Blue Ninja wrote:moocow007 wrote:Blue Ninja wrote:It's crazy how some of you actually compare Phil to the past decade of suck. If Phil leaves tomorrow, the franchise will be in 100x better shape than it ever was under Layden, IT, Walsh and Grunwald.
We have things we never had before. We have a great cap situation. We have a great rookie. We have a superstar. We have some other good valuable assets. We have no albatrosses or big deficiencies.
Yes, our head coaching situation leaves a lot to be desired. Yes, our depth is one of the worst in the league. Everything can't be fixed right away. The hard part was already done. Phil has reset this team in terms of assets and put us in a healthy situation going forward.
But we have not be placed into great cap situation by Phil Jackson. And we do have both albatrosses and big deficiencies.
The skyrocketing cap isn't due to Phil Jackson's moves, it's due to the NBA increasing the salary cap. Would have applied and been available to any GM. The majority of teams in the NBA will have significant cap space...and that doesn't mean that we should applaud every one of those teams GM's.
If anything Jackson's moves have put a mini choke hold on the Knicks cap, both for this past off season and potentially for the upcoming off season. Calderon's $7.5 million contract is locked in through next season. Afflalo and Williams combined $12.5 million also could become locked in (their option, not team option). Kyle O'Quinn (currently 1 of 7 PF' son the team) is another $4 million of of cap space locked into someone that is not used and don't project to have much use. Even Robin Lopez, a fine role player that would ideally be someone you add AFTER you have established your foundation/core and looking to make an impact in the playoffs, potentially can be viewed as excessive use of the cap (and he counts $13.2 million against the cap this off season).
What are the big deficiencies and albatrosses that Phil put us in for the future?
Deficiencies -- have we been watching the same back court all season?
Albatrosses -- Calderon (OBVIOUSLY), O'Quinn (yes, every $4 million counts and O'Quinn is looking more and more like a black Santa Claus every single day), Lopez (again, this may be debatable but the reality is that at this point, barring a miracle Lopez will be at the end of his contract before this team can become a team that could actually have benefited from his contributions.
No, we aren't getting an extreme amount of cap space because of what Phil has done, but he has managed the cap very well, with the league wide expectation of the cap increases. The Lopez contract looks like a bargain next year. It was market price this year.
But he hasn't managed the cap well.
Calderon's contract prevented him from having a max salary cap slot this past offseason. Now that may not have been too too bad since there weren't many max guys, but it still is $7.5 million ADDITIONAL that he could have tried to use to get someone else better than...well...the crap he had. And it was clear that Calderon was crap (he admitted it late last season himself that Calderon was a mistake).
Giving Williams and Afflalo player options was just silly. He'd have been better off excluding options. And before anyone says "but they could have gotten better offers elsewhere", Williams has been a bust for the most part and Afflalo has looked like crap the last 2 seasons. The chances that either guy had "better offers" is extremely unlikely. So now what you have is the unfavorable situation where if the players suck they will squat on your cap this upcoming off season but if they do well, they will either leave or force you to eat up even more cap space to retain them. It's why most GM's would rarely if ever offer "player options". It's worse than no options.
The Lopez contract relative to where this team is at is the problem. If we already had our core player established (we don't and definitely not at the time of the singing) then yes, signing him to try to "push you over the top" would make sense. But with this roster (remember, no indication that Porzingis would be anywhere near as good nor that Anthony would adjust like he has to being a more complete player) consuming large chunks of cap space on role players isn't a good thing. You want evidence? Just check back to Scott Layden and how he locked himself out of a lot of upper tear talent by locking up so many role players due to him misreading how good the team was or where they were at. Same thing happening here.
He has us with many more future assets than what we had when he took the job. That's undeniable and something I've posted here before.
Name them.
He has Porzingis. That's it.
Not trading the 2018 1st round pick is again, and again, and again...the "hey at least he's not as bad as Isiah Thomas" argument. That's again, not necessarily a good thing. It's like me telling a 400lb person "hey at least you're not 500lbs" and expecting them to take it as a compliment.
Cap space? He has less cap space than he could have.
What else does he have? He traded away all the remaining 2nd round picks he had through 2020 so it can't be that.
The one bad player acquisition move has been Calderon. Any rational mind will admit to that.
Afflalo and Williams would be GREAT 1 year contracts and worth at the very least a dump type trade, in a league where everyone has cap space. I hope they opt in so we can have two more assets.
? Hope and would is not proof that they are good deals. Player options are not good deals for the team. It's the worst possible option unless you are dealing with JR Smith or Javale McGee or Nick Young (and even Young knows that you go for the money).
Our bench is one of our biggest holes in this team (other than guard defense and PG), so O'Quinn is a nice cheap depth. I don't mind him at all, as long as there is a coach to get him to stop shooting terrible shots.
A player that is not necessary and unused and has looked like a fat piece of poop is NOT "cheap". Our bench isn't the problem. Our lack of guard depth is the problem. Not sure why you are either trying to skirt around it or not seeing it. If O'Quinn was a guard then sure, cheap depth, nice. But he's one of 7 power forwards on this team. $4.4 million is a waste of money. And "as long as a coach gets him to stop shooting terrible shots" is another wishful thinking argument.
I disagree on Rolo. When the cap is going to bounce up like it was, you get Rolo on his contract so you can have a great cheap asset. He also helps Porzingis and Melo take less wear and tear. Just a very good all around asset for our team.
Again, Lopez would have been fine IF the team was already further along in their evolutionary ladder than they currently are. To lock in $13.2 million on Lopez (a role player) is dubios from my point of view. If he can be traded, then sure.
