Dr. Detfink wrote:What irritated me about Steve Mills’ “Amen” was the BS “We’re not taking short cuts...” but he vastly overpaid for Tim Hardaway Jr affecting the Knicks’ cap maneuverability even before the GM was signed.
Secondly, this sell “the Knicks are perceived differently...” I find that highly unconvincing.
NO ONE embarassed the Knicks more than Isiah Thomas’ $40M sexual harassment settlement with A. Brown Sanders.
Not only did Dolan allow Isiah to KEEP his job, he re-hired him to run the wNBA team from the background. You know how many NBA players cried foul over that?
None. The Knicks allowed a Sexual Predator to run the team into the ground...and yet, re-hire him? Every one is ok with that!?!? Same owner treated Charles Oakley like Axel Foley in Beverly Hills Cop.
Here’s the SCARY part, Steve Mills was around for every embarrassing moment.
But it’s different now...
Donnie Walsh almost had me. The way he moved Anthony Randolph and almost undid all the damage Isiah did...then he panicked and the rest is history.
Then Phil Jackson.
Again, Steve-O Mills was there for it ALL...only owner James Dolan has been around longer.
That brings me to something I feel was left unsaid:
Steve Mills was in agreement with Phil Jackson about putting floaters out there for trade value of Porzingis. It wouldn’t surprise me if Porzingis was traded in a deal with Dallas. Say DSJr + Future 1st Rounder and as many second rounders for GM “Tyler Perry” to play with.
Yeah Mills would bite..
There's just something dishonest about Steve Mills. He strikes me as the kind of guy who has a built-in scape goat with every misstep.
But there's NO DENYING the $$$$$$ in outbidding for Tim Hardaway Jr's services a rookie mistake. I will patiently wait till Tim's contract to see if Mills is man enough to admit that mistake.
IF...the Knicks are in no rush to compete.
The Melo trade hurt me to. I had to stop discussing the Knicks & watch them with more detachment when the impatience of our **** ensured that we had no hope of building something great around our new shiny stars.
But it's been almost a decade since then & Dolan seems more detached from the Knicks, even looking into selling the team recently. So there's a chance he won't overrule his FO and force an impatient trade this time...like he did when he forced Walsh to ruin all of his hard work & blowing up the fun young team D'Antoni had going around Amar'e. Plus a few big things are different this time around.
1) we don't just have young talent, we have a young superstar in KP. Even if Frank, Knox, Mitch & our 2019 pick don't surpass the levels of Gallo & Chandler, this core has a much higher internal ceiling as long as we don't blow it up; even if our big FA signings end up being Kemba & Middleton on workable contracts...either averaging out in the 20-25 range, or being shorter in term.
2) we have less to do to create cap space, so other teams won't have as much leverage over us to force us to put a lot of assets on the table just to dump Lee & THJ. Our cap window is widest this next summer, but we'll be able to afford 1 full max in 2020 & 2021, before too many of the kids come off their rookie-scale deals...even if this summer is the only time we'll be able to open over 60M in cap space to make a play for 2 max cats. So after the Noah stretch, nobody will be able to "Morey" us this time.
3) the talk about us & our FA chances is different than last time. A decade ago people thought we could sign STAT, & later Melo, but nobody other than Knicks' writers talked about LeBron or us getting two max cats to team up. This time around Rachel Nichols & Rob Lowe have said that the KD stuff has some legs, whether it ends up happening or not, and a lot of credible NBA people have talked about Kyrie being a real possibility.
Ultimately the FO still has to prove that they will stick to the plan & have the autonomy to wait until FA...even if Dolan wants his new shiny toy before the deadline, like he did Melo...and only time will provide that proof that we need to trust them. But so far they haven't done anything shortsighted and seem to have the right idea about developing our own young talent while turning the knicks into a positive environment that players want to go to.
RE: Mills, it's fair to criticize him for THJ unless Timmy has a great season and can be traded for an asset...even if a minor one. But not for the stuff that he wasn't in charge for. Even if we did, he's not the driving force in that FO atm either, Perry is. And Perry we can't even blame for THJ's contract.
