Knicks-Rockets PG: Who didn't see this coming?

[NBA Fan 1234]

PP was never good enough and was thought of a career loser until the Celtics properly built around and added Rondo, Allen and Garnett. Then he was a winner and complete player. If the Knicks added Duncan and Wade or something close then Melo would have been thought of different also. I believe the Celtics also had Rivers and Thibs on the bench during that time.

Rivers is a -, Thibs was the ++.

[NOOB77]

PP was never good enough and was thought of a career loser until the Celtics properly built around and added Rondo, Allen and Garnett. Then he was a winner and complete player. If the Knicks added Duncan and Wade or something close then Melo would have been thought of different also. I believe the Celtics also had Rivers and Thibs on the bench during that time.

Rivers is a -, Thibs was the ++.

I agree about Rivers but he is probably better than any coach we have had recently.

[JohnStarksTheDunk]

On the one hand, I would reverse the Melo trade if I had to do it all over again. Because the results have been so bad. Melo isn't bad but the team has gone nowhere, actually it's gone south. So I would undo that trade today. Definitely.

On the other hand, I don't think the guys they gave up, or Denver drafted, have turned out well. They didn't look like very above average players at the time of the trade, and they don't now.

So I guess what I'm saying is that because we do KNOW that Melo and that pathway have failed badly, you should not want to repeat it. We don't know what would have happened had we stayed with what we had. Even if you let Gallo/Chandler/Mozgov just leave via free agency, or you trade them for someone other than Melo, maybe you build a team that is better in the end.

Of course, you could still say -- well what if we had just built a better team around Melo after getting Melo? Fair enough. So there are endless what-if scenarios.

I'm not even factoring in the picks we gave up in terms of how WE might have used them.

So the Melo pathway as it has played out has failed in a huge way. You'd have to be crazy not to take just about any scenario other than this.

If given the chance, I would probably un-do the Melo trade as well. Amare's situation probably would have played out the same, but at least we would have had our own picks.

However, as long as we are un-doing things, a more obvious choice would the be Amare deal in the first place. Obviously this is unrealistic, since we needed to sign SOMEONE after striking out on LeBron, but Amare ended up being a hindrance for us to ever improve the team (much like H20's injury made the Marbury trade and Crawford signing turn out much worse), and even when "healthy" he was never really a good fit with Melo. Then when we had the chance to un-do it, instead we used it on a guy with one year left on his contract, who actually played pretty well with Melo, and ruined any chance we might've had to acquire Chris Paul.

And that's the thing. The Melo experiment has been a failure thus far, but it's also because we failed terribly at ever putting a good team around him.

This is a can of worms but I think the Melo era, as it played out, was doomed the minute we let Lin go. That brought in Felton, made JR more prominent, and led to a downward slope. The next season was 54 wins but a real crash and burn in the playoffs. Then we never recovered.

We needed to build a ball-sharing offense with Melo and Lin could have been key to that. He's not great but he's a good PG, who had thrived as a Knick. In retrospect, the Rockets contract was a bargain.

Interestingly enough, Lin was one of the few things we could have done to help Melo. We were limited in what we could do to improve the team, and Lin kind of fell in our laps, but then we blew it. I often wonder what kind of deal the Knicks could have come up with on their own and how likely he would have actually been to accept it, instead of telling him to go out and get something for us to match.

Really good thoughts and I don't disagree that mostly we blew it around Melo, rather than Melo being himself some big problem. He's far from enough by himself though, and it seems the Knicks sort of bought the idea that Melo + nothing spectacular would be good enough. If I had to choose between him and Paul Pierce to "build around," just to take one random example of a guy whose numbers have always been lesser, I'd take Pierce easily. Basketball IQ matters a lot to whether you can be a piece to a big winner.

We messed up the Lin thing and this is directly tied to the above paragraph. If we think Melo is some powerhouse, we don't care that much about Lin. Get another offer, sure, play it loosely rather than carefully. Besides just underrating Lin which it seems almost everyone did/does, we also didn't understand that you can't put crap guys around Melo and away you go.

We wouldn't win a title with Lin and Melo but it at least shows recognition that you need to make ball-sharing a part of your offense if you have Melo. Not just finding guys with checkered histories who look decent some nights and can "put points on the board."

So we make the fateful decision to tie our (and Melo's, to be fair) lot to Felton and JR. You might as well tie both ankles to cinder blocks and go for a dip in the East River.

Yeah, Melo was never going to be LeBron, so expecting him to lead a flawed team to the Finals (or even the 2nd round of the playoffs) was always unrealistic. Even Durant, who is a better comparison if we are looking at Melo's prime, only went to the Finals with a pretty deep team, including Westbrook and Harden. Melo has never played with anyone as good as Russ, and the one star we gave him wasn't a good fit for him, even when healthy.

I'm not sure I agree about Pierce. People forget that he was criticized as a selfish chucker earlier in his career, capable of putting up big numbers, but not accomplishing much. And a couple years of his prime were wasted on bad teams. He didn't win until they brought in KG, Allen, Thibs, and Rondo developed. It's a lot easier to play smart when you are accompanied by other veteran leaders. PP's game did age very gracefully though, and he transitioned into a savvy vet who was still a pretty efficient scorer and offensive player at age 35. I agree that it'd be nice to see Melo transition in the same way, and maybe we will see it happen in a couple years -- on some other team, where he isn't the #1 guy.

[Rotten Apple]

You guys are all spelling it out. The Knicks have continuously done a poor job of building a team. The only year they got it right we won 54 games but we did a poor job retooling the next year. It wasn't really the trade it was everything after.

The whole thing was poorly thought out and the Trade was a big part of it. Keep in mind, the coach at the time was Mike D'Antoni.

"Oh - you like point guards? How do forwards and centers suit ya, mfer???"

I mean, who could possibly have seen that storm coming?

Melo and D'Antoni didn't make it any better. Here we have a chance to bring Olympic Melo to the NBA. But D'Antoni wanted him to more a spot up option and Melo didn't bring his same game from Denver here. He became more of a half court grind it out player.

STAT at the 5
Melo at the 4

That would have ugly defensively but putting it all together could have provided a really high octane offense. Chris Paul was that missing piece and then you just add the role players. 2 3 and D guys, a rim protector, a stretch 4 and a combo scoring guard. And hold everyone accountable.

It's just a mess from top to bottom with this organization man.

[Greenie]

when the trade happened gallinari and chandler were balling, mosgov was the answer at center, and amar'e wasn't dead.

melo fans love altering the universe to make him not the culprit in all of this madness.

And Melo haters want him to play here for free. Fuq that. You have to give to get. Performance wise we ein that damn trade. Melo has outperformed EVERY fuqer we traded for him. EVERY SINGLE ONE!


The Knicks are the ones that never went and got a PG. Not Melo.

The Knicks are the ones that gave STAT his contract. NOT MELO. HE WASN'T EVEN HERE!

The Knicks are the ones that amnestied Billups. Not Melo.

The Knicks took a first round pick abd traded for Andrea Barfyani. Not Melo.

The Knicks drafted Iman Shumpert. NOT MELO!

The Knicks are doing this. NOT MELO!


This team has been trash since before my momma was born. Stop blaming individual players for this 40+ year long fuq up by the Knicks. Melo wasn't even alive.

melo era has been a bust.

You're the slowest poster on this board. The Melo era was a bust? Duh!
Let us continue.

THE STAT ERA WAS A BUST
THE LEE ERA WAS A BUST
THE GALLO/CHANDLER ERA WAS A BUST
THE CURRY ERA WAS A BUST
THE MARBURY ERA WAS A BUST
THE HOUSTON ERA WAS A BUST
THE EWING ERA WAS A BUST
THE KING ERA WAS A BUST


wanna keep going?


THE KNICKS HAVE BEEN BUSTING IT WIDE OPEN FOR DECADES!!!

[Deeeez Knicks]

This thread is very depressing. Good thing we have a game tonight. I am sure that will go well.

[NBA Fan 1234]

PP was never good enough and was thought of a career loser until the Celtics properly built around and added Rondo, Allen and Garnett. Then he was a winner and complete player. If the Knicks added Duncan and Wade or something close then Melo would have been thought of different also. I believe the Celtics also had Rivers and Thibs on the bench during that time.

Rivers is a -, Thibs was the ++.

I agree about Rivers but he is probably better than any coach we have had recently.

That's not saying much

[Damas]

Fatmelo Hamthony is the most overrated small boarward in the NBA. I am sick and tired of this chubby fat **** and wish we never made the trade. It all ended up as a diaster.

Another year another wasted season and Phil needs to go, the experiment failed.

[Capn'O]

THE EWING ERA WAS A BUST

Not too many people that watched it would say that - from Riley's arrival through the fateful trade that team entertained almost nightly. Very few nights off. Management was short sighted and they still didn't win the big one but you didn't come away feeling like something else could have been given.

[Greenie]

THE EWING ERA WAS A BUST

Not too many people that watched it would say that - from Riley's arrival through the fateful trade that team entertained almost nightly. Very few nights off. Management was short sighted and they still didn't win the big one but you didn't come away feeling like something else could have been given.

They didn't win. That's a bust.

[whocares1]

Fatmelo Hamthony is the most overrated small boarward in the NBA. I am sick and tired of this chubby fat **** and wish we never made the trade. It all ended up as a diaster.

Another year another wasted season and Phil needs to go, the experiment failed.

Ayy lol

[NBA Fan 1234]

Fatmelo Hamthony is the most overrated small boarward in the NBA. I am sick and tired of this chubby fat **** and wish we never made the trade. It all ended up as a diaster.

Another year another wasted season and Phil needs to go, the experiment failed.

That's really the best insulting nickname you came up with? I'm disappointed.

[Greenie]

Fatmelo Hamthony is the most overrated small boarward in the NBA. I am sick and tired of this chubby fat **** and wish we never made the trade. It all ended up as a diaster.

Another year another wasted season and Phil needs to go, the experiment failed.

Ayy lol

But people get mad at KP getting bashed...
I hope people keep bashing his weak ass.

[Rock Bottom]

*tank gif*

[Damas]

Fatmelo Hamthony is the most overrated small boarward in the NBA. I am sick and tired of this chubby fat **** and wish we never made the trade. It all ended up as a diaster.

Another year another wasted season and Phil needs to go, the experiment failed.

That's really the best insulting nickname you came up with? I'm disappointed.

Melo's lumpy ass has been here for 5+ years, all the good fat insults have been taken.

[ChaosHamster]

Fatmelo Hamthony is the most overrated small boarward in the NBA. I am sick and tired of this chubby fat **** and wish we never made the trade. It all ended up as a diaster.

Another year another wasted season and Phil needs to go, the experiment failed.

Ayy lol

But people get mad at KP getting bashed...
I hope people keep bashing his weak ass.

Right, you respond to an insult, with a insult. Like a smart grown up person should do.

#stayFatme7o
#kristapsweakzingis

[Greenie]

Ayy lol

But people get mad at KP getting bashed...
I hope people keep bashing his weak ass.

Right, you respond to an insult, with a insult. Like a smart grown up person should do.

#stayFatme7o
#kristapsweakzingis

And you are?

[Greenie]

Oh I know!

Captain save a KP

[boomann21]

People Jumping off the band wagon all up and thru here

[Carl_Karlson]

How about ChannTaps Fryezingis?