robillionaire wrote:Jeff Van Gully wrote:robillionaire wrote:
I look at it like this, melo eventually played so badly and selfishly to the point the Knicks were one of the worst teams in the nba and he also refused to be traded until all we could get was enes kanter (im not calling this dipshittu freedom he can call himself whatever he wants) and a 2nd round pick. He bled the organization dry took every dime he could and ultimately left the Knicks in shambles
Randle was an all star until the end here, the team was actually pretty good in his last days on the Knicks, we traded him at his peak and ultimately landed us a hall of fame center in towns. What his next contract would or wouldn’t have been is just speculation and ultimately I think Leon had planned to use him as our trade chip all along and he definitely wanted Towns all along so there probably wasn’t ever going to be another extension. Folks can hate Randle all they want but the end result of his tenure was we were able to trade him for a superstar. People wanted to trade him in a salary dump every time he was in a slump but Leon was patient and played the long game and got the big fish. It’s the best outcome we could have realistically expected. We signed him as a role player PF for nothing in 2019 and it turned into towns. Crazy when you think about it. Personally I think he should get some credit for working so hard in the offseasons to improve his game but by the end he was already at and pushing far above whatever his ceiling as a player was supposed be or how far a team can go with him being featured
Also gotta credit Thibs. He did a lot to build Randle’s value over the course of 5 years and he massively inflated Donte’s value in 1 year. I don’t see how not to give him a large portion the credit other than giving that to Leon too since he was smart enough to hire him.
Everyone knows I like Randle and will always like Randle but just like Leon I like Towns more and this trade was very very obviously the right thing to do for the Knicks and a total fleecing by Leon to the Timberwolves, there’s no debate on that. Also credit the Timberwolves for being inept beyond words to bungle towns career this way
not arguing whether or not people should be fans of either player. just pointing out that the bold is untrue. these guys got big contracts. maybe bigger than some believe deserved. maybe more impactful strategically. but certainly not every dime they could get. in melo's case, specifically for the purpose of enabling moves. same idea as brunson to a much lesser degree. so, there's some respect that should come with that.
Well in fairness to melo you can’t totally blame him for taking what was offered. The organization made bad moves for years, gave him a bad contract, and should not have added a no trade clause to it and never had put him in such a position to begin with. So the pre-Leon front office deserves more of the blame for what went wrong than the player for not wanting to take less or waive his no trade clause just to bail them out. They also didn’t have the foresight to realize the game was moving away from the outdated way that melo played basketball
Conversely we don’t have to blame anybody for Randle because it ended in a positive outcome, the team started from the post-Melo cellar and improved for years to become a playoff team and then traded him to improve once again by trading him for a great value. There’s nothing to complain about from an organization standpoint really other than just a personal dislike for the guy or aspects of his game we didn’t like to watch. I don’t think I’d have done anything differently, I like having towns here
The danger with such high usage players when you run your offense through them the offense can stagnate. I think Melo was more impactful when he was a younger Nugget with a better roster than the ones he had on the Knicks. By the time he came to the Knicks he no longer played with the same athleticism and he become more of a ball stopper.
Melo was wasted on inferior Knicks teams. I always felt his greatest impact would have been as a 6th man on a contender. His ego couldn't have handled that, but that was the perfect role for him at the point of his career when he came to the Knicks. It doesn't matter now, but he could've won a ring for himself if he went to a contender and took more of a supporting role.
Melo's game was too flawed to build a championship team around him as the # 1 option. He was a mercenary scorer who needed a better player to mentor and guide him and mold his game to the team's needs. In reality, Melo was happier being the big fish in a small pond like lesser Knicks teams than he would have been subjugating his ego to a player like Lebron which would have done him a world of good.
I don't consider Melo a winner because he was most interested in his stats and his money. If he was really that selfless he wouldn't have put off surgery just to get another all-star game nod. That was just pathetic. He was always a me-first player.
Randle, on the other hand, might be able to thrive as a sixth man. It could be worth trying. He's very much a first quarter player as we saw once again last night, so I don't know if you can come off the bench at all. But you really cannot build a contender with an offense that goes through Randle. That will get you nowhere.
KAT, though, is the perfect guy to touch the ball almost every time you have possession. He just makes things happen. He's the anti-thesis of both Randle and Melo.
