogs. HOWEVER with a player who can anchor the offense like Melo the Knicks now become A LOT more attractive to a lot of these players including the likes of Marc Gasol or even potentially Kevin Love in the event he decides to leave Cleveland.

Idk who the Knicks will come away with in free agency this summer but the point being that with Melo still on the books and all the other things this team/city/Phil can offer, we will most definitely be players. And because we will be players and because Melo will be healthy next season the Knicks will be able to compete in the Weak East for the foreseeable future after this offseason. With no draft pick next season,the Knicks need to put out a competitive team next year. The fact is that signing Melo gives the Knicks the best shot to be competitive next season and attract free agents and it didnt even cost us a top pick in this draft.

Make no mistake, the Knicks would be FAR worse off without Melo than with him right now. You cant plan to tank and build through the draft in the foreseeable future with no draft pick next season. However a top pick + Melo + Free Agency is a plan. Top pick - Melo - Free Agents - Draft pick, that is NOT a plan.

So regardless of the fact that you don't like Melo and think that he is injury prone and that it was stupid to try and build the team around him, the fact remains that signing him was an X-Factor. Idc what you say but Melo is still easily a top 20 NBA player when healthy (arguably top 10 but I dont feel like arguing so ill be generous with the 20), and he has cost us nothing besides cap space (that would mean nothing without him). Retaining Melo hasnt hurt/cost us our draft position or anything else important whatsoever and he is an asset who could attract the kind of free agents we need in order to compete and run the offense until our draft pick can hopefully take over.

Saying that the Knicks shouldnt have signed Melo is really just an aimless shot for people who dont like him like to say. But the fact remains that the Knicks need Melo right now. The Knicks wouldnt have a shot to build a better team here without Melo, and then there are the supporters who still believe Melo still has a lot of greatness left in him just waiting to come out. I'll admit that that is a rather optimistic point of view but the fact remains that there was not an attractive Plan B if we didn't resign Melo like some people try to act like there is once you break down all the facts like I just did. Mostly the fact that there is no 2016 draft pick. That is ******* huge. The best move was to keep Melo on board 10 out of 10 times and hope for the best if we could build another competent team around him just like we did in 2013... Only better, with out making the fatal mistake of relying on clown *** bums like JR Smith this time around.

Seriously some of yall make it out like Melo hasnt done **** in his career to prove himself as a worthy player. He has only been to the conference finals and led the most successful Knicks team in 15 years, sure that isnt much compared to some of the all-time greats, but there is still a lot more that can be done if we surround him with the right pieces and system like we did in 2013. We havent given Melo **** to work with these past couple of seasons, yet he always shoulders all the blame.

With Phil/Fisher and the triangle, our draft pick, and cap space to work with the next 2 summer the Knicks have a legitimate chance to build a contender around Melo once again. So either hop on board or hop off, but spare me the whole "the Knicks would have been better off without Melo" story, because that just is not true at all once you break it all down.

This team would be ******* screwed right now if it werent for Carmelo Anthony, but because of Melo I could 100% live with the direction Phil is taking this team.
 
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Building around him refers to the future.

Did I care if he walked last year? Nope. But things also may have gone differently during the summer. Who knows what could have been different. Do I want Melo or no Melo right now? Of course Melo. But you can't paint it as Melo or nothing. A sign and trade could have happened, hell people discussed the Bulls moving Jimmy Butler to facilitate that.

I'm more than okay with having him on the roster because I'm hoping he asks to leave and we get something of value for him. And when we suck again next year, that's probably where we're at. Melo probably thinks less of this 'pass the torch' idea than you.


This is less about Melo, who is a fine player - and more about a first time 70 year old executive pushing an extinct offense and who has yet to make one positive move for the franchise other than brining his own name to the table. Btw, with the cap expanding and having plenty of room - why was it so great to get out of JR's deal then? You won't find a SG of his caliber for 6 million anymore. Nice foresight by Phil.
 
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^ Have you watched the past 2 Knicks seasons? JR was a ******* cancer man. This isnt 6th man of the year JR, he wasnt producing and his clown *** DGAF attitude was a virus to the entire team ever since he cost us the playoffs in 2013 by head butting Terry and them going ice cold vs the Pacers. Losing JR was like the Pistons losing Josh Smth this season. Addition by subtraction.

Get off your hating. You act like Phil has destroyed this team when in reality he took a broken *** team and gave us a top draft pick in a talented draft for the first time in my life time and cap space this summer and all that didnt even cost us Melo. If you would have told me that this time last year I would have signed anywhere you asked me to.

And that is ultimately why I turned around on Phil. I HATED the Phil move when it happened. figured it was another publicity stunt by Dolan to turn people's attention away from the catastrophe of the season. I didnt think 70 year old Phil with 0 experience would have the hind sight and patience this team needed to turn things around. But he has done right by me and I can recognize that. The Knicks are in a good place right now and a lot of that is Phil's doing I couldnt give 2 ***** about the whole "worst record in franchise history" that the media loves to shove down his throat like that makes him a failure.

And LOL @ "extinct offense." Yeah the "extinct offense" that won him championships across 4 different eras of the NBA including the most recent time he was in the league in 2010.

You act like that was 1980. The triangle has proven its test across time and could absolutely work with the right kind of commitment and personnel and that is what Phil is doing right now. He is building this team with the triangle in mind and it might work and it might now but don't tell me that is is "extinct" because it hasnt been in the league since it won a championship in 2010.

And I get that dudes like Rambis and Shaw flamed out with the triangle in addition to countless other Phil disciples (even in the late 90s with dudes like Jim Cleamons even when Phil was proving that the triangle definitely worked in that era with the right personnel, so Idk how you could get the triangle being "extinct" just because a couple of assistants havent had success with it in this era, if that is what you are basing your argument off of), but those teams NEVER tried to build a roster in the triangle's image. They got the coach but did nothing more to help them try and instill the offense. The triangle could work but it definitely calls for a certain type of personnel it isnt about the era.

I mean Minnesota hires Rambis to run the triangle and then drafts Rubio and Jonnt Flynn DIRECTLY ahead of Steph Curry? Come on. That was idiotic even then. David Kahn could have given Rambis an excellent triangle fitting franchise PG in Curry and a triangle fitting big in Jordan Hill right off the bat hut instead gave him 2 PGs who were AWFUL fits for the offense. But sure lets blame that on the triangle even though at the SAME TIME it was busy winning championships in LA.

And then the Nuggets win 57 games playing in George Karl's fast paced offense before hiring Shaw. That team wasnt made for the triangle it was made for fast paced basketball. Shaw was a bad fit on that team from the start.

But sure, lets blame that on the triangle being "extinct" despite thriving in the NBA from 1990-2010. Come the **** on. I know you are smarter than that. Youre willing to throw anything out there right now that contributes to your Phil/Melo hating. Just get with it.
 
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JR sucked for us and was a headache that showed up to play well once a week. I'm honestly happy he's gone. He's on the downside of his career, has decreased athleticism and continually loses focus and takes bad shots. He's a good fit for the Cavs but only because of who he is playing with and the better talent surrounding him. We were never gonna win with JR in NY in the role he had. Now if we added better players around him, maybe he would've been better, but we're looking at him getting older and more useless as we wait for the cap to expand. I think the triangle can work with high IQ players that make shots, I mean why not? It's predicated on reading the defense, utilizing screens, putting players in the position to excel, etc. The problem with teams failing to run the triangle well always revolves around the talent put into the triangle. You can't just have anyone play in it and expect to excel, you need guys that actually understand the intricacies of the game. Now, if today's players are more obtuse, less willing to channel the awareness needed to thrive, well, I guess the triangle won't work, but that's the only way I can see the system ever becoming extinct. There's some high IQ guys out there that would do well within it, we just need to bring them aboard instead of trying to fit squares into circles like we did initially with JR and that wanna be rapper.
 
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Phil's plan for this season obviously didn't turn out the way it was supposed to but he recognized it quickly & began the tank. idk about you guys but if we have no shot to make the playoffs in December i'd rather have a top 5 pick than #12.

i'm reserving judgement for Fish until he has a real roster to coach. i don't know how you can judge him when the 2nd best player on the roster was a mid season D League call up.
 
reality he took a broken *** team and gave us a top draft pick in a talented draft for the first time in my life time and cap space this summer and all that didnt even cost us Melo.
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GAVE us? :lol: Me and you could have done this. Actually, nobody could have done this. You could literally not have a GM or President and do this. Just do nothing. In fact, had he done nothing you'd have Tyson's contract off the books this summer and no Calderon.

Phil had no choice but to have patience. After Tyson, he only had one other packaged asset to deal - and he dealt that too. How could he not have patience? What else was there to do but take the lumps and lose games? He admitted there was nobody inquiring about Calderon at the deadline, there was nothing to be done even if he wanted to panic.

Yeah the "extinct offense" that won him championships across 4 different eras of the NBA including the most recent time he was in the league in 2010.
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I'd have more confidence if he was coaching it himself. But do You see anyone running that? The game is evolving, partly due to the copycat nature and partly due to rule changes. It doesn't make the most sense to run that variation of offense today. And I don't want a professional basketball team having to find players to fit a system. Get talent and find a system to fit it.
 
I'm not judging Fish yet till there's more talent on board. But I do like the way he handled himself on the sidelines. The way he talked to the media, the things he said, the way he stood by his players. That alone makes me feel comfortable with him for the time being.

It's the chicken and the egg. Find talent and find a system or find a system and find talent. I think the triangle works really well with smart players. I liken it to Pop's approach in SA. You put smart players that know their job and how to read and react into a complex system, they out maneuver and outwit their opponent.
 
Fish got every player on the team to play hard every night, they were just a lot worse than their opponent.
 
i never understood the hate for melo either... he is who he is a scorer...hes not a great leader or good all around player like lebron hes an elite scorer...i get that hes 31 and is the in end of his prime but the bottom line is this if we let melo go last summer what team do we have? theres a lot of young superstars in the league westbrook, durant, curry, etc but what makes you think they would come here or their teams would trade their franchise player... its not happening... we would be back to square 1 prior to the summer of 2010 just waiting every year for the next superstar to become a free agent and have them not come to the knicks then it plan b and to do something dumb like sign amare...we just have to work with what we have and that is to build around melo... a lot of teams would kill to have a player like melo and we're lucky to have him here... because realistically what superstar would come here if we didnt have melo at all? its really tough to judge his career because he never had a great team around him instead hes loyal to his team even though its scrubs and gets hated on for never getting passed the first round
 
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Al3xis said:
GAVE us?
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Me and you could have done this. Actually, nobody could have done this. You could literally not have a GM or President and do this. Just do nothing. In fact, had he done nothing you'd have Tyson's contract off the books this summer and no Calderon.
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Man if you are going to try and get me to turn on Phil because the Knicks sucked and he didnt do anything about it that just isnt going to work. Like I said from the jump, I hated the Phil signing. ******* despised it. My boys had to come talk me off the ledge and ****. And do I think he was perfect since he has been here? No, I do not. Like I said, he missed out on the Tyson trade. He could have gotten more assets in return for Tyson had he waited. He thought he was going to get more from Calderon then he did and taking on his contract now looks like a mistake.

But I am going to be damned if I am going to fault Phil for doing what so many Knicks GMs should have done before him. Just blow the ******* thing up. Im not going to get on him about the JR/Shump trade because like I said there was no way they had suitors. The both of them played themselves out of trade value. JR was baggage due to his attitude and contract and Phil was lucky to find a taker for him and if it cost us Shump and getting no assets back in return then fine by me, Shump was leaving this summer anyhow.

But above anything else I respect Phil's patience and foresight. I dont care what you say on the matter, truth is that Phil could have panicked and done some Isiah type of **** but at the end of the day he stayed calm and let the Knicks play themselves into a top draft selection. The Knicks didnt have a very good team this year and I think this season was an example of the triangle making us look even worse than we were because we didnt have the right personnel. But Phil knows what works within the triangle. Many other times the triangle has failed in the NBA it has because these ******* idiot teams hire these coaches because they are hot targets/Phil Jackson disciples without actually putting in the time and the effort to get them a team that would lourish playing in the triangle. Rambis' Minnesota team and Shaw's Denver team? Horrible triangle fits, but I definitely do not think that means that the system cant work. It was worked across 4 eras of basketball and won championships in each of them and I truly think Phil is capable of making it successful once again. Sure, I understand that he isnt coaching this team but he will still give Derek Fisher everything he needs to run the triangle successfully in terms of personnel. I think THAT is what is most important, and that is what Fisher will get in NY that none of Phil's other assistant coaches have ever gooten from the various organizations that have hired them.

So whatever man I get that me and you don't see eye to eye on this. I understand that you might see this as Phil not doing enough but I think that him "not doing enough" is for a reason/ Phil hasn't completely won me over but with Melo on the books, a top draft pick this summer, and tons of cap space to bring in some of that personnel we have been talking about, I got his back for now. Like I said, you tell me at this time last year that the Knicks would have all 3 of those this summer and I would have signed anywhere. I said before the season that I would rather be one of the worst teams in the NBA while we had a draft pick this year than sneak into the playoffs but I didnt think that was realistic with Melo back.

So yeah, I got Phil's back from now because the most important thing has shown me is that he is going to be patient and not half *** this roster build. Because I agree, doing this thing half *** won't work. But I honestly think this is FAR from half assed. I think that bringing Melo back was the smart move because you need him to attract free agents. We have the $ available to build Melo a winner around him like we have done before and I believe that we can do it again. And then we really had only one shot at the draft and we ******* nailed it. A guaranteed top 5 pick, probable top 3 pick in a draft like this is a ******* gem. I am estatic about having a piece like that because a young franchise player can change everything. I didn't think Phil would have the patience to try and go for a top pick this season but he blew up the team when he knew it was time and know we are sitting pretty at #2.

So yeah I got his back. For now. But his clock starts right now. I get it that he hasnt done so much but in my mind that is a good thing. That is what I am proud of him for. Not being stupid and interfering with the Knicks tanking this year. Because I didnt think he was going to have the patience to let that happen when he came here. If that is low expectations then so be it but we got the pick thats what matters and lets see what he can do from here. Now it is not about being patient and tanking and what not because there is no more draft pick. Phil got his Melo, he got his pick, and he got his $ so lets see if he can do what we brought him here for. No point in getting on him like he is ******* up the whole organization for doing a couple of little things that wont mean **** when we look back at all of this. 

Anyway regardless I am glad to see you back in here challenging me like you used to @Al3xis. Feel like I havent been challenged enough recently. In retrospect that is probably because very few people take the time to read all the ******* **** I write besides you and a couple of select others. Glad to see you back up in here though, even if it does have me typing away like a mad man for the past couple of hours. 
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When I returned earlier this year after taking a couple of years off of NT completely I was thinking about when I used to argue with you about seemingly every little ******* thing that has to do with the Knicks, but I didnt see you at all in the thread until now. 

All love. The GR8 ones step their **** up when competing against other greatness 
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I'm not judging Fish yet till there's more talent on board. But I do like the way he handled himself on the sidelines. The way he talked to the media, the things he said, the way he stood by his players. That alone makes me feel comfortable with him for the time being.
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1000%. Glad that I am not the only one who feels this way. While a lot of media members and fans and whoever the **** else have gotten on Fisher's **** this past season for coming off sounding political at times and even corny with his cliches about staying positive, I actually have a lost of respect for Fisher for staying focused and driven and positive like he did. This season was tough for any coach in his position. Let alone a first time coach fresh off of playing in the NBA and having to deal with all that **** AND the **** from the NY media for the first time during a torturous losing season like we had. People underestimate how draining that **** could be but my boy Fish didnt come close to losing his cool even once.

Fisher has a lot of learning left to do as a coach, and if he works hard at his craft I am sure he is only going to get better. I am not going to judge a young first year head coach like Fisher on a team with no talent like the Knicks. That is unfair and I think a lot of times the head coach does take an unfair amount of ****, and that was no different with Fisher this season. But it is a necessary evil and I for one am very proud at Fisher for the way he handled himself throughout the season. I have never been more confident in Fisher. I mean that seriously.

If he works hard at his craft I see no reason why he can't become a very good head coach in the NBA. If this first season showed me anything from him it is that he already possesses the mental toughness and overall coolness of being an NBA head coach in spades, which I already thought I knew from Phil's book, but it was definitely great seeing first hand. IMO that is half the battle. The fact that Fisher was a terrific locker room leader/voice and a cool/clutch playoff performer in his playing days means so much more than his physical ability in terms of what will translate to his coaching days. Dude can handle the heat and rally a team when need be. I liked the hire from day 1 and I still do.

My only major problem with rookie head coaches are that I think it is beyond stupid to hire them when expecting a championship (like the Nets did with Kidd last year), because they obviously have a lot to learn which will result in a learning curve that obviously will be detrimental towards a championship run in your first season. But the Knicks knew they werent winning anything this year. Fisher learned a lot from it and I am sure that he will be a better basketball coach and just a tougher individual overall from facing all the **** that he has in the past year or so by the time next season rolls around.
 
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Melo's prime will last longer than his contemporaries. In fact, his numbers will improve for sure in terms of efficiency, especially with more talent around him. I guarantee it. His game is not based off athleticism. He is incredibly skilled, and you all will see how he can play the next 4-5 years at the same level. How Dirk and Nash were at their best in their 30's...Melo is gonna do the same thing. Phil believes this as well. I'm inclined to side with his opinion on this issue. Melo is NOT in any way an issue for this team. I'm tired of hearing those comments. He has been great for NY since the moment he came
 
New poll should be: how many former Knicks will be playing in the NBA Finals?

Then when NBA Finals start, how many former Knicks will win a ring?
 
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