stuporman wrote:WargamesX wrote:stuporman wrote:
You can think anything you like but the reality of it is one player doesn't get a team to the conference finals, even LeBron needs help and Luka is no different. There are a dozen teams actively tanking, the FO is arranging it from day one of the season and the Mavs aren't one of them.
For your plan to unfold as you think he'd have to get hurt the first month and miss the whole season. Even then they have built a pretty solid team around him though without him it probably wouldn't make the playoffs without him. If he gets hurt a third or even half way through they still not a bottom 10 team.
Then there's the time component of it, this pick would be conveying next draft, if it were years off then the Knicks have time to use it that way. They have this off season and early into the season to trade it as an 'unprotected pick' because if Luka isn't hurt and the Mavs are winning it's becomes obvious.
Even if the Knicks were to get the protections removed it doesn't magically become something it's not, no amount of 'what if' changes that it's assumption from FOs that it isn't going to be a lottery pick. The Knicks can't sell them on the 'what if' of lining up circumstances just right to make it so.
The only caveat I would agree to is if the Knicks were able to add some of their own picks unprotected in a deal for an established 'star'. Then the other team's FO can win the press conference in saying they got 2-3 unprotected picks for the star...of course, it still doesn't make it likely to be a lottery pick.
Of course all of this has to happen before 2022 ends because by the time we are in the new year that 'what if' window closes. If it were a pick 2 or 3 years down the road the Knicks could use it that way at the deadline or next off season, as it stands the 'what if' clock is expiring.
Injuries happen in the first month all the timeI am not going to go back and forth on that. I rather talk about our FO and their “Frugal” strategy to team building which honestly isn’t a horrible approach.
First, I don’t think this FO is gearing up to trade for a star player unless the price is ridiculously low. I appreciate the fact Leon Rose who helped gut the Knicks to get his client Melo the maximum contract realizes how that basically handicapped the Knicks attempt to be good around Melo. If they did trade for a star. It would probably involve moving guys for cap space to sign them in FA like how we’re seeing them do for Brunson.
Everything about this FO is “slow and steady wins the race” and “maximize assets”! The FO wizkid Aller’s claim to fame is moving salaries around to get Kevin Love and Lebron on the Cavs and getting JR Smith and Shump for 2nd rounders when they needed wing depth. Perry’s claim to fame is the 2004 Pistons championship team that was made up of really good vets that teams didn’t appreciate, and Thibs who since the 2000’s bulls doesn’t care as long as they can play. Also, of course Leon Rose who I mentioned before knows trading for a star is costly and secretly seems to adore those Villanova teams that were both full of solid, high skilled future professionals and not a single superstar. However, that team was the best “team” on the court, and I think that is what they are building with the Knicks.
Nothing about this FO says they will trade directly for a star unless the team doing the trade wants Pennie’s on the dollar because they are stupid. Teams don’t trade stars because they are stupid. Teams trade stars to get every asset they can from the other teams. However, Teams do trade JR and Shump for two seconds because they are stupid. The most painful trade this Knicks FO did was trading out of 11 (because they desperately needed cap space for Brunson) and them being them, made sure to get additional trade assets to pass that pain along to someone else later.
The Knicks need picks they can trade to desperate teams, like how they got Cam from the Hawks. No protections on a first going out sounds great when a team is selling low on a player for cap reasons. Look at the hawks, they just wanted a 1st and I bet they feel a certain way about those protections now. That’s why an unprotected Mavs pick has value, it’s a better quality of fools gold the Knicks can sell. Now does 1-10 likely occur with the Mavs? No, but remember the season Melo got injured and the Knicks had the third worst record in the league, because Amare, and Tyson had injury issues too.
Injuries happen, and the Knicks can use that to make a desperate team feel a little better about the fact they are losing a good player for a likely late pick but maybe they get lucky and the Mavs had a injury plagued year.
I'm not going to argue about what the intentions of the Knicks FO is because other than, I'm assuming, trying to build a winner who knows....not me and surely not you regardless of how sure you are.
Again...this pick is right around the corner, any value as an 'unprotected pick' would have to be extracted before the end of 2022 no matter how many variations of your idea you want to dance around with.
Write walls of texts about the history of 'what if', it doesn't change that it's unlikely to be a lottery pick and there's one chance for the Knicks to cash in on it ending very soon.
Also again, my point is that this wouldn't be enough to give them the sign and trade they may want because it actually allows them to make their team better lessening the chance of your what if.
Well first off you wrote a wall of text first that gave me the confidence to write my wall of text.
We can feel like we want, but that’s who they are, and that is what the team is. They aren’t hunting Stars, they are hunting good to very good players being sold for cheaper than their actual value. As fans we’ll probably look back at this time as one of the better Knicks FO and that isn’t automatically a compliment. They traded the 11th pick to make cap room for Jalen Brunson and now we’re discussing the TPE.
Also again regarding your what if, it is no more relevant than my what if, because the Mav improving with a TPE isn’t more of a sure thing than them suffering injuries. Like honestly look at the majority of the Mavs trades since getting Luka and show me where they got significantly better.


































