Sane wrote:Scalabrine wrote:Sane wrote:Yeah, it's just another Thibs thing. I bet he cut the rotation short and pushed up everyone's minutes as if it's the playoffs already. You can't sustain playoff intensity for a whole regular season and your voice will become less effective once the playoffs actually roll around.
It's good that he's playing some younger guys at least now. However, the salaries on the team are f'ed and they are not winning any conference, if they even make the conference finals. That's not good. Incremental improvements from there will not get you to the title.
If they DON'T win a trade with their picks, they are proper-f*cked.
My suggestion is get a coach in who knows how to teach both sides of the ball and how to motivate players born in the 2000's and just draft all your picks and develop them slowly while Fournier and Randle's contracts get shorter. Make sure to RETAIN all the young players at any cost since you don't care about LT that's your one advantage.
- It sounds like "just another Thibs thing" means winning basketball games, because thats really all he's done since he got here. The Knicks have an identity. Defense. He's been the coach of the 2nd or 5th most winningest teams for this franchise over the past 20 years and last year was without a starting PG.
- The Knicks have 1 bad contract (Fournier, and next year it's an expiring deal). Care to explain how that's "F'd"?
- Everyone in the rotation outside of Randle (just turned 28) is 26 or younger.
- They have 11 First Round Picks in the next 7 drafts, including all of their own. I'm pretty sure any team that doesn't win a trade is in a pretty bad position. Not really a Knicks only problem.
**Also I made a thread about this very subject thats on the front page two days ago.**
Why make another?
Listen man I don't want to sit here and talk sh*t about the difficulties the fans have gone through, but at the top of this league there's no room for a mediocre offense and $68m of cap space (i.e. limited real estate) dedicated to Jalen Brunson, Julius Randle and Evan Fournier. Ask any team that has been to a conference finals recently, all of them understand that even ONE guy getting paid a lot and not contributing is a problem cause the other top teams don't waste dollars and keep throwing weapons at you.
None of the young players are star in the making except RJ. None of the vets are MVP calibre. The coach will never have a good enough offense to get to an NBA Finals.
It's a step up but it's the wrong step. I'm telling you during a big winning streak so that you understand how well I understand this: you're going to have to fire Thibs or face a lot of heartache feeling like you were close... and then you're going to have to fire Thibs.
I'm glad you're happy it took 2 years and a slump for Thibs to realize he must play the young guys rather than his old friends. You have 4 incoming picks from other teams, don't waste them on Thibs. The arguments you're making I've heard them from Chicagoans, Minnesotans and now Knicks fans. Just study the history, it will go exactly the same way and those teams had their peaks as well and those fans felt like you feel right now.
Didn't the Mavs go to the Western Conference Finals with Davis Bertans and Tim Hardaway Jr. both making the same money as Fournier without playing a single meaningful minute? The Hawks went the year before. John Collins and Randle have pretty much the same contract! Hell, for all his past greatness, the shell of Klay Thompson made 40+ million last year and the Warriors won the championship. Like, how can you believe what you just wrote without even thinking about LAST SEASON?!
If this team were run by Robert Sarver or some other cost cutting, penny pinching owner who didn't want to go into the tax, I'd say "yeah you have a point there", but we're talking about James Dolan here. If nothing else, he has proven that he will write the check and go into the tax if his PoBO thinks it's a good idea.
Also, the "ThIbS dOeSn'T pLaY yOuNg PlAyErs" thing is so f'in old and tired at this point. Derrick Rose was the youngest player to win MVP...Thibs was his coach! RJ Barrett was one of the league leaders in minutes as a 20 year old...Thibs was his coach. Butler, Deng, Noah, Gibson were all young guys when he first took over in Chicago and they developed into All-Star level players. Quickley, Grimes, Toppin have all been rotation players since they first entered the league with Thibs as their coach. Thibs plays guys that are committed to playing defense and playing smart. It doesn't matter if they're old or young, if they do that, they get minutes. He's proven it countless times, it's YOU who's taken years to realize that.
Lastly, I'm not saying this team is a championship contender. They lack a true Superstar. I'm not even gonna argue with you that Thibs is the guy that will take them there if they did have one. What I will say is that ever since he shortened the rotation (11 games ago), the Knicks are 8-3, have the 2nd best NET Rating, the best defensive rating, and the offense is ranked 9th. You can't argue with that. He and the team have figured something out thats clearly working. He's also been, BY FAR, the best coach the Knicks have had since JVG (who he was an assistant coach for).
Perhaps equally as important, outside of Brunson (26) and Randle (28), the other 7-8 guys in the rotation are 24 or younger. They have 11 FRPs in the next 7 drafts, they have tradable contracts to match salaries, and they have depth to replace guys to still compete if another star does come along. It's probably a Top 3 treasure chest of assets in the league, only behind the Jazz and Thunder. If that doesn't happen, then it's still fun to have a team filled with young players that play defense and play together. I've been closely following the Knicks and the NBA for over 25 years now, we've sucked for the vast majority of that time. I'm happy with where we're at at right now. We're not stuck like the Mavs or the Lakers are. We're a good young team with multiples different avenues to improve. Why is that bad?
