Comments on: The Thomas Trades: Turning Weatherspoon into Wine

By: piercing warszawa centrum

piercing warszawa centrum — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 08:04:56 +0000

Dude. This blog is awesome. How can I make it look this good !?

By: MODI

MODI — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 20:55:49 +0000

steven, actually, Isiah IS a great drafter. Staring with Toront, just look at his body of work and compare it to virtually any other GM relative to their drafting position. His Channing Frye pick represents his only clearly bad pick at this point. Most GMs who have picked as many times and Isiah have multiple bad picks — even the best GMs.

While I’ve downgrade Isiah’s performance because all three of his signature trades have not worked out, the disaster that is this season can be directly attributed to first the Zach Randolph trade and secondly, a truly horrible coaching performance for the ages (from December: http://www.cosellout.com/?p=192). Starting with his mishandling of the Marbury situation (Marbury is the only true point), to his refusal to break up the Zach-Eddy starting pair, to his refusal to bench Q, to his refusal to start defenseive guys, to his refusal to develop young guys, it has been a disaster… we just disagree as to why…

By: steven faraher amidon

steven faraher amidon — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 20:18:47 +0000

Wow. What stuff you and others wrote way back in Nov.,
though you had the audacity to REPEAT it, “Isiah is a GREAT drafter” ..even in December…when it was clear to everyone
but YOU that this team, this coach, this franchise, this owner..was, is and will be a DISASTOR as long as Isiah is involved. Doubt me . Check the facts, the record. Case CLOSED.

By: MODI

MODI — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 06:31:01 +0000

Hawk, I admit that this trade is not looking so good right now. hell, I would completely concede the point but I’ll still hold out some perhaps unrealistic hope that a resurgence is made similar to last year after he had a horrible November. But I’m pretty much ready to concede your Marbury point. It would have been great if he hit that 3 tonight with under a minute left. That would have been a nice story.

I’ll hold off on the “headed toward disaster” analysis and remind myself that this is still a marathon.

By: Hawk

Hawk — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 20:09:46 +0000

Modi, I hate to say it because you have made a ton of excellent points, but… the latest Marbury incident has proven my original analysis of the Marbury trade to be correct. It was the wrong trade and wrong strategy to try and build the team around such a self-centered player.

Steph’s latest bizarre behavior further confirms that Isiah made a critical mistake in trading picks for Marbury and Curry. When a team is bad, the smartest way to rebuild is to always go for the draft. If you are lucky enough to get a true superstar, you can then build a team around that player.

Isiah never gave the Knicks a chance to use his best asset (drafting) to its maximum potential. Now the team is heading toward a disaster because of Steph’s selfishness.

By: MODI

MODI — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 01:21:34 +0000

You make good points on marbury. As I’ve said, I’m not going to hang Isiah’s rep on the marbury trade, but his trades in their totality.

Having stated that, I DON’T thing ainge is a good example of anything. Ainge simply lucked up on KG because him and Mchale are boys. It’s pretty much as simple as that. Minny could have easily gotten a better package from the Bulls. besides isiah would have gotten crushed if he ever did a Telfair for Brandon Roy trade. Ainge made up for it, but creidt goes to Mchale.

By: Hawk

Hawk — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 15:39:08 +0000

I agree that morale was low and that Marbury acted like a band aid in that respect. However, that team barely made the playoffs and were then swept. The role of the GM is to look at the long term future of a franchise and not sacrifice the long term in favor of a quick fix.

So, of course the trade was a win-now trade. Even if just for morale purposes, it was a win-now trade. What was important then and is still important is that Isiah maximize his draft choices to increase the odds that he will be able to draft a true star. By trading Marubury, he delayed that process. The Curry trade has further delayed the process.

The strong counter-example to Isiah is Ainge. Ainge stripped the team of talent to acquire as many draft choices as possible. By doing so, he acquired enough high value young players that he was able to acquire both Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett in one off-season. As a result, the Celtics are now contenders. Morale was awful in Boston, but now there is true excitement because the fans know they have a contender in the East. If Isiah had spent the last four years dumping players for draft picks only, we could have been contenders for Garnett. Because we traded for Marbury and Curry, we missed that window of opportunity.

Isiah needs to follow that path now while these players have value. Marbury is on the wrong side of 30. By the time this team is ready to contend, Marbury will likely be done as a player. The smart move will be to trade Marbury to a contending team after the season for a pick before he begins to lose value.

By: MODI

MODI — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 06:16:48 +0000

Hawk, your points are well taken but I just don’t see them getting as high as the 7th pick (deng) in 2004 even if they did not sign marbury. Also David’s points about morale were also well taken.

By: David

David — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 23:30:26 +0000

Hawk,

I don’t think Marbury was a “win-now” trade. I think Isiah made that trade to create interest in the Knicks. Knicks fans were totally demoralized by the Layden years. Layden’s teams were not only bad, but deathly boring also. The Marbury trade galvanized the fan base, at least in the short term, and signalled that it was time to start paying attention to the Knicks again.

By: Panzeh

Panzeh — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 19:17:42 +0000

I don’t think the Knicks are really going to get hurt that bad by Curry’s lack of defense because IMO as long as you keep one defensive big in there you can afford to have another be poor. Curry is kind of like Brad Miller(not in the way he scores, just that he’s an offensive specialist) except he’s younger and can be expected to develop some kind of defensive ability.