TwinkieFoot

I find it curious to hear Isiah suggesting recently that this league is no longer built for big men, especially coming from a guy that just traded for a 20-10 big man this summer. Could it just be him making an excuse for the team's current record? Possible and even likely. Whatever the case may be, I think he might very well be onto something that should definately change the philosophy of this team.

If you took a careful look around the league, a majority of the more successful teams are strong half-court, defensive oriented teams like the Spurs, Mavs (don't know for how long), the Rockets (even with a sped up offense), the Pistons, the Celtics, etc. If you've taken a closer look at some of those teams and others similar to them, they are rather old and been making huge deals to become more faster and athletic.

It appears as though they are attempting to keep up with the Jones' (upcomers): the Magic, Raptors, Hawks, Warriors, Lakers, the Blazers, Sonics, Bucks, Grizzlies, Sixers etc. All those teams are young and have or are attempting to build high uptempo teams. They represent the future and the leaders of this league so why shouldn't we do the same? The battle likely still will be won through defense and ability to score the ball in a half-court system but it is possible to accomplish both, while still playing uptempo (see the 2000 New Jersey Nets).

I think a major step to doing so is to ensure that we get a guy like Derrick Rose in the draft. If we get him, I think the chips will fall into place rather quickly because we already have several uptempo type players like Nate Robinson, David Lee and Ronaldo Balkman that would form one hell of a bench. We also would have a few trade assets like Marbury's expiring contract and trade bait like Eddy Curry and Zach Randolph. We likely would have tons of turnovers since the players would be young and unproven offensively but the system provides for them to put up numbers much higher than expected. I think we can make it happen.