Richard4444 wrote:Chanel Bomber wrote:Richard4444 wrote:
Our payroll was too attached to Amare (who was untradable). We have no cap space and no high picks to get talent. We had to overpay to get Chandler. Our team was only Melo and Chandler versus everybody.
We episodically got some good players for cheap. But we could not hold them for long. Houston took Lin from us. The food took Felton from us. Father time took Kidd, Wallace and Davis.
The Knicks could've amnestied Amar'e instead of Billups.
The Knicks could've matched the offer for Lin.
We didn't overpay to get Chandler, we just paid a lot of money for a DPOY. That was a reasonable thing to do.
Shumpert and JR were decent contributors, at least for a time. They were rotation players on a championship team. JR, of course, quit on us.
Dolan forced the FO to trade a first round pick for Bargnani.
The Knicks had a trade for Lowry but Dolan vetoed it.
The Knicks had the flexibility to build a contender, just not enough to afford to make too many mistakes. They just made a lot of bad decisions. The first mistake was amnestying Billups instead of Amar'e. That's the original sin that torpedoed the Melo era. The Knicks were mediocre at best, bad at worst whenever Amar'e was playing. That's a fact. Dolan vetoing the Lowry trade just as he was entering his prime was the nail in the coffin.
1) Stat was not a lost cause by the time we amnestied Billups. Its unthinkable to give away 80M to save cap space waiving a star player if everybody thinks he can be recovered.
2) Tyson is a rim protector role player (Mitch style). We paid him 13M/y. Its like 22% of cap space back then. It would be 24M today.
3) It would be stupid to match Lin offer. Its was a big mistake made by Houston. Lin was good. But he was not a star to deserve that kind of salary.
4) JR was a wild card. Sometimes he was a great asset. Sometimes a bun.
5) Shumpert was never a really great prospect. Especially after his injury. Besides, he was signed after the Melo trade. And it's hard to find talent with 17th pick. We should not expect too much from a 17th pick. You got lucky getting a useful player like him.
6) We traded for Bargs because we were desperate for any talent. The roster was too unqualified to be a contender. We were desperate because we traded all our roster to get Melo (without cap space and with few picks).
7) Trading for Lowry would be epic. But it was a very unique opportunity that we did not take. We were in a bad spot and only a bad decision for another team could have saved us.
Your point was that we could not build a good team after the Melo trade. That's not true at all.
We won 54 games and got the #2 seed in the East in 2012-13. We had our own first round draft pick in the summer of 2013, and future picks to make moves to improve the roster.
You said it yourself, Shumpert was a useful player. That would contradict your claim that we only had Melo and Tyson and a bunch of nobodies.
Gobert's salary takes up approximately 25% of the salary cap for Utah right now, and they're the best team in the NBA by record. Granted, Gobert is better than Chandler, but Chandler was an All-NBA defensive center who completely transformed our defense. Signing an elite rim protector to a big contract doesn't necessarily prevent you from building a contender, as we're seeing this year.
James Dolan pushed for a trade for Bargnani as an overreaction to the Brooklyn Nets trading for Pierce and Garnett. He traded a future pick for Bargs, and then vetoed a trade for Lowry. That right there, is the rare back-to-back blunder that's the difference between being a lottery team and contending in the East.
Assuming we packaged Raymond Felton, Metta World Peace, Tim Hardaway Jr. and/or a 2018 first-round pick for Lowry (the rumored deal that was floating at the time):
Lowry / Udrih
Prigioni / JR
Shumpert / Novak
Melo / Stoudemire
Chandler / Martin
Would've been a top 4 seed in the East. With plenty of draft capital left to make one final move at the deadline to push us over the top. The Heat were running on fumes, and the Pacers team that beat us the year before (with Melo playing hurt) imploded before the playoffs.
About Amar'e: it was unlikely the Knicks would amnesty him, you're right. But FOs get paid millions to have the foresight to make tough decisions. Did you know Amar'e had a negative on/off all his years in New York, including his first year? The Knicks should've taken the warnings from Phoenix's medical staff more seriously. The Knicks should've taken his injury more seriously. The Knicks should've seen that Melo and Amar'e played the same position and could not co-exist. The Knicks should've looked at the advanced stats and seen that Amar'e wasn't that big of a difference-maker, if at all. Keeping Amar'e was a PR move. I understand it, but it was the wrong move.
, we talking about you giving away truck loads of assets for LaVine right now when he's gonna be a free agent in 2022. 
You crack me up sometimes lol