Hurry up and wait
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- April
- 3
We’re going to have to wait at least a couple of days before Donnie Walsh figures out who’s going to coach. In time, we’ll see adjustments made to a lopsided roster. And the new media policy will hopefully make the latest rebuilding process a little more transparent.
In other words, be patient.
Of course Knicks fans have seen this all before, so it’s probably a good thing for us all to maintain a healthy dose of skepticism. The organization has put on this show a number of times in the last seven years. None of the previous changes altered the standings.
Is all hope lost?
Not quite. Walsh laid out the general blueprint yesterday and first wants to make this group competitive. He can’t make all of the past mistakes disappear. A couple of minor deals along with a good showing in the NBA draft might improve the situation immediately.
I think fans would accept 30-35 wins next season.
Especially since Walsh also revealed the Knicks must finally break free from this salary cap hell. I know some diehards were standing and cheering the mere thought of becoming a player on the free agent market in a couple of years.
Do you have visions of LeBron James or Dwyane Wade or Chris Bosh dancing in your head?
Print this out and find a place in the scrapbook for it:
“Basically, I look at this and I think that in three years we’ve got a chance to have flexibility in the cap, so that to me is one thing we have to protect,” Walsh said. “But in the mean time, I think we’ve got to make this present team as competitive as we can make it, and that’s going to be the trick because you’ve got to resist the idea of giving longer-term contracts in order to protect three years down the road and beyond that. I think I’m going to have to do 24/7 days in order to do that. But my commitment is to try to get this to be good. If you can get it to be an elite team great, but you build it to where at a certain point in time you can go out into the free agent market and try to make this an elite team.”
Is anybody throwing confetti into the air?
Perhaps keeping the seats occupied this season finally proved to James Dolan the fans will support a complete tear down. Of course, the Knicks had to come up with some cut-rate marketing plans to keep the people coming through the turnstiles.
This entry was posted
on Thursday, April 3rd, 2008 at 9:14 am by Mike Dougherty.
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If the Knicks don’t screw up this year’s draft and are in a position to sign a major free agent in 2011 Walsh will have done his job. Next year’s win total doesn’t matter (though I’ll be crying when our pick turns out to be the top pick and we don’t get to use it). Hopefully we get D. Rose and start getting rid of deadwood. But again, the key is, will Dolan stay out of the way?
The people will always come to the Garden because the seats are bought up by big companies, and then given away to clients, so that’s not a problem. It’s a spot to wine and dine. Normal 9 to 5 guys/fans can’t (for the most part) go to the games anyway. Unless they want to sit up in the nose bleed section.
But anyway, I don’t think this team needs a complete renovation. We do have some players. What we need to compete is simply a leader on the court that everyone respects and will listen too. The Lakers are Kobe’s Team, the Cavs are Lebron’s team, the Hornets are Chris Paul’s team, whose team is this? And if that leader is a point guard great, but if not then we need a pass first point guard. We also need a shoot blocker, which means breaking up the Eddy and Zach (E-Z Pass) combo.
Mike you can confirm this, but isn’t next season Marbury’s last year on his contract? If so, that would mean $20 mil in salary cap would be coming off in the following season. THAT would also mean that Marbury is going nowhere and will more than likely be playing for the NYK next season. The only way that the team is going to get below the salary cap is to eat these contracts or let them play out until they expire. So to your point of the team winning 30-35 games, that will need to be done based on coaching and not any big player changes, other than the high draft pick they will be getting.
My two biggest overall Knicks questions are
1) Is it legal to reveal an interest in [as opposed to a courtship of] LeBron including, but not limited to building a team around his prospective addition after 2010?
2) Could that possibly be a constructive strategy considering the many different things that could go wrong?
They are at rock bottom. BUT, there are some championship-caliber pieces [even if they are championship-caliber role pieces] and they just hired someone dedicated to rebuilding and clearing cap space. The fans are not expecting an immediate turnaround. I want to see the LeBron campaign start now! I want to hurry up and wait!
I thought that was the BEST part of Walsh’s conference. Even if he did nothing but let contracts expire for 2 years he will have done a better job than Isiah who can’t resist senseless tinkering.
The LeBron to the Knicks move has been the dream for years now… I can only hope it becomes a reality.
A friend of mine is a Nets fan who says LeBron is too tight with Jay-Z and he’s gonna sign with the Nets instead. I have asked him to stop since that is literally my worst nightmare.
I don’t want Wade. He won’t be able to play in 4 years at this rate.
Oh yeah:
Long Live The King.
Who’s Donnie Walsh? What’s his NBA track records? I mean, lets not expect coming big to the Knicks at his helm. What’s he achieved in NBA so far? nothing, except those years as Pacers as bridesmaids in NBA playoffs. Those were also the years that Pacers were naturally expected to rise because of the many years it languished in the bottom. The Pacers rise at that time was not crafted the way struggling teams improved by a West or a Colangelo. Simply stated, its the NBA nature that gave strength to Pacers at that time not Walsh. Look at Pacers now, its only an inch away from the Knicks misery.
Wow. ^LOL at this idiot above me.
Do some research.