Capn'O wrote:Free agency is a big deal if you can pull it off. I think Amare always gets a pass because he came here as a free agent and made the Knicks a desirable location, then succumbed to injury earlier than expected. I mean, what are you going to do? The back wasn't what had people worried and that's what took him out.
Amare set the table but he broke down earlier than expected and wasn't a great fit with Melo anyway. As I've said in other threads, after LeBron made his Decision, the real thing that would have set this franchise forward is if Joe Johnson had decided to come instead of Amare and he was close to doing that. Johnson, Melo, and Chandler would have been a formidable antidote to the Heatles and then you just need a Fisher type point guard and another 3/D wing.
The Walsh era and 2010, for all its blunders, was the last time the Knicks put forward a cohesive plan with cohesive contingency plans. They've been bent in multiple directions since and execution has been even worse.
Walsh ultimately failed in New York but he was competent, a bar that his successors have failed to reach. In hindsight, perhaps over any free agency shortcoming, it's not ending in a position to land Steph (or even just Rubio) as Mike D'Antoni's long-term point guard that was most damaging to his legacy. But as you said, he at least managed to make the Knicks a desirable situation again.
The Knicks have lost their mystique since. There was a certain intrigue to seeing what's behind the Knicks/MSG curtain twelve years ago. Not anymore. The Knicks were the Saigon of the NBA.
