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.

eddymac

They need to get rid of everybody except David Lee. With all those bad contracts, its gonna be tough to trade them all. So the next bet is to just let the contracts expire. They need to start getting under the cap and racking up free agents. Since 2001 Knicks front office has tried to build on the fly. They should have rebuilt instead so they lost 7 years of valuable rebuilding time.

TwinkieFoot

I do not believe that it'll be a problem getting rid of guys with "bad contracts" because there is really only one player that fits that description (Stephon Marbury) and his deal promises him just one more year next year. There will be a team looking to take a chance on him either for financial flexibility or for a late playoff run; and you can get back some decent players with financial flexibility like Mike Miller who was available for an expirer.

The other guys like Zach Randolph and Eddy Curry are being paid exactly what big men demand for the kind of production they turn out. They are very young and not finished products so I know they'll get a pretty good return if we trade them. I think draft picks would definately be the way to go in lieu of bad contracts because cap space gaurantees very little. The Hawks have had cap space for years yet have not made any major upgrades unless it was through the draft or trades they consequently made from the assets they gathered from the draft or trades (Mike Bibby). Given how many assets we have as it is, I think we could retool this team rather quickly.

seifer0406

The problem with the Knicks not only lies in their style of play, but moreso in the attitude of the players. If you have your power forward doing a harlem globetrotter on the perimeter in a 3 point game then launch a 28 footer with 7 sec left on the shot clock, you are not going to win many games. It's obvious that the players have already quit on Isiah, therefore you either have to get rid of all the players or get rid of Isiah, it's not going to work if you go halfway on either path.

Out of all the key rotation players right now, I would only keep David Lee, Balkman, and Nate Robinson. But then again it is no easy task to get rid of Randolph, Curry, Crawford, Jefferies, Richardson. How the Knicks get rid of them while not taking back another undesirable player would be key to their rebuilding. That's why some of the trade rumors like Randolph for Ben Wallace or Randolph for Larry Hughes scared the fejebus out of me because that's basically trading poison for poison.

TwinkieFoot

New players that can play the game would get those malcontents hype enough to perform at a high level. Let's be honest, as much as people complain today about our team, we have some very talented players. If we get the pieces to make this work, we'll be in a very good situation.