Knicks · Donnie Walnuts on FA (page 1)

Donnie Walsh had some input regarding Knicks FA... with hindsight, 2010 was a failure so I do value Walsh's input. No cares what Berman thinks so I bolded Walsh's comments:

Donnie Walsh’s free-agency warning to Phil Jackson, Knicks fans
By Marc Berman
April 10, 2015 | 2:39am

Citing how the siren song of South Beach lured LeBron James to Miami in 2010, Pacers adviser Donnie Walsh warned Thursday that Knicks president Phil Jackson can only do so much to convince free agents they should want to play in New York.

Walsh, the former Knicks president, said New York City doesn’t have the same allure for everyone. Walsh signed Amar’e Stoudemire, who was damaged goods, to a max contract after his top four free-agent choices — James, Joe Johnson, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh — all rejected the Knicks.

“That’s one of the most misunderstood things in the NBA, to be honest with you, that you can talk a veteran NBA player into coming to a city just by sitting down with him, talking to him and offering him the most money,” Walsh said on SiriusXM radio. “These guys know what they want to do. They have their own agendas, and they know whether they want to go to New York or they don’t want to go to New York. And there are a lot that want to go to New York, so it isn’t like there aren’t people out there.

“But if you pick out, let’s say, LeBron James, you don’t know like what he wants to do. If you think you can go up and talk to him for a while and he’s going to come flying down there, that’s not going to happen. They see their careers in certain ways and what they want to do, they want to do.

“I don’t think it’s really up to Phil Jackson to talk them into it. They know if they get the salary they want, they know what New York’s all about, if they want to get into that, a big city like New York and live in it and an exciting city with good fans, then they’re going to do it. If they don’t like that, and not everybody likes that, they’ll go somewhere else.”

Poor Donnie sounds scarred...

I liked Donnie a lot - but really he did a freaking terrible job in hindsight.

You know what would have been a better team than the one he assembled in 2010 of

Felton
Fields
Gallo
Wilson
Amare?

the one he blew up that had David Lee, Zach Randolph, Jamal Crawford, Wilson Chandler.

two years of completely unwatchable tanking and all we got was Jordan Hill and Gallinari. Jordan Hill was given away to get rid of Jeffries. sigh ugh sigh.

Anyway, I like Donnie and he's probably right about the FAs already knowing basically what they're gonna do. Certainly in 2010, I think Bron, Wade and Bosh had made that plan years before it happened.

How different would it have been if Phil laid out his rings on the table. LeBron probably still goes to Miami. They already made up their minds. Only thing that changes the mind is more money and friendship.

based on what Phil has been saying about FA it would be hard to image he doesnt have a real set of guys willing to come here.

fishmike wrote:based on what Phil has been saying about FA it would be hard to image he doesnt have a real set of guys willing to come here.

Well if you listened to the interviews with Mills and Phil, they were stumbling upon themselves trying not set off alarms about tampering..Phil used words like back channels with Agents..Mills said Melo was involved on a daily basis looking possible FA targets..Mills almost said Melo was calling people but stopped himself it seems like..

So I think they are making a push..

holfresh wrote:

fishmike wrote:based on what Phil has been saying about FA it would be hard to image he doesnt have a real set of guys willing to come here.

Well if you listened to the interviews with Mills and Phil, they were stumbling upon themselves trying not set off alarms about tampering..Phil used words like back channels with Agents..Mills said Melo was involved on a daily basis looking possible FA targets..Mills almost said Melo was calling people but stopped himself it seems like..

So I think they are making a push..

I have read that Melo has agreed to be a big part of the recruiting process. Despite what some around here think of him he's got a massive amount of respect among the league's players.

Time will tell. Hopefully they hit it out of the park

fishmike wrote:

holfresh wrote:

fishmike wrote:based on what Phil has been saying about FA it would be hard to image he doesnt have a real set of guys willing to come here.

Well if you listened to the interviews with Mills and Phil, they were stumbling upon themselves trying not set off alarms about tampering..Phil used words like back channels with Agents..Mills said Melo was involved on a daily basis looking possible FA targets..Mills almost said Melo was calling people but stopped himself it seems like..

So I think they are making a push..

I have read that Melo has agreed to be a big part of the recruiting process. Despite what some around here think of him he's got a massive amount of respect among the league's players.

Time will tell. Hopefully they hit it out of the park

This is what I have said about FA. Pay attention to the guys Melo likes. We know he likes Rondo. We know he's played summer ball with Tobias Harris. We shall see. I think Melo plays a huge role though.

crzymdups wrote:

fishmike wrote:

holfresh wrote:

fishmike wrote:based on what Phil has been saying about FA it would be hard to image he doesnt have a real set of guys willing to come here.

Well if you listened to the interviews with Mills and Phil, they were stumbling upon themselves trying not set off alarms about tampering..Phil used words like back channels with Agents..Mills said Melo was involved on a daily basis looking possible FA targets..Mills almost said Melo was calling people but stopped himself it seems like..

So I think they are making a push..

I have read that Melo has agreed to be a big part of the recruiting process. Despite what some around here think of him he's got a massive amount of respect among the league's players.

Time will tell. Hopefully they hit it out of the park

This is what I have said about FA. Pay attention to the guys Melo likes. We know he likes Rondo. We know he's played summer ball with Tobias Harris. We shall see. I think Melo plays a huge role though.

yup.. and Lebron publicly said he has two friends in the NBA. Melo and Wade.

I like Harris alot, but I dont think he's worth the money we need to overpay him to get him as an RFA

crzymdups wrote:

fishmike wrote:

holfresh wrote:

fishmike wrote:based on what Phil has been saying about FA it would be hard to image he doesnt have a real set of guys willing to come here.

Well if you listened to the interviews with Mills and Phil, they were stumbling upon themselves trying not set off alarms about tampering..Phil used words like back channels with Agents..Mills said Melo was involved on a daily basis looking possible FA targets..Mills almost said Melo was calling people but stopped himself it seems like..

So I think they are making a push..

I have read that Melo has agreed to be a big part of the recruiting process. Despite what some around here think of him he's got a massive amount of respect among the league's players.

Time will tell. Hopefully they hit it out of the park

This is what I have said about FA. Pay attention to the guys Melo likes. We know he likes Rondo. We know he's played summer ball with Tobias Harris. We shall see. I think Melo plays a huge role though.

Rondo is the guy I least want playing for the Knicks out of all the talked about free agents. He's not a max player anymore even though a team will probably pay him max (please not us) and he doesn't get along with teammates and coaches which has been said of him in Boston and now Dallas and he's a absolutely horrible free throw shooter and a horrible shooter in general, so please tell me why we would want to give him a max contract to come play with us?.

newyorker4ever wrote:

crzymdups wrote:

fishmike wrote:

holfresh wrote:

fishmike wrote:based on what Phil has been saying about FA it would be hard to image he doesnt have a real set of guys willing to come here.

Well if you listened to the interviews with Mills and Phil, they were stumbling upon themselves trying not set off alarms about tampering..Phil used words like back channels with Agents..Mills said Melo was involved on a daily basis looking possible FA targets..Mills almost said Melo was calling people but stopped himself it seems like..

So I think they are making a push..

I have read that Melo has agreed to be a big part of the recruiting process. Despite what some around here think of him he's got a massive amount of respect among the league's players.

Time will tell. Hopefully they hit it out of the park

This is what I have said about FA. Pay attention to the guys Melo likes. We know he likes Rondo. We know he's played summer ball with Tobias Harris. We shall see. I think Melo plays a huge role though.

Rondo is the guy I least want playing for the Knicks out of all the talked about free agents. He's not a max player anymore even though a team will probably pay him max (please not us) and he doesn't get along with teammates and coaches which has been said of him in Boston and now Dallas and he's a absolutely horrible free throw shooter and a horrible shooter in general, so please tell me why we would want to give him a max contract to come play with us?.

Did you read the part where I said Melo likes him. It's just a theory I have.

fishmike wrote:based on what Phil has been saying about FA it would be hard to image he doesnt have a real set of guys willing to come here.

I agree with this. He also said "In When The Garden Was Eden" they used to draft guys who played well at MSG. When Coach K won his 1,000th, Okafor played extremely well. As a result, I think Okafor is very much in play as a draft option. He had a great game. Tyus Jones took over in the fourth but Okafor was there when they really needed him to step up. That was a big game at MSG with a lot of buzz.

I can see why he struck out when he was our GM. No shit if you go into FA negotiations with this defeatist attitude that you can't change people's minds you're not going to bring in the big fish.

Dagger wrote:I can see why he struck out when he was our GM. No shit if you go into FA negotiations with this defeatist attitude that you can't change people's minds you're not going to bring in the big fish.

either that or he's just covering for the fact that for two years they massed "assets" and cap space and pretty much whiffed.

Donnie was also a victim of his own bad health. He was all sickly at the time due to surgery. It wasn't a good look at all. Also Donnie isn't the most charismatic man to begin with. Not just old but not hip at all. At least Phil has some character and spunk to him. He has all those rings and the swag to go with it. He can kid around with guys and just be much more engaging.

That said I think they will go after guys that actually want to be here. Seems to me the Knicks don't want to repeat the whole thing of being rejected by players so he's not gonna waste time trying to convince guys to come. Rather he'll target the guys that see NY as a great destination for their career. They didn't really have a plan in 2010. This time they're much more prepared.

Rondo is probably the guy I want playing for the Knicks the most this offseason, but that's another point entirely outside this thread. I would probably target Rajon Rondo and/or Monta Ellis, whichever of the two ends up being the odd man out of the Dallas backcourt.

Generally speaking, I think Walsh is right on the money here. Using the LeBron example, he was going to Miami and then back to Cleveland before he talked to anybody. Generally speaking, though, you have to be looking for free agents that have a situation where leaving is worth giving up the extra money in the case of a max player or a player that you might overpay in the case of everyone else. It's not very likely that New York is going to talk Aldrige or Gasol out of 30 million or so and a competitive team.

crzymdups wrote:I liked Donnie a lot - but really he did a freaking terrible job in hindsight.

You know what would have been a better team than the one he assembled in 2010 of

Felton
Fields
Gallo
Wilson
Amare?

the one he blew up that had David Lee, Zach Randolph, Jamal Crawford, Wilson Chandler.

two years of completely unwatchable tanking and all we got was Jordan Hill and Gallinari. Jordan Hill was given away to get rid of Jeffries. sigh ugh sigh.

Anyway, I like Donnie and he's probably right about the FAs already knowing basically what they're gonna do. Certainly in 2010, I think Bron, Wade and Bosh had made that plan years before it happened.

This. He was really bad in NY, gave up good players, lottery picks and assets to get cap space. Don't forget the guy traded a top 3 protected pick with Jordan Hill to get rid of Jeffries.

crzymdups wrote:I liked Donnie a lot - but really he did a freaking terrible job in hindsight.

You know what would have been a better team than the one he assembled in 2010 of

Felton
Fields
Gallo
Wilson
Amare?

the one he blew up that had David Lee, Zach Randolph, Jamal Crawford, Wilson Chandler.

two years of completely unwatchable tanking and all we got was Jordan Hill and Gallinari. Jordan Hill was given away to get rid of Jeffries. sigh ugh sigh.

Anyway, I like Donnie and he's probably right about the FAs already knowing basically what they're gonna do. Certainly in 2010, I think Bron, Wade and Bosh had made that plan years before it happened.

if he had kept those players the knicks would have remained an underachieving squad mired in sheer mediocrity and futility. that is a ghastly mishmash lineup that would have had no cure and no hope.

dk7th wrote:

crzymdups wrote:I liked Donnie a lot - but really he did a freaking terrible job in hindsight.

You know what would have been a better team than the one he assembled in 2010 of

Felton
Fields
Gallo
Wilson
Amare?

the one he blew up that had David Lee, Zach Randolph, Jamal Crawford, Wilson Chandler.

two years of completely unwatchable tanking and all we got was Jordan Hill and Gallinari. Jordan Hill was given away to get rid of Jeffries. sigh ugh sigh.

Anyway, I like Donnie and he's probably right about the FAs already knowing basically what they're gonna do. Certainly in 2010, I think Bron, Wade and Bosh had made that plan years before it happened.

This. There's even rumor that the Kevin Love trade had been agreed to before LeBron came over because Cleveland knew he was going to sign back. Free agents know what they want to do and all the financial incentive is placed in staying where they are. It basically takes a player being miserable or a team refusing to pay in order for a guy to leave, and we've only seen Dwight Howard and LeBron James move in this salary cap era.

Walsh's mistake wasn't the dump. The mistake was blowing all the flexibility to get "someone" in Amar'e that didn't work out, and it basically screwed up Walsh's entire tenure.

The Knicks have to look for real impact players and if they can't get any, they need one-year deals, bargains, and a cap construction that keeps a max slot open for when a free agents DOES want to come to New York.

Why would Donnie Walsh work to bring in Mozgov and then just give him away?

Think about ownership influence before painting Walshs work with a narrow brush

misterearl wrote:Why would Donnie Walsh work to bring in Mozgov and then just give him away?

Think about ownership influence before painting Walshs work with a narrow brush

He was a Kevin Wilson/Glen Grunwald find and he was riding the bench until Shawne and Amare were out. He also was third string in Denver for the better part of three years. He has been gone for almost 5 years. Walsh might have waffled a bit but his coach wasn't playing Moz and Moz wasn't his guy. Moz spent three years behind McGee and Koufos.