The Knicks Fix

I would totally trade Crawford, but not for another long-term contract. . Late game heroics aside, he's not a player you can rely on. He can't play defense and he's one of the most streaky players in the game.

Dolan has to have as much contempt for Knicks fans as he does for the team’s beat writers. He has to know how angry this city is. He has to know how much the vast majority of fans hate Isiah. He has to know he’s pushing even the most loyal fans to the brink of giving up on the team. I genuinely believe he doesn’t care. Why should he? Whatever happens, the value of the family investment will continue to go up. Irrespective of wins and losses. I imagine he’d like to stop losing $50 million every year. But in terms of the family business, that’s chump change. His father can’t even be bothered to take an interest in a business that represents less than 3% of their holdings. It’s like giving a baby a rattle to keep him occupied. He gave his son this tiny little corner of the business to play with. (Which also keeps him from having anything to do with - and also screwing up - the really important family-owned businesses.) And no matter how terrible a job he does . . . they’ll always be able to make a huge profit when they sell because the value of the franchise continues to escalate. Even Dolan Jr. can’t screw up the value of real estate at 33rd Street and 7th Avenue.

@Trane

Dolan is not the brightest bulb in the shed...and isiah knows this.

he knows that dolan is an idiot and can be sweet talked so that is why he has like a jedi mind trick effect on him...

i am excited about the possiblity of donnie walsh coming and taking over the management aspect of the team but the biggest problem will always be...DOLAN!

@peaceman

what happened to the playoffs?LOL

Shrewd thinking, Al. Dealing for Ford is a real possibility--though with Eddy (whose heart condition is still a concern, if remote), the brittle Crawford, and Q, you'd wonder if the Knicks want to take on another player who has trouble staying on the floor--but he pushes the ball aggressively and does distribute. Hell, trade Crawford and Jeffries, if Toronto will go for it, and move Stephon to the 2, which is a better fit for his game. If at all possible, it'd be good to hold onto Balkman, who has real value off the bench.

can anyone identify the exact date that jeffries lost all motor skills?

one day jeffries might be a decent bench player...in the d league

Trane,
If Dolan only had an ounce of Zeke's "traitor" qualities then he would've fired and stomped on Znake already.
Dolan needs to acquire some of Isiah's ruthlessness to make things happen. Otherwise he'll continue to be Comedy Central material.

JEFFRIES:
Izuk has developed Jeffries into a scoring machine. Who needs LeBron now? I can see Dumbo Dolan offering contract extensions to Zneaky boy and Jeffries.

Mathematically, Knicks have been officially eliminated from the playoffs. Thank you Zeke for another magnificent and joyous season.

Trade Crawford for that offensive lineman I saw playing for Memphis last night. Or Rachel Ray. Or a bushel of wheat. For Ford, definately.

DJ Augustine had a nice night last night as did Brook Lopez. If things go as projected, either of those cats will be available for the knicks. The other guy possible is Watson out in Seattle, about 2 mill less a year than Ford, same length of contract. There is much unhappiness out there, they could use some stability in the front court while they figure out who they are and Malik Rose has one year less on his contract than Watson. Could work.

The problem with any point guard coming to the Knicks is....Crawford. Augustine at his size will be a liability on D, and paired with NO-D Crawford on the perimeter, we're dead again. Ford as well. That's one reason Watson makes sense. Just like our frontcourt, The no D at both positions dooms us.

Jeffrie Unleashed! Toronto cowers in fear!

The man, the myth, the legend clearly is taking the news of Zekes departure well. Maybe he's a Walsh fan.

http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/columnists/story.html?id=50d0cc57-6319-485d-a5e7-021e1fb515e4&k=47907&p=1

This was posted over at ProSportsDaily. Had to share. The Browne Sanders joke at the beginning is brilliant:

"The joke travelled around the NBA at warp speed, from general managers to coaches to reporters to league officials to anybody who talked to anybody.

Isiah Thomas, the president and coach of the New York Knicks, had been sued for sexual harassment by former Knicks executive Anucha Browne-Saunders, and the joke went like this: Anucha asked for US$2-million to settle the case. Isiah countered with US$55-million over six years."

"The Raptors want athleticism on the wings, so Renaldo Balkman and Jared Jeffries may get it done."

This trade might be a possibility... if Zeke switches places with Colangelo!

Remember, the Raptors actually employ a real GM with a functioning brain.

Don't just focus on the Raptor's guards. Memphis has some nice looking guards who may need a home soon. In fact they have seven guards under contract, therefore, they may be a better trading partner for our bigs. The two Mikes are their starting duo, Conley and Miller. Then they have McKie, Lowry, Crittenton, Navarro, and Jacobsen. Surely they could use someone like Randolph, or Curry.

Godot - good point - change has to come to quite a few teams in the league.

Speaking of Memphis and the race to the bottom. Grizz are at the Clippers tonight. If they win, they will tie our 20 losses.

Go Go Grizz!

Trade Jamal for what TJ Ford the most brittle pg in the game that is a neck injury away from ending his career... Sorrrry... Not feeling that... Ford's contract goes thru 2011(same as Crawford) so u will save NO CAP money there... Why do that? Imagine Nate and Ford in the back court, shortest tandem in the league

Jamal has had a different caoch every year since he has been in the nba except this year... Maybe thats why he's hasnt reached his potential... Trust me the Knicks could get alot for that dude, cuz he has something that most players dont have in this league the ability to hit the big shot at the end of games... U put him on a good team where he isnt asked to play 40 something minutes every night, be the leading scorer and run the point and he would be very dangerous... Imagine him on the Cavs, scary... Plus he is worth the money he makes, he is one of the only Knicks that is, unfortunately for him Larry Brown was fired... cuz he made the most strides of any player that year... If we can get a coach in here that can teach Crawford (who is still young) the nuances of the game he will be a true asset... He has flaws but he's talented

LOL, why would toronto do that AWFUL deal

like someone else said, our GM, unlike yours, actually has a brain

There's not too many players in the league that can play 40 plus minutes a night and hit the type of big shots that Jamal's capable of. I've always talked about the fact that Jamal has had a different coach going into every season except this one, so I do feel there's is still room for growth in terms of his maturity and understanding of the game and his role. Since Jamal is capable of playing 40 minutes a night with the type of attention he recieves, I would love to see him become more of a Rip Hamilton-like player who utilizes screens and his midrange game more. I know he could be a much more efficient player because his midrange is waaaaaay better than a lot of people recognize due to the fact he shoots too many 3's, and when he does make a midrange shot (9 times out of 10) its usually preceded by a crossover which often negates the ability to recognize his capabilities as a midrange shooter.

Oh Yeah, Knicks will definitely be out and about tonight in the ATL. I know some promoters who are throwing a party hosted by some Knick players, so its only going to make the game tommorow more comical since there's a 4pm start time.

Just goes to show you that Dolan made the wrong decision in the Brown v. The Board of We'll Be Better Next Year case.

I agree. Crawford's best year was under Larry Brown. He even showed signs of beginning to play a little defense. Isiah connected with exactly one player the entire time he was here -- Marbury. (Notice past tense.) And he ended up stabbing him in the back. Sure, the players haven't lived up to their promise - individually and collectively. But I lay that on the coaches - individually and collectively. For the most part. You want to see them come into camp in shape. I took a lot of sniping over the summer when I wrote about being disappointed that Curry couldn't move a vacation one week to play with the big men in Vegas. A lot of it's about commitment. Our players don't seem to have a great deal. But that attitude trickles down, as well. Cancel practice enough times . . . and they get the message. It's a great lesson, actually. It shows you that it's not just about individual talent . . . and how important good coaching is. Especially to a team like the Knicks . . . that's always been a lot heavier on "potential" . . . with very little of it being realized. Especially the last two years, coaching on the Knicks has destroyed whatever meager potential this team had. And now supposedly we’re playing the young guys? Anybody look at the box score last night? Uh-huh. Chaos rules. Isiah should join Marbury. They should just send him home for the rest of the season, and let the assistants play the young guys. Isiah’s doing more harm than good.

i agree with the jamal defenders here. the guy has one of the best cross-overs in the league, can hit from anywhere on the court, is durable (who is the idiot who said he wasn't, he's played in more than 70 games in 5 of the past 7 seasons), wants the ball with the game on the line, is a great foul shooter, and a good citizen. it's his coaches who have sucked, completely misusing him, shuttling him between starter and sub, point and shooting guard, and never providing a good team system for him to grow in.

it's not about the player, it is ALWAYS about the system. just look at the list of quarterbacks who became stars under bill walsh, half of them were total bums before they became stars in his system. look what happened to eli manning once the SYSTEM changed, and they stopped asking him to throw downfield. look what happened to bill cartright when he moved to chicago and worked in phil jackson's system.

even jaren jeffries, one of the worst players i ever saw walk on to an nba court, was able to make major contributions on the wizards system. under isiah, he has no definable role, and is exposed as the spastic that he is. the same with Q, who tore it up in pheonix, but couldn't hit the east river with a rock in ny.

it's time to stop blaming the players (with the exception of curry, who is clearly doing nothing with god-given talent). like all successful businesses, it starts at the top with good management and organization. until that falls into place with the knicks, they will stink.

i have made this point here before: while i think dolan is a fool, you can not ignore that the rangers have found a good measure of stability and success, while the knicks obviously have not. the difference seems to be that the rangers are run by glen sather, and the knicks have been run by isiah thomas. so i believe there is hope, should the knicks get lucky and hire a good president (walsh?), who hires a good general manager (Maurizio Gherardini?), who hire a good coach(Tom Thibodeau?).

i agree with the jamal defenders here. the guy has one of the best cross-overs in the league, can hit from anywhere on the court, is durable (who is the idiot who said he wasn't, he's played in more than 70 games in 5 of the past 7 seasons), wants the ball with the game on the line, is a great foul shooter, and a good citizen. it's his coaches who have sucked, completely misusing him, shuttling him between starter and sub, point and shooting guard, and never providing a good team system for him to grow in.

it's not about the player, it is ALWAYS about the system. just look at the list of quarterbacks who became stars under bill walsh, half of them were total bums before they became stars in his system. look what happened to eli manning once the SYSTEM changed, and they stopped asking him to throw downfield. look what happened to bill cartright when he moved to chicago and worked in phil jackson's system.

even jaren jeffries, one of the worst players i ever saw walk on to an nba court, was able to make major contributions on the wizards system. under isiah, he has no definable role, and is exposed as the spastic that he is. the same with Q, who tore it up in pheonix, but couldn't hit the east river with a rock in ny.

it's time to stop blaming the players (with the exception of curry, who is clearly doing nothing with god-given talent). like all successful businesses, it starts at the top with good management and organization. until that falls into place with the knicks, they will stink.

i have made this point here before: while i think dolan is a fool, you can not ignore that the rangers have found a good measure of stability and success, while the knicks obviously have not. the difference seems to be that the rangers are run by glen sather, and the knicks have been run by isiah thomas. so i believe there is hope, should the knicks get lucky and hire a good president (walsh?), who hires a good general manager (Maurizio Gherardini?), who hire a good coach(Tom Thibodeau?).

This is a interesting article. Living in Toronto and being a Raptors fan I would HATE to see them bring in Jared Jefferies, but there are definatly possibilites elsewhere on the Knicks. TJ is a sulk with a bad attitude, and no teams needs that type of player, so if they are confident in locking up and dedicating themselves to Calderon, send Ford packing if the return is good!

Renaldo Balkman, Jamal Crawford, Malik Rose. These are players I would like to see in Toronto. Nevermind Curry and Randolph, Robinson, Jefferies and all the other mess on the Knicks roster.

Im a huge NYK fan also. They refuse to give Mardy Collins any time on the court, stunting his growth big time! Nate Robinson is all bad attitude from what I understand, and who knows where Stephon will be next year. They need a PG bad. Do they sign Arroyo this summer and continue spending? Do they bring in some veterans such as Vaughn or D. Armstrong to work with Mardy Collins for a season at a fair price? Or do they save their pennies and go after Chris Paul, D.Williams, Felton or Devin Harris in 2 summers? Or do they draft PG this summer?
Who knows. But lots of options for New York in the next two years even with the giant salary problem.

TJ Ford is wussy, but would be a instant impact on NYK.

I hope both teams really try to work something out.

Maurizio Gherardini are NYK general manager? WOW. Interesting. If they can pull him from the foreign style of play they are going for in Toronto that could be a great move.

Good call sesc11rowH. Never thought of him and hes right under my nose here in TO.

Maurizio did help on bringing in Andre B to Toronto which really sucks considering they could be playing with Aldridge or Gay instead. That draft aside, he would be a great GM in NYK. Massive basketball knowledge, overseas and north american.
Roy was not on my radar coming out of college so thats why I dont mention him. I knew Gay was going to be great.

But yes good thinking sesc11rowH

I'm sorry guys, I've been making the same arguments for Jamal since he got here, all you say is true, but ultimately he is not a winner. He's just not. He does not play the game to win. So all his pyrotechnics are for naught. How many games has he been asked to win that were set on their way to being lost by his boneheadedness in the first place? Winning teams do not hazard winning and losing on final second shots. Losing teams play catch up because they can't execute and end up playing high school scramble looking for a hero to bail them out. Games are lost at the end of quarters, they are lost in the 10-0 run at the end of a half that erases a lead, or puts your team in a hole you can't recover from. Crawford has consistently made the plays that lose games in those situations, many more, I would wager, than he has won with the whoop-de-damn-doo shots he hits with time running out.

Those shots aren't about big time winning, or "execution." They are the easiest shots to take (of course you have to have talent) but they require no character, are responsibility free, upside only, displays. You make the shot, your a hero, you miss, well, the game was lost anyway right? No pressure, all glory. That's different from taking responsibility for your man scoring - hanging your ass out on the court trying to stop a man, getting beat, and coming back for more. Not doing the easy thing, like playing your playground game, and then shrugging at the end of the game when you lose. Giving up your scoring to feed the post because thats what the team needs. Etc... etc...

When will Jamal take responsibility for that? He's been told by every coach he's had these very same things. If we know how he has to play, how come he can't figure it out? I've run out of time, and things are too efffed up around here. If he has value, trade him for something to win with.

The only skill player with questionable decision making we should even think of keeping is Zach Randolph, because he can actually deliver, and he actually is damn near the best at his position in the league. And he gets his points in the right place. He's the guy I'll wait on, cause when the right coach "reaches" him (and feel free to demonstrate that he's unreachable - perfectly valid too) we'll have a 20 - 10 guy who works maniacally, who demands double teams, who can create open shots for his teammates. When has Jamal made the team better?

Ultimately, there really is no way to tell who is what on this squad. Things are that effed up. Some babies are gonna go with the bathwater. But talent and potential have had their due. Give me one guy who has character and plays the game to win no matter what is asked of him, then we'll have something.

NYC 2 Infinity - to answer your playoffs question - check the upcoming schedule - its a winning streak waiting to happen...

Willis - put me down in the Zach is unreachable group. Ship him out if possible.
David Lee has character and plays the game to win - but he's not enough of a stopper to offset the likes of Curry or Zach on the defensive end. Last night, Nesterovic and Bosh just destroyed the Knicks inside. Lee impressed me with his ability to strip or poke the ball away from his man when he was setting up (Karl Malone style post d), but he really couldn't stop anyone once they had the ball inside.

I agree that the Knicks need a real point guard. Ford (if healthy) could get it done. Watson would solid off the bench, but not good enough to be the lead guard on a contender. That's the problem in seattle - neither Ridnour or Watson are really good enough. The question is whether or not to go for the long term answer now, or look for a stopgap. Another huge issue though is the interior defense, both post d and shot blocking. None of the current bigs to that well, and Lee is the only one who is even average.

I can't see Toronto wanting Jamal though - with Bosh as first option and a point guard who runs the offense, they would want Jamal to focus on moving without the ball, taking fewer, better shots, and probably playing some defense - sort of like a more offensive-minded Jamario Moon. Nothing in Jamal's past suggests he is up for that sort of role.

It’s a tough call. Very few Knicks have much to be proud of over the last 3-5 years. Lee. And I say this reluctantly, but Nate worked pretty hard to improve his game, and overcome the image he had when he came into the league. One way to look at this team is a total lack of discipline. None imposed by the coaching staff. Yet, none on the part of the athletes themselves. These guys are supposed to be professionals. Guys like Curry and Crawford, who have been in the league as long as they have – should know what they have to do to come to camp in shape. But I still lay it off – ultimately – on the coaching staff. Did each player leave for the summer with a training program? A target weight for camp? Top three aspects of their game to work on? I sincerely doubt it. Again, it trickles down. It’s hard to improve your game when the coaching is as bad as its been the last 2 years. 3, including Brown.

Willis – I can’t argue with anything you said about Crawford. But it’s a shame. Because if that talent had ever been harnessed – you might not have MJ – but you’d have an explosive and valuable player. (Who knows where he might be today if he’d continued the improvements he was making under Brown – for one example.) You can argue that he didn’t do it on his own. At the same time, you have to admit, he was sent all the wrong signals. All the worst aspects of his game were encouraged . . . virtually built into the fabric of the Knicks “offense” . . . such as it was. This coaching staff didn’t get through to one player. Lee came from a solid 4-year program. True, somebody got to Nate. Everybody else either stayed the same or – in most cases – got worse under Isiah. That’s just one of the many, many reasons he’ll never work in the NBA again. Certainly never run another franchise and probably never coach again. In the end, Dolan did him a disservice. If he’d fired Isiah 2 years ago – like most owners would have – then Isiah was only a GM who’d failed. Plenty have. He wasn’t quite the joke of the league yet. As we all know, there are lots of out of work GMs and coaches considered as candidates for the Knicks job.

Once Isiah leaves the Knicks, he won’t be a candidate for anything. He’ll be a punch-line.

willis.

we differ on jamal, but i'm with you on zbo, he should be part of the answer rather than the blame.

Curry and Crawford can't be gone fast enough for my taste.

If NY goes for a Toronto PG, my thought is to trade our pick and Curry for Calderon, their #18 or so pick, and change.

Calderon is a nice PG and would solve our problem there. At #18 two or three project Centers will be available as well as some outstanding PF candidates (see my blog - knicksmecca.blogspot.com).

Ridding ourselves of Curry and Crawford is an imperative, IMO.