The NBA Thread

jaycee said:
Dolan profits even when the Knicks are atrocious because - New York.

Usually people make bad decisions like not offering KD max years and $ because people are just dumb, but when you know that your loyal fan base will keep paying and you will be the center of attention even if you are the worst team in the league you can get away with bad decisions in a way that you can't in most other cities.... and/or they knew weeks ago that nobody wanted to sign with the Knicks under this ownership so this is the story they came up with to try to make it look like it was Dolan's choice.
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It was damned if we do, damned if we don’t. Offering him the max after an Achilles tear would have made the media and non-knicks fans say “lolknicks, signing a 32 year old who just tore his Achilles!” I get that Dolan is a piece of shit but any move we made this summer would have resulted in the same media/fan response. If KD doesn’t come back fully from injury, it would have been seen as a classic Knicks win-now move. The Knicks were driven by star chasing and terrible cap moves for the past 20 years and now people are making fun of them for not star chasing.

The Knicks just finished year 1 of a rebuild. It took the Nets 5 years to get to where they are now and the Knicks are starting out in an arguably better place than the Nets did. I’m fine to try something different. Dolan will never sell. The players don’t care about Dolan. Every player not named Oakley who has played for the Knicks likes him. It’s the media and fans that hate him but he’ll never sell. I wish he would. In the meantime, I’m fine with the majority of Perry’s moves as GM.
 
MikeH said:
Offering him the max after an Achilles tear would have made the media and non-knicks fans say “lolknicks, signing a 32 year old who just tore his Achilles!”
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No I would have congratulated the Knicks on making their smartest move in almost 20 years. Same as I am for Brooklyn. They have been both joke franchises, except one of them no longer is.
 
Space Wanderer said:
No - usually the plans don't go on sale until after the schedule comes out (you know, so people can know what games they're buying). They come out looking for deposits earlier. This year they most certainly changed the plan at some point in the last month and a half, and another thing that happened at some point within that time frame is that they found out they weren't even going to get a meeting with KD.
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Oh gotcha. Didn’t realize it’s only a deposit up front usually. The Knicks and Nets call me every year as soon as the season ends trying to get me to buy ticket packages so it didn’t seem out of the ordinary for me. Nets called me about 20 times last year and their pitch was “you can come to Barclays to see Bron and Kawhi when they play! What team are you a fan of and we can get you a ticket package with that team in it!”
 
MikeH said:
In the meantime, I’m fine with the majority of Perry’s moves as GM.
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Yeah but there's really only one that matters at this point. And as a Knicks fan I don't think you can justify the KP trade knowing how things shook out, unless you believe that he's irrevocably broken physically.
 
MikeH said:
I’d rather this than the other alternative to be honest. I’m glad we aren’t star-chasing middling players to max long term deals and bad character guys when we strike out on other big FA. Culture change has to start somewhere.
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Yeah but I wanted to get that post down so I can come back to it in December when the clown show is in full effect.
 
MikeH said:
If KD won a championship in a Knicks uniform, he would be catapulted to a top 5 all time player
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I don’t want to a) discredit KD’s enormous talent or success so far in his career, or b) say this wouldn’t be a huge achievement, but I don’t think that winning a championship in Knicks uniform alone would put him in top 5. KD is amazing and very high on the all-time player list, but top-5 pantheon is incredibly exclusive.
 
Psymon said:
I don’t want to a) discredit KD’s enormous talent or success so far in his career, or b) say this wouldn’t be a huge achievement, but I don’t think that winning a championship in Knicks uniform alone would put him in top 5. KD is amazing and very high on the all-time player list, but top-5 pantheon is incredibly exclusive.
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Maybe not top 5 all-time but it would have completely changed his legacy. Right now, most people think of him as a guy who had to go to the Warriors and join 3 other all stars to win a ring. Most people say there are asterisks on his rings despite him winning FMVP twice. If he delivered the Knicks their first championship in 50 years the guy would be a legend in NYC until he died and beyond. Patrick Ewing is a legend here and he didn't even win us a championship.
 
Woob_woob said:
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Do you disagree that KD winning a championship in a Knicks uniform would have completely changed his legacy? Top 5 is a bit hyperbolic, but it would have completely gotten rid of the whole snake/hardest road meme about him.
 
MikeH said:
Fair enough haha.
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I should say that I'm usually in favor of the type of moves (maybe not these specific ones) that the Knicks are making here. In addition to listening to vinyl records, one of my other old-timey retro habits is watching local professional sports games on television almost every night, and so I generally appreciate it when the franchise makes the effort to put a team on the field/floor that you can at least watch without barfing. The difference here is the KP trade. Maybe it turns out that the Knicks were able to swindle the Mavs out of two picks for a player they knew was permanently broken (and I do think that people are giving up too quickly on DSJ). But assuming that's not the case, filling up the cap space that trade created with "serious-minded, professional" players is not acceptable.
 
Pistons signed a former MVP to pair with another former top-3 MVP finisher. I'd bet this would be the talk of the thread if there was any knee cartilage left between the two of them.
 
Space Wanderer said:
I should say that I'm usually in favor of the type of moves (maybe not these specific ones) that the Knicks are making here. In addition to listening to vinyl records, one of my other old-timey retro habits is watching local professional sports games on television almost every night, and so I generally appreciate it when the franchise makes the effort to put a team on the field/floor that you can at least watch without barfing. The difference here is the KP trade. Maybe it turns out that the Knicks were able to swindle the Mavs out of two picks for a player they knew was permanently broken (and I do think that people are giving up too quickly on DSJ). But assuming that's not the case, filling up the cap space that trade created with "serious-minded, professional" players is not acceptable.
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It wasn't the plan to trade KP to open cap space for Julius Randle and Reggie Bullock though. It is very very likely that we were told that KD was coming here if we could clear 2 max spots for him and another star to come here. The KD achilles tear is the worst thing to happen to the Knicks franchise since Ewing missed that finger roll.

People also just gloss over that KP (and his brother/agent) didn't want to be here and was going to be a nightmare to deal with. His brother was leaking rumors about any teams that KP didn't want to go to in an attempt to influence who traded for him and what they gave up. The team was pushing to build around KP and that wasn't enough for him. We were going to get to a max cap space to go after someone this summer even with KP here and he actively would have been telling people not to come here (not that it matters now haha). Also keep in mind, KP never had a fully healthy season, had injuries to nearly every part of his body, got tired and had no stamina after January every year and nobody his height has ever played more than 10 seasons in the NBA. There's also a good chance he never returns to full form...he was out for a year and a half with no contact basketball after an ACL tear. Trading him was another calculated risk but it at least kept us flexible to rebuild.
 
MikeH said:
It wasn't the plan to trade KP to open cap space for Julius Randle and Reggie Bullock though. It is very very likely that we were told that KD was coming here if we could clear 2 max spots for him and another star to come here. The KD achilles tear is the worst thing to happen to the Knicks franchise since Ewing missed that finger roll.

People also just gloss over that KP (and his brother/agent) didn't want to be here and was going to be a nightmare to deal with. His brother was leaking rumors about any teams that KP didn't want to go to in an attempt to influence who traded for him and what they gave up. The team was pushing to build around KP and that wasn't enough for him. We were going to get to a max cap space to go after someone this summer even with KP here and he actively would have been telling people not to come here (not that it matters now haha). Also keep in mind, KP never had a fully healthy season, had injuries to nearly every part of his body, got tired and had no stamina after January every year and nobody his height has ever played more than 10 seasons in the NBA. There's also a good chance he never returns to full form...he was out for a year and a half with no contact basketball after an ACL tear. Trading him was another calculated risk but it at least kept us flexible to rebuild.
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The problem is that you can never believe anything you hear about the Knicks. It may well be the case that KP was a difficult malcontent who would have deliberately hamstrung the franchise until such time as he could leave as a free agent, but we'll never know because the Knicks have a well-known track record of smearing players in the press to save face for ownership/management. It may well be the case that he isn't going to recover well from his injury, but based on their track record do you really trust the Knicks to make that call accurately (even if it does turn out to be right in retrospect)?

Right now there seems to be an emerging consensus that (1) KD and Kyrie were serious about coming to the Knicks back in January/February, and the Knicks knew that and therefore had a sound basis for trading Porzingis, (2) when Kyrie started to waffle after the Nets opened up their own cap space, KD remained committed to coming to the Knicks, but (3) once KD tore his Achilles, suddenly the Knicks can't even get a meeting with him and he's off to join Kyrie in Brooklyn. I have to say that this story doesn't make a lot of sense to me, or at least there are some significant missing pieces. And even if it's all true, the Porzingis trade now can't be regarded as anything but a total disaster even if you think they had a reasonable justification at the time.
 
Space Wanderer said:
The problem is that you can never believe anything you hear about the Knicks. It may well be the case that KP was a difficult malcontent who would have deliberately hamstrung the franchise until such time as he could leave as a free agent, but we'll never know because the Knicks have a well-known track record of smearing players in the press to save face for ownership/management. It may well be the case that he isn't going to recover well from his injury, but based on their track record do you really trust the Knicks to make that call accurately (even if it does turn out to be right in retrospect)?

Right now there seems to be an emerging consensus that (1) KD and Kyrie were serious about coming to the Knicks back in January/February, and the Knicks knew that and therefore had a sound basis for trading Porzingis, (2) when Kyrie started to waffle after the Nets opened up their own cap space, KD remained committed to coming to the Knicks, but (3) once KD tore his Achilles, suddenly the Knicks can't even get a meeting with him and he's off to join Kyrie in Brooklyn. I have to say that this story doesn't make a lot of sense to me, or at least there are some significant missing pieces. And even if it's all true, the Porzingis trade now can't be regarded as anything but a total disaster even if you think they had a reasonable justification at the time.
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KP had a history of being a malcontent though which is why I believe that. Skipping exit meeting to get the GM fired, training in Latvia every summer and not training in the states, not keeping the team informed about his rehab and process, etc. Remember he "accidentally" tweeted LA Clippers a year or two ago?

And guys like Marc Stein who don't particularly like the Knicks did a lot of the reporting post-trade, so that is also believable to me. And the stories about Janis also make me believe the version of events we have seen...that Mavs presser where Rick Carlisle had to interrupt everyone to welcome Janis and his other brother to the Mavs family was so cringey.

It all checks out to me. Clippers didn't get a meeting with KD either and were a rumored destination. Warriors didn't get a meeting to try to sell him either. I think as soon as KD tore his achilles, KD lost all leverage in what team him and Kyrie were going to team up on. The Nets presented a place where Kyrie could still potentially get to the playoffs next year without KD. Kyrie got to call the shots. Simple as that. The Warriors should have declared KD out indefinitely and he wouldn't have torn his Achilles and I bet he would be in a Knicks uniform this year. You make the KP trade 10/10 times for that scenario if they actually had info that KD was coming (which by all accounts, they did). Would you rather have a healthy KD or a malcontent in KP coming off an ACL tear and not playing contact for over a year?

The plan failed. You move on. We'll see what happens with KP in the next few years but now he has a 5 year max with no injury protection for the Mavs and we get their unprotected pick and another 1st rounder from them plus a young promising player in DSJ and an actual chance to rebuild now.
 
MikeH said:
It doesn’t. If KD won a championship in a Knicks uniform, he would be catapulted to a top 5 all time player. If he wins with the Nets it won’t be a huge deal. The Nets will have bandwagon fans now but its not a real fan base. They had lowest attendance in the league last year and nobody cared that they made the playoffs.
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Yeah - I don't think Knicks fans realize how little people outside of New York think / care about the Knicks. They're not relevant and haven't been forever
 
jaycee said:
The Knickerbockers have been in rebuild mode for at least a decade
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Not really. We have tried to win now over and over and over again by making moves like signing injured players to max contracts. We have been laughed at. Now we avoid signing an injured player to a max contract and are laughed at again. We haven't traded away any 1st rounders now and have actually committed to a rebuild focused on young players on team friendly deals with cap flexibility.

jaycee said:
Yeah - I don't think Knicks fans realize how little people outside of New York think / care about the Knicks. They're not relevant and haven't been forever
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The Knicks won 17 games this year. They were one of the most talked about teams the whole year. They are one of the most popular and valuable franchises in the WORLD. Yet nobody cares about them? Okay...You can say they have been awful for the past 20 years and I would whole-heartedly agree with ya. But to say that they don't have fans or are irrelevant outside of NY is just untrue.
 
I doubt it will happen but I'm hoping the Wolves can lure D'Angello Rusell to MN (and dump Wiggins somewhere). The franchise will still be trash with trash ownership but at least they could be fun with some potential with a KAT - Russell core
 
MikeH said:
Not really. We have tried to win now over and over and over again by making moves like signing injured players to max contracts. We have been laughed at. Now we avoid signing an injured player to a max contract and are laughed at again. We haven't traded away any 1st rounders now and have actually committed to a rebuild focused on young players on team friendly deals with cap flexibility.
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Sure.... but how the team, ownership, mgmt, fanbase, whatever didn't realize they were in rebuild mode when Amare Stoudamire was the lead act is their own fault.
 
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