TripleThreat wrote:Papabear wrote:Papabear SaysWe have a new point guard added who can't guard but can shoot at 34 years old. Many teams in the East have made upgrades better than ours. They are young and fast. I see movements and changes, trades by teams everyday but we are stuck in quicksand. Phil can't move because no one wants what we have. I believe that this will be a loosing season if Phil can't make a few more moves that can better the team. I look around the east and making the playoffs this season is not guaranteed. If Shump don't improve his shooting, Hardaway don't learn to defend,Jr Smith don't have a 6th man award season and our power forwards don't get any backbone I can't see use improving that much. So whats the big upgrade??
I have always believed in a general sense that there are only three way to improve your ability to win in the NBA, and all three are needed to be executed at a high level to contend.
1) Infuse Talent
2) Play With Discipline/Efficiency
3) Structure For Team Ball
Can the Knicks contend with this roster? No
Can they improve upon last season? Yes
From a practical standpoint, most players ( like 95 percent) make their major leaps in development between years 1 and 2 and 2 and 3. Once a player hedges at the end of his current rookie contract, there's a good chance, unless you are dealing with a center or a functional "big man" that you are probably seeing the most of what a player can give you on your team.
A guy who is a piss poor defender isn't going to magically turn into a great one overnight. He certainly won't do it if the building blocks aren't there in the first few years of critical development.
Early
Larkin
Hardaway Jr
Shumpert ( by default based on his injury, though the window is closing fast)
Old Antelope ( will probably go do the D League and stay there)
All have a chance to help the talent level. Dramatically so? No. But enough to push for the last playoff spot? Maybe.
The 2nd issue belies what I think no one wants to really talk about in the NBA. Whether it's the Triangle or the Princeton Offense or Seven Seconds Or Less, basically all structured offenses revolve around the same core principles. Team ball, keep the ball moving, exploit what the defense will give you, move for the high percentage opportunity.
Here is where I think the Knicks can help themselves. You can't be faster than your skill set, but you can hustle down the court. You can give full effort your defense. You can set a vicious pick. You can limit your turnovers by staying within the flow of the set offense. You can aim to hit a small percentage better on your free throws. You can resist the urge to chuck and choose better shots in general.
You have to, in sports terms, "Buy In"
The last part is about having an overall structure in place, where ALL ASPECTS OF THE ORGANIZATION ARE LOCK STEP AND MOVING IN THE SAME FORWARD POSITIVE DIRECTION, where players are put in a position to succeed and to hide/limit the exposure to their weaknesses.
It doesn't matter what talent you have if you won't "Buy In" and even if you want to "Buy In", it's fruitless unless you have positive synergy within the franchise in terms of goals and direction.
So for anyone who think Phil Jackson and/or Derek Fisher are these super smart magicians and basketball gods and gurus, here's something to chew on. The Knicks could have won with D'Antoni. They didn't need to shell out 60 million for Captain Eleven Rings. Though Jackson is nice to have. They were WINNING with Pringles. Linsanity wasn't just about Lin, it was about team ball, synergy, everyone "buying in" ( well everyone on the court), discipline and tough heady defense.
The Knicks infused talent. Getting Chandler, getting Novak and Lin for nothing. Seeing a role for Jeffries.
They played disciplined team ball ( mostly because their undisciplined players were hurt, no coincidence that STAT and Melo were both hurt during this time)
The organization was in lock step, there wasn't infighting between the coach and GM and owner (Dolan seemed MIA, Isaiah was gone, the Knicks had a decent GM who had yet to be driven out by CAA) , everyone was moving together in lockstep and accepted this is the team we have right now ( not hard to do when you are capped out and can't make any other moves)
Right now, the Knicks have the the third at the massive cost of Jackson's and Fisher's contracts, doing by spending wildly what other smarter organizations can accomplish for a lot less (Wow, commit to team ball and build through the draft, no winner is made overnight, wow such shocking revelations, it only shows how selfish and dumb both Dolan and Melo are to need to have to spend that much and infuse this front office to see that)
The Knicks can't really do much about the talent situation this year, they traded their only real asset in Chandler and got a few younger players. But aging/mediocre players on bad contracts are on the team this year and sadly the Knicks will have to wait for them to expire.
The Knicks however can improve upon efficiency. In any sport, if you stick to fundamentals and do the little things to win, you can improve. Not dramatically, but incrementally over time. Jarred Jeffries giving his body up, again and again, to take charges and being willing to sacrifice taking shots because he knows he's limited but providing muscle, grit, and toughness to body up on defense, those are some of the "little things" that don't end up in the boxscore that help your team win. ( Why do you think Team USA, in the past took on Andre Igoudala and Shane Battier? They weren't all world scorers, but they offered "glue guy" blue collar type work that every team needs in the trenches)
To me, if you play the game the right way ( team ball) and you stick to your plan and fundamentals and discipline, even when they don't always get the result you want, you might lose some battles, but you are staging yourself to win the war. IMHO, who care if the Knicks lost some games this year if the end result is they PLAY THE GAME THE RIGHT WAY. Because if you play the game the right way, eventually the franchise will course correct on it's own and the wins will come.
Beyond the rookies and guys on the front end of their rookie deals, I think Knick fans have to temper expectations of asking players to do more now than their history has shown they can do. Bargs isn't going to suddenly be a plus defender this year. Instead of expecting him to do what he's never done, the discussion should shift to how to hide his limitations and control the weaknesses that his limitations cause during the flow of the game.
Play the game the right way, win or lose short term is moot, and you are setting yourself up for your best chance at future success.
The "upgrade" is this team needs to jettison STAT and Bargs as fast as humanly possible when their contracts expire and the franchise IMHO needs to get to the point where it accepts that you can't contend with Melo as your primary player, he's just not a player who has ever shown to function well in a team ball environment ( please leave the ALL STAR Team USA situation out of it, as if that's a practical example of what most NBA teams need to do to win)
The Knicks made the wrong choice. The best choice was keeping Lin, letting him be the primary player and trading Melo for supporting assets. Instead the Knicks are saddled with a guy who has shown money to come here and money to stay here means more than winning.
Lin played the game the right way. Lin invested and pushed for team ball. Lin lead, not because his contract size said so, but because winning meant more than anything else. He didn't need a 60 million dollar GM to tell him that. He didn't need over a decade in the league to get into shape. He didn't run to his agent and strongarm the franchise to cull off anyone else who had the gall to play well and get more attention than him.
This can be a productive Knicks season, if fans can temper their expectations and see the long game.
And yet Lin left us to join a (at the time crappy) rockets team because of M O N E Y- good lord! A basketball ball player signs with a team that offers them the most money rather than the greater opportunity to win- it's almost as if Melo wasn't the first basketball player to do this.
Lin is so good the Rockets wanted to demote him to being a bench player, and had to package him with a first round draft pick to get rid of him.
Lin and D'Antoni were so good we ended up winning more games without them!
I plan to go to at least 10 Knick games this season. I was just wondering.
